Turmeric Chicken

After days of eating from foodcourt again, I'm back at cooking again. I was still searching for the perfect turmeric chicken and this time I decided to try Mad About Food by Sylvia Tan.


The main ingredient for this recipe is turmeric powder and coconut milk which I substituted with HL milk. I added carrots and cabbages.


Yum yum


When my girl saw me preparing to shoot the dish, she put her face next to it and that's why she's in the shot. We eat it with french loaf.

Verdict:
Everyone loves it but wants more chilli.

Postmortem:
I can't believe it's not spicy enough!

Semolina Crunchies

I finally bought a conventional oven. After looking at models after models, I settled on Baby Belling tabletop oven as it is the right size and it doesn't self-clean. I'm very anti self-clean. I think self-cleaning reduces the lifespan of an equipment. That's just my theory.

The first thing I baked was semolina crunchies which was such a success not long ago. I used the same recipe from Teatime Delights by Mrs Leong Yee Soo.


The Baby Belling took up my last remaining tabletop space!


This is the part I dread. Making the sticky dough into rounds.


I wasn't used to using a conventional oven and my cookies were rather uneven. Still they tasted good.

Prawn Fritters

My girl and I love prawn fritters and if we could, we would just eat them all day. I told my girl that I would look for the recipe for prawn fritters batter and I found it in Singapore Heritage Food by Sylvia Tan.

I really wanted to get this recipe right because my girl would definitely compare it to her grandmother's prawn fritters.

Okay, cooking prawn fritters is hard work. The frying is hot and scary. I'm so afraid of the oil scalding me. I used my Meyer stainless steel wok to fry the prawns. What a big mistake. The fritters stuck like glue to the bottom of the wok. I had to change to my Scanpan non-stick wok. This is such a great wok. It can do anything. I've had it for 2 years.




Golden prawn fritters


This is how we eat it - brown/white rice, broccoli, chilli/ketchup sauce.

Verdict:
My husband said they were good but they needed to be eaten as part of a big feast of other food. Hmm.
My boy was okay with it. He managed to eat 4 and he doesn't really like prawns.
My girl said they were too salty and told me she preferred her grandmother's prawn fritters.
I did find the fritters too salty but ate too many to care.

Postmortem:
Use very little salt next time.

Rich Turmeric Chicken

I love turmeric anything. I don't know anyone else who has a thing for turmeric. I had been dying to try out Rich Turmeric Chicken from Hot & Spicy Treats by Mrs Leong Yee Soo. Finally I got all the ingredients I needed. And it's a lot of ingredients - corriander, cumin, cinnamon, curry, lots more ... and evaporated milk! This is the first time I come across a curry dish which does not use coconut milk. I was so excited. And confused. I had thought turmeric chicken uses just turmeric....


My goodness, it's so yellow. For once my gravy turned out thick instead of watery.


And this is how I eat eat - with mixed white/brown rice and a tall glass of grapefruit juice. (I also have a thing for grapefruit)

Verdict:
My girl said it's too fragrant but she liked it especially the gravy.
My boy said it's alright and I could cook it again.
My husband thought it was good.
I actually found the cumin too overpowering. Definitely too rich for me.

Postmortem:
This recipe did not achieve the kind of turmeric chicken I liked. Too much of everything.

Chilli Prawns

I like a little chilli now and then. Unfortunately I'm one of those people whose sinus gets drained after eating chilli. In fact, whenever my nose gets blocked, I just eat something spicy and .....


Here are my ingredients for my chilli prawns. Onions, capsicum and 1 tablespoon of ground chilli mixed with a little water into paste. The capsicum is not too appropriate but I wanted to use it up.


I stir-fried the onions in my WMF stainless steel frying pan until fragrant. Next I added the chilli paste and stir-fry quickly before it starts to splutter. I add the prawns and cook till it turns pink. I add the capsicum before the prawns get fully cooked.


You can't really tell but the prawns are really large.


This is how we eat it - with mixed white/brown rice and chye sim(okay, not too sure if it's chye sim) cooked in seafood soup.

Verdict:
My kids say - not enough chilli!

Postmortem:
Don't hold back the chilli.

