Beef Lasagna

It has been a long while since my last blog entry. Yesterday I thought I get my hands dirty and try this recipe. It turned out alright. I used a very convenient pre-cooked lasagna pasta which does not need boiling or soaking (St. Remo I think!). It was also convenient because of the recipe at the back of the box! Oh dear! I threw away the box already. Hmmmmmmmm....... let me recall the ingredients.

1 onion

1 clove garlic

1 carrot

500g minced beef

2x 400ml canned tomato

5 tbs tomato paste

2 cups chicken stock

pinch of nutmeg

2 tbs butter

2 tbs flour

2 cups milk

150g cheese (mozarella or cheddar)

Heat oil in a pan.

Sweat onion, garlic & carrot till soft.

Add minced beef & cook till brown.

Add canned tomato, tomato paste, stock & nutmeg.

Season with salt & pepper.

Simmer for 20 minutes.

White sauce

Heat butter in a separate pan.

Take off heat & stir in flour.

Cook for 2 minutes on slow heat.

Add milk & keep stirring till thick & smooth.

Season with salt& pepper.

Preheat oven to 180C.

Lightly grease baking dish.

Layer pasta, meat sauce & white sauce alternately, starting with meat sauce and ending with white sauce on top. Make up to 4 layers.

Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top.

Bake for 35-40 minutes.

Leave to cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Nasi Beringin

It's been a long while since my last entry. A long while since I last cook something. This year I intend to cook something different for raya apart from ketupat, rendang, lodeh and sambal kacang, the usual dishes for raya. So I tried this "Nasi Beringin" recipe which I got from a newspaper article just before raya. And it worked!

4 cups Basmathi rice – wash and drain

3 cups coconut milk

2 cups water
4cm ginger – ground
15 shallots – finely sliced
4 stalks lemongrass – finely sliced
1 stick cinnamon
3 cloves
3 cardamons
1 star anise
3 tbsp ghee
Salt to taste

Heat ghee in the rice cooker. Sauté the spices, shallots, ground ginger and lemongrass until the shallots are soft. Add the coconut milk, water and salt to taste. Let the liquid boil, then add the rice. When the rice is cooked, fluff it up and serve.

Tips:

Try soak the rice in water first and add just a tad more water (not too much) to get fluffier result.

Best served with curry, rendang or tomato-based meat dishes. Curry is the best!

Kerang Bakar Lido

Yesterday I got the urge to cook. I felt like eating cockles. Then I remembered this recipe which I managed to get (believe it or not!) from a hawker at Tepian Tebrau, Lido Beach years ago. Now Tepian Tebrau has moved to a new place at Jalan Sungai Chat. As a matter of fact, it was only just last week my wife and I went to the place.

Usually hawker will keep recipes as trade secret but I was a regular at his hawker stall. I will usually order "ais kacang" and "kerang bakar". Then one day I tried my luck. Lo and behold, he told me all the ingredients including the special ingredient that he used for his famous "kerang bakar". What so special about his "kerang bakar" is the cockles are grilled with chilli paste in half-shells. Elsewhere e.g. Umbai, Melaka, "kerang bakar" means cockles grilled in whole shells over hot coal.

Actually, I had tried this recipe once long time ago. But my maid did it all. It didn't turn out well. So you can call this an experiment per se. Maybe last time I tried to cook too much. This time I will try with small amounts i.e. 1 kilogram of cockles only.

Ingredients:

1 kg cockles, scrubbed & washed

3 shallots

2 cloves garlic

5 dried chilli, soaked in hot water & deseeded

1 stalk lemongrass

1/2 cm shrimp paste ("belacan")

50g dried shrimp ("udang kering") the more the better

2 tbs curry powder

Methods:

Boil cockles in hot water till shells open up.

Remove half of the shells.

Put all ingredients except curry powder in blender.

Fry blended ingredients till fragrant. (you can do this in a wok or a flat grill)

Add curry powder then add cockles.

Add a little oil if too dry.

Cover & stir once in a while.

