What I Cooked Today Series (Special Post)- 2013 Mid Autumn Festival

INTRODUCTION

I have not forgotten about this series –  “What I Cooked Today Series”! I have discontinued for a while because I am a vegetarian and the dishes were usually cooked by my mother in law who is visiting me. Therefore, I can’t claim the credit of the dishes cooked if I posted it.

Well this series will be starting soon in one two weeks time after end of my vegetarian diet. This year, I have calculated wrongly about the starting date of my diet, therefore, I am having slightly more than 2 months of vegetarian diet and it was pointed out by my neighbour when I keep on rejecting her meat dishes. She asked curiously why the diet is so long this year, she said it cannot be ! I asked my wife to recalculate again and yes, we are wrong as both of us are not that concern about anniversary dates.

Yesterday is the Mid Autumn Festival, one of the very big festivals for the Chinese worldwide. Even People’s Republic of China’s government have declared this day as a holiday in recent years. Usually, in big festivals, family gathering and get together is very important.

I only confirmed to invite my nephew’s family for dinner yesterday morning and I told them that I would only cooked what I have at home. As they are my very close relatives, I need not really concerned about what I should cooked as he have been staying with me for the past few years. I did not have the time to plan for the meal as I have to take care of the kids and I have to rush out my report for Eight Treasure Porridge.

I only started cooking at 4.00 pm in the afternoon. I looked at the fridge, I have some tofu, one pumpkin, one luffa, some chicken fillets, some asparaguses, minced meats, chicken thighs, drumsticks and fish fillets.

What influenced my dish menu last night was what I perceived what my family members like to have. I know anything soft and silky will be welcomed by them, so tofu and pumpkins would be good choices.

While the family always have bitter gourd with minced meat, but luffa with minced meat is something new to them. In addition, my kids loved luffa so luffa with minced meat was in the menu.

Preparing these two dishes had resulted some mesh pumpkins, minced meat and tofu left, therefore, I have decided to turn these 3 ingredients into  a dish.

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PORK STUFFED LUFFA (丝瓜酿肉碎）

This is a dish adapted from pork stuffed bitter gourd (苦瓜酿肉碎). The luffa was first de-skinned, and cut into 2 cm chunks. Make a hole in the centre and set aside. Minced pork were marinated for about 10 minutes with sesame oil, corn flour, light soya sauce, flavour enhancers, sugar, pepper, chopped coriander leaves and chopped winter vegetables. Stuff the minced pork into the hole of the luffa chunks, placed it in a serving plate nicely and put a goof berry on top of minced meat for garnishing. Before steaming, put some water in the plate of the meat stuffed luffa. (A bit of water is important as it will speed up the process of cooking the luffa. The luffa will be “water bathed” causing it easier to get cooked). Steamed for about 20 minutes or until your luffa is soft.  More juices will be secreted out and these gravy was very tasty as it was essentially a meat and vegetable broth.  You can put some corn starch to thicken this juices if desirable.

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TOFUS SAIL IN PUMPKIN SEA (豆腐金瓜海）

I have to admit that I do not know how to name this dish. Since it looks like a seas of mashed pumpkins, I  named this as “tofu sail pumpkin seas”. Firstly, I cut opened a pumpkin, de-seeded and steamed the pumpkin until the pumpkin was soft. I then scratched out the pumpkin flesh, put some sesame oils, salt, mushroom concentrate, mixed well and let the mashed pumpkin to cool.

Two packets of tofu’s were cut into 8 pieces and arrange in a serving plate. I used a teaspoon to make a hole on the tofu, put some mashed pumpkins to cover the hole. Use the remaining pumpkin to put beside the tofu and steamed for about 10 minutes. Surprisingly, the tofu and pumpkins really blends well.

 

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MINCED PORK FRIED WITH MASHED PUMPKINS AND TOFUS (山寨蟹粉豆腐）

From the above two dishes, I have some mashed pumpkin left , some tofu left (from making a hole in the tofu cubes), some minced meat left (as I have prepared one package of minced meat for the luffa dish, therefore, I still have about half of the minced meat left). With these 3 ingredients, I have decided to mash the tofu and fried these 3 ingredients together.

I first stir fried some spring onion (white part) in a frying pan of hot oil until aromatic, followed by the minced meat and once the meat was 50% cooked, add the mesh pumpkin and mesh tofu. Stir fried for another 2-3 minutes, add white pepper, sugar, light soya sauce and salt and it become a rather presentable dish..like the famous Shanghai dish, “Tofu With Hairy Crab Roe”. Therefore I have named this dish in Mandarin the “Fake Tofu With Hairy Crab Roe”.

The dish was very tasty and smooth, it is well liked by the kids because of the aromatic spring onions.  I have placed the cooked dish in the empty shell of the pumpkin for serving.

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BLANCHED ASPARAGUS WITH CHICKEN FILLETS （芦笋鸡柳）

This is really an easy dish.

Asparagus were de-skinned (depends on whether it is too mature or not) and cut into same length. Chicken fillet were first cut into the desired sizes, marinated with sesame oil, pepper and light soya sauce for about 10 minutes,

Have a pot of boiling hot water, drizzle a few drops of cooking oil and pinches of salt. Get ready a serving plate and put some oyster sauce on the plate.  Blanched the asparagus in the hot boiling water for 3 minutes and dip in icy cold cooked water.

