Dinner Lately…

This is another dish that I miss from home. My grandma used to make this dish with jumbo shrimps, but I’m using vegetarian shrimps instead. You can also use cubed firm tofu instead. This dish can be eaten with rice, pasta or couscous. 

Ingredients

Method

1. Place cubed tofu or shrimps on paper towels to soak up excess water.
2. Cook half the amount of chopped garlic and tofu or shrimps in 2 T oil until semi-browned. Remove from wok and place on paper towel to drain excess oil.
3. Using the remaining oil in the wok, saute the remaining chopped garlic, green pepper, jalapeno or red pepper and tomatoes for about 2 minutes. Add mushrooms and the cooked shrimps or tofu to the wok.
4. Pour ketchup, chili sauce and sugar to the vegetables in the wok. Turn the heat down. Season with salt and/or soy sauce or perhaps maybe more sugar if the ketchup or tomatoes are sour.
5. Remove from heat and devour immediately.

This post is long overdue. Let me apologize first hand for the long hiatus. I need to take break from the kitchen and posting after this massive project…

I made pineapple jam cookies on top of the peanut cookies for Chinese New Year this year, and packed them in neat little lined boxes and tied with red bows as souvenirs when we went to “bai nian” in Toronto. It’s a Chinese custom to bring something to someone’s house when you visit them during the Lunar New Year and being empty-handed is a very rude thing to do. You will be given some other asupicious goodies in return, such as Mandarin oranges, dried mushrooms, “fatt choy” (dehydrated hair seaweed), cookies, etc.

The pineapple jam rolls were made using Jo’s famous recipe. The jam itself took 6 hours to make, then chilled overnight before rolling them into little balls. The pastry dough was easy but the entire process took 4 weeknights and it was a much bigger project that I had expected it to be. I was really glad that they turned out amazing. They were worth every little second of late nights and needless to say, they were a big hit at my office too. I’ll make sure that I plan ahead of time the next time I make these, because as yummy as they were, my eyebags were not that flattering when I wake up to go to work with less than 5 hours of sleep that week.

Anyway, I was really glad that we bought the Kitchenaid 12-cup food processor last year. Shredding the pineapples were a breeze with the shredding blade that came in the box. That in itself really paid off the hefty pricetag of the machine, me thinks The ingredients in the dough were first mixed with the dough hooks in the food processor. Also, a friend from a forum online told me that it would be much faster to thicken the jam with a little bit of “mak nga tong” or maltose sugar, which I was not able to find here. Maybe some honey, maple syrup or even pectin might work, but it still worked out for me without adding anything else (I’ve never tried using pectin, but it’s a popular ingredient in homemade jams …) . Just a lot of patience and time will do the trick

Ingredients

Pineapple Jam

• 2 medium-size very ripe pineapples, grated
• 300 grams superfine sugar
• Some cinnamon and star anise (optional)

Tart Pastry

•  300g butter, cut into little cubes
• 130g margarine
• 100g icing sugar
• 80g milk powder
• 1 egg
• 600g superfine/cake flour
• 30 g custard powder

Method

Pineapple Jam 

1. Cook grated pineapples in a pot with sugar, stirring occasionally.
2. Cook until the pineapple jam starts to thicken into a thick jam consistency and starts to leave the sides of the pot.
3. Remove from stove and set aside to cool overnight or cool enough to handle with bare hands.
4. Roll jam into small balls. Cover with Cling-wrap to prevent overdrying.

Tart Pastry

1. Preheat oven to170-180C / 350F deg.
2. Cream butter and margarine until light and fluffy. (I used my mixer for this. Make sure that the butter an margarine are chilled and not at room temperature.)
3. Add egg and beat well.
4. Sift icing sugar, flour, custard powder and milk powder into the mixture. (I sifted these in a separate bowl and add them to the butter and margarine in the food processor 1 cup at a time.)
5. Fold to incorporate all ingredients to form a smooth pastry dough. (I remove the dough from the food processor and kneaded the dough future with my hands to make sure that all the dry ingredients are incorporated evenly. The dough should still be cool to the touch.)
6. If making pineapple jam rolls, place some pastry dough into the mould and pipe a long strip onto your workspace. Sprinkle some flour onto the workspace so that the dough does not stick onto the surface. (I found that the butter and margarine were breaking down fast from the heat of my hands, so you might want to save the dough in the fridge and work in portions because of this. I also was not able to find the “nestar” mould that is typically used for this, so I used a large basketweave piping tip and a piping bag to accomplish this.)
7. Place a jam ball onto the dough strip and roll to completely enclose the jam ball. Continue rolling the jam balls with the dough until finished. Brush the rolls with egg wash and bake on a greased lined baking sheet for 20 mins or until golden. Cool on wire rack.
8. If making pineapple jam tarts, roll the dough to approximately 0.7cm thickness. Using a tart mould, cut the dough into out and place them onto a baking sheet. Brush a layer of egg wash and bake for 10 minutes.

9. Remove the semi-baked tarts from the oven and spoon the pineapple jam in the center of the tart. Bake for another 10 mins and them cool on wire rack.

10. The easiest way to finish this project is to roll the dough out into small circles and place thejam balls in the center. Roll the dough with your hands to completely enclose the jam ball and adorn the balls with one clove, so that it looks like a small orange. Brush with egg wash and bake for 20 mins and then cooled on the wire rack.

I’ve wanted to try this spicy + sweet + sour recipe that I’ve whipped up several months ago for quite some time now, but I wasn’t able to gather all of the ingredients until today. A friend from the Malaysian bridal forum had posted a non-vegetarian version of this and I can just feel my saliva glands activating as I read her recipe. Because the regular version called for dried shrimps and shallots, and also a special ingredient called “laksa flower” which I cannot find here in Detroit/Windsor, I had to be extra creative when it comes to substituting. As usual, I never measure anything, so I would encourage those who try my recipe to adjust to suit their taste.

I found out that “kerabu” simply means “salad”, Thai version. The ingredients are quite similar to my Mango Salsa recipe that I’ve posted wayyy back when I started this blog. Although some may say that this is a Thai recipe, but I prefer to associate it with my home country, Malaysia

As usual, I never measure anything, so I would encourage those who try my recipe to adjust to suit their taste.

1. Cook beehoon (rice vermicelli) in hot water. I prefer pouring boiled water on the softened beehoon that has been pre-soaked in tap water in a bowl or container rather than cooking them in a pot over the heat. This always results in a wad of annoying strands of noodles. Drain and set aside.
2. Chop the following and set aside:
   • Tomatoes
   • Fresh basil leaves
   • Cilantro
   • Cili padi (bird’s eye chili) or “Thai hot” chili
3. Deep fry the following ingredient and set aside:
   • Sliced firm tofu (to replace the real jumbo shrimps that you can get in Malaysia)
   • Vegetarian dried “shrimp” or diced vegetarian ham
4. Pan roast the following and set aside:
   • Vegetarian belacan powder (until fragrant but not burnt)
   • Coconut flake (until semi browned)
5. Because I cannot find fresh lemon grass here, I bought a tube of lemon grass paste and stir fried my deep-fried tofu in it, since the tofu has no taste anyway. Set this aside.
6. Season the noodle salad with the following to taste:
   • Soy sauce
   • Lime/lemon juice
   • Lemon zest
   • Sambal paste (I have homemade ones in jars that I brought from home). Otherwise, just cook blended red chilies with belacan powder and sugar a head of time.
   • Salt, pepper, and sugar if needed. (My coconut flakes were sweetened, so there was no need for sugar)
   • Fish sauce, if using. (Generally, my substitute for fish sauce were soy sauce + sugar + a drop of seaweed paste for fishy-ness, or soy sauce + sushi rice vinegar + sugar).
7. Toss all the ingredients that has been set aside in a big bowl with the cooked beehoon. You can reserve some of the coconut flakes to sprinkle on the salad just prior to serving.
8. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

