Winter Melon Soup

A simple, easy and quick to prepare soup that is nutritious and cooling in this tropical country. I cooked this soup and had it together with the 'Rice Cooker' Chicken Rice. The traditional version of the rice is supposedly cooked in claypot using charcoal and it usually will cause our body to be 'heaty' after consuming it. Winter melon soup is the best accompanying soup to go along with it in my opinion. Though my version of supposedly Claypot Chicken Rice is cooked using rice cooker and therefore has no issue of 'heatiness' to the body, I would love to have my 'Rice Cooker' Chicken Rice' with this soup due to the hot weather here.

Ingredients

800g winter melon, skin removed and chopped in chunks

1 carrot cut into cubes

1/2 cup dried anchovies

1 pc of chicken thigh

About 8 cups of water

1/2 cup cubed minced pork/chicken, marinate with little light soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper and cornflour

2 slices of ham, cut square

3-5 slices of ginger

1 Chinese spoon of Wolfgang berries

Method

 

1. Wash and drain the anchovies. Add anchovies, chicken thigh and water in the pot and cook in slow fire for about half and hour.

2. Drain the stock to remove the anchovies and chicken thigh.

3. Heat up the stock and add winter melon and ginger. Let it come to a boil for about 10 and add in the carrot, ham and minced meat. Continue to let it cook for another 5 minutes. 

4. Add in salt and Wolfgang berries. Switch off fire.

Note:

1. You may use more chicken thighs to brew the stock and omit anchovies or for the easiest way out if you have really no time, just use chicken bouillon granules.

'Rice Cooker' Chicken Rice

Time is precious. My schedule as a Stay-At-Home-Mum (SAHM) is always packed with errands, chores as well as all activities to educate and nurture my kids.  If I don't plan ahead well what I want to achieve for a day, I realised that I could hardly able to find time for prayer and left with no time to myself to do something that I like or just to rest. What I had planned for dinner was a simple and easy to prepare one dish meal with quick boil Winter Melon Soup. The only unhealthy ingredient in this meal is the Chinese sausage which is high in sodium. As this is an occasional dish I cook, I am not too bothered by it. I am using the mixture of brown, red unpolished and fragrant rice to boost up the fiber content of this meal.

Ingredients

300g chicken thighs, chopped in big chunks

1.5 cups of rice

2 cups of water (use the residue water used to soak the mushroom and add clear water to make up to 2 cups)

4 - 5 small onions, sliced

1 stick Chinese sausage, skin removed

3 mushrooms, soaked and water retained

Chicken seasoning
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp mushroom or oyster sauce
1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1 tbsp ginger juice
4 cloves of chopped garlic
Dash of sesame oil
Dash of pepper

Chinese Parsley for garnishing

Method

1. Marinate the chicken with the seasonings and set aside for about an hour.

2. Wash and soak the mushroom until soften and retain the water to cook rice. Once soften remove stem, slice and set aside.

3. Fry the shallots and set aside.

4. Remove skin of the sausage and slice.

5. Wash rice and cook.  After ten minutes add in the mushroom, chicken, sausage and garlic. Open the rice cooker ten minutes later and stir.

6. Garnish with fried onions and parsley.

Note:

1. You may add  salt if you wish but I prefer it less salty.

2. You may add one or two thin sliced of salted fish. You may just add it in together with the chicken, Some people prefer to fry it and add in once the rice and chicken are cooked.

3. You can add some chopped chicken liver to this dish. Add this together with the chicken.

Homemade Meat and Lentils Burger

Rice and noodles are the two typical staple products that I would make sure I stock them up most of the times like all other Asian households. Meals served in my household are mainly based on these two staples cooked or served in various ways. I want a change!! Yesterday I decided to make burgers for the kids and myself for lunch and we had it to our satisfactions. The fact that my boy, who is picky about food, finished almost the whole burger, it showed that it was yummy. So did my daughter.

I am not a health freak in terms of food but I do try to pay attention to the food I prepare for my family. This recipe was adapted from a book called 'Feed Your Child Right' that I bought many years back. The fact that it is a well-balanced recipe packed with lots of vitamins, minerals, fiber, proteins and other benefits made me feel good serving it. What's more..? It is light and delicious.

