Millet Congee

I love millet. It's a great substitute to rice once in a while. It's healthy, a good energy and protein source... BUT I did read somewhere that like everything that we eat, we should always do so in moderation.

Usually when I'm sick I eat congee. If you're like me and you like the rice to be soft, you know how long it takes for the rice to boil before they soften up. Plus when you're sick, even watching the stove can be hard. Millet cooks and softens quite fast. So that's what I eat when I'm sick. I boil up a huge pot of water with millet and that's my three meals for the next few days. Pathetic, I know... but when you live by yourself and you're ill, you just have to make do :(

When I'm ill I usually use a normal metal pot; however, I prefer to use clay pots. Especially when making something where I want the flavour to be retained best. Claypots are best when you wish to retain nutrients and it has even heating. There are many different dishes you can make with claypots and they are versatile in the sense where they can be over the gas stove or in the oven.
I just wish I had a bigger claypot.

Ingredients:

Millet
Chicken Stock 
Bak Choy (or any other vegetables you would like eg. broccoli)
Shao Xing Wine
Chicken breast pieces

• Step 1, in the pot (clay or metal) add in the chicken stock and boil

• Step 2, cut up the vegetable and throw in the stem parts into the pot to cook. Cover the pot. 
• Step 3, when the stems are of a different shade of green and are partially cooked, add in the millet (read the below) and the leafy parts of the vegetables. Cover the pot. (ensure there is enough liquid)

Okay, this step is up to you whether you want to throw it in from the start, in the middle or when it boils. There are many many many methods cooking millet and rice. Be it whether you like to use the rice cooker, you like to cook it manually and whether you like to allow it to steam for a while before eating it. It all depends on personal taste. However in this case, since you're eating the millet with soup, I don't think it really makes a difference. 

• Step 4, when the millet has turned a slight translucent colour, add in a tablespoon of Shao Xing wine, mix and add in the chicken. Cover the pot. 
• Step 5, when everything is cooked, it's time to eat!

The important part of the dish is the chicken stock which is where the dish mainly gets its flavour from. Shao Xing wine is used to give that extra depth and flavour to the dish. You can even add carrots and mushrooms if you want to this dish. It's really up to you :)

Hugs for everyone~ Nomz away!

Banana Dessert

First thing's first, I apologise for not posting up recipes for the past two months. I've been super busy working 6 days a week and juggling uni assignments and exams. After that, I had a whole bunch of drama happening and I basically was too depressed to even cook! But I'm back and I'm going to start on a sweet sweet note!

I had super ripe bananas and at first I was thinking of making banana muffins... then I got lazy :p Plus I wanted to try something new so I surfed around the web and found a recipe for caramelised bananas. Click to view the recipe I got my inspiration from :)

From the photographs you can see that my recipe and the one I gained inspiration from are very different. I used similar ingredients. So here it is!

Ingredients:

Butter (2 tablespoon)

2 Ripe Banana (mine were really really soft)

Light Brown Sugar (3 tsp or more if you want it sweeter)

A pinch of cinnamon

• Step 1, melt the butter in a pot 
• Step 2, add in the sugar and stir till melted and well combined
• Step 3, add in the banana and mix till all bananas are coated
• Step 4, continue to stir the mixture till warm (to ensure the bottom doesn't burn)
• Step 5, move the mixture into a bowl and add in the pinch of cinnamon and mix 
• Step 6, DONE!

I haven't been cooking much and today was my first day cooking proper meals again. I gobbled this dessert up in 5 minutes. It's a great way to use up ripe bananas. Another recipe I was thinking of doing was making goreng pisang which is basically deep fried bananas. However I don't often deep fry because of the busy clean up and the need to store the excess oil. So if you're thinking of using ripe bananas for a quick dessert, you could give this recipe a go :) 

 Hugs for everyone~ Go bananas!

Recently I decided to give a go on making Pavlova. I used Donna Hay's recipe. It was simple and relatively easy. However, just as Donna said in the season 2 of Australia's Masterchef, it's a simple recipe where so many things can go wrong.

Essentially the most important thing for me was the ensure that my equipment and utensils were clean and free from any oil (deemed excess oil) that would ruin my egg whites from rising. Plus, I have never done a pavlova so I made sure I was extra careful with the accuracy and amount of ingredients I used.

