Away for Holiday!

We are in Kyoto now, getting some good food ideas. As you can see, it is autumn, leaves are falling, and the landscape is really beautiful!

Do come back for more of our reviews of Japanese foods. You won't be disappointed!

Take care and see you soon! ;-)

Soy Sauce Duck (Lor Ark) - Using Pressure Cooker

I wonder if I am getting old, mentally. I was in the era of believing pressure cooker is, DANGEROUS, just a week ago.

However, I was somehow converted into pressure cooker believer. Imagine to cook one whole duck in 20 minutes. The entire preparation plus cooking time was reduced from 3.5 hours to just 30 minutes, excluding the marinating time.

This is how technology changes our lives. We bought this pressure cooker from Takashimaya for $299 (Original Price was $429), I thought it was an impulsive purchase but CY said it's worth it as we saw how it was being used in the Iron Chef TV series. Okay fine, so we bought it.

After 25 minutes into cooking in the kitchen echoed with hissing sounds (from the pressure cooker), I told him that from my experience, I was unsure if the duck was done.

The result was simply amazing, the meat was tenderised and full of flavours. Duck fat was released from the meat and I could scope them all out, leaving just sauce to pour onto our rice.

Now I am converted. Are you?
Serve 4 (for me, serve 3 because I want to have 2 portions of it)

Ingredients:
2 kg of 1 whole duck
25g garlic, 25 g onions, 25 g ginger, 25g blug ginger/ gelangal
1 pc star anise
2 cinnamon sticks

Seasoning:
2.5 tbs dark soy sauce
2.5 tbs grade A soy sauce
2 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup water

Method

Using fork, poke the duck skin thoroughly, marinate with seasoning for 30 minutes. Heat pressure cooker with cooking oil, fry garlic, onions, ginger, blue ginger, star anise and cinnamon.

Then pour in seasoning, add a cup of water and stir evenly. Put duck inside and cover with lid.

Pressure cooking time is 20 minutes.

If you don't have a pressure cooker, the traditional method still works, just that it will take 3 hours to tenderise the meat, more water is needed too.

Some adjustments in this recipe is Lor Ark Version II.
Look at the meat, can you believe that it only takes 20 minutes to get to this tenderness?

Review- Pan Pacific Hotel Hai Tien Lou 海天楼

Si-Chuan style dumpling - a balance of sweet and sour with succulent prawn inside. I love it!

Cha siew bao - minced pork bao lose out to the one I had at Imperial Treasure.

A suprisingly fragrant Ee-Fu Noodle, stir-fried with fresh crab meat and mushroom. If there is one dish that makes me patronise here again, this is the one.

Dumpling with mushroom, with some fish roe on top. Creative yet yummy!

Steamed carrot cake. This is my first time trying this dish and I must say: what a wonderful creation! It is mild yet smooth. You can taste the carrot inside. Nice!

White fungus with fresh fig. A good ending for this meal.

Located on level 37, partake in exquisite Cantonese cuisine while enjoying breathtaking views of the city and harbour.

All-you-can-eat Dim Sum lunch ($38 nett)

Pan Pacific Privileges (Singapore)

Pan Pacific Privileges members enjoy cardholder dines free at the at this restaurant (available till 30 November).

What are you waiting for?!

Review - Tong Ji Noodle @ Golden Mile FC

Okay, this is suppose to be pictorial originally but I think I need to highlight this stall to the public. It has a lot of publicity and I heard some good reviews about it but to my humble opinion, it has been over-rated.

Tong Ji (桐记）offers 3 types of noodle dishes - lor mee, minced pork noodle & laksa. The minced pork noodle is not as good as it seems, it's too salty to my liking. As for the lor mee (below), it's sour and garlicky, but lack of fragrance. I still prefer Ang Mo Kio Lor Mee. I didn't have the chance to try the laksa. Anyway, this is just my humble opinion, different people have different preference, you know?

Minced Pork Noodle, I managed to finish this whole bowl but kept thinking: Am I 'cancer-ing' myself by eating this?

