Raisin & Oatmeal Cookie

Ingredient

• 200gm unsalted butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
  
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
  
• 250gm plain flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
• 3 cups oatmeal
• 1 cup raisin, chopped
  

Method

1. Sift plain flour, baking soda & cinnamon powder together. Add oatmeal & mix evenly. Set aside.
2. Using a electrical whisk, cream butter, salt & brown sugar till light & fluffy.
3. Add vanilla essence and beat in eggs at one a time till evenly mixed. Stir in raisins.
   
4. Using a spatula, fold in flour mixture till a soft batter is formed.
5. Shape roughly 1 tbsp batter into round shape and flatten into a flat disc. Place on baking sheet and bake in preheated oven at 180 deg cel for 20mins till golden brown.
6. Cool on rack completely before storing. Cookie will be soft but will harden upon cooling down.
   

橄榄菜炒饭

Simple & delicious fried rice :P minimal seasoning is added as the preserved olives is quite savory & salty

.
Ingredient

• 500gm cooked rice, preferably chilled overnite
  
• 250gm minced chicken
• 5 fresh shitake mushroom, diced
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
  
• 1 tsp light soya sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 shallots, sliced
  
• 4 tbsp preserved olives 橄榄菜
• 2 stalk spring onion, chopped
  

Method

1. Marinate minced chicken with salt, pepper, soya sauce & sesame oil for 30mins.
2. Heat 3 tbsp spoon oil in wok. Add garlic & shallots, fry till fragrant. Add minced chicken. Stir & break up the chicken pieces finely.
3. Add mushroom and mix evenly. Add 1 tbsp water. Add preserved olives and stir to mix.
4. Finally add the cold rice and stir fry on high fire till evenly mixed.
   

Miso Vege Soup

Ingredient

• 80gm burdock
• 1 tsp rice vinegar
• 110gm black konnyaku
• 200gm chicken fillet, sliced thinly
  
• 200gm daikon, peeled & sliced
• 50gm carrot, sliced
• 1 onion, sliced
• 5 shitake mushroom, sliced
• 1000ml instant dashi
• 3 tbsp miso paste
• 1 tbsp mirin

Method

1. Scrub burdock and scrap off skin with a knife. Slice thinly & soak in a pot of water with rice vinegar for 5 mins. Drain.
2. Place konnyaku in a small pot. Add some water & bring to boil for 1 min. Drain & tear konnyaku into bite sizes.
3. In a deep saucepan, add 2 tbsp oil. Stir fry onion for 1 min. Add chicken fillet & fry for 2 mins. Add burdock, carrot, konnyaku & mushroom. Stir fry for 1 min. Add stock.
   
4. Bring to boil and simmer for 10mins till vege are softened. Ladle 1 bowl of hot soup and dissovle miso paste in it. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and bring to boil again. Remove from fire. Serve.
   

Apple Sauce Cookie

Ingredient (makes 30 cookies)

• 125gm butter
• 60gm brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 230ml apple sauce
• 3/4 cup golden raisins, chopped
• 250gm plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder

Method

1. Sift flour & baking powder together.
2. Cream butter & sugar till light & fluffy. Beat in egg & apple sauce together.
3. Fold in raisins & flour. Mix till a soft batter formed. Chilled in fridge for 30mins.
4. Drop 1 tbsp spoon batter on baking sheet and bake in preheated oven at 200 deg cel for 20-25mins till golden brown.
   

Tasty Snack

An all time favourite snack, Caramelised Sweet Potato 拔丝番薯! Besides using sweet potato, yam & apple are also suitable :)

(A) Deep fry 500gm sliced sweet potatoes till golden brown. Drain well. Set aside.

(B) In a saucepan, add 1/2 cup sugar & 3 tbsp water, cook on low fire till caramelised. Add 1 tbsp golden syrup, mix evenly.

(C) Toss in sweet potatoes & coat evenly with syrup, remove from fire. Serve!

洛神花

Fresh Roselle, a plant which is rich in Vitamin C, taste slightly sweet & sour...

A thirst-quenching drink, I did not add any sweeteners as I prefer to taste is natural sweetness :)

Ingredient
* 200gm fresh roselle
* 3 liter water
* honey to taste (optional)

Method

1. Rinse roselle briefly, tear off outer layer & lightly crush buds.
2. Place (1) into a pot of water, bring to boil for 5mins. Turn off heat. Cover and leave till cool.

