Minced Chicken Patty

鸡肉饼 

For a healthier meat patty, you can try making this using minced/ground chicken meat. 

Ingredients (makes 4 patties, 1.5cm thick each)

500g minced chicken

1 egg

20g to 100g semolina or panko bread crumbs

70g grated parmasen cheese 

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

Method:

1. Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix well with hand. If mixture is too sticky, put in fridge for 30minutes before shaping, or oil your hands lightly.

2. Shape the meat mixture into 4 patties and set aside for half hour.

3. Pan fry the patties until each side is golden brown. Serve with greens or in a burger. Yum!

Pesto Paste

香草酱

Ingredients (makes 130g, enough for 2 servings [70g] of pesto pasta)

45g toasted pine nuts

30g sweet basil (leaves only, no stems)

6g parsley (leaves only, no stems)

30g grated parmesan cheese

60g extra virgin oil (cold, refrigerate for 20mins)

1.5g salt

9g lemon juice

Method

Blend all together in blender for 20 seconds or until well blended together. Done! It's that easy.

To serve, cook your favourite pasta, cut some cherry tomatoes and throw in a few pieces of mozarella cheese balls and mix in generous amounts of pesto. Like this:

Recipe adapted from : Brain legerstrom youtube video, pasta salad 3 ways

Fried Calamari

 

If you didn't already know, calamari is the Italian word for squid. This recipe will produce the cripiest calamari you've ever had. The calamari will stay crispy for at least one hour!

Ingredients:

500g Squids

Marinade:

Dashes of onion powder and garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Batter:

6 tablespoon self raising flour (or 6 tablespoons plain flour with 1 teaspoon baking powder)

3 tablespoon cooking oil

6 to 8 tablespoon water

Tapioca flour

Plain flour

Method:

1. Prepare batter: Mix flour with cooking oil. Then add water slowly until you get a smooth and thick batter. Set aside for half hour. 

2. Wash and clean the squids. Slice the squids into 1cm thick rings. Lightly rinse with salted water and drain.

3. Heat wok with enough soil for deep frying. Use a chopstick to test the oil temperature. When there are bubbles around the chopstick, it is ready.

4. Mix the batter into the squid thoroughly. 

5. Take a small batch of squid and add in tapioca flour (90%) and plain flour (10%). Quickly dredge the squid rings through the flour and coat thoroughly. Shake off excess flour and deep fry the squids immediately over high heat. Do not turn the squids or break up the clump of squids until the squids have turned light brown in colour. Once the squids turn crispy and golden, transfer to wire rack or kitchen towel to drain excess oil. After each batch of frying, scoop up the crumbs of flour from the oil using a fine mesh sieve.

6. Garnish with chopped parsley (optional) and serve! Enjoy.

Yee Fu Noodle

伊府面

Love this dish during Chinese Wedding Dinner. It is actally very easy to cook either as a vegetarian (no meat) dish or one with your favourite meat/seafood.

Ingredients :

200g Ee-Fu Noodles

3 cloves garlic minced 

150g lean pork (sliced)* 

300g squids (sliced)*

1 carrot sliced thinly

Seasonal vegetables (chye sim, chives, cabbage)

pork lard (optional)

* can replace with roast duck (shredded) or seafood (prawns//lobster)

Sauce :

300ml chicken stock

1 tablespoon shaoxing wine 

2 teaspoon dark soya sauce 

2 teaspoon light soya sauce 

1 teaspoon sesame oil 

1 teaspoon salt 

1 teaspoon white pepper 

Method :

1. Boil the noodles in boiling water for 2 minutes. Remove and rinse under cold water. Drain and set aside.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a wok under high heat. Add in minced garlic and saute until aromatic. Add in pork slices. Stir fry until pork is slightly brown and add in vegetables, carrot and squids. Stir fry for one minute. Add the chicken and sauce and bring it to a boil. 

3. Add the noodles and keep stir frying under medium heat until the noodles absorb all the liquid. Mix in the fried garlic.

4. Dish out and serve with pork lard. Enjoy!

Pizza Crust (Basic)

比萨

If you are like me, you will not be buying pizzas anymore once you learnt to make your own pizzas. Here is the recipe to make pizza base so that you can have delicious pizzas with your favouite toppings any time of the day/week. 

Ingredients (males two 8" round pan pizza)

200g bread flour

1 teaspoon instant yeast

2 teaspoon sugar

2/3 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

140ml warm water

Method

1. Put bread flour into mixing bowl, instant yeast and sugar on one side of the bowl, salt and olive oil on the opposite side. Pour in warm water into the yeast. Reserve 10 to 20ml of water, do not pour all in at once. 

