Grandma Paul's Red Velvet!

Sorry for the delay! I was quite busy at home to post this recipe...but since i'm free now (i'm at work!) i'll post this now! ｡◕‿◕｡

I have baked GRANDMA PAUL'S RED VELVET CAKE so many times i've lost count! And everytime, it is a winner both at home (my mom & dad love it so much that i've baked it for them most of the time) and at work (my friends and employees like them too).

I was asked many times why my cake is different from others, the answer is simple. PAULA DEEN. Honestly, i've had other red velvets and other people's recipes but the moment i saw Paula bake this on TV (Paula's Party on Food Network) i knew that i have to try it pronto! I love EVERYTHING PAULA DEEN. Her "Y'ALL", her SONS (oh gosh they are darn cute), her FOOD and most of all her crazy beautiful southern self!

OK. Enough about my schoolgirl fangirling obsession over Paula Deen (in which i myself think is very weird. haha) and on to the real topic, THE RECIPE! FYI:Recipe is altered from original to my average culinary knowledge.

Ingredients
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup buttermilk*
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cup cake flour
1 block of butter /250gm
1 bottle red food coloring (i use STAR BRAND)
2 tablespoons cocoa (i use Van Houten)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs (A grade or atleast B)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vinegar**

*i found buttermilk in Tesco but if you can't find it you can add one TABLESPOON VINEGAR to ONE CUP of WHOLE MILK / FRESH MILK. Low fat is a no-no! Leave this mixture for atleast 15 minute. The milk will sort of curdle and look like it has gone bad...but it's not! The milk is now ready to be used as a substitute for buttermilk.

**i use variety of vinegar, from pomegranates to dates to plain white vinegar.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. First sift together flour and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. 
In another bowl, mix cocoa and food coloring. 
Add eggs one by one to butter mixture; mix well. 
Add flour to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. 
Blend in vanilla. 
In a small bowl, combine soda and vinegar and add to mixture. 
Pour into three 8-inch round greased and floured pans. 
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until tests done.

FROSTING: PAULA DEEN used a rich cream cheese frosting with pecans and shredded coconuts for her Red Velvet, and because i'm a cheapo (i can't afford pecans..tsk.tsk), i used plain cream cheese frosting with either rainbow/choco sprinkles or mini chocochips on top. My version of plain cream cheese frosting can be found here. It's at the bottom of the post.

*picture updated! ヽ(*≧ω≦)ﾉ 16feb2013/12:09am

*the original recipe can be found here!

Samperit & Chocolate Chippy!

OH MY, i totally forgot to post the cookies recipes yesterday....

weeeeell, here it is then... (シ_ _)シ

SAMPERIT COOKIES

10 oz margarine
7 oz icing sugar
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 oz plain flour
10 oz corn flour /cornstarch
4 oz custard flour

1. Line baking tray with baking paper, set aside and heat oven.
2. Sift and mix all dry ingredients well and set aside.
3. Cream margarine and sugar, add egg yolks and vanilla extract, mix well.
4. Gradually adding dry ingredients and mix well.
5. Place in samperit mould (there two kinds, the flower one and the flat one/see picture: i used the flat one cause to me it produce a better and more scrumptious cookie than the flower one because the flat one bakes evenly and made a more crumbly cookie!)
6. Press cookie on to lined baking tray and bake for 15-20 mins / 150c oven.
7. Cool on rack before storing.

samperit mould photos courtesy of alibaba.com!

 DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CHIPPY!

125 gm butter
1 egg
300 gm plain flour
6 tablespoon icing sugar
6 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips

1. Line baking tray with baking paper, set aside and heat oven.
2. Sift and mix well flour, baking soda and cocoa powder and set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar, add vanilla extract and egg. Mix well.
4. Gradually add dry ingredients. Add chocolate chips at the end. Mix well.
5. Drop spoonful by spoonful (teaspoon if you want small cookie, tablespoon if you like big chunky cookie) onto baking tray.
6. Bake for 20-25 min on 150c oven.
7. Cool on rack before storing.

Enjoy your cookies!

