麻婆豆腐 Ma Po Bean curd

As a Malaysian Chinese with a litte nyonya blood, I have eaten many times of ma Po toufu cooked by restaurant chefs, but have never exposed to how to cook the dish. Until I met my taiwanese housemate who cooked heaps of yummy Taiwanese aka chinese food, I then start to pick up some real Chinese cooking. My first trial made myself proud though wuhaha;)

Ingredients;
Soft Tofu 600g (cut cubes)
Minced Pork/ Chicken (300g) put more if you're carnivore
Spring Onion
Chili padi (bird eye) - at your preference
Spicy black bean source （辣豆瓣酱）2-3 spoonful
Sweet bean source (甜面酱） 2-3 spoonful
Garlic (chopped finely) -
Ligth soy source
Dark soy source
Pepper
Starch

Steps:
1) Marinate the minced pork with light soy source, pepper for approximately 20 mins.
2) Add oil into the wok, then fry the garlic until golden brown. Add in the spring onion (the whites) and chili padi.
3) Put the minced pork in and fry for a while.
4) Add in the sources (Black bean, Sweet bean source) and continue frying with the pork until the pork is cooked. (Add in the spring onion green part)
5) Add in some water to be gravy then put in the tofu. (You may choose to smash with the tofu with spatula if you prefer)
6) Once tofu is in, you dont' have to cook for too long. Adjust the taste with a bit of soya source, sugar, dark source until you get your preferred taste.
7) Make a bit of starch (add water with 1 spoonful starch) and add into the wok. You'll notice the gravy thicken up.

And finally, turn off the fire, scoope it up.. another nice dish for the day.. yaho

Penang Asam Laksa

My craving for Laksa hits the max as soon as I woke up in the morning. It's been 3 months since I had my last laksa in Penang. Before I came to Oz, I have already prepared and "stole" the recipe from my aunt, who cooks damn good Asam Laksa. Regardless of whether I could find the ingrediants, waiting no more and asian grocery here I come!

First of all, we need to have the chili paste ready.

chili paste
A handful of dried red chilies (tolerate to your hot level that you can take!)
A couple of red chilies
A Handful of Small shallots (I like this to be more as I like shallots)
2 tbsp belacan (shrimp paste)
1 stalk lemon grass

Put them all into blender and blend them. Put aside to be used later. Now look at what other ingrediants required for the soup.

Soup Ingredients:
1.5L of water
Daun Kesum (Vietnamese Mint)
5-6 pieces Ikan Kembung (Mackerel fish)/ Sardin Fish (Can)
5 pieces assam keping (peeled tamarind)
Tamarind (about 2 spoonful, add 1/2 cup water, extract the juice a few times ready to be used.
Some salt and sugar

To prepare the soup, first of all, clean the fish. Prepare a pot of 1.5L water, add the fish into the pot and boil for about 10 minutes, then transfer the cooked fish out and let cool. Next, strain the fish soup in the pot just now (so that fish bones aren't caught in there), add in the peeled tamarind, blended chili paste and the polygonum leaves and continue to boil in low heat.

(To me, I couldn't find the Ikan kembung here, therefore, Sardin fish (ayam brand) is chosen as substitute, and the result is nice and actually it saves some tedious fish flesh picking job)

While waiting for the fish soup to boil, pick the flesh out of all the fish and discard the bones. Break the fish meat into tiny pieces and put the fish back into the soup, cover the lid, and lower the heat.

Add in the extracted tamarind juice into the soup. Adjust the soup at your preference. If it's not sour, add in additonal tamarind juice. Add salt and sugar to taste.

While waiitng for soup to be ready, prepare below ingrediants for noodle and garnishing.

Garnish:
Laksa noodles/ Lai Fan/ Mihun (at your preference)
Cucumber (cut to strips)
Red onion (sliced)
chinese lettuce (thinly cut)
Small chili padi (bird eye)/ Red chili (cut into small slices)
Pineapple (cut into short strips)
Mint leaves (small branches)
Bunga kantan/torch ginger flower (cut into small pieces)
Heh Ko/Prawn Paste

Add in some laksa noodles in the serving bowl with all vegetables on top. Pour the fish broth into the bowl and serve immediately with a spoonful of Heh Ko/prawn paste.

And tang tang tang tang... here it is the asam laksa penang kia ! Awesome !!

