Cookbook Recipes

• Scald meat and bone ingredients in boiling water first before rinsing them in water to remove any froth and blood. This removes stench and gives a clearer soup.

• When making soup, first bring it to a boil over high heat. Then immediately switch to lower heat and allow it to simmer gently. Maintain small bubbles on the surface of the soup. While too low a heat may inhibit the release of proteins in the ingredients, heating at too high a temperature will cloud the soup and make it murky.

• Add ingredients only when the water has come to a boil and do not add any more cold water in the midst of cooking. This is to ensure that the quality of the soup is not affected and that the ingredients will not stick to the bottom of the pot easily.

• Do not lift the lid unnecessarily to ensure a constant temperature within the pot for a naturally rich and fragrant soup.

• Avoid adding salt too early as salt has a permeable effect that infiltrates food easily, releases moisture and thus speeding up the solidification of protein which will affect the taste of the soup.

• Controlling the amount of water needed is also essential to making good soup. Determinant of the amount of water needed is based on the type of ingredients in use. For ingredients like beans, grains, dried food and medicinal products, more water is needed while for ingredients like vegetables and fruits, that gives out water when stewed, lesser is required. The exact knowledge on the amount needed will easier as you gain more and more experience over time.

For serving up to 10 persons, various salad sauces and their ingredients.

Thousand Island Dressing

Following ingredients to be chopped;

100 gms Green pepper
100 gms Red pepper
50 gms Stuffed olives
3 nos Hard boiled eggs
3 liters Mayonnaise
Mix well and add adjust following seasoning according;

4 drops of Tabasco sauce,
2 teaspoon of horse radish,
2 teaspoon of brandy or adjust according to taste

French Dressing

30 gms Chopped garlic
1 nos Chopped onion
2 teaspoon French mustard
2 liters Corn oil
1/2 liters White vinegar

Mix all ingredients gradually and adjust salt and pepper according to taste.

Vinaigrette Dressing

1/4 liter Red vinegar
1/4 liter White vinegar
2 liters Corn oil
50 gms Stuffed olives (chopped)
10 gms Spring onion (chopped)
1 nos Chopping onion
50 gms Chopped capers
50 gms Chopped parsley
50 gms Chopped gherkins
Mix all ingredients gradually, add salt and pepper to taste.

Here are some recipes for toddlers, easy to prepare, no fuss and delicious!

1. Baked custard

Preheat oven to 180 C. Whisk together 300ml milk, 2 eggs , 1tbsp sugar. Pour into 2 ramekins. Stand the ramekin in an oven tray. Fill the tray with water till halfway up the side of the dish. Bake for 15-20 mins.

2. Veggie puffs

Boil some mixed vegetables and chopped brocoli in a small saucepan until soft. Drain and mix vegetables with some grated cheese.

Preheat oven to 220 C. Roll 2 sheets of puff pastry and cut each into half. Spread equally the vegetable mixture onto each of the 4 sheets of puff pastry along the long side of each piece. Roll up the pastry to form sausage shapes, brush edges with milk and press to seal.

Place the rolls seam side down on a lightly greased baking tray. Make a few small slits along the rolls. Lightly brush the rolls with milk to glaze and then bake for 10 mins or until crisp and golden. Cut each roll into 6 even sized pieces.

3.Macaroni Cheese

For this recipe, you will need, 1\2 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp flour, 1 cup milk, 1\2 cup grated cheese and 2 cups cooked macaroni.

Melt butter in a small saucepan, blend in flour, then milk . Cook until sauce boil and thickens. Simmer for 3 mins, season with salt and pepper. Mix the macaroni through the sauce and serve with tomato wedges.

Babies are usually given solid food starting at 4 months but I think it is safer to start them at 6 months. This is because many babies are not ready to eat at 4 months and it can be frustrating trying to feed them solids.

To start them on solids, cereal is an ideal choice as it is easy to swallow and digest. You can mix cereal with breast milk or formula or boiled water to produce a thick consistency.

Weetbix can be crushed and mixed with breast milk, formula or boiled water to produced a desired consistency and given to babies too.

As your baby began to show more interests in eating solid food, you can start cooking porridge. You can use rolled oats. Mix it with water (1 tbsp oats to 3 tbsp water) and boil and then simmer for a few minutes. Puree with enough breast milk or formula to produce the consistency suitable for your child. Oats are more nutritious compare to white refined rice. I sometimes would puree some bananas and mixed with the oat porridge. It makes it sweet, more tasty and also more nutritious.

Stewed fruits are very good for babies too. Peel, core and slice 1 apple, peach or pear in a small pan with 2 tbsp of water. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer until soft and pulpy, adding more water as required. Puree with a little boiled water to make 1/2 cup of stewed fruit.

You can combine rice cereal with stewed fruits or mashed banana. Add some breast milk or formula to achieve a soft but not runny cereal.

For older babies, mix baby cereal, stewed fruits, baby yogurt and breast milk to produce the desired consistency.

