Lisa's Lemony Kitchen

I am so not looking forward to summer..   We were under Perth HOT spells for 3 consecutive days and it is only SPRING... This HOT weather is really wearing me down, zapping my energy and my head will make a 360 °  spin... I prepared this Thai Glass Noodle Salad for our Friday BBQ ( before the weather turned us to human jerky ... ). Thai Glass Noodle Salad  is easy on the stomach, it is refreshing with freshly chopped herbs and crunchy vegetables...  I am whipping up this salad again this Saturday... Yes, we are having BBQ again... I am chuffed... My friends, whom I have not heard any news or met since I left my Primary school ... 33 years ago, are coming over to my place... I am looking forward to catch up with both of them....   Recipe: 1/2 chicken breast - cooked and shredded 2 cups of glass noodle - 1/4 cup fresh mints - chopped 1/4 cup of coriander leaves - chopped 1 carrot - julienne 1/2 red onion -thinly sliced 1/2 cup of peanuts - chopped coarsely

It's been a "quiet-blogging " week, this week...  I was trying to juggle between kids' school activities, family visits, trying to get my  Twitter  and Facebook Fan page up and running... Check out the Right Handside Panel for the icons.. if the link doesn't work...  and planning for our holiday next month... yippee... Back to my kitchen...I have some egg whites from  Chai Creme Brulee last week... so I decided to make mini Pavlova (as in the next day ... not after a week ) While waiting for Miss E to finish her massage session...I was given heaps of recipe books ... I picked up a Reader Digest Collection of Recipes book... it was a thick book. Since I only have an hour to spare, gave it a quick scanning... and as I was flipping the pages.. my eyes caught the word Pavlova ... I kept on reading the paragraph explaining ~ how the name Pavlova came about... and where it originated from... Everyone seems to agree that this beautiful 

What is serunding (pronounce Se-roon-ding )? It is a Malay word ~ literally translated to Meat Floss ... There are many type of serunding... Beef, chicken, fish.. and last but not least... Anchovies.... Serunding is best served with steamed glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk or spread on white bread or eat it with hot steamed rice ...  Soak Anchovies to get rid off the excess salt This is my second serunding making in a week... My first was Beef serunding (Beef Meat floss)... sadly my beef serunding could not make it to my photoshoot... it was gone in a blink. Mr H hardly had the chance to savour ... may be a tiny pinch to taste ... The culprits were my 2 hungry teens!! and yet they are whining... 'Not enough' ...' Oh, Mom!! its so little' ... bla...bla..bla... I slogged over the stove again yesterday to make Anchovies Floss ... and off it goes ~ to my make-shift studio for some photography session... before its too LATE....  Chillies

My quail is sexily perched on top of the mash potatoes... fork is to indicate that it is Quail.... Having quails for lunch or dinner was a luxury ...  those days... and I guess it still is... There aren't a lot of restaurants in Malaysia that served quails (I stand to be corrected here...). My first taste of quails was at one of the restaurant in Bagan Serai ~ North of Malaysia (in the state of Perak )... Quails were seasoned with tumeric, salt and deep fried the whole bird... Quail is not like chicken... it has less meat... hence deep frying makes it chewy... and you have to have a good set of teeth to gnaw through to the bones  ... I chanced on these little babies... in the freezer section ... They aren't cheap little darlings... A pack of 6 quails cost me dearly... .. shh... I am not telling the cost as Mr H might be reading this ... Based on my previous experience of gnawing and gnashing the quails... I decided not to deep fry !!! I cassoulet- ed (

Bubble Tea Craze... yes.. that's the "IN" thing for Mr H Jr and Miss E ... a 'must have'  whenever they are let 'loose' in the city (so to speak... )...   Ask them and they will be able to guide you  to the best  Bubble Tea shop in Perth... they may even tell you which shop has a good offer for an upgrade...  Its nothing fancy schmancy really... just a huge size black tapioca pearls, some jelly with some option of flavoured fruity tea... This is my first attempt in making Bubble Tea ... some of the ingredients were sourced from local Asian grocer...black tapioca pearls, aloe vera drink and konyaku jelly... Be creative....~ you can add colorful jelly, fruity jelly... or anything you desire... the only thing that would stop us from enjoying this Bubble Tea is.... Our Imagination  ....  Black Tapioca Pearls and Aloe Vera Jelly...  Pour in some brown sugar syrup  Followed by strong Black Tea.. or any type of Tea

