Monday 30 October 2006

Stir-fried Sambal Long Beans

Darn this post was meant for last week, so here we go again... *keep fingers crossed*

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Just when the sky turned blue and the air is free from haze, blogger decided to go down, well, for maintenance that is - which is a good thing, hence there was no update yesterday. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and everything is safe and sound.

This is a quick filler post... a simple stir-fry dish that could be done in a jiffy. I still have some sambal left behind after the Fried Sambal Beehoon, just enough for a small portion of stir-fry vegetables. I supposed long beans would be a better choice for such stir-fry, other than four angle beans and petai.

Just need to pour in some oil in the wok. Scoop in the sambal and fry till fragrant. Next add in a few limau purut (kaffir lime) leaves which are excellent to lend some ommpphhh to sambal dishes. Add in the long beans and quickly stir to coat them with the sambal. Sprinkle a wee bit of water to cook the long beans. Give the long beans some good stirring and dish up. The sambal I've used is salty enough, hence no salt was needed. Serve hot with plain white rice.

stir-fried sambal long beans

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Saturday 28 October 2006

Test Post

Arrggghhh what's happening with blogger??? Keep hitting the same error message!!!!

Tuesday 24 October 2006

Thursday 19 October 2006

Happy Deepavali

I doubt I would have time to update the next few days since I'm in the midst of office moving relocation. So I'm gonna have this early greetings up.

Wednesday 18 October 2006

Hawker Stalls Behind Yut Kee Restaurant

**Non-Halal Post**


Lane behind Yut Kee01


This is a hand painted picture I found one day dining at Purple Cane Tea Cultural Centre over in Chinese Assembly Hall. I was staring at it and suddenly it came to mind where about is this place. I was there a few days ago chowing down old hawker favourites of my parents era! Yeah the hawkers are located along the lane behind Yut Kee Restaurant in Jalan Dang Wangi have been around that long. My mother had always mentioned the curry laksa here costed her a mere 20 sens then as compared to now, RM3 - RM3.50 a bowl and that was way before I was born ok.

Reminiscing the old times, I brought hubby there one morning. He had only been to Yut Kee but not these hawkers at the back. There are about 8 - 9 stalls located along here and the fares offered ranging from char kuey teow, Penang prawn noodles, loh meen, tau foo far (soy bean curd), curry laksa, chu cheung fun, mee rebus and so forth. These stalls are opened for breakfast and lunch.

Take note of this stall... it's selling Penang style noodles of all sorts as you can see from the signage. I absolutely lurrrveee the loh meen Penang style from here. Take your pick of noodles to be served in a thick but not overly starchy gravy peppered with 5 spice powder. There will be a few generous pieces of pork ribs along with lean meat and braised hard-boiled egg slices. One spoonful of chopped garlic will be served, so its entirely up to you how much to add in. I'm salivating now even by virtue of describing it here haha... best eaten with the chili sauce.

penang stall

This is the prawn noodles that came in a darkish brown broth which is absolutely so Penang haha... Halves prawns, slices of lean meat, loads of pork ribs and a sprinkling of deep fried shallots complete this other than some kangkung and half-boiled egg slices. Each time I will lapped up all the broth... do I need to say more?

prawn mee

Now the first stall at the entrance fries up one of my fave char kuey teow in town. I'm not sure what style is this but it's pretty rare to find this style these days. It's best to be eaten without any addition of eggs and I usually order keuy teow mix with yellow noodles. This kuey teow littered with bits of lard, is slightly wettish and full of charred aroma. I liked the cockles half-cooked and the plump taugeh (bean sprouts) with a bit of crunch. My parents favourite too!

CKT

My dad used to frequent here for the mee rebus which sadly it's no longer tasted as good ever since the original Indian Muslims owner went back to India for good. They sold their stall; lock, stock and barrel; to someone else and some how the recipe must have lost in transition. How sad!

My other love here is the soy bean drink and the tau foo far (soy bean curd). The man selling now has taken over the stall from his dad! You can opt for Michael Jackson which is just soy bean mixed with cincau (black grass jelly) or even a sour plum drink. Anyway, most of these stalls are manned by second generations by now and thank goodness the quality is still maintained.

The wantan noodles here are freshly made right at the stall. No wonder the texture is so different. I never knew about this until I saw them making the noodles one morning whilst walking past the stall.

There is a stall here selling curry laksa and assam laksa. My aunty who has since migrated, loved to order a bowl of mixed laksa but I never tried them though. The stall next to it sells the usual chu cheung fun. Apart from these, there is a new stall selling mixed rice which sees a steady stream of customers packing their rice.

