Multiple V soup

Didnt they say we need to eat vegetables that are of different colours cos they will give us different vitamins?

Well, this is one of those rare days that i have a stock of vegetables in my fridge.
Potatos, capsicum, tomato, celery and watercress.

Added a slice of fish for protein.

The potato provides the carbo i need, so no need for rice or noodle.

This soup is a meal in itself. Perfect for my dieting plans.

I can only have this kind of meals when i am home alone.

The soup looks oily, think its from the chicken stock i used. 

Using water will be the healthier choice but flavour is more important!

Beef Stew again...

Following my first attempt at beef stew, this is my 2nd attempt.

This time round, there is a special request from my MIL as she does not know what to do with the beef in her fridge. Instead of just giving her the receipe, i decided to cook it for her to try first.

So the plan is to cook for Saturday dinner but i saw the beef chunks on sale when shopping during lunch time. So i decided to stock up the beef! super good price, 1 kg in all for about SGD10. Lucky me!

Next is to buy red wine. All the wine at home are expensive so i went scouting for a $13+ wine for cooking but ended up buying a $15 one... -_-''

Next is to buy vegetables, celery, tomato, potatoes, carrot and onion.

For seasoning, i used ginger, garlic, freshly grounded pepper, dried rosemary and bouquet garni (bought in London Tesco, didn't see them in Singapore supermarket so far)

Below is a shot taken directly from the pot. Looks a goody mess but i tell you, its a mess made in heaven. i am not boasting! its the best stew i have eaten so far, nicer then those i tasted in restaurants and cafes...

I have half a bottle of red wine left... will be cooking this again very soon!

Carrot soup

The carrot soup cooked by my MIL has 3 different carrots, the normal orange colour carrot, white radish and green radish. When i first attempted it, i used 3 carrots and ended up with a huge pot of soup that the 2 of us cant finish. So now, i will simply cook carrot with white radish. Green radish is not commonly available in the supermarket so it has been a long time since i used it.

This time round, i added a couple of tomato cos i happen to have some in the fridge and i want a hint of sourness for 'kai wei' feel... white radish has a pretty strong smell that is not so pleasant and the tomato can help to cover it up...

In my soup, i added a couple of dried figs (anti cancer properties in TCM), north and south apricot seed ('nan xing, bei xing'), red dates and dried oysters. As usual, my soup is always made of chicken bones (i dont spend money on pork ribs!). Come to think about it. Long time since i made soup, i have collected 3-4 chicken carcasses in my freezer already!

Couple of hours on low heat will yield a pot of sweet tasting wholesome soup.

Do not keep leftovers in the fridge. It will only keep 1 day and will taste different after a day. I realised that freezing is a better way of keeping soup, especially for soups made with vegetables. Freeze in clean plastic bags, tie with rubber band and defroze the giantic ice cube in a pot over the stove. Can keep up to 2 wks with no change in taste.

Angle Gourd

Angle Gourd ('Jiao3 Gua1') is so common in the supermarket. And cheap. Problem is, its always sold in a pair (and yet only cost SGD$1 plus). The skin looks very thick but its very easy to scrap off using a vegetable peeler. It has such a natural sweetness that i will be surprised by its taste each time i cook it. 

I used one to stir fry with dried scrimps, dong fen, black fungus and prawns.

The angle gourd is sliced around 1 cm thick and 4-5 cm long.

My second dish using angle gourd - stir fry with minced meat and egg.

Angle gourd is sliced in thicker chunks.

Chicken porridge with water chestnut

In wiki, water chestnut is called Eleocharis dulcis. How many people in the world will know this?!!!

I have a love hate relationship with water chestnut.

I have some water chestnut leftover from making dumplings. This is the reason why i will buy water chestnut 99% of the time. Preparing water chestnut is a hassle! u will have to scrub the mud off the skin, wash until the water runs clean, cut off the skin before u can use the inner flesh. Of cos, if u are throwing the skin, u need not wash them to cleanly. Having said that, u will still have to rinse them thoroughly. I am not being fussy here but if there is mud on the skin, when u slice it, the white flesh will be contaminated cos the knife comes into contact with the mud. Hate it.

If you have the time to clean the skin, boil the skin in a huge pot of water with barley for a couple of hours, add sugar and u will have a big pot of barley water chestnut drink!

