Fêtes de fin d'année au CLPS

Bonsoir,

I've been quite busy these past few weeks. Not to say that I have a lot of things to do but the fact is, my time in the kitchen not as much as before I attended the training in CLPS. In this training, to be precise will takes five months and it took two times stage or twice practical in the enterprise. It would be fun though, and also it will be good for me in the future when I start working. I feel so glad and happy to be in this formation with others 11 friends coming from different country and nationality.

All of the lesson that we learned from this formation was really nice and full with information and we learned something new every day. We have another 3 months to finish and get the diploma in Français Langue Etrangère.

Last weeks was the last day of the formation for this year before we begin training in the enterprise and will begin the class again in January. We organised a lunch party and everyone comes with the traditional food from their country, some game and presentation in the afternoon. It was fun and everyone enjoyed the small gathering before Christmas. Great party indeed!

Vegetables With Satay Sauce

Hello,

Another quick stir-fry vegetables that we used to cooked at home are vegetables with satay sauce. These satay dishes also popular in Chinese restaurant, normally they cooked with meat like chicken or seafood but the sauce for me was too watery, while I like my vegetables satay a bit dry. Mon mari likes the creamy vegetables satay but I like mine without cream, just as simple as that.

VEGETABLES WITH SATAY SAUCE

Ingredients;

Vegetables (carrot, courgette, onion, dry mushroom, pepperoni)
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
2 tablespoons satay powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Cream liquid

METHOD;

- Heat a few tablespoons oil in a wok or frying pan and fry garlic and shallot until fragrant.
- Add satay powder, stir well for a few seconds, add little water if it to dry.
- Add all vegetables, cover and cook until vegetables are tender. Stirring occasionally.
- Season with salt and pepper, and for the creamy vegetables satay, add in the cream and cook for a few seconds.

Happy cooking!

Stir Fried Prawn Chinese Style

Ni how,

One of the delicious meal to cook for dinner is stir fried prawn Chinese style. This quick meals was so good yet they are so simple and easy to prepare. Unlike in Asia, most of the prawns here are sold ready cooked either peeled or the shell still on and most of the people make a salad or to eat as an appetizer. I used to buy these precooked prawns but when I cook it again in some recipe, I add the prawns at the end to avoid overcooked them.

When its come to stir fry recipes, these kind of meals are always in the list because stir frying is a great way to eat fresh meals in less than 15 minutes.

STIR FRIED PRAWN CHINESE STYLE

Ingredients;

200g prawns
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
2cm ginger, chopped
1 green chili, chopped
2 tablespoons tomato sauce/ketchup
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
2 tablespoons Chinese cooking wine
Salt, pepper and sugar to taste

METHODS;

- Fry the prawns for a minute if using fresh prawns. Set aside.
- Heat little oil in a wok or frying pan and fry garlic, shallots, ginger and chili until fragrant.
- Add in the sauces, cooking wine and season with salt, pepper and sugar.
- Add prawns and stirring quickly just until the prawns are well coated.
- Dish out and enjoy them with rice.

Bon appétit!

Sweet And Sour Fish

Bonjour,

We had a sweet and sour fish for dinner last few days and it was so good, easy to prepare and delicious. I don't make this sweet and sour fish often, but once in awhile I would cook these kind of dish for our dinner, just like the popular dishes in a Chinese restaurant. Homemade sweet and sour fish, we can even make it at home much better, much cheaper and even delicious than a restaurant one.

Let's cook this sweet and sour fish at home and see how much we enjoy the homemade food. Its totally delicious and forget about the restaurant dishes for a while.

SWEET AND SOUR FISH

Ingredients;

200g fish fillet, thinly sliced
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup cornflour
2 tablespoons tomato sauce/ketchup
1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2-3 tablespoons water
Sugar and salt to taste
1 cloves garlic, chopped
Any vegetables of your choice (green pepper, onion, cucumber etc)

METHOD;

- Clean the fish and dry on paper towels. Dip fish in the beaten egg and coat again in a cornflour to fully coated, set aside.
- Combine tomato sauce, chili sauce, vinegar, water and salt and sugar, set aside.
- Heat up oil in a wok or saucepan for deep frying.
- Fry coated fish until golden brown, set aside.
- Pour out some oil and just leaving a few tablespoons and fry garlic until fragrant.
- Add all diced vegetables and fry for a minutes.
- Add in the sauce and let simmer for another couple of minutes.
- To thicken the sauce, pour some cornflour mixture, stir well and add fried fish.
- Quickly fry for a few second to coat the fish with the sauce, turn of the heat and dish out.

