Lotus Rice

Tomorrow is the 5th day of the 5th month in Lunar calendar which the Chinese celebrate Dumpling Festival. This is the day we eat Bak Zhang or Dumpling. Dumpling is too complicated and need a longer time to cook so Snow White wanted to make Lotus Rice which similar to Bak Zhang. This is her first attempt....

1) Fried the glutinous rice (which already soaked overnight) with salt, sugar, dark and light soy sauce.

2) Fried garlic, dried prawn, onion till fragrant then add in the chicken and mushroom (which season with oyster sauce, pepper, salt and light soy sauce).

3) Wrapped the chicken and mushroom and glutinous rice into the lotus leave.

4) Steamed for 1 hour and the lotus rice is ready to serve.

Lotus rice is the popular dim sum dish; more ingredients can be added like sausage, chestnut and eggs to your own taste. Snow White felt that the lotus rice is not up to her expectation. It is a bit salty and bitter....Babe guess the bitter taste come from the leaves, we did not soaked the lotus leave long enough.

Bubur Pulut Hitam

Rapunzel cooking her speciality dessert, Bubur Pulut Hitam (Black Glutinous Rice).

It taste just heavenly delicious! Her Bubur is much more richer then what outside dessert stall selling, more black glutinous rice and she used wheat instead of the corn flour to thicken it so not so jelak. Also the dried longans added a zest of crunchy to the dessert.

Tom Yam Bee Hoon Soup

This Tom Yam Bee Hoon Soup was Babe's first attempt, of course with the help of Rapunzel. I can't take chili hot stuff but love spicy hot soup like Tom Yam, Curry and Laksa. Since Snow White on hot date, I asked Rapunzel to let me tried my hand on the Tom Yam today. Next time when the craving comes, I can cook myself.

The Tom Yam look plain as only little bit of the chili paste (Rapunzel help me to blend the dry chili) is added and without coconut milk. I regret did not heed Rapunzel's advise to used the chicken bone to boil the stock first. The soup taste blends so in the end we added half of the knorr chicken stock to make it more tastier. The Tom Yam Bee Hoon Soup turned out to be quite passable...hmm not very tough after all.

Ingredient:
Tiger Prawn
Straw Mushroom
Fish cake (optional)
Lemon grass (2 stalks, crushed)
Blue ginger
Kaffir leave
Shallot
Chili Padi (2 stalks)
Chill paste (boiled 8 dried chillies till soft then blend)
Coriander leaves
Fish sauce
Lime juice

Method :
1) After the stock boiled, add in lemon grass, blue ginger, kaffir leave & shallot.
2) When fragrant out, add in chili paste and chili padi.
3) When water boiled, added in the straw mushroom, fish cake and prawn.
4) Add fish sauce and lime juice according to taste and lastly sprinkled the coriander leaves.

Tah Dah! Tom Yam soup is ready to serve.

Char Kway Tiao & Mango Salad

"Our first debut char kway tiao, without lard, without 'hump'. Healthy!! No wonder Rapunzel took Xtra bigger share today. Thought of leave some for our cleaning lady to try, end up we 3 gobble-up everything. Oh......YUMMY. Another satisfied meal accomplished. "

-Snow White

I wish there are more...glutton pig never get enough, you see. Also, the mango salad seasoned with lime juice and chilli padi seemed to go well with the kway tiao as appetizer according to
Rapunzel.
Look tempting but it is a bit too hot for Babe taste bud.

Chicken Mushroom Soup

When feeling under the weather, a hot soup always perk me up. I love hot soup! Chicken Mushroom Soup is one of them. The recipe was from a radio DJ's blog, Fenyingrecipe. Of course Snow White did not follow the recipe exactly as usual. She added a bit of her own zit in the soup.

Kuih Dadar

Dessert for the day is Rapunzel's favourite Kuih Dadar, a traditional nyonya kuih. This is not the first attempt of this kuih but still...... see what Rapunzel did.

Blamed her hair! Lucky she only damage one, if not there gone my dessert.

We got the recipe from Fenyings' too. Those who love pandan and the taste of gula melaka should try it.

Grilled Fish

Fish, yummy...and also look at the fried french beans with tofu...look good was it?? That is one of Babe recipe, well!!catch for her recipe and for the Grilled Fish it is from our great cook snow white, what a tasty and this is one of her best main course.

Abok Abok

This is a first try for our traditional kuih, Abok2 Sago..green (pandan) and brown (gula melaka). Sweet and malty, it looks heavy with grated coconut mixed but truly temptation.

Chicken Pie & Minestrone Soup

Today we have chicken pie and minestrone soup for lunch. As we cannot manage to get the ready made frozen puff pastry, Snow White made the pie crust using plain flour, egg and butter. The top is then covered with mashed potatos. To be exact it more like shepherd's pie with chicken pie fillings. Rapunzel fried the fillings according to this recipe:

Ingredient:
-Chicken (cubed, marinated with soy sauce, pepper & salt)
-Onion (cubed)
-Frozen vegetables mix (green peas, carrots & corns)
-Celery
-Eggs (hard boiled and quartered)

Instruction :
-Fried garlic & onion.
-Stirred in chicken cube and mixed vegetables and celery till cooked.
-Add oyster sauce, chicken stock, soy sauce, salt and large amount of pepper.
-Scoop fillings into the pastry mould, add eggs and cover with mashed potatoes.
-Oven baked till potatoes turn golden brown.

For the mashed potatoes; boiled the potatoes till soft then stir in melted butter, milk, salt and pepper. Lastly beat an egg and added inside the mashed potatoes.

The soup is from the can, the campbell's minestrone soup.

The filling is tasty but the pie crust turn out to be a failure. It taste just like a salty tart. Next time will be better.

Chicken Chop & Tiramisu

Yesterday was Babe's Birthday, Snow White and Rapunzel whipped up this Tiramisu for me. They did not add Rum so taste only the coffee sweetness. Think the finger biscuit soaked in the coffee for too long and it turn out very wet but the cream is huge success. I was told Snow White hand beat the whipping cream to get the texture and Rapunzel travelled a longway to get the mascapone cheese. Babe was so touch and almost break tears.

The chicken chop was nice, the sauce was from Snow White's own secret recipe. The asparagus was a bit old, tough to swallow. Overall still a sumptuous meal.

Introduction

Being lazy to take 15 to 20 min walk to get lunch, we decided to cook in the office with the minimun kitchen utensile. To my surprise we manage to whip up quite a few dishes which sometime even better then the outside food. This is how The Secret Kitchen evolved.

The heart and soul of the kitchen are Snow White and Rapunzel, they have passion in cooking and trying out new dishes. And don't forget me the food "cleaner", Babe the pig. Watched out for the menu!