Salt & Chilli Prawns

This salt & chilli prawns recipe is very easy to prepare and make. Suitable for those busy working women or lazy housewife (like me, ahahaha). This dish is meant to be eaten with steamed rice, because  after all it's an Indo-kind-of-dish (even though it's heavily influenced by Chinese cooking as well).

Ingredients:

• 500 gr prawns
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 3-4 tbsp corn starch
• 1 lime
• 2 red chillies, minced
• 1 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tbsp spring onion
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

How to make:

1. Mix prawns with juice from 1 lime, leave for 10 minutes. Add in 1/4 tsp of salt, white pepper, and corn starch; mix well.
2. Deep fry prawns in hot cooking oil until golden brown; then set aside.
3. Heat 1 tbsp of the remaining oil from frying the prawns. Saute minced garlic clove and red chillies until the oil almost dries up. Add in chopped spring onions, salt, fried prawns, and sprinkle with black pepper. Mix all together until prawns are evenly coated with the other ingredients.

Source: "Menu Sehari-hari & Akhir Pekan" Vol.1, Yasa Boga

Silk Tofu Soup

Another heart warming soup recipe for winter! Yeay! The soup is very Chinese-influenced. It is very very easy to make and the taste is savoury and light. Anyway, just trust me, it is great to warm up your body in winter or if you are having fever ;)

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cylinders of silk tofu, diced
• 100 gr minced chicken
• 100 gr prawn
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 garlic cloves
• 700 ml water
• Some chicken bones (optional)
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp tapioca flour (mix with a bit of water)
• 300 gr cai sim
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• Salt, if needed

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat vegetable oil and saute the garlic. Add in minced chicken and prawn, and cook until the colour changes.
2. Add water, chicken bones, white pepper, and fish sauce. Then bring to boil.
3. Add in the tofu; lower the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.
4. Add the tapioca mix to thicken the soup. Add cai sim and sesame oil. Cook until the cai sim wilted.

NOTES:

• You can substitue tapioca flour for corn starch. If you want a thicker soup, you can add more tapioca mix.
• If you don't have any leftover chicken bones, you can leave it out. But it always makes a yummy broth if you use chicken bones :D

Adapted from: "Menu Sehari-hari & Akhir Pekan" Vol.2, Yasa Boga

Tomato Soup

For you who needs some veggie intake boost, this heart warming soup is a good option. This soup is packed with rich-in-vitamins tomatoes and is perfect to warm up a cold winter night. The recipe is actually adapted from BBC Good Food (with a few changes) and I just had to put this on my blog because it's such a pain reading it on the actual website whenever I want to make this again.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg ripe tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 celery stick
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1-2 tbsp of ketchup
• 2 bay leaves
• 1.2 litres of beef stock
• Pinch of sugar
• Salt
• Black pepper

How to make:

1. Dice the tomatoes. Cut celery, carrot, and onion into small pieces. 
2. Heat olive oil and saute the onion. After it starts to wilt, add in celery and carrot. Cook the vegetables about 10 minutes. Stir a couple of times to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pan.
3. Squirt ketchup and stir. Add in the diced tomatoes, sprinkle a pinch of sugar, black pepper, and 2 bay leaves. Put the lid on and let the the tomatoes stew over low heat for 10 minutes.
4. Pour the hot stock and stir. Turn the heat high and when everything is bubbling, turn the heat to low and put the lid on. Simmer for another 25 minutes, stirring a couple of times.
5. Take out the bay leaves. Use a hand blender to puree the soup right in the soup pan, or you can ladle the soup into a blender and pureed it.
6. Lastly, improve the taste to your liking by adding more black pepper, sugar, or salt.

Notes:

• The actual recipe calls for vegetable stock, but I find it tastes better using beef stock
• Best served warm with accompanying puff pastry. Or you can make it into tomato zuppa soup.

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Red Velvet Mini Cupcakes

Am so very sorry that I haven't put up anything for a month (?). I was kinda busy here and there, got flu for a while, needed to catch up with house work, and when I was ready to blog the Mac needed a repair. But anyway, finally now I'm catching up on my blog posts!

A couple of weeks ago I was severely craving for a very moist red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. I wanted to try another recipe and found an "ultra" moist red velvet cake recipe that turned into an ultra disaster. It was nowhere wear good and I had to throw away the whole batch. Afterwards, I quit looking for an ultra moist recipe and just searched for the best red velvet recipe. So then I came across this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 20 ml (up to 50 ml) Queen's Pillar Box Red food colouring
• 1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp baking soda

Cream cheese frosting:

• 450 gr cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cup confectioner sugar, sifted
• Pinch of salt

How to make:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Prepare the mini cupcake pan and place the patty papers.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. In a small bowl, mix food colouring and cocoa powder evenly.
3. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Beat in eggs, one at a time.  Then beat in vanilla and red cocoa paste. Add 1/3 of the flour mix to the butter mixture, beat well, then beat in half of the buttermilk. Repeat and end with the last third of the flour mix. Beat until well combined.
4. Mix vinegar and baking soda (it will fizz). Add it to the cake batter and stir well to combine. 
5. Working quickly, spoon the cake batter into the mini cupcake pans half way full. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Check early, cupcakes is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.
6. Cream cheese frosting: Beat butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add in the confectioner sugar, salt, and vanilla extract and beat with low speed to incorporate. Then turn the mixer on high and beat until light and fluffy. 

My cuppies have dome-shape top because I put it on fan-forced oven mode

The cream cheese frosting is amazing! The cake is just okay (but maybe because I accidentally put 1 teaspoon of baking soda into the dry ingredients). The color wasn't as I had expected because when the wrapper is ripped open, you can see chocolate cake crumbles. The original recipe calls for 60 ml American food colouring whereas I live in Australia and I think the products here might have a different effect. I contacted Queen's Food (I used their Pillar Box Red food colouring) and they said usually they used about 20ml of colouring for one red velvet recipe. But if you ought to use the whole bottle, it shouldn't give any bitter taste.

I brought some of the cuppies to my halaqah because I couldn't possibly finish it by myself at home and hubby doesn't like red velvets. They said it was good and looked really cute. So, I guess I approve this recipe! ;) 

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