Shepherd’s Pie

Recently, I came across a video on Pinterest on how to cook Shepherd’s Pie by Lil’ Luna.  It has been a while since I cooked it and her video inspired me to make it again.  

There are 26 ingredients used in her Shepherd’s Pie.  As I do not cook Western dishes often, I have to modify the recipe because I am not willing to buy ingredients that I may only use once in the recipe.  I found another video on YouTube that is similar to the way it is made on Lil’ Luna. However, in this video the onion and carrot are saute first before the meat is added to cook, which is the way I prefer to prepare the filling.

Since I need meshed potatoes, I decided to make it when I boiled ABC soup.  Check out how I made my Shepherd’s Pie with only 17 ingredients. You can see clearly, the adaptations I have made to the recipe in this chart I have created:

I made a discovery on Pinterest that I can use the press we have at home to make it easier to mesh up the cooked potatoes.

Lotus Roots Soup and Its Variations

I often shared that I can save my gas by heating or steaming other dishes above my pot of boiling soup.

I will never do that when I am boiling Lotus Root Soup.  The flavour of the soup will be imparted on the other dishes being heated or cooked above it.  I will also not use chicken or boil pork ribs in it so that it will bcome tenderise enough to cook other dishes.

There are two ways that Lotus Root soup can be made.  At home I use the basic soup ingredients to make it.  But during Chinese New Year when you have to boil enough to serve every member of the family who are home for the reunion dinner, you can add the optional ingredients to make it more flavourful.  That was how my mother-in-law boiled the soup.

The arrowroot  and chicken feet will thicken your soup and you can omit them if you want to. If you like your peanuts to be soft, soak them in hot water for 2 to 3 hours before boiling them in the soup.  You can also soak them in cold water and leave it overnight in the fridge.  

Chinese soups are cooked by boiling the water with the ingredients.  Once the water is boiling, you can turn down the fire to let it simmer.  Most soups will take at least 1 hour to cook but if you have root vegetables or ingredients that are denser, you will have to cook it for about 2½ hours.  Check the condition of your peanuts.  If it is not soft enough, you can continue boiling.  You can add water if the level has dropped too much and you need to boil a little longer.

Since I buy my groceries online, I am usually not able to get the exact amount of lotus root I need to make the soup.  I am not worried if the lotus root I received is too large as it will enhance the flavour of the soup.   If I do not have enough lotus root to make the soup, I can either reduce the amount of water I usually use, which is about 1½ to 2 soup bowls, or make adjustments to the other ingredients. 

These are the ingredients that will enhance the flavour of the soup, which I can increase the quantity required or reduce it, based on the size of my lotus root:

The basic 
-soup bones
-arrowroot (it thickens your soup and can be omitted)

You can include all or pick any one of these optional ingredients to add to your lotus soup.
-dried oyster
-dried squid
-peanuts
-chicken feet (it thickens your soup and can be omitted)

It is not a good idea to increase the amount of dried oyster and dried cuttlefish as they will make the soup taste fishy.  It will be best not to include peanuts if you are boiling soup with less water as they take a longer time to boil to soften.  

The ingredients that will sweeten the soup are:

-dates
-dried honey dates

You can reduce the amount used if you are someone who do not like drinking sweet tasting soup. I will omit the dried honey dates but not the dates. The number of dates I use depends on the size of the dates I have on hand.  If they are large, 4 pieces will do and if they are smaller, I will add accordingly, up to a maximum of 7 pieces.

If you have made a mistake by adding too much water to your soup and it tasted bland, instead of boiling it down, you can save it by adding a few pieces of sengkuang.

This is the way I will cut my lotus root if I plan on removing them to cook another dish with.

These are the sauce ingredients I often use to flavour ingredients such as meat or lotus root that I have removed from the soup:

-garlic oil

-a few tablespoons of water or lotus root soup

-sugar or honey

-soya sauce and/or oyster sauce

-black or white pepper

I pan fry them till the liquid thickens and sticks to the lotus root.  If you like to eat your lotus root crunchy, you can blanch the sliced quantity you want in the soup for about 45 seconds.  You can find ways to add flavour to the lotus root from your soup by doing a search online for "lotus root dishes".

