Bread and Butter Pudding

So a few months ago, Nasrul requested a bread and butter pudding...

If you're a typical student, you will often not be able to finish a loaf of bread before it goes moldy. Since I hardly ever use bread, I counteract this by freezing my bread. But one of my flatmates during my first year usually used any bread that is getting risky in a bread pudding.

Apparently, its very simple, but since I never made one before, I thought I better get a proper recipe. The one I have here is apparently a very nice one. My aunt and her family in London had it the other day, and they requested the recipe from the person who made it. Its slightly more complicated than the one my flatmate used to make, but its not too bad. Here we go!

What you need:
Sauce:
125g softened butter
2 tablespoons sugar
5 eggs
4 tablespoons condensed milk
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Sliced bread, crusts removed
Milk, for dipping

What you do:

1. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy.
2. Add in the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition.
3. Add in the rest of the ingredients for the sauce, one by one, beating well after each addition.
4. To assemble the pudding, dip the bread slices in the milk and arrange in a single layer in the bottom of an oven proof dish. Spread a layer of the butter and egg sauce, then repeat with the bread.
5. Repeat the layering until the whole dish is full. The pudding will thus have layers, almost like lasagne, really! ;)
6. Bake the assembled pudding in a preheated 150 C oven for 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown. Either serve immediately, or cold.

I never had the original one, so I can't compare, but I thought this was really nice. Very rich, with all the egg. Everyone else didn't agree though, haha. Apparently, it wasn't as nice as what they tasted the other day. Accusations of the cook not being truthful with her recipe soon emerged, albeit rather jokingly. But of course, since most bread and butter puddings are made with not a proper recipe, it could be that she just didn't estimate the measurements properly.

Another possible reason is because of the butter. When we made this, the butter was NOT softened, and hence, it wasn't creamed properly with the sugar. As a result, in the finished sauce, the butter was present in small lumps floating on top of the liquid. That cna't be good, can it? So again, this might result in the changed appearance and taste of the pudding.

But even if the recipe wasn't accurate, I found this tasted quite okay (though a bit too sweet for me...). Its quite complicated, since it actually needs *gasp* a mixer (which most students don't have...), but if you use softened butter, just using a wooden spoon to cream the butter and sugar together should be more than fine.

You can also alter this recipe to your own liking. My flatmate used to place pieces of chocolate over the top of hers, which would melt in the oven. You can also add various dried fruit, such as raisins, if you like. Or perhaps, use your favorite type of bread. Or, even add chocolate in between the layers. :D Its all up to your imaginationn! ;)

Quote of the day: The failure or incomplete success of a recipe oftentimes depends upon some little detail that has been misunderstood or overlooked in the preparation.

Honey Chicken Wings

After an unfortunate incident with their maid, my aunt and family in London decided to get a relative to help out instead. I was hearing about her cooking prowness long before I came to London from my cousins, so understandably, I was looking forward to trying her cooking. Almost the first dish I tried was this - Honey Chicken Wings. We were meant to have a barbecue, but the weather didn't cooperate. :( But anyway, since then, they (and me!) have had it regularly for dinner. So here we go!

What you need:
Chicken wings
Honey
Fresh root ginger
Garlic
Lemon juice
White pepper
Sesame oil
Dark soy sauce
(all to taste)

What you do:

1. Blend together all the ingredients except for the chicken.
2. Marinate the chicken in the blended honey mixture for at least an hour.
3. Bake in a 180 C oven for 30-40 minutes, or until cooked through and a dark golden brown.
4. Alternatively, barbecue over hot coals for a really tasty dish! ;)

This ia a delicious alternative to BBQ sauce for your BBQ chicken, hehe. I've nothing much to say for it (since its rather similar to many dishes that me, Hadi or Justin have cooked before, I should think), but it is *very* nice. Must be the wings. I love wings.

They eat a lot of wings here, but... hmmmm... I think they underestimate the appetite of 5 kids (and 1 Ihsan) since I get a pathetically small portion of chicken for dinner. Even compared to our "university student" dinners. Which is really saying something. :P But there's an excess of other snacks and tidbits, so everything works out, I guess.

PS Its confirmed. All the cooks of Food for Though (Hadi, Ihsan, Justin - you ever realised our initials are running letters? :P HIJ) have officially passed their final year university exams! Woooooooooooo! Congratulations to us!

PPS Hahaha, this is a rather short post. I really have no idea on what to say, unless I cooked it myself, I think. :P Its just that almost everything they cook here, people ask me "Are you going to put this on your blog?" Sigh. I'm happy to oblige... but finding things to say can be quite a chore. :P

Quote of the day: It is important to begin a search with a full stomach.