The only drawback I could say was that the patties didn't manage to bind together very well due to the smooth texture of the mashed potato and the grainy lentils. This could be easily fix with a little more cornstarch added to the mixture to bind everything together. The other change I made to the recipe was the seasoning. I made the change based on my inclination as of what I have in the pantry and what I thought would work to bring out the fragrance of the lentils without overpowering the rest of the ingredients.


Ingredients
(make 5 large patties)

200g ground lean pork
1/2 cup orange lentils cooked and cooled
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 medium potato, boiled, mashed and cooled
1 medium egg
Dash of cumin
Dash of steak seasoning
Dash of garlic salt
Dash of pepper
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp cornflour dissolved in a little water

Butterhead Lettuce
Sliced Cheese

Method

1. Mixed all ingredients together except the butterhead lettuce and cheese.

2. Shape it to approximately 5-6 round patties

3. Dust it with flour and shallow fry both sides for about 2 - 3 minutes.

Note:
1. You may make a lot of patties in advance and freeze them in the freezer. To do so, cover each individual patties with plastic or cling wrap.

2. You may use chicken, mutton or lean beef.

Macaroni Chicken Soup

 

If you were to google in the web on macaroni chicken soup, you probably would find ton of interesting recipes from Western to Asian styles. The images are captivating and each one looked so delicious and has its uniqueness just for this simple dish. I took a closer look at most of the images and visited some of the sites that I thought the recipes would be closed to what I was searching for. Unfortunately, I could not find one that pleased me. What am I looking for??

I think I need to share with you a little more on how this dish was served in my family when I was young that I didn't like back then and how I fell in love with it now. This dish was only prepared whenever someone fell ill in my family. So you could probably imagine how plain this dish was going to be prepared; served with simple non-oily stock like anchovies broth, pak choi and perhaps ham or sliced pork. I remembered I would never enjoy eating it no matter how tasty it was but I am still thankful for my mum's effort very much!

When I looked through the macaroni soup recipes that I could find in the websites especially those cooked in Asian styles, many called for chicken broth as the soup base and a variety of vegetables like pak choi, carrots and/or peas and some use ham, fish balls and/or sausages, shredded chicken for the meats. Some even added Chinese Angelica Root (Dang Gui). Frankly it doesn't taste bad but not an excellent one still I would say. Somehow or rather all the recipes that I stumbled on didn't hit me at all. This wasn't only because of how this dish brought back 'unpleasant' childhood memories but mainly because I tasted an absolutely delicious bowl of simple clear chicken broth macaroni in the Church I attended every Sunday later on in Singapore.

This Macaroni Chicken Soup was flavourful with tasty clear chicken broth, fragrant with a little hint of ginger, Chinese parsley, and fried onions. Simply served it with some chopped red chillies, light soy sauce and toasted bread crumbs. Omit all the 'intimidating' ingredients like vegetables or meats for health reasons or whatsoever just for this time as to preserve the original flavour of the chicken essence and I bet that you will not regret of doing so :).

You could probably cook chicken rice for lunch and use the broth to prepare a light dinner meal just for this dish like what I did. I will share with you the recipe for chicken rice in my upcoming post...

Ingredients:
1 bird of chicken (About 800g)
Salt to wash chicken
3-5 thick slices of old ginger
Water just enough to cover the chicken

1 packet of macaroni
Water to boil the macaroni
Salt

Chinese parsley (Coarsely chopped)
Red chillies (Seed removed and julienned)
Store-bought fried onions
Bread crumb (Cut white bread into small cubes and toast in the toaster or oven until crunchy)
Chicken bouillon granules
Salt to taste
Dash of pepper and light soy sauce when serve
 
Method

1. Boil water, throw in some salt and cook the macaroni until al-dente and set aside.

2. Rub the cavity and the outer part of the chicken with salt. Rinse and wash.

3. Prepare a pot of cold water. Put the cleaned chicken in the cold water and switch on the fire at very low temperature. Make sure that the water is hot but not boiling throughout. Let the chicken sit in the hot water for about an hour to an hour and a half and cook it using indirect heat.

4. Remove chicken and rinse with cold water and set aside.

5. Chop the chicken neck off debone the breast. Pound the bones in a pestle to optimise the chicken flavour while keeping the thighs for your chicken rice. If you are not cooking chicken rice together with this dish, you may debone the whole chicken and pound all the chicken bones and throw the crushed bones back to the pot of soup. Shred the chicken meat to your liking and set aside.