I'm really happy with the results. The crust is nice and hard but the only problem is how my crust rose so high but my insides were quite low. So my crust would crumble. This could have been because I accidentally added in the a little cornstarch and used a mixer instead of folding it in with a spoon.

Other than that, everything seemed okay :) I tried to make fresh cream from milk, but it failed miserably so I stuck to a caramel sauce with bananas instead :p  I've never tried a pavlova but I do like that it has a good hard crust with a mashmallowy inside :3

 Hugs for everyone~ Try making your own pavlova!

Ramen

I started off this dish with the broth. I bought myself a pack of good beef marrow bones and I knew I wanted to make soup with them but I just couldn't figure out what else I wanted to do. I've been reading and watching cooking shows and manga etc. So I decided to do ramen!!

I know that using beef as a soup base is a little unconventional. But wait... it gets much weirder haha. Instead of doing normal noodles, while I was doing them from scratch, instead of water, I used tangerine juice.


For the broth I kept it simple, I used two big beef marrow bones and boiled them till it was nice thick and oily. I only added in a little salt. After you leave the broth to cool, the layer of oil should have hardened and I used a spoon to scoop them out together with the bones. Next, add in the ingredients you want in the broth. I kept mine simple with chopped up king oyster mushroom and nappa cabbage (wombok).

Moving on to the noodles! I had to refer online so here's the recipe. I only did two things differently. Firstly, I used orange juice instead of water and added in the zest of mandarin oranges.
I use tangerines because they have a slight sour flavour but are still sweet unlike normal oranges. It is essentially the flavour I would like my noodles to have. However, it's skin and zest are too bitter and mandarins are better. (Obviously this varies depending on the fruit). Secondly, instead thin noodles, I made thick flat noodles as they go better with a thick broth.

And if you're wondering... yes I did step on the dough. And no, I'm not crazy. The reason as to why there's a need to step on the dough is like the reasoning behind kneading bread. For it to be chewy and have a nice texture. So same thing for the noodles but instead of kneading it, you just have to use heavy weight to press down on the dough (which in this case will be your body weight).

So the important thing to note is cooking time for fresh ramen. It's very much faster so you have to make sure that they don't become too soft and disintegrate. Another thing to note is the taste of the end product. I was so busy putting the broth and noodle together I forgot to ensure the taste of it at the end. So just make sure you don't make the same mistake as I did and ensure you taste before serving. Rookie mistake. I know.

Oh yes, I didn't use cornstarch at the end of the noodle recipe. Instead I hung the noodles to dry. I use the back of a chair to help dry them out. Because there's usually a problem of the noodles sticking together and I don't really like using cornstarch on anything, hanging them out to dry makes it easier :) It's a little trick I learnt from my big sister.

Hugs for everyone~ Give the noodles a go!

More fried rice

Today I'm blogging about more variations of fried rice. The joy of fried rice is the way how many different variety of ingredients can be used to create something that tastes YUM :3

In the first photograph, the ingredients used:
Corn
Baby pea shoots
Garlic
Cooked Rice
Soy Sauce
Cooking Oil


In the second photograph, the ingredients used:
Eggplant
Pearl Mushroom
Olives
Garlic
Cooked Rice
Soy Sauce
Cooking Oil/Sesame Oil


I know it's a little weird to be using olives in fried rice dish, but it adds a nice texture and flavour to the dish :)

I apologise for not having updated this blog in a while but uni and work have been taking up most of my time. I'll try my best to upload more recipes, but I can't promise anything. Till the next recipe, ta ta for now~

Hugs for everyone~ Have fun coming up with your own fried rice!

Creamy Pumpkin Pasta Sauce

I bought pumpkin the other day and I was wondering what to do with it. Should I make a pie, or a nice pot of soup... and I decided why not try making a nice pasta sauce?

I was looking online and all I really saw was how there were only chunks of pumpkin added and not really a pumpkin sauce. So I decided to give it a go. So pumpkin lovers rejoice, this sauce could essentially remind you of a pumpkin pie... just that it's not sweet and instead it's more savoury and flavourful.