Maruku

So here I am... in London... with barely any internet (hence the lack of being online, Ibu. Sorry!) I actually have quite a few updates to blog about. Although I haven't been cooking much, the people here have been cooking some pretty interesting dishes and I asked for their recipes, hehe.

So this first one is from my very own grandmother - Maruku! I LOVE maruku. Ibu would send over a huge round container to UK every year, hehe. Of course, there are different "qualities" of maruku, but apparently, Nini makes it pretty well! (Though I'm not sure if I've ever had some of hers). Well, to remedy that is easy enough, since she made it yesterday! So here we go!

What you need:
500g glutinous rice flour (tepung pulut)
3-4 tablespoons dried shrimp (udang kering), grinded
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg
1 tablespoon white sesame seeds
2 tablespoons curry powder (or to taste)

What you do:
1. Mix together the ground dried shrimp and egg in a bowl. Mix until well-combined.
Add the flour, and season well with salt. Add in the sesame seeds, curry powder and butter. Mix well.
2. Add in enough water to bind mixture together to a thick dough (~300-350 mL). The dough had a consistency of a typical cookie dough, only stickier, because of the glutinous rice flour. Knead with hands until mixture is well-combined.
3. Spoon some of the mixture into a container-syringe... thingie. I asked, honest, but no one knew what its name was. It looks like a piping syringe, only its much bigger and made of metal. It also has a nozzle specific for making maruku, apparently. I provided a picture below. :)
4. Heat up enough oil to be able to deep-fry the maruku. Once hot, use the syringe thingie to make maruku shapes in the oil. (I *really* am not describing this properly, am I? :P ) Turn the maruku regularly, and fry until golden brown. Some people add in curry leaves with it, which would make it yummier, but Nini was too lazy, I guess. hehe. :D


5. Drain the cooked maruku on paper towels. Once cool, store in an airtight container.

There you go! Lovely golden maruku! It was actually easier than I expected. The only thing I don't have is that syringe thingie. But the rest, all you have to do is dump everything together, and mix mix mix! One thing you should take note of, though, is that once everything is mixed together, you can't add anything else, otherwise, it might be unevenly mixed.

Which is a pity, because this batch of maruku was slightly bland due to not enough salt. Nini added in about 1 teaspoon of salt, but she says UK salt is "hard to measure" (payah di jangka). Haha. How cute. :) Although... Justin did complain that the seasalt we used last time was not as "strong" and salty as ordinary salt. So maybe there is a difference between UK salt and Brunei salt. ;)

But, that said, this still tasted like maruku, hehe. Just the saltiness, is all. Still yummy! And it made a huge batch! One of those $10 containers of maruku in Brunei, if not more. :D

Now... who wants to start selling maruku? ;)

Quote of the day: I love you like a fat kid loves cake.

White Chocolate Cheesecake

Whoo.... my stats have really suffered with the absence so far. I just hope its nothing permanent... :( The past week has been super chaotic - which is not surprising, given that there are more than 10 people to organise at any one time. They've been tiring too, what with all the walking and sightseeing. But fun! Oh yes, definitely fun. :D Needless to say, I haven't had much time to go "internet-ing", much less cook these days, so hence, the lack of updates.

But of course, I can't forget about my friends in Bristol. ;) The Malay society here held a BBQ today, and since it was the very last event I would be able to go to (as an undergraduate), I decided that I might as well go (and twisted some arms to make some people come with me as well, hehe). Luckily, it was a potluck. I could just buy food of course, but I didn't want to miss the chance to give an update. Because I was busy, I could only manage to do a simple recipe, but believe me. Just like the melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake, this cake gives wonderful results with only minimal efforts! Its even easier than the chocolate cake, since you don't have to bake this! I took less than half an hour to make this, if you can believe it! No, seriously! So here we go!

What you need:
100g plain digestive biscuits
50g butter, melted
2x 200g bars white chocolate, broken into pieces
284 mL tub double cream
250g full-fat soft cheese
250g tub mascarpone
275g blueberries - I used 475g strawberries
50g caster sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice

What you do:

1. Line the base of a 20cm cake tin with greaseproof paper. Put the biscuits in a plastic bag and bash with a rolling pin or the base of a saucepan until they look like breadcrumbs. Pour into a bowl, then add the melted butter and mix together. Press firmly into the prepared tin, cover and chill.
2. Melt the chocolate in a microwave or over a pan of simmering water. Leave to cool slightly.
3. meanwhile, gently beat the cheese, cream and mascarpone in a bowl until well-combined, but not stiff. Stir in the melted chocolate until mixture is smooth. Spoon onto the biscuit base and put the cheesecake back in the fridge for at least 3 hours, or overnight.
4. Tip half the blueberries into a blender or food processor, add the sugar and lemon juice and puree until smooth. Press through a sieve into a bowl and set aside until needed.
5. Serve with the remaining whole blueberries and the sauce.
6. Make the cheesecake up to 1 day ahead, and keep in the fridge.
   

