Out of the Kitchen

Dear friends and readers,

I will be out of my kitchen starting on Saturday, May 24 '2008 until the first week of June '2008. I will be moving away to other province. This is gonna be our long long trip..more than 3000km driving, many cities to stop by, many friends to visit..
I am personally so excited and looking forward to seeing some old and new friends.

The new town is called Edmonton in Alberta province. We will pass 3 other provinces on our way to get there. If we do it straight, it takes up almost 3 days, but since we will make some stops so it will be 8-10days on road. We will take it easy, since we are not in a rush and considering that I am 5mo pregnant now and that we bring Bianca along, we will take our times.
The plan is staying with my in laws for 4days in Mississauga, ON. And then staying with my old friends in Winnipeg,MB and meeting new friends for 2days. These are our defined plan. Other than that we take it casually..staying in hotels for sure, but have not known where and when yet.

Out of kitchen means my family will eat whatever we find at fast food restaurants, mostly junk food (I don't mind though...but am sorry for my Bianca and her little brother in my womb) and I will surely miss my time spent in kitchen. Btw, I threw away all of my kitchen utensils, not a single spoon left, since our car is not big enough to carry all of our belonging. In some part it is sad to leave all of my tools, but at the other side I am happy just to think that I will get all new stuff when we get there.

OK friends, I am sorry if I did not have time to say good bye before, so here is a way to say it now. I will miss you all badly, but promise..I will be online once in awhile whenever I can...
Luv u all!

"Me Style" Ragout Rissole

By the time you are reading this post, I will be on my way to our new home (thanks to scheduled posting!). New home, new town, new job, new friends, new resolution for better future...
It is tiring to pack up and arrange every thing, yet it is exciting to know how life can be in a new place. We have been praying for it for the whole year and yes God gives us direction clearly.
Now back to food matter...I made this rissole just to finish up all that I had left in my kitchen. Since I did not have chicken meat left, I just used fish cake.

Ingredients:

To make skin:
- 150g wheat flour/all purpose flour
- 1 egg
- 350ml milk
- salt
- 1 Tbsp melted margarine

Mix all the above ingredients, if needed blend it in a blender, just like what I did to get an even mixture. Prepare a nonstick-pan by heating it on a stove. Then pour just a little bit of the mixture and distribute it evenly on the surface to get a thin pancake-liked layer. Cook it for sometimes, do not overcook. Do it again and again until all is done and you got enough layer of skin. Put it aside.



To make ragout:
- 1/2 block fish cake, cut into small cubes
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 2 carrots, peel off the skin, wash and cut into small cubes
- 1/2 can of sweet peas
- 2 green onion, chop thinly
- 250ml fresh milk
- 4Tbsp of wheat flour
- 1tsp of ground white pepper
- pinch of ground nutmeg
- salt
- sugar
- oil for saute

In a pan, saute chopped garlic until fragrant. Add carrot and fish cake cubes, stir it while cooking for 3minutes. Add fresh milk, pepper, nutmeg, salt and sugar and continue to cook until boiling. Add sweet peas and then wheat flour and stir it instantly until thicken.

To make batter:
- 1egg, beat it
- 70gr of breadcrumbs

Take one skin and place it on a cutting board. Take 1Tbsp of ragout and put it in the middle of the skin surface. Roll in the skin to form an envelope shape. Deep in the egg and then roll over breadcrumbs until all covered. Do it again and again until all is done. Deep fry it in hot oil under medium low heat until golden brown. Serve it warm with fresh chili paddy or chili sauce.

Cendol (Tapioka Bubbles Drink)

I have been talking about making it since two month ago, but keep postponing. I'd already had all the ingredients needed, still no desire to make it. Eventually last Monday I made it for my friend's birthday party. People loved it as the weather was warm outside.

Ingredients:
To make bubbles:
- 1 package of hunkwe powder
- 70gr of rice flour
- 35gr of tapioka flour
- 4drops of pandan essence
- 200ml of water
- 400ml of boiling water
- 1Tbsp of sugar
- pinch of salt
- ice cubes and cold water in molding pot

To make coconut milk mix:
- 1can of coconut milk
- 100ml of water
- pinch of salt

To make sweetener:
- 2blocks of palm sugar
- 3Tbsp of brown sugar
- 180ml of water
- 4 pandan leaves

Optional adding:
- 1can of jackfruit in syrup, discard the syrup, cut into small pieces
- 1can of grass jelly, cut into small pieces



In a bowl, dissolve hunkwe powder, tapioka and rice flour, sugar and salt with water. Add pandan essence and mix it well until all color distributed evenly. Prepare the boiling water on stove. While boiling, add the flour mixture little by little and stir it instantly and continuously until thickening and boiling again. Prepare the molding pot with ice cubes and cold water inside. Then pour the hot thick mixture and press it using a wooden laddle, so that the mixture will come out of the holes and form bubbles. The bubble which drops into cold water and ice cubes will harden and would not stick to each other. Do it until all done. Keep it aside.

In a small pot, mix well coconut milk, water and salt. Bring it to boil. Put it aside.

