Monday, April 21, 2008
Roti Prata & Fish Curry
I wasnt feeling too good this weekend. Had a bad ache in my head and neck. Somewhat similar to tension headaches so i was ordered to have full bed rest and my craving for Fish curry with roti prata was fulfilled solely by my husband!
The fish curry recipe was given by Shaila.Thank you dear! It was really tasty and the fact that my husband who tried cooking all by himself for the very first time was able to do it, it was surely not very complicated.
We used Salmon fish, coated it in a masala mix and fried it before adding it to the gravy to prevent it from disintegrating. It yielded just the perfect touch! The roti prata/canai was purchased from Frukt huset. Thank god they at least have these here! It comes in handy especially with curries and dhalls.
Here a glimpse of one of my favourite dishes:
Sayur Lodeh
We had bought glutinious rice cakes from the malmo bus as Alvin felt like having Lontong. I got the Sayur Lodeh Recipe from Fayvier and tried it this weekend. I couldnt get many of the ingredients here so i substituted them with some i could.
Sayur lodeh is a coconut gravy based curry.Needless to say the fat content is high but its equally tantalising... so once in a while its ok to indulge i suppose :P
One serving is definitely not gonna be enough ;)
Red Bean Soup
Recently my neighbour Serene made some Red bean soup. Felt like having a sweet treat like ice cream and stuff but decided to go with a healthier option instead.Serene said it was a easy process. Simply boiling red beans in water til they soften, adding sugar and then blending it to a smooth paste like texture and you're done!
So i tried it and after some 3 hours, my sweet and delicious treat was ready to be served.Bits of unblended beans reminded me of the potong ice cream we have back home :)i could have frozen the red bean paste and made myself an ice cream too!
sighz...when you are away from home you miss the simplest things life has to offer.But looking on the brighter side, its only when things are not easily available that you attempt to recreate them and learn to cherish them.
In the process i m learning how to cook dishes which otherwise i would never have thought of attempting as they would have simply been a walk away.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Carrot cake
I have been missing Singapore and home a whole lot since i moved here. But i have learnt to accept things and move on. I know certain things gotta give and i thank god my move is just a temporary one unlike some of my cousins who have to move out of SG for good to settle overseas.
Well so since i cant have everything i miss about singapore except for some things :) like my old favourite... Carrot cake. I used to have Carrot cakes and Roti prata for breakfast on weekends.So when i heard that some of the fellow singaporean wives were able to make it here, i decided to give it a try. My dear neighbour serene was going out of town and she had all the ingredients required so the kind soul passed them to me ;)hehe
I made my very own! It is a long process but it was well worth the wait. All i needed were radish, rice flour, water, chye poh, scallions salt, pepper etc
I had to make paste of the radish, water and rice flour and steam it til it set.Then it had to be cooled in the fridge. After 11 hours, i managed to cut them into cubes and prepare the rest of the ingredients and fry it!
Of course it could never have replaced the ones the skilled hawkers sell back in SG but well it was close enough to satisfy my desire for now :P
Egg Sambal
Eggs are most likely the cheapest protein filled food sources available. They have numerous ways of cooking the egg, poaching, frying etc and hard boiling is one of them. My hubby is away and i have 2 cartons of eggs lying around so i decided to try making Tamarind Egg Sambal.When you cook for someone else, you try to add more to the dish but i only have myself to please these weeks. :) I thought i'd give it a try and if it turns out well,i'll repeat it when he gets back...
All i did was take 3 onions, 3 cloves of garlic and some dried chillies... i added 3 chilli padi's as i like mine HOT! I blended the ingredients to form a smooth paste.Then i took 250ml of warm water and dissolved some tamarind in them. I hard boiled the eggs and deshelled them. I fried the eggs til they turned slightly brown and had a crispy outlook to their otherwise white smooth outer layer.
I also fried some potatoes which were cut in 1 inch cubes. Remove the eggs and add in the blended ingredients.Add some salt and sugar and then the tamarind juice and eggs. Bring to a boil and you're ready to go! It turned out tasty and i could enjoy it guilt free because besides the little canola oil i used, it was a healthy meal.
The good thing abt this is you can cook it just for one person or an entire group of guests :)
