A Tribute to you

As my girls were getting dressed for school this morning, I set out a breakfast of toast, butter and strawberry conserve on the table. Nothing fancy. They are petite little things, my girls, and cannot manage more than a slice of toast or a bowl of Cheerios in the morning. I turn on my Macbook and click on ‘comments’ from my previous post. I have a new comment from Ming the Merciless He writes, “ We need more recipes from you, Carol!” I smile to myself. Ming doesn’t cook a day in his life. I feel a warm fuzzy feeling come through me. This is what blogging has done for me. I have met really beautiful people along the way. I came across Ming’s blog through a comment he left on someone elses’ blog. The pen name ‘Ming the Merciless’ stood out to me because my husband’s name is also ‘Ming’, and he too is known as ‘ Ming the Merciless’. (In his Marketing and Graphic Design Industry.) I never thought that I’d be interested in a blog that wasn’t about food. I have always wanted to visit the US and Ming’s Daily Photo blog has taken me there, well, to New York City, at least.

The girls finish their breakfast and I wash up. I ‘shut down’ my lappie and prepare to send them to school. As the girls chatted along in the car, I pondered on what I had to get done today. There was nothing urgent, I guess, so I decided that I would put up a new post today. I don’t blog as often as I’d like to, because I’m first and foremost a wife and mother, and with that comes the responsibilities which I prioratise. I guess I have come a long way (According to my standards!) since I started blogging and using the computer in December. I managed to set up the Flickr badge with my food photos two days ago without my husband and kids’ help! HOORAY! They are proud of me too. I still have no idea whatsoever about how to highlight blog sites or whatever that I’m referring to on my post so that readers can click on them and be transported to the blog site. BUT I’M SURE SOME REALLY NICE PERSON OUT THERE ON THE BLOGIVERSE WILL CARE TO ENLIGHTEN ME! ( Thanks Tara for educating me! )



I remember feeling very lost when I first started blogging. It was like I was alone in a huge, endless white room with nothing but the echo of my own voice. Then Haalo came by. She was like an ambassador from the Blogospere. I don’t know how she found me, but she was the first blogger to visit and welcome me to food blogging. She made me feel like I was a new member of a club. Haalo’s links took me on an exploration of a bigger food blogging community. I was in awe with Bea, her Food Photography absolutely blew me away. And then there’s JenJen whose blog reflects and embodies her Love of Life. Reading Jenjen’s posts always makes me feel dreamy and warm and for a brief moment, I feel like I’m on a holiday.

We have a long weekend coming up and I can’t wait to spend it with my girls. It would be just the three of us as Ming is going on a hiking trip with his two Business Partners.This will be the third time he’s away from us for a couple of days. Talking about him, he’s just walked in. He looks a billion bucks in his Black shirt and pants and his Grey Versace tie. His grey hair that he refuses to dye makes him look distinguished. He’s had 70% grey in his hair since the age of 20. People who don’t know him well think that he dyed his hair grey deliberately as a fashion statement. The girls and I will miss him but we look forward to when he comes home on Monday because we insisted he took a few days off to be with us to make up for the few days when he’s going to be away.






Recently, I came across Rasa Malaysia, a blog that serves up food that’s close to my heart. I can relate to RM’s heart-warming stories as we share the same culture growing up in Malaysia. And then there’s Melting Wok who ‘speaks’ to me in ‘Singlish’ (a term that refers to the way Singaporean locals speak English) when she comments on my blog, and I play along. More recently, there’s this beautiful french girl, Pom d'api who’s been leaving me sweet comments. Her blog is entirely written in french and I have no idea whatsoever, what it all means. I see pretty pictures of food and so I’ve concluded that we do understand each other. We both speak the language of ‘Yummy’! What I’m trying to say is that blogging has been so much more than an expression of my passion for Food. Thank you so much to all you bloggers out there who have been such an inspiration and encouragement to me. My life has truly been enriched with your friendship and support.

With all that said, I would like to dedicate today’s recipe to you all, it’s the BEST Pineapple Upside-down Cake recipe that I’ve ever tasted. It was given to me by my sister, Jacq who doesn’t cook or bake that often because of her busy and glamourous work schedule, but when she does, it’s always superb! She put this recipe together afer trying a few other recipes that just didn’t ‘hit the spot’! I must apologize for the main photo on this post, the next time I make this cake I will make sure I over-lap the pineapple slices.







Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
Temperature: 170 degrees Celsius
Baking time: Approximately 1hr & 15 mins (if the cake starts to brown too much, cover with foil)
Tin size: 10 inch round

The Topping
1 cup finely packed brown sugar
½ cup salted butter
1 820g pineapple slices (retain juice)

The cake
1-½ cups flour
6 tbsps ground almonds
¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups caster sugar
1 cup salted butter (room temperature)
4 large eggs
1tspvanilla essence
¾ cup sour cream

What to do…
Combine the brown sugar and butter in a saucepan on medium heat until sugar dissolves. Add pineapple slices and juice into pan and simmer for five minutes. Remove pineapple slices and arrange around the greased tin, over-lapping the pineapple slices. Leave the syrup to simmer on medium heat to reduce for about ten minutes, then turn off heat and pour enough syrup into tin to just cover pineapple slices. Set aside remaining syrup.

Whisk the sifted flour, almond, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

Seperate the yolks from the whites. Beat egg whites until stiff, and then set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until creamy, then add egg yolks one at a time, beating well in between.
Add vanilla, and then dry ingredients, folding and alternating with the sour cream.

Fold in the egg whites, and then pour cake batter over caramel and pineapple in pan.

Bake for approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Remove cake from oven and pour a little of the remaining syrup onto the cake. Stand for 10 minutes to allow syrup to soak into cake. (OPTIONAL) Alternatively…

Remove cake from oven and cool slightly for ten minutes.

Turn cake onto a serving platter. Serve warm with Double Cream. (Do not refrigerate cake. Keep for up to 3 days. Cake tastes even better on the second day!)

ENJOY!

Crave: Bean Curd Skin Pork Rolls

One of my family all time favourite dishes happens to be 'Bean Curd Skin Pork Rolls' or 'Ngor Hiang' as it is called in Cantonese.The crisp texture of the fried Bean Curd skin and the crunch of the water chestnuts along with the flavorsome pork mince makes my tastebuds come alive. This indeed is comfort food that soothes, the something savoury just to make you feel that the world is a safer place when you are tired and stressed.

The recipe may be halved but I always make a large amount and freeze for times when I"m just too lazy to cook. I have listed five spice as an optional ingredient, you may use it if you like, but don't go ballistic as it's flavor is very potent. I choose not to include it when I cook this dish as this is how my children prefer it. As seasoning quantities go,please regard the specifications in my recipe as the merest guidelines as I always marinate my food in "Agaration".( you won't find this word in Wikipedia or any dictionary, this word is made up by me, Carol Rodé, from the malay word 'agak- agak' which means 'approximate' or 'guesswork' HA!HA!)




Having said that, my recipes are tried and tested over and over and I serve them with confidence at dinner parties that I so frequently hold. If you have any questions regarding any of my recipes, I would be happy to answer them. You can pose your question in the 'comment' section or e-mail me at this address: carol-rode@hotmail.com

BEAN CURD SKIN PORK ROLLS

Ingredients

• 2 packets of bean curd skin
• 400g pork mince
• 1 carrot peeled, julienned and minced
• 4 stalks spring onion sliced thinly
• 1 small can of water chestnuts, drained and roughly chopped.
• 5 tbsps of oyster sauce
• 2 tbsps of fragrant sesame oil
• 1/2 a tsp of white pepper
. 1/2 tsp five spice (optional)
• 2 tsps of maltose ( use honey if maltose is unavailable)
• Enough Veg oil to deep fry


Method

Mix all ingredients except bean curd skin and veg oil. Cut bean curd skin into approx. 8 cm width strips. Work with one strip at a time – with a clean damp cloth, dab the bean curd skin on both sides to soften and remove excess salt.( be careful , as the bean curd skin tears quite easily.) Rinse the cloth after treating each strip of skin) working with the 8 cm width towards you, place about a heap tablespoon of pork mixture onto the bean curd skin, leaving an edge of about 2 cms.

Roll the skin over the mince 4 times, flattening and smoothing the meat as you go. On the 4 th roll, dab some water along the edge of the bean curd roll to seal. Repeat the process until all the meat mixture is used up. Steam the meat rolls for 4 minutes and drain all liquid. Set aside to completely dry out( about half a hour ).

