home-cooked-ecstasy

Fried Egg with Mint Leaves

2011-10-28T16:38:00.000+08:00

One Saturday we had Assam Curry Salmon Fish Head for dinner, it was so satisfying. Nowadays Jusco Queensbay does not sell salmon fish head, according to them the salmon fish arrive without a head. So, my only source of salmon fish head is from the wet market. Most of the time, they only have one salmon fish, which mean one salmon fish head every Saturday.

I did not finish all the mint leaves. So, the next day I decided to try some a dish with it. I have heard of fried egg with mint leaves and mint leaves egg soup. So I asked which one he prefer and he picked fried egg. After I tried it, I found that onion is a must. The sweetness of the onion matched with the mint flavour. I shall try the mint soup next time. :)

Ingredients
handful of mint leaves
1/2 - 1 onion
2-4 eggs
light soy sauce
pepper
cooking oil

Basically you just need the three main ingredients, mint leaves, onion and egg, but the quantity does not really matter.

Method
1. Fry the onion in cooking oil.
2. Then pour in the eggs.
3. Season with light soy sauce and pepper.
4. Add in mint leaves.
5. Turn the egg and fry for a while.
6. Ready to be served.

Seafood Porridge

2011-10-27T11:05:00.003+08:00

I woke up very late on Deepavali, about 10.30am. That's a record for me! But then recently I found out that I need more sleeping hours. :p
Lazy to go out for lunch, so I decided to make use of whatever was available in the freezer. I found 2 pomfrets and 2 flower crabs. My family gave me these seafood, normally I won't freeze crab. But glad that the crab still looked fresh.

I boiled 1 cup of rice with 5 rice bowls of water and 1 teaspoon of sea salt. Once it was boiled, I turned it to medium heat and slow cooked for at least an hour. Meanwhile, I cleaned the seafood and cut them into smaller pieces. I did not have any spring onion, chinese coriander or even ginger with me. So I skipped everything and just prepared some crispy garlic. By the way, remember to stir the porridge once in a while. When the porridge was ready, I placed in the seafood(crab first then fish) and covered the lid for 2 minutes. Then, it was served in a casserole, sprinkled with some crispy garlic and pepper.

The taste was surprisingly good and the seafood was still fresh. The portion was for 3-4 person(filled two casseroles), but two of us managed to finish it. Try this recipe! The two important tips are:

1. You need to slow cook the porridge for at least an hour to get the right texture. Don't speed up this process by using higher heat.

2. Use fresh seafood, promfets, crab, prawn.

Walnut Paste 核桃糊

2011-10-17T17:59:00.000+08:00

Recently I want to eat more walnuts. Besides the normal oat breakfast that I usually recommend(read here), I make walnut paste, almost every week. It is a very famous Cantonese dessert. Here is my simplified recipe.

Walnut paste for two
1. Soak 1 tbsp of white rice in water for 2 hours.
2. Toast about 30 whole walnut in Oven at 120degree for half an hour.
3. Put the walnut and white rice together with the water into blender, add in another 350ml water. Blend it!
4. Transfer it to a small pot and turn on medium heat.
5. When it starts to boil, sweeten with 2-3tsp of sugar. Add a bit of water if needed.
6. Ready to be serve.

Braised Pork Ribs in Hong Shao Sauce

2011-10-09T20:19:00.000+08:00

I could not imagine my last post was dated last year Nov. I better make a post now before it hit one year. :p

Recently I tried to eat more healthy food, therefore most of my home cooked meal are steamed fish, blanched vegetables and chicken/pork rib soup. It was until last Saturday when I finally get bored of steamed fish and decided to have something different for dinner. I braised 1kg of pork rib and finished it in two meals. Like it! A good change from the "tasteless" healthy food. ;)

Stir fry minced garlic, minced shallot and minced ginger in cooking oil until fragrant. Then, add in star anise and cinnamon stick. This was followed by adding in pork rib, oyster sauce, light soy sauce, salt, sugar, pepper and enough water to cover the pork rib. Once the sauce is boiling, turn to medium heat and cover the wok. Simmer for an hour but open and check every 15 minutes to make sure that it did not dry up. Add more water if needed. Ready to be served after an hour when the pork rib is soften.

Thai Style Steamed Fish

2010-11-29T14:46:00.000+08:00

something Thai

This is a very simple but yet very appetizing dish. I cooked one fish with this recipe for lunch and I still have another one fish in the freezer. Most probably will cook the fish with this recipe again because the taste was so good. If you like Thai food, you can not resist this dish. I am salivating now.....

Steam one fish for ~10minutes(depending on the size of the fish). Meanwhile, melt 2tbsp sugar in 2tbsp fish sauce, 2tbsp asam juice and 2tbsp lime juice and bring it to boil. Remove from heat and mix in 2 stalks lemongrass, 8 shallots, 1 red chili , 2-3 bird chillies, small bunch of Chinese coriander. All of the ingredients have to be finely chopped. When the fish is ready, remove excessive water and serve it with this marvellous thai sauce. Garnish with Chinese coriander leaves.

Pork Rib and Lotus Root Soup

2010-11-19T19:45:00.002+08:00

This version of Pork Rib and Lotus Root Soup is from Krystal Coffee Shop, Pulau Tikus, Penang. Whenever I visit this shop, I will always order a bowl of Pork Rib and Lotus Root Soup. Their soup has more different ingredients compare to other shops, maybe this is the reason why their soup is so clear and yet so flavourful. I cooked this soup one rainy night, just the right timing.

The claypot in the above picture is my new toy, La Gourment Truly Oriental Claypot. :)
For the ingredients: 600g blanched pork ribs, a bowl of bamboo roots, red dates, groundnuts, red bean, dried tangerine peel(陈皮), dried cuttle fish and 2.5 litres of water. Slow cook all the ingredients for 4 hours.

Salted Fish & Pork Claypot 咸鱼花腩煲

2010-11-04T13:17:00.000+08:00

Can you recognize this dish? It is a popular dish in central Peninsula Malaysia. We used to order this dish when we were in Kuala Lumpur, but now that we have moved to Penang, we could hardly see this dish in Chinese restaurants here. I adopted a few recipes and modified to my own version, but definitely it was a proven working recipe. ;) This dish goes well with white rice, so remember to cook more rice. The only constructive comment I received was the lack of burnt flavour from claypot. So we will get a claypot soon! :)

For the salted fish:

Cut the salted fish into small cubes. The quantity should be double from the above picture. Fry until golden. Set aside.

For the meat:

Cut 300g 5-layer pork into thin stripes. (It is easier to cut into thin stripes when the meat is slightly frozen. For this, place the pork into freezer for 20 minutes.) Marinate with 1/2tsp sugar, 1/4tsp salt and 1tsp light soy sauce for more than 1/2 hour. Add in 1tsp corn flour and mix well. Blanch with hot oil. Set aside.

For the sauce:

Use medium heat for the whole process. Stir fry 6 ginger slices(It was not captured in the pictures), 1 onions and 8 dried chillies with some cooking oil left from frying the salted fish. Then add in meat, 1tbsp oyster sauce, 1tbsp shaoxing wine, 1tsp sugar, 1/2tsp sesame oil and 1/4tsp pepper and enough water to cover the meat. Add in enough black soy sauce for colouring. Simmer with lid on for 40minutes. Add in half of the salted fish. If it is too dry, add a bit of water and simmer with lid on for another 15minutes. By now the gravy should have thickened(if not turn to maximum heat), add in 2 stalks of green onion and remaining of the salted fish. Mix well and serve immediately.

Tomorrow is Public Holiday and we will have 3 days long weekend! Happy weekend everyone!

Taiwan Sytle Silver Needle Noodle

2010-11-03T09:09:00.005+08:00

，

It is a recipe from Taiwan TV program(料理美食王). A very simple stir fried noodles, but different ingredients and seasonings from our usual Malaysia version. I personally feel that it is healthier with the use of luffa. It was unexpectedly good even though the recipe only require salt and pepper for seasoning. Hard to believe huh? Let's look at the ingredients.

Ingredients(serving for two):

Silver needle noodle 300g

Luffa cut into stripes

Dried shrimp(soaked)

Mushroom(soaked and cut into stripes)

pork stripes(I used 5 layer pork)

shallot

celery(cut into stripes)

Oopss! What was missing in the plate? I forgot to take a picture before I dumped the shallots to the wok.

frying shallots

Method:

1. Fry shallots over medium heat until crispy. Remove aside.

2. Leave 2 tbsp oil in the wok. Stay with medium heat.

3. Add in with sequence, mushroom, dried shrimp and pork stripes.

4. Stir fry for a while before add in luffa and silver needle noodle.

5. Add in a small bowl of water, 1/2tsp salt and dash of pepper(add more if you like pepper).

6. Turn to medium low heat and cover you wok with a lid for 1-2 minutes.

7. Open the lid. Now you should expect not much water left, and the silver needle noodle is slightly covered with thick and transparent gravy.

8. Add in fried shallot and celery. Mix well and serve immediately.

noodle in wok

Anti Aging Black Sesame Paste

2010-11-02T16:36:00.000+08:00

I am not sure how many have noticed that I am using my mobile phone to capture dishes since Herbal Salty Chicken. If not because of the poor photo quality, I would have fallen in love with its light weight. I could cook with one hand and capture with another hand. By the way, if you are interested to know, my camera was on a Taiwan vacation trip. :)

It is raining season in Malaysia now. I always fancy a bowl of Cantonese sweet soup(or what we called tong sui) in a rainy day. Most of the tong sui stalls in Malaysia only sell the bean soup, but not the paste type which is very time-consuming. I miss the rich, smooth and fragrant paste in Hong Kong so much until I decided to make a bowl of black sesame paste for myself. I received a questioning look when I served this bowl of black sesame paste, but luckily the feedback was positive. ;)

Ingredients（Serving for 2-4):

Black sesame 200g(washed, drained)

White Rice 50g(washed and soaked for 2 hours)

Brown sugar in pieces ~80g

Method:

1. Stir fry black sesame in a empty wok over medium heat until fragrant.

2. Blend black sesame with 500ml water until smooth.

3. Filter black sesame water with a fine sieve.

4. Blend white rice with 400ml water until smooth.

5. Filter white rice water with a fine sieve.

6. Mix black sesame paste and white rice water into a pot.

7. Cook with medium heat, keep stirring. Keep stirring in the same direction.

8. When it starts to smoke, add in brown sugar.

9. Add in more water if needed. Adjust the sweetness with brown sugar.

10. Make sure that the paste is not too watery or too thick.

11. Turn off the heat when it starts to bubble. Serve immediately.

yum yum!

