{Recipe} Ayran (Yoghurt Drink)

This is a repost from my old blog (October 30, 2009)

You went to the shops and you saw organic yoghurt and thought, hmm this will be very healthy and grabbed it off the shelf. You went home and put it in the fridge. The next day, you remember about the yoghurt as you rummage for a snack in the fridge, you had a taste and thought whoa that's sour! Oh well I'll put it back in there, have like a week before it expires, I'll surely do something with it by then. A week later, that yoghurt's still there. What to do? Make ayran with plain yoghurt as instructed below and vow to pick up a Ski yoghurt next time.

Ingredients:
Plain yoghurt
Water or carbonated water/soda water (in equal part to the yoghurt)
a pinch of salt

1. Mix all ingredients together and whisk or shake like you've never whisked or shaken before.
2. Chuck it in the fridge to chill.
3. Shake before serving.

That organic yoghurt we bought was utterly sour so I cheated and put some low GI raw sugar in to offset the sourness. I made it with plain water and thought I'd be clever and added a bit of flavour in the form of a slosh of lemon and lime bitters, and it tasted pretty good. So I guess you can do half soda water, half fanta or something, hehe. The Turks would probably shun me and refuse to accept this as ayran but oh well. Great on a hot day or to accompany an especially spicy meal. Afiyet olsun, ta ra~

{Recipe} Marshmallow fondant (MMF)

This is a repost from my old blog (September 10, 2009) 

Edit: I used 1 kg icing sugar to 500g marshmallows (2:1 ratio of icing sugar:marshmallow)

I was supposed to include pics and step by step instructions to make the fondant decorations I used on the previous cupcake post. If anyone wants detailed recipe and instructions, I'll gladly put them up in a later post :) Here's a photo of mini vanilla marshmallows that had to be separated into 2 containers because they came in mixed bags (I think I used 7 Betta (halal) marshmallow bags). The Big Kahuna had heaps of fun "helping" me separate them even though he did whinge I was crazy hehe.


Depending on what colours you're making, you melt it in the microwave, until just melted, add icing sugar and shortening (I used Copha) and start kneading it like crazy. When you get the right consistency, pack it up in Gladwrap, cover with good amount of Copha and refrigerate. You can add colouring before you put it away but one website says if you're making red fondant, it's better to colour it when you're using it to avoid bleeding onto the other colours.


Take it out of the fridge when you're ready, and knead again and roll and shape to your heart's desires :)


Voila! Marshmallow fondant for cakes, cupcakes, anything you fancy. Ta ra~

{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} Plain bagels

We don't have a kosher bakery near us (not that I know of anyway) and the bagels we get from Coles are $5.40 for 4, that can get quite steep to have every other morning. 

I've been meaning to try out the bagel recipe in this book, One more slice by Leila Lindholm, for a while now. I've tried out her pizza, brownies and a few other recipes and I liked them. I think I got the book from Book Depository when they had one of their hourly flash sales.

It's a recipe with simple ingredients but from my experience, requires a bit of technical expertise. I followed it pretty much to the T but next time I'll know what to do differently. Have a look at my notes at the bottom. 

These bagels are absolutely delicious toasted. They are best eaten on the day and I recommend slicing and freezing what you have left for later. 

Bagels (makes about 12)

Ingredients
800g bread flour
2 tsp dry instant yeast
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp honey
500ml lukewarm water
Polenta (optional)
1 egg white

1. Mix all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix in honey. Add water little by little until incorporated. 
   
2. Using the dough hook on your mixer, knead for 10-15 minutes (see notes). If kneading by hand, I'm guessing you'd have to knead for a long time. 
   
3. Cover bowl with a tea towel and leave to rise for about 50 minutes until doubled in size. 
   
4. Knead dough by hand for a few minutes and divide them into 12 portions (we had 13 because I gave a piece to Umar; he used cookie cutters, cutlery and whatever else he could use with it). Liberally flour (or use polenta) a baking tray or two.
   
   
   
5. Shape them into balls and press in the middle with your thumb and stretch out the round shape. Place the circles on the floured trays and cover with a tea towel and let rise again for another 40 minutes. 
   
6. Preheat oven to 180°C (170°C fan-forced). Place 2 pizza stones to heat up as well. In the meantime, put a huge pot of water to a roiling boil.
   
