If you have any question, please drop me an email (sonia9423@gmail.com) or Instagram @ sonianll

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Stir fried Chayote shoot

Correction !!! Earlier thought this was cucumber's leaves, but actually this is Chayote shoot.
Thanks Wendy for pointed out this mistake, actually my mom also not really sure what is the actual name of this veggie, she just agak agak (thought) is cucumber's leaves.. sorry..

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-This Chayote shoot is not easy to be found in the supermarket, usually my mom helped me to buy from pasar pagi (morning market). Just simple stir fry with oil, chopped garlic and ikan bilis (anchovies), seasoning with salt, so no recipe I can provided here.

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-Believe me, this tasted is good, crunchy and sweet !! Simply yummy!

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Happy Cooking !!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Ocean Cake

This was the main cake that I baked for Lucas's 10 years old Birthday party. And it was really well received by all his friend,my relatives and friends..
I have been keeping this M&M Ocean cake recipe long time ago (can't remember where I got this), when I refer to M&M website, i couldn't find the link.


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So I just copy and paste this recipe in here, I also made few changes on it:-

M&M Ocean Cake
(printable recipe)

Ingredients
•1 bag MILKY WAY® Brand Miniatures –I omitted this•1 bag M&M’S® Brand Milk Chocolate Candies
•1 bag M&M’S® Brand Peanut Chocolate Candies
•2 18.25-oz. boxes favorite cake mix-use my own recipe, refer to basic sponge cake •3 cans vanilla frosting-use my own recipe, refer to Vanilla buttercream
•Food coloring (blue, green, red & yellow)
•1 cup Chinese noodles- I use Yee Mee
•2 cups ground cookie or cake crumbs
•3 8-inch round cake pans- I use 9” round cake pan

Directions
1.Unwrap the MILKY WAY® Brand Miniatures, and chop all but two of them.-I omitted this
2.Prepare the cake mix according to the package directions. - I baked sponge cake
3.Fold in the chopped candy, before transferring the batter to 3 8-inch cake pans. .-I omitted this4.Bake for 30 minutes in a preheated 350-degree oven.- I baked sponge cake
5.Set 1/2 cup of vanilla frosting aside.-I prepared Vanilla buttercream6.Using blue food coloring, tint 1-1/2 cans of the remaining vanilla frosting to the desired shade of blue.
7.Once the cake layers are cooled, sandwich blue frosting between the layers
8.set one layer on a plate and frost its top; then set the second layer on top of the first layer and frost its top; then set the third layer on top of the second layer.- I only made two layers, apply a layer of blueberries jam
9.Spread the top and sides of the cake with swirls of both blue and white frosting, to give the cake a water-like color.
10.Swirl the frosting on the top of the cake with the back of a spoon, pulling each swirl so that it looks like a wave.
11.Decorate the side of the cake.
12.here are some suggestions:
13.* Divide the remaining can of vanilla frosting into three small bowls. Tint one bowl green, one red and one yellow. Transfer each color to a reasealable plastic bag. Snip the corner of each bag.
14.* Make the schools of M&M’S® fish:
15.- Press a school of about 4 or 5 green M&M’S® Brand Milk Chocolate Candies into the side of the cake. Pipe fins and tails with green frosting.
16.- Press a school of 3 or 4 orange M&M’S® Brand Peanut Chocolate Candies, and pipe red fins and tails.
17.* M&M’S® lobsters: Use a red M&M’S® Brand Peanut Chocolate Candy for the body. Then, place red M&M’S® for the tails and claws. Pipe the claw M&M’S® with red frosting to outline its detail.
18.* M&M’S® seahorse: Use a yellow M&M’S® Brand Peanut Chocolate Candy for the body. Place a yellow M&M’S® Brand Milk Chocolate Candy to the top of the "body", and pipe a yellow frosting tail and snout.
19.* Sea grass & coral: Pipe green frosting onto the sides of the cake for sea grass. Then, press Chinese noodles into the sides of cake for coral.
20.Decorating the sea bottom:
21.* Sprinkle the cake with cookie crumbs all around like sand. Scatter M&M’S® Brand Milk Chocolate Candies around the cookie crumbs.
22.* Make a treasure chest: Trim off the top of one MILKY WAY® Brand Miniature.- I omitted this23.Place a second MILKY WAY® Brand Miniature on top like the top of a chest, keeping the lid open.- I omitted this
24.Fill the center with yellow M&M’S® Brand Milk Chocolate Candies as if they were gold!-I omitted this

**my note- you may also turn this to cup cake form, just place one decoration for each cup cake.


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-sea horse, sea grass, coral (Chinese noodle)




-lobster

-fishes


-Ocean cup cakes and Ocean Birthday cake served on the party day !!



