Ingredient

Coconut Cream and Milk

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Coconut Cream and Milk

This may not be a surprise for those who have been using fresh Coconut Cream or Milk for their cooking, but increasingly with less wet markets and more supermarkets, coconut cream or milk is something we squeeze out of a tetra pak.

But the flavour from fresh coconut fibers can never be replaced with packet ones. If they say 100% cococnut cream on the packet, I guarantee you if you squeeze fresh Coconut Cream from the fibers of the coconut, the flavour is 200%. Once you have tried the natural, you won’t want to go back to packet ones.

Furthermore fresh coconut cream turns sour if left in the open for more than an hour. If you want to keep it longer, you would have to boil it to a simmer. And that allows you to keep it up to 4 hours.

So I am quite apprehensive about coconut cream that is package to last more than a year. Surely it is not 100%. Maybe there are preservatives?

Anyway, fresh cococnut is cheap and good. A packet costs me $2.20 (SGD), which is a lot of coconut.

To get the cream, just squeeze with your bare hands without adding any water. The expressed cream is the essence of the coconut. Very good for making Thai style curries.

And if you add coconut water or juice, to the squeezed fibers, you will yield coconut milk. If you don’t have the juice of the coconut, you may add warm water to extract a very nice coconut milk. Again that can be used for curries or making Nasi Lemak. Try it today!

Bon Appetit!

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Fresh Coconut

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Squeezing with a sieve

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Cococnut cream

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Dried coconut fibers

Drunken Sesame Chicken

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Drunken Sesame Chicken 嘛醉鸡

This is an improvement to my previous recipe Chicken in Rice Wine. That recipe is great but this is much better. I discovered that by adding more sesame oil and also hua tiao jiu together with the hakka rice wine, the results were a sweet caramelized chicken.

I like to cook this with chicken wings as they have the gelatinous fats that would be so delicious once you pressure steam and fry the chicken in a clay-pot.

Make sure you add just the right amounts of ginger and if possible fry them until they become brown and almost burnt. When the dish is done, your clay-pot might be a light charred due to the sugars in the hakka rice wine caramelising, some of the chicken parts are burnt slightly due to the heat, but that is fine. A delicious chicken dish with steamed rice or best with porridge or congee.

Recipe

Ingredients

4 Chicken Wings with Drunplets (separate the drumlets from the wings and also the wing tips)
Lots of Ginger *maybe 8-9 cm of one inch thickness* (sliced thinly)
1/4 cup of Hakka Rice Wine
1/4 cup of Shao Xing Hua Tiao Jiu
White Pepper
2 tbsp of Light Soy Sauce 
1 tbsp of Dark Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Olive Oil
4 tbsp Sesame Oil

Method

1. Marinate the chicken parts with light soy sauce and white pepper. Allow the meat to marinate at least for 5-10 minutes.

2. Sliced the ginger thinly, and then heat the olive oil and sesame oil in a clay-pot over low fire. Then fry the ginger strips until brown and crispy.

3. Add marinated chicken meat into the clay-pot for cooking. Over medium fire continue to cook until chicken pieces turn whitish in colour. Add dark soy sauce and continue cooking over medium fire. Finally add the Hakka Rice Wine and Hua Tiao Jiu and allow the chicken to simmer and cook over a slow fire. Remember to close the lid. Once cooked serve with steam rice.

Bon Appetit!!

Thai Green Curry

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Thai Green Curry

I have always wanted to learn how to make Thai Green Curry, and chanced upon a healthy cooking workshop at one of those Residents Committee places. They were demonstrating how to cook a healthier version of Thai Green Curry, and while watching them demonstrating it, I thought to myself that the healthier version actually looked quite oily in reality.

Anyway, I was there to observe, so no comments. Like I always say, if I wanted to say anything, I will only make comments on my own cooking. It looked fairly easy enough. And surprisingly, the results were really yummy when I cooked it. I used fresh Chicken Drumsticks as the meat was usually more tender and juicy. I think the meat from chicken breasts would be too dry or tough if not cooked properly, and not as yummy as the chicken drumstick meat. For my version I added a little more colour in terms of the vegetables used, yellow and red capsicum, carrots and long beans, and instead of the recommended high calcium milk, I used packet Coconut Cream (more lemak, more nice).

The key ingredient is of course the Thai Green Curry paste, I decided to get a pre-mix version from NTUC called “Dancing Chef”, and it was really nice. Of course, you can make everything from scratch if you wanted to.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 Chicken Drumsticks with Adjoined Thigh (Chopped into small pieces and marinate with Light Soya Sauce and White Pepper)
1 packet of “Dancing Chef” brand Thai Green Curry paste
3 cloves of Garlic (Chopped finely)
1 medium Yellow Onion (Chopped finely)
3 sprigs of Curry Leaves (Use only the leaves)
3 stalks of Long Beans (Chopped into 3 cm pieces)
Half of a Carrot (Chopped into bite-sized pieces)
Half of a Yellow Capsicum (Chopped into small pieces)
Half of a Red Capsicum (Chopped into small pieces)
1 small packet of Kara Coconut Cream
2 cups of Water
2 tbsp Light Soya Sauce
1/2 tsp White Pepper
Drizzle of Thai Fish Sauce (Optional)

Method

1. Chop the chicken thigh into bite size pieces and marinate with light soya sauce and white pepper for about 5-10 minutes.

2. Add 1 packet of the Thai Green Curry paste into a wok and fry at medium heat. There is no need to add additional oil as there is already oil in the packet (The paste can be quite spicy, so no need to add additional chilli). Add the chopped garlic and onions and fry together with the paste (Actually the paste is made up of these ingredients, I just added more so that it is not so spicy).

3. Add the Curry Leaves into the paste to fry, this will make the Thai Green Curry paste more fragrant (See picture below). Add the marinated chicken pieces to fry. Fry at medium heat for about 5 minutes. After that, add the chopped capsicum (both red and yellow), long beans and carrots. Continue to stir fry, this time around, turn the heat up to high.

4. Add the Kara coconut cream and add water. Give it a good stir. Do a taste test. If it is okay, then there is no need to add more flavouring. But if it is not tasty enough, then add a drizzle of Thai Fish Sauce. Cover the lid and let it boil for about 8 minutes or until it is bubbling. Do another taste test, it should be tasty and full of flavour with the coconut milk, the chicken pieces should be juicy and succulent. Then it is ready. Serve with steamed rice.

Bon Appetit!

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Olive Fried Rice

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Olive Fried Rice

Just attended a healthy cooking workshop the other day and decided to put my learning into action. I am not the most healthy cooking cook around, so don’t judge me, I am only concerned for the taste of the dish.

Anyway the recipe calls for brown rice and basmati rice mix for a healthier choice, but seriously, who has that in their warchest? Unless you already are a health conscious person, you’re unlikely to stock up on these grains. The whole reason why I would even bother cooking this dish was because my MIL gave us a whole tub of cooked rice for us to steam and eat the next day. I decided that Olive Fried Rice was the better thing to do.

It’s the quite healthy version, so maybe you would like to try it for yourself or the family, my recipe cooks for two persons. My wife and I. I used Tuna Chunks instead of boiled Chicken Breasts fillets as most people would have used that, and instead of the usual Chinese Olives, I used Kalamata Olives from Greece, a little pricey, but totally worth it for the flavour.

