Seafood Noodles Soup 海鲜面汤

This is my idea of a lazy meal. Everything can be prepared ahead to be served later.

For busy people out there, I suggest this preparing earlier and keep the soup stock hot in a thermal pot. Heat it up and at the same time blanch the cooked seafood in the stock to heat it up before serving.

Ingredients for Soup Stock:

• 2 litre Water
• 3 Chicken Carcass (2 if your chicken carcass is big), blanched
• 2 piece Dried Sole Fish 扁鱼干, deep fried till golden brown
• 1 tablespoon Mince Garlic
• 4 Shallot, chopped or sliced

Seasonings:

• 2 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
• 1 tablespoon Fish Sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon Sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon  Chicken Powder (optional)
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Additional Ingredients:

• 600g Flat Yellow Noodles, for 3 to 4 servings
• Seafood of your choice
• A bunch of Choy Sum, cut into sections.

How to do it:

1. Prepare all the seafood that you will be using by cleaning and/or cutting them into smaller pieces.
2. For prawns, peel the shells leaving the heads and tails intact if you like. Retain the shells for stock.
3. Have a small pot of water boiling.
4. Add a pinch of salt.
5. Blanch all seafood till just done. You can do it in batches; not all at once.
6. Do not not over cook the seafood.
7. Strain and set seafood aside.
8. Sieve the stock and set aside to be used later.
9. Add a tablespoon of oil in a pot.
10. Stir fry garlic and onion till fragrant.
11. Add in the prawn shells and stir fry till all turned red.
12. Pour in the reserved seafood stock, if using, chicken carcass, fried sole fish and water to make up 2 litres.
13. Bring stock to a boil before reducing to a simmer
14. Simmer for an hour.
15. Add in the the seasonings.
16. Stock is now ready to be used.
17. To serving, boil a pot of water.
18. Blanch some Choy Sum before blanching about 150g noodles.
19. Drain and place in a bowl.
20. Place previously prepare seafood over the noodles.
21. Pour hot soup stock over.
22. Serve with coriander and red cut chilli if desire.

Note:

• If you are not going to eat the vegetable stems, add them to the stock for simmering. They add sweetness to the stock too.
• If you want more soup, increase the amount of water used and adjust the seasonings to your taste.

{ Breakfast: Mini Burger Set } 迷你汉堡套餐

This was for breakfast today.

I made Mini Cheesy Burger today. For the patties, I used minced meat, fish paste, crab stick and mozzarella cheese. The burger, using butter roll,  was with a sliced of cheese, some shredded cabbage with mayonnaise.

The side were simple egg roll, edamame beans and salad

What did you have for breakfast?

Paper Wrapped Chicken 纸包鸡

This dish is very similar to Pandan Wrapped Chicken, in my opinion. Instead of using pandan leave to wrap the chicken, which give it an extra fragrant, it uses grease/baking paper to enclose the meat.

Even though these are 'deep fried', they're not oily. Unless during the folding of the baking paper, you had some holes at the corners, otherwise you should be enjoying flavourful and tender chicken meat.

However if you are still skeptical about deep frying them, you can always try oven baking. It's a lot harder to estimate the done-ness with the meat wrapped up though. It will take a much longer time too.

Ingredients:

• 3 Chicken Drumstick, debone and cut into 3 pieces
• 2 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon Sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon Sake or Cooking Wine
• 1 teaspoon Ginger Juice
• 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1/2 tablespoon Corn Flour

How to do it:

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Marinate for half an hour.
3. Meanwhile prepare some grease paper or baking paper.
4. Cut them into a square big enough to fold the chicken meat into an envelope shape.
5. Put a piece of marinated chicken meat in the middle of a piece of baking paper place diagonally.
6. Fold the bottom corner up covering the chicken meat, followed by the left and right corners making sure to overlap the bottom fold, ie, no holes in the bottom left and right corners after folding.
7. Bring over the top corner of the paper and tug into the 'pocket' formed by the previous 3 folds. Make sure there are no holes in the top left and right corners after folding. Secure with staples or toothpicks if needed.
8. Heat oil in a pot.
9. Fry the paper wrapped chicken for about 3 minutes each side or till it is completely cooked.
10. Drain the parcels from excess oil on a wire rack.
11. Serve as it is or unfolded.

