Chicken Curry Version III

This time round, I am a bit lazy, not lazy to cook (in that sense) but lazy to think. Sometimes, I just want to RELAX...and cook. Using my imagination, try to think-out-of-the-recipes, I created this recipe. CY said said it quite good, but I don't know you guys dare or dare not try. :p

As usual,

Curry Paste (ground everything together)

2 tablespoons of garam masala

2 teaspoons of tumeric

2 lime of juices

2 lime skins

2 stalks of lemon grass, white part only

5 dried red pepper

a lot of red onions, about 10 medium sized onions

Curry ingredients

a whole chicken (cut into chunks)

5-6 potatoes

1 can of skimmed milk

2 cups of water
salt & sugar to taste

Methods

1. Fry curry paste with oil, till fragrant
2. Add chicken, fry and stir for about 3 mins
3. Add in potatoes, then pour in water till cover all chicken chunks & potatoes.
4. Bring to boil, pour in half the milk, then simmer in low heat for at least 25 mins (covered).
5. Uncovered, simmer for another 15 mins or until sauce thickens.
6. Season with salt & sugar.
7. Pour the remaining milk, bring to boil again.
8. Then serve.

Personally, I think the taste is refreshing, but some of you might not like it. We tried it on pasta the other day and it's good! Haha, wanna give it a try? ;)

Oh... Just got an Award!

Got a surprise gift from Pei Lin.

I didn't know about this award until she 'msg' me through my previous post. Thanks again, Pei Lin! I am honoured. :) In fact, previously, I guess I've got a number of awards but I didn't know what to do with it because I thought that it's just an 'imaginary' award, no big deal, you know? And I don't like to flash it in my blog so I just ignored it.

Now I realise that it's a gift from someone who care about me, bother to read my post and write comment every time, 'talking' to me by reading my nonsense, somehow. I've just realised that it's getting more important than I think it used to be.

Pei Lin has a wonderful blog. She started blogging about a year ago and I think she can really write! So do drop by and say 'hello' to her. :)

Here is what I don't like, being told for doing something but everything has an exception, don't you agree? :) So, for the recipients of the award (including myself), here are what to do next:

Having the picture of the award posted onto your blog
Sharing the 10 things in life that make you happy with your readers
Passing on the award to 10 other bloggers who brighten up your day
Sharing the links to the 10 bloggers', as mentioned above, on your blog
Getting the 10 bloggers informed about the award
Asking the 10 award recipients to relink their blogs to yours.

Here is my list for the next 10 recipients:

1. Angie's recipes - she is a genius, a hardworking genius.
2. Noobcook - she can cook!
3. Pigpigcorner - An adventurous & hardworking pig!
4. Foodfortots - A must-read for Mums.
5. Piggy's Cooking journal - Who enjoys cooking.
6. What's for dessert - Blog for cake lovers!
7. Little corner of mine - Little corner of a home chef.
8. Cookappeal- Who knows about food.
9. Sugar & everything nice - Everything nice, just drop by and you will know what I mean.
10. Teczcape - Where you'd like to excape to.

Now, the 10-things-in-life-that-make-me-happy question is really a tough but a straight forward one. Tough meaning that if I have to list them down, there are really quite a lot! I am just a simple-minded lady after all, not difficult to please cos I don't really need a 1-carat diamond nor a GUCCI bag to feel happy. To think of it, there are quite a lot of things that make me happy actually: cooking, reading, playing games, teaching, sleeping, blogging... just to name a few, but all with one condition, as long as CY is with me is fine. I can be happy anytime, so that's the straight forward part.

I consider myself lucky cos I have found one that I can spend the rest of my life together with, without much disagreement and argument. Therefore, I am happy. I wish that all of you will find one, one day...or already found one. ;)

Make a Difference for the People of Haiti

On January 12, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti just outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The devastation – in lives lost, property destroyed, and families displaced – is immense.

Get to know Clinton Bush Haiti Fund from CY, after he read this from the news & news. It is somewhat reliable and it's the first time 42nd, 43rd & 44th US Presidents come together to do something to help Haitians.

According to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, the immediate needs are basics: food, water, shelter, and first-aid supplies. Though many across the world would like to donate supplies, the organization states that it is better to donate money. The funds can then be distributed in the method most appropriate to meet the critical need at the appointed time.

You can click on the link to know more about this fund:

http://clintonbushhaitifund.org/index.php

Hopefully, we can help them to rebuild and to recover.

Creme Fraiche Chicken

I come across this recipe Creme Fraiche Chicken pasta, which is simple, easy, creamy and tasty and will use up all the creme fraiche that I bought for the Salmon En Croute previously. If I don't use up the creme fraiche now, it would all be wasted and it costs more than the salmon itself!


