Satay Peanut Dipping Sauce

Phew... it has been a while! The week started real fast and the first few days of the week went by in a swoosh! Hubby celebrated his birthday earlier this week. So really, the chaos was all about me trying to have a plan laid out for the mini celebration that we had over his birthday lol. A plan - one with a cake as the clock struck 12 in the midnight, a hearty breakfast to start off his day and a dinner plan on the big day itself.

Well I guess I must have planned too big a plan for me to handle comfortably. That few days prior, during and a day after pretty much witnessed myself working non-stop around the clock. It wasn't like I was preparing a party for tens or hundreds. In fact, apart from a dine-out dinner with a couple of close friends of ours, the rest was basically a mini celebration with just the two of us in the picture.

So then what was the chaos all about really?

Well, that was me dealing with plenty of my FIRSTs in preparing all his favorite dishes. You know, that pressure that builds up when you have zero experience in hand, and you have a plan that you so wished that it would not go wrong in any ways, all within a specific time frame. Stressed! I guess I'm never the right candidate who works particularly well under pressure lol. But but but... the plan went on well, and the birthday man had a good time (and a big feast, of course!). Phew phew...

the many different ingredients in the sauce making

The whole thing was... taxing. So taxing I slept so exceptionally well every single night! And then - I got unwell. Arghhh! What a week in life! And I slept even more. Right until today! I woke up feeling great, and I'm as fit as a fiddle now! So, I'm back!

Back to the birthday celebration. This satay peanut dipping sauce was really just a small part of it. It comes on the side alongside the main character that it always pairs best with - the chicken satay! Which was of course, hubby's all-time big favorite! And then there was the green tea castella mini cakes - not particularly anyone's favorite; the decision to make it just hit me - totally randomly. And then there's also a dessert to end it all - the durian freeze! Woohooo! lol.

the green tea castella mini cakes 

As small as the dipping sauce seems and sounds, I sweated over its making like none others. Another FIRST aside, my biggest issue was that I hadn't got a ready-for-use recipe in hand. Searching hi and lo over the websites and flipping through whatever cookbooks that I had with me, deciding and securing a recipe was proven to be even harder a task. Each looks awesome judging from just how they are presented, but then again no two recipes were close enough for me to securely feel safe with settling on either one.

Eventually I did. This is a recipe developed from the one featured by Kitchen Tigress in her post on How to Make Chicken Satay & Peanut Sauce. A recipe originated from The Best of Singapore Cooking  cookbook by Leong Yee Soo, it adapted a method somewhat unique and different from plenty others (in which it involves parboiling the peanuts). This sauce turned out really great! Fragrant and packed with a good crunch in every spoonful, it came with the right reddish hue so attractive it's such a delight to even just have it on its own. With a little tweak to make it slightly spicier (all a personal preference yes), I reckoned that this is definitely a recipe worth noting down (and a feature) and keeping!

And a final note - I made it a point to make a lot more than what I actually needed for those chicken satay that we had over a few days (probably about 30 skewers in total? Oh, and they were jumbo skewers btw lol). That allows for a really generous dipping with each skewer, not forgetting the cucumber/onion sides that came accompanying them.

So please do adjust the amount according to what you essentially need... and you're pretty much set to go!

Next up: The chicken satay!

Homemade Pineapple Jam - Chinese New Year Series

A short break from mom's recipe lol. I officially started my Chinese New Year baking just few days back. Our first year of celebrating it together here in the State, it's a a huge break from the usual family tradition of ours growing up. But that also marks the start to our very own family tradition here. No special plan, just a simple reunion dinner perhaps, and a relaxing weekend lazying away lol. We may have some friends over to make it a little merrier, but that's about it. So apart from the small family reunion dinner to think of (or a medium one with friends), I have another 10 days to go, free and easy!

Not going back has come with a price to pay too. That means a no to all the non-stop feasting back in our hometown, a no to a good chance for family and friends to get together and do crazy stuff together, and a no to all the special delicacies that you will only get to see and taste especially on a big festive season like this. The Chinese New Year cookies easily top the "Food that I shall Miss the Most" list of mine lol. To make things worse, I have never actually seen them sold anywhere around where we live here. So sad... So if you want it, then make it yourself! To make up for the rather low-key, unusual, fresh and out-of-the-norm idea of celebration that we will be having this year, I made a vow to make us feel good and at least contented with the decision of us to stay put this year. And I SHALL bake my own batches of cookies! Well lets just hope that the motivation won't dim off any moment soon lol.

I don't remember ever taking baking this seriously in the past. I'm not one who's so into festive baking. But I do bake for fun especially at times when it's least expected of me. This, however, is a whole different scenario. At least I myself am expecting something out of it as the New Year approaches lol. My very first attempt this year - the pineapple tarts! Whoa! Sounds like a big project! And it is! But honestly if I should just make do with one single type of cookies this year, it will have to be these tarts! I'm such a big fan that thinking about not having it for another year has sufficed in getting me started. Seriously! lol. And now I regret not learning it from Jin, a housemate of mine, when she made us all a batch when we celebrated that year's Chinese New Year back in Glasgow. And I regret not paying my full attention and helping my mom-in-law when she made that just a year ago when we were back in Malaysia.

