Fried Japanese Anchovies

OMG...I never thought that I would end up with some oil burns on my neck, so unprofessional!! Considering I am calling myself 'homeladychef'.... The worst part is that, I had a blister on my mouth because of the violent spluttering oil!

So you can roughly imagine how do I look like now...a bit depressed, miserable, defeated...oily. ~_~

Anyway, once bitten twice shy. No next time!!

Note taken:

1. Use 2 shields instead of one, one is the pot cover, the other one is oil splatter screen.
2. Drain water and refrigerate for an hour.
3. Use a deeper pot.
4. Fry in medium high heat of 180 c.
5. Do not peep when cover.

Luckily, the end result was the crispy and crunchy fishes. We finished them all in minutes.

Unagi Rice with Salad

We bought a plate of Unagi (grilled eel) from Giant IMM last week. They are having promotion now, costs $10+ per plate, comes with sauce as well. Good deal, so we think we should have it for dinner. :)

It's quite filling actually. Just reheat it with pre-packed sauce before serving. On top is my serving. :)Simple salad such as this can go well with unagi. 2 bowls of salad, one person each. I added in greens with tomatoes, some cashew nuts and Japanese sesame. Dressing wise, we had mayonaise and a bit of horseraddish sauce, mixed.

Unagi with simple salad, a nice ending for the day. ^_^

Late Night Snack II - Sliced Orange with Cinnamon Powder

Tonight late night snack, we have an orange, sliced, with some cinnamon powder sprinkle on top.

Hmm.... simple and yummy!

P/S: Just make sure that when you cut, remove the white part too. =)

Late Night Snack - Yoghurt Ice Cream

Late night snack tonight:

One cup of yoghurt, one scoop of Chocolate ice-cream & some strawberry jam.

Anyone? ;)

3-Cup Chicken

When I was preparing this, CY asked me, “3-Cup chicken?” with an expression of disbelief. “Yes, soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine, a cup each.” I quickly added, “Of course the cup is just a guide. How much you want to put in depends on your liking.” Staring at our half-a-litre beer mugs, he nodded knowingly.

So now, you know the “cup” in this recipe does not mean just any cup, it’s just for a rough guideline, at most it means equal proportion of each ingredients. But for my own liking, I guess it’s about 3 tbsp for a cup. Knowing that the Chinese people like to drink tea, I guess it should be about a tea cup size here.

Anyway, I cooked this at 12 midnight, because I suddenly had this passion, and I couldn’t sleep. I was telling myself I must cook this dish for the next day, so this as a result. When you cook this intuitively with your heart, it somehow would turn out nice most of the time.

The picture shown below here is the Thai Basil, quite common in Singapore and Malaysia. I used to have this in my garden.

Serves 4

Ingredients

8 drumlets of chicken, I like its tenderness, but if you wish, you can use thighs or breasts.
3 tbsp of sesame oil
3 tbsp of soy sauce
3 tbsp of rice wine
2 tbsp of dark soy sauce

some dry red chili - soak in water
White pepper
10 garlic cloves
10 slices thin old ginger
Some rock sugar, about 1 tbsp
2 cups Thai basil (九层塔 literally meaning 9-storey pagoda in Chinese)

1. Stir together some dark soy sauce, rice wine and pepper in a bowl, pour over chicken. Marinade chicken in the fridge for 30 min.
2. Heat up the sesame oil in a wok or a large skillet on high heat.
3. Add ginger, stir fry ginger until slightly brown and fragrant, about 2 minutes. Then add garlic and red chili, fry about 1 minute.
4. Add the chicken pieces, without the marinate, and cook until almost done, about 5 minutes.
5. Add all the sauces and marinate, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to low.
6. Let cook, covered, until chicken releases its moisture, about 15 minutes.
7. Turn heat back up to high and add basil, stir fry a bit then serve.
8. Serve hot with steamed rice.

Besides the marinating, the cooking took about 20-25 min. I made sure that the chicken are cooked through. Since I am keeping in the fridge until the next day, I cannot afford to have uncooked pieces. It is also dangerous to eat uncooked chicken, because of the potent bacteria and bird flu hazard. So I knived through the thickest part of the drumlet to make sure it is white and cooked. If you are leaving some for the next meal like me, refrigerate the tightly covered chicken when it is still warm, before germs have a chance to settle in.

