大牌档菜, 好好吃！

These were a few dishes that I whipped out for dinners recently. I don't remember whipping out several dishes from just one cook book! Gosh! all the recipes I tried out were very good and well-received by my family. :)

Take this "kai lan" for example. I rarely buy this vegetable because of its "greeny" taste, if you know what I mean (青涩味). However, this chef used a mixture of salty preserved olive (橄榄菜) and minced meat to bring out the crunch and sweetness of "kai lan". The "greeny" taste was reduced to the minimum. Splendid!

I was initially quite sceptic whether my kids would eat this. But after seeing them enjoying the dish (吃的津津有味) I was very delighted. :)

The next dish was "Fried Minced Meat & Tofu with Salted Fish".


Tofu and salted fish are best match (绝配): one plain and one strong taste. Fry it with minced meat, smell and taste heavenly! My kids requested me to cook this again! :)
I still have a few "tofu" recipes to try out from this book!
I cooked this "Steamed Herbal Chicken" yesterday for our dinner.

Using simple ingredients: dang gui, qi zi, salt and shaoxing wine (I used cooking wine). Very tasty & sweet! Must use "sweet" dang gui otherwise it will taste bitter.
Original recipe used six chicken wings. Since my kids didn't know how to eat the wings, I use one whole junior chicken. (Sorry! the picture above showed the leftover chicken pieces). However, my younger boy still haven't acquired the taste of "qi zi". He prefers the gravy than the chicken!
All recipes can be found at 好好吃！大牌档菜 作者：郭子仁
Now, I can Cook Like A Chef! Oops! :)

7 facts about me

I'd been tagged by Happy Home Baker to do a "7 random facts about myself".

Here are the rules for tagging:

1. Link to my blog (tagger) on your blog.
2. Give seven facts about yourself.
3. Tag another seven bloggers by leaving a comment on their blogs and letting them know they were tagged and listing them (and their blogs) on your blog.

Here it goes:

1. My zodiac sign is "Cancer" - the crab!

2. During my twenties till I got married, I was "quite" adventurous. I'd scaled a few "mountains" with groups of friends. The first mountain was "Mt Ophir" in Malaysia. The most memorable one was the climb up Mount Kinnabalu in Sabah. You see, there were these 2 guys who thought there were the fittest among all (commandos). In the end, because of acclimatization they almost couldn't make it to the top!

3. I remembered my first travel by airplane in my mid twenty was to... Nepal - an unforgettable experience. I hope I can visit this country in future with my kids and husband.

4. I love trekking and backpacking very much. I'd visited countries such as: Vietnam, Sabah & Sarawak, New Zealand (self-drive with four friends), Europe, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Then, I could travel with a backpack, t-shirt & sandal and off I went. Now.... with two kids in tow, I can't do that any more! :(

5. We don't own a car. Most of the time, we commute by public transport.

6. I've a big family with total seven siblings. If my father & granny were still alive, we would have ten members (一家十口)!

7. I don't watch any drama serial. I like to watch cooking programmes. :)

Hope the above are not boring you. I don't have any one to tag since some had already been tagged. So I'll just let the tag ends here. Sorry!

Brown Rice Milk Buns

If you have a copy of "孟老师的100道面包"，you will find this recipe familiar: 糙米饭鲜奶面包. Who would have thought of using brown rice to make bread? Do you? :)

The original recipe is a plain bun with 50g of 松子(pine nuts?) and wheat germs as decoration. Since I didn't have these two ingredients on hand, I made a bold decision to change it a savoury buns, incorporating chicken cheese sausages. Sausages are a favourite among my kids and husband. So, if my buns didn't turn out well, there would be three more mouths to help me finish them! (My husband hates brown rice! )

I did not cook the brown rice just to make these buns. But rather it was our lunch (me & my 2 kids). I just reserved 50g of the cooked rice as my tangzhong starter.

I was very doubtful initially:

1. whether my tangzhong starter was cooked correctly or not?
2. whether the dough was easy to handle or not?

Luckily, everything turned out well. The dough was rather easy to handle and the dough was proofing normally thereafter.

Once the buns had cooled, I was very anxious to test the texture of the bun. Well, needless to say, it was very nice: soft & fluffy. It tasted just like a normal bun but with the goodness of brown rice. :)

I had tried a number of recipes from 孟老师and most of the times it turn out very good. She has a couple of unusual bread recipes which I hope to try one of this day. This is one of them. :) Next round I'll make it plain. May be as a burger bun?

My Vanilla Yogurt Ice Cream

If you're a yogurt lover, you may like this ice cream. This is unbelievable simple. No eggs and cooking are involved. Simply: mix, whisk, pour and freeze.

Recipe courtesy from Gina of Kitchen Capers. Since I didn't have any fresh peppermint on hand, I changed it into a vanilla flavour one. Here's my version:

Ingredients:

2 cups plan yogurt (I used "Pauls" set yogurt 500g -$4.60/tub)
1 cup whipping cream (I also used non-diary)
120g caster sugar (I used 10g less: don't think is significant)
1/2 tsp salt (I used extra fine sea salt)
1 & 1/2 tsp vanilla oil (or essence) [Add slightly more if you want stronger taste. ]

Method:
1. Whisk yogurt, cream, sugar, vanilla oil/essence and salt in a mixer until well blended.

