A Good And Tasty Raw Seafood

This is was when my family, my relatives and I went to one of the 5 star Japanese Restaurant, named Agehan Japanese 'All You Can Eat' Restaurant, located at level 3, Blue Wave Hotel, Shah Alam. This time, I'm having my best time celebrating my 28th birthday, along with my relatives who is celebrating theirs too.

At this restaurant, I've had a wide range of Japanese cuisine, including a yet hot bunch of known Japanese dip, called 'Wasabi', which has a strong and mild flavor, but its hot flaming feeling will feels your throat, up to your nose, if you don't careful. This is my good delicacies starter at the beginning, yet it brings me through while making me addicted for more and more spicy foods until now, and now I'm hunting for Sarawak Laksa, Nyonya Laksa and some other Nyonya cookings as it has the similar asian tastes, and quite localish, with a bit of chinese taste, i.e the noodles like the one used in Japanese cookings.

These asian cookings has the similar taste in sense of smells, aromas and flavors, which uses a lot of spice and herbs, take it as a comparison with two 'twin' cuisine, a Japanese and Chinese noodles. It has a same texture, same styles, same method of making, and quite a same name. For example, we can found both Japanese and Chinese uses a 'Ramen' for its main noodle dish. All these makes me feels like pulling myself more to the east, with a bunch and taste of herbs. Yes, herbs makes the foods better, yet tasty. You can also blames for the spices, for it too makes the same results for the Western foods for examples, take a look at the Italians.

When all these spices are blended, the result is the authentic tastes which suites your tasty buds nicely. The tasty buds may vary in difference places as well, but this times I feel my loves taking me to the east. I can say that this Japanese threat is the starter, but I'm still wondering, if there are still the others. Maybe we are still after the Raya season, where our local spices are still in the memories, although the newly Japanese welcome may be the hints. Well, until now(it's about 3 days past, we are having our celebration last Saturday), I'm still feels my buds dreaming of a well cooked noodle cuisines, with a bunch of herbs, spices, and a local cuisines, which has a sweet, sour, spicy, and a good blend of turmeric aromas. So, guess, what it would come? Haha.. A bountiful Nyonya cuisine, which include some of its famous laksas and curries, where I've just looked up at web some of its recipes - Ayam Kari Kapitan, Nyonya Laksa@Nyonya Curry Laksa, Lai Fun, Kari Ketam (Crab Curry), and some infos about the Nyonya decendants.

So, I'm still thinking what I would be cooking next, perhaps the Nyonyas, perhaps the Japanese, or perhaps the local Malay desert - I'm proud to have this one first if I could - the most important as I'm a Malay! Anyway, I'd like to have a variety of tastes, whereas my buds doesn't stick to what I am, where I am, or what I like at most. My taste always change, according to place, current events, or even the popularity of a current culture or some attraction activities of some groups about foods and something like that. If the season is about the Japanese, so there will I go! No matter how difficult to get the ingredients, I'll try. Don't think that I'm unable to find the Wasabi, cause I've found on the net on how to make it at home! Just after a few days!

More or less, I'll decide that I want to start something similar to Nyonya's favorite this week, if not being able to cook myself, I'll try to stop at Laksa Shack and try some Sarawak Laksa soon!

Today I've added some of the known fellas who have the skill cooking and preparing many of my favorite dishes, including this newly borned favorite in my life - the Nyonya style! I've added it at the left side. Happy visiting!

Focaccia with Onion and Rosemary

Hello there! This time I'm having my time with a fellow cook specialist from my own country through his cookbook, entitled ' Tea time threats with Chef Wan'. He has been known as the Ambassador of the Asian Food, where he has been on the TV programs hosted and videoed from around the world! Ok, for now, I'm just alone in my kitchen, but, there is a helper from my book, a good book, with a spirit of the cooker's too! What a nice book, a full colored pages, with a nice appearance of texts. I bought this for just RM 59.90 from a Popular Bookstore and it worth a value.