Place these asparagus neatly in the serving plate on top of the oyster sauce. Coated the chicken fillet with some corn flours and blanched the chicken fillets in the hot boiling water for about 5 minutes. Scoop out and placed on top of the blanched asparagus. Sprinkled some fried shallots on top of the chicken and the dish was done.

This was definitely an easy and healthier dish as it involved no frying like the traditional method. Though I did not taste the asparagus but I can tell you that it was sweet as all the juices were being sealed inside the asparagus via blanching method of cooking.

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CENTURY EGGS WITH PICKLED GINGER (皮蛋酸姜）

This dish was usually treated an appetizer in Chinese full course dinners and did not really need any preparation. As I have quite a lot of pickled ginger left from my demonstration in Guaishushu’s Page, therefore, I have decided to prepare this dish as an appetizer. You may want to learn about how to prepare the pickled gingers HERE.

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POMELO (柚子/文旦）

When I was young, we did not celebrate Moon Cake Festivals with pomelo.

However, in recent years, it seemed that it is very common that pomelo became one of the festival fruit  during the  Moon Cake Festivals. I checked the internet, pomelo have the syllables as “have kids” (有子）in Mandarin, therefore, having pomelo means that it will bring you luck in conceiving a kid. Well, definitely not for me.

It is my usual way to de-skin my pomelo like what is in the picture to make it easier for my kids to eat. Therefore, all my kids loves to eat pomelo as they do not need to peel the internal white membranes separating the lobes in the fruit. They have been pampered, Unlike me, I never like to eat pomelo when I was young because of the difficulty to peel of the internal white membranes.

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GREEN DATES (甜枣）

This is nothing to do with this festival. I just spotted in the supermarket a few days ago and I really love these green dates. I always called it mini apples. In my humble opinion, it taste like apples and is a one bite size. I am able to finish one box within a day. I don’t know but I do believe it is a very healthy snack, much healthy than any carbohydrates and sugar loaded snacks. Yesterday, it was served together with pomelo after dinner.

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MOONCAKES (月饼）

I have a few boxes of moon cakes and I have decided to  serve a durian moon cake that my nephew gave me from the international “Three” Seasons Hotel.  However, I am rather disappointed with the moon cakes. Put in bluntly, it is just pure durian flesh wrapped in snow skin. When you eat the moon cakes, it is very soft and just like when one is eating fresh durian (though it don’t taste that fresh any more after so many days).

It was definitely not cheap and my nephew told me even after discount, one small moon cake cost SGD 12. I honestly believed that should I received the moon cake earlier, I will be able to replicate the moon cake  .. and how much is one durian is this season? May be 3 durians for SGD 10?  Well the one below is equally disappointing as they have incorporate orange flavour in the lotus seeds fillings.

Lastly, I hoped that you like my cooking adventures today and unlike previous festivals, I have cooked something very simple. In other festivals, majority were meat dishes and I managed to locate an old picture in my Facebook to share with you. This was taken by one of my nieces in 2012 to celebrate Chap Goh Me (元宵）during Chinese New Year.

Have a nice day and cheers.

What I “Ate” Today (家常便饭系列）…. 17 August 2013- Special

You may be surprised about this title! In fact, the title is not correct either. What I am going to post is not “what I cooked today” or “what I ate today”. It was a gathering at one of my relative’s house and she had cooked some Chinese dishes that are not common among Fujian or Guangdong Province.

My relative is from Jiangxi Province and therefore the food that she cooked were rather different! As you all know, Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese are descendants of immigrants mainly from the South Eastern Coastal Fujian and Guangdong Province.

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JIANGXI CUISINES

Per Wikipedia:

Jiangxi (Chinese: 江西; pinyin: Jiāngxī; Wade–Giles: Chiang-hsi; Postal map spelling: Kiangsi, Gan: Kongsi) is a province in the People’s Republic of China, located in the southeast of the country. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze River in the north into hillier areas in the south and east, it shares a border with Anhui to the north, Zhejiang to the northeast, Fujian to the east, Guangdong to the south, Hunan to the west, and Hubei to the northwest. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiangxi)

As compared to Nanyang Chinese (Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese), in a household meal, they are more dishes but with a smaller portion. For us, we will usually serve 3 dishes and 1 soup, for them the dishes can be as many as 6-12 dishes. Today, the host is kind enough to cook us 7 dishes (excluding desserts and sweet soups). Jiangxi dishes were rather spicy (chilli hot) and as my kids were having meals with us, for some dishes, they have to prepare both the spicy and non spicy version.

Note than I am currently on a vegetarian  diet and since I did not told them in advance, I have taken my meals before joining them.  Therefore, I did not join them for meals.

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SPICY AND SOUR SHREDDED POTATOES (酸辣土豆丝）

Yes, this is my favourite. Potatoes were julienned into thin strips. There were then soaked in cold water until all the starch were gone. This will make the potatoes “crunchy” and water have to be changed regularly. Look at the thin strips, these were all manually done. They were then stir fried with spring onions, black vinegars and chilli. This is something that I have yet to share the cooking illustrations with readers but I can assure you it is something simple yet the taste is superb. Kids are fighting for this.

