Lo Mai Gai (Chicken Glutinous Rice)

This dish has been my son's favourite. He simply loves glutinous rice. So decided to make him this. Be warned that the ones sold in shops are really oily. So don't expect that when you make it at home. This is a healthier version since you get to choose what kind of chicken part you want and how much seasoning to add. It is basically quite a straight forward dish to prepare. Have fun!

What you need
- Chicken fillet / De-boned Chicken thigh
- small aluminium trays to put it in
- glutinous rice
- chicken stock
- dried mushrooms/ Chinese sausage (optional)

Marinade the chicken
- sesame oil
- soya sauce
- oyster sauce
- corn flour
- white pepper

Seasoning water for rice just before steaming
- sesame oil
- light soya sauce
- salt
- chicken stock
- water

Steps
1) Rinse and soak the glutinous rice for at least 2 hours
2) Slice the chicken and marinade it
3) After soaking the rice, discard the water
4) Layer the chicken (and dried mushrooms/Chinese sausage) inside the tray first as the first layer
5) For the next layer, cover the tray with rice, packing it tightly
6) Put the seasoning water in the tray till it covers the rice
7) Finally steam it

If you find the chicken dry, I suggest you either use chicken thigh (since it is more tolerant to heat) or steam the glutinous rice first before you assemble into the tray

Some recipes soak the glutinous rice overnight together with the seasoning water in it already. I haven't tried that but I can imagine the rice to be darker in colour and more tasty.


Anyway, just grasp the main idea and tweak it to whatever suits you and how much time you have!

Enjoy!

Ngor Hiang- Sweet and Juicy

This was my virgin try on preparing ngor hiang and it was a success, except maybe for the art in wrapping it which I have yet to master.

Decided to cook this as my hubby loves eating ngor hiang. I guess it is probably his comfort food since growing up with it as he is a hokkien and his mum cooks that a lot!

This recipe was shared by my facebook home cooking group which I joined. Enjoy!

Picture adapted from the Facebook Cooking Group

Ingredients
- 1 kg of minced meat
- 300g of water chestnut
- 1/2 kg of prawns
- 2 big onions
- $2 worth of fish paste
- bean curd skin (the soft ones)
- 1 egg

Steps
1) Use a damp cloth to clean the bean curd sheets if not it will be very very salty
2) Steam the bean curd skin by covering with the cloth so that the water doesn't drop onto the sheets
3) Prepare the paste - minced the prawns, onions, and water chestnut. Add the minced meat and fish paste. Crack and egg and mix it altogether. Season with pepper and corn flour. (no need salt as the skin is salty already!) I added spring onions to give the colour and because I had it in my fridge and didn't know how else to use it before it withers beyond its of use.

4) Wrap the paste with the bean curd skin

5) After wrapping all up, deep fry them and voila, nice and crispy sides to go with for your lunch or dinner!

Kway Chap 棵汁 / Braised pork innards stew

Always loved this dish as its like a one pot meal that can go with rice or noodles. Very versatile. Leftovers are also good as you can reuse the gravy.

As I was shopping in Giant hypermart, I came across this premix. So I got it. Yes, it is the cheat method which I seldom use but once in a while, I get lazy and decide on trying it out. Don't worry if you are living abroad and do not have the premix as you can substitute it with 5 spice powder, star anise, cinnamon sticks, cloves, cardamom and sugar. (If you want some heat, you can add black peppercorns)

Basically for this dish, you simply add whatever you like to eat. For me, I love the pork belly, egg, firm beancurd ('dou gan' 豆干), fried beancurd skin ('dao pok' 炸豆腐皮/豆仆) and my supermarket nearest my place happen to have pig intestines. So I bought that as well.

Ingredients
- 5 TBs dark soya sauce
- 10 garlic cloves (with skin attached)
- pork belly
- eggs
- firm beancurd ('dou gan' 豆干)
- fried beancurd skin ('dao pok' 炸豆腐皮/豆仆)
- pig intestines
- Chinese celery (for garnish)

* To wash the pig intestines, I first wash it in rinsing water till most of the murkiness is gone. Then I wash it with white vinegar to remove any smell. Soak it for a while before washing it off and then pouring boiling water over it. You can also choose to pan fry your intestines after that too before throwing in together with the rest of the meat.

