Sangkaya Sunday!

I love to chill on Sunday. :)

I'm happy to say that i managed to get quite a lot of things done today.

Lemme see....besides having spring cleaned my room, i managed to try out this recipe for my fave Thai dessert - Sangkaya.

For those of you who're not familiar, sangkaya is in actual fact coconut egg custard.

My sunday sweet ;)
Mum and dad like the sangkaya too.

I saved so much. The ones selling here cost RM3.6 per piece. We can practically eat our hearts out. :P

I've googled around for a few recipes and I came up with my own.


~*~*~*Sangkaya recipe*~*~*~

Ingredients

1 cup coconut cream - i used reduced fat coconut milk
3/4 to 1 cup gula melaka (palm sugar)

5 eggs

1 pandan leave

1 small pumpkin (about 6 inches in diameter and 5 inches in height)

Method

1) Slice off the top of the pumpkin. Remove the seeds and most of the pulp.

2) Cut the pandan leave into small pieces, put into blender with about half cup water, blend well. Then squeeze blended pandan leaves and strain pandan juice through a sieve cloth.
3) Heat the coconut milk and palm sugar in a pot just enough to dissolve the sugar, creating a smooth mixture. Allow to cool to room temperature.

4) Beat the eggs. Mix with the cooled, sweetened coconut cream.

5) Add 3 tablespoons of pandan leave juice.

6) Strain mixture through a sieve cloth. Spoon out any bubbles that may have formed over the top.

7) Pour mixture into the hollowed out pumpkin. Steam over medium heat until custard is set. This will take approximately 1 hour, depending on the size and thickeness of the pumpkin. Let cool.

8) Slice the pumpkin into wedges as you would a cake. Store the rest in the fridge.

Bon appetit!

=)

Crazy 4 cupcakes

I'm really really stressed out.

I'm so damn sick of covering ppl's asses.

I think I'm getting an allergy soon. Oh wait, it's here already, it's just that it's getting more serious.

I am allergic to "idiots at work". And like they say, "Working with idiots can kill you". I am.. literally dying..

Over and over, you've been doing this to me. Stop giving me last minute shits and expect me to cover up for you. And don't give me this, "You've got better English and you're the communication person, therefore please help us to write these....".

Hey, you mean, no one in your department can write ar? Can't they write and pass to me to vet through? Excuses excuses..tsk tsk.

And failure to plan on your part does not constitute urgency on my part! I am so tempted to tell this to your face. Cos you guys have been asking me to help out and finish stuff for you at the last minute. But it is never reciprocated when I requested for you to provide me with info so that I can do my press releases.

OK, enough ranting....

Let me talk about something I enjoy.

Anyway, I took the day off work on Wednesday, to chill and recollect myself. And as you would have known by now, I usually chill by doing things - be it cooking, baking, making some fancy jewelleries, arts n crafts, etc.

I decided to practice my piping skills. (remember i had difficulties piping correctly when I attended my cupcake deco class?).

Headed off to buy the ingredients - bought cupcake pre-mixed (orange and poppy seed - my favourite flavour), icing sugar, butter, chocolate + rainbow sprinkles, rainbow stars, sugar crystals, colourings + essences, etc. Those only cost me about RM43.

The real killer was actually the tools. I bought 2 tips (large star tip #21, and flower drop tip), cupcake cups of various sizes, cake boxes, piping bags, and couplers. Those sucked me dry by RM70.

Orange and poppy seeds cuppacakes! MMmm...

My very first creation. :P

I used this recipe to make the buttercream icing:
170g unsalted butter, 2 cups of icing sugar, a large pinch of salt, 1.5 tbs water or milk, 1/4 tsp vanilla essence.

Fold icing sugar into the butter and blend. Blend all ingredients at high speed. You may add colourings to play with colours.

Pipe using star tip #21

Added sugar crystals

I used the same tip to create a swirl.

Added some rainbow stars...

I baked some mini cuppacakes too.
Sorry about the flower, it looks pretty badly drawn. I used tip #3 to draw the flowers.
I ran some raspberry jam to make it more liquid. Then I glazed it on the cuppacakes.

The rest of the cupcakes...

This one was pretty sad..I smudged the cream while transferring. :p
Therefore, the ugly part is not shown here..

The larger cupcakes...

The bite size mini cupcakes...

My labour of love :)

Yups, to some of you, these are probably fugly... :P

Gimme a chance ppl, it's my first time :)

I've actually brought these back to my late grandma's house the next day for my lil cousins. We all went back to pray at pohpoh's tomb to mark her 100th day of departure. I brought two cupcakes and laid them on her tomb during prayer.

