Thai Style Fried Bananas

Sawadee kha or Sabaidee,

I think Asian people like fried foods, from sweet to sour and savory, snacks or heavy foods and most of these fried food recipes are easy to make at home. One of the common fried foods that easily can be found in Asia is fried banana. Street food is popular everywhere, and for those who like to travel will enjoy a wide variety of tastes and lots of choices.

Everyone knows fried banana and how to fry them. I know, snacks and fried food are the least healthy food but they are not a bad food at all.

THAI STYLE FRIED BANANAS

Ingredients;

3-4 bananas, less ripe, sliced
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup unsweetened dried coconut
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoons sugar
A pinch of salt
1/2 cup water, more or less
Oil for frying

METHOD;

- In a mixing bowl, combine flours, coconut, sesame seeds, sugar and salt.
- Add water and mix well until it become a thick batter.
- Heat up the oil in a work and dip each banana sliced into the batter, coated and deep fry until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
- Enjoy them straight away or serve with ice cream.

Enjoy the fried bananas!

Condensed Milk Pandan Cake

Hello,

When we are not working or away from home, we eat at home most of the time and almost every afternoon I made something like cakes, cookies or just making a simple food for our afternoon tea. I'm just happy being in my kitchen, cooking, baking and I'm excited to try out some new recipes as well.

Eating well with home cooking can be easy and delicious. Most of my food that I've shared here are easy, quick and simple but tasty recipes. Baking a good cake doesn't have to be fussy or difficult just like condensed milk pandan cake that I baked recently. This cake is buttery, moist and so delicious. With or without pandan flavour, they are still as delicious as a pound cake should be. I've got this recipe from Indonesian food blogger, Dapur Mama Aisyah.

CONDENSED MILK PANDAN CAKE

Ingredients;

120g salted butter, soften
40g sugar
150g condensed milk
120g flour
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanila extract
1/2 teaspoon pandan paste
A few drop green food colouring, optional

METHOD;

- Preheat oven 180° and prepare medium size loaf pan 7x3 inch, set aside.
- Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add condensed milk and continue beating.
- Add flour and reduced the speed, add egg one at a time.
- Add in vanila extract, pandan paste and food colouring, if using, mix well.
- Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake using bain-marie for the first 25 minutes.
- After 25 minutes, remove the pan of water from oven and reduced the oven heat to 160°.
- Continue to bake the cake for another 20 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean.

Enjoy the delicious condensed milk pandan cake!

Mango Pudding

Salut,

Mango pudding, one of the easy dessert that I've made and this pudding based on the Chinese style mango pudding recipe that I found on the internet. I didn't follow exactly the recipe because I don't use the coconut milk while the real recipe of Chinese mango pudding using coconut milk.

Since imported mangoes easily can be found here nowadays and they are not too pricey, I took this opportunity to make a dessert, salad or just take them like that. It's tastes good, healthy and refreshing dessert.

MANGO PUDDING

Ingredient;

1-2 ripe mangoes, depends on the size, cut into cubes
4g agar-agar powder
110ml full cream milk
1/4 cup sugar

METHOD;

- Place most of the mangoes in blender and add half milk and blend until it become puree.
- In a medium saucepan, heat up another half of the milk, agar-agar and sugar until sugar and agar-agar dissolve. Set aside and let the milk warm a bit.
- Add mango puree into the warm milk and pour the mixture into pan or individual glass or remekins.
- Transfer to refrigerator for a few hours before serving.

Enjoy the pudding!

Cucur Udang

Hello,

I've made cucur udang or prawn fritters many time before but never try to put yeast in the batter. I want my fritters to be crispy and the vegetables not too soft so this time I tried the recipe from one of Malaysian food blogger which is adding yeast to make the fritters crispy.

Cucur udang is one of my favourite snacks and for sure one fritters is not enough for me. For those who want something different for afternoon tea, why not make these prawn fritter as a tea time snacks today!

