Auspicious Day With Auspicious Porridge–Eight Treasure Porridge (八宝粥）

INTRODUCTION

It is such an auspicious day that I am writing this post. I swear it is not pre-planned. Today is Mid Autumn Festival aka Moon Cake Festival, it is a festival that is celebrated by all Chinese worldwide. As request by one of the Google communities, I have written a brief write up on Mid Autumn Festivals HERE which you may want to have some casual reading.

The cuisine that I am going to post today is a vegetarian dish called 8 treasure porridge (八宝粥). There are so many versions of this one pot dish in the internet but the recipe that I am going to share is from my kind neighbour. She liked to cook this porridge and after I tried it for the very first time, immediately I fell in love with it. Since then, I had liked to cook this dish in important festivals such as Chinese New Year Day where the whole family were supposed to be on vegetarian diet for one day.

I have cooked this yesterday not because of the festival, but because I craved for the porridge since I am still on my vegetarian diet. I gave two boxes of the porridge to my daughter’s schoolmates mother, she immediately asked for the recipe when she reached home. She commented that the taste of the porridge was totally different from what she had tasted in the vegetarian stalls.

I did not know where my neighbour get the recipe but I found that there are certain ingredients that we used were not found in other 8 treasure porridges sold by the vegetarian stores. Both the ingredients were mock meat acceptable to all vegetarians and without these two ingredients, the taste will definitely be different.

As this was our dinner last night, I did not have much chances to take pictures and the poor lighting make the picture a bit disappointed. But trust me, this is a very different 8 treasure porridge and it is definitely good for casual dining or a presentable dish in important Buddhist religious occasions.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

Though the name is 8 treasure porridge, however, we tend to have more than 8 ingredients and I do not think all my ingredients are in the picture.  I should have used 11-12 ingredients here. Most of the ingredients are nuts and a few ingredients and some mock meat.

• 1 cup of uncooked rice – not in picture （白米）

• 1 cup of jujube （红枣）

• 1 cup of peanuts （花生）- soaked

• 1 cup of cashew nuts （腰豆）

• 1 cup of lotus seeds （莲子）- soaked

• 1 cup of gingko nuts  （白果）- soaked

• 1 cup of red carrots (cut into cubes) （红萝卜）

• 1 cup of dried mushrooms (soaked and cut into cubes) – not in picture （冬菇）

• 1 cup of mock duck (must have) – (素鸭）

• 1 small packet of “fat Choy” or “black moss” （发菜）

• 1 packet of about 2 sheets of mock goose (素鹅）(must have)

• 6-8 cups of plain water (if not adequate, you can add in water later)

Mock Duck

Mock Goose

Please do not ask me why they were called mock duck or mock goose, frankly, I do not know. While the shape is difference, the taste is nothing like duck of goose. Both are made of wheat gluten, oil, soya sauce, sugar, salt and packed with proteins. They do have their distinct flavour but I can’t describe exactly what is the flavour. They can generally found in Chinese grocery stores that sell vegetarian supplies. These two items are the two most important ingredients in this porridge and without it, the taste will be different.

  “Fat Choy” or “ Black Moss”

This a type of moss now commercially cultivated in the Gobi dessert and Chinese Government do place a restriction in harvesting the moss. The meaning of having these mosses signifies prosperous since the syllables in Chinese name is the same of both “Fat Choy” and “Black Moss”. I hereby quote what Wikipedia had explained about this moss.

“Fat Choy (Nostoc flagelliforme), also known as faat Choy, fa cai, black moss, hair moss or hair weed is a terrestrial cyanobacterium (a type of photosyntheticbacteria) that is used as a vegetable in Chinese cuisine. When dried, the product has the appearance of black hair. For that reason, its name in Chinese means “hair vegetable.” When soaked, this vegetable has a very soft texture which is like very fine vermicelli.” (Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_choy)

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

Preparing all other ingredients

• Clean all ingredients (except mock duck and mock goose) and you may want to soak the peanuts and lotus seeds (if you buy the dry type). Cut into almost the same size as the peanuts and set aside for the later use.

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Frying the mock goose

• In a frying pan, have some cooking oil under high heat, fry the mock goose until crispy. When cooled, cut into thumb size pieces and set aside for the later use. (Note: While it is good to have minimum oil in the cooking, however, without performing this step, the fragrance will not be there. However, you can try using “air fryer” but I am unsure whether the taste will be the same.)

• Depending on your preference, you can use the same oil to stir fry the mock duck, gingko, lotus seeds, mushrooms, carrots etc. for a few minutes such that the mock goose and mushroom aromas blends with the other ingredients. Set aside for later use. This illustration bypassed this step to minimize the usage of cooking oil in the porridge and the taste will not be compromised much.

• Clean your rice and place in the rice cooker. Add in all other ingredients except “fat Choy”. Select porridge function for cooking the porridge.

• Just a few minutes before the porridge function was done, add in fat Choy and seasonings. Suggested seasonings are light soya sauce, salt, sugar or other flavour enhancers. Note that some of the ingredients already have some seasonings, please take some porridge out for tasting before you put the condiments.

Note that you can also use pressure cooker but remember to select the porridge function if it have. Alternatively, I have ever cooked the porridge over the stove and in this way it is easier for you to monitor the desire texture of your porridge though the cooking time may be longer. As long as all ingredients are soft, the porridge is considered as done.

