Sizzling Mee and the Mobile Canteen

There is yet another new trend among Bruneians...well, among my family anyway. For various majlis sometimes, they would call this caterer (of sorts) that goes by the name of "The Mobile Canteen". They come in a little truck, and instead of laying out the food in front of you, buffet-style, like usual, these people would actually assemble the food in front of you, as you wait.

Of particular favorite is the sizzling mee. The "chef" places a hot plate on the stove, adds all the ingredients, waits for the egg and whatnot to cook, and serves it to you right there. Here's a rather blurry picture of the people waiting in anticipation for the food ;)

And here's a picture of the result. Not bad, though it was a bit too veggie-ful for my taste. Quite nice though, very salty, hehe.

Other foods available were chicken rice and soto. That night, pizza, satay as well as various tidbits were available. Spoilt for choice, definitely :D Although...I have yet to have a proper meal with chicken and rice :(

And today marks the nikah ceremony of Kaka Anum and Abang Zul :D Big congratulations to you two! May you have a happy life together :D

Brunei Food

Although my flight back to Brunei was last week, I only just arrived properly in Brunei yesterday, as we left straight for Singapore as soon as we got back (the jet-setter life style yo! ;) )

When I got home, I was expecting to have cucur ayam, my most favorite food EVER! Unfortunately, my relatives had decided to hold a makan-makan lunch thing, so we had to eat there instead. Not that I ate that much, was still full from the plane. Man, they feed you a LOT! The meals this time were pretty good, except for the last one...Nasi Goreng Udang, and no other choice. *sigh* Not sure why I was full when I arrived since I didn't eat one bite of that. Oh well....

Anyways, knowing me, my mum had prepared one whole batch of cucur ayam anyway! yays! Only....they were a funny yellow colour. Coz see, they got a new maid, and she added turmeric (kunyit) into the cucur batter....not sure why. Shows that no one else in the house is that big a fan of cucur ayam as me :P But, jaundice-y colour notwithstanding, the cucur ayam tasted as it should :D Though it was a bit cold, but that's not too bad, haha.

The very next day, we left for Singapore... Didn't eat much good food there....just fast food fast food all the time. *sigh* Not that I don't like fast food, but I was really looking forward to Brunei food...

And now I'm back... :D I've tried my hand at cooking a couple of my better UK dishes, buttermilk chicken and teriyaki chicken. Somehow or other, I'm not sure why, possibly coz of the ingredients or utensils or something, they turned out different. The buttermilik chicken was too....milky (I used Ideal evaporated milk this time, the milk taste was VERY strong...not sure why) though Syukri loved it. He keeps on asking me to make it again. But after my teriyaki chicken fiasco (I boiled it too long, silly me #_#;;;) I'm thinking that maybe the air in Brunei is not conducive to cooking :P I refuse to cook....

or...well...maybe next time.... after I've recovered, haha.

Speaking of the new maid, she apparently "invented" a new recipe that everyone loves. It has a filling of grinded up chicken (boil the chicken, and process in a blender. Use boneless chicken of course.) in a bread roll, covered in breadcrumbs and deepfried. Yummy! Some variations include adding mayonaise into the chicken, or using crabstick instead. It seems to be a firmly established breakfast food here in Brunei now... I am impressed, hehehe ;)

Seasoned Roast Chicken and Fast Food Chicken

Hmmm, I forgot to put in an entry to last night's dinner, muahaha. Justin made a roast chicken thing, seasoned with Sainsbury's Chicken Seasoning, pepper, parsley, and again, other random stuff that he can't remember together with some flour. Basically, just mix in anything that you think will taste good, that's his rule of cooking, I think. First, he dipped the chicken in milk (or egg - makes it crispier) and then rolled it in the seasoned powder mixture, before popping it in the oven. It turned out ok, the chicken was nice and salty and flavoursome. Justin claims that it is better than Tex's Chicken, but trust me, its not even close. He made this a couple of times before, though never for dinner. Usually, he uses wings and makes it into finger food for parties, of sort. This was much better, since wings have less meat on them (and more fat! yum! :P) so its very flavoursome. The biggest problem with using thighs (like he did for dinner) was that although the outside was very flavourful, the inside just tasted like chicken. Maybe if you marinate it in something first?

And, today was the last day of exam, YAY! To celebrate, me and Faizura went out for some chicken, hehe. We were originally supposed to go to this place that Nasrul recommended, but he never did show it to her... Oh well... Fast food is always good enough, hahaha.

