One of my mother’s fried chicken that I fond of is this fried sweet soy chicken. She never stir fried them with the chilli though, I am kind of complementing the recipe with something better. YES chilli, I love them so much and can’t get enough of them.
My suggestions before you start to cook this dish are:
- When you marinate the chicken, make sure all the pieces is coated evenly with the marinade mixture. Do not put too much sweet soy sauce, just enough to cover. Otherwise, when you deep fried them, they will be darken and bitter on the outside (because the sweetness in the soy sauce make them to burn quickly) and under cook on the inside.
- Use medium heat to deep fried them, so they don’t get burn to quickly on the outside.
- When you want to stir fried the chilli, use generous amount of oil to start with. What I meant is heaps of oil, where the oil is covering the chilli mixture.
- I found that everytime I bought chillies, they always have different level of heat, so always remember to adjust the sweetness, saltiness, and sourness to taste.
I went to shop on Tuesday morning to buy some ready made bottled custard, just in case mine wasn’t turned out as I expected. I was intended to make choux pastry (also known as Kue Sus in Indonesia) for my boy afternoon tea gathering in his kindy. Having no experience in making choux pastry before plus I was kind of in a hurry since the party was at 2 PM and it was 11 AM already, I messed up the whole two batches of choux pastry. The mixture was just too runny. I tried to rescue them by adding extra plain flour, but still I had no luck. I tried to bake them anyway, and they were flat like a pancake. Later I discovered, I added the eggs too soon to the hot mixture. Gosh what an effort, went to the supermarket for bottled custard which I didn’t use anyway.
I started to panic since I haven’t really think of plan B. I started surfing the web and was thinking that cupcake would be a brilliant idea since it was easy to make and I had a very small little tiny chance of getting failed. So, there you go, I decided to make rainbow cupcakes which are just perfect for kids.
That was my first gathering at my toddler’s kindy and I had no idea what the kindy expects mums to bring and what other mums usually bring to this kind of gathering. Little that I know of, other mums just brought ready packed chips, grapes, fruits, crackers, ready packed cakes from grocery stores (no offense to other mums, maybe I just love getting my kitchen busy and steamy). I realized that all my panicking was for nothing. Anyway, if there is another similar gathering, I will still doing the same thing, making a home-made stuff.
When I was a teenager and living with my grandmother, I could tasted dishes complimented with petai at least once a week. My grandmother could cook them in different varieties of dishes and they were all absolutely delicious and addictive. They could be added to curry, stir fried, deep fried, steamed, braised and fried chilli. But my absolute favourite is the young petais which are still in their pods sliced very thinly, then deep fried until crunchy. They then stir fried with sambal chilli and deep fried ikan teri (also known as ikan bilis or deep fried anchovies).
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find fresh petai in Australia, at least not that I know of. All I could get is frozen petai or petai in can. I usually buy the frozen one, however when they are defrosted, they become soggy and you couldn’t really achieve how the petai should be taste like in a dish, if you know what I mean. My aunt actually suggested me to use the can one instead of the frozen one because she said they are crunchier and taste fresher. Well next time I’ll definitely give a can one a go.
I believe not everybody will love petai because of its distinct smell, and if your toilet could complain, it will reject you from doing your things there. The smell will remains for quite sometimes in the bathroom. To prevent you from curiosity, have a go with cooking something different for your dinner tonight, then you will understand what I meant.
Sate Padang is originated from West Sumatra. The meat used to make the satay are taken from cow and buffalo, that includes some of the edible organs (not too sure what they are though) and possibly a non edible one (don’t wanna know what they are). The different between this particular satay and any other satay is that the meat and internal organs are marinated and boiled until tender and well done, then they are stuck in the bamboo skewer (traditionally they used the midrib of the coconut leaf). The satay then grilled on the charcoal and serve on top of banana leaves with thickened gravy sauce made from the stock of the marinated herb. They are best served with rice cake (known as ketupat) and topped off with fried shallot.
