Chocolate Eggs: Memory of Easter

Today is my last day of Easter break. Starting on Monday and so on will be busy with lots of cooking experiments to looking forward. The memory of Easter that I wanna keep this year is the Easter dark chocolate eggs, the Easter surprise from lovely hubby. I lately influenced by him to like dark chocolate than milk one. BTW, this chocolate is definitely yummy and smooth. Once you pop into your mouth, it will melting gently. I love it. Thanks sweet hubby:) Looking forward for more surprise next year...

Pork and Prawn Wonton: Some for now and save some for later

I always make wonton by myself, which most of the time I didn't pay much attention about the measurement of ingredients and just put some according to what I think. As the result, it's not consistent:) sometimes could be a bit salty and less taste. This time, I pay attention to weighting the ingredients and as far as we tasted, it's the best since I've made it many times. So, before I forget all the ingredients, I quickly keep it in the record for my future reference.
I prefer make the ground mince meat by myself cause I think the mince meat that sell in the butcher is mixed up with lots of fat. Therefore, I bought a piece of pork loin, trim off the excess fat, mince it using the meat mincer (if I make a huge of mince meat) or food processor for small amount of mince meat.
My fridge is fulled, so instead of add some open wrap wonton or mince meat mixture, I just wrapped it all in once, half cooked and freeze it. Surely I will need it soon when I'm rush and have little time to cook but still want to have a good food.


Ingredients:
150gr mince pork
75gr mince prawn
1 stalk thin spring onion, finely chopped
2 garlic, grated
2 cm ginger, grated
1 tsp lightly soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white ground pepper
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbs sesame oil
1 egg yolk, keep the white part for sealing the edge
1 pack wonton wrapper (make 28)

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients, combine well and set it a side for 15 minutes. Take 1 tsp of the mixture and spoon into the middle the wonton wrapper. Fold it into triangle, fold one more times and secure the edge with egg white.
Heat the steamer. Lay a baking paper into a dish, lightly brushed with veggie oil and put the finished wonton into it. Stem for 5 minutes. Lightly brushed the wonton with oil and keep it into plastic container, put into freezer. Thaw when needed.

Chicken and Fish Ball Vermecelli Noddle Soup aka Beehon kuah

Hubby got terrible sore throat. My dream of making deep fried tofu stuffed with veggie was gone for a while, so I just drooling when I saw Lia, posting pic of deep fried tofu in Facebook. Instead, I have to think of cooking something mild and gentle to cope with hubby's sore throat. My choice go to vermicelli noodle soup which I think is easy to make and satisfy everyone need. I need something hot soup to combat with chill winter and he needs something that easy to digest. So, here we go to:

Ingredients:

1.5 l chicken stock

2 garlic, finely diced

4 shallot, finely diced

3 tbs rice bran oil

1 tbs light soy sauce

1/2 tsp white ground pepper

2 tsp chicken stock powder (I use LKK brand)

1 tsp sugar

1 pack of fish ball (about 18-20 balls)

250 gr rice vermicelli, soaked in warm water for 5 minutes

2 eggs, lightly beaten, make an omelet and cut into strip 1 cm x 3 cm

4 bunch of bok choy

1 stalk spring onion, finely chopped for garnish

fried shallot

marinating:

150gr thinly sliced chicken breast

1 tsp light soy sauce

1/2 tsp white ground pepper

1 tsp rice wine vinegar

1 tsp corn flour

Direction:

Mix all ingredients in marinating and set aside for 15 minutes.

Heating the pan, pour the oil and sauteed the onion and garlic until aromatic. Drop in the chicken, stir and fried until lightly brown coated with the onion and garlic. Pour in the chicken stock and gently boiled. Put in all the seasoning: chicken powder, soy sauce, pepper, sugar. When it comes to boil, drop in the fish ball, sliced omelet, bok choi and noodle. Spoon into the bowl and garnish with fried shallot and spring onion. The whole cooking process takes about 30 minutes (with the boiled chicken stock ready to use). It serves 4 bowl.

Stir Fry Egg Noddle a.k.a Mee Goreng

Mee Goreng is one of my favorite food which I like to make when I'm not in good mood to cook or want something quick and healthy (I believe it's healthier than indomie goreng:)). Especially when my stomach is start singing and need a quick meal to stop the annoying noise. I always have plenty of stock dry egg noddle as well in my pantry which help me a lot when I need it.

