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

Nigella's Triple Chocolate Brownies

I've always been looking around for the right brownie recipe - my brownies are nice right after baking but tend to get hard as the days go by, as hard as biscuits! I had this prefect recipe off the Hershey cocoa tin years ago but haven't been able to find it since. I'm told the secret to the gooey-ness really lies in sour cream.

Anyhow this look like another good recipe to try. Thought I'd copy and paste it here before it disappears from cyberspace forever.

Recipe courtesy Nigella Lawson
Show:
Nigella Feasts
Episode:
Chocolate Heaven

Ingredients
3 sticks plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
12 ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate
6 eggs 1 3/4 cups superfine sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup white chocolate buttons, chips, or morsels
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate buttons, chips or morsels
Approximately 2 teaspoons confectioners' sugar, for garnish
Special equipment: Baking tin (approximately 11 1/4 inches by 9 inches by 2 inches), sides and base lined with baking parchment.

Method
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
1) Melt the butter and dark chocolate together in a large heavy based pan over a low heat.
2) In a bowl or large measuring jug, beat the eggs together with the superfine sugar and vanilla extract.
3) Allow the chocolate mixture to cool a little, then add the egg and sugar mixture and beat well. 4) Fold in the flour and salt. Then stir in the white chocolate buttons or chips, and the semisweet chocolate buttons or chips.
5) Beat to combine then scrape and pour the brownie mixture into the prepared tin.
6) Bake for about 25 minutes. You can see when the brownies are ready because the top dries to a slightly paler brown speckle, while the middle remains dark, dense and gooey. Even with such a big batch you do need to keep checking on it: the difference between gooey brownies and dry ones is only a few minutes. Remember, too, that they will continue to cook as they cool.
7) To serve, cut into squares while still warm and pile up on a large plate, sprinkling with confectioners' sugar pushed with a teaspoon through a small sieve.

Nigella's Quadraple Chocolate Loaf Cake

Saw this super duper easy and yet superbly sinful choco cake recipe recently. Done just the way I like it - using a food processor! More of Nigella's chocolate recipes can be found in her episode "Chocolate Heaven".
Cake:
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup cocoa
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 1/2 sticks soft unsalted butter
2 eggs
1 tablespoon good-quality vanilla extract
1/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup boiling water
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or morsels

Syrup:
1 teaspoon cocoa
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar

1-ounce dark chocolate (from a thick bar if possible), cut into splinters of varying thickness, for garnish

Special equipment: 2-pound loaf tin (approximately 9 1/2 by 4 1/2 by 3 inches deep), lined with greased foil, pressed into the corners and with some overhang at the top. Alternatively, substitute a silicon loaf tin, no foil lining necessary.

Method

1) Take whatever you need out of the refrigerator so that all ingredients can come room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F, putting in a baking sheet as you do so.

2) Put the flour, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream into the processor and blitz until a smooth, satiny brown batter. Scrape down with a rubber spatula and process again while pouring the boiling water down the funnel. Switch it off, then remove the lid and the well-scraped double-bladed knife and, still using your rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips or morsels.

3) Scrape and pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and put into the oven, cooking for about 1 hour. When ready, the loaf will be risen and split down the middle and a cake-tester will pretty well come out clean.

4) Not long before the cake is due out of the oven (when it has had about 45 to 50 minutes), put the syrup ingredients of cocoa, water and sugar into a small saucepan and boil for about 5 minutes, to give a thick syrup.

5) Take the cake out of the oven and sit it on a cooling rack, still in the tin, and pierce here and there with a cake tester. Pour the syrup over the cake.