 

• Best served hot with “you tiao” – a type of Chinese plain dough fritters or additional crispy “mock goose”. Both these are optional.

 

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CONCLUSION

As I have said earlier, I fell in love with this special porridge when I have my first bowl years back. I  am confident you will like it too. Bookmark this page for your future usage. You may want to cook it during Chinese New Year like me!

Hope you like the post today. Cheers

If you are looking for more CHINESE NEW YEAR COOKIES,  you may want to visit this post summarizing all relevant Chinese New Year Cuisines.

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For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .

 

 

If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me  where there are more than 1000 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD. You can also join the Food Bloggers and Foodies United Group Facebook Group to see more recipes.

Eating “Rat’s Shit”? You AreTotally Gross! –Vegetarian Fried “Beethyemak” Rice Noodles

INTRODUCTION

Beethyemak (“米大目”） is the name stated in the package of rice noodles that I bought from the supermarket. It is also called “Loh Su Fun” (“老鼠粉”） in Cantonese literally translated as  “Rats flour” …In my Chawan dialects group, it was called “ngiao chu sia” （”老鼠屎“） literally translated as “Rat’s shit”. My mother in law who is a Teochew, called it “ngiao chi ni” (“老鼠奶“） literally translated as “Rat’s milk”..

If you ask me what is the English translation? I will just translated it into a type of rice noodles taken in different form of the shape of disgusting “worms”. Apparently, it was shaped liked a “rat” .. Does it? I don’t know! I looked for some write up for this noodle dish and I managed to get a Chinese description in http://www.baike.com , the Chinese equivalent of Wikipedia. What is written is:

“米苔目是闽南语，又叫米筛目，漳州龙海特色小吃，是用米和番薯粉做成的。制作米苔目的工序颇为复杂：先要将米浸泡磨成米浆，然后放进布袋加压脱水成“饭脆”，将“饭脆”加入番薯粉，揉搓成饭团，再把饭团做成细条状，放到锅里煮熟捞起后用冷水冲洗，使之滑嫩。米苔目加入糖水、刨冰，可以做成冰凉可口的甜品，咸吃则可以用乌醋拌食或放入柴鱼熬煮成汤，再加入爆香的作料；像河粉一般热炒的米苔目很有嚼劲。 米苔目现在是闽南地区以及台湾著名的美食。” (Source: http://baike.baidu.com/view/68002.htm)

I have used Google Translation to translate and this is what I got:

“Mitai Mu is the Taiwanese language, called m mesh , Zhangzhou Longhai snacks, with rice and sweet potato flour made. Making process is quite complex Mitai Mu: Soak the rice milled rice milk first and then put into a pressure dewatering bag “rice crispy”, the “rice crispy” adding sweet potato powder , rub into balls , then made ​​into balls thin strips, into the pot boiled picked up after the rinse with cold water to make it smooth and delicate. Mi Taimu added sugar , ice, can be made ​​into delicious cold desserts , salty food, you can use the black vinegar mixed with food or put dried fish boiled into soup, then add the spices until fragrant; like rice noodles stir-fried rice general moss mesh very chewy. Mitai Mu is now southern region as well as Taiwan ‘s famous cuisine.”

Well, if readers can understand, it is best. However, if you can’t, I think that is unfair to you and I will try my best to translate for you.

“ Beethyemak is the name in Mingnan (Fujian or Hokkien) and the “thye” can also be translated or treated as “sift” in Hokkien. It is a famous snack in Longhai County, Zhangzhou (People’s Republic of China) and it is made of rice and sweet potatoes flour. The manufacturing process is rather complicated. Firstly, the rice grain have to be soaked and ground into rice batter, These are then put in a bag made from cloth. A heavy object is then placed on top of the rice batter to exert pressure and squeeze out the water making it to become a drier batter. Sweet potatoes flour are then added and mixed well. It is then made into long stripes by pouring the batter into the hot water. When cooked , the noodles are immediately dip in cold water such that the texture will be smooth and springy. To serve as a dessert, syrups and crushed ices were added to beethyemak . For savoury dishes, beethyemak can be stir mixed with black vinegar。 It can also be cooked with Bonito broth, and garnished with aromatic deep fried garlics or shallots. It can also be stir fried like Horfun (Kway Tiao) and both noodles have almost similar textures. Beethyemak is now a famous cuisine in the Mingnan (Fujian) area and Taiwan.”

I have been eating this noodle dish since I was young. Because of the name “Rat’s shit”, psychologically, I do not really like it. In addition, when I was young in Kuching, Sarawak, the Beethyemak is mostly made from pure rice flour. The texture is rather coarse and tasteless. It is not until when I came to Singapore that I started to like Beethyemak. The Beethyemak in Singapore is more springy and if properly cooked, it taste better than rice vermicelli or Kway Tiao (another flat type of rice noodles). 

This noodle is not easy to prepare as compare to rice vermicelli or Kway Tiao. You can either cook it in soupy version or stir fry it.

For stir frying, if you want to maintain the shape, the oil for frying will have to be quite a lot. Otherwise it will stick to your frying pan making it hard to fry. The purpose of this post is to illustrate how to stir fry this noodle dish, the ingredients can be anything from prawns to meat to the vegetables of your choice.

