Soya Chicken my style

This is one of my kids favourite dish, easy soya chicken. I cook this dish almost every week. Very easy to prepare and cook and extremely kid friendly.

The recipe is based on estimates. Adjust the sauce to your liking. If you don't want it sweet, use regular black soya. I prefer kicap manis.

Some like to add cornflour to thicken the sauce but i like mine without. You can add if you like.

What you need:
1 whole chicken (about 1.2kg cut into pieces)
1.5 tablespoon ginger+garlic paste
1 large carrots, cut into bite size
2 medium potatoes, cut into bite size
2 large onions, cut into rings
1 small can button mushrooms
3 tablespoons light soya sauce, adjust accordingly
6 tablespoons kicap manis, adjust accordingly
Black pepper
Some oil

What you do:
1. Fry garlic ginger paste in oil till fragrant, add 1/4 cup of water to prevent it from burning and add chicken pieces
2. Stir the chicken till they turn opaque then add the soya sauces, continue to stir and add another 1/4 cup water to cover the chicken pieces
3. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes then add the carrots,potatoes and mushroom
4. Adjust the water and soya sauce to taste
5. Cover the pot and continue to let it simmer till the potatoes and carrots are tender
6. Add the onions and continue to cook under medium heat till the onions turns soft and translucent
7. Add pepper to taste
8. Turn heat off and serve it hot with rice

Airfryer Stirfry Bittergourd

My airfryer is one of my favourite appliances in the kitchen.  If you do not owe an oven, I highly recommend that you get one for yourself.  There are many many things that you can do with it.  Apart from baking, you can also use it for stir frying.  I bought an airfryer recipe book and decided to try one of the recipe.  You will need a small baking tin for this.
  

Here is the recipe:

What you need:

1 large bittergourd, thinly sliced

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

prawns, de-shelled with tail on

Marinade

Salt+pepper to taste

Sugar

Sesame oil

Light soya sauce

Some oil

What you do:

1. Marinate bittergourd slices with a little salt,sugar and oil

2. Marinate prawns with salt, pepper, dash of light soya sauce and sesame oil, put aside

3. Put bittergourd slices in the baking tray and airfry at 200C for 3mins, stir midway

4. Scoop the slices out and put them aside

5. Spray some oil and pour beaten eggs, airfry for 3 minutes stirring the eggs midway twice

6. Remove from baking tray and scoop it together with the bittergourd slices

7. Add prawns to the baking tray and airfry for about 6mins stir midway till prawns are cooked

8. Add the bittergourd slices + eggs into tray and mix everything well

9. Continue airfrying for another 2 minutes and serve with sprinkle of black pepper

Moroccan Egg Tagine

This dish is inspired by a dish a colleague had when we had lunch at a restaurant in Sydney.   So took the opportunity to test my new tagine, I just had to make it for dinner a few days ago.  We had it with rotis/chapatis instead of a crusty bread which is in fact a better choice.  This is an easy dish that can be prepared in 30mins.  

What you need:
1 large onion, sliced
3 small clove garlic, chopped
14oz diced tomato (canned)
2 tsp hawaij spice (optional)
1 Tbsp harissa (optional for extra spice)
salt to taste
1 Tbsp raw sugar/brown sugar
some sausages
2 eggs
Olive oil
chopped parsley for garnishing

What you do:
1. Heat the tagine/pot/pan and pour some oil
2. Throw in sliced onion, once the onions sweat, add chopped garlic and stir till lightly browned
3. Pour in diced tomato with the liquid
4. Add harissa, spice, stir the mixture
5. Add sugar and salt to taste and let the sauce simmer, add abit of water if it looks dry
6. Add the suasages, cover the tagine and continue simmer for about 5-10mins
7. Add a bit water if gets too dry, the pour the eggs, 1 at a time and cover the tagine again for about 5 mins or till the egg white turns opaque
8. Turn off the heat and sprinkle with EVOO and parsley and serve

Enjoy!

Juicy Lucy Cheeseburger

One of those weekends when you do not know what to prepare for lunch.  Then the hubby requested for a burger after he saw a photo of the juicy lucy burger done by his cousin. So since I am in the mood to be busy, I made this for lunch. Mince the meat using my grinder and baked the burger buns - everything from scratch .. well almost everything :)

You know I always go for easy recipe and this is easy. Very minimal seasoning required. 

