Homemade Bagel

Bread is generally halal but i found this bagel recipe which is so easy to make and taste good too. Give it a try and sandwich your favorite ingredients like cheese, halal chicken ham etc and u will get a healthy halal sandwich =).

Below is taken from a baker's blog.

4 cups bread flour
1 Tbls sugar
1 1/2 tsps salt
1 Tbls vegetable oil
2 tsps instant yeast
1-1/4- 1-1/2 cups of warm water.

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. You don't have to worry about soaking the yeast when you use instant yeast (most yeast sold these days is instant yeast). The dough should feel stiff, but add the extra water if it's really stiff, or you can't get all the dry flour incorporated.

Plop the dough down onto the counter, and knead for about ten minutes, or until the dough is uniform and smooth.
Cut the dough into 8 equal sized balls, and let rest for 10-20 minutes.

Pre heat your oven to 425.

Now, take each of the dough balls and using two hands, roll it into a little snake on the counter. When the snake is longer than the width of your two hands, wrap it around your dominant roiling hand. The dough rope should be wrapped so the overlapping ends are together at your palm, near the start of your fingers. Now take the two overlapping ends, and use your palm to squish/roll these two ends together.

Once the dough is fused, you should have a perfectly circular bagel-to-be! This is the only part of the process that can take a little practice before your bagels will look really professional. Don't get discouraged if they don't look perfect, it just takes practice!

Let your bagels rest on the counter for about 20 minutes, and meanwhile, bring a pot of water to boil, and grease a large baking tray lightly.

You can just rub a splash of vegetable oil and rub it around.

After the 20 minute wait, your bagels will start to look puffy, and it's time to get them boiling! Add them as many at a time as you can to your boiling water without crowding them.

Boil for about a minute, turn them over, and boil for another minute.

Take them out a let dry for a minute and then place them on your oiled baking tray.

Repeat until all the bagels are boiled.

Add the tray to the oven, and after 10 minutes, flip the bagels over, bake for another ten minutes; and they're done!

Let them cool for at least 20 minutes, get the cream cheese ready, and feast on what's got to be one of the best weekend brunch treats possible!

Halal Japanese Curry Recipe!!!

I used to buy the japanese curry roux from supermarket (before i became muslim) as it is so easy to use and the taste of japanese curry is so different from chinese or malay curry. It is best serve with nice hot japanese rice. As i know it is impossible to get halal japanese curry roux from supermarket, finally i challenged myself to make the roux from scratch and to my surprise it is pretty simple and the taste is pretty close (about 80%) to the one sold in supermarket.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp butter
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp grated garlic
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp curry powder
2 and 1/2 cup bouillon (Chicken or beef stock, can get the knorr's brand)
1/2 tsp garam masala

Preparation:
Heat 1 Tbsp of butter in a skillet and saute onion slices on low heat until they are brown. Add garlic and ginger and saute well. Set aside. Heat 1 Tbsp of butter in a medium pot. Put flour and saute on low heat. Add curry powder and mix well. Add bouillon little by little, stirring well. Add onion in the sauce. Simmer the sauce until thickened. Add garam masala at last.


Japanese Chicken Curry
Ingredients:

12 chicken legs (or beef slices)
1 onion
1 clove garlic
1 clove fresh ginger root
1/4 lb Japanese curry roux
3 cups water
1/2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
(Can add potato and carrot too)
*vegetable oil

Preparation:
Sprinkle salt, pepper, and curry powder in chicken legs. Slice onion thinly. Heat some oil in a pan and saute chopped ginger, garlic, and sliced onion. Add chicken legs in the pan and saute well. Pour water in the pan and simmer until chicken legs are softened. Add curry roux and stir lightly. Simmer for 5 minutes.
*Makes 4 servings.

Halal Dim Sum @ Puteri Pacific JB

One of the best halal authentic dim sum can be found at Puteri Pacific Hotel in Johore Bahru. Here are some photos... don't the photos look yummy? :-)

Miso without Alcohol added!!!!

Most Japanese Miso has added alcohol to enhance the taste. Just a month ago, i dropped by Isetan Orchard to check out any suitable halal japanese items to add to my mini-NTUC panty unit (that's what most of my friends said about my pantry unit, it has many many food and condiments). My husband likes miso soup so i was checking for any suitable miso paste. Found this miso has no added alcohol which is shown by the blur pix's red label. The ingredients are just soy bean, rice and salt. So this should be 100% halal. So hope this will be useful to ppl out there craving for halal miso.

