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Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Water Chestnut Egg Drop Dessert

This is the time of the year where most people should take extra care of their health since Chinese New Year is coming and there will be lots of 'heaty' food going around. Moreover, the weather has been very unusual this year with the temperature going on an average of 25-27 degrees in the morning. It's perfect and I haven't stopped thanking God for the nice weather so far. However, it's maybe because of this change where its cooler and dryer, that my children as well as myself are down with itchy throat.

So, I thought of what ingredients are in season now and what I should be cooking to make my throat feel better.

Decided on doing something with water chestnuts since its the Chinese New Year season. You can sure find it. So check out this simple dessert for the whole family!


Ingredients
- one bag of water chestnuts
- one egg
- rock sugar
- pandan leaves
- corn starch
- gingko nuts (optional)

Steps
1) Peel the skin of the water chestnuts (This is the most troublesome step for this dish!) and cut them in small pieces.


2) Boil about 4-5 bowls of water. Add one rock sugar in it as well as pandan leaves.

 
 
3) Then add the water chestnuts and gingko (optional) in. Let it cook over medium low heat. Cook it till you are satisfied with the taste and the quantity.
4) Put corn starch to thicken it a little (optional)
5) Put in beaten egg before turning off the fire. Stir it so that the egg is dissolve and cooked nicely.
You can eat this warm or chilled. Up to you!
 
Enjoy!
 

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Malaysian Yee Mee Noodles Soup

I would like to dedicate this dish to my Indonesian helper who went over to Malaysia to work in Restaurants. She has learnt this dish there and shared it with me. She commented that this dish is one of the popular dishes there.

Ingredients

For Soup Base
- Soya Bean
- Dried Ikan Bilis
- Garlic (Peel the skin, leave it whole)
- White pepper (whole)
- turnip
- big onion
- wong bok (few pieces)

For Noodles
- dried yee mee
- fish cake
- fish balls
- Chye Sim
- Pork (slices, marinate with light soya sauce and white pepper)
- egg

Steps
1) On the wok/frying pan, with very low fire, fry the soya bean, dried ikan bilis, garlic, white pepper first without oil. Fry for about 25 mins, when the ikan bilis seems to become lighter.


 
 
2) After that, transfer them into a stock bag. Add a big onion, few pieces of wong bok, some turnip into the bag as well.

 

 
 
3) Put about 2 litres of water in the pot and boil it. Place the soup bag into it. Boil till the flavour all comes out.

 


* This soup base can be used for wanton noodles, mee or bee hoon soup as well.

4) When you want to serve the yee mee, you place the noodles into the soup to cook it, add chye sim, sliced fish cake, fish ball and sliced pork too. Take note of the various timings to cook them so as not to overcook the meat or veggies.
 

 
5) Crack the egg into the serving bowl. Place the noodles and ingredients on top of the egg. Make sure the soup is boiling hot then you finally transfer into the bowl so that the egg can be cooked. Alternatively, you can cook the egg in the pot of soup first if you like.

6) Finally, garnish with spring onions, Chinese celery and white pepper.



Enjoy!

A very sweet and tasty noodles soup for the whole family, including the children!
 
 

Ketchup Garlic Prawns

This is quite a nostalgic dish for me growing up. Whenever my mum prepares this, I would happily sink my teeth into the prawn heads, sucking them and licking up all the sauce from the prawn shells. Then I would peel up all my prawns one by one, add the sauce over the flesh and onto my rice, then gobble it all down.

So I cooked this dish to relive those memories as well as create good ones for my children. But sadly, they have not learnt how to enjoy prawns. Well good news is, I had the whole big plate of prawns all shared between me and hubby who happily slurped up everything!

There are some who prefer to remove the shell and head, just keeping the tail. But for me, I love it whole as its just heavenly sucking the prawn head with ketchup. Haha. oh well, your preference!

