Dinner 29/11/2012 : Sambal Squid with Rice

As you all might have guessed by now, i love spicy food. So here's what we had for dinner yesterday.

SAMBAL SOTONG (SQUID) SERVED WITH RICE


INGREDIENTS

- Squid (about 200g), sliced and clean with the backbone removed as well as the ink.

- Rice (about 1 cup)

SAUCE
- 1 large red onion (yellow onion is better), finely chopped.
- Chilli paste (1½  tablespoon). For me, I like to add extra. (about 2½ tablespoon) :)
- Tamarind juice (30ml)
- Shrimp paste (1 teaspoon - mixed in about 30ml of water)
- Sugar (about 2 tablespoon)'

GARNISH (Optional)
- Chinese salary, finely chopped (about 1 stalk)
- Onion leaves, finely chopped (about 1 stalk)

METHOD
1) Heat up pan at medium heat, pour cooking oil (any would do, but preferred would be sunflower oil)
2) Once the pan is hot, throw in the onions. Be sure to be careful as the onion is wet and might cause a bit of a stir with the hot cooking oil.
3) Stir well until yellowish brown and you get a good aroma from the onions.
4) Put in the chilli paste and mix well. Keep stirring until the paste thickens and you see the oil above the chilli paste. We normally call this until breaking oil (Pecah minyak). The reason behind is to ensure that the chilli is well cooked, else you'll be in a bad time with stomach upset. At this point, the sambal colour will be dark gloomy red. Be sure not to burn it.
5) Next, put in the sugar. This will turn the chilli colour to bright red as well as balance out the heat from the chilli.
6) Next, mix in the shrimp paste.and give it a good stir.
7) Keep stirring until it thickens again. Then add the squids. Cook for about 3-5 minutes. You don't want to overcook the squids else you might end up with a rubbery texture.
8) Now add in the tamarind juice. This will add the sour taste, again to balance out the heat from the chilli. You can use tomato paste as substitute.
9) Keep cooking for another 1 minute until the sauce thickens a bit more.
10) Turn off the heat, put in a serving bowl. Add chopped Chinese salary and chopped onion leaves for garnish.

For the rice
1) Add rice to pot
2) Double the water amount to the rice amount. We are using 1 cup, so you should add 2 cups of water.
3) Boil it until its cooked under medium heat. Or just use a rice  cooker if you have one :)

Put all on a serving plate, and you are DONE!

P/s: You may notice i did not add any salt, that is because the shrimp paste is already salty. Always taste what you are cooking and add the seasoning as needed. :)

Enjoy!


TOTAL COST : RM12.00 (servers 2)

Dinner 28/11/2012 : Beef Steak with Black Pepper Sauce and Herbs served with Salad, Cherry Tomatoes and French Fries

Got home from work late today. Been a very busy week. Went to meet up ***** at Giant. Apparently ***** has already made plans for dinner. ***** asked me to cook this time as ***** wanted beef steaks.

So, there we were looking for the ingredients for tonight's dinner for 2.

BEEF STEAK WITH BLACK PEPPER SAUCE & HERBS & SALADS, CHERRY TOMATOES & FRENCH FRIES.

INGREDIENTS:
- 2 slabs of beef (preferred sirloin, tenderloin or just plain cut beef) but for plain cuts, you'll have to boil it for 30 mins to an hour to tenderize the beef. Don't throw away the water from the boil, it can be used later for the sauce. While the others, you can just use a kitchen mallet and bash away the flesh. I find it therapeutic after a hard day at work. When done, dry the beef with a kitchen towel. .

SEASONING ( a pinch of each)
- Salt (coarse sea salt preferred)
- Grounded Black Pepper
- Powdered White Pepper
- Dried Rosemary
- Dried Basil
- (Optional) Chili Powder. I like mine a bit hot, so i tend to get carried away with the chili powder.

VEGETABLES
You can pretty much use any vegetables you like, but for me, i used
- Red Coral Lettuce
- Baby Butterhead Lettuce
- Green Coral Lettuce
- Cherry tomatoes
- Fine Salt (iodized salt or pink himalayan salt or any that you currently have in your kitchen
- Olive oil (virgin preferred, no pun intended)

SAUCE
- Grounded Black Pepper
- Corn Starch
- Salt
- Sugar
- Thick Soy Sauce
- Garlic Powder
- Onion Powder

OTHERS
- Water
- Butter
- Margerine (optional)
- All Purpose Flour

Or, if you are too lazy like me, you can just get the Maggi - Instant Black Pepper Mix. If Nigella reads this, she's gonna flip!


And of course, french fries. I used crinkle cut fries as it has more body to the potatoes.You can use any that you prefer (i.e wedges, straight cuts and etc)

METHOD:
1) Prepare the beef (see above). Heat up oven at 200ºC. While the oven is heating up, proceed with the next step.. 
2) Rub all the seasoning onto the beef. Make sure to get both sides of the beef.
3) Heat the pan. Pour olive oil. or any cooking oil When hot, turn down the heat to medium heat, throw in some butter (about a table spoon) and let the butter melt.
4) Put the beef in the pan and let it sizzle for 2 minutes a side. Turn over when brown.
5) Turn off the heat, throw in a few cloves of garlic (peeled, also optional). I added these for the taste.
6) Place the pan in the oven and let it cook for another 20 minutes. While the beef is cooking in the over, you can start preparing the salads, sauce and the french fries.
7) Clean the vegetables and spin dry using a salad spinner.
8) Add olive oil (you can mix the virgin olive oil with regular olive oil like what i did, found that it gave a bit more texture and flavor) and salt to taste.
9) Get a sauce pan, pour about 200ml of water and leave it to boil.
10) Then add the sauce ingredients and gently whisk away using a wire wish. Or you can use a fork if it fancies you,
11) Mix together a 2 table spoon of butter (or margarine) & 4 table spoon regular flour in a small mixing bowl to create a paste, Make sure to mix well. This will be a thickening agent for our sauce.
12) Once done, slowly add the thickening agent one table spoon at a time into the sauce pan. Use the wire whisk and whisk well until the all is dissolved. The sauce will be thicker now. (keep adding the thickening agent to get your desired consistency). But remember to keep stirring/whisking to avoid the bottom from being burnt.
13) When ready, put the sauce a side.
14) Take the beef out of the oven. (be sure not to miss this! 20 minutes is more than enough to get a well done, 10 for medium rare)
15) Place everything on a plate to serve.

Enjoy!

PREPARATION TIME : 5mins - 1 Hour
COOKING TIME : 30 Minutes

TOTAL COST: RM 18.40 (serves 2)