Fried French Bean with Dried Scallop

Fried french bean is a little bit too oily so you will need a kitchen towel to absorb the excess oil.

Only 5 ingredients you will need to prepare: finely chopped garlic (1/2 tbsp), baby anchovies(1 tbsp), dried scallops (2 pieces), 1tbsp of oyster sauce and french beans.

Soak the dried scallops for at least 30 minutes. Break the scallops into stripe similar size as anchovies.


Heat up generous amount of oil. Fried the french beans for about 1 minute or 70% cooked.


Leave the fried beans on the kitchen towel to get rid of the excess oil. Now fried the anchovies and scallops. Put them both on the kitchen towel too.

Pour away the excess oil, leave about 1/2 tbsp on the wok (or saucepan). Saute the garlic, return the fried beans, anchovies and scallops backed to the wok.

Add 1 tbsp of oyster sauce. Mix well and they are ready. When cooked, the french beans should be crunchy. If the texture is soft, then they are overcooked.

Try it out. It is very delicious. The french bean is very sweet by itself.

I always storing up some anchovies, dried shrimps and dried scallops for contingency as sometime you might not have fresh ingredients on hand. And these 3 things can do many wonders.

Mango Sago Pudding

We Malaysian can always find mangoes easily and there are always so many different varieties around. Some imported one can be bought from supermarket but they are really expensive.

People said it has been the national fruit of India. Some Hindu refers mangoes as their "food of the gods" and the leaves are ritually used for floral decorations at Hindu marriages and religious ceremonies.

Mangoes are very low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. They are also a good source of dietary fiber and vitamin B6, A and C.

For those who are physically active, whether working out or constantly on the go, mangoes are a great way to replenish that lost potassium.

So we are going to make this healthy and holy fruit pudding and have a blessed day. It is wonderful to have a bowl of cold mango sago pudding on a hot sunny day. Yummy!

What you need is a reasonable sized ripe mango which given sweet smell and colored yellow. The look of the mango itself is very appealing. Make sure the mango is 100% riped otherwise you can't really taste its sweetness and aroma.

Firstly, cook the sago. Sago was cooked when it turned transparent and you thought it has gone missing in the hot boiling water. Separate the sago from the water using a sieve and soak in the water. Let the sago to chill in the refrigerator.



Secondly, peeled the mango and cut it into half. Keep it chill if possible before you blended it. The mango I used today is called Chukanan Mango.

We are going to blend half of the mango with 1 tbsp of sugar and 3 ice cubes using a blender to make a smooth paste (like a smoothie). Pour the mixture into a nice dessert bowl. Add 1 - 2 tbsp (or more if you like sago) of chilled cooked sago into the paste, 2-3 tbsp of cold water if you don't like the paste too sticky and mix well.

Lastly, cut the other half of the mango into cubes. Spread on top of the mango smoothie.

This mango sago pudding provides a very strong mango smell and pleasant flavor. It is very delicious. Try it out and it is best served chilled.


Enjoy!

Cheese Tarts - Part 2

Here are some pictures on the process of making the tart shell.

Do you know how to clean the mess especially the bowl used to cream butter? Yes, use the soft spatula to scrub the bowl first then pour hot water into it.

Cream the butter, sugar and egg.
Add flour gradually





Jenn is making a tart shell

Now Everybody Can Bake - Cheese Tarts

My friend Ailee came over yesterday to teach me how to bake a delicious cheese tarts. The process wasn't as difficult as I thought.

This is what you need:
125g of butter
50g of granulated sugar
1 egg
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp of vanilla essence (optional)

Cream butter (soften) and sugar together at medium speed until fluffy. Add the egg and continue at medium speed until they are well mixed.

Now pour the flour gradually into the mixture and mix them with spatula or wooden spoon. When the mixture has become coarse dough, use hands instead to rub the dough until they are well mix and smooth.

Press a small piece of dough into the mould one by one. This will make about 60-70 pieces of small tart shells (bite size). Making tart shells need some skill but you will become more skillful after you have done a few tarts.


Bake the tart shells in the oven at 180 degree Celsius for about 15 minutes. The tart shells just like biscuits so you can actually prepare more and keep it for future use. What you have to do is just prepare the cream cheese and bake them one more time.

This is the freshly baked tart shells.



Now we are going to prepare the cream cheese.
250g of cream cheese
20 g of butter
50 g of granulated sugar (or lesser)
1 egg

It is best to first chop or break the cream cheese into smaller pieces (as it is quite hard) before cream it with butter and sugar. When the mixture turn fluffy, gradually add in the egg. Keep beating until they are well mixed and harden.

Fill the tart shell with cream cheese. Add a bit of blue berry jam, make a design or a pattern with a tooth pick. Bake them at 150 dc for 10 minutes (not to hot as the tart shells have already baked earlier).


As I love blue berry jam so I top it up.

Kam Heong Prawn

Well, I have done the Kam Heong paste. Now we are going to use that to cook Kam Heong Prawn. This hot dish is very delicious and cooking kam heong prawn is very fast.

