Kaya Muffins

I love kaya (coconut and egg jam) and I have been experimenting with kaya muffins. I know there are quiet a number of recipes out there and I don't know which one to follow. 

This is my most successful kaya muffin so far. All I needed was a good basic muffin batter and then I can fill the muffin with kaya. My attempt prior to this one was a pandan kaya muffin but the batter was not quiet right. It was a bit dry and chewy perhaps because I did not add enough yogurt and oil. Or I could have over mixed the batter.

I have since doubled the amount of yogurt and oil and added another egg. The result was very satisfactory as the muffin was moist and fluffy. I was very pleased and I would like to share the recipe here.

I have not tried making kaya and one day I will. But for now, I use Gardenia's Auntie Rosie's kaya. I have tried other brands but this is my favorite.

Knowing how well kaya goes with butter, as in kaya butter toast, I added a bit of butter to the kaya filling. What I did was use those Ballantyne small pats of butter and cut it into 4 pieces, one piece into each muffin. Just half fill the muffin pan, add a teaspoonful of kaya, top with butter and cover with batter.

I know they look frightfully green.

Then it's off to the oven to bake at 160C for 22 minutes. I always check my muffins or cupcakes at the 20 minute mark to avoid overbaking. I used to have panic attacks back in those early days as I had trouble judging when a muffin is perfectly done. The skewer test sometimes fail. But now I know for sure 22 minutes is my magic number.

I didn't use liners this time because I find that sometimes muffins do look nice "naked". You can see the nicely browned batter and there's no hassle peeling off the liner and looking for a bin. This was from a much earlier batch which looks rather frightful but tasted quite OK :

After filling all my 12 muffins, there was still some kaya left and seeing that I had nothing better to do on a Saturday morning, I decided to use the excess kaya to pipe over the baked muffins.

I was very happy having achieved my ideal kaya muffin. Next time I want to do an improved pandan version.

Kaya Muffins

Recipe source : Phong Hong

Ingredients :

- 230 grams self-raising flour

- 1/2 cup sugar

- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten

- 1/2 cup extra virgin coconut oil (for the nice coconut aroma)

- 2 tubs plain yogurt (270ml)

For filling :

- 12 teaspoons kaya (cold so that it is firm and easier to handle)

- 12 small pieces butter (cold from the fridge)

Extra kaya to pipe on muffins (optional)

Method :

1. Preheat oven to 160C.

2. Lightly grease muffin pan and set aside. (Or you can use muffin liners)

3. In a mixing bowl add flour and sugar. Mix well.

4. In another mixing bowl, add yogurt, coconut oil and eggs. Whisk to mix well.

5. Pour the wet ingredients into the flour and sugar mixture.

6. Using a spatula, gently mix the batter until just combined.

7. half fill all the muffin holes.

8. Add a teaspoon of kaya into the middle of the batter and top with butter.

9. Fill up the muffin holes with the remaining batter to cover kaya and butter.

10. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the muffin comes out clean.

11. Let the muffins cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the pan.

12. You can pipe some kaya on top of the muffins if you like.

Note : Can add pandan extract and green coloring to the batter for pandan version.

Green Curry Chicken (Opor Ayam Hijau)

The curry sure didn't look green while I was cooking it. It was more of a grey dull color but the green did show up eventually. Phew! When I first cooked this dish from Chef Wan's Simply Sedap, I was very diligent and pounded the spice paste by hand. But today, I am lazy and used my blender.

I am not certain if this is the same as Thai Green Curry but it tastes very similar. I had a green curry at a Thai restaurant in Taman Tun Dr Ismail a while back and it was very good. If I remember correctly, besides chicken, there were sweet potatoes and small brinjals in that curry.

The spice paste is very pungent and aromatic. It has a very robust flavor profile and may not suite everyone. One thing to keep in mind is to make sure your dry spices - coriander, fennel seeds and white peppercorns are fresh. Do check for any seeds that have gone bad or it will spoil your spice paste. I once realized that my peppercorns had already gone musty after I made the spice paste and sure enough, my curry smelled funny.

The vegetable in Chef Wan's recipe is brinjals, cut into small pieces and deep fried. I thought that was interesting and followed, except that I didn't cut all the brinjals into small pieces.

This curry goes really well white plain white rice. The aromatic gravy just makes you want to eat more and more. Not exactly something you would want if you are on a diet. If you love Thai Green Curry, then this curry is for you.

