Special Bee Tai Mak

Had this once at my friend's house and loved it so much that I had to replicate it on my own. Cooked twice so far for my family and for my cell group and they all loved it! This dish is easy to cook but the difficulty is on the preparation. So what I do is to prepare what I can prepare first so that on that day itself, I do not have to rush.

Ingredients
- Minced pork
- Diced liver
- Minced garlic
- Chopped Coriander
- Sliced chilli padi
- Bean Sprouts
- Bee Tai Mak
- Lime
- Small Prawns (Bought this frozen from supermarket)

What you can prepare ahead
- Minced garlic
- Marinate pork
- Marinate liver
- Sliced chilli padi
- Squeeze lime

I know most people would squirm at the sight or mention of liver. But it is a good element to add as I feel it adds a good twist, richness and depth to the flavour profile of the dish. Anyway, this special dish is self-served. So leave it to your guests or family to choose what they like to add to their plate.

Steps
1) Minced garlic and fry it in pan. Put just enough oil to cover the garlic. Cook in low fire and stir continuously so that it won't brown up unevenly.

2) After the garlic turned golden brown, quickly off the fire, drained the oil and spread the fried garlic on a paper towel to cool down. Once cooled, put in airtight container and leave in fridge.

3) Squeeze the bag of lime with a sieve through to a glass bottle to store in fridge. Set aside

4) Marinate the minced pork with soya sauce, sugar, salt and dark sauce

5) Marinate the chopped up liver with oyster sauce, soya sauce, fish sauce, dark sauce

6) Sliced the chilli padi thinly, removing the seeds

7) Peel the bean sprouts. For it to look nice, you can remove the front and back of it. Blanch it in hot water.

8) Chopped up the coriander

9) Blanch the frozen 'cocktail' prawns

10) Boil the bee tai mak, strain it and set aside. Don't overcook it.

(The above steps can be done in any order)

11) I used the leftover garlic oil to cook the minced pork and liver. Add the marinated pork to the frying pan with oil. Add water to dissolve the pork so that it do not clump together. Finally add flour with water to thicken the gravy.

12) Fry up the liver. I actually added few slices of ginger and spring onions for the taste of liver. So that the smell and taste of liver is not that strong. Up to you. Taste it. Adjust it according to your preference.

In the end, just serve everything separately for the guests to add. Just remember that there are 9 components to this dish, just in case you accidentally left out something or forgot to bring.

It should look like this! (With a few teaspoons of lime in it!)

Then, tell your guests to mix it up properly!

Frankly speaking, this is a very well-balanced dish with spice, sour, salt, sweet. Texturally it is also perfect with the crunch from the fried garlic, prawns and bean sprouts!

Enjoy this unique dish! Do give me any comments once you have tried it!

Freshly Made Pasta Sauce

I was first inspired to make my own pasta sauce when I had dinner over my friend's place. I have never felt so good after eating before (even after eating so much). Because it was healthy and clean food with no processed meats or preservatives (even though we had homemade pizza and fried and chips for dinner with homemade pasta sauce for the pizza base, fresh fish just caught, homemade chips from potatoes, and the best batter I have ever tasted which was light and crisp!). My friend even used chicken breasts for the pizza instead of the usual sausages,pepperoni or ham.

Since that dinner, I am utterly convinced that eating healthy can be tasty and it makes you feel good! So, I have drastically cut down on any canned food or processed meats since then and also after watching this video!


Making your own pasta sauce is so "easy peasy lemon squeezy" (I learnt this phrase from my children) that you just have to make it. There are no excuses not to. Its not only healthy, fragrant, tastier, much cheaper and its simple to make! (By the way, cost price for this sauce is about $2! )

Here's the ingredients (all roughly chopped)
- 3 large tomatoes
- one large yellow onion
- about 5 garlic cloves
- olive oil
- salt and sugar to taste
- dried herbs (I used basil)
- flour to thicken if you like

Basically, the fun thing about making your own sauce is that you can mix and match. So basically add whatever you like in your pasta sauce and throw all in a blender! I will probably throw in mushrooms next time!

