Fuzhou fishball mee sua

Beautiful picture huh?
Red, green, brown, grey, olive, white....

Saturday went to MIL place for dinner, tabao home some old cucumber soup and she gave me 10 special fuzhou fishballs she bought from Chinatown market.
1 fishball costs 40cents okay? Not cheap hor... MIL say fuzhou fishball normally cost 30cents each. This is more ex cos its really special.

For those of u who dont know what is fuzhou fishball, the reason why its so ex is because this fishball has minced pork in the centre. For this 40 cents one, its REALLY good. When u bite into it, the juice of the minced pork will spurt out. Hubby's shorts kena. Haha.....

What do you need?
- Stock (any leftover soup for 2 u have in the fridge - dilute with 1/2 the amount of water)
- 6 fuzhou fishball (3 per pax)
- 1/4 pack of minced pork (makes around 20 meat balls)
- 4 stalks of chye sim (wash and cut into 2 inch long)
- 1 pack of chilli brand mee sua (4 bundles, 2 per pax)
- 6 prawns (3 per pax)

How to do it?
In separate bowls, marinate minced pork and prawn with soya sauce, pepper, sesame seed oil and chinese wine.

Pot 1: Pour stock (about 2 bowls) dilute with 1 bowl of water into a pot. Bring to boil.
Place fuzhou fishballs into soup, cook until fishball floats to surface.

Add 1 tsp of corn flour into minced pork, mix well, scoop minced pork onto palm of hand to make into tiny meatballs and throw them into soup to cook.

In Pot 2, bring 3 cups of water to boil. Place 4 bundles of mee sua into water and cook for 2 mins. Stir with chopsticks to separate the mee sua. Dont over cook. Drain away hot water and divide the mee sua into 2 big bowls.

In pot 1, add prawns and chye sim, bring to boil.

Scoop fuzhou fishball, prawn, chye sim and meatballs into bowl with mee sua. Pour in stock.

Put a dash of fried shallots and pepper in the soup.

Serve.

Chicken rice - Lazy style

This is my version of the lazy chicken rice.
All in one dish.

My mum cooks the raw marinated chicken and raw sliced ginger with washed rice in the rice cooker directly. This method is more fuss free but results in mashy rice.

For me, i will stir fry the ginger, chicken and rice in the pan first.
With the rice grain coated in a bit of oil before cooking, the cooked rice will be grainy.
Of cos, its more work for me (have to wash extra wok)

Will cook this for dinner when all i have is chicken in the fridge.
Hubby always enjoy this dish cos it has meat (chicken) and meat (sausage)
Serve with prawn sambal on the side (hei bee hiam)
Mouth watering.


What do you need?
- 1 chicken breast (sliced)
- 1 cup of rice (wash and drain, serves 2 pax)
- 1 piece of ginger (size of thumb, sliced)
- 1 chinese sausage (skin removed)
- Pepper, soya sauce, sesame seed oil

How to do it?
Marinate chicken with pepper, soya sauce, chinese wine and sesame seed oil for at least 20 mins.

Heat wok, pour in 2 tbsp of sesame seed oil and fry sliced ginger over low heat.
Wait for ginger to turn crisp


Add 1 tsp of corn flour to chicken, mix well.
Add sliced chicken into wok and stir fry until brown. Push chicken to side of the pan, pour in uncooked and washed rice.

Add 2 tbsp of soya sauce, some pepper and chinese wine. Mix well.

Scoop rice into rice cooker.

Add water into rice cooker as if you are cooking plain white rice.

Place chinese sausage into rice cooker as well.

Cook rice in rice cooker as per normal.

When rice is ready, serve with chilli or sambal on the side.

Marusui Fish Market

For a long time (about 2-3 years already), hubby and i are 'fans' of Sakuraya fish market and will visit once every 2-3 mths. As we dont drive, we have to take the bus there to have sashimi fix every once in a while.

One fateful Saturday, hubby and i wanted to grab a quick snack at vivo basement (i love the fried vege pancakes they have).

As usual, he is the vivo guide and he took escalator near Marks & Spencer and make me walk through the carpark. Though i dont quite agree its a 'shortcut' route, i dont know the otherwise correct route so i just follow...

And to our pleasant surprise, we chance upon Marusui Fish Market.

