Chili Sauce

Today I am very excited to share a special chili sauce.  I never like to dip in any sauce or chili sauce whenever I eat anything like fry chicken  and other fry foods,  I do not like to dip in any tomato or chili sauce when I see most of my friends do while eating fast food especially the French fries.

The recipe of this chili sauce is from my new friend, Yoke Yin.  I tried the chili sauce in her house last 2 weeks, oh.... not hot,  not very  sweet but fragrant and a little sour, very nice and special. I like it  and I hope you guys will like this sauce too.

The ingredients are,

!0 red chili with the stalk,
15 musk lime (limau kasturi)  juice,
1 stalk of lemon grass,
1 stalk of wild ginger bud,
3 tbsp. of sugar,
2 tbsp. of oyster sauce,

put all the ingredients into fast speed blender, my blender will blend for 1 minute.

the end result of the blended chili sauce.

I will bring the chili sauce to a boil, let cool completely then store in bottles in the freeze, this can last for a longer time.  This chili sauce is very good for any food dip, and can just pour some of the sauce on the fish for steaming as well.

Whole Meal Dinner Rolls

Looking for whole meal dinner rolls to go with pumpkin soup.  Finally found 1 recipe from the web that is simple and easy to make dinner rolls.

Here are the ingredients,

1 cup of water plus 2 more tbsp. of water,
1 large egg,
1/4 cup of sugar,
1 tsp. salt,
2 tbsp. shortening,
2 cups whole meal flour,
11/3 cups all purpose flour,
1 tsp. dry yeast.

It is very easy for me as I am using bread maker to make this bread.  I just have to put all the ingredients starting from the liquid to dry ingredients in the inner pot and press the start button.  the machine will mix, knead and proof the whole process, it will takes 1.30 hour.

Well, those who do not have the machine can also make the rolls by traditional way, that is by hand.
Put all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.  Make a well in the centre, beat in the egg, pour in the water gradually.  Using hands to mix the wet and dry ingredients well, add in the shortening and start kneading for 10 to 15 minutes.  Cover with a piece of cloth and let it proof for about 40 minutes or double in size.

 

my dough has been proofed in the bread maker.

 

 

divide the dough into half

 

then into 4, then at last shape into 12 small balls.  Place the rolls on the greased baking sheet.

Brush with beaten egg, sprinkle with some toasted black sesame seeds(optional) .  Let proof for another 40 minutes or when the balls has become double in size.

 

 

bake in preheated over of 170 degree C for 15 minutes.

Woh...can smell the aromatic smell of bread after about 10 minutes of baking,

 

my dinner rolls are ready in 15 minutes, look so pretty, so soft and nice.  Will share the pumpkin soup recipe tomorrow.

 

 

Old Cucumber with pork ribs soup

This is a very cooling and nourishing soup that my mom used to prepare for the whole family.


the ingredients are,

1 -1 kg old cucumber,
300g pork ribs,
7 red dates,
1- 3 dried sotong,
6 small dried mushrooms(optional),

 

wash the pork rips and par-boil

 

 

 

 

 wash the old cucumber and scrape the skin off, cut into half, discard the seeds and cut into smaller pieces.

soak the dried sotong, red dated and dried mushrooms for about 20 minutes.  wash and set aside.

Boil 1 litre of water in a pot.  Put in all the ingredients .  Slow down the fire when all the ingredients in the pot is boiled.  simmer for about 1 to 11/2 hour.  I usually  will pour into slow cooker after boiling in a soup pot and let slow cook for 4 hours.  Slow cook can slowly simmer out fragrant and the flavour of all the ingredients.  I normally do not add any salt into to soup, we prefer the original taste of the soup.  Garnish with chopped spring onions or coriander.  Serve hot.

 

 

Tamarind Sauce with fried fish

What to cook for dinner tonight?  Check my freezer, there are about 500 grams of fish cutlets.  I have been baking or grill fish for sometimes, today I will like to fry the fish and prepare a sauce over it.  Well, I will prepare tamarind sauce for the fish.

Defrost the fish, season with some salt and set aside.

The ingredients for the sauce.

