Oatmeal Cookies with Cranberries and Almond

This is my Christmas project. The tin is wrapped tightly with the wrapping paper. All from Daisho. The cookies? It's an Oatmeal cookies with Cranberries and Almond. I received some good reviews from my colleagues so that means this recipe is not bad at all. Can be improved, yes, but it needs practice and a very good instinct during baking time.
Ingredients:
125gr unsalted butter
250gr brown sugar
3gr salt
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
20gr milk
188 cake flour
8gr baking powder
4gr baking soda
156gr Quaker oats
100gr dried cranberries, chopped
25gr almond, chopped

1. Cream butter, sugar and salt until smooth and creamy in low speed
2. Pour in egg and milk at one go, and cream until blend
3. Pour in shifted flour, baking powder and baking soda, and also pour in oats at one go, quickly cream until well blended
4. Using spatula, blend in cranberries and almond until well distributed. Don't over mix.
5. Make small balls using tea spoon onto the baking sheet. Don't forget to layer the baking sheet with baking paper.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes on 190C

Yield: about 50 medium sized cookies

Salad 101

Do you know that with the same batch of ingredients that you buy at the same from the supermarket, you can make 1001 salad menu? I do realize this now and am add a nodding agreement why restaurants can come out with 1001 different salad menu based on the same thing.
My main batch of items bought are:
1. Some greenies. You have a wide selection in this category:

• Celery - they are very cheap, but it's an acquired taste to eat it raw and everyday, so you have to think about the consequences when you decide to pick this.
• Lettuce - examples are iceberg lettuce (very easily rotten, and that's why it's the cheapest above all and only contain water with no fibre), butter head lettuce (second cheapest option with more visible darker green colour and more flavour), romaine lettuce (love this one, but surprisingly it's highly priced in Singapore).
• Cabbage - you'll find this a nice change when you're doing Asian salad because Asian salad includes gado-gado (boiled) and kredok (raw) off course and off course the red color one is more suitable for Western style salad.
• Arugula leave - you'll find this most often at the organic section (have no idea why this leave is so expensive), but do mindful if you want to make this as your main greenies as it tastes bitter with onion-y after taste. But it does go well with fruits and nuts.
• Baby Spinach - I don't recommend cheap spinach because they have more iron taste. Unless you're in a vampire mode, you can opt for this.

2. Beans/nuts/sprouts - I don't like to suffer eating green salad, so my salad must have something from this category. And this category will make your salad bowl pretty and edible.

• Tofu - the cheapest above all and meet the nutritious chart too. I like hyakko tofu as you can just pop it out of the box, wash, cut and throw to your bowl. For other type of tofu, you can vary it by bake it with sprinkle of sesame oil and cilantro.
• Pine nuts - my favorite nuts. It has high fat content so do use it wisely.
• Chick peas - they usually come in cans. It's filling and starchy and goes well for east or west style salad.
• Alfalfa sprouts - although this is not in my top list due to the smell but i find it nice to eat especially if you use liquid dressing as it holds the dressing when you fork it out from the bowl.
• Soy bean sprouts - I like this as a topping but you need to process it first. First, blanch it then wash it with cool water to stop it from cooking and strained (must be as dry as possible). Then, mix it with sesame oil, sugar and salt to your taste. And if you have some kimchi mix on hand, it won't hurt to throw that in too.

3. Fruits - This is my favorite because they add color to your plain salad bowl with no unnecessary taste (bell pepper is OK but can't use it too much and will end up go to the dust bin).

• Oranges/Grapefruits - Full of vitamin C and fibre. They add flavour and juices to your salad. And they're good for packed lunches because they don't change color.
• Apples/Pears - They're good for eating at home salad and must eat immediately. You wouldn't want to eat brownish color apple salad right? Pear is a nice combination with Arugula leaves.
• Dried fruits (eg. Cranberries) - they're good substitutes for nuts but off course with different texture and taste

4. Meats - I'm a meat person so my salad will forever have this category.

• Chicken - breast meat if you want to have it grilled or just simply minced chicken turned to patties
• Fish - baked fish is a nice topping for your salad. I like to marinate them in orange juice and cayenne pepper
• Ham - it's expensive but once in a while it's OK to splurge on what you eat right? Always been a honey baked ham girl, I rarely take any smoked ham.
• Flanked steak/Roasted beef - Not recommended for your everyday salad as it's expensive and troublesome to make. But off course it's a nice combination to have.
• Eggs - The cheapest meat substitute. It never fails in any salad style. Do try it in egg mayo, pouched egg, or just sliced hardboiled egg.

My ideal kind of salad must have 1 item out of the 4 categories, so when I do groceries there always be 1 greenies, 2 nuts/beans/sprouts, 2 fruits and 1 meat. And you can have at least 5 varieties of salad to play with for the rest of your weekday.

One example of my salad:

2 stalk celeries, thinly sliced

1/2 packed tofu, baked

2 oranges, peeled and cubed

2 small chicken patties, cubed

Dressing: tsuyu sauce (you can buy any soba/somen sauce, any Japanese tsuyu based salad dressing is a treat). They're low fat and no oil (at least it's not visible, if any).

So, salad anyone?

Tofu salad

Chicken Patties and Orange Salad

Still commemorating the salad week, now I start venturing other alternative for greenies because as our logic says, eating greenies for 1 straight week can be sickening if you're not a vegetarian. So, with that in mind, there I was, yesterday at Carefour's fresh produce section, pondering for almost 1 hour, practically memorizing all the price combination. FYI, now I can tell you how much is the minced chicken per kg compare to the filleted chicken breast (it's more expensive, btw). Or, how much is the towan fish compare to Cod fish, and start to calculate how much 1 bowl of salad will cost you after all the combination is calculated. Surprisingly you don't need excel spreadsheet to forecast how much you'll spend for 1 week salad combination. And even more amazing, I can memorize all these price tags with just one glance but can't even remember people's names that I just meet.

So during my venture with my brain keep working on combination and possibilities, one item hit me in the head, Orange! Why didn't I think of it before? It's CHEAP (cheaper than those greenies definitely), full of Vitamin C, and good for your skin, and it has flavor. So here is the next salad recipe.

2 small chicken patties, diced (recipe below)

2 oranges, peeled and diced

1/4 can chick peas (obviously what's left over from my previous salad experiment)

Dressing: Heinz Light Salad dressing (this time I'm too lazy to make my own dressing), max 2 tbsp

Alternative dressing: Honey mayo (mix mayo and honey with a dash of lemon pepper)

Assemble: Throw everything into a bowl and mix well

Recipe for chicken patties
500gr minced chicken

1 packet cilantro or Thai parley

zest of 2 oranges, thinly sliced and chopped

3 tbsp corn flour

Seasoning: lots of lemon pepper

1. Set oven to 200C

2. Mix all ingredients and seasoning well in a bowl. Make sure all the corn flour is well incorporated

3. Align baking sheet with aluminum foil and grease it with cooking spray. Using 2 spoons make huge chicken balls, lay it on the foil and flatten it. Repeat the step.

4. Spray the top of patties with the cooking spray and bake it for about 15 minutes or until it's well done.

Salad tips (yep, another one :p)

1. Do mix and match your greenies with fruit. It's fun. And it adds color to your bowl :). Try fruits like apple, pear, all kind of berries. melons (cantaloupes will be nice). Even the nasty watermelons are worth trying (I don't eat watermelons).

2. Never store fruits together with your greenies. While greenies can be prepared the night before, fruits will be the other way around. The best it to always cut them only when you want to eat them. But off course for busy bees that will be very tough, but you still want to eat fruits. So, the solution is buy an airtight container. Off course this container doesn't apply for fruits like apples, bananas, pears and the likes, which leads to point #3.