First marinate the de-veined, cleaned big prawn (about 10 prawns) with 1 1/2 tbsp curry powder similar way as we marinate for butter chicken, a pinch of salt. But this time we will add 1 tbsp of Chinese cooking wine. Marinate for at least 30 minute if possible other wise it should be alright for just a short while as prawn is delicious even without any marination.

Fried the prawn. Fried each side for 2-3 minutes will do, depends on the size of the prawns.


Heat up about 1 tbsp of oil, toss in about 3 tbsp of the kam heong paste. You can add or reduce the amount of Kam Heong according to your personal preference. Put in the fried prawns. As the Kam Heoang paste is very dry, you should add about 3 tbsp of water. Stir fry the prawns until the sauce thicken or dried. This process will make sure all prawns were well coated with the sauce.



This makes the excellent hot main dish. Enjoy.

"Kam Heong" Paste

I got this recipe from a cooking book and I have tried it out numerous times, it never failed me.

Kam Heong paste is very convenience for instant cooking. What you can do is prepare the Kam Heong paste ready and refrigerated it for future cooking. You can cook kam heong prawn, kam heong chicken, kam heong crab, or kam heong squid. Though I haven't tried cooking Kam Heong fish, but I guess it should be equally good. In short, kam heong is delicious to cook with seafood.

You will never thought cooking Kam Heong paste is so easy. The required ingredients are easy to source too.

50 g of dried shrimp, soak it in the water to soften it, then chop it up into small pieces
7-8 shallots, finely chopped
2-3 clove of garlics, finely chopped
1 1/2 tbsp of curry powder (any types, any brands)
3-4 stalks of curry leaves (discard the stalk) but if you can't get curry leave, add another 1/2 tsp of curry powder instead but it's less omph.
4 small chillies (chilli padi). The amount of chillies is depends on your taste bud, if you like it hot, add more.

1 1/2 tbsp of oyster sauce,
1 tbsp of light soy sauce

Heat up 4 tbsp of oil in the frying pan. Stir fry the chopped dried shrimps under medium heat. You will smell the aroma of the dried shrimp instantly. Good, keep stirring for about 1/2 minute.

Add in the finely chopped shallots, garlic and curry leave, saute the mixture off and on.

Add the curry powder, oyster sauce and soy sauce. Stir fry for about 1 minute. Just like that. Simple.

Yes, no salt, just add a pinch of sugar to taste.

If at anytime you found yourself lost control because you are too slow, then lower the heat.

Lion Dance Came to Celebrate

During the Chinese New Year 2008 last month, on the Chap Goh Mei (the 15th day of the new year), Lion Dance came to celebrate! Yes, at my house.

Recipe for Butter Chicken

Butter chicken is very easy to prepare and it is very delicious. It smells great deal to the aroma of the butter and the evaporated milk.

The very first step is to marinate the chopped chicken pieces ( about 10 small pieces) with the following ingredients for at least 30 minute:

1 1/2 tbsp of curry powder
1 tbsp of oyster source
a pinch of salt

Fry it in the hot oil under the medium heat.


Step 2 will require you to prepare the following items:

50 ml of evaporated milk
1-2 tbsp butter
Onion cut into cube size
some chopped red chili, preferably chili padi


Now we are ready to cook this yummy butter chicken.

Melt the butter over low heat in a frying pan. Pour the evaporated milk over the butter, follow by onion and red chili. Stir the ingredients for a little while. Add the fried chicken into it. Now stir-fry the chicken in medium heat until the sauce was thicken and that they were evenly coated with the sauce.

That's all. They are ready. Butter chicken is best to serve with lettuce and cucumber.


When you are bored with chicken, you can replace chicken with fried prawn, they are equally delicious.

Before & After

We never give up, do we?

So we baked cupcakes for the second time.

Let's compare:

Before


After


See the significant improvement?! The cakes were tasty too, I would say this time they are above average.

Jenn's classmates have tasted the 2nd batch and they asked for more!!

Good work, Jenn! Way to go!

Cakes in the cups - CUPCAKES

We first tried cupcakes at The Apartment @ The Curve. The cakes were well decorated but we weren't really fancy about the cake somehow.

Then we tried the cupcakes at the Cupcakes Chic. Jenn and I sort of crazy about it as they look so beautiful and lovely.

Nice to hold, excited to see, good to taste. Jenn said Yummy. (if you have sweet tooth) but they are too sweet for me.

I bought some cupcakes from the Taman Tun market as well. This is the mini version. Gorgeous with its tiny size. Lovely.

Then Jenn found the new shop - Wondermilk @ Uptown Damansara. Jenn's excitement was indescribable. She is like oh my god, oh my god.... she holding them just like people holding the holy grail, no regret to buy her so many cupcakes, her happiness worth every penny.




Aren't they LOVELY? And they are really tasty too!!

So we decided to try our hand at it.




The taste was below average. The decoration is limited by our imagination. But to me, they are marvelous job.

Well done Jenn.

New Chapter

I have been reading blogs written by those wonderful bloggers. Never thought that I will be blogging one day. When I was young, I used to write diary. I would record down the happening surrounding me, my experiences, even private thoughts deep in my heart. And the diary came with a small lock, sort of keeping your thought in a hidden place......it is private, it is unsharable......

But today, things have changed, people blog to share ... let's see ...