Bon appétit!

Anchovy And Onion Fritters

Hey there,

What's for afternoon tea snack today? Sometimes we have no idea what to eat for our teatime, just a simple crackers, mini cakes or fritters? Deep fried food are so typical for Asian people because we love fried food, from fried noodles to fried fish and fried banana, everything used oils. Not to say that fat are not healthy, some fats are good because fat gives food good taste and texture and sometime our body needs some fat from food. The most important thing is, eat in moderation.

I made these anchovy and onion fritters recently for our tea time snack. It's simple yet delicious.

ANCHOVY AND ONION FRITTERS

Ingredients;

1 cup flour
2 tablespoons rice flour
2 tablespoons anchovies
1 onion, thinly sliced
Spring onion, chopped
Red chili
Salt to taste

METHOD;

- Combine all ingredients and add water little by little until it get thick and sticky batter.
- Heat some oil in a wok or saucepan and drop a tablespoon of batter into hot oil and fry until golden brown.
- Remove the fritters to a paper towels, serve with sweet chili sauce or ketchup.

Spiced Peanuts

Bonjour,

Nuts are one of the popular healthy snacks and almost everyone loved nuts and just like other people out there, nuts are my favourite snacks especially spiced nuts, anytime and anywhere. As everyone knows, different types of nuts contain different nutrients but in general, nuts are a healthy food. A handful of these spiced peanuts won't be enough for me, it was so good and is totally addictive.

Let's make spiced peanut for 'apero', I'm sure everyone would be happy and don't be surprise if someone could be addicted to it.

SPICED PEANUTS

Ingredients;

300g raw peanuts
1 egg
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon rice flour
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 tablespoon chili powder
Salt and sugar to taste
Water
Curry leaves, fried separately, optional
Anchovies, fried separately, optional

METHOD;

- Combine all ingredients except peanuts, and add about 1/2 cup of water, mix until everything well combined.
- Add peanuts and stir until all peanuts are well coated.
- Heat up lots of oil in a wok or saucepan for deep frying.
- Drop a few tablespoons of coated peanuts and quickly separated the crumbled peanuts so this way they will fall apart and do not stick together.
- Keep the heat on the medium heat and stirring frequently to avoid any burning peanuts.
- Take it out with slotted spoon once the peanuts are cooked and golden brown and drain well on paper towels.
- Mix with fried curry leaves and anchovies, but that's not necessary because these peanuts tastes good even without those anchovies and curry leaves.

Stir Fried Chinese Green Vegetable

Hello,

Chinese greens, there are various types of Chinese greens vegetables like bok choy, kailan and choy sum. We are eating green vegetables almost everyday in Asia regardless of how these vegetables are cooked and the way we eat it. The good thing is, we can find these green vegetables everywhere and even planted them in our backyard.

Here in France, Chinese green vegetables are quite hard to find unless we go to the Asian grocery store and sometimes they're sold in some supermarket or fresh vegetables market. We eat a lot of vegetables at home and without a doubt, vegetables and fruits are good for health.

STIR FRIED CHINESE GREEN VEGETABLES
For 2 persons

Ingredients;

Bok choy/ choy sum
4 cloves garlic, chopped
Oyster sauce
Light soy sauce
1-2 tablespoons of corn flour mixture
Salt and pepper

METHOD;

- Heat up some oil in a wok or frying pan and fry garlic until they're slightly brown but not to burn them.
- Add the greens and fry for a few seconds over medium heat.
- Season with oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt and pepper.
- Pour little bit of corn flour mixture just to thicken the sauce, quickly stir fry and dish out.

Bon appetit!

