Don’t give up…

CK aka Superman asked me in his comment on a previous post whether I could make cookies and I told him no. Unfortunately, that is the truth and I still cannot. However, that did not stop my from trying.

I had a bit of the pastry left from making the pies the other day and I did not want to throw it away as it would be just a waste. So I divided it into two portions and added brown sugar and Milo to one…and oats and castor sugar to the other. Then, I rolled them and using a cookie cutter, I cut the pastry and laid them out on a greased baking tray…

After that, I put them into the oven to bake. The end result did not look very encouraging…

…but they tasted nice. I like the ones with oats, but my daughter prefers the Milo ones.

They definitely do not look good enough to be served to guests, that’s for sure. Maybe if I brush the top of the oats cookies with egg, they may end up with a nicer golden colour.

Anyway, this is just the beginning, not the end. Rest assured that I will be back at it soon and hopefully, I will succeed in making cookies that not only taste nice but look presentable as well. Meanwhile, I’ll just go and sit in a corner and sulk… @#$%+&*!!!! LOL!!!

Every step of the way…

Well, in yesterday’s post, you’ve all seen how I made the pie pastry. The next step is to make the filling. These were the ingredients that I used…

…finely-chopped garlic and Bombay onion, thinly-sliced canned mushrooms and minced meat marinated generously with smoked barbecue sauce and pepper. Like I’ve said before, it is entirely up to you to create your own filling…and this is usually what I would have in my shepherd pie but with minced beef, of course.

There was only pork and chicken in the freezer and my missus had got the seller at the market to cut the chicken into bite-size pieces, so it would be quite a chore to debone that to get the meat. In the end, I opted to use the former.

Heat up a bit of oil in the wok, fry the garlic and onion till light brown, throw in the meat and stir till cooked and lastly, add the mushrooms. I did not add any water but if you have any gravy/sauce, you may have to add a bit of cornflour dissolved in water to thicken it. Otherwise, when you bake the pies, you may get it boiling out of the air holes/gaps like a volcano! LOL!!!

Having got the filling done, it was time to make the pies. I used a piece of aluminium foil to line the top of the table. Otherwise, you may have to dust it with flour…and as I always have the fan on full blast, it may fly all over the kitchen. Besides, your table top may be somewhat oily when you’re done…

Roll the pastry to make the pie base and put that in the foil pie mould, trim off the edges…and then put in the filling…

Next roll some more pastry to make the pie cover and again, you’ll have to trim off the edges…

You may seal the pie using the press and turn method – the way they make curry puffs but I’m not good at that and they end up looking quite horrible. Thus, I used a chopstick to press down the edges together…

Poke air holes in the cover using a fork or cut air vents with a knife…for the hot air to escape during baking…

You may want to decorate your pies in any way you see fit. Now that Christmas is over, I opted for the hearts or four-leaf clovers for good luck – like what Elin did when she made her flaky pastry chicken pies recently ! LOL!!! Break an egg and beat it and brush the surface of the pie with it using a brush. Now, where is that darn brush again? Sometimes, looking for something in the house is like going on a treasure hunt!

Put the pies in the oven to bake. I did not heat up the oven first…but it would be better to turn on the bottom part first and after 10-15 minutes, turn on the top part as well. As for the heat, I set it at 200-250 degrees…but I put the rack lower down in the oven.

The last time, it was higher up and the edges got a bit burnt very quickly. I did not time it…but kept an eye on it periodically all the while until the pies had turn into a nice golden colour and I could smell the fragrance from afar…

Then the pies are done and ready to be served piping hot…

I tried one…

…and needless to say, it tasted great! Yum!!! Yum!!! Wanna have one? Hehehehehe!!!

I’ve got you under my skin (2)…

When I published my post on my Christmas chicken pies recently, somebody asked me whether I would be willing to share my recipe…

*recycled pic

…to which I replied that I most certainly would.

Well, first, you will have to make the pie pastry – I think this type is called shortcrust pastry – for which you will need flour and butter in a 2:1 ratio. So if you buy one block of butter which is usually 250 gms, you will need half a kg of flour. Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl…

…and cut the butter into little cubes and rub it into the flour with your fingers. Remember! Your fingers only, not your palm! I think they call this the rubbing method…

In the end, you will get something like this. I wouldn’t know but usually people describe this as being “like breadcrumbs”.

