Fried Carrot Cake & Rojak

I was really productive in the kitchen last week. I baked brownie, chilli paste, carrot cake. (oh shit, don't remember what else I did without photos)

I had sudden craving for fried carrot cake therefore suggested to CL to make some ourselves for dinner. Opps, I forgot to take some photos of the final product of steam carrot cake before cutting them up for frying. I was too busy making chilli paste and calling mummy to double check the ingredients required.

White version of Fried Carrot Cake
Black version of Fried Carrot Cake (not very black but nice)

CL helped me to fry both version of the carrot cake and he did a good job! The carrot cake was soft, all of flavour plus homemade chilli paste. It taste better than served at cafe/restaurant.

We also added a few more ingredients to our Rojak. Added turnip, bean sprouts, tau pok (bean curd skin) and also the usual cucumber, pineapple and You Tiao. It was a huge bowl of Rojak when I mixed everything up. CL says " this is somthing which 1 + 1 not = 2"

The next day, we had leftover carrot cake for breakky.

Brownie

CL requested for Brownie again and I baked them in a heart shape bake tin which I don't know where to slice when served. It's the smallest bake time I have. If I baked them in the square shape tin, the brownie might be too flat like the previous time.

Don't really remember did I used the same recipe as the previous time but it's definitely from the same Nigella cookbook. I did cut down the amount of sugar as I find her recipes a bit too sweet for our tastebuds.

I can't stop myself from licking the spoon and bowl once I placed the tin into the oven. It's delicious just by licking it. The recipe state to bake for XX minutes and to constantly look out for it as brownie tend to over bake very quickly. I ended up extending the baking time even though I only bake 1/3 the amount of the recipe. The middle was pretty gooey when I took them out from the oven. CL was surprised it was so gooey and I was guessing it will harded when it cooled. If not I just have to pop them back into the oven. I thought this time round, the brownie will be a success as it did get hardern as it cool.

BUT I was wrong! When I cutted them up and serve with Vanilla Ice Cream, it was still uncook in the middle. Definitly better than the previous time but still not fully correct. Hmmmm I seriously wonder why.

Fatt Kueh

Came upon this recipe for quite some time now but didn't really manage to try them. I followed the recipe very strictly as it as my 1st time but it still didn't turn out right. I did have my doubt when I mixed the coconut milk with the rice flour. It's suppose to be a smooth batter but mine turn out to be like a dough. Suspecting the coconut I used was cream instead of milk even though the packet did state milk. It's too thick to be consider as milk.

The Fatt Kueh did "explode" but it's not soft and fluffy. As for sweetness, it's just right to my tastbud. I will definitely give them a try again as they are really simple to make but I got to make sure I uses coconut milk not cream.

Greek Shortbread Bicuits,Kourabiedes

Our very lovely greek neighbour, Irene baked these Kourabiedes for Easter and she gave us some.

The first time I tried them was during Christmas period when she baked over 500 of as gifts for her family, relatives and neighbours. She told me she do it every year but the amont decreases every year too as she's finding a bit hard to produce so many biscuits alone.

This Easter she baked a small amount for her family and we were offered some because we are her family too :)

They smell great! I only need to remove the cover and I can smell it immeditaely without bringing my nose close to it! It's crunchy coz of the nuts but also extremely sweet because it's covered with icing sugar. She told me it's also very fattening so can't have too much.

I had quite a few as CL finds them too sweet. I know I will be the only 1 eating them like the batch we had during Christmas. Therefore I bought the rest in to work the next day and shared with a few colleagues. They all enjoyed it a lot!

Back to craft projects

As the weather turns cold and daylights got shorter, I'm back to doing my craft work. Crocheting my old granny square rug which I started last year and stopped.

I just started knitting a scarf for my MIL last night (we are expecting them in mid June, another excuse for me to knit). It's a very simple basic stitch so it shouldn't take me long. Plus it only 4 balls of yarn knitting two balls at the same time. My aim is to finish both projects before june so that I can put both into good use during this coming winter.

BBQ Chicken - Nando's Style

CL had craving for Nando's style bbq chicken after I had shared with him my Nando's takeaway lunch few days ago. He suggested to marinate some chicken and popped them onto the barbie for dinner. It sound good to me, nice, simple and easy.

