Dried Oyster and Chicken Porridge

Wanted to cook something simple for another lazy Sunday afternoon and thought of the dried oyster and roast pork hock porridge my aunt used cook in Malaysia. When I was young, I don't really the dried oyster flavor except this porridge. Since I wasn't able to get the roasted pork hock, I replaced the roasted pork hock with chicken breast to make it more healthy and less oily.


Ingredients:

• * Rice
• * Water
• * Dried Oyster
• * Chicken breast
• * Soy sauce and pepper for marinate
• * Salt to taste

Method:

• I marinated my chicken breast with some soy sauce and pepper for about 30 minutes and put the remaining ingredient into my rice cooker.
• Select porridge function.
• Serve with some green onions and diced century egg
  

Assam Laksa Anyone?

This is my friend J not so easy version of Assam Laksa. When you are away from home and craving for assam laksa, having a bowl of it with the taste as close as you can get it’s like heaven especially to a pregnant women like me. So I call up J last Friday asked for the recipe and invited her family come over to taste and provide me some feed back since I am going to note down exactly the amount of ingredient I put while I was cooking.

So here there are..

Ingredients:

• 1 package of Hup Loong Assam Laksa spice

• 2 oz belachan
• 1 sweet yellow onion
• 5 dried chilis
• ½ medium size jicama
• 1 stalk lemon grass
• 1 ½ oz Laksa basil

• 4-5 tamarind skins/Assam Keping
• 3 can 6 oz tuna drained
• 2 can 15 oz Sardine in tomato sauce
• Soy sauce, salt and sugar to taste

Method:

• Add belachan, onion, jicama and chilies into blender and blend until smooth paste. Note may need to add some water to get the blender running.
• In a large pot, boil about 12 cups of water.
  
• After the water is boiling, add in lemon grass, laksa basil and blended ingredients and tamarind skins, bring to boil, turn the heat to medium and let it simmer for about 30 minutes to 1 hour.
• Add in tuna and Sardine, a little soy sauce, salt and sugar to taste.
• Serve it laksa bee hoon garnish with some lettuce, pineapple, cucumber and red onion.
  

Note: This recipe can probably serve around 10 people.

Her secret ingredient of increasing the sweetness of the soup is by addition blended jicama and sweet yellow onion. I was also told that, to prepare the soup 1 day ahead to increase the flavor and sweetness from all the spices. I find it rather interesting using jicama for sweetness. Nevertheless, I love the outcome and taste.

Cellophane Noodle Soup Hong Kong Style (豌仔翅)

This is one of famous hawker food you can find in Hong Kong. I am not sure whether they use the actual shark fin (I hope they do) in the soup but for homemade I am able to find a recipe that uses cellophane noodle (tung hoon) as replacement. The end result of this is more like a cellophane noodle soup Hong Kong style , so I call it Cellophane Noodle Soup Hong Kong Style.

Ingredients:

• 2oz pork cut into thin strip
• 1 slice if ginger thinly sliced
• 3 shitake mushroom soak, drained and cut into strip
• 1 individual package of cellophane noodle ( I used 2 packages for mine)
• Hand full of black fungus, soak, drained and cut into strip
• 5 to 6 cup soup based
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt
• White pepper to taste
• 3 1/2 tbsp corn starch
• 4 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp oil

Method:

• Mix corn starch with water and set aside
• Heat oil in a pot, add in ginger and mushroom stir fry for about 5 min.
• Add in soup base and bring to boil
• Add black fungus and pork strip, bring to boil
• Add in Soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt.
• add cellophane noodle and bring to boil
• lastly add in corn starch mixture and bring to boil.
• Server with some white pepper, scramble egg and red vinegar

You can serve the soup with or without vinegar, but I like it with vinegar because it give some sourness flavor. I think it's probably go well with some chilies too.

Vermicilli in Pickled Cabbage Soup (雪菜汤米粉)

A simple vermicelli I prepared for our Saturday lunch. I had never heard about 雪菜 before I came to the State and learn to cook this from my hubby. The noodle soup is very tasty with some sourly flavor. It is very easy and quick meal for a busy day. Here's my simplified version.

