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I miss baking! Since started working I can hardly find time to do any baking. On my off day I have to run errands, grocery shopping, laundry, ironing and housework. It was difficult the first two weeks but now I am getting the hang of it and managed my time well and Carlos helps a lot too. I am thankful for that. I bake this plain old orange butter cake at the spur of the moment last week right af
I love daikon especially in soup or stew. I’ve stop eating them for a couple of years after being admitted to the ER for eating too much of it ha ha...Well, I am back cooking it again but this time I know I have to limit my consumption of it. I made this dish a few months ago and only get to post it now as I have put out all the Kelantan dishes first for last month. Do check out the round up here
I don’t know much about Korean food and so far I’ve only tried it a few times. The first time was in New York and my friend Tina took me to a Korean BBQ restaurant at Queens. That was the first time I tried out their grilled short ribs. There were tender, juicy and really flavorful and I was hooked. The second time I had this was at my neighbor BBQ party last year and he was kind enough to share w
Mini Dutch baby pancake also known as German pancakes are pancakes made with flour, eggs butter, and milk that are prepared in a sizzling hot skillet and bake until the sides of the pancakes raise high above the pan, creating a light, puffy crust with tender and eggy middle. It can be eaten with cream cheese, fruit jams, or other fillings or simply drizzle it with maple syrup. I made these using
When the hosting date of the Malaysian Food Fest for the state of Kelantan drew near I was very worried as I knew that it would be a very busy and crazy month for me. A new chapter in my life is starting as I am back into working world again. I know I will be crazy trying to juggle everything at once, my new daily routine and having to blog as well. As I had already said 'Yes' to hosting the Kelan
I was set to make this kuih for the MFF event after so many people raved about it. Apparently, in Terengganu (a state in Malaysia) kuih akok is smooth looking as they use a higher ratio of flour to eggs whereas their neighbor, Kelantan uses more eggs compared to flour. When a batter has more eggs than flour, the kuih will puff up and then it will shrink upon hitting the cool air hence, the kedut /
I've never eaten a curry that tastes quite like this before. The taste is absolutely unique, so don't let the word 'curry' in the title of this recipe fool you. It does not smell or even taste of curry.. not at all! Despite the amount of the dried chilies used, there is not much heat (spicy) to it and thus, this dish is quite kid friendly. There's a hint of sweetness from the coriander seeds
Sweet otatoes or Ubi Keledek, in Malay, is a very versatile tuber. The shoots and tuber can be eaten as a vegetable and also be used in sweet and savory dishes. There are a few types of sweet potatoes here and the most common ones are the orange and the light yellow ones. We do get the purple variety here but they are very expensive. It cost around $2.00 a pound. I actually like the orange kind as
I have always felt that without Solok Lada as one of the accompaniment for Nasi kerabu, the meal is incomplete. I've often found whenever I have bought Nasi Kerabu, the seller would not make Solok Lada because not many people like to eat it, and if they do, they don't make much and it sells out very quickly. This time when I made Nasi kerabu , I made sure I included Solok Lada and I was surprised
When I went through the ingredients of this dish, it is simple enough for me to do it. I have no clue how this dish look like as there is no picture of it from Betty Saw’s cookbook but I am brave enough to try it out. I am a person who normally likes to try out a recipe base on the picture of the dish. The method of cooking is very much like serunding as you have to boiled the meat first and then
Kuih Tahi Itik (duck’s dropping cake) is very popular in The East Coast of Malaysia especially in Kelantan, my opinion not because of its taste, but probably because of its notorious name. In the olden days, it was more economic for people to raise ducks for their eggs rather than chickens because duck eggs are so much larger, and some say with a better flavor. Chickens were raised more for their
Like I mentioned previously I have never been to Kelantan but I am very curious about the state and I have been asking my sisters and friends about the state and its food. A friend of mine visited it in mid 1990’s and she was not impressed with it as it wasn’t as well developed as the other states in Malaysia. My family has a housing project there now and my sisters have been flying there once a w
