more food!

I’m so happy I’ve found a new way to entertain myself. I spend most of my time at work and not knowing the place well yet, I find myself spending a lot of time at home after work just chilling out. The lot at work is a little different from the ones I have worked with for 3 years. In KL it was effortless to have an agenda after work – we just head to La Bodega, our watering hole. At times I’m there 4 times out of 5 working days, just having a drink or two and then head home to have dinner or watch some TV. Or I meet up with the girls for dinner. Or go out with my colleagues for dinner. There was always something to do.

Anyway what I have recently started to do more of – cooking! I have always enjoyed the little cooking I’ve done over the years and have been pretty restricted to the few dishes that I keep cooking over and over again but being here permanently means I have to learn to cook more than what I know........and you know what? I’m starting to get really interested.

Problem is sometimes I don’t know what certain ingredients are called and I still don’t know many cooking techniques. So most of what I do is trial and error. I am rubbish at following recipes for cooking (baking is another story, I used to do a lot of that) so I find myself throwing in whatever I feel should make up the taste....and improvise.

Last night’s dinner turned out well again (thank God!) and Oscar enjoyed it so much he was scraping off the sauce! Hehe

We had Watercress Soup, Siew Pak Choy annnnddddddd ......... Char Siew!! Yes I had cravings for Char Siew (not the icky red and overly sweet ones you find in Food Courts!) Oscar loved the meal last night and he even offered to wash up!!

Bear in mind that I don’t follow any “recipes” so I’m sure there are better ways to cook it but here’s my version of last night’s dinner. I only remembered to take photos half way through it so it's all half eaten already hahaha and Oscar likes the Char Siew Sauce so we scraped everything out of the pan and decided to drown the Char Siew. -_-

WATERCRESS SOUP

What I used: (bear in mind this is only for 2)
5 pieces pork bone (you can use pork ribs, chicken cage, chicken bones...whatever lah)
1 small piece pork belly
10 red dates
Wolfberries (Kei Chi in Chinese, I didn’t measure – I just put some in)
1 pkt watercress
½ piece of dried squid (sotong)

What I did:
1) Bring water to boil in pot
2) Put in pork bone & dried squid. Boil for ½ hour
3) Put in red dates, wolfberries, pork belly, watercress
4) Boil for another 45 minutes. Ready!

I always like soup that has been boiled for hours. Reminds me of my grandma who used charcoal and a claypot to boil soup for over 10 hours. Super yummy!

SIEW PAK CHOY

What I used:
I pkt Siew Pak Choy (I separated the stalks and leaves)
3 cloves garlic, chopped (I loooove plenty of garlic in my veggies though)
4 slices ginger
1 tbsp light soya sauce
5 tbsp Hua Diao Jiu / Shaoxing Wine
Dash of white pepper
Pinch of Salt
Pinch of Maggi Ikan Bilis Stock

What I did:
1) Heat oil in work, fry garlic and ginger until fragrant
2) Add in the stalks
3) Add in soya sauce, hua diao jiu & ikan bilis stock
4) Add in the leafy parts
5) Add pepper and salt

Reason why I separated the stalks is because they take a longer time to cook and I don’t like the leafy bits over cooked.

CHAR SIEW

What I used:
2 pieces pork belly (I picked the ones that were not overly fat)
4 tbsp Lee Kum Kee Char Siew Sauce
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1 tbsp Hua Diao Jiu
½ tbsp Oyster Sauce
½ tbsp Light Soya Sauce
Some honey for glazing

What I did:
1) Marinate the pork belly with the char siew sauce, hua diao jiu, oyster sauce and light soys sauce. Make sure the marinade evenly covers the pork. Put in the garlic. Leave for at least 2 hours (or overnight!)
2) Heat pan in very low fire (there is high sugar content in the char siew sauce so if fire is high it will burn too quickly)
3) Put pork in pan and cover
4) Turn over after 10 minutes and cover. Let the other side cook for another 10 minutes
5) When the pork is cooked and the sauce turns sticky, glaze the pork with some honey
6) Increase fire to medium but you will have to keep turning it to prevent it from turning into charcoal!
7) When it’s ready slice the char siew and spread the remaining sauce over


Oscar being Oscar, his accompanying drink for this meal was.....

this!

-_-

pork meatballs spaghetti

Being away from home means I am deprived of home cooked food. It’s true when they say that you don’t appreciate what you have until you don’t have it!! So mum – when I’m back in March, all I want to do is eat at home every single day!

