The perfect omelette

I’ve been told a couple of times that the directions in my recipes are extremely vague. I’ve decided to start writing detailed instructions with this simple recipe, perfect for one on a cozy morning. 

Perfect omelette for one 

Ingredients

1 small shallot, sliced finely

1 small tomato cubed

1 small green chilli sliced finely

1 stalk of parsley

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

2 eggs 

Method

1. Heat oil in a non stick pan till hot at medium fire.
2. Put in the onions and fry till light brown and fragrant
3. Add green chilli and tomato and stir briefly for 1 min
4. Break eggs directly into pan, don’t beat them and pour before hand. This ensures a light omelette with swirls of white in it. Lower heat to low.
5. Add sprinkling of salt and pepper
6. Stir with wooden spatula, breaking the yolks and giving all the ingredients a good mix thru in the omelette
7. Make sure all the bits are evenly distributed in the pan and your omelette is roughly round. Don’t mess around anymore
8. Sprinkle chopped parsley and leave the omelette to set
9. Fold into two and slide onto a plate
10. Enjoy!

Mom’s samosas

 

I had a few little friends over recently and we made the most delicious bread rolls which I will post about soon. I found these in my freezer, samosas do freeze quite well and they’re handy to have around. We had these as a tea time snack. These are made with store bought spring roll wrappers folded into triangles and filled. This is my mother’s recipe. 

Mom’s samosas  

Ingredients 

3 tablespoons oil 

1 medium onion, diced 

1 cm ginger 

2 cloves garlic 

1 green chilli diced 

500g minced beef 

1 large potato diced into small cubes 

2 tablespoons meat curry powder  

Method 

Pound garlic and ginger in a pestle and mortar. Fry onions in oil till fragrant, add chilli and continue to fry for 2 mins. Add garlic and ginger mixture, fry for another 2 mins. Add curry powder. Add meat and potato and continue cooking till dry and potatoes are tender. Add salt to taste. Use as filling when cool.  

Ice cream misadventures

Its been a while since I’ve posted something I;ve actually made. Its not because I haven’t made anything.   Its because I have made too many things that failed. Actually TWO things that failed.  To tell you the story would be a long and painful tale. But I shall brave myself and tell it. I have failed in my ice cream adventures.  

The first ice cream was a promising pistachio gelato. I was being too ambitious for my first recipe. But I was seduced by this recipe. Yes seduced. The promise of beautiful green slightly chewy pistachio gelato made me fall hook line and sinker. I DID not have pistachio paste of course, you can only get that in Italy or some place else, other that here of course. So I made my own by grinding pistachios. As you know, pistachios are salted and salty. So the resulting mixture was very salty, I smartly compensated by adding more and more sugar. The result was a salty sickly brown icy paste.   

The next time, I was smarter and decided to opt for a simple vanilla bean ice cream. I misread the recipe and overcooked the yolks in the vanilla milk mixture and the whole thing split on me. It was a scrambled mess. I crossed my fingers and still hoped that by some miracle it could be churned into a smooth delicious yellow vanilla ice cream speckled beautiful with vanilla seeds. I then had a lot of trouble churning the mixture as I don’t know how long to chill it for and the more I churned, the more the whole machine sweated. Water was condensing on its sides. I then did not pursue and poured it into a tub and froze it. The result was an icy grainy mess. The taste was ok but the texture was almost unpalatable.  I now have 2 tubs of terrible creams in my freezer. Anyone keen?  I have a few issues, please help. I have a kenwood ice cream machine that needs the bowl prefrozen before the mixture is put in.  

1. How long to chill the mixture before churning?
2. How long do I actually churn?
3. I need a foolproof ice cream recipe for beginners. Please help!

 

Please help me cross this treacherous bridge into the world of wonderful ice creams. I might even put my machine up on ebay soon!

Photo courtesy of my mom, taken in a Bruneian rainforest.

She who loves p.s. cafe

p.s. café photo courtesy of Wenyin

Happy Weekend everyone!

 

What’s in Pandoro’s box?

 

What’s in Pandoro’s box?

Pandoro’s box followed us home from Carrefour and left behind all his brothers and sisters.

He sat around for a while, looking handsome and full of promise in his pale box topped with the pretty brown ribbon.

He was born in Italy.

Unadorned, he’s tall dark and handsome

Inside he’s sweet and soft. Really like a brioche or strangely, I found it tasted very much like potato bread they sell at Carrefour, you know, the small sweet ones with the custard crossed on top.