Assam Curry Salmon Fish Head

2010-11-02T10:23:00.000+08:00

Assam Curry Salmon Fish Head

It never appear in my mind that salmon fish can be used in local dishes, for example the very appetizing and satisfying assam curry dish. It was until my friend, Lam told me about his mum signature assam curry salmon fish head and brought over a bowl to show off during the recent potluck session. ;)

When we saw this big salmon fish head in wet market, we approached the seller and found out that it was pretty expensive, RM22. The seller explained to us that it is air-flown fresh salmon from Norway, not the frozen type. Queensbay jusco offers a smaller one(the fish head in the above picture minus the bottom part) at RM10. Since this fish head had a lot of meat, which was equivalent to jusco one fish head+another piece of salmon steak(~~that was just excuse, it was very obvious that he wanted to buy it~~), so we paid for it. After we bought a pack of assam curry sauce and some other ingredients, we rushed home for a salmon meal. I cooked more rice for dinner and we managed to finish all the rice. :)

For the assam curry sauce, you can also use the ready pack available on supermarket shelf. Most of the ready pack can do a good job, but it is important to add extra fresh ingredients to bring out the flavour.

Ingredients:

Assam curry sauce 1 pack

Onion x1(cut into quarters)

torch ginger flower x1(use only petals)

Tomato x1(cut into quarters)

700g Samon Fish head

Lady finger x(or more)

Mint leaves 1 small bowl

Seasonings:

Salt 1 tsp

Sugar 2tbsp

Method:

1. Stir fry the assam curry sauce until fragrant.

2. Add in onion, torch ginger flower and tomato and stir fry.

3. Add two rice bowls of water.

4. Season with salt and sugar and bring to boil.

5. Put in salmon fish head and lady finger.

6. Cook over medium heat for 8-10 minutes.

7. Add more salt and sugar if you wish.

8. Serve in casserole and garnish with mint leaves.

Herbal Salty Chicken

2010-11-01T11:56:00.001+08:00

I need to come out with more free range chicken recipes as I always bring back some chicken from home. Free range chicken has very firm meat, so not all chicken recipe is suitable. Besides the usual Ginger Chicken Misua Soup and Ginger Chicken, I have decided to cook Herbal Salty Chicken last Saturday. When I tried to make salty chicken last round, I bought 3kg of coarse salt. This time, I opted for a simplify recipe.

Simply rub the chicken with sea salt. I used 2tsp for half chicken. Then steam the chicken with some red dates(红枣), Codonopsis(党参) and Lycium(枸杞) for 45 minutes.

And it is ready to serve. Note the burnt marks on the chicken skin. They are similar to those on Ipoh Salty Chicken. :)

All You Need to Know about Cooking Oils

2010-10-22T15:03:00.000+08:00

Are you sure you are using the correct cooking oils or fats for different purposes? And are you sure you have not turned the nutritious oil into toxic oil during the cooking process? If you are not sure, please read on.

First of all, do our bodies need fat?

Yes, our bodies need fat, the right fats in right amount.

What are the fats in cooking oil?

All cooking oils have a combination of unsaturated fats(which are monounsaturated fat & polyunsaturated fat) and saturated fat. Some cooking oils have trans-fat.

Most of us know that monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat are good fats that decreases overall cholesterol level especially bad cholesterol level. No doubt trans-fat is the bad fat that increases bad cholesterol level while decreases good cholesterol level. But how about saturated fat? Nutritionists, doctors and media all have told us that saturated fat is bad fat and it causes heart disease. But there are studies/articles(read here and here) showing that saturated fat is essential at small amount. It is not confusing at all. We just have to say NO to trans-fat and limit our fat intake per day.

What is Smoke Point?

Smoke point refers to the temperature where cooking oil starts to break down to glycerol and free fatty acids, and later acrolein. Different cooking oils have different smoke point. But whenever the cooking oil reaches its smoke point, it goes from good to bad. A simple rule of thumb is never overheat oil until it starts to smoke.

I notice that most of the cooking oil labels do not specify their smoke point. The table below can be used as a reference. It presents smoke point for different cooking oils(source from wikipedia). I purposely have it sorted from lower smoke point to higher smoke point.

What are the factors that will decrease the smoke point of a cooking oil?

1. purity of the oil(Blended oils have different smoke points)

2. presence of salt(Salt will reduce the smoke point)

3. presence of foreign properties(For example batter)

4. number of times the oil is used(Smoke point drops when oil is reused)

5. length of time oil is heated(Smoke point drops with time)

6. Storage of oil(Smoke point drops when it is exposed to light and heat?)

Unrefined oils vs Refined oils?

Extracted oils which do not go through any further process are called unrefined oils. These oils are rich, outburst and true about their flavors. It tends to have greater nutritional qualities, but has a lower smoke point compare to refined oil. Refined oils are extracted oils followed by degumming, bleaching, deodorization at high temperature to obtain a clear and bland oil. Hygrogenated vegetable oils are considered refined oils too. Refined oils are more stable in high temperature, however it is chemically processed and less nutritive.

Expeller Pressing vs Cold Pressing?

Expeller pressing is a mechanical process to extract oil. There is no external heat applied to the process. However, the process itself will generate heat, up to or above 120 degrees F(depends on the hardness of the raw material). Cold pressing is done in a heat-controlled environment to keep the temperature below 120 degrees F(50 degrees C).

What is High Oleic?

High Oleic oils, as its name suggests, is the oils which have bred with higher amount of oleic acid for stability. Since high consumption of oleic acid(omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids) is believed to increase the risk of breast cancer, it is better to avoid it.

What is vegetable shortening?

Shortening is fat that solid at room temperature. Margarine, substitution of butter is one of the vegetable shortenings. The word "vegetable" made people believe that it is healthier. However, vegetable oils go through hygrogenation process before it can solidify. The chemical process is complicated, but we just have to know that vegetable shortening contains trans-fat, which raises the level of bad cholesterol(LDL) and decreases the level of good cholesterol(HDL).

How do we read olive oil grades?

Extra Virgin: 100% unadulterated olive oil contains no more than 0.8% acidity, highest quality of olive oil

Virgin: 100% unadulterated olive oil contains no more than 2% acidity

Refined: Refined olive oil blend with very little virgin olive oil, "Pure", "Light" and "Extra Light" are in this category.

Pomace: produced from ground flesh and pits left after pressing, and undergo some refining process.

Cooking Method(temperature) vs Cooking Oil?

Basically, we could categorize our cooking methods according to the required temperature to 4 groups. Cold Preparation does not involve heat, therefore could use any oils. Low Heat cooking normally involve boiling liquid, for example blanching and stewing. Baking and sauteing are considered Medium Heat while browning and frying(including deep frying, stir frying, pan frying and shallow frying) are considered High Heat. Chinese cooking which has a lot of "wok hei" falls into high heat category. The cooking oils in the table below are unrefined oils as I do not encourage the use of refined oils. Besides that, I also put some buffer for the smoke point as the smoke point will drop due to several factors mentioned above. Do note that lower temperature groups can use the cooking oils in higher temperature groups but not the other way.

Is Ghee suitable for high temperature cooking?

Ghee is a clarified butter which is widely used in Indian cooking. It is popular with its toasted flavour and high smoke point. But note that ghee has very high saturated fat content Natural ghee does not contain trans-fat, but restaurants may substitute with the cheaper version of "vegetarian ghee", Vanaspati/Dalda(hydrogenated vegetable oil) which contain trans-fat. Therefore, use ghee moderately and avoid "vegetarian ghee".

How many type of oils should we have in a kitchen?

I would say at least 2 types, or even better 3 types of oils. Choose oils from different category depending on your cooking habits. It is also best to buy different oils each time as they all have different nutritional content. For me, I do a lot of Chinese cookings(sometimes deep frying snacks), therefore I normally have one bottle for high temperature cooking and another bottle(mostly extra virgin olive oil) for cold or low temperature cooking.

What to note when we shop for oil?

1. If you see "refined" and "hydrogenated" at the label, put them back to the shelf.

2. Look for trans-fat at the nutrition table. Get the one with 0g trans-fat. But this is not true all the time, some manufacturers still claim their cooking oil with 0g trans-fat while their cooking oil actually has 0.5g trans-fat.

2. Watch out for vegetable cooking oils like canola, sunflower, safflower, soybean, corn oil etc. These oils, when they are unrefined, have very low smoke points. So even though some is not labeled as "refined", but the fact is most of them are "refined" to withstand higher cooking temperature.

3. Do not use vegetable shortenings(margarine). They contain trans-fat.

4. Keep a bottle of high smoke point oil for high temperature cooking. Never heat oils above their smoke points.

So it is time to review your cooking oils and shop for new oil if needed.

Have a good weekend and let me know if you like this post. If most of you find this helpful, I am going to do another post on the cooking oils available in the market. And do let me know if you find any incorrect facts in this post, I will verify and fix it.

Sweet & Sour Pork

2010-10-12T17:24:00.003+08:00

I could still vividly remember that my mother used to cook 1kg of pork(sweet & sour pork) for dinner and we(M&D, two brothers and I) would just clean the plate. If you cook, you would definitely know that it was a big big plate of sweet & sour pork. Anyway, we were at our teenage that time. :)

Back to sweet & sour pork, it is one of the most popular(~~or widely accepted~~) Chinese dish in Western. It is a dish easy to cook, hard to fail. :) And so, I cooked this for the recent potluck dinner at my place. Guess what, it turned out to be the third delicious dish. But there were only 3 main dishes that night. Sob. Sob. Never mind, I will try harder next time.

The ingredients:

5 layer pork(lean, fat, lean, fat, skin) view picture

Onion

tomato**

Capsicum**

Pineapple**

The seasonings:

Salt

Sugar

Pepper

Egg(added right before cooking)

Corn Flour(use for coating)

The Gravy ingredients:

Plum sauce

Tomato sauce

Chili sauce

Sugar

Water

Corn flour & water (for thickening)

** Optional. Skipping one or two of this item will not degrade the dish.

Cooking Steps:

1. Cut the pork into small cubes.

2. Use the back of the knife to soften the meat.

3. Marinate the pork with the seasonings. Set aside for more than an hour.

4. Mix the marinated pork with one beaten egg.

5. Coat with flour and fry until golden in color. Remove aside.

6. Remove excessive oil from the wok, leave about 2 tablespoon of oil.

7. Stir fry remaining ingredients until fragrant.

8. Add in the gravy ingredients.

9. Bring to boil.

10. Add in the fried pork.

11. Thicken with corn flour and water.

12. Serve immediately

Bean Sprouts with Salted Fish

2010-10-12T16:35:00.001+08:00

I am from Ipoh, the town of bean sprouts. ;) In Ipoh hawker stalls, it is very common that the owner will throw in a handful of fresh, crunchy and fat(yes, fat! Ipoh bean sprouts are fat!) bean sprouts whenever it is possible. But, I seldom cook this dish as I prefer green leafy vegetables. But after I got some very nice salted fish from Kuala Kurau, Perak, this dish appeared in my mind.

Here is my recipe:

Fry the salted fish stripes until golden and crispy. Remove aside. With the remaining frying oil, stir fry some shredded ginger until fragrant. Now switch to maximum heat. Add in 300g bean sprouts, 2-3 stalks spring onions(cut into reasonable length), little bit of salt(the salted fish is salty enough, the salt is just to make sure that the bean sprouts alone do not taste too bland), enough pepper to your liking. Stir fry for a while(less than a minute), serve immediately with salted fish on top.

