Szechuan Beef

Ingredients

• Thin-sliced beef / minced beef
• 5 clove of garlic, chopped
• Spring onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoon of Oyster sauce
• 2 tablespoon of home made Szechuan chilli oil
• Capsicum
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoon of corn starch

Cooking methods

1. Dip thin-sliced beef one by one into egg mixture and corn starch. Put them aside.
2. Heat wok in large fire and deep fry all the beefs.
3. Cook them until they are crispy and transfer them in a plate.
4. Using the same oil for about 3 table spoon, fry garlic, oyster sauce, and home made Szechuan chilli oil together.
5. If you do not know how to make Szechuan chilli oil, you may buy them at any grocery store or replace with chilli flake + soy sauce +sugar.
6. Toss the fried beef & capsicum inside the sauce and done!

 

This recipe is totally made up by myself. Its a dish with a touch of Chinese-style cooking. This recipe is close to the original Szechuan recipe. It is very simple, tasty and healthy too i would say! Happy trying peeps.

Kangkung belacan

Ingredients

• 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 teaspoon of Belacan
• 2 tablespoon of Oyster sauce
• Kangkung/ pak choy
• 1 red chilli or small green chilli (optional – if you want it hot)

Cooking methods

1. Once the wok is heated, add in pounded garlic and chilli.
2. After a minute or so, add in belacan. Cook it for about a minute in low heat.
3. Add in your vegetables and oyster sauce.
4. Add in 3 tablespoon of water and let it simmer for 2 minutes.
5. Taste it and done!

 

I love to eat kangkung belacan and so does my husband. Although it is simple and super easy to make but I always find it hard to get the taste right. Its funny how I am able to try to make a complicated dish like lasagna and yet I am a bit anxious in trying this dish.

Recently, I try to cook it my way with using only 4 ingredients. Surprisingly the taste is there and I love it! This week alone I cook Kangkung belacan twice. LOL

For the international readers, kangkung is swamp cabbage. I am not sure if it grows in overseas. When I studied in Australia, I did not see this vegetable in any of the grocery stores. Well, you can try using Pak Choy instead.
Best to eat them with white rice and fried chicken! YUMS

 

 

Ayam Berlado – spicy chicken

 

 

 

Ingredients

6 Chicken pieces
1 heap spoon of Corn Starch
Salt & pepper
Oyster sauce
Bell pepper
Onion leaves
5 Red Chillies
4 cloves of Garlic
3 Shallots

 

 

 

 

Cooking method

1. In a bowl, add chicken pieces, corn starch, salt and pepper.
2. Heat the oil to medium heat and fry them well. Once it is done, put is aside.
3. Pound red chillies, garlic and shallots together. I prefer to pound rather than blending as I wish to achieve the rough texture from them.
4. In a pan, heat the chillies garlic mixture for about 2 minute in medium heat. Add in 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce, chicken, bell pepper and onion leaves.
5. Mix them well and done! (Should you need more gravy, add in a little bit of water and thicken the gravy with 1 teaspoon of corn starch)

 

Eat them with white rice and ulam! Yums! You may use the same recipe to make Terung Goreng Berlado or Brinjal Berlado.

HOT Buffalo wing Malaysian-style!

Ingredients

• Chicken wings
• Coriander powder
• Corn starch
• Salt & pepper
• Hot sauce
• BBQ sauce

Cooking Methods

1. In a bowl, mix chicken wings with 1 tablespoon of coriander powder, 1 tablespoon of corn starch, salt and pepper. Mix them well. (This recipe is for 6 chicken wings)
2. In a hot pan, fry these wings for about 3minutes on each side. Do not burn them. Once they have turn into golden brown, you may take them out.
3. As for the sauce, pour 2 tablespoon of hot sauce and 2 tablespoon of BBQ sauce. No oil needed for the sauce. Cook them on big fire for about 1 minute.
4. Switch off the fire and combine the crispy chicken wings with the sauce. Done!

 

This recipe is for those who loves spicy food and crispy fried chicken wing; specially catered for my dear Malaysians. Well, the hotness level of a Malaysian bud taste is absurd! HAHA. We just LOVE spicy food. For hot sauce, i use this brand. It is the BOMB!

To reduce the hotness level, you may cut out the chilli sauce portion and the recipe changes into Honey BBQ Buffalo Wing; suitable for kids too!

Enjoy!

