Butter Chicken

I was having my lunch break from work one time. Then, happened to pass by a nearby book shop and voila - I found this so far amazing cook book on essential asian cuisines. The book is sectioned according to different Asian countries such as China, Indonesia, Singapore & Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Laos & Cambodia, India & Pakistan and a few others - which I think is really good. Actually, I did find a cookbook on whipping simple Italian dishes - which I thought was also very interesting - but ended up buying the asian cuisines cookbook. I think I might actually go back to that book shop some other time and buy that Italian dishes cookbook, too. Anyway, the first dish I did from that Asian cookbook was the Butter Chicken - an Indian dish - using those real spices like garam masala, chilli powder, ground cumin, etc... :-) As my usual habit, when I look through a recipe, I normally check on the ingredients only. This was one of those times, unfortunately. So bought all the other ingredients I didn't have in our pantry. I started at 6pm on a Sunday intending to have it for dinner, with a very excited hubby looking forward to the dish, only to find out that I needed to marinate the chicken pieces for 4 hours first!!!! Yes, I'm sure one could probably get away without marinating that long however, as I am new in this field - I am entirely a slave of the book. Still building up my confidence on trying things a bit different from what's in the book. So - ended up whipping a very easy dish for Sunday's dinner and marinated those chickens overnight. So, lesson learned from this - always read the cooking instructions first so I can plan my time accordingly! Anyway, as my husband's office is near our home, he always comes home earlier than me so, I asked him to do the honours of baking the chicken when he gets home. So, by the time I came home today - the chicken was baked and all I needed to do was pretty much the rest of the instructions in the cookbook - which were straight forward. It was pretty exciting and result wasn't that bad at all - when compared to some of the butter chicken we have tasted in restaurants before. I know it sounds patronising :-) and I only have my husband and myself to comment - but truly, it was pretty amazing considering I've never tried cooking an indian dish before from scratch. My husband normally cooks this type of dish - and he uses those ready made spices, i.e. spices necessary for a certain dish have been combined for you in a packet so basically, all you have to do most of the time is to combine the meat and the packet of spices in a heated pan. The secret, which works for me is to just follow the book especially if it's your first time and you will mostly get it right. So, here goes:

Ingredients:

1 kg chicken thigh fillets

1 tsp salt (I used lemon salt as I had it handy)

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 cup yoghurt

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

3 cm piece fresh ginger, grated

1 green chilli, choped

2 tsps garam masala

2 tsps yellow food colouring (I used turmeric)

1 tsp red food colouring

1/2 cup tomato puree (passata - as they call it)

1/2 cup water

2 cm piece fresh ginger, extra, finely grated

1 cup cream

1 tsp garam masala, extra

2 tsps sugar

1/4 tsp chilli powder (My husband and I loved spicy food - so I used 1 tsp of chilli powder)

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp ground cumin

100g butter

1. Cut the chicken into strips 2 cm thick. Sprinkle with the salt and 1/4 cup lemon juice.

2. Place the yoghurt, onion, garlic, ginger, chilli and garam masala in a food processor and process until smooth.

3. Combine the food colourings in a small bowl, brush over the chicken pieces and turn to coat. Add the yoghurt mixture and toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours. Remove the chicken from the marinade and allow to drain for 5 minutes.

4. Preheat the oven at 220 degrees celcius. Bake the chicken in a shallow baking dish for 15 minutes, or until tender. Drain off any excess juice, cover loosely with foil and keep warm. Set aside.

5. Combine the tomato puree and water in a large jug. Add the ginger, cream, extra garam masala, sugar, chilli powder. lemon juice and cumin. Stir to combine.

6. Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat. Stir in the tomato mixture and bring to a boil. Cook for 2 minutes, then reduce the heat and add the chicken pieces. Stir to coat the chicken in the sauce and simmer for 2 minutes longer or until heated through. Serve with rice.

Sweet Potato Jam

I love yams - ube jam being on the top of my list. This is a common dessert back home, which is made of purple yam or  'ube' as we call it in our native tongue. Unfortunately, here in Australia - it's difficult to find fresh purple yam. Sure, there are frozen cooked purple yams available in some Asian stores but the end result is quite never as good as when you use the fresh ones. So, anyway - I thought I'd give sweet potatoes a try to replace the purple yams. I was thinking they are kind of in the same species so thought it might just do as well. The results especially when you serve it chilled - was absolutely great. My husband never liked to eat sweet potatoes for some reason - but he did when I made yam out of it and in fact, I had to hide it to make him stop eating the whole lot in one sitting...hahaha. Okay - I may be exaggerating a bit but the picture was pretty close to that :-). So - I will definitely be trying this again sometime.

Ingredients:

1 kl of cooked sweet potatoes (or you can use purple yam)

1/2 cup of melted unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups of condensed milk

1/2 cup of thickened cream

2 cups of evaporated milk

1/2 tsp of vanilla essence

1. In a big pot, boil the unpeeled sweet potatoes in water for 30 minutes. Drain and let cool.

2. Peel and finely grate or mash the cooked sweet potatoes. Set aside.

3. In a large saucepan, melt the butter in medium heat, then add the condensed milk and vanilla flavouring. Stir well to mix.

4. Add the grated/mashed sweet potatoes and adjust the heat to low.

5. Keep on stirring to mix all the ingredients for about 30 minutes or until sticky and a bit dry (but still moist).
6. Add the evaporated milk and thickened cream and continue to stir for another 15 minutes.
7. Place in a dish to cool and top with flaked almonds (or any nuts you would like). Once cooled, chill for an hour or two before serving.

