Krill Fritters

I made Krill fritters for dinner last night. I served it with Thai chili sauce and mayonnaise. Nice and crisp on the outside, soft and warm on the inside. Huge hit with the family. I've made these several times now, and they've always turned out perfectly.

These are fantastic as afternoon snacks with tea or coffee though I grew up eating them doused liberally with tomato sauce.

Krill are tiny shrimps. Fresh krill is not always available in the market. It's the same kind that made into fermented shrimp paste, belacan. Dried krill is sold in packs in supermarkets or wet markets. Very cheap stuff but very high in protein.

Before you start, you have to pick over the krill and remove any impurities then wash and drain thoroughly in a colander.

Krill Fritters

Ingredients

2 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup fresh krill

½ cup corn

3 shallots – peeled and sliced

1 red chili – deseeded & chopped finely

1 sprig of fresh Chinese parsley leaves – chopped

1 tsp soda bicarbonate

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp white sugar

Plain water

Directions

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, soda bicarbonate, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and gradually add the water into the flour mixture until you achieve the consistency of thick paint or cream, not too thin and not too thick. Stir gently to combine.

Use a spatula to fold in the rest of the ingredients so that it's evenly combined.

Heat oil in a heavy pot or deep fryer to 185⁰C. Drop fritter batter by spoonfuls into the hot oil, allowing room for the fritters to puff up, without sticking to each other. Turn the fritters over to ensure even browning. Fry until golden and crisp. Drain on paper towels. 

Serve hot with chili sauce or mayonnaise. 

Durian Bingka

We bought about 10kg of durian the other day during our recent trip to Tenom. Yes, we have to hurry because the durian does not wait for anyone. Durians are going to drop whenever they’re ready and it’s we who have to make the effort to get ourselves to the right place at the right time. They’re sold as cheap as RM5 per kg. Isn’t that crazy? They’re many different types of durian so you’ll need to work a little harder to judge the durians yourself in order to find a good one. After you have made your pick then don’t be scared to haggle because the vendors actually expect you to make an offer countering the price they just made up for you. Many people find haggling intimidating but not Hub.

One thing that's good about staying at the Perkasa Hotel is that I did not find those big signs on the walls with the red X through a durian. It means that they actually don’t care if you bring durians into your room or not.

After we’ve done stuffing our faces with durian, they’re still about 6kg left. So, I guess it’s time to make something with them.

Durian Bingka

Adapted from Yatiememories

Ingredients

3 whole eggs

1 cup thick coconut milk

2¼ cup water

2 cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup sugar

½ tsp salt

2 tbsp butter / margarine

1 – 1½ cup durian flesh

Egg yellow food colouring

Sesame seeds

Directions

Lightly grease a muffin tray with veg oil. Preheat oven to 200⁰C. Preheat the prepared tray in the oven while it heats up.

Blend together the eggs, coconut milk, water, flour, sugar, salt and butter / margarine until smooth.

Add in the durian flesh and a few drops of egg yellow food colouring. Continue to blend until well incorporated.

Carefully take out the prepared tray from the oven and put it on the counter. Pour the batter into the tray. Sprinkle sesame seeds over it.

Bake for 40 minutes until the top develops a lovely golden-brown hue.

Transfer onto rack to cool.

Egg Tarts

I get asked by friends why I only cook my family’s favourite foods. Well..why waste my time preparing something that nobody wants to eat. I was motivated to cook by love for my family. In this way, I also get to improve my cooking skills and nowadays I can cook almost everything for them. I am also a fussy eater. I just like to eat something with a very good taste. If the food doesn’t have a good taste then I won’t eat it. My daughter loves these egg tarts. Please excuse the quick kitchen counter photo. 

Egg Tarts

Pastry

250gm all-purpose flour

125gm salted butter – room temperature

50gm icing sugar

1 whole egg (Gr A / B)

½ tsp Vanilla essence

Fillings

4 whole eggs (Gr A / B)

¾ castor sugar

1 can evaporated milk

½ cup water

1 tbsp custard flour

½ tsp vanilla essence (clear)

A few drops of egg yellow food colouring (optional)

Directions – Pastry

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C.

Cream the butter and icing sugar together until light and pale. Beat in the eggs on low speed.

Beat in the vanilla essence. Then add the flour, a little at a time. Occasionally scraping the bowl down until the mixture comes together.  Once it is well mixed, knead the mixture to form a dough.