Let’s take a break from MFF Event today and feature this chicken kebab. This is one dish that you can prepare the night before and grill it the very next day. It will become handy if you want to entertain a large number of guests. Marinating the chicken overnight allows the yogurt to tenderize the chicken and also it won’t dries out when you grill it. I just marinate it with whatever spices I
This is my 4th dish for the MFF – state of Kelantan event. I’ve made ayam percik before but it is a bit different from Kelantan. That ayam percik had chili and more spieces in it but not this one, that is why it the sauce on top is white in color. The taste of this percik is rather mild as I like certain food of mine to be spicy. Going through quite a few recipes when preparing for thi
I would say that Bubur Campur Kelantan is a little bit alike to Bubur Cha Cha, another popular sweet dessert amongst the southern states in Malaysia. There's the coconut milk, the sweet potatoes and the yam and despite the use of white wheat and bananas, the taste is actually pretty similar. In Kelantan, many actually even add in tapioca to this sweet dessert and if you do have some, just add them
I was pretty excited to try out this recipe from Betty Saw's The Complete Malaysian Cook Book as the name is really intriguing. According to Kamus Minerva, 'keremak' means various plants whereas Wikipedia describe it as the name of a plant. That to me is of no help whatsoever to clarify the meaning or help explained as to why this recipe is called as such. There were no plant or plants harmed in
Nasi Kerabu happens to be my most favorite rice dish ever. I have this ex-colleague of mine name Jeff who used to live in Kampung Baru and I will get him to tapau (take out) for me every week. I've always wanted to make nasi kerabu but when I look at the long list of ingredients and the amount of afford putting into making a dish I tend to forgo it. Being overseas doesn’t help either as it can b
I am sure most of you have seen Malaysian Food Fest events going on for the past few months and now it is my turn to do the state of Kelantan. By the way, do drop by to Annielicious Food to check out the round up for Johor state. I’ve participate quite a few of blog events hosted by fellow food bloggers throughout the years of blogging but never hosted one until now. When Wendy of Table for
Hawaiian buns are very popular here in the Northern CA. I see them sold at every supermarket and bakery here. It is basically a sweet soft roll. I Google for the recipe and found there are quite a few of it out there. Some have the additions of potato flakes and coconut in it. In the end I settle for the recipe which I had all the ingredients in my pantry. Below is the recipe I adapted from Yammi
Maybe I should call it death by chocolate brownies. This is definitely chocolate lover dreams. It is dark, rich, fudgy and full of chocolate flavor without overwhelmed of sweetness. Diana love brownies but I will indulge her with this once a year which is on her birthday. I bake this and sent some to her last week and share the rest with a couple of my friends. They were decadent but should only b
Carlos and I eat a lot of tomatoes. Between 2 of us we can eat 2-3 pounds a week. Our most favorite tomatoes are the plum and heirloom. We like heirloom variety as it has intense flavors. We were shopping at Trader Joe’s the other day and we came across these baby heirloom tomatoes. Aren’t they beautiful!!! They are just so colorful and so appealing. I can’t resist and bought a few punnet of i
My parents used to live in Johor because of my dad’s work and we kids live with our grandmother for many years. We get to visit Johor and Singapore once a while especially during our school holidays. I was pretty young during that time and can’t remember much about the food there but I do remember their banana fritters. This posting is not about the recipe of fritters but it is about the unique wa
This particular tart is very popular in Argentina. You can see it in every bakery shops or cafes. This is a simple tart feacturing a filing of ruby red dulce de membrillo (mem-bree-yoh) or quince paste. Sometime this tart can be found with dulce de leceh, sweet potato (dulce de batata), guava paste (dulce de guayaba) fillings too but the authentic one is using dulce de membrillo. It is usually
I’ve never tasted this dish before but I know it is a popular dish in Johor and Singapore. I Google for the recipe and was stumped as there are so many recipes on the said dish and the ingredients used differ greatly that I am not sure which I should use. I tried reading as much as I could on the dish but none of the recipes actually gave any indication on how the dish should taste. I don't know i