Due to the extreme excitement (or not...hahaha) I forgot to take pictures of the chicken meal. Oh well, just look around, have a look at a picture of a fast food chicken meal, and chances are, you have something that looks very close to what we had, hahaha.

Chilli Chicken

Today's dinner, like most of Justin's other dinners, was simple. Smelled really good while it was cooking though, hehe. Or maybe I was just hungry? #.#;;

Anyways, Justin used boneless chicken breasts for this, as they are easy to use. After sauteeing the chicken as well as some onions briefly to cook it, he simmered them in a sauce of chilli sauce (Maggi), chicken seasoning (its just salty) and chicken stock (more saltiness :P) all mixed in water and thickened with a bit of flour.

The end result was salty and quite hot, but not as hot as his last dish, roasted curry chicken. It was in fact, quite nice. It reminded vaguely of my childhood ayam tomato, even though there isn't ANY tomato in here >.<>

Other than that, I've been eating too much Pringles -_-;;; They are waaaaaaayyyyy to addictive... Will never buy them again :P

Oven-Fried Chicken

Wow, for once, Hadi actually used a recipe to cook something for dinner! *shock and surprise* Ahem. Apparently, this is an easy way of cooking "fried" chicken (and healthier too! Well, slightly) so I supposed that attracted him to it.

So here's the recipe!

What you need:
4 large chicken portions
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 egg
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons mixed herbs
1 cup breadcrumbs
3/4 Parmesan Cheese
oil, for greasing
lemon wedges, to serve

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C. Rinse the chicken portions and pat dry with a towel.
2. Combine the flour, salt and pepper on a large plate and stir with a fork to mix. Coat the chicken portions on all sides with the seasoned flour and shake off the excess flour.
3. Sprinkle a little water on to the chicken portions and coat again lightly with the seasoned flour.
4. Beat the egg with 2 tablespoons water in a shallow dish and stir in the herbs. Combine the breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese on a plate.
5. Dip the chicken portions into the egg mixture, turning to coat them evenly, then roll in the breadcrums, patting them on with your fingers to help them stick.
6. Place the chicken portions in a greased shallow roasting tin or an ovenproof dish large enough to hold them in one layer. Bake for 20-30 minutes until thoroughly cooked and golden brown. Serve at once, with lemon wedges for squeezing.

Ok, first of all, we couldn't to buy lemons, so we skipped out on that part. Also, the Parmesan cheese here is not suitable for vegetarians :( So we had to skip out on that as well.

The end result, naturally because of the breadcrumbs, looked very nice. It was nice and golden, with some green specks coming from the herbs. Very pretty, hehe. Looks quite similar to Hadi's Breaded Honey Chicken from last time, although the taste was completely different.

This time, it was salty. Mainly because Hadi put in half a TABLEspoon of salt instead of a teaspoon -_-; I didn't notice it all that much (heh) but Justin found it so salty, that he said he lost his appetite (and that is ONE big event. almost never happens...I mean, he even had Hadi's bad chicken -_-) So yeah, to all the future cooks out there, tsp is teaspoon while tbsp is tablespoon. Just so you know.

It wasn't too bad for me though. Although the insides of the chicken could have really used some flavour, since all of the flavour was on the outside. Not sure how to manage that though... I think using smaller chicken pieces (like chicken wings... *drool*) would make this dish even nicer :D

Curry Roast Chicken

Because it was only decided at the last minute that he was going to be cooking dinner last night, Justin decided to make curry chicken, a simple dish that we actually haven't had for quite a while. However, the fact that we are going home (yeyz!) soon is showing its effects. We were out of almost everything, onions, shallots, garlic, etc. Deciding that you can't really make a good curry without onions, Justin took me and Hadi's suggestion and made a roast curry chicken instead.

He covered the chicken in curry powder, parsley and other random stuff that he can't seem to remember -_-; as usual. He sprinkled yet more curry powder on the chicne before baking it in the oven for about 50 minutes, till the chicken was cooked.

The end result was...well, Hadi and Justin seemed to like it. It was very strong on the curry taste, but doesn't taste much of anything else really. Justin didn't add in any salt, so it was just not and to me, had no flavour other than the curry (which is just hot really). In fact, it was waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy too hot for me. :( I could only take one piece of chicken *sigh* Hadi and Justin had to split my other piece :(

Not only that, now that we're out of rice, the boys bought Basmati rice "for a change". I will say....I do not like Basmati rice >.<>

The resulting chicken had a powdery texture on the outside due to the...well, curry powder :P I think Justin's chicken would have been better of he had used a curry paste that Hadi has. Or if he made a paste out of the curry powder he was using. Although, apparently, this was on purpose and he was very carefully trying not to have any water mixed in with the powder. I'm not sure exactly why... -_-; Plus just a pinch of salt would have definitely been a plus.

