Assam Pedas Tendang Bontot

There was a time that I was the self-proclaimed 'food snob'. Growing up, we've always had soups and masak kicap, fried chicken and quick & easy stir-fry meals. Basically mild and bland foods.  Konon tekak mat saleh. Occasionally we'll have curry to cater to my younger bro's appetite. Even if there are other dishes on the table, I won't touch them and would only go for my safe and comfort food. Sounds like a normal kid lah kan?

That was when I was growing up. Food at our Dewan Makan (DM) during my boarding school years was an eye opening experience. I had to eat fish called ikan jaket! and tofu! and shrimps! Sources of protein that I never liked or allergic to. I had to eat dishes I'll never touch if I were at home like pajeri, sambal, masak merah, pecal dan macam-macam lagilah. Have to eat lor, if not starving lor. But I adapted.

After kawin, nak makan apa? Due to my limited food preferences, I wasn't the kind who gets motivated in the kitchen. I'm not known for my domestic skills. at all I only knew how to make vege dishes and masak sup and kicap. I'm only good at steaming food. Kalau goreng, gerenti hangit. Husband's a food snob too in his own right, whereby only his and mother's (and occasionally mamak's) cooking is the best. MIL is an accomplished cook and very particular about her food, no doubt about that (the only curry I eat is hers). I lived only one door down from her, but I rarely had the chance to learn to cook from her since I worked 6 days a week. Not long after that, I got pregnant. Cannot tahan  the kitchen smell for too long. Kerja dok melantak lauk MIL je la. Stress or not? How to COOOKKKK???

After moving away from the comforts of MIlL's food to this kampung, I kinda gave up on cooking.  Blame it on my lackadaisical attitude, but nobody wants to eat my food anyway. Sometimes my Tok would cook simple dishes for herself and there's plenty to share with me.  My aunt drops by all the time and gives me more food. The lauk pauk that are sold at a nearby restaurant are so cheap. Ayam goreng is only RM1. Therefore I rarely cook. I only cook to get by, feeding myself and Nunu. Nunu wasn't fussy. She likes my food. She likes pastas and soups and stir-fried all in one dishes.

But now, *sobs* Nunu dah pandai.  Nunu nak tomyam. Nunu nak makan assam pedas. Nak yang Mama masak.

There. Mama masak. This dish really is ass-kicking marvelous. The sort yang tak malu nak bagi mak mentua makan. Don't play-play. First time I heard of ikan seludu though, recommended by the abang fish-monger. This recipe was from my Singaporen friend, Trin. If it wasn't for Trin's husband, I don't think I'll ever learn how to make this. So I owe a lot to these two people.

Ingredients:

• a few pieces of ikan, best are stingray (pari) or tenggiri, but I had only ikan seludu
• 5-7 lady fingers
• 1 large tomatoes (cut into 6)
• 1/2 cup tamarind juice (asam jawa)
• a stalk of bunga kantan and some daun kesum
• 4 tbs cooking oil
• 1 stalk of lemon grass (bruised)
• salt and sugar to taste
• 20 dry chillies *
• 2 large onions *
• 3-4 pcs garlic *
• 2 cm ginger *
• 2 cm tumeric *
• toasted shrimp paste (belachan) *
• 3 cups water

* Grind to a paste

Method:

1. Heat oil and saute grounded ingredients and lemongrass until fragrant.
2. Add stingray, tamarind juice and water. Let it boil and stir regularly.
3. Add tomato, daun kesum, bunga kantan and lady fingers. Add salt to taste.
4. Lower heat and let it simmer until vegetables are cooked.
5. Serve hot with rice.

So, moral of the story is, yes, I've always had it in me. I'll only have to keep cooking more frequently from now on. And yes, the main reason for posting this is to gloat. Oooh come on, can't a woman be proud of herself once in a while? Bukan ada orang puji pun, so angkat bakul sendirilah!

THE CARROT CLUB

 I've been meaning to update the blog with something worthwhile, but as usual, a lot of things are holding me back. Heck, I'm hardly on FB and YM even! I could go on and on about what those things are, but some other day then. I'll spare you guys the details.

