The Panasonic Cubie Oven (NU-SC100W) is an all-rounder Convection Steam Oven that lets you steam, roast, bake, healthy fry and even disinfect baby bottles and tableware in it.

Some amazing features of the Cubie Oven:
1. Prepare quick and healthy meals in no time at all
2. Multi-cooking functionality
3. Super easy to use!

Cooking styles
Steam
In the ‘Steam’ mode, hot steam is generated in just 20 seconds and the entire oven is filled with 100 °C steam in under three minutes. This translates to much faster cooking time as compared to traditional steaming methods. What I love most about this feature is there are no multiple items to wash – wok, steamer rack and what-have-yous. Just fill the water compartment at the top, place your dish inside the oven, turn the knob, press ‘Start’ and that’s it! A healthy and delicious meal is ready in minutes.

Hot air convection

The hot air convection function (healthy fry!) give you amazing results every time. With hot air convection, you can cook fried food with minimal oil and do away with the guilt of deep frying.

Steam + hot air convection

This is my favourite mode! Today’s recipe of Pandan Madeleine with Coconut Cream is made using this mode. With steam + hot air convection, the madeleines are first steamed to maintain moisture, and then baked to perfection. I love the crisp outer layer that you can achieve with this mode. You can use this function to roast vegetables too for kids and adults alike by first steaming the vegetables till cooked, then roasting or caramalising them. Yum!

So with the Panasonic Cubie Oven, you get these three super modes to ensure that your food turns out perfectly every time: Steam, Steam + Convection, and Convection only. You can even ferment bread dough in it! The 16 auto menus let you prepare delicious dishes in a jiffy. Some examples are steamed fish, steamed egg, steam frozen food (like mantou or buns!), steamed chicken, homemade yogurt, pizza, cheese cake, fried fish, chicken chop, breaded prawns, korean chicken wings and more.

Compact size

The Panasonic Cubie Oven is so compact, it’s unreal. Measuring only 355mm wide, it takes up just a small corner in my space-constraint kitchen. Yes, I do have three pull-out work tops for my small kitchen for prepping food (seriously the best decision made during renovation!), but the kitchen countertop is still so small. With the Cubie Oven, I can do away with multiple kitchen appliances as it fulfils so many functions in one. The multiple tray levels let you cook more than one dish at the same time. Like you can steam vegetables and make chawanmushi all at once. And don’t be fooled by the compact size. A whole fish of 28cm fits inside with no problems.

Verdict

The Panasonic Cubie Oven is compact, but powerful and versatile. A worthy addition to any kitchen! And yes, you can even disinfect baby bottles in it. Is this amazing or what?

Recipe

And now for my recipe of Pandan Madeleine with Coconut Cream made using the Steam + Convection mode. Everything is ready in less than 30 minutes including prep time. I hope you enjoy the recipe!

The post Panasonic Cubie Oven: Pandan Madeleine with Coconut Cream appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

I’ve always heard of kale chips and have always wanted to try making them, but kale is so hard to find in Singapore. They are not available at NTUC, Sheng Siong or Giant, at least I’ve never seen kale at these supermarkets before. They’re sometimes available at Cold Storage though but at around $7?

This reminds me of a story of Japanese cucumber. I always buy Japanese cucumber at the wet market opposite my home for probably $0.20 each. I use them to make my Japanese Potato Salad. One night, my eldest brother and I were at the 24-hour Cold Storage buying ingredients for our picnic the next day. “Damn! I forgot to buy Japanese cucumber at the wet market today!” I said.

“Just buy here la! Nah, here have ma!” the brother said as he reached for a packet of 3 and threw it into the trolley.

“No wait wait wait wait..,” I checked out the price. “$4.50!!! $4.50 for 3 Japanese cucumbers! I can buy 22!! Tomorrow I wake up early go market buy.”

The brother was bewildered. “What?! WTF is wrong with you?”

Thing is, the $4.50 Japanese cucumber wouldn’t even have cost me a cent since he was picking up the tab. And I chose to wake up early to go the market and pay with my own money. Like customers of Singapore’s biggest bank will tell you, “It’s not about the money. It’s the principle.” (<-- this is dedicated to all my ex-colleagues). So my point.. I don't buy expensive vegetables cos I'm a cheapo.
Before airfrying.

I’ve been thinking about kale though, and when I saw them in stock at the supermarket, I knew I had to quickly get them off the shelf! The past few times I was browsing, they were always out of stock. Now imagine allll the kale crisps I could make.

When the kale arrived, I was ecstatic. So green and fresh! I quickly got down to business. Without knowing the temperature, I was going to experiment.. 180C seems good. I was afraid 200C will make them brown too fast as such light and airy leaves in the AF will burn quickly. I preheat the AF for 5 minutes. I always preheat for food that need to be “shocked” on the outside, like salmon and crispy snacks like crab sticks, but I don’t preheat for stuff like chicken chop.. you get what I mean?

I set the timer to 4 minutes and watched the AF like a hawk. I was practically opening the basket every minute to ensure that the kale don’t burn. It was ready by the third minute. Soooo papery light, airy and crisp! Like fairy!

They don’t need a lot of seasoning as they are delicious on their own, really. Ah mm and 88 loved them and kept saying it’s very special (they’ve never eaten kale before too!) but the husband couldn’t accept this “weird food”. I think they will make very good CNY snacks too. You must try these kale chips!

The post Air Fried Kale Crisps appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

This recipe is just in time for Chinese New Year!

I’ve been seeing deep fried crab sticks disguised as Chinese New Year goodies these couple of years and am intrigued by the ingenuity of the sellers. I mean, this is such a simple thing to prepare and takes no effort, and you’re selling it at the same price as pineapple tarts? No way am I gonna fork out $16-$18 for a bottle of this! I decided to make my own this CNY.. 3 heaped plates of the above for $1.90? My wallet (and principle) says “Yes!”

This is super easy to make and it turned out crispy and fragrant. I didn’t even pat them dry nor do anything extra. My aunt even said these taste better than prawn crackers. If you’d like, you can do Cajun flavoured or curry flavoured ones… just sprinkle lightly with seasoning! Small tip: I didn’t face the problem of the crab sticks flying everywhere, but if you do, you can place a steamer rack over – I think it will help a bit.

Note: I tried out another popular brand, Li Chuan crab sticks from Sheng Siong and didn’t like it. Although they were crispy, it was because of the higher ratio of flour:fish paste. It lacked fragrance and was also dry. I don’t recommend it. There are also two types of DODO crab sticks – one frozen and one from the chiller section. Although they taste the same, I found the ones from the chiller easier to unroll. Recently, I’ve tried out air frying at 160C for a longer time (instead of at 180C) and prefer it this way! I have updated the recipe’s temperature below :)

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