Cooking a perfect looking egg 煎一粒漂亮的荷包蛋

Last week I shared my dinner shots (below) on Facebook, some of my friends asked how I manage to cook it this way.

The egg white is soft, has no hard and brown bits, not rubbery and not oily. The egg yolk is runny like soft-boiled egg. ;)

My kids hate eating sunny side up (fried egg) that is hard at the bottom and the egg yolk dry. You won't get that with the eggs I do. ;)

I got to admit that I learned this little trick from a tv program many years ago and have since never fry an egg the usual way. What you need is just an extra tablespoon of water!

Interested to do it too? You don't have to wait further. Today, I'm going to share with you what I have learned; and with a video too!

The video is at the end of this post but first, here are the details and instructions:

Items needed:

• a non-stick pan with cover or lid
• 1/2 tablespoon (or lesser) Cooking Oil
• a piece Paper Towel
• 1 Egg (I'm using 60g refrigerated egg)
• 1 tablespoon Water

How to do it:

1. Use low heat. The pan should not be smoking at any time. *1
2. Add the cooking oil and swirl to coat pan.
3. Use a paper towel to remove excess oil and at the same time coat pan well with oil. *2
4. Crack egg onto the middle of the pan.
5. Let the egg cook for 40 seconds, still on low heat. *3
6. Tilt the pan a little. If more egg white spread out, let it cook a few seconds more. The thicker part of the egg white around the egg yolk will still remain raw. *4
7. Add water and cover the pan.
8. Let it cook for 45 seconds. *5
9. Remove cover.
10. Dish out and serve.

Note:

1. I'm using the highest heat on the inner small ring on my stove.
2. The idea is to coat the pan well with oil so the egg doesn't stick. We are not using the oil to fry the egg.
3. The timing used is according to the egg used. If you are using smaller or unrefrigerated egg, please shorten the time.
4. This is a little test to check if you are ready to add water. If the outer egg white (not the thick part near the egg yolk) is half cooked, it will spread when water in added and it will look ugly. Imagine egg drop soup :P
5. If you want the egg yolk more cooked, cook a few seconds longer.

And here's the video ...

Little Lunch Box #08小饭盒

This is what I prepared for my daughter for recess today. The same stuff but presented in a different way. I'm using the Happy Call Pan to make this but a regular pan works too.

 I have added a pinch of salt and a sprinkle of light soy sauce to 2 beaten eggs. I also have chopped Xiao Bai Cai and 2 crabsticks added to the eggs. I had wanted to use ham instead of crabstick since I'm using it with the rice. Didn't realised that someone has finished.  :P

I used 2 crabsticks to roll with regular rice, not sushi rice and set that aside. I cooked the omelette till it's about 90% cooked. The omelette is dry at the bottom but still a bit wet on the top. I rolled the omelette with the rice roll in it as tightly as possible.

To make the omelette roll fully cooked, I covered the pan and let it cook for about 5 minutes, opening occasionally to turn it so it get browned on all 4 sides.

After slicing, the omelette roll, I pan fried it in the same pan only on 1 side for 20 seconds so it doesn't  break so easily.

I have a made a video on this to let you have an idea what I have been babbling about. :P

In the video, I used only 1 egg without any other ingredients and 1 crabstick rice roll. If you use 2 eggs, it will spread to cover the whole Happy Call Pan. Hope the video will give you a better understanding on how my Omelette Roll is done.

Pot Stickers 锅贴

I have been craving for Pot Stickers for a while and decided to make some myself. I could find the usual dumpling skin I used to make Pot Stickers. I bought normal round wanton skin instead.

My son likes it so much he requested I made it again; 3 days in a row! My husband wants soup so I cooked the dumplings with Chicken Broth and Pot Stickers become Dumpling Soup.

Ingredients:

• 250g Minced Pork or Chicken
• 300g Prawns, shelled, devein and diced
• 3 Waterchestnut, skinned and diced
• 50g Chive, chopped
• Wanton Skin or Gyoza Skin

Seasonings:

• 1/2 tablespoon Fish Sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 1 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Sesame Seed Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Ginger Juice (grate ginger and squeeze for juice)
• 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder or 2 clove Garlic, grated till paste like
• 1/2 teaspoon Chicken Powder (optional)
• a dash of Pepper

Dipping Sauce:

• 2 tablespoon Black Vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon Sesame Seed Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Ginger Juice

How to do it:

1. Mix all ingredients, except Wanton Skin, with seasonings well.
2. Preferably to set aside for half an hour before you start making the dumplings.
3. Prepare dumpling as shown in the instruction video at the end of this post.
4. Heat pan with a teaspoon of oil.
5. Place pot stickers in pan and close.
6. Pan fry 2 side for 30 seconds each. You can skip this step if you like.
7. (On the 3rd side) Add 3-4 tablespoon chicken stock or water, cover pan to let cook for 5 minutes or till stock is dry.
8. Dish and serve with dipping sauce.