This is how we had it, with potatoes and sweet potato chips.

Here is the link to the recipe I used for the patty.

http://www.food.com/recipe/jucy-lucy-cheeseburger-383042

What you need:

1 kg ground beef, chilled

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp garlic powder

150g a mix of cheddar and mozarella cheese cut into 1cm cubes

kosher salt

ground black pepper

What you do:

1. Place beef, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, and pepper in a bowl; mix well, portion into eight (size of lemon)

2. Flatten the the beef and stuffed the cheese into the patty

3. Preheat a cast-iron skillet or heavy-bottomed pan to medium heat

4. Cook burgers over heat 3 to 4 minutes on first side (Burger may puff up due to steam from melting cheese. This is normal. Do not be alarmed)

5. Flip, and using toothpick, prick top of burger to allow for steam escape. Allow burger to cook 3 to 4 minutes on this side.

6. Remove patties from pan or grill, place them on the burger bun, add some condiments on, and ready to be eaten

Enjoy !

Fish Tagine

This is the new addition to my collection of kitchen utensil/appliances which I purchased end of last year.   I have been wanting to get hold of one for the longest time but was not prepared to pay for the hefty price tag. I did find a brand that fits my budget and was planning to get it during the departmental store's sale.  Before that could happened, I had to go to Sydney for a training and during my 2 weeks stint there, I made time to shop a bit and to be delight, I saw this tagine selling at a really unbelievable price.  I got this for less than SG100 and it can be used over the stove, oven and microwave oven too *big grin*

So the very first dish I made with this is fish tagine, a simple recipe I got off the internet.  Here is the outcome of the dish (before and after pic).

I will update recipe soon.

Minced meat in black bean sauce

I love simple dishes that I can prepare in less than 15 mins and this is one of them.  My kids are still not used to the black bean sauce but I personally like this.  This is great to eat with either plain rice porridge or hot steaming rice.  It is high in protein because it has minced meat and tofu.  

What you need:

250-300g minced chicken

1 tube egg tofu, drained

1 medium size red chilli, chopped (if you want more heat, add 1 or 2 chilli padi)

1 medium onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 Tbsp black bean sauce (bottled which you can purchase from supermarket)

a bunch of green onions/scallion and chinese celery, chopped

salt

pepper

a dash of sesame oil

1 tsp cornflour

1 Tbsp oil

What you do:

1. Marinade meat with salt, pepper, sesame oil and cornflour, put it aside

2. Heat wok with oil, stir fry garlic, onion, chilli and black bean sauce 

3. Once it simmers, add minced meat and stir fry till meat is cooked

4. Add tofu and break it into small pieces and mix everything together

5. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes and add salt or light soya sauce if needed

6. Add the chopped scallions and chinese celery, give it a good stir and turn fire off

7. Serve it with steamed rice or rice porridge

Steamed Tofu with Chicken Floss

Hello again !  I am sorry that have not been updating my blog for a long time.  Work and personal matters beckoned me and I was swamped with lots of things to do and left with very little time.  Anyways with 2014, I hope that I can resurrect this site again and get back my mojo to bake/cook and post more :-)

For the first post in 2014, it is a simple dish which I love for its simplicity.  My family has been requesting for more steamed food and I try to make it a point to whip them during the weekends.

This is steamed tofu with chicken floss.  There are many versions out there but I like it simple and decided to stick to the basics.  You can use the steamer or microwave for this dish.  I prefer the steamer as I don't want to accidentally overcook it.

What you need:
1 tub soft tofu
Meat floss of any kind
1 Tbsp light soya sauce
dash of sesame oil

What you do:
1. Get your steamer ready
2. Place tofu on a heat resistance plate
3. Pour the soya sauce and sesame oil over the tofu and sprinkle the floss
4. Steam the tofu for about 5mins
5. Serve it hot with steamed rice

Note:  you can also sprinkle green onions or add oyster sauce, whatever to your liking for this.

Ayam masak kicap or Chicken in soya sauce malay style ala Zu

One of my kids favourite is chicken in soya sauce gravy.  There are many version of chicken in soya sauce, some are more savoury with spices like cinnamon, cloves etc, some are very simple no spices at all and some like what my late mom used to cook is added with tomato ketchup/puree for added flavour like this one.

