Braised chicken wings in hoisin sauce

We had these braised chicken wings last night and Alicia happily ate up two midwings with rice and broccoli served on the side. She must be wondering where mummy has been hiding all the good food from her all this while... lol. Anyway, we've decided to start feeding her table food as long as it's not too unhealthy or extreme in taste. She's been rejecting her porridge so we figured she should be wanting to start on our food and since she's 20.5mths old already, I feel that it's alright that she stops eating baby food. I'm sure there will be some who don't agree that children should eat such food but I think it's really up to the individual. To each his own. My picky one eats - that's all that matters to me. :D

Braised chicken wings in hoisin sauce

Ingredients:

• 1kg frozen chicken wings (cost me only $4.50! and the taste is not compromised in any way)
• 4 slices ginger
• 2 bunches spring onion (cut into 1-2" length)
• 2 cloves shallots (sliced thinly)
• 2 cloves garlic (sliced and lightly smashed)
• enough water to cover my 1kg of chicken wings (it's ok for the tips to stick out a bit from the water)
• cornflour

Marinade for the chicken:

• Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• ground black pepper
• hua diao jiu

Seasoning (amt depends on how much chicken you have and water you add)

• 3-4T hoisin sauce
• 1T oyster sauce

Method:

1. Clean the chicken wings and remove the extremely fatty portions. Marinate chicken for a few hours (I did so overnight).
2. Heat some oil in a wok and fry the ginger till fragrant first.
3. Add the spring onion, shallots and garlic and fry till fragrant.
4. Add the chicken wings and sear both sides (I had to do this in two batches since my wings were fat and huge).
5. Pour enough water to cover the main body of the chicken wings, add the seasoning and bring to a boil.
6. Cover the wok and simmer for 40min on low-medium heat. Stir every now and then for even cooking.
7. Add a little cornflour solution to thicken the gravy.
8. Serve hot with hot fluffy rice.

For toddler's consumption:

• Remove the meat from the chicken wing for the tot if she is unable to handle the chicken wing on her own.

Teriyaki salmon

This was extremely scrumptious! Even my picky Alicia wolved up two pieces of salmon though she's not a fan of salmon at all. And as she ate every mouth of it, she kept 'talking' to me super expressively, as if trying to tell me to cook this more often for her... super cute. lol. I asked her, 'Are you trying to tell mummy to cook this more often?' and she nodded her head and continued with her baby talk. :D

Honestly, if you've made your own teriyaki sauce, you'd never settle for those sold commercially because those don't taste anything like the real stuff!

Teriyaki salmon

Ingredients:

• 340g salmon, skin removed (I bought 1 slab from the fishmonger, costs $8.80 but I got it at $8)
• 1 bunch green onion (slice finely)

Teriyaki sauce:

• 2T cooking sake
• 4T mirin
• 1.5T light soy sauce
• 2T brown sugar

Method:

1. Rinse the slab of salmon and cut into chunks.
2. Marinate the salmon chunks in the teriyaki sauce for about 1/2 hour.
3. Heat up a non-stick pan and sear the salmon chunks, reserve the rest of the teriyaki sauce. The surface of the salmon should turn brownish before you flip it over to the other side for browning. Because the salmon was soaked in the teriyaki marinade, it will brown quite quickly.
4. Once both sides of the salmon are done, remove them from the pan and place on a plate.
5. In a small saucepan, bring the rest of the teriyaki sauce to a boil. By the process of reduction, simmer the teriyaki sauce till it becomes thick.
6. Drizzle the sauce over the salmon.
7. Garnish with finely sliced green onion.

Cauliflower with carrot

This cauliflower has been sitting in my fridge for quite a long while... it was actually meant for Alicia's meals but due to her extremely slow eating, I've often had to skip the veggie at night and just give her fruits instead to balance her meal. And that's how it ended up as our meal instead. Well, she did eat some of it that night and she even drank up the leftover sauce...

Cauliflower with carrot

Ingredients:

• 1 cauliflower
• 1 carrot
• 1/2 handful dried shrimp (omit for tots below 18mths)
• 1-2 cloves garlic (mince)
• water
• fish sauce to taste (optional)

Method:

1. Cut the cauliflower into florets, remove any blemishes. Peel and slice the carrot.
2. Rinse the dried shrimp then soak for a short while then mince the dried shrimp. Keep the water in which the dried shrimps were soaked for the cooking.
3. Heat some oil in a wok and add the dried shrimp and fry till fragrant.
4. Add the garlic and fry till fragrant. Don't add the garlic together with the dried shrimp as garlic browns very quickly.
5. Add the cauliflower, then the carrot (cauliflower takes longer to cook).
6. Add the reserved water so it's not too dry. Let it simmer in the wok till the cauliflower is cooked.
7. Add fish sauce to taste (optional) - I didn't as dried shrimp is already saltish.
8. Dish and serve.

For toddler's consumption:

• Cut cauliflower into small florets and carrot into smaller pieces before serving.
• Omit the dried shrimps in the cooking for tots below 18mths.

Honeysuckle Chrysanthemum drink (金銀花菊花茶)

Just thought I'd share a really simple 'cooling' drink to make in this sweltering heat! Made this on Friday night but had no time to blog at all through the weekend.

Just for information, honeysuckle is not suitable for young children so do not feed this to your little ones. It's too 'cooling' for them; chrysanthemum tea alone is fine (even then, I think diluted in the ratio of 1:1 would be better - I did give Alicia that - and probably once a week is more than enough for young kids).

Honeysuckle, according to the TCM doctor I spoke to, is extremely cooling so unless you're super heaty or are recovering from a high fever etc., it'd be wise not to consume this often.

Another alternative is to combine chrysanthemum with luo han guo (Buddha's fruit). That's nice and nourishing without being too 'cooling'. :)

Honeysuckle Chrysanthemum drink (金銀花菊花茶)

Ingredients:

• 3 handfuls of chrysanthemum flower
• 1 pinch of honeysuckle (don't add too much as it will cause the drink to be bitter)
• rock sugar to taste (I usually put 2 handfuls of small bits of rock sugar)
• about 1L water

Method:

1. Rinse the chrysanthemum flower and honeysuckle to get rid of dirt. Do not soak for long as the taste of the chrysanthemum would then go into the water that it was soaked in.
2. Add the rock sugar to the water in a pot and bring to a boil.
3. When the water's boiling, turn off the fire and add the chrysanthemum and honeysuckle.
4. Let it sit for about 30min.
5. Sieve out the chrysanthemum and honeysuckle and your 'cooling' drink's ready!
6. Serve warm or chilled.

Follow the steps for plain chrysanthemum tea - just omit the honeysuckle