Ayam Tim (Pickled Mustard Greens & Chicken Soup)

Savoury, sweet, sour with a hint of spice and it’s snowballing flavour makes this soup one of the few tastiest simple soup to make. This dish is a derived version from the traditional nyonya ‘Itik Tim’ made using duck instead of chicken. If you are able to buy duck where you are, I suggest cooking with it as it gives a deeper flavour. Otherwise, the next best option will be chicken. 

This soup has converted someone who does not like soup to now, love it!

Ayam Tim (Pickled Mustard Greens & Chicken Soup)

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 800g chicken legs
• 300g salted mustard green
• 4 carrots (peel & cut to wedges)
• 2 onions (cut to wedges)
• 2 dried chilli
• 3 cloves garlic (remove skin & bruise)
• 2 inch ginger (sliced)
• 4 dried salted plums
• 3 tomatoes (halved)
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• salt and ground white pepper to taste
• water to cover over the ingredients

Methods:

1.  Soak the salted mustard green in water for about 30 minutes to remove the salt. 

2.  While the salted mustard green is being soaked, prepare the other ingredients.
3.  Place chicken, salted mustard green, carrots, onions, dried chilli, garlic and ginger in a pot.
4.  Pour water into the pot until it covers over the ingredients.
5.  Bring to boil. Then add in the dried salted plums and simmer for about 20 minutes. 

6.  Add in the tomatoes at the last 10 minutes.
7.  Season with toy sauce, salt and pepper to taste.
8.  Serve with steamed rice. 

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Pan con tomate (Spanish-style toast with tomato)

Tired from work and cannot be bothered to eat out or cook a proper meal? I know the perfect no-fuss, fresh and healthy food to make! It is the perfect mid-week quick and light dinner. Ingredients used are very basic so most likely, you already have them in the fridge so no shopping needed. Better yet, if you have a herb garden, freshly plucked basil is always a plus.



PAN CON TOMATE (SPANISH-STYLE TOAST WITH TOMATO) RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 5 slices of baguette


• 1 clove garlic cut in half


• 2 vine-ripen tomato (grated)


• 5 basil leaves (sliced)


• 1 tbs olive oil


• sea salt & ground black pepper

• salad leaves

Method:

1. Slice the baguette, as many as you please but the ingredients above are for about five slices.


2. Toast the baguette.


3. While the baguette slices are being toasted, grate the tomatoes into a bowl.


4. Mix the grated tomatoes with basil leaves and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, then set aside.


5. Cut the garlic clove into half and rub on to the toasts.


6. Spoon the seasoned grated tomato onto the toast and serve with salad leaves on the side.

Tips:

• Use good  quality olive oil and tomato.


• You can always add some ham on the toasts if you cannot live without meat.

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Hot & Sour Soup with Vermicelli

Hot and sour soup

These days, I try to stock up on lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves when I shop at the oriental store, making sure I never run out of them. Lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves freeze well so it is great to have them at hand as it is a staple in most south-east asian food. Lemongrass itself has multiple benefits. This natural ingredient has anti-cancer properties, high in anti-oxidant which also helps prevent cancer, reduces cholesterol, helps rid of cold and fever, and many more benefits. The juice of lemongrass is also used as insect repellent. I know this because each time I visit Tropical Spice Garden in Penang, the staff there would have us spray lemongrass juice on our bare legs and arms. There are lots of mosquitoes hidden between those tropical bushes so to prevent from leaving the garden with dozens of mosquito bites, bare with the smell and spray them all over you if you are going anywhere near a tropical forest or garden. It does help you enjoy the beautiful surroundings than to be annoyed being bitten by those tiny evil creatures.

HOW TO MAKE LEMONGRASS TEA:

Boil about 4 stalks of lemongrass in a pot of water. Make sure you bruise and split them in halves so the lemongrass will infuse a lot faster. I have not measured nor timed this process so depending on how strong you would like the tea to be, add water accordingly. Let it boil and simmer for about an hour. Once ready, pour into teacups and serve with honey or sugar.





