Mawar's Nutella Croissants

Whew, Here's a new post, finally. I haven't written anything in so long, I feel slightly out of touch with the whole thing. :P So let's start with a simple recipe, shall we? ;)

Back when I was waiting to go home in London, my aunt always always made this dish. Ready-made puff pastry was readily available there, so this is a simple yet nicely impressive (puff pastry always does that to people, hehe) recipe. They're rather similar to Ibu's Puff Pastries from last time, only you "cheat" slightly in this one, and use ready-made sheets, which save you a LOT of work. Really. And now, I've found out that ready-made puff pastries are also available in Brunei at Supasave Gadong, so you can make them here too! Hehe, here we go!

What you need:
1 sheet ready-made puff pastry
Nutella Chocolate Spread
Grated chocolate

What you do:

1. Cut the sheet of pastry in half length-ways, then half again to form squares. Cut each square across the diagonal to form triangles.
2. Spread each triangle with nutella spread, then sprinkle with some grated chocolate before rolling them up into croissant shapes.
3. Bake at 180 C for 20-30 minutes, or until risen and golden. Serve immediately.

See, simple yeah? ;) You can of course, make them in different shapes, but the croissant ones looks rather nice. You can also experiment with different fillings, see which one you like best. But once you've made them, you can keep them in the freezer. That way, you can have fresh filled croissants almost whenever you want. ;)

Of course, since these are puff pastries, you *have* to serve them almost immediately. They're edible when cold, but they are a hundred times better when eaten hot. :D The pastry is crisp and puffy, the filling is hot and gooey (almost too hot sometimes, so be careful!). The thing I like about this is that the slightly salty pastry kind of offsets the sweet chocolate. The combination tastes really really good. Sort of like in Honey Chicken, where the salty chicken stock and sweet honey combine to... taste really good, haha! ;)

And um, that's it for now, I guess! A simple write-up for a simple recipe. :P But there's more coming, really!

Quote ofthe day: If you get melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.

Easy Tandoori Chicken

Back when we were still cooking for ourselves in the UK, Hadi and Justin absolutely loved making tandoori chicken. They said that it was easy and really tasty. So come every exam time, out would come the tandoori dishes (and curry, as well). Unfortunately for me, I never liked tandoori dishes all that much, but thanks to them, I can at least eat it without cringing now. :P

But anyway, their tandoori chickens never tasted anything at all like the ones from the Indian restaurants, meh. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing, but last summer, I remember them cooking tandoori EVERY SINGLE DAY - trying to perfect the recipe, they said. I'm not sure if they ever did, because somehow, something was always missing. They even tried bottled premade tandoori sauce, but that one was actually worse than the ones they made from scratch, haha.

Here in Brunei, Babah is a very big fan of tandoori chicken (and indeed, of Indian food) so Ibu cooks tandoori quite often. I *think* she has different versions, but after last time's mayonnaise roast chicken, she decided to try and use mayo instead of yogurt in her next batch of tandoori chicken. Here we go!

What you need:
Chicken pieces, of your choice - preferably thighs, but we used wings
Tandoori powder
A little bit of curry powder
A little bit of blended onion and garlic
A squeeze of lime juice (limau kasturi)
A little bit of tomato sauce
Chilli sauce, to taste - only if you want it spicy
Mayonnaise

What you do:

1. Mix everything except the chicken and mayonnaise together.
2. Smear the paste over the chicken, then spread the mayonnaise over it.
3. Marinate for at least an hour, but preferably overnight.
4. Bake in a 180 C oven for about 30-45 minutes, or until juices run clear. Or, you can grill it, if you wish.

Sorry, but this one had no measurements, since Ibu just added everything in "to taste". You'll have to do the same thing, hehe.

Anyway, the reason Ibu wanted to try this out was, obviously, because of the mayo. If you wanted to use yogurt, you would have to buy it fresh every time you wanted to use it. Which makes this recipe ideal for busy students *cough* who don't have time to go out shopping every day. Everything else in the recipe is either dry, or keeps well. Except for the onions and shallots, but if you really must, you can omit that, haha. :P

As I've mentioned before, I'm not really an "expert" on tandoori chicken. Babah is, though. ;) Or rather, he can actually tell the difference, hehe. The first time Ibu made this, Babah said that because of the mayo, the chicken was much creamier in taste compared to ones made with yogurt, but was still okay, hehe. To me though, it all tasted the same, sigh.

