Steamed Chicken with Chicken Essence

Recipe for Steamed Chicken with Chicken Essence

Ingredients:

• 2 Chicken Drumstick, cleaned and dabbed dry
• 1 tablespoon Cooking Wine
• a pinch of Salt
• 4 pieces Yu Zhu 玉竹 (Solomon's Seal Rhizome), cut half
• 6 Hong Zao 红枣 (Red Dates), sliced into 3 each
• a small handful Gou Qi Zi 枸杞子 (Wolfberries)
• 1 to 2 bottles Chicken Essence, depending on how much sauce you like
• Salt to taste

How to do it:

1. Rub chicken with salt and cooking wine.
2. You can let the chicken marinate for half an hour if you like.
3. Add chicken in a deep dish.
4. Add in the rest of the ingredients.
5. Cover with foil.
6. Steam for 2 to 3 hours.
7. Remove foil and bast chicken with the sauce.
8. Drizzle with some sesame oil and serve immediately.

Note:

• I'm using Sake as cooking wine. If you use Hua Tiow (Chinese Cooking Wine), there will be the Hua Tiow Wine taste.
• I'm using (2 bottles of) New Moon Chicken Essence. If you are using Brand's, please add 1/4 teaspoon of sugar as Brand's Chicken Essence is slightly bitter.
• You can also use Chicken Essence with Cordyceps instead for added flavours.

as seen in https://instagram.com/p/2BBtx6gdEL/

Okra Salad

Recipe for Okra Salad

Ingredients:

• 6 to 7 Okra, washed and cleaned

Dressing:

• Some Bonito Flakes
• 1 1/2 tablespoon Yuzu Seasoned Soy Sauce

How to do it:

1. Steam Orka for 4 minutes.
2. Cut the top and the tip of okra away.
3. Cut okra into 1 to 1.5cm thick.
4. Top okra with bonito flakes.
5. Drizzle Yuzu Seasoned Soy Sauce.
6. Serve.

Note:

• You can replace Yuzu Season Soy Sauce with 1 1/2 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce, 1/4 teaspoon Lemon Juice and a pinch of Sugar.  However the taste of the sauce will depends on the type of light soy sauce used.

as seen in https://instagram.com/p/0seQ_YAdBO/

Steamed Seafood Tofu Balls

This is a easy dish and is quick to prepare and tasty too.

If you have more time, use dry shitake mushroom (dehydrated) instead of fresh shitake for added fragrance.  Seafood is added for texture and extra crunch. 

This is a dish well received by both the adults and kids.

Ingredients:

• 1 tube Egg Tofu
• 200g Fish Paste
• 8 Medium Prawns, shelled and deveined
• 3 Fresh Shitake Mushroom, stem removed and diced
• 1-2 small floret Broccoli, diced
• 50ml water, if using Happy Call Pan

Seasonings:

• 1 teaspoon Sesame Oil
• 1 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
• a dash White Pepper Powder

Sauce:

• 50 ml Water
• a pinch Chicken Seasoning Powder
• Corn Flour Mixture as thickener

How to do it:

1. Smash prawn with flat part of cleaver or chopper and set aside.
2. Squeeze egg tofu out of the tube.
3. Mix tofu, fish paste, prawns and the diced vegetables together with the seasonings.
4. Oil a muffin tray.
5. Scoop about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoon of tofu mixture into the tray. Top with a wolf berry if you like.
6. Add the water to the happy call pan and set the tofu mixture to steam for 5 to 7 minutes.
7. Remove the tofu balls with a spoon and set aside.
8. Carefully pour out the juice in the muffin tray into a pan.
9. Add in water and seasoning with chicken seasoning powder and bring to a simmer.
10. Thicken with corn flour mixture.
11. Spoon sauce over the tofu balls.
12. Drizzle sesame oil if you like.
13. Serve immediately.

Note:

• You can replace prawns with squid if you like.
• Experiment using other vegetables instead of broccoli.
• If you do not have a Happy Call Pan, you can steam using the regular way. Remember to lift the muffin tray up so the steaming water will not boil and get into the muffin tray.

Steamed Tofu and Scallop with Fermented Black Bean

One of the dishes I prepared for dinner last night.

It is a very simple and easy to prepare dish.  Cooking time is very short so it's good for those who are always rushing for time.

