Shixcooks: Mussels 2

Quick 15 min cooking 

400g mussels (soaked in salt water for 15 mins then cleaned)

5 shallots

50 g butter 

1 tsp tarragon

1 lemon 

A splash of cider vinegar

A cup of water

Method:

In a pot, add everything except the lemon. Cover and let it cook for 5 min. squeeze in the lemon juice and let it cook for another 5-7 min. That's all!

Shix cooks: eid specials

Serves 20

A. Spiced rice

Ingredients: 

6 cups basmati rice

3 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)

2 tbsp blended shallots

1tsp garam masala

3cm cinnamon stick

2 cloves

2 cardamom

2 star anise

1 tbsp salt

Yellow colouring

6 cups water

Garnish:

Fried shallots

Coriander leaves

Method:

1. Soak rice overnight. Drain just before cooking. 

2. In a large pan, melt ghee before adding all the spices. 

3. Once fragrant, add in rice and salt. 

4. Once all the rice has been coated with oil, if you are cooking in the rice cooker, at this point, add in 2 cups of water and bring it to a boil before transferring it into the rice cooker and add 4 more cups of water and cook. If you are cooking on the  stove, add 6 cups of water and bring it tu a boil before covering the pot and let it cook at a low flame. In the middle of cooking, after about 10 min, add 4 drops of colouring to the wet rice. This will give it a nice rich yellow colour. Once cooked, garnish with coriander leaves and fried shallots. 

B. pineapple salsa

Ingredients:

1 honey pineapple quartered and sliced

1/2 green capsicum

1 red chili

1 shallot

Method:

Chop up the shallot and chillis into small chunks and mix it up with the pineapple. Leave it a container (preferably made of glass) overnight.

C. Chicken in spiced tomato gravy

Ingredients:

2kg chicken

400g shallots

6 garlic

4cm ginger

1 cinnamon stick (abt 6cm)

2 cloves

2 cardamom

2 star anise

1 handful dried chili

2 tbsp tomato purée

1/2 can tomato

1/2 cup sugar

2 tbsp salt

2 tbsp yoghurt

2 bunches mint

1/2 cup oil

Method:

1. Blend the shallots garlic and ginger. 

2. Heat up oil and fry 12 tbsp of the blended mixture. 

3. Add all the spices

4. Blend the chili and add in 6 tbsp of the mixture 

5. Once fragrant, add the tomatoes and fry further till fragrant. 

6. Add the sugar and salt till the flavour is to your liking

7. Add the chicken and cover till cooked. 

8. Add yoghurt and mint and mix well just before turning off the flame. 

D. Lentil curry

Ingredients 

Part (i)

2kg lamb ribs

1 white onion (quartered)

4 inch ginger (sliced)

Part (ii)

500g shallots (ground)

6 garlic (ground)

5 inches ginger (ground)

1 cinnamon stick

2 cloves

2 cardamom

2 star anise

2 cups lentils (soak for at least 2 hours)

3 stalks curry leaf

6 tbsp dalca curry powder

300g eggplant 

2 carrots 

4 potatoes

300g long beans

6 whole tomatoes 

Salt to taste 

Lots of water

Oil

Method:

In a pot, put (i) then add water till it covers the meat. Boil with low heat for at least 5 hours. Refil water as needed. Once the meat falls off the bone you know it's ready. 

In a separate large pot, put enough oil to fry the onion/garlic/ginger mixture. Once fragrant, add the spices and fry for a few minutes. Then, add curry leaves and curry powder. Fry till fragrant then add the lentils, meat and stock and bring to a boil. Add salt to taste then add vegetables. Boil at low flame for about an hour for the flavour. It's best to be cooked a day in advance to develop it's flavour. 

That's it!

As long as you plan in advance, it will all be done within 4 hours (not including cooking the ribs).

Soft sponge cake

This fluffy lovely is done in 15 min. Here goes:

3 large eggs

200g optima flour 

50ml milk

1tsp vanilla essence

50g melted butter

Preheat oven to 170C (yes kids this is gonna be a quick one). In a mixing bowl, add everything except the butter. Mix at high speed for about 10 min. Then, fold in the cooled melted butter. But it all in a cake tray and bake for approx 20min. 

Varieties:

I marbled the cake by separating the mixture into 2 then adding 1tbsp chocolate emulco into one half before pouring in the batter in an alternating fashion. You can change chocolate to any berry purée. That's it!

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!