Now then I know how to make creme fraiche from the same post, there are some reviews at the bottom that tells you how to make creme fraiche yourself. I am not a French, so logically I don't know how to make creme fraiche. I am happy that I know the secret now. ^^


I follow the exact recipe and it turns out good as shown in the picture. It's very filling! This will be a good recipe if you want to impress you boyfriend or girlfriend in a romantic dinner setting.

Link to the recipe

Tsukiji Fish Market

One of the most interesting places we went during this Japan trip is to visit Tsukiji market 築地市場, Tsukiji shijō, the biggest fish wholesale market in the world. This market is divided into two main sections. The "inner market" (jonai shijo) is the licensed wholesale market, where the auctions and most of the processing of the fish take place, and where licensed wholesale dealers operate small stalls. The "outer market" (jogai shijo) is a mixture of wholesale and retail shops that sell Japanese kitchen tools, restaurant supplies, groceries, and seafood, and many restaurants, especially sushi restaurants.

We didn’t make it for the tuna auction (it normally starts from 5.30am), instead, we had a good night sleep till 7am and made our way there when ready. Our main interest was the sashimi and seafood sold in the “outer” market (it turned out to be a disaster, to me).
Inner market (above) & outer market (below).
Outside the inner market (below).
Having reached there just before 8am, we could see a number of vendors zipping and zooming around on this small buggy.
Wandering around the shops nearby, we were searching for a good place to have our breakfast. This shop seemed to be quite promising and there wasn’t a long queue in front. There were quite a number of locals dining inside other than tourists, which made it even more attractive. Then, we stepped in.

The sitting arrangement was torturously squeezy. Eventually I realized that I couldn't really enjoy my meal in this kind of sitting arrangement.

I ordered tuna and Hokkaido crab with rice (SGD35) while CY ordered tuna, tuna eggs & sea urchin with rice (SGD35). Frankly speaking, as I mentioned before, I didn’t enjoy the meal. Sitting in a row of space-challenged seats right in front of a huge chunk of bloody tuna being sliced away by the shop owner himself on a chopping board was quite a scene. Instead of enjoying my food, I couldn’t help but to stare at the huge slab of tuna, wondering why it was soaked with blood, forcing the owner to wipe it off constantly. I could not even finish my meal!

On a side note, I remembered vividly that I enjoyed sea urchin the most back in our cosy ryokan. A whole box of sea urchin aka uni such as below, could easily cost more than SGD$80 in Singapore. However, I only paid SGD$8 for this. It's heavenly sweet and creamy, topped with fresh out-of-sea flavours and simply melted in my mouth, slipped through my throat before I noticed. I was able to enjoy it partly or mainly because I was sitting comfortably while eating it.
We tried the puffer fish sashimi (fugu, SGD20, above) in our ryokan too, but that’s really nothing to talk about. I just don’t like its jelly-like texture and bland taste.

Back to Tsukiji fish market, we saw these second most poisonous vertebrates in the world (the first being Golden Poison Frog) being sold freely in the market, again.

Other than puffer fishes, there are really quite a spectrum of fishes sold here, simply amazing! 1m long tuna (below).

Fish eggs, probably tuna eggs as well.

The REAL wasabi. The ones that we normally eat in Japanese restaurants are not real, they are just some mixture of cheap horseradish powder with green colouring. THIS is the real stuff.
Alive and kicking sea cucumbers.

Super-red prawns, raw. I believe they are deep sea fellows.

Tuna, tuna, everywhere are tuna. Japanese truly like tuna. Just a week ago, a blue fin tuna weighing 232 kilograms was sold here for 16.28 million yen ($US 175,000).

A tuna fish was dissected within an hour. Every part can be sold to make different delicacies.

That's the summary of my Tsukiji experience (plus some side notes on the sea urchin & puffer fish of course ;) ). After coming back from Japan, I need at least one whole week to regain my appetite eating meat. After one and a half month later, we eat less meat now. The bloody scene was simply overwhelming.

Minestrone Soup

Just a few days ago, I went to WEST MALL, a shopping mall wanted to order a bowl of handmade noodle from one of the stalls in the food court but realized the workers behind the counter was having a heated argument. That really put me off. I thought the noodle cooked by them with such bad temper would taste BAD no matter what, or would somehow inject ‘negative energy’ into my body eroding my immune system after eating. This is what we called “Qi” 气 in Chinese. Seriously, I am NOT kidding you! I believe that it does not matter how you cook it but as long as you cook it with your heart, it will turn out well.

