{Recipe} Beef Rendang

This is a repost from my old blog (August 8, 2009); please forgive the terribly blurry photo lol

Felt like a proper Malay dish last week so made myself some :) Here's the recipe with the ingredients in order of usage.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 lemongrass
2 red chillies (about 2 tbsp)
1 medium red onion, half sliced thinly
3 garlic cloves
1 tbsp ginger
3 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp cumin
600-750 grams beef, sliced and cut into bite pieces
1 cinnamon stick
4 curry leaves
2 tsp brown sugar
2 cups coconut milk
1 tbsp lemon juice

1. Blend lemongrass, chillies, half of onion and garlic and ginger. Set aside.
2. Mix the beef with coriander, turmeric and cumin.
3. Sautee the sliced half of the onion until soft.
4. Add the beef mix and cook until browned.
5. Add cinnamon stick, curry leaves, brown sugar and coconut milk. Cook covered for 1 hour.
6. Removed lid and cook a further 1 1/2 hours or until it reaches the consistency desired. Stir every once in a while.
7. Removed cinnamon stick and add in lemon juice.

Adjust the sugar and other spices according to your preference. Great eaten with rice cakes, glutinous rice or even plain rice/bread. I know it seems like a lotta work and takes so long! But if you're missing/craving it... Well, it'll be worth it, enjoy! Ta ra~

{Recipe} Jjajangmyun (black bean noodles)

A repost from my old blog horrendezvous.blogspot.com

Annyeong! How many times have you sat down and watch K-dramas (especially rom coms) and thought to yourself, man how good do they make food look?? The way they eat their noodles *slurp* and the spread they put out for breakfast... That happens to me and the Big Kahuna every single time and so I have been dabbling in Korean cuisine, sort of, lately. I have made jjajangmyun countless times now, experimenting with different ingredients and brands of black bean sauce :D

This dish originated from China and so is considered a Chinese dish enjoyed by many Koreans. I have tried the instant noodles version. Alas, not to my liking lol.

The recipes I found mostly use pork belly for the protein and since we are not pork eaters, this recipe has been altered in that sense and in many other ways to suit our taste. So this might not appeal to most people, least of all actual Koreans! Sorry! But jjajangmyun is so tasty that it would be awesome if people who find pork or even meat a deterrent to try making it at least once! :) If you're vego, just leave out the meat and it would still be super delicious, trust me ;)

Jjajangmyun (black bean noodles) Serves 4-6

Ingredients

Olive oil
1 onion (diced)
A quarter of a cabbage (roughly chopped, about 2 cups; optional, can be substituted with 1 diced radish)
2 carrots (chopped; optional)
2 potatoes or 1 sweet potato (diced)
1 zucchini (diced)
1 chicken breast (diced; optional)
2-3 cups water
1/4 cup black bean paste
Sugar to taste
2 tbsp potato starch or cornflour mixed with 1 tbsp water
White wheat flour noodles, follow instructions on packet
Half a cucumber (julienned, for garnish)
Kimchi (accompaniment; optional)
Sesame oil (optional)

Cabbage, potatoes, onion, carrots and zucchini

Diced carrots, onions and zucchini

Chopped cabbage

Diced potatoes

Diced chicken breast

The black bean paste I used this time (I always like to try different brands to find the best-tasting ones; this one was nice)

Noodles I used

Cornflour mixed with water

1. Heat oil in a wok or a big saucepan with a lid.
2. Sautee onion and carrots.

Sauteeing carrots and onion

3. When onion is transluscent, add cabbage, potatoes and zucchini.

Sauteeing the rest of the veggies

4. After a few minutes, add chicken and stir fry for a couple of minutes.

More sauteeing, with chicken

5. Add water until just covered and place the lid on. Let simmer for 20-25 minutes or until potatoes are cooked. Remember to stir every once in a while to make sure that the potatoes don't stick to the bottom.

Water added

Chuck the lid on

6. Remember to cook the noodles in the meantime!

Cooking noodles in boiling water

7. Add black bean paste and sugar. Add more of either if you'd like it saltier/sweeter. You can heat up some oil in a small saucepan and fry the black bean paste before putting it into the mixture but it is not necessary.

Frying the bean paste

8. Add potato starch or cornflour mixture to thicken the sauce bit by bit. You might not use it all or you might have to add more. You'd want a very thick sauce that when you mix it with the noodles, it'd make this squishing noise lol.

