Crispy Fried Fish

The main ingredient of this recipe is fish. You can use any small (not too big/not too fleshy) fish such as belanak, catfish, sardin or tilapia.

The other ingredients are:
3 cloves Garlic (finely chopped)
A pinch of salt to taste (if you like salty, then you can put more, but I don't recommend this.)
1 tbs corn starch (is used to make the fried fish crispier and to avoid the fish from sticking on to the frying pan)
15 ml warm water
Vegetable cooking oil to fry the fish (depends on how many fishes you fry as long as the cooking oil covers all fishes when the fishes are fried).

1) Clean and scale the fishes thoroughly especially the belly part by cutting the side of the fishes.
2) Mix the fishes with garlic, salt and warm water.
3) Rub the fishes with corn starch
4) Leave the mixture for min. 15 minutes in the fridge.
5) After that you can start heating up the cooking oil in the frying pan.
6) Once the cooking oil is hot, dip and fry the fishes. Don't forget to turn the fishes to get even color of brown.
7) When the fishes turn brown, take them out and put them on the plate covered with paper hand towel to dry the oil.

That's all. It's very simple, easy, and delicious. My husband loves the crispy fried fish so much till I have to serve it on my dining table almost every night.

One gently reminder: Please be extra careful with the bones. Though you can eat and chew it, some parts of the fish bone are quite sharp.

Banana-raisin Cake

My son loves to eat banana for his breakfast. I don't know if this is because he was born on the monkey year (chinese calendar)... :) I hope not... :D
Just like other 18months old toddler, he sometimes will eat more than 1 banana in a day but some other time, he won't eat at all.
I always have to buy banana at least twice a week. I normally buy a semi-ripe banana so that I can keep it longer. But sometimes, the bananas have become over-ripe even before my son eats them all and no one is going to eat them anymore.
So, rather than throwing them out into the rubbish bin, I use the over-ripe banana to make everyone's favourite banana cake.
I mix and match the recipe from a wonderful recipe book I have "Cooking - a commonsense guide" from family circle series.

Here is the recipe:
To make the banana cake, for the best result, you need to use some ripe bananas. The ripe bananas will give a very nice banana fragrance to your cake.

125 gr butter
1/2 cup (125 gr) caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups (360 gr) mashed ripe banana (I normally use all over-ripe bananas that I have)
1tsp bicarbonate soda
1/2 cup (125 ml) milk
2 cups (250 gr) sifted self rising flour (I normally use wheat flour)
2 tbsp Sultanas raisins

To make the banana cake:
1) Preheat the oven t0 180^oC (350^oF).
2) Grease a 20 cm (8 inch) round cake tin and line the base with baking paper.
3) Lightly beat the 2 eggs.
4) Using electric beaters, beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy.
5) Add the eggs gradually, beating well after each addition.
6) Add the vanilla essence and mashed banana, and beat until combined.
7) Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the milk. Using a metal spoon, fold in the sifted flour alternately with the milk.
8) Add the Sultanas raisins, stir until all the ingredients are just combined and the mixture is smooth.
9) Spoon into the round cake tin and smooth the surface.
10) Bake for 1 hour or until a fork comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake.
11) Leave the cake in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a serving plate.

Voila! Now you have a very delicious banana-raisin cake. Enjoy your cake!
My son loves my banana cake so much.

The preface...

I like to cook and I know I'm quite good in doing this thing…:)
This blog contains recipes of my favorite food which I would like to share with everyone. Just to let you know, it is NOT easy for me to write down a recipe because I don't normally follow exact measurement when I cook. I just use my instinct and have great belief in my taste-buds. But I can't just say "a little bit of this, a little bit of that, or whatever you think it's enough" to explain a recipe for you. So, I take some measurements from my recipe books to help me to explain a recipe better so that you can understand and use my recipe. I don't actually follow everything on the recipe book. I like to mix and match the recipes.

My little advice for you, to make your cooking more delicious, you have to cook with love and be happy. Don't be afraid when mixing the ingredients! Be creative! Use your commonsense when cooking. I like to create my own version of some recipes I get to adapt to current situation I am facing when I cook. For example, if the recipe book says one of the ingredient is blackberry jam and I don't have blackberry jam but I have strawberry jam, I will just use my strawberry jam. The most important thing when you cook is that you have to be confident of yourself and believe that you CAN cook. Some of my friends freak out a little bit when they see me putting all spices that I have in my kitchen without any hesitation but end up finishing all the food I have cooked. I believe, each person has his/her own style of cooking so I'm sure you have your own style of cooking. Be yourself! Don't copycat other people! If the food doesn't come out like the one on the recipe book you are reading to help you to cook that food, don't be disappointed! Taste it first, who knows your own food actually taste alot better than the one on the recipe book.
To me, a delicious food is when that food has a strong taste but not too much, of course. If you don't agree with me, then create your own style. It's perfectly ok to create and discover your own style of cooking.
Oh, 1 tip from me: When you use an electric mixer to mix some ingredients, please DO NOT stop abruptly! You have to switch the speed slowly from the fastest to the slowest, then only you stop/switch off the mixer.
Happy cooking, people!!