Japanese Pizza

This morning, I made Japanese pizza for the kids.  It is one of their favorite food.  When I first ate it, I never thought that bread spread with mayonnaise with sprinkle of bonito flakes, cheese and green onions can be so tasty.

I recommend it to anyone who had not try this.  The way I see it, it can be considered a complete meal for anytime, though we often have this for breakfast.

Roll Cake with Raspberry Cream fillings

Roll Cake with Raspberry Cream fillings




Roll cake is something I like to have every now and then.  The fluffiness of the sponge cake and the smooth creaminess with a hint of sweet tartness of the raspberry cream can cure any tiredness of the day.  At least that was what it does for me.  Thinking about that, I just couldn't wait to have a taste it.

So, yesterday, I decided to make one.  Good thing about roll cake is that it doesn't take long to make.  It only took me less than half an hour to bake it.  The smell of freshly baked cake gave a euphoric feeling.  It melted any stress within seconds.

After dinner, I whipped up the cream, add a few dollops of homemade raspberry jam and spread it all over the cake and rolled it up.  Then sliced it and served immediately with a dollop of raspberry compote and a cup of freshly brewed earl grey from Mariage.  Now, how can this not remove all the stress of the day?

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.