Orange cupcakes

30 October 2008

Orange cupcake (See recipe)

I use phoon huat sponge mix but I think Optima sponge mix is much better. The cake will shrink after it cool down. Maybe I overbeat the mixture. Will try again the next week.

Sushi - Tuna Maki

Thursday - 30 Oct 2008

Make some tuna maki this morning to finish off the balance cucumber & yellow raddish in my fridge

Today I made the japanese version - maki (no sesame oil & soya sauce added)

Recipes - 5 rolls
1 Can Tuna (drain and mix with chopped onion, dill weed, mayo & pepper)
5 strips Yellow radish
10 strips Jap cucumber
1 egg (make omelette & cut into 5 strips)
10 crab sticks
5 sheets of nori (seaweed)
2 bowls of cooked sushi rice mix with 2 tbsp of sushi vinegar immediately after the is rice cooked. Leave to cool.

Method:
1. Lay nori sheet on base of mat.
2. Spread the cool rice.
3. Assemble the ingredient.
4. Roll it up & cut.

Dinner was something different tonite ...

Thursday - 30 Oct 08
Today's dinner was something different from the usual 2 dishes meal. As usual, I always enjoy my aunt's cooking. Here's the dishes ...

Fish maw soup w/Alfafa Sprout - this is very special & thumb up for this soup! (will post up the recipe later)

Prawn Omelette & Sliced Potatoes w/Onion Minced Pork

Delicious home-cooked meal

My standard 2 dishes home-cooked dinner tonite were:

Fried hairy melon (a type of squash)with egg & crispy white bait & Sesame oil ginger chicken

Beng Thin Hoon Kee Restaurant - Hokkien Food

Monday - 27 October 2008

We had dinner at Beng Thin Hoon Kee Rest to celebrate my brother's birthday. My friends been telling me this is one of the best hokkien restaurants in S'pore. There was not many in S'pore and this is the oldest. We are quite familiar with hokkien food, these are some of the must order dishes we had that nite:

Duck Salad (M) - $30.00, their signature dishes. Very refreshing and appetizing, made up of shredded cucumber, honeydew, roast duck, jelly fish, coriander leave & peanut. The sauce taste like prawn paste mix with lime juice but not as sweet as rojak. Worth trying. (but not for me as I don't like prawn paste)

Fish Maw Soup (M) - $28.00. This is my favourite and this soup alone will make me come back again... The soup is full of fish maw & crab meat. The chicken stock is so sweet & thick. It's simply taste great. This is a must order dish.

Oyster Omelette (S) - $15.00. This is quite special & difference from the usual omelette, the egg is fried till light and crispy and top with fresh oyster & sambal sauce. It's quite oily at the base but is worth trying.

Prawn balls (M) - $20.00. This is not up to standard. It's crispy enough but the inside is too much flour & can't really taste the meat, prawn & water chestnut. Not worth ordering.

Braised Seacucumber & mushroom w/veg (M) - $40.00. The seacucumber & mushroom are thick & well braised with green mustard added to make it a healthy dish. Worth trying.

Braised pork w/bun (S) - $15.00. Not bad and surprisingly it is not oily. Worth trying.

Hokkien Mee (M) - $15.00. Their signature dish. I like the flat yellow noodle as its thinner than the usual one selling at cze char stall. This is also a must order dish. We also order a fried kailan to complete our meal. Total bill - $229 plus for 9of us.

Overall dining experience was good and we will definitely go back for the fish maw soup, braised seacucumber w/mushroom & hokkien mee.

Beng Thin Hoon Kee Restaurant

65 Chulia Street

#05-02 OCBC Centre

Singapore 049513

Tel: 65332818/65337708

Tiramisu Cake

Monday - 27 October 2008

I had make a Tiramisu cake for my brother. It's his 39th Birthday and our family was going out for dinner tonite with him.

Tiramisu, the most heavenly and popular classic Italian desserts. It is made with ladyfingers and mascarpone cheese. It can be made in a trifle bowl or a loose bottom pan. Today I use plain sponge cake instead of ladyfingers as I want it to be a birthday cake.

There are many recipes out there, this is the recipe that I always use (altered from Phoon Huat & Richard Goh's recipes)

Ingredients:
250g Mascarphone cheese
45g Sugar
3 Egg yolks
100g Coffee liquor Kahlua
10g Gelatin (soak with 3 thbsp cold water)
250g Fresh cream (I prefer President brand)
Cocoa Powder for dusting
Plain Sponge Cake (9") (refer to Cake: Basic sponge cake) or use ready ladyfingers

Syrup for brushing:
1. 90g Hot water
2. 30g Sugar / Demarara sugar
3. 10g Nescafe Gold instant coffee
4. 10g Coffee Liquor (Kahlua)
- Mix 1 to 3 till sugar melted & when cool, add in 4, set aside.