3. Strain away pulps and serve with ice-cubes, or chill in fridge.

Ingredient
* 10gm konnyaku powder
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 500ml fresh roselle juice
* 300ml rose wine

Method

1. Combine konnyaku powder & sugar together. Mix evenly.

2. Bring roselle juice to boil. Add konnyaku mixture gradually, stirring constantly. Stir till sugar & powder dissolves.

3. Turn off heat, stir in rose wine. Transfer jelly mixture into mould and chill till set.

Baking with Greens

A vegetable that you either like it or hate it! But I loves broccoli especially stir-frying them ^-^ Never thought broccoli can be used as an ingredient in baking cakes, happen to find out this recipe in my newly recipe book, very eager to try it out :) as usual I have reduced the sugar tremendously to suit my tastebud!

This pound cake did not fail me...hahaha...nice buttery & unique taste cos of the broccoli added!

Broccoli Pound Cake
Ingredient
* 275gm unsalted butter
* 8gm sponge gel
* 120gm icing sugar, sifted
* 3gm salt
* 5 eggs, lightly beaten (use 60gm eggs)
* 275gm cake flour
* 3gm baking powder
* 30gm milk
* 90gm broccoli, finely chopped
* 30gm dried tomatoes, finely chopped

Method

1. Sift flour & baking powder. Set aside.
2. Using a electrical whisk, cream butter for 1 min on high speed. Add sponge gel, icing sugar & salt. Beat on high for 3 mins till mixture increase in volume & turns pale white.
3. Add beaten eggs gradually until evenly combined.
4. Add sifted flour and beat till evenly mixed. Add in milk. Mixture will be creamy & fluffy.
5. Fold in broccoli & dried tomatoes.
   
6. Pour batter into a lined loaf pan and bake in preheated oven at 180 deg cel for 50-60mins. Cover lightly with foil if surface starts to brown too fast after 35-40mins. Continue to bake till skewer inserted comes out clean. Rest cake in pan for 10mins before cooling completely on rack.
   

Apricot & Almond Muffins

I really like this batch of muffin, not too sweet & texture remains soft the next day without heating them up :)

Apricot & Almond Muffins
Ingredient
* 125gm self-raising flour
* 1/2 tsp baking powder
* 1 cup oatmeal
* 1/2 cup ground almond
* 1/2 cup dried apricot, finely chopped
* 3/4 cup milk
* 1/4 cup honey
* 60gm butter, melted
* 1 egg, lightly beaten

Method

1. Sift flour & baking into a large mixing bowl. Mix in oatmeal, ground almonds & apricots. Make a well in the centre.
2. Whisk milk, honey, butter & egg together. Add to dry ingredients, mix till just combined.
3. Spoon mixutre into muffins cups 2/3 full. Bake in preheated oven at 180 deg cel for 25mins or till golden brown.

Simple Porridge

This is a simple taste porridge which I cook often :) I prefer to use orange colour flesh sweet potato than the normal yellow one.

Seafood Baked Rice

With some leftover tomato rice I've cooked yesterday, prepare this baked rice for today's lunch :) Hubby do not take prawns, so I've prepared a separate portion, with fish fillet, squid & button mushroom for him.

I find the rice is not salty enough, so I added more seasoning (salt, italian herbs, olive oil, Worcestershire sauce) to the seafood ingredient. Firstly place the seafood evenly on top of the rice and sprinkle generously amount of mozzarella cheese, follow then bake in preheated oven at 200 deg cel for 30mins till cheese is golden brown.

Ginger Chicken

Found this recipe in a recent newspaper. Indeed a hearty & flavourful dish, the fragrance fill up the whole house during the cooking process!

Ingredient

• 1 chicken, quartered
• 100gm old ginger, thickly sliced
• 4 tbsp young ginger, grated
• 8 gloves garlic, minced
• 50gm coriander leaves
  
• 100gm spring onion, cut into 5cm length
• 1 cup chinese wine
• 1 tsp salt

Method

1. Place old ginger evenly in a claypot. Place quartered chicken on top of the ginger.
2. Spread the minced garlic & ginger evenly over the chicken. Sprinkle salt over. Place the coriander leaves & spring onion over to cover the chicken pieces.
3. Drizzle the wine over, cover and cook on high heat for 20mins. Reduce heat and cook for another 1 hr till tender.
   

Rice Again...

Tomato Rice
Ingredient

• 2 cups rice, washed & drained
• 600gm ripe tomatoes
  
• 1 onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 tbsp ginger, chopped
  
• 2 green chillies, sliced
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 3 bay leaves

Method

1. Blanch tomatoes in hot water and remove skin. Blend till smooth and top up with water to get 750ml. Bring to boil and set aside.
2. Heat up 3 tbsp spoon oil in wok, saute garlic, ginger, onion & green chillies till fragrant.
3. Add rice and bay leaves, fry for 1 min. Add tomato liquid, salt & pepper, bring to boil. Transfer mixture to rice cooker and cook till done.
   

