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| Splash of balsamic sauce to heighten the flavour |
Given two days of unrecorded leave, again, I have no exact planning. After long tiring 2 weeks of outstation, being at home is a much relief that somewhat a luxury that I can afford. The problem with being at home is that you have to cook and prepare your meal by yourself. Wish my area have PizzaHut or KFC or Domino's delivery.... how fortunate is that...
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| Cheesy gratin and grilled chicken for my brunch |
For today, I had oven grilled chicken and potato carrot gratin for my brunch. Oven grilled chicken is nothing of a cooking adventure. The potato carrot gratin is. The labourius mise en place prior having tasty and hearty gratin quite time consuming since I did not have mandolin to help me slicing the carrot and potato. The patoto and carrot chip have to be layered one by one, intermittently top with cream and cheese concotion between the layer. Having said so, a little more of an effort and sincerity won't harm if you want a good and blessed meal aren't you??
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| Bon Appetit... |
Hainanese Chicken quite popular dish among Malaysian. The chicken is cooked in slowly simmering broth of ginger, garlic and light soy sauce for about an hour. Once done, it has to be rested fully before chopped into bite size. Failure to do so will result in dry meat rather than juicy, succulent chicken bite. The remaining chicken stock will be normally used to cook the chicken rice. But for my version, the broth is used to soak the glass noodle.
Commercially, Hainanese Chicken will be served with array of dipping sauce from as simple as chopped garlic and ginger in light soy sauce to more laborious spicy chili condiment with tamarind juice. For home consumption, any condiment will do...
When we talk about biryani, most often it is South Asia Dish that incorporated long grained rice, mix of spices and meat. For my version, I used chicken quarter, served with pickled carrot and cucumber.
Chicken quarter is marinated with coarsely ground spices composed of nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and cumin. It is grilled separately from the rice in microwave convection oven.
For the bhasmati rice, it was cooked with unsalted butter with little bit of ghee, chicken stock and assortment of sultanas raising and cashew nut.
Spice it up further with spicy hot chili oil...
Spaghetti bolognese might be an Italian origin but when it is spaghetti with meatball in tomato sauce, it is American. How can that be? There is a history behind it and it is up to you to find the rest. For me, it is the joyful moment of having delicious, mouth watering spaghetti and meatball served warm on my Japanese table that I cared most. Top with grated Parmesan, huh... it sure made my day a lot better.
For this dish, I prepared the meatball from scratch. Basically, I use the following:-
- 400g beef mince
- 1 large red onion, finely diced
- 3 garlic clove, finely chopped
- 1 tbs dried mixed herbs
- 1 medium sized egg
- 4 tbs of corn flour
- salt and pepper for seasoning
All the ingredient are mixed together in a bowl and shaped into a bite size meat ball. I refrigerate the meat ball for roughly 20-30 minutes so that it is firm enough to be fried without crumbling apart.
For the sauce, it is quite easy as it is basically simmering the cooked meatball in a tomato sauce. With addition of salt, pepper and few aromatic herbs, voila.... A Meatball in Tomato sauce. Just scoop the meat ball on top of al dente spaghetti, top with grated Parmesan and you are happy to go...
P/s: The meatballs can be cooked in sauce, cooled, and refrigerated for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 3 months.
Monday night, first day of the week and it’s raining heavily outside. Started to have runny nose and sneezing which are hallmarks the symptoms of flu, I had decided that I needs something warm and savory to overcome this chilly cold night. So here the idea of quick and simple spiced lamb stew full of potatoes, tomato, radish and leeks came on. It is very traditional, nothing in that stew is browned first, just all stewed together and allow to simmer inside high heat of microwave oven.
Ingredients (2 serving)
- 200g lamb brisket, cut into bite size
- 1 big onion, peeled and diced
- 2 med size potato, cut into 2cm cube
- 200g celery stalk, diced
- 100g cherry tomato
- 100g radish, thinly sliced
- thumbsize of ginger, thinly sliced
- mixed spice, (cinnamon bark, star annise, clove, cardamon seed)
- 500ml of water
- 1 tbs of gravy granule
- 3 tbs oil
- salt and pepper for seasoning
Method
- In a ceramic pot, microwave spices, ginger and onion in oil for 1 min in high heat. Stir the spice mix in between. Add in lamb brisket and potato, continue on high heat for another 4 min. Continue stirring at 1-2 min interval.
