no more instant noodles

cupcakes

meegoreng — Sat, 22 May 2010 16:45:51 +0000

the names of both cupcakes that i baked today would’ve been to long for the post title, chocolate stout cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese frosting and Red Velvet cupcakes (since my obsession from last London trip).

it’s past midnight now and just got back from AN’s place so way too lazy to type any further. a lot of clumsiness (nothing unusual) and no help (almost) from AN. started with the chocolate stout (Guinness) cuppies, first batch, almost burnt the top (misread: Fahrenheit to Celsius, great job!)…

three rows from left - burnt top; last row on right - almost perfect

strictly speaking, the taste wasn’t great, barely a hint of Guinness (!) texture ok but not pretty overall. however cream cheese saved the day (for both the recipes today actually)

prettier but really not great. rather disappointing

and then there is the Red Velvet. i almost gave up making them after the huge disappointment with chocolate stout cuppies and Red Velvet’s recipes sounded complicated and yucky with possible risk of red stain all over the place (i.e. AN’s kitchen!). but AN cheered me on and did a little observation here and there to make sure it ‘blends well’ and ‘mixes well’ (:

what do you think?

and they all sit pretty in rows (:

it looks better but the red is actually wrong, check out the supposed colour here. this is like Chinese-birthday-red-egg red (Noel red/Christmas red) but it should have been a darker blood red, AN said: i think you should keep this recipe for Halloween. lol

so with that little help from master to lift my spirit and the cuppies, it turned out so much (much) better!

i like it red (:

oh by the way, see the cheese frosting with black dots, that my friend is a very precious (unavailable) commodity in Singapore, Vanilla beans! the real thing! and piping the frosting was real fun too! will probably try cupcakes again since i’ve already bought a 12-piece rack, till then…

Guinness honeycomb ice cream

meegoreng — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:00:44 +0000

yup me and AC tried this out! sorry my BB camera is again horrible at focusing (sounds like me!)

and we were worried it won't thicken! this looks perfect (:

a bit too sweet...

luckily AC counters it with dark chocolate dustings (:

happy mother’s day

meegoreng — Sun, 09 May 2010 15:00:30 +0000

i’ve decided to make siu yuk for mum and everyone else (: mum chipped in to make ALL the other dishes! since the last recipe failed (too salty), i’m going to stick back to the first one from RasaMalaysia. an unwitting mistake (by me, clearly) and improvisation by my mum made this our recipe instead (:

ingredients for the marinate:

garlic and ginger juice (five cloves and three slices)
five spice powder
white paper
salt

this pestel and mortar has been in my house for as long as i can remember (ever)

ok the mistake was that i read wrongly, i thought i needed garlic powder instead of ginger powder. so mum pounded some garlic but was too late by the time i realised. she then just added ginger to it and strain the juices. it works!

blanche the meat to rid of (lessen) porky taste. see fur sticking out! yeeks!

mum shaving fur from the meat (teeheehee... amuses me endless)

coat it in sequence of the ingredients listed (wisdom from RasaMalaysia)

mum’s winning char siu marinate sauce:

oyster sauce
dark soy sauce
corn flour
five spice powder
garlic and ginger juice (from siu yuk)

award-winning char siu, awarded by me and my brother (:

ta-daaaaa!

wantan filling: grind prawn, pork and chives

simple and yummy!

blistering satisfaction

some thoughts over this: i think rock salt works best for the added blister (i just use normal salt this round). after poking the skin at the last 15 minutes, the oil oozing out of the skin may have melted the salt too quickly before the popping effect takes place, so perhaps wipe off the oil before the last spread of salt might do the trick? also the crunchiness of the skin didn’t last after slicing it. randomly (literally), i wrote to TheHungryHog for advice (he claims that his siu yuk skin lasts 3 hours!) and here are some insights to share (: do share if you have some brilliant/secret method *please*

1. If you’re letting it stand for a while before eating, place it under or next to a fan once you’ve let the meat rest a bit out of the oven. This will blow the steam away from the skin. Kind of a redneck method, but it has worked for me.
2. Only cut the meat right before you’re going to devour it. Once you cut it up and place it in a jumble on your plate, the meat juices and moisture will reduce the skin’s crispiness quite quickly. Think of the skin as dry bread absorbing sauce.
3. Try to reheat the meat, skin side up, using only the top grill of the oven. The skin should crisp up nicely again.

some greens, obviously

mum and her 'special' knife for the siu yuk!

third time's the charm (: love it

a very anti climax picture of the complete dish, thanks to my brother's horrible green (or orange) plastic Ikea plate :D

charming ensemble of Malaysian-Chinese must have condiments (cut-chilli-padi, garlic and sambal)

mummy, i love you (and daddy!)

