Chinese Chives Soup 韭菜汤

Chinese Chives (gow choy) sounds the same as nine veg.. and many people refrain from eating this after having measles or chicken pox because, they believe they’ll get 9 times of that disease if they consume this 9 veg.

When I was a kid, I hated Chinese Chives… the smell was urgh!!!!!

Then grandaunt made this soup.. that was when it changed my opinion about this member of the onion family. It became my next favourite veg.

From a smelly green thingy.. it became the sweetest veg to my tastebuds…

A very easy soup to make

Chinese Chives Soup
½ cup dried anchovies, wash and drained
1 Tbsp oil
1L water
Salt to taste

10 fishballs
100gm Chinese chives cut into 3cm lengths)
1 egg , beaten

Heat a pot and put in oil. Stir fry anchovies until fragrant and pour in water. Let boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove anchovies and season with salt.

Put in fish balls and wait for them to float.
Put in Chinese chives and wait for soup to boil.
Drizzle in beaten egg while stirring continuously with a ladle.
Turn off the heat and serve.

French Toast 西多司

I learnt to do this when I was a young girl, say, in primary school.

During my confinement, the confinement lady made this for my breakfast, and from then onwards, hubby has been pestering me to make whenever he sees bread around the house

French Toast Recipe

2 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbsp sugar

6-8 pcs of white bread (cut into prefered shapes)

Butter

1. Beat eggs, salt and sugar together.

2. Heat a frying pan on low .. put in some butter to melt.

3. Place one piece of bread into egg mixture and lighly coat bread. Do not soak it.

4. Put egg coated bread into pan and fry until golden brown.

5. Add in more butter and fry another batch until finished.

Pasta in Cream Sauce 白汁依粉

This may be a very common recipe to many others, but many of my friends have been asking me how to do a cream sauce for pasta.

Here's how I do it. You can put in whatever you may like.... calamari, chicken, ham, peas, carrots...

I use whipping cream because it is the most common form of cream available in Malaysia.

Pasta in Cream Sauce Recipe

Portion for 2
150gm pasta, cooked al dente.
1 pip garlic (chopped)
1/2 red onion (chopped)
1/2 cup prawns
1/2 cup mushrooms
1 cup dairy whipping cream (Anchor, Emborg... bla bla bla)
1 tsp parsley flakes
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt and black pepper to taste

Method:
1. Heat pan and put in olive oil. Saute garlic and onion until fragrant and softened.
2. Put in prawns or whatever meat preferred and stir fry for a while until almost cooked.
3. Put in mushrooms or whatever vegetables preferred and stir until everything is cooked.
4. Pour in whipping cream and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle in parsley flakes.
5. When sauce has boiled and thickened, put in cooked pasta and coat pasta with sauce.
6. Remove from heat and serve.

Omelet with Minced Meat Gravy 肉碎汁煎单

Omelet with Minced Meat Gravy

Ingredients
3 eggs (beaten and fried into an omelet)

¼ cup minced pork or chicken
1/3 cup straw mushrooms (quartered)
1 clove garlic (finely chopped)
1 shallot (finely chopped)

Gravy:
1 tsp cornstarch
¾ cup water
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
Pinch of sugar
1 Tbsp oil

Method

1. Heat wok and put in oil
2. Sauté shallot and garlic until fragrant and slightly golden.
3. Put in minced pork and cook until brown. Put in straw mushrooms.
4. Pour in gravy mixture and cook until gravy thickens.
5. Pour gravy over omelet and serve.

Green Curry Chicken 青咖哩鸡

Mum gave me some green chilies that she didn’t know what to do with them (they were given to her by a friend), so, I suddenly thought of making green curry. I had trouble looking for fresh basil here in Kuala Kangsar, the market peddlers told me there’s no fresh basil in the market, only at people’s houses… So I had to find a
substitute.

Few days later, I got the idea to use ‘daun kesum’ instead, which is also another aromatic fresh herb easily found in Malaysia, especially in Kuala Kangsar where Laksa is the most popular local food here.

