Go Banana

Go Banana with nutella














Ingredients
Banana
Nutella
Wholemeal bread


Methods
1. Toast the bread both side at frying pan. ( I like my toast crispy outside and soft inside, you can use a toaster if you want.)
2. Spread nutella on toasted bread.
3. Cut banana in small slices. Serve hot.




Go Banana with honey













Ingredients
Banana
Honey
Wholemeal bread

Methods
1. Toast the bread both side at frying pan.
2. Cut banana in small slices.
3. Spread honey over banana slices. Serve hot.

Green Shell Mussels

Mussels in lime and coriander breadcrumbs














Ingredients
8 cooked green shell mussels
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 small piece of ginger finely chopped
2 stalks of coriander finely chopped
1 cup of breadcrumbs
20g of melted butter
lemon juice to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Methods
1. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl.
2. Sprinkle the mixture over green shell mussels.
3. Grill the mussels until the breadcrumb mixture turn slightly golden brown. Serve hot.


Mussels in tomato and onion salsa
















Ingredients
8 cooked green shell mussels
1 big onion finely chopped
1 tomato finely chopped
2 stalks of coriander finely chopped
lemon juice to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Methods
1. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl.
2. Spoon salsa over defrosted cooked green shell mussels. Serve immediately.

Braise Pork Vietnamese style-Thit Heo Kho

Saw the guest host cooked up this dish in a show called "Food Safari"....It looked so delicious that I have to try the recipe myself...

Ingredients (serve 4)

500g of pork belly cut into bite size

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

6 cloves of small onion finely chopped

11/2 tablespoons of fish sauce

11/2 tablespoons of soya sauce

1 tablespoons of black soya sauce

2 cloves of finely chopped spring onion

A dash of grounded black pepper

2 star anise

1 tablespoons of palm sugar (gula Melaka)

1 young coconut water

4 boiled eggs

1 glass of water

Methods:

1) Marinate porks with all the ingredients except young coconut water and boiled eggs. Leave to rest for 3 hours or over night.

2) Heat pot with cooking oil in high heat. Sauteed marinated pork for 3 minutes.

3) Add water and let it boil before turn the heat to low.

4) Let it simmer for 1 hours or until meat is tender.

5) Add young coconut water and boiled eggs. Continue to simmer for another half an hour or when the eggs is well favoured with the broth. Serve hot with rice.

The dish is so good that I have two plates of rice....It's different ascompared with our Chinese braised pork which I think is due to the fish sauce in this dish...Definitely will cook this again...Yummy...

Yee mee with Black pepper chicken

My lunch...yee mee with black pepper chicken...well balanced meal!??? All ingredients are leftovers except for the chocolate biscuits...That Tim Tam is my after meal dessert.

You just need a dash of oyster sauce, light soya sauce and dark soya sauce, sesame oil and white pepper powder to made the base sauce.

Braised Chicken and potato in soya bean paste aka Ayam Ponteh

Ingredients

1/2 Chicken cut into smaller pieces

4 potatoes peeled and cut into smaller pieces

1 carrot peeled and cut into smaller pieces

1 1/2 tablespoon of soya bean paste or "Tau cho"

1/2 tablespoon black soya sauce

1 tablespoon of cooking oil

sugar to taste ( I used brown sugar for a deeper colour and aroma)

One clove of garlic peeled and minced

A dash of Chinese wine

Water

Methods

1) Heat oil in pot and add garlic to sauteed.

2) Add chicken to pot and stir fry in high heat until browned. Add Chinese wine and continue to saute the chicken for about 1 minute.

3) Add soya bean paste, potato and carrot and continue to saute for another 5 minutes.

4) Add water which is just enough to cover the chicken and let it come to boil before turn the fire to low.

5) Let the simmer for 20 minutes before adding sugar for taste. Continue to simmer for another 5 minutes.

6) Serve with white rice or bread.

Oishi...Tempura

How do you prepare a tempura at home? Well, you just need a packet of tempura flour, tempura sauce and lastly the prawn and veggie of course.

Follow the instruction to use the tempura flour and fry the eggplant, mushroom and prawn.

The tempura sauce that I used need to be dilute with a glass of warm water as the sauce is concentrated.

