Foodies' Kitchen

Curry Chicken–My personal take on it

2012-02-15T16:45:00.002+08:00

To be honest, I am not good at cooking curry chicken, because my recipe keeps on changing. My mother said that to be good in cooking curry, I must at least try cooking it for more than 10 times. The fact is I definitely cooked more than this number, still yet to master the skill of cooking curry. Blame it to cooking the curry with whatever ingredients at hand become I just cannot bear to waste leftovers inside my pantry which might add flavours to the curry. So this is my take on the curry chicken and I do not know how to call it, so long as it is tasty, I don’t think it really matters, seriously. But I still think this is not the perfect one. I should really restrain myself to make a really good chicken curry with a tried-and-tested authentic Chinese chicken curry recipe. Roar!!!

Serve 4

Ingredients:

One whole chicken, cut into pieces, alternatively, you can buy 15 drumlets

1Tbsp. turmeric powder

1 Tbsp. curry powder

1 tsp. cinnamon powder

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup of coconut milk (best), normal carnation milk (ok), abt 200ml

5 Tbsp. peanut oil

5 –6 curry leaves

3 medium sized potatoes, cut into equal chunks

Blend everything listed below, together:

1 white onions, big (I like the sweetness brought about by onions)

5 shallots, medium size

6 pieces of dried chilli (better) or fresh chilli

3 garlic

2 inch peeled ginger

1 inch turmeric

lemon grass, white parts only

What might be added to enhance its flavour:

5-6 candlenuts (soaked in warm water)

1/4 tsp. belacan

Method

medium heat, fry the paste till fragrant, about 8-10 mins, keep stirring to prevent burn.
add in chicken, keep on frying and stirring, abt 5 mins.
add water (2 cups) or cover the chicken.
boil the chicken in low heat, for about 10 mins, reduced water into half.
add coconut milk and continue to simmer for another 5 mins or so, over low heat.
add salt to taste and serve hot.

Gordon Ramsay the Perfect scrambled egg

2012-02-06T10:43:00.001+08:00

Needless to say, Gordon Ramsay’s cooked the perfect scrambled eggs the proper way and I had the perfect scrambled eggs today. You can follow his steps here, it is easy and creamy! Voila!

Tiramisu...Pick me up!

2012-02-04T10:48:00.002+08:00

This really sounds like my daughter…pick me up, please. At this age (4 months plus) she demands a lot of hugs and cuddles from anyone in the vicinity, stranger or not, does not matter. She enjoys being carried around and is curiously looking at anything within 10 feet. So whenever I am tired of carrying her around, I try to remember that a year from now she is going to be squirming to get out of my arms and I am going to miss these days!

Tiramisu is my favourite dessert. I made it a few times. It is a layered cake, consisting of alternate layers of coffee-soaked Savoiardi (ladyfingers) biscuits and sweet mixture of mascarpone cheese and eggs and sugar. You can get this biscuit from Giant, Cold Storage, etc. I don’t like eating raw eggs so I usually omit it from my recipe. Marsala wine is difficult to find in Singapore but without it, you can substitute with DARK rum or any similar sweet wine (I think). Cocoa powder is sifted on top (and sometimes between layers) as both a garnish and a bitter counterpoint of the sweetened cheese mixture in between. I do not have a sweet tooth so I prefer less-sugared tiramisu. You may want to add more sugar if you like.

Below is some photos showing the steps in making a tiramisu.

INGREDIENTS:
Serve 4

100 ml pure cream

5 Tbs Castor sugar

350g mascarpone

1 Tbs vanilla extract

4 Tbs Marsala (or brandy or Tia Maria or dark rum)

200ml strong coffee or espresso, chilled it before mixing

14 ladyfingers (Savoiardi )

Cocoa powder

Instructions:

* Whisk mascarpone cheese with vanilla extract, then mix with 3 Tbs coffee and 4 Tbs Marsala, put aside

* Whisk pure cream with sugar.

* Mix them all together, put aside.

* Dip ladyfinger, one by one QUICKLY in the chilled coffee liquid and take out, it should be soft on the outside, but still dry in the inside.

* Lay the ladyfingers into a container, one by one.

* scope in a layer of cream mixture

* Lay another layer of ladyfinger, then follow by another layer of cream mixture.

* until 80% full, sprinkle with cocoa powder.
Done! This recipe can be modified to suit your palate, such as add more sugar, less coffee or more Marsala. Don't be afraid to experiment. ;)

Teriyaki salmon with salad and rice

2012-01-29T22:09:00.003+08:00

We had this during our one-week long Chinese New Year, simple food for two. My husband was like: huh…. you bought salmon? How do you want to cook it? Teriyaki styled, I replied.

I am jovial about cooking this because it is dead simple. Of course I am talking about cooking the fish fillet with ready-made teriyaki sauce in the market. Yeah, I know…I know…making teriyaki sauce at home is dead simple too but I will have to buy an extra bottle of mirin and will be thinking of how to finish it later. Just one bottle of teriyaki does not occupy my pantry too much too.

For the coming weeks I will be preparing for my major paper until May....keep my fingers, toes and all crossed, everything will be smooth sailing!

Serve 2

Ingredients:

Salmon fillet x 2

6 Tbs teriyaki sauce

1 big onion, cut into strips

some ginger strips

some oil

cooked rice

salad on side

Method

Using a non-stick pan, high heat with oil, quickly sear the two side of the fillets till slightly brown. You need only less than 1 min per side. Transfer them into a wrapped pan with aluminium foil. Using the same pan, saute some onion strips till brown.

Get ready oven 180 degree celcius. transfer the seared fillets into the oven for 5-8 mins to finish off cooking.
Take out, check its doneness with a fork or a knife digging in, it should release easily.
At the same time, boil the teriyaki sauce with some ginger and 50 ml water in it. About 5 mins.
Assemble the salmon steak with some cooked rice and salad, pour teriyaki sauce over the fillets, garnish with some onions.

Gong Xi Fa Cai 恭喜发财! 年年有余

2012-01-24T15:39:00.009+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year to all!

This is the most important festival for families to gather for our annual reunion dinner. For me, I love Chinese New Year (CNY) because it is the only time for all siblings and friends to gather and chat. I love receiving ang baos, of course now is giving ang baos because it symbolises giving out happiness and good wishes. I also love watching fire-crackers (though illegal), fire-works (illegal too!) in my hometown where everything is possible! lol. This year is a bit different as it is my first year spending New Year in Singapore because of my baby. In comparison, it is quieter here, but not less joyful with my own family. My husband and I love cooking. So we took this opportunity to cook all the dishes for our own reunion dinner (for two because baby cannot eat our food) and a few meals during CNY.

Traditionally, our reunion dinner will have chicken, pork and fish. Fish is intentionally not finished. The reason for this stems from a paronomasia, as the Chinese phrase 年年有魚/余; (nián nián yǒu yú, or "every year there is fish/leftover") is a homophone for phrases which mean to "have profit every year". But, we finished all, opps!

Secondly, our fish is supposed to be served whole to symbolise prosperity, though westerners sometimes balk at the sight of an entire fish lying on a plate. In fact, at Chinese banquet, it is customary to serve the whole fish last, pointed toward the guest of honour. So, do not be scared if the fish head is pointing towards you in a Chinese dinner next time . :) However, my family is not particular about this. :p

During our Chinese New Year’s Eve reunion dinner, steamed fish is normally served at the table, but I particularly prefer Hong Kong style steamed fish. Why? Because it gives the ultra fresh, sweet, clear consistency and yummy umami sauce. It is worth cooking to impress your mother (oh! My daughter suddenly knows how to cook!), your mother-in-law (Oh! My daugther-in-law's culinary skill not bad huh?) and your family. Kill three birds in one stone. ;)

There are several points to take note, these are VIPs to neccessitate a good steamed fish:

choose a fresh fish, preferably grouper or seabass, it should not be more than 1kg;
cook at high heat, put in the fish only after the water start boiling;
season & steam the fish together with Chinese wine (Shao Xing or Hua Diao), spring onions, ginger and coriander;
discard ALL the cooking juices and herbs after steaming;
mix the seasoning sauce separately and add them just before serving;
add in rock sugar to enhance its sweetness; and
pour smoking hot oil all over the fish in the end.

Ingredients:

1 fresh grouper about 600g.

¼ cup of very fine fresh ginger strips

¼ cup of fresh coriander ( I omitted spring onions because I forgot to buy! ><)

4 tbsp oil

Seasoning sauce:

3 to 3.5 tbsp light soy sauce (good brand), 1/3 cup hot water, 4 pieces of rock sugar

Method:

Prepare a wok with water, boil it.
If the fish is thick, make sure you cut a few strips on the meat or butterfly it. Put it into a plate, scatter ginger strips and coriander.
When the water is boiling, put in the fish, start the timer (max 10 mins for 600g fish, add 2 mins for every 200g)
While steaming, prepare the seasoning sauce: mix the hot water with rock sugar, chicken cube (optional) and light soy sauce. Heat in the microwave for 1 min.
Using a fork or chopstick, dig into the thickest part of the fish (usually the middle of the body) to check its doneness. It is suppose to be cooked 99% with a speck of red remaining in the flesh. If not, cook another 1 min and then check again.
When it is cooked, take out the fish into a new plate. Pour away ALL the fishy juices & herbs. Don’t worry; you won’t regret pouring it away.
Pour the seasoning sauce all over the fish.
Garnish with ginger strips, lots of spring onions and coriander
Quickly heat up the oil until smoking (until you see smoke), Pour this cooking oil over fish. You will hear a very satisfying sizzling sound!
Enjoy!

I hereby wish you all 年年有余!

Merry Post-Christmas and Happy 2012! Honey Glaze Chicken

2011-12-27T14:54:00.008+08:00

Hi all! Merry Post-Christmas!! Wow, it's end of 2011 already, time flies...I remembered last year at this time we were celebrating Xmas with only 2 person in the family in HK and now.... with a baby! Wow... Did I make a wish for this? Yes, but not in a hurry mode. Fortunately, it just happens! Very happy and grateful for that. And now I am back! Thanks for dropping to take a look because I have not been grass-cutting aka updating this blog frequently. (对不起,很久没来这里除草了…)

There are many matters keeping me busy and this is a major one. So the past few months have been a roller-coaster ride to me, full of excitement and challenges, I guess I was caught off-guard being a new parent, never expect that sleep deprivation, coupled with baby’s cry can be so serious that at some point I just wanted to pop my baby back into my tummy. Having been working full-time and studying for the past 2 years, I did not frown at any issues related to work and study. However, taking care of the baby and breast-feeding was indeed a cultural shock to me, never expect that it could be so challenging and head-scratching! So if you ask me a few weeks ago, I don’t think I could laugh because I looked like an over-worked zombie. Now, after settling down, I think I have learnt a fair bit of parenting business. These are some life-saving skills reminding me that I should not forget to laugh for being a new parent. Here are some of them:

taking cue from the baby, instinctively;
singing to the baby, doesn't mind if it's out of tune, publicly;
talking to the baby, even though she is more interested in my breast, earnestly;
gobbling down a meal as if I am taking part in an eating competition, standing up;
checking her once in a while to make sure she is still breathing, tiredlessly;
walking while holding the baby with one hand and the other hand with some groceries, a blue-blood HDB mummy;
bathing and massaging a baby, doesn't mind her urine on my pants, happily;
going to the toilet to pee while holding the baby; (anyone wants to learn?)
…and the list can go on and on, with many skills awaiting to be learnt.

It takes sometimes for me to realise that I am a mother now and adjust to it. It took me 3 months to be a happy mummy, and I loo…veee it! I guess there will be more stories to be told here.

See my 3-month old little one? Saying hello to everyone here! Oh by the way, she is a girl, if you can't tell from the photo and I am still wondering how to make her hair grow...:(

Enough of my story.

The other day, my husband and I decided to try Bobby Flay’s honey glaze chicken with green peas and mint sauce. I personally think that the chicken tastes good without the sauce, the sauce is too complicated to my liking, some may like it though. This is really a great recipe for safe-keeping – simple, easy and tasty! All thanks to Bobby Flay, one of my favourite chefs in Foodnetwork!

Recipe courtesy from Bobby Flay, alternatively you can get it from Foodnetwork.com

1/4 cup honey (we use half a cup in view of bigger chicken portion)

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

4 whole bone-in chicken breasts ( we used a whole chicken)

Olive oil, for grilling, optional

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Green Pea and Mint Sauce, recipe follows

Heat grill to medium. Whisk together the honey and balsamic vinegar in a small bowl. Brush the breasts on both sides with oil, if desired, and season with salt and pepper. Grill the breasts for 7 to 10 minutes per side or until golden brown and cooked through. Brush with the honey glaze during the last few minutes of cooking. Serve on a bed of sauce or with sauce drizzled over.

Green Pea and Mint Sauce:

2 cups frozen peas, blanched and drained well

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves

1 jalapeno, grilled or roasted, chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup olive oil or canola oil

1 tablespoon honey

Place peas, vinegar, mint, cilantro, jalapeno, and salt and pepper in a blender and blend until smooth. With the motor running, slowly add the oil and taste for seasoning.

Add the honey and blend again. If the mixture if too thick, blend in a few tablespoons of cold water.

Voila!

My Baby

2011-11-26T11:07:00.002+08:00

Time flies! My baby is now 2-month old!

Baked Macaroni

2011-08-05T22:34:00.009+08:00

Hi Everyone! It has been quite a while since my last post. I guess… I am back!

After so much work and two heavy modules, now I am glad that I can finally come back here for posting. Yes, I am still surviving. During this period, I still cook up a storm in the kitchen, just that I couldn’t find time to sit down and write. Also, I was revisiting previous recipes quite a lot and that sometimes, I left my camera in the office! Well, it’s over and now I am back to this little blogsphere.

I am glad that I am coming back.

The good news is I am 7 months pregnant. 2 more months to go! So what’s that mean? I am going to see my baby soon! My baby is more or less safe now, no pre-mature worries, or less worries!

Like a nest-building bird, I have started my preparation to welcome my little one to arrive to this new world. What sort of preparation? Things like a car seat is a must, so that she can start using it right after discharge from hospital. We also bought a baby cot, so that she can be with us whenever and wherever we are, and a baby bed that can be used till 4-year-old, so that’s good. Not to forget, I have signed up cord banking service for uncertain events down the road.

We are also planning a lot of stuffs in our kitchen too. Recently, my sister bought me a thermomix . That’s really a cool product! I don’t think I came across something like that, it’s really cool because you can cook anything with it, it’s not a food processor; it’s a cooker, a food processor, a slow cooker with an in-built thermometer and super cool features that you can use for making lots of things, such as mincing, boiling, steaming, stir-frying, braising….etc. I am still getting used to it because it takes a while to learn how to use it, PROPERLY, I scare I will spoil a $7000 product if I use it wrongly! It’s one of the most expensive gadget in my kitchen, beside my oven currently. But I will start using it more often. Right now, I am using it just for some simple cooking. In the future, I will take more photos about it.

Meanwhile, let’s just stick to using my normal oven. Hehe…

Baked food is one of my favourites, I cook them quite often. So today, instead of Mac and Cheese, I cooked this baked macaroni without any recipe, just followed my instinct. It turned out good, may be it’s because I put in a lot of cheese. Yeah, cheese is my favourite, so why not?

Ingredient:

2 cups of Mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 cup of Parmesan cheese, finely grated

1 cup of Macaroni, boiled in salted water till soft

1 bay leaf

1 cup of mushroom

5 tomatoes, diced

1 can of diced tomatoes

1/2 cup of chicken stock

4 cloves of garlic, finely minced

1 whole onion, finely chopped

Some mix vege, thawed

Salt and pepper

Some olive oil

Method:

For macaroni:

Boil macaroni in a big pot of salted water, according to packaging instruction.

For sauce:

Medium high heat, saute onion till fragrant, about 3 mins.
Saute garlic and bay leaf for another 2 mins.
Season with salt and pepper, fry tomatoes and mushrooms for a while.
Pour in chicken stock and the canned tomatoes, cook till all flavours marry together and water reduce by 1/3, about 20 mins.
Pour in mix vege, stir fry a bit.

Combine:

Pour macaroni into a roasting pan, pour the sauce on top, top with Mozzarella and then lastly parmesan cheese on top.
Bake in the oven 200 degree, until golden, about 8 mins.

Enjoy!

Pressured Cooking - Pork Trotter in Black Sweet Vinegar 猪脚醋

2011-04-13T10:08:00.003+08:00

You notice that that I have disappeared from this cyberspace for quite sometime, because I have been getting this serious morning nausea (still am) and yes, I am 4-month pregnant.

Life has not been the same since this pregnancy. I vomit most of the time, whether I am hungry or being too full. I eat 8 meals a day and still feel the hunger in my stomach most of the time (then I vomit again), I check my tummy first minute in the morning to see if it grows bigger, I put on weight in the fastest way and first time in my life, 5 Kg in just 3 months and still putting on without signs of slowing down. I used to check my weight in the beginning stage but now no more because I am too scared to look at the figure to know that I am putting on weight AGAIN in less than a week. ALL my pants are too small for me now, I just bought 3 pants in L size from Uniqlo, now they are unfit for me in just 1 month.

