I did cook

A glimpse over the pictures folder, I did cook even though I was caught up with work. It must be one of the occasions where I need to clear off the fridge.

Tau Yiu Bak.

Mix cuts of belly and shoulder, marinated with dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, shaoxing wine, oyster sauce, salt and sugar. Stew them over gentle heat with mushrooms and dried oyster. I add in some ‘dongkuai’ (also known as female ginseng) to whish out some herby flavors. Serve it with hard boiled eggs. I’m still trying to perfect the skills of making hard boiled eggs with the yolks runny.

Stir fry sprouts.

A good source of greens with crunch. Stir fry in a hot wok, with dried shrimps, salt and pepper to taste.  A dash of nampla to add flavors. Simple, tasty and cheap!

Steamed pomfret

Chopped ginger and garlic, and sauce made of combination of sesame oil, light soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt and pepper. Slice in some mushrooms and steam in high heat for 15minutes.

And here’s Yeow, joining the dinner.

Haikara Style Cafe & Bakery

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year everyone.

Yes, I find little time to cook these days. But never stop me from stuffing myself.

Recently, I discover this little cafe in Subang Jaya, run by Japanese husband and wife team. Known as Haikara Style Cafe & Bakery, it specialize in charcoal roasted coffee &  pastries. The fusion-menu very much inspired by a blend of  French, Italian & Japanese.

Set meals comes with a complimentary cup salad, soup and/or butter bun. I’ve  always prefer clear soup and Haikara perfected that little cup-servings of soup before your get main course. The little touch of mixed herbs gives a subtle hint  of  herby taste to your palate.

 Seafood Aglio Olio.

The spaghetti is al-dente, and the dressing is tastefully done with the rich seafood essence. Using seafood stock and the combination of prawns, squids, octopus, some kind of-roe  and watercress  gives a great chewing texture that burst with seafood soul. This is my first encounter using watercress in pasta. First look I thought it was our dearly Malaysian ‘kangkung’,  and I do love the crunch from watercress.

 Golden Curry Rice.

Out of my 5 visits in two weeks, I’ve ordered this dish 4 times. It is highly recommended. According to the owner, they curry sauce is being stewed over two days with onions, carrots and potatoes, before it’s being spread onto the crispy breaded boneless chicken steak.  Definitely my choice of comfort food.  Did I mentioned this is highly recommended.?

3 color cream puff.

One of their French inspired desserts, the cream puff uses 3 different types of cream; chestnut cream, custard cream and whipped cream. Lightly sugar dusted with bits of crunched nuts, a messy bite of the puff radiates joy and positive sugar energy.

 Charcoal Roasted Coffee.

Freshly brewed and served with that cute teeny-weenie creamer cup (which I am always tempted to keep it). It’s a good cup of coffee for a lazy weekend.

On other visits I’ve also tried banana roll, strawberry roll, ice cream blueberry french toast, macha roll, shokupan toast, beef stew, Omu-Spa pasta  and some other buns there.

This is a great hangout for coffee and pastry, but do compromise with the small space and quickly sold out pastries. Greet the friendly owners and be inspired by their dedication in making food. And say hello to their cat PuPu.

Bon Appetite!

Haikara Style Cafe & Bakery
E-Tiara , GF SS16/1 Subang Jaya
T: +603 5630 0743

Tuesday-Thursday: 11:00am - 11:00pm(10:30pm Last order)
Friday and Saturday: 10:00am - 11:00pm(10:30pm Last order)
Sunday: 10:00am - 6:30pm(6:00pm Last order)
Closed on Mondays

Hiatus

Not because I’m abandoning the blog. It’s just that with my recent projects and travelling, I didn't manage find much time to cook.

But I do get reminders.

The place I’m staying in Bangkok, during my business trip. And it comes with a full functioning kitchen.

Drawer #1

Drawer #2

Drawer #3

I love that colander.

Basic plates and all.

And lobsters.

Saw that in the Sukumvit Soi24 Seafood Market. But I didn’t cook it myself la. It was an interesting seafood market, where you buy your life seafood and get it cooked in the restaurant. And it’s funded through ‘entertainment claims’.

Seafood Porridge

I’ve got this cook book entitled ‘bowl food’. One of my all time favourites, it features meals in a bowl. Comforting and one go kind of meals. And nothing is more comforting to me, than a bowl of porridge during those rainy days.

So, a quick boil of the stock using, 2 cloves of garlic, dried cuttle fish and a thumb-cut size of ginger. Once the stock is ready, add in 2 cups of rice. I use Thai-fragrant rice, with their higher starch content and the fragrance  it’s perfect for porridge.

Add in dash of sesame oil, salt, pepper and fish sauce to taste. Once you get the right porridge consistency, add in fresh prawns and pomfret.

Corn Soup

Since I had some leftovers of corns and carrots, I decided to make a simple clear soup.

Stock made of pork ribs, dried cuttlefish and garlic.

Once the stock is ready, add in corns and carrots.

A dash of sesame oil, and rice wine then salt and pepper to taste. This is really easy. Try it.

chick and veg

 

Sunday sunday,

A mixture of carrots, broccoli, baby corns and tomatoes. Like how i always stir fry my veges, I would give a quick blanch on those ‘crunchies’; everything except the tomatoes. A 2-3 minutes blanch then let them cool under running water. The gives then crisp and soft texture.

Heat up work, fry teeny bit of ginger and garlic. Put un the tomatoes, and then the rest of the vegetables. A dash of fish sauce and half a teaspoon of oyster sauce. A dash of pepper.

That’s for the side kick, and now the  for the main:Lightly fry some cinnamon, star anise and cloves then sauté the mashed ginger, garlic, shallots and turmeric. Add some curry leaves then the curry paste. Fry till reddish and oily then add the chicken. Turn to medium heat and keep stirring. Add enough water to cover the chicken and throw in the potatoes. Let it simmer. 30 minutes later, add some yogurt (i use yogurt instead of coconut milk). Cook to your preferred consistency. Salt, pepper to taste.

