Easy Mocha Cake

I got this recipe from the internet but could not remember where. I was looking for an easy cake recipe to make and this particular one caught my eye. The original recipe was a cappucino cake but I changed it to mocha, replacing part of the coffee with cocoa. The cake turned out well and my daughters love it.

Ingredients
1 sponge cake (you can buy or bake)
250ml condensed milk
250ml water
2 tbsp instant coffee
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp gelatine

Method
1. Let gelatine bloom in water for about 10mins
2. Heat up gelatine+water mixture and once gelatine dissolves, add instant coffee and cocoa powder. Stir well till dissolved and no lumps
3. Turn heat off, add condensed milk and stir till well blended
4. Place sponge cake in a baking tin, pour mixture into baking tin
5. Chill in the fridge till set
6. Take the set cake out of the baking tin and frost it with whipping cream or buttercream if you like with chocolate flakes

Note: Use baking tin and NOT a cake ring

If you want to make a cappunico cake, replace the cocoa powder with instant coffee.

Potato with Tuna in Ginger & Soy

We had porridge for dinner today and I came up with this dish for my girls :D A very easy but pretty tasty dish suitable for kids. Nothing fancy, just potatoes, mixed vege and a can of heinz Tuna in Ginger & Soy.

This is the tuna that I used. You can get it Cold Storage easily if you can't find it at NTUC or other supermarket. Cold Storage is having an offer at $1.85 per can.

Ingredients

3 medium local potatoes, cubed
100gm mixed vege
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
1 can Heinz Tuna in Ginger & Soy
oil for frying

Method

1. Fry the potatoes till golden brown and put aside
2. Fry garlic and onions till soft and slightly brown
3. Add mixed vege and stir till cooked
4. Add potatoes and mix well
5. Dish out the potato/mix vege mix on a plate and top it with tuna flakes
6. Mix tuna and potatoes well and serve immediately

Green Tea Red Bean Flaky Mooncake

I finally got hold of a mooncake making book recommeded by Elaine from KC yesterday. This book has 33 recipes ranges from chilled mooncake to agar-agar version.

Seriously if you ask me, I do not know how good the recipes are since this is the first time I am making it. However the one I just made tasted pretty alright to me. Also based on the ingredients of the other recipes, they look pretty good.

My virgin attempt in making mooncake :D I still have not bought the mooncake mould, so I chose this one since it doesn't require one. Ok, this particular one that I have just made is supposed to have durian lotus seed paste. Since I only have red bean paste in my fridge, I used it but regretted for not adding melon seeds. I think it would have tasted even better.

The inside of the mooncake

Ingredients

A. Water Dough
100gm plain flour (the book put medium protein flour)
25gm castor sugar
40gm shortening
40gm water

B. Oil Dough
1 tsp bakeable green tea powder (I got this from Phoon Huat)
100gm plain flour (the book put medium protein flour)
40gm shortening
15gm butter

Filling
Red bean paste

OR you can use the durian and lotus seed paste

250gm lotus seed paste
25gm durian paste
25gm melon seeds/kuaci
3 salted egg yolk, halved

1. Mix lotus seed paste, durian paste and melon seeds evenly and cut into 6 equal portion of about 50gm each

Method

1. Blend ingredient A till the dough is smooth. Divide into 3 portions and rest for 10 min
2. Blend ingredient B till it becomes a dough and divide into 3 portions
3. Flatten A and wrap B in it and roll into a rectangular shape
4. Roll it up like a swissroll, turn it 90 degree clockwise and flatten it again
5. Roll it up like a swissroll again and cut into 2
6. With the cut side facing down, flatten the it into a round shape and wrap up filling to form a ball
7. Brush the top with egg white and sprinkle black sesame (original recipe uses poppy seeds)
8. Bake in preheated oven at 200 degree celcius for about 20-25mins

Beancurd & Beansprout in Coconut Milk Gravy (Lemak Taugeh & Tahu)

I realised that I have not been cooking lots of Malay dishes. For a change, cooked something local today. A very simple dish suitable for both kids and adult. This is another high protein dish since the main ingredients are beancurd, beansprouts and tempeh which I omitted this time round.

