Ingredients Series: Instant Sauces

I am of course a fan of preparing sauces from scratch. Gathering ingredients, storing them, using them and finishing them of course. But when time is your question, then having instant sauces for various cuisine help in your preparation for a meal. This trend in actual fact has taken the world by storm with instant curry sauces to even having prepared pasta sauces at your leisure. For a typical Asian, I look for instant sauces linking me to my heritage. 

My loyalty tends to lie towards Malaysian made sauces but Asian Home Gourmet is quite good. Manufactured in Singapore, it has a really nice spread of options for the asian in you. From Singapore Laksa to Vietnamese Pho, including mixes for Fried Rice. I like Brahim's because it has a selection of curries that somehow links the Malaysian in me to my homeland. So nationalistic...:)

However, there are plenty of other instant sauces. Thailand produces quite a number of brands that provides everyone the opportunity to cook thai food. Mae Ploy is probably the single most popular brand for Thai curry pastes. Other instant sauce brands include Mae Pranom and Nittaya. Malaysia does not lack either. Adabi and Baba's are quite staple in the UK. I have yet to find it in Germany but then again, I have not explored all the oriental stores available in Germany.

Going back to the reason why this blog exists, instant sauces does considerably shorten your cooking time. An average proper curry does take up to four hours to prepare with the right ingredients and the proper preparation method. Using an instant sauce satchet would mean only having to cook for 30 minutes to 1 hour. How's that for a quicker cooking process?

So check out your nearest oriental supermarket and see what you can find!

Go instant for a shorter cooking time,

The Innovative Baker

Hainanese Chicken Rice - The innovative way

After 10 days of eating out due to a hectic work schedule and parents being over, I was not able to cook much. Coming back at 10pm every night does not help either. Today is probably the first day I could cook with ease. Having had chicken in the fridge waiting to be cooked off, I went foraging for ingredients. A small fridge doesn't really allow me to keep much ingredients. In any case, the thought of having chicken rice in Germany sounded excellent. Remembering the basics of the ingredients that Kitchen Virgin and I used when attempting to cook it the first time round gave me enough motivation to go searching for the ingredients.

Hainanese Chicken Rice - The Innovative Way

Thankfully, Germany isn't so bad in terms of ingredients. The lack of Malaysian restaurants means the lack of certain ingredients. But most of what I needed was around. So what went in?

Ingredients:

5 Stalks                  Spring Onions (sliced to about 5cm each, with roots thrown away)

Thumb sized           Ginger (skin taken off and sliced)

4 pieces                  chicken thigh (cleaned and insertions cut into the meat)

1 tbsp                     whole white pepper

2 to 3 bulbs of        shallots (skin removed and sliced into half)

1 tbsp                     vegetable oil

1 cup                      jasmine rice

2 tsp                       butter

1 clove                    garlic - finely sliced

1 tbsp                     soy sauce

                               salt and pepper to taste

A bunch of              lettuce leaves

1 large bowl of        water

Method:

1. To prepare the chicken, make sure to clean all unwanted parts - feathers left over. Next cut deeply into the chicken so that it has enough space to stuff some ginger and spring onions - use the green part of the spring onions. You can opt to insert the spring onions underneath the skin of the chicken as well.
2. Prepare a pot, add in the bowl of water and bring to boil. Whilst waiting for the water to boil, add in shallots, whole white pepper, the white part of the spring onions, oil and salt. 
3. When water is boiling, add in chicken. Reduce the heat to allow soup to cook chicken.
4. On another pot, wash a cup of jasmine rice. Cooking rice in a rice cooker and a pot is the same. Do not disturb it. But before we actually cook the rice, we add the sliced garlic, butter, spring onions and black pepper. Heat the pot up containing the rice. Ensure the butter starts to melt and constantly stir the rice to avoid it sticking to the pot. The butter will act as the oiling agent for the rice replacing vegetable oil. Here you can replace the butter with oil if you do not want to have it too fatty but trust me it tastes way better with butter. 
5. Once the rice is coated thoroughly with butter and the spring onions is turning colour into a deep green, add in the right dosage of water. Here one cup of water would need 1 1/2 cups of water. Cover the pot and let it cook. The heat is what will cook the rice. Do not open the cover until after 10 minutes. Stir the rice and then cover again. Let it sit for another five minutes before switching off the fire.
6. The chicken by now would be ready. Reduce the heat to the smallest flame available. Take out the chicken and let it sit. Using the soup, add in your lettuce leaves to blanch it. This would cook your vegetables and save you time in boiling up another pot of water to blanch your leaves. It also adds flavour to them.
7. Serve up with chicken, vegetables and rice. For condiments, you can choose to have chilli sauce or for me Chiu Chow Chilli sauce. Not having a blender makes it difficult for me to serve up the chicken rice chilli sauce. But then again, this probably calls for innovative thinking :)

Truly, I ate the whole lot. My landlord came by and had a portion as well. \

As I had no rice cooker, I had to use what was available to me to cook the rice. I used this glass to measure my rice and my portion of water. It goes the same with other glasses. Just do not start using bowls. That would mean an overflow of rice.

