The Food Site

The Cookie Monster Bakes - Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Foong — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:32:04 +0000

Do you ever get that sudden chocolate cookie craving which simply must be fulfilled, otherwise you feel all so irritable and down and depressed?

Well, I get that A LOT. Not because I am a very depressing person. Or that I eat loads of comfort food. But it is usually due to that time of the month when I’d have a sudden high craving for carbs and it would definitely be chocolate! And cookies. I am a cookie monster through and through.

Anyway, due to the recent melamine scare, I am staying off store-bought cookies for a while. Also, I can never find any GOOD commercial chocolate chip cookies. Most are total rip-off. Either it’s too sweet or just plain un-chocolatey. And too crunchy or grainy with barely any flavours too. Like biting into baked sand or something. Blearghh.

No wonder there’s this saying that some things are best done ourselves. It must definitely refer to baking cookies! To satisfy my cookie monster craving for some chocolate cookies, this is what I made..

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Trust me, it is as good as it looks and so chocolatey, the cookies didn’t last long before it was gulped down by the cookie monster who baked these, Mr Picky and wonders of wonders, The Food Critic! Yep, this is an all-time favourite at home. Hah! It’s bye-bye Chipsmore and hello, Foong’s Cookies!

Anyway, I got this recipe from Baking Bites (whose site I simply love as she has SO many great baking recipes to chew on…) and did some minor modifications. Very, very minor modifications this time around.

So, here’s the recipe…

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

1 cup soft brown sugar (I know, I know, I use A LOT of brown sugar in everything!)

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp coffee essence

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup chocolate buttons

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C. Line cookie pan with baking paper.

2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt

3. Place the butter and brown sugar in another bowl

4. Cream the butter and sugar

5. Add the egg and beat it in thoroughly

6. Add the vanilla essence

7. Then, add in the coffee essence and mix well

**Note: You will notice that I have a fork in the mixing bowl…that’s because I use good old fashion ‘manual power’ for all my mixing with only a fork as I don’t have a mixer….yet! But you can use the electric mixer, it will definitely be faster.**

8. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients

9. Mix the ingredients well and the mixture should become like this

10. Throw in the chocolate chips

11. Being a typical chocoholic, I had to add more chocolate so I added chocolate buttons too

12. After stirring it all in, the batter is now ready

13. Drop the batter on the cookie pan, about half a tablespoon size each

14. Bake the cookies at 180C for about 10 minutes or up to 15 minutes (depending on your oven).

15. When it is done, it should look like this

These cookies are a cross between crunchy and chewy so it is a perfect combination of chocolates with a rich, soft-crunchy texture. And I am glad I added the chocolate buttons as it has given these cookies some chocolatey creaminess due to it’s half-melted texture inside the cookies. Yummy!

Here's another look at the double chocolate chip cookies

I love these so much, I think I am going to bake it again pretty soon!

Anyway, I also tried out another cookie recipe (yes, it also has chocolate in it) and I will post it up as the Cookie Monster Bakes Part 2 soon. Wait for it!

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Homemade herbed hamburgers, two ways to eat it

Foong — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:43:55 +0000

I’ve been meaning to learn to make our own hamburgers so that we do not need to eat those store-bought frozen hamburgers which are oily and full of MSG. Considering hamburgers merely consist of ground meat, how hard can it be right?

Besides, The Food Critic is really crazy about hamburgers. Every time we go to the grocery store, he simply must stop at the frozen food and pick out a packet of hamburgers. A few times when we do eat out, he’d insist on choosing an American restaurant like TGIF serving good burgers (nope, it is definitely not the same as those fast-food burgers!). So, in response to his special request for homemade hamburgers, I gave it a try.

I didn’t really go around searching for a hamburger recipe. In fact, I borrowed some tips from Jessie’s (The Hungry Mouse) meatball recipe and changed it a bit. After all, meat patties or hamburgers are simply the flatter, bigger version of meatballs. I think. Heheh.