Ok. For today, actually tonight, I've been baked some of my first ever home-made bread, which is known as Focaccia, an Italian style bread, made with a pizza base like dough, topped with the onions, garlics, olives, tomatoes, chillies, or even nuts. I could call this a simple version of a pizza, as it sounds well, looks and tasty like a pizza too, except it has a less toppings. The basic dough is quite the same, and you can vary your topping to fit the taste and cuisine as well, be it sweet, savory, hot or spicy. There are a history of this kind of bread, where I just only learned it, well, you and I can check it out at Wikipedia to find it more. It is a kind of Italian style bread, where it may have been a twin to a pizza, if I'm not wrong.






Ok. Let's not waste the time, and here I'll will show you the original recipe that comes from my book, but, again, this recipes has a copyright. Please use it exactly!
Note: I have change a bit for the topping, where I've substituted the olives with a half tomato, walnut with the almonds, and the olive oil with a vegetable oil as I don't have this things in my kitchen at the time.

Here is the recipe:

Focaccia with Onion and Rosemary

Ingredients:

Dough:
2 1/2 teaspoons active dried yeast
1/2 cup UHT milk, preheated to 40C and 46 C
1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup water, at room temperature
500g all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt

Topping:
1/4 cup walnuts, roasted and chopped
2 large red onions, sliced and fried with olive oil
10 black olives, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped

Method:
1) Dissolve yeast with a milk until foamy. Add olive oil and water, set aside.
2) Add the salt to the flour. Make a well in the center, pour over the yeast mixture. Mix and knead for 10 minutes. Cover dough and let inside the greased bowl to rise for one time the size for 2 hours.
3) Punch the dough and divide into two. Shape into balls and flatten a little.
4) Add all the topping on top of the flatten dough, let the dough to rise more for another one hour before baking.
5) Bake into a preheated oven at 200 C for half an hour or until well cooked.

This is my first time bread baking, so the result is not as good as what it should look, feel open to feel at what I got in my pictures:)

Instant Fried Maggie

Welcome fellow cookers! This time I have tried my own new menu based on my taste experience. This recipe was invented through my estimation and assumption from a variety of taste of the similar menus, whereas the basic ingredients has been in my thought at first. This include the simple and yet instant to prepare dinner recipe, where I found a part of the ingredients has been in the package at first. The instant noodle, as we know, usually comes with its own taste and flavor pre-packed in its own packages. This could make the late-stayers easily prepare up his/her wonderful dinner with a big taste within a minute. No long written recipes, or even a long list of kitchen ingredients. Just require a sachet or two, provided inside the noodles' package, and you'll keep up the rest. Amazing and fascinating, I show you my home-made fried instant noodle, or in Malaysia, the folks just simply calls it 'Maggie Goreng'. You can have this at the Mamak stall, but this time you can try to pick up the art yourself at home! Note: This recipe has a bit of a threat of a Mamak taste, which is a bit spicy, but not too hot. Try!

Maggie Goreng Segera (Instant Fried Noodle)

Ingredients:

1 packet Instant Noodles, usually Maggie, Mamee, or any other good brand.
2 segments of Garlic, chopped
1/2 Onion, chopped
2 cili padi (small size chillies), chopped
a chunk of leftover fish or chicken or any meat dish, washed and chopped (you may used the fresh boiled ones)
An egg
Soy sauce
Tomato or Chilli Sauce
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 tomato, cut into cubes.
about 1/3 cup vegetable oil for frying


Method:
1) Prepare the instant noodle, empty the noodle from the sachet and soak in a hot water for about 1-2 minutes or according to the instruction on the package.
2) While the noodle is soaked, prepare the oil in the frying wok or large pan. Heat the oil until gentle hot, around 1-2 minutes.
3) Place the onion, garlic and chillies in the pan, stirring slowly until the smells raise and the onion is lightly browned.
4) Take the flavor sachets from the noodle package, empty both or more(if the package has more than one or two, use all of them) into the pan, keep stirring until combined.
5) Put into 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of chilli or tomato sauce into the pan and keep stirring.
6) Place the drained soaked noodle into the pan, stirring and mix as quickly as possible to let all the sauces mix in with the noodle. Keep stirring until the sauce begin to dry.
7) Make a well in the centre, then break an egg on top of it and quickly stir all the mixture together until totally blended. Keep stirring to avoid the mixture dry too fast.
8) When the egg mixture has set, then it is ready. Transfer the fried noodle onto the plate and serve hot immediately. Garnish with a cubed tomato.

