Acar Hu -"阿扎鱼"(Acar Fish)

"阿扎鱼" or Acar Hu (pickled fish in turmeric vinegar sauce) My favourite fish since childhood days :) I can finished 2 plate of rice with just this one dish. A dish that's very easy to prepare and cook. This dish taste even better if we keep it overnight. YUMMY!!

Ingredients needed:

(A)

500g Ikan Kembung (or any other type of fish) - cleaned

1 tbsp turmeric powder

1 tsp salt

enough oil for deep-frying

(B)

100g fresh turmeric (shredded)

50g ginger (shredded)

(C)

300ml white rice vinegar

100ml water

6tbsp sugar (or to taste)

(D)

10 or more pips garlic (removed skin and sliced)

3 red chillies (sliced) - optional, for decoration purpose

3 green chillies (sliced) - "

6 - 8 small spicy chillies (if u prefer it a bit spicy)

2tbsp white sesame seeds (toasted) - optional

METHOD:

1. (A): Rub fish with turmeric powder, salt and marinate it for 1 hour. Heat up oil for deep-frying. Deep-fry the fish until crispy. Dish and drain.
2. (B): Leave about 3tbsp oil in wok, saute shredded ginger, turmeric until fragrant. Remove from heat and leave to cool.
3. (C): Cook all ingredients into saucepan until boiled. Remove from heat and leave to cool.
4. (D): Blanch all ingredients D in boiling water for about 1/2min. Dish and drain.
5. Mix A,B,C and D, leave aside for at least 5 hours or overnight. Sprinkles toasted sesame seeds on top and serve.

Tips to share: Prepare B & C one day ahead so that they are totally cool before adding in fish and D. The dish can be kept longer this way.

Out of idea on what to cook??? TRY THIS OUT!

HAPPY COOKING!

AMY

Penang Hokkien Mee - Har Mee

Penang Hokkien Mee or "虾面" are one of my favourite hawkers' food. We can easily buy & eat this yummy noodles here at any kopitiam or place that sells hawker food. I didn't cook this often unless there are guest or friends come to visit me at home until one day I chatted with a friend of mine in Facebook who stays in USA. He can't get to eat nice "虾面" there, even those he can get at Malaysian Restaurant there tasted not as nice as the one in Malaysia. I promised to share my recipe here and for those who stays oversea can maybe try this out :)

I followed the recipe from "Penang Nyonya A-Ma Secret Recipes" by Chef Plilip Yoong and edit it to suit my taste buds...

Ingredients:

PRAWN SOUP:

1.5kg medium size prawns (washed before we removed it's shell, keep it for soup)

3tbsp oil or lesser

2tbsp chopped garlic

2tbsp chopped shallot

2500ml water

(A)

300g pork's bone

300g pork ribs

1/2tbsp peppercorns (crushed)

(B) - pounded/blend together

25g dried chillies (soaked for 10mins, use less if you can't take it too spicy)

150g shallots (removed skin)

75g garlic

1cm belacan

3tbsp oil

some salt to taste

SEASONING

30g rock sugar

some salt to taste

600g yellow mee

200g mee hoon

300g bean sprouts

300g kangkung

some fried shallots

3 hard boiled eggs (shelled and cut into wedges)

Chilli Sauce For Serving (mixed)

150g chilli boh

75g minced garlic

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp white rice vinegar

50ml boiling water

METHOD:

1. Prepare the soup: Heat up 3 tbsp oil in a work, saute chopped garlic and shallot until fragrant. Add prawn shell and continue to fry at low heat until it's dry and aromatic. Pour in water, add in ingredients A and bring to boil. Simmer at medium low heat for 30 minutes.
2. Heat up 3 tbsp oil, saute pounded B until it's fragrant. Add some salt to taste. Leave about 1 tbsp chilli paste in the wok, transfer the rest into boiling soup. Simmer the soup for another 20 minutes. Strain the soup to another pot. Add in seasoning and taste it.
3. Stir-fry the prawns in chilli paste until cooked. Dish up and set aside.
4. Blanch yellow mee, mee hoon, bean sprouts, kangkung in boiling water seperately.
5. To assembling the "虾面": Put some mee, meehoon, bean sprouts and kangkung into a serving bowl. Arrange ribs, prawns, eggs on top. Pour boiling soup over and sprinkle with fried shallots. Serve with chilli sauce.