However, I've been dying to share this delish carrot cake recipe, originally given to me by Babybooned and adapted to my taste. I swear, the smell wafting from your kitchen when you bake this cake will literally bring your neighbours knocking on your door!

CARROT CAKE

250 ml vegetable oil (canola/sunflower)
230 g castor sugar
2 tbsp orange juice
4 large eggs
1 tbsp. vanilla essence (or 1 tsp of vanilla prima)
300 g grated carrot (sieve the liquid, but not too much)
50 g mixed fruit
50 g black sultanas
60 g walnuts (chopped) (you can use chopped almonds too)
Sieve together:
200 g plain flour
30 g cornflour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon powder
½ tsp. nutmeg powder

Method:

1.    Beat sugar + oil till well mixed and fluffy. Beat in orange juice until well mixed.
2.    Add eggs one at a time and whip until light. Fold in sieved flour mixture and mix well.
3.    Add vanilla essence, grated carrot, walnuts and mixed fruits / sultanas to the mixture. Mix well.
4.    Pour into greased loaf pan or 8 inch square pan. Bake in preheated oven (at 180 degrees Celsius) for 45 to 60 minutes.

I love to eat the cake as it is, the taste is still amazing. I don't really fancy cream cheese frosting as it is traditionally paired with, so what I do is sprinkle the top of the cake with chopped white chocolate or white chocolate slivers and a handful of almond slivers.

So, there it is! I dare you try this very easy recipe. You don't even need a mixer if you have arm muscle strength and a puny egg beater like me. The only two other hard things to do in this recipe is taking out that weighing scale from it's dusty storage place and painstakingly measuring out the ingredients.

Haha, no, it's not that bad. I just hate to do all those things coz I'm too used to my measuring cups.

OK, that's all I have time for. Tune in again next time for my adventurous culinary endevours.

Memasak itu mudah dan menyeronokkan! *Flashes dimples and a saccharine sweet smile*

AMBITIOUS

Here's the project that I've been working on for weeks.

And here's the outcome. I finally did it, you guys.

These are just a peek. Head over to my other blog to read more about it ok. Insya-allah, I'll be getting some orders soon. Pray for my success, OK.

Welcome to Liplickin' - not your average cupcake :)

MAGNOLIAS

Actually, I wasn't planning on featuring the cupcakes that I baked for the weekend coz I was in a big rush, I didn't even make frosting (another way to say it is they're not pretty enough! ha) But I made careful selection of the ingredients, using expensive butter and the magnolia's cupcake recipe, and they turned out marvelous, really soft and fine. If you think I've found my perfect vanilla cupcake, you're wrong coz I still hate the shape of it. What I need to do is to get my hands on larger sized cupcake cases. It ain't over yet.

Just to make things interesting a little, I put a couple drops of chocolate emulco in the vanilla batter, and it turned out nice as well. A couple blobs Goober peanut butter in there and I got several people worshiping me already. The vanilla cuppy may look too plain in the photo, but there's a surprise inside. When you bite into it, you'll taste tiny shards of white chocolate that I've hidden inside. I put some blueberry jam that I needed to finish into some of the cuppies, and it resulted into some pretty cool looking patterns on the top. But no photos of that, sorry to let you down.

My 9 year old cousin Farah helped me to name my cupcakes.



Farah: *biting into choc cuppy* Yumm. This is "Meet Joe Black Cupcake".

Me: Really? Coz they have peanut butter inside?

Farah: Yup. And this one *pointing to vanilla cuppy with blue swirls* we should call it either "Vanilla Sky Cupcake" or "Tom Cruise (Cruz??) Cupcake".

Me: *geliganya budak ni*

CHIN CHAI CUPPIES

It was last minute project. Martian's school will have an open day and anyone's welcome to err... sell stuff. So I thought I could make a quick buck by selling cupcakes, you know, to test the market a little, and he planned to sell sardine sandwiches (good stuff). So that nite, both of us laki bini was busy clanking away in the kitchen.

