Buttered Pork Ribs

We always have our dinner outside on Sundays. During one of these dinner, we ordered a dish called buttered pork rib. It was very nice. So, I thought of making it at home. While eating it, I have to somewhat figure out the ingredients used in the dish so that I can make it at home sometime later.

I made this dish during middle or end of November and it turned out very delicious. The taste matched about 90% of the taste of the dish that we eat at the restaurant. I believe I have used all the ingredients that they used. The exception is only the quantity of the ingredients.

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This is the recipe for my version of the Buttered Pork Ribs:

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Buttered Pork Ribs

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Ingredients:

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300g pork ribs

1 to 2 sprigs curry leaves

3 tbs butter

1 tbs sweetened condensed milk

1/2 tbs curry powder

salt to taste

some bird eyes chillies

enough oil for frying

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Marinate for pork ribs:

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2 tsp sesame oil

salt to taste

1/2 tbs Chinese rice wine
dash of pepper

1 tsp soda bicarbonate

2 tbs tapioca starch

4 tbs flour

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Method:

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Marinate the pork ribs for a few hours. Then fried the pork ribs until golden brown. Remove the pork ribs from the wok and discard the oil. Add in butter in the wok. When the butter has melt, add in the curry leaves. Then add in the bird eyes chillies and curry powder. Finally add in the condensed milk and salt before adding back the pre-fried pork ribs in the wok. Coat the pork ribs with the sauce. Dish out and serve.

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Note: The property of milk will be destroyed by high flame cooking. Always ensure that milk is added last if used in any cooking. Immediately remove from fire once milk is added.

Frozen Roti Paratha

I always have some reservations in buying fozen packaged food. I have the thinking that frozen food is generally not nice. I remember last time when we were young, mum had bought frozen mantou from the supermarket before. She will sliced it and then steamed it and served it for breakfast with kaya. I actually like those mantou and have been looking for them in the hypermart. One day, I saw it when I went to Tesco to buy my weekly groceries. They are very soft and fluffy. However, unlike mum, I eat it plain without any jam or kaya. Since then, I always have a packet of frozen mantou in my freezer. I like them as they are not only nice but convenient to prepare. Mornings are always very rush for me. I need to prepare fast breakfast. These are just so convenient as you can directly steam them in their frozen state.

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I think I have strayed very far from my subject matter. Okay, back to the original subject matter. I wanted to blog about the fozen roti paratha that I've recently tried. My neighbour recommended me to try this frozen roti paratha very long time ago. But I did not do it because of the reservation I have for frozen food. After I bought the frozen mantou, I told myself, why don't I just try the roti paratha that my neighbour recommended. Maybe they can be just as nice. So, I picked up the frozen roti paratha from the frozen food shelf when I went to Tesco 2 weeks ago. Luckily I still remember the brand that my neighbour told me.

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I observe vegetarian diet on the 1st and 15th day every month of the lunar calendar. So, I have these roti paratha for my lunch during the last time I observe vegetarian diet. I was thinking of dipping the roti with sugar but I ended up eating them plain. They taste so nice and crispy and fluffy at the same time. I eat the first roti while I was pan-frying the second one and so I ended up finishing the 2 roti paratha that I took out from the freezer just when I finish pan-frying them. They taste so much better than those sold in most of the mamak stall outside. They are also very convenient to prepare and fast too. If you are running short of time, you can also try these. They are to be pan-fried without defrosting.

Pictures Taken In Klang

These pictures of Cheryl were taken 3 weeks back while we were in Klang...

Homemade Fish Sauce

I was quite busy during the past few weeks. I have many interesting things to share but was unable to do so. I finally have some time to do it today. During early of November, I tried cooking a large batch of spicy sauce which I intend to use to make my own grilled fish/ikan bakar. This is the first time I tried making this kind of sauce without referring to any recipes and to my delight, it turns out great. I stored them into few small containers and put them in the freezer.

I tried my hand on grilling fish for the first time using the homemade sauce. What I did was I used aluminium foil to wrap the stingray. Before I put the fish on the aluminum foil, I scooped a spoonful of the home-prepared sauce on the foil. Then only I placed the fish on top of the sauce. I poured in all the remaining sauce on top of the fish and then wrapped the fish with the foil. But I had trouble with the grilling process. Maybe the foil is too thick or because of other reason, the fish is still not fully cooked after 45 minutes. Since we are already very hungry, so I decided to remove the fish from the oven an just steam it instead. We are able to enjoy the fish after 10 minutes of steaming. I squeezed some lime juice on the grilled/steamed? stingray before serving it. Despite all the trouble, we really enjoyed eating the fish. The sauce is just sooo yummy!

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Since I still have the sauce in the freezer, I tried it on a dory fish fillet after 2 weeks. This time around, I just steamed the fish for about 7 minutes. I think I prefer steaming to other method as it is hassle-free and healthy. It turned out just as yummy....

