~ seeking peace spice by spice by spice
I used to make roasted potatoes like this. Cube them, season and then throw them in the oven. And then I learnt, you first got to boil them till almost done, fry them in butter (or goose fat. Mmm, yeah, like I’m going to get halal goose fat here) and then you pop it in the oven. The result was really different from my usual method.
Unfortunately, due to hunger pangs, I did not take an after photo. My sister loved it though.
Just two hours ago, I cooked keema. Keema is an Indian, more like a Pakistani, ground beef dish usually eaten with chapattis or flat bread. It is delicious and so easy to make.
I learnt this online. It’s just mayonnaise, fresh garlic, black pepper and salt with a bit of lemon juice. I substituted lemon juice with my ever handy kalamansi juice. Sweeter but less tangy.
The secret also lies in the potatoes. I used the washed red and brown potatoes from Australia. Delicious.
I’ve always always wanted to bake a sweet pie. But I wasn’t daring enough to make the pastry from scratch. Not now anyway. So I bought a ready-mixed pie crust from Betty Crocker. It was fantastic. Since it was fantastic, now I wonder if I ought to learn how to make the pie crust from scratch after all. It was so easy. All you do is pour half of the mixture into a bowl, add a few teaspoons of cold water (follow instructions on the box) and then form into a ball. Like magic.
Now, the filling on the other hand, wasn’t so easy to make. I wanted to use plums because they were on sale at NTUC. I mean, 11 for 1.99…come on. I had to make a pie from all them beautiful purple plums. NOT! The first spoonful my unfortunate brother put in his mouth made him wince like crazy. So I put a teaspoon into my mouth and immediately I was brought back to the days of Super Lemon back in secondary school. Goodness Gracious Me! Luckily, not every mouthful turned out to be a fight with acid. Other spoonfuls turned out pretty OK. My mother then said, “I don’t think when they said plums in the recipe, they meant our kind of plums. There is such a thing as ‘sugar plums’.” And then it clicked. Oh, yeah…sugar plums…. What a dope. Anyway, the recipe for the filling is super easy and I would use it again to make my Plum Pie version 2 using SUGAR PLUMS.
FILLING
1. Plums, quartered
2. 2/3 cups of sugar
3. 11/2 tbs corn flour
4. cinnamon powder
5. s spritz of lemon juice
Mix all the ingredients well.
I found soft shell crab at the frozen chest in the NTUC and bought a packet. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep to the shape because the Helper cleaned off practically the whole crab, leaving only the small little flesh. So I cut whatever is left in half, and breaded the crabs. It turned out fine. I mean, anything fried will taste good. However, I’m definitely going to cook these again using another recipe.
Inredients:
Flour
Panko
Egg
Salt
Crabs
My National Day dinner.
The Occasional Cook 