Make a “well” in the middle and pour in some ice cold water in which you have dissolved a pinch of salt…

Then knead it all together until you get a fine smooth dough and nothing is left sticking to the side of the mixing bowl…

If you are using it right away, leave it in the mixing bowl, cover with a damp piece of cloth and put in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling. I did not intend to do that, so I divided it into portions and wrapped with cling wrap and put it in the fridge…as I would not be making the pies till the following day. I used 1lb of flour and 8 0z butter, and it certainly looked like I had enough pastry for 6 pies.

I’ve tried using the frozen pastries that you can buy from the supermarket before – both shortcrust and puff – but I found that though they turned out pretty nice, tastewise, they paled in comparison to my own homemade ones. In fact, I also used the same pastry for my pizza base which I prefer to the bread dough that people normally use for that.

As for the pie filling, it is really up to your imagination and creativity actually – whichever way you want it. Well, I will share with you how I did mine…in another post. So, do hang around, eh? LOL!!!

Keep searchin’…

Once, there was a lady who ran a kampua noodle stall at a coffee shop across the road from Sacred Heart School where I was teaching. Her noodles were more expensive than elsewhere but were very nice and there were a lot of customers eating that or her Sarawak laksa which, at the time, was the best in town…and her lor mee was very nice too. Then she moved to another coffee shop in the town centre and I never went to eat at her stall ever again after that. Subsequently, I saw her at this coffee shop at Sungai Merah but she was not selling her kampua noodles anymore, just her Sarawak laksa and the lor mee. I guess that was because there was already a kampua noodle stall at the shop and they did not want to have a conflict of interest.

I heard that she fell sick…so I do not get to see her at the stall anymore. Her husband is running it now and the other day, in my search for the best lor mee in town, I went there to try…

It seemed darker than what I would get elsewhere but tastewise, it was quite good….not great, just quite good…

And for lunch, my daughter and I went to this coffee shop across the road from what is now called Mitsu Shabu Shabu – Loke Ming Yuen where I usually went for the beef noodles, as my daughter wanted to eat the fried mihun with sambal and clams. I have not eaten at that stall since the time when I had fried kway teow served in what looked like a saucer. It was way too expensive for way too little so there was no way I would go back there again. However, it seemed that the lady had closed shop or moved elsewhere as the one running the stall was not her…and what she cooked was very different from the mihun that my daughter loved a lot…

She did not even use fresh clams, just those canned ones which are hard and not so nice. My daughter did not want to eat it and would rather have my salad chicken rice (RM5.00) instead…

This stall has been operating there for a long time and business seemed pretty good. My daughter said it was nice – especially the fried chicken…but I wouldn’t know as I did not get to eat it myself but from the look of it, I think the Pattaya chicken rice at Thomson Corner would be much nicer…and if I remember correctly, cheaper too!

Try it on my own…

The holidays have started and my tuition classes for the year have resumed. That means that I would be out of the house around 3 something till past 6, Monday to Thursday, and my missus would leave for work at 7 something in the morning and would not be home till almost 6.00 p.m., so the coast is clear…

With the grumpy father and the doting mother out of the way, Melissa got down to some serious cooking. On Monday, she cooked this dish of fish head curry…

I guess it was not that difficult as she was using the A1 Mountain Globe curry paste. You can’t possibly go wrong with that. Nowadays, EVERYONE CAN COOK…curry! Personally, I felt it was a bit diluted, not lemak (rich) enough but it was nice. A jolly good first attempt, I must say.

The next day, she came up with these oven-baked chicken wings…

…following the same recipe that the mother used for that particular dish for our Christmas dinner. Now, these were absolutely delicious!!! Very fragrant with whatever that she used to marinate the wings, and very nicely done!

And yesterday, she grilled these brinjal with sambal…

…and they were a success too. It certainly looks like she should be able to manage pretty well on her own when she goes to New Zealand. Thumbs up, girl! Pat on the back!

Incidentally, she only had to prepare a vegetable dish yesterday as when I stopped by Chopsticks in the morning, I saw this beautiful slab of roast meat…

…and the best part was that I could hardly see any layers of fat and of course, the skin was crispy, unlike my failed attempts during those times when I tried to roast something similar!

