Time to Celebrate!

Finally, all tension is gone, Germany has gotten the 3rd placing in the 2006 World Cup. At least I got to watch Oliver Kahn in action for the last time today in his last world cup play. He is not exactly the greatest looking guy on the field but he is definitely the man for the job. With him on the team was like placing a pillar of confidence to the Germany team since Ballack's injury. Great game! and great goal keeping! Viva Germany! see you in 4 years time.

Had a pefect reason to celebrate and has to be a tasty juicy roast, I'm starved of red meat lately. Rosemary Roast Leg of Lamb with potatoes, blanche broccoli and crispy curly greens seems to fit the profile just right.

For the leg of lamb, I usually pick Wammco International, (Australian), vacumn-packed chilled meat. It beats getting a frozen chump anytime. The meat is more tender and tastes better, all 2.4 kg of pure red meat!

Preheat oven at 210 degree celsius.

Just tear open the chiller wrap and rinse the leg of lamb under some filtered water. Pat dry with disposable kitchen towels. Place leg of lamb on a roasting tin. Use a sharp paring knife, make slits on the top part of the leg (where the layer of fat is) and push a slice of silvered garlic into each slit. Grind sea salt and black pepper over the leg and pluck sprigs of fresh rosemary and throw on top. (see photo above) Put it into the oven and time it to 30 minutes uncovered. Check it meat is properly brown on top then cover with an aluminium foil. Continue to roast for 1 hour. Check roast, baske with its drippings and continue to roast for another 20 minutes to get a medium to well done piece. I roasted it longer because most of my takers tonight are children. My roast is close to well done but not dry, all in all 2 hours 15 minutes.

While the leg of lamb is roasting away, wash some potatoes and praboil for 15 minutes. When roast is 30 minutes to ready, toss in the potatoes.

Cut broccoli into large pieces and blanche in hot boiling water for 30 seconds. Drain and plunge them in icy cold water to stop cooking and maintain crunchiness.

As for the crispy curly vegetable, just wash lightly under filtered water and decorate.

Please remember to let the roast sit for 1/2 hour before carving. While that's going on, pour all the dripping from the roasting tin into a small saucepan. Skim off the oil and thicken with 2 Tbsp of flour mixed with 5 Tbsp water. Stirring while heating and pour in a glass of white wine. When sauce begins to thicken, cut off the heat.

Last but not least, uncork a bottle of choice red wine to complete the lovely evening. Cheers!

Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

Summer fruits are deliciously beautiful when obtained in their homegrown countries. Peaches, nectarines, strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, blueberries never fail to ignite a feast for my eyes. They look beautiful when captured on photos and do wonders to the tastebuds. However, here in Malaysia, some of these fruits are grown in the highlands and is usually expensive to purchase. Not only it is expensive but most of the time they are terribly sour which does not really go with me. In order to satisfy some cravings for the summer fruitty flavour, freshly-made strawberry pie filling is the next best choice. This recipe is light and not too overwhelming to the tastebuds, that is why I use Tatura light cream cheese and cold milk instead of the usual Philadelphia cream cheese and heavy cream. Definately calls for a 2nd helping without stretching the waistline too much. Here's my refreshing home-made Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake that needs no baking.

All you need is :-
250 gm Digestive Biscuits (pulsed into tiny bits in a food processor or blender)
90 gm soft butter

Mix crushed biscuits and butter evenly and spoon into a prepared 22cm springform cake tin brush slightly with oil. Press firmly into base and refrigerate 30 minutes or until firm.

As for filling:-
500 gm Tatura light cream cheese
Juice of 1/2 a large lemon
100 gm castor sugar
125 ml cold milk
Blend all ingredients together in a cake mixer until soft, creamy and light.

2 Tbsp gelatine dissolved in 60 ml hot water in a small bowl and stand bowl in boiling water so that gelatine will not set too quickly.

Place 250 gm fresh strawberries and 100 gm sugar (to taste) in a food processor and process till smooth. Fold in 1/3 of the gelatine mixture. Fold in the rest of the gelatine mixture into the cream cheese mixture. Swirl both mixture together in the earlier prepared tin with the biscuit base. Refrigerate overnight covered with a cling.

Mama Fries

Something my home cannot do without.

This humble potato wedges nicknamed 'Mama Fries' was born in my sister's kitchen 3 years ago. Not a week goes by that I don't make this. It has become a familiar carbo substitute for rice in my home. Instead of feeding our young ones french fries laden with salt and msg from the fast food joints, we decided to make them the healthier way. Simple as ABC, but pretty tasty I might say. Peel potatoes and cut into 8 wedges. Heat some olive oil in a teflon or non-stick pan, put in the wedges and grind some sea salt onto the wedges. When wedges slightly brown on one side, turn them over. It takes only 15 minutes to make wedges from 2 large potatoes.

Hey, I finally manage to post my orange oatmeal cake here. I guess that will do for the moment until I learn how to manage my photos some other way. My missing photo from my earlier post, Anniversary Cake. (below)

Anniversary Cake

What they say about 'a cake for all occassions' certainly lives up to its reputation. A cake marks a time of joy, a time of memories and a time of indulgence. Here's my humble gift to a wonderful couple who has blessed my family and many people along their way during their 2 years of marriage. Happy 2nd Anniversary to you both and may the Lord continue to multiply all your blessings till they overflow!