Seafood spaghetti in Tomato Sauce

2010-09-27T10:59:00.004+08:00

I have not cooked spaghetti for long, until I read some tips on cooking spaghetti recently. Needless to say, I was tempted to try it.

I think everyone knows how to cook spaghetti, so I will only share some tips that I have picked up along the years, some of it which I have neglected but later re-discovered the importance of them.

1. Avoid cooking too much of spaghetti

Do not laugh. It is a very common problem and I have heard it many times. "I always end up cooking too much spaghetti." A nice dish will turn to a bad one when someone has to stuff himself with the extra plate. A pack of 500g spaghetti is meant for 5 person serving. But if you are a small eater, or you like more ingredients than noodle(just like me), remember to reduce the amount further.

2. Add good amount of salt to the boiling water for cooking spaghetti

It is very important because the spaghetti will absorb some of the salt and have a taste of ocean. If not the result will be very bland spaghetti. Worst is this can not be corrected later by adding salt to the pasta sauce.

3. Use big cookware and sufficient water for cooking spaghetti

The boiling water need to fully cover the spaghetti. This is to make sure that all the spaghetti are evenly cooked. Remember to stir the spaghetti at the beginning and occasionally during the cooking.

4. Toss the drained pasta with olive oil

I thought that this is only to prevent sticky spaghetti.But since I am going to serve the spaghetti right away, there is no need to do so. This step was skipped until a Taiwan chef explained that the second reason is to let the spaghetti absorb the aroma of the olive oil. However, this has to be done while the pasta is still hot.

5. Ingredients that are going to make perfect red sauce or tomato sauce spaghetti

Since I am blogging about red sauce spaghetti, I will keep other spaghetti recipe for next time. :)

I should have tried to make my own tomato sauce. But anyway, I am still using the ready type from the shelf since it is more convenient. Even with the ready sauce, I will add extra ingredients to make it more tasty.

Garlic. The strong, sharp and spicy garlic taste is going to balance the sweet and sour tomato sauce.

Onion. It is going to give some natural sweetness to the sauce.

Mixed herbs. A must for tomato sauce spaghetti.

Black pepper. Not white pepper. Add some coarsely grinded black pepper during cooking and add again when serving.

Salt and Sugar. For seasoning.

Tuna in Can. A few spoons of it for thicker sauce. Normally I will dilute the tomato sauce(ready type) with 50-100ml water and later thicken with mashed tuna.

Seafood. Use all your favourite seafood, prawn, squid, mussel, scallop....

Cheese or Cheese Powder. I personally prefer melting some cheese in my spaghetti sauce.

5. Toss the spaghetti with the sauce

Transfer the spaghetti to the sauce in your pan and toss it. Make sure that spaghetti is well coated with the sauce and serve it immediately. My old practice was to add the sauce to the spaghetti in serving plate. I was worried that all the sauce will be absorbed by the spaghetti and leave no more sauce if I were to toss it. I also thought that it was nicer to serve this way. But the Italians do it for a reason. It is easier to toss it in the hot pan then to mix it in the plate later.

The happiest thing in cooking is to have someone slurping the noodles and not forgetting to give nice comments in between the slurps. I had it last Saturday. Yipee!

**Share with me your tips on cooking spaghetti if you have any.**

Shallow Fried Fish

2010-09-24T10:37:00.003+08:00

**This is a shallow-fried fish**

I know that many do not like the thought of frying, especially deep frying in their kitchen. They will straight away scrape off the idea once they think of the oily mess. But this dish requires shallow frying, which means less oil needed, less fat produced and of course less oily mess. So, let's move on. :)

First, you would need to clean the fish. Pat dry with kitchen towel. You would also need a small bowl of finely shredded ginger. The ginger will shrink later so make sure you have more ginger.

Ok, next heat the non steak pan with some oil, just enough to fry the ginger. Fry the ginger in medium low fire until golden, but not burnt. Remove the ginger. Use the existing oil to fry the fish, both sides. This time turn the fire to medium high. Since we are not doing deep fry, the fish skin are not crispy. Hold the fish with one side of the skin facing down for 15 seconds. Turn upside down for another 15 seconds. Then you could have the result of deep frying. :)

Place the fish and ginger as the above picture. Mix 2 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tbsp oil(use the remaining oil). Drizzle the mixture to the fish. And it is ready to be served.

Western Breakfast

2010-09-15T15:15:00.006+08:00

What is your favorite Sunday breakfast or brunch? I believe many would fancy a western breakfast, some even wish for a full England breakfast which include fruit juice, cereal, a plate of fry-up, toast and a cup of coffee or tea.

Full England breakfast is too heavy to me. Normally I prefer to cook a plate of all my favorites for a non-working day's breakfast. Yes, the best thing of preparing your own breakfast is you could get rid of what you dislike and cook just everything you like. :)

Starting a lovely morning with fried egg with perfectly done egg yolk(sprinkle some pepper on top), mashed potatoes(russet potatoes mixed with milk, salt and pepper), fresh lettuce, toast with butter, back bacon and jumbo sausage. Get the good quality bacon and sausage. You won't regret. It is going to make the whole plate different.

My plate, with a cup of espresso

No bake cheese cake

2010-09-14T17:20:00.006+08:00

4 days Raya holiday was over! I had a contented holiday, shared a good friend's happiness at her wedding, hosted Alor Setar's VIPs for a day trip(besides all the good food, we went to Gua Lang. It was my first time there too, did not know that Ipoh has such a beautiful place), went hiking with my family(a great exercise for my mum, she was complaining muscle pain the next day), did some shopping at Jusco(where my mum bought a box of mooncakes for my auntie and got herself a nice blouse), visited my uncle and, of course spent more time with my family.

My mum cooked all the delicious meals. In return, I made her cheese cake. But she does not really like cheese, so we could have more pieces. ;) I hired my brother as the event photographer, and had fun pulling him away from TV/computer/newspaper each time I needed him. :)

I used Philadelphia cream cheese which had recipes on the package. It was just 3 simple steps to make a cheese cake, mix, beat and pour. To make the base, I mixed the melted butter with the biscuit crumb and press into a lined springform pan. Then, I used a electric mixer to beat all the ingredients. The last thing I did was just to pour the mixture on top of the biscuit base and place it into refrigerator.

I made two layers just because I was using Oreo as the base. I did not want my whole cake to look dark in color. By the way, the chocolate layer was made by mixing 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to the mixture.

My Oreo cheese cake

Everyone enjoyed the cake(except my mum, she only had one small slice) and I made a second cake the next day. It was a lemon cheese cake. But the photos are with the event photographer, so no photos to show.

Sweet & Sour Crab

2010-07-11T12:57:00.003+08:00

Finally, it is over which mean I have more time to spare in kitchen. :)

But too bad that I have to post some very bad quality photos because I have left my camera in office again. :( But please believe me, it actually tasted better than what is in the photo. ;)

Coat the crab with thin layer of corn flour and fry it.
I did not do deep fry because I did not want the crab roe to be overcooked. So I only fried one side of the crab.

The sweet & sour sauce.
Stir fry garlic, ginger, spring onion and bird's eye chili until fragrant.
Add in chili sauce, tomota sauce, plum sauce, oyster sauce, light soy sauce, sugar and water.
Place in the crab, mix well and thicken with egg.

Serve with fried and steamed mantou(Chinese bun).

A wonderful dinner with Sweet & Sour Crab, served with mantou.

Chinese Medicine Chicken Soup

2010-05-28T12:23:00.003+08:00

When I was clearing my refrigerator(it is always full), I saw few packets of Chinese medicine. These packets have different Chinese medicine in the correct ratio for Chinese soup. It is very convenient for lazy people like me. I could not remember when did I buy it. Luckily Chinese medicine can last for years. It just happened that I had Silkie(or people just call it black chicken) in the freezer. So, I just dumped everything in with 3 rice bowls of water and let it cooked for 11/2 hours.

ready packet.

the ingredients....

Haft silkie or black chicken

served with meesua

the soup was so sweet and nourishing

home made black soy drink

Sushi Episode I

2010-03-24T20:07:00.004+08:00

The kids requested for sushi since Chinese New Year. I was so forgetful that every time I did not bring back the stuffs. It was dragged until I gathered all the ingredients, Japanese rice, Vinegar, Japanese soy sauce, wasabi, bamboo mat, seaweed, Japanese cucumber, tuna and unagi. Unagi was a standard request from an over-aged kid. ;) This time, I made only 3 different type of sushi, unagi nigiri, cucumber maki and tuna gunkan. But it was good enough to make the kids happy and satisfy.

I titled it "Sushi Episode I" because we are going to have Sushi again, hopefully soon. Next time, I want my favourite salmon nigiri and tobiko gunkan.

Fried Rice in Egg Wrap(Nasi Pattaya)

2010-03-23T18:11:00.005+08:00

Hello everybody, I am back and found this 'Edit Posts' in my blog. It was actually quite sometimes ago. :)

After having nasi pattaya at Mamak for years, then one day, I decided to try out the recipe in my own kitchen. The ingredients were simple. Prawn. Chinese Sausage. Egg. Rice. The highlight of this dish was the Huang Shang Huang(皇上皇) chinese sausage that I bought from Guang Zhou.

This dish gave a twist to the normal fried rice. We had fun wrapping the rice and finishing it. A simple change can make a big difference. I hope you are inspired if you are running out of idea for tonight's dinner.

the process

My plate

Carrot Walnut Cake Recipe

2009-12-29T15:25:00.005+08:00

Please do not ask why I did not update this blog for so long, ok? Lazy to explain how busy I am again. ;)

Here is the long due recipe requested by one of my reader. My family came to penang and we celebrated Christmas together. So, I took the opportunity to learn this carrot walnut cake from my mum.

Flour Mixture:
2 cups self raising flour
1tsp soda bicarbonate
pinch of salt
1tsp cinnamon powder

Other ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup oil
3 eggs
2 cups grated carrot
3/4 cup toasted and chopped walnut

1. Preheat the oven at 180 degree c.
2. Beat sugar and oil till dissolve.
3. Add in egg one at a time and continue beating.
4. Add in flour mixture and mix well.
5. Add in grated carrot and walnut.
6. Grease the cake tray and pour the mixture into the tray.
7. Bake at 180 degree c for 35-45 minutes.

Note that you do not need a mixer for this recipe.

Dinner gathering with university friends

2009-10-19T15:38:00.006+08:00

Yes, I know. I know I had abandoned this blog for a very long period. September and October are busy months for me. I went to Vietnam in September and 2 days later, I will be going to China. I spent a lot of time doing research for my trips. Furthermore, new project had started so everyday I go back from office very late. Honestly, I do less cooking. Even if I cook, I cook easy and repeated dishes. No more new recipes. I hope that after October, everything will be back to normal and I can cook daily.

About a week ago, my university friends came to my place for dinner gathering. I had to prepare dinner for 9 person. It was a challenging task to me. Tell you, I will get panic when everyone has arrived and I still have many dishes to cook. :) So, I decided to cook few dishes that could be prepared earlier. There were Pork Belly with Yam(芋头扣肉）, Pig Tribe Pepper Soup(胡椒猪肚汤） and Chinese Spinach in Superior Stock（上汤芫菜）. Then at night, I only had to cook Clam in Kam Heong Sauce(甘香拉拉） and Crispy Eggplant(脆炸茄子）.