Sauce which still needed thickening

9. Place noodles in a flat bowl/plate, heap a serving of black bean sauce on top and garnish with cucumber and a dash of sesame oil. Enjoy with or without kimchi. Mashittda!

Voila! Jjajangmyun with a side of cheat kimchi (recipe to come)

Notes and tips:

This is not traditional but I usually blend all the vegetables together and this gives the sauce a thickness (possibly the starchiness from the potatoes), I do this when I can be bothered :P Since the sauce is already thick, I would add very little water and sometimes I don't even need to add cornflour/potato starch mixture.

One happy customer!

If you find you have too much cabbage cut up, don't panic, you can make kimchi using a very easy recipe which will be put up very soon.

The beauty about this dish is that if you do not have certain vegetables, you can either substitute or omit. I would keep at least three different vegetables in.

Since I cook for two, we usually have heaps of leftover sauce. You can chuck it in the fridge if you're lazy to cook the next day or in the freezer to have over the months.

Happy cooking! Ta ra~

{Recipe} Chicken with turmeric (ayam masak lemak)

This is the chili-free version of the popular Malay/Indo dish so feel free to add some if you'd like a bit of heat.

Ingredients:

1.5 kg chicken pieces
1 tbsp raw sugar
6 candlenuts*
3 garlic cloves
1 onion
2.5 cm galangal*
2 lemongrass stems*
1 cm cube belachan/shrimp paste
4 cm fresh turmeric or 1 tbsp ground turmeric
1 tbsp tamarind paste* dissolved in 1/4 cup water
4 tbsp oil*
400 ml coconut milk
Water
Salt and pepper to taste

*2 candlenuts can be substituted with 1 macadamia nut or 2 almonds; galangal may be substituted with ginger; I have found myself lemongrass-less before and substituted with about a tablespoon of lemon zest mixed in a tablespoon of lemon juice; tamarind juice can be substituted with lemon/lime juice; I used coconut oil but other oils may be used

1. I rub chicken with salt and rinse to get the chickeny taste off. Then rub sugar into chicken and set aside.
2. Blitz candlenuts, garlic, onion, galangal, lemongrass, belachan and turmeric.
3. Heat up oil in a pot and sautee the turmeric paste until aromatic without browning.
4. Add chicken pieces and coat with the paste.
5. Scoop the creamy bit off the top of coconut milk (set aside) and add the watery part. Add tamarind juice. Add enough water to just cover the chicken.
6. Cover the pot and cook for about 45 minutes until chicken is cooked.
7. Stir in the coconut cream, season with salt and pepper and serve.
8. Garnish with deep fried onions and freshly chopped coriander if desired. Enjoy!

Thank you for stopping by!

{Recipe} Jacket potatoes

A repost from my old blog

I wanted to post this recipe a few weeks ago (forgive me!) but I was caught up in so many projects that I just couldn’t sit down and spend half an hour writing this up. But here it is now! As with many of the recipes on the blog, It was a whatever-I-had-in-the-pantry-and-the-fridge recipe. And as usual you can substitute wherever you need to.

Jacket potatoes (serves 2 or 4 as a side dish)

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

4 potatoes

50 g Wensleydale cheese with cranberry

2 tbsp cream

Salt and pepper

1 spring onion (I only used the green part), chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (190 fan-forced).
2. Pierce the potatoes with a fork in six places.
3. Rub with olive oil and salt and pepper.
4. Place on a baking tray lined with aluminium foil and put in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes.
5. Turn down the oven to 180°C (170 fan-forced) and bake for a further hour.
6. Check if the potatoes are done (when the skin is golden and crisp), take out and place a potato on a clean tea towel. Cut a shallow cross on top and squeeze from underneath to ‘open’ the potato. Repeat with the rest.
7. Mix the cheese and cream and spoon 1 tbsp of the mixture onto the potatoes and top with spring onion (I don’t like raw spring onion that’s why I cooked it but you can leave this until after you take the potatoes out of the oven).
8. Place in the oven for 5 minutes or until cheese has melted.
9. Serve with your favourite main or enjoy it on its own!

Tip: You can use a softer cheese and omit the cream altogether or use whatever toppings you have on hand.

