Penang Trip (09.07.11–10.07.11)

Very soon Penang will be my 2nd home, since I go Penang so frequent. Initially, my friends were asking me to organize a gathering and later they decided to do a short food trip to Penang. When we reached Penang, it’s already late afternoon, 1st stop, at about 3pm, we ate the Penang Asam Laksa @ Ayer Hitam, near Kek Lok Si (temple). We were too hungry, I even forgot to snap a photo before eating. 4 of us shared 2 bowl of laksa, then a big plate full of fried stuffs, e.g. Lobak, fish balls, spring rolls…

Along the way, we saw notice board showing there’s a durian festival in Balik Pulau, so, after seeking direction from a few hawkers, and a Penang friend of mine which apparently he does not know that place so well helped me to Google a little, we managed to find the place. Such a disappointment because we thought it will be very happening, especially during weekend. But there’s only 3 stalls selling limited durian and other fruits too.

Although it was a festival or something, but quite pricy too. I’m not a big fans to durian, I only ate a little.

Then we checked in to the Northam All Suite, we really love the suites that we booked, very spacious and comfortable, most importantly, it’s a good deal we got from Air Asia website too.

We allow our stomachs to rest for a while and we went out again to hunt for our dinner, this time, Ah Leng Char Koay Teow, @ Ayer Hitam too. We ordered the special one with duck egg, RM10.50 per plate, and this time, we didn’t want to share, each of us ordered 1 big plate. So greedy. But this Char Koay Teow is really very very nice…

Anyway, although that was a food trip, but we can’t be eating non-stop. After dinner, we booked movie tickets @ Queensbay Mall, best still, we maximizing our objectives by eating ice-cream before going in to the cinema.

After movie, although we weren’t hungry but still looking for food, initially was thinking about dessert but we are not quite sure about the place, so we went to Gurney Drive where just 1 or 2 streets away from where we stay. It’s already close to midnight when we were there, most of the stalls already closed. We only managed to get fruit rojak, fried chicken and Chinese dessert (tong shui) for our supper. I was very guilty about my diet, but felt really satisfying… That’s why, I can never slim down to the weigh that I want.

My room is facing the sea… I don’t really feel like leaving Penang because the room was so comfy. Ours was a junior suite, 2 toilets in a suite, 1 living room, work station, 2 super single bed making a super super king bed, bathroom equipped with Jacuzzi, big wardrobe… RM200+ with 2 complimentary breakfasts too!!!

We had breakfast there, ya, I know it’s not a wise choice to have hotel breakfast in Penang, but we just want to kill our time while waiting for the other 2 girls doing their Jacuzzi.

We checked out the hotel with a little hesitation, then drove around Penang hunting for food souvenir. Round and round, we still couldn’t find the shop the the girls wanted to go. Although at last we found what we want, but we were already half melted. Next to the souvenir place, there’s this Lebuh Keng Kwee, and the very famous cendol stall is there. Of course 1 cendol couldn’t satisfy us, we order Laksa and Char Koay Teow again, but of course not as nice as those that we had previous day. So, altogether, we had 2 breakfasts in that morning. 

What a best option to eat an icey cendol in a hot day!!!

We wouldn’t want to reach KL late, so we started our journey around lunch time. Last but not least, we decided to stop by Ipoh for our late lunch. And by default, we had the famous beansprout chicken there.

Do not underestimate girls, although most of the time we are complaining about our weight, starving and working so hard to slim down, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t eat!!!

Cheese Temptation

Am I overrated myself? I never bake a cheesecake or see a making of cheesecake and I choose the most tedious and complicated cheese cake in the recipe to bake! Part of the reason, my friends jokingly requested me to bake this for them. Yes, I love baking, the more I bake, the more confident I feel, making me more daring to take challenges. Baking also a very good way to release my stress and kill my boredom during weekends…

I failed making this cake on my 1st attempt, fail terribly… the mousse was too watery and damped the biscuit base, the cheese smell bad too. I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t pick this at the very first place. But since I have a lot of left over ingredients, I give this a second chance last weekend.

This time, I was trying to take things slowly… read the recipe book carefully, line by line…

Digestive Biscuit Base

Ingredients
160g digestive biscuit (finely crushed)
80g melted butter

Method:
Mix all the ingredients until well-blended. Press it onto bottom of 20cm loose bottom pan. Refrigerate for 15 minutes or until firm.

