Chicken Stew II

This post is a week late! Sorry to those who have been requested and have been waiting so patiently for this recipe! :)

I hope you like it as much as my family does! 

P.S. The chicken stock base is awesome and the best part is that there's probably enough to store some for quick fixes for lunch or the kids' food! 

Chicken Stew II

Ingredients:

• 2 packets of chicken fillet (I bought mine from NTUC) - remove the tendons and cut into bite sizes
• 3 large potatoes, peel and cut into chunks
• 2 carrots, peel and cut into chunks
• 3 sticks of celery, remove the fibers and slice
• 1 pack of white button mushrooms, remove stalk, clean and slice
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2 bay leaves
• 2-3 small chicken carcasses 
• 2-3 cloves garlic, wash and leave peel on
• plain flour or cornflour
• 1 tablespoon butter 
• 1 litre water

Marinade for chicken (quantity is estimated only, go with your instincts):

• 2 tablespoons chicken marinade
• a few dashes of black pepper
• a few dashes of garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• dash of sesame oil

Method:

1. Place the chicken carcasses in a pot of water and bring to a boil. Remove the chicken carcasses and place them in a soup bag together with the garlic cloves.
2. Place the soup bag into a slow cooker together with the potatoes, carrots, celery, bay leaves and water. Cook on high for 3-4 hours. Do the following steps only after this stock is done.
3. Add butter to a pot and melt it. Add diced onions and sweat them. 
4. Add the mushrooms when the onions have softened more or less. If you need to, add just a little stock to prevent the mushrooms and onions from burning.
5. Add the chicken fillet and stirfry with the mushrooms and onion for a minute.
6. Add the potatoes, carrots and celery from the slow cooker into the pot and pour in just enough chicken stock to cover the ingredients. Store the rest of the stock for future use. 
7. Bring to a boil then simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes.
8. Add flour to thicken the consistency of the gravy if necessary and add more seasoning if it's not salty enough.
9. Serve with crusty bread or rice.

Cooking note: You may substitute the butter with oil but it will affect the taste of the stew.

Linking up with:

Just for kids! - Cabbage wrap chicken minis

Here's a simple recipe to share that will make both mummy and kid happy!

Cabbage wrap chicken minis (makes 1 mini)

Ingredients:

• 1 cabbage leaf (depending on the size of your cabbage, you may only need half a leaf for one of these minis)
• 1 thumb-length piece of chicken fillet (you may mince this but I didn't)

Marinate chicken with (just a dash/pinch of each seasoning!):

• oyster sauce
• Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• ground black pepper
• sugar (optional)
• sesame oil

Directions:

1. Marinate chicken fillet for at least an hour.
2. Wash and blanch cabbage leaf in boiling stock or water to make it easier to wrap the chicken (about 5 minutes)
3. Spread cabbage leaf out on a plate and place chicken fillet on it. Wrap the chicken fillet up as you would with a springroll.
4. Place the wrapped chicken on a plate and steam it for 10minutes.
5. Optional: Pour the 'juice' that is in the plate after the steaming into a small saucepan (top up with more stock if necessary), add cornflour solution (mixture of cornflour and water) to thicken into a gravy. Dish gravy over the wrap.
6. Serve.

This is how it looks prior to steaming

And the verdict!:

My little boy had one of these too (he's almost 1!) - but I had to cut the wrap into really small pieces for him to handle.

Omit all the seasonings for children under 1 year old. The chicken and cabbage are naturally sweet so there is no need to add seasoning. :)

Bitter gourd with salted (duck) egg

I've hated bitter gourd (also known as bitter melon) for the longest time. Naturally, I never thought to cook it even though hubby eats it. But after Alex was born, there were a couple of times I felt inspired - I know not why - to order bittergourd from the economical rice stall and I realised I didn't hate it that much any more.

Yesterday, I bravely whipped up my first bittergourd dish and I must say, it was bitter. Well, what was I expecting from a bitter gourd anyway?

I had come across two tips on how to make the bittergourd less bitter:

(i) soak the cut bittergourd in water (with salt and sugar added) for 15min then discard the water and rinse the bittergourd.

(ii) soak the uncut bittergourd in salt water for 15min before cutting the bittergourd.

Which tip did I try?

Well, I tried tip #1. And the bittergourd was still very bitter. I guess I'll be trying tip #2 next time!