Ingredients:

Pumpkin 

Brown Onion

Thyme

Rosemary

Thicken Cream

Cooking Oil

(Nutmeg) 

(Cumin)

 

This is just the sauce recipe since I'm pretty sure many would already know how to cook the pasta :p Just boil it!

• Step 1, heat up water in a pot 
• Step 2, while waiting for the water to boil, cut up the pumpkin and onion
• Step 3, add the pumpkin to the boiling water
• Step 4, when the pumpkin has soften, place it in a bowl and give it a good mash
• Step 5, add in the herbs and thicken cream and give it a good mix till uniform
• Step 6, in a saucepan, add in a little cooking oil and sautee the onions
• Step 7, when the onions have caramalised, add in the pumpkin mixture.
• Step 8, taste test and alter the recipe to your liking :) And you're done!!

This is a nice recipe to try if you don't know what you want to do with your pumpkin. I usually run out of ideas with pumpkins and usually if it's used in cooking, it's not the main star of the dish. So if you're a pumpkin lover, I'm sure you'd like that the pumpkin is the absolute main focus of this dish :D 

 

You can use a potato masher for the pumpkins as well :) It makes life so much easier if you own a potato masher. No more using the back of the spoon or fork and tediously trying to mash everything evenly! 

Hugs for everyone~ Have a smashing time!

Sitr fried potato noodles

I love the chewy texture that potato noodles give. They just bring an extra element into the dish. They can generally be purchased in most asian super markets.

This recipe can be used with any other kind of noodle like vermicelli, rice noodles, etc. You can also choose the ingredients that you like to use. So this is just my own variation of what I did for lunch the other day.

Ingredients:

Potato noodles

Brown Onion

Corn (fresh or frozen)

Prawns (`100g)

White button Mushrooms

Soy Sauce

Cooking Oil

(Sesame Oil)

• Step 1, boil water in a pot
• Step 2, while the water is heating up, cut up the onion, mushrooms (and prawns)
• Step 3, when the water has boiled, add in the potato noodles

Take note that the potato noodles will generally take longer to cook

• Step 4,  as the noodles are being boiled, heat up the cooking oil in a suacepan
• Step 5, when the oil has heated, add in the onion
• Step 6, when the onion has turned soft and translucent, add in the corn and mushrooms.
• Step 7, after the mushrooms have soften, add in the prawns. 
• Step 8, by now the noodles should have soften. Add in the noodles and add in the soy sauce (and sesame oil). Mix well.
• Step 9, ensure that everything has been cooked thoroughly and the flavour is to your liking. Serve.

This recipe is very similar to the Stir fried rice vermicelli just that it uses different noodles and ingredients. Hope you have fun making up your own variations!

Hugs for everyone! Think of your own variation :D

Rose Syrup Icing

So I was suppose to make a batch of bandung cupcakes for a friend to show my appreciation of him and his housemates for taking care of me while I was locked out of my house (I forgot my keys :\ ).

Due to carelessness, I botched up the measurements and the entire batter. Really really badly. My cupcakes were more of vanilla than bandung. Because I promised him a batch of bandung, I decided that I might as well make the best of it and try making a good rose icing to complement the cupcake as well as give the good rose flavour you would get from eating a good bandung cupcake.

So after trying for a while... I managed to get the flavour that I really like. The only problem was texture. It just wasn't thick enough. That was a major problem since the icing would just seep all over. I couldn't thicken it more due to the lack of icing sugar. So I just had to make do. But I think it went well :)

Since I have left over icing, I think the next thing I'm going to do is basically make mini vanilla cupcakes and frost them. Or get more sugar to thicken up the icing before I try again.

Pizza

Anyone up for a nice pizza? I was casually asking my friend how much he eats and he compared it to eating a whole pizza. It sparked inspiration for me to actually make pizza since I haven't had it in ages, plus I never got the chance to make pizza from scratch when I was in Secondary School.

Because I've been so busy at work, this is a super simple recipe. It's not quick because it does take some time for the dough to rise.
This recipe would be great with children as well! Because they get to choose their toppings and place them on the pizza, so it's like a personal yay!

So ingredients are all up to your imagination. I used olives, parmigiano-reggiano cheese, cheddar cheese, white button mushrooms and tomato paste. I love to buy Leggo's tomato paste. You don't have to worry about how you're going to use leftover paste because you can always dilute it with milk or thicken cream to make pasta sauce.