HAPPY COOKING!

Wish all of you have a nice day!!

AMY ONG

Homemade 'Char Siu' - 叉烧

叉烧 or 'Char Siu' this is how we pronounce it in Cantonese. I never bother to made my own Char Siu at home as I can buy perfectly delicious barbecue pork at a Chinese butcher stall or restaurant here until I tried the Char Siu made by aunt Yoke Peng. She shared with me her simple recipe on how to make this delicious Char Siu. Believe me, it's really delicious!!

Ingredients needed:

500gm - 600gm lean pork loin (cut into stripes, preferably with some fat)

For Marinade the pork:

3 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp minced garlic
some 5 spice powder
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1 tbsp honey
1/2 piece fermented red beancurd (nam yu)
4 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cooking wine

Method:

1. Cut pork loin into long strips. In a large bowl combine all the ingredients for marinade. Place pork strips into bowl, cover and marinate overnight in the refrigerator. Open and turn the pork to the other side for better marinade.
2. Heat a wok with oil enough for frying the pork strips. When to wok is hot, put in the marinade pork strips and fry it in lower heat until it's fragrant. As the soy sauce and sugar was one of the ingredients, the char siu will slowly turn into darker color and sticky.
3. Flip over to fry the other side till it's fragrant. Use lower heat and let it fry for a longer time to make sure the meat are cooked thoroughly.
4. Dish out the cooked char siu and let it cold first before we slice it into 1/2cm thick.
5. Serve warm with steamed rice or noodles.

Happy Cooking!

AMY

Stir -Fried Fish in Bean Paste with Ginger & Green Onions ( 炒鱼-Char Hu )

This dish are quite famous among the restaurants in Alor Star. It is one of the famous signature dishes for some restaurant here. We called it in Hokkien dialect "Char Hu" here. This dishes are very easy to prepare and it's very yummy. The one they sold in the restaurant are much more darker as they use a lot of thick dark soy-sauce. I reduce the use of thick soy-sauce because I want my "Char Hu" to appear nicer in the pictures for my blog :D

A must try... simple & easy recipe!!

We can use any kind of fish for this dishes. The best I have tasted so far is the baby shark meat. Shark meat are smooth and it taste real good with we stir-fried it this way. Beside that we can use fillet of bigger size fish. Ok, let me share with all of you the ingredients for this dish.


Ingredients :

Fish meat/fillet - (Sorry, I forget to weight my fish before cooking it..)
Ginger (sliced into thin stripes - if u like ginger, put more)
Green Onion (cut it into 1 inch, I use a lot of green onion for this dish)
Bean Paste (please omit the salt if the bean paste taste salty)
Thick Soy Sauce
Sugar (optional) - I didn't use sugar for most of my dishes. My mom diabetic & couldn't take too much sweet food.
Sesame Oil
Cooking Oil

Method :

• Clean & cut the fish into 1cm thick. Fry it with oil until it's cooked but not crispy. Set aside.
• Heat the wok with some sesame oil + sunflower oil (Approx. 3tbsp - enough for stir-frying)
• When the wok is hot, add in the ginger stripes. Stir-fry until it's golden color and add in the bean paste before continue to stir-fry it until it's fragrant (add in enough bean paste for the amount of fish u cook, too much of bean paste will make the dish taste salty - becareful not to add too much of it)
• Slowly and carefully add in the cooked fish. Stir the fish to mix with the bean paste slowly and at this time add in the appropriate amount of the thick soy-sauce. Continue to stir-fry it, do it carefully and don't break the fish into pieces.
  
