Holiday meal.

I'm just gonna dive straight into it. Drool people, drool!

Wash potatoes, cut slits and stuff away. Go ahead and choose your own ingredients!

 

I seasoned the potatoes with olive oil, salt, pepper, mixed herbs and topped them off with parmesan cheese, only because I didn't have any mozarella... I baked these at 200degrees for about 40minutes.

*Don't be stingy with your olive oil.

 Aglio Olio with laksa leaves

This Aglio Olio recipe was my friend's original. I was privileged to have learnt this from the experimental guru himself. Haha!

Haqem's Aglio Olio with Laksa Leaves and Sausages.

Ingredients:

Spaghetti

Lamb sausages

Garlic

Bullet Chilli OR bird's eye chilli (aka cili padi)

Laksa leaves (a.k.a. Vietnamese cilantro or more commonly known here as daun kesom)

Butter

Salt

Mixed herbs/Italian herbs

Pepper

Method:

*Get started with boiling the spaghetti in salt water.

1. Oil a skillet with butter and fry the lamb sausages with garlic (crushed with skins on) until the sausages are crispy on the outside.

2. Remove sausages from fire.

3. Separate the skin from the meat of the sausages. - You might want to get someone to help you with this (I used two forks to squish the meat off from the skin. This process would be rather easy if the skin is crispy enough.)

4. With the same oil from the sausages, saute minced garlic until slightly brown, then add the sliced bullet chilli and laksa leaves and continue stirring until you can smell it. --> What I did here was to transfer the entire thing into a wok so that I could stir it easily.

5. Add water (from the pasta) to moisten the whole mixture.

6. Add the sausages (NOT the skin) and stir.

7. Drain the spaghetti from pot and add them in.

8. Add the herbs and pepper.

9. Salt is optional since the pasta water is already salty. But you might need the extra kick.

**For one pack of spaghetti, I almost used up the entire bag of laksa leaves (those that can be bought at NTUC). 

**Since I couldn't find lamb sausages, I made do with the usual Valley Chef chicken sausages. The skin was not as crispy when I sauteed them and the taste was sweeter. I still loved it anyway.

Thank goodness I had a cooking partner, Sarah, and she baked while I cooked. Made things easier and much faster.

Hope you guys had a good holiday! I'm returning to work tomorrow and am looking forward to it! Can't wait to decorate my new desk with more stuff.

Till next time,

MWAH MWAH!

Fassler Gourmet and "kitchen haven"

This is a long overdue post on the trip my husband I had to the Fassler Gourmet, the salmon factory in Woodlands.

I read a few articles and reviews about this place and they all said the same thing - the place is cold. Me being me, I thought I could handle it, what with being entirely covered from head to toe. 

So we went in the freezer and boy, did I wish I had my windbreaker with me. I went in, ogled at a few things there and rushed out. It wasn't my intention to buy anything there - yet. Maybe when my freezer is not filled with other stuff.

Enough talk, here are some shots I took.

Hadi was particularly interested in the caviar, as you can see.

That tray without any price tag, the one with the salmon fillet, the price ranges from $11 - $13, depending on the mass of the fillets. And as you can see, those are some thick slices.

Literally a walk-in freezer. Point to note: No one is going to welcome you in to this place. The people there simply went about their own business. Just find your own way around lah. Whatever it is, find the huge metal doors, open it up and walk in.

I didn't take any pictures of what it looks like from the outside, but heck, you can find it on google.

I love the fact that prices are totally worth your money. If you want a comprehensive list of what they have and the prices, click HERE for the website. (Find the excel file)

I will definitely come back to stock up on my seafood goodness once my current stash runs out.

One last thing, NO NETS PAYMENT OK. 

Only got $4 in my pocket (sings to Thrift Shop tune) cos it totally slipped my mind to withdraw cash. But I still managed to buy 2 bottles of sambal belacan that Hadi really loves. Yay to that.

Outta that place in less than 10 minutes cos it was too cold and Causeway Point seemed like a much better idea. HAHA.

******

So after dropping by Fassler Gourmet and Causeway Point, Hadi and I rode over to 11 Woodlands Close to get some pet supplies at Super Pets. This is a 24-hour pet store and it caters mostly to felines. Their 2nd floor is filled with rabbit and hamster goodies. So far, I don't recall seeing anything for the furry little canines. ANYWAY, this isn't about that.

