Sugar free carrot cake

My friend Bee, is coming for a meeting  in Ipoh, she called and informed me that she will visit me after the meeting.  Bee, is a diabetic for more then 30 years, inherited from her mother since her teenage time.  Pity her. She really missed out a lot of food like deserts and cakes. Fortunately, there are sugar free cakes and deserts for the diabetics.  I have been serving the Internet for the last few days for sugar-free recipe so to bake cakes for her. Finally I settled down by mix and match from a few recipes for a sugar-free carrot cake.

the ingredients

1 1/2 cups grated carrots
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup sunflower oil
1/2 tsp lemon rind
2/3 cup juice and pulp of lemon
3/4 cups raisins(soaked, retain 1/4 cup soak water)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/3 cup chopped walnuts.

Soak raisins in water for at least 30 minutes before stating to work.  Save 1/4 cup soaking water.  Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.  Use electric blender to blend the soaked raisins with the 1/4 of retained water to form a paste.

Combine carrots, vanilla essence, oil, lemon juice and rind in a mixing bowl and stir well.  Add in all the dry ingredients, mix well.  Lastly fold in the chopped walnuts.

Pour the batter into oiled muffin tins or cake pan.  Bake at 180 degree C for 25 minutes for muffins or 45 minutes for cake.  Test with a cake tester or toothpick - it will come out clean when the cake is done.

Bee  came in just in time for tea at 5pm.  She had 2 in 1 coffee with this sugar-free carrot muffin.  She suggested  to reduce the raisins but add more walnuts. The raisins are quite or too sweet for her.  I will improve on that for the future baking of this carrot cake.

Bitter guard soup

I was in the wet market this morning.  Overheard 2 ladies sharing their ingredients and methods of cooking soups.  I was curious when they were mentioning about cooking bitter guard soup.  I was wondering how to cook soup with such a bitter melon. I joined them to know more about this soup and wanted to try cooking it.  They were so generous that they shared with me the ingredients for boiling the soup. There are 2 main types of bitter guard in our market, the normal and the small very bitter bitter guards.

Many has turned bitter guard into capsules and tea bags dueto the medicinal use.  In fact, many Chinese has been using this melons as remedy for reducing high blood pressure and diabetic.

The ingredients for the soup

300 g bitter guard
4 medium tomatoes
150 g char choi(sichuan pickle)
300 g port or chicken
4 pieces of to fu
8 bowls of water.

Soak the char choi for at least for 1 hour.  Wash and sliced.  Wash and scald the meat for 5 minuted. Rinse and drained. Cut the tomatoes into quarters. Remove the seeds of the bitter guard.  Cut into 4 cm slices.

Boil the water in a soup pot. Put in all the ingredients except the to fu.  Simmer for about 1 hour in low fire. Need not add any salt because the soup get the taste of salt from the char choi. Off the fire then put in the to fu. Serve hot with rice.

Bitter guard soup garnish with chopped spring onion and parsley

Surprisingly there is no taste of bitterness in the soup but sweet from the meat, a little of sour taste from the tomatoes, and a special taste of (kam kam).  My husband like this new soup very much and me too.

Spaghetti

It has been more then ten years since I last cook spaghetti. I can't recall when did I last cook this dish for my family. When I went for shopping yesterday, walked pass the noodle and spaghetti section, picked up a packet of angle hair spaghetti. According to my friend, this type of spaghetti cook very fast like cooking normal noodles.  Picked up a can of tomato paste and some fresh tomatoes and was ready to cook the spaghetti sauce.  Here are the ingredients that I used for my spaghetti.

the ingredients

3 cups diced tomatoes
1/2 packet of the spaghetti
1 can 250 g tomato paste
2 tbsp of cooking oil
basil
oregano
1 chopped onion
3 pips of chopped garlic
300 g chicken breast
salt to taste
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp corn flour
1 tbsp light soy sauce
shredded carrot and cucumber

Wash and clean the tomatoes.  In a sauce pot, boil enough water so to boil the tomatoes for about  minutes. Remove the tomatoes and put into a basin of ice cold water, this helps to remove the skin of tomatoes easily.