Steps:
1) Throw the chopped up tomatoes, onions, garlic and a bit of olive oil all in a blender and start blending!

2) After blending, put salt and sugar to taste and dried herbs.

Don't worry if it tastes spicy from the onions. Initially, I was also worried as I am sure my children wouldn't like it but I realised that after cooking the sauce, the 'spiciness' from onions just goes away and becomes sweet thus making the sauce so much yummier! So don't be afraid to add the whole onion in!

3) Heat a pot and throw in the sauce to cook it. If you want to use this sauce for spaghetti/baked pasta, I added minced beef first. Fry it up a little before throwing in the sauce. Cook until boiling or when you feel the taste and fragrance is out!

4) You can add flour to thicken the sauce if you like. But I feel its not necessary as if you are doing baked pasta, the oven will make the sauce disappear into the pasta.

Then, you are DONE! Easy yah? I am sure you can do this! To be honest, the sauce reminds me of the escargot herb garlic butter which I SOOO missed! That's probably why I am in love with this sauce.

As you can see the colour is not those dark red ones you find in the cans or bottles sold in supermarkets. That means how much preservatives they must have added to the pasta sauce as if its freshly made, it should be orange in colour. So that really scared me and convinced me that all the more, I should start preparing it fresh!

I used the sauce for baked pasta as me and my children loves melted cheese with the crispy bits at the sides!

 

 

Freshly Made Pasta

I have always dreamed of making my own pasta as those who have tried it swears by it and never did turn back into buying them off the shelves. I never knew how easy it was to make until trying it myself.

All you need is just two ingredients to make pasta- flour and eggs. How easy is that? The only troublesome part is the kneading and rolling but hey, its worth it when the noodles has so much texture after cooking. In local terms, it is very QQ! (meaning great texture with bounce)

Ingredients (for 3 adults)
- 2 cups of all-purpose flour/ plain flour
- 3 eggs

Basically, my rule of thumb is that the number of eggs will state the number of people you are to cook for. And its about 3/4 to 1 cup of flour per person. Some recipes state 1/2 cup for one person but I found it the dough still too wet and so I increase the amount.

Steps
1) Place the flour on a big working surface or big deep bowl

2) Make a well and place the eggs inside. You can add a few drops of olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon of salt if you want too. Its optional.

3) Take a fork and beat the eggs. Then slowly, mix with the flour bit by bit..

4) Then, after mixing it, put on a working surface to knead it until its smooth and soft. If you are not sure if its good, you take a paring knife and slice through, if you still see air bubbles, you continue kneading. It should look like the below picture after cutting through- smooth and no air bubbles.

5) Then you use a cling wrap and wrap it up for about 30 mins

6) After that, divide the dough and roll it out in individual portions. So if you have 4 people eating, you divide the dough into 4 pieces. As you cut out the first piece, you leave the rest of the dough wrapped if not the dough will harden up.

7) Keep your working table and dough well-floured. You flatten the dough with your hands and put it through the pasta maker. If you don't have one, don't fret. You are just one of all traditional Italian housewives who believe in everything by hand. You just need a rolling pin to roll it till its very thin and smooth. It should be very translucent. The picture below is still not good enough.

8) After that, you either use your machine or roll it up and cut by hand to the kind of noodles you want. As you can see, your children will enjoy making this as to them, its like playing with play dough.

9) Keep flouring your noodles so that it wont stick. I made different kinds of noodles to try it out. Finally, put your noodles in a pot of salted boiling water for only about 2-3 mins. Homemade pasta cooks much faster. So test it first before taking it out of the boiling water.

After making my own pasta twice, I concluded that the noodles I like best is still the thinnest one (picture below). From both attempts after making, and trying to make the dough as thin as possible, the top Fettuccini ones turned out still too thick for my liking.

Made beef bolognaise sauce topped with grated parmesan cheese and bacon

Have fun!!

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!

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!

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!