I will usually have leftover water chestnuts as a snack/fruit. When i saw them in the fridge one afternoon, i decided to chop them up coarsely and add them to my porridge to add a 'crunch' to the mushy porridge. Reason why i love water chestnut is that it retains its sweetness, juiciness and crunch even after cooking. Love it.

Braised fish with roast pork and clam

This is definately not a 'lazy cooking' dish.

i am kinda forced to cook it this style as i am worried that the fish is not fresh.

i went to the supermarket to buy fish for steaming and chanced upon a promotion for the day. Can't remember how much but i remembered the fish costs $2+ only. After i got the staff to clean and scaled one fish and realised how cheap it is, i cant help being greedy and got him to give me another one!

The first fish i steamed it immediately, the 2nd one i think i must have kept it for about 2-3 weeks in the freezer. I had leftover roast pork in the freezer and is immediately reminded of this dish that is cooked by my mum. The fried fish and roast pork has a way of infusing the unique aroma of fried food into the gravy and its heavenly. To make the gravy even sweeter, i cooked the clams in a separate pot, removed the clam flesh from the shells and used the soup from cooking clam in the gravy. Yummy!

  

Fish cooking in clam stock

Thicken gravy with starch flour and water mixture

Nai bai is fried separately with salt and chinese wine. Laid on super big plate and presented it as a single dish.

Leftovers

Baised chicken

There is basically no hard and fast rule about cooking chicken. Whatever i have in the fridge goes into the pan together with the chicken.

Typically when i buy whole chicken, i will remove the breast, thighs and drumsticks from the chicken. i will then pack them into 5 packs - 2 packs of half breasts, 2 packs of 1 thigh and 1 drums, 1 pack of chicken carcass.

Needless to say, the carcass is for chicken stock making. The smaller pack of chicken is to save me time defrosting when i have to cook them last minute, i dun have patience when it comes to thawing frozen meat.

When i have the time, i will even debone the thigh and drums, cut the breasts and marinate the chicken with pepper and soya sauce before putting them into bags for freezing. This saves me even more time when i use the chicken to cook porridge, stir fry etc.

Now, back to my braised chicken, the reason why i have half chicken with bones attached is because its from my mum. She visited me after my operation and bought me chicken which is already halved and frozen.

So well, i chopped the chicken into pieces, found chillis in my fridge (again i dont buy chilli, this is from my mother in law). Some left over cherry tomatoes from xmas gathering salad also goes in!

What do you need?

- Half a chicken cut into small pieces

- 5 cherry tomatoes, halved

- 5-10 shallots, quartered

- 1 baby carrot

- 1 chilli - deseeded and cut into big pieces

- 1 thumb size piece of ginger

- oyster sauce

- pinch of sugar

- sesame seed oil and pepper

How to do it?

Heat work and fry ginger, chilli and shallots until fragrant.

Then add chicken and carrot. Fry chicken until brown before adding water. Season with oyster sauce, sugar, pepper. Turn heat to low and simmer for 30 mins until a thick sauce is formed and meat falls off the bone easily.

Drizzle with sesame seed oil and serve with rice.

The sweetness of the carrot and chicken juices, with a hint of sourness from the tomato and heat from the ginger and chilli, its heavenly.

Asparagus fried rice

YES - Myth confirmed - Asparagus makes your pee smells funny! At least, it is observed for hubby and myself. Guess what? According to wikipedia, we are the 22% of the population who had the genes to smell it! Dunno to be proud or what... Eww...  :P

Extracted from wikipedia "There is debate about whether all (or only some) people produce the smell, and whether all (or only some) people identify the smell. It was originally thought this was because some of the population digested asparagus differently than others, so that some people excreted odorous urine after eating asparagus, and others did not. However, in the 1980s three studies from France,[24] China and Israel published results showing that producing odorous urine from asparagus was a universal human characteristic. The Israeli study found that from their 307 subjects all of those who could smell 'asparagus urine' could detect it in the urine of anyone who had eaten asparagus, even if the person who produced it could not detect it himself.[25] Thus, it is now believed that most people produce the odorous compounds after eating asparagus, but only about 22% of the population have the autosomal genes required to smell them."

Wanted to buy asparagus to wrap in bacon the last time round but couldnt find it in NTUC.

Wanted a crunchy vege to make fried rice and hubby bought baby asparagus though i asked him to buy either long beans or french beans. -_-""

Oh well, i have to admit asparagus goes quite well with the rest of the ingredients in the fried rice. 