But then, Ibu made the same thing again today, only this time, she said that she put in a bit too much curry powder. Because of that, the chicken tasted less of tandoori and more of... something else, I can't exactly identify what, haha. Still tasty, but not quite people might be looking for. So *if* you decide to use this recipe, go easy on the curry powder ;) And everything else, as well. Hadi used to chuck in random amounts of random things, and it almost *never* tasted like tandoori. :P

Some people might balk at using mayo, since it *is* slightly unhealthier than yoghurt, but I think it should be an okay substitution. After all, the mayo would be divided among all the pieces of chicken, plus not all would get on the chicken anyway. So give it a try, do. ;)

Quote of the day: I don't like food that's too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a painting.

Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies v7

So its time for yet another batch of cookies. :D I came across this recipe way back last June when I was in London, but didn't really have time to make it. Plus, I was surrounded by *children* at that time (cough) and they weren't too thrilled about the idea of cookies with coffee in it. Which was why I made the Chocolate Chip Oaties instead.

But now that I'm back in Brunei, I thought it was time to make it. :D Plus, I had promised KaPeach some cookies, so it was definitely time to start baking in the kitchen, hehe. Here we go!

What you need:
115g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
115g light muscovado sugar - I replaced with light brown sugar
85g golden granulated sugar - I replaced with granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules, dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water
1 egg
175g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
55g milk chocolate chips - I replaced with semi-sweet chocolate chips
55g shelled walnuts, roughly chopped - I replaced with more chocolate chips :D

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease 2 baking sheets, or line with baking paper.
2. Place the butter and both sugars in a large mixing bowl and beat together thoroughly until light and fluffy.
3. Place the vanilla essence, coffee and egg in a separate bowl and whisk together. Gradually add this coffee mixture to the butter and sugar, beating until fluffy.
4. Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into the mixture and fold in carefully.
5. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts (if using).
6. Place dessertspoonfuls of the mixture onto the prepared baking sheets, allowing room for the cookies to spread.
7. Bake in the oven 10-15 minutes, or until crisp outside but still soft inside. Leave to cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Although I like putting in a little bit of coffee with stuff such as brownies, I never thought of adding it into cookies, actually. Usually, I find that the coffee sort of cuts down on the sweetness of the chocolate, and gives a bit more depth to the flavour. So even though I don't actually drink coffee, I'm a big fan of chocolate desserts with a hint of coffee. :D

In this case, I thought this would be an interesting recipe to try out because of the coffee, yeah? Should give a slight difference in taste. So... hmmm... let's see... The uncooked cookie dough was a pleasing light brown colour and had a nice coffee flavour, not too bitter, yet enough to dampen down the sweetness slightly (there's a lot of sugar in this recipe! I "forgot" to think of reducing the amounts though...). So the cookie dough seems to pass, it's time to cook it. :)

It was once it was cooked that I encountered lots of problems. First one is minor, I couldn't really taste the coffee once they were cooked, though my sister complained that the cookies were bitter, with one bite. She did admit later on though that its not as bad as she initially thought. I also had a problem with the butter. Since Brunei is so warm, the butter as well as the resulting dough was very soft. I tried to overcome this by chilling the dough slightly in the freezer, right before baking it.

Maybe that contributed to my 3rd problem, which was that the cooking time was made very long, almost twice the recommended time. Its weird though, since I have made cookies from half-frozen dough back in the UK, with no resulting problems with the cooking time. Plus, I've always liked the oven here in Brunei because its nice and large and... well, very nice-looking, haha. But anyway, I increased the temperature by about 10 degrees, and that seemed to have solved it somewhat.

And my last problem was the texture of the cookies. They turned out very soft (even though I almost burnt one batch, after forgetting about it, haha). After I let them cool, then stored them in a container, they stuck together so badly that when we tried pulling them apart, they just broke into small crumbs. Haiz. Very weird, and again, a problem I've never had before, even though I regularly make cookies in Brunei every summer. :S

I'm not sure if its a problem with the recipe or what, but I suppose this teaches me not to try out a new recipe when planning to give someone cookies, haha. :P The recipe itself looks okay to me, though I don't usually use baking powder in cookies. Thinking about it, though, it is possible that my measurements for the baking powder and baking soda were slightly off, since I had to use a normal teaspoon to measure them out... Hmmmm, perhaps, perhaps. Does anyone else have any other suggestions, perhaps?

In any case, I couldn't give this "defective" batch of cookies to KaPeach, haha, so we had to eat the whole thing instead. ;) I should just use my star recipe next time... At least, if something goes wrong, I know its not the recipe...

Oh well, never mind. Another batch of cookies should be coming soon. :D

Quote of the day: Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.