Ingredients
- tomato ketchup (lots!)
- garlic (used the whole bulb and chopped it finely)
- water
- 1 tomato
- oil / butter
- spring onions (garnish)

Steps
1) Heat oil/butter in wok
2) Fry garlic till fragrant
3) Add the prawns and tomatoes in and stir fry till almost cooked
3) Finally, add lots of ketchup and a bowl of water (bit by bit to see how much you need for your gravy)
4) Keep stirring and tossing so as to evenly cook the prawns
5) Garnish with spring onions
6) Serve this with steamed rice

Enjoy!

*Always remember to keep tasting your dish to see if you are satisfied before turning off the fire.







Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Kway Chap 棵汁 / Braised pork innards stew

Always loved this dish as its like a one pot meal that can go with rice or noodles. Very versatile. Leftovers are also good as you can reuse the gravy.

As I was shopping in Giant hypermart, I came across this premix. So I got it. Yes, it is the cheat method which I seldom use but once in a while, I get lazy and decide on trying it out. Don't worry if you are living abroad and do not have the premix as you can substitute it with 5 spice powder, star anise, cinnamon sticks, cloves, cardamom and sugar. (If you want some heat, you can add black peppercorns)





Basically for this dish, you simply add whatever you like to eat. For me, I love the pork belly, egg, firm beancurd ('dou gan' 豆干), fried beancurd skin ('dao pok' 炸豆腐皮/豆仆) and my supermarket nearest my place happen to have pig intestines. So I bought that as well.

Ingredients
- 5 TBs dark soya sauce
- 10 garlic cloves (with skin attached)
- pork belly
- eggs
- firm beancurd ('dou gan' 豆干)
- fried beancurd skin ('dao pok' 炸豆腐皮/豆仆)
- pig intestines
- Chinese celery (for garnish)

* To wash the pig intestines, I first wash it in rinsing water till most of the murkiness is gone. Then I wash it with white vinegar to remove any smell. Soak it for a while before washing it off and then pouring boiling water over it. You can also choose to pan fry your intestines after that too before throwing in together with the rest of the meat.

Steps
1) Add the sachet of the premix, garlic and dark soya sauce into 1.5 L of water and simmer.
2)  Add your meat, beancurd, pig intestines, fried beancurd skin as well as egg (I put the whole egg in together with the shell to cook it. So remember to wash the egg first). Let everything simmer in very low heat. The packet said simmer for 1 hour but I realise the pork isn't as tender as I want it to be. So basically, you simmer until you feel the pork belly is soft. I did it for almost 3 hours before I was satisfied. Mid way while cooking, you can remove the egg, remove the shell and put the egg back into the pot so that the egg will be black in colour when serving. Looks nicer.
3) Cut it all up before serving
4) Garnish with chopped celery


I cooked this for dinner. So ate this with rice.

There was a lot of gravy left and a little pork and beancurd. So I decided to put all in the fridge and the next morning, I actually boiled noodles, threw some chicken wings in the leftovers last night together with the gravy and served this for breakfast to my family. They all loved it!


So don't worry if you have leftovers. This make a great dish for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Enjoy!

Egg Omelette with Bean Sprouts and prawns

If you like egg omelette and bean sprouts as much as I do, then how about adding them both? So if you are eating alone or just in a company of two, this dish with rice is enough to fill you up!

Ingredients
-Bean Sprouts
-Eggs (beaten)
-Prawns
-Onions
-Spring Onions
-Fish Sauce
-Soya sauce (optional)
-cooking wine(optional)
-white pepper

Steps
1) Heat oil in the frying pan. Then throw in the onions. Fry till translucent
2) Throw in the bean sprouts and toss it. Add a few splashes of fish sauce and cooking wine
3) Then lastly throw in the prawns and toss a few times before switching off the fire. Cook the prawns such that it just turned cook. Watch it and not make it overcook.
4) Pour all the ingredients into a bowl of the beaten eggs and stir them, mixing it well. Add 1tsp of soya sauce if you like. But you can skip this since fish sauce has its own saltiness already. You can also add white pepper too. So mix everything up.
5) Put in the spring onions into it


6) Finally pour this mixture into a heated up frying pan with oil to cook the egg

7) Turn both ways to fry it till nicely coloured



Enjoy!