My Grandma's Torta

Torta is an egg yolk-based cake. This is commonly served as dessert during special occasions in my hometown Bohol, Philippines. Or even for usual morning/afternoon tea/coffee time. My grandmother made a lot of these during our christmas holiday back home in 2009. I've always loved torta when I was a child but it never entered my mind before to learn how to do this myself. Anyway, my husband ate a lot of these during our holiday and was quite adamant that I try making some when we get back in Australia. So, I asked my grandmother for her recipe on this. And my first try wasn't bad. I still need to improve on this in a lot of ways. I mean - my grandma's torta never had that brownish crust but still the inside was fully cooked. I guess, it may have something to do with the fact that she uses her traditional oven to bake these. Of course, I don't have that option here but will try to check on the oven temperature the next time. At any rate, it was good for a first try and my husband (always a great supporter in my cooking experiments) loved them. If you like the recipe on this (whoever you are) feel free to drop me your email here and I will share that with you. :-)

Coconut Bread

My officemate gave me this recipe. Very very easy to make for such a tasty recipe. My husband and I literally loved this. And I'm thinking that I will make more of these from time to time. This is fantastic with tea.

Ingredients:

1 cup desiccated coconut

1 cup self raising flour
¾ cup of sugar
¾ cup milk

1. Preheat the oven at 190 celsius. Grease a 12-capacity muffin tray (or you can use any baking dish that you have).
2. Mix all ingredients. Then, distribute the mixture on each of the muffin tray (or baking dish of your preference).
3. Bake for about 15 - 20 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Zucchini Fritters with Peanut Satay Sauce

I was thinking about what to do else with the zucchinis we have at home. Zucchinis are available all year round here in Australia but they are more abundant in early summer. So, I scanned the net and look for easy zucchini recipes. The zucchini fritters at All Recipes looks quite good so I did my try on that. As my husband and I love spicy food and we happened to have a lot of chillies - I threw in some finely chopped red and green chillies on top of the other ingredients from All Recipes and they were just great. My husband loved it. And so did I. :-) And I've learned another way to cook zucchinis!

Then, I thought what sauce or dipping that would complement the fritters. At first - I was thinking of the usual dipping that I use for savoury menus i.e. throw in a little of vinegar, soy sauce, lemon juice and some red chillies. Then, I remembered the peanut satay sauce recipe given by my office mate. This is real easy to make - especially for first timers like me and it was wonderful paired with the Zucchinis. So, here goes.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp of oil (I used extra virgin olive oil)
1 finely chopped onion
1 finely chopped clove garlic
1 tsp chilli power (I used chilli paste)
2 tsps curry powder
½ tsp ginger powder (I used ginger paste)
¼ cup of vinegar
2 tbps peanut butter
½ cup of chutney (I used the tamarind chutney)
1 cup of water


1. In a saucepan, sauté the onion and garlic with the oil.
2. Then, add the rest of the ingredients and simmer to thicken.
3. Serve together with the fritters.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

One time, I was watching the food channel on Foxtel and they happened to show this recipe. This one is pretty easy, too - and you only need 5 types of ingredients. And it tastes yummy (or at least that's what my husband said :-D ) and perfect for a gluten-free chocolate cake. So, here goes.

Ingredients:

400 grams of dark chocolate

300 grams of unsalted butter

10 eggs

3 tablespoons of cocoa (sifted)

225 grams of caster sugar

1. Pre-heat the oven at 180 degress celsius. Line a baking pan with baking paper.

2. Melt the chocolate and butter under low heat. Try not to stir too much the mixture while it's melting to avoid the dark chocolate from tasting bitter. Remove from heat once the chocolate-butte mixture is totally melted.

3. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together then, set aside. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites as well then, set aside.

4. In a large bowl, mix the chocolate-butter mixture, beaten egg yolks-sugar and cocoa until well combined.

5. Then, fold in the beaten eggwhites gradually (about 3 times) until well combined.

6. Pour the mixture into the lined baking pan and bake for about 35 minutes or until done (insert a toothpick at the centre and once it comes out clean, then it's done).

7. Cool for a few minutes before serving.

Notes: I topped the cake with strawberries as I happen to have a lot of strawberries that time. And I just find that strawberries eaten with chocolate cake are yummy as the flavours sort of complement each other. But you can use any toppings you like. For the presentation: the well formed at the middle was done by putting a baking paper on top of the cake (right after taking out from the oven so it's still hot) and then, placing a deep plate with a very heavy object (e.g. water melon or pumpkin) on top of the cake for an hour or two.

Choc Chip Cookies

This is a real easy recipe. This was one of the few recipes I tried a few months ago and my husband just loved it. So - it did boost my confidence a bit to keep me going. If you are like me, a beginner in the kitchen, then it's good to start on simple recipes. And as Chef Auguste Gusteau in the movie Ratatouille said: "Anyone can cook!".

Here goes the recipe for this lovely home made choc chip cookies. Enjoy...:-)

Ingredients:

150 g unsalted butter
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup soft brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup dark choc bits
1/2 cup milk choc bits

1. Pre-heat the oven at 180 celsius degrees. Grease 2 baking trays and line with non-stick baking paper.
2. Beat the butter, caster and brown sugar, and egg yolk in a bowl using an electric beater until light and creamy.
3. Add the vanilla essence and beat until combined.
4. Add the flour and half of the choc bits. Stir until just combined.
5. Press the mixture together to form a soft dough.
6. Roll the mixtures into balls using a tablespoon. Then, press the reamining choc bits firmly on top of the balls.
7. Arrange the balls on the tray, leaving room for spreading.
8. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until crisp and lightly browned.
9. Cool on the tray before serving.