Experimenting with Eggplants

Having seen some friends' dinner pictures at a Spanish restaurant, I was intrigued by one of the restaurant's which made use of eggplant. As the only referral I had was a picture, the cooking method and ingredients involved was largely up to my own imagination. Hence, with some spare time this afternoon, I decided to let my imaginations take off and try out something with a big eggplant left in the fridge.

The ingredients used are pretty simple, with the eggplant being the main character here. For a start, peel the skin of eggplant, cut into rectangular chunks, mix together with 2 tbsp salt, 1 tbsp black pepper powder, 1 tbsp sweet paprika and 2 tbsp five spice powder before leaving aside to marinate. Prepare another two bowls, one with beaten egg wash of 1 egg, and another with the mixture of 5tbsp bread crumbs, 1 tbsp dried chives, 1 tbsp salt, 1 tbsp plain flour, and 2 tbsp of curry and tumeric powder each.


Method:Dip one piece of eggplant in the egg wash before coating with the breadcrumb mixture, repeat with all eggplant cutlets. Lightly saute the breadcrumb -coated eggplants in a hot pan with some oil, do not overcook the eggplants, and beware not to overburn the breadcrumb coating. Leave aside on a kitchen towel after browning the eggplants for a few minutes. Next, bake the eggplants in a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celcius for 40 minutes, changing sides every 10 minutes or so. Serve hot from the oven immediately for best taste. I think it is possible to grill the breadcrumb-coated eggplants as well, but I will have to try that next time before I can be sure, maybe someone else can try it out and tell me?

A different take on Bruschetta

A few days back Cat brought over some tomatoes that has been sitting in her fridge for some time, I suggested making tomato quiche or bruschetta. She opted for bruschetta as she couldn't get the picture of what is a tomato quiche, or maybe I should correct my terminology, as I told her to make tomato pie, big difference? Hmm...

Anyway, I brought the ingredients into storage the day after I got the tomatoes, and only started to make the bruschetta yesterday. A bad thing I did was to had 4 pieces of bread before I made the Italian snack, which resulted in my almost vomiting just by looking at bread. laughs*Anyway, the Italian snack turned out to be quite good, Cat and the other housemates seem to liked it, though the spicy and tangy garlic was overpowering our taste buds at times, but it was nevertheless very appetite arousing. laughs*


The methodology of this recipe is not hard, bruschettas are not meant to be hard to make. I gave the garlic part a twist, which I think was the part which demanded more work, otherwise, its pretty straight forward provided you are not making for 10 people or so, that would be effort taxing no matter how easy things are. The ingredients used are: 2 loafs of long french bread (the ones they sell in bakery shops, cut diagonally into 2.5cm thick slices), butter, 1 whole garlic (or more! Skinned and crushed), a pinch of basil and thyme, salt and pepper to taste and 2 tbsp of lemon squeeze, not forgetting about 8-10 tomatoes (coarsely chopped), try to use fresh ones, they are less watery, 3 bunches of fresh basil leafs, discard the stems (finely chopped, or to own preference) and lastly olive oil (preferably).


As mentioned, the method is pretty straight forward, it's hard to go wrong with this snack, using an electric blender, mix together garlic, lemon squeeze, 1 tbsp olive oil, basil and thyme and salt and pepper to taste. Meanwhile, bake the sliced breads on a tray for 5 minutes at 240 degrees Celcius, repeat with the bread turned sides. In a mixing bowl, mix together chopped tomatoes and basil leafs, add another 2 tbsp lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Finish with a good drizzle of olive oil and toss well.

On one side of the toasted bread, brush lightly with butter and then another coat of garlic mix, repeat with other pieces of bread. Toast again lightly in over for 2 minutes, remove from heat, top with tomato mix, done, drizzle with more olive oil if desired, enjoy!

Carrot & Raddish Snack

This salad snack is so easy I did not want to post it at first, but on second thought, I decided I should. Why? It is a memorable day whereby James cooked! He made spaghetti for us, that's quite memorable huh? Well, I should have posted on the spaghetti shouldn't I? I still prefer to post my own things here to be frank... lol

Anyway, jot down this easy snack, make it whenever you feel like it, it makes a good appetizer, which I think is one of the reasons we had so much of James's spaghetti.