2. Use dough scrapper/cutter to mix, turning the mixing bowl at the same time.

3. Once the dough comes together, use hand to knead until you get a pliable dough. The dough will be sticky at first but will become smooth as you knead. Your hands should be clean once you are done kneading.

4. Shape into a ball and lightly grease the mixing bowl with olive oil. Place the dough ball (seam side down) into the mixing bowl, cover with a plastic sheet and place the mixing bowl in a warm area for fermentation, around 30mins. Fermentation is completed when the dough has doubled in size. This website has a clear writeup on how to check whether the dough has risen enough for shaping.

5. Punch down the dough and divide into two (to make two pizzas of 8" diameter, the size of a personal pan pizza). Roll each dough into a small ball. Place one dough ball on a baking pan (lightly greased with olive oil) and press the dough with both hands into an 8" round. Repeat for the other dough ball.

6. Brush pizza with olive oil (to prevent dough from becoming soggy). Add tomato sauce and bake the pizza base @ 250C for 5 mins, or until the edges (as well as the bottom of the pizza base) are light golden. Transfer the baked pizza base to a cooling rack to cool. Once cooled, wrap the pizza base with cling wrap and store in freezer. Try: Oven top grill with fan mode at 200C for 15mins.

7. When ready to serve, take the pizza base from the freezer. Add more tomato sauce, your favourite toppings and bake the pizza @250C for 10 mins.

 

Try: thin crust pizza

600g bread flour

1 tsp yeast

30g sugar

100g oil

300g water

1 tsp salt

Mix flour, yeast and sugar

Add veg oil and water, knead until half smooth, add salt, knead again until smooth

Divide into 3, roll over pan (25 x 38), pierce the dough with a fork,

apply olive oil, sauce and toppings

leave for 15mins

bake in 220C oven 15mins until done

Bubur Pulut Hitam

This is a common dessert in South East Asia, cooked using black sticky rice (a long grain glutinous rice). It can be served warm or chilled, usually with coconut milk.

Ingredients

150g black glutinous rice

1.3litre water

Pandan leaves (optional)
55g rock sugar

Method

1. Lightly rinse the black glutinous rice (so as not to wash away the starch). Drain and transfer into a pot. 

2. Add 800ml water to pot and soak the black glutinous rice for a few hours.

3. Bring the pot to a boil, and turn off the heat on the stove (to save on gas). Set aside 1 hour and let the heat soften and fluff the rice up. Repeat this step for 2 more times. Stir the rice before and after each boil to prevent the rice from getting burnt. The rice should fluff up like in the picture below. 

                                                                        Before cooking

                                                                        After cooking

4. Add the remaining water (500ml), stir and bring to boil. Then add in rock sugar to your preferred sweetness and stir to dissolve the sugar. Turn off heat and set aside to cool down.

5. Chill in fridge before serving or eat it warm with coconut milk. We like to eat ours with whipped cream (shown in picture below).

Mushroom Soup

蘑菇浓汤

Ingredients:

300g button mushrooms (brown and white)

1/2 large onion (diced)

1 clove garlic (diced)

300ml vegetable stock (onion, celery, carrot, mushroom stems, dried porcini mushrooms, bay leaves) 

200ml milk

100ml heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon salt

Dashes of freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Method:

1. Prepare vegetable stock.

2. Cut mushrooms into small pieces. 

3. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the wok and saute onions and garlic over medium heat until fragrant and edges are browned. 

4. Add mushrooms and a pinch of salt and stir fry until soft, around 5 minutes.

5. Add vegetable stock, salt and pepper, and bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover the wok and simmer for 10minutes. Let it cool down a bit.

6. Use hand/stick blender to blend the mushrooms to a smooth paste.

7. Add milk and continue to blend for 1-2minutes.

8. Transfer the blended mushrooms soup to a small pot. Add butter and stir over low heat until the butter has melted. Turn off the heat, stir in heavy cream and season with salt and black pepper.

9. Ladle the mushroom soup into bowls, garnish with chopped parsley and serve. Crispy bacon bits and croutons can be added as toppings too.

Mango Sago Dessert

 揚枝甘露

My sister in law gifted us many Alphonso mangoes from her recent trip to India. Turned them into our favourite mango sago dessert sans pomelo (not in season now). My recipe is very simple. Just mangoes, sago and whipping cream for topping. You can omit whipping cream and the dessert will still be very tasty. No need to add sugar as the Alphonso mangoes were already very sweet.

Ingredients

2 ripen mangoes (as ripe as possible, so that they are naturally sweet) around 600g. After peeling the skin and removing the seed, 230g to 330g mango flesh.

