Fried Wanton with Tomato-based Sauce

It has been a long time since I have blogged... Well I'm back to my "stay at home" days. Hopefully, I will have more time to try out new dishes. This recipe is one of my favourites! This is also the only dish that I can cook before I was married haha… But in Singapore, we don’t have the habit of dipping the wanton into the tomato sauce.

I picked up this recipe from Ah So but I have made some modifications. I made about 20 wantons and Vin and I finished all of them... Yummy!!!!!!!!

Ingredients

Prawns – part of it cut into 3 or 4 parts, part of it cut into “butterfly” style

Cuttlefish, Scallop (Optional)

Pork - Minced so that it can be cooked faster or sliced thinly

Peppers (Can be green, yellow or red) – cut into pieces

Chilli – cut into pieces

Canned pineapple – Cube the pineapple and retain the syrup

Wanton Skin

Garlic

Shallots

Sauce

Tomato Sauce

Sugar

Soy Sauce

Canned pineapple syrup

White vinegar

Steps:

1. Marinade the pork with sesame oil, pepper, soya sauce, a bit of sugar, cornflour and wine.

2. Remove the shells of the prawns and marinade with wine and sugar. Just before cooking, dry the prawns and add sesame oil and salt.

3. Put in a small piece of prawn and a bit of meat and fold the wrapper into a triangular shape, pressing down around the area of the fillings to bind the skin.
4. Deep fry the wanton and drain them. The less pork in the fillings it has, the more easily cooked the wanton is. We do not want the wanton to turn black before the fillings are cooked J
5. For the sauce, put a bit of oil and add in the shallots until it is slightly browned, then add in the garlic.
6. Add in the “butterflied” prawns, scallop and cuttlefish.7. Add in the chilli and peppers and stir fry and then dish up the seafood and peppers.

8. Add the pineapple syrup, soya sauce, tomato sauce, sugar and white vinegar into the wok.

9. Add a bit of cornflour and water mixture to thicken the sauce.
10. Add in the pineapple and the rest of the fried stuff.

The filling is only a tiny part of the big wanton.

You can experiment and add more stuff to the sauce.

This is how it is eaten, the fried wanton with the sauce over it :)

Start of Work... Again

I finally found work to do after resting at home for 1.5 months. It is with mixed feelings that I go back to work. Somehow, humans are contradictory creatures. When I have work, I longed for a break. When I was home, almost bored to death, I wished I can go back to work.

Since I needed more savings, I’m happy that I finally found work. At least, it will stop my hubby from nagging at me, complaining that I do nothing at home. The funny thing was on the morning before I left work, he told me to quit if I find the project too tedious… I guess he felt bad for all the times that he had scolded me, for staying at home, doing nothing, and not generating income.

Anyway, my first day of work, was the same as every first day at a new project. This is the fourth time I’m going through this. You will have to do a lot of admin stuff and then read a lot of project documentations and background, while everyone is so busy with their work. I feel helpless looking at them, being bored and unable to help them. If only, someone can just assign me work on the first day, even though it may just be a small task…

But I do know that tough times are coming soon, you can almost feel it in the atmosphere. Hence, I better enjoy it while I can :)

Bye bye facebook… Best wishes to all those who are stealing my harvest in Happy Farm and for those who are fighting me in Sorority Life!

賽螃蟹

I made some mango puffs the other day and the recipe called for 4 egg yolks. Hmmm… What to do with the remaining 4 egg whites? The only dish I can think of is . It is a simple dish but it is one that requires skill and practice. This is my third try and I think it is already better than the previous tries.

I soaked some dried scallop in hot water until they are soft and shred them. Drain them and retain the water. As to the egg whites, I added in some milk, salt and pepper. I also added the cooled “soaked scallop” water.

This dish required quite a lot of oil, so as to prevent the egg whites from sticking to the wok. Add in the shredded dried scallops and stir fry for awhile. Pour in the egg white mixture and scrambled them continuously. Remove from heat when you see that the egg white is setting.