I have no patience to meticulously pipe all 80 mini cupcakes so I opted for the multi-coloured frosting on most of them.

I finally got those paper souffle cups! This time, I tried Billy's Vanilla Cupcake recipe taken from 52 Cupcakes and I have to admit, it's the awesome-mest recipe so far. And I got flat top cuppies for the first time! Yeay! This shall be the end of my Great Vanilla Cupcake Experiment. Ouh wait, I didn't even post the second installment of my experiment, right? Oh well.

Here are some of the pics. Sorry for the lack of food photography styling. I was really in a great rush to finish off the baking, frosting and sending the last batch to the school.

The first batch I made, around 44 cuppies were brought to the school by Martian around 9.30 am. I was a little demotivated in the morning when it suddenly rained, and I assumed that sales were gonna be slow. I thought I won't even have to even finish decorating the second batch. When I called him 1/2 an hour later, he reported that the cuppies were gone in minutes, so I better send the rest of them to him ASAP. Coz it looked like they might have to close shop early. Wow, those kids really loved his sardine sandwiches. And my cuppies ;p

Y'know, I even had a dream the night before. I made a huge sign "ANNIE'S CUPPIES" and each of my cuppies had funky names like Thinku Pinku, Orenggo Morenggo, Starry2 Night and Violet Haze. I had cute cards to distribute to impressed customers. Orders poured in and in no time, I was swimming in a pool of cash.

A little far fetched, doncha think?

THE GREAT VANILLA CUPCAKE EXPERIMENT I

I suddenly felt an urge to launch into this whole discourse (or drama, whichever you wanna call it) about baking, so those who aren't interested, just skip this whole post, will ya? I'm saving you a lotttt of pain and here, coz if you're not into baking, you won't know nuts what I'm yapping about.

I gotta hand to this special friend of mine, for making me realize that the best things in life are the simple things. I wanted to send her some of my cuppies to sample, and I was quite taken aback when she told me her that vanilla is her favourite flavour. I mean, aren't we all crazy about chocolates and other exotic flavours; lemon, cinnamon, cardamom, to name a few?

And here is this girl, who has traveled to almost the entire globe, who has probably tasted the finest food at the fanciest places and experienced different kinds of culture, settling for the most modest and plainest flavour I know.

"But.. but it's so easy! This is not challenging at all? Are you sure you want JUST vanilla? Not strawberry vanilla? or cherry vanilla?"

"Yup," she said with certainty. "I'm pretty sure. Plain vanilla."

"Alright then, and I'll make sure it'll be the best damn vanilla cupcake I've ever made!"

And so, I felt really good about this because I couldn't believe how easy it was to please this girl. This is easy peasy, I said to myself. And then I changed my mind. As I started visualizing and planning the baking, I broke into cold sweat, and thought, OMG have you forgotten? Have you forgotten your first ever vanilla cupcake? Don't you remember how easy it was to screw up the simplest recipe like Nigella's fairy cakes? Huh? HUH? Easy peasy senang kacang konon, now eat your words.

Frankly, to some degree, yes, it's easy to bake the Grande Dame of all Cupcakes. You can close one eye, tie one of your hands to your back and you can still come up with a decent batch. It's not if you have a certain standard to your cupcakes, which I admit I don't have any prior to my conversation with my friend.

Since I found out that I enjoy baking so much, and have gone through many failures and deflated bakes, I've subscribed to this belief that, there's no way am I gonna like what I'm doing if I keep obsessing about the tiniest details to achieve perfection. Just bake the best you can, decorate the best you know how, and eat it. If you screw up, don't worry about it. Let the rubbish bin eat it.

Then I thought, what if I can be better at this, with a little bit of effort and research? Learn a little bit more about the art and science of baking (ah, what am I talking about? I've no idea when the science begins and the art ends!) and start troubleshooting for my errors? How on earth am I gonna come up with the 'best vanilla cupcake ever' if I'm still stuck in the rut with my very low standards?

