Air Fried Chicken 65 - Dried version

I've not heard of Chicken 65 until I moved to Melbourne. Probably I did not dine enough in Indian restaurants when I was in Malaysia hence a little behind on their offerings. I fell in love with it on my first try at this little Malaysian Indian restaurant named Indian Delight and has been ordering it each time i dine there. I went to try others too but some are just way too spicy!

The other day I bought 1.2 kg of chicken wings and was wondering what can I cook with them? So, I went through all the saved recipes from FB and found a sharing by this lady in Malaysia and decided to try as she made it look so easy. Just add everything and marinate overnight! However, she deep fried her chicken and that was the last thing I want to do. And my good friend, Black Knight the air fryer came to my rescue! No used oil to discard and minimal mess in the kitchen... I tweaked the recipe a bit to suit our taste buds (need to be kids friendly so its less spicy) and to suit air frying method.

Ingredients

• 1.2kg          Chicken wings
• 2 tbsp         Garlic & ginger paste
• 1.5 tbsp      Coriander powder
• 1 tsp           Turmeric powder
• 2 tbsp         Chili powder (put more if you want more spicy
• ¾ tsp          Salt
• ¼ tsp          White pepper
• 4 tbsp         Greek yogurt/plain yogurt
• 2 sprigs      Curry leaf (chopped)
• 6 tbsp         Corn flour
• 3 tbsp         Rice flour

Methods

1. Clean the chicken wings and pat dry with kitchen towels. Cut into 2 sections.
2. Mix ginger garlic paste, coriander powder, turmeric powder, chili powder, salt and white pepper in a bowl. Pour the mixture into chicken together with yogurt and mix till well combined. Cover and leave it to marinate for 4 hours or over night for best results.
3. Prepare corn flour and rice flour on a dinner plate and mix them well. Sprinkle the chopped curry leaf over and mix the chicken before coating the chicken with the flour and place into the basket of the air fryer. If you are deep frying, you halved the flour and mix into the chicken.
4. Before you air fry, brush or spray some oil over the coated chicken wings.
5. Air fry at 180C for 15 to 18 minutes and turn mid way. Remember to brush with oil after you flipped over as the flour will not cook properly without oil. Please adjust your air frying timing as sizes of the chicken may required more or less frying time.
6. Drain on wire rack (if you put on kitchen towel to absorb the excess oil it will turn the crispiness of the skin soggy).
7. Squeeze some lime juice over the chicken prior to serving.

Braised Lemonade Pork Belly

As most of us are locked down at home, there's only so much we can do. Eat, sleep and repeat. It is bad for our health really! To de-stress, I will normally cook or bake else I'll turn into couch potato! Luckily I'm not into any TVB or K-drama...

One night, a friend was following this live cooking show on FB and asked me to check it out. It was Maria Cordero, a popular HK celebrity cooking live from her kitchen. The dish she cooked that night was this rather easy to follow pork belly dish using 7-Up. Pretty interesting and best part is, it is so easy as she literally just dump everything in and boil! No mess and no oily kitchen!

Kids love it knowing they get some soft drinks in their food! Yes, it uses 7-Up or any lemonade to tenderize the meat. It has a sweet savoury taste and kind of appetizing. As I do not have the required fresh chili, I substitute with some dried chilies which worked out better as I get a little kick of spiciness in the gravy. Kids practically flooded their rice with the gravy!

Ingredients

1 kg         Pork belly (cut into big cubes about 1.5")
4 pcs       Shallot (cut into big slices)
2 pcs       Garlic (cut into big slices)
1 - 2         Bay leaf
1 pc         Cinnamon stick
2 pcs        Star anise
1 pc          Fresh chilie (use 2 dried chilies if you prefer a tinge of spiciness)
350 ml      Lemonade (7-Up/Sprite)
2 tbsp       Dark soy sauce (dark caramel)
2 tbsp       Light soy sauce
1 pc          Rock sugar (can omit if you prefer less sweet)
1 tbsp       Vinegar (or rice vinegar)
1 tsp         Salt
½tsp         Black pepper

Methods

1. Place all the dry ingredients into a deep pot (best if you have a cast iron casserole pot).
2. Rinse the pork with some water added with 2tbsp of vinegar to get rid of smell.
3. Drain and arrange pork cubes on top of dry ingredients.
4. Pour in the lemonade. Add a bit more if you prefer to have more gravy.
5. Put in the sauces, rock sugar, vinegar and seasoning. 
6. Switch on medium fire and let it come to a boil. Stir every few minutes.
7. Cover and let it simmer for 45 minutes on small fire till pork pieces are tender.