I love fish stuffed with chilli paste... mom used to cook this ... but she would used local fish ~ Ikan Cencaru   or Torpedo Scad or its Scientific name : Megalaspis Cordyla (linnaues) ... phew!! a mouthful to pronounce!!.. (just 'Image Google'  Cencaru  for some idea how it looks like... ) I have not seen any of Cencaru sold in WA... alternative~ Taylor... a good substitute.. Mom would cook the chilli paste first( ...I followed mom's way of cooking... :))... then she would stuffed the fish with the chilli paste... ( ok ~ I did the same ...)... then she would deep fry the fish (oops~ sorry mom ... this is where I stop ...)...The aroma of fish and the twice cooked chilli paste... sizzling in the wok... will make my tummy sing-a-song of 'Hunger'... kriuk-krok ... kriuk- krok .... did you hear that??? 2 whole fish - I used taylor 8 dried chilli - soaked 3 stalks lemongrass - chopped belacan (prawn paste) sugar 1 red onion - chopped some banana leaves

I can't think of what to write at the moment... everything went blank...eversince I heard that my niece has gone into labour... yeah... I will soon be a ' GrandAunt ' ...  a 'young' energetic grand aunt ;)...  hmmm... time flies... it was 27 years ago...I was holding, cradling and singing her lullabies...  ... got to go and check my FB  :) update 10th November ~ niece is still in labour....    she just gave birth to a baby Girl (11-11-10)... 4 generations of ladies/females will be under the same roof : great grandmother, grandmother, new mom and baby... :).. 1 packet of rice sticks or kway tiow * 500g beef - thinly sliced 1 canned baby corn - cut in half 4 tablespoon red curry paste 1/2 cup roasted peanuts - coarsely grounded 1/2 cup of fresh coriander leaves 2 tablespoon of fish sauce In a wok, stir fry half the sliced beef with 2 tablespoon of oil for 2 minutes, transfer to a plate. Repeat for the other half. With the remaining

Re-visiting my first post on Trifle which was published in April 2009...click here  ( be warned!!!...detrimental to your eyes!!!).  I was tempted to click on the 'Delete' button... ( especially the photo ~ it was Blech ..!!!),  ... I am a sentimentalist  about the things I write ( eventhough...some of it ~ is gibberish ), photos taken and so forth .....Its kind of " Report Card " to chart my progress ....and its good to look back (on older posts), have a good laugh  and see how much progress I made along the way ... Hey I am not saying my photos have that WOW factor...far from it my friend... ;)    My second post on Trifle... I'll be re-visiting some of my older posts and will link it to the new post as we go along .... and I promise you a good LAUGH!!!  ... While shopping at my local grocer ( actually I was trying to get out of the intense heat of 37 °C   ) . I found this COLD WATER JELLY by COTTEE 's...  Its amazing... just mix in

You will either love or  dis-like pineapples...   ... we love pineapples ( with the exception of Mr H Jr~ who el se !!), we love to eat cut up pineapples with sprinkles of salt ( just teenie weenie bit ), salad~ mix pineapple, red onion, chilli and cucumber or just make curry!!! and this is my favourite... Prawns and Pineapple Curry ... I would go bananas (No!!! I am not concuss... still rambling on  bananas  ..oops! pineapple) when I see someone wrecklessly cutting pineapple skins in thick slices as to do away with the eyelets... My heart bleed for that poor pineapples... Some of the eyelets were set deep in the fruit and by cutting that way ... nothing of the sweet juicy flesh is left...  I'll show you .... my quick pictorial on how to cut pineapples... step 1 : cut off the top and the bottom... so that the pineapple could stand upright...use a sharp knife and cut from top to bottom... and trim off the 'green' rings around the eyelets... you c

Have you seen onion ....this.... BIG ??  compare the size of Mr H Jr and Miss E hands to our 'ginormous' onions?? :) . . drum roll . .  .....all came from this tiny vegetable patch :) ...... No !! we have not been feeding our onions with steroid ... :0  ...but organic seaweed and fish fertiliser...and of course with some Tender, Loving, Care... may be too much TLC :) So when the harvest was good and in abundance...  plus summer is lurking round the corner which translate to good weather... mercury is rising to 33C today and 35C tomorrow...I am melting away!!!! ...  Its  time to head out and enjoy Alfresco dining ... cart out our BBQ set... start the fire ... and make some caramelised onions... the smell of onions sizzling on the BBQ plate is heavenly... yum...yum...    Red Onion - thinly sliced balsamic vinegar sugar olive oil Mix the onion with balsamic vinegar and sugar. Set aside. Add about 3 tablespo