Hot Vochlle, For Instance?

Hey..this morning I've woke up and make up my breakfast with this instant hot cocoa drink in a minute - in no time. I just can't have a time for any breakfast meal as I've to hurry for my regular appointments, and I just took for approx. 5 hour for the last night sleep - slept at 5 am and woke at 10.30 am. Is that crazy? Crazy no more. Just a skidded time of work.

So, what I prepared in the kitchen is simple, but I can show you what I have. Just a cup of cocoa drink, made with the Vochelle instant drinking cocoa powder, mixed with a powdered milk and creamer, and a plus of instant oat, it'll gives you the extra ummph of starting energy.

I used milk powder instead of fully creamer because I know that it's a breakfast, and I need something to feed me up because it's already 10.30, and I'm still feeling quite drowsy and need some simple menu to take along with the drink. Added with some oats, this will energize you better when accompanied with a milk.

I may ended up with a teaspoon of vanilla to give the extra aroma, if desired.

This is my drink recipes:

Hot Vochelle with Oats

Ingredients:
1 1/2 teaspoon Vochelle instant drinking cocoa
2/3 tablespoon sugar (depending on taste)
1 tablespoon creamer (Nestle coffeemate, or others)
1 tablespoon milk powder
2 1/2 teaspoon instant oat (depending on thickness)

Method:
1) Add all ingredients in a mug and add hot water (80C) until near the top. Stir until blended and ready for enjoy!

Sandwich ayam merah..?

Ok, last two nights I've been found a good yet nice products that would suit your tasty buds and the feels of culture in our place, like the title goes.. which read it as 'Chicken in Red Sauce Sandwich' in English. This ideas pops into my minds expressly and without any doubt it came into my thoughts thoroughly. What happens at first is I'm busy finding the perfect ingredients to make a so called 'Mexasian' dishes (I'm sorry this terms doesn't yet exist so I created on my own) - where the tastes binds together to create the superb of the two nations together - Mexican and Asian.

How did the ideas came? Firstly, it took me some while where I'm quite thinking of what to have for a dinner that day as both of my parents went out for the outside dinner. After I realized what had left in my refrigerator, I sped up my thought to get almost fit ever dish that could accompany me that only night. When I opened up my fridge, what I first saw is a bunch of tomatoes, a leftover small cube of cheese, a quarter cut of a local long bread (a kind of french stick but this ones is soft - made by federal bakery, sold by the rotimen) and a bowl of a so called dish - 'Ayam masak merah' where in English it reads Chicken in Red Sauce. This dish is hot, so I manage to take almost all of it, mixed in the diced tomatoes and cheese, where firstly sprinkled with an oregano and salt to taste. Note that for the chicken I took out from it sauce first and shredded it a bit, then re-mixed it again with its sauce. After that, I mixed it with the chopped tomatoes and cheese. There it goes, a spicy Mexasian taste for a layer of sandwich fillings. I then took the bread and split it into halves and spread some margarine inside it before spreading over it with the ready made fillings. After resembled the top part of the bread, I baked in my small toaster. What happens next is the topmost part of the bread went burnt as it touches the toaster's internal elements. After I realized the smoke than I suddenly cut off the circuit and I quickly removed the bread and I got shocked of it has been totally burned, but I didn't throw it away but I just took it out and remove some part on its top and have it half cooked. The inner fillings doesn't completely ready, but the cheese seems to be getting melted, and this can make me satisfied a bit if not so much of the other parts of the fillings, as to my thought, if it could take any longer, the other ingredients would blend well, and turns out together perfectly with the molten cheese.

Ok, I will give you the complete recipe below, where this time no copyrighted provided! This time this recipe comes from me myself!!


Chicken in Red Sauce Sandwich (Sandwich Ayam Merah)

1 bowl leftover chicken in red sauce dishes(at least a medium cut of chicken in it)
A quarter of a block of cheddar cheese (approx. 75 g - you can use whatever kind of cheese you prefer)
1 tomato, washed and diced
Oregano and pepper, to taste
A medium size of any sandwich bread or buns(you could use a french stick, but this one quite harder)
butter or margarine to spread.

