Cinnamon Sunday

It's been blastering with rain again non stop since midnite.....cold, cold and miserably cold....
Need some ''pick me up'' breakfast food to aid me beat the Sunday blues....
How does that sounds like for a lazy Sunday morning.....having a freshly baked cinnamon roll with freshly brewed decaf coffee in my cozy conservatory[listening to the hypnotic sound of raindrops beating against the roof of my cozy corner]?

Since the bread dough is quite similar to the one I made earlier for sweet dough, I tried googling and found a nice recipes and work out just fine for me. Follow this link and there's video showing you step by step easy to follow instructions and recipes as well. I halved the ingredients used as I don't have to make for 8 people, I make enough for 4.
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-cinnamon-rolls

The spreading of cinnamon mixing onto dough it not easy to get an even spread, however I find that for the filling it's easier to spread the butter onto the rolled up dough first, then followed by sprinkling cinnamon+brown sugar on it. Roll it up then.

The cinnamon turn out really well....... it perks me up without fail :-). Of course my cinnamon roll came without the frosting because I don't like my cinnamon too sweet, I want more cinnamon tasty rather than just overly sweet.

Ingredient for the filling-butter, ground cinnamon powder, brown sugar

Line up little one

Now I called this Blissful Sunday....is not it?



By the way am going mussel picking in The Wash in this dreadful horrible weather. Stay tuned to see how it turn out to be.

Soupy Nite

It's again another chilly evening, plus high force wind in full action outside. Not a pleasant nite to venture out. Better wrapped out warm, settled in with a nice book and listening to "pleasant to the ear" music or better still blogging in my very own corner of Apron's Delight.
Tonite I'm gonna make water cress with pork belly soup. I love this soup so much. For the past few nites I had cough occasionally. My mom had this remedy if I remembered correctly. She used to make them quite often when we had free supply of water cress from our next door neighbor. My mom used to patiently cook them over charcoal fire, simmering it slowly for hours. The longer you simmer , the tender the pork belly is and the goodness of water cress dissolves into the soup she said.
This easy to make and tasty soup is loaded with nutrition (esp iron & vitamins) . It is deemed to have the ability to detoxify the lungs[note good for heavy smokers & those suffering from being a second hand smoker, I'm neither of those ;-)] . The water cress also has a cooling property to it. It can be a cooling soup in the summer(add more water cress to it). In the colder days we can elliminate the water cress cooling property by reducing the amount of water cress used and simmered it longer~5hours on low heat. This is rather a simple soup but yet so satisfying, simplicity is the best policy, don't you agree.

Water cress and pork belly soup

Ingredients

good for 2 persons

• 300gm pork belly
• 170gm of water cress (this is for autumn days)
  
• 6 red dates-pitted
• 1 litre water
• 1 small slow cooker

Put all the ingredient into the slow cooker, bring to a boil and let it simmer on low heat for at least 4 hours. This is soup is very tasty and can be served with rice. You can dip the pork belly into light soya sauce+minced garlic+lemon juice+birdeye chillis.

I just had mine.......waiting for miracle to happen, cough will go away tonite.....

Going local yocal

Saturday morning will never be complete without going to the local ''car boot'' sales. Next Saturday will be the last car boot in Oakington before they wrap up and start again next spring. So no Saturday car boot after next , but there will always be Sunday car boot which open all year round except during December. So what's car boot sales? Allow me to explain, car boot sales are mainly British form of day market in which private individuals and even traders come together to sell used/rarely used/ not used household and garden goods at really low price out from their car boot. It's quite an experience....I would say this is British culture, no tour group to UK will bring you to car boot sales to experience a piece of this culture. So I've got to be a local yocal :-)
So today after the car boot, I went for a drive around North & West of Cambridgeshire villages just to check out some local produce this season. To name a few, pear, apple, cauliflower are in season.

