I tried making Hainanese Chicken Rice so many times. They always turned out like bloody in the center, despite the fact that I always boiled them longer than the recommended time. I steamed them like an hour and they were still blood in between the flesh and bone. So we ended up having Fried Hainanese Chicken Rice instead. I almost give up making this dish, which is supposed to be a simple dish.

This is my latest attempt on making Hainanese Chicken Rice. They turned out OK, not as great as I expected them to be. I still could found some blood in the middle, but after steaming, they were fine. Now, I wonder whether the main factor of failing is the kind of chicken used. I used free range chicken for this recipe, last time I used ordinary chicken. If you would like the recipe, click here.

Culinary tradition: Chinese, Singaporean

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I have been searching for a genuine choc chip cookies recipe for ages, and finally I found one (Thanks Dorie). We have always been a great fan of Subway choc chip cookies because of their softness and chewiness. I have been wanting to make the same thing at home so I could mass produce them and store it in a cookie jar. Now I can mass produce them. However, the thing is that they won’t last longer in the cookie jar, not because they are easily spoiled but because the member of the house couldn’t resist themselves from hugging the jar.

Probably you are wondering why I am cutting back so much sugar. I always cut 50 percent of the sugar from original recipe most of the time. I love desserts, cakes and sweets, but I couldn’t stand the sweetness, or probably my tooth isn’t that sweet. Even with this cookie recipe, with all the cutting sugar amount, I still found that they are really sweet. I should probably skip the sugar next time I am making these and just stick with brown sugar.

From this one batch recipe, you will got a lot of cookies. This was the reason why I turned some of the dough into a log and store it in the fridge. I couldn’t stand any longer standing in the kitchen hearing my toddler calling me. For those of you who want to try these, here’s the steps:

• Cut some baking paper, about 25-30 cm.
• Fill it with left over cookie dough.
• Try to squeeze them gently so there are no empty space in the middle.
• Tied both ends with rubber bands.
• Wrap them with clings wrap.
• Recommended to be stored for up to 3 days in the fridge or months in the freezer.

If you are storing them in the fridge, cut them with a serrated knife into certain thickness. Don’t worry with the uneven or crack slices, you could fix them later by hand. If you are frosting them, let them sit for 5-10 minutes, and them do the same things as you do with the fridge one.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp salt (I didn’t use this)
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 226 gr unsalted butter, at room temperature (I used reduced salt butter)
• 1 cup of sugar (I used 1/3 cup of sugar)
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 340 gr bittersweet chocolate, chop into chips or 2 cups store bought chocolate chips or chunks
• 1 cup finely chopped walnut or pecan

Instructions

1. Center the rack in the oven and preheat the  oven to 190 C.
2. Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda.
3. Working with a mixer in the large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed for about 1 minute until smooth.
4. Add the sugars and beat for another 2 minutes or so, until well blended.
5. Beat in vanilla.
6. Add the eggs one at a time, beating 1 minute after each egg goes in.
7. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add dry ingredients into 3 portions, mixing only until each addition is incorporated.
8. On low speed, or by hand with a rubber spatula, mix in the chocolate and nuts.
9. Spoon the dough by slightly rounded tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheets, leaving 2 inches between spoonfuls.
10. Bake the cookies one sheet at the time and rotating the sheet at the midway point for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they are brown at the edges and golden int the center; they may still be a little soft in the middle, and that’s just fine.
11. Pull the sheets from the oven and allow the cookies to rest for 1 minute, and then carefully, using a wide metal spatula, transfer them to racks to cool to room temperature.
12. Repeat with the remainder of the dough, cooling the baking sheets between batches.

Preparation time (duration): 20

Culinary tradition: American

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I believe that some of you might think that this particular fried rice is too much hassle, because the fish need to be washed, patted dry, and then fried. Not only that, if you live in a small apartment, the fried smell will last for at least two days. Ehmm what was I thinking posted this recipe? Encouraging people not to cook this particular fried rice. To be honest, I actually got the fried teri from my friend, because we got a lot of left over from our charity market. I felt sorry to the fish and then decided to turn them into fried rice dishes. However, I still need to do the frying all over again because they weren’t cooked and crunchy enough.

