Japanese Curry Udon

This has to be my favorite Japanese food out of my list of Japanese food.

Japanese Curry. Served with either Rice, Ramen, Udon and even Bread.

Here's Wikipedia's take on Japanese Curry

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Curry (カレー karē^?) is one of the most popular dishes in Japan. It is commonly served in three main forms: curry rice (カレーライス karē raisu^?), karē udon (thick noodles) and karē-pan (bread). Curry rice is most commonly referred to simply as 'curry' (カレー karē^?).

A wide variety of vegetables and meats are used to make Japanese curry. The basic vegetables are onions, carrots, and potatoes. For the meat, beef, pork, chicken and sometimes duck are the most popular. Katsu-karē is a breaded deep-fried pork cutlet with curry sauce.

Curry was introduced to Japan during the Meiji era (1868–1912) by the British, at a time when India was under the administration of theBritish. The dish became popular and available for purchase in supermarkets and restaurants in the late 1960s. It has been adapted since its introduction to Japan, and is so widely consumed that it can be called a national dish.^[1]

[with credits to http://www.wikipedia.com/ ]

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Some grocery shopping first. Hunt for your Japanese Curry blocks. They come in varieties of brands and intensiveness of curry hotness, eg, mild, medium, hot.

I tried with this brand first. The mild taste of honey and apple sounded really tempting and nice to me. Haha! :D

Let's start cooking! *Puts on apron*

Ingredients - Cooks for 5

--------------

- 1 small package of Japanese Curry of your choice.

- 1 large white onion

- 2 medium sized potatoes

- 2 medium sized carrots

- 2 fillet of chicken thigh without bone/ breast (or any meat you desire)

- 3 cups water

- 5 packages of Udon.

Instructions

---------------

1. Dice up your onions, rolling cut the potatoes and carrots ( a cutting method where you roll the vegetable per cuts you make.) and chop your chicken meat into bite size pieces.

2. Heat up the pan, oil the pan and saute the onions till aromatic and translucent in color.

3. Add in your chopped vegetables and lightly brown them.

4. After the vegetables has been lightly browned, add the meat in and also lightly cooking them.

5. Add in the water ( make sure it covers the ingredients nicely )

6. Chop the curry blocks into pieces and put them into the pan, distributing them evenly and stir to mix in.

7. Let the curry simmer for at lest 20 minutes under low heat. This will thicken the curry.

8. After simmering for 20 minutes, cook your udon accordingly to the manufacture's instruction on the package.

9. Scoop and pour curry over the udon and serve!

Yummy yum yum!

I'm taking away the printable link for a while till I can get a better one.

Sorry Dearies! >_<

Anyway, enjoy cooking this wonderful japanese curry!

With love,

Sheila <3<3<3!

Buttermilk Biscuits

Ever crave for Popeye's or Texas Chicken's Biscuits? Wanna buy 'em but they are kinda expensive?

FRET NOT! Now you can make them, homemade baby! :DD*Winks*

Ingredient(s)

==============

- 2 cups all-purpose flour/plain flour

- 2 tablespoon baking powder

- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 100g unsalted butter, frozen

- 3/4 cups cold buttermilk

Method

==============

~~Oven Temperature to 220 degrees Celsius ~~

1. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt with a wired whisk/balloon whisk, to aerate the flour mixture.

2. Add in the butter and mix the butter with the flour using the wired whisk/balloon whisk till the flour resembles bread flour.

3. Make a well in the center, and pour in the buttermilk and using a spatula, gently cover the buttermilk with the flour and lightly mix, just enough to coat the dry ingredients.

4. Turn the dough out and gather them up, (Don't worry about the excess crumbs), and shape it into a rectangle.

5. Press the dough down and then fold in 3 parts. (left to center, right to center), turn it over and repeat for 2 more times.

6. Roll the dough out on a floured board/flat surface and using a simple cookie cutter to cut. Roll up the excess and continue to get more pieces.

7. Place the dough onto a greased baking tray or onto parchment paper lined baking tray. Using your thumb to make an indent in the center of the dough, [This will help it rise uniformly.], and lightly coat the top with buttermilk

8. Bake them for 15 minutes.

9. Remove from oven and cool.

10. Serve with jam or other condiments.

HOHO! There you have it! Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits!