There are a number of downsides but there are also upsides too. I start my prenatal visits to doctors and be thrilled every time I see this little baby in my tummy, kicking up a fuss, tossing and turning around, sometime doing push-ups too. I wonder why I can’t feel anything yet. I look forward to the day when I finally know this is a boy or a girl (next visit is coming soon!) My husband has been more supportive to me, helping me in household chores because I am sensitive to most of the scents in the cleaning agents. I can choose whatever food I want to eat for lunch and dinner and nobody in the family dare to say no. I feel like I am a queen or princess in this family and I still have 6 more months of being in queen-status. Yes!

That’s how I live.

So last week, my husband said that he wanted to look this pig trotter to me since I would be having it for confinement, I gladly obliged! I love pig trotter in dark sweet vinegar! My mother used to cook this to me, I also tried cooking it a few times. Since I bought this book not long ago, I suggested that we tried the recipe inside this book as well.

You can follow the recipe exactly but we tweeted it slightly so that the flavours would not be too strong for us and we could still add in some more if needed be. It turned out that additional flavours were not needed. With reduced soy sauce and sugar, I find this appetising. Balanced with sweetness and saltiness, and with all those fats being scooped out, there is really nothing you need to worry about.

Recipe (tweeted version) Serve 4

1kg pig trotter, blanch it in the boiling water for 30 sec, clean and pluck out remaining hair on it, cut into smaller pieces.

2 hard boiled eggs, peeled

350 ml dark sweet vinegar

350 ml water ( if you cook in traditional way, use at least 1 litre of water for braising)

300g old ginger, smashed

1 whole garlic, cut 1 side to help its release of flagrant

3 Tbsp. of soy sauce (original recipe, 3.5 Tbsp.)

100g brown sugar (original recipe, 130g)

2 Tbsp. Sesame oil

2 Tbsp. oil

Method:

Heat sesame oil in the pressure cooker, add ginger and fry in low heat till slightly translucent and fragrant. Be patient in frying. Take out ginger, add oil, fry pig trotter in medium heat for about 5 min to let the trotters absorb gingery flavour in the oil.

When done, add vinegar and water (350ml each), ginger, whole garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce. Covered and pressured cooked for 30-35 min.

Uncovered, sieve out oil floating on top, add hard boiled eggs. Done!

P/S: If you cook in a conventional way, you have to cook with more water (double or triple) and longer time, about 1.5 hour – 2 hour.

According to this book, the secret from her grand aunty is that, you have to dry the old ginger under the hot sun first before using it for cooking. Alternatively, you can fry it in sesame oil in low heat to help releasing its fragrance. Given a choice, I will use Malaysia ginger 文东姜 instead of China old ginger next time because it gives out more flavours but I really don't know where to buy in Singapore. I must stock up more of Malaysia ginger 文东姜 next time back to Malaysia.

Ratatouille

2011-03-19T22:30:00.005+08:00

I get to know this dish from the movie Ratatouille (2007), a computer-animated film by Pixar 4 years ago. However, this attempt was not inspired by the movie, but Bobby Flay. He cooked ratatouille using grill, we cooked this the traditional way. I have craving for shepherd’s pie for so long. But having all meat in our diet is a concern. This dish was a perfect complement to shepherd’s pie that tends to be quite oily and meaty.

I searched epicurious for a traditional recipe for ratatouille, get this one with the most rated and votes. It turned out to be easy and simple. Serve it with pasta will be just fine too.

Yield: Serves 4

Ingredients
1 onion, sliced thin
2 garlic cloves, minced
5 tablespoons olive oil
a 3/4-pound eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 3 cups)
1 small zucchini, scrubbed, quartered lengthwise, and cut into thin slices
1 red bell pepper, chopped
3/4 pound small ripe tomatoes, chopped coarse (about 1 1/4 cups)
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled
1/8 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shredded fresh basil leaves

Preparation

In a large skillet cook the onion and the garlic in 2 tablespoons of the oil over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened. Add the remaining 3 tablespoons oil and heat it over moderately high heat until it is hot but not smoking. Add the eggplant and cook the mixture, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes, or until the eggplant is softened. Stir in the zucchini and the bell pepper and cook the mixture over the moderate heat, stirring occasionally, for 12 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and cook the mixture, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. Stir in the oregano, the thyme, the coriander, the fennel seeds, the salt, and pepper to taste and cook the mixture, stirring, for 1 minute. Stir in the basil and combine the mixture well. The ratatouille may be made 1 day in advance, kept covered and chilled, and reheated before serving.

Tips:

Do not add too much ground coriander and fennel seeds, otherwise it will taste like Indian vegetable curry!

Happy Chinese New Year!

2011-02-09T06:23:00.002+08:00

Hello everyone!

Happy Chinese New Year! This place has been deserted for a while because there are so many things to do yet there is so little time. Anyway, I hereby wish you all a happy and blessing rabbit year.

As for this year, I spent my first 3 days of CNY in my childhood kampung, another 3 days in Penang and 1 day in Melaka for a stopover. I took almost all the food photos in my kampung as my brother was also busy taking them, so it was less disruptive for the family dinner. But in Penang, I dare not ask the seniors to wait for me and start eating after my turn, so there were only a few photos for Penang. As for Melaka, we reached there after a few jams along the highway, it was tiring, I managed to take only the Melaka rice ball (which was disappointing as we tried the newly-renovated one, not the original one).

CNY eve: I cooked this for lunch, Hong Kong style steamed fish, stir-fried vegetables and my father contributed lotus root with roasted pork bone soup (which I forgot to take!). He bought the bone (leftover) from the uncle who sells roasted pork in my kampung so he got a lot of them for the soup, it really added flavours to the soup. I used to have this kind of soup but had slowly forgotten the taste since I moved to Singapore, until now. It was my childhood flavour.

For the Reunion dinner, it was Hakka style. I cooked vegetables with abalone, CY stir-fried vegetables, my father ordered Hakka deep-fried pork, Hakka braised pork with yam and dark sweet sauce and oyster and fish paste wrapped in thin sheet of pork fatback 猪网油.

This was a delicacy in my hometown. Using thin sheet of fatback, it wraps meat or fillings pretty well and then steam until done. When CY first tasted it years ago, he said that he had nothing tasted like that before. To me, it was mummy flavours because my mum used to cook this for reunion dinner.

My uncle said to me before, it was the five-spice powder that made this fried pork different from other places, we had locally ground five-spice powder in my kampung, TITI.

I still don't know how to cook this, so sad. :( But this is also unique in my kampung too， Hakka braised pork with sliced yam in dark sweet sauce 扣肉, quite common, almost all family knows how to make their own 扣肉。Yam need to be cooked slowly until soft, with some pork fat rendered from the pork, it tastes sweet but savoury, fragrant, smooth, all Hakka 扣肉demands these consistency. I think there is one Hakka restaurant in Thomson that can make this but yet to have chance to visit there (too far for me).

Day 2 CNY: CY is frying french beans for the family. He likes stir-frying for the family. :)

We couldn't eat much so we had porridge. I cooked the mushroom, the rest of the vegetable were all stir-fried by CY.

We had steamed fish too. Cooked by the maid when we went out to do some visiting, but as you can see, it was a big fish cut into half, how could it be possible to steam evenly? So it was uncooked initially, then re-steam again, haizzzz.....This was such a good piece of fish, from my uncle's pond which didn't have smelly taste, but....

Surprise! I thought of steaming prawns for the family, but then, my father wanted to use the rice wine made by my mother before she had a stroke 3 years ago. So we had drunken prawn with mum-made rice wine. We still have a dozen of rice wine left under the bed. This rice wine, we called it 黄酒. The wine ages in the airtight bottle, colour darken while still remain yellowish and develops a sherry-like sweet flavour. They were my mum's gifts for the children.

Click here for how to make your own rice wine.

Braised Pork Dongpo Ro 东坡肉

2011-01-13T11:46:00.009+08:00

Picture courtesy from omy.com.sg

尤今is one of my favourite authors. She published a special recipe book last year 《螃蟹爬上树-炊烟心情》and I read it again and again several times, front to back and back to front. This recipe book is special because she is a renown Chinese writer for over 20 years attempted to combine her writing skills with a recipe behind each article. Not many writers/cooks can write such a book if he/she doesn’t have the forte in writing and interest in cooking, she is fortunate to have both. More importantly, she introduced Chinese traditional culture into her book, it is a walk with her through our Chinese culture and philosophy that touches my heart.

One of the recipes she shared is this Dongpo ro 东坡肉, to braise the fatty pork to render its fat so that the fatty part is not too oily while the lean part is not too dry.

Judging from the ingredients she used, her version is more for home cooking, you can eat it again and again. But without herbs such as star anise and cinnamon, this dish lacks another layer of flavours. Then again, this is more authentic (古早味) to me as it has the ‘mummy’ taste to it. Due to time constraint, I cooked this using slices of fatty pork rather than cutting them into cubes, which would demand more time in cooking.

A note of caution, those with heart problems should not eat this regularly!

Ingredients:

150g of sliced fatty pork, cut into 2-inch each
Marinating sauce, to combine: 1.5 Tbs good soy sauce, 1.5 Tbs of Chinese wine, 1 Tbs dark soy sauce, 0.5Tb of honey and a few dash of white pepper.
3-4 cloves of garlic, diced.

Method:

Marinate the pork using the marinating sauce for about 30 mins.

Using oil, medium high heat, fry garlic till brown and fragrant, take out the pork (seperate the sauce) and fry together with garlic, for about 3 mins, until you can see some oil being rendered out. Pour in the sauce, add 2-3 Tbs water, cook with lid covered for about 40 mins. Make sure the lid is covered tightly to minimise water escape from the pot.

Once in every 5/10 mins, open the lid to stir fry the pork, make sure the oil cover each slice so that it will cook out most oil from the fatty part eventually. Pour away most of the oil before serving. You don’t need those oil.

Tips:

The end result is full of flavours because we use good quality soy sauce such as thi Lee Kum Kee soy sauce, I reckon it to be the best soy sauce in the market. No other brands can achieve such result if it is not of good quality. I saw it being sold in NTUC for SGD$4.50, but I got it from Malaysia for RM5.50.
It is important to use good pot with well-covered lid so that the pork can render as much fat out and you can eat those fat and tender lean part. It’s heavenly!
Add just enough water because you want to retain as much flavours in the meat itself and not in the sauce.

Grilled Wagyu Steak

2011-01-01T23:40:00.003+08:00

Happy New Year everyone!

The last year was really zooming past and now I am one year wiser! How great is this… Not long ago, I was afraid of being old (when I crossed over 30) and now I am going to be 32, I am no longer scared of getting old. Rather, I am more scared of feeling old, seriously. Hehe…

As I grow older, I notice that I appreciate myself and my life more. The teenage-me who were afraid of being rejected, being uncomfortable with myself; the graduate-me who were afraid of future, not confident enough to take on new challenges, unsure of what I wanted in my career….These ‘me’ are behind me. Now it is a NEW me. I am certain what I want in my life, and I am happy that I have a goal, a dream, a burning desire to achieve my goal. I must remember all these things that I want in life, I am typing it down.

Same as this Wagyu steak. As CY and I are approaching another chapter in our culinery adventure, we are not afraid of putting this huge, 2-cm (1.5 inch) thick steak on the grill. Some might say: this is too thick to be cooked! Well, it is perfectly alright and in fact, this should be the way. If you are looking for a juicy, flavourful and tender steak with some charred on the outside, you have to get at least 2cm thick steak on the grill. Don’t be afraid. It will turn out just like what the fine-dining restaurants offer.

Ingredients:

2cm thick steak, any steak. Wagyu steak is tenderer, but angus steak has more flavours, depends on what you prefer.
Salt and pepper (freshly ground preferred)
Olive oil

Method:

Heat the grill, medium to high heat, about 5 mins on the stove.
Pre-heat the oven to 220 Degree Celsius.
Rub salt and pepper all over the steak, then rub olive oil onto it to prevent it stick to the grill/pan.
When the oil is just about smoking hot, try one side on the grill, you should hear a sizable sizzle. Grill it for 2-3 mins. You are looking for a deep, brown strips/crust. Adjust the heat down to avoid overcooking.
Flip the steak and cook for another 1min.
Using tongs, stand the steak on the grill, grill all sides.
Finish it in the oven, roast it for 3-4 mins.
Rest it for 10 mins before serving.

Tips:

When picking a steak at the market, avoid those that display brown splotches. That brown colour is a sign of oxidation, meaning the steak in question has been sitting there longer than it should.
Do not trim the fat from your steak. You paid for that flavour, so don't waste it. Wait until the steak is on the plate to decide which parts to discard. That hunk of fat offers flavours and moistures to the steak.
Your steak should be cooked rare or medium rare only. Anything more than medium rare will spoil the steak. It will become too dry or hard. I prefer medium rare steak.
Do not rinse the steak, no point. If you cook it correctly, with all sides sealed/grilled, there will not be any case of food poisoning.
Let the meat come to room temperature before cooking, i.e. 30 mins before it hits the pan.
During cooking, never touch your steak other than to flip it.
Finish it in the oven, roast for 3-5 mins, because of its thickness. It will be cooked inside out pinkishly/perfectly after roasting for a short while.
Always allow your steak to rest for at least 10 mins after cooking.
A great cut of beef is naturally flavourful, all it needs to enhance the flavour is a little salt and pepper.
You can have it with some sauce, but I find it not necessary.

Steamed Tofu with Prawns and Glass Noodles

2010-12-20T07:09:00.007+08:00

I am inspired by Wendy to make this dish. (Wendy, thanks for sharing! ^^)

While looking for something to cook for the coming Chinese New Year, I am in a quest for recipes that can be executed smoothly in my hometown with bare simple cooking utensils and equipment and the dish has to be elegant and lavish enough to add into the reunion dinner menu,
when I saw this….BINGO!

It looks really delicious, and it tastes really heavenly. But the cooking is, aha! Dead simple, suits my palate, definitely suits my family’s too. (They are not into Western dishes, especially during CNY, you know…)

I modify just the sauce because I like the Hong Kong styled steamed fish sauce which normally adds rock sugar, I would like this to be the same too. It turns out REALLY well, and I can’t say it enough, DEAD simple.

So here you go, the recipe:

Ingredients:

Silken/silky tofu – Must be the silken/silky tofu, cut into small blocks of same size. Be very careful when you cut, it’s very fragile.

Prawns – cut away veins, heads and everything, leave tails for decoration.

Glass noodles – soak into water until soften.

Garlic oil for drizzling – pop diced garlic with oil into microwave for 3 mins

Light soy sauce with rock sugar to your liking

Sliced spring onions for garnish

Method:

Glass noodles on the plate.
Arrange one piece of prawn per tofu.
When water is HOT, put them in, steam for 5-6 minutes.
Take out, drizzle with garlic oil and sauce, topped with sliced spring onions.

Note:

I will try making this with fried onion oil and see how it goes. May be some rice wine too.
Prawns have to be steamed when the water is boiling, to lock in the prawn juice and for succulent prawns.
How to make curly sliced onions?

Ans: With small knife, cut them into half, bath with some water with ice. 5 mins later, tear them into smaller strips, they will become curly.

Traditional Yankee Pot Roast

2010-12-06T23:57:00.005+08:00

While this traditional pot roast bakes with carrot, onion, and potato it creates a rich, thick broth that you'll want to spoon over mashed potatoes. This recipe is perfect for.....Christmas!

Size: 6 servings

2 tablespoons of oil
1.2kg boneless chuck roast
salt & cracked black pepper
2 onions, coarsely chopped
1 can of low sodium broth
4 tablespoon of ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup chopped plum tomato
1 can of ripe whole tomatoes
1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice/lime juice
Chopped fresh parsley (optional)
1/4 cup of red wine (optional)

Traditional Method

Preheat oven to 300°.
Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Sprinkle roast with salt and pepper. Add roast to pan, browning on all sides (about 8 minutes). Remove from pan. Add onion to pan; sauté 8 minutes or until browned. Return roast to pan. Combine broth, ketchup, and Worcestershire; pour over roast. Add tomato; bring to a simmer.

Cover and bake at 300° for 2 1/2 hours or until tender. Add carrots; cover and bake an additional 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Stir in lemon/lime juice. Garnish with parsley, if desired.

Pressure Cooker method

Heat oil in pressure cooker over medium-high heat. Sprinkle roast with salt and pepper. Add roast to pan, browning on all sides (about 8 minutes). Remove from pan. Add onion to pan; sauté 8 minutes or until browned. Return roast to pan. Combine broth, ketchup, and Worcestershire; pour over roast. Add tomato; bring to a simmer. Add 1/4 cup of red wine, pressure cook for 35 minutes.

Release pressure, add carrots, cook for another 15 minutes. Release pressure again, add in lemon/lime juice. Garnish with parsley, if desired.

The BK Loaded Steakhouse Burger!

2010-12-06T11:39:00.001+08:00

Burger King launched their BK Steakhouse Burger on 2 Dec 2010!

