Ketupat Sotong

In the spirit of Raya, I've decided to cook one of the East Coast's special dish last weekend. As most of other dishes coming out from this part of the country, the basic ingredient would be seafood as it is easier to get the fresh ones from the East Coast.

This special dish is made of glutinous rice stuffed in a squid, cooked in a special gravy and called Ketupat Sotong. As for the gravy, there are 2 versions for as long as I know - Kelantan style and Terengganu / Pahang style. The Kelantan style is of course much, much sweeter as it has Gula Melaka as one of the ingredients. As for the other version, the ingredients are more or less the same except for the Gula Melaka.

I've actually created my very own version of Ketupat Sotong to my own taste & desire. And when I said "to my own taste", it means lots & lots of chillies being consumed. So, rather than the traditional white gravy, my version of Ketupat Sotong has a flaming red hot sauce all over it & without any doubt, it's yummier !

So, here's the recipe :


Ingredients

6 medium sized squids
200 gm glutinous rice
3/4 cup of coconut milk


For The Sauce
A handful of dried chilles
2 stalks lemon grass
5 shallots
2 garlics
1 cm fresh tumeric
1 pc. tumeric leaf
1 cup of thick coconut milk
1 pc. of asam gelugor


How To
1. Steam the glutinous rice with coconut milk & a pinch of salt till cooked. Srt to cool.
2. Stuff the rice in the squid till 3/4 full & close the opening with a toothpick.
3. Blend the chillies, shallots, garlic, tumeric & lemon grass together.
4. Heat oil in a wok & fry the blended ingredients till fragrant.
5. Add in the coconut milk, tumeric leaf & asam gelugor.
6. Put in the stuffed squids & salt / sugar to taste.
7. Simmer till the gravy thickens.
8. Ready to serve.

p/s : Some people prepares this dish using the uncooked glutinous rice but I prefer to cook it beforehand. Reason being, you need to cook the squids for a longer time to ensure the glutinous rice is fully cooked & this may results in an overcooked squids.

Tom Kha Gai

Let's take a break for a while from all the so many holiday stories of my KK trip recently. Honestly, there are many more to come...... so, just brace yourself for this few more days, ok.

For today's buka puasa menu, I have prepared this special dish for both me & Marsya. It was a few years ago while I was in Bangkok that I first tasted this soup. It tasted very similar to Tom Yam - it's just that this particular Tom Yam has a coconut milk inside it, which makes it milkier than the normal Tom Yam.

Since it was love at a first taste, I straight away googled for the recipe the moment I'm back in KL. Of all the recipes I've tried, with some minor modification, this has proven to be the best.


Ingredients

400 gm chicken meat
1 cube of chicken stock
1 bulb galanghal, sliced
5 lemon grass, crushed
3 kaffir lime leaves, torn
100 gm straw mushrooms
4 tbsp lime juice
3 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
3 cups of thin coconut milk
10 bird's eye chillies, bruised


How To

1. Bring to boil the chicken stock along with lemon grass, galanghal & lime leaves.

2. Add the chicken, mushroom, salt, lime juice, fish sauce & sugar.

3. Simmer for 10 minutes.

4. Add the coconut milk & chillies.

5. Bring almost to boil, stirring frequently, then remove from heat.

6. Ready to serve.


Tips : Add other vegetables like cauliflower, carrot, celery & sweet peas for varieties.


There you go. For a change, why not surprise your family with this special soup today. I'm sure they'll be pleasantly satisfied with this surprise menu.

Happy trying !

Egg Paratha Roll

Cooked this for breakfast yesterday. Got the recipe here while blog hopping. A simple yet nice recipe that is worth trying out. The best thing about his recipe is that, not a drop of oil is required - very, very healthy indeed. And the next best thing would be its impressive looks. At a glance, one would thought it as a very complicated dish when it's actually the opposite.

To those mummy who has ran out of ideas for a breakfast menu, here's the answer to your desperation :


Ingredients
5 pcs of frozen paratha (I used Kawan brand)

5 eggs

½ onion, chopped
2 red chillies, chopped

1 spring of spring onion – finely cut
300 ml fresh milk

Salt and pepper to taste

How To :

1. In a bowl beat the eggs with the rest of the ingredients . Mix well and set it aside.

2. Heat the non stick pan over medium heat & cook the parathas (without oil) until lightly brown on both sides. Remove and set it aside.

3. Using the same pan, pour 1/5 of the eggs mixture into the pan & place the cooked paratha on top of the omelet.

4. Let the egg set before turning it over to cook through.

5. Remove and roll up the paratha (like a Swiss Roll) when it's still hot.
6. Do the same to the other two parathas.

6. Cut the paratha about 3/4" thick and serve it with curry.

Tomato Soup

This is one soup everybody should try. It's the best tomato soup I've ever had in my life - honestly.. I, myself was shocked with the outcome of this recipe. Not only the ingredients are simple, the preparation of the soup itself is nothing that complicated either. I didnt expect such a simple & easy recipe could turned out so great.