Durian Mousse

As so many people have been saying all over the country, it is now DURIAN season! It is often said that you are not a true Bruneian (or even, a true Malay!) if you don't like durian. I'm not sure how true this is, since I myself don't actually like durian. :P And before any of you say anything, no, its not because of the smell. Well, it is partly. I can tell from the smell that I wouldn't like it. Its waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy too sweet-smelling. As in, literally sweet.

But anyway, to many other people, durian is the king of fruits. I am, however, well-known for NOT eating durian. So one of my uncles asked if I would feature any durian recipes in this blog, and said that it would be a shame if I didn't. Well, what can I do, but give you a durian recipe! (With the help of Ibu, hehe). Here we go!

What you need:
Durians - how much to use, depends on how strong you want the flavour to be
1 tablespoon butter
Sugar, to taste

125 ml cream - we used pour and whip
3 large eggs, separated

Gelatine, dissolved in hot water (I didn't use this, but recommended, I think)

What you do:

1. Remove the durian flesh from the seeds. Puree to a smooth paste, and set aside.
2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the durian. Add in sugar to taste, keeping in mind that it will be diluted slightly later. Leave on the heat until the mixture is heated through.
3. Add in the egg yolks and stir to mix.
4. Meanwhile, using an electric mixture on low speed, beat the egg whites in a spotlessly clean bowl until they are frothy, then gradually increase the mixer's speed and beat until soft peaks form. Continue beating until stiff peaks form. Beat several tablespoons of the egg whites into the durian mixture to loosen.
5. In another bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form. Spoon the cream over the durian mixture, then spoon the remaining whites over the cream. use a large metal spoon or rubber spatula to fold the durian into the cream and egg whites. Add in the gelatine at this point, if using.
   
6. Either spoon the durian mousse into a large serving bowl or divide between 4 or 6 individual bowls. Cover the bowls with clingfilm and chill the mousse for at least 3 hours before serving.

In case you didn't notice, this recipe was actually adapted from my chocolate mousse recipe, hehe. Unlike the chocolate mousse though, this one didn't hold it shape nicely. Which reminded me that chocolate can act as a gelling agent in mousses, but I suppose durian puree can't. That was why I recommended the gelatine in the above recipe. We didn't use it, and it works well enough without it, but I think it should be much better if you add it in.

Since I don't eat this, I can't tell you how it was, but people loved it. I suppose because it's durian and it's creamy. Can't get any better, yea? ;) There were several requests for the recipe, which is why this is up so early, hehe.

Because we were serving this for a family gathering kind of thing, presentation was kind of hard. The first time round, it wasn't so popular because people were unsure on how to eat it. Second time round (today), we provided small bowls and it was an immediate hit! Ideally, you would serve this in small glasses, like the chocolate mousse, but that's only feasible for small groups of people, I guess.

Looks wise, it doesn't look pretty, I admit. Perhaps you could garnish it with a few leaves of something... perhaps mint? Just to make it less mushy. Also, like I mentioned earlier, the mousse didn't really hold its shape, so it was actually more like a custard. But never mind. There are plenty of durians around right now for cheap cheap prices, so there are plenty of chances for trial and error, hehe.

And today's quote of the day is an actual quote from a Very Important Person...

Quote of the day: Eating durian is like eating delicious custard in a toilet.

Aloha Chicken

I have no idea why this chicken is called Aloha. The ingredients don't even seem remotely Hawaiian. Ah well, I guess if you make up a recipe, you can name it anything you wish. Someday, I want to name a chicken dish "Ihsan". Then, when people order it (or whatever), they'll say "Can I have an Ihsan please?" Haha, its a nice dream. Anyway, the ingredient list for this is slightly long, but its a very easy recipe. Here we go!

What you need:
Chicken thighs
1 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon turmeric powder
4 cloves garlic, ground to a paste or blended
4 shallots or 1 large onion, ground to a paste or blended
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon white pepper powder
1 teaspoon jintan putih (cumin) - again, replaced with curry powder
A little bit of ginger, just get the juice
2 teaspoons cornflour

2 cups breadcrumbs
2 eggs, lightly beaten

What you do:

1. Clean the chicken pieces and soak in the vinegar for about one hour.
2. Rub the turmeric, garlic, shallots, salt, pepper, cumin, ginger juice and cornflour. Marinate for at least 2 hours.
3. When ready to fry, roll the chicken in the beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs. Deepfry until cooked through.

I actually had no idea what camca is, and Ibu had already left for work, so I just used my own measurements, hehe. Again, no harm done, I guess.