MADE WITH 100% CERTIFIED AUSTRALIAN PREMIUM ANGUS BEEF

LIMITED TIME PROMOTION FROM 2 DEC 2010 – 12 JAN 2011

*New* LOADED STEAKHOUSE BURGER

- 4” Corn-dusted premium bakery Bun

- Premium Angus Beef Patty (4 Oz), flame-grilled

- A.1. ® Thick & Hearty Steak Sauce

- Crispy Onions- American Cheese (2 slices)

- Turkey Bacon (4 ½ slices)-Loaded with creamy Mashed Potato Spread

- Ala carte: $6.95 / Meal: $8.95

PROMOTIONS

There are several various promotions in conjunction with the new product launch. There is a collaboration with Sheikh Haikel (Singaporean Rapper, Host, DJ, Artiste), who dedicated one of his song “Still Steady” to BK, entitled “BK Still Steady”. (Download BK Still Steady and special ringtone free here: http://www.facebook.com/BurgerKingSingapore) Sheikh will also be giving away limited edition of The Profound Album to first 25 customers who purchase any BK Steakhouse Meal at BK ION ORCHARD on 7 Dec, from 1 pm.

Mixed Vegetable Fried Rice

2010-11-24T23:21:00.004+08:00

I have been occupied for sometime now. It’s not easy to work and study at the same time, we have only 24 hours to begin with, we have to work around it. So we have to negotiate a bit here and there to have the best of both world. Cooking is still considered a large part of my life and I like to document all my recipes here so that I can refer to it from time to them. I will continue doing so even with a more hectic schedule.

Recently, we started our third module in this M.Ed course, now it is half way through, I cooked this as our lunch in the early morning because our course runs from Saturday to Tuesday but there won’t be any food in the middle of Sunday in this Hwa Chong campus. I have had enough of McDonald’s nearby. So I woke up early in the morning to cook this, you can see that its colour is lovely, isn’t it? Morning sun always has the magic to make food looks good and good food looks even better. Hehe…

This is a quick fixed meal, done within 45 minutes to 1 hour depends on your pace. I got it done within 45minutes, from preparation till packing.

Serve 2

Ingredients

1.5 cup of Japanese rice, cooked 1 night before that and keep in the fridge
1 whole onions, diced
3 cloves of garlic, diced
3 portobello mushrooms, diced
1 cup of frozen mixed vegetables

1 egg, beaten lightly
pork floss and fried onion for garnishing (optional, it’s a bonus)

4 Tbs oil

Seasoning

2 Tbs good quality soy sauce
a dash of dark soy sauce
Worcestershire sauce (optional, because I want to finish it)
some white pepper

Method

Heat oil, medium high heat, fry onion till slightly brown, about 10 minutes.
Stir- fry garlic and mushrooms, till mushrooms sweat and soften, about 3 minutes.
Fry mixed vegetables slightly, about 3 minutes, add in seasoning.
When all flavours start to release and ingredients seem soft enough, push them aside, fry egg, about 2 minute till it hardens.
With very low heat, put all cooked rice in, use ladle or spatula to break it apart, make sure the rice is fully coated with sauce and flavours. It takes about 10 minutes to continue stir-frying until it is well-coated, so be patient and continue stir-frying and breaking!
Garnish with pork floss and fried onion. Done.

Tips

I find that using Japanese rice is better, it has a harder texture, more al dente thus better for fried rice recipe.
Good soy sauce! It’s very important to have soy sauce of supreme quality.
I used to add in some oyster sauce but now I don’t because I find that oyster sauce tends to sweeten and mask over other flavours.

Pasta with Mussels and Saffron

2010-11-13T09:10:00.002+08:00

Watching renown chefs and hosts describing their BEST THING EVER ATE in short videos for US’s most amazing meals and treats is what we are looking out for after every show in the food network Asia. We will normally continue sitting in front of the TV, listening eagerly to what they recommend. Each time, our enjoyment ended with a sigh and a motivated urge to visit US as soon as possible. But the earliest possible date will only be 2012. Can’t it be this year? Nope, we need to study. How about next year? Nope, it’s our final years, plus we need to have 3 weeks holiday in a row to travel to US.

The best thing watching them in this series is to learn the way they use a vast amount of vocabularies in describing their food, other than dying in jealousy, i.e. walk and dream about xx..., xx is your Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday dinner..., this xx just fall off the bone, you don’t need your knife, just throw it away..., citrusy olive oil over chocolate ice cream, hmm... etc. We can’t summarise everything here but we are especially enlightened by Danny Boome’s pronunciation of ‘sauce’ when he described his obsession-over-the-twice for linguini with clams and mussels in saffron broth by Tree restaurant in New York city. In this clip, he said that: Basically you can put anything with pasta and seafood with anything, but it is the SAUCE~~ that make it so delicate, simple yet was deliciously crafted in a way that he could order it twice in a row... What a compliment!

A new way in describing the pasta, make us wondering… But it is the SAUUCCE~~ that keep ringing in our heads until we had a big laugh for the SAUUCCE~~. Since we have some leftover saffron from the paella that we made last time, why not use it for creating the SAUUCCE~~?

So here we are, experimenting with the sauce~~ Yummy sauce~~

Recipe

Serve 2

250g Pasta – cooked according to instructions on its packaging, till slightly undercooked.

1 cup of white wine

A dash of saffron

A few cloves of garlic

1 Tbsp of butter

Olive oil

150-200g of Mussels, cleaned, pulled their beards out (follow here for a detailed tutorial for cleaning mussels.)

Salt and pepper

Finely chopped Chinese parsley

Method

With some olive oil and butter, fry garlic slightly to release its aroma.

Toss the mussels around in the garlic butter and coat the shells with the fat. Be careful not to be too rough. Pour in pasta, then the wine and saffron. Stir them lightly until the pasta marry with the sauce.

With lid, cook for 5 minutes, until all of the mussels open. Be careful not to cook the mussels for too long, as they will become tough and grainy if overcooked.

After 5 minutes, turn off the heat, sprinkle in parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Be gentle on salt as the mussels are quite salty naturally. You can omit this if you prefer less salty.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-11-05T11:30:00.002+08:00

Never had we made any “edible” cookies before this attempt. Back then, we were undergraduates deciding to bake cookies from a 30 cm-toaster oven, without any recipe. Result? The cookies turned out to be rock-hard, or rather they reached the stage of being “weaponised” with sharp edges. A ninja would have used them as substitutes for his shuriken in a kitchen assassination!

The inspiration for cookies returned after watching Bobby Flay’s Throwdown – Chocolate chip cookies. Even though his cookies lost to the gigantic Big-Mac-sized cookies of the opponents, we can see that this is definitely one of the best cookie recipe the Iron Chef could muster. We just got a new built-in oven, so it is a good opportunity to celebrate its introduction into our kitchen.

The following is a modified recipe of Flay’s. The opponents could win with simpler ingredients.

Yield: about 6 large cookies
Ingredients
1 cup plus 1.5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown muscavado sugar
1 egg
3/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 (5-ounce) block dark chocolate, chopped into chunks (we use Cadbury mixed leftovers from some other brand)

Directions

1) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

2) Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

3) Whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Place the butter in a food processor with kneading accessory (or possibly cake mixer) and beat until smooth, about 1 minute.

4) Add the sugars and continue mixing, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes longer.

5) Add the egg and the vanilla extract, beating until incorporated.

6) Add half of the flour and mix until just incorporated.

7) Add the remaining flour, again mixing until just combined.

8) Fold in the chocolate chunks.

9) Using a small ice cream scoop, spoon the dough onto a baking sheet, leaving at least 2 inches between each cookie and bake on the middle rack until the cookies are lightly golden brown and still soft in the middle, about 11 minutes.

10) Let cookies rest for 2 minutes on the baking sheet before shifting them to a metal rack, with baking sheet on.

11) Let the cookies cool on the metal rack for a few minutes before eating.

We used huge dollops of dough to mirror the ones done by Flay’s competitors. During baking, the dough spread to connect with the adjacents. Despite initial despair, we realised this is what we really want – a giant cookie comprising of five unconventionally large ones! They can be easily separated into big pieces with a butter knife. The first taste made us cringe with its overwhelming goodness; who cares if our cookies have the shape of postcards?

We like chewy cookies. Famous Amos’ ones are too hard and crunchy. Cookies at Subway are big, but too sweet. The ones we made are crusty on the outside, soft and moist on the inside. Surprisingly, the chocolate chips retained their soft and creamy texture over the next two days. A really comforting carbo-fix – try it!

Seafood Free-Styled Paella

2010-11-03T12:11:00.006+08:00

(Sorry! I left my camera in the office. These pictures were taken using my iPhone. :p)

I never heard of Paella in my whole life, until I started to learn cooking. It is a very simple and dynamic dish that you can eat again and again and again. So all I can say is I love to eat paella.

Paella is regarded as one of the Spanish national dishes. According to Wikipedia, there should be 3 types of paella, one of them is seafood paella and that is an evolution from the Valencian paella, which uses land snails. Along the years, normal folks learnt to use what they had at hand to create paellas to feed their families, so there came another form of paella – mixed or free-styled paella. Anyway, the commonly used ingredients are undeniably short grain rice, (not our long grain rice which breaks easily), meat (chicken), sausages (chorizo) and saffron. Even the saffron has to be replaced by turmeric powder because it simply too expensive to add saffron into every paella dish.

This is a free-styled paella that uses easy-to-find ingredients in the supermarket. We use clams and prawns for seafood, chicken as meat and then saffron. We omitted chorizo because we do not need so many ingredients in our rice and the result is still yummy.

There is no salt added in the process, we only use salt to season the chicken, and the salt in the chicken stock.

Serve 2

Ingredients

1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
2 Tbsp of olive oil
1 large yellow onion, diced
3 chicken thighs
4 garlic cloves
1.5 tsp turmeric powder
1.5 cups of short grain rice (recommended: soak in water for 2 hours beforehand for easy cooking later)
2 cups chicken stock
a good pinch saffron
1 tsp of smoked parpika
8 tiger prawns, heads on
half pound clams, scrubbed
1 cup frozen mixed vegetable

Directions

With olive oil and high heat, sear and brown chicken thigh, about 5-7 minutes per side, season with salt and pepper. After browning all sides, take out, reserve the oil, continue using the same oil, stir fry red pepper until slightly burn, take out. With the same oil, continue to build the flavours by adding onions and saute until golden. Add turmeric and smoked paprika and then add garlic.

Add rice and stir to coat with all the flavours and allow the grains to toast slightly. Return the seared chicken to the pan. Add your warm chicken stock to which you have added the saffron. Reserve about a cup of stock for later. Cover with lid or tin foil and let cook about 40 minutes. Do not stir. Just let it simmer, with lid.

Just before the last 15 minutes, add the seafood, pepper and defrosted mixed vegetable, with a last cup of stock. Just before serving, garnish with chopped parsley and serve.

Note:

Must use short grain rice, you can use Japanese rice as a substitute. Never use long grain Thai rice. We tried before, the Thai rice version is way too starchy, looks like porridge, not paella.
You can add in more water along the way, when you see the clams are not opening. Steam it with more water.
Use chicken stock with less salt, you can control the saltiness of the dish better.

My previous attempt:

Tuscan Salad with Steak @ Home

2010-10-29T23:23:00.002+08:00

We love the steak served by the Four Seasons Hotel, so much so that we are trying to recreate it at home now.

It is called Tuscan salad with Wagyu beef steak on top. With only $48 for a main course plus buffet starter and dessert (lunch menu), isn’t it value for money? CY loves their food and service! We have been there a few times and we were greeted with waiters and chefs eager to share their inspirations. It was really a personalised service that we did not receive elsewhere. I kind of like their service more than their food though, not because their food is not good, but it’s really huge serving that depressed me! I am a big eater myself but was depressed because I could not finish the main course with buffet starter and dessert! Each time, I was stuffed till could not walk properly, eventually skipped 2 meals after that. I can’t blame them for giving me big portion and for my inability to reject food put in front of me.

I am curious as to why greens salad is also called Tuscan salad? Is it because it is originated from Tuscan, Italy? Still clueless after google-ing. Supposedly, this is how it looks like, without the potatoes (as our staple food).

Method:

For the Tuscan salad dressing: 3 parts oil and 1 part vinegar, mix together, season with salt and black pepper. Optional: with some honey mustard sauce. Yum!

For the potatoes: just pop into the microwave, for 7 minutes, high heat, until it is cooked. Cut into half, stuff in butter and mayonnaise, season with some black pepper.

For the steak seasoning, use a food processor to process them together. Ingredients: 5 cloves of garlic, 5 Tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper and some herbs (thyme or rosemary). Use this to rub all over the steak just before grilling.

For grilling steak, with a grill on very high heat (heated for abt 3 min or so on a stove), after rubbing the steak with the steak seasoning, sear the meat with high heat, you should hear sizzling sounds from the grill when the steak is put on. Grill each side about 2-3 mins, until medium rare. Take out, rest the steak.

Final presentation, just cut them into strips, lay them onto the dressed salad. Use a fruit peeler, shave parmesan to lay on top. Serve with potatoes.

Stir-fry Pork with Spring Onions and Garlic 姜葱猪肉片

2010-10-25T00:28:00.000+08:00

This would be my first attempt using both English and Chinese to write this blog! Kind of unfamiliar to me but I hope you would like it. :)

Green onions are often used to enhance the taste of many dishes. In addition to being flavourful, spring onions offer many health benefits, such as lowering blood sugar, decrease high cholesterol and blood pressure levels, reduce the risk of developing colon and other cancers.

Onions contain allyl propyl disulphide, which has been shown to lower blood sugar levels. Quercetin, an antioxidant found in green onions, offers anti-inflammatory and anti-histamine benefits. Onions are rich in chromium, an essential mineral used by the body to regulate glucose and for the metabolism and storage of macronutrients. Green onions are rich in vitamin C which not only boosts immunity, but offers protection from cardiovascular disease, eye disease, and skin wrinkling. Other nutrients found in green onions include fiber, manganese, vitamin B6, potassium, and copper.

Ingredients:

1 cup of spring onions，cut into 2-inch length

120g of pork, sliced, marinate with 1 tbs soy sauce, a few dash of pepper and 1/2 tbs of corn flour

5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cm ginger, thinly sliced

2-3 tbs oil

some water with 1 tsp corn flour for sauce thickening

salt to taste

Method:

Heat oil (high heat), fry garlic and ginger, abt 1 min or till slightly brown.
With high heat, slide in pork strips, stir-fry a bit till 75% cooked, abt 30 second.
Add spring onions, continue stir-fry, abt 10 second!
Add water with corn flour to thicken sauce.
Taste and add salt to taste.
Serve with rice.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

随便炒炒的姜葱蒜茸猪肉片，蛮香的，我喜欢！

有些人不太喜欢重口味的姜葱味，而我的确放了蛮多葱的，使之香甜味升级，而且好吃又健康嘛！谁不要？可若不喜欢，可以自我斟酌减少料量。

葱是厨房里的必备之物，相传神农氏尝百草找出葱后。便作为日常膳食的调味品，加葱以调和各种菜肴，故古代称之为“和事草”，现在，民间也还有“无葱不炒菜”的说法。葱有辛辣芳香之气，大葱辣味更浓，小葱较淡，均可用于烹饪各种菜肴。

葱本身也富含维生素和矿物质，有一定的营养保健作用。它含有的挥发性辣素有较强的杀菌功效，也提高人体的抵抗力，预防呼吸道传染病和有抗癌作用，促进血液循环，改善神经系统功能，对预防心血管疾病、老年痴呆均有一定的作用。不要过量食用，否则会引起头昏、视物不清。脑力劳动者适宜食葱。表虚多汗、狐臭。胃肠道疾病、眼病患者忌食。葱不宜与蜂蜜同食。

材料

1 碗青葱, 切至两寸长度

120克瘦肉，切薄，用1汤匙酱青，胡椒粉，薯粉腌，使之入味，约15分钟。

5片蒜头，切碎

少许老姜片

2-3汤匙油

水和薯粉，搅均

盐适量

做法：

大火热油，翻炒姜和蒜至出香味，约一分钟。
大火炒肉片，让肉汁锁在肉内，约半分钟！（很快！）
立即加入青葱，翻炒一下子，使之和肉片完美结合。
加入水和薯粉，用盐调味。
开饭啦！

P：S 发现自己一直用回同样的碗盘装菜，是否该换一下了呢？可我懒得换啊！不介意吧？

还有，现在的厨房还是一团糟……

Korean Classic Cabbage Kimchi

2010-10-21T11:25:00.000+08:00

Do you like kimchi? Certainly! I love kimchi, who doesn’t love kimchi when K-pop is launching an aggresive invasion Asiawide? SJ, Wonder Girls, Shinee, Girls generation, blah blah blah... I think the younger ones are more familiar with these names than I am.

Now I am re-introducing this classic cabbage kimchi recipe, which I made several times already, it is sour in taste but definitely flavourful, quite different from the ready-made ones from the stores, it is not that salty or sweet, meaning that you can eat a lot while remain healthy. I recommend that you make the same amount as stated in the recipe, or slightly more, so that you can keep inside the fridge for up to 2 months. Most likely though, you will finish within a month.