Grilled Rendang Chicken.

Oh hi again! I've just finished grilling chicken (again)..hehe. Today's grilled chicken recipe is different from all the previous versions me and mom made. This time mom made a "rendang" grilled chicken. Yep, first we cooked them "rendang" style and then we grill it.

What's RENDANG? It a traditional dish usually cooked during Hari Raya or special event (such as weddings, kenduri, etc.) And this is my mom's easy version. My mom is the kind of woman who always comes up with a simpler easier version of any typical Malay dish.

Ok this is what Rendang is supposed to look like. Spicy. Yum!

BUT, instead of cooking the chicken through, we take them chicken out of the gravy and grill them! Like this...

And then they become this! OH!

Yes yes yes. IT IS SIMPLE, TRUST MY MOM.

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients to blend together:

• 3 tablespoon of chili boh (a kind of smooth blended dried chili / takes about a handful of dried chilies)
• 3 large garlic
• 2 large onions
• 1 inch ginger
• 1 inch galanga (lengkuas in malay, its fine if you can't find it but it will taste slightly different)
• 1 tablespoon turmeric powder

Other Ingredients:

• 8 chicken drumsticks
• 5 lemongrass (beat them once or twice to flatten them)
• 2 turmeric leaf shredded (its fine if you can't find it but it will taste slightly different)
• 1 tablespoon KURMA spice powder (easily found here in Malaysia but elsewhere; try finding them in Asian specialty shops or those that carry Indians spices)
• juice of 5 calamansi (limau kasturi) / or key lime.
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 tin of evaporated milk OR milk of 1 coconut
• salt to taste

NOW there is NO NEED FOR OIL. i repeat, NO NEED FOR OIL.

1. First, blend all the ingredient that needed blending (my mom usually already have pre-made blended chili boh mixed with garlic, onions and ginger ready in the fridge. PS: this recipe does not use my mom's pre-made mixed chili boh)
2. Toss in ALL INGREDIENTS in a preferably non-stick pan. Including the cleaned chicken.
3. Yes, you read that right, there was NO OIL involved and i did wrote TOSS ALL INGREDIENTS IN.
4. The liquid here isn't enough to fully cover the chickens, so you may have to keep moving the chicken about to cook them evenly.
5. Cook for at least half an hour and until the liquid thickens.
6. At this moment, you may just let the chicken rendang cook until the liquid thickens more and it will be a simple version of CHICKEN RENDANG and you may serve them as it is OR
7. At this moment, you may take out the 3/4 cooked chicken and grill them.
8. If you decide to grill, then the remaining liquid can be used as gravy to be served with the grilled chicken. (You may thicken it more or as is)

That's it! Enjoy!

What's Taro???

Have you had taro? how do you like your taro? do you even know what taro is???

so this is what taro is. often mistaken as yam but mind you, they are two very different kind.

most taro loving people like them in various ways such as in bread and buns, as garnishes, cooked with coconut milk, with rice or most famous, as desserts. but for my family, we like them plain and fried! :)

fried taro + sirap bandung :)

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FRIED TARO

taro

water

flour

salt to taste

1. slice the taro (french cut)

2. mix flour, salt and water according to your personal taste (i'm sure you're familiar with simple flour batter).

3. dip them taros in the batter.

4. fry em!

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SIRAP BANDUNG

1 part rose syrup to 4 part water

1 part milk or soy milk OR

1 table spoon of sweetened condensed milk (if you like more sweet)

you can even substitute the water for cream soda for fizziness

1. mix them all together according to your taste.

2. i like mine sweet so i usually use sweetened condensed milk instead of regular milk or soy.

3. best served chilled.

there you go, a very traditional "kampung-style" malay evening snack.

enjoy!

Grilled Chicken plus Sides.

Today's the 5th Ramadhan. Mom heard about my grilled chicken + steamed broccoli lunch combo from Tony Roma's and wanted a similar kind of berbuka dinner for the family. So I googled for some inspiration and came up with my own version.

What do you think? :)

Grilled chicken + steamed broccoli + mashed potato + garlic bread + mushroom soup + vanilla ice cream soda... All made from scratch...NO KIDDING! :)

Easy-peasy Recipes, Yayyy!

