[Durian or Avocado] Sago Gula Melaka

This month's Aspiring Bakers theme is based on anything "Fruity" which I have read quite a number of wonderful entries from fellow bloggers on their fruity cakes and desserts. But as for myself I have being cracking my head for the past 2 weeks on what to do for this month event until I finally have something in mind.

Since this month theme is anything that is fruity, I decided to get some fresh fruits from the market where there are a lot longan, mango, passion fruit, oranges, strawberries and etc which are in seasons. And for my 1st submission I will be using two of my favourite fruits which are Durian and Avocado.

Ingredients: (serves 4)

1.5 Litres of Water
3/4 Cup of Small Sago Pearls
A few Pandan Leaves, knotted
* Some Durian Pulp or 2 Ripe Avocado

Method:-

1. Fill a large pot with water and bring to boil. Lower the heat to medium and add in sago pearls and stir on and off to prevent it from sticking together.

2. Cook the sago pearls for about 8 minutes turn off heat, cover pot with lid and set aside for 10 minutes.

3. The sago wil become translucent when cooked.

4. Pour sago into a strainer and rinse under running water until pearls are loose and separated. Drain well.

5. Spoon sago into small moulds. Chill in fridge until sago sets.

6. To serve, turn sago out into individual serving bowl(s), place either durian pulp/avocado cubes on top of sago then spoon some coconut cream and gula melaka syrup over the sago.


This Nyonya dessert is best to be eaten with good quality of gula malaka and fresh coconut milk toppings which makes you crave for more. Here are some quick and simple steps to make the "Gula Melaka Syrup" and "Coconut Cream".

GULA MELAKA SYRUP

Ingredients:

150g Palm Sugar (Gula Melaka)
1/2 Cup (100ml) Water
A few Pandan Leaves, knotted

Method:-

1. In a small pot, combine gula Melaka with water and pandan leaves.

2. Simmer until sugar dissolved, mixture thickens and becomes syrupy.

3. Sieved away any residues, cool and pour it into sterilised glass jar and you can kept it in the fridge till further usage.

COCONUT CREAM

Ingredients:

1 Cup (200ml) Coconut Milk/Cream
A few Pandan Leaves, knotted
Pinch of Salt

Method:-

1. Put Coconut milk/cream together with pandan leaves in a microwave safe bowl.

2. Cook it on 70% (Medium High) for about 90 seconds, pause 30 seconds in between and quick it a quick stir till soft boil. (You may need another extra 30 seconds depending on your microwave power voltage.)


In Asia, most of us like this dessert to be served either in it's original way of sago with coconut milk and gula melaka or sometime even with luxury toppings such as D24 Durian pulp. And look at this Durian version I am sure for those who loves Durian you won't be able to resists having a cup or two especially with some good quality of gula melaka syrup that adds bonus point to it.


But as for those who dislike Durian or cannot afford to find any Durian in countries that you stay perhaps you would like to try this Avocado version by replacing the Durian Pulp with Avocado Cubes. I personally find Avocado goes well with gula melaka which I often blend 1 Avocado with 1 cup of fresh milk till smooth before stirring in 1 – 1.5 tablespoons of Gula Melaka syrup to sweeten the taste.

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #5 : Fruity March (March 2011) hosted by Jess @ Bakericious.

Asian-style Baked Sutchi Fillet

Sutchi Fillet is a white and greasy fillet of “Catfish” with a fancy name. This fillet is usually found in the frozen department in most local supermarkets which is cheap and great for cooking processes such as steaming, breaded, pan-fried or baked. Even though it might have slight frozen smell or fishy taste but the texture of was rather smooth and fine which is easy to consume by kids.

For this dish, I marinated the fillet with sesame oil, ginger and garlic at least an hour or more before cooking time in order to mask up the frozen taste of the fillet.

Ingredients: (serves 2)

1 Pieces of Sutchi Fillet, thawed
4 Slices of Ginger
4 Cloves of Garlic
1/4 Teaspoon Sesame oil

Seasonings:
1/2 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Fermented Black Beans(豆豉)
1 Teaspoon Cooking Wine
1 Teaspoon Sesame Oil
4 - 5 Slices of Ginger, julienned
2 Shallot, peeled and cut into thin slices
1 Small Chili, thinly sliced diagonally
1/2 Stalk Spring Onion, thinly sliced diagonally

For this dish, I spent around S$5.00 with sutchi fillet cost around S$2.00 for 1 piece, $3.00 for baby bok choy, ginger, chili, shallot and etc.

Method:

1. Grease 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil on baking tray or disposal foil tray. Top with fish fillet.

2. Combine oyster sauce, cooking wine and sesame oil in a small bowl.

3. Spoon the seasoning sauce over fish fillet, top with ginger, chili, spring onion(half portion) and fermented black bean. Cover the tray with foil.

OR

~ Saute the ginger and shallot over medium heat till sligh golden brown, toss in fermented black bean, chili and spring onion and continue to fry for another 10 seconds before adding in the sauce mixture (oyster sauce, cooking wine, sesame oil).

~ Spoon mixture evenly onto the prepared fillet, cover the tray with foil.

4. Bake for 15 minutes in oven toaster, remove the foil cover and continue to bake for another 5 minutes uncovered till fish is cooked through.

5. Sprinkle with reserved spring onion and serve together with prepared baby bok choy.

Salted Egg Tofu (咸蛋豆腐)

My inspiration for making this dish comes from my craving on Salted Egg Prawns which I have not eaten for quite sometime. And since recently I am trying to cook quick and simple homecooked dish within a S$20.00 budget for "2 Dishes and 1 Soup". I decided to try out this “Salted Egg Tofu” which surprisingly turns out well received.