For Dumpling in Soup:

1. Have 2 pots ready, 1 filled with water and 1 teaspoon salt and the other with Chicken Stock.
2. Bring the pot with water to a boil and the pot with chicken stock to a simmer.
3. Place dumpling in the pot of water and cook for a minute.
4. Remove and place the dumplings into the pot with Chicken Stock.
5. Bring the pot of dumplings to a boil.
6. Add salt to salt.
7. Pour into a bowl, drizzle with sesame seed oil and serve with spring onion.

Note:

• If you are using a regular flying pan, you will just need to have a cover and cook a minute or 2 longer.
• Traditional Pot Sticker are fried only on one side, I like it slightly brown on the other 2 sides, hence I did Step 6. You can skip that if you like.

All ready to be cooked.

Pandan Chicken 香兰炸鸡块

Deep Fried Pandan Chicken

This is one of dishes that I like so much that I kept modifying it. It's the 3rd revision on the blog. The first was in Year 2006, second in Year 2007 and a couple modifications after that which I did not post.

Deep Fried Version                      Oven Baked Version

For this latest recipe, I'm still sharing the usual deep-frying method (refer to top photo of this post). In addition, there will be an alternative, oven baked method (refer to the photo below). Those who wants a healthier choice will welcome it.

I'll be sharing how to wrap the chicken meat using pandan leaf without using any toothpick at the end of this post. 

Oven Baked Pandan Chicken

Ingredients:

• 3 Chicken Drumstick, Deboned and cut into small pieces
• 1 stalk Pandan Leaves (about 12 - 14 leaves)

Marinade:

• 1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
• 2 tablespoon Maltose
• 1 1/2 tablespoon Fish Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1/3 teaspoon Dark Soy Sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon Turmeric Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Onion Powder

How to do it:

1. Mix ingredients for marinade well
2. Marinate chicken for at least an hour.
3. Drain chicken but do not need to pat dry.
4. Wrap chicken with pandan leaves. Refer to video below on the instructions.
5. Set aside to deep fry or oven bake.

To Deep Fry:

1. Fill a small pot of oil to cover at least half the wrapped chicken.
2. When the oil is hot but not smoking, add in the wrapped chicken.
3. Remember to turn it if the oil doesn't cover the chicken.
4. Remove and drain on paper towel when it's cooked. Takes about 10 minutes.

To Oven Bake:

1. Drizzle wrapped chicken with some oil and toss.
2. Place on baking tray and bake in preheated oven at 200C for 15minutes, turn once in-between baking.
3. Increase temperature to 250C and continue baking for another 6 minutes.
4. Remove and serve.

All wrapped and ready to be deep fried or oven baked

Scrambled Eggs 炒鸡蛋

You probably already know how to make scrambled eggs. Well, this is the way I make mine and I did a little video on it. :p It's a bit 'dreamy' as I had the camera shooting through the glass of my cooker hood. ;)

In the video, I used cold eggs with no seasoning. Most of the time, I will break the eggs straight into the pan and break it up while cooking cos I will have 1 bowl lesser to wash this way. :P

For the video I made, I had the eggs beaten for convenience. I used a small 16cm pan to cook eggs so it will take a little longer to cook compared to using a bigger one as the eggs will have more space to spread and cook. The rest of the details is quite self-explanatory in the video so I won't be going further here.

Not sure if anyone will benefit from the video but I hope you enjoy it anyway. :)

How to crack open a coconut 打破椰子壳的方法

Not to long ago, my friend, Sha, asked me how to open up a coconut for its juice. Maybe, there was some mis-communication somewhere in our conversation, she ended up with lesser juice than expected and a damaged cleaver. :P

Hence, I made a simple video on how it is done. This is specially for you, Sha! ;)

To make the video shorter, I have cracked the coconut slight first. The coconut I bought was without the husk. If you are from Singapore, you can get them is some wet markets, NTUC and Shop N Save.

Sadly, there wasn't much choice for me to choose from today. So the coconut I bought, as seen in the video, was a bit old. Hence, the pulp was thick and hard and slightly more difficult to open. I should have used the coconut used in the photo above instead.Younger coconut will have very tender pulp which is very nice to eat. :)

The steps to crack open the coconut is as follows:

1. With one hand firmly holding the coconut, hit it with the back of the cleaver. Very important to make sure noone is behind or beside you!!
2. Turn the coconut around and continue to hit on it until you see a crack-line around the coconut.
3. An 'old' coconut will have thick and hard pulp. Don't force it open with your hands. You will end up having coconut juice splashing all over.
4. Use a fork or spoon to poke in-between the crack-line into the coconut.
   
5. Twist a little to force open the coconut.
6. You can now drain out the coconut juice from the opening.
7. Open up the 'top' of the empty coconut to scrape out the pulp.
8. If you have problem opening up the coconut, use a knife to cut the pulp first.
9. You will be able to open up the coconut easily now.

Note:

• You can control how big the opening you want by hitting on a position of the coconut. Hit it closer to the top, you have have a smaller opening. It's good if you want to drink the juice straight from the coconut.
• Hit it on the position about 1/3 from the top, you will have a larger opening. Good if you want to scrape out the pulp.

Here's the video as mentioned ...

Now, I'm off to crack some coconuts to make coconut jellies. :D

Enjoy!