Night Ramble

Awaken from sleep of something. Couldnt close eyes thinking of something. Why i cook Persian dishes? Why I learn Farsi? Why i study Persian culture? Its because of you BFF. Because of love. Nobody had forced neither myself. Its fun you know! The more i go, the more i addicted to it because im doing it with love. Any work if you do it with love, you will find that its very beautiful. 

BFF really appreciates my likes - cooking, Persian studies. Thank you so much dear. Your support is awesome. 

Maybe someone will say why im exposing other culture not mine. tuuut...wrong! This blog created to share 2 cultures -Malay and Persian- i just started this blog for 2 months. Still have long journey.Maybe later i will blog about Belachan - Malay best ingredient than Persians hate so much. hahaha or about why Malay food is spicy but Persian not?

Ooo i can hear the roosters . Better I go force myself to sleep or tomorrow will be dull.

"Ash-e-Reshteh - Persian Noodle Soup

Some friends came for dinner last night not in my house but again bff's. Before this, there is request from bff to cook ash-e-reshteh for his friends as they couldnt find this dish sell at any place in Singapore. Therefore, i offer him to cook the soup.Coincidence, its raining monsoon here now. Everyday wet and cold. So its the right time to serve this soup on cold day (just imagine raining monsoon = winter) :)).

This dish takes about 2 and half hours to prepare. Yeah, so leceh! But yeay i did it and got complement again 1st from bff. He said "Boro befrush in ash" go sell this soup.

Ingredients:
1 cup kidney beans*
1 cup chickpeas(*soak at least for 2 hours)
2 large onions - minced
7 garlic cloves - minced
2 tspn turmeric
8 cups water
3 cups dried vegetables (special type for Persian soup) can buy from Persian grocery shop
100 g noodle (special type for this soup) can buy from Persian grocery shop
1 tbsp flour

For Garnish:
2 large onions - sliced
2 tbspn of dried mint

Methods:
1. Saute onion and garlic til translucent, put in beans and turmeric, stir for 1 minute.
2. Pour water, wait until boil, simmer for 1 hour.
3. In the mean time soak the dried vegetables in luke warm water for 15 minutes, drain off.
4. Put in the vegetables, cook for 1/2 hour with low temperature.
5. Put reshteh.
5. Mix flour with some water and pour to the soup, add salt to taste, simmer another1/2hour. Now the beans should be cooked. You can simmer more to deepen the flavors.
6. For the garnish, saute the onions until golden crisp and stir in dried mints.
7. When serving, spoon in some kashk to the soup.

Ready..the soup is thick. It wont taste like any Malay food. Not like our noodle soup (mee sup or bihun sup) Its totally different.First timer (Malay) will never want it again but when you taste it twice, for sure you want it more. :))

 Ok lah got to go to enjoy afternoon rain..Have a wonderful weekend with your beloved..

Marble Cake

My first attempt to bake marble cake. Recipe from CMG a very popular food blogger in Malaysia. TQ CMG for this superdelicious recipe. It turn out very soft and  fragrant. I gave half of it to bff and he said "you should bake this more often as i like it very much! khoshmazas (delicious!!) - smile till sky haha :))

You can get the recipe from here

Till then. Have a sweet Friday!!

Persian Patties "Kotlet"

Today bff invited his Persian friend for lunch and asked me to make kotlet. Easy peasy!

It tastes nice as it same like malay dish called "bergedil", the difference is only the absence of malay spices in it. 

I also cooked "chelo berenj" which mean rice in Persian ways. Persians have different way to cook its rice and i can say their rice is the best in world. Later i will blog about how to cook Persian Rice ok!! For now, let me share how to cook "Persian Bergedil" :DD

Ingredients:

500 g ground meat

2 onions - grated

5 large potatoes - cooked and mash

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 cup of breadcrumbs

salt & pepper to taste

Method:

1. Mix meat, onion, potatoes, eggs, turmeric, salt & pepper in a bowl.

2. Take a handful of the mixture and flatten it into round shape or whatever shape you like buteasy to fry

 :))

3. Heat some oil and fry the patties until golden brown.

4. Serve with warm bread or rice.

I was very happy because all of the patties finished. Yeay!! I passed again. Looking forward for the next order sir..

Sholeh Zard - Saffron Rice Pudding

Today is an "expensive day" because i used 1/3 of my saffron stock. Sholeh zard is very delicious rice pudding and easy to make. During hot whether, its very cooling to eat chill sholeh zard straight away from your own refrigerator. One time during ramezoon (ramadhan) i ate this dessert in Iranian restaurant and it was too sweet. Cooking it myself give satisfaction to me.

Method:

1. Soak half cup of rice for 2 hours.]
2. Boil rice with lots of water, cover and cook for 1 hour until it become very soft.
3. Add 5 tbs of white sugar, saffron liquid, 5 drops of rose water and a pinch of salt. Cook for 10 minutes more until the mixture thickened.
4. Scoop in bowl, garnish and decorate with cinnamon powder, almond and walnut. Chill in refrigerator. Done!

Try it and you wont regret

Tah Chin - Layered Saffron & Chicken Rice

Today i will share one special "expensive" Persian cuisine which is called tah chin. Why i say its expensive is because it used quite much saffron which is expensive :)). "Tah" is a Farsi word for bottom and "chin" is the root word for "chidan" which means putting things in order, arranging and in this case, layering. The bottom part need to be hard crust (tah dig) which for me the signature of this dish. This is my first attempt cooking this recipe. So for me..not bad. Only the tah dig didnt turn out nice. 


Ingredients:


2 cups rice - soaked in water and salt for at least 1 hr
2 chicken breasts
2 cups of yogurt
2 egg yolks
2 tspn saffron - dissolved in warm water
2 medium onions - diced
salt
pepper


Method:
1. Boil chicken breasts with onion, salt and pepper until tender (1 hr). When cook, cut into small pieces.
2. Boil rice until half cook, drain and wash with cold water.
3. Mix yogurt, saffron, salt and egg yolks. Put some rice to the mixture.
4. Heat non-stick pan with butter and some saffron liquid and then pour the mixture to it.
5. Place chicken on top.
6. Put the remaining rice.
7. When steam come out, slow down fire and cook for 1 hour.
8. To serve, let it cool a little so that it easier to take off the tah dig. Hold the pan and flip over the rice on a bigger plate. 

Befarmaid!!

Kaske Badenjoon V2

Last week again i cooked kashk-e-bademjoon but this time i used different type of eggplant which turned out with different taste. More bitter and not so my taste.

Normally i used the long one like this,

But this time i used this

The result.......

I bought 2 of this type eggplant. 1 still in fridge maybe i will cook chili eggplant. Taste better ha.

From Iran with Happiness

Finally tonight i can spare some time to update. Quite busy with life - work.

As promised, I will show the souvenir from Iran that really made me happy :D cause this time I got many things.

TQ bff for the souvenirs. Luckily u didnt have to pay extra luggage for this (^.^)

Enjoy the photos!

 Seeeeee.......WeeeeeeWoooo

 Persian Language Learning Cds

 Saffron

 Different types of macaronis

 Dried fruits

 Ketchup & 1000 Jazireh (1000 island)

 Konserve (canned tuna and beans)

 Rani (most delicious canned drink i ever taste) & laveshak (taste like asam for layer cake)

 Biscuit (taste so-so)

And this......the most wanted sovenir dress coat which called mantou. In iran most of ladies wear this outside home. The design really suit my taste. In Msia very hard to find this kind of dress but cheap. All branded and of coz expensive. 

END