Stir Fried Sweet & Spicy Chicken With Cashew Nuts

I'm sorry for not updating my BLOG for such a long time. What have I been up to lately??? Oh well, I've been busy with doing some spring cleaning. Clear my home from the unused stuff that I've kept all the while but will not using it anymore☻

Today, I would like to share this simple and easy recipe with all of you. I especially dedicate it to my friend Maggie in Canada who have been follow and try out my recipes. This dish is very easy to prepare and cook. It goes well with warm white rice and simple stir-fried vegetables.

Ingredients:
1 chicken breast (about 400g), sliced 0.5cm thick
50 g roasted cashew nuts
3 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
1 onion, sliced6 dried chillies, soaked and cut into half

Marinate the chicken with:

2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp black soy sauce
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp 5 spice powder
1 tbsp cooking wine (shao xin rice wine)
some salt to taste

What to do??

Marinate the sliced chicken with the ingredients. Stir to mix well and cover it with cling wrap and place it in the fringe for an hour.

Heat the wok with some oil. Stir-fried garlic, onions and dried chillies for a minute.

Add in the marinated chicken and stir-fried for a while. Add in a little (about 3 tbsp) water and cover the wok, let it simmer till the dish dries up and chicken is cook. Stir occasionally.

Stir in the roasted cashew nuts when the chicken is cooked. Lastly, add salt to taste (this is depend to the saltiness of the soy sauce we used) If the dish already salty enough, just omit the salt.

Serve with warm rice.

HAPPY COOKING!! ~ ☻

Sugar Cane Herbal Tea

A cup of refreshing Sugar Cane Herbal Tea, anyone??

BEFORE & AFTER

The change of weather have cause many people are down with flu, fever and sore-throat. Herbal tea-(凉茶) are one of the traditionally drink that use to get rid our body inner heat. But, my kids won't take some of the herbal tea which have very strong herbal smell and taste bitter. I came across this "Sugar Cane Herbal Tea" when I shop for grocery at TESCO Shopping Mall. I buy 2 packets and try it. Surprisingly, all my kids love it. It taste just like sugarcane drinks. I don't know what ingredients are used as it is not stated on the packing, I can see it's the dried sugarcane in it, something look like carrot- i think so, and some chinese herbs in it.

Aren't the orange coloured one look like CARROT??

Ways to prepare it :

1 packet of Sugar Cane Herbal Tea Mix
some rock sugar to taste
2 litre of water

Wash the herbal mix with water.
Place the ingredients in Slow Cooker and cook it in low heat over night.

AMY

Onion Bacon Quiche

I first got to know this "Quiche" from my friend Wendy's Blog and I never tried this before. Quiche (pronounce as "keesh") is an open savoury tart with the fillings made from eggs, milk, cheese, meat (bacon) or vegetables (spinach, tomatoes)..etc, just add in any ingredients of your liking.

I made this Quiche for our dinner yesterday. It is a French cuisine that usually served for breakfast, lunch or as snack for teatime or picnic.

Ingredients:

Tart Crust:
1 ready made 8" pie/tart crust (deep dish shell)
or
180g all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
80g cold butter, cut to pieces
40g margarine, cut into pieces
3~4 tbsp iced water

Fillings:

5 slices bacon
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 chopped green onion
2tsp olive oil
2 egg
2 egg whites
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup low fat milk
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
some salt to taste
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 cup grated cheese (your preferred cheese)

Method:
Prepare the Crust/Tart:

1. Sieve the flour and salt into a mixing bowl.
2. Rub in the butter and margarine until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
3. Stir in just enough water to combine (if the dough are already wet enough, then omit the water)
4. Shape it into a ball, wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for about 20mins.
5. After 20mins emoved the chilled dough from fridge, let it soften slightly at room temperature.
6. Roll the dough into a 3mm thick piece, it has to be 50mm larger round than tart pan.
7. Transfer to a 8" tart pan and trim.
8. Prick the face all over with the fork.
9. You may decorate the edge with the fork or fingers (up to your creativity)
10. Cover crust with aluminum foil and freeze for 1 hour before use.

Fillings for Quiche:

1. Preheat the oven at 425F/218C (the temperature are depend to the oven brand we use, i bake at 200C)
2. Fried the bacon slices until crspy in the non-stick pan without oil - crumble and set aside.
3. Saute the onion with olive oil until fragrant, stir in the crumbled bacon and green onion. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Whisk together the eggs and egg whites together. Then add in evaporated milk, low fat milk, cornstarch, black pepper, salt, nutmeg. Whisk till well combine.
5. Mix grated cheese into cooled onion bacon mixture, then spoon the mixture into the crust.
6. Slowly pour the egg mixture in even layers.
7. Bake on the lower rack in preheated oven for 30~40 minutes or until the filling is set (it took me only 30mins to bake it)
8. Served warm.

