How About An Eggless, Butter Less, Milk Less Chocolate Almond Cup Cakes?

UPDATED POST ON 5-11-2014

I will include in this post another recipe that I have developed this morning, it is gluten free, dairy free, egg less and fatless. It is a rather healthy moist and aromatic snack.  I hope this post will benefit those who are on a certain diet.

It is the same recipe for both cookies and cupcakes. For cookies just make it in smaller size and bake slightly longer.. It can be crispy or chewy. It will not be as crispy as those using flour.

Taste wise is satisfactory. You can imagine taking some almond meal, add some cocoa powder, water and sugar.. It is definitely acceptable to most. Please scroll down for the second recipe.

 

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INTRODUCTION

Seriously, when I looked at the recipe, I was curious how it would turn out to be. When I prepared the batter and baking, I am even more doubtful about its outcome.. I did not have any picture to compare and I did not know whether what I have prepared and baked was correct or not. Not until I took the first bite this morning that I am confident to issue this post…

This is an eggless, butter less and milk less cup cake that I have adapted from a 2003 recipe. I have printed out this recipe as early as year 2005 when I just started to have interest in doing some baking. Then, I have been cracking my head to look for recipes that were suitable for niche markets like health conscious people or people that are less fortunate like diabetes . While flipping my recipe file yesterday, I saw this piece of printed paper and I thought I might wanted to give it a try.

While I am writing this post, I try searching this recipe in All Recipes Cake Recipes website, I am rather happy that the recipe is still there but with no picture, that proves that it is a very old recipe. The recipe was submitted by Ms. Kathy Thurston and some body named Ms. Bernadette Beaupre had gave some explanation of this cake:

“This cake comes in handy when all you have left in the cupboard is the tin soups just before shopping day. It really was a treat served warm when we came in from the cold. And it was c-o-l-l-l-d-d-d, North of 53′. Sprinkle brown sugar or dust confectioner’s sugar over the top.” — Bernadette Beaupre (Source: All Recipes Cake Recipes website,)

Since it is an eggless, butter less and milk less, what should be the structure liked. If you looked at the recipe in detail in later part of the post, you will note that there are some shortening and water. Butter less can be substituted with cooking oil or vegetable shortening (as in this recipe) and milk less can be substituted with any liquids (be it eggs or water). Therefore, the crucial element that determine the outcome of the cup cake will be eggs.

Eggs have the role of supporting the structure of the cup cake or in general any baked products. They are binder which help to hold the ingredients together. In addition, it contributed to the liquid component in a cake recipe. Therefore, it is expected that without eggs, the cake will be dense and the rising of the cake will depend entirely with the leavening agents such as baking powder and baking soda. 

I am worry about whether the dense cake will be dry and difficult to swallow. The conclusion is not, as the recipe have minimal vegetable shortenings and some liquids which is adequate to make the cake moist.

In this recipe, I have increased the amount of water, addition of cocoa powder and some almonds chunks. The final baked products were well beyond my expectations and I concurred it was some form of good snacks. As I was experimenting with this recipe, I have reduced the volumes and managed to make 4 small cup cakes. As with any other cakes, serving with additional sauces and whipped cream will heighten the palate to another level.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

Recipes adapted from: Eggless, Butter less and Milk less Recipe by Kathy Thurston (make 8 cup cakes)

• 2 cups plain four

• 1 cup white sugar

• 1 cup almond chunks

• 2 cups water

• 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening

• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius and get ready some cup cake moulds.

• In a sauce pan under medium heat, bring  the vegetable shortenings, water and sugar to boil and continue boiling for about 2 minutes.

• Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda together into the liquid.

• Use a spatula to stir the batter until it is well mixed.

• Stir in the almond chunks and ensure it is well mixed.

• Scoop into the paper cups for cup cakes and baked in the oven for about 20 minutes or when the skewer inserted come out clean.

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CONCLUSION

This is a rather unusual cake. So who should prepare this? In fact this cake is very suitable for people who are vegetarian in accordance with Buddhist principles.

In my circle of friends, I have a few friends who are vegetarians. However, though all are  vegetarians, there are certain ingredients that fell into “grey area” and subject to arguments.