Ingredients:

350 gr dried egg noddle

2 eggs, lightly beaten

150 gr prawn

100 gr chicken, thinly sliced

4 beef ball, thinly sliced

1 carrot, julienned

1.5 cup shredded cabbage

2 stalk celery, diagonal sliced

1 spring onion, cut into 1 cm

1 cup chicken stock

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground white pepper

soy sauce

sweet soy sauce

1/4 cup rice bran oil

Marinating chicken:

1 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp sugar

1/4 tsp ground white pepper

Marinating prawn:

a pinch of ground white pepper

a pinch of salt

Spice paste:

4 garlic

2 shallot

2 roasting candle nut

1/4 tsp whole white pepper

Direction:

Mix all the marinating sauce and marinate chicken for 10 minutes or more. While marinating chicken, I can start work mortal and pestle to make the smooth paste, chop veggies and boil water for cooking noodle. Drain the cooked noodle and mix well with sweet soy sauce. Heat some oil in the wok to make scramble egg. put a side. Pour some oil, brown the chicken, add prawn and beef ball. put a side. Heat the rest of oil, cook the spice paste until aromatic, drop in the veggie, chicken stock, noodle, meat and egg. Mixed well and seasoned with soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, ground white pepper and salt according to taste. Serve with crispy fried shallots.

Chicken Karaage

Haven't make this dish for a while because I don't buy chicken thigh so often. Mostly, I like to buy chicken breast because it doesn't take much time to clean and take off the excess fat. As far as I know, usually in Japanese restaurants, they use chicken thigh to create this dish, so I want to follow them to create something close to authentic one:)

Ingredients:

200 gr chicken thigh, cut into strip

1 egg white, lightly beaten

some corn flour for coating

some oil for frying

Marinating sauce:

1 tbs tamari

1 tsp rice wine

1 tsp sake

1 tsp mirin

1 tsp grated ginger

1 tsp sugar

a pinch of ground white pepper

Salad:

1/2 carrot, julienned

1 cup shredded cabbage

Dressing:

1/4 cup ponsu sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

Direction:

Mix all the marinating sauce together and marinated chicken thigh for at least 1 hour. Dipped chicken pieces into lightly beaten egg white and coated with corn flour. Deep fry in hot oil until golden brown. Usually it takes about 2 minutes for both sides. Serve with mayonnaise and salad side dishes.

Green Tea Frappuccino

With 37'c weather, I always want to find something cold to beat the summer heat. Thinking for a while, what's the best to have. When I checked out my pantry, found out that I got plenty stock of green tea milk powder, so my choice go to green tea frappuccinno which is one of the easy and quick to make.

Ingredients:

6 tsp green tea milk powder

1 tsp green tea powder

1/2 cup warm water

2 tsp sugar

1 cup low fat milk

2 cup ice cube

Direction:

Dissolved sugar, green tea milk powder and green tea powder with warm water. Blend all the ingredients together. Serve immediately, topped with whipped cream and dust with some green tea powder. See, how easy is it..and it's finished within 5 minutes, express to make express to finish it:)

Betawi Chicken ala Chef Lonny

Searching on Google, come up with recipe from Chef Lonny. Since, it's just use simple ingredients and for sure it's available in my pantry, so I decided to try this recipe. I do recommend as it's really yummy, refreshing and surely, you will ask for more rice to finish it. Warning: it's best to have ASAP, don't keep until next day or you will loose the original flavour. So, better to cook according to your portion, as I only cook 1/3 of the recipe and serving for two.

Ingredients:

200 gr chicken breast, sliced.

100 gr AP flour

A pinch of salt

A pinch of ground white pepper

1 tsp Garlic powder

2 garlic, finely diced

2 shallot, finely diced

1 tsp ground coriander

sweet soy sauce

1 tsp sambel oelek

Lemon juice

some sugar

some oil

Direction:

Mix flour, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Coated chicken breast into flour mixture. Drain the excess flour. Quick fried into hot oil. Don't over fried or chicken will become hard and loose it's moisture. Put a side. Heat 1 tbs oil, sauteed garlic and shallot, add sambel oelek, ground coriander, sweet soy sauce, sugar and lemon juice. It will become a thick sauce, pour into the fried chicken breast and mix well. Serve immediately.