Happy Sunday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wake me up, before you go go

Sunday morning.

I love Sundays, watching  CSI  re-runs back to back . And to make it even more comforting.  A nice, warm, comfort TV meals.

So I decided to cook, ‘Tau Yiu Bak’

Literally it means soy sauce meat.

I marinate some pork shoulder meat cut into chunks, with sugar, salt, pepper, clove, soy sauce, sesame oil. and Saoxing wine. Let it rest while I soak some mushrooms, muk-yee fungus.

Clean up half of a whole garlic, and a thumb size of ginger I prepare few half boiled eggs.

And then make myself coffee to continue watching CSI.

You start to cook, when you feel it. No rush in preparing meals, and so I cook some rice, and start to heat up the stew pot. A drizzle of cooking oil and sesame oil, fry the ginger and the garlic lightly. Then brown the pork, both sides. Add in the mushrooms and the muk-yee fungus, give it a good stir and add in the balance of the earlier marinade. A good drizzle of more Shaoxing, some dried oyster and a bowl of water. Let it cook gentle over low-medium heat for the next 45 minutes. Add in peeled hardboiled eggs. Then, add sugar, salt, pepper and oyster sauce to taste.

Serve it with white rice and sit continue watching TV.

Bread

The ingredients:

700gm of flour

1 packet of instant yeast

100gm of sugar ( i use brown sugar)

1 teaspooon of salt

1 egg

400 ml water

70gm butter / shortening

50 ml milk

150 gm of mix fruits

Step 1: Sieve flour and mix well with the yeast and add in the water.  It’s going to be messy and wet and after mixing/kneading it let it rest for about 10 minutes.

Step 2: Add in sugar, salt, egg,  butter and milk. Mix them well and let it rest for another 20 minutes.

Step 3: Add in the mix fruits, and by now it should have risen up nicely. Feel free to apply the punch technique.

 

You can weigh about 50gm and set em on the baking tray, otherwise I just freehand-rustically throw in unevenly on a greased tray.

Let it rest another 15-20 minutes, milk glaze it then bake for 170’c 45 minutes. If the top starts to turn too brown, cover loosely with aluminium foil.

Happy breading

I’m pretending it’s summer

Yeah with the strawberries I got from the flea market @ the curve, and few tips from Bernie, here it goes.

- puff pastry

- mascarpone cheese

- heavy cream

- sugar

- lemon zest

- vanilla essence

A 3 simple step:

Step 1: Roll the puff pastry thinly and lay e’m on a baking tray. Poke randomly with a fork. Pop it into a pre-heated oven on 210’c for about 20 minutes or till golden crisp. Let it rest on the cooling rack.

Step 2: Whip the heavy cream with sugar still it’s whipped up and fold in the mascarpone cheese, add in zest from a lemon and vanilla essence. Spread  the cream onto the pastry once it has cool down.

Step 3: Lay those strawberries and some icing sugar. And EAT.

I’ve been cooking despite being busy

Haven’t been updating recently, but that doesn’t mean the kitchen ain’t smokin’.

It’s always smokin hot.  Always!!!

In the midst of balancing my corporate side of life, I still made time to tend my lil-balcony garden, rearranging furniture, sing and of course cook.

Over the past few weeks I’ve made:

Spicy grilled fish. With ladies finger and a squeeze of lime.

Ooomphy.Assam Pedas fish, (My mom’s version)

By now most of you would know by now I’m a big fan of assam pedas ( i cook this dish so often)  and I’m lucky to have different people sharing with me their different recipes. Keep em coming!Being adventurous on one of the weekends, I decided to make Penang Assam Laksa. And making this dish means, I have to cook a huge portion out of it. I spent the next hour calling, sms-ing, e-mailing, facebook-ing people to come eat. I just can’t finish it on my own and I’ve love to share my food. :) And I love tiffins too!

Minced meat porridge with salted eggs and century eggs. Using anchovies stock, it gives the porridge the seafood tinge and I flourish the usual blandness of watery porridge using this beautiful taste of salty ‘taucu’ generously.

A good blend of Cantonese style porridge with the Teocheow ‘s taucu sauce.

This is for one of those rainy days, and I want something warm and fuzzy. Blanched baby potatoes, carrots and asparagus. Some rosemary, a dash of olive oil, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce,  and 4 pieces of medium browned steak (marinated with wine, chopped rosemary, oregano, paprika, salt, pepper) all popped into the oven for the next 20 mins @ 180’c.

Steak is tender, vegetables are crunchy and caramel-ly. Throw in some apricot kernels for the crunch and some easy stacking just to complete the presentation.

So yeah, I’ve been cooking.

Roast Ribs

For more reasons to celebrate life with food, here comes an impromptu lunch. Beer marinated, honey glazed pork ribs with  caramelised onion. Very very un-halal indeed.

About a rack of ribs, soaked in a can of beer (about an hour or so or more …)

And the marinade consist of:

- 3-4 tablespoons of honey,

- 2 tablespoons of chilli sauce

- 2 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

-a pinch of cayenne pepper

- a pinch of fennel seed

-a pinch of oregano

- 1 piece of bay leave

- 4-6 bulb of garlic

- 1 onion

- salt & pepper

So after soaking the ribs long enough in the beer, rub the marinade and massage it well onto the ribs.

With layers of sliced onions as the base, roast the rib, bone side up in 170’c for an hour. Then turn over to the meat side up and roast for another 45 minutes.

Deglaze the pan with the balance of the beer with some sugar, salt pepper and a dash of flour.

Now … chomp chomp