PORK MUSHROOM STEW

With the ready steam mushroom aromatic smell all over the house how can I wait any longer to taste the juicy smooth mushroom. Here is a simple and fast cooking one pot meal best served with warm cooked rice. Drooling.....................

500 gm pork belly - cut into bite size
1 whole garlic - removed skin
1 Chinese cabbage - cut into long strips
lots of soy sauce to taste and season with pepper. (you can add in seasoning or oyster sauce if you like but I did not add in any of this as the mushroom is so aromatic and sweet plus the soy sauce)

1. In a sauce pan add a few tbsp. of oil, sauteed the garlic pips lightly brown.
2. Add in the pork stir fry a few minutes then add in the ready steam mushrooms.
3. Then slowly add in some soy sauce stir fry for awhile then add enough water to simmer (you need to adjust yourself to taste as different brand of soy sauce saltiness varied.)
4. When the pork is tender add in the Chinese cabbage to cook for a few minutes until tender.
5. Mix some water with cornflour to thicken the gravy and is ready to serve.

P/s Irene hope you like it.

SHITAKE MUSHROOM

LOVE EATING MUSHROOMS THEN YOU MUST TRY THIS.

1. Soak mushrooms in cold water with some sugar until soaked thru (few hours).

2. Rinse and squeeze mushrooms dry

3. Here I am preparing 500gm dried mushroom.

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup soya sauce

1/4 oil

2 tbsp sugar

4 heapful tbsp cornflour

4. Mix together and pour over mushroom, using hands to mix and squeeze the mushroom to absord the mixture.

5. Steam for 40 minutes or longer if you wish for softer texture.

6. Cool, pack and store in freezer. Mushroom ie ready to use in any kind of dishes (stir fry, stew, claypot chicken rice, chinese dumplings, pastries and etc)

Ayam Masak Utara.

1. Marinate chicken with salt, pepper, 1 tbsp cornflour and a bit of tumeric powder for at least 1/2 hour.Then deep fry for browning not cooked. Here I using 1 whole chicken.

20 shallots

15pcs soaked dried chillies or chili Boh

1 thin slice of galangal (if not available can be omitted)

1/2 cup of oil

2. Blend the above ingredients into fine paste, pour into wok with low heat on to fry the paste until aromatic or the oil floated on the surface.

3. Add the fried chicken, 1 pc Tumeric leaf (if you have)and stir for a while.

4. Add 1 packet coconut milk (250ml) and 1 tsp sugar and stirring constantly to avoid burning.Taste and season with salt and chicken granules if you prefer.

5.Continue cooking until the gravy thicken.

 

Serve with white rice/butter rice/coconut rice with fried egg and cucumber pineapple salad.

Christmas Roast Turkey

Yesterday is Christmas day although we are not Christian but we do enjoyed having a family dinner together with roast turkey, pumpkin soup, potatoes sausages salad and butter rice. This year I manage to get a small turkey (5kg) at the lowest price rm19.90perkg in Giant hypermarket where as others supermarts selling between rm22.90 to rm28.00 perkg.
The only thing that not properly done is my table and serving platters as all my things are still packed in boxes with no intention to unpack until we get to have our own house. Nevertheless we have a wonderful dinner, my sons taking pictures to put into facebook and I taking pictures for this blog as you noticed it been a while I did not update it.

Roast turkey
1 whole turkey - thawed and pat dry
2 tbsp Sage - chopped finely
Salt (2-3tbsp) and pepper                                      } mix all together
A few tablespoon of olive oil

A few twig of fresh Rosemary - cut into 3" lenght
A few slices of streaky bacon

Sauce
1.5 liter chicken stock
3 tbsp flour

1.Rub the turkey inside out with the mixture. Under the skin also rub with the mixture and stuff in the Rosemary twigs and the streaky bacon.
2. Wrap the seasoned turkey in aluminium foil and placed onto a baking tray. Keep in the fridge to marinate at least 24 hours until bake time,
3.Calculate the turkey weight for roasting 40minutes perkg. My turkey is 5kg x 40min= 3hours 30 minutes .
4. Bake at 180 C for 3 hours and removed the alunimium foil to continue baking for browning the turkey. Please keep an eyes on the turkey so is not burn.
5. When cooked, lift the turkey from tray, skim the surface fats from the roasting tray, add some chicken stock (or water) and flour.
6. Place the roasting pan onto a stove and bring to boil. Season the sauce if needed. Serve turkey with gravy.

Potatoes Sausages Salad
1 packet (800gm) potatoes - wash and boil in a sauce pot with lightly salted water until tender but not too
                                             soft. Cut into wedges, put aside.
15 pcs chicken/pork mini sausages
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup water
salt and black pepper to season.