The concept is very similar to Sakuraya: fresh sashimi on sale in chillers (they will slice it for you immediately if you want to dine in), ready made sushi and bento sets; some bread, green tea, japanese sauces on shelves; as well as tables and chairs for casual dine in.

I am attracted by the snow crab (cooked but cold) which is on promotion - $8 for half snow crab.

So instead of grabbing a quick snack, we had early dinner at 5pm and finish off with 3 scoops of Bens & Jerry for desserts! Yummy.



The freshness of the sashimi cannot match Sakuraya but for the price, it still ok.

4 sashimi (Scallop, salmon, sword fish and something-else-i-cant-remember), 1/2 snow crab, 1 bowl of sushi rice with a can of Asahi and one cup of green tea - total damage ~ $50

Will i go again? Probably yes, for a quick sashimi fix. The bentos and handrolls look very good, will go back to try them one day.

Full address:

Yam Cake

This is my first attempt at making a dish i learn at the dim sum course...

The receipe my instructor gives out is superb!!! Her hints and tips are so good, its almost impossible to fail...

The receipe below yields one tray 21cm baking tin but 1 yam the size of my hand sold in supermarkets is approximately 1kg with skin on. I bought 2 so after removing the skin, i have approximately 1800gm of yam so i made 3 portions and yield 4 baking tins of yam cake.

With 300gm more yam, i simply add them to the fried diced yam without increasing the amount of flour and it worked out fine.

What do you need

Ingredients A:

Rice Flour 300gm

Tang mien flour (Wheat Starch) 75gm

Water 300gm/330ml

Ingredients B:

Yam without skin 500gm

Dried scrimps 50gm (Wash, Soaked, diced)

Chinese sausage 1 piece (Skinned, diced)

Chinese mushroom 4 pieces (Wash, Soaked, diced)

(Keep all the water from soaking scrimps and mushroom and use its as 'water' later in the cooking)

Seasoning:

Salt 20gm

Msg 20gm (i omit totally)

Sugar 40gm

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp five spice powder

1 tbsp sesame seed oil

Preparing the yam:

Skin yam with potato peeler. Wash whole. Take 300gm of yam, slice thinly and place in baking tin with water covering it slightly. Steam until its soft and mash-able. Steaming takes approximately 15 mins. Pour out access water before mashing. Mash immediately while its hot. Slowly add more water if required. You should get a fine mash.

For the remaining 200gm of yam, dice into 1.5cm by 1.5cm cubes.

Fry in oil until golden brown. Set aside.

How to do it?

In a separate bowl, whisk ingredients A and seasoning until you get a smooth mixture.

Armed with the ingredients below, we can now start to cook the yam paste.

Heat wok with oil (i used oil from frying the yam earlier combined with shallots oil from frying shallots. Fry dried scrimps, chinese sausage and mushroom until the mixture becomes fragrant and the oil becomes foamy.

Add fried yam (the foam will all disappear) to make it crisp again.

Adding 1000gm/1110ml of water into wok.

By now, the mash yam should have absorbed all the water and is a very thick and lumpy.

Add 200gm/220ml of water, mix well and you will get a watery yam paste again.

Add yam paste into the wok, mix well. Bring to boil.

Take bowl with ingredients A, whisk up the flour and seasoning that has settled to the bottom of the bowl. Scoop 2-3 ladles of the soup from the wok into the flour mixture and mix well.

This will increase the tempreature of the flour mixture.

Turn off heat.

Pour flour mixture into wok and quickly mix well. You will get a lumpy, sticky yam paste.

Scoop yam paste into baking tin (greased with oil).

Steam over water for at least 45 mins. Only place the tin into the wok after the water has boiled.

The final product. Dont worry about the yam cake being soft and wobberly when hot.

It will harden when cooled.

Flip the yam cake over onto a plate (it will slide out effortlessly from the tin cos we coat the tin with oil) to cool faster.

Red husk rice wine

Another of my 'chu' pattern stunt... wine making!

The teochew or cantonese use this to make 'ang cheow' wine and use the 'ang cheow' residue for cooking.

My grandma makes this wine for my grandfather to drink. After she knows that hubby's family cooks 'ang cheow' chicken, she happily gave them all to me (she used to have no one to give to and pass them to neighbours)

Magic proportions:
- 1 kg of glutinous rice
- 2 wine biscuits
- 2 'liang' of red rice husk

How to do it?