Steps
1) Add the sachet of the premix, garlic and dark soya sauce into 1.5 L of water and simmer.
2)  Add your meat, beancurd, pig intestines, fried beancurd skin as well as egg (I put the whole egg in together with the shell to cook it. So remember to wash the egg first). Let everything simmer in very low heat. The packet said simmer for 1 hour but I realise the pork isn't as tender as I want it to be. So basically, you simmer until you feel the pork belly is soft. I did it for almost 3 hours before I was satisfied. Mid way while cooking, you can remove the egg, remove the shell and put the egg back into the pot so that the egg will be black in colour when serving. Looks nicer.
3) Cut it all up before serving
4) Garnish with chopped celery

I cooked this for dinner. So ate this with rice.

There was a lot of gravy left and a little pork and beancurd. So I decided to put all in the fridge and the next morning, I actually boiled noodles, threw some chicken wings in the leftovers last night together with the gravy and served this for breakfast to my family. They all loved it!

So don't worry if you have leftovers. This make a great dish for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Enjoy!

Braised Ginger Chicken with Potatoes

This is a great savory dish perfect with rice as it is tasty and simple.

Just this dish with one vegetable dish will be enough for dinner.

Ingredients (for 3-4)
- Chicken (whichever parts you like to eat. I would recommend chicken drumsticks/thighs/wings. Basically, anything with a little of fats or skin would be good for this dish)
- Potatoes (About 3)
- Ginger
- Oyster Sauce (1 TB)
- Dark Soy Sauce (2 TB)


Steps
1) Cut up the ginger and potatoes, as well as marinate the chicken with oyster sauce and dark soy sauce

2) Heat up a pot and add oil in high fire

3) Put in ginger and fry it in the pot by stirring continuously in high heat

4) Then you throw in the cut potatoes

5) After that, throw in the chicken. Add about a cup or two cups of water to the chicken bowl and pour in to the pot. Once it starts boiling, you turn down the fire to let it simmer

6) Cook it for about 30 mins or when you see the gravy is sufficient enough for your dish and taste it before you switch off the fire.

Enjoy this simple and yet tasty dish!

Pan Fried Black Pomfret with fried garlic

I have always loved eating fish but seriously, I always end up clueless as to how I should cook my fish as I love variety and I don't wish to always stick to the same old kind of steaming fish with tomatoes, ginger and salted vegetable.

So decided to buy black pomfret fish so that I can fry it as I love my fish crispy! (once in a while I fry
 as cleaning up the oil after cooking this isn't exactly very pleasant)

Ingredients
- garlic (minced)
- shallots (diced finely)
- ginger sliced
- black pomfret
- spring onions/ corianger as garnish
- black sauce
- salt

Steps
1) Marinate the fish with salt
2) Heat the oil in frying pan
3) Put in the minced garlic and fry in low heat. Stirring all the time until crispy and golden. Set aside. Make sure it doesn't turn black if not it will be bitter!

4) Use the oil to cook the fish. Remember to remove all bits and residue of the garlic if not it will get burnt will cooking the fish. Top up more oil if needed...just make sure its enough oil to cook one side of the fish
5) Pat dry the fish before adding it into the heated pan. Fry in medium heat. Make sure the side is golden brown before turning over.
6) Once turn over, I add the shallots and ginger together at the side to cook it up

7) Finally, remove the fish onto a plate, drizzle with black sauce on it and top it up with the fried ginger slices and shallots as well as the fried crispy garlic. Then garnish with either spring onions or coriander.

Great dish with rice as the garlic and shallots as well as black sauce is alone to go with the rice, in my opinion.

 

Enjoy!

Spinach Pork Congee (Porridge)

This dish is perfect for those who are sick, for cold weathers or simply, just to cook a healthy meal for the family. For the record, my kids, including myself slurp this whole thing real fast as it is very sweet and tasty!

A nice, simple, economical and tasty meal for the family. How can you not try it?

Ingredients
- Spinach (chopped)
- Dried Anchovies/ Chicken bones of one chicken
- Minced pork to make pork balls/ sliced pork
- rice (I use only one cup of rice for 2 adults and 2 children)
- water
- salt and pepper to taste
- ginger (3-4 slices)
- sliced fish cake (optional)


Steps
1) Boil the dried anchovies/chicken bones in a pot of water (filled 3/4 of the pot) under medium high fire

2) Then let it cool down after about 30 mins of boiling and drain to use the stock.

