Musings

Claypot rice is one of Yang’s favourite dishes and we had one recently for dinner at his parents’ place (fondly called Lentor home). Traditionally, a claypot is used to cook this dish but Yang’s mom invented her own style to do away with the rice sticking to the bottom of the claypot. She cooked the rice in a rice cooker instead. Ya, you can’t get the fragrant ‘chao ta’ rice this way but hey, the recipe suits me just fine as we don’t have a claypot at home. :P

After asking for the recipe from mom, I tried it this evening and it turned out well. So here’s sharing the recipe with those who are interested to try this out at home.

Ingredients:

2 skinless chicken thigh meat – debone and cut into small pieces

4 dried big shiitake mushrooms – soak in hot water to soften, rinse afterwards & slice thinly

Salted fish – about 4 cm x 3 cm x 1 cm, deep fried and break into tiny crumbs

Chinese sausage – 1 stick, remove outer skin, slice thinly.

2 shallots – sliced

1.5 cup jasmine white rice – rinsed

cooking oil – 1 tbsp

sesame oil – 1 tsp

oyster sauce – 4 tbsp

white ground pepper

Dark soy sauce

Water – 1.5 cup

Method:

1)  Marinate the chicken meat pieces and sliced mushrooms with dashes of pepper and oyster sauce. Leave it in the refrigerator for about 1 hour.

2)  With medium heat, stir-fry the sliced Chinese sausages in cooking oil until slightly browned. Set the cooked sausages aside.

3)  Using the now sausage-flavoured oil left in the pan, saute the sliced shallots until lightly browned and then add rice. Stir the rice grains until opaque.

4)  Transfer the partially cooked rice into the rice cooker. Add 1.5 cup of water and top it off with the marinated meat and mushrooms.

5)  Start the rice cooker on the ‘cook’ mode.

6)  Once the rice is cooked, add the salted fish crumbs and dark soy sauce (go over the rice in 2 quick rounds) and sesame oil (optional). Mix everything well (ensure that the soy sauce colour the rice evenly), close the lid to let the rice stand in the ‘warm’ mode for another 10 minutes.

7)  Add the Chinese sausage to the rice and give it a final stir. Serve warm. :)

Serves 2-3 persons.

One thing to note is that frying the salted fish might stink up the whole house if yours is an apartment. The pungent smell of the salted fish attracts houseflies too. Yang’s mom fried the salted fish in her open-air kitchen for us to bring home to do this dish – a big convenience for us indeed.

There’s a Chinese saying that goes: you(3) yang(4) xue(2) yang(4). Translated to English, it means ‘monkey see monkey do’.

That was what happened to me when I read Ann’s blog about her craving for round dumplings made of glutinous rice flour. Like her, I prefer those with fillings and especially those with black sesame seeds. The plain ones are just too, well, plain and tasteless.

So I took a 5 minutes’ walk from my place to Shop ‘n’ Save in search for tang yuan. I was so glad that they still have stock for black sesame seeds tang yuen. This flavour usually runs out very quickly.

The preparation for tang yuan soup is simple. In order to make it taste nicer, I added extra ingredients to the soup. Here’s my version of it:

Ingredients
1 pack of black sesame seeds tang yuan (~10 balls)
3-4 tbsps of brown sugar
2 stalks of pandan leaves
1 small, crushed ginger (1 inch)
12 dried longans
4 red dates (soaked for 1-2 mins and brush off the dirt stuck in the crevices of the wrinkled skins) – seedless ones preferred as the seeded ones tend to be rather heaty

Method
1) For the soup pot, add 3 bowls of water, ginger, dried longans, red dates and pandan leaves tied into a knot. Bring the water to a rolling boil.

2) Once the water boils in the soup pot, allow it to simmer in moderate heat (can still see some bubbling) for 10 mins. Remove the pandan in the middle of simmering as it might cause the soup to taste bitter.

3) Start boiling the water for tang yuan once the soup pot is boiling. Add enough water to allow tang yuan to float in it later. (The tang yuan are cooked separately as they could cause the soup to become cloudy if cooked in it.)

