Sweet, Soft and Fluffy Pandan Sandwich Loaf

I have lots of pandan plants at home. So, what better way than to make use of them to bake my bread. They give a very aromatic smell and the colour of the green is so sweet that it was a joy eating them. I used many pandan leaves in this bread; in fact 30 leaves in all. Though the juice is dark green, after mixing it with milk, the colour turned pastel thereby giving the bread a pastel green.

Ingredients

• 500 g bread flour
• 100 g castor sugar or you may reduce the amount slightly. (You may use brown sugar.)
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 3 tbsp milk powder
• 2 tsp yeast
• 100 ml pandan juice (from juicing 30 pandan leaves with some water)
• 170 - 180 ml lukewarm milk
• 2 eggs at room temperature, 1 for the dough and the other for brushing the dough balls before baking.
• 50 g butter at room temperature

Method

• Makes 2 loaves; one 450 g and the other 700 g.

• Prepare the pans. Grease the pans (8 inch x 4 inch x 4 inch and 9 inch x 4 inch x 4 inch) and line my pan with parchment paper for easy removal of the baked loaves.)

• First of all, activate the yeast - add a bit of the sugar to some of the lukewarm milk, stir the milk to dissolve the sugar and then sprinkle the yeast onto it. Stir.

• Once bubbles have formed (after approximately 10 minutes), the yeast mixture is ready for you to start making the loaves. 

• Pour about 90% of the lukewarm milk into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add more of the milk if the dough is hard.

• Pour in the pandan juice.

• Pour the yeast mixture into the mixing bowl.

• Break the egg into the mixing bowl.

• Add the rest of the sugar.

• Add the salt.

• Pour in the flour.

• Add the milk powder.

• Start kneading until a dough ball is formed. Once that is achieved, add the butter.

• Continue to knead until the butter is incorporated into the dough.

• Continue to knead until the dough passes the window pane test.

• Oil a bowl.

• Transfer the dough into the oiled bowl, cover the bowl with a cling wrap and put a wet towel over the cling wrap. Let the dough proof until it is double in size.

• Slightly flour the table top. (I like to oil my table top.)

• Transfer the dough onto the table top. Punch down the dough.

• Roll the dough out into a long rectangular shape (horizontally).

• Cut the dough into 2 pieces, 1 of 450 g and the other 700 g.

• Shape them into balls.

• Take 1 dough ball. Press it down and spread out into a rectangle; the length according to the length of your pan.

• Roll up the dough and place it into your pan. Repeat the same with the other dough.

• Cover the pan with a cling wrap and let the doughs proof until double in size.

• Break an egg into a bowl and add a tablespoon of milk to it. Mix.

• Brush the doughs with the egg mixture just before baking.

• Bake the doughs in a pre-heated oven at 175 deg C for 30 minutes.

• Remove the loaves from the pan immediately after baking and let them cool down on a wire rack.

Spicy Garlicky Lemongrass Chicken

We can find so many aromatic herbs in our markets and supermarkets - like the torch ginger flower (bunga kantan), lemongrass (serai), ginger leaves (daun hail) and so on. These can really make our dishes very fragrant and more appetising. I have been using a lot of lemongrass in my cooking and the resulting dishes were highly approved by my family. In fact my son told me to cook this Garlicky Lemongrass Chicken more often as it is so delicious. So I have been cooking this dish quite often. It is very easy to cook it. Most important is to marinate the chicken pieces well for at least 1/2 an hour in advance. But I usually marinate my meat 1 day in advance for a very tasty meat dish.

Ingredients:

• 400 g chicken meat (You may use any part of the meat - the breast or the thigh. You may use bone-in or deboned chicken.)
• 1/2 tsp pepper powder
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce (or more for a more salty dish)
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 3 stalks of lemongrass
• 3-5 chili padi (depending on how spicy you want your dish to be.)
• 6 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 4 tbsp cooking oil

Method:

• Cut up chicken into cubes.

• Marinate the chicken cubes with pepper, light soy sauce and oyster sauce.

• Cut lemongrass into 1-inch length. Smash the lemongrass to emit more fragrance from it.

• Cut up the chili padi into small pieces.