Sorry for the shadowy photo! Ta ra~

Photo sources for ingredients board:

http://www.newhealthguide.org

www.huffingtonpost.com

http://canadacheeseman.wordpress.com

http://www.vegetables.co.nz

http://a2milk.com.au

 

{Recipe} Basic pancakes

Apologies for the quietness, time just flew by! I hope it's not too late to wish a happy new year to everyone!

This is our go-to recipe every weekend (and some weekdays). I think I saw it on a Jamie Oliver cooking show but I have tweaked it to suit our needs. I've used different kinds of flours and they pretty much turned out great every time. And of course, the kiddies can join in too as it's a fairly easy recipe to prepare the ingredients ahead for them. Umar loves the pouring and mixing involved.

Basic pancakes recipe (makes about 12 good-sized pancakes)

Ingredients:

1 cup self raising flour*
1 large egg
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

*I have substituted with plain flour/wholemeal flour plus 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp baking powder. I have also tried different brands of flour. The fluffiest pancakes I've made so far were using Lighthouse self-raising flour.

Simply multiply recipe for bigger serves.

1. Place flour in a medium bowl. Crack the egg in the middle and whisk.
   
2. Gradually add in milk and essence and whisk until thoroughly mixed.
   
   
   
    
3. Leave for 5-10 minutes for the raising agents to work their magic.
4. In the meantime, heat up your pans (I usually put a few on so I can cook through a few pancakes at once.)
5. Start cooking! (I put the pancake mix in a condiment bottle with the opening widened (cut) a tad more to get nice round pancakes)
   
6. When the top bubbles, it's time to flip and a minute more and your pancakes are ready!
   
7. Serve with fresh fruit/berries, butter and plenty of maple syrup, yum!

 

 Thank you for stopping by!

Welcome!

Hello family and friends and newcomers!

This first post marks another part of my life that needs organising; online content! I have several blogs which I will comb through. I will pick out relevant posts and categorise and post them here over the next coming weeks. I will try to balance old and new content as the transfer occurs.

The name of the blog loosely suggests what it is all about. Because trust me, it will really be about everything, not just DIY projects, parenting, learning and recipes. It truly will be a writing outlet for me. So you might not enjoy everything I have to share with you but you might find a few things you do.

Okay, now to explain about some of the things I'll be writing about. A lot of the posts will be about Montessori-inspired learning and environment. I discovered Montessori principles when my now not-so-little boy, Umar, was about six months old.

First baby boy

Umar tends to toss and turn A LOT in his sleep and he takes up the whole bed when he's settled in his favourite position which requires his arms to be fully spread out, yes, much like a starfish. He slept in a bassinet next to our bed until he was about 3 months and grew out of the thing. We then co-slept with him and soon found that he needed plenty of space. At six months, we moved him to his cot in his own room. I then discovered that because he rolled so much, he woke up from his arms hitting the sides of the cot. The first thing I thought was, he needs a queen-sized cot. But of course, that was not a cheap and easy solution. Then, ding! the bulb lit up in my head. What if I put his mattress on the floor. Since he'd started being more mobile, that'd be great for his independence too.

Onto Google I went for 'mattress-on-the-floor' inspirations and bam! the first picture that caught my eyes was one by Meg from Sew Liberated. I think I thought I'd be the first to think of having a nice floor mattress but... Anyway, so that's where it all started. I read up on Montessori after that, bought a few books and set up our home to be as Montessori-inspired as possible.

I'm still terrible at not offering help as Montessori principle encourages as much independence in as safety allows. And I do get frustrated when he takes too long to get a job done or when he insists on working with me when I am in a hurry. He is a very determined and opinionated child and sometimes can be absolutely domineering and makes me feel like a failure of a parent when he refuses to do as I tell him to. I'm sure that just comes with the territory though.

New baby boy

I digress, we are six months pregnant with another boy at the moment and I hope to provide a Montessori-inspired environment for him from birth. I have a few simple DIY projects in mind in the coming weeks related to this and I hope to share them with you.

Umar and I also have at least one baking day a week and we usually make something different each time so look forward to the toddler help-friendly recipes! There is also a shop tab on this blog that will lead you to our online shop where we stock some Montessori-related items that we use and also fun and stimulating toys.

Lastly, the blog will most probably carry various reviews and recommendations on books and games (PC, board and everything in between).

You can email me at fixgrowcreate@outlook.com with any queries. Please let me know if you find reading this font annoying or if there is any other issues.

So, again welcome and I hope you will be staying!