~ seeking peace spice by spice by spice
During the December school hols, I wanted something fun and educational for the Little Girl. So I got her this book from Kino.
A few days after, Little Girl wanted to make this badly for dessert. It was supposed to look like this.
What she served me was this.
In all fairness, she did follow the recipe to the T but let’s just say she still needs more practice in the kitchen. 😉
Here’s the recipe if you have Little Girls and/or Little Boys.
This morning I wanted to use some leftover buttermilk. So I made biscuits. This time round I was determined to make them like KFCs or Texas chicken.
In a bowl I added 2.5 cups of self raising flour then grated 100g of French butter and rubbed the mixture in. For good measure, I added a bit more butter to the crumbly mixture. Then quickly I stirred in the fridge cold buttermilk. Do not over stir. The mixture was wet but just nice to be scooped with my ice cream spoon. Drop them onto greased trays and pop into a hot oven (190 degrees).
I made two kinds. After the first tray, I added shredded cheddar and black pepper to the remaining mix.
The result was super moist biscuits. Even after six hours, they were still soft and not dry. Of course, it’s best to pop them in the toaster first. Drizzle with honey or eat with butter and jam. Yum!
To go with my pilau rice, I decided to make a beef dish, something like those meat dishes I love so much at Malay weddings.
I followed a recipe from one of the many recipe books I have, but true to my own laziness, did not follow exactly. For example, the recipe called for onion paste but I was too lazy to grind onions. Then there was ‘5 green chillies’. When I opened my fridge, I saw exactly 5 red chillies (which was needed in the recipe) but no green chillies.
But in the end, my resulting dish was still amazingly a resounding success. Not to blow my own trumpet here but I received the most sincere compliment from MY MOTHER. Well, as any Asian girl will jolly well know, NOTHING and I mean absolutely NOTHING can be please an Asian mother.
But a few days after I’ve given the some of the meat dish to her, I returned to my cubicle, saw a message on whatsapp and read my mother’s message in disbelief. The day after I cooked this dish, I brought some to work and my colleagues praised me. It wasn’t the usual polite praise of thanks.
Well, my point here is after many years of cooking and experimenting in the kitchen, I have now in a way understood the art of cooking without having to look at a recipe and following precise measurements. I can use my gut feeling and go by sight, taste and some understanding of how ingredients work. In other words, I have become a real ASIAN MOTHER myself. 🙂 🙂
My beef dish recipe
In a wok add some ghee and olive oil, and then cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon stick and stir fry thinly sliced onions until slightly yellow.
Add finely chopped fresh chillies, garlic mince or paste, fresh diced tomatoes and a smashed lemon grass. (If I had the onion paste, I’d have put it in as well).
Add beef cubes which have been boiled with water till almost soft.
Then stir in half a can or a small can of tomato paste (I like to use gilda brand).
Stir in 4 heaped tablespoons of meat curry powder (I like to use Baba’s brand).
Add the water from the boiled beef. Cover the wok.
After about 20 minutes, uncover the wok and let it simmer till the liquid has reduced and thickened to a gravy like consistency.
Stir salt in.
Once beef is fork tender and the seasoning is perfect (oh when I tasted line it was a tad too acidic for me as I had added too much tomato paste so I balanced that with some brown sugar), switch the heat off.
To serve, sprinkle toasted almond slivers, raisins and coriander leaves. And, crispy fried shallots. 🙂 try this one day! Super satisfying.
Making any flavoured Arabic or Indian style rice, I discovered a few years ago that smoking them will give them an even more intense flavour and really bring life to it. I’ve tried one day cooking two batches of rice- the first smoked. The first batch received so many praises from my guests but when they were all gone, I had to serve the second batch. There was a marked difference. The taste of the rice mind you is the same. Same recipe same rice. But somehow when you smoke the rice…
Let me show you how to smoke the rice. It’s very simple. In a small bowl line it with aluminium foil. Heat a piece of charcoal till its flaming red. Place it in your aluminium bowl. Then, pour a small amount of ghee or butter on the coal and you will immediately see a big billow of smoke. Using thongs carefully place the bowl in your rice cooker. Cover the steam holes of your rice cooker so that the smoke do not escape. Leave for ten minutes and then remove. The rice will taste sensational. This only works for any Arabic or Indian type of rice; I strongly do not recommend Chinese rice like chicken rice for this 🙂
This evening I roasted duck. The outcome was fairly good, only I wished I had the time to roast it for an hour longer so the skin will be paper crispy.
I first washed and patted the duck dry. Then scored the duck. I rubbed five spice powder and salt all over really well and then in a 150 degree oven, roasted it for an hour. While roasting, I made the glaze. In a saucepan I boiled molasses, honey, star anise, cloves and mandarin peel and a bit of water till syrupy. After one hour in the oven, remove the duck fat that would have accumulated in the tray, turn duck over and roast for another hour. The final hour glaze the duck with the marinade. Like I said, another hour of pure roasting before the hour I glazing would have been perfect. But the duck meat came out succulent and not dry, the flavour from the five spice and marinade really lovely.
The Occasional Cook 