What's next?

I am lazy this Christmas. Once a upon a time, I used to cook and bake up a storm during Christmas. I remembered making plaited bread with mixed fruits, fruit cakes and even cookies. This year, besides the pie and soup, I made nothing special. Nothing sweet. Hmm, my bad! Anyway, Christmas has never been a baking season for me. It's Chinese New Year! Before the arrival of Elijah, I used to bake cookies and biscuits as give-aways. I did a batch of almost 20 tubs of peanut cookies and melt aways. Those were good. This year, I am thinking of something different. Actually, on my list I have at least 3 recipes to try out. White chocolate, cranberry and macademia nut cookies, green pea cookies and chocolate sugee cookies. The rest like pineapple tarts and kueh bangkit are on the consideration list. Peanut cookies are also on consideration. Just not interested to bake something that simple anymore.

To be honest, I am not a big fan of cookies. I rather have keropok(prawn crackers) or chips. I have a more of a savoury taste bud. These are easy to get, so no worries. It's the cookies. My white chocolate, cranberry and macademia nut cookies are my signature bakes and till today, my colleagues rave abt them. But good white chips are hard to come by, so will have to hunt carefully. Anyway, will bake some for CNY for sure. Not just for own consumption, but also for giving my parents and in laws. My usual practice every year.

So watch out for my update! I am excited!

4 P and 1 C (Puff pastry pot pie, Chicken!)

As mentioned, this Christmas I am assigned to make a main dish for my sister's Christmas gathering, I decided on a pot pie. As we have domestic helper who don't take pork, I made chicken pot pie so that everyone can eat it. I looked at other recipes and came out my own version. I am happy to say that the result was a successful and delicious pie.

For the crust, I resorted to ready puff pastry. Making puff pastry in Singapore is a nightmare! I remembered attending this puff making session whereby this chef showed us the steps. The demo was done in a kind lady's house, who invited us for a food cum demo gathering. The chef needed an aircon environment and a marble top, so that the butter don’t melt too fast. Boy, to get this sheet of puff pastry eventually, we waited for almost 1 hr, to fold, chill, fold, chill and eventually bake. But the effort was worthwhile. The results was a flaky and delicious puff pastry. But I guess I wouldn't try this at home, just the though of getting a marble top will probably freak the husband out!

So back to my pie. It contained frozen veggie, chicken pieces, onion and button mushroom and potato. Wholesome ingredients and great taste! I used the chicken stock that I made for the soup too. Saved me all trouble and also prevented me from using the chicken cube. Here sharing my recipe. For the lattice crust, I referred to this website. Nice. Got lots of good comments from my siblings and sister in law! To me, the pie looked perfect and tasted wonderfully good!




Puff pastry chicken pot pie

Ingredients
1 sheet of puff pastry
1 Cup cooked chicken
4 pieces of chopped bacon
1/2 C mixed vegetable
1/2 C button mushroom, sliced
2 cooked potato, diced
1 chopped red onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 C chicken stock
3 tbsp flour
3 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper
Mixed Italian spice(optional)

Method
1. Heat pan and add in butter.
2. Sauté onion and garlic till fragrant.
3. Add in bacon, mixed vegetable, button mushroom, potato and cooked chicken.
4. Cook for 5 min and add in the chicken stock.
5. When ingredients boil, lower heat and add in the flour, tbsp by tbsp.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste. At this juncture, you may add in mixed Italian spice.
7. Dish out and leave to cool.

Assembly
Spread cool pie ingredient into a 9x9 inch container(I used disposable aluminum pan). Cut puff pastry into 9x1inch strips. Make sure you have enough to cover the whole pan. Lattice the pastry and brush egg wash over the whole pie crust. Baked in 200 degree Celsius for 20min or till crust puff up. Enjoy!

Christmas cooking!

Today after work, I went and got myself the ingredients to cook for tomorrow's party. Every year, my family celebrate Christmas together on Christmas Eve. It will be a potluck affair this year and I am in charge of cooking a soup and a main. After thinking through, I decided to go with the safe food. Will cook cream of mushroom and chicken pot pie. I have looked into the net for inspiration again. After seeking and reading, I have come up with my own way of cooking. Will post the pics and recipe again. Doubt I will have the time to blog since it will be a mad rush of cooking, preparing and sending to my sister's place!

Here wishing all of you a very Blessed Christmas! God bless!

Wafflemaniac!

In Singapore, pple queue up for food, drinks, free school textbooks, toilet and many, many things more! Come to think of it, we do queue up for lots of reasons! Well, it's a lifestyle here and honestly, we accept it somehow.

Ok, back to my post. I love waffles. Whenever I walk pass a certain bakery, the smell of freshly made waffles just lure me there. These are not your western belgium waffles. These are Asian style, pandan waffles, made with pandan extract and coconut milk. The combi of these 2 Asian ingredients make the most wonderful treat, which can be eaten as breakfast, tea break or anytime of the day you desire. I simply love the taste of it! And, as if it's not enough, I will have the lady smear peanut butter over hot waffles! Oh my! The steaming waffles melts the gooey peanut butter and the taste is just heaven!