You can cut the lotus root in large chunks if you have no intention to eat them. 

If you do a search online for "lotus root soup, you will find many other variations for making it.  Here is one from The Woks of Life, which is totally different as their ingredients include seaweed/kelp, ginger, dried goji berries and scallion.  Check out links to their glosarries if you are wondering what some of the ingredients in Chinese recipes look like.

I have posted many other useful tips about making soups on this blog.  I have collated some of the information in the following question I answered on Quora:

Do you like soup? If so, what is your favorite soup?

Korean Street Food Bell Peppers Dish

I shared before how I cooked my Korean Street Food Inspired Bell Peppers Dish.  I cooked them so that my husband can eat them with bread for breakfast.

Recently, I discovered that I can make fried rice with this dish too.  I beat an egg or two into it to cook scrambled egg before adding cooked rice to the mixture to cook.

The dish can also be used to make a pan sheet meal with wraps.  You can see how it is made by watching this video.

What to do with leftover cooked pasta?

Those days of "think of the Kampucheans/poor" to encourage my children to finish their food are over. Now that they can prepare their own meals I encourage them not to waste food by sharing with them ways leftovers can be used.  

But who would want to eat leftover cooked pasta?  Your cooked pasta will no longer be al dente if you reheat it to be eaten.  So, I like the idea of serving leftover cooked pasta crispy by baking it in an oven.  And, that is one of the ways Italians finish their leftover cooked pasta. 

  

 

You can find the full recipes at PastaGrammar.

Breakfast Expectations in the Family

We used to go out for breakfast every morning.  So, we have a wide variety of food to choose from depending on whether we eat at a kopitiam or at the mamak shop.  We stopped doing that during Covid-19 pandemic.

  

This is the kind of breakfast I would like to make for my family.  Quick and easy. All the easier if I can make it in the airfryer.

This is the kind of breakfast my daughter wish I can make.  Preferbly buns with ingredients she enjoys eating incorporated.

I have to rush to the bike shop after cooking lunch and dinner for the family.  So, this is how she will be geting her bread.  Easy with the breadmaker or store bought buns.

Life After the Covid-19 Pandemic

When I stopped cooking after we started the bike shop in 2012, we used to go out as a family for breakfast and dinner.  It was a great time to bond and the children enjoyed eating out.  I started cooking again when the Covid-19 Pandemic was reported in 2020.

To avoid the crowd I started buying my groceries online from Tesco.  I continue to shop there after it was taken over by Lotus. My family members like thier coffee buns (Roti Kopi) and Cheese Onion Buns. So I buy them on a weekly basis for breakfast.  They are available in packs of 4. 

Since last November I have not been able to buy their Cheese Onion Buns online. I found out from Hafiz, a very friendly Store Manager at its Kajang branch where I collect my orders, that not all outlets sell this bun.  That is why it is no longer listed online. Most of the time the Cheese Onion Buns will have been sold out when I get there to collect my order.

So, that started my quest to look for Cheese Onion Bun recipe to bake in my breadmaker.  I bought it from Cosway during the pandemic, when they had a promotion running.

My favourite bread to make is the Milky Loaf.  

This is the recipe for it. 

As you can see, I can choose the "dough setting" on my breadmaker to make the dinner rolls with the same ingredients.  If I make dinner rolls, I can top them with onion and cheese to bake in the oven.  But I prefer the lazy way.  Once my loaf is baked, I cut it in half horizontally.  I then slice the top half of it 3/4 way through so that I can slip in my fried sliced onion and cheese to airfry.  If you watch this video, you will get an idea of what I did.  You will also discover from it other ingredients you can shove into the cuts to flavour your bread or buns.

Did that but I still prefer the ones from Lotus as it did not turn out cheesy enough.  

Then I found this Cheese Bread recipe. 

It requires 1 cup of sredded cheese which is 120g.  I used a 200g pack of Emborg Shredded Mozzarella Cheese to bake it.   But I am still not happy at how it turned out and decided to modify the recipe. I used the ingredients for the Milky Loaf and added 125g pack of shredded Parmesan cheese, as it was on offer at Lotus. I like it better baked this way as it tasted cheesier.  

