Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Orange Chiffon Cake

Orange Chiffon Cake - decorated slightly for friends' birthday, piping skill leaves a lot of room for improvement :)





Thursday, December 16, 2010

Merry Christmas

Picture of Christmas lights taken on The Boulevard, Ivahoe




Thursday, December 2, 2010

Roast Pork

Summer is almost here but the weather has been colder than average spring and been raining a lot, maybe that's why the idea of making a roast came to my mind. This is the first time doing a roast pork, did not prepare much as it was a last minute idea. Mainly just season the pork skin with lots of coarse sea salt and rub a few slices of lemon on the pork, then put it into the oven for roasting. Used up the leftover cherry tomatoes from green papaya salad, and some green beans and potatoes --- tada ..... a nice winter meal served in spring.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Strawberry Chiffon Cake

It's official, i am now addicted to Chiffon Cake!

Chiffon Cake seems to be 'out of fashion' these days. The Pandan flavour is the most popular type in Malaysia but having read a Japanese Chiffon Cakwe recipe book last year really opoened my eyes to the variety of Chiffon Cake.

Made this Strawberry flavour Chiffon Cake for the first time. Other than the light and soft texture of Chiffon cake, it carries a very subtle strawberry flavour. Next would be a banana chiffon cake and then maybe orange flavour.








Recipe

A. Egg yolk batter
4 egg yolks
3/4 cup strawberry puree
65g corn oil or olive oil
80g sugar
1 tsp of baking powder
115g cake flour
1/3 tsp salt

B. Egg white mixture
5 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
60g sugar

* Optional:
1/2 tsp of strawberry essence
red colouring

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 345 F. Make sure the rake is in the centre of oven.
2. Combine egg yolks and sugar, beat until well combined (it should look pale yellow)
3. Stir in strawberry puree, oil and strswberry essence (if using)and till well combined.
4. Sift dry ingredients *cake flour, baking powder and salt) into the egg yolk mixture and beat until well combined, add colouring now if desired.
5. In a separate mixing bowl, sprinkle cream of tartar over egg whites and neat till small bubbles form. gradually add sugar and beat until stiff peak forms (to test when it is ready, the egg white meringue would hold and not drop when mixing bowl is turned upside down).
6. scoop 1/3 egg white mixture into egg yolk batter and using a whish, fold into the egg uolk mixture until combined. DO NOT over do it.
7. Put remaining egg white mixture into egg yolk batter and again fold using a whisk until combined but DO NOT overdo as you want to keep the air pockets.
8. Pour into ungreased 20cm tube pan. Give the pan a few bang to get ride of big air bubbles, you can also use a chopstick to swirl the batter.
9. Bake for 30 min, then turn doen heat to approx 320F and bake for another 20 min or until cooked (test with a skewer).
10. Once cooked, removed from oven and IMMEDIATELY invert pan upside down onto heatproof funnel or bottle. Let it cool completely (about 2 hours, depending on weather) before loosening side of cake with knife or long, metal spatula; remove from pan.

Girls Cooking Party - Gourmet Salad

Green Papaya Salad


The quarterly girls cooking party is on again, with the perfect weather for our theme - Gourmet Salad. The bar has increased since the previous challenge, and everyone seems to put in more thoughts and efforts into this.

No one actually made any common salad such as ceasar salad or coleslaw, which is good to see. Out of the two I have short listed (Japanese and Thai), I finally decided on the Thai Green Papaya Salad. I like the hot/sour/sweet taste and also thought this would be refeshing for warmer weather. Never bought and seen a green papaya before but nowadays the Chinese grocery store is so well stocked, it wasn't difficult to source this. At $8.99 per Kg, I suspect it is imported.