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BRAISED BEEF （酱牛肉）

I do not know if there is any translation of this dish. It is basically beef braised in dark soya sauce (and herbs and spices). It was then air dried. If it was kiln dried, it will become smoked beef. This is a form of meat preservation that can be commonly found in many parts of China. My relatives have prepared these meat in China and brought it over.

I still remembered  when I was stationed in Changchun, China about 10 years ago, one of the past time is to buy some braised chicken drumsticks and ate it in the hotel. It is delicious and thinking about it make me drooling. Depending on the regions, the preservations can be sugar based or salt based.

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TOMATOES FRIED WITH EGGS (番茄炒蛋）

A common household dish in China. Besides stir frying, another way of cooking this combination is making it into a soup.

Tomato is not a common vegetable in my  traditional house cooking. Tomatoes are considered vegetables imported from other countries (though this may not be true any more). This is evidenced in its Chinese name literately translated as Western Persimmon (西红柿）or Foreign brinjal (番茄）。In Hokkien dialects, it was called Caucasian Brinjal (angmokio)!  Therefore, my mom seldom cooked tomatoes in the house.

As my girl is a tomato fanatic, this will definitely her top choice. However, as my boy is tomato phobia, this is definitely a good dish to make my boy eating tomato.  Though he is a tomato phobia but he is an egg fanatic. I usually requested that if he wanted to eat 2 tablespoons of eggs, he will need to finish 1 tablespoon of tomatoes. Haha

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STEAMED CHINESE SAUSAGE WITH CHINESE BLACK FERMENTED BEANS （腊肠蒸豆豉）

The Chinese sausages were prepared by my relatives in China and brought it over. You can hardly find any fats in the Chinese sausages. Before I am on my vegetarian diet, I have tried the sausages before and it is delicious.

The Chinese sausages were cut into slices, steamed with Chinese black fermented beans and chopped garlics. May be after my vegetarian diets end, I shall cook this. Good thing about having this post is that it can remind me of what I should cooked when I run out of ideas.

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PIGTAILS PORK BELLIES SOUP (猪尾猪肚汤）

I never have this combination before, pork bellies plus pigtails. The reason is because both meats have different cooking times. You know pork bellies are rather difficult to cook until soft. So, it is not easy to cook this soup. Even if you used pressure cooker, both items will have to be cooked separately. There is no vegetables or white peppers. It is pure meat broth!

If you ask me whether it is yummy or not, of course, I can’t tell you directly because I did not taste it. However, from my years of cooking experience, I can tell you that it is a good soup because the soup had turn milky meaning all the gelatine from the meat have been dissolved in the soup/broth.

Don’t believe me, freeze it and you will see that it become jellish and you can use a knife to cut it into small pieces. Teochew dialect group also have a dish that after braising certain meat for a long time, they cut the meat into very small pieces, freeze the broth and become a jelly. The jelly was then cut into small pieces and served as cold dish (猪头粽）

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STIR FRIED CHINESE WATER CRESS （清炒西洋菜）

I remembered when I told my mother in law and wife to stir fry water cress previously, they are against it as they always used water cress to cook soup. It is generally true that most Chinese dialect groups like to boil soup with this vegetable. However, when I travelled to China, I always have stir fried water cress in restaurants. Usually, this vegetable were stir fried using garlic without any other ingredients.

Try and tell me whether it is nice or not! Remember that you have to stir fry the vegetables using high heat, otherwise, it may be bitter.

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STEAMED KUDZU FLOUR COATED PORK WITH PUMPKIN (南瓜米粉肉）

When I asked for the name of the dish, I was told  “namguamifenrou”. However, I can’t find any rice vermicelli or Beehoon. Later she explained the 米粉 is not rice vermicelli, it means “rice flour”. Though the name is called rice flour, the coating of the meat can be any types of flour. It can be corn flour, sweet potato flour, potato flour and etc.…But today the flour that she used is kudzu flour (葛根粉）. Again this is brought from Jiangxi and she disclosed that this was made from wild kudzu roots.

Kudzu has many health benefits and among them are relief symptoms of postmenopausal women, reducing alcohol intake, alleviating cluster headaches, managed metabolic syndromes etc. etc. etc. In Singapore, we do have a type of Chinese instant flu medicine called Kudzu soup (葛根汤) that you consumed when you have a fever and it is believed that it will help to reduce your body temperature. You may want to know more about kudzu from here.

Coming back to the dish. Meat were seasoned and coated with kudzu flour. The meat was then placed on top of the pumpkins and steamed under high heat until the pumpkins were soft. The purpose of the flour is to retain the meat juiciness in the process of steaming. Any meat juices that escaped will dripped into the pumpkins those flavoured the pumpkins.

Lastly, I want to convey my sincere thanks to my relatives who cooked us a sumptuous meal and we really appreciate that.

Hope you like the post today and I find this post is meaningful to share with readers about other different types of Chinese cuisines.

Have a nice day and cheers.

What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 11-8-2013

On 7 August 2013, white rice served with :

1.      Braised Bitter Gourd With Chinese Mustard                                                 苦瓜焖苦瓜

2.     Salted Turnip Omelette                                                                                    菜脯蛋饼

3.     Vegetarian Winter Melon Soup                                                                       素冬瓜汤

First of all, I have to be frank that I will be a vegetarian (by religion) for a period of about 1.5 months and being the only member in the family, I am pretty easy going with my meals. Since my relatives are in my house, they can cook what they like and I usually give them the free hand so that I can concentrate on my other food posts.

