Daiso shopping!! RM5 shop

Just went to Malacca Daiso in Pahlawan. During my Malacca trip, I went to Pahlawan and the new Jaya Jusco. I notice that they have a lot of shops that JB do not have. The new Jusco is very modern and a walk inside feels like I am in KL shopping area.

Anyway back to Daiso. Daiso is a RM5 shop for all items. Its similar to Daiso in Singapore that sell for $1.99. They have really great deals in their shop and feature many cheap and innovative Japanese products. If you do your homework you will get really great bargains at Daiso. But there is also items which are more expensive than normal retailers

I bought a few kitchen appliance in this trip. Couldnt resist as I have not seen some of the items or their design are unique. The cup is a measuring cup. From the top left its a cheese grater. The middle is the lemon squeezer. You need to cut the lemon into small pieces and squeeze them. On the top right its to squeeze the garlic into pieces. I bought this is to replace chopping of the garlic. I paid RM20 in total. I am not sure of the price in normal retailers but I had fun shopping at Daiso.

How to make Cadbury Hot Chocolate!

Cadbury Hot Chocolate with marshmallow


Cadbury Drinking Chocolate and Farmhouse milk

Since the time i went to Australia I have fallen in love with the hot chocolate serve in Qantas airline! I saw the packet they use is from Cadbury. I then bought the Cadbury Drinking Chocolate powder made in Australia and decided to make my own hot chocolate. Sadly no matter what milk i use, i couldnt find one that I drank from the Qantas airplane.

I now use the milk FarmHouse from Australia. My hot chocolate does not taste like the one i drank from the plane but it ended up tasting like the Hot Chocolate from Starbucks!

So if you wanted to make a hot chocolate from Starbucks, just mix the milk and the chocolate powder when boiling.

Recipe for 1 person.
- Boil the pot with 1 cup of milk (size of cup depending on what cup you use)
- Add in 1 to 2 teaspoon of Cadbury Drinking Chocolate powder
- Stir well

Its really simple to prepare the drink!

Tomato Chutney Sauce recipe to compliment the Thosai

My colleague Geetha seeing that I am very interested with the Thosai making decided to share her recipe of Tomato Chutney Sauce to compliment the Thosai. I will post it here and try the sauce one day!

Her recipe:
Tomato Chutney Sauce

- Chop into small pieces
3 tomato
1 onion big
3 clove garlic
1 pieces of red chili

Cili powder - 1 pinch
Curry leaf 1 stalk
Cumin seed 2 pinch

Cooking
-Put oil in kuali
- Cook well until golden the below:
Put in the cumin seed
Chop onion
Chop garlic
Chop red cili
Curry leaf
-Tomato - stir fry
-Cili powder

Stir fry until buble come out (about 5 min)
Put water and salt

If you can see bubble it means that its ready

Related topic:
Making Thosai the easy way (Part 1)
Making Chicken curry to compliment the thosai (Part 2)

Curry Chicken recipe to compliment the Thosai (Part 2)

Making Chicken Curry

I wanted to make the curry to compliment my thosai. I decided to make the curry and thosai spontaneously when i found that no one cook for dinner. As it was spontaneous I tried to make do with the ingredients that I have on hand. I am not expert in making curry but the curry ended up taste great and the spices I use really enchance the flavour. Though my curry is successful it can further improve since my dad's curry taste even better than mine.

I wanted to prepare for 3 ppl. Therefore I wont be using a whole chicken. I cut down on the proportion:
-3/4 of half a chicken
4 tomato
3 potato
4 small onion and 1 big onion
2 pandan leaf/ 2 stalk of curry leaf/ fragrant leaf (not sure of exact name but its a replacement for corriander leaf according to my mum) / serai
Cilli powder/ Baba's Meat Curry Powder /
2 teaspoon of Santan and 2 teaspoon of MilkI also add 2 clove of garlic and ginger
4 Clove (Bunga Cengkih)
1 Star anise
3 Cardamon pods
1 Cinnamon

2 teaspoon of santan and 2 teaspoon of milk

The making of curry

Prepare:

-Cut the potato and tomato into quarters
-Chop the garlic, ginger, small and big onion into pcs - blend in food chopper
-Clean the pandan leaf, fragrant leaf, curry leaf and serai
-Flatten the serai. Put on the chopping board and use something hard to flatten the serai
-Once that the curry is almost ready. Lastly mix the santan and milk in a bowl and add some water

Cooking.
1. Pour some oil into kuali. Stir fry with small fire all the spices - Cinnamon, Star anise, Cardamon pods, Clove for few seconds.
2. Stir fry the mixture of onion/garlic/ginger/serai
3. Put in the fragrant leaf/ curry leaf
4. Put in the tomato, potato and chicken
5. Put in a very humble amt of cili powder - about half a teaspoon
6. Put in the curry powder. Make sure the curry powder cover the chicken adequately
Curry powder burn easily so make sure to control the fire. Overall I use medium to small fire.
7. Stir fry until its fragrant but dont burn the curry powder or the spices. If the spices burn then the curry will turn bitter
8. Transfer the whole mixture into a soup pot. Pour water till it covers the chicken. Dont pour too much else the curry will be too watery.