Those who loves tomato soup should try this recipe out. Once you've tried it, I'm pretty sure you wouldnt wanna have a tomato soup other that this particular ones. The recipe for this wonderful soup is obtained from my favourite recipe website, MyResepi, with some personal modifications to suit my taste.

So, brace yourself for this award winning recipe :

Ingredients

6 ripe, medium sized tomatoes
1 medium size potato
1 big onion, diced
3 garlics, pounded
1 tsp white pepper, pounded
Salt & sugar to taste


How To

1. Cut the tomatoes & potato into small sizes.

2. Fry the onion, garlic & white pepper till fragrant.

3. Add in the potato & tomatoes & fry for 2 - 3 mins.

4. Pour in water - enough to immerse the tomatoes & potato.

5. Let it boil & add salt, sugar & some grounded black pepper to taste

6. Boil them till the potato soften. Set aside to cool.

7. Blend the whole thing into a fine mixture.

8. Add some chopped parsley for the aroma.

9. Ready to serve.

Notes : Nice to be eaten with garlic bread. For the cheese lovers, you may sprinkle some cheese powder for an additional taste.

Salted Cabbage With Tofu Soup

Our second recipe for this week is a soup......and again, it's another simple dish that's gonna impress your taste bud. FYI, all of the recipes that will make an entrance in this blog this week are those of the healthy ones - which is of course, in parallel with my diet regime.....hehehe.

This particular recipe was inspired by the soup I had in Qing Zhen Chinese Muslim Restaurant @ Novotel Hotel a couple of weeks ago. I had lunch there with my other colleagues while entertaining our counterpart from Japan. It was a dim sum lunch buffet where one of the menu was the Salted Vegetable With Bean Curd Soup.

I fell in love with it the moment it makes physical contact with my tounge. The sourish taste of the salted cabbage blend in very well with the plain taste of the tofu. I love this particular soup very much that I planned to construct the recipe myself. This way, I could have it as often as I wish to. Based on my visual observation & the sensitivity of my tongue, I managed to come up with the recipe - with some modifications to localize the taste.

So, here are all the ingredients required :

Cooking it tremendously easy.

1. Fry the ginger, garlic & the crushed white pepper with a bit of oil, till fragrant.

2. Add in the chicken & continue frying for a minute or so.

3. Then, add in the water & wait till it boils.

4. Put in the salted vege & tofu. Salt to taste.

5. Finally add the leaks & turn off the flame.

6. You can now enjoy your soup - jangan lupa Bismillah !

Steamed Sea Bass With Taucu

I am dedicating this week as the Food Week coz it's all about food that I'm gonna blog about. I have a few recipes & restaurant's reviews stored in my database which will finally make their entry in Red Scoot On The Block.......yeeee haaaaaa !

Since I'll be tremendously busy this week with 400++ valves to quote, I guess it's the best time to finally published all those old entries deposits. At least I wont be feeling that bad for abandoning this blog for one whole week.

My first recipe for the week would be a old family recipe of mine. It is such a simple recipe yet so tasty that you yourself wont understand how a simple recipe can turned out to be very outstanding. I'll name this dish as Steamed Sea Bass With Taucu.

Ingredients

500 gm of Sea Bass (siakap)
4 shallots, thinly sliced
2 red chillies, sliced
( can swap with cili padi for a more powerful impact)
1 in ginger, cut to small pieces
3 tbsp taucu
1 sprig spring onion, cut into 2 cm length
1 tsp sugar


How To

- Make 2-3 diagonal slice along both sides of the fish.
- Combine all ingredients (except spring onions) in a bowl.
- Put 1/4 of the mixed ingredients on a shallow baking dish.
- Then, place the fish on top of those ingredients.
- Put the remaining ingredients evenly on the fish.
- Steam under high heat for a good 20 minutes.
- Sprinkle the spring onions & steam for another 1 min.
- Ready to serve.



Notes

1. Other than Sea Bass, other white meat fish like Tenggiri & Kerisi are a good substitute/
2. The key for a perfect steamed fish lies on the fish itself - it's important that the fish is fresh.

So, am I right? It is super duper easy !

Savoury Pancake

What would you do if you have gravy leftovers such as curry, asam pedas or even lemak kuning. You just cant toss it away in the sink - knowing the hours spent in preparing them and knowing that the taste is so good still. Your family wouldnt even look at it anymore as all the nice things (chicken, beef or fish) are no longer there. One way to deal with it is to dip the plain bread in it. It's like killing two birds with one stone - first, you dont waste the food & second, you can spare the headache thinking of what to prepare for breakfast.

Well, today I'm gonna share with you guys another way to make those leftover curries a better use. It's my own, original recipe created in the midst of cracking my head in a quest for a healthy & delicious breakie for Marsya. Marsya loves those original Mat Saleh's pancakes but unfortunately I dont (due to the high level of "kampung" quality in me, I supposed).

