CNY facai veg

I had to make this dish for Chinese New Year because my mother in law gave me these huge dried shitake mushrooms which her son loves and also the facai (black moss) which was my special request.

To make this dish, I first braised the mushrooms which you can do for quite a few and reserve the leftovers for vegetable dishes later. If prepared carefully, these should be able to keep for a few days in the fridge.

Ingredients:
(List A)
- 15 dried mushrooms, rehydrated.
- 2 tablespoons of light soya
- half a tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1 teaspoon dark soya sauce
- 2 tablespoons chinese wine
- salt and sugar to taste

(List B)
- 1 carrot
- Facai, 50g soaked
- straw mushrooms 80g, blanched
- baby chinese cabbage or bok choy, blanched

Combine ingredients in list A and simmer under low heat in the mushroom water (water from the soaked mushrooms), until mushrooms are tender and fragrant, just before serving, put in the facai. Arrange ingredients in list B on a plate and dish the brasied mushrooms with facai over it.

Braised mushroom is very versatile and can be served with blanched vegetables for a fancy vegetable dish.

How to make epic eggs

I call these eggs epic because they taste great just on their own, and they are so easy to do. For the longest time, I've been wondering how to make eggs that are just right, with the yolk not runny and yet yet not hard with an unsightly grey tinge.

While talking to one of the scientist in the hostel today, I learnt by reperformance how to make it. Here's what you do.

1) Take an egg out of the fridge. There's no need to wait till it reaches room temperature. Just straight out, it's that simple.

2) Put it in room temperature water. It does not matter if you're experiencing summer or winter as this would just mean you have to wait for a shorter or longer time respectively for the water to boil. (Note do not put egg in hot/boiling water as this would cause the egg shell to crack)

3) Bring the water with the egg in it to boil on medium heat.

4) When the water has come to a full boil (bubbling vigorously, but not so vigorously that it splashes out of the pot) time exactly 5 minutes. Use a timer to help you. Then remove from heat and cool. Eat immediately or put in the fridge for another day's use.

5) Enjoy.

Note that eggs that are cook this way might be slightly harder to peel than hard boil eggs as the whites tend to be softer, but they should be firm and coagulated.

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!

Corn, mushroom and tuna frittatas

Tried this for lunch at the work canteen the other day and just had to make my own version. I love how you can throw in any leftovers from the fridge and it makes such a fuss free meal. Made it in my happy call pan so minimum oil was needed for frying this. Would definitely be making this again!

Ingredients: (you can pretty much add any leftover COOKED items from your fridge)
2/3 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup milk
1 can tuna
1 can sweet corn, drained
a handful of brown mushrooms, sauteed in butter and garlic
2 medium eggs
1 cup shredded cheese
salt and pepper to taste
20g melted butter


Directions
Mix the flour, milk, eggs and butter until smooth then add all the cooked ingredients and mix again. Spoon into pan and just wait for it to set, when it has set, flip it and brown on other side. Voila! Serve with fresh blanched vegetables.

Pork and Conpoy Congee

Ate this at cell the other day and wanted to replicate it. It used to be a staple on weekend dinners for the husband so was quite pleased when he told me that the consistency is the same as what he used to have.

Ingredients:
2 chicken carcasses
8 bowls of water
3 carrots
cracked black pepper
3.5 cups rice
500g minced meat marinated with 3 tbps light soy, 5 tbps chinese cooking wine, 1.5 tbps seseme oil, pepper and 1 tbps sugar
7 whole dried scallops
2 tablespoons chicken rice mix (I used this as I forgot to buy ginger, and it was the only thing in my fridge that had ginger in it. if you do have ginger, just chop into slices and add while boiling the broth)

Directions:
First, I used my magic pot to slow cook the chicken carcasses with cracked black pepper and carrots for around 5 hours. If you have ginger on hand, throw it in at this stage. After 5 hours, remove excess oil from the broth and add a teaspoon of salt.

After that, take out the bones and the carrots and scoop out about 3 bowls of broth before putting in the rice and the scallops. Bring to a boil and then leave to simmer, stirring constantly. When the rice has soaked up all the broth, add the mince meat in chunks and stir porridge slowly. Add water/ broth to your desired consistency. The porridge should be left to simmer for about 1 hour as your cook the mince meat. When all the mince meat is added, bring to gentle boil and it is ready to serve.

Serve hot porridge over a raw egg(if you so desire) and with sliced preserved vegetables, fried shallots, seseme oil and light soy. Enjoy!

Prawn and mushroom risotto

For my first attempt at making risotto, I must say that it tastes almost as good as "kiam peng". The husband will beg to differ although this earned a "very tasty" from him, he still says that he prefers its asian friend. Nevertheless, this took like half the time to make, once again thanks to my magic pot.

Ingredients:
10 large banana prawns, deveined and shelled
Marinate for prawns:
2 tspn corn flour
1 tspn cracked pepper and soya sauce
a dash of fish sauce, salt, sugar and dried chilli flakes (for a spicy kick)

for rice:
1 brown onion, sliced
4 medium size mushroom, sliced
1 clove garlic
300g arborio rice
200ml white wine
600ml chicken stock
200g grated cheese

Directions:
Marinate the prawns and fry with garlic until pink. Leave aside.

In my "magic pot", I put the onions on brown function together with a combination of butter and olive oil. As the onions begin to brown, I put in the garlic. Add the rice and white wine and chicken stock, then the mushroom. I then put it on pressure cook function for 7 minutes and then stir in the grated cheese. I also added in some herbs and freshly cracked black pepper and its ready to serve. So easy and yet yummy at the same time!