Banana Cake

When I went to a supermarket nearby my house, I saw some good-looking bananas were sold at very cheap price. 1 bundle of plastic, contained around 5-10 sticks was only 50 cents. It is a norm here that when the bananas turn so ripe and the skin darkening, the price would be reduced but actually the rate of the darkening wasn't so bad, it is not so soft. You can still eat it raw.

So I took 1 big bundle and used them to make banana cake. I found one recipe from my.resepi and it turned out quite ok. It's very easy to make and the kids love it so much.

The recipe:

Ingredients:

4 medium-sized bananas (mashed)
3 medium-sized eggs
1 3/4 cup self-rising flour (I couldn't find this so I mixed the all-purpose flour with 1 teaspoon of baking powder)
1/4 cup corn flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil (any cooking oil would do)
1 teaspoon soda bicarbonate
1 pinch of salt

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170C. Butter the baking pan.

1. Beat the egg and sugar with electric mixer until thick.
2. Add mashed banana and mix well.
3. Add flour (together with baking powder and soda bicarbonate) and mix well.
4. Add oil and mix well.
5. Put the batter into baking pan.
6. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Check by inserting toothpick, if it comes out clean, then the cake is completely baked.

Cool down the cake before remove it out of baking pan.

Tom Kha Gai (Chicken in coconut soup)

This is a Thai recipe. I didn't know how it taste before but when I browsed through other cooking blogs, many have recommended this recipe. And since I always cook chicken as the main side dish, it's good to know variety.

It's very simple to cook this and it tastes great! Even my fussy husband likes it. Here is the recipe:

From: Shiokfood

Good quality Chinese chicken stock - 1 cup ( I substituted with 1 chicken cube)
Coconut milk - 1 cup
Fresh or frozen lemongrass - 1/2 a stalk
Galangal - fresh - 6 slices
Kaffir Lime Leaves - 2 (hand-torn)
Thai bird's eye chillies
Fish sauce - 1 tbsp (The saltiness can vary a lot across brands, so start with less always.)
Lime juice - 2 tbsp ( I used lemon instead)
Sugar - 1/2 tsp
Coriander leaves - 2 tbsp
Boneless chicken breast - 50 gm (chopped)
Straw mushrooms (or regular button mushrooms) - 4 (sliced) ( I didn't put this)

Method:

For the lemongrass, use only the bottom white part (about 6 inches) and discard the woody grass part of it. With the flat side of a cleaver or a heavy object, pound and bruise the lemongrass so it releases the flavour. Cut into 2 inch segments.
Put the stock into a pot and bring to a boil. Toss the galangal, lemongrass, sugar, and lime leaves in. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Add the coconut milk, chillies, fish sauce and simmer for another 5 minutes.
Finally, add the chicken and mushrooms and cook till the chicken is just cooked. The moment you see it turning all white on the outside, it's 90% done.

Chocolate Strawberries

It's spring now and a lot of fruits that hardly available during winter now are widely sold at groceries stores and supermarkets. One of them, strawberry!

Not only they are cheap (500gram range between EU0.99 to EU1.99), they are sweet and fresh. Most of the time we just eat them raw and plain or I add into my morning cereal. Then suddenly I remember the Chocolate Strawberries which became so famous back in Malaysia when Malaysia's famour singer, Datuk Siti Nurhaliza shared her love story how this chocolate strawberries made her fall in love with her husband. I heard after that, people started selling and buying chocolate strawberries like hot cake! Well, I never bought....

So now since strawberries are easily available, why not making the strawberries coated chocolate myself?

It's very easy to make. All you need; strawberries as much as you want- don't remove the leaves, a bar of cooking chocolate and some vegetable shortening or butter. Melt the chocolate and vegetable shortening in double-boiling method. Once the chocolate melt, remove it from the heat and dip each strawberry into the chocolate. It would be easier if you use tooth pick to hold the strawberry (I didn't have tooth pick). Then hold the strawberry by making the tooth inserted onto strayfoam (or anything equivalent) to let the chocolate harden.

Taraa!!! It's ready!

Asam Pedas Ikan Merah

In my place, fresh seafoods are scarce and expensive. There are frozen seafood sold at Asia Shop at reasonable price but I try to reduce eating the frozen seafood because I read somewhere the amount of chemical used for frozen items could be hazardous to one's health. Unless I'm so craving to eat seafood, would I buy these frozen stuff.

Few days ago I went to Morocco's groceries shop and saw some fresh seafood to be sold. I saw these red fish and thought how nice to cook asam pedas using this fish. I'm very sure whether this fish is exactly the red fish I know in Malaysia but I just thought 'why not give it a try?'

The cost for these two red fishes is EU5.00 which was ok! I wanted to buy more but since I wasn't sure how did it taste, I just made do with two first.

So, here is my asam pedas ikan merah with tomatoes and lady fingers. Yummy!!!! The fish tasted so delicious and I'm hoping I can find this fish again at the Morocco's groceries shop.