Cheese Layer

Ingredients A
500g cream cheese
140g sugar
20g corn flour

Ingredient B
3 eggs

Ingredients C
50g orange juice
1 orange zest

Ingredient D
150g whipping cream

Method:
1. Cream Ingredients A until light. Add in Ingredient B, cream until smooth.
2. Add in Ingredients C, cream until well-combined.
3. Add in Ingredient D, cream until well incorporated.
4. Pour the cheese mixture onto the prepared biscuit base. Cover the outside of the mould with aluminum foil.
5. Place it over double boiler, bake in water bath at 160˚C for 60 minutes.
6. Refrigerate the cake for at least 4 hours.

Chocolate Mousse

Ingredient A
60g milk

Ingredients B
20g sugar
1 egg yolk

Ingredient C
80g dark couverture (chopped)

Ingredients D
2 tsp gelatin
30g water

Ingredient E
150g whipped topping cream

Method:
1. Cook Ingredient A until boils. Add in Ingredients B, mix until well-blended. Continue to cook for 1 minute. Add in Ingredient C, mix until well-combined.
2. Mix Ingredients D until well-blended and place it over double boiler, cook until gelatin melts. Add it into the above mixture, mix until well-blended.
3. Cool it over ice water to 30˚C. Whip Ingredient E until the soft peak stage. Add it into the above mixture, mix until well incorporated.
4. Pour it over the baked cheesecake. Keep it in the fridge for 2 hours or until set.
5. Pour the chocolate glazing over the chocolate mousse. Keep it refrigerated for 20 minutes to let it set.
6. Unmould and cut to serve.

Chocolate Glazing

Ingredients
150g cooking chocolate (melted)
40g milk
40g whipping cream
5g butter

Method:
Cook the milk and whipping cream until boil. Add in the melted chocolate and mix until well-blended. Add in butter, mix until well-combined. Set aside to cool to pouring consistency.

I felt so nervous when I unmould the cake... I was so happy and touched when I see the cake turned out exactly like what the pictures shown in the recipe book!!! The happiest moment is when my dad asked for another piece after he finished his 1st slice. (my dad has slight lactose intolerance, so, he usually don't like dairy product and never like a cheesecake!). Strongly recommend this recipe book, Baking Code by Alex Goh for amateur baker!!

The Truth About You

This post has been “hibernating” in my draft for months. It’s either I trash it or post it, I just wanted to clear everything in my draft today… when you see this, I think you know what is my choice.

Actually I do not know how to choose a book, when I was in a bookstore, I just pick what attracts me, such as nice cover or I just walked to the bestseller chart and pick whatever in the chart. For example this, peaceful cover, “The no. one bestseller”… When I read the title, i thought this is something like helping you to understand the inner you, the secret lying beneath your subconscious or something… but nope… it’s a fiction. (I only noticed after few chapters, ya, I’m this clueless most of the time).

The interesting part about this book is all the twists and turns, I can imagine the story can turn into a soap drama like Gilmore’s Girl or Desperate Housewives… The story begin with a baby found on the doorstep of a cafe in town and some of the girls in town have their own secrets which haunted their lives.

Although I’m not a fan to fiction, but this book really very nice to read and sometimes the story kept me continue reading too, it helped me to pass a lot of waiting time to my customer.

P/S: do you have a secret too? A secret cannot be a secret if more than 1 person know about it. So, I can say, I have no secret, just a matter I choose to tell somebody but not everybody.

Whisk Espresso Bar/ Bake Shop @ Subang Empire

Love at first sight!!!! This shop is very very tiny, so tiny I think probably can only fit in 15 customers at a time, but it’s a lovely shop. My friend, from Penang, was saying she read a recommendation from a blogger, saying the salted gula melaka ice-cream is very special in the shop, so, we decided to give it a try when she was in KL.

 

I especially like the floor…

                         The bar counter                                                                      Cashier cum cake counter

The kitchen

                 Red Velvet Cake                                    Salted Gula Melaka Ice-cream                                 Hot Chocolate

 

I will definitely visit this place again… although that day the red velvet cake was only so-so, but I love being in this shop, probably order a hot chocolate or ice-cream and spend the whole afternoon sitting by the window, seeing people walking by…

2011 Father’s Day Dinner

This was another dinner that I cooked for my parents during father’s day. Well, I mentioned I need practice and apparently, I still need a lot of training and practices. These 3 dishes were actually quick simple, compare to the dinner that I prepared for mother’s day.

Comment from parents: Both of my parents can’t stand very spicy food. I’m too careless that I prepared all 3 dishes which were spicy. They actually didn’t make a lot of comment during the dinner, mainly because they didn’t want to discourage their daughter.