6. Chop off the roots of the Chinese parsley and throw them into the pot while keeping the leaves for garnishing. Brew the soup for another half an hour or so.

7. Add salt and chicken bouillon granules to taste.

8. Remove fat from the soup.

9. Put some cooked macaroni in a bowl. Using a sieve, scoop some soup into the bowl to warm up the macaroni then drain away the soup back to the main pot.

10. Using a sieve again scoop some soup to the bowl of macaroni. Serve with shredded chicken, fried onions, chopped parsley, julienned red chillies and bread crumbs (optional) with dash of pepper and light soy sauce.

 

(Despicable Me 2 was in the theatre last month and it was my kids' favourite show. I thought this picture was too cute not to be posted and shared...

I thought Minions only love bananas?! heee) 

 

Note :

1. Just to share with you a silly experience I had when I was toasting small cubes bread. Stay near to your toaster and watch it closely as it got toasted and BURNT too fast without you knowing. My kitchen almost caught fire few years back because of this.


 

Soy Sauce Chicken with Liquorice Roots

This is a modified recipe from the original recipe that I posted last month on Soy Sauce Chicken. I wanted a chicken dish with vegetables that doesn't require long time of preparation and cooking. I also wanted to have a grilled chicken meat without using the toaster or oven. If you are residing in Singapore, Happy Call Pan is a no stranger term of cookware to you. I was cooking this dish with this magical pan.

I threw in lots of carrot to this dish which added the natural sweetness to it. It is tasty and best to have it together with a bowl of white rice. The flavour and taste is completely different from the Soy Sauce Chicken I posted a while ago.

Soy Sauce Chicken with Liquorice Roots

Ingredients
3 drumsticks with thighs
salt to wash chicken

10 shallots, skin peeled
10 cloves of garlic, skin peeled
1 cup of water
4 - 6 medium-sized carrots, cut into thick slices
2 pieces of 3 inches long Liquorice Roots
1 piece 0.5 cm thick ginger
6 cubes small rock sugar

To Marinate the Meat:
2 tablespoon of mushroom sauce
2 tablespoon of light soy sauce
1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce
generous amount of salt
1 tablespoon of oil

Method

1. Wash chicken with salt and remove all fat.

2. Marinate the chicken with the seasonings and set aside at least for 15 minutes

3. Heat one tablespoon of oil in a Happy Call Pan using medium fire. Fry shallots, garlics and ginger until light brown and fragrant.

4. Push onions etc to the side of the pan and place chicken flat touching the pan. Keep the balance of the sauce for later use. Fry it for about 1 minutes both side or until colour changed and the chicken slightly grilled on both surfaces.

5.  Add in balance of the seasoning sauce, water, liquorice roots, carrots. Let it come to a boil then close the pan and lock it for 15 minutes.

6. Open the pan, stir the ingredients and flip the chicken. Close and lock for another 15 minutes. If it is too dry add a bit of water.

7. Throw in the rock sugar, close and lock the pan for another 5 minutes. Stir well, let it rest for at least 10 minutes and serve hot.

Notes :

1. If you are cooking this as a confinement food, do add generous amount of small onions, ginger slices and liquorice roots into the dish.

Asian Fried Rice

 

A plate of fragrant, grainy and non-oily fried rice is not too hard to cook I supposed, but yet this is a simple dish that will put your Chinese cooking skills up for challenge! Like how my little brother put it, "Taste the fried rice of a Chinese chef and if he/she could cook it right, he/she is good!". He could be generalising his thoughts but to me it makes sense.

I remembered frying a plate of fried rice using leftover rice in the middle of the night for my supper when I was in primary school using simple ingredients like garlics, eggs and black sauce and light soy sauce. Those were the good old days where we had no junk food in the house and if you want to snack, do it or get it yourself! I think the fragrant smell of the black sauce fried with garlics and rice left a profound memory in me as some of my childhood memories somehow flashed back most of the time when I savoured this dish cooked this way.

I am cooking fried rice more often as my kids love it and it is easy to prepare. My version of homecook fried rice uses less oil, less salt and only fresh ingredients... so why not?!

To me, eggs, garlics and light soy sauce are the three key basic ingredients for fried rice and of course not to mention you must have a bowl of non-sticky, non-lumpy but grainy cooked rice. The rest of the ingredients are good or healthy to have.