• Pour in some warm water then cover the work and let it simmer for a while. Let the fish asorb the sauce (if u prefer to have more sauce, add in slightly a little more water to get more sauce)
• Lastly, sprinkle in the green onions. Stir to mix it well with the fish.
• Serve warm with steamed rice.

P/S: If you love it spicy. Add in some chili chunks at the time we add the green onions.


HAPPY COOKING!!


AMY ONG

Stir-Fry Vegetables with Shirmps & Fish Cakes

Kind of lazy or dunno what to cook?? Why not try this easy dish which is simply yummy... :P

Ingredients:

Vegetables
Shrimp
Fish Cake (sliced)
Garlic (sliced or minced)
Salt to taste
Pepper
Oil

Method:

• Clean vegetables, cut them into desirable size.
• Heat frying pan with some oil (abt 1tbsp)
• Add garlic and stir-fried it until it's golden color.
  
• Stir in shirmp, add in some pepper and continue to stir-fried it till it turn red color.
• Add in vegetables and continue to cook it for few minutes.
• Add fish cakes and some water (cover the wok & cook for a while)
• Add some salt to taste before dish up the vegetables.

AMY ONG

Doughnut

I made this doughnut quite sometime ago. It was my first attempt on making doughnut and it turn out not very successful. The dough turn out too soft and make it hard for me to get the perfect round shape of the doughnut. I have been wanted to make my own doughnut long time ago. It was one of my favorite food and my kids they love it too. After look at the doughnut made by some of my blogger friends, I decided to give it a try. Look at what I get here, all the odd shapes doughnut but it taste like the one we get from the bakery. Soft and fluffy, not too bad ya? he he..!!

I use the doughnut recipe provided by the bread-maker I bought and made it using my bread-maker. Well, just put all the ingredients in the bread-maker and set it to the dough cycle. Easy and safe up a lot of time. I think I'm really smart to invest a bread-maker for myself.. :P

**Look at these odd- shapes doughnut made from the left over dough after cutting them with the doughnut mold cutter**

Ingredients:

Water + 1 Egg 250 ml
High Protein Flour 400 gm
Sugar 3tbsp
Salt 1/4tsp
Yeast 1 1/2tsp

Butter 40 gm


Method
(recipe using bread-maker)

• Put all ingredient into bread-maker baking pan and use dough cycle to knead it.
• Take the dough out when the kneading programmer completed.
• Scale the dough at 40 gms each and round it. Cut into rings shape and proof till double its size.
  
• Fry doughnut in hot oil till golden brown and coat it with caster sugar.

Have a nice day!

AMY

Comfort Food For Lazy Sunday

Fried Rice with Taiwan Sausage, Cabbage, Carrot & Eggs

A simple & easy lunch today. Using the ingredients from my fridge I come out with this Sausage Fried Rice. Guess what? It's yummy !! At least it's tastier than many fried rice we ate at the restaurant out there...hehe !

Easy steps & simple ingredients :

Over-night/left over RICE
Eggs (fried and cut it into thick stripes)
Cabbage (cut into smaller pieces)
Taiwan Pork Sausage - sliced(any sausage can be use...provided it's yummy)
Carrot (sliced)
Onion (sliced)
some minced Garlic

Seasoning:
Light soy sauce
Oyster sauce
some pepper

Oil for frying

Simple steps for frying the rice:

Heat some oil in the wok. Add in the sliced onion. Stir-fry it until the onion turn soft and add in the sliced sausage. Continue to stir-fry the sausage until it's golden brown and fragrant.

Set aside the fried sausage. With the remaining oil add in minced garlic, stir-fry till it's golden brown before add in the carrot and cabbage. Add in the rice, stir to mix well with the vegetables. Season the fried rice with some soy sauce, oyster sauce and pepper. Taste it while you adding the seasoning, make sure it's not too salty (**we can always add more soy sauce later if it's not salty enough)

Lastly, add in the fried egg and the cooked sliced sausages. Stir to mix well with the fried rice.

VIOLA ~ THE LUNCH IS READY !! :)

AMY ONG