This chicken was actually cooked in two ways. First with breadcrumbs, then without the breadcrumbs. I only managed to taste the one without breadcrumbs, but the people who had both had mixed opinions. Some liked the one without breadcrumbs, since the breadcrumb layer made the chicken slightly soggy. This might be because the oil wasn't hot, the chicken wasn't freshly served (since it was for lunch, it takes awhile for people to gather), or the breadcrumbs just absorb a lot of oil. But some people also liked the ones with the breadcrumb coating. I'm can't say why, except it might have been slightly crispy, perhaps.

Another idea is to just coat the chicken in flour before frying, or even baking it! If I was still cooking in UK, I might've done that instead, hehe. Price of oil is expensive. :P

As for the taste, Izzah really liked it. I liked it, definitely, since it is fried chicken after all. ;) You can't go wrong with fried chicken. There was the slight taste of turmeric, but perhaps I didn't add enough of the garlic and shallots, since I couldn't really taste it. Hmmmm.... The curry powder was a nice touch though (or cumin, if you used that instead, hehe). This recipe can do with a little bit of tweaking, but its definitely a good place to start. (Seriously, chicken goreng. Mmmmmmmm....)

Quote of the day: I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

Mayonnaise Roast Chicken

When my sister Izzah found out that Ibu was going to make roast chicken with mayo for dinner, she immediately announced that she wouldn't be hungry during dinner. And that was the day before Ibu actually cooked it. I admit that the idea of marinating chicken in mayo is a bit... dodgy. But if you remember, I have cooked (Aunidayini's recipe) GRRR chicken, which is covered in a salad dressing of your choice. And it didn't turn out too bad at all. So this one should turn out fine, yea? Hehe. Here we go!

What you need:
1 medium-sized whole chicken - we just used chicken legs
1 sachet chicken curry powder - we used curry paste
5 tablespoons mayonnaise
Turmeric powder and salt, for seasoning

What you do:

1. Season the chicken with a little turmeric powder and salt.
2. Cover the chicken with the curry powder, then spread the mayonnaise over it. Leave to marinate for at least an hour.
3. Bake in 180 C oven for about 45 minutes, or until juices run clear.

Typical with most roast chicken recipes, this has a minimal of steps. Hadi and Justin would love this, if they had known about it earlier. I didn't actually cover the chicken with the curry powder and mayo separately though. I didn't read the instructions properly, so I just mixed them together, then marinated the chicken in the mixture. Might turn out slightly different, but no harm done, hehe.

Anyway, while I was mixing the mayo and curry together, Ibu commented that it seems very similar to Tandoori chicken. Which it does, really. Only the yoghurt is replaced with mayo, and tandoori with curry, hehe. And the taste, while not exactly Tandoori obviously, was definitely a close relative. Slightly spicy, with the sourness of mayo.

Hadi commented though, that the chicken was super oily, even though no oil was used in the marinade. This should partly be because of the thighs (which are very oily pieces) and definitely the mayo. If I'm not mistaken, mayonnaise is a suspension of oil and stuff in oil, right? Which is the reason its not very healthy. That, and the eggs, hehe.

Anyway, this was a super easy recipe. Definitely student material. You could probably replace the mayo with yoghurt instead, if you want it slightly healthier. And if you replace the curry with something else, you might even be able to use any salad dressing of your choice. This should definitely be kept in your files, since it was really tasty and flavoursome (albeit oily, as mentioned earlier). I'm not sure if Izzah ate it in the end, but everyone else scarfed it down. Which is always a good sign. ;)

Quote of the day: We load up on oat bran in the morning so we'll live forever. Then we spend the rest of the day living like there's no tomorrow.

Ayam Nusantara

Although I've been cooking for more than a year now, and am relatively competent at it, I fail at Malay cooking. Really, I do. I can't even seem to make a simple curry from a PRE-MADE curry paste. No, really, I am not kidding. Plus, the recipes have all these weird terms in it. What exactly is a lengkuas?? What is pecah minyak (literally oil has broken)? Which part of the serai (lemon grass - I know this one!) do you use? How much, exactly, is an ulas, as a unit of measurement?

Perhaps Ibu thought it was time to update my education. Or perhaps, she was getting annoyed with me languishing around at home. Or perhaps, she really really just wants to read a new post on this blog. ;) Hehe. Anyway, whatever the case, Ibu went around looking for an "easy" recipe for me to try. So here we go!