6) Let the cake become completely cold and then slip out of its tin, removing the foil as you do so. Sit on an oblong or other plate. Sprinkle the chocolate splinters over the top of the sticky surface of the cake

Steamed ginger minced pork 'biscuit'

Inspired by the cantonese favourite, 'ham yu jing (or jian depending on fried or steamed) yok bang', I was merrily preparing this dish when I realised, alamak, no more of the key ingredient, salted fish! :O And then I suddenly remembered my frozen ginger sitting in my freezer. I absolutely adore ginger so what the heck... To make it softer (more like chawamushi, you can add more water)
Ingredients (makes 2 servings)
150g pork mince
1 thumb sized ginger, skin removed and sliced into thin slivers
1 tbls light soya sauce
1 tbls chinese rice wine
2 dashes sesame seed oil
2 eggs
2 tbls water

Method
1) Add every thing together (except the egg and water) and mix well.
2) Beat in the egg.
3) Add in the water.
4) Transfer into 2 bowls suitable for steaming.
5) Steam until it sets (about 10 to 15 mins). I used a microwave by putting both bowls on top of a microwave steaming tray.
6) (optional) Garnish with spring onions.

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.

Ikea meatballs

Especially for Mags, who is a Ikea Swedish meatball lover! She's not alone tho' - Singaporeans really love their food. With a new Tampines Ikea branch, they will probably catapult Singapore into the top 5 Ikea cafes in the world in terms of sales! The cafe sales at the current Alexandra outlet already rates it top 20 in the world.

This recipe is reproduced from today's Sunday Times, which they took from the Ikea Real Swedish Food Book, available from the Ikea Food Market.

Ingredients
250g minced beef
250g minced pork
1 egg
2-3 deci-litre cream and water (or use milk and water)
2 1/2 onions, finely chopped
1/2 deci-litre unsweetened rusk flour
2 cold boiled potatoes (about 60g each)
4-5 tbs butter, margarine or oil
salt and pepper to taste

Method
1) Mash potatoes and moisten rusk flour in separate containers.
2) Heat the onions till golden with a few tbs of lightly browned butter
3) Mix and knead all the ingredients into a smooth paste.
4) Shape and form into balls, roughly about the size of 50 cent coins.
5) Pan fry in butter slowly, until golden brown.
6) Serve with Ikea's meatball cream sauce and lingonberry jam.

Casserole Chicken

I have been trying to re-create the tastes of my childhood - simple recipes yet it's the taste of home and family. The simpliest of them all - good old chicken soup, isn't really so simple after all! I just can't get the depth and richness of the tastes.

I have just found the trick to another familar favourite - casserole chicken. I had to wreck my brains and try to remember, and then I remembered cruching down on something deeply unpleasant when I was young, now I've identified it as star anise, a spice I've recently discovered a liking for! It gives this nice 'baked' taste to the soup, something I could never recreate until now. The carrot and potatoes are also essential to the flavour of the soup. ( I know because I used sugar peas instead..blech!)

So here it is, my mom's casserole chicken with that 'baked' flavour. The taste difference between normal 'steamed' or 'boiled' chicken soup and 'baked' chicken soup is quite different, give it a try and u'll know what I mean!

Ingredients (Serves 2, as always)
2 chicken thighs and 2 drumsticks
4 tbsp of chinese cooking wine (1 tbsp per per piece of chicken)
2 star anise
sprinkling of 5 spice powder
sprinkling of sugar
whole black peppercorns
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1 potato, cubed
1 carrot, cubed
5 cups water
salt to taste

Method
1) Put all the ingredients into a casserole pot, chuck everything in. If you like, you can also marinate the chicken in the wine for about 15 minutes.
2) Cover. Bake in the oven at 200 deg C for 25 to 30 mins until cooked.
3) Served with steamed rice.

Rosemary and Garlic Pork Chops

I've always shied away from buying an extra bottle of this or that if it will clog up my already postage stamp-sized kitchen. In Cold Storage recently, I caved and got myself one of the 4 'kings' of British cooking - worcheshire sauce. Every cuisine has what I term their '4 great kings' and worcheshire sauce is to British cooking what oyster sauce is to Chinese cooking.

I didn't even know that there were different varieties of worcheshire sauce. The only usage I know for it is on top of grilled cheese. I know it goes well with roast beef or steak and also in stews. But beyond this, I was pretty unawares. But there was a 'marinade' version which I used. In terms of taste, it's a lot sharper and more sour than the non-marinade aka table use version.