For those who love the bitter taste that the bittergourd offers, here's the recipe:

Bitter gourd with salted (duck) egg

Ingredients:

• half a big bitter gourd (follow tip #2 before slicing!)
• 1 salted egg
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1.5 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 2tsp sugar
• 1/2 bowl water

For soaking the bittergourd:

• water
• salt

Method:

1. Soak the bittergourd in water. Add salt to the water and soak the bittergourd for 15min. Rinse.
2. Cut the bittergourd length-wise then use a metal spoon to scoop out the seeds. Slice the bittergourd into thin slices.
3. Add oil to wok (I used my Happy Call Pan) and fry minced garlic till fragrant.
4. Add in bittergourd and fry for a couple of minutes.
5. Add in the water, oyster sauce and sugar. Cover the wok.
6. Meanwhile, crack the raw salted egg into a bowl and cut the yolk into smaller pieces.
7. When the bittergourd turns a darker hue, pour the salted egg into the wok (as if you are doing an egg drop).
8. Turn off the fire after 10 sec then cover the wok and let it sit for a couple of minutes before dishing up the food.

Tips for selecting a less bitter bittergourd:

• Pick one which is a lighter shade of green. Darker green = more bitter!
• Select one which has less lines on the bittergourd.

Cheaters' pasta sauce

Right, as the name suggests, this pasta sauce is gonna be real easy to prepare. Heck, I even used a jar of pasta sauce for it - I did say it's a cheater's pasta sauce!

So what I did was merely to make the sauce taste even better, and I must say this was so convenient and definitely more time-saving than my other pasta sauces done from scratch.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 200g minced beef
• 1 small yellow onion (slice)
• 2 bay leaves
• 3/4 Knorr beef stock cube (dissolve in a bowl of hot water)
• plain flour
• 1 bottle of ready-made pasta sauce
• 1 tsp sugar (optional)
• mushrooms of your choice (optional)

Marinate beef with:

• oyster sauce
• worcestershire sauce
• ground black pepper
• garlic powder

Method:

1. Marinate beef prior to cooking.
2. Add oil to the saucepan and brown the beef. Remove when done.
3. Add oil and sweat the onions. Add the bay leaves, beef stock, mushrooms (if adding) and return the browned beef to the saucepan. Let it simmer till it's not too watery.
4. Add the pasta sauce and plain flour (and sugar).
5. Toss cooked pasta in the sauce and dinner's done!

Btw, my fussypot loved the sauce! :)

Mini cottage pies (new recipe!)

When I first knew that Adora from The Gingerbread Mum was going to host a Breakfast for champions linky party, these mini cottage pies which I used to make for my little one came to mind! It’s been such a long time since I made them and I was really quite excited to make them once again - but this time I changed the recipe and they turned out even more delish!

My little girl loves all things mini – perhaps because she is sopetite. Hence, when I cook for her, I have to make sure that the size of the food is sorta bite-sized - to entice her to eat (she’s no foodie you see).

And breakfast is one of the hardest meals to make her eat because she is all grouchy and lazy and just, well, difficult to get her out of bed.

Mini cottage pies to the rescue!!! Who wouldn’t want to tuck into these cute little fragrant pies?

I didn't see my hubby eating these... I HEARD him. LOL. He was doing his marking like a grumpy old man before I went to do the dishes and the next thing I heard was a mmmmmmm... and I saw him happily tucking into the lil pies. :)

Smooth little pies waiting to be baked

(Confession: I had to re-use my previous photos as I couldn't get better photos this time)

I made these little pies for her when she was quite young:

These were made with purple potatoes! You won't get a golden brown!

Now that she's much older, I got her to help out:

Ahh... oops, not very dressed for photos but I'm sure you wouldn't mind, right?

This is hard work! :P

"See my sweaty head? I worked sooo hard for it!"

(Ya right, she ran around the house while waiting for her pies to be baked)

She loves this much much more than when she was younger!

