Dak Gochujang Bulgogi (Korean Spicy Chicken Dish)

Gochujang is a spicy Korean hot chili paste that used widely in Korean cooking. While paying for the smallest tub I could find, I saw the lady behind me with her two giant size Gochujang tubs, I mean GIANT tubs, man. I was wondering whether she open a Korean restaurant?

After seeing Cooking Ninja's Gochujang Bulgogi, I told her I need to buy myself Gochujang so that I can try this dish of hers. I made a little twist and made mine into dak gochujang bulgogi ~ Korean spicy chicken dish. This was the first time I cooked a dish using this method. Frying without oil and with all the marinade until the chicken was cooked. This dish was sweet and spicy and tasted pretty good. However, my hubby took a tiny bite and won't touch the dish again. I wonder whether the color put him off or what? I asked him why he didn't like this dish and I received a silent respond. So, until now I am still clueless. Well, nevermind, more for me! ;)

My Simple Rojak

Rojak is a Malaysian salad. The sauce is mainly made of shrimp paste, chili and belacan. I named it my simple rojak because of the limited ingredients, I only had jicama and seedless cucumber. I used the ready-made rojak sauce from CKC and it was delicious as it tasted very authentic and a wee bit spicy. I topped mine with extra ground peanuts and toasted sesame seeds.

Want a bite of my jicama?

P/s It definitely need "grilled you char kway", fried tofu, mango, pineapple and green papaya to make it more "shiok"! But I have none yet very tham jiak (glutton) and thus this "bor liao" (simple) version. :P

Bean Threads Noodle

I would love to introduce my readers to this bean threads noodle. It was made with mung bean starch, potato starch and water. It tasted a lot like the Korean Jap Chai noodle (made with sweet potato starch) with the chewy texture and transparent look. This noodle was introduced to me by my Chinese neighbor and I have since hooked. This is good serving it cold, in soup or stir-fry. I haven't tried it in soup yet because I like to serve it cold with fresh vegetable.



Method:

1) You need to boil the noodle until cooked. Set aside.

2) Then, stir-fry the chicken or pork (marinated with soy sauce, pepper, sesame oil) with garlic & carrots until cooked, dish out and set aside.

3) Thinly sliced the seedless cucumber, lettuce and prepared the cilantro.

4) In a big bowl, add in noodle, fresh veggies (3) and (2), mix well. Then seasoned to taste with soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar, salt, sugar and sesame oil. Toast well.

5) Garnished with toasted sesame seeds. Serve as is.


This is how the package looks like. Of course other brand works fine too.

Sundubu Jjgae (Korean Spicy Bean Curd Stew)

Sundubu Jjgae is a Korean thick and spicy bean curd stew. Traditionally people crack an egg on top of the stew before serving, many still do it now. Some serve this stew with clams, clam juice, seafood, onion, enoki mushroom and other vegetable. This stew is normally served boiling on the table over a hot fire in a Korean pot.

I came to love this soup while dining in a Korean restaurant. I just love the spiciness of this soup and the flavor of Gochujang. The silken soft tofu with the Gochujang made me want to drink this stew non-stop. This stew is especially good while eaten during the cold winter days because it will just warm up your body instantly. Therefore, it will be my favorite soup to cook during winter. What a surprise, my hubby loves this soup too!

Product Review: Delimas Stir Fry Sauce

I have been invited by Ray, the founder of mytasteofasia.com to do product review on Delimas brand. I gladly accepted his offer because as a Malaysian, I love to help out a fellow Malaysian and to introduce delicious and easy to prepare Malaysian food to other Asians around the world. This paste is handy for a busy mother who just doesn't have time to do it from scratch. Or for working parents who just dead tired from a day work. Even for a novice cook who wants to impress her friends.



I was cooking for a friend who is moving to Boston and she requested a spicy Malaysian dish. What a better way to try my Delimas stir-fry sauce on the shrimps that I was intended to cook.



This is how the package looks like. It tasted like the authentic Malaysian Sambal Prawns and quite spicy.

Below is what I did:
Ingredients:

16 extra large prawns
6 cuttlefish balls, cut each into 3 slices (or you can use cuttlefish or squids)
A handful of green peas
1/2 small yellow onion, sliced
1/4 yellow bell pepper, sliced
1/4 orange bell pepper, sliced (or red/green bell pepper for colors contrast)
1 package of Delimas Stir Fry Sauce

Method:

Heat oil in a wok. When heated, add in prawns and cuttlefish balls, stir well. Then, add in the stir-fry sauce and the rest of the ingredients except peas. Stir to mix well, add a little water if need to. Lastly add in the green peas, give it a quick stir and serve hot.