Kimchi (or kimchee) is loaded with vitamins A, B, and C, but its biggest benefit may be in its “healthy bacteria” called lactobacilli, found in fermented foods like kimchi and yogurt. This good bacteria helps with digestion, plus it seems to help stop and even prevent yeast infections, according to a recent study. And more good news: Some studies show fermented cabbage has compounds that may prevent the growth of cancer.

Recipe

Ingredients:
1 large Chinese or Napa cabbage - about 1kg
¾ cups (210g) sea salt
8 cups of water

Kimchi Spice Mixture
4 tbs glutinous rice flour
1.5 cups water (375ml)
2cm ginger, peeled and crushed
4 tbs fish sauce (can be reduced to 3 if too salty)
8 tbs groud red pepper
½ tbs sugar
1 radish, sliced into 2 cm strips
1.5 cups Chinese chives, sliced into 2 in lengths
½ leek, thinly sliced diagonally

Rinse the cabbage, remove 2 outer leaves and set aside. Halve the rest of the cabbage lengthwise. Rub ¼ cups of sea salt between all the leaves and place the cabbage in a large plastic tub or container. Add the remaining salt and the water. Place a big plate on top the cabbage to weigh it down and keep the cabbage immersed in a plastic container. Soak for 4 to 6 hours or more, until the stems soften, bend without breaking.

To make the Kimchi Spice Mixture, firstly, make a glutinous rice flour paste by heating the flour and the water in a small saucepan. Stir constantly until it thickens, abt 4 mins, then sieve and set aside to cool. Once it has cooled, combines with garlic, ginger, fish sauce, red pepper and sugar in a large bowl and mix well. Add the chives and leek, mix gently and set aside.

After the cabbage has finished soaking, rinse the leaves thoroughly under running water. Fill a tub or container with fresh water and shake the two halves of the cabbage firmly to remove excess salt and set aside to drain. Rub the Kimchi Spice Mixture all over the cabbage and in between all the leaves. Press the leaves together and place into a large airtight container. Top with the reserved outer leaves and cover.

Leave the Kimchi to stand unrefrigerated overnight or 1 day, then refrigerate.

Pumpkin and Red Pepper Soup

2010-10-20T23:25:00.001+08:00

Pumpkin is one of my favourite ingredients. It is packed with beta-carotene, an important antioxidant that helps us fight free radicals, low in calorie (20 cal per 100 g), the perfect vegetable for persons who watch their weight. It is very rich in potassium and its intakes in magnesium and iron are not to be neglected.

Peppers, on the other hand, are a good source of vitamin A and C; the red ones are bursting with these two antioxidants, effectively neutralise free radicals in the body fluids reducing the risk of diseases. A single raw red pepper, sweet or hot, can meet the daily requirements for two important antioxidants, vitamin A and C.

This can be your Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday...Sunday soup because it is easy to cook and it has so much nutrients inside to keep you alive and kicking. I call it my energy-boosting beauty soup.

Can't live without pumpkin & pepper, man...

1 Slice of Pumpkin weighing about 1kg, peeled and chopped
2 Red Pepper, roasted, peeled, cored & seeded (learn how to peel a red pepper here)
1 Red Onion, chopped
2 Fat Cloves Garlic, finely chopped
Olive Oil
Half a lemon Juice
1 bay leave
Salt and Pepper to taste
Parsley to garnish

Method
Take a pan in medium low heat, fry the onion in the olive oil, till slightly brown and definitely translucent. Add the chopped garlic and bay leave, fry a bit, abt 1 min, and then pumpkin. Give all the ingredients a good stir and fry for 2 more mins, then add one and a half litres of water and roasted red pepper and bring to the boil. Cover the pan and simmer for about 20 mins or until the pepper and pumpkin are cooked. Add the juice of half a lemon, the salt, pepper and simmer for another two minutes.

Pour this delightful autumn-coloured treat into a blender and have a good blend. Serve with bread.

Grilled Pork Ribs

2010-10-15T05:23:00.002+08:00

This recipe is from Paula Deen. I just modified it slightly to suit our liking.
I think this is a good and easy recipe that tried and tested for noobs. Making this with CY was really an easy job, just read the recipe below and you know what I am talking about. :)

Courtesy from Paula Deen.

Ingredients

* 2 racks of pork ribs, (about 2 pounds)
* 1 recipe Bourbon Barbecue Sauce, recipe follows
* Lemon wedges
* Fresh rosemary sprigs

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut the racks of ribs in half crosswise. Rub the ribs, paying special attention to the meaty side, with 1/2 cup of the sauce. Lay the rib pieces meat side down in a container (like shown or in a baking dish). The pieces will overlap slightly. Throw in some lemon wedges and rosemary sprigs.

Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake until the meat begins to pull away from the ends of the bones and the ribs are just tender, about 1 hour 15 mins.

Preheat a grill to medium-high heat. With some oil, grill the ribs, brushing them with about half the remaining sauce, until they're crispy and heated through, about 10 minutes. Move the ribs around as they grill, the sugar in barbecue sauce makes it easy for them to burn. Let the ribs rest for 5 to 10 minutes before cutting them into 1 or 2-bone pieces. Put out the rest of the sauce for dipping or brush it over the ribs.

Bourbon Barbeque Sauce:

1/2 cup steak sauce
1/2 cup bourbon or good dark beer
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon regular or grainy Dijon mustard
2 pinches red pepper flakes
Kosher salt

Stir all ingredients together in a small bowl until sugar is dissolved. The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Yield: 1 1/2 cups

Marmite Chicken

2010-10-13T12:00:00.003+08:00

I now realise that I love food that most people dislike, such as eggplant, bitter gourd, okra and ....marmite. But frankly speaking, these food win my heart because they have stronger flavours and really good to go with rice.

I follow pigpigs' recipe, without the chili flakes and sesame seeds. We love it a lot, can literally lick all the sauce. Now I left with the entire bottle of marmite looking for next recipe to use it again.

Courtesy from pigpigscorner:

Ingredients:
700 g chicken pieces
1/3 cup water
1 tbs honey
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp Marmite

Marinade:
2 tbs Marmite
1 tbs honey
1 tbs light soy sauce
1 tbs Shaoxing wine
A dash white pepper powder

Directions:
Mix chicken pieces and all ingredients for marinade together, leave to marinate for at least one hour or even better overnight in the fridge.
Heat up a bit of oil in a pan.
Add marinated chicken pieces, stir fry until lightly browned on all sides.
Add water, honey, dark soy sauce. Stir to mix. Leave to simmer until sauce thickened and very little sauce left.
Stir in 1 tsp or more Marmite to taste.
Season to taste.

Honey-glazed Roast Chicken

2010-10-08T23:01:00.002+08:00

Best roast chicken in my whole life. Die-die must try! It is succulent, tender, savory, sweet and fragrant. Simply yum! I got this recipe from delicious magazine and finally got the chance to try this recipe. We followed the recipe as closely as possible, but just substitute the maple syrup with honey, I don't think it makes any significant difference though.

Other than that, I would recommend, depends on your oven, roast the chicken slightly longer because I like it to be more tender, may be 10 minutes or so and the chicken is all yours! I just regret that we did not cook more carrots and leeks in there because the vegetables were really sweet!

Love to revisit this recipe if time permits. :)

Ingredients

1.5kg whole free-range chicken
5 tbsp red wine vinegar
4 tbsp maple syrup/ honey
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp sesame seeds

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan180°C/gas 6. Season the chicken and pour 2 tablespoons vinegar into the body cavity. Put in a roasting tin and roast for 1 hour 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, mix together the remaining vinegar with the syrup, cinnamon and sesame seeds. Brush half the mixture over the chicken and roast for a further 10 minutes. Brush with the remaining glaze and return to the oven for a final 10 minutes, until the chicken is deeply golden and shiny. Rest for 5 minutes before carving. Serve with roasted carrots and leeks.

Nutritional info
Per serving (based on 3): 439kcals, 9.8g fat (2.4g saturated), 73.5g protein, 13.6g carbs, 11.7g sugar, 0.6g salt.

Kaiseki @ Kumo ICON Village - A Pictorial

2010-10-03T19:43:00.001+08:00

I received an email about this 1-for-1 kaiseki promotion from Kumo restaurant, Icon village, hence we went. It was an impromptu dining decision rather than a special occasion.

Food is good, price is even better, with 50% discount, we could not ask anything more.

$138 for 2 pax.

Address: 12 Gopeng Street #01-58 ICON Village Singapore
Tel: +65 6225 8433

Braised Eggplant with Minced Pork

2010-09-28T00:06:00.002+08:00

CY loves eggplant. I started liking it because of him. There are many different names for it, brinjal, aubergine, guinea squash or eggplant, blah blah blah...Whenever we go out for dinner, he would order whatever in the menu that carries the same names listed here. But there is a problem. Cooking eggplant (for Chinese styled cooking especially) usually needs a lot of oil, for example, claypot eggplant with minced pork, or stir-fry eggplant, you need a lot of oil to soften it or to make it creamy. Sometimes, when I bite into the eggplant, I can taste quite an amount of oil from it because eggplant absorbs hell lots of oil. To preserve its colour, some chefs cook it with milk, or most of the time, just fry it. That is why it is not so healthy to eat a lot of eggplant when dining out.

So when I had some leftover eggplant from the asam fish, I was thinking whether I should cook it with some milk (which I have to go out to buy milk specially cooking this) or just fry it. But I would rather not. So what I do to soften it, is to simply braise it with more water. Though its colour has turned into something brownish. I rather eat with my heart contented then t0 worry about my health.

Recipe for 2

Ingredients:

6 cloves of garlic, minced
2 big eggplant, cut into about same size and length
1 red chili, sliced
150g minced pork, marinated with 2 tbs of soy sauce, some white pepper and 1 tbs of corn flour
a 1-2 dash of worcestershire sauce - my secret ingredient. ;p
2 cup of water
some salt to taste
1 dash dark soy sauce
Corn flour with water - to thicken the sauce

Method

Heat oil, fry garlic till slightly brown, add in minced pork, fry a bit till slightly brown, add in water, chili and eggplant. Add dark soy sauce and worcestershire sauce. Covered, simmer for 5 mins. Stir a bit so that all eggplant are evenly cooked, simmer for another 5 mins. With lid opens, simmer until sauce thicken, stir in corn flour with water. Garnish with mint leaves (optional).

My 2nd Attempt on 3-cup Chicken

2010-09-23T00:19:00.005+08:00

This is my 2nd attempt on 3-cup chicken. My first attempt was in July last year, and I was so pleased with the result that I want to make it again and again and again. But somehow there are just too many recipes that I want to try to lay my hands on that I forget about this. Then suddenly, I remember this recipe again and we had that not too long ago, I am still pleased, satisfied, happy!

My 2nd attempt is quite the same as the first one, just that as I am quite adventurous in nature, I added in more Thai basil and absolutely no sesame oil! Why not? Because I ran out of it!! It tasted quite the same, without the sesame flavour but it still okay. I can still wash down 2 bowl of rice with this.

You can get the recipe here.

Ah Ma Styled Penang Asam Fish

2010-09-19T23:02:00.001+08:00

My parent-in-law brought us 2 packets of rempah (curry mix) from Penang Ah Ma (Grandmother of CY). Her rempah is famous in her town and is highly sought after by many. Since she is 81...82 now, she can't cooks every day. Hence, if she cooks, it must be something really good, this rempah is her once in a blue moon kind of hard work I suppose.

What I do is firstly, prepare asam, soak it in water.

Defrost the rempah in room temperature.

Slice some leftover chili from BBQ.

Cannot get okra, hence egg plant, also can lar...

cherry tomatoes, lots of them because I know this type is sure sweet. From NTUC.

I remembered Ah ma garnished her asam fish with mint. So get some from NTUC as well.

Fry the rempah.

Mix in some water and the asam water (after sieved).

Boil it, then put in egg plant and chili, cook for 3 minutes. I thought it was enough but later on, the egg plant seemed quite hard, so another 5 minutes.

While cooking, prepare the fish, wash and cut, get rid of the intestine, etc.

After 8-10 minutes, put the fish and tomatoes in, season with salt. Cook for 8 minutes.

Check with fork. Done. Taste and season again.
Garnish with mint leaves. I put quite a lot as you can see here.
The one and only Penang Ah Ma styled asam fish that you can't find else where.... opps!
You can only see, can't eat, sorry!

Mustard Greens and Dried Oyster Soup

2010-09-16T22:53:00.002+08:00

Have you ever tried mustard greens and dried oyster soup? I love it!

Like many others, I rejected mustard greens because of its bitterness. My mother-in-law introduced it to me through braising mustard greens with Chinese-styled meat balls (狮子头) with soy sauce, I fell in love with it only after a few times, and that was like after a few years too. I guess, mustard green is similar to bitter gourd, you either like or hate it. Now I love it a lot, it is like bitter gourd (bitter melon), or blue cheese. It is an acquired taste. After eating, I felt cooler and lighter. Somehow, I guess it reduces my cholesterol too!

Just google-ing a while, I found this: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=93

The cholesterol-lowering ability of steamed mustard greens is second only to steamed collard greens and steamed kale in a recent study of cruciferous vegetables and their ability to bind bile acids in the digestive tract. When bile acid binding takes place, it is easier for the bile acids to be excreted from the body. Since bile acids are made from cholesterol, the net impact of this bile acid binding is a lowering of the body's cholesterol level. It's worth noting that steamed mustard greens (and all steamed forms of the cruciferous vegetables) show much greater bile acid binding ability than raw mustard greens.

I am not kidding you! I could feel the cholesterol was being lowered!

Serve 2

Ingredients:

· 200g Spare ribs

· A few dried shitake mushrooms, soaked

· 1 Carrot, chopped

· 1 bunch of mustard greens

· 6 dried oysters

· A few red dates

· Salt to taste

Method:

Boil the water, blanch the ribs. Put everything inside.

For normal pot, 4 cups of water, boil until 2.5 cups of water left after 2 hours. High heat for 10 mins then turn to simmering low heat till end.

For pressure cooker, 3 cups of water in pressure cooker, 30 mins.

Braised Chicken with Shitake Mushroom

2010-09-13T21:50:00.002+08:00

If you follow my blog, you would know by now that I love mushroom, all kinds of mushroom. Shitake is one of my favourites, be it stir-fry, braise or stew, I just put a few in to enhance flavor of the dish.

Today, we had braised chicken with shitake mushroom, one of my preferred ways to cook mushroom. I find that eating braised mushroom is satisfying, because it is meaty, has umami kick and I like that with ginger. Simply delish.

Not going for fancy cooking nowadays (the last trial was the gumbo, that’s it!), just mushroom, ginger and chicken and some wine, soy sauce, that’s all.

Retain Soaking water for flavours?

Previously, I used to believe that we should retain the water used to soak mushroom for later part of cooking, now I don’t. I did so because I heard from someone that this would enhance flavor. From somewhere too, I read that the soaking water can be strained and used to add flavor to a stock. Little did I know that I was wrong! May be not for soaking mushrooms sold in Singapore?

During my last Penang trip, this had become a hot debate on the dinner table, I noticed that no one, except me, using the mushroom water for later part of cooking, they never did so because it was dirty. What they did was to throw away a few rounds of the soaking water, before using the last round for flavor enhancing (I threw away just the first round!). I was suspicious initially, but after a few experiments; I am convinced now that I was wrong. The initial soaking water makes the dish tastes bitter, if I do not add the soaking water, the dish and the mushrooms actually taste better! I had another failure during this year Chinese New Year, whereby I poured away just the first round of the soaking water, retained the rest for braising mushrooms, it turned out to be bitter too! I was so depressed because of that.

Not too late to know right? Now I share my experience with you and hope that you won't end up like me!

Serve 2

Ingredients:

· 6 Dried Shitake mushrooms, soaked

· Buna-shimeji mushroom or brown beech mushroom (optional)

· 6 Drumlets

· 2 cm ginger, sliced thinly

· 1 tbsp of Chinese rice wine

· 3/4 tbsp of dark soy sauce

· 1.5 tbsp light soy sauce

· Oil

· Cornstarch & white pepper

Method:

· Fry ginger with medium heat oil till fragrant, about 3 mins.

· Fry drumlets, abt 3 mins.

· Saute the mushrooms 1 min.

· Add in the half cup of water, rice wine & light soy sauce, simmer for 15mins.

· Simmer when lid open for another 5 mins.

· The liquid in the pot should be lesser than half and is thick.

· Add in more light soy sauce/pepper if you like.

· Serve with rice.

Da-ta!

My Instant Lunch on Weekday!

2010-09-11T21:30:00.000+08:00

A bit lazy on a weekday afternoon, I cooked this for lunch. I love instant noodle. Sorry to say that, but I really love instant noodle. Not all instant noodles but there are a few brands and tastes which I love a lot, such as the Myojo’s spicy dry noodle, Indo’s dry noodle and this one, Myojo’s abalone noodle. I love them because of their flavours. But as for springiness, I usually go for Mamee, they have the most Q noodle in this world, also, the Korean brands.

For my noodle, I usually add a lot of ingredients inside, such as tomatoes, mixed vegetables, shitake mushroom and egg!