Address: Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Road (S)199583, Stall no: 1-100

Food: 6/10

Looking at these pictures, who will know that they are not as good as they seem? Oh, these remind me of the Henderson prawn noodle. I want the prawn noodle now!

Braised Chicken with Shitake Mushrooms

In the past few days, CY was not at home. He had gone for reservist. For those who are Singaporean, you know what I mean. For those who are not, reservist basically means army reservist, whereby Singaporean young men are required by law, to go back for retraining several times before they reach their 40s, or when they hit their retraining quotas.

So I am left all alone at home, doing nothing most of the time, except going to work or house cleaning (that’s quite a lot to do!). Kind of not get used to it (with CY not around), I must find myself something to work on. So today, I cook this braised chicken with shitake mushrooms since there are still some chicken wings left in the freezer.

Sometimes, I will decide my meal by what is being left in the kitchen. So I improvise a little, to make use of some last bits of wolfberries and ginger. I come up with this simple dish, enough for 3, with ideas from pigpigscorner.

Serve 3

Ingredients:

12 chicken wings
12 Shitake dry mushrooms – soaked, reserve the mushroom water, abt 2 cups
0.5 tbs Dark soya sauce
2 tbs Light soya sauce
4 tbs of Chinese wine (Shao Xing)
A few dash of five spice powder
Some dash of white pepper
3 stalks spring onion, white parts only
1 tbs wolfberries
15 slices thinly-sliced ginger
Corn starch water to thicken sauce

Method:

1. Marinate chicken with light soya sauce, five spice powder & white pepper
2. Fry ginger till brown to get rid of its spiciness
3. Fry mushroom and then the chicken wings
4. Add mushroom water, dark soya sauce and wine to cover all ingredients, and simmer for 20 mins, covered
5. Uncovered, put spring onions inside. Stir to mix, thicken sauce with corn starch water
6. Stir in wolfberries, cook till sauce thickens

Stir-fried Clams with Soybean Paste & Chili

I used to have 2 misconceptions about seafood. Firstly, they are expensive. Secondly, seafood is difficult to cook. But after buying and practicing for a few times, I ‘turn over a new leaf’ and now think that seafood is EASY & CHEAP to cook!

May be I am wrong. But just recently, really, the clams and mussels are going so….cheap! This dish costs me at most S$5, with S$3.50 goes to clams. Not long ago, I bought 1 kg of king prawn for only S$12. The mussels? One whole pack costs 60 cent!! My goodness, am I in a delusion or something?

My mother cooked this dish before, about 2 years ago, she stir-fried clams with bird’s eye chili and it’s super duper finger-licking good. So what I am trying now is to re-create her version. I think, hm… not as good as hers, but I think it’s still good! At least that’s what CY said. ;)

Ingredients
· 600g small clams (lala)
· a few sliced ginger
· 8 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
· 1 heaped tbsp soybean paste, dilute with some water
· 2 red chili, sliced
· 1 or 2 bird’s eye chili (chili padi), chopped
· 3 tbsp oil
· 1 tsp Chinese rice wine (shaoi xing wine)
· 1 tbsp corn flour

· 1 tsp brown sugar

Method

This time round, the clams I bought are quite dirty. So I rinse and brush clams, soak them in water for 1 hour. Repeat for another 1 hour. Discard clams with broken shells.

Heat oil in a wok and fry ginger until fragrant and golden, add garlic, fry for a while and add soybean paste. Stir-fry for 20–30 seconds before adding chili padi and red chili. Stir for another round to release its fragrant. Pour in clams. Sprinkle in cooking wine and stir-fry for 2 mins. Sprinkle in corn flour to mix (this is to thicken the clam juice). Covered, cook until the clams open up, about 3-5 mins. Dish out and serve immediately.

Tips:

1. Normally, just soak the clams in 30 mins should be fine, check clams and adjust time when necessary.
2. Bean paste (Tou Chio 豆酱) & chili - BEST friend with Clams! I prefer this way rather than to replace it with hot & spicy bean paste.
3. Cook till all clams opens, then another 1 min or so in the wok and get them all out, any time longer than that, clams will turn rubbery.