This is a pot of steaming hot, tasty and sweet fish soup boiled with ‘kau yue’ (is it called Mackeral in English?) bones, head, tomatoes, garlic and slices of ginger. The soup goes very well with noodles.
I had made some fish paste last week and used the fish bones to make some soup. Do check out my other blog to see how I made fish paste and fish balls from scratch.
No. of times viewed = 171
We normally have 3 dishes for dinner – a must-have stir-fried vegetables, a fish or a chicken and an egg or tofu dish or another vegetables dish. Are these a lot? Hubby usually doesn’t join us for dinner as he works late and doesn’t like bland food (what an insult to my cooking eh?) catered for toddlers. So these dishes are only for the 2 girls, my maid and I. If hubby wants to eat, I will leave some dishes for him.
Yesterday we had a fried fish with blended tomato & bombay onions (sauce), a stir-fried chinese cabbage with homemade fish paste, a chicken dish (left over from previous night’s dinner), a fried egg for the girls and a radish & chicken soup . Are these a lot? Most of my friends say that’s really a lot as they normally only have 2 dishes for dinner.
No. of times viewed = 235
This is one of my favorite dishes – braised arrowroots with chicken or pork and fermented tofu. Goes well with rice and whets the appetite easily.
Do hope on to my other blog to check out the recipe.
No. of times viewed = 366
I made pork chop for the first time several weeks ago. The first time, it didn’t turn out well as I had forgotten to marinate the pork with corn flour. Corn flour helps to soften the meat. A week later, I made another batch and this time it turned out well.
The secret to having soft tender meat is to pound the meat with a meat pounder or with the back of a cleaver. Then marinate with corn flour.
The condiments I used to marinate the pork chop are sesame seed oil, Lea & Perrin sauce, a dash of HP sauce, pepper, organic soy sauce and a tablespoon of Manuka honey. Leave in the fridge for at least 2-3 hours.
I normally make a big batch and deep freeze them. On days when my maid is not free to cook, I will defrost the pork chop and retoast them in the toaster.
No. of times viewed = 120
This is my usual ‘poa pun’ (nutricious stuff in Cantonese) during my pregnancy – black chicken soup with snow fungus, wolfberries and red dates. Black chicken is known to be more nutricious than regular chicken.
During my previous pregnancies, my mil or my former maids would chop and crush the black chicken into pieces before putting the chicken into a special double boiler with holes to make chicken essence. Since this is so tedious and time consuming, I’m only boiling the chicken in a crockpot now. I would boil this soup and share this soup with my 2 gals at least twice a week.
No. of times viewed = 1596
Instead of cooking rice porridge for my 2 sick kittens, I cooked oats with pork ribs yesterday. This is a perfect meal if you want to whip up something that’s fast and tasty. All it takes is less than half an hour.
First, marinate the pork ribs with sesame oil, light soya sauce and corn flour (so that the meat will be smoother). If you want, you can add a pinch of pepper. Keep the pork ribs in the fridge for at least an hour.
Cook the oats for 5 minutes. Since I made some soup yesterday, I cooked the oats with soup. Add in the pork ribs and cook for another 15 minutes or until the pork ribs are tender.
Result – tasted very much like rice porridge and very tasty. I loved it and my 2 fussy pots loved it too.
No. of times viewed = 159
Ever since the gals were down with fever and throat ulcer since last Saturday, we’ve been eating very plain and bland food – plain porridge, noodles in soup, steamed fish, steamed tofu, oats and bread. I am getting really fed up with these food and today, I’m going to ask my maid to pan fry some pork chop. Don’t get me wrong, they are not for the gals but I’m eating them myself. My maid has cooked anchovies porridge for the gals and will be steaming a fish and they’ll also be having an organic siew pak choy stir fried with minced chicken meat dish. There’s also an ABC soup.
No. of times viewed = 135
This is the picture of the Bovril noodles that I had written earlier.
Method :
1) Blanch meehoon and vegetables in hot water.
2) Remove them from the hot water with a colander and leave aside.
3) Fry shallots and garlic in sesame oil till fragrant in non-stick pan.
4) Add minced fish paste or minced chicken or minced pork (I used fish paste here).
5) Dissolve 1 – 2 teaspoon of Bovril in hot soup or hot water and add into the pan of meat.
6) Stir fry for about 10 minutes. Add a dash of pepper.
7) Pour out the meat and sauce into a bowl.
8) Mix some of the meat and sauce with the meehoon when ready to serve.
9) You can also fry some shallots till crispy and sprinkle them on top of the noodles.
No. of times viewed = 570
This baby must be a meat lover, especially beef, pork ribs, mutton and curry chicken. I am really crazy over steak and hubby is more than happy to know that coz he loves steaks too and now, he has even more excuses to buy steaks. Each week, we will shop for our steaks at Village Grocer or Cold Storage as they have better quality steaks there. Better quality meaning the meat are from cows that are fed with good quality grains and the texture of the steaks are more tender and not tough. We tried buying cheaper quality steaks but the steak turned out hard and tough and I chewed till I nearly had locked-jaw and in the end, the steak ended up in the bin.
