Broccoli Soup

Do you know that broccoli is an edible green plant in the cabbage family? Well, it is and its large flowering head and stalk is eaten as a vegetable. The word broccoli comes from the Italian plural of broccolo, which means "the flowering crest of a cabbage". Broccoli is, according to many health reports, a nutritional source of vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants. It can keep you healthy by improving your blood sugar control, boosting your immunity, reducing inflammation and promoting heart health.

Broccoli can be enjoyed either raw or cooked. For the former, it can be used as one of the ingredients in salads. For the latter, it can be steamed (quick steaming is the best way to retain its nutrients), stir-fried, roasted or made into soups. Broccoli soups are easy to make with the ingredients easily available in our fridges or larder.

Ingredients:

• 1 head of broccoli
• 1 yellow onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 big potato
• 3 tbsp cream (or more)
• cooking oil
• salt
• pepper
• water
• butter (optional)

Method:

• Cut the broccoli head from the stem. Cut the head into florets. Peel off the hard exterior of the stem and slice it.

• Remove the skin of the yellow onion and slice it thinly.

• Chop up the garlic.

• Skin the potato and cut into smaller pieces.

• Heat up 2 spoonfuls of cooking oil in a pot.

• Saute the onion till it is fragrant.

• Add the chopped garlic and continue to saute till garlic is fragrant.

• Add the sliced broccoli stem and potato.

• Add water into the pot till it covers the ingredients. Let the water boil till the onion, broccoli stem and potato are soft.

• Add the florets and boil till they soften.

• Turn off the fire and let the pot of ingredients cool down.

• Once they have cooled down, blend them either with a hand-held blender or a blender. If using a blender, blend the ingredients in about 3-4 batches.

• Return the soup to the pot.

• Heat up the soup and add cream.

• (Optional) Add a dollop of butter.

• Add salt and pepper according to taste.

• Serve hot with baguette or garlic bread.

Orange Butter Cake

We love this cake. It is delicious due to the buttery as well as tangy taste. The cake is soft and moist and keep for 3 days out of the refrigerator. It is simple to make; butter being the main ingredient. Other ingredients include sugar, orange zest and juice, eggs, flour and baking powder. It can be baked in pans of any shape. If baked for an occasion, it can be frosted with orange buttercream, cream cheese, whipped cream, chocolate orange buttercream, etc or just glazed with orange icing.


Ingredients

• 250 g salted butter
• 130 g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 100 ml fresh orange juice
• Zest of 3 oranges
• 250 g self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

Method:

• Line and grease an 8-inch pan.

• Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees C.

• Zest the 3 oranges.

• Squeeze the oranges to obtain 100 ml of juice.

• Sift the flour and baking powder.

• Cream butter and sugar until light and creamy in the bowl of a stand mixer.

• Add the zest into the mixing bowl.

• Break in the eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition.

• Fold in the sifted dry ingredients, one-third at a time.

• Stir in the orange juice.

• Pour the mixture into the prepared pan.

• Bake in the oven for 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.

• Leave the cake in the oven for about 5 minutes with the oven door slightly ajar.

• Remove the pan from the oven.

• Remove the cake from the pan and let it cool down on a metal rack.

• Cut the cake when it has completely cooled down.

Homemade Tofu

Before Steaming:                                                                 After Steaming:

We love tofu as they are soft and silky. Normally we would steam it, flavour it with some light soy sauce and sprinkle some fried shallots on it. At other times, we would steam it with marinated minced meat on top. We have also deep fried tofu and ate it with chili and tomato sauce. Most of the time, we add tofu into stir-fried mixed vegetable dishes or into soups. We have also braised fish with deep-fried tofu.

Another way of using tofu is to make it into a savoury snack for afternoon tea, to be eaten with chili or tomato sauce. It is easy to make with ingredients easily available in our refrigerator or larder.

