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...

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.

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!!

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!!!

Healthy Dumplings (Jiao Zi)

I had very bad gastric problem recently and have been seeing specialist and still no solution yet.  Since then I've been trying to eat more healthy (less oil, less meat, less fried food, no coconut, less spicy food as well).

However today I have urge to eat dumplings so in order to balance it out, I decided to make healthy dumplings myself instead!  Less meat, more veggie and mushroom...

Here's my recipe for healthy Dumplings (makes about 30 to 35 dumplings):

300g Minced Pork (tell the pork seller to mince from totally lean meat with 0 fats!)
300g Dice Mushroom
300g Dice Spring Onion + Chinese Parsley
300g Dice Carrot
1 Onion dice
1 tbsp Corn flour
1 tsp Sesame Oil
1 tsp Pepper
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tsp Light Soy Sauce
1 pack of ready to wrap dumpling skin from supermarket (make sure it's those for dumplings not wanton)

Just mixed all ingredients and seasoning together and leave it in fridge for 30 minutes.

To wrap, prepare a bowl of water.  Wet the dumpling skin with water to make design you like and scoop a spoonful of ingredients  onto the skin and wrap it up!

Now after wrapping up all the dumplings, you can choose to deep fried it (no no if you are on diet ha ha) or steam it.  I choose to simmer in water+ a bit of oil in wok instead (because I'm lazy to bring out my steamer ha ha)

It takes about 5 to 7 minutes to cook and my healthy dumplings are cooked!  Eat with black vinegar + shredded ginger is the best!!  Have fun wrapping!!

Under the Sea....Sweet & Sour Prawns

Seafood is so good if it's fresh!  I love seafood..especially crabs!!  Because I love to eat seafood, I pick up fishing as one of my hobby too!!  I'm one tough female angler...my record catch was a Thai Mekong Catfish fetching around 25 kg !!

I've ever followed sea gypsy out to experience their daily life!  Believe it or not...it's tough and they earn so little to feed a family of 8 to 10.  My legs were buried deep in the mud (but those are not dead sea mud) when we goes to catch mud crabs.  My 10 fingers were all poked with holes by the jumping prawns stuck on fishing net when we were racing with time to remove them from the net during low tide hours.  These experiences will never be forgotten by me!  I don't think many people will have the chance to do that.

OK let's get back to the cooking part!  Today I will share one quick and easy recipe with  you. 

Sweet & Sour Prawns

Ingredients (serve 4 pax):
500g Prawns (Grey Prawns preferred)
30g Minced Garlic
30g Minced Ginger
30g Minced Shallots
1 Red Chilli (remove seeds and dice finely)
2 stalks Spring Onion (dice)
2 Lime (squeeze out the juice to use)
1 tbsp Hua Tiao or Cooking Wine

Seasoning (mixed all together):
2 tbsp Thai Chilli Sauce, 1 tbsp Tomato Sauce, 2 tbsp Maggie Chilli Sauce, 1 tbsp Plum Sauce, 1/2 tsp White Pepper, 1/2 tbsp Sugar, 6 tbsp Water

Coating:
2 tbsp Corn Flour

• Wash prawns, drip dry and trim head, legs and remove vein (keep the shell).
• Add in corn flour and mix well.

• Heat wok with about 10 tbsp oil and deep fry the prawns for about 45 seconds will do.  Remove and drain.

• Heat wok with 2 tbsp oil again and add in ginger to stir fry few seconds then add in the shallot and stir fry till fragrant.
• Now add in the garlic and dice chilli and stir well.
• Add in 1/2 portion of spring onions first and then add in the fried prawns and stir fry well.  Add in the Hua Tiao or Cooking Wine now and stir well.
• Pour in the seasoning and cook till water almost dry up in the wok.
• Turn off fire and add in the lime juice.  Sprinkle balance dice spring onions on top and serve.

See, it's easy so I hope you can try it on your own!