Cakes and Cookies, Desserts

Banana Walnut Muffin

7shasha7

The Source: Tyler Florence from The Food Network

The Recipe

1. 2 cups all purpose flour

2. 11/2 tsp baking powder

3. 1/2 tsp salt

4. 4 bananas

5. 3/4 cup brown sugar

6. 2 eggs

7. vanilla essence

8. 1 1/2 sticks butter (around 180g or so) melted and cooled – I zapped it in the microwave for 20 seconds or so at high

The Method

1. Mash 2 banana with a fork.

2. In a bowl, beat 2 bananas and the brown sugar with an electric mixer for 3 minutes. Add melted butter, eggs and vanilla essence. Beat well.

3. Add in the dry mixture till well incorporated.

4. Fold in the mashed bananas and walnuts.

5. Bake at 190 C till done.

The Taste

1. Moist and banana-ish.

2. Nutty

3. Not outstanding but a keeper, especially as gifts

Cakes and Cookies, Desserts

Cinnamon Blueberry Muffins

7shasha7

I think I will axe Nigella’s muffin recipe. I have found a gorgeous simple recipe from my favourite ipad recipe search app. This was delicious. I brought some to work and they love it. A good recipe, no matter how bad the cook is, always works.

Recipe

1. 100g (I used more than the 85g recommended) melted butter

2. 1 cup brown sugar

3. 1 cup milk

4. 1 egg

5. 1 cup flour

6. 11/2 tsp baking powder

7. 1/2 tsp salt

8. 2 tsp cinnamon (powder)

Method

1. Whisk all the dry ingredients.

2. Whisk the milk, egg, sugar and melted butter together.

3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and then whisk till well incorporated.

4. Fold in fresh blueberries.

This makes a good breakfast. Simple and delicious. Try it!

Asian Dishes, Malay, Sides

Sambal potato and ikan bilis

7shasha7

2012 will prove to be the most challenging year for me – balancing family life, The Little Girl (exams this year for her!) and a heavy load at work. With more stress, I usually cook less but now, I think with more stress, I will endeavour to cook more. To relieve stress, you know. I think with more organisation on my part and more discipline (to finish marking before the weekend!) I can manage a new dish a week. So let’s start from this week!

I cooked potato and ikan bilis sambal. This is not a usual dish in my family. In fact, I don’t ever remember my mother cooking this while I was growing up but I do remember eating this simple dish at the school canteen – yep, all the institutions I went to served this at one point or other. It’s so simple to make. You start by tumising (frying a paste in oil over a medium fire) the sambal paste (dried chillies, onions, garlic and belacan) and then add a bit of tamarind juice, some sugar and lastly the fried potatoes and fried ikan bilis. Serve with hot rice. Simple and delicious. In many Malay stalls, they only use fried potatoes, or just ikan bilis and fried groundnuts. I like this dish, but I doubt I’ll make it again, given my new resolve to try cook something new each week this year. ;p

My homemade lunch of ayam chilli padi, stir-fried french beans and the sambal potato. A typical Malay meal. Well, in my family at least.
Seafood, Sides

Salmon and Kipper Fish Cakes

7shasha7

I’ve been wanting to make some sort of fish patty but never did. Then one evening, I was watching The Delicious Miss Dahl on BBC Lifestyle. She (Sophie Dahl) was making a simple fish cake she grew up on. It was simply salmon with crab meat mixed with mayonnaise, Dijon mustard etc. You can google for her recipe like I did.

The reason I wanted to make a fish patty was the fact that I had one piece of salmon in the freezer and one piece of smoked kipper from months ago. We tried smoked kipper a few months ago after a trip to Mustafa  and although we liked the flavour of the smoked kipper, the countless bones was a big put off. But, aha, I had The Help who could help me get rid of the bones. And so she did. But when I wanted to make the fish patty, lo and behold, I found more bones. Tsk tsk. This kipper is full of tiny tiny bones waiting to choke the unsuspecting foodie.

For the salmon, I just put it in a pot of boiling water till just done. Do not overcook salmon. In the bowl, add mayo, mustard, sliced scallions. I added black pepper and my smoked paprika.
Shape into large balls and then flatten slightly. Because everything is cooked, all it needs is a few minutes in a very shallow pan of olive oil till the top and bottom get crispy browned.
Drain on paper towels and then serve. Sophie Dahl served with homemade tartare sauce. I used Heinz.

It was the best thing on the plate that day. And I had exactly four. The only thing is the next time, I will have to use all salmon as there is no way I am going to buy smoked kippers again.