Recipe

Ingredients

Half a bottle of Kalamata Olives (These are your deep purple, almond shaped olives from Greece, nice flavour, NTUC got sell)
3 stalks of Long Beans (Cut into 3 cm lengths)
Half a can of Tuna (I bought the one in olive oil, any brand will do)
2 cups of Cooked Rice (The rice is usually placed in the fridge so that the rice will be more Q <– don’t ask me what is Q)
3 cloves of Garlic (Crushed)
Half a Yellow Onion (Chopped finely)
Drizzle of Thai Fish Sauce
Handful of Cashew Nuts
Olive Oil

Method

1. Heat olive oil in non-stick wok/pan and stir fry the garlic and chopped onions until fragrant. Medium heat will do. Stir fry the cashew nuts together with the ingredients until slightly brown.

2. Mash half of the olives and rough chop the rest of the olives. Throw the olives in the wok and continue frying. Add the tuna chunks and continue to fry. If the oil not enough, add more oil (I know this is the part where it becomes less healthy, but if not enough oil, you need to add).

3. Add the chopped long beans into the wok to fry. Fry until the long beans are soften. Now add the cooked rice to fry together. Drizzle Thai Fish Sauce over the rice and fry until the fried rice is fragrant.

Bon Appetit!

Stir Fry Xiao Bai Cai with Fried Tau Kee

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Stir Fry Xiao Bai Cai with Fried Tau Kee

My wife got this Xiao Bai Cai from the local vegetable seller and almost sworn by the product. I thought it was funny that she should be feeling this way about vegetable, I mean I usually don’t gush about my groceries. But I guess it was not without good reason. The Xiao Bai Cai that we usually get at the supermarket are usually quite sandy and would require a lot of soaking and washing.

For some reason the supplier didn’t want to disturb the plant so much after it was harvested, and so it was not washed or treated with anything (actually I am not sure if it was treated with anything or not). I always thought vegetables should be packed the same way after they are being harvested. But that said, there are different suppliers and also different ways to grow vegetables these days.

Maybe this Xiao Bai Cai was grown hydroponically at some local farm nearby my house? Anyway, we were both quite pleased with the vegetables as it meant less washing and scrubbing in between the stems and that we could quickly give it a good rinse and cut it up for frying.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 packet of Xiao Bai Cai
2 pieces of Fried Tau Kee (these usually comes with fish paste in between the layers)
3-4 cloves of Garlic (crushed not minced)
3-4 tbsp Olive Oil
2 tbsp Thai Fish Sauce

Method

1. Wash and rinse Xiao Bai Cai thoroughly, making sure there is no sand or debris in between the stems. (Good habit to wash vegetables even though you know they were grown hydroponically. There could be worms or whatever creepy crawlies sometimes, so better to be safe.)

2. Chop them up into bite size pieces. This allows for easy cooking, and also easier to eat. (Of course, you would know that already.) Also, shred the Fried Tau Kee into thin strips.

3. Heat 3-4 tbsp of Olive Oil in the wok/pan. Make sure the oil is hot by turning up the heat to high. Fry the garlic pieces, giving them a quick stir to prevent the garlic from burning. Do this until the garlic pieces are fragrant and start to brown. Then add in the shredded Fried Tau Kee pieces. Fry until you smell the tau kee pieces (sorry don’t know how else better to explain this part). After that, reserve the garlic and fried tau kee pieces in a plate while you cook the vegetables.

4. You generally would want more oil so that the vegetables will cook better and not burn. So if need be, add more oil. (I say more oil because I like to fry my vegetables using high heat, and oil helps to prevent the vegetables from burning. I find that the vegetables cooks evenly that way, so that works for me. I know it is unhealthy to use so much oil.) 

5. Next with the remainder oil in the work, fry the stems first as these tend to take a while to cook, and once they are cooked, then add the rest of the vegetables in to continue to fry. Remember to do the pan flip method. Quickly drizzle the Thai Fish Sauce over the vegetables and continue to pan flip the vegetables. The searing sound of the vegetables burning along the sides of the pan would ensure that it is cooked evenly. (At least that’s how I would cook it. Sometimes stirring it with the wooden spatula doesn’t mix the vegetables or the sauce that well.)

6. After that, put the reserved ingredients (garlic and fried tau kee) and continue to do the pan flip method. Once you have mixed the ingredients well, cover the vegetables with the lid and allow it to steam for a few minutes. This would soften the vegetables and allow the fish sauce to mix in well. That’s it.

Bon Appetit!

Stir Fry Bitter Gourd with 妖肉 in Salted Black Beans

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Stir Fry Bitter Gourd with 妖肉 in Salted Black Beans

I am throwing down the gauntlet for this recipe, it super heightens umami in an amazing manner that I can’t even begin to describe it. Like they say, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.

This twist to an old recipe that my mum always made looks likely to stay in my arsenal of recipes. Instead of the usual beef stir fry slices, I am using “yeow” meat or in Mandarin 妖肉 as I so fondly refer to that prized cut of pork.

Sliced thinly and simply marinated with light soya sauce and white pepper yields a flavour that is out of this world. Perfect, at least it is in my culinary journey so far.

The bitter gourd fried using the pan flip method and hot oil, flung up and down to a sweetened tenderness that is just fabulous. The key is to cook the ingredients separately and then bringing them together later on to cook together.

Recipe

Ingredients

A whole Bitter Gourd (sliced thinly or about half a centimetre thick)
2-3 tsp of Salted Black Beans
4-5 cloves of Garlic (bruised)
50 grams of “Yeow” 妖肉 (in hokkien it is called “yo lai ba”)
Light Soya Sauce
Thai Fish Sauce
White Pepper
Olive Oil

Method

1. Slice the pork into thin slices and then marinate in light soya sauce about 2 tsp. Add some white pepper. Leave the pork slices to marinate for about 5 minutes.

2. Bruise or crush the garlic, no need to mince. Then heat 3-4 table spoons of oil in the wok and stir fry the garlic pieces. Fry until the sides are slightly brown. Then add the black beans in to stir fry. Then add the marinated pork.

3. Stir Fry the pork until it starts to change colours and the water content starts to form what looks like the sauce.

4. Reserve the pork slices aside once the meat texture start to change colours.

5. In the same pan, wash and heat another 3-4 tbsp of oil. This time around, you are frying the bitter gourd using the pan flip method. Fry until the bitter gourd is softened and tender (not mushy). Add a drizzle of Thai dish sauce to the bitter gourd pieces and continue to stir fry. The key I believe is the separate frying of the bitter gourd and the addition of fish sauce.

6. Once the bitter gourd is softened, add the reserved (from just now) meat and combine the ingredients. Keep frying and ensure that the ingredients are cooked and that there is now a confluence of flavours.

7. Serve with steamed rice.

Bon Appetit!

Sambal Kembong

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Sambal Kembong

I love Kembong Fish, and if there was a choice between Selar and Kembong, I would choose the latter. The flesh of the Kembong fish is sweet and delicious, much nicer than the Selar. Try it.

I love having the fish fried with a little oil and making diagonal cuts along the slides of the fish to fill its guts with freshly chopped red chillis that have been mixed with a sprinkle of sea salt.

I like it fried until it is crispy and crunchy when you bite into it and with a squish of lime – it is perfect. The confluence of salty, sour and spicy flavours mixed together just makes you want to munch the crispy fish head. The perfect dish to accompany any meal, especially porridge.

Recipe

Ingredients

Kembong Fish (a few will do actually, usually I am only cooking for me and my wife)
Red Chilli 2 pcs (chopped with a sprinkle of sea salt)
Sea Salt (just a sprinkle will do)
Calamansi Lime 2 Whole

Method

1. Wash the fish and remove the guts if you haven’t already. If you are not eating the fish on the same day, it is better to keep the guts of the fish in when buying the fish. This helps to keep it fresh longer.

2. Score the sides of the fish deep enough to create pockets to fill the sambal (aka chilli) paste.

3. Chop the red chillis until a fine paste. This paste I also call sambal. It’s a Malay word that means chilli? Sprinkle a little sea salt and give it a good mix with the spoon.