Most importantly, I can't expect to move on to other types of cupcakes if I can't even get the basics right. That's it, I don't have to go for perfection, just get it - right. Now, that isn't too nerve wrecking, is it?

So as I'm mulling over this, I took some much needed action to start my Great Vanilla Cupcake Experiment. I bought the ingredients of the finest quality; real 100% butter instead of the generic butter spread I used to buy, and most importantly, vanilla prima and not the inferior vanilla essence. That's the best I can find, they don't sell pure vanilla extract here! Arrghh!

Next, let's talk about the recipes, shall we? The reason I always stick to Nigella's fairy cakes and Chef Conolly's recipes is they use the metric units measurements, so it's pretty idiotproof. I feel more confident of the measurements if I can actually see the numbers and the dials on the scale. It's most useful when want to know how much butter you need, instead of the other recipes I come across online that use 1 cup of butter or 2 sticks of butter? I mean, that scares the sh*t out of me, measuring butter with a cup! That's just plain crazy and too difficult for me, and just how much is a stick of butter anyway? Is the entire union of recipe writers plotting to confuse us, so that when we try the recipe and fail, they'll all cheer and clap their hands in glee? Why must you Americans defy the Queen so much and reject the imperial units, ah? Why can't you use the metric system like the rest of the world, ah?

Bear in mind, this was yonks ago when I first started baking (before I knew how to Google for answers), which lead me to swear off certain recipes that measures with cups. As part of the experiment and research in order to achieve the perfect cupcake, I found some useful sites that made the conversion easy for gundu ol' me. With that problem solved, I selected a popular recipe to try, not the BEST recipe, coz I don't have the type of flour needed.

One of the things that drives me crazy about baking cupcakes is that I can never seem to find the type of cupcake case or baking cups that I truly need, which is this one.


Can you help me find this cupcake case?

This cup, according to Chockylit, is called The Nut & Party Cup. Using this cup, you won't even need a muffin/cupcake pan to bake. It holds the batter on it's own so you can just use this along with your normal cake pan. For clumsy hands, it's easy to handle and best of all, you'll get an almost perfectly shaped cupcake everytime.

I've only managed to get this cup for the first ever 'menjadi' cupcake that I made, and since that, the stores here don't seem to have these in stock anymore so I have to settle with the ever popular plain white paper case. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the perfect size for my muffin pan, so all my cupcakes baked with this normal case look somewhat misshapen, and sad to say, according to my already low standards, NOT PERFECT.



Look at the first row of the photo series. This is how it looks like with the the white paper case inside the regular muffin pan. I baked it at exactly 20 minutes as stated in the recipe and it looks very golden and 'done'. I don't quite like my cupcakes so kembang like that, so for the next batch, I put the baking cup inside a cupcake shaped tin foil liner (which moulded white baking cup into the desired shape). That's how it looks like in the second series of the photos. I also reduced the baking time to 15-16 minutes, resulting to a softer and fluffier texture. I like. The size was also substantially reduced, resulting to a 'cuter' shape.

Great, I thought. Now how do I achieve a perfectly flat top cupcake? No matter what I did, whether I filled the baking cups with 2/3 batter or 1/2, my cupcakes came out either domed or pointy. You can still frost your cupcakes fine with a domed or pointy tops, but for certain artistic effects, a flat top cupcake is best and easiest to decorate.



So, I have no choice but to slice off the tops as suggested by some yahoo experts. My mistake was to not seal the cut-off tops with some melted jam or syrup. Even as I was careful while spreading the icing on top of the cupcake, some of the crumbs or flakes got in the way, resulting in a not-so-smooth surface. Does my blue thumb nail freak you out? Haha, relax, that's just food colouring, I don't have gangrene hor!

Here's a peek of my decorated cakes. For my lack of piping skills, I'm still perfecting the simple swirls before I can move on to creating more complicated patterns. I still have a lot to learn anyway.




Last but not least, I'm also finicky about the storage and transportation of cupcakes. I'm at my wits end looking for the perfect box to pack my cupcakes, especially if I want to send some to this vanilla loving friend of mine. I'm done with standard cake boxes, recyclable/microwavable containers and tupperwares.

