Beet Root Pork Ribs Soup

Knowing the beet root is a good vegetable and wondering how to cook it. After collecting some information from the web, here come the soup. This soup is sweet and the color is red. My son loving it!

Prepare Time: 10min
Cook Time: 20min
Serving:3-4 people

Estimate Cost: RM8

Ingredients:
Beet root medium one piece (cubed)
Carrots two pieces (slided)
Red onion big two pieces (slided)
Pork ribs or chicken breast 500gram
Salt (optional)

Ingredients:
1. Blanch the pork ribs or chicken breast meat through hot water.
2. Boil one litre of water and add in the pork ribs or chicken breast meat.
3. Add in the beet roots, onions and carrots when water boiled.
4. Cook until the beet roots turns soft.
5. Serve warm

Curry Fish Head

Prepare Time: 20min
Cook Time: 10min
Serving: 4-5 people

Estimate Cost: RM15

Ingredients:
Home made chili paste two big spoons
Curry powder one big spoon
Fish head 600gram
Brinjal two pieces
Okra or ladies fingers 10 pieces
Tomato two pieces
Fresh cow milk or coconut milk 400ml
Curry leaves two stalks
Cooking oil two big spoons

Ingredients:
1. Heat up cooking oil.
2. Stir fry the home made chili paste, curry powder and curry leaves until fragrant.
3. Add in the brinjals, ladies fingers, tomatos slides and stir evenly.
4. Pour in the milk and cover the pot lid. Turn to medium heat.
5. When the brinjals and ladies fingers turn soft, add in the curry fish head.
6. Cover the pot lid and cook for another 5 minutes or the fish head turn red.
7. Add water if to prefer more waterly gravy.
8.Serve warm.

Sambal or Chili Prawn

Prepare Time: 5min
Cook Time: 5min
Serving: 2-3 people

Estimate Cost: RM8

Ingredients:
Home made chili paste two big spoons
Soy Paste one big spoon
Fresh prawns 500gram
Cooking oil one big spoon

Ingredients:
1. Heat up cooking oil.
2. Stir fry the home made chili paste and soy paste until fragrant.
3. Add the prawns and stir fry until the prawns turn red.
4. Add some water to create some gravy.
5. Serve warm

Whole Wheat Bread Baking

My son loves bread especially whole wheat bread. Today my sister requested me to bake some sausages bun as her son loves it. Well, plain flour with sausages does not seem to be so good so i decided to bake whole wheat sausages bun. I eat the sausage and my son takes the whole wheat, good idea isn't it?

I took the recipe from Bread Magic by chef Alan Ooi under Y3K publication.

Prepare Time: 2 hours
Bake Time: 15 minutes
Serving: 40 pieces

Ingredients:
Part A:
High protein flour 300grams
Whole wheat flour 200grams
Brown sugar 40grams
Salt 1 teaspoon
Instant yeast 3 teaspoons

Part B:
Cold water 300ml

Part C:
Shortening 40grams

For Glazing:
Egg 1 piece (beaten)

For Topping:
White sesames

Filling:
Cocktail sausages 40 pieces

Instructions:
1. Mix Part A in the mixer and mix well.
2. Add in Part B until a dough is form.
3. Add in Part C bit by bit until the dough turns smooth and elastic to the touch.
4. Leave dough in a big bowl or container and cover with a damp cloth. Proof in a warm place for at least 30 minutes or longer when the dough is doubled in size.
5. Divide the dough for 25gram each and shape them into small ball.
6. Cover the dough balls with a damp cloth and let it prove for another 5 minutes before wrapping the sausages.
7. Flatten and rolled them into a longish shape and wrap in the sausages. Place them onto the greased bake tray.
8. Cover it with damp cloth and let it proves for double the size.
9. Send to oven and bake for 180C for 15minutes after brush a layer of egg and applied the sesames.
10. Remove them from baking tray once out from oven and let it cools down at rack.

Mini Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

The good things about mini cheesecake is you do not have to slide them before serving as cutting cheesecake is quite a troublesome work to me. Secondly, it is easier as the crust making process can be skipped, substituted by mini marie biscuits or any cookies that is small enough to fit into the baking cup. You can use muffin baking cup or cupcake baking cup or any mini size baking cup as long with paper lining. I first tried by putting a lump of strawberry pie filling on top of the cheese but i found it slightly sank into the cheese after bake. Putting the strawberry pie filling on top of the biscuit worked better. Just use a tooth pick and do a swirl effect after filling the cheese is good enough to get a nice apperance. The disadvantages for this mini size cheesecake is one need quite a number of baking cups. I only have a dozen of baking cups so i took 6 rounds for baking. Plus, you need sometimes to let it cool down a bit before removing the cake from the baking cup for the next refill.

