Brandy pineapple fruit cake
I am going to re-post this fruitcake recipe because I love to eat this fruitcake but only bake it once a year. And every year, I forget where I store it and can’t find the recipe.
So, here goes my never fail pineapple fruit cake moistened with lots and lots of brandy.
RECIPE
Pineapple Fruit Cake
Heat oven to 180 deg C
Line a large cake tin. (Size : 20 cm square tin) or use two small tins
1 can (abt 250-300 gm drained weight) of pineapple rings (squeeze the syrup) and cut into small pieces
375 gm mixed fruits (the weight of a box) * soak in 5 tablespoons of brandy 3 days before baking. Keep in refigerator till needed
100 gm brown sugar (the light brown one like castor sugar)
150 gm butter
Put all the above into a pot and cook over low fire till sugar and butter melt. Leave to cool.
Then add:
2 large eggs
250 gm self-raising flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
Mix well. (see? no need beating or anything like that) Bake in 180 deg C oven for 1 hour. Test with a satay stick. If it comes out clean, then cake is baked. Remove from oven and drizzle with 3 tablespoon of brandy while the cake is still hot. Cake tastes best if left for a day or two, wrapped with aluminium foil. Do not attempt to cut the cake while it is still fresh because it will crumble. Wrapping it in aluminium foil and soak in brandy will make the cake moist and smells heavenly.
In place of brandy, one can use orange juice. However, the cake will not keep well.
The original recipe was posted way back in 2005 under my fruitcake recipe at my old food blog. That’s a six years old blog post!
Recipe : A minty and creamy green pea soup
I have a pot of lamb stock. The bones of the leg of lamb which I roasted for Christmas has been turned into a pot of flavourful stock after I added onions, tomatoes, carrots and celery. I freeze them into small portions and they are great for making soup, gravy or stew.
My son then came up with the idea of making green pea soup. A quick search in our recipe books and internet showed that it is really easy to make those green globs. I grabbed a packet of frozen green peas and a packet of mint leaves from the supermarket shelf and we are ready to test out in our kitchen.
Recipe for green pea and mint soup
2 cups stock
1 cup green peas (if you are using frozen ones, you need to cook first, if you are using canned ones, you can just dump into the food processor)
1 handful of mint leaves
A bit of chopped garlic and onion
1 tiny cube of butter
1/2 cup of cream or milk
Salt/pepper to taste
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Heat butter and sweat the onion and garlic. Add in green peas and stir till you are sure it is cooked. You don’t want the ‘green smell’ of uncooked peas, you know? However, don’t over cook it or it will turn an ugly yellow. Just taste the peas and you can tell if it is cooked.
Dump everything, including the cream and fresh mint leaves into the food processor and blend till smooth. If you like your fibres, then fine. But I hate the thought of the pea husk (or skin) fermenting in my belly, giving me major flatulence fart fest (3Fs!) so I strained the liquid.
Before serving, heat through over low fire, taking care not to boil it. Season with salt and pepper. Adjust the soup as the peas may cause the green goo to form into an ugly mess. Add some water or milk to make it ‘slurpable’ and not looking like blobs of green stuffs.
The result is a nice, refreshing creamy soup that is hearty and yet, not too thick. The above photo is intentionally touch up with Flickr – Picnik.
This is the original photo. The cream I am using is not so fresh anymore so I dare not use the fresh cream to give it a swirl on the surface. Otherwise, it will look lovely.
Tangkak beef balls noodle in Melaka
It is very hard to please Penangites like me. Hate us but we have ‘higher standards’ when come to food taste. Or maybe we are very faithful to our little island, we always have that little biasness when it comes to other states’ foods.
So, I heard people raving about Tangkak beef noodles. They told me it is so, so nice. They have never tasted Penang beef noodles, obviously.
The only selling point that beats Penang is they are halal. The Tangkak beef noodle sold in Melaka is manned by Muslims so our Muslim friends can finally have a sampling of beef noodles, Chinese style. Usually, the Malay version is much spicier with lots of cinnamon, cloves, star anise and other spices flavour. Whereas, this beef noodle does not have the overpowering spicy taste but just the hearty flavour of beef.
We drove around Melaka town looking for the place and found it after a few turns. It is a clean, orderly shop very much like fast-food restaurants.
Usually, in Penang, my family like our beef noodles served separately. I.e. bowls of noodles with some soya sauce and then, we get a huge bowl of innards, balls, fillet, tendon and raw beef swimming in a delicous, piping hot soup with lots of coriander leaves. This way, each family members eat only what they like. We have quite a good understanding, whereby I like tendons and innards while some kids like balls and others like the beef.
But Tangkak beef noodles have no such style. It is served in individual bowls and you have to order the balls seperately.
The soup is rather watered down if you compared with Penang version. It is darker in colour and has a hint of spice in it.
So, if you have eaten the Kang Beef House beef noodles or the one at Perak Road beef noodles or the one at the Bomba in Chulia Street gu bak koay teow (all non-halal though), then, you won’t be raving about Tangkak Beef Noodles.