1. Place butter, olive oil, water and sausages in a pan onto a stove with high heat. Cook until the water evaporated turn heat to low and with remaining oil stir fry to brown the sausages then add in the cooked potatoes wedges. Mix thoroughly, season with salt and pepper. Serve.

Pot Pies





Make this pot pies last weekend with leftover from our ABC soup, the soup was all finished off with  only the potatoes, carrots, chucks of chicken meat left. Is a waste to thrown it away so I turned it into my pot pies filling. First I shredded the cooked chicken meat, cutting the potatoes and carrots into smaller pieces. diced one big onion and sauteen with some butter, add in one tablespoon of flour and fry for a while then I added in chicken soup (I used instant soup in a mug one packet mix with water)then follow by the shredded chicken, potatoes, carrots and some frozen green peas. Cook for a while to thicken the sauce and add in salt, pepper to taste. Filled the pots with the filling, grease the rim of the pot and paste on the savoury pastry onto the rim to sealed. Glaze with eggs wash and poked some hole to for the air and steam to escape during baking. I cooked some brown sauce to serve with the pies and this is our dinner that evening. It was delicious with the crusting buttery pastry plus the sauce.

This picture was taken with my handphone.

Bimbinbap Korean Hot Stone Pot Rice

You need a hot stone/hot pot for bimbinbap as I do not have so use what available.

Ready cooked ingredients for bimbinbap



To cook Korean Hot pepper sauce you will need:
1 cup anchovy- soaked to soften, chopped finely
1 bulb of garlic- finely chopped
1/2 - 1 cup-  grinded chilli paste
2 tbsp roasted sesame seeds
Sesame oil & oil
Method: Preheat wok, add sesame oil and oil, sauteen garlic and chilli paste until the oil separated from the paste.
Add in the anchovy and sesame seeds, cooked until done. Can served with other dishes, noodles or rice.



First time make this bimbinbap and my family love it. Is easy to make and healthy too. I visited Korea few years back and during the trip we went to Seoul, Jeju Island, Mt. Seorak and others nearby places. Me and my buddies girlfriend have a wonderful holidays and lots of delicious Korean foods.I would like to visit Korean again if possible with my whole family soon.

Ingredients:

Soya bean sprouts-boiled in boiling water a few minutes, drained, sprinkle with salt and vineger, mix well
Spinach-boiled in boiling water a few minutes,drained, cut into 2incnes length
Beef(any meat you preferred)-shredded, marinated with soya sauce, stir fried until done.
Shitake Mushroom-soaked and shredded, stir fried until done.
Spring onion-cut into 2inches length.
Shredded Dried Seaweed
Egg
Kimchi
Roasted sesame seed
Sesame oil 
Cooked Rice

Method:
1. Preheat stone pot on the stove, wipe inside pot with sesame oil.
2. Add in the cooked hot rice, arrange the cooked ingredients, egg, Korean Hot pepper sauce and Kimchi on top of the cooked rice.
3. Sprinkle spring onion, sesame seed and dried seaweed.
4. Serve.

KOREAN GINSENG CHICKEN SOUP

Last weekend I cooked some Korean food for my family and its turn out yummy delicious. Because is a last minute decision I just used what I have in hand, for the wine in the Korean ginseng chicken instead of Jinro wine I subtituted with Chinese white wine and the last 1/4 cup of my Napoleon Bonaparte liquor which was 30th yrs old liquor, originally was bottled in a 'Gold Book' shape porcelain bottle with Napoleon head as the cap, because the bottle cap was broken I tranfer into another glass bottle. I used Chinese Ginseng (Julie's gave me 3 strips of the Chinese Ginseng during Chinese New Year) and is useful to promote overall well being. It also helps to improve mental alertness, improve skin complexion, while revitalising and strengthening the heart and lungs.

1 whole chicken- remove head and legs, cleaned and wipe dry.

1 strip of Ginseng ( Yen Sam)

5 pcs. dried red dates (jujube)

1.1/2 cups glutinous rice -soaked for 3 hours- drained

1/2 cup of Korean Jinru wine

1 tsp salt

1. Mix glutinous rice, salt and dried red dates, and stuff into chicken.

2. Next, stuff the ginseng into the chicken

3. Put chicken (belly part up)into a pot then pour wine and water until cover the whole chicken.

4. Cook in high heat until boiling and turn the fire into low heat, cover pot and stew for 2 hours.

5. When cooked, remove stuffing and mix with the soup to serve.

Pandanus Leaves & Red Dates (Jujube) Drink

I was told that this drink is good at lowering high blood pressure and especially for those who have pain at the back of our neck and shoulder. Anyway I like the taste of the drink, also good for our health and with plenty of pandanus leaves that I have planted no harm drinking it often.

