Best Lasagna

As I have mentioned earlier, KC loves western food and he is the one who cooks pasta at home. It has been more than 5 yeas since the last time he cooked lasagna for me. That’s before we dated, so maybe that’s one of his tactics.

Anyway, just recently he’s baked lasagna for me again and that’s the best lasagna I’ve ever had, somehow better that the one 5 years ago… Dear, I thank God for you and I thank you for everything you have done for me. I pray that we will grow together in our our marriage and no matter what happens, we will love one another more everyday.  Happy Valentine’s Day!!

We love because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19

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Salmon in ginger and soy sauce

Having staying at Hershey for so long, another thing we miss very much is the fresh and relatively cheap seafood back in Malaysia. Imagine that I am not a seafood fan and miss seafood, what more to say about KC?!

There are crab, prawn, lobster, salmon, red snapper, tilapia but most of them are frozen. Lobster is selling at cheaper price compared to Malaysia but we still couldn’t afford to have it too frequent. One lobster will normally cost $15 and during sales, it can go down to $8. We normally buy frozen cooked prawns here as the uncooked one smells bad for me and the texture is too mushy. We have been wanting to try salmon fillet but we hesitated because of the tilapia fillet that we bought when we first arrived here. We didn’t realize it’s farm-raised and it had the muddy smell. We try to look for wild caught salmon and we finally find some at Walmart with the affordable price.

Although it’s wild caught,  I still worry about the strong fishy smell. So  I decide to marinade it with rice wine, pepper, soy sauce and pan-fried it with a bit of corn starch. Then serve it with fried ginger, onion, garlic in soy sauce (mixture of dark and light) and chopped spring onion. Yum yum… It’s a bit crispy outside but tender and juicy inside. I will definitely get some more of the salmon fillets the next time I go to Walmart so that I can try out more recipes.

I think I‘ve put too much dark soy sauce and it’s slightly too dark 

Chinese New Year Celebration

I have been missing steamboat or ‘hot pot’ as how it is called here in US since we arrived here more than 6 months ago. So we’ve decided to have it on the first day of Chinese New Year and we have invited few friends who love spicy food to to join us for dinner. One thing good about steamboat is that you can put almost everything into it. But one very important ingredient KC misses is meat ball. We can easily get meat ball in any of the grocery shops but we can’t find the type that we like. They are either too fatty, salty or soft. So I think I should just try to make some for the Tom Yam steamboat.

I used boneless country style spare ribs as they are less fatty. I minced the meat and mixed all the seasoning using a food processor and stirred a bit until it’s gluey. Instead of frying the meat ball, I boiled them. I think the most difficult work in making meat ball is shaping them smooth and round. Mine turned out ugly but tasty though =P I should have taken a picture of KC when he tasted the meat ball. He was so happy because he missed meat ball in beef noodles soup that he used to eat in Kajang.

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Besides steamboat, I have made ‘bak gua’ (pork jerky) and 2 types of cookies- Vanishing oatmeal raisin cookie and chewy chocolate chip cookie.

Vanishing oatmeal raisin cookie

chewy chocolate chip cookie

Bak gua is a must have for Chinese New Year at least for Chinese in Malaysia & Singapore. However,we can’t find it here in Hershey. It’s very different from the beef jerky which we can find in the grocery shop. So, I decided to make some too. Nevertheless, unlike the meat ball, the bak gua turned out to be ‘not as what I have expected’. It was not that tasty- without the charcoal burned taste and smell. Furthermore, I guess, the bak gua we used to buy at the roadside stall had more fats! This bak gua that I made was too ‘healthy’ to have the taste – it’s low fat, less sugar, less salt and not burned! KC decided to add more butter and honey to it and roast it longer in the oven to get the taste that he likes.

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We would like to wish you all a very Happy, Prosperous, Blessed ‘Rabbit’ Chinese New Year!

Baked Chicken Breast with Cheese and Tomato

Most of my cooking are Asian or Chinese food but KC is a person who loves Western food especially cheese. He will cook spaghetti or roast chicken wings at home and he is very good at marinating meat. Since we arrived at Hershey, I have become the full time ‘cook’. So I guess he may have forgotten how to do that. hehehe…

Today, he told me that he would love to have baked chicken with cheese. This dish was introduced to us by Erin and Joel when we had our first dinner at their place. Erin told me that it’s a very easy dish to prepare and she was very kind to email me the recipe. I remembered all it needed were chicken breast, tomato, cheese, salt and pepper. Simple, right?! However, when I went through the recipe just before I wanted to start cooking, I found out that I lacked so many ingredients stated. So, I had no choice but to cook using whatever I had.

