Asian Dishes, Poultry

Lemak Ayam Chilli Padi (Chicken in Spicy Coconut Milk)

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Today we had an exorbitant lunch at Hei Sushi. Feeling rather guilty but extremely satiated ( we love Japanese food!) I decided to cook a very simple dish for dinner. It’s actually a kampong dish and there are several methods to cooking it though the ingredients are largely the same. The way I cook it (well, the way I was taught to do it) is to boil the rempah, or spice paste, together with the chicken in the pot.. But I know of many other families who would fry the rempah first. To each their own. My version is definitely more ‘kampong-y’ as there’s a lot of thin gravy and extremely spicy (since you don’t fry the rempah). I literally pour the entire bowl of gravy onto my rice – much like eating soup with rice. This is also a family favourite dish, and one I’d make at least once a month (well, at least before the baby came into the picture). 

Ingredients

1. 2 onions (or 1, if it’s like a freakily large one)

2. 2-3 garlic cloves

3. Fresh turmeric

4. a knob of ginger

5. belacan

6. chilli padi (about 14, or much less if you can’t take the heat :p)

7. Lemongrass

8. Kaffir Lime leaves

9. Assam gelugur (Assam fruit? Picture available for reference)

10. Coconut Milk (packet or freshly squeezed)

Method

 

 

 

Blend or pound Items 1-6. I already have blended ginger paste and ground belacan which I added into the blender.

 

Pour blended ingredients into the pot of chicken. Add water to cover all of the chicken and let cook till the chicken pieces are half done. Oh, throw in the lemongrass.

 

Add in one packet of coconut cream. In the past, lots of people would use freshly squeezed coconut milk. Now, a 70 cent packet like the one above would suffice.

 

Once coconut is added, make sure the heat is low. Add in the kaffir lime leaves, assam piece and salt.

 

I added in baby tomatoes but the traditional sour ingredient is to add in belimbing - local baby starfruit.

 

This dish is fragrant and ignites all your senses, well, just your tastebuds then. It’s very spicy, yet the assam gelugur adds a slightly sour taste to cut the richness of the coconut milk.  And the kaffir lime leaves add a wonderful mild fresh lime fragrance to the  dish. Mmmmm…

Oh, this is what assam gelugur looks like.

I cut down my sugar/fat intake by eating this with a plate of basmati rice. Try it if you’ve never eaten this dish before. 

Lemak Ayam Chilli Padi: Only 20 minutes to cook!
Cakes and Cookies

Cinnamon Sugared French Toast

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Breakfast. My favourite meal of the day. I learnt to make Bombay Toast in Secondary One during a Home Ec lesson. Till this day, my mother remembers this simple dish I learnt in school and reproduced a few times at home. When my sister slept over last Saturday, I decided to make her my version of Bombay toast by adding a sprinkling of ground cinnamon.

Crack two eggs in a bowl and add a pinch of salt, and ground cinnamon.

 

Cut sliced bread of choice into two triangles. Dip in the beaten egg and fry in melted butter mixed with a little olive oil.

 

Fry till golden and spoon a tablespoon (or less) of good quality honey over.

 

A very simple idiot-proof meal anyone can make but I’m always looking at recipes, cooking shows and talking to people about what they cook in order to get ideas on what I can cook next so this entry might tempt you to make French Toast this weekend. Enjoy!

Salads and Vegetables

Spinach and Cheese in Cream

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Palak paneer. When I review the ingredients to this popular North Indian dish, I know I ought to fall in love with it. I love cheese. I love cream. And I definitely love spinach. But why is it that I can never, no matter how many times I try it, seem to not fall in love with this dish?

Could it be because the dish is too soggy for my liking? The palak paneer is a spinach puree and, besides potatoes, I do not like my vegetables pulped into virtual oblivion. So since I was making an Indian meat dish that day, I figured that I should make an Indian style vegetable dish, and since I only had spinach that day, palak paneer seemed the obvious choice. I decided to improvise to suit my tastebud. Like Asmah Laili (the effervescent Malay TV DJ turned Cook) always says – ‘Bukan masakan itu bikin kita, kita bikin masakan itu’ (I think). It’s not the  dish makes you, but you make the dish. (?)

Recipe

1. cumin seeds (about 1 tbsp)

2. Spinach(amaranth/local bayam)

3. parmesan cheese cubes

4. half a packet of cream

5. one sliced chilli, preferably green (but I used red that day)

 

Saute cumin seeds, chopped garlic and sliced chillies

 

 

Add in the spinach and cook till wilted

 

Stir in cubes of parmesan cheese. Do not overcook or cheese will melt.

