Simple Cooking Ideas

Pickled papaya is an appetizer that goes well with curry, preserved eggs or add into salads and you can just eat it alone without accompanying any dish. Raw papaya which is just turned pinkish but not ripe yet is more suitable to prepare this pickle.

Ingredients:

1 raw papaya
2 red chillies
2 thin pieces ginger cut into strips
2 tablespoon salt
150 ml vinegar
salt and sugar to taste

Method:

Peel skin and slice the papaya thinly. Season papaya, chillies and ginger with salt and set aside for at least half an hour. Rinse papaya together with chillies and ginger strips. Squeeze out the water and set aside. Mix vinegar, enough sugar and salt to taste. Stand for half aday before serving.

This isn’t your normal lunch treat; it’s a homemade good dessert pizza.

Ingredients:

* find any kind of sprinkles you have
* Chocolate sauce
* Nutella, or custard sauce
* A tortilla

Method;

1. Spread Nutella on a tortilla (you can cook the tortilla if you wish).
2. Put chocolate sauce on it.
3. put on your sprinkles

Tip: Hershey’s chocolate sauce would go great with it.

Nowadays busy moms can cook a dinner in a jiffy when they come back home from work with Maggi ready mixes, In less than half an hour she can prepare her dinner for her family. Here is a simple dish using Maggi Keruntuk paste.

Ingredients:

75 gm Maggi Kerutuk Paste
6 hard-boiled eggs
4 large cooked potatoes, skin removed and cut into half
1 red chilli
1green chilli
1/2 cup thick coconut milk
1/2 cup ready fried shallots
1 1/2 cup water

Method:

Combine Maggi Kerutuk paste with water in a sauce pan over medium heat. Bring to the boil and lower heat and potatoes ,chillies and coconut milk. Simmer and stirring gently for 5 minutes. Add eggs ans stir to combine with the sauce and potatoes. Add fried shallots just before serving.

Salted duck’s eggs are best eaten with plain white rice, rice congee or soup. Here I use salted duck’s eggs prepared in a nyonya style pickle. As the eggs are saltish , you can keep in the refrigerator if cannot finish. This recipe serves 3 to 5 persons.

Ingredients:

5 salted ducked’s eggs, boiled and shelled
2 cucumbers seededand cut to pieces
1 carrot, peeled and cut into strips
2 green chillies , slit
2 red chillies, slit
1 cups vinegar
6 cloves garlics, peeled and sliced
Salt and sugar to taste
1 teaspoon tamarind
4 tablespoon cooking oil
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon mustard

Spices for grinding:

5 dried chillies
1 piece tumeric
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon jintan puteh seeds
1 piece roasted belacan
1 piece sliced ginger
10 shallots

Method:

Dissolve tamarind in vinegar, discarding the seeds. In a pot, heat oil and fry ground spices till fragrant. Stir in salt, sugar and carrots. Keep stirring for a minute. Then add in the eggs, tamarind mixture and mustard. Remove the heat to cool. Stir in the cucumbers, chillies and sliced garlics. Allow to stand for several hours in a cool plce
before eating.

Pajeree is a spicy, sour and sweet taste of pineapple in thick gravy sauce which is just superb when eaten with crispy salted fish, freshly fried from the frying-pan. Well, do try this on a not so busy day.

Ingredients:

1 pineapple, cut in slices
1 coconut- half for the santan and the other half to be make into fried, shredded coconut
1 packet meat curry powder
1 tablespoon jintan mainis (aniseed)
1 inch cinnamon
3 pips garlics
100 gm small shollots to be grinded
5 shallots for fring
1/2 inch ginger
10 dried chillies soaked and claen
1 tablespoon sugar
salt to taste
2 fresh chillies

Method:

Grind the dried chillies and the spices, garlic and small onions. Add in the first coconut milk and the fried coconut and the curry powder. Mix well.

In a sauce pan, fry the shallots for a minute and add the ground ingredients and continue to fry till dry and fragrant. Add in the rest of the coconut milk and the pineapple.. Simmer over low heat until the pineapple is cooked and the gravy thicken. Put in the sugar, salt, cloves and the fresh chillies. Continue to simmer for further 5 minutes. Remove and serve.

Here is a good chance to use up empty jam bottles, you have been keeping in the cabinet. This pineapple chutney is an appetizer. It goes well with roasted meat and curries.

Ingredients:

2 cups pineapple. finely diced
2 green apples, skinned, cored and diced
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 1/2 cups sugar
12 dried chilles, seeded
1 inch piece ginger
2 pips garlic
1 teaspoon cinnamon
salt to taste

Method:

Grind the chilles, fresh ginger and garlic finely. Use an enamel pot and add in vinegar, sugar, salt and cinnamon. Bring to a boil.

Add the pineapple, apples and raisins and continue to boil. Stirring often to prevent burnt, and simmer at low heat until thicken. The pineapple will still stay in cubes. Remove from heat and let cool before bottling.

This is a simple yet healthy appetizer.

Soak the cabbage in water for 20 minutes. Rinse the cabbage in filtered water and drain.
Peel and wash the carrots and drain. Soak the green grapes in water for 15 minutes and rub the skin with salt. Rinse and put a side. Prepare the rest of the ingredients as shown below.

Ingredients:

1/2 medium white cabbage - shredded finely
2 carrots - shredded finely
8 tablespoon salad cream
300 gm cooked chicken breast meat - cut into strips
50 gm walnuts - chopped coarsely
50 gm raisins and sultanas
50 gm green grapes, halved and de-stoned

Method:

Make coleslaw by combining the cabbage and carrots with Heinz salad cream.Add the remaining
ingredients and toss the vegetables to mix evenly with the cabbage and carrots. Arrange the
green grapes around the salad plate.