**IMPORTANT**ALL equipment must be dirt and oil free, wear gloves at all time or handle with clean dry hands**Failure to adhere to the above will result in contamination and the entire mixture will turn mouldy and wine will turn sour**

Cook 1 kg of glutinous rice in rice cooker as if you are cooking fragrant white rice. Put about 10-20% more water....

After rice is cooked, let it cook until it can be handled by hand.
Do not let it cook totally or else u will end up with a sticky hard lump of rice that is impossible to mix.


While rice is cooling, break 2 pieces of wine biscuit (chinese yeast) into fine pieces. Remember to store this in the freezer when not in use else it will lose its 'effects'.


Pair with two 'liang' of red rice husk. Crush them slightly.



Mix wine biscuit and red rice husk with glutinous rice and 1 cup of room temperature boiled water.


Place in a sterile container to ferment in air tight condition.

Day 1 and 2 - No change


Day 3 - you will start to see wine like liquid starts to fill in the empty spaces and air pushed out as air bubbles.



On the 4th day, the rice will suspend atop a layer of wine (about 1 inch thick) - sorry no photo

On this day, you are suppose to open the container, mix it well with another cup of room temperature boiled water. This is the last time you are suppose to open the container and touch the mixture.

Seal the container tightly for 1 last time and leave it to ferment for 1 mth (day 1 to day 30)

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Update on day 7

**this post will be updated regularly until day 30**

Fried Tioman fillet

Simple saturday afternoon lunch. Healthy and hearty meal...

Rub fish with salt and wash off.
Slice fish horizontally midway.
Pat dry, sprinkle with salt and pepper to marinate.


Coat fish with corn flour before frying in shallow oil.

The trick to frying fish is to keep pan covered. This will ensure that the heat trapped in the pan penetrates the fish and cook it thoroughly. Only remove the lid to turn the fish.

Another advantage is that it will prevent the oil from splitter splatter. When cooking fish, the juice from the fish will seep out into the oil and cause it to splatter... scary....

However, you need to be careful when removing the lid as the water vapour accumulated under the lid will cause the oil to splatter if you accidentally drip it into the pan. Remove the lid in one swift and quick motion. Have a cloth beside the pan to allow water to drip onto the cloth before covering the lid again.

Another advantage is that because removing the lid is so dangerous, you will not want to do it many times. This will prevent you from checking on the fish too often and the result is a nicely fried crisp fish skin.

Remove fish from pan, drizzle dark soya sauce onto the fish immediately.
Serve.



My lunch... stir fried chye sim (stole 4 stalks from the 2 packets i bought for making suan chai - yes, its my 3rd attempt)... fried fish, fermented beancurd and a nice bowl of hot porridge.

Fried shallots

I bought a big packet of shallots from NTUC, after a few weeks they look like they are going to rot.

So i decide to make fried shallots. Saw my mum make this ten thousand times, but this is my first attempt.

1) Peel and wash shallots. The trick is to dry the whole shallots before cutting.
If you have no time to cut immediately, the whole shallots can be kept in the fridge for 1 week

2) Slice shallots thinly (my knife skills are not so good, so turn out to be pretty chunky)

3) Using a low heat, heat pan with oil.
Put shallots before the oil heats up. Pour oil until all shallots are submerged in oil.
Maintain low heat and about 5 mins later, the oil will bubble up nicely.



Maintain low heat and allow shallots to cook for 15-20 mins, stirring constantly.


When part of shallots starts to brown, keep a close watch.
From this...


To this... will take only another 2-3 mins

Turn off heat. Before scooping out the shallots, sprinkle 1 tspn of salt into the oil.

This will reduce the oil temperature and prevent it from further browning while you are scooping it out.

Place shallots on plate to cool... oil will cool in the pan.

You notice that the shallots turn darker brown after its removed from the pan.

Its because it continues to brown from the residue oil and from its own heat.

Once both the oil and shallots are cooled down to room temperature, put the fried shallots into a air tight container and you can use it to sprinkle over porridge, rice or noodle in future.

As for the oil, keep it for stir frying... will have the shallots fragrant if you are lazy to mince garlic.

I have another bottle that has fried shallots and oil combined. This is used to put into soupy dishes or porridge.