Steamed Egg with Tofu 蒸蛋豆腐

My daughter loves eggs. Eggs done any way. Hard boiled, soft boiled, scrambled, pouched, fried, braised, steamed, etc. except raw eggs. :P She just loves to eat eggs. The other food she likes very much is tofu. I combined the two to come up with another dish that she loves too. It's really easy to made too! Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• a pinch of salt
• 160ml Broth
• 1 tube Egg Tofu, cut into pieces
• 1 Dried Scallop
• 1 teaspoon Cornflour
• 1/2 teaspoon Oyster Sauce

How to do it:

1. Soak the dried scallop in 5 tablespoon of hot water before hand.
2. Beat egg lightly in a bowl
3. Add broth and salt.
4. Mix well.
5. Sieve the egg mixture if you want a smoother result.
6. Pour into a shallow flat dish.
7. Place tofu in it
8. Cover the bowl with cling wrap or aluminum foil.
9. Heat a pot of water for steaming.
10. When the water starts to boil, put in the dish.
11. Remove when egg is set.
12. While the egg is cooking, tear the scallop into strands.
13. Return the dried scallop strands to the water.
14. Add in oyster sauce and corn flour.
15. Mix well.
16. Bring the sauce to a boil while gently stirring it.
17. Remove and pour over the steamed egg and tofu.
18. Drizzle with sesame seed oil if you like.
19. Serve.

Note:

• Use a shallow dish to steam the egg, then you don't have to cut the tofu too thick and you will be able to see the tofu in the egg when it's done.
• Use a flat dish so the tofu can be spread out.

Sweet Pork

Nope, it's not sweet and sour pork, if that's you thought it is. But close though. It's one the results of my cooking experiment. ;) I ran out of vinegar so I experiment making pork without it and .... Tada! Sweet and sour pork minus the sour equals Sweet Pork! :P hehehe ... Try this. Not too bad too. ;) Ingredients:

• 300g Pork, cubed

Marinade:

• 1 teaspoon Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Sesame Seed Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1 Egg White
• 1 tablespoon Cornflour
• 1/2 tablespoon Rice flour

Sauce:

• 2 tablespoon Water
• 1 tablespoon Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
• 1 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 1 teaspoon Cornflour

How to do it:

1. Marinate the pork in the marinade for at least 30 minutes.
2. Fry in oil till lightly brown.
3. Dish, drain and set aside.
4. Bring sauce to a simmer, stirring slowing.
5. When the sauce starts to thickens, add in the pork.
6. Stir constantly till the pork cubes are well coated with the sauce.
7. Dish and serve hot.

7-up Plum Lollipops

The kids love these. Well, because it's easy to eat I guess. Occasionally, I'll made this for dinner. It always ends up with them finishing the drumlets (they call it lollipops!) first and nothing left to go with the rice. :/ I find it appetizing with the slight sour taste from the plum sauce. My husband loves this. With all the meat pushed down to the end, he just need a bite to finish one drumlet. :P Ingredients:

• 8 Drumlets
• Oil for deep frying

Marinade:

• 1/2 teaspoon Light Soya Sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 1 tablespoon Cornflour
• 1 Egg, beaten
• A pinch of Salt

Sauce:

• 200ml 7-up (Soft drink)
• 3 tablespoon Honey
• 1 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 1 tablespoon Plum Sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt

How to do it:

1. Scrape meat from 'skinny end' of the drum and push in down or you can leave it as it is.
2. Marinate the chicken drumlets in the marinade for at least 30 minutes
3. Deep fry till golden brown.
4. Remove and drain well.
5. In a clean wok, heat up 1/2 tablespoon oil (used to fry the chicken).
6. Pour in the sauce mixture.
7. Bring to a boil before lowing the heat to continue cooking the sauce in simmer.
8. When the sauce starts to thickens, add in the fry drumlets.
9. Coat well with sauce.
10. Remove and serve.

Meat and Mushroom Pancake

Every time when I ran out of ideas on what to cook for dinner, I will make this pancake. Nobody will complain about having this as one of the dishes for dinner. In the past, I'll be hesitant to make this often as this requires shallow frying so it's not so healthy to eat it often. With an oven, it different. I use very little or no oil. But honestly, cooking this using the shallow frying way tasted better as it's moist. Baking it makes it dry but crispy on the the outside. So you decide which way you like it. :) Ingredients:

• 150g Minced Meat (I use pork)
• 100g Fish Paste
• 3 Fresh Shitake Mushroom, diced
• 3 Water Chestnut, washed, skinned and diced
• 2 Shallot, diced
• 1/2 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
• A pinch of Salt
• 1 piece Dried Beancurd Skin (腐皮）

How to do it:

1. Mix all ingredients except beancurd skin well.
2. Set aside.
3. Carefully rinse the beancurd skin in water taking care not to tear it.
4. Squeeze out exceed water gently.
5. Lay the beancurd skin flat.
6. Spread the meat paste about 0.5cm thick on half of the beancurd skin.
7. Fold the 3 sides of the beancurd skin over the meat paste.
8. Fold in the the other half of the beancurd skin over the meat paste to cover it.
9. Place on a baking tray to bake in a preheated oven at 200c for 8 minutes.
10. Turn over and continue to bake for another 8 minutes.
11. Remove and cut into smaller pieces to serve.