3. Soak cut apples/pears with salt water for about 1/2 hour and rinse them before storage. But this old school method won't last your fruits in their cheeky clean feeling color for that long too. Definitely not 24 hours. So fresh cut is still the best. Do allow 10 minutes of cutting fruits in your schedule when preparing salad for your lunches.

4. Add more protein to your bowl. Nuts and peas will be good. I initially want to use pine nuts instead of chick peas. But to my dismay, I can't find any pine nuts. I do find some sunflower seeds in the organic aisle. But why do I want kuaci on my salad? And pay a hefty price to buy it just because it's ORGANIC? So As usual, i try to find cheaper alternatives, and I remember Rachel Ray very often mentions to store chick peas can in your kitchen, it'll come in handy. Thanks Rachel.

5. Fresh fruits give you hassle because you have to cut it? You can have dried food instead. They sell from dried cranberries, blueberries, strawberries (surprised?), cherries, pineapples, apricots. mangoes, orange skins and even now durian is dried. But off course when fruit is dried, their sugar content is also higher than when they're fresh, so you might want to limit the usage.

Butterhead Lettuce Salad with Chick Peas and Balsamic Vinaigrette

It turns out that living healthy in Singapore is not cheap, folks. It seems like anything green and related to 'ang moh' eg. lettuces and the gang are priced like a gold in here. With a 5SGD bill, guess what you get, just 2 cute bouquet of red and green crispy lettuces, or a very, very slim romaine lettuce. I have to carefully reading all the descriptions on the price tags hanging above those lettuces. And I don't even bothered to go beyond lettuce. If the main salad ingredients are priced like this, it'll be more horrifying to see what's the price for the topping. This makes me miss US, where lettuce are abundant and very much bigger and cheaper.

So with this in mind, I have to be smarter and more creative in what I should throw to my salad bowl, or I'll spend equally like if I buy any salad from a bistro.

After mix and match, here is a new recipe that at least still fits in my budget.

1 pack of butter head lettuce (consists of 2 cute bouquet, just nice for 4 portion), cut to bite size

2 red bell pepper, diced thinly

1 can chick peas, washed and strained

4 eggs, hard boiled, sliced

Vinaigrette: 100ml balsamic vinegar, 50ml olive oil, lemon pepper to your taste, marjoram to your taste, mixed

Assemble:

1. On the bottom place lettuce, then bell pepper, top it with the chick pea and eggs

2. Drizzle the Vinaigrette for finish, 3 tbsp is enough

Storage tips:

1. All ingredients MUST be dry before go into the fridge. With that said, it means that everything must be strained to the last drop of water. Lettuce is the most particular. You'll get a rotten lettuce if you store it wet inside a Tupperware. One way to avoid this is to put 1 layer of strainer inside your Tupperware. This way, at least the water stick to your lettuce will be slowly go down.

2. Separate all the leavies and greenies separate. Mixing them up will cause them to rotten faster. It's the same principle when you see pre-packed salad bowl in supermarkets. They separate your dressings, croutons and greenies, so that it lasts long.

3. Greenies should not be stored more than 3 days, unless you like to have your greenies with dry and red colored ends. I'm very particular about this and that's why I'm so fussy about storage.

4. Eggs should be stored in whole, not cut. Only cut when you want to eat it.

Savoury Muffin ~ Ham, Cheese and Red Peppers

I've been wanting to make this savoury muffins. Basically what you did is change the fillings with savoury items, such as sausages, cheese, tomatoes and so on. This time I use ham, cheese and colourful baby peppers (I choose yellow, red and orange peppers). For the cheese, I want to experiment with the Provene cheese. It tastes nice, with the texture of cheddar but not too salty, more similar to Danish Mozerella. Just nice as I don't like salty cheese. The ham? I use honey chicken ham (the supermarket under my office currently doesn't have the honey-baked ham, so chicken it is). Initially I want to use tomatoes, but I find it too troublesome, must take out the seeds and water as they're not good for the batter.

As you see in the pic, it looks... heavenly... imagine it hot and fluffy just come out from the oven... yumm....

Chocolate Cranberry Muffin

Just made it. Smells heavenly with the chocolate scent and taste delightful with the tanginess of cranberries.

What you need to do is change 20gr of flour from your fave muffin recipe with choco powder and add dried cranberries. Another combination for you to explore :).

Cream Puff

I've always thought that making cream puffs or eclair is hazardous to your kitchen because of their different method used. So I gathered some courage and manage to make tons of it yesterday. It's still hazardous in terms of how many times you have to wash your beaters, pans and pots, but the result is rewarding :)

333 gr milk
168 gr butter
4 gr salt
250 gr bread flour
8 eggs

• Bring milk, butter, and salt to boil. When it boils, quickly put all the flour on the pan and using mixer, beat it with low speed on moderate heat until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the side of the pan


• Then take it aside and beat with low speed the eggs, one by one until smoothly incorporated


• With whipping pipe, pipe about 4cm straight for eclair or round circle for cream puff.


• Bake in 200C for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and crisp
  

240 gr milk
130 gr sugar
1 egg yolk
75 gr cornstarch
rum, to your taste

• Separate about small bowl of milk to mix in with cornstarch and set aside


• On the sauce pan, put milk, sugar and egg yolk. Stir in the egg yolk until it's fully incorporated with the milk before turning on the fire. Bring to boil and stir in the cornstarch. Keep stirring until it boils again and set aside.


• Quickly stir on to cool the custard and when it cools down, pour your favourite rum and stir on until it's incorporated.
  

Serving: Cut off bit of the side of the cream puff and spoon or pipe in the custard. Then, sprinkle the top with icing sugar or top it with ganache.

Maccha Cake with Azuki Beans

Been wondering how to incorperate the maccha into standard cake recipes and here is the result. Still in smooth texture but it smells heavenly with green tea aroma. Maccha must be accompanied by its partner, the sweet azuki beans to be called complete. So I splashed some of the canned azuki beans inside my maccha cake :).


170 gr butter
150 gr sugar
3 eggs
130 gr cake flour
20 gr green tea powder
4 gr baking powder
2 gr vanilla essence
1/2 can azuki beans

• Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy in high speed and add in vanilla
• Reduce the speed to low and add the eggs until well incorporated
• Still in low speed, add in all dry ingridients and resume to high speed untill the batter are well blended
• Using 8' round baking tin, pour 1/2 of the batter and spread it evenly, with spoon, spread the azuki beans, and tope it off with the rest of the batter
• Bake it for 30-45 min in 180C
• Serving option: sprinkle the top with icing sugar

Cold Tofu

This is a very simple Japanese dish and it taste so soothing and comforting. Very suitable for a hot day or after a long day at work. And the catch is, you don't even need to cook it.

1 box good quality Japanese tofu (silken tofu preffered)
6 tbsp shoyu (you'll most likely find this at the Japanese food aisle in any supermarket nowadays. You also can use this to eat with soba/somen)
2 tbsp sake (to make it sweeter) - optional
bonito flakes - to your taste (I like lots of it) - optional, you also can substitute this with furikake, but mindful that furikake is much more saltist, so you have to reduce the amount of shoyu that you pour
decorative toppings: sliced green onion, minced ginger, grated white daikon - optional

How to:

• Wash tofu to get rid of the preservative liquid from the box, pat dry with paper towel and place it the bowl
• Pour the shoyu around it and top is with bonito flakes and the rest of the toppings
• Optional: to make it even luxurious, you can place ice cubes underneath the tofu, the purpose it to keep the tofu chilled, but in the next few minutes, you'll sacrifice the shoyu's thickness

Marble Cake

I admit it, I'm not so creative this week. I want to make some full-proof and not a time consuming cake, so that's why it's marble cake this week. The whole process from preparing to washing the kitchen take a total of 1.5 hour, so it's quite fast. The cake itself is quite versatile. So long as you cream the butter and sugar correctly, your cake will not get deflated or dry or burn or whatever disaster that you can imagine. It also will not dry if you forget about it in the oven for 5 more minutes from the supposedly baking time, but off course longer than that it's a blackhole (with a burnt smell).