This is my lunch that can last me until evening, by then I will be thinking of my dinner already.

Grilled Mixed Vegetable

2010-09-08T20:47:00.006+08:00

Last Saturday was our BBQ day. We were action-packed throughout the day as we drove to Sengkang in the morning to deliver the mooncakes to the grandparents and then rushed to buy some seafood for the night’s BBQ. Spending just slightly more than 30 mins, we prepared the seafood and vegetables, then it was time to go to the BBQ pit! Not until I reached the venue, I realized that we were considered early, as everyone was late due to the MRT 2-day maintenance.

To play safe, we called for catering that day, but we still bought a lot of seafood. CY wanted to take the chance to practise his BBQ skills. He wouldn’t have the chance to do so in normal days. In the end, there was quite a lot of leftover because we didn’t have enough time to BBQ everything! There was just too much of food.

So, what do we do with the leftover vegetables? We simply grill them at home.

Method:

We had everything sliced, mushroom, slightly boiled potatoes, bell pepper, zucchini, except asparagus, seasoned with anchovies with olive oil and pepper. Have some butter all over the top, grill in the oven (high heat) for 30 mins. Garnished with leftover chives. This is what we called making use of the leftovers. Lol.

Before Grilling:

After grilling:

Bah Ku Teh (Pork Ribs Soup)

2010-08-22T22:02:00.005+08:00

I got this pack of Bah Ku Teh (BKT) from Pei-lin a few weeks ago. She brought this as gift for the bloggers’ gathering. Though I did not attend, she kindly ‘reserved’ this to me. So sweet of her, thank you very much!!

I heard from her that this was supposed to be one of the more traditional mix of BKT spices, I didn’t try many before, just a few, I think this has a unique taste. When you look at the packaging, you know it is indeed traditional. So traditional that the red colour is all over the package, with Chinese calligraphy in black ink, said 老手秘方肉骨茶料 means very old and grand meat bone tea. So I think the spice mix must have withstood the test of time.

A little background about Bah Ku Teh, which literally means “meat bone tea”, is pork ribs simmered in a broth of herbs and spices consist of star anise, cinnamon, cloves, dang gui, wolfberries, fennel seeds and garlic. For this sachet, it also consists of additional herbs such as glycyrrhiza (甘草), cumin seeds, P. odoratum （玉竹). Taste wise, I think it is definitely sweeter and more flavourful due to the additional spices and herbs. You don’t need to season with lots of soya sauce as a result.

So next time, when I go back to KL, I must go and get my sister to try this. She might think that she have found a gold mine. J

Tomatoes and Sausage Pasta

2010-08-10T11:33:00.007+08:00

Just yesterday, I met a Malaysian blogger, Pei-Lin @ Dodol Mochi over lunch. So excited!! It was my first time meeting up with someone in the food blogsphere! I wondered where my courage came from. Lol! I guess it was the warmth I felt from Pei-Lin that made me believe I could put my trust in her. We had a good 3 hours from morning till noon. Pei-Lin, nice chatting with you! I will never forget about the time with the prawn mee and the durian tart....and also, I will try the Bah Ku Teh herb mix that you brought me from KL real soon! Thanks again! :)

Yesterday night, I cooked a comfort dinner and sat in front of the TV for the national parade. I thought yesterday’s NDP show was awesome! We had a glimpse into the SAF army machines, tanks, fighter planes, etc. Kit Chan rocks! Luckily I didn’t miss it.

Okay, now for the recipe, compare to the seafood gumbo, this is easy pissy.

Ingredients:

1 whole onions, diced
4 cloves of garlic, diced
1 can of dices tomatoes
3 fresh tomatoes
1 sausage, sliced
Fresh Parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp of dry basil
1 cup of water
Some sugar, salt and black pepper to taste
Olive oil

Method

Cook pasta while cooking the sauce. Depending on your liking or the instruction on the package, boil water with 1 tb (plenty) of salt.

While the pasta is being cooked, get ready a pan, heat (medium high heat) with olive oil, fry the sausage till brown, take out the sausage, use the same oil to fry onions till brown, then fry garlic, tomatoes. Pour water in, get the sausage in again, simmer till fresh tomatoes soften. Season with sugar to balance its sourness, add in salt and pepper for its taste. Add dry basil for more flavour.

When the pasta is cooked, get them out of the salted water and pour them into the sauce. Mix all together and garnish with fresh parsley.

Tips:

Other than dry basil, fresh basil is better. I just don't want to waste my dry basil, try to finish them all now.
You can substitute basil and parsley with other herbs such as thyme, oregano, etc. Try putting a lot more for more flavours, it won't be a disaster.

Bobby Flay's Seafood Gumbo

2010-08-04T23:53:00.005+08:00

After my assignment was due, I decided to explore uncharted boundaries within the culinary world. I was looking for a new recipe to cook, to ignite my passion in cooking, to learn a new skill, to give CY a treat… and before I realized it, within a few days, I bumped into this.

I was watching Throwdown by Bobby Flay in the Foodnetwork Channel, challenging a New Orleans native with this seafood gumbo. Inspired, I bought all the required ingredients (except one) to start my gumbo journey.

Gumbo is actually an unfamiliar word for me, I have never eaten anything named after gumbo and I don’t have any friends who know about it. Coincidentally, just a few weeks back, I remembered watching Jamie Oliver in action (American Road Trip in Asia Food Channel) with one of the legendary cook in New Orlean. In that episode, he tried his version using blue crab, king prawns and what he called the ‘holy trinity’, i.e. onions, pepper and celery to make his version of gumbo. I am sure his gumbo would be a good one, judging from the ingredients that he put in. Fast forward to a few weeks later, we watched Bobby Flay in action, I decided that I should just try making it once myself.

So what is gumbo? I guess from the 2 shows above, I roughly know there are many versions of gumbo, all originating from New Orleans, Lousiana. It consists of mainly a strong stock, meat/shellfish, a thickener and the vegetable ‘holy trinity’. One of the key ingredients has to be okra, the African plant okingumbo, from which the dish originally took its name. Traditionally, it is served with rice.

I followed Bobby Flay’s recipe as closely as possible, just that I could not find any oyster in the wet market nearby or supermarkets! How pathetic. After cooking this to my family (CY) and gave some to my staffs for tasting, I believe that I can make this soup, again and again and again… It has a thick body because of the roux (butter with flour), browny and comforting taste, yum yum!

Recipe courtesy from Bobby Flay at FoodNetwork.com

Ingredients

1/2 pound andouille sausage, cut into thin rounds
2 small ribs celery, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely diced
1 large Spanish onion, finely diced
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup flour
6 to 8 cups Shrimp Stock, recipe follows
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoon honey
Freshly chopped cilantro leaves, for garnish
Freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

Seafood:

1/4 cup canola oil
12 scallops
12 large shrimp, peeled, deveined, and tails on
18 shucked oysters (I didn't have this in my trial)
6 ounces lump crabmeat

Crispy Okra:

Canola oil
1/2 pound okra, cut into 1/4-inch thick slices
1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Direction:

Firstly, prepare the Shrimp Stock:

3 cups raw shrimp shells and tails
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 small carrot, coarsely chopped
1/2 medium celery stalk
6 cups water
1 cup white wine
1 medium fresh tomato, or 1/2 cup canned plum tomatoes
1 bay leaf

In a large saucepan over high heat, heat the oil until amost smoking and saute the shrimp shells and tails, onion, carrot and celery for 5 minutes, stirring. Add the water, wine, tomato and bay leaf. Reduce to medium, partly cover, and simmer 40 minutes.

Strain though cheesecloth or a fine strainer.

Directions for the gumbo base:

Heat a medium skillet over high heat. Add the andouille and cook until golden brown on both sides. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels. Do not drain. In the same pan, cook the celery, carrots, onion, bell pepper and garlic until soft.

Melt the butter over medium heat in a large Dutch oven. Gradually add the flour, stirring occasionally. Cook the mixture (roux) until it's a light-caramel color, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add the onion mixture and cook for about 3 minutes, without stirring.

Bring the stock to a boil in a large saucepan. Whisk in about 6 cups of the stock into the roux mixture. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, add the andouille sausage and continue simmering for about 20 minutes, add more stock if the mixture is too thick. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

For the seafood:

Heat 2 tablespoon of the oil in a large saute pan, over high heat until almost smoking. Season the scallops with salt and pepper and sear the scallops, on one side, until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Remove and set aside on a plate.

Wipe out the skillet and add the remaining olive oil. Heat over medium-high until almost smoking. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper and cook until just pink, about 3 to 4 minutes. Remove and set aside with the scallops.

Add the scallops, shrimp, oysters and crab to the sauce and continue cooking until oysters are plump and cooked.

For the Crispy Okra:

Heat 2-inches of canola oil in a high sided saute pan over medium heat until it begins to shimmer. Line a baking sheet with paper towels.

Place the cornmeal in a shallow baking dish and season with salt and pepper.

Season the okra with salt and pepper and toss in the cornmeal. Fry the okra, in batches, until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon to the baking sheet and season with salt.

Divide the seafood among 4 shallow bowls, ladle in some of the sauce and sausage and add the honey and garnish with the fried okra and chopped parsley and cilantro.

Watercress Soup with Mushroom & Pork Ribs

2010-07-28T23:24:00.002+08:00

Watercress Soup with Mushroom and Pork Ribs for today's dinner. I used the pressure cooker to cook this in the evening because I only got back home at 7.30pm. By the time I settled down, it was already 5 passed 8. So our dinner was quite late for tonight, at about 10pm.

I mopped the floor while waiting the soup to boil, then came back to add the watercress, let it boil again for the last 15 mins before I turn it off. Eager to finish my last assignment, I started writing again. I still have 1000 words to go. My last lap of the second module should not be jeopardised by my hunger. Let me wait till CY come back from work....

Watercress Pork Ribs Soup is great for clearing heat in the body and sputum in the lungs.

Ingredients:

1. 2 bunches of fresh watercress, most people just use 1 bunch, I use 2. Mainly because I like the watercress cooling flavour.

2. 350g blanched pork ribs

3. 2 dried red dates -stones removed to prevent heatiness

4. 2 candied date 蜜枣 - this is important to add sweetness to the soup

5. 3 cups of water

6. 6 dried shitake mushroom and some dried scallop, soaked.

7. 1 tablespoon of GOOD soya sauce - the secret ingredient from one famous chef.

8 salt to taste.

Instructions:

1. Bring water to boil, add in the everything, except the watercress.

2. Simmer it for about 20mins in the pressure cooker.

3. Let all the steam out, open the cover, add watercress. Bring to boil again to cook for another 15 mins.

4. Lastly, add 1 tablespoon of soya sauce and salt to taste.

Fried Rice

2010-07-26T17:17:00.004+08:00

A simple meal for dinner today.

Simple food is still the best. I enjoy this than anything else. I don't mind eating fried rice a lot, like 2 or 3 bowls (1 bowl of rice is definitely not enough for me) and I don't bother about my weight. The fact that I am still under weight (45 kg for 163cm) means I should eat more!

Everytime when my relatives or my friends see me, they will pop these questions: Are you on diet? Why are you so slim? How come you are so slim?...blah.....blah...blah....They think I hide some secret recipes or something. Only CY knows that I have never try to keep fit or go on diet.

I guess the only reason why I am so slim is that I do not live by snacks. I do snack but not that very often. If I snack, my stomach will not have enough space for good food. I do not eat potato chips, crackers, biscuits, keropok, etc. I prefer to have rice, noodle, bread. If I am hungry, I go for staple -- anything that make me full. I prefer rice than bread, bread than noodle. I LOVE vegetables, less for meat. I always drink water, less coffee or tea. I do not indulge into anything related to deep-fried food or soft drinks. I only like some cake or biscuit with liquor or dark chocolate. That's why I seldom bake. Sorry! I just can't make myself liking them. Any recommendations for me to try? :)

I feel happy when I eat, that also explains why I have this blog - about food. So if the food is not up the standard and I don't like it, I cook myself. If the food is in front of me and it does not taste good, I won't eat it. I don't compromise on the food that goes inside my mouth.

So for whoever wants to lose weight, I guess eat happily and healthily is the key.
Here are my Do's and Don'ts:

Do indulge into food that you like. (But no snack!)
Do eat staple till full. It helps to make you satisfied and less craving for snack.
Do eat more vegetables, less meat.
Do cook more because you can control what goes inside your body, less oil and salt.
Do cut down on snacks.
Don't compromise on food that won't kill your hunger.
Don't eat deep-fried food.
Don't drink soft drinks.
Don't just eat cakes or biscuits.

In that way, I gues you can be like me, always on the slim side. Hope you enjoy my post. See you next time!

Fried Rice recipe

Ingredients:

2 big onions, diced
1 garlic, diced
3 bowl of rice, cooked
1 bowl of mixed vege, defrosted
1 packet of maggie nasi goreng mixture
1 egg, lightly beaten
some soy sauce and white pepper to taste
Garnish with pork floss

Method:

Fry onion before frying garlic because garlic will be burnt. Fry for about 3 mins.
Fry garlic for another 3 mins till everything slightly brown.
Fry the nasi goreng mixture till fragrant, about 1 min.
Fry Mix vege till cooked, about 2 min.
Fry egg till slightly cooked.
Pour all the rice to cook together, stir and fry till each grain coated with colour.
Garnish with pork floss and sliced cucumber.
Serve.

Singapore Food Festival 2010

2010-07-18T23:56:00.007+08:00

Embark on a mouth-watering journey and discover the culinary cultures behind different Singapore Chinese dialects this year at the Singapore Food Festival 2010.

When I received the email from Marcus, I was ill then and I seriously didn't have the time to go for any other food outing unless it is seriously good.

This is GOOD.

You have most of the good food under one roof which means that you do not have to venture around this island for them.

I intend to go there again tomorrow, Monday, with CY of course.

Here are some of the shots on Friday.

For more info, please visit: http://www.singaporefoodfestival.com.sg/

Four Seasons Hotel - One Ninety

2010-07-15T00:12:00.008+08:00

Time to celebrate again!

Not only to celebrate CY’s birthday but also for a smooth recovery from flu + headache + fever. We have been sick for the past 2 weeks. TWO WEEKS… It was no joke. It was like seeing the sunlight finally came out from total darkness. I miss shopping, I miss cooking, I miss everything outside. I also missed quite a number of things in the last 2 weeks. Firstly, the Singapore blog award, I was thinking maybe I should go because I am kind of kiapo (busybody), want to see who’s in who’s not, but I didn’t have the chance to. Secondly, I missed the Singapore food festival opening media conference in Mandarin Oriental last week. I was seeing everyone tweet here tweet there…wah lau, I was also thinking of free flow of FREE food, I was so excited when I got invited but who knows… I still missed.

But up and coming event that I should not miss is this Friday Food Festival again! Clarke Quay! I will come!!!

Enough said. Now the celebration is held in One-Ninety. It is a bistro grill specialising in grilling food on an applewood grill. What so special about this applewood, by the way? It is supposed to bring out the best of the foods which giving it a lovely scent. Aiya…anyway, I just want to try lar!

So, this bistro offers a selection of local and international all-time favourites, and at lunch diners on the go can choose items from an appetiser and dessert buffet.

We chose a main course with the buffet. I chose the grilled wagyu beef and CY chose grilled Tuna as the main course. While waiting, we searched for appetisers to go inside our stomachs.

(Below) CY has almost every appetiser on his plate. A bit here and there, just for tasting. He has grilled mushroom, Parma Ham, some I really don't know.

I was particularly delighted to see Parma ham (below) on the table, grilled pepper (who knows why I like grilled bell pepper so much?? ), sun-dried tomatoes (2nd below), grilled assorted mushroom. Yum Yum. However, these are not every Singaporean’s favourites, unless you are a fan of Food Network or Asian Food Channel or Travel & Living where you are brain-washed by those chefs about how difficult to bring these things on our tables in this region. Parma Ham, aka Prosciutto, You guess how much does it cost in Cold Storage (not NTUC or Shop N Save can you find this)? I will not buy it EVEN IF I am super rich. It’s like 50g for $20! Ridiculous! So if they serve me with this ham here of course I would be more than happy. Overjoy! For those who are from Europe, I know this is just a normal food for you.

Below is the caramelised vanilla pineapple, gave me an idea how to prepare for dessert next time. It's so simple yet so classy!

Somemore appertisers, our main courses were not in sight yet. Some lobster, grilled asparagus, and beetroot, good food for health.

Next , this cod fish soup (below) is so weird. I mean weirdly delicious! I never think of cooking a fish soup in such a manner. Not that I know of…hmm…but it’s nice. Then Here come the main course. The Wagyu is good, nothing to complain, cook to medium rare, PERFECT. I like wagyu, with rockets salad and sliced parmesan cheese. But the tuna, looks good but a big no-no. The sauce is too sweet to go with tuna, which is a savoury food.

Dessert time!

All is so good and I know now Singaporeans are crazy over these macaroons right? $1.60 for one bite? They are great and above all, the one in this tall glass is the winner (2nd below). I will go back just for this! Nothing else. Champagne with crumbs in a glass. Nicely done.