At RM4.00 per 100 gm., that came up to RM14.00 – and it worked out to less than RM5.00 per person. If we were to tapao that with rice, at best they would only give a few bits of the meat with a lot of rice and some slices of cucumber…for some RM3.00 or 4.00. I reckoned it was worth it and we certainly had a sumptuous dinner – the roast meat and the sambal brinjal and home cooked rice. Yum! Yum!

All rise…

I guess everybody knows by now that the price of sugar has risen by 20 sen…and before the uproar – all the finger pointing, the wild accusations and the mud-slinging – has died down, it seems that they have increased the price of chicken as well. Was it Newton who said that “what goes up must come down”? Well, I’m afraid in this connection, he couldn’t be further from the truth. The prices are never going to come down, I’m sure!

We will just have to learn to live with it and try to go around the problem. I’ve reduced my intake of sugar by half – just a teaspoon in my early morning mug of Nescafe instead of the usual two…and I guess that’s all for the better. I heard on the radio the other day that Malaysia ranks fourth in the world where the total number of diabetes sufferers is concerned. As for the chicken, I will have to be happy with fewer pieces compared to before – no point crowing and clucking about it.

Another thing that we can do is to shop smart. Sometimes, there are very good offers at the supermarket on certain items…but we should buy not because the things are cheap but because we really need them. This made-in-Sibu Mee Daddy mi goreng…

…for example, was going for RM3.00 only for a pack of 5 packets. I usually go for the chicken and curry flavours but since this one is so much cheaper, I have to forget about the other two for the time being. At that reduced price, it costs only 60 sen a packet…

…and inside, you get these packets of oil with fried onions, soy sauce, seasoning and chilli powder…

Throw in an egg – around 30 to 40 sen each at the moment…

…and you can get a satisfying breakfast to start your day – just for around RM1.00.

Besides, we may be able to get stuff that are getting close to their expiry dates at very much lower prices than normal. According to Blogger doc, they may still be good for another six months or so after they have expired…but normally, I would not take the chance on that and consume them on or before the due date…or maybe, just a few days later but no more than that!

For one thing, I do not seem to have noticed anybody jumping on the bandwagon and jacking up the prices of things as yet. For instance, at my regular kuih-muih (Malay cakes) stall at Bandung, they are selling everything at the usual prices. These kuih tongkol or bongkol still RM1.00 for three…

…and it is still as nice with the gula melaka (palm sugar) syrup and all…

Has anybody encountered inflated prices of anything anywhere yet? Perhaps you would like to share with the rest here?

Beyond the sea (2)…

I have not been to my regular kuih-muih (Malay cakes) stall at Bandong here ever since the school holidays started and that would be some two months or so ago. Well, school has reopened for 2010 and I would have to get back to my usual routine, so yesterday morning, on my way to my parents’ house, I stopped by the place to see what they had to offer.

Ah! They had the East Coast specialty, nasi kerabu…

What I had before was prepared by a lady from Kelantan and the rice was blue but this time, it was prepared by one from Johore and the rice was yellow…and instead of the fried fish with the rice, in this one, she had a small slice of salted egg and bergedil (deep fried cake made of mashed potatoes and fish)…

At RM3.00 a packet, it was VERY nice…and all the condiments added certainly served to enhance the taste.

Also selling at the same price was this nasi dagang, another specialty from the East Coast in the states of Trengganu and Kelantan.

They gave fish curry to be eaten with the rice…

…and this too was VERY nice!

As I had to be at my parents’ house all morning, I was not able to cook, so I bought those packets of nasi kerabu and nasi dagang for my daughter and me to have for lunch and we certainly enjoyed them a lot. Just don’t ask how many packets I bought…and who ate most of them! ROTFLMAO!!!

