it's fish day!

we had sushi craves and were at tampopo, liang court last night. since we will be staying home all weekend, cooking meals would be nice. we popped by at mediya and as usual were excited over their fresh food. going for the healthy choice, D was browsing at the fish corner near the sushi counters and decided on the cream snapper! our 1st try. tada...the result!

it wasn't difficult to flip the snapper while pan frying since the meat was rather firm and it tasted sweet on its own. my 1st attempt to cook the asparagus with ponzu soya sauce proves to be a risk worth taking. yummy woh!

pan fried buttered cream snapper
sesame seed oil grilled chicken liver
stir fried asparagus with mushroom in ponzu soya sauce & mirin

this is a instant clam miso soup. it is packed in a cup and all you need to do is to pour in the hot boiling water and mix in the small pack of miso paste and clams. stir it and wala! there you have a nice bowl of hot soup anytime of the day! it's surprisely tasty.

instant clam miso soup

it works!

is this my dose for a migraine-free good night sleep? it seems to work!! dinner last night was simply fantastica!

just steak for lunch

it's always nice to have something on the table once you get up from bed... =)
a healthy choice of mushroom, asparagus and baby potatoes to add variety to the red wine marinated tenderloin.

thai style steam fish

great! how timely. couldn't blog for the longest time using D's Mac and it seems like the whole blogger platform's upgraded. am able to read blogs page to page by simply scrolling. so i'm able to write about the new dish i made today.

it's the beginning of my 3 days leave and we went to cold storage early this morning. decided to try making the thai style steam fish. bought a snapper and some simple ingredients - chilli padi, thai fish sauce, garlic, kaffir lime leaves and lemon grass. all you need to do is to steam the fish together with the ingredients. we thought it tasted great! will add more chilli next time to kick in the spice for the dish...

the perfect yolk watery egg!

Tonkotsu Shibori Ramen
(Pork Flavoured Ramen)

the focus is not the ramen but the egg. we got the recipe from here...and D prepared it...it was sooooooo good. i got the ramen from isetan scotts last week while they were having some japan fair at the supermarket. to perfect the meal, we wanted the authentic ramen egg. like it? try making it...it's really easy...

Cooking Weekend - Dinner

had 2 new dishes for dinner...which turned out nice..hee!

kaffir leave in sambal sweet potato leaves

兩瓜湯
(thanks water for the chinese characters)

the vege was simple to make. i wished i could make my own sambal balachan..but to save the trouble i got a bottle from ntuc....and it was tasty! simply with garlic, small onions, kaffir lime leaves and the sambal balachan...stir fry the ingredients by adding some water till boil...then add the vege..cover the pan....then open the cover in less than a minute, continue to stir fry lightly...and that's it! this could be done in 5mins!

as the name implies, 兩瓜湯 simply have 2 types of cucumber - sharksfin cucumber and old cucumber...then some herbs - wolfberries, red dates, apricot kennel and not forgetting the essence of the soup, pork bones (chicken breast meat works too) after boiling for 2 hours, you'll get a thick and wholesome home-made soup...so healthy!

Cooking Weekend - Salted Egg Yoke Fried Rice

it didn't turn out the way i wanted to. the salted egg yoke wasn't as salty as i thought it will be, so it turned out that i had to add in some thai fish sauce. the making of this dish made me perspired alot...didn't know that making fried rice needed so much stamina! haha...will try again next time!

"i will be back..."

in the meanwhile, D...enjoy..!

Cooking Weekend Cont'd - Lunch

"all spices" curry chicken

this was simple. all you need is lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, curry leaves, onions, chilli padi, curry powder and of course the potatoes (got red potatoes which doesn't go flaky after long boils) and chicken drumlets (best with bones for flavour)...i tried adding tomatoes this time round for "umami' and it worked!! glad to say that the curry tasted even better than before...i had cooked this yesterday and to keep its spiciness (spicy food do not maintain its spiciness if you do not have it on the same day), i added one chilli padi today......shiok!

Cooking Weekend - Supper

my all time favourite supper - maggie mee's assam laksa. it's not just any instant noodles. D added curry leaves, lemon grass ...errmm...and i'm not sure what else goes in there. it's reaaalllyyy good!

so as i've said, it's not just any instant noodles.

Cooking Weekend - Dinner

Ragù Porkloin, baby potatoes and portbello with red wine

hee, glad D enjoy this newly created dish. the Ragù sauce was selfmade. i boiled baby roma tomatoes and carrots in red wine with fennel seeds, english parsley, basil and porkbone for a good one hour..with the reduction, the sauce thickens. i then added cut chilli to heighten the complexity of the sauce. i think with this receipe, i could do a good spaggetti bolognese next time! =)

Cooking Weekend - Lunch

this is gonna be an all-cooking weekend since D will be having exams the next two weeks. hope these meals keep him going. kambate!

we had these with rice ...

the usual tenderloin beef cubes with fried garlic and yuzu dressing dip

brown japanese mushroom with mirin and shoyu

another kind of long japanese mushrooms with ginger and pork bones soup

lunch today

miso cod fish and 2 types of japanese mushroom soup with pork bone and ginger

Phew, saved by D!

one of my friend was asking if fixing a vongole is a quick and easy thing. these are things you need to buy, do and prepare for a perfect vongole meal.

soak the clams in water with salt for half an hour

ingredients you need are : small onions, garlic, parley

baby roma tomatoes with vines (as requested by D)

a crab
(i prefer mud crab to flower crab, but we couldn't get any on sat)

and clams. after you soak it, sort out the big and small clams.
Big ones for main meal, small ones for stock.

one bottle of white white with 90% used to cook stock. add all condiments in stock ...

including the seafood, ie crab and small clams
cook them in low heat for 1.5hrs

cook pasta to about 70% done

sieve out ingredients from stock and de-shell crab.
Then cook big clams in stock and fish them out once they open.

