Prawn Mee

I was craving for this dish the other day and I thought to myself I should be able to do this. Google-ed a few recipes and then decided to mix and match some of them depending on what I had available. The ingredients needed are mainly as below:

- 800g of pork ribs, blanched
- 200g ikan bilis
- 500g prawns, shelled and deveined but retain the shells
- 5 dried scallops
- Star anise and cinnamon bark about 10g
- 10 peppercorns
- Spring onion
- half a garlic, chopped
- Ginger, thinly sliced
- Yellow noodles
- bean sprouts, blanched
- sugar
- salt
- 1/2 a cup of fish sauce or more as desired
- dark soya and light soya sauces

Directions:

First, blanch the pork ribs with hot water to get rid of oil and surface dirt. Then peel and devein the prawns. Fry the prawn shells with ginger and spring onion until they are pink then add the ikan bilis and about 1 tablespoon of sugar. Slow cook the prawn shells and ikan bilis together with the pork ribs, dried scallops, star anise, peppercorns, cinnamon bark and 10 cups of water for 6-8 hours. Add sugar, salt, fish sauce, dark and light soya and bring to a boil, the resulting broth should be clear, dark and flavourful. If there the taste is not intense enough, slow cook further.

When it is time to eat, bring the soup to a boil and cook the prawn meat quickly in the boiling broth. Do not overcook the prawns so that they remain succulent and sweet. Serve the noodles with prawns, pork ribs, bean sprouts and the aromatic broth and garnish with chopped spring onion and fried shallots.

Curry Chicken

So my sister brought me curry powder when she visited me about 3 weeks ago, but prior to this I had never used curry powder, neither did I know how to use it. Called home to ask, but no one could give me clear directions so I decided to try it my way anyway. Also, I did not have lemongrass, nor candlenuts, nor shallots so I was really skeptical about how this was going to turn out.

I remember thinking to myself in the kitchen that if this turned out good, its gonna be sheer luck and a lot of good guessing. Thankfully, it did! As usual, I used my 5-in-1 magic pot and that made the cooking and cleaning time so much shorter.

Ingredients: please note that ingredients are an estimate
- 600g of boneless chicken thighs (you can use other parts as well and with bones but as my husband is lazy with bone picking, this is his favourite option)
-1 tomato, cut in quarters
- half a clove of garlic and about a finger size of ginger, blended into a paste
- a handful of toasted pecan nuts, powdered (according to recipes online, cashew nuts were required but I did not have those so pecans were a substitute for me, they worked fine all the same)
- 1 medium sized brown onion thinly sliced (most asian recipes call for shallots, but this worked fine anyhow)
- a small packet of spices, 5g containing of star anise, cinnamon bark and fennel seeds
- 80g of curry powder (add another 5-10g if you prefer a spicier curry)
- 250g of coconut milk
- 5 potatoes cut into slices
- 4 hard boiled eggs, shelled
- 4-5 heaped table spoons of full cream milk, dissolved in 1.5 cup water
- salt and sugar to taste
- 2 carrots (if you prefer to have them in your curry, i usually don't but have found that there is no harm adding anyway)

Directions:
Using the brown function of my 5-in-1 cooker, I fried the spices in about 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil until fragrant. Alternatively, do this in a wok. Then add onions until brown and add the blended paste of garlic and ginger, by now, your kitchen should smell quite wonderful. Add in the tomatoes, potatoes and chicken and cover with 900ml of water and leave to simmer until chicken pieces are cooked. For me, I just put on high pressure cooking function for 6 minutes in the same pot.

Then add the curry powder, the powdered nut, both the coconut milk and full cream milk and stir to combine evenly. If you prefer to have carrots in your curry add it in at this stage too. Simmer again for around 5 minutes until potato is soft. (For me, I just turned the 5-in-1 cooker on low pressure mode and cooked for another 6 minutes). Then add sugar and salt to taste and finally add in the boiled eggs. Serve with rice or toasted french bread. Enjoy!