Chinese Sambal Belachan Fried Rice

Rice...? rice... oh Rice! I love rice!
I want to eat rice, what is better than rice? For me, rice is EVERYTHING.
Chicken rice, oh my favourite.
Clay pot rice, awesome.
Nasi Lemak, wordless. Salivating...Can't think of a word for it.
Fried rice is my delicacy in my own world. I can proudly say that at least I can fry ... rice. ;)

This recipe is roughly the same the Fried Rice with Mix Vege. Slightly different is that, this time, I don't use the nasi goreng paste, just onions & garlic, plus SAMBAL Belachan. I still have plenty of them in my kitchen, so why not use them?

4 Servings

Ingredient:

4 bowl of cooked rice (cook and keep in the fridge overnight)

Mixed vege - 1 big bowl

Salt and Sambal Belachan to taste

Dark soy sauce for colouring

3 tbs olive oil

2 red onions & 5 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tsp Chicken Stock Granule to fry onions and garlic

Instructions:

1. Fry mixed vege without oil to drain water, add some granules & sambal for flavouring, take out and put aside
2. Medium high heat, fry onions and garlic with olive oil and sesame oil, until it caramelised or slightly brown, add 1 tbsp of sambal belachan, add in mix vege, continue stirring for 2 mins.
3. Put in rice, stir it until even, add a dash of dark soy sauce for colouring, continue frying for 5 mins
4. Taste and add soy sauce when needed.
   

Mamamia tips:

1. Fry an egg together to enhance its flavour.
2. Must be quick when frying, keep on stirring, press down the rice if it stick together. DO NOT ADD WATER!
3. Serve with stir-fry vege, mamamia!

Tubular Spaghetti with Sausage & Bacons

Cooking pasta is the easiest way to prepare for a fast dinner, but making excellent pasta with lingering taste is a bit tricky though.

I am quite particular about making pasta nowdays, this is the result of being treated like dummy all these years, eating pastas that were prepared half-heartedly, with lots of waterly sauce, or sweet & sour Chinese style sauce, overly-cooked mushy pasta, tasteless pasta, powderly tasteless parmesan, etc... until one day, I decided that I have enough.

ENOUGH.

I started to research into how to make a good pasta. After a lot of trials & time spent, I came to one conclusion. There are infinite ways of making pasta sauce, but there is only one way to make good pasta. My advice are:

1. Cooking pasta is unlike cooking Chinese mee, where you need to alternate the hot & cold water to make it chewy. Don't do that! (I used to! gosh....)
2. Do not pour away ALL the pasta water! It's not DIRTY! Save some for later frying with sauce. Do not Rinse.
3. Taste the pasta by picking out a strand and suck it into your mouth, it should be al dente, meaning firm to the tooth. Just follow the timing & instructions on the package. Plus or minus, not the end of the world. ;)
4. Try to buy Made in Italy pasta, it does make a difference.
5. Before cooking pasta, you should prepare the sauce. Fry some onions and garlic with tomatoes, mushroom, etc. Normally, when the pasta is ready, the sauce should be ready. Toss them into the pasta sauce to coat them all together. Then you can see that the sauce is being soaked up by the pasta, well-coated. Serve when it's popping hot! It will be so...yummy!
6. Rain with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese, heavenly. ( This is not the REAL Italian way of cooking pasta but who cares! >< )

Ingredients:

2 medium onions, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Herbs ( I don't care what kind of herbs you use, so long as it's not grass. Here, I use oregano, parsley & mints. All chopped)
Sausage & bacons, depends on how meaty do you like.
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar & some red wine
Some chili flakes
a bit of water
sugar & salt to taste


Instructions for cooking pasta sauce:

1. Fry sausage & bacon till crispy & brown. Take out & put aside.
2. Heat oil, fry the onions & garlics slightly, add in diced tomatoes, a bit of water (stock if you like), wine & balsamic vinegar, simmer till water thicken.
3. Add salt & sugar to taste. Add sausage & bacons.
4. Toss in pasta to coat.
5. Rain lots of Parmesan Cheese on top.
6. Done.

