During the recent long weekend, I wanted to cook nasi lemak so Saliheen and I made it for our friends who came over for movie night! I figured it wouldn't be too difficult, just leceh because got so many components.

In the end everything turned out great except our nasi!!!!! BARANG PALING PENTING SEH. The rice was lemak and sedap ah but the texture was all wrong because lembik. We did the rice in two batches, both times the nasi lembik. Letak kat tengah tengah Sahara desert pun belum tentu boleh kering beb.

But lembik tak apa, asalkan dalam Instagram tak nampak :P

Clock-wise: Ayam goreng, ikan bilis, sambal sotong, sambal petai, timun, sambal manis, telur dadar and of course, the lembik but Instagrammable nasi lemak :P Nasib baik masih boleh makan because the taste was right and went well with the other dishes. Just the texture je yang off.

We watched 'The Usual Suspects' after our nasi lemak dinner and it was so, so good! I've been trying to watch cult classic movies as part of my personal 30 before 30 project so this was a great start. I've taken an interest for American pop culture so this is also me trying to "complete" that interest.

It sucks when an article/someone makes a reference and I don't understand/appreciate it because I didn't watch a particular movie or TV show! Now whenever someone says "Who is Keyser Soze?" I can reply with "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist" :P

My favourite scene is the famous line-up scene, of course... I still can't believe the lines were ad-libbed!

Saliheen and I also watched 'Goodfellas' on our own the day after that and it was so good too!!! Especially when you know it is based on a true story wtf. I've read Bryan Burrough's Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI 1933 - 1934 and have some knowledge on Depression-era criminals and how the FBI started because of that era so this is a continuation/extension of that? Now I've been reading about the Mafia non-stop! (And lots of movie trivia, of course. Haha)

Also helps that the setting is in New York City, it is fascinating to imagine how the city was like decades ago and spot familiar things since we've been to the city! The next NYC-based classic movie I want to watch is Taxi Driver, which is about a lonely and depressed former US Marine who becomes a taxi driver in NYC. About time I know the context of Robert DeNiro's iconic "You talkin' to me?" line in the movie, amirite? 

We're also going to watch The Godfather for our next movie night with friends so let's see what the hype is all about, and why Saliheen was so obsessed, he wanted to use The Godfather's soundtrack as our wedding dinner walk-in. Kau pikir kau mob boss ke ape sak. Suruh park motor sembarang bila takde proper parking lot je kau punya jari dah terketar ketar, nak perasan kau Don konon.

Roll Over The Ocean! Roll Over The Sea!

What do you do when you start missing food you had while on holiday? 
You (try and) recreate it in your own kitchen, of course.
Well, you could also fly over to the country which sells the food that you're craving for but I am not a Kardashian and don't have that fly-halfway-across-the-world-at-short-notice kind of money lying around my house so I'll stick to recreating food in my kitchen, thank you very nice! I've done it before, anyway - recreate food from my holidays, I mean - and I really do enjoy it very much.  Except when I fail miserably, like when I tried to recreate the vegetarian dumplings called Pierogi we had in Poland and it ended up looking and tasting like lumps of kerbau shit instead. Not like I know how kerbau shit tastes like la, I'm not that adventurous sampai makan najis (what would the halal police say, gasp!), but I imagine kerbau shit would taste as bad as that haha.
Anyway, I started missing the lobster rolls from Luke's Lobster after blogging about it a few weeks ago then kebetulan Sorted Food (one of my favourite cooking channels) posted an episode on Lobster Rolls!!!!! You can watch it here. 
I used most of the ingredients listed in their recipe but changed some of the quantity depending on taste, I didn't follow the exact order of putting in ingredients, and I also didn't go through the tedious steps of removing the meat from the lobster! I bought lobster meat (already peeled from its shell) because I am not only lazy, I am also smart. I mean...... who ask you go peel yourself, right?!?!?! Just buy the peeled lobster meat off the shelf la!!!!! How, is that smart or not.
I got the lobster meat from the Adam Halal store opposite my flat at S$25 per tray, by the way. I don't know if Eating Crabs sells lobster meat in the same form as well, but I guess no harm asking if you want to try out this recipe. 
This recipe is ridiculously simple for something so delicious!!!!! I prefer the mayonnaise sauce version whereas Saliheen prefers the hot butter sauce version - I think I would've liked the hot butter one better if I didn't overcook the lobster meat (you can see this happening in the video above). Really quite unfortunate lobster meat is freaking expensive though, or else, I'd make this a regular staple for when family and/or friends come over. Fancy siol kalau serve lobster everytime tetamu datang rumah! Semua kena datang pakai ballgown and tuxedo ah gitu hahaha.
P.S. I recently found out Luke's Lobster and Magnolia Bakery have outlets in Tokyo so YESSAH!!! Actually, a lot of places that we went to in NYC have considerable presence in Tokyo seh, including the Statue of Liberty kwa kwa kwaaa.

