Epok-Epok Kentang Daging / Pastel

I totally sucked at making epok-epok for the longest time until I tried these! The dough is versatile enough even for roti boyan, sardine or vegetable fillings.

In a bowl, just add the following ingredients and knead until smooth. Leave the dough to rest while you make the filling. Sounds simple huh?

200g flour

2 tablespoon oil

2 1/2 tablespoon ghee 

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 tsp salt

Filling:-

1 onion chopped

2 garlic chopped

1cm ginger grated

100g minced beef

1 large potato chopped

2 tablespoon curry powder

1/2 cup water

1tsp salt

11/2 tablespoons sugar

Sauté the onions, garlic and ginger in some oil until softened and fragrant. Add the minced beef until cooked. Add the curry powder and stir fry until well mixed. Pour the potatoes and water in and simmer to cook until the potatoes are tender . I like my filling a tad sweet but season accordingly 

Once the filling is cooled, roll dough and dust some flour so that it doesn't stick to the surface. Use a cutter to get perfect circles 

Fill it up with cooled filling, pinch the sides and fry until golden.

Ondeh-Ondeh Kledek / Klepon / Sweet Potato Balls

I love these little balls that has many names !! The Indonesians call it Klepon, majority of Singaporeans and Malaysians call it Ondeh-Ondeh .. It is also called Buah Melaka ... I've seen many people make with just glutinous flour but this recipe calls for the real deal ... Sweet potatoes... 

2 sweet potatoes boiled

1 potato boiled 

You need 300g of mashed sweet potatoes / potatoes 

3-4 blocks of Gula Melaka (chopped)

4 pandan leaves blended with 100ml water and sieved. 

Pour 50 ml of pandan juice into the mashed potatoes 

Add also 50ml of coconut milk / cream

A pinch of salt

Then slowly add 150g of glutinous rice flour bit by bit or until you get the right consistency to make into balls 

The consistency should be soft and play-doh like :-)

Roll into balls and add chopped Gula Melaka 

Boil a pot of water with the balance 50ml of pandan juice . I love the extra fragrance it gives.

I divided my dough in half. I added a bit of green coloring to half the dough to make it more green. The pandan juice wasn't strong enough and I left another half with the yellow sweet potato colour. 

I find rolling the dough with gula melaka and then plonking the dough into the boiling water immediately gives the best result. Many times I made a whole plate and when I'm ready to boil them, the Gula Melaka has already seeped through ... So I stood in front of the stove and roll and plonk and much preferred the result ! The balls will float to the surface once throughly cooked. Steam some grated coconut with salt and pandan leaves and roll the Ondeh-Ondeh in it. 

300g mashed sweet potatoes / potato

150g glutinous rice flour

50g pandan juice

50g coconut milk / cream

A pinch of salt

Green colouring / green pandan essence for green Ondeh-Ondeh 

Boiling water

50g pandan juice

Grated coconut

Salt

Pandan leaves

Nuoc Cham - Vietnamese Dipping Sauce

One of the best things I learnt from my trip to Vietnam was making nuoc cham... The dipping sauce for the summer spring  rolls.. Apparently every family have their version just like our sambal .

My tour guide shared his mom recipe for the nuoc cham. 

Cili padi 3 (chopped finely)

2 garlic chopped 

1 cup of water 

1 tablespoon tamarind paste

2 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon palm sugar

Juice of 1 lime

Chopped coriander

Mix everything in a pot and simmer until the chillis are softened and sauce slightly thickened about 10-15 minutes. Mix the coriander in. Dip your summer rolls and enjoy the tangy spicy taste of Vietnam ! 

Bubur Pulut Hitam

Ramadhan means more food at table during Iftar especially desserts - for our family that is .... The Hubby, who usually is not a dessert person actually enjoys Es Buah, Kolak etc during Ramadhan! So today's dessert is Bubur Pulut Hitam for tomorrow's birthday boy.

1 cup of black glutinous rice (ketan hitam)

Wash and soak the rice for about 4 hours.

6 cups water (then continue to add more until rice is soft)

2 pandan leaves

A block of gula melaka or in my case gula aren

Ginger sliced (optional)

These are huge so i used only 1 but adjust the sweetness level accordingly.

I boiled these babies for about 2 hours, frequently stirring. Here in Indonesia, their bubur ketan hitam uses lots of ginger but my little love doesn't like the spicy after taste.

Boil a packet of santan with some water and a pinch of salt. Be generous... I Love my bubur with lots of santan! Ramadhan Mubarak Peeps!!

Agar-agar Gudil

First attempt at this kenduri classic... All because i saw a post a friend posted on this last night!! pfffftttt 

Some people makes beautiful "pecah-pecah" curdled, marbled looking layers. No idea why mine looks more like a two-toned agar-agar instead but it tasted great ! Maybe I'll try fresh coconut milk next time. Today i used packaged coconut milk. 

