Shix cooks: Pumpkin and summer squash

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter 

1/2 Spanish onion (cubed)

750g butternut squash and pumpkin (cubed)

1l stock

1 tbsp curry 

Salt pepper and sugar to taste

Method:

1. Melt butter in a saucepan  and fry the onion till yellow

2. Throw in Squash and pumpkin till it's browned.

3. Add in stock and curry and mix it up

4. Let everything boil and ensure the squash n pumpkin are soft. 

5. Once cooked, blend the squash and pumpkin. 

6. Add some water if it's too thick.

The end

Shix cooks: Prata

Why would anyone make prata? Let me lay it down for you:

It's 5.30 am and you're hungry. You heat up the chicken curry you cooked the day before while you hunt for bread to toast on a pan. You go to the bread box and you find an empty bread bag. It seems the hungry husband got to it first. So what do you do? You open the pantry and see the multiple bags of flour. Leftovers from all the Eid baking you did. You think to yourself: Should I make bread? Naaaah. Too long. So what else goes with curry? Prata. 

I'm sorry my brain works weirdly. So after a bit of googling, I came up with this recipe. Please note that a lot of eyeballing is involved. 

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 egg

Healthy pinch of salt and sugar

100ml of oil + 100ml more 

150ml of water

Method:

In the mixing bowl, put together the flour, salt, sugar and egg. Get that mixed up before pouring the100ml of oil. Add water in a little bit at a time. Add more oil/flour as is necessary. Mix that up till it's nice and smooth. 

Separate the ball of dough into 2 or 3 and oil them before putting it into an oiled bowl to rest for an hour. 

Once it's done resting, oil a surface (I just placed grease proof paper on my kitchen tabletop and poured some oil on it). Flatten out your prata and oil it before frying it with more oil. 

As you can already tell, it needs lots of oil. You can choose to use healthier oils and reduce the amount of oil used during the flattening process - although, that will not give you the proper prata experience - which will give you a crispy flat bread like mine. 😁

Side note: while waiting for the prata to rest, you can make yourself some sambal tumis.

 

Sambal tumis ikan bilis

3 large onions, blended 

3 spoonfuls Chili paste

1 piece asam keping

Handful of ikan bilis

Salt and sugar to taste

Oil

Stirfry the onion followed by the chili paste. Remember that chili to onion ratio should be 1:2. After a few mins of stirfrying, add in the asam. Then, add ikan bilis and cook for a few more minutes before adding sugar and salt to taste

The end. 

Shix cooks: cheesy baked mussels

So this awesome dish is super fast but for someone with allergies, it's the worst lol. 

Ingredients:

500g mussels

50g butter

2 shallots

3 tbsp flour

1/2 cup milk 

1/4 cup cheese

Method:

In a pot, place 1.5 cups water and the cleaned mussels. 

Cover and boil till the mussels open up. About 15 mins. 

In a pan, melt the butter and add in the chopped shallot. 

Mix the flour in to make a roux before adding the milk and cheese. If the consistency is too thick, add more milk. Turn off heat. 

Once mussels are cooked, open it up. Fill the mussel with the cheese roux and bake at 200 deg for 15 min. 

Eat!

Shixcooks: herbed meatballs with veg and tofu soup

My sisters just came back from Australia and bought me a whole bag of goodies 

As you can see, it's a whole lot of chocolate, bags of nuts, tea, slippers, sleeping pants, a notepad, a pack of tissue (hahaha) but my prized possessions are the vanilla pods and fresh herbs (they're in the brown bag). 

Side note: if you were wondering, yes my walls are pinkish. Hahahaha. 

