Spicy Chickpeas

I love chickpeas and that love affair started long time ago during our stay in KL. II would wait patiently for one particular vendor on bicycle in the afternoons who came around our housing area with this steaming snack. He would scooped a cup of these into a cone cup he made with a piece of brown oiled paper and that could be exchanged with a mere 50 cent. The aroma and flavors from these goodies stayed with me for years. During a Yoko farm outing last year, Margaret came with a dish that brought such nostalgic feel I had to get the recipe from her. Like a kind soul that she is, she explained the entire process and I quickly scribbled on the back of a supermarket receipt (I kept all these bits and pieces solely for these purposes as I tend to forget easily).

Very few ingredients needed and measurements are not crucial. A handful of curry leaves, 1 tablespoon or so of mustard seeds and as many or as few dried chillies as you like for 500g of dried chickpeas.

To prepare the dried chickpeas:

Rinse the legumes well in a colander off dirt and grit, pick out bad peas and small pebbles. Transfer into a bowl and add 1 teaspoon of turmeric (kunyit) powder and 1 teaspoon salt.

Cover with plenty of water and let soak for 6 hours or overnight.

Soak them, the legumes expand, boil them in the soaking water (I did mine in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes, cooking without pressure would take slow simmering for an hour or two) and they expand further. 

Spicy Chickpeas

500 g cooked chickpeas

3 - 5 dried chillies, wash, snip into thin rings with scissors and discard seeds 

1 T mustard seeds

1/2 cup curry leaves, roughly chopped

1/2 t turmeric powder

salt to taste

1 t chili powder, optional 

2 T oil

Heat wok and 2 T oil, fry dried chili on medium heat until fragrant (do not burn as they will taste bitter). Drain and put aside.

Fry the curry leaves until fragrant, drain and keep aside.

Fry mustard until fragrant and drain. 

Leave 1/2 tablespoon of the oil in wok, add the turmeric powder and chili powder (if use). Return all the fried ingredients and peas into the wok and mix well. Season to taste.

Serve as side dish or munch on during American Idol.

Oaty ChocoChips Cookies

It was a school holiday project for Leanne and my hair-pulling strategy to get her off her PSP. Go to Hungry Hamster for the recipe as we followed it to the T except for the chocochips which we threw in a few handfuls (definitely more than 12 oz) and added some chopped walnuts as those were the only nuts I had in hand. 

A true winner with me for its simplicity and the lovely texture which was crisp on the outside and moist/chewy inside. 

The oat content make this indulgence a healthy snack in my book *hookwink*and between my two girls and me we polished off these in one movie sitting!

Arrowroot Chips

Ben dropped by the house and quickly zoomed in on these. Before he popped them into his mouth I warned him that these might not be what he expect. I knew he had mistaken them for potato chips. These are arrowroot chips. Meant to post this before CNY but forgotten in the midst of all the festive activities, last minute shopping and cooking. 

Arrowroots, clad

These only come by once a year during CNY. So even when I swear that i won't touch veggies from China, I couldn't resist these. I love them braised with chinese sausage and chicken. The children like them fried as chips (don't think they know what these chips are made of when they pop them into their mouth).

Arrowroots, unclad

Use a slicer and slice arrowroots directly into hot oil. Rewind---see the previous foto--- have a good reason to leave the tips intact when peeling. I needed something to grab on to when slicing. Do not overcrowd when frying as they will stick together, so just do one arrowroot at one time unless your wok is big and fill with tons of oil. Be ready to lift up the chips fast as they cook and brown very quickly.

 
These were the first few batches and as usual, forgotten that they will continue cooking after lifted from oil. Overly brown and they get too bitter (they are a little bitter to begin with).  If you like, sprinkle on fine salt but sparingly. When cooled, store in airtight container. Make excellent gift for CNY as they resemble gold coins (I know, I know this is a little too late for this CNY but there is always next year, right?). 

I want to wish everyone a very happy and 'full filling' Chap Goh Mei.