I have some boiled broccoli and placed them around the dish for decorations.

Low Cholesterol Diet

My hubby finally went for a health check to monitor his cholesterol levels. Although he is stick-thin, he has slightly high cholesterol. It could be due to his lifestyle or maybe inherited in his genes. The night before, I decided to cook some low cholesterol dishes for him.

It consists of celery soup, steamed fish, steamed tofu and red rice. For the celery soup, I used chicken breast (least fat content), celery, corn, carrots. For the steamed fish, I prepared it Cantonese-style i.e. steamed the fish plain, drain the fish then add hot oil, fried garlic, spring onions and soy sauce. For the steamed tofu, I steamed it, then add the black soya sauce fried together with the minced chicken breast, dried mushrooms and frozen vegetables.

When Vin came home that night, I told him about the low cholesterol dishes and he asked “Why must we cheat?!”… Hmmm… It got me thinking... Is this considered as cheating? Well, I guess it’s natural human behaviour to eat more healthy food before a health check. What do you think?

The celery soup, together with chicken breast, corn, carrot, celery. You will notice that I have removed the corn from the cobs as my hubby will only eat the corn like this...

The steamed tofu... I made too much sauce, so you can't see the tofu from this picture :p

Steamed fish with garlic... Really tastes yummy :)

According to the instructions, the red rice is to be soaked in water for 6 hours. I guess it is to soften it. But somehow, I feel that white rice is still the best. The rice rice doesn't absorb the gravy of the dishes.

Well... Healthy food often does not taste good.

House Warming - Mini Quiches

I had a series of 3 house warming parties the last two weekends. I think there is one more to go... It was tiring but really fun :) I would bake some mini quiches, chicken wings and mango puffs for the guests. The chicken wings that were really popular were the tangy wings from Wokking Mum. They are sour in flavour and taste really special. However, once the chicken wings are cold, they do not taste as nice.

The mini quiches turned out well and still taste good even when they are slightly cold. The following is the recipe for making 8 muffin-size quiches.

Ingredients

Pastry:

125g plain flour

10g icing sugar

50g unsalted butter

Pinch of salt

4-5 teaspoons cold water

Filling:

3 slices of bacon

6 pieces of chopped brown mushrooms

1/2 finely chopped onion

1/2 cup milk

1/3 cup cream

2 eggs

Finely grated cheddar cheese (I use one slice of cheese, cut into pieces)

Steps:

1. To make the pastry, combine the flour, sugar, salt and butter in a bowl.

2. Rub the butter into the flour by lifting and pressing with fingertips to break the butter into tiny pieces. continue until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

3. Add the cold water and mix the mixture to form a ball.

4. Knead lightly on a lightly floured surface then chill, wrapped in clingfilm for 15 mins.

5. Divide the pastry into 8 equal portions and roll them out to form thin circles.

6. Grease the muffin tray.

7. Place the pastry into the muffin tray and prick the base with a fork.

8. Fry the bacon and chopped them into tiny pieces.

9. Using a bit of oil, fry the onions and the mushrooms. Finally, combine the bacon bits into the ingredients.

10. Whisk the milk, cream and 2 eggs in a jug.

11. Divide the ingredients into the muffin cases and pour the milk mixture in.

12. Sprinkle with the cheddar cheese.

13. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees celsius.

14. Bake the quiches for about 30 mins.

I spent a great amount of time fitting the pastry into the muffin cases. Instead of using a lightly floured surface, I used 2 pieces of baking paper. 1 to lay on the surface and the other wrapped around the rolling pin. It is easier to handle the dough and it will not be stuck onto the pin :)

Prima Taste - Hainanese Chicken Rice

This is another of Prima Taste's pastes. I like it as they have 3 different sauces - black soya sauce, ginger sauce and chilli sauce. However, the chilli sauce is not as nice as the one you can find commonly in hawker centers. Every Singaporean must have at least one favourite chicken rice stall. For me it's either Boon Tong Kee or the one at Queenstown Hawker Center. How about you?

