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. 1 small yam (diced into small cubes)
2. 3 small red onions (peeled and sliced very thinly crosswise)
   
3. 5 large dried mushrooms (soaked in hot water & diced) *Retain the water for soaking the mushroom as it adds more flavour to the rice*
   
4. 1 chicken breast
5. 2 tbsp of dark soya sauce
6. 2 tbsp of fried shallot oil (Use olive oil for frying)
7. 
   

Method:

1. 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*
   
2. Fry the shallots until it is slightly browned and remove it from the oil.
   
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Remove Yamie yam rice from packaging and pour into a rice cooker.
6. 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 .
7. Add 620ml of water and 100ml of mushroom water to the rice and you can start cooking your yam rice.
8. Depending on your rice cooker, your rice will be ready in around 12 minutes or so.
9. 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.

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 =(

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.

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!

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

1. Traditional tsuyu
2. 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
3. Non-creamy sesame seed sauce from Daiso (NEW!) -->$2
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Creamy sesame seed sauce from NTUC (NEW!) --> $6.90

Fried Noodles

1. 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!

Pan-fried Japanese Thin Udon

This was cooked some time ago when I had nothing to eat at my old home...Tastes great with my okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise! Pretty similar to Yakisoba, just that my version was Yaki-udon..lol

Exploding crab

Captured this image of the crab with my hand phone after it exploded on the BBQ grill...

Obolo - Gourmet Cheesecakes • Pâtisseries • Desserts

A little shop tucked away in a small corner of Joo Chiat, producing some eyes and taste bud pleasing pastries & desserts. Worth giving it a try if you're into these petite crowd pleasers.

Obolo - Gourmet Cheesecakes • Pâtisseries • Desserts
http://www.obolo.com.sg/
452 JOO CHIAT ROAD
SINGAPORE 427665
TEL: 63489791 FAX: 63487961

Himawari Restaurant

Marky's Birthday Treat at Himawari didn't turned out as fantastic as all the rave reviews mentioned...Quite disappointed...

Sugar Cookies

Made some sugar cookies for X'mas and these cookies belong to the test batch. Totally enjoyed designing my cookies but I've learnt not to make them too thick as I prefer a more crunchy texture =)

Mini non-bake strawberry cheese cakes

The other day, my Mother-in-law came to me and told me about the strawberry cheesecake that her friend made in those cooking/baking classes and raved about it to me...The next thing I know, she passed me a recipe. An obvious way to get me to make some cheesecakes..lol

So a week later after our hectic photo shoot, I went to buy all the ingredients and embarked on my cheesecake making session. Now, I've made oreo cheesecakes and normal cheesecakes with McVities biscuit bases before, but never did I have fruits and jelly toppings on them. But the resulting cheesecakes turned out great! I totally love the taste of it (With support from Marky, my parents, relatives & my 3 yr old cousin who kept asking for more!) I haven't seen my MIL so I didn't get her comments but Marky mentioned that she'll prefer a thicker crust, which is quite impossible for my tiny cups as there isn't much space left for the cheese and jello. Also, the muffin cups are not the best containers for the cheesecakes as they're too soft but that is the best ones at the moment as I ran out of aluminum trays.

I'll make a big one the next time round so that I can put in more crust!

Anyway, below is the recipe for the cheesecake but I modified some parts:

Non-Bake Strawberry/Black current cheesecake (Makes two 9" by 6" by 1" trays based on original recipe/ 18 muffin cups)



















Ingredients for:
Base
1) 320g digestive biscuits (I used 11 pcs)
2) 160g melted butter (I used 80g for the 11pcs)

Cheese filling (Approx. 18 cups requires 1 pack of cheese)
1) 250g or 1 pack of Philadelphia cream cheese (Only enough for 1 215mm X 40mm tray. Read below)
2) 2 1/4 tsp gelatine powder
3) 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp (70g) sugar (I reduced this to 60g)
4) 150ml of boiling water for melting gelatine and sugar
5) 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
6) 20 medium-sized strawberries (As I ran out of strawberries, I had to cut 6 strawberries into 3 parts & chopped up 3 strawberries to add into the fillings)

Jello topping
1) 3 packets of strawberry flavoured Tortally (, so I only used 1 packet)












2) 450ml of boiling water
3) 450ml of cold water (This recipe calls for too little water as compared to the instructions on the box, so I followed the box and added 250ml of boiling water & 250ml of cold water. I didnt my MIL's friend's jelly turned out too hard for my liking)

Method for:
Base
1) Crush biscuits and stir in melted butter (I did not melt the butter over direct heat, instead, the butter was put into a bowl which was placed over a pot of water).














2) Divide and press the crushed biscuit mixture into the base of the 2 trays. Chill for 15 mins or until needed.














3) Prick base with the back of a skewer before pouring in the filling. (I skipped this step)

Filling
1) Use a small heart-shaped cutter (1") to cut hearts out of strawberry halves and place on a plate lined with paper towel.
2) Place gelatine and sugar in a bowl. Pour 150ml of boiling water and stir until gelatine and sugar dissolves completely. If it does not dissolve completelly, place this bowl over a bigger bowl filled with boiling water.
3) Cream cream cheese and vanilla essence together. Add gelatine syrup gradually and cream till smooth. (You can add chopped strawberries or even black current conserve into the cheese mixture at this stage) Pour into the trays (or cups).






























4) Place 20 hearts on each tray, partially submerged in cheese. Regrigerate until firm, about 2hours.

Jello topping
1) Dissolve Jello in boilling water. Add cold water and stir well.
2) Cool completely before pouring over cheese filling.





















2nd Attempt

This time round, I made a whole cheesecake instead of mini ones. I bought the 215mm (Diameter) X 40mm aluminium trays from NTUC for the cakes but found that one 250g of cheese is not enough to make 2 cakes. I had to use 1 block of cheese for 1 cake instead. Luckily I bought 2 blocks of cheese. *Phew*

To make the side crusts, I increased the biscuits quantity to 1 whole pack of digestive biscuits + 4 more pieces. This time round, I added a whole lot more chopped strawberries to the cheese filling.