My tips before you start:

• It is best to have an overnight rice for fried rice (mine wasn’t).
• Always use a generous amount of oil to stir fry the rice so that your rice stays dry and eah grain doesn’t stick to each other.
• Although the fish has been washed before they are deep fried, they are still salty. Be careful on the amount of salt used. The taste of the rice should be mild in terms of saltiness, so that when they are combined with the fish, they are kind of balancing each other.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of uncooked rice, cooked (for a better result, store it overnight in the fridge)
• 1 cups fried small fish (you could find a dry small fish pack in Asian groceries store) *see note
• 1 large carrots, slice thinly or cubes
• 250 gr of fish cakes or balls, dice thinly
• 3 eggs
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cloves of shallots, sliced thinly
• 1 or 2 small chillies, sliced
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce (I used Cap Dua Angsa Brand)
• salt and white pepper to taste
• generous amount of oil for stir frying
• spring onions to serve
• slices of cucumber to serve

Me: (holding a bunch of herbs) Is this Thai’s basil leaves?

Staff: No, that’s Vianemit mit. (No offense to Thai’s people.. that was what really happened)

Me: ??? What? Pardon me ???

Staff: Vietnemit mit (keep repeating the same things again and again)

Me: (then I get it) Ohhh Vietnamese mint leaves. What do you use to make Tom Yum soup? Basil leaves?

Staff: No leaves.

Me: Oh OK

Here’s how my Tom Yum soup looks like. The tom yum paste really helps to give an intense tom yum flavour, but most importantly don’t forget your chilli pure for the heat and tamarind for the sourness.

This is another alternative on how to serve Tom Yum Soup, with egg noodles and poached egg.

Ingredients

• a kg of prawns in shells
• 1 liter water
• tom yum paste to taste(they come in bottle and sachet)
• 4 pcs galangal, smashed (as big as 20 cents coin)
• 1 lemon grass, smashed (use just the white part)
• 1/2 cup of tamarind juice, or to taste
• 1 tsp of puree small red chillies, or to taste
• 6 kaffir lime leaves
• Fish sauce to taste
• fresh mushrooms or can of button mushrooms
• spring onions to serve

Preparation time (duration): 15

Culinary tradition: Chinese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Ingredients

• 100 gr linguine
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 clove shallot
• 5 grape/cherry tomatoes, halved
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• dash of chilli flakes
• salt and pepper
• generous amount of olive oil
• grated parmesan, optional

Anyway, why did I make this this? Simple. A different menu variety for my toddler and family. Because I never make them before, I started to surf the web finding out how others make them. It turned out that people making them in few different ways. Some actually did as mine, however they didn’t steam them again before serving. Some put the sweet soy chicken in a bowl together with an uncooked rice and chicken stock, then steam them. I found the second way quite tricky, because there are lots of rice variety so that you can’t really follow others recipe in terms of chicken stock amount to cook the rice. So, I just did them my way and wouldn’t be bothered as long as it looks like how it is supposed to be and tastes great or at least eatable.

Before you start, here are few tips that might help:

• The longer you simmer the soup, the nicer and deeper the soup taste. So I suggest that you to prepare them ahead of time.
• When you wash the rice, drain them thoroughly so that when you sauteed them with garlic and ginger, they really could absorb the fragrant of the spices.
• Do not peek while the rice is cooking, at least not before 15 minutes, so that the rice could cook evenly.
• Taste the rice after cook, they should have rich taste and slight saltiness on them. Not salty but you could taste the salt, if you understand what I mean. If you find that you can not taste the saltiness, add some fish sauce to the rice and stir until well combined.
• Press the rice into the bowl, so that after steaming you could have the nice bowl shape rice like mine.
• Sometimes it is hard to take the rice out of the bowl after steaming. Just place them up side down on the plate and let the bowl cool off slightly. Or you could try pushing the rice on one side using the back of the spoon, and gently squeeze them out.