3) Wash your rice and boil them in a pot with only the stock you use from Step 1. Add the ginger slices as well. If you did not boil enough stock, and you find that you need more liquid to make the rice soft, then use normal water and add it into the pot. Main thing is try to use as much of the stock as possible as that is the one that makes it sweet.

4) Boil using low fire till you are satisfied with the water to rice ratio (not too watery or not too thick) and you see if the rice is of the softness you want. (Check out the picture closely to see how the rice should be like) Keep stirring so that the bottom does not get burnt or to prevent the rice from sticking below.

5) During the last 15 mins or so, you add the chopped spinach and pork slices/pork balls.

6) Season with salt and white pepper to taste.

I added my favourite pickled cabbage for the crunch to the porridge. Another of my favourite compliment dish would be the fried dace canned food with black beans.

These are two pictures of the times I cooked this dish. One was pork balls, and the other was pork slices.

Look healthier as I was sick then

Had this bowl when I was craving for porridge. Not sick

Enjoy!

Fried Prawn Begedil (Potato Patties)

This is a party hit when I invited my friends over to my place last week for lunch. Most stalls would cook begedil with beef but the prawn ones which my helper makes is so good that you would not want to eat the beef ones anymore.

Ingredients:

- potato

- vegetable oil for deep frying

- garlic powder

- flat leaf parsley (chopped finely)

- fried shallots (crushed finely)

- salt

- white pepper

- prawns (diced finely)

- egg yolk only

Steps:

1) Peel the potatoes and sliced them up to deep fry them till cook first

2) Mashed the potatoes very finely until soft thoroughly

3) Add the chopped flat leaf parsley, crushed fried shallots, garlic powder, salt and pepper, prawns in to the mashed potatoes

parsley and fried shallots in

The amount of garlic powder to add

Prawns added in

4) Mix well and finally, form them into balls and you can refrigerate it to store till you want to fry it. If not, just straight away rolls into balls and flatten them out with your palm to make a small patty.

5) Deep into egg yolk before deep frying them.

Fry till the colour is right!

Enjoy this wonderful snack!

Mee Soto (Chicken Noodle Soup)

This has been one of my favourite Malay food as its light and comforting. There's something about chicken soup that is so assuring..

Anyway, my helper happens to make a wonderful bowl of mee soto which I would love to share this with you.

Ingredients

Group A (paste)
- tumeric ginger (thumbsize)
- old ginger (thumbsize)
- lemon grass (just the bottom part)
- garlic (about 4 cloves)
- shallots (about 8)
- Sup/Soto Powder Packet

Group B (chilli)
- chilli padi (4-5 small ones)
- kecap manis
- garlic (4 cloves)

Group C
- bean sprouts
- coriander (finely chopped)
- yellow noodles or vermicelli
- fried shallots (you can either fry them yourself or just buy ready made crispy ones from the supermarket)
- whole chicken
-spring onions
- top part of lemon grass
- 4 eggs


Steps:
1) Blend the ingredients in Group A with a little water, except the powder.

2) After its more or less blended, you can put in 2 TB of the powder from the packet

3) Then take the paste to fry it in a little oil in the frying pan over medium heat.

4) Then put the whole chicken, spring onions about 2 bunch, the top part of the lemon grass and the fried paste in a big pot of water to cook.

5) Let it cook for about 30-45 mins for the chicken to cook through

6) At the mean time, you can blanch your bean sprouts, cook your eggs (make it hard boiled) and noodles in boiling water.

7) Then for the mee soto chilli, you use the Group B Ingredients and pound the chilli and garlic together first. Then finally, you just add the kecap manis sauce (2-3 TB).

8) Once your chicken is cooked, bring it out to cool it so that you can shred the chicken meat

9) Put everything together to prepare to serve

10) Finally, just add the soup to your noodles. Taste the soup before serving. Season with salt if you like.

 (By the way, pictures are from 2 various times I cooked. So as you can see, the below picture is vermicelli noodles instead of the thick yellow noodles. I very much prefer that as its lighter and healthier.)

Enjoy!