Notes:

Make sure all the cheese are cover by the milk mixture to avoid the brownish/burnt top when baking. Mix the grated cheese with bacon onion before pour the milk mixture on top of it and not sprinkle the grated cheese after we pour in the milk mixture.

Happy Baking!

OREO Butter Cake

Who doesn't like OREO?? I think most of the kids who taste it will love it. The black coloured chocolatey taste cookies with white cream in it. Crunchy and yummy!! I came across this OREO Butter Cake recipe few months ago and straight away I bookmark it. Ya, I'm going to bake this no matter how it taste because it use OREO as one of the main ingredients. Not only my kids love OREO but I'm also OREO craze. I love OREO and anything with it. One of my favourite are Oreo Vanilla Ice-cream ~ Yumm..yum!!

The original recipe use 170g sugar but I reduce 10g and only use 160g, it taste just nice for me. The texture of the cake are soft and rather fine. I remove all the cream of the cookies and place it in a small bowl before I crushed them and beat the cream together with butter and sugar. My kids love it. You can try this brand new OREO flavour butter cake once a while when we are getting boring with the normal butter cake. It's DELICIOUS, trust me!!

Oreo Butter Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

225g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder (omit this if you are using self-raising flour)
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
85g unsalted butter, cut into smaller pieces
170g sugar
2 eggs, beaten lightly
1 cup(240ml) non-fat unsweetened yogurt (I use Dutch Lady Natural Flavour)
1 tsp vanilla essence
80g Oreo cookies, roughly crushed (I use mini Oreos)

**Some Whole OREO Cookies for decorating the cake**

What to do ?

Preheat oven to 180C and grease or line a 8-inch round cake pan.

Sift cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Cream butter, Oreo cookies cream and sugar till it's light and creamy.

Add in eggs slowly. About 1 tbsp at a time and beating constantly for about 2 mins.

Fold in gently 1/3 of the flour mixture until well combined. Follow by ½ of the yogurt and continue fold in 1/2 of the flour mixture, mix till well combined. Then followed by vanilla extract and fold in the the remaining yoghurt and finally the remaining flour.

Lastly, add the crushed cookies and mix well.

Pour the batter into greased pan and arrange whole Oreos on top.

Bake for about 40 - 50 mins till skewer inserted comes out clean.


Note: I bake this cake at 160c for 50mins. My oven tend to get too hot than normal one.

Deep Fried Anchovies - "Ikan Bilis"

Anchovies - "Ikan Bilis" are little silver, salt-water fish that is versatile in cooking. We bought from wet market and supermarkets. It's dried, preserved in salt and we then deep fried at home. It is commonly seen served with Nasi Lemak. There are just so many ways you can use it - stir-fry it with sambal, add to soups for that extra sweetness & flavour, stir-fry with vegetables or just toss in the salads for the crunchy feel. We also can eat it just like that as snack.

What you do:

Remove it's head, bones and wash the anchovies. Repeat till the water is clean, drain water and let it dry under the sun (so that there is no more moisture & the oil won’t splat, splat, splutter when you’re deep frying them later on). Then deep fry in medium high heat for about 5 minutes, or until they are golden brown & crispy. Remove from oil and wait the anchovies to cool before store it in an airtight container. We can keep the left over Ikan Bilis in the fridge and it can be kept up to 2 weeks.

Click HERE to read more about "Ikan Bilis".

Sambal Petai & Prawn

母亲节快乐！HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Ya, today is Mother's Day and I cook this "Sambal" to go with the Coconut Rice - "Nasi Lemak" not forget the fried ikan bilis and hard boiled eggs. Mother's Day but I'm not feeling well today - I got very bad flu...arhh!! I don't have appetite to eat and I'm feeling sleepy all the time. By the way, I would like to wish all the mothers around the world a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY - you are the GREATEST!!!

