Little Inbox Recipe ~Eating Pleasure~

Oriental Prawn Stir-Fry

2012-01-22T15:36:00.001+08:00

Are you looking for Chinese New Year recipe? This Oriental Prawn Stir-Fry may come in time for your reference.

Prawn's pronunciation in Cantonese is similar to "laugh". Hence, prawn dishes represent Happiness. Enjoy this “happiness” dish brought to you by Little Inbox. Happy Chinese New Year for all who celebrate the festival!

Oriental Prawn Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

10 jumbo prawns
2 tbsp of chopped garlic
3 slices of ginger
1 onion, peeled and diced
2 stalks of spring onion, trim the root, and cut into 4cm length (get the green and white portion separated)
Bird’s eye chili, chopped (adjust the amount based on personal preference of spiciness)
Cooking oil

Seasonings:

1 tbsp of light soy sauce
1 tbsp of dark soy sauce
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
Mix up with 6 tbsp of water

Prawn Marinades:

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and grated
½ thumb-sized of ginger, peeled and grated

Steps:

1.Clean the prawns. Trim the legs. Retain the head and shell. Cut a hole at the back and remove the vein. Rinse under running water.
2.Marinate the prawns with grated garlic and ginger for 30 minutes in the fridge.
3.Heat oil in a wok. Sauté ginger and onion, follow by garlic, white portion of spring onion and bird’s eye chili.
4.Stir in the marinated prawns. Fry for a while. Pour in the seasonings. Stir the prawns to let it coated with sauce.
5.Add the green portion of spring onion to mix well.
6.Off the flame and serve hot.

Tomato Rice 番茄饭

2012-01-12T22:42:00.000+08:00

I’ve been thinking of tomato rice lately. Back in university days, my friends and I used to dine in at a stall near the hostel. A Malay uncle was selling nasi tomato (tomato rice) there. His tomato rice was served with a chicken drumstick and few slices of cucumber. It was the only tomato rice I tried.

One day, while chatting with a Malay friend on a cooking topic, I brought up a question to her on how to cook tomato rice. She taught me on the steps and ingredients, I memorized it, shopped for ingredients that evening, and cooked it on the next day. My friend’s recipe calls for evaporated milk and coconut milk, but I substituted it with creamer powder instead. The outcome? I got very fragrant and moist tomato rice to serve with air-fried chicken chop, vegetarian mutton curry and Japanese cucumber slices. It’s delicious!

Tomato Rice

Serves 4-5

Ingredients:

2 cups of rice, rinsed
2 cup of water (add a little bit more if your rice tends to absorb more water)
60g tomato puree
1 tomato, peeled and cubed
1 thumb-sized ginger, skinned and bruised
1 Cinnamon stick
1 star anise
4 pandan leaves, tied in 2 knots
Salt to taste
2 tbsp of creamer powder
Cooking oil

(A)

Blend together:

1 onion, peeled and diced
4 shallots, peeled
5 cloves of garlic, peeled

Steps:

1.Heat up oil in a wok. Add ginger, star anise, Cinnamon stick and (A) and sauté till fragrant. Add tomato puree and fresh tomato cubes. Stir-fry for a while.
2.Pour in rinsed rice. Stir to mix well.
3.Pour in water and bring to a boil.
4.Transer it to the rice cooker pot. Add salt, creamer powder and pandan leaves. Cook in rice cooker. Remark: I cook in under white rice program for 15 minute by using microcomputer rice cooker.
5.Once done, keep it warm in the rice cooker for another 10 minutes before serving.

Prawn and Fishball Noodle Soup

2012-01-09T20:44:00.000+08:00

We spent the whole day of 2012 new year's eve to spring clean our house. There’s no celebration at home. I just cook the simple noodle soup for our new year's eve dinner.

The chicken stock was prepared on the stove and later moved to the magic cooker. The soup was then boiled again . The home made meat balls, fish balls, prawns were cooked in the soup. Add salt to taste. Once done, the soup with the ingredients was poured over the cooked organic carrot noodle. The noodle was then garnished with lettuce and fried garlic. This is so simple, isn’t it?

Roasted Pork Fried Rice 烧肉炒饭

2012-01-02T13:26:00.000+08:00

Another fried rice whipped up with whatever left-over ingredients from the fridge. This is my way of savoring simple home cooked meal.

Wishing everyone Happy 2012!

Roasted Pork Fried Rice 烧肉炒饭
Serves 2

Ingredients:
half cup of red rice
half cup of white rice
2 eggs
some roasted pork, cut into small pieces
bak choy (only the stalk), sliced into pieces
leek (only the white portion), sliced horizontally
half onion, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
Cooking oil

Steps:
1. Mix up the red rice and white rice. Rinse and cook in rice cooker. Once cooked, cool it down.
2. Heat up oil in the same wok, scramble the eggs. Set aside.
3. Add some oil, fry the roasted pork. Brown the onion and add garlic and leek. Sauté till fragrant.
4. Add cooled steamed rice, bak choy and scrambled egg. Stir fry to mix well. Season with light soy sauce and continue to fry till fragrant.

Roast Chicken with Home Made Thai Sauce 泰式酱烤鸡扒

2011-12-25T23:10:00.003+08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I cooked this for our simple Christmas eve dinner last night. We don't celebrate Christmas, but we do spent time at home enjoying our home cooked meal with nice cold drinks and dessert. This is so called precious family time, don't you think so? :)

Oppss, by the way, my roasted chicken was not browned properly. Hai...the old table top oven not performing well. But, it tasted good though, haha...

Roasted Chicken with Home Made Thai Sauce 泰式酱烤鸡扒

Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs, deboned

some baby capsicums, seeded and sliced

1 carrot, peeled and cut into thick strips

2 potatoes, peeled and sliced

1 tomato, diced

half broccoli, cut into florets

Chicken Marinades:

1 tbsp of light soy sauce

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and grated

dashes of black pepper powder

Thai Sauce:

1 and a half tbsp of Thai chili sauce

1 tbsp of sugar

5 coves of shallots, peeled and sliced

1/4 of ginger flower, chopped

1/2 lemon, juiced

Steps:

1. Marinate chicken for 3 hours, leave it in the fridge.

2. Boil potato and carrot for 5 minutes, drained. Blanch the broccoli and drain. Set it aside.

3. In a baking tray, arrange the potato, carrot, tomato, capsicum at the base. Top it with the 2 chicken thighs.

4. Preheat oven at 180 deg C. Roast the chicken for 50 minutes under 180 deg C follow by last 10 minutes under 200 deg C, or until the skin is browned.

5. While the chicken is roasting in progress, prepare the Thai sauce by mixing up all the required ingredients.

6. Serve the roasted chicken with Thai sauce, roasted vegetables and blanched broccoli.

Chocolate Bread Loaf

2011-12-13T22:45:00.001+08:00

I rely on the Tesco bread maker for my bread making. I’m kind of lazy to spend time in making buns, so I only make bread loaf most of the time. I have failed many times though. The dough prepared in bread maker does not raise perfectly. It happened to this chocolate bread dough as well. When the bread maker beeping to trigger the dough is done, the dough size did not doubled. I sensed something was not right and felt very disappointed. It was almost 10pm, nothing much I could do. So, I got an idea. I covered up the bread loaf pan with cling wrap and I left the dough in bread maker for over-night.

The next morning at 5am, after feeding my baby, I ran down stair to check the dough. Aha…it raised. Then, I just removed the cling wrap, and let the bread maker proceeded with the baking process while I continued my sleep. When I woke up, the bread loaf was done and cooled. Here it is, my ugly looking bread. It's rough, but not hard, still edible.

Chocolate Bread Loaf

Ingredients:
200ml fresh milk (chocolate flavored)
330gm of bread flour
1.5 tsp of yeast
25gm butter
4 tbsp of fine sugar
1/2 tsp of salt

Steps:
1. Put all the ingredients into bread maker follow the sequence of liquid, semi liquid, and dry ingredients.
2. Select "dough" program.
3. When the dough is ready, proceed for baking. Remark: I continue to let it proof for another 8 hours as the dough has not doubled in size.

Tomato Salad 番茄沙拉

2011-12-06T23:07:00.000+08:00

This tomato salad was introduced by Chef James from Taiwan. It is very simple to prepare. Tomato is well known for its nutritional value as natural medicine to bring down the blood pressure. Hence, this salad is good for those who has high blood pressure.

I served this salad with home roasted chicken. It’s yummy!

Tomato Salad 番茄沙拉
Serves 2-3

Ingredients:
2 tomatoes
mint leaves, chopped
1 tbsp of rice wine
1 tbsp or less of sugar
a pinch of sugar
water
cold water

Steps:
1. Bring a pot of water to a boiling point. Boil the tomatoes for 1 minute. Drain and soak it in the cold water. Peel the skin and dice it.
2. Mix up the diced tomato with rice wine, sugar, salt and mint leaves.
3. Store in fridge and serve cold.

Sausages Rice 腊味饭

2011-11-29T22:27:00.000+08:00

I learned this recipe from a Taiwanese cooking show. I memorized the cooking steps and finally tried it myself last Saturday. I omitted the soy sauce per the original recipe since the sausages were already very salty. With lots of fried shallots, leeks and juices from the sausages, the rice tastes so delicious! Beware that the liver sausage is very salty. Luckily I added just one.

Sausages Rice 腊味饭
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 Chinese sausage
1 Chinese liver sausage
3 chicken cocktail
1 cup of rice
1 stalk of leek, use only the white portion
10 shallots
1 tbsp of oil
water

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of Shao Xin wine

Garnishing:
some chopped spring onion

Steps:
1. Rinse the rice. Pour it into the rice cooker. Add water up to 1 cup level as per the indicator. Drain water into a bowl and set aside for later use.
2. Make a few shallow cut on the Chinese sausage skin.
3. Put all the Chinese sausage in a non-stick pan. Pan-fry to remove excess oil from the sausage.
4. Add some oil to the pan. Add the shallots. Half way of doing this, add chicken cocktails to pan-fry together till you brown the shallots. Off the flame.
5. Mix the fried shallots to the rice. Arrange Chinese sausages and chicken cocktails on top of the rice. Select the quick cook mode and start the rice cooking process.
6. 3 minutes before the rice cooking is done, mix up the leek with the rice and let the rice continue to cook.
7. When the rice is cooked, sprinkle a tbsp of Shao Xin wine and stir the rice. Remove the sausages. Keep the rice warm for another 5 minutes.
8. Slice the sausages. ( I remove its external skin).
9. Serve the rice with sausage slices. Garnish with some chopped spring onion.

Sweet Potato Dessert 番薯糖水

2011-11-24T20:59:00.000+08:00

This is a fuss-free dessert. Everyone can cook this. To cook this, you can either dump everything in a slow cooker or to cook it on the stove. I prefer the latter. It won't take very long as the orange sweet potato turn soft very fast.

Sweet Potato Dessert 番薯糖水

Ingredients:
300gm of orange sweet potato
1 piece of ginger, about 2 thumb-sized, bruised
6 pandan leaves, tied into knobs
1200 ml water
Brown sugar to taste.

Steps:
1. Peel the sweet potato. Use "cut & tear" method to prepare the potato into bite-size. This will create uneven surface to the potatoes which will increase its surface area to shorten the cooking time.
2. Bring water to boil in a pot. Add in the pandan leaves and ginger to simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Pour in the sweet potato and let it simmer under medium heat until it turns soft.
4. Season with brown sugar about 15 minutes before the dessert is ready. Let the dessert cool down a bit in the wok (with cover) before serving.

Banana Milkshake 香蕉奶昔

2011-11-20T19:54:00.000+08:00

Do you have leftover ripe bananas? Instead of making banana muffin or banana cake, you can turn it into banana milkshake. That was what I did. The ingredient is so simple, just banana, fresh milk and honey (optional). You can add a scoop of vanilla ice-cream to replace honey. I believe it will taste more delicious.

Banana Milkshake 香蕉奶昔
Serves 2 to 3

Ingredients:
2 ripe banana, peeled and sliced
200ml cold fresh milk
1 tbsp of honey or a scoop of vanilla ice-cream (optional)

Steps:
Put everything in a blender and blend into smooth liquid.

Fried Red Rice With Minced Pork 红米肉碎炒饭

2011-11-14T22:50:00.001+08:00

A simple way to whip up a balanced meal is to combine all essential source – carbohydrate, protein, vitamins & minerals and fats. Fried rice is one example. I cook quite a lot of it recently, and I haven't get bored of it yet.

Fried Red Rice with Minced Pork 红米肉碎炒饭
Serves 2

Ingredients:
3/4 cup of white rice
1/4 cup of red rice
3 heaped tbsp of minced pork, marinated with a tsp of light soy sauce and dashes of white pepper powder
2 eggs, cracked in a bowl
1 Romaine lettuce, root discarded, rinsed under running water and cut into strips
100g Enoki mushroom, root discarded, cut length wise into half
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
Cooking oil

Seasonings:
Light soy sauce

Steps:
1. Mix up the red rice and white rice. Rinse and cook in rice cooker. Once cooked, cool it down.
2. Heat up oil in a wok. Scramble the eggs and set aside.
3. Heat up oil in the same wok, fry minced pork and get it separated.
4. Add garlic and sauté till fragrant. Add Enoki mushroom and the scrambled egg. Mix up all the ingredients.
5. Add cooled steamed rice. Add light soy sauce and fry till fragrant. Toss in the lettuce, mix well and of the flame.

Pork Lard (Air-Fryer Recipe)

2011-11-02T19:40:00.003+08:00

Ever since I started to post a few simple recipes cooked with Air-Fryer, I receivd quite a number of emails and comments from time to time. Thanks to all my readers who's willing to try out my Air-Fryer recipes. I’m glad you loved it. Regarding to your enquiries, I’m sorry to say that I have very limited time to reply one by one. I’m new to the Air-Fryer too, but I’ll try my best to explore more about it. Thank you for your support. I appreciate fellow friends who shared with me the useful tricks.

What I’m going to share with you today is not a dish, but a dish complement instead. It’s the pork lard, non-halal food.

During a time when cleaned up the freezer, I found a box of left over raw pork belly. The pork belly was too fat that I didn't want to use it for my cooking. So, I thought off making pork lards with the air-fryer.