I found a farm shop in Willingham that sell pears and apples directly pluck from the farm behind their shop. I have never been a fan of apples for example, because I find it rather hard to bite and sometimes too sharp in taste for my liking. But truth be told ,some of the eating apples we got here in Cambridgeshire even beat the famed gala. Today I tried for the first time the Honey Crisp variety , as recommended by the really nice farm shop lady, yes only a bite, I'm hooked, so juicy and so crispy. Next came the conference pair. It taste sweet and just rightly soft to the bite. So I decided to buy a few bags each for my fruit supply over the next week. Better to nimble on a pair of pairs , or hearty apples than to snack on the likes of Cheese & Onion crisps. Another interesting find is the purple cauliflower, deemed to have the same nutrient like blueberries because of it's color, so I will labelled it super food. No idea how it taste like, will buy and give a try. I'm going local yocal on local produce again.

A pair of pears

Hearty apples-Honey Crisp

With bags of October fruits, I went home and cooked myself a simple lunch. I wonder if my sis read this post , she knows how much I missed the Teochew porridge food stall back in Bukit Gombak. We used to share this meal together quite often. We fight over who will have more luncheon cubes obviously :-).

Teochew porridge with sweet & sour luncheon meat

Ingredients

• 150gm luncheon meat (cubed)
  
• half pepper bell (cubed)
  
• half medium onion (cubed)
• 2 ring of pineapple from can/or fresh
  
• 1 tbsp sugar or honey
• 2 tbsp tomato ketchup
• 1 tbsp Maggi chilli sauce (optional)
  
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1.5 tsp light soya sauce
  
• 2 tbsp water
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
  
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• Porridge ( 1/3 cup of rice with 700ml of water)
  

1. Mix the tomato ketchup, sugar, sesame oil, soya sauce, water in a bowl.
2. Heat the pan and pour in 1 tbsp vegetable oil.
3. Once heated, put in the cubed luncheon meat and stir fry for about 3minutes(slightly brwoned).
4. Then add in onion and pepperbell and continue to stir fry for additional 2 minutes.
5. Lastly pour in the mixture in (1) and stir fry for one minute until well coated.
6. Serve while it's hot.

Note: Can serve with rice or porridge, can also use sausages instead of luncheon meat.
I like cucumber & lettuce pickles whenever I have porridge. This brand of pickles I got it from my business trip to Taiwan.

Never waste your food

Twas bitterly cold today, in the morning the temperature barely hits 7degreeC. I even wore a wool scarf & glove to sleep the nite before[brrrrrr.....]. It feels wintry. It's only early October for goodness sake.
Well.....well.... it's UK anyway :-)

Back to topic:
I was taught from young by mom to finish all the food on my plate, all clean and clear, not even a single grain of rice visible. I was told, if I finished everything I'll be bestowed a handsome boyfriend or husband in the future......hmnnnnn....guess it was a myth after all.... it was a bit silly though but the trick work just fine as it taught me not to waste food.....hehehehe.

So as from last nite, I made Teriyaki chicken and still have leftover(note: I couldn't finish 4 thighs at one go), so I thought why not made myself a nice bowl of Teriyaki chicken noodle soup. It was a fusion between Japanese and Chinese ingredients. I love soup when weather is plunging, cold and miserable. Hot soup always do wonder to perk me up. My mom will be so happy now, no more leftover .....

Teriyaki Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients

• 1 chicken cube stock or anchovies cube.
  
• A hanful of noodle (about 70gm)
  
• Chicken teriyaki meat sliced thinly[from leftover]
• 2 handful of green spinach leaves
• 400ml water
• 1 tsp shaoxing wine
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• few sprigs of parsley
• slices of red chillis
• some sesame for decorating
• 2 tsp of light soya sauce
• 1 tsp oyster sauce(optional)
  
• pinch of salt to taste
  
• seaweed (Nori)
• pinch of pepper
  

1. Cook the noodle and drain and put into a bowl, top up with bits of seaweed.
2. In another pot, prepare the chicken stock, add in the cube and boil. Then add in seasoning-sesame oil, salt, soya sauce, shaoxing wine. Still boiling add in spinach and turn off the fire.
3. Pour over the soup into the noodle in the bowl. Top up with teriyaki chicken, chillis slice, parsely and pinch of white pepper. Serve while it's hot. I throw in a pint of beer for bonus.....