Method:

1) Dice a cheese into small cubes, mixed with a diced tomato. Sprinkle over with the oregano and pepper to taste, set aside.
2) For the chicken in red sauce, prepare the chicken by removing it from the sauce first and then shred it a little with a fork or knife. You could wash the chicken first to remove the extra sauce that sticks to it.
3) Remix the chicken back with its sauce, and then mix it with the cheese and tomato mixture.
4) Check the taste, if you require more spice, add some more pepper, chillies or garlic.
5) Spread it on the buttered bread, cover with another halves of a bread.
6) Place the bread in the toaster or if you have a bigger oven, just place it inside it as it could be too small to place the unbaked sandwich into the toaster. If you concern about the fillings for being dropped out while baking, wrap the sandwich with a foil before baking.
7) Bake for at least 5 minutes in a moderate oven or longer, depending on the size and how far you want it to be cooked. The sandwich is ready when the cheese is melt.
8) Have your say, watch your taste!


This don't goes well that night as I just used a small cut of bread, where the fillings goes upward and this got stucked into my toaster oven. So, what I did after it is proceed with another simple one-step bowl of Maxasian dishes, where it consists of the remaining tomato( I just use half of the medium sized ones for above recipe), and some other cuts of cheese mixed together in one small bowl, and finally poured over by a dollop of hot local chilli sauce(the chilli is a cili api type, where it is a small ones with an extra hot flavor), and there it goes. I think I should microwave it to get the cheese melted a bit and then add some cubed toast. What do you think?

Ok, I will still give you this recipe to try, enjoy!

Spicy one-bowl Mex Chilli and tomato snack

Half a tomato, or a quarter just fine
2 medium sliced of cheese (I used cheddar)
A dollop of Malaysian Hot Chilli Sauce (I used Wanis brand, or you could also try Aminah Hassan)
Some pinch of Oregano or pepper, you may also need a salt.
A slice or two slices of toasted bread, diced.

Method:

1) Combine the tomato and cheese in one small bowl, sprinkle over the spices.
2) Add the sauce, mix well. You can also try the tomato paste, but I recommend the chilli paste. There are a lot kind of chilli paste available in Malaysia, where there are chilli boh - a kind of thick paste available at local supermarkets, but you can try by blend the chilli yourself at home.
3) Put the bowl into the microwave and go for high for about 10 secs, or if the cheese haven't melted yet, give an extra second until melted slightly.(No need to melt too much, or it will be stuck within your spoon and bowl upon eating it).
4) Take out from the microwave and add the cubed toast. You may also add some other salad ingredients, like the corn, salads, or whatever you like. Try it hot!

Coconut Chocolate Cookies

Welcome back! This time I am able to manage my time to get into my baking times, and this time it was to do with Coconut Chocolate Cookies, a beautiful look at it's design, and sometimes it'll rather looks like a truffle. I do bake the basic dough, mixed with a 125 g of a cornflakes, and then shaped into the balls and baked into a hot oven until slightly brown before cooled and topped with a melted Vochelle baking chocolate and dipped in the toasted flaked coconut. Fuhh.. it sounds good, but it do look great if you tried it. I will rather dip it wholly into the chocolate, but it is quite challenging, as my hand is not quite steady in handling such a tiny items and, yet to be dipped in the hot melted chocolate for a neat result. So what I've done is just a part of the cookies has been dipped, but its still tastes and looks good, with a toasted flaked coconut coated over the chocolate.



You may also substitutes the coconut with the almonds or hazelnut if you like, but I'm still following the original recipes that calls for a toasted flaked or dessicated coconut. It may becomes a perfect match, as the smells of the coconut's fragrance mixed with a hot melted cooking chocolate will produce a superb aroma of a new taste. Coconut and chocolate has long becomes a match, but this times its ones again coming into my nose during this coming raya, where most of the dishes includes a coconut, while this chocolaty tastes dishes, when it comes into the morning of raya humidity as usual as many available cookies, thus matching it with a coconut tastes will increase more of your ready produced appetite.