Note:

• I rinse the beancurd skin so it's not salty. You can also use a damp cloth to clean it but do not add any more salt to the meat paste if you are doing this.
• I'm using a non-stick baking tray to bake. If you do not have one, you might want to sparing spread some oil on the tray to prevent sticking.
• If you are using shallow frying method, heat your pan with 1/2 tablespoon oil to fry it. Turn over to continue frying when it turn golden brown.
• You might want to consider making the pancake smaller to fit your pan.

Simple Pancakes

Wow! I'm overwhelmed by the responses from my last post. Thank you so much for all the support and encouragement! Like one of my friends said, receiving this hate mail might not be a bad thing after all. One thing for sure, it showed that I do have people out there who cares about me and like what I'm doing. :) I have received a few more emails from the same person but I choose to send it to the junk box. Hopefully, he or she will stop sending me emails when there is no response from me. To those who had spend time send me emails and posting your comments here and in my chat box, sorry I have not response but do know that I'm truly grateful for your comforting words. I'm not very good with words. So, it's just thank you, thank you and more thank yous. Thank you so much for everything! :) Okay, this is for someone who likes me too (you do, right?) :P She works for a local kids magazine and she dropped me an email to check if I would be interested to do food feature for them. Aww ... what an honour! Thank you, Karin! :) I would love to help if I could and if I have the time. Hopefully, I didn't mess it up. :P She wanted something that kids can do on their own or with a little help from an adult and this is for mummy dearest on Mother's Day. I thought the very versatile, pancake, will be good idea. It can be served with anything! Just syrup and or butter. With Ice-cream and chocolate sauce. Yums! For the healthy one, with fruits, like what I did. ;) For the very local ones, sandwiched with red bean paste or kaya. I can go on and on. Kids nowadays are very creative. They will come out with their own creation to please mummy. I bet mummy will be touched to be served with any breakfast made by her children. But I bet she will be even more proud and impressed if the kitchen is cleaned up after that. LOL Ingredients:

• 140g Plain Flour
• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 40g Sugar
• 1 Egg, beaten
• 240ml Fresh Milk
• 30g Unsalted Butter, melted
• Icing Sugar
• Strawberries, top removed

How to do it:

1. Put flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl.
2. Mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk egg, milk and butter together.
4. Pour the all of the egg mixture into the flour mixture.
5. Whisk till combined.
6. Heat a non-stick pan. If using a regular pan, brush it with some butter.
7. When the pan is hot, turn to low heat.
8. Pour some batter to the pan. Amount to pour depends on how big you want the pancake to be.
9. When batter starts to bubbles, flip over to cook on the other side.
10. Remove when pancake is slightly brown.
11. Repeat till all batter are used up.
12. To assemble, place a few pancake together.
13. Use a cookie cutter or a glass to cut a hole in the middle.
14. Remove the circle pancake.
15. Place strawberries in the hole of the pancake.
16. Dust with icing sugar.
17. Serve with additional syrup if you like.

Note: The cut-out pancakes can be use to make sandwich using peanut butter, jam, cheese, etc, as fillings.

Chicken Soup with Pear 雪梨鸡汤

Okay, before I feed you with some nourishing soup, I have something to tell you. Somebody out there hates me.

Yap, I received a long hate mail a couple of weeks ago. Basically, the person hates me and wants me to close my blog. Apparently, he/she says my blog is a waste of space in blogsphere. He/she doesn't understand what I'm writing and looking at what I cooked makes him/her vomit (may he/she happened to have food poisoning), blah, blah, blah, and the list goes on .

I'm a stay-at-home-mum who only started learning cooking when my elder son was slightly over 2 years old, that's about 4 years ago. I never mentioned anything about me able to cook like an expert. Nobody says anything about having to writing beautifully when you blog either. He/she must have really high standards for food blogs. :P

Oh! One more thing! I didn't create a few hundred emails to subscribed to my own blog if this is what he/she meant when he/she said I fake my own readership. And I have never forced anyone to subscribe to my blog too. Did I force you to subscribe?

So, dear "wokkingmum sucks" (that's what he/she signed off as), I'm sorry to disappoint you, this blog will not be closed even it makes you vomit; as least my family didn't. I'll continue to blog even nobody (except me) understands what I'm writing or nobody continues to visit this blog. It was meant as a cooking reference for myself when I first started it anyway. So it just back to square one even if it happens, no worries! :P

Okay, not that I need one but having a nourishing soup now is not a bad idea either. ;)

Ingredients:

• 1 Whole Chicken
• 200g Lean Pork
• 1 large Chinese Pear 雪梨 (round with brown skin)
• 5 Dried Figs 无花果
• 20g Chinese Almond 南杏
• 10g Apricot kernel 北杏
• 1.8 litre Water
• Salt to taste

How to do it:

1. Blanch chicken.
2. Skin, core and cut pear into pieces.
3. Add all ingredients except salt together.
4. Bring to a boil before reducing heat to a simmer.
5. Continue to cook for at least 2 hours.
6. Season with salt.
7. Serve.