Mee sua soup

After the xmas and new year feasting, its time to detox.

Cooked a simple and light lunch, using leftovers in the fridge.

What do you need?
- Sliced pork (marinated)
- Kai lan stem (5cm long)
- 1 stalk of chye sim
- 1 baby carrot
- 4 cherry tomato
- 2 mee sua (dried)
- 2 cups of chicken stock






How to do it?
Heat pot with water, water level at approximately 1.5 inches. Bring to boil, add mee sua, cook for approx 2 mins or until water reboils for 1 min.

Drain mee sua and put into bowls.

Heat pot again with chicken stock. Add sliced of pork and bring to boil. Add all vegetables, bring to boil.
Pour soup, meat and vegetables into bowls with mee sua, serve.

Season with some soya sauce, pepper and sesame seed oil to taste.
Sprinkle with fried shallots. Serve. 

Black pepper fried rice with kai lan stem

A new vegetable in town - Kai lan stem
This is basically kai lan with super big and thick stems. The stems are about 15 cm long, 3 cm thick, and it comes with no leafs or couple of leaves (which i discard). Peel off the skin to expose the light green stem that resembles sugar cane. The stems are very crunchy and sweet. For those of you who prefers stems to leaf vegetables like me, this is a keeper. Try it!

I bought this as an alternative to asparagus, as i want to wrap it in bacon. So i cut the kai lan stem and carrot into thick strips, and roll them up in half a slice of bacon. Grill in the oven for 15 minutes until crisp. Yummy.

Leftover kai lan stems are diced for today's fried rice.

What do you need?
- 3 cups of cooked cold rice
- 50g of sliced pork
- 50g of minced pork
- 1/2 chinese sausage (diced)
- 1 handful of diced kai lan stem
- 1 handful of diced carrots
- 1 small red onion (diced)
- Minced garlic in olive oil
- Chinese wine, soya sauce, pepper
- 2 tsp of black pepper sauce
- Sesame seed oil

How to do it?
In a dry pan, pan fry the chinese sausage until lightly brown and crisp. Remove and set aside.
Put 1 tbsp of minced garlic and some olive oil into the pan with the diced red onions. Fry for 1 min.
Add minced pork and sliced pork.
Break up the minced pork with the back of the spatula.

When the pork is cooked, add chinese wine, soya sauce and pepper. Mix well.
Add kai lan stem and carrot. Stir fry for 2 min.

Add cold rice, break up the lumps, mix well.

Add black pepper sauce, mix well.

Add chinese sausage and drizzle sesame seed oil onto the rice. At this point, i added some chopped parsley and fried shallots as well.

Turn off heat. Mix well and serve.

Spinach Soup

Continuation of my healthy dinner. Instead of stir fry, i experimented with this spinach soup dish.

Couple of time while dining in restaurant, i noticed that chefs like to cook spinach with lots of soup and its kind of like a soup cum vege dish.

What do you need?
- 1 pack of spinach (washed and cut into lengths of 4-5cm)
- 1 tbsp of wolfberries
- 4 dried scallops
- Garlic in oil
- 1tbsp of oyster sauce
- 1/2 tsp of sugar
- 2 cups of vegetable stock
- 1 egg (beaten)
- Corn flour mixture (1 tbsp of corn flour and 3 tbsp of water)

How to do it?
Wash wolfberries and scallop. Place in a bowl and soak in hot water for at least 10 minutes. The scallops should be soft and you should be able to break up the scallops with your fingers.

Heat pan, fry garlic until brown with minimum oil. Add spinach. Stir fry for 1 minutes. As its not a stir fry and there is no enough oil to wilt the vege, add wolfberries, scallops and the soaking water plus the stock into pan.

Cover pan and let the spinach simmer for 3 minutes. Add oyster sauce and sugar.
Add corn flour mixture to thicken the soup, stirring continuously.

Turn off heat, pour in egg. Cover pan for 3 minutes and the egg will cook in the residual heat.

Serve.

Beef stew

My second attempt to cook from Jamie Oliver's book, Ministry of Food. I like the stew section of the book, first time i tried chicken stew with pie crust, this time i tried the beef stew. Instead of Guiness, i use ABC stout... the beef stew is fragrant, tender but has a bitter after taste. i am surprise that i can taste the stout after so many hrs of stewing!

Suppose to pour in canned tomatos but canned ones are too ex in Singapore $2+ per can. So i bought a pack of 6 and chopped them up :D

What do you need?

