Homemade Fresh Orecchiette Pasta

Making fresh pasta has always been my passion. Not only it taste good, it is more economical to make your own from home. I would say this pandemic has made me a very DIY person . Learning new skills every day. Yesterday I learned how to shape fresh pasta and it was so fun. Check out Gennaro's You Tube Channel if you are keen to make your own fresh pasta. Gennaro's pasta dough recipe is very good. Easy peasy, lemon quesy kind of method. Never fail kind. I made a few times and each time it gets better. The flours used must be 'OO'flour and Semolina flour.

Just need to practice more on the shaping. It is fun making them. I can have any shapes I want now and each shape has different sauces to go with. 

Need to practice more as the saying goes practice makes perfect

I use this brand of flour for making fresh pasta

Night Market Street Food ' Char Koay Kak' / Fried Rice Cake

Night Market Street Food from home.....'Char Koay Kak' / Stir Fried Rice Cake on Banana leaf. Rice Cake recipe is from Sonia. Thanks Sonia for both recipes. Cravings was the culprit and having succeeded in having fatty beansprouts, ( you can check on my previous post on how to sprout beansprouts in a teapot ) we decided to have this for our late lunch. I used home rendered lard to fry . Dangerously artery clogging good but who cares. Eat first and diet tomorrow 😂Stay home stay safe.

 

so good, the fried rice cake and beansprouts

 homemade XO sauce is a great condiment for this dish

ingredients used for the stir fry of rice cake

I love this rice cake texture,  soft yet springy

Steamed Rice Cake - for 3 persons - recipe is from Sonia www.nasilemaklover.com

(A)

200 gm cooked rice - overnight rice is best

300gm water

(B)

100gm corn flour

80gm flour

1 tsp salt

60g water

1. Blend (A) together till fine

2. Add ( B) to (A) mixture and blend till all ingredients are well blended.

3. Grease steaming plate. Pour blended mixture and steam for 30 mins . Once cooked, take out cool completely before cutting into small cubes for frying.

Ingredients for frying the Rice Cake

Rice cake cut into cubes

4 tbsp chopped Chai Poh ( pickled radish)

3 tbsp chopped garlic

3 eggs

2cups beansprouts ( taugeh)

1 tbsp lard 

3tbsp rice bran oil

Chives *optional

Sauce

3 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp Oyster sauce

1 tbsp thick soy sauce

1 tsp fish sauce

2 tbsp water

Method:

Heat up lard and rice bran oil in wok, add in garlic and pickled radish and saute till fragrant. Add in the rice cake cubes and the sauce. Stir fry till the rice cake cubes are coated with the sauce. Push aside the rice cake, add a tsp of rice bran oil and crack 3 eggs into the center,once the eggs are about to set, push back the rice cake and give it a quick stir fry till the eggs are evenly mixed with the rice cake. Add in the beansprouts and chives if using chives. Stir fry till beansprouts are just cooked. Check the taste, add extra soy sauce if needed. Dish up onto banana leaf when the rice cake is still very hot. The  banana leaf will give the rice cake the extra fragrant needed.  Eat with chilli sauce or XO sauce. 

How To Sprout Mung Beans

After many years of trying to sprout beansprouts from home, we ( hubby and I😆)  found the perfect solution ( credit goes to the hubby for his research 😜of course, labour credit goes to me 😆) on how to get fatter and healthier looking beansprouts. We used Sonia of http://nasilemaklover.com method by sprouting the beans in  teapot /kettle and every steps is the same EXCEPT we added edible Epsom salt solution ( can be purchased at pharmacy ) for the last rinse of every rinsing. Ratio of 1/2 tsp of Epsom salt dissolved into 700 ml water ( water  free from chlorine) It works very well for us. The teapot we used is  of medium size.  50 gms mung beans. The rest of the steps is the same as Sonia's. Beansprouts at 3 days old has the highest nutrients but we usually harvest them at 4 day old. Many people asked me to just buy the beansprouts since it is so cheap but for us it is challenging and since it is also pandemic time whereby going market is a No No for us. So I plan the sprouting schedule well to suit my cooking plans. Just sharing but I am not sure whether it works for you as well. I hope it does help you in getting fat beansprouts like mine. The amount of beans I quoted is for my teapot size and harvest is for 2 persons only.

