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14 Jan 2021

Homemade Mexican Chicken Chorizo Sausage

By Faizah

Been wanting to make my own sausages for ages. The recipes I like to try out, usually from Emeril Lagasse, often call for different kinds of sausages, (Spanish or Portuguese) chorizo, andouille, or Italian (both hot and sweet). Sweet Italian sausages are still relatively easier to find, but not so much for the rest. In fact, I’ve never seen halal andouille anywhere. Add to that my new-ish resolution to take better control of what goes into the food I feed my family, so I finally got around it today.

This is a recipe for Mexican chorizo, based on the recipe from Honest Cooking. It’s usually not stuffed into casings, but I really wanted to start building my sausage-making skills, so I decided to stuff ’em anyway.

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27 Jul 2020

Luncheon Meat Gyoza

By Faizah

Bought halal chicken luncheon meat from Lolili. Each portion is about 300 grams, and I would usually use half of it in each of the luncheon meat dishes I make.

Okay maybe not all dishes. I made the super-yummy Sweet & Sour Luncheon Meat with Potatoes and I decided to use the whole thing.

Was looking at more ideas for using luncheon meat, and I’ve mentioned often my love for making and eating dumplings, so why not make some luncheon meat gyoza?

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19 Jul 2020

Sweet & Sour Chicken Luncheon Meat with Potatoes

By Faizah

Recently 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.

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25 Jun 2020

Momo (Nepali Dumplings)

By Faizah

So I was talking to my colleagues at work about food and dumplings and yummy stuff to eat, when Shu mentioned momos. Momos are Nepalese dumplings, she said, and you eat them with chutney.

To me, that sounded simply wonderful. I have always loved dumplings, and I also thoroughly enjoy making them especially the pleating part which I find most therapeutic. However, the dumplings I’m used to have always been the East Asian variety (mandu, wonton, gyoza), and I’ve tried Filipino molo which isn’t too different either. Now here I was, presented with a more exotic variety of dumpling, filled with flavorful spices and herbs like cumin and coriander and cilantro, and I simply couldn’t wait to experience it.

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14 Jun 2018

RayaFest 2018: Pulut Lepa Terengganu

By Faizah

Being from Terengganu, I grew up thinking fish is a natural, common ingredient in so many local favorites; nasi lemak with sambal ikan tongkol, karipap, pulut panggang (we call ’em pulut lepa)… but *of course* fish is the main ingredient!

Wait… you guys have nasi lemak with chicken rendang and *gasp* paru (beef lung)? Karipap kentang? What is this orange coconut nonsense in this pulut panggang?!! Well, imagine how shocked I was discovering what them West-coast folks are eating.  This was probably when I was about 7 or 8 years old.

Anyway, fast forward to today, I really miss the East-coast pulut panggang with fish filling.  On very rare occassions someone managed to find it here in KL and I would eagerly wolf them down, but they mostly turned out quite underwhelming.  But we compromised anyway, because it was better than nothing.

Finally I thought, why not make it myself and serve it for Hari Raya? I looked around for recipes online, and combined with Kak’mbang’s knowledge and experience we managed to make a decent Terengganu-syle pulut lepa which Mummy and my aunties (all Terengganu natives) accepted as truly authentic.

Here it is, if you ever feel like having some Terengganu fare.  Do note that this recipe makes a lot, so feel free halving it.  Leftover fish filling can also be used in yummy Terengganu-style karipap.

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18 May 2018

Ramadan Cooking: Peri-peri Sausage Rolls

By Faizah

Ramadan mubarak, everyone! I can’t believe a year went by so fast.  Since I get off work an hour early, again I try to make small dishes like appetisers and snacks for breaking fast.  I still have a few bottles of Nando’s PERi-PERi sauce in the larder, so I looked through their website for ideas.  These sausage rolls looked so yummy, so away I went to Ben’s Independent Grocer during my half-hour afternoon break to buy what I needed.

A few things I did for this recipe: I used chicken cheese sausages and breadcrumbs with Italian herbs, and I think this made the rolls “taste like pizza”.  I also used Italian flat-leaf parsley instead of English (I wasn’t sure which one I was supposed to use until I came back and watched the video), which had a stronger flavor I didn’t fancy too much, so I’ll use English parsley next time.  In the spirit of Ramadan I gave the dish a slight Middle Eastern twist and used habbatus sauda in place of black sesame seeds.

Mind you this recipe makes quite a lot of filling, and depending on how big your bread is you might end up with multiple rolls instead of just one as stated in the original recipe.  I used Massimo white sandwich loaf, and ended up with four rolls in total.

Overall this was a delicious snack, great for moreh and sahur, as well as for potlucks and afternoon tea.  Give it a try!

Based on the recipe by Nando’s UK.

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25 Mar 2018

Weekend Cooking: Pumpkin Soup

By Faizah

Mummy has her “seasons” of favorite foods.  Currently she’s into pumpkins, and every week we’d pick one up from the grocery store.  Kak’mbang has tried making all sorts of stuff with it, from sayur labu to pengat to bingka, and most recently delicious pumpkin pudding.  Mummy requested sayur labu every day, then got sick of it and moved on to pengat, and got sick of that one too.  She loves the bingka and the pudding, but these are desserts and Kak’mbang wanted more savoury options.  This was where I came in, and I offered to make pumpkin soup.

I looked through several options on the Internet, and found this one to be most interesting.  I’ve tweaked it here and there as always, using readily available ingredients and spices in my pantry.  The end result was a hearty, flavorful soup, a comforting dish which would have been excellent served with crusty bread.   I might use about 50% more chicken stock cubes next time and adjust the salt quantity accordingly, for even more oomph.  

Definitely making this again!

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