To make miso soup, all u need is water, miso paste (add to your own preference), dashi powder (replace by ikan bilis maggie cube). Then just dump in what u want to be 'swimming' inside your miso...u can add fresh seaweed (can be purchased from NTUC), tofu (cut into small cubes), straw mushroom etc.

If you are interested to buy the miso paste, u can check out the miso website for more information.
http://www.maruman-miso.com/2syouhin_miso.htm

Yoshinoya Beef Bowl - Halal version

Years ago, there was news saying that Yoshinoya is getting halal certified but till today it is still not halal certified. I miss their beef bowl as the beef is sliced so thinly that it simply melts in your mouth without much chewing. I tried looking for thinly sliced halal beef and only cold storage sold such meat but it is not halal. One fine day, i went to Jurong East NTUC and saw this frozen shabu shabu beef slice (shabu shabu is japanese steamboat) and it is 100% HALAL. At one shot, i bought 6 packs of it as it was on promotion selling 2 packs for $9.90. My sister told me that she found the beef bowl recipe online and it is very easy to cook. Basically u need the right beef (super thinly sliced), dashi (japanese fish stock), mirin (japanese sweet wine), sugar, japanese soy sauce and onion. With the halal shabu shabu beef i bought from NTUC, i cooked my very own halal beef bowl.

Ingredients:
1) 1 White Onion (Sliced)
2) 1 pack of 100% Halal Shabu shabu beef (can be found in NTUC)
3) 1 beef stock cube (Knorr brand) (-> To replace dashi)
4) 1/2 cup water
5) 1 - 2 tablespoons Japanese Soy Sauce (YAMASA brand)
6) 1 - 2 tablespoons sugar

Steps:
1) Cook sliced white onion till translucent
2) Add in the thinly sliced beef meat and cook until almost cooked
3) Add the rest of the ingredients and cook until the gravy looks like beef broth
4) Serve with Japanese rice and dash of japanese black sesame seeds to add that extra crunch


My own halal version of 'Yoshinoya' beef bowl

Stomach stomach, my growling stomach...where serves the best duck meat???!!!

Talk about duck, i have been sourcing for good halal duck for years. The first halal duck that i ever ate is from Malaysia Johore Bahru Pan Pacific Hotel's chinese restaurant (they also serve dim sum from 12noon to 2am). Their peking duck is the authentic crispy duck where they will slice the duck skin to eat with crepe, hoisin sauce and cucumber.

Delifrance Bistro also serves duck cooked in french way. The duck is cooked so well that it simply melts in your mouth. It tastes very unique when u eat it with mashed potato and braised cabbage. Below is the description of this french delicacy from Delifrance

Confit de Canard:
Duck Confit, a traditional French classic, slow-cooked and seared for a crisp layer of skin, served with braised red cabbage, broccoli and mashed potatoes

Last year, my muslim friend recommended me to try roast duck selling near Rex Theatre. But the skin is not crispy and the meat is tasteless and chewy. I was pretty disappointed with the duck sold there.

My department organised destress lunch at Hyatt and i found the BEST halal duck from Hyatt's StraitsKitchen. I've been to StraitsKitchen twice and without fail, i will attack their duck (at least eat 5 plates). It is better than JB Pan Pacific. The duck skin is very very very crispy and the duck is roasted well that the fat underneath the skin has melted. The meat is tender and succulent.

Hope StraitsKitchen will keep their duck standard.

Evertop Hainanese Chicken Rice - Duck joins the chicken family (^__^)/~

Last year, i went to Evertop at Clementi to tapau chicken rice for sahur. I happened to meet the boss there and asked him if he would ever consider selling duck as duck is not a common item that can get it halal. This year, i went again to tapau for break fast. Guess what i found this year, i found 2 ducks hanging at the display deck together with the hainanese chicken. Maybe the boss really took my advise and started selling duck. The duck meat is just as tender as their hainanese chicken. The only thing that is lacking is that the rice serves with duck meat is not the authentic dark yam rice. Hope the boss will improve on this and maybe next year i will get to eat authentic halal duck rice with dark yam rice. Yummy....

Address:
Blk 354 Clementi Ave 2
#01-259