• Chop the garlic.

• Heat up cooking oil in a kuali.

• Add the lemongrass and chili padi to the kuali and sauce them till fragrant.

• Add the chopped garlic and sauté till fragrant but not too brown.

• Add chicken cubes.

• Fry till they are cooked.

• Add the dark soy sauce to the kuali.

• Fry to mix the dark soy sauce with the other ingredients in the kuali.

• Dish up.

Raisin Loaf

My brother-in-law and his daughter went for a holiday in China and visited a vineyard where the grower had sun dried his grapes to form raisins. They gifted me with a packet of raisins resulting in me baking a raisin loaf for my breakfast. The loaf was soft and slightly sweet. The raisins were crunchy when I bit into them.  

Ingredients:

• 200 ml warm milk
• 200 ml warm water
• 50 g sugar
• 8 g yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 100 ml melted butter (I use salted butter. Add 1 tsp salt if you are using unsalted.)
• 700 g bread flour
• 100 g raisins

Instructions:

• Activate the yeast:

• Add warm milk to a bowl.
• Add warm water to the bowl
• Add sugar to the bowl.
• Add instant yeast to the bowl.
• Stir and wait for 5-10 minutes for bubbles to be formed.

• Once the yeast has been activated, add salt, egg, melted butter and bread flour to the bowl.

• Knead till window pane is achieved.

• Grease a clean bowl and transfer the dough to it. Cover the bowl with a cling wrap.

• Once the dough has doubled in size, transfer it to your counter top.

• Punch down the dough to degas.

• Form the dough into a ball.

• Roll out into a rectangular dough.

• Spread raisins evenly across the dough.

• Roll up the dough and divide into 3 parts of equal weight.

• Take each part and roll into a long roll.

• Braid the 3 long rolls.

• Place the braided dough into a 9 inch x 4 inch x 4 inch pan which has been greased and lined with parchment paper.

• Cover the pan and let the dough to  double in size.

• Meanwhile pre-heat your oven to 180 deg C.

• Once the dough has doubled in size, egg wash them.

• Bake them for 30 minutes. (Tent your pan with aluminium foil if your oven is too hot and the top of the loaf is turning dark too soon.)

• When baked, remove the loaf from the pan immediately and transfer it to a metal rack to let it cool down. Only then you may slice the loaf.

• Enjoy.

Green Onion Chinese Pancake

 

Green Onion Chinese Pancake is a savoury unleavened flatbread. It is flaky on the outside and soft on the inside. There are 2 ways to obtained the flaky layers - rolling and fold the dough (oiling each fold) to form many layers or rolling the dough, shaping it into circles and flattening it. I have used the second method to make the pancake. To make the dough, we only need flour, water, oil and salt. For the fillings, we need green onion, pepper, salt and a little bit of flour. This pancake is very versatile; it can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It can be eaten on its own or with curry. We can also freeze up the pancakes and take out the required pieces to be fried whenever we want to eat them. 

Ingredients:

• Dough:
• 500 g all-purpose flour
• 300 g warm water
• 25 g oil
• 10 g salt

• Fillings:
• 100 g green onion
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 25 g all-purpose flour
• 50 g heated oil

Method:

• Dough:

• Add all ingredients for making the dough into a mixing bowl.

• Knead till a smooth dough is formed.

• Rest the dough for 10 minutes.

• Divide the dough into the number of pieces you desire. (I divide it into 9 pieces.)

• Grease a container.

• Shape each piece into a ball and put it into the container.

• Brush each dough ball with oil to prevent them from sticking to each other.

• Rest the dough balls for 30 minutes so that it is easier to roll them out later.

• While the dough balls are resting, prepare the fillings.

• Fillings:

• Wash and chop up the green onions.

• Add the chopped green onions to a bowl.

• Add all-purpose flour, salt and pepper to the bowl.

• Mix up the ingredients.

• Pour heated oil over the ingredients. Stir to mix up the oil and other ingredients.
• Divide the fillings into 9 equal portions. (This will prevent a shortage or an excess in the end.)

• Assembly:

• Take a dough ball. Roll it out into a circle.

• Spread the fillings on it.

• Roll up the dough to form a long roll.