I like strawberries better than blueberries, which is why I decided to use them instead. You should be able to replace the berries with any other of your favourite berry, I should think, as long as its sour-ish. The white chocolate is more than sweet enough, and the sourness of the fruit is kind of compensated by it.

I was actually expecting a smaller event, but when I saw the whole crowd of people milling about the area, I felt a bit... *ahem* shy, ahaha. ;) I didn't really want to serve up the cheesecake to a whole load of strangers, but I had no choice. So serve it to them it was. One word of warning - if you're using strawberries, mark the strawberry puree sauce CLEARLY. A LOT of people mistook mine for chilli sauce (!). I was able to stop a few people from pouring it over their chicken, rice, noodles, etc, but I'm sure I missed out plenty of people. One of my friend tried it with her chicken (because she was *curious*, she said) and it was apparently disgusting. I shudder to think what those other people must have thought about the "chilli" sauce. In the end, I just poured the sauce over the cake, and people seemed to get the idea that its supposed to be served with the cake. *phew*

Also, keep this CHILLED. I didn't have a fridge available and just left it in the sun, and the cake kind of melted. :P Still more than edible, but not very good presentation. By the end, it was a big saggy mess, but the people still finished it! Woo! And from the comments made by other people... not only did it look nice (cute, I heard from one person, hehe) it tasted amazing as well! It was all creamy and cheesy, and the strawberry sauce went really well with it!

And it should taste nice! According to the original recipe, if you cut this cake into 10 slices, each slice will give a whopping 800++ calories! No, I am NOT kidding. 800 calories!!! That's almost half of your RDA! And believe me, its not a very big cake. So yeah... consider that a warning, hehe. But, due to a mistake on my part, I only used single cream and 300g of white chocolate. This probably contributed to the "melting" of the cake, but at least it is *very* slightly reduced in calories, hehe. ;) But trust me, you don't want to go all low-fat cheese on this. This is a cheesecake. Cheesecakes are meant to be unhealthy! ;)

Quote of the day: The only time to eat diet food is when you're waiting for the steak to cook.

Or, in this case, the cheesecake to chill. ;)

Food for Thought is on a break!

I hate to do this, when I've only just come back to posting from exams, but... I'm afraid Food for Thought has to go on yet another break. This time, it's because....

OUR FAMILY IS HERE IN UK!!!

Ahem. Yep, that's right! Parents and siblings and even an aunt and a cousin and a grandmother has come to visit me and Hadi. :D :D :D Well, that's what they say, but I suspect they are more excited at *being* in UK rather than seeing me and Hadi. Haha, kidding, just kidding.

Anyway, I am actually more than willing to cook for them (even though there will be upwards of TEN people to cater for). But, alas, The Plan may not allow it. They are, after all, here to do sightseeing, perhaps a bit of shopping. I doubt we'll be at home in time for me to cook dinner properly. Not to mention the whole "planning ahead for dinner" thing. I seem to be very bad at it. :P If I do cook, I will update. ;) If not... well, my visitor count is probably going to drop very very low. :(

There's also the whole separate issue of the three of us graduating (!!!) this summer, but I shall do a separate post on that when it comes to it.

For now, I'll see you all (not literally, of course) when I see you.

PS I'll be seeing them in about one and a half hours. I AM SO EXCITED!!! But first... breakfast! :D

Chicken Enchiladas

So again, I had to scramble to think up of something to cook for dinner. I was initially leaning towards a stir-fry... but then, I saw the unused leftover of the passata from the creamy tomato pasta, so I figured I better do something with it before it grows fungus. :P I didn't want to do another pasta dish, but looking up chicken and passata together in a recipe, turned up this enchilada recipe. It was actually using beef, I don't know how it came up in the search, but that was minor. Most enchilada recipes use a pre-made sauce, but this one makes it from scratch... with passata as the base. Perfect! Here we go!

