98 - Red Curry with Shrimps and French Beans

Red Curry with Shrimps and French Beans

(recipe below)

I am guessing most of you have watched Julie & Julia right? Now, I am trying to create my own challenge along the lines of what Julie did. I will cook a total of 100 different asian dishes for 100 days. Since I may not cook every day and there will be somedays when I will only be cooking a single dish, I will catch up on the other days.

I also apologise for the quality of my pictures. Its really bothering me. But fiance says it is due to the yellow lights that is used throughout our house. And unless I intend to cook in the day and photograph the food then, this may be a little hard to rectify that right now. Sigh..

Ok, so yesterday's dinner was Red Curry with Shrimps and French Beans and Taiwanese 5-Spice Chicken. I am one of those people who likes to cook from scratch if I can. It is not that I am fussy, its just that being a relatively new cook, I feel that if I take short cuts with store bought pastes, I would never learn and improve. But please feel free to substitute the red curry paste for store bought ones.

Red Curry Paste is also known as  Krung paeng ped. The paste gets its beautiful colour from the large number of fresh red chillied that are the prime ingredient. It is a complex paste and classically includes cumin seeds, shallots, garlic, galangal and lemongrass, as well as fresh coriander (cilantro) roots, peppercorns, cinnamon, ground turmeric and shrimp paste. Red curry is most often used in beef curries and robust chicken dishes. This is a really popular thai dish and now you can recreate it yourself.

Ingredients:

500g shrimps, shelled

300g french beans

150ml coconut milk, I use canned coconut milk

1/2 cup of water

salt and sugar to taste

Spice paste: ( Red Curry Paste)

1tsp coriander powder

1/2tsp cumin seeds

12-15 big red chillies

2-3 chilli padis, optional

3-4 shallots, medium-sized

2-3 garlic cloves

5cm galangal

2cm turmeric or 1 tsp of turmeric powder

1 lemongrass, finely sliced

3 kaffir lime leaves, chopped

10 black peppercorns

good pinch of ground cinnamon

1tsp shrimp paste

small bunch of coriander (cilantro) roots, only the roots

1tbsp fish sauce

1tbsp soy sauce

3tbsp vegetable oil

How to do it:

Blend the spice paste in a food processor. Add more oil if necessary. (This spice paste is enough for 2 portions. You can store the other half in the freezer for future use)

Heat up some oil and fry the spice paste till ready. It is ready when you see the spice paste has turned a more reddish colour and come oil is seeping out of the spice paste.

Add the french beans in and stir fry for a little longer on low heat.

Add the coconut milk and bring to boil. You can dilute the coconut milk if you feel that the curry is too thick. I prefer mine slightly thinner.

Add the prawns last as you do not want to overcook the prawns. Bring to boil and serve hot.

Cook's Notes:

• you can substitute the franch beans for any other kinds of beans
• you can substitute the shrimps for chicken, beef
• if using store bought paste, add a stalk of lemon grass and 2-3 kaffir lime leaves to the paste to bring out the flavour.

99 - Thai Fried Egg Salad

Fried Egg Salad

(recipe below)

As the accompaniment to my chicken dish, I decided to prepare a simple salad to fulfill those vegetable requirements of the day! This dish is a breeze to prepare and has an uncomplicated yet savoury taste. It was the first time I tried this dish and it turned out to be the just the right compliment to the more complex taste of the Fried Chicken in Spicy Tomato Sauce.

The original recipe called for cucumber but since I had already finished the last one yesterday, ( the fiance loves cucumber) I put in tomatoes instead which turned out just great.

This recipe is a keeper and great even as a simple lunch or for those days when you have guests whereby it makes for a beautiful starter.

Ingredients:
2-3tbsp Oil for frying
3-4 Garlic cloves, sliced thinly
1 Shallot, medium-sized, sliced thinly
3-4 Chilli padis, sliced thinly
2 Tomatoes, sliced
3 Eggs
small bunch of cilantro for garnishing

Sauce:
1cm Ginger, diced fine
1-2tbsp lemon juice
2-3tbsp soy sauce
1/2tsp sugar

How to do it:
Heat the oil in a frying pan. On low heat, add garlic and half the chilli and fry till golden brown. Crack in the eggs. Break the yolks with a wooden spatula, then fry till eggs are almost firm. Remove from pan and set aside.

Mix the sauce ingredients and pour over the vegetables and toss lightly.

Cut the fried eggs into slices and place them above the tossed vegetables.

Garnish with the cilantro.

Cook's Notes:

• You can substitute the tomatoes with any other vegetables as preferred.

How does it taste like:
The tomatoes and shallots absorbed the soy sauce and lemon juice very nicely giving a very light lemony salty flavour. The texture of the fried egg has a good bite against the softness of the tomatoes whilst the raw shallots added a nice crunch. A definite keeper! Loved it!

100 - Ayam Masak Habang - Fried Chicken in Spicy Tomato Sauce

Fried Chicken in Spicy Tomato Sauce

(recipe below)

And today's chicken was especially hairy! Sounds funny until you gotta be the one to pluck those hairs...

Dinner tonight for two was Ayam Masak Habang also known as Ayam Masak Merah or Fried Chicken in Spicy Tomato Sauce. My fiance loves south east asian cuisine especially 'spicy' south east asian cuisine and I must say that I have come to love it as much as he does.

In Singapore, we were spoilt for choice. everywhere you turned, you find such a great variety of cuisine, from indonesian, to chinese, to thai, to eurasian, to japanese etc. That is the experience I hope to recreate in my blog. I love the food of Singapore and I hope to share with you what is Singaporean food the home-cooked way. This is for all singaporeans abroad and those of you that have yet to visit the beautiful garden city of Singapore.

I must admit that I have never appreciated the tremendous variety that came at such ease when I was living in Singapore. All this changed when I moved to the 'Sunny' city of Dubai. Do not get me wrong, Dubai is a great place with great food but just not true blue south east asian food. It is this author's dream to be able to bring great South East Asian food to this cosmopolitian city and I am working on realising the dream. That will be another adventure...

A Slice of Pink Red Velvet

I forgot to post a picture of the sliced cake yesterday. Due to the hot weather, the cake had to be kept in the refrigerator for storage. Before eating, I took it out for about half an hour and it was good as just baked. All moist and lovely!

My First Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Fillings Fondant Cakes

I finally made my first fondant cakes after almost a week's preparation. Gosh.. and I thought it was all going to be so simple. The cakes are covered with a

Marshmallow Fondant and are Red Velvet Cakes with Cream Cheese fillings.

Yummy! Moist and not too sweet!

This is the first time I have baked Red Velvet cakes and they are so pretty. I wish I could get them more red but I will definitley be making these babies again.

Hope you like them!

I am going to be writing about all the food that I miss back home. I have been cooking mainly peranankan and indonesian dishes and am trying my hand at simple chinese cooking now. I will include recipes when I can and my dishes are going to be HOT! As in literally hot! cos my family loves spicy food. Hope to see you on my journey..