I need .... this!

Any idea where I can get this cool carrier? I don't think I want to transport my cupcakes in my time-capsule-slash-organ-transplant-sia to parties and such.

As a conclusion, I find magnolia cupcakes taste nicer than my previous fairy cakes, which I find too oily for my liking. But what probably made such a big difference was the better quality ingredients. I won't know this for sure until I bake a batch of fairy cakes again this weekend to make a fair comparison.

Anyway, this is only chapter one of my search for the ultimate, most perfect vanilla cupcake. This also means that my friend would have to wait until I've carried out all my experiments before she can get her hands on my cupcakes. I won't rest until I'm satisfied with the outcome, coz truly my dear Nadia, you deserve only the best!

p/s: Oh yeah, comments, tips and further discussions about this are VERY welcomed!

DIVINELY SOFT CHOC CHIP COOKIES

Thanks Bavani for sharing the recipe! And I'm too lazy to blog properly, can you tell?

CHOCOLATE MUD CUPCAKE

Or at least I think that's what it's called! Either that or Mud Choc Cupcake or something.

I'm not sure, all I know is while making this cupcake, I'm imagining a hippopotamus sloshing in the Mississippi River (in case you wonder, no there are no hippos in the Mississippi River. Ugh, it's painful to spell and type Mississippi River twice. Oops, thrice)



Anyway, this recipe goes to the lovely Bavani, who also awarded me with the Nice Matters Award. Thanks, babe. I can't tell you enough how *blushblush* honoured I am.

As you can see, the cupcake doesn't look that good. So I tried to mask the hideousness of the surface by putting some cream cheese on it. But the cupcake is good just plain. As expected, I forgot to bring the recipe book to the office today Bavani, but I think I can recall most of it. Very simple ah!

The ingredients:

300 g choc chips ( I used chopped dark chocolate)
300 g butter (cut it in little pieces while it's still cold and hard and let if soften at room temp)
115 g castor sugar
*115 g self raising flour
*2 tbsp dutch process cocoa powder (I've no idea what dutch process is, and I don't care, just use normal cocoa powder lah!)
5 large eggs

Now, follow me and my trusty assistant with my step by step instructions:

The most important thing about baking is, always start by preheating your oven. For this recipe, set the temp at 160 degrees.



Melt the chocolate and butter using the double boiler technique. Mix them up until well combined and let it cool, at least until you can touch the bowl with your hands.



While waiting for the chocolate mixture to cool, get your assistant to crack the eggs.



She may need your help if she gets the shells inside the bowl of eggs. Have your assistant's bottle of milk within reach so she can take a swig every now and then. Making cake is hard labour, y'know.



Lightly beat up the eggs. Just look how good she is at this. My toddler baker virtuoso.



Put the eggs and sugar in a big mixing bowl and start whisking until the mixture turns pale yellow. At this point, bark a command at your assistant to look at the camera and at least pretend to look like she's enjoying herself.



Chocolate mixture still hot to the touch? Worry not! Kill time by forcing your assistant to do the dishes.



Do not feel the slightest pinch of pity even if she's soaked to her bloomers and her face is dripping with soap water. Keep on clicking the camera like the cruel slave-driver mommy you are.



Chocolate and butter mixture finally cooled? Yeay. Alternately fold in the flour and cocoa powder in the sugar and egg mixture. Don't understand what I'm jabbering about? It means, stir in flour, and mix, stir in flour, then mix. Kapish? Then put the choc mixture in the bowl and mix carefully.

Note that the assistant got time to kill for a wardrobe change. Well, I can't document this with her topless, can I?

Whoopsie, looks like she needs another wardrobe change! At this point, it'll be too irresistible for the assistant to not lick the spatula.

For hygienic and damage control purposes, it is wise to terminate her service now. But before you send off the assistant to mop the floor or clean the gutters, get her to do one last thing. Since she loves choc chips so much! Look at that concentration! If you wanna be more heartless than you already are, get her to put exactly 10 choc chips in each paper case. It's for her own good, y'know, practice her counting skills.

