Lor Mai Gai

This is my first time making this dish. Prior to this, I didn't realize that it was so easy to do. This came about during a conversation at the bff's house. Her cousin was in town last week and they were planning to make some. So this missy wrote down all the ingredients and method on how to make this delicious dim sum dish. The good thing about making it at home is that you can control the amount of oil that goes into your cooking. As I was busy making tarts yesterday, I thought today would be a perfect day to do this, thus I soaked some rice in the late afternoon yesterday, and by 10pm, I was able to season the rice. I left it till this morning before I steamed them and took some along on my breakfast date with the swimming mums. Unfortunately, it being my first time, I wasn't sure on how much water to use, if any at all, thus I didn't put in enough water. It resulted in a pretty dry dish as can be seen by photo, the sides are not moist enough. The mums thought the meat was well-seasoned so that was the saving grace. Upon my return home, I added water to the remainder rice and fried them again. This time the dish turned out much better. It was missing something. I suspect it's a lovely fragrant five spice powder as the one I bought from NTUC wasn't fragrant at all. I am definitely going to make this dish again sometime soon.

Ingredients - (I will try to give exact measurements wherever I can)

3 cups glutinous rice
5 deboned chicken thighs, cut into small bite-sized pieces
garlic minced
shallots (I didn't add it this time)
dried mushrooms (soaked till soft and sliced thin)

Seasoning for chicken - (this was all done by estimation)

light soya sauce
oyster sauce
sesame oil
white pepper
5 spice powder approx 1tsp
a drop of dark soya sauce
I seasoned the above overnight

Seasoning for rice - (basically the same seasoning ingredients as the chicken)

light soya sauce
white pepper
Chinese wine (I used hua tiao but found it a bit too strong)
5 spice powder approx 1tbsp
a drop of dark soya sauce
Also seasoned overnight

Method -

1. Wash then soak the glutinous rice in water for minumum 4hrs. (I started this at 5.30pm)

2. Meanwhile, season chicken and leave in fridge overnight.

3. 4hrs later (9.30pm), rinse out and drain rice. Season with the ingredients mentioned above and leave it overnight. I did mine at 10pm and steamed it at 8am.

4. In the morning, fry shallots, garlic & mushroom strips till fragrant. Add rice and then water. I don't have the exact measurement of water I used as it was my first time making this dish, thus it was a trial and error thing. I suggest that if you are not sure, just add water gradually, starting with a half cup full first. Do not steam the entire portion but rather leave the rest of the rice and test waters with one portion of lor mai gai before going ahead and steaming everything.

5. Into individual portions, place some chicken pieces on the bottom of each bowl. (You may like to make one big portion but smaller portions are better for storing but be warned, they might all disappear within the day :P). Top up with rice right to the top of bowl if you like as the rice will not expand.

6. Steam for approx 20-30 and test the rice to see if it cooked before removing from steamer.

I can't wait to try it out again soon as it was pretty successful the first time. Do let me know if you try making this and how yours turned out. Happy cooking!

Dark Sauce Chicken

I seem to have found my blogging mojo again. Maybe, I am more settled now in my routine as it has been 3 weeks since school started. I am now used to waking at 6am although I wished I could sleep in longer. I still cannot go to bed early and the earliest is at 11pm and even then, you will more often than not, find me tossing and turning in bed. Each time I drag myself out of bed in the mornings, I plan to go back to it once the princess leaves for school. Unfortunately, that plan has not materialised. I can't fall back to sleep again once I am awake!

I usually spend some time online reading on (FB)wall updates, catching up on playing with my games such as feeding my pets, tending to my farm, cafe etc. ;)

For the past 2 days, I have diligently tried to keep my house clean, cook healthy meals for the family, etc. I think the reason for my motivation in the kitchen department is my acquisition of a slow cooker. :) I cooked winter melon soup in it yesterday, and today, I decided to cook a braised dish. I love that I do not have to keep watching over it boiling on the stove top.