Ingredients:

• I box Silken Tofu, cut into thick slices
• 6 small or 3 big Scallops, slice big scallops into halves

Seasoning:

• 2 teaspoon Fermented Black Bean, quick rinse and chopped
• 1 tablespoon Minced Garlic
• 1 teaspoon Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Maggie Seasoning Sauce (optional)
• Some fresh diced chilli
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil.

How to do it:

1. Place scallops on tofu and set aside.
2. Add hot and garlic together into pan (so garlic will not brown too fast).
3. Stir fry till garlic is fragrant.
4. Add in the chopped fermented black bean and chilli if using.
5. Stir fry till fragrant; about half a minute.
6. Add in sugar and sauces.
7. Spoon seasoning mixture and place on scallops.
8. Steam for 4-5 mins or till scallops are thoroughly cooked.
9. Serve immediately.

Notes:

• As the seasoning is pre-cooked, you can adjust the sweetness and saltiness according to you liking.
• The seasoning can be preparing ahead and top just before steaming.
• You can replace scallops with small prawns.

Okra with Mayonnaise and Ebiko

I had this dish at Raman Play last year and was hooked. If you have tried this before, you will know that it's really expensive for just that few pieces.

I tried to replicate it last year without successful and had forgotten about it. Last week, a gardening friend posted a different type of okra (it was short and fat) and I though it will really nice if I can make this dish using this recipe. Yums.

It's an extremely easy recipe. The important thing to take note is not to over cook the okra and not make it slimey. 

I have tried blanching and it doesn't help with the slimey issue. So please don't try blanching.

I used my water oven to steam them on rack so that no water will settle on the base of the okra. If you are using a wok to steam, try placing a rack to lift up the okra.

Ingredients:

• 4 Okra
• 4 tablespoon Japanese Mayonnaise
• 3 tablespoon Ebiko

How to do it:

1. Mix Japanese Maya and Ebiko together and set aside.
2. Clean the okra. Do not cut or slice it.
3. Steam for 4 minutes.
4. Cut of the top and slice okra into 2 length-wise.
5. Spread the mayo mixture on the okra.
6. Use a blow torch to burn the top.
7. Serve immediately.

Note:

• The more cuts you have on the okra, the more slimey it will be. Hence I do not recommend you steam the okra after cutting.
• The timing on steaming the okra depends on how you like the okra to be. 4 mins will still give the okra some crunch to it.
• If you do not have a blow torch, you can use the oven cook the top. However you might want to reduce the steaming time so the okra will not be to soft with double cooking.
• Torching the toppings, gives is a nice smell and the mixture will melt a little and flows down to the okra giving it the seasoning it needs.

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.

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.

Steamed Tofu with Scallops 扇贝蒸豆腐

This is a very easy and fast dish to prepare.  You can replace the scallops with prawns if you like.

Everytime I cook this dish, it will be the first to be finished. It's one of my personal favourite dish but it like it more with scallops though.

Ingredients:

• 1 box Silken Tofu, cut into 8 thick blocks
• 1 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 1 tablespoon Sesame Seed Oil
• 8 pieces Scallop, halve if thick
• 2 tablespoon Raw Chopped Garlic or Fried/Roasted Garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon Sugar
• 2 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon Cooking Oil

How to do it:

1. Place tofu top with scallop in a dish or you placed both items separately.
2. Sprinkle garlic on top.
3. Drizzle cooking wine and sesame seed oil over them.
4. Steam for 4 minutes or till scallops are cooked.
5. Remove and drain away the liquid.
6. Place scallops on tofu and set aside.
7. Heat cooking oil, sugar and light soy sauce together.
8. Pour the hot soy sauce and oil over the scallop.
9. Serve.

Note:
The water in drained away after steaming is to avovid diluting the sauce. If you prefer to keep it, please do so.

Steamed Egg Custard with Clams 蛤蜊蒸蛋

In my previous post, I mentioned that my kids have beginning to enjoy eating clams.