Ingredients

2-3 firm beancurd, cut into quarters
100-250gm beansprouts, roots removed
1 fresh red chilli, thinly sliced (more if you like it spicy)
1 clove garlic
1 medium onion
1 1/2 tbsp silver fish, soaked
250ml low fat coconut milk
salt to taste

Method

1. Blend garlic, onion and silver fish into paste
2. Boil 400ml water in a pot
3. When water starts to boil, add blended paste and stir. Leave to boil
4. Once boils, add coconut milk
5. Once mixture starts to bubble, add beancurd and leave for about 10 mins
6. When gravy starts to bubble, add beansprouts and sliced chilli
7. Add salt to taste and simmer till gravy boils. Do not overboil.
8. Turn heat off and cover the pot for about 10mins before serving
9. Serve hot with steamed rice

Rose Swissroll

It has been quite a while since I last baked and hands were itchy to bake something for the weekend. Inspired by Janny's (from Rainbow Connection) post on the rose patty cakes, I made this rose swissroll instead. With some slight modification to one of the swissroll recipe that I have, it came out pretty well except that I should have baked it in a slight larger pan. Had a bit of struggle trying to roll it because of the thickness. Nevertheless, it was pretty good :)

Ingredients

3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup self-raising flour, sifted
1/4 cup corn flour, sifted
2 tbsp hot milk
1 tbsp melted butter
2 tsp rose water
1-2 drops of red colouring

Filling
300ml cream, whipped
2 tbps jam (I omitted this)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree celcius
2. Sift both flours together and put it aside
3. Place egg whites in a clean, dry bowl and beat till stiff peaks form
4. Add sugar slowly and continue beating till thick and glossy
5. Add egg yolks one a time, beating well after each addition followed by colouring
6. Lightly fold in flour with milk till well combined
7. Add melted butter and lightly mix it till no streaks followed by rose water
8. Pour batter into a greased and line swiss roll pan and bake for 8-12 mins or springs back when touched or the sides shrink away from the sides of the tin
9. Leave the cake in the tin for about 5 mins and take it out to cool on a wire rack
10. When cool, place the cake on a clean tea towel and cut the sides away
11. Spread with jam followed by cream
12. Roll the cake holding the sides firmly and leave it wrapped in the tea towel for about 10mins
13. Remove swissroll from the towel and slice it to serve. Otherwise, wrap swissroll with cling wrap and store it in the refrigerator

Ca Kho To (Fish simmered in caramel sauce)

This is a vietnamese dish that is being served in almost all vietnamese restaurant. I did not have a chance to try this dish when I visited the place a few weeks ago but had the opportunity to smell this great tasting dish (my colleague ordered this dish while I was enjoying my shrimp *LOL*) I totally forgot about this dish until a member of KC posted the recipe and I went "wow, this is great !!" =D I just had to try it as it brought back memories of that wonderful aroma.

This dish is usually served in a claypot but you can cook with any thick based pot that you have. My end product looks far from what is being served in those vietnamese restaurant but taste wise is yummy. This is generally a child friendly dish because there is no chillI/peppers, but you can add it if you like. My daughters and myself love this dish.

I used the recipe shared by Thu from KC but modified it slightly. This recipe uses caramel sauce that was prepared earlier but you don't need to do that. The only difference is to make the caramel sauce then add the other other ingredients. You can refer to the caramel sauce method for reference.