4. Fill the fish with the sambal paste and the fry it under medium heat in a frying pan. Make sure there is sufficient oil so that it can be crispy and crunchy when you bite it.

5. I usually use Olive oil or soya bean oil. The last thing you should be using is any vegetable oil that lists palm oil as its main ingredients. Palm oil is not healthy for you. So Olive or soya bean is best.

6. Serving suggestion: you may add a little bit of coriander leaves for colour, a drizzle of dark soya sauce if you want more flavour and a slight sweetness. Otherwise it is good just as it is.

Bon Appetit!

Stir Fry Chye Sim with Fried Tau Kee

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Stir Fry Chye Sim with Fried Tau Kee

I was at NTUC the other day (as usual) and I saw this BoBo product (it is really called BoBo, I’m not kidding!) called Fried Tau Kee and instantly I remembered eating something similar at some Yong Tau Foo stall. So I bought it. I knew it would taste fabulous with some fried vegetable like Chye Sim (local) or China Chye Sim (above picture).

The fundamental differences between local Chye Sim and China Chye Sim is that the foreign one (actually they are both foreign) is shorter and have thicker stems. They resemble Kai Lan vegetable in some ways.

I already cooked it with the local Chye Sim and my wife loves it. So now to try it with the China variant of the Chye Sim. I have a feeling that it should taste just as delicious, and I was right. My wife loves it, and that’s all that matters really.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 packet of China Chye Sim (I got the NTUC ones and they are usually very nicely packed)
1 packet of BoBo Fried Tau Kee (this usually comes filled with fish paste)
3-4 cloves of Garlic (rough chop)
Olive Oil
Light Soya Sauce

Method

1. Heat 3 tbsp oil in wok/pan and when the oil is sufficiently heated, drop the garlic in and stir fry until fragrant.

2. Slice the Fried Tau Kee into thin strips and then add into the wok/pan to fry with the garlic. Do this until the Tau Kee pieces start to brown a little.

3. Chop the Chye Sim into bite size pieces and give them a good wash and rinse. Then add into the wok/pan to stir fry. I have a different method of stir frying for my vegetables. I prefer to flip the vegetables instead of attacking them with the wooden spatula. I find that this way of frying vegetables was much better (and more fun). The most important consideration is the fire, it should be high and the flipping action must be continuous.

Bon Appetit!

Stir Fry Chicken with Scallops, Celery and Cashews

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Stir Fry Chicken with Scallops, Celery and Cashews

It’s a mouthful I must admit, but there is just no two ways of naming this amazing dish. The Stir Fry Chicken with Japanese Scallops, Australian Celery and American Cashews is just as multinational as the number of ingredients in it.

Of course the chicken is 100% local. Or at least I think it is. Or maybe it is Malaysian. *shrugged*

One thing is for certain. I cooked it in a very Singaporean kitchen. 100% home cooked. Okay so what you may say. And you are right. No big deal.

The only thing to shout about is really how well these ingredients all come together to make a delicious dish accompaniment to a perfect meal. The roasted cashews, seared to an uneven edgy char. The marinated chicken bits and pieces seasoned with the troika of marinates – white pepper, soya sauce and oyster sauce – three basic differences that brings such confluence of taste to simple poultry.

I love the roasted cashews and how the celery just added that unique flavour to the dish. Truly I was amazed that I realised to cook this dish only now. This is the stuff legends are made of.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 Chicken Drum (deboned)
Handful of Baked Cashews
3 stalks of Celery (chopped)
6 pieces of Scallops (halved)
White Pepper
Oyster Sauce
Light Soya Sauce
Olive Oil

Method

1. Marinate the chicken pieces in white pepper (about 1 tsp), 1 tbsp soya sauce and 1 tbsp oyster sauce. Leave it to marinate for about 5 minutes.

2. In a wok/pan heat about 3 tbsp oil. Then stir fry the cashews until they start to brown. Once the cashews are browning, add the marinated chicken pieces to stir fry. Ensuring that they change colour to a light brown.

3. Add the scallops and turn the heat up to high. Keep stirring to ensure evenness of cooking. Then throw in the chopped celery and cover the lid to steam the vegetables and softened them.

4. Steaming cooks the vegetables and the meats and allows the flavours to come together cohesively. Remove the lid and stir fry until you can smell the dish. Do a taste test and you can serve.

Bon Appetit!

Stir Fry Chicken

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Stir Fry Chicken

After a brief hiatus from cooking, actually it has been more like writing recipes. I have been cooking just not posting my new dishes. I wanted to try some classic favourites to see if they will turn out just as fabulous as the ones that I find at the restaurants.

For example, I recently tried the three egg spinach, which incidentally is my family’s favourite dish that we would always order when we go PuTien Chinese Restaurant. I tried it the other day and it turned out to be quite alright, just that the century egg I used was the soft centre types which resulted in the soup being quite a murky green.

Anyway, I have been cooking a lot of chicken in rice wine lately and as much as I liked the dish, it was a little too frequent. So today I decided that I would cook it the way I cook frog legs, in sliced ginger and lots of spring onions. Simple and delicious.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 Chicken Drum (deboned)
4 stalks of Spring Onions
5 thin slices of Ginger
2 tbsp Oyster Sauce
1 tbsp Light Soya Sauce
Drizzle of Sesame Seed Oil
Sprinkle of White Pepper

Method

1. Debone the chicken drum (usually I get the chicken butcher to do it for me). Then cut the meat into small bite sized pieces. Marinate with light soya sauce, oyster sauce and white pepper with a light drizzle of sesame seed oil.

2. Mix with your fingers until meat is coated and leave it for about 5 minutes to marinate.

3. Wash and cut the spring onions into 6 cm lengths and split into two portions. Then slice 5 thin slices of ginger.

4. Heat oil in the pan/wok and fry the ginger and first portion of spring onions until fragrant. Then add the lightly marinated chicken meat to stir fry. Keep doing this until the meat is cooked. To test if the meat is cooked – taste it.

5. Add the remaining spring oinions midway of frying the chicken so that the greens will still be green and not all softened. Once cooked serve with steam rice or white porridge. Easy.

Bon Appetit!

Halibut Fillet with Asian Salmon Sauce

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Halibut Fillet with Asian Salmon Sauce

This is a recipe that I picked up on Asian Food Channel and I thought it was a fantastic idea to present it this way. The halibut fillet was topped with an Asian Salmon Sauce which I thought looked really delightful and tasty.

Ingredients like lemon grass, shredded kaffir lime leaves sautéed with shallots and garlic, and then blended with Thai sweet chilli sauce really adds flavours to the salmon to form a pate. Yes, we are blending the salmon fish together to make the fish paste, kind of like making an otah otah and then layering it on top of another fish.

If you can’t find halibut at your local Asian supermarket you can substitute it with the Basa Bocourti Fish. If you don’t have either, any dory fillet also can.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 piece Halibut Fillet (alternatively you could also use the Basa Bocourti Fish, a Mekong River Catfish)
1 piece Salmon Fillet (cut into pieces to be blended)
2 stalks Lemon Grass
3 pieces of Kaffir Lime Leaves
2 bulbs of Shallots (small red onions also can)
3 cloves of Garlic (crushed)
3 tbsp Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce
100 ml Heavy Cream (aka cooking cream)
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Lemon wedge (a squish just before serving, optional)

Method

1. Chop the shallots. Crush the garlic. Then sauté in the pan with 2 tbsp of olive oil. Add a little salt to prevent the ingredients from burning. Salt helps to extract moisture from the ingredients.

2. Shred the lower ends of the lemon grass (about 1/3) and you may discard the rest. The flavour is strongest near the bottom. Shred the kaffir lime leaves and add the ingredients into the pan and continue frying.

