Kak Elle's Beef with spices

You will need:

1. 500g beef or lamb
2. 1 big onion
3. 2 cloves of garlic
4. 2 lemon grass
5. 1cm ginger
   
6. 5 dried chillies (about 5cm each)
7. 1 tsp coriander seeds
   
8. 1 tsp cumin seeds
9. 1 tsp fennel seeds
10. 500ml water
    
11. 1 piece of asam keping
12. salt to taste
13. 3-5cm gula melaka (or brown sugar)
14. 2tbs oil
    

Direction

• Blend ingredients no.2 - 9 to a fine texture.
• Heat the oil in a preheated wok. Fry the blended ingredients until fragrant.
• Add in the beef/lamb and water.
• Toss in the asam keping, brown sugar (or gula melaka) and salt.
• Cook the beef/lamb until tender.
• Serve with rice or bread.
  

Source: Adapted from Kak Elle's blog. Please refer here for the original recipe.

Note: I used lamb instead of beef for this recipe. Also, I did not have galangal, I don't know why i replaced it with ginger? I have never used galangal in any of my recipes to tell you the truth!

Another thing was, Kak Elle used 'jintan'. In Malaysia there are two types of jintan; manis and putih. When I started cooking her recipe, I realised that I didn't know which jintan Kak Elle was referring to. So I added in both, fennel and cumin (which one is j.putih and manis eh?) Anyway, the outcome was fantabulous! We rarely eat chilli hot food nowadays, so this one has really spiced up our menu for the day! Thanks Kak Elle.

Yakitori Chicken

You will need:

• 6 boneless chicken thighs (with skin)
• bunch of spring onions
• seven flavour spice (shichimi), to serve (optional)

For the yakitori sauce

• 150ml soy sauce
• 90g / 1/2 cup sugar
• 25ml / 5 tsp sake or dry white wine (I substituted with rice vinegar!)
  
• 15ml / 1 tbs plain flour

Directions:

1. To make the sauce, stir the soy sauce, sugar and sake or wine into the flour in a small saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, until the sauce is reduced by one-third. Then set aside.
2. Cut each chicken thigh into six chunks and cut the spring onions into 3cm long pieces.
3. Thread the chicken and spring onions alternately on to 12 bamboo skewers. Grill under a medium heat or on the barbecue, brushing generously several times with the sauce. Allow 5-10 minutes, until the chicken is cooked but still moist.
4. Serve with a little extra yakitori sauce, offering seven flavour spice with the kebabs if possible.

Source:
Classic Japanese Cooking Course, Masaki Ko