Salmon and Leek Quiche

I love all kinds of quiches, tarts and pie. Savoury or sweet. I also love how easy they are to whip out. We had this quiche the other night and it was delicious. Although the asparagus is technically a spring vegetable and is quite expensive at the moment. I thought it was worth it. It was the glue that bind this whole quiche together.

I am so looking forward to making lots of pies and quiches this spring/summer. All the fresh produces in abundance waiting to be incorporated into all these lovely dishes. Alas, it feels so far away. Especially after the gloomy day we had today. FortuneCat and I got rained on, all the way back home from work. Even though we were cold and wet, I love the fact that we have each other and I wouldn't change a thing ;)

Salmon and Leek Quiche
Adapted from Homelife Website

1 sheet (25cm) ready-rolled shortcrust pastry
1 tbs wholegrain mustard
20g butter
2 leeks, white part only, thickly sliced
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed
300g hot-smoked salmon, coarsley flaked
3 eggs, lightly whisked
1/2 cup (125ml) thickened cream
1 tbs coarsely chopped dill
1 tbs fi nely chopped chives

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line the quiche dish with pastry and trim off excess. Place in the fridge for 15 minutes to rest the pastry.
Cover pastry with baking paper and fill with pastry weights. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove paper and weights and bake further for 6-8 minutes or until golden. Reduce the temperature to 160°C. Spread the base of the pastry evenly with mustard.

Heat up the butter in the frying pan. Add the leek and cook for 5 minutes or until soften. Remove from heat.

Chop the asparagus coarsely and combine with leek and salmon. In a bowl, with a balloon whisk, whisk eggs, dill and cream. Pour over salmon mixture and bake for 45 minutes or until filling is just set. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Happy Baking!

Lamb stew

Our new dining table and chairs are getting a workout since we got it last week. After the Malaysian Feast, we had Holly and the Chapman sisters over for dinner. I decided that I needed to cook something with minimum prep time. So we had Lamb Stew with Mashed Potato. I had some pumpkin leftover so that was just roasted as a side.

We love having stews during the cold months of winter. This dish is hearty and a great comfort food. The best thing is that your stove will do all the work for you!

Holly made a decadent Chocolate brownie for dessert. It was so good, I have to remember to ask for a recipe next time.

We enjoyed the evening immensely. Nothing says comfort like a big plate of Lamb Stew and good company :)


Lamb Stew
Adapted from Stephanie Alexander, Irish Stew

8-10 thick cut lamb neck or shoulder chops
salt
freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large onion, finely diced
2 large parsnips, peeled and cut into big chunks
3 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
2-3 cups beef or lamb broth
1 sprig thyme
2 sprigs rosemary
2-3 stalks of parsley

Add the oil into the pan and brown the lamb on each side well. Set aside.
Use the remaining oil and heat up a big stainless steel pot on the stove. Add the onions and allow it to soften and become golden. Add the garlic and fry until aromatic or for 2 minutes. Pour any juice or oil from the pan into the pot. Add the browned lamb and carefully pour in stock to cover the pot content. Tie the thyme and rosemary spring with a piece of string and tuck it into the pot. Reduce the heat and simmer for an hour. Usually in a traditional lamb stew you would layer the meat and vegetable together. I like my vegetables with a bit of a bite to it. After an hour add the vegetables into the pot and continue cooking for another hour.

With a metal skewer test whether the meat and vegetables are tender. When tender remove pot and allow stew to settle for about 15 minutes.

I served the stew on top of the mashed potatoes I prepared and finish with chopped parsley on the top.

The Tale of Shara's Chaotic Kitchen

Last night I cooked a Malaysian feast of epic proportions! It was quite silly of me tho. I went through the day thinking it'll be fine. I don't need that much time to cook this stuff. Right?

WRONG!

For all those novice cooks out there to put three main dishes + dessert: Chicken Rendang, Satay Sauce, Stir fried Vegetables and Sago pudding with Palm sugar and coconut milk on the table you need the WHOLE day. Or else you can just think about getting hired help or something. I started cooking at about 3 pm and my guests were coming at around 7 pm. I am the world's worst organiser but somehow I managed to cook everything from scratch! I think I would have done really well on one of those pressure tests on MasterChef haha..

I am quite AWESOME. I should crown myself Queen of all dinner parties! Why do I indulge in this self gratification, you ask? Its because I cooked and prepared four complicated dishes without any help! OK OK..I should stop gloating hehe.

I think the longest and most tedious part of the adventure was preparing all the ingredients. I never realized how much shallots these dishes required. Seriously how did the women of the days long gone manage to whip all of those goodies? Just imagine all that effort put into crushing and grinding the spices. I just turned my trusted blender ON and there it goes...crush crush, mix mix, grind grind...BBRRKK BRRKKK! Haha...thats the sound of my food processor nearly dying on me from a rock hard galangale (make sure you get young fresh galangale). Right in the middle of the most crucial part of preparing the food! I almost cried and was at the verge of giving up and wanting to just roll around on the kitchen floor crying out I've had enough! Yes I am that dramatic hehe...

OK enough venting! On to the food. After all of that preparing I finally started cooking...The Rendang was happily bubbling away on the stove. It didn't look that attractive but the taste was sublime! I remember how long it took my Mother to cook the rendang, everyone has their own preference of how wet the rendang should be. I like mine quite dry, I think all the flavour tend to have developed more at this stage.

This was particularly true with the Satay sauce. At its earlier stage it tasted quite wrong! I started to worry and thought about how much ingredients I have wasted if it didn't turn out OK. With the help of my trustee Kitchen Sidekick (FortuneCat) I persevered and adjusted the seasoning (4 tablespoons of sugar + 2 pinches of salt). It tasted great after a little bit of tinkering, especially the next day when we had it for lunch.

Unfortunately with the whirlwind of it all, I forgot to take pictures of the end product of my cooking adventure. I think I was distracted by the food and the cuteness of our friend's baby, Alicia. The only photos we managed to take was of the rendang in the wok. Oh well.. next time!

This picture not nice lahh...





Don't be disheartened by my rantings. Despite the challenges everything turned out great. My guests were happy, full and satisfied. There's nothing I love more than to cook for my family and friends. I look forward to more dinner parties. Perhaps with more experience my adventures would be more of a breeze.

Chicken Rendang Serves 5

You can ask your butcher to cut the chicken for you. It would make your life so much easier :)

Spice paste
5 Bird’s Eye Chillies
5 Fresh Red Chillies
5 stalks lemongrass, finely sliced
3 Candlenut
1 ½ inch ginger
1 inch galangale
1 inch fresh turmeric
10 shallots
4 cloves garlic
½ teaspoon black peppercorn


Key Ingredients
1.5 kg Chicken, cut into pieces of 12
2 pieces of Assam skin (Tamarind skin)
2 tablespoons Kerisik
2 1/2 cups thick coconut milk
2 tablespoons chilli paste
2 turmeric leaves, finely sliced
3 Kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced
Salt to taste

Stir fry Ingredients*
4 shallots, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 stick of cinnamon
1 star anise
3 cloves
2 cardamom seeds

Grind all the spices for the paste into medium to fine paste. In a big heavy stainless steel pot or wok, heat the oil. When the oil is hot, stir fry the * ingredients until fragrance for 2 minutes. Then proceed to frying spice paste, fry it to a point where the oil starts to separate. Toss in the chicken and ensure the paste covers the chicken and cook it until the chicken cooked slightly.

Pour the coconut milk and let boil, add salt, Assam skin and kerisik. Cook with medium heat. The Rendang should be simmering slowly. Lastly, scatter the kaffir lime leaves and turmeric leaves and stir. Cook for 2 hours depending on how wet or dry you would like the dish. If you like yours with more gravy I suggest that you turn off the heat after an hour.

I will post the recipes for the other dishes in the future.

Selamat Malam!

Shara's Resolution

I've had this account since September 2009 but has never officially entered a post. I know its a bit late for New Year's resolution but its OK. For my own purposes, I am quite keen to compile a list of things I want to do and achieve.

Here goes:

1) Write here at least once a week
2) Cook more Malaysian food
3) Start on some craft work
4) Learn French
5) Do more volunteer work
6) Save for Europe
7) Achieve at least 3 of the compiled resolutions above

Hmm...I think that's most of the things that I would really love to get done. Maybe all I needed was a blog and a concrete to-do list to give me a kick in the butt to get things going! We'll see :)