2 -3 tbsp. chopped garlic,
2-3 tbsp. chopped shallots,
5 small chillies - cut
some fresh basil ,
3 tbsp. sugar,
3 tbsp. fish sauce,
2 tbsp. oil,
150ml tamarind juice(1 tbsp. tamarind pulp)

Fry the fish until light brown. Remove from the pan, leave about 2 table spoon of oil in the pan.  Fry chopped garlics and shallots until fragrant, add in the tamarind water, sugar, fish sauce and chili. .Stir and let boil for 1 minute.  Put in the basil and have a quick stir.  Scoop out the sauce and put on top of the fried fish, serve hot with rice.

Very appetizing dish.

Chocolate Chips Chiffon cake

I have been baking pandan and orange chiffon cakes for many years.  I was amazed to see this chocolate chips chiffon cake from a blog.  I wanted to try to bake this for my tea today.

The recipe called for only 3 eggs and using 7 " chiffon baking pan, I modified to 6 eggs because my baking pan is 9" in size.

The ingredients for egg yolks,

240 grams superfine flour,(sifted)
5 tbsp. caster sugar,
1 tsp salt,
1 tsp baking powder,
6 egg yolks,
8 tbsp. corn oil,
120 ml coconut milk/milk,
1 tsp vanilla,
100 grams chocolate chips.

Preheat the oven to 170 degree C. 
Put the flour in a mixing , make a well in the centre, add in the rest of the ingredients, mix well.  Add in 1/2 of the chocolate chips.  Set a side.

Ingredients for egg whites,

6 egg whites,
1/2 tsp cream of tartar,
6 tbsp. of caster sugar,
some cocoa powder(optional)

Whisk egg whites until frothy, add in cream of tartar and continue whisking when foamy. Gradually add in sugar, whisk until soft and stiff peaks formed.

Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into egg yolk mixture until well combined.  Then fold in well blended mixture into the balance of the egg whites until well cooperated.  Add in the balance chocolate chips, fold lightly.

Pour in 1/3 of the batter into the baking pan , sieve some cocoa powder over the batter(to make some lines in the cake), repeat for a second layer and the top layer.

Wow, the cake is baked, smell so good.

Just in time for my tea.  Taste so good with the chocolate chips just melted in to the cake.

Pumpkin Kaya (jam)

From the whole pumpkin that I bought from Tesco yesterday, I used only 150 g for pumpkin buns.  Now, I going to look into the recipe book from Seiketsu that I bought a super speed blender and soya maker.  Ah  hah... a recipe which is easy and simple and I think my son and my husband would be interested too.  Pumpkin kaya.

There are only 3 ingredients for this recipe,
500 gram pumpkin with skin and seeds.
130 gram of lightly toasted cashew nuts, and
80 gram of sugar.

Wash and cut the pumpkin into small slices.  Steam for 10 minutes or until cook.

 

steam with the skin and seeds intact.

 

lightly toast the cashew nut.
Put all the ingredients in my Seiketsu blender and blend for 1 minute.
Ta...tah...delicious pumpkin kaya is ready!

It taste very creamy, better then the normal egg kaya.  Good to spread on breads or  crakers, yummy yum.

Pumpkin steamed buns

Today the pumpkins are very cheap, only 0 .99 cents a kg in Tesco.  Choose a medium sized pumpkin.  Run through my recipes, cannot decide what to do other then those old recipes.  So, on the lap top and started to search for recipes that make use of pumpkin. Finally I settled down in a blog and found a steam sweet potato buns recipe. I changed sweet potato to pumpkin. This is a very simple recipe and I can find all the ingredients in my kitchen store.


The ingredients are,

100 ml water,
1 tsp yeast,
2 tbsp. water,
300g pau flour/plain flour,
150g steamed and smashed pumpkin,
20 g sugar,
1/2 tsp salt,
20 g shortening.

Mix the yeast into the water and stand for about 10 to 20 minutes.
The method is to combine pau ingredients except the shortening into yeast mixture..Knead the dough until smooth, about 10 to 15 minutes, then add in the shortening.  Continue to knead until the dough become elastic.  Cover with cloth for 15 to 20 minutes or when it becomes double the size. Instead of all this, I use my bread maker to do all the job for me,I put all the ingredients into it, it takes 11/2hour to knead and proof.

 

 

the dough after kneading and proofing in my bread maker.

Punch down the dough and divide into 4 equal parts.  Shape into balls and divide into 4 more equal parts.  Make into shapes or round balls and leave to proof for another 30 to 40 minutes.

 the dough make into 14 equal parts, and shape into small balls.

Steam for 10 minutes.  My pumpkin buns are ready to be served for tea.