Did I really make this?

I almost couldn’t believe that I managed to churn out Muah Chee in just under 5 minutes!  Seriously!  This post by E from missus C’s reverie almost sounds too good to be true.  It certainly piqued my interest and for the Man’s too for Muah Chee so happens to be one of his favourite foods.

The Man was feeling sorta peckish and since I had the ingredients on hand, I suggested making this as a pre-dinner snack.  5 minutes on, guess who was a happy camper? 

Muah Chee (serves 1-2 depending on how hungry you are)
(Adapted from Missus C’s Reverie)

Ingredients:
62g glutinous rice flour
90ml water
1 tbsp vegetable oil
3-4tbsp store-bought readily mixed peanuts sugar mixture (I got mine from Sheng Shiong)

Method:
1. Mix glutinous rice flour, water and vegetable oil in a microwaveable bowl. Stir to mix well.
2. Microwave on high for 3 1/2 minutes.
3. In a deep dish, pour out peanuts sugar mix.
4. Once the rice paste is ready, cut a big piece and drop it into the peanuts sugar mixture.
5. Cut the rice paste into a smaller cubes and coat them with the peanuts and sugar mixture.
6. Serve immediately.

Tuck in and enjoy this timeless street snack!   And I would have to agree with E, this recipe is definitely a keeper!  YAY!

Back in the kitchen: Roasted Aubergines

Back in the kitchen and it feels pretty good!

It’s been a while since I tried out a new recipe for an intimate dinner party.  Taking advantage of the May Day public holiday, I decided to break out the Ottolenghi Recipe book that we’ve been kindly gifted by friends who were staying with us for a couple of days.

The Man picked the Oven-Roasted Pork Belly recipe to try while I settled on the Roasted Aubergine with Saffron Yogurt recipe to try as I managed to score a really nice piece of aubergine at the market earlier that morning.

The Man was rather skeptical about this dish for aubergines have never been a favourite vegetable of his. But for good measure, he gave it a try nonetheless and proclaimed it pretty yummy. 

And guess who couldn’t resist getting in on the action while I was trying to photograph the dish.  Again, it’s been a while since I indulged in any food-styling pix.  Thought it would be good to jump in on the action and get my creative juices pumping.  In order to capture the natural lighting, I had to take the shots in the garden.  Passerbys who peered into my home thought I was crazy trying to photograph a plate with my camera perched on a tripod.  @-@

But if I may add, this aubergine dish as a starter was really, really good!  This recipe is definitely going into my book and will be appearing on our dining tables soon enough if we start our little dinner parties. 

Roasted Aubergine with Yogurt [Recipe adapted from Ottolenghi's Roasted Aubergine with Saffron Yogurt starter]

Ingredients:

• 1 medium aubergine cut into slices, 2cm thick
• olive oil for brushing
• 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
• a handful of pomegranate seeds
• a handful of basil leaves
• coarse sea salt and black pepper

Yogurt dressing:

• 150g of Greek yogurt
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 tbsp olive oil

Method:

1. For the sauce, whisk yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and some salt well to get a smooth golden sauce,  Taste and adjust the salt, if necessary, then chill.  This sauce will keep well in fridge for about 3 days.  [Note: the original recipe calls for saffron which I did not have on hand.  But if you are interested, simply add a small pinch of saffron strands and infuse them into 3 tbsps of hot water in a small bowl for 5 minutes. Pour the infusion into the bowl containing the yogurt and additional ingredients and follow as mentioned above.]
2. Pre-heat the oven to about 220 degrees Celsius.  Place the aubergine slices on a roasting tray, brush with plenty of olive oil on both sides and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Roast for about 20 – 35 minutes, until the slices take on a beautiful light brown colour.  Let them cool down.  The aubergines will keep in the fridge for 3 days; just let them come to room temperature before serving.
4. To serve, arrange the aubergine slices on a large plate, slightly overlapping.  Drizzle the yogurt dressing over them, sprinkle with the pine nuts, pomegranate and finally, lay basil on top.

Simply tuck in and enjoy, you won’t be sorry!

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Check out what’s cooking in my kitchen or my culinary adventures as an expat-wife in Geneva.

An attempt to eat healthy

It’s been a while since I’ve baked anything.  Grateful for the mid-week public holiday, I was kinda desperate to get busy in the kitchen.  In an attempt to try and eat healthy, I thought of baking granola.  Been seeing loads of pictures by instagrammers and recipes on the www, so I was really tempted to try my hand at making some.

I eventually settled on using this recipe from E over at missus C’s reverie.  I figured that the recipe looked relatively simple and something I could manage.  Well, I was wrong….