For older babies, you can try the following combinations of puree, they are yummy for most babies. Always puree using breast milk, formula or boiled water.

Mashed advocado and cottage cheese.

Sieved tomato and advocado. First, blanched tomato in hot water to make the skin peel off easily. Then remove the seed and press them through a sieve.

Pureed apple, pear and banana.

Pureed papaya.

Pureed pumpkin and potato.

Pureed vegetables and cooked fish.

There are few basic steps for cooking the perfect steak. First, use the right cut. Second, meat preparation and cooking method. The followings are guides to cooking times and touch testing. Soon, you will learn if a steak is cooked to your liking by feeling the steak with the back of tongs and by its appearance. After cooking, allow steak to rest for 2-3 minutes.

RARE
Cook each side for 2 mins, turn once only.
Description : Internal very red, moist and with red juices.
Touch test: very soft to touch.

MEDIUM RARE
Cook each side approx 3-4 mins. Turn once only before pink beads of moisture appear on top surface of each side.
Description: Internal lighter red colour, moist, pink juices.
Touch tests: Soft and springy.

MEDIUM:
Cook 4-6 mins each side. Turn only once.
Description : Internal pink red colour, moist, clear to pink juices.
Touch test: Firm and springy.

WELL DONE
Cook 2-4 mins each side, then reduce heat and cook further 4-6 mins.
Description: Internal stone grey colour, dry, clear or no sign of pink juices.
Touch Test: Very firm to touch.

In this present day, there are still some gullible people falling for such scams.

This scam has been around since those days whether instead of prospecting via spam, they actually do mass faxing and slotting the scam letter into letterbox.

It was particular rampant in Sim Lim Square in the 90’s where they target mainly the business owners there.

Nowsdays, the one that gets swindled are those that are new to the Internet that does not know the amount of tricksters and cons on the net. (where the men are the women and the women are the men..)
June 13, 2006

One con artist arrested, sentenced to three years’ jail; others still at large

By Elena Chong

BUSINESSMAN Ng Yong Ngee responded to an e-mail that sounded too good to be true - a 30 per cent share of US$8.5 million (S$13.6 million) for his help in transferring the money out of Britain.

The 30-year-old owner of an interior design firm parted with about $48,000 - and became yet another victim of Nigerian con artists.

Yesterday, Nigerian undergraduate Ronald Emmanuel Emeka, 30, cried as District Judge Bala Reddy packed him off to jail for three years for conspiring with one Dr Kenneth and others to cheat Mr Ng in March.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Hwong Meng Jet said Mr Ng responded to an e-mail in March seeking help in transferring the US$8.5 million.

The author of the e-mail claimed to be 26 and said the funds belonged to his father, who was killed by business partners in Africa.

After communicating with a man over the Internet, Mr Ng was told a British ‘diplomat’ would bring the US$8.5 million to Singapore and that Mr Ng would receive 30 per cent as his commission. All he had to do was pay US$8,500 in administrative fees to the ‘diplomat’.

The ‘diplomat’, Dr Kenneth, contacted Mr Ng and said he had brought the money, and an assistant would come by to collect the fees.

Mr Ng met the assistant, Emeka, at a Geylang hotel on April 3, and handed over $13,650, the equivalent of the sum asked.

Dr Kenneth then visited Mr Ng’s hotel room and showed him a safe containing black paper. He took out three pieces, washed them with some solution, and they were revealed as US$100 notes.

Dr Kenneth and Emeka then spun a web of elaborate lies over the next couple of days to con another $33,780 out of Mr Ng.

Most of the cash, they said, was needed to rent a machine to process the black notes into US currency.

Mr Ng scrambled to meet the men’s demands, borrowing $2,000 from his mother and $3,000 from one of his friends. He also withdrew $26,000 from his account.

The same day, Dr Kenneth told Mr Ng the money had been cleaned but that he had to cough up another &pound40,000 to verify the funds were legal.

Mr Ng said he had no money, and soon after suspected the deal was a scam. He went to the Commercial Affairs Department on April 6. Emeka was arrested when he turned up to collect the money. Dr Kenneth remains at large.

Mr Ng is the latest in a string of Singaporeans and other victims worldwide who have been conned in similar scams.

Five people lost sums ranging from $900 to $300,000 last year when they sent varying amounts in response to e-mail messages, in the hope of receiving a share of millions purportedly in dormant bank accounts.

Nearly all the cases started with an e-mail that would say something like: ‘My father left me US$40 million but I need to bribe a government official to release the money. ‘Wire me US$10,000 and I’ll give you US$20 million in return.'’

In 2004, seven people lost between $1,000 and $30,000, and in 2003, five people lost close to $2 million.

About 15 con artists have been dealt with by the courts here for such scams since 1997. Most were Africans who flew in to meet their victims.

Globally, more than US$5 billion has been swiped in such scams, which are believed to have originated in Nigeria several years ago.