Season to taste.

The experiment last night was a success. It tasted almost like the original. Thumbs up from my wife. However, it was not enough. It turned out that 1 kg of cockles only filled a small bowl at the end. It was yummy, though. The lesson learnt after this experiment and the last one is: this recipe is best done in small batches. You can blend all the chilli paste that you want but cook the cockles in small batches.

Mak Ngah's Suji Cookies

Apart from Ovaltine biscuit, this is another must during Eidul Fitr in my family. For as long as I remember, when I was growing up my mother has always been making this cookies. It is so easy to make. It takes just minutes to mix the dough BUT it takes hours to make those little balls and bake 'em. The first batch is usually finished as soon as it comes out of the oven. They just melts in your mouth.

Ingredients: (for 1 batch: can make several batches at a time)

1 cup caster sugar

1 cup ghee

3 1/2 cups wheat flour

Method:

Beat ghee & sugar till sugar dissolved.

Add flour and knead till fully combined.

Make into small balls.

Bake in 170 C oven for 20 minutes or till underside golden.

This is my family's traditional recipe. However, there are many variations for suji cookies for example, melt the ghee, add butter, brown the flour, use icing sugar, use sugee flour or cornflour etc. Some even add some other ingredients like almond, vanilla essence or even a pinch of salt. It's all up to your creative imagination but the way I remember it....is the way my mother has always been making 'em.

Lesson of the day:

Ghee is a class of clarified butter used in Indian subcontinent cooking. It is made by simmering unsalted butter until all water has evaporated and milk solids has settled at the bottom. The cooked, clarified butter at the top is spooned off avoiding the milk solids at the bottom. Unlike butter, ghee can be stored for extended period without refrigeration in airtight container.

Caution...ghee is composed almost entirely of saturated fat!

Fruit Cake

Fancy baking a fruit cake for any occasion? Christmas or wedding or Eid ulfitr......it's so simple!

This easy boil and bake recipe was handed down to me by Kasmah Dewi. Together with the Chocolate Cake recipe (in previous entry), these two recipes will always remind me of my previous place of work, Hospital Sultanah Aminah.

This recipe has also undergone several experimentations over the years with substitution and addition of ingredients to the original recipe. This is the equivalent to home improvement in the kitchen.....recipe improvement!

Fruit Cake Kasmah Dewi

Ingredients A:

2 packets dried lime peel

1 box mixed fruit

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 cup water

8 oz butter

1 tsp ground cinnamon* (optional)

1 tsp ground allspice* (optional)

Ingredients B:

4 cups flour

1 tbs bicarbonate of soda

4 eggs (beaten)

1/2 cup golden syrup* (to replace "gula hangus")

Put ingredients A in a pan and bring to boil.

Simmer till sugar dissolved.

Cool to room temperature.

Add flour and eggs alternately into mixture.

Add golden syrup.

Turn into 8" lined and greased cake tin.

Bake in preheated oven at 180 C for 1 to 1 1/2 hour.

Simple right? Give it a try.

Chocolate Cake

Dear Chocoholics,

This recipe is dedicated to all chocoholics in the world. This could be the easiest moist chocolate cake recipe in the world. Steamed not baked. Try it out! It is "Better-Than-Sex Chocolate Cake" .... No lah! I am just exaggerating!

This recipe was given to me by MA Hamizan but since I have experimented with a few ingredients to enhance the chocolate flavour namely dash of salt, vanilla and coffee. Of course there's another flavour that I have not tried yet....orange. That'd be my future cooking experiment.

Moist Chocolate Cake MA HAmizan

Ingredients A

2 cups flour

1 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp soda bicarbonate

1 tsp baking powder

a dash of salt

Ingredients B

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup hot water

1 tbs instant coffee powder

1 can condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla

Sift all ingredients A.

Beat eggs.

Dissolve sugar and coffee in hot water.

Add condensed milk, oil and lastly the eggs. 

(Important to add eggs last or else you will get scrambled eggs)

Add ingredients A & B a little bit at a time till completely incorporated.