I slightly modified this recipe from cookingforengineer website.

Prepare Time: 1 hour
Bake Time: 45-1 hour
Serving: 60 pieces and some left overs

Ingredients:
Philadelphia cream cheese 1kg
Fine sugar 1 cup
Eggs 4 pieces
Strawberry pie filling 300gram
Mini Marie Biscuits 60 pieces

Instructions:
1. Rest cream cheese at room temperature for at lest one hour to ease the later blending process and also to avoid lump.
2. Cut the cream cheese to cubes to fasten the blending process and avoid lump.
3. Beat the cream cheese until smooth and add in sugar and beat until the sugar is fully dissolved in the cheese.
4. Scape down the cream cheese at the mixer side wall.
5. Add in eggs one at a time and beat well. Repeat for all the eggs.
6. Place the paper liner on the muffin cups.
7. Place the biscuits into the muffin cups.
8. Place a teaspoon of strawberry pie filling on the biscuits.
9. Spoon cream cheese mixture into the muffin cups for 3/4 full.
10. Preheat the oven at 175C and add a tray of hot water into the oven (please refer to my first cheesecake recipe )
11. Bake for 15min. The temperature setting for each oven might be different. For my case, 175C for 15min can totally turn my cheesecake to dark brown color. So, you might fine tune for yours.
12. Let the cheesecakes cool down on the rack and then chill in the fridge.

Anchovies Chili or Sambal Ikan Bilis

After introducing my home made chili paste, i will start to introduce some chili food using this chili paste. First of all, the simplest but very yummy dish will be anchovies chili or sambal ikan bilis. This is a simple dish however when i was first try out i failed! I did not cook long enough as the result it was still taste "wet". Oil must be sufficient! My second and third attempt were turn out failing too due to i did not put enough cooking oil and the end result turned up very dry and it was like almost "burn out". So, the secret is cook longer until it turns brown red and cooking oil must be sufficient. Too little or too much will also jeopardize the taste. I observed 1 tablespoon of chili should follow with 1 tablespoon of chili paste. Try it out!

Prepare Time: 5min
Cook Time: 10min
Serving: 3-4 persons

Estimate Cost: RM2

Ingredients:
Home made chili paste 6 spoons
Cooking oil 6 tablespoons
Anchovies 100gram or depend
Sugar 1 tablespoon

Instructions:
1. Remove the head and the internal organs of anchovies.
2. Wash and drain the anchovies and set aside.
3. Heat up the fry pan and add in the cooking oil.
4. Deep fry anchovies until it turns crunchy or brown and set aside.
5. Reduce heat to low.
6. Pour in the home made chili paste and stir continuously to avoid the paste from burn.
7. Keep stirring until the chili turns to brownish red.
8. Add in the sugar and stir a short while.
9. Turn off the heat.
10. Add in fried anchovies and stir evenly then serve.

Yam Rice with Chicken

There are a few secret i learn from my sister-in-law on this recipe. First, first frying the chicken and set aside. Do put add the chicken into the rice cooker for double cook as it will cause the chicken meat get harder. Only put it in when the rice is cooked or when you hear the sound "put" from the rice cooker. Second, you do not have to fry the rice as the result will still very good. Hong Zheng likes it very much!

Prepare Time: 30min
Cook Time: 10min
Serving: 3-4 persons

Estimate Cost: RM8

Ingredients:
Chicken breast meat 200gram with skin removed
Yam small size 1 piece
Dry mushroom big 4 ears
Onion medium 1 piece chopped
Garlic 6 gloves chopped
Dry shrimps 50gram
White rice 3 cups
Water 700gram
Salt 1 teaspoon
Pepper
Soy source 2 tablespoons
Dark soy source 2 table spoons
Cooking oil 3 tablespoons

Instructions:
1. Wash and cut chicken meat into small cubes and marinate with salt, pepper and soy source while getting up the rest of the ingredients.
2. Remove the yam skin and cut into small cubes.
3. Soak mushrooms and cut into cubes.
4. Wash and drain the dry shrimps.
5. Wash and drain the white rice.
6. Heat up the cooking oil and stir in 1/3 of the garlic and onion.
7. Stir fry the chicken meat until it cooked and set aside.
8. Add in some cooking oil and heat it up. Stir in the remaining garlic and onion and add in the mushrooms and yam.
9. Add salt.
10. Scope up the mixture and put them in the rice cooker.
11. Add the rice and water.
12. Add in the soy source and dark source.
13. When the rice cooker turns from cooking to steam phase, add in the chicken meat.