Saturday, March 15, 2014 at 4:55 PM
Posted by Vivian in
Chicken
I have always been quite a coward when it comes to formulating a new recipe. It is usually safer to ride on someone else’s success and follow a tried and tested recipe, with a few small tweaks here and there. Chances of disappointment is much lower this way.
After a long long time, I finally found the courage to take a stab in the dark and managed to make this without a set recipe infront of me as guide. This is inspired by something we had at one of the kids’ favourite Japanese restaurant. I couldn’t find the recipe online but suspect the steps are similar to that of tonkatsu except for the coating.
This is a nice variation to the usual savoury tasting deep fried chicken. The instant cereal lends a hint of well-balanced sweetness.
Ingredients:
- 4 chicken thighs (de-boned and cut into bite-size pieces)
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- ½ tablespoon sesame oil
- Nestum original instant cereal
- Plain flour
- 1 beaten egg
Preparation:
- Marinate chicken with light soy sauce and sesame oil.
- Dredge chicken with flour and egg.
- Coat chicken with instant cereal.
- Fry till golden brown.
Number of Servings: 4
at 4:51 PM
Posted by Vivian in
Potatoes
Years back whenever I asked my mum (some other experienced cook) for a recipe, she would rattle on with the list of seasonings required without specifying the amount needed. I always end up scratching my head and feeling terribly unsure if I can get the taste right.
Years on, I can finally relate to it. Because after all that mucking around a kitchen, most people don’t measure what goes in, often relying on the smell and colour as a gauge.
This is one fuzzy instance as this was made from some leftover mashed potatoes and I can’t tell how heavy that was. Hopefully my guess-timation here isn’t too far off.
Ingredients:
- 3 potatoes
- 100 gm salted butter
- 1 carrot (finely diced)
- 1 onion (finely diced)
- Powdered seaweed (optional)
- Panko
- Plain flour
- 1 beaten egg
- Corn kernels can be added as well if desired
Preparation:
- Boil potatoes in a pot of water. Remove from water when potatoes are cooked. Peel and mash with salted butter while the potatoes are still warm.
- Stir-fry onion and carrot with a non-stick pan till cooked.
- Combine carrots, onions and mashed potato, with a few sprinkles of powdered seaweed. Mix well.
- Using a tablespoon, scoop a heap of the mixture into palm and mould into preferred shape.
- Coat potato croquette with flour, followed with egg and lastly with panko.
- Fry till golden brown
- Can be served with tonkatsu sauce as a dip.
Number of Servings: 4
Friday, March 7, 2014 at 6:35 PM
Posted by Vivian in
Beef,
Korean
Partly inspired by the mouthwatering bulgogi we had in Seoul and partly because I had to feed Matthias with something since he is not a fan of Japchae unlike Elaina, I daringly took up the challenge to recreate the dish at home.
It was no mean feat having to grill the pieces one by one. The first attempt was a flop. Due to the lack of time and in order make sure the kids get to school in time and fed with lunch, I ended up "stir-frying" the meat. It didn't work very well unfortunately (but not quite unexpected). By the third try, I was adamant to follow the recipe as closely as possible especially since I have a Korean pear sitting in the fridge. I wanted to test it myself if the pear can tenderise the beef as claimed. It didn't turn out too badly. But I admit I am more inclined to say that the method used for Chinese stir-fried beef wins hand down in this aspect. Although to a certain extend, its not the same cooking method so it really isn't a fair comparison.
Ingredients:
- 300 gm sirloin beef (sliced)
- 3 tablespoons Korean regular soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1/2 onion (sliced)
- 1 spring onion (diced)
- 1/2 tablespoon sesame seed
- Pinch of black pepper
- 50 gm pureed pear
- 1 tablespoon rice wine
- Sliced shitake mushroom and/or julienned carrots (optional)
Preparation:
- Mix all ingredients and leave beef to marinate for at least 30 minutes.
- Grill beef using griddle or pan over high heat.
- Sprinkle over with some sesame seed (optional).
- Serve over rice and with lettuce as a wrap.
Most recipes did not call for the meat to be grilled in individual pieces. I did so in this attempt since I have time and I wanted to get the done-ness right. The vegetables (onions in this case) was stir-fried after that and added to the beef.