I bought some clams and saved some to add to their favourite steamed egg custard.  Apparently, the clams weren't enough for them. Hence they ate the Steamed Clams with Herbs and Tomatoes too.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• a pinch of salt
• 160ml Chicken Stock
• 250g Clams (more if you like)
• 1-2 Dried Scallop
• 1 teaspoon Cornflour
• 1/2 teaspoon Oyster Sauce

How to do it:

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

Note:

• If you would like to have stuffed clams in the egg custard like what I did, mix 50g minced pork with 50g finely chopped prawn with 1 egg white and 1/2 tablespoon Cornflour till paste-like. 
• Stuff some paste in the clams from step 1.  
• Place the clams (shells) in the egg mixture in step 8 before adding the clams in step 9.

Steamed Clams with Herb and Tomatoes 百里香和蕃茄蒸蛤蜊

My kids have recently learned how to enjoy clams. My son loves the spicy clams. My daughter can't take spicy food so she has been bugging me to steam some clams for her.

I bought a kilogram clams and saved some to steam them with egg (recipe coming up soon) and used the rest to prepare this for my dinner.

However, the kids ate this up as well. =_=|||

Ingredients:

• 750kg Clams, washed and cleaned
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 3 tablespoon Sake
• 1/2 teaspoon Chicken Stock
• 150ml Water
• 2 sprig Thyme (I'm using Lemon Thyme from my Mini Garden)
• a handful Cherry Tomatoes, half (I'm using my homegrown Cherry Tomatoes ^^)

How to do it:

1. Prepare 2 layers of baking paper in an oven proof dish and set aside.
2. Heat wok and add oil.
3. Stir fry garlic till fragrant but not brown.
4. Add in wine, water and chicken stock.
5. Bring to a simmer.
6. Turn off fire and set aside.
7. Arrange clams in the baking paper.
8. Scatter around thyme and cherry tomatoes.
9. Pour the stock over the clams.
10. Gather the edge of the baking paper and loosely tie it.
11. Bake in a preheated oven at 240C for 12 mins or till clams are opened.
12. Discard any clams that remain closed.
13. If you want to cook it on stove top, wrap the piece of foil on the outer layer.
14. Cook it on a pan till clams are opened.
15. Season with salt if necessary.

Note:

• Add chopped onion and celery for better taste.
• Stir fry them after step 3 till they are softened and continue with the rest of the instructions.

I have cut down my Cherry Tomato Plant to grow new plants.
These were the last of my homegrown Cherry Tomatoes.

Fish-paste Tofu with Vegetables 鱼胶蔬菜豆腐

In my last post, I mentioned that I will be sharing how I did the sushi-style Fish-paste Tofu.

This is one of my kids' favourite. It's a good alternative to get the kids to eat their vegetables. I used to make this for them when they are younger and they love it because of the colours but had no idea the colours with make using vegetables.

Once they accepted the dish and were always requesting for it, I reveal to them the 'mystery ingredients'. They began to realise then that 'some' vegetables are really not that hard to swallow. ;)

You can also add in some other chopped ingredients for texture. However, do not overload the additional ingredients. As the fish paste may not be able to hold it together if there are too much of it.

Ingredients:

• 200g Fish Paste
• 1 tube Egg Tofu
• 1/3 Carrot or 1 handful Broccoli Florets
• Corn Flour for dusting
• Oil for pan-frying
• Optional chopped ingredients
• a stalk Spring Onion; green part only, if using to tie to rice ball

How to do it:

1. Mix or blend all ingredients, except spring onions, till smooth.
2. If adding chopped ingredients, add only after blending.
3. Oil a dish.
4. Spread paste in dish.
5. Steam for 15 - 20 mins, depending on thickness of paste.
6. Cut into smaller pieces and remove carefully from dish. You can flip it over to a bigger plate if the cooked tofu is not to deep. Otherwise the tofu will break into pieces from the drop.
7. Dust lightly with corn flour.
8. Pan fry on all sides till lightly brown.
9. Side aside.
10. Meanwhile, boil some water with half a teaspoon oil.
11. Turn off heat and place in the fish paste tofu on the rice ball and tie with soften spring onion.
12. Serve.

Note:

• I didn't not add any seasoning as fish paste is usually seasoned.
• You may wish to add 1/2 teaspoon light sauce and a dash of pepper when blending the mixture if you like.
• You can try using other vegetables if you like.

Non-bake Crème Brûlée 焦糖奶油布丁

I'm not sure if you notice that the French dessert, Creme Brulee is very much like the Chinese Steamed Egg Custard 扽蛋. The difference I guess is the the layer of caramelised sugar on the top.

