Chicken and prawn Laksa

Been longing for a good laksa, which would you believe it or not, is harder to find in Singapore than you would think. Often its either too oily, or not lemak enough. Given that mine was a 'what's in the fridge' laksa, I had to improvise (e.g I didn't have thick bee hoon, and there wasn't enough yellow noodle, so I just mixed yellow noodle with kway teow). I must say that my dad's fridge is pretty well stocked though, although I would have liked tau pok and fish cake as well. Never mind, after a trip to the supermarket, I added that to the leftovers!

Ingredients (feeds 5)

6 lemon grass, sliced thinly

4 to 5 shallots, skinned and roughly chopped

6 cloves of garlic, skinned

2 big red chillis

1 thumb sized ginger, sliced

4 chilli padi (add more chilli to your own spice tolerance)

150g dried shrimp, soaked in hot water to soften

5 to 6 candle nuts, soaked in hot water to soften

1 tbsp belachan paste

6 chicken thighs

10 prawns, shelled and deveined, sliced into 2

10 to 12 cups of water

200ml packet of coconut milk

200ml milk (full cream preferably. U can use another 200 ml of coconut milk for a better taste if cholesterol isn't an issue)

10 laksa leaves, chopped finely (as a garnish)

3 handfuls of bean sprouts

500g of noodles (thick bee hoon or yellow noodle or both)

5 tbsp oil

pinch of sugar

4 tbsp fish sauce

Optional elements: tau pok, sliced fish cake, hum (cockles)

Method

1) Deshell the prawns, set aside the head and shells. In a hot wok, pour in 1 tbsp of oil and stir fry the prawn heads and shells until fragrant.

2) Add the chicken and brown the chicken. Add the water. Bring to a boil, then down to a simmer.

3) Remove the chicken when cooked (approx 10 to 20 mins, depending on the thickness and size of the thighs). Peel the meat off the bone and shred it, and return the bones to the prawn stock. Simmer the stock for another 20 minutes, then switch off the heat. Remember to skim the stock along the way.

4) In a food processor or pestle and mortar, chop up the items in the following order to make sambal balachan, which serves as the base of your laksa : thinly sliced lemon grass, ginger, dried shrimp and candle nuts (pour the soaking water into the stock pot), chillies, onions, garlic, and lastly, balachan. Items always taste better pounded in the pestle and mortar as the oils esp for the lemon grass are released, but its a long tedious process to get everything into a smooth paste.

5) In a large pot, pour in 3-4 tbsp of oil. Carefully add the sambal balachan as it is very likely to 'spit' once it hits the hot oil. Stir fry everything until the mixture 'splits', aka isn't a smooth paste anymore. It may seem like a lot of oil, but everything gets quickly absorbed. Add 1 tsp of sugar and stir fry until combined.

6) Slowly add the stock ladle by ladle and continue stirring until well combined. Let this simmer for 10 minutes for the spices to infuse into the stock. Add the milk and coconut milk. Bring up to a boil, then down to a simmer for 10 minutes. Switch off the fire.

7) Prepare the noodles by scalding in boiling water for about 3 minutes, and draining. Similarly, prepare the bean sprouts using the same method, scalding them for about 30 seconds before draining.

8) Bring the gravy back to a boil. You will notice that the gravy starts to thicken. Add the shredded chicken, prawns (which only require about 30 seconds of cooking) and fish cake / tau pok if using.

9) To serve, simply assemble. Into a bowl goes the noodles and spouts, then topped off with the gravy. Garnish with chopped laksa leaves. You can also garnish with shredded deseeded cucumber to increase the vegetable content.

Prawn mee

This is my mom's recipe which I've altered slightly but the basics are still the same. It really brings me back to my childhood!

Ingredients (feeds 2)
1 packet of medium sized prawns (approx 300-400g, I counted about 10 prawns in the packet)
1.5 litres pork bone stock (I used leftover bak ku teh soup from last night )
5 - 6 dried chilli
2 tbsp dried shrimp
1 large onions, or 3 shallots, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 bunch cai xin
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 packet of fishballs
2 fishcake, sliced (optional)
200g lean pork, sliced thinly (optional)
2 portions of cooked noodles (yellow mee, kway teow, whatever u prefer)

Method
1) Peel the prawns and set aside the heads and shells. Devein the prawns and set aside.
2) Heat up a pot and oil, and fry the onions or shallots until slightly brown. Add the prawn heads and shells and stir fry until fragrant and the shells and heads are pink. Add the garlic and briefly stir fry.
3) Add the dried chilli and shrimp and briefly fry.
4) Pour in the stock and bring to a boil. Skim off the scum. Turn down the head to medium. Cover and simmer for 1/2 hour.
5) Prepare the noodles according to the packet's instructions and place the drained noodles into 2 bowls.
6) Strain the stock. Add the fishballs, followed by prawns and cai xin and cook for up to 5 minutes or until everything is cooked. Also cook the fishcake and lean pork if using.
7) Serve with soup poured on top of the of noodles.