Number of Servings: 4
Sunday, February 23, 2014 at 10:56 AM
Posted by Vivian in
Korean,
Noodles
Undoubtedly one of Elaina’s favourite Korean dish! We searched high and low for Jap Chae when we were in Seoul recently but it was nowhere to be found. Either because we were looking at the wrong places or it is something that people typically prepare at home, and not readily available when dining out (which would be rather strange).
To help her get over her disappointment, I promised that I will attempt to make this when we return home and did in fact make good that promise except that the recipe which I had relied on was a flop in my opinion. Elaina enjoyed it nonetheless. Goes to show how desperate she was. Then on, I studied a few recipes and tried to pin the different steps together which I think should work and yield an acceptable result.
Despite the variance in all the recipes, the only bit that was notably consistent was the call for the ingredients to be stir-fried separately and finally mixed together in a bowl as that was touted to be the authentic way of making Jap Chae. However in the interest of time, certain ingredients (for instance the onion with the carrots and the beef with the mushrooms) can be cooked together. To the untrained tongue of mine, I really could not tell the difference in taste between the two methods.
The one thing I did learn was the different types of soy sauce the Koreans use in their cooking. I did some extensive reading on this topic and it was insightful. The variations within each culture and each being different from the other culture was simply mind boggling. I recently decided to bite the bullet and bought a bottle of the Korean regular soy sauce (to add on to my already exhaustive list of condiments sitting in my kitchen) for my next attempt.
Ingredients:
- 150 gram potato noodles
- 1 onion (cut into thin wedges)
- 1 carrot (julienned)
- 2 to 3 shitake mushroom and/or wood-ear mushrooms (julienned)
- 100 gram beef sirloin (julienned) or can be replaced with chicken
- 50 gram spinach (cut into 1 inch length)
- 1/4 teaspoon of minced garlic
Seasoning for beef and mushrooms:
- 1.5 tablespoons of regular Korean soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon sesame seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon of chopped spring onion
- A pinch of black pepper
Seasoning for noodle:
- 3 tablespoons of regular Korean soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons oil
Preparation:
- Season beef and mushrooms and set aside. Can be seasoned separately if beef and mushrooms will be stir-fried separately.
- Blanch spinach in boiling water over high heat for 1 minute. Remove and rinse under cold water. Squeeze dry and season with a pinch of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of minced garlic.
- Boil potato noodles in boiling water for around 6 minutes or until cooked. Remove and rinse under cold water. Drain dry and snip the noodles a few times with a scissors to shorten the length for easier frying and consumption.
- Sauté carrots and onions with a bit of oil and season with some salt and black pepper. Remove from pan when carrots are fully cooked and set aside in a bowl. Carrots and onions can be stir fried separately.
- Sauté mushrooms and beef with some oil until the beef is cooked. Remove from pan and into the same bowl with the carrots and onions. Similarly, mushrooms and beef and be stir-fried separately.
- Combine the noodles, mushrooms, beef, carrots, onions and spinach. Pour the seasoning sauce for noodles in and mix well.
- Return all ingredients back into the pan and sauté on medium heat for 3 min or until warm. Stir frequently to prevent noodles from sticking to bottom. I find that using the chopsticks in one hand and a spatula in another helps to flip the ingredients around a lot faster.
- Sprinkle some sesame seeds over the noodles before serving if desired.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013 at 10:50 PM
Looks are indeed deceiving. Just basing on the photo, I would assume that this is one dish that requires a fair amount of work. Well usually most stuff that requires deep frying does. Just making sure the meat (whatever it is) is evenly coated with flour or batter takes a good 20 minutes.
Surprisingly this is an incredibly easy recipe which a colleague shared with me recently. Needless to say, the kids enjoyed it A LOT simply because it is crispy… and that in itself is probably good enough justification for the deed to be repeated.
Ingredients:
- 500g pork belly (about 1 inch wide)
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon shaoxing wine
- 1 tablespoon corn flour
- 5 tablespoon rice flour (alternatively a mix of plain flour and corn flour)
Preparation:
- Marinate pork belly with all ingredients except rice flour, for at least 3 hours or overnight in the fridge.