What you need:
Red Enchilada Sauce:
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin (I didn't have this, so I just omitted)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
700ml passata (I used about 350g)
250ml liquid chicken stock

700g boneless skinless chicken, chopped into small pieces, or ground chicken (I used 4 thighs and 1 drumstick)
1 tablespoon oil
1 red pepper, chopped finely
1 green pepper, chopped finely
1 onion, chopped
6 flour tortillas
Cheddar and mozzarella cheeses

What you do:

1. To make the sauce, heat the olive oil in a pan. Add flour, chilli powder, oregano and cumin and cook over a medium heat, stirring constantly, until golden brown.
2. Add garlic and passata, and mix to combine. Stir the stock into the tomato and chilli mixture and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and allow to simmer for 10 minutes, or until sauce reaches the required consistency. Set aside.
   
3. Cook the chicken quickly in a dry frying pan. Set aside.
4. In the same pan, heat up the oil, and fry the onion and peppers until soft.
5. Return the cooked chicken to the pan and add approximately 1/3 of the sauce and stir to combine the mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning. Add more chilli powder, if you want.
   
6. To assemble the enchilada, divide the meat mixture equally between the 6 tortilla wraps. Sprinkle over some cheddar cheese, and fold over the sides.
7. Place in a lightly greased baking dish. (Ours could only fit 3 - our tortilla wraps were huge! - so everything from now on, split into 2)
8. Pour the remaining sauce across the middle of the enchiladas. Sprinkle a mixture of the mozzarella and cheddar cheeses over the parts covered by the sauce.
9. Cover loosely with tin foil and bake at Gas Mark 5 (?) for 30 minutes. I actually baked it at 180 C for 10-15 minutes. Turned out okay, though it may have been too hot for 30 minutes - they were slightly browned.
10. Serve immediately, with some sour cream if you like. Alternatively, the enchiladas can be frozen (with the sauce) wrapped individually with tinfoil. Then, you just bake them before eating. ;)

Whew. That was a long one. But the thing that took the most time was actually deboning the chicken and chopping them up. Chopping up the veggies also took a bit of time. But once that was done, everything took about 30-40 minutes, including the baking. Oh, and I baked the second batch while we tucked in on the first. So everything was nice and hot. ;)

And I don't know how big tortillas usually are, but the one you get from Sainsbury's are insanely big. I could only just about fit 3 enchiladas in my usual baking dish (which is 27 square cm, I think). I actually wanted to make a side dish of some sort, but luckily I didn't These were super filling. I could only finish half of my second one, but would have been okay with just the first one. The boys, of course, claimed my uneaten portion, so I suppose they don't have the same problem. Oh well.

Now.... the verdict? It was fantastic! Much much much better than the chicken fajitas, although Justin claimed that he needed to "make a side-by-side comparision" in order to decide. Well, I definitely liked it better than the fajitas. Even though the ingredients were quite similar, the sauce made this one really juicy and flavoursome. Plus, the cheese was super tasty! And also, because the vegetables were cooked beforehand, they were slightly less "vegetable-y" haha, and I could actually eat them. :D Which is a good thing. Vegetables are good for you, haha. I did find the peppers a bit too spicy, but the boys apparently barely noticed. So those of you who like a lot of spice may want to ramp up the amount of chilli powder in here. ;)

Apart from that though, it was really good. Me and Hadi liked it with the sour cream. It makes it really... hmmm, hard to explain. More creamy, I guess. But Justin didn't like it with the cream, because he said it made the flavour more mellow, whatever that means... But all of us are finally in agreement. This was a really tasty dish. It could've used more cheese inside the filling, I think. Plus it was quite messy to eat. But it was really really nice. *drool*

Quote of the day: Did you ever see the customers in health-food stores? They are pale, skinny people who look half dead. In a steak house, you see robust, ruddy people. They're dying, of course, but they look terrific.

Creamy Tomato Pasta

Well this sounded nice. I've only had a creamy tomato pasta once (from a jar, unfortunately, haha) and it was really quite nice. Definitely a refreshing change from the normal tomato pasta. I've actually forgotten about it, but then I cam across this recipe in my ongoing search for "what to cook for dinner". And I thought that it would be something "interesting" to try, haha. Plus, we had another batch of spaghetti left over from last time, so why not? :$ Here we go!