Note:

• Instead of 'deep frying' the parcels, you can also oven bake them.
• I baked a few at 220C for 15mins. You have to do you own estimation as the size/different of the meat is different.

Seafood Tofu 海鲜豆腐

This is one of my earliest creation when I just started learning to cook in 2007. Then, I had a super fussy boy who rejected most food and a little girl who hates meat.

Having to cook 2-3 times a day for them was a torture. But this dish turned "my cooking life for kids" around. :P Finally something both of them liked. Basically, it's was the fish paste that did the trick.  I added grated or chopped vegetables in it, my son ate it happily. I added minced chicken in it, my daughter too gladly accepted it. Hurray!

Even till this day, fish paste is still one of the most used ingredients in my cooking. I'm lucky I found "fresh" fish paste selling in the wet market which doesn't have the fishy smell as some sold in the supermarket. I used to make my own fish paste before I found it and it was a lot of work.

I'm sharing this recipe again, specially to parents out there with kids who have eating problems like mine. Hope you can find that one ingredient/food that your kids like and work around it. Endure for a few more years. That difficult phase will pass. がんばってね!

Ingredients:

• 150g Fish Paste
• 1 tube Egg Tofu
• 5 Prawns, shelled, cleaned and diced
• 1 stalk Coriander or some leafy veggie of your choice, chopped finely
• a dash of Pepper (optional)

How to do it:

1. Cut the tip of egg tofu and squeeze tofu out to a bowl.
2. Add in fish paste, chopped veggie and diced prawns and mix well.
3. Take a deep dish, oil all sides well for easy removable.
4. Spread fish tofu paste.
5. Cover with foil.
6. Steam for 15 minutes or till cooked.
7. Removed and cut into pieces.
8. Pan fried the steamed fish tofu with a little till slightly brown on all sides.
9. Serve.

Note:

• If you want a smooth mixture blend the fish paste and tofu together.
• If you want it with a crispy outer skin, dust it with corn flour before pan frying the fish tofu.

{ Dinner Time: A personal serving of Hot and Spicy Soup } 简易酸辣汤

My husband travels once or twice a month for work. When he is away, I usually cook simple one-pot dinner for me and the kids.

During a day on his last trip, I decided to cook some dishes to go with rice, mainly because I found big short-neck clams selling at a mini mart, and they are the kids' favourite.

I had this terrible craving for Hot and Sour soup for days due to the hot weather. Hence, I cooked a small portion of it for myself. (Yes, I bothered to do that! :P)

There isn't soup for the kids, so I cooked the clams in broth, which I will be sharing the recipe. There is lots of sauce for the Steamed Cod too. So no problems for the kids to go with their rice. Then I realised, no greens! Opps!

This is a very simple cheat Hot and Spicy recipe that I'm sharing, just to curb my cravings. ;)

Ingredients:

• 500ml Chicken Broth
• 1 tablespoon Black Vinegar
• 1/2 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
• Salt to taste
• Cornflour Mixture (thickener)
• Chilli Oil

A small amount each of the followings:

• Chicken Breast meat, cooked and shredded
• Black Wood Ear aka Black Fungus, shredded
• Bamboo Shoots, shredded
• Carrot, shredded
• Shitake Mushroom, sliced
• Tofu, cut into strips

How to do it:

1. Bring broth to a boil.
2. Add in the ingredients except for the tofu.Put all the shredded ingredients in the broth.
3. Bring to a simmer.
4. Add the vinegar, light soy sauce and pepper.
5. Add salt to taste.
6. Add in the tofu and continue to simmer for a minute.
7. Gradually add in the cornflour mixture to achieve your desire thickness.
8. Add some chilli oil and serve.