(P.S, be a member to get rebates!)

Even before turning in to Super Pets, we saw a new shop (looked new to us, at least) that had everything and anything for the kitchen. 

NO WAY!

I was squealing inside, if you can't tell.

Here are some pictures I took. (I had to do it discreetly cos the aunty there looked so fierce, I scared.)

This place is huge. And seriously, nak buka kedai datang sini okay! They have all the supplies you need to open up a stall.

2nd floor too, but mostly cleaning stuff. Again, I couldn't take my time in there as we had to rush off somewhere else. Busy busy.

Don't ask me what the name of the place is. It's NOT "Kitchen Haven" okay. Just know it's right in front of the parking gantry.

So that's that! 2 warehouses, 3 more to go. 

If you know of any place worth going to get home/kitchen supplies, let me know. I'd be most interested to take a look.

Mwah mwah!

Meme courtesy of memespp.com

Chicken with Purple Cabbage

Chicken with Purple Cabbage - served with chicken rice

Here's another cookbook adaptation. 

I wanted to make chicken rice for the ManUtd vs Liverpool match tonight, but I was bored of the usual roasted chicken I always made. So I looked through the recipe book that my girlfriends bought for my engagement gift 3 years ago and found Chicken with Red Cabbage. However, one of the main ingredients used was red wine.

So I improvised.

I used Season's Iced Apple Tea and Coca Cola to get that carbonated fruity taste that red wine is supposed to have (since it's made from grapes). It's slightly bitter too, maybe from the weird concoction.

So here goes.

Ingredients:
Whole chicken
3/4 of yellow onion (chopped)
1/4 of purple cabbage
Apple tea + coke (1/2 cup)
Black pepper
Butter (1/4 cup)
Herbs (I used thyme and basil, but up to you.)
Salt to taste
Tomatoes (Optional)

Method:
1. Heat butter in pan.
2. Stir-fry onions until slightly tender.
3. Add pepper, herbs and purple cabbage.
4. Pour in the apple tea + coke mix.
5. Add salt to taste.
6. Pour the entire mixture over the chicken, making sure all parts of the chicken has made contact with it.
7. Throw in the tomatoes.
8. Pop it in the oven for 60 minutes at 220degrees.
9. Serve with rice.

For the chicken rice, I made a shortcut version. Much faster, hassle-free, but flavour is kinda compromised. Nonetheless, here's how I did it.

Blend onion, garlic and ginger into a paste.
Heat oil in pot.
Saute the paste until it is cooked or until the oil separates.
Add chicken stock (the ones I used come in cubes) and continue stirring.
Add water.
Add salt to taste. (Optional)
Pour this stock in rice, according to rice measurement. (Wash the rice first, please.)
Cook in rice cooker.

Done!

If you have different simple versions of cooking the chicken rice, let me know!



On a side note, ManUtd won. 3-0. Woop!

Trip to Warehouse Club

Yesterday, I went to Warehouse Club by NTUC. My husband and I went there by bike, but you could get there easily by train too. Walkable distance from Joo Koon Mrt station.

I'm a natural born sucker for supermarkets. So you could imagine my enthusiasm when NTUC opened a warehouse concept for their goods. I was expecting a lot more from this place, but nonetheless, I came out quite satisfied.

At first, when I read that it was a members-only store, I thought they referred to NTUC members with the Plus card.

Nope.

In order to make purchases in this store, you have to be a member of the Warehouse Club. This is an entirely different card and I don't know where else I can use this card.

But oh well. $50/year for non-NTUC members and $35/year for NTUC members with the Plus card.

Pay upon membership, yah.

Here are some pictures I took.

This is the whole stretch at level 2.

My view from the travelator up to level 3.

My favourite part - vegetables! They don't sell individual vege, if you're wondering. Everything comes in a pack. And the fresh produce are fresh. I can't remember how much they were, but I remembered 5kg of onions was $4.50. APE LAGI? Buy lah.

Level 3 is where you can find all the food. Frozen food section in the picture above. They have cheesecakes for you to sample.