Ingredients:

• 2 polka dotted ikan tenggiri about 1 1/2 ft long
• 2 pieces of soft tofu measuring 3 inches by 3 inches
• 2 eggs, Grade A
• 1 small carrot about 5 inches long
• 3 stalks of spring onions
• 3 pieces of dried Shiitake mushrooms, soaked (Optional)
• 3 tbsp corn flour
• Salt and pepper to taste

• Batter:
• 5 tbsp rice flour
• 2 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Water to mix the ingredients into a desired consistency (not too thick nor too runny) for coating the tofu for frying.

Method:

• Fillet the fish.
• Scrap the flesh from the skin.
• Lightly chop up the fish meat to form a paste. Set aside.
• Mash up the tofu and put it into a mixing bowl.
• Add the fish paste into the bowl and mix up it up with the tofu.
• Break the eggs into the bowl and mix them up with the tofu and fish paste.
• Chop up the carrot and put it into the mixing bowl.
• Chop up the spring onions and put them into the mixing bowl.
• Chop up the Shiitake mushrooms and put them into the mixing bowl.
• Add the corn flour into the mixing bowl.
• Mix up all the ingredients until they are well-combined. (May add more corn flour if the tofu-fish batter is too soft.)
• Grease and line a 7 inch x 7 inch pan.
• Prepare a steamer with water. Boil the water.
• Pour the ingredients into the pan.
• Put the pan into the steamer when the water has boiled and steam the batter for about 20 minutes until it is cooked.
• Once cooked, remove the pan from the steamer.
• Let the tofu cool down completely.
• Cover the pan with cling wrap and place the pan in the refrigerator overnight.
• Remove the pan from the refrigerator.
• Remove the tofu from the pan and remove the parchment paper from the tofu.
• Cut the tofu into desired shapes and sizes.
• Prepare the batter.
• Heat up a non-stick pan with some oil.
• Coat the tofu with batter and fry them till golden brown.
• Serve them with chili or tomato sauce.

Breaded Brinjal

Brinjal is found abundantly in our morning markets, night markets and farmers' markets. We can make many excellent dishes out of it. For example, it is one of the main ingredients in vegetable curry. We can also add brinjal to other types of curry like the fish curry and the dhal curry. Brinjal tastes good too when stir-fried with minced meat. We love deep-fried brinjal, drizzled with sauteed garlic and light soy sauce. Steamed brinjal, drizzled with sauteed garlic and light soy sauce is yummy too. Another way of cooking brinjal is to stuff it with minced fish meat or minced fish-pork meat to be made into one of the ingredients for yong tau foo.

I tried creating something new with the brinjal for my family. I cut and stuffed two slices of brinjal with minced fish meat, rolled it in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and deep-fried it. It turned out to be very tasty and I will definitely make it again.

Ingredients:

• 1 pc 1-ft long brinjal, preferably a fat one
• 150 g fish meat (I use Tenggiri.)
• 2 stalks green onion
• 2 pc chili padi
• All-purpose flour, enough to coat all the stuffed brinjal
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 pc white bread, toasted and ground into breadcrumbs
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Cooking oil, for deep-frying

Method:

• Wash and slice the brinjal into 0.5 cm thickness. Soak the slices in water.

• Fillet the Tenggiri and scrap the meat from the skin.

• Grind or mince the fish meat.

• Add salt and pepper to the fish paste according to your taste.

• Cut the green onion into tiny pieces and add to the fish paste.

• Chop up the chili padi and add to the fish paste.

• Stir the fish paste so that all the green onion, chili padi, salt and pepper are mixed with the paste evenly.

• Take 2 slices of brinjal of equal size and stuff them with the fish paste. Repeat this step until all the brinjal and fish paste are used up.

• Heat up the kuali or frying pan with oil.

• Take a piece of stuffed brinjal, roll it in the flour and coat it with the beaten egg. Then, coat it with breadcrumb. Repeat this until all the stuffed brinjal has been coated with flour, egg and breadcrumb.

• Drop the brinjal slowly into the kuali or frying pan when the oil is hot.

• Let the brinjal turn golden brown on one side before turning it.

• Once the other side has also turned golden brown, scoop up the brinjal onto a wire mesh for the oil to run off.

• Note: Do not stir the brinjal or the breadcrumb will drop off.

• The breaded brinjal can be eaten on its own or with chili sauce.