A taste of Japan

Two months ago, I went out with colleagues to a Japanese restaurant deemed to serve the best Japanese cuisine in Cambridge[according to some of my colleagues]. I have high expectation of this place. It's near the famed Cam river. As I entered the restaurant, the interior decor not even close to the contemporary setting I'm expecting[disapointment], to me it look more like any fast food chain. Secondly the menu, the minimum price of a main meal is about 9quid[that's equivalent to SGD27 or RM54] . I'm quite hungry actually, so I requested for chicken teriyaki bento set[teriyaki chicken, rice, cabbage salad, miso soup,radish pickles]. About 20mins wait, finally my bento set arrived. I hope it's worth the wait. To my disapointment again, the portion was a little mean, not that I'm a big eater, taste wise- needless to say another disapointment. Honestly, Sakae Sushi back in Singapore could beat it with a wide margin. Just having a bento set+a drink comes to about 12quid, however I have to forked out 22quid at the end of the day [being charitable here]. I decided , it's almost close to impossible to find ''value for money'' Japanese meal here in Cambridge. I decided to make my own Japanese meal in the future.
Tonite I make myself Teriyaki Chicken and it taste much much better than the one I had at that ''best Japanese restaurant in Cambridge''. What an achievement and on top of that, at a fraction of cost less than 2quid for the ingredients.

Teriyaki Chicken

Ingredients

• 4 chicken thigh(remove bone)
• 50ml of Japanese mirin(rice wine)
• 30gm miso paste
• 3 tbsp sugar
• A slice of ginger minced
  
• 30ml sake(optional)
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• sesame seed for decorating
  

1. Mix wine, miso paste, ginger and sugar in a plastic container. Stir to dissolve the sugar.
2. Add in chicken thigh and leave to marinate for at least 6 hours. I left it overnight again.
3. Heat a pan, on medium heat, pour in the oil, wait about 2mins.
4. Put in the chicken, skin side onto the pan and let it cook until brown. Then turn over to the meat side and let it cook for a minute, pour in the marinating leftover from the container, turn down the heat, close the lid and let it simmer for 5minutes until sauce thicken. You can remove chicken and sliced into pieces, garnish it with the thicken sauce.
5.Serve with rice.

Hope you'll enjoy making this simple and yet lovely dish.

Seafood fare with a fusion twist

I love seafood especially fresh seafood. This is one of the few things I missed much about Singapore/Malaysia. I could easily testifed that Sabah has the best seafood. Think my cousin Fen + cousin in law Perry will be so proud now. Over here , it's quite expensive to have fresh prawn, the closest you'll get is frozen king prawn (note: king prawn = medium size prawn back home) pack in a 250gm packaging in supermarket. If you're lucky, you may get headless fresh prawn in the seafood counter. One would wonder, Britain is surrounded by oceans, North Sea to the East, and Atlantic ocean to the West, there should be abundance of seafood and should be cheap as well. I think the reason of the high price is that labor cost that gone into de-shelling them, removing head, skin and bone from fishes and etc. Some may disagree with me , claiming that declining fish stocks and ethical fishing method may be the real reason. So everything came with headless, boneless or some even skinless. No wonder the westerners are traumatised by the ''Fish Head'' curry we had for that matter :-).
So what to cook(scratching my head tho)? One is craving for some seafood fare. Checklist: Still some ''frozen'' king prawns and scallops left in the fridge. The first instant thought was fried seafood guotiau(thick rice noodle) but no time to run down to Chinese store to get it. In time of emergency like this, pasta always come handy. Down to pasta fusilli then....decided....full stop.
My chives herby planted in my garden make good frying companion especially for noodle, well no harm throwing in for my fried dish.... :-) .... for me if it's fresh, everything also can lah....
So does Italian pasta blend in well with Malaysian "goreng" (in Malay means fry) style....fusion indeed with a twist.

