black vinegar trotters

I decided to experiement with this typical confinement food because I've always been wondering how would a dish cooked with a bottle of vinegar taste like. Anyway, I had the sunday afternnon free. And so, I had to trouble mama to help me get these trotters from the butcher in the morning. Cleaning the trotters is quite a pain as I don't quite like the porky smell. Besides, there were still some residual hairs on the skin! yeeks! Here's the more presentable trotters after cleaning and blanching.

My mama gave me a super huge claypot to cook this dish.



Clean and remove skin of 500g ginger. Heat claypot and add in 6 tablespoons of sesame oil. Stir fry ginger till fragnant. Add in 750ml of black vinegar, 100g sugar, 1500ml water and pinch of salt to the ginger. Simmer for 1hr. Add in trotters and cook for a further 2hrs.




So much trouble for a confinement dish and the whole house reeks of vinegar sourish smell after the cooking. I'm wondering if I can be that dilligent to cook this when the baby arrives. Maybe packing or catering will be a better choice.

Braised noodles

It's cooking without a recipe experiment today! I had a large pack of egg noodles from last week grocery shopping and it's just nice for a one dish meal today.

Ingredients
6 chinese mushrooms
egg noodles
2 eggs
~250g chicken thigh
2 gloves of garlic
1 star anise
soya sauce
5 spice powder
sugar
pepper

Method

1) Wash and soak mushrooms in hot water. Discard water after 10 minutes.

2) Marinate chicken thigh meat and mushroom with sesame oil, chinese wine, dark soya sauce, oyster sauce, pepper, sugar & five spice powder.

3) Cook egg in boiling water for 15 min. Peel off the shell.

4)Add the chicken, mushrooms, hard boiled egg together with star anise, garlic, soya sauce, five spice powder and water. Bring to boil an then simmer for 30 min.

5) Cook egg noodles in boiling water till al dente. Run under cold water and drain the noodles.

6) Blanch chye sime and other vegetables.

7) Serve noodles with the ingredients and some of the sauce. Balachan chill/ chilli padi for the extra punch!

Cereal Chicken

Both Xun and myself like the crispy cereal in cereal prawns. However, I don't eat prawns and hence we only get to eat such dish once in a blue moon when we dine out with our parents or friends. I bought an instant cereal mix from cold storage last week and I thought making cereal chicken will be to both our liking. It sure turned out to be one of our favourite now.

Ingredients:
6 chilli padi (it turned out really spicy, so cut down on the no. if u can't take too much chilli)
10 curry leaves
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon margarine
~250g chicken breast meat and chicken thigh, chopped
1 pack of instant cereal mix


Method:
1. Marinate chicken with salt and pepper. Set aside for an hour.
2. Fry chicken till cook, i.e golden brown.
3. Melt margarine and stir fry yolk till cooked.
4. Drain the oil and set the yolk aside.
5. Stir fry the chilli and curry leaves for a while till fragrant.
6. Add in instant cereal mix and stir fry till it's fragrant.
7. Add in chicken and mix thoroughly, followed by the egg yolk.



The cereal mix that's really yummy :)

taiwan oyster mee suan without oyster

Ingredients

Chicken stock
80g braising herb packet
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
40g rock sugar
25g dried shrimp, toasted

600g red mee sua
1/2 cup cornstarch

Garnish
25g coriander leaf
2 tbsp black vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp minced garlic
2 tsp chilli oil

Method

1. Combine chicken stock, braising herb, dark soy sauce, rock sugar and dried shrimps and bring to boil.
2. Simmer stock for 5 minutes.
3. Add mee sua and cook for another 4-6 minutes.
4. Thicken with corn starch.
5. Serve with shredded chicken, mushroom, prawn, hard boiled egg and coriander leaves. Garnish.

Cooking the taiwanese version of mee suan is certainly not for the faint-hearted. Now that I've experimented with this dish, I find that for a mere $3 for mee sua at geylang or si lin is surely worthwhile. I've tried the dish using the receipe, however the flavour is a far cry from those outside. I guess the chicken stock and braising herb ain't sufficient for the savoury taste.

Lessons learnt from the attempt

1) Never put in too much mee sua. It makes the stock starchy and increases the saltiness of the stock.
2) Stock was not savory enough. Maybe the next round I'll do a soup that's simmered for hours.
3) Pre-cook the mee suan to remove the floury salty taste before cooking it fully in the stock.

aglio olio

Directions

1. Cook pasta in boiling water with olive oil and salt added. Remove pasta from heat when cooked and drain off the water. Run the pasta over cold water to prevent them from sticking together.
   
2. Stir fry olive oil and garlic over medium heat.
3. When the garlic begins to change color add Italian herbs, red pepper flakes and garlic salt.
   
