Mamak Mutton Chops

I do not miss Singapore, the country, but I do miss the food!! One of them is mutton chops which is easily available at every Indian stall! My favourite of course is at West Coast Food Centre! 

It's seriously easy... I mean who doesn't know how to fry an egg, some potato wedges, slice a cucumber and plonk some peas on a plate right?? Heck even a 12 year old can do that! 

It's the red sauce that a 12 year old can't do! Here's my recipe for 4 persons after trial and error.. The only problem was, there was no mutton available so I bought beef and its equally as awesome! 

I bought 250g pre-cut sirloin for stir frying so I know I can just toss it in quickly and it'll be tender. 

Marinade the beef with 2 tsp of soya sauce (I use cap Kipas) with 1 tablespoon of tomato ketchup. Set aside.

For mutton or lamb, you need to boil the cubed meat in salted water for at least an hour until tender. Once cooled, slice according to preference and toss into the cooked red sauce.

Red Sauce

3 shallots

1 garlic

2 tablespoon chilli paste

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp cumin powder

3 tablespoons tomato ketchup

2 tablespoons chilli sauce 

1 teaspoon sweet soya sauce (cap Kipas)

1 teaspoon salted soya sauce (cap Kipas)

1/4 cup water

Salt to taste

A few drops of red food colouring. 

First, stir fry the beef in hot oil until just about cooked. When all sides are no longer pink. Set aside.

Blend the shallot and garlic and sauté with the chilli paste until fragrant. Add the spices and continue to sauté. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Use only a few drops of red food colouring to get that red mamak sauce. Stir the cooked beef in and let it simmer to coat the beef and the sauce is thickened. 

Serve with potato wedges, peas, fried eggs, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. 

Enjoy!

Banoffee Pie

One of the most simplest but decadent dessert ever! Its just digestive biscuits, bananas, DDL and whipped cream! 

The only time consuming part is making the dulce de leche. Even more fabulous if you have those canned DDL! 

If you're like me and its impossible to get canned DDL where you live, all you need to do is boil a can of condensed milk in a pot of water for 4 hours. Yes 4 hours to get a dark caramel colour deliciousness! 

Pierce a few holes to let the pressure out. The last thing you want is DDL exploding all over you! 

Use a 6 inch pie dish for this dessert.

150g digestive biscuits 

50g butter (melted)

Place the biscuits in a food processer and once it's crumbly, add melted butter and press down onto the pie dish. It's better to chill this in the freezer for at least 15 minutes to firm the crust first. 

Spread some DDL over the pie crust. A thin layer if you don't like cloyingly sweet desserts, more if you have a sweet tooth.

3 bananas

250ml whipped cream

Layer sliced bananas on top of the DDL and spread whipped cream over the top.

Drizzle more DDL on top if you like. I like it with more whipped cream and more DDL!! Chill for at least 2 hours and serve.

Fried Bee Hoon aka Mee Picnic aka Mee Birthday

Call it Mee Picnic or Mee Birthday but this simple fried bee hoon is a favourite in every Singaporean's home. Every family have their version... This is mine... Really simple .. And you can eat it over and over! 

Firstly, soak a packet of vermicelli noodles or bee hoon. I like to soak mine in cold water first and once the noodles have loosened, add warm water to it.

Blend 1 onion and 4 cloves garlic.

Sauté in oil until fragrant. Add about 1/3 cup oyster sauce and mix well. Add the following ingredients.

1/2 cup of water

1 carrot, julienned

4 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked and sliced 

200g sliced beef

10 pieces prawns

1 tablespoon black pepper

Salt to taste

Once the beef is no longer pink, add your soaked bee hoon and continue flipping your bee hoon making sure every strand is coated with the seasoning. Add some chopped sawi or chye sim and continue cooking until the fluids are dried and the noodles are soft. Sprinkle with fried shallots and sliced red chilli . I also like eating them with pickles green chillis... Yummmmm

Lempeng with Sambal Tumis / Malay Pancakes

See.... I get tempted over other people's post too and today Mak Ju's lempeng made me change my breakfast menu! 

Thankfully I had some pre-made sambal in the fridge and added the ikan bilis.

For me a super soft lempeng is key!

Batter

1 cup flour

1 cup warm water

1 egg

1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda

1 tsp salt

Mix the batter until smooth and let it rest for 5 minutes to let the soda work it's magic. Alternatively when I'm lazy (which is quite often, I'll just whizz it up in the blender) :-)

Heat some oil in a non-stick pan and pour the batter just like how you cook your pancakes. Flip and cook the other side. Serve with sambal! Fuuuhhh

Sambal Tumis 

2 large onions

A handful of dried chillis, soaked

3 cloves of garlic

A thumb size belachan

A bit of water to blend

A walnut size of asam or tamarind, mixed with water to get the juice 

1.5 tsp of salt (or to taste)

2 tablespoons sugar

1 cup Ikan bilis / anchovies, soaked

Just blend the above items in a blender until smooth. Sauté in about 1 cup of oil and make sure the ingredients are really fragrant and "crispy". Add your salt, sugar and tamarind water. Add a bit more water if preferred. Mix in your soaked Ikan bilis and cook through. 