Basic Stew ingredients:
2 sticks of celery (i used 3)
2 medium onions
2 carrots (i used 3)
Olive oil
1 tbspn of plain flour
400g tinned tomato
Salt and Pepper

For Beef and ale stew:
3 bay leaf (i omit)
500g diced stewing beef
500ml ale, Guinness or stout (i use 1 can)

How to do it?

Fry celery, onion and carrots for about 10 mins with olive oil on medium heat. Add meat and flour, stir well. Pour in stout and tomatoes. Stir and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

Bring to boil and turn heat down to low. Cover pot.

The ale will cause the stew to be foamy but it will evaporate after a while.

Simmer over the stove for 30 - 45 mins, checking every 15 mins.

If the stew dries up, add stock and continue cooking.

 

After simmering for 45 mins, check the beef for tenderness. If tender to your liking, open the lid cook for another 10 mins on medium heat. This will allow the excess water to dry up.

Serve on its own.

Leftovers became beef stew pasta!

Cook pasta in salted water, microwave beef stew.

When pasta is cooked, stir in beef stew.

Sprinkle with more coarse pepper.

Hearty and delicious pasta meal.

Stir fry yellow noodles

How can something so gooey and messy taste so good?!! Another of my 1-dish-wonder for a lazy Sunday afternoon lunch. Hubby went for soccer in the morning and i promise a hearty carbo packed lunch for him. The day before i cooked up a huge pot of chicken stock (more about it next time) and want to cook a dish that uses the fantastic stock. Went to NTUC and saw the yellow noodles on sale. 2 pack for $2 i think. So went ahead to buy it. I have the option of cooking noodle soup, fried noodle or noodle swimming in gravy. All versions require the same ingredients, just different way of cooking it.

Speaking of ingredients, i dont have much to prepare as well. Frozen slice squid is leftover from a previous steamboat session i have at home. Sliced and marinated pork is always available in my fridge. Whenever i buy a piece of pork from the supermarket, i will slice them all up, marinate them, pack them in several clean pastic bags and keep them in the freezer. Whenever i need pork, i will just take 1 pack from the freezer the night before, place it in the fridge and by the next day, it will be defrozed and i can use it for cooking. There is ten thousand ways to use it. I use this to cook porridge in the morning when i am in the hurry, cook instant noodles etc.

So I 'prepared' all the ingredients, waited for hubby to come back and ask him what type of noodles he want. He is so tired he opt for something that is easy-to eat. Fried noodles then. No messy gravy,  no piping hot soup to make him feel all sweaty after a cooling afternoon bath, something that can be eaten with just a fork in front of the tv.

What do you need?

- 1 packet of yellow noodles (serves 3)

- some sliced pork

- some sliced squid

- handful of baby kailan

- 1 beaten egg

- 1/2 cup of chicken stock

- Seasoning (oyster sauce, dark soya sauce, chinese wine, pepper, sesame seed oil)

- Garlic in oil

How to do it?
Heat pan and brown garlic in oil. Add 1 tbsp of olive oil and fry pork and squid for 1 min (half cooked)
Add yellow noodles, 1 tbsp of oyster sauce, 1/2 tbsp of dark soya sauce, generous dash of pepper, 1/2 cup of chicken stock and mix well.
Cover pan with lid and let the noodles cook for 2-3 mins in medium heat.

Add kailan. Stir fry the noodles well and wait for all stock to evaporate.
Add chinese wine and fry until all wine is fully evaporated.

Pour beaten egg in cover with lid (no stirring) for 1 min. You will notice some egg will be cooked, some not.
Mix the egg into the noodle, the uncooked egg will coat the noodle into a gooey mess.
Drizzle sesame seed oil over noodles generously and serve.

Serves 2 hearty lunches, with a plateful leftover and i heat it up for lunch the next day! Yum!

Green curry soba noodles

Another brilliant idea of mine. Dinner for one as hubby is out for company bbq and drinks.

Plateful of leftovers...
- leftover Thai Green Curry
- leftover salad
- last handful of soba noodles

I first cook soba noodles in a pot of salted water for 3 - 5 mins until soft.
Microwave frozen green curry on high until its boiling hot.


Pour curry into plate, tear salad leaves into bit size, toss in soba noodles and mix well.....

Plate of delightful green curry soba noodles. Tastes fantastic!

