SOFT YOGHURT BUNS

You may be thinking "Oh no not another bun recipe!"

And I'll be thinking, " Foodies don't lie."

And you'll be saying, "What?"

You'll look puzzled and you might roll your eyes.

But I'll smile, cock my head, feel content and think, " Foodies don't lie." And I'll slump slightly and sigh....with a smile brushed across my face for the rest of the evening...feel content...and dreamily think, "Foodies don't lie."


Because Elin of Elinluv's Tidbits Corner wasn't fibbing when she sighed about what a fantastic bun recipe this was...how tender it was and how her whole evening was spent swooning and sniffing over the buns just as I'm doing right now.

God, foodies don't lie.

And if the great bun lady (Elin) says it's good it just has to be good. So I did it, I tried it, I made it and I LOVE it. It's fabulous. It is everything Elin said it was. She sure don't lie.


KWF of Pure Enjoyment don't lie either for this is where Elin got the recipe from. Thank you both for such a luscious bun recipe.


But where both Elin and KWF used a fruit flavoured yoghurt to flavour the buns, I did not. I used low fat yoghurt simply because that was all that I had in the refrigerator and it worked just fine....just GREAT.


And where Elin and KWF sprinkled their buns with sesame seeds I did not because I did not have any. But they were GREAT even without.


Here's the recipe for 6 buns............I doubled it and got 12 golden gorgeous buns in and I used an 11" by 9" pan
250 gm bread flour
15 gm sugar
3 gm salt
3 gm yeast
100 gm yoghurt (I used plain and low fat)
60 gm milk
25 gm egg (1/2 egg)
30 gm butter

Mix all dry ingredients in one large bowl.

Put all wet ingredients and butter (except egg) in a small pot and warm it up over a small fire until lukewarm (not too hot or you'll kill the yeast). Take off from the fire and mix with a wooden spoon.

Break egg in a small bowl and beat lightly and quickly pour into the wet mixture and stir quickly and then pour the whole mix into the dry ingredients. Stir with a spoon until the flour is incorporated and a rough dough forms. Now use your hands to bring the dough together and turn on to a lightly floured board and knead for about 6 to 8 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Lightly oil the bowl and place the kneaded dough inside, cover with a damp tea towel or cling film and let rest for an hour or until the dough doubles in bulk.

After the dough has risen take it out from the bowl and punch it down to rid it of air and knead it a little while, about 1 or 2 minutes and then roll into a log and cut into 6 pieces or 12 if you have doubled the recipe like I did. Shape each piece into a smooth ball and place in a pan (lined with parchment paper at bottom and sides) slightly apart (about 1/2 inch apart). Leave to rise until it doubles in bulk again. Brush the tops with egg wash (a beaten egg) and bake in a 170 C oven for 20 minutes.

CASHEW NUT CHICKEN STIR FRY

Terri don't laugh. This is my attempt at a Chinese stir fry. I love stir fries.... the only downside being I'll be at the dinner table sweating like someone had left a tap running on me head. Terri's the sifu of Chinese cooking and her dishes and her endless treasure box/blog of hints and lectures have always intimidated me. However I didn't think I could go much wrong with a cashew nut chicken stir fry because cashew nuts are so delicious just as they are and oyster sauce is a life saver. Anything with oyster sauce and cashew nuts just has to be good.


The dish is a tad colourful, being me, but pretty pretty tasty especially when I splashed in some zingy fish sauce as well. So maybe it's not exactly Chinese after all....it's a little bit Thai, a little bit Chinese and a little bit me.

Here's the recipe. Serves 1 or 2..........


1 chicken breast, sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
1 small green and red pepper, cut into small chunks
a handful of roasted cashew nuts

Season chicken slices with :

1 tsp light soy sauce
dash of white pepper
salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cooking oil
2-3 drops of sesame seed oil
1-2 tsp cornflour mixed with 2 tsp water

Sauce ingredients :

2 tsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp fish sauce
43 - 4 Tbsp water
1 tsp cornflour plus 1 tsp water, mixed

Cooking oil

Season chicken pieces with the seasoning ingredients. Mix well and keep aside for about 10 minutes.

Prepare the sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Keep aside.

Heat up a wok. Put about 4 tablespoons of oil in and let that heat up till very hot. Fry the chicken pieces in 2 batches very quickly, about 5-6 seconds until the chicken turns white but no need to worry if it not completely cooked. Lift out and drain them of oil. Keep aside.

Remove excess oil from the wok leaving a tablespoon in. Throw in the garlic and stir it around until it turns soft and fragrant. Pour in the sauce ingredients and stir a little to mix. When sauce begins to bubble throw in the fried chicken pieces and stir quickly for 4 - 5 seconds, add the peppers and stir over very high heat for another minute. Throw in the cashews. Taste and adjust. Serve hot.

CRISPY FRIED FISH WITH SAMBAL AND A GREEN MANGO SALAD

I can think of no other way of preparing these tiny, fresh, slender, skinny, yellow tail scad fish (ikan selar kuning) than to deep fry them to a crisp so their bones become dry and brittle, so you could snap them, savour their sweetness, bite their paper thin crisp gills, their lips, their little tails and devour each whole leaving very little of their remains behind. Like a cat would. It's totally fulfilling and lip smacking satisfying.

Especially if you have hot, steaming white rice, and heady luscious condiments like sambal belacan and a sour spicy green mango salad right next to you. Quite the complete rustic meal. Nothing fancy. The whole meal set covers the 3 food groups. Fried, boiled and raw.



