Crispy Calamari II

It has been a while since we last had calamari /squids. Daddy loves it deep fried and crispy instead of cooking them in curry . I took out 3 medium size calamari and cut them into rings. I have some panko bread crumbs in the pantry so I decided to have them deep fried with this panko crumbs. I mixed the crumbs with some curry powder so as to give the panko crumbs some spicy flavor. It turned out crispy on the outside and juicy moist on the inside. The taste was awesome...spicy hot ...good match for the calamari. We can't eat much of this artery clogging morsels. Dip it with WASABI.....goodness I can't stop eating them !

I have to learn more on how to deep fry this pieces of calamari

unsightly but delicious...who cares as long as it taste good :))

and

I love wasabi...I really can't do without it :p

somehow it gives me the oomph

artery clogging calamari at close up

Crispy Calamari II

Ingredients

3 medium size calamari - clean and cut into rings

a pinch of sea salt

1 egg white - whisk

1 cup of panko bread crumbs

1 tbsp of curry powder

( mix the two together)

veg oil enough for deep frying

Method:

Wash and clean the calamari, cut into ring. Dry them with paper towel. Season the calamari with a pinch of sea salt.

Whisk the egg white till fluffy. Coat the calamari with egg white and roll them onto the curry flavored panko crumbs. Drop into hot oil and deep fry them till golden brown. Take out and drain on paper towel. Serve with wasabi or chilli sauce.

Enjoy!

Have a wonderful weekend

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Garlic Parsley Coated Spaghetti With Black Pepper Salmon

Dinner tonight was simple...yeah it was just spaghetti with black pepper salmon! I was too lazy to cook anything elaborate, after all dinner for two sweet old person only :p and more over I had to bake a butter cake for the sweet old other half :)) Daddy loves butter cake and has been sounding me for the past few weeks. Thus this simple dinner! Conserving the energy for making the butter cake later :p

this is a very simple pasta dish...the spaghetti is
 coated with garlicky herbs and olive oil

top with the delicious oven cooked black pepper salmon

simple yet taste good

the salmon was well seasoned with sea salt and black pepper

it was just done and the natural sweetness was all it needed

to make this pasta dish delicious :))

the garlic and parsley cooked in hot olive oil brings out wonderful

aroma that made the bland spaghetti yummilicious

Garlic Parsley Coated Spaghetti With Black Pepper Salmon

Ingredients:

1 piece salmon fillet - marinate with sea salt and black pepper

spaghetti enough for two person - cooked till al dente

4 pips of garlic - crushed and chopped fine

3 sprigs of italian parsley- washed and chopped

some sea salt to taste

2 tbsp of olive oil

Method:

Rub the salmon with sea salt and ground black pepper, leave to marinate for 30 minutes. Heat up the oven at 200 deg C for 25 minutes. Off the oven heat. Place the salmon on the baking sheet with lots of olive oil and leave it in the oven for 30 minutes. the salmon fillet will be just done . * If you want the salmon to be more cooked then put it in the oven 5 minutes earlier before you off the oven heat and leave it in the oven for a bit longer time. Meanwhile cook the spaghetti in hot boiling water till al dente. Drain dry and leave aside. Heat the non stick pan with the olive oil, saute the garlic till fragrant, add in sea salt to taste and the chopped italian herbs, stir fry for another 3 minutes, off the heat and add in the cooked spaghetti and stir till the spaghetti are coated with the garlic herbs olive oil. Dish up and garnish it with the black pepper salmon.

Serve it hot. * Edit - the olive oil used for the salmon to be added to the spaghetti too or the spaghetti will be too dry ** Sorry , I left this text out * wink aging process :p **

Enjoy !

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Dimply Mango Cake

Mango is my favourite fruit besides the king fruit durian. Mango salsa, mango pudding, mango mousse, mango sorbet, mango ice cream...you name it and I will fall for it :) I saw this recipe Dimply Plum Cake by Dorie Greenspan on Piggy's Cooking Journal, I am a sucker for mango thus I tweaked it and used mango instead of plum :)) It tasted good and the texture of the cake - moist, soft and mango scent was so original and my blogger friend Reanaclaire of Caring Is Not Only Sharing , was so in love with the cake that she wants to learn how to bake it :p Why Reana? Becoz she gave me the mangoes and I took the opportunity to bake her this delicious cake in appreciation of the love gift she gave me....sweet aromatic mangoes! She really knows the way to my heart and she hits bull's eye! Smart gal ...this dimply plum mango cake has been in my long long To-Do List, and now I finally got it baked :)) Good recipe , good cake and the non-stop praises from Reana was enough to make me float on cloud 9 on a gloomy Tuesday morning.....mmmm thanks Piggy for sharing this recipe with us. This is the fourth recipe I have tried out from her blog. I love her blog! :))) I will make this again and again!