One of the ingredients is eggs. Some of my vegetarian friends do not eat eggs as they believed there may be an embryo attached to the eggs. However, other Buddhist vegetarians believed that current eggs are commercially “produced”, therefore , it is impossible to have any embryos in the eggs.  Even if you hatch the eggs, no chicks will be born,

Another two special ingredients are two diary products, milks and butters. Some vegetarian will not touch any food “produced” by an animals, therefore milks and butters were excluded in their diets. Whereas some choose to believe that as there is no need to kill a cow to get milks and butters, therefore, these can be included in the vegetarian diets.

These belies have an impact in pastry terms. Every year, when I baked my pineapple tarts for my relatives and friends, I will have to bake two types, the normal with milk, eggs and butter and another version, which is rather hard to prepare that is eggless, milk less and butter less! Of course the onus will lie on me to find relevant substitute for the ingredients.

Hope you like this rather strange post today. But, I have to admit that looking at the picture, you may not be convinced until you take a bite of it. Have a nice day and cheers.

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RECIPE 2 – GLUTEN FREE, DAIRY FREE, EGG LESS AND FATLESS CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE AND COOKIES

 

WHAT IS REQUIRED

• 1 cup of almond meal or almond flour
• 3/4 cup of water
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Pre-heat the oven to 160 degree Celsius
• Mix all the ingredients above until well combined
• Transfer to cup cakes cup .
• Baked in the pre-heated oven at 160 degree Celsius for about 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean

• For cookies, add about 1/8 teaspoon of baking powder to the batter, bake at 160 degree Celsius for about 20 minutes. Let it sit in the tray for 5 minutes before transfer to the rack for cooling. If you want it to be crispier, can extend baking time by another 5-10 minutes.

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• For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 15 October 2014)  here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit the blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE to keep abreast of my future posts.  

• You can also join the FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED FACEBOOK GROUP  to see more recipes. Currently there are about 11,500 members sharing various food photos . I am posting my daily home cooked food in the above Facebook Group daily. I would be more than happy if you can  post in the Group for the recipes that you tried from my blog.

• 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 2600 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.

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Nostalgic Soup Than Can’t Erase From My Mind–Chinese Style Potatoes Soup

Updated Post on 9-10-2014

I have prepared the soup again today and have some new picture taking. However, today when I prepared the soup, as I am running out of time, I have decided to by pass the sautéing of the starch and onion. I put everything in the wok, boil until the meat is soft and add the starches. Of course, it was not as fragrant as what my father have prepared but it saves some times.. Kids start to like this starchy soup. Personally, I prefer the yam or taro version but shelve the idea as kids still dislike the taro.

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INTRODUCTION

I seldom have soup recipe in this blog except salted vegetable duck soup, a well known traditional Chinese soup for Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese.  Of course I have many other soup preparation illustrations such as bitter gourd and pineapple pork rib soup, double mushroom chicken soup, sweet corn pork rib soup and many more at Guaishushu’s Facebook Page under the index start with “S”.

Today, I will share this special soup which is a comfort food with nostalgic and sentimental feelings for me.  I am still in doubt its origins and totally unsure if other families are cooking this soup, not at least my circles of friends. It is hope that via this post, some readers will be able to tell me the origin of this soup!

This is a “strange” soup cooked by my late father. Not even my late mother cook this soup as she said it is a bit laborious to cook this soup.

In fact, the ingredients and cooking method have influences of both oriental and western method of cooking. Talking about this soup, I am sure my brothers and sister in laws can recall about the soup. It can either be cooked with taro or  potatoes. What we usually cooked is with yam or taro and I knew my sister in laws still cook the taro version of this soup as at today.

The potato version of soup what is always in my mind. When I told my mother in law that I wanted to cook this soup, she looked at me unbelievably and she thought that I am cooking ABC soup, a soup that were cooked using carrot, potatoes and onions. I told her no, it is a pure potatoes soup!

 

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

• 250 g of potatoes cut into big chunks

• 250 g of onion cut into a quarter

• 250 g of pork ribs

• 6 cups of water

Thickening starch

• 50 g of sweet potatoes flour

• 400 g of water

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

• In a big soup pot that can accommodate at least 10 cups of water, put some water adequate to cover the pork ribs.

