Jjajangmyun - Korean black bean noodles

Jjajangmyun in making. I adapted it from maangchi. I used udon instead because I couldn't find the special noodles for jjjajangmyun. Anyway, it tasted great. I read from somewhere that we can also use spaghetti or even rice to go with this yummy sauce.

A day trip to London

We went to London last weekend to visit our friends. It was a wonderful trip altho just a short one. We managed to visit the Europe's largest mall, Westfield. It was kind of early when we reached there. Not many people were there or maybe because the mall is very big. We had our lunch at the nearby malaysian restaurant, Jom Makan. I had nasi lemak while my Dh had nasi goreng kampung. My verdict... The food was not so authentic. Still lacking of the flavours that suit our taste buds. After lunch, we went to my friend's new apartment and have a rest there.

After that, we headed to Patisserie Valerie for our tea time. We tried out four different types of cakes and also ordered a plate of egg benedict. The shop was packed with people and we had to wait for around 20 minutes to get a seat there. The cakes were really very nice, soft and fluffy. Next, we walked around china town and guess what we found out.... 3 in 1 Milo and big tin of Milo from Singapore. Let us don't talk about the price ;) I was looking for Korean black bean sauce to cook jjajangmyun. I lost count of the number of oriental shops that I went in to search for it. But at last I did find one but not the brand that I wanted to get. Anyway, I just bought one to try out.

What's for dinner?? We had chicken soba and okonomiyaki for dinner at Abeno, a Japanese restaurant somewhere near china town. The food was great but had to stand and wait for around 20 minutes for our turn. Anyway, it was worth waiting. And, it was time for us to go back home.

Yam Cake

This was my first attempt of making yam cake and it turned out really yammy... We finished the whole cake in one day. It is an all-time favourite kuih for breakfast and tea time. I made a slight changes from the original recipe. I added minced chicken and dried shrimps into the yam cake with no garnishing.

Ingredients:

(A)

250g yam, diced and coat with 1 tsp of five spice powder

240ml water

40g dried shrimps, minced

100g minced chicken

(B) Mix together and sieve:

125g rice flour

20g tapioca flour

240ml water

150g yam, sliced thinly, steam and mashed

(C) Seasoning:

1 tbsp chicken stock

2 tsp soya sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

(1) Heat 2 tbsp oil and stir fry the dried shrimps and minced chicken. Remove and set aside.

(2) Add 2 tbsp oil to the remaining oil in the wok, add diced yam and stir fry well. Mix in water and bring to a boil.

(3) Add in (B) and seasoning and cook till batter is fairly thick. Then add in (1) and mix well.

(4) Pour thick batter into a well-greased 25cm round tray.

(5) Steam till kuih is set and cooked through (about 45 mins). Leave aside to cool. Serve yam cake with chilli sauce.

Beef Noodle (Niu Rou Mien)

I made this beef noodles for dinner last night. I obtained the recipe here. There was no chinese chilli bean paste in my pantry so I omitted it. In order to make the soup spicy, I added some sambal oelek and chilli powder. Besides that, I also added some homemade chicken meatballs which were made a day before. I got the recipe from here. I added some spring onions and carrot to the paste. The chicken balls didn't really look round in shape (need more practice) but they were really nice. Should give it a try.

There was still some ummph... missing in the beef broth but the meat tasted nice. Overall, it satisfied my grumbling tummy. Maybe I will try to use some chinese chilli bean paste next time and see if it will turn out to be nicer. And also, the beef will taste nicer and tastier if we cook it a day before.

It's a bun.. It's a roll.. It's...

...a loaf of bread.. This was my first attempt of making bread. I didn't use bread flour so I think that was one of the reasons why it turned out to be like this. Although the top looked very brownish but it was not hard. I brushed it with some butter. I read from a website that if we brush the top with egg then it will yield hard crust. I prefer it to be soft so I brushed it with butter instead. Here is some tips of making bread. The bread texture was quite good altho I used plain flour. It was soft and fluffy. I got the recipe from happy home baking. I added some pandan essence and pandan kaya to make it looked and tasted like pandan bread. I don't have a bread machine so this was made with my bare hands. It was a good try. More to go :)

Cakes and buns

All these while... what have I been doing? Just to share some photos of them.


Haw Flakes (San Cha) Layer cake and Horlick Layer Cake for chinese new year


Clockwise: cinnamon pretzel, oreo cheesecake, steamed caramel cake, hoddeok-korean pancake


cinnamon rolls


sausage cheese rolls

Chap Goh Mei

It was my first time celebrating Chap Goh Mei here. We usually have a gathering among family and relatives on this special night while enjoying nice dinner at a restaurant back at home. Since I'm away from home, following my DH, we just had a simple dinner together - fried noodles (wet chao mein) and dak bulgogi (Korean BBQ chicken). He was working yesterday so we only managed to celebrate it at around 9pm. It is actually not really healthy having dinner late at night but yesterday was exceptional for us ;)



Chicken bulgogi is adapted from Closet Cooking. I just pan fried the marinated chicken with a bit of oil and some of the marinade. You have to make sure that the pan is not too hot as the meat will get burn easily. The meat cooks very quickly cause it is sliced thinly and the sugar content will cause some browning. You may also adjust the soy sauce and red pepper sauce (gochujang) to your liking. If you don't like it to be too salty then reduce the soy sauce. If you don't like to be too spicy then reduce the gochujang sauce. Garnish the chicken with some toasted sesame, spring onion and some chopped chilli and voila...