Fresh from our garden!

I was talking to my mum on the phone tonight and I promised her that I would blog soon, and post some pictures of tonight’s dinner. So here you go mum.

We found some fresh large banana prawns at the local supermarket. At first I thought I would try to make one of my favourite dishes from Malaysia, Fried salted egg yolk prawns. However I didn’t have any salted eggs with me and I figured that it was probably out of my element! So I made something similar.

Crisp fried prawns

I coated the prawns in flour, curry powder, salt and cayenne pepper. Then I fried some chopped spring onions and added the prawns into the oil and pan fried it.

Some people like to cook their prawns in their shells and some like to shell them first. Any way is fine but I think if I was going to make this dish again, I would remove the shells from the prawns so that it would be covered generously in batter.

Soy sauce tofu with chili and garlic

I’ve found that the combination of soy sauce and kecap manis goes well together. Kecap manis is an Indonesian sweet soy sauce. It is thick and syrupy and has a lovely treacle like flavour. lt can be used on stir fries and noodles. For the tofu sauce, it was a mixture of soy sauce, kecap manis, chili and garlic. You can also substitute tofu with chicken or pork, and fry up some cashew nuts with the lot!

There is only TWO desserts that Richard loves. Anything with chocolate in it…or anything with sweet red bean in it.

He loves Dorayaki in particular, a Japanese pancake wrapped around with sweet red bean filling. I asked him this morning, if he had to choose between a Dorayaki or a chocolate what would he choose? He pondered over this for awhile (which I found quite endearing). He said he would choose a Dorayaki filled with…chocolate! Ha! The best of both worlds.

This is the easiest Dorayaki recipe. It’s so easy that even my husband who is hopeless in the kitchen, can make this all by himself.

Easy Dorayaki
Pancake mix
1 can of sweetened red bean paste (you can get this at the oriental shop)

- Make pancakes as how you normally would
- Add a dollop of sweet red bean paste onto the pancake and spread it around
- Top with another pancake
- Serve with green tea

Making melon stars…

and then off to the post office to post off some Little Mo orders!

Happy Monday everyone! 6 weeks till Christmas time!

I made Okonomiyaki for dinner. It’s a Japanese savoury pancake, filled with generous amounts of sliced cabbage and a variety of toppings.

The best thing about Okonomiyaki is you can add any kind of toppings into the batter and it will still taste delicious. I normally use leftovers like pieces of chicken, pork or mushrooms.

These are the essential ingredients to make a flavoursome Okonomiyaki! The rest is anything from your pantry!

(Serves 2)
Batter:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup Dashi stock (if you can’t find the stock, just use fish stock or alternatively, water and a pinch of salt)
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
A good handful of thinly sliced cabbage

Toppings:
ANYTHING (shrimps, chicken, pork, squid, octopus mushrooms, onion, chives or bacon). All chopped up.

Sauce:
Okonomiyaki sauce
Kewpie Mayonnaise
Bonito flakes

- Add flour, egg, baking powder and stock into a bowl. Whisk until smooth.
- Add in sliced cabbage into the batter and mix well. Put aside.
- On a hot frying pan, add oil and fry your toppings. I like to use sesame oil for this recipe because it gives a nice aroma and seasoning.
- Once your toppings are close to being cooked, gather it nicely in a flat circle and pour your batter onto it. It should look like a chunky flat pancake.
- Leave to cook for 5 minutes or more. Once the dough is cooked, use two spatulas to flip the pancake over and let the other side cook for 5-10 minutes. Just like a pancake! You can also cut your pancake in half so that it’s easier to flip them.
- Serve on a plate, add generous amounts of Okonomiyaki sauce and Kewpie mayonnaise. Sprinkle with Bonito flakes. Enjoy!

It’s always nice to have a sizzling BBQ on a winter night.

We ordered a set of bulgogi (strips of beef marinated in soy sauce mixture) and spicy dak bulgogi (chicken pieces marinated in hot chili sauce mixture).

We ordered some Korean beer to accompany our meal. I’m not a beer connoisseur but I have found that my favourite beers are mostly malty, dry and strong. So if we have similar taste, I’d recommend that you try the Korean OB lager, the next time you’re out having a Korean meal.

I woke up early this morning, craving pancakes…only to realise that I didn’t have any eggs in the pantry. So I asked myself, could I make pancakes without eggs? I checked online for recipes…and apparently I can!

This is my version of fluffy pancakes without eggs. I’m sure there are many variations out there, but this is all I had to work with. It still tasted good!

1 cup wholemeal flour (you can also use all-purpose flour)
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoon butter

- Combine dry ingredients and mix slightly. Add milk, oil, water and combine. Do not overmix.
- Heat your butter and pour melted butter into pancake batter and stir.
- Spoon mixture onto a hot greased pan. Cook until golden brown.

I noticed that the pancakes tasted savoury which is nice. But if you prefer your pancakes sweet, you can add more sugar into the batter or eat your pancakes with extra dollop of honey, fruits and ice-cream. Other optional ingredients you can include inside your batter: vanilla extract and cinnamon powder.

I made this easy appetizer the other night.

Button mushrooms
Sausages
Bread crumbs (seasoned with salt and pepper)
Egg

- Remove the stems from the mushroom caps and remove sausage skin.
- Stuff sausage mince into the mushroom hole.
- Dip stuffed mushroom in egg mixture
- Then dip the mushrooms in seasoned breadcrumbs
- Deep fry until golden brown and till the meat is thoroughly cooked inside

Make sure that your oil is not too hot otherwise it will burn the breadcrumbs quickly and you’ll end up with raw sausage mince. You may want to test one mushroom first before frying the rest. Enjoy!

I think Autumn took awhile to get here. Some pictures from our walk today.

And then back home for chocolate chip muffins.

Chocolate chip wholemeal muffins (Makes 8 muffins)

250g plain wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
2 tablespoons cocoa
175g brown sugar
150g chocolate chips
250ml milk
90ml vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- Preheat the oven.
- Pour dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Pour liquid ingredients into another bowl.
- Gently mix both together. Do not overmix. Spoon mixture into muffin tins (will be a bit runny).
- Bake for 20 minutes or until muffins are risen.
(I’d totally recommend using Cadbury dark chocolate chips, so good!)

For dinner at our place:)

Pan-seared rosemary pork cutlets.
Served with…