I am very thankful that my girl appreciates the food I cook for her. She tells me that she only eats mummy's food, because they are yummy! I don't think it's so much that it is yummy, more because it is the taste that she grew up with. Just like last Friday when I needed to go for my routine check up at the hospital, my uncle and aunt took care of her. They picked her up after school, gave her lunch and wanted to know what to cook for her dinner. I wasn't sure she'd be used to their taste, so in the end I made her a simple dinner when I went over to their place. You see, it's very difficult to say she likes fish, or chicken, or beef, as she likes neither. But if I cook it in a way she likes, she will eat them. So at the end of the day, it's the cooking method that's important. She doesn't like meat very much as they can be a bit tough and she doesn't like chewing on them. She once described chicken breast as giving her 'goose pimples' each time she ate them in her chicken rice. She knows it herself that she might not like everything I give her for her meals, but yet she told me this, that 'if I don't eat Mummy will force me to', so at the end of the day, she still needs to finish up what I put on her plate. Well, at least, I am able to 'force' her. Any parents with picky kids will identify with the frustration of trying to change their child's eating habits. I have been blessed with one who is not particularly fussy with her food, and most of the time she eats what she is given, although her favourite foods of all time are Japanese and Italian. If in doubt, just give her pasta or sushi any day and she'd be over the moon!

This dish I cooked today wasn't following any recipe. I based this on the memory of how my grandma used to cook her dao you bak. In this case, I substituted chicken for pork. I had meant to add in some eggs to the stew, but I decided to fry a side dish of fishmeat omelette instead, thus the hardboiled eggs were omitted.

Ingredients -

6 pieces chicken wings
1 chicken breast (for hubby who only likes breast meat)
6 dried shittake mushrooms, soaked till soft and cut in half

Seasoning -

1 dsp brown sugar
1 lengkuas (galangal) 4cm, sliced thickly
4 cloves garlic
1 tbsp thick black sauce
1 tsp light soya sauce
sesame oil
white pepper
star anise - I forgot to add these

Method -

1. Fry ginger till fragrant, add brown sugar and stir till melted.
2. Add garlic cloves and chicken.
3. Add sufficient water to cover the ingredients.
4. Transfer to pot and simmer till cooked and meats turn soft. In my case, the dish was transferred to the slow cooker and left to cook for 2hrs.

hAPpY Australia DAy, dear sis, family and friends!

Last minute change

I bought these colourful veg a week or so ago but have not had a chance to cook this dish which I've been wanting to try. However, although I had prepared the ingredients way early in the afternoon, I got distracted by another 'project', thus it left me with very little time to cook this. The hungry princess kept complaining of hunger so I decided not to take a walk down to the supermarket to pick up missing ingredients such as longan and pineapple. I had to quickly put together her dinner and think up on the spot what to replace the missing ingredients with. I had a mango in the fridge and some instant lemon sauce. Decided to use those instead. So here you have it - mango chicken in lemon sauce. The result was ok, but I think I would have preferred the sweet & sour version. Will do that the next time. :) Thanks HK for the recipe.

This is the bento which I kind of 'copied' from Susan. Hope you don't mind. ;) Her recent bento caught my eye because of the very cute piggy and I just had to do it. Miss Piggy is made from chicken karaage. In the bento are also cherry tomatoes & fish fillet from her godma. In the background is a bowl of Campbell's Mushroom & Seafood soup.

While she had her dinner, I cut up a mango (from her grandpa as it's her favourite food), a golden kiwi and some grapes.

Lemon Chicken

Dear goddaughter is back from India, so she spent the night at our place. I can't believe how much this girl has grown. In my eyes, she is still that little 4-yr-old flower girl at my wedding over 9yrs ago. How time flies, and how fast these kids grow. She's only 13 but really going on 18. I can't believe how matured she has become. I think she's really too grown up for a sleepover with my little one. Haha.

The problem is that she is pretty fussy with food, so I had to plan my menu properly so she would eat. I didn't want her to be eating pasta bolognaise every time she came to my place, so I made a corn fishball soup, broccoli which both kids love, an omelette fried with fishpaste as well as lemon chicken. She loved them all, and this godma was so pleased. :)

I fried some chicken thighs and then used a ready Woh Hup lemon sauce. My Google search is acting weird today thus I can't find a picture of sauce bottle to attach. But it made the dish really good. It was thumbs up from everyone. ;)

Roast chicken

Whenever I go to Vivo, it's chicken rice day. That's because I love the roast chicken selling at Giant. It's way way better than the ones sold at Cold Storage. They are tender and juicy and not dried out, with a lovely honey roasted skin. And since I'm out the whole afternoon, I usually do not have the energy to cook dinner, so with the instant chicken rice mix by Chng Kee's, just a spoonful in the rice before cooking, and I have ready chicken rice. I sometimes add a couple of pandan leaves, and then slice up some tomatoes to serve. With the leftover meat, we use them in sandwiches.

