CHOCO SOUR CREAM MUFFIN

A very simple way to bake muffin when you are lazy but have to bake something for your family's snack of the day :).

Choco Sour Cream Muffn

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

1-1/2 cups sugar

1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs

1-1/2 cups sour cream

1 tsp baking soda

2-3/4 cups flour

150 ml milk

2 oz semi sweet chocolate, melted

Walnut, thinly chopped

Methods:

Mix all ingredients and divide into muffins pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and powder sugar. Bake for 20 minutes at 350`F (180`C).

BIRTHDAY NOODLE

Today is my birthday...........my very first birthday since I arrived US, and my first bday as a wife :). This year, it is quite unique and different than years before. From got big surprise from my hubby until received loads of wishes from friends thru FB.

Anyway, this time I have no cakes nor candles to blow. The only "must do" thing is eating birthday noodle with those red (or pink) quail's eggs :). When my mom still alive, every morning on my bday, a bowl of birthday noodle were waiting for me when I woke up. So, today I made birthday noodle by myself.

How, why and what is birthday noodle? What is the difference between birthday noodle and regular noodle. Actually, its just fried noodle with additional red quail's eggs. In Chinese, when someone is bday, they must eat noodles, because noodles are long, so its like a wish or sign that the bday boy/girl having a long life ahead. And the red egg (for the red color) means prosperous and happiness.

I did post fried noodle before, so now I will share with you how to make red quail's egg....

Red Quail's Egg

Ingredients:

10 pieces quail eggs, boiled and peeled

1 tsp red coloring food

300 ml water

Methods:

Combine and boil red coloring food and water until boiling. Place in quail eggs, and boil for 3 minutes or until the whole eggs are red.

Dish it out and drain it. Ready to use.

NASTAR (PINEAPPLE TART)

Hmmmm actually, I don't really sure is it including cookies or cakes? Because the texture likes cookies but most of people called it "kue nastar" (pineapple tart).

Anyway, it is one of my mom's signature snack besides cheese stick and spekkoek. Why I said so? Because for our family and my mom's ex-customers, mom's nastar is the best. The nastar's texture is so soft yet crunchy.

When I was a kid, I get used to help mom everytime the order came. Usually our busiest times are on Christmas, Chinese New Year and Aidil Fitri. So, based on my experience helping my mom baking nastar, today I challenged myself to bake nastar (I think, last time I baked nastar about 5 years ago!). However, it's not that hard baking nastar, also the ingredients are very simple and easy to found everywhere.

Nastar (Pineapple Tart)

Ingredients:

For the Pineapple Jam:

2 big pineapple, peeled

200 gr sugar (depend on the pineapple, you need to use more sugar if the pineapples are sour)

4 pieces of kaffir lime leaves

For the Nastar:

2 egg yolks

750 gr all-purpose flour

500 gr butter

100 gr sugar powder

Finishing:

3 egg yolks, beated

Methods:

For the Pineapple Jam:

Wash pineapples and drained (do not wash it with salt, it will produce more juices)

Shred the pineapple, and filter it overnight until no more juice left.

Combine the shredded pineapple, sugar and kaffir lime leaves on a skillet. Cook it with low heat and stir it thoroughly until it form sticky jam (do not leave the pineapple while it is cooked if you won't get burnt jam). Cooling down before you keep it in the fridge. Ready to use.

For the Nastar:

Mix all ingredients until it forms dough.

Pour flour on the surface of your work place. Roll the dough into 3 mm thickness. Shape the dough with round cookies mold diameter 5 cm. Fill every round dough with a half teaspoon pineapple jam. Shape it into the shape you like (I shaped it into bullet form).

Finishing:

Preheat the oven at 180`C (350`F). Grease the baking pan with butter. Place all nastars on the greased baking pan. Brush it with egg yolks and bake it for 20 minutes. Cool it down before you place it into the container.