Cooking rice overnight just to use it for fried rice the next day is not practical for me as i am quite fickle-minded and I always change my menu last minute. If you have a bowl of left over rice then you should consider to fry it the next day.

I used to cook it on the day when I wanted to fry it. What I did is to use the right measurement of water. Gently stir the rice ten minutes after it's cooked and then covered it in the rice cooker for next 15 minutes. Then scoop out the rice, spread it over a flat plate and cool it off completely with fan.

Ingredients

1.5 cup of rice, rinsed and cooked
3 eggs
1 stick big carrots cut into small cubes
1 bowl of green peas
1 cob of fresh corn, remove the corn kernels from the cob
6 cloves of garlic, crashed n chopped coarsely
1/2 cup minced meat (pork/chicken/luncheon meat/coarsely chopped prawn or Chinese sausage etc )
Chicken or Anchovies bouillon granules to taste
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
3 tablespoons of oil

Meat marinate
1 teaspoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of mushroom/oyster sauce
Dash of sesame oil
Dash of pepper
1/4 teaspoon of cornflour

Method

1. Marinate the meat with the sauce and put one side for 15 minutes.

2. Beat the eggs. Put one tablespoon of oil in the frying pan. Pour in the egg and roughly scramble them after 40 seconds. Scoop and put one side.

3. Put 2 tbsp of oil in the pan. Fry garlic for about 20 seconds and add in carrots. After about a minute add in the marinated meat. Stir fry until meat about to change colour. Add in corn and peas. Fry until corn change colour. Add in light soy sauce and chicken bouillon.

4. Add in cooked and cooled rice and continue to stir gently. Once the rice is well coated with the gravy and mixed well with the rest of ingredients, add in eggs and stir well.

5. Add salt and pepper to taste.



Fried Rice with Luncheon Meat and lots of chopped small onions


Fried Rice with Black Soy Sauce


Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage and Long Beans


Fried Rice with Prawns


Notes:
1. You can used a combination of chopped small shallots and a small portion of garlic.

2. You may add 4 pieces of soaked and chopped finely dried oysters. I bet you if you can acquire the taste of Chinese dried oyster, you will like this version especially when you cook it with Chinese sausage.

3. You may add super finely chopped petai with dried shrimp chillies. For the spicy version, do omit Chinese sausage as the taste doesn't gel.

4. For the eggs, I have cooked the version keeping the ingredients to the basic with no vegetables added but just prawns, eggs and garlic. For this version, stir fry the garlic and prawn until fragrant, add in rice and continue to stir gently. Stir in the beaten eggs to the rice and mix it well so that all grain of rice will be well coated with the yellow golden egg. Otherwise you may just fry the beaten eggs and put aside. Mix when rice is fried with prawn. Frying rice with prawn is really aromatic and nice!

5. For vegetables, you can add edamane / french beans / chopped asparagus/ chopped kailan stalks and other types of crunchy vegetables. Chopped spring onions can be added towards the end.

6. For the meat, you can replace with finely chopped crab sticks, vegetarian shrimp, barbecued pork (char siew), roasted pork etc.

7. It tastes best to just use white rice but for health reason I sometimes will just used the mixture of white, red unpolished and brown rice.

 

Steamed Cakes

I have never seen my eldest brother bakes. All along I knew he doesn't mind to spend some time in the kitchen to whip up a meal or two for us. He prefers to handle everything on his own whenever he is in the kitchen. He is a man of few words but a nice guy. I love him for the way he is but I wish if he could open up a little more to me and his siblings so that we could know him better.

 

I was in awe when he asked me how to operate the oven in our mum's place as he wanted to try out some recipes. Without second thoughts I grab the chance to communicate with him my favourite subject. I showed him how to operate the oven, took out some of the baking stuff in the drawers and taught him how to use them. I copied the recipe and explain to him in detailed. I like his spirit of learning and wanted to know-how in areas that interest him though he isn't highly educated.

 

He is experimenting a lot nowadays in chinese pastry which using steaming method.  The pictures are the products of some of his experiments. He made 'Prosperity Cake' or 'Fa Gao' in Chinese and 'Red Tortoise Cake' or 'Ang Gu Kueh' in Hokkien. Both were made with no written recipes, no reference to books, websites or videos but based on his observations of taste and some small talks he had with the cakes seller in the market. It is so amazing and I am very proud of him!! If given guidance and opportunity I am sure he can go far in baking.