Again, as I am still on my vegetarian diet, this dish will be a vegetarian version. But remember, you can always add meats, prawns, fish cakes etc. of your choice. In addition, you can always used the same method to fry rice vermicelli and Kway Tiao or Horfun.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

There will be no quantity stated here and you have full flexibility to change the ingredients. This illustration is the vegetarian version and please add in any other ingredients that you like.

• Some cabbage cut in slices

• Some black fungus – soaked and cut into small slices

• Some tofu puff – cut into small square cubes

• 1 package of Beethyemak rice noodles (about 500 grams – servings of 4-5 adults)

• Some eggs, lightly beaten

• Some celery – cut into small cubes

• Some mock meat – cut into strips

• Some dried mushrooms – soaked and cut into strips

• Some shredded gingers and/or shallots and/or garlics

• Condiments of your choices – light soya sauce, dark soya sauce, flavour enhancer like mushroom concentrate, white pepper, salt)

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Put one to two tablespoons of cooking oil in the frying pan. Add in shredded gingers and mushrooms (non vegetarian version can put in shredded shallots and garlics) and stir fried under high heat until the fragrance starts to spread.

• Add in cabbage, stir fry for one minute and follow by celery, mock meat, tofu puffs, black fungus, stir fry until well mixed. Add in half a cup of water (estimate) and let it cooked for one – two minutes.

The above garnishes of spring onion for picture taking purposes, Religion vegetarian cannot have spring onion in the dish.

Note

• The purpose of adding the water is to soften and cook the vegetables. Remember, unlike stir frying rice vermicelli, the water has to be minimal as the noodles are rather wet and will not be able to absorb any more water.

• If your are frying with meat, meat will be the first item to be stir fried followed by hard vegetables (carrots, cabbage, celery etc.), leafy vegetables and tomatoes in this order.

• Add in the noodles and stir fry until well mixed. Add in dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, pepper, salt and flavour enhancer. Stir fry until well mixed. Add in beaten eggs and fry until all the noodles were coated with the eggs.

Note:

• In this illustration, I have purposely used this method of adding the eggs to the noodles. The purpose is to let the eggs coating the noodles. If you do not like the moist soft egg coated noodles, you can prepare the omelette and cut it into strips. You can refer to Vegetarian Tom Yam Bee Hoon for making of omelette strips. The difference is this way of frying noodles will result in moister noodles.

• Add in tomatoes and and stir fry for another minutes before scoop out to the plate for serving. Best serve hot with your preferences of garnishes such as coriander leaves, freshly cut chilli or Chinese celery leaves.

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CONCLUSION

This noodle dish looks easy to prepare but in fact, it need some practise. The challenges is to ensure the noodles are well coated with eggs and not stick to each other or soggy. To get this texture, the following points have to be taken into considerations:

• The heat has to be high heat throughout the stir frying. Therefore action have to be fast. If you can’t handle, this, you have to use at least medium heat. High heat is required to ensure that all the fragrances of gingers/shallots/garlics mix well with the noodles and any moisture or water contents dries up quickly. With this, there is less chance for the noodles to get soggy.

• There is always a trade off between the look of your final cooked noodles and the amount of cooking oil used. You have to chose whether you want to have a healthier dish (using less oil) but an uglier dish (may be a bit out of shape as some of the noodles may stick to your frying pan). If you want to have an impressive non stick noodles, you will have to use quite a lot of oil to achieve that effect.

• Unlike fried rice vermicelli and Kway Tiao, the water used for simmering the vegetables or side ingredients cannot be too much, otherwise, your noodles will be soggy and stick to the frying pan. If you have accidentally added too much water, you would rather let the water dry up first (meaning cook a bit longer) rather than having some soggy noodles.

• If you do not like moist egg coated noodles, you can use egg omelette strips.

• All side ingredients in this illustrations are optional and substitutable. Please use what you like to fry the noodles. I have raid my fridge to come out with this and is a vegetarian version. Otherwise, I would have added pork belly meat, prawns and even some dry shrimps. So, use whatever that your family likes to cook the noodle dish.

• Though all ingredients appeared to be optional, however, the selections will usually based on the colour of the side ingredients and a good combination of colour will make the dish looks appetizing. I usually used tomatoes or carrots for orange, chillies for red colour, choy shym or leafy vegetable for green, dried mushrooms or black fungus for black,  and corns or eggs for yellow colour. This minute detail of colour combination will make this simple dish becoming a presentable dish.

• Remember that this method of cooking is equally applicable to fried yellow noodles, rice vermicelli, Kway Tiao, Pad Thai and etc..

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

Vege Vege Vegetable Fritters–Indonesian’s Bakwan Sayuran

 

INTRODUCTION

Vegetable fritter is  rather international. Almost all international cuisines will have some form of vegetable fritters. It is a  very common food item in South East Asian countries. Be it called bakwan sayuran (Indonesia), vegetable tempura (Japan), parkosa (India) or just vegetable fritters. Packed with vegetables, it can be as healthy as you want it. You can oven baked, pan fried or deep fried. Depending on which cuisine’s vegetable fritters, the dips can also be significantly different.

WHY THIS DISH

I am having my yearly vegetarian 1-1.5 months and I am looking for some vegetarian dishes. In addition, I am preparing this dish in response to the monthly challenge organized by a Google plus food community.

