Bah Kut Teh

Made this bak kut teh for dinner yesterday. I used the Yew Chian Haw bak kut teh premix. I love this brand as it comes with pieces of herbs and got a herbal flavor. I added tau pok in mine.

Vietnamese Influence Turkey Noodle Soup

The best way to get rid of the turkey bones or the drumsticks and wings is to make stock or soup. If you make a lot of the stock, you can freeze it in some containers and take out one to defroze overnight in the fridge for next day use.

For this noodle soup, I used one back bone, two drumsticks and a wing and did a Vietnamese twist to it by adding lemon grass, star anise, 5 spice powder, roasted onions and ginger, fish sauce and salt & sugar to taste. I simmered it for four hours. I got the inspiration from tt's beef noodle. :D



As to serve, I got some fresh basil, saw tooth herb, quick blanched bean sprouts and onion, turkey meats and DoDo fish balls. Oh tt, if you read this, the saw tooth herb really won't hurt my mouth. Hahaha... Thanks!



After the noodle had been assembled. The herbs gave it such a nice fragrant and the crunchy bean sprouts gave it an extra bite to the noodle soup. I served it with Sriracha Hot sauce and Hoisin sauce.

BoBoChaCha

I made this as a dessert on Thanksgiving night since I have some leftover yam from the yam kuih. Bobochacha is actually very easy to make and here's my version.

Ingredients:

~Yam, cut into cubes and steamed for 30 mins.
~Sweet Potatoes, cut into cubes and steamed for 10 mins.
~Gula Melaka or the yellow hard sugar, to taste.
~Coconut Cream/ Thick Coconut Milk.

Steps:

1. In a saucepan, add in the amount of water you want. When boiled, add in the gula Melaka, add to the sweetness you like (need to taste test, if too sweet, add some hot water, if not sweet enough, add more gula Melaka). Stir until sugar dissolved. Lower the heat and add in the coconut cream and the steamed yam & sweet potatoes, stir to mix well, about 5 mins. Turn the heat off. Serves hot or cold. Enjoy!

Simple Thanksgiving Dinner for Two

As the title said, it's simple and quick to prepare. As most of you probably know, I'm lazy when come into preparing an elaborate meal especially just for the two of us. So, I had been cracking my head of what to cook on Thanksgiving night that's super easy to make.

I bought some brussel sprouts since it was on sales and I remembered watching Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) baked her brussel sprouts and according to her, crunchy on the outside but soft on the inside. So, I got to try it. Bought some baking potatoes too so why not baked it together with the brussel sprouts right. And I got the idea of pan-frying the turkey breasts from Rachael Ray (30 Minutes Meal), quick and easy. I cut my turkey breast thinly into slices so it's faster to cook compared to the whole turkey breast.

Baked Brussel Sprouts:

Preheat the oven to 400'F. Line a baking pan with aluminium foil and spread the washed and trimmed brussel sprouts on top. Sprinkle with EVOO, a generous amount of salt and freshly ground black peppers. Coat and mix everything together with your hands. Baked for 20-25 mins.

Potato Wedges:

Washed the skin of potatoes until clean. Cut and quarter the potato into wedges. Again spead it on aluminium foil covered baking pan. Sprinkle with EVOO, salt, black peppers, paprika and garlic powder. Mixed everything together with your hands. Baked in preheated 400'F oven for 20-25 mins. Turned the potato wedges over half way through baking.

Pan-Fried Turkey Breasts: (you can substitute it with chicken breasts)

Sprinkle the thinly sliced turkey breasts with EVOO, sage powder, salt, black pepper and garlic powder on both sides. Heat a frying pan with a little EVOO and pan-fry the turkey breasts until cooked. Do not overcook the turkey breasts as it will turn hard and dry. Take out the cooked turkey and place on a plate. Pour some white wine (that you drink) to deglaze the pan (or as the cook called it, to get all the good stuff out). When thicken add about 1 Tbp. or 2 Tbp. of butter into the sauce. Stir until the butter melted. Now, pour the sauce over the turkey breasts to serve.

Vinegar Green Chillies

I love to make all sort of chillies to accompany the dishes that I cook. Here's another one of them. Love it with wor tan hor and wontan mee.



Marinating in a glass bottle and stored in the refrigerator.



What it looks like.

This chillies is very easy to make. All you need are 2 ingredients, Jelepeno green chillies or Serrano green chillies and diluted white distilled vinegar. For those in Asia, use any green chillies you think is right for this.

Sliced the green chillies and put it in a glass bottle and then pour the vinegar on top to fill the bottle. Let it sit overnight on your kitchen counter and then put it in the refrigerator to store the next day.

Note: Make sure the green chillies you bought got a little kick to it. I once bought a wrong kind of green chillies which has no kick (or heat) at all and the end result was not satisfactory to me. Oh yeah, gave some to Lily so she should know. Hehehe...

Pork Floss

Pork Floss, my favorite snack as a kid. Love it sandwich in bread or mix in with porridge. My mom used to make it for us. So when I came over here, I just have to ask her for the recipe. She told me how to make it and what sauce to use but not the measurement.

As in all Chinese cooking, estimation is the best to go. I have not seen a Chinese cook using a measuring spoon for all his cooking before, what he does is do a taste test and then season to taste. Cooking is definitely a skill, so practise makes perfect. One needs to cook, the more you cook, the more you know how much sauce to add or what sauce or seasoning to use to create a balance flavor. With these knowledge, it also allow you to create new dishes and new flavor.

Okay, back to topic, as you can see my pork floss is not flossy enough. I might have used the wrong part of the pork (frankly I can't tell what is what, just used whatever pork I have in the fridge) or I didn't fry it long enough, no clue! Anyway, here's the recipe so you might do better than me.

Ingredients

Pork meats, cut into strips (I used about 2 1/2 cups)
(A)
Soy sauce
Double black soy sauce
Sweet soy sauce
A dash of salt
4 tsp. Sugar

Method

1. Covered the pork with some water and boiled it. When boiled, dished out the inpurity. Add in (A), lower the heat to low and simmer until the pork is tender (with lid), about 2-3 hours. After that, open the lid and let it simmer until the liquid thicken and almost evaporated. Dished out the pork to cool. And then shred the pork with your fingers.

2. Heat the wok with low fire and pan-fry the pork until dry and flossy. Might take an hour or more. Keep in a container when cool. For this recipe, I only yield about 1 1/2 cups pork floss, not much.

Verdict: I thought it would be hard because it was not flossy but was I wrong. It actually pretty good, much to my surprise and even my daughter loves it. But I still prefer the flossy texture though, now who can enlighten me on how to get that texture? ;) Fry until my hand break or there is a particular part of the pork to use for this? *Help!*