Green Curry Chicken (Opor Ayam Hijau)

Recipe source : Adapted from Chef Wan's Simply Sedap (page 108)

Ingredients :

- 4 chicken legs, cut into 4 pieces each

- 200ml coconut milk

- 100 ml water

- 5 small eggplants, cut into small pieces and deep fried

- A handful of Basil leaves (Daun Selasih)

Finely ground paste :

- 4 green chillies (I removed the seeds)

- 1 big onion

- 10 shallots

- 4 coriander root

- 1 inch ginger

- 2 stalks lemongrass

- 4 kafir lime leaves

- 1 teaspoon belacan (shrimp paste)

- 1.5 tablespoons coriander seeds, toasted

- 1.5 tablespoons fennel seeds, toasted

- 1/2 tablespoon white peppercorns, toasted

Method :

1. Heat oil and saute finely ground paste until fragrant.

2. Add the chicken pieces and stir to coat with spice paste.

3. Pour in the water and coconut milk and simmer until chicken is tender and gravy is thick.

4. Stir in the eggplants.

5. Season with salt and sugar.

6. Add basil leaves and remove from heat.

I am linking this post to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of My Little Favourite DIY and hosted by Ms B of Everybody Eats Well in Flanders.

This post is also linked to Cook-Your-Books #1 hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours.

Peach Cheesecake

Phong Hong Bakes indeed! I know you don't see that many bakes on my blog even though ahem, my blog title seems to suggest otherwise. Actually, I do bake but my problem is (1) the cake is ugly (2) the photo is ugly or (3) both. LOL! I do snap pics of the ugly cakes or even the failed ones for posterity. I made brownies a few times but the photos were not decent at at all. How do you people get such pretty brownie pictures, I really don't know. Mine looked like gobs of brown or black and I have since given up.

This Peach Cheesecake came about after I saw the recipe for Spiced Plum Cheesecake in the book Favourite Cupcakes and Cheesecakes. It looked rather pretty and since I don't have any spiced plums, I decided to substitute with canned peaches. The recipe uses Kashta cheese, a middle eastern cheese, something I am not familiar with. So I used regular cream cheese.

Unlike the usual cheesecakes that I am used to, the batter uses egg separation method, pretty much like Ogura Cheesecake.  The base is made of a combination of sweet biscuits (I used the usual digestive biscuits) and almond meal. 

I love the texture of this cheesecake because it is light and creamy unlike New York style cheesecake which is more on the dense and heavy side. I think this is due to the egg separation method. And due to the light texture, it was very easy to slice. However, I didn't like the almond meal base. It tasted funny to me and the next time, I will leave it out and use only digestive biscuits as the base.

Another thing is, it is best to use peach halves. I discovered to my horror that the canned peach I bought was in slices which I had used for the Peach Upside Down Cake. But it was too late and still it turned out alright. If you use peach halves, it is easier and saves more time when arranging the peaches on the cake base.

My cake was slightly underdone at the middle but it was OK as this type of cheesecakes is very forgiving. I had baked the cheesecake for 1 hour and perhaps another 10 minutes would have been perfect.

This cheesecake is a keeper and there are other combination of fruits and ingredients that you can use. It is really delicious and and very easy to put together.

Peach Cheesecake
Recipe source : Adapted from Spiced Plum Cheesecake from Favorite Cupcakes and Cheesecakes (page 143)

Ingredients :

For the base :
- 50g melted butter
- 75g almond meal (In future I will omit this)
- 75g disgestive biscuits, finely crushed (In future to use 150g due to omission of almond meal)

For the filling :
- 825g canned peach halves, drained
- 250g cream cheese
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 1/3 cup caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup hot milk
- 1/4 cup custard powder
- 4 large eggs, separated

Method :
1. Combine the butter, digestive biscuits and almond meal in a bowl and mix well.
2. Press into a 9 inch springform pan and bake at 140C for 10 minutes (you can skip baking the base if you like)
3. Arrange the peaces, cut side down over the base.
4. Place cream cheese, sour cream, caster sugar and vanilla extract in an electric mixer and beat until smooth.
5. Add the hot milk and neat until smooth.
6. Then add the custard powder and egg yolks and mix well.
7. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites to firm peaks.
8. Fold into the cheese mixture and then pour over the peach base.
9. Bake at 140C for 1 hour 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
10. Run a spatula around the inside of the tin immediately after it is removed from the oven.
11. Cool and chill.

This post is linked to Cook-Your-Books #1 hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours.

Kari Kapitan (MFF Penang)

My mum loves this curry and so do I. As a matter of fact everyone in my family loves this curry. It is fragrant and oh so delicious! If you have leftovers and keep it for the next day, it will taste even better.