4. Stir well and remove from heat.
   
5. Toss until the pasta is well coated with sauce.
6. Serve with Parmesan cheese and garnish.
   

I was rather skeptical about the recipe initially, not convinced that simple condiments could give full flavour to the bland pasta. Indeed, I was humbled by the fact that small and simple condiments could do wonders. Xun was complaining that I gave him too big a serving but after 10 min, the plate was wiped out.

shabu shabu

To satisfy our tastebuds after leaving the nippon food behind for 2 days...

Here's the keys to making the stock and one of the key ingredients being pumpkin.

The miso paste and shabu shabu sauce

Tabemashoo!

The guru says:A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single click.

(a pity that my clicking lacks patience) =/

it was great to know that dear's school trip to china is called off this sept. at least this would mean that we would have a tiny weeny bit of time for us to spend our first year wedding anniversary together. dear has already booked 2 nights stay in intercon before the intended trip. so now with the trip being called off, we are stranded with the hotel stay. thanks fickle minded management.

the temptation of travelling was certainly great with the sept hols now in hand! however, the time for some solitude rest and the impending trip in dec were deterring factors. dearie had been so generous and sweet enough to sponsor this sept trip and he gave me the go ahead sign to start booking online last night. however, to our horror, we found out today that the fickle minded management has yet to reveal its tremendous unpredictability and has decided to throw in a compulsory course. due to that, we've to fork out charges for ammending the bookings. thanks once again very fickle minded management.

***

cook log:

the past week's cooking experiments have been fruitful-

• watercrest soup simmered for less than 2 hrs and oven baked char siew;
• experimented with a one-dish meal in the rice cooker - simple stir frying ingredients and rice for a while before throwing them all into the cooker. the result? veg is astonishing well cooked and soft, meat is tender and rice smells good. guess it's almost the parallel of claypot rice, given that it's cooked in a different vessel.
• dessert- water chestnut and ginko nuts
• garlic lemon butter prawns, sambal sotong

cook week no. 2

i think i'm behaving more like a escapist.

anyway, here's the cook log for this week:

Monday

• gong bao chicken
• three egg spinach (chicken egg, salted egg and century egg)- a dish which i picked up when dad & mom recommended me to xin hua cuisine.
• garlic lemon salmon
  

Tuesday serving western

• mashed potato with ikea swedish meatball sauce
• mixed veg
• chicken breast stuffed with melted cheese

LG says I'm getting more pro. I even found an online resource to print out groccery list and I plan the dishes in advanced. This way I find marketing more efficient where I no longer need to think of what to cook while I shop.

little chef

aspiring to be? that's what my LG calls me whenever i cook dishes to his liking. so far, this week has been great! i get to cook thrice already :) personally, cooking is an indicator of stress level. it's something that i can do whenever i have more time on hand and best of all it helps to destress! well, undone work is still lurking in the background but heck.

monday's menu was a wholesome hearty beef stew with chunky beef and loads of veggies- cabbage, onion, broccoli, potatos, carrots making it a grand total of 5 veg in all! hehz. it's one of the ways to get my no longer so hard core carnivore hubby to eat MORE veg (doesn't it sound like babysitting?) and i guess one of the greatest achievements thus far in our marriage is that i manage to convert a hard core carnivore hubby into an ominovore. at least now he's actually getting withdrawal symptoms from not eating his daily portion of greens. lol.

on tue was chinese. stirred fried fish fillet with spring onion and ginger, ma po tofu with minced meat and special ingredient and broccoli for veggie dish(again!) were on the menu. the special ingredient used in the tofu was something that i picked up when we ate at the chinese resturaunt in west coast plaza once. it's non other than preserved cai xin. it goes extremely well with the plain toufu and i wiped out at least half the serving.

as for today, it's simple fried rice with chicken rice mix using the leftover rice from mon and tue. also got some italian meatballs last sunday from cold storage but they kinda pale out in comparison to those from ikea. in addition, we had a big slab of otah from mother-in-law which she chucked into our bag when we visited them last weekend.

as this is the third timing cooking this week, i've been banned from cooking with effect from tomorrow onwards for this week, orders from mr pe teacher at home. well, looking forward to the groccery shopping this weekend to stock up more ingredients for next week. whee~

what a cook-ful week! :D

some little cooking

Immediately the day we returned from Bali, I decided to whip up something. The thought of cooking was inspired from VK's sharing on steak cooking secret from you-tube during the trip; and secondly, I haven't had the time to cook the whole of term 2 for my hubby. So, for friday's menu, it was stirred fried pasta and steak! no nice condiments or garnish to go with, so, just plain simple home cooking.

a small portion ribeye which turned out still decent. at least, even if it didn't, it won't be too much to stuff down! heh.