3. After the flavours of the ingredients are blended, reserve aside. Chop the salmon into pieces. Place in blender/food processor. Add Thai sweet chilli sauce. Add heavy cream. Then add the sautéed ingredients and blend till well mixed. Adjust the textures accordingly with the heavy cream, if you need more liquid depending on the size of your salmon fillet. It should be an orangy hue like otah otah.

4. Season the halibut fillet with salt and black pepper. Spread the salmon pate on the top of the halibut fillet and then cut them up into squares. Arrange the squares on a baking tray and bake them at 180 degrees for about 6 minutes. Serve with a squish of lemon if you like.

Bon Appetit!

Sambal Belacan Okra with Tomatoes

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Sambal Belacan Okra with Tomatoes

Here is another dish that goes very well with Sambal Belacan sauce. Okra aka Lady’s Fingers – don’t ask me why they are called that when they don’t look remotely like any lady’s finger – blends very well in the sambal belacan sauce.

I can only say try it if you haven’t already stir fry it. I cooked it with large beef tomatoes and powdered hae bi aka dried shrimp. The dried shrimps were grounded to almost like a fine powder using a food processor or you can work out some arm muscles with the traditional pestle and mortar.

Whichever method you choose the 32nd result will be a fine powdered form of Dried shrimp. You should have a 2 tbsp worth. The fragrance of the dried shrimp plus the sambal belacan simply enhances the flavour of this seemingly simple dish.

Recipe

Ingredients

15 pieces of Okra (the way to select the good ones is to flick the end of the okra to see if it is too hard or too soft. If it flicks back, then likely that it is good.)
30 grams of hae bi aka Dried Shrimp
1 large tbsp of Sambal Belacan
2 large Beef Tomatoes (quartered)
3 cloves of Garlic (crushed)
Olive Oil

Method

1. Heat oil till it is smoking. Fry the crushed garlic (not minced) and fry till fragrant. Then add in the dried ground hae bi aka dried shrimp. Fry until fragrant. This one really smells good.

2. Then add the tomatoes in to fry. Stir Fry until the tomatoes start to soften and break down. Then add the okra (which you would have already sliced diagonally) and continue to fry.

3. Now add the sambal belacan and continue to stir fry. Don’t be tempted to add in additional water. The liquid from the tomatoes should be sufficient and you generally want to allow the ingredients to cook in their juices.

4. Continue to fry until the gooey-ness of the okra starts to manifest. Make sure the vegetable is coated nicely with the chilli paste. Serve with steamed rice.

Bon Appetit!

Sambal Belacan Petai with Prawns

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Sambal Belacan Petai with Prawns

I decided to cook Sambal Belacan Petai with Prawns tonight. The stinky beans Petai is one of those lesser cooked at home and not generally appreciated, but with sambal belacan, it is magically transformed into a delicacy.

The wet market vegetable uncle had a huge supply of Petai that weekend and I had to grab a pack and plan it into my weekly gastronomic journey through the kitchen. One of the things that I enjoy doing these days is quick cooking. That is to come back and quickly whip up dinner dishes for the family in under 30 minutes. It’s a challenge to do it, but I totally look forward to doing it everyday.

So this simple recipe cooked with pre-made sambal belacan will definitely rock your socks off. The key is the cooking time and a non stick pan/wok. Otherwise it is very easy to cook Petai.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 bag of Petai (stinky beans usually available at the wet market)
1 large tbsp of Sambal Belacan (I got those pre-made ones at the supermarket)
1 large Yellow Onion (quartered)
6 large Glass Prawns (I realised that this type of prawns are perfect for the dish, they are expensive, but no regrets)
2 cloves of Garlic (minced)
2 tbsp Olive Oil

Method

1. Some preparation needs to be done with the Petai beans. You need to split the beans into halves and wash them thoroughly. We split the beans because sometimes there are worms burrows and those need to be discarded.

2. In a non-stick wok, add olive oil and stir fry the onions. You would want a non-stick wok or pan because you would be frying the ingredients over high heat for a while and you generally don’t want the ingredients to char and burn.

3. After frying the onions until they are softened and fragrant, add the Petai to stir fry. You then continue to stir fry until some of the onions begin to brown slightly. These visual milestones are important because cooking equipment and timing may differ.

4. Add the minced garlic and fry till you can smell the fragrance of the garlic. Then add a generous table spoon of Sambal Belacan and continue to stir fry, making sure that the ingredients are coated with the sambal sauce.

5. Once you can smell the fragrance of the chilli paste. Add in the prawns to cook. For this dish, you would want to cook the prawns until they turn into an “O” shape. Although I often say “O” means overcooked, it is permissible for this dish as the direct heat is shared with other ingredients.

6. Once sufficiently cooked, taste that the Petai beans are soft and yummy. Serve with steamed rice.

Bon Appetit!

Braised Chicken Feet Noodles

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Braised Chicken Feet Noodles

This is our all time favourite. Braised Chicken Feet noodles aka 鸡脚面. I kind of got tired of the long queues at our favourite chicken feet noodle stall nearby our place. The queue has been unusually ridiculous. I waited for 45 minutes the other day. Terrible.

So I decided to make my own braised chicken feet noodles ala ho sim lang style. My challenge was to make it such that the chicken feet still retains the gelatinous strains and the chewiness of the meat but yet tender and full of flavour.

I don’t quite like the ones at the Chicken Feet noodle shop because they usually deep fry the chicken feet first before braising. That method kind of makes the feet puffy and wrinkly. I prefer them cooked my way.

Truth be told it was quite a tedious process, but totally worth it. The preparation for the chicken feet took almost a whole day to prepare. The noodles was the easy part.

Recipe

Ingredients

10 pieces of Chicken Feet (usually the wet market uncle would already pack them in packs of 10, very convenient)
5 pieces of Dried Shitake Mushrooms
3 thin slices of Ginger
3 cloves of Garlic
3 stalks of Spring Onions
1 piece of Star Anise
2 tbsp of Oyster Sauce
1 tbsp of Light Soya Sauce
2 tbsp of Dark Soya Sauce
1/4 cup of Shao Xing Hua Tiao Jiu
Sprinkle of White Pepper
1 tsp of Castor Sugar
Tomato Ketchup
Shin Ramen Noodles (Korean instant noodles)
Olive Oil
Water reserved from the soaking of mushrooms

Method

1. Soak the shitake mushrooms in half a bowl of hot water. After they are soaked, slice the mushrooms into halves. Reserve the water for later.

2. In a pot, boil the chicken feet until the water becomes oily. Reserve the stock for frying vegetables (eg. Mani Cai with Egg). Reserve the chicken feet for later.

3. In a claypot, add 2 tbsp of Olive oil, turn heat to medium, add ginger slices, crushed garlic (not minced), spring onions halves (about 4 cm lengths) and star anise. Saute until fragrant. Fragrant here means all the smells of the ingredients become one. Remember to leave some finely chopped spring onions for garnishing.

4. Next add the soaked mushroom halves and stir fry with the rest of the ingredients for a while before adding the chicken feet into the pot to stir fry as well. Do this for a few minutes. Add sugar and white pepper. Continue to mix.

5. While the ingredients are frying, prepare the seasoning mix of sauces in a small bowl. Once ready, pour the seasoning sauce into the pot and give it a good stir. Add the reserved mushroom water into the pot until all the chicken feet are covered.

6. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to a simmer with lid on. Continue to cook for at least an hour. After that turn the heat off and leave it in the pot to soak up the marinate. Boil with lid on again and leave it to marinate overnight.

7. After more than 12 hours in the pot, the longer the better and in my case, almost 24 hours later, I turned up the heat for one last time before assembling my braised chicken feet noodles for breakfast.