P/S: According to gastronomic research, there are at least 9,000 sauces in the different Italian regions, but it is easy to create your own and combine this with the appropriate pasta shape.

• Thin pasta such as spaghetti are better with sauces based on tomato, oil and vegetables rather than heavy, sticky sauces with cheese etc.
• Short, medium sized pasta are better with butter and grated cheese.
• Short, thick pasta are appropriate for both simple and elaborate sauces.

Cheers to PASTA!!

Sausage, Mushroom & Guiness Casserole

I came across this recipe from Delicious which sounds delicious. However, I am not a fan of this magazine, it's just a gift from one of the teachers who visited Europe just recently & painstakingly brought it back to CY & me.

Recipe (Ready in about 40 minutes )
Ingredients
1 tbsp vegetable oil
16 good-quality pork and herb sausages
2 large onions, sliced
2 celery sticks, chopped
12 rashers smoked streaky bacon, chopped
2 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp tomato purée
330ml bottle Guinness
300ml beef stock, hot
250g mushrooms, halved
3 tbsp fresh parsley leaves, to garnish

Steps
1. Heat the oil in a large casserole or deep, wide frying pan over a medium-high heat. Add the sausages and cook for 6-8 minutes, until browned all over. Remove and set aside.
2. Add the onions, celery and bacon to the casserole and cook, stirring, for 6-8 minutes, until softened. Stir in the flour and tomato purée and cook for 1 minute. Pour in the Guinness, bring to the boil and cook for 2 minutes, until reduced. Add the stock, bring back to the boil, then return the sausages to the casserole with the mushrooms. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, and season to taste.
3. Simmer for a further 10 minutes, until the sausages are cooked and the sauce has thickened. Garnish with parsley and serve with mashed potato and savoy cabbage.

While looking through the scrumptious-looking pictures in there, I found this interesting recipe worth trying, judging its taste from its picture. (The saying "don't judge a book by it cover" has clearly not in my mind at that moment!) It claimed to be number one of 67 casserole dishes, I presumed that is not over-rated.

Guinness in cooking, sounds interesting to me. :)

Excitedly, I poured the whole 330ml into the pot and waited patiently for 40 mins until it's done. Its tangy aroma filled my kitchen almost instantly. When it's done, I served this with mashed potatoes. It's tasty, but slightly bitter. Have I poured too much of Guinness?

I wonder.

I reserved some for dinner at night. This time, it was served with Roti Prata/ Roti Canai. To cut the bitterness, I added more tomato paste into the sauce & reheated it. Now, it tasted real appetising! We finished this off with 2 pieces of prata & still wanting more!

Never regret making this meal. ;)

Lesson learnt: Cut the Guinness amount into 200ml instead of 330ml, increase the amount of beef stock to substitute Guinness.

Teo Chew Porridge @ Beauty World Plaza

We have been wanting an enjoyable family day with all the kids & their parents as the annual year-end event but repeating it in East Coast Park is not an option. It has to be spesh to foot-print into their memories; to give them the motivation & momentum to work harder next year.

So CY came up with this idea: to climb the highest mountain (hill to be exact) in Singapore, together. This wonderful summit near my school, Bukit Timah Hill is not that high though since Singapore is only a small red dot on the map. As usual, we went there for scouting before to plan the photohunt route. That morning, weather was not very welcoming. It was quite misty & drizzling in the morning, so we decided to have a bite first in the nearby Beauty World Plaza.

We ordered hot porridge at the roof-top hawker centre, to my surprise, the porridge there was heartwarming & cheap! Four good dishes & two bowls of porridge cost only $6. This is really hard to find nowadays. This Yong Tau Fu (see below) is really tasty, all the flavours kicked in, good to go along with the porridge.

This bittergout with egg is wholesomely delish, though it was not evenly cooked due to poor chopping skill, but it was not the end of the world.