This is actually the first time I made this dish. I called my grandma from Indonesia to dig up some information since she was originated from Padang. I am not sure about other people’s grandmother. When my grandma explains about how to cook a dish, she never give me any measurement on how much each ingredients should be. So I always have to rely on my memory on how the dish should taste like. I still regret I didn’t really put so much of an interest while she was cooking before. Anyway, I didn’t want to fail as my husband also had the same craving as I was. I surfed the net and found some useful information.
According to my first effort on cooking this dish, I conclude that:
- Put little bit of salt when marinating and cooking the meat, as I didn’t. The meat flavours became bland if eaten by itself, well the gravy sure helps the flavour, but I think it is better to marinate and cook with the salt.
- Do not overcook the meat, because it is really hard to thin the meat and skewered them into the sticks as they tend to break. I ended up with a quite thick chunk of meat about 4 mm thick, where it supposed to be half the thickness.
- I found mine was not dry enough like the one sold in my hometown. But after a while, I realized that in my hometown, they sell this kind of satay using a cart, which they could push around the neighborhood and town. The skewered satay sticks are not wrapped in the cling wrap (they probably haven’t realized that there is this thing invented called cling wrap) or stored in a container. They are simply placed in an open shelf inside the cart(don’t even get me started about the hygienic issues), and that is probably the reason why the meat in the skewers dry up as they circle the town.
- Always topped of your Sate Padang with fried shallot. This is a must have as it could enhance the flavour.
After lots of days of having fried stuff, I guessed this was the time we had to have a proper dinner. I mean something with lots and lots of greens in it and something that every members of the family would like to eat with any force what so ever. So, there was this meal, lots of greens with a secret oyster sauce that would please every member of the household, including the little one. You could use almost any combination of greens available in your fridge. Just remember not to cook the vegetables too long, so they could stay crunchy.
I lost count on how many times I bake this cake. I made them for Christmas, Chinese New Year, my toddler’s playgroup gathering, birthday and sometimes for no reason at all. What a great recipe, easy to work with, and I believe people with no baking experience could do it as well.
I found this recipe nearly three years ago while surfing the net. I was trying to find an easy and simple birthday cake to bake for my nephew who were celebrating his second birthday in Sydney. Since then, I always use this recipe for any occasions where I have no time at all to make something special, and it was always a hit in every occasions.
I usually just sprinkle some hundreds of thousands on top of the cake, but this time I tried something different. I stuck some chocolate sticks along the sides of the cake. I suggest you not to follow my lead on this decoration. The reason is that the chocolate sticks became soggy. Until now, I haven’t got any solution on how to get the chocolate sticks to stay crisp, and I will be happy to listen to any suggestions.
Still kind of sleepy, need more hibernation (thank you Sesame Street for the word suggestion) moment ZZzzzzz… This is the kind of meal I cook for brunch on Saturday. Quick and easy to cook, no hassle what so ever and could fill up hungry tummy. The most important thing is my little one absolutely loves them so no need to cook another meal. Try this out for your lazy cook day.
A little information about Kwetiau Goreng for those of you who have no clue about them. Kwetiau Goreng is also known as Cha Kwetiau or Fried Rice Noodles. It is a common dish in most Asian household, especially Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean. You definitely could find it in Asian food court and hawker stalls.
If I have an option, I prefer Korean food to Chinese. I could have Korean everyday and I don’t mind at all. No offense to Chinese as I am Chinese myself, but they taste healthier and not as greasy. One of a must dish that I usually have in Korean restaurant is Jap Chae, because my toddler loves noodle and this is the only thing that he want to eat at Korean restaurant. So, you see I really don’t have any choice to not ordering this dish.
Jap Chae is a translucent glass noodle made from sweet potato starch. It is stir fried with various vegetables (such as carrot, spinach, onion and mushroom) and sesame oil. It could be combined with beef or seafood, flavoured with soy sauce and sweetened with some sugar. It also could be topped with shredded egg omelet, sesame seeds and spring onions. They taste very light and healthy.
