Thai Fried Noodles (Phad Thai)

Thailand is copping the wrath of the great flood. Central Bangkok is going to brace the onslaught of  THE raging water from the Uplands anytime soon...But stating that opening salvo is in no way of trying to make you lose your appetite due to the seriousness of the problem. My heart goes to the whole nation. Because I am truly enamoured by their culture especially by their food. Thai dishes remain one of my favourite culinary tastes, if not my favourite. Having said that, I also don't want to leave Italian dishes out of the equation. I have loquaciously claimed that I was once an Italian raggaza in my past life. Hehehe.

Phad Thai, Tom Yum soup and Glutinous Rice with Mango, in that particular order, are my top three (3) picks. I could eat them every day and you will never see me complain. I have been meaning to cook Phad Thai for so long as I can remember and yet only managed to cook it for the first time today. Truth be told, Phad Thai is everything I dreamt of and more. And cooking Phad Thai is my claim to fame. I have arrived. Lol!

Preparation time: 25 minutes

Total cooking time: 10-15 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients:

250g thick rice stick noodles
2 tablespoon oil
3 gloves garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons chopped red chillies
150g (5 1/2 oz) pork, thinly sliced
100g (3 1/2 oz) peeled raw prawn (shrimp) meat, chopped
1/2 bunch garlic chives, chopped
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 teaspoons soft brown sugar
2 eggs beaten
90g (1 cup) bean spouts
sprigs of coriander (cilantro)
40g (1/4 cup) roasted peanuts, chopped

1. Soak the rice stick noodles in warm water for 10 minutes or until they are soft. Drain and set aside. head the oil in a wok or large frying pan. When the oil is very hot, add the garlic, chillies and pork; stir constantly for 2 minutes.

2. Add the prawn meat to the wok. Cook, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes. Add the garlic chives and drain noodles to the wok; cover and cook for another minute.

3. Add the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and eggs to the wok. Toss well with tongs or two wooden spoons until heated through.

4. Sprinkle with sprouts, coriander and peanuts. Traditionally served with crisp fried onion, soft brown sugar and chopped peanuts on the side

Caramel Custard, "Leche Flan"

I started this blogsite with my feeble attempt to re-enact my childhood memories and how those memories nurtured the cook or baker in me (click here). I have sworn never to bake caramel custard again as back in the day, I have done them gazillion times. But my dearest brother sent me this recipe from yahoo foods about caramel custard that I couldn't say no. So here I am again, seemingly transported back in time - when my siblings and I were young and silly, and my dearest Mommy was the queen in the kitchen - doing what I do best, pestering my siblings around. Hehehe. While in my youthful childhood, the recipe caramel custard tattooed in my mind was 8 eggs, 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of granulated sugar, the recipe sent by my brother was re-engineered (now, that's a big word) and well thought of in terms of how not to have bubbles in the texture. One thing remains the same though, it tastes like my childhood.

And so, to my dearest brother who I think the world of, this one is for you...

Ingredients

• Caramel:

1 cup white sugar

1/8 cup water

1/8  white vinegar

• Flan

8 egg yolks

¾ cup sugar

1½ cups fresh milk

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Fill a 13x9 roasting pan halfway with water. Let heat inside the oven while it preheats. This is the water bath.

2. Meanwhile, mix ingredients for caramel in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan. On medium heat, stir until sugar has dissolved. Once mixture boils, do not stir. Let mixture boil until it becomes a light golden brown. Immediately drizzle the caramel into a 9x5 loaf pan or into 2 llaneras. Tilt the pan(s) so that the caramel completely covers the bottom(s).

3. In a bowl, thoroughly mix the flan ingredients. Strain mixture into the prepared pan(s). Place mixture into pan(s). Cook in the water bath for 40 minutes, or until 1 hour. A knife inserted in the middle of the flan should come out clean.

4. Cool the flan still in the water bath at room temperature for 30 minutes. Remove from the water bath and un-mold onto a platter.

Egg in a cup

Note: For non-pork eaters, use pastirma or cured beef

It is in my humble opinion that Australia has the best bacon in the world; crispy, only a tad salty and tastes how real bacon should. Australia uses the loin in the middle of the back of the pig which is a lean meaty cut of bacon, with less fat compared to other cuts.  This recipe is a fitting celebration of that.

My little boy treated me like I was the food goddess when I served him this dish the first time one morning. Lol! It  was as if I have moved the famed El Bulli restaurant into our humble abode. When in fact this dish is simply about thinking outside the box or shall I say, pun included, thinking inside a cup.