The post with no pictures and a reply to all the previous post’s comments

I’ve realized that comments get lost among comments and its hard to keep track of comments you’ve made and the replies. So I’m replying to the comments from the last post here.. This is my first post without a photo and there’s no recipe, so if you’re not particularly interested in my ramblings please stop reading right here.  

Well, things have been quiet around here because of a few things, I’m down with a recurrent bladder infection for the last week which has sadly made me loose my appetite. And a little of my sanity.  I haven’t been able to look at the blog without feeling slightly sick. H has been a property of the state (he went for reservist ie. compulsory army training for all Singaporean men) so there wasn’t much motivation to cook. My housekeeper “Kak Sal” went back to Indonesia so my mom banned me from the kitchen as I make “too much mess”. The only thing I have baked are my chewy chocolate chip cookies THREE times. Mostly keeping a constant supply for H in camp just to hear him whine that “all the other boys ate it and I only had one”. I can’t look at another chewy chocolate chip cookie now. 

Ok, so the first reply to Shafaa is, lovely picnic food? How exciting!! Its been raining constantly so I hope the sun comes out for your picnic. Let me now strongly advise you to buy the latest issue of donna hay. I know Wenyin responded to my urgings and got one! It has a lovely picnic spread. These are my suggestions 

Zucchini puffs  

Tomato and cheese tart  

Spicy cheese puffs from one of my favourite food blogs

These super easy whirls of cheese, tomato, basil and puff pastry I’ve been dying to try out  

Zu, you’re doing wedding wrapping!! Count me in, my place? I can definitely make some grub! 

Suraya: hey, how did you find my blog?? How are things in London? When are you graduating? My dad is anything but “cool” in conventional terms, haha. Thanks for the compliment anyway and for dropping by! Are you going to invite me to your blog (shamelessly asks)?? 

Well, the other things that are going on in my life is that I’m going to Cambodia on the 10^th of January, so I’ll be organizing a short bake sale to raise some funds soon. If I have the time, otherwise I’ll have to look around for some sponsors. It’s a short medical mission to a small village in need. I’ll also be churning out my homemade ice cream soon, my new machine has been sitting around extremely neglected. I’ve also bought lots of silicon moulds and have made mendiants. Wondering about them? I hope to post them up soon but I’ve ran out of coverture chocolate so till my next supply.. They’re so pretty and really easy to make. Ok, hopefully the next post will actually contain something I made! 

Tea and biscotti

Tea and biscotti was what I had over the weekend. I used this recipe, without the cranberries as I did not have any. The batter was not possible to shape, it was really soft. I baked them in my silicon daisy mould, (yes, it does seem like this is my only kitchen item these days) and then sliced them very very thin for thin biscotti. I like my biscotti thin and sleek. It solves the problem of them being underbaked or too hard. They’re wafer thin and dry out really fast in the oven. I baked them longer in the oven during the second baking, about 15 mins. They also dunk well and snap easily too. They were wrapped cosily in a hankerchief Wenyin bought me, do you remember Wen? I think it was from Australia. I had them with a few of my favourite things.

This was a jar I bought from my regular bakeshop Ailin Bakery at Tanjong Katong Complex. You can find it in Chinatown too for bout $3 or less. I love this jar because of the see thru lid, sometimes I stick a round label on the inside, with a message written if I’m giving it as a gift.

This was a birthday gift from Mel this year, I am in a chocolate phase now.

My favourite brand of tea from Indonesia, its only available at Indonesian restaurants or in Jakarta. Its really good, Mel who knows all things Indonesian gave me my first taste when I was 14. I’ve been hooked since then. It has a pleasant light subtle rose scent and dose not have that sour aftertaste that some black teas have.

The lovely teacup was a wedding gift from my dear friend Zhimin, the fellow baker. April was the month I got married so this teacup from the Royal Doulton set of “Flowers of the Month” is really special.

G.O.O.P

If you’ve got nothing for dinner, you could have some goop (Garlic Oil On Plate). Just cut of the top of a head of garlic, put it cut side down and roast in an oven at 180C in some olive oil. Sprinkle capers and chopped olives and some herbs. That’s it. The silky texture of the roasted garlic was really interesting and it hardly tasted garlicky at all. It was smooth and mellow and good with crusty baguette. So if you’ve got nothing for dinner and need a break, go ahead. Have some goop. Or have Robotti make you a pizza.