Heat enough oil to deep fry the meat rolls. When the oil is hot , place a few rolls at a time into the oil and fry until golden brown. This will take no time at all. Remove quickly to prevent over browning. Drain rolls on some kitchen paper and serve immediately along with sliced cucumber and your favorite sweet chilli sauce or fresh sambal blachan with sliced shallots and lime juice ( my absolute favorite)

New look Raspberry Almond Friand

A couple of weeks back, we were invited to a friend’s home for dinner. I wanted to bake something to bring along with us but didn’t want to fuss about it too much. I had bought my first silicone bakeware recently, and this was my chance to use them, two 6 hole Heart shaped Muffin trays by Willow.

I was shopping at our local Supa IGA when I saw these cute muffin trays. The nice people at Willow had pledged to raise $100,000 for the Breast Cancer Research in Australia with the sales from their new range of ‘Easy Flex’ Silicone Bakeware. I couldn’t think of a better reason to buy these muffin trays.

Of late, I have realized that even though I enjoy baking, I am less inclined to experiment on laborious looking recipes, lovely as they may look. More and more often, I find myself looking in the pantry for ingredients I already have to whip up something quick, yet presentable and delicious

I always stock egg whites and ground almonds, the basis of Friands , and If you’ve read my original post on Raspberry Almond Friands with white chocolate ganache, you would see how easy they are to prepare. This time around though, I diluted the ganache with extra cream to simply drizzle on the friand.

Melting Moments

For the past three weeks, we have been entertaining one relative or another from Singapore. The house has been busier and noisier than usual, but ‘it’s all good’. My Girls are particularly happy spending time with their pretty 19 year old cousin, ‘Sheryl’ who’s been here for about 3 weeks. She’s leaving to go back to Singapore tomorrow, and she will be missed.

I met Sheryl when she was about 4. I was going out with Ming then, and had visited his family in Singapore. I took an immediate liking for this cheeky 4 year old, who was always trying to melt someone with her pretty smile for a lolly. Being 19, she’s not so fond of lollies anymore, but she had wanted to learn how to make Melting Moments, my ‘Durian Dream Cream Cake’ and Strawberry Tart amongst other things to impress her family ( or was it her boyfriend??.. I forget. Wink-wink.)

We managed to make Melting moments together, but after 4 other relatives arrived, the idea of making the other stuff went out the window. We were just too busy going out, then sometimes coming home to do dinner. I was either too exhausted or fearful of dirty looks being thrown at me for making the whole lot of guests wait while I baked.

Anyhow, this recipe is dedicated to you, Sheryl. I hope you will have fun baking these on your own.

Melting Moments

1 cup butter

4 tbsp sugar

1 cup cornstarch

1 cup plain flour

For the lemon cream filling

¼ cup butter , softened

½ cup icing sugar

2 tsp grated lemon rind

1 tbsp lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180C . Combine the softened butter and sugar in a bowl and beat only until just mixed. Add the sifted flours and beat, again only until just combined. Fill dough into a piping bag and pipe onto lined trays, spacing them about an inch and a half apart as they will expand. Bake the cookies for about 20 minutes or until they are golden.

Remove and cool totally before filling with the lemon cream. To make the cream filling, combine all ingredients and beat to a smooth consistency.

Makes 12

Little Lemon Meringue Cakes

Hello! fellow bloggers and lurkers! I’ve been M.I.A. for two whole months and am glad to be back. I can’t begin to express how frustrating these two months have been , what with the my laptop charger giving up on me , then realizing that the computer was . contaminated with viruses of sorts after waiting for a new charger to arrive from Melbourne. And now.. (sigh!!) that the computer has been fixed, it’s slower than it’s ever been, I feel like I’ve been ‘Driving Miss Daisy ‘ all morning!

Anyhow, enough whining for now, I think. Today , I’m posting a recipe adapted from Julie Le Clerc’s gorgeous book ‘ Little Café Cakes’. It’s beautiful to look at and tastes absolutely yummy!

Little Lemon Meringue Cakes

1 ½ cups Snowflake self-raising sponge flour

¾ cup caster sugar

150g salted butter, softened

3 eggs, lightly beaten

4 tblsp milk

juice and zest of 2 lemons

lemon curd (below)

meringue (below)

1 Preheat oven to 175C. Prepare 12 paper cases.

2 Place first six ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. Spoon mixture to ¾ fill cases. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool. Reduce oven temperature to 120C.