This is my first attempt at chopping up a chicken... Not too bad for first attempt right? :)

This is the rice. Prima Taste has special fragrant oil for you to cook the rice. It is not too bad...

I find the soup a bit too oily and bland. But come to think of it, most of the chicken rice soup is quite bland.

These are the 3 different sauces... Looks nice right? :)

New House - Kitchen

My kitchen is a small L-shaped kitchen. We initially wanted to redo the whole kitchen but found out that since the cabinets are still in good condition, we can save some money. It used to only have a sink and cooking area, with no workspace. Hence, we took out the refrigerator and built another tabletop and put the oven below.

In order for it to appear bigger, we also knocked down a section of the wall so that we can put slightly tinted sliding doors. There is also insufficient space for storage. Therefore, we used those IKEA clear boxes to try and organise the things and stacked them up.

We went to IKEA and found out that we can save a lot of worktop space by hanging things. Over here, you can see that the kitchen roll and some of the spices are hanging from a bar. My Zwilling knife set is also at the corner. The knives are of really good quality. I'm glad I bought them :)

This is the stove area. The microwave oven is in a box above the counter. I asked to place a black glass against the wall. It used to be a sheet of aluminium. I think black glass looks nicer and it gives the kitchen the black and white feel.

This is my Siemens oven and the Siemens washer-dryer. A built-in oven is really much much better. However, as I bought the cheapest model, it doesn't come with self-cleaning functions. Hence, the stains are quite difficult to remove.

Lastly, this is the washing area. We have a hanging dish rack on top of the sink to save space. As it is a small area, I will normally put them back in the cupboards once they are dried.

New House - Bedrooms

It's been awhile since I have blogged... Reason being I was on holidays. Will blog about my holidays later on :)

The houses in Hong Kong are well known for being tiny. Before we found this new house, I can never understand how people can squeeze generations of people into a less than 600 sq ft home. Well... We found a house that is less than 600 sq ft. It is cosy enough for 2. However, we can only at most accommodate 1 guest. And the mattress can only be laid in the guest bedroom after the door is closed! Hee... This means that my whole family will not be able to stay with us when they come visiting.

One advantage is it takes much faster to clean and tidy the house :)

This is the master bedroom. It can only accomodate a double bed and a wardrobe. We have windows on both sides of the room. I have boldly asked to have black day curtains (the thin ones) and white night curtains (the thicker ones). I didn't want it the other way as I think black curtains would make the room look smaller. I think the curtains turned out better than I thought. What do you think? The wardrobe is of the same wood as the bed frame, with frosted green glass.

Again, we have a ceiling fan in the master bedroom for energy saving.

This is the wardrobe for the guest bedroom. It is a much bigger one, exclusively for me :p

Steamed Chicken with Black Fungus

Now that I'm a housewife, I will take special care in preparing food for my hubby. He is very thin, however, he has slight cholestrol problems. So, all you thin guys out there, don't think that you won't have a cholestrol problem... It's better to run some tests.

I was browsing through all the food blogs and considering what to cook. I came across one of my favourite bloggers - Lily's Wai Sek Hong and found this wonderful recipe: Country-Style Steamed Chicken.

I followed her recipe, but added more shallots and garlic as garnishing. I have also added some chilli slices and chopped spring onion.

It really tastes great! However, my hubby complained that the chicken pieces have bones... So, for my next try, I will use boneless chicken thighs.

New House - Living Room

Today marks the start of my housewife days… again… Hopefully, I can be kept busy playing with facebook, chatting and blogging :) I have been occupied tidying up the new place. Here are some of the photos I promised…

The theme of the living room is modern black and white. I love the picture of the leaning Eiffel Tower in the background.

We spent a long time seaching for a black leather sofa bed but couldn't find it. Hence, settled for a non-sofa bed.