CUCUR UDANG (PRAWN FRITTERS)

Ingredients;

200g flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon dry yeast
200ml water, more or less
A handful bean sprouts
A handful spring onion
1 small onion, sliced
100g prawn, 1/2 chopped and another 1/2 let it whole with shell
Oil for deep frying

METHOD;

- Mix dry yeast, warm water and a pinch of sugar and let it set for 10 minutes.
- In a bowl, combine flour, salt and turmeric powder.
- Add the yeast water little by little and mix until it become a smooth batter. Add more water if its too dry and vice versa.
- Add bean sprout, spring onion, onion and chopped prawns.
- Let the batter sit for 30 minutes-1 hour. Mix well before frying.
- Heat 1-2 cup oil in a wok or saucepan and place a metal soup ladle to heat up before using.
- Once the oil really hot, turn to low medium heat, place a spoonful prawns batter into the ladle and top it with a shelled prawn and lower into the hot oil for deep frying.
- Deep fried the prawn fritters till golden brown on both side. If the batter continue to stick with the ladle, use fork or spoon to separate it.
- Serve with sweet chilli sauce, or ketchup.

Enjoy the aftenoon tea and happy weekend!

Raisin Scones

Hey,

Scones will always be a favourite tea time snacks for English people and scones also will always have a place in my heart. I made raisin scone one afternoon and believe it or not, mon mari and I ate many scones that we have ever eaten that day. I think we haven't had any scones for a long time and these scones was really good when you eat with jam and butter.

I am planning on making scones again for brunch with our friends next month because these scones are so delicious. I'm pretty sure they would like it as we do. "People who love to eat are always the best people".

RAISIN SCONES

Ingredients;

225g self raising flour
60g cold salted butter
30g sugar
50g raisin or other dried fruits
150ml milk
1 egg, for brushing and add a little milk

METHOD;

- Preheat oven 220° and prepare baking sheet.
- Mix together the flour, sugar and rub in the butter until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Distribute the raisin and then add the milk.
- Mix everything just until the dough comes together.
- Transfer the dough onto the floured surface and knead lightly just one or two times.
- Pat out to a round 2cm thick. Use a cutter to stamp out rounds and place on a baking sheet.
- Brush the tops of the scones with egg and bake for 12-15 minutes until it well risen and golden.
- Serve with butter, jam or clotted cream.

Happy baking!

Spiced Vegetables Soup

Bonjour,

Winter is coming and people often make soup during the fall and winter. This Malay style spiced vegetable soup that I made last month similar to the soto soup recipe from my previous post. The original recipe called sup tulang or soup with beef bones, the recipe that I adapted from Azlita masam manis blog. I did not add beef bones in this soup, is just simple as vegetarian soup.

The soup turned out pretty tasty with taste of leek and celery and I like to serve it with rice noodles and some other condiments like cucumber, fried shallot, salted radish and chillies with soy sauce.

 SPICED VEGETABLES SOUP

Ingredients;

2 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
4 cloves
2 cardamom
1 onion, sliced
1 tablespoon spiced powder, add little bit water to make paste
1 carrot, slices or cubes
2 potato, cubes
1-1 1/2 cups water
Coriander and fried shallot for garnishing
Salt and pepper to taste

To blend to a fine paste;
4 shallot
2 clove garlic
2cm ginger
1/2 carrot
1 medium leek, white part only
1 medium piece celery root

METHOD;

- Heat up oil and butter in a medium saucepan and fry cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves and cardamom for a few second.
- Add sliced onion and fry until onion soft and turn to brown colour.
- Add the blended paste nad continue to fry for a few minutes or until the paste are slightly dry.
- Add in the spiced powder paste and cook for another minutes.
- Pour in water and add carrot and potato cubes.
- Bring to boil for 10-15 minutes or until the potato and carrot are cooked.
- Season with salt and pepper and lastly add coriander and fried shallot.
- Turn off the heat, serve the soup with rice or just add rice vermicelli and other side condiments.