Method:
1. Whisk egg yolk and sugar in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until thick and creamy. Add in half of the mascarpone cheese, mix well and set aside.
2. Mix the other half of the mascarphone cheese with the coffee liquor using a hand whisk, set aside.
3. Boil gelatin & water mix till it dissolve, set aside to cool.
4. Whisk fresh cream till stiff.
5. Add 1 to 3 into the whipped cream using a hand whisk till well mix.
6. Cut the sponge into 2 or 3 layers.
7. Lay the cake into a loose bottom tin, brush the sponge with the syrup and pour in the 1/3 of the cream mixture, dust with cocoa powder and repeat the step again.
8. Finish off with dusted cocoa powder & leave in the fridge to set.

Sukiyaki Hotpot

Sunday - 26 Oct 2008
This long weekend was a busy holidays for me, I had spent 2 days doing grooming for my dogs and also need to bake a cake for my brother's BD. On days like these, too tired to go out for dinner, we will do some real simple cooking. So hotpot is the best solution, we love these very much as its easy to make, delicious and is satisfying.



Kikoman Sukiyaki Sauce - An easy to use sauce to make sukiyaki hotpot. This can be found in all major supermarkets.

Sukiyaki hotpot - Ingredients:
1. Very thinly sliced pork (Shabu Shabu)
2. Leek
3. Chinese cabbage
4. Golden mushroom
5. Spring onion
6. Japanese bean vermicelli (see pic below)
7. Tofu (Usually I omit as my aunt don't take tofu)
8. Any other ingredients you want to use (I like to add fish maw)
9. Stock (to add more flavour instead of using plain water)

Methods:
1. Assemble all ingredients into the pot except the meat.
2. Add stock and sauce, bring to boil.
(if using stock, do not add too much sukiyaki sauce, it will be too salty)


Get this from all major supermarkets at the japanese products section.

Fried beehoon with canned stewed pork chops

Saturday - 25/10/08

The canned stewed pork chops were out of stock for quite awhile untill recently the supermarkets start selling again. This is my aunt's recipe, her method of frying the beehoon is so simple and of course is delicious too.

My simple weekend lunch - Fried beehoon with canned stewed pork chops

This is the brand of beehoon we used and is enough for 4 - 5 paxes.

Ingredients:
1. Beehoon - 300g (soaked in cold water 10mins, drained)
2. Gulong stewed pork chop - 1 tin, 397g (remove excess fat but retained the sauce, shred the pork)
3. Cabbage - 550g (coarsely shredded & soaked 5 mins, drained - soaking will improve crunchiness)
4. Garlic - 4 cloves (chopped)

Seasoning: (mix well)
5 tbsp stock
2 tsp light sauce
2 1/2 tsp oyster sauce
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp chicken stock powder

Method:
1. Use 2 tbsp oil, fry garlic till golden.
2. Add cabbage, fry till half cooked, dish out.
3. Pour shredded pork w/sauce, seasoning into the wok. Bring to boil.
4. Add beehoon & cover, stir occasionally to mix well till liquid almost absorb.
5. Add cabbage, fry till cooked.

Friday's nite dinner at Blk 75 Toa Payoh Lor 5

One of the best hawker centre in Toa Payoh is at Blk 75, Lor 5. This is a very old hawker center and I think most of the stalls, their standard are above average compare to some of the neighbourhood hawkers. Almost all Singapore's famous hawker foods can be found here.

What is nice? Oh the list is very long ...
There are only 2 row of stalls, the front facing the main road - the stalls that I like are the soya bean drink stall selling beancurb & grassjelly dessert, the handmade noodles stall (the dried version is popular), Fried Kway Teow, Fish Soup, Teochew Porridge (Only open in the day) and Fried Carrot cake & Oyster.

The back row are the Songkee Fish ball noodles, Feifei Wanton Mee, Dessert stall (Chengdeng quite gd), Satay, Fried Hokkien Mee, BBQ Seafood, BBQ chk (There are at least 3 stalls but we always order from Chongpang), Claypot rice, Minced Pork noodles and Da Kee Chicken Rice.

Last nite these were what we had:

Song Kee Fish Ball Noodles (One of the best Fish ball noodles in Singapore)

BBQ Sambal Fish (The sambal chilli is very good.)

Chongpang BBQ Chicken (Buy 5 get free!)

Two of my favourite home cooked dishes...

I love fish, from the head to the tail so 3 to 4 days of the week we will have fish as our main dish.

Two of my favourite dishes -

Fried jacket fish with miso sauce & French bean top with fried white bait


Hope my daily dinner will give you some new ideas of what to cook at home.

Korean Rice Roll - Kimbap

Kimbap - Korean version of sushi. It's differ from Japan version in term of taste & ingredients used. For Kimbap most of the ingredients are cooked or pan fried before use and sesame oil is added to the rice and a light glaze on the roll. Usually spinach & carrot are used instead of cucumber but I do not have any today so I used Jap cucumber & carrot.