The black bar counter is very high, to cater for 2 door refrigerator below. In order to fit an oven in the kitchen, the refrigerator has to be in the living room. And my hubby refused to put it in the open, hence, we have to put in below the bar counter.

A clearer view of the Eiffel Tower.

We have a fan in the living room. My hubby said that it can save energy if you on the fan and set the air con to be at 29 degrees at the same time.

This is our new LCD TV, and we have a "remote control" box :)

Did you see the cute white umbrella stand we have?

Tomato Beef

I realised that we can find a lot of tomato dishes in HK. They have tomato egg, tomato beef, tomato noodles, tomato 拉面… etc. Tomatoes are very healthy food. They can help improve skin texture and colour. They can also help to reduce blood cholestrol. Tomatoes also contain lycopene (the red pigment in tomato) and this is a powerful antioxidant that can help fight cancer cells.

This tomato beef dish is easy to make and it can store for a few days. It can be eaten with rice, instant noodles or spaghetti.

Ingredients

Minced Beef

Tomato

Carrot (Optional)

Celery (Optional)

Frozen Vegetables (Carrot, Corn, Peas)

Minced Garlic

Onion (Roughly chopped)

Seasonings

Tomato Sauce

Sugar

Soy Sauce

Salt

Sesame oil

Steps:

1. Marinade the beef with salt, sugar and sesame oil for at least 10 mins.

2. You can add some water to the beef to prevent it from clumping during frying.

3. Thinly make a cross in the skin at the bottom of each tomato.
4. Boil the tomatoes for about 5 mins until the skins are separated.
5. Cool the tomatoes in cold water, remove the skins and chopped them into small cubes.
6. Add oil to the wok and add in the onions.
7. Add in the garlic and stir fry till fragrant.
8. Add in the minced beef and stir fry till about 80% cooked.
9. Add in the chopped tomatoes, vegetables and water.

10. Add Tomato Sauce, Sugar and Soy Sauce.

11. Simmer the beef till the sauce thickens.

This is my lunch box with eggs, vegetables and tomato beef :) The rice is at the bottom of the tomato beef.

Isn't this breakfast pretty? :p

Goodbye Gold Coast

We have finally completed the move to our new place :) The other day, when I was buying MacDonald for dinner at our old place – Gold Coast, I happened to be impressed by the views and took a couple of pictures.

When we first moved in, we were wowed by the beautiful views and relaxing environment. But honestly, I didn’t pay much attention to the views in the 1.5 years that we stayed there.

Prima Taste - Laksa

As I said before, the quality of food in HK is better than Singapore. For example, there are branches of Tonkichi in Singapore and in HK. I have tried both before and the one in HK is really fantastic!

However, I still miss a lot of Singapore’s local food. That’s when I discovered Prima Taste! Prima Taste has a lot of Singapore's Favourites in Ready-to-Cook Pastes. They are simple to use and really taste very much like the original. I especially love their Laksa and Curry. They only take less than half an hour to prepare.

Beautiful Wedding

I attended a beautiful wedding last weekend. It was my sister-in-law’s wedding :) The wedding was held at a restaurant in Rochester Park, Singapore. They had a very beautiful wedding cake.

It was a sweet and simple affair, which celebrated the union of two wonderful persons.

Talking about weddings, I wished that I had a garden wedding instead of the normal oriental-style wedding dinners. Hmmm…. Maybe I can persuade my hubby to have a garden ceremony when we re-new our vows probably 10 years later! Hee… Something to dream about…

Fried Rice

Fried Rice with Char Siew

Fried Rice with Chicken

Cooking fried rice is both easy and difficult. Easy, because it is just one dish, you do not have to think of other dishes to go with it. Difficult, because it is very tedious work to cook it. You have to slice all the ingredients to tiny pieces, then you have to fry each of the ingredients separately first, before combining them together.