What you need:
3 boneless, skinless pieces of chicken thighs, chopped into small pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 onion, sliced
2 shallots, sliced
1 1/2 cups tomato passata (I used about 350g)
1 tomato, chopped
200ml single cream
500g spaghetti
Parmesan cheese, grated
Mozzarella cheese, grated
Salt and black pepper, for seasoning
Parsley, for garnishing

What you do:

1. Season the chicken to your liking. I used tomato sauce, salt and plenty of black pepper.
2. Heat up the olive oil in a frying pan. Set aside 1/4 of the sliced onions and 1/4 of the sliced shallots. Fry the rest, until softened and slightly translucent. Add in the chicken, and fry until cooked.
3. Meanwhile, crush the rest of the onions, shallots as well as the garlic using a mortar and pestle, to a rough paste. Add to the pan, and fry for about a minute.
4. Add the passata and chopped tomato. Season well, and allow to simmer for about 5 minutes.
5. Stir in the cream, and allow to simmer until thickened. I also added in a bit of Parmesan plus a sprinkling of mozzarella to make it nice and gloopy.
6. Meanwhile, cook spaghetti according to packet directions.
   
7. Serve pasta with sauce, sprinkled with a bit of cheese and parsley.

There are plenty of variations of this recipe. Some use sun-dried tomatoes instead of passata (which, by the way, are basically crushed sieved tomatoes). Some used cream cheese (!) instead of normal cream. But I thought this combination sounded good enough (as well as not too calorific). Plus, the passata would make it nice and tomatoey - some people commented that the other sauce recipes were a bit insubstantial, or just tasted like a watery tomato soup or something. So I picked this one, hehe. ;)

So a few modifications and a meal later... I am happy - very happy. The sauce was really nice and thick AND creamy, yet tomatoey! *drool* The mozzarella really helped with the texture as well. Made it thick and slightly stringy. Looks mega appetising. Taste-wise though, it probably needed more cheese, which you can serve on the side. I didn't want to interfere with the texture of the sauce too much. The passata also helped the overall thickness, as it was really thick. (Hahaha, I keep on talking about thickness). But I can't imagine how the ones with sun-dried tomatoes instead of passata would've managed to make it both thick and tomatoey... So really, I think this recipe was one of the better ones. ;)

Anyway, the boys liked this, as well. The sauce was really... it was delicious! Very creamy. *drool* Hadi complained about the Parmesan though, haha. He didn't actually know I put in Parmesan, but could still taste it... even though I put in very little... Now that is sensitive, haha. Like most pasta/noodle dishes, the chicken only complements the sauce, and its the same case here. Chicken was nice, but the sauce is the main thing. :P

Yes, I am obsessed with this sauce now. Just try it! Oh, and just in case people are wondering, passata can usually be found with the chopped tomatoes, and tomato puree, etc. If you can't find it, maybe substitute with (slightly less) tomato puree. Normal pasta sauce might be a bit too thin.

Anyway, I was cleaning out our kitchen cupboards, and lookie what I found...

Haha, goodness knows how long its been at the back of our cupboard. We've decided to plant it in our garden. Hopefully, it'll survive. If it does, the tenants next year can have free onions. :D Or is that just one onion? Will an onion grow back to one onion, or will it give many baby onions? :S Anyone knows? (I know quite a few biologists are reading this blog, haha *hint*)

Quote of the day: Those who forget the pasta are condemned to reheat it.

Spicy Chicken Drumsticks

Now this is more like it. After the past few "Western" dishes, I decided to go back and make a dinner that's a little closer to home. Something with a little spice, something with a little kick. Not that this is all *that* much closer. I got this from a UK food blogger, who used to come from India. In fact, the chilli powder she uses in her recipe was bought specially from India :o Which probably explains why her chicken is that magnificent red colour, and mine is just a normal yellow. :( Oh well, here we go!

What you need:
6 chicken drumsticks
2 tablespoons garlic-ginger paste
1 tablespoon oil
Juice of 1 lemon
1-2 teaspoons of chilli powder, or to taste
1 teaspoon turmeric
Salt, to taste

What you do:

1. To get the garlic-ginger paste, I would have to go all the way to Easton (which is troublesome) so I just decided to make my own by mashing some garlic and ginger together with a mortar and pestle, until they form a rough paste. You can also use a blender. There are plenty of recipes for it on the internet, but that's the basics of it, really.
2. Mix all the ingredients (except the chicken) in a small bowl, then add to the chicken, rubbing it into the meat really well. Marinade for about an hour or so (I marinated it the whole day).
3. Bake the chicken at 150 C for one hour (or 180 C for about 35-40 minutes) or until juices run clear and chicken is cooked through.

This was... not what I expected. :( I really wanted that red-coloured chicken, phoo. Reminds me of CA Mohd's ayam goreng (fried chicken) which I simply adore, in all its greasy juicy goodness. Of course, it probably wouldn't taste the same, but at least there would be a resemblance no?