4) When the water starts to boil, add the frozen tang yuan and wait for them to float to the surface.

5) Once the tang yuan float to the surface, allow it to cook for 1-2 mins before turning off the heat.

6) Scoop out and divide the tang yuan into 2 bowls. Pour the soup into the bowls. Serve while hot. (You can serve it chilled too.)

Preparation time: 5 mins               Cooking time: 15-20 mins

No. of servings: 2

Yang doesn’t fancy tang yuan though.

The name of the drink is quite a misnomer for there’s no tea content at all.

Boon Yee, my dear ex-colleague, shared with me this antedote to ‘morning sickness’. Her mother in-law made it for her during her difficult first trimester and it was effective in toning down the nauseous sensation. It is the ginger that does the job. The rest of the ingredients make the drink really palatable.

Here’s the recipe…

Ingredients:

10 Red Dates (soak for 10 mins. Brush away the dirt trapped in the creases of the skin)

16 Dried Longans (Rinse. I used ‘AA’ quality from Thailand)

Peeled and crushed 2″x 2″ ginger (Old ginger is more potent. If using young ginger, just add more)

Rock sugar (amount according to personal preference)

Method:

1) Bring 5 cups of water to a boil.

2) Add all ingredients and simmer in moderate heat for about 15 mins.

3) Serve while hot. Can be drank chilled as well.

I was informed that this drink is commonly prepared for women during their 1-month confinement too. The red dates are supposed to be good for iron supplement to make up for blood loss during delivery.

Oh ya, I booked my confinement lady liao. Hee hee. :)

It’s coming to the end of the year again. Towards the end of each year, I’d sit back and reflect on some of the key events and decisions made in the past year or so. It’s a pretty interesting exercise as you’ll see the decisions that turned out right, and those that turned out all wrong; all with the benefit of a mite bit of hindsight at the end of the year now.

So, running off my head and in no particuar order:

Going to Phuket first in June then Bali later in September (WIN). Because right smack on the week we were in Bali in September, thousands of travelers in Singapore had to postpone their Phuket trip because the airport had shut down! Too funny for words. Bali posts tagged here, with Phuket ones here.

Having a baby (IN PROGRESS). Well, not saying too much away here, but the decision wasn’t an easy one. There were concerns about health and well-being for example. Funnily, we faced little of the ‘traditional’ sort of pressures. Oh, Ling’s mum asked about it now and then, but there was absolutely no (even polite) queries or pressure exerted on my side of the family. Nor did the announced incentives in August factor into our decisions. First announced here.

Going with a Nissan Latio (WIN). Well, on the upside, the car hasn’t broken down. Moreover, our Latio survived pretty much unscathed compared to the Honda Civic I bumped into nearly a year ago. On the down side, Ling’s been remarking that the car makes funny squeaky noises occasionally, and doesn’t give her the vibes that the Latio is better built than the old Civic we were driving. And we haven’t been getting the 14 km/litre fuel consumption milleage some drivers claimed. But a 12.5 to 12.8 km/litre isn’t too bad. First blogged here, then here.

Red and silver.

Publishing a book (WIN). This, funnily, was the hardest decision I’ve made this year. My work and research has been published in several places prior to this of course, but publishing in academia is quite different from producing a commercial publication. There’s all the legalese in the author’s contract with the publisher, all my liabilities since there’re now new issues of distribution, ownership and copyright. And to top if all off, it’s not as though my book is gonna be selling a million copies allowing me to enter early retirement. The summative royalties I expect are essentially, for lack of a better word, non-existent. First blogged here.

Deciding between a PS3 or an XBox 360 (WIN). No kidding! I had long chats with Matt about the virtues of one console over the other. Moreover, the decision wasn’t as simple as which had the games I was interested in or studying. The decision to go with one of them was made when the high definition standards war was raging, and investment in the PS3 wasn’t a sure decision. It could had turned into a white elephant! First blogged here then here.