The most important thing is the rice has to be quite dry. You can put the rice uncovered in the refrigerator for at least 5 hours, or cook it with less water. If the rice is wet, it will become “mashed” fried rice, you can’t see the rice 一粒粒. To prevent the rice from sticking to the wok, we need to heat up the oil and “spread” it around the wok.

I have not figured out which is the correct way to “coat” the rice with egg:

• Pour the egg into the wok first and quickly put in the rice and stir so that all the grains are covered with egg OR
• Pour the rice first and then pour the egg over the rice and stir

Please let me know if you know which way is correct or if there are other ways! :)


Ingredients

Oil, Rice
Garlic (chopped)
Chicken thigh / char siew
Chinese Dried Mushroom
Dried Chinese sausages (La Cheong)
Prawns
Frozen Vegetables (Peas, Corns and Carrots)
Egg (Shredded and also some for “coating” the rice)

Steps:

1. If using chicken thighs, remove the skin and rub with salt. Then, blanched it in hot water and marinate with soy sauce, cornflour, sesame oil, Chinese cooking wine for at least 30 mins.

2. Soak the Chinese mushrooms in hot water to soften, then remove the stem and cut the rest of the mushrooms into cubes.

3. To make the prawns more crunchy, first remove the shells and veins, then rub it with salt and cornflour to try and remove their skins. Then, put under running water for 10 mins.

4. Soak the sausages in hot water and then remove the outer skin and cut them into cubes.

5. For 2 cups of rice, normally I will use 4 eggs. Beat the eggs and pour half to make the omelette. Then, shred them.

6. Fry each of the ingredients separately with oil, adding some garlic when frying the prawns and chicken.

7. Oil the wok again and pour in the rest of the eggs, then the rice.

8. Stir well to evenly distribute the eggs.

9. When the rice is golden, pour in the other ingredients and continue stirring to mix the ingredients. Add seasonings - salt and pepper to taste.

Vin’s Fav – Black Pepper Honey Grilled Wings

When I saw the white plate at a departmental store, I knew it would be perfect for chicken wings... Hee... One of the first things I tried cooking was chicken wings, as it is Vin’s favourite :) I tried frying chicken wings before but found that it will get burnt outside easily and the inside will still remain uncooked. Deep frying is too messy and unhealthy. Hence, I settled for grilled as my oven can support grill functions. Also, the chicken will be tender and juicy inside after grilling.

Ingredients

Marinade:
Soya sauce
Cornflour
Black pepper

For glazing:
Oil
Honey with Black pepper

Steps:
1. Wash the chicken wings and rub them with salt
2. Blanched them in hot water
3. Marinate them with the ingredients shown above for at least 30 mins
4. I usually cover the tray with an aluminium foil for grilling. Oil it.
5. Place the chicken wings in and grill them.
6. Every 10 mins, turn the wings over and glaze them until they are cooked (Takes about 30 to 40 mins)

Moving House

Introducing my sis's dog... Minnie!!! Haha... She looks so adorable with this expression. She loves eating toothpicks, tissues and chewing walls!

In case you are wondering why there are no food posts yet, well… it is because I am too busy with packing house to consolidate all the food pictures. We are moving house on the 19 June and the current house is in a mess now.

When you first moved into a new house, it seems like there are some procedures to follow. I have compiled the following to be done:

- Bring over salt, rice and sugar, bottle of cooking oil and vinegar

- Boil water and turn on all lights
Besides the above, water is boiled immediately after entering the home and all lights in the home are turned on for at least 15 minutes. If one is staying in the house, turn on the `balcony' light or if there is no balcony, the living room light for that night.

- Red Packets
Red Hong Bao packets are also placed on the kitchen stove and keep a Red Hong Bao in each bedroom's cupboard drawer. The money should be even numbers. For example, it can be 6 cents. For the Hokkien, 6 sounds like luck. For the Cantonese, they may use 8 cents for luck.

