Jazzed Up Shortbread Cookies

Can you believe I have posts drafted all the way from June? Oh who am I kidding, you definitely can. I truly am sorry for the weird inconsistent posts! I have issues, I think. Now I am going to attempt to distract you from my tendency to procrastinate by pointing out that it is very nearly November (WHAT) which means that there are only 2 more months before we hit 2012 (WHAT).
Boom, distracted.

Anyway, 2 weeks ago I wanted to eat shortbread cookies, so I baked shortbread cookies.

A very long while back, I had hastily written on a piece of paper this random recipe for shortbread cookies that only had 4 ingredients but of course I totally missed out the temperature the cookies needed to bake at, or how long they needed to bake for. Classic Capricorn. Just kidding, I don’t follow horoscopes. So I googled and prayed and tried the recipe at a temperature and timing that I wasn’t sure was correct and luckily for me, the cookies came out okay. Actually, they turned out great!
I’ve made it twice since so that’s how I know I’ve got a keeper.

Smells Like Curry Spirit

If you’re a Singaporean or have, for some reason, been keeping up with the news here then you would have known that this past Sunday, the entire nation had an unofficial Curry Day. Super long and perhaps overblown story can be found here but in a nutshell, (foreign) Chinese family cannot stand the smell of (local) Indian neighbour’s curry. A BIG hoo-haa ensued, resulting in every born-and-bred Singaporean screaming bloody curry murder, even though it was later revealed that the example that the article referenced apparently happened 7 years ago. Citizens came together and declared the 21st of August 2011, Curry Day. Since this food blog is obviously not a platform for anything serious, I shall stop here and say… my mom cooked curry on Curry Day.

To be more specific, Meatball Korma!

It was soooooooooo good. And I’m not just saying that because the woman gave birth to me.

I loved how the meatballs were tender and juicy, and the gravy? Just the right consistency. It was creamy but not to the point of overindulgence. My mom intended for us to eat it with pita bread (as pictured) but I ate it with her yellow rice. I wish I took a picture of that but man, I was busy stuffing my face eating demurely like a proper lady.

Recipe coming up in a later post, because I’m nothing if not mysterious. And by mysterious I mean my mom is at work and I don’t really know the recipe. Have a good day everyone!

 

*Also, thank you for the shout-out Foodpress and HELLOOOOO new readers!*

Baked Extra-Spicy Hot Wings

I’ve never had really good hot wings. All the hot wings I’ve had in restaurants are not spicy at all. As I’ve confessed before, I need like heat in my food. The ones that I’ve had tasted mostly of barbeque sauce which sucks cos I only like barbeque sauce with my McNuggets. So when my friend and I discovered this small stall at Kallang selling all sorts of hot sauces (and a lot of Latin American ingredients like this which I’ve been looking for everywhere, but that’s for another post!) we both decided almost immediately that we would make our own hot wings that were you know, actually hot.

And thus, these Baked Extra-Spicy Hot Wings were born.

Lemony Catfish with Cherry Tomato Couscous

My friend Amalina, who is my cooking buddy, hates couscous. This is interesting only because she is a pretty adventurous eater and couscous is well, couscous. It’s pretty much the most non-threatening food to ever exist so the fact that she cannot stand it is mind blowing to me. Anyway, we were window shopping at a high end supermarket (yes, you read that right) and I chanced upon this box of lemon and garlic couscous that was on sale so naturally I snatched it up and begged her to try some. She politely declined but that’s okay because YEAY MORE FOR ME! Besides, my food obsessed brain had already decided that I would use it with a recipe I bookmarked in Nigella Lawson’s Kitchen. The original recipe was for salmon but I used catfish instead, because they are much cheaper. The ones I use are frozen sutchi fillets (basically southeast asian catfish) and they are readily available in all supermarkets.

Enough blabbering, onward with the recipe!

Rainbow Pancakes + RebelWithoutASauce turned 1!

Hello friends! Pardon my absence, I’m just lazy. I have tons and tons of recipes to share from these past few weeks, like Strawberry Almond Crumble, Spicy Hot Wings, Stuffed Mushrooms, Bruschetta (which got the most compliments!), Lemon Fish and Couscous and oh my god I should stop here before I get overwhelmed and disappear for another month of two. Can you believe I made this on the exact day of this blog’s anniversary? Hence the psychedelic pancakes. Celebration “cake” indeed!

Nothing special really, they are just regular pancakes! Turns out food dye + any batter = fun. I wish I remember where I got this pancake recipe from, but I’ve been using it for years and years. In fact, this is my reference. A note on my fridge, cutting-edge stuff.

 

(Rainbow) Pancakes
*makes 8 medium sized pancakes*
1½ cup flour
4 tbsp sugar
1¾ tbsp baking powder (basically 2 scant tbsp)
1 tsp salt
1½ cup milk
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
food colouring

- whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl
- in a measuring jug, whisk all the wet ingredients together
- slowly add the wet into the dry, folding in with a spatula until well mixed
- divide batter into 4 portions, add food colouring to each portion
- in a pan, melt some butter and with a ¼ cup, scoop the batter into the pan
- when bubbles start to appear around the top of the pancake (about 3 minutes), flip to the other side and cook for another 2 minutes
- serve with butter and syrup (candles not necessary, but always encouraged)

 

Nothing like unnecessarily jazzing up old recipes, am I right?

This colourful stack of pancakes is dedicated to you reading this! Thank you for coming back/dropping by/chancing upon this blog, I appreciate every one of you. Especially you mom!

Now let them eat (pan)cake!

Korean Shrimp Stir-Fry

A month or so ago, I found a youtube user who, bless her existence, uploaded all 13 episodes of Nigella Kitchen on her channel so naturally I spent the whole day marathon-ing the show. In the 3rd episode, titled “Inspiration Everywhere”, she cooked a dish called Korean Calamari which looked SO GOOD that I literally was like this. And when I chanced upon the main ingredient, Gochujang for super cheap, I knew I had to make it. I made a few changes to the original recipe, like using shrimp instead of squid and swapping baby sweetcorn (SUPER YUCK) with carrots and broccoli. A quick online search for a non alcoholic substitution for the chinese wine in the original recipe led me to apple juice and/or white grape juice. I had neither but I did have a couple of limes in the fridge so I used that instead. So yes, I did a lot of replacing and adapting but the basic sauce is the same, promise!

Local Makan Blowout

 

“Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not
made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.” – Voltaire