- Add in water and continue cooking process in medium heat for 10 min. After 10 min, add remaining tomato, celery and radish along with salt, pepper and gravy granule. Mix well.
- Cover the pot and let the stew cook for another 4 min under medium heat.
- Allow for standing time of 5-8 min before serving. Serve warm.
Spaghetti aglio olio is one of the most basic and easiest pasta based recipes. As compared to traditional more sophisticated spaghetti bolognese, this pasta is made with garlic (aglio) and oil
(olio). For my version, addition of prawns, squids and chili flakes is what it needs to compliment simple aglio olio..
Ingredients (1-2 serving)
- 150g of uncooked spaghetti
- 1/2 cup of oil - for best health benefit, use an olive oil
- 4 cloves of garlic, sliced
- chili flakes - shredded from 1 whole dried chili
- 100g of prawn
- 100g of squid
- salt and grounded pepper to taste
Method
- In a large pot, bring lightly salted water into boil and cook spaghetti until it is al dante. Once done, drain and set aside in large bowl.
- In a flat bottom skillet, toss sliced garlic in hot oil until golden brown. Reduce to medium heat and add in remaining of chili flake, prawn and squid. Allow to cook for 5 minutes (Do not overcook the seafood).
- In a spaghetti bowl, stir in salt and black pepper into the spaghetti, season as your preferences.
- Add in the seafood aglio e olio into the pasta. Mixed well, preferably allowing the oil coat all the spaghetti. Serve while still warm.
The trick to get the most flavor is to heat the sliced garlic to golden brown, reduce the heat before adding other ingredients. If the garlic too light, you won't get enough flavor to infuse into the oil. Too dark, you will end up with bitter garlic oil. Happy trying... C,")
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| Fettucine in Mushroom Alfredo Sauce |
Having pasta in local western eateries often disappointing because the sauce merely coat the pasta and it seem as it is not enough to satisfy my taste but. When time permits, I rather brew my own pasta sauce. Today, I would like to share one of my favourite pasta sauces, The Alfredo, whipped from mostly basic ingredients such as butter, cooking cream and cheese. It is versatile enough that with addition of minced chicken and slices of shitake... voila...you have a nice creamy sauce that go well in this fettuccine breakfast.
My Fettucine in Creamy Mushroom Alfredo Sauce as below....
Yields: 1-2 servings
*For this recipe, I used microwave oven all way through...
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| Sprinkled with paprika for the zings.. |
Ingredients
The Pasta
- 200 g of Fettucine
- ½ tablespoon of salt
- ½ tablespoon of oil
- 1-1.5L of Water
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| Shitake gives amazing aroma to the sauce |
The Sauce
- 50g Of Unsalted Butter
- ¼ Cup of Cooking Cream
- ½ Cup of Cream Cheese
- ½ cup of Minced Meat
- ½ Cup of Sliced Fresh Shitake
- ¼ cup (56 g/2 oz) unsalted butter
- 1 small onion, finely diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- salt and ground pepper, to taste
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| Bon Appetite |
Instructions
- In a large microwave safe container, immerse fettuccine in water, add salt and oil and cover with cling film; punctured 2 hole on top to allow the steam to escape
- Microwaved the pasta at high heat approximately 10-12 minute or until the pasta texture al dente. (Using hot water will reduce cooking time). Allow standing time for 5-8 min before drain the water and left aside for a moment.
- For the sauce, in microwave safe container, heat the butter, onion and garlic together at high heat for 1-2 min. This will sauté the onion and garlic and melts the butter.
- Then, add in minced chicken and continue the heating for another 1 min.
- Once done, incorporate cream cheese and cooking cream into the mix. Reduce to medium heat and continue to cook the sauce for 4-6 min with 2-3 times stirring throughout the cooking process.
- Add in salt and pepper for seasoning and allow additional 5 min standing time. After five min, add the sauce into the pasta, mix well and reheat at microwave in medium heat for 2-3 min.
- Serve immediately while still warm. You may garnish with chop Italian herbs or just a sprinkle of paprika to heathen your taste but.
Happy Trying...