Tomato Sauce Noodles

This is actually inspired by Sarawak Kway Teow. Since my kids and husband are not a great fan of kway teow, I substitute it with udon instead. You can use any noodles that you like as the method is pretty much like hor fun.

Fish with chinese mushroom, scallions & chinese celery

Non-fried fish was not one of my kids favourite dish until recently.  Now, having one steamed or braised/poached fish is a must especially during the weekends.

Fried Egg with Tomatoes and Chinese Chives

A really easy dish but satisfying.  This is really nice eaten with either steaming hot rice or porridge.  It's so Easy to do and very kids friendly too.  Great if you are running out of time or ideas *LOL*

Cashew Chicken Vietnamese Style

I made vietnamese dishes for our sunday lunch as my second daughter and her dad were not well.  I decided to prepare something light for them so that it will not aggravate their already bad throat.  So here is one of the dish and the kids love it.  In fact they loved it soo much till there was nothing left for dinner *LOL*

Stir-fry French Beans (Malay style)

I love french beans cooked in any way ..steamed, blanced or stir-fried.  This time I am posting a more typical malay style stir-fried french beans.  Typically, the ingredients consists of chilli, onion, garlic and dried shrimps or anchovies.  You can use any vege of your choice.  I can have this on its own or with hot steaming rice with no other condiments.  You can make it spicy by adding bird's eye chilli or make it less spicy by removing the chilli seeds.   

I used my trusty old pestle and mortar because I love the biting to the bits of chilli and onion.  I always find using it gives your dish a better flavour.

Easy Roasted/Char Siew Chicken

This is an easy dish which you can make using either regular wok or happycall pan if you have.  For this, I used my happycall pan because it cuts short the cooking time. 

I got the recipe from a booklet given to me when I bought a hard anodised wok from Tangs a few years ago.  I totally forgotten all about it until I found it recently while cleaning up my room.  This is a very simple dish, you can have this with plain rice, chicken rice or even wanton or chicken noodles, chinese style.  You can also use it to make pau fillings.  I used chicken for my version but you can use other white meat to your liking.

Easy Chicken Briyani

Starting early this month, I always prepare a menu list for the week for my family.  Simply because I currently don't have a helper and have to prepare the meals early in the morning before I go to work.  My 2 older kids go home straight from school and I have to make sure that they have food for lunch :)   Weekday mornings are crazy for me so I usually whip something easy and one of them is this.  Initially the idea was to throw everything in into the rice cooker but plan changed when I found that I have a bottle of Roganjosh curry paste in the cabinet. 

What I did was to cook the rice (no not plain rice) in the rice cooker.  While the rice is cooking, I do the chicken roganjosh.  Once the rice is 90% cooked, I pour the chicken roganjosh on top of the cooked rice and let it cook further.  This is what I got.  It is missing chopped coriander and toasted cashews .. my bad because I totally forgotten all about it.

Japchae ala Zu

Japchae is a korean dish which is actually glass noodle salad. It uses the sweet potato glass noodle instead of the mung bean ones that we normally see in the supermarket. I like this one better as it is chewy and slightly thicker than the regular mung bean version. It is almost as thick as the laksa noodle, maybe slightly thinner. So in the midst of clearing my pantry and refrigerator, I decided to make this for my lunch in the office today.

You can get the more authentic recipe from here For me I stir fry everything and have it as a main dish :D The sauce ingredients are generally sesame seed oil, soya sauce and sugar or honey for sweetening effect.

Nasi Samin/Nasi Minyak

We had it with Chicken Bamiah and pickled cucumber+carrot

This is the first traditional dish I made for 2012. This was actually inspired after a chat I had with my dad recently. Nasi samin is made using butter made from animal fat like cow, goat or camel. Here, we can get ghee (clarified butter) which is derived from cow easily. So my version is using ghee. It is a relatively simple dish, not much fuss and ingredient. To serve, I pan fried the cashew and raisins with a bit of ghee for flavour and aroma.

