Simmered Long Bean Rice

At times when the lazy bugs attacked me, I will cook this for my family. Easier, faster and less washing involved. This savoury rice are always my family's favourite. Just add in any ingredients of our choice. One of my family favourite are Yam Rice, Roasted Pork with Mustard Cabbage and Long Bean Rice.

Simmered Long Bean Rice Recipe

(A)

350g rice (wash, drained well) - I use Thai Fragrant Rice
600 ml water - *it depends to the type of rice we use*
1 tbsp chopped shallots

(B)

2 chicken drumsticks with thigh (skinned, cut into bite size)

200g long bean (cut into 2 inch or diced )
1 stalk chinese sausage (sliced or diced )
30g dried shirmps (chopped)


Marinade:

1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp pepper
1 tbsp "Shaoxing" cooking wine
salt to taste


For Garnishing:

some fried shallots
1 stalk spring onion

Method:

• Marinate chicken with the marinade ingredients for at least 2-3 hours.
• Heat up 2 tbsp oil, saute chopped shallots until fragrant. Add in entire ingredient (B), stir-fry briskly until aromatic.
• Add in rice and toss well. Remove, transfer to the electric rice cooker, pour in water. Cover and cook until the long bean rice is cooked through.
• Garnish it with fried shallots and spring onions. Serve warm.

*Note: Becareful when adding water to cook the rice. Add enough water for cooking rice, you can measure it before frying the rice. Too less or too much water will end up uncooked rice or the rice is too sticky.


HAVE A NICE DAY!!


AMY

Pandan Chiffon (Screwpine Chiffon)

Chiffon again!!! I hope you all won't get bored with my chiffon adventures here. Yeah, I've finally master it already. I was so happy when my friend tried the chiffon recipe here with a great success. I really happy when she told me her kids enjoyed the cake so much and repeatly asking her to bake chiffon for them.

Pandan (Screwpine) Chiffon are one of the most common chiffon we have here. We can always buy this at the bakery or morning market. I don't really like the one they sell out there as I found they use too much of pandan essense or pandan paste. The pandan smells too strong for me and sometimes they are too sweet as well. I use the recipe from Kevin Chai's - Chiffon Cake Is Done and did a few changes to it, I always found his recipe very sweet and need to reduce the sugar used. I use my own way baking it too. The cake turn out soft and fluffy, very fragrant & very yummy! Do give it a try and tell me what do you think okay??

Chiffon cake are easy once you have master how to beat the egg whites foam. Make sure the egg whites you beat reached stiff peak before we mix it into the egg yolk mixture. ***Always use clean, dry, oil free mixing bowl for beating the egg whites. The egg white must not have any egg yolk in it, not even one drop of egg yolk. This are two important thing you must take note before start beating the whites.

Pandan Chiffon Recipe

- adapted from Kevin Chai's - Chiffon Cake Is Done

Egg Yolk Batter:

• 6 egg yolks (always use large eggs, room temperature)
• 80g caster sugar (I use 60g* and still a little sweet for my tastebuds, pls reduce it to 55g*)
• 150g coconut milk (I prefer the fresh coconut milk, thick one pls!)
• 2 tbsp pandan juice (I hand pound 8 pandan leaves with some water, use less water possible)
• 1/4 salt
• 1/4 tsp pandan essense (I use pandan paste and omit the green colouring)
• 1-2 drops green food colouring (omit this if you use pandan paste*)
• 4 tbsp cooking oil (I use sunflower oil)
• 140g plain flour

Egg Whites Foam:

• 6 egg whites
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar (I replace this with 15g of corn flour)
• 100g caster sugar

Method:

1. Egg yolk batter: Hand whisk egg yolks with sugar till it's a bit dissolved. In coconut milk, add in pandan juice, salt and pandan paste - it's already with green colouring in it. Stir to mix.
2. Pour the coconut mixture into the egg yolks and hand whisk to mix. Add cooking oil and mix well.
3. Fold in flour slowly until it forms batter and no lumps. Set aside.
4. Prepare the egg white foam: In another bowl, beat egg whites till it form soft peak. Gradually add in sugar till it finished. Add in corn flour and continue beating at high speed until frothy and stiff peaks form.
5. Gently fold the beaten egg whites foam into egg yolks batter until it is well blended.
6. Pour batter into ungreased 9" (22cm) chiffon pan. Bake in preheated oven at 170c (I bake at 160c for 30mins) for 30-40mins or until it is cooked.
7. Remove cake from oven, immediately invert cake onto table.
8. Wait until it is completely cooled before unmould it.