Happy Baking !!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Ocean Cup Cakes & Blue Vanilla Buttercream

I have been busy for the past two days as I busy arranged Lucas's 10years old Birthday party. First I would like to share with you the Ocean cup cakes that I baked for this Birthday party.

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The main Birthday cake is followed Ocean theme, thus the cup cake also followed the same theme. I use fish cookie to decorate this cup cake, this fish cookie used to be my favourite when I was a kid, I used to buy this from pasar (market), love the slightly salty taste. Is this also your favourite cookie or you have never seen this kind of cookie before?
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Ocean Cup Cakes & Blue Vanilla Buttercream*makes 12-15 cup cakes
(printable recipe)
Ingredients
125g Butter
90g sugar
2 large eggs
140g cake flour
4tbsp milk
2tbsp heavy cream
1tsp coffee powder
1tbsp cocoa powder
1/2tsp Baking powder
1/8tsp Baking soda


1. Sift baking powder, baking soda and cake flour together, set aside.
2. Beat butter with the sugar until fluffy.
3. Add in egg one at a time, mixing well.
4. Fold in the flour, milk and heavy cream, combine well.
5. Last add in cocoa powder and coffee powder, combine well.
6. Pour mixture into a paper cup till ¾ full.
7. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180C for 20mins.

Blue Vanilla Buttercream

50g Butter
100g Icing sugar
1/2tsp vanilla essence
1tbsp heavy cream
A drop of food colouring- Blue

1. Cream the butter in a hand mixer till smooth
2. Add in sugar and vanilla, beat till fluffy.
3. Add in heavy cream, combine well.
4. Colour the cream.

To decorate Ocean cup cakes- pipe blue buttercream using tip no35 and place a fish cookie on top

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Happy Baking !!
**in my next post, I will share with you the main Birthday cake, a ocean cake, stay tuned.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Hokkien Mee Suah / Flour Vermicelli in Soup

A Hokkien people like me must serve this tradition dish -Mee Sua when celebrating Birthday, my mom also taught me to add chives in Mee Sua as Hokkien people believes chives bring longevity!

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-ingredients..



-Mee Suah start to turn soggy while I taking this photo
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Hokkien Mee Suah / Flour Vermicelli in Soup
(printable recipe)
2.5 litre chicken stock OR ikan bilis stock (boil 100g dried anchovies with water)

10 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked several hours till soft and sliced thinly
250g pork or chicken fillet, sliced, lightly marinated with salt, sesame oil and pepper
5 small bundles of Mee Sua (flour Vermicelli)
10 shallots, sliced
30g chives, cut into 1” in length (optional)
Salt to taste
A dash of white pepper powder

10 Red eggs (hard-boiled eggs), removed egg shell

1. Get ready the chicken stock or ikan bilis stock.
2. Heat a little oil in a wok and sauté shallots till golden brown and crispy, set aside
3. Use the remaining oil, add the sliced meat and mushroom and stir fry for 2-3mins, set aside.
4. To make the individual portions of mee sua, ladle some of the stock into a small pot and allow to boil.
5. Add a bundle of mee sua and let it cook for 1min or till soft.
6. Add in the meat and mushroom, chives and stir well. Seasoning with salt and pepper.
7. Pour into a soup bowl and top with fried shallots and hard-boiled eggs.
8. Serve immediately

My note- cook Mee Sua just before serving as the flour vermicelli turns soggy quickly!
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Happy Cooking !!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Red Eggs 红鸡蛋

Today about egg again !!
Red egg is a must have item when Chinese family celebrating Birthday, baby's full month, wedding & etc. My son Lucas turned to perfect 10 yesterday, as usual, I prepared some red eggs and cooked Hokkian Mee Suah soup (flour vermicelli in soup) for him.