Chicken with red dates and goji

I created this dish a few years ago. I used the red dates (to sweeten) and Chinese wolfberries or goji, firstly to add colour to the dish and secondly to reap the benefits of these tiny berries. Read here if you are keen to know how wolfberries benefit your body. Other than in soups, some people use them in desserts. The primary benefit as most of us know, is that it is good for the eyesight and lots of parents like to give this to their kids. I don't cook it very much, unfortunately, but I should make it a habit to incorporate it into the soups that I prepare.

For this chicken dish, I was trying to use up the celery in the fridge and some organic dried shittake. Thanks to the Wonderpets, my dear little one has no problems eating celery, once they are soft enough. Carrot is a favourite with her so I put that in. Plus it adds to the overall sweetness of the dish. And so do onions. I'm one for 'sweet' savoury food. My cousin says it's a Peranakan trait as she likes sweet savoury food too. I totally agree with her. My maternal grandma, who is Peranakan, when she used to cook, would season her chicken wings with that little bit of sugar as well. I do miss her cooking but she stopped cooking after my grandpa passed away, about 6-7yrs ago. It is really sad. I never really got to learn from her. I miss so much her chap chye, curry chicken, ayam buah keluak, prawn fritters, fried chicken wings and sambal belachan. My sis and I looked forward to each Chinese New Year when we would indulge in all the lovely food she presented before us. Her steamboat is to-die-for, using the stock from abalone and whatever ingredients she added to it. I never learned that too.

The food I cook is influenced more by my paternal grandma, who was Hokkien, as we grew up under her care.

Back to my dish, I do not have exact measurements so I will just list down what I used as a guide.

Ingredients -

2 chicken breasts, sliced into small pieces
3 sticks of celery, but at an angle into 1-1/2 inch pieces
1 stick of carrot, sliced thinly
half an onions, cut up
2 inch piece of ginger
1 clove garlic
red dates
2 tsp goji - more or less is up to you

Seasoning for chicken -

oyster sauce
white pepper
dash of shao xing wine
sesame oil
cornstarch to thicken sauce

Method -

Saute onion till translucent. Add ginger, garlic and fry till fragrant. Add chicken and stir fry. Add all remaining ingredients except for goji. Pour in a cup of water and simmer till vegetables are soft and chicken is cooked. Add goji towards the end so they do not disintegrate. Serve hot with rice.

Steamed Herbal Chicken

Do any of you read the 'Food & Travel' magazine? I am very pleased to be introduced to it by Kenwood when I joined as a member and was given 4 copies of them. In them, I found many simple recipes to experiment with and most of them turned out quite nice. The pumpkin curry I prepared earlier was also from this magazine. Just this week, I made this herbal chicken and also the steamed fish fillet which were both simple to prepare, and tasted good.

Steamed Herbal Chicken (taken off the November issue of the magazine)

Ingredients -

2 chicken thighs
2 tsp Chinese wolfberries
2 tsp polyconattum (yok chok)
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tsp Chinese rice wine
salt and pepper to taste

Method -

1. Marinade the chicken with all the ingredients for about mins.

2. Place the chicken and the ingredients in a bowl and steam for 25mins (I did 35 to get it more tender).

3. Serve immediately with rice.

Have you seen the sun?

Woohoo, no rain yesterday and today. :) Never thought I'd be rejoicing at seeing the sun, but after a week of non-stop rain and being homebound, plus laundry taking ages to dry, it is a happy moment. At least it's not inconvenient to get around, seeing that I had to go out yesterday and today. We went for Disney on Ice and thank God for the dry weather, or else it'd have been more than a bit troublesome to get to the venue, as the car park is uncovered. Went with cousin and nephew and the kids enjoyed it very much. Princess was there for Ariel, and Ariel alone. Haha. She had her tiara on, and took along her Ariel baby doll. I had to resist buying the Ariel wand despite all the pleadings. Told her we'd get nicer things at Disney soon, and that'd be loads of Ariel stuff. Even the t-shirt they were selling at the show was nothing great. I think she's gonna go nuts over in Disneyland.

For dinner, I made eggplant with hae bee hiam...

Long beans with minced meat.

Baked chicken breast in Teriyaki sauce with onion and thyme.

Honey BBQ spare ribs. This picture isn't very sharp but the one with flash made it look very black so this pic will have to do.

Fruits after dinner consisted of mango, apple, dragonfruit. Litttle princess is a fruit bat. She eats any kind of fruits and goes crazy when she sees them. Hehe. Mangoes are her all time favourite, followed by bananas. She loves dragonfruit too, and other than durian, I haven't come across any that she won't eat.