Take a small amount of dough then press it into the tart moulds so that it covers the bottom then continue to flatten the dough to about ½ cm thick, with your thumb, to cover the sides. Repeat with remaining dough.

Pop the empty shells in the oven for 8 minutes. Take them out and let them cool first before using.

Directions – Filling

Combine all ingredients and whisk until well combined. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Pour the filling into each pastry shells.

Bake for 15 minutes until the custards are set. Let cool in the pans on wire racks for 5 minutes. Then, remove the moulds, transfer the tarts to the wire racks. Serve warm.

  

Belunu or Bundu

It is the fruit heaven again in Sabah currently. Fruiting season is usually between July to September and December to January. This is when the village folk get to earn extra for selling durian, rambutan, langsat, mangosteen and jackfruit.

In this corner of the world, we call this fruit, belunu or bundu. I bought this in Tenom that day. Bought three and gave one to my sister. OMG...this is my favourite fruit!

This very hard to find and the most sought-after fruit looks like mango but tastes like soursop. It is very sweet, juicy and fleshy. This indigenous fruit is in season from December until January.

It is native to Sabah just like bambangan. We also have a few belunu trees behind my mother’s house. In fact, my village was named after this fruit.  But sadly, after an absurd family dispute a few years ago, the trees just stop to bear fruit anymore. The belunu tree can grow really tall.  Do be careful though because if you eat it too much, you might get a slight ‘kick’ out of it. We prefer to eat it when the flesh is still hard. Belunu tree is a very heavy bearer and a single tree can produce hundreds of fruits. For those who never try it, do give it a shot.

Tenom

Last weekend, I went to Farmers Market in Tenom with Hub, my children and my nephew. The small town is about 185km or about 3 hours drive from Kota Kinabalu.

It is located in the Interior Division of Sabah. Formerly known as Fort Birch during the colonial era and one of the most scenic interior locations in Sabah with the Crocker Range towering magnificently as the town’s backdrop. We bought rambutan, mangosteen and durian.

We stayed at Perkasa Hotel.  Located just 2 km away from the town and perched highly at a hill slope that overlooks the entire valley.  We’re not familiar with this town so the only way was to rely on online hotel bookings. Perkasa appeared to be the best available and the pictures displayed looked decent but when we walked into the bedroom, we didn't expect it to be so rundown.

The quilt was missing thus exposing an old wrinkled grey sheet over a blanket. The lamp shade on the night stand was old and slanting to one side. The toiletries offered in our bathroom was just a thin soap and two small sachets of shampoo. So sad to see the condition of the hotel.

The next day, we visited the Sabah Agricultural Park which is formerly known as Lagud Sebrang Agriculture Research Station, some 14 km from the town. 

The park is not so difficult to locate as there’re lots of signboards along the road. It’s extremely huge with many parks scattered around the land. 

To go from parks to parks, there will be a tram ride to bring you around. But if you plan to walk instead of taking the tram ride, do pack along umbrellas, drinking water and mosquito repellent. The landscape is fantastic. 

We spent some good 2 hours enjoying the flower gardens, vegetable and herb garden. The whole walkabout will take you about 6 hours if you want to see all. The park is very well kept. Overall, it’s definitely a great environment to get away from the city.

Pumpkin Bingka

I am not a fan of pumpkin but my daughter loves it so much especially sayur manis and pumpkin in coconut milk stew, as she called it. Sayur manis is native to Sabah and it is regularly labelled as 'Sabah Veg'. 

Baking with pumpkin can be as easy as going to the grocery store and buying a can of pumpkin purée. In this part of the world, pumpkin is very cheap. 

There are lots of yummy ways to use this veg. Try this quick and easy pumpkin recipe for your next family get-together. All these ingredients are things you already have in your kitchen like coconut milk, eggs, flour, sugar, ghee etc. This traditional cake is soft, chewy and fragrant.

I cannot believe how great this cake turned out! 

Pumpkin Bingka

Ingredients

300gm pumpkin – cubed, boiled until soft and pureed

200ml thick coconut milk (diluted with ½ cup water)

2½ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

300ml water

3 pcs of pandan leaves - washed

3 tbsp ghee

2 whole eggs  

½ tsp salt

Directions

Lightly grease a 10-inch pan with veg oil. Preheat oven to 200⁰C. Preheat the prepared pan in the oven while it heats up.

