FOODlog #298: Chicken Paella We had the carcass of the roast chicken my colleague made yesterday so I decided to think of a dish to utilize it instead of letting it go to waste. I made a chicken Paella in a pan together with celery and red bell peppers that I simply sliced and cherry tomatoes that I halved. I also had some chicken tenders which I pan fried then baisted them with butter and rosemary. Look at how beautifully they turned out. After removing the chicken tenders,…
FOODlog #299: Malaysian Spiced Fried Chicken & 'Daging Dendeng' A few Sundays ago, me and my friends went to one of my favorite places for lunch again. It's a place called 'Lunch Bear' and serves Northern Malaysian Malay food. They prepare and serve a bunch of curries, Malay spicy stews, stir fried vegetables, spiced fried chicken, along with white rice. This time I picked the spicy fried chicken and 'daging hitam' which translates to 'black beef' and it's cooked with loads…
FOODlog #300: Beef & Chicken 'Satay' Went out with my parents and brother's family for dinner after work the other day at a mamak restaurant nearby where we live. It's specialty is serving curry fish head but there's a stall there that serves 'satay' that is really delicious which we were going there for. We ordered some chicken satay and beef satay. The skewers were evenly prepared with meat and fat and grilled over an open charcoal grill. The meat was smokey and aromatic…
FOODlog #301: Crispy Beef Bulgogi It was my colleagues turn to cook and he cooked 'Beef Bulgogi'. I recently cooked it was well but my version has a gravy and is more saucy which is great over rice. His version is dryer and has a more fried flavor but equally delicious as well. He first marinated the beef with soy sauce, oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar, apples, pear, pineapples, garlic, onions, and sesame oil. He used a premix that contained all of this and left it to…
FOODlog #302: Garlic Mayo Roasted Chicken & Potatoes The other day I wanted to cook something that I recently discovered that was quite simple yet full of flavor and absolutely delicious. I made roast chicken thighs all in one pan including the vegetables. This makes not only prep easy but clean-up super easy as well with minimal cleaning to do. For the marinade of the chicken, it's super easy. It only has 4 ingredients which is white pepper, garlic, mayonnaise. and salt.…
FOODlog #303: Fettuccine with Creamy Chicken & Mushroom Sauce It was my turn to cook the staff meal so I made a creamy pasta dish for everyone. It's often called 'carbonara' here in Malaysia but it's definitely not carbonara although everyone in Malaysia is more familiar to this as carbonara than actual carbonara sauce. So anyway, here's how I made it. The sauce is made with a roux of butter, flour, and milk. I normally go with 1 liter of milk and 1:10 of that in butter and…
FOODlog #304: Quarter Pounder Burger Last Dance McDonald's here in Malaysia is discontinuing the Quarter Pounder after decades of it being on the menu. They haven't announced when is the final day so I guess it's until they run out of it and they aren't gonna restock the ingredients that has to do with the item. I normally don't go for the Quarter Pounder as I prefer the double cheeseburger. Reason is because the Quarter Pounder has raw onions in it and I don't like the…
FOODlog #305: Chili Oil Chicken Wings The other day for our staff meal, my Filipino colleague cooked something so delicious I can't even think of what went into the dish. He made a chili oil or at least that's what we're calling it because it was so much better than any chili oil I've ever had in my life. It had so much flavor and umami that could've made anything it was cooked with super delicious. He made 2 dishes using that oil. Chicken wings and eggplant. For the wings…
FOODlog #306: 4-Generations Old 'Popiah' Wrap Recipe It was my Dad's birthday the other day and my Mum cooked us one of her specialties called - Popiah. It's a wrap that has jacima as it's filling and are either raw or it's cooked. My Mum's version however is stewed and supposed to be cooked for at least an hour or more. Most places don't cook it that long which does makes a difference. My Mum's version is so good, I never order 'Popiah' from stalls outside. This dish is…
FOODlog #307: Bangers & Mash The other day we had lots of leftover of white button mushrooms and needed to use them before they spoil. My colleague cooked bangers and mash for our staff meal and it was delicious! He bought some footlong chicken sausages and made a mash from those instant mash potatoes that the likes of fast food places use. It also came with a premix brown sauce but we added the button mushrooms into it that give it a more earthy flavor. For the bangers, he…
FOODlog #308: Date Night with Wife It's been awhile since me and my wife went out on a date just the two of us. Having two kids, all dates have included them in one way or another, so it was a rare and nice time spent together with my wife. We went out for dinner at a nearby mall and tried out some food that we don't normally get to eat coz we're always thinking of the kids and what food they like to eat. Anyway, we went to 2 different places. Our first stop was a middle…
FOODlog #309: Typical Malaysian Supper It's been awhile since I have had supper. I used to go for supper a lot during my teenage and early 20s but haven't since I've become a dad. So this was a nice time spent with one my friends who is still single. Went for supper on Saturday after music practice at church to a place nearby that serves local late night food. I ordered 'Maggi goreng' which is a instant noodles dish that's stir fried with various vegetables like onions,…