(See my naughty little boy rummaging through the drawers again coz he couldn't get to take part in eating)

Cottage pies usually require the use of ground beef (and in the case of the English, they use lambor mutton). If you or your child do not consume beef for religious reasons or simply detest the taste of beef, you can always substitute the beef with chicken instead - not as authentic but nevertheless yummy! :)

Mini Cottage Pies (makes about 12-16 pies)

Ingredients:

• 3-4 egg-sized potatoes
• 3 tablespoons minced beef
• 1 tablespoon heap minced yellow onion
• 1 tablespoon heap minced carrot
• 1 tablespoon heap frozen green peas
• olive oil
• 1 bay leaf
• about 1/4 Knorr beef stock cube (dissolve in about 100ml hot water)
• 1 tablespoon tomato-based pasta sauce
• 1 tablespoon plain flour

For adding to mashed potato:

• unsalted butter
• milk
• salt to taste
• unsalted all-purpose herbs
• ground black pepper
• garlic bread powder

Marinate beef with:

• worcestershire sauce
• oyster sauce
• black pepper
• garlic powder
• sugar (optional)

Method:

1. Marinate minced beef. Set aside.

2. Peel potatoes and cube them. Set them to boil. Boil them till they are soft.

3. Heat saucepan and add oil.

4. Brown the beef. Make sure there are no large clumps. Remove from pan and set aside.

5. Add oil and fry the minced onion, peas and carrot till onion is soft.

6. Add flour and pasta sauce then return the beef to the saucepan.

7. Add the beef stock and simmer till the stock becomes a gravy. Remove the bay leaf when done.

8. Meanwhile, mash the potatoes with the ingredients stated above.

9. Fill the silicon mini muffin cups with the beef filling to about the half-waymark.

10. Add the mashed potato on top and shape them like little muffins.

11. Preheat oven to 220degC.

12. Bake mini pies for 20-25min at 220degC. (20min will do for mine) - or till the potato turns golden brown.

The wonderful thing about these mini pies is that they can be frozen and defrosted in the fridge!! So, you don’t need to wake up early to prepare these for brekkie in the morning (yes, that extra sleep is much needed, really). I cannot imagine having to wake up e.a.r.l.y to prepare these on a weekday!

Because of the mini size, you can serve these as breakfast, snack, or heck, even lunch or dinner! :) Just serve more/ less pies accordingly. Or pair them up with something else as a side dish!

Don’t you just love these versatile minis? :)

Have fun baking! I can’t wait to introduce these to my little boy when he’s older!

This is a Breakfast for Champions initiative by 14 Singapore Mom Bloggers. Click on badge above to find out what other yummy delights you can make for your family!

Stewed pork ribs with chestnuts

I cooked this super simple yet delicious dish last Saturday and just had to share it with you! 

I adapted the recipe from my friend, Pauline's blog and all I can say is that I'll be cooking it more often since it's so convenient (great for me, the pregnant woman!) and so nutritious. 

This can be a 1-dish meal but since I had some nai bai in my fridge that day, I just cooked it as another dish. :)

Stewed pork ribs with chestnuts

 

Ingredients:

• 500g pork ribs (original recipe calls for pork belly but I don't like that so I substituted with ribs and they turned out wonderful!)
• 300g chestnuts (I bought them in a pack at the vegetable stall at the wet market)
• 1 bulb garlic 
• 3 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon dark soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rock sugar (optional)

Method:

1. Boil the chestnuts (with their shells already removed) in water for about 3 min. The skin should come off quite easily when you peel them when the chestnuts are still warm.
2. Wash the bulb of garlic, individual cloves separated, skin intact, and lightly crush them.
3. Blanch pork ribs.
4. Add some oil to the wok and stir fry the garlic till fragrant.
5. Add the pork ribs and fry for 2-3min before adding in the chestnuts.
6. Finally, add the light and dark soy sauce and mix well.
7. Transfer the ingredients to a slow cooker.
8. Add enough hot water to just barely cover the ingredients in the slow cooker.
9. Once you see the water bubbling in the slow cooker, turn it to autoshift and let it stew for about 2 hours.
10. Add rock sugar 15 min before serving if desired.

Alicia loved this dish too! :)


For tot's consumption:


Using a spoon, cut the chestnut into smaller, bite-size pieces to prevent choking.
Pork ribs should also be prepared in bite-sized pieces so that it's easier to chew (and swallow) and look out for any small pieces of bones (just in case).

Homemade pasta sauce with pumpkin

Saw this pasta sauce recipe over at The Little Teochew some time back and I knew I just had to give it a try and I must say that both hubby and Alicia loved the sauce!

It's a really sneaky way of adding pumpkin into Alicia's diet coz she doesn't like pumpkin... but she doesn't know that in that delicious sauce, pumpkin is a key ingredient! hee.... *evil laughter* Then again, I don't like pumpkin much either... I like pumpkin soup though!