This recipe is not my household recipe but an Indonesian vegetable fritter recipe obtained from Ms Karin’s blog on bakwan sayuran However, I have modified to suit my family’s taste buds.

I concurred with Ms Karin that vegetable fritter recipe has lots of flexibility especially the choice of vegetables. Ms Karin had written in Google communities that “We can make fritters out of everything. Sometimes with something as lame as cabbage and a bunch of leftover vegetables (just avoid wet ones like tomatoes)”.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

Recipes adopted from  Ms. Karin’s blog on bakwan sayuran.

• 150 g of jicama (shredded)

• 150 g of French beans (cut into small pieces)

• 100 g of bean sprouts

• 50 g of red carrots (shredded)

• 50 g of peanuts

• 2 tablespoons of coriander powder

• 2 tablespoons of white pepper

• 1 tablespoon of salts

• 2 tablespoons of sugar

• 125 g of rice flour

• 125 g of wheat flour

• 200 ml of plain water

• 5 cups of cooking oil for frying

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

• In a big bowl, assemble all ingredients together;

• Add in coriander powder, sugar, salt, white pepper. Stir until well mixed.

• Add in flour (rice flour and wheat flour) and water. Stir until all the ingredients are coated with the batter.

• In a big pan, heat the cooking oil. The oil is considered as ready when you insert a chopstick or other wooden object into the hot oil, bubbles started to emit.

• Put few tablespoons of batter at a time and deep fried until golden brown. You will have to keep a close eye during your frying process to ensure that your batter is not too big (otherwise it will be difficult to get cooked) and your oil temperature should not be overly hot (meaning exterior to start to get burnt and inside may not be cooked). In that case, you have to turn the heat to medium or small, it make take a bit longer but once you note that the colour start to turn golden, switched to high heat for high heat and immediately take it out. This will prevent the oil from going back to the batter!

• Drain the fritters in oil absorbing paper.

• Let it cool and serve with your preferred dips.

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VARIATIONS

There are many variations to this dish. You can add in any vegetables of your choice such as Entoki mushrooms, cauliflowers and the list is endless.

Method of cooking, beside deep frying, can also be pan fried or oven baked. Though oven baked and pan fried version will not be that crispy, it is healthier and equally delicious.

Spices used can also change to include cardamom, cumin seeds, turmeric powder if you preferred.

Dips and garnishes have lots of flexibility. For my kids, I have some mayonnaise and tomato sauces which become thousand island dressings. For adults we have like to home made chilli sauce. Original Indonesian fried fritters like to go with fresh chilli or cabit as they called it. You can also garnish with cucumber or tomato slices to negate the slight greasiness of the dish!

 

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CONCLUSIONS

• A simple and easy to do dish that is packed with vegetables and can be as healthy as you want it to be . It is a vegetarian dish suitable for all age groups.

• A full flexibility dish that can be tailored to meet your family taste buds including types of vegetables, spices used, method of cooking dips and garnishes.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers.

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I am submitting this post to the Monthly Challenge organized by Google Plus Singapore, Malaysia & Indonesia – Cuisine Communities in response of Ms. Karin’s Bakwan Sayuran (Vegetable Fritters)  post in her Karin’s Recipe blog. 

For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX here and you can follow me at PINTERESTor visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .

 

If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me  where there are more than 1000 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD. You can also join the Food Bloggers and Foodies United Group Facebook Group to see more recipes.

Salted Vegetable Duck Soup (咸菜鸭）– A Quick and Easy Way to Prepare This Traditional Soup Dish

INTRODUCTION

This is a soup dish that I have always craved for it。 It is rather extraordinary as not many Fujian Chinese soup dish are as sour as this dish。 However, it is a well liked dish that most Chinese households would have their own recipe for this soup and every household will claim that theirs is the best. Though it is commonly thought of a Hokkien/Teochew/Peranakan (dialects) cuisines. however, to be more precise, it  is a Fujian province soup and even in People’s Republic of China, they have recipe for this soup.

When I was young, the soup were only prepared when they were big festivals or religious prayers. The main reasons were that ducks were relatively expensive and will only be served at big festivals. In addition, during religious festivals, lots of food were cooked and it is unlikely to finish all the foods in one day, this soup which is sour was less prone of turning bad if keep for a day or two as most households do not have refrigerators in the 1960’s. Thirdly, duck is very difficult to cook, traditional way will need braising of duck until the meat are soft and tender and the flavour of the salted vegetable starts to penetrate into the duck meat. Therefore, it is cooked only occasionally.

Traditionally, the duck meat were braised for hours before it can be served. It is also a common belief that the soup be left overnight to become even tastier. However, with the introduction of new cooking equipment, the cooking time have cut short considerably. I have used one hour to cook this dish and get the same taste that my mum would have prepared for at least half a day. For this illustration, I have used pressure cooker that cut short the time considerably. However, previously, I have also use rice cooker (soup function) to cook the soup and slow cooker to boil overnight. However, the best equipment is still the usage of pressure cooker followed by rice cooker and finally slow cooker.

The most basic ingredients of this soup are ducks, salted vegetables, Chinese preserved sour plums and gingers. Ginger is a must because it will counter effect the cooling effect brought by the consumption of salted vegetables.  Chinese generally discouraged consumption of preserved vegetables as it will introduce “wind” to the body. All other ingredients are side ingredients which in my humble opinion are optional.