Dreadfully sorry for the lack of pictures, I'm doing this on my own and when I reached the kneading the dough, my hands are all stuck with dough and couldn't take a picture.

Our Printable Available here! : Prints!

Enjoy Darlings!

With love,

Sheila <3

Canned Fruit Agar Agar

Woo! Double Post! YAY!

A refreshing Dessert for a hot weather here in Tropical Singapore!

Ingredient List

============

- 30g agar agar Strips

- 1200ml Water + extra water for soaking the agar agar

- sugar to taste

- Preferred Canned fruits (peach, longans, pineapple, etc)

- Optional: Flavorings + Colorings

Instructions

==========

1. Wash and soak the agar agar strips for 10 minutes.

2. While the strips are soaking, boil 1200ml of water.

3. After 10 minutes and the water is boiling, add the agar agar strips and add sugar to taste and stir occasionally to melt and prevent from burning/scalding.

4. chop up canned fruits and set aside.

5. Once fully dissolved, remove from heat and let it set for 1 minute.

6. Put chopped canned fruits into the jelly molds and scoop the agar agar over the fruits in the jelly molds.

7. Leave the agar agar to completely cool and chill in the fridge.

8. Serve cold.

enjoy this yummy treat for the hot weather! yes!

Printable Recipe Available Here! : Print Page

With Love,

Sheila, Double <3

Campbell Chicken Mushroom Soup Baked Rice

Hello All! It's been a long while since I've last updated due to unforeseen circumstances.

Here goes people! Baked Rice! Yum-meh~! *slurps*

Ingredient List

===========

- 150g Chicken thigh/fillet/breast ( up to you which part you like most )

- half(1/2) can of Campbell Soup, Creamy Chicken Mushroom (Also up to your favorite preference )

- half(1/2) can of button mushroom ( or any of your choice, organic/canned)

- 1 cup of cooked rice.

- Choice of cheese = Mozzarella, Cheddar, Parmesan, etc

- Salt & Pepper for seasoning.

~~*~~ Before I start, If you want to Up quantity as you want to cook for more people, Let's say 5 ( Which I did cook for 5 on sunday.) here's my estimated list

450g chicken, 2 cans of campbell soup, 1 can of mushroom, 3 1/2 cups of rice

A lot huh? haha! ~~*~~

Instructions

==========

**Set your oven temperature to 200 Degrees Celsius. Don't worry it won't burn your cheese**

1. Chop your chicken into bite size pieces and cut your mushrooms into quarters

2. Pan Fry the chicken and mushroom, lightly season with pepper and salt to your liking. Set aside.

3. Cook your campbell soup accordingly to the instructions on the can. eg 1 can + 1 can water.

4. While the soup is cooking, cook your rice! or you can cook it beforehand.

5. Add the chicken & mushroom into the soup and stir well.

6. Still in your rice cooker pot, Pour in the soup and stir to evenly incorporate the soup, chicken and mushroom with the rice.

7. Serve up the rice in a oven proof bowl and cover up with CHEESE!

8. Place your bowl(s) into the oven and let the cheese melt till your liking.

9. Remove from the oven and Serve hot!

Enjoy Homemade Baked Rice. Hot and delicious to your body!

Printable Recipe Available Here! : Print Page

With Love,

Sheila<3

Milk Longan Pudding / Agar Agar

LONGAN LONGAN LONGAN LONGAN! My craving just wont stop! Lol.
Another craving of the week, milk longan pudding! <3
It's been years since I had it. My aunt used to make it last time and I love it! Sadly she just don't make them anymore. =3=

It's really easy to make and very less time is needed! I highly recommend to try it!

Recipe adapted from Jiayeen

Ingredients:

* 1500ml Water
* 1/2 packet Agar-agar Strips
* 150g Caster Sugar
* 3 leaves Pandan Leaf
* 1 tin Longan in Heavy Syrup
* 1 tin "Carnation" Evaporated Creamer
* Plastic container with cover

Method:

1. Place water, agar-agar strips, caster sugar & pandan leaves in a pot, bring to boil. Turn off the fire & remove pandan leaves.