So.....I resorted to the next best thing – cooking!! Thankfully Oscar loves Chinese food and I have always rather enjoyed cooking (I just don’t cook in KL because I have my mum to do that! Hehe). I picked up cooking whilst I was studying in Perth. I remember ButtercupTjin and I buying all the ingredients from the Asian store and when it came to us cooking for the first time, we were both crouching next to the bag of rice we bought, armed with a rice cooker and looked at each other and said “I hope you know what you’re doing!” hahaha!! ButtercupTjin said “How would I know, I have a maid at home” in which I replied “How would I know either, I have a mum who’s a good cook!”.

I made a long distance call to mum to ask her how to cook rice.

And that was how I started cooking!!

To cut the story short Tjin and I had many funny incidents with cooking which I shall not mention here but “invented” many dishes – Spaghetti ala MichTjin, Nasi Goreng Sambal ala MichTjin, Black Pepper Chicken ala MichTjin, Hokkien Mee ala MichTjin and the list goes on. I must say by the time we left Perth we perfected most of these dishes (by our own standards lah!).....hahaha

When I lived in Johannesburg I cooked a lot as well, mainly because it wasn’t very safe to go out at night and it was quite expensive to eat out. My flatmate at that time, Viv, loved it! We had Bak Kut Teh, Ayam Masak Merah, Chicken Rendang, Nasi Lemak etc in South Africa – in the middle of the frigging cold winter. When you’re that far away from home, even OldTown White Coffee is nice as the smell of it reminds you of home. So imagine being in Africa, 2 celcius when you get back from work and have Bak Kut Teh for dinner. Yummm!

I have cooked up a few meals in Singapore but again, I’m rubbish at taking photos. By the time I remember dinner is usually in our tummies already :-(

However, there was one dish which I was really happy about as it was the first time for me cooking it and mostly from scratch! No recipes, just a lot of “agak-ism” and thankfully it turned out well!! I planned on cooking Lamb Meatballs in Tomato base Spaghetti but when I turned up at FairPrice they had run out of minced lamb so I bought minced pork instead.

Most of the ingredients were again measured using my grandma’s famous “agak-ism” metrics so .... just agak-agak lah ya!

PORK MEATBALLS SPAGHETTI

THE MEATBALLS

What I used:
Minced Pork (you can replace with minced lamb)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Scallions, chopped (I guess this depends on how much you like the taste of scallions)
1 medium sized onion, chopped
Fresh parsley, chopped
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tsp cornflour
Dash of Salt
Dash of grounded black pepper
Dash of paprika

What I did:
1) Mix all ingredients
2) Roll into medium sized balls (don’t make them too big or it will be difficult to get the middle part cooked)
3) Fry in pan
4) Cool on paper towels (I don’t like them oily!)


THE SPAGHETTI

What I used:
Chicken breast, cut into small pieces
1 large onion, diced
2 - 3 cloves garlic, chopped
5 large tomatoes (you can replace with canned diced tomatoes)
1 can tomato paste
1 can button mushrooms (depending on preference, I’m not a huge mushroom fan so I use less)
Basil
Oregano
Thyme
Rosemary
Fresh Parsley
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp sugar
Olive oil for frying
Vermicelli Pasta (I prefer this as it’s thinner than Spaghetti – cooks faster)

Preparing the Tomatoes:
1) Boil water in pot
2) Cut the bottom of the tomatoes – I just made a cross mark
3) Immerse tomatoes in the boiling water (maybe half a minute)
4) Let it cool (I just ran it over tap water)
5) Peel the skin off with a small knife
6) Dice

What I did:
1) Heat some olive oil on pan
2) Sautee onion, garlic and mushroom on low heat
3) Add chicken pieces on medium heat – cook until it’s no longer pinkish
4) Add in diced tomatoes, tomato paste, balsamic vinegar and spices to taste (I prefer adding a little of everything first, taste it later and then top up to taste)
5) Mix together, simmer over medium low heat for about 30 minutes – actually when the diced tomatoes look like spaghetti sauce it’s done

Whilst waiting for the sauce to cook:
1) Boil the Vermicelli Pasta, add in a little salt
2) When it’s ready, toss it with olive oil

Top the pasta with the sauce and meatballs and serve hot.

I will take photos next time lor but it turned out very well. Oscar loved it which means it was quite good lah, considering he is a snob when it comes to non-chinese food!