 

 

Pour the cream in and cook till desired consistency i.e. more cream or let it thicken and soak into the spinach

 

Serve with hot Basmati rice or naan and an Indian style meat dish

 

The Hubby liked the dish. Interestingly, he called it ‘The Lemak Bayam’. There is a Malay dish using spinach and coconut milk and it looks like the picture above. However, besides the obvious difference in taste between cream and coconut milk, the cumin seeds add a different dimension in flavour to the former dish. Overall, we genuinely liked the spinach dish and I would make it again the next time for sure.

Poultry

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

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When I was in my early 20s (incidentally which was just a few short years ago), I chanced upon this wonderful American Family recipe book in a library. I can’t remember which library it was, but I do remember the constant reminders to return the book. I loved many of the recipes inside – one of them, Buttermilk Fried Chicken, that I couldn’t bear to return the book. But my conscience was pricking me and a few months later, I decided to go to the library, pay up the outstanding fines, and then, sheepishly, told the librarian I had lost the book. The librarian, a woman in her early forties, looked at me sceptically. She gave a small smile, said she’ll check out the actual cost of the book, and ten minutes and fifty plus dollars poorer later, I went back home. I walked away feeling happy that I had paid for the book that I so badly wanted to keep (and stomped on the little angel who kept whispering what a liar I was).

Each time I felt a Southern fried chicken craving (this was before the days of Popeye’s), I would go down to Cold Storage and buy a carton of buttermilk to fry my chicken. Yesterday, since I already have a carton in my fridge, I decided to go Southern.

Marinade chicken pieces in buttermilk for at least an hour

 

In a bag, add plain flour seasoned with salt and black pepper. Coat the chicken pieces in the flour and let to rest for a few minutes before frying in shallow vegetable oil till juices run clear.

 

Serve with a side dish like potato and frankfurter salad

 

Honestly, one whole chicken is not enough for even two so I’d suggest using two whole chickens for more than two people. (The chickens here are pretty small anyway) ;p

Salads and Vegetables

Simplified Kacang Foul – Broad Beans Mash

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Foul Medames-the staple breakfast in many Mid-East communities. Here in Singapore, the Arab/Malay community lovingly call it ‘Kacang Pool’. When I was younger, I never could understand why this mushy brown dish eaten with thick slices of batard was called a ‘pool’. It was only later -much later-that I understood that the arabic word for ‘ful’ means beans and that well, just like a Fatimah is called a Patimah and a Sharifah a Sharipah, working along the same lines, the Malays called the ‘ful’ a ‘pool’. But I digress. Back to the Kacang Pool, I mean, ‘ful‘. 

The Singaporean/Malaysian version of this dish is to firstly, in a pot of ghee or clarified butter (traditionally QBB), brown blended onions and then add in the mashed broad beans, seasoned with ground cumin, pepper, tomato paste etc etc. To serve, you fry an egg sunny side up in ghee and then place the egg on a bed of mashed ful. Sprinkle some of the hot ghee on the egg and mash. Garnish with slices of green chillies and finely sliced/chopped onions and maybe a piece of lime – the small kaffir type lime. That is how my mother and mother-in-law and all the women in her age bracket makes kacang pool. 

My easy-peasy version is to…

...pour a can or two of broad beans (Maling or Mili brand) into a bowl and mash them roughly using a potato masher

 

In a pot, heat up about 2 tbsp of olive oil and add blended garlic and onions. Add mashed beans. Add 1 tbsp tomato paste/puree. Add cumin powder, fennel powder, white pepper.

 

Top with a fried egg (in olive oil).

 

Eat with toasted slices of French toast/batard

 

Sometimes, when I have minced meat, I would sautee some into the pot of olive oil before I pour in the mashed beans. Before, I used to put in fresh chopped tomatoes, but The Hubby didn’t like that. He prefers the traditional taste of kacang pool sans the ghee.

My friend’s mother makes the best kacang pool ever. They used to have a stall in Haig Road and I remember tasting their family’s kacang pool recipe. It was delicious – the consistency just right and the flavour not too strong. I also remembered it was the first time I ate kacang pool with minced meat served at the side, not mixed in together with the beans. Ever since then, I added minced meat to my kacang pool whenever I can.

I doubt many of my non-Malay friends have eaten or even heard of this dish. You can still get kacang pool as a breakfast dish at some Malay stalls, namely those with a larger Malay population in the area. 

How do I categorise this dish?