What you need:
1 whole chicken, cut into 10 pieces - I just used wings
2 tablespoons chilli paste, or to taste - I just used one spoon
4 cm fresh ginger root
10 slices red onion, or shallots? (or ulas, anyway. I asked Babah, he said it was slices, so...)
6 cloves garlic
1 slice onion
4 teaspoons jintan putih (cumin) and jintan manis (fennel) - Ibu replaced with curry powder
2 cups thick santan (coconut milk)
4 stalks serai (lemon grass)
4 cm young lengkuas (apparently, the galangal plant) - we didn't have any, so we omitted

What you do:

1. Season the chicken lightly, and fry until cooked. Set aside.
2. Blend all the other ingredients (apart from the santan and chilli paste) to a thick paste.
3. Add a LOT of oil to a frying pan (about 1/3 cup), heat, then fry the blended ingredients together with the chilli paste until pecah minyak (which is apparently, until the oil rises to the surface. This takes about 45 minutes).
4. Once cooked, add the chicken and stir to coat.
5. Add in the santan, simmer until dry. Taste and season. You were apparently supposed to add a bit of cornflour, with a lightly beaten egg before serving, but I didn't do this. Meh.

Although this seems like a typical Malay recipe, I think the person actually just made the name up? Correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, even in UK, this should be do-able, since all the ingredients *should* be available. You just need a blender. Unless, of course, you don't know what galangal is....

Anyway, after a few hits and misses with the pecah minyak bit, I finally managed to add in the chicken and santan and left it to simmer. Since Ibu had to work, I really wasn't sure about when this was going to happen. But I knew the theory of it, haha. I did have to give Ibu a call to make sure of the instructions though... *sigh* Not doing well so far... :P

Anyway, come lunchtime, it was time to serve up the chicken. It looked quite nice, though the gravy was weirdly grainy. The taste, on the other hand, was very... coconut-y. Not a bad thing for most people, but I'm not really a big fan of coconut, meh. That said, I actually quite liked this. It was very.... well, very tasty and so very Malay. Babah thought it tasted a bit like Korma Chicken (ayam kurma). I guess it quite does. But really, I am embarrassed to say that Malay cooking is not my forte. :(

But, practice makes perfect, yea? And at least, I learnt a few things! Hehe.

Quote of the day: Mother's words of wisdom: 'Answer me! Don't talk with food in your mouth!'

Easy Chocolate Lover's Cheesecake

So... I've been a bit busy with the kursus civic the last week or so, and haven't had access to internet (or at least, a computer). To my surprise (and pleasure!), I met some people there who knew of me and my blog, hehe. Wah, I'm like a little celebrity now! :P Ahahaha. Did anyone else recognise me??? *nudgenudgewinkwink*

Anyways, right after the course, KA and her husband had organised a BBQ. I had originally planned on making something savoury, perhaps chicken pie, or something... But then I heard that no one was bringing desserts yet. Well, that's an easy way out, no? So desserts it is!

First, I decided to make the ever-simple melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake. I could only find unsweetened Hershey's baking chocolate (was looking for dark chocolate) so I used that. The cake turned out slightly bitter - okay for adults, but the children had it with ice cream. Even more indulgent! ;)

But since about 20-30 people were coming, I thought one cake might not be enough. I wanted to make the white chocolate cheesecake or, failing that, the chocolate cheesecake. But I couldn't find any mascarpone cheese anywhere! :( Since I was making it on the day of the BBQ itself, Ididn't really have time to go looking around for it. *sigh* So that's a no go.... But then, in the baking section of Supasave, we came across a pack of Hershey's mini-chocolate chips with a recipe for a cheesepie at the back. This one uses cream cheese, which I figured was more readily available (though Supasave didn't have it...) so I decided to make that instead! Only I turned it into a cake instead, hehe. So here we go!


What you need:
3 packages (of 250g each) cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups (340g) semi-sweet mini chocolate chips, divided

150g digestive biscuits, crushed into a fine powder
75g butter, melted

2 tablespoons whipping cream (optional)

What you do:

1. Heat oven to 220 C.
2. Mix together the crushed digestive biscuits and melted butter, then press into a 9-inch cake tin. (Or even 10-inch). Leave to set in the refrigerator.
   
3. Beat cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl with mixer until well-blended.
4. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.
5. Stir in 1 and 2/3 cups mini-chocolate chips. Pour into the crust.
6. Bake 10 minutes. Without opening the oven door, reduce temperature to 120 C, continue baking 30 minutes or until just set.
7. Remove from oven to wire rack. Cool completely; refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
8. Place remaining 1/3 cup chips and whipping cream in a small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at HIGH 20 to 30 seconds or just until chips are melted and mixture is smooth when stirred. Cool slightly; spread over the top of the cheesecake.
9. Refrigerate 15 minutes or until topping is set. Cover (refrigerate any leftovers).