This is my second attempt on cooking Jap Chae. It is a simple dish to cook for a quick healthy meal, but I couldn’t say my first attempt on cooking this dish is a big success. I used an average quality of sesame oil, as a result I need heaps of sesame oil to get the smell of sesame. I kept adding more oil as a result it tasted very greasy. It was okay when it was hot, but at that time we were going out of town and it was autumn. I packed some of them in a lunch box. Goodness me, it was pretty disgusting as we could see the cold gelatin of oil around the noodle. We ended up having a ready pack cheap sausage rolls and hot dog.
For this second attempt, I pretty much searched the whole aisle of oil shelf to make sure I get the best quality sesame oil. To my surprise there is a black sesame oil that I never aware of. I thought they are the same just different quality. This black sesame oil has a very strong intense smell of sesame and it is just perfect for my Jap Chae.
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I absolutely love this sweet dish and can’t simply get enough of them. If I am not mistaken, the first time I tried them in Singapore Chinatown. They tasted absolutely fantastic. I truly am cannot describe how much I love this dish. The difference between the Tang Yuan in Singapore Chinatown and The one I was making is the soup. I had mine with peanut soy bean milk back then. Anyway, I really suggest you try to make this fabulous dessert. It is easy really easy to make too. If you would like the recipe click here
Note
- I use ground black sesame to avoid all the hassle. You could find them in most of Chinese or Asian groceries stores.
- I decrease the amount of sugar and butter too. you could adjust them to suit your preferences.
Preparation time (duration): 30
Culinary tradition: Chinese
Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!
Water spinach dish is considered a very cheap and affordable vegetables to eat in Southeast Asia. They are cheap because they are easy to grow and need almost no care at all to plant. They have a rapid growth without any fertilizing at all. This dish not only popular in Indonesia, but also in Chinese, Malaysia, Thailand and some other Southeast Asian countries.
There are many version on how people cook dish dish. Some people add belacan or also known as shrimp paste, or oyster sauce. It is all depend on what you have in the pantry really, but I like the version with fermented salty soy beans and belacan, but since I had no stock of belacan, I just skip it.
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My husband is and will always be a big fan of Hainanese Chicken Rice. When we went to Singapore few years ago, we ate Chicken rice almost every day, and he never got sick of them. We tried them almost in every food courts. I lost count on how many chicken rice have we eat.
I tried making Hainanese Chicken Rice so many times. They always turned out like bloody in the center, despite the fact that I always boiled them longer than the recommended time. I steamed them like an hour and they were still blood in between the flesh and bone. So we ended up having Fried Hainanese Chicken Rice instead. I almost give up making this dish, which is supposed to be a simple dish.
This is my latest attempt on making Hainanese Chicken Rice. They turned out OK, not as great as I expected them to be. I still could found some blood in the middle, but after steaming, they were fine. Now, I wonder whether the main factor of failing is the kind of chicken used. I used free range chicken for this recipe, last time I used ordinary chicken. If you would like the recipe, click here.
Culinary tradition: Chinese, Singaporean
Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!
My official invitation to Santa Claus: “Remember to stop by our home. We got a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. We will find nice bunches of green grass for Rudolf and friends. Don’t you worry, they won’t be left out.”
I have been searching for a genuine choc chip cookies recipe for ages, and finally I found one (Thanks Dorie). We have always been a great fan of Subway choc chip cookies because of their softness and chewiness. I have been wanting to make the same thing at home so I could mass produce them and store it in a cookie jar. Now I can mass produce them. However, the thing is that they won’t last longer in the cookie jar, not because they are easily spoiled but because the member of the house couldn’t resist themselves from hugging the jar.
