Friday, September 05, 2008

Black Pepper Pork



Another one of my easy home cook dishes: Black pepper pork with onion and red bell pepper.

Ingredients:

1 boneless pork chop, sliced thinly
1/2 red bell pepper, sliced thinly

1/2 yellow onion, sliced thinly

2 tsp. LKK black pepper sauce

1/2 tsp. black soy sauce

1/2 tsp. sugar

A little water


Method:

1. First, marinate the pork with a little salt, chinese cooking wine, white pepper and cornstarch.

2. Heat up wok with oil. When smoking, add in pork slices, stir-fry until pork is no longer pink. Add in onion and bell pepper. Stir-fry for 2 mins. Add in sauces and sugar and a little water. Stir to blend well and serve hot.

Note:
Of course you can substitute red bell pepper with other colors bell pepper. I like red because it's sweeter.


I am sharing this dish with Culinarty's Original Recipe blog event. Check it out every month on the week of 15th for the round up.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Beautiful Site Award



Oh wow, I was given this Beautiful Site Award by Noob Cook. I would love to say thank you Noobcook for awarding me this. Now I would love to pass it to the fellow blogging friends below:

My Kitchen Snippets
Kedai Hamburg
More than Words
Rainbows
Beachlover's Kitchen

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Barley Drink


While blog visiting, noobcook's Lemon Barley Drink post reminded me to make some barley drink for my family. She made her version of barley drink and photographed it beautifully with the added lemon slice. Usually barley drink is fairly easy to make, you can make one with just water, barley and rock sugar. However since I have the sweet dates and sweet winter melons, I decided to add it into my barley drink.


I used slow cooker to make this. I added all the ingredients with the amount of water I like and turned it on High. Should be ready in 4-6 hours. I used 2 Chinese sweet dried dates, about 1 cup dried sweet winter melons, 3/4 cup barley and 3 quarts water. At 5 hours, before turning off the electric, I added yellow rock sugar to taste. If too sweet, add more water until it reaches your desired sweetness. Actually the resulted barley drink is quite sweet, so only little bit of rock sugar is required.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Stir-fried Zucchini with Minced Shrimps/Prawns



Is stir-fry zucchini a popular dish in China? As I only had this dish at my Chinese friends house. At first I was not used to it but I grow to like them cooked in this way. They usually cook it plain but I added minced shrimps into my variation. I tried to recreate this dish at home as in slicing the zucchini in the similar way. Slicing it thinly really makes it nicer to eat.



This dish is easy as well, only three main ingredients needed, minced shrimps (made from 6 jumbo shrimps), 2 zucchinis and 2 cloves of garlic, chopped. As for the sauces for this, I used LKK hot bean paste, dash of salt and chicken stock granules (optional). This dish would be as good without the hot bean paste too, keep it simple. My stir-fry dishes tend to be fairly easy, only the slicing and preparing part took a while.

Here, I presented you with a new dish to cook for your family (if you never have zucchini cook in this way before) and I hope you enjoy this dish just like we did.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Easy Focaccia Bread



Why easy? Because it is a no knead Focaccia. Just mix the ingredient together and let it proves in the refrigerator overnight and the next day you will be rewarded with Focaccia bread.



Mine turned out looking like bread sticks aren't they? I sprinkled my Focaccia with dried oregano and rosemary. This bread smells heavenly while baking as my house was infused with the fragrant of herbs and olive oil.


Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Merdeka Open House 2008: Mee and My Malaysia: Stir-fried Silver Needle Noodle (銀針粉) or (老鼠粉)


This noodle is known as silver needle noodle in Hong Kong but "Rat Noodle" (老鼠粉) in Malaysia and Singapore. These noodles are named this way because it is shaped like a needle or rat's tail. It is made of a mixture of rice flour and wheat starch or cornstarch. I have known this noodle as 老鼠粉 and it is usually served in clear soup or stir-fry in Malaysia. I used to eat this as a kid so it brings back memory of home. When I saw Florence making her own silver needle noodle, I wanted to make it too. I have all the ingredients and the recipe seem easy enough. Little did I know that making this noodle actually was quite a tedious process. The process of shaping this noodle each and every single one took me a while. I even enlisted Evy as my helper, but this helper hardly help at all. After she done with a few, she said, "Mommy, I don't want to do it anymore, my hands are tired." Oh man, my only kitchen helper, who normally loved to play with dough quit on me. So, I had to make the rest on my own. Then, I got a mishap when boiling the noodle. The instruction said boil until the noodle turned transparent. But no matter how long I boiled, it never turned transparent. At the end, I just drained it under the cold water, and after I did that, it turned transparent. But the damage was already done, my noodle was soggy and sort of stuck together even after I applied some oil on it. However, I was not going to throw all my hard work in the trash, so in the refrigerator it went (like the instruction said).


The next day when I took it out from the refrigerator, the 老鼠粉 was stuck together in a big lump. So, I had to separate each noodle by hands. I ended out with a lot of broken pieces but I went ahead and stir-fry my 老鼠粉 and the above was the result. Not too bad I would say and actually quite delicious. Not sure I would make it again soon though but will definitely make it when I have the craving again.

Ingredients:


老鼠粉/ rat noodle
Shredded carrots

Thinly cut Chinese green, or bok choy

Chopped garlics

Sliced yellow onion

Pork or chicken of your choice

Oil for cooking

(A)
Soy sauce
Dark soy sauce

Oyster sauce

White pepper


Method:

1. Heat up oil in a wok. When heated add in meat of your choice, garlic and stir-fry until meat is 80% cooked. Add in onion, carrot and green and stir-fry until cooked. Add in rat noodle and sauces (A), stir-fry until well mixed. Serve hot!


I am serving this dish to Merdeka Open House 2008: Mee and My Malaysia hosted by Babe in the city_KL. Do visit her on Aug. 31st for the round up to celebrate the Malaysians' Independent Day. Hereby I also want to wish all Malaysians a Happy Merdeka Day!