Random Update

I think I do owe you guys an explanation for my M.I.A-ness, haha... Apart from being busy, my laptop was totally busted, the hard disk just died, I guess it's time, haha... So all my saved recipes & related pictures were in there, couldn't save any, among with my other valuable stuffs... I was a bit frustrated, sometimes technologies are unreliable... Learnt it the hard way... But I got myself a new laptop few months ago, which I love dearly & some of the stuffs from the old laptop are actually in my pendrive but only some, better than nothing... Since I'm on my semester break now, might as well update as much as I can... I hope you've enjoyed & learnt something from my cook13ook, I now it's not much... But I'm sure there'll be more to come! My oven is currently not in it's best condition, so any recipes invovling baking (including the cheese-cupcakes that I'm sooo dying to share with you!) have to be on hold for the time being, until I get a new proper oven... Til then...

Love,
HUDZ13.

Roast Beef With Tamarind Sauce/Dip

Well these 2 recipes come together, the tamarind sauce just goes well with the roast beef, but I'm sure you can eat it with some other stuffs... But I have a feeling plainly roasted meats are the best... Like plain BBQ prawns, squids, fish, lambs even... When I said plain I mean those only seasoned with a little bit of salt & pepper or herbs. No BBQ/special marinates.


RECIPE #1: ROASTED BEEF

INGREDIENTS:

• Beef, uncut ~ 500g
• Salt & pepper
• Mixed herbs - optional

DIRECTIONS:

1. Season the beef with salt, pepper & herbs. Roast it in the oven for the instructed heat & time (refer to your oven data) or you can do it on BBQ grill. Roast it til cook.

2. Slice the beef into bite size.

RECIPE #2: TAMARIND SAUCE/DIP

INGREDIENTS:

• Tamarind/Asam jawa (1/2 a packet ~ about 125g) - I forgot the name of the brand I use, I'll check later, but it's sold in a yellow/red colored packet.
• Salt
• Sugar ~ 5tbsp
• Shallots ~ 10, thinly sliced [You can use less if you want]
• Thai chilli/tiny hot chilli ~ 3 is enough, put more for extra kick, hehe...
• Warm/hot water ~ 5 cups
  

DIRECTIONS:

1. Dissolve the tamarind with hot/warm water. Sieve the mixture into a cooking pot. Turn the heat on. Add salt & sugar.

2. Add in finely chopped chilli into the pot. Stir the mixture.

3. tir until the sauce mixture becomes reduced & the sauce become slightly thick.

4. Add in the sliced shallots in the last minute & stir. Turn off the heat.

Serve the beef & sauce together with rice or just eat it like that if you want.

French Toast

Don't know what to do when your bread is getting dry & going stale? Here's the best recipe for that. I love to use fresh bread as well, as they have this really soft chewy texture... Usually people don't like to eat bread when it's not that fresh anymore, you can tell from the dry texture. So before the expiry date arrives & the green mold invades in, try this! Best for breakfast & tea or in my case, anytime I feel like to! Of course, there's many different version of french toast, this isn't the authentic one even, I think but definetky the easiest... I learnt this from my mom...

INGREDIENTS:

• Bread - sliced loaf, not buns type... [For this I use half a loaf]
• Salt
• Egg ~ 3-5 [Depends on the size/grade]
• Sugar -3-5 tbsp
• Oil for deep frying

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a bowl-plate, beat eggs with a bit of salt & the sugar. Egg-sugar ratio can be 1:1full tbsp or 1:2 full tbsp.

2. I prefer to cut bread into halves rather than leaving it in 1 whole slice or triangles, it eases the frying proces. But then again up to you.

3. Heat the oil for deep frying (the depth can be as long as it covers half of the bread).

4. When the oil is getting hot, you can start coating the bread with the egg & quickly put it in the frying pan. If you're using fresh bread, you just need to coat it lightly. If you're using the dry bread, let the bread soak up the egg a little bit so that you'll get a softer bread later. Make sure you turn down the heat, since the egg has sugar in it, it will caramelize, giving a golden brown color, if the oil is too hot, the sugar will burn too quickly & give it a burnt-brown coor instead.