I didn't bother with the rest of the stuff because firstly, I wouldn't buy them. I'd recommend you to shop here if you're intending to open a shop, or cook for a crowd. Oh, quite a number of things are imported too. Some things you can't find in our regular NTUC. And Kinder Bueno/Ferrero Rocher come in BOXES.

Secondly, well there's no secondly.

Shop away people! The frozen food section is worth a look. Spices and all may even stock you for about 8 months.

If you ask me whether I'd take a trip down again? Maybe during Hari Raya when I need to cook for a crowd.

There you have it. I'll check this one off my list. 4 more warehouses to go!

Chilli crab

Leila cooks again! This was done a few days ago.
I'm not including an ingredients list, cos they're all in the pictures.

*I normally halve my crabs so it's easier to cook and eat. Oh, I bought flower crabs for this. Cheap cheap, surprisingly.

Heat oil in wok. Add whole garlic. (I should have used more oil here to cook the crabs better)

Add the crabs and fry/deep-fry them until they have changed colour. Or you could do this without the garlic. But....hantu garlic here!

Remove the crabs and with the same oil, saute chopped garlic. You may add sliced onions if you want.

Oyster sauce. I have never used specific measurements. Maybe about 3 tbsp here?

Add cili boh (Reduce dried chilli to a boil. Drain them. I normally deseed them during the draining process to reduce the heat. Finally, blend them and refrigerate to store). I added quite a large amount of this. Whatever is in the picture is not even half.

This is the part where you fry the whole thing until it is cooked. Masak sampai garing. This is an important process so that when you eat this dish, it won't burn your fingers. Plus, if it isn't cooked properly, you can taste it.

How to tell if it is cooked? Observe the separation between the oil and the mixture. The colour should darken too. And the aroma should fill your kitchen and stink your clothes.

Here, I added tamarind juice. Or air asam.

A bit of dark sauce. About 1 tbsp.

This is maple syrup, or commonly substituted with honey. You can skip this step if you want, then just taste with sugar.

Here is where you season with salt too.

Once done, add in the crabs and stir them until the crabs are covered. Right before putting in the crabs, I cracked 2 eggs and continued stirring it. The entire mixture ended up pretty thick. Maybe because the eggs were REALLY cooked. You could add them in much later. Like, immediately before putting the crabs in.

Here's the finished product.

My chilli crab this time was quite okay. Like I said, I could have added more oil in the beginning to deep-fry the crabs first. That way, the crabs are really cooked. I think it would work if you covered your wok too. I didn't  have a cover, so I just had to work with my limitations.

Try it out and let me know!

I'd give myself a B+ for this HAHA.

Cray(-cray)fish pasta

I'm going cray cray~

Hey ho hi-dy ho.

Yes I can't seem to sleep. And I'm still salivating over my crayfish pasta that I made for dinner just now.

If you guys want to try this, here's how I did it.

Ingredients:
CRAYFISH, DUH
Pasta of choice (I wanted to use linguine but NTUC ran out of it so I used spaghetti)
Garlic
Red chilli
Yellow onions
Olive oil
Lingham Chilli Sauce (if you don't know what this is, please go and buy it now. NOW. Best chilli sauce ever)
Basil
Italian herbs
Black pepper
Tomato paste (I used Hosen brand)
Tomatoes
Sugar
Lime juice
Coke (yes, Coca Colaaaaaaa)



Crayfish prep:

1. Clean and halve the crayfish lengthwise. 

2. Boil it for about 2-3 mins (when water is already boiling) to make sure the insides are cooked.

Mix the following ingredients in a bowl:

- 3 tbsp of olive oil (it might taste better if you substitute this with butter)

- Chopped garlic

- Diced yellow onions

- 2 tbsp of Lingham chilli sauce 

- Basil (mine comes in a bottle)

- Black pepper

- Tabasco sauce

**Really, make this mixture your own. You can add in whatever it is that you want. Since my pasta is tomato-based, I wanted to go for something spicy and plus, I'm a garlic lover. So yeah.

3. Remove crayfish from boiling pot, spoon the mixture on top of the crayfish meat and pop them in the oven for about 10mins at 180degrees to let the mixture seep in.

IN THE MEANTIME...

Pasta:

1. Heat olive oil in pan.

2. Saute diced yellow onions, chopped garlic and chopped red chilli.

3. Wait until the aroma comes up (or how the Malays put it - tunggu bau naik), then add one dollop (or one HUGE tablespoon) of tomato paste.