100 gr sugar
1 tsp Vanilla extract
200 gr butter
4 eggs
13 gr milk powder
4 gr baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
210 gr cake flour
10 gr choco paste

1. Cream sugar, vanilla and butter in high speed until light and fluffy.
2. Lower the speed then spoon in the eggs one by one, until each of them is incorporated.
3. Still in low speed, mix in all dry ingredients and turn back to high speed for 10 seconds, and set aside the batter.
4. Take about 4 scoops of the batter and mix it with the choco paste.
5. On an 8-inch round pan, already lined with the parchment paper, pour in half of the white better, the pour about 4 scoops of chocolate batter then top again with the remainding of the white batter. With toothpick, swirl around the batter until the top looks like a marble.
6. Bake it for 40 minutes at 180C.
7. After baking set it off to cool.

Double Chocolate Muffin

Still in the chocolate mood and some left over ganache on hand, I modified Sarah's Moulton Secret Mix In Muffin's recipe from foodnetwork.com to create this sinful muffins :).

1 cup plain flour, sifted
1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsulted butter, melted
1 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

1 cup small choco chips or left over ganache (about 50-100 gr)

1. On a bowl, mix butter with sour cream, egg and vanilla, beat lightly until well incorporated
2. Then pour in to the dry ingredients and fold lightly until all incorporated
3. Fold in choco chips/ganache until evenly spread
4. Pour equally to 12pc muffin pan
5. Baked on 400F for about 20 min

Served: warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream on the side

** Tips: if you're using ganache, make sure you watch the oven to prevent your muffin to explode :)

Chocolate Fudge Cake with Ganache Icing

I was craving for something chocolatey this weekend. So I'm came across 1 recipe from the text book for Le Cordon Bleu which I found very easy to do and the result was satisfying.

Fudge Cake

160 gr Unsweetened chocolate

160 gr butter

200 gr eggs

200 gr sugar

40 gr bread flour

1. Melt chocolate and butter, set aside

2. Beat egg and sugar in high speed until light and fluffy

3. Add in melted chocolate and fold in 1 directin with spatula

4. Add in flour, fold until well mix

5. Baked in 175C for 20-30 minutes

6. Set it to cool on the cooling rack for icing

Ganache icing

100 gr heavy cream

20 gr sugar

20 gr glucose

100 gr dark chocolate

1. Heat the cream, sugar and glucose to the point of boiling and take it off from the stove

2. Stir in chocolate until all melt and well blended

To set: pour the ganache over the cake and smooth it over with pallate knife

** Tips: store the left over ganache for chocolate muffin

Chicken 'Noodle' Soup

I've been craving for chicken noodle soup from QFC (people might say what the...? but it's one my comfort food couple years back, eaten together with corn bread will make you full for the rest of the day). Alas, I can't make the corn bread since I can't find any place that sell cornmeal flour in Singapore. But, at least I still can make the soup, I sub the 'noodle' with elbow pasta.

500 gr chicken breast, cubed (I like boneless and skinless, but you might want to buy the ones with skin to make the soup more 'hearthy' -- the nice way to say fatty)

1/2 bunch of celery, cubed

350 gr carrot, cubed

1 big onion, cubed

Olive oil

Seasoning: bay leaf, marjoram, thyme, pepper, sugar, salt

Elbow pasta, boiled and drenched

Sauté onion with olive oil in the big soup pan in medium high until soft. Add celery, carot and seasoning and cook it until half done.

Pour in about 1L to 1.25L water and bring to boil. Let it simmer for about another 20 minutes and add the chicken. Simmer in low heat for another 20 minutes.

To serve, place elbow pasta on the soup bowl and pour down the soup

Fried Wonton

This weekend I thought of making something fried for a change and the first thing that I come up is Fried Wonton, so Fried Wonton indeed.

Ingredients:
Filling:
2 bunch vermicelli, soaked and chopped
250 gr minced chicken
1 bunch spring onion, small chopped
1 pack wonton skin (about 40-50 pc)
2 tbsp corn flour
Seasoning: pepper, salt, sugar, dried chili

1 egg for egg wash
5 cloves garlic
Fish sauce

In a bowl, mix chicken and corn flour until well mixed, then add pepper, salt, sugar and dried chili, mix well.
In a pan, sauté garlic until fragrant and add chicken (make sure the chicken turn to small pieces by chop it up w/ spatula – careful not to break your pan), then add in vermicelli and spring onion. Add fish sauce and bit more seasoning to taste. Cook until all well done. Set aside to cool.
For egg wash, beat the egg in the small bowl and add about 2 tbsp of water.
Place wonton skin on your palm and take about 1.5 tsp of the filling in the center and seal sides w/ egg wash. Repeat the process.
Deep fry the wontons in medium high heat.
Serve hot with chili sauce (any kinds, but I find sweet Thai chili sauce do the job well).

Bird Nest Soup

I purposely purchased a slow cooker to make this soup (you can also call it a dessert, either way is fine). Bird nest is a delicacy. I like it because it tastes good. After cooked, it’ll look like lumps of transparent chewy gel, and it’ll just slip and melt directly to your throat. It’s presumed to have lots of health benefit, but the ones that I believe it’s true is that by consuming it regularly, you’ll see your skin will look more radiant and you’ll stay healthy till your old age (I have seen the evidences). I like the one that I had when I was in HK 3 years ago. They added Gingko Nuts and Dried Longan. So, I try out my version and here it is:

2 pc medium bird nest (soak 4-5 hours in water)
1 pack Gingko nuts
2 bar honey brown sugar
10 slice US ginseng (if you have the thinner slices, use more)
500 ml water

In the slow cooker bowl, put in bird nest, Gingko nuts brown sugar follow by water and bring to boil on the stove (you can use slow cooker directly but it’ll take 2 hours to boil) then transfer the bowl to the slow cooker and add in the ginseng. Let it stand for about 2.5 hours.
Best served cold, although it’s soothing to eat it warm.

You also can add on Honey dates on top of Gingko nuts but you must reduce the honey brown sugar in return and add more ginseng will add deeper flavor in your soup.

Vanilla Blueberry Crumb Cake

I made this cake yesterday and the result is quite nice, the only downside is that mine was a bit bloated for what they call it crumble. But, nevertheless, it tastes good with soft texture (I like this kind of outcome) and it's not so sweet. The recipe itself is from 'Chocolate & Vanilla' by Gale Gand. So here's the recipe copied over from the book:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 tsp pur vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 pint blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 9’ square cake pan or line it with parchment paper and set it aside.

In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine 1 ½ cups of the flour, the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and butter on low speed until the mixture is blended and starts to forms clumps. Set aside 1 cup of the mixture to use for the crumb topping.
In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream egg, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until combined. Stir in the remaining ½ cup flour, then scrape this mixture into the mixer and beat on medium speed until it forms a smooth batter. Spread it into the prepared cake pan. Sprinkle the blueberries over the batter, press them down a little and then sprinkle with the reserved crumb topping.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the cake is form to the touch and a skewer or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan set on the cooling rack.

Steamed Tofu with Seaweed

This recipe is inspired from yesterday's Japan's Hour show on Channel News Asia. I saw the two ladies having the tofu soup, steamed tofu, fried tofu, etc, even the dessert is from tofu. I forget where was the tofu shop on the show, but the tofu soup and steamed tofu made me craving on tofu. So here is the recipe that looks like the one in the show. The outcome is similar to chawanmushi and the custard also taste like chawan mushi, so with some substitute here and there, you'll have your own chawanmushi.