Anyway, this is the end result…

Homemade herbed hamburger

Of course The Food Critic was ecstatic. He finally gets to eat homemade hamburgers without needing to spend a fortune at some overpriced restaurant. I made quite a lot, so he actually ate it for lunch and dinner!

So, here’s the recipe for:

Homemade Herbed Hamburgers

Ingredients

For hamburger

600gm minced port & chicken

2 tbsp garlic powder

1/2 tbsp black pepper

2 tbsp mixed fresh herbs, finely chopped

2 tbsp light soy sauce

3 - 4 tbsp instant oats (or you could use breadcrumbs if you want)

For special sauce

3 tbsp peas

3 tbsp diced carrots

2 large onions, diced

2 tbsp garlic, diced

5 no. fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced

1 tbsp oyster sauce (or mushroom sauce)

1 tbsp light soy sauce

4 tbsp soya milk (sugarless)

1 tbsp chicken stock

a dash of pepper

2 tbsp corn flour

5 -6 tbsp water

Instructions

1. Prepare your mince meat and mixed it together

2. Add the garlic powder and mixed it around

3. Add in the mixed herbs and black pepper and remember to stir it and mix it in evenly

4. Add in the light soy sauce

5. Stir in the oats and mix well

6. Heat up some oil in a pan. Form meat patties with a ladle and slide it into the hot oil.

7. Fry the meat patties, on both sides, until it turns brownish like this and remove from heat.

I know you must be wondering why there’s also a ’special sauce’ ingredients. Well, instead of just serving up the hamburgers as well, burgers, I thought I might as well use the leftover oil in the pan to create a special sauce as toppings for the meat patties to be served as a main dish, like this:

So, now that you’ve fried all of your burgers and there is some oil left. Don’t throw it out! Use it to make the special sauce as it would have all the added flavours of the meat. Right from the start, I used olive oil and I didn’t use much oil so ended up, I have about 3 tbsp of oil left in the wok which is just perfect for the sauce.

Now, on to the sauce:

1. Get all your ingredients ready

2. Mix the sauces together in a bowl

3. Add in the soya milk and then the corn flour

4. Stir and mix the sauces well. The corn flour is to thicken it so that it won’t be so watery.

5. Sautee the garlic and onions in the same pan used to fry the burgers. If you look, you'd notice that there's still some bits of meat from the burgers I fried earlier.

6. Add in the rest of the ingredients

7. Then add in the sauces and stir.

8.Let the mixture simmer over medium to low heat for several minutes

9. Then it is done, ready to be served with the meat patties / hamburgers.

You just pour it over the hamburgers and serve

But if you prefer something you can eat on the go, then you don’t need to prepare the sauce. Just serve the meat patties as the filling for a hamburger sandwich.

So, there you have it. One herbed hamburger, two different ways to serve it!

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Cheap and good yam rice along busy Lebuh McNair

Foong — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:22:09 +0000

About two months ago, I was fast running out of food blogging material and in quite a panic. What am I going to blog about now? I can’t just update the blog once a week. Not when I have established a pattern from the start that at the very least, I’d blog once in every two days here, unlike my personal blog where I blog on a daily basis.

Now, I suddenly have a stockpile of blog posts which I have not written and posted. I have recipes of desserts and main dishes and reviews of food places and restaurants and the roadside coffee shop. AND I’ve been tagged and meme’d.

What am I going to do?

Even if I were to blog daily here (which I tried to but did not have the time to do it consistently), I couldn’t possibly fit it all in and sometimes, I’d even forget all about a place I reviewed until I chance upon the pictures while clearing my desktop folders!

Why can’t I just get to the cheap and good yam rice already?

Heheh…alright. I just want to let my blog readers know that I do have plenty of posts coming up, just that I don’t have the time to post it all at once. Slow and steady wins the race.

Now, here’s my review of a yam rice stall in the middle of George Town. Quite a while back, I did a review of yam rice in Bukit Mertajam and how good it is. The yam rice there is really quite good. And now, I am searching for something as good here on the island and found this stall.