There are usually 2 sizes of this fish sold at the market but for deep frying to a crisp, the 4 1/2 or 5 inch ones are the ones to go for. And if you get the fishmonger to clean them for you preparing them for frying would be a breeze.

The secret or not so secret of frying fish to a crisp would of course be very hot oil, a nice crisp forming batter and patting down the fish with some paper towels before coating and frying them. And don't over crowd the pan or wok either or you'll bring the temperature of the oil down and your fish will not be as crisp as you would like them to be. The tumeric used in this batter is typical of Malay fried foods and it gives off a lovely earthy flavour.

We had a wonderful (ok.... unhealthy) dinner tonight and my daughter who complained recently about having missed most of the foods that I blg about was licking her fingers clean, smacking her lips and she went mmm...

Here's the recipe for the fried fish.............


For the amount of batter in this recipe you would be able to fry about...

8 - 9 small fish, gutted, cleaned and patted dry
3 tablespoons of cornflour
2 tablespoons of tumeric powder
1 tablespoon of salt
2-3 tablespoon of water

Vegetable oil for deep frying

Mix the above ingredients to a thick but slightly loose paste. Drop in the fish that has been patted with kitchen paper towel of excess moisture into the paste/batter. Use a spoon or spatula to mix and coat the fish into the batter.

Heat up a deep wok until hot then pour in enough oil for deep frying and when the oil is very hot drop the fish in a few at a time as long as you don't over crowd the wok. Fry until a golden brown and crisp. Continue with the next batch and drain them on paper towels to rid of excess oil. Serve hot.

Please note that this is not a batter where you dip the fish in and fry them. I t is more of a coating batter where the fish are put into the bowl and mixed aroudn until they are coated. So you will not be getting half a bowl full of liquid batter from this recipe.

Sambal Belacan.........


I inch square piece of dried shrimp paste, roasted in a dry pan
4 large red chillies
a few bird chillies if you like
juice of 2 or 3 kalamansi limes (I didn't have these so I used the bigger limes, which are not as nice, in my opinion)

Pound the chillies quite finely using a little salt as an abrasive in a pestle and mortar (or mortar and pestle, whichever came first). Add the toasted shrimp paste and pound again until you get a nice fiery red and moist paste. Scoop the luscious paste into a small bowl and squeeze lime juice over. Mix with a spoon. It's ready to be served.

Green mango salad.......My MIL's version....


3 mediun sized green mangoes, peeled and shredded or grated coarsely
1 cm x 2cm piece of toasted shrimp paste
2 large red chillies
some bird chillies if you like
salt

A handful of roasted and crushed peanuts (I didn't have this)

Put about a tablespoon of salt in the shredded mangoes and mix them well. keep aside for about 15 minutes to allow the juices from the mango to exude and to reduce the sourness. After 15 minutes use your hand to squeeze teh mango pulp as dry as you can. Then place the shredded mango into a colander and run some water through to rid it of excess salt.

Pound the chillies and shrimp paste in a pestle and mortar until quite fine but not too fine. Mix the paste with the rinsed shredded mangoes well until evenly distributed. Scatter some crushed peanuts over the top and it's ready to be served.

Serve the fried crispy fish with the sambal belacan and teh green mango salad. YUMMEE.

A MALAY BEAN SPROUT SALAD - KERABU TAUGEH

This is a Malay salad recipe that is one of my favourites. I love the combination for the dressing which happens to work superbly as a dressing for a bowl of boiled, fat and juicy cockles as well....absolutely mouth watering. However, if you would like the best of both worlds the combination of cockles and bean sprouts and the dressing makes a fantastic seafood vegetable salad and in my opinion it is salad heaven.

I just can't describe how much I love this dish. Unfortunately I could not get any decent cockles at the wet market today so I had to settle for a just a lovely bean sprout salad.

The dressing is made up of typical South East Asian ingredients. Tamarind juice for the sourness, lime juice for it's tanginess, a pounded golden coconutty paste (kerisik) for body and sweetness and chillies for some spiciness and bite. A totally absorbful, if there is such a word, and clingy dressing. The bean sprouts take in the flavours well and if I had used cockles the dressing would just coat, enter its crevices and cling to those succulent, juicy morsels.


Here's the recipe..........

180 gm of bean sprouts, tailed if you're feeling up to it, washed and drained.
3 limes
1 Tbsp of tamarind paste
2 large red chillies
3 bird chillies (optional)
5-6 shallots, sliced finely
1 cup of freshly grated coconut or 2/3 cup canned dessicated coconut
salt

Place the grated coconut into a small to medium pan and dry fry or roast until it turns a dark golden brown. This takes about 7 to 9 minutes over medium flame. Watch it carefully because the coconut can burn easily and keep stirring to allow the coconut to brown evenly.

While it is still hot or warm pound the roasted/fried grated coconut in a pestle and mortar until it becomes a thick brown paste and the oils exudes. Scrape it up and put it in a medium bowl.

Pound the fresh chillies and bird chilies, if using, until it is quite fine or pasty and throw that into the bowl too. Mix the tamarind paste with 2 tablespoons of water and strain and pour that into the bowl as well. Squeeze the limes, discard the seeds and pour that in as well. Stir the mixture until it is well combined, add salt to taste and adjust sourness with extra lime juice if necessary and sweetness with a tiny sprinkle of sugar if you like. Mix well.

Add the raw bean sprouts, sliced shallots and boiled cockles if using and toss well incorporating the dressing into the vegetables/cockles well. Taste for salt again and adjust. Serve slightly chilled or at room temperature. YUMMMMM.