2. Pour in longan syrup & evaporated Creamer, stir well. Leave to cool.
^Don't leave it cool! The mixture will solidify at room temperature.

3. Apportion 1 tin of longan fruit into the mini-containers & pour in the agar-agar mixture.

I've left pandan leaves out of my pudding because I've forgotten to bring it back from my house.. XD

Remember to boil the agar agar strips till it melt thoroughly~

Let the mixture cool under a fan for about 10minute before putting it into the container. Not too long! Because it will solidify at room temperature! Leave it continue cooling down to room temperature in the container then put it into the fridge.

Tadah~ The ugly one that I kept it for myself. XD


The pretty one for my friend


It is pretty important to pick, or more like lucky draw on a can of good canned longan. The can I bought wasn't made with fresher longan. Although it is canned, but sometime it really depends on your luck in getting a good or bad batch of it. Good ones will have similar crisp with fresh longan and bad ones are similar with lychee. Not really that bad but I didn't quite like the texture of bad longan. D=

I was really afraid if the pudding didn't turn out well because the canned longan tasted a little sour. I'm glad it didn't! I personally prefer a creamier taste, so probably I'll try with 1 and a half can of evaporated milk next time. =D

Enjoy!

Good luck in trying!
I hope you enjoyed the recipe as well. ^_^

With love,
Aiko

Pressure Cooker Moist Butter Cake

As I was craving for something buttery and along with my friend's birthday is approaching, there comes the butter cake! I've used a pressure cooker this time to bake the cake instead of an oven. Oh well, my mom was in a bad mood and she disallowed me from using the kitchen. I had to borrow my hostel mate's pressure cooker since no one that I known of has an oven to borrow me. ;-; It didn't turn out as what I expect it is, still it's a nice try using pressure cooker to bake. XD

Recipe adapted from MariasMenu

1. Butter – 125 gm, softened
2. Vanilla essence – 1 tsp
3. Caster sugar – 1 1/4 cups, (275 gm)
4. Eggs – 3, at room temp
5. Plain flour – 1 cup, (150 gm)
6. Self-raising flour – 1/2 cup, (75 gm)
7. Bicarbonate of soda – 1/4 tsp
8. Milk – 1/2 cup (125 ml) at room temp

Preheat oven to 180 C, 10 mins before baking. Grease a deep 20 cm/8 inch round cake tin; line base with baking paper. Beat ingredients in medium bowl on low speed with electric mixer until just combined. Beat on medium speed until mixture is smooth and changed to a paler colour. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

Bake cake in the preheated oven for 40-50 mins or until the skewer inserted comes out clean. Stand cake 5 minutes then turn onto wire rack; turn cake top-side up to cool. Dust cake with a little sifted icing sugar, if desired.

Notes: The batter might look curdled, but its ok, go ahead and bake it. If you want a caramel flavor, substitute 1 1/3 cups (275 gm) firmly packed brown sugar for the caster sugar.

Substitutes:

Substitution for self raising flour – to get 1 cup self-raising flour, add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder+ 1/4 tsp salt to 1 cup all purpose flour. (source: http://www.joyofbaking.com/IngredientSubstitution.html)

Substitution for caster sugar: to get 1 cup caster sugar. process 1 cup granulated sugar (usual sugar) in a food processor/mixer until fine, but don’t powder it like icing sugar. (source: http://www.joyofbaking.com/IngredientSubstitution.html)

I don't really know how to deal with the pressured cooker. I'm using electric pressure cooker instead of the stove top type, yet all recipe out there are for stove top pressure cooker. oTL So? Screw it, anyhow bake! LOL!





I've prepared the dry ingredients all together at home and pack it into one container to bring it to my hostel.