Thanks god, there was no big mistake. If not, we had to order Pizza. Everyone gave nice comments to my dishes. But deep in my heart, I know I still need more practices, especially preparing food for bigger group. Anyway, it was fun to cook and great to meet up with friends.

A note of thanks to:
Lam, who took the above photos as I was busy with food.
Lee Peng and Anne, who cleaned the mess after the dinner.
Other attendants, a perfect gathering with all of you.

Looking forward to the next gathering.

Noodles with Mushroom Sesame Toon Sauce

2009-09-10T13:52:00.003+08:00

Finally, I tried out the organic food bought from Pulau Tikus. The organic shop provided samples for their mushroom sesame toon sauce. I found that it was not bad. So I bought the sauce together with some noodles. Again, this was very simple. I just mixed the cooked and drained noodles with 1-2tbsp of the mushroom sesame toon sauce. I like the noodles as it would not become soggy easily. Left picture is the thin noodles and right picture is the thick noodles. So, replace your instant noodles with this? Deal?

Porridge with meat balls

2009-09-09T20:11:00.003+08:00

I like this type of porridge, example would be Macau Sam Un or Canton-i Queensbay. So I made use of my secret paste, and cooked a pot of porridge with it. It was so simple, just need to scoop the paste into the boiling plain porridge. I added some sesame oil, soy sauce and pepper when served. I think I will cook this again very soon.

Soya Bean Milk

2009-09-08T08:14:00.004+08:00

Last Sunday, my plan to make chinese crullers(油条） and soya bean for tea break was not successful. I only have time for a glass of hot soya bean milk. Luckily my mum brought me a box of cream puffs. So instead of chinese crullers, I have cream puffs. ;)

I prefer the soya bean milk to have stronger bean taste and less sweet and this is my ratio.
60ml soya bean
500ml water
1 pandan leaf
2 tbsp sugar

Method:
1. Soak the bean.(optional)
2. Blend all together.
3. Filter and bring to boil.(optional)

Optional steps are depends on blender.

Toast with Cheese and Bacon

2009-09-07T13:13:00.006+08:00

It was a very busy and contented weekend. On Saturday morning, I went for Jusco Day and spent the rest of the day for rebonding in hair saloon. Then on Sunday morning, I went to Jusco again and later was picked up by a friend to have lunch in town. I also met up with my mum for a few hours. And at night, it was two hours of badminton game. Time flies, but weekend seems to fly faster. :p

I only managed to do some light cookings. For the uncompleted list, I guess I have to push them out to next weekend. Do not worry, I still remember that I need to do a peanut jam post. ;) But now let me share with you my breakfast today. I have toast with cheese and bacon this morning. The melted cheese and the bacon smell are too good that I am craving for another piece. :)

Toast with Cheese and Bacon:
1. Preheat the oven.
2. Spread the bread with butter and top with a slice of cheese.
3. Place the bread into the oven. (I used 220 degree celcious)
4. Grill the bacon(I used back bacon) with a non stick pan.
5. Remove the bread from the oven and place the bacon on top of the cheese.
6. Enjoy.

Jelly Mooncake Recipe

2009-09-07T11:40:00.000+08:00

With no indications, my hard disk submitted resignation letter to me two hours after my previous post. Even tough I have most of my data backup, but I still lost some of the recent works. So, no more jelly mooncake photos to share(see previous post for photos). :( Anyway, here is the recipe that I have promised earlier.

Egg Yolk(Make about 50)
=======================
Ingredients:
50g lotus paste
250 water
1/2 tbsp agar-agar
100g sugar
90g fresh milk
1/4 tsp salt

Method:
Mix all the ingredients and bring to boil. Add few drops of orange coloring. Pour the mixture into the mould. Remove from the mould when it is set.

Filling(Make about 24)
======================
Ingredients:
240g fresh mango paste/sweet corn paste(canned)/red bean paste/lotus paste
480ml coconut milk
130-150g sugar
1tbsp agar-agar powder
100ml fresh milk
1/4 tsp salt

Method:
Mix all the ingredients and bring to boil. Pour the mixture into the small mooncake mould and place the egg yolk in the center. Remove from the mould when it is set.

Mooncake skin(Make about 24)
============================
Ingredients:
21/2 tbsp agar-agar powder
2l pandan flavoured water(Boiled water with pandan leaves)
120-150g sugar
4 tbsp condensed milk 4

Mango filling: mango essence(optional) and yellow colorings
Sweet corn filling: green colorings
red bean filling: rose essence(optional) and red colorings
Caramel lotus filling: 4 tbsp instant nescafe

Method:
Mix all ingredients and bring to boil. Add related flavours and colorings. Pour the mixture into the big mooncake mould until 80% full. Slowly put in the filling when the mixture is half set. Remove from mould when set.

Jelly Mooncake

2009-09-01T10:36:00.003+08:00

Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching and it is time to savour mooncakes again. There are many selections in the market, the traditional mooncakes(baked skin) and the modern mooncakes(snow skin, jelly or ice-cream). Do you notice that we could have dumplings(bak chang) all over the years, but not mooncakes? Mooncakes are only available for 1-2months in a year.

For the recent long weekend(Mederka Day), I spent most of my time making 4 flavours of jelly mooncakes. This time my mum suggested to make it. After my first attempt 6 years ago, there will be request to make it every year. One of the year, I even made more than 100 boxes. Even tough I was a bit relunctant and was complaining all the way(I was not feeling well), but I was very happy with the outcome.

My recipe made 20-24 boxes. For this recipe, you will need egg yolk mould, small mooncake jelly mould and big mooncake jelly mould. I had 2, 3 and 6 of these moulds. We split out the works to 3 days. On Saturday, we made the egg yolk(2 rounds to get enough egg yolks). Then on Sunday, we prepared the 4 fillings, red bean, mango, sweet corn and caramel lotus. So on Monday, we were more relaxing(not quite also). We made the mooncake jelly(4 different colors) and packed them in boxes.

I would suggest to split the works to at least two days. One day for egg yolk and fillings. Another day to finish the mooncakes. I will share my 6-years experience recipe in the next post. Meanwhile, here is some of the photos taken during the making. Enjoy!

Working Day Lunch Gathering

2009-08-18T17:13:00.006+08:00

A few friends came to my house for a speedy lunch on a working day. Since recent lunch and tea break topics are all about photography, Mark brought his reflector, flash and wireless trigger along. It was not convinient to bring their expensive but bulky DSLRs to the office, so they had no choice but to use my LX3.

While I was busy in the kitchen, they were entertaining themselves with the photograhing session. The lunch was just simple one dish meal, Black Pepper Chicken Chop paired with Mojito Mocktail. And of course, we were not going back to work before sipping a cup of espresso.

Here are the food photos taken by the talented photographers. And thanks to Mark for editing the photos.

Mojito Mocktail

Ingredients:
Lemon(cut into cubes)
Lime(cut into cubes)
Mint leaves
Lychee(Canned, cut into cubes)
Soda/Sprite/7-Up
Ice cubes

Mix all ingredients together. To make Mojito Cocktail, just replace the soft drink to Rum/Vodka.

10-grain rice(十谷米）

2009-08-17T15:28:00.003+08:00

I have been drinking 10-grain rice these day, mostly for breakfast. The 10-grain rice, oat and brown sugar were from the organic shop. Nowadays I go for organic food whenever it is possible. I am kind of lazy to explain the benefit of 10-grain rice. When I restock, I will remember to capture the package and post it. By the way, if you do not have such blender, you could also cook it as porridge.

10-grain rice, oat and pandan leaves.

Place all ingredients in the blender and add brown sugar according to your taste.

2 minutes of blending

In 2 minutes time, a very healthy glass of drink is ready for breakfast.

Peanut Butter

2009-08-11T11:26:00.006+08:00

I have new gadget!

It is a 800W, 2000RPM multifunction blender which could do a lot of wonders. Even though it is a more powerful blender, I would have hesitated in buying it as I am targeting on Kenwood Prospero which comes with a free blender attachment. But I am still very excited when I received it as a gift.

This powerful blender can blend almost everything into fine and smooth texture so you do not have to do filtering. It can blend ice cubes too so I could use it to make smoothies or even ice-cream. Another great advantage of this blender is it can take in boiling water. The food will be cooked when you blend it with boiling water. So, there is no need to cook the food after blending. A good example will be soya bean.

brand new blender

The first thing I made using this blender is peanut butter. It was very time consuming as the peanut had to be toasted and then the peanut skin had to be removed. The toasted peanut was blended together with extra virgin olive oil and brown sugar. I could smell the nice aroma of peanut when I opened the lid. I slept at 1am to get this done.

This morning I blended organic 10-grain rice(十谷米） with this blender. Will blog about it when I have time.

Peanut butter

Shark Dish

2009-08-03T13:41:00.004+08:00

I saw this fish fillet at wet market. When I know that this big piece of fish fillet was selling at RM6, I was overjoyed. I paid for it without giving it a second thought and my mind was filled with fish & chip. Right after I handed over the money to the fish seller, I saw her husband removing the skin from a baby shark and throw it to the fish fillet area. I was shocked and I knew that I had bought the wrong fish. I had never cooked a shark dish before. Luckily after a while, I came out with an idea. So I bought the other ingredients and went home to cook. :)

The fish fillet was even longer than my chopping board.

I cut the fish fillet into small pieces

Dry red chili, ginger, spring onion and garlic.
I did not take a picture of the seasonings. But in case you want to know, they were black soy sauce, fermented bean paste, sugar and corn flour for thickening.

This was the shark dish I cooked.
A bit like Kung Pow in cantonese(宫保） or maybe char hu in hokien(炒鱼）.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

2009-07-26T16:09:00.001+08:00

My mum and I cooked Hainanese Chicken Rice yesterday. It was decided during my last trip back to Ipoh. I am the only cook during weekday, so it was quite fun when there was companion in the kitchen although we always quarrel over trivial stuffs. :)

We started with preparing the dipping sauce, ginger sauce and chili sauce.

Ingredients: young ginger, red chili, bird eye's chili and garlic

Left: blended young ginger
Right: blended red chili, red bird's chili and red chili

Brought the blended young ginger to boil with some oil(we used chicken oil) and seasoned with salt

Mixed with spring onion

And for the chili sauce, seasoned with salt, sugar, calamansi juice and oil(I used chicken oil).

For the chicken, soaked the whole chicken into boiling water with minimum heat for 20 minutes. Then, removed the chicken and soaked it into iced water for 5 minutes.

Placed cucumber slices on the plate as base.
My mum complained about my cutting and decoration.
She said it was too ugly. :)

Chicken on a bed of cucumber.
My mum knows that I blog, so she placed the chicken head, wings and drums at the correct position.

Then, it was time to cook rice.
Stir fried some garlic and ginger with oil

The normal water was substituted with chicken stock(result from cooking the chicken).
The above garlic and ginger, together with the oil were added in.
We also added pandan leaves and salt.

chicken rice

When serving, the chicken would be covered by chinese coriander. :)
My family loves chinese coriander.

