Cincaicook #3 - Oreo Truffles!

Last Saturday, our church organised a Lantern Festival celebration for the chinese community, and we were also encouraged to bring along some dishes for the potluck dinner... I told Alex that we should make some oreo truffles (that he once did for another church event before), and he entertained me, got me the recipe, and I went to get the ingredients from Countdown right after the English class in church. Well, there were some ugly fights in the kitchen when we were making it together but we definitely made up after that and had a rather nice evening together... SO, personal drama aside, here's the recipe for the truffles!

Before we start, make sure you would have at least 3 hours to do this before deciding that you wanna do this ... okay?

Let's look at the ingredients!

- 1 block of Philadelphia cream cheese.
- 2 blocks of dark chocolate of your choice
- 3 foils of oreos (roughly 450 gram of them)
- some chopped peanuts / almonds / any decorations you desire

Yup, sounds simple right.

Now let's go to the steps!

1. In batches, put your oreos into a ziplock bag, and use a roller to crush them into fine pieces and crumbs.

2. Put all the oreo crumbs in a large bowl or preferably your food processor, and mix them well with softened cream cheese. (The softer your cream cheese is, the easier it will be for you. Since we did not have a food processor, I had a challenging time using our hand blender, stopping every 20 seconds or so, dug out the sticky dough from the blender, mixed manually with my spoon, then used the blender again, and repeated the steps till I get a beautifully mixed dough.) This should be how it looks like..

 

3. Now, scoop the dough with a spoon and roll them into small balls. Make sure they are not too big because it will be too much of a bite after with the chocolate coating. With this recipe, you can comfortably make 40 - 50 balls.

4. Put the little balls into the freezer for 30 - 45 minutes.

5. Now comes the tricky part - melting the chocolate. Melting the chocolate is actually not as easy as it sounds (which I found out the hard way). Chocolate scorches easily.

There are 2 ways to melt chocolate.

If you want to use the microwave (which is faster), break the chocolate block into small pieces and put them in a microwaveable bowl. Now, set your microwave to the lowest heat for 30 - 45 seconds. Then take the chocolates out, give it a stir, and place it back into the microwave oven for 10 - 15 seconds, take them out, stir, and repeat the 10 - 15 seconds cycle till it's fully melted.

The second way is to place your chocolates (that are broken into smaller pieces) in a bowl, and place that bowl in a bigger pot that is filled with some water, and cook over the stove.Make sure that NO WATER gets into your chocolate or it will make your chocolate unusable. Watch over your chocolate, stirring it frequently, making sure the heat is not too high, till you are happy with the texture of it.

IF water did get into your chocolate (which happened to ours), it would not melt, but will clump... The way to save your chocolate is to add oil, stir it, add more oil, stir it, till it melts)

6. When your chocolate is fully melted, you have to act fast before it hardens. So use spoons, grab a ball, drop into the melted chocolate, coat it, and take it out, placing it on a non-stick foil or baking paper. Before the chocolate hardens, spread your decorations on it. Repeat this till you get all your balls coated.

7. Then, put them back into the freezer for an hour or so, and they are ready to be served :)

(since we were rushing, I actually did not have time to take a proper picture of the finished product and only remembered to do so after we presented the dish to the organising committee.. Being thick-skinned, I went back to snap a picture of it before rushing off lol. No time to do nice plating or take pictures of them in better angles hahahaha.)

Personally, I love how it tastes. Not too sweet at all because the dark chocolate balances out the sweetness of Oreo, and the cream cheese gives it a nice chewy texture. If you do try this, do show me the pictures of your creation ;)

Cincaicook #2 - Pepsi Chicken Wings!

Alex came home with domino's pizza, which came with a free can of..

We had a sip, and we both hated it lol. So when Alex was thinking of pouring out the content and throwing the can to the recycling bin, I casually said, "why not use it for our chicken wings?"

Hence, this was created!

a collaborative effort indeed!

So yea.. here's another fail-proof recipe!

Before we start, here's some foodie knowledge I have gathered from watching cooking shows and reading recipes ... Marinating is IMPORTANT. We often think that marinating chicken or meat with soy sauce gives it flavor when actually it is more of a 'colouring' process. So, always season the meat again when cooking.

For this particular recipe, remember that any form of soda only tenderises the meat. It does not really add flavour to the meat. Ok, we shall proceed to the ingredients :)

Ingredients needed: (for 2 servings)

- chicken wings  (8-10 nibbles)
- a can of soda (coke or pepsi)
- two spoonful of honey (I used our cheaper clover honey. Don't waste your manuka honey on this)
- two spoonful of soy sauce
- salt and sugar (according to your taste)


Steps:

1. Marinate your chicken with the pepsi (we flooded the wings with the soda and threw away the rest lol), honey, and soy sauce for at least 3 hours.
2. Now you have two choices: You can either pan-fry the chicken first till cooked and golden brown (without the marinate sauce) or grill your chicken till your desired doneness (which my husband did and grilled them so beautifully).
3. Once you are happy with how your chicken looks, pour in the marinate sauce. Once boiled, lower the heat and let it cook and simmer till completely reduced and absorbed by the chicken.
4. The end product would be beautifully caramelised chicken, a lil sticky, sweet with some fizzy taste to it!