Ingredients

3 fish fillet, cut in thirds
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 shallot, chopped
1 tsp fresh ginger, sliced/julliene
1 lemongrass, sliced thinly
3 tbsp water or chicken stock
2 green onions/spring onions, chopped
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp caramel sauce (recipe below)
2 tsp light soya sauce
salt & black pepper
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

1. Heat vegetable oil in a clay pot or medium fry pan over moderate heat
2. Add minced garlic and chopped shallot. Stir until fragrant, about 2 to 3 minutes then add lemongrass slices
3. Add catfish pieces and cook until they turn almost white, for about 2 minutes
4. Add caramel sauce, fish sauce and soya sauce and gently stir for 1 more minute, until the fish has slightly caramelized for about 12 to 15 minutes. You can simmer it longer if you want a drier version
5. Remove from the heat and garnish with thinly sliced green onions and ground black pepper
6. Serve hot with steamed rice

Caramel Sauce
1/2 - 1 cup sugar
some boiling water

Preparation for the Caramel Sauce:

1. Warm up a pale coloured pan/pot gently for about 1-2 mins
2. Pour sugar into the warm pan
3. Leave the sugar until it begins to melt (do no stir)
4. Once the sugar starts to melt, you will see the colour slowly changes to brown
5. Twirl the pan to ensure that all the sugar are melted evenly
6. Use a wooden spoon and stir until the sugar is totally melted and resembles dark runny honey 7. Take the pot off the heat and gradually add boiling water and keep stirring (you have to be careful here because there could be some splutter)
8. You may want to return the pot back to a gentle heat to re-melt lumps of caramel that have formed.
9. Once the caramel is smooth, turn off the fire and leave it to cool before keeping in an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator.

Pasta Al-Tonno (Tuna)

It has been a while since I last updated this blog. Finally after regaining back my old self, I made this extremely simple dish for dinner. My hubby has been craving for pasta dish which I haven't been doing lately especially before my work trip :D So I decided to make this one especially for him since I had this when I was in Vietnam. Ok, funny isn't that I had a western dish at Vietnam? Ah well, my colleagues and I usually frequent this eating place that serves western and local dishes. Generally, the place is catered for foreigners, so we usually have our lunch and dinner there.

You can use whatever pasta you like. I used penne because that was what I have in my pantry. I would prefer to have it with spaghetti though.

For this version I cheated using pasta sauce I bought from the supermarket, my all time favourite brand Leggo's. You can make your own sauce too because it is a very simple dish, simpler than bolognaise to me at least. You can also use salmon if you like too or better still, add tuna and salmon :)

Ingredients
200-300gm pasta, boil till al-dente
1 jar Leggo's napolitana sauce (or other sauces that you like)
1 can tuna flakes in oil
handful of basil, chopped
oregano, basil herbs if you like

Method
1. Boil pasta till al-dente, drain the water and put it aside
2. Heat pasta sauce till bubbly and add tuna flakes, stir well and add herbs if you want more flavour
3. Add pasta into the heated sauce and toss till well coated
4. Sprinkle chopped basil and serve immediately

If you want to make sauce from scratch, the ingredients are as follows:

1 clove garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can tomato sauce (in a can, more if you like)
oregano and basil
salt to taste

Fry chopped garlic and onion till soft and add tomato sauce. Add a little bit of water and add herbs and salt to taste.

That is generally it. You can also add chopped tomatoes (preferably from the can) to the sauce for more flavour.

Chempedak Fritters

I do not know the english name for chempedak, but it looks a little bit like jackfruit but smaller and sweeter. It has a very strong smell almost as stinking as durian. To me it smells a little like gasoline if it is not opened. But once you open up the fruit, it doesn't smell as bad.

My mom gave me one medium size chempedak yesterday and I ended up making fritters out of it this morning.

The fruit

The final product :-D

Crispy on the outside but soft and sweet inside

Ingredients
chempedak
3/4 cup rice flour
2 tbsp self raising flour
1/2 tsp limewater (you can omit this)
pinch of salt
1 to 1 1/2 cup water
Enough oil for deep frying

Method
1. Mix flours and salt
2. Pour water into the dry ingredients slowly and stir till batter is somewhat like pancake batter
3. Add limewater and stir mixture till well-blended
4. Heat oil in a wok
5. Coat chempedak with batter and deep fry till golden brown
6. Serve hot with tea

Strawberry Yoghurt Ice-Cream

I was reminded of my tub of yoghurt and a small box of whipping cream in my fridge by Gina (KC) after she made her yoghurt ice-cream. A good idea to clear them and at the same time free some fridge space, I made this in the morning using my ice-cream maker.

