Spicy Sardine Puff Pastry

It is not a bad idea to keep some puff pastry in the freezer when it goes on sales.  It can make for a really quick snack or emergency finger food or appetizer.  Not a bad idea to have few canned of tomato sardine in the pantry for cases like this as well.  I always loved the spicy sardine filling, it was a flavor that I grew up loving and still love.  Too bad Evy didn't like the sardine filling, so Edda and I had most of it. :-P

This is one snack that is really easy to make with the frozen puff pastry.  You can get creative with all sort of fillings that you could imagine.  For example, curry chicken with potato, tuna, apple, kaya, red bean paste, nutella, cherry, strawberry, char siew, etc.  As long as you can imagine it, you can make it!

Ingredients:

1 sheet of frozen puff pastry, thaw in room temperature for 40 minutes.

1 egg + 1 tsp. water for egg wash

Sardine Filling:

1 small canned of tomato sardine, drain

1 big shallot, minced

1 Tbsp. key lime juice

1 Tbsp. ketchup

2 Tbsp. Maggi sweet chili sauce

1.  Cut the thawed puff pastry into 9 square pieces.  Mix the filling ingredients into a bowl.  Use a small roller and roll the puff pastry into a slightly bigger square, fill in the filling and seal it with a fork, like picture above.

 

2.  Brush the top with egg wash.  Bake in preheated 400'F oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

But OOPS!!  Why my filling came out during baking?  But never mind, let it cool and just stuff the filling in using a teaspoon.  Do you think is because I put too much filling?  Because I thought I sealed it pretty well.

Crunchy Baked Chicken Strips

I was inspired by Gert and decided to make my own version. I have some leftover whole grain cereal with oats and almonds that no one wants to eat anymore so I thought this would be the perfect crispy coating for my chicken strips. If you have any cereal left at home, use it to coat your chicken, it is the perfect way to use it up. I used very simple seasoning grinders that I have at home, you can season yours however you liked too. My cereal is slightly sweet so my baked chicken strips turned out to be crunchy sweet. It's good eating like this without any dipping sauce. My girls totally loved it. Crunchy Crunch and Crispy Crisp!



Ingredients:

2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, cut into strips
(A)
Olive oil
Italian herbs seasoning grinder
Spicy sea salt grinder
Steakhouse seasoning grinder
Paprika
Kosher salt
(B)
Cereal (cornflakes type) of your choice (mine has almonds, oats and cornflakes in it), crushed

Method:

1. In a bowl, add in chicken strips and (A). Stir with a spoon to mix well and let it marinade overnight (or few hours) in the refrigerator.

2. Preheat oven to 400'F. Prepare a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Spray the foil with canola oil spray. Set aside.

3. In another plate, add the crushed cereal. Use your hand to take a piece of the chicken strip and coat it well with the crushed cereal and place it on the greased foil pan. Finish all the chicken strips.

4. Bake in preheated 400'F oven for 10 minutes. Serve hot or warm.

I am also submitting my recipe to the Original Recipe event hosted by Lore at Culinarty. Check out others' recipes at the third week of the month.

CNY Potluck Party, 2008

I had a potluck party at my house on Feb 10th. Sharing some food pictures here. It turned out to be a good gathering. Great food and met some new faces too.


The spread.

Highlight some of the dishes here:

My mixed vegetable with fa cai.


My sambal cutterfish and shrimps.


Y's store-bought good looking roasted duck.


Am's homemade yummy jiaozi (she is from China).


M's delicious dry chicken curry.


Su's Mushrooms with Bok Choys.


Sh's Fried Noodle.


T's store-bought orange chicken.

The below came late thus didn't make it in the 1st. picture:

Sa's oyster sauce veggie.

Sa's potstickers.

Sh's yummy egg tarts, my steamed cassava kuih and red bean nian gao.

My Nian Nian You Yu Agar-agar.

Su's Kuih Salat.

You guys should recognize this right? :P

Snack containers.

Look at all the shoes!!!

Edda's Birthday Party (Part 1)

My little girl turned one year old few days ago. I had a birthday party for her because turning one is special for Chinese. So, I invited a couple of my friends to celebrate with us. Sharing some pictures of what I cooked with my readers here.

I learned a lesson from Evy's birthday. That is not to wait until the last minute to stir-fry because I was still cooking when my guests showed up and I had to finish cooking and setting the table in front of my guests. So, for this I told myself I got to get everything done before my guests arrived. So this time, I got everything cooked two hours prior and keep warm in my oven ready to bring out 5 minutes before the designated time. However, I also learned a new lesson with this arrangement, will spill in my part 2 post when I show the close up of my dishes.


The spread without the cheese pizza (still baking in the oven)


Another view of the spread


Dessert section: pandan cream cheese pound cake, strawberry butter cake, brownie (can see from the 1st. picture), kuih bingka ubi and mixed fruit konnyaku jelly.


Party table with goodies bags for the kids, red eggs for each family to take home and snack.


The red eggs gift bags for adults


Mixed fruit konnyaku jelly in assorted fish molds. My girlfriend A got this for me from M'sia, nice right? :)


The Pandan cream cheese pound cake. Recipe here, just used pandan paste instead of green tea powder. And yes, thanks for the tips from my readers, my cake turned out beautiful from the bundt pan.


Edda's birthday cake. I used this for the chocolate cake and as for the frosting, will post it in another post. Stay tuned!

Edda's Birthday Party (Part 2)

Stir-fried Udon Noodle Asian Style with Chinese Mushroom


Fried Spicy Mee Siam Malaysian Style


Delimas Chicken Curry with Potatoes. You can buy the Delimas Chicken Curry Paste here. Very easy, just add chicken, potatoes and coconut milk. Taste just like the Malaysian curry without all the work.


Claypot Beef Rendang, can also see it here. Oops! I forgot to add kaffir lime leaves. Anyway, you can buy it at MyTOA. But I think it's currently out of stock since I couldn't find it. Just check back often for new stock. For this, even easier, just add beef! I simmered this for a tad too long and some of the beef were broken into pieces. Well, at least it showed how tender the beef is.

Mixed Vegetable. I made a mistake of putting it in the oven to keep warm for 2 hours. Why? Because my broccoli turned soft instead of crunchy (the way I like it) and also it lost the vibrant green color and turned a bit yellow. Learned a lesson here, never put your veggie to keep warm in the oven. Half an hour should be fine, just not two hours. So, this is the new lesson learned.

Easy Stir-Fried Shrimps with sweet soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil and black pepper. I just sprinkled some dried parsley for decoration. This dish which I whipped out while cooking, just an okay dish for my standard. I think I shouldn't add rice wine since the smell is pretty strong.

Lastly, Edda smiling for the camera before lighting the candle and singing the birthday song. Happy One Year Old my little girl! Ugh, why she got rabbit ears? :P

Evy's 3rd Birthday Celebration

This year for Evy birthday I had a little party for her over the weekend, only invited 4 little girls about her age and their parents. It took me two days to prepare the food but I had fun. I hope they enjoyed the food! :)

I made her this birthday cake, but my chocolate fudge didn't set in the middle! :( First time making fudge, very amatuer!

Children table with her Dora theme.

Nasi Lemak and Beef Rendang

Noodle, Soy Sauce Chicken Wings & Spice Chicken Wings

Appertizer & Dessert

The Vegetarian Noodle

Claypot Beef Rendang, I added the Kaffir Lime Leaves

Sambal Ikan Bilis for the Nasi Lemak

Spice Chicken Wings

When my mom see the spread, she will say, " Aiya, you should spend your time holding Edda instead of making all these food!" LOL!!