Loh Mai Kai

I suddenly have a craving for Singapore's Loh Mai Kai. Haha... When I told my SG friends I'm going to try making it, they are quite surprised as normally you can find this everywhere in SG!

I adapted the recipe from Lily Wai. Hers is more like the Malaysian version, and I wanted to make the SG version, which is white in colour, instead of black. Also, in terms of ingredients, it is normally just chicken. I added mushrooms and chinese sausages to mine.

Ingredients

Glutinous Rice (250g)

2 Chicken thighs

1/2 Chinese sausage

3 Mushrooms, soaked and cut into thin slices

Marinate (for chicken thighs):

Light soy sauce

Pepper

Oyster sauce

Ginger juice

Sugar

Sesame oil

Chinese wine

Stock:

2 cups water or chicken stock (I combined some water leftover from soaking the mushrooms too)

Light soy sauce

Pepper

Sugar

Salt

2 Tbsp oil

Sesame oil

Steps:

1. Soak washed glutinous rice for 2 to 3 hours.

2. Drain and steam for 30 mins.

3. Marinade chicken for at least an hour.

4. I then proceed to fry the chinese sausages, mushrooms and chicken. However, I realised that I should have just steam them for 10 mins. The meat will be softer and more tender. If we fry the ingredients, the chicken will be more dry.

5. Arrange the chicken, mushrooms and sausages into bowls.

6. Scoop the glutinous rice over them.

7. Cover the rice with the stock (just level will do).

8. Steam for another 30 mins.

Black Pepper Chicken Spaghetti

I seldom prepare Western food, unless for special occasions or simple pasta meals. I have always heard that tomatoes go well with black pepper sauce. Hence, this time, I decided to cook this dish to try out and it turned out great!

Ingredients

Butter

1 small potato cut into cubes

Salt

Black Pepper

Chicken thighs (My hubby prefers boneless)

Lee Kum Kee Black Pepper Sauce

Sugar

Water

Cornflour mixture (Water and cornflour)

Tomato (diced)

Spaghetti

Olive Oil

Steps:

Potato:

1. If you are not cooking the potatoes immediately, soak the potato cubes in salt water to prevent it from turning black before cooking.

2. Add olive oil then butter into the frying pan. This will prevent the butter from turning black quickly.

3. Add in the drained potato cubes and stir fry till golden brown.

4. Sprinkle some salt and black pepper.

Chicken:

1. Add olive oil then butter into the frying pan.

2. Add in the chicken thighs and brown them on both sides.

Sauce:

1. Keep a bit of the butter left over from cooking the chicken.

2. Add in the LKK black pepper sauce and water.

3. Add a bit of sugar if it is too spicy.

4. Adjust the consistency by adding in the cornflour mixture.

5. Add in the diced potato and stir for a few minutes.

Spaghetti:

1. Boil a pot of water.

2. Add in a pinch of salt and olive oil.

3. Add in the spaghetti and boil for 15 minutes. I finally found the perfect texture of the spaghetti by boiling for 15 mins. Feel free to boil them till the consistency that you like.

Drain the spaghetti and combine all to serve.

滷肉飯

In Taiwan, they have very big bookshops and there are books everywhere. It is amazing that the Taiwanese love reading and will hang out in the bookstores for hours. There was this bookstore that has more than 4 storeys of books and I was busy selecting the cookbooks.

滷肉飯 is one of the popular Taiwan dishes and I found this recipe in one of the cookbooks that I bought. it is really yummy! :)

Ingredients

600g pork (Preferably 五花肉)

5 shallots

Salt

Sugar

Dark Soya Sauce

Soy Sauce

1.5 litres Water

2 八角

Steps:

1. Diced the pork into 1cm cubes.

2. Add oil into wok, brown the shallots.

3. Add in pork and stir till the pork is almost cooked.
4. Add in the salt, sugar, dark soya sauce, soy sauce, water and 八角.

5. Simmer using low heat for 2 hours.

Cream of Chicken Soup

I'm finally back from all my travelling - Taiwan and Singapore. One of the first recipes I tried when I'm back in HK is this Cream of Chicken Soup. In general, I don't trust recipe books, it is more practical to learn from all the housewives' blogs since they are tried and tested and relatively simpler. However, I do buy those mini cookbooks. One of them is the "Chicken Favourites" and I decided to try this soup.

Ingredients

50g Butter

1/2 onion, finely dices

1 garlic cloves, crushed

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

100g chicken breast, diced into 1 cm cubes

1.5 tablespoons of plain flour

0.5 litres of chicken stock (If you are using the off the shelf chicken stock, do add water if you think it will be too salty and strong)

60ml cream plus 1 tablespoons to serve

Steps:

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add onions, then garlic, then celery over low heat. Stir frequently so the vegetables don't brown for 15 mins.

2. Add chicken and stir frequently for 5 mins.

3. Add the flour and stir for another 5 mins.
4. Add the chicken stock, a little at a time, stirring well so that lumps don't form.
5. Bring to simmering point, then cook uncovered for 30 mins.

6. Allow to cool then put them into the blender.

7. Pour the soup back into the saucepan and add the cream, simmer and season to taste.

8. Pour into bowls and add the extra cream to serve.

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.