5. Put the fried bread on kitchen towel to remove excess oil. Serve. You can serve with butter & sugar dust, or with jam of your choice or whatever. I love to have it just lke that, with tea. Or you can be atypical Malay & eat it with chilli sauce MAGGI [awu, mesti MAGGI nyanta!] like my sibling does... Like my late dad did... [I miss you babah~]

P/S: I still have not figured out what's so french about this toast... Haha...

Hot Soy Dip [Sambal Kicap pedas]

This dip, you can eat it with fried tofu, fried tempe, fried fish, crunchy fruits like apple, pear, guava, etc.


WARNING!!!: This dip has garlic in it, you might want to check your breath after eating it =)

ESSENTIAL TOOL: Mortar & pastel or rolling stone(batu giling wah,haha) This dip won't work if you don't use this tool unless you find an alternative, no, blender won't do it.



INGREDIENTS:

• Garlic ~ 3 cloves
• Thai/hot tiny chillies ~ 3 [Add more if you like it hot]
• Sugar ~5 tbsp
• Lime 3-5 [depends on how sour you want it to be]
• Sweet soy sauce [not the thick one, use the ight one]
  

DIRECTIONS:

1. Pound garlic & chilli using mortar & pastel until you get a fine texture.

2. Add in sugar & pound until the ingredients are well mixed.

3. Transfer the mixture into serving bowl.

4. Add in soy sauce twice the amount of your 1st mixture, or a little bit more.

5. Stir the mixture and you should get a thick texture. If it's not thick, it means you added too much of soy sauce, but it's ok, you can add a little bit more sugar or just leave it as it is. No harm.

6. Lastly, squeeze in lime juice as much as you need. Stir the mixture, taste and add any insufficient ingredients before serving. I like it sour & hot though. =)

P/S: Sorry, I forgot to take the picture of the final product, but I'm sure you'll know how it looks like.=)

Kentucky Fried Prawn

Well, basically you just use the ready made Kentucky flour. Or you can use corn flour instead. Here I mix both.

INGREDIENTS:

• Prawns without shell, leave the tail on. Or up to you. (You can use chicken/fish or other stuffs)
• Kentucky and/or corn flour. Mixture portion is up to you.
• If you're using solely corn flour, you need salt & pepper for seasonings and otherwise.
• 1 Egg
• Oil for deep frying.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Season the prawns with salt & pepper if you're using corn flour. If you're using KF/mix of both, you can sti season them a little bit. Most KF are already salted.

2. Dust the prawn 1 by 1 in the flour.

3. Coat it in the beaten egg.

4. Dust 1 more time with the flour so you have a double coating. (I call this the double-dusting technique)

5. Deep fry the prawns til they turn golden brown- til cook.

6. Put them on kitchen towel to remove excess oil before srving & you're done. Best sere with sauc of you choice (~Chili, etc.)

Chicken Stir Fry - Simpler Version

I know I've posted a chicken stir fry recipe before (I believe so), but here's another 1, much simpler... It's just another recipe which I made up... Threw in anything I could possibly find... Hehe...


INGREDIENTS:

• Chicken cuts (I used 1/2 of a whole chicken)
• Salt & pepper
• Little oil ~ 3-5 tbsp
• Ginger ~ thumb tip size, or as much as you want. (Young ginger can also be used)
• Oyster sauce ~ 3 tbsp
• Sweet soy sauce ~ 5-7 tbsp
• Chili sauce Maggi ~ 3 tbsp
• Water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Slice ginger into thin chips. Fry into hot pan with oil. Fry until golden brown, aromatic.

2. Add in chicken cuts. Add salt & pepper. Stir fry. You can put a lid on to speed up cooking time. Turn occasionally.

3. Add in oyster, sweet soy & chilli sauces. Stir fry. You can add in a little bit of water if it's too dry. Stir til cook.