Fighter…

After the Sunday morning service yesterday, we decided to give this new place here in Sibu a try…

I guess Pahlawan means “warrior” or “fighter” and hence, the title of this post. My missus had the beef noodles…

…which she liked a lot even though it did not look very substantial and kind of diluted. My daughter sampled a little and she too said it was good – better than at some places selling the same thing. However, the two of us opted for the self-proclaimed “original lor mee“…

…which was such a disappointment. The gravy was thick enough and not too gooey but there was no sign of any fermented beans being used nor any hint of five-spice powder…nor was there any egg, either beaten and added in the gravy or hard boiled. The lor mee that I usually have at Kin Coffee Hut (next to the photocopying shop @ Pusat Tanahwang, opposite Sacred Heart School) is definitely a lot nicer…

…but it is different from the Hailam lor mee that Eugene took us to try when we were in Penang last year. This special version is very nice too…

*recycled pic

On the other hand, the lor mee that I had at Kafe Kheng Pin, the coffee shop along Penang Road on the island, was nice but not really that much to shout about…

*recycled pic

…but it is definitely more authentic or should I say, more like lor mee as I knew it to be. There are a couple of other places selling this in town but I have yet to go and check them out. I certainly hope to do that soon…and perhaps I will be able to let you know where you can find the best lor mee in Sibu! Any suggestions, anybody?

Fire and rain…

You’ve met Nicholas before in this post. He’s my ex-student, now a teacher…and he posted some photos of the New Year countdown in Sibu on Facebook and tagged me. I thought they were really very nice and so I asked for his permission to share them with everybody here…

I understand it was raining heavily that night…and there were a whole lot of fireworks and firecrackers around town. Unfortunately, I slept through all that – from 2009 to 2010! I woke up for a few seconds to hear that darn neighbour’s string of firecrackers and fell asleep almost instantly – did not even stay awake to hear the loud bang at the end. LOL!!!

So where were you on 31st December, counting down to the  New Year – 2010?

In keeping with the tradition, in the morning, I cooked some chicken soup with ginger and Foochow red wine…and boiled some eggs so everyone could have mee sua when they got up…and in the evening, we went over to my parents’ place for dinner.

My missus made this plate of salad – the way my family has been doing in for years ever since the time of my maternal grandma and aunties…

…and everyone loved it, especially, my parents – they certainly had a whole lot of that.

My sister bought some dishes from a restaurant somewhere in the vicinity of the Civic Centre in Sibu. The butter fish fillet was very nice…

…but the Philippine pork leg was a bit overdone…

…so it was kind of hard or crunchy on the outside. She also bought these barbecued chicken wings from a stall at Simpang Tiga here…

– the best in the world! These have been my favourite since God knows when…and at the time, they were only RM1.00 each. Now the price has gradually risen to RM2.00 – talk about inflation, that’s an increase of 100%. I thought they were nicer originally but they’re still good and better than any that I may get elsewhere.

So that’s about it! I did not take any more photos besides these as I did not want to hold up the dinner. What did you all have for your New Year’s dinner? Care to share?

Curtain falls…

31st December, the curtain falls on the year 2009. My daughter and I went to the food court at the Sing Kwong Complex in Salim here in Sibu for lunch. I had a post on this before…but my daughter had not had it for a long time, so we decided to go for the claypot pork and salted fish rice there…

RM9.50 for a large claypot – more than enough for two persons…and for small eaters/ladies, maybe that can even feed three. It was very nice…

…and my daughter enjoyed it a lot.

We did not want to go out for dinner as every place would be jam-packed and it could cost an arm or a leg. I saw a hotel restaurant advertising its New Year’s Eve buffet dinner at RM65++ per head which may be relatively cheaper compared to other places in the country but I would think that it is extremely expensive by our local standards.

Thus, I had to see what was in the fridge…and I saw these streaks of pork belly that my missus bought last week or was it the week before? I rubbed salt and pepper on it and also a bit of soy sauce on the skin and roasted it. There were some leftover snow peas and young sweet corn, so I boiled those…and opened a can of baked beans. I served the pork on a bed of mashed sweet potatoes that my daughter and I made…

…and to go with that, I made a drink of blended canned peaches and orange juice and my daughter cooked the cream of chicken and mushroom soup.

Don’t worry. I trimmed away all the fat and ate the lean meat only…and anyway, most of it had melted in the roasting. The tray was filled with the oil which I promptly threw away. Maybe I should have saved it for future use…but I guess I’m better off without it! LOL!!!

So there you have it – our VERY simple meal to say goodbye to 2009 and usher in the new year – 2010.