Seafood Porridge (Lala, Dried Oyster and Peanut)

When I was small, porridge was something that I dislike. I always had the impression that porridge is a 'sick people meal' which literally means I will only have them when I am not feeling well. I guess that I was so wrong with this kind of of perception. We can actually have a lot of different varieties with porridge -not just necessary to be a plain white porridge. So I decided to have a more 'fanciful' porridge. With lots of goodies places inside to make the porridge - Lala, dried oyster and peanuts.

Ingredients

Porridge:
1 1/2 cup rice
10-12 cups of water
100g raw peanuts
50g dried oyster
2 tbsp chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
sesame oil to taste

Braised Lala in Soup
150g Lala
1 tsp garlic, chopped
1 thumb sized, sliced
1 tsp chicken stock
1 tsp Shaoxing wine
1 cup water
dash of sesame oil
pepper to taste

Methods

1. To prepare porridge: Bring water to boil. Pour in rice, oysters and peanuts and stir well. Cook under medium heat and stir continously until water boil again.
2. Lower heat and simmer for 1 hour or till peanuts are tender. Keep stirring occasionally to prevent rice from sticking at the bottom. Add seasoning to taste.
3. To prepare lala: Soak lala in salty water, clean and drain well.
4. Heat up wok with 1 tbsp sesame oil. Stir fry chopped garlic and ginger.
5. Add in Lala and seasoning. Stir well and cover for 3 minutes. Dish up and serve with porridge and salted eggs.

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Pumpkin with Salted Egg Yolk

Pumpkin, pumpkin and pumpkin. It's pumpkin again. Finally I had managed to cook all the pumpkin left in my fridge. Phew! This dish is very savoury due to the presence of dried shrimps and salted egg yolk and can be used as a good 'companion' when eating porridge. This dish was cooked and used as one of the 'companion' dishes for our porridge meal over the weekend.

Ingredients

200g pumpkin, sliced

2 salted egg yolk, steamed

3 tbsp dried shrimp, soaked

2 stalk spring onion (optional)

1 red chilli (optional)

Seasoning

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp Shaoxing wine

50ml water

Methods

1. Place salted egg yolk in plate. Add wine and steamed for 8 minutes. Mashed them and set aside.
2. Heat up wok, stir-fry shrimp and spring onion till fragrant. Add in pumpkin and continue to stir-fry till soft.
3. Add in salted egg yolk and seasoning. Simmer awhile till well mixed.
4. Serve hot.
   

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Lotus, Pak Hup and Red Bean Creme

As you already know that I am a red bean lover, I'll try out any recipes that called for red beans. This is another type of delicious dessert we can make from them. I guessed this type of creme dessert is not really what I fancy due to the overly thickness texture of the red bean. Therefore, me and Hubby ended up putting some ice to dilute them after having our first bowl with the thick texture form.

Can you see how thick the red bean texture was?

Ingredients

100g white lotus, soaked

100g pak hup, soaked for 3 hours

600g red beans, soaked overnight

12 cups water

2 pcs preserved mandarin peels

400g rock sugar

To steam pak hup:

1/2 cup water

3 tbsp sugar

Thickening

100g rice flour, mixed with 1 cup water

*extra amount of water can be added to reach the thickness you desired

Methods

1. Boil white lotus with 1 cup water until soft and dry.
2. Steam pak hup with water and sugar for 30 minutes.
3. Boil red beans until very soft, liquidize and strain. (Similar to paste form)
4. Place lotus, pak hup, red bean paste, rock sugar, mandarin peels into a pot. Add rice flour water, stir continuously and cook until thickened. If it is too thick, more water can be added.
5. Serve hot.
   

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Chinese Style Steamed Fish

This is my first time steaming and preparing a whole fish. If u realised from all my posts, I never really prepare any fish dishes. I always have the phobia of trying out fish dishes because I don't really know how to clean and cut them properly but since nowadays the fish mongers normally will clean the fish as when we buy them, it definitely makes my life easier. So now the tricky part for me is to make sure I clean the fish properly. So for our dinner tonight, we have hot steaming fish. ^Burp^

Ingredients

1 Tilapia fish, (any type of fish)

3 tbsp garlic, chopped

1 shallot, chopped

3 stalks spring onion, chopped

3 stalks Chinese parsley, chopped

2 thumb sized ginger, sliced

3 tbsp oyster sauce

1/4 tsp salt

3 tbsp sesame oil

75ml water

Methods

1. Heat up sesame oil. Saute chopped garlic, ginger and shallots until fragrant. Add in spring onion, Chinese parsley, oyster sauce and salt. Add water and stir well. Dish up and set aside.
2. Cleaned the fish. Sprinkle a bit of salt on the fish. Arrange on steaming tray. Steam fish at high heat for approximately 10 minutes.
3. Remove the fish and pour away the water.
4. Pour the parsley and spring onion sauce on the fish. Steam at high heat again for approximately 10 minutes or until cooked. Remove and serve hot.