I have already posted this recipe here but since this is Penang month on MFF, I have decided to cook Kari Kapitan again because............. I want to eat! It is a good excuse isn't it?

I have always used Ms Amy Beh's recipe whenever I cook Kari Kapitan and just for additional reference, I looked up the recipe in Nonya Flavours. I noted that galangal and kafir lime leaves are added. I usually add kafir limes leaves to the curry even though it is not in Ms Amy Beh's recipe and this came as a pleasant surprise. Looks like I was doing the right thing. Not being a fan of galangal, I stuck to my usual recipe. Besides, the recipe in Nonya flavours requires the chicken to be marinated with turmeric and salt and deep fried. Not my favorite thing to do.

This curry should be thick and I like to add more shallots than what the recipe calls for. I also don't add too much water because quite a bit of liquid comes out from the chicken. 

This curry is great with rice. Makes sure there is plenty of gravy to go around for everyone to scoop onto their rice. If you have not already tried Kari Kapitan, do try it and I believe it will become one of your favorite curries.

Kari Kapitan (adapted from At Home with Amy Beh)

Ingredients :

- 4 chicken legs cut into 8 pieces

- 1 packet santan (200ml)

- salt and sugar to taste

- lime juice from one lime

- oil for frying

Spice Paste Ingredients :

- 4 dried chillies, soaked

- 4 fresh chillies

- 20 shallots

- 5 cloves garlic

- 3 stalks lemongrass

- 1 inch tumeric

- 5 candlenuts (buah keras)

- 1 heaped tablespoon belacan granules

Method :

1. Blend spice paste ingredients.

2. Heat oil  in a wok and saute spice paste until aromatic and oil rises on top. If you find the spice paste is too dry, add a bit of coconut milk.

3. Add chicken and mix until chicken is covered with spice paste.

4. Pour coconut milk into the wok and simmer over low fire until chicken is cooked and tender

5. Taste and add sugar and salt to taste.

6. Serve with white rice, roti jala or bread.

Note : I did not dilute the santan because from experience, the chicken will bleed water. I want my curry to be thick and not runny.

I am submitting this post to Malaysian Food Fest Penang Month hosted by Alan of Travellingfoodies.

I am also linking this post to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids and Doreen of My Little Favourite DIY and hosted by Ms B of Everybody Eats Well in Flanders.

Penang Rojak (MFF Penang)

One of the Penang food I think of most besides Asam Laksa is rojak. I have been a rojak lover for as long as I remember and my must have fruits are pineapples and mango. You can skip the senkuang (yam bean) or even the cucumbers and I am fine with that. And another compulsory item for me is keropok.

What makes or breaks a rojak would be the sauce. I was searching for an authentic Penang rojak sauce recipe but I guess the really good ones are secret recipes. One post on a forum I came across mentioned Hoisin sauce as an ingredient. Anyway, the recipe I used for this particular rojak comes form Betty Saw's Rasa Malaysia. I usually just eyeball my family recipe which my grandparents call Rojak Puteh.

I think most fruit rojak recipes are similar and the most important ingredient would be the prawn paste (Heh Koh). Therefore you need to use a good prawn paste and my favorite would be this one :

For the rojak ingredients, you can use any of your favorite fruits like pineapple, young mango, young papaya, green apples, jambu air, guava, starfruit and of course cucumbers, beansprouts and sengkuang.

I have tweaked the recipe a little bit and added Hoisin sauce out of curiosity. I omitted sugar from the recipe as the prawn paste is already sweetish and Hoisin sauce itself is sweet. After tasting the rojak, I was quiet happy with it. I can't say if it tastes like the original Penang rojak because the last time I had that was years ago. But whatever it is, I will use this recipe for my future rojak endeavors :)

Penang Rojak

Recipe source : Adapted from Rasa Malaysia (page 212) and various sources from the internet

Ingredients :

- Pineapples

- Young Mango

- Cucumber

- Starfruit

- Yam Bean (Sengkuang)

- Crushed roasted peanuts

- Toasted sesame seeds

Rojak Sauce :

- 1 whole tub prawn paste

- 2 tablespoons Hoisin sauce

- 1 tablespoon asam jawa paste

- 2 tablespoons sambal belacan

- 2 tablespoons dark soya sauce

- 100ml water

Note : The rojak sauce is good for 4 to 5 servings. It can be stored in the fridge for about 2 weeks because it has been boiled.