First, I mixed cubed tomato, finely chopped garlic, dried parsley, dried basil, crouton, olive oil, salt and pepper. Then I spread the mixture and cheese on top of chicken, drizzled with a bit of olive oil and baked it at 350F for 30- 40 minutes.

I served it with baked potato and romaine. Hey, it turned out better than I thought! The only thing is it’s not good for the next meal. The chicken will be too dry after reheating.

Give it a try and let me know how do you like it. It’s very easy to prepare and needs little work.

Tomato Bee Hoon @ Mee Siam

We have been in Hershey for almost half a year. When I recap the time that we have spent here, I have discovered my another new hobby— to fulfill KC’s craving For instance, few days ago when he told me that he missed ‘tomato Bee Hoon’ very much (Bee Hoon is rice vermicille), I knew I got to look for the recipe or at least figured out the recipe from his description. I am actually happy whenever he tells me what he will like to eat because a lot of time, I am out of idea what to cook.

Talking about ‘tomato Bee Hoon’, I had totally no idea what it was. According to KC, it’s stir-frying the Bee Hoon with tomato sauce. Hah, that’s easy but would it be tasty?! I googled and I found something very similar to KC’s description— Mee Siam. Mee Siam or “Siamese noodles” is basically spicy fried rice vermicille with various toppings such as shrimp, chicken, fried firm tofu, and shredded omelet. It is usually served with a piece of kalamansi lime (the juice gives an extra tangy kick to the noodles). This dish is said to originate from the north of Malaysia where the culinary influences of Thailand (formerly Siam) sometimes fuse with Malaysian food.

I went through a few recipes and decided on one interesting one which used dried prawns, tomato sauce and tamarind juice. As usual, I would love to share with you my recipe but don’t worry, the original recipe can be found here

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Ingredient

• 250g or half pack rice vermicille (soaked in warm water and drained when soft)
• 4 dried chilies
• 1 onion (shredded)
• 4 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
• 100g dried prawns (finely chopped)
• 10-12 prawns (shelled and deveined)
• 4oz. Char Siew or pork (shredded)
• 5 pieces fried bean curd or firm toufu (cut into pieces)
• 4-5 pieces Chinese long cabbage (shredded)
• 1 cup water

Seasoning

• 2 tbsp. Tau Cheo or salted soy bean paste
• 3-4 tbsp. tomato ketchup
• 2 tbsp. chili sauce
• 1 tbsp. tamarind Juice
• 2 tbsp. lime juice
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. fish sauce
• salt and sugar to taste

Garnishing

• 2 eggs (lightly bitten, seasoned with a pinch of salt and black pepper)
• 2 stalks scallion (chopped into 1/2-inch length)

Method

1. Heat up a pan with some oil and make the beaten eggs into an omelet. Fold and slice the omelet thinly. Set aside.

2. Heat up pan and add 3 tablespoons of oil, fry the dried prawns until fragrant. Add dried chilies, onion, garlic, salted soy bean paste and fry until golden brown.

3. Add prawns, Char Siew, fried bean curd, Chinese long cabbage and stir fry until the prawn and Chinese long cabbage are half done. Add seasoning and bring to boil with 1 cup of water.

4. Add softened rice vermicille and stir fry until all ingredients are evenly distributed. Taste and adjust the seasoning by adding salt or sugar to taste.

5. Transfer the Mee Siam onto a big serving bowl and garnish with the omelet strips, chopped scallions. Serve immediately.

Notes: I can’t get kalamansi limes where I am, so I use only the lime juice. Oh, how I miss squeezing the kalamansi lime and its smell on my fingers *sniff sniff *

Oh, another must have for the extra extra kick is THE sambal belachan which goes very well with this!!

Curry Chicken

 I ushered in my new year at a party organized by KC’s supervisor. They loved Asian food so I thought curry chicken would be a good dish to introduce to the people here. This was my second attempt of cooking curry chicken. The first one was just ‘so so’ because I only used the ready mix curry paste. It’s definitely lack of something very important – the ‘kick’!!