Ingredients:
1 packet of silken tofu
5 gr wakame seaweed (soaked for 5 min with water, strained)
300 ml unsweetened soya milk
2 eggs
Seasonings: sugar, salt, mirin (mild taste, so don't go overboard)

How to:
Cut tofu to desirable size, put in the big bowl (fit in the steamer) together w/ the wakame seaweed.
Beat egg and soyamilk, together with the seasonings until quite fluffy and pour over tofu and seaweed.
Steamed for about 30 minutes until soft custards form.

** For Chawanmushi feel, substitute wakame seaweed chicken, shitake or matsutake mushrooms, fishcake. If you want to loose the tofu, change it with 2 more eggs.

** If your steamer is big enough, you can portion it to individual bowls, it'll look nicer.

Bakwan Mie

I”ve been craving for some fried stuff since yesterday. So, I made this wonderful easy treat. Enjoy J

Ingredients:
2 packs of instant noodle (or you also can use egg noodles) ±170 gr, boiled and cut to small pieces w/ scissor
100 gr frozen veggies, thawed and dried
50 gr white mushroom/shitake mushroom, cut small ** optional
Batter:
100 gr plain flour
50 gr corn flour
1 egg
3 tbsp beer
150 ml water
Seasoning: sugar, black pepper, salt
Sauce: Sweet soya sauce + sweet Thai chili sauce, mix

How to:
Whisk the batter and seasoning together in a large bowl until smooth and make sure the mixture is not too thin (should be able to make a ribbon with the tip of the whisk)
Add in the noodle, veggie and mushroom, fold until all incorporated
Heat up oil to medium low heat and scoop 1 big spoonful of the mixture to it. Fry until golden brown.
Serve with the sauce on the side

Easy Pasta II

Another easy pasta recipe, only take 15 min max to prepare and cook :).

Ingredients:
1 pack of young asparagus - discard the 4cm bottom, cut the rest 4cm length
20 pc cherry tomato - halved
1 pack enoki mushroom
1 pack king oyster mushroom – sliced
1 garlic - chopped
Cooked pasta for 3 person (after boil the pasta, mix pasta with splash of olive oil)
Seasoning: lemon pepper, basil flakes, salt, sugar, pasta sauce (I like Prego’s mushroom tomato sauce), white wine

How to make:
Stir fry garlic until fragrant and golden color
Next, toss the asparagus until half cooked then put both king oyster and enoki mushroom and cook until soft
Put tomatoes in and all the seasonings to taste (suggest put just about 3 tbsp of Prego sauce) and toss all ingredients. Splash a bit of white wine and up the heat for about 1 min and toss in the pasta for about 1 min.
Serve hot

Tips:
For better taste, always toss your pasta before serving on your panfry in med-high heat for 1-2 min.
For storage, always store your pasta separate from the toppings (pasta tends to get soggy if store together in 1 container in fridge)

Wonton Soup - Non Seafood

Another kind of wonton for those who are allergic to seafood.

Wonton filling ingredients:
300 gr minced chicken
300 gr minced pork
2 bunches of chives, thinly sliced
5-6 big dried ear mushrooms, soak in hot water until soft and diced to small pieces
3 tbsp of corn flour
Wonton seasonings: sugar, salt and pepper to taste
2 packs of wonton skins (about 40 slices)
Soup seasonings: sugar, salt, pepper and apple vinegar to taste (I like to put LOTS of apple vinegar, but for those who got gastric, please restrain on pouring the vinegar to your content)

How to make:
In a big bowl, mix all the wonton filling ingredients and seasonings together until well blended
Take 1 tbsp of the filling and place it in the middle of wonton skin. Fold the wonton skin and seal the skin with water. Avoid excess air inside the wonton by pressing the skin surrounding the filling.
Repeat step 1 & 2. This recipe yields approx. 40 wontons.
Boil wonton with water (chicken stock is also recommended), add soup seasonings and enjoy while it’s hot.

Storage: My ideal of 1 bowl of wonton soup contains 5 pieces of wonton. Afterall, it's 5 jumbo wonton. So, I will pack the wontons by batch of 5 with plastic wrap and place it in freezer. The wontons will get sticky and glued to each other if you stack all of them together in 1 container. If you still want to stack it in 1 container, layer each stack of wonton with plastic wrap.

Naeng Myeon

I’m a fan of Naeng Myeon, Korean version of cold noodle. Basically it’s a buckwheat noodle with cold beef broth with lots of ice and hardboiled egg. Some may also serve it with thinly sliced cucumber and pear. This is my version of Naeng Myeon. Trust me, it tastes similar to those in the restaurant and this is based from one of my mom’s home recipe. It’s always served hot in my house plus it use fried shallots to make it more Indonesian, it only took my laziness to discover the alternative serving is the same thing as Naeng Myeon. Why is that? Because I’m just too lazy to heat the soup in the microwave hahahaa….

Ingredients
300 gr of beef (preferably thinly slice beef or any cut will do, but just remember that you’re gonna eat it COLD, so choose wisely)
2 small sized white radish (I was told that the big ones are OLD and tough, so must choose the small ones)
1 bunch Chinese celery, chopped ** optional
hard boiled eggs per your taste (usually 1 bowl use 1 egg)
1 packet of somen (Korean buckwheat noodle is not that easy to find here, so I substitute it with somen because somen has its chewy consistency)
** 1 packet of somen usually for 4 person estimated
Seasoning: Soya sauce, sugar, apple vinegar
Mustard ** optional

How to:
in the boiling water, put in beef and radish and let it simmer until both are tender
season it with the seasoning. I put lots of soya sauce because I want to have lots of broth. But remember Naeng Myeon is NOT salty, soya sauce is more to make it fragrance and coloring. Personally I like lots of vinegar because it makes the broth taste refreshing.
remember to serve it cold
If you don’t like Chinese celery, you should use pear or cucumber, but remember must use the hardboiled egg, it makes the broth creamier when eaten together J If you have mustard in your pantry, you can serve it on the side per the traditional version. Mustard will make the dish more refreshing in taste, but it’s not a must.
**
Chinese parsley is good for lowering your high blood pressure.
Beef is good for those who have low blood counts
Vinegar is good for your skin and diet (especially apple vinegar)
Radish is cooling
Buckwheat noodle has lots of fiber so if you could get a hand of those bunch, you should definitely use it instead of somen

Chicken Cordon Bleu

I take Chicken Cordon Bleu's recipe by Tyler Florence from Foodnetwork.com and make a few modifications (see all the bracket). Result *grin grin grin*. It's MUCH MUCH MUCH BETTER than the ones I've tasted in restaurant (and I paid quite the price tag mind you).
So below is the recipe plus modification:

4 double chicken breasts (about 7-ounces each), skinless and boneless

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 thin slices deli ham (I use apple baked ham, but think honey ham is better)

16 thin slices Gruyere or Swiss cheese (I use Danish Mozerella taste very mild and tender, and off course it’s still Mozerella, just nice)

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves (DO NOT OMIT this, your chicken will taste and smell wonderful with this, but I put the thyme inside the chicken and only the left over sprinkle on top of the crust)

1/4 cup flour

1 cup panko bread crumbs (I use the regular bread crumbs, recommend: Kraft mixed bread crumbs, mix with the flour and it’ll make a good crust)

1 teaspoon olive oil

2 eggs

2 teaspoons water
(To make your chicken nicer, marinate it w/ lemon for 30 min before start with the rest.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lay the chicken between 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Using the flat side of a meat mallet, gently pound the chicken to 1/4-inch thickness. Take care not to pound too hard because the meat may tear or create holes. Lay 2 slices of cheese on each breast, followed by 2 slices of ham, and 2 more of cheese; leaving a 1/2-inch margin on all sides to help seal the roll. Tuck in the sides of the breast and roll up tight like a jellyroll. Squeeze the log gently to seal. Season the flour with salt and pepper; spread out on waxed paper or in a flat dish. Mix the breadcrumbs with thyme, kosher salt, pepper, and oil. The oil will help the crust brown. Beat together the eggs and water, the mixture should be fluid. Lightly dust the chicken with flour, then dip in the egg mixture. Gently coat in the bread crumbs. Carefully transfer the roulades to a baking pan and bake for 20 minutes until browned and cooked through. (I add another 15 min, coz I scared it’s not done yet, but if your crust is thicken harden already the chicken won’t be tough and dry) Cut into pinwheels before serving.