Few days back, inspired by the Chinese 扽蛋,  I decided to try making the French Creme Brulee the Chinese way. LOL I'm sure it can work even without using the oven. And you can tell from the pictures here that I have succeeded. ;)

So good news for those who loves Creme Brulee but do not have an oven to do it. Well, you don't need an oven after all.

Ingredients (for 2 cups):

• 3 Egg Yolk
• 200ml Whipping Cream
• 100ml Fresh Milk
• 1 1/2 tablespoon Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• Additional 2 tablespoon Sugar (one tablespoon for each custard)

How to do it:

1. Mix all ingredients except for the additional sugar together.
2. Blend well to incorporate all ingredients.
3. Sieve mixture into deep dish.
4. Cover with foil.
5. Boil a pot of water and place dish in to steam for 15mins.
6. Cool completely before chilling in the fridge.
7. Sprinkle additional sugar on top of the custard.
8. Use a touch to burn the sugar to caramelise it.
9. You can serve immediately or return to the fridge and serve when ready.
10. To eat, use the back of a spoon to hit the caramelised sugar to break it.

Note:

• If you don't have a torch, the closest you can do is to make caramelised sugar.
• You will need to boil 1 part water to 4 part sugar (eg, 1 tablespoon water to 4 tablespoon sugar) till the solution turned light brown and slightly thick.
• You have to watch the heat as you only want to caramelised the sugar and not burn it.
• Please note that the lesser the quatity you use to make the caramelised sugar, the faster it will burn due to the wider cooking surface. So find the smallest pot you can to make this or increase the quantity of the water and sugar to avoid burning.
• As water is used to make the caramelised sugar, it may not as hard as torching the sugar directly. Hence return the custard to the fridge for chilling immediately pouring the caramelised sugar.

Steamed Spare Ribs with Fermented Black Bean 豆豉蒸排骨

This dish is one of my husband's favourite dim sum 点心 dish.

I do not know what restaurants do to make the spare rib so tender that it can almost slip off the bone but what I'm going to share with you is my unauthentic method of doing it. I'm sure the experts have their own brillant ways.

I know some people swear that corn flour will do the trick, ie; to get it soft and tender. I can tell you corn flour only helps make it velvety. It doesn't make the meat tender.  In order to make the meat tender, I use baking powder as a meat tenderiser. If you only have baking soda, you can use that too.

So, with the baking powder or soda, you can make tender meat even when cooking time is just only 10 to 15 minutes. This is a trick I learned from an uncle who runs a mix vegetable stall in a Kopitiam many years ago.

So get your baking powder/soda ready to make the tender and velvety Steamed Pork Ribs. :)

Ingredients:

• 200g Spare Ribs, ask the butcher to chop into smaller pieces for you

Tenderiser:

• 1 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 2 teaspoon Baking Powder or Soda

Marinade:

• 1 teaspoon Fermented Black Bean (abt 7g), rinse and gently press to bruise them
• 1 1/2 teaspoon Oyster Sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon Sugar
• 1 to 1/2 teaspoon White Vinegar
• 1 clove Garlic, grated
• 1 tablespoon Water
• 1 tablespoon Cornflour
• 1 Red Chilli, de-seeded and cut
• 2 drops Dark Soy Sauce (for colour)
• a drizzle of Sesame Oil
• a pinch of Gourmet Chicken Powder

How to do it:

1. Pat dry spare ribs.
2. Add in tenderiser and coat well. You will see frizzing which is normal.
3. Set aside for 2 hours.
4. Rinse spare ribs and pat dry.
5. Add in marinade and mix well with spare ribs.
6. Marinate it for at least an hour.
7. Drain the spare ribs from the marinade
8. Place them onto a steaming dish. I separate them into 2 portion for steaming.
9. Steam for 12 mins or till done.
10. Serve immediately.

Steamed Pomfret 蒸鲳鱼

I don't cook often Pomfret as it's high in cholesterol. Same for ikan bilis, especially the heads, so go easy with it if you have family with high cholesterol. My husband has high cholesterol hence we only have this once a while.

I didn't want to get a new bottle of sour plum or salted vegetable to make the Teochew-style as I have no use of those for my other dishes at the moment. I'm doing it another way that the kids like too.