We made use of the remaining chicken stock for meat ball soup.
(recipe for meat balls)

I would say it was not the perfect Hainanese Chicken Rice. But I enjoyed every bite of it.

Simple Home Cooked Lunch

2009-07-23T19:28:00.005+08:00

I was on "vegetarian" diets for the past 6 days. How could I not mentioning it in my blog. It was my first time, and might be my last time. My "vegetarian" is vege plus fish. Instead I had done it for the weekend before my Phuket trip and I am going to share one of the meal I had that weekend.

Bought erringi mushroom, some vege and a piece of codfish from jusco.
This small piece of codfish was rather expensive, RM11.
If you know a cheaper source in Penang, do drop me a message.
So after an hour in kitchen, I had 3 simple dishes for lunch.

blanched vege topped with crispy garlic
Tips: add some oil(i used garlic oil) and sugar in the boiling water so that the vege look greener

braised mushroom in oyster sauce

steamed codfish, chinese coriander was a must for me.

It was Unagi day and two piece of unagi were sold at RM29.90(vs RM26.90 per piece on normal day). I quickly grabbed one and headed to the cashier. I was going to have unagi for dinner again. :)

Caesar Salad

2009-07-21T11:40:00.005+08:00

Last night, I decided to have something light, which meant something easier to prepare. Having in mind that I need some spare time to try out the Boot's spa products I bought from Phuket, I thought of Caesar Salad. Romaine lettuce. Croutons. Parmesan cheese. Ok. Set.

I had been using this Classic Caesar Salad recipe for a few times, and I like it very much. It had taught me all the details to prepare the perfect Caesar Salad. Another good point with this recipe was there were substitutions for some of the ingredients, like coddled egg.

close up

I had grilled a piece of salmon, hoping that this could be my dinner.

But the Caesar salad was too appetizing that I was looking forward to the main dish of the night which I did not prepare any.

Fish and Chip

2009-07-20T13:07:00.008+08:00

I was away for phuket sunshine last week and today is my first day back in office. More photos and stories will be shared in my travel blog which I need more time to filter the photos. Gosh! I had taken a total of 1050 photos! After first round of filtering the over exposed or under exposed images, there is still a total of 800 photos. :p

Meanwhile, let me share my last Sunday lunch.

Bought two fresh fish fillet from jusco. Washed, drained and wiped with some salt and pepper.

The nearer one was homemade tartar sauce, which I combined mayonnaise, yogurt, minced dill relish, salt and pepper. The bigger plate was a very simple batter for fish. It had 100g flour, 2 tbps corn flour, 1/2 tbs baking soda, 1/2 tbs baking powder, 1 tbs salt, 1 tbs pepper and about 125ml water.

Frying some french fries...

Hot and crispy Fish 'n' Chip served with lemon slice, tartar sauce and chili sauce. Bon appetit!

Fish paste/Meat paste

2009-07-01T09:07:00.012+08:00

Today is first day of the month. Let me post something very very useful. With this meat paste(you could also call it fish paste), you could easily prepare stuffed bitter gourd and any kind of hakka yong tau fu, or simply add in few spoons when you cook noodles, porridge or soup. It is so convinient and yet so tasty that it has now become my secret weapon. ;)

One pack of half fat pork, minced. I think it is about 600g.

4 pack of fish paste. This size. Of course you could also prepare fresh fish paste instead of using a ready pack.

You would need a big mixing bowl. Place the seasonings in the bowl. Seasonings are salt, pepper, corn flour and sugar. Chicken stock and MSG are optional.

Add in the minced pork.

Mix well with seasonings. You should mix in the same direction until the meat is slightly sticky.

Take out the meat paste and put it in a container.

Repeat the same for fish paste in the same mixing bowl.

Now you could add in the meat paste.

Mix well.

Here is the tricky part. You need to take out the whole mixture and smash into the mixing bowl. Repeat for many times(10 times or more) until the mixture becomes firm and springy.

This is how the end product looks like.

Keep it in few containers at different sizes for different usages and store it in the freezer.

Butter Prawn

2009-06-30T10:29:00.004+08:00

I would try to avoid cooking prawn whenever I could because of its high cholesterol content. So I could not remember when was the last time I cooked this butter prawn. I truly enjoyed this dish last night, the taste was so familiar. I had two of this sinful big prawn. :)

This dish required simple ingredients where I could find them in my refrigerator, butter and egg. And for the must have curry leaves, did I tell you that I have a pot of curry leaves plant? So I have fresh curry leaves. :) For now, I only have pandan leaves and curry leaves plants. Hope to have more plants in the future.

As usual, I have to pre-fried the prawn first. Then, I would melt sufficient butter in the wok. When the egg is slowly drizzled into the butter(or you could use a sieve), I have to keep stirring to form egg floss. After that, I added the curry leaves. You could also add some chopped bird's eye chili. Apparently I do not have it. Last step was to add in the prawn and stir fry for a while. Drain and serve. You could sprinkle some freshly grinded black pepper on top.

Glutinous Rice Balls with Black Sesame Filling

2009-06-20T22:15:00.007+08:00

I was back in hometown for Father's Day. And see what I had prepared for my family. Yes, black sesame glutinous rice balls. It was not anything fancy but yet it took me more than one hour. This is going to be another post with many photos. Are you ready?

Wash, drain and toast the black sesame in a wok over medium heat until fragrant. Blend the toasted black sesame and then mix well with castor sugar. Do not ask me the exact amount for sugar. You could just put some in your mouth and start adjusting the sweetness. When you are satisfied with the sweetness, add in some shortening and mix well. Roll the mixture into small balls. Now you have the black sesame filling ready.

Sprinkle some glutinous rice on the black sesame balls and shake the plate until all the sesame balls are lightly coated. If this is not done, then you will easily contaminate the white glutinous skin with black sesame color. I learnt this tip from an astro programme.

Mix glutinous rice flour with warm water and knead into dough. Pinch off small portion of dough, roll to a ball shape and flatten the dough.

Take one black sesame ball and place on the flattened dough.

Wrap the black sesame ball with the dough.

Roll gently to form a perfect ball shape.

It should look something like this.

Cook the glutinous rice balls in a pot of boiling water until it floats to the surface. Serve with ginger syrup.

Fried Bean Curd with Chinese Chive

2009-06-16T17:22:00.004+08:00

Cooking can be so simple! For this dish, you need nothing more than just chinese chive and bean curd.

You can easily tell from the photos that the bean curd are cut and pan fried separately. Then, what else? Stir fry garlic until fragrant. Use lots of garlic so that it smells good. Add in chinese chive. Season with some sea salt and add a little bit of water. Stir fry with maximum heat and lastly add in fried bean curd. Just becareful not to overcook the chinese chive.

So here I have fried bean curd with chinese chive for dinner.

Bubur Cha Cha & Dai Lok Mee

2009-06-15T17:22:00.005+08:00

I had a special guest last Sunday morning.
This choosy guest requested to have bubur cha cha with yam, yellow and orange sweet potato.
Here is a picture of the bubur cha cha we had.
I had also added in kidney bean and sago even though he did not request for it.

Besides bubur cha cha, we also had dai lok mee. The first time I used lard and crispy lard bits in dai lok mee. Other ingredients used were cabbage, prawn, fish cake and pork.

It was a brunch to us as we had it quite late. After the Sunday brunch, We were full to the brim. I do hope he had enjoyed the breakfast.

Seafood meesua

2009-06-11T15:18:00.007+08:00

After hitting the peak(13 posts for last month), I am slowing down again this month. I guess lazy is not a very good excuse.
With the scorching hot weather, I found myself losing appetite most of the time.
So last night I prepared meesua for dinner again. But it was a different version this time. Last time it was ginger chicken meesua and now it was seafood meesua.

Placed all the seafood ingredients(fish, prawn, crab meat, scallop and all my favourites) in the boiling anchovies soup, added in meesua, seasoned with shaoxing wine and thickened with corn flour. Then, poured in egg and stirred. Garnished with spring onion and chinese coriander.

Sweet Sour Fish

2009-06-03T18:25:00.003+08:00

A dish that I cook quite often.
...when I have fish.
...and when I do not want to eat plain steam fish again.
...and at the same time I do not have fancy ingredients.
The photos were taken some time back.

Marinate the fish with some salt, pepper, sesame oil, ginger juice and egg for a while.
Drain the fish(keep the egg mixture) and coat with some corn flour.

Deep fry the fish until golden color. Remove and set aside.

Fry the egg mixture, so it is not wasted. Place it on the plate as base.

Remove the oil from the wok.
Heat some tomato sauce, chili sauce, plum sauce and water in the wok.
Season with some sugar. Add in onion slice and bring to boil.
Add in the fried fish and mix well.
Serve on the plate with the fried egg.

Salted Egg Yolk Prawn

2009-06-02T14:16:00.004+08:00

There were big prawns and salted egg in my kitchen.
So, I wanted to make salted egg yolk prawn.
I had no internet access at home, so I googled the recipes with my 3G handphone.
Have to make full use of my handphone now. ;)
After referring to a few recipes, I came out with my own simple recipe.

1. Season the prawn with some pepper.
2. Coat the prawn with some corn flour.
3. Deep fry the prawn until it is cooked. Remove and set aside.
4. Mix the salted egg yolk with the prawn.
5. Melt some butter in the wok and stir fry some garlic.
6. Add in the prawn and stir fry until fragrant.
7. Season with black pepper.
8. Ready to serve.

It was finger linckin' good. Imagine fresh and succulent prawn that was evenly coated with salted egg yolk. Perhaps the only consideration was the high cholesterol content. :)

Black Pepper Chicken Chop

2009-05-30T15:36:00.005+08:00

Could you recognise these two black pieces without reading the title? ;)
Normally I would pan fry the marinated chicken chop and cook some black pepper gravy seperately.
But this time I cooked a dryer version of black pepper chicken chop.
The chicken chop was marinated overnight with oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, sesame oil, coarsely grinded black pepper and sugar.
Then it was placed with skin facing upward in a non-stick pan under low heat.
The chicken had fat in it, so there was no need to use frying oil.
Turned the chicken after one side was cooked.
Pretty simple right?

The making of kaya

2009-05-29T14:20:00.001+08:00

I had posted some kaya photos before, but not the detailed steps on making kaya. We made commercial quantity to be distributed together with the alkaline dumpling(kee chang). So you might want to consider only 1/4 of the ingredients below.

Beat 25 eggs in a big pot.

Add in 4kg sugar and double boil the mixture. Keep stirring until the sugar has dissolved.

Add in 4kg of filtered coconut milk.

Add in pandan leaves. The more the better.

Stir for another 5-10 mins. Then cover the pot for double boil.
The double boil process will take about 4 hours.
In between, stir occasionally(~every 30 mins).

Boil a cup of sugar together with a cup of water with medium heat.

Boil until the water has evaporated and the sugar turned into dark brown caramel.

Add the caramel into the kaya for coloring purpose.
Double boil for another half an hour and it is done.

