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Fish Bake & Orange Cake

Sunday 3rd April 2011. I had about 5hours to myself at home and I got cracking in the kitchen. Thanks to kak Norza for sharing her Tasty Tuna Bake recipe she found in a book.

Tasty Tune bake
from Little Kitchen
1 small red capsicum, seeds and white membrane removed 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
½ cup milk
1 tablespoon plain flour
½ teaspoon salt
3 pinches of black pepper
1 x 425 g can of tuna
1½ cup cooked white rice
1½ cups grated cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Put the capsicum and onion into a food processor and blitz it to a paste. Tip the paste into a small bowl. Heat the oil in a frying pan. Carefully scrape the paste into the frying pan. Add the tomato paste and fry for about 10 minutes, stirring every now and then. Add the milk, flour, salt and pepper to the frying pan. Mix well and cook over low heat for a couple of minutes. Add the tuna, breaking up the chunks carefully and mixing it in very well. Spread the cooked rice over the base of the baking dish. Spoon in the tuna mixture and spread it over the rice. Finally, top with the grated cheese. Bake into the oven and cook for 14 minutes, or until the cheese is golden. Remove the baking dish from the oven and divide it into 4 big portions.

They actually ran out of Red Pepper at the Fairprice supermarket near my house so I had to use Green Pepper instead. And then to my horrors, I found that my fresh milk is gone from the fridge! (Not sure if somebody drank it or threw it away cause it may have expired?) So I had to substitute with Soymilk instead! HAHAHAHa Instead of rice, I used COUSCOUS because I have bought one quite some time ago and still haven't used it. Also, instead of Tuna, i steamed the Sutchi fillet I still have in my freezer.


I totally cheated by using sliced cheddar cheese.


Some people say the sliced ones are not 100% real as it contains fillers? *shrug*



The colour looks soo not inviting to me. I think it would have looked fabulous with RED pepper


Between steaming the fish, seeding, chopping and blending the green pepper and stirring the eventual gravy, not to mention reading and rereading the recipe every so often, I think more than 30 minutes were gone.


But I've gotta tell you, the taste is like something I've never had before! Well that's prolly because I tend to avoid eating chunks of bell peppers. This blended vege is totally divine. You can totally taste the spice without it being too hot. I think the dairies in the recipe muted the hotness for the sake of our youngs' tongues.



Reeling from the euphoria, I decided to bake a Moroccan Orange Cake I discovered from Bermudabuttercup. The recipe link is here

•4 eggs
•1 1/2 cups sugar
•1/2 cup vegetable oil
•2 cups flour
•4 teaspoons baking powder
•1/2 teaspoon salt
•1/2 cup fresh orange juice
•zest from 1 or 2 oranges
•1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation: Preheat your oven to 350° F (180° C). Grease and flour a tube pan. If using fresh oranges, zest and juice them. With an electric mixer or by hand, beat together the eggs and sugar until thick. Gradually beat in the oil. Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt, and then the orange juice. Beat until smooth, and then mix in the zest and vanilla. Pour the batter into your prepared pan, and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the cake tests done. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 7 to 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to finish cooling.


I bought this new tool (the name escapes me) just for the occasion.

I bought this one as I thought I wouldn't be using the actual zesting tool a lot.



Took me probably 10minutes to finish this


I didn't bother to buy or find our old juicer. (ditto reason above) So I squeezed by hand.

Totally ancient mixer. Possibly older than me!
The orange zest got stuck.


and the result!


At the 20th min mark, I was getting worried because the top looked too brown to me. With another 20minutes to go, I was afraid I might get burnt. So I turned down the temperature just a tad and popped it out about 10minutes earlier. But it failed the cake test because when I stabbed it with a knife, it came out with batter sticking to it. So i popped it back on for another 10minutes like the recipe indicated and hoped for the best.


To my surprise, my mum actually liked it! She said its not too sweet, just nice. One tip she did tell me was to shake the pan around to level the batter so it won't come out like a mountain!

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5 glasses of Juice:

bermuda-buttercup said...

your orange cake looks so inviting like those at the confectionery shop!

i will try yr tuna bake one of this day! thanks for sharing!

Jussaemon said...

Biar betul u? I tot yours looked more cakey. Mine looks a bit burnt, not to mention the crack in the middle is ugly.

bermuda-buttercup said...

Betul...yours really very moroccan look, u know what i mean, kalau cakap beli kat morocco, org percaya. next time i should use the rectangle or square pan. This round pan made it hard to divide the cake equally.

norza said...

How does couscous taste like eh? Never actually tried it before. Maybe one day we should have a playdate and a potluck at my place. Then you can cook something couscous. hehe.

Jussaemon said...

Hmmm actually it should taste like pasta because they are made of the same thing.. but to me I imagined it to taste like rice. only it's harder to pick up with hands cos its smaller?

Are you sure you would want me to bring couscous and not meatloaf? It's usually a winner w kids. I wonder if Aisyah and Sarah will eat them.