Ingredients for the soup

• chicken bone from a whole chicken
• 2.5 liter of water
• 2 medium carrots
• 3 cloves of garlic, smashed
• half onion
• 2 stalk of spring onions, cut about 1 cm in length
• salt, sugar and white pepper to taste

Ingredients for the rice

• 700 gr of rice (not steam rice but uncooked rice), washed and drained
• 800 ml of chicken stock that you got from making the soup
• 1 tbsp of pureed garlic
• 2 1/2 tbsp of pureed ginger
• 2 tbsp of light soy sauce
• 2 tbsp of fish sauce
• 3 tbsp oil for stir frying

Ingredients for the sweet soy chicken

• 600 gr chicken fillets, preferably chicken thigh fillets, cut into cubes
• 8 dried shitake mushrooms, soak in warm water until soften, cut off the middle hard bit, and minced
• half onion
• 2 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 2 cloves of shallot, sliced
• 2 tbsp of pureed ginger
• about 2 tbsp of mushroom soy sauce, or normal soy sauce
• 1/3 cups sweet soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 tsp of white pepper
• salt and sugar to taste
• oil for stir frying

Preparation time (duration): 60

Culinary tradition: Indonesian, Chinese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Anyway before you start, I have few tips of my own:

• I almost ruined the dinner by not reading the recipe properly. I doubted my self for a while looking at 1 cup of salt as House Seasoning to mix to the chicken pieces. Instead I put 3 tsp of salt and it was so salty (I test fried them) that I had to cut another whole chicken in the fridge (Thank God I had another whole chicken stored, but it was for Hainanese Chicken). So my point is to read to your recipe properly (*-*)
• Try to trim the fat as much as you could, so you will feel less guilty. I think it tastes much better.
• Mix 2 eggs first with the hot sauce, ans add another one if you really need it. As I only needs 4 eggs for 2 whole chickens.
• Same as the eggs, just use your flour half the recommended portion and add more if you need more.
• If you have the leftover chickens and they went cold, heat them again in the oven. All of the oil came from chicken fats and oils will be released and your chicken will taste crunchy and crispy again, with less fat of course.

Ingredients

• a whole free range chicken (about 1.5 – 2 kg), cut into pieces
• 3 eggs (I used 2 eggs)
• 1/3 cup water (I use 1/4 cup water)
• 1 cup hot red pepper sauce, recommended Texas Pete (I used 2 tbsp Tobasco)
• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1 tsp pepper
• House seasoning (1 cup of salt, 1/4 cup of garlic powder, 1/4 of black pepper) (instead of this I use 1 tbsp of pureed garlic, 2 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of fresh crack black pepper)
  
• oil for deep frying, preferably peanut oil (I used Canola Oil)
  

My husband ordered me this great book from Amazon called “Baking: From My Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan that I have been longing to have. When a delivery guy ringed me through my unit phone telling that he was downstairs, I just rushed through the lift carrying my 2 years old toddler. I was so excited receiving this book that I can’t wait to try her recipe. This banana cake is one of her great collection that she got from her friend Ellen Einstein who owns Sweet Sixteenth Bakery in Nashville.

Anyway, my tips before you bake this banana cake are:

• Wait until the bananas are very ripe. When they are ripe, store them in the refrigerator until their skins are blackened. I know it is disgusting to see the blackened banana’s skins, but to tell you the truth, the banana cake taste even better and sweeter. Because they are sweeter, I don’t need to use so much sugar. If you are following my sugar quantity, just keep in mind though that I don’t have a sweet tooth, so you might add more from my recommendation (the one highlighted in red).
• If the top of the cake browns too quickly, place an aluminium foil on top of the cake.

This is how my banana cake looks like straight from the oven. Why the top cracks? I have no idea. But it tastes so goooooood and fluffy and yummy. I never taste the banana cake this good. This is definitely a winner recipe of banana cake for me.