Another way of cooking it:



One packet of sauce is a lot and thus I saved some to make this Sambal Green Beans. I added dried shrimps, sliced shallots and a wee bit of fish sauce. This sauce will be good for shrimps and petai too! Kind of a all-purpose stir fry sauce.

Chai Tau Kuih My Way

Blur_mommy, you got it right! :) Great guess!

Even though I called this dish Chai Tau Kuih but there is no Chai Tau (radish) in this. I used my leftover rice pudding from the wah kuih, cut it into cubes, added some scallion, bean sprouts, chai por, shrimps, garlic, eggs and some of the leftover topping for the wah kuih to come out with this. The sauce for this dish is simple, just dark soy sauce, soy sauce, sugar, chili paste and white pepper.

Haven't had this for a long time, so this dish was very satisfying. As you can see, I made it quite spicy too! Next time I can probably just make the rice cake to make this dish. Since it has wheat starch in it, the shape holds up really well during stir-frying, it won't turn mushy and soft. One thing though, I need to do better with my eggs, should have stir-fry the eggs first, take it out and add in later since my eggs seem to be missing from all the stir-frying (and I want to see big pieces of fried eggs!).

Chinese Rice Bowl Pudding

A good friend of ours came by on Saturday and I decided to make him a treat. I made this Chinese rice bowl pudding that looks like chwee kuih but actually it's a wah kuih. First time trying this and glad that it turned out well and my guest said it's very good. :)



I used Gina's Wah Kuih recipe. The differences I noticed between wah kuih and chwee kuih are for the pudding, wah kuih has wheat starch in it and thus making it more chewy/bouncy in texture as opposed to soft. Also, wah kuih has more ingredients in filling as opposed to just chai por. Before this, I have not heard of wah kuih.



As for my filling, I added dark soy sauce and sugar when stir-frying. Also drizzled some Sriracha hot sauce for extra spiciness. I didn't bother to steam the filling with the rice pudding together (lazy me as you know!), therefore it might look more like a chwee kuih.

Stay tuned for what I did with the extra rice cake. ;) Or you would love a guess?

Thai Green Chicken Curry the Short-cut Way

I love Thai green curry because I find it to be more versatile. I can use it to make seafood curry, meat curry or simply a vegetarian curry and all will turn out delicious. I also used it to fry rice or stir-fry my chicken.

I called it short-cut because I used the ready made paste by Mae Ploy. You can find it in any Asian supermarket these days, this brand is quite popular. Once opened, you can keep the paste in the freezer. What's great about this is you don't even have to defrost it, just take it out and use it straight from the freezer, very convenient.

All you need to make a good Thai green curry is a little Thai palm sugar (1tsp.), fish sauce and coconut milk (or milk) and above 2-3 Tbsp. of green curry paste. For the above curry, I used skinless and boneless chicken thighs, sliced yellow onion, sliced kinda thick carrots and frozen green beans. This curry is spicy as it is but if you really can take the heat, you can add Thai bird eye chili as well.

A Day at the Zoo

Look how I crammed two of them in one stroller. LOL!


This is Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, the only mountain zoo in the United States at an elevation of 6,800 feet. It has herd of Giraffes and now total at 19, and the fun part for kids are they get to hand-feed the giraffes "giraffe crackers".


Look at this Orangutan and the amount of carrots he can stuff inside his mouth!



This is the baby orangutan that has been abandoned by his mother. Thus the caretaker has been taking care of him and we can view him from 12-4pm each day. This caretaker even sleep with the baby orangutan in that viewing window!!

Edda zoned out at the end of the day and fell asleep in the stroller.

Potstickers/ Guotie

I made Guotie last week, which is a pan-fried version of Jiaozi. In U.S., we called this potstickers. I have been deciding on whether to deep-fry it, boil it or pan-fry this little dumplings and ended out with pan-frying them. I think it's healthier than deep-fry and so much quicker too (since I can do a bunch of them in a non-stick pan). I love the crispy skin at the bottom and soft top skin with moist and juicy filling. Normally we serve Guotie with vinegar soy sauce and chili.

I made two dipping sauces for my potstickers. The top one is sweet vinegar soy sauce with chili oil and chopped scallion. The bottom one is salty vinegar soy sauce with sliced gingers. Of course I also have Sriracha hot chili sauce as an additional dipping sauce (not shown). Got to have my chili right? :)

Dried Lotus Seed Soup

My mom used to cook this soup for us because it's a cooling soup for warm weather. She actually spotted this while shopping at the Asian grocery store in Denver (she was here during my confinement) and recommended me to get it. Now I look for it whenever I go shopping in Denver.