This is one of Malaysians’ all time favorite. I made the sambal using some pre-made sambal paste that my aunt had prepared for me back at home, and added brown sugar (palm sugar would be better) and salt to season them just right. For some twang, you can also add tamarind juice. The hard boil eggs were deep-fried after the shells are removed. For the sambal, I did not want to use shallots (they are quite pricey in US/Canada as well), so I sliced some celery and caramelized them in the pan until they soften and turn slightly brown. While the taste of onions were absent, the texture were quite similar to the real thing. The deep-fried hard boiled eggs were added to the sambal mixture after the sambal is done.

The sambal paste is quite simple. Pan roast vegetarian belacan powder and curry leaves in a wok until fragrant. Stir in blended chilies. Oil is added to the mixture and then cooked until the oil separates from the mixture. We simply store them in jars after the mixture is cooled. This mixture works really well in Prawn Noodle (Mee Yoke) soup with lots of roasted seaweed or seaweed paste that can be bought from the store.

Since we had leftover curry from a few days ago, I made a simple green bean and tofu stiryfry to compliment the meal.

For the anchovies (ikan bilis) I experimented with shredded mushroom stems that were coated with bean flour seasoned with salt and mushroom flavouring (corn flour can be used) and then deep-fried as well. The peanuts were pan roasted with some oil. The “fake anchovies” and peanuts were then tossed with a sprinkle of salt.

I ran out of pappadums, otherwise, this was pretty close to home!

(a.k.a. Keling Mee)

This is one of my fondest memories of my mom’s cooking. My mom doesn’t cook often when I was growing up, dad’s usually the one who’s in charge of the kitchen

This is probably my best fried noodle dish thus far, we’ll see

Ingredients
Curry paste (cili boh paste will work as well)
Yellow noodles (yau meen / oily noodles)
Red curry powder paste (add a few tbsp of water to the curry powder, set aside)
Tomatoes, quartered
Choy sam or any green leafy vegetables, cut to 2.5″ lengths
Tau foo pok, sliced (you can use any firm tofu as substitute)
Eggs, beaten
Ketchup
Salt
Soy sauce
Sugar
Lemon / Lime juice
Cilantro, chopped to garnish

Method

1. Rinse the yellow noodles and tau foo pok in hot water. If you are using firm tofu, you can skip the rinsing part. Drain the noodles and tau foo pok.
2. Slice the tau foo pok or tofu.
3. In a hot wok, heat up the curry paste in a few tablespoons of hot oil.
4. When the curry is fragrant, add in the sliced tofu or tau foo pok. You may need to add a bit more oil to coat the wok since the tofu may absorb some of the oil.
5. Once the tofu is seared / browned, add the quartered tomatoes.
6. Cook the tomatoes until they start to soften. Then add the green leafy vegetables into the wok.
7. The vegetables will start to wilt. Add the loosened noodles into the wok and mix in with the rest of the ingredients. Allow the noodles to cook for a few minutes.
8. Make a circle in the middle of the wok and pour in the beaten eggs. Let the eggs semi- solidify before stirring in the rest of the ingredients.
9. Stir in the red curry powder paste as needed. Add in a few teaspoons of ketchup also. You may want to only use ketchup if you choose to tone down the spiciness.
10. Stir the content of the wok evenly.
11. Season with salt, sugar, and soy sauce. Let the contents cook until the moisture has been absorbed.
12. Serve with a wedge of lemon / lime and chopped cilantro.
13. Squeeze the lemon /lime onto the noodles prior to digging in.

Notes
You can pan sear some shrimps on the side if you choose to make a non-vegetarian version. Tofu can be substituted with sliced / shredded chicken breast. Nonetheless, I’m an advocate for vegetarianism.

Tomato paste, sambal belacan, coconut milk, brown/palm sugar, salt & pepper.