• Take the long roll and roll it up into a circle like in the 6th photo.

• Flatten it to form a round flat dough of about 7 inches.

• Heat up a pan.

• Transfer the prepared dough onto the pan (there is no need to grease the pan as the pancakes are oily) and fry till the dough is cooked on both sides.

• Note:

• If you do not wish to fry the pancakes immediately, you may freeze them up.

• Put the fresh/raw pancakes onto a non-stick parchment paper. Put another piece of parchment paper on top followed by another piece of pancake. Repeat till all the pancakes have been layered between each parchment paper.

• Keep the stack of pancakes in a zip lock bag and put the bag into the freezer.

• When you want to eat them, just take each piece out from the freezer and onto the frying pan without defrosting it.

Claypot Tofu with Tomatoes and Mushrooms

Sequence of Cooking:

I have seen this dish being cooked on Instagram and Facebook. Looking at the ingredients, I was sure that the dish would be appreciated by my husband and children. True enough, all of them love it. It is also suitable for vegetarians.

Although no measurement is given, the dish looks easy enough to cook. Since then I had cooked this dish a few times to try out with different quantities of the various ingredients. The recipe below is the result of these trials.

Ingredients:

• 400 g tomatoes, cubed
• 1 packet enoki mushroom (2 would have been better), remove ends
• 4 pcs of large brown button mushroom, sliced
• 1 box of tofu, cut into pcs
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup of water
• 1 tbsp black vinegar
• 1/2 tsp pepper powder
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• Cornflour slurry (2 tbsp cornflour + 4 tbsp water)
• Garnishing - green onion

Method:

• Add cooking oil to claypot. Let it heat up.

• Add tomatoes to the claypot. Fry.

• Add salt.

• Add water. Let boil.

• Add enoki mushroom to 1 side and button mushroom to the other. Add tofu either on top of the mushrooms or to one side next to the mushrooms.

• Beat egg and add it to the claypot.

• Add pepper, black vinegar and sesame oil. (Dont hv to stir.)

• Thicken the sauce with corn flour slurry and garnish the tofu with tomatoes and mushrooms with green onion.

• Serve hot with white rice.

Stirfried Chicken with Lemon

Lemons have many uses; we can make lemonade from them, bake with them, cook with them and decorate with them. Adding lemon to any dish makes it tangy. The tangy taste can really whet one's appetite and makes one want to eat more during a meal.  I have made Tangy Roast Chicken before. However, this is the first time I have stirfry chicken with lemon. Usually, I will cook chicken curry, braise chicken, stew chicken, bake/airfry/roast chicken and cook chicken soup. Adding lemon to my stirfried chicken dish was to create a new dish for the family. 

 Ingredients:

• 400 g chicken breast
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp oyster sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper powder
• 1 tsp cornflour
• 1 lemon
• slice 1/2 of the lemon (keep a few pieces for decoration)
• squeeze out 2 tbsp juice of the other half
• 3 tbsp cooking oil
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 5 tbsp water
• 1 stalk of green onion (cut the green part into small pieces for garnishing the dish)

Method:

• Cube the chicken breast.

• Marinate chicken breast with light and dark soy sauces, oyster sauce, salt, pepper powder and cornflour for at least half an hour. (I marinated the chicken for 2 hours.)

• Heat up the wok with cooking oil.

• Add the chopped garlic and sauté it till it is fragrant.

• Add the marinated chicken.

• Stir fry the chicken till it is almost cooked, adding water in the process to keep the chicken moist.

• Add the lemon slices and continue to stir fry until the chicken is cooked.

• Add lemon juice and give the chicken a quick stir.

• Dish out the chicken onto a serving plate.

• Decorate the dish with some lemon slices and sprinkle cut green onion on top.

Lemon Carrot Cake

I usually have bread and coffee for my breakfast. However, it can be quite boring eating bread day in and day out. So, I took to baking cakes and muffins for a change. I have been baking lots of carrot cake; usually plain ones or those with added walnuts because they are delicious and easy to bake. I have also baked Pineapple Carrot Cake which turned out to be very yummy. My latest was adding lemon juice and lemon zest to my batter to come up with Lemon Carrot Cake. It was tangy, soft and very moist. It was so delicious that it was loved by every member of my family.