Of course I could have bought both, like Matt…

Ling having a go with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

Investing in a new camera system (IN PROGRESS). And what a huge investment it turned into. I was determined to get it right this time by doing proper research, and proper accounting to what I was acquiring. So far, so good. Ok, so the photos are still a long way off to progressing from ‘crappy’ to ‘mediocre’, but I’m working on it! First blogged here.

Trying to fatten Matt up (LOST). As soon as Matt firmed up arrangements to visit and stay with us for a month in June this year, Ling and I drew up a strategy to make sure that this time, he’d leave Singapore weighing heavier than he arrived. And boy, did we try hard! We enlisted everyone’s help. Even my mum, and Doreen. Even our small group was involved. But Matt easily showed that he could beat us all without trying, and he left Singapore weighing less than when he arrived. So we failed miserably again.

He conquered durians even.

But as soon as he’s firmed up plans for a third visit, this time, it’s WAR. If we have to bury him with Banquet pratas or drown him with teh tariks this time, we will!! Ling’s tribute to The Champion here.

There you go. If I can think of any more significant milestones, I’ll append them here later.

That was today’s breakfast menu.  Easily done and delicious. An ex-colleague shared this recipe with me and it has only been recently that I used it again.

Ingredients

Fresh white button mushrooms (1 tub)

thick slices of bread

butter

salt

ground black pepper

Italian dried herbs

Method

1) Clean the mushrooms off any dirt. It is okay to use tap water; it is a myth that mushrooms will absorb water.

2) Slice the mushrooms.

3) Heat up the frying pan with 2 tbsps of butter and lightly stir-fry the sliced mushrooms.

4) The mushrooms will soften and release their delicious smells and this is the time to add a dash of salt, pepper and Italian herbs. Liquid will start to ooze out of the mushrooms too. Stir fry for another 30 seconds or so and then transfer the mushrooms onto a plate. It is okay that the mushrooms are wet.

5) Toast the bread slices using a toaster.

6) Apply butter to one side of toast and distribute the mushrooms (do not include its fluid) on it. Optional: you can also add other light greens such as alfalfa or lettuce. Sandwiched with another buttered toast.

7) Enjoy while the toast is still crispy. :)

We don’t have a toaster at home. So we used our oven set to grill mode to do the toasting. It was better as we could toast 6 slices of bread at one go. :) Yang loved it.

The nutritional value of this recipe is high. Instead of using ham or sausage for breakfast, the traditional protein supplement, mushrooms are also rich in protein. Other advantages of using mushrooms: they are rich in fibre, good sources of antioxidants (prevents cancer) and have almost no fats. The only thing to watch out for is the use of butter which is rich in saturated fats. You can substitute it with olive oil for the sauting and soft margarine for the breadspread. But I feel that a little butter is fine especially when no oil can match up to butter for its wonderful aroma rendered in cooking. Eat in moderation and exercise to keep fit. Don’t forget to drink lots of water, eat a colourful variety fruits and vegetables and have the correct amount of sleep. Enjoy life! :D

Yang’s mother cooks great dishes. Matt can attest to that :) Recently, Yang missed Hainanese pork chops and asked me to try whipping up the dish.

I bought too much pork (~450g) and hence had to remove the potato slices from the recipe. Otherwise we’ll have trouble finishing up the food. The traditional recipe calls for potato. I’ll do that the next time. :)

I learned two new methods while preparing this dish: 1) Using crushed Hup Seng Cream crackers as bread crumbs, and 2) tenderizing the meats using the blunt spine of my chopper. Yang had fun creating the crumbs by pressing them in a ziplock bag while I enjoyed ‘boxing’ the meats with the back of my chopper. :P

The result was terrific. The pork chops tasted hmmmm juicy and tender and the sauce complemented well. The only thing about cooking anything deep fried is the lingering smell and oilyness of the kitchen. The cleaning up always require more time and energy. It’s time to check out those deep fryers.