This chicken goes well with salsa. I just do a simple salsa which made from:
4 medium tomatoes, diced
1 onion, diced
1 lemon, take the juice
seasoning: sugar, lemon pepper
Mix all ingredients in a bowl.

Meatloaf

I took this meatloaf recipe from foodnetwork.com under title 'Italian Meatloaf' and I modified it to meet whatever available in my kitchen and suits my budget more :d. Result, still fantastic, it's crispy on the outside (I purposely add 10 more minute to make sure the crust hardened). Without further ado, below is the recipe:

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 red pepper, seeded, small diced (** for those who don’t like paprika (it’s a good stuff btw, u don’t know what you’re missing) substitute with 2 tomatoes, water taken out, small diced)
1 onion, diced 10 cloves chopped garlic (Use more garlic, the more the better, it’s good for your blood pressure)
250 gr ground beef 2 eggs
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan (use 3 slice Kraft cheese cut small is good enough)
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
4 tbsp balsamic vinegar (the more the better, if you like this, and plus you can add some more upon serving)
1 packet basil leaves, chopped 1 bunch parsley leaves, chopped (*** can use either basil or parsley, if you want to use both, reduce the portion to avoid green meatloaf)
1 tsp salt (* optional, I omit salt)
1 tbsp black pepper
1 cup marinara sauce (substitute with 2 tomatoes, diced, mix with tomato ketchup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175C). Heat the olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat and add the peppers, onions and garlic. Saute until just soft, remove to a plate and cool.
When the peppers and onions are cool, combine all of the remaining ingredients together except for the tomato. Pack the meat mixture into an oiled loaf pan, if you do not have a loaf pan, form the meat mixture into a loaf shape on an oiled oven tray or baking dish. Top with the tomato.
Bake for approximately 50 to 60 minutes or until an instant-read thermometer registers 160 degrees F in the middle of the meatloaf. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes. Slice and serve.

White Fungus Dessert

Feel heaty lately? Here is a simple recipe to cool you down. All you need is a steamer or a slow cooker for this recipe.
Ingredients:
1 or 2 dried white fungus, soaked with hot water until soft, discard the yellowish part and shred the fungus to bite size
1 handful of dried longan (if you’re feel heaty, you can omit this)
1 handful of dried red dates
1 pack of ginkgo nuts
1 handful of winter melon sugar
Honey rock sugar to taste

How to make:
Steam all the ingredients together with water for approx. 30 minutes. Do make a quick check every 15 minutes to see if the fungus is soft already.
Can be serve hot or cold (I prefer cold because it tastes so refreshing).

This recipe calls for your creativity too. You can omit or add on other ingredients to your taste. But make sure to check with the people in Chinese medicine shop whether the ingredient that you want to mix in is hot or cold in nature because certain ingredients are not to be mixed together.
PS: to make it grand, you can add bird nest J. It’s good for your skin complexion J.

Pear Compote

Hohoho... I've been craving to make this pear compote eversince my friend gave me half bottle of red wine (free red wine --> I don't drink red wine and I'm not an alcoholic --> DESSERRTTTT on the go hahahaa)... Anyway, since I never do before, I did a research for the recipe (wow, they use lots of ingredients for a slow-cooked pear haha)... So due to the limited availability of ingredients in my kitchen, here we go:
Ingredients:
1 cup of red wine (I don't care what kind of red wine, as long as you like it)
3 green pears, peeled and cut big cubes
1/3 cup of sugar
1 tsp of vanilla escent (it will be wonderful if you use the real vanilla bean)
5 slice of peeled lemon/orange/grapefruit (in my case, I use grapefruit because I just happen bought them)
Sauce:
2 cup of milk (DO NOT USE NON-FAT MILK)
1/3 cup of sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp of corn flour, diluted with water
1 tsp vanilla escent
3 tsp of ruhm (or to your taste)
How to make:
Sauce:
1. Put all the ingredients into a sauce pan except the corn flour, vanilla and ruhm then bring to boil, keep stirring to prevent the egg yolk to become a scramble egg
2. When it boils, start to pour the corn flour bit by bit until it is as thick as cream soup, then bring to boil one more time
3. Remove from heat and keep steering to prevent skin forming, put in vanilla and ruhm. Once it's a bit cool down, set aside and put inside fridge
Pear compote:
1. In a saucepan, put in all ingredients and slow cook around 1/2 hour or until the pear soft and absorb the wine colour, and the alcohol already gone, left with the sticky wine residue (don't throw this away!!!)
To serve:
On a plate, layer the sauce then place about 6-7 cubes of pear in the middle. With a teaspoon, splater the plate with the wine residue. Then top the pear with vanilla ice cream (I'm thinking of Hagen Daaz ice cream) ...

Bird Nest Dessert

Haha... Don't get me wrong. It's only the name. It does not mean that you have to use those expensive bird nests (actually you can, but I can't guarantee you the taste hahahaa... let's leave the bird nest for now). Lots of varieties can be derived from this simple recipe. You can put in your creative mind and voila, the new kind of dessert created
Ingredients:
1 pack of agar2, boiled in 400 ml water and 1/3 cup of sugar and chilled, shred and set aside
1 canned longan
1 canned lyche
How to make:
1. Mix all the ingredients in the big dessert bowl then add water if needed
PS: for variery:
1. Change longan and lyche with cocktail fruits
2. Change the syrup with rose, vanilla, or cocopandan syrup
3. Can mix #2 with condensed milk, then add grass jelly (green or black)
4. Can change syrup with fruit juice (eg. mix fruit juice and mango juice)

Tom Yum Fried Rice

. I always like vegetarian food (but never intend to become a vegetarian haha... don't want to miss whatever God creates to be consumed by human haha...). This time I tasted my friend's tom yum fried rice (coz I finished my lunch already haha... eat so fast...). Yummy.... they chopped vegetarian BBQ pork and use frozzen veggie with tom yum paste. Anyway, here's my version of tom yum fried rice.
Ingredients:
2.5 cup of cooked rice
3 eggs
1 cup of frozzen veggie
2 stalks of green onion, chopped
1 onion, diced cube
1 bunch of thai parsley, roughly chopped
1 cup of shrimp meat
1 tom yum soup packet (not enough? can open another pack)
3 red and green chilli (chopped fresh)
How to make:
1. sautee onion until soft
2. scramble the egg, then put in half of the chopped green onion and thai parsley and half of the chopped chili
3. then put the rest of ingredients and work your hands on it hahahaa...

