Beef Rendang (Rendang Padang)

I have got no moon cakes to show on this night as we have already eaten all homemade as I blogged about before.
 
We spent the festival as my family gathered together, this time each of us cooked up a dish or two. Unfortunately we were too busy eating that we didn't manage to capture all the dishes that we prepared.
 
For me, I cooked Beef Rendang (Rendang Padang) as I was craving for it and dad likes spicy food as well.
 

After dinner, we proceed on to admire the moon and have our store bought moon cakes that my sisters brought over.  It was tooth achingly sweet.  Next year, I will plan to make my moon cakes nearer to the festival instead.
 
The moon was not impressive tonight. Usually it was huge and round but tonight, it is keeping its distance. 
 

 
We did have fun lighting up candles though.

The next morning, my girl told me that the moon was stunning when she was getting ready for school.

Did we get the date wrong?

What you need:

1/2 kg beef, cut into medium sized pieces
1 turmeric leaf (cut into big pieces)
4 kaffir lime leaves
3 cm thick galangal - bruised
1 stalk of lemon grass
salt to taste
500g chilled coconut milk (you can get from supermarket)
1 cup water (add more if it evaporate quickly before meat turns soft)

Spices to grind

35 chilli padi, deseed (add more if you like it spicy)
12 shallots
3 cloves garic

ginger (half your thumb size)

Method:

Heat wok and add oil (approx 3-4 tsbp). 

Fry grinded spices till fragrant.

Add chicken pieces and stir till beef is well coated with spices.

Add in turmeric leaves, kaffir lime leaves, ginger and lemongrass. 

Add in coconut milk with water and bring to a boil.

Lower heat and simmer till meat is soft and tender.

Spanish oxtail stew

When VC was back for a break, we didn't fully have a good time together because another friend of ours needed to go home early (actually it is the hubby who wanted to go home early).


Thus we arranged for another outing before VC leaves town.


This time round, we went to a Spanish restaurant. The Spanish oxtail stew was so good that it really got me wanting more.


When I sent my girl for a workshop, I went to a market in the East.  I happened to chanced upon them at the wet market. Without a recipe on hand, I bought a kg. I have never cook oxtail before but I heard that it is a long cooking process. Nevertheless, slow cook food is always a comfort food. I gave myself credit that I was able to have meat falling off the bone.

Though it was not actually the same taste as I wanted, I guess for the time being, it is enough to stop my craving.

I think I need to hunt down where I can buy dry sherry as indicated by this recipe and only then I can be fair to give a fair review.


Source: About.com


What you need:

3 white onions, finely chopped
5 tbsp olive oil
5 carrots
6 cloves garlic
1/2 green bell pepper, cubed
2 stalks celery, cubed
3 ripe tomatoes, chopped
5 tbsp oilive oil
1kg oxtails, fats removed
2 bay leaves
3 cups dry sherry
salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Pour a few tablespoons olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed frying pan. Heat pan on medium. When oil is hot enough, sauté onions until translucent. Remove from heat and set aside.

Pour 4 Tbsp olive oil in pan and heat on medium. Brown oxtails on both sides.

Brown the rest of the ingredients together with the oxtails, stirring often for about 5 minutes. Then, pour in the sherry. Be sure to stir often so that the mixture does not burn.

Slowly simmer for about 2 - 3 hours till meat is tender soft.

Serve with rice or bread.
************

Since we were all too lazy to go out and have been lazing around the house. I went ahead to make Dodol that I learnt some months ago.

A very tedious process but the result was super good.

Unable to share this recipe as the teacher is still teaching this.


 

Milk Bread / Semur Daging

Today is day 2 of the school break. Son didn't need to attend training today as he is going for Bread Run, a charity activity organised by the church. I was supposed to go for it as well but he was strongly against me going.

Anyway, I was trying to control my temper for the whole morning. After I settled coaching my girl and our lunch, to distract my attention, I went to bake bread. I chose to half knead by hand and half knead by machine. Definitely a good way to sweat out all the frustration!

The dough rose so beautifully and I was pretty happy with it. After the third proofing, I begin to worry a little. For it doubled too much. Luckily I used a pullman tin so the dough was pretty much contained.

Dump the loaf inside the oven and went on to bring my girl for her eye check. Though my optician felt that it is not necessary for her to wear glasses, he relented as he felt that my girl wasn't train to read small font. I love my optician, he is honest and doesn't recommend when he feels there is not a need.
 