Stuffed Bitter Gourd

2009-05-27T10:16:00.007+08:00

"Bitter gourd has excellent medicinal virtues. It is antidotal, antipyretic tonic, appetizing, stomachic, antibilious and laxative." Source

But not everyone like the taste of bitter gourd. Someone even told me that he will feel dizziness after eating bitter gourd. Haha. Hard to believe. So, I decided to take up the challenge. The result? He finished 3-4 stuffed bitter gourds. :)

Here is the recipe.

Preparing the stuffed bitter gourd....
1) Wash and cut the bitter gourd into 1 inch thickness rings.
2) Remove the center part of the bitter gourd.
3) Do not wash the bitter gourd again, else the filling will not stick to the bitter gourd.
4) Fill with fish and meat paste.
5) Pan fry both side of the bitter gourd until slightly browned.
6) Remove and set aside.

Preparing the gravy....
1) Remove some oil if it is too much. With the frying oil, stir fry minced garlic, minced shallot and minced ginger until fragrant.
2) Add in fermented bean paste, light soy sauce, pepper, sugar and water.
3) Place the bitter gourd and cook until it is soft.
4) Take out the bitter gourd.
5) Thicken the sauce with corn flour and drizzle on the bitter gourd.

Alkaline Dumpling(Kee Chang)

2009-05-25T14:01:00.004+08:00

The next morning, we continued to make another type of dumpling, the alkaline dumpling. It was much easier compare to the meat dumpling. Read the full story then you would know the reason.

My auntie used alkaline rocks instead of the ready alkaline water in bottle. She told me that bottle type would give stronger alkaline taste. So, we had to dissolve the alkaline rock in water. You could just use alkaline water if you could not find the alkaline rock.

The day before, we had to pick out all the white rice from the glutinous rice so that we have pure glutinous rice. We did not soak the glutinous rice, but just washed it. The glutinous rice was then mixed with alkaline water and cooking oil until it was light yellow in color.

Do not add too much alkaline water, else it would have strong alkaline taste.

We could not find the exact leaves for alkaline dumpling so we used the same leaves as meat dumpling. We used the bigger leaves for meat dumpling and kept the smaller leaves for alkaline dumpling.

This time I managed to capture the step-by-step photos for the wrapping part.

My alkaline dumpling did not get rejected this time. Yesterday, my auntie had to check my dumplings one by one and re-wrapped some of them. I would say it was much easier to make alkaline dumpling.

We finished turning all the glutinous rice into alkaline dumpings before noon time.

Then, my auntie placed all the dumpings into the boiling water.

The boiling process took about 4-5 hours. I will blog some photos of the unwrapped dumplings if I have time.

Meat Dumpling(Bak Chang)

2009-05-24T00:25:00.002+08:00

My auntie makes very delicious dumplings. So every year my family will just enjoy the dumplings from her until I decided to learn making dumplings from her this year. I reached my hometown on Saturday 2.30 in the morning, set my alarm clock to 6.30, which is basically 4 hours later. So, I was at my autie's place before 8 in the morning, feeling sleepy. :p

First of all, let us look at the ingredients for meat dumplings.

Chestnut(blanched and drained)

Dehusked mung beans(blanched and drained)

Mushroom(washed, soaked, blanched and squeezed dry)

Glutinous rice(soaked for more than 4 hours, drained and seasoned with salt)

Kidney bean(boiled for 10 minutes and drained)

dry shrimp(washed and removed any hard shell)

Pork belly(marinated overnight with light soy sauce, oyster sauce, five spice powder, oyster sauce, sugar and corn flour)

Salted Egg Yolk(halved or quartered)
I forgot to take the photos of the salted egg yolk until it was almost finished.

Shallot(minced)

Garlic(minced)

Dumpling Leaves(washed and drained)

Bamboo string(Soaked)

Heat up some lard in wok.

Stir fry some garlic and shallot until fragrant.

Add in chestnut, continue to stir fry.
Season with light soy sauce and five spice powder.
Mix well and stir fry until fragrant.
Remove and set aside.

Repeat the same for dried shrimp, kidney bean and dehusked mung beans.

Do the same for pork belly, but do not season with light soy sauce.
Season it with sesame oil only.

For mushroom and glutinous rice, season with both light soy sauce and sesame oil.

Darken the glutinous rice with some deluted dark soy sauce. At the end, mix the kidney bean with glutinous rice.

The ingredients need to be cooled down before they can be used for dumpling.
Start with glutinous rice as base, then only add in other ingredients.

Top with glutinous rice until full.
Press hard, wrap into triangle shape and tie hard with the bamboo string.

Cut away the redundant string.

Dumplings ready to be boiled.

Boil the dumplings for 3.5 hours in the water.
The water should have 1 tablespoon of salt.

Remove the dumplings from water and hang the dumpling until they are dry.

It was a tiring but fruitful day. Tomorrow, no, actually today(it is already passed 12), we are going to make alkaline dumpling(kee chang). Will blog about it later.

Banana Pancake

2009-05-21T13:58:00.003+08:00

Original recipe is from Home Cooked Recipe, but I did make some notes after the cooking session. I did not mean your recipe is no good, ok? ;)

1. I do not keep self raising flour. Most of time I substitute it with normal flour + baking powder. Ratio is roughly 150g flour and 2 tablespoon baking powder.

2. Do not cut down quantity on the banana. If you think your banana is smaller than medium size, use 4 bananas to be safe.

3. No need to worry about the sugar. If it is not sweet enough, serve the banana pancake with honey. It is a perfect match.

4. I used non stick pan instead of griddle. It worked as well.

5. This recipe can make 5 normal size pancakes, good enough for 3-4 person.

Sea Coconut Dessert

2009-05-19T10:44:00.003+08:00

Sea coconut dessert with dried longan and water chestnut

I found a pack of fresh sea coconut dessert in wet market.
And I did not have it for a long time.
I meant the fresh sea coconut and not the cane type.
The most troublesome part was to remove the skin of the sea coconut and the water chestnut. I did it while watching Astro.

Recipe:
Bring 1 pack of sea coconut, 1 pack of water chestnut, few tablespoons of dried longan and some pandan leaves to boil. Then simmer for 2 hours and sweeten with brown sugar in pieces.

This is how the fresh sea coconut looks like. Sea coconut is good at relieving internal heat from body.

Ginger Chicken

2009-05-15T14:47:00.002+08:00

I cooked ginger chicken for dinner last night. It was very flavoursome. There is no fancy ingredient needed, so give it a try.

1. Stir fry garlic and ginger slice(1 tablespoon each) with enough oil.
2. Add in chicken and black fungus(optional, I did not have black fungus) and stir fry until fragrant(I used 1/2 farm chicken).
3. Cover the chicken with enough water.
4. Season with shaoxing wine, oyster sauce, light soy sauce and little bit of sugar.
5. Cover the wok and turn to medium-low heat for 20 minutes(shorter time for normal chicken).
6. Ready to serve.

My 'signature' blanched vegetables. ;)

Today I am on leave, so no cooking tonight. :p

Fried Yam Cake

2009-05-14T10:48:00.006+08:00

I had 4 photos for this post.
Normally I would only take photo of the end product.
But this time I would need the photos for explanation.

Yam cake was the main ingredient in this dish.
The grated yam cake was mixed with tapioca flour and later was formed into desired shape. Then, it was placed in a steamer until it was cooked.
You could prepare more yam cakes and they could be kept in the refrigerator for a few days.

The yam cake was cut into smaller pieces. Other ingredients were garlic, pork stripe, prawn, egg and spring onion.

As usual, you would need to heat up some oil. The sequence was garlic, prawn and pork stripe, followed by egg. When the ingredients were almost cooked, you would need to add a glass of water and seasoned it with black soy sauce, light soy sauce and pepper. The yam cake was then added and it was stir fried until fragrant and dry. Lastly, spring onion was added in and it was ready to be served.

I like the springy texture of the yam cake very much and wonder if this is a common dish. Tell me if you have tried this before.

Taiwanese Stewed Pork Rice 台式噜肉饭

2009-05-12T13:14:00.007+08:00

I am back from long weekend.
During the weekends, I have tried out taiwanese stewed pork rice recipe.
It was a simple all-in-one dish, pork belly cube, bean curd skin and egg.
A recipe for lazy people like me.

It was too dull?
Do not worry. I have fried some green baby french bean with dried shrimp.
Was it better now?

Updated 13/5/09

1. Heat oil in a wok or frying pan and stir fry garlic until fragrant.
2. Add in the pork belly cube and stir fry until slightly browned.
3. Add in peanut sauce, light soy sauce, pepper, shaoxing wine, rock sugar, cinnamon stick, clove, star anise, water and hard boiled eggs.
4. Stew for one hour.
5. Add in bean curd skin and stew for another 15 mins.
6. Season with light soy sauce and pepper again if needed.
7. Ready to serve.

Fried Instant Noodles

2009-05-08T10:43:00.003+08:00

A famous mamak dish during my university time, Maggie Goreng.
The taste was so familiar, salty, spicy and sour.
However, I think there was still room for improvement.
You have any tips to share with me?

I am going to cook braised spare ribs with stout(黑啤排骨) tonight.
Now I am worried that if it is not okay, what am I going to have for dinner.

Kampung Fried Rice

2009-05-06T10:23:00.007+08:00

I did not realise my blog was on hiatus for nearly a month.
Thanks for all the emails, comments and warnings. ;)
If you did not see updates for long, please remind me again.

Ok, back to the dinner last night.
I fried Kampung Fish with non-stick pan.
The advantage of non-stick pan are less oil was needed and ease of cleaning.

Then the bone was removed and the fish was shredded into pieces.
You could have different recipes for fried rice, but just remember to add the shredded fish to the fried rice at the end.
There was no need to add the fish too earlier as the fish was cooked.

Simple fried rice served with home made sambal.

BBQ Chicken Wings

2009-05-05T14:24:00.005+08:00

I had prepared BBQ chicken wing many times in the past.
But the seasoning used would be depending on what is available in the kitchen.
So the taste would vary from time to time.
This time I decided to try a new recipe from a magazine.
This recipe used chili sauce and dry coriander which I never try before.
The rest of the seasonings were the normal light soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil.
The chicken wings were marinated and kept in the refrigerator overnight.
Then it was baked in oven at 200degree for 30 minutes.

There was honey taste in the chicken wing. Not sure where the honey taste came from.

Other dishes for dinner was steamed fish and ...

blanched vegetables.

McD Fillet-O-Fish

2009-04-08T17:24:00.002+08:00

How about McD Fillet-O-Fish this time?
My version of Fillet-O-Fish contained West Pacific Fish Fillet, Kraft cheese slice and the fillet-o-fish sauce in a warm bun.
The bun was from tesco and it had some sesame on top, just like the McD bun.
I spread some butter on both side of the bun and baked in the oven for few minutes.
As for the fillet-o-fish sauce, I mixed mayoniese sauce, mustard sauce, minced dill relish together, and added some salt and pepper to taste.
It was a success. I am sure kids will love it.

S&W dill

Spicy Fried Bihun with Petai and Prawn

2009-04-07T12:54:00.002+08:00

With an adopted recipe, I managed to clear all my petai. I chose this recipe as it did not require any special ingredients or seasonings and still tasted good.