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Grilled Spicy Chicken Kebabs

Ingredients:

• 1 piece chicken breast meat, cut into cubes
• 2 onions, cut into pieces

• ½ cucumber

• some satay skewers (bamboo toothpick)

Marinade:

• 2 tbsp chilli bean sauce (Toban Djan)
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp corn flour
• 1tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp water

Method:

1. Mix chicken breast meat with marinade and marinate for 1 hour.
2. Skewer the meat on satay stick and grill in a preheated oven at 200˚C for 20 minutes. Remove and serve hot.

p/s: this is quite yummy if you like spicy

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Fried Eggplant with Fermented Soya Bean Paste

Ingredients:

• 2 cups oil for deep-frying
• 2 (400g) eggplants, cut into strips
• 50g minced pork
• 3 tbsp dried prawns, soaked and chopped coarsely
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1 red chilli, seeded and chopped

• ½ tbsp fermented soya bean paste (I changed this to chilli soya bean paste, which I think I shouldn’t)

• ½ tbsp sugar

• 1tsp light soya sauce
• dash of cornstarch water, for thickening
• 2 stalks spring onion, chopped

Method:

1. Heat up oil for deep-frying, deep-fry eggplant until cooked. Dish and drain.
2. Leave 2 tbsp oil in wok, saute chopped garlic and dried prawns until aromatic. Add fermented soya bean paste, sugar and soya sauce and stir-fry until fragrant.
3. Add in minced pork, eggplants, chilli and stir-fry until well mixed. Thicken with cornstarch water and sprinkle with chopped spring onion. Dish up and serve.

p/s: The eggplant that I bought was too “old”, even after I’ve fried the strips and saute for so long, the skin was still plastic-like. I also make a big joke out of this dish, my mom asked me, where’s the seed? I answered, seed can eat mer? Both of my parents shook their heads. Then my mom checked the rubbish bin, found out the seed was actually quite big, as big as sesame, then she agreed, maybe the eggplant was really very “old”.

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Braised Pig’s Stomach with Salted Mustard

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 6 slices ginger
• 300g local salted mustard, soaked and cut into pieces
• 8 dried oysters, cleaned
• 1 pig’s stomach, about 400g, cleaned and cut into strips

Seasoning:

• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp light soya sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• dash of pepper
• 1000ml water

Method:

1. Heat up oil, saute chopped garlic  and ginger until fragrant. Add in salted mustard and stir-fry until aromatic.
2. Add dried oyster, pig’s stomach, seasoning and bring to boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 1½ hours or until pig’s stomach is tender. Dish up and serve.

p/s: I didn’t expect to be so tedious to clean a pig stomach. 1st of all got to flip over to clean all the mucus-like on the lining under running water, use salt to clean until the lining is less slippery, then soak in boiling water until the yellowish skin near the top of the stomach detach… I am so lucky to have my mom with me when I’m cleaning the stomach… or I can’t imagine how would I turn the kitchen upside down again.

But one thing I don’t get it, this dish was spicy too, although there wasn’t anything spicy in the ingredient. Probably the spiciness was due to the Sarawak’s pepper.

 

Recipe copied from Yum Yum book 52 & 63.

Chocolate Moist Cake 4 June Babies

Cake

Ingredients:

150g Butter

300g Brown sugar

2 Eggs

200g Boiling Water

45g Cocoa powder

250g Plain flour

1tsp Baking soda

½ tsp Baking powder

Methods:

1. Cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Add in eggs slowly, cream until smooth and light.

3. Dissolve cocoa powder in boiling water. Add in cocoa liquid and flour (premix with baking soda and baking powder) alternately, mix until well-blended.

4. Pour it into greased and lined 23cm mould.

5. Bake at 175˚C for 30 minutes and test it with skewer. If it comes out clean, allow it to cool for 5 minutes. Unmould and set aside.

6. Cut cake into half and sandwich the cakes with ganache. Cover the whole cake with ganache.

Ganache

Ingredients:

250g Whipping cream

500g Cooking chocolate (chopped)

30g Butter

Method:

Cook whipping cream until it boils. Add it into the cooking chocolate, stir until it has melted completely. Add in butter, mix until well combined. Leave aside to cool and set for at least 24 hours.

My hand was not stable while drawing the line

I baked 2 cakes at a go, this is another pattern but unfortunately I forgot to take the picture before sending half to my neighbour

Cake is solid solid and moist

One of the cake was dedicated to both pretty June babies.

 

p/s: Recipe taken from Alex Goh Baking Class