I still love my fried char kuay tiew this way

Ingredients
1 packet of char kuay tiew ( a type of noodle made from rice flour)
chopped garlic
8 peeled medium prawn
a pinch of bean sprout
1 stalk of spring onion cutted into short stripes
Chinese sausages (optional)
Soya sauce and black soya sauce to taste
Cooking oil

Methods
1. Hot the wok and oil in high heat.
2. Sauteed the garlic quickly.
3. Stir fried char kuay tiew and make sure you spead the chay kuay tiew apart.
4. Add soya sauce and black soya sauce and continue to coat the chay kuay tiew with the sauces.
5. Add prawn and chinese sausages. Continue to stir fry until the prawn is cooked.
6 Add bean sprout and spring onion for 1 minute. Off the fire.
7. Serve while hot.

Smoked Fish - Salai

We received a surprise parcel from his mom. The dried fishes were wrapped in plastic bag and consists of 6 dried fishes. According to hubby, the dried fishes is called salai and is local to his hometown. They are not salty but rather smoked to dry.

He later dried them further under the sun before putting them into the oven to grill for 5 to 10 minutes. After which, let them cooled and peeled the skin and head away and left with the flesh.

Don't they look like the satay fish from Pangkor we are used to in Malaysia and Singapore? Actually it does taste like satay fish with a tat of smokey taste minus the fishy smell.

I tried them with meat porridge and two type of sauces. One is sauteed garlic with oil and soya sauce and the other one is chopped raw onion and garlic with lemon juice and soya sauce. Both sauces go well with salai but I prefer the second sauce better. I invented this way of eating salai.

Or you can stir fried the salai with beans or any green veggie, a conventional way done in his hometown.

Swedish meatballs

Some of my favourite things that I do besides shopping or getting some good decorative ideas or the smart storage ideas, is to order a plate of Swedish meatballs...yummy.

We found this at the Ikea's food store....It's called Swedish meatballs combo and you get a 1000g pre-cooked meatballs (I guess you can made quite a few times if it is only two of you), a bottle of lingoberry jam, 2 packets of gravy sauce plus a packet of cream.

We tried to cook it based on the instruction(in english of course) and it tasted just like the one you have in the IKEA restaurant. Basically just heat up the meatballs in the oven, whip up the gravy, boil a few potatoes and scoop out some of the lingoberry jam and you have a nice dinner.

It's great that IKEA food store do introduce these to promote Swedish food. New food menu that you can try.

Black Pepper pork chops

Bought this with the intention of making a black pepper steak for dinner. I had to change my mind when I saw the price of two pieces of steak cost and bought three pieces of pork chop of half the price of beef.

I am actually not sure if this is a dipping sauce or a marinate sauce. So, I tasted it and found it to be too salty to be a dipping sauce.

Ingredients

3 pieces of pork chops

black pepper seasoning

Two dash of HP sauce

two teaspoons of cooking oil

Methods

1. marinate pork chops with black pepper seasoning and HP sauce for two hours or more.
2. Heat the pan and oil in medium heat.

3. Fry the pork chops on both sides for 3 minutes on each side. Don't wash the pan as yet.

4. Transfer the pork chops to a baking tray and grill it in the oven at 150 Celsius for 7 to 10 minutes. remember to turn to the other side as well.

5. While the pork chops is grilled in the oven, reheat the pan and add the remaining marinated sauce and add some water to the sauce. Let it simmer for a very short while in low heat then turn off the fire.

6. When the pork chop is ready to serve, just pour the sauce over it.

Chicken and pork soup

I gave up since I tried to take the photo for the nth times and just could not get a clear picture. However, the soup was super duper delicious which kinda made up for my lousy photography skills.