Mushroom soup

Ingredients

• 1/2 packet of Portobello/Shitakei mushroom
• Butter
• 6 small garlic
• Cooking cream (200ml)
• 1 cup of full cream milk
• Corn starch
• Chicken stock & pepper

Cooking method

1. Chop garlic and mushroom into small chunks.
2. Add 2 tablespoon of butter in cooking pan. Later, add in garlic and mushroom.
3. Let them cook for 5 minutes. Make sure the garlic and mushroom turn into brown colour and not burn. Soon, you will smell nice aroma from these two.
4. Pour in cooking cream and full cream milk.
5. Add in 1 tablespoon of corn starch into the soup. (Do not forget to add in water in the corn starch mixture to avoid lumpy).
6. Insert 1 chicken stock and a pinch of pepper
7. Let them simmer for another 5-7minutes on low heat. If the soup is too runny, add in another table spoon of corn starch.

 

For this recipe, Portobello mushrooms are the best but they can be pricy & hard to find in hypermarkets. I always opt for Shitakei mushroom instead as alternative. Affordable and very easy to find them in Tesco and Giant. This mushroom has great flavours and smell too. Shitakei mushroom looks like this (RM4.98 per packet):

*credit to Tesco Malaysia

 

I created this recipe on my own. I manage to serve this dish in few gathering occasions and they all claimed that it is GOOD ! (Flip-hair moment). It is super easy and healthy too. To complete your dinner dish, you can serve it with grilled chicken, simple salad and garlic bread! Yums!

For the leftover soup, I always add them on macaroni with streaky beef or boiled chicken for my little girl’s lunch.

Happy trying! xxx

Caramel pudding

Ingredients

• 1 litre of milk
• 12 egg yolks
• Vanilla essence
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• A pinch of salt

 

Cooking methods

1. Place 1/3 cup of sugar in a pan with low heat. Let the sugar dissolves by itself. Do not stir them. When the sugar has fully dissolved and turned brown colour, add a little bit of hot water inside the pan. BE CAREFUL as this part can hurt you.
2. Quickly pour the caramel in the baking pan or whatever you have that can hold heat. Let it cool in room temperature.
3. In another pan, heat the milk in medium heat. Do not let it boils. When the milk has gather some heat, add 2 tablespoon of sugar, a pinch of salt and 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence. Stir them well.
4. Add 12 egg yolks slowly into the mix, under low heat. One at a time.
5. Pour the pudding mixture in the baking pan.
6. Steam them until they are firm – for about 35-45minutes.
7. Lastly, chill the caramel pudding in the refrigerator before serving.

 

Everyone LOVES caramel pudding. Simple dish yet able to satisfy us very well ! So, why not learn about this dish and try to make them? I made them last week. Twice! Got so addicted and thought of making them again this week. I just love to feed people’s tummy.

This dessert is so easy that it requires only 30minutes of your time in the kitchen and let the refrigerator do the rest! HAHA. Happy trying!

Hot peanutbutter-chocolate drink!

Ingredients

• Peanut butter (doesn’t matter chunky or smooth pb)
• Chocolate (choose your favourite ones)
• Full cream milk

Cooking method

1. Take 1 tablespoon of peanut butter and 5 small cubes of chocolates bar.
2. Reheat them in the microwave for 1 minute.
3. Stir well and pour the milk 3/4 of the glass. (The more milk you put, the less peanut butter-chocolate taste you will get.)
4. Heat for another minute. It’s done!

 

Peanut butter and chocolates are two favourite things for my husband and I. So three days ago, I was craving for chocolate lava cake. I wanted to make 5-minute chocolate cake but few ingredients were missing. So I invented this and my husband completely got insane with this hot drink! (Not to mention my in-laws helper too!) HAHA. Perfect for this rainy days during night time.

Weaning off

Lana is 15months now. I have started to wean her off slowly. Not easy for me but it was painless for Lana. Grrrr. I had to wean off not because the supply is not there. Simply because my husband requests it – should we need to go out on a date, we can leave her with bottle milk.

Since I feed her directly, I could not make any milk stock. So, that means my husband and I have not been dating out and about, just the two of us ever since Lana is born. LOL. Sounds awful but its not that bad. Luckily Lana is the type where she sleeps early and soooo soundly, that we got to watch movie with woofers on, at the comfort of our bed.

I feel that’s the pleasant side of not breastfeeding your baby exclusively; where husband and wife can go on a date at anytime on any day.