Bacon and Chicken Rolls

Met these delectable gems at Ben's place on Camalita's birthday. Created by Lena. 

Some were BBQ (K's station),

and others grilled (my station and I claimed overtime with these).

Great bites as hors d'oeuvre serve with beer.

This is how it was done (I think...) :

bacon slices, halved

chicken breast, sliced thinly diagonally 

spring onion, cut into 2-inch strips 

big red chilli, seeded and cut thin strips

Marinate the chicken with pepper and salt if you must (as I know old habit dies hard) but sparingly, as bacon can be very salty. 

Place some spring onion, strips of red chilli with a thin slice of chicken breast at one end of the 1/2 piece of bacon. Then roll the bacon round the chicken and secure with a toothpick. 

Bbq, grill, bake or maybe even pan-fry.

Jo

Pineapple Tarts

I don't usually make pineapple tarts for Christmas, as they are sacredly reserved for Chinese new year. The Chinese pronunciation of pineapple 'wong lei' auspiciously means 'prosperity arrives'.

But then I learned that K will be travelling to LA this month and as this is one of Mee Fung's (and my) favourite snacks, I took that as an auspicious sign to make it for Mee Fung and Christmas (:=p).

These pineapple balls weighs about 4 g each and perfect for one tart in a mouthful. The pineapple jam was done few months ago when pineapple was in season - at its sweetest and cheapest. It can be safely kept in the fridge (not the freezer!) for up to a year.

Pineapple Jam
10 small pineapple, peeled and pureed
1 inch cinnamon stick
sugar to taste

Cook pureed pineapple with the cinnamon stick in a big saucepan over medium heat. This is a very tedious process and takes about 2-3 hours of regular stirring to reduce the puree into a jam-like consistency. Add the sugar to taste. For the tart we need the jam to be of a thicker consistency so just cook until it can hold its shape.
It is well worth the effort if you want to have control over the sugar content of jam, otherwise simpler to just buy the jam from baking supply store.

The pastry recipe came from Betty many years ago and so far it has never failed to deliver. It is so good that Leanne purposely made some without the jam in different shapes of course, so she could identify them. Maybe I'd try making shortbread with the pastry too.

Leanne hard at work - creating her shortbread cookies.

Pastry

350 g all purpose flour

250 g butter (Golden Churn in can)
50 g icing sugar
50 g corn flour
50 g powdered milk
2 egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence

Cream butter and sugar till fluffy. Add in egg yolks and mix well. Fold in the rest of the ingredients to form a soft dough. Put dough into a plastic bag and chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes. Shape pastry with the jam and place in greased baking sheet.

Egg wash each one and bake in the preheated oven at 170c for 15-20 minutes.

Wishing everyone a peaceful Christmas and an auspicious new year!!

Jo

Dumplings 'Shui Jiao' 水餃

Shui Jiao 水餃

Over the long Raya weekend we stayed home and didn't go out much. That's because I came down with a virus infection that left me so, so exhausted, feverish and aching from head to toes. Thanks to my two sisters Mui and Pit, who decided to come over to the house and help with dinner.

And guess what? They decided to make dumplings. For us, making dumplings is a very social affair and an event the family always look forward to. Everyone who is in the house would gathers around the table and do what they can. I would never attempt to do dumplings alone, it would be too depressing. This is normally done over the long Chinese new year holiday in between mahjong sessions. Guess Raya must have got them in a festive mood too. Hmm, I think it also had a very therapeutic effect on my fever. I didn't do much except snapped a few shots but just gathering around the table, chit chatting and seeing all the activities just lifted my spirit and fever.

Keshia, the most steady and with the most patience. When everyone had slow down or started eating, she persevered.

The very rare moment we find Mr. Bryan in the kitchen. This is one chore he doesn't mind and he does it very well.

Perfectly wrapped dumplings.


Bryan like these pan-fried guotie 'potstickers' or gyoza as the Japanese called them.