Chicken Salad

Tried this at one of my fave supermarket at the Highway 99 spread, Seattle. Been making this thing to cure the addictive effect.
Ingredients:
1/2 roasted chicken (easy way out, buy from supermarket, can choose from honey glaced to lemon herb), shred the meat
1 bunch of celery cut into small cube, need about 5 stalks
3 eggs, boiled, cut to small pieces
1 onion, cut small cubes
2 stalks of green inion, thinly sliced
mayonaise (preffered kyupi brand of kraft's miracle whip)
Seasoning: pepper, salt, sugar
How to make
1. throw all ingredients into mixing bowl and start mixing until they're well mixed
2. Served cold (can sprinkle sliced toasted almonds for garnish)
PS: original version use almond (sliced and crushed) alot, since I don't like nuts that much, i ommit this ingredient from my recipe :p

Bistik

One of the westernized Indonesian home cooking dishes



Ingredients:
1 pound of pork or beef loins (has dalam --> don't know exactly the English word), thinly sliced, pound the meat and marinate them in sweet soy sauce (I'm a faithful customer of Bango brand, feel free to use other brands :) ), pepper and garlick powder for at least 2 hours (I usually leave it the whole day inside fridge before cook)
5 carrots, sliced vertically 5 cm
1 bunch of green beans, sliced 5 cm
3-5 potatoes (depends on how big they are), sliced wedges --> Try Yukon Gold potatoes, taste delightful, but I don't think we have them here in Singapore, never see other kinds of potatoes other than Russet potatoes
1 onion, halved and thinly sliced
How to make:
1. Steam the veggie until well done, set aside
2. Fry the potatoes until golden, set aside, best to serve while the potatoes still hot
3. Sear the meat, using either butter or olive oil, over a high-teat pan.
4. After you're done with the meat, in the same pan, put around 2 tbsp of olive oil and sautee the onion until soft, then pour down the marinate sauce (don't throw them away, they're delicious leftover haha). Add more sweet soy sauce, black pepper, salt, sugar, pepper to your taste. A bit of wine wouldn't hurt either. To thicken the sauce, pour down the maizena diluted with water to your taste.
5. Arrange all the veggie, potatoes and meat on the plate and pour the sauce :)

Fried Noodle with Twist

Today I tasted something interesting. One of our church member whipped up fried noodle (complete with all the ingredients eg. meatballs, mushroom etc) for us. But the interesting from the dish was that instead of using noodle, she used rice vermicille, both thin (so'un) and thick (the one used for pad thai). Wah, it tasted heavenly hehehe... quite unique and different (I'm so used to Singapore's mee goreng and fried beehoon already --> lots of oil and msg). Plus with the sliced big green chilli cooked together with the noodle, it made the dish generate different fragrant than the usual Indonesian fried noodle. But still, as an Indonesian, can't eat fried noodle without chilli sauce, so she provided the chilli for us ---> Good chilli makes good food excellent inside the mouth hahaha.... never forget to place a glass of milk beside you when you eat super hot chilli hehe...
Can try this idea next time --> Lesson learned: don't be affraid to mix and match --> lots of good things can come out from it

Bakmi Ayam

Well, if you are one of the crazed fans of 'Bakmi GM', you may try this recipe and make it your own version of 'Bakmi GM', at least my version 'looks' like it hahaha... I finally post this upon Feli's request
Ingredients:
1 chicken breast -- cut cubbed, drenched with corn starch
1 can of straw mushroom (US does not have fresh 'jamur merang', so this will do, can be substituted with white button mushroom)
4 or 5 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked in water, sliced thinly after expanded
1 pack of fresh or dried noodle (pick your fave), boiled, set aside
1 pack of green onion (cut thinly)
Garlic (to your taste), chopped fine
1 pack of Bok Choi, lightly blanced
Seasonings: Salt, pepper, sugar, sesame oil, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, mirin (all to your taste)
How to make:
1. In a stir-fry pan, heat up sesame oil then put in the garlic and stir fry until light brown
2. Throw in the chicken, cook until half well done, add mirin to quicken the process hehe
3. Throw in the mushrooms and start cooking until everything well done
4. Put in all seasonings (except sesame oil and mirin), all to your taste, keep stiring to blend in the seasoning, then turn off the heat and set aside
5. To serve: put noodle in a bowl, place the cooked chicken and mushrooms on the top and sprinkle with green onion
* Some people might not be able to leave without the soup when they eat this Bakmi Ayam. The soup is unbeliavably easy:
1. Boil water, add some Maggie's chicken block and a bit of salt.
Or,
2. Boil canned chicken broth diluted with a bit of water.
To serve, sprinkle green onion on the top

When you're going to a party and you have to bring a gift, you probably try to think of something unique to give. Here are some of the ideas: hihihi --> food lover will appreciate it hehe...

1. Frozen grapes (level: super duper easy) --> Basically you just buy 3 different kinds of grapes (seedless, red, green and black), then you put them inside a tuppleware container inside the freezer for 2 or 3 hours. How to wrap frozen things? The same thing like what the ice cream parlor does, put the grapes inside the gift box, layer outside the gift box with dry ice, then wrap again (should survive at least 1/2-1 hours). This one tastes sand looks like candy in the end.

2. Soaked raisin (level: unbelievably easy) --> In a glass jar (don't use plastic), soak white raisin in your favorite white wine, then put inside the fridge for up to 1 month. The raisin will become bigger and soaked, taste sweet but got alcohol sense, which is GOOD hehe... For gift, simply wrap the jar with ribbon (try cutie-shaped jar and nice ribbon for presentation)

3. Homemade infused olive oil (level: surprisingly easy) --> put fresh thyme, rosemary, black pepper, crush dried chilly into a bottle (there are some bottles with interesting shapes specially for olive oil), then pour in the olive oil, seal tight, then leave it for abour 1 week. Wrap the bottle with ribbon before you take it to the party :)

Easy Pasta

Feli will love this recipe... I whipped it up yesterday to recycle my leftover mushrooms hehe... and my friend loved it...
Ingredients:
1/2 pack of spaghetti -- boil with a few drops of olive oil and salt to aldente, drenched w/ cold water, add olive oil to prevent stickiness
1 pack of cherry tomato -- cut half
1/2 small packet sweet basil leave -- use fresh ones, coarsely chopped
200 gr minced lean pork
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 packet of mix mushroom -- cut mushroom to 4 (I use shitake, button mushroom, and enoki)
herbs: rosemary, thyme, parsley -- I prefer them fresh, but dried ones are more practical hehehe
seasoning: mix seasoning, sugar, nutmeg, black pepper, tomato ketchup, chilli sauce (2 belibis)
How to make:
1. saute garlic with olive oil until fragrant, then cook minced pork until half done (sprinkle the mix seasoning while stirring the pork, this will make the pork tasty and not smelly)
2. put the mushroom and the rest of ingredients (except the pasta). Saute until done, then set aside.
3. on the same skillet, heat up olive oil and scoop some of the sauteed pork and mushroom and mix it together with the pasta (when do this, it would be easier to use thongs or wooden chopsticks. It's faster and the pasta will easily well-mixed. If you don't know how to do it, watch those italian cooks in the restaurant cook the pasta, that should give you the idea hahaa...)
4. For garnish, can sprinkle the basil leave on top

Marsala Chicken - Italian

First time taste this dish at Buca De Beppo, Seattle and since then chicken has never been the same hahaha (exegeration? not really..) I compiled several recipes for this one... This recipe is to be tried for fun, you can always go back to Buca to savor the ultimate Marsala Chicken... (anybody know the better taste ones?)
Ingredients:
2 chicken breast, cut to modest cubes 5 x 5 cm drench in flour
2 cups of marsala wine
1 pack of button mushroom (more luxurious choice: portobello or porcini)
seasoning: pepper, salt (sweet taste is provided by marsala wine)
How to make:
1. pan fry chicken until 3/4 cooked, set aside
2. on the same pan, scrap the left over flour, add oil and wine and stir until it thickens, to make it more thicker add flour (around 1 pintch) that is already mixed with little bit of wine
3. put back chicken and add mushroom, cooked thoroughly
4. served

Healthy Chicken Soup

I have this, both plain and herbal version, since I can remember. The soup will be served on several occasions: when any family member got sick, any praying dates, any family member's birthday, or anytime my mom feels like it :p. Anyway, tot that you guys should try this one. It's good for your heart and soul hahaha....
Plain version:
Chicken meat (pieces, I prefer skinless drumstick or tighs) -- 1 or 2 packs, depends on how much you wanna have
1 ginger, thinly sliced
1 can of champignon mushroom, drenched
1 pinch of salt (just for flavour
water (can't tell you how much, depends on how thick/thin/tasty you like your soup)
How to make:
1. on the steam pot, put in all ingredients, bring to boil, leave it for about 30 min. Voilla
Herbal version:
Ingredients:
Chicken meat (pieces, I prefer skinless drumstick or tighs) -- 1 or 2 packs, depends on how much you wanna have
1 cup of dried mullberries (ki chi, dunno how to spell it)
1 cup of dried longan
0.5 cup of dried dates -- the more you put this, the sweeter the soup will taste
7 slices of ginseng root
4 slices of gan gao (can't describe it)
there's another ingridients that looks like sticks (ask chinese herbal store, they should know) -- 3 sticks should do
water
How to make: same as the plain one :)