Those days you can order from these stalls freely when you sit inside Yut Kee but at one time Yut Kee were cheesed off with them for not clearing their dishes fast enough that they banned them altogether. These days you could order from the hawkers but Yut Kee imposes a surcharge for that. Some of these stalls are closed on Mondays.

Lane behind Yut Kee02

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Tuesday 17 October 2006

Peachy Cheesecake

peach cheesecake01


By far this is the yummiest and easiest cheesecake I've ever made hahaha well not that I've made that many in the first place. Thumbs up from all guinea pigs.

PEACHY CHEESECAKE

Crust:
150g Digestive biscuit crumbs
110g unsalted butter, melted

Filling:
250g cream cheese, softened
50g caster sugar
50g dairy whipping cream
400g canned peaches, drained and blended into puree
1 1/2 tbsp gelatine powder
2 tbsp water

Crust: Combine digestive biscuit crumbs with melted butter and press into the bottom of a 7" (18cm) loose based pan. Chill in the fridge until firm.

Filling: Beat cream cheese, sugar and whipping cream until smooth. Add in peach puree and mix well.

Mix gelatine powder with water, double-boiled till dissolved and mix into filling mixture. Pour onto crust and chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

Ref: Kelly Tang, 2005, Taste of Cold, Sweet Temptation, Yum Yum Publications Sdn Bhd

I find the melted butter was too much for 150g of crumbs, I had to add 2 more pieces of biscuits to have a less soggy crust. Else, everything was fine. Pictures were lousy even though taken in broad daylight due to hazy skies, duh!

peach cheesecake02

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Friday 13 October 2006

Review: Maredo's Steakhouse

maredo's

We're going for some steaks today over at Maredo's Steakhouse, an Argentinean steakhouse, located in Crown Regency Hotel. Went there for lunch with my colleagues recently after hearing that they serves reasonabily priced set lunches.

Interior on the inner portion of the restaurant is a bit dim with loads of photos, paintings and statues that exude warmth to the large dining area.

maredo1

We checked out the set lunch menu. There were 2 sets, Executive Set Lunch and House Set Lunch. Executive Set Lunch at RM45++ (5% Government Tax and 10% Service Charge) has 4 courses of buffet salad from the salad bar, a soup, main course of either beef steak or fish, dessert of the day and ends with coffee or tea. The House Set Lunch which costed RM24++; consists of buffet salad, 4 choices of main course (beef stew, baked fish fillet, spaghetti and rump steak) to pick from and iced lemon tea. Quite a steal I would say.

Since all of us opted for set lunches, we got to pick our salad from this salad bar.

maredo salad bar

The choices are pretty good and the selections are fresh. From this close-up, let me recall what were the choices, french beans, corns, tomatoes in olive oil, lettuces, cucumber, potato salad, fruits etc etc...

maredo salad bar RM25++

Since there were quite a number of us, we got a mixture of orders. So I'm going to quickly run thru the main courses. The following were the main courses from the House Set Lunch. This is the Grilled Rump Steak with Tomato Chimichurri, Manchego Cheese and Baked Potato. My colleague, Ed gave a thumb up for the presentation haha...

maredo rump steak2

I had the rump steak too, done medium, which turned out good. The meat was tender... just look at the pinkish centre! Literally melt in your mouth. The Tomato Chimichurri made of tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar/lemon juice, garlic and herbs; is a popular sauce used in Argentina lent a refreshing taste to the steak rather than the usual brown or black pepper sauce.

maredo rump steak1

SL's Spaghetti With Chicken and Asparagus. I didn't taste this but the smell that wafted over was great!

maredo pasta

Y's Oven Baked Fish Fillet With Lemon Capers Sauce, Mashed Potatoes and Broccolli. Y said the mash was great but after a few bites and little digging, she noted that the fish was not thoroughly cooked. It was sent back to the kitchen for further cooking. The fish returned looking more tanned and of course cooked.

maredo fish

BamBam and PhatMan ordered the Executive Set that came with a tomato based soup, nothing special there they told us.

maredo soup

Both of them asked for the Grilled Rib-eye With Black Pepper Gravy, Jacket Potato and Vegetables of the day. Looked good to us. In this pic, the potato was missing and it came later.

steak in executive set lunch

Their dessert of the day... a mango mousse I think or was it a pudding. Whatever... PhatMan said it was delicious.

maredo mango mousse

Some of today's pictures were taken with BamBam's new digicam, a Sony DSC-T10. Since it was his first day using the camera, he was still trying to familiarise with the functions and features. I would say it's a pretty nifty little thing.

