I made about 25 cups of dessert for our Alumni’s Pot-luck makan-makan over the weekend.

Ingredients:

2 litres water
250gm sugar
1 packet of Swallow jelly powder
1 can of evaporate milk
1 can of soya milk (using the evaporate milk can as measurement)
1 can of longan in syrup

Method:

1. Mix one packet of Swallow jelly powder and sugar into cooking pot.
2. Pour 2 litres of water into the mixture and boil over low heat. Oh don’t forget to add pandan leaves for the fragrant.
3. Stir occasionally till mixture dissolve and boiled. Turn heat off.
4. Empty 1 can of evaporate milk and 1 can of soya milk into solution.
5. Mix well and pour mixture into cups. Cool them in refigerator if you want to shorten the waiting time.
6. Once the jelly has set, scoop longan over jellies and distribute the syrup evenly. You may find some jellies has only one longan. lol.

Don’t worry if you added too much or too little water. This dessert is meant to eat from the spoon. I love mine very very soft. Almost like taufoo fah.

Excuse the camwhore. We had so much fun during the makan-makan and our dear photographer keep on tempting me with his SLR. Gosh!

Remember a month ago I’ve blogged about the choy sum seed that Leah gave them to me that is sprouting in my garden?

Now I have home grown veges.  Not totally organic.  At least I know it is free from pesticide and chemical fertilizer.

So far, I have them (choy sam) in my fried noodles and last weekend, I have them as a dish itself.

Check out this year virtual Merdeka Open house. I can assured you, it is better than last year’s with different and more variety of food. And dare yourself in Fear Factor! Those sago worms does look fat and juicy. *icks!*

*Mee – Noodle

I hate the hassle of big wok, burnt wok and messy stove so I always go for the easy way out if I wanted fried noodle. Yea, cook the hokkien style then. This is my way of doing it.

Method:

1. Prepare sauces in a bowl by adding 3/4 bowl of water to it.
2. Stir-fry all your veges. Dish out and set aside.
3. Pour sauces in wok and add your yellow noodle. Coat them evenly. Simmer till gravy thicken. However, if you wish to have wetter noodle, add desire amount of water.
4. Lastly, return veges to noodle and coat evenly. Try not to over cook them as the veges is already cook as in step 2.

I prefer not to fry veges in sauces to avoid over cooking and immersion of dark soy sauce makes veges not attractive.

… and I forgot something here. THE scramble EGGS! DUHH!

I love to admire the bitter gourd in my garden day and night. I find them quite therapeutic. Soon before I knew it, the gourd turn from green to yellowish. I heaved with a big sigh. It has not even grown to adult size yet! Looks like my finger is not so green after all. *sigh….

“The size is as big as Baby’s face”. That is what Eldest Princess said. I think that is a compliment in disgust. Chis!

Ya I know. It is so small it can even fit into her pocket. Looks like my dream of cooking some chicken or soup dishes is dashed.

I show off them to my babysitter and she suggested bitter gourd omelette. You know why? Cos the bitter gourd has turn yellowish which also means it is wayyyyyyyyyyyy matured and the gourd would be too soft and they will mashed up if I were to stew them.

Totally love the colourful omelette.

I know you watch the movie already but I have not and don’t intend to. So please, don’t have to tell me how nice and how hillarious the movie is cos I already KNEW! However, the making of Ratatouille screening on Astro can really make my saliver dripping. Not the mouse. I mean the food! It just happened over one of the weekends. Eldest Princess and me was oozing at the Italian food shown in Ratatouille. We look at each other and I said, “Girl, I feel like having spaghetti.” So, off I went to the kitchen. Peel, peel, peel. Chop, chop, chop. dish and dash… tadah…

To add on some Asian taste bud, I diced finely some hard boiled salted egg. Sprinkle on top and there we go, bon appetit!

How to deep fry Japanese Tofu (aka egg tofu) yet maintaining the inner part smooth and not holey?

