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

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.

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 !!

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.