Eating Is easy..Cookin too...

Herb garden

2009-12-06T14:09:00.007+08:00

If you're really in to cooking, you definitely should have a herb garden at home. It's easy to start. Just need some pots, soil and you could purchase the seeds at any shopping mall or gardening shops.

Start off with the smaller pots (so that you can care for them while they're still at infant stage)..Don't pour in all the seeds into one - it'll be a nightmare to spread them when they grow. Poke a couple of holes - say 6 in each, well spread out. Drop a seed into each hole, cover it lightly and water it. Then wait and see it grow. Make sure it's placed at a well sunlit area (picture on left: pandan leave)

I use organic fertiliser - after all, you're going to eat it right.

So far, i've tried basil, sage, chili padi, thyme and pandan leaves. It'll take at least a month before you can start enjoying your herbs. .. Also have lovely fragrant rosemary bought from Cameron!

The Cast of Herb Garden

Basking in glory from left : sage, basil, thyme, chili padi, more basil - they grow like crazy

Ice cold Vietnamese coffee & cupcakes

2009-12-06T13:54:00.003+08:00

Want a taste of really good Vietnames coffee? Strongly recommend Trung Nguyen. Just 2 full tablespoons, drip it with hot water and stir in 2 tablespoons of condensed milk. Have it hot or cold !

Complement it with bicuit or cupcake (see in photo). My missus (who loves baking) baked this milo cupcake which taste amazing!

Thai basil chicken & spicy long beans with dried shrimps

2009-12-06T11:45:00.007+08:00

Thai Basil Chicken

Ingredients

a) chicken

b) basil leaves

c) chopped garlic, chili padi (small chili)

d) water & oyster sauce

In a wok, fry the oil, garlic and chili till fragant. Then pour in the chicken and stir fry till it's cooked. Add a bit of oyster sauce, water and pepper. Once cooked, just mix in the basil (either chopped or whole). Serve with warm rice !

Long Beans with spicy dried shrimps

Ingredients:

a) long beans, cut into bite size

b) chopped garlic

c) dried shrimps

d) spicy shrimp paste

e) oil

Heat up wok and fry oil, garlic and dried shrimp till fragrant. Pour in the long beans and stir fry for a while till it's cooked. Add in the shrimp paste. Stir fry for a while and serve!

Tip!

Grow your own basil! It's really simple. Just a pack of seeds that costs around RM4, you could have almost 4 full pots of basil leaves. Very easy to grow with organic feed. Tastes excellent as well.

Interested to learn how to cook this recipe plus other recipies in this site, send to tanky@streamyx. Cooking classes available.

Baking bread

2009-12-03T00:06:00.002+08:00

Is baking homemade bread difficult? Not really, I've tried it and have been enjoying home made bread so far.. in fact, have even ventured to other types such as focaccia, pizza and ciabatta!

Here's what you need as basic equipments/ingredients to start
a) oven
b) measuring cups
c) glass bowl
d) cling wrap
e) dry yeast
f) sugar, salt
g) wooden spoon
h) high protein bread flour

Here's a simple recipe to make nice, buttery bread!

a) 2 cups high protein bread flour
b) 1 teaspoon dry yeast
c) 1 teaspoon salt
d) 1/2 cup milk
e) 1 egg
f) 1 teaspoon bread improver (optional)
g) 2 teaspoon sugar (brown or white is ok)
h) 2 tablespoon butter

To start, pour half of the milk (1/4 cup) into a small bowl. Pour the yeast and let it rest for 5 minutes before disolving it through stirring.

In another bowl, place the sugar, butter and the other half of the milk (1/4 cup). Warm it till disolved in a microwave (high heat for 10 secs) or slowly warm in a boiling pot. Cool it at room temperature then pour in the egg. Mix well.

In the big glass bowl, mix the flour and salt. Create a hole in the center and then pour both the yeast mixture and butter/egg/milk mixture into the hole.

Using the spoon, slowly stir in the flour till it's all mixed well.

Find a place where you can knead the bread. Either use an island top or kitchen top. Make sure it's clean! and well floured. With both your hands (floured as well), pour out the mixture and knead till it becomes elastic and smooth.

Make the dough into a ball and place back into the glass bowl. Sprinkle some flour on the top and cover with cling wrap.

Now you wait for 1-1.5 hours till it doubles in size.

