Fried Hawaiian Plantain

I had a big discovery yesterday while shopping at our local Asian grocery store. I saw this incredibly huge banana-like fruit in the fruit/vege section. Apparently not a lot of people had seen this type of banana before. We had a mini-size crowd around the banana and asking what was that? :) It turned out that this huge banana is a type of Hawaiian plantain. I certainly never came across it during my trips to Maui and Oahu last time. Surely, I grabbed one huge one right away. LOL

I turned this Hawaiian plantain into yummy fried plantain snack this afternoon by dipping it in the home-made flour/egg/sugar batter. To finish it up, I lightly powdered the fried plantain with some powder sugar and some maple syrup drizzles. The results was, YUM.

Mooncake

Mid-autumn Festival or Mooncake Festival falls on October 3th of this year. Mooncake festival is like the Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. Normally you celebrate the festival with your family and friends with food. Of course, most common snack/pastry you enjoy during the festival is the mooncake.

We bought a set of mooncake (x4) made in Malaysia over the Internet a couple of weeks ago. I miss the simple taste of Malaysian mooncake with salty egg yolk inside. This set of mooncake is delicious! We have been savoring it since a week ago by cutting the mooncake into thin slices (calories distribution). LOL

If you come across some mooncakes in your local Asian store, you can get one and try it out! Most of them are from Hong Kong, China or Taiwan. If you would like to try out some Malaysian mooncake, let me know. :)

Banana Walnut Muffin

I love banana muffin and banana bread! I have a wonderful, irresistible, simple and yummy banana bread recipe. This recipe is a keeper! Today I try to use the same recipe to make some muffins. The results was great with shorter baking time! The perfect 30 minutes baking.
(12 muffins or 1 banana bread loaf)
Ingredient:

• 4 ripe bananas - smashed
• 1/4 cup walnuts
  
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar (I reduced it to only 1/2 cup)
  
• 1 medium egg
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder (*optional)
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Method:
1) Preheat the oven at 350F
2) Mix melted butter wit smashed banana in the mixing bowl
3) Mix in the sugar, egg, cinnamon powder and vanilla
4) Mix in baking soda and salt over the batter
5) Add flour to the batter
6) Fold in walnuts to the batter using a plastic spoon
7) Spoon batter into a dozen muffin tray OR a 4x8 in loaf pan (buttered pan)
8) Bake for 20 min till golden brown for muffin OR 1 hour for banana loaf
9) Remove from oven to cool

Enjoy your banana muffin over a cup of coffee or milk-tea! :)

Chile Verde Burritos

I made two delicious burritos out of the left over chile verde from yesterday. You can easily make your own burritos at home. All you need is a few key ingredients - poultry, beans, rice, cheese (of course!) and some vegetable based on your preferences. Tonight, I wrapped the burritos with shredded chile verde (pork), white rice, and some Monterrey Jack cheese. It was a scrumptious meal for J! Yum.

New Mexico Chili Verde

Entering my 4th year of living in Arizona, I am becoming more familiar to a huge variety of Southwestern New Mexican/Mexican dishes. It does take me a while to learn some basic Spanish named Mexican food and the cooking ingredient!

About two years ago, J received a wonderful Southwest - The Beautiful Cookbook in one of the school parties. We never tried to make any food out of the cookbook before. I was always attracted to the beautifully taken pictures and well-described Southwestern food history from the cookbook. (see picture)

I tried one of its recipes today - New Mexico Chile Verde. In Southwest, you can enjoy a bowl of hearty chile verde with almost anything from warm tortillas to rice! This recipe is a keeper. :)


Ingredient:
3 tablespoons bacon fat or vegetable oil
1 cup chopped onions
2 lb lean pork, cut into cubes
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 tablespoon cumin
2 garlic cloves, minced
10 New Mexico green or Anaheim chilies, roasted, peeled, cored, seeded and diced
3 cups chicken stock or water
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Method:
1) In a large, heavy pot, heat the bacon fat or oil over medium-low heat.
2) Saute onions until soft, about 5 minutes
3) Add the pork cubes and cook, stirring, for another 5 minutes or until the meat loses its pink color
4) Sprinkle the flour over the pork and onions, raise heat slightly and cook until the pork is browned and the onions are golden.
5) Stir in cumin, garlic and chilies, mixing well.
6) Slowly add the boiling stock or water and stir until well incorporated.
7) Add salt and peper.
8) Lower heat and simmer, uncovered, until the meat is tender, about 1 1/2 - 2 hour.
9) Serve with warm tortillas.

Enjoy!

Madeleines

I always like this little French pastry - Madeleines since I moved to the Western world. It comes in different sizes - from tiny little one to as large as your palm. Somehow I think that its seashell shape makes this little pastry looks more attractive! It is definitely a good pastry to go with your afternoon tea or coffee. :)

I came across this seemingly easy to make recipe from My Kitchen Snippets a few weeks ago. If you look carefully (LOL quite easy to spot actually), you can see some tiny holes on my madeleine's surface. I think that was due to the fact that I didn't let my batter 'sit' for a bit before I put the batch in the oven (to let the air rises to surface). Oh well, I tried to disguise it with a lot of powder sugar! :)

Ingredient:
8 tbsp of melted butter
1/2 cup of flour
1/2 cup of cake flour
Pinch of salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup of sugar
1 tsp of vanilla
Grated zest of 1 lemon or orange
Powder sugar

Method:
1) Pre-heat over to 375 F, Butter and lightly flour the Madeleine pan.
2) Beat eggs, sugar together until pale and foamy
3) Add in vanilla and lemon/orange zest, then the flour and salt. Beat until just combined.
4) In a low speed, pour in melted butter
5) Spoon batter into madeleine pan, let the batter sits in the pan for 10 minutes
6) Bake for 8-10 minutes until its golden brown.
7) Turn over immediately onto cooling rack.
8) Dust with some powder sugar.

Enjoy!

Butter Cookies

I made a batch of butter cookies about a month ago for J and my good friend - P. The cookies turned out very delicious with buttery smell and taste. I adopted a recipe from Dailydelicious's blog.

I sprinkled some sugar on top of the cookies. The taste of this yummy cookies reminded me of the Danish cookies that my family used to get when we were little. You can make the cookies into different shape. It will be a great little gift idea for your friends and family too!

Enjoy!