- Coat pork belly with rice flour before cooking.
- Deep fry pork belly until gold brown and cooked.
- Slice pork belly and serve with mayonnaise or tonkatsu sauce as dipping sauce if desired.
Number of Servings: 4 to 5 persons
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at 9:54 PM
Posted by Vivian in
Chicken,
Chinese
This is probably the third time I have ever made porridge for the family because asking the boys in the family to eat that is akin to making them swallow poison.
We had initially booked ourselves in for a Japanese buffet today since it was a public holiday. Unfortunately, Matty had fallen sick and we decided to have something light for lunch instead. Since I hardly stock too much ingredients at home, this was what I could come up with. Usually I will make soup and add in macaroni or mee sua when someone is not feeling well at home. I figured that the objective is to get the patient to eat rather than to put him off and reject all food. So no point forcing it.
After today, it will probably be another 5 to 10 years before I make another pot of porridge.
Ingredients:
- 3 chicken drumsticks
- Chicken bones for added flavour (if available and desired)
- Few stalks of spring onion bulb
- 2 to 3 slices of ginger
- 3/4 cup of rice (best to soak overnight)
- Few stalks of spring onion (finely chopped)
Preparation:
- Bring about 2.5 litres to 3 litres of water to boil in a pot.
- Add in chicken drumsticks, chicken bones, spring onion bulbs and ginger.
- Allow the soup to boil for 10 minutes before lowering the heat and let the soup continue to boil for another 35 to 40 minutes.
- Season soup with salt before turning off the heat.
- Once the soup is done, remove the chicken and set aside.
- Discard bones, ginger and spring onion bulb .
- Strain the soup to remove excess oil.
- Add rice to soup and let it boil for 10 minutes before lowering the heat. Allow it to boil for another 30 minutes. Stir the mixture every now and then to prevent the congee from sticking to the bottom of the pot. More water or chicken stock can be added if the congee appears too thick.
- In the meantime, shred the chicken and set aside.
- Season with more salt or light soy sauce if desired.
- Stir in the shredded chicken to the congee. A small portion can be set aside and served by the side or topped on congee before serving.
- Sprinkle with spring onion and serve hot.
- Other ingredients like fried shallot, white pepper or sesame oil can be added on top of congee before serving.
Number of Servings: 4
Sunday, April 28, 2013 at 11:14 PM
Posted by Vivian in
Beef,
Korean
At a recent get together with my bunch of girlfriends, I finally got to try the Korean Rice Cake after having seen it being served in countless k-drama. The one that we had was probably not very traditional, as it was topped with Mozzarella cheese and baked to a golden hue. Traditional or not, it had a nice chewy texture to it.
Not long after that dinner, I spotted packets of frozen Rice Cake on display at the supermarket which I frequent. Without much thought, I took home a pack but it ended lying in the freezer for weeks waiting for the day when I am in the mood to make something out of the usual menu. Fortunately, I did get to it even before the Rice Cake expired.
Because the kids are not used to taking spicy food, I decided to randomly search for recipes hoping to find one that is non-spicy. The cyberworld didn't disappoint me and it didn't take me very long to chance upon one
here. The recipe looked promising from the fact that it was one passed down from generations within a Korean family. There is no way one can go wrong with that!
I made a minor tweak when cooking the beef though since I had used beef flank which is the cheapest cut available at the supermarket. Not because I was on a tight budget but rather I had discovered that no matter how bad the cut is, stir-fried beef can still turn out tender when done using the velveting method. I read some years back that velveting is how Chinese restaurants whipped up nice tender stir-fried beef and since then I never bothered to splurge on beef to be used for stir-frying.
Ingredients:
- 1 pack of Korean Rice Cake
- 350gm of beef (cut into thin strips)
- 1 stick of carrot (julienned)
- 1 medium sized onion (cut into thin wedges)
- Few stalks of spring onion (cut into 2 inches long)
- 1 teaspoon of minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon of crushed sesame seed
- Half an egg white
- Cornflour
- Light soy sauce
- Sugar
- Sesame oil
- Grounded black pepper
Preparation:
- Marinate beef for 30 minutes to 1 hour with:
- Minced garlic
- Crushed sesame seeds
- Egg white
- 2 teaspoons of cornflour
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil
- A dash of black pepper
- Soak Rice Cake with cold water and thereafter parboil for 2 minutes or until soft and chewy taking care not to overcook. Run Rice Cake under cold water after removing from boiling water.
