Meat, Middle Eastern/Turkish

Lamb Tagine with Salty and Sweet Dried Prunes

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I made lamb tagine in a sauce pan pot after reading a lot of websites and watching YouTube videos. This I reckon is a good tagine because the seasoning is mild but fragrant. I learnt using one important spice that made a lot of difference from watching this lady Chef from a hotel make it on YouTube. The secret ingredient is…ground cinnamon!

Tagine is so simple to make (compared to Malay, Indian or Peranakan cooking you know) and so I’ll be making this quite often since the family loves it so much. But of course, different variations. Lamb is costly here in Singapore 😦

Here in my bowl, I have 1.8 kg of good quality lamb cubes. Marinade with 1 tbsp of ground cumin, 1 tbsp of ground coriander, 1/2 tbsp of sweet smoked paprika and 1 tbsp of ground cinnamon. Of course, add salt to taste before this.

Sauté two large white onions which have been quite finely chopped. Add ginger and garlic paste. Sauté till onions are soft and wilted.

Add marinated lamb cubes. Stir and brown lamb cubes. Then add 250 ml of chicken stock (I used the packet ones) and salt. Add some saffron threads, about half a teaspoon. Close lid and mimic tagine cooking. (I’m so buying a tagine soon).

While the meat is stewing away, in another saucepan, add some of the stewing liquid from the lamb and salted sweet prunes. By right, you should use sweet prunes. But…well when I went to the Chinese grocer, he had only these so I got them. But because these are saltier than normal prunes, I had to add more honey. So I added 3 tbsp of honey, 2 tsp of ground cinnamon and some water till the prunes are soft and have expanded somewhat.

Stir the prune mixture once the lamb is cooked and tender. Before that, I had added some carrots too. Don’t add too early or the carrots will be too mushy.

And I had some very sweet and delicious boiled Australian white potatoes. I pan fried the boiled cubes of potatoes in some butter and added them in too.

Lastly, stir in fresh coriander and then serve with the easy flatbread from Jamie Oliver’s wonderful recipe.

Before serving, sprinkle some dried fruits and nuts which you can easily purchase now in the snack section.

My lunch spread yesterday. Tagine with flatbread and roasted bone marrow and garlic baked chicken wings. I love the holiday season. More cooking coming up!

Asian Dishes, Malay, Meat, Noodles and Pasta

Macaroni Goreng(Fried Macaroni)

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This is my ultimate comfort food. And it’s so easy to make…now. I think I posted this many years ago when I started this food blog for my daughter but now that I’ve grown older and wiser, I’ve discovered shortcuts.

The chilli paste in many Malay home cooking is a blend of dried chillies, onions and garlic. But I’ve discovered bottled ground chillies. It doesn’t have the onions but it doesn’t matter anyway.

This is how I cooked my delicious comforting lunch. It’s spicy and tangy, and that’s how I love it.

In plenty of oil (I used olive oil) cook till the oil separates one heaped teaspoon of chopped garlic, and 1-2 tbsp of ground chilli from the bottle. If you don’t have this, then it won’t taste as good but you can substitute with a bit more of ground chilli flakes. Here, I added a packed of chilli flakes so that I could have more colour.

Then add minced beef. Here, I have 300g of minced beef.

Make sure the meat is well cooked. Then add a packet of chopped tomatoes. I like these form Sainbury’s. Add one heaped tablespoon of ground cumin, 2 Teaspoons of sugar and salt to taste.

Let the mixture simmer nicely till the oil is really bright red and everything looks soft and unctuous.

Then add cooked macaroni.

Mix macaroni well with the sauce. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Sprinkle with spring onions cut to fairly large pieces.

Then serve with a sprinkling of fried shallots. Yummy!

Bread and Batter, Indian, Middle Eastern/Turkish

Easy Flatbread

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I finally decided to make Jamie Oliver’s flatbread after so many people around me have raved about how simple and good the recipe is.

And indeed it is! I made using 2.5 cups of plain flour, 2 tubs (140g each) of yogurt, baking powder, salt and enough olive oil to form a dough. Let the dough rest for at least half an hour after kneading and forming them into two balls.

For the flatbreads I made, I tried to mimic naan bread and hence slathered some melted butter, garlic and coriander before placing the dough on a hot pan.

This is indeed an easy and cost saving option if you ever need some good bread for gravy dishes or curries. I served mine with some leftover keema (minced meat Indian curry) I had bought the previous day from a hawker centre.

breakfast, Middle Eastern/Turkish

Turkish Eggs

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I first ate Turkish eggs in one of those hipster cafes here and was pleasantly surprised by how delicious that bowl of poached eggs were.

This morning I decided to make Turkish eggs using Nigella Lawson’s sort of recipe? Or maybe method is the correct word which I found on YouTube.

It’s incredibly easy to make. I only had one ingredient missing – the Aleppo pepper. But I substituted that with smoked sweet paprika and it worked very well indeed.

The first step is to make the chilli oil. I places about 30g of butter in a small pan and melted it slowly till brown. It could do a bit browner but I didn’t want to risk burning my butter so when they were all nicely melted and slightly brown, I added a few swigs of good quality olive oil and sprinkled a strong dash of the smoked paprika from the tin.

Then mix a packet of Greek yogurt with some sea salt. And last make the poached egg and assemble.

Sprinkle some parsley and sea salt over the egg and eat with toasted ciabatta slices. Heavenly!! This is now my favourite breakfast dish to make. So simple yet satisfying.

Asian Dishes, Noodles and Pasta, Singapore

Char Kway Teow

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Char kway teow is soooo famous in Singapore and Malaysia. It’s got to be cooked in a Super hot wok so you could have that Smokey flavour or what the locals call ‘wok hei’ – the breath of the wok. And for the chinese, it is cooked in lard and lots of chinese pork sausages.

My ex-colleagues got me a trinity of books by The Meat Men, a local group of youtubers who have their own cooking channel. I tried making it at home, and it was ok. I had to omit the lard but at home the main problem is getting that wok hei flavour. You’ve got to use a Super hot cast iron or metal wok to get the same effect. Non-stick will not do.

I followed this recipe for the sauce closely and I must say, it works! The kway Teow turned out sweet and it was good enough. I’ll be trying to make this again soon but for this initial version, here’s how I did it.

First, buy some cockles, wash clean and take out the meat.

In a hot work, add oil and then your meat, sausages, chopped garlic. Add a dollop of chilli paste. Stir fry. Then add noodles. I used my leftover pad Thai noodles but the fresh broader Chinese rice noodles will be better. Add the sauce and stir fry. Lastly, add cockles and vegetables, cover to wilt then stir fry again till cooked.

The recipe called for eggs and prawn but since I had neither that day, I omitted.

Here’s the full recipe from the book to try: