drum rollsssss please, for the good news

Dear Ladies & Gentlemen, and avid readers of my humble food blog, I, Mrs Ergül is pleased to announce the end to the hiatus in my blog updates. Coming Monday, we will be officially moving in to The Ergüls first home in Singapore. That means absolute freedom to cook and bake (well, when I get hold of an oven, that is) any day anytime I fancy. I tell you, I'm super duper excited. If the moving and unpacking doesn't drive me too crazy and fatigue on Monday evening, that will be the first meal I cook in 1 and a half months. It's that long! I'm currently shortlisting the dishes to whip up on that very day. I hope to get an oven in a matter of days so I can still take part in July's Daring Bakers Challenge and catch up with all the fun I have missed out in May & June.

This is what I have got all planned out for:

Friday (evening) - keys collection
Saturday - Scrubbing the entire 91sqm (It's a small, cosy and humble home of ours)
Sunday - Painting by a freelance painter, shopping around for furniture and decor accessories
Monday - Move in! (I applied for 1 day leave to do this)

Our kitchen will be the first room in the house to be ready as the kitchen cabinets have already been installed by the previous or previous previous owner. I just have to scrub them clean. When we went down once to take measurements of the house, I touched the kitchen cabinets and they stick like glue. Once done cleaning, I will be happily unpacking my array of kitchenware!! Nice!! However, my kitchen will not be complete without an oven. And I heard baby belling is a good brand. But, regrettably, we do not have a wide selection of that in Singapore. Maybe only 1 model or 2.

Alright, I've rant on! See ya!

Sesame Tofu

This tofu dish is also from my archive. The recipe called for Asian Plum sauce to dip these white triangular blocks of tofu into. But I opt to serve it with another dipping sauce I had leftover from previous sessions.

The ingredients that serves 2 goes as...

1 block of firm Tofu
1/4 cup Sesame Seeds
2 tablespoons Wheaten Cornflour
2 tablespoons Sweet Chilli Sauce
1/3 cup Peanut Oil

The Making Process...

Cut Tofu in half horizontally, then in half crossways
Combine Sesame Seeds and Cornflour in a shallow bowl
Brush each piece of tofu with Chilli Sauce
Press Tofu pieces into Sesame mixture to coat
Heat Oil in a large frying pan; cook Tofu in batches, until browned lightly all over
Drain on absorbent paper

To make this a healthier dish, serve it beside a bed of greens like baby bok choy. For details, check it out here!

I think it would be more complete with the greens and if I were to do this again, I will do it the right way.

Asparagus with Balsamic Dressing

I was browsing through the photographs I have on my hard disk, trying to find something to write about as my blog is slowly becoming a dead town due to cooking restriction in our current rented place. And I wonder why I have never written anything about these green stalks! And I realize I forgot the name of the dish and I'm gonna make up as I go along.

Fresh asparagus should be cooked in a simplest way possible to enhance the freshness. In fact, the best way to tell if the ingredients are fresh, minimal cooking should be used. It's the same to tell if a singer is truly good, he, or she for that matter, should sing without the blaring music behind him or her. That's how you assess a singer's vocal power in his profession. I think it can be summed up with Less is More.

Like I said, the photos for this dish were stashed away somewhere and I have absolutely no idea where the recipe has gone. So, I tried googling it and see if anything like it comes up. And lady luck is with me.

Ingredients that serves 2 goes as...

1 handful of Asparagus
1 small tomato, diced
2 tablespoons chopped Mint (I substituted it with basil)
2 teaspoons Lemon Juice
1/2 teaspoon Balsamic Vinegar
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 tablespoon Sesame Seeds
Salt and Pepper, to taste

The Making Process...

Break off woody part of Asparagus near the bottom where there is a point to break them off easily
Blanch Asparagus for a few minutes until tender
Toast Sesame Seeds until lightly browned
Mix chopped Mint leaves, Lemon Juice, Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil together
Place tender Asparagus on serving plate, followed by chopped Tomatoes
Drizzle mixed dressing over Asparagus and Tomatoes
Sprinkle Sesame Seeds and garnish with Mint leaves as desired

My second Meme!

Kind Natashya over at Living in Kitchen with Puppies has recently tagged me and in a while I will be going my second meme! Before I get started on that, I will like to tell you that I really like the top banner she has on her blog, the fat swirls of cream looks extremely appetizing albeit sinful! On top of that, I'm sure you have already noticed her cute blog name.