Okay, now that you've inflicted enough pain and suffering upon your child, be the good mommy you are and fill 2/3 of the cupcake cases in the muffin pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

I'm not surprised the cupcakes don't look too good, especially with the cobbled looking surface, but the taste is simply scrumptious. Very moist and sinful you'll have to ask for the Lord's forgiveness for each bite you take.

For all my wickedness, I had to give away a dozen of the cuppies to my aunties and their children. May the Lord grant me mercy for the evil I have spread around.

Addendum 29th March 2008: I have a confession to make, and some rectification. I'm afraid I've done something wrong the day I made these cuppies. The cocoa powder was not supposed to be sieved together with the flour! It was supposed to be sprinkled on top of the cuppies upon serving! Well, duh, no wonder they looked so horrible!

Padan muka, dera anak lagi :p

CHOCOLATE STRAWBERRY TRIFLE

There was a special request for my chocolate and strawberry trifle from my younger brother and a couple of his friends who saw the wedding trifle pic. It's easy peasy, no problem at all for me to make, and the ingredients aren't too expensive. Take this as your upah to get me those things from Ikea, little brother.

I remember DITH requesting for the recipe a while back, so what an opportune time to show just how simple it is to come up with this delicious dessert. There are so many ways to make trifles and basically you need a couple of key ingredients according to the theme or flavour you're going for. The rest is up to your creativity, and of course, a little common sense.

This is how I normally prepare my trifle.

You'll need:

1 chocolate swiss roll (or any choc cake will do)
1 packet of instant chocolate pudding/jelly/mousse
Some strawberry jam/ filling
Some whipped cream
Some strawberries for decoration
Chocolate chips

Start with flavoring your strawberries coz we all know Malaysian strawberries are so sour! Soak them with some jam diluted in hot water.



Next, slice the swiss rolls and arrange them in the containers. It doesn't have to be perfectly lined. People normally use huge transparent glass bowl so that they can make multiple layers. You can also use dainty cocktail glasses, tall sundae glasses or small shot for individual servings. For practical purposes (since my brother were going to bring these babies back to his friends in KL) I just settled for these boring disposable microwavable containers.

Prepare the instant chocolate pudding/jelly mix/mousse according to the instructions. I like my pudding to be a little bit soft, not too sweet and not completely hardened, so figure that out yourself.

So while the pudding is on the stove, dilute some strawberry jam/filling in hot water and sprinkle on top of the cake layers to lightly soak it. This is a substitute for rum or other alcoholic concoction that are widely being used to wet the cake base. I used a small teh tarik glass for our own consumption so I threw in a couple of berries.

Oh before I go on, I'm sorry for the poor picture quality in this post. I woke up before the crack of dawn attending to Nunu who wanted me to 'up' while I rocked her back to sleep, and I made these trifle right after performing Subuh prayers. I haven't had my morning coffee and the kitchen lighting was very poor (excuses, excuses)

I

Whip the cream. Any type will do, dairy or non dairy. Just have a little taste of the cream before you decide to add some sugar or vanilla essence. Some brands are fine just as it is. I use a hand mixer at maximum speed to get a perfectly stiff consistency. Other types of recipes call for custard, but so far my experiments were total flops. So I stick to simple whipped cream.

Next, start layering. Spoon in some jelly/pudding/mousse and wait until it hardens a bit before you put in the next layer of cake-jam-jelly-cream. Try putting it in the fridge to speed the process up a little bit. If you have space, additional fruits or chocolate chips in between layers will result in a beautiful layer. I opted not too because I didn't have enough chocolate chips.

The final topping should be the cream so decorate as your heart desires. I sprinkled some sieved cocoa powder on top of the trifle for the finishing touch. You can use chocolate flavoured syrup like I did for the wedding trifle, but it won't look great if the whole thing starts melting.

The end result:


Decadence in a glass

So, what'cha waiting for? Go make someone happy :)