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Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Belimbing Lemak Udang and Nyonya Tumeric Fried Fish

Belimbing Lemak Udang is a prawn dish cook in coconut milk.  Belimbing is a type of tropical fruit, scientifically called Averrhoa Bilimbi.  You can find out more about the fruit and how it looks like from this Wikipedia link.

This is a Nyonya dish which we enjoy with hot steaming rice. All the ingredients are julienned and only take minutes to prepare.  Belimbing is very sour which goes well with the coconut milk.  I remember when I was little, my mom used to cook this for us and I will be only eating this with rice.  Until today, this is one of my favourite dish and now it became my hubby's and kids as well.

I grow belimbing in my garden.  For me, nothing is more satisfying than getting all the fresh ingredients from your own garden.  It bears lots of fruits but they don't last long.  Belimbing is a great substitute for dishes that uses tamarind juice and they make great pickles as well.  Other than the belimbing, the lemon grass and kaffir leaves are from my humble little garden too.  Lol..




Here's the recipe:
2 stalks lemon grass
5 shallots
4 garlic pips
3 kaffir leaves
2 red chillies
1 bowl of belimbing
300gm prawns (shelled)
200ml thick coconut milk
Salt to taste

1. Julienne the lemon grass, shallots, garlic, kaffir leaves, red chillies and belimbing.
2. Heat wok with a little oil.  Fry the ingredients in the order above.
3. Add in the coconut milk and add salt to taste. Let boil and it's done.

Nyonya Turmeric Fried Fish is very simple, fast and delicious.  I harvested about 3kg of turmeric from my garden yesterday and used some to marinate the fish.  All you need is, marinade with pounded fresh turmeric mix with ground Chili powder and salt.  Rub the paste in and all over the fish.  Marinade for an hour or more and deep fry until  crispy.

Here, I used garoupa fish. Other fishes that's suitable for this dish are red snapper, baramundhi, black pomfret and thread fins amongst other marine fishes.



Try this. You'll love it.
 

Saturday, February 7, 2015

2014 Vacation and Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake - Nigella

My first post for 2015! Finally!

It took me more than a month to open my netbook and post this.  It's been a compact month of January and don't think it's going to slow down in the next few months either.  So, yes, I made it a point not to let February past by without me post at least one bake-off.  Besides that, I do have to admit that I'm getting lazy as well.  Especially with my aging netbook with takes forever to start-up. 

Chinese New Year will be here in two weeks.  I baked some choc chip cookies yesterday and will probably make Nastar if I have the time.  Nastar is an Indonesian pineapple cookie.  The dough is very soft unlike the texture of the Nyonya Pineapple Tarts.  Although I love Nyonya Pineapple Tarts, I do not mind the soft melt in the mouth Nastar version.  Well, we shall see.. if I do make them, it has to be by next week end.  Else, there's not enough time for me to make anything at all for the festive occasion.

Well, guys, here's my first bake-off which I did early Jan.  Hope you will try this recipe.  This is really a great recipe from Nigella.  So moist and super soft.  Best part is, it's not too big so you don't have to keep it for many days.







Cholocate Orange Loaf Cake (Nigella Kitchen)
150g soft butter
2 c 15ml tbsp golden syrup
175g dark muscovado sugar (I used 125g)
150g plain flour
1/2 tsp b.o.s.
25g cocoa powder
2 eggs
zest of 2 regular oranges and juice of 1

1. Grease 1 (900g) loaf tin with some vegetable oil and line with parchment paper. Heat oven at 170dC.
2. Beat the soft butter with the syrup and sugar until smooth.
3. Mix the flour, bicarb and cocoa powder together, and beat into the syrup mixture 1 tablespoonful of these dry ingredients before beating in 1 egg. Then add another couple of spoonfuls of dry ingredients before beating in the second egg.
4. Carry on beating in the remaining dry ingredients and then add, still beating, the orange zest and finally, gradually, the juice.  Batter may suddenly look curdled.
5. Pour batter into prepared tin and bake till done.

And as promised, here are some of my December vacation photos ... miss the winter!











Pavlova Has it been more than two years already since I've lain dormant?  Really?  Two whole years?!! Oh my... then it's about t...