HOT & SOUR SOUP WITH VERMICELLI RECIPE
serves 3-4

Ingredients:

• 3 stalk lemon grass (bruised)


• 5 kaffir lime leaves


• 2-3 bird's eye chilli


• 15g shallots


• 5 cloves garlic (peeled & bruised)


• 2 inch ginger (peeled & sliced)


• 2 stalks celery


• 2 large carrots


• 2 large tomato (cut into wedges)


• 250g mixed seafood (prawn, squid, mussels)


• 1 litre boiled water


• 1 chicken bouillon cube


• 2 large lime (juice only)


• 1 1/2 tbs palm sugar


• Salt & ground white pepper to taste


• Coriander (as garnish)

• Vermicelli

1. Heat the pot with some oil and partially cook the seafood. Remove from pot and set aside.


2. Saute the onions, garlic, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, chillies and ginger in the same pot until fragrant.


3. Add in water and let boil for a few minutes, turn the heat down to let the lemongrass flavour infuse into the soup.


4. The celery, carrots and tomato is then added into the pot, together with the bouillon cube.


5. Let the soup simmer on medium to low heat fora bout an hour and until vegetables are soft.


6. While waiting for the soup to be ready, cook the vermicelli in hot water for 1 minute and drain.


7. Divide the drained vermicelli in separate bowls.


8. Squeeze some lime juice into the soup. Add sugar, salt and pepper to taste.


9. Tip the seafood into the hot soup to heat them up.


10. Ladle soup over the noodles and garnish with coriander. You can add a few slices of red chilli if you like, just to give some colour and contrast.

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Salmon and Mango Salsa Stack

There was a fat juicy mango sitting in the fridge for the past days, waiting to be eaten. I was just going to criss-cross cut each half, push the cubes out by flipping the skin inside out and devour the juicy sweet meaty flesh, cube by cube off the skin when I sit home and relax, not think about anything but chill on a Friday night.





Instead of just simply enjoying my beloved fruit on its own, she was very carefully prepared to be married with smoked salmon. I came across the 'scallop with gingered mango-tomato salsa' post on DorieGreenspan’s blog and thought I could spread this idea over to salmon. When I surfed further, I found Health Burst’s site on Salmon stack and  thought it looks stunning and delicious.  So I made my version of salmon stack and initiate my attempt to carefully stack the ingredients in the food ring. It looks really impressive. And it looks like it came straight out of a restaurant kitchen!

So easy and no cooking involved! Brilliantly simple.

My similar version of Healthy Burst's Salmon stack.

SALMON AND MANGO SALSA STACK RECIPE
adapted from the Healthy Burst
Makes 1 stack

Ingredients:

• 60g smoked salmon
• ½ avocado (sliced)

Mango Salsa

• 1 mango (1cm cube)
• 1 tomato (chopped)
• ¼ cucumber (cubed)
• ¼ red onion (finely chopped)
• ½ chilli; deseeded (finely chopped)
• ½ lime
• Small bunch of mint (chopped)
• Salt and pepper (to taste)

Lime Chilli Mayonnaise

• ½ lime
• ¼ chilli
• 1 tbs japanese mayonnaise

Method:

1.  Prepare the lime chilli mayonnaise first. 
2.  Stir the mayonnaise with juice of half a lime and finely chopped chilli. Put aside for later.
3.  Prepare the mango salsa by mixing the ingredients together. Sprinkle some salt and pepper to taste.
4.  Place a the cylindrical food ring on the plate you are serving with.
5.  Layer it with the salmon then avocado. Push them down slightly to make sure they are compact.
6.00Top it up with the mango salsa and make sure they are well packed so they keep in shape and will not fall off when the ring is lifted out.
7.  Lift the ring when ready to serve and spoon some of the mayonnaise mix on to the salmon stack.