Method :

1. Cut the fruits into bite sizes and set aside.

2. Mix all the sauce ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer until sauce is slightly thick, taking care that it does not burn. Cool and set aside.

3. To prepare rojak, put all the fruits in a mixing bowl, spoon enough rojak sauce and mix.

4. Sprinkle with crushed peanuts and sesame seeds.

5. Fantastic eaten with keropok.

I am submitting this post to Malaysian Food Fest Penang Month hosted by Alan of Travellingfoodies.

Peach Upside Down Cake

I love canned peaches with vanilla ice-cream or with any other desserts. When this recipe was published in The Star on 18 December 2012, I immediately cut and kept the recipe. Anything with canned peaches, I will try :)

The recipe also calls for raisins and I am not exactly crazy about raisins. So I thought dried cranberries (craisins) would be a nice substitute. Besides, the red color is more attractive.

The cake uses egg separation method and you have to prepare the egg yolk batter and the meringue and fold them together. I didn't follow exactly the proper sequence of events and my batter was not quite right. Anyway, in it went into the oven and hopefully it comes out OK.

Forty minutes into baking time, I noted the top was quite nicely browned. One of the things that make me nervous when baking a new cake is knowing when the cake is done. I have had instances when the skewer comes out clean but the cake is still raw in the middle. I reckon the top crust scrapes off the raw batter when the skewer is pulled out, giving a false indication. That's what happened this time.

I waited until 45 minutes was up and removed the cake from the oven. After cooling for about 10 minutes or so, I removed the cake from the pan. It turned out alright but ugh! I didn't like the smell. The smell of cooked peaches mingling with the smell of cranberries. This can't be good, I thought. But never mind, let it cool further and taste later.

I cut into the cake and arrghh!!! the middle part the size of a 20 cent coin was still raw. Looks like I am still a "lesen L" in baking. LOL! I just cut the raw part off and tasted the cake. Hey, not bad. It didn't smell unpleasant like earlier. The combination of the peaches, cranberries and buttery cake was quite nice. But I wasn't raving over it. I'm not giving up on this cake yet. I will bake it again with just the peaches. And I'll have to be careful with the preparation of the batter and the baking time. Hopefully I do better with the next one :)

Peach Upside Down Cake
Recipe Source : Ms Amy Beh at Kuali.com

Ingredients :
- 1 can peach slices in syrup, well drained
- 50g raisins (I used dried cranberries)
- 4 eggs
- 2 tablespoons castor sugar
- 80g castor sugar
- 110g butter
- 1/2 tsp vanilla essence (I used 1 teaspoon)
- 1/2 tsp salt (I omitted)
- 200g self raising flour
- 70g chopped peach slices
- 1 tbsp apricot brandy or any fruit juice (I just used the peach syrup)

Method :
1. Lightly grease and double line the base of an 8 inch  round pan with baking paper. Grease the paper. (I did not line the pan but greased it with butter on the base and all around).
2. Arrange peach slices in a concentric circle on the base of the pan and sprinkle some of the raisins over them.  Set the pan aside.
3. Separate egg yolks from whites.
4. Beat egg whites until stiff and add the two tablespoons of castor sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Cream butter, 80g sugar, essence and salt until light.
6. Beat in egg yolks two at a time, until mixture is creamy and light.
7. Sift in flour, alternating it with the beaten egg whites.
8. Stir in chopped peach, the remaining raisins and apricot liqueur.
9. Spoon cake mixture into prepared pan and spread out evenly with the back of a spoon.
10. Bake in a preheated oven at 175C for 45 to 50 minutes or until cake is cooked through when tested with a skewer. 
11.When the cake is done, put the pan on a cooling rack and cool for about 10 minutes before turning over onto a plate.
12. Wait until the cake is cool before slicing.

Hardtail Mackerel Stuffed with Sambal Belacan

I am hopeless when it comes to fish. And this is my second fish post after Ikan Percik Merah. That one was easy because I didn't have to fry the fish. I am scared of frying fish because of the splattering oil. Even the loud sizzling when the fish hits the hot oil sends me running out of the kitchen. Coward of the year. LOL!

And I don't even know how to gut a fish properly. My first and only attempt many years ago left the poor fish in tatters. And yet here I am, frying two ikan cencaru (hardtail mackerel) on a lazy Sunday afternoon. All this due to Queenie's Cencaru Sumbat Sambal Belacan which had me fantasizing about the taste of fried fish, belacan and sweet soya sauce. My goodness, how could anybody this side of Asia resist that?