Grilled Squid Salad

I had a hankering for squid but seldom eat it because its a pain to clean and prepare. But when I saw these huge squid (is there a 's' for plural?) last week in the frozen section, I knew I just had to have it for Christmas week.

So here it is, served lightly in a fresh salad with a refreshing dressing.

Ingredients
4 large squid, cleaned. Separate the head and tentacles from the body. Slice open the pouch and score both sides so that it doesn't curl up upon cooking
Salad greens (whatever you like)

Dressing
1 tbsp special soya sauce (slightly sweet)
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp honey
1 to 2 bird's eye chilli or chilli padi, depending on how spicy you like it. Slice it up into slivers and remove the seeds.

Method
1) Grill the squid on a hot gridle. It'll take about 1 to 2 mins per side.
2) Assemble the salad ingredients and add the squid. You may want to slice it up.
3) Make the dressing and drizzle over the salad. Serve immediately.

Egg Foo Yong

I'm not entirely sure this is a Singapore or Chinese invention since I see it more in ang mo Chinese restaurants, but it's tasty, is a 2-minute stir fry, and goes with my 1/2 hour preparation required for a quick weekday meal.

Ingredients
1 packet of bean sprouts, washed (about 2 or 3 big handfuls)
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup frozen prawns, thawed
1 tsp garlic
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp soya sauce
Dash of sesame seed oil
1/2 tsp sugar
Dash of pepper

Method
1) I use a non-stick pan so I don't even use oil. Toss in the garlic and fry briefly until fragrant but before it gets burnt.
2) Add in the eggs and swirl around the pan until you get a pancake. Immediately once the sides are dry, use the spatula to the scoop the sides inwards and keep doing so until its scrambled and mostly dry but still a bit on the runny side.
3) Toss in the tou gey and quickly add all the rest of the ingredients.
4) Briefly stir fry for 1 minute and serve immediately. It goes best with steamed rice.

Steamed Dill and Garlic Salmon

I've just stocked up on my dried herbs, and decided to try out a decidedly British herb - dill weed. It's good with fish and chicken, according to the description. I've only known it to be used with fish. This is a new variation of on an old favourite of mine.
Ingredients2 salmon steaks
1 tsp dill
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp vodka
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp mustard
1/2 cup of water
1 baby bok choy, chopped
Method1) Marinate fish.
2) In a cassarole dish, line with aluminum foil. Lay on a bed of chopped bok choy and lay the fish on top. Pour in the remainder of the marinade, and 1/2 cup of water.
3) Bake at 200 deg for 10-15 mins until fish is cooked.
4) Unwrap and serve.

Fried calamari rings

Was watching a Korean food programme on squid. Learnt interesting facts: squid has more protein than beef. It is very low in fat. It is a rich source of taurine (anti-ageing) and selenium (anti-oxidant). Squid ink is also good and like black beans and black sesame seeds, is supposed to be good for the heart and asians believe it is good for the kidneys and liver.

Here's a simple recipe which is light and easily prepared.

Ingredients
Squid, prepared and cut into rings. The tentacles can either be whole or cut in half.
Milk
Egg
Flour seasoned with salt, pepper

Method
1) Prepare the squid. Soak in beaten egg with a splosh of milk.
2) Coat with the seasoned flour.
3) Deep fry until golden brown and crispy.
4) Serve with mayo or sweet chilli sauce.

Korean-style steamed salmon

Inspired by Korean cooking and Nigella, here's my take on Korean teriyaki-style fish. The same marinade can also be used for beef or chicken and bbq-ed.

Ingredients

2 fillets of salmon

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp dark soya sauce

1 tsp sherry/chinese rice wine/vodka

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsbp chilli powder

1 thumb-sized ginger, grated or slivered

Method

1) Mix up the marinade and marinate the fish for at least half an hour.

2) Steam fish for 10 mins until cooked, OR

3) Bake in tin foil for 15 mins at 180 deg C.

Fishball soup

This is a simple dish but honestly, do you know how hard it is to make the soup base? Most hawker stalls I go to, the soup ends up tasting like dishwater - the 'soup' is literally the stuff they use to 'wash' the noodles in before serving it in your bowl, with lots of MSG and salt added. Blech.