To make it even more sour, cooks are using tomatoes (which appeared to be an essential ingredient now), asam kulit (tamarind slices), vinegar, lemon and marinated lemon. Other more common ingredients are dried mushrooms, garlics and red carrots. There are also recipes in the internet that have  chilli, brandy as their ingredients!!!!!

For me, a good bowl of soup should be sweet (from the meat broth) and sour (not extremely sour) with a blend aroma of ginger and salted vegetables. Meat must be tender and soft.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED ….

• 500 g of salty preserved Chinese Mustard

• 1 kg of duck meat  (about half a whole duck  and de-skinned if preferred).

• 50 g of red carrots cut in small pieces

• 10 small dried mushrooms soaked in water

• 3 big whole garlics

• 100 g of gingers (peel off the skin)

• 100 g of tomatoes cut into big pieces

• 2 slices of ginger

• 3 sour plums that can easily get from Chinese provision shops.

• 6-8 cups of water (estimation)

Note:

Only the salted vegetables, duck, gingers and sour plum are the main ingredients. All other ingredients are side ingredients which are optional and a matter of personal preferences. Volume listed here are also for reference only as it is rather hard for you to get an exact 1 kg duck.. so full flexibility here.

It is advisable that you soak the preserved vegetable first before you cook the soup. I would rather soaked the salted vegetable for a longer time to reduce the saltiness and if the final soup is not salty enough, I will add salt to the dish. I usually soak the vegetable for at least half an hour.

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Layer your ingredients (except tomatoes)  between salted vegetables and meat and other ingredients . Why it is not a must but I have the habits of layering the ingredients to ensure the meat were well seasoned by the ingredients)

• Add 6-8 cups of water or about 1.5 times the height of your ingredients. Note: if you are using pressure cooker, you can use this amount of water. However, if you are using rice cooker or stove to boil the soup, you may need at least 10 cups of water until the meat get tender and soft. It is ok to start with this volume of water and if the volume of water is not enough, you can add water along the way.

• For pressure cooker, select “meat function” and it will took approximately 25-30 minutes. After cooking, let it rest in the pot for at least 15-30 minutes as it will continue to cook. BE CAREFUL WHEN HANDLING PRESSURE COOKER.  For rice cooker, select “soup function” and if after the first cooking, the meat is still or tender, you can select another round of soup function and stop when the meat have your required tenderness.  I usually cooked this before I went to bed and the next day, every thing is perfect.

• When done, add in the fresh tomato and close the lid and rest for another 10 minutes before serving.

• Preferably served hot with rice .

 

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CONCLUSION

• This is a rather short post on one of the traditional Chinese soup dishes – Salted Vegetable Duck Soup. The reasons for the exact combinations of these two main ingredients are unknown. Possibly duck needs time to braise and salted vegetable can withstand long hour of braising. Ginger is a must, in my humble opinion to get rid of the meat raw smell and also have to role of preventing gas formation when consuming preserved vegetables. Sour plum is the traditional ingredient to make this soup sour though the present method have resort to the use of tomatoes, lemons, tamarind slices and etc. All other ingredients are optional and quantity can varies according to your own preferences.

• Traditionally, the soup was cooked over charcoal stoves where you need at least 2 to 3 hours or longer to get the desire meat texture and soup flavour. However, with the pressure cooker as in this illustration, the cooking time have cut down considerably and it is easier to control the quality of the soup. Rice cooker soup function is another alternatives than can be considered.

• While the soup is tasty and nice, excess consumption is not  recommended as this soup is consider as cooling according to Traditional Chinese Medicine. In addition, those with stomach acidity will also need to watch out the volume of consumption.

Hope you like it. It is not as difficult as what it is thought. It is a bowl of soup that I could never resists and you should be proud to modify the recipe to suit your families taste buds. Happy trying. 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.

Special – What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 22-7-2013–Korma Chicken (科尔马鸡肉）

    

 

UPDATED POST ON 16-2-2015 – Update with another set of images since i cooked the dish today.

On 22 July, 2013, white rice served with:

1. Korma Vegetable and Chicken       (蔬菜及鸡肉科尔马）
2. Blanched Ladies Finger                 （青烫羊角豆）
3. Chinese Cabbage (Napa) Soup       ( 大白菜汤)

To day, I have decided to cook Korma Chicken and Vegetable to expose my kids to curry dishes. As per my daughter’s request, no additional dishes were needed since she said she liked the dish and they have the Chinese Cabbage (Napa) soup which I cooked for lunch.

I agreed with her and just blanched some ladies finger to go with the Korma dish. If you want detailed pictorial instructions on cooking the Chinese Cabbage (Napa) Soup, you can follow the link above to Guaishushu’s Facebook Page.

 

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KORMA CHICKEN AND VEGETABLES

 

INTRODUCTION

I first tasted Korma chicken during my university days in Kuala Lumpur. It was in a Malay store  and when I take the first bite, I immediately fell in love with it as it is not spicy hot and the chicken is full of coriander fragrances. It had always in my mind because unlike other chicken curry dishes, the curry is beige in colour (depending on the spice mix) as opposed to the reddish yellow colour.