Here we go!

Tag Rules:
# Link to the person who tagged you.
# Post the rules on the blog.
# Write six random things about yourself.
# Tag six people at the end of your post.
# Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
# Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

……..and here are 6 random things about myself.

1. I love cleanliness and tidiness to an extreme extent and this came from my mum
2. My job pays me peanuts
   
3. I love chocolate and have a low tolerance for alcohol. I felt like I have a little hangover one morning after having a little too many chocolates with liquor within
4. I wish I can take nicer photos of the food that I cook
5. I love fried omelettes
6. I am going mad without any cooking or baking action for over a month!

I tag:

Meeta from What's for lunch, honey?
One Spicy Mama from A Beautiful Mosaic
Antonio Tahhan from Tony Tahhan
Maggy from No Special Effects
Elle from Elle's New England Kitchen
Tea from Live, Love, and Eat Desserts

Shortly after I got my second meme, there was another surprise waiting for me. An award was presented to me for the first time in history. Guys, this is really memorable for me!
Elle the angel from Elle's New England Kitchen has lots of recipes up on her blog. Kindly check it out! They are great and I've tried a few already!

I will like to pass this to:

Jen from Use Real Butter
Kevin from Closet Cooking
Faride from Farida's Azerbaijani Cookbook
Fanny from Foodbeam
Eliza from notes from my food dairy

And I really wanna tag Elle back for this award but I don't think I will be conforming to the rules of these awards then. Next time I will!

Some of the blogs listed above are new discovery while others are being checked out by me on a regular basis, some even daily. Some I like the writing style, others the photography style. Occasionally, both!

Now, I will have to go on and let them know I've tagged them! All in the midst of work.

Suki Sushi

Exactly one week ago, at about 2 hours after the noon sun shines directly on your head, my and my man were debating whether we should take the bar/counter seat at this sushi restaurant (not the posh kind, more the economical and affordable range). Mr Ergül insisted he did not want the counter seats but I argued that if you don't, the truckload of students behind us are going to! And everyone who is already comfortably seated in it wouldn't leave anytime soon as they are all there for the buffet, like us. And knowing that those students are gonna snatch those pathetic number of counter seats, the bitch in me took over my mind and I took walked up to the front of the queue signaling to the waiting staffs that we're gonna take the counter seats. And I beat the students by just a mere second. In the end, they had 2 friends who couldn't join them at the bar and I felt just a little bad for doing what I did. But seriously, a hungry man is an angry man and I am one such woman! So, in a half gloating and half cocky manner, I told my beloved husband, See! We will still be waiting if I didn't insist. The main point is, we got the counter seat pretty soon to feed our tummies just in time.
This is not the type of sushi restaurants you will expect to see from Jen's sushi tour in Boulder. I will say this is a place you make up with quantity for the lack in quality (especially for the buffets). Needless to say, we ordered and tried lots of plates we have never did. This is how it works for this particular sushi chain (and a few others): In general, we coin the different sushi (and price) type into different coloured plates. Multi-coloured (except Yellow) plates cost $1.95 each while the yellow ones cost $4.95. Some other a-la-carte items cost $6.90 and above. And for this lunch buffet, it includes everything in the $1.95 (excluding desserts) and $4.95 price range, free flow of juices and fruits.

What I must order every time I hop by are: soft shell crab californian roll (or you might know it as hand rolls), soft shell crab maki sushi, salmon sushi, salmon sashimi (buffet only ;-D). We also had fried soft shell crab, yasai tempura, calamari, tori karage, just to name a few (it's more like I can't remember the rest).

At the end of it, we were happy to be stuffed!

Thai Chicken Saute

Once again, courtesy of lovely Elle, I had sometime ago "stole" another recipe from her blog! And it's fab. I like it a lot because with this I manage to clear out 1 of out the 2 packets of coconut milk I have in the fridge. And this is Thai, tell me who doesn't like Thai flavours? Moreover, this is the first time I came across a recipe that called for ground ginger. I bought that bottle because I hated to skin ginger. Well, and that was before I realize I can do it with a vegetable peeler and mum skins it will a knife, so imagine my dismay at not being able to do it just like my mum does! But with my discovery of achieving the by using a vegetable peeler, I have not touched that bottle of ground ginger anymore! And now I have a good use for it!