Fried seafood fusilli ala Malaysian
Ingredients

• 120gm of pasta fusilli
• 2 pieces of garlic, chopped
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1 cili padi (small spicy chilli)
• 2-3 cabbage leaves sliced thinkly into strip
  
• 1 tbsp tomato ketchup
• 2 tsp dark soya sauce
• 1 tbsp light soya sauce
• 1 bunch of chives ( can use Chinese chives, mine is the herby chives)
• 150 gm prawn
• 6 scallops
• 3 small squid, cut into rings
  
• 2 tsp shaoxing wine( I like to use wine when cooking)
  
• 1 egg
• 1-2tbsp vegetable oil and 1/2(half) tsp sesame oil
  

1. Boil the fusilli in a pot until al-dante. Takes about 10-15mins. Drained.
2. In a pan/wok, high fire, pour in the oil ,stir fry the garlic, onion, chilli until fragrant.
3. Add in prawn, squid, scallop and stir fry for 2 mins, add in egg then cabbage + pasta and stir fry again for 2 mins.
4. Stir in all the seasoning-1st shaoxing wine, follow by light soya sauce, tomato ketchup then dark soya sauce. Stir fry again for 2mins.
5. Add in the chives and off the cooker, mix well......ready to serve in a nice plate.

It's so tasty...... brrrrrrp..........
By the way that's my Sunday lunch ;-)

Feeling nostalgic about bun

Thirty years ago in my hometown of Perak, we used to stay next door to a local bakery. Back then we as kid always saw those bakers kneading relentlessly on huge heavy dough every morning. One thing that always lingered deeply in my memory was the aroma of freshly baked bread. What a pleasant way to wake up every single morning. Of course my favorite loaf during those days was long loaf spread with sugary butter cream(additional cream pleaaaaaase) ...it cost 5cents for a cream loaf back then. Those were the bygone days.......
Back to present, all the nostalgic events of yesteryear has a deep implication especially on the food department(I mean FOOD department with capitals). So I decided to knead a sweet bread dough. Making bread is no easy task if one has no breadmaker. I hand knead it relentlessly like the traditional baker. Food made with effort always taste better in my humble opinion :-) [even if it's only 99.999% perfect]. And the reward sweet & fresh aroma of freshly baked bread lingering.......nostalgic....priceless.
So what to make of the filling? Easy, quick and yet tasty. I decided to have a go at making mini frankfurter roll (or well known sausage roll). This recipes good for making twelve, 3 inches long mini roll.

The sweet bread dough
Ingredients

• 150gm of white bread flour
• 150gm of plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 125ml fresh milk
• 50gm butter
• 40-60gm sugar (I used 40gm)
  
• 5gm fast action dried yeast
• 1 egg

Filling
Ingredients

• 4 six inches long frankfurter (cut into 3 sections, that makes 12)
• 1 egg for glazing the bread
• some sesame seed for decorating
  

1. Put the dried ingredient (flour, salt, sugar, yeast) into a mixing bowl.
2. Add in butter, egg and milk. Knead them. At this time you feel that it is sticky to your finger, no worry.
3. Prepare a flat surface like a chopping board, dust the surface with plain flour. Dust your finger with some flour as well so that it will be easier to knead the sticky dough.
   
4. Pour the mixture onto the work surface and continue to knead. Knead for 20-25mins when it feels elastic and smooth. Put it back to the mixing bowl cover with a piece of damp towel/cloth. (I leave it in the oven until the next morning, when it should have risen 3 times its original size)
5. Dust the work surface again and knead for 5mins once it has risen 3 times its original size.
   
6. Cut to portion of 50gm each and roll each into a strip of 2 inches wide x 4 inches long x 0.25inches thick.
   
7. Place a sausage at the end and roll it to the other end. Continue to do for the rest. Brush the roll with egg and drop some sesame seed onto the surface.
8. Prepare a baking tray and lay it with aluminium foil. Turn on oven to 190C and baked for 15mins.

