Food Junkie

Sunday, July 05, 2009

2nd Attempt at Baking Mango Yogurt Cheesecake

A more successful attempt at baking a mango yogurt cheesecake, now that I go over to my aunt's house to do the baking. Below is the picture of the end product. Looks evidently more baked than my 1st attempt, although there aren't any mangoes on top to make it look more appealing. However, I added a tad too much liquid to the mixture and hence it turned out less firm than it should be. The crust was also not very successful this time round...think the crust was too thick hence it didn't come out too well. Plenty to learn from this baking session.

*New update: The texture is actually quite good after I freeze it! Looks like it's not as bad as I thought =)*

Recipe will be published soon...when I get down to typing it down =)

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Yam Rice

One of my favourite food is now available as a convenience food (Brand: YAMIE). Although it is simple to make, the taste can't be compared to the ones we find outside, but it does satisfy my cravings for yam rice (with some additional ingredients here and there).

The additional ingredients I add for 2 packets of Yamie Yam Rice are:

1 small yam (diced into small cubes)
3 small red onions (peeled and sliced very thinly crosswise)
5 large dried mushrooms (soaked in hot water & diced) *Retain the water for soaking the mushroom as it adds more flavour to the rice*
1 chicken breast
2 tbsp of dark soya sauce
2 tbsp of fried shallot oil (Use olive oil for frying)

Method:

Heat up 5 tbsp of oil and add shallots to flavour the oil. *It is okay to use more oil here as the shallot oil can be kept for other times*
Fry the shallots until it is slightly browned and remove it from the oil.
Leave some of the shallot oil in the pan and shallow fry the yam cubes until it is slightly browned and add the shallots back to fry them together.
Heat up 1 tbsp of shallot oil, add in mushroom and stir fry for 2 mins before adding chicken breast to fry for a minute or two till it is almost cooked.
Remove Yamie yam rice from packaging and pour into a rice cooker.
Add all the pre-cooked yam, mushroom and chicken into the rice, together with 2 tbsp of fried shallot oil, 2 tbsp of dark soya sauce and .
Add 620ml of water and 100ml of mushroom water to the rice and you can start cooking your yam rice.
Depending on your rice cooker, your rice will be ready in around 12 minutes or so.
To serve, sprinkle with spring onion and fried shallots.

Mee Rebus

Bought 6 packets of Mee Rebus sauce from the stall that my cousin is helping out at the food fair and boy does it taste good! The taste was really intense and spicy too. Tried cooking it the other day for Marky's family and it seems like both his parents liked it. His dad ate 3 bowls and his mum said it was pretty good.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Mango Yogurt cheesecake

Here's a picture of my attempt at making Mango Yogurt cheesecake but it was a failure as it tastes more like custard cake... sad =(

I wonder if it's the oven as the oven at Marky's house took forever to bake this cake and still it did not seem very solid after almost 2 hours. (Note that the oven was already set at maximum heat - 250 degree celsius)

I wanna get my own oven but not now as I don't have my own house yet =(

Monday, June 15, 2009

Mee Rebus

Bought 6 packets of Mee Rebus sauce from the stall that my cousin is helping out at the food fair and boy does it taste good!

The taste was really intense and spicy too. Tried cooking it the other day for Marky's family and it seems like both his parents

liked it. His dad ate 3 bowls and his mum said it was pretty good.

Manpuku Japanese Gourmet Town at Tampines 1

This place is really overhyped...I had been wanting to try Botejyu's okonomiyaki for the longest time and when I really tasted it at Manpuku Japanese Gourmet Town at Tampines 1, I was damn disappointed. The texture was nothing to rave about and the taste was just so-so.

The saving dish was the ramen that Marky ordered. The soup tasted not too bad and the noodles were springy.

The worst has yet to come...before that, look at the pictures...

All these beautifully decorated pies had us queuing for probably 20mins just to get our slice of Caramel Banana Fruit Tart and the resulting taste was a huge disappointment! Worse still, we had to pay $7+ for this slice and a cup of tea (The tea was even better than the pie!)

My verdict: I will just stay off this place for good.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Japanese curry and fried udon

Bought the Japanese Golden Curry cubes (Hot) and cooked my first Japanese curry with potatoes, onions, carrots and chicken. It turned out so much better and sweeter than when I just add my favourite ingredients like crabsticks and hotdogs...lol.. Ya I know, definitely a lot sweeter. I just followed the recipe on the box and it's rather simple to do.
Anyway, I paired it with fried udon, chinese style --> Vegetarian Oyster Sauce (My FIL can't take oysters), black pepper, egg, broccoli and sausages.

It may seem like a weird mix, but Marky and I enjoyed it!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Cold noodles with creamy sesame dressing

For those who follow my blog will realise that I have so many posts on Japanese noodles...either hot/cold or the different types of noodles.

This is because Marky and I are fans of these noodles and they are really versatile. I've made a slide show of all the different versions of the Japanese noodles and a summary of the different sauces that I've used before:

Cold Noodles

Traditional tsuyu
My own concoction:
3 tsp sesame seed oil
4 tsp light soya sauce
1 1/2 tsp honey
1 tbsp water
1 small chilli padi
Sprinkle of black pepper
Chopped parsley
Toasted sesame seeds
Non-creamy sesame seed sauce from Daiso (NEW!) -->$2
Creamy sesame seed sauce from NTUC (NEW!) --> $6.90

Fried Noodles

Okonomiyaki sauce + mayonnaise + Furikake (see picture) + Bonito Flakes

_________________________________

Cold Sesame Udon Salad
(Serves 4-5 people)

Ingredients:
1 packet of udon/hiyamugi /buckwheat soba/cha soba

3 Japanese cucumber, shredded
1/2 carrot, shredded
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 floret of broccoli, cut into small pieces and blanched
8 crabsticks, shredded and pan-fried
100g picnic ham/2 large sausages, shredded (Pan-frying is optional)
2 eggs, beaten and fried
Sesame seed oil
Creamy Japanese sesame salad dressing from NTUC (Alternatively, you can also get the non-creamy sesame dressing from Daiso)
Black pepper (Optional)
Japanese Furikake

Method:
1) Bring the water in the pot to a boil and add noodles. Stir occasionally. Cook for 5-8mins until al-dente.

2) Drain the hot water and place noodles under tap water to cool it slightly. Let it sit in ice water for 1-2 mins to totally cool the noodles.

3) Drain water from the noodles and add some sesame seed oil to prevent them from sticking to each other. Leave in the fridge while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

4) Mix shredded carrot and cucumber with the noodles. Add salad dressing, furikake and black pepper according to your taste.

5) Lastly, arrange the broccoli, tomato, shredded crabsticks, ham and egg on top of the noodles and chill further before serving. (Best to eat it cold)

6) Just before serving, you can add a bit more furikake on top of the ingredients to make it tastier.

My first attempt at some Chinese dishes

My 两菜一汤 wasn't that bad for the first attempt =) I have my 姜丝鸡肉 with egg, blanched spinach with oyster sauce and my preserved vegetable soup with tofu.

The best was the 姜丝鸡肉 with egg, which is my all-time favourite coz my mum cooks this sooo well...I think I needed to marinade my chicken longer and after adding abit more dark and light soya sauce, the taste was almost there! My most satisfied dish in a long time...My soup was almost spoiled as I didn't know that I needed to soak the preserved veg in water to remove the saltiness. I ended up with a super salty soup and I had to change the water so many times to get it right...

Overall, can be improved!