The time I took to cook was about 45 minutes provided you have defrosted your chicken or bought fresh from the supermarket. It may be a tad long, but you will relish the taste after that.

Still savouring the taste,

The Innovative Baker

The Iron Cup Cake Challenge - Kitchen Virgin til 27

Hello hello all,

as a special favour to my fellow baker,Kitchen Virgin til 27, I ask all you fellow readers to vote for her at the upcoming IRONCUPCAKE EARTH CHALLENGE!!!! Vote!!!!

Take your time, drool at her cupcakes and vote!

The innovative baker is left with no oven in Düsseldorf, so hence most recipes would lean more towards savouries.

Go go go and vote,
The Innovative Baker

Bak Kut Teh

A good friend, Mel, called up and asked whether we could meet up for dinner before I left for Germany. So we decided to have dinner at my place with me cooking up a very simple dish. Bak Kut Teh! A favourite amongst Malaysians (a very Malaysian dish indeed), it was a good night to have it since the day was windy and cold.

Bak Kut Teh

Essentially, Bak Kut Teh means Meat boiled in Chinese Herbal Tea. The actual ingredients would have consisted of different chinese herbs resembling shards of wood, slices of roots and the like. But being in London means having the next best thing - Bak Kut Teh satchets. Available in various Oriental Stores in China Town, Central London, a packet of Bak Kut Teh would cost about GBP1.99. So what does the recipe call for?

Ingredients:

1 packet               Bak Kut Teh (contains two satchets)

1kg                      meat - preferably pork ribs, if not, pork belly (chicken, lamb and beef is also fine)

1 packet               button mushrooms - it does not matter what kind. Canned mushrooms is also fine.

10 - 15 pieces      dried shiitake mushrooms - soaked in boiling water to soften (do not dispose of water)

1 whole bulb of    garlic

1 tbsp                  whole black pepper

2 tbsp                  oyster sauce

2 tbsp                  dark soy sauce

1 tbsp                  light soy sauce

3 bowls               water, or enough to cover 1/2 the soup pot

Method:

1. Place pot with water on stove. Bring to boil.
2. On a separate pot, boil water to pre-boil your meat. This is to get rid of the initial oil that the meat would release when boiled.
3. When first post of water is boiling, fish out pre-boiled meat from second pot and place into first pot. Dispose of water in second pot.
4. Next, add in the Bak Kut Teh satchets and mushrooms. Put in the water that was from the mushrooms as well.
5. Next add in all sauces into pot as well as whole black pepper. Bring to boil.
6. Once water is boiling, reduce heat and let it simmer. Let simmer for 1 hour.
7. Test if soup is salty enough once flavours have entered meat. How do you know this? The meat would have changed colour after having to sit in the simmering soup for the last hour. Remove from stove and serve in bowls.

For the rice, you can add in smashed garlic and salt with the rice and cook as usual. If you wish to have more flavour, add in the water from the mushrooms here instead of adding it into the Bak Kut Teh. I personally like white rice with Bak Kut Teh.

For vegetables, there are varieties in which you can use. The normal would iceberg lettuce, mustard leaves (Choy Sum) or Kai Lan. I use the next best thing - Romaine Lettuce. After washing the leaves, I directly place them into the soup to be blanched instead of frying it up. It saves time and lessens the washing up process as well.

So now, you have a perfectly hearty meal for a rainy windy night in London. Mel and I enjoyed it. So will you.

Having a taste of home,

The Innovative Baker

The Donno What Series

Hello hello fellow readers,

It gives me great pleasure to launch two other blogs:

donnowheretoeat
donnowhattoget

Donnowheretoeat already has its first blog up reviewing a Japanese Noodle House in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Donnowhattoget is still under construction but will be up and running once I get all my eggs in a row.

Enjoy browsing through and you'll have a gleeful time exploring this innovative baker has up her sleeves.

Launching the Donno What Series,
The Innovative Baker

Penne with German Sausages, Brown Button Mushrooms and Rocket Leaves

I arrived Duesseldorf, Germany yesterday to begin a 5 week Work Placement with Messe Duesseldorf GmbH - the famous exhibition organisers for exhibitions like GDS - The Premier Shoe Event, Drupa - The largest Printing Exhibition and many others. I parked at my new abode, a chic studio apartment on the other side of the river, overlooking the Rhein River. 

The first thing I did after putting my bags was grocery shopping. Needless to say food is a very important aspect. So out I set and gathered much needed ingredients for my stay here. Came back all enthusiastic about the prospects of cooking, I forgot to check I did not have the following:

1.     A cooking spatula

2.     A chopping board

3.     A proper knife

4.     A non-stick frying pan

5.     A colander 

I had however pots in abundance, a substantial number of cutlery and probably crockery. So my first meal wasn't the most appetizing - sausages and eggs. But today, I set myself a task and became innovative. Using the tools I had, I was able to cook up Penne with German Sausages, Brown Button Mushrooms and Rocket Leaves.

