I was craving Auntie Anne’s jumbo sausage rolls the other day, so I felt inspired to make cheesy sausage rolls.
I wanted the bread rolls to be soft and buttery, so I used my roti paung recipe as a base. Here I purposely made them a bit more “junky”, using cheapo Ramly sausages and Chesdale processed cheese slices. However, we can always kick it up a notch and use premium sausages and real cheddar slices if we so choose.
Read MoreIt’s Ramadan and every few days or so we inevitably end up breaking fast with friends or family at one of the many wonderful iftar sessions, be it at restaurants and five-star hotels. I recently had for a lovely buka puasa with my former colleagues at Dua Sentral, where they brought in some absolutely delicious nasi Arab from Restoran Saba. After having easily two heaping plates of rice and lamb, I felt inspired to try out a Middle Eastern recipe for a change. There are different dishes I could try making – mandy, kabsah, haneeth, among others. Scouring around the Net for a recipe that didn’t seem too daunting, I found one chicken mandy recipe by the Queen of Sheba.
Read MoreRecently Rudy ordered a few items from Lolili’s Delights, which sells halal Chinese delicacies like bakkwa, chang, stuff that was completely inaccessible to us in the past. Among the few things we bought was the luncheon meat, and I wasn’t sure how best to use it.
Searched online and found this really simple, yummy recipe by Spice n’ Pans. Just watching this video and imagining how comforting this dish might be made me want to make it right away, so here we are.
Read MoreKak’mbang and I were just chilling out one day talking about food (because why not), and she mentioned this yummy looking recipe she found on a random can of F&N sweetened condensed creamer. Only the ingredients list was on the can, but spring rolls stuffed with bananas and grated coconut and drizzled with sweetened creamer? Heck yeah! The recipe was a bit of a treasure hunt to find, buried somewhere on F&N’s website, and last I checked the website no longer works, so I’m glad I have this written down here.
The original recipe was for regular fried spring rolls, but since Mummy is trying to watch her fat intake (as should I -_-), my version is air fried, and the results were still so so amazing. I highly recommend using pisang mas because of their wonderful sweetness and fragrant banana flavor, but just use whatever type you have on hand. Because the filling is rather wet, I separated 12 spring roll sheets upfront to speed up the wrapping process, and while working on one sheet, I covered the rest with a damp towel to prevent them from drying out. I also rolled the spring rolls a bit tighter to get more layers and prevent them from bursting.
Guaranteed to be a hit among kids and adults alike. Try it out!
Read MoreIt was the last few days of Ramadan, and things were reaaaally slowing down at work. As I was staring at my laptop screen wondering what work I should do for the day, an email came in from Nando’s with the subject line, “Take PERi-PERi sauce balik kampung this Hari Raya okay!” I clicked on it and found this recipe. It looked simple enough, and B.I.G. is just right there to get groceries from, so I decided to make it when I got home from work.
I made mine using my air fryer instead of the oven. I think I cut my chicken a bit too small, so that’s another thing I’d improve on next time. Super simple and healthy. Try it out!
Read MoreI bought a bunch of pisang mas last weekend, and they were quite green then so I thought they would last a while. By mid week they’ve started to become overripe, so Kak’mbang asked me to try out this recipe by Chef Kamarul from his book, Resepi 30 Minit Chef Kamarul. Overall recipes from his book look super simple yet promising in terms of yumminess, and I really do need to use up those bananas, so I gave this a go, with a few small changes.
Mummy doesn’t really like deep fried foods, so I made mine using an air fryer. I used red sugar instead of brown because it gives a richer flavor, although it does melt really fast and makes the bananas quite wet. Here’s a tip – be sure to separate out the spring roll sheets upfront, so that you can quickly assemble the spring rolls and chuck ’em in the air fryer. I made the mistake of (sloooowly) peeling the sheets as I went along, and because my banana mixture was wet, the first few that I assembled became rather soggy and burst during the cooking process. I also saved some time by using simple Nutella instead of making my chocolate sauce from scratch.
The results were lovely. The spring roll skin crisped very nicely in the air fryer, and the sweetness of the filling was just nice, letting the natural flavor of the bananas do most of the talking. A good snack ready to eat within 30 minutes!
Read MoreOthers 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 usually never get to see the entire cooking process).
Here it is, finally, in its entirety. The chicken broth pretty much forms the base of all the other components of this dish, so take your time with it and get it right. She used to finish cooking the chicken in the oven, but now the air fryer is a wonderful and much quicker alternative. I was also blown away to find out that she used lada keropok lekor in her chili salsa, so if you happened to have some extra tucked away in your fridge, don’t forget to use it. A must try!
Read MoreFound some quails at Tesco recently, and was really curious about them. I remembered that Chef Ammar had a quail recipe in his book, so I decided to grab a bag of ten birds. Making this dish marked a few firsts for me; first time preparing quails, and first time frying breaded stuff in the air fryer. One thing to note is that you need to coat the breaded birds with cooking spray evenly, and to spray generously, otherwise the breading would just come out dry and floury. The results were quite satisfying as the quails turned out lovely and crispy.
I had quite a few issues with the recipe the way it was written in the book (again, poorly written and virtually nonexistent editing), so I had to make up some stuff to fill in the gaps. Saffron boiled eggs didn’t even have saffron; just food coloring. In any case, I skipped the egg coloring step and fried almonds this time around, but overall it was an interesting dish to experience.
Read MoreYeah you read it right: air-fried. The other day I put my Philips HD 9220 airfryer up for sale via the Preloved group on Facebook, since I’ve had it for years and only used it less than 5 times. When one of the potential buyers asked me to test it to see if it still works, I tested it on some French fries, and after some thought I decided to keep the airfryer after all.
I personally find air-fried chicken to be much juicier than deep fried ones, and with just a drizzle of oil it can be just as crispy. This time I decided to try making some spicy wings to see if it is just as good as the regular deep fried ones. These turned out great. Just be careful with your cooking time; undercooking chicken is definitely not a good idea, but overcooking will result in pretty tough meat.
Yay for yummy, healthy (or healthiER, rather?) food!
Read MoreThis 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 without any starch, so that’s how Choc Snacking Night became a full-blown dinner. :p
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