Basic Bread

I finally bought a bread machine! Tried out one of the recipes provided in the booklet, got to test whether it's working or not. Thus, my first bread machine bread. :)



This is a basic 1.5 lb white bread. It's crusty on the sides and soft inside. I cut off the sides and ate it with olive oil with some spices and it was good. Funny though, why my top is like that huh? I saw others have nice rounded top. Can anyone shed some light into this? Thanks! Will see whether the sides remain crusty tomorrow or turn soft.



So, the crust turned soft the next day, just like normal bread. I added bread improver into the recipe so the bread remains soft.

Need to get me some whole wheat flour and start making whole wheat bread, healthier.

Dried Shrimps Crabs & Fried Tang Hoon

Dungenous crabs was on sale the other day, so I bought some to try out a new recipe. We had this crabs cooked in dried shrimps at a friend's house the past CNY and it was delicious. My hubby just loved it. But we didn't really have the recipe, just noticed the main ingredients used were dried shrimps and curry leaves. And thus I have to recreate this dish myself using my own version since the sauce that we used were probably different, so it didn't taste quite the same. Overall, it's still not bad since my hubby finished almost all of it.


Dried Shrimps Crabs


I also fried some tang hoon with bok choy, straw mushroom and eggs to go with the crabs. My little girl actually enjoyed the crabs more than the tang hoon. I think she didn't fancy the texture of this noodle. But she sure ate quite a lot of crab meats that night.


Fried Tang Hoon

Dinner Last Night

I bought some fresh wonton mee at my last recent trip to the asian supermarket. So, this was what I made yesterday. I didn't have any pork in the freezer so had to make do with chicken. That's mean no char siew for the mee. What you see are sliced mushroom (which had been soften by simmering for hours previously), baby bok choy, marinated chicken pieces and DoDo fish balls. Served with chilli padi.

Sauce for the noodle:
When the noodle is cooked, drained and put into a big bowl. Then, add oyster sauce, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, white pepper and a little sesame oil. Mixed well with the noodle. If you want it to be a little wet, add a little water to the noodle.
As for the ingredients, I boiled it in water until cooked and served with the noodle.

Baked Nian Gao

I just love nian gao, either baked or steamed. Of course if I have to make it myself, I would prefer an easy recipe. Got this nian gao recipe from Lin, courtesy of her co-worker. But no clue why mine looks so different from her. I did omit the red bean paste, perhaps that's why my nian gao is so flat.



I also added Gula Melaka into the brown sugar and baked it in my new convection oven. Since my convection oven automatically lower the temperature to 325'F, it also took longer to bake. I ended out baking mine for 65 mins. The top is crusty brown and inside is soft and a little chewy. The sweetness is just nice and overall I like it. See that big slice on top, I ate two of those!!

Haven't pan-fry it with egg batter yet. Will see how long it keeps and whether the texture will be different as the days go by.

Oh, next time I would probably use 2 smaller pans to achieve the height that I want.

Ginger Chicken

I assumed every cook knows how to make this easy and delicious dish. I learned how to make this because my mom used to cook this for us when we were children. It is like a comfort food and the house smells great when this is cooking.

This dish is also good for lady in confinement because it uses a lot of gingers and sesame oil.

Featuring one of my home cook dishes.
Ingredients:
~2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, cut into pieces. (Marinate it with a little soy sauce, dark soy sauce and cornstarch for at least 2 hours)
~2 inches of ginger, juliened (you won't eat it if it's in big pieces). Eat your ginger, it's good for you! :P
~1/2 onion, sliced
~Sugar to taste, about 1 tsp.
Seasonings:
Soy sauce (about one round on the wok), dark soy sauce (about 1 tsp.), sesame oil (about 2 tsp.) and about 1/4 cup of water.

Method:
1. Heat up a wok, when smoking, add in some cooking oil. Add in the gingers, give it a quick stir to release the fragrant. Then, add in the chicken pieces. Stir-fry well until chicken is almost cooked. Add in the onion, mix it around and add 1/4 cup of water and let it simmer.
2. Season to taste with some soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar and let it simmer a bit. Switch the stove off and add in some sesame oil. Quick stir and serve on a plate.

Note: For confinement, use sesame oil to cook the ginger and chicken.  Also add wood ear fungus for iron.

Belacan Okra (or Ladies Fingers)

Update:
Finally sorta settled down into my new house. There are still some things that need to be changed, things to buy and landscaping to do. So, I might not be able to update as often, but here is one that I did weeks ago.




I love okra! To save time, I used the frozen cut okra right from the freezer and bottled shrimp paste sauce, belacan powder and bottled chillie garlic sauce to make this delicious comfort food.

Living in the U.S., we just have to adapt. Fresh okra is pretty hard to come by but the frozen ones are basically every where in the freezer section. This frozen okra is actually very fresh because it was packed and freeze right after it was harvest, clean and cut. One thing though, don't defroze the veggie, it would get soft and mushy. Just cut it open and pour into the hot wok to stir-fry. You don't even have to wash it.

The result? You can't even tell it is from a frozen package.