Guilt-free Crispy Ikan Bilis (anchovies)

My children simply loves anything crunchy and crispy- from crispy fish skin, chicken skin to fried ikan bilis. I have recently read a recipe online in noobcook blog and there was this crispy baked ikan bilis recipe which I had to try because I do not like to cook dishes with lots of oil. My helper usually fries the ikan bilis with lots of oil which I feel so sinful eating and seeing the oil go to waste like that.

So this recipe is simple, guilt-free and ends up with the same crunchy, crispy result. So why not?

Ingredients
- dried anchovies (the ones that are cut in halves already with the bones)

Steps
1) Wash the anchovies for two rounds to remove most of the salt content
2) Pat dry them and lay them out on the baking tray
3) Air dry it for about an hour
4) Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
5) Place the baking try with ikan bilis inside for 10 mins

6) Take out the tray and use a spatula to just toss it around so that the ikan bilis get evenly browned on all sides
7) Turn up the oven to 200 degrees Celsius for just 5 more mins and it should be done! How brown you want it is simply up to you..

After that, I let it cool down for 10 mins before placing it into a zip lock bag which I eventually placed it in the airtight container.

Great compliment for your lunch or dinner!You can also pound this up into powder to make a soup base stock for your porridge or noodles as well. Very nutritious!

Enjoy!

Mee Goreng

This is a very comforting dish that my helper has made it to be. Though it is not very healthy, I enjoy having the various kinds of ingredients all coming together to make this dish so tasty!

Basically, this is yellow noodles cooked with sambal belachan. I have the steps to make sambal belachan in this blog.

So you basically fry this with minced garlic, onions, bean sprouts, prawns, squid, fishcake, noodles, spring onions (the top green ones) and sambal belachan. Then you can fry an egg as a side and sliced cucumber and tomatoes as well.

It is very easy. Great dish for breakfast or lunch!

Glutinous Rice (糯米饭) -Easy Method

I have always loved and cooked dishes numerous times as long as they are easy to prepare and tasty to eat! Cooking glutinous rice is one of those dishes. It is basically like a one-pot meal where you simple throw everything in, go and do your stuff and just come back when its about time to eat!

Here's the ingredients you need:
- dried shrimps (soaked in water. Reserve the water)
- dried mushrooms (soaked in water, then sliced. Reserve the water)
- finely sliced shallots (about 3-4)
- 2 cans of braised peanuts
- glutinous rice (soaked)

Steps:
1) Pour a little oil into the hot frying pan
2) Add the shallots and stir fry till its translucent or when you can smell the fragrance
3) Add the dried shrimps. Stir fry till its fragrant
4) Add the dried sliced mushrooms
5) Pour in the glutinous rice and braised peanuts, together with the gravy from the can. Keep tossing and stirring
6) Then add a little soya sauce, dark soya sauce. No need sugar as the gravy from the peanuts is sweet already.
7) Then after frying it up, you transfer into the rice cooker. The traditional method is to steam it, but I prefer the simple method where I don't have to worry about the water drying up in my wok.
8) Cover the rice with water from the dried mushrooms and shrimps. Use the same amount of water you use to cook normal rice.

9) It should take about 30-40 mins to cook.
10) Finally you can garnish with fried shallots and spring onions.

Variation:
- you can add slice pork belly or chinese sausage in as well. Throw it after you fry your shallots.

My whole family all love this simple and tasty meal!

Enjoy!

Chicken Rice with Chilli

This dish has been one of my children's favourite! They can slurp up two bowls of chicken rice!

Basically, for this post, I will just teach you how to make the chicken rice as well as the chilli. As for the chicken, I only marinate with salt, sesame oil, ginger and steam it. Ater steaming, just ice bath it. So that one is quite simple.

Chicken Rice Recipe

1) Put margarine into a heated frying pan
2) Add sesame oil into frying pan
3) Add Chicken fat (get from the chicken you use to steam)
4) Add minced shallots, sliced ginger, minced garlic. Make sure it does not go brown
5) Put the washed rice into the frying pan and mix
6) Add light soya sauce
7) Transfer all into the rice cooker to cook

Chicken Rice Chilli Recipe

Ingredients:

4 Fresh big chilli - deseeded
5 Chilli Padi - leave the seeds on
Ginger - 1 thumbsize
Garlic - 4 cloves
Salt - 1 tsp
Sugar - 1 TB
Lime -  1

Blend the above ingredients and voila! You get your chilli to go with your chicken rice!