Weaning off is not easy for me. I was very reluctant to do it. I was heartbroken. I vowed to myself to feed Lana till she is 2 years old – sort of my personal goal. But part of me was saying that I could not be selfish as my husband wanted to take me out. He misses our time together. So in the end, I abide to his request and try it out. Sooner or later, Lana will wean off eventually. Sigh.

Having to choose which milk brand to give her was a headache. There were so many brands! My biggest concern was milk wastage. What if I bought brand A and she does not like it. And the scenarios repeat for brand B, C, D, and so on. Milk samples were out of questions; having to fill up so many details and had to wait for 2-3 weeks. No thank you. (Actually, I did request for few but there were no replies.)

So I went to hypermarket and somehow I am attracted to this “Purple” brand. I like the simplicity of the box as well as the clear information given. Basically, I chose my baby’s milk based on marketing excellence of that particular brand towards myself. HAHA. So yeah, Purple brand it is! Thankfully, Lana accepted the brand and happily drink it. (So typical of me to worry too much and then later, the issue became meaningless.)

So now, she drinks bottle milk twice a day. Not more than that. I still prefer her to heavily get her milk supply from me. (Clingy mommy who does want her little baby girl to stop breastfeeding). I feel like bottle milk can be given by anyone. But for breastfeeding, it is our quality time that cannot be shared with anyone else. I truly love our feeding time together. Please do not get me wrong but you know what I mean. We, mothers, always treasure the special bond between ourself and our baby without any interference.

Due to bottle milk, I managed to sneak out for midnight movie with my husband to watch Star Wars. I also managed to attend birthday dinner with my girls. I would lie to myself if I say I did not enjoy both occasions! It was nice to have alone time with my husband and friends back.

So, I have conquered Step 1 of weaning off pretty good. But then the story does not end here. I must think of way(s) to prepare myself in weaning her off completely when she reaches 2 yeard old. Shall share my stories when the time comes!

Good night peeps!

Thai Chicken Basil

Ingredients

• Minced chicken
• 4 garlic
• 3 red chillies
• Fish sauce
• Oyster Sauce
• Chinese parsley

 

Cooking Method

1. Take out the seed from the red chillies. Please use the long red chillies, not the small ones. But if you like the dish to be extra spicy, add in 5 small green chillies in the recipe.
2. Pound garlic and chillies together.
3. Heat the wok with 3 tablespoon of oil. Add the garlic and chillies into the wok.
4. Once you aroma started to kick in, add the minced meat inside and stir them for about 7 minutes.
5. Add 3 tablespoon of fish sauce and 3 tablespoon of oyster sauce. (NO SALT needed in this recipe since we have used fish sauce.)
6. Stir them well. Let it cook for another 5 minutes.
7. Chop the Chinese Parsley finely and add them in the wok. (Do not forget to taste the dish for perfection. This is because certain fish sauce is less salty from others while most of them is very salty.)
8. After 1 minute, you may serve the dish.

Thai basil chicken is best to eat with white rice and fried egg.

A simple dish that could save RM15 or even $10 of your lunch/dinner pocket-money at any Thai restaurants.

Easy to cook and simply cheap to prepare. If you wish to add a little zest to the dish, you may add roasted cashew nut in your final cooking step. This dish only takes about 30minutes to prepare and cook them altogether.

My brother and husband loves this dish so much. Happy trying peeps!

 

Simplest Roast Chicken

Ingredient

• 1 whole chicken
• half pumpkin/squash
• 3 carrots
• 2 corns
• Coriander powder
• Smoked paprika (optional)
• Olive oil
• Parsley
• 1 lemon
• Salt & pepper

Cooking Method

1. Chop the carrots, pumpkin and corns in medium chunks.
2. Rub these vegetables with olive oil, salt, pepper and parsley. Be generous and put the aside.
3. As for the whole chicken, rub it with olive oil, coriander powder, smoked paprika, salt, pepper and parsley. Follow them in sequence and don’t forget to be generous with the herbs. (Please ensure that the chicken is dry from water, so that herbs will stick well.)
4. In a bake tray, place the chicken in the middle while spread the vegetables aside.
5. Wrap the tray with aluminium foil.
6. Bake at 180C for 45 minutes only.
7. When the chicken is cooked halfway, squeeze lemon on the chicken and place the lemon inside the tray together with other vegetables.

 

It is easy as ABC and super delish too! While the chicken is cook, you can prepare the sauce, butter rice or salad to eat with it. Suitable for all ages as it is not spicy.

If there is leftovers, I usually make chicken sandwich for breakfast/lunch. Yums!

Happy trying!