Korma is actually a dish from South or Central Asia such as India and Pakistan. It is essentially cooked with a variety of spice powders of which the two most important spices are coriander  powder and cumin powder. It differ from the normal curry spice mix in that the ratio of turmeric powder is very small whereas for curry, the major portion of the spice mix is turmeric thus causes the dish to be yellowish in colour. In Malaysia, the Korma was cooked and thickened with coconut milk as compared to India and Pakistan where yoghurt were used. Nuts and peas  (such as cashew nuts and almonds) usually added to further thicken the gravy and enhance the taste.

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WHY THIS DISH

Recently, I found that my kids start to like curry dishes. However, before they eat the curry dishes, they will get ready a cup of cold water, take the curry chicken, dip into the cold water and start eating it. They still cannot take spicy hot food that were cooked with chilli. In view of this, I am thinking of letting them to try some Malay and Indian dishes that were not spicy hot. The first thing that comes to my mind is Korma chicken (ayam kurma in Malay). Therefore, last Saturday, when I frequented one  of the Indian Muslim spice stalls in Geylang Serai Singapore, I asked the same lady who gave me the Sarawak Laksa spice mix to pack me one Korma spice mix. You can read my previous “spice encounter” HERE.

Another reason that I cooked this dish is for purposes of contributing to a food community in Google Plus whereby members were encouraged to contribute halal dishes during the month of Ramadan.

I love to eat Korma chicken. However, today, I have used more vegetables than meat in my Korma.  As my kids don’t really like to eat meat, hence I have used about 5 vegetables to make the dish. Should it be called a vegetable or chicken Korma is entirely up to you since it have almost equal portion of meats and vegetables in the dish.

As this Korma dish uses small chicken chunks from drumsticks and vegetables, it is rather easy to cook, as such braising is consider not really necessary as compared to the traditional braising of lamb or big chicken pieces.

 

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KORMA DISHES DEFINED

As per Wikipedia,

Korma, kormaa, qorma, khorma, or kurma is a dish originating in South Asia or Central Asia which can be made with yogurt, cream, nut and seed pastes or coconut milk. It is a type of curry.

It is a characteristic Indian dish which can be traced back to the 16th century and to the Mughal incursions into present-day Northern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Classically, a korma is defined as a dish where meat or vegetables are braised with water, stock, and yogurt or creamy azid (the name is in fact derived from the Hindi and Urdu words for “braise”). The technique covers many different styles of korma (azid).

The flavour of a korma is based on a mixture of spices, including ground coriander and cumin, combined with yogurt kept below curdling temperature and incorporated slowly and carefully with the meat juices. Traditionally, this would have been carried out in a pot set over a very low fire, with charcoal on the lid to provide all-round heat. A korma can be mildly spiced or fiery and may use lamb, chicken, beef or game; some kormas combine meat and vegetables such as spinach and turnip. The term Shahi (English: Royal), used for some kormas indicates its status as a prestige dish, rather than an everyday meal, and its association with the court.

 

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WHAT IS REQUIRED?

• 1.5 cups of tomatoes cut into big pieces;

• 1.5 cups of onions cut into big pieces;

• 1.5 cups of potatoes cut into big pieces;

• 1.5 cups of carrots cut into big pieces;

• 1.5 cups of celery cut into big pieces;

• 750 grams of chicken tights cut into big pieces;

• 200 gram of Korma mix (readily available in most Indian provision shops or spices stalls). However, If you can’t get hold of the ready mix Korma spice, the two most spices are coriander powder and cumin powder in the ration of about 4:2. All other spices shall include cardamom, anise powder, fennel powders, turmeric all of which shall need a 1-2 teaspoon only).

• 1 cup of yoghurt (optional but I have used it as I like the korma to be rich in flavour but slightly sour).

• 2 cups of fresh coconut milk .

• 1/2 cups of cooking oil or ghee or butters.

 

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

• In a big mixing bowl, put the Korma spice powder and gradually add in water until it form a paste.

• Have about 2-3 big tablespoons Korma spice mix and marinate for at least 15-30 minutes. As the chicken is quite small, therefore 15-30 minutes is deemed sufficient.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• In a big pot, put some cooking oils and fried the Korma spice mix until the fragrance starts to permeates the space.

• Add 3 big cups of water, stir until the spices are well mixed.

• Bring to boil until high heat. Note that as this is quite concentrated, you have to constantly stir it until it boils. This is to avoid the spice getting burnt in the bottom of the pot. Once boiled, turn the heat to medium or slow heat.

• Add in the potatoes, celery, carrots and onions and boiled for about 10 minutes;

• Add in chicken chunks and boiled for about 20 minutes;

• Add in tomato and boiled for another 5 minutes;

• Add in yoghurt and coconut milk, seasonings (salt and sugar). Once boil, off the heat and let it sit in the pot for at least 5-10 minutes to let the ingredients further absorbed the gravy.

• Garnish with fresh coriander leaves or mint and served with hot rice. Drizzle more yoghurt or coconut milk on top of the dish if necessary.

 

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CONCLUSIONS

• Korma dish is a common dish among the Indian households in South and Central Asian. it is equally popular in Malaysia and Singapore especially among the Malay and Indian races. It is a form of curry dishes of which the main spices are coriander powder and cumin. It differs from curry in that the proportion of turmeric is very small and it can be cooked without chilli those making it rather “kids friendly”. The gravy were usually thickened with yoghurt or coconut milks and at times nuts such as cashew nuts and almonds were added.