*hugs*

siu yuk (again), beet root soup and veggie

meegoreng — Sun, 02 May 2010 06:00:44 +0000

in the same span of time, i made siu yuk for dinner upon AN’s request but using AlmostBourdain’s recipe. found red fermented bean curd with great difficulty in Singapore (shocking). AN made beet root soup (very yummy!) and AC fried some sort of veggie.

Beet Root Soup ingredients:

Beet root
Dried scallop
Dried cuttlefish
Pork ribs

siu yuk was a massive disappointment! was too salty! the skin turn out well but the fermented bean curd over did it. i think i will stick to previous recipe next round (if any). also AN (the health-conscious-guru) bought skinny pork belly! no kidding! lol! siu yuk must have FATS. period

hypertension (too much salt). everyone were pretty forgiving

my happy meal (:

golden rum cake

meegoreng — Sun, 02 May 2010 05:00:16 +0000

the best rum cake i ever had! begged my colleague MT to send me her famed recipe (: tried it out at AN’s place. it is as easy as MT claims but… didn’t taste as good, that’s always the case isn’t it? (: note that the glazing part is a bit tricky but apart from that, everything else was smooth sailing

Cake:
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 (18.5 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup dark rum

Glaze:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/8 cup water
1/4 cup dark rum

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan. Sprinkle chopped nuts evenly over the bottom of the pan.

In a large bowl, combine cake mix and pudding mix. Mix in the eggs, water, oil and rum. Blend well. Pour batter over chopped nuts in the pan.

Bake in the oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Let sit for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto serving plate.

To make the glaze:
In a saucepan, combine butter, water and sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat and continue to boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in rum. An easy way to glaze your cake is to pour half of the glaze into the Bundt pan, reinsert cake, then pour the rest of the glaze over the bottom of the cake. Let absorb well then invert back onto platter.

the supposed premix written in recipe

smells really good

technically chanllenging! AN and AC both had to help - rereading the instructions and flipping it

pretty but really not as good as the original :P

one more shot

meegoreng — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 12:30:54 +0000

made the same salad for EK. she commented, the sauce is good. righto

better photo? poor lighting in her kitchen and living hall :(

diet, interrupted

meegoreng — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 06:30:07 +0000

had a sinful one from Changi Village… makes me feel like baking too! time to call AN (:

the banana muffin is mine!

salad 3: ham and cheese

meegoreng — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:00:02 +0000

neither interesting nor creative at all. just a means to an end. French dressing from Mediya, bad choice! Cheese cubes from Kraft were yummy (: made a sandwich with the leftover but my brother ate it up nicely while i was away :P so instead of 4 salads, made only 3 this week

no comments

salad 2: Chinese salad with duck breast meat

meegoreng — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:50:23 +0000

inspired by the yummy duck rice store near my work place but the silly owner refused to sell duck meat without rice BUT duck breast meat only is sold at S$15! wtf and was distracted by a phone call from my brother at the same time. argh! anyway i settled for a random duck rice store in Tiong Bahru Plaza, glaze on duck meat is also from the store. so that’s my cheat for this recipe (:

looks great! taken with my trusty BB

dressing from Jamie Oliver, it’s simply half a lime and drizzle of sesame oil. but i did add a mango and some sesame seed sprinkle. pretty tasty overall. highly recommended with leftover duck meat. really miss Ms. Loo’s perfect duck dish! oh and i forgot to add zucchini, looks like i’ll have twice the serving tomorrow! *gross*

Ms. Loo at her MasterChef moment! click image to her blog (:

salad 1: Japanese salad with prawns

meegoreng — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 13:30:55 +0000

must lose weight! will be having a salad a day this week (: first time ever attempting salad but with cheats on the dressing :P could have made the sauce actually, even went all the way to Mediya to pick up the only missing ingredient, red miso paste but the temptation of ready-made sauce was too overwhelming and i gave in :P picked up a random vinaigrette Japanese salad sauce or make it yourself here. yummy! my very own mix of the rest of the salad ingredients: five prawns (steamed), two small packs of seasoned seaweed, lettuce, cherry tomatoes and Japanese zucchini

horrible horrible photo! taken with my MacBook :P

promise to use up the rest of the sauce for another salmon salad! (: will also make this again to justify this dish with a better photo…