I bought this Instant agar-agar powder and the instructions were for 900ml of water per sachet. So i just played around with the measurements.

600ml water

160g gula Melaka or gula Aren

1 sachet of agar-agar powder

2 pandan leaves 

Boil until all the sugar has liquefied. 

400 g of coconut milk (1 packet milk added with water)

1 egg

A Pinch of salt

Mix the salt, egg into the coconut milk and whisk. Pour into the boiling pot of agar-agar mixture. Wait for it to boil again and remove from heat. Remove the pandan leaves.

Pour into prepared container and once cool, chill in the fridge to harden. The mixture will separate into 2 layers... Slice and serve!

Thai Green Beef Curry

I think everyone knows I love my cow. Anything I can substitute with beef, I would. I do like chickie but I'm a beef girl. 

So feel free to substitute with chicken if you want though. These is a simple green curry using store bought green curry paste. You can make it yourself but I rather just buy!

I grow my own basil so I just love to cook using homegrown herbs! See the stalks with no leaves ?? That's because I used them!

Ingredients

1 clove garlic, chopped

2-3 tablespoons green curry paste

1 packet of coconut milk (180g) with 2 cups water (adjust accordingly)

1-2 tablespoons fish sauce 

1 tablespoon palm sugar 

300g Shabu-shabu or sukiyaki beef 

2 lime leaves

A handful of sweet basil leaves

Coriander leaves 

Aubergines

Pea Aubergines

Sauté the garlic in a bit of oil and add in the curry paste. Add the coconut milk and simmer. Add the Aubergines first because they take longer to cook than the beef. I choose sukiyaki or shabu-shabu is because they are thinly sliced and take no more than a minute to cook. Add all the rest of the herbs and seasonings according to taste. Serve with hot rice, fish cakes and mango salad!

Crumpets

I cannot live without salted butter ... And anything that goes with butter... Late last night I craved for crumpets that I had in melbourne... weirdly the ones in England didn't taste half as good so my mind drifted to Melbourne ... lol.. Is that a sign that I should return for the 4th time?? Hmmmmm

So made half the batter before I went to bed and in the morning these luscious looking dough was staring at me 

So the tip is to use egg rings or cutters so you get perfect circles. 

The dough should be thicker than pancake batter... It is like a bread dough after all. Cook on low fire on a griddle (in my case I used my trusty Happy Call) for about 3-5 minutes on the bottom until its golden and the top starts getting holey.

Recipe yields 10 crumpets .. 

All you need to do is mix the batter in a bowl and whisk vigorously with a beater for about 2 minutes. Or if you don't need the workout like I do, use a hand mixer. 

1 3/4 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

3/4 cup warm water 

1/2 cup warm milk

1 tablespoon melted butter

That's it... Enjoy your crumpets with butter, jam, marmalade, clotted cream or even syrup!

Thai Fish Cakes

Hmmmmmmm since its masak-masak day today, I decided on Thai after rummaging through the fridge... Mango salad ended up being mango salsa since all the mangoes ripened overnight which ended up pretty awesome except I was then dreaming of pan fried sea bass to go with that mango salsa! Bleaaarggh! I'm such a food whore!

Back to the starter... Too lazy to defrost fish so used a can of tuna ... Half a can actually since there's 4 of us and I didn't want to make too much .

1/2 can of tuna

1 chopped shallot

1 chopped garlic

1/4 cup breadcrumbs 

1 small egg 

Few stalks of spring onions, coriander, chopped

1 tablespoon of red curry paste

2 teaspoon of fish sauce (to taste)

Just mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then make patties .. The red curry paste was already salty so i after 2 teaspoon of fish sauce, i panfried a bit to taste.. you should adjust the fish sauce according to preference. With half a can of tuna, it yielded half dozen patties.

Pan fry these babies on both side until golden and serve. You can serve with Thai sweet sauce but I used the nuoc cham I had from the Vietnamese spring roll from earlier today. 

DIY - drying your herbs

I get so sick and tired of buying coriander leaves here and just when I'm about to use them, they are downright soggy! Bleaarrgghhh ... It cost about $2.50 a bunch here at the Farmer's market and Indonesians don't use coriander in their cooking so its not easily available . Grow them you say ? Of course I did but I'm still waiting! 

So here's a method to salvage your herbs before they self destruct 

Here's my self-destructing coriander leaves that I bought 3 days ago.

Snip of the leaves and lay them on a paper towel.

Pop them in your microwave oven for about 1-2 minutes depending on the wattage of your oven. 