Tofu Omelette with peanut sauce a.k.a Tahu telor

I usually cook Tofu a lot in Chinese food version. It's been long time I never make this dish, when it suddenly come up in my mind, perhaps it the sign that I miss home:( This is one of the authentic Indonesian food, which you will find a lot in Java. I have no idea exactly if this is consider as Java food or not, cause I see a lot too in my hometown. So, regardless wherever it come from, one thing for sure, it's yummy, express and surely you will love it.

Ingredients:

2 tofu cube, diced into cube and fried half done.

2 egg, well beaten.

a pinch of salt

a pinch of white ground pepper

1 tbs oil

Peanut sauce:

75 gr peanut, fried and ground it using mortal and pestle

2 garlic, sliced and fried with peanut

1/2 tsp salt

60 ml water

2 tbs sweet soy sauce

1 tbs sugar

Direction:

Mix tofu with lightly beaten egg, seasoned with salt and pepper. Heat the oil and pour in the egg mixture, let it set for a few minutes or until the color is brown.

Making peanut sauce:

Process all the ingredients using mortal and pestle to make it smooth.

Serving:

Pour over the peanut sauce over the tofu omelette's, serving with some slice boiled potato, prawn crackers and crispy fried shallots.

Ended 2008, Getaway to Daylesford - Mineral Spring Spa and Goodies from Choc Mill

It's pretty hard to make a day trip in Melbourne due to weather that keep changing all the times. So lucky for us, that on 30 Dec 2008 was a nice sunny day which was a perfect day to drive along country side. There are plenty of interest place to explore in Victoria, I think we made the right one to drive to Daylesford. It's about 2 hours driving from our place. Consider pretty long driving, as there is not much to explore over there. However, it's worthed to visit Chocmill for chocoholic like us:) and Hepburn for those who enjoy spa as I did. I do love Chocmill and definitely will drive there again some times during this year. The chocolate was marvelous, once you eat it, you can't stop it (sound like there's some addictive on it, but it's pure Belgian chocolate). Herewith some memories and goodies from Chocmill which I'm sure will make everyone drooling...

Chocolate machine to produce fresh chocolate


Display that definitely will make you drool





Yummy chocolate ice cream topped with dark choc



And finally, our goodie bag: assorted dark choc to enjoy at home when we miss Chocmill.

Banana and Strawberry smoothies

Summer is identical with berries around the supermarket. One of our favorite beside blueberry is strawberry. With plenty of strawberry in my fridge, I love to make smoothies to refresh the hottest summer. I like to mix with banana too. Smoothies is my shortcut to finish up the over riped banana, which I think nobody like to eat it when we look at the dark brown banana skin:) So, I enjoy having over riped banana in smoothies instead of throwing to rubbish bin. Here is my simple and refreshing banana and strawberry smoothies:


Ingredients:
1 cup strawberries, diced
1 banana, diced
1 cup anlene low fat milk
1 cup anlene low fat yoghurt
1 cup ice cubs
1 tbs honey diluted with 2 tbs warm water

Direction:
Blend all ingredients until smooth and serve immediately. Better to have it within 30 minutes or it will not fresh anymore:)

X-mas Dinner Menu - East meet West

While the x-mas lunch is so popular in Aussie, I'd prefer to have x-mas dinner which's allowed more time to prepare the stuffs. Our X-mas 2008 celebration were simple and tasty with mostly home made meals plus some dinner breads from new Korean bakery shop and take away roasted duck from Chinese restaurant:) and special menu that I was looking forward to cook: Turkey breast stuffed with the recipe I found from Food Ideas magazines. So, what did I have for x-mas dinner? Basically, it's a combination of East and West menu, to fulfil every body's taste.
First, for the appetizer, we had dinner bread with butter and Peking Duck wrapped.
The main course was turkey breast stuffed served with Rosemary Roasted Potato, Salad Mix with Asian dressing sauce, Green bean with crispy crumbs, honey buttered dutch carrot and Garlic steam Lobster bough by my mother in law.
I like something sweets for the dessert. My first choice was black forest cake by Gordon Ramsay, with the recipe from Australian Good Food Magazines. As soon as our stomach were singing, then I forgot everything:), so some pictures were forgotten to be taken as well.

Here is the tiny crunchy dutch carrot with the picture taken before cooking:)

Turkey Breast stuffed wrapped with bacon.




Yummy Gordon Ramsay's Black forest cake recipe with my own decoration.

Stir Fry Rice Vermecelli a.k.a Beehon Goreng

We usually just have light, simple and quick lunch. Big and complete meals only served for dinner. Here is one of my favorite express lunch with some basic ingredients that I have in my pantry and fridge to create a such of simple and delicious meal.