• Blanch the pork ribs until the outer layers is slight cooked. Throw away the water.

• Wash the pork ribs under running water to get rid of any blood clots and add in the cut potatoes. Add in 6 cups of water and bring to boil under high heat. Once boiled, turn to medium heat and continue boiling until the potatoes and meats are soft. This will take 15-20 minutes. You can just let it boil until your next step is ready. Change to low heat if necessary.

• In another sauce pan, add in 1 tablespoon of oil, add in the cut onions and fried until the fragrance of onion start to spread.

• Put in the sweet potatoes starch and cook under low heat, Stir fry until the flour turned into a lump and become colourless. Note that the main reason of cooking this way is to give the flour some flavour of onions. If you add directly to the soup, you will find the flour in the soup is flavourless. Well that is how my late father cooked and I do agree to it.

• Transfer your cooked starch to the soup and continue boiling until the meat and potatoes of your desired textures.

• Add seasonings of your choice (flavour enhancer such as mushroom concentrate, pepper, salt, light soya sauce etc.).

• Bring to boil and once boiled, off the heat and garnish with herbs of your choice. Preferably served hot with rice.

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WHY THIS SOUP IS UNIQUE?

The soup has the oriental elements because it is cooked with normal cooking oils used by Chinese home cooking (instead of butter or olive oils) and pork ribs and flavour using the Chinese condiments. In addition, the thickening is using Chinese cooking ingredients sweet potatoes starch. It is definitely more watery and less creamy than Western soup! The final soup still maintain the shape of the potatoes, pork ribs and even onions. It complements the dryness of the white rice.

On the other hand, it is unusual for Chinese to use potatoes to cook soup. Besides ABC soup, most Chinese households do not use potatoes to cook soup. Besides this unusual ingredient, Chinese soups usually do not use thickening agents in soup with the exception of some special soups such as shark fin soups and sweet and sour soups. The soups, in traditional sense should be watery and clear (or whitish colour due to the meat essence in the both). Thickening agents are used in many Chinese dishes including braised dishes, noodle dishes , vegetables dishes, egg dishes, bean curd dishes but not in soup dishes.

For purposes of further illustrating this soup may have Western influences, I have took out portion of the soup and added plain flour (wheat flour as you used for making cakes) and some creams.

This is what the end product looked like and in fact, my kids do not mind this soup after adding of cream and wheat flour. My boy says that the soup is very creamy like cream of mushroom soup that he used to have in Western restaurant.

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CONCLUSION

Having a post on this particular soup brings me  lots of fond memories and sentimental feelings, making me wanted to know more about my late father. We did not really communicate much due to very traditional Chinese family upbringings whereby we were not encouraged to ask about what the adults are doing. Communication was always unidirectional. However, if he was still available, I would know how to tackle the issue and “fished” out his thoughts!

It is a soup that none of friends knew. It is neither Western or Oriental style of soup. It is a mixture of both. Where my late father learned the cooking of this soup was really a mystery (in my humble opinion). He hailed from China and could not read or spoke ABC not to mention exposure to Western cuisines. The only remote reason that I could think of was due the influence of British colonization of Sarawak until late 1940’s  and at that time, he was a teen.

Hopefully by having this post, some of my readers from any  parts of the world can share with me, if you have ever tasted exactly soup cooked in this manner and what do you think is the origin of the soup. It is also hope that my readers will try out this soup and let me know if it suits your taste buds. Thanks and have a nice day.

 

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• For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 8 June 2014)  here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit the blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE to keep abreast of my future posts.  

• You can also join the FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED FACEBOOK GROUP  to see more recipes. Currently there are about 11,500 members sharing various food photos . I am posting my daily home cooked food in the above Facebook Group daily. I would be more than happy if you can  post in the Group for the recipes that you tried from my blog.

• 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 2600 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.