Dang dang dang dang... If you know me in person, I am actually quite skinny. As a matter of fact (not FAT), I need some fat, so I ordered the braised pork skin with dried bean curd (we call it tau pok). It turned out to be a gastronomical fiesta! The skin was chewy & hot, not too fatty. Others I had eaten before were hard, cold & emit a stale smell. Dip the tau pok into the chilli to squeeze out the saltiness & soak up the sauce. Right into the bland porridge, the subsequent mix in taste brought back memories of Grandma's porridge when I was a small girl.

Then comes to this fried sole fish, crispy & barbequey.

Hunger filled, the drizzle came to an end. We managed to go hiking & enjoyed nature.

On the way up... the rain really chased away a lot of nature lovers, leaving the whole hill to us...

Near to the peak, looking down, have a deep breath...mmhhh...

Encountered this not-so-little ant posing for us to take a picture of its 4 cm long body.
YES! We made it, finally to the summit!

Resting near this tree called Waringin (fig), or 无花果树 in Chinese.

On our way home.
Ciao.

Cheesy Roasted Mediterranean Vege Lasagna

Look at these ingredients. Simply gorgeous.

Sometimes, we just need to look around & ponder, for a while, to admire the work of nature, simply by looking up into the sky, breathing some fresh air, in the middle of a city if you must.

That's it.

Those things are unimaginable, if you can't imagine.

Take some time to make yourself feel good.

Afterall, life is so short.

So, Cheesy Roasted Mediterranean Vege Lasagna for dinner, anyone?

Ingredients:

1 small eggplant, cut into chunks

2 red onions, cut into wedges

2 peppers, deseeded & cut into chunky strips

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

3 tbsp olive oil

1 courgettes, sliced

6 sheets of lasagna

lots of finely grated Parmesan

Cheese sauce

900ml semi-skimmed milk

40g butter

60g plain flour

125 half-fat Cheddar, grated

1. Preheat oven to 200 Degree Celsius. Mix the eggplant, onions, peppers, garlic, 2 tbsp olive oil & a little seasoning in a bowl. Transfer to a large roasting pan and bake for 30 mins.
2. Meanwhile, heat the rest of oil in a frying pan over high heat & fry courgettes for abt 4 mins, until browned. Drain on kitchen paper.
3. Remove vege from oven, stir in courgettes.
4. Make Cheese sauce. Bring the milk to boil in a pan, then set aside. Melt butter in a separate pan, add the flour & cook for 1 min. Remove from heat. Gradually stir in the milk. Put it back on the heat, bring to boil, stirring, then simmer gently for 10 mins.
5. Add cheese and season.
6. Spoon a thin layer of sauce in a buttered dish, cover with lasagna sheets, overlapping slightly. Top with half the vegetables, then third of the remaining sauce & another layer of lasagna sheets. Repeat once more.
7. Spread over the remaining sauce & srinkle with Parmesan.
8. Bake for 40 mins, until golden & bubbling.

Aromatic baked chicken with potato & tomatoes

This recipe is adapted from “Jamie at Home” – Sticky & Crispy Chicken Thigh with Potato & Tomato. The chicken is really part sticky part crispy. Potato is incredibly good. We were literally fine dining at home! All thanks to Jamie.

This was our 1st time doing it, & it turned out to be so nice that PP complained I didn’t cook enough! I actually felt it is better to leave us longing for more, than to end up with unfinished wasted food. Healthier this way with controlled intake right?

(PP aka ladyhomechef: Since we start cooking more at home, CY lost 10kgs! See? his pants are all unfit & we are more than happy to renew his entire wardrobe.)