4. Serve best with rice.

Butter chicken

Hey peeps, it's been looong since I've added in new recipes... I've been busy... And the fact that I forgot my password twice! I've jotted it down somewhere, let's just hope I don't lose it again... So let's just proceed with my first come-back recipe, butter chicken. This is almost exactly the same as buttermilk chicken, they tastes almost alike too, the only differences are that this recipe doesn't use milk (less fat I presume...) but it uses egg instead which is optional I guess... It's a bit oily though... But I'm still practising it, I still don't know how to get the egg-floss effect and I still don't know how to make it less oily (since I still have to use the butter anyway...) But fret not, it will still turn out to be edible, I promise! In fact, my family prefers this to buttermilk... I like both... FYI: Both the buttermilk & butter chicken recipes (in fact 80% of the recipes in this web up til present) are quite 100% mine (I usually just guess the ingredients through experiments & guides from almost-similar recipes, and ended up with my own version if not my own...) I know mothers say,"Don't play with your food" but if I didn't, I wouldn't have came up with brilliant recipes (at least I think they are briliant, great for 1st time cooks!). Enough said. Let's begin...

P/s: Right now I'm solely dependent on my hp camera so the pics quality are not that good. In fact, it just sucks, big time... Although I really like this blue Canon Power Shot E1... =) [Buy me 1 please??? Don't mind if you do...Hehe...]


INGREDIENTS:

• Chicken cuts (1 whole chicken)
• Corn flour
• Salt & pepper
• Thai chillies ~ 5 (as much as you want) - finely chopped
• Curry leaves ~ 5-9stalks (as much as you want, up to you, for e, the more the merrier!)
• Butter ~ about 100g (salted/unsalted, up to you)-as long as it is enough to coat the chicken.
• Chicken stock cube ~ 1
• Sugar ~ about 5 tbsp
• Egg ~ 2
• Oil (for deep-frying)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Seasons chicken with salt & pepper. Dusts wit corn flour & deep fry in hot oil. Put aside.

2. In a wok, melt butter under low heat(to avoid burn), fry in chopped Thai chillies & curry leaves until aroma arises. Add in chicken stock. Stir.

3. Quickly add in the fried chicken cuts, add sugar, stir fry until the chicken cuts are evenly coated with the flavored butter.

4. This is the tricky part, beat egg(s) in a bowl, pour into the wok with the other ingredients, pour it in a circular direction, stir quickly. [This isn't really the way to do it, but I just feel the egg is essential. If you wanna do the real egg-floss technique, you gonna have to wait til I figure out how... I heard it should be quickly stirred using deep-frying technique, with butter not oil, but then that is a hell lotsa butter... I'm sure there's a better & easier technique... But I just haven't figured it out yet... Haven't got the time to snoop in to restaurants' kitchens yet, hehe...] Btw, you can emit egg, if you don't want it.

5. You're done! Do taste it first before serving... Just add in any inadequate seasonings... Best serve with rice.

P/S: If you do know how to do the egg-floss, do let me know, share it with us! Post it under comments. Thanks!

Custard Fried Chicken!

I SWEAR THIS IS 1 OF THE EASIEST CHICKEN RECIPE YOU CAN EVER GET!

INGREDIENTS:

• Chicken cuts
• Salt
• Sweet soy sauce(Kicap manis bah)
• Custard powder
• Oil for deep frying

DIRECTIONS:

1. Clean your chicken and seasons with salt and soy sauce.

2. Add in enough custard powder.
3.Marinat for at least 5 minutes.Re-mix before frying in hot oil.
4.DONE!I SWEAR IT TASTES GOOD!AND IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A BIT BLACK IN COLOUR.It's not burnt,trust me...

Spaghetti/Pasta Carbonara

INGREDIENTS:

• 100g Butter
• 1 Onion (diced)
• 2 clvs. Garlic
• 250g Minced chicken
• Sliced sausages (optional)
• 1L Fresh milk
• Mixed herbs (up to you)
• Plain flour
• Mushroom
• Salt and pepper
• Pasta of your choice

DIRECTIONS:

1. Mixed plain flour in 1/2 L of warmed milk until you get a clumped dough.Use low heat.Set aside.

2. In a separate wok, melt butter under low heat to avoid burn. Fry the onion until aroma arises.
3.Add in the minced chicken and sausages.
4.Add in the other 1/2 L of milk.Add in herbs, salt and pepper, and mushroom.
5.Add in the dough in step 1 into the wok of gravy.Stir until it dissolves and produces a thick sauce.
6.Cook your pasta until al-dante.