Lemon Fried Chicken
Ingredient

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 lime juice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• breadcrumbs

Method

1. Marinate chicken breasts with lime juice, salt , pepper & paprika for 30mins.
2. Drain dry the marinated chicken breast and dust lightly with plain flour, dip in beaten eggs then coat evenly with breadcrumbs.
3. Heat some oil in wok, pan-fried for 5mins each side till golden brown. Place on kitchen towels to absorb excess oil.
   

蛋包饭

Make some char siew few days back, decide to use some of it to cook fried rice. Instead of adding eggs during the cooking process, I fry a omelette for each serving and use it to wrap the cooked rice :)

How to create a 'omelette bowl'? Place a piece of omelette in a small bowl, spoon some fried rice onto the egg and press down tightly. Seal up the edges and overturn the 'egg wrapped rice' on to a serving plate. Voila....slit open the top and eat ^-^

Cherry Clafoutis

Cherry Clafoutis (pronounced kla-foo-TEE) is a traditional dessert from the Limousin region of France. Supposingly to use fresh cherries for this recipe, but tinned pitted cherries also works well.

Ingredient
* 1 cup milk
* 3 eggs
* 125gm plain flour
* 100gm fine sugar
* 1 tsp vanilla essence
* 1 tin pitted cherry, drained

Method

1. Warm up milk over low heat.
2. Whisk eggs, flour, vanilla essence & sugar together in a mixing bowl. Pour in warm milk gradually into the egg mixture and mix till smooth.
   
3. Spread cherries evenly on a baking dish, sieve the batter over the cherries.
4. Bake in preheated oven at 160 deg cel for 30-35mins till just set.

Pumpkin Egg Custard

Recently got a new recipe book featuring baking with vegetables :) Never try baking egg custard before and still have some leftover pumpkin after baking the cookies, decide to try making some pumpkin egg custard found in the recipe book. The whole process is simple & fast except that I almost burnt the caramel sugar :P It taste slightly bitter due to overcooking, but it still taste fine with the egg custard. It taste rich & 'eggy' , though pumpkin is added into the egg custard but no distinctive taste of the pumpkin.

Ingredient

• 100gm castor sugar
• 1 tbsp water
  
• 200ml milk
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 50gm castor sugar
• 3 whole eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 200ml fresh cream
• 120gm pumpkin puree

Method

1. Place sugar & water in a small saucepan. Heat over low heat till sugar dissolves. Stirring constantly till the sugar is caramelized.
2. Scoop the caramelized sugar into individual ramekins. Swirl to coat the base evenly. Set aside.
3. Warm up milk, salt & sugar over low heat till sugar dissolves. Combine eggs, cream & pumpkin puree in a mixing bowl and beat evenly. Add in milk gradually and beating at the same time to combine the mixture.
4. Strain the mixture thoroughly into another mixing bowl. Discard any pumpkin fibre after sieving thoroughly. (use a spoon to press against the siever) Set aside for 30mins.
   
5. Pour the custard into the prepared ramekins. Place ramekins in a pan of water, bake in preheated oven at 160 deg cel for 50 mins. Serve warm.
   

Pumpkin Cookies

This is my 2nd attempt on pumpkin cookie. 1st attempt is unsatisfactory though is still edible :) My son loves these cookies alot, the 1st batch is almost all gobbled down by him! After researching & making some modifications, this particular batch of cookies is definitely better than the previous one!

Besides muffin, cookie making is also another simple baking which I like to do :) Though no complicating steps, there are still a few things to note when preparing a cookie dough. To make creaming easy, I cut the butter into small cubes and bring to room temperature before beating with the sugar. After beating on medium speed for 2-3 mins, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl in between, the butter mixture will increase in volume with a light & fluffy texture. Follow then add eggs one at a time, if using more than 1 eggs, & essence, beat till evenly mix. This step only takes about less than 1 minute for each egg added.

Instead of using the beater to mix in the flour, I used a spatula to fold in the flour mixture till a dough is formed. Depending on the texture of the cookie dough, dropped cookies can be baked immediately or chill for a short while in fridge for easier shaping. As for cut-out cookie, the dough will have to be chilled till hard enough to roll & cut.