Special Flavour Yam Rice along Lebuh McNair

About a few years ago (actually, more like a decade, heheh) we ate at this exact same coffee shop and I was greatly impressed with the food offered. It was also yam rice with side dishes but theirs were with a difference and the tastes and flavours of it stayed with me till now.

However, since we seldom go to the middle of town for lunch (traffic is horrendous!) we had completely forgotten about the place until recently. We went back there and found that it is no longer the same person! The previous stall owner has left and now a new one (well, it’s been there several years so, it’s only new to us) have taken over. Since we already parked at a perfect spot and walked to the place, might as well give it a try.

Here are some of the selection of side dishes they offer to go with the yam rice

It didn’t look all that inviting and I was really craving the old yam rice stall’s food so my photography suffered…Here are some of the food we ordered…

The 'Tau Eu Bak' or Soya Sauce Pork with Beancurd

Okay, so I was pretty impressed by their braised soya sauce pork. This simple common dish is the best way to determine how good their food is. If they can’t make this simple dish taste good, then all is lost. Well, they passed with flying colours. The pork were tender and the sauce, thick and sweetish without being too oily.

The yam rice

Since this is a special flavour yam rice stall, of course we have to order the yam rice. They do have plain white rice too but we didn’t order that. Though their yam rice is not exactly GREAT, it is not bad at all. Quite good compared to a lot of other places in town.

The chili-stuffed fish

I don’t really know what it’s officially called in English but I know in Hokkien, it is often called ‘loomba hu’ or something like that. Or could it be ‘rempah hu’? Hmmm… whatever it is called, it the one of the few spicy fish dish that I simply love to bits. Theirs are pretty okay, I finished the fish so that should mean something…

The boiled egg in soya sauce

This is Mr Picky’s special favourite dish. Since he won’t eat the fish and finds the pork too ‘chewy’, egg is the best option for him to go with his rice.

Then, there's the soup

Did I mention we are a bunch of ’soup people’? As much as possible, whenever having rice, we will order a big bowl of soup to go with it. It is like tradition but for Mr Picky, it is a MUST especially if we are having rice. This soup, called ‘bak kee’ is medioacre at best. Really nothing to shout about. However, we noticed other tables ordering a different type of soup which seemed popular. Shucks. Must have ordered the wrong thing!

And the overall of what we ate

All in all, the meal was pretty good and filling. It may not be gourmet or the greatest ever but it passed muster and is a great place for some quick, cheap lunch. Besides, I learnt that this stall is pretty famous when it used to be along ‘gor teow lor’ (5th road) or to be exact, Macallum Street, and now in this new location they are still getting quite a lot of regulars.

They are open daily between 6am and 3pm. They don’t have a fixed day off. They will take the day off when they feel like it. Seriously. That’s what the stall owner told me.

Here’s the map to their place.

Rating: 6/10

Price:$$ (RM12 for the above food)

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The one post when apples aren’t low-calorie and healthy

Foong — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:48:55 +0000

First, before I start, let me write something about The Food Critic aka My Personal Chef and his hate-hate relationship with desserts.

He hates most desserts. Cakes, pies, cookies and yes *gasp* even chocolates. Which explains his difficulty in putting on weight.

So, each time I decided to bake something, I’d end up eating the whole lot. Every. Single. Time. Which explains my difficulty in losing weight.

And then, there were some changes. He suddenly starts eating some of the desserts I made. Maybe it’s because of the frosty silence I had whenever I offered him some piping hot from the oven baked stuff smelling so heavenly that nobody except him could resist it and he said no. Or maybe it’s because some of the baked desserts I’ve been making suits his weird dessert tastes. I dunno. But when I made this…

Apple Crisp

He turned it down.

“I don’t eat apple pies” was his response. Despite the heavenly aroma of baked apples in the air. Despite the ultra-tantalising apple crisp I placed in front of him. Despite it NOT being an apple pie but an apple crisp which is very different, involving different ingredients.

I was frustrated. Annoyed. I had a slightly miffed, hurt expression but it went unnoticed.