What We Need :

500 g Medium Size Prawn (shelled & de-vein, I keep the tail for easier eating)
200 g Petai
2 Onion (cut into big chunks)
240 g Shallot (skinned)
180 g Red Chili
5 g (about 10) Dried Chili (soaked in water to softened it and seeded, add more if you like it spicy)
15 g Fresh Tumeric
2 tbsp Belacan Powder
2 tbsp Dried Shirmp (soaked in water to softened and wash)
3 - 4 tbsp Cooking Oil
20 g Tamarind Paste (mix with one cup of warm water)
Salt to taste
Sugar to taste (optional)

Method :

Blend the red chili, dried chili, shallots, tumeric, belacan powder and dried shrimp together.
Heat up wok with the cooking oil, when the wok are warm add in onions and blended mixture. Stir-fried in medium high heat for 7 - 8 minutes until the onion turn soft and the "sambal" is fragrant, it will be a bit dry at this time.
Stir in the prawns and the tamarind juice (if you want more sauce, add in a little bit more water) continue to cook until the prawn are almost done (about 3 -4 minutes depend on the prawn size)
Lastly add in petai and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Season with salt and sugar to taste. Serve warm with rice.

Notes :

When we are eating petai, get some egg plant as well, it will help to reduce or remove the strong smell of our urine. If you found it hard to find this petai at the place you stay, you can just omit it and cook the Sambal Prawn alone with the recipe above, it's delicious !!

Serve 8

Sweet Potato Steamed Buns - “番薯包”

I make this “番薯包”- Sweet Potato Steamed Buns last night. Apart for praying my Buddha, I can have it as breakfast today. As a devoted buddhist, on every 1st and 15th day of the Chinese Lunar Calendar I will eat only vegetarian food, so no meat for me today☻ Today is WESAK DAY, it's known as Buddha's Birthday - a meaningful day for all the buddhist people. I bring my kids to pray at several temple around here.

I love to learn making my kid's favourite food. By making our own, it's way cheaper than buying it outside and one more thing that I concern is, it's more healthy and hygiene. I will make sure the ingredients I use are the fresh one and without any colouring or preservatives. This “番薯包”are one of my daughters favourite. They just love it. My son and my father they like"Char Siu Bao". So, each time when I make the dough for "baos" I will divided them into several portion. I'll make few of each "baos" at one time - "Char Siu Bao, Kaya Bao and Tau Sa Bao"☻

I use the basic bao's skin recipe for this Sweet Potato Steamed Buns but added in mashed sweet potatoes and reduce the amount of water for making this delicious buns. You can refer the Basic Bao's Skin Recipe - HERE

Ingredients :

120 g Warm Water
5 g Instant Yeast (about 1 tbsp)
1 tbsp Icing Sugar

150 g Sweet Potato (steamed and mashed finely)

200 g Flour/Cake flour (I use Bluekey's "Bao" Flour)
100 g Self-raising flour
80 g Icing sugar
30 g Corn Oil/Sun Flower Oil

some 3"x3" papers for lining the buns

Method:


In a big mixing bowl, mix the yeast with warm water and a tablespoon of icing sugar. Cover it with a big wet cloth. Set aside and let it prove for 45mins.

Meanwhile, sieve the flour and icing sugar together into another bowl.

After 45 mins of proofing. Stir and pour the yeast mixture into the sieve flour and add in oil. Use a wooden spoon to mix it to crumble and start kneading the dough with hand. The dough will be a bit sticky at first, knead until it's soft and smooth (**the dough will be a bit sticky to compare with the basic bao's skin - if you find it too sticky to knead, dust your hand with some flour before you start working on it)

It takes approximately 20 - 25mins depend on how you knead it. Cover the bowl with wet cloth or cling wrap and let the dough rest for 15 - 20 mins. When the dough are ready (it shall expand a bit by now), dust your work place with some flour roll the dough and divided it into 12 small balls.

Dust with flour again and roll the small ball into 4" x 2" rectangle piece and roll it up like springroll. Place it on the 3" x 3" lining paper. Continue to finished up all the dough. Make sure you cover the finished buns with a wet cloth to prevent it from dries up. Let the buns rest for 10 - 15 mins before you steamed it in high heat. **Water in the steamer must be boiling before you put the buns to steam.


Notes: Please take note, over proofing the bao dough will cause the "wrinkled" skin on the baos. You can always replace the oil with the "same amount" of shortening (just in case you still have it at home) but, I prefer just using corn oil. The texture of the skin are very much depend on how you knead the dough, make sure you knead it the right way by fold and push down the dough with your wrist, repeat this action till the dough are smooth. It's not press the dough with our palm actually !!!☻

Makes: 12 buns

(Non-Halal) Pig's Trotter In Vinegar & Young Ginger - “猪脚醋”

“猪脚醋”- "Tu Kar Chor" in Hokkien or "Chu Kiok Chou" in Cantonese are one famous dish in chinese community. Most of us who taste it before would straightly fall in love with it. Who can resist the sweet, sour and spicy taste of this yummy trotters, right?? I don't take fat meat and skin, but when eating this “猪脚醋” it's totally opposite, I just love the fat meat and skin... slurppss!! It's one of the famous dishes for confinement as well.