My hand being very itchy, I've added a teaspoon of cocoa powder and sprinkle of cinnamon powder. That's why the cake became caramel color. XD

No picture of the whole cake because I didn't manage to snap a picture of it before it is chopped into pieces.. >_>;

Baked it at high pressure for 5 minute and low pressure for roughly 50minute. I didn't close the cover tight enough, so I'm not sure if that affected my end product. D=

The cake is indeed MOIST, like steamed cake. >_>; It is not underbaked, but it felt dense like.. Banana cake? My friends says it's nice but I'm unsure about it myself. Personally I didn't quite like it... >_>; Not buttery enough! D:<
Guess I'll just go with a different recipe next time! With pressure cooker if possible. XD

I didn't quite enjoy this recipe, so well I hope you enjoyed reading the post instead! XDDDD

Have a nice day!

With love,
Aiko

Recipe Dedication: Nicolette's EGG TARTS!

Recipe Dedication: Nicolette's EGG TARTS!

Some of the recipes here are gonna be dedicated to friends. Here's my very first one.

During poly school days, I have this friend, Nicolette, and every time we get out of class to get some food/drink, she would always go, "let's go kofu, eggie tart!". From then on, I realized that she likes egg tarts and will go "awww" if there aint no more egg tarts at the canteen that we go.

So Nicolette M'dear. Here's to you love!

Egg Tarts

========

Ingredient List

----------------

Base:

- 200g flour

- 50g sugar

- 1 egg

- 100g butter

Egg Filling:

- 3 eggs

- 80g sugar }Mix together to make sugar syrup.

- 100ml hot water }

- 100ml milk

Instructions:

!~! Pre-heat oven to 180C, Middle Shelf!~!

1. Lightly mix flour and sugar together.

2. Rub in butter into the flour mixture to get a bread crumb texture.

3. Add egg and mix well into a knead-able dough.

4. Press dough into Egg Tart Molds

5. Add eggs to milk and mix well.

6. Add in the sugar syrup to the egg/milk mixture and mix well.

7. Sieve the mixture twice.

8. Pour egg mixture into dough casing

9. Put to bake for 20 mins.

Printable Recipes Available Here!: Print Page

Enjoy People! Stay tuned for Easter Special!

With love,

Sheila <3

Non-Bake Lemon and Lime Cheesecake

As requested by someone, I've made a sour cheese cake this time! I usually make plain cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake or tiramisu. xD The weather is super hot recently, but I want a treat so badly! I don't want to turn on my oven or stove or anything to do with heat! So, I did a non-bake cheesecake. =D

I've used the recipe from taste.com.au

Ingredients (serves 10)

* 150g plain sweet biscuits, processed to fine crumbs
* 80g butter, melted, cooled
* 500g cream cheese, softened
* 3/4 cup caster sugar
* 1 lemon, rind finely grated, juiced
* 2 limes, rind finely grated, juiced
* 1 1/2 tablespoons lime juice
* 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
* 3 teaspoons powdered gelatine
* 300ml thin cream, lightly whipped


Method

1.

Grease and line base and sides of a 5.5cm deep, 22cm (base) springform pan with baking paper. Combine biscuit crumbs and butter. Press into base of prepared pan. Refrigerate while preparing filling.
2.

Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in lemon and lime rind. Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 1/2 tablespoons lime juice and gelatine in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring with a fork until hot and gelatine is dissolved. Set aside to cool slightly. Beat gelatine into cream cheese mixture until well combined. Fold in cream, mixing until well combined.
3.

Spoon filling over base. Smooth surface. Refrigerate for 4 hours or until set. Serve.

In my case, I've used 250g of digestive biscuit and 120g of butter for the base. I sort of over estimated the filling (judging on the amount of base I have... =.=), I've multiplied the recipe with 1.5 and ended up with too much filling. XD Ran out of digestive biscuit already, I used the regular jacob biscuit instead. It's a little on the salty side, so I added in a tbsp of honey to give it a unique flavor.

First timer or not, do watch up this youtube video about cheesecake. It has a recipe for baked cheesecake, but the basic information mentioned are pretty useful and applied to both baking/non-bake cheesecake. =D

The Base:


Digestive biscuit crumbs mixed with butter.

I've totally forgotten to take a picture of crushing the biscuit and mixing in the butter. >_<;
Anyway, you can crush biscuits by just simply putting the biscuit in a ziplock bag or a plastic bag, probably 2-3 biscuit at a time to achieve even crumbs. Use a rolling pint or your hand/feet/body weight/whatever to crush it, till it become small and fine crumbs. Melt your butter or just room temperature butter(tropical country room temperature.. xD), mix it into the biscuit crumbs evenly.