So, what the heck. Might as well eat it all by myself. It’d probably take me days to do it. Maybe Mr Picky might like it too but he’s a toddler and he can’t eat much.

Then, one day I came back and found a huge chunk missing from the dish. Yep, The Food Critic raided the fridge and took a piece and then, deciding that he liked it, took another! HAH. His comment?

“This is the first apple pie I actually liked!” in an incredulous tone.

Never mind that it is actually apple crisp and not pie. At least he liked it!

So, here’s the apple crisp that The Food Critic liked:

Apple Crisp Recipe

Apple Crisp

Ingredients

3 Fuji apples, peeled and cored and sliced

Note: I used Fuji because we had a lot of these and couldn’t finish it before it spoils but I guess you could use other types of apples

4 - 5 tbsp butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup flour

1 cup oatmeal (instant)

a pinch of salt

1/2 cup almonds (or other nuts, if you prefer)

2 tbsp golden syrup (or maple syrup if you like)

1 cup chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (Celsius).

2. Arrange the apple slices on the baking pan

3. Place butter and sugar in a bowl

4. Either use a mixer or like me, manually cream the butter and sugar using any utensil you are comfortable with.

5. Gradually add in the flour and mix well to make sure it is all combined and there were no lumps of dry flour.

6. Then gradually add in the oatmeal

7. Make sure you chop your almonds to about this size.

8. Then add it into the flour mix and stir well

9. Mix in half of the chocolate chips

10. Then press the crumbly dough on top of the prepared sliced apples in the baking pan.

11. Randomly dribble the golden syrup on top

12. Then sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chips and some oatmeal on top.

13. It should look like this before you put it into the oven

14. Bake it for 40 minutes at 180 degrees (Celsius) or until it turns brown and the apples are cooked and soft (just like the picture underneath the Apple Crisp recipe heading)

And you get your delicious apple crisp with tender-soft baked apples with crunchy, crumbly top

The best thing about this is that, you can also…

Enjoy it with some ice cream!

Needless to say, this whole pan of apple crisp finished within a few days! Oh, by the way, I realised that this is a favourite Thanksgiving dessert too but we don’t celebrate thanksgiving here but it is a great way to get rid of apples we can’t possibly finish by eating it raw!

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Spicy Southern Fried Chicken

Foong — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:04:08 +0000

Beware: This post contains pictures of fried chicken that are definitely NOT healthy nor oil-free nor low-fat so be prepared for some artery-clogging but worth-every-bite sorta recipe!

I love fried chicken. There’s no two ways about it. If you follow this blog, I am sure you’ve probably read my ravings of Uncle Bob’s Fried Chicken. Heck, I even posted my own version of crunchy fried chicken quite a while back.

And now, I’ve found another fried chicken recipe and promptly gave it a try - a la Foong style. Yep, instead of following the full recipe to a T, I did some modifications. I can’t help it, it’s a genetic fault within me somewhere. And anyway, it’s not easy to get most of the ingredients from the original recipe so what am I gonna do? I improvise, of course!

Foong-style Spicy Fried Chicken

Heheh…I know, it started out as Spicy Southern Fried Chicken but hey, this is cooking we are talking about. It is all about creativity (and what we have in our kitchen to concoct these masterpieces) so I believe I am allowed some creative license to change it about.

Alright, alright. I’m getting to the recipe already. Do note that I, once again, failed to record and measure the exact amount of ingredients so the amounts listed here are mostly ‘guesstimated’.Do tweak it to suit your portion of chicken.

Here is my:

Spicy Fried Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

1/2 chicken, chopped

2 cups vegetable shortening (or more)

For marinade:

1 1/2 cups milk

1 lemon

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp paprika chili flakes

To coat the chicken:

2 cups flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 cup oat bran (yes, I know…I am obsessed with using oat bran to cook chicken!)

A dash of pepper

A dash of salt

Instructions

1. Clean and dry the chicken. Remove the skin if you are health conscious (although it doesn’t really matter either way since this is deep fried and not exactly a health food).

