Rainbow Popcorn

One of the many miscellaneous items in our pantry that needs to be used up are a couple of cans of popping corn, apparently belonging to Hadi. I have no idea why he wanted them, he never even opened them. The trouble is, me and my sisters aren't really such huge fans of popcorn... but we are forced to do many things in our mission to clear out the various ingredients and such that need to be used up, so popcorn it is! Imagine my delight when I saw a recipe for RAINBOW popcorn. I like all things colourful, hehe. So, here we go!

What you need:
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup popping corn
3/4 cups sugar - reduced from 1 1/2 cups
50g salted butter, or add about 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
1/2 cup water
2-3 drops food colouring, of your choice.

What you do:

1.  Preheat the oven to 180 C. Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the corn, cover and cook over medium heat. Hold lid tightly, shake pan occasionally. Cook until the popping stops, then set aside.
2. Combine sugar, butter and water in a small, heavy-based pan. Stir over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Brush sugar crystals from the sides of pan using a wet pastry brush. Bring to the boil and boil without stirring for 3 minutes.
3. Remove from heat. Divinde syrup into as many equal portions as you have colours - I used red, green and "natural". Add colouring to each bowl; stir until combined and no streaking is visible. Divide popcorn into equal portions. Toss each batch of syrup into each portion of popcorn until popcorn is well-coated.
4. Place popcorn onto an oven tray and bake for 5 minutes or until popcorn has separated and crystallised. Place popcorn in a large bowl, toss to combine colours. Serve on the say of making, or keep for up to two days in an airtight container.

This wasn't actually all that bad! I realise that our popcorn looks a bit pale... that is mainly because I was too wary of putting too much food colouring in. The next time we make this, I'm dumping a whole lot in, because I am sure it will look even prettier. :D Yes, yes, I know, bad for you. But never mind... its only once in awhile!

As you can also see, we reduced the sugar in this by half. This probably caused the syrup to be more watery, leading to more popcorn being needed to mop it all up. You are, of course, welcome to use the full amount, but I found the half-sugar one to be more than sweet enough for me. It was nicely balanced by the addition of salt, but this was our own modification on the original recipe. You might not want salt in it, I'm not sure, in which case, use unsalted butter. But I liked the sweet-salty contrast very much. =)

Being popcorn, of course, we brought this as "contraband" to the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic. (Yes, this was sometime ago...). Yes, you can buy popcorn there... but this is rainbow popcorn, which trumps normal popcorn, haha. As for the movie itself, I liked it well enough. It had its funny moments and Hugh Dancy made for a really sweet Luke Brandon. =) As with anything, the book seems much better in comparision, but oh well. Can't really expect much from it. I would actually watch a sequel, if they were making one... which I doubt.

Back to the popcorn... the short baking in the oven really helped. It transformed the popcorn into crisp little morsels. Just perfect! But, due to Brunei's humidity, they do get soggy really fast, but no worries! Just pop them briefly in a hot oven to crisp them right back up. :) It took us awhile to finish this, so it had several trips to the oven without any bad effects, hehe.

Quote of the day: With all the horror in the world and all the crap that's going on, for an hour and a half you go eat some popcorn and laugh with your friends. That's what a movie is all about.

Bangkok: MakYah Restaurant

So... okay... this post is way way way WAY overdue (we went to Thailand literally at the end of 2008). In case some of you haven't been reading the news, Bangkok is not a very safe place to be in at the moment. Though that might change in the two weeks this post is scheduled to be posted. But in any case, it eventually will be safe again and people will start going there to shop, again. Shopping there is very good, or so I am told. I like the markets, myself. :)

Anyway, after all that shopping, I bet you would get thirsty. And most likely, very very hungry. While we were there, we went to a couple of halal restaurants, but this particular restaurant stood out. It wasn't very far from our hotel, about 5-10 minutes walk. (Full address: 497/16 Petchaburi Road, Ratchatevee Payathai) At that particular moment in time, we had been living on instant noodles for quite some time. Proper restaurant food was few and far in between, and most of the time, not to our taste. (Imagine, SWEET beef murtabak. Like, really really sweet. I could barely keep it down)

So we were delighted to find this restaurant in our exploration of the local neighbourhood. Its name suggests Malaysian cooking, and indeed, the owner (I presume) speaks Malay fluently. Though the rest of the staff seem to know Thai only. Oh well. Anyway, the cooking was definitely Malaysian, I think, though with a hint of Thai. Apologies for the bad pictures, I used my phone camera and the restaurant was very dimly lit.

