Buttermilk Chicken.

Ingredients:

• Boneless chicken cut into strips
• Butter or margarine. I used Bertolli Olive oil spread
• Flour (any will do)
• Cornstarch
• Milk
• Salt and pepper
• Some sugar
• Fresh Milk
• Curry leaves (dry or fresh)

Method:

1. Prepare the chicken by mixing salt, pepper and cornstarch. Then deep fry till it turns golden brown and crisp.
2. Melt generous amount of butter. Make it 3/4 the amount of chicken you have.
3. Add curry leaves, and let it frying until fragrant.
4. Dash some flour and let it sizzle. Make sure it's not sticky (meaning too much).
5. Add milk, and season. (omit sugar if you're using sweetened condensed milk)
6. *optional - cut bird's eye chillies.
7. Add chicken, mix well and serve.

Tom Yam Seafood served with Tang Hoon (Glass Vermicelli)

Today, I thought of making something simple to eat, quick and considerably healthy. So I decided to make Seafood Tomyam with TangHoon.




Ingredients:

• Tang Hoon - Washed and soaked in hot water
• Some seafood medley - mussels, prawns, squid, etc.
• Some spring onions cut diagonally
• 1 Knorr Tom Yam cube. You can use any tomyam paste
• Some oil
• and water

Method:

1. Add some oil to a pot, and stir fry the mussels.
2. Add boiling water, enough to make a broth for the soup.
3. Add the tomyam cube, and let it boil.
4. Add the seafood, the spring onions and lastly the tanghoon.
5. Season to taste if necessary as the paste are normally readily salty.
6. Garnish with extra spring onions and I served with poached egg.

Craving number 2 - Kolo mee

I crave, I work it out, I make, I eat = I'm content!

Kolo mee:




Here's my list of things I bought at Sainsbury's and local store.

• Blue Dragon flat egg noodles - to substitute wantan noodles
  
• Red onion
• Scalion / spring onion
• Mushroom (the first time I bought just 1 mushroom and cost me 12p! ahahh)
  
• Free range egg
• Fishballs
• Organic large king prawns
  

Ingredients:

• Flat dry egg noodles (BlueDragin brand)
• 1 Big red onion
• Boneless chicken - minced
• Scalion / spring onions
• Soya Sauce
• Oyster Sauce
• Sesame oil
• Sugar
• Salt
• Pepper
• Cornstarch
• Egg - omellette
• Some prawns, fishballs/fishcakes for garnish
• Mushrooms

1. Cut the onions thinly and deep fry until golden brown and put aside. Keep the oil.
2. Make the sauce. To make, take some onion oil into a saucepan, add in mushrooms then chicken, followed by the sauces.
3. Season it, and thicken it with cornstarch.
4. Blanch the noodles.
5. On a serving plate, put some onion oil, soya sauce and a dash of salt. Add the blanched noodle and mix well.
6. Pour some minced chicken sauce.
7 Garnish with egg omellette, fishcakes, fishballs, fried onions, spring onions.


p/s: be sure make the sauce salty and slightly sweet, as the taste will diffuse when mixed with the noodles.

Chendol

Yes, I'm finally back in the Bourne but not quite as I'll be away on placements.

So, cendol is really a good thirst quencher especially on Fasting month like now. Being in the UK and Eastbourne especially, finding Asian foods are not as easy as elsewhere. But nothing could stop me! I ventured out to town, and hey! Not only I found the ingredients for cendol, I found curry leaves, cincau, wantan wrappers, fishballs, sotong balls!! Gosh, these were the foods that I had been craving for the last 2 years! If only I knew they existed here previously, I wouldn't have to suffer!! And even more, they're just opposite my house!

So, cendol is no exception being hard to find, worst explaining them to the retailer! Couldn't stand any longer, I decided to make it my own!!! Heheh I even had to buy the utensil (potato ricer) for bloody 10quid!!! Back home would be like 1/10th of that price perhaps? Anyway, today, I made it. Tired and overwhelmed with the placement and arrival arrangements with the Brunei Students unit in London, I finally made it!

Oh, I didn't even use exact measurement. It was all based on instinct, taste and fun of trying. Didn't work at first as I thought the texture was a little raw. Then I put it back into the pot and add more water and let it simmer even further. Great ending indeed!!

Don't have gula melaka, I had to substitute it with Damerara brown sugar, and it tastes the same!!

voila!!

Marhaban Ya Ramadhan al-Mubarak

It's our first day of Ramadhan today. Was excited to get up and had my pre-fasting dinner or sahur (late supper) as I was so excited to fast. The meal was not exaggerated, very minimal but hopefully it's healthy. Now waiting for the break of fast (in 1 hour time). Whilst waiting, I'm posting this entry. I didn't want to go to tamu today as we have a lot of food on the table already.

I also made these this afternoon. It's glutinous balls in red bean soup. Initially I wanted to make glutinous balls with red bean paste fillings, but somehow I changed my mind. There were also some extra balls, so I decided to make putri mandi too, although it's not the usual green. hehe

The glutinous balls in red bean soup




The white version of the usual putri mandi




I CANT WAIT NOW!!!

Dinner at Empire + Car gone kaput.

The moon was not sighted on Sunday, so fasting was not until Tuesday. That Monday, Brian gave me a call if it's ok to go to Empire and a stop at the Mall. I agreed as I needed to get some stuffs at the Mall too.

On arrival at Gadong, just at the traffic light towards The Mall, my car steering wheel suddenly had gone stiff and hard to manouvre, and the battery warning indicator showed. Fortunately, I was still able to drive, albeit the stiff steering wheel. I managed to get the car safely parked. Not panicking at all, I called my sister to ask her what to do and checked the bonnet it was the belting. Then "Aunty May" from 247-assist came to my mind. I called Alan and asked for his opinion. He then arranged for towing etc. Having to wait for the insurance people to arrange a towing pick up, I simply couldn't stand the wait any longer or $50 could have been gone towards the towing. I then decided to drive the car to the workshop.

Safely arrived at the workshop, then they thought that it was a simple failure and nothing serious. They were able to get it fixed in just an hour. Altogether the wait and all, it took me about 4 hours at least. Traffic was horrible, and my speedometer barely moved! But I am glad everything was fine, although Brian and his GF had to wait for that long at the mall. On arrival, I ran straight to Coffee Bean for some caffeine fix!

From Gadong, we headed to Empire for dinner. Contemplating between Atrium and Pantai, we finally then decided to go to Pantai as it's outdoor. The Empire is still nice as always. The dinner at Pantai was a steamboat with great selection of fresh meat and seafoods. Yum yum!!

View of The Empire main lobby building from the beach.




The steamboat, and I called it the Asian Fondue!




Taken by a tourist couple on the way to Pantai




Me and Brian taken "at the mosque" ?? eheh




A group pose at the lobby




On the way home around 11pm, Rolande another best friend called and hoped to meet everyone in Seria. So, we met up at WyWy Seria, well there's no other place around that time! He came with his new scooter!!

Our attempt of the "2008" era pose!! Macam Mat Rempit lah.. ahah

Mini Reunion.

Had a mini reunion with an old childhood friend, Brian Lim. We have been best of friends since kindy and all the way through A-Levels. Now he's residing in Canada, and have not met him for more than 2 years! Alan, Brian's brother and Brian's GF also joined us.

The first reunion was held on Sunday at the Sports Cafe along the KB River bank. A nice time spent until sunset with rainbow shining too.

Us, meeting again after more than 2 years of separation. Brian, me and Alan.




The sunset, with the sounds of boats ocassionally crusing along the river.




The rainbow