Flour Noodle Soup aka Pan Meen 清汤板面

After making the flour noodle, I cooked it into this flour noodle soup. The hand made flour noodle was very successful. When the noodle is cooked to al dente, the texture is springy. Most importantly, it's chemical free. 

For the garnishing, I follow the traditional pan meen, which includes fried anchovies, fish balls, meat balls, minced pork, pucuk manis and black fungus strips. I'm proud of it as everything's home made. This is another achievement that cheer me up for a whole day. 

See the al dente hand made flour noodle?

I'm sharing this dish with Presto Pasta Nights #187 founded by Ruth from Once Upon A Feast, and hosted by Tigerfish from teczcape-an escape to food.

Flour Noodle Soup 清汤板面

Serves 4

Ingredients:
home made flour noodle (portion for 4)

2 cups of anchovies, preferably to get the heads removed

1 cap of black fungus, soaked for 15 minutes and drain. Cut into thin strips

160gm of minced pork, marinade

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

a handful of pucuk manis

8 meatballs

8 fish balls

1.6 liter water

cooking oil

Marinades:

1tbsp of light soy sauce

dash of white pepper powder

Seasonings:

salt to taste (if required)

Steps:

1. Marinate the minced pork with 1tbsp of light soy sauce and dash of pepper. Set aside.

2. Wash and drain the anchovies. Dry it with kitchen towel. Spread it on a baking pan. Bake it in over under 150 degree C for 10-15 minutes.

3. Heat about 1/2 cup of oil in a wok under medium flame. Fry the baked anchovies until golden brown. Drain the oil and set aside.

4. Bring 1.6 liter of water to a boil in a pot. Add fried anchovies to simmer for 20 minutes. Sieve the broth and bring back to simmer.

5. In parallel to prepare the broth, heat 2tbsp of oil in a wok. Sauté garlic till fragrant. Stir-fry the marinated minced pork for 5 minutes. Set aside.

6. Add black fungus strips in the same wok to stir-fry for 1 minute. Sprinkle with some water if too dry.

7. Bring another pot of water to a boil. Cook the flour noodle for 8 minutes. Drain and divide the portion into 4 bowls.

8. Add meatballs, fish balls and pucuk manis in the simmering broth. Add salt to taste. Cook until the fish balls floated. Divide the ingredients into the 4 bowls with noodle. Garnish with fried minced pork, fried anchovies and black fungus strips.

Home Made Flour Noodle (Pan Mee) 板面制作

We invested on a pasta maker a couple of months back. However, it was just sitting in a corner of my  kitchen cabinet. Then one day I bumped into several interesting posts on home made noodle. Then I felt like my hands were itchy to try on my own too. Hence, I started with a simple recipe to make flour noodle (pan mee).

Overall, I'm happy that I got to learn how to make noodle. The only thing is the kneading's pretty tiring. Next, I'll proudly present to you my home cooked pan mee. :-)

Flour Noodle (Pan Mee)
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 cups of plain flour
1 egg
about 3/4 cup of water
1/2 tsp salt

Steps:

1. Add flour in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle. Add an egg and salt into the well. Using a fork, slowly bring flour surrounded the well to mix with the egg.

2. Add water slowly and mix the dough with hand. Stop adding water when all the ingredients are about to combine together. Knead the dough. Add more water if too dry. Continue to knead for a few minutes. Make the dough into a ball and store in a bowl and cover it up with wet cloth for 30 minutes.

3. After 30 minutes, you’ll notice the dough turns softer compared to earlier. Knead it for a couple of minutes.

4. Divide the dough into 4 portions. Dust the kitchen top with flour. Flatten one portion into sheet using roller pin. Roll the sheet over the pasta machine. Continue for the balance 3 portions.
5. Cook the noodle in your favorite way.

Home Made Makizushi 寿司巻

Hubby and I have been dining out for sushi quite frequent. We will have sushi for dinner almost every Saturday evening. We opt for something light when dining out, and eventually sushi become our favorite food. Also a packet of sushi making set was bought to DIY at home. 

After watching some video clips to pick up the basic skills, we hands on to make our own sushi. Hubby helped to cook sushi rice and mix it up with some vinegar. Also, he cling-wrapped the makisu (bamboo roll), as per my instruction, hehe... Then I prepared some other simple ingredients like Japanese cucumber, steamed crab stick filamen, fried egg and steamed sausage. I cut up all the ingredients into strips. Then, I followed the steps like what I learned from the video clips. See my first piece of work? Although it doesn't look perfect, but I'm satisfied with the first trial. That was our simple and yet fulfilling dinner.

To polish up my sushi making skill, I'll practice more to make different variety of sushi and to use other type of fillings. Stay tuned!

Chili Sauce

My earlier dish - the steamed chicken was served with this home made chili sauce. It's the common dips that you'd find in local chicken rice. It's a great condiment to complement the steamed chicken, roasted chicken and roasted pork. Without it, my steamed chicken will not taste such good. Thanks to the powerful chili sauce! It's pungent, sweet, spicy, salty, garlicky, gingery and zesty. It's so flavorful and yet simple to make!

Chili Sauce
Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:
4 red chilis, seeded and cut into pieces
8 bird eye's chilis
1cm cube of ginger, peeled
3 cloves of garlic, peeled

Seasoning:
juice of 3 calamanci
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
salt to taste
brown sugar to taste

Steps:
Blend ingredients together. Add seasonings and mix well. Store in air tight container and keep in fridge. Try to finish it up in a week.

Steamed Cod Fish

Remember my previous experience on Pan-Fried Cod Fish? I bought the cod fish fillets from a supermarket. It wasn't frozened. The imported cod fish and salmon fish were sold just like local fish, on ice cubes. It looked fresh but tasted weird after cooked. That was a bad experience few months ago. Since then, I have no guts to buy cod fish. I'll dine out for cod fish instead. But, the price per piece of steamed fish fillet is more than MYR35. The price is doubled or tripled the price of a piece of frozen raw cod fish. 

One day, after getting my green light, hubby brought back few item of imported frozen seafood. That included a packet of frozen cod fish fillet, scallop and cat fish with a total price of MYR44. Reasonable price? I guess it is. In order to test whether the fish is fresh or not, steaming is the best method. I just proceed to steam the fish. With just the simple cooking method, the cod fish tastes fabulous! I gain confidence on frozen cod fish now. We can savor cod fish dish at home with lower cost from now on. :P

The cod fish is fresh, no fishy smell and velvety smooth.

Steamed Cod Fish

Ingredients:

1 piece of cod fish fillet, washed with salt and water

6 slices of ginger

3cm cube of ginger, peeled and cut into thin strips

cooking oil

Sauce:
1& 1/2 tspof light soy sauce

1/2 tsp of sesame seed oil
1 tsp of fried garlic

Steps:
1. Pat dry the fish fillet and put on a heat-proof plate. Arrange ginger slices on top on it. Steam over high heat for 12 minutes.
2. Heat some oil in a wok. Fry the ginger strips till crispy. Set aside.
3. Mix all the ingredient to form the sauce. Set aside.
4. When the fish is done, discard the excess liquid. Pour the sauce over the fish and garnish with fried ginger. Serve hot with rice.