Pumpkin Scones

This is one of our favourites especially for breakfast or even for morning/afternoon tea, served with jam and cream. I've made these several times already - and still I'm making every now and then (as popularly demanded by my husband). :-) They said that pumpkin scone is a Queenslander thing as Queensland is abundant with pumpkins. But then again it's abundant with so many other farming products. Anyway, this one is real easy to whip up - so very convenient for a busy professional like me. :-)

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups self raising flour

1/2 cup instant full cream milk powder

45 grams butter

1 cup mashed cooked pumpkin

1/4 cup sultanas or raisins

1/3 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 200 degress celcius.

2. Sift flour into a large bowl, add the milk powder. Rub in butter lightly with fingertips.

3. Add pumpkin, sultanas or raisins and water. Mix to a soft dough.

4. Turn out onto a floured surface, knead lightly. Pat dough out until 2 cm thick. Cut into rounds using a cutter (about 5 cm).

4. Place scones close together on grease baking tray. Brush with fresh milk.

5. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden.

6. Serve with strawberry jam and cream.

Chicken Adobo A La Orange

Chicken Adobo is a very popular dish back in the Philippines. Anyway, we had some extra oranges, which looked like they were about to expire. So - I used them with my chicken adobo! So, here goes:

Ingredients:

6 cloves garlic, crushed

1 cup cider vinegar

1 1/2 chicken stock

1 bay leaf

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp black peppercorns

1/4 tsp paprika with a generous pinch of turmeric

3 tbsps soy sauce

2 medium oranges, juiced (cut 3 thin slices before juicing and set aside for garnishing)

1.5 kg chicken pieces

2 tbps olive oil

onion and green chilli, chopped (for garnishing)

1. Combine the garlic, vinegar, chicken stock, bay leaf, coriander seeds, black peppercorns, paprika with turmeric, soy sauce and orange juice in a large bowl. Add the chicken, cover and leave to marinate in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

2. Transfer the chicken mixture to a large heavy-based pan and bring to a boil.

3. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the lid from the pan and continue cooking for 10 minutes, or until the chicken is tender. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.

4. Bring the liquid to a boil again and cook over high heat for 10 minutes, or until the liquid has reduced by half.

5. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan, add the chiken in batches and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, or until crisp and brown.

6. Pour the reduces vinegar mixture over the chicken pieces and garnish with chopped onion, green chilli and orange slices.

7. Serve with rice.

Sweet Garlic Eggplant

This is one great dish - very tasty. Another dish I prepared when my brother-in-law came for a visit. This is a Filipino-Chinese combination dish, which is best served with fresh boiled rice.

So - here goes the recipe:

Ingredients:
3 medium eggplants
7 tbsps oil (I used extra-virgin olive oil)
1 1/2 tsps finely chopped garlic
6 tsps caster sugar
6 tsps soy sauce
6 tsps cider vinergar
1 tbps dry sherry

1. Cut the eggplants in half lengthways and then, slice into wedges about 3 cm wide. Cut the wedges into pieces about 3 cm long.
2. Heat 3 tbps oil in a wok or heavy-based frying pan, swirling gently to coat the base and sides. Add half the eggplant and stir-fry over high heat for 5 minutes, or until browned and all the oil is absorbed. Transfer to a plate.
3. Repeat the cooking procedure with another 3 tbsps oil and the remaining eggplant.
4. Heat the remaining oil in the wok, swirling gently to coat the base and sides. Add the garlic and cook slowly until just golden.
5. Add the sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and sherry. Bring to a boil, stirring.
6. Add the eggplant and simmer for 3 minutes to allow it to absorb the sauce.
7. Serve with fresh boiled white rice.

Bombay Beef Curry

My brother-in-law and his daughter came for a visit from Sydney. This was one of the dishes I prepared for them. My husband's brother owns an Indian Restaurant and I've always known him to be a great cook. So - it was a bit daunting cooking something, which he is an expert of. But nonetheless, I had to try - result was not bad at all. He thought it was good. :-) And he did eat a fair amount - so may be it was really good. Anyway, why don't you give it a go...

Ingredients:

1 tbsp oil

2 medium onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 green chillies, chopped

1 tbsp grated fresh ginger

1 1/2 tsps ground turmeric

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tbsp ground coriander

1/2 - 1 tsp chilli powder (depending on how spicy hot you want it to be)

1 kg beef (or you can use lamb, too), cut into bite-sized cubes

1 tsp salt

410 grams can crushed tomatoes

1 cup coconut milk

fresh coriander leaves or mint or unsalted cashew nuts or lemon slices, to garnish (I used mint and lemon slices as garnish)

1. Heat the oil in a large pan; add the onion and cook over medium hear, stirring, until just soft.

2. Add the garlic, green chilli, ginger, turmeric, cumin, coriander and chilli powder. Stir until just heater through.

3. Add the meat and cook, stirring, over high heat until the meat is well coated with the spice mixture and browned all over.

4. Stir in the salt and undrained tomatoes and simmer, covered for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the meat is tender.

5. Add the coconut milt and stir; simmer, uncovered, for another 5 minutes or until the sauce has thickened slightly.

6. Serve garnished with coriander leaves or mint leaves or unsalted cashew nuts or lemon slices, if desired.

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. :-)