8. In a separate pot, cook the Korean instant noodles. You can use whatever noodles you want. I like the Korean noodles because they are quite filling and easy to cook. Once cooked, plate it. Add a little dollup of ketchup and mix with sauce from the braised chicken feet.

9. Give the noodles a good mix, assemble the chicken feet and mushrooms and a generous sprinkle of chopped spring onions. Serve hot.

Bon Appetit!

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Boil chicken feet until stock is oily.

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Soak shitake mushrooms in hot water

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Saute dry ingredients until fragrant

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Cooked chicken feet

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Chopped spring onions

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Braised Chicken Feet noodles

Stir Fry Mani Cai with Egg

Stir Fry Mani Cai with Egg

My mother in law likes to cook this vegetable for weekend dinners with the family and it seems the entire family loves it. My wife swears by it and cited many childhood memories of eating it when she was still in primary school.

Of course I have never eaten this Mani Cai until I started dating my wife. Pardon my skepticism. If it was so fantastic, it would be very popular wouldn’t it? It seems it is only available at the wet market vegetable seller and no where else. Plus the way to say it properly is always a point of contention. So not many people know what it really is. Some call it Ma Lee while others call is Ba Lee.

So just what is this vegetable that everyone seems to be raving about? Everyone here refers to my wife’s family. Not much is known about it except that it came from the vegetable seller at the market. So the only way was to do some research online and while doing so, I discovered that while it is nutritious and nice, it was also deadly if consumed uncooked. Wah lau so dangerous.

If you think I am joking, please Read this. It seems the uncooked version can cause respiratory problems, leading to lung failure. Wah, sound so serious. So better to cook it and make sure it is cooked well.

Maybe you are now having second thoughts about cooking this dish. I would too if I knew it would be a life and death situation.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 packet of Mani Cai (aka sayur manis or 马尼菜)
10 cloves of Garlic
2 ladle of Chicken Stocksofteniled the chicken stock from chicken feet)
3 whole Eggs
2 tbsp Olive Oil
2 tbsp Light Soya Sauce

Method

1. Wash the sayur manis (lit. Sweet Leaves) before plucking the leaves and discarding the stems.

2. After that crush the leaves with your bare hands (and laugh like a tyrant while doing it). Then with the side of a cleaver smash the garlic and then stir fry them in a heated pan/wok in Olive oil. Fry till fragrant. After that add the mani cai into the wok and stir fry with the garlic.

3. The vegetable will almost immediately reduce in volume. Continue to fry till it is a hue of dark green. Add a ladle of Chicken stock and continue frying. Then add the eggs (already beaten together with the light soya sauce) and continue to stir fry.

4. Close the lid and continue cooking in medium heat. After the eggs are cooked, give it a good mix and continue to stir fry. If the vegetable is too dry, add more chicken stock. Continue cooking until vegetable is softened. Serve hot  with steamed rice.

If you like Nai Bai Vegetable, you might want to check out this simple recipe as well.
1. Stir Fry Nai Bai

Bon Appetit!

Egg Mayo Sandwich

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Egg Mayo Sandwich

My wife has been taking up more cooking roles recently but only because I haven’t had time to cook or was caught up in traffic on the way home. So she would quickly prepare the ingredients for me to cook when I do get back.

I think she needs more confidence in the kitchen to eventually cook everyday. Never mind that takes time. Interestingly though, her dishes are not too bad. Maybe I might sneakily outsource some of the cooking to her just for starters.

So this morning I couldn’t get out of bed in time to make breakfast and she quietly and dutifully made a simple Egg Mayo sandwich for us. So nice of her. It was again very subtly flavoured but most importantly, it was delicious.

I had to ask her for the recipe.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 whole Eggs, hard boiled
2 tbsp Japanese Mayo (the baby brand)
White Pepper (just a dash)
Salt (just a sprinkle)
10 grams Unsalted Butter

Method

1. Boil the eggs in a pot of water at high heat till they are hard boiled. Should be about 15 minutes.

2. After peeling the eggs (over running water), mash them with a fork and mix with the butter and mayo. The texture should be moist and like a paste. Sprinkle salt and white pepper and continue to mix and combine.

3. Spread the egg mayo paste on the bread slices and it is done. Should have enough to make two egg mayo sandwiches.

Bon Appetit!

Ragu Pasta with Poached Egg

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Ragu Pasta with Poached Egg

I love Italian cooking and always love trying new recipes and different styles of cooking traditional dishes. This is an improvised Ragu Pasta recipe from my friend and mentor Joe Kwan and his lovely wife Winkie.

They cooked this delicious Ragu Pasta for our social last weekend and it was such a subtle dish that I too wanted to recreate it for our dinner tonight. Truly it was wholesome Italian cooking, peppered with lots of unmerited flavour.

It’s fairly easy to cook although the poached egg part requires a little skill. Typically to poach an egg, you have to add a little vinegar into a pot of boiling water and stir the water so that the egg retains its shape and slowly cooks. But because I needed to quickly cook and make sure that dinner was served on time, I took some short cuts. Read on to find out how it is done, the ho sim lang way.

Recipe

Ingredients

250 grams Minced Beef
125 grams Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese
1 box of Barilla Friget Penne
1 can of Anchovies
Handful of Pine Nuts
2 stalks Sweet Basil Leaves
2 stalks Flat Leaf Parsley (aka Italian parsley)
1 large Yellow Onion (I was supposed to be using a French Shallot and a Red Onion)
1 piece Bay Leaf
1 bottle of Barilla Bolognese Sauce
1 bowl of Sweet Cherry Tomatoes
1 cup of Cabnernet Sauvignon red wine
3 tbsp Olive Oil (and some for cooking the pasta)
Black Pepper
Sea Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Pour the box of penne dried pasta into the pot. Add a little salt and olive oil. Add the kettle of boiling water and cook the pasta for 11 minutes to al dente or longer if you like.

2. While the pasta is cooking, add salt and pepper to the minced beef and give it a good mix. In a small frying pan, roast the pine nuts until they are brown. After the pasta is cooked, scoop the pasta and dry them out in a colander but reserve the water in a bowl.

3. Wash the pot and then add olive oil. After you have marinated the beef for about 10 minutes, fry the beef in the pot over low fire. While that is cooking, cut and chop the onion. Slice the cherry tomatoes and tear up the parsley leaves and basil leaves.

4. Add the prepared ingredients including the roasted pine nuts, into the pot and stir fry, turning up the heat a little. Add the can of anchovies along with the olive oil in the can into the pot. Continue to stir fry until the onions are softened and you can smell the fragrance of the beef sauce. Add a cup of red wine. You can use any red wine. Add a bay leaf. Continue to cook over a medium fire. Do this until the wine evaporates and the sauce thickens.

5. Add the bottle of bolognese into the pot and cook with the minced beef sauce, maintain medium heat over the pot.

6. In another smaller pot with boiling hot water but with the fire off, poach two eggs. You can crack an egg into cling wrap, give the package a twist and then sous vide the egg in the water bath until it is cooked. Depending on your preference, the eggs can be either firm or watery-runny.

7. Once the Ragu sauce is ready, add the cooked penne pasta into the pot and give it a good mix. Add the reserved broth of pasta water into the pot to allow the sauce to combine with the pasta easily.

8. Once pasta is well mixed with the Ragu sauce, grate the entire block of Parmigiano Reggiano (aka Parmesan) cheese into the pasta and give it another good mix.

9. Serve the pasta with additional parsley and basil leaves and gently place the poached eggs into the pasta. Serve hot.

Bon Appetit!

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Roast the pine nuts until they start to brown.

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Cook the penne 11 minutes

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Marinate the minced beef with salt and black pepper.