To make this, you just have to cut the pork belly into small pieces. Then, arrange it in the airfryer basket. Fry it under 180 deg C for about 15 minutes or more (depends on the size of the pork belly). The pork belly is now turned into golden brown pork lard, like this.......Next, you can use it to garnish your dish or to delish up your fried noodle.

Spaghetti Aglio Olio

2011-10-26T22:41:00.000+08:00

My first attempt to cook Linguini Aglio Olio wasn’t a successful experience. Hubby commented that it was tasteless. He is not choosy in eating. So, when he said tasteless, the food must be bland. That was more than a year ago.

Since then, I’ve been thinking on how to enhance the flavor with the limited ingredients. One day when I was in a hypermarket, suddenly I realized the trick of Aglio Olio....thanks to the smoked garlic that I bumped into. Good quality of garlic should be the secret behind it. That was what popped up in my mind. Then, I started to think about another important ingredient, the dried chili flakes. Not to forget about the olive oil. So, in order to experiment my theory of delicious Aglio Olio, I just concentrated in these 3 ingredients, together with spaghetti and some fresh prawns. And……I’m glad that the result didn't disappoint me. The Spaghetti Aglio Olio is much more fragrant with smoked garlic and dried chili flakes. Now, hubby won’t complaint if I prepare Spaghetti Aglio Olio for his bento.

Spaghetti Aglio Olio
Serves 3

Ingredients:
Spaghetti, quantity enough for 3
1 bulb of smoked garlic, peeled and sliced thinly
dried chili flakes
18 medium-sized prawns, shelled and deveined
generous amount of good quality olive oil
Salt to taste

Steps:
1. Cook spaghetti in a pot of boiling water until al-dente. Drain and set aside.
2. Heat enough olive oil in a wok. Saute the garlic. Do not brown the garlic.
3. Stir in prawns.
4. Toss in the Spaghetti and dried chili flakes. Stir-fry to mix well. Sprinkle sea salt to taste before dish out.

Mushroom and Char Siew Fried Rice

2011-10-20T21:40:00.001+08:00

My husband brought back a packet of fresh Shiitake mushroom instead of dried Shiitake per my shopping list. Not knowing what to do with it, I just add it to the fried rice. It was not bad at all. It’s quite tasty with the combination of char siew (Chinese roasted pork), egg and fresh Shiitake mushroom with rice. Here comes our simple lunch on Sunday.

Mushroom and Char Siew Fried Rice

Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 cup of rice, rinsed, cooked in rice cooker and cooled
2 eggs
1 piece of char siew (about 8cm length), sliced and chopped into small pieces
8 pcs of fresh shiitake mushroom, rinsed and sliced
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
1 stalk of spring onion, chopped
cooking oil
light soy sauce to taste

Steps:

1. Heat up oil in a wok. Scramble the eggs and dish out.
2. Heat up oil in the same wok, saute the char siew. Add mushroom and garlic. Stir-fry till fragrant.
3. Add cooled steamed rice. Sprinkle the rice with light soy sauce to fry till fragrant. Toss in the scrambled egg. Fry till you observe the rice is "jumping" in the wok. Dish out.

Roast Chicken with Nando's Sauce

2011-10-15T14:09:00.000+08:00

This is the meal that I cooked for 2 consecutive Sundays. With these 2 meals, my bottle of Nando’s Peri-Peri sauce was finally used up. That was one of my goal. Another target was to complete my other house chores while the chicken was roasted in the oven. I’m now a multi-tasking mom, hehe…

Roast Chicken with Nando's Sauce

Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs, deboned and excess fat discarded
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 carrot, peeled and cut into chunks
6 fresh button mushrooms, quartered
1 yellow onion, peeled and diced
2 tbsp of olive oil

Marinades:

3 tbsp of Nando's Hot Peri-Peri sauce
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
dashes of black pepper powder

Steps:

1. Make tiny holes over the chicken thighs with fork. Marinate the chicken thigh for 3 hours.
2. Boil the carrot and potato for 3 minutes. Drain and set aside.
3. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of olive oil in a baking tray. Arrange the onion, potato, button mushroom and carrot. Sprinkle another tbsp of olive oil over the vegetables.
4. Arrange the chicken on top of the vegetables.
5. Roast the chicken in the preheated oven under 200 deg C for 40 minutes. Next, increase the temperature to 240deg C and roast the chicken for another 8 minutes. Note: My oven requires higher temperature to brown the chicken. You can adjust accordingly.

I'm Back!

2011-10-09T20:03:00.000+08:00

Hello friends! Thanks for those who left me messages and send me emails. Finally I'm back to blog. We were so busy welcoming our little girl to our family. I was away for good reasons, don't worry. I'm fine. :)

My baby girl is 2 months old now. With her around, I can hardly spend time to dish up my home cooked food, what's more to photograph it. I don't mean to quit cooking and blogging. My passion in cooking will never die. Just for the time being, I stick to simple food that is cooked in slow cooker. I rely on slow cooker to prepare a pasta sauce, meat sauce, and soups.

I'll share some simple cooking. Hopefully I'm able to capture some food photos over the weekend.

Vegetable Yogurt Curry 蔬菜咖哩

2011-08-13T20:47:00.000+08:00

I've been seeing quite a lot of people using yogurt to replace coconut milk in curry. So, I gave it a try and it didn't disappoint me. In fact, yogurt's natural sourness is very suitable to the curry.

In this curry, you can find five colors of vegetables in it. Purple from the onion and eggplant. Yellow from the potato. Green from the okra, green chili and mint leaves. Red from the tomato. White from the fresh button mushroom. I'm very satisfied with my meal with only the curry and steamed rice.

Vegetable Yogurt Curry 蔬菜咖哩

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

1 potato, peeled and cut into pieces

1 round purple eggplant, cut into wedges

half of tomato, cut into wedges

2 green chili, cut into 2cm length

4 okra, cut into half

2 button mushroom, cut into wedges

8 pieces of vegetarian mutton

half onion, peeled and chopped

4 tbsp of yogurt

500ml of vegetable stock, from the potato boiling water

fresh curry paste

cooking oil

Seasonings:

light soy sauce to taste

sugar to taste

Steps:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boiling point. Add half tsp of salt and a tbsp of cooking oil. Blanch the okra and set aside. Then cook the potato till soft. Retain 500ml of the vegetable stock.

2. Heat up enough oil in a wok. Saute onion till fragrant. Add fresh curry paste to saute till oil is separated.

3. Add eggplant and vegetable stock. Bring for simmering.

4. When eggplant turns soft, add all other vegetables and vegetarian mutton to mix well. Bring it for simmering.

5. Add yogurt and seasonings to taste.

6. Garnish with mint leaves and serve hot with steamed rice.

Fried Soy Bean Noodles With Chicken and Lettuce 鸡肉莴苣炒豆签

2011-08-07T15:58:00.000+08:00

Last few days, as usual, I targeted to clear the fridge. Hence, I used up whatever ingredients in the fridge to come out with this fried noodle. Never expect under such circumstances, I could discover a new finding. I found out that Chrisphead Lettuce tastes very good in fried noodle. To proof the finding is right, I even tried it in fried rice. It didn't fail me. The fried rice turned out great too.

Another ingredient that contributed to this fried soy bean noodle is the fried chicken strips. I used it as Protein substitute to prawn. That's a new flavor that I love. It's never too late to know the ingredients, the cooking styles and the flavors that suit your taste buds. That's the fun I got from cooking.

Fried Soy Bean Noodles With Chicken and Lettuce 鸡肉莴苣炒豆签
Serves 4

Ingredients:
250gm of dried soy bean noodle
lettuce, cut into strips
1 chicken breast, skinned, deboned and cut into strips
bean sprout
1 stalk of spring onion
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
2 eggs
cooking oil

Seasonings:
2 tbsp of oyster sauce
2 tbsp of light soy sauce
1 tbsp of chili paste
1 tsp of dark soy sauce
1 tsp of sesame oil

Marinades for the chicken:
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
dashes of white pepper powder

Steps:
1. Marinate the chicken strips for 20 minutes.
2. Bring a pot of water to boil. Add a tbsp of oil in the water. Cook the soy bean noodles till soft. Drain and set aside.
3. Heat oil in a wok, scramble the eggs. Set aside.
4. Heat 3 tbsp of oil in the same wok. Fry the chicken till golden yellow. Add garlic to saute.
5. Pour in the noodles and the seasonings. Mix well till the noodles is coated with the sauce.
6. Add bean sprout to stir fry.
7. Toss in lettuce, scrambled egg and spring onion to mix well.
8. Dish out and serve hot.

Kung Pao Squid 宫保墨鱼

2011-08-04T19:39:00.001+08:00

This is the 2nd time I cook squid. First was Squid Curry. Actually I have no idea how to come out a dish with these squid. Ended up cooking it with onion, ginger, dried chili, garlic and spring onion, which is very similar to Kung Pao style. So, that's why I named it as Kung Pao Squid. :)

Kung Pao Squid 宫保墨鱼

Ingredients:
400gm of squid, cleaned
1 stalk of spring onion, separate the white and green portion. Cut into 2" length
5 slices of ginger
half onion, peeled and diced
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
12 dried chilies, soaked in hot water to dehydrate
1 tbsp of glutinous rice wine
cooking oil

Sauce:
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
1/2 tsp of dark soy sauce
dashes of white pepper powder

Steps:
1. Cut the squid body into rings. Marinate the squids with glutinous rice wine for 5 minutes.
2. Heat up oil in a wok. Saute onion, chili and ginger till fragrant. Add garlic.
3. Stir in squids and the white portion of spring onion. Cook for 1 minute. Pour in sauce and stir fry.

4. Cook till the sauce is thickening. Add green portion of spring onion. Dish out and serve hot with steamed rice.

Potato Wedges (Air-Fryer Recipe)

2011-07-31T20:55:00.000+08:00

I made some potato wedges using the air-fryer for our afternoon snack today. I never make potato wedges before, neither baked or fried. I thought it requires a very long cooking time. Now I know I was wrong. By using the air-fryer, this can be ready in just 15 minutes, with only a tablespoon of cooking oil. As you can see, the result is so satisfying. It's worth a try.

Potato Wedges (Air-Fryer Recipe)

Reference: Philip Airfryer recipe booklet

Ingredients:

350gm potato

1 tbsp cooking oil

dashes of paprika

Steps:

1. Scrub the potatoes clean and cut it into wedges. Soak the potato wedges in water for at least 30 minutes. Drain and pat dry with kitchen paper. Coat them with oil in a bowl. Sprinkle with paprika powder.

2. Cook in preheat airfryer for 15 minutes under 180 deg C.

Salted Chicken From Aun Kheng Lim, Ipoh

2011-07-29T20:43:00.000+08:00

If you happened to drop by Ipoh for Lou Wong bean sprout chicken rice, you can walk over to another street for the Aun Kheng Lim salted chicken. You can only take away since they don't have dine in service. That’s what we did when we dine at Aun Kee for chicken hor fun, which is next door to the Lou Wong.

I found a few slices of Dong Quai aka Angelica sinensis inserted inside the free range chicken’s abdomen. It is wrapped up in a few layers of parchment paper and then baked in salt. So, the outcome is a herbal infused and salty fragrant chicken. Each chicken cost RM17. The portion is just enough for 2 to serve with steamed rice.

To make up a balanced meal, I serve the it with chicken rice and sliced Japanese cucumber. It is a simple and yet satisfying lunch.

Aun Kheng Lim Salted Chicken
No. 24, Jalan Theatre,
30300 Ipoh, Perak.
Tel : 05-2542998

Fried "Xin Zhu" Vermicelli 炒新竹米粉

2011-07-25T20:40:00.002+08:00

新竹米粉 translated to English as "Xin Zhu" vermicelli, is a well-known noodle produced in Xin Zhu, Taiwan. The noodles is dried by the natural wind and not by machine. That's what made it so special and popular in Xin Zhu. The main ingredients are rice and water.

I'm not sure if the dried "Xin Zhu" vermicelli that I bought is the original product from "Xin Zhu". But, I can tell the difference between this "Xin Zhu" vermicelli and the common vermicelli. It needs longer soaking time to soften. It is half-translucent that is similar to glass noodle. And it is also more springy. Of course, it is more expensive. I've use it several times in stir-frying, but haven't try it in noodle soup. If you like fried glass noodle, you will like this fried "Xin Zhu" vermicelli too.

Fried "Xin Zhu" Vermicelli 炒新竹米粉
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 pieces of "Xin Zhu" Vermicelli, soaked in warm water for 25-30 minutes
cabbage, cut into strips
1/4 of carrot, cut into strips
1 egg, beaten
12 prawns, shelled and deveined
100ml water
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
cooking oil

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
1 tsp of dark soy sauce
3 tbsp of light soy sauce
dashes of white pepper powder

Steps:

1. Heat some oil in a wok. Fry the beaten egg till golden both sides. Leave it cool and cut it into strips.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in the wok and saute garlic until fragrant. Add the prawns, and cabbage to stir-fry for 2 minutes.

3. Add vermicelli. Pour in seasonings, water and mix well. Continue to stir-fry until the sauce is thickening. Toss the carrot to the vermicelli. Stir-fry for 1 minute. Dish out and garnish with egg strips. Serve hot.

Potato With Meatballs 马铃薯与肉丸

2011-07-20T20:02:00.002+08:00

This is one of my childhood favourite. My mum cooked this quite frequently when I was a kid. I used to eat only the meatballs until I learned the benefits of potato. Well, my mum has several version of this dish. She played around the potato and meatballs. Sometimes, she deep-fried the meatballs and potato. Sometimes, she just fried the meatballs, and at times, she just cook potato and meatballs from raw. Despite of the different methods, the dish turns out to be delicious.

As for my version, I pan-fried both the potato and meatballs. Remember about the meatballs that I prepared up-front? I moved it from freezer to to fridge just before I left to work. It'll will be ready to cook when I come back home. I want my cooking to be therapeutic instead of problematic after long hours of working.

