Red Curry of Duck & Pineapple

It has been awhile since I’ve updated this blog. I have to admit life has once again taken over to a point where I’ve lost the love for simple pleasures like cooking and baking. I did at one stage consider shutting down this blog but this blog has been my pride and my baby for 2 years and to shut it felt like a waste. Yet maintaining it seemed more and more like a chore than a joy. Torn….that’s how I feel!

Today I was talking to Li San and she was asking advice about Malaysian dishes. I told her to come here and get the recipes she wanted and she said to me “It’s such a waste you aren’t maintaining it! All those nice food!” I thought about it and felt that in so many ways she’s right. Food – the soul to many lives and the thing that brings people together. I’ve realised in my hastiness to seek the material wealth of this world, I’d forgotten what it was like to run hot water over fresh herbs, to smell curry simmering away on the stove and to fill the house with the fragrance of apple pie coming from the oven. Perhaps it is time to return again…perhaps it’s time to say I will learn to have days off and enjoy what has always been my passion and love…perhaps it’s time….

This dish here was a beautiful curry inspired by a recipe in Australian Gourmet Traveller. It was done a couple months ago on one of my cooking sprees, photos were posted on Flickr! but never made its way here till today. I hope you’ll enjoy it every bit we did 🙂 .

Red Curry of Duck & Pineapple

(Adapted and modified from Australian Gourmet Traveller November 2008)

Ingredients:

• 250ml coconut cream
• 60ml vegetable oil
• 200gm good quality red curry paste
• 2 dried limes (in replacement of 4 kaffir lime leaves)
• 60ml fish sauce
• 2tbsp brown sugar
• 500ml coconut milk
• 1 Chinese roast duck, boned and cut into chunks
• 3 long red chillies, halved lengthways, seeds removed
• 1/2 a pineapple, chopped into chunks
• Handful of Thai basil
• Lime, to squeeze

Method:

• Bring the coconut cream and vegetable oil to boil in a pan over high heat. Stir constantly to prevent from burning.
• When the coconut cream ‘splits’ (the oil separates from the solids), add the curry paste.
• Crush the dried limes in your hand and add to the pan, frying till aromas rise from the pan and it is sizzling fiercely. This will take approximately 10-15 minutes.
• Add the fish sauce and cook for approximately 1 minute. Then add sugar and remaining coconut milk. Bring to the boil.
• Add duck and chillies and simmer gently over low-medium heat. Then add in pineapple.
• Stir in basil and squeeze with lime juice just before serving.

Chinese New Year Cookies – Pineapple Tarts

Well, I believe it would be appropriate for me to wish all chinese out there a Prosperous Year of the tiger! Belated as this post and the few to follow is, well you know, as the saying goes, “Better late than never!”

I have to say that pineapple tarts are probably my all time favourite CNY cookie. My mum, from the time I could remember, was an avid baker and this was even more apparent when CNY beckons around the corner. My sis and I used to hate CNY as it meant that the weeks leading up to it, we’d both be forced to stay at home and help make cookies. Now, all I have for myself are memories of our cookie making sessions and of course, a batch of these yummy homemade cookies!! 🙂

Pineapple Jam

Ingredients:

• 4 large pineapples
• Raw sugar, to taste
• 4 -6 cloves

Method:

• Remove pineapple skin and cut pineapple into rough pieces.
• Blend pineapple with a little bit of water.
• Run it through a sift, but not till all liquid is drained off. Leave pulp a little moist as this would help jam stay moist when cooking.
• Put all pulp in a large pot or frying pan. Cook over medium-high heat. Add cloves and sugar according to taste.
• Reduce heat and cook over medium-low heat till jam is semi-dry. Leave it to cool and dry overnight. Jam will dry up substantially and ready to be used for tarts.
• Roll jam into little balls to be used for tarts.

Pineapple Tarts

Ingredients:

• 370 gms all purpose flour
• 250 gms butter
• 50 gms icing sugar
• 20 gms corn flour
• 2 egg yolk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
• Add in egg yolks and vanilla essence and beat for a minute or two.
• Add in sifted flour and corn flour to egg mixture.
• Press the dough through a mould. Trim edges if need be.
• Place a jam ball on top and roll up the dough (like a roulade).
• Gently tuck in edges and press to seal it. Trim off excessive dough, place on tray and bake till golden brown.

Peanut Cookies

These are definitely the perfect melt-in-your-mouth cookies! A glass of milk in one hand, a jar of cookies in another and you have the perfect afternoon tea!!

Ingredients:

• 250 gms peanuts, roasted and finely grounded
• 250 gms icing sugar
• 375 gms plain flour, sifted
• 1  1/4 cups peanut oil (you can use others if you don’t have peanut oil)
• 1 egg yolk, beaten for glazing
• 60 gms peanuts, roasted and chopped coarsely

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• In a large bowl, mix grounded peanuts, sugar and flour together.
• Make a well in the centre, add oil to achieve the right consistency for rolling.
• Roll into balls. Place on tray and flatten slightly. Glaze with egg yolk.
• Press a piece of chopped peanut in the centre of each.
• Bake till golden brown.