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Chop the yellow onion

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Slice cherry tomatoes into halves.

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Sweet Basil Leaves

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Italian parsley and a can of anchovies.

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Stir Fry the ingredients

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Preparing to poach the egg in cling wrap.

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Twist it into a small package for the water bath.

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In a hot water bath, poach the eggs to desired doneness.

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Grate the entire block of Parmigiano reggiano cheese into the pasta.

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Deliciously yummy Ragu Pasta with poached egg.

Siam Square Mookata (Review)

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Siam Square Mookata (Review)

It’s date night and thank God for precious date nights after marriage. My parents offered to take care of the toddler while we enjoyed a semblance of time together when we were dating. Thank God for understanding parents.

And as my aunty told me before so wisely, “don’t waste time watching movies when you date.. Go have a meal..” she advised. Those were words worth its weight in gold. The simple reasoning behind those words were, you can’t get to know and understand each other if you don’t communicate. Conversations over a good meal are way better than watching a movie.

So we decided to have Thai BBQ for dinner as we could better afford the time and what better place than to try out Thai Mookata Steamboat and BBQ (in a nutshell it is BBQ meats, seafoods and vegetables on a rather unique looking hotplate with soup combination). I did a search and realised that there was only one outlet in Singapore. It was at East Coast Road and kind of out of the way.

Also I knew it can’t be true as I was sure there were plenty more of these Thai BBQ places around, most notably the ones located all over Golden Mile Complex. So I did another search but this time more ambiguous and that result yielded more than 50 weblinks of Thai BBQ places in Singapore. Nice.

Plus my friend told me that there was a tiny stall at a coffee shop located at Block 332 Ang Mo Kio Ave 8 (just behind Christ The King Catholic Church). Siam Square Mookata was the name of that stall and it seems the reviews of the place are that they were “cheap and good”.

That sounded good with us and off we went. I remembered there was a time almost all of our construction was completed by Thai foreign workers. And that just makes sense that Thai food places begun springing up all over the island to cater to their tastes and needs and over time everyone loves Thai foods as well.

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It was just a tiny little stall space in a coffee shop and their BBQ plates of ingredients were reasonably priced at either $1.80, $2.80 or greater as you order the more premium stuff like scallops ($3.80).

They have a rather interesting price menu where they offer ala carte prices first and if you feel at any one time you would wanna go all out at the buffet, you can change to buffet price (about $29 per person). Of course the caveat is you can only switch to buffet price if you are still ordering another round of items and not when you are paying up. But the stall people are very nice about it, they will frequently ask if we wanted to convert to buffet. Such nice people, always thinking for their customers.

Apart from that, the freshness of the ingredients was undeniably good, and for what it’s worth, the entire experience was very nice. They offered both marinated and meats without marinate, but I preferred them plain without the sauces. They taste much nicer after BBQ-ing. Plus it wasn’t crowded even at dinner time, so that was an added bonus. I always love these quaint coffee shop places that are located next to a big spacious carpark, it just gives me a feeling of comfort and I am naturally at ease.

Conclusion

So would I go again? Maybe, if I lived nearer. They didn’t offer anything very special, and in the end we almost ordered the equivalent of their buffet price. But still a very nice experience.

Mala Hotpot (Review)

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Mala Hotpot (Review)

Mala Hotpot has become so popular in Singapore in recent years such that it is almost impossible to ignore it. In fact it has become somewhat a staple for some as they crave and savor the insane levels of spiciness in the dish.

I remember doing a half-baked review of this other Mala place named 日日生麻辣香锅 which was located in Chinatown and another outlet in Tampines. The most outstanding difference is that they charge the items according to the portion as opposed to most other places that charge it according to type of ingredients and its weight.

But I also mentioned that my favourite Mala Hotpot had to be the one at Tampines Mall at the Kopitiam Food court. The prices are exorbitant as they charge according to weight of the ingredients and prices range from a low ten to about twenty dollars for a bowl.

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You can choose from a huge variety of ingredients and they are mostly fresh as the stall is quite popular. So at least the ingredients enjoy high turnover, which is good. I love it because they use a particular soya bean to fry the ingredients and it is delicious.

I usually take the 少辣 (read: least spicy) version of the Mala Hotpot so that I could enjoy my lunch but that day I decided to have the works and opted for 大辣 (read: very spicy). Thinking back it was most definitely a mistake.

At level 3 spiciness, which was also the maximum level of spiciness before it becomes illegal, your tastebuds are wretched and there is very little taste of anything else except the stinging and burning sensation of the chilli. It’s Mala Hotpot Hell if there was such a thing as Mala Hotpot Paradise. Neither exist, but you can imagine the agony and pain that my mouth was going through.

But the sadist in me rather enjoyed it and finished the entire bowl but at the same time vowed silently to never order these ridiculous levels again. In fact when I ordered, the counter guy let out a smirk and laughed to himself. He probably thought I was being silly. He wasn’t wrong to have thought that way. It was foolhardy. Maybe I should consider buying my own Mala Hot Sauce to cook at home. Now that would be a pretty good idea.

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Don’t get me wrong, I still love Mala Hotpot even though there was no trace of umami in this dish. It was very nicely prepared and I would still eat there. By far it is one of my favourite Mala Hotpot places. My favourite ingredients to order would be the mushrooms (all types) and chewy soya bean sticks and big intestines. Shiok!

Bon Appetit!

Home Made Pizza

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Home Made Pizza

I love pizzas, but for most restaurants that make this lovely piece of slightly leavened bread, do it for much profit. Expensive for run of the mill pizzas and anything premium can really break your budget.

And if you decide to make it yourself, then it suddenly becomes very affordable. The ingredients are so much cheaper and the best part about making the pizza yourself is you can make as many pizzas as you like. There is no additional cost.

I bought bread flour, instant yeast, tomato puree and some other ingredients and I was on my way to making my own pizza.

Recipe

Ingredients

3 cups of Bread Flour
7 grams of Instant Yeast
A cup of lukewarm water
Pinch of Salt
1 teaspoon of Castor Sugar
3 tbsp of Olive Oil
Tomato Sauce (pasta sauce)
A punnet of Cherry Tomatoes
A punnet of White Button Mushrooms
1 packet of Wild Rockets
Mixed Mozzarella and Cheddar Cheese

Method

1. Using a kitchen aid machine (if you don’t have one, get it!) and a hook fixture attached, mix flour, yeast, sugar and salt together. Turn on low speed. Combine the ingredients well. Add the water and continue to mix well until it is well mixed.

2. Remove the dough from the machine and knead it a little. Then place the dough into a bowl and add the oil. Cling wrap and allow the dough to rise a little. While it is being left to rise and allowing the yeast to work its magic.

3. While that is working, and rising, you can prepare the other ingredients. Slice the mushrooms, cut up the cherry tomatoes and wash the rocket leaves.

4. After you have prepared the ingredients, you can knead the dough and cut it into smaller dollups. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough into whatever shape you like. (your pizza mah)

5. Spoon the tomato sauce (pasta sauce) onto the rolled out dough. Decorate it with sliced mushrooms, cherry tomato halves. Top the pizza with mix mozzarella and cheddar cheese.

6. Pre-heat the oven to a hot 230 degrees. Then bake the pizza for 10 minutes. After baking, the pizza bread should be slightly burnt and nicely roasted. Top the pizza with wild rockets and serve immediately.

Bon Appetit!

Pasta Pommodoro

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Pasta Pommodoro

If there is one thing that I enjoy more than rice is pasta. I would rather have pasta anytime of the day and they are great for that much needed quick meal.

So I was hungry the other day, and decided that I would whip up a very classic Pasta Pommodoro aka Tomato Pasta. Italian pastas are usually like that, singular and simple. Uncomplicated would be the other word that I would use when describing this particular pasta.

