Peas and Bacon Crumble

I've been crumble-topping everything eh? I can't help it! It's super easy, it makes everything tasty... and pretty too! I love it.


Recipe
- 2 heaping tablespoon of all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 1 tsp of grated parmesan
- a bit of sugar, black pepper, nutmeg, grated lemon zest
- 1 small bowl of green peas
- 2 strips of bacon, cut into chunks

In a frying pan, render bacon fat, add peas, mix well and pour into vessel (I chose sturdy paper muffin cups, you can use cute small ramekins). Preheat oven to 200C. Using hands, mix flour, butter, grated parmesan, a bit of sugar, black pepper, nutmeg and grated lemon zest - never mind the chunks. Add on top of the peas and bacon, dump into oven until the top's golden brown.


Yum! Great as a side dish or snack or party food!

Super Easy Mini French Toasts

The first French Toasts I tried was the Hong Kong style golden brown deep fried one. I do love it, but I didn't realize that I'd love these non-deep-fried ones, and they are so simple to make too!

Recipe
(yields 6 mini french toasts. they are very rich and filling tho)
- 1 egg, beaten
- half cup of milk
- 1cm thick slice of butter, cut from 1 stick - melted, and 1 tsp for frying (mixed with cooking oil)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 small mixed grain bun, cut into 1 cm thick pieces

Mix beaten egg, milk, melted butter and sugar, add slices of bread, make sure the bread pieces are fully soaked in the mixture, let them "marinate" for at least 15 minutes. Heat up frying pan with cooking oil and butter, pan fry pieces of bread until golden brown.

You should get very fluffy, creamy, eggy inner part and crispy outer part. Very yum! And as if these aren't sinful enough...I ate mine with peanut butter, cream cheese, and Nutella. Perfect for breakfast or tea time.

Easy Side Dish- Mushroom, Garlic & Butter Rice

Just another easy peasy side dish I like to make when I'm not too lazy to make another one-pot-all-in-one dinner ;)

I normally serve this "fried rice" with a simple meat dish (that night, it was lamb chops grilled with garlic, butter and herbs), love the earthy, garlicky and buttery flavors.

Recipe
- a plate of rice (not too mushy, preferably overnight rice)
- a cup of mushroom of your choice (I used shimeji, because they're cute!)
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- butter, salt and pepper

Saute mushrooms and garlic in butter, add rice, season, mix well and serve.

Gosh I love one-liner recipes :D

My Chicken-Hater Converter: Lemon & Butter Chicken

This is my chicken hater converter dish.

I tried a lot of things to lure my sous chef the chicken hater to love home cooked chicken, from cooking the chicken with minimum herb and spices (no, not chicken sashimi, cooked it with ginger and soy sauce-didn't work), to covering the chicken taste with spices (corriander, chilli, tomatoes, curry, even my beloved kecap manis), distracting attention with low cut tops and mini skirts, nothing worked, the only acceptable chicken dish is anything KFC-esque (nobody loves KFC and deep fried chicken than me, but even I wanted a change, plus, my own selfish reason was: I can't eat deep fried chicken yet as of now-LOL)

I had my plan Q (almost Z), I fancied smothering chicken legs with lemon's strong citrusy scent and ofcourse, the richness scent of butter. Now who wouldn't love that...the dish is as simple as dumping things into the oven, I even threw in zucchini for my daily dose of vegetables, all in 1 pot, and hey! It worked! My sous chef went all finger lickin' and complained that I didn't buy enough chicken legs (fresh chickens are expensive lah!)

Ingredients
- the juice of 2 lemons and some zest (wahahaha depends on how citrusy you want it to be)
- 3 pieces of chicken legs (upper and lower thigh), cut half
- 1 zucchini, half, sliced
- 1 onion, 4 cloves of garlic
- salt, sugar, pepper
- 1 or 2 tbsp of butter, olive oil

Preheat oven to 250C, heat from top only, drizzle a little olive oil at the bottom of the pot, lay zucchini, some onions and garlic, lay chicken pieces of top, skin facing up, put some onions and garlic in between, grate some lemon zest, squeeze in the lemon juice, put some pieces of butter in between the chicken pieces, sprinkle salt, pepper and sugar, dump into the oven until skin is browned, shift the heat to be from both top and bottom (skip this step if you want the zucchini pieces charred). After 1.5 hr, the chicken's skin turned crisp and the meat is super tender. Scoop some of the juices onto the chicken from time to time if you want, to add the extra flavor and moisture onto the chicken skin.


I've successfully recruited my sous chef into my chicken-fanatic-cult. MUHAHAHAHA