However, when I have things to share, I will post here and there summarizing what I have made the last few days. As mentioned before, short recipes will be captured in Guaishushu’s Facebook Page, therefore, I will let you know the dishes published and if you are interested, you can go there for some pictorial illustration. Liking the Page (not the individual posts) will ensure that you will be briefed of all future recipes when Guaishushu issue a pictorial illustration.

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Salted Turnip Omelette (菜脯蛋饼）

This is a very common Chinese household dish especially for the Hokkien and the Teochew dialects. It is basically preserved turnips (either sweet or salty) fried with eggs. When I was young, we used to have this dish with white porridge as its very tasty. Previously, this dish was considered as a commoner’s dish because eggs and preserved turnip or radish are two of the cheapest cooking ingredients. It is tasty and a slice of  egg omelette with a bowl of white rice or porridge can be a meal for the poorer families. However, time have changed, this traditional dish has become so well known that it started to appear in the restaurant menu especially Minan/Hokkien/Taiwan restaurant and Teochew porridge restaurant. Preparation is simple and you may want refer here for detail pictorial illustration.

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Braised Bitter Gourd with Chinese Mustard (苦菜焖苦瓜）  

This is a vegetable dish “invented” by myself many years ago. Initially, it was just bitter gourd and subsequently, as per my wife’s request, Chinese mustard was added. Both Chinese mustard and bitter gourd were very bitter and if you are a bitter taste lover, you will like it definitely. At times, I have added a can of canned button mushrooms and my kids will eat together with us. This is one way of letting them getting used to the taste of bitter gourd and Chinese mustard.

Both these vegetables were beneficial to the body as per Traditional Chinese Medicine, these are “cooling” vegetables that will help to release the “heat” on your body. For those who are not familiar with TCM, body that have too much “heat “ will have lots of symptoms that can range from loss of voice, acnes in your face, sore throat etc. and you have to have food that are “cooling” in nature to balance your Yin and Yang.

My mother in law is very particular about vegetable combination in a meal and she will casually remarked “we have some “heat” prone vegetable today and today we shall have some cooling vegetables.. So under her, her vegetable choices will take into consideration this factor plus “colour” of the vegetable (green vs. white vs. colourful), leafy vs beans….. Most of time, I “failed” her test under her supervision but I am learning from her gradually as this takes time!

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Vegetarian Winter Melon Soup (素冬瓜汤)

Nothing much to say about this dish as it is just another version of winter melon soup without pork ribs. As there is no meat broth, I have use more sweet dates and add in some vegetarian bean curd sheets. My boy did not complain about no meat and my girls, who is soup fanatic, will definitely say nice especially winter melon is one of her favourites.

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Banana Cake (香蕉蛋糕）

Beside the savoury dishes, my baking adventures continue. I have made a banana cake using two ripe bananas. Taste is fabulous and texture is superb (soft and moist). Uniqueness about this cake is that it is prepared using a food processor rather than the normal mixer. No creaming of butter, just mixed and blend, a batter will come out that give a delicious butter cake. Cake preparation timing is less than 20 minutes. This is a comfort food that is suitable for those who want a simple way of cake making.

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In between these few days, I have prepared many cakes and savory dishes and among them were:

Oven baked honey tempeh and Sweet and Spicy Tempeh

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Vegetable Fritters or Bakwan Sayuran

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Grapefruit Chiffon Cake with Grapefruit Citrus Glaze

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Bubur Cha Cha (Sweet Soup) 

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Hope you like the post today. Cheers

 

What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 6-8-2013

It is another day and time to submit my report.  On 6th August 2013, white rice served with:

1	Steamed Tofu With Eggs	豆腐蒸蛋
2	Blanched Chinese Lettuce With Fermented Bean Curd Sauce	白腐乳生菜胆
3	Sweet corn pork rib soup	玉米排骨汤
4	Salted vegetable duck soup	咸菜鸭

You may be wandering why there are 2 soups. The reasons is easy. I am testing my new pressure cooker. I am using the new pressure cooker to cook my salted vegetable duck soup.

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SWEET CORN SOUP

 

Very simple soup and some soup that’s well like by the kids. When I was young, my mum never use sweet corn to made soup. This soup was introduced to me by my mother in law when my kids were born. Now, i also started to like this soup. I have forgotten to put carrots and mushrooms so it is a rather pure sweet corn soup boiled with goof berry and sweet dates.

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BLANCHED CHINESE LETTUCE WITH FERMENTED BEAN CURD SAUCE

This is a vegetarian dish. However, if you are a vegetarian by religion, please omit the shallot oil. The simple recipe is to blanch the Chinese lettuce with boiling water (with drips of oil to preserve the colour) for about 1 minute. For the sauce, get ready 2 cubes of Chinese fermented bean curd (either white or red color), mash it, add a tablespoon of water, drips of sesame oil or shallot oils, 1 teaspoon of sugar (no more salt as fermented bean curd is very salty). Mixed well and pour on top of the blanched vegetables. Sugar is to negate the saltiness of the fermented bean curd.
Variation: Miso paste can also be considered.
Time of preparation – 15 minutes or less

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STEAMED TOFU WITH EGGS

You can refer the recipe in the links in Guaishushu’s Facebook Page as above. A kid friendly dish, soft and smooth with full flexibility.