Recent Pictures of The Girls

Salted Fish Pork

This dish is definitely an all-time favourite of mine. I love this dish because of its appetising aroma. It is a great dish to be served with rice. Mum used to prepare this dish quite frequently back in the good old days. She normally used a mixture of pork belly and lean pork. Since hubby and me also dislike fats, I only used lean pork in the preparation of this dish.

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It is so easy to prepare this dish. It is not time-consuming and does not require many ingredients. You only need pork, ginger, salted fish and some seasonings. I normally marinate my pork beforehand. I used salt, pepper, sesame oil, Chinese rice wine and corn starch to marinate the pork.

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After a while, I just need to assemble everything, add in seasonings (sesame oil and light soy sauce) and steam it. But make sure the salted fish has been pre-fried to bring out its aroma before being added to the dish to be steamed.

Steamboat Dinner

We had steamboat for dinner yesterday. This is a bit out of norm for us as we only have steamboat during Chinese New Year. But I suddenly crave for steamboat.... So we ended up having steamboat for dinner yesterday.

Happy Birthday!!!

October 27th is the birthday of Yvonne and Pik Lay. Both of them share the same birthday altough it is 9 years apart. This post is specially dedicated to both the birthday ladies.

Happy Birthday to you!!! I hope you will have a wonderful day full of joy and cheers. Since you are both so far away from me, the image of this cake will be a replacement for a cake that I would have bake for you if you are nearer. (I just copy this image from the internet ... hehehe).

Anyway, I wish you a happy and blessed birthday!!!

Asam Pedas Stingray

I wanted to eat Asam Pedas but was not in the mood to prepare the asam pedas paste myself. I feel so lazy to do all the pounding myself. Although it would be easier to use the modern food processor to do the job for me, I still prefer to use the mortar and pestle for traditional food like this. Not only did the hard work deterred me to prepare the paste myself. I only cook for 2 person and all my dishes are for 1 meal. I do not like to eat the same dishes for a few days. So, I can't find any places where I can buy so little ingredients, especially turmeric and galangal which I seldom use in my everyday cooking. I've made the paste before. The experience of keeping the extra turmeric and galangal to rot in the fridge made me think twice before purchasing them.

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So, this time I bought the ready-made asam pedas paste from the hypermart and it turned out quite nice. At least I can satisfy my cravings for asam pedas.

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I uses a packet of the asam pedas paste for 370g of stingray. Based on the packaging's instructions, I have to use 250ml water to dilute the paste. Normally, people will use daun kesom in the cooking, but I used Kaffir lime leaves instead as I don't want to buy daun kesom which I seldom use.

Soups for the Past Few Days

Radish Soup with Pork Rib, Dried Abalone and Dried Cuttlefish
Old Cucumber Soup with Pork Rib and Dried Cuttlefish

ABC Soup

Jelly Mooncakes

I have not made any jelly mooncakes after my first attempt until last Saturday. My first attempt was very successful. So, I planned to make some other varieties meant to be given out as gifts. I had actually planned to make 2 varieties on Saturday night after the wedding dinner that I have to attend. I attended a wedding dinner a week before that and the dinner ended around 9.30pm. So, I thought this week would also be the same. But I am in for disaster when the dinner proceeded at a very slow pace. After 1 hour, we had only had 3 dishes and the 3rd dish has not been served at all tables. The dinner finally ended at around 11.30pm and we reached home at almost 12am. Nevertheless, I still have to make my jelly mooncakes to ensure that they would be ready by Sunday morning as I have promised Yvonne that she will get to eat my jelly mooncake. All thing done in a rush will not get good result.... The 2 varieties that I made was not as good as the first jelly mooncake that I made.

Milo-cheese jelly mooncake with mock egg yolk

Milo-cheese jelly mooncake

I made milo-cheese jelly mooncake and pandan-red bean jelly mooncake. I only ended up giving out the pandan-red bean jelly mooncake as the milo-cheese jelly mooncakes are not in good shapes. However, tastewise, they are much better than the pandan-red bean jelly mooncake. Since I created all the jelly mooncakes myself, I envisioned the pandan-red bean jelly mooncakes to have a shade of green for pandan skin and shade of pink for the red bean fillings. But I only ended up correct with the green colour whereas the red bean fillings had a red-brownish tinge. It does not look as pretty as it should be.... I thought by adding milk to the red bean jelly solution would create a pinkish colour but boy, how wrong am I.... Not only the colour, the taste is also not that strong. I initially wanted to add coconut milk to the pandan jelly solution but I am afraid that they will be spoilt during "delivery". So, I used milk instead. I believe the taste would be better if I have used coconut milk. As for the red bean jelly, I have only boiled the red bean for a while as it was already midnight. So, the red bean was not very soft and the taste of red bean is not strong. I had initially wanted to boil a pot of red bean soup for dessert and use some to make the jelly mooncake but I do not have enough time. So, I ended up boiling just enough for making the jelly mooncake. If I have boiled the red bean soup for longer, the taste would have been stronger and the red bean would have been softer.