Enjoy!

*Adapted from http://cafefernando.com

Serves 2

Ingredients

5-6 slices of pastirma (or bacon or ham)

1 tbsp + 1 tsp olive oil

1 large tomato

2 eggs, separated

2 tbsp grated cheese

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Preheat your oven to 350F.

To prepare the three minute tomato sauce, peel the tomato and squeeze to remove juice and seeds (if you do this in a bowl, you can use the juice and seeds later in a salad). Chop the tomato finely and cook with 1 tbsp of olive oil for about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and put aside.

Take a muffin tin (if you don’t have one, you can use soufflé cups instead) and oil the cups with 1 tsp of olive oil, place the slices of pastirma inside, leaving a quarter inch overhang from the edge of the cup (be careful not to leave any gaps between or beneath the slices, though). Cook in the oven until crispy, for about 3 minutes.

Take the muffin tin out of the oven, add one teaspoon of tomato sauce on the bottom and place the egg whites on the top. Cook until the whites are slightly stiff (the upper part should still be somewhat transparent, again 2-3 minutes at most).

Take the muffin tin out of the oven again, add one more teaspoon of tomato sauce and place the egg yolks very carefully in the middle. At this point, I recommend to use the lower shelf of the oven (egg yolks cook very quickly and the tops get wrinkled with direct heat). Cook until the egg yolks gently wobble when you shake the muffin cups, for about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle grated cheese on the top and serve hot.

Strawberry filled forever Angel Cake

I recently celebrated my birthday, two comments struck a cord and had me in stitches. 

"I was thinking of sending you over a cake for your birthday but I don't think you need it" - Yong ( a good friend from high school living in United Arab Emirates)

"Hapi bday Arby! I wonder if you baked your cake! ?? Wish you all the best in life! Miss you! Luv you! - Irene (cousin in law from New York)

I was laughing when I read their messages in Facebook and I guess some people can be so transparent, including me. LOL! 

So yes, I did bake my own birthday cake. Thanks for asking. Tee-hee!

* Recipe adapted from http://www.thegirlwithacurl.com/. 

Angel Food Cake

1 cup cake flour

1 1/2 cups white sugar

12 egg whites

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Clean and dry your 10-inch tube pan thoroughly. Oil left on the pan can be disastrous.

Sift together the flour, and 3/4 cup of the sugar, set aside.

In an electric mixing bowl with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites along with the vanilla, cream of tartar and salt, until you get medium-stiff peaks when you lift out your beaters. Add the remaining sugar by the teaspoon until meringue hold stiff peaks. Fold in the sifted ingredients gradually in three batches, folding quickly but gently until there are no more traces of flour. Be careful not to overmix, pour into tube pan.

I have Ate Maya to thank for the recipe by the way - whose famed SleeplessinKL blog I frequent. I was hanging out in her blog, yet again, and I randomly clicked onto Girl With a Curl blogsite - where this recipe hailed. All hell breaks loose...it was fate.  So, thank you http://www.sleeplessinkl.com/ and http://www.thegirlwithacurl.com/.   You may not know this but you made my birthday strawberry filled forever.

Egg Tarts

* Recipe adapted from http://www.wendyinkk.blogspot.com/ & http://www.bisousatoi.com/


Pastry 
250g plain flour
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 egg yolk
150g cold butter, cubed

Filling
150g caster sugar
150ml hot water
250ml milk(1 small pack of milk)
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
3 large eggs
1 egg white (From the same egg where the yolk was used in the crust)




Method
Cream the butter with the egg yolk and sugar.
Add in flour. Mix well. (If the dough is sticky for you , well maybe your yolks are larger than mine, add in extra flour by the teaspoon until it no longer feels sticky, but got a slight flour feel to it, but not too much though, as it will toughen the crust. the borderline of stickiness and dry feel is very thin.. so, add extra flour with caution)
Roll out pastry in between two sheets of plastic into thickness of about 4mm. Stamp out 9–10cm circles of pastry with a pastry cutter.
Lightly press the pastry circles into foil tart cases or the tin tart. Smoothen the pastry like you are doing your concealer. Hehehe. This will seal off the pastry from any leaks.
Refrigerate the lined foil/tin cases for 2 hours (I left them overnight)
Melt the sugar in hot water, add milk, salt, vanilla essence. Beat all the eggs lightly and mix in all together.
Sieve egg mixture and pour into the cold tart crust.
Bake at 180C for 25 minutes.