2.Rub chilli flakes all over the chicken pieces

3. Place the chicken in a plastic bag.

3. Pour in the marinade and shake the chicken around to make sure it is well mixed

Note: For the marinade, it was supposed to be buttermilk but sadly, we don’t have that easily available here. So, I improvised. I read somewhere that to make buttermilk, we just need to add lemon and milk together so that’s what I did! I pour in the milk and then squeeze in the lemon juice.

4. Let it marinade for several hours or it is even better to leave it in the fridge overnight, which is what I did.

5. The next day, get your marinated chicken out of the fridge

6. In a separate plate, mix up the dry ingredients that will be used to coat the chicken

7. Coat the chicken pieces with the dry flour mix

8. Heat up your pan and pour in the vegetable shortening. Wait for it to melt and thoroughly heat up.

9. Gently slide your coated chicken pieces into the hot vegetable shortening

10.Fry the chicken till it is golden brown

Note: if you use a deep-fryer, it will be easier and you don’t have to turn the chicken all the time to make sure it is completely cooked. Since I don’t use a deep fryer and I don’t like putting a lot of oil / vegetable shortening to really deep fry the chicken, I have to turn the chicken every now and then. I also kept the heat at medium to make sure it doesn’t burn the chicken.

11. The chicken is cooked when it is really golden brown, so remove from the oil and drain on a wire rack

A closer look at the fabulously crunchy fragrant fried chicken!

However, to test whether it is completely cooked, you could poke the flesh with a skewer and if it comes away easily showing white flesh, then it is cooked. Just like the picture below…

Spicy fried chicken ready to serve!

Now, if you prefer it to be more spicy, you could follow the original spicy southern fried chicken recipe or add a few tablespoons of paprika chili flakes.

I find that if you marinade the chicken overnight, it leaves the flesh extremely tender and juicy on the inside. The homemade buttermilk managed to soften it and at the same time give it a crunchiness that I simply love!

Hah, KFC, eat your heart out! I think my chicken is way better than the miserable tiny bite-size fried chicken that fastfood has been serving in recent times.

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The Koay Teow Th’ng stall tucked in a small coffee shop along busy Magazine Road

Foong — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:56:59 +0000

I have heard of this famous Koay Teow Th’ng (flat rice noodles soup) stall from friends several times over. I’ve friends who’d go there for breakfast or lunch all the time without tiring of her food. And I wondered why.

You know I am not all that crazy about koay teow th’ng. It is more of The Food Critic’s thing than anything. Still, I was curious.

So, to satisfy my curiousity, I tried out the food there.

The Koay Teow Th'ng stall along Magazine Road

The stall itself is unassuming (except for the Chinese newspaper write-up plastered on the stall front) and handled by an auntie. Alone.

It is one of two stalls in a dinky little coffee shop along a row of dreary shophouses

This coffee shop is often ‘overlooked’ since it is tucked amongst other shophouses along one of the busiest roads in town. Still, this stall has its own regulars especially in the mornings and sometimes, even lunch time.

The lone stall owner aka chef cooking up her specialty

She only has two types of soup, clear soup or tomyam soup. The soups could go with flat rice noodles (koay teow), plain instant noodles or maggi mee, plain noodles and vermicelli (bee hoon).

Naturally, we ordered both types of soup. Mine is tomyam with instant noodles while The Food Critic goes for his all-time favourite, koay teow th’ng.

What we ordered...

I like it that she sprinkles some greens on top for garnishing

Another unique thing about her noodles is that she puts eggs in it. How strange is that? I’ve never tried koay teow th’ng or tomyam noodles soup with eggs in it!

Here's a closer look at the tomyam instant noodles soup

She added some instant noodles seasoning into the soup and though the tomyam soup looks kinda pale, it is pretty tasty. It’s not as sour as I hoped but it is good enough and has an interesting flavour due to the addition of the egg and the seasoning. Fortunately, it is not too salty and I’d have to say, it tastes like homecooked noodles. You know, the ones you’d make in the middle of the night where you only need to heat up some water, dump the contants of the instant noodles in and within 2 minutes, you get a bowl of noodles! Of course, hers is much better since she did add some extra ingredients to it.

Now, on to the Koay Teow Th'ng

Just like the tomyam noodles, the koay teow th’ng also has the addition of some instant noodles seasoning. So, instead of your usual koay teow th’ng taste of clear, sometimes oily, soup, you get one with additional flavours and yes, the egg do add a touch of difference to it.

Here's a closer look at the Koay Teow Th'ng

Although most people would consider it ‘cheating’ for her to add the seasoning to the soup, I think it is perfectly alright since the combination of the added seasoning and her own soup concoction makes great flavours and this has kept her regulars happy.

Take a look at the brown bits on top, these are deepfried lard

Like many old-style hawker food, she also sprinkles some crunchy deepfried lard on top of the noodles as part of the garnishings. I know how artery-clogging these are but I have to say, it sure do contribute to the flavour of the soup.

My verdict: If you are looking for something fantastic, you can forget this stall but if you wanna try out a different type of koay teow th’ng or tomyam noodles soup, then you should try this stall.

She has an ingredient that you will either love to bits or hate. It really depends on your taste and whether you like the added instant noodles seasoning (which may contain loads of MSG). It’s not exactly healthy but hey, most of our hawker foods aren’t all that healthy! As for me, I may think of this stall if I have a sudden craving for koay teow th’ng with egg in it or a simple bowl of tomyam without all the jazz.

Yep, this stall offers simple bowls of soupy noodles and though it is not lip-smacking fantastic, it is still much better than some other places I’ve tried before. Do note that the portion is really small, two mouthfuls and then some and that’s it.But then I’d say it is value for money since it is RM2.80 per bowl. This is for a stall smack in the middle of town where prices of normal hawker foods could go from RM3.50 and higher.

The coffee shop is only open for breakfast and lunch during weekdays. It is closed on weekends.

Rating: 7/10

Price:$

Here’s the map to the coffee shop (along Magazine Road):

Location map

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How to make rice taste more interesting

Foong — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:54:17 +0000

Why, you fry it, of course!

Fried rice is as common as it is everywhere when you eat outside and you can do it at home too. Don’t need to fork our RM3.50 for a measly plate of rice outside with little ingredients and sometimes, lousy taste.

Here’s what I do when I felt like adding some jazz to our plain steamed rice with whatever ingredients I could rustle up in the kitchen.

Healthy Fried Rice

It is a complete meal by itself so it is easy and no need to cook anything else. It is one of Mr Picky’s (that’s the three-foot tall male at home) favourite, although I change the recipe for fried rice all the time.

Okay, so here’s the recipe for:

Simple Fried Rice with Vegetables

Ingredients

Cooked brown rice (about 3 cups..I think…enough to serve two adults and a child)

4 tbsp green peas

2 sausages, sliced

1 ham, sliced

4 fresh shiitake mushrooms, chopped

3 onions, chopped

half clove garlic, diced

1 cup - 2 cups green leafy vegetables (whichever type you have lying around), chopped

1 egg

3 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp dark soy sauce

Instructions

1. Prepare your ingredients.

Have your rice cooked and ready

All your ingredients cut and chopped

2. Heat up some cooking oil (I use olive oil) in a wok and sautee the garlic till fragrant.

3. Then add in the mushrooms, onions and peas

4. Stir fry for a few minutes over low to medium heat before adding the sausages and ham

5. Add in the green leafy vegetables and stir fry some more

6. Then, in goes the rice. Remember to stir and mix it well

7. Add in the sauces (which you have earlier mixed in a bowl) and stir to make sure all of the rice is coated with the sauce.

8. Make a space on the side of the wok.

9. Break an egg directly into the side of the wok and let it cook for a few minutes

10. Once the egg is almost cooked, just stir and mixed it all together with the rice.

11. Stir fry it for a few minutes and then remove from heat.

12. Here's the simple fried rice ready to serve hot!

And…

Here's a closer look of the fried rice with sausages, ham, egg and vegetables

Enjoy!

This recipe is pretty simple and is quite versatile as you could substitute the ham and sausages with strips of chicken breast meat or any other meat you fancy.

Otherwise, if you are vegetarian, just leave out the meat and substitute it with some mixed beans. Just remember to soak and blanch the beans first before stir frying it in Step 3 or else it won’t cook so easily.

If you prefer some spiciness to it, just add some chili flakes while stir frying in Step 3 and you’ll have yourself some spicy fried rice!

Oh, by the way, most of these ingredients are ‘estimated’ amount. I forgot to take the exact measurements so…heheh…you’ll have to try it out and gauge how much you need.

Why is this healthy? Well, it contained lots of greens and it’s fried in oilve oil. Furthermore it is brown rice! It is as healthy as it could get.

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My emergency 5 minute chocolate cake

Foong — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:51:31 +0000

I had an emergency yesterday.

Not a serious-life-and-death emergency but a completely different kind! I was hit by a sudden craving for chocolate cake. So, what do I do?

Well, I went on over to Jessie’s blog for her 5 minute chocolate cake recipe and also checked out this recipe at Dizzy Dee’s blog. I simply must try out one of the recipes. I chose Dizzy Dee’s recipe first.

And in typical Foong-style, I messed up changed it a bit and substituted some of the ingredients and changed my mind and decided to also use Jessie’s recipe.

That’s right.

I ended up combining both recipes and sorta wing it from there. Heh.That’s what I call typical Foong-style. I always had to change recipes I found and substitute some of the ingredients. Maybe it’s part of my non-conforming gene or something. Or I was just plain lazy to refer to the recipe at every turn and depended on memory and since my memory isn’t all that good, I tend to forget some steps and somehow have replaced some ingredients and steps in my mind.

Hmmm…maybe my brain likes playing tricks on me. Or maybe I just like playing around with different ingredients in my little kitchen experiments. heheh. The Food Critic and Mr Picky should be so lucky that they have not been poisoned by any of my kitchen experiments.

Okay, okay, I know you want to know all about the 5 minute chocolate cake.

This is the result.

The 5 minute chocolate cake served with ice cream and a drizzle of chocolate sauce

Looks pretty good eh? Trust me, it tastes WAY better than it looked. It is moist, rich, dense and so chocolatey, it satisfy my midnight chocolate craving at first bite.

Here’s the modified recipe:

5 Minute Chocolate Cake in a Mug

Ingredients

1 large mug

4 tbsp flour

4 tbsp soft brown sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

2 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp cocoa essense

1 tsp coffee essence

4 tbsp unsweetened soya milk with 2 tbsp chocolate sauce stirred in

1 egg

3 tbsp oil

1 tbsp natural unsweetened peanut butter

5 tbsp chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Place the flour into a mixing bowl (or directly into the mug)

2. Add in the brown sugar

3. Then, add in the cocoa powder

4. Stir and mix the dry ingredients

5. Add in the egg

6. Then, add in the soya milk. Stir and mix it all around.

7. Add in the chocolate and coffee essense

8.Mix in the oil

By now it is pretty smooth already. Just make sure it is all well combined.

This is the chocolate chips I use for this cake

9. Pour in the chocolate chips and stir

10. Then pour the mixture into the mug

11. Make sure the mixture is well combined

12. I sprinkle some sunflower seeds on top for decoration

13. It is now ready to be zapped. Just place the mug into the microwave and zap it high for 3 minutes. My microwave oven is 900w.

14. It came out looking like this...

It is mishappen and hardly presentable in the mug. So, I did the next best thing…I cut it and took a picture.

Here's a look at the 5 minute chocolate cake

You can actually see some of the peanut butter and some of the unmelted chocolate chips. I love it that some of the chips didn’t melt so in the end, I was biting into chocolate chips within the cake. Ahh…that is so darn satisfying.

Here's a closer look of the cake

It goes really well with vanilla ice cream

So, my verdict…5 minute chocolate cake is the best thing ever since sliced bread simply because it takes so little time to prepare and yet has all the chocolatey richness we expect from any chocolate cake.