I modified the recipe as the recipe does not contain any meat so since I wanted to make it a one-dish meal for the family, I added in the usual minced beef and mushrooms... and I made a much bigger batch of sauce to freeze the remainder in small portions for Alicia. :)

Homemade pasta sauce with pumpkin

Ingredients:

• 500-600g pumpkin (skinned and cut into chunks)
• a bottle of passata (you can view the photo of the actual product over at The Little Teochew's post)
• 1 small yellow/ white onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 250g minced beef
• 10 white button mushrooms, sliced
• salt to taste
• basil flakes to taste - I added a generous portion :)

Method:

1. Steam the pumpkin till fork tender, press the pumpkin through a sieve (truly reminds me of the days I pureed food for Alicia!). Set aside.
2. Heat wok and add some oil.
3. Fry the onion and garlic till fragrant and the onions have softened.
4. Add the minced beef and some water if necessary to make sure that the minced beef does not become lumpy.
5. Add the mushrooms. Saute for awhile.
6. After the beef is browned, remove all the ingredients from the wok.
7. Add passata and the pureed pumpkin to the wok. Let it simmer for about a minute.
8. Return the ingredients that you fried earlier back into the wok and mix well.
9. Let the sauce simmer for about 10-20min (to ensure that the mushrooms are cooked and have released their sweetness into the sauce) and meanwhile you can add the salt and basil to taste. :)
10. Pour sauce over cooked pasta or put the cooked pasta into the wok and mix well before dishing onto the plate. (I chose to pour the sauce over the pasta as I wanted to save the remaining sauce to freeze in baby cubes for Alicia)
11. Top with grated cheese of your choice (optional).

Notes:
Passata can be easily obtained from NTUC or Giant.
You can substitute beef with chicken.
Omit the basil if you do not like it or you can add other herbs of your choice. I have a bottle of basil in my kitchen so I just used it... :)

Water chestnuts with sweet corn dessert soup

My mum made this for me when I was young and now I make it for my darling! Alicia loves this dessert soup - which I don't make so sweet so that she has it as a drink, not just as a dessert on days I cook it. 

The water chestnuts are 'cooling' in nature, have a nice crunch and paired with the fragrant, sweet corn kernels, you can imagine that it is a refreshing dessert and drink for both adults and kids.

I cook this about once a week for Alicia and hubby and we have barley water twice a week (she loves to eat barley too!)

This dessert takes only 15-20min to cook so it's really convenient!

Water chestnuts with corn dessert soup

Ingredients:

• 5-8 water chestnuts (washed, peeled and diced) - adjust according to your preference
• 1/2 soup bowl of frozen sweet corn kernels (you can use fresh corn and remove the kernels if you have time)
• about 1.5L water
• about 8 pieces of wintermelon strips (adjust according to preference)

Method:

1. Add the diced water chestnuts, corn kernels and wintermelon strips to the pot of water and bring it to a boil.
2. Simmer for another 15-20min.
3. Serve.

Wild Spinach Soup

I bought this bunch of wild spinach from the vegetable stall at the wet market the other day. It's basically the same as normal spinach (heng cai in cantonese and xian4 cai4 in Mandarin) just that it's the erm, wild version. :O

It's got these flowery bits that are not normally found in usual spinach bunches :P

Taste-wise, I'd say it's almost the same, maybe a bit more earthy taste than the usual spinach... :)

Prepare the soup in the same way as the usual spinach soup!

Homemade fish finger(s)

After Alicia showed signs of getting sick of her usual baked cod, I decided to add something new to her menu - something which my hubby has been stopping me from adding since a long time ago: breaded cod. :P He's always saying that it's too heaty etc. and since she was very young back then, I also thought it wise to keep fried food to a minimum. Now that she's reached the 30months mark this month, I felt that it was time. :)

I didn't photograph the fish fingers, but here's Alicia eating it on one occasion (scroll down for recipe):

Getting ready to eat! AHHHHH!!

Picking the crumbs to eat first...

Posing with her fish finger :)

Homemade fish finger 

serves 1 tot

Ingredients:

• 1 slice of cod (about 60g)
• 1 egg, beaten
• breadcrumbs (probably about 2 tbsp - I didn't measure)
• a teeny weeny pinch of salt
• a little ground white pepper
• cornflour
• oil

Method:

1. Mix the breadcrumbs with the salt and pepper evenly.
2. Place the slice of cod into the beaten egg, then coat it with cornflour.
3. Return the cod into the egg then coat it with breadcrumbs.
4. Add some oil into a non-stick pan and shallow fry the fish finger till golden brown before turning over to brown the other side.
5. Place the fish on a sheet of kitchen towel to remove any excess oil.
6. Let it cool before serving to prevent burns.
7. (You can fry an omelette for yourself/ your tot with the remaining egg.)