My Kitchen Rules Recipe - Sticky Pork Ribs With Dry Fried Green Beans And Rice

Since it is not the My Kitchen Rules season, I might as well copy and pase some of the MKR recipe that I like and put it here.

I'm gonna try this out soon. Whoever loves this can check out the official site of MKR where I have this extracted from:

http://au.tv.yahoo.com/my-kitchen-rules/recipes/article/-/9186321/sticky-pork-ribs-with-dry-fried-green-beans-and-rice/

Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 2 hours

Serves: 4-6
Ingredients:
2 limes, halved
Steamed rice, to serve
pork ribs
300g barley malt
60ml brown rice vinegar
60ml soy sauce
60ml shaoxing rice wine
1 teaspoons chilli flakes
1 teaspoon Sezchuan peppercorns
1cm piece fresh ginger, grated finely
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
1.5kg American-style pork ribs, cut into 3-rib portions
2 red onions, cut into wedges
green beans
500g green beans, trimmed
peanut oil, for deep frying
2 tablespoons peanut oil, extra
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 eschallots, finely chopped
1cm piece fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 long red chilli, sliced thinly

Salt to taste
Method:
1. To prepare pork ribs, whisk barley malt, vinegar, soy and wine in a medium bowl.
2. Dry fry chilli flakes and peppercorns in a small frying pan over low heat until fragrant. Using a mortar and pestle or mini processor, process spice mix, fresh ginger and 2 cloves of the garlic to a paste. Stir paste into malt mixture.
3. Preheat oven to 150C.
4. Place ribs, onions and remaining garlic in a flameproof casserole dish. Add malt mixture. Toss to combine.
5. Cook, covered, in the oven for 1½ hours or until tender.
6. Increase oven to 180C.
7. Transfer ribs to a roasting pan. Cook for about 30 minutes or until browned and caramelised.
8. Place casserole dish with sauce from ribs over a medium heat. Simmer until thickened.
9. To prepare beans, deep fry beans in a wok for 2-3 minutes or until they just begin to wilt and wrinkle. Drain on absorbent paper.
10. Empty all but 2 tablespoons of the oil from the wok. Add garlic, eschallots, ginger and chilli. Stir fry for 1 minute. Add beans. Stir fry for another minute. Season.
11. Heat a lightly oiled frying pan. Cook limes, cut-side down until golden brown and caramelised.

12. Serve ribs, sauce and beans with rice and lime halves.
Tips:
- For an even deeper flavour, marinade ribs overnight.
- Ribs can be up to end of step 5 a day in advance. Cool and refrigerate overnight. Continue with roasting of ribs and thickening of sauce.

白斩芽菜鸡 Bean Sprout & Chicken (Nga Choi Kai)

Chicken time! I have been looking for real easy way to this boiled chicken. After lots of reference here and there, I finally found this easiest one from one of the GURU demonstrating in youtube.

To cook 白斩鸡, you can opt for whole chicken or drumstick. To me, I like drumstick as it is easier to cut ;)

Ingrediants & Steps:

Chicken
1) Rinse and clean drumstic (In my case, 7 pieces)
2) Slice fresh ginger (about 1-2 inches)
3) 2-3 pieces of spring onion, chop the white part into 1 inches length (the green part about 2-3cm length reserved for garnishing later)
4) Prepare a pot of cold water, place chicken, sliced ginger and chop white part of spring onion in pot and make sure the water cover the chicken.
5) Bring to boil over medium heat. Turn off heat then cover pot with lid. Steep chicken in covered pot for 30 minutes.
6) Remove cooked chicken from pot and rub all over with salt and bit of sesame oil. Allow to cool then cut into pieces.
7) After pour over the source onto chicken pieces (refer below for source), garnish with spring onion.

Source
1) Chop finely bit of garlic and ginger and place into bowl.
2) Prepare 1/2 tbsp oyster source, 2 spoonful of soya source, 1 spoonful of sesema oil, 5 spoonful of water, pinch of sugar into the bowl with garlic and ginger, and pour over the source over the cut chicken.

Bean Sprout
1) Bring a pot of water to boil, put in the bean sprout and cook for 2 minutes.
2) Take the bean sprout and place them on plate.
3) Prepare the same source used for chicken except without garlic and ginger, pour over the bean spout, garnish with cut spring onion and pepper.