Well then the Internet it is! This is a recipe I got from Wendy at Table For 2.....or More - the ever reliable source for cooking ideas and recipes! And sure enough, despite the hectic process with plenty of time invested and some hiccups in between, the pineapple jam turned out perfect! So good I could already picture how gooey and nice they will be when wrapped in the dough for the tarts soon, real soon! Now fingers crossed that the dough will turn out just as perfectly as this!

Homemade Crispy Fried Shallots 香酥红葱头油

Sweeter and milder than onions, shallots are often indispensable in an Asian kitchen. They are the essentials when it comes making making certain marinades, curry pastes, sauces and the various kinds of sambal, not forgetting its role as the very basic component to define certain dishes. Just like the garlic and ginger, shallot is what I personally think of as something elementary hardly substitutable with any others. Onions? Probably yea in some ways, but definitely not in others. They may give you a similar texture almost comparable between the two, but there always will be the fragrant exlusively coming from the shallots that will be slightly missing in the end. And very much thanks to their extraordinarily sweet nature, shallots make an awesome garnishing when thinly sliced and fried to perfect crispness. This is definitely one of the many popular garnishes that I easily adore.

It took me more than a single or a couple of trials before I was convinced that mine actually looked somewhat presentable and acceptable. From choosing the good shallots to begin with, rinsing and draining, slicing all the way to frying them up in the end, each comes with its own challenges needing a little more than just some tender light care to make it right. Making fried shallots generally takes a little more time than frying the other aromatics like the garlic and ginger, but fried shallot are good to be kept up to a week when store appropriately. So despite the little hassle, you will be rewarded with something that will keep you going for at least a little while. They are good to go with plenty dishes - the fried rice, fried noodles, bowl of noodle soups, steamed rice noodles rolls 猪肠粉 or some snacks even like the steamed yam cake 芋头糕. They simply really do make everything better. And a last note - as precious as these shallot crisps are, the resulting shallot oil makes an extraordinarily good essence on its own with an infused natural fragrance. Have them substituting the cooking oil or drizzle lightly over some dishes and you will be surprised with how it gives yet another dimension to the dishes, accentuating their flavor and taste easily. 

Ginger and Garlic Chili Sauce 姜蒜辣椒酱

This is one real simple, non-elaborated version of the ginger and garlic chili sauce that goes exceptionally well with especially the Hainanese chicken rice. Adapted from Steamy Kitchen, the recipe calls for chili, ginger, garlic, some lime/lemon juice, sugar and water. Basic few ingredients that are readily available in most typical Chinese pantries and despite it using the ready made Sriracha chili sauce rather than blending it from scratch, I must stress here that the end result is unbelievably spectacular. It is very much like how I have always liked it dining out, only better. This comes way spicier (directly correlated with how much Sriracha you reckon you can tolerate) and not even half as watery as those you sometimes get outside. Tangy, slightly salty with a tad of sweetness, this makes a good dipping sauce for plenty other masterpieces - steamed or pan fried yam cake, noodles or even a part of the many dipping sauces commonly served alongside the Chinese steamboat, pulling everything together perfectly well.

Chinese Cilantro Scallion Dipping Sauce 芫茜姜葱油

This is a dipping sauce that I have come to love ever since I first had it at the house of my brother's mother-in-law. She made this to serve alongside the poached chicken that she made for dinner that very night, more commonly known as the 白切鸡 in Chinese, literally means the white sliced chicken. While I have never been a big fan of chickens served that way, I definitely had a little more than my fair share that very night, all thanks to the dipping sauce that paired so very well with the dish. My perception towards the dish took a change for the better that night after, and noticing my change in taste, mom soon started re-creating the same at home, which I truly loved all the same, if not any more. 

Cilantro is one of the many things that I have come to accept and adore only many years later in my life. I definitely had hated them when I was a kid, for a while too long in fact. As with plenty others - the eggplants, bitter gourds, beansprouts, cockles, green beans (man, that really is a lot! lol), cilantro, ginger and a whole lot other spices especially those with distinct pungent flavors are those that I had never learned to appreciate then. I probably can never explain what changed me over time, or more specifically my taste perceptions towards these. Whatever about them that disgusted me back then, they certainly no longer are these days. Acquired taste? Very likely indeed.

Moving here, both poached and steamed chickens are some of the few that I do enjoy making every now and then at home. I had since been trying endlessly to re-create this dipping sauce myself, having gotten verbal instructions from mom through the phone even. Sadly each time they were not even close to the one that made me fell in love with in the very first place. So with each try and disappointment, adjustments were done and after bouts of trials and errors, this is what I could finally bring myself to agree with. 

cilantro, spring onion, ginger and garlic

Having reserved a big half portion of the poached chicken I made earlier for the Ipoh Bean Sprouts Chicken 芽菜鸡, this dipping sauce was all that I needed to prepare to serve alongside the leftover chicken, creating yet another scrumptious meal on another night. With just a few basic ingredients, chopping was probably what took the most energy and time out of me to get this done. With that taken care, everything else came easily after that. Apart from the usual ginger garlicky dipping sauce that is often seen served with chickens prepared these ways, this is one that will guarantee a satisfaction, definitely worth a fair try.