Which reminds me, if anyone has a recipe for a decent copy of CA Mohd's chicken, please share. No, really. I want. ;)

Anyway, looks aside, this smelled really nice when cooking. Very turmeric-y. I added a bit too much, perhaps, but I love turmeric, hehe. I just don't get to use it often. :( That's also probably part of the reason why they turned out yellow. Also, Justin said that if I had used chilli paste instead of chilli powder, it probably would've turned redder. Sigh. If only we *have* chilli paste in the first place.

But he didn't seem to care about the colour all that much, really. He was extremely pleased when he saw it, because he says it reminds him of mamak food. I've mentioned before that Justin has a peculiar liking for mamak food. Sure enough, he loved this one. Although ke kept on talking about this particular fried chicken that mamak stalls at his place always make. Something about coating the chicken in turmeric, then in flour, then deepfrying it. Anything deepfried has to be good, no? ;)

Hadi liked this as well, surprisingly enough. I could've sworn that he was the one who says he doesn't like turmeric, but he claims that he can't remember saying that, haha. Although, now that I think about it, Hadi's always adding turmeric randomly to some of his dishes, even though it doesn't seem to suit sometimes, so it can't be him.

As for me... well... it was nice, reminded me of Ayam Bakar Kuning from home which - alas! - appears to be unblogged, although this one was spicy and less salty. I also thought the ginger and garlic was a nice touch, although I might have put in a bit too much ginger. But ... somehow, the chicken was lacking... something. It was nice, not so spicy (since I decreased the amount of chilli powder - can't take too much spiciness), and turmeric-y... but... something was missing. Hmmm... Maybe there was too much turmeric? Although Hadi and Justin liked that part of it. But it kind of overwhelmed the other flavours. Not that there was many, but yeah... I feel like something is missing from this, that's all.

So again, the boys and I can't seem to agree on whether our dinners were good or not. They liked this a lot, but I thought it was just so-so. Oh well, you can try for yourself, hehe. ;) (Btw, I bet these would be even better if deepfried! *drool*)

Quote of the day: Omit and substitute! That's how recipes should be written. Please don't ever get so hung up on published recipes that you forget that you can omit and substitute.

Rösti Pie

I found this in one of my magazines, and thought it sounded like a nice idea to try for dinner. Even if it has an obscene amount of vegetables. And no chicken. :P Basically, its a shepherd's pie - only that it uses beef instead of lamb, and the potatoes are grated instead of mashed. But its the same idea, more or less. Rösti itself is a potato dish from Switzerland, so I suppose this one is an adaptation of that. ;) So here we go!

What you need:
700g potatoes
4 medium carrots, finely chopped
2 celery sticks, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tablespoon olive oil
500g lean minced beef
400g can chopped tomatoes
350g jar red pepper sauce - couldn't find this, so I substituted with 1 whole ree pepper, finely chopped
50g grated Cheddar cheese
What you do:

1. Boil the potatoes whole for 15 minutes. Drain and leave to cool.
2. Fry the vegetables (including the pepper, if you're using the fresh one) and garlic in half the oil. Cover and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Remove the lid, turn the heat to high and cook for 2 minutes.
4. Add the beef and cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes until browned.
5. Add the tomatoes and red pepper sauce plus 4 tablespoons of water and bring to boil. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Season. (I used a pinch of salt, some tomato kethup and a sprinkling of chilli powder)
6. Turn the oven to 180 C.
7. Peel the potatoes and grate into a bowl. Add the remaining oil and three quarters of the cheese and mix. Season well with salt and white pepper.
8. Spoon the mince into an ovenproof dish. Scatter over the rösti topping and sprinkle over the rest of the cheese.
9. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes until golden brown and crusty.
   

I was worried halfway through preparing this. Because, it turns out that 4 carrots is a LOT when you chop them up. Same thing with the red pepper, although the celery wasn't too bad. So in the end, it turned out almost half the filling was vegetables. *shudder* Will I even be able to eat this???

Also, grating potatoes is a very messy sticky job. Grated potatoes are absurdly sticky, for some reason. They stick to your fingers, to the grater, but weirdly enough, not to the bowl. Some kind of weird science is going on here... hmmmm.... Anyway, consider that a warning. It might be easier to mash the potatoes, but then it wouldn't be rösti anymore, I should think. :P Oh well.