CHAR SIU

Originally from Southeastern China, but since everyone like it so you can find it easily at everywhere, just go to Chinatown and I guarantee you can find it there.

This is my very first time make my own char siu, normally, I only buy it at chinese restaurant. Cos I like char siu a lot, it made me curious how to make homemade char siu, and its not that hard, pretty simple :).

Now, I guess those chinese restaurant will lose one customer ;).....

Char Siu

Ingredients:

2 pounds pork butt, boneless

3/4 cup pineapple juice

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup sweetend rice wine

1-1/2 tbsps angkak (optional)

1 tbsp minced garlic

1 tbsp minced ginger

2 tbsps Chinese 5-spice powder
1/3 cup honey

1 tbsp palm sugar

Methods:

Slice pork butt into strips about 2 inches wide and 5 inches long.
In a large bowl, mix together the pineapple juice, soy sauce, rice wine, honey, garlic, ginger, chinese 5 spice powder, angkak and palm sugar. Add the pork strips and marinate for overnight.
Preheat oven to 425°F. Add a rack to a roasting pan and fill the pan with water to come just below the rack. Wipe any excess marinade from the pork and line the strips up neatly in the roasting pan.
Place the pan in the oven and roast for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325°F and roast for another 30-40 minutes, turning and basting frequently with the remaining marinade.

Cut into bite-sized pieces and serve.

OXTAIL SOUP (SOP BUNTUT)

Cold...cold....and cold....it's the time to eat hot foods or drink hot drinks :). And our choices for 'another' soup this week is......oxtail soup!! Yeayyyy...... :)

This is my second time cooking oxtail soup. My first one didn't as good as the second oxtail soup, because that time I didn't boil the oxtail long enough, so the meat was hard and sticking to the bone, and it made little bit hard to eat it :(.

But this time, I used my pressure cooker and everything is as per my expectation :). The meat is so tender, no more fighting and struggling with the bone when you eat it :). And the soup is so thick with beef broth.....hmmmm really a good choice in this cold season. My hubby lovedddd it so much :).

Also, this time I used different recipe (with a little bit modification). Though this one is more complicated (as I need to panbroil the garlic and shallot) but it is worthed!!

Oxtail Soup

Ingredients:

1 kg oxtail

1.5 liter water

250 gr potatoes, diced into big chunk

300 gr carrots, cut into big chunk

3 stalks of chinese celery, knotted

3 pieces of tomatoes, sliced

2 stalks of spring onion, cut into matches size

Spice Paste:

8 cloves garlic, panbroiled (don't peeled the skin)

10 cloves shallot, panbroiled (don't peeled the skin)

Herbs:

1 tsp pepper

1 piece of nutmeg (Belzy -- I used 1 tsp nutmeg powder)

5 pieces of clove (Belzy -- I used 1/2 tsp clove powder)

4 cm ginger, smashed

2 cloves of garlic, panbroiled with the skin, smashed

Salt and sugar (to tasted)

Additional:

2 tbsp chinese celery, minced

2 tbsp fried garlic

1 piece of lime, squeezed

Chilli, crackers

Indonesian sweet soy sauce.

Methods:

In a big stew pan, boil oxtail with boiling water, boil until the water boiling again. Drain the oxtail, throw the water.

Boil oxtail in another clean 1.5 liter boiling water and add in herbs, boil with low heat until oxtails are tender (approx. 5 hours if you use regular boil pan, but you only need 30 minutes to boil the oxtail if you use pressure cooker). If you use pressure cooker to boil the oxtail, after the oxtails are tender, remove the oxtail and broth into big stew pan.

In a skillet, stir fry spice pasted until fragrant, stir in carrot and potato. Pour in 300 ml oxtail broth, boil it until boiling. Then, remove them back to the big stew pan, re-boiling. Add in knotted chinese celery, boiled well until the carrot and potato are tender. Right before you turn off the heat, add in tomato and spring onion.

Serve it hot with lime squeezed, Indonesian sweet soy sauce, chilli, fried garlic and crackers.