Potato With Meatballs 马铃薯与肉丸
Serves 4

Ingredients:
3 potatoes, peeled and sliced
16 meatballs
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 onion, peeled and sliced
cooking oil
200ml water

Seasonings:
Light soy sauce to taste

Steps:
1. Heat up oil in a wok. pan-fry the potato till golden yellow. Drain and set aside.
2. Add 2 tbsp of oil in the same wok. Stir-fry onion till fragrant. Add garlic to saute till golden yellow.
3. Pour in water and bring to boil.
4. Add fried potatoes and meatballs. Let it simmers for few minutes. Add light soy sauce to taste.
5. Serve hot with rice.

Pan-Fried Meatballs 炸肉丸

2011-07-17T21:52:00.000+08:00

I always spend my Sunday morning preparing big quantity of food that can be frozen for our weekdays' consumption. For example, home made pasta sauce and meat sauce. Today, I prepare a batch of meatballs. Later it can be used to make meatball spaghetti bolognese, meatballs in tomato sauce and others.

That's how I work out to cut down my cooking time on working days.

Pan-Fried Meatballs 炸肉丸
Makes 25 meatballs

Ingredients:
500gm minced pork
1/2 onion, peeled and chopped
cooking oil

Marinades:
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
dashes of white pepper powder
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp corn flour

Steps:
1. Mix up he minced pork with chopped onion and marinades. Leave it for half an hour.
2. Shape the marinated minced pork into meatballs. Allocate the meat balls on a baking tray. Rub the surface with little bit of water for a smoother look.
3. Heat up oil in a non-stick pan. Pan-fry the meatballs in batches until golden brown.
4. Put in on kitchen towel to remove excess oil.
5. Serve it on its own, cook it into dishes or fridge it up for later use.

Vegetable and Prawns Fried Rice

2011-07-14T22:00:00.000+08:00

Nowadays, I used to cook something simple for dinner, and prepare extra portion for the next day's bento. This is one of the example. Basically I just fry rice with whatever ingredients I have in the fridge. Not only that, the seasonings is pretty versatile too. It can be adjusted to suit your own taste buds.

Vegetable and Prawns Fried Rice
Serves 5

Ingredients:
2.5 cups of rice, rinsed, cooked and cooled
300gm long bean, chopped
2 sweet corn, use only the kernels
100gm oyster mushroom, tear into strips
30 small prawns, shelled, deveined and cut into pieces
2 tbsp of chopped garlic
cooking oil

Seasonings:
Light soy sauce
Dark soy sauce (optional)
Chili paste (optional)

Steps:
1. Heat up oil in a wok. Saute garlic till fragrant. Add prawns, corns and long beans. Stir-fry till half cook.
2. Add a tbsp of light soy sauce to mix well.
3. Add cooled steamed rice and oyster mushroom. Add light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and chili paste to fry till fragrant. You can see the rice is "jumping" in the wok. That's perfect!

Potato Bread Loaf

2011-07-11T20:25:00.001+08:00

I'm glad that I can spend some time to make a potato bread today. This is supposed to be potato sweet bun recipe, but due to my laziness, I made it into bread loaf instead. :)

After tasting it, I realized that potato is a good ingredient to replace portion of the wheat flour. With the mashed potato added, the bread has mild fragrant of potato that is not overpowering. Also, the bread is a little bit moist compared to 100% high Protein flour bread.

Potato Bread Loaf (Use Basic Programme of Tesco Bread Maker BM07)

Ingredients:
80gm fresh milk at room temp
40gm butter
10gm Sunflower oil
1/2 egg, beaten
1 potato (about 140gm), peeled, steamed and mashed
1/4 tsp of salt
50gm of fine sugar
300gm bread flour
1 tsp dried yeast

Steps:
1. Add milk follow by beaten egg, oil and butter.
2. Add flour, salt, sugar and mashed potato.
3. Tap the pan lightly to settle the flour.
4. Add the yeast in small heap in the center of the pan.
5. Lock the pan in the bread maker. Set the program to "Basic" follow by loaf size (1.5lb) and select the crust color.
6. The bread maker will complete the task in 3 hours.

Air-Fried Wanton

2011-07-07T17:38:00.000+08:00

For my 3rd experiment of cooking fresh food with air-fryer, I made an attempt to fry wanton. This is not a satisfying result that I'm looking for. The wonton skin is not as crispy as the deep-fried version. It's little bit hard but turns soft very fast. The filling also turned dry after the air-frying.
I'll figure out the correct method of making crispy wanton in air-fryer. Stay tuned!

Durian Popsicles

2011-07-03T19:20:00.002+08:00

We got some left-over durian last night. I hate the odor if I had to fridge up the fresh durian. So, I kept thinking of what can I do with the balance durian. Then I thought of the durian ice that my mom used to make during every durian season. My mom’s durian ice consists of durian flesh, sugar and water. No dairy product is used as she is allergic to it. She has no recipe, as she mix it up the ingredients to form the desired concentration.

As for my version, I added some condensed milk. So the outcome is creamy durian popsicles that is not as hard as the version without milk. You can taste the durian flesh, the ice and the milk that are well blended in a popsicle.

Durian Popsicles

Ingredients:
200gm durian flesh (just an estimation)
4 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp condense milk
350ml water

Steps:
1. In a mixer, beat durian flesh, sugar and condense milk to form thick liquid base.
2. Slowly add water and mix well.
3. Pour into popsicle moulds. Froze it over night.
4. Just before serving, put the popsicle moulds under running water for few seconds. Then the popsicles are ready to be removed from the mould. Enjoy!

Century Egg and Chicken Porridge 皮蛋鸡丝粥

2011-06-29T12:05:00.001+08:00

I'm not used to prepare breakfast at home. Our breakfast on weekdays are usually bread or cream cracker with oats or coffee. Breakfast during the weekend is usually fried koay kak or nasi lemak. Sounds boring? Last Sunday, I felt like want to have some simple home cooked breakfast. Hence, I cooked this century egg and chicken porridge. It's so fulfilling to have a bowl of home cooked porridge to kick start a day. I like smooth porridge, hence I get the rice blended up front. I'm glad the porridge texture turned out as per my expectation.

Century Egg and Chicken Porridge

Ingredients:
3/4 cup of rice, rinsed and slightly blended
1.2 liter water
250gm chicken ribs, skinned
salt to taste
sesame oil
dashes of white pepper powder

Garnishing
1 thumb-sized ginger, peeled and cut into thin strips
hand-pulled chicken (from the chicken ribs)
1 stalk of spring onion, chopped the green portion
1 century egg, peeled and chopped

Steps:
1. Bring water to boil in a pot or kettle.
2. Add chicken ribs to the slow cooker pot. Pour in the hot water. Cook under high for 1 and a half hour.
3. Remove chicken ribs from the chicken stock. Leave it cooled and keep it in the fridge.
4. Add rice and cook under low for 8 hours. (I cooked it over night)
5. Return the chicken ribs to the porridge to warm it up. Remove from the porridge. Off the power.
6. Add salt to the porridge.
7. Hand-pull the chicken into strips.
8. Serve the porridge with ginger strips, hand-pulled chicken, century egg, spring onion. Drizzle sesame oil on top and add few dashes of white pepper powder.

Rainbow Jelly

2011-06-26T22:11:00.000+08:00

This rainbow jelly is suitable for any party. It's simple to make and yet appetizing. It's sweet, cool, and refreshing. I used egg shells as the jelly container, just like what I did for the dragon fruit jelly.

Rainbow Jelly

Ingredients:

10g Konnyaku jelly powder

1 liter water

200gm sugar

fruit cocktail

Steps:

1. Mix Konnyaku jelly powder with sugar.

2. Bring 1000ml of water to a boil. Gradually pour in the mixture in boiling water and stir well until mixture is dissolved .
3. Put fruit cocktail into moulds and pour the Konnyaku solution into the moulds.
4. Put moulded jelly solution in the fridge for at least one hour. Serve chilled.

Watercress Soup 西洋菜汤

2011-06-23T19:29:00.001+08:00

Usually I boil soup with either Chinese herbs or root vegetables like carrot, potato, radish, nagaimo or lotus root. This time, I made a change to boil soup with green leafy vegetable, the watercress. My mom used to cook this soup with pork ribs, white pepper corns and red dates. So, I just follow her style and this time I cook it for my parents instead. However, you won’t taste the difference between my version and my mom’s version. This could be what I inherit from my mom. :)

The soup is refreshing, but not too cooling with added pepper corns and red dates. The watercress contributes lots of fiber. However, the vitamins may be partially loss throughout the simmering process.

Watercress Soup

Ingredients:
2.5 liter water
1 big bunch of watercress, rinsed and cut into 2.5” length
1 chicken carcass, blanched
300gm of pork ribs, blanched
12 red dates, rinsed and make a cut on each date
1tsp of white pepper corn, cracked
Salt to taste

Steps:
1.Bring water to boil in a pot.
2.Add cracked pepper corns, red dates, chicken carcass and pork ribs. Leave for simmering for 1 and a half hours.
3.Add watercress and bring to boil. Let the soup simmers for another 1 minutes.
4.Add salt to taste and serve warm.

Chicken Rice

2011-06-21T20:45:00.001+08:00

The rice is infused with aroma of fried ginger and garlic. Also, the pandan leaves add fragrance to the rice flavor. It's best served with steamed chicken or fried chicken. Enjoy~

Chicken Rice

Serves 5

Ingredients:

2.5 cups of long grain rice

650ml of water (this amount is based on what type of rice you use, adjust accordingly)

2tbsp of cooking oil

5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

2 shallots, peeled and chopped

30gm of ginger, skinned and cut into thin strips

1 tsp of salt

3 pandan leaves, tie into knot

steamed chicken or fried chicken

Steps:

1. Heat oil in a wok, sauté ginger and shallots till fragrant. Add garlic. Sauté till golden yellow.

2. Add rice to stir-fry for 3 minutes. Off the fire.
3. Transfer the rice to rice cooker pot. Add salt, water and pandan leaves.
4. Cook under "white rice" program using micro-computer rice cooker.
5. When the cooking is done, leave it in "keep warm" mode for 10 minutes or more.
6. Serve hot with steamed chicken or fried chicken.

Father’s Day Special

2011-06-19T22:04:00.000+08:00

Last year, I invited my parents to my house to celebrate Mother’s Day. This year I did the same for Father’s Day. On this special day, I prefer to spent some private time with families at home rather than joining the crowd.

Here’s what I cooked today. I got thumbs up from my parents. I’m glad they like it.

Watercress soup with red dates and pork ribs

Otak-otak aka spicy fish custard, this is my dad's favorite

Chili crab, my mom's courtesy

Fried Chicken Chop, that I experimented last week

And lastly, the rainbow jelly for dessert

Happy Father's Day!

Nagaimo Soup (Slow Cooker Recipe) 淮山、杞子、红枣汤

2011-06-15T21:18:00.001+08:00

These days I don't have time to boil soup during weekdays. Soup boiling at home is only limited to once or twice a week over the the weekend. This Nagaimo soup was my creation last Sunday. I called up hubby to buy some Nagaimo when he was out to the wet market. I always have add on to my shopping list from my ad-hoc inspiration. :-)

Nagaimo is good for girl's growth as it helps to generate female hormone that aids in breast and ovary forming. That's what I learned from a Traditional Chinese Medicine. If you are worried if the Nagaimo is too cooling, you can always add some white pepper corns or ginger to the dish. That is what I did for this soup.

Nagaimo Soup

Ingredients:

180gm of nagaimo, skinned and cut into bite size

250gm of pork ribs, blanched in boiling water

8 red dates

1 tbsp of goji berries

1/2 tsp of cracked white pepper corns (optional)

2 slices of ginger

1.3ml of hot water

Seasonings:

salt to taste

Steps:

1. Pour hot water into the slow cooker pot.

2. Add all ingredients. Leave it simmers for 3 hours.

3. Add salt to taste and serve hot.

Air-Fried Chicken Chop (Air-Fryer Recipe) 炸鸡扒

2011-06-12T17:20:00.001+08:00

Ever since I posted the Grilled Fish recipe using Air-Fryer, a couple of inquiries were brought to my attention. Many asked on how effective the Air-Fryer is. Till now, I can't give much advice since I just use it to prepare some processed food like hash browns and fish fingers, besides the grilled fish. So far, it has not turn me down. I told my friends to stay tuned, as I will keep on experiment the air-frying using different type of fresh food.

Not long ago, my mom learned to make shallow-fried chicken chop and passed on her recipe to me. Instead of shallow-frying, I cooked the chicken chop in my air-fryer. With very minimal amount of marinades, the chicken chop turned out so flavorful. The meat is tender and juicy, but not oily. The skin is crispy to every bite. If I have to comment, I would say the air-fried chicken chop taste as good as the oil-fried version. It is less oily, as the fat beneath the skin has been removed, there's no single drop of oil used for the frying, and the excess chicken oil was released through the cooking. Now, I can eat fried chicken without any guilt. :P

So, this is my second trial, and it turned out successful as well. I will carry on the mission to try on other fresh ingredients.

Air-Fried Chicken Chop

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs, deboned and fat removed

Corn Flour

Marinades:

2 tbsp of light soy sauce

dashes of white pepper powder

3 shallots, peeled and chopped

Steps:

1. Clean the chicken thighs and pat dry with kitchen towel. Marinate for 2 hours.

2. Drain the excess seasonings and coat the chicken thigh with a layer of corn flour.

3. Arrange the chicken thighs on the air-fryer pot with skin facing down. Air-fry it under 200 deg C for 10 minutes. Turn the chicken thighs to the other side. Air-fry for another 10 minutes under 180 deg C.

4. Slice the chicken thighs into cutlets. Serve hot with rice or chips.

Meat Floss Noodle 肉松干面

2011-06-08T20:57:00.000+08:00

This noodle inspired me when I watched a Taiwan cooking show that introduce meat floss in one of their series. I Immediately jotted down the cooking steps. Their version is using fresh Taiwan noodles, but it's hard to find it here, so I replaced it with dried organic noodles instead.

I'm sharing the noodle with Ruth's Presto Pasta Nights #217. The host of the week is From Kirsten's Kitchen to Yours. Stay tuned for the round up of the week.