Cook about half hour - 45minutes. Check intermediary. Medium to small fire.

15 minutes before the chicken is ready put in the pandan leaf.

Once done put some salt to taste. Add in the santan/milk. Once we add the santan we cant cook for long as the santan can turn into oil if cook too long.

Voila~ done!

Related topics:
Making thosai the easy way (Part 1)
Tomato Chutney Recipe (Part 3)

Making Thosai the easy way (Part 1)

Thosai and Curry Chicken!

I made Thosai using Thosai Mix from Lingam's

Lingam's Thosai Mix. 500gram price at RM3.40

The thosai mix is bought from this shop Rejeeta along Jalan Trus near the Indian temple and Komtar in town

I wanted to make thosai for quiet some time but I was quiet discourage while discussing about making thosai with my colleague. Out of the conversation i gather that making thosai from scratch is more suitable for large family and that the preparation have to be done overnite.

One day my Indian colleagues came back from lunch break with some of their shopping and i discovered that thosai can be cook instantly! I was overcome with excitement and my colleague kindly sold her pack to me! Its call Thosai Mix and the brand is Lingam's. It is bought from a Indian shop. Next time i will try follow them to discover where they bought it [i have posted the photo above]. Thank you Indra and Geetha for sharing with me your Thosai making as i discover something new today!

At first I did not expect much from the instant thosai mix but the taste is surprisingly tasty (yummilicious) and very close to the thosai bought from Indian restaurant!

The Thosai Mix is very easy to prepare. One pack comes in 500gram. As I only prepare for 3 ppl, I use about 250 gram. In the end I made about 9 thosai.

According to the instruction it is to mix 500 gram of the pack + 1000 litre of water and set it aside for 10 min. Pour one scoop of mixture on flat pan and spread evenly to thin round shape. Serve with curry and chutney.

The way i prepare:
1. 250 gram of thosai mix (If you have 6 members than u can use all)
2. I follow the instruction and put 500litre water but while cooking i ended up adding another 300 litre water as the mix is still too thick.
3. Stir the water and the mix till its smooth and make sure there is no lumps.
4. In order to get ride of the lumps I sieve the mixture.
5. Let it stand for 10 minutes.

Before I prepare the thosai I have cook the curry. While waiting 30 min for the curry to be cook I prepare the thosai.

6. Heat the pan. Cut an onion into half. Use fork to poke it and use it to oil the pan.
7. Use a scoop - the kind that i use to scoop out soup - take out a scoop and pour slowly on the pan.
8. Wait until the bottom is brown. The top will remain white. It takes a few tries to judge when its cook. Fold it in half and ready to serve. Make sure dont turn it to cook.

Some pictures for illustration:

Set it aside after mixing the Thosai Mix and water

Poke the onion and oil the pan by circling it round the pan

Required Utensils: Flat Pan and Palette Knife

Pour one scoop of the mixture onto the flat pan

I will show how I made the curry in a second part. Combining both will make the post look too long.

Related post:

How I made the curry to compliment the Thosai (Part 2)
Tomato Chutney Sauce (Part 3)

Bake Cheese Cake Recipe (with photos)

Bake cheese cake

Had a fun time making my first cake with my mum! Brought some to office and everyone loves it.

Bake cheese cake top with whipped cream and hershey chocolate syrup

Ingredients
For the crust:
* Digestive Biscuit (1 1/3 cups) - I use the flour measurement - 170gram
* Butter-melted (1/3 cup) - I use Anchor New Zealand butter (not in picture) - 75gram
* Sugar (1/4 cup) - I use the icing sugar - 56.25gram

For the filling:
* Cream cheese-softened (16 oz) - I use Tatura cream cheese
* Eggs (3)
* Sweetened condensed milk (300ml)
* Lemon juice (1/4 cup) - About 1 - 2 lemon - 56.25ml/56.25gram

Preparation
For the crust:
You need to combine the butter; sugar and the digestive biscuit crumbs and press this into the bottom of a springfoam pan.
Baked this in preheated oven for 12 minutes at 163 degree C
Take it out and cooled fully (not in fridge) (by fan

For the filling:
Take a large mixer bowl and beat the cream cheese in this until it becomes fluffy. Once done, add the sweetened condensed milk. Beat the mixture till it smoothens. Now, add the eggs and the lemon juice. Mix this together. Pour this combination over the cooled crust.

