Asian styled crab cakes

My Asian styled Crab cakes is awesome...

Here's the recipe: (makes 6 patties)

Ingredients:
About 500g crab meat (i bought the frozen crab meat and defrost it before use)
50g mayo (lady's choice has the 50g prepacked mayo. Bought it at RM1.50)
1 egg
2 spring onions sliced
1 cili padi sliced
3 cloves garlic minced
2 tbs light soy sauce
Juice of 1 lime
Salt and pepper..
Panko (bread crumbs.. i used about 1 cup)
Butter for frying

Method:
1. Beat the egg with spring onions, garlic, lime juice, soy sauce and mayo..
2. Add the crab meat.
3. Add the panko little by little until you get the consistency where you could make patties and crab meat won't fall off when frying. Add the salt and pepper.
4. Make patties. I put them in the fridge before frying.
5. Heat the pan. Add butter. Fry the patties.
6. Serve with any sauce of your choice. I'd just squeeze fresh lime before eating.

Enjoy!

Simple Kerabu Sotong a la Marina (Simple Squid Thai Salad a la Marina)

Wow has it been that long? 5 months! I almost forgotten this blog... Not thatI haven'tbeen cooking. I have... Only thing is I am on diet.. Lol 

So in lieu of my dieting phase, I am sharing my squid thai salad a la Marina. I am using the concept of yum.. It must have all these elements.. Salty (from the fish sauce), sour (from lime. Could also come from any types of natural vinegars and lemon), sweet ( this comes from the squid itself. If fresh, seafood has its sweetness), and heat ( from the chillies of course. And it has to be bird's eye chillies) the rest of the ingredients are all up to you. And in this recipe I am sharing, it basically has the things that I love.. With different textures... And colors! After all, you do eat with your eyes ;) 

Ingredients:

Cleaned and boiled squid rings (I used 3 small squids to make this dish) 

Sesame oil (i love this in the recipe as it has that nutty aroma. Delish!)

1 tsp fish sauce

Juice from 1 lime ( i used a big one)

1 Bird's eye chili, sliced thinly (remove seeds)

1 shallot, diced,

3 baby tomatoes (quartered) 

1 or 2 Long beans (i added this for crunch. If you'd like you could also add in nuts in place of the long beans.. Or other crunchy veggies.. Celery/carrots/unripe mangoes are good substitutes. 

A pinch of sugar, 

Salt and pepper to taste 

Coriander leaves 

Methods:

1. First I prepared the dressing. Mix together the oil, fish sauce, lime juice, shallots, chillies, sugar, salt and pepper. Taste it. It should have all the element together and in harmony. 

2. Mixed the squid, the veggies and the coriander leaves. Add the dressing and toss it with your hands. 

3. And you are done! Serve it with rice or eat it on its own. Simple eh?

Have fun with it. Add sliced lemongrass, crushed peanuts. Some people used dried shrimps. But I am allergic to it. As long as you have met the taste criteria. It is done! 

Nando's Spicy Rice a la Marina

If you live in Malaysia and you live eating at Nando's then you must know about the spicy rice. I like it sooo much but it could be pricey eating at Nando's daily .. at least with my salary. So I tried recreating the diah.. with little knowledge of Portuguese recipes. Nando's is Portuguese right?

I've made it a couple of times and I think it tastes nice. Lol.. for this recipe I'm using long grain rice. So I have to soak the rice first for at least 10 minutes before cooking.

Ingredients:

1 cup of uncooked rice (cleaned and soaked for at least 10 minutes)
Boneless chicken breast (skin removed)
1 green bell pepper
1 small onion
1 small tomato
Mushroom (i usually use swiss button mushrooms for this recipe but you can use any mushroom you'd like as long as it tastes good when grilled)
1 cup of water (or stock)
Coriander leaves
1 clove Garlic chopped finely
1 teaspoon Turmeric powder
chilli powder
2 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon lime juice

Method

1. Cut the chicken into small squares. Not too small and not too big. Marinade the chicken with salt, pepper and a few teaspoons of chilli powder. Cover and set aside.
2. Cut the vegetables (green bell pepper, onion,mushroom,tomato) to about the same size as the chicken. Bite size but not too small.
3.Heat the pan. Spray some cooking oil.
4. Brown the chicken. Not too long enough to brown it. Remove chicken. Set aside. Spray the pan again and brown the onion. Again not too long. We just need to have it charred. Repeat with the rest of the veges.
5. After the last vegetable has been charred, put the olive oil in the heated pan.
6. Stir in chopped garlic.
7. Add the drained rice. Stir. Add turmeric powder and the chilli powder. Stir the rice.
8. Add water (or chicken stock if you'd like). Stir the rice.
9. When the water reduced, add the charred veges and chicken. Stir.
10. Stir in chopped coriander, salt and pepper to taste.
11. Let it simmer.. when you don't see anymore water, turn off the heat and cover the pan fully. Let the rice sit for another 10 minutes.
12. Add the lime juice and stir thoroughly and serve warm.

If you like your meals hot eat it with peri-peri sauce. Baked sliced almonds would be great as garnish.

Enjoy!

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Dinner Milk Rolls

Wow... I'm on a roll here aren't I? 2 recipes in a row! I got this dinner rolls recipes from this bread book I bought a long time ago. I think I bought it when mph had a sale or something. Anyway I tried it and it's yummy! Real easy to make. I think the most excruciating part of making the bread is the waiting time. You have to wait a bit more than an hour for the rolls to really double their sizes. I didn't use the bread machine. I did it all by hand. Really.. it's darn easy.