Other salads brought by the girls include mouth watering salads such as 'Chicken Rissoles with Beetroot Relish and Warm Potato Salad', 'Thai Beef Salad', 'Warm salad of Kipfler potato, cabbage and bacon', 'Thai Cold Noodle Salad', 'Szechuan Ma La 麻辣 tofu', 'Coronation Chicken Salad', a sweet salad 'Sweet Salad - Orange marinated with lime juice and honey, topped with shaved chocolates and coconut' and also some Sri Lankan treats - Milk Toffees. Now I have more ideas for salad now for this coming summer!

Thai Beef Salad (prepared by Christie)

The winning dish - Chicken Rissoles with Beetroot Relish and Warm Potato Salad', a Masterchef recipe

Sweet Salad - Orange marinated with lime juice and honey, topped with shaved chocolates and coconut - prepared by Esther.

Szechuan "Ma Lak" (麻辣 — "numb and spicy") shreded tofu prepared by Sarah Lim

Coronation Chicken Salad prepared by Tania, ingredients include chicken in creamy curry sauce, walnuts, grapes topped with alfalfa sprouts

Thai cold noodle salad - glassnoodles, chienses mushroom, fungus, apples, pork slices, shredded carrots and topped with nuts, served with speciallyh made fish sauce - created by Nga.

Milk Tofee - Sri Lankan treats made by Suleka

My Green Papaya Salad

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Lunch Box Challenge

My lunch box


After some brainsotrming and ideas from Tania on the theme for the next girls cooking session, we finally decided on Lunch Box Challenge. Each is to bring 2 set of lunch boxes prepared at home and judging is based on taste, presentation and theme. It was awesome to see everyone put in so much effort despite busy work schedule. The result is lots of variety of good food for the tummy as well as and feast for the eyes.

I love taking opportunity like this to make somehting I would otherwise find too much hassle to make. one particular dishes I miss a lot is Lobak. After some google search I found a "ngoh hiang" recipe (different to the hawker stall lobak) which uses yam (my eyes lit up as soon as I saw yam in the recipe, it's one of my favourite ingredients). I decided to give it a try :)
To add more interest to the lunch box, I also made some Kuih Ubi Bingka as a dessert to go with the lunch box. Though my lunch box missed out on winning the prize, I was very pleased with the lobak, it sure satisfied my cravings and brought back some memories of good old days in hometown Penang.


The winner of the lunch box challenge is Tania, her 'picnic lunch box' stole the lime light with its presentation and creativity. But it wasn't easy doing the scoring as each dish is so tasty, and we could't help wishing if only our daily lunch boxes look like these ones! Pictures of a selection of the lunch boxes:

Tania's picnic lunchbox

Sarah's bread roll sushi and puddings with chocolate flakes toppings

Nga's pandan waffles

Maggie's sushi bento


Esther's sushi bread rolls

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Rempah Udand aka Pulut Panggang




Another Malaysian snack which is one of my favourite - rempah udang. It's made of steamed fragrant glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk, with prawns/shredded coconut/lemon grass fillings and wrapped in banana leaves. It is then pan fried or grilled. I have been put off by making this in the past as I imagined it would be very complicated and time consuming. It does take time as it involves a few processes - steaming the rice, making the prawns/coconut filling, wrapping then pan frying but the ingredients are actually not too difficult to make and the result is rewarding. I must admit it's not going to be something I'll make on an average weekend but only special occasion motivates me to do it, in this case it was the girls cooking/get together party.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Another cake .... but I can't remember what cake it was!


Made this cake some time last year for my MIL and forgot to post the picture now I can't even remember what cake I made! Silly silly Lisa!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Bread Rolls




Ever since "Bread Top" sprung up in Melbourne, I have seriously put on some weight. Walking past the bakery on my way to work in the city, i can't help but drawn to the fragrant of the freshly baked rolls. I love their fluffy, soft and fresh baked rolls. There's endless variety too from savoury to sweet bread rolls, not to mention the cakes! I found a few foodblogs with bread roll recipe and thought "hmm why don't I try making bread rolls myself, it's probably healthier and will save me some money too". The main effort is in the kneading, that's hard work but the rest are fun! Especially decorating and deciding what toppings to use.