Thanks to my new cube mate and mother of a toddler, she cued me in on the use of yellow soya beans and ikan bilis. I've often seen soya beans end up in my niang dou fu so her idea can't be too far wrong! I've added my own ginger and other stuff and wow - a dark earthy MSG-tasting soup without any MSG!

Ingredients (feeds 2)

For stock

1.5l water

3 handfuls of soya beans

3 handful peanuts

2 handfuls of ikan bilis (the ones with heads on)

1 thumb-sized ginger, sliced

1 tbsp chinese rice wine
1 star anise

salt to taste

For fishball soup
1 pkt fishballs
3 tbsp dong chai
1 bunch tang-o

Method1) Put in the stock ingredients to boil for 1 to 1.5 hours. Add salt and pepper approx 5 min near the end.
2) Drain the stock (this step is very important, unless u like eating all that stuff. This step affects the enjoyment of the soup!)
3) Put in the fishbals and dong chai and boil briefly until the fish balls float.
4) Before serving, throw in the tang-o. The heat will slightly wilt the vegetable.
5) This can be served with plain steamed rice, or add noodles(I like using dong fen or bee hoon) at this point

Seafood Mui Fan

I remember when I was young, we would go to this food court type restaurant in the basement of the old Orchard Point on Sundays. Now it's gone, after the reno. The food wasn't great, but it was tasty, and served old favourites like hor fun, mui fan, etc.

Mui fan is one of my favourite childhood dishes. It's actually v easy to make, once you got the sauce down pat. And from there, it's easy to move on to hor fun (altho frying the kway teow in dark sauce is a pain) and even crispy noodles. People always told me it would be easy but I still don;'t reckon so, but this is a pretty decent attempt.

Ingredients (serves 4)
150g squid, cleaned and sliced into rings
150g shelled and deveined prawns
1 pkt fishballs
half a can of canned baby corn, drained and sliced
1 baby chinese lettuce (or chinese cabbage can also be used), sliced
1 tomato, diced
2 eggs, beaten
1 tbl oyster sauce
1 tbl Maggi concentrated chicken stock
1 tbl chinese rice wine
2 cups water
2 tbl cornstarch, as thickener

Method
1) In a pot, pour in the water, fishballs, and vegetables. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 to 10 minutes.
2) Add the seasoning. Add the seafood and cook for no more than 30 seconds.
3) Bring to a boil. Drizzle in the beaten egg to achieve the 'egg drop' effect.
4) Add the cornstarch to a bit of water, and when the soup is boiling, pour into the pot and stir.
5) Serve immediately on top of steamed rice. You can also serve on top of noodles.

Otah

I remember that the common mistake for this is spelling it as 'otak', which is really 'brain' in Malay. My family loves otah and we have been consuming vast quantities of it in recent times. In addition, at one point, my mom even tried her hand at making it herself but somehow, it was never quite spicy enough, firm enough and a bit too (coconut) milky. Trust mothers to want to add the most 'leow' for the buck :P

Got this recipe from the papers, but they also made the fatal mistake of spelling it as 'otak'! Alamak! :O

Ingredients (makes 20 packets)
500g fish meat (horse mackerel, pound or blend 2/3 of it and slice the remaining 1/3 for more bite)
500ml water
1 1/2 tsp salt

Ingredients A
120g shallots
2 slices galangal
5 slices tumeric
6 buah keras
2 lemongrass stalks
1 small piece balacan
32g dried chilli (boil briefly and leave to cool)
8 fresh chillies

Ingredients B
200ml coconut milk (fresh tastes better than the processed version)
1 tbs sugar
2 eggs
2 limau purut (lime) leaves, finely diced
1 1/2 tsp coriander powder
1 tbs corn flour
8 tbs oil for frying
several banana leaves, 18 * 20 cm, washed, scalded in boiling water briefly to make pliable and wiped dry
Toothpicks

Method
1) Dissolve salt in water.
2) Scrape fish using a spoon and pound meat in a mortar, adding salt water gradually. Use ice water to blend fish meat if desired. Mix meat well till it becomes sticky and firm.
3) Blend Ingredients A. Heat oil in a wok and fry ground ingredients over low heat til it exudes out. Leave it to cool and put into fish meat. Mix well.
4) Add coconut milk, eggs and restg of ingredients B. Mix well.
5) Scoop 2 tbs of fish paste onto a banana leaf, fold leaf and secure with tooth picks.
6) Grill for 10 - 12 mins at about 200 deg C till cooked.

Sambal String Ray

Went for cooking lessons as part of a team bonding workshop at Sunrice, a culinary academy at Fort Canning. Learnt 3 Singaporean favourites - Sambal Sting Ray, Laksa and Popiah. Never knew it was so easy!