I changed the recipe a bit. The original recipe should make 12 rolls. I halved the recipe and added a bit of butter and milk. So this recipe I'm giving is the one that I used to make 6 gigantic rolls. lol!

Ingredients:

3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp dried yeast
1 cup hand-hot milk
cold milk, for glazing

topping: up to you!

Method:

1) Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Rub in the butter, and add in the yeast. Make a well in the center. Add enough of the hand-hot milk to make a soft dough.
2) Knead the dough on lightly floured surface for 10 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Shape into 6-8 rounds or fun-shapes such as knots, or mini cottage loafs.
3) Lightly grease the baking sheet
4) Place the shaped dough on the baking sheet, cover with plastic and leave in a warm place for about 1 hour or until they have doubled in size. Don't put them in the fridge. It'll take ages!
5) Preheat the oven to 230deg C / 450 F.
6) Glaze the rolls with milk and sprinkle over your chosen topping. Bake for 12 minutes, until the rolls are golden brown and cooked.
7) Cool on a wire rack.

Best eaten on the day they are made. Serve them warm.

Different topping you could try..

Knot shaped roll. Topped with brown sugar, sultanas and rolled oats

This one was topped with oregano and salt. ermm.. I shouldn't have added the salt. LOL

Soft texture. Nice!

These are plain - no topping - dinner rolls.. :) 

Chicken Rendang a la Marina

Hello... It's been a while. I haven't been cooking lately. I took up a job.. and it's taking too much of my time. huhu..

Anyway, someone actually requested that I post a youtube video on how to make simple rendang. The easiest rendang I could think of is Rendang Pedas Ayam. It doesn't require kerisik (grated coconut that is fried until it's brown and oily), and it's really easy. Blend all the ingredients and cook. Simple. I used to make it when I was a student. During Hari Raya time.. before Raya of course, we'd go to Chinatown and get the ingredients. That was back in.. the late 90s. Darn.. now everyone knows my age. LOL! The ingredients are really easy to get back then, I am sure it's even easier to get now.

Hope you'll enjoy the recipe. The youtube video is here... http://youtu.be/KUwGlC8SlBg

Chicken Rendang a la Marina

Ingredients:

Chicken ( I used about 1 kg chicken cut into small pieces)
shallots (I used about 15 - 20. More is good :D )
garlic (1 clove is enough)
ginger (1 cm)
Galangal (1 cm)
2 lemongrass
chili boh (dried chili - soak in hot water, tossed and blended - I used 1/2 cup)
milk from 1 coconut (about 1 cup)
1 turmeric leaf sliced thinly.. or you could just mince it (this one is hard to find but no worries, you may replace it with screwpine leaf (Pandan). If you're using pandan leaf, simply wash it thoroughly and make a knot with the leaf and throw it in about the same time i put in the turmeric leaf)
sugar & salt to taste
vegetable oil for cooking.

Method:

1. Blend the shallots, garlic, ginger, galangal, lemongrass till fine.
2. Heat vegetable oil in wok. Once hot, add the blended ingredients. Stir frequently until browned. Make sure they don't burn.
3. Add in the chili boh. Let the chili cooked. Stir in low heat.
4. Once chili is fully cooked, add the coconut milk. Stir.
5. When it looks red and reduced, add the chicken. Fold carefully so not to break the chicken to pieces.
6. When chicken is cooked add the sliced turmeric leaf. Stir and add sugar and salt to taste.
7. Chicken rendang is ready to be eaten when they turn slightly browned and the gravy is reduced to paste.


Serve hot with rice.

Yummy! Chicken Rendang a la Marina

Chocolate Pear Pudding...

I've had this recipe for years.. The first time I saw Nigella Lawson made this recipe was on Express. I fell in love with its simplicity and the fact that it looks as if I spent hours in the kitchen making it. Before this, I could never find canned pears. So I've substituted the pears with peaches, and the outcome is just as delightful. Recently, to the start of the new year.. a friend I met on twitter organized a Banana Leaf Tweet Up at her place in Puchong. And this baked sponge seemed a perfect present to take to a dinner party :)

It can be eaten as is... or with chocolate sauce. Or on a hot day like this, vanilla ice cream is match made in heaven for this pudding :D

I guess I've hinted earlier, it's one of Miss Nigella's recipe. Got it from her Nigella Express book. I followed her exact recipe.. except I used 1 825g can of pear halves instead of 2 415g cans. No biggie :) If you don't have pear halves.. try other canned fruits.. I've tried with peach halves... excellent! I've also used more cocoa powder than stated in recipe.. Everyone could use more chocolatey goodness every now and then right? ;)


Ingredients:

2 x 415g cans pear halves in juice
125g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
125g caster sugar
150g soft butter, plus extra for greasing
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200degC and grease a 22cm square ovenproof dish with butter
2. Drain the pears and arrange them on the base of the dish. I don't usually cut the pears but if you're bringing it to a party of 100 and you only brought enough for 8 servings.. then I'd advise you to cut the pears into smaller pieces.
3. Put all the remaining ingredients in a bowl and mix until you have a batter with a soft dropping consistency (I have no idea what this means but the batter was quite thick) I hand-mixed the batter. Nigella used the food processor. Same big difference :p 
4. Spread the brown batter over the pears, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes
5. Let stand out of the oven for 5 to 10 minutes and then cut into slabs
6. Makes 6-8 servings ;)