4. Add 2-3 tbsp of Lingham chilli sauce.

5. Add 1/4 cup of water.

6. Add 3 tbsp of coke.

7. Add tomatoes (that has been cut in eights). Here, let the whole thing come to a boil to reduce the tomatoes. You can squish them to make the juices come out.

8. Add 2 tbsp of lime juice.
9. Adjust the taste with sugar. No need for salt because the tomato paste is already pretty salty.

10. Spam the Italian herbs.

11. Add spaghetti (that has already been boiled in salt water beforehand), stir and serve with crayfish at the side.

VOILA.

I honestly don't know what the coke does to enhance the taste of the dish, but trust me, the pasta wouldn't taste as good without it. I've seen tons of cooking shows that included wine/beer in their dishes. So I thought I'd use the most popular carbonated drink I had at home. Maybe if the dish required the use of white wine, I could substitute it with Sprite? Why don't you give it a go and let me know. Maybe when I've tried it, I'll let you know too.

Hmm, maybe I should also include a list of non-halal ingredients with halal alternatives. Probably those that I've tried.

Stay tuned for more recipes!

Bali, 2014

Let's begin with my 2nd trip overseas with the hubby. We went to Bali about 2 weeks ago and stayed there for 4 days and 3 nights. 

So awesome! I still get wide-smiled excited each time the plane takes off. Here are some pictures of the trip.

An "ulu" alley along the streets of Kuta.

Kuta beach.

Here's my beef lasagne at one of the restaurants I forgot where. It was so good.

Pandawa Beach. Beautiful waves, beautiful beach. Not commercialized yet, so no crowd here. Perfect.

The hubby was getting a massage beside me. And I was waiting for the lady to massage my skinny feet.

Garuda Wisnu Kencana, a cultural park that tells the tale of the Hindu history of Garuda, Wisnu (commonly known as Vishnu here), Kadru and a few others I can't remember already.

It's funny how I got the image of an eagle/bird upon the mention of Garuda (I play Summoner's War) and Garuda was, indeed, a bird-looking individual! Heh.

Dreamland. Yes, that's the name of this place. Generally dominated by Chinese tourists. I can see why.

Look at this place!

Ah yes, the Kopi Luwak plantation. Here they have a variety of tea and coffee that they planted here. We bought the mangosteen peel tea because it was that good. I liked the Rosella tea, too. Not a fan of the Kopi Luwak, but Hadi wanted it, so we got it too.

Kecak dance. Dancers are only accompanied by vocals from these men. It tells the story of Hinduism's version of Romeo and Juliet. Oh, and there was some fire element to it too.

Ah, here it is. The monkey-looking guy in the middle kicks the fire with his bare feet to put them out. I'm so glad I wasn't sitting right in front.

What's a trip without some arty-farty shot? This is my feeble attempt at bokeh. HAH.

Manhattan Fish Market, by the way.

Some chicken noodle on our last day. Pretty good. And that is a plate of Bali's version of siew mai in peanut sauce.

Airport food. Yes, I had to.

I ate A LOT during this trip. Contented and very happy.

I'm so happy that my husband dragged me out to see a part of the world.

I was looking at Cambodia/Phnom Penh/Vietnam/Bangkok/Manila/Laos for the next trip.

Let's start small. :)

Looking forward to more trips with you!

Oh my goodness

For so long, I had totally forgotten about this space. It wasn't until recently when I was cooking that I told myself I'd want to document my recipes and what-not. Failures and successes.  Then I thought - why not blog about it?

Then today when I looked back at this blog, I realized there were so many things that changed since 2010.

Looking back at 4 years was....... amazing.

Empowering.
Enlightening.
Funny.

I had to say, my dreams came true.

Now I'm happily married to the man of my dreams. It's been over a year now!
I've got 6 adorable and beautiful kitties at home - Mika, Loki, Bruno, Snow, Scooby and our latest addition, Anna.
I'm on the right track of (slowly) building up my career as an educator.
We're moving to our new BTO house next year. Can't wait!

So there.
Super quick updates on 2013-2014.

I'm gonna change some pictures and layout here. Some things have gotta go.


Till next time! Real soon :)