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SALTED VEGETABLE DUCK SOUP

As explained above, a dish that I cooked using my new pressure cooker. It only take me about 1 hour to cook until the desired texture and taste. That is totally not possible if we cooked using the traditional way. A separate post will be issue to give a detail description on the method of preparation.

Hope you like the post today. Happy reading and have a nice day ahead.

What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 5-8-2013

1	Shrimp paste chicken	虾酱鸡
2	Lotus root pork rib soup	莲藕排骨汤
3	Blanched kailan with pork slices	芥兰猪柳
4	Fresh Coriander Fried with Fish Cake and Bean Curd	鱼饼豆腐炒芫茜
5	Spicy Seaweed Stripes	香辣海带丝

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Fresh Coriander Fried with Fish Cake and Bean Curd (鱼饼豆腐炒芫茜)

This is a small household dish that you can hardly find in restaurants or even recipe books. Generally, Fish cakes and Taukwa (beancurd of a lesser moisture content) were cut into small pieces. Have some oil in your wok, stir fried some chopped garlic or/and shallots until golden brown or until the aroma starts to emit. Add the cut taukwa or fish cakes and fried until well mixed. Since both taukwa and fish cakes are cooked, there is no need to stir fried very long. The objectives of stir frying is just to let the taste blends. Add in fresh coriander leaves (alternative: Chinese celery 芹菜), add seasonings of your choice and scoop out to serve. Seasoning I have chosen this time is sugar, salt and dark soya sauce. Because there are fish cakes and I hate the fishy smell, I have added some white pepper. This is a dish that should be well liked by both children and adults and I usually cooked this to go with porridges or white rice.

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Shrimp paste chicken (虾酱鸡)

This is an extremely popular Chinese dish in Singapore.  In any stall located in the coffee stops that sells dishes to order (煮炒），you will bound to find this dish in the menu. Most families include mine will order this dish when we eat out!  The recipe of this dish is adapted from  http://www.noobcook.com/prawn-paste-chicken. It is rather unusual to have a Chinese dish that were made with Belachan or shrimp paste and become so popular. So far, I have never taste such dish before even in Malaysia.

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Spicy Seaweed (香辣海带丝)

This is a dish that were my relatives brought from Kuching Sarawak. I have ever explicitly said that I do  not like seaweed dishes and I can’t stand the  smell. My relatives who come here and visit me here brought some vegetarian spicy seaweed and what surprises me is that there  were no such “funny sea smell” which I can hardly described. This is the first time I have a seaweed dishes that do not have such strange smell and I finished half of the plate. My relatives claimed that this is another species of seaweed and do not have such smell and I am in doubt whether or not this is true…

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Blanched Kailan With Pork Slices (芥兰猪柳)

A simple dish just blanced the Kailan, add seasonings and set aside. Prior to this, pork slices were marinated with light soya sauce, sesame oil, pepper and some corn flour. Blanched the pork slices and placed it on top of the vegetable, sprinkled with sesame seed. I have mentioned that I am trying to blanch my vegetable dish instead of stir fried the vegetables. So far, I have blanched most types of vegetables and apparently no complaints from the family members.

Hope you have a nice day and cheers.

What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 2-8-2013

 

On 2-August 2013,

SIAMESE LAKSA

Today, we are having Siamese Laksa for dinner.

First of all, I have to clarify that Siamese Laksa is different from Mee Siam, another common noodle dish in Singapore and Malaysia.

This noodle dish is rather common in Northern Peninsular Malaysia near the border of Thailand. However, it is not common in Southern Peninsular Malaysia, East Malaysia and Singapore. I come from the State of Sarawak, East Malaysia, theoretically I shouldn’t know about this dish. However, it is such a coincidence that one of my secondary school teacher who is also a friend of my late mother is from Penang. She taught my mother how to cook this. Before my mother passed away, she cooked this laksa pretty often and I really love it. If you like Assam Laksa and Curry Laksa, it is something like a mixture of both, creamy and slightly sour and spicy. It is both tamarind base and coconut milk based.

As this dish is not popular in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, I don’t really ever eaten it besides those that were cooked by my mum. When I do a recipe check, I found out that the ingredients used are common ingredients that were also used by my mum, therefore, the taste should be quite close and similar. My wife who has never eaten this noodle dish before also concurred that the dish is delicious.

What puzzled me now is why is it not popular in Southern Peninsular Malaysia as the taste is not uniquely special. In fact, there is not much information on this laksa’s origin. I am still contemplating whether or not I should share my own recipe. If on the grounds that as long as the food is delicious, whether authentic or not, recipe should be shared then I should share and may be shall I called it Guaishushu’s Siamese Laksa. Haha

Very briefly, fishes were boiled and flaked. After slow frying the spice mix (galangal, turmeric, lemon grass, shallots, ginger, garlics), fish broth , kafir lime leaves, daun kesom and rojak flower were added and bring to boil under high heat. Belachan, tamarind juice and fish meat were then added to the broth. When boiled, coconut milk were added. It was usually thick rice vermicelli served with julienned cucumbers, pineapples, beansprouts and garnished with mint leaves and lime.