My recipe for asam pedas:

Ingredients:

1 big onion*
3 cloves garlic*
1 inch ginger*
Some belacan (shrimp paste)*
2-3 tablespoons blended dried chilies ( I used sambal oelek)
2 red fish - clean and cut into two (depends on the size of the fish, if one small fish is used, then you don’t have to cut it)
1 small bowl tamarind juice
1 stack daun kesum (Vietnamese coriander)
5-6 lady fingers ( add more if you like)
2 tomatoes (cut into four)
Salt
Cooking oil
* To be blended with some water

Methods:

1. Heat up cooking oil. Add the blended onion, garlic and ginger.
2. Add chilies/sambal oelek. Cook until the chilies turn a little dark.
3. Add tamarind juice and some water.
4. Add daun kesum.
5. When the gravy has boiled, add lady fingers and fish. Leave it and stir occasionally.
6. Add salt to your taste
7. Add tomatoes and cook a little while

Ready to serve with white rice.

Brownies Cupcake

Oh, again the first-time attempt! Making brownies cum cupcake....whatever. I got this recipe from Wilton website. After browsing through all the cupcake recipes, I decided to try this one cause it is simpler and I have all the ingredients needed.

The problem is, after baking, the tops were cracked. Why? Any comment?

Anyway the recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 squares unsweetened chocolate chopped
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter cut into pieces
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs lightly beaten
2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract
2 cups pecans chopped (optional)
Makes: Each cupcake serves 1. Makes about 20 standard cupcakes or 4 Mini Tasty-Fill cakes.

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Line standard muffin pan with baking cups.
In medium bowl, combine flour and salt.
In small heavy saucepan or microwave-safe bowl, melt butter and chocolate; stir until blended.
In large bowl, combine chocolate mixture with sugar; mix well.
Whisk in eggs and vanilla.
Add flour mixture to chocolate mixture; mix until blended.
If desired, stir in nuts.
Distribute brownie mixture evenly into baking cups.
Bake 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Cool cupcakes in pan on cooling rack for 5-8 minutes.
Remove cupcakes from pan; cool completely.
Any of our cupcake recipes may be prepared in our Mini Tasty-Fill pans. Spray pans with vegetable pan spray, then fill each with about 1/2 cup batter. Place pans on cookie sheet and bake 14-16 minutes. Cool in pan on cooling grid for about 8 minutes; remove from pan and cool completely before filling and icing.

Burger Malaysia

My friend, Liza is expecting and one of the food she craved for is this Malaysia's delicacies: Burger Malaysia. Instead of beef or chicken fillings, it has the anchovies chilies and sclice of cucumber. So I made for her.


Here is the recipe:


Sumber: E-Book "100 Resepi Kuih-kuih Malaysia"


For anchovies chili filling:

2 tbs cooking oil
Blend together1 big onion
2 cloves garlic -
Some belacan (shrimp paste)
10 dried chilies (boiled and blended) – I substituted with 2 tbs sambal oelek
½ cup dried anchovies – deep fried
2 tbs brown sugar
½ cup tamarind juice
1 tsp salt

For dough:

250g wheat flour
120ml water
2 tbs margarine – I used butter
2 ½ tbs fine sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tsp dried yeast

Cucumber – slice into thin pieces
Cooking oil for deep frying

Method:

For anchovies chili:

1. Heat cooking oil, fry in the blended onion, garlic and shrimp paste
2. Add blended chili and cook well.
3. Add brown sugar and tamarind juice and salt. Adjust the amount to your taste.
4. Add anchovies. Mix well with the chili.
5. Turn off the heat and set aside.

For dough:

1. Put Ing. 1 – 6 into large bowl. Knead the mixture until it turns out to dough (no longer sticky). Make big round dough. Leave the dough to expand twice the original size.
2. Punch the dough and then divide the big dough into several small round dough (I made 15). Again, leave the dough to expand twice.
3. Heat the cooking oil for deep frying (medium heat)
4. Fry the dough until golden brown. Toss.
5. Cut the dough in the middle to allow some space to put the filling (pocket).
6. Put one sliced cucumber and anchovies chili in the pocket.

Ready to serve.

Ayam Harum Thai ( Fragrant Chicken Thai)

I got this recipe from my friend's blog, Liza. It's another way to cook using tomyam paste because for me tomyam paste is always meant for tomyam soup. It's good to know the variety. So here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

Ingredients A - all ingredients to be sliced thinly

• 1 big onio
  
• 4 garlics


• 1 inch ginger
  

Ingredients B - to be mixed well to make a paste

• 2 tablespoon chili sauce


• 1 tablespoon tomato sauce
  
• 2 tablespoon tomyam paste


• 2 tablespoon light soy sauce


• 2 tablespoon sweet soy sauce


• Lime juice taken from 1 lime ( I substituted with lemon juice)
  

Ingredient C

• 1/2 chicken - cut into small pieces


• 2 lemongrass stalks - punch a bit


• 4 pieces of kaffir leaves ( daun limau purut)


• 1 capsicum - cut into several pieces


• celery leaves - for garnishing
  

Methods:

1. Heat up some cooking oil in the pan. Put Ing. A and cook until fragrant.


2. Add in Ing.B. Cook until fragrant.


3. Add chickens, lemongrass and kaffir leaves. Cook well.


4. Garnish with celery leaves.