Kway Teow Siram / Beef Horfun

Wanted something light for dinner and I've been craving for kway teow for ages!!! Ive had yellow mee, pasta, bee hoon but not kway teow these last 2 months! 

I find the only way to get soft beef is to use a meat pounder! So I sliced the beef and pounded it before marinating it..

So I took about 200g of beef sirloin, sliced it and pounded the the beef slices before marinating it with,

1 tsp oyster sauce

1 tsp light soya sauce

1 tsp sugar 

A pinch of salt

A dash of pepper

1 tsp cornflour

1 tsp oil

What you do first is rinse your kway teow with hot water first to get rid of the manufacturer's oil and grime.. 

This was 400g of kway teow, perfect for the 4 of us. After rinsing, add 2 tablespoon of sweet soya sauce to coat the kway teow. Heat your wok with 2 tablespoons oil and quickly stir fry the kway teow over high heat. Divide into 4 plates.

Half a carrot, julienned

A handful of bok choy or chye sim, cut and washed

A handful spring onions cut into 2 inch lengths 

With the same wok, stir fry your marinated beef with 2 tablespoons oil, thrown in the carrots, bok choy and spring onion quickly and divide onto the 4 plates of kway teow.

Gravy

1 inch ginger, sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon light soya sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1/2 cube chicken stock or 1 tablespoon chicken stock granules

1 tablespoon white pepper

1 liter of water 

2 tablespoons cornstarch mix with water

1 egg, whisked

Salt to taste 

Sauté the ginger and garlic in some oil, once it sizzles, add your seasonings and water. Let it boil and stir in your egg. Do a taste test and add your salt accordingly. Add your cornstarch lastly to thicken the sauce. Pour over the noodles and beef. Garnish with more spring onions and fried shallot. Serve with cut chili with soya sauce.

Victoria Sponge Cake or Victoria Sandwich Cake

This was the first cake I ever made when I was 13... Straight out from my Homec book in Secondary 1 back in Crescent Girls'! 

Obviously the recipe isn't from there but it made me reminisce the old days, starting out in the kitchen ... 😆😆

First make the sponge ... This recipe yields a small and cute 7 inch cake ..

100g butter

100g sugar 

1 tsp vanilla essence 

2 eggs 

100g flour 

2 tsp baking powder

Cream butter and sugar until creamy. Add vanilla essence and then the egg one by one. Then add the dry ingredient.

Line the base of your cake pan with grease proof paper and pour the batter in. Bake the  cake for 30-40 minutes at 170 degrees or until cake is firm. 

Cool cake on a rack and slice in half. Spread strawberry jam.

Whip about 250g of cream. I used Anchor.

Spread whipped cream.

Place the other half of the sponge and dust with icing sugar and slice strawberries on top! 

Homemade Cannoli with Ricotta Filling

Yes yes ... I get like this when I'm itching to travel... Reminiscing is not great for my waistline! Yesterday was Spain which was why I made churros ... Today was Italy so it's cannoli ... Siggghhhh

Then I realized I don't have the tools to make my shells so I rolled a thick board and wrapped it with aluminum foil. It worked!!

Cannoli Shells 

1 cup flour

1 tablespoon butter

1/8 tsp salt 

2 tsp sugar

1 egg yolk 

1/4-1/2 cup cold white grape juice or apple juice. Or cold water 

Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Rub in butter into the flour until you get coarse grains, add the yolk and add the juice or water in bit by bit until the dough is smooth. Let the dough rest for a bit.

Dust your work surface and roll the dough thinly. Use a round cutter, and wrap the dough onto your tool, pipe or anything cylindrical. 

Seal the pastry with egg wash. Fry in hot oil until golden brown. Set aside in an airtight container until you're ready to

fill it up.

Ricotta Filling

1 cup ricotta cheese (drained)

1/3 cup icing sugar

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1/4 tsp allspice powder

1/3 cup heavy cream (whipped)

Chocolate chips, pistachios, cherries (optional)

Whisk your ricotta until smooth. Add in sugar and spices and fold the whipped cream in. Chill in the fridge to set for at least an hour. You can do this the night before. You can add chocolate chips in the filling or leave it plain, fill the shells up using a piping bag and sprinkle more chips or chopped pistachios at the end. Dust with icing sugar. Bon Appetito!

Strawberry Ricotta Tart

I still had leftover puff pastry from the other day and a container of ricotta sitting in the fridge ... And I'm also craving for something strawberry-ish.. And this is AFTER I made a batch of banana muffins!! What is happening to me!