Japanese Fried Rice ala St George

Yuni and Vero introduced me to St George, Seattle in 1998 and this was my first dish. It leads me and later, my brother too, to simple addiction and almost weekly ritual of dining in this resto for the next 2 years ... very boring, yes, but can't resist the temptation of enjoying simple food with great taste, even bear the strong cigarette smokes :p...
Ingredients:
2 cups of Japanese rice, already cooked
Tomato sauce to taste
1 tbsp of Worcestershire Sauce (indo: kecap Inggris)
1 tbsp of mirin
seasoning: pepper, sugar, salt
1 chicken breast, diced to small cubes
0.5 big onion, diced to small cubes
How to make:
Cook like usual fried rice and then top with omellette should do it...

Stir Fry Dou Miao Ala House of Nanking

Thanks to Feli, I tasted this very simple dish but very delicious at House of Nanking, San Francisco's China Town... My version my not be as spectacular as the restaurant's because the house kitchen's fire is different.
Ingridients:
1 pack of Dou Miao -- 1 pack should do for 1 portion (if you buy the bunch from Ranch 99, you might want to use only half)
3 tbsp of coarsely ground dried chili
3 tbsp of garlic
2 tbsp of mirin
3 tbsp of vegetable oil (may use lard to add more fat or calories :p)
seasoning: sugar and salt to taste
How to make:
1. Heat up oil to high and sautee garlic and chilli until fragrant
2. Put in dou miao and mirin, and stir fry until half-soft
3. Season it with sugar and salt to taste and stir until the seasoning blends well
4. Served :)

Steamed Salmon with Leeks Ala White Ginger

I tried the similar dish at White Ginger, Seattle, and wonder why this simple dish tasted so yummy. After trial and errors, here is my version of Steamed Salmon with Leeks...
Ingredients:
300 gr of salmon fillet, cut into rectangle pieces about 6x10 cm
1 leeks, cut about 6 cm pieces and sliced thinly (this dish use lots of leeks)
lots of ginger (around 50 gr), sliced thinly
sauce: 1 cup of light soya sauce, 1 cup of mirin, 2 cup of sugar, cooked while stiring until boiling, set aside
How to make:
1. Place salmon, ginger on the surrounding and top in a steam bowl, then steam until it's well-cooked, but not to dry
2. How to serve: take the ginger off and surround salmon with sauce and top with leeks to your taste, and see how simple dish become so yummy...

Crab Cakes

I got my inspiration from Tyler Florence's crabcake recipe in www.foodtv.com (a very good food channel and website). Although the crab meat is expensive, but should try once in a while to impress your loved ones (or may be future in-laws?) hehehe...
Ingredients:
400 gr of crab meat
300 gr of seasoned bread crumbs (I prefer italian or cajun seasoned)
1 green and yellow pepper, cut small cubes, may be sautee first if you dont want to wait
1 egg
seasoning: pepper, sugar, salt, additional cajun powder, red pepper powder
How to make:
1. In a mixing bowl, mix crab meat, green and yellow pepper, egg, bread crumbs and seasoning until well-mixed
2. Form patties with diameter of 5 cm, thickness can up to 2 cm
3. On the sautee pan, heat up olive oil and pan fried the patties until golden brown on both sides

Choco Ruhm Balls

A tribute to those ruhm lovers... It's easy to do when you have a CHOPPER, but a nightmare when you don't have it... mark my word for this :)
Ingredients:
1.5 to 2 packs of Marie Regal biscuits, crushed until smooth
5 tbsp of butter or margarine (I prefer white butter, but unless you're in Netherlands or Indo, it's very hard to get)
0.5 cup of icing sugar, strained for smoothness
3 tbsp of cocoa powder, strained
3 tbsp of powdered milk
ruhm to your taste (I can use up to half a bottle for this :) )
topping: icing sugar, cocoa powder, melted milk, dark or white chocolate (I use all for variety)
How to make:
1. in a mixing bowl, mix all ingredients, except for toppings, until smooth (not too sticky, not too tough)
2. form the mix into balls and line them up, chill for 10 min
3. for cocoa powder and icing sugar topping: roll the balls until all sides cover with cocoa powder or icing sugar
4. melt chocolate and place 1 tsp on top of the balls
5. chill the balls for at least 2 hours, then serve cold

Pepper Salted Squid ala Tian Hong

My masterpiece.... First time try the same dish in Portland's 'Tian Hong', a very yummy dish with the price tag of around $16.00 +++. Raw material is only $2.50 max (squid, garlic and jalapenno) if you use calamari, add $3.00.... Easy to do and cheap... the result is also very rewarding...
Ingredients:
1 packed of squid or calamari (in US, calamari is already sliced, for squid you have to clean the squids, skin them then slice)
flour mix: 3 cup of flour 5 tbsp of corn starch, lots of pepper, sugar and salt with ratio of 3:2:1 in order, mix all of them in a medium clean plastic bag
2 jalapenno sliced (I prefer jalapenno because it's still crunchy after you sautee, while usual green chili is not, but since jalapenno is very rare in Asian countries, substitute jalapenno with green chili)
3 tbsp of garlic
seasoning: pepper, sugar, salt to taste (if you like saltish food, you add more salt)
How to make:
1. throw the sliced squid into the flour mix's plastic bag and shake the bag until all squid covered with flour
2. deep-fry the squid until golden color in high heat, and set aside
3. in a stir-fry pan, heat up oil to high heat and sautee garlic and sliced jalapenno until fragrant
4. put in fried squid and add more seasonings to taste, then pan-fried the squid until the seasonings are equally covered, then voilla...

Seafood Porridge

A healthier version of what's served in restaurants (minus the MSG, and more ingridients)
Ingredients:
150 gr sliced fish (choose between white cod, dory, batang, and sea bass, don't use hallibut -- it gets tough and dry)
100 gr scallop (can use dried or fresh) -- I prefer dried because it's more fragrant, but the fresh ones taste smoother, so it depends on your preference
150 gr shrimp meat
100 gr crab meat (can use immitation)
*optional: 100 gr sliced squid -- I personally dont like it because it tastes like rubber if it's cooked too long
8 dried shitake, soak in hot water for min 2 hours, sliced
2 cups of rice
5 cups of water (use canned chicken stock for more taste)
seasoning: pepper, salt, soya sauce, mirin (to taste)
5 cm of ginger, sliced
3 tbsp of sesame oil
sliced green onion for garnishing
How to make:
1. heat the sesame oil in the porridge pan, sautee ginger until fragrant
2. put in rice and water and leave it for around 10 min (medium heat) or until it boils, then stirr until the porridge thicken (around 15-20 min)
3. put in the rest of ingridients and stirr until it boils again
4. served with green onion as garnish

Milky Nata De Coco

A great party idea... Easy dessert that will imprest your guests enough to make them ask around 'where did you get the idea?' --> From St George hehe...
Ingredients: (for 4-6 people)
1 small pint of your favorite vanilla ice cream (Hagen Daaz a bit too soft for this, suggest to try rougher ice cream)
1 small can of mixed fruit cocktail, drenched
1 packet of nata de coco, drenched
500 ml milk (whole milk or half and half , 2% fat and non fat milk are BANNED)
How to make:
1. Place 1 scoope of ice cream in the middle of small bowl
2. Place 2 tbsp of cocktail and nata de coco circling the ice cream
3. Also circle the milk around the ice cream (around 100-150 ml is enough)