Very easy. Make sure your oil is really very hot before putting in the tofu.  That way, the outer layer will brown very fast.

Kuih Keria is a local donut made from sweet potatoes and flour. After deep frying, it is then dipped into caramelized sugar for a sweet and crispy coating.

Ingredients:

Sweet potatoes
Wheat flour
Sugar
Oil for Frying

Method:

1. Boiled sweet potatoes in water. (You can opt to boiled them when cooking porridge like how I did mine.)
2. Remove potatoes from water/porridge. Leave aside to cool. Mashed soften potatoes using the back of a fork.
3. Mix mashed potatoes with wheat flour and knead into a soft dough.
4. Shape dough into any desire shape you like, be it donut or small balls.
5. Heat oil in wok. Fry them till golden brown.
6. Remove all the oil from wok. Using the same wok without washing it, melt the sugar.
7. Coat donuts in melted sugar. Removed and let it cool.

Do check out Babe_KL if you would like to participate in this year Merdeka Open House virtual makan-makan.

This is a nyonya dish. You can halal-fied it by excluding the porky.

Ingredients:

2 big and 20 small onions
6 cloves of garlic

(Put them in a electric blender to form a paste. Do not over blend them as it would caused the paste to produce lots of juices of the onions)

2 whole chicken thigh – cut into pieces
1 whole strip of belly pork – cut into 2cm slices
2 tablespoon bean paste
Chinese mushrooms
Potatoes
Gula Melaka to taste

Method:

Heat the oil to sauté the shallot and garlic paste until fragrant, stirring continuously. Add the bean paste and fry until the oil starts to separate.

Add the pork if using and fry for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and water, and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 40 minutes or till the pork tender before adding chicken and potatoes. Continue simmering for another 20 minutes until chicken and potatoes tender. Add more water if gravy becomes too thick. Season to taste with sugar and salt if required.

Normally, I will cook this dish in the morning and let the flavours infused into the meat and potatoes. Heat/Microwave them again for dinner.

Instead of the usual egg noodle, this time I used Emperor Noodle or in Chinese 皇帝面 (huang di mien). I forgot to take a pic of the noodle. This is best what I can describe them for you. The shape is exactly like egg noodle but came in a dry form. The colour is slightly yellowish and the noodle is finer. What I like about emperor noodle? You do not have to go thru the hassle of precooking in boiling water, rinse with cold water to get rid of the starch and blanch in hot water again.

You can cook them in gravy form, stir-fried or soupy. This is an example in soupy form.

Ingredients:
Anchovies or chicken stock
Water
Wantan
Blanched kailan

Method:

1. Boiled anchovies for 30 minutes. Using a strainer, scoop anchovies and discard them. If you are using chicken stock, bring them to a boil.
2. Blanch kailan in stock. Removed them.
3. Put wantan in boiling stock. When wantan float to the top, scoop them up.
4. Still with the same pot of anchovies/chicken stock, put in Emperor noodle. Cook till noodle soften.
5. Serve noodle and soup in a bowl. Arrange your kailan and wantan on top before serving.

Another reason why I like Emperor Noodle.  It has a longer storage life.

What do you do with your leftover roasted duck or roasted chicken or even roasted pork (sui yoke)? Other than stir fried with garlic and caramelized sugar, I braised them with:

Ingredients:

Salted Vege (make sure you did not buy the wrong type)
Roasted duck/chicken/pork
Cloves of garlic
3 Dried chilies
1 pickle sour plum
One inch long ginger
Sugar to taste

Method:

Cut salted veges into thin stripes. Wash them throughly and soak for about 10 minutes. Discard water. Place all the above ingredients into a cooking pot. Filled water slightly above the ingredients. Bring water to a boiled and continue simmering in slow fire for approximately 1 hour. Add sugar to taste by adding 1/2 tablespoon first. The taste should be slightly salty, slightly sweet and slightly sour. 🙂