Shrimp Paste Pork Belly on Beancurd

I found this recipe on Youtube and tweaked it slightly. This dish was easy to prepare and not time consuming. 

Ingredients:

Pork belly 150g

Beancurd 1 pack (300g)

Ginger, cut into thin strips

Seasoning:

Sesame oil 1 tsp

Shrimp paste 1 tbsp

Light soy sauce 1/2 tsp

Wine 1 tsp

Sugar 1 tsp

Water 1 tsp

Steps:

1. I used the frozen pork belly bought from NTUC which were meant for Shabu Shabu. As they were already thinly sliced, I only need to cut it into slightely shorter/smaller pieces. After cutting, I put the pork belly in a bowl.

2. I used beancurd that was meant for steaming. I cut the beancurd into smaller pieces and placed it onto a plate that had some depth.

3. I added the ginger strips, sesame oil, shrimp paste, light soy sauce, wine, sugar and water to the pork belly and mixed them.

4. Next, I poured the marinated pork belly onto the beancurd.

5. Then, I placed the dish in my Tefal electric steamer and steamed for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, the dish was ready to be consumed. 

This dish was tasty and very appetizing :). 

“Our Humble Lodge” recipes - Salted Egg Chicken Wings - Toggle

This recipe looked easy to prepare and appetizing.

“Our Humble Lodge” recipes - Salted Egg Chicken Wings - Toggle: From the kitchens of 'Life - Fear Not'

Bird's Nest Soup

I had always thought we needed about 2 to 3 hours to cook bird's nest soup. This seemed to be confirmed from what I had seen from some blogs and websites. Some bird's nest even required cleaning/plucking of feathers, which was time consuming and tedious. 

Recently, I saw from Hock Hua Tonic E-Store that they were having a promotion on some of their bird's nest. Some of the instructions there stated that the bird's nest only needed to be soaked for 1 hour and then cooked for 45 minutes to 1 hours. 

Bird's nest was usually sold by weight. Since it was my first time trying to cook bird's nest, I chose the cheapest bird's nest available at that time as there was not much difference in terms of efficacy. I bought the 特选沙巴洞燕片 Super FS SABAH BCN-White (AA) at a Hock Hua Tonic retail store, which was sold at a special price of $50.00 for every 37.5 g (一两).  I bought about 42 grams, which cost $56. I also further confirmed with the staff on how to prepare the bird's nest. The staff advised me to soak the bird's nest for 1 hour, remove the water that was used to soak the bird's nest and double boil for 45 minutes. 

Their staff usually tell us to cook 1 to 2 piece of bird's nest for 1 person's consumption. This seemed to be a lot in my opinion and would be very thick in consistency. Maybe some people loved to eat bird's nest this way. 

I had previously researched on the optimal quantity of bird's nest to consume every day and found that it should be between 1 to 5 g. Below 1 g, it is ineffective. If we consume more than 5 g, the human body cannot absorb that much and, hence, it would be wasted. I bought six pieces, which weighed 42 g, so one piece was about 7 g. There are four of us in our family, so 7 g divided by 4 persons would be about 1.75 g per person. I think this was good enough for us.

Now that we have the Tefal Electric Steamer, it was very convenient for me to double boil bird's nest. After soaking the bird's nest for 1 hour, I removed the soaking water and put about 1 small bowl of water  to the bird's nest and steamed for 45 minutes.

Dried bird's nest

Cooked bird's nest

After 45 minutes, I added rock sugar to the bird's nest soup and it was ready for consumption. We were satisfied with the consistency. 

Last week, we saw that there was a stall at Causeway Point mall selling freshly double boiled bird's nest. Coincidentally, they also used the Tefal Electric steamer to double boil their bird's nest. :)

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Egg Tarts Recipe

It had been a long time since I last made egg tarts so I decided to make some egg tarts on the last Saturday of the school holidays in March. 

I liked to keep things simple so I used a recipe that did not require many ingredients. We did not like our egg tarts to be too sweet so the amount of sugar and icing sugar used were less than that stated in the original recipe. So if you like sweeter egg tarts, you can add more sugar. I also increased the amount of flour used for the butter pastry.

The ingredients I used for the butter pastry were:

280 g salted butter
450 plain flour
1 egg
80 g icing sugar

The ingredients I used for the egg tart filling were:
300 ml water
100 g sugar
4 eggs
80 ml full cream evaporated milk

Steps to prepare the dough:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

2. Mix butter, flour and icing sugar together in a bowl.

3. Add an egg.

4. Knead it into a dough. Refrigerate the dough for 20 min or until it is in a workable state.

Butter pastry dough

While waiting for the dough to be ready, we can work on the egg tart filling. 

Steps to prepare the egg tart filling:

1. Pour 100 g of sugar into 300 ml of water. Stir until all the sugar has dissolved.

2. Add milk and eggs to the mixture above. Beat and mix well.

3. Sieve the mixture two times to get a smooth egg filling.

Egg filling after sieving

Steps to prepare the egg tarts:

1. When the dough is ready to be used, take it out from the refrigerator. Knead it again. 

2. Take a small ball of the dough and press it into an pastry mould gently using your two thumbs. Repeat the process until all the dough is used.

3. Pour the egg filling into the pastry mould with the dough in it.

4. Bake the egg tarts in the oven at 200 degree Celsius for 15 to 20 minutes. The egg filling should still be wobbly when done. The egg tarts are ready if a toothpick can stand upright when poked into the filling.

Sera volunteered to help me make the egg tarts and she really enjoyed kneading the dough and putting it into the pastry mould. Towards the end, she also helped to pour the egg filling into the pastry mould.