FOODlog #310: Mee Raja (King Noodles) This place called 'Murni' that's a well known eatery in PJ SS2 recently opened a branch outlet at Palette Danau Kota. I haven't been to Murni in over a decade so I went to their new outlet the other day with some friends. I ordered their signature 'Mee Raja' which translates to King's Noodles. It's stir fried noodles with some vegetables like cabbage and although it looks light and plain in color, the flavors are really nice. I got mine…
FOODlog #311: Spaghetti Putanesca Our cafe is in the midst of revamping the menu or more accurately, crafting a new menu from scratch. Me and the other kitchen crew members have been doing R&D and crafting out this entirely new menu for the past few weeks. Here's one of the new items on our menu that we'll be serving called - Spaghetti Putanesca. Spaghetti puttanesca is a traditional Italian pasta dish that is known for its rich and robust flavors. The name "puttanesca" is…
FOODlog #312: Cheeseburger R&D Being in a R&D phase of creating a new menu from scratch at the cafe, I've been tasked with creating a beef cheeseburger. I used to run a few burger restaurant and a catering business so I guess that's why my head chef assigned me this burger task. I made 3 different types of Burgers to test and taste: 1. Classic Cheeseburger All the burgers are using an 80:20 ratio lean ground beef to fat ratio. I sear them over a flat top and topped with a…
FOODlog #313: Fire Roasted Chicken & Cherry Tomatoes One of the best meals I ate that my Filipino cooked recently was a chicken dish that he cooked. He used chicken legs and thighs to make this dish which had a really tender and juicy outcome compare if you would use chicken breast. He started with cooking white button mushrooms with a chili oil that he made with cumin seeds, coriander seeds, sichuan peppercorns, black peppercorns, garlic, and ginger. He added 2 cinnamon…
FOODlog #314: Spicy Ramyeon with Beef Pastrami Sometimes at work, for our staff meal, we cook instant noodles for our lunch and add some ingredients to make it look like a fancy ramen. We love noodles and every week we tend to have at least a day where we have some sort of noodle dish. Either we make our own bowl of broth to pair with noodles or we use instant ramen and give it our own toppings of choice which is often whatever ingredients we have at the store. This time we…
FOODlog #315: Chef's Breakfast At our cafe, we have a budget of RM60 (<USD 15) for our staff meals. This is to feed around 4-6 people per day and we normally are within the budget with about RM10-15 to spare. In USD it looks like it's very limited for the number of pax eating but here in Malaysia, you definitely can get pretty decent food at that amount especially if you cook the meal yourself. So for breakfast, we have a variety of things we normally have. Either food stock…
FOODlog #316: Bangers & Mash with Broccoli Salad Recently one of my colleagues who loves history especially the war and conquest side of things, cooked some bangers and mash. The correlation is that this is a dish that was created during the war period of the English empire. People were poor and resources was scarce but people still wanted their meat and potatoes hence, sausages with fillers and mash potatoes. This is the second time he's making it in two weeks but made some…
FOODlog #317: High School Friend's Wedding Had a friend from high school get married the other day. Attended his weeding with some other friends and got to see lots of high school friends that I haven't seen in a long time. Managed to catch up and chat with a few of them which was really great. It was a beautiful wedding with lots of laughter and celebration. The door gift was a really nice piece of artistic touch. It was a medieval looking key with a nice note on it and a…
FOODlog #318: Thai Green Curry & Coconut Salad with Mince Chicken Went to this new Thai place that opened at a local Mall nearby where I live. It used to be another shop that I really liked their food but they closed down and was replaced by this new Thai place. So it's my first time trying it out and ordered 2 different dishes for myself and my wife. We ordered their Thai green curry with chicken and a coconut salad with minced chicken. The green curry was quite delicious…
FOODlog #319: Pork Shoulder Soup Ramen One of the meals I love making is noodle dishes especially a noodle soup with some sort of broth. The other day for the staff meal at the cafe, I made some pork soup ramen. I used a premix herbal bone broth mix that is really nice from 'Hai di lao'. This particular flavor is so far the best on their line of instant soup mix on the shelves. I added in pork shoulder to fortify the soup with stronger and bolder flavors of its bone broth…
FOODlog #320: Malaysian Mix Rice Dishes Sometimes for our staff meal, when we are tired or lazy to cook, we'll go for takeaway instead. We normally go to our usual spot for takeaways which has lots of varieties of dishes to pick and choose from and the price is really reasonable. This time we took a vegetable which is 'kangkung' or also known as water spinach, a spicy tofu dish, and 2 different chicken dishes. One was a rendang chicken dish and another was lemon and chicken.…
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