The ingredients that serves 4 goes as...

1 1/2 pounds Chicken Breast Tenders (I used 2 Chicken Breasts)
1 tablespoon Cornstarch
1 tablespoon Fish Sauce
4 teaspoons Canola Oil, divided (I used Rice Bran Oil)
1 cup sliced Onion
2 teaspoons bottled minced Garlic (I used about 4 cloves of garlic, minced, like Elle)
1 teaspoon bottled ground fresh ginger
1/2 cup Light Coconut Milk
2 tablespoons Sriracha (hot chili sauce)
1 tablespoon Sugar
1 tablespoon fresh Lime Juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Cilantro
4 Lime wedges

The Making Process...

Toss Chicken with Cornstarch and Fish Sauce
Heat 1 tablespoon Oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat
Add Chicken to pan; sauté 5 minutes
Remove Chicken from pan
Heat remaining 1 teaspoon Oil in pan
Add Onion, Garlic, and Ginger to pan; sauté 1 minute
Return Chicken to pan; cook 1 minute or until done
Stir in Coconut Milk, Sriracha, Sugar, and Juice; cook 45 seconds or until thoroughly heated
Sprinkle each serving with 1 1/2 teaspoons Cilantro
Serve Chicken mixture over rice with Lime wedges

Mine had quite a lot of sauce and that's why you see the chicken drowning! You might really wanna give this a try if you're thinking of serving up some Thai flavour. It works like a charm.

MBP July: Less is More

Today, I just discovered another exciting food blog - One Hot Stove by Nupur! And I'm even more excited to see a roundup which I can participate in!

For July's MBP: with the Less is More theme, we have to submit entries of which the recipe that we have cooked must be from another food blog and not a recipe website or any other sources, it's a challenge but I did it! Also, it has to have 5 or less ingredients excluding Salt, Water or Stock and Fats like oil or butter!

So I was browsing through my own blog, skipping posts with a long list of ingredients along the way and I finally saw this post for Asparagus Amandine! I did a quick count and excluded the above-mentioned. Guess what?! Asparagus. Almonds. Lemon Juice. That's 3, isn't it?! Hooray, it took me no time to decide I will go ahead with this!

If you remember, I got this recipe from Kevin at Closet Cooking! And here I'm linking it to Coffee's site too! The recipe and my original post on this dish can be found here too!

White Fish with Lemon, Butter, Olives and Parsley Sauce

I got this recipe from Kevin's site and I had to do some changes to it due to difference in ingredients available in the 2 countries. Like capers. Unfortunately, I have neither heard nor tasted this before. And after an email exchange with Kevin, he told me the closest I can get will be to substitute it with chopped green olives or chopped dill pickles. And it was great cuz I have a can of pitted green olives stuffed with artichokes. But then you see, Kevin said chopped, and I totally forgot to chop it. In the end, the presentation of the food is really bad. Maybe I have just found something to blame for the bad results.

Also I have to apologize for the series of bad quality photos. Cuz we have kinda sold our Olympus DSLR and between the sale and acquiring a new camera - DSLR or point-and-shoot, I have only my camera phone to turn to! And I did use extra lighting before the food becomes visible as usually these are dinner meals. So till then.

About the fish. I have always had problems with buying the right type of fish because some I know its name in English while a few others I know its name in Chinese and I was never able to match them. Thus, for this recipe, I bought white fish fillets which I think will be right for this recipe and I think it is! And for now, let's just call it Halibut.

The ingredients that serves 2 goes as...

1/2 tablespoon Oil
1/2 tablespoon Butter
2 Halibut fillets
Salt & Pepper, to taste
1 Shallot, finely chopped
2 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup White Wine
2 tablespoons Green Olives
1 tablespoon Butter
1 Lemon, zest & juice
2 tablespoons Parsley, finely chopped

The Making Process...