You can repeat the breading process for more fish fingers before frying them.

1 beaten egg can be used to coat 8-10 fish fingers.

止咳化痰饮料 (drink for ridding cough and phlegm)

I've been suffering from cough for quite awhile since I caught the flu bug from Alicia earlier in the year.

This is one of the drinks I tried brewing in my desperate attempt to get well. I'm not sure how many times I'm supposed to drink it before I get well, but I only tried twice and I stopped - cough didn't go away, but phlegm did though. :)

Anyway, my doctor just told me yesterday that my cough is more likely due to throat and airway sensitivity so he didn't prescribe me with new cough syrup; instead he offered me medication for my throat. I hope it works!


止咳化痰饮料 (drink for ridding cough and phlegm)


Ingredients:

• 1/2 liang chuan bei (川贝)
• 1tsp bitter almond
• 1tsp sweet almond
• 4 figs
• 1 dried orange (ju bing)
• 1L water

Method:

1. Rinse the herbs.
2. Place herbs in 1L of water and bring to a boil.
3. Simmer for 45min and it's done :)

For tot's consumption:

I checked with the TCM hall and the assistant informed me that this drink is suitable for tots suffering from cough and phlegm but in small amounts. :)

Japanese Hamburger

I've been wanting to make Japanese Hamburger for a long long time and I finally went to Meidi-ya to pick up the hamburger sauce which is well, the sauce that goes with this dish.

Japanese hamburgers are served (usually) with rice alongside other dishes rather than between buns (the way we usually consume burgers). :)

We had ours with brown rice porridge :)

Japanese Hamburger

Source of recipe (I modified it slightly)

Ingredients:

• 200g minced beef
• 100g minced pork
• 1 egg
• 1 cup white breadcrumbs
• 3-4 tbsp milk
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, diced finely
• 3/4 tsp salt
• a few dashes ground black pepper

Sauce:

• Hamburger sauce - estimate amt enough for 4 patties

Method:

1. Saute onion in some oil till translucent. Let cool.
2. Moisten the breadcrumbs with milk.
3. Combine the beef, pork, egg, moistened breadcrumbs, salt, black pepper and sauted onions. Mix well - your hand is the best tool for this task.
4. Divide into four portions and shape them into patties, slapping each with your palms till the surface is smooth.
5. Indent the middle of each pattie with your thumb - this ensures that the middle gets cooked evenly.
6. Heat a large frying pan with some oil on high heat. Brown the patties then turn them over to the other side.
7. Put a tight-fitting lid on the pan and steam-cook the hamburgers on low heat for 10min, until the middle of the pattie bounces back when u press it. Remove from pan to serving plate.
8. Pour out excess oil from the pan and heat the hamburger sauce.
9. Dish hamburger sauce on each pattie.
10. Garnish with steamed vegetables and serve.

 Alicia's portion (not too much sauce for hers):

ok, she didn't eat that much of the hamburger, and before I knew it, hubby ate it all up. Fortunately, I made her favourite fried minced pork with egg, which she ate happily too. :)

Here's my little gal eating and watching Sesame Street on okto. Haha....

French beans with olive (橄榄菜)

I like french beans not just because of its taste but they keep rather well for awhile, unlike leafy veggies. I've cooked a couple of versions of french beans (see here and here).

 If you aren't sure what 橄榄菜 is, you can check this out (I'm too lazy to take a pic). It's commonly served as a side dish to porridge, alongside pickles and fermented beancurd.

I usually buy the AAA brand as it's nice and it doesn't contain preservatives.

French beans with olive (橄榄菜)

Ingredients:

• 1 handful of french beans
• 2 tablespoons olive (橄榄菜)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• water
• fish sauce to taste (optional)

Method:

1. Pluck both ends of the french bean and slice thinly, diagonally.
2. Fry 1 tablespoon of olive (橄榄菜) in a bit of oil in the wok. It is soaked in oil so you don't really need that much oil.
3. Add garlic and fry till fragrant.
4. Add the french beans. Fry a little while before adding water and letting it simmer.
5. Add the other tablespoon of olive (橄榄菜) and if the dish is still not salty enough you can add some fish sauce to taste.
6. Dish and serve.