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Peanut Pancake Roll

I always love peanuts since small. Peanut butter, braised peanuts, roasted peanuts - you named it, I loved them. So when I saw this particular recipes, I am very tempted to give it a try. The preparation was pretty simple but making the pancake needs some skills. Some of the pancake I made using my wok failed coz I didn't flip the pancake fast enough. So ended up some of the pancakes having some holes here and there. Nevertheless, they still taste good with the nice aromatic peanut flavour. Yumz....

Ingredients

Filling:

200g peanuts

100g caster sugar

1 tbsp oil

Pancake:

180g plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

400ml water

1 tbsp oil

Methods

1. Remove peanuts' skin and pound coarsely. Add in caster sugar, oil and mix well.
2. Fry peanuts in wok until golden brown and aromatic.
3. Put all pancake ingredients into a mixing bowl. Mix into smooth batter and drain. Rest for 10 minutes.
4. Heat up a little oil in a non stick wok, pour in some batter and swirl into a thin, round shape pancake. Use the same method to finish all the batter.
5. Put some peanut filling onto pancake and roll up like spring roll. Serve.

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Pumpkin Ondeh-Ondeh

Ondeh-ondeh is one of the traditional 'kuih' available in Malaysia. I remembered when I was young, there's a nearby 'pasar' around my parents' shop. Since we were in the east coast region where majority of the population in the area were Malays, there were a lot of different varieties of 'kuih-muih' available. One of the the 'kuih-muih' that we always eat was Ondeh-ondeh. Back then, the Ondeh-ondeh we normally saw was green in colour infused with pandan flavour. So for the one that I made today was slightly different where it was made from pumpkin which gives out an orangey colour Ondeh-ondeh.

Ingredients

300g grated coconut

1/2 tsp salt

30g tapioca flour

200ml water

400g steamed mashed pumpkin

350g glutinous rice flour

200g gula Melaka, chopped

Methods

1. Mix 1/2 tsp salt with grated coconut and steam for 5 minutes. Let it cool and set aside.
2. Mix tapioca flour and water together. Cook over medium heat until it becomes thick paste.
3. Remove from heat and let it cool in a mixing bowl.
4. Add in mashed steamed pumpkin, glutinous rice flour and salt. Knead to form soft dough.
5. Roll each one into a 20g ball.
6. Bring some water to boil in a pot.
7. Flatten the dough ball and put in a bit of gula Melaka in the centre.
8. Pinch to seal and then roll again into a ball shape. Repeat the steps till the dough finish.
9. Drop balls into boiling water until they float to the surface. This will take around 2 minutes.
10. Remove the balls from water when they are floating. Drained and transfer cooked balls to the steamed grated coconut.
11. Roll each ball in the grated coconut.
12. Serve warm or cooled.

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Mummy's Home Cooked Food

Every time when I were back home, Mummy always dish up yummylicious food for me. So for our lunch today, we have a few yummy home cooked food. According to Hubby, he realised that my Mummy always cooked curry whenever we were back and I always answered him back, 'Of coz la, Mummy knows I love curry mar..' (speaking with a cheeky smile) There's another must have on the dining table most of time when I am around but this time it was missing. So guys, wanna guess what is the 'must have' dish? Hopefully Mummy will make it when I go back the next trip so that I can snap the picture of it.

So for our lunch today, we have a few yummy home cooked food. One of them is using the leftover pork trotter vinegar gravy that I had cooked. Mummy added pork belly into the gravy and VOILA!; we had another round of sourish, spicy and sweet pork belly vinegar. Since I had just mentioned curry was my favourite, we had wild boar curry. According to Mummy, the wild boar meat was given by our neighbour every time he came back for hunting. Of course Mummy tried to boiled soup for us too - pig intestine soup. It's not actually my 'cup of soup' coz I don't eat internal organs. Nevertheless, the soup is good.