I sort of cheated using strawbery paste instead of fresh strawberry puree but added some chopped strawberries into the yoghurt ice-cream. The ice-cream came out perfect for me. I like it a little sourish, so I added more yoghurt.

Ingredients
450gm plain yoghurt (less if you don't want it to be too sour)
200gm whipping cream/pure cream
1/4 to 1/2 cup powdered sugar (more if you like sweet)
4 strawberries, chopped
1 tsp lemon juice, added to the chopped strawberries
1 - 1 1/2 tsp strawberry paste/emulco*
pinch of salt

*you can use fresh strawberries puree. Take about 4-6 strawberries and blend it into puree and add some lemon juice to it

Method
Using ice-cream maker
1. Mix yoghurt, cream, sugar, salt and strawberry paste/puree and blend till well mix. Keep them in the fridge to chill it.
2. Assemble the ice-cream maker, pour the chilled mixture into ice-cream maker and follow the instruction of the manufacturer.

Manual
1. Whisk yoghurt, cream, sugar, salt in a chilled bowl for about 1 min
2. Add strawberry paste/puree and continue mixing till well blended
3. Pour into a container and store it in the freezer till set.

Sambal Goreng Pengantin ala Zu

This is one of hubby's favourite dish. One of the least healthy dish, it is generally made of some cow's organs like liver and lungs, prawns, beef/mutton or even tripe. This is my mom's recipe which I am soo used to eating and to me, it is so far the best sambal goreng. I modify her version slightly by adding beancurd and tempe which are my hubby's favourite. It took me awhile to get used to the combination but I am pretty alright with it now.

I hardly make this dish because of the amount of time needed to prepare it. Firstly, the cutting, everything has to be cut into bite size followed by the frying of every ingredients - that is why I said this is one of the most unhealthy dish around.

For this version, I only used beancurd, prawns and lungs (yeah lungs).

dumped all the ingredients after frying

Ingredients
4 firm beancurd, cut into bite size/cubed
200-300g fresh prawns, remove head and shell but leave the tail
200-300g lungs, cooked and cubed
5 large fresh red chillies, thinly sliced
4 large onions, thinly sliced
3tbsp chilli paste (more if you like it spicy)
4cm belachan (shrimp paste)
tamarind juice from tamarind pulp about the size of a small lemon
4 large clove garlic
3cm ginger
4cm galangal
3 lemongrass
100-150ml coconut milk
100-200ml water
salt & sugar to taste
3-5 tbsp oil

Method
1. Fry beancurd, prawns, lungs, sliced onions and chillies till cooked, without over cooking it and put it aside
2. Blend garlic, ginger, galangal and lemongrass into a paste
3. Add belachan with the tamarind juice and put it aside
4. Heat oil in wok and add chilli paste
5. Stir fry the chilli paste till oil separates then add the garlic/ginger/galangal/lemongrass paste
6. Fry till fragrant
7. Add coconut milk followed by tamarind/belachan juice and stir well
8. Add 100ml of water, you can add more water if you prefer to have more gravy
9. Add salt & sugar to taste and simmer till gravy is slightly thickened
10.Add the fried ingredients, and stir till all the ingredients are well coated with the gravy
11.Simmer till slightly dry - there should not be too much gravy
12.Serve hot with steamed rice

Light & Fluffy Banana Cake

I have tried numerous banana cake recipe and this is so far the best. The end result is just like what the name says - light & fluffy. I used the recipe shared by one KC member Joanne but I modified one of the ingredient. The sweetness is dependent on the bananas you use. For this cake, I used the del-monte like bananas.

