Pork floss Brinjal

This is one of the dishes that I tried with my new toy... Philips Airfryer. Healtier way of cooking without using much oil and at the same time taste the sweetness of the brinjal.

After cut and soak the brinjal for a while, drain and coat the brinjal with some oil, I use my hands to rub the brinjal pieces, only need 2 tbsp oil for 2 big brinjal. Then place the brinjal in preheated airfryer and let it 'fry' at 180 deg C for 15min then remove on plate, sprinkle with pork floss...its that easy..

Stir fry vegetarian kidney

Recently have been too busy with some family matters that I was just not in the mood to do any baking and any posting here.

My colleague always like to order this dish if they were to cater food from the old factory canteen, the canteen aunty is kind and generous to share with us the dishes whenever we ask her about dishes she did. This dish was very easy to do.

Frozen vegetarian kidney is available at some wet or dry market stall that sells beansprouts and tofu.

Thaw the vegetarian kidney (1 pkt), rinse and slice it thin--though the kidney is already cut into pieces in its original package but I prefer it to be thinner.
Shredded a few slice of ginger thinly.
Sauce : Oyster sauce, water, a little sugar.

Method:
- Heat wok, fried ginger with some sesame oil till fragrant. Remove and set aside.
- Add kidney into wok, add in a teaspoon of oyster sauce, litter sugar and some water, bring the sauce to boil, let it simmer till the sauce is reduce to slightly thicken. Do taste test, if not salty enough can add some oyster sauce.
-Add in ginger and stir awhile, remove from wok and serve.

Stir fry rice cake with Seafood

Bought a pack of korean rice cake from korean supermarket at Burlington square, initially wanted to cook it as a spicy dish but later change my mind, just stir fry it with garlic, fish fillet, shrimps and some vegetables, season it with chicken powder and simmer a few min with a little water and its done. The rice cake texture is a little more on the springy side compare to those dries ones that we usual bought..quite nice.

Salad

Thought that a western style roast chicken should go with salad instead of the usual stir fry vegetables, never did a salad for meals before, also tried created a simple salad dressing than to use bottle ones.

1 lettuce

Some cherry tomatoes

1 small Carrot – sliced thinly



Sauce:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp chopped sage

1 tsp chopped mint

Ground black pepper

½ tsp salt

2tbsp sugar

1 tbsp honey

A little stock or water

Juice of half lemon

1 tsp vinegar



Method:

1. Rinse lettuce and break into big piece with hand, place all vegetables in a big bowl. Mix the sauce together. Chilled the vegetable and sauce in fridge separately.

2. Just before dinner, mix sauce and vegetable till will combined, serve.

Mix Vegetables ( Luo Han Zai)

There were a pack of black fungus(mu er) in the carboard, I like black fungus but I know no one will like it if use it to cook soup, so do a stir fried dish by mixing it with some cabbage, a few mushroons, glass noodle(tong fen), fried bean curd and a couple of chopped chillies, also add some salt and vegetarian oyster sauce to taste.

Gado Gado

Kenny suggested to try gado gado sometime ago, so I trial it for Christmas dinner using Leung Yee Soo's recipe as a guide.




Ingredients:

625g beansprouts
625g cabbage, diced
625g long beans, cut into 3.5cm length
2.7 L water
1tsp salt
1tbsp sugar
225g potatoes, boiled, peeled and cut into pieces
6 soya bean cakes, fried and cut into pieces
3 packets fermented soya bean cake (tempeh), fried and cut into pieces
10 hard boiled eggs, sliced
cucumber wedges

Method

1. Boil separately: bean sprouts (1/2 min), cabbage (5min) and long beans(5min) in the water with 1tsp salt and 1tbsp sugar.
2. Lift and drain. Soak bean sprouts immediately in a basin of cold water.

Sauce:
A) 680g roasted peanuts, pounded
1 L water
10 tbsp sugar
1 ½ tsp salt

B) 15shallots
6 cloves garlic
1tbsp belachan
20-30 dried chillies

225ml oil
6-8tbsp vinegar

Method:

1. Boil A for 10min.
2. Grind B to a paste.
3. Heat oil in wok and fry paste till fragrant and oil comes through. Add 2. into 1. Stir, reduce the heat and let simmer for 10-15min. Add vinegar to taste. Remove from heat. Set aside sauce to cool.

To serve:
Place bean sprouts, cabbage, long beans, potatoes, soya bean cakes, tempeh on a plate. Garnish with sliced eggs and cucumber wedges. Serve with groundnut sauce separately.

