Salty Rice aka 'Ham Fan'

This is one of my favorite lazy but yummy meals...easy peasy.

Marinate some chicken pieces with :-

- enough dark soy sauce to blacken the rice to your liking

-a couple of dashes of light soy sauce

-a dash of sugar

-a dash of corn flour/starch

Put washed rice and some ginger pieces to boil in the rice cooker, during the last 15mins of cooking time, pour in the chicken together with all the marinate. (Important note: reduce the amount of water that you'd normally need for the rice to cook because the marinate and some juices from the chicken will moisten the rice further) Add in some preserved Chinese sausages or any other preserved meat as you desire and enjoy when your rice cooker beeps that its done cooking!!! Of course do a taste check and see if its salty enough for you, it never is for me and I'd season it with some Chicken granules or salt.

I had some blanched lettuce mixed with some oyster sauce and the normal other jazz to go with it. And of course one must not forget the star of the show...the 'chilli padi's'! Well for me anyway :)

Chinese Roast Chicken

Marinate:-

2 tbsp of Chinese 5 spice powder
2 tbsp salt
dashed of pepper

Leave it to marinate for about 2 hours of leave overnight and grill in the oven at 180C, takes about 30-35minutes. Serve with chicken stock flavoured rice and veges or just chop some cucumbers. If you have the convection roaster, you'll be able to achieve the results pretty close to those of the chicken rice sellers, but i didn't find worth the effort to bring out the roaster and having to wash it after use. You see, using the oven needs no washing up nothing, just line the tray with some aluminium foil and tuhhh-daaa...life's much easier :)

What feeds the stomach

Japanese Cotton Cheese Cake


Macoroni & Cheese


"Pan Mee"



Scrambled eggs with cauliflower and cheese with toast

Pork Shoulder Roast

Following on from the meat marinate post, here's the piece of pork having been roasted. Verdict is: Those parts that has fats were to die for but otherwise because the piece of meat is so big, certain parts that didn't get the marinades didn't have much taste. If its something that I'd want to go with rice, Roasted Crispy Pork ("Siu Yuk") will still be my no.1 choice. But this is how i like this shoulder roast best that the roasted crispy pork won't come close!

Light pan fry the pork pieces and sprinkle on some Salt&Pepper to give it a smokey flavor before assembling your own mega sandwich. Ooooo so yummmmm........

Stir Fry Asparagus with scallops

Finally, I have some greens to post in my blog! After all veges are the most uninteresting food to write about for me that is. This is a simple quick stir fry dish which is quite yummy for those who loves asparagus and/or scallops.

Some scallops-Lightly pan fried with some oil

Asparagus

Minced garlic-1 tsp

Chicken granules-1tsp

A dash of soya sauce

A dash of chinese cooking wine

1 tsp of sugar

Heat some oil and saute garlic till browned and add in the asparagus and all the seasonings. Add about 1/4 cup of water and cover wok and leave to simmer. Depending on the asparagus age, the older it is, the longer you'd have to cook it. When its almost done, add in the scallops and give it a good toss and yup its ready! For a good stir fry vege dish, i think the most important is 'wok hei' meaning lots of heat from the wok, so if you have a cooking hob that gives big flames, I'd say 80% of the battle has been won :)

Pork Chop

Here's a quick dinner idea! Pork chop that's pre-marinated during the weekends and chucked onto a grill/pan fried on a weekday. I normally have this with packed salads that requires no washing or cutting, but since mum was here to help with the preparatory work, we had stir-fried cabbage with carrots as our sides. Carb was omitted since everyone's been complaining that they're packing on weight!

Here's what i marinated my chops with(about 6 pieces):

-Sesame oil enough to coat ever piece of chop

-Salt rubbed onto every piece

-A big dash of Chinese cooking wine

-Ginger juice - about 2-3 tbsp

-Some cracked black pepper

I normally don't make sauces to go with my chops but my dad is strictly on to sauces when it comes to meat, so i made a quickie sauce with an onion, flour, chicken granules, sugar and soy sauce. Just heat up some oil and add in the onions and fry for 2-3 minutes before adding in plain flour, just enough to lightly coat all the onions, give it a good toss before adding in water. Leave it to simmer and add in the chicken granules to taste. Sugar gives a little balance to the savouriness of the dish, but i usually go sparingly like 2 tsp and a dash of soy sauce. Soy sauce is more for the color here though :)

Malaysian Curry Laksa in 1-2-3

Curry Laksa quick you say? YES quick Curry Laksa here for this busy mom who again have no maids at my expense :( Sorry for being so whinny about this maids issues, but this is one of my very big sore here in NZ! Why won't the government here allow maids to come? Even Canada allows it. The typical Kiwi answer to this question is 'Oh its just not our way of life' Bahhhh i detest! Sorry spoilt child here hehe...