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）- 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）- 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）- 9-7-2013

  

On 9-July 2013, white rice served with:

1	Steamed tofu with egg	豆腐蒸蛋
2	Blanched Broccoli with Prawns	芥兰花虾球
3	Bok Choi with meat ball soup	贸白菜肉丸汤
4	Popcorn chicken	炸鸡球

As I am rather busy today, it take me about 45 minutes to prepare all these dishes. The dishes are rather simple and the soup is a quick soup. Quick soup means soup that you don’t boil the water and put in the vegetables or ingredients when the water boiled. This is different from those soups that you need to boil for 1-2 hours to get meat broth. I usually made this simple soup when I runs of time.

The pop corn chicken is purchased from Kentucky Fried Chicken. My kids seldom have fast food and if I want to add a dish or two, I will consider have this as one of the meat dish.

Steamed tofu with egg is simple and welcomed by my kids. They like the soft texture of tofu and eggs. There are so many variations and today, I have decided to dust with seaweed meat floss.

For blanched broccoli with prawns, please refer to the links above or you can refer to GUAISHUSHU’s Page in Facebook

Hope you LIKE it and have a nice day.

 

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What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 3-7-2013

 

I thought I might change my format a bit with regard to this series. I am still trying to brush up my food porn skills!

On 3 July 2013, white rice served with:

1	Braised Chicken with Soya Sauce	酱油鸡
2	Blanched Ladies finger with Sambal Belachan	虾酱羊角豆
3	Steamed baby white promfret with Chinese Fermented Black Beans	小白鲳鱼蒸甜豆豉
4	Tomato Egg Soup	番茄蛋汤

One of my readers is asking me about my braised chicken wing on 30-6-2013, and  I promised her that I will demonstrate to her and I will publish in my this blog’s Facebook Page ‘Guaishushu Page”. This dish is relatively easy and I have used one chicken instead of chicken wings. Of course, we can’t finish the whole chicken, so expect that I will “recycle” this leftover food tomorrow.

As for the blanched ladies finger with sambal belachan (a type of shrimp paste sauce) and mayonnaise sauce, you can read my rationale of my dish here.

Today’s soup is a type of quick soup, meaning, soup that I cook 10-20 minutes before the meals as opposed to soups that I have boiled for an hour. It is a very simple soup using tomato and eggs and common in People’s Repubic of China of household cooking. However, I seldom cook it unless when I run of time. You can add tofu or glass noodles to boost the soup volume if you want to.

Happy reading and cheers. I am tired and exhausted!  haha

 

 

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.

What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 30-5-2013

On 30-May 2013,

White rice served with:

 

1.	Sarawak Laksa Chicken	砂朥越辣沙酱鸡
2.	Pak Choi with Oyster Sauce	耗油上海青
3.	Three mushrooms chicken soup	三菇鸡汤
4.	Seaweed chickens	海带鸡片

Today, I have tried to use the home cooked Sarawak laksa paste to cook the chicken. Overall, the result is satisfactory. It is very much similar to the curry chicken except there were no turmeric in the dish. I have used a lot of coconut milk to cook this dish.

Because the kids don’t really eat the laksa chicken, therefore, I have prepare some seaweed chicken (in a way is a form of “compensation” for them.

The soup is called three mushroom soups because I have used 3 types of mushrooms namely enoki mushroom, shimeji mushrooms and oyster mushroom. As all these mushrooms are very easy to cook, I have used chicken instead of pork rib for the soup based. As usual, the kids are fighting for the mushrooms. Beside egg fanatics, they are mushroom fanatics also, all type of mushrooms…

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Yesterday is quite a sad day for me because I have spend lots of time to summarize my dishes and it ended up that what I see is not what I get making the whole post quite “unreadable”. Obviously, I have to constantly remind myself that a lot of excel formats cannot work in HTML. I am still studying it how to best present myself in the internet. However, you can still download  an excel file in the here.

As promised in the post yesterday, I have posted all my dishes cooked in Pinterest http://pinterest.com/kengls under the following boards:

• Things I cooked today – overall summary;
• Meat, meat, meaty – all meat dishes
• vege, vege, vegetable – all vegetable dishes
• fish, fish, fishy – all seafood dishes
• soup, soup, soupy – all the soup I cooked
• noodles, rice and others – basically hawker foods that I have cooked for a meal like chicken rice etc.

I hope all of you are able to benefit from these summary. Thanks and have a nice day.

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