steamed tiger prawns & trio of pan-fried white pomfret

today's home-cooked dinner!

Dinner on a Sunday evening...

top: stir-fry pork liver with onion, garlic, ginger and spring onions

bottom: chicken cooked in a slow cooker with mushrooms, celery and carrots

Stir-fry Lala

lunch for dad..

Chocolate Chip Cookies

fri - walnut cake
sat - agar agar cheesecake + starry agar agar
today - chocolate chip cookies

WOW! i haven't bake THAT much in a while! phew..

Agar Agar Cheesecake

Recipe can be found at the side menu :)

i was at Sun Lik the other day.. just walking through.. with no intention to buy anything and i found this!!!!!! Oreo crushed cookie bits! As you can see from the price tag, it costs $4.50 for a 454g pkt and so i decided to make (yet another) agar agar cheesecake...

so based on the recipe, we need a block of philly cream cheese...

half tsp of vanilla essence, ~2 tsp gelatine powder.. to my knowledge, there are 2 types of gelatine powder.. one made with beef extract and another is from fish.. you can use either one, up to your preference..

I found this in my cabinet so i used this... you can use any type of fresh fruits that doesn't oxidize easily or other canned fruits..

this is the brand of agar agar i use.. you can use a jelly mix or konnyaku i guess.. i like the crunch of agar agar so opted for this..

This is how the crushed Oreo cookie bits look like.. it's not very fine so perhaps you may wish to pound it further..

combine the melted butter and oreo bits in a bowl.. mix well

Pour the mixture into a pan, press it out evenly on the pan and freeze it.. i used a 8" round springform pan..

 Put the cream cheese and sugar into the mixing bowl..

 Cream it till well-combined..

Add the vanilla essence..

Cream it again..

Add the gelatine mixture into the mixing bowl..

Cream it.. remember to scrap the sides of the bowl..

When the mixture becomes a liquid, it's done!

Take out the pan from the freezer and pour the cream cheese mixture into it..

shake the pan a little so the mixture is smoothed out.. chill in the fridge to let it harden..

once the cream cheese mixture sets, take it out from the fridge and layer the fruits over it..

try to cover the entire surface if possible.. and put the pan back into the fridge.. in the meanwhile, prepare the agar agar according to the instructions on the packet..

 take the pan out from the fridge and slowly pour the agar agar mixture into the pan..

it's up to you how much agar agar to pour.. i like it to cover the entire layer of fruits and a little more over the top.. let it set in the fridge..

and there you have it! as you can tell from the picture, the base isn't very even.. that's because i didn't pound the cookie bits finer.. i used the bits as they were.. so if you would like a more even base, pound it till it's like powdery..

dessert is served :)

Pink Starry Agar Agar (Duo layers)

Each time I make an agar agar cheesecake (pictures coming up!), I always end up w leftover agar agar.. usually i just pour the remaining agar agar into my jelly moulds and let it harden as it is.. yesterday, i decided to do something different with my agar agar.. i split the agar agar mixture into 2 bowls and added some evaporated milk and bandung essence into one bowl.. this creates the obaque pink mixture. so then i added some canned longan (also leftover from making the cheesecake) into each hole in my star mould and filled each hole half full with the clear pink agar agar mixture.. then waited for it to harden slightly before topping up with the obaque pink mixture.. and there you have it, pink starry agar agar in duo layers :)

Kim Chi Jigae

I thought I might as well post the kim chi jigae i made a few days ago.. super easy to make.. all you need is stock and korean chilli paste which is readily available in NTUC! I adapted the recipe from here. 

dad made some sze chuan cai soup the other day and i didn't feel like drinking that so i took some of the soup, added tap water, brought it to a boil and added 1 tbsp of korean chilli paste into the pot and voila! the soup base is completed.. then i added some korean tang hoon, kimchi, sotong balls and an egg.. topped with some coriander and dinner is served!

i know it's weird to use sze chuan cai soup as the base but seriously, i think it doesn't matter.. cos i felt that the korean chilli paste actually overpowers the sze chuan cai taste.. but basically, i'm just lazy to make my own stock from scratch :P 

Korean Instant Noodles

This is really good! It has been quite some time since I ate korean ramen.. this isn't the shin brand and sorry I threw the packaging away before I could take a picture of it! see that slab of dark rectangular thing towards the top right side of the bowl? that's kelp. it came with the noodles and did i mention i am a fan of kelp?? i'm so going to buy a couple more packets next time..

fyi, i bought this ramen from Shine Korea supermarket located at Burlington Square. it's sold at about $1.50 per packet (if i didn't remember wrongly). droolz..