Pour into lined, greased pan and cover with aluminum foil.

Steam for 1 to 1 1/2 hour.

Cool in pan before turning out.

Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients
8 ounces (227 grams) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, cut into small pieces 

3/4 cup (180 ml) heavy whippingcream 

2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter 

Place the chopped chocolate in a medium sized stainless steel bowl. 

Set aside. 

Heat the cream and butter in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. 

Bring just to a boil. 

Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes. 

Stir with a whisk until smooth.

Refrigerate till firm. (Best done the day before. Make sure cake is also cooled before spreading)

Cream Puffs/ Profiteroles

Yummy! This is also one of my favourites.

Choux pastry (pâte à choux) contains only butter, water, flour and eggs. No raising agent. Its raising agent is the high water content, which creates steam during baking, puffing out the pastry. That's why it requires a very hot oven Gas mark 6 or 7.

I rediscovered this when I was flicking through the pages of my recipe book. I am not sure where I copied it from but I have tried it long, long time ago. It looked just like the photo which I googled from Delia Online. Yes Delia Smith. She is an English cook and TV presenter. She was famous in those days.

Delia's version of profiterole has added 1 level teaspoon of caster sugar. It's a variation for those with sweet tooth. This is my version.

Ingredients: (makes 30)

1 cup of water

1/2 cup butter

1 cup flour (sifted)

4 eggs (beaten)

2 tsp cocoa powder

Heat water & butter in a pan until rolling boil then turn down to low heat.

Add sifted flour all at once, stirring vigorously until mixture leaves sides of pan clean.

Remove from heat and cool slightly.

Add beaten egg a little at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition until you have a smooth paste.

Beat in sifted cocoa.

Put 1 tsp paste on greased baking sheet on an oven tray about 1 inch apart.

Bake in preheated oven 425 Fahrenheit/ 220 Celcius for 10 minutes.

Reduce to moderate heat (350-400 F/180-200 C), bake for furtehr 40 minutes or until crispand  golden colour.

Remove from oven.

Make a small slit at sides of each puff to let steam escape.

Return to oven for afew minutes to dry out.

The allow to cool on a wire rack.

Then fill the puffs with whipped cream and pour melted chocolate on top and serve immediately.

Tips of the day:

Cup measure is a convenient way to bake but some recipes use other measurements such as ounce, gram or mililitre. After researching on the internet I found the equivalet measures for the cup measure for various ingredients.

Liquid

1 cup of water = 250 ml water

Flour

Cake flour = 114g

White flour = 120g

Bread flour = 130g

Wheat flour = 140g

Note: This measurement requires one to spoon the flour into the cup, not scooping.

Butter

1 cup of butter = 227g = 8 oz

1/2 cup of butter = 113g = 4 oz = and this is equivalent to 1 stick of butter.

1 tbs of butter = 0.5oz

Mak Ngah's Ovaltine Biscuit

Dear Followers,

In the previous blog (Rock Cake), I mentioned about "raya cookies" and what I thought the origin of my interest in baking. This is one of the favourite "raya cookies". The recipe actually originated from my aunt's family (Mak Teh) but somehow or rather now all my relativesalways  associate this biscuit with my family. Everybody who visited our house during Eidul fitr will ask "Where's Mak Ngah's Ovaltine biscuit?". It's a MUST have cookie! 

Last year I think, my family almost broke the tradition. There was nobody to bake the biscuit for "raya". Noni (one of my younger sisters) the best person who can make this biscuit did not come home early that year. So NO Ovaltine biscuit! I thought this cannot be happening. So when she arrived home, I got her to make several batches of dough for the biscuit. The tedious part about making this biscuit is the rolling, cutting into shapes and baking. Imagine having to bake 8 batches of biscuit dough a day before and first day of "raya"! It was a labour of love in the name of tradition. Tradition is something which makes us unique. Fond memories follow this tradition. By writing this recipe in this blog I hope to make the memories everlasting. Memories of my family. Memories for the future.