I already had a whole chicken in my freezer. I dropped by Coles, get some Nando's Peri Peri marinate sauce and saw some cheap but still fresh cabbage. Therefore decided to make some coleslaw as salad. Also grabbed 2 corns to put on the barbie.

It didn't take CL long to start the fire this time. Kinda of experience now. :)

I chopped the chicken into half to speed up the cooking process and have more "burn" parts to eat. I also popped in a sweet potato for lunch the next day.


Dinner for the night. CL definitely didn't had enough to eat as it was too delicious. The corn was cooked just right. It was juicy and sweet without any burned at all!

Almond Biscotti

Almond Biscotti, it was my 1st time baking them.

1. CL was scheduled to work night again and I had all the free time during the day.
2. I haven't bake for a long time.
3. CL's and his colleagues can have fresh biscotti to snack through the night.
4. This recipe I came upon doesn't require any butter nor oil. Or all biscotti's recipes doesn't include butter or oil?
5. It looks really simple and easy to make.

With some many excuses to try baking, why not? Don't think I need more excuse.

I tried taking more photos as I bake/cook now. I'm still not very good at it and kept forgetting. I'm still trying my best.

After the 1st bake, slicing them and laying flat on the tray preparing for 2nd bake.

Two trays of biscotti in the oven during final bake.

End result

1. It was too hard. The dough was too wet and hard to moulded into shape so I added more flour. I must had gone a bit too far.
2. The sweetness was just right.
3. CL's colleague suggested to slice them thinner.

Overall the review I received was pretty good. I was very surprised CL's colleagues finished everything (he was feeling hungry at around 5am and wanted some biscotti but found an empty container instead). I thought it will all goes into the bin because it was too hard. But it was actually pretty nice to munch on bit by bit. Even my colleagues gave pretty positive remarks. I will definitely try it again.

Prawn Noodle Soup & Rojak

These 2 days was a rest and relax weekends for both of us.

On Saturday morning, we went to had some really nice Yum Cha at Tai Pan. It was our 1st visit but we did read about it on the Good Food Guide 2008. We decided to give it a try since it's near our place, can't be bother to drive to far. The restraurant was crowded when we got there but it didn't take them long at all to orgainse us a table for 2. Right after tea was serve, trolleys of food came one after another. Within 15 mins the whole table was full of the usual dim sum which we both love.

Sorry I didn't take any pictures at all as we were just too hungry!!!
The pork and century egg congee was thick which I prefer but not CL. Char Siew Bao was super soft, not too sweet and not too much colouring added. Har Gau was pretty average, had much better ones elsewhere. Spare ribs was super soft (hmmm....wonder how much meat tenderiser powder did they use). Feng Zhua was really nice, the "toes" didn't fall into pieces when I pick the feet up with my chopstick and it's full of flavour.

We actually wanted to order another plate of Char Siew Bao but we suddendly had craving for pineapple bun when the trolley came. The pineapple bun was amazing! It was stuffed with custard cream and not too sweet. As for dessert, we had Dou Fu Hua, Mango Pudding and Mango Sago. Although the dou fu hua is not as smooth as some other restaurant but it was full of soy bean smell and taste. The mango sago was very refreshing for us as most of the yum cha places we visited serve Rockmelon sago.

That was for breakky cum lunch, as for dinner I decided to try cooking Prawn Noodle Soup from scratch without any packet paste.

Prawn Noodle Soup
Soup base was chicken stock which I boiled and freeze. It was further boiled with pork ribs + fried prawn shells with garlic. Season with pepper, rock sugar and dark soy sauce. The soup was easily left on the stove for more than 2 hours.
Noodles, fish cakes, shelled prawns, bean sprouts and kang kong were all cooked in boiling water and drench with soup stock. I was very pleased with the result but not CL. He felt that the stock wasn't thick enough!!! Honestly, I had no idea what I can do to make it better. Suggestion anyone???

Rojak
This afternoon, I tried making rojak. My first try, I didn't do any cooking or baking. I just mix and piece everything together. We only bought a few ingredients, cucumber, pineapple and You Tiao which I heated it up using the oven to make it crispy.
With lots of shrimp paste, sugar, fresh lime juice, tamarind juice all mixed together to form the dressing. Dump in all the rest of dry ingredients and mixed it all up. Sprinkle some crashed peanuts on top before serve. In less than a few minutes, we were digging into a huge bowl of rojak. Yum Yum!!!