I had some left over batter that I turned into muffins. I added some dark choc chips to the batter before baking them. For me, they are too sweet. Next time, I will decrease the amount of sugar if I want to turn them into choc chip muffins.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from “Baking: From My Homes to Yours by Dorie Greenspan”

• 3 cups plain flour
• 2 tsp basing soda
• 1/2 tsp salt (I didn’t use this)
• 226 gr unsalted butter, at room temperature (I use reduced salt butter)
• 2 cups sugar (I use 1 1/3 cup sugar)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, preferably at room temperature (I use 3 eggs of 700 gr pack)
• about 4 very ripe bananas or 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 cups, mashed (my 4 ripe bananas was 2 1/3 cups)
• 1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt (I use Jalna berry yogurt)

Preparation time (duration): 45

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I bumped into Jamie Oliver recipe few days ago, and decided to give it a go since he have so many great reviews. To find out the recipes, click here.

These are few things that I did, I hope they are helping:

• When he says rub a generous amount of salt all over the chicken, in and out. He really means GENEROUS amount. I don’t think my amount is generous enough as I couldn’t really taste the saltiness. I should just rub the sea salt all over its body instead of cracking the sea salt over the chicken.
• I didn’t leave the chicken long enough in the fridge so I guess they are not really marinated with the salt and the salt is not absorbed thoroughly into the meat. I only left them in the fridge for about 30 minutes, because I was waiting for my brother coming back from buying lemon.
• The recipe states that the potatoes skin has to be peeled. I didn’t peel the potato skin because I was worried that boiling them for 12 minutes would make them well done and thus turn them into mash potato. However today (few days after I made them), I find out that you actually have to peel the potato skin and boil them for about 5 minutes (not 12 minutes, or probably it is depend of what potatoes you are using).
• My steam potatoes couldn’t get chuffed up and fluffy when they were toasted on the pan, and they didn’t turn crispy when roasted. I probably really need to peel those skin
• I tossed butternut pumpkin in the pan with some fresh crack sea salt and olive oil for about 10 minutes. Then I placed them together with potatoes in the roasting pan (the last 45 minutes of cooking process).
• A handful of thyme was a bit too much for me. The smell of the herb was so strong that I felt like smelling a menthol balm.
• The roasted garlic was so good.
• The overall recipe is great and easy to follow.

So, here are some pictures of my roasted chicken fresh from the oven. The above picture was taken using a table lamp, and the below picture was simply on the manual mode. They should look better when are taken on daytime, but what can I say it was our dinner.

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Tempe is now widely available in groceries stores like Coles and Woolworths. They are great for vegetarian as they are high in protein. However, I am using the plain natural tempe product bought in Asian/Indonesian groceries, as the types of tempe sold in Coles and Woolworths has been either marinated or flavoured. Or at least I think they are, as they have a black brownish fluid on them. To find out more about tempe, click here.

Few tips before you start cooking them:

• Make sure to slice the tempe thinly and deep fried them until crispy. Mine was a bit to thick because I was worried that they would be too fragile to be handle.
• When cooking the chilli mixture, watch the bubbles appeared on the oil, when they start to decrease and almost stop bubbling, then it is time to put salt, vinegar, tomato sauce. According to my mom, it will decrease the spiciness of the chilli as Indonesian chillies are really hit. Once you put the sugar in, you have to work quickly as the sugar will burned off and made the chilli mixture darken in colour.
• Store them in an airtight container to retain freshness, in case you have any leftover.

Ingredients

• 300 gr tempe, sliced thinly and deep fried
• 2 tbsp of pureed chilli
• 1/2 tbsp of pureed garlic
• 2 lime leaves
• 1 tbsp of tomato sauce
• white vinegar to taste
• salt and sugar to taste
• oil for stir frying

I was researching for so many cupcakes decorations and alternatives. I was thinking of making elmo’s and cookie monster’s cupcake. However, I am afraid that the frosting would taste so chemically because of excessive using of food coloring. So I decided to make butterfly decoration instead. Actually it is easier to use royal icing in making those butterflies, but I try to make my cupcake kid’s friendly, that was the reason why I use dark chocolate and white chocolate tinted pink.

