take a good look at the picture below..and have a wild guess..what could this be??hmm...seem pretty familiar ain't it..haha..i can bet that you wouldn't be able to guess it correctly..

looks like the sun is up..haha

full details after christmas..have fun..

MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU ALL!!! make sure you peeps keep that appetite going...ho..ho..ho..

*to be continued*

hit by the beer battered chicken..ish..i found this recipe online and thought of trying it out..in hopes to create a nice chicken dish for sun's potluck..my hopes alil dashed with the outcome..so..have to get another recipe..*yikes*

Ingredients..
1 1/2 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs, beaten

3 cups of oil for frying
1/2 cup all purpose flour

Method..
1. rinse chick,slice to 1inch strips. Stir together 1 cup flour n baking powder in a bowl. mix in eggs and beer.
2. heat oil in deep heavy skillet to 375F
3. place 1/2 cup flour in small bowl. coat chic strips with flour, then dip into the batter.
    fry in oil, turn till coating is golden brown.

evrything went pretty fine..other than the outcome that is.after all is done, i realized this batter thingy serves only as the chick coating..nothing more, nothing less.the batter creates a soft kind of crust to the chicken which is nice..d chicken look like pieces of nugget..haha..

needless to say, the chick tasted bland..so i guess a dip with chili sauce or tartar sauce would be the saviour of this chicken..or maybe some cheesy cream in the chicken..

as always, there's the remaing batter..i decided not to waste it..by dipping bananas into it and fry..haha..and it tasted pretty good..i'm starting to suspect that my skills are probably sabotaging me..the main dish which i attempt to make most of the time does not turn out as good as the unplanned dish..ish..not fair..

pisang goreng?or goreng pisang?

or rather known as Dong Zhi festival, or least known as The Winter Solstice Festival. this festival is to welcome the winter, but since we're in Malaysia and theres rain instead of snow, so, maybe this one's to welcome the raining season (althought it has started like a few months back). This festival is held 6 weeks before Chinese New Year.

so, during this kinda chinese festival, my mum would cook alot of dishes to offer the ancestors and Gods. I do remember, that I didnt quite celebrate it for some years. I think it's because if a relative pass away, u can't celebrate it for 3 years (or some amount of years).

This year, i woke up from my 3 hours sleep to help my mum roll out the Dang Yuen. it's made of Glutinous Rice Flour and water, and colouring if u want. There are different types of Dang Yuen. some are plain, with no filling, some has grinded roasted peanut, red bean paste and many more.

preparing some of the food.

grinded roasted peanut with brown sugar

kneading the glutinous rice dough with water. knead and knead.. then u get

of course u gotta add some food colouring to get variety of colours of dang yuen

roll em small, then u get small colourful edible pearls  ( these are no-filling dang yuen)

boil a pot of water. throw the rolled dough in and when it's done, it floats up and the size is bigger.

drain them up and put them in cold water.

when it's done, it should look like this

add boiled ginger syrup... yumm

roll out a dough ball, make a hole in it ..

fill in with some peanuts

then close it back. but.. this is tought u know if u're not familiar on how to make it ..

this is the red bean paste version

when it's done.. a lil too big though

then indulge

a common setting if there's a chinese festival at home. from topleft (clockwise) fried chicken , fried fish, lemongrass pork, taiwanese lap cheong (sausages), steam prawns, cooked rice, cauliflower + carrots, Teow Chew Fishballs with Pork-stomack soup, fried yee mee, dang yuen and paper offerings..

uh.. just for fun  it's christmas soon

slanted-version, because my niece pressed on it

ah.. pretty long entry huh ??

well, happy holidays (tang juik, christmas, newyears...)

this afternoon..made lychee sorbet in quite a rush..i have only a couple of hours to spare before Yeemei picks us up and head to Pyramid for another round of shopping..good thing this is a pretty easy one..i come to conclusion that i did not screw up this one..haha

recipe..recipe..

ingredients
1 565g can lychees in heavy syrup
150ml freshly squezzed orange juice
1 tsp grated ginger
mint leaves for garnishing

method
1. place lychees with syrup, orange juice, and ginger in blender. Blend until smooth.
2. pour mixture into a freezer-proof container,place in freezer for about 2hours until almost set.
3.using a fork, break up iced mixture and whip in processor or blender until smooth.return mixture to freezer to set for 30-45mins or until solid.
4. dish into serving bowls.garnish with mint leaves.

tada...the not so photogenic lychee sorbet..

when i left home..the sorbet wasn't exactly ready yet..and i was alil worried that my bro will gulp the whole thing down the throat before i come home..so had to msg him with a lil warning..haha

in the end..i enjoyed chilling out with this lychee sorbet..the cool icy feeling and that mild gingery taste is great..i thought that it was alil sweet..though mum and bro had their own say about ms. lychee sorbet..