Orange Burnt Basque Cheesecake

I've cut down on cheesecakes ever since I was diagnosed with lactose intolerance over 20 years ago. I used to love American cheesecakes and Japanese cheesecakes but have to stop consuming when these cheeses got me a troubled tummy during my uni days. It got better over time but I'll still eat with caution.

Last year, the Basque Burnt Cheesecake was all the range as it went viral in many FB baking and cooking groups. It was definitely one of the easiest cheesecake or cake to bake! Just add all the ingredients and in to the oven and after 40 mins you'll have a lovely cake. I've been baking this cheesecake for so many times I've lost count! My kids simply love it and since its so easy... why not?

I've tried infusing it with lemon once and it turned out lovely. Probably the acidity of the lemon juice helps to eliminate or reduced the greasiness of the cheese and you don't feel bloated after eating. I have some really sour oranges which no one wants to eat so I decided to try using them to bake this burnt cheesecake and surprisingly the aroma from the oranges was fantastic. Kids really enjoyed it and the cake was gone in a flash.

Ingredients

250gm  Cream Cheese
75gm    Castor Sugar
3           Eggs
250ml   Whipping Cream

3tbsp    Freshly squeezed orange juice
20gm    Plain Flour

1tsp      Orange zest

Whipped Cream

100ml    Whipping cream

25gm     Castor sugar

Methods

1. Line a 6" round baking pan with non stick baking paper.
2. Pre-heat oven to 200C. You may want to check your oven as some may need to set to 220C.
3. Cut the cream cheese into big cubes and beat with a mixer for 1 minute to break them up. Add in the sugar and beat till pale and creamy for a few minutes
4. Add in eggs one at a time.
5. Sift in flour and beat slightly in the mixer.
6. Using a sieve, filter the batter into the prepared pan. Press down the trapped flour in the sieve.
7. Mix in the orange zest.
8. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes using fan-forced function.
9. Bake a further 10 minutes using top/top and bottom heat to get the burnt effect.
10. Cool on wire rack for 10-15 minutes and remove from pan and continue to cool on wire rack.
11. Chill in the fridge for a few hours before decorate with whipped cream.
12. To make the whipped cream, pour the whipping cream in a mixing bowl and whip for 1 minute and slowly pour in castor sugar and whip till stiff peak.Spread onto chilled cake and decorate with preferred fruits or macaroons.

Famous Amos Wannabe Chocolate Chips Walnut Cookies

The search is on to find the Famous Amos chocolate chips cookies recipe after I was given a gift box from Famous Amos by a visiting relative. I used to buy them when I was working in Singapore... a little treat after a busy week at work. These little morsels don't come cheap now. The last I checked on my last trip back to Malaysia, it was about RM7+ for 100gm for their regular chocolate chips cookies. 

During the lockdown, someone shared about a Malaysian housewife managed to decode the secret recipe that tasted closest to the real thing but after looking at the recipe which includes cooking oil I decided not to follow. A member in a food group posted this recipe which uses coffee emulsion/emulco/oil to elevate the aroma of the cookies caught my attention. Was thrilled I found a bottle of coffee emulco in my pantry which I have brought back from my last trip to Malaysia.

Without further hesitation I made a batch to taste. Followed the recipe to a T but somehow the texture of the cookies don't feel right. They lack the crunch factors. In fact they tasted rather doughy and hard. 

Comparing both recipes to see where are the missing links and found that this recipe does not include cornflour. So, made another batch by using this recipe as a base and tweaked the self rising flour and corn flour ratios. After 3 tries I finally achieved the texture I was after and believe me, once you started you really can't stop!

Ingredients

290gm   Self Raising Flour
70gm     Cornflour
250g      Butter - softened at room temperature
90gm     Dark Brown Sugar
90gm     Raw Sugar/Caster Sugar
½ tsp     Salt
½ tsp     Coffee Emulco/oil /emulsion
1            Large Egg
1 tsp      Vanilla Extract
25gm    Oats - toasted and grind to powder
25gm    Ground Almond Powder
250gm  Dark Chocolate Chips
100gm  Toasted Walnuts - crushed to smaller bits

Methods

1. Beat the egg with coffee emulco and vanilla extract in a small bowl, cover with cling wrap and let it infuse for at least 2 hours or overnight in fridge. Bring to room temperature before to use (you can skip this step as I find it did not make any huge differences).
2. Using a mixer, beat the softened butter, salt and sugar for about 5 minutes until well combined.
3. Add in the egg mixture, ground oats and ground almond. Mix well.
4. Sift in the flour and fold into the mixture using a spatula.
5. Mix in chocolate chips and toasted walnuts and mix till you get a workable dough.
6. Pre-heat oven to 160°C.
7. Pinch about 10gm of dough and place on lined cookie tray with about 1” gap from the next cookie dough.
8. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or till cookies turn slightly brownish.