Ingredients:

• 1 package of ready to serve pickled cabbage (雪菜)
• 1 slice of ginger julienne
  
• Some pork ( can be slice thinking or minced)
• Soy sauce
• Corn starch
• about 2 cup of any soup base
• about 100g of vermicelli
  

Method:

• Soak vermicelli until soft, drained and set aside
  
• Marinate pork with soy sauce and corn starch
• Heat soup base with high heat, add in pork and cook until boiling.
• Add in pickled cabbage and ginger and cook for another 2 minutes or until boiling again
  
• Add in vermicelli and cook until the noodle is ready
  
• Served it on bowl with a dash of white pepper and chilli's( optional)
  

Sardine Fried Mee Hoon

This is one of my family favorite way of stir fry vermicelli(mee hoon) when you don't have much ingredient in hand but just a canned of sardine fish in tomato sauce. I honestly not sure where this dish come from or whether this is pretty common dish in Malaysia but it seems all my family members even my cousin sister who doesn't know anything about cooking knows how to prepare this dish. When I introduce this to my husband few years ago, he love it and also love the fact how easy it is to prepare this. So these days, we always make sure we have some canned sardine at home just in case if we run out of food.
My family always uses a very fine vermicelli when they prepared this dish. In the state, i am able to find all sort of vermicelli available in the Asian market but after try with all different kind of vermicelli, i think i found my favorite brand and have been using it since then.

Ingredients:

• 200g vermicelli
• 1 canned regular Sardine fish in tomato sauce
• Bean Spout or chinese mustard green
• Salt and pepper to taste
• soy source
• 1/2 red onion thinly sliced
  

Method:

• Soak vermicelli in water until soft and remove from the soaking water.
  Heat oil in the pan, add in onion and stir fry until soft
• Add in sardine fish and stir fry for a minute
• Add vermicelli and mix well for about 5 minutes. ( if you use the thinner type of vermicelli, the tend get cook very fast)
• Add in bean spout, soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste
• garnish with some scramble egg

Abalone Chicken Noodle Soup

Does Abalone Chicken Noodle Soup sound luxurious huh? Believe it or not, this noodle soup is delicious and yet easy to prepare. All you need are:

A package of uncle Sun Sup Abalone dengan Ayam, some Chinese Shitake mushroom, some dried scallop and dried wheat noodle ( mee sua).
The package instruction said cook this soup on stove for 2.5 hours. For me, I prefer a no fuss cooking method --- Crockpot. Put everything except noodle in the crockpot in the morning before I leave for work set the to 10 hours cooking time. When I return in the evening.. voila.. dinner is almost ready. All i have to do is to cook the noodle and add them to the soup.

Mee Goreng ( Indian Style)

Finally, I was able to get some decent looking bean sprout from the asian store and craving for mee goreng. I decided the try this recipe found from my recipe collection. The taste is quite satisfy and hubby love it. Definitely a keeper.

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp ketchup
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 red chilies, sliced ( Optional)
• 1 medium potato
• 1.5 tbsp chili paste ( adjust according to your own taste)
• 1 tsp sugar
• salt to taste
  
• 1/2 lb shrimp
• 4 deep fried tofu, cut into cube size
• 1/2 red onion,thinly sliced
• 2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
• 8 oz bean sprout
• 6 oz thin spaghetti
  
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp crispy shallot
• 1 lime wedges
• 2-3 tbsp oil

Method:

• cook the spaghetti noddle according to the package instruction. Drained and rinse well with cold water and set aside.
• Boil potato in a hot water until cook. removed skin and cut into cube size
• In a bowl, mix in ketchup, soy sauce, suger and chili paste.
• Heat oil in a pan. Add onion slice and stir fry until soft and a little brown.
• Add in potato, tomatoes, chilies slice and stir fry for about 2 minute.
• Add in noodles and sauce mixture. Stir and mix well for 1 minute.
• Add in bean sprout and stir fry for another minute.
• add salt to taste
• Push noodle aside and make a well in the middle. Add 2 table spoon of oil and crack eggs into the well and scramble them.
• Mix egg an noodle thoroughly
  
• Garnish with crispy shallot and lime wedges.