"feels abit sour la..you should add milk in it.overall ok la" ..if i added milk into it..wont it be a smoothie then?
"i dont like the ginger taste la" ..aiya too bad for you la..hhaha

i guess different people would grade this sorbet differently..at the end of the day..it's what taste that suits you the best..without the ginger, the sorbet wouldn't have that extra ommph..if you think it could be too sour..add sugar lo..hahaha

cheers..

couple of days back..i bought my first official recipe book..haha(who would've thought that i would buy a recipe book in the 1st place)..after the unsuccessful apple pie incident..i vowed to learn make a decent pie..haha..and so that explains the book..Alex Goh's Irresistible Pastry..im keeping my fingers crossed so that i wont turn them into Mel's Disastrous Pastry..haha

there're genorous number of pastry recipes which look really tempting..so today,after i've gathered up my courage and ingredients to make the simplest of all in the book..Egg Mousse Tarts..(with me around, even the simplest thing can go wrong)

ingredients..
Pastry
`200g flour
`100g butter
2 tsps parsley, finely chopped
60g water

egg mousse
3 hard boiled eggs
25g mayonnaise
some parsley, finely chopped
salt, paprika n pepper to taste

method...
1.Pastry: mix butter n flour until crumbly. add in chopped parsley and water. mix to form dough. shape it into a ball and press it flat.wrap wit plastic and refrigerate for 30 mins.
2.roll out the pastry btw two sheets of plastic wrap to 3mm thickness. cut wit 2inch round cutter and place the cut-outs in a greased pan.
3.pick the pastry with fork and bake at 190C for 15mins or until golden.leave it to cool.
4.Egg Mousse:mash the eggs finly and mix it with mayo, salt, paprika n pepper until well blended.
5.place the filling into piping bag. pipe on top of pastry n decorate with parsley.

i think my dough is once again too soft..but  was pretty impressed with how the pastry turn out..

golden stars..its not biscuit..its pastry..

trouble spells as usual when i was making the egg mousse..to my horror the mayo i hav at home had expired!!!so bro came to the rescue..by buying me a bottle of mayo..then, there's also the nozzle glitch..i guss the egg was still alil chunky..so it cant get pass the nozzle..and the topping turn out not as appealing..i wonder if i should have blended em or sumthing...

oops..blur pic..my egg mousse tarts..

this is what it should look like..damn..such huge difference..

what's this?

There was still a lil dough left after i was done..so the solution of not wasting it results to the above outcome..hahaha...i didnt have enough egg mousse..so i drowned it with honey and swallowed them myself..hahaha..surprisingly, it's much tastier this way...haha..

I am stil so far away from having some cullinary skills in me..rate my disaster will you?

Im not giving up!!!

hey yo.. it's been some time since i cooked something which is not dessert.

i like mamak's maggi goreng. sometimes when i'm at home, i'll cook maggi goreng.. hehe. this time, i didnt have the curry flavour maggi mee, but i had some korean maggi mee, kimchi flavoured. so assuming its spicy, i ddint wan to make it soupy.. cause it'll be darn spicy.. so i decided to goreng it.

First, boil water, add in the instant noodle till done. drain it and put aside.

some ingredients, crab stick, carrots and taugeh.. if u have any other veges like cabbage / spinach that u like, u can add in ..

next, heat the pan, pour in some oil, add garlic and onions. sautee it till just done, add in carrots and crab stick (or veges that u think will take a longer time to cook)

add in drained instant noodle, and also the instant curry powder. mix it well.. add in taugeh, and break an egg into it..

scramble the eggs till well mixed.. serve it right away...

and u can top up with a telur mata kerbau if u like 

yup.. with a twist

this time, the dog must be eating something or posing with a food..

and the most creative entry wins a new spanking cookbook

so.. actually i wasnt like really free this week to snap any photos of mr. hugo, so i went to look back some of his photos that i took during his birthday, and did a simple collage.

so in the first picture, he's quite curious about the candle thing. because the first time he 'played; with fire was when he's a few months old, maybe about 2-3 months. he walked to the altar (on the ground).. and he accidentally burnt his 'whiskers' ... i dont know if it's called whiskers..  and he probaby freaked out and didnt play with fire anymore. so this time, i guess he must have forgotten about it..

in the 2nd picture, i think he really was too greedy, he tried to lick the cream on top of the cake, he accidentally blew it off.. and that's when he blew off his birthday cake candle.

in the 3rd pic, after blowing it off, he started to lick the cake and all. i took off the candle and ... he munched the upper part of the cake first ...

and by the way, that was his birthday cake

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