- Rice
Since the stable food of the Chinese is rice, than it is natural to go into the home and sprinkle (scatter) rice all around the various rooms of the home. (REMEMBER: Don't spill it out of the window).

- Green Beans
Green symbolise the East or rising sun. And again scattering green beans in the home is symbolic of seeding the home (with children). Just imagine - the hope is that green beans sprout in the home and this symbolic gesture has to do with this.

- Salt
Especially if the house is a second-hand one, often, salt is sprinkled around the home to supposedly cleanse away bad qi or old qi. And it is also sprinkled in the toilet.

Getting a new home is really something exciting, especially since we are very much involved in the renovations and decorations. I will definitely take some nice photos to show you our sweet home after we have moved in :p

Living in HK...

My husband and I are Singaporeans. We were married for a year, before he had a job posting in HK. So, we packed our bags and moved to HK about 1.5 years ago. When we first came, I was jobless and had a lot of free time to explore how to cook and do housework.

I can’t even fry an egg, can’t even iron a single cloth, etc. However, after 3 months, I was able to do all these and much more… My daily routine as a housewife (not Tai Tai! Tai Tai doesn’t need to perform any household chores) was to wake up early, prepare breakfast for my hubby. Then, clean up the whole house – Clean furniture, vacuum and mop the floor. I will then go explore HK supermarkets, shopping centers and wet markets. After that, I will prepare dinner. Sometimes, I will try out the dinner dishes by preparing them for lunch.

After some time, I grew bored and became very obsessed in maintaining a clean home. I can’t stand a single strand of hair or even a speck of dust. It got so bad that my hubby says I got 洁癖. Finally, I found a project and it doesn’t matter now if my house has 100 strands of hair :p

At first glance, HK is actually quite similar to Singapore… Same tall buildings, same shopping centers, same workaholics. However, after some time, you will notice some distinct differences. The language is mainly Cantonese. However, they are more proficient in Mandarin recently.

The maids in HK have defined working hours and they have their own free time on Sundays and public holidays. The rich/poor gap is larger in HK. And HK is really a shopping haven! There are so many varieties of brands and they are so much cheaper in HK. There are some things that you can’t even buy in Singapore, even when you have money, as the brands are not available in Singapore.

As for food, the quality in HK is much better. However, I still miss Singapore local fare – Laksa, Roti Prata, Curry, Hokkien Mee etc…

At the Beginning...

This blog is set up with the sole intention of revealing what my hubby, Vin, is having for dinners. When I started cooking, I was not even able to fry an egg. The first egg I attempted was when I was staying at a service apartment. It was an electric stove and the level was from 1 to 10. I tried the number 5 setting. I poured olive oil onto a saucepan and it immediately turned black... I should say that the saucepot looked like it has a black coating! Well... I thought it was "normal" behaviour and broke an egg into it.

The whole thing turned black and the whole room was filled with smoke. By then, I knew... that this was not normal behaviour and turned off the stove. I was so worried that the smoke detector would go off. So, I used the main door as fan and hoped that the smoke will dissipate soon! After that, I’m left with just a black-coated saucepan that no amount of scrubbing can remove. I was too embarrassed to call the staff for help. (After that, a friend of mine said that I could have easily asked for a change in saucepan from the hotel staff.)

I had to source for help from my aunt who taught me the power of WHITE VINEGAR! All you need to do is pour in white vinegar with some water and boil it. After some time, it can be scrubbed off easily. And white vinegar is very useful in getting rid of oily stuff, especially useful for cleaning kitchen walls and cabinets.

Lessons learnt in frying an egg: Use number 1 or 2 setting for cooking on electric stove; white vinegar is very powerful in the kitchen; consult Aunt when in doubt :p

Well… As time passes, I learned how to cook edible dinners and have become very interested in cooking. As how Vin puts it, it is one of the rare tasks that I can spend a long time doing QUIETLY, and not bother him at all. So, it proves that a pampered girl can still become a cook. Hope this will be an inspiration to the rest of the pampered girls out there!