Ingredients:

• 1 Ponfret, cleaned
• 1 teaspoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 5 slices Ginger, julienned
• 1 Tomato, half sliced and half diced
• 1 Fresh Shitake Mushroom, diced
• 2 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
• 1 tablespoon Cooking Oil

How to do it:

1. Rub pomfret with a pinch of salt
2. Place sliced tomato on the dish followed by the pomfret and both the diced tomato and shitake mushroom.
3. Drizzle Chinese cooking wine.
4. Steam for 8 minutes or till totally cooked.
5. Remove and drain away the liquid.
6. Heat cooking oil and stir-fry ginger shred till golden brown.
7. Drain and set aside.
8. Using the same oil, heat it with light soy sauce.
9. Top steamed fish with fried ginger shreds and spring onion shreds if you like.
10. Pour the hot soy sauce and oil over the fish.
11. Serve immediately.

Note:
I prefer to pour away the liquid obtain after steam. It makes the dish clearer and cut down on the fishy taste as some kids don't like it. You can retain that if you like.

Grilled Sea Bass with Thyme and Garlic Butter

My husband is away on an overseas business trip for the past week (meaning less cooking :p)

Usually I will eat whatever leftover from the kids' dinner. However, I had a piece of Seabass in the fridge that I wanted to clear, so I made a simple dinner for myself yesterday instead of having leftovers.

I had the sea bass grilling in the oven while I worked on the sides. This also means less cleaning up. You can pan-fry it too. You can have to watch over it so it will burn.

Ingredients for Grilled Sea bass:

• 1 slice Sea bass
• 1/4 teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Onion Powder
• 2 sprig Fresh Thyme
• Salt and Ground Black Pepper to taste

Ingredients for Zesty Garlic Butter:

• 2 clove Garlic, minced
• Zest of 1 Lemon
• 1 tablespoon Butter

Ingredients for Mashed Cauliflower:

• 230g Cauliflower, cut into florets
• 1/3 tablespoon Butter
• 1 tablespoon Parmesan Cheese (optional)
• Salt to taste

How to do it:

1. Clean and pat dry sea bass.
2. Mix herbs and spice ingredients for sea bass together.
3. Rub all over the sea bass and set aside for 15 mins.
4. Meanwhile, prepare the zesty garlic butter but mixing all ingredients together.
5. Spread half of the butter on the skin side of the seabass.
6. Grilled the sea bass on rack in preheat oven at 250C for 8 mins, longer if you want the skin browned.
7. Turn over, spread the remaining butter and continue to grill for another 8 mins.
8. While the sea bass is grilling in the oven, prepare the cauliflower.
9. Steam the cauliflower florets for 10 mins. You can blanch them too.
10. Drain well and pour into a blender.
11. Add the butter and half of the parmesan cheese.
12. Blend till smooth.
13. Add salt to taste.
14. Scoop out onto a plate and sprinkle the remaining parmesan cheese.
15. You can bake it in the oven to brown it if you like.
16. Remove sea bass from oven and serve together with the mashed cauliflower.

 

Drunken Chicken with Herbs 当归醉鸡

This dish was inspired by a lady's cooking I saw on Instagram. I went ahead to tweak on some recipes I did before to do this.

I'm not someone who enjoys having a dish that is infused with wine (I get drunk :P). I just didn't quite like the strong wine taste. Hence, I cut down the used in wine. However, my husband finds it lack of wine. It wouldn't be called Drunken Chicken if didn't have enough wine in it. This chicken is still sober, he said. =_=|||

So, if you want a truly drunken chicken, do add more wine. :P

Ingredients:

• 2 Chicken Drumstick, deboned

Marinade:

• 4 stalk Spring Onion, only the white part, bruised
• 2 slice Ginger
• 1 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine (like 绍兴花雕酒)
• 11/3 teaspoon Salt

Seasoning:

• 300ml Chicken Stock
• 200ml Water
• 2 slice or 7g Angelica Sinensis Gui 当归, use as it is or grind into powder
• 6 Red Dates 红枣 
• 10g Wolfberries 枸杞子
• 100ml - 300ml Chinese Cooking Wine 绍兴花雕酒, add according to your preference
• Salt and Sugar to taste

How to do it:

1. Bring all except wine, salt and sugar, in seasonings to boil.
2. Reduce to a simmer and continue to simmer for 20mins.
3. Add salt and sugar to taste.
4. Add wine after the simmered seasoning has cooled.
5. Chill the seasoning for later use.
6. Meanwhile, flatten and tenderize the chicken using a mallet or the back of the knife.
7. Pat dry with paper towel before adding the marinade.
8. Marinate for at least 30mins.
9. Prepare a sheet of foil with baking paper for each piece of chicken.
10. Roll the chicken as tightly as possible.
11. Wrap with foil with baking paper inside.
12. Steam chicken roll for 25mins or till completely cooked.
13. Remove foil and baking paper.
14. Plunge steamed chicken rolls together with the sauce into the chilled seasoning prepared earlier.
15. Let it sit in the seasoning till completely cooled.
16. Refrigerate till chill or over night for better results.
17. Sliced and serve chill.

Note:

• If you would like to remove more alcohol in the wine (step 4), add wine together with the other ingredients when preparing the seasoning (step 1).
• Omit the Angelica Sinensis Gui 当归, Red Dates 红枣 and Wolfberries 枸杞子, if you want a non-herbal version of the drunken chicken. (I used it to help reduce the strong taste the wine has and to bring fragrance.)

Steamed Snapper with Cordyceps Militaris 虫草花清蒸白鲷鱼

This is the second time I experiment on  this dish and this time it turned out good.

On the first time, I used Tilapia. We just didn't like the taste of that fish, even with the sweetness of the Chinese Herbs used, it just didn't taste right. Love it with snapper though.

I bought the snapper from the wet market. You can always use Cream Snapper Fillet, which can be easily found in supermarket.

Ingredients:

• 1 thick slice Snapper Fillet, cleaned and pat dry
• 3-4 slice Ginger
• 1/2 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 6 Seedless Red Dates, sliced
• 7g Cordyceps Militaris
• 2 tablespoon Stock (I'm using Chicken Stock
• 1/3 teaspoon Salt

How to do it:

1. Rub snapper with salt and set aside.
2. Place red dates and Cordyceps Militaris in stock. 
3. Seal with cling wrap or foil and steam for 10 minutes.
4. Place ginger slices in a deep dish.
5. Place snapper over the ginger.
6. Pour stock with red dates and Cordyceps Militaris and Chinese Cooking Wine over snapper.
7. Steam for 10 to 15 minutes or till snapper is completely cooked.
8. Spoon the sauce from the dish and pour over snapper generously.
9. Drizzle with sesame oil if you like and serve immediately.

Steamed Egg Custard 水蒸蛋

I grew up eating home-cooked food by my mother's friend who would visit us rather often. This is one of the dish that she would prepare, some times with minced pork in it, which I hated. :P I preferred the plain one with nothing in it.

This was the original and the kid's favourite before they were exposed to the Japanese Chawamushi, which the main difference is having Dashi in it.

I made this often at home as the kids doesn't have a chance to eat it elsewhere unless they eat from the "Mixed-Veg" Stall. I always tell them, when I'm their age, this was what I had; minus all the toppings. :P

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• a pinch of salt to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
• 160ml water or Chicken Stock
• 3 tablespoon Chicken stock, divided into 2 portion
• 3 pieces Imitation Snow Crab Leg, tore into pieces and divided into 2 portion
• 2-3 tsp Ebiko, divided into 2 portion

How to do it:

1. Beat egg lightly in a bowl.
2. Add water or chicken stock and salt. Mix well.
3. Sieve the egg mixture if you want a smoother result.
4. Pour into 2 bowls or cups.
5. Cover the bowls or cups with cling wrap or aluminum foil.
6. Heat a pot of water for steaming
7. When the water is boiling, put in the bowls or cups of egg mixture.  
8. Steam on high heat for 7 minutes.
9. Remove and place imitation snow crab leg on the the egg custard.
10. Add in additional 1 1/2 chicken stock over the snow crab leg.
11. Return to steam at a lower heat for a further 1 minute or till egg custard is completely set.
12. Remove and top with Ebiko.
13. Serve immediately.

Note:

• To make Chawamushi, replace chicken stock with Dashi Stock and 2 teaspoon Mirin.
• You can use other ingredients as the toppings too.
• When steaming the egg, the bowls or cups should not be touching the water. You want to steam it not boil it.