Crispy Anchovies In Spicy, Sweet and Sour Sauce

This anchovies dish is a courtesy of my mum. It is absolutely an appetizing dish that attracts my palate. I can eat it on its own or to serve it with rice. You can cook this in larger portion and store it in air-tight container to be consumed for the next few days. Enjoy!

Ingredients: 
250gm anchovies
200ml water
Cooking oil

(A) To grind:
1 ½ bulb of garlic, peeled
7 red chili, seeded
7-8 bird’s eye chili

(B) To juice:
6 calamansi
½ lemon

Seasoning:
Sugar, salt or light soy sauce to taste

Steps:
1. Grind ingredients (A) into paste using mortal and pestle. Set aside.
2. Juice the ingredient (B). Set aside.
3. Rinse the anchovies in running water, drain and pat dry with kitchen tissue
4. Heat up oil in a wok, deep fry anchovies into golden yellow. Drain the oil, and rest the anchovies on kitchen tissue to remove excess oil.
5. In the same wok, heat up some oil to sauté the grounded garlic and chili paste.
6. Pour in water and leave it simmers for a while. Add in the juice to mix well.
7. Add sugar, salt or light sauces to taste. Simmers the sauce till thickening and off the flame.
8. Toss in the anchovies to coat with the sauce.

Prawns and Veggie Tortilla Wrap

Tortilla wrap is my favorite bento lunch. This version of tortilla wrap takes longer time to prepare compared to the Chickenand Veggie Tortilla Wrap that I shared earlier. I get what I gave. I spend more time in the cooking and preparation, and I got the better taste tortilla wraps.

Prawns and Veggie Tortilla Wrap 
Yields for 2 to 3

Ingredients:
3 tortillas
3 eggs

1/2 tomato, sliced

1/2 Japanese cucumber, sliced

1 stalk of spring onion, chopped

1 small onion, diced thinly, soak in cold water and drained
prawns, shelled, steamed and sliced into 2
Mayonnaise

Cooking oil

Steps:
1. Crack an egg in a bowl. Add a tbsp of chopped spring onion. Beaten it with a fork.

2. Heat up a pan or wok with some cooking oil. Pan fry the egg. When it is almost cooked at the bottom side, top it with a Tortilla. Leave for a few seconds and flip to fry the other side. You’ll get the egg and tortilla stick together. Dish out.

3. Repeat step 1 and 2 to prepare the other 2 sheets of “egg-tortilla”.

4. Allocate a sheet of “egg-tortilla” on a chop board with egg facing up. Spread a layer of Mayonnaise on the egg surface. Top up all the ingredients – tomato and cucumber slices, prawns, onions at the bottom area of the tortilla sheet. Roll it up tightly and cut into two.

5. Repeat step 4 to get the rest of tortilla wraps done.

Baby Food- Fish and Vegetable Porridge

I did a simple statistics on my blog posts. 

My effort on this blog reduced from 120 posts in 2010 to 78 posts in 2011. Then the post dropped tremendously from 78 posts to merely 33 posts in 2012. 

Assume my blogging effort is 100% in year 2010, I sacrificed 35% of my blogging effort on my daughter in year 2011. Again in 2012, additional 37.5% of my blogging effort is delegated to my son. So now at the beginning of 2013, my blogging momentum left only 27.5% compared to 2010. 

In return, I have less readers visiting my blog, I have very less comments in my latest posts. 

Okay, feel free to correct me if my statistic study is wrong. :P 

New year new resolutions. Ahem, my 2013 new year goal is nothing new, but to continue cooking healthy and delicious food for the family of 4. Each meal need to be as simple as possible, and as delicious as possible. Happy New Year 2013 to all my readers! 

To achieve my new resolutions, my first 2013 post is started with this Fish and Vegetable Porridge. It’s so nutritious, right?

 

Baby Food: Fish and Vegetable Porridge 
Serves 2 

Ingredients: 
fish fillet, skinned
4 tbsp of rice, rinsed
carrot, cut into thin strips
choy sum, chopped
hot boiling water

Seasonings (optional): 
half tsp of fried garlic oil

Steps:
1. Add rice and hot water to a small slow cooker. Cook it for 2 hours.
2. Add fish fillet. Once the fish is cooked, dish it out.
3. Add vegetables and cook for 15 minutes.
4. Mash the fish fillet in a bowl. Pour the porridge over the mashed fish fillet. Mix it up with fried garlic oil.
5. Leave it cool for a while and serve warm.

Oriental Prawn Stir-Fry

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.

Prawn and Fishball Noodle Soup

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?

Spaghetti Aglio Olio

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.

Kung Pao Squid 宫保墨鱼

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.

Fried "Xin Zhu" Vermicelli 炒新竹米粉

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.

Vegetable and Prawns Fried Rice

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!

Air-Fried Wanton

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!

Father’s Day Special

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!

Grilled Fish (Air-Fryer Recipe)

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). Voilà!

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.

Cajun Pan-Fried Fish with Tomato Salsa

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

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.

Asam Curry Squid

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.

Fish In Soy Bean Sauce

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.

Sui Kow Dumpling 水饺

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.

Dried Scallop and Chicken Congee

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

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.

Fried Threadfin Salmon / Kurau

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?