2. Pour into container and freeze till set. (Between 4 t0 6 hours) **

3. Top with chocolate chips/rice or whatever cross your mind. Enjoy!

Note:
1. After 2 days, I noticed that the ice cream became very hard to scoop. So I checked with Gina of Kitchen Capers. Her advice was to whisk it a few times and put it back to freeze. (When you take in and out of the freezer, condensation will happen and water vapour turns into ice.)

2. Was wondering whether one should whisk a few times when the ice cream is semi-set. (Just like those ice cream with eggs & cooking involved). Is it the same or??? Anyone out there have better ideas?

Anyway, this is a very refreshing dessert with the warm weather out there. Taste wise, it has a bit of the sourish taste from yogurt. Think next time will stick to the 120g castor sugar called for.

My two boys were the one who enjoyed the ice cream most. They love yogurt. They were very happy that mummy can make ice cream from now on ! :)

Steamed Tofu with Fish Paste

This was a dish that I first made sometimes back in September. Ever since then, I had cooked on two occasions: one, for my mother-in-law's family, second, for my family again. This dish was very received and particularly appeal more to the kids!

The ingredients are easily found and best thing, you can whip up in minutes if you run out of ideas what to cook! (which happens quite often to me).

Recipe as follows:

1 tub soft tofu, lightly mashed (I used Silken Tofu, 300g)

150g fish paste (I think I bought at $1.00 per 100g)

1 egg

1 tsp corn flour

1/2 tsp salt (I omitted, since fish paste is already salty)

Dash of pepper

1 tbsp oil

1/2 tbsp chopped garlic

Some chopped spring onion and some red chili (for decoration)

1 tbsp light soysauce (adjust accordingly: some brands are more salty)

Method:

1. Mix fish paste with egg.

2. Add in the remaining ingredients and mix well.

3. Steam at high heat for 10 minutes or till cooked. Remove.

4. Heat up oil and saute chopped garlic till fragrant. Pour over steamed tofu.

5. Sprinkle spring onion and light soy sauce on top.

材料：
1 盒水豆腐，略压烂 (我用嫩滑豆腐)
150g 鱼胶
1 粒蛋
1t 粟粉
0. 5t 盐
少许胡椒粉

1T 油
0. 5T 蒜茸(我随意)
适量青葱粒
1T 生抽

做法：
1) 鱼胶加入蛋拌匀成小粒状。
2) 将全部材料加入轻轻拌匀，大火蒸10分钟至熟，取出。
3) 烧热油爆香蒜茸，淋在豆腐上，洒上青葱粒和生抽即可享用。

Recipe Source: 好好吃！大牌档菜 作者：郭子仁

Note: There are quite a number of mouth watering recipes in this book. Most of the ingredients are easily found or available in your pantry.

My favourite sweet bun

My kids love buns. Buns with hot dog, pork floss, and lotus seeds are their favourites. My little son has very sweet tooth. He likes anything sweet! :)

This is a very versatile recipe. You can bake it as a loaf or turn it into a sweet bun just like this lotus seed buns.


One thing I like best about this recipe is that all the ingredients are very basic: water, bread flour, milk powder, sugar, salt, butter (sometimes I substitute with corn oil), and yeast

I try to double the recipe and keep half in the fridge so that whenever I feel like making buns or loaf, I have one ready-made. :)

My two kids love to eat lotus seeds buns. However, my husband prefers savoury buns in the morning...




The texture of the bread: soft and fluffy!
Recipe over here.

Braised Pork in Miso

Whenever I cook miso soup, my kids will shun away from it. They still can't get use to the taste of miso. However, I was quite surprised that they love this dish. They simply spoon the sauce and drizzle over their rice.

All along I thought miso can only be used for soup. But this braised pork using miso as marinade change my mind completely. It was not very salty. May be because of the amount of the rock sugar, my husband found it a bit sweet. Apart from that, we love the taste of this dish. It was simply delicious. :)

More information on miso, read here.

Recipe as follows:

Ingredients:

Pork belly 500g (I used 五花肉.)

Miso paste 3 tbs

Rock sugar 50g (can reduce to 40g)

Small cucumber, cherry tomato & spring onions - for decoration (I omitted)

Seasonings:

Cooking wine 2 tbs

Dark Soy Sauce 2 tbs

Star Anise 1 pc

Broth 2 cups (I used homemade chicken stock)

Method:

1. Clean & pat dry pork belly.

2. Coat miso paste onto the meat completely. Marinade for at least 2 hours.

3. Put all the seasonings into a pot and bring to a boil. Once it boils, put in the meat. Cover. Braise for about 30 minutes using small fire.

4. Add in rock sugar and braise for another 1 hour (using small fire).

5. Slice the meat and arrange onto a plate. Decorate with spring onion, cherry tomato and slice cucumbers. Drizzle the braised sauce onto the meat. Serve.

Do let me know if you have try it! :)

Recipe source: 妈妈做的菜　（莊佩柔　编著）