It has been a long while since I bake bread. Since the weather is much warmer now I decided to make some foccacia to have it with our beef stew. I used my old recipe but this time I added 1 cup of whole wheat flour to the dough to make it a bit healthier. This is easy to make and I think it is a great alternative to garlic bread. As for the topping you can put anything you like to it.For the bread
'Acar' is a Malay word for pickle and 'Rampai' means julienne. There are many variations of acar and I must say that this version is one of my favourites as it doesn’t involve a lot of work. It is very simple to make with very common ingredients that you would probably already have in your pantry. I made this acar rampai to serve with my Ayam Kremes and Sambal Dabu-dabu. Ingredients: Adapted fr
I’ve been very busy for the past 2 months. Flew to New York twice to take care of Diana and don’t have time to do much especially cooking, baking, blog posting or blog hopping. Meals at home are mostly simple salad, sandwiches or one pot meal. Just before I flew to NY, I wanted to finish up the few pieces of Bak Kua in the fridge. I am too lazy to turn on the big oven just to warm them up I sim
It has been a while since I baked a cake. With all the CNY cookies I can’t afford the extra butter in my body ha ha… I shared this cake with a friend of mine and also my neighbor. So not all consume by us :) . I love the look and taste of this cake. I used Golden Churn butter given to me by my good friend Shereen when she came to visit last September. Thanks Shereen for the butter and all the good
This is one of dim sum favorite and it is usually served with mayo dipping sauce. For 4 pieces it cost around US$3.00 which I think it is too expensive. It is not difficult to make it yourself and with a few ingredients and a few bucks you can feed the whole family. It usually made from shrimps but you can be creative with the filling. I added some ground pork to it but it can be any combinations
I am hit by the lazy bugs and I don’t really feel like doing much nowadays. I usually get depressed during this time of the year as I will be thinking of home and family. With everyone posting their CNY gatherings with family and friends on FB make it worst. I wish I can be home with my family. Well, I guess this is what we have to sacrifice being away from home. Well, enough of my depressing feel
After all the CNY indulgence it is time to have some healthy. I’ve been adding quinoa into our diet a couple of months ago since it is much healthier than rice. You can read more about Quinoa here and here . We like having these quinoa patties. They are hearty and savory which is a great accompaniment to any soup or salad. I don’t mind not having meat at all as I think this is great replacement
To my family, friends and blog readers, Gong Xi Fa Cai/Keong Hee Huat Cai. May the year of snake brings all of us joy, happiness, peace, prosperity and good health.I didn't bake much this year. Just a few types of cookies like Almond Cookies ,Pistachio Sables, Kuih Bangkit, Date Rolls and 2 types of Pineapple Tarts . Not forgetting some Bak Kua/Pork Jerky too.
This is another prawn dish that is nice to serve for Chinese New Year. I made these a few years ago but never posted it in my blog. I am recreating it again so I could post it here. This dish will be ideal as an appetizer too. The taro which is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside compliments well with the succulent prawn within. Ingredients:15-18 large prawns – shell,deveined and leave th
This is a traditional cream base chowder with ingredients like onion, potatoes, clams and additional of corn in it. I made it a wee bit on the healthier side by using half and half instead of heavy cream. I always like clam chowder especially the one served at Boudin Bakery in San Francisco. Their clam chowder is the creamy kind serves on sourdough bread bowl while the Manhattan clam chowder is
This year I decided to bake almond cookies instead of the regular peanut cookies after seeing Bee Bee of Honey Bee Sweets posted a pictures of her cookie on FB. Since I still have a packet of almond meal given by Oh Nuts in the fridge I like to use it up before ordering some new packets. The cookies turn out like how Bee Bee describes it. Buttery and melts in your mouth. Carlos love it a lot and
My mom cooked a lot of traditional dishes for our Chinese New Year reunion dinner and one of them is this prawn dish. She once saw a chef on TV demonstrating a prawn dish using evaporated milk and she cook it for us. We like it a lot but I tweak recipe a bit by adding additional ingredients to it. Many Chinese families like to cook prawns/shrimps, as a prawn in Cantonese is ‘Ha’ which in English
I have a lot of dates left from my Christmas baking and I wanted to use it all up for my Chinese New Year baking. I can’t keep the dates for too long as it tends to get dry real fast so I decided to blend it all up in a food processor and used it as the filling of these rolls. It turns out really good and it will be on the bake list for my next Christmas baking. Ingredients for the filling:
These are crunchy, lemony, and buttery cookies. The polenta in these cookies puts them on the crunchy side rather than soft and chewy. Normally I will just shape these rounds but this time I did something different using piping bag. The polenta absorbed the moisture from the mixture pretty fast and toward the end I find it a little bit difficult to pipe. If this happens just add a bit of milk to s
Most of us love blueberry muffins. I baked these often as I will always have some fresh or frozen blueberries in my fridge. I will change the recipe a bit here and there from time to time. This time instead of the usual melted butter or oil I added brown butter to it. It took me just a few minutes to brown the butter before adding it to the batter. It gives the muffins a nice nutty and toasty aro
I don’t normally fired fish at home because of the smell especially during winter where it is too cold for me to open up all the windows and sliding doors to give it some ventilation. Lucky the Asian supermarkets here in California do provide the service of frying fish for you. I will only do that on certain Monday as it is the day where they use new oil for frying (inside secret ha ha) Anyway, I
I don’t cook a lot of soup but it is always nice to have a bowl or two during winter. This soup was one of the many Italian dishes that I learned from a friend many years ago but I never thought of making it again until my good friend Shereen tasted it at Olive Garden. I told her I know how to make this soup but it might not be exactly the same as the one she tasted but I will try to replica it. S
We love shortbread but I hardly make any because of the high fat content in it. It is so addictive and you can’t stop just having one or two so the best is not to make any of it but I did make some to be given away for Christmas. This way there won’t be much left for our own consumption so we feel less guilty ha ha.. Anyway instead of making plain shortbread I added some dried cherries to it this
I made these for Carlos before I left for New York a few months ago. He loves these little BBQ pork buns. When he comes home from work he can just warm it up in the microwave oven and eat it with his salad. These types of buns are very popular at dim sum restaurant or Chinese Bakeries and it is filled with succulent sweet and savory BBQ pork filling. For these buns, I used some leftover BBQ/Char S
I am not familiar with Korean food except for Korean Pancakes or Hoddeok . All I know is kimchi will be on the dining table in most of the Korean meals. Personally I am not a big fan of Kimchi on its own but it is perfectly tasty when added into fried rice or stew. I made a batch of kimchi and I think it taste much better than the one that I bought from the Asian supermarket. This batch of frie
It has been many years since I had kaya puffs. This is one snack that I will ask my sisters to bring if they come to visit me but I totally forgotten about it when my youngest sister came to visit in July. In order to get over the craving and also used up my homemade kaya I decided to make these. For non Malaysian/Singaporean readers, kaya is a jam made from coconut milk, sugar and eggs. It is eat
This is a well-know snack in Malaysia and mostly sold by the street vendors. These deep-fried sweet potato balls are called ‘fan shu tan’ in Cantonese and it is slightly smaller than the size of a ping pong ball. They are cruncy and golden brown on the outside,soft and sweet on the inside. I remember eating this ages ago at Cameron Highlands. Cameron Highlands is a highland region located around 2
I know it is a bit late to post Christmas cookies this but I am trying to make it on time for Aspiring Baker’s event. I have wanted to make this cookie for many years but just never get to do it until this year. I will normally bake simple cookies for Christmas with requires minimal work but because of the Aspiring Baker’s Christmas Motif Bakes I decided to attempt to bake something a bit more cha
I love making linzer cookies as I think they are the most beautiful I ever made. Beside the look, I just love the taste of this light shortbread combined with a tiny dollop of jam in the middle. They are just perfect with a cup of coffee and tea. They might look delicate but they are quite easy to put together. It just involves a few extra steps compare to the regular cookies but the end results a
I know I’ve been posting a few sugar cookies here but this time I tried out Alton Brown of Food Network recipe. I think I like this recipe better than the previous one. Since I will be submitting these cookies for the Aspiring Baker # 26 Creative Christmas Motif Bakes hosted by Alan of Travelling Foodies I decided to use snowflakes cookie cutter and decorates it with royal icing. I am not a fa