Anyway, all in all, it didn't turn out too bad. I do think that more tomato flavour (more ketchup, or even tomato puree) would have been nice, and Hadi did add more to his plate, but all in all, it was acceptable. I really liked the potato topping, which was nice and crunchy and cheesy, with lots of white pepper. Mmmmmmm... *drool*

The filling itself was another matter... Justin commented that it tasted like vegetable soup, probably because of the carrots. I didn't think it was all that bad, since I could taste the beef (the boys claimed that my tastebuds are extra sensitive to beef and lamb, meh) and since I actually ate it. I am not known to be an eater of vegetables, on its own or otherwise. But I managed to eat this, so it can't be all that bad, right? :P Its a sneaky way to make people (children, in particular) eat more vegetables, I'm sure. Just add more meat, and the vegetables would barely be noticeable, haha. ;) But the boys did claim that this dish tasted okay, just that it needs more beef. But they are people who want lots and lots of meat, so I dunno... :P

Surprisingly, the calorie count for this dish is quite low. Mind you, the whole recipe was supposed to serve 3 people, but Justin probably got a 1 and 3/4 share, while the remaining extra 1/4 was probably taken in by Hadi. :P (I couldn't eat too much, too vegetabley for my taste). But 1/4 of the whole pie is only 343 calories, according to the recipe. Which is much less than that of say, Shepherd's pie. Probably because this time, the potatoes are not flavoured with butter, very little cheese is involved and a whole excess of carrots. So this should be a relatively healthy dish, for those of you who care. ;)

Quote of the day: Please understand the reason why Chinese vegetables taste so good. It is simple. The Chinese do not cook them, they just threaten them!

Haha, maybe we should try cooking Chinese-based vegetable dishes next time. :P

Chicken Fettucine Alfredo

I do believe that this was requested on the tagboard a couple of months ago, but as you can see, I've only just gotten around to doing it, haha. I just hope the request-er is still around. ;) Anyway, its another one of those rare pasta dishes we have, the main reason being that it takes a lot more pasta than rice to get the boys full. :P But they do make a nice change, I admit, so I decided (or rather, finally remembered) to make this today. So here we go!

What you need:
6 boneless, skinless chicken drumsticks, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 tablespoon butter, plus another 75g
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
200ml single cream
Ground black pepper, for seasoning
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, or to taste
500g dried Fettucine pasta
Fresh parsley, chopped (optional)

What you do:

1. Melt one tablespoon of butter in a wok. Season and fry the chicken pieces until cooked through. Set aside.
   
2. Melt the rest of the butter in the wok. When hot, add in the garlic, and fry for about a minute.
3. Add in the cream, and bring to a simmer. Add in the cheese, and allow to boil for 8-10 minutes, or until thickened. Taste and adjust seasoning.
4. When ready, add in the chicken and stir in the parsley.
   
5. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to instructions.
6. To serve, place the pasta on a plate, and pour over the alfredo sauce. Add more grated Parmesan cheese, if you like.

First things first, I only went to the runcit Tesco's near our place, and they didn't happen to have fettucine, so I just got lazy and used spaghetti instead. So this technically isn't Fettucine Alfredo, but ah.... details, schmetails. ;) Also, I wasn't sure what kind of fettucine dish was wanted, so I just picked one at random, any which sounded good. And what could be better than cream and butter together? ;) Ahahaha. Needless to say, this isn't a very diet-friendly dish, but should be nice once in awhile, yeah?

The boys, again, liked this. Justin absolutely loved it, and said the parsley (which I used only because we had some currently wilting in our fridge) went well with the sauce. Which is good. Of course, I knew that already, hahaha. ;) Hadi, of course, liked it as well, since he likes anything that is either sweet or creamy, preferably both.

Both had small problems with it though. Justin felt that the sauce wasn't thick enough, which was partly my fault, since I didn't boil it for the required time. But that was because the sauce was starting to look all weird and clumpy after I added the cheese. It was thick, yes, but looked weird. Perhaps it was because I used the Kraft Parmesan cheese available in a bottle (imported all the way from home ;) ), as opposed to fresh Parmesan? Hadi, on the other hand, had a problem with the cheese itself. He was never a big fan of Parmesan, and complained that this was a bit on the strong side. The Parmesan might be substituted with another cheese, such as cheddar, but I'm not sure if it will be called Fettucine Alfredo after that anymore, haha.

As for me... again, I found this just so-so. The parsley turned out to be a bit too strong for me, plus I prefer my pasta a bit more cheesier (aka Cheddar, king of all cheeses, haha). Plus, I didn't really like the creamy taste all that much. I guess I'm just not a big fan of Western foods? I prefer more Asian dishes, usually involving a lot of soy sauce, and perhaps a dash of oyster sauce, haha. And spring onions. I love spring onions. :D

Oh well, at least the boys liked it.

Quote of the day: No man is lonely while eating spaghetti - it requires so much attention.