Meat Floss Noodle 肉松干面
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 pieces of dried ramen
meat floss
green veggies
2 eggs
salt
water

Seasonings:
light soy sauce
sesame oil
sha cha sauce (optional)

Steps:
1. Bring 1 liter water to boil in a pot. Off the flame and add 300ml of cold water. Add egg and leave for 6-8 minutes (depends on the size of egg) with lid cover.
2. In another pot of boiling water, add salt and cook the noodle .
3. In 2 serving bowls, add sesame oil, light soy sauce, sha cha sauce (optional) and pour half ladle of salty boiling water over the sauce in each bowl. Mix well.
4. Mix up the noodle with meat floss and the sauce.
5. In the boiling water that cook noodle just now, blanch some green veggies.
6. Top the noodle with green veggies and meat floss.
7. Take out the egg. Crack in a bowl and pour on top of the noodle. Serve hot.

Grilled Fish (Air-Fryer Recipe)

2011-06-04T15:40:00.000+08:00

I would like to introduce you to my new kitchen helper - the Philips AirFryer. After considering for few hours, finally we brought back a unit of it, yesterday. So far, it's the most expensive appliance in my kitchen. Though, it is expensive, but I think it worths the price when comes to the healthy frying cooking. Now, I don't need to add oil to fry seafood, meat and snacks. We can savor more fried food that I don't used to cook at home.

I can't wait any longer to test its performance. My first attempt: Air-Fried Fish, or best described as Grilled Fish. Hubby and I are quite happy with how the fish tastes. It's crispy at the outside and juicy inside. I serve it with home made dips (bird's eye chili, tomato, shallots, calamansi juice, salt and sugar). Viola!

Grilled Fish

Ingredients:

Small fishes (I used kembung fish)

sea salt and turmeric powder for marinades

Steps:

1. Cut and remove intestines from the fishes. Clean and pat dry.

2. Marinate the fish for 30 minutes.

3. Arrange fish in the airfryer basket. Air-fry at 180 degC for the first 5 minutes. Then, 200deg C for another 8 minutes.

4. Serve hot with your favorite chili sauce.

Strawberry Bread

2011-06-01T19:52:00.002+08:00

This recipe was shared by a colleague. His wife invested a branded bread maker that is more high-tech than mine. He passed to me a hand written recipe booklet for my experiment. My first choice goes to Strawberry Bread. No specific reason, just the ingredients were easy to get. Since I just bought a non-stick chiffon cake pan, so I just use it to to mould the buns.

The buns were soft and with mild fragrant of strawberry. You can replace strawberry flavored milk with chocolate milk in order to get chocolate buns. I'll give that a try too.

I'm submitting the strawberry buns to Aspiring Bakers #8: Bread Seduction (June 2011), hosted by Jasmine of The Sweetylicious.

Strawberry Bread

Ingredients:

200ml fresh milk (strawberry flavored)

330gm of bread flour

1.5 tsp of yeast

25gm butter

40gm of fine sugar

1/2 tsp of salt

some beaten egg.

Steps:
1. Put all the ingredients into bread maker follow the sequence of liquid, semi liquid, and dry ingredients.
2. Select "dough" program.
3. When the dough is ready, divide it into 7 or 8 portions. Mould into balls and put on a greased pan.
4. Let the dough prove for another 40 minutes.
5. Egg-brush the top.
6. Bake at 180 deg C for 12-15 minutes

Vegetarian Curry Mutton One-Plate Meal

2011-05-29T19:39:00.000+08:00

Some time ago, we were fancy over a local vegetarian restaurant's one-plate meal. However, their food quality have deteriorated over time. Hence, we no longer dine in the vegetarian restaurant. According to my previous dine in experience, I used to order their one-plate meal with rice, vegetarian curry mutton, and some veggies.

The one-plate meal concept interests me. So, I apply the similar way for my home cooking in preparing our meatless meal. I always have great appetite whenever I see this type of one-plate meal. Funny! :-)

For the vegetarian mutton curry recipe, please refer here.

Purple Sweet Potato Bun

2011-05-25T20:31:00.000+08:00

Every time when I step into a hypermarket, I enjoyed myself looking for new ingredients for my cooking. Each hypermarket sure have their unique products. Some have wide variety of spices, and some are more fresh vegetables and fruits.

Last week, I found some fresh fragrant purple sweet potato which I seldom use in my cooking. Since I still have some left over "Pao" flour, I thought of trying to make some steamed buns. I played with the dough and shaped it into different shapes. This is the prettiest among all.

Purple Sweet Potato Bun

Ingredients:
270gm of purple sweet potato, peeled, cut into chunks,steamed until soft and mashed
60gm fine sugar
500gm pao flour
1 tsp of yeast
10gm Sunflower oil
200ml water

Steps:
1. Put all the ingredients into bread maker follow the sequence of liquid, semi liquid, and dry ingredients.
2. Select "dough" program.
3. When the dough is ready, divide it into small equal portions. Shape it and put on parchment paper.
4. Let the dough prove for 45 minutes.
5. Steam it for about 15 minutes or longer depends on the size.

Leek and Chicken Drumstick Fried Rice

2011-05-23T20:09:00.000+08:00

I just got a good quality pro-metal non-stick pan from hubby as a reward to my home cooking. So, it’s more convenient for me to pan-fry meat and seafood from now on with little or without oil. Today, I tried to pan-fry chicken without oil. The natural oil released from chicken throughout the frying process was retained for the rice frying process. That’s our chicken fragrant fried rice for lunch.

Leek and Chicken Drumstick Fried Rice
Serves 3

Ingredients:
1 stalk of leek, chopped (separate the green portion and the white portion)
1 chicken drumstick, deboned
2 eggs, beaten
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3 bowls of cool rice

Marinades:
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
Dashes of white pepper powder

Seasonings:
light soy sauce to taste
oyster sauce to taste
1 tsp of sesame oil

Steps:
1.Marinate the chicken drumstick and leave for 15 minutes.
2.Heat up a non-stick pan. Pan-fry the chicken drumstick with skin facing down. Brown the chicken skin side and follow by the other side. Set aside the chicken and leave it cool before cutting it into cubes.
3.Mix the rice with beaten eggs.
4.With the chicken oil in the pan, stir-fry the leek (the white portion). Add chicken and garlic to mix. Pour in the rice and fry till golden yellow.
5.Add light soy sauce to taste. Drizzle sesame oil over the rice before dish out.

Coffee Buns (Tesco Bread Maker Recipe)

2011-05-19T21:16:00.000+08:00

Since I owned a bread maker machine, I've tried making several types of bread loaf and buns. Not every baking is successful. Supposedly if you follow strictly the steps for the dough preparation using a bread maker, you shouldn't go wrong. But, the secret is in the ingredients, in terms of quality and proportions. For example, the yeast. So far, I tried 2 different brand of yeasts. The first brand results a good raise for dough, and the other one does not. I experimented using both brands of yeasts in several baking for the hypothesis, and it proved that my earlier assumption is right. So, I stick to my reliable yeast.

These coffee buns were made using the poor quality of yeast. Hence it did not raise properly. It's soft and springy while hot, but it's hard while cooled to room temperature. It was a failure. However, I believe with a good quality yeast, you'll get a perfect texture buns.

Coffee Buns

Ingredients:
300gm bread flour
30gm fine sugar
half tsp of salt
5g of dried yeast
1 packet of 2-in-1 coffee powder
1 packet of raisins
180ml of room temp water
20gm of butter (at room temp)

Steps:
1. Put all the ingredients into bread maker follow the sequence of liquid, semi liquid, and dry ingredients.
2. Select "dough" program.
3. When the dough is ready, divide it into small portions. Mould into balls and put on a greased pan.
4. Let the dough prove for 15 minutes, then flatten slightly and continue to let them prove for 30 minutes.
5. Bake at 190 deg C for 12-15 minutes.

Cajun Pan-Fried Fish with Tomato Salsa

2011-05-17T20:02:00.000+08:00

I spotted this in a cafe's menu when we dined in for some cold desserts. It prompted me the idea to prepare the similar meal for the next day's lunch. I'm guessing the ingredients and cooking method via the name of the dish. "Cajun" is what I used to marinate the fish. "Pan-fried" is the method I applied to cook up the fish. And "tomato salsa" is the sauce that I served the fish with. Sounds easy, right?

Cajun Pan-Fried Fish with Tomato Salsa

Ingredients:

2 boneless fish fillets, rubbed with salt and sprinkled with Cajun

cooking oil

Tomato Salsa

1 ripe tomato, cubed

half lemon, juiced

spring onion, chopped

3 garlic, peeled and crashed

sugar and salt to taste

Steps:

1. Mix up all the ingredients for tomato salsa. Set aside.

2. Heat up oil in a pan. Pan-fry the fish on both sides.

3. Rest the fish fillets on kitchen towel to remove excess oil.

4. Transfer it onto a plate. Top with tomato salsa. Serve hot.

Pea Sprout Stir-Fry

2011-05-15T17:25:00.002+08:00

We've been eating pea sprout for 2 consecutive weeks. It's hubby's favorite veggie that I seldom cook. When I ask him to buy one type of "occasionally cook" vegetable, he'll bring back some pea sprout from the market.

This time, instead of get it stir-fried with sambal belacan, I stir-fried it with garlic and garnish with fried anchovies. This is a new cooking method to satisfy his tummy.

Pea Sprout Stir-Fry
Ingredients:
Pea sprouts
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
cooking oil
20ml of water

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of rice wine
salt to taste

Garnishing:
Fried anchovies

Steps:
1. Heat oil in a wok. Sauté garlic till fragrant. Add pea sprout to stir-fry.
2. Add some water and seasonings. Bring to boil.
3. Dish out and garnish with fried anchovies.

Bowles Mint Cough Remedy

2011-05-11T22:22:00.000+08:00

Last week when I pay a visit to my sister's place, I noticed that she grows her potty garden very well. I asked for few stems of Bowles mint leaves (the species that is big and furry type). I used the leaves to boil a pot of natural cough remedy to soothe my cough. Then, the steams are planted.

This type of mint leaves have very strong smell. You'll either love it or hate it. Of course, I like it a lot. It's very refreshing.

Bowles Mint Cough Remedy

Ingredients:
2 liter water
30 Bowles mint leaves
2 thumb-sized ginger, peeled and sliced
brown sugar to taste

Steps:
1. Bring water to boil in a pot.
2. Add ginger and Bowles mint leaves. Leave it simmers for half an hour.
3. Add brown sugar to taste. Serve warm.

Chicken Salad

2011-05-08T21:58:00.000+08:00

This chicken salad is very easy to make even if you don't know how to cook. The secret is in its dressing. If you like sourish, spicy, and the smell of Parsley, you'll like my chicken salad. If you don't like Parsley, you can replace it with other herbs of your favorite. Feel free to play around to mix your own dressing to your liking.

Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast, skinned

Salad Dressing:
1 ripe tomato, cubed
6 bird's eye chili, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 lemon, juiced
salt
sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
Parsley, chopped

Steps:
1. Steam the chicken breast until it's cooked thoroughly. I steam it for 18 minutes. Leave it cool.
2. Hand-pull the chicken breast.
3. Mix up all the ingredients for the salad dressing.
4. Pour the dressing over the hand-pulled chicken.
5. Keep it refrigerate. Serve cold.

Radish and Carrot Soup

2011-05-05T22:06:00.002+08:00

It's now a good season to get big, fat and juicy white radish. I grabbed one last week and paired it up with carrot to make it into tasty peppery soup. I played around with the carrot cutter again to get the radish and carrot shaped into star and flower. Don't you think the soup looks interesting? By the way, it tastes really sweet. I like it.

Radish and Carrot Soup

Ingredients:
300 gm of pork ribs
1 radish, peeled and cut into pieces
1 carrot, peeled and cut into pieces
2 liter water
half tsp of white peppercorns, lightly pounded with the back of cleaver
salt to taste
chopped spring onion for garnishing

Steps:
1. Blanch the pork ribs in boiling water and set aside.
2. Bring 2 liter of water to boil in a pot. Add white pepper and pork ribs. Leave it simmers for half an hour.
3. Add carrot and radish and leave it simmers under low heat for another 1 hour.
4. Add salt to taste. Garnish with spring onion just before serving.

Asam Curry Squid

2011-05-02T21:03:00.003+08:00

Since I started cooking 3 years ago, I have not tried cooking a squid cuisine. Out of sudden, I miss the asam curry squid my mum used to cook. So, I got my dad to buy half kilo of squid from the wet market. My mum helped to clean the squid and it was delivered home by hubby. So it's ready for cooking. Oh, how lucky I am to stay close to my parents. :)

With the ready made fresh curry paste and some herbs, this dish was easily done. The asam curry is tangy and spicy. Just perfect to satisfy my sudden crave. :)

Asam Curry Squid

Serves 4-5

Ingredients:

500gm small-sized squid, skinned and cleaned

1 onion, peeled and sliced

4 Kaffir lime leaves

1 Kadok leaf, cut into thin strips

3 stalk of lemon grass (the white portion), pounded

fresh curry paste

1 ping-pong sized tamarind pulp mixed with 1 cup of water, sieved

cooking oil

Seasonings:

Light soy sauce to taste

Sugar to taste

Steps:

1. Heat oil in a wok. Sauté onion till fragrant. Add lemon grass, Kaffir lime leaves, curry paste and sauté till oil separated.

2. Add squid and quick stir-fry under high heat.

3. Pour in tamarind juice and bring to boil. Add light soy sauce and sugar to taste.

4. Dish out and garnish with Kadok herbs. Serve hot with rice.

Baked Mashed Potato

2011-04-27T21:00:00.001+08:00

Hubby loves mashed potato, and I love pasta sauce, so I paired them up to make our favorite baked mashed potato. This is a good choice when you are bored with rice or noodle for main course. Furthermore potato contains lower carbohydrates compared to rice.

Baked Mashed Potato
Serves 3 to 4
Ingredients
570gm US potato, peeled and sliced
150gm White button mushroom
150gm minced pork
2 hard-boiled egg shelled and sliced
1 onion, peeled and chopped
6 long beans, chopped
200gm of pasta sauce
cooking oil

Marinades:
1 tbsp of light so sauce
dashes of white pepper powder

Steps:
1. Marinate the minced pork with dashes of pepper and a tbsp of light soy sauce.
2. Steam potato for 20 minutes or until soft. Mash it and put in a big ramekin. Press to form a layer of base to the ramekin.
3. Heat up enough oil in a wok. Sauté onion for 2 minutes. Add minced pork to fry. Ensure the minced pork separated and not stick together.
4. Add mushrooms to stir fry for 2 minutes. Pour the ingredients on top of the mashed potato. Sprinkle chopped long bean on top of it.
5. Pour the pasta sauce over the top. Cover the ramekin with Aluminum sheet, and bake for 12 minutes under 180 deg C preheated oven.
6. When it's done, garnish it with hard-boiled egg slices.