What did I use to cut the ingredients? A steak knife that surprisingly was sharp. I used a dinner plate as the chopping board. I must say, with limitations, it did not hinder me from actually making a pretty decent dish that was full of flavour. The German Sausages needless to say added the flavour to the dish as it was already salty on its own. The oil that came out of frying the sausages allowed me to add flavor to the other ingredients.

So what are the ingredients?

A bowl              Penne

5                        German sausages – sliced into bite sized pieces

3 large               brown button mushrooms – sliced

A handful          Rocket leaves

A clove of         garlic

                          Salt and pepper to taste.

Method:

1.     First boil a pot of water with oil and salt for the penne. When water comes to boil, add in Penne. Test to see whether Penne is cooked and drain of water. Add in cold water to cool the cooking process.

2.     In another pot, heat up and add in vegetable oil. When oil is heated up, add in sausages to be fried. Halfway through, add in the garlic and later the mushrooms. Continue stir frying until mushrooms look slightly wilted. Add in penne and combine.

3.     Finally add in the Rocket Leaves and stir. Add in salt and pepper to taste.

4.     Serve hot. You can alternatively serve it cold like a pasta salad.

5.     But if you wish to serve as a warm salad, then fry the mushrooms and sausages separately. After tossing penne and rocket leaves together with some olive oil, salt and pepper, let it sit. Just before you serve, fry up the mushrooms and sausages together and serve on top of the pasta salad.

The beauty of pasta is that it acts as a replacement to noodles for us Asians. Germany is not utterly huge on oriental groceries and what you get are the normal ingredients like lemongrass and the occasional finding of Malaysian ingredients. Yet this does not allow many of us to cook Malaysian food. Then again, being Malaysian doesn’t mean that we need to only eat Malaysian food. 

Trust me, this dish was delightful. Simple yet fulfilling.

The alternative Asian in her,

The Innovative Baker

Curried Pork Belly with Carrots, Celery and Cherry Tomatoes

Curried Pork Belly with Carrots, Celery and Cherry Tomatoes

After having deviated a bit with food reviews and competitions, I have returned to posting up what I am supposed to be doing. Featuring simple recipes for singletons who have odds and ends in their kitchen. I am an avid at-home-chef and that explains my ever extremely exploding larder that includes curry powder, chilli powder, paprika, turmeric powder, fresh chillies, frozen chillies, dried chillies and the like.

This time around, I had the basic ingredients for a curry. Plus root vegetables that were not all that fitting for a curry but nonetheless, suited the situation for now. So what did I do? Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

Curry paste:

4 heaping tbsp                      curry powder for meat

2 heaping tbsp                      chilli powder

4 fresh                                  red chillies - sliced and deseeded

10 whole                              shallots - peeled

4 cloves                               garlic - peeled

a Thumb sized                      ginger - peeled and sliced smaller

3 stalks                                 lemon grass - outer leaves removed, use only the bottom half

                                            salt

                                            fresh ground pepper

2 tbsp                                  water

1 packet                               pork belly - sliced

6                                          carrots - chopped into bite size pieces - diced preferably but not too small

6 stalks                                 celery - chopped into bite size pieces

a whole packet of                 Cherry Tomatoes - halved

2 soup bowls                        water

A can                                   Coconut Milk

                                            salt

                                            pepper (if needed)

Method:

1. First make the curry paste. Combine all ingredients into a blender. Blitz until it becomes a paste. 
2. Heat up a sizeable pot and add in vegetable oil. When oil is heated up, add in curry paste. Fry the paste until you see a layer of oil surfacing. 
3. Add in sliced pork belly and stir until meat is coated with the curry paste slowly sizzling with the heat.
4. Add in the water. If you do not have soup bowls, just add in enough water to cover half the pot you are using. Not to the brim! This would mean spillage!!!
5. Whilst meat is cooking, add in all the vegetables and let it brew. Make sure the curry is boiling before reducing the heat to let it simmer. Leave it simmering for about 30 minutes to reduce the water. Whilst simmering, make sure you stir off and on to avoid the curry from burning. (the timing is judged according to the size of pot you are using. So be sure to keep checking). 
6. When water is reduced, add in coconut milk. Stir only for a bit until coconut milk has combined with curry and is brought to boil. If coconut milk is cooked way too long, the oil breaks and you would end up with a water curry.
7. Remove from heat and serve! You can serve with rice or bread like what I did in the picture. 

Again, all the ingredients I had were at my disposal and there was no need for me to run out and buy any additional ingredients. I have yet to make a curry with parsnips though that may sound like a weird combination. If you don't have carrots or celery, you can alternatively add in potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin and even butternut squash!

I did not want to make a superbly hot curry, so I omitted dried chillies from the paste. You can add in about 4 dried chillies to make it even more spicy. Be sure to soak them in hot water first before blitzing it with the paste.

So now you have a perfectly good curry to eat on your own or even to serve your friends.

Unleashing her Malaysian side,

The Innovative Baker