3 Once cold enough to handle, cut out a large cavity from the top of each cupcake and discard. Fill cavity with lemon curd. Pipe small mounds of meringue on top of lemon curd. Bake for 10 minutes further to set meringue.

Lemon Curd

75g salted butter

½ cup sugar

Juice and zest of two lemons

2 eggs, beaten

1 Place butter, sugar, lemon juice and zest into a double boiler. Stir over heat until sugar has dissolved. Whisk warm mixture into beaten eggs and return to double boiler. Cook over a low heat until mixture thickens to coat the back of a spoon.

Meringue

2 egg whites

½ cup caster sugar

1. Whisk egg whites until stiff. Add 1 tablespoonful of the sugar and whisk until
incorporated. Whisk in remaining sugar until mixture is glossy.

Makes 12

Luk Yu Tea House

In one of my previous posts entitled 'Mango Pudding' , I mentioned tasting the best Dim Sum I've ever had when I was on holiday in Kuala Lumpur. I'm featuring the Tea House, today, namely Luk Yu Tea House , situated at the very trendy Starhill Gallery in Bukit Bintang.
As I said, we were brought there by my aunt, Julie Kim, an entrepreneur with a taste for the finer things in life. I can always count on her to know the best places for anything and everything. Aunt Julie owns and operates an oriental style antique and objet d'art store in 1 Utama Shopping Centre, Damansara and busy as she is , she always takes time out to entertain us 5 star style.
Anyway, before I continue, I must tell you that the words 'Dim Sum' should actually spell 'Tim Sum' meaning 'to touch the heart' in Cantonese. And never say "Let's have Yum Cha" because the words 'Yum Cha' means ' to drink tea'. The correct way to say it is, "Let's have Tim Sum" ie 'food that touches the heart'. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, we can continue.
Luk Yu's decor is reminiscent of the 50's Chinese Coffee shop and they serve everything you've ever had at a Tim Sum Tea House and much more. To start off, they have approximately 15 different if not more, varieties of Chinese teas to choose from ranging from RM 3 to RM 10 per serve. Then, you look around and you see waiters dressed in traditional 'Sam Fu' , white mandarin collared shirts and black baggy pants , one or two carrying large kettles of hot water ready to refill your teapot.Luk Yu has an open kitchen concept and food is made to order, you won't see push trolleys with bain -maries anywhere. As you can imagine, the food is served piping hot fresh, and believe me when I say the Tim Sum is very refined and delicate, nothing like the stuff we get here. I guess you will only know the difference when you make a taste comparison. It's like they say, ' there's no substitute for quality.

Spicy Lemongrass and Curry Leaf Tiger Prawns

One of the most memorable dinners we had during our vacation in Singapore was at the home of our dear friend Jeffrey Lim aka "Ah Lau" to his childhood friends. I was told by Ming that the nickname "Ah Lau" meaning 'old man' stuck because Jeffrey had a tendency to whinge a lot as a kid.The funny thing was, the nickname was given to him by his own mother, the brilliant lady that cooked us that awesome dinner.
Of all the dishes Mrs.Lim served us, I was especially impressed with this dish. She generously shared her recipe with me and now I'm sharing it with you.

You will need..

• 1/2 kg Large Tiger Prawns, cleaned, shell intact
• 1/3 cup chopped lemongrass
• 3 stems of curry leaves, stems removed
• 1 birdseye chilli, sliced finely
• 3 shallots, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1tsp sugar
• 2tsp chicken powder
• 1/3 cup full cream fresh milk
• 11/2 tbsp vegetable oil for stirfrying
• 4tbsp vegetable oil for shallow frying

How to..

• Heat the 4tbsp of oil and shallow fry the prawns on both sides. Remove and set aside.
• Remove some oil leaving only about 1 1/2 tbsp in the wok. Put the shallots, garlic, chilli, lemongrass and curry leaves into the hot wok and stir till fragrant.
• Add friend prawns, sugar and chicken powder and stir for about ten seconds before adding the milk
• Add in the milk and stir until most of the milk has been absorbed. Remove and serve immediately