Fish and chips anyone?

Haha, well, not really chips (more like oven-roasted potatoes but after watching Masterchef, I feel like making potato gnocchi someday).Whenever I have frozen fish in the freeze, I tend to fry them as its easiest (just in case it's still frozen on the inside) and not time consuming at all!

Batter~ supermarket breadcrumbs which I had since last year. For better results, best to choose what type of bread you like and pulse it into crumbs. Speaking of bread, focaccio anyone??:) I have added some tarragon into the mixture for that extra touch of flavour.

Not trying to deep fry my fish but still trying to attain a nice golden, crunchy outer layer.

The potatoes and carrots. Maybe I should have cooked my carrots in some butter prior to baking it:S

Potato salad with bacon bits, parsley and some cheese chunks.

Tadaaaa~~~ looks nice ey ;)

Dinner mashup

Have been diligently trying out new recipes to cook at home and to my surprise, most of the recipes that I have obtained from fellow bloggers produced wonderful results (although I did tweak some of the ingredients' quantities slightly to suit my palate).

The first recipe would be for Kam Heong chicken as seen here by My kitchen snippets

For the chicken:
 2 chicken breast - sliced
1/2 egg white
1 tbsp soy sauce
½ tsp salt
a few dash of pepper
1 tsp cooking wine - optional
3 tbsp cornstarch




For the sauce:
2 finely chopped garlic cloves
1 small onion – cut into chunks
10 curry leaves
2 tbsp dried shrimps – soak and finely chopped
4 birds eye chilies, roughly chopped
1 tbsp curry powder
1 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp dark soy sauce
3 tbsp water
1 tbsp sugar
salt to taste

Marinate the chicken well with the above dressing and preferably, leave in the fridge for a few hours prior to frying it until golden brown. As for the sauce, fry garlic and onions until fragrant before tossing in the curry leaves, dried shrimps and chilli. Then you can incorporate everything together and allow to simmer before adding the chicken.

This recipe was also obtained from the same blogger as above here

Mine was abit of a near disaster as I chose to quickly fry the chicken and had trouble trying to cook it thoroughly but in the end. managed to save time by cutting the chicken into small bits:)

Marinara pasta~ tomato paste, chicken stock, fresh tomatoes, some chopped parsley (if I had some then), onions and marinara mixture:D

And lastly, something a bit of a mashup on my behalf. Pork dumplings with tomyum soup noodles hehe

I just add chopped garlic, ginger, coriander, spring onions and marinate the minced pork with soy sauce, pepper and a sprinkle of salt. Nothing much to it.

Will be posting up some sweetly sinful treats next time;)

Party food

Just 2 weeks ago, a group of random siblings decided to host a nice dinner "party" for someone dear to us but we had no idea what to bring. It's not really a matter of what to bring, depending on the cuisine, but more about convenience and fool-proof ideas.

I doubt anybody would want to slave over a hot grill whilst the crowd is having a ball in their own world! Definitely not. You want something snappy but yet impressive and tasty:)

Let's get our basics right. Despite lacking in time, one must use fresh ingredients because freshness is the key to tastiness (more intense flavour and vibrant, eye-catching colour). Also, you wouldn't want your guest to know that you're cooking using leftovers!

Another rule would be to add as much colour to your dishes. Not only does it look more interesting but you may be lucky enough to get your guests salivating prior to dining;)

As an appetizer, I chose to do a simple dip (infinite choices in the supermarket!) with slices of capsicum, carrots and cucumber. Healthy :D The dip that I picked consists mostly of yoghurt and does not have much salt added to it (check the label).

You may also prepare mexican tacos for a bit more variety or finger food like mini ciabatta (or other types of bread) with any toppings you want (salmon, avocado etc etc) but remember, don't make your guests too filled up before the mains!!

One of our mains was beehoon with cabbage, dried shrimps and chinese mushrooms. A bit of variety won't hurt too much;)

And then we had stuffed squid with cooked rice in chorizo and onions. Could have added more filling but I wasn't really thinking straight at the supermarket. Note to self, make a shopping list to help decide!!

Lastly, pizza. One of the easiest and yet, has the most variety of toppings. Suitable for either vegetarians, vegans or even carnivores!!:)

To end the fabulous night on a good note, desserts is a must! Here's a simple supermarket bought marble cake or if you prefer to make something, jellies, mousses or trifle are excellent ideas:)

Don't forget your daily dose of vitamins for maximal health!!:))

Apple braid bun untied!

On days when I'm feeling uninspired/ demotivated, I find it "lifting" to either go out for a run or do some shopping (even if it's just a walk to the supermarket) or have something sweet to nibble on. Its not that I am easily depressed judging by the amount of dessert-ing or shopping I do. My life is 99% perfect but as usual, life's not too perfect. Aside for the dreaded assignments and horrid moments, life's been pretty good to me;)

However, today's post is not about shopping or a restaurant/cafe review. Its about de-stressing the less-expensive way: Baking sweets!!:D

I have always had a love hate relationship with apples. I love to cook them but I dislike it when the final outcome does not match my expectations. A few weeks ago, I've baked an apple braid bun (using the cinnamon roll recipe here) and have cooked the apples the way I usually like them with; melted butter marinated with brown sugar, a sprinkle of cinnamon and a squeeze of lemon juice). Although I have tried to improve my bread making technique, I still need to have more practice to master this skill!

Moist dough = good!

Syrup-ed apples with extra syrup to drench them in!

The braiding part was definitely a challenge. The dough needs to be thin enough so that the filling is proportional with the baked bread layer.

Egg wash

I had extra dough so I decided to make some chocolate swirls!:)

Apple juice leaking out from the dough

Baked!

Not the most proportional piece I have made so far but it sure did smell pretty darn good when it came out fresh from the oven;)

And last but not least, a few random pictures of what I have been up to recently;)