Meanwhile, clean the chicken breast, sliced and minced.  Season with the pepper, corn flour and light soy sauce.  Set aside.

Peel off all the skins of the tomatoes and diced . In a sauce pot, heat up the oil and fry the onion until fragrant.  Add in the diced tomatoes, basil and oregano and stir mix well.  Let simmer for about 1 hour in low fire.  Keep stirring in between the cooking time.  After an hour of cooking, add in the tomato sauce, salt and sugar. Stir well.

In a frying pan, heat up a tbsp of oil, fry the garlic until fragrant, briefly stir in the seasoned chicken breast for about 2 minutes.  Remove and pour into the spaghetti sauce. Cook for another 2 minutes.

Chicken breast spaghetti sauce

In another pot , boil enough water with a tsp of salt and oil .  Put in the spaghetti when the water is boiled. Cook for about 5 minutes or until is soft enough, drained.

Serve hot with shredded carrots and cucumbers.

Looks good and taste good too.  Not bad though it has been a long time.

Salted egg fry prawns

I remembered the 1 kg of big prawns that I bought from Pantai Remis that have been deep free zed with some sugar water(to keep fresh).  Today to steam or what??  Most of the time I like to steam as long as the prawns are still fresh.  Anyway I like to try other way of cooking .  I will try to stir fry the prawns with salted egg yolks. 

the ingredients
500g prawns
2 salted eggs
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tbsp corn flour
30 g butter
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp chopped garlic
1 tsp chopped red chili

seasoning
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp light soy sauce
3 tbsp chicken stock/water

Trim the legs and the sharp parts and clean the intestine of the prawns, drained. Season with the pepper.  Meanwhile boil the salted eggs.  Lightly smash the egg yolks when the eggs were cooked.

Heat enough oil  in a wok. Sprinkle corn flour over the prawns and deep fry for about 30 seconds.  Remove from the wok and drain.

The prawns after quick deep frying

Heat butter and oil in a wok. Add in the chopped garlic and chopped chili and fry until fragrant. Blend in the smashed salted egg yolks and prawns.  Add in the seasoning and toss briefly until prawns are cooked through.  Remove and garnish with chopped spring onion.  Serve hot.

Mmmm, look good, and taste good too. I like the salted egg yolks that stick to the shell of the prawns.  Its really finger licking good .

Chicken herbal soup

With the chicken stock, I add in a packet of Chinese herbal, and bought a black chicken to add in the stock.

the ingredients
8 bowls of chicken stock(add water if there is not enough of stock)
1 whole black chicken(chopped into 4 pieces)
1 packet of Chinese herb for soup
salt to taste

All the contents of the packet of the herbal for the soup

Wash the herbs and put into the boiling chicken stock.   Turn to low fire to cook for half an hour.

Remove the skin of the chicken and scald in hot water for about 1 minute.  Wash and drain.  Put into the herbal soup and simmer for an hour.  Add in salt to taste.

This is the ginseng herbal soup.  It has the taste of ginseng and the sweetness of the chicken stock.

Chicken Rice

Last weekend my old time classmate, Cheah Ngah Mooi came and visit me from Teluk Intan , she brought me a real kampong chicken. Now aday is quit difficult to buy this type of chicken unless we go into villages to look for them.  Those so called kampong chicken in the markets were from chicken farms that were kept in the cages or long chicken house.  They were not allow to roam around unlike the kampong chickens, they were free to run and chasing around among their friends.  Thus, their meat were really though and sweet compare with those in the farms.