Queenie's advice is to remove the fish guts through a slit made behind the fish instead of the usual way through the abdomen. I'm no fish surgeon and I have to get the service staff at Aeon to do the deed. But to tell the Kakak (big sister) to cut the fish through the back? Shy lah. Besides, she was already staring daggers at me for interrupting her in the middle of chopping up a big fish. Ooops..sorry! 

The sambal stuffing is very basic. All you need is your good old sambal belacan (just pound fresh chillies and toasted belacan) and mix it with sliced onions. I make my sambal belacan in bulk (using blender) and for two fish, I used 5 tablespoons of sambal belacan and one thinly sliced big onion. The smell of belacan toasting is beautiful to some of us but for the rest of the population, it would be what the CSI team would refer to as the familiar smell of decomp. I love CSI :)

I carefully made a slit along the back of the fish, all the time paying attention so that I don't cut too deep. And also to avoid accidents. A few months ago I almost sliced off the tip of my ring finger. The ceramic knife was extremely sharp and  made it's way 3/4 through my fingertip. And mind you, I was slicing chillies. Hot chillies and open wound. I shall not get into the details in case you faint because I almost did. LOL! 

After successfully making the slits, I stuffed the fish. And since the fish already has a slit in it's belly, I also stuffed the remaining sambal into the belly and under it's head. Queenie is shaking her head. Tsk..tsk..tsk...

I took out the big wok my Mum gave me and heated it up, poured oil and said a silent prayer. Then I sprinkled some salt into the hot oil to prevent the fish from sticking to the wok. That's what my Mum taught me. And then, I braced myself. I lifted a fish and gently lowered it into the wok. Prop! prop! prak! prak! I ran away.......but not for long and  came back to drop the other fish in.

As Mr and Mrs fish sizzled away, I cleared the work top and cut my french beans. Then I checked on the fish. For parts of the fish that didn't quite reach the oil, I tipped the wok and held it there. Something I learnt while observing my Mum cook. Now time to flip the fish. Again I braced myself for the onslaught of sizzling oil. Yearghhh.....OK, made it. I safely flipped both fish and there was minimal sticking. The smell was fantastic!

After a short while the fish was done. But I still had to fry my french beans. Since there was still quiet a bit of oil in the wok, I decided to use some of that oil for my vegetable. I used up the rest of the sliced onions that didn't make it into the sambal and chopped up a few cloves of garlic. I also added eggs into the french beans. In my excitement, I forgot to add salt. Hah! Hah! My fried french beans also smelled fantastic.

And now to taste my fish! As Queenie mentioned, douse the fish with sweet soya sauce. As a Terengganu native, our sweet sauce "kayciap" is second to none. I knew I had a secret stash somewhere in the pantry courtesy of my Mum. I did a quick search and jackpot! I found 2 bottles, all nicely wrapped up. Not wasting anymore time, I poured two tablespoon of the sauce onto my fish and squeezed some lime juice.

Hmmmm......big smile on my face. It was delicious! And then I remembered Queenie said to heat up the leftover oil till sizzling point and pour a spoonful of that oil onto the sambal.  I nipped into the kitchen and did just that. What can I say? It was heavenly (Institut Jantung Negara flashes before my eyes) and if I were eating rice, I would be heading for the rice pot for top ups. 

I must say that I am very pleased with my delicious lunch today. Two thumbs up to my friend Queenie for this simple but explosive dish. Meletup habis! And a small pat on my back to me for conquering my fear of frying fish. I guess the people at the fish section at Aeon will be seeing me more often. Hee..hee...

Hardtail Mackerel Stuffed with Sambal (Cencaru Sumbat Sambal Belacan)
Recipe source : Adapted from Queenie

Ingredients :
- 2 hardtail mackerel (ikan cencaru)
- 5 tablespoons sambal belacan
- 1 big onion, thinly sliced
- Sweet soya sauce
- Lime
- oil for frying

Method :
1. Make a deep slit at the back of the fish to create a pocket.
2. Mix sambal belacan with sliced onions and stuff into the fish.
3. Heat oil in wok and fry the fish until cooked and slightly crispy.
4. To serve, pour sweet soya sauce over the fish with a squeeze of lime juice.
5. For extra kick, open up the fish to expose sambal and pour the hot frying oil onto it.

Note :
- If you are cleaning the fish yourself, remove the innards through the slit from the back of the fish. Do not cut into abdominal area.
- In my case, the fish was gutted through the abdomen. I still made the pocked at the back of the fish and stuffed the sambal in there and into the abdominal area.