Happy Baking!

AMY

Scones or English Biscuits??

I love it with blueberry jam *

My friend told me that this is English Biscuit. I don't know if this is scone or biscuit, I haven't tried the English Biscuit before. To my curiosity, I tried to bake this recipe shared by Happy Home Baking the other day. It's low fat, not too sweet and the texture are soft. My daughters even think that this is bread and ate 3 little scones at one go. She just love it!! I would like to thank HHB again for sharing this recipe. Thank you!

I make it smaller size and I get 13 scones with the recipe shared by HHB.

Please click HERE for the recipe of this yummy scones, or I shall said it's English Biscuit.

Happy Baking!

AMY

Thank You, Anncoo!

I would like to thank Anncoo of Anncoo's Hobby for award me this BEST BLOG AWARD. I really appreciate it. Thanks again Anncoo!

However this award come with some rules:

To accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his/her blog link.

-Pass the award to 5 other blogs that you've discovered and think are great!

-Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I would like to pass on this award to blogger as below, I found that their Blog are just GREAT!

• Let's Get Wokking - i just love the recipe shared in her blog!
• My Kitchen Snippets - her blog never stop inspired me, one of my favourite blog.
• Lucky Inn - she shared her success and failure with everyone. A nice blog!
• Daily Delicious - I love her blog and recipe she shared.
• Carol's Blog - check it out, you'll find something interesting in her blog.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate them.

AMY

Tom-Yum Chicken

People who knows me long enough will know that I love Thai food very much. I can make a one day trip to Hatyai, Southern Thailand just to enjoy the Thai food there. My appetite will boast when it come to this sweet, sour and spicy food. I will forget entirely about my diet plan or the big "sparetyre" around my waist ~ LOL..

- kaffir lime leaves -

Normally we will have the soup type Shirmp or Seafood Tom-Yum all the time. It's Tom-Yum paste cooked into soup with different seafood in it. Shirmp, squids, fish meat and clams with mushrooms, chilies and tomatoes. Lemon grass and kaffir leaves was added for the extra flavour. It was normally served with the rice noodles (bee hoon) which is has become one of my favourite Thai dishes, a must have when I visit Thai restaurant. It's just delicious, for those who haven't tried Tom-Yum before, please go and find out now!!

Today, I want to share with all of you one easy way to prepare this Tom-Yum recipe, Tom-Yum Chicken. This recipe are perfect for those who is working. Just marinade the chicken with all the ingredients a night before or in the morning if you want to cook it for dinner then just wrap it with aluminium foil before we bake them in the oven and Voila~ you'll have this delicious Tom-Yum Chicken for your lunch, teatime or dinner. Easy right??? This is what I did when I'm lazy to cook. No need to do a lot of washing and it really save a lot of time... hehe!! Lazy me!

Tom-Yum Chicken Recipe

5-6 large chicken drumsticks with thigh(skinned)

Ingredients for marinade:
2 tbsp Tom-Yum Paste (I use Peace Brand, I've tried and it's excellent!)
8-10 shallots (skinned)
5 clove garlics (skinned)
3 red chillies (seeded, cut into smaller pieces)
4-5 small hot chillies/cili padi (I omit this, my kids can't take it too spicy)
4 pieces kaffir leaves (cut into smaller pieces)
2 tbsp honey
some salt

For Garnishing:

lemon (cut into wedges)
some mints leaves

Method:
Wash chicken, remove skin and all the excessive fat. Use knife to cut few lines on it for better marinade.
Blend all the marinade ingredients until fine and in paste form. **Do not add water when blending them.
Rub the ground ingredients on chicken and marinate for at least 2 hours or preferably over night.
Preheated oven at 200c, wrap the chicken seperately with aluminium foil (can line it with a piece of banana leaves if you want-optional) and bake for 30-35 mins.
Serve warm with steamed rice or we can just eat the chicken alone.