Ok, so, as usual, I'd like to share this recipe with the readers, even it's still a copyrighted material, taken from a Saji magazine, my lovely mag since a decade ago. I will put its courtesy at the end of the recipe. Enjoy!


Coconut Chocolate Cookies (Biskut Coklat Kelapa)

Ingredients:

3 cups self-raising flour
125g margarine
190g castor sugar
125g cornflakes, finely crushed (I used Nestle)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Cooking chocolate, melted (I used Vochelle baking chocolate)
Dessicated coconuts
Paper cups


Method:

1. Cream margarine, sugar and vanilla essence until light.
2. Fold in cornflakes and baking powder, stir until mixed
3. Fold in the flour. Knead lightly with your fingertips, until the dough is soft, well combined, and suitable enough to form into balls. You may add or decrease the amount of the flour according to your dough condition. (This depends on your humidity and the air temperature of your place).
4. Form into balls, place on the ungreased cooking tray and bake at the temperature of 170 C for 10 to 15 minutes.
5. When cooked, leave the cookies to cool on the tray before dipped into the melted chocolate finally coated with a lightly toasted dessicated coconut. Place into the paper cups and serve.

(Copyrighted. A courtesy of Saji (BUMPER September Edition), page 52)

One thing I would like to let you know is I have been baked this cookies by using the coarse sugar (normal sugar) instead of the castor sugar. I have a hard time finding my leftover caster sugar in my kitchen, but I never found it! Maybe I've misplaced it or maybe someone has used it before. So, without any other choices, I have to used my ordinary available sugar which it looks very eye-catching as it has a greatest quantity in my kitchen, with a volume of full tall tabletop tupperware in front of my eyes.

When I mixed the coarse sugar with the margarine, the mixture seems a bit heavy to blends together, as it took a longer time to increases its volume. I have to use my spatula and insert it into the mixer while it is working, so that it has the extra pressure to makes it raise a little. After all, the cookies also took a longer time to cook maybe because of this sugar, I'd rather think so. However, the result is quite good and I believe it does the same. Try use the ingredients as provided, and make sure you have all the ingredients required in your kitchen before you start. Enjoy your baking!

Ramadhan Desserts

Welcome back, watch out for the new incoming desserts from day to day, year to year every time we are in the celebration periods! This time we are in the Ramadhan period, where we could see on our roadsides a lot of hawker stalls selling a wide range of fast-breaking treats, from a sugar cane drinks, to a fully mouth watering treats like murtabaks at the Ramadhan Baazar. I'm quite lucky this year, as my workplace prepared a well completed meal for a fast breaking and supper(sahur), where there include the place, the tables and a canopy for the late-stayers to have their parts. I'm not missed this chances too, where we can keep the works and community together.

Whilst I'm having a free supplies of foods, I'm quite surprise when I'm walking pass by a roadside or streets, where the activities are altered quite rapidly within the last year - last year there are most peoples selling kuihs or cakes and desserts in Malay, while this year there are peoples or folks selling toys, fruits, and some sorts of scarfs and sarongs among indonesians. They are selling this maybe because of the continuity from their pasts activities, where they don't afford to cut it as its their only bread and butter.

Ok. The only difference is, I can still saw the selling activities, although the items is slightly difference. They might have doing this for the past few years, but maybe I just realized it. Well, for this post, I haven't yet baked anything, sorry for the one who waits out there, as I've already said, I used this blog to express all kinds of foods topics, including the culture, the journeys, and also the events or happenings about the foods world. However, I would rather include more of the recipes on baking in this blog, as it names goes. Anyway, by the time I got some new idea, but I still don't managed to done it in the kitchen, or something new findings about a food, I will try to write it here.