Fish In Soy Bean Sauce

2011-04-25T20:45:00.000+08:00

I cooked this dish to serve with porridge. Whenever I'm having porridge, I have basic requirement of at least 3 dishes. Fish is one of them, follow by egg and green veggies. I learned this cooking method from my mum. I twisted it a little bit to make it into my version. For example, my mum uses ginger strips, but I just use grated ginger instead. The rest of ingredients are roughly prepared based on my memory on this dish.

Fish In Soy Bean Sauce

Ingredients:
Fish fillets, rub with salt
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
a thumb-sized ginger, peeled and grated
1 red chili, seeded and chopped
1 tbsp of fermented soy bean sauce
light soy sauce to taste
sugar to taste
cooking oil
200ml of water

Steps:
1. Heat oil in a wok. Shallow fry the fish fillets till brown. Drain and set aside.
2. Clean the wok. Heat 2 tbsp of oil. Saute garlic, ginger, chili and soy bean sauce till fragrant.
3. Pour in water and bring to a boil.
4. Add fish fillets and leave it simmers for 5 minutes.
5. Add light soy sauce and sugar to taste.
6. Dish out and serve hot with rice.

5 Recipes To Celebrate Easter

2011-04-24T11:10:00.000+08:00

Shirley's Luxury Heaven Tagged me on 5 Recipes to Celebrate Easter. Although I don't celebrate Easter, but it's fun to join the virtual Easter party with the fellow bloggers.

So, here's my pick for the celebration:

Strawberry Smoothies as beverage

Mushroom Soup

Egg Rolls as appetizer

Chicken Schnitzel as main course

Dragon Fruit Jelly as dessert.

Happy Easter and have fun!

Chinese Steamed Bun - Mantou 馒头

2011-04-20T21:04:00.000+08:00

I bought a packet of pao flour a couple of weeks back. Initially I thought of making vegetarian steamed bun with jicama filling. However, I made excuses to delay the pao making. Later on, an idea popped up in my mind to make mantou with the help of the bread maker. Hence, the mantou making process starts...

As you can see, there's room for improvement of my skill in rolling up the 2-color dough sheets. The 2 dough failed to stick together and resulted gaps between it. So, I got the swirled bun, instead of mantou, hehe...

Chinese Steamed Bun - Mantou (Pandan Flavor)

Makes 16 mantou

Ingredients:

500gm pao flour

240ml warm water

6gm dried yeast

50gm sunflower oil

3 tbsp fine sugar

pandan essence

parchment paper, cut into 5cmx5cm pieces

Steps:

1. Prepare the dough in bread maker. Add warm water, sunflower oil, pao flour, sugar and dried yeast in sequence.

2. When the dough is ready, divide it into 2 equal portions.

3. Flour the tabletop, knead one portion with pandan essence.

4. Flatten the original flavored dough into rectangle sheet. Do the same to the pandan flavored dough.

5. Top the pandan dough sheet on top of the original flavored dough sheet. Roll it up tightly.

6. Cut into pieces and allocate each on a piece of parchment paper.

7. Leave it proof for another 50 minutes.

8. Steam over high heat for 15 minutes.

Coffee Flavoured Butter Cake

2011-04-17T15:42:00.000+08:00

This is an ad-hoc baking. I don’t have self-raising flour on hand, so I just mixed the plain flour with baking powder into self-raising flour. Although the cake looks ugly, but it is moist and aromatic. I'm not satisfied with its texture and marble pattern. The texture is rough, and the marble effect proved that I'm not a good baker. To improve the texture, I will try the egg separated method for the next attempt. :)

Coffee Flavoured Butter Cake
Makes a 8" square cake

Ingredients:
250gm butter
200gm castor sugar
220gm plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp double action baking powder
4 eggs
18gm 2 in 1 coffee mixed with 1 tbsp water
8 tbsp evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla essence

Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line the cake pan with baking paper.
2. Beat butter & sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs one at a time beating well after addition.
4. Fold in the sifted flour, baking powder and baking soda to mix.
5. Pour in milk, vanilla essence and stir to mix.
6. Take half of the batter to mix with coffee.
7. Pour the coffee batter to mix with the rest of the batter.
8. Bake in the preheat oven for 50 minutes.

Steamed Chicken with Mushroom and Black Fungus

2011-04-12T20:07:00.000+08:00

I’ve seen and tried several versions of steamed chicken. One of my recipe is to have the chicken steamed on its own with very minimal seasonings. The other kind of cooking is to have it steamed together with other ingredients and seasoned with wine. I experimented the latter with DOM. It tasted more towards sweet side due to the DOM flavour. Probably I added too much of DOM :). This time, I substituted DOM with Shao Xing Hua Diao Jiu, that is glutinous rice wine. I did this simply for comparison purpose. As a result, I prefer the one with glutinous rice wine. It suits my taste buds better.

Steamed Chicken With Mushroom and Black Fungus
Serves 3

Ingredients:
Half of free range chicken, skinned and chopped into pieces
5 slices of ginger
2 dried mushroom, dehydrated, stalk removed and sliced
1 piece of black fungus, dehydrated and sliced thinly

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
1.5 tbsp of glutinous rice wine
1 tbsp of sesame oil

Garnishing:
1 tbsp of wolfberries, dehydrated
Some chopped spring onion

Steps:
1. Arrange ginger slices on a heat-proof porcelain plate.
2. Arrange chicken on top on the ginger slices.
3. Top it with mushroom and black fungus.
4. Steam over high heat for 20-25 minutes. If you are using normal chicken, you can reduce the time accordingly.
5. Garnish it with wolfberries and spring onion. Serve hot with rice.

Sui Kow Dumpling 水饺

2011-04-10T20:31:00.001+08:00

I left a packet of dumpling wrapper in the freezer unintentionally until I forgotten on its existence.

I found it when I was trying to search for some other thing. Since it was not expired, so I just use it up to wrap a batch of sui kow.

This is my first attempt to make sui kow. I’ve been seeing a lot version of nicely wrapped sui kow. So, I just roughly follow the way how people wrap and seal it.

Marinated prawn paste, minced meat and vegetable that is wrapped up in flour sheet. The "Sui Kow" is then boiled until floated. Best to serve in soup or with noodle.

Sui Kow Dumpling 水饺
Makes 15 dumplings

Ingredients:
Dumpling wrapper
1 liter water
(A)
150gm minced pork
100gm prawns, shelled ( put in a plastic bag and flatten by meat tenderizer)
1 dried shiitake mushroom, dehydrated and chopped
20gm of carrot, peeled and grated
1 stalk of spring onion, chopped
(B)
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
1 tbsp of Shao Xin wine
1tsp of oyster sauce
dashes of pepper
1 tsp of sesame oil

Steps:
1. Add (A) in a big missing bowl.
2. Marinate (A) with (B) and let in stand for 30 minutes in fridge.
3. On a clean chopping board, put a dumpling wrapper. Add 3/4 tbsp of fillings to the center of the wrapper. Apply water to the half-circle edge of wrapper, and fold it into half. Seal up the edge. Continue to make other sui kow dumpling until you finish up the fillings.
4. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Throw all the dumplings in the boiling water. Once it floated, considers it's cooked.
5. Serve it in soup or with noodle.

Eryngii Mushroom Stir-Fry

2011-04-04T21:15:00.000+08:00

The other day, I saw eryngii mushroom on sale. I tried the stir-fried eryngii mushroom prepared by the promoter and was instantly hooked to it. So I asked how she cooked it. She told me the ingredients and the seasonings she used in her recipe. I happily grabbed a packet of the mushroom for my home-cooking.

So, here is the recipe shared by the promoter. It takes less that 15 minutes to prepare the dish. It's another quick and easy recipe that suits my hectic life.

Eryngii Mushroom Stir-Fry

Ingredients:
200gm of eryngii mushroom, clean under running water and sliced
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
generous amount of white pepper powder
2 tbsp of oil

Steps:
1. Heat oil in the wok. Saute garlic till fragrant.
2. Stir in eryngii mushrooms and saute for 3 minutes.
3. Add oyster sauce and white pepper powder to mix well.
4. Stir-fry till you observe liquid released from the mushroom.
5. Dish out and serve hot with rice.

Steamed Orange Cake

2011-04-01T19:58:00.000+08:00

My another attempt of making a steamed cake. This cake is specially made for my mum as she doesn't take dairy products. She is allergic to cow's milk, butter, cream, ice-cream and everything related to cow. Oh, my poor mum.

I tried to use superfine flour in this cake. The texture is different than my earlier steamed cake that was made with normal plain flour. I like its springy texture. It's definitely the healthier type of sugar-reduced cake, with very little vegetable oil. I can gobbled down 4 pieces in one go without feeling guilty. :P

Steamed Orange Cake
Make one 8”x8” square cake

Ingredients:
(A) – prepare in a big mixing bowl
5 eggs
160gm Castor sugar

(B) – sifted
190gm super fine flour
¾ tsp baking powder

(C) – mixed
zest of 1 orange
4tbsp orange juice
3tbsp sunflower oil

Steps:
1. Line the baking pan with baking paper.
2. Using electric mixer, beat (A) under high speed until fluffy.
3. Add (B) and beat under low speed until well mixed. Pour in (C) to mix.
4. Using a spatula, transfer the batter to the pre-lined cake pan. Loosely cover the top with aluminum foil.
5. Steam over high flame for 25 minutes.

Banana Muffin - The Creaming Method

2011-03-28T20:22:00.002+08:00

It's been a long time since my last baking. I got ripe bananas that I couldn't finish up, so I used it to bake some banana muffins. My earlier banana muffin baking was using muffin method. This time, I decided to try the creaming method. Overall, the result is pretty impressive. This is my own recipe that is modified from the banana cake.

Banana Muffin
Yields for 10 muffins

Ingredients:
3 eggs
200gm plain flour
2tsp of baking powder
120gm fine sugar
120gm salted butter
220gm of bananas, mashed
1tsp vanilla essence
3tbsp evaporated milk

Steps:
1. Preheat oven at 180C.
2. Get ready the paper cups.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add egg one at a time, and continue to beat until well combine. Add vanilla essence and milk to mix well.
5. Sieve in flour and baking powder to the wet ingredients. Fold it in the wet ingredients until just well combine.
6. Fold the mashed banana into the batter.
7. Transfer the batter into the paper cups.
8. Bake the cake under 180C for 40 minutes or until brown.

Poached Egg In Mint Leaves Soup

2011-03-24T20:16:00.001+08:00

This recipe is modified from my mom's "egg drop mint leaves soup". With a small spice garden at home, mint leaves come in handy these days. Hence, I got the idea to cook this soup when I attempted to make poached egg the other day. The soup is so refreshing. :)

Poached Egg In Mint Leaves Soup
Serves 2

Ingredients
2 poached eggs
600ml of chicken stock
a handful of mint leaves
salt to taste
half tsp of garlic oil

Steps:
1. Bring the chicken stock to a boil.
2. Add salt to taste and garlic oil.
3. Add a poached egg in each bowl.
4. Pour the chicken stock to each bowl.
5. Garnish each serving with mint leaves. Serve hot.

Radish and Pork Belly 萝卜烧肉

2011-03-20T20:30:00.001+08:00

I learned this dish from a Taiwan cooking show. What caught my attention is the simple ingredients and easy cooking method. I made a twist to garnish the dish with home grown spring onion, instead of leek, since I don't have it on hand.

Verdict? Yes. The radish is very delicious, and the pork belly turned out to be soft and flavorful. I even keep some for the next day bento to work.

Radish and Pork Belly 萝卜烧肉

Ingredients:
300gm of pork belly
1 radish, peeled and cut into pieces (use cut and tear method）
3 slices of ginger
1 stalk of spring onion, cut into long strips
2 tbsp of cooking oil
400ml of water

Marinades:
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
1 tsp of dark soy sauce

Seasonings:
Light soy sauce to taste
1 tsp of sugar
dash of white pepper powder

Steps:
1. Marinate the pork belly with a tbsp of light soy sauce and dark soy sauce each. Leave for 10 minutes.
2. Heat up oil in the wok. Fry the ginger till fragrant. Brown the pork belly.
3. Add radish, a tbsp of light soy sauce, white pepper powder to mix.
4. Pour in water and cover the lid. Leave it simmers under medium heat for about 20 minutes.
5. Finally add light soy sauce to taste (if required) and a tsp of sugar. Continue to cook till you hear the sizzling sound. Garnish with spring onion. Serve hot with rice.

Poached Egg

2011-03-16T22:11:00.000+08:00

Poached egg is in my "to-do" list since long ago. I've been seeing a lot of successful stories in making nice poached egg. Last week, I hands on to make 2 poached eggs. The first one didn't turn out beautiful, but the result of second trial seems acceptable. The moment I saw the egg yolk oozing out, I couldn't describe how happy I was. That's why I said cooking is kind of therapeutic to me.

Poached Egg

Ingredients:
2 eggs
800ml of water
1 tbsp of white vinegar
a bowl of ice water

Method:
1. Bring water to a boil in a sauce pan. Add a tbsp of white vinegar.
2. Crack an egg into a bowl. Stir the boiling water with a spoon in clockwise. Gently pour the egg into the center of simmering water.
3. Let the egg cook for 2 to 3 minutes depending on how runny you prefer your egg yolk to be.
4. Remove the egg with strainer and transfer the egg to the ice water. This is to stop the cooking.
5. Return the egg to boiling water and serve hot with toast. Continue the steps for the remaining egg.