150g fresh milk

25g sago pearls

500g water (to cook sago)

Whipping cream (for topping, optional)

Method

1. Prepare cooked sago. Boil a small pot of water, and add sago pearls. Bring to boil again and turn down heat to simmer for 10minutes. Then cover the pot and let the residual heat cook the sago pearls until they are transparent (around 20minutes). Drain the sago pearls thereafter, rinse them in a bowl of iced water (to make them QQ i.e. "chewy") and drain again. Set aside.

2.Prepare mango smoothie. Cut the mangoes into small pieces, put them into a blender and add milk. Blend until you get mango smoothie, then pour the smoothie into a small pot.

3.. Add the cooked sago into the mango smoothie, mix thoroughly. There you have it! Mango sago dessert. Chill in fridge for at least one hour. To serve, add some whipping cream. 

Braised Pork On Rice Lu Rou Fan (Braised Pork Rice Bowl)

滷肉饭

Ingredients (serves 4)

600g pork belly (with skin)

1 tablespoon sake (optional)

55g small onions (sliced thinly to make fried shallots)

3 small onions (diced)

2 garlic cloves (diced)

2 eggs (or a few quail eggs) - optional

1 tablespoon brown sugar (or rock sugar)

400ml water

Seasoning

2 tablespoon dark soy sauce

2  tablespoon light soy sauce

1 teaspoon five spice powder

Dashes of white pepper

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

Optional (to thicken the sauce during simmering)

A few pieces of pork skin

A few slices of ginger

A few sprigs of spring onion

1 tablespoon sake

1. Blanch pork belly in a wok/pot of boiling water. Once cooled sufficiently, cut into strips of 1cm.

2. Clean the pork skin and pluck off hair. Boil the pork skin with the spring onions, ginger slices and sake. Then simmer for 15minutes. Remove from liquid and let it cool down. Once cooled, use blender to grind the pork skin into smaller pieces.

3. Hard boil the eggs (or quail eggs, if using). Once cooled, de-shell and cut eggs into half. 

4. Put sufficient oil in wok and fry shallots under low heat until golden and crispy. Remove remaining oil from the wok. Set aside the crispy shallots.

5. Heat up wok to high/smoking. Add the pork and stir fry until the liquid from the pork has evaporated. Add sake over the pork and continue to stir fry until the alcohol has evaporated and pork edges are golden brown. Turn the heat down to medium.

6. Add diced onions and stir fry until translucent and fragrant. Add the diced garlic cloves and stir fry until fragrant.

7. Add sugar to the pork and stir fry for 1 minute.

8. Add dark and light soy sauce to the pork from the side of the wok, then stir fry to mix. 

9. Add water to the pork, followed by five spice powder, white pepper, cinnamon stick, star anise and fried shallot crisps. Stir to mix thoroughly. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 45minutes or until pork is tender. Skim off the oil/pork fat that is released during simmering. Stir ocassionally to precent sticking. Add the pork skin (from step 2) and stir to mix in thoroughly. Simmer for another 15minutes and stir ocassionally to prevent sticking.

10. Wash the leafy greens and blanches them. 

11. Serve the pork with rice, vegetables and eggs.

Ikameshi (Squid Stuffed with Glutinous Rice)

 乌贼饭

Ikameshi is a dish we tried in one of our trips to Japan. So, when we caught a lot of squids from our offshore fishing trip recently, I tried to cook ikameshi. This is my adaptation of stuffed squid (sotong) recipes from Cookism, Cooking with Dog and Cooking With Mama Betsy

Ingredients

6 medium squids (sotong) around 600g

100g Japanese glutinous rice, Mochigome (substitute: Japanese short grain rice)

500ml water

2 tablespoon Japanese soy sauce

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon sake (substitute: shao xing wine)

satay sticks (cut into two) or toothpicks

Method

1. Rinse the glutinous rice until the water runs clear. Soak the rice for at least 2 hours and drain.

2. Clean and remove the insides of the squids using a spoon. Dab the squids dry. Cut up the squid heads (beak and eyes removed) into small pieces and set aside.

3. Fill each squid belly with glutinous rice and the pieces of squid head until 60% full. Gently shake the squid so that the rice can fill the bottom of the squid. Then use satay stick or toothpick to close up the squid.

4. Prepare the braising liquid: put water, soy sauce, sugar and sake into a pot. Add the squids and bring to boil over medium heat. Once boiling, skim off the foam and scum. Then, lower the heat to low-medium and cover with an otoshibuta (drop lid) to limit evaporation. Boil for 40minutes. At the 20th minute mark, flip the squids. After 30minutes, remove the squids from the pot. Boil the sauce to reduce it.

5. Once the squids have cooled down a little, slice the squids to bite size. Drizzle with the sauce and serve warm.