Ingredients (serves 4)

600g sting ray
5g salt
Oil to baste

Sambal chilli tumis
20g dried prawns
75g shallots (about 2)
3 cloves garlic
15 dried red chilli - deseeded and soaked
1/2tsp prawn paste (balachan)

Method

1) Marinate the sting ray with salt and set aside.

2)Pound all the ingredients for the paste together to obtain a fine paste. Start with prawns, garlic and shallots, then chilli and lastly, balachan. To make it easier, you can chop the ingredients up first before pounding.
3) Heat the 4 tbls oil in a pan. Add the paste and stir fry until fragrant. It will turn dry, so keep adding water slowly tsp by tsp and fry until the mixture becomes wet and 'shiny'. The paste should be moist but not like a gravy!
4) Spoon the sambal over the sting ray and pat down, ensuring that the whole surface is covered.
5) Heat a grill and grill the sting ray on each side for 5 mins or until cooked.
6) Alternatively, put sting ray on banana leaf and bake at 180 degrees for 15 mins or until cooked.
7) Garnish with lime and serve hot.

Grilled baby calamari

Dropped by the supermarket and picked up some fresh seafood for a change in diet. Came across baby calamari. This presented a challenge to me - I've never cooked squid before! I didn't even know how to clean it!

So digging back to my days of watching my maid clean squid, I remembered that there were 2 things that needed to be removed - the plastic-ky spine and the ink sac. Except in a baby squid, you don't really want to separate the body from the head, so there I was fishing around its torso. I found and removed the spine but not the ink sac, couldn't find it without having to dissect the poor squid.

One thing I learnt the hard way - the ink sac is actually quite salty! (probably from living in the sea) So no more additional salt needed next time.

This recipe was inspired by my recent Bangkok trip. We had the best grilled squid (these were giant ones), simply grilled and served with dipping sauces! A clean taste, the char-grilled squid was delicious, a simple taste of the sea! The dipping sauces provide all 4 dimensions of taste - sweet, sour, salty and spicy.


Ingredients
Baby squid, cleaned
Garlic, crushed

Oil for grilling

1 tbls honey

Dipping sauces
1 freshly cut chilli
2 tbls dark soya sauce
1 tbls Lime juice
Thai sweet chilli sauce

Method
1) Clean and prep the squid (e.g. can be skewered)
2) Marinate with crushed garlic and a drizzle of honey.
3) Brush the grill with cooking oil, heat till it smokes and place the squid on the grill to cook. Brush on oil on the squid. Cook, turning occasionally. Serve immediately.
4) For the salty and sour dipping sauce, mix cut chilli, lime juice and soya sauce.
5) To eat, dip squid into either the chilli/lime sauce, or Thai sweet chilli sauce, or even both!

Baked fish wrap with asparagus

This is another recipe using asparagus and ham. It works just as well with bacon rather than ham. See how easy it is to come up with different variations of the same theme? This is also a very simple recipe - most of the spent is spent in the assembly, but almost minimal washing up. Perfect for an after work meal.
Ingredients (serves 2)
10 stalks of baby asparagus
6 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
2 fish fillets (chose a firm fleshed fish, and preferably with skin on)
4 slices of ham
3 tbls butter
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
2 slices ginger, slivered
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
Herbs: Sage, parsley, nutmeg, thyme
Aluminum foil

Method
1) Marinate the fish by rubbing on salt and pepper. Lay on the slices of ginger.
2) While fish is marinating, in a bowl, pour in 1 tbls olive oil, salt, pepper and herbs. Mix well. Put in the asparagus and cherry tomatoes and toss like you would a salad.
3) To the butter (softened at room temp), add the garlic herbs and mix well. This is the garlic butter mix.
4) To assemble the package, take a big enough sheet of foil to fully envelope the fish, and also with enough allowance to crimp the edges. Lay open the foil, using butter or olive oil, oil the foil so that the fish won't stick.
5) Start with laying 5 asaparagus in the middle of the foil, then the cherry tomatoes on the side. Butter the fish fillet with the garlic butter, and wrap in ham. U can use a tooth pick to secure this so it doesn't open up. Lay this on top of the asaparagus.
6) Fold it over and crimp the edges so that any juices don't flow out. Repeat with other fillet. Poke 1 or 2 holes in the foil to allow the steam to escaape.
7) Place both packages on a tin foil to catch any juices that may flow out.
8) Bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes.
9) To serve, cut open the foil. All juices will be trapped inside and you can eat it straight out of the foil. Just throw away the foil when done, u don't even have to wash any plates!

This foil package method works equally well with seafood e.g. squid with lemon juice and chilli, or even used over the barbi. I even toss the packet on a skillet sometimes instead of in the oven. U will know it's cooked when the steam in the packet causes it to puff up.