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SARAWAK BEAN SPROUT NOODLES

For lunch, I have cooked this noodle dish for my kids as it is easier to prepare and I knew they would like it. They like it because it is sweet and that is also the reason I like it…Haha

Sarawak have a very unique noodle dish called bean sprout noodles (豆芽面)。

The basic ingredients can be as simple as only yellow noodles, bean sprout, sweet thickened dark soya sauce, garlic. The thick sweetened dark soya sauce were made of dark soya sauce and nipah palm sugar (Gula Apong). Minced garlic was stir fried until brownish, add in dark sweet soya sauce. Stirred fried until well mixed, add in bean sprout just 1 minutes before you off the heat!

That is the simplest form we have and is called Tauge Mee Kosong (Plain Bean Sprout Noodles). However, with the affluence of the society and influence from West Malaysia, there are more and more variations of the noodles that include eggs, cockles, fish cakes and etc. It resemble the Penang Char Kway tiao. The only difference is that Penang char Kway teow is a savory dish whereas Sarawak Tauge Mee is a sweet noodle dish.

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MRS. NGSK’S BUTTER CAKE

My third cooking adventure of the day is making a butter cake, or more precise Mrs. NgSK’s butter cake from http://wendyinkk.blogspot.sg. This name is rather funny right? Well, most bakers are not able to make a butter cake following traditional butter cake recipes that yields a flat top non crack butter cake. This rather famous blogger take the courage to ask one of her church members why every time her cake is so perfect,  flat and  without any cracks. Apparently, the church member (Mrs. NgSK) is very helpful and provide her the recipe. She followed the recipe and come out the perfect  cake that she wanted. She therefore shared the recipe on her blog and requested this recipe be named as Mrs. NgSK’s butter cake. She concluded that:

“Obviously, I am not jinxed for butter crack cakes. It is the recipe, not me, LOL”

Early in the day when I looked at my friend’s timeline, one of my blogger friends mentioned about this Mrs. NgSK’s butter cake and the funny name of the cake caught my immediate attention. So, I goggled and find the above blog. I did not read in detail but what really impressed me is her cake, cake that is flat and crack  less. I read the ingredients, nothing special and I want to try whether or not this preparation method can give me a butter cake that I admired.

In the afternoon, I start the preparation but I have chosen not to follow her recipe exactly. I alter the volume of raw  ingredients used. I used the very basic traditional pound cake recipe of 1 butter: 1 egg ; 1 flour : 1 sugar.  However, for the preparation method, I have follow her method by separate beating of egg whites and egg yolks. Everything look perfect even the uncooked batter. From my experience, it is going to be a good cake.

I send the cake into the oven and everything goes well in the first 15 minutes, then it suddenly start to shape like a volcano and with small cracks. The colour is perfect and I thought it is gone because I can’t get a flat top butter cake without cracks. I tested the batter, obviously it is not cooked since the middle is still very wet.  As the middle is still uncooked, I make a wrong decision to up the temperature hopefully it can speed up the process of baking the cake. 5 minutes after when I looked at the cake, the cake was slightly burn in the top, I tested again and it is cooked.

I become very disappointed as I have wasted my half day’s effort. I took it out from the oven and in a matter of 15 minutes, it start to “shrink” and become a flat cake. I shouldn’t have increased the temperature. I am not confident enough that the cake will turn out good. Overall, the cake looks ok, I scrapped off some of the burnt skin and I have decided to share my simple recipe in Guaishushu’s Facebook page later. What do you think? Shall I share the recipe?

Cheers and have a nice day ahead.

 

What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 1-8-2013

On 1 August 2013, white rice served with:

1	Blanched broccoli and asparagus with chicken fillets	芥兰芦笋鸡柳
2	Oyster mushroom and button mushroom chicken soup	双菇鸡汤
3	Minced chicken fried with pineapple stripes	凤梨炒鸡丝

 

All dishes were cooked with chicken today.

I bought a chicken, as I don’t want to keep it, I just blanched the fillet and breast for the vegetable dish, use the drumstick and other bones for making the soup and part of tights to fry with pineapples. Dish are rather common and nothing really worth mentioning it. The chicken soups looked a bit oily and if I want i can just froze it and scrap away the oil to make it clearer.

As I have coated the chicken breast with corn flowers, it is unusual that my girl loves the meat. She is a “herbivore” and asking her to eat meat is really a challenge to me. For this dish, she fight with her brothers for the meat..Haha, gradual transition from herbivore to omnivore.

As I have some black glutinous rice and barley that I bought over from Sarawak, I have prepared Black Glutinous Rice and Barley Sweet Porridge (血糯薏米甜粥). The way of preparing it is rather Chinese style. Red jujube were added to further increase the mineral content. This dessert is beneficial to women who are having their menstrual periods as all ingredients were packed with iron. Black glutinous rice is rather difficult to digest and therefore inclusion of barley will help to improve the digestions. To make it even smoother, you can blend the porridge, and some milk or coconut milk or cream.