Below is the recipe for those who are interested. :)

Ingredients (serves 2)

250 g pork chops / pork loin

1 small potato, sliced

1 tomato, cut into wedges

1 onion, quartered

Frozen mixed vegetables (corn, carrots, peas), 4 tbsps

9 Hup Seng cream crackers, crushed into fine crumbs in ziplock bag (alternative: panko)

1/4 cup plain flour

1 egg, beaten

Vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil)

Marinade for pork chops

a pinch of salt

rice wine, 1 tbsp

a dash of pepper

a dash of 5-spice powder

a few drops of sesame oil

cornstarch (1/2 tbsp)

Sauce Mix

water (1/2 cup)

cornstarch (1/2 tsp)

light soy sauce (2 tsps)

sweet chilli sauce (1/2 tbsp)

tomato ketchup (6 tbsps)

sugar (2 tbsps)

rice vinegar (1/2 tbsp)

a few drops of sesame oil

Method

1) Sandwich the pork chops between 2 sheets of cling wrap and beat lightly with the blunt side of chopper knife or a meat mallet to tenderize them. (Note: thick chops must be sliced to at least 1 cm thickness)

2) Mix pork with marinade, wrap and set aside for 1 hour in the refrigerator.

3) Pan fry potato slices until lightly brown. Set aside.

4) Get ready the flour, beaten egg and crumbs in 3 separate plates. Dip pork into flour, then egg and finally crumbs. Make sure pork chops are thoroughly coated with crumbs before deep fry until golden brown.

5) Let the chops cool before cutting them into strips. Arrange them on a serving dish.

6) In a non-stick pan, saute onion. Add tomato wedges and frozen mixed vegetables and stir-fry for 2-3 mins.

7) Add water & cornstarch mixture. Next, add sugar, chilli sauce, ketchup, light soy sauce and vinegar. Stir to mix evenly.

8) Add fried potatoes. Allow sauce to thicken. Add a few drops of sesame oil. Adjust seasoning if needed.

9) Pour over the pork chop strips and serve immediately with steamed white rice. Enjoy! :D

Sigh, have to cross out another favorite food of mine because of the reputation of MIC (made in China) products.

As Yang and I was eating our home-style stir-fry dish of sliced pork, asparagus and golden mushrooms for dinner just now, I became horrified all of a sudden. ”These golden mushrooms are cultivated in China! The substrate used might be plasticky!” I cried. I always detested the chemical smell drifting from the plastic wrapping whenever it was cut. What was that? It seemed to resemble the smell from those disposable chopsticks. Sulphur dioxide? Worse still, was the substrate made up of ground used disposable chopsticks? *Shudder*

Pardon my wild imagination. :)

Anyway, the list of MIC items I’m avoiding is growing by the day. So far, the list goes like this:

1) China fruits (pears, Fuji apples, nectarines, hami melons)

2) China vegetables

3) China luncheon meat (This should be the first on my list. Yang knows the story)

4) China fungi (golden mushrooms, shiitake)

5) China dried products (scallops, birdnest, dates, seaweeds)

6) China biscuits

7) China rabbit sweets

8) China imported medicine, including dried herbs (mother would be upset)

Well, I have to be more resourceful now especially when alternatives can be much more costly. :(

Sheez, it had been a long, afternoon affair making wantons and soup!

Had it not for the fact that I was relatively free today, I’d have made a mess out of the kitchen. The preparation of the pork broth for wanton soup was truly therapeutic in the aromatic sense. The ingredients of the broth include pork bones, dried shrimps (hei bi), onion and garlic. Ahh, the taste of the homemade broth after 3 hours of simmering was simply delicious! It was a real pity that I had to dilute the broth to increase its volume as it turned out to be insufficient for submerging the cooked wantons later.  Next time, I’d know better.

I wanted the prawns to have that signature succulent bite of har gau (shrimp dumplings – dim sum version). I remembered that my ex-colleague once casually mentioned about the method. After confirming the method from various sources on the Internet, I soaked the peeled and de-veined prawns in salt solution for 10 minutes. Well, I think the prawns did become plumber and had more crunch. However, something seemed to be amiss. May be the prawn taste was too strong?