With so many meaty dishes, we need to strike a balance too. We had simple stir-fry vegetables and not forgotten we had dessert too, but too bad I was too engrossed in eating them that I forgot to snap a picture of it. It's bird nest!! Yum yum.. It feels so good to be back at parents' place. I will have lots of good and yummy food and most importantly it's Mummy's home cooked food. I MISS HOME now... Sob sob.... Hope to go back again soon.. :)

Pig Intestine Soup

Wild Boar Curry

Pork Belly Vinegar

Simple Stir-fry Vege

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Happy Father's Day

Today is a special day because today is Father's Day. I would love to take this opportunity to wish HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all the Daddy in the world. I have a special poem dedicated to all the Daddy out there especially to my beloved Daddy.

Did I ever say thanks

for all the toys you mended,

games we played,

outings to the park,

and the way you

always tried to cheer

me when I was down?

Did I ever say thanks for

the sacrifices you made

so I could be involved

in so many enriching

activities?

Did I ever say thanks for

working so hard

to provide for our family?

Did I ever say thanks

for having such faith in me

and always being there

when I needed you?

Most of all,

Did I ever say thanks for caring?

DAD, I LOVE YOU

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Muhibah Seafood Restaurant

Hubby and I were back to my hometown for Father's Day celebration. I didn't bake any cake for this occasion coz Daddy is not really a cake lover. Therefore, I had brought back some Chinese dishes instead; refer my earlier post 1 and 2. Since I started to learn how to cook, Daddy, Mummy and Sis never really had the opportunity to sample the food I cooked. So, I am hoping that I can dish up different stuffs every time when I were back home.

For this year Father's Day, we went for a simple dinner in a seafood restaurant in Padang Lalang area. Muhibah Seafood Restaurant is famous for their shark's meat dishes. We were among the first few customers who had arrived at the place since tonight will be a 'hot' night where lots of family going out for 'makan' celebration.

When I was small, I never really know the meaning of Father's or Mother's Day but as the years passed by and the older I am, I realised that these days are extremely meaningful for all the unconditional love and care they had showered us from the day we were born. Of course, we shall treat not just today but everyday as Father's and Mother's Day to show our gratitude and appreciation to them.

Message to my parents :

I LOVE YOU DADDY AND MUMMY!

HOPE YOU GUYS STAY HEALTHY AND HAPPY ALWAYS!

My beloved Daddy and Mummy

Me and family - picture taken by Hubby

Wondering what to order? Look thru the board to decide...

Feeling hungry? Eat nuts first..

Salted Baked Chicken

'Four Heavenly Kings' aka Stir-fry Four Types of Beans

Stir-Fry Shark's Meat - one of their signature dish

Thai Style Beancurd

Crispy Squid with Salted Eggs

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Vinegar Pork Trotter

This is definitely one of my favourite dish. Normally this dish is cooked during confinement period. It was said that black vinegar are able to purify blood, old ginger to get rid of wind and brown sugar drives out dampness. Pigs' trotters were said to contain collagen which is beneficial for strengthening joints and lumbar while sesame oil were believed to be able to promote blood circulation and eggs was good for nourishing body.

For those who had tasted it before will either fall in love with it or 'turn off' by their sourish taste. For me, of coz I love the sweet, sourish and spicy taste of them. Therefore, who says this goodie can be taken only for confinement mommy? For vinegar pork trotter's lover, is doesn't matter at all. We can just have them irregardless confinement or not; male or female.

Stir fry ginger with sesame oil till brown and fragrant

Add in blanched trotter pieces and stir fry till brown

Set the trotter pieces aside

Transfer stir fry ginger with sesame oil in a big pot and add in vinegar and brown sugar

All set and ready to be serve

Ingredients

1 kg pig's trotter, chopped into big pieces

1 kg old ginger, washed and smashed with skin on
8 hard boiled eggs
5 tbsp sesame oil
600 ml black vinegar
260 g brown sugar
1000 ml water

Methods

1. Blanch trotter in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes. Drained.
2. Heat sesame oil in a wok and fry ginger until brown and fragrant.
3. Place trotter in the wok and brown the pieces slightly. Set aside.
4. Transfer ginger, sesame oil into a big pot. Pour in vinegar and brown sugar.
5. Bring to boil and gradually add water. Simmer for 30 minutes and add in the trotter pieces.
6. Continue to simmer for an hour or so until trotter pieces are soft.
7. Add in hard boiled eggs around 1/2 hour before serving and served with hot steamed rice.