7. Drop in 2 bagels at a time for about 30 seconds (make sure they're submerged in water the entire time).  
   
8. Dry on them on paper towels.
9. Take out the pizza stones and sprinkle some polenta on them. Arrange bagels on top, brush with beaten egg white and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden or to your liking. If you don't have pizza stones, you can line a baking tray or two with baking paper and arrange the bagels on them. This will probably result in a soggy bottom but they'll still be delicious.
   
10. Cool, slice and enjoy with your favourite toppings!
    

Notes:

• It's still cold here so I let my dough rise in the oven at 30°C.
• Umar's dough, which he kneaded like crazy, turned out the best bagel in the batch. So I will recommend kneading on the longer side. I suppose the more you work the gluten, the chewier (the better) the bagels.
• Next time, I will try replacing some of the bread flour with gluten flour to make it even stronger.
• Next time I will make larger holes because they really do puff up after the second rise. The holeless bagels bothered me so much that I used a tiny cookie cutter to make new holes after boiling them haha.
• I used baking paper for the second rise and the dough stuck to it, making them lose their shape when I peeled them off to boil.

I will update the recipe if I do anything else differently.

Thank you for stopping by!

{Recipe} Soft oat and coconut slices

I absolutely love Carman's Oat slice and I could have them every day! But they're pretty pricey in the long run so I thought I'd find a recipe that would make something similar. I came across this one from Budget Bytes. I changed a few things as I tend to do. I used honey in place of brown sugar, milk instead of soy milk and omitted the walnuts. 

These things!

These turned out soft and delicious but sadly not the texture I wanted to copy the Carman's slice. Taste-wise it's pretty much there though. So I will have to find a recipe that is more cookie-like in nature. 

The slices are on the less sweet side so if you want them sweeter, consider adding sugar (not more honey as that might add too much liquid to the recipe) or even make a quick icing to drizzle on top. 

The baby was napping so we mixed everything by hand. If you use a mixer to cream the butter, the slice will turn out puffier and lighter. 

Ingredients (6-9 slices)

¼ cup unsalted butter, softened and at room temperature
¼ cup honey
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1½ cups traditional oats
1 cup wholemeal flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
½ to 1 cup shredded coconut

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (170°C fan-forced).
2. Line your baking tray (I used a 9x9" glass dish).
3. Mix all the dry ingredients together. 
   
4. Cream butter. Mix in honey.
   
5. Add egg and mix until fluffy. 
   
6. Add milk and vanilla essence and mix thoroughly.
7. Add dry ingredients and mix gently until just mixed. 
   
8. Place in baking tray and bake for 20-30 minutes. The time depends on the type of dish you use, oven, etc. When it's done, it should look golden and start browning around the edges and you'd smell the 'doneness' if you know what I mean lol.
   
9. Cool and slice as you wish. I used a bread knife to get clean slices. 
   

Notes:

• When baking, make sure your ingredients are at room temperature unless stated otherwise
• I use unsalted butter when making sweet bakes

 Thank you for stopping by!

{Recipe} Wholemeal bread

This recipe is altered from Five Heart Home. I use regular wholemeal flour instead of white wholemeal flour and halved the recipe. The recipe has a 'starter' for the bread which makes it soft and yummy!

 Ingredients 

 

2 cups wholemeal flour
3 tbsp gluten flour
2 tsp yeast
1 ¼ cups lukewarm water

1/2 tbsp salt
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp oil (I use coconut oil or grapeseed oil)
2 tsp lemon juice (not pictured)
1 cup wholemeal flour 

 

1. In the mixer bowl, mix the first three ingredients and add the water. Mix on low with the dough hook for one minute and scrape the bowl with a spatula and mix again for a few seconds. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and set aside for ten minutes (This is the starter).
   
2. In the meantime, if it is cold where you live, preheat the oven to 30°C. Otherwise, your bread can just rise at room temperature. Grease a loaf pan or line it with baking paper.
3. After ten minutes, add salt, honey, oil and lemon juice, mix. 
    
4. Add the rest of the flour and knead until thoroughly mixed.
5. Put the mixer on low and knead for 6 minutes.
6. Dough should be clean off the bowl and just the teeniest bit sticky.
7. Put the dough in the loaf pan and place in the oven if using or on the counter to rise for 40 minutes.
8. Put your timer on 35 minutes. Turn the oven up to 180°C (fan-forced, 190°C conventional) without taking the loaf pan out while preheating. If you rise your dough on the counter, put the pan in the oven while preheating it.
9. When bread is done, it sounds hollow when you tap its bottom.