This was my sister's glass noodle dish. Very very very spicy, but really quite tasty!

This was the tom yam soup. Apparently very nice, but I didn't eat it myself, since it was seafood.

This was some sort of cucur udang (prawn fritters). My sisters loved it.

This was the requisite veggie dish for my parents. They loved it as well.

We all ordered this... watermelon ice freeze. Not sure what I was expecting, but it tasted like watermelon made into a soft drink, only it wasn't fizzy. I dunno, it was strange. Didn't like it so much.

This was a grilled fish dish. (I'm sorry, really can't remember the names since this was so long ago! I should have written it down, or something...). This was also met with lukewarm feelings, as it was a bit on the bland side. Oh well.

And this.... is the point of the whole post. Simply one of THE best fried chickens I have ever tasted! (Excluding fast food chicken, of course). And believe me, I know my fried chickens! ;) Perhaps we were just hungry at the time, but I really doubt it. Each piece was succulent, not at all overcooked and dry and oh-so-flavoursome! I have no idea how they do it, but the seasonings go all the way in. Simply the best!

And so... here's a restaurant that you might want to try out, if you ever are stuck in Bangkok without a place to eat. It's more than decent, though a bit higher in the price range than I expected. But for that chicken... it was soooo worth it!

Bobby Chinn, Live in Brunei

So... Bobby Chinn was in Brunei recently... Bobby, who, you ask? He's one of the myriad of celebrity chefs who has his own show, World Cafe Asia, which has just started its second season on Astro!

...

I wouldn't know about it, my parents don't believe in TV.

Anyway, moving on, thanks to the kind people of DST, Simpur and the owner-proprietor of the What I Ate Today blog, I was given the oppurtunity to attend a cooking demonstration at DST HQ by the man himself, Bobby Chin. Despite my aversion to all things social, I thought this might be an interesting experience and decided to go.

And an experience it surely was. Bobby was a really entertaining guy. Can't quite say much about his cooking, since we didn't get to taste it or anything. Well, most of us didn't. There were a few sticky situations with some ingredients being missing, but all in all, it went smoothly, mainly due to his great personality, I think. Well, he is a celebrity chef, I suppose. He should be used to these kinds of things. :)

Anyway, I can't, for the life of me, remember what dishes he was making. There was a lettuce roll thing, full of veggies. A noodle dish, and a dipping sauce to dip it all in. Apparently, all these recipes are available in his book which was, of course, being sold during the event. You can get your own copy at Book Depository, which offers free worldwide shipping. :)

I've browsed through the book a little. There are a couple of interesting looking recipes; I'm mainly drawn to the ones involving chicken wings, hahaha. Look out for posts on them, hopefully, in the near future. The main plus of buying the book there with Bobby around was, of course, this:

=) (No, he doesn't speak malay... someone spelt it all out for him. And no, I didn't ask him for that inscription, haha. I love it, though.)

So all in all, it was definitely an experience, though not sure one that I would like to repeat. Oh, it has its great moments and all, but I was definitely out of my comfort zone there. Oh well, at least I tried it out once, right? =)

Black-Bottom Cupcakes

Hmmm.... don't you tihnk it is time for a sweet recipe? :D We haven't made any new sweet treats in awhile, so when our cousin held a birthday celebration at his place, we jumped at the chance. Since we had some cream cheese languishing in our fridge, we thought we would use that. After quite a bit of discussion, we decided to make these black-bottom cupcakes by David Lebowitz. All the recipes I found online were all based on this single recipe. They are so-called because the deep chocolate part forms a cup around the cheesecake-like filling. Or so the theory goes...

We had in fact made an adapted version of this recipe earlier (unblogged) which used mascarpone cheese but the resulting cakes were oily and the cheese has somehow fizzled away during the baking. But most people used cream cheese without any problems, so I thought that this one should go fine. Anyway... here we go! :)

What you need:
Filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
5 tablespoons natural unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup unflavoured vegetable oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

What you do:

1. To make the filling, beat together the cream cheese, sugar and egg until smooth. Stir in the chopped chocolate pieces and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 175 C. Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin by either greasing or lining with paper cups. (We used a mini-muffin tray)
3. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together the water, oil, vinegar and vanilla.
4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients, stirring until just smooth. Do not over-stir or the cakes will end up tough.
5. Divide the batter among the muffin cups. Spoon a few tablespoons of the filling into the center of each cupcake, dividing the filling evenly. (We used about half a tablespoon of cake batter and 1/2 a teaspoon of filling for the mini-muffin cups)
6. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the tops are slightly golden brown and the cupcakes feel springy when gently pressed. These moist will keep well for 2 to 3 days if stored in an airtight container. (We baked the mini-sized ones for about 15 minutes)

Alright then... the main modification we did was to use mini-sized muffin cups instead of the full-sized ones. Makes for easier serving. Plus, they are ever so much cuter!