• The dish that were illustrated today uses lots of vegetables including celery which is not a common vegetable included in the curry dishes. However, celery is definitely a good choice as it could withstand rather long hours of cooking though the strong celery flavour were masked by the strong Korma aroma. As I have use drumstick meat, it is rather easy to cook and the texture is soft as compared to the breast meat.

Hope you LIKE the post today and cheers.

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Simple Carrot Muffins for Your Love Ones…

INTRODUCTION

This is a simple carrot muffin with cream cheese frosting. It is simple and quick to do without the need to use any mechanical beaters or mixers and animal fats. Therefore it a rather healthy breakfast item or tea time item. The simple cream cheese frosting (optional) will help to smoothen the texture and enhance the taste of the muffins.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

The measurement below can make about 8-9 medium size muffins of about 120g each.

For carrot muffins

• 150 g of grated carrots
• 75 g of raisins
• 75 g of chopped walnuts or chopped almonds or any nuts (optional)
• 180 g of white caster sugar

• 125 g of cooking oil
• 3 eggs
• 320 g of self raising flours
• 2 teaspoons of mixed spice (optional)
• 2 teaspoons of grounded ginger (optional)
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder (optional)
• 1 teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate 
• 0.5 teaspoon of baking powder (optional)

For cream cheese frostings

• 125 g of cream cheese
• 50 g of icing sugar

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

Carrot Muffins

• Preheat oven to moderate 180 degree Celsius and get ready 9 medium sized muffin cups.

• In a mixing bowl, place carrots, raisins, almonds and sugar and lightly mixed it.

• In another mixing bowl, place the oil and egg together. Whisk the liquid mixture until mix.
  

• Place the dry mixtures (carrots, raisins, almonds and sugar) into the whisked liquid mixture and until well mixed.

• Add the sifted flour, sodium bicarbonate, baking powder, spices (cinnamon or spice mix (optional))  into the liquid mixture.

• Combined lightly with wooden spoon or metal spoon and well mixed.

• Scoop out the mixture into the muffin cups  about 3/4 full and baked for about 30 minutes or until skewer come out clean.

Cream Cheese Frostings

• Using electric beaters, beat the cream cheese and sugar until light and creamy.

• Spread on top of the muffins or pump on top of the muffins if desired.

• Dust with cinnamon or color sugar crystals (optional).

• Served with addition cream cheese frosting, when necessary.

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CONCLUSION:

• This pastry can be as healthy as you want it to be. Cooking oil are generally considered as healthier alternative as compared to animal fats such as butter.

• Suggested frosting of cream cheese (which is optional if you are health conscious) will make the muffins even smoother and blend well with the taste.

• It is easy and simple to make as there is no need to use any mechanical equipment.
  

• Cost of preparing these muffins are relatively lower than other cup cakes since only very basic ingredients will be used.

Hope you like this simple muffin and simple post. Have a nice day and happy reading.

 

 

Bachelor’s Tomyam Noodles–Quick And Nice…

INTRODUCTION

I am struggling whether I should post this simple noodle preparation. It is just that simple and up to your own creativities. I am thinking, will putting up this post insult my reader’s intelligence? Will it qualify as a professional blog post? Is this consider as an recipe? Well, after struggling for 10 minutes, I have decided to post this dish to gauge what is my reader’s reactions. Due to this impromptu decision, therefore, unlike other post, some pictures were not available.

This is a super fast dish that I cooked for myself today.  From cooking to eating to cleaning, it took me less than half an hour.  It is ideal for those who just want a simple, quick and nutritious meal.

 

WHY THIS DISH

I am alone by myself at home and I don’t feel like cooking for myself. Usually,  I would just eat the breakfast leftover items for lunch. But I have been eating breakfasts as lunches for the last 3 days and my body tells me that I need something that don’t taste like “breakfast”.

Cooking a dish for myself is never a problem, I just search my kitchen cabinet and my refrigerator and see what I have at home. As my kids were away on holiday and we will not be cooking these few days, therefore, my perishable stocks were very limited and this is what I found, a packet of Tom yam instant noodles.

As I have never fancy any instant noodles, this packet of instant noodles is not attractive to me at all especially if it is plain (meaning water plus instant noodles). But suddenly, it come across my mind and asked myself, why not cook myself some Tom Yam noodles. So I take out a pot and cooked my superfast Tom Yam noodles.

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WHAT YOU NEED

As far as I am concerned, there is nothing that you can’t put it. I usually cooked based on what I have especially the side vegetables. What I used this time:

• One pieces or dry egg noodles – this is exactly the same as your instant noodles except it is slightly firmer;

• Some cherry tomatoes – supposingly to be eaten as fruits but since I have some in the fridge, I just dump it in.

• Some chicken breast meat (optional) cut into small chunks – I had this in the fridge for quite a while and since I will not be cooking for the these 2 weeks, I have to “get rid” of it. But frankly speaking, it taste better with some meaty flavor;

• Few pieces of chili (optional) – These chili were specially flown from China given by one of my guest who stay in Guangxi China. It is supposingly very spicy but for me, it is slightly more spicy than the red chili but not as spicy as chili padi.

• Tom Yam paste – It is good to keep some ready made tom yam paste at home for making quick soups, fried noodles and etc. My wife have bought this vegetarian tom yam paste which I don’t think there is much differences. The only difference in ingredients that I can think off is the shallots and garlics since Buddhist vegetarian were not allowed to consume any shallots and garlics.

