No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

Happy New Year to all my readers and friends.   Hope this year of the Horse will bring forth peace,   good health, wealth and prosperity to all of you. Gong Xi Fa Cai  ~ Nian Nian You Yu!

This  nutty  Pistachio Ice Cream should be most welcome to round off a sumptuous reunion dinner on 30th January as the lunar Chinese New Year falls on 31st January this year.  This pale green and fragrant icy dessert is not too sweet and not overly rich as I've reduced the amount of cream in the recipe... so feel free to enjoy! Recipe for Pistachio Ice Cream (adapted from 'Here' with modification) Ingredients 125 gm Pistachios 60 gm caster sugar 3 egg yolks 250 ml cream 250 ml milk Pinch of salt Method Blend half the Pistachios till fine.  Roughly chop up the balance. Lightly boil the cream, milk, salt and finely ground Pistachios.  Remove from heat. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar till thick and creamy. Pour the milk mixture onto the egg mixture, keep stirring to prevent the milk from cooking the egg mixture. Pour this mixture back to the saucepan and cook, stirring with a wooden spoon.  Whe...

These Pumpkin Sunflower crisps are very easy to make but they can be very addictive.  Crunchy and crispy, these festive cookies will be very popular during the forthcoming Chinese Lunar New Year. Recipe for Pumpkin Sunflower crisps Ingredients 2 egg whites about 60 gm, lightly beaten 80 gm caster sugar 2 Tbsp/1 oz melted butter 50 gm plain flour 75 gm pumpkin kernels 75 gm sunflower seeds 1/4  tsp vanilla Method Sift flour into a mixing bowl, add in sugar, mix well. Make a well in the centre, add in the melted butter, lightly beaten egg whites, vanilla, pumpkin and sunflower seeds.  Mix till well combined. Let dough rest for 30 mins. Drop 1 level tsp of batter onto a parchment lined baking tray.  Using the back of the spoon spread thinly to any shape taking care not to overlap the seeds. Bake in a preheated oven @ 180 deg.C for 8 to 10 mins. taking care not to overbake. Let cool in tray for a...

Cream Caramel is another favourite dessert in my family, especially my children.  The price of this egg custard has hiked tremendously recently, from RM 2 to RM2.80 for a takeaway which can be finished off in three gulps.  As always, homemade is the most economical  and you can rest assured that there are no unnecessary 'add-ons'.   I've made them before using soymilk but this time around, I'm using full-cream milk and the result ..... according to my girl, it's 'Yummy, Mum, keep this recipe!' Recipe for Cream Caramel Ingredients for Caramel 100 gm caster sugar 50 ml water Ingredients for Custard 3 eggs 50 gm caster sugar 500 ml full-cream milk pinch of salt 1 tsp vanilla extract  OR  seeds from 1/2 a Vanilla pod Method for Caramel In a saucepan, add the caster sugar and water, stir with a wooden spoon on medium heat. Once the sugar has dissolved,   STOP  stirring and remov...

Are you curious by the name of this dish?  It's literally translated from Cantonese 'Sam Mei Yu', with the incorporation of three tastes which are sourish, sweetish and spicy, all these three words beginning with the letter 'S'!  What a coincidence.  I had this dish not too long ago in one of the restaurants and I'm trying to replicate it here. Recipe for Three Tastes Steamed Fish Ingredients 300 gm fish tail  (I used Siakap) 2 lemon grass -sliced 1 onion - sliced 2 pcs kaffir leaves - sliced 1 tomato cut into wedges 3 chilli padi/bird eye chillies 2 tsp sugar or to taste 1/2 cup assam juice from 8 seeds of assam 1 tsp fish sauce or to taste Method Make 2 cuts on both sides of the fish, season with seasalt.  Place on a plate with the tomatoes. Cook the assam juice with the lemon grass and sliced bird eye chillies. Add in sugar, fish sauce, fine tune to taste, add in the kaffir leaves. Steam fish under rapidly boiling...

I've been hunting for this recipe for a long time and was delighted when I finally chanced upon  the recipe from   Florence of   Do What I Like .  Upon scrutinising the recipe I noticed that there wasn't any mention of the amount of sugar required.  She must have inadvertantly left it out, so I just made an assumption and added in 50 gm of icing sugar which wasn't too sweet and was just nice.  The mould that I had was quite shallow resulting in very delicate and easily breakable cookies, so they had to be handled 'gently'!   Perhaps you may like to give this a try and make them for the coming CNY! Recipe for Macau Almond Cookies (adapted from 'here' ) Ingredients 125 gm mung bean flour 60 gm shortening 30 gm lightly toasted whole almonds with skin, chopped 30 gm almond meal 50 gm icing sugar, sifted 3 to 5 tsp drinking water Method Lightly fry the mung bean ...

I've always wanted to make these Danish Butter cookies and was delighted when I saw the post in Anncoo Journal.   These cookies are buttery, not too sweet, delicious, certainly a crowd pleaser.  I bet that you are not going to stop just at one.  These home made cookies will be good as a gift to your relatives and friends for this coming festive season. Recipe for Butter Cookies  丹麦牛油曲奇 ( adapted from Anncoo's Danish Butter Cookies  with modification to the method ) Ingredients 1 egg lightly  beaten 200 gm SCS butter 320 gm plain flour 120 gm icing sugar (original 130 gm) 2 tsp vanilla (original 2 Tbsp) Method Cream the butter with the icing sugar till light and fluffy.  Add in the egg, mix well. Fold in the sifted flour, mix well. Pipe out using tip 195. Bake in a preheated oven @ 200 deg.C for  9 mins. Let cool. Store cookies in a cookie jar. Yield :  95 cookies ...

I  hope that all of you have had a wonderful X'mas and New Year and before we can settle snugly into 2014,  the Chinese Lunar New Year is just less than a month away which will mean baking and more baking. Bak Kwa is a popular gift during the Chinese Lunar New Year and this is the first time that I'm baking and grilling them in the oven  instead of grilling them over a charcoal fire. I've made Bak Kwa before, a very long time ago.  I remember that I had to dry the trays of marinated minced pork under the sun and had to keep a look out for uninvited guests such as stray cats and birds from feasting on the meat.  Then later had to sweat it out  grilling the dried meat over the erratic charcoal fire.   Baking and grilling them in the oven is definitely not so tedious and these bak kwa tastes just as good as the chargrilled ones.  In inflationary times like this, homemade ones are naturally much more economical more so if you intend to make this ...