Friday, April 25, 2014

Food Review: Beet Root Tauhu Sambal

Friday, April 25, 2014 0 Comments
This is my first attempt at cooking beet root, one of the most healthiest tuber there is to it. I was hungry two nights ago and the fried kailan wasn't enough for me so my dad got me 5 tauhu to make tauhu sambal to go along with the fried kailan

What you need for the recipe:

5 tofu, cubed
1 tablespoon of Chili Boh
2 onions, diced small
3 tablespoon of Life Chili Sauce
1/2 table spoon turmeric powder
1/2 table spoon chili powder
1/2 table spoon curry powder
200 grams (appx) of beet root, blended (add more if you want thicker gravy)
3 tomatoes blended
sugar and salt to taste

This is how I did my recipe:

Cut 5 pieces of tauhu into cubes and microwave/deep fry them. I put them in the oven for about 15 minutes with roast chicken function. So my tofu/tauhu came out looking like it was deep fried. Cooked outside, soft and moist inside. You can microwave it but they will take forever to cook, and the insides will dry out fast before the exterior gets cooked. My oven has rods at the top (like the toaster oven) or electric oven and it looks like a microwave, but I can heat up food in stainless steel pots and bowls

Then I added 3 tablespoon of oil to my stainless steel heavy bottomed dented wok, and stir fried diced onions and Chili Boh paste on high heat until it became fragrant.

Then I added in the tomato puree, and the beet root puree.

Reduce the heat to medium and add in the powders and salt. When your sambal starts to bubble, add in the tauhu pieces.

Finally let it cook until you see a sheen of oil appearing at the top

I added the Chili Sauce because it wasn't spicy enough. Then I realized I over did it added some sugar into it.

Here's some pictures after the jump


Thursday, April 10, 2014

Academy of Pastry Arts Malaysia

Thursday, April 10, 2014 5 Comments
I've enrolled myself in this fine academy to learn how to bake pastry and goodies. Apart from its fineness, they also have a staff of foreign staffs and some very good chefs scoured from the West. Its so odd that the owner happens to be an Indian national no less.

I took the 3 month basic course, well because plus I want to get away from the country before my birthday arrives. The last place on earth I want to celebrate my birthday is away from my husband. We spent too many years apart already I hate being away from him

The theory class was good, we were given 3 sets of uniforms, 2 aprons, a pair of safety shoes (which is really the cheapest they got for us, when they could have gotten better ranges for us like the ones with metal tip to stand knife fall) and thick file of papers containing work place safety, hygiene practices and food preparation practices in culinary and pastry art. Everyone were aptly brainwashed about the filthiness of mamak food and that lasted till this Monday when everyone scurried to wash their hands before classes started and on Tuesday a handful of them were queuing up to wash hands and by Thursday no one was washing their hands anymore.

The institute promised to have no more than 12 students per class but most of the pasry chefs have gone to Singapore for a competition and won't be back till next week so this week all 17 of us were crammed with a single bread chef from France who not only had to cope with us but also an annoying banshee in class

So next week I will have to push the management to keep to their promise to reduce the size of students per class or extend our course until the chefs get back from their rendezvous

 Baguette Bread

 Milk bread/Pleated bread

Soft Roll

Pleated Bread

Soft Roll

Soft roll, the chef expreimented with sour cream and cheese topping which failed to stay so it bubbled, burst and rolled everywhere on the tray

Pizza from leftover dough

Soda bread, baguette, soft roll and pizza cubes 

Raisin bread and pleated milk bread added to the presentation

Focaccia, rye and multigrain bread

Pizza day!

Pizza toppings

 Pizza going into the oven

Naan bread

Rye bread

Soft crust pizza

Thin crust pizza

The disadvantages of this place is that the water always run out at other basins and faucets when one faucet is turned up to maximum. The women's loo doesn't flush and the basin pipe has no running water at all, so from 2 loos only one is in working condition and that one too has no soap in the dispenser so we have to take one flight of stairs down to another basin with soap dispenser and wash our hands there

The items are well used and the machines are aging. Some of the machines no longer work or some part of it is faulty. Its cheaper to just use them until they war out than to fix them because they're cheap China imports. The ingredients seem reasonable,they aren't that cheap; kind of at an acceptable level