Ingredients:
200 gr rice vermicelli, soaked with warm water
1 ea medium size carrot, julienned
2 stalk spring onion, chopped into 2 cm
2 cup shredded cabbage
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbs dried shrimp, soaked with warm water
5-6 tbs Rice bran oil

Marinated:
1/2 part of chicken breast, thinly sliced
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1 pinch of sugar
1 tsp garlic powder

Mixing sauce:
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 tsp chicken powder
4 tbs sweet soy sauce
2 tbs soy sauce

Spice paste:
3 cloves garlic
3 shallots
1/2 tsp whole white pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
Heat the wok with about 2 tbs rice bran oil. Make a scramble egg. Set aside. Add a bit oil, stir fry the chicken just until lightly brown (not over cooked as chicken breast will become hard), set a side. Add another 2-3 tbs oil, cook the spice paste until aromatic, add dried shrimp, carrot, cabbage, spring onion and stir fry for 1 minutes, then add the rice vermicelli, egg and chicken. Pour in the mixing sauce and continue stir fry and fold until well mixed. I used my giant wood chopstick to well combined. Top it with crispy fried shallot.

Wholemeal Blueberry Muffin

When we saw that blueberry was on sale on Aldi we rushed there quickly. As from our previous experiences, all the good values stuffs will sold out quickly. So far, I've watched out the supermarket catalogue every week, I never see blueberry sell at $1.99/box. We like blueberry much and don't want to miss that good opportunity. As soon as we arrived in Aldi, I grabbed 3 packs:). With plenty stock of blueberry in my fridge, my favorite baking is blueberry muffin, because it's fast, easy and yummy. I used to make muffin a lot with the basic recipe that I got in the packaging of healthy baker flour. I like this recipe and fit perfectly with our taste. Originally it recipe for raspberry crunch muffin with SR flour, but I just modified according to what I have in my pantry. This time, I want to experience of using SR wholemeal flour. Here is our favorite blueberry muffin:


Ingredients:
2 1/2 cup SR wholemeal flour
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
100 gr butter, melted
1 cup buttermilk
1 tbs vanilla extract
125gr fresh blueberry

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180'C. Mix the flour and sugar in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk to combine egg, butter, buttermilk and vanilla. Add to flour mixture and stir until well combine. Gently stir in blueberry. Spoon the mixture to the muffin pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Chocolate Madeleines

Madeleines are a great company to enjoy our lazy afternoon tea. There are easy to make, with the simple ingredients and tools. I got this recipe from my cooking book collection by Donna Hay - Simple Essential Chocolate with a little bit adjusting in sugar contents cause we don't like too sweet cake plus I dusted with some icing sugar. These madeleines are turn pretty good and yummy.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

65 gr caster sugar

50 gr AP Flour

1 tsp Baking powder

2 tbs Cocoa powder

60 gr melted butter

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 180'C. Whisk egg and sugar in a medium size bowl. Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa over the egg mixture and fold through with the melted butter. Spoon the mixture into greased madeleines tins and bake for 10 minutes or until its set. Dusted with icing sugar.

Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd's pie is usually consuming during winter season in Australia. However, since I got plenty of celery, carrot and potato in my fridge and I run out the ideas of meal.
This meal suddenly come up when I read a copy of recipe in the Local Community centre. The lady was so nice to allow me to make a copy of the recipe. However, I just adjusted to what such of ingredients that are available at home. And, here is the my home made Shepherd's pie.

Ingredients:
300 gr mince beef
1 carrot, finely chopped
2 stalk celery, finely chopped
2 tbs butter
2 brown onions, finely chopped
1/4 cup AP Flour
1/2 tsp Dijon Mustard
1 1/2 cup beef stock
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp sugar
salt and black pepper

potato topping:
1/2 cup hot milk
25 gr butter
salt and black pepper to taste
5 large potato, boiled and mashed
some mozarella cheese

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 210'c. Melt the butter in a large pan, add the onion and cook until soft. Brown the mince meat, add some carrot and celery. Sprinkle the flour, mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Gradually add the stock and stir constantly. Seasoned with sugar, salt and pepper. Bring it to boil and simmering for 5 minutes until the veggies are soft. Remove from heat and spoon into the casserole dish.

To make a potato topping:
Just mix all the ingredients, except the mozarella cheese. Spread the mixture over the meat. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 45 minutes.