Anyway coming back to Curry Laksa, I've been craving this for a long time here and have never had the guts to make it in fear of all the extensive stock making that would be needed for the soup to be nice. Weather here has been pathetic over the last few days, its been raining non-stop for 3 days and that just made me crave for something rich and spicy and gives you the satisfaction at the first bite! Nothing better than curry laksa i say.

So i decided that's what we shall have for dinner at 12pm while at office, so called mum (who's here with dad for a 3 months visit at the mo) to get some hard boiled eggs ready and cut up some onions and ginger.

Rushed home after work and pre-warned my parents who can be pretty fussy with their eats that its going to be a quickie Curry Laksa, so don't get your hopes up high.

Here goes:
-3 big onions
-3 inch of ginger
-3 tbsp of dried shrimps
-1 heaping tbsp of shrimp paste aka belacan
-4 HUGE fresh red chilli's-can substitute with dried ones and even chili powder

Blend the above till it become paste.

-2 stalks of lemon grass bashed
-1.5tbsp of chicken granules
-3tbsp of fish curry powder-Baba's brand the best
-4 litres of water-you can add more or less up to you
-1 can of coconut cream - for lucky people who gets fresh coconut cream, I'd say cream from 1 coconut or more if you desire a very rich soup
-salt & msg to taste

Assembly:
-Balanced noodles/meehoon/mix-personally fresh egg noodles are the best with Laksa
-Blanch beansprouts
-Shreded chicken meat, can cook this in the soup together-I used leftover KFC, it was gooooooddd...
-Hard boiled eggs
-Fish cakes

Saute the paste in a wok/pan with some oil, ooh and chuck in 2 stalks of bashed lemon grass and the curry powder. If you're trying to keep guilt to the lowest level, go sparingly with the oil otherwise the more oil the richer the soup will be. Saute it till it becomes very fragrant and you'd know this when the color turns really dark. Then add in water and chicken granules and leave it to boil for 20 minutes before adding in the coconut cream. Add seasoning to taste. Assemble your bowl of noodles and top up with the soup. I swear it was really nice, i mean the next best thing besides getting it back in Malaysia from a reputable hawker :) Got my parents approval too *wink* I was too hungry and eager to dive in to my noodles hence forgot to snap a pic or 2, darn.

Quick Tom Yum Chicken

Found a jar of Tom Yum paste in my pantry and discovered that its about to expire next month! Since i had no idea what to cook my chicken with, it shall be Tom Yum chicken then, this is an untested recipe, just a spur of the moment kind off dish but it turned out pretty pretty good i think.

Here's the recipe:

-1kg Skinless chicken pieces-there will be too much oil in the dish if the skin weren't taken off

-2-3 heaping tbsp of tom yum paste depending on the saltyness of the brand

-few dashes of fish sauce for extra kick
-lime juice to taste-i use lime juice extract that comes in a bottle, absolutely love the convenience -4 birds eyes chilli-more or less up to your taste buds
-2 stalks of bashed lemon grass
-2 tbsp sugar
-add some kaffir lime leaves if you have but not essential since there's lime juice already

Just dump everything into the pan/wok and cook with low flame with lid on to get smooth and juicy texture on the chicken. No water needs to be added especially so if the chicken has been pre-frozen.

I like this with fried meehoon, next dish that i shall make with the paste to finish it off before it expires will probably be Tom Yum fried Meehoon :)

Home made beef burger

Burgers is one of my love hate kinda meal, love it for the satisfaction on the first bite but hate the guilt that comes with it. Over the years, i've made quite a few burgers but none was more satisfying that this recipe:

Ingredients:

500gm lean mince beef

2 tsp salt

2tbsp oregano

dash of pepper

4 heaping tbsp of soft bread crumbs

1 grated carrot

1 diced onion

2 tbsp of worschetire sauce

1 eggs to bind

Method:

Just mix everything together and let stand for maybe 20 minutes for the flavor to infuse, make it into patties and pan fry them in vegetable oil.

I always have an egg with its yolk oozing with my burger. If pretty raw egg is not your thing, cook it really well then. If the patty is not too big, it would be nice to wrap it inside an egg with some cheese *yummmmmmmmmm*

The rest of the ingredients for the assembly is totally up to individuals. here are some ideas:-

-gerkhins *not my thing*

-lettuce

-Tomato

-Caramelised onions (pan fry some onions and add some sugar till it goes all soft and brown)

-Mayo

-Mustard

-Chilli/Tomato sauce (being Malaysian, hey hey its chilli!)

-whatever you could think off!