Maredo's Steakhouse

Crown Regency Service Apartments,
12, Jalan P. Ramlee,
50250 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-2162 8268
Fax: 03-2162 9268
Operating Hours:
Noon - 1am (Mondays - Thursday)
Noon - 2am (Fridays & Saturdays)
5pm - Midnite (Sundays)

Block E-01-02 & E-01-03,
Plaza Mont Kiara,
2, Jalan Kiara,
50480 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel/Fax: 03-6201 3268
Operatings Hours:
Noon - Midnite (Sundays - Thursdays)
Noon - 1am (Fridays - Saturdays)

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A Foodie's Dream Wedding Gown

What would your dream wedding gown look like? Now this is utmost fun... I mean for a foodie like me, fancy wearing a wedding gown made out of cream puffs??? Yeah those delicious CREAM PUFFS made outta flour, sugar, eggs and butter!!!

cream puff wedding gown

Baker, Valentyn Shtefan, from Ukraine made a wedding gown for his bride, Viktoriya using 1,500 cream puffs. Her crown, bouquet and necklace were made from caramelized sugar. Wooohooo... read the full article here.

Wednesday 11 October 2006

Kiddy Menu: Sneaky Pasta Sauce

I don't have much problem with my boiboi when it comes to eating. Except for hard or soft boiled eggs, steamed fish and tasteless food (yeah my boiboi dang smart one, if it's not tasty enough he will politely decline the food after one or two bites!), he virtually whacks everything.
Like most kids, he loves his pizza, pasta (but he always referred them as spaghetti); and being the Chinese boy in him, he likes noodles but black ones as he fondly called them ranging from fried to dry style (kon low) noodles. Just like his daddy and mummy, he's not really fond of plain rice which is good for me since I don't need to crack my head, planning what kind of dishes to cook to go with rice. At times, a simple pasta or pizza would be sufficient to satisfy his little tummy.

Even though I don't have a picky eater, I would like to share this with the mummies and daddies who are having problems getting your kids to eat their vegetables and meat. It's fairly easy to disguise stuff that your picky eaters avoid altogether especially vegetables. Just chop up the vegetables and sneak them into pasta sauce, meat patties (children loved this and so am I haha), pizza, soup, fried rice, omelette and so forth.

This time round, I'll show you how to disguise vegetables and meat into a tomato based pasta sauce. Chopped up some garlic, any combination of vegetables but try to limit them to either two or three choices in one go. Don't get over-zealous haha! Remember to chop or dice them into really tiny pieces. Minced some meat. Do use tender cut. Over here I've used some chicken thigh, not too much else those picky eaters will find them hard to chew.

sneaky pasta ingredients

You can use canned whole tomatoes but usually I liked to chop up some seeded fresh tomatoes. To remove the hardy skin, slit the bottom of the tomatoes slightly in a criss cross manner then dunk them in simmering water for a short while. Remove and voila, you can then peel off the skin easily by peeling the slitted skin from the bottom.

Heat a pan with some olive oil and stir in the garlic. Once fragrant, add in the minced meat. Keep stirring to separate the minced meat as much as possible. You don't want big chunks here. Once slightly browned, pour in the tomatoes. Add some water and simmer. Add in some salt just for taste or you can omit this altogether if you have younger kids. Spoon in some tomato puree or paste to intensify the tomato flavour. You'll need to add in some sugar to counter the acidity of the tomatoes, a couple of tablespoons was sufficient for my pot of sauce. Place in a bay leaf, some basil (can also use dried form) and a few cracks of black pepper. Next add in the vegetables. Just remember that hardy vegetables go in first. Simmer the sauce till thickened and its done!

sneaky pasta sauce

To serve, just boiled pasta of any shapes that fancy your kids (to make it fun, you may use those animals shaped ones) according to instructions on the packet but for my boiboi, I usually cook the pasta a little longer for a softer texture. I noticed my boiboi don't chew his food long enough hence it's better to have softer pasta. What the heck they know about having their pasta al-dente anyway??? *tongue*

Spoon the slightly cooled sauce over the drained pasta. Sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top and see your picky eaters' eyes literally lit up when you serve to them! Mine did!!!