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STEPS OF PERPARTION

I have no picture to show as this post was rather impromptu and only decided half way when I was cooking. In fact, it is such a simple dish that there are only 2-3 steps and further elaboration will “insult” my reader’s intelligence. If you really can’t understand what I am trying to say, just imagine you are cooking some instant noodles in a pot.

• Take out a pot and pour in some plain water. Put a few table spoon of tom yam paste (depending on taste) and bring to boil. Throw in other ingredients in these orders – meat, chili, tomato, egg noodles. 

• As I am using chicken breast and cut into small chunks, it is rather quick to cook. The smaller your meat is, the easier it is to cook! You can use some sweet potato flour or corn flour to slightly cover your meat before you put them in the pot. The role of these flours is to keep the juice inside the meat and also make its texture smoother. For me, as I want it to be quick, I have not perform this step, I just put my meat in without adding any corn flour.

• Boil for 1-2 minutes until your noodles have soften.

• I prefer to rest it for a while until the noodles absorbed all the soup and this will make it tastier and softer.

• Variations – There are many variations that you can have. You may want to add some eggs. or sausages. some cabbage, red carrots, celery, etc. and the lists are endless. These are all up to your imaginations and creativities.

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FINAL OUTPUT

In the picture, does it look appetizing to you?

To make it look better you can consider using mushrooms for black color, red chili for red color, baby corns for yellow color and carrot for orange color.

Compare to the 1st picture and the last picture, you can see that noodles is softer as it had absorbed the gravy.

Taste wise, if you want it more sour, you can squeeze some lime juice. For me that is just nice. It is essentially tom yam cooked with chicken stock and if you like tom yam, this is a suitable meal for you!

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CONCLUSIONS

• Not all foods need to be elaborately prepared before it is considered as tasty. Simple meal like this is ideal for those who are kitchen phobia or short of time to prepare a nutritious meal;

• It is nutritious because the ingredients that were used are simple (like my post on Nasi Aruk here) but packed with proteins and vitamins. Tom yam paste itself is full of herbs and spices that is beneficial to the body.

• It is healthier because no oil and further seasonings were used. IT IS DEFINITELY HEALTHIER THAN INSTANT NOODLE AS NO MSG WAS USED。When you ate plain instant noodles, most people will craved for stronger flavor as the taste is very monotonous and you need seasonings to make your palate “happy”. With slight additions of meat and vegetables, your attention will gear towards your meats and vegetables. The soups will have some meaty flavor and you don’t feel the need to add any more seasonings. Is it not healthier?

• It is fast to prepare, full flexibility and you can substitute any ingredients with what you have at home.

Because it is so flexible, it essentially means there is no recipe. So, do you like this type of simple dish or you think reading my post is wasting your precious time?

I treasure your feedback and let me know how you feel about it.

Happy reading and cheers.

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I have recently open a Facebook community page ‘AUTHENTIC SARAWAK FOOD AND HISTORY” and I hoped you can support the page by visiting the page. If you find the page benefits you in some way, please give it a “LIKE”.

The page is intended to become a center of collection of unique Sarawak Cuisines. For those who don’t know where is Sarawak, Sarawak is one of states belong to Malaysia and in the Island of Borneo. It is famous of its eco-tourism and multi racial society. Its unique cuisine are cuisines like Sarawak Laksa, Kolo mee and scarce vegetables such as jungle fern shoot, hairy eggplant etc. PLEASE COME  AND UNDERSTAND MORE ABOUT SARAWAK CUISINES HERE.

 

        

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Thousand apologies.  I have to put this picture here due to technical error. Otherwise it will mess up my Tumblr. accounts posting and my Facebook posting.

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

On 6 June 2013,

White rice served with :

1.	Minced meat fried with mushrooms and candied winter melon	香菇冬瓜条炒碎肉
2.	Blanched Kailan with pork floss	芥兰拌肉松
3.	Blanched mixed vegetables and prawns	杂菜虾球
4.	ABC Soup	ABC 鸡汤

The minced meat fried with mushrooms and candied winter melons is actually the leftover fillings from wrapping my rice dumplings. I have add a bit of water and treated as a dish. It is actually very tasty and kids love it (of course, rice dumpling without glutinous rice).

Another is a common Malaysian household soup called ABC soup. It is a soup that usually include red carrots, onions, potatoes and tomatoes. Sometime, baby corns were added. When I search the soup in the Internet, there are no confirm literature on the origins and meanings of ABC soup. There are belief that it represent Vitamin A (for carrots), Vitamin B6 (for potatoes), Vitamin C (for tomatoes) that is how the name arises.

I personally have another way of interpretation. As ABC soup is a common Malaysian Chinese Soup and also called luo Song Tang (Borscht of
Eastern European Countries), the soup is clearly  influenced by European Countries cookings. As carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, baby corns are traditionally not common cooking ingredients in Chinese cuisines, ABC can mean to refer Ang mo (Caucasian) ways of cooking. In addition, the cooking method of putting all vegetables in a soup is another clear indication that it is Ang mo cooking. Therefore, in my humble opinion, ABC soup  should refers to soups commonly cooked by the Caucasian during the Colonial Times . Instead of using the term Ang Mo, ABC alphabet were used.