Vietnamese Beef Rolls

This is a very tasty rolls that everyone must try.  Surprise your guests with this tasty appetiser/snack.

Ingredients A
1 stalk lemon grass (slice it first, before blending, use only the white part of the stem)
2 shallots or 1 small red onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tbls sugar

Ingredients B
1 tbls fish sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 tsp black pepper or more if you like
1 tbls sesame seeds

500gm sirloin or fillet steak
1 tbls oil/ butter
12 lettuce leaves
12 rice papers (soak in warm water)
Mint leaves
Fresh Coriander - I used Thai basil

Blend ingredients A to a paste.  You can add a little more fish sauce  if you find the mixture is a little dry.  Add ingredients B and mix the marinade well.  Marinade it over the beef  at least 1 hour.  I did it overnight to get a really tasty beef.

Heat oil/ butter in frying pan.  You can opt to grill if you like.  Heat on high for 1 - 2 minutes on each side.  Transfer to cool, once cool, slice thinly.

Just like in my other rolls recipes, the method is the same.  Just make sure that the rolls are not kept to close to each other as they will stick.

Enjoy this rolls with Nuoc Cham sauce.

Ingredients for Nuoc Cham

1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup Fish sauce - I used 3 crab brand
1/4 cub White vinegar
1/2 of a lime juice
3-4 cloves of minced garlic
2-3 Thai Chilli pepper ( I did more coz I love the spicy kick!)

Combine warm water with sugar in a jar, make sure its dissolved.  Add the rest of the ingredients and flavour it to you own liking.  You can store the left over in the fridge.

Vietnamese Crab Mango Rolls

I just love eating Spring Rolls.  Most spring rolls are known to be deep fried. Yes...those deep fried spring rolls are my favourites too. But, this Vietnamese rolls is so refreshing and you can make it as a snack or appetiser. No frying needed.  It is not difficult to make, but it may take a little bit of your time.

Here is the recipe :-

Fillings
60gm rice vermiceli /suhoon (soaked in hot water till soft, drained well)
1 firm ripe mango (peel and cut lengthwise)
100 gm lettuce
8 or more rice papers
150gm - artificial crab meat (cut halve)
Mint leaves
4tbls sweet chilli sauce
4 Nori Sheets

Dip Sauce
1 lime
2 tblsp roasted cashew
Sweet chilli sauce

Soak one rice paper in a curve plate at a time, once it is soft take it out and lay it flat on your working top or plate, while working with the rolls soak new rice paper, make sure it is not soaked too long as it tend to get very soft and difficult to work with.
Layerd it with lettuce as base, top with a little rice vermicelli, crab meat, mint, and drizzle with sweet chilli sauce.  Fold both of the sides and wrap tightly.  Cut Nori to three quarter length and wrapped over the rolls.  It will stick immediately.  I would advice to make it before serving to prevent dryness.  You can keep in an air tight container separate by baking sheet and add the nori sheets only later on.

As for the dip sauce, squeeze one lime mix with sweet chilli sauce and scattered with some broken cashew nuts.  Just mix all together to get the paste and taste that you want.  Here is one that I made earlier.

Enjoy....and tell me what you think when you have tasted it !

Bergedil Sardin

Yeah...there are times when you really don't know what to cook.  Hubby just got home from the groceries stores having to only buy milk and bread but ending up with a few cans of Sardine in his hands.  Sardine...hmmm, that has been a while eh!  In Malaysia Sardine is usually make into a dish or filling for sandwiches. I love to make Curry Sardine which I will definitely upload the next time. But this time I wanted to make something else for a change.  I made the sardine in to a side dish called 'Bergedil Sardin'.  What is Bergedil? The name may sound strange to some but Bergedil is a malay word for meatballs and is usually a mix of minced meat/ tuna fish with potato.
It was fun to see all the ingredient mixing around in the food processor so I got my youngest son to help and shape up the Bergedil.

Here is the recipe:

I used 2 cans of Sardine (medium size fish) - discard the tomato sauce and mash the sardines with fork.
1 medium size red onion - Finely chopped
2 egg yolks
1 Handful coriander - Finely chopped
1 cube fish granules (I used Ikan bilis fish granules from Malaysia, but other brand of Fish stocks would do)
1 tablespoon Mayonnaise
Pepper to taste
120gm  breadcrumbs
( I would reduce to 70gm next time, I prefer the texture softer)


Mix all ingredients in a food processor and form it into oval shape.  Dip it in egg white and deep fry in medium low fire. Let the oil drain on a kitchen towel before serving.
You can eat it as a side dish to your warm rice or as a snack.