Ingredients
2 large potatoes, skinned, chunked
4 chicken thighs, chunked
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
7 - 10 cherry tomatoes
Handful leaves of oregano, sage, rosemary
Balsamic vinegar
2 handfuls rocket leaves
Apple cider vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
Handful walnuts

Steps
1) Preheat oven to 200 deg C.
2) Boil potatoes in salted boiling water for about 12 min. Try not to overcook as ours were a little too tender & broke into smaller pieces later.
3) Season chicken with olive oil, salt & pepper.
4) Fry chicken in pan on medium high heat, skin down 1st. We left it frying for too long on the skin, causing skin to stick on the pan. To avoid this, toss chicken almost immediately. Fry 10 min, toss periodically. Chicken fat will start liquidating.
5) Prick tomato skin with fork, once on each will do. When potatoes are almost cooked, add tomatoes in with potatoes for 1 min.
6) Drain potatoes & tomatoes. Use a spoon to gently press potatoes to slightly flatten it. They will slurp up flavours later. Skin tomatoes for flavour to be infused with other ingredients.
7) Pound herb leaves. Add 2 tbsp olive oil & 1 tsp balsamic vinegar. Season with salt & pepper. Crush gently with pestle in mortar to prevent oil from spilling out. The original recipe used only oregano. We added in whatever we had to supplement our limited oregano. The mixture of flavours was superb!
8) Add herbs, potatoes & tomatoes to chicken. Stir through. Bake in oven 200 deg C, 40 min. For those using small ovens like ours, which can’t fit a pan in with handle, use a large corning or visions ware which can be used for frying & baking.
9) Toss rockets with apple cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, salt & pepper. We tried our new salad spinner to dry rockets, it works! (We were skeptical previously.)
10) When baking is done, stir & spoon onto 2 dry plates. Leave excess oil behind. Heap rockets on top. Sprinkle walnuts around.

Take some photos, admire, & enjoy :-)

Beef Burger Stuffed with Goat Cheese & Bacon

I am quite sure that there isn't anywhere in Singapore that sell this kind of supper. But, this is our supper tonight. CY prepared this for both of us around 12am+ since we had a relatively small dinner. I was in charged of taking photoes. :)

You can try it yourself at home. It's very easy to make.

First, season the 230g minced beef with salt and pepper, make a patty that stuffed with goat cheese & bacon inside. Firmly press until the minced beef won't fall apart.

Fry some sliced onions & prepare some avacado paste & sliced lettuce to go along.
When the patty is nicely done (see below). Using medium high heat, fry it with oil, about 8 mins with lid, roughly 4 mins each side. until it turn brown. Serve with toasted bread, put the patty on top of the bread, layer with cheese, avacado, fried onions, horseraddish sauce & chili sauce.

Viola!

When writing this, I am still very full!

I am quite sure that tonight, I will have a good night sleep. :)

晚安~

Saffron & Vanilla Poached Pears with White Wine

An Inspiration from Helen. She is magnifique! I have twisted it a little bit, with some white wine because I prefer dessert not simply sweet, but with some bitterness along with it. You can use champagne, if you like. I think it taste even better! :)

Instructions:

Serve 2

1. In a large pot, combine 2.5 cups of water, 30 saffron threads and 6 tbsp of sugar. Bring to boil over medium high heat, stirring a couple of times to make sure the sugar is dissolved.
2. Add 1 tbsp of vanilla extract. Bring down to a simmer and add 2 pears with 1 whole lemon juice.
3. Cover the pot and cook the pears 12-15 mins, turning them halfway through to make sure they cook evenly and all the way through. You can insert a toothpick to check.
4. Remove the pears from the liquid and set them aside in a serving plate.
5. Add in a dash of white wine, continue simmer until liquid reduces by half, , about another 10 minutes.
6. Done.

Oishi Simple Beef Stew

Yum yum~~
Today, we made this simple beef stew because CY & I had a craving for beef stew and we wanted something that could be cooked for a long time, so I made this in the morning, came back at 9+ at night for dinner. Served with toasted bread.
Satisfying~~

Can you see those tiny tasty bits inside? Wah, this is the result of 8 hours stewing! I just had to close my eyes to enjoy it.
Oi~~Shi!