the best destress therapy for me was arranging the mango slices

a smilie cake :))

love the soft, moist and mango scented cake..mmmmm yummy
can you spot the mango bits in the cake....it makes the cake
more flavorful :))
thumbs up for this mango deliciousness :)))

Dimply Plum Mango Cake - adapted from Piggy's Journal with a tweak

Ingredients

1 ½ cup All Purposes Flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground cardamom ( optional) * I omitted this
5 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp * I used 80 gm
¾ cup packed light brown sugar * I used combination of natural mollases sugar & brown
sugar2 large eggs
1/3 cup flavorless oil, such as canola or safflower * I used sunflower oil
Grated zest of 1 orange * I used lemon1 ½ tsp pure vanilla extract

8 purple red plums – halved and pitted * I used 2 mangoes- 1 ½ cut into slices for deco
- ½ - chopped and mashed

Method:

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350º F. Butter an 8 inch square baking pan, dust the inside with flour, tap out the excess and put the pan on a baking sheet.

Whisk the flour, baking powder; salt and cardamom, if you’re using it, together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixerin a large bowl, beat the butter at medium speed until soft and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the sugar and beat for another 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for a mixture after each addiction. On medium spped, beat in the oil, orange( lemon if you are using ) and vanilla. The batter will look very light and smooth, almost satiny. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add in the mango ( the ½ chopped and mashed) and add in the dry ingredients ( flour & baking powder & salt ) mixing only till they’re incorporated * you can fold in the dry ingredients with a spatula *

Run a spatula around the bowl and under the batter, just to make sure there are no dry spots, then scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top. Arrange the plums cut side up in the batter mango slices on top the batter.

Bake for about 40 mins or until the top is honey brown and puffed around the plums mango slices and a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 15 minutes during which time the plums’ juice mango juice will return to the fruit- then run a knife around the sides of the pan and unmould the cake. Invert and cool right side up.

Enjoy!

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Seaweed Roll

Nowadays I would like to try something new for dinner. And this seaweed roll is such a versatile dish that you can use a few combination of ingredients for the paste , such as fish paste and minced meat or minced meat , fish paste and shrimps paste. For this seaweed roll, I used the last combination and added in pepper and sesame oil for extra flavor . And stirred them with a pair of chopsticks till the paste became sticky. I have been quite adept in making sushi so making this seaweed rolls was not hard at all :p

Adding in the shredded carrots and italian parsley was a last minute thing...for I wanted it to look like a sushi roll :))) Daddy passed a remark saying that since I started blogging on food that I cooked , food I presented at the table are always colorful and beautifully presented , LOL! And guess what I replied ? I sealed his mouth with this “ this will make our marriage life more interesting as the years goes by.... the cooking skills get better and better...so you have nothing to complain ...as the saying goes... the way to a man’s heart is through the stomach ” Sealed! ;p   

This roll is delicious and tasty, the fragrance from the nori sheet after the deep frying gave oomph to the rolls beside the tasty paste. The color of the carrots makes the rolls interesting and a real feast for the eyes. From a distance, Daddy asked, is this sushi ? :p Without waiting for my reply , he went to the fridge to get me the wasabi that I love so much and can't do without :)) And it complements the rolls. The Piggies love it and most important the head of the family loves it ! :)))

spread the paste on the nori sheet and

place it on a sushi bamboo mat ( makisu ) and lightly press and

roll it as in making sushi

first coat the roll with egg white followed by bread crumbs

and deep fried it till cooked under medium low heat

cut into even sizes

it looks like sushi from a far :)))

delicious finger food or as entrees

it goes well with wasabi...yumm yumm yummy :))

Seaweed Roll

paste ingredients:

( makes 2 rolls )

150 gm fish paste

100 gm mince meat

80 gm shrimp paste

1/2 tsp white pepper

1 tsp of sesame oil

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 stick carrot - shredded

some chopped italian parsley

2 nori sheets

bread crumbs enough to coat the rolls

1 egg white - whisk

vegetable oil for deep frying

Method:

Mix all the paste ingredients together and stir with a pair of chopsticks till the paste becomes sticky. Place a sheet of nori sheet on a makisu or bamboo mat . Spread the paste on the nori sheet, leaving 1" allowance uncovered at one end of the seaweed. Place the shredded carrots and parsley on the surface of the paste and wrap bamboo mat and seaweed over the paste fillings and roll into a tight roll. First coat the roll with egg white and then coat it with the bread crumbs Heat up oil in a wok and when it is hot enough, put in the roll and deep fry it till the inside is cooked and golden brown on the outside under medium low heat. Take out the rolls and drain off oil on the paper towel. When it has cooled down , cut into even pieces and serve with chilli sauce or wasabi.