Voila !! They are dried ! You can keep it whole or crumble it with your fingers for smaller herbs. Store in an airtight bottle or container for later use :-)

Kentang Ball - Potato Ball Soup ala Haig Road

Trying to plan what works for Iftar here when I'm used to scouring the bazaars in Singapore :-) so today I play masak-masak ... Breakfast / brunch was French toast platter, appetizer was Vietnamese Spring Rolls with Nuoc Cham and lunch was kentang balls ala Haig Road ... The soup needs to be really peppery! Syiok!!

My portions was perfect for the 4 of us.

4 large potatoes, chopped into 1 inch pieces, fried and mashed

I season it with salt, pepper and chicken. stock powder. Divide by 4 portions and set aside 

Beef filling

200g of minced beef

1/2 onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

Salt / Pepper

Sauté the garlic & onions until softened. Add the minced beef, stir fry and season with salt & pepper 

Soup

1 medium size onion

2 clove garlic 

1 tomato (blended) 

1 carrot, chopped

100g of minced beef 

1 tomato, chopped 

Beef stock powder

Water (about 1.5litres)

Salt, sugar, and lots of pepper (according to taste)

Blend the onion & garlic and saute until fragrant. Add the blended tomato pulp. Stir fry for a bit. Add water and the rest of the ingredients and simmer for about half hour until the soup is fully flavored 

Assembling the ball:-

Place a palmful of mashed potatoes on your palm and scoop some minced beef filling. Close it up with the balance potato. Dip in egg and fry until golden.

Pour hot soup over your potato balls and garnish with sliced cucumber, fried shallots and chopped parsley. And then add more pepper to the hot soup!

Bubur Lambuk

The only time I cook bubur is when someone is under the weather ... Be it the Hubs or the children ...and they prefer Bubur Lambuk or Bubur Asyurah. I can't call this bubur Asyurah as this had less than 10 ingredients which is what a bubur Asyurah is. So it's just my version of bubur Lambuk. I personally am a soupy noodle person when I'm sick .. Ah well ....

This recipe is for a big pot enough to feed 4 persons with extra servings.

All I do is wash 1 1/2 cups of rice and fill up the pot with water and simmer.

While waiting for the porridge to cook, blend and sauté the following ingredients 

1 large onion

3 cloves garlic 

1cm ginger

Add a wee bit of water before blending to get a smoother paste and sauté 

Add 3 tablespoons meat curry powder and sauté to cook and pour into the porridge mix.

With the same pot, just add a tablespoon of oil and deglaze the pot with some minced beef about 250g.

 Pour the cooked beef into the porridge as well as some chopped carrots, corn and potatoes . I would usually used mixed veggies but didn't have that on hand today. Season the porridge with the following :

2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon beef granules 

3 teaspoon salt (or more according to taste)

1 tablespoon sugar

1 packet of coconut milk (90g)

Continuously add water and stir the porridge to get the consistency that you want. Serve with sprinklings of fried shallots, spring onions, thinly sliced omelette and sambal kicap! 

Martabak Daging

Feeling peckish.... Porridge does that to me ... So here I am making martabak... Woot woot!!

Minced beef filling 

1 onion thinly sliced

2 garlic chopped

1cm ginger grated

300g minced beef

Sauté the above until the onions softened , add the beef.

2 tablespoons curry powder

1/4 cup water

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Add the seasonings and set aside.

Dough

2 1/2 cup flour

1/3 cup oil

1 tablespoon ghee or softened butter

1 egg

1 tsp salt

1 cup warm water 

Mix all the dry ingredients and add the water bit by bit until you get a soft pliable dough. About 5 minutes in a mixer or 10 minutes by hand. 

Portion the dough and let it rest for about half an hour... 

Oil your board or tabletop and start spreading one dough at a time and add more oil until it becomes a thin square or rectangular shaped dough. (At this point my hands were too oily for any picture! :-))

More sliced onions 

Spring onions

Eggs 

Minced beef mixture

In a small jug, crack an egg, add in some sliced onions, spring onions and about 2 tablespoons of the minced beef mixture (its good to season your beef slightly salty so that once its mixed with the egg, you don't need to season it again)

For an amateur, I find cooking a small portion of the filling on the pan first to solidify it and then placing it on the prepared dough and then adding more egg mixture before folding it makes it easier to be placed in the frying pan.

I used 1 egg per martabak

I made the first martabak like at the mamak stall by filling the dough with the eggy filling and the egg mixture started seeping out when I transferred it to the pan! Blearrghhh big mistake! So for all my other martabaks, I precooked half the filling and then add more before folding. That seemed to work!

Pan fry both sides until nice and golden .. 

Serve it with dahl, sambal or even chilli sauce! I like it with a side of sliced cucumber and onions in tomato ketchup.

This recipe yields 8 portions of martabak. So I par-cooked them and kept it in the fridge for breakfast tomorrow before pan frying them again!