As far as I can remember, I’ve never eaten green curry before this, just saw many green curry in jars at hypermarkets

Green Curry Chicken Recipe

Ingredients
(A)3 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
2 cm ginger
2cm cube of belacan
2 lemon grass, bottom white parts only
8 green chilies
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 Tbsp coriander seeds

2 chicken whole legs (cut into chunks)
1 Russet Potato (cut into 12 pcs)

200ml coconut milk
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oil
2 cups of water

Handful of daun kesum (laksa leaves) , or u can use basil

Method
1. Blend (A) to a paste.
2. Heat wok and put in oil. Spoon out 2 Tbsp upper layer of coconut milk and fry until it turns to oil.
3. Put in blended paste and sauté until fragrant, for about 1-2 minutes.
4. Put in chicken and potato. Cook for another 2 minutes.
5. Pour in water and simmer on high fire until the potato is cooked and gravy thickens and greatly reduced.
6. Put in coconut milk and salt. When curry has come to a boil, put in daun kesum. Cook until daun kesum wilts.

Candied Coconut - gula melaka 椰糖椰干

When I was in primary school, the canteen man sold candied coconut for 10sen a small pack.

Many years, I never came across this again.

Then, when I was in uni, I saw it in Petaling Street, wow , it’s turned into something pricey. Still bought it, cos I like it.

2 months after my daughter was born, I saw this again in SS2 pasar malam. And they don’t only have the regular white candied coconut, they even have a gula melaka version, which is palm sugar. This stall also sells candied ginger, lotus roots, and water chestnut.
And they are going for RM3.50 for small pack of 150gm. RM10 for 3 packs, but RM13.50 for 4 packs, weird way of marketing huh?? I bought 3 packs.

I saw in pwmf’s site on how to make candied coconut. But didn’t think that I’d make my own one day, cos it seemed too troublesome to remove the coconut flesh from the hard shell. Then I saw in Kuala Kangsar wet market’s coconut milk stall, there’s coconut flesh for sale. Yahooo!!! Bought 1 kg of it. I want to make it the night itself, substituting the white sugar that pwmf uses with gula melaka, adding in some pandan leaves for extra aroma. I was worried about the pot burning, but luckily it didn’t. Pwmf uses medium high heat until water evaporates, but I used low fire all the while… Scared ma!!!


Candied Coconut Recipe

1kg coconut flesh (without shell)
500 gm gula melaka (pounded or chopped)
Few blades of pandan leaves, shredded.

Trim coconut flesh to remove all brown skins, wash and slice into desired thickness,
Mix coconut flesh with pounded gula melaka, and let it bleed for a while.
Put everything into a heavy bottomed pot and cook until a thin layer of sugar powder coats the coconut.
Place coconut shreds onto a flat tray and let it cool down before putting it into an air tight container.

***
By using low heat all the time, it took me 1.5 hours, pot uncovered.

I find the amount of sugar a bit too much, as there were a lot of sugar dust on the bottom of the pot, so, the next time I’ll make this, I’ll just use 330gm. I used up the remaining sugar in the pot by making egg drop agar-agar.

Split Top Butter Loaf

Split Top Butter Loaf Recipe

Bread loaf
320 gm Bread flour
66 gmWhipping cream
162 gm milk
33 gm honey
16 gm butter
3 gm yeast
4 gm salt
30gm egg

Topping:
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp coarse sugar
Egg

Method:
Knead everything together, except butter for 15 minutes. Add in butter and knead until a thin membrane can be formed when stretched.

Cover and let proof for an hour or until doubled.

When dough has doubled, punch down and knead. Divide into six balls.
Stretch each ball long and flat, roll up. Place rolled up dough into a buttered loaf pan.
Let proof until double again.

Preheat oven to 180C. When dough has doubled, make a long 1 inch deep slit all the way through the centre. Mix butter and sugar for topping and spoon into the slit, trying to push them down a bit. Brush egg onto dough top.

Bake at 180C for 10minutes and 160C for 25 minutes.