Breakfast Granola
adapted from missus C’s reverie

Ingredients:

• 5 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• Handful of walnuts, roughly chopped
• Handful of sliced almonds (I used whole almonds)
• 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds
• Handful of dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
• 1-2 tbsp light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 tsp salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Line an 18×13-inch baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together maple syrup, vegetable oil, brown sugar, and salt. Fold in rolled oats and nuts (except sliced almonds). Mix until the dry mixture is thoroughly coated.
3. Transfer mixture to prepared baking sheet. Spread evenly to form an even layer.
4. Bake for 45 minutes until mixture is golden brown in color. Stirring every 10-15 minutes. Add in sliced almonds and dried cranberries at the last 5 minutes of baking.
5. Let granola cool completely before storing in an airtight container for up to one month.

While the granola was slowly baking, my kitchen was filled with a lovely maple scent.  I was so excited thinking that ‘I did it! I’m going to make an awesome batch of home-made granola good enough to share with friends!’

Turned out I was wrong.  The nuts that I added into the mix?  Well, some of them got burnt along the baking process.  Despite this baking boo boo, the granola still tasted great (enjoyed with yogurt/ ice-cream or on its own as a snack).  So, I had the burnt nuts removed and kept the rest stored away.

I’m not going let this little mishap stop me.  I’m going to try to whip up another batch of these bites.  This time round, I’m going to keep stirring the granola during baking to prevent the nuts from burning and put the baking tray a little lower from direct hit.

Send some luck along my way, wont’ you?

And E, if you are reading this?  Maybe it really is time for you to send me a batch of your granola to try? ;p  Hehe…

Sunday cook-out:: A one-dish meal

The mom-in-law.  She lives with us and does most of the cooking on weeknights.  On weekends, we either eat out or occasionally, we do like to attempt a cook-out.  One weekend, she was out of town, so the Man and I put on our creative caps and wondered what we should be cooking for our Sunday cook-out.

When we were living in Tokyo some 5 years back, I used to trawl the internet for interesting one-dish meals to whip up.  Cooking has never been my forte and one-dish meals seemed like the easiest to make.  I found this relatively simple pork chops and rice recipe.  Made it once for the Man and we loved it!  Copied the recipe down into my cook-book, hoping that one day I will be able to recreate the dish.

Imagine, 5 years on, I decided that it’s finally time to make this dish.  Ingredients seemed relatively easy to get with the exception of canned French Onion Soup which may not be so common on our supermarket shelves.

But I did manage to find canned French Onion Soup at Cold Storage.  So decided to make this dish once again with a few minor tweaks to the original recipe.

Pork Chops and Rice (recipe found online but I can’t remember where since it was 5 years ago)

Ingredients:
a) 1 (10 .5 ounce) can of French Onion Soup
b) 1 cup uncooked long grain white rice
c) 4 pork chops (at least four bone-in)
d) Salt and Pepper

Method:
1) Pre-heat over to 180 degrees Celsius.
2) Put approximately 1 cup of washed but uncooked rice in the bottom of a casserole dish.
3) Cover the rice with one can of French Onion Soup. [Save empty can for later use.]

4) Season pork chops with salt and pepper.  Brown pork chops in a large skillet and set aside.  [We used 2 large cuts of pork-chops instead of 4.]

5) Fill the saved can with water and pour into the skillet that was used for browning of the pork chops.
6) Scrape the fixins from the pan with water and pour into casserole dish.
7) Stir the ingredients in the dish and spread the rice evenly.
8) Place chops in a single layer on top of rice mix.
9) Bake in oven half an hour uncovered.
10) Thereafter, cover with foil and bake for another 30 mins.
11) Serve hot and enjoy!

My mistake for this was that I didn’t follow the instructions to the tee which I should have.  I thought 2 cans of water for the rice was too much so I adjusted and added just half a can of water instead.  That was mistake for the rice turned out to be a little too dry then what I remembered it to be.

So, if you are ever making this and wondering ‘Really? 2 cans of water?’  Trust me, it really is.

But all in all, a really satisfying one dish meal that we served with a side of fresh Japanese tomatoes as a starter.  Hoping to make this again one day.  And this time, I must get it right!

Stay home Saturday cook-out: Roast Beef

I was really craving for a good cut of beef and instead of heading out to settle that craving at a restaurant.  We decided to up the ante and do the cooking back at home.  Well, just blame it on the weatherman for making our decision all that easier for it was pouring the entire day last weekend.

It was no elaborate affair but all the dishes that we whipped up were hearty and some were kinda healthy.

Instead of a starter, I decided to recreate this Curried Carrot Soup.  Was itching to play with my kitchen gadget that we had brought back from Geneva.  It had somewhat become a white elephant since our return.  So, I wiped off the dust and made a blended soup with the kitchen device.  The soup was a crowd-pleaser and the helper learned the recipe so hopefully she can recreate this on her own.

Next up, the highlight of our dinner!  This mean roast beef that the Man has perfected!  The cut?  A gorgeous one that we got at Swiss Butchery, marinated wonderfully by the guys from the store.  All the Man did was to add rosemary, carrots and garlic to the mix and viola… a wonderful dinner awaits!