Ingredients:
3C basmati rice, rinse till water is clear then drain
4C water
1 medium size cinnamon stick
3 cloves
3 cardamoms
1 star anise
2 large onions, sliced
5 cloves garlic, sliced
2 T ghee
1 T oil
salt to taste

for garnishing, some cashews and raisins, pan fried with a bit of ghee

Method
1. Heat pot with both ghee and oil, once melted add onions, stir till onions becomes translucent
2. Add garlic and the spices (cardamom, clove, cinnamon stick, star anise) and stir till fragrant
3. Add rice and make sure they are coated with oil, add salt
4. Pour water into the pot, stir and cover to let the rice cook
5. Once the rice is cooked, sprinkle cashew nut and raisins before serving

Review: CP 5-Spice Roasted Chicken

I have been wanting to try this out for quite some time. Although I roast chicken at home quite regularly, i want to find out it this off the freezer chicken is good enough for days when I do not have the time to bake one from scratch. At a glance, the packaging does not look huge but the chicken is actually pretty big. Definitely bigger than those spring chicken. You can use either the microwave or regular oven to reheat the chicken. I should you can also preheat it on the stove with a covered wok.

In terms of flavour, I find it not too bad although it is on a slightly salty side. So what did I have this with? I had it with buttered rice and a simple salad. This is good for days when you do not have time to cook or simply too tired/lazy to cook up a storm *LOL* I took me at least 40mins to reheat it in the oven. Maybe the temp I set was too low but the chicken was still pretty frozen before I chucked it in the oven. As long as you don't overheat it, the meat will still stay moist.

I would say that this is pretty versatile. You can have it with your wraps or have gravy on it with mash potatoes etc. Will I buy this again? Yes, I will :)

Phad-Thai inspired fried beehoon

Getting a bit tired of eating the regular white version fried beehoon, I decided to make this for the kids. It is a phad thai inspired noodle as I omit some of the ingredients :D To make it extra spicy, you can add cut chili padi after it is almost done before you turn off the fire like I did after I took out the kids' portion.

What you need

500g bee hoon
200g fresh prawns, shelled and deveined
200g chicken breast, cut into strips
1 medium size onion, sliced thinly
5-7 clove garlic, chopped
5 tbsp fish sauce
5 tbsp tamarind juice
4 tbsp palm sugar
100-200g bean sprouts/veges of your choice
a few stalks birdseye chili, cut into small pieces

What you do

1. Mix fish sauce, tamarind juice and palm sugar till sugar dissolves, set a side
2. Heat oil and stir fry fresh prawns and chicken till they are half cooked, remove and set aside
3. Fry onions till translucent and add chopped garlic till fragrant
4. Add noodles and toss it with the ingredients in the wok
5. Add a few tbsp of water to soften the noodles
6. Add cooked prawns and pour fish sauce mixture and stir well and ensure that the noodles are well-coated
7. Add bean sprouts/veges, chillies and stir till well blend heat it through for a few minutes. If noodles too dry, add more water
8. Serve hot with cilantro and scallions

Stir-fry Ground Chicken with Thai (Holy) Basil

I love Thai food, well who doesn't ? *lol* I like to order this dish whenever I have my meals at a Thai eatery or restaurant simply because it is a great one dish meal. It is usually eaten with steamed rice and a sunny side up egg, simple yet satisfying. I have always been wanting to make this at home. Coincidentally, I bought a pack of thai basil from a supermarket and it has been sitting for a few days in the fridge. I didn't want to waste it and so happened that I was thinking of this dish. I finally found a rather authentic recipe and truly satisfied with the flavour.

I like mine spicy, so I added some chopped chili padi to my portion. If you don't like too spicy, you can omit the chilli. I added the chilli towads the end instead of frying with the garlic as I need to take some portion out for the girls who don't take anything spicy. However, you can add it when frying the garlic.

The recipe:

Ingredients

500g ground chicken
9 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4T dark soy sauce
2T oyster sauce
5T fish sauce
1 1/2C fresh Thai basil
2 chilli padi, chopped (optional)

salt & pepper to taste

oil for stir frying

Method:
1. Heat a wok until the oil is hot, then stir in the garlic
2. Add ground chicken and stir till meat is thoroughly cooked
3. Add soya sauce, oyster sauce keep stirring till the sauce blends into the chicken
4. Then add fish sauce, salt & pepper to taste. Stir and mix well
5. Add basil leaves and continue stirring, you should smell the basil by now

6. Throw in the chilli and stir for a 1 minute and serve it with steamed rice