Chilies Paste

• 8 oz red onion ( about 1.5 medium size onion)
• 1 oz dried chillies
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp dried shrimp paste (belacan)
• 2 oz dried anchovies
• 12fl oz oil
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt

Method:

• Grind onion, dried chilies, garlid and shrimp paste until fine.
• Heat about 4 fl oz oil in pan and fry anchovies over medium heat until crispy. Drained and pound coastly
• Heat the remain oil in the sam pan and stir in onion paste and fried until fragrant and the oil comes through.
• Add in sugar and salt.
• lower the heat and the anchovies, cook for 2 minutes.

This recipe make plenty of chilies paste. you can either freezer for later use or eat it with other dishes or noodle soup.

Steam Glutinous Rice Malaysian Style ( Lor Mai Kai)

Do you realized that Malaysia Loh Mai Kai is very different that Lor Mai Kai people served at the Dim Sum place in the state. The one they serve here usually wrapped with lotus leave and don't have a lot of ingredient. Malaysian style serve in a bowl( usually a metal bowl) with chicken, Chinese sausage, pork and mushroom. Don't recall when is the last time I had Malaysian style Lor Mai Kai and hubby never had one for sure. So this week, I made some Lor Mai Kai Malaysia style for him to try. Pretty satisfy with the outcome and it is not very difficult to prepare at all.
Ingredients:

• 500g glutinous rice
• 2 chicken thigh cut into 8 pieces
• 7 slice Char Siew(bbq pork) - slice
• 1 Chinese sausage (lap cheong), slice
• 4 black Chinese mushrooms, soaked and cut into half

Chicken and mushroom marinade:

• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp ginger juice
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp Shao Hsing wine
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 tsp corn starch

Seasoning:

• 3 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp oil
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp Chinese five spice powder

Method:

• Wash glutinous rice, then soak it for overnight.
• Marinate the chicken and mushroom for about one to two hours.
• Heat oil in pan, add glutinous rice and seasoning until well mixed.
• Grease 7 small-size rice bowls.
• Arrange mushroom slices, a few slices of Chinese sausages ,chicken and bbq pork slices.
• Top up with glutinous rice and press down with a ladle.
• Fill the bowls with water make sure the water level is above the rice.
• Steam for 20-30 minutes.
• Turn over the rice bowl onto a plate and serve

Laksa Lemak

When you are in Malaysia, sometime it is very confusing it come to laksa because there are many versions and depends on which part of Malaysia you at, the have a different name and different taste.

Basically, there are 3 type of laksa: Asam Laksa (Penang Laksa), Curry Laksa and Laksa Lemak.

Asam Laksa or Penang Laksa is the one without coconut milk. The soup base was mainly cook from Mackerel and has the spicy and sourly flavor. This is one of the Penang Specialty. If you get a chance to visit Penang, don't miss it.

Curry Laksa and Laska Lemak contain coconut milk. I didn't know Curry Laksa until I went to KL for my college because back in my home town, we always call it Curry Noodle without the word Laksa. So in short Curry Laksa is actually mean Noodle in Curry soup based.

Laksa Lemak is another version I think is from Melaka Nyonya. This is not as common as Asam Laksa or Curry Laksa you can find in Malaysia. If I remember it right, the first time I had Laksa Lemak were from my cousin sister in law. (She is a great cook) She cooked this from scratch and delicious is the only word I can think off.

I bought this Hup Loong Laksa Lemak from Malaysia, and it has been sitting in my pantry for a while. So I decided to treat myself some nice Malaysia noodle soup last weekend. Since we can hardly get Mackerel from here, I substitute the fish with canned Sardine. It taste great and I love premix spice. I actually prefer Hup Loong Laksa Lemak than the Hup Loong Asam Laksa. I think the Asam laksa they have are too spicy for me and lack of flavor. But for this, all you need are some fish, onion and a canned of coconut milk.Yummy!