Crumbs with whip cream flavoured with champagne. HEAVENLY! Every mouth was so delicate and flavourful. I felt like a QUEEN in that moment.

CY's favourite: pudding with berries.

Lastly, I must say this: how often do we get to be served by ALL Caucasian chefs in a restaurant? I was surprised to see so many foreign chefs here, rather than those from this region. No wonder the food is pitched and presented differently , in many ways. May be, it is not appealing at first sight, somehow, but it's definitely worth a try!

Okay, that’s for now. See you next time!

One-ninety

190 Orchard Boulevard Singapore, 248646

Tel. (65) 6734-1110

Entering 2nd half of the year

2010-07-02T00:26:00.002+08:00

Can’t believe that we are entering 2^nd half of the year. If you ask me, how have I been doing in the 1^st half? I would probably say, Okay, but could be better. In fact this year, I guess I am hoping more to be done than what has already been done. I am still hoping (keep my fingers crossed!!) for some good news in the 2^nd half of the year, hopefully!

So now what? For the second half of the year, let’s make a deal. I want to start a cooking wish list or else it will be end of the year before I notice it and still nothing proud to be posted here. So… my wish list is…

1. Singapore chili crab!!!! This is definitely the number one!

2. Another nonya food, anything

3. Try to do an impressive pastry again

4. Marmite chicken

5. Sambal prawn

6. A full course of BBQ

7. …

8. …

Can’t think of any now…

Porridge for dinner

2010-06-30T23:10:00.004+08:00

I have ulcer, a super big and painful ulcer now. (oucchh…!) I can’t eat anything that is hard to bite, not even normal soft bread. My ulcer has made me feel pain in my mouth and neck too. I start having this ulcer since Saturday but it is getting worse because on Sunday night, I ate BBQ chicken, spicy stir-fried clams, a truly good lesson for me.

So I have been eating soft food these few days. Tonight, if nothing turns well and I am still getting the ulcer, I will seek for professional help the next morning.

Okay, enough for my ulcer speech.

I want to introduce you what we eat for dinner today. We normally have lots of vegetables, some or no meat and dessert. Since I am still having this ulcer sticks inside my mouth, I want to get rid of it with some garlic. We will have lots of garlic! All of these garlics will go inside my wok!

Then, I will just do a simple stir-fry, with greens of course. The rest are just normal stuffs like marmite, pork floss and fermented bean curd.

Our dinner is not complete without fruit juice. We have fruit juice every day. Yes and these fruits will go into this to make juice. So tonight, we have 3 apples, 2 oranges and celery; it is super quenching and sweet!

Then of course, a dinner is not complete without dessert, we normally have ice-cream, or peanut (not this week) or just anything. Ben & Jerry ice-cream is great, especially this one with some liquor (liqueur), a grown-up ice-cream, not suitable for children.

Abalone Yellow Noodle Soup

2010-06-23T00:45:00.001+08:00

We used to eat abalone during Chinese New Year only, meaning only once a year and that means luxury!

But, why CY and I eat abalone during this period of time? We are lucky! We got someone sent us this as present so instead of just letting it sit in my kitchen cabinet, I want to try cooking this with just noodle, a luxury noodle! Yum yum...haha... never once in my life did I have such an opportunity to cook noodle with ABALONE!! Can I believe it? Now I believe!

Ingredient:

keep the abalone soup to flavour your soup
200ml of water
Abalone, sliced
some dried scallop
300g yellow noodle, 150g per person
one whole sponge gourd/luffa 丝瓜, peeled and sliced

Instruction:

With a pot of boiling water and abalone soup base, put in some dried scallop, cook for 30 mins or so, slice abalone, and cook just a while, do not cook very long, put noodle and sponge guord, cook till soft, done!

Season to taste, you might not need it as the abalone soup has enough flavour!

It costs at least $25 per bowl, I feel so High class eating this!! Only when I am eating this, I know, I know...

Luffa 丝瓜 from wikipedia:

The luffa is tropical and subtropical vines which is eaten as vegetable.
Its juice is used as a natural remedy for jaundice. The juice is obtained by pounding the bitter luffa and squeezing it through a cloth. Bitter luffa seeds and dry crusts are also available and can be used for the same purpose.

CY is watching this crazy Japanese who can play organ so damn well, I had my jaw dropped while watching just now.

Enjoy!

Stir-fry Organic Amaranth 炒苋菜

2010-06-13T00:57:00.004+08:00

It has been such....h a long time we did not stir-fry anything, as you can see from our posts lately. We finally found some time to stir-fry because we recently bought 2 big bunches of vegetable (edible amaranth) from my kampung. In order not to waste it, we WILL find the time to stir-fry somehow...forcefully. I don't quite like stir-fry nowadays because cleaning the huge wok can be quite a chore. I will think twice to stir-fry since I can easily find something from the recipe book to cook, stir-fry has become... relatively secondary. Hence, CY offered to stir-fry the vegetables, I happily obliged! (有口福了！)

This is really an Asian greens, as you can see from the above. I guess it is not so suitable to make salad because it is quite acerbic without cooking beforehand, hence I will not recommend to use this as salad, but using it for stir-frying is just awesome!

Source: http://www.evergreenseeds.com/edamasred.html

This is a unique edible amaranth widely grown in Vietnam and Southeastern Asia. Plants grow very well in warm climates, suitable for growing all year round in subtropical and tropical areas. Fast growing vegetable can be harvested 30 days after sowing. Young leaves and tips are very tender and delicious, excellent for salads and stir-fry. Beautiful plants are also good for container or backyard growing as oranmental plants. Easy to grow.

Instruction：

Lots and lots of garlic is recommended, we used a whole garlic, finely chopped.
Heat oil, fry garlic till brown, add greens, stir heat in high heat, as quickly as possible, you might want to add just a little water to have the steam effect, but the greens will release liquid when stir-frying. Add soya sauce in the end of cooking, taste and serve with rice immediately.

Lately, I find this song quite interesting and would like to share with you all, I think everyone should think that he/she is awesome too!

Scrummy Roasted Chicken Warm Salad

2010-06-04T03:39:00.003+08:00

This dish was prepared about 2 weeks ago during the start of our 3-week break. CY had this inspiration and this urge out of nowhere (or may be from Jamie or Michael Smith or someone), he INSISTED to cook this, of course I happily obliged because IT HAS BEEN 2 MONTHS SINCE HE COOKED A SCRUMPTIOUS DINNER (minus those breakfasts, baked beans, sandwiches, fried eggs, etc., which I do not considered as elaborated as this one). So I have to post this online but have to wait for his turn to provide the recipe.

I decided to leave the kitchen entirely to him since I have been cooking quite a lot (but those were repeated recipes so I will not post them again) and shall take a step back. He cooked this without a real guideline. I knew he always rely on something to start with. I wondered how he could cook up a meal without a real recipe initially. But he somehow got this recipe imprinted in his brain, so without much delay, the oven was hot, everything was done, just needed to wait for the drumstick to come out from it.

The wait was 1 whole hour, but it was the dinner worth waiting for. The drumstick was so tender, yet the skin was so crispy, stir into the salad, quickly served on the table, yum yum~~

Crispy and tender chicken, three for two of us, still not enough to go around, sad....We have to settle more with dark chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

Stir, stir....!

One Morning at Farmer's Market in KL, Malaysia (Pasar Pagi)

2010-05-31T22:05:00.005+08:00

Hi everyone, I don't usually have such a super long post! But I thought this might interest you because when I searched for things to post up here, this seems pretty interesting to me so I posted it here. These pictures were taken during Chinese New Year, which was quite some time ago, haha... Anyway, :p Back then, I followed my sister to this market in KL, which I forgot its name, that it turned out to be a very TRADITIONAL morning market that sells all sort of things, in a VERY traditional way!

Like, for example, they sell chicken alive! When you confirm your order, they will 'service' the chick for you, right in front of your eyes, so it is confirmed fresh. Or something like the aloe vera (on top of the metal cage), or the wild vegetable ( in the grey plastic basket) which is called 'paku' quite uncommon for most of us here.

As you can see here, poor chicken can hardly move around before their time comes...

Oh yes, this was the butcher stall selling pork, used to be my favourite! You know why? As I grew up in a Kampung and my mother used to sell vegetable in the morning market, and I had to somehow babysit myself in a corner. So normally in the afternoon, when the butchers had already closed their stalls and left, since I had nowhere to go, I thought it would be a good way to take nap on the butcher table, so it became my favourite bed in the market! Just nice for my size and because the table was made of cement, it was super cooling! Now of course you can't see the table but below the wooden top, it should be the cement table that I am talking about.

My mother used to sell vegetable before switching to selling flowers, I prefer she sells flowers though because it sounds nicer and more romantic. Super stupid reason. I went back last week to visit her, CY took this picture (below) when we went to buy some kampung vegetable back to Singapore. Her shop was still there, intact, but no one was operating there. It was supposed to be sold to someone else already but the 'someone else' was not there too. Her signboard was still there! My mother named the shop after her, Mong Lin, that's her name, quite romantic isn't it? I wonder how many people out there have the surname Mong 蒙 in Chinese, quite rare I think. Somemore vegetable back in KL morning market.

On the other side, some stalls selling snacks, biscuits and stuff like that. My sister introduced me Kaya Kok, the triangular egg jam pastry, a common pastry for breakfast or snack in Malaysia, really blew me away!

Look at it! So appetising isn't it? You can find the recipe to make the egg jam here: http://lilyng2000.blogspot.com/2005/05/kaya-rich-egg-custard.html

It varies from recipe the recipe, just like the way we make jam, bread, or pizza. You can somehow master it by making it a few times, you will find your own family recipe eventually. I personally think that Lily's version should be quite authentic, although I have never made it myself. :p

The pastry below the kaya kok is siew bao, baked pastry with roasted pork, very tasty and full of flavours. It's quite heavy for breakfast but I don't mind having this because it is so yummy!

My sister is ordering a lot more for the kids back home. She is makan queen, i.e. eating queen, anything that tastes good or smells good can never escape from her licking good finger! I am so fortunate to be her sister because I too, have lots of good things to eat!

That's all for now, a super long post!

Grilled Bell Pepper Pasta

2010-05-15T22:12:00.001+08:00

This is truly an improvised pasta recipe. I think sometimes we need to depend on our intuition to cook something and it will turn out good. This is so good. I can’t imagine anyone not cooking this at least once in his lifetime.

I want to have something light yet nutrituous, so I come out with this simple recipe that requires no brain, simply pasta, bell pepper, garlic, parsley, bacon and olive oil. You can somehow imagine its flavours, do you?

Ingredients:
Pasta, enough for 2 pax
Sliced 1 whole garlic as I love to have lots of garlic!
6 bell peppers, assorted colours
1 bunch of chinese parsley
A few strips of bacon
A few tbsp of Olive oil

Methods:
Grill bell peppers in whole with some olive oil till slightly burnt on the skin, rest it in a bowl, covered so to have the steam effect onto them. Cook pasta in salted water according to package instructions.
Fry some bacon, then sliced garlic. Deseed the bell pepper and cut them into big chunks, fry slightly with bacon. When the pasta is done, mix with bacon, some water and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
Chop parsley and add in the end.

It is so pepperly! Yum yum!

Baked beans, ham and bread

2010-05-05T23:10:00.002+08:00

Simple food such as this, is not meant to impress others, but to comfort stomach. I find that anything goes with tomato sauce is familiar food, like canned sardine or baked bean. So once in a while, I like to have this kind of food, bread with baked bean, fried egg, and optional ham.

Baked Fusilli Pasta

2010-04-22T02:04:00.002+08:00

I bought a packet of fusilli pasta today, wanting to create something that makes me and CY happy.

Ingredients:
1 cup of fusilli pasta
1 bay leave
5 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
3 strips of bacon, chopped
1 can of diced tomatoes
2 tbs of tomatoes puree
A pinch of sugar and blacked pepper
1 chunk of Mozzarella cheese & parmesan cheese
Salt to taste

Methods
Preheat oven to 250 degree. Put pasta into a pot of heavily salted water, cook till al dente or slightly soft. Pour away water, with a new pot, fry bacon till brown with a bit of oil, then brown garlic till fragrant, put in the bay leave, pour in tomatoes and puree, stir in a bit of water, season with salt, sugar and pepper. Pour into a container, cover with Mozzarella cheese & parmesan cheese. Bake for 15 minutes till golden brown.

Fish Wrapped in Banana leaves with Ginger, Cilantro, Chilli and Milk

2010-04-15T23:43:00.002+08:00

We watched Jamie Oliver in Oliver Twist not long ago and were instantly inspired by this fish fillet wrapped in banana leaves. Seriously, I tried banana leaves flavoured dessert before, especially those Thai desserts or Malay inspired ones but I had never used it in cooking. When I ate those desserts, somehow I couldn't seperate the banana leaves flavour from the rest of the ingredients. I mean, which is which? I am quite stupid in that sense until this one, it really tells me how does a banana leaf taste like!

The leaves that I bought were not so fresh so I could only use some of it and throw the rest away! Luckily, it costed only 35 cents. I am glad that I bought 2 big bunches of cilantro/coriander that gives it flavours an omp~ so I am happy overall.

Before grinding:

This is before going into the oven. It's recommended to marinate a bit before baking, about 30 minutes.

After baking:

Adapted from Jamie Oliver's recipe:

Ingredients
4 large banana leaves or vine leaves (since the banana leaves were not so good, I recommend to use aluminium foil to wrap an outer layer over it to prevent spilling.)
A little olive oil
2 fresh red chillies
2 sticks lemon grass, outer leaves removed, centers finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 good handfuls fresh cilantro/coriander, roughly chopped
2 limes, juiced and zested
50 ml Carnation milk
1 tablespoon sesame seed oil
A drizzle fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 heaped tablespoons finely sliced fresh ginger
4 (6 to 8 ounce /170 to 225 gram) pieces white-fleshed fish

Directions
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C/gas 8).
To make the banana leaves more pliable, hold for a few seconds over a gas flame. Leaving aside the fish and herb sticks, pound the rest of the ingredients in a pestle and mortar to make a thick paste and spoon a little onto each banana leaf. Place the fish on top and then spoon the rest of the paste on the top. Bringing the sides in and spiking it with a rosemary sprig or bay leaf stick to secure it. This will look lovely and it is natural, but I have been known to use a clothes peg or string to hold it all together. It won't be a perfect seal but this allows it to breath and steam, letting the flavors infuse, so gutsy and tasty. Put the parcels on a tray and bake for 15 minutes, then remove from the oven, and allow to rest for 5 minutes.

My verdict:

Jamie is really an adventurous celebrity chef that I admire. You can tell his passion about food and professionalism in cooking in this dish. Like what he said, "You can impress your friends and family with this dish."

Haha...With this on the table, can anyone possibly tell that you can't really cook?!

Smoked Salmon Sandwich

2010-04-07T15:58:00.001+08:00

For those who watched Donald Duck cartoons when we were young, the story went like this: he would go for a picnic, unveil a disproportionately tall sandwich, flatten it up with a single squash of the hand before enjoying it. He would then be ‘terrorised’ by Chip ‘n’ Dale, the two chipmunks, for just being at the wrong place and the wrong time. This time round, we are trying to replicate his tall sandwich, and learnt a few points to share with all.

Smoked Salmon-Avocado Sandwich

Ingredients (serves 4)
1) 8 slices whole-meal bread
2) Butter
3) 150 g smoked salmon
4) 4 medium tomatoes, sliced
5) 1 avocado, sliced
6) 1 lemon
7) Salsa
8) Salt and black pepper

Steps

1) Spread butter onto bread slices, i.e. 1 slice for each sandwich.
2) Toast bread in oven for about 3 min. We put on grill for 4.5 min and dark-browned 2 pieces of bread – unpalatable. So watch the bread.
3) On toasted bread, place tomato and avocado slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. We came up with 2 variations – one with salmon and the other without. Omit salt for the ones with salmon, as smoked salmon is salty enough.
4) Layer salmon slices. Squeeze some lemon juice over.
5) Spread salsa on top. We added yoghurt with salsa for some creaminess. It worked!
6) Piece on the other slice of bread. Enjoy!

We use whole-meal (multigrain) bread as much as possible. They not only contain more vitamins and fibre, but taste better the more you chew into it. Whole-meal bread tend not to become mushy like white bread, i.e. holds its shape better in sandwiches.

We have to admit the yoghurt is actually an improvisation – we were out of mayonnaise! It has actually become a tasty and healthier choice on our menu! Crème fraiche and low-fat mayonnaise are other possible alternatives.

When putting ingredients on sandwich, we are often guilty of piling up more than what our poor bread can hold. A good rule of thumb is to place ingredients such that they are about a slice of bread thick. I did try the ‘Donald Duck squash’, but it never turned out good. If the tomato slices are already slipping off the top, it is time to top up the bread and start off with a new bottom piece.

Good Salad Dressing for Comfort Salad

2010-03-30T11:06:00.001+08:00

I received an email the other day, asking me to try this new series of salad dressings, I said: Why not? Hence Agusta, the director of this newly set up company which imports mustard salad dressing from Perth Australia, sent me a few samples to try out.