Ingredients

200g of pork fillet
200g of chicken fillet
3 stalk of celery cut into about the same size
1 piece of carrot slice skin and cut into about the same size
4 spoons of Mirin
3 spoons of soya sauce
1 egg beaten
add water to 1/4 teaspoon of corn starch to made a diluted paste

Methods
1) Bring water to boil and put pork and chicken fillet in and boil for 2 minutes.
2) Pour away water and run pork and chicken fillet under the tap briefly.
3) Bring water to boil and put back the pork and chicken fillet.
4) Add carrot and celery and continue to boil at small heat for 30 minutes.
5) Add mirin and soya sauce and continue to boil for 5 minutes. Taste the soup and add mirin or soya sauce to your taste.
6) Take out the pork and chicken and put into bite size. Return both to the pot.
7) Add corn starch solution into soup and continue to boil for another 2 minutes.
8) Turn off the heat. Gently pour in the beaten egg and stir to create a swirl of egg flower. Serve hot.

Homemade Pan Mian(板 麺)

Picture of dried "Pan Mian" and the kick ass sambal belacan in Masak-Masak's blog just made me want to go back to KL to have my fix. But I just have to cook my version of "Pan Mian" here as there is no dried "Pan Mian" in Singapore.

Maybe I should try to buy the "Pan Mian" from the hawker stall and save me the trouble and time in making the "Pan Mian" by myself. Hehe....cannot imagine the expression of the stall owner when I say "Auntie, I need "Pan Mian" for two persons but not the soup, take away please?"

My first attempt is a success as K asked for one more but I ran out of "Pan Mian" and substituted with wanton mee noddles instead which turned out to be very good too.

Ingredients: (Serve 2)
Small Onion chopped thinly
Garlic chopped finely
200 g minced pork
100g minced chicken meats
50g dried anchovies (Ikan Bilis)
4 dried black mushrooms soaked in water and cut into smaller strips when soften
Black soya sauce to taste
Soya sauce to taste
Oyster sauce to taste
Corn starch
1/4 white pepper powder
500g Flour
1/2 cup of Water
Salt
Cut chilly and coriander roots and leafs for garnishing

Methods :
1) Mix corn starch, soya sauce and white pepper powder into minced pork and chicken. Let it marinate for 5 minutes.
2) Fry small onion until crispy. Set aside.
2) Fry dried anchovies until crispy. Set aside. Discard some of the cooking oil if you think is too oily.
3) Heat pan, sauteed garlic and minced meats for 5 minutes. Then add mushrooms and continued to sauteed for 5 minutes. Add water and leave the minced meats and sauce to simmer for another 20 minutes.
4) Add soya sauce and black soya sauce to taste. Add water and let the sauce simmer in low fire.
5) In a glass, add a pinch of salt into water. Add salted water into flour and start kneading into a dough.
6) Keep kneading dough until hand is not sticky with dough.
7) Pinch some dough and press until quite thin. Use a knife to cut into strips that look like noodles. Repeat this process. Add more flour to the cutted strips in order to retain the shape of the cutted dough strips. This cutted dough strips is called "Pan Mian" in mandarin.
7) Boil a pot of water. Cook the cutted dough strips for one person portion first in the hot water. Let it boil for 5 minutes.
8) Scoop up the cooked "Pan Mian" and combine with minced meats and sauce. Add chilly and coriander roots and leaf for garnishing.

Meatball Spaghetti Sauce

Ingredients
1 carrot cut into cubes
2 stalks of celery cut into smaller strips
1 big onion sliced
2 whole garlic washed thoroughly and leave skin on
8 whole mushrooms sliced
300g minced meat (Beef or pork is fine)
1/4 teaspoons of fennel seeds powder
1/4 teaspoons of coriander powder
1/4 teaspoons of white pepper powder
1 can of tomato puree
1 bottle of spaghetti sauce
Olive oil
Water
sugar
dried oregano and mixed herbs

Methods:
1) Add fennel seeds powder, coriander powder and white pepper powder with minced meats.
2) Heat up pot and add olive oil, first sauteed onion until soften, then carrots, celery and mushrooms for 5 minutes.
















3) Add water and whole garlic into pot and let it simmer in small fire until all are soft.
4) In another pan, heat cooking oil.
5) Use your hand to mould the minced meats into balls and fry until golden brown. Set aside.





























6) Add meatballs into pot and continue to simmer for another 10 minutes.
7) Add tomato puree and spaghetti sauce into pot. Add salt and sugar to taste. Add oregano and mixed herbs and continue to simmer for another 10 minutes.
8) Let the sauce cool and pack into a few containers for future use. Freeze them in the fridge.