Close up

Ingredients
6oz butter/margarine
6 oz castor sugar/brown sugar
2 lage eggs
3 1/2 tbsp yoghurt
3 large banana, mashed
8 oz self raising flour, sifted
If you are using plain flour, use 8 oz plain/cake flour with 1tsp baking powder and 1tsp bicarbonate soda

Method
1, Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius
2. Cream butter & sugar till light and fluffy
3. Add eggs, one at a time and beat well
4. Add yoghurt and banana mix till well blend
5. Fold in flour to mixture and pour into a greased baking pan
6. Bake at 180C for 45min - 1hr or till skewer comes out clean

Homemade Coleslaw

We had fish and chips for lunch today. Unfortunately, we ran out of salad mix and only then I realised that I still have cabbage and carrots in my fridge. So I ended up making a coleslaw from scratch. It is an easy dish except for the shredding. But it took me less than 15mins to chop up the cabbage and carrots since I made enough for lunch. I should have thought about it yesterday since coleslaw is best eaten chilled and tastes even better overnight.

The chips were also homemade too but I will talk about it another time.

The recipe is just an estimation. It is totally up to you whether you like sweet or slightly sourish. For me I like it slightly sourish. Some recipes use milk and sugar, but for me, I shortcut the ingredient and use condensed milk instead.

Ingredients
cabbage and carrots, shredded
4 heaps tbsp mayonaise
3 tbsp lemon juice (less if you don't like it sourish)
1-2 tsp condensed milk (more if you like it sweet)
salt & pepper to taste

Method
1. Mix shredded cabbage and carrots well
2. Combine mayonaise, lemon juice, condensed milk and salt and pepper. Stir the mixture well
3. Pour coleslaw mixture into the vege mix and using a spoon, mix it thoroughly until all the vege are covered with the sauce
4. Chill in the refrigerator before serving

Cheese Roll

Made these rolls using the cheese slices that I have stocked in the refrigerator. My dad keeps buying them for the girls and we could not keep up with the stock. Some of them ended up in these rolls and I was soo surprise with the beautiful swirl effect it gave.

The dough I used for this is the same as the sweet bun recipe. For this, you will need to roll out the dough into a square or rectangle, arrange the slices side by side till it covers the rolled dough. Slowly roll it up like a swiss roll and cut them up. Arrange them close to each other, let ir rise till double in size and bake them.

Roasted Plum Sauce Chicken & Stir-fry Vege

Feeling a little bored with plain steamed rice, I decided to cook chicken rice yesterday with simple side dishes. Malay style chicken rice is usually served with deep fried chicken which I truly, honestly hate to do. I avoid deep frying chicken like a plague because of the amount of work I had to do cleaning the grease although I used a pot to fry them. Another one is the oil, what to do with the balance oil? I don't cook alot everyday especially frying and I don't like wastage. So, the obvious alternative is to roast it.

Roasting chicken is not difficult, just need to have good marinade. I am not really particular about the measurement when preparing the marinade for the chicken. The basic stuffs I use would be garlic, ginger, mustard or whatever spices I have lying around, ketchup, soya sauce and honey. This time round, I used the plum sauce which I bought a couple of months back and totally forgotten about it. I only used these 3 sauces for this chicken.

The result

Ingredients
1 chicken (about 1.4kg)
1 thumb size ginger, blend into paste
3 cloves garlic, blend into paste
2-3 tbsp plum sauce
3-4 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp ketchup
2-4 tbsp honey

Method
1. Clean and pat dry chicken
2. Mix all the marinade ingredients together and rub the marinade on the chicken
3. Leave the chicken in the refrigerator for at least 2 hrs
4. Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius and roast the chicken for about 40-60 minutes or till the skin turns brown and crispy. Baste the chicken with the leftover marinade in between the roasting and turn the chicken over during the last 10mins
5. Cut chicken into bite size and serve hot

My chicken rice is never complete without any vege. I made a simple stir-fry vege omitting soya sauce or stock. I added slices of sotong balls and surprisingly, that gives the vege some flavour. On top of the that, the nice combination of vege made the dish taste refreshing, topped with fried shallots.

A peek at the final product.

Easy Baked Salmon

I love salmon be it raw or cooked. However, for the latter, I am a little bit fussy - I like grilled/pan-fried salmon to be juicy and not dry. The experiences I had dining at restaurants, the salmon fillet has the tendency to be a little dry, hence I hardly order grilled salmon. If given a choice, I would rather eat it raw.