Tips:

1. Do not add water in the process.
2. Thai basil is a must ingredient, without it, you will not get the flavour.
3. You can afford to add more ginger for its fragrance.
4. Ginger has to be fried until brown to get rid of its spicyness.
5. Add scallion or spring onions if you like.

Fried Rice Chinese Style

Rice...? rice... oh Rice! Some more rice!

We love to eat rice. What can be better than rice? Frankly, I can't do without it, as we have gotten so used to it as a staple. Fried rice is one of my favourite delicacies. We made Fried Rice Chinese Style and it was so very nice!

Cook it in the morning, serve at night, and it will taste truly awesome as the flavours settle into every grain of rice. Not too dry, not too salty, just the right type of food to enjoy in front of the TV.

Serves 4

Ingredient:

4 bowl of cooked rice (cook and keep in the fridge overnight)
Mixed vegetables - 1 big bowl
8 shitake mushrooms, soaked overnight. Cut into small pieces.

2 eggs - beaten
Salt and white pepper to taste

Light soy sauce
Dark soy sauce for colouring
3 tbs olive oil
2 red onions & 5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 red onions for fry onions

Nasi Goreng Chinese Mix (I used Seri-Aji Brand)

Instructions:

At medium high heat, fry onions and garlic with olive oil, until caramelised, i.e. turns slightly brown. Add in mix vegetables, mushrooms and some salt, continue stirring for 2 mins or until vegetables and mushroom are almost dry. Push aside the vegetables to create a well, pour in the eggs, fry until they solidify. Then stir into the vegetables, breaking them up.

Put in rice, stir until even, add Nasi Goreng Chinese Mix (packaged fried rice flavour powder) and some dark soy sauce for colouring. Continue frying for 5 mins.
Taste, season with white pepper and light soy sauce when needed.

For garnishing (and for extra calcium)

Fry diced onions and Ikan Bilis (Anchovies) to go along with. I used a small pot with cover, pour in some oil. Heat up the oil, fry the onions and Ikan Bilis seperately, allowing the moisture to escape as steam. They should be done when they are golden brown.

Optional : I added some leftover macademia nuts for a crunchy twist.

It came out wonderful! Rice was just nice, mushroom tastes like meat, there was crisp from the Ikan Bilis, fried onions and nuts. Here are some important tips I can share with you for a great fried rice meal. The rice should be firm (al dente), not too dry, leave in fridge overnight for best result. The vegetables, in particular, should not be wet, if not the rice would turn out soggy.

When stir-frying over high heat, continuously fold over the rice from the bottom, so as to prevent any burnt ingredients building up. Try some of the toasted rice pieces from the bottom, they taste heavenly!

Steamed Cod Fish

Our simple All-in-one dish today is Steamed Cod Fish, just put everything together in a Corning Ware and press the auto-steam function of the microwave. Done!

After taking a shower, it will be cooked just nice in less than 5 min. Look at the picture, you will know what I mean.

Ingredients:
Chili, sliced
Ginger, sliced
Tomatoes, wedged
Enoki mushroom, washed
Cod fish, washed
Prawn, cleaned (optional)

Sauces:
1 tbsp bean paste
1 – 2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp Chinese wine (Shao Xing)

Garnish:
Chinese coriander

Method: Auto-steam using microwave oven.
Nowadays, the microwave oven is so idiot-proof...suits me. :p With its help, I can cook whatever dishes I like. Make a pizza? Easy! Cook curry? No problem! Steaming fish? Auto-sensor and steam it.

Forget about those days when you need to pour water inside a big wok and steam with a big cover. In our home, we do not have this kind of luxury ‘space’ to put the wok and its cover.

In addition, it also comes with 2 cookbooks, with a Chinese version each! Not bad huh? But the most important thing is to buy a convection microwave oven, because it has grilling and baking functions. Despite its smaller size, I can fit a full duck in with space to spare. Never tried a turkey though. Thus, it usually costs a bit more, roughly S$350 to a few thousand bucks, but my Sharp model is reasonably cheap and good at S$399.

Oh yeah, I can put whatever things on top of it to air-dry too, knife, scissor, gloves, ice-cream scoop….