And for weekend's lunch, it was stirred fried udon with lots of greens.

and some lamb rack to go along.

some random shoots while we were at west coast plaza. outdoor classroom on colour combination!

red wall is just soooo different and nice! daring, striking and warm :)

pesticide or toothpaste, mdm?

upon seeing this in an email from a friend, i immediately thought of how much pesticide i could have possibly consumed in a year with those kg's of grapes which i chomp down like a staple.

the next thing i found myself when i got home, was to wash the pint of grapes in the fridge with darlie and it really worked like a charm!

i suppose it's better to eat grapes with mint coated skin than malathion (pesticide which kills insects)

my small world

hello blog..

sorry for the negligence. been alienated from this place for quite a while. these few weeks been an overkill. with the given gloomy outlook, i started wondering would june be the month that i'll be set free (that's when my bond will end). i also discovered the other ugly side of human nature during this short span of time which thoroughly revamped how i viewed the management.

was chatting with angela online and we laughed at the term "healthy detachment" which we both learnt at the west zone sup interaction.

i think i better stop my grumblings as life is too great to be tinted by complaints.

i need to look up for strength, look ahead to stay positive and to dim out the distractions. it's too easy to fall prey to self-pity.

***

on a side note, and in an unrelated fashion, i made a big bowl of creamy macaroni and cheese yesterday! :) the cheese was overwhelming given it's only sharp cheddar cheese which i chose over the suggested extra sharp cheddar in the receipe. a little sense of satisfaction as it turned out decent, meaning that my lao gong and good friend at work gets their pasta tossed in savoury cheese. now i'm still left with 2/3 bar of cheddar.. wondering what to do with it.

Macaroni and Cheese (modified version):

Ingredients:
4 g salt
90 g pasta
3/8 can evaporated milk
45 ml chicken broth
9 g butter
8 g flour
90 g sharp cheddar cheese

Serves 2

Bring water to boil in a pot. Add salt and pasta. cook until al dente. Drain. To prevent sticking, drain and immediately pour onto a large lipped baking sheet and let cool while preparing sauce.

Meanwhile, heat the milk and chicken broth in a pot till hot and steamy (not boiling). Melt butter in the empty pasta pot; whisk in flour, then hot milk mixture. Continue to whisk until thick and bubbly, 3 to 4 minutes. Turn off heat, stir in cheddar until melted.

Add drained pasta to sauce, and stir until everything is well combined over low heat. Stir to heat through, and thin with a little water if the sauce is too thick. Serve hot.

大年初一

it is still the same, nothing changed except we've 2 additional members to our family this year :)

we visited grandma together, followed by lunch @ mac.

as far as my memory can bring me back to, even before my little bro was born, we always had mac on 初一every year. it's nostagic and yet at the same time heartwarming because nothing has changed. well, except my bros' growing appetites and coupled with my hubby's, it meant more food needed!

xiang's usual favourite fare of fast food

after lunch, i had difficulty keeping my eyes open. besides being too full, my sleep debt from rushing cny project and thereafter catching up on the chores which were lagging seriously behind time were the main causative agents i believe.

then mom asked me, " 你有了阿?" (are u pregnant)

i almost flipped and i thought the iris of my eyes had moved so much northwards to the eye socket. she added that i looked so lethgaric and kept dozing off in the car. oh wellz. i hope there's nothing to do with horizontal expansion or alike.

and like the past years since ah-ma passed away, we started watching movie together. some years parents were away on their lost count honeymoons, and those when they are in town, we'll always be watching some shows meant for entertaining the lack of prog s'poreans. this year there was only 3 awful shows to choose from and we settled for something with a better timing. no comments- critic awarded 1.5stars.

finally it was seafood dinner, the usual protocol!

i actually forgot to take whole family photoshoot! haiz.

we then make our own way to marina barrage to walk around to aid digestion.

a little cheat eat on 初二 when shops are still closed

jan's 21st bd

whipped up a simple dish for lunch, chilli gravy with chicken with fried man tou, all which my hubby has been craving for a long time. chilli gravy is made from chilli crab paste off the shelves of supermart and i substituted the crab for chicken cos i didn't have chance to go buy them. anyway, he doesn't know how to appreciate crabs ;P

in the evening, it was meeting up with some cell members @ minds cafe, mainly to celebrate jan's last day of exam as well as her 21st bd.

we had a great time playing some simple games and i almost rolled on the floor laughing on a few occasions. i don't remember having such crazy wild times at pits stop the last time.

before we parted and head home, this poster on the wall inspired us to role-play them. so see the human version of seasame street below:



who bears the most resembrance? ur vote :)

congee for a sick and weak stomach

was at home today and decided to cook some congee for myself (as a mid-day meal) and bee's dinner after his x-country training.