Dried Scallop and Chicken Congee

2011-03-13T23:44:00.001+08:00

I found dried mini scallops on sale when I did my weekly grocery shopping. Suddenly, this congee popped up in my mind. I couldn't stop the idea, so I brought back a bottle of dried mini scallops to accomplish my goal. :P

Dried Scallop and Chicken Congee

Serves 2

Ingredients:
2/3 cup of rice, rinsed with water
6 cups of chicken stock
20 pieces of mini dried scallops, soaked and drained
salt to taste

Garnishing:
1/4 chicken breast, skinned, cooked in chicken stock, hand-pulled
chopped spring onion
fried garlic
sesame oil
white pepper powder

Steps:
1. Add rice and chicken stock to rice cooker, and select the program to cook porridge. (I used micro-computer rice cooker).
2. Add dried scallops in the middle of cooking.
3. When the porridge is done, add salt to taste. Let the porridge keep warm in the rice cooker for a while.

4. Serve the porridge in bowl and garnish with hand-pulled chicken, spring onion,fried garlic, sesame oil and white pepper powder.

Basic Fried Rice

2011-03-09T21:22:00.001+08:00

Fried rice is a good choice when it comes to lunch box. And, there's no worries on the ingredients, as I can use little bit of this and that. The outcome can be still be seductive. Like always, I like to add egg and prawns to my fried rice. I had some fresh leftover leek in the fridge, so I added in little bit of that too. Just seasoned it with light soy sauce, and I'm done with my bento of the day.

Basic Fried Rice
Serves 1

Ingredients:
1 bowl of cooled rice
8 small prawns, shelled, vein removed and cut into pieces
1 egg
1 chicken sausage, diagonally sliced
Leek, sliced (just the green portion)
Cooking oil
Light soy sauce to taste

Steps:
1. Heat up the wok with some oil, scramble the eggs and set aside the wok.
2. With the balance oil, saute garlic till fragrant. Add prawn and sausage to stir-fry till fragrant.
3. Add rice and stir-fry with all the ingredients including the scrambled egg. Add light soy sauce to taste. Continue to fry for few minutes until the rice is evenly coated with seasoning. Off the fire. Add leeks to mix well. Dish out.

Corn and Carrot Soup

2011-03-06T17:03:00.000+08:00

The hot weather makes me feel very uncomfortable. The good thing is, during the day I spend my most of my time in free air-conditioned environment. Otherwise, it'll drive me crazy. The weather is so hot that I can't cool down at night even when the air-condition is on. Just imagine...

Because of the hot weather, I lost appetite. The only dish I think of is soup. I need nourishing clear soup to heal my body. So, I boiled this soup for lunch on Saturday. It's sweet and it boosted my body with plenty of antioxidants.

Corn and Carrot Soup

1 pearl corn, chopped into 1" length

1 carrot, peeled and cut into pieces

300gm pork ribs, chopped into pieces
spring onion, chopped (for garnishing)

1.25liter of hot boiling water

salt to taste

Steps:

1. Blanch the pork ribs in boiling water to remove scum.

2. Put everything in the slow cooker, except salt. Leave the soup boiling for 2 hours.
3. Add light soy sauce to taste and garnish with chopped spring onion.

Potato, Mushroom and Chicken Stew

2011-03-02T20:55:00.000+08:00

After a month of ordering vegetarian rice for lunch during working days, I feel bored. I need something more flavorful to cheer up my taste buds. So, I took a break from the set lunch catering. Instead of dine out for hawker food, I made up my mind to bring my own bento to work. Let's see how determine I am.

I find it difficult to wake up early in the morning to prepare my bento. So, I prepare some dishes the night before, heat it up the next morning. Then, I prepare steamed rice and some blanched vegetables. I pack up all the above in a multi-layer thermo pot, and my bento is ready.

That's not a scrumptious meal, but I'm proud of my lunch box. The blanched Holland peas remained crunchy. The potato, mushroom and free range chicken taste as good as the night before. I'm satisfied with this dish alone with rice.

Potato, Mushroom and Chicken Stew

Serves 4-5

Ingredients:
1 free range/ organic chicken, skinned and chopped into pieces
2 potatoes (avoid the starchy type), peeled and cut into pieces
3 dried mushroom, dehydrated, drained and cut into thick strips
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
2 slices of ginger
3 tbsp of cooking oil
600ml of water

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
1 tsp of dark soy sauce
light soy sauce to taste
1/2 tsp of sugar

Garnishing:
Holland pea, blanched
Carrot strips, blanched

Steps:
1. Half-boil the potato in a pot of hot boiling water. Drain and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a wok. Saute garlic, ginger mushroom till fragrant. Add chicken to fry for 3 minutes.
3. Then add potato to mix. Pour in water. Leave the mixture to simmer for 10 minutes with the lid cover.
4. Stir in seasonings. Leave it simmers till sauce thickening.
5. Dish out, garnished with blanched vegetables and serve hot with rice.

Vegetarian Steamed Tofu

2011-02-28T20:13:00.000+08:00

It's been a month since my colleagues and I ordered our vegetarian set lunch. The catered vegetarian meal is solely based on vegetables and tofu, no MSG and with very less processed food. Throughout the catering, I got some inspiration to cook more vegetarian dish at home. This is one of them.

Vegetarian Steamed Tofu
Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 block of tofu
1 tomato, diced
1 dried mushroom, soaked and thinly sliced
a thumb-sized Sze Chuan preserved vegetable, soaked, drained and cut into strips

Seasoning:
1 tbsp of plum sauce
1 tbsp of light soy sauce

Garnishing:
1 red and 1 green bird's eye chili, chopped

Steps:
1. Cut the tofu into pieces, and arrange on a heat-proof plate.
2. Arrange tomato, preserved vegetable and mushroom surrounding the plates.
3. Pour the seasonings over the ingredients.
4. Steam it over boiling water for 5 minutes.
5. Garnish the tofu with bird's eye chili, and serve hot with rice.

Cajun Roast Chicken Wing

2011-02-26T10:28:00.000+08:00

Roasted chicken wing is such a tempting finger food. However, I try to limit my intake of chicken wing after I read the steroid injection to the wing of chicken. Since then, I consume more on free range chicken.

In years, this is just my first time buying chicken wings from the wet market. This is also my first time using chicken wing since I'm into home-cooking for the past 3 years. My main goal is to test the flavor of Cajun through the roasting. And the verdict? Yes. But, I felt sinful after 2 chicken wings. :(

Cajun Roast Chicken Wing

Ingredients:
8 chicken wings
1 tbsp of olive oil

Marinades:
1 tbsp Cajun
Pinch of salt
Dashes of black pepper powder
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
1 tbsp of honey
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

Steps:
1. Marinate the chicken wing overnight in the fridge.
2. Preheat oven at 180 deg C.
3. Brush a baking pan with olive oil.
4. Arrange the chicken wings in the baking pan.
5. Roast the chicken wings for 30 minutes under 180 deg C.
6. Sprinkle dashes of Cajun on the chicken wings, and pour olive oil onto each of the wings.
7. Get it roasted until brown.

Fried Threadfin Salmon / Kurau

2011-02-22T20:47:00.000+08:00

Fish is a good source of Protein. Although, frying process added certain Calories to the fish, but I still prefer fried fish than steamed fish.

I don't usually fry fish at home. It just happen once in a blue moon. Hubby love fried fish, and he seldom get to savor home cooked fish. Well, since I got some fresh Threadfin Salmon from my mom, so I marinated the fish fillet with salt and turmeric powder. It was then shallow-fried till crispy. It's best served with sambal belacan. This is my favorite way to consume fish. How about you?

Bitter Gourd & Chicken Stew

2011-02-20T16:14:00.000+08:00

I've been so busy at work since January this year. Sometimes, I reach home quite late, and exhausted. So, to be frank, I didn't spend much time to cook dinner now a days. Even if I were, I'll just cook one dish which combines meat and vegetable to serve with rice. Bitter gourd and chicken stew is one of them.

Soy bean paste is good to reduce the bitterness of the bitter gourd. Stew the bitter gourd together with chicken and seasonings, the outcome is pretty impressive. With this dish alone, our dinner becomes flavorful.

Bitter Gourd and Chicken Stew

Ingredients:

Half of bitter gourd, cored and sliced horizontally

Half of free range chicken, chopped into pieces, and skinned

1 tbsp of goji berry, soaked in water for 10 minutes and drained.

500ml of water

2 tbsp of cooking oil

1 tbsp of soy bean paste

6 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed

1/2 tbsp of oyster sauce

1/2 tbsp of dark soy sauce

1 tsp of brown sugar

light soy sauce to taste (optional)

Steps:

1. Heat oil in a wok. Saute garlic till fragrant.

2. Add chicken and soy bean paste to fry for 2 minutes. Add bitter gourd to mix.

3. Pour in water and cover the wok. Leave it simmering for 10 minutes.

4. Add oyster sauce, brown sugar, dark soy sauce and light soy sauce to taste.

5. Leave it simmering till sauce thickening. Dish out and sprinkle goji berry on top of it.

Garlic Bread

2011-02-17T19:06:00.000+08:00

Broccoli soup seems too plain to serve on its own. So, I paired it up with garlic bread. It will never go wrong to serve garlic bread with Western styled soup.

Everyone has their own version of garlic bread, so do I. I like to keep my garlic bread as simple as possible. You can see my garlic bread was toasted to perfection. Its flavor is enhanced by roasted garlic, butter and mixed herbs. The texture is so crunchy and it smells fantastic. Garlic bread and broccoli soup, that was our simple and healthy dinner.

Garlic Bread

Makes 7 slices

Ingredients:
1/2 French loaf
3 tbsp salted butter
1 bulb of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
mixed herbs

Method:
1. Slice the French loaf diagonally.
2. Spread a layer of salted butter to each loaf slice.
3. Preheat the oven at 180C for 5 minutes.
4. Spread the chopped garlic to each slice of loaf and arrange them on baking pan.
5. Sprinkle mixed herbs on the loaf slices.
6. Bake the garlic bread for 8-10 minutes under 170 deg C.
7. Serve hot with your favorite soup.

Garlic Brown Rice

2011-02-12T22:21:00.001+08:00

Last Sunday, we thought of having a roast duck. I'm not skillful enough to process a duck from scratch, so the only option is to buy a half of ready made roasted duck from the nearby wet market. Then it saved all the cooking time. But then, if to serve the duck with white rice, it sounded a bit boring. So, I cook a pot of garlic brown rice to enhance the rice flavor. After all, this was our easy peasy Sunday meal.

Garlic Brown Rice

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups of brown rice, rinsed and drain

1 bulb of garlic, peeled and chopped

2 tbsp of vegetable oil

600ml of water

1/2 tsp of salt

Steps:

1. Heat oil in a wok, sauté garlic till golden yellow.

2. Add rice to stir-fry for 3 minutes. Off the fire.

3. Transfer the rice to rice cooker pot.

4. Pour in water and cook under "brown rice" program using my micro-computer rice cooker.

Broccoli Soup

2011-02-08T20:42:00.003+08:00

It was quite a boring Chinese New Year's eve. My in law's are not celebrating the new year due to grandma in law passed away in a week before the Chinese New Year. Nothing much to enjoy during this festival. After a simple family dinner, I spend my time watching Asian Food Channel. Coincidently, I spotted one simple recipe from Chef At Home. Micheal Smith cooked a tempting broccoli soup on the show. Immediately, I jotted down the ingredients and get ready to cook it when I get back home. :) So, I'm here to share this delicious soup with you. Enjoy!

Broccoli Soup

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 onion, peeled and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 broccoli, get the stem sliced and the rest cut into florets
1 potato, peeled and julienned
400-500ml chicken stock (adjust based on your preference)
shredded cheddar cheese
olive oil

Seasonings:
dashes of black pepper powder
dashes of nutmeg powder
salt to taste

Steps:
1. Heat up generous amount of olive oil in a saucepan. Sauté onion till soften, and add garlic to combine.
2. Add julienned potato and stir-fry.
3. Pour the chicken stock into the saucepan and bring for simmering.
4. Add broccoli stem to the soup. Leave it simmering till the broccoli stem turn soft.
5. Leave the soup cooled before blend it into smooth texture.
6. Return the soup to the saucepan. Add broccoli florets and bring to a boil.
7. Add seasoning to taste. Off the flame and add in shredded cheddar cheese. Serve hot.

Chai Boey 菜尾

2011-02-05T21:20:00.001+08:00

Days ago I got a leftover roasted pig trotter from a praying ceremony. I can't think of a way to consume it, except utilizing it on a dish called Chai Boey. When translated to dialect, Chai Boey means leftovers of a meal. Hence, it is a dish combines all the leftover food into a sourish and spicy soupy dish that is stewed for hours.

Anyway for my version, I didn't use left overs, instead I combine with all fresh ingredients and spices. See the outcome of the stewing process? Looks tempting? I'm mouth-watering now by just looking at the photos, hehe...This is my top pick.

Chai Boey

Ingredients:
800gm of green mustard, washed and cut
2 tomatoes, diced
3 dried mushrooms, soaked, drained and quartered
a handful of dried chili, soaked, de-seeded and cut into half
1 roasted pork trotter, chopped into pieces
5 pieces of tamarind pieces (asam keping)
3 stalk of lemon grass, smashed the white portion
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
7 cups of water

Seasonings:
light soy sauce to taste

Steps:

1. Bring water to a boil in a pot. Add lemon grass, garlic, dried chili, tamarind pieces, and pork trotter. Leave it simmers for half and hour.

2. Add green mustard and mushroom. Leave it simmers for another 45 minutes to 1 hour under low heat. Stir occasionally.
3. Add tomato and light soy sauce to taste. Serve hot with steamed rice.

Prosperity Hamburger

2011-01-28T14:39:00.000+08:00

With the home made burger bun, here comes the Prosperity Hamburger. To turn it into a CNY dish, you can serve it with some arrow head chips, that is only available during the CNY season.

Prosperity Hamburger

For the burger bun, refer here for the recipe

The Hamburger (make 4 patties)

300gm minced pork

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 egg

Seasonings:

1 1/2 tbsp of light soy sauce

dashes of pepper powder

1 tsp sesame oil

Garnishing:

1 tomato, sliced horizontally

some green coral leaves

1/4 onion, sliced

1/2 cucumber, sliced

Cheddar cheese (which I forgot to add)

Mayonnaise or tomato sauce

arrow head chips

Steps:
1. Marinate the minced meat for 30 minutes.
2. Divide the minced meat with marinade into 4 portions. Shape each portion into patty. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
3. Take out the meat patties from fridge and re-shape it.
4. Heat enough oil in a pan or wok. Shallow-fry the meat patties until golden brown at both side. Serve the meat patties with bun and veggies as burgers.

