Bailey Chocolate Yoghurt Cup Cake

I just baked some cup cakes last 2 days after i read Angela simple chocolate yoghurt cup cake last week. Pwei told me that she wants to eat some cakes, so we went to supermarket to buy some ingredients like banana, yogurt and chocolate after dinner.

Arrived home, both of us started to work. Pwei smashed the banana while I beat the eggs with sugar. Then we mixed the yoghurt and milk together and combined with the eggs and banana. We folded in the flour and added in Baileys, oil and baking powder. Instead of chocolate powder used by Angela, I used melted cholocolate. It just took 15 minutes to bake the cup cakes and they were very soft and moist inside. Thanks for the recipe, Angela.

New Semester

After 5 weeks of German intensive course in the university and 1 week orientation, my master course will start by next Monday. I hope I can enjoy this course and manage to do well.

Actually I feel so happy that I can get a place in this course because it is very difficult for a foreigner to enter a Master course here. One must pass TestDaF or Goethe Certificate of C1 or DSH (equivalent to Englisch IELTS level). Other requirements are at least 2 years experiences in business field, the Bachelor study must be obtained from a recognized university, 1-2 essays and some recommendation letters from the previous company or previous university. Actually I applied for a few universities here but some of them rejected my application due to the credit point problem. One gained usually 180 credit points in an undergraduate programm here as I just had around 150 points from UTS. I was successfully admitted since UTS is a partner university of university of Hamburg and the programm I studied was recognized here. For the whole Master course, I need to achieve a total of 120 cerdit points, 30 points per semester. This means that I have to take 9 to 10 subjects this semester including 2-3 language modules. Foreigner must attend German language or English course, and German needs to attend English or French or Spanish. Really have to work hard this time.

I am still thinking what is the best way to finish my study on time and I hope that I can go to Shanghai or Denmark or Hanoi for 1 semester to gain another 30 credit points to get the "Asien Europe Management" certificate (AEM). Sure I will go to see my Programm director and the person in charge to get more informations in the next two weeks.

Malaysian Breakfast

On last Sunday before going back to Hamburg, HK prepared me a breakfast that took him more than an hour. We had fried meehun, red bean soup and "Yao Char Kuey". The red bean soup was cooked the night before. On that morning, he only had to fry meehun and the "Yao Char Kuey". The "Yao Char Kuey" are frozen ones. It is really convenient as one just need to frythem for a few minutes before serving and they taste very authentic. There was so much food so our lunch was also meehun, read bean soup and "Yao Char Kuey". Huh... I think I had enough for the moment.

Thai-style Sotong

We wanted to try something else with Sotong instead of always Sambal Sotong. I remembered I tried some cold served Thai-style Sotong before while back in Malaysia. Looking around on the net and found this recipe in an online magazine. Actually, the steps are very simple and very typical in cooking Thai dishes. Since the Sotong will be served cold (of course cooked :P), it is important to wash them properly from the inside out. The cleaned Sotong is then cooked in boiled water and cut into pieces before arranging on a plate. Then it is time to prepare the sauce. This sauce is very similar to the one I used for Thai-style chicken. Combine Thai chili sauce, garlic, chopped onions, chilies, lemon juice, coriander, sugar and fish sauce and mix well. Pour onto the Sotong before serving. It was very appetizing and fresh. It also goes very well with rice surprisingly.

LAKSA oh.... LAKSA

Have been missing this so much. Still remember in my school time, I had one bowl of assam Laksa everyday. Making the Laksa broth needs a number of ingredients that I could not find here. I also can't find the ready mix Laksa paste here, only for Singaporean Laksa with coconut milk which I don't like, I prefer Penang or assam Laksa more.

Few days ago, I found Laksa leaves, that is the most important ingredient for the broth, in the Asian supermarket. I was delighted and wanted to try it out. Though I am missing the ginger flower but I thought we can leave it out and see how it turns out.

To make the broth, I used assam curry paste, normally used for making assam fish head. We added lemongrass, the assam paste, laksa leaves, dried chilies, onions, and ginger and boiled them for half an hour. To replace the kampung fish, we used two cans of sardines with tomato sauce. Boil for another half an hour and that's it.

To serve, we added shreded cucumber, fresh chilies and onions. The taste was very good although it could be more sour, will put more assam paste next time. But at least my desire for Laksa is fulfilled for the moment.

Honey Sesame Chicken Wings

I first tried this in a buffet at a Spanish restaurant some months ago and fall in love in it. At the end, we took a whole plate of the chicken wings to go with beer and cocktails. The waitress was looking at us strangely as we were using our fingers. I tried experimenting since then but could not get the same taste until I found this recipe some days ago and decided to give it a try.

It turned out very tasty and even better than those we ate before. We will definitely cook this again and the chicken wings are good as well as finger snacks. Try it and you will love it ... ...

芋头扣肉

Continuing with my cooking maniac today... Cooked 芋头扣肉 (Taro Yam with Belly pork) for dinner. I tried this many times in Germany. The problem is always finding the right yam for this dish. Until now, I could not find the type we normally used in Malaysia. The closest one available here is something similar to those we have during mid autumn festival, but much larger. They are however not so starchy but still ok. During the last few times, we had the problem that the pork were not tender enough just by steaming it, so we decided to cook the pork with the sauce before. This will also flavor the meat much more intensively. For the sauce, we used red bean curd （南乳），bean paste (豆酱), cooking wine, five spice powder, sugar and some pepper. When the meat is tender enough, arrange the meat and yam in sequence. Pour the source over it and steam for around half and hour to one hour.

It turned out this time that the yam was still a bit too hard though the pork was perfect, tender and very flavory. We will boiled the yam longer next time and the result should be much better!

before steamed

after steamed

三丝面

I tried something new today. Read this recipe sometime before and wanted to give it a try for a long time. In fact I once ate this in Malaysia but forgot where. The most tedious step of this recipe is cutting the ingredients into strips. We used carrots, cabbage, cucumber and fried eggs. HK did all the job and I was responsible for the gravy. It is very similar to the sauce I used for 板面. We minced some pork and chicken meat together and prepared some shitake mushrooms. For the sauce we combined: oyster sauce, soya sauce, thick soya sauce, sugar, salt, pepper, sesame oil and some cooking wine. First the meat and mushrooms were stir fried with garlic and the sauce was added to it. Thickened the sauce with corn starch.

To serve, just put some of the gravy on the noodle. Then add the cut vegetables and eggs at the side. The noodle tasted very fresh and light, some more it is healthy!

Bye Bye Hamburg, Hello Oldenburg

After a few weeks full of stress, finally arrived back in Oldenburg. My German course is ending and I have to write an exam next week. By the way, I also did my TestDAF exam two weeks ago and now waiting for the result. Until now, I still couldn't find a room in Hamburg and at the moment I am staying at a friend's place while continue looking. It is almost mission impossible now as all the students are doing the same. If nothing worked out, I will move into the university guest room again next month.

I realized that the Asian supermarkets in Hamburg are much bigger than those here. They are selling "Pig Stomach" as well, what I couldn't find here. I bought 1 kg and brought it back to Oldenburg. I made pepper soup out of it...something I wanted for a long long time. Since I could not cook during my stay in Hamburg, so I cooked everything I wanted to eat during the weekend. I cooked Indian curry to go with Roti Canai as breakfast, boiled "Tong Kua Tong Sui" and planning to cook "Kao Yuk" (yam with belly pork) tomorrow. Ohya..I baked some Baileys cup cakes as well yesterday night.