Chicken Moolie

I am a big fan of chicken curry but since coconut milk, a major ingredient in curry causes me migraine, I only eat it if I cook it myself and substitute it with milk. Recently I tried Chicken Moolie (chicken in spicy coconut gravy) from Mrs's Lee's Cookbook by Mrs Lee Chin Koon. I have become a fan of Mrs Lee as I find her recipes rather easy to follow and her instructions have sufficient information for a beginner cook like me.

I REMPAH (pound together) ginger and shallots. No, just kidding. I don't rempah anything. I use an electric mincer. The fragrance from frying the rempah ingredients is fabulous. My son loves the smell of rempah and would go "Mmmm, what are you cooking?"

I used HL fresh milk. It doesn't have the the richness of coconut milk but I don't know what else I can use.


I used my Scanpan non-stitck wok to cook the curry. I wonder what other people use to cook curry?


Looks oily and spicy.


This is how we eat it. With white rice and stir-fried broccoli.

Verdict:
My kids love it but they said to make it more spicy next time. What?!
My husband said it didn't taste like curry, was too watery and lacked fragrance. Still it was alright.
As for me, I thought it was great.

Postmortem:
Cook it again. Don't withhold the chilli. Add more tomatoes/potatoes to thicken the gravy.

Semolina Crunchies

My kids love to eat cookies and I spend a fortune on them. I've always wanted to bake cookies but never had the nerve to start. In Secondary school, I was a tomboy and opted for Technical Studies instead of Home Economics. So I never learnt to bake.

Recently I got this cookbook Teatime Delights by Mrs Leong Yee Soo which had a deceptively simple recipe for Semolina Crunchies. The ingredients were simple enough - self-raising flour, salt, icing sugar, semolina, butter, egg and milk. I decided to make my first cookies ever.

My girl measured the ingredients for me while I took care of the mixing. I didn't like rubbing the butter with the flour. It was gross. When I had to roll the dough flat it kept sticking to my hands. I added flour till it finally stopped sticking. That was frustrating. I had watched my sisters bake when I was young. I don't remember this icky sticky part at all.


Finally I baked the dough in my Turbo Broiler. The problem with baking with a broiler is that the heat comes from the top and the cookies get browned outside fast but inside they're still uncooked. I had to bake at a low level in the beginning and at a higher level at the end. That helped to ensure the cookies were cooked evenly.


The cookies turned out pretty good. My kids ate them so fast I had to be quick to photograph them.

Verdict:
My son says they're not as good as Marks n Spencers but please bake them again!
My girl loves them.

Postmortem:
Sift the flour used to add to the dough. And bake more next time.

Roasted Chicken Alfredo Pasta

I love Alfredo Pasta and longed to cook it myself. I went through some cookbooks but the recipes were too complicated. So I decided to wing it.

Here's how I cook it.
1. Melt some butter in pan. Spread it round.
2. Pour in Light Cream.(I got it at Cold Storage)
3. Stir until it starts to get thick.
4. Add parmesan cheese. Mix it up.
5. Pour over pasta.
6. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over pasta.
7. Sprinkle some mixed herbs.


This is what I cooked for my girl. Alfredo pasta with leftover roasted chicken.

Verdict:
She loves it but added that the chicken is very important. Without it the pasta would not taste good.

Postmortem:
Alfredo pasta should not be eaten on its own.

Char Siew

My son loves his char siew and he lost his beloved char siew stall when the coffee shop was renovated. The char siew stall was ruled by a quarrelsome odd couple who weren't married to each other. The man/woman carving the meat was a large don't mess with me kind of person. Other than the cleaver she was always wielding, she looked like she could punch hard. The man taking care of orders was a nazi who would humiliate you if you didn't pay attention when he pointed at you and shouted, "You, you, what do you want?" And heaven help you if you don't give your order right. The worse part was the couple was frequently in the middle of some verbal war. Each time I survived ordering my son'e char siew rice, no chilli, take away, I felt like I had escaped death.

Since my son was fussy about his char siew - he rejected plenty other stalls, I had to cook it myself. I got the recipe from Mrs's Lee's Cookbook by Mrs Lee Chin Koon.


The marinade is easy enough. Salt, sugar, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce and water.


Looks salty


This is what I use to grill my meat. It's a turbo broiler.


Looks delicious


This is how we eat it - with white rice and boiled bean sprouts.

Verdict:
Everyone loves it. My son said to cook it again.

Postmortem:
Get less fatty meat and use either salt or soy sauce, not both.