Semolina And Cereal Cake

Salut tout le monde,

It's officially Autumn season and of course winter is coming. The weather slightly change and getting cold, the colour leaves changing slowly and soon it starting to fall. No surprise actually as we lived in Brittany, it's always rains here, constantly sunny but it's cold. As everyone wish and hoping this time around the winter won't be too long like last year.

Okay back to the baking story, since I start making a Sarawak steamed cake for several times now, last week I've made semolina and cereal cake inspired by those Sarawak steamed cake. The ingredients for this cake based on the kek lumut that I made a year ago. Nothing much different, I just add some other ingredients and I adding more semolina flour by reducing the cereal Nestum.

SEMOLINA AND CEREAL CAKE

Ingredients;

5 eggs
1 cup sugar
220g butter
1 cup semolina flour
1/2 cup cereal nestum, blend into powder
1/4 cup almond powder
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup tea
Green food coloring

METHOD;

- Preheat oven, place a large pan with hot water for steam bath and prepare the baking pan.
- Using a stand or hand mixer, beat the egg and sugar until light and fluffy.
- In another bowl, beat butter until light and add in to the egg mixture.
- Slowly add semolina, cereal and almond powder. Mix well.
- Add the evaporated milk, tea  and green food colouring. Whisk until everything well combined.
- Pour the batter into prepared baking pan, cover with aluminium foil and steam bath for 1 1/2 hours-2 hours.

Happy baking!

Prawn And Potato Curry

Bonjour,

Prawns again and again, I will never get bored of eating it, whether they are boiled, fried, steamed or grilled, and this prawn and potato curry is one of my favourite seafood dish. Prawn curry suitable to be eaten with roti canai because the gravy itself was so tasty and not too spicy, even my mother in law can eat it. It was a big surprise for me because I don't expect she could eat any kind of spicy food but I'm totally impressed when she likes almost all Asian food that I prepared.

Alors, pour maintenant, let's cook a simple prawn and potato curry for lunch or dinner on the weekend with family and friends.

PRAWN AND POTATO CURRY

Ingredients;

200g prawns
1 potato, cut into large cubes
1 onion, cut into small cubes
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 shallot, thinly sliced
2 cm ginger, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon chili or paprika powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1-2 pieces tamarind peel or 1 tablespoon tamarind paste
Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD;

- Mix curry, chili, cumin powder and tamarind peel, add little bit of water to make a paste. Set aside.
- Heat some oil in a saucepan and fry garlic, shallot and ginger until fragrant.
- Add curry paste and cook for a few second and add little bit of water when the paste begin to dry. Repeat the process for two or three times. Stirring constantly.
- Add potatoes and a cup of water and cook for a few minutes until potatoes are almost tender, stirring occasionally.
- Add prawns and onion, season with salt and pepper and cook until the prawns are cooked through.
- Serve the prawn curry with roti canai/paratha/naan or rice.

Bon appetit!

Roti Canai

Hello,

It's been quite some time since I made roti canai or paratha, I'm kinda miss having these flatbread Malaysian style dish after a while. Making roti canai may takes a little time but believe me, it's worth it as we can't get enough with only one piece, it was so delicious to eat with any kind of gravy like curry prawn, chicken or beef and a sliced of onion rings.

We enjoyed our lunch and dinner because I can say that today is our roti canai day. I can make 12 roti canai with this recipe and with the prawn curry on the side, the food was exceptionally delicious.

ROTI CANAI/ PARATHA

Ingredients;

3 cups flour
1 cup water, more or less
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon oil
2 tablespoon condensed milk
A pinch of salt

METHOD;

- Combine flour, butter, oil, condensed milk and salt in a large bowl or bread machine or stand mixer.
- Add water little by little and let the machine work for a few minutes or until the dough smooth and no longer sticks in hands.
- Divide dough into 10-12 small balls and coat each dough with oil and place them in a large plate or baking pan. Pour some oil over dough.
- Cover and let the dough rest for several hour or overnight.
- Flatten and roll the dough as thin as possible and start pleating the dough, carefully stretching between hand and slowly circle the dough.
- Heat up pan with some oil and roll the prepared dough as desirable thickness. Cook the flatten dough for 1-2 minute on both side.
- Slap the bread together to fluff it up.
- For the egg roti canai, pour the beaten egg in the middle of flatten dough and fold into square, cook then flip until golden brown on both side.
- Serve roti canai with prawn curry or any other preferable gravy.