Advance warning: The cup measure used in this recipe is non-standard. Traditionally, the cup used in this recipe is a teacup, not any teacup but a particular teacup. I will try get a photo of this teacup. Otherwise, the dough will either be too sticky or too hard. Actually, I have never experimented on a standard measurement cup before. Yeah I will carry out the experiment!

One other thing, some people may find this biscuit too hard but that's the way it's supposed to be. So don't roll 'em too thick.

Ingredients:

1 cup Ovaltine (don't use Milo, it won't come out the same)

1/3 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup wheat flour

1 cup corn flour

1 cup tapioca flour (cassava root) 

1/2 cup margerine

1/2 cup condensed milk

Method:

Beat margerine & sugar.

Sift all flour & Ovaltine. Mix well.

Add into sugar mixture. Knead well.

Add condensed milk a little bit at a time depending on the stickiness of the dough.

Roll, cut and bake at 190 C for 10-12 minutes or till underside is golden brown.

Have a try. I like to bake some of the cookies a little bit chewy. It tastes almost the same as Famous Amos' chewy cookies. 

Banoffi Pie

Dear Foodies,

This is one of the simplest of desserts I've ever made those days. One of the sweeetest, too! I still remember trying out the recipe for the first time in Bristol. Ah! One will always remember one's first time falling in love. It's sweet when one's in love but then........Ouch! the heartache.......

Ingredients:

8 oz butter

6 oz digestive biscuits (crushed)

6 oz caster sugar (reduce sugar if too sweet)

1 can condensed milk (small can)

2 bananas (sliced)

Method:

Melt 3 oz butter.

Stir in crushed biscuits.

Press into base and sides of a springform pan (8 inches/20 cm) (loose-bottomed for easy disassembly)

Heat remaining butter and sugar in an until melted.

Add condensed milk.

Stirring continuously.

Bring to a gentle boil for 5 minutes to make light golden caramel.

Pour this dulce de leche over biscuit base and allow to cool.

Arrange sliced bananas on top.

Serve with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Hey Presto! Sweets for my sweet! 

Alternatively, you can boil the condensed milk can (whole, unopened) in water for 3 hours to make the dulce de leche. But I think this method is too time-consuming...........and energy-consuming too! Save energy & the environment!

Disclaimer:

Not for those who count calories! Again, photo is googled. I will post original photo when I get to make this sweetlicious dessert.

Rock Cake

Dear All,

This is the first ever cookie recipe that I tried out when I was in the UK. It was my first time baking on my own. Actually I had helped my mum  baking biscuits before for Eid ul Fitr when I was a kid. I have fond memories of that. My mum usually started baking "kuih raya" 2 weeks before Eid..... usually after "sahur" (eating before the break of dawn) during Ramadhan month. By the time the cookies are ready, I can't eat them until time to break fast at 7pm later that day. You can imagine the anticipation! I think that was when I started to have the inclination to bake. Thanks Mum!

Btw, this is the recipe for Rock Cake. It's a misnomer.....it's more of a biscuit than a cake.

8 oz self-raising flour

4 oz margarine

4 oz sugar

1 egg

50g mixed fruit

1 tbs milk

Method:

Mix flour & sugar.

Rub margarine until appears like breadcrumbs.

Beat egg and add into mixture & knead.

Divide into small mounds on lightly greased baking tray.

Bake at Gas Mark 6 for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.

Yes Gas Mark 6! In the UK at the time, most ovens use Gas Mark. It means nothing if one does not know the conversion to temperature.

Lesson of the day:

This is the conversion of Gas Mark to temperature.

Gas Mark Celcius Fahrenheit

1 140 275

2 150 300

3 160 325

4 180 350

5 190 375

6 200 400

7 220 425

8 230 450

A conventional oven can reach only such temperatures. You can't go higher than that unless you happen to have a tandoori oven which can reach a temperature of 900 degrees Fahrenheit (480 degrees Celcius).

Now you are in the know!