I found so many difficulty in making these butterflies:

• The antennas are completely useless. They were too fragile despite of sticking them together by using melted chocolate. It is better off to draw the antennas using melted chocolate after you finish combining both of butterfly wings. However, drawing the antennas mean that you don’t get the three dimensional effect. Oh well… nobody noticed the antennas in the party
• The white chocolate is really hard to work with. They need to be stirred all the time and you can’t left them or do it in the microwave like the dark chocolate. When they are melted and combined together with the coloring, do not over mix them or otherwise the white chocolate will be ruined and too thick to work with.
• The white chocolate doesn’t seem to be harden at the room temperature, so I need to put them in the freezer for 5 minutes or so. However, you need to work quickly as they are fragile and prone to heat.

Next time, I will just do all of the butterflies wings with the dark chocolate and add some dots as the pattern on the wings.

Ingredients for Orange Cupcakes

Recipe adapted from http://iheartcuppycakes.com/2009/09/20/orange-creamsicle-cupcakes/

• 2 cups AP flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup thickened cream
• 1 tbsp orange zest + 1/4 cup fresh orange juice
• 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 114 gr unsalted butter, room temp
• 1 cup caster sugar (I use 150 gr of normal white sugar)
• 2 vanilla beans, scraped (I didn’t use this)
• 2 large eggs

Ingredients for Lemon Cello Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

Recipe adapted from http://www.mytartelette.com/2009/07/recipe-meyer-lemon-limoncello-cupcakes.html

• 60 gr unsalted butter, at room temperature (I use reduced salt butter)
• 120 gr cream cheese, at room temperature (I use
  
• 1 tbsp lemon cello (I used 1/2 tbsp orange essence)
• 1 cup icing sugar (I used 1/3 cup )
  

Preparation time (duration): 45

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

You could add grated vegetable like carrot or zucchini in the mince mixture or some chopped mushrooms is great as well for those extra flavor.  I don’t have all those ingredients handy in my fridge, so I mix everything I had.

My little tips to retain your burger patties shape are:

• Try to squeeze the mince mixture gently while shaping them. Patting both sides with palm of your hands could help as well.
• Refrigerate the burger patties in the fridge for at least half an hour before cooking them, so that they could sit for a while.
• When cooking the patties, do not do so many toss and turn. Let them cook at least 5 minutes on each sides. When they are more sturdy, you could then turning them on the other side.
• When making a thicker burger patties like mine, just keep in mind that the inside of the patties might still be medium rare. You could bake them in the oven for a while to make sure it is well done.

Ingredients

• 250 gr lean beef mince
• 1 small onion, mince
• 1 garlic clove, mince
• 1 shallot, mince
• 1/4 cup of egg whites or egg
• bread crumbs from 1 piece of bread
• salt and pepper to taste
• olive oil for stir frying
• 2 pieces of toasted wholemeal bread
• salads (cucumber, lettuce, tomato)
• sauces (mustard, tomato sauce and chili sauce)

The only thing that I could remember is how to make a dressed up strawberry. Here’s how:

• Wash the strawberries and patted dry with paper towel.
• Melt the white chocolate and dark chocolate separately. Fill saucepan with water and let it simmers. Using a bowl that could fit snuggly in a saucepan (make sure that the water doesn’t reach the bowl), stir in chocolate buttons or chopped chocolate chunks. Stir it using metal spoon. Avoid wooden or plastic spoons – these retain moisture that makes chocolate seize (harden).
• Dip the strawberries into white chocolate and set aside to cool. Sometimes it is hard to cool and dry the white chocolate. You could place them in the freezer for 1-2 minutes until they hardened.
• Then dip strawberries sideways diagonally on both sides until you achieved like so in the pictures.
• Using a toothpick, draw a bow and buttons on them.

Because of the copyright infringement thing, I am afraid I could not post the recipe in my blog, however you could get the recipe from here. There are lots of tips and feed backs that could help you. Good Luck !

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!

If you notice the way I double coat the chicken in flour and egg, it is just the way I prefer them to be. However you could just do them once each. There was a story though behind all the double coated and double dipped. I and my mum were running the catering business before. In order to get more chicken katsu pieces, we double coated and double dipped everything, so that the chicken katsu also looks thicker in appearance ;p It was all “business trick”. However, the habit still lives on.

Ingredients

• Pair of chicken breast
• egg or egg white, whipped
• plain flour
• bread crumbs
• salt and black pepper
• oil for deep frying