Wet, wet, wet

Another wet day greeted us today. It's been raining non-stop 24/7. Yesterday, incidentally, had the heaviest rainfall so far this month. I personally too, feel that yesterday's rain was the worst. However we braved the lashings today and ventured out to the supermarket. I've been wanting to bake some stuff but didn't have the right sugar at home. Just have been trying to hibernate as usual. I love rain, don't get me wrong. But it's just super boring not being able to go out.

Bought some chicken wings from the wet market this morning and decided to cook a dark sauce chicken with some organic (so they say) dried shittake mushrooms I had gotten a week back. Somehow, my sauce didn't turn out as thick as the one dad does. I think it's the dark sauce used.

I also spied some preserved/century eggs in the market this morning, together with some salted ducks' eggs, and picked those up. Decided to steam them. Unfortunately I wasn't too pleased with the result. It was edible, but I am bad at steaming things other than fish. Eggs are the worst. So pardon me if the steamed eggs look kind of awful. Oops, then again the picture is too small for you to see it clearly. Hehe.

In-between cooking dinner, I fried some jemput jemput, using some bananas from the big bunch that hubs insisted on getting during the weekend, and have so far only had one. I did stop him from buying the big lot but well, I didn't win that time. Now I can say, 'I told you so'. Thanks HK for the recipe so many moons back, but it didn't work for me. I don't blame the recipe. It's the fault of the cook. I don't know what went wrong but it was kind of tough.

Some meals

Meal 1 -

Baked salmon in Teriyaki sauce.

Broccolini and Mushrooms in Oyster sauce. These were cute as princess said they were like flowers as they had a long stem. She'd bite off the flowers, then slowly chewed off the stems. Personally I prefer normal broccoli. I boiled mine in water and made the sauce separate to pour over. Garnished it with fried shallots to serve. Coincidentally, little corner of mine cooked this dish as well, on the same day.

Baked Chicken Wings by special request of the princess.

Seaweed Usahana on a mound of rice.

Black pepper sauce which I used to bake other piece of salmon with.

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Meal 2 -

From this... (I wanted to take a photo of the vegetables before they were cooked to show the beautiful flowers on them.)

... to this. (I'm not sure of the name of this vegetable but I believe it belongs to the Kai Lan family. It's really crunchy and sweet, I believe it's also because of the oyster sauce used.)

Fried some Thai fishcakes which were nice but too spicy for the little one. Packet for my reference.

It was basically an instant meal with seaweed wrapped chicken and ready chicken rice mix. I somehow am 'off' this seaweed chicken as I find over the years that they have added more fat to it. It does get pretty disgusting biting into them. I stopped buying them for a while but princess asked for them as she recently had them at the CNY party in school. Have to look for another brand unless they cut off the fat on these.

Tada! The meal is ready.

Note - The vegetables were bought at the vegetable and fruits stall in the basement of Tangs Departmental Store. I used to love to buy from the lady whenever I made a trip downtown. Her produce is very fresh but I noticed they have kind of downsized the stall as the other half of it is taken up by a new vendor. She has unusual veggies and that was how I came about the broccolini and the other veg. I should have asked her the name of it though. So, if you are ever in that part of town, do check it out.

Mish mash

These were some stuff I cooked in the last couple of days. Really not in the mood to blog, or pretty much do anything, as my joints are acting up again and I feel so miserable waking in the mornings and not being able to walk on my hurting feet. It gets to me a lot, not being able to just up and go, or get things tidied in the house as much as I want to. Of course it takes a few hours for the medicine to kick in, each morning, after consumption. I'm usually feeling better by early afternoon but by then I'll be busy with other stuff, plus the girl will be back from school, so housework has taken a backseat, and I just can't wait for the cleaner to come tomorrow. Also, can't wait to see the doctor tomorrow to see what she says about my current condition.

On a happier note, I finally booked my air tickets and hotel in Europe for our holidays. Took advantage of the offers at the NATAS fair over the weekend to get the specials. And yippee, we'll be going on Singapore Airlines, and if not mistaken, will depart from the very new Terminal 3. :) On one hand, it's exciting, but on the other, I do dread it as I do not know how my condition will be like at that point in time. There'll be lots of sightseeing = walking, so am not really looking forward to it. I can imagine the suffering already.

