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Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Seafood Mui Fan 海鲜烩饭 (Asian Stew with rice)

There are times I crave for this as its simple, tasty and comforting to eat. To me, this dish is like a stew which goes well with rice or noodles. I simply love stews!! Perfect for rainy weathers.

So if you are new to cooking, try cooking stews first as it is basically 'throw-everything-in' kind of dish. It is also easy to wash up too!

Anyway, here's the ingredients

- garlic
- fish cake
- pork slices/Chicken diced/fish slices (marinate with , soya sauce, salt and pepper)
 (I omitted it this time round as I cooked a pork belly dish separate)
- Squid
- prawns
- Any leafy vegetable / cabbage
- egg
- cooked rice
- Chicken stock
- white pepper
- soya sauce
- crab meat (optional)
- carrots ( I didn't add as I figured it was enough dishes)
- corn flour

By the way, I use the concentrated chicken stock as just one drop and it gives so much flavour already. Can last very long as I leave the bottle in the fridge and take it up in times like this.


Basically, work with whatever you have in your fridge and would like to add in your dish. I didn't have any cai xin at that time when I cooked this, so I used cabbage by slicing it thinly.

Steps
1) Prepare (Wash and Cut up) all your ingredients separately
2) Add oil to your wok, very high fire
3) throw in the garlic and fish cakes. Toss
4) Put in the meat at this point
5) Throw in the veggies (As you can see, you are basically throwing things in one by one starting from the one that cooks longer first or wont make a difference if 'overcook')
6) Add soya sauce and toss
7) Add water to cover the food in the wok and stock. Close up the cover
8) Throw in the fish/prawns/squid last as those cook very fast
9) Have a bowl of water and corn flour ready to throw in to thicken it slightly (your preference to how thick you want your gravy to be)
10) Always taste to see if you are satisfied with it. Balance with whatever sauce you need. It may be more taste. So you add stock or even oyster sauce if you like.
11) Finally, throw in the beaten egg and swirl it one time before switching off the fire


You pour the gravy over the rice/ noodles and sprinkle some white pepper! Enjoy!



Thursday, April 17, 2014

Una-Tama (Grilled Unagi Eel and Egg)

I have always been a big fan of Japanese food. There is so much variety that somehow, I will not get sick of eating. The only thing holding me back from eating it everyday is of course, the COST! Its so expensive to eat in Japanese restaurants. The usual one I would go to is within walking distance from my house which has a lunch promotion for only $10 which includes a main dish, a side, and a dessert.
Even the non-promotional items are cheaper than regular restaurants. So that's where I go to for my Japanese food cravings.

Anyway, I bought unagi (grilled eel) from Giant hypermart as it was on offer.

So because of that, I decided to try a dish which is sold in Japanese restaurants in Singapore. If you have difficulty in finding grilled eel, you can substitute it with salmon (cut into cubes).

Ingredients
- Grilled Eel (small pieces)
- Yellow Onion
- Eggs
- Unagi/Teriyaki Sweet Sauce - Available in supermarkets in the Japanese section
- Seaweed and Spring Onions for garnish

Steps
1) Add oil to the pan. I used my happy call pan for the grill effect. But of course, any frying pan will do. Throw in the onions.

2) Toss it and add a bit of the unagi sauce to the onions to sweeten and caramelised it up.

3) Then throw in the eel and toss it. Add more sauce if you like it.

4) Finally, throw in the beaten eggs to let it cover all the eel and onions. I do not like my eggs to be overcooked but slightly mushy. It's nicer.

5) Remove from pan neatly and garnish with spring onions and seaweed (I used my ready cut up seaweed from a packet)

This dish is great with rice! You can actually place this on top of the rice. You can also make miso soup to go with this meal.

Enjoy!



Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Pan-fried Squid with Miso Sauce

In my opinion, having a box of miso paste is a must-have in the fridge. Miso paste is very versatile. As and when I feel like cooking noodles soup, I add miso paste to the soup and it instantly taste nice. You can also use this paste for marination, like how I am going to show you in this post. Or even use this paste to cook Kang Kong Vegetables if you do not want the usual sambal belachan version since you have young children at home. So, do keep a tub in your fridge. It is quite lasting!


Basically, the Shiro (White) Miso is a milder type as compared to the Aka (Red) Miso. The Aka one is stronger in taste. So its your preference.

Apart from miso, I also have Japanese sauces in my fridge which I love. I use it when I fry salmon, marinate beef or pork slices if I feel like cooking Japanese. Below is actually a Yakitori sauce, but it works well. Basically I am going for the teriyaki, sweet sauce type of taste.



Here's a miso soup with noodles recipe for you if you are interested- Egg Noodles with Chicken Miso Soup

Anyway, below is a recipe that is so simple yet tasty. I am sure everyone can cook this at home.

Ingredients
1) Miso Paste
2) Teriyaki/ Japanese sweet sauce
3) Squid
4) Yellow Onions
5) Dried Parsley or spring onions for garnish

Steps
1) Wash and slice the squid. Here's a step-by-step picture guide on how to wash and cut it! Very informative!

2) Then marinate it with miso paste.

3) Slice up the whole onion

4) Throw in the sliced onions into the frying pan with oil

5) While frying the onions, I squeeze in a bit of the Japanese Sauce marinate to let the onions cook faster and make the onions tastier.

6) Then I throw in the squid and toss quickly since squid cooks very fast. Be sure not to overcook it as it can become rubbery. At this juncture, you can also squeeze some Japanese sauce onto it for colour and taste.

7) Taste it and see if you are satisfied before switching off the fire.

8) Finally, garnish with dried parsley or spring onions

You can eat this with a bit of gravy or minimal gravy. It's up to you. Just make sure the taste of the gravy is to your liking before you off the fire.

ENJOY!