Meatball spaghetti can be ready in a very short period of time if you are in a hurry after that.

Tehsee's sweet and sour fish

Cooking fish is never my strong point because of the pain of cleaning the fish, the smell and am not sure which fish can be bake, grill, stream or deep fry. Now I am learning it by trial and error and of course reading though some of the recipe books. So, this time let me try to cook a whole new recipe. Finger cross....

Ingredients
1 toman fish fillet
1 knob of ginger peeled and finely chopped
4 cherry tomatoes finely chopped
1 medium size big onion finely chopped
pinch of salt and pepper
pinch of dried oregano
sugar to taste
2 spoons full of Lea and perrins sauce
2 spoons of mirin
some corn starch

Methods

1. Season fish with salt, pepper and oregano for 10 to 15 minutes.

2. Pat some starch on the fish's skin and meat.

3. Preheat oven to 150 degree Celsius. Heat the pan and cooking oil.

4. Pan fry the fish on both side until fish turn to light golden brown. At this point, the fish is not cook yet at the centre. Which we will continue the cooking process in the oven.

5. Put the fish in a baking tray and place it in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Depending on the size of the fish, you might want to shorten or longer the baking time.

6. While the fish is cooking in the oven, combine the Lea and perrins sauce, mirin sauce with sugar and stir to dissolve sugar.

7.Combine chopped onion, ginger, cherry tomatoes and no.6.

8. Once the fish is ready, let it rest for 5 minutes before combine with no.7.

The colour already made you want to dive into the dish immediately. Luckily it passed K's taste test too. Success..*grin*.

Portobello mushroom

Picture from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portobello_mushroom

Look at the size of the mushroom ...can feed the whole family. Hehe..
















This one is imported from Malaysia but with a smaller size and costs around SGD3.00 for 6 pieces of mushrooms. Hmmm....wonder is there any different in taste between those from Italy and Malaysia one. If you noticed too the Japanese cucumbers in some of the supermarkets too are imported from Malaysia too. Those farmers from Cameron Highlands are a enterprenuer bunchs. And guess what..I have the opportunity to buy Malaysian products but at a higher price...*sigh*.

Here is a simple baked and grilled portobello mushrooms after doing some googling.

Ingredients
6 Portobello Mushrooms
2 cloves of chopped garlic
some dried rosemary
A pinch of coarse salt
2 spoons of Olive oil

Method

1. Clean the portobello mushrooms with kitchen towels and remove the stems. NEVER wash the mushrooms with water.
2. Place an aluminium foil over a baking tray then place the mushrooms into the tray . Use a knife to made three slits on top of the the mushroom for easy cooking.
3. Sprinkle chopped garlic, dried rosemary, coarse salt and olive oil.

4. Baked in the oven at 100 degree Celsius for 10 minutes. Turn to grill mode and grill for another 5 minutes.

This is how the final product look like. It has a very strong musky mushrooms taste which I loved and it's rather meaty minus the fat too.

This is another way you can eat the mushrooms i.e with stir fry spinach or any green veggie. The mushrooms are done the same way as the above recipe except that this time you need to cut it into strips. Place the grilled mushrooms on top of the veggie and you are ready to dig in. Yummy.

Can the rain please stop now?

What can one eat when the rain is pouring like crazy outside in a Saturday afternoon. Hehe...how about corn fritters?

Ingredients

1 cup of corn kernels
A handful of ikan bilis or anchovies
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 onion cut into slices
1/2 cup flour
Iced water
pinch of salt
pinch of fennel seeds powder
pinch of coriander powder

Method
1. Heat pan and cooking oil and fry the ikan bilis to fragrant. Set aside.
2. Sauteed the garlic and set aside.
3. Add flour and iced water to form a batter. Add a pinch of salt, coriander and fennel seeds powder and stir well.
4. Combine corn, fried ikan bilis, sauteed garlic, sliced onion into batter.
5. Heat up another pan with oil. Use a spoon to scoop the mixed batter and fry in the pan until golden brown. Serve hot.