So this post will basically be how to make the dough and the toppings are all up to your creativity!

Ingredients:

Plain Flour (200g)

Yeast (slightly less than 1 tsp)

Lukewarm water (125ml)

Salt and sugar (pinch) 

• Step 1, preheat oven to 180-200 degrees celcius.
• Step 2, combine the water, sugar and yeast together in a small bowl. 
• Step 3, combine flour and salt in a larger bowl and make a well
• Step 4, after 5 minutes when the small bowl mixture is foamy, add it into the well of the bigger bowl
• Step 5, mix well and knead the dough on a lightly floured surface till smooth and elastic
• Step 6, place it back in the bowl and place a damp cloth to cover the bowl. Leave it to double in size ( in warm room temperature)
• Step 7, when the dough has doubled, roll it out into a circle trying to make the surface even 
• Step 8, place them on a baking tray/aluminium (ensure surface has been oiled so the dough doesn't stick). 
• Step 9, into the oven they go!! For around 10-15 minutes

My family used to let my brother and I pretend to make pizzas using bread slices. I really wish they knew how to make pizza dough then. Bread slices just doesn't really hit the spot. 

I hope you have fun making pizzas :D 

Hugs for everyone! Pizza anyone?

Buttermilk Pancakes!

I'm pretty sure that there's no need for a photograph because everyone knows what pancakes look like. Plus the reason why I don't have a photo is also because I rushed out of the house with them and forgot to take a photograph. So you'd have to use your imagination :p

My sister likes to make these into small mini pancakes that you can snack on because we fin that they taste awesome without butter and syrup already.

Ingredients:

Self-rising flour (1 cup)

Milk (3/4 cup)

White Vinegar (2 tbs)

Baking Soda (1/2 tsp)

Sugar (1 tbs)

Egg (1)

Butter (melted... 2 tbs + if you're using them instead of cooking oil)

Salt 

• Step 1, in a small bowl, mix the milk and vinegar together and leave it for around 5 minutes 
• Step 2, in a bigger bowl, add the flour, baking soda, salt and sugar together. 
• Step 3, smell the small bowl for a sour smell and if present, add in the butter and egg into the small bowl.
• Step 4, make a well/hole in the middle of the bigger bowl.
• Step 5, pour the wet ingredients (small bowl) into the well/hole
• Step 6, mix well
• Step 7, in a saucepan, heat up cooking oil/butter
• Step 8, using a ladle (well I like to use a ladle instead of a spoon), pour out a little bit of the batter
• Step 9, when bubbles appear on the surface of the pancake, wait for a while and then use a spatula to flip them over.
• Step 10, when both sides are nice and brown, place on a plate and serve :)

The use of a ladle will allow you to pour out somewhat equal amounts of batter so your pancakes are of similar size. Plus it also prevents you from dripping batter everywhere. If you don't have vinegar to make buttermilk, you could use vanilla essence instead. The flavour is different but it still tastes awesome ^^

Hugs for everyone!! Nom nom nom~

Small little tips

The recipes in this posts are simple and mainly everyone can do them. So instead of making posts about the steps, I decided to just talk about little tips that I do.

MASH POTATOES

So the first tip is about mash potatoes. Whenever I make them, I like to mix in carrots. Why? Simply because I like that there are little spots of orange :p But it's also because I want to make myself feel less guilty that all I'm eating are carbs. The best way I love my mash is with a little milk. It just gives that little hint of creaminess in it. I know that many recipes also ask for butter, but I like to go healthier and just avoid the butter. To me, it tastes great with or without butter. 

BATTER

I learnt this from my mother. I believe that every cook should have a simple batter recipe that is versatile enough to go with almost anything. I use this batter for a number of different things.

All this requires, is self rising flour, water and oil. For those who bake, the batter would probably remind you of something similar to a more watery cupcake batter. Just ensure that it's still liquidy and you can draw patterns that stay when you lift the spoon. Just a small amount of oil is used to give the end product a nice shine.