Anniversary cake for this occassion is a Orange Oatmeal Buttercake topped with Orange Buttercream icing. This is one of my family favourites and perfected by my dear mom. I like the feel of the oatmeal in the cake a day after it's baked. It gives a chewy feeling to the cake and the orange buttercream icing adds a refreshing compliment. It is considered a heavy cake cos one slice definitely fills the tummy.


Orange Oatmeal Buttercake
250 gm butter (room temperature)
100 gm castor sugar
4 eggs
1 - 2 oranges
150 self raising flour (sieved)
100 rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
milk

Heat oven at 175 degree celcius.
Grease the inside of the round baking tin (20 cm diameter) and cut a grease proof paper and line the bottom of the tin. Powder the inside of the tin with flour after greasing. Grate some orange rind, set aside. Juice the 2 oranges, discard seeds if any and add to the eggs.

Cream butter and sugar till fluffly and light, add in the egg and orange juice mixture alternately with the flour and rolled oats mixture. Continue to cream and add a little milk if batter is too thick. Due to the amount of juice from oranges, the liquid in the batter may vary, that's why milk is added. Batter must be creamy but does not drop off the spoon when scooped up with a spatula. Lastly dump in the grated rind and mix throughly. Pour batter into the prepared tin and pop it into the ready oven. Bake for 40 - 50 minutes. Cover with a piece of foil when the top starts to brown. Test by poking a cake skewer into the cake, if it comes out clean, it's done!

(suppose to have a photo of my cut cake here but photoblogger refuse to upload it) Sorry!

Orange Buttercream Icing
30 gm butter (room temperature)
400 gm icing / powder sugar (sieved)
Juice of 1/2 an orange
Some grated orange rind

Beat butter and add icing sugar, alternate with orange juice until icing looks like soft peaks when beaters are lifted. Add in the rind and mix throughly. Make sure the icing is not too watery of soft cos it will not harden when put on the cake. It needs to slightly harden with room temperature to keep the looks of the soft peaks after coating the cake. Decorate accordingly. Leave to stand at room temperature for at least 1 hour before serving.

Chap Chye T'ng (Clear Mix Vegetable Soup)

Another refreshing soup for another hot humid day. The title speaks all, vegetable, vegetable and more vegetables! Soup base is pork shoulder and fried cuttlefish boiled in a stock pot with a piece of ginger and some crushed peppercorns. Simmer on slow heat till pork shoulder is tender (approx. 1 hour). Fish it out and set aside to cool. Will be used as soup meat later.

2 litres filtered water
400 pork shoulder (whole piece)
2 small dried cuttlefish (washed and scalded with hot water)
1 inch ginger (smashed)
1/2 tsp peppercorns (crushed)

1 medium size carrot (sliced into a flowers)
300 gm yambean (sengkuang) sliced into squares
6 dried shiitake mushrooms (soaked and quartered)
300 gm cabbage (torn into small pieces)

When soup is ready, add carrots and mushrooms and boil for 5 minutes before adding the yambean and cabbage. Salt to taste. Sliced some soup meat and serve together with the vegetables. Drizzle some garlic oil before serving.

Note : As for the garlic oil, heat olive oil in a pan and pour in some chopped garlic. Saute garlic until aromatic and slightly brown. Set aside to cool and can be used as garnish in soups, congee, blanche vegetables, steam fish, etc.

Fish Porridge (Congee)

Weather today has been simply crazy, been glugging down liquid whole day long and feeling so lethargic. What better food to consume other than a watery meal, congee! Someone told me Calrose rice makes real good congee, that someone is right! I tried it today and it turned out the way I like it, mushy. My father and mother-in-law loves this a lot, since it's easy to eat and effortless to digest.

1 litre fish stock
2 cups Australian calrose rice (japanese rice)
filtered water

Wash rice till water clears. Boil washed rice in some filtered water. When rice is half-cooked, add in fish stock, stirring the rice from time to time so that it does not stick to the bottom of the pot or rice cooker. (whichever is used) Continue to cook till rice is mushy and soft (add water if congee is too thick)

600 gm sole fish fillet (cubed while still slightly frozen, easier to cut)
marinate the sole fish cubes with shredded ginger, a drizzle of fish sauce, sea salt, white pepper, a drizzle of sesame oil, light soya sauce, 1 cup Shao Hsin fragrant rice wine and pop it back into the fridge.

When the congee is pipping hot and ready to be served, put in all the fish fillet, stir and cover for 10 minutes. If fish is sliced, time for it to cook throughly in the congee will be shorter. Garnish congee with coriander leaves, shredded ginger or sliced chili and a drizzle of garlic oil. Needs no guessing which bowl was mine.

Flower Tea

Since my faithful camera Canon Powershot A75 got really ill lately, I couldn't really capture much food photos for my blog. It finally died momentarily last week and had to make a major decision to get a replacement. Finally got a Canon Powershot S3 IS today, a belated birthday present from my darling hubby. Can't wait to play with it but first, gotta cook something! anything! Anyway, here something I thought of posting for a long while but never got around to do so. Tea! Photo was taken with my old faithful camera.

My hubby brought back a pretty unique type of tea from Shanghai last year. It is wrapped like an individual candy and comes in different colors signifying different flavours. All you have to do is to pour boiling water into a tea pot and unwrap the tea from the wrapper and put it into the teapot. Something magical happens, the piece of tea slowly grows into a lovely flower and the smell, spectacular! These shown here is 'jasmine tea'.

Look how delicate the flower petals are, they won't even tear when hot water is pour on it. I for one find it really interesting. Ain't chinese people cool?