Heavenly white button mushrooms

These are really white button mushrooms -

though I'm aware they look quite the contrary :D

I love white button mushrooms - baked, grilled, stir-fried... cooked in any way! This is truly one of my favourite dishes and you must really try it for yourself to understand my fanaticism for these mushrooms. My hubby came back from work yesterday telling me that he wasn't hungry at all and was feeling quite bloated but when he started eating the mushrooms, his appetite was revived!

Heavenly white button mushrooms

Ingredients

• 10 white button mushrooms - wash and slice (not too thinly though)
• 1/4 white onion - slice
• 1/2- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• stock
• 1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 2-3 dashes cracked black peppercorns (optional)

Method:

1. Melt the butter in a wok.
2. Add in the sliced onions and fry them for awhile in the butter.
3. Add in some stock (enough to cover the onions), the black peppercorns and the oyster sauce and let the onions simmer.
4. Cover the wok with a lid while simmering the onions but do keep an eye on the level of stock. If the stock is drying up too quickly, add more stock.
5. Once the onions are completely limp, add in the mushrooms and if need be, more stock, and let the mushrooms simmer.
6. Again, cover the wok and keep a watchful eye on the level of liquid, making sure that it doesn't dry up completely.
7. Dish out the mushrooms when there's just some gravy left - not too much, and not too little. :) You decide how much gravy you want!

Beansprouts with tau kwa and salted fish

I kept some of the beansprouts and tau kwa I bought for cooking the nonya mee siam the other day (coz I didn't need that much to cook the mee siam), and I put it together to form a vegetable dish for last night's dinner. Rather economical actually, considering how I sometimes tend to spend quite a bit on just one dinner. But what to do? Both hubby and I are greedy and the portion I prepare's usually for 3-4 people. :)

Beansprouts with tau kwa and salted fish

Ingredients:

• about 3-4 handfuls of beansprouts - plucked
• 1/5 of a big piece of tau kwa - cut into small cubes of about 1-1.5cm
• 1 small piece of salted fish - rinse a few times and cut into small pieces
• 50-100ml stock (if necessary)
• 1 red chilli - seeds removed, sliced
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 stalks spring onion - washed and cut into 2-inch long pieces
• fish sauce (to taste)

Method:

1. Toast the small pieces of salted fish in the oven till crisp. You may choose to deep-fry them if you wish.
2. Heat the oil and fry the tau kwa cubes till golden brown. Leave them on a kitchen paper towel to remove the excess oil.
3. Remove most of the oil from the wok, leaving just enough to saute the garlic, chilli and spring onion.
4. Fry the garlic, chilli and spring onion till fragrant.
5. Add in the beansprouts and toasted salted fish.
6. If too dry, add in a bit of stock and continue frying.
7. Fry till beansprouts are cooked and still crisp.
8. If you've added more salted fish, the dish may be salty enough already. If not salty enough, add fish sauce to taste.
9. Add in the tau kwa and toss to mix evenly.
10. Serve hot.

Braised Chicken

I was trying to replicate the braised chicken that I like to eat from the food centre stall downstairs and it was, according to my hubby, 80% alike to the one sold by the stall. Personally, I felt that I could have put less dark soy sauce (coz the colour's much darker than the stall's). My hubby feels that I could have made it a little sweeter and was 'grumbling' about how I'm always so stingy with the amount of sugar I put in my cooking. Hehe...

Braised chicken

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken thighs (skin removed, chopped)
• 5 shallots - sliced thinly
• 3 cloves garlic - minced
• 3cm ginger - peeled and smashed
• 1/2 tablespoon dark soy sauce (I put 1 tablespoon but I think 1/2 is enough)
• sugar to taste (this is the part that my hubby said I could have done better)
• sesame oil
• cornflour
• water/stock

Seasoning (for the chicken):

• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons hua diao jiu
• 1 tablespoon chicken marinade
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• a few dashes of ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cornflour

Method:

1. Clean chicken thighs and remove visible fats.
2. Marinate the thighs with the seasoning overnight preferably.
3. Heat some sesame oil in a wok.
4. Stir-fry the garlic, shallots and ginger in the wok.
5. Add in the chopped chicken thighs and fry till chicken is almost cooked.
6. Add water/stock to the wok, almost covering the chicken pieces.
7. Bring the water/stock to a boil on high heat then turn to low heat and simmer for 20min.
8. Add in the dark soy sauce and sugar to taste.
9. Add in cornflour solution to thicken gravy slightly.
10. Serve hot.

Fresh Foxnut/ Euryale Seed Dessert (鮮芡實甜湯)

My eldest aunt gave me a packet of fresh foxnuts (also known as Euryale Seeds) the other day and I'd been putting off cooking them till yesterday. I had only decided to cook it because I noticed that the gingko nuts in my fridge were about to embark on their epic journey to the trashcan soon so I had no choice but to cook this dessert despite my busy schedule.



It was really a last minute decision to cook it so I didn't have enough time to simmer it long enough for the flavours of the ingredients to be infused properly. Didn't help that I was trying to multi-task and cook dinner. I'm a firm believer of food that is cooked with lots of love will taste better so I guess since my heart was in more than one place at the stove, the dessert didn't turn out as good as it is supposed to be. So remember to cook your food with lots of love and attention ya? :)

Btw, you can check out the nutritional value of foxnuts here.

Fresh foxnuts!

Fresh Foxnut Dessert (鮮芡實甜湯)

Ingredients (a handful of everything unless otherwise stated):

• fresh foxnuts 鮮芡實
• red dates 紅棗
• fresh lotus seeds/nuts 鮮蓮子 (remove the pith, if any, as it's bitter)
• gingko nuts 白果 (remove the pith as it's bitter)
• dried longan 元肉
• white fungus 雪耳
• candied wintermelon 冬瓜糖 4-5 sticks
• rock sugar 冰糖 to taste
• 1.5L water

Method:

1. Bring water to a boil in a pot/saucepan.
2. Once water boils, add in all the ingredients with the exception of the fresh lotus seeds as these cook really fast as they're fresh. The dried ones take longer to cook.
3. Simmer for about 20-30minutes.
4. Add the fresh lotus seeds and boil for another 10min or so.
5. Add more rock sugar if it's not sweet enough.

This dessert becomes richer when you let it stand longer or if kept overnight.

Updated on 7 May: Alicia LOVES this dessert!

The lazy way out...

I was lazy to get the foil and rub the butter onto the cod (butter shouldn't be consumed so often by toddlers anyway...) last night so I just placed the fish on a metal plate, sprinkled it with herbs and steamed it for 5 min on high heat on the stove instead. When it was ready, I just poured the orange (juice) sauce over. Alicia loved it much more than the baked version - she not only ate very fast and kept coming back for more, she decided that she would plonk into bumbo next to me so that she could have access to the fish faster! And she even tried to drink up the remaining sauce... :D