Sourdough sandwich with maple glazed pork belly

Recently I have been fulfilling my dream in making my own bread, without getting a bread machine. I insisted on not buying one as a bread machine is huge and it takes up so much space.

Since my last post on baking plain white bread, I decided to do the lazy way by just making sourdough from the premix. And what's best about this is that, it does not require any kneading. So its so simple and effortless!

I got this from Cold Storage Supermarket.

Just follow the simple instructions in the box and voila! There's even instant yeast provided in the box. So all you need is just warm water.

I was very happy with the results as its nicely crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Great for sandwiches!

I cut it up and placed them in the fridge for the next day's breakfast.

The next morning, I took out slices of pork belly in my fridge which was leftovers from steamboat last night. So it was perfect.

I just grilled this and brushed over some maple syrup on it at the very last few mins before it is done.

Finally, I put on top of my sourdough and let it melt together with my shredded cheddar cheese by popping the bread into the oven together with the maple-glazed pork belly and cheddar cheese on top to let the cheese melt and to just heat up the sourdough.

After the cheese is melted, remove them from the oven and put some iceberg lettuce in it!

Very simple!

You have the sour-ness from the bread, sweetness from the maple syrup in the pork belly, the saltiness from the cheddar cheese and the crunchiness from the iceberg lettuce!

Perfect meal for breakfast or lunch!

Egg Noodles with Chicken Miso Soup

I discovered this simple, delicious dish when eating in church as the food ministry workers prepared food for those who serves in church every Sunday. When I ate this, I knew that I had to re-create it again because it was so good!

So I tried it twice so far at home and the whole family loves eating it, including the children!

Ingredients:
- Chicken Bones for soup (or just use prepacked Chicken Stock)
- 1 carrot (sliced/diced)
- 1 onion (optional)
- 1/2 cabbage (optional)
- egg noodles (bought this from Giant Hypermart in Tampines. Its so good and cheap-highly recommended by the church worker who cooked this dish! I had to ask him about the noodles as I haven't seen such thin and flat noodles before-scroll down for the finished version of the thin noodles)

- about 1 Tb of miso paste 

- tofu

- golden needle (enoki) mushrooms 

- cabbage

- chicken breasts or thighs

- spring onions for garnish

Basically, you just choose whatever you like to eat in your soup noodles. But I added all these because that's what I ate in church the first time I tried this dish. After that, you can start tweaking to your own liking. The important thing is the soup stock which is just chicken soup (I prefer to use chicken bones) and miso paste.

The bean flavour from the miso paste simply brings out the sweetness and taste of the soup. Love it!

1) Cook chicken bones and carrots in a pot of water over stove to make the chicken stock. Onions and cabbage are optional ingredients just to make the soup sweeter. 

2) Add the chicken meat and the rest of the ingredients in the pot to boil and bring out the flavour

3) Add the miso paste to taste

4) Once you are satisfied with the taste, you can switch off the fire

5) Cook the noodles separately in another pot with boiling water and set aside in serving bowls. You can also throw the noodles in the soup together to cook but I prefer not to do that as it may overcook the noodles.

6) Finally, garnish with spring onions (optional)

7) I also love to eat this with a touch of soya sauce with chilli padi for spice.

My suggestion is to keep this dish as clean and simple as you can get. So don't overdo it with the ingredients as you really don't have to add much for this dish to taste good. Miso paste works wonder just by itself! The first time I made it, I overdone it with the ingredients.

This dish was taken the first time I ate it in church (using the recommended egg noodles in picture above):

This was the picture of my first attempt in cooking the dish (I did not use the egg noodles recommended. Mine was a fatter version of the noodles which I didn't enjoy as much as the thinnest of the noodles made the dish light and more palatable. So get the right noodles if you can! The thick noodles just makes the dish clumsy and more filling)

It's really a simple meal for a nice weekend lunch for the family or especially on a cold, rainy day! It really warms the heart and soul eating this egg noodles with chicken soup!

Hope you will enjoy eating this as much as my family did!