The ingredients used here are simple, I do not want to limit your imagination with the quantity of the ingredients, do experiment with it, try adding more of your favourite ingredients, it makes a difference! Ingredients: Carrot, White Raddish, both finely chopped, poach the white raddish for about 5 minutes before serving if you are not used to eating raw white raddish. Sauce: Sesame Oil, Light Soy Sauce, Balsamic Vinegar, Hot Paprika Powder, Korean Rice Seasoning, Salt and Pepper to taste.

The process is just simple, prepare the carrot and raddish as above. Heat a saucepan until it is really hot, turn of the heat. Add sesame oil straight away, followed by light soy sauce and a generous amount of balsamic vinegar, mix well and pour on to the carrot and raddish. Sprinkle with hot paprika powder, rice seasoning and salt and pepper to taste. Done! Toss and mix well before serving hot.

*Note: substitute rice seasoning with toasted white sesame if desired.

First Comeback! A Token of Appreciation

Hi everyone! I have halted on posting for almost one semester now, and as the semester gears towards an end, I thought I had no excuse anymore to stop myself from posting again. Hopefully I will be able to manage my time better in the coming days, then I would be able to squeeze more time to post about food and architecture!

Anyway, just to start of, I started to bake yesterday night as I wanted to present some gifts to two students who helped out managing the students' work in my tutorial class. I really couldn't think of anything else that I can offer them at the first place, I had no extra books to lend, nor do I feel like shouting them dinner, hence I thought of doing something that I was at better hands with...

So, what did I bake? Muffins! One of the easiest things to bake I reckon, just behind scones. Haha, anyway, check this recipe out, I took it off some website and added things here and there when I saw the ingredients lying there in the storage doing nothing.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin

1 medium Egg

1 1/2 cup Flour

3/4 cup Milk

3/4 cup Chocolate Chips

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

3/4 cup pureed Banana

1/4 cup Vegetable Oil

2 tbsp Butter

1 tbsp Golden Syrup

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Cinnamon Powder

( I went berserk and added a few more!)

1/2 tsp Nutmeg Powder

Method

Well, as I have mentioned, it is not a hard thing to make muffins, to start off, mix all the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Then mix the pureed banana, milk and golden syrup in another bowl. Add the egg, followed by vegetable oil into the dry mixture, make sure to continuously stir and mix them, stir in the moist ingredients after that, continue to stir until it becomes a thick paste.

Grease a muffin tray, use paper muffin cups if you like, spoon the thick slurry into the cups until at least half the volume , bake at preheated oven for about 20 minutes at 205 degrees Celsius. Leave to stand for a bout 5 minutes before serving.

Small bite size muffins like this are suitable as gifts to others, note how unprofessional I have wrapped them. lol The third pack behind is for Stan, a token of appreciation to him for introducing the job as well. =)

Sweet Cucumber and Aubergine Salad

This is another simple salad that I figured out within minutes when my mom asked me how to cook this two leftover ingredients in the refrigerator. I think it is not too bad considering I had to come out with it within minutes, Hah!

Ingredients: 1kg baby cucumbers, 600g small aubergines, 3 tbsp malt, 2 tbsp sesame oil, 1 tbsp toasted black sesame, 1 tbsp toated chili flakes, salt and pepper to taste.

Method: First of all, coarsely chop the baby cucumbers and aubergines. Coat the aubergines with sesame oil and roast in an oven for 15 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Melt the malt in a steamer. Remove the aubergine from oven and well with the chopped babay cucumbers. Toss well with malt, black sesame and chili flakes. Seson with pepper and salt to taste, try some lime juice as well if desired. Serve hot or warm when the sesame oil-roasted-aubergine are still fragrant after being roasted in the oven.

New Year, New Begining!