Next, stir fry crabmeat, onions and butter till lightly brown
add stock and cook linguine in stock till it is reduced.
you would get some burnt parts around the pan while reducing the linguine,
what you need to do is add the remaining 10% of the white wine to deglaze.
Then add the pasta and big clams to stir for less than a minute.

there you have a well-made vongole!

all in all, i took about 3 hours to get this done....

we didn't think the clams were that good this time despite the size of it. but i still enjoyed the meal, better still D saved the dish in time. well you see, i cooked the pasta till well and didn't realised i had to cook it again in the clam stock (D cooked the previous rounds!).....worried the pasta might get all soggy and soft, i cried help. tutu-tudu-tu.....D to the rescue!! though not as good as what D normally cooked for me, but well still nice. =)

Amuse Bouche - My version!

finger food prior to dinner - grilled chicken breast meat wrapped with skin

home-cooked meals

i enjoy eating home-cooked meals. so as far as possible if my week hasn't been that hectic at work, i would love to make meals for D and myself on weekends. our dinner tonite was wholesome.

there, this is the shaoxing rice wine chicken i mentioned in my earlier entry with more gravy. it was soooo good. we saved some for D's meal this week. glad he enjoyed it.


i'm half a cantonese, so indulging in a big bowl of soup is part of my everyday meal. here we have old cucumber and sharksfin cucumber soup. boiled this for about 3 hours. it's nice and sweet. i loved it!! slurp!

snacks for tea or supper?

today i was busy preparing some hot snacks for D...while he was burying himself under the books of economics so as to complete his assignment due next week. i'm glad i was doing the cooking and not the studying. i hate econs!! oops.

shaoxing rice wine and garlic oil infused grilled chicken

started with something more familiar, ie the parts of the chicken wings (wings...we human actually eat wings..? umm..). the chicken were marinated for 24hours with shao xing rice wine, garlic (had deep fried this) and its oil, soya sauce and a light dash of white pepper. i wanted the taste of the wine to sink deep in the meat of the chicken. that's the way D likes it...then i grilled it so that this can be easier for D to heat up to snack anytime later this week. i had a taste of it when i let D tried the preview of this alcholic dish last night..and i thought it tasted really good. =) i'm gonna do the stir fry version tonight so that we have the sauce for our rice from the wine and chicken juice. can't wait!!

preparation

finished product

petite potato cake

i wanted to make something like bagadil (the malay version of potato cake), but i wasn't sure of the ingredients they have in there. i love the nasi padang place near arab street where they have bagadil and sambal belachan that is simply the best!! i missed having them. so while i was craving for one, i decided to make a western version of potato cake.

i had boiled the potatoes, then mash them with a fork. added some salt, butter, thyme, english parsley and inion then mixed them together with my hands. Thereafter i rolled them into a ball by pressing them hard together so as to prevent them from falling apart then flattening them slightly. i then dipped them into eggs (had added some salt and pepper for taste) before frying them.

i think i didn't had enough oil for frying as i was trying to avoid an oily potato cake and they didn't turn out well. some starting falling apart as i fried them. overall, i thought it didn't tasted good at all. sigh....will do some research and attempt again next time.

D: but i like it!
(D typed this when he saw me blogging. he had 2 potato cakes. despite my disappointment in them....always so supportive...thanks dear!)

busy bee or me

Whoah...got up today and i had a list of things to do.

Firstly, to prepare D's meals for the week. Since he might not have time to get meals this week with his packed schedule, here are some homecooked dishes i whipped up within 3 hours.

curry chicken and red potatoes with kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass and curry leaves

spicy minced beef with basil leaves and star anise

red potatoes, japanese carrot, straw mushrooms with soft bones pork soup

red wine white mushroom with buttered minced beef

Then after i blog (which is now)...i'm rushing for my appointment with browhaus...I haven't been going for a while, and since D's occupied the whole day (only meeting him around 6pm), I thought I could do some girly stuff on my own. =)

And then I will be meeting LC, my ex-colleague at Cedele, Wheelock to catch up. Umm..i feel like a piece of cake later...kekeke...

Yeah!! What a busy busy sunday...doing things i like....happy and well-spent!

Tang Guai Chicken

We wanted something herbal and meant to make this tang guai chicken for a while. Got a spring chicken from Isetan's supermarket and got it steamed for 2 hours during lunch. Just before dinner, we steamed it for another half an hour. It looks injured from the picture but the sauce that's coming from the chicken and herbs tasted just nice and not too thick.

The omelette was just a simple side to add to the dishes and for my hungry D.

Steak for lunch!!

Garlic Red Wine Butter Steak with
Butter White Pepper Shimeji Mushroom,
Seared Baby Potato

in less than an hour, D whipped up lunch with 2 sides!! Tenderloin beef steak wth buttered shimeiji mushrooms and potatoes - they were really tasty and the steak were cooked to perfection!

our buy from swiss butchery

we got a marinated tadoori chicken from swiss butchery when we were there yesterday at greenwood. we didn't think of it that much but thought of giving it a try. maybe it was the bright red that attracted us to it from the counter.

did a light grill with our mayer's pan for the chicken. it turned out really tender, juicy and moist. oh and just in case the chicken didn't tasted the way i wanted it to, i prepared a thick curry sauce which i put at the side - mixed the curry powder with fish sauce and lime. the curry sauce added some kick to the dish...

sides were stir fried asparagus with mushroom (can't remember the type) with garlic and cut chilli padi.

an unexpected thumbs up for this meal...