Improve Your Kitchen Skills: Deboning Drumsticks

So it appears that my instructions for deboning the chicken in the "Surprise Drumsticks" were not good enough, haha. As I told HT on the tagboard, I'll take a video next time I debone drumsticks... which happens to be today! ;) Sorry for the lack of commentary, but my cold - or whatever it is - is at the stage where I cough alarmingly and violently whenever I try to speak more than three sentences, if not less. It ain't pretty, plus it's not very hygienic at all, haha. Plus, I'm shy. I don't want people to hear my voice. ;) Brief instructions will be below the video, hopefully you can make better sense out of them with visual aid.

1. Cut the chicken around the meaty part at the top of the drumstick, trying to loosen that area.
2. Slowly working your way down the drumstick, keep on cutting, freeing the meat from the bone.
3. At the end of the drumstick, I find it easier to just invert the piece inside out, then just cutting off the meat at the bottom.
4. Ta-dah! You've got drumsticks that are ready for stuffing! :D

While I was at it, I decided to make a video for deboning normal drumsticks as well. This was a much faster process, as you might notice. ;)

1. Starting from the top again, make a long straight cut all the way down to the bottom of the drumstick.
2. Cut the meat at the top and bottom of the drumstick, to free it from the bone.
3. Peel the meat away from the bone, cutting off any tendons etc, if necessary.
4. Ta-dah! You've got drumsticks ready for stir-frying or whatever you need boneless chicken for. :D

And man... that isn't a pretty angle for my hands, is it? :P They look all ... well... never mind, haha.

Roasted Chilli Chicken with a Shallot Crust

Hahaha, that's quite a mouthful, isn't it? I am seriously running out of *descriptive* names for our dinners. The boys absolutely refuse to help. Hadi's idea of a name for a dish would be "Hadi's Special Chicken", "Hadi's Chicken", "Hadi's Extra-Special Chicken".... you get the idea. :P Justin is no more useful, meh. So its to these long, but *descriptive* names I have to turn to, haha. ;) I actually planned this recipe slightly in advance, for once. I mashed up the shallots the night before, and added the rest of the ingredients to the chicken once the pieces were defrosted. Now that I have absolutely nothing to do, time slips by me just like that, but I do believe I marinated this from last night, to use today. :) So, here we go!

What you need:
3 chicken thighs
5 shallots, sliced roughly
3 tablespoons Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce, or to taste
1 tablespoon barbecue sauce
1/2 tablespoon honey
Pinch of salt

What you do:

1. Using a mortar and pestle, grind up the shallots until they become a rough paste.
2. Add the ground shallots to the chicken, as well as the rest of the ingredients, in a large mixing bowl. Rub into the chicken, including under the skin. Marinate in the refrigerator overnight.
3. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Place the chicken (and any leftover marinade) in a shallow baking dish. Spread any remaining shallot paste over the top of the chicken skin. Drizzle with a little bit of oil, and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until the shallots are golden and fragrant, and the chicken is cooked thoroughly, basting occasionally.

This smelled really good while cooking. I love the smell of frying shallots (or onions, even) but roasted shallots smell even nicer! I actually wanted to get it crispy, but I probably didn't bake it at a high enough heat, not to mention the occasional basting with the sauce kept it moist. Oh well, never mind.

In the end, it turned out very well. The boys loved it, with Justin proclaiming that it "reminds me of mamak food". And coming from Justin, who holds Mamak food in high regard (for some odd reason) this is high praise, haha. Certainly none of our dishes before this have brought any such comparision.

I found it quite nice as well, but seeing as the boys' taste in food, and mine, never seem to agree, this is no exception. One thing it could have used is a bit of spice, either pepper or chilli powder. Thai Sweet Chilli is deceiving. It is not spicy at all. I should've known that from previous experiences, but I guess I'll never learn to mistrust anything with the word chilli in it. ;) Also, it was really really sweet. Surprising huh? Especially since it has Thai SWEET chilli as well as HONEY in it, as Hadi so kindly pointed out. The shallots, in particular, were very sweet. They must have absorbed a lot of the sugar, not to mention the "natural sweetness" you get if you roast certain vegetables. (My knowledge of vegetables are rather hazy, however, so do correct me if I'm wrong :P)

It also didn't absorb as much as the marinade as I would've liked, although it was flavoursome enough. For some reason, the marinade became really watery after the overnight marination. Probably water from the chicken? No matter. It all went into the oven, which reduced it to a nice sticky paste. The boys enthusiastically used this to drench their rice in, but again, I found it much too sweet.

All in all though, it was a rather okay dish and one I wouldn't mind making again. Although I might reduce the sweetness next time, hehe. ;) Hadi'll protest though. :P

Quote of the day: American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it.