You can also buy each individual ingredient and make this soup yourself, which I did also. This soup consisted of dried pearl barley, dried lotus seed, dried lily bulbs, dried dioscoreae (wai san), dried foxnut and dried polygonatum (yuk chuk).

I boiled it with chicken drumsticks. For sweeter taste, you can use pork ribs or pork bones. I only used half packet of the barley because too much of it makes the soup muddy.

For those who lives in Denver area, you can buy it at VietHoa Supermarket for 50 cents each, cheap right?

Common Chinese Herbs Translation:
Rhozoma Dioscoreae (wai san)
Astragalus Root (pak kay)
Angelicae Radix (tong kwai)
Codonopsis Pilosula (tong sum)
Polygonatum (yuk chuk)
Panacis Ginseng Radix (ginseng, ren shen)
Fructus Lycii (kei chi)

Chicken Curry Rice Dinner

Another one of my super lazy dinner. Can't you tell, I'm lazy all the times? :P This curry is made with Malaysia Traditional Specialties Chilliz - Meat Curry Paste. I added fish balls for Evy.

As for the rice, it's also my lazy version. I just threw cumin seeds, coriander seeds, dried curry leaves and turmeric powder with the rice and cooked in a rice cooker. After I tasted it, I knew this was not the way to do it, should have fried the spices in butter until fragrant then add in the rice and turmeric powder and not forgetting adding some salt, then transfer it to the rice cooker and let it cook. The rice will taste better this way as oppose to my lazy version. Lesson learned eh! Nevertheless, it tasted great with lots of curry gravy mixed in (everything in curry tastes good lah ;P).

P/s: June, I'm trying to meet your demand of posting more spicy food. LOL!

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Decided to make something fresh and refreshing for snack this afternoon. Going with the roll here as I have seen all sort of wraps/rolls popping out in the food blogs to beat the heat of Summer. Also, I had this at V's house recently, so decided to make my own as well.

My hubby loves Vietnamese spring roll. He has to order this every time we go to eat Pho (Vietnamese beef noodle) in a Viet. restaurant. We like the dipping sauce there too, as you can see I was trying to reinvent the sauce for my spring rolls here. Haven't made this for years and learned that to wrap the roll really tight with filling was not easy. Mine was still kinda loose unlike the one we used to in the restaurant, this was also my hubby complain. Luckily, he liked my dipping sauce. :) Guess next time I would have to practise wrapping the roll tightly without breaking the skin!




The fillings for my spring roll as seen above are:
Sliced romaine lettuce, cilantro, tanghoon (vermicelli) and cooked shrimps (or you can use thinly sliced 
cooked pork) .

Click below for my dipping sauce recipe:

Tagged: My Favorite Food ...

I got lucky and got tagged by East Meets West Kitchen for this tag. As a Malaysian it was really hard for me to come out with my favorite food. Come on...there are so many delicious food in M'sia thus how to pick just one? I managed to pick two as my favorite though because these are the two dishes I got to have whenever I go back to M'sia.

1) Nasi Lemak - They called it a Malaysia National Dish and I couldn't agree more. I don't think there is any one Malaysian who don't know what is nasi lemak. We basically see it selling every where in M'sia, be it in a fancy restaurant or mamak stall (hawker stall), either comes wrapped in a fragrant banana leaf with a minimal ingredients or serves in a plate with extra ingredients such as curry chicken, beef rendang, sambal cuttlefish, fried egg, etc, I love it all. :) For those who don't know, it is rice cooked in coconut milk and screwpine leave.

2) My second love is Penang Assam Laksa. I just love the sourness and spiciness from this gravy along with freshly sliced pineapple, red onion, cucumber, lettuce and fresh mint. Of course lots of fish as I made my own, I can afford to add lots of fish with the fat fat noodle top with shrimp paste, who could resist? At least I couldn't! Oh man, now I need a bowl of Penang assam laksa!

OK, now I have to pass the tag to __. Who's the lucky one?


The Cooking Ninja

Fresh from the Oven

Teczcape

I Sha

Stream in the Hip Desert


BTW ladies, no obligation okay? ;)


**Start Copy**

Proposition: What is your favorite food in your state or country?

Requirements: Find some info about the food and show delicious pictures of it?

Quantity: FIVE PEOPLE.

