Episode 318 - Seaweed Crisps

Eid Mubarak to all Muslims around the world! It's the festive season here in Brunei and usually during this time, there would be a lot of food involved! I've made several tit bits for the celebration. Amongst some of them are Almond cookies, Choco Chip Cookies and the very not successful Kek Batek. Haha. So definitely not serving that for Raya. It took me half a day to fry the "Keropok" and all but I manage to make some Homemade Seaweed Crisps! It's very laku I tell you, but most of the time I'll be the one munching on them while watching TV. Hehe. So I think there's going to be a bit of Festive weight gain this few weeks! *erks* Anyway, heres a very simple recipe for those who love eating these crisps!

Seaweed Crisps

Ingredients:

Seaweed Sheets (Roasted Nori Seaweed sheets)

Popia Skin/ Egg roll Skins

Egg; lightly beaten with a dash of salt

Cooking Oil

Method:

Lay a sheet of Popia skin on a flat, clean surface (you can use your chopping board). Then with a brush, lightly brush all the surface of the popia skin with the egg wash. Take a piece of Seaweed sheet and lay it ontop of the Popia Skin, press it down lightly with your hand. With a kitchen scissors, cut the seaweed/popia sheet into half and into small rectangles (3" x 2"). Repeat untill all skins are used up. In a deep fryer, heat oil until bubbles rise when dipped with a wooden chopstick. Place a handful of cut seaweed/popia sheet into hot oil. Fry until popia skin looks golden and lift the crisps with a strainer onto kitchen paper to strain access oil. Leave to cool and store in an airtight container for longer lasting freshness.

*Tip*: Buy the popia skin which is almost the same size as the seaweed sheets that you got. 1 packet (10 sheets) of seaweed sheets makes around 200g of crisps.

Episode 317 - White Turnip & Chicken Spring Rolls

Crunchy Egg Rolls with Sweet Sauce

Egg rolls may sound a bit too standard but it's actually just simply Popia (Or is it Popiah?) or Spring Rolls. Egg rolls or spring rolls are usually made with Popia skin wrapped with a filling which may consist of meat, vegetables, potatoes or even vermicilli/mee hoon! The filling is usually cooked with lots of flavour and taste so that it can compliment the taste of the popia skin. My Mum is a huge fan of Popia so I made these for her on one fine afternoon for tea.

White Turnip & Chicken Spring Rolls

Ingredients:
6" X 6" Egg Roll/ Spring Roll Skin (Get them in any Supermarket)
600g White turnip; shredded or cut thinly into strips
400g carrots; shredded
400g Minced Chicken Meat (Marinated with light soya sauce and salt & pepper to taste)
1 egg; lightly beaten

A:
100g Dried Shrimps
5 Red Shallots;
3 Cloves Garlic
1 Large Onion

Method:
Blend ingredients A and saute in a non-stick pan with around 5 tablespoons of cooking oil. Stir until dried shrimps look abit golden and you can smell the aroma of the blended ingredients. Put in the minced meat and stir well so that it will not clump. Next, place in the shredded turnip and carrots. Stir fry until turnip is limp in texture. Place stir fried filling in a bowl and set aside to cool for 15-20 minutes. At the same time, defrost/ thaw Spring Roll Skins as directed.

To wrap your Spring rolls with filling:
Place a skin on a clean surface so that the points are up and down and left and right (should appear as a diamond, not a square). Place the filling (a tablespoon) onto the rolls and take the bottom point of your wrap and fold it over top of the filling. Fold the sides in towards the middle and roll the filling towards the top point of the wrapper. Brush abit of egg wash on the seams before rolling it completely. Repeat until filling is finished.

Preheat deep pan with oil on medium low heat and fry spring rolls until skin turns golden. Make sure to roll the egg rolls so that they are evenly cooked. Serve immediately with dipping sauce of your choice!

Serves: 7-8

*Tip*: The above makes around 30 rolls. Before deep frying the egg rolls, you can place the wrapped egg rolls in the freezer for at least an hour. They will be much crispier. Suggested dipping sauce can be sweet chilli sauce or plum sauce.

Episode 316 - Peanut Satay Sauce

As promised, Satay Sauce recipe! You should know that Satay sauce taste really great with "Kelupis" or Steamed Glutionous Rice, "Ketupat" - usually served together with Satay and also "Lemang" which is Glutinious Rice cooked in Bamboo.

"Lemang"

"Ketupat"

Satay Sauce

Ingredients:

A:

5 red chillies

5 dried chillies

7 shallots
5 cloves of garlic

4 tbspn cooking oil

B:

3/4 cup Roasted peanuts, chopped finely

1/2 cup water (or less)
1/2 cup Coconut Cream
1/2 tbspn tamarind juice ("asam jawa" juice)

1 tbspn brown sugar

Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:
Finely blended all ingredients of A and saute in a non stick pan for 3-4 minutes until fragrant. Add all ingredients in B and stir under medium-low heat for around 4 minutes or until sauce thickens and bubbles. Set aside to cool for abit before serving with those delicious Chicken Satay!

*Tip*: You can also substitute both the Coconut cream and water with Coconut Milk (3/4 cup will do). Those tin canned ones will do great. You can also squeeze your own coconut milk from fresh grated coconut meat of coconuts (those already have husk) or you can use instant coconut powder, 1/2 cup of powder diluted in 1/2 cup of water. While cooking ingredients A, you may need to put a bit of cooking oil in your pan.

Episode 315 - Chicken Satay

Grilled Chicken Meat on Skewers

This is one of the most famous Malay food around SE Asia. You can have all sorts of "Satay". From chicken to beef to lamb and even rabbit meat! "Satay" is basically meat on a stick, enjoyed with a savoury peanut sauce but also taste great as it is. The first time I tried this recipe was for a BBQ I had a week ago. Recently, I cooked it for my family to break fast and they loved it! So, give this a try because you won't regret it!

Chicken Satay

Ingredients:
700g Chicken meat (boneless), cut into 1.5 cm cubes

For the Marinade:

2 Red Chilli, deseeded

2 cloves Garlic
4 shallots/ small red onions
1 tbsp anise/ "Jintan Manis"
1/2 tbsp Cumin / "Jintan Putih"
1 tbsp corriander seeds/ "Biji Ketumbar"
1/2 tbsp tumeric powder/ 1 cm fresh tumeric root
5 cm galangal root / "Lengkuas"
2-3 stalks of lemon grass/ "Serai"
2 tbspns brown sugar
Salt and pepper to taste (Salt, around 1/2 tbspn & a pinch of pepper)
1/4 cup of water
1/2 juice of a lime/ Calamansi

Method:
Finely blend all the ingredients for the marinade. Then marinade the cut chicken meat with the blended ingredients for 3-4 hours or overnight in the fridge. Later, thread marinated meat onto "satay" sticks or bamboo skewers. Brush some oil on a heated grill (medium-low fire)and cook the chicken satay till meat is tender and done or until light golden brown.

Serves: 5-7

*Tip*: You can use either chicken breast for a healthier choice or boneless whole leg chicken meat. For this recipe, I pan-grilled (using a non-stick grill pan) the chicken satay for at least 7-8 minutes on each side. If you're using a BBQ grill, depending on how hot the charcoal is, it may take a shorter time.

Recipe for Satay sauce/ Peanut sauce next.. so, don't go away! ;o)