You can use any biscuit/cookie crumb as the base. Just adjust the amount of butter accordingly, not too dry or moist. If you're feeling luxury, go ahead and use famous amos cookies as the base. I'm talking about the freshly baked ones that are sold in their outlet. Hehe xD


Line your pan with aluminum foil or baking sheet before filling in the crumbs.
Scoop the well combined crumbs into your pan and press it down firmly. If you skip this step, when you remove your cake from the pan, the base will not stay in shape and crumbles easily. D=


Shooting star!

The filling:

Ignore random objects behind/around the ingredients. xD
Here we have cream cheese, whipping cream, sugar, powder gelatine, limes and lemon!

You can substitute gelatine powder with agar agar powder, 1:1. But in this case, we're dealing with acidic ingredient, so extra agar agar powder will be required. Some say around 1/4 extra, but I'm not very sure of it myself because I never tried it before. Probably next time!


Rind your lemon/limes before squeezing the juice!

Hahaha dealing with acidic stuff on marble table, very smart of me. >_>;


I just loveee the colour <3


Strain the lime and lemon juice into a pot.
Heat up the lime + lemon juice, combine the gelatine powder in.
Not boiling! Just hot enough to dissolve the gelatine powder. You may have a little lump at first, but no worries, just continue stirring it. It will eventually fully dissolve. The mixture will turn out like a thick/gluey sauce. XD It may smell a little odd due to the gelatine, but everything will be alright when you mix it into the cream cheese.
Strain them again before adding into the cream cheese.


Make sure your cream cheese is in room temperature! Else it'll have lumps which is not good! D=
Sift sugar in while beating the cream cheese, add in gelatine mixture and lime & lemon rinds and continue beating. Be careful not to over beat it!


After beating in the gelatine+ lime & lemon juice and lime & lemon rinds


Fold in the whipping cream probably by a quarter or half at once? If you pour the whipping cream all in at one go, it'll be harder to incorporate the cream cheese in.
Don't be lazy and beat it in with a mixer! You'll have too much air bubble in it by beating it in.

Assembling:

You can just pour the mixture on your base, tap the container on a surface to smooths the surface and be done, or decorate it!
I've set aside about a cup of the filling without lime & lemon rinds, mix in a drop of green food coloring for decoration. Alternative, you can use melted chocolate or diluted jam.
Put them in a piping bag and start decorating!

Simply pipe the content on your filling, tap it on surface to incorporate it to the filling. Leave it this way, or continue decorating it as below.


Using a toothpick/satay stick/needle or anything similar, draw line across the pattern you've done. Drawing at different direction creates different pattern.

The one shown above are drawn from the edge towards the center.


In between the "draw in", draw outwards, from the center to the edge.


Tap on surface again to smooth the filling.






You can also pipe words on the cake with a semi-chilled cream cheese filling! The surface of your cake must be set before you can pipe words on. I've blurred the text on the image due to privacy. =P


When you're done, just pop it to the fridge! I left mine sits in the fridge till the top sets, then put it into a container, return it to the fridge. I'm keeping mine in the fridge till the next day.

Whoala~ It's done!............... NOT!


It's clean up time now! oTL oTL oTL



Tasting:

Tadah~ Out from the pan!
This is the one with Jacob cracker base.


The star shape one is out from the pan as well! But to conceal the writing, I'll only show a side picture. XD
It's with digestive biscuit base.


I still prefer digestive biscuit base more than crackers. =3=

Anyway! The cheesecake itself is not really sour, just a hint of tangy-ness without loosing the cream cheese flavor. Lemon & lime flavor enhanced by the rinds, also creating a little texture in between the smooth cream cheese.
The tangy feeling stays in mouth for sometime, and it sort of made my tongue feel numb. XD
I was afraid if it will turn out to be too sour because I kept tasting while making it. Probably just cause of eating too much, that's why it felt so sour. XD


Enjoy!

Good luck in trying!
I hope you enjoy the recipe as well!

Have a nice day~

With love,
Aiko