The leftovers are made into these which were supposed to be scallion pancakes but because there were some filling left, they decided to add to the pancake. Like the Indian martabak and I called them bian (flat) goutie.

Shui Jiao

Skin:
1 kg plain flour (we used 'pau' flour)
~ 600 ml water
a pinch of salt

Filling:
500 gm pork, minced
500 gm cabbage or Chinese cabbage, thinly shredded, rub with salt and strained off juice
2 small bowls chopped chives, optional
2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
2 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Mix flour with enough water to make into a soft dough that is not too sticky.
Knead for a few minute until the dough stop sticking to the fingers and a soft, smooth, shiny texture is achieved.
Cover with a clean damp kitchen towel and leave for at least 30 minutes before use.
Mix all the filling ingredients together.
Have fun wrapping the dumplings, get everyone in the house to join in and do different shapes if they want but make sure the same amount of filling is used for each dumpling ~ 1 tablespoon, to ensure the dumplings get cooked at the same time.




Put dumplings into a big pot of boiling water in a batch of 20 -30 depending on the size of your pot, when it returns to boil pour a glass of cold water in and return it to boil.
Repeat the cold water treatment three times.
Scoop out dumplings and serve hot with dipping sauce.



Dipping sauce:
chopped garlics
julienned ginger
chopped chillies
black vinegar

Leave the all the above ingredients on table with small individual saucers and let everyone do their own sauce.


Jo

Cempedak Fritters

Fruits from the backyards

Got these lovely fruits from Pit Fung, my sister who resides in Tuaran. Cempedak, longans and seedless guava are all from her friends' backyard. The local oranges are from the backyard of Mr. Pang, a friend from Keningau and the custard-apple from our own backyard. We are truly blessed.

Cempedak

A cousin of the more popular jack fruit. Not one of my favourite fruit as I find it too sweet and texture wise, too mashy. My late mother was the only person I know who would eat the fruit as it is. For most of us, the fruit is only palatable when deep-fried in batter much like pising gorang, banana fritters.

Peel the outer skin to get at these luscious fruits.

Make a batter of 2 C flour+1 heap T cornflour+-1 1/2 C water+salt+1T cooking oil, mix lightly. Coat each seed with batter and drop into hot oil to deep fry. Lower heat when crust is formed and fry slowly for about 10 minutes to ensure the inner seed get cooked. This will take a while if you want a nice soft powdery nutty texture inside.

Done

Haven't had these for years and I have forgotten how good they were.

The crispness at first bite, then the soft sweetness hits you together with the lovely aroma and last but not least, you get to the nutty core...oh... a lethal combo.

Once started I couldn't stop, I just kept going and had one piece after another. Later, felt so guilty that I just had to skip dinner.

Bryan loved it too, Keshia doesn't and Leanne will only eat until the flesh and discard the seed.

Jo

Crispy egg's crumbs

Bread crumbs with cheese, herbs, garlic and salt

Yesterday, K brought back some cheese from London and I got my fresh supply of the Parmigiano Reggiano. Promised Heather to make a batch of the crispy egg crumbs for her. Here you go Heath...

That bottle is for you, the rest - some for aunt Betty and maybe some for our lunch

Thanks to the thermal insulating bag, this cheese travelled thousands of kilometers in more than 12 hours to arrive in prefect condition.

Jo

Crispy eggs

Had no intention of posting anything today but found the fingers twitching, a sign of addiction??....

Just Leanne and myself for lunch today, too hot to go out and so so lazy to cook. A while ago, was browsing in Anne's food and stumbled upon Brownie Points. I found this recipe so simple and a marvelous way to use up all the stale bread I kept in the freezer. I made a whole bottle of this tasty crumbs and kept it handy in the fridge. So very handy today...here we share with you our lunch...

