Stinky Garlic Bread

As much as I hate garlic for giving me bad breath and leaving behind offensive odour on my fingers for days, I don’t think I can live without it either.

Cooking without garlic is a disaster. It’s distinctive flavour enhances pretty much most dishes, be it French, Italian, Chinese, Indian….every cook must have garlic. Though always a flavour enhancer and often used as only a sidekick in dishes, the garlic bread is one that makes it the hero instead.

I love mine loaded with lots of garlic-buttery goodness. Hence the stinky garlic bread. Make sure you have good supply of mints. Plus, this is certainly not a smooch-friendly recipe

The ingredients – a few slices of regular sandwich bread, butter (softened), salt and of course garlic! You will need some aluminium foil too. I used 2 whole garlic and it yielded about 10 slices of garlic bread. Half each slice and you get 20. Awesome for parties

First roast the garlic whole. Cut off the top to expose the bulbs, place a dollop of butter on top and wrap individually with aluminium foil into mini parcels. Chuck into preheated oven (middle rack) and let it bake at 160 degrees Celcius for an hour or until soft and caramelised.

Once done, open the parcels and let it cool until you can handle with your hands. You will see that it’s all soft and juicy and buttery and yum! Squeeze the bulbs out of the cloves, they should be pretty much falling off and slide out easily. Season with some salt. Mash, mash, mash until you get a consistent garlicky paste.

Spread butter generously on slices of bread. I halved all slices beforehand. Spread garlic paste thinly on each slice. Be careful not to spread too much on one slice, it will end up too strong and a little bitter. I say about half a teaspoon of paste or less on each full slice of sandwich bread.

Grill in the oven on the topmost rack at 200 degrees Celcius until slightly browned and crisp. About 5-10 minutes or so. And there you have it – stinky, buttery and crispy garlic bread!

If you like, sprinkle some Italian herbs and mix into the roasted garlic paste and you will have garlic-herb stinky bread. Or sprinkle some cheese right before grilling then you have cheesy, stinky garlic bread. Either way, its stinky-ly good! Happy trying

Malaysian Chicken Satay With Peanut Sauce

Our little project one weekend was to make Malaysian chicken satay with peanut sauce (which is also good for Pasembur, see end of post) - delicious spicy-sweet yumminess of grilled chicken meat on skewers served with a rich peanut sauce. There are many versions of Malay chicken satay recipe on the internet, this particular one was obtained from my friend Fariza who has tried, tested and proven that this recipe produces the most authentic Malay satay flavour!

The recipe is actually a simple one, but it calls for a variety of spices that I had to hunt around for. But once you managed to gather these, following it is easy-peasy. There are basically two main parts in executing this recipe; you have the chicken satay marinade, and the peanut sauce. Both of them uses similar spices but in different portions.These spices are galanghal, coriander seeds, cumin, lemongrass, turmeric and ginger. And oh also don’t forget bamboo sticks as skewers. Now, let’s get started!

Chicken Satay

1. Blend the following until a paste is formed:

• 1 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 1/2 tablespoon white pepper
• 1 and a half tablespoons coriander seeds
• 1-inch bulb of galanghal
• 1-inch bulb of ginger
• 2 stalks lemongrass
• 3 cloves garlic

2. Season the paste by stirring in the following:

• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1/2 tablespoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

3. Cut up 500 grams of chicken flesh into bite size pieces, marinade at least 2 hours with all the above.

4. Once marinated, stick about 4-5 pieces of chicken bites onto a skewer. Repeat until everything is skewered.

5. Grill chicken satay skewers in an oven preheated at 180 degree Celcius for about 30 minutes or until cooked, basting once in between with the leftover marinade.

Peanut Sauce

6. Blend the following until a paste is formed:

• 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1/2 tablespoon coriander seeds
• Half-inch bulb of galanghal
• Half-inch bulb of ginger
• 10 pieces dried red chilli or 1 tablespoon of chilli paste
• 1/2 tablespoon of dried shrimp
• 3 cloves garlic
• 3-4 medium onions
• 1 stalk lemongrass

7. Mix the following ingredients in a separate bowl:

• 150 grams of raw peanuts (shelled and skinned), pounded coarsely
• 3 tablespoons of sugar
• 1-2 tablespoons of tamarind paste diluted with 2 cups water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

8. Sautee the blended paste (step 6) in about half a cup of hot oil in a medium saucepan, stirring frequently until fragrant about 15 minutes.

9. Pour in ingredients of step 7 into the saucepan and simmer in low heat, covered for about 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and/or sugar if necessary.

10. Serve chicken satay with fresh cucumber and onion cubes, with hot peanut sauce as dip.

The result – very authentic Malaysian chicken satay! This recipe works well for beef and lamb too.

If there is leftover peanut sauce, don’t throw it out, we made our own version of Pasembur, a Malaysian-Indian salad out of it. We used blanched and cut Chinese Spinach (Ong Choy), boiled potato cubes, shredded carrots, beansprouts, boiled eggs (quartered) and fried wanton pastry broken into bite sizes then poured the peanut sauce over as dressing. For a more hearty meal, mix in a serving of spaghetti noodles, cooked slightly a little over al-dente. Finger-lickin’ good!

Oooh, writing this post makes me crave for some authentic Malaysian chicken satay and peanut sauce!

Happy trying!