Ingredient (makes 50 cookies)

• 200gm unsalted butter
• 100gm brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon powder
• 300gm plain flour
• 1/2 cup golden raisin, chopped

Method

1. Sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon powder together. Stir in oatmeal and mix evenly. Set aside.
2. Cream butter, brown sugar & salt till light & fluffy. Add egg & vanilla essence, beat evenly.
3. Using a spatula, fold in pumpkin puree and flour mixture evenly till a soft dough is formed. Add chopped raisin to soft dough.
4. Chill dough for 1 hr till firm. Shape dough into 20gm each, flatten slightly with a fork, bake in preheated oven at 180 deg cel for 25mins till golden brown.
5. Cool completely on rack before storing in air-tight container.

Banana & Raisin Muffin

Soft & moist even after the next day :)




Ingredient

• 250gm self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 4 tbsp brown sugar
• 6 tbsp corn oil
• 6 tbsp milk
• 2 eggs
  
• 1 cup banana puree (mixed with 1 tbsp lemon juice)
• 1/2 cup raisins

Method

1. Sift flour & baking powder into a mixing bowl. Add brown sugar and mix evenly. Make a well in the centre of the bowl.
2. Whisk corn oil, milk & eggs together. Add into (1) with banana puree & raisins. Fold gently until just combined. Do not over mix.
3. Bake in preheated oven at 180 deg cel for 25mins.
   

Fried Grouper with Onion Sauce

How to ensure that the skin of the fish does not stick to the wok when frying? First make sure the wok is hot enough before adding the oil, clean and pat dry the fish as u do not want oil from splattering around! Sprinkle pinch of salt all over the fish and dust some corn flour on the fish. Slide in the fish gently into the hot oil. Do not flip the fish till one side is fried till golden brown!

Ingredient

• 1 grouper
• 1 onion, sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1 chilli, deseeded & sliced
• 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp cornstarch + 1 tbsp water

Method

1. Heat some oil in hot wok. Pan fry fish till golden brown on both sides. Remove and set aside.
2. With balance 2 tbsp of oil in wok, saute garlic & onion till fragrant. Add chilli, osyter sauce and cornstarch water, cook till thicken. Pour over fried fish.
   

Spicy Pumpkin

Ingredient

• 250gm pumpkin, cubed
• 120gm minced chicken
• 2 tbsp dried prawns
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 shallots, sliced
  
• 1 tsp light soya sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 stalk spring onion

Method

1. Marinate minced chicken with light soya sauce & sesame oil.
   
2. Soak dried prawns in water till soften. Reserve liquid and chop finely.
3. Heat 2 tbsp oil in wok. Stir fry garlic & shallots till fragrant. Add dried prawns and fry till fragrant.
4. Add minced chicken. Stir to break up the lumps. Add reserved liquid & curry powder. Stir to mix evenly. Add pumpkin, salt & sugar. Cover and simmer for 5 mins till pumpkin is tender.
5. Sprinkle over spring onion and dish up.
   

Pumpkin Sago Dessert

Ingredient

• 1500ml water
• 125g sago
• 500gm pumpkin, steamed & mashed
• 100gm sugar
• 4 pandan leaves
• 400gm evaporated milk

Method

1. Bring 500ml water to boil. Add sago & cook till almost transparent for 5mins. Drain and rinse with cold water to prevent the sago from sticking.
   
2. Boil the balance water with pandan leaves for 5mins. Add cooked sago, pumpkin, sugar & evaporated milk. Bring to boil and cook for 5mins. Remove from heat. Serve hot or cold.
   

Kueh Dadah Intih

A Malay/Nonya kueh commonly found locally. I like the 'springy' texture of this pancake which goes well with the moist coconut filling :) Yummy....

Coconut Filling Ingredient

• 230g grated white coconut
• 100g gula melaka
• 30g sugar
• 1 tbsp water
• 1 tsp corn flour
• 2 pandan leaves

Method

Boil both sugar, water and pandan leaves in a small pot until sugar has dissolved. Add in grated coconut and corn flour and cook until dry. Discard the pandan leaves and leave it to cool down. Roll them into small balls to be used later.

Pancake Batter Ingredient

• 180gm plain flour
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 360ml thin coconut milk
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp of pandan paste

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients in the mixing bowl. Stir thoroughly and mix until you get a smooth batter.
2. Heat a small non-stick pan and use a brush to lightly oil the pan. Scope a ladle full of batter into the pan. Cook the pancake over low fire and flip it over to fry the other side until it is cooked.
3. Put 1 tbsp of coconut filling on the pancake and roll it up.

Recipe from Baking's Mum