Yesterday, I tried this Classic Red Dressing on Rocket Salad and it was fantastic! A balance of sweet and tangy offering some kicks! I like it very much! Thanks Agusta, for introducing me this salad dressing and even let me to try out. I won't mind to buy for him next time. I hope to see it in the market soon. :)

You can go to its website to find out more: www.vrescano.com.sg or contact them:

10 Pari Dedap Walk #11-15Singapore 486062
Tel/Fax: (65) 6241 5998
Email: agusta@vrescano.com.sg
After dressed:

Inspiring speech by a Teacher - Sir Ken Robinson

2010-03-19T00:26:00.003+08:00

As you have known by now, I am a Chinese teacher. I am very much influenced by this clip and would like to share this entertaining and inspiring clip with my readers here. ;)

Hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

Good Looking Fried Noodle - A Disaster

2010-03-14T23:37:00.001+08:00

Is this appetizing? Yes, it is (from the picture) but unfortunately it turns out to be a mistake. I made this in the morning, hoping to make a scrumptious breakfast. The noodle I used here is actually a CNY gift and it’s organic and freaking expensive (I suppose all ‘organic’ sounds expensive to me). I had this brainwave out of nowhere and sprang out of bed to start my kitchen engine in the early morning. Happily frying onions and garlic, I stared at the dry noodle, wondering how to soften it. Since I was thinking of frying it later, water should not be added in the cooking process. So I guess it must be the same as cooking bee hoon (Chinese Rice vermicelli). At that point it only made sense if I soaked it into cold water to soften it. How naïve I was.

Later on, after my harvesting in Farmville (10 minutes or so), I turned back into the kitchen. To my horror, it was TOTALLY softened…to the extent that I could make amorphous paste out of it. What am I going to do with it? I thought myself, throwing it away? No, it’s such a waste. No way. So I guess I have to cook it anyway. Hence, this as a result, may be good looking but not really tasty.

I am not going to share this recipe here as my mistake is not going to help you in your kitchen. But I would like to share with you my mistake so as you do not repeat the same mistake: Soak dry noodle in water.

Now, some of you might be wondering why I sound differently overnight?? I am going to start some waffling(talking nonsense) for a while, because I am fed up reading those words used by these so-called academics who try so hard to sound intellectually that I might as well making use of some of those words here so as to ‘apply’ them. I am just half way through my master and nothing can better describe my view or thought after reading those purely academically-inclined papers or journals than this: It is full of smoke, in Singaporean sense at least. (With a heave of sigh) Nonetheless, I still enjoy being a student for the time being.

Tomato Soup - Best serve with Bread

2010-03-09T23:10:00.001+08:00

As promised, this is super simple and comfort food, nothing too fancy. Best serve with bread especially if you are rushing for time.

I got a NEW blender from Philip! See? We are making the best out of it lately. So we got this blended soup and will try out more recipes making use of it.

I am so ... happy to get this. Now, no more complaints. I think I will get prettier if I drink more juices as a result. Haha! Just dreaming ~

Serve 4

Ingredients
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 big onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stick, chopped
500g of fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 can of vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
some herbs such as 1 bay leave and fresh parsley

Directions
Heat oil over medium-high heat. Saute onion and garlic until onion is translucent, about 3 mins. Add carrot and celery; fry a bit, stirring frequently. Stir in tomatoes, broth, parsley, and pepper. Cover and cook in a pressure cooker for 15 minutes. When done, season with salt if need be. Let it cool and then blend everything in a blender. Garnish with fresh parsley.

Best serve with focacia bread.

Stir-fry Shitake Mushroom with Napa Cabbage

2010-03-05T23:25:00.000+08:00

We are more toward healthy and low-carb food nowadays. So we cook less meat but more vegetables. Quite recently, we bought a blender so that we can eat more fruits and vegetables. I can now blend papaya juice, mango juice, make tomatoes soup or things like that. I can still recall my encounter in Japan , when a chunky tuna was being sliced right in front of me served as sa~ shi~mi~. It's absolutely eerie and yucky! Who on earth will eat something like this being sliced right in front? Not ME.

I still eat meat but lesser now and I enjoy sashimi but may be not in Japan, opps! Sorry! Having said that, I look forward to join my old friend for lunch and shopping next wednesday, and I am proposing going to Sushi Tei (because I own a VIP membership with that chain hence 10% off, also because of the good food there). Yeap, so I still enjoy meat but may be more when dining out.

So from now on, I will introduce more vegetable recipes. Bravo to healthier body, mind and soul!! (sounds like some beauty salon spa's slogan) Hmm...Well, I guess it's about time for us to get healthier, no? Eating healthier food does not mean being deprived of yummy food. I can promise you good food with good nutritional values in it. *cross my heart*

For today's menu, we had stir-fry Shitake Mushroom with Napa Cabbage. It's kind of sweet and slightly crunchy, with shitake mushroom gives a bit of meaty taste, goes well with porridge.

Ingredients:

Soaked shitake mushroom, sliced
Napa cabbage, sliced
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
Seasoning : 1 tsp of sugar, a dash of salt, half a cube of chicken stock, 1/2 cup of water

Method:

Heat oil, fry garlic till fragrant
Add in shitake mushroom, stir-fry a bit, abt 1 min
Add Napa cabbage, stir-fry a bit to get wok hei then add seasoning
Cover with lid, cook for about 8 mins. Occasionally open to turn around cabbage so that it cooks evenly.
Done.

Best serve with rice or porridge. In my case, we serve with oat porridge (cook oat with plain water for 5 mins, taste like porridge).

Tomatoes & White Button Mushroom Pasta

2010-03-03T23:22:00.002+08:00

This is something different. You cannot find it elsewhere, especially in restaurants, because it’s super simple and yummy! More importantly, we made this due to limited resources. Well, nothing can convince you unless you try to make it yourself. We tried this recipe out of the blue and its good, means good. Taste doesn’t cheat, right? So make yourself one. You won’t regret it.

Ingredients:
6 low-sodium tomatoes, we got it from Giant @ $7.90 but very tasty!
1 whole garlic, sliced
Fresh basil, chopped
1 can of Anchovies, use its oil only
White button mushrooms, sliced
2 tbs of olive oil
Grated parmesan cheese
Wholemeal pasta

Method:
1. With salt in water, boil and cook pasta until al-dente
2. Sweat mushrooms by cooking them with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, fry until soft, about 3 mins
3. With Anchovies’ oil, fry garlic till fragrant, about 1 min
4. Divide basil into 2 parts, fry 1 part with mushroom now
5. When it’s done, put all pasta into the pan to fry together, add some pasta water if it's too dry to stir around.
6. Add tomatoes into hot pasta water to poach them for about 1 min
7. Put tomatoes into the pasta mixture
8. Season with pepper, no salt needed as the anchovies’ oil contains salt
9. Garnish with 1 part of chopped basil and parmesan cheese, Serve hot.

Yum yum~~

New Year Food in Bangkok

2010-03-01T10:53:00.000+08:00

This is a delayed post for Chinese New Year in Bangkok. I had a relatively 'quiet' Chinese new year compared to last year's. We spent our new year watching DVDs indoor and more DVDs afterwards. There was really nothing much to see on the street as we had already seen. Since we only had 3 days to spend there, we decided to have some good REST. On the other hand, we did have some good food and visited temples during New Year's eve so no regrets.

One thing that worth mentioning during this trip is my father-in-law brought us to a temple to donate coffins to people died without one. Compared to enjoying myself, helping others is a better way to start my new year.

After that, we went to Siam Paragon to have dinner. The decoration was impressive! I managed to take some photos but forgot to take the outside ones! There were some lion dance and performances but we missed it. Anyway, I managed to take some photos of the food in Fuji Restaurant located in the basement of Siam Paragon, we usually go there for good food at reasonable prices.

Braised Chicken

2010-02-22T21:31:00.002+08:00

Today, CY & I spent the whole day in the office. We did a number of crucial and important changes to our office, hence my day off was burnt but it’s worth it. We are still in the office right now and my stomach keeps on reminding me of my meal time (though I just had my dinner!), plus the off-tune singing not far away served as a little ‘entertainment’ in the office. Everywhere seems to be, still, in CNY mood, or at least that’s the case in my neighborhood.

We had our dinner in the kopitiam not long ago. The meal was simple, steamed fish and mixed vegetables as usual. But I can’t help to think of the Braised Chicken we had 2 weeks before the CNY. This is truly a brainless dish, just throw everything inside the pressure cooker to do the magic.

I wonder if anyone of you still thinks that a pressure cooker is not worth the investment. I guess if you think of this way, you might still exist in the past century, even my sister got one in KL and hers is an electronic pressure cooker! More powerful than mine! I am speechless.

Anyway, the point is, you should get one.

Ingredients:

1 Cinnamon stick

1 Star anise

20g Blue ginger

20g ginger

30g onions, sliced

20g garlic

Sauce

2 tbs soy sauce

2 tbs dark soy sauce

2 tbs sugar

1 whole chicken, cut

Optional

Shitake mushrooms, soaked

Pressure cooker method

Marinate chicken with sauce for at least 20 mins.

Fry ingredients till fragrant, add in chicken and sauce, add in 1 cup of water. Boil and cover tightly, cook for 25 mins.

After that, release pressure, take out chicken, and thicken the sauce.

Serve with rice or like what I did, serve with noodle and tomato as side dish.

Simply delish.

Cheers to the Tiger Year!

2010-02-18T22:24:00.004+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai 恭喜发财！

For the past week, we had a good time in Bangkok/KL/Titi. Time really flies! Now back to Singapore, in the comfort of my home, I feel that this holiday was well spent. We managed to meet a lot of relatives and friends, had nice catch-ups and meals were fantastic! Nights were spent with chit-chats, games or dinners which we would remember for a long time.

Above picture is my nephew playing with sparkle stick in front of my Titi house. We played and played, until the entire jumbo box of sparkles disappeared within minutes! It's really fun to play like kids!

Below picture is me holding my hand of cards. For those who know the game "Big 2" or "Tai-tee", I was dealt this hand from the dealer for the first time in my life! I couldn't believe what I saw and was asking around for help! I was unsure whether I could show my cards in the first round even without playing, CY took this picture, just in case, and I continued playing with this set. Eventually, I won too! Yohoo!

Now, back to Singapore, I am re-charged and ready for battle. I will work extra hard this year and will continue my journey of being ladyhomechef.

Cheers to the Tiger Year! \(^_^)/

Ming Mu Tang Mee Suah 明目汤面线

2010-02-10T09:09:00.004+08:00

The past few weeks flew away…poff…just like that! Now everyday, we have to wake up at 9am+, ding dong ding dong a bit and then go to work at about 11am+, all the way until 10pm+, have to hit the pillow before 12am or else CY will get headache, is this a healthy lifestyle? Not quite really, but 2010 is a critical year for us to break it or make it, we have more things to do and that really force us to be more disciplined. But sometimes, what bothers me is not the business, but from family.

CY gets headache quite frequently nowadays and I am worried. So from time to time, if I have some time, I will just boil Traditional Chinese Tonic chicken soup, like this one. This one tastes good, especially with Mee suah, a type of Chinese noodle that dissolves quickly in the soup that gives a silky texture. Better still, I save some time as I don’t need to wash the rice cooker with this one.

This soup is meant to replenish liver, kidney’s blood and to sustain a good vision.

Ingredients （From Foo Hua 福华药材店）
Herbal epimedii 淫羊霍
Huai Shan 淮山/山药
Wolfberry 枸杞子
Herbal Dendrobii 石霍
Mizao 蜜枣
Dang Shen 党参

Other ingredients
Chinese lettuce
Dark chicken 乌鸡
Mee suah
1 tbsp soy sauce

Instruction
Add herbs into a pot with 1.5L of water, boil for 10 minutes. When herbs release their flavours, add in dark chicken. Cook for 2 hours in low heat. Add salt and soy sauce when ready to be served.

Chicken Curry Version III

2010-01-28T23:35:00.005+08:00

This time round, I am a bit lazy, not lazy to cook (in that sense) but lazy to think. Sometimes, I just want to RELAX...and cook. Using my imagination, try to think-out-of-the-recipes, I created this recipe. CY said said it quite good, but I don't know you guys dare or dare not try. :p

As usual,

Curry Paste (ground everything together)

2 tablespoons of garam masala

2 teaspoons of tumeric

2 lime of juices

2 lime skins

2 stalks of lemon grass, white part only

5 dried red pepper

a lot of red onions, about 10 medium sized onions

Curry ingredients

a whole chicken (cut into chunks)

5-6 potatoes

1 can of skimmed milk

2 cups of water
salt & sugar to taste

Methods

Fry curry paste with oil, till fragrant
Add chicken, fry and stir for about 3 mins
Add in potatoes, then pour in water till cover all chicken chunks & potatoes.
Bring to boil, pour in half the milk, then simmer in low heat for at least 25 mins (covered).
Uncovered, simmer for another 15 mins or until sauce thickens.
Season with salt & sugar.
Pour the remaining milk, bring to boil again.
Then serve.

Personally, I think the taste is refreshing, but some of you might not like it. We tried it on pasta the other day and it's good! Haha, wanna give it a try? ;)

Oh... Just got an Award!

2010-01-21T00:26:00.004+08:00

Got a surprise gift from Pei Lin.

I didn't know about this award until she 'msg' me through my previous post. Thanks again, Pei Lin! I am honoured. :) In fact, previously, I guess I've got a number of awards but I didn't know what to do with it because I thought that it's just an 'imaginary' award, no big deal, you know? And I don't like to flash it in my blog so I just ignored it.

Now I realise that it's a gift from someone who care about me, bother to read my post and write comment every time, 'talking' to me by reading my nonsense, somehow. I've just realised that it's getting more important than I think it used to be.

Pei Lin has a wonderful blog. She started blogging about a year ago and I think she can really write! So do drop by and say 'hello' to her. :)

Here is what I don't like, being told for doing something but everything has an exception, don't you agree? :) So, for the recipients of the award (including myself), here are what to do next:

Having the picture of the award posted onto your blog
Sharing the 10 things in life that make you happy with your readers
Passing on the award to 10 other bloggers who brighten up your day
Sharing the links to the 10 bloggers', as mentioned above, on your blog
Getting the 10 bloggers informed about the award
Asking the 10 award recipients to relink their blogs to yours.

Here is my list for the next 10 recipients:

Angie's recipes - she is a genius, a hardworking genius.
Noobcook - she can cook!
Pigpigcorner - An adventurous & hardworking pig!
Foodfortots - A must-read for Mums.
Piggy's Cooking journal - Who enjoys cooking.
What's for dessert - Blog for cake lovers!
Little corner of mine - Little corner of a home chef.
Cookappeal- Who knows about food.
Sugar & everything nice - Everything nice, just drop by and you will know what I mean.
Teczcape - Where you'd like to excape to.

Now, the 10-things-in-life-that-make-me-happy question is really a tough but a straight forward one. Tough meaning that if I have to list them down, there are really quite a lot! I am just a simple-minded lady after all, not difficult to please cos I don't really need a 1-carat diamond nor a GUCCI bag to feel happy. To think of it, there are quite a lot of things that make me happy actually: cooking, reading, playing games, teaching, sleeping, blogging... just to name a few, but all with one condition, as long as CY is with me is fine. I can be happy anytime, so that's the straight forward part.

I consider myself lucky cos I have found one that I can spend the rest of my life together with, without much disagreement and argument. Therefore, I am happy. I wish that all of you will find one, one day...or already found one. ;)

Make a Difference for the People of Haiti

2010-01-20T00:17:00.005+08:00

On January 12, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti just outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The devastation – in lives lost, property destroyed, and families displaced – is immense.

Get to know Clinton Bush Haiti Fund from CY, after he read this from the news & news. It is somewhat reliable and it's the first time 42nd, 43rd & 44th US Presidents come together to do something to help Haitians.

According to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, the immediate needs are basics: food, water, shelter, and first-aid supplies. Though many across the world would like to donate supplies, the organization states that it is better to donate money. The funds can then be distributed in the method most appropriate to meet the critical need at the appointed time.

You can click on the link to know more about this fund:

http://clintonbushhaitifund.org/index.php

Hopefully, we can help them to rebuild and to recover.

Creme Fraiche Chicken

2010-01-16T08:12:00.001+08:00

I come across this recipe Creme Fraiche Chicken pasta, which is simple, easy, creamy and tasty and will use up all the creme fraiche that I bought for the Salmon En Croute previously. If I don't use up the creme fraiche now, it would all be wasted and it costs more than the salmon itself!

Now then I know how to make creme fraiche from the same post, there are some reviews at the bottom that tells you how to make creme fraiche yourself. I am not a French, so logically I don't know how to make creme fraiche. I am happy that I know the secret now. ^^

I follow the exact recipe and it turns out good as shown in the picture. It's very filling! This will be a good recipe if you want to impress you boyfriend or girlfriend in a romantic dinner setting.

