PASSION FOR FOOD

Assalamualaikum readers,

I always have the passion for food, always dreaming to eat in a fine dining restaurant and  have the options to buy all the expensive foods in the world!Haha.But somehow, in my entire 28 years of life, I never step my foot in the fine dining restaurant but yeah, I managed to buy some ingredients that are not expensive but quality ingredients.

Because I don't have much options to eat expensive foods out there, I looked into other option, which is cook my own food. For me, to cook my own food is way more healthier as I can control the salt, sugar and carb intake.(you all know that right?) Since I was a teenager, I always want to eat healthy food, but at that time and place, I still don't have the option to cook and eat healthily.(I was a student btw ;))

So, when I started working, I start to buy groceries (I rented a house) and cook for myself. At that time, I just think to fulfill my stomach, but gradually I changed to be more cautious of what I cook and eat.  Just to add on, my first encounter to the kitchen was when I was 12 years old. My mom will ask me to help her in the kitchen, initially she asked me to cook rice for the family.  The rice that I cooked sometimes
perfect and sometimes uncooked.  After a while, my mum taught me to cook other dishes like chicken curry, fried fish(terengganu style), stir fried veges, soups, sambal belacan, rendang and even tomyam.
My cooking skill at that time is not that great, but I have the basic how to do the dishes.  But I only exposed to Malay kind of dishes only.

Everything is changed after I met my husband.  He has type1(T1) diabetes.  Person who has T1 diabetes, their pancreas can't produce sugar thus they have to take insulin in daily basis(min 3x a day) to make sure that their sugar level is stable throughout the day.  The cause of this T1 (usually) is genetic or their pancreas is not working since they were born. It is extremely difficult(especially in Malaysia) for T1 person to choose their food.  Usually their foods are expensive and really hard to find(I still can find it at Tesco and Cold Storage but quite limited.)  But as a wife, I understand his situation and try to opt for more healthy food and cooking. He also helps me in how to choose good food and read the nutrition information at the back of the packaging. LOL.

So now come the Australia Masterchef season 5 this year. I did watch the season 1-4 but not religiously. But not for season 5.  All the contestants in season 5 are really good cook! I am really impressed how they can create a dish that is 5 stars!Not only that, I am very impressed with the production team and how they teach the contestants to cook first class cuisines. At first, I watched it through LIFE channel in Astro, but I really can't wait for the next episode so I decided to download(don't judge me, hahaha!) all the episodes and finished watching it in 10 days(there's a lot lot of episodes). I watched it everyday without fail. ;)

So, with a bit of experience in cooking, the drive to cook tasty yet healthy dish for my husband and the feel to prepare first class cuisines made me decided to write this blog.

                             

                          My first ever beef grilled ribs(from eid adha) with mashed potato served with

                                      boiled carrot and broccoli.(recipe in later post ya) 

I hope you'll  enjoy this blog!

SIMPLE CURRYPUFF FILL WITH MINCED MEAT, BOILED POTATO,DRIED CHILLI PASTE AND CURRY POWDER RECIPE

Assalamualaikum readers,

First of all, this is my first time to write a blog.  I do have the intention 10 years ago to start a blog when Friendster(yes Friendster!so old!) introduced it. I tried to type but I really-really don't have any idea what to write, finally I just decided oh well maybe I don't have that flare to write.(still young at that time, don't know the direction of life, pity me!haha)

But now, I want to start again, yes I know it is quite late to start as everybody has their own blog,(its 2013 going to be 2014 yallss) but still I want to share with people the little knowledge that I have because who knows somebody out there might get the benefit from reading this blog.  InsyaAllah.

For me, cooking is all about creativity. To tell you, my big influences coming from my mom and ..... Australia Masterchef. Haha. I will eloborate more on this in the next post ya.

The recipe above is the very first attempt for me to make currypuff.  I can't believe that I managed to prepare around 40 pieces of currypuff but it took me around 4 hours to do it as I did it manually.  Manually meaning I have to roll it with the typical wood roller not the machine.  Crazzzzyyyyyyyyyy! Haha. It's quite tough and challenging when you do it alone as there is no one to help you to do it.  But overall, I'm quite satisfied with the outcome. The taste also was not bad.Hihi.  Actually, I did not plan to do the currypuff, but at that time I'm quite hungry but I don't know what to eat, I don't want to eat rice, but I want to eat some pastry with salty flavor.  So, I checked my ref and see what can I cook.  Then, I realized I have almost all the ingredients to make currypuff, so immediately, took my iPad and start Googling the recipe for currypuff.

I do found a few blogs that really has good recipe, but I just took the simplest recipe that I can find and try the recipe. The recipe that I tried is from Kak Jee.

The recipe from Kak Jee is quite simple and easy to follow. I follow mostly on her dough but for the filling I do it myself as I don't have the complete ingredients.  

For the dough(A) :

500 gm of all purpose flour

1 cup of cooking oil(I used canola oil)
150 gm of margarine(I used buttercup)
400ml cold water 
2 tea spoon of salt

5 table spoon of corn flour(this is my twist on the dough!)

Steps :

1) Put flour, corn flour and salt in a big bowl

2) Heat up oil on a stove and put margarine into the hot oil.  

3) After oil and margarine is hot, slowly pour the ingredients into the flour mixing and mix with fork.

4) Slowly pour cold water to the flour and knead the dough until it did not stick to the bowl.

5) Let it rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

For the filling(B)

300 gm of minced meat

3-4 american potato(peel and dice)

1-2 whole medium to big size onion(thinly chop)

5 cloves of garlic(thinly chop)

3 cm of ginger(thinly chop)

1 stick of curry leaves

4 table spoons of curry powder

2 table spoon of honey(this is my twist on the filling!)

2 table spoon of oil

1 table spoon of dried chilli paste

Steps :

1) Heat oil, put onion, garlic and ginger to stir.

2) After all the ingredients are cook, put the minced meat.

3) Cook until there is no more water from the meat.

4) Mix curry powder and dried chilli paste in a bowl  with water(approx. 2 tablespoon).  Pour the mix to the minced meat and stir

5) You can boiled the potato first or you can just put it straight into the minced meat mixture.

6) After the potato is cooked, put the honey and salt to taste.

7) And lastly, put the curry leaves for more fragrance.

Wait until the filling to be at least warm, then only you can put the filling into the pastry.

To hem the currypuff, some people do manually and some people use hemmer to hem currypuff.(you can find this in bakery store)  As I don't have the hemmer, I do it manually. Again! LOL

Just a heads up, if you want to fry the currypuff, make sure you use slow to medium fire so your pastry won't get burn.

                                                
                                                     This is how the dough looks like!haha

                         This are the rejected batch.  Haha, it is not that smooth as I want it to be, 
                          but the taste is still ok as the fillings is quite ok(matilah tak sedar diri). 

These are the only photos that I have for the currypuff.  My husband said the currypuff is so niceeeee!!!(because it is crispy)(haha who else want to complement my cooking right?)hahah

I will write stories about me(just a lil of background..hihi) in the next post ya!

:)