Kajang Style Satay

Kajang Style Satay

Last week, I suddenly had a craving for satay.  I searched through cookbooks I brought from Malaysia and found Kajang satay.  Immediately I set to work.  Of course, as usual, I was lacking ingredients.  But being used to such situation, I began substituting or skipping all the ingredients that I did not have.

Main ingredient: Chicken (of course the thighs or legs)
Next, I saw lemon grass.  The space between my brows creased.  This is one of the ingredients that is hard to get here.  It is not something that I can just run out and cut a stalk or two from the neighbor's house.  Nor can I run to the nearby store to buy them.  In other words, they are hard to come by here.  Immediately after lemon grass, another ingredient that made my frown worst was galangal.  Galangal is almost non existence here.  Unlike lemon grass, which I can buy in the next town, galangal is not something that I can get hold of easily.

But satay without these two essential ingredients is no longer satay.  I decided, however it turns out, just let it be.  So, I substituted lemon grass with daun limau purut and galangal with ginger.  Luckily, I have the rest of the spices, including assam paste (tamarind).  I ground and mixed all the ingredients together to make the marinade.  The chicken was cut into small chunks thrown into the marinade. and left it overnight.

The next day, I eagerly got myself readied and began working on the sauce.  I skip the peanuts just because peanuts here doesn't taste good.   The usual peanuts brands I can get are Planters or some generic brands.  So, I wanted to come out with something without using peanuts.  And what I made was more of a sambal sauce.  Oh well.  It was not the best but it didn't turn out too bad.

Grilling the meat:
After I skewered all the meat, I heated up the broiler of my oven and turned up heat for the grill pan.  Using these two methods, I began grilling the satay with a splash of oil.  Coconut fat would have been perfect, but that is another thing that is hard to come by.

All in all, the satay didn't turn out too bad, I must say.  I only regret the sauce.  I guess, I will need more experiments to come up with something more acceptable.

Tea Eggs

I love the smell of tea eggs.  I still remembered going to the malls in Malaysia (where I grew up) smelling tea eggs simmering away in one of the stall.  My pace automatically slowed down and my eyes would search for the huge pot with those delicious eggs.  Those are such nostalgic memories from my childhood.

Today, I woke up remembering those eggs.  Immediately after I sent the kids off to school, I ransack my kitchen to see if I have all the ingredients necessary for this scrumptious dish.  Sometimes, I think my motivation is really powered my appetite.  And "yes" I have all the ingredients except dry mandarin orange peel (but I have fresh one---hahaha!):

8 hard boil eggs
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1 dry mandarin orange peel (I usually try to dry some but haven't done so)
tea leaves (I use jasmine just because it is the only chinese tea leaves I have)
1 bag of tea bag (I got from a friend which is black tea with a hint of spice---perfect!)
1/4 cup soy sauce
sugar and salt (if the soy sauce is not salty enough since I use low sodium soy sauce)
water

Anyway, besides the orange peel, which I toasted it slightly before adding into the pot with all ingredients except the eggs.  I had already boiled 8 eggs for this purpose.  While the pot with all my aromatic ingredients are coming to a boil, I cracked the boiled eggs viciously still taking care not to break the apart.  What I wanted was the trademark crackled pattern on the eggs when soaking the eggs into the dark brown ingredients.  The idea was to keep the crack eggs without peeling them all simmering in the aromatic soy sauce base liquid for at least 6 hours so that the color and taste seeped into the eggs coloring the part that was cracked.  I haven't done this for a long long time, I may even cracked the eggs too much...hahaha!

This is definitely one of my favorite dish, but I am not sure if the kids would enjoy them as much as I do.  As I am writing this, the aroma of the spice kept teasing me to check on it.  To me this is one of the smell of home.  But this may not be true for people here in my little country side town, where barberque prevails.  Probably half the population here do not even know how star anise smells.

I think I will go check the eggs, though this dish is really a hands off dish.  But the smells is just to tempting.  It is just like a little kid asking me to give a hug.  I must go to see this little baby one more time.

The eggs while slowly simmering away!

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberries are almost to the end of the season.  Not wanting to miss out eating strawberry shortcake, I hurriedly secure myself some strawberries, whipping cream and fresh eggs.  Those are the essential ingredients for a delicious strawberry shortcake.  I made the genoise the night before and left it overnight after slathering the cake with some syrup.  This will keep the cake soft and moist.
The next day, I whipped up the cream with some homemade strawberry jam and layered it in the middle of the cake then whipped up another batch of cream for covering the outside of cake.  My cake was done.  Nothing beats a slice of this sumptuous cake with a cup of mint tea from my garden.

