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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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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11 Dec 2022

Roti Paung Terengganu

By Faizah

When I was younger, afternoon tea was pretty much a daily routine.  Mummy would drive out (practically every place in Kuala Terengganu was only a 5 minutes’ drive away) and buy cakes or snacks for our afternoon tea, such as banana fritters, traditional Malay kuih, and occasionally, freshly baked roti paung.  A favorite place for us to buy roti paung was a stall at a specific Shell station on the road towards Chendering from Batu Burok.  I can’t remember the exact address now.

Nowadays I very rarely return to my hometown, and sadly, I never see roti paung anywhere here.  So, I decided to try making my own.  I’ve experimented with several recipes, and finally came up with my own version here.   Soft and fluffy, I finally get to savor a taste of home.  Enjoy!

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11 Dec 2022

Christmas Roast Duck

By Faizah

This amazing Western-style roast duck by Jamie Oliver has been my go-to recipe whenever I feel like having duck at home. I recently made this for our usual end of year get-together in place of turkey, due to a complete shortage of turkey in the market this year. I’ve updated the recipe with some improvements on the method to reduce handling time and utensils used.

Duck fat roast potatoes: to die for. Reserve the carcass to make lovely duck stock.

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04 Dec 2022

Chocolate Swirl Bread

By Faizah

When I was a kid, there was a local bakery which sold a two-colored white and chocolate bread loaf, a ‘chocolate swirl bread’, so to speak. We called it ‘roti kahwin’ (literally translates to ‘married bread’) at home, for some reason. This was a misnomer, as roti kahwin usually refers to two pieces of bread filled with butter and kaya.

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