I googled and I was very excited when I found this website Nyonya Food. It had a lot of tasty yet easy recipes for the dishes that I never thought I would want to cook myself. Now that I have no choice, I am really thankful and much willing to give it a try. The original recipe for curry chicken can be found here. I modified according to my accessibility for spices. Though without the curry leaves, I am very satisfied with my curry chicken this time round. It tasted better after reheating as the gravy would thicken. I cooked quite a lot and we ate it with rice, bread, pita bread, naan…

This is the curry paste we used for cooking curry

 

This is the curry I cooked using my modified recipe

This is the curry I cooked using only curry paste. You can notice the obvious color difference, not to mention about the fragrance and flavor *sniff sniff*.

Naan is sold for $2 a piece here. So far, we only had twice ;P

Here is my modified recipe for curry chicken:

Ingredients:

• 6 chicken whole legs (cut in small pieces)
• 4 medium size potatoes (peeled and cut into cubes)
• 100ml thick coconut milk and 100ml milk (I use less coconut milk because I am watching out for my cholesterol level)
• 2 star anise
• 1 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick (3 inches long)
• 1 lemongrass (cut into 2 inches long)
• 5 tbsp. oil
• 2 cups water (use more if you like it to be more diluted)

Spice Paste (ground):

• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 big onions
• 1 tbsp. turmeric powder
• 1tsp galangal powder
• 2 tbsp. curry powder
• 1 lemongrass (white part only)
• 2-3 tbsp. chili paste
• ¼ pack of curry paste (optional)

Seasoning

• 1 tbsp. salt
• 1 tsp. sugar

Method:

1. Heat up your wok, pour in 5 tbsp oil, sauté cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves and lemon grass, fry over low heat, add in spice paste and stir-fry until fragrant and turn into darker color.
2. Add chicken and potatoes and fry well. Add in water, cover the pot, bring it to boil until chicken and potatoes are cooked well (around 10 min).
3. Transfer everything to crockpot and cook for at least 3 hours on high.
4. Add the thick coconut milk, salt and sugar. Continue to cook on high for 2-3 hours or until the chicken and potatoes become tender. Remove and serve with white rice, bread, nasi kunyit, or roti jala.

Notes: To make it easier, add in coconut milk when you transfer everything into crockpot and let it cook for few hours until chicken and potatoes are tender and the gravy starts to thicken.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

This year is our first time celebrating ‘White Christmas’. Since it’s a first time for us and I thought I should have a new way of wishing you all a blessed Christmas and Happy New Year too…
Here it is in the video…

iBand

I did not say I recorded the video myself… Hope you like it. I like what technology can do for us.

Beef Rendang

Beef rendang or spicy beef stew with coconut is a very popular dish in Malaysia, Indonesian and Singapore. If I am not wrong, it’s a recipe originated from Minangkabau ethnic group of Indonesia. I love beef rendang since I was young and I always look forward to Hari Raya Aidilfitri open house because our Malay friends will serve us this aromatic and extraordinary scrumptious dish. I have never cooked beef rendang before because it’s known to be a very ‘demanding’ dish. Time, not to mention patience and dedication–alone is probably a main obstacle for most people.

To have beef rendang in Hershey is simply impossible because we couldn’t get turmeric, galangal and kaffir leaves. I was very happy that I brought 2 packs of ready-mix rendang paste from Malaysia, but without realizing that they required the spices mentioned above!! *knocking head against the wall* We searched all the grocery stalls and Asia malls nearby, all we could get is powder. Anyway, it’s still better than NOTHING. We bought turmeric powder and galangal powder at Harrisburg Asia Mall and kaffir leaves in Philadelphia. These are the most expensive kaffir leaves I have ever bought- around 20 leaves for $7, it’s like eating gold!! Lemon grass is common but not cheap too. I miss those days when we could have almost everything from the garden.

Maggi rendang paste from Malaysia which is only for 1 pound of beef

This was my first time cooking beef rendang so I checked online for different beef rendang recipes. I could only use what I have so I came out with my own simplified version. But again, I couldn’t believe that my simplified version actually tasted great and nothing different from what we normally had for Raya :P I prefer beef rendang with thick  gravy, so I opted to use crock pot/ slow cooker that I didn’t have to keep stirring it to make sure it’s not burnt. I cooked it the day before and I cooked more to serve it over a few meals because the fact is beef rendang only gets better with time!! Guess we had it for how many meals???