you see, i would never cook this dish for my parents as it would take ages and they'll probably starve by the time i'm done. reason being, the expectation i have for congee is that there must be no sight of grains at all which means hours of cooking

since i hv no sense of hunger or fullness because of the gastric discomfort, i thought i might as well start cooking in the morning and hv it as late lunch/ early dinner.

i think i must hv cooked the porridge, removed from heat and recooked the whole pot for at least 6 times throughout the day.

at the same time, i also made ikan bilis power to make the porridge more savoury on top of the dried oysters and scallops.

boy, it was nostagic. the ikan bilis power in porridge smelt and tasted the same like how grandma used to make it for my brother and i when we were young! the only difference in preparation for me was that i decided to toss the ikan bilis into the oven to totally dry them before grinding. removing the moisture would definately prolong the shelf life. grandma used motar to pound fresh ikan bilis in into powder.

The fate of the whole tray of ikan bilis which ended up filling less than half a bottle.

The final product after hours of cooking.

quick recovery for my stomach please!

New York Cheesecake

another adventurous venture
i baked new york cheesecake today!


total of 1kg of cream cheese used to bake a 9" cake
yummy...
it's a long process..
bake at 245 degree for 10min
then 95 degree for another 1hr
leave in oven for another hr
and lastly chill overnight

attempt at making pizza

decided to have a go at making pizza from scratch today, feeling adventurous again yea. and also trying out before housewarming.

1.5 hrs prepration time for the crust (including 1hr for the dough to rise)
and then bake the crust
followed by adding the topping for the final toasting

it turned out decent
crust was crispy outside and soft on the inside.
only complaint is that it's too thick.



intended to store it in the freezer but hubby wanted to hv a slice for supper

curry fish head

was feeling super adventurous today, and so i gave a shot at making curry fish head

since it's a "big project", i decided to take a few more pic with the exception of preparing the fish head part which is bloody and messy.

not that difficult as it seemed, just need a little patience because it requires a few stages of cooking-

1) steam the fish head for 20min (i bought red snapper because the meat is tastier) and after it is cooked, place in a claypot.

2)blanch lady fingers, egg plant aka brinjal and long bean and then place them in the claypot as well.

3) curry gravy- stir fry the curry paste till fragant, add water and coconut milk to simmer (i've substitued it with yoghurt as it is a healthier alternative to prevent adding on to my parents' high cholestrol count)

4) pour curry over the cooked fish head and bring the content to boil.

5) serve with a bowl of white rice ~yum... :)

these separate stages of cooking ensure that the curry won't be overtly fishy (in case the fish head ain't fresh enough) and also, for asthetics, so that the meat won't fall all into the curry and end up with the bone swimming in a pot of curry.

cooking non-stop

for the third time this week, i made dinner

wed and today's dinner were simply one-dish meal unlike tuesday's cos it was a last min decision to cook. i just felt so compelled to do more for my parents as the days that we can stay together are numbered. making dinner's kinda killing two birds with one stone. while i could ease the load off my mom and show concern for my parents, at the same time, i could practise my culinary skills (which i'm sure xun will be relieved to know that he ain't the guinea pig).

although i made an effort to come home early at least once a week during weekday to either cook or clear household chores since i started teaching, i kinda slacken especially this year till lately when most of the wedding preparation's more or less done up.

will definately miss having my parents around although we don't really talk alot and my bros who always take my nonsense.

cooking session!

last evening, cooking and salted fish became good discussion topics between xun's mom and i. what could be more apt than to discuss ur hubby-to-be favourite home cooked dish with future MIL.

decided to whip up dinner for my parents today and the main dish - minced pork with salted fish. (the dish which xun would salivate over )i had a difficult time finding the "semi-dried" salted fish that his mom was referring to.

was fortunate enough to find the unappetising nor appealing looking salted fish in the supermart nearby. forgot to take a pic of it but it looks somewhat like what's in the pic below:

and ta-da! my very first attempt at salted fish minced pork!

other than this, there was lotus root soup and for vitamin and minerals booster - cabbage and straw mushroom!

dad didn't grumble, that means it's ok :p

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after dinner, i was surfing the net for some other recipes when i chanced upon this website. i was very impressed with the young mommy who prepared tirelessly creative lunch boxes for her kids. her other recipes are quite easy to follow too.

it's actually rice moulded into shape of teddy bears. in order to make her kids eat veggies, she ensured that they're cut into interesting shapes to make the lunchbox interesting and irresistable. manz.. really impressed with her effort.

---

the power struggle ended up in an unexpected outcome - underdog won

blessing or curse?