Bon Appetite!!

GARLIC BREAD

What would you do if you get homemade french bread left? I guess, garlic bread is the right choice to make over this homemade bread, and it will become a good companion for the corn soup I made today.

Actually, the original name of this homemade french bread (that what I named it) is no-knead bread from J's Kitchen. No-knead bread??? Yup, same as me, when I read the words of 'no-knead' it made me excited to try this homemade bread.

I can say the bread itself is soft but a bit un-moisturize, and the skin sides are hard, so when you eat it, it feels like you are eating french bread which hard outside but soft inside. Unfortunately, yesterday I didn't cook any soup so the bread little bit neglected in my kitchen drawer. I only ate 2 slices and my hubby didn't eat at all :(.

But today, when I made over this bread became garlic bread....hoooooo.......once it came out from the oven, the smells of garlic and oregano filled our kitchen, and my hubby (right away) washed his hands, and sat on the breakfast table waiting for me to give him a try :). He ate the garlic bread with hot corn soup...........andddd he finished half of the bread :).

Garlic Bread

Ingredients:

1 loaf of no-knead bread (or you can use French bread), sliced (width: 2 or 3 cm)

4 tbsps margarine (Belzy -- I prefer blue band, it will make the bread more yellow)

3 cloves of garlic, pasted with mortar

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp granulated sugar Splenda

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp parsley

1/2 tsp basil

Alumunium foil

Methods:

Preheat the oven at 350`F (180`C).

Mix all ingredients, mixed well. Spread the butter mixture on one side of the bread only. Do it until no more bread left.

Arrange bread on the foil, then wrap bread. Bake it for 15 until 20 minutes, or until the margarine melted and the bread little bit brown. Serve it while still hot.

PORK SOUP NOODLE

Fall is here!! The weather is getting cold now, also since last week we have lots of heavy rains, and it made the weather cold evenmore. In this cold weather, the best thing to do is eating hot soups...yup that is my hubby's request for this season ;).

So, after 'another' wonton soup, I made pork soup noodle this time. Actually, it is same as chicken soup noodle or Hongkong style noodle. But, I combined pork and chicken broth together and it gave better taste for the soup.

It is extremely good especially we ate it in this cold weather. So, take a zip of this hot tasty soup and you'll know ..... ;)

Pork Soup Noodle

Ingredients:

1 pack of noodle (Belzy -- I used Taiwanese noodle)

1 bundle of cai sim, washed, cut into matches size (you can use any other green vegetables )

1.5 liter of pork-chicken broth (Belzy -- I used the combination broth, but any of them are ok)

For Gravy:

300 gr pork, diced

5 pieces shiitake mushroom, thinly sliced

3 cloves of garlic, finely minced

2 cm ginger, finely minced

2 stalks of spring onions, sliced

6 tbsps Indonesian sweet soy sauce

3 tbsps fish sauce

2 tbsps dark soy sauce (Belzy -- I used mushroom flavored dark soy sauce)

1 tbsp rice wine

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp tapioca starch

1/2 cup pork-chicken broth

Methods:

For Gravy:

Stir fry garlic and ginger until fragrant. Stir in pork, stir well until the color is changed. Stir in shiitake mushroom, stir well. Add in sweet soy sauce, fish sauce, dark soy sauce, rice wine, pepper, salt, sugar, spring onion and broth, stir well until boiling. Once it boils, add in tapioca starch, stir it fast until the broth thicken and boilings. Ready to use.

For Noodle:

Prepare a medium bowl, pour in 1 tbsp fish sauce, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp sugar and 1/4 tsp pepper. Set aside.

Boil 1/2 cup of broth and 1/2 cup water until boiling. Boil in cai sim and noodle until boiled and the noodle totally cooked. Drained it, and place it in prepared bowl. Mix the noodle with the spices. Add in the gravy on top of noodle. Pour in the hot broth. (or you can separate the broth in another small bowl). Ready to eat ;).