Notes:

• I always store my yeast in the fridge and only take it out right before using it.
• I just cut a piece of lemon and squeeze the amount of juice needed into the bowl (if you do this, make sure you don't get any pips in the dough!)
• This bread stays nice for at least 2 days but makes great toasts day 2 onwards anyway. 
• Sorry for the lack of photos (and shadowy ones at that) I was in a rush!)

 Thank you for stopping by!

{Recipe} Portuguese-style chicken

A repost from my old blog horrendezvous.blogspot.com 

We just bought bulk chicken so our freezers are overflowing with whole chicken, chicken pieces, thighs, well you get the picture. In order to keep interest high in our meals, I have to scour the deepest of internet oceans to come up with different recipes for the same meat. This particular one was altered from this recipe. It tasted great and caramelised very well so it was juicy and sticky, just the way we like it. Have a try!

Ingredients:
4 chicken thigh fillets
2 tbsp oil
4 tsp ground coriander
3 tsp paprika (I mixed regular and smoked)
1 tsp dried oregano
2 garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped
Juice from half a lemon
1/2 tsp crushed dried chilli (optional)
Salt to taste, I finely ground sea salt over the fillets so I used maybe 1/2 tsp (will need more if using coarser grains) but we tend to undersalt our food

1. In an oven proof dish big enough to hold the chicken, mix all the marinade ingredients. 
2. Put the chicken in and rub thoroughly. Cover the dish with its lid or cling wrap and let marinate in the fridge for 1 hour or overnight. Take it out for about an hour before baking.
3. Preheat the oven to 200°C (190 fan-forced).
4. Take off the lid and bake for 20-30 minutes, basting the chicken with the marinade every 5-10 minutes.
5. Take out and rest the chicken for about 5 minutes and serve with a spinach salad and rice. Drizzle the juice over the meal and enjoy!
   

Notes:  

• I rub about a tablespoon of salt on the chicken I use and thoroughly rinse to get rid of the 'chickeny' smell
• You can replace the fillets with breast/chicken pieces/whole chicken but please be sure to adjust the amount of marinade and baking time. 

Happy cooking! Ta ra~
 
Image sources for ingredient board:

Chicken thighs - http://www.farmfreshgrocer.com.au

Olive oil - http://www.newhealthguide.org 

Ground coriander - http://www.mediterraneanfoods.co.nz

Paprika - http://www.savoryspiceshop.com

Dried oregano - http://www.finecooking.com

Garlic - http://www.bbcgoodfood.com

Lemon - http://vladimiria.blogspot.com.au

Dried chili -  http://www.thalgoldenspice.com

{Recipe} No cook breakfast: Apple and cinnamon muesli

A repost from my old blog horrendezvous.blogspot.com

How many times have you stumbled out of bed wishing you had already had something ready for breakfast instead of having to put on a frying pan and crack those eggs? Well, that happens to me pretty much every morning so I tend to skip it even though my mum keeps drumming it into me that ‘breakfast is the most freaking important meal of the day!’. Ok, she didn’t really say it that way. So when I stumbled upon this post by Fat Mum Slim, I made it (a variation of it anyway) right away. The beauty of this recipe is that you can have whatever variations you crave.

Apple and cinnamon muesli (serves 1)

Ingredients

½ cup traditional oats (not quick)
½ cup milk (I used whole as I love the creaminess; skim is fine too)
2 tbsp vanilla yogurt (go on sneak a couple of spoons more)
½ apple, coarsely chopped (eat the rest :P)
Honey for drizzling (optional)
Ground cinnamon for sprinkling (optional)

1. Shake oats, milk and yogurt up in an airtight container and leave in the fridge overnight.
2. Good morning! Drizzle the honey and sprinkle the cinnamon on, grab a spoon and enjoy!

Tips and variations: 

• This recipe can be easily multiplied and for breakfast on-the-go, simply put in separate containers.
• Substitute apple with a handful of blueberries/strawberries and top with more.
• Substitute apple with a handful of dried cranberries and milk with cranberry juice (great body cleanser).
• Substitute vanilla yogurt with plain/or any kind really.
• If you use a yogurt with fruity bits, you can skip fresh fruit altogether.

The Big Kahuna is a chronic snacker and he says when he has this for breakfast, he does not think of snacks at all, gets him straight to lunch. So do have a try.

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~