For the quantity, please feel free to adjust according to your taste and liking. So after blending, you just adjust accordingly.

Here's what I had for dinner! Enjoy!

Curry Puff

This has been one of my favourite snacks since young. But it has been growing increasingly expensive- from 40 cents to the present, $1.50.

Anyway, thank God my helper makes quite good curry puff and so it was a great opportunity learning from her so that in future, I can make for myself or even for parties. Definitely useful to learn!

Ingredients (for making 15)

4 potatoes
3 big red onions
7 shallots
curry leaves
3 packets of chicken thighs (can use breasts too or mixture)
5 eggs
Planta margarine
rice flour
plain flour
sugar
salt
water
meat curry powder

As you can see, the ingredients are quite straight forward and easy to get. If you cant find curry leaves, it is ok. Its just to make the filling more fragrant. And also if you are abroad and do not have the specific Planta brand margarine, it is also ok. Don't kick yourself or skip this recipe just because you cannot get those 2 items. As for the rest, I am confident you can get it!

Steps
1) Skin the potatoes and dice them. Then, put them in boiling water to cook. Drain them out after its cook

2) Then dice the shallots and big red onions

3) Put the chicken thighs in boiling water to cook them before dicing them up

4) Boil the eggs till they are hard boil. Then you cut them up in quarters, lengthwise.

5) Then pluck out the curry leaves and wash them.

Now, the tricky part is the dough. There are basically two layers of dough in curry puffs- the water dough and the oil dough.

6) Water dough - put 200g plain flour into a mixing bowl, together with 1 egg, 60ml of water, 1TB of rice flour and 1 tsp of salt. Mix and knead till its like that.

7) Oil dough- put 100g plain flour, 85g of planta margarine, 1 TB of rice flour, 1 tsp of salt. Mix and knead.

8) Then weight the water dough and roughly divide the weight to 15 portions so that you can cut it up and distribute evenly. Do the same for the oil dough and divide them into 15 equal portions. I used the weighing machine to be exact.

This will turn out to be a huge curry puff. If you prefer smaller size ones, then I suggest when splitting up the dough into equal portions, you can maybe divide them into 20-25 equal portions instead of 15.

9) Then take one water dough and flatten it with your hand, then put the oil dough in it.

10) Wrap the water dough over the oil dough before flattening both down.

11) Then use a rolling pin to flatten and roll it horizontally and vertically.Then just make it like a ball and put aside. Do for all 15 of them by placing the oil dough inside the water dough.

12) To cook the ingredients, have all this stand by

Diced onions, shallots, potatoes, chicken, curry leaves

13) With a little bit of oil in the frying pan, add the shallots first. Fry till its fragrant and then put in the red onions. Do it step by step.

14) After both shallots and onions are translucent, throw in the diced chicken and potatoes

15) Stir and mix it up before adding the curry powder. For the curry powder, put 1 TB of curry powder in a bowl first with a little water to dissolve the powder before pouring into the frying pan with the ingredients.

16) Add curry leaves, salt, sugar, white pepper to taste after stirring and mixing. If the colour looks too pale and you like spice, then add one more TB of curry powder. If you find that the potatoes is still quite sturdy looking, add a little water to the pan so that the potatoes can go mushy. Cook till the water/gravy has been absorbed by the ingredients.

potatoes still in blocks-straight edges

That is what you want to attain- mushiness with no gravy.

potatoes gone soft and edges are rounded and outcome is mushy

17) Once turned mushy, off the stove and leave it to cool for about 15 mins.

18) Then get ready to start wrapping

19) First roll the dough to a rough circle.  then place the egg and the ingredients on top before wrapping.

20) Then you just wrap them up. Twirl and pinch at the sides to seal. Do this for all your doughs.

21) I cut up plastic bags to wrap my curry puffs as I only wanted to fry these curry puffs the next day. So for storage, I wrap the curry puffs in plastic and put in the freezer.

22) The next day, when I open it up, it will look like this

23) To fry, I used peanut oil. Make sure when frying, the oil is enough to cover the curry puffs.

24) Fry till its golden brown

You can vary this recipe with whatever ingredients you like. Other variation can be sardines. You can just get the canned sardines and fry with shallots and onions. Main thing is to make the ingredients like a paste with no gravy so that it will not soak through the dough.

Enjoy this delicious snack!