This is officially one of my favourite fish dish. It’s my wife’s favourite fish dish as well. But I think it’s my favourite because of its scary looks and delicious taste. The only other reason it is my favourite dish is because the cost of the fish is measured by weight. 1 kg usually around $8.
Unbelievable right? I am gonna get 2 kg the next time and just cook tang hoon with it, plain and simple and delicious. That will be a very nice lunch for me and the wifey.
It’s really simple to cook. Just boil a pot of hot water, add some tang cai, premium light soya sauce, and the slippery slivers of Bombay duck fish. Make sure to remove the guts, main dorsal fins and whatever fins and ugly heads and then halve the fish.
Add tang hoon, cook for a minute. And you can serve it. Add lots of Wang Sui or Chinese Parsley and the dish is complete.
Actually I feel like deep frying the ugly heads the next time and sprinkle them with truffle salt. It should be crunchy like a snack. Maybe serve that up as a entree for my friends just for the simple pleasure of scaring them. I bet the crispy crunchy heads are delicious.
I have been wanting to learn how to make this dish for a long time now, mostly inspired by watching Japanese drama on Netflix – Midnight Diner – and seeing how the Master whips up the Rolled Egg Omelette so easily in a square non-stick pan. The recipe of the egg seemed so simple, but the technique of cooking the egg evenly may not be so easy.
So I was at Yishun North Point City the other day for lunch and I saw this Tamagoyaki pan – I think that’s what it is called – and decided that I would end my misery and buy the pan so that I can make this delicious Japanese rolled omelette.
There are quite a few ways to make it, but I was most interested in making the standard one though I wasn’t sure if I were to actually do it myself, if it would look half decent. The only way to find out is to try it. I also recorded it down on video so that I would remember it for a while – my first attempt at making Tamagoyaki.
So you start by beating four eggs into submission, and for seasoning, you can add a little Shao Xing Hua Tiao Jiu, a little Premium Lee Kum Kee Light Soya Sauce and some Pu Ning Fermented Soya Beans. Using a pair of chopsticks, just whip them silly. Quite standard.
That’s basically the ingredient seasoning. The hard part is to actual method which is the frying of the egg omelette using the square pan. Fire must be kept on medium and you actually adjust the heat by moving the pan around so that it doesn’t burn.
Here’s another video I shot to demonstrate that, and you can see that it is not easy at all.
So you have to grease the pan lightly with oil, soaked in a Scotts paper-towel folded into a small square. With a pair of chop-sticks, you glaze the small pan with oil so that the egg mixture doesn’t stick. Then you use your chop-stick to break up the mixture to get it to cook better. And then gently lift the edge of the egg, and as if to peel it backwards.
As you can see I don’t do a very good job at making the Tamagoyaki – haha – oh well, at the end of it, no matter how you swirl or burn or cook it, it will be delicious.
It’s become a family classic or comfort food as they say. So I think my Son will probably come home next time from National Service on the weekends and request for PaPa’s Bitter Gourd Soup with KOKA easy cook noodles.
He has loved bitter gourd since he was a teeny weeny bitsy toddler. Often reaching out for more bitter gourd than we would have expected him to eat. It’s every parents’ dream to get their child to eat their greens. The other favourite that he likes would be my Stir Fry Bitter Gourd in Salted Black Bean Sauce which he simply loves.
I hope he will one day say he wants to learn how to cook, and this recipe resource can hopefully be his to carry forward.
Ingredients
Bitter Gourd (just one medium sized one would do fine. Cut into thick slices.)
Pork Ribs (250grams to 400 grams. Depending on whether you plan on eating the pork ribs or not)
Sea Salt (just 1 teaspoon to 1.5 litres of water)
KOKA Easy Cook Noodles (my Wife usually gets these easy cook noodles as they are just plainly that – easy to cook)
Method
1. I use a thermal cooker for this recipe, so that basically means boiling the ingredients at high heat for about 15-20 minutes and then allowing them to cook slowly in the thermal cooker for at least 10 hours.
2. Boil a kettle of waterand then blanch the pork ribs. I usually use frozen pork ribs for this recipe, so it is important to remove dirt that may be present.
3. Boil another kettle of water (about 1.5 litres) and then add to the pork ribs, add the sliced bitter gourd and sea salt. Boil at high heat for about 15-20 minutes. Then place the pot into the thermal cooker to cook for another 10-12 hours before serving.
4. For the easy cook noodles, I usually boil once and discard the water. Then ladle the bitter gourd soup into the noodles and serve.
This is great for little kids. No matter how resistant they may be towards vegetables or generally anything remotely vegetable-ish, they will somehow love this simple dish.
Leeks can be one of the last vegetables in the vegetable family that any child would want to slurp up happily, but interestingly it is. The key is to cook them until they are super soft and its goodness fully extracted into the broth.
Adding leeks into the chicken soup made out of just chicken bones that you could pick up from any wet market or supermarket is probably one of the easiest and fuss free recipes anyone could do. I usually get the chicken bones from NTUC because these are generally cheaper because they go by weight. Whereas the wet market Aunty will just go by per piece.
Ingredients
Macaroni (I usually get Barilla brand pasta as I think it is the best. I could be wrong but the blue packaging appeals to me, so there. For this box of mini macaroni, the cooking time is 6 minutes. Not sure why they call it differently by another name, but just take it from me, it is macaroni.)
Chicken Bones (NTUC sells the cheapest and best chicken bones. They usually pack 2 chicken carcass into a pack and that’s sufficient for this recipe. I like NTUC’s chicken bones because they tend to leave a lot of meat on the bone which is great because for this dish, I save money by not having to buy additional chicken parts. Sometimes the chicken bones from the wet market poultry vendor can be really just bones as they are experts in removing flesh from bones. So that’s a tip for you!)
Leeks (I usually get the Malaysian variety and not the huge ones from China. These are more flavourful and delicious. But you can use the ones from China if you can’t find any local varieties at your local grocer. 4 lower ends of the leeks would flavour your broth real fine.)
Sea Salt (1 teaspoon for cooking the macaroni and another for cooking the chicken broth)
Olive Oil (a few droplets for cooking the macaroni and a few droplets for keeping them from sticking together. I know the olive oil doesn’t have a very big role in this recipe, but it is very important in making this dish work.)
Method
1. Boil a kettle of water, measure out 1.5 litres and pour it into a pot. Add chicken bones and bring to a bubbling boil. Add a teaspoon of sea salt.
2. Once broth is bubbling boiling, add the tail ends of 4 pieces of leeks. The green leafy portions you can use for something else. The flavours are usually in the lower ends of the leeks. Discard the roots. For this, lower the fire and slow cook with lid covered. Cook until the leeks are softened, chicken oils are seen in the broth. And the chicken meats are white.
3. Using a small pair of kitchen tongs, shred the chicken meat into flakes. This will later go into your macaroni.
4. Boil another kettle of water, pour into another pot. Add a few droplets of oil. Add a teaspoon of sea salt. Add the dry macaroni into the pot (for 3 persons, I cooked half a box, you might wish to cook less) and bring to bubbling boil. Set the timer for 6 minutes or as per the cooking instructions on the box.
5. Once the macaroni is cooked to al dente remove from the pot and pour the cooked macaroni into a metal strainer and douse in ice water to stop it from cooking further. Add a few droplets of oil to prevent the cooked macaroni from sticking to each other.
All that’s left is to combine the macaroni with the soup and the shredded chicken and you can serve.
The best Ginseng Black Chicken Soup in my honest opinion (bet you thought I was gonna say humble, right?) is probably the stall located at Jalan Bersih (Hawker Centre). The stall on level two of the Hawker Centre sells Turtle Soup that is totally traditional and out of this world. They also sell a kick-ass Ginseng Black Chicken Soup. It’s really yummy, and the portions of Ginseng herbs is just nice and not too overwhelming.
So I decided that I would replicate that and bought my own Ginseng Beards from the supermarket. They sell a very cheap version of Ginseng Beards and for me, that will do very fine. I mean how hard can it be?
I poured half the packet into the thermal pot to make the soup. And the strength was just about right, a teaspoon of sea salt against 1.5 litres of water, and the soup would be nothing short of awesome.
After 12 hours of thermal-cooking, what turn out that evening, was a very delicious bowl of black chicken soup m, fully infused with the ginseng herbs.
If you would prefer a different taste, you may want to try my Herbal Black Chicken Soup which is equally good IMHO. LOL.
Ingredients
Black Chicken (one whole black chicken, otherwise not enough for my family.)
Ginseng Beards (get the cheapest ones at NTUC and that would be good enough for two portions)
Sea Salt (best form of salt ever, just 1 teaspoon per 1.5 litres of water and it would be Super flavourful.)
Method
1. Boil a kettle of water. Wash the chicken thoroughly, then place it into the thermal pot, then pour the boiling water into it and boil the chicken until water bubbling. Discard the water. This is to remove impurities, dirt, blood, etc.
2. Boil another kettle of water, pour about 1.5 litres into the same pot with the chicken. Add the ginseng beards. Add the sea salt. Boil st high heat for about 15 minutes with the lid covered.
3. Place the thermal pot into the thermal cooker enclosure. Leave it for 12 hours. The slow cooking process in the thermal cooker will slow cook the meats until it is tender and succulent.
When you are ready to eat at dinner time, boil it hot and eat with rice.
My Mother came by the other day with Minced Pork for my Son who hasn’t been feeling very well since the beginning of the new year. She said minced meat cooked with porridge would improve his appetite and help him recover faster.
Now before you zip off to google the medicinal benefits of minced pork, please, get a hold of yourself. It is just minced pork.
I decided that it was far more practical to make a dish out of the minced meat rather than put it all into his porridge. For all you know he might take one look and scoff at it for reasons unknown and we would have wasted good minced pork.
Good thing wifey bought Sichuan Cai aka SiChuan Vegetables in easy to cook convenient packaging. NTUC sells it in packs of 6 sachets. And I decided to cook another all time childhood favourite Sichuan Cai with Minced Pork.
These 2-3 ingredient dishes are simple to prepare, singular in flavour, and uncomplicated in taste.
Ingredients
Sichuan Cai (aka SiChuan Vegetables. Apparently it came from Sichuan and it prepared in chilli powder to give it that spicy kick. They not offer it in spicy and non-spicy sachets, pretty good for kids)
Minced Pork (about 100-150 grams will do.)
Old Garlic (sliced thinly for best flavour. Easier to cook also via the tilted wok technique, 3 cloves would do fine)
Method
1. Sliced the garlic first, thinly for maximum effect. Then deep fry the garlic slices in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil using the tilted wok technique. If you are wondering what is this tilted wok technique, I wrote about it in my recipe Stir Fry Ladies Fingers.
2. Immediately add the minced pork, un-marinated, and start frying over low fire just to get the minced to cook slowly.
3. Once minced starts to turn slightly white from pink, add the sachet of Sichuan Cai and continue to stir fry. The saltiness of the vegetables would be sufficient for this dish and no additional seasoning is required.
Once cooked, you can have it with plain porridge. Easy.
I told my Son that we would be having Ladies Fingers that night and he squirmed at the thought of it. Then I thought I heard him say under his breath, “papa, if we must eat, then I will only eat mummy’s fingers.”
I was bemused at the very thought of it and my creative juices kicked in for a nano second and wondered what that would taste like with Teochew Tau Jiu, maybe a little finely chopped garlic with quartered Tomatoes, lightly stir fried and it just might be really yummy!
And then I came to myself. “Did he just say that or did I imagine that he said it when he didn’t really say anything.” LOL. Oh well.
Wifey’s a lady, but to eat her fingers would be so wrong. I mean I know it would be finger-licking good but that’s besides the point! I would never do that to my beloved. As it is I am already eating out of her hand, to have her fingers as well would be simply unthinkable.
So I am cooking a very simple version of Ladies Fingers with Tomatoes, exactly how, is actually even simpler. I like to keep my recipes simple and uncomplicated. It gets complicated only the first time when I am actually trying out someone else’s recipe as I navigate through their rigorous ingredient listing and techniques. If you prefer another way of cooking, you may want to try my Sambal Belacan Okra with Tomatoes recipe. It’s also not bad. LOL.
If you have been following my postings, you would know that I love making quick meals and using techniques that help me save time and ingredients.