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Lastly, as I have some leftover bread , I make it into some simple bruschetta. I especially loved the toasted herbs bread with the freshly cut tomato seasoned with Italian herbs.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 31-7-2013

 

On 31 July 2013, white rice served with

1	Indonesian Ginger Chicken	印尼姜鸡
2	Japanese Fried Ginger Chicken	日本炸姜鸡
3	Blanched White Stem Pak Choy with Japanese Salad Dressing	日式沙拉酱奶白
4	Bok Choy Meat and Fish Ball Soup	贸白菜肉丸鱼丸汤

Today, this menu was a rather unusual combination with two ginger chicken dishes called Indonesian Ginger Chicken and Japanese Fried Ginger Chicken. One of the my blogger friends from http://eatapieceofcake.blogspot.hk have posted this Indonesian Ginger Chicken Recipe into a Facebook Group that I have recently created called Food Bloggers and Foodies United.

The picture in her post looks  really nice and she explicitly highlighted that only 4 ingredients were needed (ginger, garlic, honey and dark soya sauce). Based on these 4 ingredients, I have no doubt that it will taste nice because all the ingredients are common ingredients used in Chinese cooking and I am especially fond of ginger. I also noted that these ingredients were almost the same as Japanese  style fried chicken where chicken were marinated in ginger juices. Therefore I have decided to marinate the chickens together using ginger juices. After one hour, I took some marinated chicken out for Japanese fried chicken whereas for the portion remaining, I added the required honey and dark soya sauce.  I baked for about an hour. I did not let the juice dries up because I knew my kids would like to have some gravy to go with the rice which is sweet and aromatic. That was the reasons why what I cooked is different from the original blogger’s picture.

For the Japanese ginger chicken portion, instead of adding the dark soya sauce, I have added some Japanese light soya sauces and deep fried it. After I fried it, I drip soe honey on top of the fried chicken and served with shredded pineapple. Fried chicken is a bit oily and shredded pineapple will have the effects of negating the oiliness of the dish. Slice cucumber is another good way of garnishing.

The verdict of these two ginger chickens  competition : the Indonesian Ginger Chicken dish won because it was softer and go with sweet sauce. This was expected because of the kids’ taste buds. However, they were complaining a bit spicy because of the ginger sauce.

For the blanched vegetables, i have resorted to the use of Japanese salad dressings and sprinkled with fried shallots. This whole bottle of dressing were given by my neighbour who complained that she don’t know how to use it after she brought it. It is a nice dressing in fact and goes relatively well with the white stem pak choi.

Well, that is my cooking adventures to day and the submission of this report will consider that my daily kitchen duties as complete. Ha ha

Yes, before I end my post, I am thinking of cooking something with these combinations tomorrow. Can you guess what noodle dish is it?

Have a nice day ahead and cheers.

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What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 30-7-2013

You may be surprised that today I am having some western meals. In fact, I have never cooked western meals before. This should be one of the very first full course meals that I have prepared. Well, today is my son’s birthday and I just want to expose him something different. In addition, my girl is crazy about baked potatoes and I thought why not I “try” to cook them something what they like…… 

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MENUS

Soup

Cream of Mushroom Soup (with fresh sweet corn kernel and button mushroom slices

 

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Entree

Tomato salsa (served with kiwi fruit cubes and sprinkle with mozzarella cheeses and Italian herbs)

 

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Main Dish

Grilled halibut with lemon cream sauce; and

Asian style grilled chicken breast with Japanese sweet barbecue sauce

Side dishes: Baked potato and sweet corns, buttered broccoli and asparagus and cocktail sausages

 

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Dessert

Durian Cheese Cake

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I am really not good in preparing western meals and I have well underestimated the time of preparation. We only can had dinner by 7:30 pm and I am really exhausted by then.

The kids loved the food especially the grilled halibut. For this dish, I have seasoned it with Italian herbs (oregano and basil), salt and bit of butter. I topped with some mozzarella cheese and grilled it for about 15 minutes.  I used the “juices” secreted out from the fish to make into cream sauce and it is exceptionally sweet without any seasonings and condiments.

As for the Asian style grilled chicken, apparently they don’t really able to appreciate it because I have used chicken breast instead of chicken thigh meat. They are complaining a bit hard and fibrous. I may have over grilled the chicken breast.

The girls are complaining that the serving is too huge for them. However, she managed to finish the baked potato. A really simple side dish and personally I loved it. I have to say I never knew that baked potatoes tasted so good as I usually order fries rather than baked potato or meshed potatoes. This was requested by my girl specifically she wanted baked potato.

The cream of mushroom soup was good. Initially, I was thinking of using the ready made cream of mushroom soup. Since I have some canned mushrooms and some cream at home, I have decided to make my own cream of mushroom soup. I butter fried the chopped onions and garlics, add chicken stocks, fresh kernel corns and mushrooms and let it boiled until the onion were very soft. Thereafter, creams were added to thicken the soup. That was a hit also.

As for the dessert – durian cheese cake. I have prepared it about 2 days ago and it is really a very rich and creamy cake. It is very nice but both me and my wife have eaten in guilt. Usually, for 1 piece, 4 of us shared and for my kids, they don’t really have sweet tooth and after one two bites, they just stopped. Frankly speaking, for an 8 “ cake , after 2 days, I still have 4 pieces left (after 2 pieces given to my neighbours). I am in the process of compiling the post and will share with readers very soon.