That being said, I am still quite apprehensive, whenever I eat one. For a very simple reason. The coconut milk. To make a tasty waffle, you need rich coconut cream. I am not too keen abt that, since I am not interested to raise my cholesterol level. But I love those waffles........

So, I decided to make them healthy, at the same time tasty! Mum has this waffle maker, that once upon a time we got it for Christmas. I looked into the web and found many recipes! Eventually, I settled for this. The recipe is really, really good! Most important, it can be doubled easily. I really like it. But remember I mentioned that I am not too keen with coconut milk? So I made changes to the original recipe. My version is definitely not as rich and good, but to me, it's good enough! Yummy! Thanks to Annie who post this wonderful recipe! My version is a keeper in my family now!

Skinny Pandan Waffles (makes 3-4 waffles)

Ingredients:

1 cup Self Raising Flour
1/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp cornstarch
1 egg, separated
1 cup low fat milk
1 Tbsp corn oil
1 tsp coconut extract
1/2 tsp pandan extract

1. Sieve SRF, sugar and constarch.
2. Mix egg yolk, low fat milk, corn oil, coconut and pandan essence together
3. Pour the 2. into 1. Gently fold the mixture. Do not overmix.
4. Beat egg white till stiff. Fold into 3.
5. Heat up waffle iron and start making these delicious waffles!

I liked mine crispy on the outside. These to me, yummiest! And I am guiltless when I pop 2 whole pieces into my mouth! Simple, plain happiness!!! Hop over to Annie and Nate's blog for the whole recipe, with photo illustration! Wonderful for pple like us!

Me? Siam? What?

Today we celebrated Christmas early with my hubby's family. Usually we do it potluck style, and everyone will just contribute a kind of food/dessert. I was cracking my head, thinking what to cook! Thought a carbo dish will be good, after all, we are Asian, and nothing beats filling the tummy with yum yum carbo. So I decided I will fry some Mee Siam!

Mee Siam is a local hawker dish, mostly found in Malay stalls. But the Malay does it differently! Whatever versions, I like it, esp when I can add numerous number of lime to my bowl!

Upon my decision, I started my online search for a good recipe! I must say, I did found some looking good and seems workable recipes. But remember I said I am a true blue Hokkien, who love to experiment? Well, I followed none! I decided to come up with my own version! Ok, this works for me today and I got a few nods and "not bad at all!" from those who tasted it. So here I am sharing with you my Mee Siam rempah recipe. Pls take note that you can change abit here and there for your liking. After all, you are the one cooking, so don't let recipe tie you down!

Mee Siam Rempah

6-8 shallot
5-6 garlic
1 small piece of galanga ginger
20 pieces of dried chilli
2 lemon grass
2 tbsp of belachan
40gm dried shrimp, soak and drained.
300gm Prawn, shelled and cut into small pieces
2 tbsp tau cheo(fermented bean paste)
5 tbsp thick coconut cream
Sugar
Salt

1. Cut dried chilli and cook in some water till soft. Pour away water.
2. Skin shallots and garlic.
3. Peel the lemon grass such that you see the bottom white part. Cut the white portion and discard the rest.
4. Blend all except salt and sugar.
5. Add water if needed but only 10ml at most each time. Do not add more than 30ml.
6. Once mixture is blend into a smooth paste, scope it into an air tight container.
7. Pour 1/3 cup peanut oil into the wok/pan.
8. Add 4 tbsp of chilli misture into wok/pan. Add in Tau cheo.
9. Fried till fragrant and add in sugar and salt to taste.
10. Add in coconut cream and cut prawn. Fry till prawn change colour. Do not over fry or turn up the heat. This will only produce coconut oil which kinda change the smell of coconut.

Now with this rempah, you can fry bee hoon, noodles, veggie or simply eat it with plain rice. Take note that due to addition of coconut cream, this rempah won't keep long. Do use it up within 3 days.

Whoever tries it, pls email me and give me feedback whether you like this rempah! Hopefully you like it just like me!

And here I start my blog on cooking and baking

Welcome to me humble blog! Was contemplating whether it is a good idea to start a blog to journal my cooking and baking experiments. Why experiments? Well, some of my products aren't that great, and to my most honest opinion, disasterous! Thanks to my ever-forgiving hubby, who will eat up whatever I invented, I con't to brave through everyday, cooking new and weird stuff. Recently, we engaged a helper and I happily welcomed her as my second testers! She is wiser, will politely rejects my food when she finds it suspiciouly strange.

I am a true blue Hokkien! I eat Hokkien food, I speak the language(trying my best to make it sound refine!) and sings Hokkien songs! Yes, I am real good at it! Kick ass good! But since Hokkien songs are associated with the Lians and Bengs, I try my best to control whenever I hear a familiar tune in the market! Hypocrite!

Now besides being a true blue Hokkien, I am also 1/8 Peranakan. My dad's grandma is a Peranakan bibik! So that makes 1/8! Somehow, I am happy, cos of my heritage. So now when I cook/try to cook, I will make a point to find some Peranakan food that are easy to manage!

Thanks to whoever who bothers to read my blog! God bless!