Chili Sauce
1)Blend chilies, garlic and ginger together. Dish out and add salt and sugar. Drizzle with hot oil.

Soup
1) Bring remaining chicken stock to boil then add cabbage and cook till softened. Season with salt to taste.

生抄家乡鱼头 Home Style Fried Fish Head

Ingrediants
300g fish head - cut into pieces, marinate with salt and pepper
garlic - finely chop
Dried chili - 5 pieces, cut into 3cm pieces and soak in water
100g Chicken slices
100g salted vegetable
Celery - 2 small pieces
Red chili - 2 pieces, slantedly cut
pinch of salt
1 tbsp soya source
1 tbsp oyster source
1/2 tbsp black soya source
1/2 tsp sugar
200 ml water
starch


Steps
- Deep fry the fish head until it turns golden brown and crispy. Set aside.
- In the wok, add in some cooking oil. Fry the garlic until it turns brown and fragrant.
- Add in the dried chili.
- Add in chicken slices.
- Add in the fish head and all other ingrediants.
- Until the the dish starts to dry up, then add in some starch for gravy.
- Adjust your taste with soya source, sugar etc to suit your taste bud.
- SERVED !!

Queen Cupcakes

Time for bakings!


Ingrediants
115g butter, softended
115g caster sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
4 tsp lemon juice
175g self-raising floor
115g currants/raisins
2-4 tbsp milk if necessary.

Steps
1. Preheat the oven to 165 celcius. Put 18 paper bakings cases in 2 bun trays, or 18 double-layer paper cases on a baking tray.
2. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together until light and fluffy.
3. Gradually beat in the eggs, then beat in the lemon juice with 1 tbsp of the flour. Use metal spoon, fold in the remaining flour and the raisins, adding a little milk, if necessary, to give a soft dropping consistensy.
4. Spoon the mixture into the paper case.
5. Bake them in the preheated ovens for 15-20 minutes, or until well risen and golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.


The results

Moroccan Lamb with Asparagus Salad

Today on Menu was the Moroccan Lamb after my husband learnt the recipe from his colleague in UK. Believe me, it is one of the best salad that I ever tried !! It doesn't take long time to cook yet it satisfies my taste bud!

Ingrediants
1. Morrocan Spice (You can make your own spice to marinate the lamb chop, but to make thing easier, I bought the pre-mix spice from hypermarket - look for "morrocan")
2. Lamb Chop/ Ribs
3. Asparagus - cut diagonally
4. Chic Peas - at your preference.
5. Garlic - chop fine
6. Onion - cut fine
7. Tomato - cut cube
8. Salt and Pepper - pinch
9. Avocado Oil and red wine vineger - at your preference
10. Mayonaise
11. Sage - chop fine


Steps
Salad
1. Boil the asparagus until it cooks. (Not overcook please)
2. Add in the chick peas into the asparagus pot.
3. Place the asparagus and chick peas onto mixing bowl, add in the garlic, sage, onion, tomato, avocado oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, mayonaise - mix well.
4. Adjust the taste to suit your taste bud ;)
5. Place them on the plate, awaiting Moroccan Lamb to be placed above.

Lamb
1. Clean and trim excess fats from the lamb chop.
2. Season the lamb with pinch of salt and papper and the Morrocan spice. (Morrocan spice mix itself contains salt, therefore do not put too much salt otherwise it will be way too salty)
3. Leave it for 20 mins
4. Heat oil in the pan and fry the marinated lamb for 3 minutes with big fire. (Note that it is best to cook red meat with big fire for fast and tender meat, otherwise slow cook turns the meat harder)
5. Once it is cooked, place them on the salad plate and serve immediately.

Look at the picture and you can tell straight away how delicious it is going to be.

甘香鸡 Kam Hiong Chicken

I missed the M'sian 煮抄 flavour, especially the Kam Hiong crab that I used to have in Puchong. Well I don't know how to handle crabs, neither do I want to handle them. So I change the crab with chicken and they went quite well and taste just excellent.