In a small sauce pan, heat the coconut milk and ghee over medium heat just until bubbles form around the edge and steam begins to rise from the coconut milk. Leave to cool.

Use a pair of scissors and cut the pandan leaves around 2cm length into the blender. Blend the pandan leaves with 300ml water. Pour the pandan pulp through a fine strainer. Use the back of a spoon to press on the pulp to get the juice out. Set aside.

Blend together the eggs, the pandan juice, sugar and half of the flour.

Add in the coconut milk mixture, salt and the remaining flour. Beat until well blended.

Carefully (because you could burn yourself, wear oven mittens as the oven would be really hot by this time) take out the prepared pan from the oven and put it on your counter. Pour the batter into the pan. At this point, you can also sprinkle sesame seeds over it.

Bake for 1 and a half hour until the top develops a lovely golden-brown hue.

Transfer onto rack to cool.

Cornflakes Cookies

I finally found the recipe. Thank you to Roz@HomeKreation. They’re so so good. The cookies are slightly crunchy around the edges. I love the texture. It should be placed about 1-inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet as it spread a little and I had a yield of 108 cookies. I broke my Ikea spatula when making these cookies last week. My daughter will have a fit for these when she wakes up later.

The ingredients are simple and the whole baking process is really a breeze. It takes only about 30 minutes for you to have your first batch of crunchy cookies!

Cornflake cookies

Adapted from Roz@HomeKreation

Ingredients

150g unsalted Butter
80g Icing Sugar
1 Egg Yolk
50g Corn starch
180g All-purpose flour
80g Cornflakes – crushed

1 cup Cornflakes

Directions

Preheat the oven to 175⁰C and line the baking tray with baking paper.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the egg yolk and beat well.

Sift in the corn starch and the all-purpose flour gradually.

Add in the crashed cornflakes. Roll into small balls and coat with more cornflakes.

Bake at 175C for 10 - 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack completely before serving or else it will be chewy. Repeat with the remaining mixture.

Store in an airtight container until required.

Cheesecuits

During Christmas season, the stores are so beautifully decorated and very festive.  I am not usually a shopper and I rarely go into department stores but during the Christmas season, I love to shop…LOL

I don’t celebrate Christmas but my mother and my other sibs are Catholic. Hence, Christmas is often a time when we spend time with my family. It is different to a normal day because everyone is off work and doesn’t have an excuse to escape family time. This is also a good opportunity for my children to see and spend time with all my relatives. It’s just that there’s no gifts to wake up to on Christmas morning. We usually gather at my mother's house. I live 2 hours away. We spend the day cooking and preparing a big lunch and catching up with each other. Thanks to my family, a practicing Christian family who considerately went to greater lengths to see that everything served was halal and omitted all pork-based products from the table for our sake.  Nope, I am not asking everyone to understand but it’s clear that my family made me truly feel that no matter whom I marry, no religious disparity can change the love we have as a family.

My daughter made this easy and no-cooking-required Cheesecuits to bring along to my mother’s house. We also brought roasted chicken with black pepper sauce, achar, mini pizzas and deep-fried stuffed tofu puffs.

This photo was taken at my office last friday. I brought the ingredients and made it there together with my colleagues, as a Friday sedekah, in the only way I know how -- food.  Thanks to Hub who sponsored the ingredients.

Cheesecuits

Ingredients

250gm Cream cheese

½ can condensed milk

4 tbsp full cream milk / fresh milk

1/2 cup full cream milk / fresh milk

½ cup Nestum Cereal (Original flavour)

1 packet Cream Crackers

Directions

Line a container or a baking tin with aluminium foil. Set aside.

Beat the cheese until pale and fluffy.

Beat in the condensed milk. Add in 4 tbsp full cream / fresh milk and continue to beat until smooth. The mixture should not be too thick. Set aside.

Pour the ½ cup of full cream / fresh milk in a bowl. Dip the biscuits in the milk and arrange it to cover the base of the prepared container / baking tin.

Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the biscuit layer.

Sprinkle a good amount of Nestum cereal over the cream cheese layer.

Keep layering until all the cream cheese is used up then crash a couple of biscuits and sprinkle on top.

Place it in the refrigerator to let it set for atleast overnight before slicing. Enjoy!