The same rule applies to any cooking, including this Italian minestrone soup, which following the recipe book came with the Tefal pressure cooker. For those who do not have a pressure cooker, you just need to cook a bit longer than the required time (25mins) will be just fine, some slight adjustments here and there based on your experience in a real kitchen is OKAY for a simple reason: us can’t follow recipe BLINDLY. Just a few clicks from the google you would know how many types of minestrone soup out there that require you to have some imagination, and a GOOD mood, of course. :)

Ingredients:

50g butter
2 small carrot, diced
2 leeks, sliced
2 sticks celery, chopped,
Some French beans, cut into small strips
3 medium tomatoes, skinned and chopped
1-2 tbsp of tomato puree
1 clove garlic, crushed
1.2 litres chicken stock
1 bay leaf
50g pasta (small ones)
Parmesan cheese
Some sugar
Salt and pepper

Method

• Melt half the butter in the cooker and gently fry carrot, French beans, celery and leeks for 5 mins.
• Add tomatoes, puree and garlic. Pour in stock and 1 bay leaf. Close the cooker.
• As soon as the steam starts to release, lower the heat and cook for 25 mins. / for normal cooker, when the water start boiling, lower the heat and cook 35 – 45 mins or until vegetables soften.
• Release pressure. Open the cooker. Add pasta and remaining butter.
• Bring to boil, stirring occasionally and boil without the lid for another 15mins.
• Season with sugar, salt and pepper. Sprinkled with cheese and serve.

According to wikipedia, there is no particular set of minestrone, it usually made out of whatever vegetables that are in season.

There are two schools of thought on when the recipe for minestrone became more formalized. One argues that in the 1600s and 1700s minestrone emerged as a soup using exclusively fresh vegetables and was made for its own sake (meaning it no longer relied on left-overs), while the other school of thought argues that the dish had always been prepared exclusively with fresh vegetables for its own sake since pre-Roman times, but the name minestrone lost its meaning of being made with left-overs.

In my opinion, as long as it tastes good, who cares where does the name come from?

Indian Lamb Curry Version II

After reading Leena's Lamb Curry, which she adopted from Tyler Florence's recipe, I quickly hopped into my kitchen to try it out. Tyler is one of my favourite celebrity chefs appearing in Food Network. I tried a few recipes showcased by him, ALL turned out good. Jamie Oliver, on the other hand, seemed to be too ambitious and adventurous. Nonetheless, if you ask me if I can come out with a new recipe, I doubt so. Currently, I am just sitting on the giant’s shoulder to make myself look bigger!

On the other note, just recently, I tried to make sweet and sour pork ribs for my family. It turned out good as well, I followed the recipe that I did a few months back and just realized that I added a few new ingredients carelessly. So may it be considered my OWN recipe? Hmm… do drop a note to share your view.

Coming back to this Tyler Florence’s lamb curry recipe, it’s REALLY good. You surely won’t regret trying it out.

Tyler Florence's Lamb Curry from Real Kitchen (with a few changes)

Curry Powder Mix
2 tablespoons of black mustard seed
2 teaspoons of coriander seed
2 teaspoons of freshly ground cardamom
2 teaspoons of cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon of whole black peppercorns
2 tablespoons of garam masala
2 teaspoons of tumeric
3 teaspoons of red pepper flakes
1 cinnamon stick

Curry Ingredients
3 pounds of boneless leg of lamb, fat trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces
salt and pepper to taste
Canola Oil
1 onion, small dice
3 cloves of minced garlic
1 tablespoon of minced ginger
2 fresh or dried bay leaves
3 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of tomato puree
2 potatoes peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
cilantro to garnish

Note: I omitted yogurt and raisins in the original recipe since I forgot to buy but it’s still ass-kickingly good!

1. Toast all spices in a dry skillet over low heat, shaking constantly so they do not burn. When they are fragrant, remove cinnamon stick and grind the rest in a spice grinder until fine. Set aside.
2. Salt and pepper the lamb, then using the canola oil and a giant pot, brown it on all sides and set aside on a plate. Do not overcrowd the pot. Do it in several small batches. Cook the onion, garlic, ginger, bay leaves and toasted spices in the same pot until you can smell it, shouldn't take more than a few minutes.
3. Add lamb back to pan and make sure to pour any juices that leaked onto the plate back into the pot. Add stock, tomato puree, lemon juice. Bring to a simmer (lightly bubbling), cover and lower heat, cook for 45 minutes.
4. Add potatoes, stir together in pot and cook for 30 more minutes. Make you stir it every once in a while or it will stick to the bottom and burn. Season with salt and pepper, and check to see if meat is tender. Remove from heat, top with cilantro and enjoy!

Apple Strudel

This apple strudel is stealing my heart away.