All I did was roll the puff pastry out, slather it with jam, add some icing sugar to the ricotta, spread it over the jam, arrange some sliced strawberries on top, sprinkle some sugar, egg wash the sides bake and voila .. Craving fulfilled .. 

So first, cut the puff pastry into rectangles, egg wash the sides and fold in.

Step 1 : slather with strawberry jam

Step 2 : spread about 125g ricotta cheese that's mixed with 2 tablespoons of icing sugar 

Step 3 : arrange sliced strawberries on top of the ricotta 

Egg wash the sides

Sprinkle with sugar over the strawberries 

Pop it in the oven for 30 minutes at 180 degrees until the puff pastry is nice and  golden. Dust with icing sugar. 

Mee Soto

Back in Singapore there was hardly any reason for me to cook this because practically every Malay stall sells this! 

Unfortunately, here in Jakarta the soto is different.

They have all kinds of soto and one of my favourite is soto betawi which is served with hot rice, pickles and sambal. But all these do not go well with noodles like what we are accustomed to. 

Blend the ingredients and sautée until fragrant.

1 large onion

5 candlenuts

5 cloves garlic

1 inch ginger

2 inches lengkuas (galangal)

1 tablespoon coriander seeds

1/2 tsp cumin seeds 

1 tablespoon white pepper

1 cinnamon stick 

5 cardamom pods

3 star anise 

5 cloves 

1 lemongrass bruised

1 chicken stock cube

3 tablespoons kurma powder

2 tablespoon sugar

Salt to taste

5 chicken wings

1 chicken breasts or half a chicken

3 liters of water approximately

Vermicelli or yellow noodles 

Once the blended ingredients are fragrant, sautée the cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, cloves and kurma powder. Add water and the rest of the ingredient and boil for about 45 minutes to an hour. 

Add more water to the broth once it reduces according to preference.

Remove the chicken breasts, cool and shred. 

Prepare your noodles by boiling it and setting it aside. Serve your preferred noodles with taugeh (bean sprouts), parsley, shredded chicken, fried shallots, begedil (potato patties), boiled eggs ( optional) and lots of sambal kicap ! Perfect for a cold, wet, rainy day! 

Apple Turnovers

Made these apple turnovers for Faris's entrepreneurship day bake sale... Of course you can make your own puff pastry but since I always keep a batch of store bought ones in the freezer, why not use them? 

Frozen puff pastry

6 apples skinned, cored and sliced into small pieces

1/2 cup brown sugar

a pinch of salt

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon cornstarch mix with 1/4 cup water

Egg wash 

Cook the apple filling on low heat for 5 minutes. We just need the apples to absorb the spices and sugar. Once the mixture starts boiling, add the cornstarch mix to thicken the sauce. Set aside to cool 

Now lets work with the pastry. Dust flour on your work surface and roll the pastry about 3mm thin. Cut into squares and leave some puff pastry for the trimmings.

Brush eggwash at the edges of the pastry, spread the apple filling in the middle and place strips of puff pastry over the top. Brush the strips with eggwash again and bake for 30 minutes on 180 degrees. 

Beef Quiche

I think of all the quiches that I made, this is still the family favourite ...

Pastry dough

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup butter

1/2 tsp salt

6 tablespoons iced water

With rubbing in method, add the flour, butter and salt and rub in until you get course grains.... Add the ice water bit by bit until you get the texture you like. Let the dough rest for 5 min. Roll the dough on a floured surface and flip onto your pie dish. Trim the edges and make sure the the dough is nice and smooth 

Poke with a fork and blind-bake them for 25 minutes on 170 degrees. 

Blind baking is to cover the raw pastry with a piece of grease proof paper and top it with beans so that the dough stays nice and flat throughout baking.

300g Minced beef

1 carrot (chopped)

1 onion (chopped) 

1 garlic (chopped)

Salt, black pepper, paprika

Sauté the onions and garlic in oil until fragrant, add the carrots and once a bit softened, pour in the minced beef. Season well with salt, black pepper and paprika.

Pour the minced beef on the pastry.

Quiche sauce

4 eggs (whisked)

355ml milk

(For a richer taste, you can substitute half of the milk with cream or evaporated milk)

Salt, pepper 

Red and white cheddar cheese (grated)

Whisk the eggs, milk and seasonings and pour over the beef mince, sprinkle generously with cheese and bake at 180 degrees for 35 mins or until the quiche is set. Serve with a side salad & dressing! Bon appetit!

Corndogs

You won't believe how hard it was to find cornmeal here in Jakarta!! The kids have been bugging me for corndogs weekly and i can't make them until today! Again it's something I take for granted back home thats not easily available here.. 

Mix all the dry ingredients together and then crack the egg and pour the milk in..

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup flour 

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

2 tsp baking powder

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

10 Hotdogs

Skewers (satay stick)

Dip the hotdogs in the batter and deep fry in hot oil until golden brown...