And oh yes, I got a tip from hubby. In order to have softer and more tender meat, pound the meat before frying it either with a meat pounder or the back of a meat chopper. It really makes a big difference. Some people use meat tenderizer but I have doubts using such chemical. I’ve also read that papaya juice is a natural meat tenderizer but I haven’t tried that yet – I don’t want my piece of steak to taste like papaya! Hubby likes the steak lightly marinated with salt and a dash of Lea & Perrin sauce or HP sauce.
No. of times viewed = 161
My 2 gals love to eat ‘kon loa’ noodles (or noodles with dark thick sauce) from the hawkers stall. I don’t like my gals to be eating too much dark thick sauce as it’s an unhealthy condiment – the sauce is loaded with sugar that’s cooked till it becomes thick caramel. Any carbohydrate that is overcooked and burnt produce cancerous chemical.
Since they are starting to get bored with eating fried noodles and noodles with soup, I made them my own ‘kon loa’ noodles today, with Bovril. What I did was stir fried some onions, shallots and fish paste (can also use minced chicken or pork meat) with sesame seed oil and add some Bovril to it. The sauce is then added to the boiled meehoon and they tasted like the ones sold by hawkers, really tasty.
I shall be cooking this dish again soon and this time, I’ll snap a pic of it and post it in my blog.
No. of times viewed = 189
Here’s an appetizing dish that goes very well when eaten with porridge. It’s called ‘tau kok lup’ in Cantonese which literally means ‘diced long beans’ in English. All the ingredients in this dish are diced and toddlers will find this dish interesting and appetizing too. Be careful of choking hazard with the peanuts if you’re feeding your toddler.
Ingredients :
Long beans, diced
Carrots, diced
Dried flower mushrooms, diced
Fresh prawns, diced
Dried preserved chinese radish, diced
Chicken breast, diced
Peanuts, roasted in the oven or fried (without using oil) in the wok and skin removed
A dash of sugar, salt and pepper
Some oyster sauce
Chopped shallots
Method :
Pan fry the shallots till fragrant.
Add in all the ingredients (except the roasted peanuts)
Add sugar, salt and pepper and a little oyster sauce
Fry all the ingredients till fragrant and soft (about 10-15 mins)
Store the peanuts separately in an air-tight container and sprinkle the peanuts on top of the dish just before serving.
No. of times viewed = 200
This is my all-time favorite dish – pan-fried fish paste / fish cake (‘yue peng’). My hubby usually asks his cook to make the fish paste from ‘kau yue’ or mackeral fish or if she’s busy, he’ll buy them from the pasar malam. I normally use the fish paste to make fish balls to go with noodles or pan-fry them into fish cakes. I normally ask my maid to pan-fry a big batch and I will store them in batches in tiny air-tight containers in the freezer. When we’re too busy to cook, my maid will defrost the fish cakes, make some anchovies soup and we will all eat meehoon with the fish cakes. My gals prefer this kind of simple meal than rice with dishes.
No. of times viewed = 266
This is my all-time favorite dish – ‘wong keong kai’ or yellow ginger (kunyit) chicken. It’s wholesome and delicious. I can’t wait for my confinement days to arrive (though I hate the ‘pantang’ part) so that I can ask my confinement lady to cook this dish for me everyday. Yes, when I love a dish, I don’t mind eating it everyday. I never got tired of my confinement dishes during my confinement. Now, I’m just so looking forward to eat those dishes again.
It’s quite easy to cook this dish. Just coarsely blend some yellow ginger (make sure you use enough, else the chicken will be quite tasteless) and shallots and pan-fry them till fragrant and brown. Add chicken, some salt and some water and voila… you have a fragrant, mouth-watering dish on your table.
Even Alycia loves this dish. She ate so much till her mouth and face were stained yellow!
No. of times viewed = 598
No. of times viewed = 486
Here’s the recipe :
Ingredients for the marinate:
Lea & Perrin sauce
Salt
Pepper
5-spice powder
Kunyit (yellow ginger) powder
Ingredients for coating the chicken before frying :
2 eggs whites
Some corn flour
Method :
1) Marinate the chicken with the above ingredients for at least 2-3 hours, the longer the better.
2) Before deep frying the wings & drumsticks, dip them into the beaten eggs.
3) Then, coat the wings & drumsticks with corn flour.
4) Heat wok with oil and deep fry the wings and drumsticks.
No. of times viewed = 276
This delicious chicken dish is yet another of my mil’s recipe. It’s chicken braised with fermented black bean or ‘tau si’ in Cantonese (we use organic ones) and Bombay onions.
Ingredients:
Chicken
Fermented black beans or ‘tau si’ (around 2 tbsps)
2 -3 medium-size Bombay onions
Some ground black pepper
Method:
Heat wok with oil and fry Bombay onions until fragrant.
Add in the chicken and fry for another 15-20 mins.
Add in the fermented black beans and black pepper and cook for another 5 mins.
No need to add salt as the fermented black beans are very salty.
No. of times viewed = 160
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