Back to the posting proper. I used a itty little bit of herbs to make the meatballs and MASYAALLAH it was so nice. It's quite fast (because I do everything at the same time) so here goes:

Prep time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients:

3 litres of beef stock (or 3l water and 2 beef cubes)

1 onion, sliced

2" ginger, mashed slightly 

1 carrot, sliced

2 potatoes, small chunks

200g leafy vegetables

1 tube of firm tofu, cut into 1

Salt to taste

500g ground beef

A stalk of thyme

A stalk of rosemary 

Salt and ground pepper to taste

Method:

1. In a pot, place the stock, onion, ginger, potatoes and carrots and bring it to a boil. 

2. Pull off the leaves of the thyme and rosemary from the stem then finely chop them up. 

3. In a bowl, mix the minced beef, herbs, salt and pepper thoroughly. 

4. Using your hands, make tight balls using the beef mix of approximately 2-3 cm in diameter. (I make them small so that they cook quickly.)

5. Once the stock starts to boil, add in the meatballs. Leave it to simmer for about 10 min. 

6. Once the meatballs have all floated to the surface, you know they're cooked. Add in the veg and tofu. 

7. Once the veg have wilted slightly, carefully mix everything up and add salt if necessary and turn off the flame. 

We're done!!

Tip: 

- put your meatball in one at a time just to check that it doesn't crumble when cooking. If it does, make sure you compress the remaining meatballs so that this doesn't happen. 

- use any vegetables that you have in hand

- if you have only dried herbs, use about half a teaspoons each. 

Enjoy!

Shix cooks: Lemon-ginger chicken

A simple recipe that it very over friendly

Ingredients:

Ground to a paste:

2 cloves onion

3 cloves garlic

2 tbsp chilli paste

2" ginger 

3 stalks lemongrass

1 tsp coriander seeds

1/2 tsp each fennel seeds and cumin seeds 

1 tsp lemon rind 

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 kg chicken

1/2 cup coconut cream

2 slices dried tamarind

Salt and sugar to taste

3 tbsp oil

Method: 

If you're planning to bake this, marinade the chicken in the spice paste together with salt and sugar then bake it at 170 deg for 30 mins

If you're cooking this on the stove top, start by heating the oil a wok or a deep skillet. Then, fry the paste till fragrant (and MasyaAllah, is it fragrant). Once that's done, add the tamarind slices and chicken. Cover your pot and let the chicken cook. After 20 mins, add in the coconut milk, salt and sugar. Let it cook for another 15 mins then it's done. 

Shix bakes: Blueberry muffin

This lazy (pan) muffin came to be because 

A) there were blueberries on sale ($5 for 2 boxes of 120g berries-and yes that's super cheap here in SG)

B) I had to mark quickly because I HAD to go to the airport

So I needed something fast and sweet. The easiest bake I've done next to the cheese balls lol. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup self rising flour

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup white sugar

1/3 cup oil

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

200g blueberries

Optional:

1tsp ground cinnamon + 2 tbsp sugar sprinkle (I didn't cause I couldn't bear to have one more thing to wash)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170deg (when I start w the oven, you know it's gonna be a fast one)

In a larger mixing bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Make sure to mix well so tt the baking powder is properly distributed. 

In another smaller bowl, mix the oil, egg, milk and salt together. (I choose to add the salt here coz I use Himalayan salt and it's usually coarser)

Using a spatula or fork, mix in the wet to the dry ingredients. Mix till everything is just nicely done. Then throw in the blueberries. Mix it a few more times. Mixture should look like lumpy oats. Don't over mix!

If you're not lazy, scoop the mixture into lined muffin pans. If you're lazy, dump everything into a greased pan (I used an 8" sq silicon pan). Bake it for 20 mins and you're good to go. 

I especially like this recipe coz it's not too dry or crumbly and it cuts relatively well too. 

Original recipe from http://www.inspiredtaste.net/18982/our-favorite-easy-blueberry-muffin-recipe/

The husband calls it kicap power

No pics yet coz cooking was done at 11pm. But alhamdulillah it turned out well

Ingredients 

5 cloves garlic

1 large onion

1" ginger

1 tbsp chilli paste

1/2 cup each oyster sauce n dark soy sauce 

1 tsp ground pepper 

Salt sugar and white pepper to taste 

Optional: diced carrot and potato