So what I did the other day is a fusion of pancake & cekodok. It's the east meeting the west, it seems. Hahaha....I like the introduction done on this special lempeng of mine. Anyway, that's exactly what it is ......just a mere lempeng, with a touch of modernization.

Unfortunately, I dont really measure the ingredients used to make this special dish. It's more like a campak2 kindof recipe. But then, it's a very straight forward recipe and I'm sure you wont screwed it up. Just follow your heart & you'll be ok. Here's the recipe then :



Savoury Pancake

2 cups of flour
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp dried prawns
1 big onion
1 red chilli, julienne
1 stalk of chive, cut into 1/2 cm length
Enough amount of water
Salt to taste


How To
1. Soak the dried prawns for about 10 mins. to soften them
2. Blend the soaked prawns & onion using the dry blender.
3. Mix all ingredient together, including the water.
4. The mixture should be slightly thinner than the pancake mixture.
5. Heat the non-stick frying pan.
6. Scoop out a ladle of the mixture onto the pan.
7. Do not use any oil - it's a healthy meal, remember !
8. Make sure you spread out the mixture for a thin layer of pancake.
9. Flip over to the other side once it's done.
10. That's it !

Happy trying.....it's worth it. Marsya loved them & knowing how high her standard is, you're gonna love it too, I'm sure !

Spicy Fried Beef

A super simple recipe to those who doesnt wanna spend lots of time in the kitchen. Simple yet nice. Preparation time would take about 10 minutes and cooking time is another 10 minutes. So, by 20 minutes max. you'll get yourself one decent dish to pleased your family.

Ingredients

400 gm beef, thinly sliced

5-6 stalks long beans

3 red chillies

5 bird’s eye chillies

3 garlics

1 big onion, wedged

How To

		Cut the long beans into 2” length. Marinate the beef with salt, tumeric & a tablespoon of chilli powder
		Pound all the chillies with garlic – the chillies doesnt need to be so fine. Omit the bird’s eye chillies if you dont want it to be too hot.
		Using a high flame, fry the beef with a bit of oil for about a minute or till the colour changed. Dont overcooked the beef as it’ll make them hard. Put aside.
		With the same oil, fry the long beans till soften. Put aside together with the beef.
		Fry the onions till yellowish. Then add the pounded chillies & fry for 1-2 mins till fragrant.
		Add salt & sugar to taste. Finally mix the beef & long beans altogether.
		Dish out & serve with rice while hot. Can be eaten with porridge & bread too.

Fried Chives Flower w/Fish Cake

I'm very sorry if I've disappoint some of my fellow readers by posting today's entry late evening like this. It is now 10.30 pm when I just started writing this entry......huhuhu. Thought of ditching out for the day but then the guilt is too strong that I couldnt do it. I've committed myself to this blog therefore it is my responsible to meet the needs of my readers in any way I possibly could.

I've been terribly busy the whole day today with the office works among my many other commitments that I just couldnt squeeze myself into writing this entry earlier. Tomorrow is a very special day for me where all of my hard work & effort for the past 1 month will finally materialized, insyallah. I cant wait to announce it here & share the good news with all of you.

Anyway, that's tomorrow's story. As for today, I'm gonna post a new recipe of mine which debuted last night as my dinner. I dunno whether you've heard of kuchai flowers ( or chives flowers in english ) before. For those who didnt know, kuchai flowers are a long green leaves with white flower bulbs at the end. Without the flowers, they look pretty similar to spring onions.

I was in the supermarket yesterday when I saw these leaves. Not that I've never seen it before but out of blue yesterday, I felt like trying out this particular vege. Honestly, I've never ever tasted it......let alone cooking a dish out of it. In a way, I'm sort of giving myself a challenge on chives flowers cooking. After getting all the appropriate ingredients to go along with it, I headed home feeling very anxious & excited.

As expected ( chewahhhh ), I pass with flying colours. It turned out to be a very tasty & healthy dish, both Marsya & myself enjoyed very much. Well, how difficult can it be for a stir fried vegetables, isnt it? You just need a lil' bit of creativity to make it a perfect dish.

So, this is what I did with chives flowers :


Ingredients
1 medium stalk of chives flowers
10 pcs of fresh sweet peas
10 medium sized prawns, shelled
1 packet of Enoki mushrooms
2 sticks of fish cake, sliced
3 garlics, crushed
5 pcs of bird-eyed chillies
1 medium sized onion, wedged
Salt to taste


How To
- Fry the garlic, onion & chillies till fragrant
- Add in the prawns & the sliced fish cakes. Fry for 1 min.
- Add the sweet peas & fry till soften. Do not over-cooked.
- Finally, toss in the chives & mushrooms.
- Add salt to taste.
- Dish out & serve when it's still hot.

Happy trying !