Anyway, in the first batch, I was worried whether the cheese would frizzle up and disappear again, but this one turned out slightly better. Still not as nice as the picture given in the original recipe, but hey... at least it is there, right? Maybe it's because we used the mini size, so it's really noticeable if a little cheese mixes in with the chocolate. In an attempt to make it *stay*, we tried sandwiching the filling in between two teaspoons of batter, but thta didn't work out that well either. Oh well. At least its still there, right? Needless to say, people liked the ones that had a lot of filling compared to the one with a lot of the chocolate part.

Not that the chocolate cake part was bad, or anything. I really liked it. It was a huge improvement over last time, in that it wasn't greasy at all. Plus, I just love something that is deep, dark and chocolatey. Yum! It's just that people like cream cheese, I guess. :) I really liked the mini sizes too, it transforms them into bite-sized pieces of chocolatey magic, instead of sometihng huge and rich and difficult to finish. :P

So yeah... these turned out rather well, I thought. It wasn't literally black-bottomed, but still delicious nonetheless!

Quote of the day: Chocolate causes certain endocrine glands to secrete hormones that affect your feelings and behavior by making you happy. Therefore it counteracts depression, in turn reducing the stress of depression. Your stress-free life helps you maintain a youthful disposition, both physically and mentally. So eat lots of chocolate!

Pandan Chicken

Following on from my previous post on the Bann Nucha Thai restaurant, I thought I would bring you a recipe from pandan chicken. Now, it wasn't because I was so overwhelmed by the pandan chicken I had there, but rather because my grandmother had inexplicably sent Ibu home with two large bunches of pandan leaves and we were wondering what to do with it, haha. I offered to make a batch of pandan chicken with some and the rest were shipped off to my other grandmother who made really good kelupis with them. :D

Anyway, back to the pandan chicken... Because it was a rather last minute decision, I decided to just go with a recipe from Kuali, instead of comparing and contrasting other recipes available online. So... here we go!

What you need:
400g chicken drumsticks, deboned and skinned
Large pandan leaves, for wrapping

Ground or blended together:
3 shallots
2cm knob of fresh young ginger
2 cloves garlic
1 stalk lemon grass, sliced
3 dried chillies, soaked

Seasoning:
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon corn flour
1/2 cup thick coconut milk

Oil, for deep frying

What you do:

1. Cut the chicken meat into 7 x 2.5 cm slices. Combine ground ingredients with seasoning ingredients and mix in chicken pieces. Marinate for 2-3 hours.
2. Add coconut milk and mix well to blend. Wrap two pieces of chicken with a pandan leaf and use a toothpick to secure closed.
3. Deep-fry wrapped chicken parcels in hot oil until chicken is cooked through. Serve immediately.

Okay... a few thoughts... this definitely definitely needed more seasoning. I found it quite bland, with the flavour of lemon grass dominating the whole thing. Lemon grass tastes nice, but only as a subtle flavour, not as a head-on collision with your taste buds. So what I would do would be to up the amount of soy sauce, maybe add a couple of tablespoons of oyster sauce and perhaps a few leaves of fresh coriander to the ground ingredients. I also don't see why they use dried chillies if fresh chillies are available, so I would suggest fresh if you can. I might also reduce the amount of lemon grass to half a stalk, maybe.

Second, there was way too much coconut milk. It made it all kind of liquidy and really really hard and messy to wrap. Didn't help that I cut the chicken pieces smaller than they said. So I would either add about a couple of tablespoons of coconut milk or maybe just cut it out altogether. Also, I have no idea how they do it in the restaurants, but this was really messy to wrap! If you don't like the idea of mess, you might want to cut the chicken into bigger pieces and just have one piece per parcel. Of course, you might have to marinate it slightly longer.

Last of all, in an effort to make this more healthy for you, I did two batches. One, deep fried, the other baked in the oven for about 20-30 minutes. End result was... there wasn't a huge difference. At least, none that I could taste. Except for the dramatic reduction in oil. So if you care about these sort of things, you might want to try baking it instead. :)

Quote of the day: There are many miracles in the world to be celebrated and, for me, garlic is the most deserving.