The biggest trick to make sure that your batter stays crispy and doesn't start to turn soggy after a while is... temperature. Ensure that your batter is as cold as possible by leaving in the fridge in a while. My mother does this with ice cubes, but since I don't really want to risk watering down my batter, I use a metal bowl and leave it in the fridge for around 5 minutes. Your batter should be far away from your fire. You want the batter to remain cold throughout. I usually throw in the ingredients in the batter, leave them in the fridge and only bring them out when I am frying them. So my fridge door opens and shuts quite often when I do this. 

STEAK

When marinating steaks, be it beef or salmon or any kind of meat, the best way to make sure that you have spread the salt evenly is through the use of your hands. Pour the salt on the palm of one hand, rub both hands together and just gently grab and 'apply' the salt on the meat ensuring that you have rubbed every part of the steak. Do the same if you want pepper. 

I'm not a fan of steak sauce. The best way to enjoy a steak is just with a little salt (and .... to many others, pepper. Yep, I'm still not a pepper fan)

And of course the most obvious thing to look out for is the amount of heat and the time. It's always hard to grasp the time so keep your eyes on the steak. If it's undercook you can always cook it longer, but if it's overcooked, you're stuck with dry and tough meat. 

So here are three tips when you're making mash, a flour batter or steak :) Hope you found these helpful! Oh yes, if you're in Sydney and you're an absolute fan of good meat. One of the best places I always go to get roasts and steaks is at Meat Emporium (Establishment 218). You get to choose a big piece of meat and they will help cut it up if you want to. I usually only get the big ones if I have gatherings or if I'm sharing the piece with someone else. They have a good variety of lamb, chicken, pork, beef and I love their sausages. I rarely go to this place because it's a little further off and since it's meat, I only go when someone's available to drive me over. If you want beef bones, smoked beef bones, or even double smoked, they have them there.  So if you're a meat lover, check out their website and see if you find it to your liking :) 

Hugs for everyone~ Share handy tips if you have any!

Stirfried nappa cabbage with carrots and mushrooms

My friend had been over for dinner recently and we've been having a really great time just cooking, chilling and drinking wine.

That's probably one of the greatest reasons why I haven't been posting up recipes. We've had a seafood feast, a chinese cuisine and also a western dinner. I'll be posting little recipes here and there from the dinners.

My friend loves this dish. He likes how simplistic it is.


Ingredients:
Garlic (~2 cloves)

Nappa cabbage

Carrots

Shiitake mushrooms (fresh or dried - allow the mushrooms to have soaked and soften)

Soy Sauce

Cooking Oil

• Step 1, wash the cabbage and carrots
• Step 2, cut the cabbage, garlic and the carrots (peel them if you wish)
• Step 3, Heat up the cooking oil in a pan
• Step 4, place the garlic in the pan 
• Step 5, when you can smell the fragrance of the garlic, throw in the cabbage and carrots into the pan
• Step 6, allow the cabbage and carrots to fry till they have soften. 
• Step 7, add in the mushrooms and soy sauce. Mix well.
• Step 8, serve.

Simple enough? Haha. It's a quick and easy dish to make so if you're on a time crunch, you could give this a try :) 

Hugs for everyone~ Have fun cooking!!

Smooth and silky steam egg

From young I always wondered how people made steam egg that was nice and smooth with rarely any bubbles. I used to ask the lady at the stall I used to buy steam egg from. She used to joke with me saying that only pretty women could make steam egg because they had smooth skin. It was hilarious. Now that I'm older, I've learnt the trick and I've made my own recipe for it too :)

The most important tool is... a sieve. But that's not the only important tool in this recipe... we also need egg shells. So make sure you try to break your eggs well and keep half a shell.

Ingredients:

4 Eggs
Dried Mushrooms (depending on how much they expand, I used around 3)
Chicken Broth
Hot water

• Step 1, place the mushrooms in a bowl, add in the hot water and cover. Allow the mushrooms to have time to expand and soften.
• Step 2, in the steamer, add in water and allow the water the boil.
• Step 3, while you wait for the mushrooms and the water, start to crack the eggs into a bowl. Don't forget to keep half of the egg shell.
• Step 4, using the shell as a scoop, take 6 scoops of chicken broth and pour them into the bowl.
• Step 5, using the water the mushrooms are soaked in, take 2 scoops and pour them into the bowl
• Step 6, mix the egg mixture till even and sieve the mixture into another bowl. 
• Step 7, cut the softened mushrooms and gently drop them into the egg mixture.
• Step 8, place the bowl in the steamer for around 10-15 minutes.