Thai Green Curry

I always like green thai curry.
A dish that i order quite frequently when i dine at Thai Express.
I like the rich coconut taste, the spice and slightly sweet aftertaste.

Couple of weekend ago my MIL cooked Thai green curry using a singapore brand ready mix green curry taste. $2.00. Taste good.

I know that Carrefour has a corner for Thai foodstuff. Went to check it out and they have a ready made green curry paste that has Thai words on it. Imported from Thailand, must be authentic.
Cheaper than the Spore brand as well. Selling at $1.50.

i have 2 stalks of lemon grass in my freezer, so i decided to 'beef' up the taste a bit with extra lemon grass and onions...

Spiciness level: Singapore brand vs Thai brand: 5 vs 1

What do you need?
- 1 packet of green curry paste
- 1 stalk of lemon grass (bruised and chopped)
- 2 small red onion (diced)
- chicken (~500gm i use half pack of frozen chicken inner fillet)
- half pack of french beans
- 1 pack of coconut milk (small)
- 1 tbsp of sugar







How to do it?
Heat pan and add 1 tbsp of olive oil. Fry onion and lemon grass until onion becomes soft and golden brown.

Add green curry paste and fry for 3-5mins, this is to release the aroma and taste of the spices.

Add 2 cups of water and chicken meat. Mix well, cover pan with lid and simmer on low heat for 5 mins.

i like my green curry with sweet aftertaste so i added 1 tbsp of sugar. Mix well and adjust taste to your liking.

Add coconut milk and french beans. Cook for a further 5 mins and turn off heat. Do not over cook the coconut gravy.

Serve with lots of steaming white rice and 1 glass of ice cold water. Very spicy.

Winter Melon Soup

Another of my favourite soup for the following reasons:
1) its cheap, one piece 1 - 1.5 inch thick costs ard $2
2) it has a very subtle sweet taste
3) its easily available in the supermarket
4) its has cooling properties

What do you need?
- chicken bones of 1/2 chicken
- 1 piece of winter melon (ard 1 to 1.5 inch thick)
- wolfberry (1 handful)
- 5 dried dates
- 2 dried figs
- 6 small dried scallops

How to do it?
Blanch chicken bones with boiling water to remove the bloody water

In a big pot, bring water to boil (approx 2 - 3 litres)

Remove skin and seeds of winter melon, cut into 2 cm thick slices

Wash wolfberry, dates, figs and scallops

Dump all the ingredients into the pot of boiling water, bring to boil.

Cover with lid and continue to simmer for at least 1.5 - 2 hours on medium to low heat.

Can simmer up to 4 hours if you have the patience.

See the colour of the soup at the end of 2 hrs....

Yummy!

Sausage and mushroom spaghetti

I love working near plaza sing. Shopping for groceries is so convenient.


I have some leftover dried spagetti from cooking in pesto, always looking for opportunities to cook pasta without having to buy huge bottles of expensive pasta sauces.

Chanced upon prego canned mushroom cream sauce on sale at $1.50. Grab it.

Saw beautiful white oyster mushroom in carefour, grab it.
Need meat, lazy to debone chicken, spotted raw sausage from the carefour freezer, grab a pack!


What do you need?
- Dried spaghetti for 2 pax (size of a 20cents coin)
- 4 white oyster mushroom (i use the whole pack, break big ones into palm size pieces)
- 3 raw sausage
- 1 canned cream mushroom sauce (Prego brand, blue wrapper)
- Garlic in oil
- Coarse pepper / seasoning pepper




How to do it?
Cook spagetti in pot of water with generous pinch of salt
Drain well and set spaghetti aside

Heat pan with cooking oil. Remove skin of sausage. Pinch sausage into ping pong ball size, rolling them in your palm to shape it a little, drop them into the pan and pan fry until brown on the outside, cooked inside. Use low heat, takes about 5-8 mins. Set aside.



Add garlic in oil into pan and fry until slightly brown.
Add oyster mushroom and fry until soft, careful not to break them.
Add 1/2 cup water to braise the mushroom for 2 mins (i like my mushrooms soft)


Add the canned pasta sauce into the mushroom, add 1/2 can of water, stir well.
Add coarse pepper to taste, turn off heat.

Add spaghetti into pan and mix well with pasta sauce.

Serve on plate, with sausage balls at the sides.


Saturday lunch is a hearty meaty mushroomy creamy pasta dish.