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How to get this sharp and nice red on the hard-boiled eggs?
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My mom taught me by using rice vinegar mix with Rose syrup (widely used by Malay to making drink) to dye red colour on hard-boiled eggs. You may replace with red food colouring if you couldn't find rose syrup. I like the rose syrup give rosy smell on the egg. Using rice vinegar is to coat the colour easily on hard-boiled eggs.
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Chinese Red Eggs 红鸡蛋
(recipe source : by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover)

IMG_3967 copy 10 hard-boiled eggs
1 tbsp rice vinegar
½ tbsp Rose syrup

Method
1. Mix rice vinegar and rose syrup together in a small mixing bowl.
2. Dye egg in red syrup one at a time, using chopsticks to stir and coat well the whole egg. (updated on 28 Jan 2015- please make sure dye eggs while eggs still warm).











As usual, I use my favourite tulip crystal bowl that I bought during my trip to Keukenhof Tulip garden in Holland to serve these red eggs!
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**I will share with you the Hokkian Mee Suah soup (flour vermicelli in soup) in my next post, stay tuned !

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Foo Yong Dan / Chinese Onion & Shrimps Omelette

I like this simple Chinese style of omelette, we call it as 'Foo Yong Dan", and I would said every Chinese mom also know how to cook this. I especially love the sweetness from the onions, usually I will add a lot.

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-Ingredients-eggs, Chinese sausages, fresh shrimps, onion, red chili, spring onion and carrot, love the beautiful colours of this omelettle.




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Foo Yong Dan/ Chinese Onion & Shrimps Omelette
(printable recipe)

Ingredients
3 eggs
10 medium shrimps, remove shells
2 onion, slices
1 red chilli, slices
2 spring onions, cut 1” length
20g carrot, slices
1 Chinese sausage, slices
2 cloves garlic, chopped
4tbsp of cooking oil
Salt ½ tsp
A dash of pepper

1. Whisk eggs in a bowl together with salt and pepper, set aside.
2. Heat oil in a wok, stir fry sausage till brown.
3. Add in shrimps, stir fry till colour changed
4. Add in chopped garlic, mix well.
5. Mix in red chilli, onion, spring onion and carrot, stir fry and mix well.
6. Pour in egg mixture, cook till the bottom turned lightly brown, turn and cook the other side till lightly brown.
7. Dish out and served hot.

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Happy Cooking !!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Chocolate Banana muffins

I have baked this chocolate banana muffins few times due to the strong demand in my family especially my daughter, and I strongly recommend you to give it a try. This is really good, moist and full of chocolate and banana flavours, and I especially like the gem hide inside this muffin, a ripe banana..


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This recipe was adapted from Honey Bee Sweets after I saw Reesekitchen strongly recommended. Thanks Bee Bee for kind sharing. I made little changes on the recipe as I change to salted butter instead of unsalted butter.


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Chocolate Banana Muffins*makes 10 to 15 muffins (depend on the paper cup size)
(printable recipe)
125g butter
100g caster sugar
150g cake flour
2 eggs (large)
1/2tsp baking powder
1/4tsp baking soda
2tbsp cocoa powder
100ml milk
1/2cup chocolate chips
150g mashed banana
Some banana wedges

1. Beat butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Add in the eggs one at a time, mix well
3. Sift in flour, baking soda and baking powder, combine well with milk.
4. Add in mashed banana and cocoa powder, mix well.
5. Last add in chocolate chips, combine well.
6. Scoop the batter in to the muffin paper liners to about 3/4 full. Then insert a banana wedge into the middle of the muffin. Repeat till all the batter has been used.
7. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180C for 25mins.


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-I would like to dedicated this lovely muffin to Jane's corner as all these lovely paper cups was given by her and all the way from Perth, Australia..Thanks my dear friend..


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Happy Baking !!




Saturday, April 3, 2010

Barley and Apple Chicken soup, and awards

I cook Chinese barley sweet soup at least 1-2 times in a week, as I know barley water is good for our kidney and bladder cleanse. If one has urine acid problem, barley water can be used as a therapeutic water. This time instead of sweet version, I cooked salted version and I added some fresh apples into it.