Note: You can add in hard boiled eggs earlier if you prefer them to be harder.

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Steamed Pumpkin Cake

Ingredients

1/2 cloves of garlic, chopped

6 shallots, chopped

60g dried prawns, soaked and chopped

2 pairs chinese sausages, diced

200g minced meat with 6 tbsp oil

600g pumpkin, shredded

2 tbsp chicken stock granules

Batter

300g rice flour

60g tapioca flour

1000ml water

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Methods

1. Heat up oil, saute chopped garlic and shallots until fragrant.
2. Add in dried prawns and stir-fry until fragrant.
3. Add in minced meat, chinese sausages and stir-fry until fragrant.
4. Mix in pumpkin, chicken stock granules, batter and stir until thick.
5. Dish onto 9 inch square tray and steam for 45 minutes with high heat until cooked.
6. Remove, leave to cool and cut into serving pieces. Garnish with spring onions.

Note: It can be fried with little oil until golden brown on both sides before serving.

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Mee Suah (Longevity Noodles)

Mee Suah or Longevity Noodles is normally served during birthday celebrations. For Chinese, Mee Suah (面线) simply means long noodle thread and it signifies long life which explains why it was normally served during birthdays. Mee Suah is whitish in colour and sold in bundles. Mee Suah is good to be used to prepare soup noodle.

Mee Suah before being cooked

Serve it while it's hot and don't let the noodles soaked in the soup too long coz Mee Suah tends to be soft after awhile

Ingredients

2 bundles Mee Suah

100g minced pork

2 eggs

handful anchovies

handful tong choy

handful wolfberries (kei zhi)

siew bak choy

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp sesame oil

2 tbsp tapioca flour

Methods

1. Marinate minced pork with salt, soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil.
2. Toss minced pork with tapioca flour and make it into small ball shape.
3. Boil tong choy, anchovies and wolfberries and water in a pot.
4. Add in meatballs and salt to taste.
5. Break eggs into soup but don't stir. Add in Siew Bak Choy.
6. In a separate pot, blanch Mee Suah for 1-2 minutes. Drain well and set aside.
7. Add in soup into Mee Suah. Add in a dash of sesame oil.
8. Serve hot.

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Red Bean Rice Pudding (Put Chai Ko)

Rice Pudding (Put Chai Ko) was always my favourite during my pasar malam visits. Put Chai Ko is a Hongkie snack. The pudding cake is palm size and is sweet in taste. It is soft, but can hold its molded shape outside of a bowl or small bowl. The cake is made from different forms of steamed sugar and select ingredients. The one I had made this time will be red bean flavoured coz I always love red beans. Anything about red beans, I just love it!

Can you see how much red beans on the Put Chai Ko.. Yum...

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Rice Burger

Rice burger was something that attracts my interest when I was browsing the Internet few weeks ago. It still looks like burger with only one difference which is instead of the normal buns used, it was substitute with 'buns' made of rice or rice patties. The concept of making the rice patties are similar to preparing onigiri.

Placed cooked rice on to the mould. I had used Japanese rice since they tends to be sticky after being cooked.

Add in any type of filling that you prefer in the middle. I had used salmon furikare and scoop in cooked rice again on top. Pressed hard to form rice patties.

The end result - rice patties.

Brush a bit of soy sauce on the rice patties and pan-fry/grill them.

My very first Rice Burger.

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Longan, Ginkgo and Snow Fungus Tong Sui

Due to the hazy and hot weather nowadays, it will be good to cook something that will helps to soothe our lungs and improve our general well being. This tong sui (糖水) consists of longan, snow fungus, ginkgo nuts and red dates. This few ingredients are widely used by Chinese for soups, desserts and even cooking.

Longan was known to invigorate the heart and spleen, nourish the blood and have a calming effect on the nervous system. It was also used as a remedy for stomachache, insomnia, amnesia, and dropsy. While white fungus said to be effective in nourishing the lungs, healing dry cough and clearing heat in the lungs. Those who have weak lungs catch cold easily. Eating stewed white fungus with rock sugar and red dates helps strengthen the respiratory system and thus, helps prevent cold.

Whereas, ginkgo was said to be one of the most effective medicinal herbs that are used in the treatment of memory loss. One of the most important benefits of ginkgo is the fact that it enhances the blood flow to the brain. As a matter of fact, it improves the circulation of the blood throughout the entire body. Other benefits of ginkgo biloba include neutralizing the free radicals which are substances that contributes in the development of heart diseases and cancer.