Now, isn’t that a gorgeous colour for a perfect roast?  After taking it out from the oven, the Man covered the roast beef in foil and allowed it to rest for about 10 to 15 minutes.  We realised that even though we were hungry and had wanted to dig our steak knives straight into the cut.  Resting the beef allowed the juices to be locked into the beef allowing the flavour to be juicier.  Us all silent during the mains was a testament of how good the roast beef was. ‘Nuff said.

As for the sides, I had a box of Gratin sauce gifted by a dear friend from Geneva.  So, I made a potato gratin topped with Tetsuya’s Truffle Sauce.  It was totally yums!  Gonna ask the pal to bring me more of the sauce so I don’t have to make it from scratch.  Hehe..

Lastly for dessert.  Was a little tired of making Molten Chocolate Cakes so for a change, decided to make a mini Apple Tart using this recipe.  Got a ready-to-roll puff pastry from the store but think I added too much flour to the pastry while kneading it, resulting in a slightly hard crust but the apples were beautifully done.  Topped with a scoop of salted caramel ice-cream from Marks & Spencer, this marked the end of our home-cooked meal.

The entire family had a wonderful time at dinner and this guy wished he could get in on a piece of the action.. but no, he didn’t!

Sunday cook-out:: Okonomiyaki

Finally got round to posting this from one of our Sunday stay-in dinners with the in-law.  Was really itching to bring out the electric grill that we had lugged back from Geneva out to play but there never seemed to be a perfect time.  As the weather started to cool off a little, I decided to blow off the dust from this machine and bring out to play.

And the meal to christen our new electric grill with?  Home-made okonomiyaki!  Didn’t seem too difficult and the thought of having cabbage seemed pretty healthy.  Found a relatively simple recipe thanks to Lianne from Food Made with Love.  Headed straight out to purchase the ingredients for our stay-in Sunday evening dinner.

Okonomiyaki (adapted from food made with love)

Ingredients (serves 4):
a) The Pancake Base:
- 1 whole cabbage or approximately 4 cups of green cabbage, finely shredded
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- 2 cups of plain flour
- 2 tbs of corn flour
- 1 tsp of baking powder
- 1 1/2 cup of chicken stock
- 2 eggs
- salt to season

b) The fun part – adding the ingredients to the pancake depending on your creativity.  We used these:
- 6 fresh shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
- Cuttlefish, thinly sliced
- Pork

Method:

1) Combine the flour, corn flour and baking powder and mix it well. Mix the cooled stock and egg together, and combine with the flour mixture. Mix until you get a thick pancake batter.

2) Add the cabbage, shiitake mushrooms and garlic to the batter. Season with salt. Heat a non-stick frying pan on medium fire, and add some vegetable oil. Add half of the pancake mix and flatten it with a spatula.  We placed our sliced pork on top of the pancake.  For the pancake with the cuttlefish, we mixed the sliced cuttlefish into the batter.

3) Cook the pancake for about 10-15 minutes, flipping several times, until both sides are golden brown.

4) Serve it hot, drizzle the top with japanese mayonnaise and okonomiyaki sauce that you can purchase in the Japanese grocery section.

This really made for a fun and simple meal that the entire family participated in.  The batter was good for almost 8 pancakes and boy were we all stuffed, but we had fun taking turns to decorate the pancakes with mayonnaise and okonomiyaki sauce.  Check out our respective works of pancake-art! 

Can you take a wild guess who did which pancake?  Hehe…

A simple Feast with these easy recipes

Thought I better get round to posting some of these recipes of the dishes that we whipped out during our simple Christmas feast for we will definitely see most of these back on our dining table when entertaining at home.

The starter was these really delicious stuffed portobello mushrooms with chopped mushroom stems, prosciutto ham, onions, parsley, rosemary, thyme and since we didn’t have any bread left at home. The helper crushed some crackers and I threw them into the mix. Pan-fry the ingredients and then stuff them into the mushroom caps. Drizzle a little olive oil and pop them into the oven. After approximately 20 mins, these babies should be done.

Next, we always need a side of veggies to make our meal a little more wholesome. This is simple to put together. We got some pumpkin, broccoli and corn for the roast. All we did was to drizzle the olive oil liberally, add some salt and srigs of rosemary and thyme. Pop them into the oven for about 20 minutes. Remove broccoli and pumpkin from tray, pop the tray with the corn into the oven for about another 10-15 mins and it should be done.

Highlight of our meal has got to be this Truffle Butter Roast Chicken recipe that I got off from Lavishley. Simple yet extremely flavorful! This is definitely making a comeback at our parties!

Last but not the least, the Man’s favorite molten chocolate lava cake with salted caramel ice-cream that I got from Marks and Spencer.

Hope these simple recipes would inspire you to cook more for the coming year. It definitely has inspired us to come up with a New Year menu.