Time to bake this combination! Bake it for at least 58 minutes at 149 degrees C.
Once done, leave in in oven (off) and open the door ajar.
Leave till oven cooled.

Let it cool down to the room temperature sitting on a wire rack. Can put a big bowl over the cheesecake to slower down the cooling for 1st hour. Subsequent 2 hour cool to room temp.

You need to chill it at least 5 hours before serving. Garnishing can be done as per your desire.

Usefull links:
Where and how much I bought the Cheese cake ingredients
Bake cheese cake recipe (without picture)
Spring form pan


Close up of Tatura Cream Cheese from Cold storage. I bought this as its affordable compare to Philadelphia cream cheese which cost double of Tatura cream cheese. My cheese cake also taste great with this cheese.

FOR THE CRUST:

Before starting on the crust, heat the oven first. I heat it for about 15 minutes.
The crust: Butter, sugar and digestive biscuit. Picture shows how it looks like after mixing all the ingredient. I crush the biscuit using a chopper.

Spread the crust evenly into the pan

Press the crust to the pan

Baked the crust 12 minutes at 168 Celsius. Cool the crust in room tempreture. Dont put in fridge

FOR THE FILLING:

Use hand mixer and beat the cream cheese until it become fluffy

Add the condense milk. Beat it till it smoothens

Add the egg and lemon juice

Pour it over the cooled crust. Bake it for 58min at 149 degree c. Actually for my oven, it took longer than 58min to cook. As the cake is not ready after 58 min. To test whether the cake is completely cook, just use a long stick and poke it in. If there is cake attach to the stick, it means that the cake is not ready. If the stick come out clean, it means the cake is ready.

Once done, leave in in oven (off) and open the door ajar.
Leave till oven cooled. Let it cool down to the room temperature sitting on a wire rack. Can put a big bowl over the cheesecake to slower down the cooling for 1st hour. Subsequent 2 hour cool to room temp.

Since this is my first cheese cake, I made it plain with no garnishing. It taste so creamy and delicious. Once its done, I use a knife to make sure the cake does not stick to the side of the pan. I unlock the pan and cut the cake. The crust does not break into pieces if i cut carefully.

Spring Form pan

The description and care of use. Use non abrasive material to wash the pan. Do note that you have to grease pan before use. 22cm is equal to 9inch.

Price: RM25
Where i buy: Ng Hock Heng Trading Sdn. Bhd. 25-b Jalan Dato' Abdullah Tahir, 80300 Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Tel: 07 3333617. Email: nhhtsb@gmail.com (Wholesaler and Retailer of Utensils & Crockery, Industrial containers, Hardware)

According to Wikipedia: Springform pans are a type of bakeware that feature sides that can be removed from the base. Springform refers to the construction style of this pan. The base and the sides are separate pieces that are held together when the base is aligned with a groove that rings the bottom of the walls. The pan is then secured by a latch on the exterior of the wall. This tightens the ‘belt’ that becomes the walls of the pan and secures the base into the groove at the base of the walls.

I wanted to make cheese cake but I do not have this spring form pan. Lucky for me after looking at a few shops, I found my spring form pan at Ng Hock Heng shop near the DNP and Banafee area. The shop is a wonderland of baking utensils for baking fanatics. They are the whole seller so their prices are reasonable and the owner of the shop are honest. Initially i choose a 20cm/8 inch pan. He told me this spring form pan is very bad, you should choose a bigger one. The clasp of this bigger pan is stronger. Which is very true as the clasp for the smaller pan is very loose. The owner will also deduct the price if you ask for discount. Although they occupy 2 shop lots, they have so many utensils that the shop is in a mess. I literally have to sieve thru the mess to find the spring form pan.

I need the pan as I need to put the crust at the bottom of the cheese cake. Once the cake is ready, use a knife and cut around the cake to make sure it does not stick to the side of the pan. Unlock and ready to eat.

The clasp: To close the clasp

Unlocking halfway

Unlocking completely.

To lock back, align the bottom and the side on a flat surface. Once its align just turn and lock the claps.