All ingredients well packed and supported by the ring

Tips:

• I would try make the mayonnaise with a pinch of chilli powder or curry powder the next time.

You may also like:

Halloumi Fig & Pomegranate Salad

Salmon Ceviche

Watermelon & Goat’s Cheese

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Chicken Chop Malaysian style

My phone was flooded with messages of my family discussing about dinner my sister was arranging. She was planning to make chicken chop for a family dinner get together. Obviously, I was kept in the group conversation only because they try to include me in family updates, but that was making me miss home and salivate for home made chicken chop. My sister's chicken chop is pretty awesome! I decided to not feel left out just because I am 7,000 miles away. So I made chicken chop for the weekend too!!

This chicken chop is a Malaysian take on a western style dish. The chicken is usually battered and deep fried but I do not like deep frying food in my kitchen, especially when I know how much oil is involved in the process. Just say that it is not healthy, and not because I do not give a fuss about deep frying. The positive side is that I made a healthier version; pan fried the chicken instead!

My first attempt to chicken chop and it was so delicious!

"I never knew chicken could taste so good!" ~M

CHICKEN CHOP RECIPE

Adapted from Recipe from Malaysia
Serves 2

Ingredients:
Chicken marinade

• 2 chicken legs (debone)
• 1 tbs light soy sauce
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• Ground white pepper (to taste)

Method:

1. Marinate the chicken with all ingredients overnight, or about 3 hours.

The cooked chicken on its own, without sauce.

Mashed Potato

• 2 potatoes
• 10g butter
• Boiling water & salt
• Ground black pepper to taste

Method:

1. Boil the potatoes in salt water until soft.
2. Mash the potatoes with the butter until smooth.
3. Add pepper to taste.
4. Put aside a cup of the water used for boiling the potatoes for use in the sauce later.

Sauce

• 1 onion (wedge)
• ½ carrot (small cubes)
• 3 cloves garlic (chopped)
• 4 tbs potato water (from boiling of potatoes)
• 2 tbs light soy sauce
• 1 tbs sweet soy sauce
• 1 tbs oyster sauce
• 2 tbs tomato sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 150g canned chopped tomatoes
• oil

Method:

1. Place the light soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, oyster sauce, tomato sauce and sugar in a bowl and mix well.
2. Heat some oil on the pan. Stir fry the onion until fragrant and soft.
3. Add in carrots and garlic and fry until carrots are partly soft.
4. Pour the mixed sauce and potato water. Let cook for 2 minutes while stirring.
5. Combine the chopped tomatoes in to the sauce until it boils.
6. Let the sauce simmer. Taste and make sure no extra seasoning is needed.
7. Keep the sauce hot until ready to serve.

Assembly Components

• ¼ cucumber (sliced)
• 1 carrot (cut into batons and boiled until just cooked)
• 6 leaves of lettuce gem

• Mashed potatoes
• Marinated chicken
• Cooked sauce

Assembly Method:

1. Decorate two plates with the sliced cucumber in a fan-like pattern.
2. Wash and dry the lettuce leaves and place on plate with the hollow side upwards so they function like cups.
3. Heat the pan with oil. Place the chicken thighs or legs on the hot pan and let cook in medium heat undisturbed for about 4 minutes (depending on size of chicken) until brown.
4. Flip over the uncooked side on to the pan and let them cook. Check whether the chicken is cooked by slicing it open. Make sure it is not over cooked to avoid them being dry. Place the cooked chicken on a plate lined with kitchen towel to drain any access oil.
5. In the mean time, place the boiled carrot batons in the lettuce leaf cups.
6. Scoop the mashed potatoes on to the plates.
7. Stack the chicken on the mashed potatoes or put them on its side.
8. Pour a generous amount of sauce over the chicken and serve hot.

A juicy slice of chicken

This plate of food finished in a blink of an eye. The plate with almost dried up, the sauce was completely wiped out too!