The wrapping of the wantons was fun but time-consuming for the first-timer me. I tore a few wanton wrappers and tried to seal the tear by nipping the skin with my index finger and thumb. I took care to remove as much air as possible from the wantons during wrapping so as to minimise any ugly ballooning later. Being paranoid that water will not glue the wanton skin together, I really pressed them as firmly as possible. No wonder I felt exhausted after that!

The verdict? With my tender, loving squeeze, the wontons didn’t ‘explode’ (spill their contents) when cooked. Yay. :D Yang and I each ate a big bowl of wonton soup with chilli padi in light soy sauce as a side condiment. I’ll say it was, er, passable. 3 out of 5? Yang wasn’t excited about the dish at all. At least, he didn’t give any negative comment. I don’t think I’ll make this dish again unless I chance upon a better recipe or someone’s in the mood to throw a wonton party :P Wouldn’t it be fun to wrap wontons with a group of friends as a form of social gathering?

After an unsuccessful attempt at beef stew (I added too much red wine! Sobs!), I was determined to do it right. But this time, I chose something easier – chicken stew.

I went on a recipe hunt on the Internet again and found a well-reviewed and tested recipe on Recipezaar. Initially, I was skeptical over the reviews as the ingredients were too simple to be true. Nevertheless, I went ahead to give the recipe a shot and it turned out to be simply delicious! The soup was bursting with aromatic and delectable flavours. I believe the vegetables did it together with the chicken broth. Tomatoes, potatoes and carrots: they make up the terrific trio in the soup. They blend so well. Why, my mother also used this combo before but with water instead of chicken broth. The result was still irresistable. I remember sitting at my family home’s kitchen table sipping at her home-made soup with such contentment.

There’s another wonderful ingredient which Yang and I love to include in almost all of our home-cooked dishes. Fresh mushrooms, of course! Yang favours the white buttons while I enjoy a greater range of fungi. Anything from white/brown button mushrooms to shiitake, golden mushrooms, padi mushrooms, oyster mushrooms and portobellos. And do you know where to get the cheapest mushrooms? Not Cold Storage or NTUC. It is Sheng Siong supermarket. But it is a pity that the take-up rate of fresh mushrooms at Sheng Siong is poor. I feel so sad whenever I see those mushrooms ‘withering’ in their containers on the shelves. Yo people, start eating fresh mushrooms leh. They are good for you; high in fibre, protein, minerals and antioxidants (prevents cancer!) and low in fat. :)

This is one of those rare weekends where my mind is in the care-free mode.

I’ve finished marking, returning and discussing my students’ work and now they are all busy with their final preparations for the examination tomorrow. In the meanwhile, they didn’t know that their teacher is having a great time :)

I called Doreen, my best friend of 20 years, to find out whether she was free to do some catching up. We managed to squeeze out a common time yesterday afternoon to do some cooking, chit-chatting and watching BBC’s Pride and Prejudice together. Since I had been keen on trying out a Ratatouille recipe taken from the Internet, and darling dearest doesn’t like eggplant, this was a perfect opportunity to cook and eat with my best friend who is adventurous in food. :)

The list of ingredients and steps for the dish looked daunting enough for me but the actual dish turned out to be surprisingly easy without a messy kitchen Yang had expected. Hee hee. *victory sign* “D The only thing about preparing this French dish is having the patience for the eggplant to release its juices during the simmering process.

We ate Ratatouille with slices of baguette and oh, it was so healthy and satisfying. We ate it warm but it was also good after it had cooled down to room temperature. :) The recipe I used had an unconventional ingredient, i.e. button mushrooms. In addition, the recipe I chose seemed to be easier to manage than others available on the Internet. :)

I found out that Doreen had been going through house-keeping training in her mission study course too! She used to take her own sweet time (me too!) to wash the dishes but yesterday changed my perception of her. Oh you should see how fast she was in helping to clean the dishes. I’m impressed. She’s definitely good for being a missionary and also a home-maker. Hee hee. :D