Chicken and Cabbage

Lunch was a simple affair today. Just finished my night shift and can't think of anything to cook... or eat. By the time I arrive at the market, all the vegetable stalls had packed up for the day. Yup I was really late... like prob 12pm. The butcher store located outside the market is still open, so was the vegetable stall outside of it... they usually open till quite late anyways, for people like me. The butcher gave me a knowing grin... shessh... I hope it is obvious that i was after work and not from home.

Mil gave me half a (HUGE) cabbage head the last time that I helped with cooking. Yup.. the cabbage stayed THAT long in the fridge. I gave half of it to Mum and during my the last visit, she had used it all up. Now F and I isn;t much of a cabbage eater. I used to looove it when I was young... all the way thru my teens. I suppose I ate my lifetime's worth.

I decided to get adventurous and bought 1kg of minced chicken meat. Geez... you call that adventurous!! Oh well...

I made Cabbage Parcels. There's really no name for it.. it's just soemthing that I put together. I know some culture has got something similar and theirs is more intricately made. Mine is the throw-in-what-you-have sorta thing, which I felt is what creative cooking is all about heheh

There's no pictures cos I cannot find my camera!!! The last picture I took was of the Flourless choc cake that I tried to make and it was a totally flop...that was last Thursday.

Cabbage Parcels

Stuffing:
500grms mince chicken meat
2 stalks of spring onion
Salt & pepper
1 tbs rice flour or corn flour

Gravy:
2 tbs chopped onions
2 tsp chopped garlic
2 cubes of chicken stock (I used MSG-free Knorrs Chix cubes...)
500ml water
a dash of soya sauce
Oil
(no salt cos the chix cubes are salty enough...)

10 leaves of Cabbage

1. Steam the cabbage leaves until it's soft. Put it aside to cool
2. Chopped the spring onions and mix it well with the meat, flour, salt and pepper
3. Take your steamed cabbage and slowly cut away part of the middle stem... so that it's easier for you to fold ur leaves...
4. Place one tbs of the chix meat and fold the leaf into a parcel... put it aside
5. I managed to make about 10 or so...
6. Heat oil and fry the chopped ingredients
7. Put in teh chix cube and pour in water and soya sauce
8. Let it simmer for a bit then carefully arrange your little parcels in the pan...
9. Parcel should sit neatly in the pan.
10. Let the gravy simmer until the chicken is cooked...

We ate it with rice of course. F said it'll be marvellous with sambal belacan.. but then anything is marvellous to him with sambal belacan.. heheh...

Sis Choc Tart

Check out the glint on the choc!

Another batch of Oatmeal bars

I've been waiting for a chance to make another batch of Oatmeal bars. I've even clear the fridge to make way for the bars. Heheh...

After fighting a battle with all the Sunday calls in the office. I came home to a very tired F. So while F sleeps his reservist tiredness away, I whipped a batch of the Oatmeal bars.

This time round I added white sesame seeds and choc covered preztels. The choc covered preztels were the unsuccessful attempts to make choc covered preztels. Duh!

I dipped each preztels into a too thick cooking choc and was too impatient to let it hardened one by one... so I just dumped everything together. So I ended up with one huge lump of choc and preztels. Heheh...

So the preztels were pounded into smaller pieces, addedd cocoa pops...and all the other goodness. This time round, skipped on the choc chips bits since there's choc covered prez.

Discovered this brand of yoghurt at the 24-hr supermarket near my home. The blueberry ones tasted like the purple Yakult but thick and creamy. Yum... dream come true. Today I discovered that they have Pink Grapefruit. It was delish! Not too sweet and not too sour. Treat myself to a cup after making the oatmeal bars... not that it was hardwork...

Ayam Taliwang

F's coming home today after 2 days serving the nation. Decided to cook our favourite dish. Ayam Taliwang. We chanced upon this dish on our trip to Batam once. I just ended my job at the bank and started on a new job at the assistance company. We decided that we need a trip and tramped down to Batam for a few days. On our way in and out of town, we saw many many stalls by the roadside selling Ayam Taliwang. We didn't dare ask the cab driver to stop so that we can try. The cab fare costs us SGD 22, we do not want to imagine what it'll cost us for him to stop and wait while we savour the unknown dish.

We then noticed the dish on the menu at the Hotel's restaurant and decided to try. It was amazing!! Back home, a quick search on the net and I tried to reminiscence our Batam trip. The dish just got stuck to our palate. Even mum loves it.

Ayam Taliwang

1 mid-size chicken
100 ml cooking oil
Juice from a lemon

To grind:
14 bird eye chilli
2 onions
a clove of garlic
An inch of belacan*
A handful of cekor/ kencur**
2 candlenut
Salt and sugar to taste

Veggies:
Any sort that you like
I use Onions, carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes
Today I am trying to use brinjals.

You'll need an ovenproof dish and an oven

1. Heat the oil in a wok and pour in the grinded ingredients
2. Fry until the smells makes you drool (fragrant) .... or until you see the ingredients combine and looks kinda springy
3. Put in your chicken pieces or the whole chicken
4. Let it simmer for about 10 - 15 mins
5. Meanwhile, cut your veggies into big chunks and arranged it at the bottom of your ovenproof dish
6. Stir your chicken and ensure that chicken absorbed all the goodness of the grinded ingredients. Chicken will turn to a pale brown colour. This is gooooodddd....
7. Arranged the chicken on top of the veggies in the dish. Scoop the remaining gravy left in the wok and pour it on top of chicken. Leave some gravy for basting.
8. Pop it into the oven at say 130 degrees celcius for about 40 - 60mins
9. Remember to baste the chicken once in a while
10. The chicken will cook and all the flavours will be captured by the veggies. You might see some liquid at the bottom of the dish. Pour it out and use to baste the chicken too.
11. Serve with hot white rice.

* See my very first blog entry.
** Cekor in Malay or Kencur in Bahasa is in the same family as Galangal, which all hails from the Ginger family. The very first picture at the top there is Cekor. Wikipedia said that it is aka Kaempferia galanga. It smells like Galangal but sweeter and I felt nuttier.

You can either cut the chicken into 12 pieces or smaller. Sometimes I like to use whole chicken. If you decided to use whole chicken, then just double the amount of grinded ingredients.

Five and Half KG of Roti Arab

Mil cooked for a wedding over the weekend. F and I arrived late on Saturday to render help. So I have to start my sob story of having to wrok till 2am the night before. Which is the truth.... The bride ... or is it the groom... is F's cousin. Well, I am yet to grasp the family tree.... but it's just amazing how everyone was there having fun. They even arranged for me to wear the same colours as the rest of the ladies of the family. That, I felt was rather touching...

Anyways, Mil requests for 5.5kg of Roti Arab for dinner on Saturday night for the guests. I made two batches, 3kg first. Then another 2.5kg. Knead it by hand, divide them into little dough balls and roll it out into saucer-size flat bread. Sil helped to fry it on the flat pan. She got really excited when the bread puffed up. She's getting good at frying them.. all the bread turned out nicely brown. Mum's nagging turned out well too cos' all the bread puffed up nicely and it's soft. [knead more...knead more... until the dough is smooth... no more. Some more...sighhh.......]

F's dad enjoyed it soo much, he ate FIVE!! Mum was there helping.. she was there since morning and wasn't pleased that we came at 4pm... Mum was there. She was there alright... she was barking orders at me... no do it like that. Do this... do that. I hinted at her that different people have different styles of cooking. She got the hint.. but forgot abt it after half an hour.