The picture above shows my tilt-the-wok technique to save oil and fry the ingredients evenly. I am sure you have better ways to manage your oil consumption, please feel free to carry on your own way of cooking. I am not here to convince you otherwise.
Ingredients
Ladies Fingers (aka Okra, one of my favourite mushy vegetable. I am using about 21 pieces of Ladies Fingers. Why “21” you may ask, well, no special reason.)
Tomatoes (these are the regular tomatoes, nothing special. I am using 3 medium sized ones)
Old Garlic (3 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly)
Dried Shrimps (otherwise known as Hae Bi, these little shrimps add a little punch to the flavour of the dish, I used 2 tablespoons worth)
Light Soya Sauce (2 tablespoons will be quite nice, but if you’re eating them with porridge, a little saltier is not that bad an idea)
Method
1. Wash the ladies fingers and cut them slanted. Quart the tomatoes. Soak the dried shrimps and sliced the garlic.
2. Heat about three tablespoons of olive oil, and using the tilted wok technique, fry the garlic slices until lightly fragrant. Then add the soaked hae bi and continue to fry until fragrant.
3. Immediately throw the cut ladies fingers into the wok and stir fry. Do this until it starts to wilt. Add the sliced tomatoes. Continue to stir fry a little. Then add the soya sauce and a bowl of water and turn up to high heat with the lid covered.
4. Steam the ladies fingers for about 5 minutes until dull green and mushy looking.
I love Garlic. My affection for garlic will turn any vampire friend away. Is that why I have so few friends these days?! Perhaps. But I am sure it has got to be my scathing personality rather than my obsession with garlic that has driven my friends away from me.
Or maybe it is my anti-social behaviour that has made me much withdrawn and alone. Or perhaps people around me have become distracted with their handphones to notice that we have become socially isolated from each other. Kind of like being there and yet not fully present. I know the feeling.
But I prefer to think that it is the garlic that has caused the riffs between us human beings (and some lesser mortals) than the pervasiveness of technology in our lives. After all, you are probably reading this off your mobile phone. I can’t fault you for that.
Anyway, Garlic Egg Omelette, what’s there to say except that it is by far one of the best ways of frying up an omelette. Without adding the garlic, your Egg Omelette will be just plain vanilla, it will be lifeless; void of distinctive high notes. It will be less fragrant.
By the way, just in case you’re wondering, I know my photo taking skills leaves much to be desired. I know also you guys out there probably use better equipment, lighting, better photo-editing software, better placement of your dishes to tease the visual senses. Whilst that’s all well and good, my main objective is cooking up a delicious dinner that my Wife and Son will love. So there.
Ingredients
Eggs (I always buy the Seng Choon Golden Corn Eggs from NTUCnot because I have a special feeling towards their eggs but rather they have these 10 plus 2 free promos.For this recipe, I use 4 eggs, or else there wouldn’t be sufficient eggs between the two of us.)
Garlic (Old Garlic is the best and you only need 3 pieces for the magic to happen)
Purple Onions (one medium size purple colour onion would do the trick)
Mini Shrimps (these are fresh mini shrimps that you rarely will be able to find at the wet market. But if you do come across it or find it, make sure you get some as they will add so much flavour to your omelette. A small portion of SGD 3 is enough for two portions of Egg Omelette.)
Light Soya Sauce (3 tablespoons of Lee Kum Kee premium light soya sauce.)
Method
1. Break the eggs into a bowl. Add the chopped onions. Add the light soya sauce. Add the mini shrimp. Give it a good whisk.
2. Heat up the wok, add about 3 tablespoons of Olive Oil. Heat it till it is reasonably hot. Add the minced garlic and stir fry first to bring out the fragrance.
3. Add the egg batter into the wok and let it bubble and cook. We are looking for a light brown burnt flavour on one side before turning it over.
Traditionally known as the Oriental Yard Long Bean, this vegetable found commonly at the local wet market around Singapore is a well-loved vegetable by Chinese households. Actually, I am sure other households also love the vegetable, but I know I grew up eating these snake-like long Beans. And I love them.
Some folks refer to them as Snake Beans, which I kind of prefer as well. In Hokkien, we usually call it Cai Tau which literally mean Bean Vegetable.
I have always stir fried these legumes but decided that I would try steaming them instead. No special reason, just like the thought of steaming the snake beans into submission.
Ingredients
Snake Beans (the vegetable Uncle usually ties them into bunches with a rubber band, it makes it easier for him to calculate prices without having to weigh the stringy vegetables.)
Chinese Anchovies (the Malay word for these guys are ikan bilis otherwise known as mini anchovies. These are the mini-mini versions. Sun-dried and possibly full of its local sea flavour. Good to soak them in hot water before frying.)
Old Garlic (3 pieces of Garlic, minced, should be enough for flavour.)
Fish Sauce (I love fish sauce, but the ones that I love the best are the lighter ones from Vietnam. These fish sauces are simple and not complex and usually brings out the flavours of the vegetables. I have been using flavours a lot haven’t I? LOL)
Method
1. Wash and cut snake beans into 3-4 cm lengths. But before that, you would have to strangle them into submission first. I don’t like my stringy vegetables twisting and turning all over the place. So after releasing them from the rubber band, it is important to douse them in cold water to make sure they are all ready.
2. Ready for what?! I hear you ask. Good question. Ready for the chopping board of course. Remember to cut them into equal lengths of 3-4 cm. Okay if you do that they wouldn’t be all that equal, but I know you know what I mean.
3. Soak the Chinese Anchovies in boiling hot water to extra the flavours of the tiny little fellas. 5 minutes would be more than sufficient.
4. Minced the garlic. I am using 3 pieces as I always believe the slave shouldn’t be the master. He wouldn’t know what to do as Master with a Slave mentality, and the dish would be overpowered with garlic and that’s not what we want.
5. Heat the wok, add 2-3 tablespoons of Olive Oil. Wait till the oil is heated, add the minced garlic to fry until lightly fragrant. Add the Chinese Anchovies and continue to stir fry. I like using the tilted wok technique as it helps to brown the garlic pieces rather evenly.
6. Dump the entire bunch of cut Snake Beans into the wok and add about 4 tablespoons of the fish sauce. Add a cup of water and steam those snake beans into submission. 5 minutes at high heat with the lid covering the wok. Usually the Snake Beans will turn into a dull green colour and would stick their tongues out with two crosses for eyeballs. That’s how I like them. Mushy and nice.
Since discovering the KOGI tempura mix (where have I been all this time, you may wonder – I also say!!), I have decided that this is the go-to flour mix for all my deep fried dishes. Life should be simple right?! Why complicate it by following some purist video on YouTube (nothing wrong with purist videos) on the benefits of mixing your own flour mix? The reality of it is someone went to all that trouble and food technology to develop this perfect flour mix and I the snob is not using it.
Therefore I now use it. Unfortunately for me, I am not sure where to buy KOGI Tempura mix, but I will leave a link below to an alternative brand if you are keen to get some.
So I decided to follow some other guy’s recipe for making Claypot Fish Head and minus all the unnecessary stuff that I didn’t want (more like I didn’t have in my fridge) and whipped up the same dish but in a different style with the same ingredients.
I deep-fried my fish head following the classic claypot fish head style – Claypot Fish Head(incidentally I also have another recipe on that cult classic). But this time I added leeks. And more importantly, this time I used the KOGI tempura mix!
The end result was needless to say perfect! (Okay lah, as perfect as perfect can be) I am only but a home cook trying to cut corners and make delicious foods with as little ingredients as possible.
* please note that I have included amazon affiliate links to the products I use, so check them out if you wish to support me, and if I can get these items from NTUC Supermarket, I would just indicate.
Ingredients
Fish Head (any kind will do, angoli aka red snapper or garoupa aka grouper is good, I usually pay SGD 5 for one large one at my favourite fishmonger at CCWM, because I am cheapo, I usually select the bigger head, ask the uncle chop into small pieces and bag into two portions)
Leeks (wet market leeks are the best, you can choose until you bruise the entire batch and the vegetable Aunty won’t be mad at you – do this at your own peril)
KOGI tempura mix (apply this mix on the surface of the marinated fish pieces lavishly, an alternative would be the Prima Tempura Batter Mix)
Light Soya Sauce (I like to use Lee Kum Kee Premium Light Soya Sauce, not because I am rich, but the premium soya sauce really does taste much nicer! This also goes into the marinate for the fish)
Shao Xing Hua Tiao Jiu (They sell this at NTUC and there are many different brands that have similar packaging. Again, I buy the most expensive one known as Pagoda Hua Tiao Chiew because it really does make my food taste better. This also goes into the marinate for the fish)
Teochew Fermented Soya Beans (aka tau jiu in Hokkien/Teochew,this is our favourite type of fermented soya beans. Not overtly salty, and consistently great tasting)
Olive Oil (I use olive oil to do the deep frying because I use that for cooking anyway, so it works for me. I know I should be using some light vegetable oil like canola etc – not palm oil – but I can’t be bothered really as I don’t use all that much oil anyway. Just enough to fry two pieces at a time.)
Ginger (young ginger is good, but any ginger also can. Grate it so that it forms part of the marinate for the fish pieces)
Purple Onions (instead of saying medium onions, I prefer to just call it like it is. You go to the typical wet market and it is the medium size purple looking onion. Just one will do.)
Old Garlic (there are the two basic types, Chef Garlic and Old Garlic. Use the old ones as they have more flavour. Just three pieces will do.)
Marinate
a. Use a Ziplock bag to marinate the fish head pieces. The Ziplock bag is useful because can Ziplock and seal in the marinate and allow the fish to soak up the juices.
b. Grate an inch of ginger and dump it into the bag.
c. Pour in about 3 tablespoons of light soya sauce.
d. Pour in about 3 tablespoons of Shao Xing Hua Tiao Jiu. Leave it to marinate for about an hour at least in the fridge.
Method
1. Marinate the fish head slices first. Let it stay in the fridge for about an hour.
2. Heat the olive oil in the wok and pour just enough for frying two pieces at a time using the tilt-the-wok technique. If you are using a light vegetable oil, please use that. Olive oil is healthier. Try not to use palm oil. It’s unhealthy.
3. Coat the marinated fish pieces in the KOGI tempura mix, ensuring a good coat and then frying the fish until the fish pieces are a light brown. Place them in a metal strainer with a paper towel to absorb excess oil. Do this until all fish pieces are fried.
4. In a heated wok, with three tablespoons of olive oil, stir fry the ginger until slightly fragrant, then add minced garlic, and sliced onions. Continue to stir fry. Then add two tablespoons of oyster sauce and a tablespoon of the fermented soya bean. Continue to stir fry until fragrant.
5. Add 2 bowls of water, add the sliced leeks (make sure you wash them thoroughly as these usually have sand in between their leaves.) and immediately dump all the fried fish head pieces into the wok. Cover with lid and let it cook for a good 5 minutes over a big fire.
The leeks should be softened, the fish head crispy skins should now be soggy and the water should be a thick sauce.
If there is something that I love, it would be my parents’ Prawn Fritters. I think they have achieved Michelin star status as far as I am concerned. But seriously, the prawn fritters are seriously shiok.
So what is the secret to that delightful crispy crackle? Well, it’s the texture and consistency of the batter, and the secret’s out. It is this fantastic tempura flour mix known as KOGI.
This tempura mix is the bomb. Meant for seafood and vegetables, it is already pre-mixed and all ready to go. Just mix with water to achieve the right consistency of batter, and you are all set.
Ingredients
Medium Glass/Grey Prawns (I made about 12 prawn fritters)
KOGI Tempura Flour Mix (I found it at the wet market at the Indian spice lady’s stall, cheap SGD 1.10)
Olive Oil (must be sufficient for deep frying, I use the tilt the pan/wok technique to save oil, and for optimum deep frying, the oil must be smoking hot)
Method
1. De-shell the prawns. Most people leave the tail, I did as well, you can also do likewise.
2. Prepare the batter to achieve a smooth liquid consistency. Too much batter, the prawns will stiffen, too little batter, you can’t taste the crispy crackle. Do the spoon test. Scoop and let it drip, if it flows too quickly, it is too watery. You want a slow drip. Best thing to do is to take notes and find the best consistency for you.
3. Heat the oil and make sure it is hot. Then deep fry using the tilted wok technique and fry two to three at a time. Of course if you work for the vegetable oil factory, you can fry all at once. But alas, I don’t work for the vegetable oil factory.
4. Once golden brown, take them out and let them rest on a metal strainer with a Scott’s paper towel to absorb the oil.
That’s about it. Serve with sliced tomatoes as decoration.
I am not the most healthy of eaters as you can probably see from the stuff that I cook from time to time. But there are times when a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. And there is nothing more self fulfilling than to make your own salad for lunch.
For me, I would prefer being served a salad as opposed to packing one for lunch. And for a good variety of reasons as well. Packing means by the time you eat, it is probably whilting away and soggy. But to not drizzle it with dressing would not be such a great idea also.
Everything tastes just so raw.
So add in moderation. I could also opt to add in a separate container or buy a salad box with a separate compartment for dressing. Blah. I go for comvenience and it has to be fast. I can’t take my time to make a gourmet salad. It is just too troublesome.
Plus I am terribly lazy and we all know there is no cure for laziness.
So I have decided to just make do with one disposable container and learn to enjoy soggy salad.
Recipe
Ingredients
Mesclun Mix (probably cheaper if you buy from the wet market grocer)
Cherry Tomatoes (any kind will do)
Strawberries (I got the Australian ones as they were sweeter, Korean ones look too beautiful to eat.)
Bell Peppers (I got three colours, red, green and yellow)
Hard Boiled Egg (Boil an egg until it is hard boiled)
Salt & Pepper (nuffsaid, just to add to the taste)
Method
1. Is there really a method to make a raw salad? Just mix everything into a metal bowl and mix it all up. And serve.
These days I find myself looking into the fridge for items and specifically for their throw by date, which admittedly is a little irritating. “Why did I buy that bottle of whole grain mustard, only to have it thrown out today?”
It is precisely this sense of overt consumerism mentality that irks me. And at the same time on this beautiful albeit damp New Year’s Day (2018) that I am scavenging through the fridge scrounging for scraps to make breakfast.
Alright, mac and cheese it is then. The macaroni in the box is probably still fresh (I hope), which is just about all that I have left in the dry pantry. Some leftover streaky bacon, and some sharp cheddar and we should be good.
Indeed we are. A little chicken stock, some pre-rotting tomatoes and minutes later we have a very nice macaroni and blah blah. There is no proper name for this. But we love it.
Bon Appetit!
Sorry the working title should be “macaroni and cheese” but I need to remind myself to not over consume. Hence the “throw by date” title to remind me to not over consume.
There is perhaps nothing more satisfying than making your own Japanese Ramen at home in under 2 hours. Yes. No kidding. It’s not for the weak-willed. But if you are not weak-willed you may try. If you read this statement and say you have decided not to try to cook this and you are thinking of cooking instant noodles instead? Well, nuff said, that’s being weak-willed.
So I decided that I would do this recipe slightly different from my usual style of writing. I will make this a narrative and hopefully, you can see this as a refreshing change to my usual style.
I started by boiling a huge ass pot of broth using pork ribs, dried shitake mushrooms and dried Japanese kelp (aka seaweed). I didn’t really measure, but it was about 2 litres of water in that pot. And basically, that soup stock will form the base for my Japanese Ramen.
In another pot, with the heat turned up, sear the pork belly on all sides until almost charred. No oil needed. Just the fats from the pork belly will be sufficed. Once the pork belly starts to brown, add stock from the big ass pot and add 3 tablespoons of Kikkoman soya sauce, 3 tablespoons of Japanese rice vinegar and a tablespoon of raw sugar, 1 inch of ginger smashed, 4-5 pieces of garlic, leeks or scallions. Boil and boil and boil over a constant fire and make sure it keeps on bubbling.
Traditional Japanese cooking usually takes great amounts of time. They usually slow cook the pork bones for at least 20 hours before the pork bone soup base is ready. And here I am trying to squeeze the process in under 2 hours so that I could feed my family. Actually, you can, but all that effort is spent watching the precious stock evaporate right in front of your eyes.
You got to watch the broth disappear and the heat must be furious. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to extract the essence of the pork bones. So the balance and the in-between consistency is important.
So while that was happening, I was cooking the Chasu. The heat has to be constant and furious and you got to keep on ladling the pork bone broth into your pot of soya sauce Chasu. This is to ensure that the Chasu doesn’t burn and that you will have a Japanese Chasu that is both tender and delicious.
In a third pot, cook the eggs. 6 minutes, high heat and then drop them into a bowl of ice cold water to stop them from cooking further. Use a countdown timer. Which I did, but my phone was in silent mode. LOL. And I overshot the cooking time, and the egg yolk basically got cooked. So stuff like that actually happen in the home kitchen, so instead of throwing it away, I dipped the eggs in Kikkoman marinate for about 15 minutes. Just 2 tablespoons of Kikkoman soya sauce would be good enough marinate for 3 eggs.
For the ramen, I use angel hair pasta. There was no way I could use buckwheat flour and eggs to make my own Japanese Ramen. It was impossible to be able to do it in under 2 hours. So I cooked the angel hair pasta for about 5 minutes or until they are soft enough to eat and I serve immediately with the leftover pork bone broth, the leftover Chasu sauce. Placed the cooked Japanese Chasu and the eggs and placed the bean sprouts, thinly sliced scallions and the marinated egg.
All that effort to just prepare 2 bowls of Japanese Ramen for my Wife and me. Was it worth it? Of course, it was. But you got to know exactly what it is that you need to achieve in that 2 hours in order to be successful. I wish you all the best.
Sometimes I see the food court stall with the title “home-made..” worded nicely before whatever it was that they were selling and I would usually think to myself, “is it clean?” LOL. I know how I cook at home, and it is definitely not Michelin world class standard kitchen. My kitchen; my rules.
But if you are selling something and you have a shop front, just say it like it is, you made it at the shop. Wouldn’t that be less ambiguous and clearer for me the customer? Okay okay. I will stop ranting.
Back to my wicked home-made Hokkien Mee. I don’t mean to brag, but it is really not bad. Of course, I am no puritan chef, I am home cook. I cook what makes sense to me and whatever resources I could get my hands on.
So for Hokkien Mee, the key ingredient is the stock. If you got the stock wrong, you may as well go out and eat. So what goes into the stock, it is no nonsense chicken stock my friend. Let’s not kid ourselves here. How can we cook Hokkien Mee without chicken stock?! You have to be a master chef.
Now that we got that out of the way, let’s begin.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 packet Green Lip Mussels (wash and scrub the shells off of any beards or debris)
6 Medium Grey Prawns (leave them whole, no need to peel)
1 large or a few Squids (wash clean and sliced)
250 grams Pork Ribs (blanched and remove scum)
50 grams Lean Pork (sliced thinly)
1 packet Egg Noodles
1 packet White Bee Hoon
A few sprigs of Spring Onions (wash and chop off both ends)
1 packet Chicken Stock (chicken broth)
Half a teaspoon powdered Chicken Stock
Method:
1. Prepare the broth (or stock) for the Hokkien Mee by boiling all the seafood and pork ribs. In a pot, pour about a litre of water, turn up the heat, and start boiling the packet of green lip mussels. The broth is to be used for the stock. The mussel meat can be used for ingredients later or discarded. I usually keep them as ingredients.
2. Boil the squid next for about 30 seconds in high heat, in that same stock. Then quickly take the squid pieces out and run them over cold water to stop them from cooking further. Squid tends to harden if you cook them too long. The key is to cook quickly or cook them long long.
3. Next drop the prawns whole (with shells) into the broth and cook them until they curl into the shape of a letter C. “C” stands for cooked. If it curls into the shape of an “O”, then it means “Overcooked”. The prawns will sweeten the broth further. Once the prawns are cooked, de-shell the prawns and drop the shells back into the broth to continue cooking.
4. Next boil the pork ribs and lean pork. Take out the lean pork slices and reserve aside. You may continue boiling the pork ribs with the prawn shells.
5. This is where you add a packet of that chicken broth and by doing so essentially changes the whole dynamics of the soup stock. Now it should be very tasty.
6. The actual cooking of the Hokkien Mee is actually assembly. Ladle the broth into a wok, turn up the heat, drop the noodles/bee hoon into the wok and stir. Then add the cooked ingredients in to cook and a few sprigs of the spring onions. This is where you add the powdered chicken stock to complete the taste. It really does taste like bona fide Hokkien Mee.
I usually reserve the excess stock so that I can cook Hokkien Mee on demand. Easy.
My wife loves Tang Orh and I love cooking Tang Orh, that’s why we love each other so much. We share a symbiotic relationship and this is one of the ways I show love for her. Words mean only so much, I very much also like to express my affections towards her in cooking the foods that she likes. It makes our relationship multi-faceted and interesting.
She loves Tang Orh cooked in a soupy style, like in a steam boat. In fact, that’s one of the better ways to eat Tang Orh, in a soupy broth. This Thai style stir fry is supposed to be mildly dry with little sauce, but I decided to add a little more “soup” to enhance the flavour of the Tang Orh, since in my opinion the Tang Orh is the star ingredient here.
It’s very easy to cook, and Tang Orh generally cooks within minutes. It’s not a hardy vegetable so be sure to cook it quickly and serve as the last dish. The flavour of the minced pork makes it delicious. I have also added generous amounts of minced garlic and chilli padi. Not for the faint hearted, this dish is fiery hot.
Recipe
Ingredients
5 pcs Garlic (finely chop the garlic pieces)
5 pcs Chilli Padi (finely chopped)
500 grams Tang Orh (also known as garland chrysethemuem)
400 grams Minced Pork (make sure it is fatty minced pork, it adds to the flavour)
2 tablespoons Oyster Sauce
1 tablespoon Thai Fish Sauce
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
Method
1. Minced the garlic and chilli padi together and mix it together into a paste.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan and then fry the garlic chilli paste until fragrant. Add the minced pork and stir fry till pork is relatively cooked. To tell the difference is when the colour changes to slightly white.
3. Add the oyster and fish sauce with a little water. Then throw all the Tang Orh into the pan and cover the lid. Let the heat wilt the vegetable for about two minutes.
4. The water from the vegetables will form part of the soup. That’s it. Easy. Serve with steamed rice.
This has got to be one of the best fishes to scare people. Every resource I searched and looked up shows that it is a scary fish or it is best cooked in hot oil deep fried or reduced to a soft mush in spicy curry
I, on the other hand, is just interested in tasting the fish for its flavour. I heard that it is a fish that is great for making fish stock as it tends to be very oily. So no better way to cook this fish than to put it in the hot water boil.
Chop off the heads and snip off the fins and guts and the fish is ready to enter into the water bath. You may want to add some soya sauce into the soup if you want to drink it. But then again, you can do that later when you eat and reserve the rest as frozen fish stock.
Boil the water in a pot till it bubbles. Drop the fishes in and pour out the excess water. It should ideally cover the fishes about 1 inch above. Once it starts to bubble, turn the fire off and let it sit in the pot with the lid on for about ten minutes and then serve.
To eat it is to dip it in a sauce made up of lime juice, chilli padi and light soya sauce. To eat the fish is an art in itself. You are to suck the flesh out and spit the bones out. For me, I just swallow whole and spew the bones. You do what is comfortable for you.
The fish is light and surprisingly delicious when cooked simply. I hope you enjoy it too.
Boiled Chicken
I would have loved to call it Hainanese Chicken or some other fanciful name, but it is really just that boiled chicken.
It is so simple and easy to do you would be shocked. Anyone can do it.
In fact, the ingredient list is so simple, you have no excuse not to make this dish.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 whole Kampung Chicken (The chicken seller at the wet market will sell it to you. Very easy.)
1 teaspoon of Sea Salt
Method
1. Boil enough water in a kettle and pour it into a large pot. The pot must be large enough to contain one whole kampung chicken.
2. Once the water bath is ready. Turn on the fire until very small. By now you can see water vapour but you can’t see bubbles. This is perfect.
3. Slip the entire chicken (breast side down) into the water bath and go read a book. Remember to add one teaspoon of salt before you go off.
4. Let the chicken relax in the water bath for at least an hour before taking it out to rest for a good 5 hours.
5. By the time it is ready for serving, debone the chicken and if you like you can add light soya sauce and some sesame seed oil for flavouring. That’s it!