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-Ingredients-chicken, fresh apples, Chinese barley, red dates and honey dates


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Barley and Apple Chicken soup
(printable recipe)

½ bird of free range chicken (kampung chicken)
2 whole of apples, cut into fairy big pieces
100g Chinese Barley
10pcs red dates
2pcs honey dates
1500ml water
Salt to taste

1. Boil water in a pot, add in chicken, Barley and dates and cook over low flame for 30mins.
2. Add in apple and cook for another 30mins.
3. Add salt to taste.
4. Serve hot.

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Happy Cooking !!

Beside, Thanks to Jane's corner, Reesekitchen, Rachel and Anncoo's hobby given me these lovely awards.



And I would like to take this opportunities to award to all my blogger friends, you are deserved to these awards.
Please feel free to drop by and collect your award.


Happy Easter and Have a nice weekend !!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Fragrant fried chicken with lemongrass & spices

Happy April Fools’ Day !!

Today, my daughter made a fool of me by pretending she wants to discontinue her piano class. I was angry and told her that how much money I have spent on the piano bought for her, bla bla….And then she laughed at me said “ Mom, Happy April Fool’s Day “ , sigh, I was fooled by her, hahaha…

Come back to the dish that I want to share with you today, I always like Mamak style (Indian Muslims ) of fried chicken, recently I found a really good and yummy recipe, and this fried chicken is well received by my family. This recipe is really good, I’m not fooling you wor, hahaha..

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-Curry leaves, cumin seed, aniseed and coriander seed



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-Half-way through the deep frying, add in some curry leaves.




-Simply yummy!

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Recipe adapted from Love2Cook, and I made little changes on the recipe. Thanks to Love2Cook for this wonderful recipe.


Fragrant fried chicken with lemongrass & spices

(printable recipe)

1kg chicken meat, cut into medium-size pieces

Use a mortar and pestle to pound the spices to a coarse paste:-
1tsp of Cumin seed (Jintan putih)
1tsp of Aniseed (Jintan manis)
1tsp of Coriander seed (ketumbar)

1 and 1/2tbsp chilli paste
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tbsp tapioca flour / corn flour
1 and ½ tsp salt

Use a blender/food processor to blend to a paste:-
4 cloves of garlic
5 shallots
1” ginger
4 stalks of lemongrass
2-3tbsp of water

4 sprig of curry leaves

1. Marinate chicken pieces with all ingredients except Curry leaves for 1 hour or more.
2. Heat oil in a wok, put marinated chicken into hot oil piece by piece, deep fry till golden brown.
3. Half-way through the deep frying, add in some curry leaves.
4. Once done, use a strainer to drain excess oil.
5. Serve hot.

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Happy Cooking !!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Fried white radish cake, simply delicious !!

Fried white radish cake is one of the item that I must order when we take dim sum in restaurant. Actually this cake is very easy to be prepared at home, just use the steamed radish cake and pan fry it, and the ingredients and method are very similar to steamed taro cake.


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-How we enjoyed? We like to eat with homemade sweet sambal, simple delicious !!

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-cook shredded white raddish with hot water, mix seasonings and flour, whisk till become a watery batter...



-saute dried shrimps, add radish, add watery batter, cook till thick paste, steam become cake..


Fried white radish cake
(printable recipe)


Ingredients350g shredded white radish
- (cook shredded radish with water till soft, drained and discarded the water)
250g rice flour
20g tapioca flour
500ml water
50g dried shrimps, soaked and chopped finely

Seasonings
1tsp salt
1tsp sugar
1/2tsp chicken stock powder
1/2tsp white pepper powder

Extra rice flour for dusting

1. Mix all seasonings with rice flour, tapioca flour and water by hand whisk till a watery batter.
2. Heat oil in a wok, sauté chopped dried shrimps till fragrant.
3. Add in cooked shredded white radish, mix well, pour in the watery batter.
4. Cook mixture for two to three minutes over low heat, stirring all the time, until the mixture turns to a thick paste.
5. Pour the paste into a greased cake tin. Smoothen the surface with a spatula. Place it in the steamer and steam over high heat for 45 minutes.
6. Remove the cake and allow it to cool thoroughly before cutting into slices.
7. Dusted rice flour over radish cake, shallow fry the radish cake slices till golden brown.
8. Serve with chilli sauce.

-I love the texture of this radish cake, neither too soft nor too hard, just perfect !! Now I start thinking to cook another usual way of enjoy radish cake, stir fry with egg and bean sprout, yum yum!! will share the recipe soon..



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Happy Cooking!!



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