Milk and Coffee

I was thrilled when I saw such a unique recipe from Piggy's Cooking Journal and the first thing I reached home was to go make a list of what I needed and head down to the supermarket! :)

Both R and I are coffee drinkers, so that explains my enthusiasm.

Its quite easy to make, but I would definitely love the coffee taste to be stronger than the milk. But nonetheless, it was quite refreshing and it gave me new ideas to play around with. So do keep a look out for new variations of this recipe :)

Method:

1. Prepare approximately 1 cup (250ml) of black coffee with sugar (For me, it would be approximately 2 teaspoons of coffee powder with 4 sachets of sugar, as I use sugar in packets.. :p)

2. Stir in 1.5tbsp of gelatin powder while the coffee is still hot

3. Let it cool to room temperature then keep the mixture in the fridge and let it set

4. Remove the mixture from the fridge and cut it into cubes

5. Pour milk into a glass and scoop a few spoonfuls of coffee jelly into the glass

R's Verdict? Pass! Refreshing and Unique

Claypot Chicken Rice

R couldn't believe himself when he had spent 30 bucks just to buy the ingredients to cook claypot rice.. until I had to tell him that things like the dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, sesame oil, chinese wine, rice etc etc could be kept and used in the future, then it dawned on him that it made a little sense. *phew*



Introducing Ruth's Claypot chicken rice (in a rice cooker!)
Boneless chicken legs and fillets cut into about 20-30 small bitesize pieces
2 chinese sausages
Handful of chinese mushrooms, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes
1 tb sesame oil (I didn't put any sesame oil as I bought a bottle without realising I needed a bottle cap opener *duh*)
2 tb chinese wine
2 tb dark soya sauce
1 tb light soya sauce
Handful of lettuce, shredded into long strips
1 cup of rice & slightly over 1.5 cups of chicken stock (as my rice was still quite hard though cooked)

1. Marinate chicken thigh meat with the sesame oil, chinese wine and soya sauces. Put in fridge while preparing the rest of the ingredients

2. Remove stems from mushrooms & slice in half

3. Slice chinese sausages into thick slices (like the picture above - thick!)

4. Boil the rice in rice cooker. After 10 minutes (approximately - What I do is I open the rice cooker off and on to see how cooked the rice is), open rice cooker & add chicken thigh meat. Be sure to flick off excess marinade before putting meat in. Then, add the chinese sausages and mushrooms on top. Close the rice cooker and allow the cooker to finish cooking the rice.

5. In the meantime, I baked an egg until a bit golden brown with my turbo boiler to accompany the lettuce for the rice to sit on. It was the first time and it came out just like those eggs they serve for Nasi Lemak! Yums

6. Viola! Stir up the rice & all the ingredients and serve immediately on a bed of shredded lettuce. I opened the cooker and stir the ingredients and put it to cook again for a 5 more minutes. The result? A bit of burnt rice just like authentic claypot rice!!

R's Verdict? Good!

Cooking Absence

Do not be deceived by my absence.

I have been cooking, though not blogging as frequent as I should be.

Blame in on my ill-equipped home as I have yet to get my lazy bones up to subscribe to maxonline. But the amazing thing about my ill-equipped home is that I have quite a well-equipped kitchen, that still lacks an oven! :)

Of course not as well equipped as the floggers' sites I visit, but I am proud to say that I have churned out decent meals that hubby likes (for now) and I really have Ruth to thank :)

I have so much to blog about!!

First up, was the delicious meal and food that my in laws cooked for my office's christmas party! I did of course help them in the kitchen!

Then it was the chicken claypot rice and then the hainanese chicken rice that I had the sudden urge to cook.

Thereafter was the whipping up of tandoori chicken with butter rice for the in laws over the christmas/new year holidays!

I don't think it can get any tougher.. especially considering that I am someone totally scared of fire/gas (you know.. the super paranoid me always gets hallucinations of the place being blown up when the gas is on and that fire is so dangerous)