Pineapple Fried Rice

If you're a fried rice fan, you'll absolutely love this scrumptious Thai version of pineapple fried rice. The best part about this dish is that every bite-ful is a burst of flavours and texture,  sometimes you get a sweet-savory combination of pineapple and prawns, at other times you taste the spicy flavor of the rice together the birds eye chili, or the contrasting texture of dried shrimps.

 There's a little prep work involved, but the actually cooking time is fast and easy. Makes a great dish for everyday eating as well as parties. ENJOY!

Pineapple Fried Rice Recipe Ingredients:
Leftover and overnight rice
Garlic (finely chopped)
Fresh or canned pineapple (cut into small pieces)
Prawns
Dried shrimp
Shrimp paste
Fish sauce
Oyster sauce
Pineapple juice
Birds eye chili (seeded and cut into small pieces)
Cilantro leaves for garnishing

Method:
Heat up a wok and add cooking oil. Stir-fry garlic, red chili, and dried shrimp paste until aromatic. Add prawns and stir-fry until half-cooked. Add rice, pineapple pieces, pineapple juice, and do a few quick stirs. Add the rest of the seasoning to blend well with rice. Stir-fry for another minute or so, dish out and serve immediately with fried anchovies and an egg.
 Heaven......

Hey..I started Catering....Following My Passion!!

Well, I don't know if this post is actually about food, but , I will write anyway... It is about my passion. Years in the corporate world, I never felt happy, until I found my passion-COOKING. First, my interest surfaced when I came across reading food blogs. Last year, I embarked into writing them, which encouraged me to cook too.

Then the next step, which seems to be right would be.... Cooking commercially. I thought,  why not, do something that you are passionate about, and success will just roll in (of course, if a lot of hard work).

With the help of my ever-loving hubby, I have just started a small catering service, supplying food to office workers. Well, you see I love to cook, and I love people to savour my food. I still remember when there were days when I cooked somet dish that I was proud of, and literally forced my husband to invite his friedns to come and join us for dinner.

 So why not earn a little while I do it! I will not serve anyone food, that I would not personally eat.

Now, I have started cooking for 20-25 per day, and working on my costing, R&D on new menu and training myself to cook in a consistent standard. well, we have to start somewhere, don't we...So with God's grace, I starting, pursuing my passion..and see where it goes. Wish me the best!!

Some dishes that I have started on ....

Chinese Fried Rice

Nasi Goreng Ayam- Indian Style

Fish Fillet with Onions in Oyster Sauce

Meatball Spaghetti

Mummy's Simpliest Fried Rice

Believe it or not, this is my FAVOURITE version of fried rice, and I still can't master it. My mom makes it the best, so I call it Mummy Fried Rice.

It is made of fragrant rice, minced garlic, an egg and anchovies. For seasoning, only used oyster sauce and soya sauce.

How do I describe it, it is simply refreshing, light and just yummy. And best of all, so easy to make....but sadly I just can't master it yet!

Ayam Penyet Banafee

Ayam Penyet seems to be getting popular nowadays. Considering the fact that few years back, no one in Malaysia would have heard of it, it is quite a feat when we think about how it is flooding our market at the moment. This Indonesian dish I believe will still be around for quite some time.

Penyet is seriously the right name to describe this dish. For those who don’t know, Penyet means ‘Flatted’. This dish is served with some "ulam" (raw veges such as cucumber, tomato, long beans, cabbage), fried tauhu and "tempe"(fermented soya bean cake), which was simply authentic.

Restoran Banafee, Jalan Dato Abdullah Tahir Johor Bahru, Johor 80300, serves by far, the best Nasi Ayam Penyet. The chicken is so flavourful, marinated very nicely into the meat. The "sambal" is just superb (in our language- kau-kau) and is the king of this dish.


We also had chicken otak-otak, which was something very different. The otak-otak was not dry, but moist inside.

The porridge was also quite up to its standard, full of flavour, and served with kangkung belacan, anchovies and nut, and salted egg.

In sum, the Ayam Penyet is excellent! Next time, you are down in JB, do try it! Cheers!

Home-made Mutton Briyani

My recent trip to Mumbai inspired this Sunday lunch. The Briyani I had in Mumbai was simply exotic, and I hoped to replicate it with my so-called culinary expertise.

Briyani at the Vits, Mumbai

I started off by marinating my lamb with yogurt, garli-ginger paste, green chillies, lots of coriander leaves and mint leaves, and of course briyani mix. I let the meat rest for about 1 hour, and put it into the cooker to cook. Sorry, no pressure cooker, yet.

As for the rice, I bought the high quality Basmati rice from an Indian grocer in Brickfields. Heat up some ghee, and fry in the garlic-ginger paste, sliced onions, cinnamon stick and cloves. Then fry in the rice until fragant. Then I put the rice into the cooker, and added lemongrass and screwpine leaves (daun pandan) and cooked it as how i normally do.

When the mutton is 75% cooked, remove it from the cooker. Then heat up your wok, fry in some onions + curry leaves, and put the the mix of semi cooked mutton with its gravy and simmer. You can gradually add in evaporated milk to taste and of course the seasoning such as salt. If you need it more spicy, just throw in some birds-eye chillies (cili padi). Cook accordingly.

Once your gravy is cooked, you can assemle in the rice, and the mutton gravy, in layers. I added the yellow colour, by mixing tumeric with water and soem rose essence. I also assemble hard boiled egg into the Briyani, to make it a more Malaysian version.

I will be 100% honest with you...it was nowhere near Mumbai's version of the Briyani, but definitely a delicious home-made Briyani!!

Sinfully Delightful Treats

A couple of sinfully delightful treat to perk up your day... My favorite from Dominos is their Chocolate Lava Cake. 

The cake is sinfully rich, and right in the middle of the chocolaty richness, is the luxurious fudge.It is not until your spoon breaks through the cake's outer crust, that you find its pudding-like center. This dessert can be described as souffle-like, cake-like, brownie-like, mousse-like, and pudding-like, and that is because it has all of these characteristics.  Chocolate Lava Cakes, have a rich and chocolaty flavor, and a texture that is dense and moist.

As you eat into the centre, you slowly approach heaven...yum, yum...the velvety chocolate centre..is so sinfully rich.

And just imagine, my son and I whacking one at 10.30 at night. The next day, 1 hour on the thread-mill, for me !! :

Another "sin-food" is a mug of caramel latte topped up with whipped cream. Just look at the luscious whipped cream, on top of the creamy-milk coffee. 

Finally, Gulab Jamun, an Indian dessert made of, milk balls immersed in rose flavoured sweet syrup. Sinfully sweet, it can be enjoyed either hot or cold.

A Blessed Trip to Shirdi & the Wonderful Sharda Inn

It is said that no one can go to Shirdi without Baba's calling. And we, 7 of us, inclusive of one child and an infant had the blessing to be there this August. The experience has changed all of us, the wonders of Shirdi had seeped into our souls, leaving us redefined...

I want to take this opportunity to share with you about Shirdi, how to get there, where to stay and other info, so if any of you intend to go, you are all prepared.

The sacred abode of Shri Sai Baba at Shirdi is easily accessible from all the corners of India and even from all the major cities of the world.  For us Malaysians, it is best to travel to Mumbai, and then via road, go to Shirdi. Shirdi is about 250km from Mumbai. We travelled by the Tempo which can accommodate 12 people. It was very, very comfortable, and the the 6 hours journey felt so smooth and not tiring at all.

Above are some of the beautiful scenery that we saw along our journey. It was a cool and serene ride to Shirdi, filled with anticipation on all 7 of us.

The best place to stay, by all means is Sharda Inn. This hotel was so divinely amazing with its peaceful atmosphere. It was very clean and rooms were very comfortable. Each room had a photo of Baba, and for me that was the icing on the cake. The hotel provides shuttle service 24X7 to the temple, so we did not have to worry about getting to the temple. The staff were ever so helpful and obliging. The food was great! We were blessed to book this hotel.

Finally about the temple, you can get VIP passes on weekdays for the darshan and aarti, but I don't think you can get aarti passes on weekends. VIP passes are to be obtained at the PRO office which is at Gate 1. You can ask the hotel and they will tell you how to get them.You will get darshan passes there and then, but for the aarti passes, you will need to follow the schedule. Simply produce your passport for the passes.

We took the general queue for the morning aarti on both Saturday and Sunday. Despite the long queue which took about three hours,  it was smooth sailing and definitely fruitful wait for each of us.

We had a miraculous time in Shirdi.....To those you wants to go to Shirdi, please don't hesitate to contact me. I would be most happy to guide you...

One more joyful event, my aunt celebrated her birthday in Shirdi, and I think she is definitely one in a million to get such an opportunity. Bless you Aunty Radha!!