Silver Fish Pumpkin Congee

I went marketing this morning and saw a nice piece of Australian Pumpkin, immediately I had an idea to cook pumpkin congee with it.

It's simple, nourishing, tasty and healthy...which I think I need for eating too many guilty food recently!!

This congee taste best with Australian Pumpkin.  It's double the price of normal pumpkin you can find in market but the texture and taste is so much better.  Some market vegetable stall do sell them.  Try asking!

Ingredients needed:

1/2 cup of Rice
1.5 litre Water
Few Dried Scallop (Soak 15 mins till soft)
Handful of Dried Silver Fish (Soak 10 mins before use)
200g Australian Pumpkin (dice till very small)

• Place everything in electric pot to cook till done will do.
• Add a pinch of salt if you like stronger taste.

This congee is good for baby to eat too!

Red Yeast Rice Sauce Chicken (红糟鸡)

Sorry for not updating my blog for quite some time.  Have been busy with my bellydancing recently and hardly got time to try out new dishes to share with you.

Today finally I squeeze out some time to try out something that I'm interested in but have not tried cooking before. 

This dish is very nourishing for women but guys can enjoy too.  My hubby ate more than me and that makes me happy...meaning this dish is a success.

Here's the ingredients you need:

600g Chicken Chuck (I've rmoved most of the skin to make the dish slightly healthier hee)
4 tbsp Red Yeast Rice Sauce (红糟)
4 inches Young Ginger (Shred thinly)
3 to 5 tbsp Glutinous Rice Wine (米酒) (depending how well u can take wine)
1 tbsp light Soy Sauce
1 tsp Salt
2 tbsp Oil
800ml Water

• Heat Wok with oil till heated then add in young ginger and stir till fragrant.
• Add in Chicken Chucks and stir till meat turn whitish colour.
• Add in Red Yeast Rice Sauce and stir fry till fragrant.
• Pour in water, soy sauce and salt and simmer chicken with med fire till water almost absorbed.
• Pour in Rice Wine and simmer for 2 minutes and serve immediately.

Tips..
1) Do not cook tool long after adding Rice Wine or the alcohol will evaporate and won't be so fragrant.
2) This dish goes well with hot rice, or even can add to instant noodles too! 
3)You can keep unfinished chicken and reheat it by adding 1 tbsp of wine again next day.

Black Vinegar Pork Trotter

I loved vinegar but have weak stomach so can only taste some occasionally.  There's lots of articles showing that vinegar is actually good for health so even though I have a weak stomach I still like to take the risk sometimes ha...

Very simple steps and just few ingredients and you will be able to taste a nice bowl of sourish fragrant black vinegar trotter!

Ingredients:
1 bottle of Black Rice Vinegar (Chan Kong Thye brand 双料type if you're Singaporean)
1 Pig Front Trotter (less fat) and get Butcher to chopped into desired size
300g Old Ginger
200g Young Ginger
2 slices of Sugar Cane Sugar 冰片糖 (can get from any medical hall)
10 Garlic Cloves
10 stalks of Dried Red Chilli (soak in water for a while)
Water
* Optional to add few hard boil eggs (with shell) too if you like vinegar eggs

Method:

• Boil pig trotters in water for 10 minutes.  Remove, drain and rinse clean.
• Pour 1 bottle of black vinegar, use the vinegar bottle to measure 2 bottles of water and add into the pot.  Smack the gingers and put into the pot, throw in the Garlic, dried red chilli and sugar cane sugar into the pot and bring to boil for 30 minutes.
• Add in pig trotters to the pot of vinegar and continue to boil it for 1 hour.
• Taste vinegar and see if you like it to be slightly more salty or sweet and adjust seasoning on your own).
• Add in hard boil egg and continue to cook for another hour and serve!

Pig Stomach with Ginko Nuts Nourishing Soup

I loved the pig stomach soup that my mum used to cooked at home (mainly using pork rib, pig stomach, garlic and pepper seeds) but recently I went to a restaurant and tasted this pig stomach soup with Ginko nuts and decided to try it out personally with some variations of course!

Ingredients needed:

1 Cleaned Pig Stomach (can get from Supermarket easily nowadays)
600g Pig Tail Bone (or Pork Rib if you preferred)
1 small Button Mushroom Can
1 vacuum pack Ginko Nuts (can get from Supermarket or Wet Market)
3 slices of Young Ginger
2 tbsp of Pepper
1 Pack of Golden Needle Mushroom 金针菇 (Clean and leave aside first)
3 Litre of water
1 tsp Salt
1 Sugared Dates (蜜枣)

Method:

• Put Pig Tail Bone or Pork Rib in pot and add water and bring it to boil for 10 minutes.  Remove to drain and clean and leave aside.
• Put Pig Stomach in pot and add water and bring it to boil for 15 minutes.  Remove to drain and clean and cut into strips.
• Put cleaned boiled Tail Bone/Pork Ribs and stomach in pot and add in 3 litre of water then bring it to boil. 
• Add in the ginger, pepper, sugared dates and button mushroom and boil with high heat for 15 minutes, then turn to medium fire and continue to boil for another 2.5 hours.   (To save gas, after boiling with high heat for 15 minutes, you can pour to your thermal pot and leave it alone for 4 hours and then bring out the pot to stove and boil on high heat for 30 minutes before serving will do).
• Add in some if your pot evaporated water fast!
• Lastly, add in golden needle mushroom and salt and bring to boil then serve with hot rice!

This soup has lots of ingredients so you don't even need to cook other dishes if lazy ha ha...

Enjoy!!

Har Jeong Kai (虾酱鸡)

It's Singapore General Election Day today!  I've casted my vote this morning ha ha...wonder what will happen tonight and how it's going to affect the live of our nation people here for the next 5 years!

Knowing that tonight we will be sticking by the TV to know the election result, I decided to cook a snack that we like!  Fragrant Crispy Har Jeong Kai!!!

Ingredients:

12 Chicken Wings (Cut into 2 from the joint part)
3 tbsp Har Jeong Paste
3 tbsp Rice Flour
1/2 tbsp Maggie Soy Sauce

• Wash and Pat Dry Chicken
• Use 2 layer of Plastic Bags, put in the Har Jeong Paste, Rice Flour and Soy Sauce into the bag and mix well (using plastic bags will prevent messy your hands and you marinate the meat throughly.
• Once the paste are well mixed in the bag, put in all the chicken wings parts and twist the plastic bag leaving some air in the bag and shake it well.  (This will make sure chicken wings are all well coated with the paste).
• Tie plastic bag up and fridge the chicken for 3 hours first.
• Heat wok with sufficient oil for frying.  Once oil is sufficient hot, add in chicken wings and deep fried till cook!

Enjoy this wonder dish/snack!

Cai Por Steam Groupa (菜脯蒸老鼠斑)

Bascially I love to eat seafood more than meat.  Today while marketing, I spotted a nice expensive groupa and decided to reward my hubby for mopping the floor last night!  5 minutes after I brought it, I make up my mind to steam it with cai por (preserved raddish).  Instead of just normal HK style of steaming.

Ingredients needed:

1 Fish Head or 1 Groupa around 600g
2 tbsp Fish Sauce + 1 tbsp of Water (mix together)
5 tbsp Salted Preserved Raddish
1/2 tbsp Sugar
1 Stalk Spring Onion (slice thinly)
Dash of pepper

Method:

• Heat wok with 3 tbsp oil and add in salted preserved raddish to stir fry till crispy.
• Remove excess oil in wok and reduce to low heat then add in sugar to mix well with the preserved raddish and remove for use later on.
• Place fish in a suitable for steaming plate.  Add in fish sauce to fish evenly. Spinkle dash of pepper on fish.  place the fried preserved raddish on top of fish.
• Heat wok with sufficient water for steaming till boiling.
• Add in the fish and cover wok.  Steam it for 6 mins (usually I judge steaming time based on type of fish use and the thickness).
• Open up wok cover and sprinkle spring onion before serving.

It's that easy to have a nice steam fish with less than S$10 which you will probably have to pay around S$30 at a restaurant!  So why not start cooking a nice dish for your family today!!

I ate lots of rice with just the preserved raddish..it's soooo yummy!!