Enjoy!

Happy Mid Autumn Festival to all my friends and readers :))

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Chinese Chives Pancake

You know, sometimes it is easy to trick someone to eat something he doesn't actually fancy...like chives...cooked them in pancake and he will eat without making much fuss. I managed to trick Piggy boy to eat chives in a pancake. If I were to just fry them with eggs or with shrimps, he will not eat :( so I chopped them up and added them into the pancake batter and fry them on a non-stick crepe pan and guess what ?....he gobbled the chives pancake hungrily and told me , " good , this is good " (",) All I did was told him " hey buddy, please try out my new pancake recipe...lotz of dried shrimps and bird's eye chillies " :))) He got tricked ! LOL!

This chinese chives pancake recipe is by Amy Beh . I used dried shrimps instead of fresh ones for the dried ones are more fragrant. Simple and easy to make pancake and dip it with Thai sweet chilli sauce..Mmmm yummy best to serve them as tea snack or breakfast treat.

chopped chives, dried shrimps, bird's eye chilli

are mixed into the batter

delicious crispy chives pancakes

the crispiness is there when taken warm

one load of the recipe can make 4 pieces of pancakes

I cooked this for our tea snacks....2 pieces for Piggy boy,

a piece for Daddy and a piece for Momsie

Piggy gal mizzed this , she went out

for a movie with her friends :p

Chinese Chives Pancake ( by Amy Beh )

Ingredients

Batter:

70g plain flour
20g tapioca flour
2 tbsp rice flour
2 tsp corn flour
130ml water (approximately)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp chicken stock granules
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp sugar

(B)
50g chopped chives
75g shelled-prawns, chopped
1 tbsp chopped red chillies

Method:

Combine batter ingredients in a mixing bowl. Strain, then add in seasoning and ingredients (B), and mix.Heat a little oil in a non-stick pan. Put in one ladleful of batter and shallow-fry it over low heat until it is cooked on one side. Flip the pancake over and cook until golden. Remove and serve pancakes immediately.

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Fettucine Aglio Olio With Mini Plum Red Tomato

Mornings are always rush moments for me and Daddy...rushing to finish the house chore like putting out the washed clothes to dry and worse still beating the traffic to make it in time for the punch clock ! So morning breakfast is always a simple meal of sandwiches or just simply a cup of oatmeal. But this morning was a blissful one for me and family... for I took 2 days off just to spend the remaining of my Piggies' sem break with them. Thus , I was able to sleep in late and cooked this delicious and tasty fettucine aglio olio with lots of fresh italian parsley and mini plum red tomatoes for our brunch...... so yummilicious that my Piggies just slurped clean the plate, leaving a clean shining surface whereby one can see one's own reflection on it :)))))) I am not exaggerating.....I swear! (",) Seeing is believing...as the saying goes.........and having tasted it sealed the confirmation :p

In the Italian language , Aglio simply means garlic and olio means oil...so this pasta has lots of garlic and a generous toss of olive oil. I added some chopped fresh italian parsley and mini plum red tomato for extra flavor. Great combo and if you are a health freak....you will love this ! Shoot me if you don't like it :))) Simple and easy preparation. Less than an hour I got my family seated and slurping away and enjoying a delicious homecooked fettucine aglio olio !

italian parsley and garlic are the family most loved ingredients

anything with these two ingredients would be most welcomed :))

I prefer this mini plum red tomato to those bigger ones...so right for this pasta

the last shot is always the best......yummmilicious!

and always mouthwatering!

Fettucine Aglio Olio With Mini Plum Red Tomato

serves 4

Ingredients:

1/2 packet of fettucine - cooked till al dente

fresh italian parsley - chopped coarsely

1 cloves of garlic - chopped fine

1/2 tbsp toasted black pepper - crushed coarsely

15 mini plum red tomatoes - halved

generous amount of olive oil

sea salt to taste

Preparation:

Gently saute all the ingredients except the fettucine in a non stick pan till fragrant. Add salt to taste and off the heat and toss the cooked fettucine with the saute ingredients till well mixed. Served immediately

Enjoy !

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