The other ingredients in this tong sui, red dates was also believed to have medicinal benefits. Red dates is sweet and warming, often used in enhancing and harmonizing the effects of herbs. Dates is used by Chinese to invigorate the spleen and stomach and is indicated for those with poor appetite, fatigue and loose stools. Chinese date also nourishes the blood and calms the mind.

So with so many good benefits mentioned above, this tong sui is definitely worth to try and with just simple preparations, we can actually have it in the comfort of our own home.

*SLURP SLURP*

Ingredients

100g dried longan, washed

100g ginkgo, cracked, skin peeled, removed the inner stuffs

50g snow fungus, washed and soaked till soft

18 dried red dates

rock sugar to taste

1750ml water

Methods

1. Bring water to boil.
2. Add the dried longan, red dates, ginkgo nuts, and snow fungus.
3. Boil in low heat for 30-45 minutes in slow cooker.
4. Cook until the water turns brown in color.
5. Add rock sugar to taste.
6. Serve warm or cold with ice.

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Steamed Pear with Honey

Cut the top off and set aside

Remove the core, placed 2 red dates and honey in the pear

After steaming, the colour of the pear changes. I think I need to brush them with lemon juice to prevent discolouration

Ingredients

2 pears
4 dates
4 tsp honey

Methods

1. Cut the top off the pears. They will act as the lid. Remove the core.
2. Spoon 2 tsp honey on each pear and 2 dates each.
3. Place the lid back. (Lemon juice to be used for brushing if you're using)
4. Place pears on plate and steam for 30 minutes or earlier when they are tenders.
5. Serve warm.

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Spare Ribs with Peanuts and Papaya Soup

Before we leave from Ipoh during the weekend, mother in-law gave us a papaya to bring home. Beside taking it as fruits, what are the other methods of using up the fruit? As an ingredients for soup! Papaya will bring extra sweetness in the soup since it is already sweet eaten by itself. Therefore, with the red dates and papaya as part of the ingredients in this soup, it taste really sweet. Nice!

Ingredients

450g papaya, cut into huge chunks
250g pork spare ribs
200g peanuts
8 red dates
1/4 tangerine peel
salt to taste



Methods

1. Wash the peanuts.
2. Peel and pit the papaya. Cut into huge chunks.
3. Wash spare ribs. Scald and rinse well.
4. Core red dates. Soak and clean dried tangerine peels.
5. Bring suitable amount of water to slow cooker. Put in peanuts, spare ribs and the rest of the ingredients.
6. Cooked overnight to bring out the flavour of the soup.

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Cheese Baked Rice with Pork Chops

I had first tasted Cheese Baked Rice in a Hong Kong franchise restaurant in town. I fell in love with this dish after my first taste of it. It was a genius combination fluffy rice topped with tomato sauces and chewy cheesy cheese. Marvelous! I had decided to prepare this for our 2nd year anniversary of our ROM. Wonder how cheese baked rice was prepare? Look at the pictures below...

Rice was placed on the dim sum basket earlier and topped with pork chops and the rest of the ingredients (capsicums, corns, sausages and tomatoes). Pour sauces on top.

Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and bake in oven

End result- Chewy Cheesy Baked Rice

Ingredients

2 cups of cooked rice

4 pork loin chops

1 onion, chopped

3 tbsp garlic, chopped

2 tomatoes, diced

1 red capsicum, sliced

1 green capsicum, sliced

3 sausages, sliced

1/2 cup of corns

mozzarella cheese

Marinade

1 egg

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/4 tsp pepper

1 tbsp corn flour

2 tbsp water

Sauce

4 tbsp tomato sauce

2 tbsp chilli sauce

2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp oyster sauce

1 cup water

adequate corn flour solution

Methods

1. Pound with the back of knife until tender. Mix pork loin chops with marinade and marinate for 30 minutes.
2. Heat up oil, put in pork loin chops and pan-fry until golden brown. Dish up and drain.
3. Heat up 2 tbsp oil, saute onion and garlic until fragrant. Pour in the remaining ingredients and sauce. Stir well.
4. Bring to boil and simmer for few minutes. Thicken with corn flour solution.
5. Assemble the cooked rice on the bottom, followed by the pork chops, vegetables, sausages and sauce. At last sprinkle with cheese.
6. Bake in oven for 15-20 minutes at 200 Celsius.
   

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