Lastly, hope you like the post to day. A lighter note before I end, while I am writing this, I heard my boy told her auntie  (my wife’s sister} that one of his birthday wishes is  that “there will be endless supplies of sausages and eggs”, his favourite foods … Such a simple wish… Haha.

Have a nice day and cheers.

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What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 25-7-2013

On 25-7-2013, Chicken rice served with sweet kernel corn and mushroom soup.

As I have not cook chicken rice for quite a while, I have decided just to have a one dish dinner – Hainanese Chicken Rice. You can refer here for my detailed write up on the preparation of Chicken rice. Alternatively, you can refer to Guaishushu’s Facebook page for simple pictorial instructions.

If you really observe the first picture, do you realize something are missing? Yes, two things were missing!  A very important garnish vegetables, cucumber slice. I always find that without cucumber slice, the whole chicken rice is missing something. Do you agree with me?

Secondly, there is a lack of green vegetable today. Usually, I would have a plate of blanched vegetable to go with it but because today is Friday, I have finished all the green vegetables in the fridge, Haha. I have said before in my earlier post, usually Sunday to Tuesday or Wednesday are leafy green vegetables and Thursday to Saturday are usually beans, melons or roots type of vegetables because it can be kept longer. We do marketing once a week and I am a rational cooker, I cooked based on First In First Out principle… I don’t usually cook impulsively..

 

As I have additional chicken stock from simmering the chicken, I have decided to open a canned kernel corn and turned it into a corn soup. When I made the cake yesterday, I have some egg whites left and I just stir and “throw” inside the soup. It become a simple soup like the one you have in the chicken rice store.

Usually, when I cooked chicken rice, I will cook more than what is required. The rationale is that it take some efforts to prepare chicken rice, why not prepare some more. In addition, any left over chicken rice can be “recycled” and is a top choice for fried rice. Since it is already “marinated” rice and you need not to add much condiments and oil when you fried it.

Other than frying overnight chicken rice, we used to make it into chicken porridge for next day’s breakfast. After simmering the chicken, if you still have the chicken stock left, just keep it. In the next morning, just throw in the left over chicken rice, any chicken meat left (of course de-boned and possibly shredded into floss), add in a bit of condiments, it will become a bowl of chicken porridge.

Will it harm you to eat overnight food?  I do not want to think about it and as long as it is properly kept with no possibility of contamination, it should be ok. How about how grandparents or parents? Is it not the Westerners used to heat up frozen foods that were prepared well in advance?

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Other than the above, the project of the day included the following:

 

Impromptu Ixora Birthday “Cup Cake”

Preparing an impromptu birthday cake for one of my internet friends who “requested” me to “bake” a birthday cake for her and wish her happy birthday over the internet. This cake is decorated with ixora flowers which is abundant in Malaysia and Singapore.. Do you mind if someone posted this cake to your timeline wishing you happy birthday?

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Butterfly Cupcake

This is an extremely simple cup cake recipe. Add all ingredients and mixed well, bake and you get the cake. It was served with cream and strawberry jam as the basic cup cake have very little sugar. it was dusted with sugar powder. Do you think it will taste nice?

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Rose Cake

This should be a celebration cake but need further modifications. I am doing  in a rush and therefore  the workmanship is really terrible. Haha.

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Modified Version of Raas Malai

This is a dessert originated from India and an extremely popular in South Asia. It was served in wedding ceremony and other important festival occasions. Traditionally, the raw ingredients are paneer (Indian Cheese) and milk. The recipe is adopted from http://free-advertising-ey.blogspot.it/2013/07/raas-malai-sweet-from-bangladesh.htmlk with some modifications to suit the Chinese taste buds. Modifications include reducing the use of spices such as cinnamon, cardamon and etc.. In addition, strawberry were added.

 
As this dessert look milky and cheesy, I have decided to let my kids try out the dessert exposing them to more international cuisines. The preparation are rather coincidence. This afternoon when I have over whipped my cream, I thought I might as well used this over whipped cream to make the dessert. I added fresh milk to the over whipped cream and heat until it boiled. Knowing that my kids will not really like spices like cardamon, cinnamon , I have decided to tailor it to a more Chinese taste buds. I meshed 5 ripe strawberries and add to the milk and let them boiled together with the milk.

As for the cheese balls, I have used mozarella cheese to make it instead of paneer or cheddar cheese. I meshed 2 strawberries, added to the cheese, added 1 tablespoon of water and shaped it into small balls. My balls are rather small compared to the authentic because I know my kids wouldn’t be able to take such a big cheesy ball.  I dropped the balls to the cool milk and put in the fridge. During serving, I found it too creamy (possibly due to my over whipped cream), I have further diluted with cold fresh milk and cut slices of fresh strawberry to go with it.

 

Verdict: Extremely nice sweet milky soup with strawberry flavour. As long as you like milk, I do not think you have any reasons not to like it.

As for the cheese balls, my girls can take all but my boys feels a bit too rich and salty to him. As for me, I loved the cold milk but for the cheese balls, one or two should be Ok but not too much as when I was young, Chinese were not exposed to ” cheesy things”…. Haha.. I will say those who like cheese, go ahead and make this milky desserts.. It is just delicious.
 

LASTLY, HOPE YOU LIKE THE POST TODAY!  AND HAVE A NICE WEEK END.