Recipe : Creamy seafood pasta
Cooking a plate of ‘premium taste’ pasta at home is actually very easy and much cheaper. Moreover, not many restaurants can get their pasta right because they either cut cost by using cheap ingredients or some are halal joints and didn’t use white wine which give the pasta the ‘luxurious flavour’.
Good pasta does not require much ingredients. The basics are garlic, onion, basil, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. For the creamy pasta I am cooking, I use chopped onion and garlic. BTW, garlic price has skyrocketed like 200%. I bought 3 bulbs of garlic for RM2 when usually, I can for only 50 sen.
For the seafoods, I use some very fresh white prawns and frozen scallops. I added a few leaves of sweet basil to the seafoods for flavour.
Since I have some abalone mushrooms, I use them. However, a better choice will be either button or fresh shitake mushrooms as these mushrooms will lend more flavour.
To get that creamy taste, butter will be a good choice. You can substitute with olive oil which is a much healthier choice but what’s a bit of butter, right?
My hubby bought some 5-minute quick cooking spaghetti which is rather mushy. If you are boiling spaghetti, remember to keep testing and tasting to make sure that you get the al dente texture.
For the recipe for creamy seafood pasta :
300 gm spaghetti – cook according to instruction, usually I use only a bit of salt, no oil. Drain and leave aside
Seafoods
4 large prawns
4 scallops (or fish or squid wateva is fine)
4 cloves garlic and a small onion – chopped till fine
A few sprigs of basil or any type of dried herbs
Cream – 200 ml ( I use President brand, you can find this at the cheese section, in UHT box)
Wine – 100 ml (I use chardonnay, you can omit it, no problem at all)
Bit of butter, salt, pepper, black pepper
Parmesan cheese – for sprinkling on pasta
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Method :
1) Heat butter and add in chopped garlic and onion and fry till soft (do not brown)
2) Add prawns and seafoods, stir till change colour
3) Add in white wine and cream. Add a bit of water if too dry. Add herbs
4) Flavour with salt and pepper
5) Pour creamy seafood sauce over pasta and serve
See? Just a few steps. And you get a really nice plate of pasta. Cooking pasta just take a bit of practice. Once you have tried a couple of times, you can experiment with any ingredients.
Melaka Darul Mamee
I went to Singapore the other day and thought it will be good to stop in Melaka for a night. Our last trip to Melaka was several years ago, i.e. to attend my niece’s wedding at Hotel Puri. If I remember correctly, Melaka and Penang haven’t obtain the Unesco Heritage Site then.
So, with much anticipation, we stopped at Melaka for a night. We arrived from Singapore around 4 pm and just in time to be the first customer at Ban Lee Xiang satay celup.
After our tea, we went hunting for a decent place to stay where they can accommodate all six of us. We notice a new water park and turned in. To our disappointment, it is nothing but a cheap, made-for-locals, giant washing machine water park. (washing machine means you just jump in with all your dirty clothes, geddit?)
We wanted to stay in Melaka town and found a family room at one of the bigger hotels in town. It is one of those ‘made for Government servants seminar’ hotels and the place is rather crowded.
At night, we went to Jonker Walk and that’s where I get the idea to call it Melaka Darul Mamee. The whole town is plastered with huge, ugly, crude, arches with the PM, CM and Mamee cup noodle. The irony is the design is such that the head of the PM and CM are smaller than the Mamee cup, hence, you can actually imagine putting the heads into the cup mee.
Maybe I am rather biased as I am from Penang, another Unesco World Heritage site but really, Melaka is nothing like Penang. It has this little quaint Jonker Walk but that’s about it. In Jonker Walk, the foods are like a repetitive cycle of maltose (bah leh kor), hurricane potato, pineapple tarts, bubble tea, cendol, maltose (bah leh kor), hurricane potato, pineapple tarts, bubble tea, cendol, maltose (bah leh kor), hurricane potato, pineapple tarts, bubble tea, cendol,maltose (bah leh kor), hurricane potato, pineapple tarts, bubble tea, cendol,maltose (bah leh kor), hurricane potato, pineapple tarts, bubble tea, cendol… (ok, you get a gist of what I am trying to say).
As for the buildings, they are too corny and overdone, IMHO. Of course, there are some really beautiful structures but overall, I find Jonker Walk rather forlon and sad if we take away the pasar malam.
One of the reasons we stopped in Melaka (instead of KL) was to go to the Melaka Zoo. I remembered it was much better managed many, many years ago. This time, my little boy complained the moment he got inside. So smelly, so dirty and they do not even run the tram regularly.
So, if you have to pick either Penang or Melaka, come to Penang. At least we know that you won’t be seeing the face of the CM every 100 m as you travel along their roads. You know they have spent a lot of money into this state because there are many large (but useless) structures of overblown size kompang, fruits and such. Those things stick out like a sorethumb in a state which is supposed to be heritage.
I said Melaka is like a fun pasar malam. Someone else said, it is like a mini disneyland. Either way, it is too corny, gaudy and you get tired of the place after 24 hours.