Burger Buns

2011-01-25T14:10:00.000+08:00

I made these burger buns with reference to Alex Goh's "The World Of Bread". Finally I dug out this book of my book cabinet, which is been sitting there for ages. It has a series of fabulous bread recipes. For this burger bun, I followed his ingredients, and I used bread maker to do me the dough. :) How's the texture? Hmm...it's soft and fluffy. I'm loving it!

Burger Bun

Makes 4 burger buns and a bread loaf

Ingredients:

400gm bread flour

20gm sugar

6g salt

1 tbsp milk powder

2 tsp yeast

250ml water

30gm vegetable oil (the original recipe calls for shortening)

sesame seeds

Steps:

1. Put all the ingredients into bread maker follow the sequence of liquid, semi liquid, and dry ingredients.

2. Select "dough" program.

3. When the dough is ready, divide it into 80gm portions. Mould into balls and put on a greased pan.

4. Let the dough prove for 15 minutes, then flatten slightly and continue to let them prove for 30 minutes.

5. Brush the top with water and sprinkle some sesame seeds on top.

6. Bake at 190 deg C for 15-20 minutes.

7. Slices the burger bun horizontally to serve with burger and salad.

Pork Jerky

2011-01-22T21:51:00.002+08:00

Chinese New Year is around the corner. Everyone is busy with baking cookies. I want to join the crowd, but I just don't have enough time to do so. So instead of baking cookies, I bake a batch of pork jerky. Since it is one of the popular snack to have during Chinese New Year.

My eldest sister is the one who started to make pork jerky in our family. Her method is to marinate the minced pork, flatten it on a tray, get it dried under the sun, cut it into pieces, keep it in the fridge and get it baked just before eating. I don't have time to follow all the steps. So, I cut short the steps to expedite the process. Bear in mind, pork jerky is high calories food. 100gm of pork jerky is about 500 Cal. So, don't over-eat. :)

Pork Jerky

Ingredients:

300gm minced pork with some fat

2tbsp light soy sauce (the brand I use is less salty)

1tsp dark soy sauce

1tsp fish sauce

1/3 cup of sugar (This can be reduced as I found my pork jerky a bit sweet)

1tsp sunflower oil

1tbsp cooking wine

You'll also need non-stick baking paper, and a clean plastic bag that has been cut open into a plastic sheet.

Steps:

1. Mix all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Leave it for 1/2 hour.

2. Preheat oven at 170 deg C.

3. Put a thin layer of marinated minced pork on a piece of baking paper. Cover it with plastic sheet. Flatten it with your palms.

* I like my pork jerky thin, so I flatten the minced pork to about 1mm thickness.

4. Transfer the minced pork on baking paper into a baking tray. Bake for 15 minutes under 170 deg C.

* You will need to adjust the baking time based on the thickness of the pork jerky.

5. Leave it cool and cut into desired size. Keep in air tight container.

Beetroot Bread

2011-01-16T21:07:00.000+08:00

Who said beetroot bread is supposed to be red? My beetroot bread turned out as brown color :P. It looks just like wholemeal bread. Utilizing the breadmaker machine again, I made another loaf of bread with beetroot juice. Oh ya, the measuring spoon at the back was a gift from Anncoo Journal, Thanks Anncoo!

Beetroot Bread (Use Basic Programme of Tesco Bread Maker BM07)

Ingredients

300gm bread flour

200gm super fine flour

2tbsp of milk powder

2tbsp of sugar

1tsp of salt

2tsp of dried yeast

40gm of butter at room temp

200ml water at room temp

100ml of beetroot juice

some raisins

Steps:

1. Add water and beetroot juice follow by butter.
2. Add bread flour, super fine flour, salt and sugar.
3. Tap the pan lightly to settle the flour. Add sugar and milk powder and salt.
4. Add the yeast in small heap in the center of the pan. Note: Prevent the yeast from salt.
5. Lock the pan in the bread maker. Set the program to "Basic" follow by loaf size and select the crust color.
6. Add raisins in between the proving process. The bread maker will complete the task in 3 hours.

Sesame Oil Chicken & Beancurd Stick

2011-01-14T23:10:00.001+08:00

This is the dish that my eldest sister used to cook for dinner when I stayed with her years back. Among all her home cooked dishes, this is one that I can still remember its taste until today. It doesn't look outstanding at all. But, it has very homey taste. If you like chicken, beancurd stick and sesame oil, you'll like this dish.

Sesame Oil Chicken & Beancurd Stick
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 chicken leg, skinned, deboned and cut into strips
80 gm of beancurd stick
200 ml water
cooking oil
1 tbsp of corn starch diluted in 5 tbsp of water

Marinades:
2 tbsp of sesame oil
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
dashes of pepper powder

Seasoning:
light soy sauce to taste

Steps:

1. Marinate the chicken with marinades and leave for half an hour.
2. Dehydrate the beancurd stick and cut into 2" length.
3. Heat up oil in a wok. Stir-fry the marinated chicken.
4. Add water and bring to a boil.
5. Toss in the beancurd stick. Cover the lid and let it simmers for 5 minutes.
6. Add light soy sauce to taste.Pour in the corn starch mixture for sauce thickening.
7. Dish out and serve hot with rice.

Vegetarian Mutton Curry

2011-01-11T20:15:00.000+08:00

Vegetarian mutton curry is one of my favorite pick when I dine in at any vegetarian shop. The "vegetarian mutton" is made of mushroom stem, flour, and soy. I don't take it that frequent, as this frozen product sure contains seasonings and preservatives. In any vegetarian shop, this dish is pretty expensive. To accomplish my so called "cost saving" project at home, I attempted to cook it on last Sunday. I'm glad that it turned out to be so yummy! Thanks to the good quality fresh curry paste that hubby bought from a reliable fresh spice stall.

Vegetarian Mutton Curry
Serves 3 to 4

Ingredients:
250gm vegetarian mutton
fresh mutton curry paste ( I bought it at MYR1.20 from a reliable stall in wet market)
3 springs of fresh curry leaves
50ml evaporated milk
100ml water
4 tbsp cooking oil
light soy sauce to taste

Steps:
1. Heat oil in the wok. Sauté curry paste curry leaves till fragrant and oil separated.
2. Add vegetarian mutton and stir fry. Pour in water and bring to a boil.
3. Add evaporated milk and light soy sauce to taste.
4. Dish out and serve hot with rice.

Peri-Peri Prawn Skewers

2011-01-09T11:56:00.000+08:00

New year new resolutions. That's what I mentioned in the white bread loaf post. The new year also reflect a change in my career. I'm reassigned to handle new projects in new plant. My current company expanded and took up another 2 manufacturing plants that's connected to each other in different industrial area. I've started working in that 2 connected buildings since 4th of Jan. I know it's going to be a challenging year for the whole team. It's challenging to me in terms of new responsibilities, new environment, new boss, new subordinates, new counterparts,....etc. I wish it's a good start. Ok, let's back to the food.

Here's another simple recipe by using Nando's Hot Peri-Peri sauce. It's a recipe that suits my current hectic working life. It requires short preparation time, and the cooking is done by oven. Many of you will like it, I bet. You can play around with the marinades to suit your own taste buds. Have fun!

Peri-Peri Prawn Skewers

Ingredients:
14 jumbo prawns, shelled with head and tail intact and vein removed

Marinades:
juice of 1 calamansi
2 tbsp of Nando's Hot Peri-Peri sauce
1 stalk of spring onion, chopped
1 pinch of salt

Steps:
1. Marinate the prawns for 5 minutes.
2. Preheat oven at 180 deg C.
3. Put each prawn on a skewer. Arrange the skewer on baking pan.
4. Oven-bake the prawns for 15 minutes under 180 deg C.

Spring Onion Omelette

2011-01-04T19:43:00.000+08:00

The first batch of home grown spring onion was harvested. It was used to make spring onion omelette which was prepared just like the mint leaves omelette. Here comes a dish that is high in dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals. Most importantly, the spring onion is pesticide-free home grown vegetable. Though, this is just a simple dish, but it makes me so proud of it. It's kind of encouragement for me to grow more vegetables at home.

Spring Onion Omelette
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 Omega-3 eggs
2 stalk of spring onion, chopped
1 tbsp of cooking oil

Seasoning:
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
dashes of white pepper powder

Steps:
1. Crack the eggs into a bowl. Add seasoning and get the egg beaten.

2. Heat oil in a wok. Pour the egg mixture to fry. When it's almost cook at the bottom, toss the spring onion on top of egg. Turn the egg to fry the other side for about 30 seconds. Fold the omelet into half and dish out.

Home Made White Bread

2011-01-01T21:43:00.001+08:00

New year, new resolutions. The first thing I learnt in 2011 is bread making. With the newly bought Tesco bread maker BM07, I can now have fresh home made bread for breakfast. So here, I'm sharing with you the first bread loaf that I made this afternoon. It was a successful trial with the recipe provided in the user's guide. I'm so impress with its soft, fluffy and little bit of springy texture. It's quite similar to the "Bengali" bread that I used to have when I was a kid.

Wishing all my fellow friends a very Happy New Year! I hope 2011 is a good start for everyone here!

White Bread (Use Basic Programme of Tesco Bread Maker BM07)

makes a 700gm loaf

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups of room temp water

1 tbsp of sunflower oil

1 tsp of salt

2 tbsp of sugar

3 1/3 cups of bread flour/high Protein flour/high gluten flour

2 tsp dried yeast

Steps:

1. Add water follow by oil.

2. Add flour, salt and sugar.

3. Tap the pan lightly to settle the flour.

4. Add the yeast in small heap in the center of the pan.

5. Lock the pan in the bread maker. Set the program to "Basic" follow by loaf size and select the crust color.

6. The bread maker will complete the task in 3 hours.

English Gourd and Carrot Soup

2010-12-29T12:33:00.000+08:00

English gourd or chayote can be found at very reasonable price in hypermarket. I bought one less than MYR1. Besides using it for stir-frying, it's a good ingredients for soup boiling. Both cooking methods are great with the natural sweetness of English gourd.

English Gourd and Carrot Soup

Ingredients:

1 English gourd, cored and cut into cubes

1 carrot, peeled and cut into bite-sized

8 red dates, pitted

250gm of pork ribs

1 liter water

Seasonings:

Light soy sauce or salt to taste

Steps:

1. Blanch the pork ribs in boiling water, drain and set aside.

2. Add English gourd, carrot, pork ribs and red dates into the inner pot of slow cooker.

3. Bring 1 liter water to a boil. Pour it over the ingredients.

4.Simmer under high heat for 2 hours, and turn to low heat for the last few hours.

5. Add seasonings and serve hot.

Cream of Mushroom

2010-12-27T21:09:00.001+08:00

This is a shortcut of preparing the cream of mushroom using Campbell's instant soup with some fresh white button mushrooms. I was worried that preparing mushroom soup from scratch was time consuming, so I came up with this idea, a blend of both instant soup and fresh mushrooms :)

Cream of Mushroom
Serves 2

Ingredients:
5 fresh white button mushrooms, chopped
2 packet of Campbell's instant cream of mushroom
1tbsp of olive oil
400ml of boiling water

Steps:
1. Heat up oil in a pan. Sauté mushroom for few minutes.
2. Pour the instant soup mixture in a bowl. Add the sautéed mushroom.
3. Add boiling water and stir.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

2010-12-26T21:53:00.001+08:00

Friends, what did you have for your Christmas eve dinner? Although both my family and hubby's family are not Christian, hubby and I took this opportunity to cook some special food at home. We had a merry and romantic Christmas celebration this year. We celebrated our wedding anniversary and Christmas together. Does it sound double happiness?

Instead of roasted chicken or turkey on the Christmas eve, I made up my mind to prepare Chicken Cordon Bleu with sauté vegetables, mashed potato, and creamy mushroom soup. We enjoyed our shopping to pick up the ingredients. The feeling was just so warm and happy. What's more joyful was the scrumptious home cooked meal for this special occasion. We had a peaceful Christmas eve dinner. :)

I'm trying very hard to dig from my memory something special regarding my previous Christmas celebration. Sadly, I couldn't recall a memorable Christmas. Perhaps, this year marked a memorable one. I'm sharing this dish with Sweet Spot's What's Your Favorite Christmas Dish Giveaway hosted by Swee San.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast
2 slices ham
2 slices Cheddar cheese
3 tbsp flour
dashes of black pepper powder
dashes of paprika powder
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 tbsp salted butter at room temp
cooking oil

Steps:

1. Debone and remove skin from the chicken breast. Cut the chicken breast into half. Pound the chicken meat.

2. Brush the top side of chicken breast with butter. Sprinkle paprika powder and black pepper powder on top of it. Place a slice of ham and a slice of cheese on each piece of breast. Roll up and secure ends with toothpicks.

3. Coat each chicken roll thoroughly with flour. Dip rolls into egg, then roll on bread crumbs.

4. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.

5. Heat some oil in a wok. Shallow fry the chicken rolls until golden yellow.

6. Transfer it to baking pan. Remove the toothpicks. Bake for 10 minutes in preheated oven.

Chocolate Cupcake

2010-12-23T22:44:00.000+08:00

I made these chocolate cupcakes with reference to ncrazykitchen, but it was not as fluffy as her version. Her recipe measurement is by spoon and bowl. Perhaps if I have the right measurement for the milk, I would be able to have better cupcakes. Anyway, these chocolate cupcakes are suitable for the Christmas theme, which is 2 days away from now. Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Glutinous Rice Balls For Winter Solstice

2010-12-21T22:05:00.000+08:00

Sharing a bowl of glutinous rice balls and wishing you Happy Winter Solstice! 冬至快乐!
Did you have your bowl of festival dessert already?

Okra with Sambal

2010-12-20T19:28:00.000+08:00

During working days, I just allow myself less than 30 minutes to prepare simple dinner. Okra with sambal is a vegetable dish that suits my hectic life. To reduce the cooking time, I prepared the sambal belacan before hand and stored in a air-tight container in the fridge. So, I can serve the sambal with boiled okra or with white cabbage later on. This is another simple way to savor a vegetable dish.