When we got back, I was very excited when I found out the bread baked nicely. The texture was so nice and fluffy with a hint of buttery taste.

I am glad that I modified this recipe as I felt that our milk is not creamy enough.

So care to share with me a slice of my Milk Bread?

Despite my success with the bread, I had a lumpy feel in my throat.

My son blacked out again and fell backwards while I was out. I was told of this accident by my helper. I immediately went on to check on him. He had this nasty big bump at the back of his head.

I am very concern now as this is not the FIRST time. In fact, this is the THIRD time!

Sometime I felt so frustrated with him. Told him to cut down on sweets, chocolate, soft drinks and snacks but he just simply ignored me. It is hard to control a 15 years old as he has his own money to buy whatever he wants. Telling him to eat more for proper meals and he will just ignored me. He will skip breakfasts, skip lunches so that he will have more time to play soccer.

I am so worried about his health. I am worried that he might get diabetes. I even list down the consequences if he caught this disease but all turned a deaf ear.

I have to send him for an overall body check up and hopefully, nothing serious.

Please pray for him. Thank you.

Since I have some beef in the fridge, I chose once again a Malay dish. Never tasted Semur Daging before and I was curious. Another tasty dish that goes well with rice.

Modified from 人气和风面包

Milk Bread
Yield a big loaf (pullman tin 12")

What you need:

500g bread flour
8g yeast
2 egg yolks
200g water
30g butter
60g potato flour
80g sugar
150g fresh milk
50g whipping cream
20g condensed milk

Method

Combine everything and knead till it past window test. Put in a greased bowl and let it, clingwrap and proof for 30 mins.

Take dough out and punch out the gas. Put it back into the bowl and proof another 30 mins.

Divide the dough into 4 portions. Roll to shape and place in a Pullman tin. Proof for another 45 mins or until 1.5 times its original size.

Baked for 20 mins at 200ºC.

Beef Mysore

I am getting listless these days. Partly I am still suffering from that irritating rash. Consulted so many doctors and none can really give me a remedy to my problem.

Yes, antihistamines did work for me but after taking it for nearly 2 years, I think I had enough. Though it allows me to sleep well but I feel really shitty the following days.

Now with Chinese herbs, the frustrating part is that they are not supposed to provide fast relief but rather a slow and steady wins the race approach. Oh gosh, how I wish I can see IMMEDIATE effect.

The weather isn’t helping much. Sometime it is cold and sometime it is so hot, like today.

To distract myself, I started to do a blog colour change. I also wanted to add a nice header to my naked blog. Unfortunately, the more I messed with it, the worst it gotten.

After going round and round in circles and still with no favourable result for days, I decided to close my blog. Taken me by surprise was the number of emails I received. I always thought that mine is a "low traffic" blog.

Who wants to come and read about some old housewife's nagging about life, kids and what she eats. hahahaha...

Thanks so much for the comforting and concern emails that I have gotten. You all had indeed given my confidence a boost. Rest assured that this blog is here to stay unless something drama really happened to me.

So to ease my frustration on the stupid html codes, I decided to cook. Today, after my swim, though sleepy from a restless night and yet feeling frustrated with the blog, I am still in a mood to cook.

Thus, I decided to do my grocery shopping as I am going to cook something new.

These days, I also started to cook. Partly my helper is totally hopeless in the kitchen. The amount of oil she uses is pretty scary. In short, she just doesn't have the senses and passion for cooking.

I have offered my "library" for her to get inspiration but she would rather go around aimlessly and waiting for instructions daily. Sometime I wonder what her parents eat on a daily basis because she claims to cook for them.

Surprisingly for a person who likes to eat (believe me, more than my hubby's intake) and knows about good food, I finds it strange that she doesn't have passion to cook.

To be honest, I was really tempted to hop into a Burmese restaurant last weekend.

Unfortunately the menu doesn't really entice us thus we decided to give it a skip.

From the banner, it looks too much like Chinese food. LOLz.

While I was down at the supermarket, a very sad incident happened. Apparently an old folk couldn’t control his/her bowel and dirtied the floor. The whole supermarket was starting to smell. I should applaud the staff for their quick actions. They were great.

At the back of my mind, I really hope that when I aged, I will be stress free for my kids. Thus, I better take care of my health as well as my family.

Back to my dinner. Supposedly to have a vegetarian pilaf but I read the recipe by mistake. So it is now a plain pilaf to goes with my beef mysore. LOLz. (you won't believe it, I read only HALF of the recipe. blur me).

Now… here is our dinner that I churned out for the family. I was taken by surprise how easy this dish is. Really fuss free and tasted really good. Enjoy.

Pic missing

Beef Brisket (pic missing)

I was talking to JY the other day and she said she cooked 牛腩 (beef brisket) a few days back and it was delicoius. This prompted me to go to the wet market to get some and try my hand at it. Unfortunately, the butcher ran out of this meat. As I didn't want to waste my trip, I bought beef shin instead. Beef shin is also good if you do slow cooking.

Talking about 牛腩 (beef brisket). Last weekend, we visited one of our favourite stall in Sembawang. This lady is from Hong Kong and she does a mean dish of 牛腩. She sells beef tendon too which is a rare find these days. When I chanced upon her stall two years ago (by accident) and introduced it to my family. They all love it. Her noodles done just right, the sauce is aromatic and the taste of her beef is authentic enough to remind me of HongKong. Her cheery personality adds warmth to her service (by the way, she rans this stall single handedly). Her patrons usually wait patiently for her as they do know what they are getting at the end of the line.

Well back to my 牛腩. Mine didn't turned out as good as the one from Sembawang. My helper also cut the beef wrongly and thus it looses the bites to it.

Now, I must ask JY for her version. In the meantime, I think we have had enough of red meat. Time to switch to white ones. After this festive period, we will need to switch to be on a green diet. hehehe.

 

  Recipe adapted from The Best of Singapore Cooking.

What you need:

A
1 tbsp ginger juice
2 tbsp light soya sauce
3 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 tsp pepper

B

1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp vinegar

C

2 tbsp cornflour
3 tbsp water

D

1 tbsp sugar
6 slices of ginger

E

8 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
10 shallots, cut into halves

F

2 star anise
1 stalk lemon grass, bruised
1 cinnamon bark

900g beef brisket, cut into cubes
285ml water

Method

Marinate beef with A for an hour.

Heat wok and brown D. Add in E and fry till fragrant.

Next add F, beef and B and stir fry over high heat for 10 mins.

Add in water and let it boil for another 10 mins.

Lower heat and let it simmer for 1.5 - 2 hours till meat is soft.

Bring heat up and add in C to thicken the gravy.

Serve hot with rice or noodle.

Minched beef with enoki mushroom

Spring onion is pretty a very basic garnish in Chinese cookings. For some reason, I have never like the taste. Strangely enough, all my siblings don't like that too. So pretty grew up without such garnishing on my food. I was experimenting a little herb "garden". I started with basil, mint, oregano and spring onion. Only my spring onion didn't died on me. The rest, I have to start all over again. So this dish of minced beef with enoki mushroom is loaded with spring onion to my hubby's delight. Bad of me to deprived him of such

"heavenly" taste. You might wonder ..... well, I asked him to scoop all the spring onion onto his plate before I "attack".

Stir fry bittergourd with beef/ Egg tofu with minced pork

You need to acquire the taste of bittergourd. To some, they find it really difficult to accept. The strenght of bitterness varies with individual. For my hubby, it takes him many years to finally accept this dish. Bittergourd has its healing properties, it is known as a cooling vegetable. Thus, it is good to dispel "heatiness" from the body. This is my first attempt at Stir Fry Bittergourd with Beef. Let's see whether my kids will eat it as they refused the soup version.

  Tofu has always been a hot favourite with my kids. Perhaps they are too lazy to chew. Recently, I was told that no matter what, you need to expose your kids to chewing meat. Reason being, it is an extremely good exercise for the jaw as well for the gums. So when their permanent teeth "sprout", they will be nice and straight. Our Egg Tofu with minced pork.

Into One Dish Meal

Really running out of ideas for a quick lunch besides preparing sandwiches. Though my kids love sandwiches, sometime I felt guilty of not putting in more efforts for them.

Went to the book shop and bought a quick meal recipe book. So here is our Beef Stroganoff and rice for lunch.

As I forgotten to buy fresh button mushroom, I subsituted it with those from the can.

Verdict: Good.