Potato Croquette

I like the taste of potatoes, the kids love potato croquette, this round the croquette looks and taste better than those that I have done before.

Ingredients:
3 dutch potatoes
Half carrot – chopped
Dash of pepper and salt
About 2 cups breadcrumbs for coating
1 egg – beaten

Method:
1) Wash and boil potatoes in a pot of boiling water till fully cooked.

2) Remove potatoes and put in a cold water for a while. Peel off the skin. Mash the potatoes till paste form.

3) Add in chopped carrot, salt and pepper. Mix till well combined.

4) Shape the potato mixture to a disc shape. Place aside for a while.

5) Coat the potato disc with egg, then place it in breadcrumbs and cover it with bread crumbs, shake off excess breadcrumbs.

6) Heat up wok with lots of oil, place the potato croquette in hot oil, fried till golden color. Dish and serve warm.

Stir fry Mix Vegetables with Tumeric

There's always a vegetable dish for lunch and dinner whenever I'm cooking at home. Felt like cooking curry vegetable for last weekend dinner, but cooked this instead because saw this dish in yum yum magazine and thought that its easier to do.

Ingredients:
1tbsp oil
½ tsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp sliced shallot
½ tsp black mustard seed (biji sawi)
¼ cauliflower, cut into pieces
½ cabbage, cut into pieces
¼ carrot, peeled and cut into pieces
1 red chilli, cut into pieces
1 green chilli, cut into pieces

Seasoning:
½ tsp chicken stock powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
5tbsp water

Method:
1. Heat up oil, sauté chopped garlic, tumeric powder and mustard seed until aromatic.

2. Add in the remaining ingredients, seasoning and stir-fry until cooked. Dish and serve.

Mix Vegetable Tempura

Saw this recipe in one of the Yum Yum magazine while looking for another recipe, while mixing the batter realise that the water content in the recipe(original was 200ml) is not enough, so I added more water but never measure, so I just list an estimated amount, this is not my first time doing such batter so I know that the batter should be smooth and not lumpy. The vegetables are quite bland, best to eat it with the japanese tempura sauce, but forgot to buy the sauce so substitute with the normal light soya sauce, and also better to eat it while warm....



Batter:
150g plain flour
30g custard powder
1tsp baking powder
1tbsp corn flour
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
250-300ml water,
1tbsp oil

Ingredients:
1 medium sweet potatotes peel and shredded
1 egg plant cut into pieces
5 ladyfinger, remove stem and cut into 2 pieces
1 small capcicum, shredded

Method:
1. Put all ingredients of batter(except oil) into a mixing bowl and mix well. Add in oil and stir until well combined.
2. Coat ingredients with batter and deep-fry in hot oil until golden brown cooked. Dish and drain.
3. Arrange tempura onto a serving plate, serve with your own flavour sauce.

Braised Bailing Mushroom with Asparagus (翡翠白玉）

Mum-in-law gave me a can of Bailing Mushroom (白灵菇）some time back, almost forgotten about it till saw it again last weekend while doing spring cleaning. The mushroom was really big and looks very much like abalone. Was thinking better to cook the mushroom before it expires. Coincidently saw an easy dish using bailing mushroom in lastest issue yum yum, this dish was done with some change from the original recipe.



Ingredient:

8-10 asparagus

1 can of bailing mushroom - cut to desire thickness

1 tsp mince ginger

1 tsp mince garlic


Sauce:

1 tbsp oyster sauce

sesame oil

1/2 cup water

cornstarch water


Method:

1. Saute ginger till fragrant with a little oil, then add in garlic and fry till golden brown, add in bailing mushroom, stir fry a while, then add in oyster sauce and water. Let the mushroom simmer for about 10 min.

2. Add in asparagus stir awhile and let it simmer for another 5 min. Add in some sesame oil and lastly add cornstarch water to desire consistency. Dish and serve.

Pickle Onion with Mango

Kenny suggested to add some mango to the pickle onion when I did it last time, manage to bought a not so ripe mango last weekend. He said the dish taste better with mango...

1 large Brown Onion, thinly sliced
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp sugar
1 red chilli – remove seed and chopped
1 unripe mango - slice into strips

Toss onions with lime juice and sugar. Allow to steep for an hour, tossing at the intervals. Drain the pickle onion, toss in the chopped red chilli and mango stips and mix well.