Pandan-red bean jelly mooncake with mock egg yolk

Red bean jelly filling

Yesterday, I made another batch of jelly mooncake. The skin is very creamy as I added in a lot of whipping cream. I bought a box of 200ml whipping cream to be used in my previous snowskin cheese mooncake. I still have about 140ml and since they need to be used within 3 days of opening, I just emptied the whole box into making the skin of this mango jelly mooncake. I made the mango puree for the mooncake skin from 1 medium sized mango while reserving some to be cubed. The cubed mango was added to the yoghurt jelly solution. These are indeed very tasty and creamy. I think Aunty Yochana has created a similar mooncake. I did not refer to her recipe as there were a lot of ingredients involved. Mine was just as simple as it can be. The colour is also very nice. It has a pastel yellow colour. I did not add any artificial colouring.

Mango yoghurt jelly mooncake

Yoghurt jelly with cubed mango

Snowskin Cheese Mooncake with Mung Bean Paste Filling

Mini sized mooncake cut into half
Standard sized mooncake

Mini sized mooncakes in gift box

I have a wedding dinner to attend on Saturday night. So, I knew from the beginning that I have to rush making this batch of mooncake that day. The recipe that I used to make this cheese showskin mooncake is different from all the previous recipe that I used. I got this recipe from here but I only uses this recipe for the mooncake skin.

I bought 1kg of mung bean paste and some melon seeds to be used as fillings. I ended up using about 700g of mung bean paste and 50g of melon seeds to make this particular batch of mooncake.

Mung bean paste shaped into balls to be used as fillings

I would have recommended this recipe to others if not for one particular problem. This is actually a very good recipe if you make just enough for 1 to 2 days as you can't really keep this mooncake for long. I made this mooncake on Saturday. When we tried it on Sunday morning, it was so nice. The skin has the fragrance of lemon and cheese. Hubby like it so much. When we tried eating it on Monday night, it has harden. I know that snowskin mooncake can't be exposed to air as it would cause the skin to harden. So, I made sure that they are not expose to air. But nevertheless, they still harden. I don't know what went wrong, but its taste is really very nice.

Snowskin mooncakes that was made on Friday and Saturday

Marbled Snowskin Mooncake with Red Bean Paste Filling

I made 2 batches of snowskin mooncake on Friday. The first batch that I made on that day was the pandan snowskin mooncake with pandan lotus paste filling. I only started to make this natural coloured marbled snowskin mooncake at around 9.30pm as I have to attend a buffet dinner organised by my neighbour who is getting married the next day. So, I ended up working on the mooncake till very late at night. Although I feel tired making the mooncake, the satisfaction I got from it is definitely worth the effort that I have to put in.

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I have used similar recipe that I used in all my previous snowskin mooncake. The only difference is that I divided the ingredients into 3 portions. If I were to use artificial colouring, it would be much easier. I just need to work up on the dough and then divide the dough into 3 portions before adding the colourings into each portions. Hubby is totally against artificial colouring and as for me, I am not a fan of artificial colourings either. So, for the white portion, I used plain water, whereas for green and yellow coloured portion, I used pandan juice and carrot juice which I extracted earlier the day.The total amount of liquid used is still the same as the previous recipe. The difference is just the type of liquid used.

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After kneading each of the 3 portions, I flatten and stacked the 3 portions on top of each other. Then, I rolled them up like rolling a Swiss-roll. Subsequently, I cut them out based on the weight that I need for making the individual mooncakes.

Pre-cut mooncake dough

As for the filling, I used the store-bought red bean paste in which I have embedded in the pre-baked melon seeds.

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I managed to make about 12 mini mooncakes and 4 standard sized mooncakes. I still have some leftover red bean paste fillings to make 4 standard sized mooncakes.

Red bean paste shaped into balls to be used as filling for mooncake

Pandan Snowskin Mooncake with Pandan Lotus Paste Filling

I have made few batches of mooncakes on Friday and Saturday. The first batch of mooncake that I made on Friday was the pandan snowskin mooncake with pandan lotus paste filling. They were very nice.

I bought the pandan lotus paste filling from the store. Then I added the pre-baked melon seeds into the paste. The melon seeds was baked in the oven for about 10 minutes at 160 degree celcius.

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I used the recipe from my first mooncake-making attempt to make this pandan snowskin mooncake. The only difference is the water. Instead of using water, I used pandan juice. It gives a very pretty and pastel green colour to the mooncake.

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As for the filling, I spread the lotus paste onto a sheet of plastic. Then I added the pre-baked melon seeds onto the paste. Then, I rolled the paste up like rolling a Swiss-roll. After that, I spread up the paste again. This process is repeated a few times till the melon seeds are embeded in the paste. I managed to make about 9 standard size mooncakes and 5 mini mooncakes.

Melon seeds are spreaded on the lotus paste

Melon seeds nicely embeded in the paste after the rolling and spreading process

Lotus paste shaped into balls after weighing