Bubur Pulut Hitam and Apam Balik

Salam viewers,
Alhamdulillah, today marked the 5th day of Ramadhan.... For the past few days we have been spending our time in Coleraine since hubby is working over the Bank Holiday weekend. The weather has been great for the past 2 weeks and we have been making trips to the beach on a daily basis. Even though I have been living here for number of years, not once have i seen so many people swim in the sea with exception of this year.

Well back to the recipe for yesterday and today;

Bubur pulut hitam

Ingredients
I cup black glutinous rice ( soak for more than 12 hours)
150gm palm sugar
1 tsp salt
200 ml coconut milk
An extra cooked 200 ml of coconut milk. (optional)
1 pandan leaf

Methods

1. Boil the glutinous rice with pandan leaf and water until it is soft and well cook.
2. Add palm sugar and salt.
3. Add coconut milk. Keep on stirring until mixture reach to boiling point.
4. It is now ready to be served with additional cooked coconut milk.

Apam Balik ( for 2 people)

Ingredients
1 cup self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate
3/4 cup milk
1 medium size egg
1 tbs melted butter
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
butter for greasing

garnishing
1/2 cup roasted, chopped nuts
1 small tin of sweet corn
1 small tin of ready made custard
sugar

methods

Mix all ingredients excepts the garnishing.
Heat the frying pan and grease it with butter.
Spread the batter thinly on the frying pan like a pancake and garnish the top of the pancake with the garnishing.

Pengat pisang

I have to say, this is one of of my favourite traditional desserts. It is one of the few sweet ones that is being cooked regularly in mak's place. It is also one of the earliest dessert that I learnt to make when I was young.

Ingredients ( for 2 people)
3 bananas
200 ml coconut milk
1/2 cup chopped palm sugar
1 tsp of salt
1 pandan leaf

methods
1. Peel the bananas and cut into smaller pieces.
2. Mix coconut milk, palm sugar, pandan leaf and salt and cook under slow fire.
3. Once the coconut milk started to boil, add the bananas.
4. turn off fire once the bananas are soft.

Kuih Cara

I have to say, this dessert is one of the earliest dessert I learnt to make. I remember making them when I was 10 with our helper in the house. Mak as I remember fondly even until now, rarely make any sweet dessert and in fact, she is more a savoury person.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup of plain flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

200 ml coconut milk

100 ml pandanus juice ( taken from 4 leaves and blitz with water)

oil for greasing the pan/mould

sugar to fills the cakes

Methods

1.Add plain flour, salt, eggs, coconut milk and pandanus juice into the blender and blend them.

2. Sift the mixtures.

3. Grease the kuih cara mould with oil and heat the mould under slow fire.

4. Fill the mould halfway and and add 1/2 tsp of sugar into the mould ( make sure the sugar does not hit

    the side of the mold to prevent the sugar from being caramelise. Afterward, fill up the mould with the 

    rest of the batter until it is  full.

5. Cover the mould with the covering pan to speed the process of cooking.

6. It takes 6-8 minutes for the cake to cook.

Che' mek molek

The cuisine is well known in Kelantan and Terengganu. It tastes very much like kuih keria only that the sugar is enclosed within the dessert.
I have made a little alteration to the original recipe simply because of different type of sweet potatoes used in this variation in comparison to Malaysian sweet potatoes. The British one has more water; hence boiling the potatoes will make the dough too sticky.

Ingredients

1 kg sweet potatoes
2 cups of plain flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup of sugar cane
oil for frying

Method
1. Bake the sweet potatoes on its skin in the oven 180 celcius for 1 hour.
2. Once they are cold, peel the skin and mash the potatoes.
3. Add flour and make a dough.
4. Make an oval ball size 3 cm from a dough. Make a hole and fill the middle of the ball with 1/2 tsp of sugar.
5. Fry the balls under slaw fire so that the sugar in its cavity is cooked.
6. Enjoy the food.

ramadhan

Ramadhan comes again this year.... As last year, this Ramadhan will be a long one since it happens during summer month. Start at 3 am and break fast at 10pm... It is definitely going to be a challenging one for us. Last year, I have tried to challenge myself to come with one traditional dessert per each ramadhan day. Sadly to say, i have only managed to come with 15 desserts out of 30 fasting days. This year... Insya-Allah I will try again.... But this time I will blog about it with each passing day... so please keep this page open if you are interested with the recipes.