It’s simple, elegant, sweet, and warm. People may think that making pastry is difficult but I can tell you, it’s a big NO. You can buy frozen puff pastry from any supermarket and with a few simple steps and there you go, you look like a star! ^^
Ingredients

Strudel Filling Ingredients
The filling of a strudel has two parts; this is the fruit part, and the other part is this sugar mixture.

· 1 1/2 cup sliced fresh apples (you can do this with peaches, pears, etc.)
· some dried fruit, in this case, I use dried cranberries
· 1/2 tsp cinnamon
· 1 tbsp sugar
· 1 tbsp flour

Mix that up.

Sugar mixture:
· 1/4 chopped walnuts
· 2 tbsp brown sugar
· 1 tbsp bread crumbs
· 1 tbsp white sugar

Give that a mix.

Prepare the Premade Strudel Pastry
Just use a sheet of frozen supermarket puff pastry. Thaw it just before use. Put it on a well floured board, with a little more flour over the top. Make a rectangle shape with a rolling pin. Notice the seams are going in the same direction as you are rolling, about 1/8 inch thick - and a little longer than it is wide. Don't worry if the ends fray a little bit, as long as the sides are straight. When we roll it you won't see any of that. It will also have a nice side (smoother) and a not so nice side.

Assemble the Strudel
With the less attractive side facing up, and the smoother side facing down - egg wash that really well. Put the sugar mixture down on just 2/3rd of the dough. Put the fruit on the bottom 1/3, and leave about a 2 inch space at the bottom and sides (see below).
Fold the Strudel
The folding is easy. Start by bringing up the first 2 inches. Roll it over once, that's the second third - pinch in the sides a bit to keep it all together. And then the last fold. The fold is always down of course.
Bake the Strudel
Place that on our baking sheet or parchment paper. Cut a slice in the top about every inch to give it that signature strudel look, and to vent the air and steam. Paint it very well with egg wash. Put that in a 375 degree F. oven for about 40-45 minutes, until it's browned, beautiful and looks like this.

A little syrup drippage usually happens, so don't worry about that, it's all part of the presentation.

Salmon En Croute

Hi, just asking, how did you spend your new year’s eve?

We went back to Singapore just 2 days before the New Year after spending one whole week in Malaysia. When I arrived, I could sense the festive mood that was invigorating.

We had a simple dinner at home, following the recipe courtesy by Laura Calder, one of my favourite chefs in Food Network. She is funny, pretty and knowledgeable!

Here is the recipe that I tried out just before 2010 and it turned out good.
Salmon En Croute - Courtesy of Laura Calder


Yield: 6

Ingredients
1 salmon filet, about 1-1/2 pounds/750 g
1 Pound asparagus, trimmed
1/4 cup crème fraîche
3 to 4 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
Zest of 1 lemon
1 Pound sheet puff pastry (2 sheets)
Salt and pepper
Glaze
1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions

Salmon
Skin and bone the salmon and set aside. Heat the oven to 450°F\230°C. (Advice to heat at the max heat to compromise for ther heat loss when we open)

Cut the tips off the asparagus, and poach in boiling salted water until tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain well, refresh in ice-cold water, then drain again, leaving to sit so that all the water comes off. Purée and stir through the cream, dill, and lemon zest, to blend. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Lay the puff on a damp baking sheet with the long edge facing you. Lay the salmon on the pastry, like a picture in its frame. Season with salt and pepper. Lay the raw stems of asparagus on top of the salmon, like pencils. Spread the purée mixture over top.

Brush the margins with the egg wash. Lay the top pastry over the salmon and press the edges to seal, like a giant ravioli. Trim the edges, leaving a 1-inch/2.5 cm border. Press with the tines of a fork, then, with the dull edge of a knife, scallop the edges. Make two or three slits in the top to allow steam to escape. Brush all over with the egg-wash glaze and bake until puffed up and golden brown, about 20 minutes. (We tried, but it required about 35-40 minutes to be cooked until golden brown)

Remove from the oven and let cool five minutes before slicing to serve. This dish is also good at room temperature.

Japan Part 3 - Okunoin Temple

From Japan-guide:

Okunoin is the temple where Kobo Daishi (Kukai), the founder of Shingon Buddhism and one of the most revered persons in the religious history of Japan, rests in eternal meditation. It is considered one of the most sacred places in Japan. Okunoin is surrounded by Japan's largest graveyard. People from all over Japan, who wished to be buried close to Kobo Daishi, lie there, including former feudal lords, politicians and other prominent personalities. Their graves line the approaches to Okunoin for several hundred meters through the forest.

Happy New Year 2010!

Cheers to a New 2010 and another chance for us to get it right. ;)