Enjoy!

Homemade Samosa

Hello,

There is a times when I just don't feel like cooking but there's also a time when I am in the mood to make something, cooking, baking or preparing many things in a day without feeling lazy. This past few weeks since there are quite a lot of cooking program on TV, more or less the program inspired me to bake or cook something every single day.

Samosa, a snack that basically similar to curry puff, not to complicated to make, just a little time consuming and voila the homemade samosa ready in less than 1 hour.

HOMEMADE SAMOSA

Ingredients;

1 cup flour
2 tablespoon butter, melted
A pinch of salt
Water

For the potato curry filling, I used the same recipe for curry puff and net pancake.

METHOD;

- Combine flour, melted butter and salt. Add water little by little, knead and make a dough until they are nothing longer stick in hand.
- Wrap the dough with plastic wrap and set aside until the filling is ready.
- Take out the dough and divide into golf size balls and roll the dough ball into round or oval shaped. Cut each circle in half.
- Take one dough and make a shape of cone, put a tablespoons of potato filling and seal the edges properly, creating a triangle pastry. Moisten the top edge and press the edges together to tight seal.
- Deep frying the samosa until golden brown on both side.

Enjoy the homemade samosa!

Madeleines

Bonjour,

Every Saturday and Sunday normally we go to visit a brocante nearby our place around this region. Most of the brocante are organized by the maire of the city or association all over France. Hunting and finding a little treasures is one of the thing that I love to do and it was a great pleasure indeed. I found a lots of cooking stuff just like this madeleines pan which I brought in brocante for 1 Euro few weeks ago.

I made madeleines recently after watching a TV program showing about these little cake, and at the same time I excited to use my new toys. It was my first attempt, though, these madeleines turns out really good.

MADELEINES

Ingredients;

100g flour
100g butter, melted
100g sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon oil
2 tablespoons fresh milk
1 lemon zest
1 teaspoon baking powder

METHOD;

- Whisk the eggs, sugar until lightens in colour.
- Sift half of the flour and baking powder into the egg mixture and gently fold in using a spatula, and continue to folding in with the rest of the flour.
- Pour the melted butter and oil, mix well until it fully incorporated.
- Add in milk, mix well and lastly add lemon zest.
- Cover the batter and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour to overnight.
- Before baking, prepare the madeleine pan by brushing with melted butter and flour, preheat oven to 200°.
- Spoon 1 tablespoon of batter into the pan and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Happy baking!

Pineapple Fried Rice

Coucou...

We are still in the summer season and as usual, there are a lot of tropical fruits selling in the market like pineapple, mango and even papaya. I've bought pineapple last week but it didn't taste as good as the last one I bought few weeks ago. Usually I can eat an entire pineapple but not for this one, I made pineapple fried rice with the balance anyway.

It's been a while I don't eat pineapple fried rice and don't even think about it, but yesterday night I cooked for our dinner. It was a delicious pineapple fried rice indeed. Mon mari ate a lot of it, it was a pleasant surprise and I'm glad he likes it.

PINEAPPLE FRIED RICE

Ingredients;

2 cups leftover rice
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 eggs
1/2 cup medium or small prawns
1 cup pineapple
1/4 cup fried or roasted cashew nuts
1/2 tablespoon curry powder
Soy sauce, fish sauce, salt and white pepper to taste

METHOD;

- Heat up little oil in a wok or saucepan and fry onion and garlic until fragrant.
- Add prawns and cook for a few seconds and push the prawns to the side and add in the eggs, scramble it just until it half cook.
- Add the rice, pineapple and curry powder and stir together.
- Season with soy sauce, fish sauce, salt and pepper.
- Add the cashew nuts, cook and stirring constantly until heated through, about 1-2 minutes.

Enjoy the simple pineapple fried rice!