Chinese believe black vinegar purifies the blood, old ginger drives out wind and brown sugar puts a check on "dampness". Pigs' trotters are said to provide collagen and is good for strengthening joints & lumbar. Sesame seed oil is also to promote blood circulation and the eggs to nourish the body. But for most of us, we just LOVE to eat this dish☻- whether confinement or not! This is also a dish popularly offered to relatives & neighbours who come visit.

"my mom's favourite piece of “猪脚醋” ... she loves the fat pork fingers, hahaha.."

Ingredients:

2 Pig's Trotters -“猪脚”
800 g Young Ginger, skinned & smashed lightly
- (for confinement, use the Old Ginger)
2 bottle of Sweet Black Rice Vinegar
1 small bottle of Sour Black Rice Vinegar
6 - 8 Dried Chilies - (you can omit this if your are using Old Ginger otherwise it'll be too spicy)
Brown Sugar/Palm Sugar to taste
4 tbsp Sesame Oil
3 - 5 bowls of Water
- (add enough water to cover the meat)

5 hard boil Eggs - (optional)

(pic left: Those are the Sweet & Sour Black Vinegar I used for this dishes)

Method:

Clean & pluck off the hair from the pig's trotters. Cut into big serving pieces.

In a wok, heat the sesame oil. Fry the ginger until it's golden brown and fragrant.

Stir-fried the pig's trotters pieces with the remaining oil until it's slightly cook. While frying you'll notice water drain out from the meat.

Put the fried ginger into a big pot. Add the sweet and sour vinegar and water in it. Bring it to boil and let it simmer in low heat for 1/2hrs until the ginger are soft.

Add the pig trotters, dried chilies and continue to simmer until it's soft and tender (approx. 2hrs)

When the pig's trotters are ready, add the brown sugar (I use palm sugar) to taste and cook till the sugar dissolved.

Add the hard boiled eggs 1/2 hr before serving. Serve warm with white rice.

Tips:

This dish also tastes nicer after few days. If you can spare your crockpot/slowcooker, you can also prepare this yummy dish in your crockpot.

Try to add less water as possible for yummier taste of this dish.

Do not soak the hard boil eggs too long in the vinegar soup as it will harden the eggs.

We can also cook this dishes using pressure cooker and it's not that time consuming. I just left it to cook for 20mins after boiling, both the pig's trotters and ginger are soft!!

**I didn't add eggs in my “猪脚醋”and I add 500 g pork belly meat in it ☻~

Serve 8 - 10 people

HAPPY COOKING!

Winter Melon & Luo Han Guo (罗汉果) Dessert

Luo Han Guo - 罗汉果 are used for respiratory ailments, sore throats and reputed to aid longevity. The fruit can act as a remedy for sun stroke, wet the lungs, remove phlegm, stop cough and aid defecation. The weather has been horrid recently - hot and warm today, cold and raining tomorrow. Many people are down with flu, fever, sore-throat etc...

I cooked this soup for my kids to clear away the inner body heatness. Winter melon and luo han guo are the great combination for this dessert. It's easy to prepare and delicious.

(This is how the Luo Han Guo (罗汉果) look like - I got this pic from Klein Cheung in Flickr. I forget to took the picture before cooking)

Ingredients:

1 Luo Han Guo (罗汉果)
300 g Winter Melon - cut into stripes (冬瓜)
50 g Dried Longan (龙眼肉)
30 g Red Dates (红枣)
30 g Dried Lotus Seeds (莲子)
30 g Lily Bulb (白合)
2 litre Water
some Rock Sugar or Honey to taste

What to do!!

Wash the luo han guo on running tap water and crack it a little.

Raise all the ingredients to clean. Put the ingredients into a pot with the cracked luo han guo and winter melon stripes except dried longan.

Add water and bring it to boil. Let it simmer in low fire for 1 hour before adding the dried longan and continue to cook for 30minutes.

***(Add rock sugar to taste at the time you add the dried longan if you want to add sugar)

As the luo han guo and dried longan are sweet by itself, we can cook it without the rock sugar and just add 1 or 2 teaspoons of honey before serving. It's healthier and more nutricious.

Notes: Do not cook longans for more than 30 minutes. Or else they would lose the sweetness and turn soggy.

Try it!!!

Happy Cooking ~☻~