This is the well cleaned kampong male chicken

I will turn this chicken into (pak cham kai) and the chicken  stock to cook chicken rice and herbal soup.

ingredients

for the chicken

1 whole chicken

enough water for boiling

1 thumb sized piece of young ginger(crushed)

5 cloves garlic(peeled and crushed)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp light soy sauce

for the rice

2 cups of rice,washed and drained

2 tbsp of butter

2 cm piece of young ginger, (crushed)

2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

salt to taste

3 pandan leaves

2 stalk of lemon grass

3 cups of chicken stock

for chili garlic sauce

8 fresh red chili

2 cm piece of young ginger

5 cloves of garlic

dash of salt

juice of 3 calamansi limes

3 tbsp of chicken stock

In a deep pot, boil the water with the ginger, garlic and salt, put in the chicken and cook for about 15 minutes in medium fire without the cover. Change the position of the chicken in between the cooking time . Turn off the fire and put on the cover of the pot and let the chicken cook in the hot water for 20 to 25 minutes.. Remember to change the position of the chicken again.

Use chopsticks to poke into the tight area of the chicken, the chicken is cooked when there is no more blood flow out from it.  With the help of the chopsticks, poke under the wings area and put the chicken into a cold basin of water for cold bath for 10 minutes.

The chicken is having a cold spa after the hot water bath

The next step is to hang the chicken dry by the strings under the wings.

Brush the mixture of light soy sauce and sesame oil on the whole of the chicken and let dry.

Next is to prepare the rice.  In a wok, heat up the butter, fry the ginger and garlic until fragrant.  Put in the rice and stir fry for 2 minutes.  Transfer all into electric rice cooker.  Pour in the chicken stalk, salt, the pandan leaves and lemon grass and cook the rice.

While waiting for the rice to be cooked and the chicken to be dried, I prepare my chili garlic sauce for dipping.

By using the blender to blend all the ingredients , the chili sauce is ready in just minutes.

The rice is cooked.  Once open the rice pot cover, the aroma of both of the pandan leaves and lemon grass was so pleasant.

Chop the chicken into serving sizes, decorate with some cucumber slices and garnish with spring onion and coriander.

Chocolate banana cake

I was looking at my old photo albums and recalled that my children like to buy chocolate banana cake from the Secrete Recipe for my birthday.  Looking at those pictures made me yearn to have the taste of the cake. So, I decided to give it a try to satisfy my taste bud.  Finally I found a recipe by Amy Heng and

the ingredients are

for  chocolate chiffon cake
A; 30g cocoa powder (mixed with 120ml water)
4 egg yolks
100 caster sugar
130g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sodium bicarbonate
60ml corn oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
B; 4 egg whites
60 g caster sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

for cake filling
500ml chocolate whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
11/2 tbsp instant coffee(mixed with 1 tbsp hot water)
1 tbsp gelatin(dissolved in 40ml water)
6 ripen bananas(sliced)

for chocolate frosting
140ml UHT whipping cream
350g cooking chocolate
1 tbsp butter

I used only half of the ingredients so to bake a smaller cake.  Hand whisk and mix well ingredients (A).
Whisk the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar until stiff.  Fold in  (A) into (B). Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes at 180 degrees C.

Just baked chocolate chiffon cake

Invert the cake and let cool completely before cutting into 3 layers by cake cutter.

The 3 layers of the chocolate chiffon cake

For the cake filling, whisk the chocolate whipping cream until stiff.  Add in vanilla essence, then coffee mixture and finally the gelatin mixture.  I was so involved in the making and spreading of the filling that forgotten to snap the pictures of the whole  process from the 1st layer to the top of cake. When completed with the filling, leave in the fridge to set.

While waiting for the cake to be set, I then prepare the chocolate frosting.  Heat the whipping cream in double-boiler and add in chocolate and butter. Stir until chocolate has melted.  Leave to cool slightly before pouring on top of the cake.

Making of the chocolate frosting.

Pour the frosting over the cake. I decorated the cake with some lightly toasted walnut. Refrigerate until set.

Mmm.......I like it but not as good as those from The Secrete Recipe.