Link to the recipe

Tsukiji Fish Market

2010-01-14T01:01:00.007+08:00

One of the most interesting places we went during this Japan trip is to visit Tsukiji market 築地市場, Tsukiji shijō, the biggest fish wholesale market in the world. This market is divided into two main sections. The "inner market" (jonai shijo) is the licensed wholesale market, where the auctions and most of the processing of the fish take place, and where licensed wholesale dealers operate small stalls. The "outer market" (jogai shijo) is a mixture of wholesale and retail shops that sell Japanese kitchen tools, restaurant supplies, groceries, and seafood, and many restaurants, especially sushi restaurants.

We didn’t make it for the tuna auction (it normally starts from 5.30am), instead, we had a good night sleep till 7am and made our way there when ready. Our main interest was the sashimi and seafood sold in the “outer” market (it turned out to be a disaster, to me).
Inner market (above) & outer market (below).
Outside the inner market (below).
Having reached there just before 8am, we could see a number of vendors zipping and zooming around on this small buggy.
Wandering around the shops nearby, we were searching for a good place to have our breakfast. This shop seemed to be quite promising and there wasn’t a long queue in front. There were quite a number of locals dining inside other than tourists, which made it even more attractive. Then, we stepped in.

The sitting arrangement was torturously squeezy. Eventually I realized that I couldn't really enjoy my meal in this kind of sitting arrangement.

I ordered tuna and Hokkaido crab with rice (SGD35) while CY ordered tuna, tuna eggs & sea urchin with rice (SGD35). Frankly speaking, as I mentioned before, I didn’t enjoy the meal. Sitting in a row of space-challenged seats right in front of a huge chunk of bloody tuna being sliced away by the shop owner himself on a chopping board was quite a scene. Instead of enjoying my food, I couldn’t help but to stare at the huge slab of tuna, wondering why it was soaked with blood, forcing the owner to wipe it off constantly. I could not even finish my meal!

On a side note, I remembered vividly that I enjoyed sea urchin the most back in our cosy ryokan. A whole box of sea urchin aka uni such as below, could easily cost more than SGD$80 in Singapore. However, I only paid SGD$8 for this. It's heavenly sweet and creamy, topped with fresh out-of-sea flavours and simply melted in my mouth, slipped through my throat before I noticed. I was able to enjoy it partly or mainly because I was sitting comfortably while eating it.
We tried the puffer fish sashimi (fugu, SGD20, above) in our ryokan too, but that’s really nothing to talk about. I just don’t like its jelly-like texture and bland taste.

Back to Tsukiji fish market, we saw these second most poisonous vertebrates in the world (the first being Golden Poison Frog) being sold freely in the market, again.

Other than puffer fishes, there are really quite a spectrum of fishes sold here, simply amazing! 1m long tuna (below).

Fish eggs, probably tuna eggs as well.

The REAL wasabi. The ones that we normally eat in Japanese restaurants are not real, they are just some mixture of cheap horseradish powder with green colouring. THIS is the real stuff.
Alive and kicking sea cucumbers.

Super-red prawns, raw. I believe they are deep sea fellows.

Tuna, tuna, everywhere are tuna. Japanese truly like tuna. Just a week ago, a blue fin tuna weighing 232 kilograms was sold here for 16.28 million yen ($US 175,000).

A tuna fish was dissected within an hour. Every part can be sold to make different delicacies.

That's the summary of my Tsukiji experience (plus some side notes on the sea urchin & puffer fish of course ;) ). After coming back from Japan, I need at least one whole week to regain my appetite eating meat. After one and a half month later, we eat less meat now. The bloody scene was simply overwhelming.

Minestrone Soup

2010-01-09T00:50:00.001+08:00

Just a few days ago, I went to WEST MALL, a shopping mall wanted to order a bowl of handmade noodle from one of the stalls in the food court but realized the workers behind the counter was having a heated argument. That really put me off. I thought the noodle cooked by them with such bad temper would taste BAD no matter what, or would somehow inject ‘negative energy’ into my body eroding my immune system after eating. This is what we called “Qi” 气 in Chinese. Seriously, I am NOT kidding you! I believe that it does not matter how you cook it but as long as you cook it with your heart, it will turn out well.

The same rule applies to any cooking, including this Italian minestrone soup, which following the recipe book came with the Tefal pressure cooker. For those who do not have a pressure cooker, you just need to cook a bit longer than the required time (25mins) will be just fine, some slight adjustments here and there based on your experience in a real kitchen is OKAY for a simple reason: us can’t follow recipe BLINDLY. Just a few clicks from the google you would know how many types of minestrone soup out there that require you to have some imagination, and a GOOD mood, of course. :)

Ingredients:

50g butter
2 small carrot, diced
2 leeks, sliced
2 sticks celery, chopped,
Some French beans, cut into small strips
3 medium tomatoes, skinned and chopped
1-2 tbsp of tomato puree
1 clove garlic, crushed
1.2 litres chicken stock
1 bay leaf
50g pasta (small ones)
Parmesan cheese
Some sugar
Salt and pepper

Method

Melt half the butter in the cooker and gently fry carrot, French beans, celery and leeks for 5 mins.
Add tomatoes, puree and garlic. Pour in stock and 1 bay leaf. Close the cooker.
As soon as the steam starts to release, lower the heat and cook for 25 mins. / for normal cooker, when the water start boiling, lower the heat and cook 35 – 45 mins or until vegetables soften.
Release pressure. Open the cooker. Add pasta and remaining butter.
Bring to boil, stirring occasionally and boil without the lid for another 15mins.
Season with sugar, salt and pepper. Sprinkled with cheese and serve.

According to wikipedia, there is no particular set of minestrone, it usually made out of whatever vegetables that are in season.

There are two schools of thought on when the recipe for minestrone became more formalized. One argues that in the 1600s and 1700s minestrone emerged as a soup using exclusively fresh vegetables and was made for its own sake (meaning it no longer relied on left-overs), while the other school of thought argues that the dish had always been prepared exclusively with fresh vegetables for its own sake since pre-Roman times, but the name minestrone lost its meaning of being made with left-overs.

In my opinion, as long as it tastes good, who cares where does the name come from?

Indian Lamb Curry Version II

2010-01-07T00:40:00.001+08:00

After reading Leena's Lamb Curry, which she adopted from Tyler Florence's recipe, I quickly hopped into my kitchen to try it out. Tyler is one of my favourite celebrity chefs appearing in Food Network. I tried a few recipes showcased by him, ALL turned out good. Jamie Oliver, on the other hand, seemed to be too ambitious and adventurous. Nonetheless, if you ask me if I can come out with a new recipe, I doubt so. Currently, I am just sitting on the giant’s shoulder to make myself look bigger!

On the other note, just recently, I tried to make sweet and sour pork ribs for my family. It turned out good as well, I followed the recipe that I did a few months back and just realized that I added a few new ingredients carelessly. So may it be considered my OWN recipe? Hmm… do drop a note to share your view.

Coming back to this Tyler Florence’s lamb curry recipe, it’s REALLY good. You surely won’t regret trying it out.

Tyler Florence's Lamb Curry from Real Kitchen (with a few changes)

Curry Powder Mix
2 tablespoons of black mustard seed
2 teaspoons of coriander seed
2 teaspoons of freshly ground cardamom
2 teaspoons of cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon of whole black peppercorns
2 tablespoons of garam masala
2 teaspoons of tumeric
3 teaspoons of red pepper flakes
1 cinnamon stick

Curry Ingredients
3 pounds of boneless leg of lamb, fat trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces
salt and pepper to taste
Canola Oil
1 onion, small dice
3 cloves of minced garlic
1 tablespoon of minced ginger
2 fresh or dried bay leaves
3 cups of chicken stock
1 cup of tomato puree
2 potatoes peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
cilantro to garnish

Note: I omitted yogurt and raisins in the original recipe since I forgot to buy but it’s still ass-kickingly good!

Toast all spices in a dry skillet over low heat, shaking constantly so they do not burn. When they are fragrant, remove cinnamon stick and grind the rest in a spice grinder until fine. Set aside.
Salt and pepper the lamb, then using the canola oil and a giant pot, brown it on all sides and set aside on a plate. Do not overcrowd the pot. Do it in several small batches. Cook the onion, garlic, ginger, bay leaves and toasted spices in the same pot until you can smell it, shouldn't take more than a few minutes.
Add lamb back to pan and make sure to pour any juices that leaked onto the plate back into the pot. Add stock, tomato puree, lemon juice. Bring to a simmer (lightly bubbling), cover and lower heat, cook for 45 minutes.
Add potatoes, stir together in pot and cook for 30 more minutes. Make you stir it every once in a while or it will stick to the bottom and burn. Season with salt and pepper, and check to see if meat is tender. Remove from heat, top with cilantro and enjoy!

Apple Strudel

2010-01-05T10:38:00.004+08:00

This apple strudel is stealing my heart away.

It’s simple, elegant, sweet, and warm. People may think that making pastry is difficult but I can tell you, it’s a big NO. You can buy frozen puff pastry from any supermarket and with a few simple steps and there you go, you look like a star! ^^
Ingredients

Strudel Filling Ingredients
The filling of a strudel has two parts; this is the fruit part, and the other part is this sugar mixture.

· 1 1/2 cup sliced fresh apples (you can do this with peaches, pears, etc.)
· some dried fruit, in this case, I use dried cranberries
· 1/2 tsp cinnamon
· 1 tbsp sugar
· 1 tbsp flour

Mix that up.

Sugar mixture:
· 1/4 chopped walnuts
· 2 tbsp brown sugar
· 1 tbsp bread crumbs
· 1 tbsp white sugar

Give that a mix.

Prepare the Premade Strudel Pastry
Just use a sheet of frozen supermarket puff pastry. Thaw it just before use. Put it on a well floured board, with a little more flour over the top. Make a rectangle shape with a rolling pin. Notice the seams are going in the same direction as you are rolling, about 1/8 inch thick - and a little longer than it is wide. Don't worry if the ends fray a little bit, as long as the sides are straight. When we roll it you won't see any of that. It will also have a nice side (smoother) and a not so nice side.

Assemble the Strudel
With the less attractive side facing up, and the smoother side facing down - egg wash that really well. Put the sugar mixture down on just 2/3rd of the dough. Put the fruit on the bottom 1/3, and leave about a 2 inch space at the bottom and sides (see below).
Fold the Strudel
The folding is easy. Start by bringing up the first 2 inches. Roll it over once, that's the second third - pinch in the sides a bit to keep it all together. And then the last fold. The fold is always down of course.
Bake the Strudel
Place that on our baking sheet or parchment paper. Cut a slice in the top about every inch to give it that signature strudel look, and to vent the air and steam. Paint it very well with egg wash. Put that in a 375 degree F. oven for about 40-45 minutes, until it's browned, beautiful and looks like this.

A little syrup drippage usually happens, so don't worry about that, it's all part of the presentation.

Salmon En Croute

2010-01-04T10:03:00.000+08:00

Hi, just asking, how did you spend your new year’s eve?

We went back to Singapore just 2 days before the New Year after spending one whole week in Malaysia. When I arrived, I could sense the festive mood that was invigorating.

We had a simple dinner at home, following the recipe courtesy by Laura Calder, one of my favourite chefs in Food Network. She is funny, pretty and knowledgeable!

Here is the recipe that I tried out just before 2010 and it turned out good.
Salmon En Croute - Courtesy of Laura Calder

Yield: 6

Ingredients
1 salmon filet, about 1-1/2 pounds/750 g
1 Pound asparagus, trimmed
1/4 cup crème fraîche
3 to 4 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
Zest of 1 lemon
1 Pound sheet puff pastry (2 sheets)
Salt and pepper
Glaze
1 egg, lightly beaten

Directions

Salmon
Skin and bone the salmon and set aside. Heat the oven to 450°F\230°C. (Advice to heat at the max heat to compromise for ther heat loss when we open)

Cut the tips off the asparagus, and poach in boiling salted water until tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Drain well, refresh in ice-cold water, then drain again, leaving to sit so that all the water comes off. Purée and stir through the cream, dill, and lemon zest, to blend. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Lay the puff on a damp baking sheet with the long edge facing you. Lay the salmon on the pastry, like a picture in its frame. Season with salt and pepper. Lay the raw stems of asparagus on top of the salmon, like pencils. Spread the purée mixture over top.

Brush the margins with the egg wash. Lay the top pastry over the salmon and press the edges to seal, like a giant ravioli. Trim the edges, leaving a 1-inch/2.5 cm border. Press with the tines of a fork, then, with the dull edge of a knife, scallop the edges. Make two or three slits in the top to allow steam to escape. Brush all over with the egg-wash glaze and bake until puffed up and golden brown, about 20 minutes. (We tried, but it required about 35-40 minutes to be cooked until golden brown)

Remove from the oven and let cool five minutes before slicing to serve. This dish is also good at room temperature.

Japan Part 3 - Okunoin Temple

2010-01-01T23:33:00.001+08:00

From Japan-guide:

Okunoin is the temple where Kobo Daishi (Kukai), the founder of Shingon Buddhism and one of the most revered persons in the religious history of Japan, rests in eternal meditation. It is considered one of the most sacred places in Japan. Okunoin is surrounded by Japan's largest graveyard. People from all over Japan, who wished to be buried close to Kobo Daishi, lie there, including former feudal lords, politicians and other prominent personalities. Their graves line the approaches to Okunoin for several hundred meters through the forest.

Happy New Year 2010!

2010-01-01T00:32:00.002+08:00

Cheers to a New 2010 and another chance for us to get it right. ;)

Japan Part 2 - Mount Koya/ Koyasan

2009-12-18T23:40:00.001+08:00

My sister had a Japanese friend who was an opera singer. When I was 13, she came to my village to stay for a few days with us. Since I could only speak Mandarin, we communicated using our body languages as well as some Chinese characters written on papers that we both could understand. My father later told me that she sang in front of mountain ranges along the way back to the village. She said she had never seen such a greenish stretch of mountains in her homeland and that amazed and compelled her to praise the wonder of our nature.

2 weeks ago, I stood before a range of mountains in Japan, carrying the same feeling.

The Koyasan area has a history dating back to the year 1200. The collection of over 100 temples is Japan's temple capital. A very scenic location makes this one of Japan's great cultural experience that we can't give it a miss.

We stayed in a temple named Shojoshin-in 清静心院 in Koyasan 高野山 for 2 nights. It is a wonderful experience, a quintessence of Japan. We arrived at about 3pm and were welcomed by a monk and explained the temples rules, which we already knew from various websites:

Dinner time ist is 5.30 pm,

Bath time 4.00 - 9.00 pm

Morning Ceremony at 6.00 am

Breakfast time is after the ceremony about 7.15pm.

This place is located just next Okunoin, a cemetery and a temple where Kobo Daishi (Kukai), the founder of Shingon Buddhism and one of the most revered persons in the religious history of Japan, rests in eternal meditation. It is considered one of the most sacred places in Japan.

The temple is really beautiful and the zen garden is immaculate. Tranquil, comfortable, atmospheric, good food, great location. I will show you more in the next post (my flikr account is burst and I am still figuring how to upload more! ><)

The walkway from our room leading to the public bathroom that can be shared among 4 people. Our room with futons.

At night, we were served with vegetarian meal aka shōjin ryori, which is purely vegetarian food that is intended for monks. Kobo Daishi created this special style of food preparation specifically for Koyasan. It is a very traditional style of food, without meat or fish. The rules of preparation are very strict, in accordance with ancient custom. No meat, no garlic and onions were used in the cooking. which consisted of vegetable clear soup, tempura vegetables, beans, tofu, pickles, green tea & fruit with rice.

I truly enjoy the rice here. May be some of the dishes were too sweet and salty to my liking but with rice, it's just right. It's okay to eat the rice ALONE. The way they cook it, is simply PERFECT!

Beside the rice, Koyasan tofu is also our favourite. It's my first time eating such a silky, creamy, sweet tofu that one for each person simply too little.

Shojoshin-in's entrance.

At the back of Shojoshin-in.

Our walk towards Danjo Garan (壇上伽藍).

Japan Part I - Kyoto

2009-12-16T11:00:00.003+08:00

We have just come back from Japan about 2 weeks ago, without much delay, dive into our work the follwing day. Due to limited time, I only manage to extract some of the photos from the first few days in Japan, basically in Kyoto, to show to our readers here.

Japanese are lovely.

They are polite and friendly, also eco-friendly. Most mothers ferry their kids to-and-fro schools or places by bikes.

Alternatively, they are being carried around more intimately, not in a baby pram.

They wear their traditional costumes with pride.

You can see them praying and making wishes in temples, just like us (Chinese).

Shrines can be seen everywhere. Holy or sacred places, dedicated to a specific deity, hero, martyr, saint of awe and respect.

They have big castles too. This castle is Nijo Castle. The scenes set up inside are very appealing but I can't take any photos, afraid of discolouring old paintings, only a few photos on the outside.

Not far away, strolling through of the beautiful Japanese Parks - Maruyama Park, can go there for an experience different from that of a tropical city.

Beautiful landscape across the park. Clean and serene, whispering the beauty of Japanese culture.

A few steps leading to heaven?

Leaves are on fire! Full of energy and well-prepared for the coming winter.

Before the sunset, the moon steals the limelight.

A Japanese traveller before the sunset.

A maple leave reminds me of our stories in Kyoto, Japan.