Puay Leng or Spinach is a vegetable with a good source of vitamins. Even if you didn’t know that if you grew up watching Popeye the Sailorman, you would also have some semblance of understanding that it makes you a strong seaman.
It’s the natural way to have supernatural strength and the healthier way as well. Instead of pill popping to enhance performance, why not eat spinach. Of course eating spinach raw is not very appetizing. You may try and maybe you may enjoy it. But best to cook it the way I do.
It’s easy and simple. And delicious.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 packet Puay Leng vegetables (this vegetable is commonly found in NTUC or any wet market)
1 whole bulb of Garlic (i like lots of garlic and it makes this dish flavourful)
Drizzle of Thai Fish Sauce (IMHO this is the magic ingredient)
Method
1. Wash the Puay Leng. Soak if you need but it is a rather soft vegetable so I would recommend washing only.
2. Crush the garlic whole. If you want, you may slice or chop. But I like it chunky, so I usually bruise the garlic and just fry until slightly brown and you can smell the fragrance of the garlic.
3. After that I dump the whole tray of chopped Puay Leng. No need to chop too small because the vegetable will lose its water content and reduce in size. Add the fish sauce for flavour. Moderate the saltiness. Done!
Here’s a hack to those wanting a truly healthy diet, without the fuss associated with cooking or preparing for it.
Method: Go to the local food court or coffeeshop with ala carte yong tau foo and order the kinds of vegetables you want.
I usually order the minimum number of vegetable items required by the stall and that portion is usually sufficient for a light meal. Of course you would have to live in a country like Singapore in order to enjoy this convenience. The number of these bespoke yong tau foo stall on a per square meter radius to your existing location is simply amazing. All within walking distance of wherever your starting point may be.
Plus it doesn’t break the wallet either. Depending on where you eat it, it can be very economical, most importantly healthy too!
I usually ask for the dry version and I don’t add any additional sauce. No spicy chilli or sweet sauce. Usually these food stalls have these condiments arrayed at the side of the counter for patrons to add as much as they wanted. But you can be different and opt out. It will be exactly the same as how I would cook boiled vegetables at home, minus the washing up or mise en place for the ingredients.
The stall vendor will present a bowl of nicely boiled vegetables with probably a small bowl of soup as your complete meal. The soup is usually full of flavour and MSG, so you can opt out of drinking the soup if you like. Just eat the boiled vegetables.
My wife told me to get my own dinner tonight and as usual I would struggle with what to eat. I would usually go for the quick-and-dirty fishball noodles soup as it was usually one of the cheaper options and I would be done with dinner before a 3 year old can finish an ice cream cone.
But I decided that I would cook a simple dinner instead – more importantly a fuss free one. Of course we all know cooking your own dinner is never fuss free. You are already going out of your way to buy ingredients when takeaway would have been a more sensible alternative. Fuss free is what the professional television celebrity chef would have you believe. It is never fuss free.
So whilst waltzing through NTUC – the National Trade Union Congress – supermarket, I spotted a whole container of extra large mud crabs, everyone of them looking up and feeling hopeful and I had compassion. I decided I had to cook crab for dinner, and that it had to be quick because time was really not on my side. The wife has already commissioned me to bathe the toddler and I needed to get it done before she completes her facial.
So off I went, bought what I needed and I managed to cook the meal in 20 minutes in my kitchen. 5 minutes more then Jamie Oliver and 2 minutes less than 周杰伦 (Jay Chou).
Recipe
Ingredients
Mud Crab (or any other crabs that you would like to get, 1 extra large crab for 1 person) Udon (1 packet per person, doesn’t matter which brands) Mini Tofu Puffs (1 box should be enough) Campbell’s New England Clam Chowder (this is the key ingredient to sweetening the deal) Thai Fish Sauce (not much just a drizzle will do)
Method
1. Pour the canned soup into a claypot and add two cans worth of hot water. Turn up the heat.
2. Then cut the tofu puffs into diagonals and add to the claypot.
3. Let the tofu boil and soften. Wash and chop the “live” mud crab into pieces. Smash the shells with a mallet.
4. Once the tofu puffs are softened, add the crab pieces and cook till the shell is a reddish hue. This is a sign that the crab is cooked.
5. Add the udon noodles and continue cooking for another 3 minutes.
6. Serve immediately. Shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes. Since it is for one person, I ate directly from the claypot.
Bon Appetit!
Campbell’s New England Clam Chowder
Mini Tofu Puffs
Udon Noodles
Wash and Chop Crab
Cook Mini Tofu Puffs till softened
Lay the crab on its back and Chop it down the centre.
I got myself a bunch of mangosteen from Japan the other day and they were the prettiest mangosteen I have seen in a while. They were unique in that they had a relatively pointy bottom and lovely green leaves (I think they are leaves).
The flesh inside was sweeter than the local variety, where the local ones would be more sour than sweet. Of course these were more expensive. At $6 a kilogram, you could find them at Ah Seng’s Durian if you want to get your hands on any of them. The uncle said to try them and I have always had a liking for fruits and especially when they look so beautiful.
Uncle said to place them in the freezer for a quick 10-15 minutes and then to just eat it. The taste and texture will be like a frozen fruit yoghurt.
I tried it.. And plain forgotten about it. Ha! I left it overnight and when I had them the next day they were rock solid like marbles. Sigh. Oh well. My learning you gain. Don’t freeze it overnight. Once the fruit defrost and softened enough for eating, it would have turned too moist inside. At least it was too mushy for me.
If you want to try it, make it the right way. Have fun!
This is my wife’s favourite quick and easy to prepare meal. It’s easy and it is fuss free, but more importantly, it is delicious.
The tail end of the salmon makes this dish suitable for toddlers as well and cauliflower once cooked this way is a simple and easy way to introduce vegetables to kids.
Top it up with chinese parsley and you can eat. Less than 30 minutes and it is done.
Recipe
Ingredients
Fresh Salmon (I usually get the tail end of the salmon as it is the best part for kids and lesser bones) Cauliflower (half of a head of cauliflower would be sufficient) Chinese Parsley (my wife loves lots of parsley in her porridge, so I would usually add in a lot for garnishing) White Pepper just a dash. White Rice 1 cup will do. Thai Fish Sauce add till desired taste.
Method
1. Boil a kettle of water. This is for boiling the porridge faster. Pour the cup of rice into a pot once the water is booked, add it in to boil till rice is broken down.
2. Rough chop the cauliflower and add the pieces into the porridge to boil. The consistency of the porridge has to be watery not thickened. Add more water if necessary.
3. Slice the salmon into thin pieces and add these into the porridge. As salmon cooks relatively quickly, you don’t want to cook for too long. The trick is to cook it for 5 minutes and then off the fire to allow the heat to continue cooking it.
4. Once cooked the salmon should be a hue of bright pink, the cauliflower softened and the rice porridge texture broken down and watery.
5. Add Thai fish sauce to taste and white pepper for flavour. You can add the fish sauce during cooking or after. It is the same. Serve with chopped parsley.
There is always some leftover ingredients after a great feast with family and friends and often times I am left with this nagging feeling that I shouldn’t waste food by throwing it out with the trash.
Mummy always told me that people in Africa are suffering without food and here I am throwing it out. The truth is, whether I throw the food or eat it, the food wont go to these improverished groups anyway. It was just my mum’s way of telling me that her money was hard-earned and that I shouldn’t take what I have for granted.
Years passed and I am telling my son to finish up after his dinner. Haha. Okay, I said all that to say these days I try to jumble all those leftover ingredients into what I call “Special Fried Rice”. The key word here is “Special” because it is a jamboree of all the premium ingredients in the fridge.
Recipe
Ingredients
Leftover Roasted Pork Belly
Leftover Eggs Chinese Sausage (probably the only ingredient that isn’t leftover)
Leftover Cooked Rice
Method
1. Minced some garlic, fried them up in a heated wok with some oil. Once the garlic is fragrant, add the sausage and all the premium leftover ingredients into the wok.
2. Stir fry ingredients until fragrant, then add the cooked rice and a little dark soya sauce. Continue frying. Sprinkle some white pepper. Add light soya sauce if you like, but I didn’t as the premium ingredients were already quite salty.
3. Fry until the wok flavour is in the rice or until the rice is fairly broken up and well fried (not burnt). Serve!
My wife has been cooking quite a number of meals lately. And this particular dish is my favourite because she does it so well. It is such a simple but flavourful dish that I just got to share it.
The fish here is pomfret and it’s the expensive one which is the white pomfret. This one cost me SGD 15.00 and it wasn’t all that big – probably about 600 grams thereabouts. But it was really fresh and we all loved it.
So my wife loves to cook it in this Brown Sauce that is made up simple of oyster sauce and shao xing hua tiao jiu or chinese rice wine. And it’s so simple and the recipe totally rocks. So to me this dish is called Brown Sauce Pomfret.
The garnishing is also an essential component to making this dish great. A simple combination of Young Ginger slices and shredded Local Celery. The result was simply delicious (I know the photo doesn’t do it justice but try the recipe, it totally rocks!).
Recipe
Ingredients
1 whole White Pomfret (about 600 grams will be sufficient for the pan and for two persons)
3 stalks of Local Celery (I don’t know how else to put it but you can get this vegetable at the local wet market)
3 inches of Young Ginger (sliced very thinly)
Half a bowl of Rice Wine (we use shao xing hua tiao jiu)
2 tbsp of Premium Grade Lee Kum Kee Oyster Sauce (I like to use only the best) Water (to adjust the saltiness accordingly)
Method
1. Wash and make sure the pomfret is at room temperature.
2. Add 2 tbsp Olive Oil into the pan and then stir fry the ginger slices. Juliene the ginger into thin strips will allow for ease of cooking and also extra the spicy pungent flavours.
3. When you can smell the fragrance of the ginger, add the oyster sauce and rice wine to simmer a little. Then add the pomfret to cook 5 minutes on each side with the wok cover on.
4. Adjust the sauce with a little water. Towards the end add the chopped local celery to the fish. And steam for 1 minute. After that you can serve.
One of my favourite comfort foods for those days when I need something easy to fry up for lunch or dinner. Fried Onions with Eggs is my simple go-to recipe when I need to make up the number at the dinner table.
It’s so easy to make, and so therefore there needs to be skill involved to make it the perfect egg omelette dish. Doing it haphazardly doesn’t do the dish justice.
Recipe
Ingredients
3 whole Eggs (I usually use the 55 grams and above type so that I get a good mix of eggs)
2 medium Purple Onions (these onions are easily found anywhere)
1 tsp Chicken Stock granules Olive Oil
Method
1. Crack the eggs into a bowl and mix in the chicken stock powder and give the mixture a good whisk to make sure the granules are dissolved into the eggs.
2. Slice the onions sideways and leave it as it is. Heat up the wok and pour in 4 tbsp of olive oil. Once the oil is hot enough, throw in the onion slices and start frying.
3. Fry the onions until they start to brown. This happens when the sugars in the onions caramelises. By the the onions would be translucent and softened. Pour the egg mixture into the wok and continue frying until the eggs are brown on one side. Then break it up and stir fry for about a minute. That’s it.
Bon Appetit!
Beat the chicken stock granules with the eggs
Fry the onions until softened and translucent and brown on one side
This is a recommendation from one of the home cooks from this cooking Facebook group that I am part of – a savoury version of watercress instead of the usual soup that I would always cook.
Watercress is my second favourite vegetable, second to bitter gourd of course. But I usually would cook it in a soup with fish balls. So this is my first time stir frying the watercress with shredded chicken and wolfberries. The final result is a nice confluence of flavours. The nuttiness of the watercress blends really well with the marinated chicken drum meat and the wolfberries adds a little sweetness to the dish.
Very easy to cook and tastes delicious. Even the wife loves it (and she hates watercress cooked in soup).
Recipe
Ingredients
1 bunch Watercress (the wet market usually sells fresh watercress although NTUC surprises me from time to time)
1 Chicken Drum (I usually get the chicken butcher to de-bone the chicken drum for me. The meat from the chicken drum is more tender and delicious when cooked)
Handful of Wolfberries (these are the dried reddish fruits that is usually available from any chinese medicine shop or NTUC)
4 tbsp Olive Oil (for frying)
1 tbsp Rice Wine (shao xing hua tiao jiu)
2 tsp Oyster Sauce
4 cloves Garlic (rough chop will do)
2 tbsp Kikkoman Soya Sauce
1/2 tsp White Pepper
Method
1. Soak the watercress in water to remove any dirt or debris. Clean out the discolored leaves. Chop the watercress into half after removing the end of the stems.
2. Chop the meat from the chicken drum into small slices. Marinate with white pepper and soya sauce for about 5 minutes.
3. Rough chop the garlic pieces. Then throw them into a heat wok with the oil. Stir fry the garlic pieces until they start to brown. Then add the marinated shredded chicken slices and wolfberries. Stir fry until the chicken starts to change colour.
4. Add the washed watercress into the wok and add a little water. Turn up the heat to high and then cover the lid to allow the vegetable to cook a little more. After about 3 minutes, they should be sufficiently whithered but still bright green (You generally don’t want to overcook the watercress because You want to retain the vitamins in the vegetable).
5. Add the oyster sauce and rice wine mix into the dish and continue to give it a stir fry. After that you may serve.
I purposely titled this as Steamed Soon Hock for the fun of it. I guess it doesn’t really matter since it is after all the best fish in the whole of Singapore. Any style you cook it, it would be fantastic. For this, I cooked it Hong Kong style.
I was at the wet market this morning and the fishmonger uncle greeted me as “老板!” and immediately I felt a damn shiok feeling. The morning suddenly seem brighter and the $50 in my pocket started singing “so long farewell..”. It’s always like that at the fishmonger’s. His fish is fresh and unfortunately expensive. But today he was selling Soon Hock! And they were going for $15 a kilogram. I got one and it was only $9!! Unbelievable.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 Soon Hock (it was about 600 grams which was sufficient for the two of us.)
2 stalks Lemon Grass (I decided to use lemon grass to flavour the stomach of the fish as ginger might be a little too strong)
2 stalks Leeks (I juliened the leeks into 3 inch lengths, this is the garnishing for the fish after steaming.)
3 tbsp Kikkoman Soya Sauce (I use Kikkoman because it is I feel the taste is quite consistent.)
5 tbsp Olive Oil (I pour hot oil over the fish after steaming it, so this oil has to be smoking hot. I pour it gently little by little so that it cooks the leeks as well.)
1 stalk CorianderLeaves (for garnishing – nothing else)
1 tsp Sesame Seed Oil (for flavour)
Method
1. Wash the Soon Hock and make sure the fish is gutted and cleaned.
2. Boil a kettle of water and prepare to steam the fish in the wok (I assume you know how to steam fish?). Once the water is ready, pour the water into the wok and prepare the steamer tray for steaming.
3. Chop the lemon grass and stuff the stomach cavity of the Soon Hock (fish). Steam the fish for 15 minutes. In another pot, boil oil over a small fire. Boil the oil until smoking hot. (For this you got to time yourself.)
4. While waiting for the fish to steam, you can juliene the leeks into fine strips.
5. Once the fish is cooked. Place the leeks on the fish and pour the hot oil over the leeks (to cook them) and drizzle the soya sauce and sesame seed oil over the fish. Garnish with coriander leaves.
I think you would know by now that I love bitter gourd. You can say the love is bittersweet. From time to time I would try and experiment with different recipes just so that I can have my favourite bitter gourd for my meals.
So in this rendition of bitter gourd in black bean sauce, I have decided to try out Beef Short Ribs. These cuts are the nicely marbled slices that you would usually have at Korean BBQ restaurants. When stir fried, these beef slices are tender and flavorful umami.
Best part is, they sold it at an NTUC nearby. As they say, it cant get any better than that.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 whole Bitter Gourd (I usually select the largest one from the wet market. But you can choose a smaller one if you like, medium size is best.)
150 grams Beef Short Ribs (NTUC or Cold Storage sells these, stir fry for 2 persons, this is usually enough.)
4 tbsp Olive Oil (the bigger the bigger gourd, the more oil you need)
2 inches Young Ginger (you can use any ginger, but this is the type that I usually like to work with for a light marination of the beef. It tenderises it nicely.)
1 tsp Sesame Seed Oil
1 tbsp Salted Black Bean Sauce (there are many brands around, I am currently using Tiger Brand and it works out quite well for me.)
5 cloves Garlic (just rough chop The garlic and they are ready, my son loves the chunky bits of garlic.)
1 tsp Kikkoman Soya Sauce (by far the Kikkoman brand of soya sauce is the most flavourful.)
Drizzle of Thai Fish Sauce (I like Thai Fish Sauce for its light flavour and it works well with vegetables especially when you stir fry.)
Method
1. Start off by marinating the beef slices in grated ginger and its juice. Add soya sauce and sesame seed to flavour the beef slices. Leave it in a bowl for about 10 minutes while you prepare the bigger gourd slices.
2. After slicing the bitter gourd thinly so that it would cook faster, soak it in cold water for a while. Prepare the garlic by rough chopping and after that you can fire up the wok.
3. Add the oil, turn it up medium heat. Stir fry the garlic for a while until it slightly browns and then add in the black bean sauce. Fry till you can smell the fragrance.
4. Add the marinated beef slices, juice and all, and continue frying until the meat starts to change colour a little. Then add the washed bitter gourd slices to stir fry.
5. Turn the heat to high, add a little water and then cover the lid to allow it to steam cook for about 5 minutes.
6. Make sure that the bitter gourd slices all turn soft and darker green before serving. It shouldn’t be light green after you are done with it. That’s it!
This is the classic chicken rice soup that is served whenever I order hainanese chicken rice. It is a very simple soup packed with flavour and it goes very well with chicken rice.
I am not making chicken rice tonight, just making the soup.
I am using Cameron highlands cabbage to flavour the soup as they taste better than those other types from China. It’s a preference thing. You can agree to disagree. I realized this when I was doing my usual marketing routine at the wet market (it seems only the wet market sells these types) and the uncle said “these are from Cameron Highlands..” and that was all that he would say before getting flustered with my questions.
I also realized wet market vegetable stall uncles and aunties tend to have very little friends. Oddly enough, it is supposed to be one of the best PR jobs in the world as you are serving customers everyday, day in day out. I guess it also depends on their MBTI profile. Some people get energized through interactions with people. Others become emotionally drained the moment they have to say “hello..”
But I cant blame them really. It’s not a profession that many would opt to do if they had a choice. I am sure most would have preferred a cushy nylon polyester swivel chair to twirl their day away.
If I had to spend a large part of my day talking to vegetables and haggle with uncles and aunties who are out to get a good deal – I would too become emotionally wretched. I guess some people are wired that way.
So newspaper wrapped cabbage good; unwrapped cabbage good for someone else.
For the chicken parts, I am using chicken wings as it is very easy to eat. Also there is more fats in the wing portion and would also add to the flavour for the soup. No need too many, just 5 small chicken wings would be suffice.
Recipe
Ingredients
5 Chicken Wings (they are usually offered in two sizes, big or small.. I usually take the small ones)
1 whole Cameron Highlands White Cabbage (this type is usually sold at wet markets and the vegetable seller will wrap them up in newspapers..) See Salt – 1 tsp for 1.8 litres of water
Method
1. Boil a kettle of water (around 1.8 litres). Cut the cabbage into small bite size pieces. Place the prepared cabbage together with the frozen chicken wings in the pot, add sea salt and add the boiling hot water. Turn on high heat for 15 minutes with lid closed.
2. Place in thermal cooker and allow the magic to happen. Come back 12 hours later and boil again for dinner. Serve with spring onions garnishing if you like.
I have done another version of this soup previously and it is called Bitter Gourd and Pork Ribs Soup. In that version, I added a slice of dried octopus to which my wife complained that she did not like it that much. I thought initially that the flavours of the dried octopus would have sweetened the soup. I guess some people really like their soups basic.
Which is not a bad thing for the cook. It is already quite tedious to cook on demand as a routine, so cooking basic and simple is definitely something that I like. And it tastes better in an interesting way as well as the soups are not complex and is easily understood. Sometimes whenever I am eating out, I am guessing what actually went into the making of the soup. Great tasting soups should be singular in nature and if possible with a simple meat base to make the soup stronger in flavour.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 whole Bitter Gourd (I usually like the larger size ones as my family loves bitter gourd)
250 grams Pork Ribs (my pork ribs are usually frozen when I cook them. There is no need to thaw the meat before cooking.)
1 tsp Sea Salt (for 1.8 litres of water)
Method
1. Boil a kettle of water (about 1.8 litres). Wash and cut the bitter gourd into 1cm slices.
2. Place the pork ribs into the soup pot. Place the bitter gourd slices into the pot as the picture above. Add salt. Add the boiling water. Boil at high heat for 15 minutes.
3. Then place the pot into the thermal cooker for cooking either overnight so that you can make a bee hoon bitter gourd soup for breakfast or just as a soup accompaniment for dinner. Allow the thermal cooker to do its work for at least 8 to 10 hours. That’s it. Easy.
The weather has been erratic lately with temperatures ranging into the mid 30s. At the rate of goes, it wont be long before we become feverish just by walking into the sun.
So I thought I would make this delicious chinese yam soup to counter the heatwave. Even if it doesn’t, it is still a good bowl of nutritious soup for the family. The best part about this soup is the fact that it doesn’t need too many other condiments to make it great.
A half a black chicken and a slender tube of huai shan is sufficient to make a great tasting soup. Add a tablespoon of wolfberries and the soup takes on a character of its own. The best part is, it is so easy to make, even if the ingredients are frozen (see picture).
Recipe
Ingredients
Half a Black Chicken (if you have more people in the family then you can cook the entire chicken)
A tube of Huai Shan (local chinese yam that is nutritious and fantastic for making soups)
1 tbsp of Wolfberries (add more if you like, it sweetens the soup) Sea Salt (just enough to taste)
Method
1. Boil a kettle of water. While waiting for the water to boil, you can peel and wash the Huai Shan and cut them into 2 inch pieces. The yam tends to break into pieces if you boil for too long. I use a thermal cooker, so it works just right. The yam is intact and doesnt disintegrate.
2. Place the frozen black chicken into the pot. The water should be boiling by now. Add the Huai Shan into the pot and the tablespoon of Wolfberries and then pour the hot water into the pot. Add a little salt and then turn on a big fire and boil the soup for 15 minutes.
3. Once the soup is boiled. Place the pot into the thermal cooker and let it slow cook till you come back in the evening 12 hours later. The soup should be delicious and the chicken tender and huai shan firm and softened.
The ubiquitous char siu aka caramelized pork parts has been with us Singaporeans for many years now. How many years exactly, I don’t really know. I guess some folks must have brought it from Hong Kong maybe?
I think it must have come from Hong Kong. When I went visiting there were a lot of people selling char siu over there. Anyway whether it is from there or it was from here and eventually got everywhere. I just want to know if I can make it in my kitchen.
So my friend Sandy made Char Siu the other day and it looked yummy. So I followed the link to the recipe and realised that it must be the simplest recipe in the world. It was so simple that the author spent much of the entire blog post filling it up with words and small talk.
Anyway, I decided to make it. And it is really that easy. Just some things to take note and you are good to go.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 whole Yo Lai pork (if you are not sure what yo lai is.. Just ask your butcher. He will probably tell you to yo lai and point to you the part with the sharp edge of his cleaver.)
Marinate
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp 5 Spice Powder
1 tsp White Pepper
1 tsp Dark Soya Sauce
1 tsp Sesame Seed Oil
2 tbsp Sugar
2 tbsp HoiSin sauce (I got the Lee Kum Kee one just because it was convenient)
1 tbsp Hua Tiao Jiu (aka chinese cooking wine)
2 tbsp Honey (I used Manuka honey because I like only the best, but any old honey will be suffice.. Don’t be too eager to mix the honey in the marinate.. The honey go last when the char siu is almost done.. )
1 bowl of Warm Water
Method
1. Dry the yo lai pork. Cut into two parts. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a metal wok (cook this only in a metal wok/pan and not a non-stick wok/pan). Once oil is heated, place the yo lai into the pan and sear the meat. The pork is likely to get stuck on the pan, but that’s the price you pay for being a purist.
2. Fry the yo lai pork for about 5 minutes or less. You really only want to brown the meat. Once that is done add all the ingredients into the pan.
3. Mixing the marinate couldn’t have been easier. It is not rocket science. Just mix everything in a bowl. Add water to mix it up. Reserve the honey for later.
4. Pour the marinate into the pan with the yo lai. Cover the pan for 20 minutes. Then lower the fire and just stir fry the pork until the marinate dries up. There is hardly any liquid left in the pan once the full 40 minutes is completed.
5. The Char Siu by now should be nicely braised. The sauce would have thickened to almost nothing. After you take the meat out, plate it and glazed it with the honey.
6. Serve with coriander or whatever herb that you like.
This is my mother-in-law’s recipe and one that my wife and I decided to attempt to make today. I decided to follow the exact method and portions according to the original recipe so that I can make changes to it after I have done it. The recipe appended below can literally feed quite a lot of people, so attempt only if you are ready to take on the challenge.
Bak Kerng as the name of the dish is called is really Chinese style meat sausage. In Singaporean hawker centres or food courts, one would easily locate these stalls selling wu xiang or in English would mean “five flavours”. It is as if the five flavours of foods are represented here. Most people refer to Bak Kerng as Wu Xiang and over time, it’s become an easier term to refer to it. Of course if you’re from Penang (Malaysia), you would refer to it as Lor Bak, but essentially, it is the same thing. Suffice to say, the ingredient lists varies from recipe to recipe, the key thing is the taste of the sausage.
This recipe is heap full of ingredients as nothing is left to chance here. Deliciously sweet Swa Lor prawns are used and pork belly instead of just lean pork. The addition of the cuttlefish paste adds a different dimension to the bak kerng and especially after frying it in a mixture of olive and soya bean oil, the traditional dish literally comes alive. A secret ingredient is the rind of the pork belly as I infused the vegetable oil with the fatty pork oil that made the flavour of the bak kerng phenomenal.
Recipe
Ingredients
Cuttlefish Paste 500 grams (I use the brand Seawaves from NTUC Supermarket) Pork Belly 1Kg (fatty is better) Water Chestnuts 1Kg Garlic 50 grams Shallots 100 grams Local Celery 100 grams Eggs 2 whole Prawns “Swa Lor” or baby shrimp also can, NTUC has pre-packed de-shelled baby shrimps, those are best. 1Kg. Potato Starch 350 grams (use the whole packet) Dried Tofu Skin 3 large pieces (The brand Pasar is good and can be found at NTUC Supermarket as well, this should be sufficient to cut into 6 pieces per sheet, total 18 sheets) Olive Oil & Soya Bean Oil enough to fill a pot to a height of 5 cm for dry frying.
Seasoning
Salt 1 teaspoon Sugar 1 teaspoon Chicken Stock 2 teaspoon Sesame Seed Oil 2 tablespoon White Pepper 1 tablespoon
Method
1. I asked the butcher to minced the pork belly, it’s so much easier than having to slice the pork belly myself. Last time I used to slice it myself, and I wondered why in the world did I do that silly thing. Make my hand pain only.
2. Remove the rind (the aunty butcher can remove the rind, in fact she needs to remove it before she mince the pork belly for you) and reserve it for frying in the oil.
3. Peel the prawns (only if you bought Swa Lor, otherwise the NTUC baby shrimp is much better, all de-shelled nicely for you, all you need to do is cut into 3 pieces). Since the baby shrimp were so tiny, I basically close them into an O shape and cut once and the prawns becomes 3 pieces. Easy.
4. Finely chop the shallots. Or if you’re lazy, just chop it in a machine. Then peel and slice the waterchestnuts into small pieces. Alternatively, NTUC also sells peeled water chestnuts. Trust me, nobody will know the difference. Buying the muddy version and scrubbing and slicing is so out-dated.
5. Julienne the local celery, use only the stem, but I am cheapo, so I chopped the whole thing.
6. When you are ready to mix, cut an entire packet of cuttlefish paste into the mixing bowl and add all the sliced ingredients into the bowl. You may also add the potato starch (or any type of flour) and the seasonings. Last to go in is the two eggs. The eggs will help to bond the meat mixture together.
7. Once everything is well mixed, cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for about an hour to allow the meat to marinate.
8. Cut the tofu skins into small sheets (specifically 30 cm x 30 cm squares) so that you can roll the ingredients. 1 sheet can cut into 6 sheets. 3 sheets, means 18 sheets. 18 sheets means 18 meat rolls. Crack two eggs so that they can act as egg wash to seal the meat sausage. This is to close the ends of the meat sausage. You can also use a starch mixture to close it. Just don’t use super glue.
9. Now you should be ready to rock and roll. Mix a small portion of meat mixture onto the tofu skin and roll into sausages. After that sliced them into bite size pieces before frying. It’s easier to slice if you put them in the fridge. Otherwise, just use a sharp knife.
11. The oil in the pot should be reasonably hot so that when you deep fry the meat sausage, it will be perfectly crispy on the outside and nicely cooked inside.
12. Do this until they are all fried up and delicious. Drain the meat sausages on a metal tray to remove excess oil, and you can serve it in a chilli padi, minced garlic & lime sauce.
My friends have come to visit me from a far away place. My friends here are the two crabs who are kind of tied up at the moment. In fact, they have been pretty tied up for quite a while already.
So now that they are here, I am wondering if I should have them stay for lunch or for dinner. Either way they would be my very important table guests each playing a very crucial role in ensuring my family’s happiness.
They are my son’s best friends, as he reminds me of them with his toy figurines at night when he has his playtime. I think my son would be very pleased that they have come to visit at our home.
I have given them the best pre-spa treatment in my family freezer and once they are ready, I will provide them a good body wash and it is off to the slimming sauna in the wok. Maybe a dash of herbal tonic and wines to add a little flavour. That’s it. No other special ingredient is needed.
Add half a bowl of water and turn the home-made sauna up to high heat and after 15 minutes later. The aroma; the fragrance – wow – it would be fabulous.
Dip them in the light tangerine sauce and enjoy a bowl of plain congee porridge. The experience would be worth every dollar.
Actually to be really honest, I don’t know the name of this fish. I just assume that it is the Yellow Croacker because it looked yellow and opened its mouth as if it was trying to sing a song.
This fish probably taste best if you cooked in a milky broth, and the best way to do that would be to cook it with ginger and garlic, salted egg and seafood stock with a little fresh milk. No added salt required.
That’s basically how I would treat this fish. Here’s the recipe.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 Yellow Croacker (usually the wet market would sell this fish)
handful of Garlic cloves
1 inch of Ginger sliced
1 Salted Egg
2 cups of Seafood Stock (usually it is frozen in the freezer)
Method:
1. Fry the peeled garlic cloves in oil. Using the tilted pan method to save oil when frying, especially if you have a shallow pan. Fry till the garlic cloves are brown. Then fry the sliced gingers till they are slightly brown.
2. After you have done all that, stuff the ginger slices into the belly of the croacker and place the frozen stock beside the fish (see picture). Once that is done, you can literally crack the salted egg into the pan and place the pan into the wok to steam.
3. Steam the fish for a good 20 minutes. The flesh of the fish should be tender and tend to flake easily. Add a little fresh milk, and the broth should be just perfect.
I have always wondered what that weird looking vegetable was and how it tasted. Today I decided that I would buy it first and ask around my circle of friends for the name of the vegetable and also how to cook it.
Fortunately for me someone told me, and more interestingly I have always eaten it as a child. The luffa as it is strangely named, is a sort of melon or gourd. The soft interiors of the vegetable makes it ideal for soups or just simple stir fry.
My friend gave me a recipe reference to follow but I decided to give it a spin of my own plus a few influences from Gordon Ramsay and some other recipes. Why Gordon Ramsay you may ask. Well the recipe calls for scrambled eggs but I decided to make it Gordon Ramsay style.
So the final taste is likely to be a mixture of east meets west and I am sure it will be nothing short of fantastic.
Recipe
Ingredients
1 piece Luffa
Handful of Dried Shrimps
3 Eggs
3 Flower Crabs
1 packet of Chicken Bones (the chicken bones is for stock to be added into the luffa when you cook)
1 small dollop of Butter
Method
1. Wash and clean the flower crabs. Then place them in a wok. Add half a bowl of water and then steam the crabs whole for about 15 minutes. Once the crabs are done, collect the meat and put one side.
2. Peel off the skin of the luffa and chop into pieces. Then reserve one side. Fire up the stove and add some olive oil in the pan. Once oil is heated, add some minced garlic and stir fry a little. Then add the dried shrimp and continue frying. Add the luffa pieces and if need be, add more oil and fry up all the luffa until soften.
3. In another pot, cook the scrambled eggs like how Gordon does it. He cracks it into a pot and then adds in a dollop of butter and keeps stirring it to prevent the eggs from over-cooking. Keep the fire on the stove small and keep stirring until the eggs are nicely scrambled.
4. When all is done and ready. Assemble everything and you will have a nice fried luffa, topped with crab meat and scrambled eggs.
People say watercress soup is good for this and that. Some say can even prevent cancer. All I know is when it is boiled as a soup, it tastes great. It is one of my go-to soups whenever I eat out at the food court.
I cooked the watercress by boiling it in the water as opposed to boiling the water then putting it in. I like the taste of the soup to be stronger. Instead of using pork ribs like I always do, I am opting to use chicken bones instead for a lighter flavour.
Add a few red dates to balance the sweetness against the bitter peppery taste and finish it off with non-spicy fish balls. Fish balls and watercress are unlikely travel buddies that have become great friends.
I also added a handful of mini-scallops (dried) to strengthen the flavour and a pinch of sea salt. The soup is sure to taste delicious by tonight. I am boiling the ingredients in water for about 10 minutes at high heat and then allowing it to cook further in the thermal cooker for about 12 hours.
Recipe
Ingredients
One bunch of Watercress (I always buy them fresh from the wet market)
A handful of mini-scallops (dried) Chicken Bones for boiling the stock
A pinch of Sea Salt
A few Red Dates
A packet of non-spicy fresh Fish Balls
Method
1. Boil a kettle of hot water. While it is boiling. Place the chicken bones or carcass into the thermal cooker. Soak the watercress and remove dirt and debris.
2. Pour the hot water into the pot and boil the chicken bones. Add the mini-scallops and a pinch of salt. Then add the rinsed watercress and red dates. Boil at high heat for about 10 minutes with lid on.
3. Once the flavour of the watercress soup starts to emit from the lid, you know the soup is about ready. Add the fish balls and place the entire pot into the thermal cooker.
4. Come back 12 hours later and boil the soup again for dinner. East recipe.
I love Cod. Period. But I love frying it more than steaming it. The problem is my old pan is not non-stick. Thank goodness that my wife bought a non-stick pan recently, and my cod steak doesn’t stick to the pan anymore! Instead, what I get now is a lovely hue of brown, nicely fried cod.
I don’t know how professional chefs do it. But the non-stick pan is the lifesaver. The cod steak now stays in shape and does not flake into bits.
Also, I don’t need to use as much oil as I do with the normal pan. And frying is such a breeze. Just add a little light soya sauce and it is perfect.
Recipe
Ingredients
3 inches of Ginger (sliced into thin strips)
300 grams of Alaskan Cod (get the fishmonger to debone it for you) Olive Oil Light Soya Sauce Sesame Seed Oil
Method
1. Pour 3 tbsp of olive oil into the pan and heat it till hot. Fry the ginger slices until they turn brown. Remove from pan and set aside.
2. Then in the remaining oil, place the cod steak skin side down to fry as the skin takes a while to cook.
3. After a few minutes, check if the skin is brown. Once it is slightly brown, turn the fish over and cook the other side for a few minutes.
4. Once done, decorate with fried ginger slices and serve with a slight drizzle of sesame sesame seed oil and light soya sauce.
There comes a time in the journey of home cook that you begin a search for your own ingredients. My food adventures has brought me to connect with many like-minded home cooks and it seems many home cooks actually make their own rice wine. Don’t be distracted by the censored image above. It is there for a purpose.
So it seems it takes about a month to complete the entire fermentation process and the rule of thumb for newbies is to start small. Don’t grab any old recipe and dive straight into a micro brewery business in your toilet. Start off with personal consumption as it is the golden rule.
If it works then you can continue to make for your friends if you like.
There are some taboos though. It seems if you are going to make this rice wine, you must not utter any noise or sound. If you do, the wine will ferment badly and you would have to throw the entire batch out and start all over again.
So I thought I would try. And see if it is that easy as they say.
Let’s try it. If it works, and after a month of fermentation, you will find a nice bottle of rice wine. Since I am Hakka, it will be Hakka Rice Wine.
Recipe
Ingredients
2 kg Glutinous Rice
1 portion of 红 something something (bah.. I forgot the name.. The aunty that shared her recipe didn’t know what it was either and neither did I know what she was saying..)
2 pieces of 酒饼 (apparently you can get it at the Chinese medicinal shop.. Incidentally you can also get the portion of 红 something something from the same medicinal shop.. Just ask the herb concoctionist.)
1 bottle of 白酒 (this is something like a guarantee to make the magic work..)
Method
1. Steam the glutinous rice until cook. Or you can cook it in the rice cooker. But dont forget it is 2 whopping kilograms of glutinous rice.
2. Once steamed or cooked. Spread it out on a large round plate to cool down completely. Make sure it is completely cool.
3. While that is being done, ground the 红 something something into fine powder and then mix it into the glutinous rice. Then crush the 2 pieces of 酒饼 and scatter it into the glutinous rice. Give it a good mix.
4. Put the glutinous rice mix into a container, glass is best. Corning ware has a nice glass casserole dish with cover that you could use.
5. Pour in the 白酒 and close the lid. Some people say no need the 白酒, but who knows until you try making two batches one with and one without.
6. Once you are done, wrap up the container in aluminium foil and label it so that you know when to open it up again. All the best!
This is a recipe from my paternal grandparents, a humble yet delicious Hakka Yong Tau Foo deep fried in soya bean oil and then cooked in a rich broth of soya beans and kiam chye. I have never bothered to learn the recipe and thankfully my mum being the dutiful daughter-in-law took on the mantle of preparing the laborious dish for future Lunar New Year dinners.
Mum improved on the recipe and made it her own and it tasted even better than how grandpa did. I resolved to one day make it myself and to make it as easy as possible. That day is today and for the benefit of all, here’s my take on the family recipe.
Of course my rendition means I do it the way I like and so I basically only used bitter gourd and left out the tau kwa and tau pok altogether. Wanna know how? Read on.
Recipe
Ingredients
Fish Paste (you can get this from the wet market at the stall that sells yong tau foo pieces and fish balls. Ironic, I know. For this recipe, I got $3 worth of fish paste.) Minced Pork (lean pork but tell the butcher to run it into a minced. $3 worth again of lean minced pork.)
1/4 cup of Dried Shrimps (the more you add, the tastier it will be, so you may wanna add more.)
4 pieces of Dried Oysters (this is entirely optional if you don’t like the taste but it was part of my grandparents original recipe. My wife don’t really like, so I left them out.)
1 Bitter Gourd (cut into 1cm thickness. It might be better to cut diagonally so that the fish/meat paste doesn’t fall out during cooking)
2 pieces of Tau Kwa (optional. Cut into diagonals.)
2 pieces of Tau Pok (optional. Cut into diagonals.)
1/2 packet of Dried Soya Beans (you can buy these at NTUC and you would need to soak them overnight at least.)
2 bulbs of Kiam Chye (these are salted vegetables for the unacquainted.)
2 pieces of Preserved Salted Plums (easily purchased from the supermarket.)
1 packet of Fish Balls Light Soya Sauce White Pepper Sesame Seed Oil Corn Flour Soya Bean Oil
Method
1. Soak the soya beans and dried shrimps overnight in a pot of water. I soaked them together because I was lazy.
2. The next day, I picked the shrimps out of the pot and threw them into bowl along with the fish paste and minced pork. Most people I know would chop the shrimps but I dropped them whole. Tastier that way. In it I mixed a little light soya sauce, a small drizzle of sesame seed oil and give it a good mix. Use your hands, the flavour is stronger. I’m kidding.
3. Boil the soya beans at high heat with the kiam chye and drop the two salted plums into the broth. You want to extract all the goodness out of these ingredients because you are gonna discard them after you have wasted them in the pot.
4. Cut the bitter gourd into 1cm thick slices. I did them wrongly as in cut them straight. But you should cut them in a slight diagonal. This will help you keep the fillings from falling out.
5. Fill the fish/minced/shrimps paste into the bitter gourd slices and coat it with a light corn flour liquid so that it would hold the fillings in the bitter gourd slices. You can make a simple corn flour mixture by mixing a tablespoon of corn flour with some water.
6. Fill a small pot with lots of soya bean oil (olive oil would be a little costly). Heat it up with big fire. Then deep fry the bitter gourd pieces until the meat fillings turn brown. If you didn’t, then maybe it won’t taste so nice.
7. Once you have fried all your bitter gourd items you can drop them into your soup pot. Remember to remove at least half of the soya beans and all of the Kiam Chye. This is to make space for the bitter gourd pieces. Boil at high heat and once it is bubbling, you may serve. You may also add fish balls if you like.
Bon Appetit!
Soak soya beans and dried shrimps together
Fish paste, minced pork and dried shrimps
Cut bitter gourd into 1cm slides
Fill the bitter gourd pieces with the fish/meat/dried shrimps mixture
After deep frying the bitter gourd pieces, cook them in the soya bean and kiam chye broth
I thought I would cook something different tonight, maybe something that I always see at Jo Kwon’s and my go-to dish if there are not many varieties to choose from at the Chap Cai Png Stall (aka 10 dish rice). This is because every Cai Png in Hokkien is also known as Economical Rice with Dishes and every stall that I have visited in the last twenty to thirty years, will also have this dish as one of the staples.
This plain and simple dish is none other than the Stir Fry Luncheon Meat and Potatoes. Traditionally cooked in a mix of thick sticky tomato ketchup sauce and oyster sauce, this dish is a sure win amongst Cai Png worshippers. I think I might have successfully created my own version and carried on the essence of that humble yet flavourful dish.
Nations would go to battle to secure the rights to the origins of this dish, yet it is so freely shared here in our homeland for the benefit of everyone. Whoever created this dish must be genius. Nuff’ said, here’s the recipe.
* please note that I have included amazon affiliate links to the products I use, so check them out if you wish to support me, and if I can get these items from NTUC Supermarket, I would just indicate.
Recipe
Ingredients
A can of Luncheon Meat (my family loves the Ma Ling Pork Luncheon Meat [NTUC] brand as we have been eating it for years) 9 Baby Potatoes or 4 Large Potatoes (you can use any potato, it doesn’t matter brand or no brand) Olive Oil Tomato Ketchup(we only use Maggi Tomato Ketchup Sauce [NTUC] for this, as it has the best taste) Oyster Sauce(I love Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Sauce [NTUC] for the taste)
Method
1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into chunks. Do the same for the luncheon meat and cut into chunks about the same size.
2. Heat about 3 tbsp of oil in wok and fry the potatoes over high heat, constantly stirring so that it doesn’t burn. Then when potato pieces start to brown, you can add the luncheon meat to fry. Continue frying until you can smell the luncheon meat.
3. Add a tbsp of Oyster sauce and about 3 tbsp of Tomato Ketchup and continue to stir fry. Immediately add some water to prevent the sauce from drying up. Continue to fry for about 5-7 minutes over medium heat and once it is ready, serve.
If you like another simple recipe using potatoes, you could check this one out – New Potatoes
Bon Appetit!
Stir fry the potato chunks until some slides are brown.
When I first saw it on cable TV, I thought at first that this guy must be nuts. He did look like a nutty professor as well and who would have thought that he really has some good ideas up his sleeves.
Roast chicken, one of the toughest dishes to master. The roast chickens that I have had so far were all either roasted too dry or too hard. Some roasted chickens were so over roasted that they taste like rock cakes (over burnt cakes).
Heston promised to change all that forever. But there’s a price to pay – and that’s the price of patience. Coupled with that an insane obsession with perfection. Intermingle those qualities together and you would soon find yourself chowing down some really delicious roast chicken.
How I know? I tried it. And it works. The best part is, the juices in the chicken just oozes as you cut through the meat. The breast meat juicy as ever.
Recipe – serving for 4
Ingredients
Whole fresh chicken 1.5kg
Thyme 6-7 sprigs
Butter 80 grams
Lemon
Sea salt
Red wine 1 cup
Method
1. Douse the chicken in salt water solution overnight in a container. 60 grams of salt to a litre of water. Simple as that. Doing this boost the moisture in the chicken.
2. When ready to roast, pad dry the chicken, and rub butter all over the bird, giving it a good massage. You generally want to make sure the chicken is “relaxed” while you roast the bird.
3. Add thyme into the anal cavity of the chicken and wedge a lemon (halved) into it as well. Then preheat the oven to a temperature of 90 degrees for about 10 minutes. I chose fan mode with top heating.
4. Roast the chicken for about 1.5 hours at 90 degrees breast facing upwards. Remember not to tight the legs of the chicken but rather allow it to all hang out.
5. There should be no flavor lost and the chicken after roasting should also look pale and relatively uncooked in a way. But with a kitchen thermometer you can test to see if the chicken is cooked at 90 degrees.
6. Let the chicken rest for another 45 minutes before rubbing the chicken with another layer of butter. Doing so will enhance the flavor of the chicken and allow it to brown.
7. Once ready, preheat the oven to a maximum temperature of 260 degrees. And roast the chicken for about 15 minutes. The skin of the chicken should be crispy and slightly brown.
8. Deglaze the bottom of the roasting pan and turn it into a sauce for the roast chicken.
“Boeuf bourguignon, French beef stew in red wine..” Says Julia Child, one of the most inspiring cooks (home cooks) that ever lived. She represents to me hope that anyone can take mastery of their kitchen and cook up awesome French cuisine from the comforts of their humble home.
Julia to me personifies French cooking for servant-less home cooks. A socially awkward lady yet adventurous and passionate in her craft, her example inspired many to try, fail and subsequently succeed in following her footsteps.
Maybe I might eventually do all the recipes that she has in her book. Well we shall see.
Julia Child – Boeuf Bourguignon
For this classic, I would usually take reference from her YouTube video and then make up as we go along. Some of the ingredients are not locally available but the spirit of Julia is always to make do with what you have.
I had fun making this dish my own, and I have been making it my own way for a while now and getting the same awesome results each time. I hope it will be the same experience for you as well. I don’t use the oven as the recipe calls for it, but I use a gas stove to cook the beef.
Recipe – serving for 4
Ingredients
Beef cubes (for making stew) 750 grams
Streaky bacon (ask for more fat) 50 grams
Garlic 10 wedges, 4 to minced, 6 to braise
Yellow onions (medium) 2 whole
Tomato paste 3 tablespoons
White button mushrooms 15 pieces
White onions (small) 15 bulbs
Carrots 2 whole
Thyme 5-6 sprigs
Bay leaf 2-3 leaves
Olive oil 2 tablespoons
Red wine 750 ml
Beef stock 4 cups
Salted butter 250 grams
Method
1. Add oil to a large pot. Heat till slightly smoking. Add sliced bacon to fry til crispy. This is to extract the fat from the bacon and saltiness.
2. Remove bacon and discard. Add beef cubes and sear beef till brown. The key is not to crowd the base of the pot or they won’t brown. Once done, remove from pot to allow the beef to rest.
3. Add minced garlic to pot and fry till fragrant. Then add chopped onions to fry until soft. Then add beef cubes into the pot. Now pour in the beef stock about 2 cups. Add the red wine about half a bottle. Add thyme, bay leaf, tomato paste and continue to stir. Add carrots, remaining garlic. Continue to cook at high heat.
4. In another pot fry the mushroom in salted butter and olive oil mixed. Fry until mushrooms are slightly brown. Reserve the mushroom aside and continue to cook the white onions in salted butter and olive oil. Cook until onions are soft.
5. Once the beef is sufficiently cooked and tender. Combine the mushrooms and onions together. Serve with baguette or steamed rice.
I call it simple salad because I am always doing these salads with no names or maybe there is a name but I can’t be bothered to name it.
Anyway I make salads that I think are fun to eat. This one that I made today is exactly that. Simple and straightforward wholesome yummyness.