Hurry hurry here comes my curry

It reads 13C as on my car thermostat at 6pm. All I could ever hope for at this moment is a bowl of spicy piping hot curry. Be it Thai green or red, Malaysian and even Indian curry I would be thrilled. Somehow I was not in a hurry to choose any particular curry. On any given day I can have Thai green curry for lunch and dinner and yet wanting more the next day.
Here I am given the choice to make myself a nice curry....Thai,Malaysian, Indian or rather the disputed British creation of Tikka Masala. So what have I got in my fridge? I have a cup of single cream, yogurt, pepper bell, chillies, onion and tandoori chicken breast meat. So by the looks of it, I have no other choice but to cook myself the sweet spicy Tikka Masala dish. Hope it is as good to cure my craving of Thai green curry. I could hear my hungry stomach rumbling " hurry, hurry all I need is curry" .... or am I hallucinating?..... you decide...

Recipes

Ingredients

• 300g ready made tandoori chicken breast(readily available in supermarket)
• 1 medium red onion, peeled and sliced
• ½ red pepper, deseeded and sliced
• ½ green pepper, deseeded and sliced
• 2 red chillies, deseeded and sliced (increase if more spicy required)
• a handful of fresh corriander chopped
• 1/4 tsp garam masala
• 2 tbsp cooking oil
• a pinch of ground cinnamon
• a pinch of ground coriander
• a pinch of turmeric
• 1 x 400g tin plum tomatoes
• 100ml plain yoghurt
• 100ml double cream

Heat a pan, pour in vegetable oil, on a medium heat, fry the onion, peppers and spices in a large saucepan. Cook gently for 10 minutes then add the tin of tomatoes and the yoghurt. Add the chicken pieces and simmer gently for 15 to 20 minutes until cooked. Just before serving, stir through the cream and yougurt chopped coriander leaves.

Serve with briyani rice, poppadum and pickles.

The journey

It's been exactly 2years and 2 months since I left Singapore to UK soil. During the whole time I've been procrastinating about setting up my own blog to share with family and friends far and near. Having given the excuses like ''I am a Busy Bee'', ''Do I have time to maintain my blog?'', ''Will I have the so called overly ardent blog fans?'' and all the "how to" and "what to" follows etc etc. But one has to start somewhere, so here I am...............with the name of Apron's Delight.
A little background how Apron's Delight came about. Be patient, because I can be quite long winded if I wanted to.
When I actually set foot on British soil, it was with a feeling of excitement, here a new life ensue. Having made the decision to come here for good I hope, it would be defeated not to assimilate, observe, learn and be at ease with all the new culture has to offer. As once a wise man says : "you can at best come to grip with the problem and co-exist with them and when comfortable enough eventually, to feel you belong''. This does not mean one should trade away one's cultural heritage for another but rather a fusion of both cultures.
So food is one of them. Generally I love to eat and like to try my hand at new recipes. Baking has never been one of my cooking credentials, as it requires combination of good cooker and good skill. The horrid of baking failures like cake doesn't rise, cake over rise, hole in a middle, too dry, under cooked, etc etc sent me thousand miles away to hide and never want to put my hand into baking attempt. So one has to start small and start simple.It all begin with me baking some English summer fruits muffins to host afternoon tea to a friend (of course with hint of Englishness). The muffins turned out well, or rather "perfectly well" as my friend puts it(you get what I mean, golden brown and slightly crispy on the outside and moist in the inside). Each of us had our fill of 4 muffins each. One can't go unnoticed with the nice English rose apron I am wearing.....guess it boost my confidence or rather some kind of miracle bestow upon me that after all I can bake. An instant success and I now do bake once in awhile like pastries, breads and cakes. And conversation about setting up an tea place eventually , will named it Apron's Delight[noted only if I retired from my engineering job]. I owed my friend this piece of intelligent property , calling this site Apron's Delight. As I continue with my journey, I hope you all enjoy my recipes, my down to earth photography and once in awhile if I'm not Busy Bee with other commitments, I try my best to upkeep it. So stay tuned. Positive or even harsh critics are welcome. As one said, if all smooth sailing one will stop to grow.