Try it! It gets addictive ;)

Cincaicook #1 - Valentine's Meal

When I first agreed to be a wife, one of the main concerns that I had was that I have to feed the husband, and I might poison him lol.

Though I always observe grandma when she cooks (and she is a GREAT COOK), I hardly need to prepare food in the kitchen, especially when take-outs are so cheap and accessible back in Malaysia. Even when I was teaching in Gua Musang, living independently and all, I couldn't really cook because there was no proper kitchen and if I were to wash the fresh ingredients or dishes, I have to go to the toilet... yup.. Better just pay RM5 and get a decent fulfilling meal (with drinks)!

Now that we are in New Zealand, cost of living is CRAZY HIGH! Eating out is definitely a luxury, so I had to buckle my courage and embrace my role in the kitchen lol. As I mentioned in earlier posts, my first few attempts were heavily dependent on recipes I found online, always finding myself checking my phone for each and every step... But a few tries later, I go with the 'feel' - chehwah..lol.. Still a real kitchen noob but you start to realise what are the basics, what flavours go well with what, and you learn to love playing with seasonings..

To document my journey as a noobie cook, I created an album on facebook entitled "The Kitchen Misadventures of a Newly-Wedded Wife." Surprisingly, it became something that my grandma looked forward to lol. She would tell me that my food looks good and ask me what will I be cooking next. My parents too will call me up telling me they are waiting (and have been waiting for 20 over years) for me to cook for them hahahahaha...

This is my first ever homecooked meal -

Fettuccine with capsicum, onions, and white wine cream sauce, smoked salmon and egg-filled capsicums. (pasta sauce and salmon are #cheatone lol)

and today I'm going to share my #cincaicook recipe of the 'romantic dinner' for Valentine's..

Tada!

Ok, there are a few components to this meal.. And the recipe is for 2 servings ~
So let's start with the simplest: Oven-Baked Corn

You need:
1 sweet corn, butter, black pepper, dried herbs (I used Italian Herbs from Greggs) and aluminium foil.

Steps:
1. Clean your corn. Snap it into two.
2. Spread the butter evenly and generously over the corn.
3. Sprinkle the black pepper and dried herbs all over the corn.
4. Wrap each corn with the aluminium foil, making sure you twist the ends of the ears.
5. Pop them into a pre-heated oven (Our's is set at 250 celcius) for 30 minutes.
6. Serve them when it's done :)
*the juices are sealed in the corn, making it real juicy*


Here are the steps for the Prawns Salsa Salad.

You need:
2 small red onions (brown ones won't suit), 1 tomato, 1 bunch of fresh coriander, olive oil, 1 lemon, 1 tablespoon of castor sugar, 10 prawns (clean and deveined), chilli flakes, and some butter.

Steps:
1. Diced the onions, tomato, coriander into small bits (of similar bite-size).
2. Mixed them in a bowl, and add in some olive oil, squeeze in the lemon juice and mix well with the sugar.
3. Refrigerate them for at least one hour while you prepare the other ingredients.
4. Heat your non-stick pan, put in the butter.
5. Pan fry the prawns till cooked and brown, and sprinkle on some chilli flakes.
6. Serve the prawns with the chilled salad.
*very refreshing and appetising*

Lastly,
Medium-Rare Steak with Caramelised Onions.

You need:
2 cuts of steak (we chose premium eye fillet), black pepper, salt, olive oil, 1/2 brown onion, butter and sugar.

Steps:
1. Cut the onion into slices.
2. Carefully rub the steak cuts with black pepper and salt, and coat them evenly with a layer of olive oil. Allow them to sit in room temperature for a bit.
3. Heat the pan with butter, and stir-fry the onion slices till brown. (add more butter if you want them to brown beautifully).
4. Add in some sugar (according to your own taste), and continue to fry the onions till your desired texture and colour. Then set the caramelised onions aside.
5. With the pan still buttery and with a taste of onions, add in the steak.
6. Leave it on for 3 minutes on each side. The steak will brown really fast depending on your pan.
7. Take the steak out from the pan and let it rest for around 5 minutes, then serve it with the caramelised onions on top :)

Really simple recipes that I believe are quite fail-proof lol. If I can do it, you definitely can! Give it a try!