In case you're curious, the night before last, I had just indomie for dinner :( Hadi and Justin went out for Tae Kwon Doe (till late) and I had no chicken OR rice available, so my only choice was Indomie... Wasn't too bad actually, hehe.

Chicken Porridge

Man, even though he has nothing to do, Hadi sure is lazy about cooking these days. Today, he made chicken porridge, which is a nice chain from roast chicken, but still...

Making porridge is nice and simple, though the washing up to do afterwards (if you use a stainless steel pot anyway) is absolutely horrible! >.<>

My earliest memories of porridge goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy back to when i was a kid. I absolutelly loved Ibu's bubur ayam (chicken porridge) but for some reason, a period of time after that, I did not like it quite as much. Oh well. The porridge from my childhood included delectable pieces of chicken as well as chicken wings in a steaming hot bowl of soft porridge. Really yummy.

Hadi's porridge today followed the same principle. He boiled some chicken legs (no wings :( ) until the meat just falls off the bone. And he continued boiling it until the chicken was all disintegrated. Then, he just seasoned it with some chicken stock and put in the rice and waited for it to cook. The amount of rice and water you use just depends on how mushy you want the rice to be, I guess. He forgot the pepper though, White pepper goes really well with porridge, I think. Add in just just as soon as the rice is cooked :D Or serve at the table, if you prefer, doesn't matter.

The end result of his cooking was yummy, though a bit strange looking. There were random pieces of chicken bone all over, which made for messy eating. He was too lazy to take out the bones, but you might want to consider that. The porridge was nice and salty (mmmmmmm...) but Hadi forgot to add in some pepper, like I said earlier. That is easily remedied though, hehe :D There was a LOT of chicken pieces (I think Hadi boiled the chicken a bit too long though) so that was very nice. Just look at the picture! You can even see the steam coming off it ;) Nice and hot, hehe.

Funnily enough, Hadi didn't eat too much of it, said he didn't like it so much. As for me, I had yet another exam today (and it went quite well, though not as good as I would have hoped) and was snacking before dinner. Should stop that, but I was so hungry :( Even in the exam hall my tummy was rumbling...what to do? :( Anyway, because of that, Justin got a whole load of porridge, for which, I think, he was very happy about.

Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Cookies

"Gorgeously soft cookies loaded with chunky pieces and bursting with flavour"

These are the original cookies...the recipe of which I've been looking for ever since for so long... My chocolate chip cookies are but a mere shadow of them, unfortunately. Though I *do* think my cookies have the better texture, muaha. :P

These cookies come in three flavours: white chocolate and raspberry, milk chocolate, and triple chocolate. The white chocolate and raspberry ones are not my taste, since I don't really like fruits in my cookies. But I think its Hadi's favorite, possibly because it is the sweetest :P My favorite would have to be the triple chocolate. *drools* It is sooooooooooo chocolatey. It's triple chocolate because...lessee... It has chocolate in the dough, and I think two types of chocolate chips, milk and white. It is SO good. And they're huge! About palm size! (my palms) I prefer the edges, which are a little more crunchy than the softer middle, but I think the cookies would not have been as good if they had been crunchy. The chewy soft texture just allows it to practically melt in your mouth XD And the chocolate chips are very well...chocolatey ^^; They just ooze out of the cookie and melt in your mouth *drools*

The milk chocolate one is not so bad either, since there are a LOT of chocolate pieces in them. Really really yummy... Just the thing to stuff yourself with after your exam. Which I did today. :P The exam went pretty ok actually, but the thought of something sweet was nice. Relaxes the mind and body, hehe. I was only allowed one though :( Coz Hadi was cooking dinner and I didn't want to spoil my appetite.

Oh yes, dinner. Hadi cooked the original roast chicken again. No variations, except the chicken looked better this time, not as burnt, haha. Hadi and Justin complained that the chicken tasted too much like ch icken o.0 I don't really get it, but I assume the chicken wasn't the freshest? Oh well. Better luck next time :P It could have been that the marinade was a bit too plain. I think Hadi just added chicken stock and forgot about the pepper. I didn't taste the pepper, at least. Besides, the best chicken to have roast chicken with is spring chicken... *drool* so nice and tender and juicy. And they're so small, you can have one chicken each maybe! ;) Without rice though, for the smaller eaters.

