Main Course Recipes

  • Weekend Cooking: Mak Long’s Baked Macaroni (Makaroni Bakar)

    Weekend Cooking: Mak Long’s Baked Macaroni (Makaroni Bakar)

    I usually make my casseroles truly “Western-style” – full of ground meats, dried herbs like oregano, thyme and parsley, and a lot of cheese.  A while back Kak’mbang asked me to try making baked macaroni casserole “Malay-style,” which uses common local spices and eggs as the primary binding agent.  Every now and then I’d surf…

  • Braised Lamb Shoulder Chops Using Pressure Cooker

    Braised Lamb Shoulder Chops Using Pressure Cooker

    Kak’mbang has been yelling at me for leaving the lamb shoulder chops I bought some time ago to just sit in the freezer for ages.  With my crazy work schedule, I honestly have no energy to make anything involving too much work.  I found this braised recipe lamb shoulder chops recipe on allrecipes.com which got pretty…

  • Weekend Cooking: Kak’mbang’s Chicken Rice

    Weekend Cooking: Kak’mbang’s Chicken Rice

    Others may have their own personal preferences, but Rudy and I both agree that Kak’mbang’s chicken rice is really, really good.  This was another recipe that simply must be preserved for generations to come, but again I’ve always had trouble catching her in action (she’s such a ninja in the kitchen; dishes just magically appear and you…

  • Weekend Cooking: Kak’mbang’s Nasi Minyak with Chicken Korma

    Weekend Cooking: Kak’mbang’s Nasi Minyak with Chicken Korma

    Those who have had the privilege of tasting Kak’mbang’s cooking know that she’s a really good cook, so I am making it a personal mission to document her amazing recipes and to photograph her in action.  This is something that is surprisingly difficult, because she’s always done cooking by the time I get home from…

  • Weekend Cooking: Creamy Smoked Chicken Pie

    Weekend Cooking: Creamy Smoked Chicken Pie

    I went grocery shopping today, and was planning to just make some dumpling soup for dinner tonight.  Then I saw that they were clearing out their stock of smoked chicken at half price, so I did a quick search online for recipe ideas, and landed on this one.  I tweaked the recipe with what I had on…

  • Mary Ryan’s Chicken Pie

    Mary Ryan’s Chicken Pie

    This one has been on the back burner for a while (yes the kitchen expression was deliberate. Haha!), but I finally had all the ingredients and equipment I needed on hand.  I totally underestimated how much time it would take to make these, so what was originally supposed to be last night’s dinner ended up being…

  • Special Occasion: Manly Man Lasagna

    Special Occasion: Manly Man Lasagna

    I’ve been wanting to make this dish for years now, but every time I read the recipe, the list of ingredients and the sheer time and effort required to make this seem simply… daunting.  But this is the month of June and it is a certain someone’s special day, so I figured that it…

  • Chicken in a Box

    Chicken in a Box

    This event actually started off as a simple gathering among friends to share a whole pile of uneaten chocolates.  At the same time I wanted to try out Emeril’s fried chicken recipe, and needed guinea pi– I mean, food tasters.  Then after some thought I figured I wouldn’t be right serving just fried chicken…