The main ingredient and star of the dish is none other than tomatoes. With a little help from the usual suspects like garlic and good quality olive oil, the end result is a very nice single flavour pasta.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 large Tomato (you can have more if you like)
150 grams Pasta (you can have any kind of pasta, but I used Barilla Farfelle.)
2-3 pieces of Garlic
Olive Oil
Salt
A sprig of Thyme
A small can of Tomato Puree (Gilda brand has very tiny came of Tomato puree)

Method

1. Boil the pasta until al dente then reserve. In another pan, add 2 tbsp olive oil, add the minced garlic and stir fry until fragrant.

2. Then add the diced tomato and continue frying. Add some tomato paste or puree. Add a little water to dilute the sauce a little. Add the pasta into the pan. Combine the ingredients. Add the leaves of Thyme for flavour. Add salt to taste.

3. Once cooked serve with grated parmesan.

Bon Appetit!

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Pommodoro aka Tomatoes

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Pasta

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Thyme

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Pasta Pommodoro

Braised Pork Trotters

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Braised Pork Trotters

My favourite pork trotters in soya sauce. Finally found a recipe that I think works, but decided to cook it the way that I like to. Sorry the photo doesn’t do the dish justice. But I wanted to show that I took a short cut when preparing this dish.

In a nutshell, everything was thrown into the pot without marination. Reason is because this is a braised dish. Braising means you got to cook it for a reasonably amount of time and that means load everything essential into the pot and let the heat melt the gelatinous fat and bond everyone together.

In the end, it was a very nicely cooked pork trotters. Done the Ho Sim Lang way. It’s so easily done, anyone can do it also.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 whole foreleg of Pork (i’m sure you know I meant Pig)
5-6 tbsp Dark Soya Sauce (more if you like)
2 tbsp of Light Soya Sauce
2 tbsp of Oyster Sauce
5cm length of Cinnamon Stick
2 pcs Star Anise
5 pcs Cloves
2 tbsp Castor Sugar
2 tbsp Corn Flour
5 pcs of Dried Shitake Mushrooms
Half a bowl of Hakka Rice Wine
Water (enough to cover the meats)

Method

1. Place the foreleg into the pot. Drop the cinnamon stick, star anise and cloves in. Add the dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, oyster sauce and rice wine in. Add in hot boiling water and make sure the water cover the meats. Boil until water is bubbling. Do a taste test for saltiness. Meanwhile soak the Shitake mushrooms in hot water. Once soaked, cut off the stems and slice and continue soaking.

2. This is the part that is tricky. You want to taste the correct taste before you let the heat take over. If it is not salty enough, add more dark soya sauce. If it is not sweet enough add more castor sugar. The reason why this is crucial is because you are allowing the saltiness of the broth to braise the meats. So it has to be reasonably salty but not too salty. After your taste test is done, mix in the corn flour (mix with some water first) mixture. Add the soaked mushrooms.

3. Cover the lid. Turn the heat to low and go read a book. After about one hour and thirty minutes. It should be nicely done.

Bon Appetit!

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Braised Pork Trotters

Wagyu Steak in Anchovy Butter

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Wagyu Steak in Anchovy Butter

Dinner time has been mostly steam fish this boiled vegetable that. So for tonight’s dinner, I am making a very simple wagyu steak in my favourite anchovy butter sauce.

I came across a rather large wagyu steak on offer at Cold Storage and knew at once that this was going to be a very nice dinner. It was on specials and honestly I couldn’t tell if it was any different from the normal priced wagyu steaks. So I got myself a whole slab. Yum.

The problem with steaks of any kind is usually the preparation of the meat. Cooking time is essential if not critical to the success of the dinner. You can fry up all the premium ingredients to complement the main, but if the doneness of the steak fails, you would have also failed miserably.

For the vegetables that accompanied the steak, I had stir fry Japanese button mushrooms, whole garlic cloves and white button mushrooms with boiled cherry tomatoes and baby potatoes. But what makes this steak really special is the anchovy butter sauce. So simple, just mix the anchovy with the butter in the pan with rosemary herbs and you have a very light butter sauce that works very well with the meat.

Recipe

Ingredients

Main
700-800 grams Wagyu Steak (if you’re not living near a specialty butcher, you could opt to order online Wagyu Kobe Steaks)
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
1 tbsp Olive Oil

Anchovy butter sauce
A small can of Anchovy in Olive Oil
20 grams of Unsalted Butter
A sprig of Rosemary (herb)

Assortment of Vegetables
A pack of Japanese Button Mushrooms
A punnet of White Button Mushrooms
A punnet of Red Cherry Tomatoes
6-7 cloves of Garlic
6 pieces Baby Potatoes
Olive Oil
Black Pepper

Method

1. Boil the baby potatoes in a small pot for about 10 minutes or until a skewer can pierce through. Once done, remove the potatoes and blanch the tomatoes for about 30 seconds. Then remove and arrange vegetabkes on serving plate.

2. In a wok, stir fry the Japanese mushrooms and mildly crushed garlic cloves in 2 tbsp Olive oil for about 2-3 minutes. Quart the white button mushrooms and add the whole lot into the same wok. Continue stir fry. Do this for another 5 minutes. Mushrooms shoukd either sear or shrink down in size. This is common as it loses water content. Once done, dish onto serving plates.

3. Sprinkle the steaks with sea salt and black pepper. In another pan, heat olive oil until smoking, then reduce heat to low. Place the steak into the pan and start pan-searing. 3 minutes on the first side and then another 2 minutes on the other side. Check doneness for medium rare. The meat centre should be a rose pink. If it is a dark red, then maybe you have to cook it a little longer.

The reason why I chose low heat as opposed to high heat is because I don’t want to over-cook the steak. So you have to time the steak strictly. Cut the middle to check for desired doneness. As the wagyu steak is very fatty, it is better to cook over low heat so that the fats will be tender. Once cooked to desired doneness, place it on serving plate.

4. In the same frying pan with the steak infused oil, add the butter and two fillets of anchovies. Break the anchovies and mash it into the butter. Throw in a sprig of Rosemary leaves. Cook until the sauce bubbles and spoon it into the steak. That’s it!

Pair it with a Cabernet Sauvignon or a spicy Shiraz.

Bon Appetit!

Black Chicken Burdock Soup

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Black Chicken Burdock Soup

I have always wanted to make this soup and I can already imagine how delicious this soup would taste like even before cooking. The burdock soup with pork ribs was already delicious so with the addition of the black chicken, needless to say, this soup is gonna rock and roll.

The recipe is very much like the Burdock Soup 牛蒡汤 that I made recently, but except that now the recipe is complete. No more reliance on pre-packed herbal remedies. I have found the perfect confluence of ingredients for this soup.

Every ingredient brings to the table a slew of medicinal benefits. Otherwise it really makes for a great tasting soup. Try it!

Recipe

Ingredients

Half a Black Chicken (chopped into two parts)
80-90 cm length of Burdock Root 牛蒡
Bunch of Wolfberries
Bunch of Dried Red Dates
Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Clean and peel off bark of Burdock Root. Then slice thinly (see picture below). You may soak it in hot water for 10 minutes if you like. Otherwise if you prefer a stronger earthy taste, then just drop it into the pot.

2. Place the half a chicken into the pot. As you can see my black chicken is frozen. My intention is always to simplify the process. So frozen black chicken is fine, no need to thaw. Just drop it into the pot. Add Wolfberries, add dried red dates and a pinch of salt. Then add the hot boiling water and boil at high heat (with lid on) for 20 minutes.

3. Place it in thermal cooker after that for 12 hours (which is when I get home) and the soup would be delicious. Black chicken tender. Soup rich with flavour.

