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16 Feb 2021

Make Your Own: Chicken and Duck Andouille Sausage

By Faizah

I’ve made quite a few recipes by Emeril Lagasse which called for andouille sausages. I have never seen halal andouille in any of the upmarket grocers or deli stores in KL, and even when an ad for a non-halal deli pops up in my feed (need to do better, Facebook -_-) I rarely see andouille in their product list. So I usually would substitute with other sausages, such as chorizo (hard to find), Italian or any other smoked sausage.

At one point I wanted to try making my own andouille sausages. I’ve looked up a possible recipe from Emeril. Rudy even got me a gorgeous Zwilling Twin Smoker set. I was pretty new to cooking at the time, and was still very wary about taking liberties and modifying recipes, so my inability to find a substitute for file powder called for in the recipe basically ground the project to a halt. Almost seven years later, having more cooking experience and exposure to recipes from so many more chefs and home cooks, I finally got around to making my own andouille, based on this really inspiring recipe by Hank Shaw.

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20 Jan 2021

Breadmaker Roti Benggali

By Faizah

When I was a kid, on weekends when we went to visit my brother in boarding school, we’d stop by a market in Batu Enam to buy Bengali bread rolls filled with kaya. The bread was simple, soft but not milky, and the kaya was the cheapo diluted type unlike the fancy gourmet ones we see which uses premium ingredients. But I remembered how warm and fragrant they were, freshly baked just in time for afternoon tea, and one roll was never enough.

The basic Benggali bread can be shaped into a plain sandwich loaf, or portioned into rolls with your preferred fillings. This was my tribute to the kaya rolls from my childhood, and gosh these were so darn good, despite the rather ugly shapes. I’m very happy with the flavor but still tweaking the rest times, so will be updating this recipe with new instructions and pictures from time to time.

Based on the recipe from Dari Dapur. Don’t forget the black coffee. ⁣

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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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10 Jan 2021

Make Your Own: Fish Stock

By Faizah

When I order fish and seafood from @faharseafood I usually ask for the grouper to be filleted, and the fillets will be delivered along with the head and bones. After a few rounds of orders, I accumulated quite a few sets of these, and I felt that it would’ve been such a waste to just throw them away. So I decided to do what I usually do when given a bunch of bones from any animal: make stock.

This recipe based by the one from Hank Shaw interestingly uses typically East Asian ingredients like konbu and dried mushrooms, to infuse a huge load of umami into the stock. I subbed the white wine with rice vinegar diluted with white grape juice, and I feel that this makes the stock less fishy yet packed with flavor.

Will be making quite a few dishes to use up the stock in the next few weeks.

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01 Jan 2021

Ramen Eggs (Ajitsuke Tamago)

By Faizah

Having made the chashu as part of the toppings for my ramen, next thing to make are the eggs. I used the leftover chashu braising liquid as a marinade, but if this is not available and you simply want to make the eggs on their own, you only need just a few ingredients. Got the from-scratch recipe from Soonkyeong Youngest, modified with permissible ingredients.

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29 Dec 2020

Chicken Chashu for Ramen

By Faizah

We were gifted a set of DIY ramen, which came with 5 portions worth of noodles, broth paste and chili seasoning. I’d like to prepare this for the family, but obviously I shouldn’t waste the opportunity by serving a bowl of noodles in soup and nothing else. Toppings were definitely required.

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26 Dec 2020

Breadmaker Kicked-up Dinner Rolls

By Faizah

I wanted some bread to go with the Honey-butter Baked Chicken I made, so I decided to make some of my own.  These fluffy, buttery dinner rolls are not too sweet or flavorful on their own, great for soaking up pot roast gravy or soups.  I just wish I had some soup or gumbo to go with these!

Based on the recipe by Emeril Lagasse. Updated on 26 Dec 2020 with new pictures. I’ve also modified the recipe for the breadmaker and added a few shortcuts.

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06 Dec 2020

Swedish Meatballs

By Faizah

Been ages since we’ve been to IKEA. Window shopping or filling our carts with cool stuff we don’t need is fun, sure, but usually the highlight of our IKEA trips is usually lunch at their cafeteria. We’d order the usual staples like the fried chicken wings, grilled salmon, and of course the meatballs.

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06 Dec 2020

Make Your Own: Vegetable Stock

By Faizah

Wanted to make Swedish Meatballs, which called for vegetable stock for making that awesome brown sauce. One could probably buy a box from upmarket grocers like Village Grocer or B.I.G., but it costs close to 10 ringgit for a half-litre box of basically veggie scraps simmered in water. Looking through the ingredients list and seeing stuff like sugar, glucose, and a bunch of chemicals I can’t even recall, I figured I’d make it myself using stuff pulled from my fridge.

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