Tag Mode: You leave their blog and post link and add to the list below.


Mybabybay loves Asam Laksa from Penang, Malaysia

JustMyThoughts loves Penang Char Koay Teow

My Lil Venture loves Laksa Sarawak

Monterssorimum loves Teluk Intan Chee Cheong Fun

Chinnee loves Melaka Wan Tan Mee

PeimunLeah loves Hakka Lei Cha

Hui Sia loves Crispy duck skin from China

Karen loves Pan Mee

Simple American loves Cheese Enchiladas

Nicole Tan loves Char Tau Kueh

velverse loves Otak-Otak

Giddy Tiger loves Dim Sum

may loves Roti Bakar

Selba loves Gado-gado

Chen loves Satay*

eastcoastlife loves Shanghai Buns

Kev loves 蕃薯旦

Bokjae loves Ipoh Sar Hor Fun

Cooking Momster loves Penang Heah Koh & Chee Cheong Fun

Blur Mommy loves Clam Chowder

Granmother Stories loves everything

East Meets West Kitchen loves Good Dim Sum

Little Corner of Mine loves Nasi Lemak & Penang Assam Laksa

Winter Melon Soup

I went shopping at the Asian Market the other day and spotted the winter melon which was actually looking fresh, so I bought it to make soup. The cooking time for this soup is about 30 minutes, a quick and easy soup to prepare.



Ingredients:

1 bowl of 1 1/2-inch cubed winter melon pieces
4 Chinese dried mushroom, soften and sliced
4 slices of fresh ginger
1/2 pound of ground pork (marinate with light soy sauce, Shao Hsing cooking wine, sesame oil, garlic powder, white pepper, salt and sugar, mixed well and let it marinate in the fridge for at least an hour)
3-4 Tbsp canola oil
4-5 cups of water

Seasonings, to taste:
Light soy sauce
Salt
Sugar, about 1 tsp.
White pepper

Method:

1. In a saucepan, add in cooking oil. When hot, add in sliced ginger, stir for a while then add in sliced mushrooms. Stir for a minute, add winter melons and water. Let the water comes to a boil.

2. When boiled, scoop the ground pork with a small cookie scoop and drop into the soup. Add in seasonings, turn the heat to low and simmer until the pork balls cooked, about 20 minutes.

Note: Hubby didn't touch the winter melon at all. Love everything else especially the meat balls but no thanks to winter melon! Picky right?

Fruits Pastry Cake

Tada! Look familiar isn't it? This cake has been popping out at various food blogs and originally from a food forum IK. This is Vi's popular Fruits Pastry (she got the recipe from Mihaela). My hands gotten itchy when I kept reading about how delicious this cake is and vow to make it when I have some fresh fruits. Actually it's good with canned peach, pear and pineapple too. Anyway, I used fresh cherries, peach and canned pineapple for mine.



A closer look at the cake. The verdict is delish. Soft and moist with a mixed of sourness and sweetness from the fruits. Definitely good to bring to a potluck or serve in your party.

Lychee Konnyaku Jelly

The weather is turning warm and what a better way to cool off the body than some cold jelly? You can either make this with the normal jelly/agar-agar powder or konnyaku powder. I like to add the fruit for the extra refreshing taste.


Our family favorite ~ lychee konnyaku jelly.

Evy Update

She is getting big huh?

Now she is at this age that asks a lot of questions and loves to ask why. Sometimes she purposely asked me/daddy a question when she already knew the answer, just wanted to hear us say it. She is also like a "little old lady" who loves to repeat herself over and over again. To me, she is worst than the old lady since she would ask the same question 4 to 5 times in a row even though we have already answered her. I asked her, "Why are you so long winded?" or have to tell her, "Enough already!".

Oh, finally she is potty trained at 3 years & 2 months old. I didn't seriously start until she is after 3 because I'm a lazy mama. But just as the expert said, "When they are ready, they are." With her, it was fairly easy, a few accidents in the beginning and then smooth sailing after. Luckily the training pants that I bought for her can pass down to her sister. :)

A Bowl of Goodness

It is not easy to make a delicious bowl of porridge . The above bowl of fish porridge that you see is resulted from my many years of experience in perfecting it. I remembered I once cooked a bowl of porridge for a friend who was sick during my college days and guess what, it was so bad that he threw it away (my hubby later told me because that was his roommate). Seriously I was not a cook at that time, and that bowl of porridge was made with care (or in Mandarin, "Ai Sin"). How would I know it was that inedible and a sick person can be picky too! *roll eyes*