Bon Appetit!

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Sliced Burdock Root 牛蒡

Asparagus (Stir Fry)

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Asparagus (Stir Fry)

I love thick stock asparagus, and especially if fried with tiger prawns or large prawns per se. Somehow the two of them tango very well. The social glue here that makes it all great is the minced garlic and light soy sauce.

When they all come together, it is just simply amazing. You got to try this simple recipe. It doesn’t become the main dish, but it really enhances the meal at dinner.

With the Chinese scallop dancing in between them, magic truly happens.

Recipe

Ingredients

7-8 large stalks of Asparagus
1 tbsp of minced Garlic
6 medium fresh Prawns
5-6 Chinese Scallops
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce

Method

1. Cut asparagus into diagonal slices, ensuring consistency in shape and size. Reserve aside.

2. Heat oil in frying pan, then add minced garlic. Turn heat to medium and watch over garlic to make sure it doesn’t burn but only browns. To prevent burning you can add more oil, although most would prefer not.

3. Add dried scallops into frying pan to fry. I know the recommendation is to soak them first, but I want the flavour to be stronger and for it to infuse with the oil. Once the fragrance of the scallops has been mixed with the garlic, it is time to add the prawns. Stir fry the prawns until it turns a hue of red, then immediately add the asparagus into the pan.

4. Fry till asparagus is shiny and softened. I use a pan-flip technique for this dish so that there is proper mixing of ingredients. I find this technique really useful when you want to get an all round even cooking outcome. Add the soy sauce and continue to do the pan-flip.

5. By now you should also observe that the minced garlic has caramelised with the juice of the prawns into a fragrant paste. Wah, delicious. If it smells great by now, that’s because it really is.

Bon Appetit!

Herb Pesto Sauce

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Herb Pesto Sauce

Another quick and simple to make herb pesto sauce. Ingredients are easily available and not too expensive. Try it.

Recipe

Ingredients

A bunch of Italian Parsley
A bunch of Basil leaves
7-8 cloves of Garlic
Olive Oil

Method

1. With a good processor, minced all the ingredients together. Add enough olive oil and then mix well. Store in a bottle with lid and throw it into the fridge for use later. Easy.

Bon Appetit!

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Dried Baby Octopus

Ho Sim Lang

Dried Baby Octopus

If you are thinking invasion of the body snatchers, well you may not be entirely wrong. With their long extensible arms and legs ever ready to snatch anything within their grasp, it might not be so far fetched to think that they could be aliens from a distant galaxy.

Or if you just watched Penguins of Madagascar, then these three baby octopuses might not be so foreign to you. In fact they do look somewhat scary and cartoonish all at the same time if you thought about it now. But I am not introducing them as aliens or clever animation, they are in fact part of my latest tweak to my ABC Soup in an attempt to make the soup flavourful in a natural way.

If you are doing confinement as a newbie mummy, then maybe plain ABC Soup should be suffice. But if you want that extra bit of flavour, then a piece of the dried baby octopus would turn your very simple soup into an artisan masterpiece, worthy of mention in the many social dinners to come.

Hmmm, I can almost smell it now as the soup boils.

Bon Appetit!!

New Dawn (Musing)

Ho Sim Lang

New Dawn (Musing)

It’s a new dawn. Not the twilight sexy good looking kind of new dawn with werewolves running around in their skin tight furs. My parents are moving house, and that presents a couple of issues for us that we have taken for granted till now. If there is someone that says “you are taking your parents for granted” – then let me be the first to admit it. You don’t have to say it. I have always knew from day one that the current arrangement while being perfect for us, was really not a solution in the long run.

Ultimately we have to manage on our own how we are going to do this.

So I have decided that I would do the cooking from now on. I know I have been doing most of the cooking anyway. But going forward, it is now a matter of survival. I won’t be cooking for leisure or pleasure, this is the gritty stuff. I have to be determined to cook my way through. So the next thing is to embark on a plan. Yes, we are going cold turkey from next week onwards and how we balance it will show.

I woke up this morning and I had a severe case of heart burn. Possibly it could be reflux from the ginormous amounts of rainier cherries (I should do a post on that) my wife and I had consume the night before. And in between then and now, I had massive LS and multi-fartilosis. It was bad. You won’t want to be within range.

Anyway, so the heart burn made me really uncomfortable, and I knew the reason why, so I wasn’t so disturbed by it. I went to the wet market as it is my usual practice and this time around, I knew I had to refresh my kitchen condiments and stock up for the week. I wanted to stay within budget so the strategy for the wet market on saturday morning was to really buy the basics and then buy the rest of the items throughout the week. That way I can pace myself with what I want to cook. At the moment, my mind draws a complete blank. It is hard to think when you have heart burn.

I purchased my four best friends – sea salt, olive oil, thai fish sauce and light soy sauce. They have been with me for so many years, and I knew that I could always depend and count on them for flavour. My wife’s a picky eater, so I have to be very careful when I prepare my dinners. But really, food is to be eaten.

So my total marketing for the following groups today is $57.60. I got chicken, pork, fish and vegetables. Not bad for starters.

Now the problem is thinking what to cook and to do it efficiently so that it fits into my time schedules.

Seafood

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Seafood

If there is one thing that I love, it has to be seafood. Not because I love the cartoon “The Little Mermaid”, or their tiny sea creatures but because I love all kinds of seafood. Alright, maybe that was kind of like not saying very much.

My favorite seafood would be prawns, scallops, crabs and squids. All of them reputably not very good for you if you were to consume in large quantities day in day out. Good thing I only have it once or twice a week.

For the most times,  we have fish and in all manifestations of it. Fried, steamed, or sliced into porridge,  that’s basically how I like my fish. And the best place to get fresh fish is really at the wet market. They get it directly from the fishery port and anything fresher than that would be from the sea itself.

At this juncture it would be wise to also form good relations with your fishmonger as they are the ones who would be able to tell you which seafood item came from where and if they were fresh or otherwise (of course everyone proclaims to sell fresh seafood only). The problem comes when you get back home, when the realization happens. You then realize that the circle of trust might be broken.

I think it is also a matter of how popular the fishmonger thinks he is that day and on his willingness to strike you off his customers’ list.

Nobody sells only fresh seafood. It’s not possible.

Food wastage is a reality in the FNB industry and it affects anyone selling food products. There is always something fresh and something else that is going for a discount. The key is to let go that which is not so fresh and appear as if you are a great guy at the same time.

it also depends on his track record with you as well as the business performance of the only other competitor in the wet market. If the competitor consistently does badly, then this guy can take a chance and “offend” some customers or he could do the honorable thing by giving a discount.

That said, the catchphrase “I give you discount” or “I give you special price” is often a keyword phrase that might mean something else entirely. Most people would think that this is an attempt by the fishmonger to build social capital but really, you wouldn’t know until you get home to find out just how good a deal you really got.

Freshness is subjective and how fresh something is, is largely based on visual and smell and lots hours of wet market experience.

That all being said, I hope it does not deter your own discovery and experience. Jostle in and learn. You will never know what you will find.

OTS: How To Chop Chicken (Video)

OTS: How To Chop Chicken

I am also starting OTS aka “one take sessions” on anything that might be remotely useful for people that stumble upon this blog. Also, it is more for me because I really really want to know how to chop chickens properly.

I got to admit it, I am bad at chopping chickens. I don’t know where to pull or where to chop. Sometimes the simplest of cuts can become a massacre of epic proportions. I wish I have the wisdom of the chicken butcher when it comes to cuts and then a brilliant idea popped into my mind.

Ask the chicken butcher at the market to do a demonstration. It’s not the most exciting of videos, but it’s a great “how-to” video. A fantastic OTS. Enjoy.