The newest topping for Alicia's cod

I've been thinking about this for ages. Just that somehow oranges just always didn't seem to make their way into the grocery trolley. Finally, two oranges found their way into my fridge yesterday and so I made this sauce for my darling today.

Don't ask me where I got such an idea, or inspiration, if you may want to call it. I don't know. Wild ideas like these pop into my mind all the time - and I actually entertain them. :D Whatever it is, what's most important to me is that Alicia loves it. At least till the infamous "last mouth of cod (or substitute this with any other food)" - she always seems to leave 1 mouth of food behind. The reason why she does so simply eludes me.

Anyway, here's her newest topping. You may find it unfathomable. :)

Orange (juice) sauce (yields enough sauce for 2 servings of 30g cod - you can keep the other half for use later in the day or the next day)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 orange (mine's one of those big navel oranges)
• a bit of cornflour
• sugar to taste (if desired - if the juice happens to be very sour)

Method:

1. Squeeze the juice from the slice of orange. Be sure to sieve out all the seeds. Remove any lumps of pulp so that the sauce will be a smooth one.
2. Bring the juice to a slight boil in a small saucepan.
3. Add sugar to taste if needed (The sauce should be one that has a sweet and tangy taste - not just sweet or sour).
4. Add in cornflour to thicken the juice so that it becomes like a sauce.
5. Drizzle sauce on top of the slice of steamed cod.

Nonya Mee Siam (Dry mee siam)

I was in a hurry to take the photo and get down to eating as soon as possible so this photo kinda doesn't do the actual dish justice...

This is the rempah that you can prepare and keep in the fridge for later use.

This is one of my favourite dishes! I remember cooking this dish when I was pregnant with Alicia coz I had a super strong craving for it. Thank goodness I can cook! Again, just like some of the other dishes that I've blogged about so far, this was first introduced to me by my mother-in-law. It's really great that I've got a mummy and a mother-in-law who happen to be great cooks coz I get to eat nice food and I also get to know a repertoire of dishes, of which I have learnt to cook some - though not necessarily from them. I usually do some research about the dishes I cook and I will think through the dishes myself and work out my own methods, according to my own logic and knowledge about cooking. To me, that's what enjoying cooking is about - it starts from the moment I start visualising the process of cooking!

Anyway, this dish is a nonya dish and hence it's called nonya mee siam. Unlike the other type of mee siam which has gravy, this one is dry. Just in case you're wondering whether I'm Peranakan, well, yes, I am half-Peranakan coz my dad's side of the family is Peranakan. Unfortunately, my paternal grandma wasn't into cooking so none of the delish nonya cuisine recipes were ever passed down to my mum. It is ironic that the recipe of this dish was given to me by my mother-in-law who's Hokkien - and by the way, I'm Teochew. :D That makes me a Teochew Peranakan... or is it a Peranakan Teochew? Anyway, I always tell my hubby that I feel like a Little Nonya when I'm preparing and cooking this dish!

On to the more important stuff - the recipe. I modified my mil's recipe to suit my own tastebuds...

Nonya Mee Siam (yields 6 plates of mee siam)

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of bee hoon
• one bunch of Ku Chye (chives)
• about 40-50cents of beansprouts (plucked)
• 1/3 packet of assam mixed with a bowl of water
• the juice of 20-22 small limes
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons blended tau jio (salted soy bean paste - I'm using Tiger brand)
• tau pok or tau kwa (If using tau kwa, cut into small cubes and fry them first)
• prawns - devein (optional)
• eggs (optional)

Rempah (blend all of these):

• 130g dried shrimps
• 5 red chillies - deseeded
• 30-40g (one handful) of dried chilli - deseeded
• 1 bulb of garlic (about 7 cloves)
• 20 shallots

Note: I remove the seeds from the chilli and dried chilli so that the chilli paste will be very smooth rather than full of seeds. I'm sure you don't want to be biting into chilli seeds all the time while eating the mee siam! For chillies, just cut them open and remove the seeds. For dried chilli, cut it into segments and scald in hot water. This is to clean the dried chilli and make it easier to blend. It also helps to remove some seeds. You will have to cut open the dried chilli to check if there are leftover seeds before blending - personally, removing the seeds of dried chilli is my most dreaded step for this dish! Wear gloves if you've got sensitive skin.

Method:

1. Soak bee hoon in cold water for about half an hour. This will give the bee hoon a 'crunchier' texture. I find soaking bee hoon in hot water makes it too limp for my personal liking.
2. If using tau kwa, cut it into small cubes and fry them till golden brown. Set aside.
3. Blend all the ingredients of the rempah.
4. Fry the blended dried shrimps first.
5. Add in the rest of the ingredients of the rempah. Mix well. If not cooking the mee siam immediately, you can dish this out and let it cool before storing them in tupperwares in the fridge.
6. If cooking the mee siam immediately, proceed to add in the tau jio.
7. Pour in the assam water (remember to use a sieve).
8. Pour in the lime juice and the sugar.
9. Mix well, boil on high heat.
10. Once it boils, add in the beansprouts, ku chye, tau pok (or cooked tau kwa) and prawns.
11. Add in the bee hoon and mix all the ingredients well.
12. Beat the eggs and make omelettes out of them. Slice the omelettes into strips.
13. Garnish the nonya mee siam with the egg.

Cabbage Stock

This is the newest stock that I've used in cooking Alicia's porridge. Now that I'm cooking two meals of porridge a day for Alicia, I have to try out a different flavour for the second meal of porridge because the still staunchly purist Alicia eats her porridge without other ingredients. Initially I was using the corn and carrot soup (I use chicken bones and pork ribs as base for almost all my soups including alicia's stocks) for lunch and the lotus root and kudzu soup to cook dinner. However since I'm not sure if the latter stock can be consumed every day by a toddler, I decided to play safe and go with something more neutral like cabbage. Cabbage, unlike Chinese cabbage, is not liang (cooling) so it can be consumed daily. When my mum cooks this soup for adult consumption (we add a lot more other stuff in our own soups) during Chinese New Year, it is so wonderfully satisfying. Since this is for Alicia, I decided to go with the usual stock ingredients I use for her in her corn and carrot stock, which is just chicken bones and pork ribs. No dried scallops, dried shrimps, dried cuttlefish for her... :D

Alicia didn't show particular liking for the porridge. But neither did she dislike it. She ate about her usual portion so I guess that's ok? :)

Cabbage Stock

Ingredients:

• 1/4 Korean cabbage (you can use other types of cabbage. I happened to find this in the wet market that day)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 250-300g pork ribs
• 1 chicken carcass or 3 chicken breast bones
• 1.5-2L of water

Method:

1. Wash and clean the chicken bones and pork ribs. Blanch them.
2. Put all the ingredients except the cabbage in to boil.
3. Once the soup boils, add in the cabbage.
4. Once it boils again, simmer on low heat for 5hours. All the taste of the cabbage would be out in the soup by then. This is purely for stock purposes so if you are making this soup for adults, you will only put in the cabbage about an hour or so before serving so that the cabbage isn't totally tasteless!
5. Strain the stock and pack into suitable portions after it cools.