Ingrediants:
1) Chicken
2) Starch
3) Pepper

Kam Hiong Source
1) Garlic x 3(chopped)
2) Small Red Onion x 5(Chopped)
3) Curry leafs (half bowl)
4) Small Chili (2 - 3 pieces).
5) Curry Powder (2 - 3 spoonful)
6) Oyster Source (2 - 3 spoonful)
7) Sugar (pinch)
8) Black Source (bit)
9) Soya Source (1 Spoonful)

Steps:
1) Marinate the chicken with pepper, bit of starch (to make sure the chicken meat is tender), and bit of soya source. Leave it for 20 mins
2) While waiting, prepare the Kam Hiong Source. Add in oil into wok, fry the garlic and small onion until fragrant. Add in the small chili and curry leafs. Then add in the rest of the ingrediants (Oyser source, soya source, black source, curry powder) and continue stiring until they mix.
3) Scope it up ready to be used later.
4) Once the chicken is ready, add the oil in the wok and fry the chiecken until it is almost cooked. Stir in the Kam Hiong source that you've prepared just now, add a bit of water and starch and adjust your own taste. It is then served perfectly.

比萨饼 Pizza

I made my own Pizza for the first time after I got my pizza maker.

Pizza
1) Pizza base x 3(available from hypermarket)

Pizza Source
This is optional, you can grab the ready-made pizza source from hypermarket, but it is simple to make. I made my own source and it taste good!Here's the ingrediants for the pizza source:
1) Oyster SOurce (3 spoonful)
2) Thai Chili (3 spoonful)
3) Water (a little)
4) Salt and Sugar to taste (pinch)

Topping Ingrediants:
You can put as much ingrediants you want and customise at your own preference. As I have lots of ingrediants found in my fridge, I basically use them all and they tasted great !!
1) Corn
2) Ham/ Bacon
3) Shreded Cheese
4) Tomato
5) Pineapple
6) Mix Vegetable
7) Union
8) Pickles
9) Mushroom

Steps:
1) Place the pizza base, spread the pizza source on the pizza base.
2) Sprinkle some shreded cheese on to the pizza base where you have coated the source on. (This is to ensure when you add in the topping ingrediants, the cheese can "hold" the toppings better after it is melted in the oven)
3) Now you can add in the prefered toppings ingrediants on to it. I found this is the most fun part of makign pizza as this really makes you feel like a real chef!!
4) After finish all the toppings, spread the cheese again as the last layer on the pizza. when it is melted by heat, it really makes the whole pizza looks nice and cheesy !

To me, I put them into oven maker and it turns out really nice and moisture. ALternativelym put them into oven if you do not have a pizza maker. It tastes nice still except that it appeared to be a little bit dryer.

寿思卷 Classic Sushi Roll

Sushi is something easy and simple to prepare yet it fills your empty stomach with satisfaction if you chosen the right sushi stall.

So I decided to make my own sushi this time, just thought to get some exposure of how people makeing theirs.

First Step, essential tools and ingrediants collection:

1) Bamboo mat
2) Japanese Rice Wine
3) Japanese Sushi RIce  - 2 cups
4) Nori Sheets (a.k.a laver)
5) Avocado/Cucumber/ Carrot - up to your option
6) Tuna/ Salmon/ Crabsticks - up to your option

Now the processing steps:

1) Boil the sushi rice in a pot, remember not to put too much water, otherwise it will become sticky rice instead of sushi rice. Let the rice boil with big fire, and the water is boiled, turn down to small fire and close the lid. Let it boil for about 5- 8 minutes depending on the amount you have. Once the rice is cooked, turn off the fire and let the rice cold down.

2) Add in Japanese rice wine and pinch of salt and sugar into the rice. For 2 cups of rice, amount you need is approximately 1/4 cup of rice wine. Rice wine making the rice taste "sour", so adjust to your preference.

3) Place the bamboo mat on the cook top, followed by Nori ontop of the bamboo. The shining part face down.

4) Get your hands wet, and make about a handful of rice to a ball of rice. It's important to keep your hands wet while working with sushi rice because it is sticky. When you work with the nori though, you should keep them as dry as you. Then spread them ontop of Nori with some spaces left at each of the edge to accomodate the rolling spread out.

4) Place your preferred ingrediants (Tuna, Avocado, Cucumber etc) at the edge of the sushi.

5) Roll them with the bamboo mat.

6) Then finally cut them!!

That's my first sushi roll and it tasted yum !!

How did I find all this information? This website gives very detail basic technique as of how to make your own sushi for those who has no idea at all how to start !