Unbaked egg tarts in pastry mould on a tray

Baked egg tarts

We made a total of 30 egg tarts with diameters of about 8 cm each.

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Yam Paste Dessert (Orh Nee) - Alternative Method

We recently found that the NTUC supermarket at Hougang One sold peeled yams in vacuum packs of 500 g. This was definitely better as it can be kept in the fridge for a longer time. It will also be easier for me to slice it into smaller pieces as the skin of the yam was already removed. 

I used these yam to make a yam paste dessert (orh nee) on Sera's birthday since she liked to eat it so much.


Ingredients:

500 g yam (cut into slices)
200 ml of coconut milk (I used the "kara" brand)
150 g of sugar
3 to 4 pandan leaves (optional)
pinch of salt (optional)


Steps:

1. Put the yam slices (with pandan leaves) on a steamer rack and steam for about 30 min until the yam slices turn soft. 

2. Once the yam slices are soft, turn off the fire and mash the yam slices.

3. Add coconut milk, pinch of salt and sugar to the mashed yam. 

Previously, I also added some cooking oil and then put the mixture in a slow cooker to cook it further. It needed a a lot of time to cook to the right consistency. This time round, I steamed the above mixture for another 10 to 15 minutes (took less time). I omitted the cooking oil as I didn't really like the taste of it in the yam paste dessert. I also added a bit of water as I found the mixture to be too dry. 

It was then ready to be served.

Sera enjoying her share of Orh Nee

Related post:

Yam Paste Dessert (Orh Nee)

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Lean Pork with Preserved Vegetables

I got the idea of cooking this dish from the MediaCorp TV drama serial,  "Spice Up" 《幸福料理》. I thought it was quite easy to prepare so I tried it out two days ago.

I did not follow every step exactly as it was shown by Gao Mingjun  (starring Patrick Lee) in the show. This was what I used.

250g lean pork (frozen pork)

80g preserved Vegetables

Steps:

1. I cut the lean pork into smaller strips. I used the preserved vegetables that were bought from NTUC. No further cutting was needed for this.

2. Then I added some salt, pepper, 1/3 egg white, sesame oil and tapioca flour to the lean pork.

3. I heated up some oil in the wok, added some garlic and stir fried them. 

4. I put in the marinated lean pork, stir fried until they were about 60% to 70% cooked.

5. Then I added the preserved vegetables to the pork and cooked until the pork was tender. 

6. I added some chilli powder to the dish. (original recipe used fresh red chilli). 

This dish turned out quite nicely. The pork was tender and the colour was white instead of the usual light brown. I believed it was the egg white that made the pork tender and white. Lynn almost thought it was chicken meat. The preserved vegetables wasn't as crunchy as Gao Mingjun's dish since I did not soak them and squeeze out the water like what he did. We didn't mind though. So overall, I would think it was an appetising dish. This turned out tender and tasty.

Yam Paste Dessert (Orh Nee)

I had about 200 g of yam left after using some to cook yam rice. So I decided to try and make some Yam Paste Dessert (Orh Nee) from the yam that I had left.

Ingredients:

200 g yam (cut into slices or cubes)
1 tablespoon of cooking oil
75 ml of coconut milk (I used the "kara" brand)
70 g of sugar


Steps:

1. Put the yam cubes on a steamer rack together with some pandan leaves and steam for about 15 min until the yam cubes turn soft. 

2. Once the yam cubes are soft, switch off the fire and mash the yam cubes.

3. Add cooking oil, coconut milk and sugar to the mashed yam. Place this mixture in a small slow cooker and brew it for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. This is also a good way to keep the yam paste warm. 

I prefer my orh nee to have some yam cubes in it for the texture, so I didn't bother to blend the mixture.

Orh Nee in slow cooker

Above is a picture of the Orh Nee with half the amount left in the slow cooker.

Tasted good. Maybe next time, I can add pumpkin :) .

Note: Most recipes require that we put cooking oil, the mashed yam, sugar and coconut milk in a cooking pan and stir the mixture constantly. I was too lazy to keep an eye on the fire and stir constantly. So I used the slow cooker instead. Using the slow cooker also means it takes longer to cook to the required consistency. 

Related post:

Yam Paste Dessert (Orh Nee) - Alternative Method

Curry Chicken

Cooking curry chicken used to be a daunting task. My late grandma was a nonya and was very good at cooking curry. Whenever she wanted to cook curry, she would put all the spices needed into a motar and pound them to make the curry paste. She would make coconut milk the traditional way by adding water to shredded coconut, placed them in a cloth to squeeze out the coconut milk just like what 蕙娘 Huiniang (played by Joanne Peh) did in the TV drama serial 《信约：唐山到南洋》 ("The Journey: A Voyage"). So basically, everything was freshly made from scratch.

Now, there are so many different brands and types of curry paste. However, I was not satisfied with the end result I had with most of the curry paste that I had tried. So, I had to combine curry powder with some sambal chilli paste and salt to get the taste and colour of the curry gravy that I wanted. 

Recently, I bought the A1 Instant Chicken Curry Sauce for cooking the curry chicken.

This was what I did. 

1. After peeling the potatoes, I put them in a bowl of salt water to prevent them from oxidising and to add a bit of saltiness to them.

2. I heated some oil in a wok and stir fried some garlic in it. 

3. Next, I put in all the chicken pieces (1.2 kg) and potatoes (300 g), then added all of the A1 Instant Chicken Curry Sauce. Mixed well, added water.

4. When the mixture started to boil, I added 2 packets of the Kara UHT Natural Coconut Cream (200 ml each, actually one packet would be good enough). Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes and it was ready to serve.

The taste was just right - spicy and salty enough. I didn't even have to add more seasoning to the curry. Just what I wanted. :)