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.

Steamed Free Range Chicken

I like chicken cooked in this way. It's very simple to cook and the best part is the meat remains juicy and tender through out the steaming process. 

I don't usually cook a whole chicken, but this time, I did it. I got myself to learn something new today. Chopping up the chicken into pieces using clever knife is something that I haven't master and I have no confidence to do it at the moment.  Hence, I look for the alternate way which is to carve a chicken using a knife and a fork. I want to learn how to carve a chicken. I found this video, and I follow the steps.  I did it eventually! Just a few gentle cuts to the chicken and it's quatered nicely. Besides, I save the chicken carcass  for soup boiling next.

I'm glad to learn up a new skill today. A little accompliment can make me happy. That's the reason I like cooking.

Steamed  Free Range Chicken

Ingredients:

1 whole free range chicken

Seasoning:

1 tbsp of sesame oil
1/2 tsp of salt

Steps:

1. Clean the chicken. Leave the skin on.
2. Rub the chicken with salt, follow by sesame oil. Put it on a heat-proof plate
3. Steam the chicken for 20 minutes.
4. Chop or carve the chicken into pieces.

Hai Boey Seafood

Hai Boey Seafood 海尾海鲜
29, Mk-9, Pasir Belanda, Teluk Kumbar, 11920 Penang, Malaysia.
Phone: 013-4881114, 019-4791114
Open daily 5.30pm - 11pm

One evening after work, I thought of having some seafood. So, we drove all the way to Hai Boey Seafood again. We were their first customer of the day. Yes! Our food was served in few minutes time.

Spinach with Salted Duck Egg and Century Egg 上汤梘菜

Fried Flat Noodle with Gravy, portion for 1 cost MYR4

This is not as good as their fried emperor noodle. It's lack of fragrant smell from the frying process. The fried emperor noodle suits my taste better. 

Big Prawns Stir Fried With Dried Shrimp

This dish has nothing special, except the prawns are fleshy and succulent. Also, it is not as spicy as per the waiter's description. 

Mantis Prawn, 280gm cost MYR12

This is my favorite mantis prawn in Kam Heong sauce. It's crispy and fragrant. A very appealing dish to go with rice.

Meat Crabs Stir-Fried with Spices, 560gm cost MYR28

A dish that we wouldn't miss, the crabs. The crabs were steamed before stir-frying with spice. Love the fragrant smell from the curry leaves.

This is a nice place to dine in for seafood as you can enjoy the sea breeze and sea view. This round we just ordered a few simple dishes which we haven't tried before. If you want to know more about the Hai Boey's signature dishes, click here. 

Butter Cookies

I started my baking journey with butter cookies in July 2009. That was a harder dough that can be shaped with roller and hand. This round, I'm trying a different recipe with the softer dough so that I can play around with my pastry decorating tool. After I completed this huge batch of cookies, I regret that i didn't invest a better tool. The cheap tool that I got was not user friendly at all, and I had a hard time squeezing the dough from the small container. Oh, tiring job!

Anyway, mission accomplished. I managed to share the cookies with some friends over the weekend.

Butter Cookies 

Ingredients:

250g salted butter at room temp

320g plain flour

140g Castor sugar

2 eggs

1tsp Vanilla essence

Steps:

1. Beat butter and sugar till smooth and fluffy.

2. Add egg and vanilla essence and mix well.

3. Combine the batter with sifted flour to form a soft dough.

4. Fridge the dough for 15 minutes.

5. Put dough into the pastry decorating container with a star tip.

6. Squeeze and shape the dough on a lined baking tray.

7. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 deg C for 15 minutes or until golden yellow.

8. Cool before storing in a airtight container.

Cordyceps Soup (Double-Boiling Method)

Can you see the worm-like roots? 

It's been years that I've not stepped into wet market. Hubby is the one who goes to market on every Sunday to buy all the item as per my list. There's always pros and cons. Pros is I can utilize my time to do house chores at home. Cons is I didn't get any chance to discover new ingredients for my cooking, as hubby's knowledge in ingredients is pretty limited. 

The other day, we went to a supermarket that I rarely go. I spotted fresh Cordyceps, so without hesitation, I grab a packet of it. Here's my new creation, the fresh Cordyceps soup cooked in double boiler. If you prefer clear soup, then double boiler is a good helper. Although the soup is cooked for hours but the soup base remained clear and clean. Fresh Cordiceps taste pretty bland. Luckily I added some other Chinese herbs to enhance the flavour. 

Cordyceps Soup (Double-Boiling Method)
Serves 3-4
Ingredients:

80gm fresh cordyceps, cleaned
250gm pork ribs, chopped into small pieces and blanched
12 red dates, 6-pitted and 6-leave as it is
6 strips of yuk chok
4 strips of wai san
2 tbsp of wolf berry, soaked and drained
1300ml water
salt to taste



Steps:
1. Pour 1300ml water into inner pot of a double boiler. Bring to a boil.
2. Add blanched pork ribs, fresh cordyceps, red dates, yuk chok and wai san to the boiling water. Leave it simmering for 3 hours. Check and top up the water level in the outer pot from time to time.
3. Add wolf berries and salt to taste. Leave it simmers for another 5 minutes before off the flame.