Szechuan Veg. & Chicken Noodle Soup 四川菜鸡汤糆

Szechuan Veg. & Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe
200 gm Chicken breast, julienned
100 gm Szechuan Vegetable
1 ½ Tbsp oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
1.5L water
1 ½ tsp salt
3 Bird eyes chili (optional, chopped)
Flat noodles for 2 (prepared according to packaging)

Method:
1. Heat wok and put in oil. Put in chopped garlic and sauté until fragrant and golden.
2. Put in chicken and stir until it’s half cooked.
3. Put in Szechuan vegetables. Stir.
4. Add in water, bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes
5. Season with salt. It has to be slightly more salty.
6. To serve, place noodles in a bowl, place amount of bird’s eye chili as needed. Pour boiling soup over noodles.

the type of Szechuan Preserved Vegetable I used

Cranberry Bean Soup

Cranberry Beans with Pork Soup

200 gm podded cranberry beans (300gm before they were podded)
300 gm pork (I used pork leg muscles, they looked pretty when I saw them at Tesco)
Half a medium sized dried cuttlefish ( washed & cut into smaller pieces)
1.5L boiling water
5 white peppercorns (smashed)
1 tsp salt

Just bring everything to a boil and simmer for 2-3 hours, and season with salt.




Cranberry beans in pods and podded

Red Bean Spiral Pau 红豆螺旋包

The first time I saw this type of pau is in Subang SS13 Pasar Malam, where an aunty sold it as Fuchow pau. Then I saw it again from a coffee shop in Kampar, and it’s a franchised pau called Langkap Pau.

I made this in smaller portions, not as big as theirs because my wok is not that big.

Pau Skin Recipe
A) 500gm pau flour (low gluten flour)
100gm sugar
¼ tsp salt

B)250ml warm water
1 sachet dry yeast
1 tsp sugar

50gm shortening (melted, but not too hot)

Filling
2 cups of sweetened red beans (I made red bean soup the other day, and I boiled extra beans, scooped out 2 cups of beans, cooked to a thick paste in a wok with 1 Tbsp oil and ½ cup sugar)

2 Pieces of A4 paper, cut into 3 pieces each, and used only 5 out of the 6.

Method:
1) Mix B together and wait for the mixture to froth.
2) Mix A together. Pour B in.
3) Knead until it becomes smooth and doesn’t stick to the side of the mixing bowl.
4) Pour in melted shortening, and knead until the oil is fully incorporated. (It may seem to be very oily, but don’t worry, just knead)
5) Shape into a ball and cover mixing bowl with cling wrap and let sit until dough has doubled. (I knead in a pot, so I just cover up with the pot lid)
6) Punch down and knead. Divide into 5 X 180gm balls.

Assembly:
1. Roll 1 piece of dough into a rectangle about 6” X 8” in between 2 pieces of plastic sheets with the wider side towards you.

2. Remove upper plastic sheet and spread 3 Tbsp of red bean filling onto dough, leaving some space on the edges.

3. By using the lower plastic sheet, roll the dough, swiss roll style or sushi style.

4. Place dough roll with seam side up and fold the ends in.

5. Overturn dough again and place onto a piece of cut up A4 paper.

6. Let sit for 30 minutes and steam on high for 10 minutes.
7. Let cool slightly before slicing pau.

***
To store, keep pau whole. Slice pau before reheating.

Fish Porridge 鱼片粥

Some call this congee, some call this porridge. Well, we call this porridge.

Other types of fish may be used as well, just that frozen dory is really convenient to use anytime.

Fish Porridge Recipe

Ingredients:

¾ cup Thai fragrant rice
1.5L Water

250gm dory fillet (about a cup, sliced thinly)

2 Tbsp ginger, julienned
2 Tbsp green onion, chopped
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sesame oil

A)
1 Tbsp egg white
½ tsp salt
Dash of pepper
½ tsp sesame oil

Method:
1. Bring water to a boil, wash rice and simmer for 1 hour.
2. Marinate fish with (A)
3. When porridge is simmered to desired texture, put in fish, piece by piece.
4. Add in salt.
5. Ladle porridge into 2 noodle size bowls. Top with 1 tsp sesame oil each, ginger and green onion.

***
Japanese short grain rice may also be used to achieve similar texture.

***
Egg white is added to strengthen fish’s flesh texture, and to give it a smooth feel.