Repeat Food :(

I forgot to mention that the last post would be my last time cooking dinner for the year. Hadi and Justin very kindly offered to take care of dinner while I'm having my exams. A good thing, or so I thought...

They've been doing various repeats over and over again, too lazy to think up of new ones. On Friday (02/06/06) Justin made another batch of his super oily Sticky Hoisin Chicken. It was very oily....the chicken was literally simmering in the oil o.0 But then again, it was very flavoursome... Not sure what to think about this... Ah well, as long as we don't have it everyday? There's gotta be a way to make it healthier.... right? o.0 It tastes too good, hahaha. Very flavoursome and soooo juicy.... *sigh*

And then the next day, Saturday (03/06/06) Hadi made more Tandoori Chicken. This time was even worse. He used premade Tandoori sauce from Sainsbury's. All he had to do was add the yoghurt. Does that even count as cooking?!! -_-; Oh well. It was a bit too...Tandoorish for me, actually. But the others complained that there was something missing, that the chicken was not flavoursome enough... o.0 Justin couldn't even finish his rice with his chicken, even though he had four pieces! Oh well, safe to say, for Tandoori fans, stay away from the Sainsbury's Tandoori sauce thing :P haha

And today, Justin cooked a variation of his Sticky Hoisin Chicken, only this time it was baked not stirfried. Hey hey! Maybe it IS healthier now :D He claims that it isn't, possible cause of the Hoisin sauce? He marinated chicken legs in hoisin sauce, worcestershire sauce, white pepper and various random ingredients before popping the chicken into the oven. It may be healthier, but it wasn't as nice as the original oily one :P Haha, oil tastes good, I tell you :P

A three-paper run of exams start tomorrow :( How sad. Good luck to me...

Breaded Chicken Fingers

And so it begins....my first exam was today :( Well, it went pretty ok, actually. So that wasn't too bad. I wish I could say the same for the dinner though, Unfortunately, I was cooking today as well. I picked a simple recipe because I would have to cook right after the exam. At least, I thought it was a simple recipe:

What you need:
Boneless chicken breasts, cut into half inch pieces
1 egg, beaten
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/1 teaspoons garlic powder (or to taste)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

What you do:

1. Place the chicken in a plastic resealable bag. In a small bowl, mix the egg, buttermilk and garlic powder. Pour mixture into chicken. Seal and refrigerate for 2 - 4 hours at least.
2. In another large bag, mix together flour, breadcrumbs, salt and baking powder. Remove chicken from fridge and drain. Discard marinade. Place chicken in flour mixture. Seal and shake to coat.
3. Carefully place coated chicken in hot oil. Fry until golden brown and juices run clear.

I was scared that the chicken might be quite tasteless (buttermilk, after all, doesn't taste like anything much - just sour). So I made a kind of dip to go with it. Just mix 1 cup of cour cream, with about 4 cloves of garlic (minced, or just use garlic powder :P), 4 sprigs of fresh parsley (finely chopped), 2 tablespooons Worcestershire sauce, 1 small finely minced shallot, 1 teaspoon salt and 3 drops tabasco. Refrigerate overnight for a more potent flavour ;) The resulting sauce wasn't my taste, but Justin really liked it, so....it couldn't have been that bad, I suppose.

Anyway, back to the chicken. It did turn out kind of...well, it was salty, that was all. So the sauce might not be a bad idea. Tomato ketchup goes quite well as well. It wasn't one of my best dinners, sad to say. For about 2/3 of the chicken, I couldn't be bothered to fry it, so I baked it instead. Not necassarily a good idea, it would have been crispier if it had been fried. But it was ok. I don't suggest you do it with thigh fillets though, otherwise it would be quite oily.

I also suggest not using the flour and just sticking with the breadcrumbs. Presentation would have been better. And the marinade definitely needs more flavour. Some salt and pepper maybe, buttermilk and garlic is just not enough....

As for what is buttermilk? Its completely different from the buttermilk in last time's (my baby, haha :P) Its basically just curdled milk, so it doesn't taste like anything much. Slightly sour, maybe. To get home-made buttermilk, apparently you just add 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to a cup of milk. I never tried this, so I don't know what would happen, but I suggest you don't try it with strong vinegars like rice vinegar. :P