After 3.5 years, it is still serving us well.

Here is one to the oven! :-P

Dang Guai Soup

OK! OK... Let me prepare this for you and me only. Today I have a visitor from far far away. She walks all the way, takes the lift, climbs the staircase... just to have a taste of my soup. I think nowadays Ladyhomechef must be so famous that even in the cat kingdom, she knows my name and here she comes....


Without any delay, now I introduce my herbs... Ta-Dar...!

From the photo above, starting from top left corner in clockwise direction are: 无花果（Dried Fig）, 当归(Dang Guai, Aaugellica sinensis /Diels), 红枣(Red dates), 淮山 Huai Shan (Dioscorea opposita) 甘草(Glycyrrhiza uralensis) , 川芎(Rhizoma /Szechwan Lovage Rhizome). Not to forget 枸杞子(Wolfberry) shown below.

Wolfberries from 宁夏 (Ning Xia in China) is the best. This is what I heard from the TCM shop, I don't know how true is it, but I can see that its colour is natural (not some sort of colourings) and the berries are big and firm. I guess it's good.


Dang Guai is beneficial for women's health. Sometimes, when I feel a little cold in the hands and feet, I will cook this soup for myself. It brings back the warmth and makes me feel energised.

Normally, I will just buy a lot of herbs to mix and match to my own liking. But, generally, I will mix according to their properties. Chinese herbs are divided into 4 main properties/effects: "cool", "cold", "hot" and "warm". While herbs with "warm" or "hot" properties can be used to treat illnesses that are classified as on the "cold" side, e.g. cough and cold with runny nose. On the other hand, "cold" or "cooling" herbs can be used to treat illnesses that are "hot"/heaty in nature, e.g. sore throat and fever.

In that sense, Dang Guai is "hot" in nature, I normally mix it with herbs that is not too "hot" or "warm" such as wolfberry or Huai Shan. If not, I will be nose-bleed immediately the next day due to too much "heatiness"!

Also, anything that is too strong in properties should not be taken too much. In my case, I just put in a few strips of Dang Guai, that is it. Too much is not good for our bodies, resulting in imbalance of "qi".

Cat..! Are you listening or not?!

*meow.....*

Blanch the meat into hot water to wash away smelly taste and drifting particles.

Put everything into the water first to get the herbs get cooking. I prefer it this way because I like the smell and taste of herbs being released first before putting in the meat.

Cook for 2 more hours, then serve. Since this is for my guest and myself only. OK... we will hide in one corner to drink the soup....

Pagi Sore - Indonesian Restaurant

As usual, looking for something to eat on Sunday evenings is always challenging for us, considering that we only knock off at 7pm++, and by the time we reach somewhere else, it's already 8pm++ and our stomachs would be growling in pain!

OK so, after having numerous dinners at nearby Zi Char stalls, which is becoming a bit boring now, we decided to try this restaurant recommended by CY’s bro, Pagi Sore at Jurong Superbowl, next to former Tang Dynasty Village.

But, why sore? Initially, we joked whether if it means that a SORE throat is guaranteed after eating the fiery spicy food! Of course not! Since I am Malaysian, I know Bahasa. It is actually pronounced as "sor-ry", which means "early dusk".

How about the food?

Let them speak for themselves. =)

I personally find that the most delicious of all is the RICE! It’s no joke, because the best way to present the rice is to wrap it with banana leaf. The heat of the rice will steam the banana leaf and in turn, its fragrant oils will infuse into the rice, resulting in a unique flavour. This is something I have never really eaten before.

At most eateries, banana leaves are only used for decorative purposes with rice, either as wrappers or as the base on trays for rice to lay on, e.g. with nasi lemak. Effectively, they are giving the fragrant oils from the banana leaf a miss, as these oils are only released when subjected to grilling or steaming.

Here, I will recommend you to eat Asam Fish, which is a bit different from Indian or Nyonya style, i.e. thin yet savoury and spicy.
This is grilled chicken, very flavourful with lots of spices. I can taste a bit coriander seeds, something like the coriander chicken (Nyonya style) that I recommended before. Worth trying!

Overall damage is $65++. CY's brother got the bill.

Arigato! \(^.*)/