The reason for separating the amount of olive (橄榄菜) to be used in the cooking process: 

By the time the french beans are cooked, the olive added at the beginning of the cooking would have lost (or almost lost) its taste. Thus, the adding of the olives at the end of the cooking retains the taste of olives, which goes well with the french beans.

Asparagus with prawns

Ok, more vegetable dishes coming up! haha. I've got like a million other posts to blog about so everything's gonna be short and sweet.

I've got another version of this veggie but it's baby asparagus rather than asparagus. 

Asparagus with prawns

Ingredients:

• 2 small bunches of asparagus
• 4 prawns, shelled (retain the tail), deveined 
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• oil 
• salt 
• water

Marinate prawns with:

• a bit of hua diao jiu
• dash of ground black/ white pepper 

Seasoning: 

• fish sauce to taste

Method:

1. Trim the stem end of the asparagus. Using a vegetable peeler, remove the tough fibers on the stem - how much to remove depends on how old your asparagus is.
2. Rinse the asparagus and slice it diagonally. 
3. Place a bit of oil and salt in some water and bring to a boil. Parboil the asparagus for 2 min till almost cooked.
4. Drain and set aside.
5. Heat oil in wok and fry garlic till fragrant.
6. Add marinated prawns and fry till 70% cooked. 
7. Add the parboiled asparagus and some water and simmer for a short while till prawns and asparagus are fully cooked.
8. Add fish sauce to taste.
9. Dish and serve.

For tot's consumption:

You can cook the asparagus for a longer time to soften it further if your tot is not so good at chewing crunchy veggies. :) Cut into bite-size before serving.

Fried Bee Hoon

My hubby absolutely loves this fried bee hoon I make and I must say I love it too. It's so simple to prepare and cook and since it's a one-dish meal, it's great for those days that you're strapped for time.

Fried Bee Hoon

Ingredients:

• 1 can of stewed pork - don't consume this too often though! (leave this out if you want vegetarian bee hoon) 

• 1/3 large carrot, julienned
• 1 packet xiao bai cai, washed and plucked
• 4 handfuls beansprouts, washed and plucked
• garlic and shallot oil (made by frying minced garlic and thinly sliced shallots in oil on stovetop or microwaving for about 3 min) - this has to be omitted if you're on a strict vegetarian diet
• 1/2 big packet bee hoon

Seasoning:

• oyster sauce
• dark soy sauce
• water

Method:

1. Soak bee hoon in water till softened.
2. Remove stewed pork from can. Remove all bones and shred the meat (not too finely). Set aside.
3. Strain the gravy from the canned stewed pork with an oil filter paper. You will get a clear brown broth.
4. Heat some garlic and shallot oil in wok. Add the carrots first as they take longest to cook. Fry for a couple of minutes then add in the rest of the vegetables, beansprouts last.
5. Then add the shredded stewed pork and mix evenly (beansprouts should still be crunchy so keep a close watch on them in case you overcook them)
6. Dish out the ingredients.
7. Add garlic and shallot oil into wok and fry the bee hoon. When it gets too dry, add the strained gravy.
8. Fry till bee hoon is cooked and add the seasoning to taste. If you want the bee hoon to be whitish, leave the dark soy sauce out.
9. Add the ingredients fried earlier and mix thoroughly.
10. Dish and top with more garlic and shallot crispy bits and oil if desired.

Tip: If your wok is too small or the amount is too much for you to mix thoroughly, you can mix the bee hoon and the ingredients in two batches.

Hongkong style steamed fish

I must really thank homeladychef for sharing her recipe for this Hongkong style steamed fish. It really tastes like what we get at restaurants and I was sooo over the moon for being able to replicate that!

I'd wanted to get seabass to cook this dish but I wasn't able to get it at the market the other day so I got this other fish called boon tong. I have no idea what's that called in English or Mandarin since the fishmonger wasn't able to provide me with the chinese name of the fish. :)

It's quite cheap - I got these three fishes for a mere $6! ok, it was supposed to be $6.50 but the uncle was nice and gave me a discount since I'm always buying seafood from him.

I modified the way I prepared the oil for drizzling over the fish and the ginger that's served together with the fish. I didn't measure the amount of seasoning and ingredients used either... hee.