Salmon being a superfood, I make it a point to bake it at least once a week usually on a weekend. My dds love them and can finish a 200-300gm fillet at one meal. I have tried pan-frying, steaming and baking and find baking gives me more flavour. I also realised that adding white onions and fresh tomatoes make the salmon juicy and flavourful.

This was what I baked last Friday for dinner. No fuss, just need chopped the tomatoes and onion. The fish was marinated in the morning before I went to work.

Ingredients
1 salmon fillet (about 200-300g)
1 plump tomato, chopped
half white onion, sliced into rings (you can use yellow onions too)
a few sprigs spring onions
1-2tbsp olive oil
parsley flakes

Marinate
salt
black & white pepper, freshly ground
a few dashes of worcestershire sauce (4-5)
1 tbsp lemon juice

Method
1. Clean and pat dry fillet
2. Rub fillet with salt and pepper
3. Splash a few dashes of worcestershire sauce and lemon juice, making sure that it covers the fillet
4. Leave it to marinate for at least 2 hrs in the refrigerator
5. Preheat ove to 200 degrees celcius
6. Place marinated fillet on a aluminium foil and pour the leftover marinate over
7. Place chopped tomatoes, onions and spring onion on top of the fillet, splash olive oil generously over the fillet and wrap it
8. Bake it in the oven for about 15mins, take the fish out and open the top of the aluminium foil and bake it further for another 20mins or till the top browns a little
9. Sprinkle some parsley flakes or dill
10. Serve immediately with steamed rice

Easy Peasy Cheese Toast & Cheesy Potato Bake

I was a little lazy yesterday and didn't want to have rice for dinner. I remembered that I still have some potatoes to clear, made this for dinner with salad at the side.

I used Ratna's recipe for the cheesy potato bake. You can get it here. Mine didn't look very brown because I didn't bake it long enough and I didn't have chives, so subsitute with spring onions instead.

For this, I had some leftover bread expiring soon so might as well do a cheese toast to eat it with the potato. Very simple to do, you can even get your kid to help you.

Ingredients
4 slices bread
butter/magarine
shredded cheese
parsley flake

Method
1. Spread butter/margarine on the bread
2. Sprinkle shredded cheese and topped with parsley flakes
3. Toast it in the oven toaste for about 4-5 minutes or till the top browns
4. Serve immediately

Fried Noodles

This morning while sending my girls to school, a delicious aroma of someone cooking sambal was lingering in the morning air. The smell soo delicious that I could not resist thinking about fried noodles. It has been a while since I had a plate of hot fried noodles, malay style. I like my noodles to be a little moist with succulent prawns and plentiful of greens. So during my lunch break, I went to Cold Storage to get all the necessary ingredients and earlier today, we had this for dinner 8-D *burp*

A big plate of noodles

Close up with juicy, succulent prawns

This version is not the exact malay style fried noodles because I used Masters Barbeque Sauce to replace the ketchup and soya sauce.

You can purchase this at Cold Storage or NTUC. The sauce is quite tomato-ish but with more flavour than ketchup.

Ingredients
500g hokkien noodles
1 ikan bilis stock cube (Maggi, No-MSG)
1 large onion
3 large fresh red chillies, remove seed if you don't want too spicy
200-300g prawns, deveined
1 piece fish cake, sliced thinly
1 bunch chye sim, washed thoroughly and chopped to 3 inches long
4-6 tbsp bbq sauce (more if you like)
3-4 tbsp olive oil

Method
1. Blend onion and chillies into paste
2. Heat oil in a wok and fry blended paste till fragrant
3. Crush the stock cube and add to the chillie paste, stir till well blend
4. Add fish cake slices and prawns and mix till they are cooked
5. Add bbq sauce and a little bit of water. Make sure there is some gravy so that the noodles will not be too dry
6. Add vegetables followed by noodles and stir them well with other ingredients
7. Serve immediately

Pilau Biryani

I was lazy to cook something from scratch today - still feeling a little tired from yesterday's outing. I was browsing my kitchen cabinet when I realised that I have 2 box of Shan's rice and spice mix I bought a couple of months back. I usually stock a few boxes for 'emergency' cases. I highly recommend this brand for those who do not have the time nor the skills to come out with a great tasting biryani. The package I bought comes with the rice, spice and also the colouring (in powder form). You can get this at Mustaffa.

the packaging

Instructions can be found at the back of the package. But I will just write down how I made it. I only used half of the rice.