7. Pour gravy onto pasta.
8.Garnish with more herbs.
9. You can be a typical Malay and add in cili sos.=)
10.Enjoy!

Fried Wantan

INGREDIENTS:

• Equal amount of chicken meat and prawn, but you can use 2:1 portion of chicken:prawn. Or you can eliminate prawn in case you have allergy. About 500g each. Minced them using processor and mix.


• Salt and pepper


• Fish sauce


• Sesame oil


• Spring onion


• 5 tbsp of grated carrot


• Thai chilli, as much as you want


• Corn flour


• Wantan pastry


• Oil for frying


• Mayonaise


• Sweetened milk/creamer

DIRECTIONS:

1. Add and mix chicken, prawn, salt, pepper, fish sauce, sesame oil, chopped spring onion, grated carrot, chopped thai chilli and corn flour. Corn flour should be added at an amount just enough so that the mixture sort of stick together well.


2. Scoop about half tbsp or 1tbsp of mixture and place onto wantan pastry, fold in half creating triangle. It will stick on it's own.


3. Deep fry the prepared wantan for about 30seconds or until golden brown in hot oil.


4. To serve, prepare the sauce by mixing equal portion of mayonaise and sweetened creamer.

IT'S DARN SIMPLE!

Oyster sauce chicken stir fry

INGREDIENTS:

• Chicken cuts
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Dried chilli
• Oil
• Oyster sauce
• Sweet soy sauce
• salt

Directions:

1. Fry minced garlic, chopped ginger and dried chilli (use little oil) until the aroma arises.
2. Add in chicken cuts and salt to taste. Stir fry.
3. Add in oyster sauce and soy sauce as much as needed. Depends on whether you want it dry or saucy.
   
4. Serve best with rice.
   
   
   

BUTTERMILK CHICKEN

Hellow there everyone...This is my first recipe blog...And I proudly present to you my first recipe: Buttermilk Chicken! It is so easy to make. Thanks to my friend Lin for her version of Buttermilk Chicken which I modified a bit...So now it's my version,hehe...I'm giving you a family portion because when I cook, I usually cook for my whole family, but I hope you will get how the portions/ratios of the ingredients work. Don't be too fussy of getting everything in the exact measurement, don't sweat yourself. Just estimate and throw everything in, have fun, haha...Hope you will try it and hope you will like it!Good luck!

INGREDIENTS

• 250g Butter (1 block) salted/unsalted up to you
  
• 1L of Fresh milk-Full cream (set aside 1 cup)


• 1 whole chicken, cut


• 5-7 stalks of curry leaves


• 5-7 tbsp sugar


• 1-2 cubes of chicken stock or 2-4 tbsp if powdered


• Thai chillies/Chilli Padi (as much as you like...)
  
• Mixed Italian herbs(optional)


• Salt and pepper
  
• Corn flour


• Oil for cooking
  

DIRECTIONS:

STEP 1-FRYING THE CHICKEN:

1. Marinate the chicken cuts with enough salt, pepper and in my case, I love to put in mixed Italian herbs. Leave it for 5-10minutes.


2. Heat oil for deep fry.


3. Dust the chicken in cornflour. (Make sure you dust them only when you're ready to fry them. Don't do it too early as if it settles for too long the cournflour will start to flake off.)


4. Fry the chicken until it is crispy-cooked, it will turn light golden yellow.

STEP 2-THE GRAVY

1. Melt butter in pan under low heat to avoid burn.


2. Fry in the chillies,curry leaves(take off from the stalks),salt and chicken stock until the flavour rises.



3. Pour in milk. Stir.


4. Add sugar. Stir.


5. Taste and add in any inadequate ingredients. (Salt,sugar,stock,etc.)


6. Mix in the 1 cup of milk which has been put aside with half cup of corn flour. Pour into the gravy. Stir.


7. Stir until gravy thickens, just add in more cornflour if it doesn't.

TO SERVE:

Option 1: You can either add in the chicken into the gravy while the gravy is still cooking. Serve and eat while still hot.

Option 2: Serve the chicken and the gravy separately. (I prefer this one.You can always preheat the gravy if you do not want to serve immediately.)