Braised Fermented Black Bean Leather Jacket Fish with Leek

Leather Jacket is one of my favorite fish.  It comes in big and small sizes.  It doesn't have tiny sharp bones nor fishy smell at all.

I saw market selling big leather jacket fish today so decided to cook this dish.

Ingredients:
800g Leather Jacket Fish (chop to pieces)
6 Stalks of Chinese Leek (slice)
2 Red Chilli (Slice)
2 cm Ginger (slice thinly)
1 tbsp Dry Fermented Black Beans
1 tbsp Hua Tiao Wine
500ml water
1 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tsp Chicken Powder
1 tsp Pepper

Method:

• clean and slice all required ingredients

• Heat wok and add 1 tbsp oil.
• Add in ginger to stir fry till fragrant.
• Add in fish and leek and stir well.
• Add in water, fermented black beans and all seasoning (except Wine) and bring to boil.
• Add in sliced chilli and stir well and simmer for 5 minutes.
• Lastly add in Hua Tiao Wine and mix well and serve.

Shang Tang Heng Cai (上汤苋菜)

If I go eat at Zi-Char Stall, this is one of the dish that I will definitely order.  Seems healthy as it's veggie but this dish uses 3 types of eggs to cook and that makes it very unhealthy actually...ha ha...

I decided to cook this dish with just Egg and Century Egg (omitting Salted Egg).  But you can add in all 3 types of eggs if you like and not afraid of all the cholesterol or calories hee hee...

Ingredients:
1 Bundle of Heng Cai (Chinese Spinach)
1 Century Egg (Dice)
1 Egg (Lightly Beaten)
1 handful of tiny anchovies
2 Garlic (Mince)
1 tsp Chicken Powder
1 tsp Fish Sauce
Dash of Pepper
1 cup of Chicken Stock

Method:

• Heat wok and saute garlic till fragrant.
• Add in tiny anchovies and stir fry till crispy.
• Add in Chicken Stock and bring to boil.
• Add in Veggie and pour in the lightly beaten egg.
• Add in all seasoning and lastly add in century egg and stir well and dish out!

This is such a simple and yet delicious dish...try it!!

Cook's Note:
* Do not cook veggie for too long...

LDP Jelly (Lychee, Dragonfruits, Pomegranate Agar Agar)

This week I intended to do something sweet so I decided to make some Agar Agar (Jelly) to satisfy my taste bud!

Looking through my fridge, I found a can of Lychee and also a dragonfruit and pomegranate juice so I decided to use these 3 items in my Jelly!  I was pretty happy with the turnout as it was nice and pretty and the taste was good too!  I don't like my Jelly to be too sweet so if you have v sweet tooth then add more sugar to suit  your taste bud ok!!

Ingredents:

1 Can Lychee
1 pack of 10g Clear Agar Agar Powder
100g Sugar
500ml Water
A drop of Lemon Yellow Food Colouring
500ml Pomegranate Juice
1/2 Dragonfruit (dice small)

Method:

• Open Lychee can and remove the syrup.  Soak Lychee in a bowl with 500ml water.
• Remove Lychee and put aside.  Keep the water and pour it into a pot and dissolve 5g clear agar agar powder with it. Add 80g Sugar to the pot and boil it over low heat and simmer till boil (keep stirring the mixture while cooking).
• In another pot, pour in Pomegranate juice and add in the balance 5g Clear Agar Agar powder and stir till dissolve then add in 20g sugar and then boil it over low heat and simmer till boil (keep stirring the mixture while cooking).
• Once both pots of agar mixture is done cooking, it's time to assemble the agar agar!  (Depending what mould you are using, I used those small individual mould.)
• Add yellow colouring to the clear colour mixture and mix well.  Scoop some Agar mixture into the lychee bowl and leave it aside for a while  This is to allow agar to fill up the inside of lychee..
• Then scoop some yellow agar in the mould and then place in one lychee and then fill up the yellow agar mixture till it covers the lychee.

• Add in diced draganfruits into the pomegranate juice agar mixture and still well.
• Once the yellow agar was semi set in the mould, use a fork to lightly scratch the yellow agar then pour in the pomegranate dragonfruit portin in to fill up the whole mould.

• Leave agar in fridge to set for an hour and serve cold!!

Cook's Note:
* You can replace Lychee to Longan.

Bai Tang Gao (Steam Chinese Rice Cake)

If you bring me to a Kueh Kueh stall and asked me to pick one..I will surely pick Bai Tang Gao as it's nice and sweet.  This Kueh is simple and easy to make too.

Ingredients:

140g Rice Flour
110g White Fine Sugar
300ml Water
2 Pandan Leaves (Tie Knot)
1/2 tsp Dried Yeast
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Oil

Method:

• Add 150ml Water to Rice Flour and stir mix well.
• Put Sugar with balance 150ml water in a pot and put in pandan leave and bring it to boil and remove.
• Remove pandan leave and pour Syrup into the Rice Flour mixture and stir well.  Sieve and leave it aside to cool.

• Dissolve Dried Yeast with 1 tbsp warm water and add into rice flour mixture and stir well and leave it aside for 2 hours for the yeast to take effect.
• Grease a tin and heat wok or steamer with water till boil and place the tin in the wok/steamer.
• Once the tin is heated, pour the mixture into the tin and cover lid and steam it for 20 minutes till done.

• Remove from wok and leave to cool.
• Cut and serve!!

Ta-Dah....done...easy as 123!!!  Try it!!

Cook's Note:
* You can use brown sugar instead of white sugar then you will have brown sugar steam cake then!

A Perfect Match -- Teochew Braised Duck + Yam Rice

Usually I don't like to eat braised duck from outside because they are not fragrant and black enough hahaha....I like my duck to be braised till very black!!!  Oops sorry...duck with no head because I can't stand to see the head with it!!!

Ingredients:
1/2 Duck (about 1.2 kg)
2 Cinnamon Bark
2 Star Anise
6 Slices of Galangal
2 tbsp of Castor Sugar
10 pieces Rock Sugar
1 tsp Fish Sauce
2.5 litre Water

Marinate:
1 tsp Five Spice Powder
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Thick Premium Dark Soy Sauce
1 tsp Salt


Method:

• Marinate Duck for 2 hours
• Heat wok and add in 2 tbsp Sugar to caramelised then add in the duck and coat it well.  Pour in the seasoning used to marinate duck too.
• Pour in water and add in all other ingredients and bring it to boil.
• Lower heat to low-med fire and simmer duck for 90 minutes (cover lid of wok and to turn duck over every 15 minutes so that the cooking can be even).
• Chop and serve!

Cook's tip:
* If you sees water drying up before duck is done, add in more water will do.
* The thick duck gravy is best to go with rice or porridge so don't go to waste!

The best thing to go with braised duck will be Yam Rice!!

Here's the ingredients needed for cooking Yam Rice:
2 cups Rice (wash and soak 10 mins)
300g Yam (Cut cube)
2 tbsp Dried Shrimps (Soak)
6 Dried Mushroom (Soak and dice)
5 Garlic (minced)
10 Shallots (slice)
1 tsp Chicken Powder
1 tsp Fish Sauce
1 tsp Oyster Sauce
Dash of Pepper
2 cups Water





Method:

• Heat wok with 2 tbsp of oil and deep fried shallots till brown and remove to side aside.
• Add yam cube in wok and stir fry till light brown.
• Add in mushroom and dried shrimp and stir till fragrant
• Add in rice and all other seasoning and stir till well mixed.
• Transfer rice to cooker and add in 2 cups of water and set to cook.

Pineapple Chilli Crab

Yesterday I was already planning what to cook today.  Suddenly have the urge to eat crab.  I used to cook crab my mum's style (more dry type) so thinking maybe it's good that I try to cook it with more gravy type like Singapore Chilli Crab yet I want it to be slightly different from what is available outside so I added Pineapple and didn't use as much Ketchup as them!

Ingredients:
2 Mud Crabs (about 1.2 to 1.5 kg in total)
1 Stalk Spring Onion
2 Eggs
1 tbsp Corn Starch + 2 tbsp Water (mix well)
1 tbsp Maggie Extra Hot Chilli
1 tbsp Ketchup
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tsp Salt
2 Cups of Chicken Stock

Chilli Paste (Blend all together):
2 Red Chilli
8 Bird Eye's Chilli
10 Stalk Dried Chilli (Soak in hot water and  drain first)
5 cm Old Ginger
2 Red Onions
10 Shallots
5 Garlic
Half a small Pineapple
2 Lemongrass

This is how the chilli paste looks like after blending!







Method:

• Kill & clean crabs
• Heat wok with 5 tbsp oil and add in the chilli paste and stir fry chilli till fragrant and oil appears on top with low-med fire.  Keep stirring to prevent it from burning!!
• Add in Chicken Stock and let it boil
• Add in Crab and stir well.  Cover with lid to simmer for 7 minutes
• Open lid and stir well then add in fish sauce and corn starch mixture to thicken the sauce.
• Switch off fire and pour in the eggs.
• Garnish with spring onion and serve!

Usually people eat with deep fried buns if eating chilli crab but I have some milk toast bread left so I use it to dip the gravy and eat and it's heaven!!!

Cook's Note:
* You can adjust the level of chilli hotness base on your own taste.  The quantity I used are consider medium hot only!!

* You can also sprinkle some toasted grinded peanuts onto crab sauce before serving....it's nice..just that I can't find peanut today so I didn't use it!!

Sambal Chilli Sweet Potato Leaves

Today went marketing and saw a bundle of nice young sweet potato leaves and thought would be nice to cook with Sambal Chilli!!

I used to live in Woodland area and there's a hill behind the house where SAF used it for exercise sometimes!  I remembered I used to go up the hill with friends after school hours but before our tutorial time.  There's still kampong hut up there with people staying at that time!  The boys will go around picking emptied bullets and Girls will just walk around chit chating and enjoying the greens....

There's once we venture further up the hill and found that there's few plot of land with nice and fresh veggies growing on it!!  The uncle there was so good to us...we saw a lot of potato leaves along side of the farm and he said it's FOC....told us to pluck as much as we like!  I took back one big plastic bag filled with it for my mum to do the cooking hee....

Here's the ingredients needed:

Sambal (Grind all together)
2 Red Chilli
2 Bird Eye's Chilli
4 Dried Chili (Soak in hot water first and drain)
1 cm Belacan (Dried Shrimp Paste)
4 Shallots
10g Dried Shrimps

1 Bundle of Sweet Potato Leaves
3 tbsp Water
1 tbsp Minced Garlic
1 tsp Fish Sauce

Method:

• Grind sambal paste
• Heat wok with 2 tbsp of oil and stir fry the sambal paste with low-med fire till fragrant
• Add in minced garlic and Sweet Potato Leaves to mix well
• Add in the water and fish sauce and quick stir and dish out!

As you can see I didn't add in any other seasoning except fish sauce because Belacan is already salty.

Easy...try it!!

All-In Fried Rice

You must be wondering why I name this dish as "All-In"?  Sounds more like "Show Hand" hahahaha...or I would call it "Zhap Ba Rang Fried Rice" which has the same meaning...

Well, I have some old rice that I wanted to clear from the bin before refilling the new ones so I decided to cook them all and then use it to fried rice.  Usually people will say overnight rice is better for use to fried rice but I don't think so!  I have weak stomach so I would prefer my food to be fresh!! 

However, in order to make sure that my fried rice is nice and chewy, I usually will cook my white rice with just 80% of water needed and with that, the rice will not be too soft and it will be very nice and chewy when fried!!

Looking through my fridge I found eggs, preserved raddish, crab stick, snow peas, mixed peas, baby corn, Lap Cheong (Preserved Sausages) so I decided to use all ingredients for my fried rice.  Surprisingly it taste wonderful and Austin ate one big bowl even he already have eaten his dinner before coming home!!



I think anything can be used to fried rice so it's up to your own creativity or maybe up to what you have in your fridge. 

Here's the ingredients needed:

2 Cups of White Rice (Cooked and leave aside)

2 Eggs

10 Baby Corn (cut 1 cm pieces)

1 tbsp Preserved Raddish

6 Crab Sticks (Cut into 1 cm pieces)

1 Lap Cheong (Cut into thin slices)

10 Snow Peas (cut into 2 cm pieces)

1 cup mixed peas (I like lots of peas so if you don't like, add 1/2 cup will do)

1 stalk Spring Onion (Dice)

2 tbsp Fish Sauce

1 tsp Sea Salt

1 tbsp Dark Soya Sauce

1 tsp Pepper

3 Garlic (Minced)

Method:

• Heat wok with 2 tbsp Oil and saute garlic till fragrant.
• Add in the Rice and mix well then add in all the vegetables (mix peas, snow peas and baby corn) and mix well.
• Add in Preserved Raddish and Lap Cheong and Crab Stick and stir well.
• Lastly add in Eggs and mix well and add in seasoning and mix well till rice and chewy and fragrant.
• Add in Spring Onion and serve!

This is a simple yet nice dish to cook and eat for dinner if you are too lazy to cook dishes!  I even save some for my next day lunch and it still taste wonderful after reheated with Microwave!!

Sweet Yummy Mango Glutinous Rice

I love MANGO but not easy to get nice one!  There's many types of mango nowadays but usually the long type is the one that I find more suitable to make Mango Sticky Rice!

This is the best dessert if you are hosting a party or event!  Trust me..nobody will say NO to nice Mango Sticky Rice!!

Ingredients:
500g Glutinous Rice
160g White Sugar
280ml Coconut Cream
1 tsp Salt
2 Pandan Leaves (Tie Knots)
2 Fresh Mangos (Thai or Taiwan Mango more suitable)
1 tbsp Toasted Sesame Seeds

* Extracting Coconut Cream:
- Use 1 lg White Shredded Coconut add in 250ml Warm Water and mix well.
- Squeeze out 280ml coconut cream for cooking rice and 250ml coconut cream as topping cream.

* Making Topping Cream:
- Use 250ml coconut Cream (extracted as above) and put in a small pot.  Add in 1 tsp Salt, 1 tsp Corn Starch and 2 tbsp sugar to pot and mix well then boil over low heat until mixture thicken and remove to cool. (keep stirring while boiling ok!)

Preparation:
- Soak Glutinous Rice for 8 hours (I use either Song Her or New Moon Brand).  If you buy glutinous rice near dumpling's festival..those are new rice...soak 3 hours will do.
- Need a clean white piece of cloth (for steaming)

Method:

• Cook Rice in Steamer (wrap with damp white cloth) for about 20 minutes till tender but not too soft (of old rice, steam about 30 minutes).
• While steaming the rice, use the time to cook Sugar, Coconut Cream, Salt and Pandan Leave in a pot till boil and leave aside.
• Once rice is cooked, transfer rice to a big pot that has a lid and pour in the hot coconut mixture you boiled while steaming the rice.  Mix well and cover lid and leave it for 30 minutes at room temperature.
• Scoop a portion of Glutinous Rice on a plate.  Slice mango into desired sizes and place beside the rice.  Pour some topping cream on top of rice and mango.
• Sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds on top and serve!

Cook's Tip:
- If cooking 1/2 recipe, rice steam time should be halved too ok!!

Hope you will find the time to try out!!

Chinese BBQ Pork (Char Siew)

Recently a friend of mine shared an easy yet tasty recipe with me and I'm sure glad I tried it (special thanks to Jenny Seah).  This recipe requires very little ingredients and it's easy and nice even for new cooks to try out!

Ingredients
500g pork shoulder (五花肉)
4 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp Hua Tiao Wine

• Marinate pork over night with all the other ingredients .
• Preheat Oven at 200 degree.
• Line aluminium foil on tray and place a wire rack on top.
• Place pork on wire rack and and roast it at 200 degree for 45 mins
• Turn meat every 15 minutes and brush surface with remaining marinating sauce and roast till done!

Happy trying!!

Healthy Brown Rice Porridge

I'm feeling low in energy today and Austin had a swelling tongue due to medication reaction and have not been eating well so feeling giddy so I decided to cook something nice and yet nourishing!

While sourcing for cooking ingredients at wet market this morning, I saw fresh Huai Shan (淮山) and decided to get a piece back home.  Then I continue and brought some fresh mushroom, carrot and spinich too!

Now I find that these ingredients are not sufficient...so I decided to add in some other ingredients that can be found in my fridge ha!

Here's the ingredients required:

1 cup Brown Rice
1.5 litre Water
300g Huai Shan (cut cube)
200g Carrot (Dice)
4 Stalks of Spinich (cut very finely)
6 Red Dates (soak 10 mins and cut half)
1 tbsp Wolfberries (soak 10 mins and leave aside)
3 Fresh Mushroom (Dice)
6 Dried Oyster (soak 15 mins)
One handful of Dried Scallops (soak 15 mins)
1 stalk spring onion (dice)
Salt and Pepper to taste

• Boil Brown Rice with Water till boiling.
• Add in Dried Oyster and Scallop and boil for 15 minutes.
• Add in Burdock, Carrot, Red Dates and Spinich and boil for 30 minutes.
• Add in Fresh Mushroom and Wolfberries and boil for another 15 minutes.
• Season with Salt and pepper.
• Sprinkle some Spring Onions on top of porridge and serve hot!

Enjoy!! 

Penang Assam Laksa

Last week I ate a bowl of Assam Laksa at Jurong Point Red Laquer Restaurant.  The laksa there was good.  Sourish and thick enough!  While eating it, I told myself...this will be the next dish I'm cooking when I have the time.  Searching thru the websites and seeking friend's opinion, I finally managed to get all the necessary ingredients from Supermarket and Wet Market and started cooking the "troublesome" laksa today!

Why I said it's troublesome?  There's so much to buy, so many things to wash and cut...but tell you what...end result was good and worth while when you see the bowls are empty!!

I adopted my recipe from RasaMalaysia but modified some ingredients and quantities to suit my hubby and my taste!

Fish Stock Ingredients (Boil together till fish cooked and remove from fire):

1.5 Kg (Mackerel Fish + Kembong Fish) - I mix it as Mackerel fish is tougher and will have more chuck pieces of fish in soup!

2.5 litre Water

Chilli Paste Ingredients (Grind together): 

15 Red Chilli

100g Shallots

200g Onions (slice)

50g Galangal (蓝姜)

1 Stalk Ginger Flower (cut tip finely and put aside as condiments and use the rest for the chilli paste)

1 Stalk Lemon Grass (cut pieces)

Other Ingredients:

150g Belacan (soft type -fresher)

20 pieces Dried Tamarind Peel

200g Assam + 1 rice bowl of water to make Tamarind Juice (remove seeds)

10 Stalks Laksa Leaves (clean and put aside)

2 Stalks Lemon Grass

Seasoning:

1 tbsp Sugar

1 tbsp Fish Sauce

Condiments:

1 Cucumber (slice thinly)

1 Sawarak Pineapple (cut small chuck)

3 Onions (slice thinly)

Lettuces (slice thinly)

Mint Leaves (use only the leaves and cut thinly)

Ginger Flower (the balance from making chilli paste)

Red Chilli (cut and remove seeds)

Prawn Paste (Heh Go)

Of course not forgeting to get some Laksa Noodles!!

Method:

• Remove fish from pot and strain soup and save for later use.
• Remove fish meat from fish and discard the bones and keep fish meat aside.
• Boil fish stock in pot and add in the grinded chilli paste and all other ingredients and simmer stock for 1 hr.
• Soak Laksa Noodles with hot water and strain then keep aside.
• After 1 hour, add the fish meat back to stock and boil for another 1 hour till soup thicken.
• Place a portion of Laksa Noodles into a soup bowl.  Add in all condiments (quantities based on yr likings) on top of noodles and scoop fish soup base into bowl.
• Add a spoonful of shrimp paste before serving.

Hope you enjoy your Penang Assam Laksa as much as I do!

Lor Bak (Braised Pork Belly)

Recently, I was invited by a friend to her house for Chinese New Year gathering and luncheon.  We were inpressed by her Lor Bak and ate almost one whole plate of it.  I recalled that my mum used to cook very nice Lor Bak when I was young.  I could eat many bowl of rice with just the sauce and not the pork!! 

Today I decided to try and find the long lost taste of Mum's Lor Bak and I should say I would have do her proud ha ha....my Lor Bak melts in my mouth and I love the sauce to go with rice!