Note:

• I usually use ground black pepper but I ran out of it so I used white pepper powder instead.
• Adjust the amount of black vinegar according to your liking.
• The ingredients used and the amount used for the soup are to your preference but Black Fungus, Bamboo Shoots and Mushrooms are a must for me. They add the crunch for the soup.

Sauteed Mushroom 香炒双菇

Mushroom is the vegetable that we eat the most and it's my daughter's No. 1 favourite. Canned, fresh, dried ... she loves them all. She can finish this serving on her own.

I have to cook with mushroom at least twice a week. I have been making mushroom soup every week for her and she never get sick of it.

She calls herself a Mushroom Lover. =_=|||

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon Butter or Cooking Oil
• 1 box White Button Mushroom (about 150g), sliced half or in 3 depending on size
• 6 Fresh Shitake Mushroom or equal amount as above, sliced half or in 3 depending on size
• 3 clove Garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon Sake
• 1/2 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
• a pinch of Sugar
• Salt and Pepper to taste

How to do it:

1. Melt butter in pan.
2. Stir fry garlic till fragrant.
3. Add in all the mushrooms.
4. Sir fry for while to coat mushroom with melted butter.
5. Add in sake and continue cooking for a minute.
6. Add in oyster sauce, salt and pepper to taste.
7. Continue cooking till (button) mushrooms have softened.
8. Dish and serve immediately.

Note:
If you do not want or cannot take Sake, you can replace it with stock or just water.

Bacon Nugget with Broccoli 培根鱼肉金块

This is a re-post of my old recipe, Bacon Nugget, a kids' favourite.

I had some fish paste left from another dish that I was preparing, I use it to make this again for my son. My daughter doesn't like bacon. =_=|||

This time I had broccoli, shitake mushroom and coriander in them. You can try out another our veggies and/or add minced meat too.

I'll be just sharing the instructions on how it's done. The ingredients used are based on your personal preference. Try getting low sodium bacon if possible. If you find bacon too salty or oily, you can replaced it with thin sliced ham too.

How to do it:

1. Chopped vegetables and mix with fish paste and minced meat if using.
2. Wrapped about half tablespoon full of mixture with half a strip of bacon, overlapping it a little.
3. Do not try to use too much filling as it will expand during cooking while the bacon will shrink.
4. Pan fry without oil on low to medium heat with bacon ends/joining down first.
5. Once the joined part is sealed turn to other sides.
6. Continue cooking till the meat has completely cooked.

Teochew-Style Steamed Cod 潮州式蒸鳕鱼

Teochew-Style Steamed Pomfret is something I often eat at home when I was young. I'm a Teochew, by the way. ;)

My husband has high cholesterol hence I try not to use Pomfret in my cooking. Since the kids love Cod a lot, I usually use Cod. This way, everyone will get to enjoy it and I don't have to prepare different dishes for different people, which is what I usually do.

I would love to use Pomfret here as the meat is fine and soft. If you do you have any restriction, go ahead to use Pomfret for the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 slice Cod
• 1 Tomato or 8 Cherry Tomatoes, sliced thickly
• 8 stalk Spring Onion, whites part only, cut into smaller sections
• 2 slice Ginger
• 1 leaf Salted Vegetable, about 2 tablespoon full when diced
• A handful Shimeji Mushroom
• 1 Salted Plum, pitted and cut into 4 pieces if sharing.
• 1 teaspoon Fish Sauce
• 100ml Water
• Some Wolfberries (optional)

How to do it:

1. Divide all ingredients into 2 portions.
2. Place individual portion separately in 2 plates.
3. Steam for 7 to 9 minutes depending on the size of the cod used.
4. Serve immediately.

Note:

• Shimeji mushroom can be replaced with the Fresh Shitake Mushroom or traditionally used dried mushroom.
• If using dried mushroom, rehydrate 1 to 2 mushroom before using.