Dinner March 08, 2007

I made Purplegirl's Ayam Masak Sambal Kicap, recipe can be found at IK, under Asian Dishes. It's pretty good!


Stir-fry sugar snap peas/sweet peas with chicken, babycorn, straw mushroom and carrot in oyster sauce. I just love the crunchyness of this peas as oppose to snow peas.


I have the leftover sweet potatoes from making the fried nian gao, so I cooked Bobochacha with Boba multi-color tapioca pearls as dessert.

Sambal Dried Shrimps Okra

Featuring one of my short-cut homecook dishes:

Ingredients:

1 pkg. of frozen cut okra (you can use fresh of course)

About 2-3 Tbp. of dried shrimps, soften in hot water, drained

2 big shallots, sliced thinly

2 Tbp. shrimp paste with bean oil

2 Tbp. sambal oelek ( or less or more depending on how spicy you can take)

Fish sauce to taste

1 tsp. of sugar

4-5 Tbp. cooking oil

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a wok. When hot, add shallots, stir-fry for a while. Then add dried shrimps. Stir until fragrant, then add the frozen okra. Stir well and add the rest of the ingredients. Add a little water when need to.

2. Cover the wok and let the okra cooked through (this is if using the frozen okra), keep stirring if necessary. Serve hot!

Tean's Gourmet Curry Laksa Paste

Finally I tried the well talk about Tean's Gourmet Curry Laksa! It is indeed very good, like Malaysian curry mee. I didn't have the yellow noodle, so I used the instant noodle as substitute. It came out just as good with beehoon. I also added the crispy prawn chilli for extra kick as suggested by Ray. You can buy both of these at myTasteOf Asia.com. I know I will certainly order more when I ran out of these items.


This is how the package looks like. Oh, I used 1200ml of water and 200ml of coconut cream as opposed to 1500ml water and 150ml of coconut milk as suggested.


This is the yummy crispy prawn chilli.

Dinner March 06, 2007

Fish maw with lily buds, silken tofu and tang hoon in homemade chicken stock.


Ground Pork with diced fresh mushroom and carrot.


Sambal dried shrimps okra.

Braised Mushrooms

This recipe will only give the ingredients and techique used because that was how I cooked this dish.

Ingredients:

Dried Chinese mushrooms

Dried lily buds

Dried beancurd rolls

Dried wood ear fungus

Fa cai (optional)

(A)

Oyster sauce

Dark soy sauce

Light soy sauce

Sugar

A little chicken stock granules

Method:

1. Soaked all the dried ingredients with boiling hot water until soften.

2. For the mushrooms, cut the stem off of each mushroom. For the lily buds, cut the top harder part off (like a black tip) and tight it into a knot. If you used pieces of big woodear, just cut it into smaller pieces. Cut the beancurd rolls into 1 inch pieces.

3. In a big saucepan, add some water to boil. When boiled, add the mushrooms, beancurds, woodear and (A). Let it simmer for an hour or so. Lastly add in the lily buds and fa cai (if used) and let it simmer for 5-10 mins. Serve hot!

Chap Goa Mei (15th night)

Chap Goa Mei in Hokkein means the 15th night. It also marks the end of CNY celebration. So, I decided to cook and invited my neighbor for dinner. Fellow members at IK told me that people eat Tang Yuen at this last day of CNY, preferably the one without syrup that roll in ground peanuts. Some said people also eat the fried nian gao on chap goa mei. The fresh nian gao they eat it during the first few days of CNY and the last day of CNY, they eat the fried version. Maybe less fresh so they fry it?


I cooked four dishes (seem like three huh?). The one on top is too dark to be seen. Anyway, I stir-fry a mixed veggies, baked a soy sauce chicken, steamed some cod fish fillets and lastly braised some mushrooms (pic. below).


This is my braised mushroom with lily buds, wood ear, dried beancurd and fa cai.


I also made red bean paste tang yuen with ginger brown sugar syrup for dessert (don't have ground peanuts, so eat with little syrup lor).


This is Evy's hot dog tang yuen (as she called it) that she made herself. I thought she is too innovative so I snap a picture of her creation to share with you. :D


I fried some nian gao with sweet potatoes for lunch in the afternoon. This nian gao was given to me by Lily. You can look up her recipe at her blog.