This is a flour mixture for making okonomiyaki which I bought for my next experiment in making okinomiyaki. Hehe...I try using this flour to make the corn fritters and it turned out to be more crispier than usual which is great.

Asparagus wrap in Bacon

*Non-Halal Post*

This bacon with asparagus is one of my favorite..The smoky taste meet the sweetness of the asparagus. Heaven. And is so easy to make.

Ingredients

200g bacon cut into half
200g thai asparagus cut into 3 stalk
some toothpick

















Method
1. Boil water and dip the cut bacon into the boiling water for 30 seconds. Pour away water and set aside. The purpose for this is to make the bacon less salty.
2. Warp the three or four asparagus into one piece of bacon and bind it using a toothpick.

3. Pour some cooking oil over the bacon to help the baking process. Bake it at 100 degree Celsius for 20 minutes and grill it for another 5 minutes.

Craving for Fried Mussels

It's rather expensive to pay SGD5 for 6 pieces of fried mussels at one of the fast food chain. Furthermore, I have to share it with another person which made me want to experiment with my own recipe at the kitchen.

Ingredients
10 Green Mussels
1/4 cup of Flour
1/2 cup of iced water
Breadcrumb
Cooking Oil for frying
Pinch of salt

Method
1. Add flour, iced water and pinch of salt to create a batter.
2. Wash and rince mussels. Pat dry with kitchen towel.
3. Heat oil in pan.
4. Coat mussel with flour, batter and breadcrumb in this order.
5. Fry mussel until crispy brown. Serve hot.
















Tataa...the final product. K said is the real deal. Success. Hehe.
















I used this type of breadcrumb for extra crunchiness.

Spaghetti Carbonara

I have seen this dish been made by an Italian before like 10 years ago. So the ingredients here are through memory. However, the sauteed onion, garlic and mushroom is something i wanted cause I love mushroom in my dish.

Ingredients
A handful of Spaghetti
1 egg beaten
2 spoonful of Parmesan Cheese
2 slice of ham cut into strips
4 button mushroom sliced
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic diced
2 spoonful of olive oil
1 small knob of butter
salt and pepper to taste
dash of sake


Method
















1. Boil water in pot. Add in a pinch of salt to the boiling water and put in the spaghetti. Boil it until AL Dante.
2. Heat the pan and olive oil.
3. Saute the onion and then garlic for 2 minutes.
4. Add in mushroom and continue to saute for around 3 minutes. Add a dash of salt, pepper and sake. Turn off the heat.

5. Beat egg and add parmesan cheese. Stir them together.
6. Pour away the water from pot and leave spaghetti.
7. Turn fire to very low. Put in egg and parmesan cheese solution, butter, ham and sauteed mushroom with spaghetti.
8. Continue stirring the spaghetti for 30 seconds in very low fire. Serve hot.

You can substitute ham with bacon and saute together with the mushroom. To made you sauce a bit creamier, you can add milk to the beaten egg and parmesan cheese.

Five Spices Chicken

Ingredients A
Chicken ½
Five Spice Powder 4 teaspoons
Cooking oil

Ingredients B
Coarse grained Salt ½ cup
Ground Black Pepper
½ cup Star Anise

Method for salt and pepper seasoning
1)Combine ingredients B into a wok.
2)Saute on medium heat for 10 minute or until salt turn into beige colour and fragrant.
3)Remove from wok and let it cool.
4)Mixed salt and pepper seasoning with five spice powder.
5)Store in a container.

Method for five spice chicken
1)Marinate inside and skin of chicken with seasoning. Let it rest for 2 hours. The longer you leave it the better.
2)Fill up the baking tray with water. Put up the roasting tray on top of the baking tray. Do not let the chicken touch the water.
3)Roast the chicken at 180 degree for 40 minutes. Turn the chicken over periodically.
4)Remove the chicken and let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes.
5)Hot the wok and coking oil. Bath the chicken with hot oil for 5 minutes.
6)Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes. Serve hot.

Note :

1)You can skip step 5 and 6 if you think step 5 is too oily.

2) Cook the bone side up first then turn to skin side later to avoid burning the skin too much.

This is a side dish consists of zucchini, olive oil, salt and thyme leaves. Bake it for 100 degree for 15 minutes.