I miss her lots...and I pray that she's in a good place now.

Farewell Jo

Jo and her hubby, Stephen will be leaving Msia pretty soon.

We're all truly happy for them, especially for Jo cos she'll be a student again! That sounds really wonderful to those of us who are still working.

Guys, we're so gonna miss having you around.

We had a farewell gathering at Kai's new place yesterday.

As usual, a gathering isn't complete without FOOD. We brought lotsa food for our lil potluck party!

Clockwise L-R: Sim's tapau-ed fried chicken, Sarah's chicken curry with chapati, char siew (bbq pork), Kai's mum-in-law's mee siam, Kai's tapau-ed roast duck, my DIY somtam, stir fried vege, fried chee cheong fun.

Sim, Kai, Stephen, Jo, Rah.

After lunch, we proceeded to dessert even though we were stuffed. Usual story la.. :P

Kai pampered us with an Oreo ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. As if that wasn't enough, Jo and Stephen brought ice creams as well, so we had that too later!

Sim added to our ever sinfully decadent diet by offering these cute cheese tarts. Gosh..

Kai offered us Japanese kohii (coffee) and ocha (green tea) to wash our palates. :P

The gals had fun viewing the accessories that i brought. Sim was the biggest buyer that day! Thanks gals!

Every girl's dream!!!

Kai has a HUGE walk-in wardrobe. This is so damn cool. I so need one to store all my clothes, my shoes, my bags, my accessories, my shoess...ahhh..my shoess...

We were all inspired to touch up/redecorate our homes/get a walk-in wardrobe after seeing Kai's new place. Kai, i so love your wardrobe la woman. =)

~*~*~*My first Somtam*~*~*~

I googled this somtam recipe from the internet and i kinda modified it a bit. It's pretty good and easy to make.

Som Tam: Thai papaya salad

Ingredients:

2 cups shredded fresh green papaya.
3 medium tomatoes (I used cherry tomatoes instead)
A handful of roasted peanuts
2 tablespoons of dried shrimp (pan fried without oil)
2-3 bird's eye chillies (optional)
3-4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons palm sugar (or sugar)
2 tablespoons lime juice

Methods:

1. For the fresh green papaya - rinse of the white milky layer, pat dry, then shred the whole papaya.
2. Sprinkle a lil salt onto the shredded papaya, rinse off and drain.
3. Keep 2 cups of shredded papaya out, and store the rest sealed in a container for later use.
4. Slice the tomatoes thinly.
5. In a clay mortar and pestle, coursely pound the fresh chillies (whole) and garlic.
6. Add sliced tomatoes and pound lightly (do not over-crush).
7. Add dried shrimp, fish sauce, palm sugar and lime juice. Add these items spoon-by-spoon, and taste as you go.
8. If you want to add peanuts, add now and pound lightly.
9. Add shredded papaya and pound together until well mixed.
10. Viola!

Malayali fish curry

~*~*Malayali fish curry*~*~*~

This one is for all fish curry lovers out there..

Got this recipe for my colleague Sarah, who got them from her mother-in-law who hails from Malayali (a region in India).

I tried this out last week. And these are the comments I got so far “Wow, damn good man! Better than those in restaurant!”, “The curry is damn yummy…but the problem is there is not enough rice to go with it..all gone!”, “Very good curry girl. You make this dish next time we have a party ok?”. Positive responses all the way man! =)

Sounds delicious? Wait till u try them out…

It’s quite simple to DIY. And I’m gonna share it with u… :D

Here’s how you do it.

Ingredients

Fish cutlets
Chilli powder
Tumeric powder (kunyit)
Mustard seeds
Curry leaves
One big white onion
3 packets of coconut milk (fresh ones from the market if possible)
Green chilli
Red chilli
Lime
Tomatoes
Sugar
Salt

Make a thick paste out of chilli powder, tumeric powder and salt. Marinade the fish cutlets in this (overnight in the fridge is best).

Fry the marinated fish cutlets in hot oil and set aside- might want to put it on disposable kitchen towelettes so that it absorbs the oil.

Panfry the white onions, curry leaves and mustard seeds until the onions are glassy. Add in tumeric powder and tumis. Add in coconut milk, salt and sugar and lime to taste. Add in sliced tomatoes.... not for too long though or they will disintegrate. Pour it over the fried fish and viola!

Have fun with this new recipe :D