10pcs pandanus leaves - cut into 1 inch length
6 pcs red dates - sliced
brown sugar (optional) to taste

Boiled for 1/2 an hour and add sugar to taste.

Parmesan & Sun Dried Tomato bread mix

My front neighbour's  Mrs Liew  gave me a pack of this bread pre mix that her brother brought back from UK. Even before the packet of flour is open you can smell the wonderful aroma of herbs and parmesan cheese. Only last week I manage to baked it and is really delicious. The mix works in bread machines but I mix it with my Kenwood cake mixer then rolled by hand into different shapes. Rest the dough and baked, there easy instruction to follow at the back of the wrapper. Unfortunately it only available in England, Let check it out at their website at  http://www.wrightsflour.co.uk/index.aspx .

                                            

Stew Sea Cucumber with Chicken, Mushroom

1 whole chicken cut into quaters, season with salt and pepper. Pan seared the chicken for browning.

Sea cucumber washed clean and dried

1 no. whole chicken - quarters, season with salt and pepper and pan seared the chicken for a while.
1 kg or more sea cucumber cut into bite size
15 pcs dried mushrooms - soaked, marinated with sugar, soya sauce, oil and some cornflour-steam for 1 hour.
3 cloves garlic - tear into pieces
2 inches ginger -sliced
1/2 tsp of five spice powder
1/4 cup of shaoxing wine (can subtitute with other liquor
oil and sesame oil
soya sauce, oyster sauce, pepper for seasoning.

Method.
1. When the above ingredients is ready, add in some oil and sesame oil into a pot.
2. Sauteen the ginger and garlic for a while then add in the sea cucumber to stir fried for 10min.
3. Add in the mushrooms stir for a while.
4. Add enough water to cover the sea cucumber and mushrooms,
5.Add soya sauce, oyster sauce to simmer until the sea cucumber is 80 percent cooked.
6. Now, add the seared chicken and simmer to cooked.
7. Season to taste.

Asparagus and Chives

Aunty Pauline gave me this asparagus and yellow chives. I just stir fried it with garlic and sliced cuttlefish. Is a simple dish but the combination of both sprouts and leaves blended well. Viola!

WU TAU KUIH aka SAVOURY YAM (TARO) CAKE

Ingrdients: Yam, dried shrimps, chopped shallots and garlic, mock vegetarian char siew (here I used mock char siew as I sharing it with my halal friends but you can subtitute with chinese sausages, mince meats and etcs), five spice powder, rice flour and for garnishing is diced red chillies, spring onions and lots of fried shallots.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Batter:

1350ml water

500gm sifted rice flour  } blend all batter ingredients till smooth, set aside

1 tsp alkaline water (optional)

Filling:

150 gm dried mushrooms, soaked and shredded thinly

120 gm dried shrimps, soaked and sieved dry

200 gm chinese sausages -diced/sliced finely

(subtitute with other sausages or meats)

100 gm garlic- diced finely

100 gm shallots- diced finely

1200 gm Yam - cubed (less yam if you preffered)

1 tbsp Chinese five spice powder- mix into yam

Salt, pepper and chicken granules for seasoning.

Garnishing: fried shallots, diced red chilli and spring onions.

Method:

1. Heat 5tbsp oil in wok. Stir fry filling ingredients except pumpkin till fragrant.

2. Add the marinated cubes yam and seasoning, stir fry thoroughly.

3. Pour in batter and cook for a while, better become thick, off heat.

4. Spoon batter into a greased 12 inches round tray or small cups.

5. Steam over high heat (12" tray 40min/ cups 15min until cooked)

6. Remove and allow to cool.

7. Garnish and served with chilli sauce.

Fried Foamy Eggs White

With leftover frozen eggs white from my Chinese New Year cookies baking, I have cooked it into a foamy omelette served with green peas and shrimps. As it turn out very nice as a dish for my dinner, infact I just ates it with cooked white rice minus the peas. Simply delicious, reminded me Dragon I restaurant do served this dish, sprinkle with tiny bit of shredded scallop on top the cooked foamy eggs white.

Is very simple to make, just add in some salt and pepper to taste into the eggs white, hand whisked into medium soft peak foam. Heat a pan with some oil, pour in the foamy eggs white to cook on both side with low heat. Simple, right?