Apricot tarts

There are days when I just wanted to eat some really refreshing tartlets.  And it just so happen I had some frozen apricots, so, I decided to make some apricot tarts.  This is a mix and match recipe.  Basically, it is pie dough for the shell, custard for the fillings and of course half apricot for the topping.  Just put all together and bake in the oven, we have tartlets.  I glazed them with a little strawberry jam for extra shine...hahaha.  Probably better if I use apricot jam, but I didn't have any.
Anyway, it was not as delicious as I have hope it to be, because the apricot was too sour.  I should have cook the apricot in syrup before using it.  I will try it again next time.  But overall, it is not that difficult to make.  Have a try.

Sables - Butter cookies

I made this a while ago...one of kids' favorites.  They have been bugging me to make it, but I was too lazy to do so.  I got this recipe from American Test Kitchen.  In my opinion, this is one of the best butter cookie recipe available.  Anyway, the recipe is quite simple, but the process of making them is not so straight forward, especially when making the checkered ones and the spiral ones.  But the effort is well worth it when I see the kids' face.  They absolutely love it.
Actually, when I was young, I saw these cookies in a recipe book (probably from one of my grandfather's collections), but I had never tasted them.  I always wanted to try them.  So, there you go...just make it!

Sanma with ground peanuts coating（サンマのにつけピーナッツあえ）

When we were living in Kobe, Japan there was a store in Motomachi that sells Iwashi no gomaae (Sardines with ground sesame).  It was so delicious.  There is absolutely no way we can get it here in Cheney, WA.  I wanted to recreate it here at home.  But all I could get is frozen sanma.  It is several times bigger, but taste really good when stew.  So, I thought perhaps I can do the same as iwashi.  The second problem, toasty flavorful kin goma (golden sesame) is hard to come by here (actually none at all).  I have not seen it in any of the asian grocers here.  Thus, the next substitution would be using peanuts which are also several times bigger than sesame.  Hahaha...I guess big is good (as the saying goes in America!)  We call this sanma no nitsuke pinattsuae.

I used the same process as stewing iwashi basically, which is to simmer it in a little vinegar together with sliced ginger until it is reduced to more than half.  Then add soy sauce, sake and sugar in equal portion (enough to cover the fish) and continue shimmering until the liquid is about 1/4 of the original.  Shut the heat and add lots of ground peanuts.  Basically, the peanuts will absorb the rest of the liquid and become pasty so that it will coat the fish.  Done!

It actually turned out good.  I still need a few adjustment such as making it sweeter (my preference).  So, next time I'll add a little more sugar.  Also, frozen fish can be be quite fishy, so, it is important to preprocess the fish with vinegar and ginger.  Do not skip this step!

And this dish can keep for a few weeks, so, it will be a good emergency food.  I'll probably try to make this for shogatsu next year.  Hahaha!!!

Molasses Cookies

I read a article a couple days ago about a miracle mineral that is good for our body---that is magnesium. It is a mineral that is absolutely vital for our body, which contribute to "nearly 300 biochemical reactions...within our body," (quoted from Organicauthority.org).  So with this in mind, I wanted to use ingredients that is rich in magnesium for baking.  And one thing came to mind---blackstrap molasses.  It is available widely in grocery stores, though I personally prefer the one without sulfur in it.  The recipe I used is from Martha Stewart's Molasses Cookies.  As usual, I made a few minor changes in the recipe to suit my family's taste.

Firstly, I often find recipes from the US are often too sweet.  In this case, I reduce the sugar to 1/3 cup of sugar.  And I skip some of the spices, mostly for personal taste.  I prefer less spiciness in cookies.  Then I set to work.  This is a fairly simple recipe.  I didn't even work up a sweat.  Once the dough is formed, it needs to be refrigerated for at least half an hour.

I form it into a ball and press it down with a glass with flat bottom to about 1/4 in thick and about 1 1/2 in apart.  And into a pre-heated over of 375 F for about 13 minutes (I prefer cookies a little crispy).  I guess this is probably why the color of the cookies is a little darker than Martha Stewart's.  Nevertheless, I like it.  It is definitely a good cookie to have with a cup of milk.  Not to mention, it is loaded with complex flavor and essential minerals such as magnesium.