Having to put my newly acquired bottle of sauce to good use, I figured since it works so well with beef, it'll probably work well with pork too. And I was right! Vegetarians read no further! This is where only true meat lovers dare to venture!

Ingredients
4 juicy slabs of pork chop, with bone intact. (Nothing retains the flavour like cooking on the bone!
1 tbl soya sauce)
1 tsp English mustard
Chopped or dried rosemary (I also added other herbs like sage, thyme and parsley)
2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
1 tbl worcheshire sauce
1 tbl honey (to offset the sharpness of the sauce)


Method
1) Combine all the ingredients and massage into the pork chops. Leave to marinade, overnight is best.
2) In a baking tin, pour some oil to prevent sticking to the bottom of the plan. Lay on the pork chops. Drizzle with more olive oil for extra flavour. No time for diets here!
3) Bake at 200 degrees C for 25 min or until cooked. You can tell quite easily because the bone is in, so you can quite easily see whether the bone is still red and whether any blood is oozing out.

French toast

I had some old eggs and bread running around in the fridge so I thought what could be nicer as Sunday brekkie than to do French Toast.

Normally, my toast comes out soggy. The best french toast I know is from Burger King - they have a kind of crust on it, but I can't decipher how they do it. However, I'm pretty sure it's deep-fried, most unhealthy!

I got inspired by a batter I saw on telly recently. Beat egg whites until fluffy and put in corn flour, fold it it, never mind the lumps, these will be little surprising crispy bits. This works well for things like frying fish to give it the extra crispy texture, without a heavy batter.

I decided to do a little experiment:

Experiment #1
Coat bread with egg wash, and then dip in corn flour and pan fry.

Experiment #2
Coat bread with egg wash, then dip in normal flour and pan fry.

Between these 2, the different isn't entirely discernable. With corn flour, the flour amalgamates easily with the egg wash, making the coating slightly crunchy but smooth. With plain flour, the flour acts as a separate coating by itself and you can still see the flour bits on the bread, not so pretty. However, it's most crispy than corn flour, probably because it doesn't amalgamate with the egg.

Experiment #3
Combine the corn flour and normal flour into the egg and beat. There will be lots of little lumps.

This was the worst of the lot, didn't make it any more crispy, looked ugly (uneven finish) and just made the bread a bit 'tough' to chew on.

So I think the best compromise is still to coat with corn flour. Pretty and yet slightly crispy.

Brown sauce

A couple of nights ago, we went to the Swimming Club and tucked into an interesting dinner at the clubhouse. Dad decided to go with the steak, and it came on a hotplate, with the gravy served on the side in a gravy boat. How quaint! We seldom see gravy boats around nowadays.

Inspired by the brown sauce, I decided to go track down its recipe. I found this interesting link on all you ever wanted to know about brown sauce and some brown sauce variation recipes.

Description from website:
Brown sauce is the 'little black dress' of the culinary world. It is the must have recipe that can be used alone, or that can form the basis for other dishes, suitably dressed up with other ingredients.A basic brown sauce is made by browning flour in oil or fat, then gradually adding a meat stock and other seasonings and cooking until the sauce is thick. This sauce can be used alone over mashed potatoes and meats.Common additions to brown sauces are mushrooms, onions, peppercorns or ground pepper, and wine. If using wine in your sauce, reduce the amount of meat stock accordingly.
Many of these sauce recipes begin with a roux, a mixture of butter and flour that is cooked over high heat until the flour browns and no flour taste remains. A roux can be light or dark, depending on how long the flour is browned in the butter. Care is needed - there is a fine line between a dark roux and a burnt roux.Roux can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator until ready for use. Make sure to cover it tightly (use empty, clean butter tubs) to keep it from absorbing flavors from other items.Be careful when purchasing 'brown sauce' online or in stores; make sure you know what you are getting. In the UK, the term means something different than in the US - it is a condiment for meat, which in America would be called 'steak sauce'.In Asian cookery, brown sauce is also a fundamental foundational sauce, but is made from soy sauce, with oyster sauce or other flavorings, and thickened with corn starch.
What's the difference between 'brown sauce' and 'brown gravy'? There isn't any, really.