Savoury Pumpkin Cake (Kueh)

To cook Chilli sauce: blend 3 pips garlic and 10 red chillies (or chillies paste) together until smooth. Add 1 cup water, sugar and vinegar to taste, cook and simmer for a few minutes. Ready to serve.

Ingredients:

Batter:

1350ml water

500gm sifted rice flour  } blend all batter ingredients till smooth, set aside

2 tsp alkaline water

Filling:

150 gm dried mushrooms, soaked and shredded thinly

120 gm dried shrimps, soaked and sieved dry

200 gm chinese sausages -diced/sliced finely

(subtitute with other sausages or meats)

100 gm garlic- diced finely

100 gm shallots- diced finely

1kg pumpkin - shredded

Salt, pepper and chicken granules for seasoning.

Garnishing: fried shallots, diced red chilli and spring onions.

Method:

1. Heat 5tbsp oil in wok. Stir fry filling ingredients except pumpkin till fragrant.

2. Add pumpkin and seasoning, stir fry thoroughly.

3. Pour in batter and cook for a while, better become thick, off heat.

4. Spoon batter into a greased 12 inches round tray or small cups.

5. Steam over high heat (12" tray 40min/ cups 15min until cooked)

6. Remove and allow to cool.

Meatballs Spaghetti



Here, David is demonstrating and sharing with us his mom classic recipe on making meatballs.
Combine 400gm mince beef + 400gm mince pork + 3 eggs, mix evenly. Add in 1 cup of bread crumbs, 2tsp Italian herbs, black pepper and salt, mix together. Last add in 1/3 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese,mix thoroughly and set aside. David says you can substitute the Italian herbs (Mccormick)with other fresh herbs that you preferred.

  

Heat a few tablespoons oil in a sauce pot saute the pork neck bone lightly brown, removed and set aside. In the same pot add diced onion stir fry still soft and lightly brown. Then, add in a can (340gm) of tomato paste, cook for awhile,  add in the 2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes (lightly smashed), cook for a few minutes. Add in 3 cans of water (use the tomato can to measure) and 2 pinch of black pepper, stir to combine, when boiling add in the sauteed pork bones, simmer to a boiled, lower the heat and add in the meatballs.  DO NOT STIR THE MEATBALL   Continue.....................

All the meatballs are added in and with low heat simmer. DO NOT STIR....continue....to simmer...

 On low heat simmer  2 hours or longer until the sauce thicken and season to taste.
During the simmering stage you can lightly stir (maybe after 20min when the meatballs is cooked but not firm yet) to check the bottom of the pot to avoid burning. Add water if the sauce reduced too fast and continue to simmer until cooked.

Meatballs served with spaghetti and sprinkle with fresh chopped parley. Yum.....yum...

Tomatoes paste and whole peeled tomatoes.

Our dinner: Meatballs spaghetti and garlic bread. Delicious.

Ingredients:

1 can (340gm) tomatoes paste

2 can (425gm) whole peeled tomatoes - smashed into chunks pieces 

2 nos yellow onions - diced

400gm mince beef

400gm mince pork/chicken

3 eggs (grade A)

1 cup bread crumb

1/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Salt, black pepper and Italian herbs (any brand or fresh herbs)

Note: use a larger sauce pot for easy stirring.

ASSAM LAKSA BEEHOON IN A HURRY

My girlfriend Val"s gave me a big bundle of bunga kantan (phaeomaria) and the fragrant flower smell make me wanting to have my favourite assam laksa noodle. Hmmm...........looking..looking.....at my kitchen shelfs...hurray! there are cans of tuna. OKay, going to give it a try since I want my assam laksa noodle in the fastest way. Here what I manage to cooked for 3 persons and it is good.

RECIPE:

1 small can of tuna in oil/water

2 stalks bunga kantan (phaeomaria)- halved

4 stalk daun kesum (polyganum)

1 pc assam keping -shredded

5 nos. shallot- pounded coarsely

1 tbsp. chili paste

1 tbsp belachan (shrimp paste -omit if you do not like the taste)

4 cups water                                       }-mix water and assam jawa paste 

4 tbsp. assam jawa (tamarind paste) }-together and sieved into a pot.

Beehoon - soaked and blanch in hot water to cooked.

Garnishing: mint leaves, polyganum leaves, bird eyes chili, sliced onion, shredded cucumber(use whatever you have) and heh koh (black prawn paste)

Method:

1. Put in everything into the tamarind water and bring to a boil.

2. Low heat simmer for 15-20min (since I want it fast)

3. Add in sugar, salt and anchovy granules to taste.

4. Serve hot with beehoon.