Ingredients:
1 kg Pork Belly (about 4 strips)
1.5 litre Water
1 tbsp Sugar
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tsp Five Spice Powder
1 + 5 tbsp Supreme Thick Dark Soya Sauce
1 tbsp Light Soya Sauce
1 tsp Sea Salt
2 Cinnamon Barks
2 Star Anise
1 Slice Ginger
2 Cloves
6 Garlic

• Blench Pork in boiling water for 5 mins and remove then rinse clean with running water and drain.
• Marinate Pork with Five Spice Powder, 1 tbsp Dark Soya Sauce and leave aside.
• Heat wok with water and bring to boil.  Add in all the balance seasoning/ingredients (except pork) and mix well and bring to boil again.
• Add in pork belly and reduce heat to low and cook for about an hour.  Turning the pork belly over every 15 minutes till done.  By then, sauce should be thick and left about just 1/5 of it.
• Cut braised pork belly and serve with hot rice or porridge.

Additional tips:  I love braised eggs too so I cooked a few hard boiled egg and add into the wok when pork was almost ready! 

Hope you find the time and try it out!!  But better watch out if you are on diet ha..as you will sure eat more than 1 bowl of rice with it!!

Braised Red Dates Chicken

I've once tasted this delicious dishes cooked by a friend's mum and I loved it.  I did some variations to the ingredient used and hopefully you will like the taste of this dish as much as I do!

Ingredients required:

1 Small Chicken (clean and chop into medium sizes pieces) - for health purposes, I've removed all the skin but you can keep it if you like!

12 Dried Black Mushroom (Soak)
12 Seedless Red Dates (cut into half)
200g Old Ginger (Shred thinly)
3 Big Onions (Cut into small chucks)
Some Big Black Fungus (Soak and cut into thick strips)
2 tbsp Light Soya Sauce
2 tbsp Dark Soya Sauce
10 tbsp Hua Tiao Wine
1 tsp Chicken Powder
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
800 ml water
Spring Onion to garmish

1) Staute Ginger in wok with 4 tbsp oil till fragrant and add in onion and stir fry till well mix.
2) Add in Mushroom, Black Fungus and stir well.
3) Add in Chicken and stir well.
4) Add in Light Soya, Dark Soya, Chicken Powder and stir well.
5) Pour in water and add in Fish sauce and Red Dates and simmer chicken till water absorded till slightly more than half.
6)  Add in Hua Tiao Wine and stir well and turn off fire.
7) Sprinkle Spring Onion to garnish and serve with rice.

The flavour was superd!!  Enjoy!

Crispy Roast Pork

Sorry for not updating my blog for quite few months as I was busy with some activities and also having bad gastric problem so got got watch what I cook and eat for a period of time!!

Anyway...this month is our Chinese Lunar New Year so many people will be buying Roast Pork to eat, pray etc.  I decided to bake my own instead of buying from outside as it's usually too FAT and I don't quite like to eat too much of it!

I like to pick pork belly that looks skinny and the layer of lard is not as thick!!

Here's the recipe I'm sharing:

1 Kg Pork Belly with skin
1 tsp White Vinegar
2 tsp Baking Powder

Seasoning (mix together in a bowl):
1 tbsp Salt
1 tbsp Sugar
1/2 tbsp Five Spice Powder

• Clean and pat dry pork belly with paper towel.
• Rub white vinegar all over the pork and skin
• Rub all seasoning evenly on whole pork belly and place belly on a plate in fridge with skin on surface for 4 to 6 hours.

• When ready to bake, preheat oven at 180 degree and prepare baking tray and line foil at bottom.
• Pierce a few satay stick diagonally into pork belly before baking and rub baking powder on the skin surface evenly.
• Bake pork belly for 20 mins and remove from oven.  Turn oven temperature to 240 degree now.
• Prick belly skin with some satay stick evenly (this action will make sure the skin will be nice and crisypy when done baking).

• Once finished pricking the skin, place pork belly back into oven and continue to bake for another 40 mins or till done with 240 degree.

• Remove pork belly from oven and scrape off any charcoal black part on the skin surface with back of your chopper.
• Remove the satay sticks in-between pork belly and cut into desired size and serve.

You can eat with rice or dip with sweet sauce and wrap with fresh lettuce and eat it!!

Have fun trying!!!