Ingredients
1 packet pilau biryani rice & spice mix
500-750g beef/mutton/chicken
1 medium onion, thinly sliced and fried in ghee or butter
1 tbsp garlic paste
1 tbsp ginger paste
1-2 glass water
1-3 tbsp
1 cup evaporated milk (original uses yoghurt but I didn't have any)
Small handful mint, chopped

Method
1. Wash and soak rice for 30mins
2. Put water, ginger paste, garlic paste, meat and spice mix into a pot and cook over the stove until meat is tender
3. Add milk or yoghurt into the meat gravy and simmer till the gravy thickens
4. At the moment, boil about 6-10 glasses of water in a pot and add soaked rice
5. Add 1 tbsp salt into rice mixture and boil till rice is almost half cooked
6. Drained rice and put aside
7. Transfer meat gravy into a deep casserole dish
8. Cover the meat with the drained rice
9. Sprinkled colour powder (provided) over the rice
10. Sprinkle fried onions over, cover the casserole dish and cook in the microwave oven for about 5mins. Check for doneness as different microwave oven has different power
11. Use the rice paddle to mix the rice and meat
12. Sprinkle chopped mint and serve with salad/raita and pappadums

Assorted Sweet Bun

I was in a mood to bake some sweet buns after a long rest of baking. I made these buns last weekend and managed to baked 3 types of buns. I used the sweet bun recipe taken from the book 'Make Your Own Bread' by Novum Organum publication. Because I used a large egg (60gm), I reduced the water to 220ml instead of the original 260ml.

Butter buns, Sausage & Mayo buns

Top right hand : Sausage buns

The filling of the buns is entirely up to you. The following is the recipe for the dough. Unused dough can be kept in the fridge up to 4 days after the first rise. Wrap it with cling wrap or keep it in an airtight container. Thaw the dough to room temperature before use.

I used my breadmachine to knead the dough. The only difference is that I melted the butter.

Ingredients
220ml cold water (use 260ml if you are using small eggs)
1 egg, lightly beaten
50g butter
500g bread flour, sifted
7g instant yeast
100g sugar
5g salt

1. Mix bread flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a bowl
2. Add cold water and egg to mixture and mix well
3. Add butter into dough and knead dough until elastic
4. Place dough in a mixing bowl, cover with cling wrap and let it rise to double its size
5. Cut dough into small portions of about 40-60g and let it rest for another 10-15minutes
6. Shape dough into desired shapes and let it rise to double its size
7. Glaze buns with egg wash and bake till golden brown

Lemon Sourcream Pound Cake

I have yet to attempt a pound cake and finally decided to try this simple pound cake recipe (shared by one member at KC) with some modification. I have never baked a lemon cake before so I made up my mind to try one out since I have all the ingredients. The original recipe uses butter but I was very interested to try shortening instead. I may have eaten a cake made with shortening without my knowledge, hence the decision to bake one myself. In this recipe, I used the butter flavoured one and the result was really good, soft and moist. I hardly noticed any difference - it was just like using butter.

Light and fluffy inside

Ingredients
2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
1 tsp salt
1 cup or 1 stick butter flavoured shortening (Crisco) plus 6 tbsp water
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
grated zest from 1 large lemon
1 cup light sour cream (200ml)

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Grease and flour bundt pan
3. Cream shortening plus 6 tbsp water and sugar till fluffy (about 6 minutes).
4. Add in eggs, 1 at a time
5. Add lemon zest and blend.
6. Add flour to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream and scraping down side of bowl after each addition.
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean (about 40mins - 1 hour)

Lemon Glaze:
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

Method
1. Mix all the 3 ingredients till well blend
2. Drizzle glaze over the cooled cake