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19 Apr 2024

Cheesy Sausage Rolls

By Faizah

I was craving Auntie Anne’s jumbo sausage rolls the other day, so I felt inspired to make cheesy sausage rolls.

The Thought Process

I wanted the bread rolls to be soft and buttery, so I used my roti paung recipe as a base. Here I purposely made them a bit more “junky”, using cheapo Ramly sausages and Chesdale processed cheese slices. However, we can always kick it up a notch and use premium sausages and real cheddar slices if we so choose.

18 Apr 2024

Honey Butter Biscuits (Texas Chicken Copycat)

By Faizah

At one point in 2022, I went into a biscuit-making craze. I made various biscuit recipes, revisiting my Cheesy Garlic Biscuits, as well as trying out Joshua Weissman’s take on Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay Biscuits (But Better). Wondering what else I could try making, I thought about Texas Chicken’s honey butter biscuits. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? After some searching, I landed on a recipe by Let’s Dish as a starting point.

17 Apr 2024

Dynamite Seasoning (Flavor God Copycat Recipe)

By Faizah

Faizal loves a particular spice mix from Flavor God called Dynamite Seasoning. He usually sprinkles generous amounts of it onto chicken wings, then air-fries them. Unfortunately, it seems like this product has been discontinued and no longer available anywhere. So for quite a while, he left the last precious few teaspoons of it untouched, preserving it for the memories.

After we got married, one day when I was wondering what to make for dinner, Faizal suggested I try out the seasoning, and see if I could replicate it. “What an intriguing challenge,” I thought. I made the wings using whatever little that was left of the seasoning, the way he did before. Admittedly, I really skimped on the seasoning. I didn’t have the heart to finish it all off. Perhaps because the chicken was slightly underseasoned, Faizal said they tasted a bit different from what he remembered. Nonetheless, the wings gave me a good picture of what I should aim for.

12 Apr 2024

Pie Susu Bali

By Faizah

I was browsing through my photo gallery looking at my Bali holiday photos, when I came across a photo of the pie susu (milk pies) we got as ole-ole (souvenirs) from there.

Suddenly I had a craving for pie susu, so as always, nak makan, buat sendiri. I looked at a few recipes on Youtube that seem to get good reviews, and after a couple of tries I found one by Nyonya Liem to be the right one for me. The recipe is well-written with exact measurements, the filling to pastry ratio was spot on with no wastages, and I particularly liked that it uses more premium ingredients and doesn’t cut corners.

12 Apr 2024

Chicken Mandy with Rice (Nasi Mandi Ayam)

By Faizah

It’s Ramadan and every few days or so we inevitably end up breaking fast with friends or family at one of the many wonderful iftar sessions, be it at restaurants and five-star hotels. I recently had for a lovely buka puasa with my former colleagues at Dua Sentral, where they brought in some absolutely delicious nasi Arab from Restoran Saba. After having easily two heaping plates of rice and lamb, I felt inspired to try out a Middle Eastern recipe for a change. There are different dishes I could try making – mandy, kabsah, haneeth, among others. Scouring around the Net for a recipe that didn’t seem too daunting, I found one chicken mandy recipe by the Queen of Sheba.

06 Apr 2024

Roti Paung Pandan Kelapa

By Faizah

Some years back, Gardenia released a new fancy bread: Roti Pandan Kelapa. I’ve tried imitating this bread by modifying King Arthur Baking’s Japanese milk bread recipe, and while I was quite happy with the results, it still wasn’t as fluffy and perfect as I would have liked. Having fairly recently perfected my roti paung recipe, and inspired by my butterscotch bread recipe, I thought about having another go at making Roti Pandan Kelapa, by combining the recipe and techniques from both recipes.

13 Jan 2024

Butterscotch Bread

By Faizah

I remember when Gardenia’s Butterscotch bread first came out. People were literally waiting for the bread guy to stock the shelves (I think it was every Wednesday) before snapping them all up like piranhas, and they were gone in a flash. At that point in time I was working in Menara TM, and since I always came in pretty early I had the small advantage of grabbing a couple from the MyNews downstairs first thing in the morning. Lucky me.

Years passed, and the novelty wore off. Until one day, I got to know Faizal and he mentioned how he’d always bring butterscotch bread back to the States whenever he’s here on holiday. We spoke briefly about how I love to bake bread, and he suggested I try figuring out how to make homemade butterscotch bread. Why didn’t I think of this? I made a mental note to seriously give this a shot. Soon after, I found butterscotch chips at Bake With Yen. It’s a sign!

29 Jul 2023

Pizzaman (Japanese Steamed Pizza Buns): Halal Version

By Faizah

I’ve always loved Japan and so many things about it, the language, the culture, and of course their food. Japanese konbini or convenience store food is practically a whole unique segment of Japanese cuisine, and one of their most fascinating food items is pizzaman (a contraction of the words ‘pizza’ and ‘manju’), literally a steamed bun stuffed with pizza-flavored filling.

27 Jul 2023

Italian Sausage: Homemade and Halal

By Faizah

In my earlier days of cooking I focused on one chef in particular – Emeril Lagasse. His recipes often called for Italian, Spanish chorizo or Andouille sausages, and oftentimes I could only obtain Italian sausages at more upmarket grocers like Village Grocer or B.I.G. Even then, there was only one type available, and I couldn’t differentiate between the sweet or hot varieties the recipes called for. Fast forward many years later, when looking at the basic sausage sauce recipe from one of my pizza cookbooks, I decided to make my own Italian sausages.

20 Jul 2023

Sausage McMuffins (Chicken): McDonald’s Copycat

By Faizah

One of my guilty pleasures is the McDonald’s breakfast menu. I particularly like their Sausage McMuffins (even better with egg). But nowadays breakfast ends earlier at 10:30am and I always end up missing the window, and of late I also noticed their sausage patties are insanely salty. It could just be me getting older and my body is instinctively rejecting salt for the sake of my blood pressure, but in any case, I got inspired to make my own.

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