Out of all of the sorts of kuihs, there is some weird and some to be said weird recipes being served or sell during this Ramadhan. What is to be the weird ones is the one that I have tried just now, where the sago pudding is being cooked together with a coconut milk and sugar in one pot and served. We usually have the sago cooked first, and then poured over with the coconut milk and the dark sugar, but this ones seems to go all in once. Maybe they have a limited time to prepare. I have this in a very wonderful manner, where my workplace are having the very special occasions in Ramadhan, the Nuzul Quran, where it falls in the middle of the month. Usually the folks are having some extra treats, like kenduri or gatherings by having some extra rice dishes, like the briyanis and the beef or muttons rendang. Wow! it looks like a wedding occasions, while we are in the mood of our Raya celebration. The cakes or kuihs served is also a good, or maybe I can said to be the best ones, where the sweet layer of steamed cakes (kuih lapis) being served in the big slices, soft and rich in the centre, just like the one served in the hotels. There are desserts served, like the sago pudding I said just now, and the famous Teh Tarik (a high-pulled milk tea) with a quite creamy tasty. That's all for the foods, and there are also an enough supplies of dates, where it were a Bam Dates, the one that have the dark color and soft and quite sweet tastes.

As for the one that said to be the weird ones, its the kind of dishes which are migrated from the western countries, and almost blended with the locals ones. One of the examples is you can see the fig cookies, where I never saw the one like this before. The figs usually founds in the middle easts countries, as well as some parts in the Europe sides. This lovely cookies made with a blend of normally used ingredients, like the butter cookies, and topped with the fruits. There are many more western style of dishes which are being blended to my locals nowadays, such as the mutton cooked in a chocolate sauces, pastas in laksa sauce, lasagne using a koey teow layers and something like a combination between the muffins and apoms the local favorite steam cakes. Not to mention the collections of puddings and desserts, like the smoothies, panna cottas, and the agar-agar which is prepared in the mixed styles, added with a cream or ice cream, local fruits or bites and many more. There are also the traditionally unforgettable cuisines that has been renewed to match the current styles as well.

Ok, that's all for my exposes during this fasting month, and I hope to have the best-suited favour dishes on this coming Raya celebration. Happy fasting and Hari Raya to all muslims, especially Malaysians!

Raya Feast!!!

Surprise! Welcome to my only blog about food, culinary(I'm not a pro, but I'm just want to let myself into it:)) and bakery. Ok, first of all I have just only started a baking hobby, beginning from the last decade, where I found this was only the easiest way to spend in the kitchen. Until today, I've been baked for almost all sorts of cakes, cookies, pies, puddings, and some pizzas. Actually, I supposed to start this blog earlier, as I've baked quite so much pieces of goodies, including the awesome cakes which I took some from a web or books, but I rather like to create my own recipe for the purpose of posting it here.

Ok. Firstly, I have baked some nice cookie for this incoming Raya celebration and I would like to post it here to share it with all the readers. The cookie entitled "Coconut Hazel Cookies". The result is quite good, although there are some soggy parts inside it, where I used to upgraded it by baking it longer. The final result seems ok, but it will welcome the guest depending to their acceptance!

For this cookies, I took it from my favorite magazine - Saji, with a thick pages of almost all of it contains the cookies recipes, where the recipes calls for some desicated coconut, ground hazelnut, flours, margarine/butter, egg yolk and the brown sugar. Usually this recipe doesn't calls for a vanilla essence, but it does comes out with a quite nice fragrant, maybe it comes from the coconut. I used the high fat dessicated coconut, my mom got it last time when she was in the Ministry of Agriculture. This kind of coconut turns out well!

Thinking twice, I wonder whether I could publish this recipe or not. To be honest, I'm quite concern about the copyright, but, as a mean for sharing, I'm trying to publish it by stating the authority below it.


The recipe are as follow:

250 g butter or margarine
160g brown sugar
2 egg yolks
260 g flour
1 cup self-raising flour
30g dessicated coconut
30g ground hazel

An extra green colored dessicated coconut for decorating
a little egg whites for decorating

1) Place the butter, sugar and yolks in a mixer, beat until light.
2) Add flours and the rest of dried ingredients, mix well
3) Roll dough on a plastic mat, form a 1 cm thick dough.
4) Cut into desired shapes, brush with a little egg whites and sprinkle
a little coconut to decorate.
5) Bake in a preheated oven at 180C + for at least 20 minutes +. The baking time
may be longer, depending on your oven, usually until the cookies turns light brown
on the edges.
6) Cool cookies on the tray, remove it and store in an airtight container. Awesome!

(C) Courtesy of SAJI, Utusan Karya (BUMPER September '07 Edition - pg 119)