Unlike the chocolate cheesecake I made before, this cake is baked and the chocolate is NOT melted before mixing it in with the cheese. So the chocolate chips were pretty little specks of chocolate within the cheesecake itself. They also retained their shape during the baking. But because of this, you really do need mini chips, I think. Chunks of chocolate, or even normal-sized chips would be too big.

And indeed, this really *is* a "chocolate lover's" cheesecake. The cake was absolutely loaded with the chocolate chips. I didn't bother making the frosting, mainly because I forgot to buy whipping cream, sigh. But anyway, that didn't detract from the taste at all. The cake was super-creamy and super-chocolatey. I got rapturous praise from those of them who absolutely loved the cake, with its creamy and chocolatey wonder.

Then again, there were people who found the cake a *bit* too rich for their tastes. (I don't like cream cheese to begin with, so I'm with this group, hehe). There was perhaps a bit too much chocolate chips in there, I think. I added slightly more than the required 1 2/3 cups, but not that much more really. So that's something to think about. Either reduce the amount of chocolate, amount of sugar, or use dark chocolate chips.

Also, I used an 8-inch cake tin, because I had no idea just how much cheese was inside. (The original recipe had specified a pre-made pie crust). So my cake was super thick, which isn't really all that nice, because I actually love the crust of cheesecakes, hehe. My sister also liked the crust, so I'm not the only one. ;) So that's why I suggested a 9-10 inch cake tin instead. The smaller diameter that I used also interfered slightly with the baking time. By the end of the 30 minutes, the center of the cake had still not set properly, so I had to bake it for an extra... 20 minutes, perhaps.

And I don't know if you can see it in the photo, but the top of the cheesecake was horribly cracked. This can normally be hidden by using frosting, but again, no frosting here, meh. To those not in the know, this is actually normal, and is caused my the temperature around the cheesecake changing rapidly. In actual fact, you are supposed to switch off the oven and just leave the cheesecake in there without opening the door, until the oven has cooled down completely. Of course, you musn't open and close the oven door during baking either. Only when the cake is completely cool do you put it in the fridge. But I had no time to do this, so crack or no crack, I took it out of the oven after about an hour. Ah well, never mind. I'll plan better next time. ;)

Quote of the day: Inside some of us is a thin person struggling to get out, but they can usually be sedated with a few pieces of chocolate cake.

Also, I refer to the comment made by aud here. Thank you for your feedback, I appreciate it, really, I do. But although I have a food blog, I have mentioned several times over that I am extremely picky with my food. Trust me, my parents (and even myself!) have been despaired with my lack of adventurous-ism with food. But its really something I can't help. I am partial to chicken dishes, because I :heart: chicken. :) :) :D Chicken is the best, better than all the rest! And while going out to eat, I don't see any problem with ordering the food I like best of all, chicken goreng. After all, most of the time, its how they make the basic dishes like chicken goreng that determines their competency with more ocmplicated dishes, hehe. Or so my theory goes....

But my point is... when I go out to a restaurant, I want to eat something I *know* I'll like. Thank you for your suggestions on dishes, but I dislike tom yam, I don't eat mango with fish OR chicken with pandan. Believe me, I looked through the whole menu, but the only thing I was confident I would like was the chicken goreng. So chicken goreng it is... But this blog was never meant to be a restaurant review one. This was only supposed to be a chronicle of the dinners me and my housemates ate as students. If you are looking for proper reviews of restaurants, perhaps the Brunei Restaurant Review blog would be more your taste.

In any case, I decided to publish the reply in a post, because I figured there might be other people wondering why Ihsan eats only chicken goreng. I eat chicken goreng... because I like it more than any other food. Except perhaps cucur ayam, but that's an extension of fried chicken anyway, hehe. ;)

Fruity Breakfast Bars

Hadi has been bugging me to make granola bars for him these past few days. He had just joined the gym, and with it came a consciousness on what he eats. Or so he says. he still stuffs himself like he always does, only this time, he at least *tries* not to, I guess. It's the thought that counts, yeah?

Anyway, people think, "Oooo, granola bars. Must be healthy!" How sadly mistaken they are. They may have a lot of fruit and fibres, but they also (or at least, the recipe I had...) had a lot of butter, sugar AND honey. Which made Hadi think twice about making me make them. :P (And you might also want to think twice before you buy that healthy sounding bar from the supermarket. ;) ) But then, in the same book, I came across this recipe for "Fruity Breakfast Bars" which have very similar ingredients to the granola bars, only with no honey, no butter and 1/5th of the sugar! Sounds absolutely disgusting, but Hadi seemed pleased enough with it, so here we go!