Probably you are wondering why I am cutting back so much sugar. I always cut 50 percent of the sugar from original recipe most of the time. I love desserts, cakes and sweets, but I couldn’t stand the sweetness, or probably my tooth isn’t that sweet. Even with this cookie recipe, with all the cutting sugar amount, I still found that they are really sweet. I should probably skip the sugar next time I am making these and just stick with brown sugar.
From this one batch recipe, you will got a lot of cookies. This was the reason why I turned some of the dough into a log and store it in the fridge. I couldn’t stand any longer standing in the kitchen hearing my toddler calling me. For those of you who want to try these, here’s the steps:
- Cut some baking paper, about 25-30 cm.
- Fill it with left over cookie dough.
- Try to squeeze them gently so there are no empty space in the middle.
- Tied both ends with rubber bands.
- Wrap them with clings wrap.
- Recommended to be stored for up to 3 days in the fridge or months in the freezer.
If you are storing them in the fridge, cut them with a serrated knife into certain thickness. Don’t worry with the uneven or crack slices, you could fix them later by hand. If you are frosting them, let them sit for 5-10 minutes, and them do the same things as you do with the fridge one.
This is another variation of my fried rice, Nasi Goreng Teri Medan. My first fried rice post is Pineapple Fried Rice (October post). Literally, Nasi means rice, Goreng means fried, Teri means small fish, Medan is an Indonesian’s province in Sumatran island. The difference of this fried rice compare to the usual Indonesia Fried Rice is that this fried rice doesn’t use a sweet soy sauce, also known as Kecap Manis, and it uses teri as its main feature.
I believe that some of you might think that this particular fried rice is too much hassle, because the fish need to be washed, patted dry, and then fried. Not only that, if you live in a small apartment, the fried smell will last for at least two days. Ehmm what was I thinking posted this recipe? Encouraging people not to cook this particular fried rice. To be honest, I actually got the fried teri from my friend, because we got a lot of left over from our charity market. I felt sorry to the fish and then decided to turn them into fried rice dishes. However, I still need to do the frying all over again because they weren’t cooked and crunchy enough.
My tips before you start:
- It is best to have an overnight rice for fried rice (mine wasn’t).
- Always use a generous amount of oil to stir fry the rice so that your rice stays dry and the grain doesn’t stick to each other.
- Although the fish has been washed before they are deep fried, they are still salty. Be careful on the amount of salt used. The taste of the rice should be mild in terms of saltiness, so that when they are combined with the fish, they are kind of balancing each other.
I have been craving for a spicy and sour tom yum for some time. We had been eating out in Thai restaurant and I always ordered Tom Yum most of the time. Why are they serve the soup in a very tiny super small size… I wonder. So off I went to the fish market to buy a kg of Australian banana prawns (they were so expensive $24/kg). I also went to my favorite Thai’s grocery store to buy some of the ingredients. I had been wondering the store quite sometime and smelling all the unknown herbs, so I decided to ask the staff. Without any clue what so ever, I asked the staff:
Me: (holding a bunch of herbs) Is this Thai’s basil leaves?
Staff: No, that’s Vianemit mit. (No offense to Thai’s people.. that was what really happened)
Me: ??? What? Pardon me ???
Staff: Vietnemit mit (keep repeating the same things again and again)
Me: (then I get it) Ohhh Vietnamese mint leaves. What do you use to make Tom Yum soup? Basil leaves?
Staff: No leaves.
Me: Oh OK
Here’s how my Tom Yum soup looks like. The tom yum paste really helps to give an intense tom yum flavour, but most importantly don’t forget your chilli pure for the heat and tamarind for the sourness.
This is another alternative on how to serve Tom Yum Soup, with egg noodles and poached egg.
One of my favourite’s easy and light dinner, steam fish. This time, barramundi was my choice. The flesh is light and sweet, although it smelled fishier than flounder. If you would like to try steam fish recipe, you could find it under August archive.
Preparation time (duration): 15
Culinary tradition: Chinese
Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!