Egg Fuu Young

I made egg fou yong through trial and error... until finally get the easier way to make it and taste good hehehe...
Ingredients:
4 eggs, break and beat until it nicely blended, set aside
2 carrots, shredded
1/2 cabbage, thinly shredded
200 gr minced pork (I preffer lean minced pork - less fat)
200 gr shrimp meat, chopped coarsely
1/2 onion, thinly shredded, chopped coarsely
* optional: 100 gr crab meat
seasoning: mirin, soy sauce, pepper, salt and sugar to taste
gravy ingredients:
* 100 gr frozen green peas
* corn starch -- 3 tbsp, mixed with 3 tbsp water
* 2.5 cup of water
* tomato ketchup, oyster sauce, sugar, salt to your taste
How to make:
1. Heat up oil in a frying pan and cook the onion until soft
2. Add the rest of ingredients start with the meat and cabbage then the carrot. Seasoned with the seasoning above and stir fry.
3. Scoope the stir fry veggie and meat (to your liking) into the beaten eggs and beat again
4. on the frying pan, heat up oil again and place the mix and cook like you are cooking pancakes
5. Gravy:
* thaw the grean peas, drenched and set aside
* on the sauce pan, heat up the water until it boils, then put all the seasoning (depends on your taste, if you want the gravy to be brownish, add more oyster sauce, if your want to be more reddish, add more ketchup) and stir well until the second boil
* add the corn starch mix until it thickens and boils again, then set aside
6. Place the fou yong in the middle of the plate, stack them up like pancakes, cut into 4 section, and layer with the gravy, then garnish with parsley

Pilaf Doria

First time I had this dish was at St George, Seattle (My fave resto, tried almost all the main dishes, appetizers and desserts).... Anyway, here's my version of pilaf doria (less fattening hehehe)
Ingredients:
1 chicken breast -- sliced to small cube
1/2 green, 1/2 red and 1/2 yellow pepper -- sliced to small cube
1/2 onion -- sliced to small cube
1 packet of shredded mix mozarella and parmezan cheese
3 bowl of rice (preferable Japanese rice)
seasoning: soy sauce, mirin, pepper, sugar, salt to your taste
How to make:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F
2. In a fry pan, heat up olive oil to hot
3. Stir fry chicken, green and yellow pepper until half done
4. Put rice and seasoning and stir fry until fragrant and the rice turn color (looks more like making fried rice huh? :) )
5. Brush 2 baking bowl (diameter of 10 - 12 cm) with olive oil or butter, divide the cooked rice into 2 and place it on the bowls. Layer the rice with the mixed cheese and baked in the oven until the cheese melt and turn to golden.

Easy Breezy Chicken Rice

If you don't want to waste time but want to taste something good, this recipe is for you :)
Ingridients:
2 cup of rice
3 cup of canned chicken stock
1 tbsp minced ginger (used bottle, no point of self torture)
1 tbsp minced garlic (quote the same remarks)
2 tbsp sesame oil
3 tbsp soy sauce (to your taste)
How to make:
1. In your rice cooker,place all the ingridients
2. Turn on your rice cooker, stir a bit for 5 min
3. Close your cooker and wait until it's done --> ready to eat

Fried Fish with Lemon Sauce

This is Feli's fave food when we were housemate in SF hehehe...
Ingridients:
1 fish fillet (you can use white cod, dory, or seabass if you want to splurge hehe) -- cut to 3x3 cm pieces
flour mix -- 1.5 cup of flour, 0.5 cup of corn starch, 3 tbsp of sugar, 2 tbsp of pepper, 1 tbsp of salt --> mix together
for sauce:
1 lemon -- scrape and chop the skin for more tangy taste use the juice for sauce
3 tbsp of honey
1 handful of chopped parsley ( I prefer the fresh one), also can be used for garnish
3 tbsp of mirin or sake (white wine eg chardoney can do the trick too)
How to make:
1. drench the cutted-fish into he flour mix and stir fry or deep fry until they are turn golden
2. for sauce, mix all sauce ingridients in the sauce pan and stir until it boils, add parsley
3. place the fish on the plate and use the sauce as dipping sauce or place them together

Japanese Mushroom Rice

Hello, here is my version of mushroom rice. I tried yesterday, yummy at the first try, so have to share this hehehe....
Ingridients:
1 packet Shitake mushroom (thinly slice)
1 packet Maitake mushroom (cut small)
1 packet white button mushroom (thinly slice)
You can also add your favorite mushroom eg. enoki, abalone mushroom (according to what's available in the supermarket off course). Plus for more flavour, you can add bamboo shoots and some chicken wouldn't hurt also.
4 to 5 tbsp soy sauce (or to your taste)
4 tbsp sesame oil (as long as thinly cover your pan)
salt, pepper, sugar to your taste
2 tbsp mirin (japanese cooking wine, can use sake also)
2 cup of Japanese rice , washed
2.5 cup of chicken stock (I use canned chicken stock --> unless you want to torture yourself boiling the real chicken) --> ratio 1 cup of rice : 1.25 cup of stock
How to cook:
1. heat up sesame oil on the pan and sautee all the mushrooms until half-cooked
2. add mirin and seasonings, then sautee until cooked thoroughly
3. on the rice cooker, place the rice and the chicken stock, then add the sauteed mushroom on the top, stir a bit, and on the rice cooker
4. the rice cooker tick off --> voilla there's your mushroom rice

Minterballen

Minterballen
Minterballen .. the cool name for ragout ball :). I thought it's difficult to make until i made it myself. Tried it for the first time last weekend, result in triumph :). Big smile here hehehe.... So here we go:
Ingredients:
2 cups of flour
3 cups of milk (I used the hi-lo cal milk hehe...)
1 onion, diced small
250 gr minced chicken
1 carrot, shredded
1 bunch of cilantro or 1/2 bunch of chinese parsley, finely chopped
Seasoning: salt, pepper, sugar, nutmeg
200 gr bread flour (if you like the mix one, can also use that one)
3 eggs, whip until a bit soft
How to make:
1. sauté onion until soft, then put chicken and sauté until half-well. After that, put carrot and cilantro, sauté until a bit dry and soft and add seasoning
2. pour in milk and then the flour, start stirring until it turn a mix that can be shaped into small balls, if it's too still too tough, add more milk, too soft, add more flour
3. after it's then set aside and let it cool for about 20 min
4. start making small balls from the mix then roll it to bread flour - egg - bread flour. Repeat the process
5. fry it on medium high until golden colour
* for 30 - 40 balls (I only manage to make around 35)
** parley and carrot can be substituted with frozen veggie (the small dice carrot, beans and corn)

Steamed Egg over Chicken

Another home cooking recipe. It’s easy and healthy, plus definitely fill your stomach when eaten with rice.

Ingredients:
200-250 gr of minced chicken
4-5 eggs, beaten
1.5 tbsp corn flour
Seasoning: sugar, salt, pepper sesame oil

How to:
beat the eggs until light (not frothy) add about 3 tbsp of water and season it with sugar, salt, pepper and sesame oil to your taste
combine chicken in a bowl (the one that fit your steamer – must be made from porcelain) with corn flour, sugar, salt and pepper.
on top of the chicken, pour in the eggs
steam for about 25 min (constantly check until the egg is hardened enough)

Tips:
if you overcook it, the egg will look like a fluffy dry sponge and have a slight grayish color (due to the sesame oil).
corn flour can be omitted because I only use it to tenderize the chicken and keep the chicken broth in the meat
If you don’t add water on the egg, the egg will be very hard and don’t have the creamy light texture
option to those who don’t have steamer, you can micro it (but I never try it before) with low heat (those option to thaw meat) and wrap the bowl with plastic wrap (egg could explode when micro)