What you need:
270g apple sauce - I replaced with two green apples, blended into tiny pieces
115g ready-to-eat dried apricots - I replaced with 6 slices of dried mangoes, chopped into small pieces
115g raisins
50g demerera (raw) sugar
50g sunflower seeds - For some reason, I couldn't find shelled seeds, so I omitted this
25g sesame seeds
25g pumpkin seeds - Couldn't find this, so replaced with more sesame seeds ;)
75g rolled oats - I used closer to 100g
75g self-raising flour
50g dessicated coconut (dry and unsweetened) - Only had about 25g left in the house
2 eggs - Used 3 eggs instead, because of the extra oats

I also added in 115g of sultanas, 50g of shelled pistachios, 50g dried macadamia nuts and a small handful of shelled peanuts.

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C. Grease and line a 20cm/8in square shallow baking tin and line with baking paper. Allow the baking paper to hang over the edges of the tin, as this makes baked bars easier to remove.
2. Put the apple sauce in a large bowl with the apricots, raisins, sugar, and the seeds (as well as any extras, or replacements). Stir together with a wooden spoon until thoroughly mixed.
3. Add the oats, flour, coconut and eggs to the fruit mixture and gently stir together until evenly combined.
4. Turn the mixture into the tin and spread to the edges in an even layer. Press down gently, until firmly packed.
5. Bake for about 25 minutes or until golden and just firm to the touch.
6. Leave to cool in the tin, lift out on to a board and cut into bars (or squares, as I did).
   

As you can see, I made a lot of additions, subtractions, multiplications and replacements. (Haha, sounds like a maths problem ;) ) The beauty about these kinds of bars is that the recipes are not that sensitive, and you can basically use any ingredient you like, so long as you keep the wet-to-dry ratio roughly the same. (I'm not quite sure I managed that, haha, which is why I gave the original recipe) But above all, these bars are meant to be ridiculously healthy, so don't go putting in stuff like fried chicken or whipped cream. :P

So anyway, how was the reaction to these bars? The only people who dared touch these were Ibu, Babah and, of course, Hadi. Ibu took only a little bit though. Hadi, on the other hand, complained that the bars were more chewy than crunchy (are they supposed to be crunchy kah? I always thought they were chewy... :P ) As for the taste though, he said it was "okay". Not exactly enthusiastic, but I fail to imagine how anyone can be enthusiastic about these bars.

I was proven wrong. By the time Babah had a taste of these bars, they were (for some reason) more soft than chewy, but he.... seemed to really really like them. Its slightly suspicious, he could just be saying it to make me feel better, you know? :P But well... he said he liked it anyway. He even said he'll eat it for breakfast as cereal, and tried a bowl with milk. Looked unappetising to me, but yeah... he liked it. Haha. I still find it hard to believe.

Anyway, with my inexperience with healthy food, I have no idea what makes a healthy food good. But these seemed to look okay, though I didn't really like the coconut smell. I probably also crammed too much raisins and sultanas in, so when I cut it into bars, some bits broke off, mostly containing the fruit. So that's one thing to keep in mind, I guess. The other recipe for granola bars also had a lot more oats, unlike this one. Probably, the type of oats I used also partly contributed to the texture. The other one wanted jumbo oats, whatever that is. :o I used porridge oats. Once this batch finishes and Hadi and Babah are still up for some more, I might try to make a slightly healthier version of the granola bars.

Until then.... watch this space. ;)

Quote of the day: It's OK to be fat. So you're fat. Just be fat and shut up about it.

Soto-ing

Every year during Hari Raya, my family on my father's side would visit these particular relatives who are famous for their simply amazing soto (a type of noodle soup dish). They would serve the soup up in huge pots, and provide lots of condiments with which to eat it with. Since I haven't been home for Hari Raya for three years ( :( ), I can't quite remember what time they usually go, but if I know them, it'll be somewhere around lunchtime, hehe.

Anyway, everyone - adults and kids, alike - loves their soto a LOT. So much so that the kids have taken to calling them Nini Soto (Nini is a term for a grandparent). The adults were amused, but told us not to call them that in front of them, haha. To their horror, one of my cousins did exactly that during the last Hari Raya I was able to attend, though to this day, he claims that he never did.