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1) GRILLED CHICKEN:

8 pieces of chicken thigh
1 1/2 cup of sour cream
some salt to taste
some black pepper to taste (i used 1 teaspoon of freshly crushed black peppers)
1 teaspoon of seasoning of your choice (i used a local vegetable based seasoning named Sudee)

1. Mix all ingredient in a zip-lock bag or a tupperware and put in the fridge. Preferably in the morning if you want to make this for dinner.
2. Grill the chicken on non-stick grilling pan. (Mine is Tefal's Thermo-Spot Grill Pan and highly recommended!)
3. Keep it on its side until cooked before turning the other side, best not to keep moving them.
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2) Steamed Broccoli:

as much broccoli as you want
water for steaming

1. Well, this is easy! Clean and cut broccoli and steam em!
2. If you don't have a steamer, boiling is okay too...But it can get too soggy.

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3) MASHED POTATO

4 fairly medium sized potatoes (any kind, but i used the russet ones which is not as smooth)
water for boiling
1 cup of whipping cream
2 tablespoon of butter
some salt to taste
some seasoning/herbs to taste (optional) (i didn't use any this time)

1. Boil potatoes to perfection (until your fork pierced through smoothly). Drain.
2. Warm butter and cream in the microwave (or on a double boiler).
3. Mash potatoes in the butter+cream mixture (and seasonings if you want) and mix mix mix until smooth.
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4) GARLIC BREAD

1 loaf of bread (i got mine from TESCO and its only RM1! no joking! see picture)
some butter (depends on how buttery you want the bread)
some garlic (depends on how garlicky you want the bread)

1. Grate garlic and set aside.
2. Slice the bread according to your preferences.
3. Spread butter on them.
4. Spread grated garlic over the butter.
5. Toast em in the oven (or like me, grill them on a grilling pan)
6. Eat. uhhhh...i mean, set aside in a airtight container until lunch/dinner time...
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5. MUSHROOM SOUP

2 1/2 cups of button mushrooms sliced (about 8 to 10)
4 cups water
1 1/2 chicken stock cubes
1/2 large onion - diced
1/2 whipping cream
1 teaspoon freshly crushed black peppers
2 tablespoon unsalted butter
2-3 tablespoon flour

1. Boil water with mushroom, onions and chicken cubes. After the mushrooms are cooked (telltale is the mushroom is now darker and soggy.
2. Let the soup cool a little, take out a few (2-3) and roughly chop them and blend the rest to bits in a blender machine. (Note: Make sure you cool them out a little 1st or you'll risk the hot vapor bursting)
3. In a nonstick pan with low heat, melt butter and mix in flour. (Use wooden spatula)
4. Pour in the blended mushrooms and mix well. Mix in black peppers and whipping cream and keep stirring until combined.
5. Salt to taste. Add in chopped mushrooms, stir and you're done!
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6. Vanilla Ice Cream Soda

cream soda (F&N all the way baby)
vanilla ice cream (trust me, Wall's is way creamier than Nestle's)

1. In a tall glass, put a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
2. Pour in the yummy cream soda.
3. DRINK IT!

THAT'S IT FOLK! A very "Western-lah-sangat" Dinner. Crazy-easy right? :)

Introduction? Yesss!

Hi! This is my 100th blogging tryout...(jk). but it's probably like the 10th or 11th. I have often failed to keep up with them, neglected them and so on..I have tried most blogging platform there is and always fall back to the trusty blogger :)

Anyhow, this blog is nothing like my previous blogs where I usually post nonsensical things and random thoughts. Well, I'd probably still post random things every now and then...its inevitable, but mostly (I HOPE!) this blog will consist of RECIPES and REVIEWS of FOOD! Like my blog title says, I'm a Certified OMNOMNOMNIVOR :p

Ok ok, enough with the introductions. I'm going to start posting reviews now of my latest food excapade! And since I'm actually in between cooking right now, I will probably post the recipes for it too later on!

Til my next post, LOVE!