Japanese Feast!

This was the Japanese Feast we had for the whole day on Black Saturday.

We were supposed to be away for the weekend with some friends but was cancelled last minute. So we planned to spend the day at the beach since it was forcasted to be a nice warm summer day. But on Friday, weather forcasted temperature going to hit max 45degree. Victorian Premier John Brumby advised us not to travel unless really necessary. It sound really bad so we decided to just relax and stay cool at home. We totally had no idea it was going to be such a historical Saturday.

On Saturday, we drove to Victoria Market to stock up the fridge. Expecting the weather to get really nasty, we actually started our day unusually early. We won't the only one who did that! The market was crowded with people by 8.30a.m instead of the usual 9.30a.m.

CL wanted to have Japanese food for lunch and I just found a Japanese shop Suzuran located at Camberwell and decided to check it out. It's a Japanese grocery but also a takeaway sushi store. We spend close to an hour shopping for grocery + waiting for our takeaway sushi.

Sashimi cost $25. CL ordered $10 Salmon, $10 King Fish and $5 Tuna. They were really thick slices and fresh!

2 sushi sets which we picked from the menu. Sorry can't really recall the price for each.


Seaweed+Octopus
CL loves eating seaweed. I bought a huge pack for $7. The potion on the picture is slightly more than half the potion I purchase. Can't remember how much I pay for the octopus but from memory, it wasn't expensive too.

Look at the sushi!!! The tuna slice is so much bigger and longer than the rice dough. I was shocked when I realised and wanted to show it here. This wasn't the only piece, every single sushi has the rice fully covered by either the fish/prawn slice.

I was ecstatic when I saw Takoyaki in the freezer. I haven't had them for more than 3 years!! Finally I managed to find them in Melbourne. I bought slow cooked them on the stove, topped with okonomiyaki sauce, Japanese mayonnaise and katsuobushi. It was heaven!!!!!

As for dinner, CL planned to go Lygon and have some Italian food but we were too lazy to head out in the end. Plus the weather was still really warm. Instead, we had Kabayaki-don for dinner.

I cooked some Japanese rice, made some Tamagoyaki and reheated the Unagi which we purchase at Suzuran. I also cooked some tofu miso soup, sliced up some cucumber and tomatoes as shown in the picture on top.

I only paid about $2 at Suzuran for some Salmon belly which nobody eats. Apparently it's full of fish oil high in Omega 3 which is good for the health. Since we eat almost anything and everything plus it's cheap, why not give it a try? I washed and wipe dried with kitchen towel before popping them into the oven griller till crispy. I will definitly buy more on my next trip to Suzuran.

As I'm writing this post, CL is suggesting to pop into Suzuran tomorrow again. Must be the pictures....hehe.

Pecan Cookies & Brownie

Last week, I was itchy to bake. So I decided to bake some Pecan Cookies with CL loves since I have all the ingredients in the pantry. Thinking it uses Oats and Pecan as the ingredients, surely it's better than baking Chocolate Chips Cookies right? I even replace half of the plain purpose flour with wholemeal flour. Also replace more than half of the required pecan with hazelnut coz I ran out. Hmmm should I still name this as Pecan Cookies?

I actually made the dough the night before and place them in the fridge to harden it. This process will result in a more crunchy cookie instead of soft and chewy.

Dough just taken out from the fridge and really to be slice.

Sliced and ready to be bake.

Instead of half the ingredients, I decided not to this time. I ended up with not only lots of cookies but also house smell delicious! Took some and share among with my colleagues and the whole box of cookies were gone before lunch. Didn't realized so many of them turn up in the office that day, if not I will had bought in more.

This recipe is definitely a keeper as everybody who ate it love it. :)


I also tried baking Brownie. It was requested by CL one evening for dessert with Vanilla Ice Cream which we had in the fridge. Flipped through some of my cookbook and I pick the one in Nigella (How to be a Domestic Goddess). There are still a lot of recipes which I want to try. Just waiting for the opportunity.

I'm guessing I had under baked the brownie. It was still slightly sticky, soggy when I served it. But it was heaven having it warm with cold vanilla ice cream!