Photo taken from Sonia 

sheer joy, indescribable

my magic teapot 🤣 gives me endless harvest of beansprouts

Notes:

1.mung beans must be fresh stock and pick the bad ones away

2. rinse at least 4 times a day

3. Teapot must be placed away from sunlight and airy place

Vegetable Stew/ Hokkien 'Chap Chye'

I grew up eating this dish ,it's my mom favourite dish , but I regretted not asking her how she cooked it. I tried to replicate it but somehow it doesn't taste the same . Well, I guess each has her own technique of cooking a dish. But it is still delicious. I used local Cameron cabbage, dried shiitake, glass noodles and red beancurd. A great vegetarian stew which the Hokkien called it 'Chap Chye'. 

Vegetable Stew/ Hokkien Chap Chye'

Ingredients

1/2 a cabbage - cut into shreds

8 dried shiitake- soak and slice

a small amount of glass noodles - soak

a tsp of chopped ginger

a tbsp of chopped garlic

2 pieces of fermented red beancurd( Fu Yee) and 3tbsp of the red beancurd water

3 tbsp of olive oil

1 cup water

Method:

Saute chopped ginger and garlic  in olive oil over low heat till fragrant. Add in red beancurd and red beancurd water, continue to saute for a min. Add in cut mushroom, cabbage and stir fry till the cabbage leaves have slightly soften . Add water , cover with lid and stew till the cabbage has soften over med low fire. Once it is ready , add on the soaked glass noodles. Cook for a further 5 mins. Dish out and serve with rice.

38th Wedding Anniversary Dinner

Today marked our 38 years of wedded BLISS💖

Blessed 38th Anniversary to my lover,  my twin, my partner-in-crime, my mentor, my helper in doing the house chore, my driver, recently turned my hair stylist and my strong supporter in all the projects I am in. Love him to the moon and back. May God continues to be the Head of our marriage and bless us with many  more good years together. We would normally eat out and celebrate at our favourite haunt Dozo for Japanese food but unfortunately no dine-in,so we rather eat homecooked meal than to have take away from Dozo. We will wait till this pandemic is over before we can eat out again at Dozo. This what I have whipped up for our celebration dinner. Simple and easy. Let the oven do all the cooking for us. I just have to prepare the Spaghetti with garlic sauce. I added NZ mussels to the Spaghetti. The hubby had the roast chicken and I had my pan-fried salmon. Sides are the veggies cooked under the roast chicken. The drippings helps flavoured the veggies. A toast to many more years together and I pray for good health for both of us so that we can be together for many more years. 

the mussels are juicy and sweet,they compliment the spaghetti with garlic sauce very well

 I have always love pan fried salmon

love roasted garlic too

for the roast chicken, rub Cajun Spice

and a few shakes of mixed herbs and

for the pan fried salmon, just salt and mixed herb in butter

Added some sweet corns to the already flavoured roasted veggies..so yumm!

this is one easy way to roast chicken. I love Jamie Oliver's easy roasting style

Suit busy people and family oriented kind of cooking

Hope you enjoy reading and get inspired

to cook this from home.

Malaysian/ Singaporean Chicken Curry Puffs

Tea snack.....is homemade Malaysian/ Singaporean Chicken Potato Curry Puffs and Gryphon Coba Cabana Tea . Curry puffs packed with tasty curry potato and chicken meat fillings and a cup of Coba Cabana Tea which is a deliciously tangy marriage of juicy tropical fruits plus organic lemon Myrtle,basil and mint makes our afternoon tea time worth waiting for. Hubby and I prefer the original curry puffs and not the spiral type of pastry. Anyway, I googled and found this recipe by YouTuber The Meatmen Channel.  Watch the step by step tutorial on making this curry puffs from scratch and I knew I had to try it as it looks good. No regrets, it is indeed very good, very near to the original one except it uses butter instead of margarine. The fillings , I omitted the egg as I will be making a batch for freezing. During this pandemic time, hubby tends to be hungry at odd hours ,so having frozen curry puffs will serve as emergency food.

the puff pastry turns out crunchy and delicious for this curry puff

and it gives a very nice golden color after deep frying

I made a half recipe and managed to get 9 pieces. Fried 4 pieces and kept the rest in freezer

the dough is easy to handle thus making wrapping up easy

it is best to prepare the fillings a day earlier so as not to tire one out

Click link below for the tutorial video

on how to make these delectable curry puffs

https://youtu.be/rTpA429Hwgk