Melted ice cream and the 5 minute chocolate cake

A note of warning though. This cake could be a tiny bit rubbery so do not overcook if your microwave has a higher wattage. Also, since some of the chocolate chips have not melted, when you bite into it, sometimes you’d find yourself biting into the chips. I really like this as it gave the cake a bit of a chocolatey crunch in the centre.

That’s what I call chocolate chip 5 minute chocolate cake!

But if you prefer it to be smoother, just reduce the amount of choc chips and use mini choc chips instead so that it will be easier to melt.

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Dinner at a restaurant inside a house

Foong — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:01:43 +0000

For Penangites who frequently eat in Pulau Tikus area, I am sure they would have heard about Top Top Restaurant which used to be at a shop along the main road of Burmah Road.I remember it used to be quite swanky (at least by my student days standard) and eating there was considered a luxury. The food is also quite good.

That was quite a long time ago and then one day, they closed down. I didn’t know what happened to them until in recent years, I heard that they are operating out of their home in the same area. Now, hearing about it does not make it easy for me to find the place. Then my personal chef (aka The Food Critic aka The Food Hunter) found out the location and we went there for dinner.

It was still as good and in quite a cosy atmosphere despite it being based in the ‘restaurant’ owner’s home. So, here’s introducing Top Top Restaurant, now known as Yaw’s Roast and Grill.

The 'kitchen' is outside in a corner of their house compound

They filled up the rest of their compound with plastic tables and chairs and even placed some tables and chairs inside their living room. And no, there is no signboard outside the house. That’s why it wasn’t easy for us to trace them until we were specifically given the address!

A view from inside the living room, looking out to more seating outside

Now, let’s get on to the menu and food, eh?

Here's a menu of the food offered here

And here are the food we ordered…

Grilled giant sausage which is the specialty of the day

They have specialty dishes on different days and on the day we went, they have giant sausage so we ordered that. Nothing really all that great about it since it is just sausage they probably got from somewhere to be grilled and served.

Mixed grill

Their mixed grill consists of lamb chops, sausage, bacon and grilled chicken breast meat. It is served with a small serving of fries and some fresh greens. It is practically meat galore with a dusting of black pepper. Considering the different types of meat on this plate, all of it are grilled to perfection and in quite a good portion size. The Food Critic could finish this whole plate of meat but he didn’t and shared it with me instead.

Chicken Maryland

We went there with another couple and one of them ordered chicken maryland. I can vouch for the chicken maryland as I’ve ordered it the first time we came here.

I ordered the fish version this time around. Of course, I shared my fish maryland with The Food Critic and my picky toddler. Here’s a closer look…

The fish is deep fried with a crispy, crunchy crust and since it’s maryland, naturally it has a sausage and a slice of ham with the fish. The fish was not bland and is rather tasty as it was probably seasoned before it was deep fried. What’s more, it is quite a big portion too…that’s why I was able to share it with my son and The Food Critic.

Chicken Chop

My other friend ordered chicken chop and it looks pretty good too. I’ve tried their chicken maryland before and since the chicken is probably fried the same way, I can safely say it is crunchy and good. As usual, the chicken is the deboned chicken thigh so the meat is tender.

I don’t know about the chicken chop sauce though.

My verdict: the overall experience of eating at Yaw’s is that of cosyness and far from being a quiet place, it is often packed with most tables occupied. So, be prepared to enjoy great western style food in the midst of chatter from the crowds there. However, it is a great place to hang out with friends and catch up while waiting for the food to be served.

The prices are pretty reasonable and I could say it goes with the portion. I would not say that it is really good food but it is good enough for me to want to go back there again. Only problem is that parking space is not easy to find as you will have to park along the roadside. It is located within a residential area after all.

Rating: 6/10

Price:$$$

Yaw’s Grill and Roast

1, Gerbang Midlands

Tel: 04-2276273 / 012-4848178

Here’s the location of this restaurant within a house.

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