Crispy Eggs with Instant Toast

4-5 slices of stale bread (wholemeal or white will do)
50 gm of Parmesan, coarsely grated (do not use pre-grated from supermarkets - too fine)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
a couple of pinches of fresh thyme leaves (basil or any herbs you fancy), dried is fine too
one pinch of salt

Put everything into the food processor and pulse it a few times. I like to leave the crumbs in various sizes.

For one serving of two eggs:
4 Tbs of the crumb mixture
1 Tbs of olive oil

-Add the crumbs and oil to a flat pan on gently heat.
-When the crumbs show first signs of toasting, crack two eggs on top of the crumb mixture.
-Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
-Put a lid on top of the pan and cook the eggs to your favourite level of doneness.
-When the eggs are cooked just right, slip them off onto a plate. Pile the stray crumbs right on top of the eggs.
-Quickly put around 1 tsp of good vinegar into your heated pan. Heat the vinegar just briefly and pour over your eggs and serve immediately.

-Alternatively, do like what Leanne did - just splash a dash of balsamic vinegar over it .

When the crumbs were toasting, the aroma from the cheese and herbs brought LeAnne running into the kitchen. She loved this and asked whether she could have it for dinner too! Good for the lazy cook, she is so easy to feed!
Serve it with a glass of milk and a slice of papaya.....and you have a complete meal.

Jo

Korean pancake

Buchimgae with seafood

This is adapted from the Korean recipe but has evolved over the years and it has been fine-tuned to accommodate our palates and conveniences. I don't use the traditional mung beans - too troublesome for a lazy cook like me... This dish is a fantastic way to get the young ones to eat their veg without any coaxing. I made this dish very often in the earlier days when the kids weren't too fond of their vegetables. They didn't mind the camouflaged veggie and wolfed it down like it was a pizza (they still do). It is also a good way to clean out the fridge of left-over greens. Most veggies can be incorporated into the batter (shred them first!)- bell pepper, leek, mushroom, french beans, cabbage, onions, celery....I packed in about 4-6 cups of shredded vegetable and 6 eggs, for about six pancakes. Our version of this pancake is more of an omelette than a pancake because of the amount of eggs I used. A very wholesome snack on its own. We usually have it for lunch as the main (and most often, the only) dish!

Spiced up with chilli sauce

Korean Pancake

Serve 4-6

1 1/2 cups flour, sieved
1/2 cup rice flour, sieved
6 eggs (can be reduced if cholesterol-conscious)
~ 1 cup cold water
salt and pepper
2 - 3 cups shredded carrot
2 - 3 cups spring onion, cut into 2" length
1 cup prawns, peeled, gutted and cut into bite size
1 cup squids, cleaned and cut into ring


1) Mix flour, eggs and water into a smooth batter. Season well.

2) When ready to fry, add in all the rest of the ingredients (I like to keep the seafood aside mixed with some batter and scoop 2-3 spoonfuls in only when the pancake is about to be flipped over). Mix well.

3) Scoop one ladle of the batter (make sure it has a little of everything) onto a heated and oiled flat heavy based pan.

4) Spread out the batter evenly - the pancake about 6-8" in diameter and not too thin. Cook on medium heat.

5) When it turns golden brown, flip over and cook the other side.

6) Slide pancake onto a board and cut into wedges. Makes about 6 pancakes.

7) Serve hot with dipping sauce. They like it just as much with the Maggi sauces (tomatoes and chilli)

Dipping sauce:
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1 tablespoon chopped spring onion
1 teaspoon sesame, toasted
1 chilli, chopped finely -optional
2 tablespoon soy sauce + 2 tablespoon drinking water
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1-2 teaspoon sugar
a dash of sesame oil if you like

Mix all ingredients together.

Jo

LeAnne's Tuna sandwich

Yum yum.. the sandwich taste FAB!!!!

Cut celery into small bits.....

Mix 1 can of tuna with mayo, french mustard, lime juice, salt and pepper..and also the chopped celery.

Spread butter on the bread

Spread the tuna on the buttered bread

Mum helped to trim off the crust..

and cut into half.

Easy peasy. Enjoy.

From LeAnne.