So one egg is to two scoops of liquid. If you are unsure if the steam egg is done, give it a little shake, if it shakes a lot, it's probably not ready. If you really want to make sure, give it a poke! heehee :p 
Be careful not to overcook the egg as well as it will become slightly tough and dry. 

Hugs for everyone~ Have an eggcellent day!

Stirfried eggplant spaghetti

I bought a huge eggplant. So I'd probably have more eggplant recipes coming up.

Here's a nice simple recipe, only flaw is that it may be overly oily so just be careful with your control with the oil.

Ingredients:

Garlic (2-3 cloves)
Onion (~half)
Eggplant
Spaghetti noodles
Olive Oil

• Step 1, boil water in a pot over the stove.
• Step 2, cut up the onion, garlic and eggplant
• Step 3, when the water has boiled, add the spaghetti in the pot
• Step 4, heat up some olive oil in a sauce pan
• Step 5, when the oil is heated, add in the garlic and onion
• Step 6, when the fragrance of garlic and onion is in the air, add in the eggplant
• Step 7, check on your spaghetti noodles. If they are al dente, drain the pasta and set them aside.
• Step 8, when the eggplants are cooked, add in the spaghetti noodles and a little olive oil.

It is important to note that throughout the process of frying the eggplants, if there is not enough oil, add in probably half a tablespoon at a time so that it doesn't turn out overly oily.

Hugs for everyone :) Eat away!!

Honey Soy Chicken

This is a great recipe if you really want that sweet and savoury taste in your mouth where both flavours really compliment each other.

This is not a difficult recipe but it may take a while. I would give it probably around 40 minutes prep plus cooking time before you can eat this dish. So if you don't mind the wait, give this a go.

The honey used in this dish really depends on the type of honey you use. You'll have to taste test the sauce before pouring it over the chicken.

Ingredients:

Garlic (2-3 cloves)
Ginger 
Chicken (500g~)
Light Soy Sauce (~1/2 cup)
Honey (~1/4-1/3 cup)

• Step 1, preheat your oven at forced fan settings at 180 degrees Celsius   
• Step 2,cut up the ginger, garlic and chicken
• Step 3, place the cut up ingredients into an ovenproof dish
• Step 4, in a bowl, pour in the soy sauce and honey and mix well. Ensure that all the honey has dissolved.
• Step 5, pour the liquid mixture over the chicken in the dish. 

I like to make sure that my chicken is flat on the dish and is all almost fully covered with the soy sauce.

• Step 6, cover the dish either with a lid (if you have one) or wrapped with aluminium foil. There is no need to poke holes in the foil.
• Step 7, place the covered dish in the oven for around 30-40 minutes or until the chicken has cooked
• Step 8, remove the foil and flip the chicken pieces over.
• Step 9, allow the uncovered dish to stay in the oven for around another 5 minutes and remove.
• Step 10, Serve. 

There is no need to drain out the soy sauce marinade. What I like to do is use it as a sauce and drizzle it over my rice when I eat the dish. Plus, if there is leftover chicken, it will not go dry as you can store it together with the marinade.


If you have leftover chicken and leftover rice... and you want to eat some thing different. Change it up into fried rice :)

Ingredients:

Leftover honey soy chicken (plus marinade)
Leftover rice 
Egg (1 or 2)
Frozen/fresh corn kernels
Cooking oil

• Step 1, heat up some cooking oil in a sauce pan
• Step 2, when the oil heats up, add in the corn kernels
• Step 3, add in the rice 

If required, add in a little bit of water to soften up the rice. Then cover with a lid (if you want).

• Step 4, add in the chicken and drizzle the rice with the marinade (till there is enough flavour)
• Step 5, crack the egg into a bowl/cup and mix.
• Step 6, pour the egg over the rice and allow the rice to be completely coated with egg.
• Step 7, mix the rice around as the egg is cooking to ensure that the 
• Step 5, Serve :)

Do not add in the chicken before the rice even if the rice does not require water. The chicken may overcook and you will end up with super tough chicken. As much as it's leftovers, you still want your chicken to be as juicy and moist as possible.