Hope you'll find this useful, or you may wanna try this Carrot and Potato Cheese Omelette, enjoy!

sneaky macaroni


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Tuesday 10 October 2006

Fried Sambal BeeHoon

fried sambal beehoon02

I was on leave sometime back and all alone at home. Got hungry late afternoon but was too lazy to go out to grab a bite. Rummaged thru my fridge and larder, looked like I could cook something for myself after all.

From my fridge I took out a bottle of sambal that my mom gave me. I'm not sure what's inside but I deducted that dried shrimps, dried chillies and belacan must be the main ingredients. Soaked some beehoon (rice vermicelli). Sliced some shallots and julienne a bit of carrot and cucumber each.

Out came the wok and heated some oil in it. Chucked in the shallots and fried till translucent. Scooped in some sambal and fried till fragrant. Stirred in the carrots and cucumber. Seasoned with salt (taste first as sometimes the sambal could be salty enough). The soaked beehoon went in next and gave them a good stir before pouring some water inside. I let them simmer till fairly dry before giving the beehoon some good stirring and dish up when completely dry.

Served with some shredded omelette. Yummy!!!

fried sambal beehoon01

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Friday 6 October 2006

More Vegetarian Fare From Blue Boy Food Centre

Since today is 15th of the lunar 8th month, here are a few more pictures of the vegetarian fare served at Blue Boy Food Centre.

This is how the char kuey teow looks like but this plate is a mixture of kuey teow (flat rice noodles) and yellow noodles. Not very oily and well coated with eggs (if you're a Vegan, please tell them to spare the eggs) with loads of beans sprouts and vegetarian fishcake.

blue boy - ckt

To accompany chee cheung fun (flat rice noodles), there are at least 5 to 6 types of yong tau foo (stuffed beancurd or vegetables, 60 sens a piece) for you to pick, ranging from bitterguord, brinjal, beancurd, foo chuk, meatball, red chillies and ladiesfinger. Best to be topped off with fragrant toasted sesame seeds over the bean and chilli sauce.

blue boy - ccf wid ytf

I tell you this is the one and only place in Kuala Lumpur so far that serves limau ais/panas (hot/cold calamansi) with three whole limau kasturi (calamansi)!!!! Another time I was there, I found four!!! Usually at the mamak stalls the most is just one or at the best two. Needless to say it's one of the most flavourful limau ais/panas I ever enjoyed.

blue boy - limau ais

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Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

Dear readers and friends,

Wishing you and your family a Happy and Joyous Mid-Autumn Festival. For the adults, do enjoy the moon (not sure can be viewed or not since it's so hazy) and the mooncakes! As for the children, have fun playing and burning the lanterns haha

paper lantern fish lantern boiboi wid lantern1

Here are the legend, poems, and how to make your own mooncake (recipe not tested haha).

My previous postings:
Yuan Xiao Festival
Mid-Autumn Festival Part 1
Mid-Autumn Festival Part 2
Mid-Autumn Festival Part 3

Mid-Autumn Festival Part 4
Mid-Autumn Festival Part 5
Review: Bakerzins Mini Snowskin Mooncake
Review: Mooncake from Lavender Cake Shop

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Thursday 5 October 2006

Review: We're Going Ducky Duck Today!!!

**Non-Halal Post**

Yay! I finally got the pictures haha yeah so that I can post this up to intro another place for yummy roast duck! It's one of my fave place for reasonabily priced roasted meat far cheaper than Meng Kee and the siew yoke stall opposite QQ Car Accessories Shop in Pudu. Soon Fatt Beijing Roasted Duck is located under the zinc roof along Jalan Pasar. It's right at the end of the row of shophouses that sell all those electronics stuff. Behind this stall used to be a petrol kiosk which now spots signage that mention "Restoran Sure Good Delight". If you're lost, just look for Pusat Makanan Peng Hwa, a large hawker centre along Jalan Pasar, Soon Fatt is just opposite this hawker centre.

This is one of the banner found in this stall, check out the logo haha a duck wearing a crown. Apparently Huai Bin of SixthSeal had visited this place sometime back. Check out his entry here. The first picture is how Soon Fatt looked like from Jalan Pasar.

soon fatt - banner

I went with 9 other colleagues so we ordered a bit of every roasted meat they have. The boss whom I used to see chopping up meats is running around settling patrons and taking orders! He had gotten more help these days. I can see more ducks hanging from the display too! Business must be so good these days.