It's a very common snack for the Koreans, the last time when I was on vacation there, can be found everywhere, on the street stalls, in the restaurants & food courts.

For weeks, Kimbap was on my to do list so today manage to fulfill it. I prepared the ingredients the night before as I plan to bring it to work for my colleagues as a surprise breakfast treat.

This was what I made this morning, 10 rolls of Kimbaps.



This recipe makes 10 rolls of Kimbap.

Ingredients:
1. Cooked sushi rice - 5 bowls (Uncook is 3 cups - the normal rice cooker cup)
2. Eggs - 3 nos (Fried into thick omelette and cut into 10 strips)
3. Crab sticks - 10 sticks (cut into half & lightly pan-fried it)
4. Carrots - 1 no (Cut into thin strips, blanch it with hot water & season it with a bit of sesame oil & light soya sauce)
5. Spam low sodium luncheon meat - 3/4 can (cut into 20 thicks strip & pan fried it)
6. Cucumber - 10 strips
7. Yellow pickled raddish - 10 strips
8. Seaweeds - 10 sheets (usually 1 pkt contains 10 steets)
9. Japanese Mayo
10.Sesame oil for glazing

Rice Seasoning:
Sushi vinegar - 5 dsp
Sesame oil - 1 dsp
Salt - a pinch

Methods refers to: My Korean Kitchen

My healthy dinner tonight...

Today reached home early from work and was wondering what my aunt's cooking today. Oh is fish & veg again. Though it looks boring but we still enjoy it very much.

Stir fried spinach w/garlic & Steam teochew stlye promfet

Cranberry Yogurt Cake

I have a pkt of dried cranberry and left over plain yogurt in fridge so decided to make this cake.

I like this cake, its light, soft and moist. I even make one low sugar & olive oil version for my dogs. They love it.

The recipes from Dianas Desserts - Orange Blurberry Cupcake
Instead fresh berries, I used dried cranberry and orange oil replace by vanilla essence.

Ingredients:
225g Cake flour
1 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
1/2 tsp Salt
85g Unsalted butter, cut into pieces
180g Sugar
2 eggs Beaten
240ml Nonfat unsweetened yogurt
1/2 tsp Vanilla essence
80g Dried Cranberry

Methods:
Preheat oven to 160 degrees C & grease or line the base of the loaf tin.
1. Cream the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add in beaten eggs slowly, about 1 tbsp. at a time, beating constantly for about 2 minutes.

2. On Low speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture until just combined. Beat in 1/2 of the yogurt. Then beat in 1/2 of the remaining flour mixture, followed by the remaining yogurt, orange oil and zest. Finally beat in the remaining flour mixture.

3. Fold in the cranberries & do not over mix.

4. Bake for about 40-45 minutes until skewer inserted comes out clean.

Marble Cake

I baked this last week. I used a loaf tin instead. Its turn out quite well.

Recipe from Richard Goh:

Ingredients (A):
225g Hard Butter
100g Sugar

Ingredients (B):
4 Eggs
100g Sugar

Ingredients (C):
200g Plain flour
1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tbsp Choc paste

Method:
Preheat oven to 160 degree C.
1. Cream (A) using medium speed until pale white and add in flour. Leave aside.
2. Whisk (B) at max speed until stiff.
3. Switch mixer to medium speed, combine the two mixtures together.
4. Divide into 2 portions & mix one with choc paste.
5. Alternately pour small amoount of white & choc mixture into the tin. Use a fork or knife, swirl arond the batter.
6. Bake for 45 mins.

My weekend cooking - Oct 08

My aunt ususally don't cook on weekends. If we didn't go out for meals, usually I will cook something simple and fast. The last 2 weekends I manage to do some cookings...

4th Oct 2008
Roast chicken with asparagus & mashed potatoes


11th Oct 2008
Hokkien Mee

Going home for dinners - Oct 08

Last year, my aunt (a retiree) came to stay with us, since then we have been blessed with home cooked meals.

She cooks very well as she used to be a cooking instructor and we always look forward to go home for dinner. She is a very orientated person so she always maintain her cooking standards by recording her recipes.

Most of her food are tasty & not oily as she always prepared stock for her cooking. She will pack & freeze her stock into different portion for daily usage.

Here are some of my dinners in Oct 08...

1st Oct 2008
Fishhead Steamboat (One of my aunt best dish & our favourite too!)


2nd Oct 2008
Stir-fried mix veg & Sambal stingray


3rd Oct 2008
Broccoli & red pepper w/dried scallop & Garlic honey pork ribs


6th Oct 2008
Stir-fried caixin & Steam golden promfet w/salted veg


14th Oct 2008
Stir-fried chinese cabbage w/celery & carrot and Fried Tilapia w/spicy bean sauce


15th Oct 2008
Stir-fried bittergourd & Miso ginger chicken