Thai papaya salad @ Som Tam

Hot, spicy, sour all in one.  A delicious starter before dinner. It does help opens up your taste-buds a little.  I always makes it extra so that I can eat it the next day for lunch.  For those who has been to Thailand, I'm sure you must have seen all the food stalls that sells som tam too. Lucky enough in the Netherlands you can buy papaya at the Vegetable monger or asian shops.  The papaya comes from Malaysia or Thailand and to me they both taste the same, only varies in price.  All of the ingredients you can easily buy from a Toko shop/asian shop in The Netherlands.;

Here is the receipe :-
1 green papaya
1/2 cup Long green beens
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup toasted peanuts
1/4 cup dried shrimps
1/2 cup hard baby tomatoes
2 tablespoon Nam Pla (fish sauce)
4 Cili api ( Bird eye chillies) - this is mild but I like it spicy so I had more.
2 tablespoon Thai Sugar paste / palm sugar
1 - 2 juice of lime

Peel the skin of papaya and grate the papaya thinly and set aside. I used a special som tam shredder.
Cut the long beens, and halved the tomatoes
To make som tam you need a mortar and a pestle.  I do not have a special mortar so I used a plastic baking bowl. If you do not have the pestle you can use a rolling pin, which I did in the beginning before my sister bought me the som tam pestle from Thailand.

Firstly, pound garlic together with the bird eye chillies till fine, add palm sugar and continue pounding, add toasted peanuts and pound coarsely, add lime juice and nampla. Once it is mixed add dried shrimps, and lastly the raw vegetables, start of with long beans pound a little, then add the tomatoes and finally the papaya.  Pound and stir with a spoon once a while to get it really mix.

Its difficult to say the exact amount of ingredients you need to use for this dish. Once you get the hang of the taste you can add more of the flavour you like or minimise it to your own taste bud.

Serve it on a plate. You can garnish with a shredded carrots for the colours if you like. You can eat it as a snack, lunch, dinner...just about any time of the day if you are up to it!
Here is mine....

Pucuk Pegaga Salad @ Pennyworth

Malaysian salad is also known as ' kerabu'.  There are many methods of making a dish using Pegaga.  U can eat it raw then it is known as 'ulam', you can make it into a healthy drink mix with honey...and add it in meats and so on...
Living in the Netherlands gives me not much choice in making my own kerabu. One morning as I was strolling along a saturday market, I found a vegetable monger that sells...Pucuk Pegaga (Pennyworth).  Aha...I was so thrilled that I can finally make my own Kerabu Pucuk Pegaga.

For further details about this healthy vegetable kindly browse http://www.stuartxchange.org/TakipKohol.html

Kerabu Pucuk Pegaga
A bunch of Pennyworth
4 Fresh red chillies - deseeded
1 inch Prawn paste (terasi/belacan)
1 1/2 cup or more of Grated coconut/ desicated coconut
A handful Dried Shrimps
1 Red Onions
Juice of 1 lime

For a different flavour you can substitute the ingredients below :-

* You can used tamarind juice instead of lime
* You can used dried anchovies (ikan bilis/ikan terie) instead of dried shrimps

Methode:

Wash and chopped the Pucuk Pegaga approximately 1 inch apart. Set aside.

Fry the coconut without oil in a pan till lightly brown and pound it fine. The process of pounding must not be too long like making kerisik (kerisik is simply pounded coconut till you get the oil out).
Coconut has to be fine in any case.  Set aside.

Fry the dried shrimps without oil in a pan till you can smell the aroma.  Pound it fine or grind it coarsely. Set aside.
Belacan (grilled the belacan before hand withtout oil in a pan about a minute on both sides, careful not to burn it)

Pound Red chillies and grilled belacan together till fine.  The amount of red chillies depends on how spicy you want your salad to be. Set aside

Slice the red onion thinly.

In a big bowl add all of the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Add salt and sugar to taste.

Eat it with warm rice!

Chocolate coffee weiner

It has been a while since I last made Chocolate Cake.  I was at my parents in law and was browsing her German cake books and came across a delicious looking Austrian Chocolate Cake ( Wiener Sachertorte)

I returned home and made the cake but,  I somehow did not like the texture of the cake. I guess its just personal.  Anyway, I make a new chocolate cake with a different recipe but with the same twist.  I was sooo happy that it turn out great and I think at that time I could have eaten the whole cake to myself. 

I am actually drooling right now!!!!

I name it :

Chocolate Coffee Weiner

275gm Butter

250gm Flour

75gm Cocoa Powder

25gm Instant Coffee

1tsp Vanilla Essence

4eggs + 2 egg yolk only

350gm Fine crystal sugar

1 1/3 cup of Ice water

1 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

Method:

Beat butter and sugar till light and frothy.  Add eggs, one at a time and mix well.

Mix flour, bicarbonate soda and cocoa powder.  Add into batter alternately with ice water.

Pour batter in cake tin.

Preheated oven at 180 Celsius for around 45min - 1 hour.

Easy eh!

Now the surprise is..... Once the cake is absolutely cooled off, slice it horizontally and spread the apricot jam in between cakes, top and sides.  Let it set for around 10 minutes in the fridge.  Take it out and now you can spread the Chocolate Ganache!

Apricot Jam

Your own choice of brand - scoop into a pan mash it with fork and warm it on low fire before spreading it.