Salam Ramadhan to all the readers out there... May this Ramadhan bring us more takwa and closer to Him and to each other... Insya-Allah.

5:2 diet

Ever since I have passed 30 years of age, maintaining my weight has become an issue... I could no longer eat as much as I used to.... In fact as one's age climbs, the metabolism is slowing down and being at home; it makes things even more difficult ( yes ! I tend to cook and bake more to fill in my free time....)

The discovery of 5:2 diet certainly gives you peace of mind... Alhamdulillah being a Muslim this works brilliantly since you could collect pahala along with helping you to maintain weight.

The 5:2 means 5 days of normal eating regimen and two days of restriction of calories ( 500 kCal for women, and 600 kCal for men). It is certainly diet for people who loves her food. The easy way of doing it is to fast on Monday and Thursday and to eat normally for the rest of the week....

To boost my confident with this new diet, I have recently purchased a new book 'The fasting day Cook Book'... I have tried two of the recipes yesterday... and all i have to say... it is absolutely divine!

KLEFTIKO... ' traditional Greek recipe' ( for 4 people), 350 kCal

Ingredients

8 lamb chops
2 lemons
1 tbs dried oregano
2 tbs olive oil
2 onions cut into 4
2 bay leaves
150 ml dry white wine ( I replaced this with juice of white grapes)
150 ml stock

1. Marinate the lamb with lemon juice. oregano, salt and pepper for few hours.... (i only did mine for 1 hour though).
2. heat the olive oil on the pan and fry the lamb on high heat until it browns on both sides.
3. transfer the lamb into the shallow dish/ pyrex, add the rest of the ingredients into the dish.
4. cover the dish with aluminium foil.
5. Roast the lamb for 160 degree celcius for 2.5 hours.
6. now enjoy the food!

I had this with chips and boiled asparagus...  the taste is almost like roast lamb only the meat is softer and nicer.

Tomato and peach salad with avocado salsa
195 kCal
serve 4

Ingredients

1 large ripe beef tomato (I replaced this with cherry tomatoes, and  I halved them)
2 large firm peaches, cut into small pieces ( I think you could replace this with mangoes if peaches is not in season)

salsa
1/2 small ripe avocado ( cube them)
2 spring onions (chopped them)
1 small red chilli (chopped them)
1 garlic clove crushed
1 1/2 tsp chopped coriander
1 1/2 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper

dressing
1 tbs caster sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
2 tbs olive oil

Mixed the salad with the avocado salsa. Drizzled the dressing on top of the salad...

Baju kurung: the final part of the dress...

Apologies for taking such a long time to update my blog.... the reasons being are because i was so busy with dresses' sewing for the little one. Alhamdulillah, all were worn during our little escapade home quite recently.

In between these dresses projects, I was also caught up with bakings birthday cakes.... travelling to Paphos, Nice and quite recently to Lake Como.... Lastly but not least was our annual holiday to home. We had such a hectic time at home, between a visit to Jakarta and Bandung and trying to squeeze an engagement party for my little sister.... Alhamdulillah, it all went well and 2 weeks after being back from KL we are still feeling down missing home.

Well, as promised, this is going to be the final part of the making of baju kurung.

1. line the pesaks and the kekek on the floor, making sure the kekek is facing the short/curve part of the pesak.

2. Draw an 'L' line 1 inch away from the outside border of the kekek.

3. Sew the pesak to the kekek following the 'L' line . It will now look like this.

4. Do the same on the other side of the pesak following the 'L' line on the kekek.

5. Now, sew the two pesaks together starting from the middle 'L' point.

6. Line the (kekek+pesak) below the sleeve on the floor making sure the widest part of the sleeve lies on top of the (kekek+pesak).

7. draw an 'L' line on the kekek.

8. Sew the bottom part of the sleeve to the pesak and kekek. End the sewing at the middle point of 'L' on the kekek.

9. now, repeat the sewing on the other side of the sleeve.

10. sew the  2 bottom parts of the sleeves beginning from the middle 'L' point.

11. Repeat point 1-10 to form the left side of baju kurung.

12. Mark the shoulder line on the sleeves.

13. Mark the shoulder line on the body part of the dress. 

14. Now sew the body to the (sleeve+pesak) using the mark located on each fabric as a starting point.

15. repeat the sewing on the other side of the dress.

16. Finish the dress by hand stitching the bottom part of the sleeves and the dress with sembat stitching.

17. Congratulations.... you are finally done with making the top part of baju kurung. It is time to try it on in front of the mirror.