Bon appétit!

Mango Salad

Hello,

Everytime I saw mango selling quite cheap in supermarket, I'm sure I will grab one or two and if the mango taste good, I would return to the shop and buy more. I love mango, raw or ripe, there are always something I could do with it.

This mango salad suitable for lunch or dinner and it was so easy to prepared, taking only a little time and all are thrown together in just a few minutes. This kind of salad often like I'll always want to eat more because they are delicious and refreshing. Spicy or not, either way is absolutely delicious and this mango salad should taste a little bit sweet, sour and salty.

MANGO SALAD

Ingredients;

1 mango, unripe or half ripe
2 shallot, sliced
1 big red chilli, sliced
1 small bird eye chilli, sliced
1-2 tablespoon fish sauce
1-2 tablespoon brown sugar
Lime juice, from 1 lime

METHOD;

- Shredded mango and mix all ingredients and toss well. taste with fish sauce and brown sugar.
- Garnish with coriander leaves.

Let's make mango salad!

Prawn Madras

Namaste,

We had tried several Indian restaurant since the past few years and some Indian food that I have tried just encourage me to try making it at home. One of the Indian dish that I made recently was prawn Madras. I don't expect the taste would be exactly the same as the food in Indian restaurant but these prawn Madras recipe were close in taste.

Some prawn Madras recipe content coconut milk but this recipe that I found somewhere in the internet without coconut milk and the prawn Madras that we had tried before doesn't seems cooked with coconut milk. Next time I should buy and use Madras curry powder that sells in Asian grocery store and may be the taste would be more authentic Indian and far more tasty. Who knows right?

Let's cook this prawn Madras and serve with rice or some Indian naan or prata bread, it taste really yummy.

PRAWN MADRAS

Ingredients;

300g prawns,
1 onion, sliced
2 clove garlic,
2cm fresh ginger
3 tomaotes
1 bell pepper, sliced
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
1/2 teasspoon black pepper powder
1/2 teaspoon chhilli powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt and sugar to taste

METHOD;

- Blend onion, garlic and ginger into a coarse paste. Set aside.
- Blend tomatoes into a coarse paste or can use a canned tomato paste. Set aside.
- Heat some oil in a saucepan and fry onion garlic paste until aromatic.
- Add all spices powder and continue to fry for a few minutes.
- Add in the bell pepper and gently fry for another minutes.
- Add prawns and tomato paste and bring to simmer for about 10 minutes or until the gravy are slightly thickens.
- Season with salt and sugar if necessary.

Enjoy the Indian food!

Banana Walnut Cake

Salut,

Banana walnut cake that I baked recently one of the cake that mon mari said the taste was exceptional. This cake recipe is adapted from food.com and I just add a walnut into the recipe. We brought the cake to work and I knew it, everyone loves this banana walnut cake.

The cake turns out pretty moist with the cream cheese frosting on top and the taste of walnut make this cake really good. My boss even gave me a bag of pecan nuts from their garden and it seems I need to make more of a cake with nuts in the future.

BANANA WALNUT CAKE

Ingredients;

1 1/2 cup bananas, mashed
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoon vailla extract
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup walnut

Frosting;
1/2 cup butter, softened
200g cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanila
1 cup icing sugar

METHODS;

- Preheat oven 140° and prepare baking pan, set aside.
- In a small bowl, mashed banana and add lemon juice, set aside.
- In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt, set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add egg, one at a time and stir in vanilla extract.
- Add flour alternately with buttermilk.
- Using a spatula, add banana mixture and walnut. Mix well.
- Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour or until skewer comes out clean.
- Let the cake cool completely before frosting. I let my cake over night before fosting it with cream cheese.

For the frosting;
- Cream butter and cream cheese until smooth.
- Add in vanilla and sugar and beat until frosting smooth.
- Spread the frosting on top the cake and sprinkle with walnut.

Enjoy banana walnut cake!