Ingredients

• 2 lb. beef  (cut into small chunks or cubes)
• 3 tbsp. dark soy sauce
• 1/2 cup raisin (finely chopped)
• 1 lemon grass (cut into 3-inch length and pounded)
• 1 cinnamon stick (about 2-inch long)
• 3 cloves
• 3 star anise
• 1/2 cup thick coconut milk
• 2-3 tbsp. brown sugar
• 5 kaffir lime leaves (very finely chopped)
• 4-5 tbsp. kerisik or desiccated coconut
• Salt to taste

Spice paste

• 1 big sweet onion or 4-5 shallots
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 2 inch ginger
• 1 lemon grass (white part only)
• 1.5 tbsp. chili paste or 5-6 red chilies
• 1 tsp. turmeric powder
• 1 tsp. galangal powder

Instructions

1. Marinade the beef with dark soy sauce and raisin overnight

2. Chop the sweet onion, garlic, ginger, lemon grass and then blend all of them in a food processor until fine. add in the chili paste, turmeric powder, galangal powder and mix well

3. Sauté the cinnamon, cloves, star anise, spice paste and ready-mix rendang paste until aromatic

4. Add the beef and the pounded lemongrass and stir to blend well with the paste

5. Add the coconut milk, kerisik, kaffir leaves, brown sugar, stir to blend well with beef and simmer on medium heat. Stirring frequently until the beef is almost cooked.

6. Transfer everything to a crock pot and cook on high for 3 hours or until the beef is very tender and the gravy has dried up

7. Add salt to taste. If not sweet enough, add more brown sugar to taste

8. Serve with rice or bread and cucumber

Notes: To prepare the kerisik, just add the grated coconut to a dry wok and stir continuously until they turn golden brown.

Steam Chicken with Mushroom and Ginger

This is one of my favourite recipes from my MIL. I like it because it’s very healthy and simple. All you need is chicken, chinese mushroom, ginger, oyster sauce, black pepper and a pinch of salt. However, my MIL will serve this with fried shredded ginger and dark soy sauce as dipping sauce which makes this taste even better.

Personally, I like ginger and I use a lot of it in my cooking, especially for meat and fish. It’s spicy-sweet taste not only get rid of the unpleasant flavor of meat or fish, it gives the dish a totally different yet wonderful taste and aroma. We know old ginger as a heaty spice. But a lot of people didn’t know that  the skin of old ginger is actually not heaty and it balances off the heaty ginger flesh. So next time, when you cook with ginger, don’t peel off all the skin. My mum used to cook ginger with egg and Foo-Chow red wine to ease my menstrual pain. It’s very famous among Foo-Chow people and the most important thing- It works!!

Ginger in America is more expensive compared to Malaysia. Worst thing is I couldn’t get young ginger, turmeric or galangal here. Turmeric and galangal are the members of ginger family but they taste so different from one another. Imagine ayam percit or rendang without them!! That’s why I miss rendang so much now *sigh*. Anyway, I have some ready mix rendang paste and I am going to cook it very soon

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Ingredients

• 2 chicken leg quarters or 6 drumsticks
• ginger (sliced and shredded)
• 3-4 pieces rehydrated chinese mushroom (sliced)
• 1 tbsp. oyster sauce
• black/ white pepper
• salt (to taste)
• sesame oil (optional but it gives credit to the dish)
• 3 tbsp. dark soya sauce
• sugar

Steps

1. Trim off the skin and fat of chicken.  spread the oyster sauce, pepper, salt, sesame oil, ginger and mushroom on the chicken
2. Steam the chicken for  40-45 minutes
3. Meanwhile, fry the shredded ginger until brown and crispy and set aside
4. Boil the dark soya sauce with 2 tbsp. of water and sugar (to taste). It’s supposed to be thick and sweet
5. Serve the chicken together dark soya dipping sauce and fried ginger

Enjoy!!

Happy Thanksgiving

This is our first time that we are celebrating Thanksgiving in US. We are excited to experience the celebration here. We are invited by our church friend to celebrate with their family and we are looking forward to it!

This year, we are thankful for God’s provisions and blessings upon our life. He has led us into new phase of life and a journey that is nothing short of excitement! Ezra 3:11 says

With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD: “He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid

Anyway, we just want to wish you Happy Thanksgiving!