Sometime, I think it is weird to ask my hubby how's the food taste? Especially Malaysia food that he had never eaten before like this one. He will response with good or OK. Without knowing what to expect and what's the actual flavor of the food, it is very hard for him to give me comment besides great and ok. But I just can't stop myself from asking this question, because I want to know what's his thought about my cooking :)

Shrimp Pasta Alfredo

A lazy Sunday lunch with limited ingredient on hand. This is what I can come up with a simple pasta dish that took me no time to prepared.

Ingredients:

• 12 oz of pasta
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup diced onion
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tsp black pepper
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
• I cup frozen mixed veggie
• 1 ½ cup shrimp
• Some dried parsley

Method:

• Cook pasta in a pot with boiling water and some salt
• Heat pan with olive oil, sauté onion and garlic until soft
• Add shrimp and sauté over high heat until the shrimp turn pink
• Stir in heavy cream and cooking until the sauce thicken, turn off the heat
• Add in pasta to the sauce and mix well
• Finally sprinkle parsley, pepper and cheese

Mimosa Rice

Saw this recipe from Green Mangoes and Lemon Grass. According to the book, this is an Vietnamese dish. It is like a fried rice but the rice is cooked with coconut milk. I modify the recipe slightly to suit my own taste and replaced the chicken with shrimp. The rice smell absolutely wonderful with coconut scent. Hubby gave it a thumbs up and thinks that shrimp is the best option to go because it added some seafood flavor to the whole dish. Here's my version and cooking method.

Ingredients:

• 560 ml coconut milk
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2(400g) cup long grain rice
• 4oz pork fillet diced
• 2 Chinese sausage
• 4oz shrimp diced
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 clove garlic crushed
• 2 spring onion, minced
• 1/2 cup green peas
• 2 hard-boiled egg separated
• 3-4 tsp fish sauce
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce

Method:

• Put the coconut milk and salt into rice cooker.
• Add in rice and cook accordingly
• Marinate pork and shrimp with fish sauce, sugar and pepper
• Steam the chinese sausage until done and cut into slices.
• heat oil in a pan, then stir fry the garlic and spring onion until soft.
• add the shrimp and pork and stir fry over medium heat for 5 minute.
• Add peas, chinese sausage and stir fry until cooked.
• Add in cooked rice from the rice cooker and dark soy sauce to mix well.
• Transfer to a serving dish. Place the egg white on the top then sprinkle the top with egg yolk. and some fried shallot.
  

Shortcut Glutinous Rice

Traditional cooking involve soak the rice over night, and steamming and mixing. I like this shortcut version because all I need is to mix everything together and let my rice cooker take over the job. Easy and delicious!

Ingredients:

• 5 dried mushroom
• 4oz pork thinly slice
• 1 chinese sausage cut into small cube
• 2 tbsp dried shrimp
• 2 cup of glutinous rice
• 2 tbsp of soy sauce
• ½ tbsp of wine
• ½ tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of sugar
• ½ tsp of white pepper
• 4 tbsp oil
• 2 shallot slice thinly
• 2 cups of glutinous rice
• 1 ½ cups of water ( for each cup of rice add ¾ cup of water)

Method:

• Soak mushrooms in water until soft then cut into think strip.
• Rinse dried shrimp and drain.
• Marinate pork with ¼ tsp of white papper and ½ tsp soy sauce.
• Heat 4 tbsp oil, sauté shallot until brown then add mushroom and chinese sausage. Continue sauté for 5 mins then add dried shrimp. Stir fry until fragrant.
• Add pork and stir fry until brown.
• Add wine, remaining soy sauce, salt, sugar and pepper, sesame oil and mix well.
• Finally, add rice to the mixture. Turn off the heat and mix the rice with the stir fry until all the ingredients combine.
• Pour the rice into rice cooker, add 1 ½ cup water and let the rice cooker do the remaining job.