This Shit is Bananas

2 months after I baked my first banana bread, I decided to try another recipe but this time, one that has chocolate in it! I enjoy makings things with bananas because they're so versatile and memang boleh kahwin ramai - dorang boleh kahwin dengan ice cream... boleh kahwin dengan all types of kacang... boleh kahwin dengan waffles... boleh kahwin dengan oatmeal... boleh kahwin dengan chocolate...

Anyway, I baked this beauty last weekend and even though it turned out pretty delicious in the end, I actually tersalah tengok recipe and mashed in 8 bananas instead of the recipe's recommended 3 HAHAHAHAHA. Asal tak masukkan pokok pisang sebatang sekali HAHAHAHAHA

This is what happens when a grandma like me tries to ikut ikut a hipster video tutorial!!!!! To be fair, the font used was too cursive okay!!! I looked at the text to confirm my ingredients while baking, and not the items itself k - I know, I know, there are obviously 3 large bananas inside the video haiz.

But whatevz - this recipe is damn awesome, anyway. Couldn't stop licking the batter off my fingers! Of course next time I will use 3 large bananas instead of 8 (so it will have a bread texture instead of a jemput jemput texture hahaha), and I think I'd prefer it with half the recommended amount of chocolate instead.

Here is the said hipster recipe tutorial, for your cold Sunday mornings:

Masam Manis Lemon Meringue Pie

After trying the meringue cookies I baked some time ago, Saliheen requested for a lemon meringue pie because he is a fan of one! I found a recipe which looked simple enough and this was how mine turned out:

We loved the taste and texture of the crust and the fluffiness of the meringue! Unfortunately, the lemon filling was terlalu sweet so we ended up scrapping off half of the filling from each slice haha. Nasib baik the tanginess was just nice.

I made it for the second time days later but my crust wasn't as sturdy and the filling tasted... flat. Meh. I think I rushed through it the second time round. Oh, and another thing that I should learn how to do: how to level the filling and meringue equally so the cross section will look rata.

I really like this recipe though, and bookmarking it for the keeps! Here's the tutorial, be prepared to chuckle because the frenchie in this video is so adorable. And if you're giving this recipe a go, I suggest to kurangkan the sugar if you like your desserts less potong kaki:

Actually there are other easier recipes yang play cheat pakai digestive biscuits for the crust like this one, but Saliheen wanted one made from scratch so *rolls eyes* buat jelah, perintah suami kan HAHAHA. Apalah nasib aku dapat lelaki cerewet bila part masak and part makan ni.

Ayam Bermacam Ayam

From top to bottom: Ayam masak kicap, sup ayam and ayam lemak cili padi ♥

One of the things I janji myself once I get my own home was to learn my mum's lauk recipes! I am now happy to report that I have kept that promise to myself hehe. Tapi ni baru the ayam dishes je lah, I'm tackling my mum's recipes for beef and sotong dishes over the next few weeks pulak.

Saliheen didn't understand why I was so desperate about trying to cook my mum's recipes at first - he insisted he is perfectly fine with quick stir-fried meat and/or noodles and didn't want to menyusahkan my hidup by making me learn how to masak lauk pauk melayu. I think he only got the memo when I started sobbing out the real reason I wanted to learn them so bad: I missed my mum's cooking in my new home T.T

And then there's the more important what if - what if my mum is gone before any of us and my dad and my sisters miss my mum's cooking? What if all of us rindu her and for that one moment just want to rasa her cooking again? I didn't want to be stuck with that possibility and regret not learning how to cook like her.....

Eh apedah, dah letak gambar makanan sedap sedap pastu bukak cerita sedih pulak. Hilang selera. Tak bagus tau nangis depan makanan! (Dengan 'line' mak aku sekali aku dah terbelajar)

Don't want none unless you got buns hun

Saliheen and I made our own bread yesterday! Well, technically they were buns for our mini burgers, which were bloody delish by the way. It all started when we were watching (more like salivating over haha) cooking tutorials on Youtube and we chanced upon one by The Fabulous Baker Brothers:

Changed the lard to ghee, and increased the temperature to 200 - 230 degrees Celsius since the buns weren't cooked as fast with the recommended temperature (100 degrees Celsius) in the tutorial. Probably because The Fabulous Baker Brothers used traditional clay ovens to bake their buns whereas we're using our regular built-in oven at home. 

We had excess dough so we experimented and tried moulding the dough into a muffin tin tray. Good results! In fact the buns you see in the picture above is from the muffin tin tray haha. The ones we laid out on a tray turned out well too, cuma ours were a little too big for the meat patties in the end - note to self: remember that the dough will increase in size so keep them small. 

I'm quite obsessed with the idea of baking banana and walnut/almond bread this weekend pulak (Banana bread is my favourite kind!) and I'm thinking of trying out Nigella Lawson's recipe which can be found here, although hers look more like banana cake? *shrugs* We have plans to visit Saliheen's parents this weekend too so maybe I'll bake one for them. Even if tak menjadi I can roll the batter into balls and say I made jemput jemput pisang lololol sembarang je sial