- Mix 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil in a bowl. Set aside to be used as finishing sauce.
- Heat about 4 to 5 tablespoons of oil in wok using high heat. Add beef to wok and quickly stir-fry for 30 seconds or until the beef is nearly cooked and still showing bits of pink. Remove beef from wok and set aside. Allow additional oil to drain.
- Reheat wok with some oil and sauté onion and carrot. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add Rice Cake into the wok together with the beef. Mix well and allow mixture to cook for a minute.
- Pour in finishing sauce and spring onion.
- Remove from heat when well-coated.
Number of Servings: 5 to 6
Monday, October 1, 2012 at 10:35 PM
Posted by Vivian in
Snacks
While this is not an overdue post, it is something which I head meant to do with Elaina weeks ago. I finally made good my overdue promise last weekend.
The first time I came across this recipe was from some children recipe book 7 years ago. I attempted it twice and filed it away. Despite the fairly simple to follow steps, I couldn’t work out why the chocolate coating wouldn’t set even though I had followed the recipe to a T. I recall I had to put the entire batch into the freezer just to get the chocolate to harden (when the fridge didn’t do the trick!) and even then within minutes, the chocolate would melt promptly into a big mess. We had to literally “eat out from the freezer”.
Recently, I had to review a video clip of a cooking show segment for work reason and learned the following tricks of melting chocolate:
- Don’t let water mix with the melted chocolate. Otherwise the chocolate seizes and results in a grainy consistency. Quite honestly, I haven’t “tried” this myself yet and am unable to fully comprehend the full meaning.
- Tempering chocolate gives the chocolate its shiny appearance and will snap crisply when broken. I suspect that my attempts 7 years ago were a flop because I had failed to temper the chocolate, but I could be wrong because based on the theory I read, it will affect the appearance eventually but nothing had been said on affecting the chocolate setting process.
I started to dig through the cyberspace thereafter and learned that for coating purpose, even the usual chocolate bar can be used as long as it does not contain added ingredients like nuts, fruits or wafers. I had been living with the wrong impression that only baking chocolate works.
So whatever the case was, I felt brave to give it another go and see if I can make this work now that I am armed with these tips. My bravery didn’t let me down, but unfortunately with our hot and humid tropical weather, the Rice Bubble Ball won’t hold up for too long if left sitting on the table just like most chocolates. Still, I think that I had done much better now as compared to then. Just need to make sure these are consumed within 15 to 20 minutes after getting them out of the fridge.
Elaina had a lot of fun making these with me. Definitely an easy recipe for kids if they want to do something in the kitchen while still allowing the parents to contain the mess.
Ingredients:
- 2 blocks of white, dark or milk chocolate (2 tablets of Cadbury Diary Milk was used in my recipe)
- 1 box of rice bubbles
- Hundreds and thousands for decoration
Preparation:
- Using a double boiler or a saucepan, bring small amount of water to simmer (never boiling).
- If using a saucepan, place a glass bowl over such that it sits nicely over the saucepan. The water should not be touching the base of the glass bowl
- Add 2/3 of the chocolate into the glass bowl. Breaking the chocolate before adding it in will speed up the melting process.
- Stir continuously until the chocolate melts completely.
- Remove glass bowl from heat and add in remaining chocolate.
- Continue to stir till the chocolate melts.
- Pour in rice bubbles and mix well with the melted chocolate. (Add in half a bag first and gradually add more in so as to ensure that there is sufficient chocolate to coat well in case there is way too much rice bubbles as opposed to chocolate).
- With the help of 2 teaspoons, scoop rice bubbles into mini cupcake liners.
- Top with Hundreds and Thousands.
- Leave the already coated rice bubbles in the fridge for the chocolate to set
Number of Servings: 50 to 60
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