Stir fry Shanghai nian gao

SIL gave us two packet of nian gao during CNY, wanted to cook something simple and can fill the tummy besides sushi for Saturday's lunch.

My MIL told me must soak the nian gao overnite before cooking it, the ingredients include some mince garlic, mince pork, mushrooms and chinese cabbage.

Just saute the garlic, pork and mushrooms, then add in chinese cabbage follow by nian gao, toss and mix the ingredients evenly with some oyster sauce, add about 1-2tbsp of water and cover for a while then uncover and toss a while till nian gao is cooked.

Abacus seeds

The other day Kenny was asking for this dish while reading about it on a magazine, so bought a piece of yam last weekend to try it, forgot to do measurement so the recipe is a rough estimation of what Kenny and I did, I didn't add alot of tapioca flour because partly I ran out of flour at that moment and also tapioca flour is quite difficult to digest, so for my stomach and my mum's stomach sake my dough is softer compare to the usual ones.

Ingredients:

600g yam
300g tapioca flour (can add more if want more chewy texture)
water

½ bowl of dried shrimps (soaked and chop fine)
3-4 mushrooms (soaked and chop fine)
½-3/4 bowl mince meat
1 tbsp mince garlic
1 tbsp shallot

½ tsp oyster sauce
dash of msg
dash of pepper
2-3 tbsp water

Method:
1) Peel skin of yam. Place yam in pot, add in water, water should cover 90% of the yam. Boil the yam till soft, use a chopstick to poke into yam, if it goes thru’ w/o much force, then it is ready, do not pour away the water.

2) Place yam with ¼ cup of the water into food processor and blend till its very smooth.

3) Pour out the yam onto a big plate, add tapioca flour and form into a soft dough.

4) Roll the dough into small rods and cut into small sizes, then form into smaller balls and depress it with finger to form a abacus seed shape.

5) Boil a pot of water, add the seeds into boiling water, when seeds float up to the surface, remove it from the water and add to another pot with cool water, drain and set aside.

6) Heat up wok, add about 1 tbsp of oil and 1 tbsp of sesame oil, add in shallot and fry till fragrant, add in garlic fry till fragrant. Add in mince meat, fry till cook, add in dried shrimps and fry till fragrant, add in mushroom. Pour in abacus seed, oyster sauce, msg and pepper and continue stir frying, lastly add in 2-3 tbsp of water and fry for another 5 min, test the taste, can add more seasoning if desire. Serve warm.

Below is the recipe written by an ex-colleague few years ago...

Abacus seed recipe (Hakka dish, to serve 4 people)

1. Yam (fist size)
2. Tapioca flour (half kg or less) add more tapioca flour if you want chewy seeds
3. Dried scallop (2 pcs)
4. Minced meat (pork, 50cents)
5. Oyster sauce (half spoonful)
6. Chop garlic
7. Black fungus (half a pc, palm size)
8. Cuttle fish (1 pc, palm size)
9. Mushroom (4 pcs)
10. Dried shrimp (less than a hand full)

Note:
Item 3, smash up the scallop
Item 7~9, sock in water and cut into strips; item 10, sock in water and cut into small pcs

Prepare yam paste
1. Boil water in a wok (estimate enough water to submerge yam)
2. Peel skin off yam and cut into about 6~8 blocks
3. When water is boiling, put blocks of yam into wok
4. Close wok, boil for 20~25 minutes
5. Use a chopstick to poke into yam, if it goes thru’ w/o much force, then it is ready

Make abacus seeds
1. Put boiled yam (w/o water) into a mid size bowl
2. Smash yam into a paste with anything you have that can be used
3. When the yam is smashed up, add in the flour and knurl the mixture into dough
4. To make the abacus seed, roll the dough into a rod and cut into size, like an abacus
seed
5. Put a pot of water to boil, put cut up abacus seeds into the boiling pot to cook
6. When the abacus seeds float, remove them into a plate or bowl

Prepare the dish
· Heat up a big spoonful of oil in medium fire in clean wok
· Put in the chop garlic when oil is heated
· When garlic turned slightly brown, put in the dried scallop, minced meat, cuttle fish
and dried shrimp. Stir fry the mixture
· When you smell a fragrance, add in the black fungus, mushroom, oyster sauce and a
3/4 cup of water
· Mix the ingredient well and close the wok to simmer for 10 minutes
· Your Hakka abacus seed dish is ready to be served with parsley and fried onion