 

I love to do something different with leftovers. No one likes to eat the same thing for every meal just because there are leftovers. There's usually a way to change it up and turn it into something that tastes like a new dish altogether :) 

Hugs for everyone :) Enjoy the meal!

Stirfried eggplant with chicken

Usually I use mince meat for this recipe but since I'm all out of mince, this was the best I could substitute it for. It still tastes awesome and the steps are still the same.

Ingredients:

Garlic (1-2 cloves)
Chicken (200g~)
Eggplant
Shao XingWine (~1/2 to 1 tbs)
Sesame Oil (1-2tsp)
Light Soy Sauce
Cooking Oil
Ginger

• Step 1, cut up the ginger, garlic, chicken and eggplant
• Step 2, in a small bowl, add in and mix the chopped up chicken, shao xing wine, sesame oil and a little soy sauce. Set aside.

If you don't have sesame oil, that's fine. Just don't add it in.

• Step 3, heat up cooking oil in a sauce pan.
• Step 4, when the oil is hot, add in the garlic and ginger.
• Step 5, when the fragrance is in the air, add in the eggplants
• Step 6, when the eggplant turns slightly translucent, add in the chicken
• Step 7, mix well and ensure that all chicken bits are cooked. (OPTIONAL) Add in more soy sauce for flavour.
• Step 8, Serve :)

A nice simple dish to make when pressed for time and when you're lazy. I absolutely love eggplants. I realised that I absolutely love a lot of things.. but then again, there are so many things to love! heehee. Eggplants can get really oily if you aren't use to cooking them as they tend to soak up quite a bit of oil and if you're not careful, you'd add in too much oil and your dish will get really oily. 

Hugs for everyone :) Enjoy your meal!

Seafood Tomato Sauce

Yesterday I headed off in the evening to get rice milk to make cupcakes. I could have bought normal cow's milk from a nearby store but since my friends are lactose intolerant, I decided to just go slightly out of my way to get rice milk.

I absolutely love rice milk. It just has a very nice mildly sweet flavour to it. Anyways, back to today's recipe :) Because I headed out to get rice milk, I decided to buy fresh ingredients for dinner.



I went to Pacific Square to get the milk and I realised that the Seafood store was still open. They're part of a shop that sells seafood meals so they open quite late. So I decided to just head over and get myself fresh prawns and calamari rings. I haven't had calamari rings for over a year now so I decided why not. Since the special for prawns were only for those that were cooked, I decided to just get those and save some time on cooking. Things to note for prawns...

1. VISUAL. Uncooked prawns- ensure that there are no black spots on the heads and tails of the prawn. Cooked prawns - ensure a nice even opaque colour of the prawns.
2. SMELL. Obviously this is after you've bought the prawns and perhaps have stored them for a while and wish to know if they are still fresh. The longer you store any kind of seafood, the stronger the 'fishy' smell is.
3. TEXTURE. There is a difference in texture between prawns that are fresh and those that aren't. Usually those that are older are much softer and perhaps have a sort of slimier feel. The fresh ones have a nice firm texture and are not as slimy as the softer ones.

Ingredients:

Garlic (1-2 cloves)
Onion (half)
Cooked Prawns (100-200g)
Calamari Rings (100g)
Tomato Paste (~4 tbs)
Water
White Wine (I used sauvignon blanc) (~1/2 to 1 tbs)
Lemon
Cooking Oil

• Step 1, boil some water in a pot

• Step 2, while the water is boiling, cut up the garlic, onion, prawns(or just simple peel the shell off) and calamari rings
• Step 3, when the water has boiled, place the prawns and calamari pieces in the pot for around half a minute, drain the water and set the pieces aside.
• Step 4, in a saucepan, heat up some oil
• Step 5, when the oil has heated, throw in the garlic and onions.
• Step 6, when the onions have soften add in the tomato paste with a little wine and lemon juice and mix.
• Step 7, if the sauce is still too thick for your liking, add in a little water and taste to check the flavour
• Step 8. when the sauce is finally to your liking, add in the prawn and calamari pieces. 
• Step 9, give them a good mix and serve.

To give myself more variety I also added in thyme egg that I made in an older post. Instead of rice, this recipe would also go well with pasta :) 

Hugs for everyone~ Have a great day!