Recipe – serving for two
Ingredients
Baby spinach
Wild rocket
Button mushrooms
Cherry tomatoes
Buffalo mozzarella
Balsamic vinaigrette
Olive oil
Sea salt
Method
1. Wash baby spinach and wild rocket. After washing, toss it into the salad bowl.
2. Slice cherry tomatoes and toss it in. I didn’t specify the quantities, but if you like cherry tomatoes as I do, you will know how many to add.
3. Half the button mushrooms and fry them in olive oil. Make sure the mushrooms are seared before adding in the olive oil. Add sea salt to taste. Once ready, toss it into the salad bowl.
4. Slice buffalo mozzarella and toss it into the salad bowl. Add balsamic vinaigrette according to your love for sour stuff.
I remember going to Perth, Western Australia once to visit some friends and take a short holiday and I had one of the best spicy mussels in the world at Fremantle Market or Freo as they like to call it.
When I got back home, I knew I had to make it. And make it just as delicious.
I realized the key to great spicy Mussels was to get the black lip ones and they sold some at cold storage supermarket but sadly they don’t carry them very frequently or most of the times when I get them it is always near expiry.
So I tried the next best alternative which was the local green Mussels which were sold by the local fishmongers at the wet market.
The one at my place sold a kg of fresh Mussels for $2 (SGD). Unbelievable price and value. The cold storage ones were 750 grams for $19.95. Ingredients for the dish was also bought at the vegetable seller for $4 all in.
The wine and some other ingredients had to be purchased at the supermarket but the costing for my dish has significantly become cheaper!
These days I do my marketing at the wet market. Cheaper, fresher and you get to choose what you need.
My version of the spicy chilli mussels bears the following characteristics. Sweet, sour, spicy, salty.
Yum.
Recipe – serving for four
Ingredients
Green Mussels 1 kg
Yellow Onions (Medium) 2 whole
Tomatoes 6 whole
White wine – sauvignon blanc 2 cups
Garlic 5 wedges
Red chilli 2 pieces
Red chilli padi 5 pieces
Tomato paste 3 tablespoons
Brown Sugar 1 tablespoon
Sea salt 1/2 teaspoon
Bay leaf
Olive oil
Method
1. Heat a saucepan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add minced garlic slices to fry till fragrant.
2. Slice and chop the yellow onions and stir-fry the onions until they turn transparent. Slice all the chillis and add into the pot to fry. Add salt and sugar.
3. Chop and discard the insides of the tomatoes and add to the saucepan and continue to cook with the rest of the ingredients until soften. Add tomato paste. Squeeze juice of 2 lemon and grate in the rind of one lemon. Add a bay leaf. Continue to cook until ingredients become a thick pulpy texture.
4. Taste test the mixture, it should be spicy, sour, salty and sweet. If so, it is done and the spicy sauce is ready.
5. Wash Mussels and remove any “beards” or barnacles.
6. Add two tablespoons of olive oil into another pot and fry minced garlic. Add the Mussels to the pot. Add the white wine. Turn the heat up and cover the lid to steam cook the Mussels. You know the mussels are cooked when they all open up. Discard those that did not open.
7. Add spicy sauce and mix well. Serve with a toasted garlic baguette.
This is another all-time classic soup stock for infants who are ready to eat watery rice porridge.
However it is an acquired taste for my boy, maybe it would have been more palatable if I added red dates.
But this is a super easy two ingredient soup stock. It’s really a no-brainer.
Recipe
Ingredients
Watercress
Chicken carcass
Method
1. Place chicken bones in the pot. Then place watercress on top of chicken. Add 1.5 litres of water. Turn up the heat until boiling and then slow down to a simmer.
2. When you smell the flavour of the soup and see the fat of the chicken on the surface of the broth it is ready.
This recipe has become a staple for my baby. A simple corn, carrot, chicken bone broth with no salt or any other flavourings.
Perfect as a flavour boost to the soup stock for infants learning how to eat very watery rice porridge. My wife usually adds a portion of vegetable puree and a piece of codfish for nutrition.
As you really want to extract every ounce of goodness from the ingredients, you might have to boil this soup until you smell the flavour escaping from the lid and the fat from the chicken floats on the surface.
These ingredients are best purchased from the wet market as opposed to the supermarket. Price wise much cheaper, plus you can buy what you need.
Recipe – 7 servings of soup stock each 120ml
Ingredients
Corn
Carrot
Chicken carcass
Method
1. Chop and slice the carrot and corn. Place it into the pot with the chicken bones.
2. Fill it with water till it covers ingredients. Cook at high heat until boiling then turn it down to a slow simmer. Cook until flavour escapes the lid and the fat from the chicken floats on the surface of the broth.
3. Once cooked, let the broth cool. Discard the ingredients and reserve the soup stock in small cups for freezing.
I have always secretly wanted to be a Neurosurgeon.
Thanks to my wife’s love for beef steaks, now my dream will finally come through – that is to be a 牛肉 (Niu Rou), Surgeon.
This has got to be an all-time favourite of ours. Beef steaks. We love it. No doubt about it. My wife loves it medium rare whereas I can only stomach a medium.
On this day I thought I would try cooking this simple yet impactful dish. It’s like a rite of passage for me before I can well and truly say that I have tried my best before giving up.
You see, this is not my first attempt. I have failed many times trying to time the doneness of the steaks and frankly, steaks are expensive mistakes if not done properly.
The problem I believe is because firstly the steaks from Cold Storage are not as chunky as we think. Secondly, our cooking utensils or at least mine are not cast iron where cooking temperatures are moderated and more even.
So taking those factors into consideration, my cooking temperatures are different. I think if you are doing your own steaks, just bear in mind the cooking temperatures and cooking equipment and you should be fine.
All the best folks.
Recipe – Serving for Two
Ingredients
Ribeye steaks from Cold Storage
Fresh rosemary (2 sprigs)
Sea salt
Black pepper
Baby spinach
Cherry tomatoes
New potatoes
Red wine – merlot is best and especially if they are half drunk.
Method
1. Boil the new potatoes in a pot, water must cover the potatoes. Do this until they are all cooked.
2. Salt the steaks on one side lightly, sprinkle coarse black pepper as well. Leave it for 5 minutes.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide frying pan until smoking. You want the pan to be really hot. Once the pan is sufficiently heated up, place seasoned side down for searing. This is steak, so there is no need to spin it in the pan. 4 minutes on one side and then with tongs flip the steak on the other side for another 3 minutes. Make sure the fat is cooked (if any).
4. Remove the steaks and plate it. It is important to allow the steak to rest at least 10 minutes.
5. Pour half a cup of red wine (can be remnants of a bottle) and deglaze the pan. Add a little salt to taste. Allow the alcohol to reduce and this will form a light red wine sauce for the steak.
6. Roast potatoes with rosemary and salt until slightly smoking then drizzle with extra virgin olive oil for shine and flavour.
7. Plate the potatoes, arrange the baby spinach and cherry tomatoes (halved) around the steaks before a drizzle of the red wine sauce. You may pair it with a Cabernet Sauvignon (Chilean) if you like.
I got home slightly later today because of an Excel test that I had to sit for. Managed to get a good grade which was nice. Anyway, so I realised the value of rushing back home during peak hour traffic. I can’t imagine having to fight with the same bunch of people day in day out for space at the MRT station. It can be quite a terrible thing especially if you have to do a long commute to get to work.
Thankfully I managed to get out of class at about 5.55pm which I reckon is the thin line between being caught in the rush at 6 pm or the calm before the storm. People in the city go back home on time surprisingly.
So the wife asked me what I would cook for her tonight, and I couldn’t decide, we had already run out of ingredients at home, so she said why not cook a cream based Salmon Pasta. I replied, “Yuck.” and just nice my phone ran out of battery. So maybe the message didn’t manage to get through.
So it came as no surprise when a packet of fresh salmon landed on the kitchen table-top and a packet of glorious Portobellos. Surprisingly she bought Scallops as well. It was a gathering of all my favourite friends.
Recipe – Serving for Two
Ingredients
Fresh Salmon – a fillet for me and a fillet for you.
Fresh Scallops – I like at least 5 pieces for my plate. You can have lesser if you like.
Portobello Mushrooms
Fresh Rosemary – 2 sprigs
Lime
Garlic
Cooking Cream – 1 small packet will do.
Milk – 1 cup is sufficient.
Mixed Italian Herbs
Black Pepper
Cayenne Pepper
Sea Salt
Olive Oil
Method
1. In a pot, cook about 200 grams (dried) Fusilli Pasta (this type of pasta is fantastic for cream-based sauces). I use Barilla Brand because it is one of the better ones. Cook the Fusilli Pasta for 11 minutes in hot boiling water mixed with a generous helping of salt and a tablespoon of olive oil. Once pasta is cooked, strain it immediately and douse it in cold water to stop cooking. Pasta should be just nice.
2. Heat a saucepan of two tablespoons of olive oil until slightly smoking, then add in minced garlic (3 wedges) and stir-fry gently until the garlic is fragrant. Meanwhile, de-bone and slice the salmon against the grain and add to the saucepan once garlic starts to brown a little. Fry the salmon until flesh turns pinkish. Do not fry the salmon too long as it tends to become dry. Once all the salmon turns pinkish (which is about 3-4 minutes) remove from saucepan and set aside.
3. In a frying pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil (you can use butter if you like, but be careful as it burns easily) and place the Scallops to allow it to sear and burn on each side. My wife bought 4 pieces! Remove the Scallops after a few minutes of frying over medium heat.
4. In the same frying pan, fry the sliced Portobello Mushrooms and rosemary leaves with a sprinkle of sea salt. Stir-fry the mushrooms, sea salt and rosemary until it starts to burn a little, then add a tablespoon of olive oil and sauté until the portobellos turn soft (and delicious).
5. Assemble the Pasta (weigh about 180 grams per portion, 200 grams if you prefer a heavier meal) with Salmon on top, scallops on the side, and the rosemary-infused portobellos. If you have some leftover baby spinach or rocket from yesterday it would be great!
6. Now in the saucepan, cooking about 200 grams of cooking cream and about a half a cup of fresh milk. Add black pepper, mixed Italian herbs and a little salt to taste. Allow the cream to cook until it bubbles and forms a thin layer. The cream sauce is ready at this point. Ladle the cream sauce onto the pasta and serve with a wedge of lime (I ran out of the lemon!). I like my Salmon with a light sprinkle of cayenne pepper.
Bon Appetit!
So you may ask, why go through all that effort for a simple meal – as in cooking everything separately and then assembling it later? Well, I like to taste my food, so that’s why I cooked them separately, it just tastes better that way don’t you think so? Furthermore, different ingredients have different cooking temperatures and I have to respect that. Seafood tends to be a little more temperamental and less tolerant of mistakes.
It was a good decision to cook it this way. The wife loves it, and I must say it’s not too bad either.
Baked Salmon with Pan Roasted New Potatoes with Simple Salad
I got home early today and I thought maybe I can quickly whip up a simple dinner for my wife and myself.
So here goes, Baked Salmon with Pan Roasted New Potatoes and a simple Salad.
OK. So it wasn’t really that simple to prepare, but I enjoyed preparing it anyway, and I did it pretty quickly too. Here’s the recipe in case you want to make your own.
Recipe
Ingredients – Serving for two
Fresh Salmon Fillet – depending on your appetite, you may wish to get more slices.
New Potatoes – a small bag would be sufficient.
Portobello Mushrooms
Wild Rocket
Baby Spinach
Buffalo Mozzarella
Green Pitted Olives
Fresh Rosemary (a few sprigs)
Lemon
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
Cayenne Pepper
Mixed Italian Herbs
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Method
1. Marinate salmon steaks lightly with black pepper, cayenne pepper, mixed Italian herbs, sea salt and a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
2. Pre-heat oven (fan mode with a top element) to 250 degrees. Place salmon to bake for 10 minutes when the oven is sufficiently pre-heated.
3. Boil new potatoes until cooked. Discard water. Then pan roast (without oil) the new potatoes with 2 sprigs of rosemary and sea salt. When potatoes are slightly brown on the sides, add in sliced portobello mushrooms and a little of the extra virgin olive oil. Continue to cook/coat the potatoes with the olive oil.
4. Wash rocket and baby spinach and slice the buffalo mozzarella and place in a bowl, then add the green olives.
5. Once salmon is baked, plate it with salad, and potatoes/mushroom.
