Recipe: Gula Melaka Coconut Ice Cream

A colleague had brought back some gula melaka for me on his trip to Malacca. I’ve seen the blocks of sugar being sold here in Sheng Shiong but not in NTUC or Cold Storage. Anyway, given the hubby’s love for ice cream, we decided we would make some with the gula melaka we had. We trawled the internet for a Gula Melaka Coconut Ice Cream recipe but never got very detailed recipes off any blog sites. So we took whatever we could find as guidance and then trialed our recipe twice and ta-dah, I hereby present to you our version. We are also of course recording this down coz we’re definitely making this again when we get another chance to do so.

Gula Melaka Coconut Ice Cream (yield approx 900ml)

First you need to make some liquid Gula Melaka

Liquid Gula Melaka

300g Gula Melaka
250g Water

Place the gula melaka and water in a saucepan. When the gula melaka is melted, lower the heat and get it down to a simmer. Keep the mixture simmering. It will eventually thicken to a consistency like honey (or slightly less viscous is also fine).

Let cool then pour the mixture into a glass jar. You can keep this in the fridge for about 2 weeks.

Gula Melaka Coconut Ice Cream

4 yolks
80ml liquid gula melaka
200ml coconut milk
150ml full cream milk
50ml cream

1. Whisk the yolks, liquid gula melaka and coconut milk together
2. Cook the mixture till it thickens. Keep an eye when you place the mixture over the fire. Keep whisking. Use the back of a spoon to test the consistency if you need to. Dip the back of the spoon into the mixture, take it out, draw a line down and if the line stays, the consistency is right.
3. Mix the full cream milk and the cream.
4. Take it off the heat, pour it through a sieve into the mixture of milk and cream. Keep stirring while pouring.
5. Chill the mixture for at least two hours.
6. Churn the mixture with your ice cream machine for about 30 minutes. Remove and freeze overnight.

Homemade Braised Pork Belly Donburi

Lunch yesterday was this satisfying homemade bowl of goodness.

10-hour sousvide pork belly, onsen tamago, with butter corn, bunashimeji, carrots and cherry tomatoes. Served with koshihikari rice.

Marinade recipe for the pork belly was from Serious Eats.

Sousvide 10-hours at 77 degrees C.

Onsen tamago was sousvide for 55 min at 63 degrees C

Recipe: Cheese, Corn and Chives Savoury Muffins

The immense stress at work made me really fidgety one Wednesday night. Since I didn’t have my bike with me (am staying at my mum’s), I decided the next best thing would be to bake. I ambled around the supermarket for 20 minutes before heading home, flipping recipes on my phone and looking at the produce at the same time, hoping for an inspiration to hit me.

I knew I wanted to make some cheese muffins for the sister Y who has time and again expressed she much prefers savoury foods over sweets. I finally settled on getting some canned corn kernels and cheddar cheese, recalling mum had also bought some chives over the weekend.

I used this Food Network cheddar cheese muffin recipe as a base and threw in half a can of corn and about a tablespoonful of chives as an experiment. The result was surprisingly delicious and I can see these served for breakfast or tea. Next time around, I’m adding more corn kernels (maybe a whole can!) which provided a sweet crunch to the muffins and throwing in just a little more chives for an extra oomph.

Recipe: Cheese, Corn and Chives Savoury Muffins
(Makes 12 muffins)

Ingredients:
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted & then cooled
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 pinch mixed herbs (optional)
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup corn kernels, drained (i would recommend a full cup)
1-2 tbsp of chives

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large bowl, combine milk, melted butter, egg & cayenne.
In a second bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, sugar & salt.
Stir in cheese.
Add flour mixture to milk mixture and stir batter until it is just combined. Halfway through, throw in the chives and corn in batches.
The batter should be lumpy (remember not to overmix!).
Spoon the batter into muffin tins (buttered or lined) filling each about 2/3 full.
Bake 20- 25 minutes.

– S

Recipe: Home-Made Lemon-y Prawn Pasta

The hubbs loves pasta. Ok love is an understatement. I think if he could, he would eat it every single damn day. Given his long-lasting affair with pasta, he has been trying to perfect it ever since we got our own kitchen.

Truth be told, this guy has hardly cooked in his whole life. His mother whips up heartwarming Cantonese meals on a daily basis. When we were schooling in Australia, the girls in the shared apartment took to the kitchen, while he volunteered to do the dishes. So as you can imagine, the guy has hardly had the need to lift a frying slice in the kitchen!

The first few months saw the hubbs just fumbling in the kitchen and I took it upon myself to make most of our home-cooked meals. There weren’t that many anyway, given we both have full-time jobs and it’s really just too tiring to come home, cook, and do the dishes after. It was only I left on a long business trip did the hubbs decide to really put his mind to it. I suspect it was easier too given I wasn’t around to meddle with his little experiments. Amazingly, he developed a knack for creating his own tomato-based/cream-based pasta dishes. No more pre-made sauces! Ever since then, he’s taken full-control over the stove (almost). Much to my pleasure of course! These days I no longer say “What do you wanna eat?”, I say “What are you  going to cook?”.

Recent days though, the hubbs decided to give his usual repertoire of tomato/cream pastas a break. Given it’s summer (who am I kidding, it’s freaking summer all-year-round), he decided to refresh his pasta with lemons! Wherever you are, if it’s summer too, a fresh light pasta like this will be sure to give you a citrus-y kick. If it’s winter, it’ll brighten your hibernation. Try it, it’s summer on a plate.

We added some fried shallots to add some extra crunch to the dish. 

What it needs (this is for 2-3 pax):

• 250-300 grammes dry pasta of your choice
• A big knob of butter
• Handful of fresh prawns (as much as you want really!)
• 3-4 cloves of minced garlic
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Juice of half a lemon
• 30 ml Lemon Vodka (optional)
• Salt, Black Pepper to taste
• Mixed herbs
• Pepperocino/Tabasco for heat

Getting there:

1. Cook  pasta till al-dente. Don’t forget to add a dash of salt to the pot of water.
2. Half way through cooking the pasta, fire up your pan.
3. Add the big knob of butter till it melts.
4. When the butter starts sizzling, throw in the garlic. Let it brown for a bit before throwing in the prawns. Season with salt and black pepper.
5. When the prawns are almost done, pour in the lemon juice and the alcohol and let the mixture simmer for a bit. It should thicken a little. (If it doesn’t, add some of the pasta water to it later.)
6. By this time, your pasta would be done. Drain and toss the cooked pasta in the pan, making sure the strands are well-coated with the lemon gravy.
7. Add a sprinkle of mixed herbs and parmesan cheese if you so desire!
8. Tuck in!

– S (post made possible with the hubbs inputs!)

Recipe: Burgers on a Sunday

The Ultimate Beef Burger, Gordon Ramsay’s recipe

Hubbs and I have tried cooking for my side of the family for a couple of times. It has usually been a pasta dish of some sort. The last was a disaster because we used angelhair which I think requires some finesse and good timing to get the right bite. This time around, M suggested we make beef burgers (clearly still scarred by the dish of angelhair). So off I went flipping the few cookbooks we had but none had a recipe for a beef burger. There were recipes for turkey burgers and lamb and mint burgers. Turkey meat is almost impossible to find on this sunny island, and I didn’t want to risk making a lamb and mint patty only to be compared to the one we had in London.

Thus, the googling began and I finally settled on this one – Ultimate Beefburgers with onion relish by Gordon Ramsay (published on The Sunday Times) – with some tweaks of my own. In fact, one major change was using half minced pork and half minced beef for the patties. Hmm, I guess technically it’s a Beefpork Burger.

The burger hardly made it to the dining table. We just stood around my movable island/kitchen trolley where I was assembling the burgers, held the soft pillowy buns of goodness in two hands and chowed down.

I dare say, it’s the yummiest burger the Hubbs and I have made.

Top right: Tangy onion relish

Bottom left: We’re mushroom lovers! 

For the burger patty (makes about 6 medium patties):

250 grammes minced pork

250 grammes minced beef

1 small red onion, diced

2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp wholegrain mustard

1 tbsp ketchup

1 tsp worcestershire sauce

black pepper and salt

1 egg (this was not in the original recipe, but I was wondering how the patty would hold without an egg…)

Slices of cheddar cheese

For the onion relish:

2 big red onions, peeled and finely sliced

1 tbsp brown sugar

A knob of butter

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

To serve:

Burger buns

Mustard/Mayo/Ketchup (or all!)

Slices of ripe tomato

1 Mix the mince, onion, 
garlic, mustard, ketchup and Worcestershire sauce together and season well. (To check the seasoning, fry off a little ball of mixture and taste.) (We skipped Tabasco as we didn’t have any at home. Next time we do this, we’re definitely adding some cayenne to give the patty some kick!) Shape the mixture into 4-6 burger patties. Place them on a tray lined with baking parchment, cover and chill for about 30 minutes to allow them to firm up.

2 Meanwhile, make the onion relish: fry the onions in the butter for 
6-8 minutes until soft. Add the sugar and fry for 4-5 minutes until caramelised. Drain excess fat and add the balsamic vinegar. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the onions are soft and sticky.

3 When you’re ready to start cooking, brush the burgers with a little oil, then place them on a grilling pan. Cook them for 7-10 minutes, turning halfway. Towards the 
end of cooking, place a slice of cheddar cheese on top of each burger and let it melt a little.

4 In the meantime, drizzle the cut side of the bread rolls with a little olive oil. Lightly toast the burger buns, cut-side down.

5 To assemble the burgers, sandwich the patties 
between the warm, toasted 
 burger buns with a dollop of mayonnaise or ketchup, some onion relish and a few slices 
each of lettuce and tomato.
 (As you can spot in the picture, we added slices of portobello mushrooms on top of the relish to up the shiok factor!)

– S