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Salmon en Croute

When you feel like making something delicious yet quick dinner after work, I suggest making this. All you need to do is assemble and bake. Then wait for the timer to go off while you get on with reading the paper, checking your mails or wind down on the comfortable couch.

Salmon parcel ready to be baked

...et viola (after 30 minutes in the oven)

An impressive dinner with minimal effort

SALMON EN CROUTE RECIPE

Serves 2

• 250g salmon


• puff pastry (readily rolled)


• a squeeze of lemon juice


• 1 small egg

• 25g sun-dried tomato (chopped)


• 20g tapenade


• 10g basil (chopped)


• salt and pepper


• rocket

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.


2. Descale the fish and pat dry with kitchen towel. Season with salt, peper and a squeeze of lemon juice.


3. Chop up the sun-dried tomato then mix it with the tapenade and chopped basil. Add salt and pepper to taste.


4. Roll out the puff pastry onto a flat surface. Place one piece of salmon on the puff pastry, spread the salmon with the tapenade mix. Then top it with anther piece of salmon.


5. Once the salmon has been sandwiched with the tapenade, fold the other half of the puff pastry and brush the edges with some egg wash to seal. Press the edges with a fork to make sure the parcel seals tightly.


6. Brush the parcel with the egg wash to make it glisten.


7. Make neat criss cross cuts on the parcel to allow steam through.


8. Bake for 30minutes.


9. When ready, half it and serve on a bed of rocket or any vegetables you prefer.

Tips:

• You can make this with different filling. Try it with cream cheese and spinach, or mustard seeds with butter and dill.


• If you have extra puff pastry after wrapping up the salmon, you can make them into tapenade or sun-dried tomato batons. The batons are great for party snacks.

Sun-dried tomato batons

SUN-DRIED TOMATO / TAPENADE BATON RECIPE

Ingredients:

• Sun-dried tomato / tapenade


• Puff pastry

Method:

1. Spread the tapenade or chopped sun dried tomato on one half of the leftover sheet of puff pastry.


2. Fold the sheet up and cut into about an inch batons.


3. Brush the batons with egg wash.


4. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Tips:

• You can make these batons with Dijon mustard as well.


• These batons freeze well.

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Date Night In : Beef Stew

Valentine's Day has always been quite controversial. There is a legend behind this day but some think that it is a day created so businesses could benefit from selling cards, buying gifts, flowers, restaurants hiking up prices just because it is a day of romance and everything else that is related to February 14th.

Personally, I think it is not necessary to go out on expensive dinner dates on this very night just cause everything is twice the price, restaurants are packed, most places would have a set menu to make their life easier so there is limited choice, and then there is higher expectations cause it is suppose to be this perfect night spent with your loved ones. All these are unnecessary. What is most important is that loved ones are nice and caring towards each other throughout. The most romantic in my opinion is the little everyday details. It could be the morning or I'm home kiss, even making dinner for him/her, helping out with laundry and cleaning, or waking up with that amazing breakfast with juice and hot chocolate or tea waiting for you. All that daily details aside, what makes a girl happiest are surprises at the most unexpected moments.

Since M and I won't be celebrating Valentine's Day on the day itself, we had a date night in on Saturday. It was a perfect evening with great meal home cooked with love, good wine and the best company. It was simple but lovely.

MENU for DATE NIGHT IN

~ no starter ~

~ beef stew with puff pastry ~

~ chocolate thyme cake with orange cream ~

Beef Stew with heart shaped Puff Pastry sprinkled with herbs

The beef stew was initially planned to be served with rice or potato puree but I thought of giving it some texture so chose puff pastry instead. It makes it sort of like a dismantled beef pie; less rustic with heart shaped puffs.