Serve 4

Ingredients
3 tbsp oil & 2 tbsp butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 pounds beef chuck shoulder roast, cut into 2-inch pieces (this cut is also called chuck shoulder pot roast and chuck roast boneless)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
half tbsp sugar
1 bottle red wine
6 fresh thyme sprigs
6 garlic cloves, smashed
1 orange, zest removed in 2 (1-inch) strips
7 cloves
2 bay leaves
2 cups of chicken stock
9 small new potatoes, scrubbed clean and cut in 1/2
6 red carrots, cut into half
3 big onions, cut into 4 pieces each
10 shitake mushrooms, cut into 1/2
Fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, for garnish
Directions

Browning the beef

Preheat a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat with the oil and butter.
While the pan is heating, arrange the flour on a large dish. Season the cubed beef with some salt and freshly ground black pepper and then toss in the flour to coat. Shake off the excess flour and add the beef chunks in a single layer to the hot pan, being careful not to over crowd the pan, you might have to work in batches. Thoroughly brown all of the cubes on all sides. Once all the meat has been browned remove it to a plate and reserve.

Preparing the stock for stewing

Add the wine to the pan and bring up to a simmer while you scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to loosen up all those tasty bits. Once the wine start boiling, add the browned meat, thyme, smashed garlic, orange zest strips, cloves, freshly ground black pepper and salt, to taste, bay leaves and chicken stock.

Bring the mixture up to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook uncovered until the liquids start to thicken, about 20 minutes.

After 20 mins, add halved potatoes, carrots, onions and mushrooms, along with half tbsp of sugar to balance out the acid from the red wine. Cover and cook for about 6 - 8 hours.

When coming back from work

Turn the heat up slightly and simmer, uncovered if need be, cook until the sauce is thicken.

To serve, place the stew in a soup bowl, garnish with parsley. Right before serving add a slice of Toasted Bread, half way submerged in the stew.

Deee....licious!

Fish with Bean Curd & Chinese Bean Paste

Today is our Fish day.
Meaning, according to our weekly menu, we have to cook fish.
So I cook fish lah, no problem.

But ... I am quite sick of HK or Teo Chew steamed fish or fish soup or pan-fried fish. So, how?! Aiyo.... headache.

Never mind, use my head, try something new lar!
So I decided to cook Fish with Bean Curd & Chinese Bean Paste. The reason?

A brief history:

Just 2 weeks ago, I went back to Malaysia to visit my mom. I got 1st hand recommendation of what kind of bean paste should I use in cooking, which is.... The Angel brand (see above).

This is highly recommended! (So next time when you visit Malaysia, try to rob one back, ok?) Of course I want to use this asap to test the result, right? ;)

So today is deng...deng...deng.....Fish with Bean Curd & Chinese Bean Paste! *Clap Clap* Please Forgive me for some self-entertainment.

Ingredients:

1. Finely chopped - 2 chili, 6 cloves of garlics, 2 inches of young ginger
2. Chopped 1 small bowl of green onion
3. Bean curd
4. Any fish ( I use 2 pieces of medium-sized red snapper)
5. 1 tbsp bean paste
6. 2 tbsp of oil
7. 1 tbsp sugar
8. 2 tbsp tomato sauce
9. 2 tbsp Chinese rice wine
10. 2 tbsp white vinegar
11. Chinese parsley for garnishing
12. Corn starch to thicken the sauce

Instruction:

1. Wash the fish with salt, put aside
2. Heat oil to medium high heat, fry chopped garlic, ginger till fragrant
3. Add in chopped chili, fry a bit
4. Add in 1 cup of water, bean paste, tomato sauce & sugar
5. When boiling, add in fish, cook with NO lid, abt 2-3 min per side (only do one turning)
6. Add in rice wine and white vinegar, simmer till water reduce by half.
7. Add in green onion
8. Thicken the sauce with corn starch solution.
9. Done.

Note: Since we want to be healthier, so I didn't fry the fish but I think it's still delicious even without frying. :)