However, eating it with peanut butter, which I like eating, will kill the cheese flavour.

After all my trouble, I found out recently from Hafiz that if I call Lotus with the number he gave me, the staff at their "Self Collect" counter will keep the Cheese Onion Buns for my next collection.

The other bakery that I will buy from Lotus is their Croissant which is also available in packs of 4 pieces.

I usually serve it with sardine which I have cooked and stored in the fridge.  This is the recipe for cooking it:

I am usually wary about buying house brand food item but I am happy with the canned Sardine with Tomato supplied by Lotus.  

Other than the airfryer, bread and sardine kept in the fridge can also be heated up with a sandwich toaster.

I have a reason for cutting my loaf in half horizontally. The containers I have, large enough to store my bread are shallow. After I cut it up horizontally, I will slice it to store in the fridge. This is the top half section of my Milky Cheese Loaf with 2 peices of Milky Loaf leftover from an earlier bake.

This is the bottom half section of my Milky Cheese Loaf.  Though I chose "light" colour setting, it turned out darker than my Milky Loaf baked at "medium" colour setting.

Shortcuts for cooking a curry dish

The easiest way to make a coconut curry dish is to buy ready made chilli paste for curry. That will eliminate the process of pounding chillies with the many other ingredients that will make the curry flavourful. However, check the packaging to see that it has cooking instruction for making the curry dish. I used to get my homemade chillie paste from my aunt.

Whenever I am not sure about how to use a ready made sauce or paste at the sundry shop I usually go to, I will check with the store owner. If the store owner cannot help me, I can check out the brand online. When I shopped online at TESCO before it became Lotus, I noticed that they usually include the cooking instruction for the paste I am interested in, which they had extracted from the packaging itself. 

Once you are able to find the chillie paste you like, all you need to add to it is the curry powder for meat or fish, based on what you are cooking, and santan (coconut milk). This is the curry powder I use for cooking fish curry.  It is from my cousin's factory in Melaka.

You can also add to your curry dish any of the following ingredients:

-potato (our family’s favourite choice)

-lady’s finger

-long beans

-cabbage

-tomato

For the santan, I prefer to buy the packet version.  It can keep longer so that I can cook my curry dish anytime I want to as long as I have curry powder and chillie paste in the fridge.

Recently, I discovered an even easier way to make curry. These are the ingredients noted on the packaging:

As you can see from the list, coconut milk is already included in the paste. This is how you can use the curry paste to cook chicken curry.

This is how the Brahim’s chicken curry sauce should look like after it is cooked but I prefer it with more sauce. So, I usually add extra water or santan to the pot. If it is not salty enough, instead of salt, I add soya sauce.

However, I prefer to eat their MRE (meal ready to eat) version which is even easier to prepare. I just put the packet into a pot of boiling water and wait for 3 minutes. I am drawn to this brand because I found out that their rice and dishes are served to airlines passengers too.

I usually serve it in a glass bowl so that if there are any leftovers, I can keep it covered in the fridge. As my glass bowl is microwave safe, the following day, I can just pop it in the microwave oven to heat up for about 2 to 3 minutes. 

As I am not an adventurous eater aka fussy, whenever my family travel overseas for a holiday I usually bring along a mini cooker, instant noodles and some of Brahim’s MREs. I also bring along metal containers to store the food heated up to eat. They are great for days when we do not feel like eating the local food over there or when we have hunger pangs because of the time difference.

MREs with curry or chilli sauce were the best dishes we travelled overseas with as we could also eat it with bread which we could easily pinched from the buffet spread of the hotels we stayed at. 

If you cannot buy ready made curry paste, this is how you can make your own.

Once your curry paste is ready, you can start cooking your curry dish. I prefer to use chicken and potato in the dish. *Note that you only need 2 stalks of lemongrass cut in half. The white portion for making the curry paste while the green portion is for cooking the curry. However, if you are able to buy the curry paste, you can omit adding it to cook this curry dish.

I found this recipe from The Burning Kitchen. Check it out. The mother and daughter team, Bee Leng and Melissa, provides lots of photos and tips which you will find useful.