Hongkong style steamed fish

Ingredients:

• 500-600g fish
• ginger, skinned, slice some and julien some
• a couple bunches of scallions
• sesame oil
• olive oil

Sauce:

• light soy sauce
• rock sugar
• water/ stock

Method:

1. Clean the fish.
2. Place some sliced ginger and scallions on the plate used for steaming. Place the fish on top and top it with more ginger and scallions. 
3. When the water is boiling hot, place the fish into the steamer and steam for about 10min. (Max 10min for 600g fish, add 1min for every 100g more)
4. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce and heat it up using the microwave or on stovetop.
5. When fish is steamed, transfer the fish carefully to a serving plate (only the fish!) and discard all the ginger, scallion and water from the steaming plate.
6. Pour the prepared sauce over the fish.
7. Heat some oil (olive and sesame oil mixed) in the wok and fry the julienned ginger till golden brown. Remove the ginger and scatter it on top of the fish together with scallions.
8. Continue to heat the oil left in the wok till it's smoking hot. Pour this oil over the fish and you're done! :)

Steamed Tofu with Prawns and Glass Noodles

I was inspired to cook this dish after looking at the beautiful pictures at Foodie's Kitchen. My dish turned out yummy but my photos are far from hers though. :P 

It was perfect timing the day I decided to cook this dish because the night before I came to the decision, I happened to have bought silken tofu from Meidi-ya - this special silken tofu was kept in shelves of ice cold water to retain optimum freshness... and it is almost double the price of normal tofu brands. 

This block of tofu costs about S$1.90!

Steaming this tofu was ideal as we could really savour the texture and flavour. :)

I had a lot more prawns than tofu and my prawns were larger than each tofu cube... but everything still worked out well. Hahaha...

I especially loved the look of the curly scallions and it's all thanks to homeladychef for sharing the tip! :)

Steamed Tofu with Prawns and Glass Noodles

Ingredients:

• almost half kg of prawns
• a few cloves of garlic, minced
• olive oil
• 1 bunch scallions (for garnishing - optional)
• 1 block silken tofu
• 1 small bunch of tang hoon 

Sauce:

• light soy sauce mixed with rock sugar to taste

Method:

1. Soak tang hoon in water till softened.
2. Remove tofu from packaging and cut into blocks (best to have 1 prawn per cube of tofu)
3. Remove head and shell of prawns (retail the tail) and devein. 
4. Prepare garlic oil by either frying the garlic with oil on stovetop or popping it into the microwave for 2-3min.
5. Arrange glass noodles on plate for steaming.
6. Carefully place the tofu on the glass noodles and top each tofu block with a prawn.
7. Once water in the steamer is boiling hot, place the dish in and steam for about 6 min.
8. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce. Add some water if necessary, depending on your preferences. Heat this sauce on stovetop or pop it into the microwave to warm it.
9. Drizzle this sauce over the cooked dish and top with garlic oil and the crispy garlic bits.
10. Garnish with curly scallions.

Such a simple dish to cook and soooo presentable! :)


Here's our dinner the other day - 

• Steamed tofu with prawns and glass noodles
• Hongkong style steamed fish
• Stir-fried baby spinach with crispy whitebait
• Mixed brown rice

Ok, I know that's way too much food for 2 but we still finished it all... hahaha...

Stir-fried snowpeas (with baby corn and carrot)

I hardly cook snowpeas but since I decided to cook lunch and dinner for hubby and Alicia for the whole week, I had to serve up a variety of vegetables to break the monotony. :P

Stir-fried snowpeas with baby corn and carrot

 Ingredients:

• 1 packet snowpeas, pluck both ends to 'devein' 
• 1/3 large carrot, slice thinly
• 3 baby corn, cut diagonally, about 1.5cm long
• garlic, minced
• water

Method:

1. Heat oil in wok. Fry the garlic till fragrant.
2. Add in the carrot and corn and fry for about 2 minutes. Add some water if it's too dry.
3. Add in snowpeas and a bit more water/stock and let simmer for a few minutes till it's cooked. Carrot should not have a raw taste and snowpeas should look very bright green.
4. Add fish sauce to taste.
5. Dish and serve.

You will realise that the gravy has a sweet taste even though no sugar was added - that's due to the sweetness of the vegetables! Carrots especially once cooked through (i.e. no raw taste), will add much sweetness to the gravy... and since baby corn and snowpeas are also 'sweet', that the gravy is sweet comes as no surprise! :)