Using a floured hand, punch the dough! (it's ok, don't feel bad since it'll rise again). Remove from the bowl and place on the island top. Shape it to fit your baking container - you could use a typical square aluminium bread container or the non-stick ones you can get at Ikea. Flour the container before placing the dough.

Alternatively, you could roll the dough, sprinkle some raisins/nuts/etc to give it some kick!

Let it rise again till it doubles in size for 30mins to 1 hour.

Get your oven ready at 200 Celcius. Once ready, put the container into the oven and leave it for 20-30 minutes.

Here's the best part when you see your hard work becoming a nice masterpiece. The dough will rise and your kitchen will smell lovely with butter bready smell.

Once ready, take out, cool it on rack. Then cut and eat !!! Alternatively, what i normally do is to slice it all up (once cooled) and put into a plastic container and off it goes into the freezer! keeps for months and taste just as good...

Want to try it our yourself, sign up for a personalized baking class at your place. If you are interested, send a note to tanky@streamyx.com. Guaranteed success! Fees will depend on location of your place, number of participants. Includes cost of ingredients.

Send in your questions !!

2007-09-15T01:52:00.001+08:00

Have you ever wondered how a certain lovely dish is prepared ? or where to find a particular ingredient (including how it looks like)? plus what type of kitchen tools that would be useful in preparing certain dishes ?

Send me those questions and I'll try to answer them... perhaps, I'll learn something new as well...of course, since I'm located in Selangor, Malaysia.. I am much equipped to help you with questions on where to get stuff in Selangor, Malaysia .. but on the other stuff - no problemo ! I'll find a way !=)

Trust me, I've gone through many recipe books and sometimes crack my head wondering what on earth they're talking about =)

Looking fwd to your questions, including how we can create this community of people who just loves to cook !!

Fried anchovies (ikan bilis)

2007-09-09T22:38:00.000+08:00

There's 2 ways of doing this... the conventional way or the easy way..

Ingredients
Bunch of peeled, cleaned dried anchovies (ikan bilis)- I like the big ones
cooking oil

Here's how you do it the conventional way...clean the anchovies, wash it and pat it dry. Heat up the cooking oil in a wok till it starts to smoke. to know when it's ready, just thrown 1 small anchovy into the oil.. if it sizzles.. then it's ready. Pour the whole bunch of anchovies into the cooking oil (becareful as the oil may pop out) and fry till crispy....serve immediately or store in a tight sealed container

Here's something that i've learned which is easy and less oily.. Clean the same bunch of anchovies, pat it dry and place it into a microwaveble container. pour a teaspoon of oil (this is optional) and stir the anchovies inside the container. Using a microwaveable cling wrap - wrap the top of the container, leaving a slight gap... then place it into the microwave and at high heat - microwave it for around 3 minutes..Your microwave may have a lot of smoke =) but don't worry as it's more of the moisture from the ikan bilis... after 3 minutes, take it out and use a spoon to stir it around so that the cooking is even..if it's ready, it'll be crispy, otherwise you may need to do it another round.. becareful when you take out the bowl and remove the cling wrap as the high heat may just escape and burn your hand..

Do it again for another 3 minutes and it should be ready.. a tip i can share is when you stop hearing the crackling sound during the cooking process, it means it's ready.. !!! I'd like this cooking process because it requires no oil and it's healthier...

Twist Ideas...
Fry it with some sliced onions and dried chili, tasty to eat it on it's own.. or fry it with some peanuts ! better still, you can add some chili paste and fry it together to make it spicy !

Pan Mee

2007-09-08T20:33:00.000+08:00

Ok... now let's talk bout how to make pan mee as featured in the pix on the site. if you're a real lover of this dish, then no harm trying to take a crack at making it..I've tried it quite a number of times and it's pretty easy, yet yummy !

Ingredients
For the noodle
1 egg
100g flour
1 teaspoon of oil
flour for dusting
water

For the soup/condiments
1 dried chinese mushroom
a bunch of ikan bilis (or dried anchovies)
green vegetables (up to you !!)
prawn, fish ball (any other seafood-up to you)
1 egg

For the soup
1 cube of chicken stock (if you're really lazy)or couple of tablespoon of concentrated chicken stock
1 bunch of ikan bilis (or dried anchovies)

So where do we start ! first get goin with the soup since you can let it simmer while you prepare the other stuff. Boil a bowl of water (the bowl should be the one that you're goin to use to serve) together with 1 cube of chicken cube or couple table spoons of concentrated chicken stock or bunch of ikan bilis. Taste and adjust with black pepper and salt till it meets your liking =). Leave it aside to cool or continue to simmer it at low heat. If you're using the ikan bilis, do remove it before serving so that you're left with the soup only.