Heat the Oil and melt the Butter in a pan
Season the Halibut with Salt & Pepper
Add the Halibut to the pan and cook until lightly golden brown on both sides, about 3-5 minutes per side
Set the Halibut aside
Add the Shallots to the pan and saute until tender, about 3-5 minutes
Add the Garlic and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute
Add the White Wine and deglaze the pan
Simmer to reduce the sauce a bit
Turn off the heat and add the Olives, Butter, Lemon and Parsley

I think I should have also finely chop the shallot instead of leaving it in chunks like you see in the photo above. Well, lots of rooms for improvements. But then, the taste of the fish is great and we finished gobbling it up in no time. Also, it doesn't take a lot of time to put in on the dinner table. Kevin had the halibuts with pasta and asparagus which is nice! Do head over and see his version of this yummy dish.

Eating out @ IKEA

About 1 and a half years ago, IKEA opened its 2nd store in Singapore in the East to cater to the residents there and diverse the crowd at the 1st store in Alexandra. You know Singapore is very small, compared to The States and U.K. But for me - a Westie, to go down all the way to the East isn't all that appealing. Weekends are the only time that permits such luxury to commute for longer-than-usual travelling times. Yet, weekends are the craziest times to shop there. Seriously. It's insane.

So, thankfully and luckily, I get to be in that vicinity last week, on a weekday for that matter, and I was thrilled. Well, I was there to do a customer satisfaction survey for my company and that is no fun. So my fun came when I went to IKEA. And for your information, the store is probably the size of numerous soccer fields. And by its side are Giant Hypermarket and Courts (furniture store). All of which share the same bigness of IKEA. I think it will take at 3 days to finish touring these 3 buildings.

While I was clad in office attire and high heals, I got tired of shopping around. I told my colleague if one wants to come here again, one should be wearing sneakers! Another tip before you go shop at IKEA, bring your own carriers! For one, you save the earth. For two, you save money because IKEA being environmentalist charge you for every plastic bag you need. Brilliant. I love that when I remember to bring my own shopping bags. And I dread that when I conveniently forget to. So, I totally know how you will feel.

And now, about the food. Sorry I digressed and it took a little long for me to get here. You know I'm risk adverse. Had been and still am. So each and every time I dine at IKEA Restaurant, I order the same old thing. The plus about this is I enjoy what I order - Fish & Chips with Chive Sauce. It's really filling. This time round I also ordered 2 deep-fried Chicken Wings to share with my colleague. It's a sinful and nice meal!

And then I wonder, IKEA does have retail presence in many countries. But do they serve up the same fair in all these stores? What we have here are the standard Swedish meatballs, fish & chips, poached salmon, Swedish herb chicken. And the local food include laksa, fish with thai sauce, curry chicken and etc.

With that, I know they do serve up the local flavour. So what does your local IKEA serve other than the usual traditional Swedish food and the Swedish-inspired dishes?

Bezelye (Green Peas)

We have had this can of green peas for, I think, months. But, no, it has not expired. It's just that I've been on the lookout for a good recipe to activate it! So, sometime ago, I've found this amazing food blog - Almost Turkish, by a Turkish lady - Burcu. The best thing is that it features Turkish recipes written in English! Burcu also tells you how to make it a traditional Turkish dish if the one she makes is more modern. I tell you. It's simply brilliant!! And it's just my luck she has a Turkish recipe for green peas! I'm glad I get to bring some memory back for my husband.

The ingredients that serves 4 goes as...

1 pound of frozen or fresh Green Peas
2 Tomatoes, diced or grated or 1 can of diced Tomato
2 Carrots, chopped in half-rounds
1/2 Belle Pepper or two Banana Peppers, chopped ( I used 1 Red Pepper)
1 medium size Potato, diced
1/4 cup Oil (Olive, Corn, Vegetable, or Butter) ( I used Olive, that's the only way to go for me!)
1 tablespoon Tomato or Pepper paste ( I used Tomato)
1 teaspoon Black Pepper
2 cups of Hot Water
Salt
Dill or Parsley ( I used Parsley)

The Making Process...

Put the Onions, Peppers, Carrots, Potatoes, Green Peas, and Tomatoes on top of each other in a pan in this order
Stir the Tomato or Pepper Paste in hot water, and pour it on to vegetables
Add Oil, Salt, and Pepper
Cover and cook on low heat for half an hour
Garnish with Dill or Parsley

Burcu mentioned that you don't have to cook anything beforehand for this recipe and this is ideal for last minute guests as all you have to do is to do the chopping and let the fire cook it while you get busy with other things, like dessert?

And it's one pot, so there isn't much to wash up thereafter! Good, no?