They have this Sesame Roasted Duck which is currently on offer - half duck for RM13, RM24 for one whole duck. All I have to say is the sesame studded skin is very crispy and the meat is tender. Can detect some five spice powder when I sucked on the bones. Superb indeed. Err sorry for the missing pieces of duck on the plate. My hungry colleagues on the other side of the table attacked them before I had a chance to shoot a pic.

soon fatt - ji mah siew ngap

The following pic showed Roasted Chicken on the left and the Beijing-styled Roasted Duck on the right. The chicken is pretty normal but the duck meat is moist and full of meat unlike some places where the duck is dry and full of bones. Again the skin is crispy because Soon Fatt tends to do a quick deep-fry of the duck just before chopping and serving to patrons. I can't really differentiate what's the difference with the duck done Beijing style and the normal ones but some kind of herbs can be tasted.

soon fatt - siew kai & siew ngap

Everyone loved the char siu (barbeque pork)!!! The fat and meat portion is pretty balanced out with the outsides not overly charred. Sweetish but NOT sickly sweet like Meng Kee! A winner here as with the Roasted Pork (siew yuk). Crispy skin, snowy white fat layers with tender meat, very yummy indeed. If you feel a little adventurous, you can try making your own siew yuk, the recipe can be found here.

soon fatt - char siew n siew yuk

All these yummy roasted meat were served with a huge portion of yau farn (rice cooked in chicken broth, garlic, ginger and sometimes margarine) and I really mean huge ok...! They have tzuen lart ghai choy (mustard green cooked with loads of left over meats and assam keping) which we did not order. I had them previously and they tasted pretty good with the right amount of zing.

Price wise, Soon Fatt is pretty reasonable... all the above with 10 portions of rice and 9 glasses of herbal tea costed RM99.70. What do you think?

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Tuesday 3 October 2006

Review: Mooncake from Lavender Cake Shop

lavender mooncake box

I have been hearing about how good the mooncakes were from this particular bakery located in Johor since a few years back. I'm sorry but I do not have much details about this bakery except for the name, Lavender Cake Shop. I always hear the Johoreans ranted about how delicious the mooncakes were from this shop and got quite frustrated when the person whom introduced to me refused to courier me a box hahaha errrmmm long story! Nevermind, I finally got to try when I saw a Lavender mooncake promo stall at Jusco, 1 Utama. Since it was near closing, I did not managed to try or get anything.

When hubby was at Jusco, Mid Valley Megamall, I got him to buy me one pure lotus seeds paste from Lavender just for the sake of trying. Well, my verdict was the mooncake was very very good indeed for a traditional mooncake. In the Cantonese terms of "phei pok harm leng" literally translated as thin pastry with delicious fillings. Check out how thin and even the pastry were wrapping the smooth and shiny lotus seeds paste. The paste is slightly on the sweet side but seriously not as sickly sweet as compared to the local traditional bakery like Yook Woo Hin or Kum Lun Tai.

lavender pure lotus seeds paste

I'm not really sure if I'm going to try out the other flavours from Lavender since it can only be obtained from Jusco stores in Taman Maluri, 1 Utama, Mid Valley Megamall and Metro Prima in Kuala Lumpur. Quite a hassle I would say if I need to go all way out for them. Not that I'm a huge fan of mooncakes and there is one box lying at home given to us as a gift at the moment. It's gonna take hubby and I quite some time to chow them all down. I remember there was one year when were newly married, we kept one box of them in our frige for one whole year before we start to eat them!!! *shudders* PLUS I just found out that one mooncake has about 1000 freaking calories!!!

I was told Lavender has yet to be certified halal, so Muslims just check the stores for confirmation. Mid-Autumn Festival falls on this Friday, so how was your preparation?

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Monday 2 October 2006

Dory Slices in Orange Sauce

dory slices in orange sauce

Not that I really fancy the taste of frozen dory fish but sometimes it's great to keep some in the fridge for emergency. I find that it's better to deep fry the fish even that will not keep the "muddy" (not sure how to describe) taste away at times.

Usually I will slice the dory into smaller slices. Marinade them in some soy sauce, white pepper, ginger juice and some cooking wine (optional). Before deep frying, mix in some corn flour. Fry till golden brown. In a separate pan, boil some orange juice with water. Add in seasonings like salt, sugar and black pepper. Once done, pour over the deep fried dory slices and serve hot with white rice. Sometimes, I will use lemon juice.

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Blog Revamping

Hello... I'm in the midst of revamping my blog to make my life a little easier. So do not be alarmed as work is still under construction.

Cheers,
Babe_KL
16 Oct 2012