Garden greens with Egg Yolk Sauce Salad

First of all, I would like to thank all the people who have supported my blog for the past year, I sincerely hope that everyone will continue to enjoy reading my blog and benefit from it as much as I do. Nevertheless, I am going to start posting straight from this post itself, no wasting posts!

This is a salad that I made for one of my cousin's birthday celebration party, the proportion of the dish is meant for a large number of people (around 10 people), hence for those who want to try out this salad, feel free to adjust the amount and proportion of ingredients accordingly to your own needs...

On second thought, maybe I'll just disclose the ingredients used, for those who want to try it out, feel free to use as much ingredients you want! fresh oven-baked/ deep fried wedges, baby cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh basil leafs, vinaigrette, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, half boil eggs, lime juice.

Method: First of all, coarsely chop the baby cucumbers, tomatoes and basil leafs. Season with pepper and salt to taste. Poach as much as eggs as possible, the more eggs the more fragrant the salad is. The catch is that the eggs must be half boiled so that the yolk is still liquid form, which in turn becomes part of the main flavour of the salad's sauce. Remember to use the half-boiled eggs straight from hot water before they harden and turn cooked. Bring together all the main ingredients mentioned above. Give a good splash of venaigrette, olive oil and lime juice, finally top with the half boiled eggs, mix well and serve immediately, as the eggs will harden soon when in contact with the just-cooked wedges.

That Tong Zhi that I missed....

Ok, what I meant is missed out in posting...Haha, I should have done it that day itself when the Tong Yuen were made, but obviously as usual...laziness is simply overwhelming! >.<

So what is this "Tong Yuen" thing? If you really want to find out about all the strories behind the celebration, check out Su Yin's blog, I reckon she has a really comprehensive explanation there...

If that is the case, what am I up to? Haha The process ofcourse! Now to make really nice Tong Yuen, the soup is more important that the glutinous rice balls themselves. Why? If your soup is no good, even the best filled glutinous rice balls would not taste nice. Now, the catch here is to make the soup as spicy and fragrant as possible. Hence, prepare heaps of ginger, preferably old ones, but just use young ones if you cannot find any, A LOT of them! Just lightly crush the ginger with a stone mortar prior tp use...

Now, prepare heaps of 'Gula Melaka' as well (better known as pal sugar?), they do not necessarily go to the soup, in fact it would be better if you do not use them in the soup as well, any fine white sugar would be fine. Throw all the ginger, some tied pandan leafs and sugar into a big pot of water...bring it to boil. You should be able to smell the aroma and spiciness of the ginger soup all over your kitchen (or even house) when it is ready...

Finely chopped or crush the palm sugar to desired sizes. Then you can start to roll up the glutinous rice pastry. To make things easier, you can easily get these pastry in the markets (well in Malaysia that is) when the season comes. If that is not you case, simply make your own. Start with normal glutinous rice flour, add 1/2 cup of hot water to start the rolling process, add cold or lukewarm water there after to form your desired dough (the best doughs are nice and firm and do not crack when you roll them or press them), add colourings as well to make things fun and exciting! ...

When rolling the rice balls, put some crushed palm sugar in the middle of the dough before starting to roll them, that is the most basic type of filling you could add to the glutinous rice balls. If you want feeling adventurous, add crushed peanuts, or black sesame, red bean paste etc. Anything you like, but the golden rule is, "Do Not be Greedy"! Otherwise, you will end up with overfilled and crushed rice balls, they do not cook easily as well in that sense...

Now the next big thing about making and preparing food is to PUT SOME CREATIVITY into your food, look at all the things that you could try to make just with this very fundamental glutinous rice dough, well these are largely thanks to my cousins and brothers who all helped out to make the rice balls that day, it is a family thing! Haha

These capsicums and carrots are courtesy of my brother, Haha. He insists that that is a pumpkin and not campsicum, what do you think? =)

After you are done with rolling and shaping the 'rice balls', throw them into the boiling ginger soup and when they start to float in the soup, they are cooked, serve hot or warm when the spiciness of the soup is still strong. The whole idea is to give the person who eats and drinks the Tong Yuen some warmth in the dawn of the winter season...