BEEF STEW RECIPE

adapted from SmallKitchCara's entry on Food52
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 700g stewing beef, cut into 2-3 inch cubes
• Salt & pepper
• 2 tbs olive oil

• 1 anchovy
• 2 slices of bacon
• 1 leek, sliced thinly
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 celery, diced
• 150g white mushrooms, quartered
• 70g tomato paste
• 60ml red wine vinegar
• 120ml red wine
• 1 beef bouillon cube
• 150ml water
• 1 can chopped tomatoes

• 2 small bay leaves
• 2 sprigs thyme (I used scented thyme)
• 10g dark chocolate
• Handful chopped parsley

Scented Thyme

Chopped ingredients

Methods:

1. Brown the beef that has been seasoned with salt and pepper in high heat. Remove to plate
2. Fry the bacon then the onions and garlic until fragrant. Add in the rest of the vegetables and cook for about 5 minutes until softened.
3. Stir in anchovies and tomato paste, melt it and distribute.
4. Add in the beef and its juices, vinegar, wine and chopped tomatoes.
5. Add the beef bouillon that has been melted in 150ml of water into the pot. Then put the bay leaves and thyme in and bring it to boil.
6. Let it simmer for about 3 hours then stir in the dark chocolate and let it cook for another 30 minutes.
7. Cool to room temperature. Have it to sit for a few hours until ready to serve.
8. Heat it for about 3o minutes and garnish with chopped parsley.

The lovely multi-sized heart shaped puffs with the simple but delicious beef stew

Please click here for Chocolate Cake recipe.

You may also like:

• Bigos (Polish Hunter's Stew)
• Beef Pot Roast

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Popette D'uova

It has been a busy week but the weekend was pretty chilled out and lovely. It all started off great with friday night of non stop salsa and bachata, followed by thick hot chocolate the next morning. What's even better, we went to Borough Market! You cannot imagine how happy I was when M suggested we go to the market for lunch. It has been a pain trying to drag him to the market and finally, we went there together! It would have been much more fun if I could eat those fresh and succulent scallops, and ostrich steak burger with cranberry sauce. Not long and I will be able to eat anything I want again. Only two more days!! Coming back to the chilled weekend, we went for a swim, sauna and hot shower. When we came out, it started snowing!! The tropical kid in me was pretty excited for it finally snowed!

Snow in London

The very excited me in the snow

Now that it is sunday night and the final weekend of me being a vegetarian, I shall share this delicious and simple to make cheese balls. This will keep you smiling for whenever you need to be a temporary vegetarian, missing your meatballs ever so badly. Popette D'uova is the closest you could get to meatballs. Even the meat eater liked these 'vegetarian meatballs'!

Freshly fried cheese balls.

Popette D'uova a success!

POPETTE D'OUVA RECIPE

adapted from Massimo Bruno's recipe via Eat Live Travel Write

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 140g freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese
  
  • for vegetarians, please use an alternative cheese
• 115g breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
• parsley (they were out of parsley while I was shopping for ingredients so it was omitted)

• olive oil
• garlic cloves
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• basil
• black pepper (to taste)

Method:

1. Beat the eggs, add in the grated cheese and breadcrumbs. Add in the bicarbonate soda and mix well.
2. Heat the oil in a saucepan while you divide the mixture into balls. This recipe yields about 14 balls.
3. Make sure the oil is hot. Check the temperature by putting a chopstick through the oil and on the base of the pan. There will be bubbles when the temperature is right. Another way of checking is by tossing some flour on to the oil and it sizzles.
4. Fry the balls until golden brown. When ready, let them sit on some kitchen towels to soak the oil.
5. On another pan, stir fry the garlic until fragrant.
6. Pour in the can of chopped tomatoes and basil. Add some water and stir.
7. Cook the sauce with the cheese balls for 30 minutes until they soak in the tomato juice.

Tips:

• No salt was added in this recipe as the Romano cheese was salty enough for my liking. Please add a little seasalt to your taste if preferred.
• According to 'Eat.Live.Travel.Write', it tastes better the next day, and I agree with her.

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