Dried Oyster and Dried Scallop Pork Porridge

2009-04-02T14:40:00.000+08:00

It was my dad who taught me to use roast pork bone for porridge and soup.
Normally after Qing Ming, Pai Ti Kong or other chinese festival, I will have roast pork bone for this dish.
You can also buy roast pork bone from roast pork stall.

1. Wash and soak dry scallop and dry oyster for 2 hours.
2. Shred the scallop and cut the oyster into small pieces.
3. Boil roast pork bone in water for 15 minutes.
4. Wash the rice and add into the soup.
5. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes.
6. Add in scallop and oyster.
7. Cook over low heat for another 45 minutes. Stir occasinally.
8. Ready to be serve.

No seasoning is required as the roast pork will add enough taste to the porridge. The roast pork will become less oily and less salty in this dish.

Petai and Prawn in Sambal Sauce

2009-04-01T09:54:00.005+08:00

I know I did not do a good job in capturing this dish.
Last night dinner was at 8.30pm. Pretty late and rushed.
I bought some buah petai from night market as in first picture. So it was FRESH!
Cooked with some prawn in Sambal Sauce and it went well with rice.
Next time I could cook this dish only and save my time. ;)

pic from internet

Petai and Prawn in Sambal Sauce

Fried Chinese New Year Sticky Cake

2009-03-24T09:17:00.002+08:00

Fried sticky cake is a very famous street snack in Malaysia.
The CNY sticky cake was sandwiched between one yam slice and another sweet potato slice, then coated with batter and deep fried until golden color.
If the oil temperature was too high, the yam or sweet potato would be still raw(hard to bite). But if the oil temperature was too low, then it would become to oily.
So, I pre-steamed the yam and sweet potato slices for about 3-5 mins.
And the texture turned out just right.

Other recipe with Chinese New Year Sticky Cake:
Chinese New Year Sticky Cake with Dessicated Coconut

Cendol

2009-03-23T17:08:00.005+08:00

Finally I made Cendol at home.
It was Saturday afternoon, the weather was burning hot outside.
No one would like to go out and buy some cold drinks.
Nevermind, I was going to make Cendol.
Cendol in ready package from Jusco Supermarket,
Palm sugar from Malacca,
Coconut Milk bought from wet market in the morning...
and most important, ice cubes.

Other recipe with Malacca Palm Sugar:
Green Bean Soup

Prawn Wantan

2009-03-12T10:02:00.002+08:00

Woke up at 7.30 this morning to prepare breakfast.
I did not have minced meat in the refrigerator, so I made prawn wantan.
Could you tell it is prawn wantan from the picture?

Green Bean Soup

2009-03-06T14:25:00.004+08:00

Just the normal green bean sago soup.
Rock sugar was substituted with the palm sugar that I have brought back from Malacca.
If I am not lazy, I will make Cendol with the palm sugar next week.

Grilled Seafood

2009-03-04T18:22:00.008+08:00

I prepared this Ikan Bakar sauce on Sunday night. It has lots of garlic, shallot, red chilli and bird's eye chilli. I have also added in tamarind and coconut milk during stir fry. On Monday night, I used it to grill stingrays and squids. But I have no photos to show as I have left my camera in office again. Guess everyone is used to it.

On the following day after work, I passed by Pak Mat Ikan Segar stall. Since there is some leftover sauce, I have grilled seafood for dinner again. :)

grilled fish

grilled squid

Bak Gua Sandwich

2009-02-28T23:25:00.005+08:00

Last two pieces of CNY Bak Gua(BBQ Pork)....

Enjoying coffee at home

2009-02-18T13:56:00.008+08:00

I have owned this Delonghi Coffee Machine for more than a year. It was not cheap but I did not regret buying it. When I was searching for a coffee machine, I could not find much reviews from the internet. Therefore while I was enjoying a cup of fresh espresso this morning, I decided to write up a review so that others can benefit from it.

This is a fully automatic machine with patented automatic cappuccino system. With just a single touch, the machine will grind the coffee bean(if bean is used) and brew a cup of coffee with 15 bar pump pressure. The whole bean-to-cup process takes about 15 seconds or less.

Even though it is an automatic machine, users are still able to personalize their coffee. First, users can select to start from roasted coffee bean or ground coffee. For the grinder, there are 7 adjustable settings for coarseness. Not only that, users can choose to have a short, medium or long coffee with mild aroma or strong taste. Users can even save their settings which I have not tried so far. :p

I am 100% satisfied with this product. Now I can have a cup of good quality coffee at home anytime I wish.

stylish coffee machine

Next to the cup warmer tray is the ground cofee container.

Coffee bean container and the grinding coarseness regulator

double short coffee

Separate milk container for cappuccino

Hong Xiu Fish Head(红烧鱼头)

2009-02-16T11:45:00.004+08:00

With the success of curry fish head, I got the courage to try another fish head dish. This is a very common dish in Dai Pai Tong(大排挡) - Hong Xiu Fish Head(红烧鱼头). I love chinese cabbage the most even though it was not the main ingredient. It was very tasty after absorbing all the flavors.

Here are the steps.
Stir fry the garlic, ginger and shallot until fragrant, then add in roast pork, carot, chinese cabbage, snow pea and 1.5 cups of water. Season with oyster sauce, light soy sauce, white pepper and sugar. Finally add in the pre-fried fish head and thickened with some corn flour.

Curry Fish Head

2009-02-14T18:10:00.009+08:00

I did not cook this dish for long.
But, it turned out better than what I had expected.
My No.1 fan said it was as nice as Pen Mutiara.
Well, I do not care if Pen Mutiara is good or if you are lying.
I promise to cook the same dish for you again.
Next year, ok? ;)

boiling in the wok

served in casserole

Updated: 20/3/09

A1 instant curry paste that I used.

1. Put the curry paste under medium heat.
2. Add in few stalks of lemongrass and some finely chopped shallots.
3. When you can smell the fragrant, add in water(amount per instruction at the back).
4. When it is boiling, put in the pre-steamed fish head and lady fingers(steamed separately).
5. Cook for a while.
6. Finally, add in coconut milk.

Chinese New Year Sticky Cake with Dessicated Coconut

2009-02-14T16:30:00.004+08:00

I had a long CNY break, 11 days to be precise.
CNY was for quality family time, old friends reunion and relative visiting, with lots of good food. :p
Everything seemed to be so wonderful until I lost my handbag on the last day.
Okay, that was about 2 weeks ago.
Now everything is back to the normal track.

This was a lovely snack with CNY sticky cake.
The sticky cake was steamed until it was warm, soft and melted.
Then, it was coated with dessicated coconut.

Something sweet for the Valentine Day, even though it was not planned.
Happy Valentine Day to all my readers!

Arrowroot for CNY

2009-01-19T15:31:00.007+08:00

One would never notice that their baby is ugly, same for me.
I spent one whole afternoon peeling and frying arrowroot.
For a first timer, of course the process wasn't that smooth.
I cut my fingers, cracked my nails and had sore throat the next day.
But at the end of the day, in my humble opinion, I somehow felt that the outcome was perfect. :p
Until just now my colleague pointed at my photo and told me that my arrowroot has ugly edges.
My heart was broken. Sob Sob.
I am not going to forgive him for waking me up from my dream. :p

Prosperity Bag

2009-01-16T17:21:00.005+08:00

For 4 days in a row, it was on my breakfast table.
The pita bread was sold 5 in a pack.
Luckily it was good.

I enjoyed filling the bread pocket with all my favourites.
Since I was not preparing for a big group, I could not have a lot of different fillings.(I love varieties.)
The bread pocket was filled with chicken sausage cubes, onion cubes, cheddar cheese and mozarella cheese.
Was it obvious that I tried to finish the cheese in my refrigerator?
I still have parmesan cheese and the Kraft cheese slices in my refrigerator.
Emm...what am I going to do with them?

I placed it in the Oven for 5-10minutes as I like to have it warm, slightly crispy bread and with melted cheese.
Nice breakfast.
But I am not going to have it again any soon.

Japanese Tau Fu

2009-01-16T15:43:00.002+08:00

The initial objective to cook this dish is to clear one serving of small prawn and 3 huge American fresh scallops in my refrigerator.
They are the left-over when I cooked Teo Chew Meng meesua.
Oopss! Another dish yet to be posted.

I bought 2 japanese taufu from Jusco, cut into pieces, coated with some tapioca flour and fried to golden color.
Leaving the fried taufu aside, I fried the prawn and scallops with garlic.
Then, water was added in.
The water amount should be slightly more than the gravy amount that you want because it will be thickened later.
My seasoning was pretty simple. I used oyster sauce only.
After the seasoning, the fried taufu was added in.
Lastly, thickened with tapioca flour.

My another version of this dish is Japanase taufu with minced meat, carot and french bean.
If you are eating alone today, you can try out this for single dish meal.
If not, you can also surprise your family with something new on the dining table.
Furthermore, 2 japanese taufu was only RM1.60.

Stir Fry Clam

2009-01-16T13:30:00.006+08:00

I know I was quiet for quite a while.
I didn't stop cooking, but then I was tied up with my works and didn't have time to blog.

Let's see what did I cook for the past Sat and Sun.
On Sat night, I had stir fry clam, steam fish and blanched vege('tong hou' in Cantonese) for dinner.
Then on Sun, I cooked yam rice, served braised pork belly and taufu.

I didn't take photos for the dishes that I have blogged before.
But then I forgot to take photo for the yam rice.
So, out of so many dishes, I can only present to you a very simple dish, stir fry clam.

In my hometown, this small clam is not popular. We normally eat a bigger version, which is call 'Kapa' in Penang.
I slowly learn to enjoy the sweetness of this small clam after I came to Penang.
Simply stir fry the small clam with finely chopped garlic and sliced ginger.
Simple and fast dish.

Perhaps I should learn up more simple recipes so that cooking on weekdays would not be a burden. :)

Guilty Meal

2008-12-26T21:21:00.005+08:00

I could not imagine that I am going to blog this one day. I know there is a lot of instant noodles fans out there. But for me, I never have instant noodles stock in my kitchen. Long story to tell, but in short it is mainly for health reason.

I bought XO Sauce Seafood and Kobe Beef flavour Nissin Instant Noodles(出前一丁) from Hong Kong. The one in the photo was XO Sauce Seafood flavour. For more balance diet, I had added pan fried egg, sausage, crab filamen and some lettuce. Arhhh! I was so full!

Note to myself. No more instant noodles again, at least for year 2009.

pizza

2008-12-23T15:32:00.003+08:00

I was celebrating Winter Solstice Festival with a group of colleagues last night even tough it was supposed to be on Sunday. Anyway, it was fun cooking and finishing the food together. Besides glutinous rice ball, the main dish of the night was pizza. We made the dough, baked it and topped with our favourite food and baked it again. Thin crust pizza base spread with tomato paste, topped with salami, sausage, mushroom, black olive, capsicum, sprinkled with some herbs and black pepper, not to forget the most important mozzarella cheese. So, we had yummy pizza fresh from the oven!