Then have the condiments ready...soak the mushroom in water till it's soft (this you'll have to do hours before or even overnight to be safe) and then slice it thinly. wash the vegetables (leave and stalk), cut it into bite size. crack an egg into a bowl. wash the fish ball, peel the prawn. Have all these items placed on a plate and put it aside.

Here's the fun..tricky part ! making the noodle. Prepare a place for you to knead the dough. a kitchen table that is clean and dusted w/ flour wld be good. place 100 gram of the flour on the table (in the shape of a circle) , make a hole in the middle. crack the egg into the middle, including a teaspoon of oil and then use a fork to stir in the flour till it's mixed. add a bit of water to the flour, cover your hands with flour and then start kneading the dough. keep doing it till the dough becomes semi wet, but not too dry... should be like "play dough"...

Now, you have 2 options to churn out the noodle... either using a normal rolling pin/bottle or a hand operated machine..i've got the latter thus makes life easy.. pretty cheap and can get it from Carrefour..

To do the noodle, cut a slice of the dough and roll it to the level of thickness you want using the rolling pin or machine.. don't worry bout the shape since you're going to peel it off into bite size portions later.. make a couple and place it on a plate covered with a damp cloth to keep it moist

And you're ready to cook !!!

Boil the soup... once it's boiled, add in the noodle. here's how you do it.. have the piece of noodle on one hand and then peel bit size portions into the soup.. repeat the same for the rest of the noodle. stir the noodle while it's in the soup to prevent it from sticking..pour in the rest of the condiments - mushroom, fishball, prawn, vegetable.. crack in the egg last..

Pour everything into a bowl and serve with the following a) roasted ikan bilis (there's a neat easy way of doing it) b) roasted onion.. have sambal belacan (also will share the recipe for this separately) or chili padi. Enjoy !!

Twist Ideas
Have the dry version instead of soup.. here's how you do it, on a plate pour soya sauce, black sauce, oyster sauce, pepper. in terms of quantity, a table spoon of each would be good (except the black pepper) - add more to your taste.Some times I even add the sambal belacan into the mixture to make it spicy ! Cook the noodles and condiments like the above and then drain the soup. Pour into the plate and mix ! Serve with the same ikan bilis and fried onion. For this style, don't use egg as it won't taste nice =)

Ham sandwich with chickpea salad

2007-09-02T21:11:00.000+08:00

So you're feeling a bit lazy and still wld like to have a nice meal..a lite one that is that's full of nutrition.. so check this out..just had it for dinner today with my missus..

Ingredients
2 slice of bread
2 slice of ham
a bunch of baby spinach
honey mustard
cracked black pepper
sea salt
cheese

Preparation time: 10 minutes

So here's how you do it.. take the 2 slices of bread and have it toasted..feel free to use different varieties of bread depending on your craving..white, wholemeal or if you want to indulge further, ciabatta or the ones w/ nuts wld be just nice. You could get the usual Gardenia or any baked version at your nearest bakery..

Toast the slices of bread and on one slice, place a slice of cheese (kraft) while it's being toasted. this will make the cheese a bit meltish !! of course, you'll have to use a conventional oven or small toaster for this.. not the usual bread toaster since your cheese will melt ! 5 minutes should be more than enough..

While your bread is toasting, assemble the other stuff... wash the baby spinach (for those who have not seen this before, you cld get this at Cold Storage, Bangsar -it's small little green leaves that are superb as salad or with bread..)and let it drip dry...

Remove the bread from the toaster, place the 2 slices of ham on the one w/ the cheese. Cracked a bit of pepper, salt on top. Squeeze some honey mustard on the top. For honey mustard, I love the Masterfood brand...Then assemble the babyspinach on the top. Cover it w/ the bread and you're ready to go...

Serve it on a nice white plate with some green salad... Yummy !!

Twist ideas...
Sprinkle some tabasco sauce to make it a bit spicy or even sprinkle some chili powder..add a bit of capers for some crunch...sandwich wld go great w/ some salad (will share some of my favs) or with chips..!!