Also keeping me busy are ballet classes in preparation for the exams next week. Can't wait for that to be over.

For dinner last night, I prepared the following :-

Pumpkin Curry

Syrian Chicken with apricots and figs

I tried cooking Basmati rice, but it turned out to be a disaster, and I wasted a teaspoon of saffron. *sob sob*. So in the end we had plain white rice.

This morning, I baked a loaf of Cream Cheese Bread. Got the recipe from a forum pal. I'm not sure if there was something wrong with my yeast, but I tested a few packets out and it did not bubble and, thus, they were very inactive. After about the 5th try, I gave up and thought to myself, whatever, we'll just try it out since I already measured the flour, butter, etc. So I went ahead with it and realizing the dough wasn't exactly rising, put it in a low oven to let it rise, but I guess it wasn't enough, since the result was a rectangular loaf like HK's. But no matter, it's the most successful bread I've ever made and it is yummy. Hope I have better luck with the next packet of yeast. I'm happy that there is no strong smell or taste of yeast unlike the last loaf I baked. Could it be the milk powder that offsets the yeast?

For dinner tonight, I cooked this Fettucine dish using a recipe from a magazine and will update the recipes tomorrow.

Homemade burgers

Made chicken burgers for dinner last evening. For the patty, I used the following -

Minced chicken - approximately 500g
barbeque sauce
worcestershire sauce
bit of oyster sauce
dash of sesame oil
breadcrumbs - 2-3tbsps
1/2 an onion - diced
1/2 a carrot - shredded
Extra breadcrumbs for coating

Mix the above together and form into patties. Cover with breadcrumbs and fry. The above recipe yielded 5 big patties and 1 small.

Assembled the burger with cheese slice, lettuce, tomato slices, onion rings, egg, and drizzled with mayonnaise.

Happy to say that it was very well-received, even by princess who isn't typically a burger gal. :) But of course hers was only a mini version without an egg. And since I had extra patties leftover, I made them for a friend who was coming by.

Xia Jiang Ji

Choo, I finally tried the recipe. I added some sesame seeds to batter too and it gave it some fragrance. However, I wasn't too keen on the smell when the bottle containing the shrimp paste was first opened. The pungent smell just hits you. If anyone thinks durian is bad, you should try smelling this. :D I was keeping my fingers crossed that it will turn out well as I had already marinated the lot, or else we'd have no dinner. Eeeks! However, upon frying, the flavours just fused together - sugar, sesame oil, etc.. And hubby loved it. Princess had no complaints so she must like it and I think it was lovely too.

I also steamed a piece of cod and stir-fried some vegetables. That was our meal last evening. :)

More food

Guess I really have nothing to blog about so been blogging quite a bit on our meals at home. Haha. But as you have noticed, I've finally started cooking again. Wonder how long that will last. ;)

I was a very good wife and mother today, hehe, cooked two meals as well as cleaned the floors and tidied up a bit. You'll hardly find me at home as there is always something to keep us occupied. Well, from time to time, I have to get rid of some of the mess that accumulates all the time. Just like the house was spick, span and tidy early this noon, is now filled with toys again all over. But at least the floor is clean. :)

With last night's leftover soup, I added some pasta and made lunch. If you look closely, you would be able to spy the carriage, castle and Cinderella. The Pokemon faces are also cute.

I came across this seasoning in Cold Storage yesterday and was attracted to the picture of the lovely grilled drumsticks. So I decided to buy a packet to try out. Got fresh drumsticks and thighs from the market this morning and marinated them for a couple of hours. I don't know if the taste is authentic but it was delicious.

Made a baby spinach, crabsticks & meatball soup. The soup looks oily but is actually not. It's pretty clear and light, just that the flash catches the oil in a non-flattering way.

And this other one also caught my eye during my grocery shopping trip. I don't know if Muar is famous for their otah, but I loved it. Worth a try.

Well, unfortunately the picture can't tell you too much about the taste. I'm not good at presentation. :P

A home-cooked meal

I hate having to cook every day. It gives me a headache, and it doesn't help that nobody in the family can tell me what they want to eat for dinner. I was very sure I was going to make a pot of soup today and I also knew that I had xiao bai chye in the fridge from my last trip to the market. But the main dish was a bit stressful to come up with. I had a pineapple in the fridge, and finally decided that I'd do a pineapple chicken dish. So here you have it... bai chye with Foochow fishballs, carrots, and tofu soup. And a sweet and sour chicken stir fry with pineapples and assorted veggies.