In a small pot, bring to boil water. Add pandan leaves. Then add palm sugar and stir it well until all dissolved. At last add brown sugar, stir it until all dissolve and wait until boiling again.

To serve, in a glass, put some bubbles, jackfruits and grass jelly. Then add coconut milk and the palm sugar sweetener. Stir it well. Add some ice cubes as it is good to serve it cold.

Pandan Marble Cake

After the first trial and everything turned out good, I confess that am addicted to baking. And since I still have some self raising flour and eggs and all the stuff I need for making marble cake, two days ago I made this pandan marble cake for my friend's birthday. The taste was good but the texture was not as smooth as the first trial. I suspect, the cold egg made the difference. Next time I do making cake again, I better let the egg stands for awhile and reaches room temperature before mixing it with other ingredients.

Ingredients:
- 150gr margarine (leave it for awhile at room temperature)
- 75gr sugar
- 3 egg
- 50ml fresh milk
- 130gr self raising flour
- 1tsp of baking powder
- 3 drops of pandan essence
- 1/2 tsp of extract vanilla



In a mixing bowl, mix margarine and sugar under medium speed until smooth. Add the egg one by one while mixing and then add milk. Continue to mix for awhile. Add the vanilla and then flour and baking powder, continue to mix until you get a fluffy mixture. Divide the mixture into 3, add pandan essence to the one third of the mixture, stir it well with a spatula until color distributed evenly. Put it aside.
Prepare the loaf tin by greasing it with margarine. Pour the first one third of the yellowish mixture into the tin. Then the green pandan mixture and lastly the other one third of the yellowish mixture. Make a line movement from one side of the tin to the other end using a fork. Bake for 45minutes to 1h at 300F until done. Take it out of the oven and let it cool off, then cut into the desired thickness. Serve it with a cup of tea or coffee.

Martabak Telor

This week has been a busy week for us, as we are ready to pack everything up and leave by Friday. We are looking forward for a new challenge and big change in our life. Busy packing up means cleaning up and getting rid of what is inside the fridge and freezer. I had to find idea of what to cook with limited choice of ingredients every day for the whole week. Since I still had some ground beef and spring roll skin, I decided to make this yummy martabak telor. I used to have it from street vendor in Jakarta Indonesia. Bianca loves it...she is just like me, she eats it with steam rice.



Ingredients:
- 300gr of ground beef
- 6 green onion, chop thinly
- 6 cloves of garlic, chop thinly
- 4 cloves of small red onion, chop thinly
- 3 egg
- 1tsp of fish sauce
- 1Tbsp of oyster sauce
- 1/2tsp of curry powder
- 1tsp of ground white pepper
- spring roll skins
- salt
- sugar
- oil for frying



In a pan, saute garlic and onion until fragrant. Add the ground beef and stir it while cooking, until change color. Add fish sauce, oyster sauce, curry powder and pepper, stir it well. Adjust the taste with salt and sugar. Continue to cook until the meat tender. Keep it aside and cool it off.
In a mixing bowl, beat the egg with fork. Add the green onion and then the meat. Stir it well until all distributed evenly.
Take one of the spring roll skins and place it on a cutting board or flat plate. Put one spoonful of the filling mixture on it. Roll it up and form an envelope shape. Glue the margin with water. While doing it, prepare the oil by heating it up in a frying pan. Deep fry the envelope in the hot oil under medium high heat until golden brown. Flip it over and wait until the other side turns to golden brown too. Take it out of the oil and drain the oil by placing it on paper towel.
Do it again and again until all done. Serve it warm with fresh chili paddy.

Marble Cake

To be honest with you..this is my very first time doing baking from scratch myself. I'd never baked before, except when I was teaching food processing lab back in 2002-2003, but never in my own kitchen. On Friday I urged myself to start doing it, I wanted to make something delicious yet easy to make with a very little risk of failure. Melanie encouraged me to start doing it with this marble cake, she convinced me that I would never fail to follow this simple recipe. Beside I was also drooling when I saw the picture of it on her page.
Yes, finally I did it and she is right..I can do it! Thank you Mel...My husband loves the cake that he asked me to bake another loaf the next day.

Here is the recipe from her:

Ingredients:
- 150gr margarine (leave it for awhile at room temperature)
- 75gr sugar
- 3 egg
- 50ml fresh milk
- 130gr self raising flour
- 1tsp of baking powder
- 2 tsp of cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp of extract vanilla


In a mixing bowl, mix margarine and sugar under medium speed until smooth. Add the egg one by one while mixing and then add milk. Continue to mix for awhile. Add the vanilla and then flour and baking powder, continue to mix until you get a fluffy mixture. Divide the mixture into 3, add cocoa powder to the one third of the mixture, stir it well with a spatula. Put it aside.
Prepare the loaf tin by greasing it with margarine. Pour the first one third of the yellowish mixture into the tin. Then the cocoa mixture and lastly the other one third of the yellowish mixture. Make a line movement from one side of the tin to the other end using a fork. Bake for 45minutes to 1h at 300F until done. Take it out of the oven and let it cool off, then cut into the desired thickness. Serve it with a cup of tea or coffee.