This is an easy recipe. You can vary the ingredients according to your taste to make it lighter, more tangy or more aromatic. 

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 150 g sugar
• 115 g butter
• 80 ml milk
• 240 g all-purpose flour
• 3 g baking powder
• 1 g baking soda
• 80 g to 130 g carrot (130 g for a denser cake.)
• 50 ml to 60 ml lemon juice (60 ml for a more tangy cake.)
• Zest of 1 or 2 lemons (the latter for a more aromatic cake.)

Method:

• Preparation:
• Preheat oven to 175 deg C.
• Grease and line 8 inch x 4 inch x 4 inch pan.
• Melt butter. Set aside.
• Sieve flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
• Grate carrot. Set aside.
• Zest and juice the lemons. Set aside.

• Beat eggs and sugar till sugar dissolves.

• Add the melted butter and milk and continue to mix.

• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Use a spatula to mix till all is well combined.

• Add the carrots and lemon zest. Mix.

• Finally, add the lemon juice. Mix till all the ingredients are evenly mixed.

• Pour batter into prepared pan.

• Bake at 175 deg C for 45 minutes or when a skewer comes out clean when inserted at various parts of the cake.

• When baked, remove the cake from the pan and let it cool down on a metal rack. Slice it after it had cooled down.

• Enjoy.

Egg Custard / Kaya (Pandan)

I have lots of pandan plants growing in my garden. With eggs, santan and sugar available in my pantry it was easy for me to whip up the pandan egg custard to spread on my bread. I do not add any preservative egg custard. It is very fragrant and less sweet compared to those store-bought ones.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 160 g sugar
• 250 ml thick santan (either fresh or from the box)
• 3 long pandan leaves (for a lighter kaya) or 5 (for a darker one)

Method:

• To obtain the green colour:
• Cut the pandan leaves into small pieces.
• Take a bit of the santan and blend it with the pandan leaves.
• Sieve to obtain the pandan juice.

• Beat eggs and sugar with a whisk till the sugar is dissolved.

• Add the santan and pandan juice to the egg mixture. Mix.

• Strain the mixture to ensure that there are no impurities.

• Pour the mixture to the top pot of the double boiler.

• Add water to the bottom pot of the double boiler.

• Put on the top pot.

• Turn on the fire (low heat). A high heat will curdle the mixture.

• Stir the mixture till the egg custard is formed. If you find that your custard is not smooth, you may add all the custard to a blender and blitz it till it is smooth.

• Let the egg custard cool down completely before keeping it in a glass bottle. Refrigerate the egg custard. (It can easily last for 2 weeks in the refrigerator.)

Pineapple Carrot Cake

      

I was informed that carrot cake with pineapples is very delicious and I just had to try baking it to savour it. So, I went about experimenting with the ingredients that I have and the result was a delicious Pineapple Carrot Cake. It was moist and not too sweet. (I am always careful with sugar as I did not want my family to eat too sweet cakes.) I will be baking it again once I get hold of a can of pineapples as I did not have enough of it this time; the cake was gone in no time as I had my in-laws with me.

Ingredient:

Dry Ingredients:

• 250 g flour
• 7 g baking powder
• 4 g baking soda
• 3 g salt
• 3 g cinnamon powder

• 100 g chopped walnut (roasted)

Wet Ingredients:

• 130 g castor sugar
• 30 g brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 250 ml melted butter (can use corn oil)
• 225 g carrot
• 200 g pineapples (from the can)

Decoration:

• 12 pieces roasted walnut

Method:

• Whisk sugars and eggs till sugar has dissolved. Use all white sugar if you do not want a dark cake.

• Add melted butter and continue to mix till oil is incorporated.

• Add eggs, one at each time and whisk to incorporate each egg fully.

• Add flour and mix.

• Add carrots and pineapples. Mix well.

• Finally, add the chopped walnuts.

• Pour into 8 inch x 8 inch lined baking pan.

• Bake at a pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for 35 minutes or when a skewer inserted comes out clean.

• Immediately remove the cake from the pan and let it cool down completely before slicing it up.

• Enjoy.