Salted duck eggs are normally boiled or steamed before being peeled and eaten as a condiment to porridge or cooked with other foods as flavouring. The orange red yolk is rich, fragrant and less salty compare to the whites portion.

For a while our sense of taste seems to play a trick on us by making us thought that this tofu dish is actually the "salted egg prawn" due to the familiar taste that they both shared.

Ingredients: (serves 2)

1 Tube of Egg Tofu
10 - 15 Curry Leaves

Egg Yolk Coating:
1 Cooked Salted Egg Yolk, mashed
1 Small Red Onion, cut into wedges
10g of Unsalted Butter
1 Teaspoon of Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Of Cornflour
1 - 2 Sprig Extra Curry Leave

Tip:

~ Remove the outer soil from the salted egg, carefully scrub and rinse well. Cooked it in a small saucespan half filled with water on medium low heat for about 10 minutes. Remove, shelled and take out the salted egg yolk. OR

~ Alternatively, break the uncooked salted egg and remove the yolk and steamed it for 8 minutes before mashing.

Although this dish might be quite fattening due to the ingredients used but I guess having it once in a while should be a good enough to satisfy those craving from the fried salted egg with butter taste. What's more to consider when you only need roughly S$3.00 to prepare this.

Method:

1. Slice tofu equally into 8 pieces of the same thickness.

2. Gently coat it with some cornflour and shake off the excess.

3. Pan-fry the tofu with 1 tablespoon of oil till golden brown and crisp on both side, remove and drain well.

4. Use the remaining oil from the pan, saute the 10 - 15 curry leaves using low heat till crispy and drain well. (you have to do this fast as the leaves tends to get burnt very quickly)

5. With the same frying pan, add in butter and olive oil and simmer on low heat till butter melt before adding in the onion and sprigs of curry leaves. (if you prefer something spicy, you could add in a few slices of cut chili at this stage)

6. Continue to saute the mixture on low heat till the onion begin to soften, stir in the mashed salted egg yolk and give it a quick stir till the well combined.

7. Slowly toss in the tofu, swirl the pan to coat tofu evenly with the salted egg sauce.

8. Discard the sprigs of curry leaves and serve the golden tofu with crispy curry leaves as garnish.

[Blog Event] $20 Budget Meal ~ (Closing date: 27 March 11)

Recently while chatting with some facebook and twitter friends about the TV program known as "3 Plus 1 Sr 3(三菜一汤)" showing on every Wednesday, 8.00pm on Channel 8. I realise that the few of us usually have the habit of preparing homecooked dishes either by our own self, parents or helper at home. Especially now when the food pricing is rather high compare to a few years back, I am sure most of the family would rather prepared some simple homecooked food than eat out most of the days.

So here I would like to urge those who loves to prepare simple homecooked meal to join us in this small event in order to accumulated more cooking ideas as well as sharing with each other on how to purchase ingredients with a minimum sum of budget given.

WHO CAN JOIN:

~ Anyone who is interested to help and share more ideas in preparing homecooked meal.

CRITERIA:

~ Prepare any "2 Dishes plus 1 Soup" or "1 Pot Dish" using a Maximum budget of S$20.00. If you are from overseas, you can also particpiate by converting to the appropriate currency value, (ie. US$15.00, RM$50.00, Rp $138,000 and etc)

~ Send in either your blog link with a post of all the prepared dishes plus soup together with at least 1 recipe on the prepared meal.

Or

~ If you do not have a blog, just send in the photos and recipe of your dishes and I will publish on your behalf in my blog, credited to you. (photos can be taken in any form using digital camera or handphone)

~ Please do mention in your blog that you are sharing this post to “$20 Budget Meal” event and link it to this page so as to encourage more readers to contribute.

SUBMISSION:

~ E-mail your "blog link" or "photos with recipe" to ellenaguan@hotmail.com with a subject "$20 Budget Meal" in the following format:

Your Name:
URL of your post:
Name of your dishes + soup:
Estimate amount spent for each dish:
Attachment of your photo in your email (each photo, preferably 500kb or less).

CLOSING DATE:

~ 20 March 2011, 2359hours 27 March 2011, 2359 hours and all entries will be compiled and posted on 30th March 2011.

~ If the respond is good we will held a readers voting event for the best "$20 Budget Meal" family over at Cuisine Paradise Facebook Page for more giveaways.

For example if you wish to cook some delicious and nutritious herbal soup but you do not have those necessary Chinese Herbs in your pantry. Here is what you can do with any purchase of pre-packed herbal soup ingredients from any local supermarket. I bought this FairPrice(Pasar) herbs for S$4.50 + 2 Chicken drumstick for S$3.20 so total I spent S$7.70 for this pot of Chicken Herbal Soup. In this case I will have S$12.30 balance to get ingredients for another 2 dishes.

  With this pre-packed herbs, follow the instructions at the back of the packet and you will have a pot of delicious soup in a few hours time. Before this, perhaps you would like to take notes on a few items when preparing the soup.

SOME PREPARATION NOTES

~ Always rinse the herbs with either running water or warm water in a bowl to watch away any dirt in it.

~ Depend on your preference, get ready either chicken bones, chicken drumsticks, pork ribs or pork fillet. Trim, rinse and blanched them in boiling water for about 5 minutes, rinse well before use.

~ You can use a auto-timer and cook the soup in slower cooker even if you are out of your house so that the soup will be ready during meal time.


Lastly I hope that everyone can help to contribute some of your homecooked dishes so that we can get the opportunities to learn from each other and add on more cooking ideas to our "2 Dishes, 1 Soup(两菜一汤）" recipes bank.