I don't actually have a recipe for this, haha, but I thought I'd share with you all this lovely photo of soto, and talk a little about it. It is not only during Hari Raya that they serve it, as I've discovered recently. They also serve it during family functions, which is how I got to eat my first bowl of Nini Soto's soto in a few years! But, ah... they do not serve it to everyone. Only close family and friends, I think, or otherwise, it would not be enough to feed the hordes. ;) In fact, a lot of my relatives were disappointed when they didn't see any soto being served, but were too embarrassed to ask about it, haha!

In the end though, they invited us to the kitchen for some soto, and everything was happy once more, ahaha.

And despite what some people may think, no, soto is not very healthy (at least not the way they make it) and eating it in the middle of the night is not really a good idea. :P

Quote of the day: The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat are really good friends.

Food Zone (at Yayasan)

So a couple of days ago, I had this conference thing, but it... er, wasn't up to my expectations, so KA took me out for lunch. Not just lunch, the whole afternoon, actually, hehe. But anyway, like usual, I'm up for anything (in terms of food), so KA took me to this place in Yayasan that had nice dim sum. I don't actually like dim sum (too much sea food, and sometimes a bit too mushy for my tastes) but she assured me that the Nasi Ayam (Chicken Rice) there was really nice as well. Sounds fine to me :D

When we went the place, I was struck by a chord of recognition. Me and Hamizah had actually stopped by there after a session of DDR at the Yayasan arcade last time (more on that later!) Although I was tempted by the pictures they had of the butter chicken, we were more thirsty than hungry at that time, so we didn't get anything except water. No, not tap water. :P

Because the interior non-smoking section was kind of full, we decided to get seats at the outside tables, which was supposed to be smoking, but no one was around anyway. Less stuffy, hehe. Service was extremely good, I am impressed. Menu came, the waitress waited around till we called her over to give our order, and food came withing 5-10 minutes. Its probably pre-made, but still. Not too shabby.

Decoration-wise... well, what decoration? I can't actually remember anything significant, though I *think* the inside room had some hangings on the walls? Menu was just printed text, laminated and bound. Prices were mid-range, about $4-$5 per dish, and the dim sum dishes costing about $2-$3 each. Drinks were also similar, at about $2.

Here was KA's dim sum dish. I forget what it was, but it had chicken and prawn, in some kind of dumpling wrap, I guess.


Meanwhile, I had ordered the roasted chicken rice, while KA decided to get the steamed one instead. When they came, we were kind of surprised. There were a LOT of dishes. I was wondering what they were - they turned out to be all sorts of condiments for the chicken rice. It looked like we ordered more than two dishes, haha. Three people would not have been able to fit in all their food on the table.

Below, you can see the condiments. There was some kind of fish ball soup - the soup was really nice, but the fish balls were a bit... strange. Didn't really go with the soup. KA said she gave the soup a 9/10, with a perfect score only a negative fishball away, ahahaha. Besides that, they had the usual soy sauce, chilli sauce, garlic ginger paste, and um, some kind of veggie thing. I didn't touch any of them, because I like my chicken rice *pure*, as I've mentioned before, I think? :P


Here's our chicken. Doesn't the roasted chicken look oh-so-tasty?? But KA said she preferred the steamed one, because she said that she can taste more of the chicken, haha. Nothing wrong with that, but I've always preferred roasted chicken rice. :D The chicken itself was really good, very juicy and tasty, although with a touch too much sesame oil than I would have liked. The steamed chicken also had a lot of sesame oil, which would mean that it is not as healthy as people would like to think.


The rice itself was also very very very tasty. I love chicken rice, though yes, it is not healthy, hehe. Once in awhile, I guess? :P The portions were also very very big. There was a lot of chicken. More than you would need for that amount of rice, I think. Plus, we were also really full from a so-called "tea" late in the morning, so yeah... But that means that its a good price for the amounts, I guess. :D


But now, on to other matters - actually, one other matter that I can consider almost as important as food. DDR!!! (or dance dance revolution, to those of you who are ignorant of it :P) Last year, Brunei had only one arcade at the Mall, with only a SINGLE measly DDR machine. But now, we come back to a *very* nice surprise. There are now THREE arcades (well, one is unopened) although really, the Mall one is the most convenient. Each arcade has two machines even! Wooooo! Plus plus plus, the Mall one has the ParaPara machine! I just tried it yesterday and I love it! Well... its not as "challenging" as classic DDR *ahem*, but its still loads of fun. Though you look stupid, I admit.

But anyway, that's all for today on DDR :D I just had to express my love for it, ahahaha.

Quote of the day: Practice safe eating - always use condiments.