Kaya 2nd Attempt

2008-12-16T10:57:00.002+08:00

Not long after I made my 1st double boil kaya(before that I always boil directly), I made my 2nd bowl of kaya. This time it was thicker. But when I started the double boil, I didn't turn the fire small enough. The kaya was boiling when I checked it half an hour later. Sob. When can I get it right?

Btw, the photo was taken with LX3.

Coconut jam(Kaya)

2008-11-24T15:19:00.004+08:00

In just a few year of time, Old Town kopitiam and the same concept of cafes have been expanding rapidly and spread around every corners in Malaysia. Since then, toast bread and coffee are not only for breakfast, but also lunch, dinner and tea break. So, I was tempted to make my own kaya, to be served with bread or glutinious rice.

I did it together with my mum last Sunday. We planned to make more so that my mum could bring some home. But the 10-egg recipe turned out to be a lot. Really a lot. It was like 7 times of what is in the photo. :p

Since it was a lot, I had a hard time looking for suitable cookwares to do the double boiling. All the pots had been taken out. In the middle of changing pot, we accidentally added some water to the mixture. :( Anyway, we moved on and this is the outcome.

Comment that I received was the taste and fragrant were all right, but the texture could be smoother. Not sure if it is caused by the extra water or my techniques need to be improved. :p Will make it again.

Steamboat

2008-11-21T23:54:00.005+08:00

This will be the first post blogged from my handphone. Finally, i can blog from home, after owning a 3g phone for more than a year. My parents are here for the weekend and we just had steamboat dinner together. I didn't prepare a lot of food, fish, prawn, fish paste, crab filamen, mushrooms, bean curb, pork, chicken, vegetables and noodles. Food was good and the group was perfect. Will be going out tomorrow, so better sleep now. Good night.

Hakka Yong Tau Fu

2008-11-12T10:07:00.005+08:00

The last time I made yong tau foo was years back when I was still in Uni. I think this dish started with bean curd stuffed with fish and pork paste. Later, it was expanded to fish ball, brinjal, lettuce, chili, lady finger, bitterground and the list goes on.

So last Saturday, I decided to have yong tau foo feast. First photo was the yong tau foo before cooked and second photo was the cooked yong tau fu in soup. The serving was for 2 person. For home made yong tau foo, I didn't need to care about the cost. So, I filled them with big spoons of paste. Satisfying...

Turkey Sandwich

2008-11-11T10:54:00.001+08:00

I was curious what is the cost for a home made sandwich.

Continental Bakery Grain Bread RM5.50 2 pieces --> RM1.10
Turkey Breast one piece --> RM3.00
Cheese one piece --> RM1.00
Onion --> RM0.10
Boiled Egg 1/2 --> RM0.20
Lettuce --> RM0.60
Butter

RM6.00 for sandwich breakfast. Expensive or cheap?

Fish Noddles Soup

2008-11-03T17:30:00.005+08:00

Last night, my dad suggested to have dinner at Sauk, Perak(a small village not far Kuala Kangsar) which is famous for freshwater fish. view map The freshwater fish and other dishes were great. But I am not going to blog about the dinner.

Instead, I bought some fish balls and fish paste from the same restaurant we had dinner. According to the restaurant owner, the fish balls and fish paste were preservative free and therefore could not last long. So this morning, I boiled them in anchovies soup and topped with some garlic oil. The egg noodles was from Ho To Tai, Hong Kong.

It cheered up my day! :)

Golden Crispy Fish

2008-10-31T08:29:00.005+08:00

For many years, I had the wrong perception that only big fish(more than 1/2kg) taste good. In my memory, small fish had less meat and lots of bone. And I was wrong, so wrong! It was one day when I had the opportunity to try this dish. And, it had totally changed my perception! The fish was so crispy outside, the meat was so sweet and the texture was indescribable good!

Two nights ago, I wiped the fish with some sea salt and fried it for my 3-dishes dinner. This dish was so simple but then it was the most outstanding dish. By then, I know I will cook this dish again and again.

Btw, anyone recognise the fish? Please tell me if you know the name of the fish.

Ginger Milk Curd 姜汁撞奶

2008-10-29T13:01:00.003+08:00

I was always curious how did the ginger milk curd theory work. When hot milk was poured into ginger juice, the mixture solidified in minutes. Later I found out that it was the protease in the ginger reacted with the protein in the milk and formed the milk curd. I adjusted the recipe a few times and this is my version:

1. Prepare 1 tbsp of OLD ginger juice in a bowl.
2. Slowly heat up 150ml HIGH PROTEIN fresh milk with 1 tsp of sugar until bubbles aside.
3. Pour the milk into the ginger at certain height.
4. Leave aside for 5 minutes and it is ready to be served.

It is considered success if you place a spoon on it and the spoon stay on top.

Prawn Fritter

2008-10-07T13:27:00.005+08:00

There was this Yonex Japan Open, followed by Macau Open last weekend.
Live started from 2pm and ended around 5pm.
I do not have a habit of enjoying snack in front of the TV.
Of course, I won't say no to it.
Another reason was I wanted to clear my refrigerator stocks before my trip.
I had a small box of prawn, half chicken, fish and etc.
A plate of all-time favourite prawn fritter and a pot of chinese tea would be a good choice.

I bought this tempura flour from Tesco.
Mixed with water and added in some salt and pepper, and the batter was ready.
Wasn't it simple?

Finished it in no time as it was so crispy, hot and nice.

Red Bean Soup

2008-09-26T10:27:00.004+08:00

A breakthrough for me.

Before this, my red bean will be slightly mushy after slow cook for just 1.5 hours. Until one day I bought the red bean from one of the shop near my house. I used to buy from Jusco. The red bean was still hard after 1.5 hours. So, I let it continue for another 1.5 hours. It turned out to be perfect. The red bean was very soft but still in good shape.

And, I received comment saying that it was the best red bean soup that I had ever cooked. I think it was the different type of red bean. I must go and buy more stock from that shop.

Steamed Crab

2008-09-25T11:38:00.001+08:00

What is the advantage of having crabs at home? Cracking and peeling off the crab shells is challenging task and it might make you look clumsy. So, by having it on your own dining table, you can take your own sweet time to finish the whole crab.

This time I did not cook my usual Sweet and Sour Crab, instead I steamed the Crabs with ginger and ShaoXing Wine.

Taiwan Egg Pancake

2008-09-24T10:54:00.002+08:00

As promised, I will post about my second breakfast learnt from 小小米桶.

Not bad. The taste was similar to local pancake and a bit like roti telur.
But I think the pancake was way too thick though I used a lot of pork floss to compensate it.
Drink suggestion is soya bean.

I still have half pack of pork floss left. Will make improvement next time.

Updated:
I made this breakfast again this morning, pork floss and cheese pancake. This round, I made a thinner pancake skin. Taste a lot better than last time! :)

Banana Toast

2008-09-23T10:05:00.002+08:00

First, I had to admit that I got this breakfast recipe from 小小米桶. She posted 25 selected breakfasts and they are very tempting. I marked down 2 recipes to be tried last weekend.

The good thing about this recipe is the ingredients can be easily found.
And, I do not need to wake up early as it is very simple to prepare this breakfast.
The bread was pan-fried with eggs and milk while the banana was pan-fried with sugar and butter. Drink suggestion is orange juice.

If you like banana, you will like this banana toast.

Will post the other one tomorrow.

Curry Pork Rib with Potato

2008-09-22T12:59:00.003+08:00

I was craving for curry last Sunday.
So, I cooked this curry pork rib with potato and served with fried bihun.
When I called my mum and told her about my delicious curry, she commented.
"I think no one add potato in curry pork rib."
Oh ya, then suddenly I recalled.
Only have curry chicken with potato, but there is no curry pork rib with potato.
But why?

Resident Inn's breakfast

2008-09-17T09:40:00.004+08:00

When I wanted to take out my camera from my hand bag, it was not there.
Again, I left it on my office desk.
So, I had no choice but to take photos with my handphone.

I learnt to eat Quaker Oatmeal during my stay in Resident Inn, US.
It is a very healthy breakfast that I want to share with everyone.
Oats contain soluble fiber that binds with and helps remove some of the cholesterol which can clog your arteries and lead to heart disease.
So, why are you still waiting?
Hurry to the hypermarket nearby and grab yourself a pack of Quaker Oatmeal. :)

I prefer the Quaker QuickCook compare to the Quaker Instant even though I need to spend more time cooking the oat.
And, I like to prepare it the way I had it in US.
Fresh milk, brown sugar, raisin, walnut and banana.

Ginger Chicken Misua Soup

2008-09-05T12:41:00.015+08:00

(It was a rainy night.)
Handmade misua + farm chicken + ginger + farm egg = D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S

Happy Mooncake Festival to everyone

2008-09-05T12:41:00.006+08:00

I will keep this at the first page until Mooncake Festival.
Any updates from now until then will be posted before this post.
....if there is any.
Tied up with works now.

I love baby

2008-09-05T12:40:00.015+08:00

This is a dish with baby potato. I am always tempted to buy anything start with baby, baby carot, baby spinach and now baby potato. To me, baby means more tender and soft.

A simple pan-fried baby potato with garlic and fresh white button mushroom. No special seasoning was required, just some sea salt and freshly grounded black pepper. Suitable as side dish, appetizer or standalone dish.

Marie Biscuit Chocolate Cake

2008-09-05T12:40:00.014+08:00

Can you make a cake without a mixer and an oven?
Here is an example, Marie Biscuit Chocolate Cake, also known as Batik Cake.
There is no beating or baking needed in making this cake.
So you do not need to invest a mixer/oven if you do not have one.

Ingredients:
500g Marie Biscuit(break into half piece)
250g Butter
1/2 cup condensed milk
4 spoons of Cocoa/Milo powder
4 eggs

Directions:
1. Melt and Stir all the ingredients except Marie Biscuit over slow heat.
2. When it becomes thick, mix well with Marie Biscuit.
3. Pour into a 9' square cake tray and press down firmly.
4. Refrigerate for more than 4 hours.

You definitely can make the batik pattern better than me. :)

Celebrating Merdeka

2008-09-03T11:14:00.007+08:00

Last Sunday was Malaysia National Day and the holiday replacement was on Monday. I was lazy to cook when it came to holiday.
Imagine you need to spend hours in the kitchen while the rest is having fun in the living room. Or imagine after one whole day of outing, you still need to drag your tired body to the kitchen.
So, I bought a big piece of unagi from jusco, Qb. Steamed it and served it with japanese rice.

Since it didn't take me long to prepare the dinner, I had also prepared this delicious ice-cream dessert.
Nothing rounds off a good meal better than dessert.
2 big scoops of ice-cream in espresso and Sheridan's Original Irish Coffee Liquor.

Happy Merdeka!

Fried Bread with Egg

2008-08-29T16:27:00.005+08:00

One of my simple but delicious breakfast.
Spread Golden Churn butter on both side of the bread.
Then dip the bread with egg and pan-fry it.
Serve with St Dalfour Fruit Spread.
Salty, Sweet and Sour. Just nice.