Note: ***Adjust the flavour according to your own preference and it's also depend on brand of Tom-Yum paste used. When the chicken is cooked, there will be some chicken juice inside the aluminium foil. **Don't throw that away, that's the best Tom-Yum soup you can ever have!!*** hehe~

Enjoy Your Weekend & Happy Cooking!!!

AMY

Orange Chiffon

Again, another successful chiffon attempt and this time I baked Orange Chiffon, my kids favourite. It was a great surprise when I see all the comments left in my comment box. I never get so many comments at one time. I'm so happy. Thank you so much my dear friends!!

I decided to post the recipe of this Orange Chiffon now and let any of you who interested, can try it out. This is a good recipe and a successful one. Anyhow, this is my second time baking it. My first Orange Chiffon was snapped up in few minutes time, eaten by my group of girlfriends when they are at my house to see me demonstrate and show them how to bake chiffon the other day. I don't even have any chance to take a picture. The first Orange Chiffon turn out just as GREAT as this one. So, I truly recommend this recipe for all of you to try out.

Recipe adapted from Kevin Chai's ~ Chiffon Cake Is Done and I made some changes to suit my tastebuds. Here we GO!!!

Orange Chiffon Recipe

Egg Yolk Batter:

7 egg yolks (I use large size eggs, room temperature)
50g caster sugar (I reduce 10g and I found it's still too sweet*)
1/4 salt
4 tbsp cooking oil (I use Organic Sunflower Oil)
2 tbsp grated orange rind (I blend it using blender)
60ml orange juice (I squeeze juice from 1 orange)
few drops orange colouring (I omit this)
110g self-raising flour (I use cake flour)

Egg Whites Foam:

7 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar ~ I substitute it with 15g (approx: 1 tbsp) corn flour.
130g castor sugar

Method:

1. Prepare the egg yolk batter: In a mixing bowl, combine egg yolk, salt and sugar. Hand whisk till the sugar dissolved. Add in oil, orange rind and orange juice. Stir till well combined.
2. Fold in flour until it forms batter and no lumps left. Set aside for later use.
3. Prepare the egg white foam: In another bowl, beat egg whites till it form soft peak. Gradually add in sugar till it finished. Add in corn flour and continue beating at high speed until frothy and stiff peaks form. **(Check with your finger, press on the egg whites and you can feel it's hard and the egg whites won't dropped out when you over turn the bowl)
4. Gently fold the beaten egg whites foam into egg yolks batter until it is well blended.
5. Pour batter into ungreased 9" (22cm) chiffon pan. Bake in preheated oven at 170c for 30-40mins or until it is cooked.
6. Remove from oven and immediately invert cake onto table until it is completely cooled before unmould it.

Happy Trying & Enjoy!!!

Note: For those who still new in baking chiffon, egg yolks and egg whites have to be seperated and place in different mixing bowl. Make sure you use the clean bowl and beater, free from oil to beat the egg whites. The process of beating egg whites are very important, make sure it is already in stiff peak foam before you started to mix it in the egg yolk mixture.

Click HERE to see my Orange Poppy Seeds Chiffon.

AMY

Cranberry & Raisin Scones

This was my very first time baking scones. I tried scones years back when I tour europe and I didn't have a good first impression on it. The scones there are rocky hard and I could hardly cut them half to spread the butter. I don't bother to learn baking them as I have bad impression for scones until I see this Blueberry Scones baked by Wendy - The Adventures Of Giggles

I was totally inspired by her lovely blueberry scones. Too bad, I can't get all those fresh blueberries here in Alor Star. I failed to get the frozen one as well, maybe not much people demanded for it. What I can get is only blueberry puree, the one which is more sticky like jam type and I can't use that to bake scones. To replace blueberry, I substitute them with dried cranberries and raisins. But, according to Wendy, blueberries are the BEST for scones. I really want to taste it now. Wendy, keep one for me okay?? lol

After I bake the scones, I totally change my impression toward it. The recipe shared by Wendy are fantastic! The scone are soft and yummy. Not too sweet and it's best eaten warm with some butter or fruit jam. However, I still prefer the eat them with butter. Do give it a try!!

I was lazy to retyped the recipe and please feel free to click HERE for the recipe from The Adventure Of Giggles!

**I substitute the blueberries with the same amount of dried cranberries & raisins mixture.

Happy Baking!

AMY