Pickled Green Chillies

Pickled green chillies is a popular condiment for some of the fried noodles that I often whipped up for the family. Usually I'll just grab a jar from the Asian grocers but I found them to taste a little weird of late and I stopped buying completely. 

Saw some friends making their own so I decided to make some myself since my chilli plant are blossoming well this year. Most of the time I'll harvest when they turned red. Since I can use those green ones to make pickled chillies, I decided to harvest them.

Ingredients

• 200gm Green chillies
• 1 cup Rice Vinegar/vinegar
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• ½ tsp Salt

Methods

1. Cut chillies about 3mm to 4mm thick.

2. Blanch in hot water for about 20 seconds and drain. Place them on a kitchen towel and let them cool down and let them air dry.

3. Fill the cooled chillies into a sterilized jar and top with vinegar, sugar and salt. Make sure the vinegar  covered all the chilies.

4. Keep overnight in the refrigerator and you can enjoy them the next day.

No Oil Strawberry Swiss Roll

We love Swiss rolls as they are lighter compared to the regular butter or cheese cakes I often bake. Found this easy to follow no oil roll cake with fruits by Ochikeron which is quite refreshing. It only uses 2 eggs so it is not too much and great for afternoon tea.
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Ingredients

For Sponge Cake

• 2 egg
• 50gm Castor Sugar
• 35gm Cake Flour
• 20gm Milk (room temperature)

For Filling

• 200ml Fresh Cream (heavy whipping cream)
• 1 tbsp Castor Sugar
• Strawberries

Methods

1. Preheat the oven to 180C
2. Line baking pan with baking paper.
3. Beat eggs and sugar with wire whisk in a metal bowl. Placed it over the pan of hot water and melt the sugar and warm them up to 40C.
4. Then with a handheld mixer, beat the batter on high speed for about 5 minutes until white and fluffy.
5. Switch to low speed, beat for about 2 minutes to set the texture.
6. Sift in flour and fold together with spatula till mixed well.
7. Add milk and fold together with spatula until combined.
8. Spread the batter into baking pan and drop the pan lightly on the counter to raise the air bubbles out of the batter.
9. Bake at 180C for 11-12 minutes till top turns light brown.
10. When it's done, drop the pan lightly on the counter to prevent shrinking. Remove the cake from the pan by lifting the baking paper and place it on a wire rack to cool.
11. Once cooled, remove the baking paper and place the sponge cake on the baking paper with the brown side up.
12. For the filling, combine fresh cream and castor sugar in a dry, clean bowl. Float the bottom of the bowl in ice water, whisk the cream until it forms a soft peak.
13. Cut strawberries to preferred size.
14. Coat the surface of the sponge cake evenly with the cream. Place the strawberries over the creamed surface and leave and inch on both ends.
15. Roll the sponge cake and wrap with baking paper by twisting both ends to set. Put it in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour to set.
16. To cut the cake, dip knife in hot water, wipe, and cut. Repeat this each time you cut to get a clean cut.

Bento Fun in Print!

My pet project, Bento Fun - Making Cute & Creative Meals in Boxes was recently published by MPH. This 178 pages print book is my first print book with MPH Malaysia. It has been on sale since mid of November 2016. It is currently available in all MPH and Kinokuniya book stores across Malaysia and Singapore.

In this book, you will find 32 variations of bento with 21 simple side dishes and 8 finger food recipes. There are also easy step-by-step instructions to guide you along to make some cute bento for your loved ones.

Check out Bento Fun Book Review on Mumsgather.

Join Bento Fun Book Club for exciting news.

You can purchase online at MPHOnline

Title : Bento Fun - Making Cute & Creative Meals in Boxes
ISBN : 978-967-415-392-2
ISBN : 967-415-392-6
Price : RM39.90*
Price : SGD$21.40


Get a copy now!