Okra with Sambal

Ingredients:
12 Okra, get the head and tail discarded and cut into half
1 tbsp of garlic oil
water

Sambal :
5 red chili
4 bird's eye chili
1.5cm cube of balacan
3 calamansi
3 Kaffir lime leaves (choose the young leaves) - optional
1 tsp of sugar
1 tbsp of light soy sauce

Steps:
The Sambal

1. Toast the belacan in oven preheated at 200deg C for 10 minutes. Leave it cooled and mash it with a spoon.

2. Blend the chillies, belacan and Kaffir lime leaves till paste form.

3. Sieve in the calamansi juice.

4. Season it with light soy sauce and sugar.

The Okra
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add a tbsp of garlic oil. Blanch the okra in boing water for several minutes. Drain and dish out on a plate. Top the okra with sambal. Serve hot.

Money Bag Wonton

2010-12-16T13:47:00.002+08:00

This is what I learned from my eldest sister. She used to cook this dish whenever we are invited to have dinner at her place. According to her, this Money Bag Wonton is a famous dish in a local Chinese restaurant.

In fact, the original size is bigger, and the filling consist of some other secret ingredients. Well, for my home made version, it’s been simplified in terms of ingredients and method. No more deep-frying is required as the job is taken over by oven. Sounds healthier right? The only thing is that the crispiness through the baking process won’t last long. So, it’s recommended to serve hot.

Money Bag Wonton

Ingredients:
1 packet of wonton skin
3 screw pine leaves, cut into thin strips about 10cm long
1 stalk of spring onion, get the green portion chopped
vegetable oil
banana leaf, cleaned and dried
a small bowl of water (to seal the wonton skin)

Filling:
100 grams lean pork, minced
110 grams medium-sized prawn, shelled, deveined and minced
2 dried shiitake mushroom, soaked, stalk removed and chopped
2 shallots, peeled and chopped

Marinades for the filling:
1 tablespoon of light soy sauce
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
½ teaspoon of oyster sauce
1 teaspoon of glutinous rice wine
1 teaspoon of corn flour
Dashes of pepper

Steps:
1.Marinate the filling for 30 minutes.
2.Line a baking tray with banana leaf.
3.Preheat oven at 200 degree Celsius.
4.Put a piece of wonton skin on a clean chop board. Add ½ teaspoon of filling to the center of wonton skin. Top the filling with chopped onion. Wrap up the wonton and tie it up with a pre-cut screw pine strip. Rest it on the baking tray.
5.Repeat step 3 until the filling is used up.
6.Brush the wonton with vegetable oil. Bake for 20 minutes under 200 degree Celsius.

Lotus Root & Peanut Soup

2010-12-15T09:06:00.000+08:00

This bowl of Lotus Root & Peanut Soup means a lot to me. It was cooked, dished out and photo shot by hubby. He even send over this photo to me while I'm at work. Can you imagine how precious is it? He knows nothing about cooking except soup boiling. That's what I trained him. So far, he did it pretty well. To my surprise, he prove his talent in food presentation. Can you see it from this photo?

For the recipe, please refer here.

Sweet Potato Leaves Stir-Fry

2010-12-13T09:08:00.000+08:00

My parents in law's domestic helper plucked some sweet potato leaves for us to bring home. Instead of stir-fry it with sambal, I change another way to cook it. I just stir-fry the sweet potato leaves with garlic, chili and fermented bean. This is another way to savor this precious home grown vegetables.

Sweet Potato Leaves Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

Sweet potato leaves, rinsed

2 red chilies, seeded and chopped

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

1 tbsp of fermented beans

cooking oil

water

Seasonings:

Light soy sauce to taste

Steps:

1. Rinse the sweet potato leaves with water. Separate the leaf and stalk. Peel off the skin from the stalk. Cut the stalk into 5cm length.

2. Heat oil in a wok. Saute garlic, chilli and fermented bean till fragrant. Add sweet potatos leaves and stalk. Stir fry till evenly coated with oil. Pour in some water and bring to simmering.

3. Add light soy sauce to taste. Dish out and serve hot with rice.

Home Grown Vegetables

2010-12-10T09:57:00.001+08:00

My parents in law's new domestic helper started her job back in May 2010. Since then, I'm seeing a major make over to the back yard. She plants quite a number of species there. She started with tomato plants. However, it was not a successful start. The plants were damaged by 2 rabbits from a neighbor. The rabbits hopped in from the front gate and enjoyed a nice meal munching on the tomato plants. :P

After the incident, she change her strategy to plant bird's eye chilli, screw pine and lemongrass. Then, new species were added by growing sweet potato leaf, sweet leaf (Pucuk Manis), spring onion, Kaffir lime leaf, pineapple, banana tree and papaya tree.

The following are the snap shots of her hard work.

Kaffir lime leaves

Sweet potato leave

Bird's eye chilli

Sweet leaf aka pucuk manis

Spring onion

Bali Hai Seafood Market

2010-12-07T16:17:00.002+08:00

Bali Hai Seafood Market
90,90A,90B,90C,90D, Persiaran Gurney, 10250 Penang.
Tel: 04-2288272
Fax:04-2288273
Website: http://balihaiseafood.com/

Bali Hai Seafood Market is a place located along the Gurney Drive Penang. They serve dim sum for breakfast and seafood for dinner. A few hut shelters were set-up at the side. It's was so enjoyable to have our dim sum breakfast in one of the shelter. What made me happy was the delicious dim sum that hubby chose from the dim sum array. All suits my taste buds. Both of us left the restaurant with satisfying tummies.

My favorite crispy prawn roll served with Mayonnaise. A fried dim sum that I used to like these recent years.

Guo-Tie or Pot Stickers served with ginger in black vinegar. These are the well-done guo-tie. It's in my to-do list now.

Prawn dumpling or Har Gao. The prawns are fresh and juicy.

Braised chicken feet with spices. I seldom take chicken feet when dine out. So, most of it went to his stomach. :)

Minced pork and crab stick in seaweed.

Pork dumpling or Siew Mai. It tastes average.

Assam Curry Prawns

2010-12-01T09:22:00.002+08:00

Prawn is actually a good source of Protein that has lower calories compared to other meat. Its Cholesterol content is also much more lower than crab and squid. Just get the head discarded and veins removed in order to savor prawn in a healthier way.

My mum's assam curry prawn is the dish that makes me mouth-watering whenever I think about it. How can one resist to have such an appetizing spicy tamarind curry? That's why I got my mum verbally pass on her recipe to me. The assam curry prawns is cooked through the similar steps as assam curry fish. I truely enjoyed my weekend lunch savoring the fresh, juicy and tender jumbo prawns. Viola!

Assam Curry Prawns

Serves 5

Ingredients:

500 grams jumbo prawns

fresh curry paste

3 stalk of lemongrass, get the white portion bruised

1 ginger bud, quartered

5 Kaffir lime leaves

1 tomato, diced

1 Japanese cucumber, cut into bite-sized

1 onion, peeled and diced

cooking oil

50ml water

Seasonings:

light soy sauce to taste

brown sugar to taste

a ping pong-sized of tamarind pulp with 200ml of water (mix and strain the juice)

Steps:

1. Heat up the wok with enough oil. Stir fry the onion, Kaffir lime leave, lemongrass, ginger bud and curry paste for few minutes until fragrant.

2. Sieve in the tamarind juice and 50ml of water. Bring to a boil. Add prawns, stir and cover the lid for a while.

3. Add tomato and cucumber. Stir well. Add seasonings to taste. Cook until the prawns curled up. Serve hot with rice.

Black Bean Soup

2010-11-29T08:10:00.000+08:00

Black bean really comes in handy in my kitchen. Whenever I lack of fresh ingredients for soup, black bean soup will be the soup of the day. The soup is nutritious as the black bean contains fiber, protein, flavonoid anti-oxidant, vitamins and minerals. More info can be found here.

Some people boil the soup with dong quai, but I used to boil the black bean soup with garlic and pork ribs, and seasoned with light soy sauce. That's about it, and finally let the slow cooker perform the simmering job. It sounds extremely easy, right?

Black Bean Soup

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

150 grams black bean, rinsed with running water

1 bulb of garlic, peeled

200 grams of pork ribs, blanched

1.5 liter water

light soy sauce to taste

Steps:

1. Add pork rib, black bean and garlic to the slow cooker pot.

2. Bring water to boil in a pot. Pour it into the slow cooker pot. Leave the ingredients to cook under high heat for at least 3 hours. Then shift it to low heat and leave it simmers for another 2 hours or until the bean is softened.

3. Add light soy sauce to taste. Serve hot with rice.

Home Grown Spring Onion

2010-11-24T15:09:00.000+08:00

I'm in the progress to achieve my dream to have a little spice garden at home. I have very little knowledge and experience in gardening. First, I started to grow mint and parsley back in August this year. The Parsley didn't last long. Within a week, the plant was dried up. On the other hand, the mint plant grows pretty well. I'm neither a green thumb or black thumb. 50-50, I would say? So far, a few batches of home grown mint leaves were harvested to make mint leave omelet, assam laksa and mint leaves soup.

About a week ago, I planted a few shallots into a pot. Now, each shallot blossoms into spring onion. It is so easy to plant it at home and it shoots pretty fast. Furthermore, it requires no special care, except sun light and water to survive. Spring onion doesn't last long in fridge. So, it is a good idea to grow on your own and harvest it anytime you need it.Soon, I'll utilise this fresh home grown spring onion in my culinary, either raw or cooked.

Fried Macaroni - The Fusion style

2010-11-22T10:58:00.000+08:00

When I was a kid, I hate to have macaroni. I just don't like the taste when cooked in chicken stock. It's too bland to my liking. However, ever since I discovered this fusion style fried macaroni, it has become my favorite meal at home. Through simple cooking, the macaroni has transformed into a flavorful one-pot-dish. Well, I do change the ingredients from time to time to get a different flavor. Overall, I would say macaroni cooked in this way tastes so good! yummz!

Fried Macaroni - The Fusion style
Serves 3

Ingredients:
Macaroni, portion for 3, cooked per the packaging instruction (I cooked it longer to get softer texture)
3 Brussel sprouts, sliced horizontally
1 onion, peel and diced
a half palm-sized portion of char siew, chopped
2 caps of dried shiitake mushroom, dehydrated and chopped
2 eggs, beaten lightly
cooking oil

Seasonings:
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp chili paste
2 tbsp water

Steps:
1. Heat up 1 tbsp oil in a wok. Fry the egg in 2 batches into 2 egg sheets. Set aside for cooling. Roll up a piece of egg sheet and sliced it thinly. Do the same for the 2nd piece. Set aside for the garnishing later.
2. Heat up 2 tbsp of oil in the same wok. Fry onion till transparent. Add char siew and mushroom to stir-fry for 3 minutes. Add Brussel sprouts and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Toss in the boiled macaroni and seasonings. Fry for 3 minutes.
3. Dish out and garnish with egg strips. Serve hot.

Peri-Peri Grilled Fish

2010-11-18T14:41:00.002+08:00

I have no regret in buying a non-stick grill pan. It's is one of the essential cookware for me right now. My first cooking experiment with the grill pan goes to Peri-Peri Grilled Fish. Just like the chicken kebab, the fish fillets were basted with Nando's Peri-Peri sauce and chopped garlic. It was then pan-grilled to perfection. This is a simple way to spice up a fish dish. Next, I shall try to pan-grill meat/poultry, seafood and even vegetables.

Peri-peri Grilled Fish

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:
220 grams fish fillets (I used Kurau fish), de-boned, cleaned and pat dried
1 tbsp of vegetable oil

Marinades:
2 tbsp of hot Per-peri sauce
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
pinch of salt

Steps:
1. Marinate the fish fillets and leave in fridge for 2-3 hours.
2. Heat oil in a grill pan. Brown the fish on both sides. Serve hot with rice.

Meat Ball & Capsicum In Tomato Sauce

2010-11-15T13:29:00.001+08:00

Meat ball and capsicum are perfect match. Pair it up with onion and tomato sauce, and you'll get a delectable dish to serve with rice. To simplify the cooking, the meat ball can be shallow fried in non-stick pan or wok instead of deep frying. The meat ball is equally tasty with 2 different methods, but shallow fried version sounds more healthy.

Meat Ball & Capsicum In Tomato Sauce

Serves 2

Ingredients:

200gm of minced meat (pork, beef or chicken)

Cooking oil

Marinades for the meat:

1 1/2 tbsp of light soy sauce

1 tsp of sesame oil

dash of pepper

1 1/2 tbsp of corn starch

2 shallots, chopped

The Sauce:

1/2 onion, diced

1 green capsicum, cut into rectangle shape

1 yellow capsicum, cut into rectangle shape

3-4 tbsp of tomato sauce

1 tsp of light soy sauce

1 tsp of brown sugar

200ml water

Steps:

1. Marinate the minced meat for 20 minutes. Then wet your palms with water and shape the marinated meat into meat balls. Set aside on a clean plate.

2. Heat some oil in a non-stick pan or wok, shallow fry the meat balls using medium heat. Rotate the meat balls from time to time until all surface turned golden brown. Rest it on kitchen towel and transfer it to a serving plate.

3. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a clean wok, sauté onion for 2 minutes. Add capsicum and stir fry for another 2 minutes. Add all ingredients for the sauce and bring to simmering. Off the flame, and pour the sauce over the fried meat balls. Serve hot with rice.

Koay Teow Th'ng aka Flat Noodle Soup (粿條汤)

2010-11-10T17:04:00.002+08:00

"Koay Teow" is a type of flat rice noodle that is made of rice flour. The very thin layer of rice flour mixture is then steamed to thin sheet and laminated with vegetable oil before cutting into flat rice noodle. Flat noodle soup aka koay teow th'ng is one of famous Penang street food. If you dine out for koay teow th'ng, most probably your meal portion is over dosed with MSG. It can't be avoided. Hence, to be at the safe side, I prefer to cook it at home.

The cooking step is pretty simple and straight forward. Dish blanched koay teow into a bowl. Pour chicken stock over the koay teow. Garnish it with hand-pulled chicken strips, fish balls, lettuce and fried garlic. It's best served with bird's eye chili dips. Viola! I love this type of homey meal.

I'm sharing the dish with PPN#189 (by Ruth from Once Upon A Feast) which is hosted by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours.