Sweet and sour spare ribs

I have been remiss in posting but I certainly have not been remiss in cooking! I have to admit though our visits to the Chinese takeaway has been quite frequent since the little one started school. I'm definitely not cut out to be a yummy mummy of which there seem to be lots of, who waltz up to the school gates looking fresh and full of energy on the dot at 3pm. Anyway, back to food, inspired somewhat by the chinese takeaways, I decided to give the sweet and sour pork ribs a go. My concern was that the meat could be tough but try I must. The recipe I tried turned out to be really nice, the sauce was fragrant and I really like having the sesame seeds sprinkled on. The meat? Not tough but I think I will cook it just a tad longer next time...just need it slightly more tender!

 

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Mee Jawa

Mee Jawa or Jawa Mee??. whichever way you call it, it's a tomato based noodle dish. The recipe normally calls for a soup base made with sweet potatoes, crush peanuts. My mum learnt to make this dish from a Eurasian lady in the neighbourhood and her soup does not use peanutt and this is my favourite. I have to say that my mum does not cook very much, she's very much a baked beans, spam and fried egg kind of cook. So this is my attempt to replicate the dish, I have asked my mum before for the recipe but because it's been years since she made it and when she did it was not often, the ingredients change each time she answers me!

Anyway, I think I might have cracked it. After making stock from chicken bones, I will try ribs next time, in goes the tomato purée and some spices. I omitted the chilli paste this round as the little one and other kids were having lunch with us. This dish made up of the soup with boiled egg noodles with various accompaniments. One of the must have accompaniment is fritters, the one I like is just plain fritters with no prawns. I remembered seeing a recipe for it in one of my cookbooks so I got to try make another thing new.

Lastly, one other thing I tried new was instead frying the tau kua (firm tofu or bean curd) I baked it in the oven with great success. So bye bye to frying tau kua, no tau kua is going to get the chance to spit hot oil at me ever again!

The must have garnishes

 

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Soya sauce sea bass

Better known as ikan masak kicap, simply translated as fish cooked in soya sauce. If you ask me it's the garnishes that make this dish. The trio of coriander leaves, spring onions and sliced chillies brings this dish to life. Served with steamed rice it's all I need to make a satisfying dinner and I don't have anything more to say, it's simpliticity at its best!

 

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Kiam chye th'ng (salted vegetable soup)

This is our family's traditional CNY soup which we have throughout the first few days of CNY ! ! Adding whatever left over dishes along the way. When a friend gave me some roasted pork it was an opportunity to make this soup, with the roast pork added to salted mustard green, duck legs, Chinese mushrooms.

And since the same friend didn't manage to get home for CNY this year, I thought it appropriate to make this soup and invite her round for a CNY dinner! Gong xi fa cai take 2!!

 

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Ikan masak asam

I'm not sure what the name of the fish is that we normally make this dish with at home but easiest for me to get here is salmon without having to worry too much about it being fresh. My Vietnamese coriander has been growing on the window ledge and it has got to the point where it normally keels over and starts to wilt. I don't know why but this is probably the 6th plant I have and this one was given to me by a friend so I really want to keep it going. I figured maybe the previous ones died from under pruning so I needed to take the top leaves off. But of course I didn't want to just throw the leaves away, the whole point of having the plant is to eat it! Anyway long story short, one of my favourite dish with this daun kesom is masak asam. So plant pruned, tummy satisfied!

Daun kesom or vietnamese coriander

 

 

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Koay teow th'ng

There is no easy way to spell this dish and the only way is what makes sense to me phonetically. This is basically flat rice noodles in tasty broth. I can't remember what it was now but something put this noodle soup dish in my mind and won't let me enjoy other food until I have satisfied the craving for this. It's a shame that it was an impromptu dish this time as I would have loved to have some fish balls and fish cakes in it. Instead what I made was rather authentic i.e. the soup base was made from duck stock instead or the 'cheat' chicken stock. It turned out to be quite tasty and more importantly close to the taste in my mind so craving satisfied!

 

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Kedgeree simplified

This is my take on Kedgeree, which is a fish, spices, rice and eggs all in one dish from colonial India which is popular here. My take on this dish simply means to remove all the time consuming steps and use only the main ingredients! I used smoked mackerel instead of haddock as that's what I had. Instead of poaching the fish in bay infused milk, I pan fried the fish before flaking. Then in the style of the typical Asian fried rice, I fried the dish up then topped with sliced boiled egg...oh, and I added spinach to top up the vege/fibre content of the dish. It kinds of remains me of a Malay dish but can't think which!

 

Bacon wrapped asparagus rolls

To be honest, I don't know what this called, I so happened to catch it on TV, some chef was making it and I thought it a good idea and tried to replicate it. Turns out, the rolls can be quickly made up and then stick the whole lot in the oven and let it do the cooking, my favourite kind of cooking after a busy day at work. Served with potato and carrot mash..yumm! Next time though I might make a little more effort and make gravy.

 

Bee hoon soup

Bee Hoon soup is one of my go to comfort food when I'm feeling a little under the weather. My version is super simple with just 3 main ingredients, bee hoon, choi sum and pork mince... ala the ones you get at the hawker stall referred to in my family as "cook bowl by bowl" or rather we say it in Hokkien "jit uah jit uah chu" ..hahaha, still it's a little taste of home to perk me up when I'm feeling down.

 

Tuna meatball pasta

Pasta with a twist, this is tuna meatballs in a simple tomato sauce with pasta. First fresh tuna is minced in the blender with breadcrumbs, season then form into balls and baked in the oven. The recipe said to fry them in the pan but I opted to bake them as I normally do for meatballs. Then the sauce is made with chopped tomatoes but because its fish, there's some sweet pointed pepper mixed in then blended together. Cook your choice of pasta then mix in the tuna balls, sauce and sprinkle with grated Parmesan... Dinner is served, enjoy!

 

Sweet and sour sea bass

I was looking for alternatives to the usual meat dishes but I was not keen on vegetarian so opted to try this sweet and sour fish dish. Instead of using vinegar, the sourness came from limes which gave the dish a refreshing taste. And as it was garbage collection day tomorrow, it was ideal to have fish and have the cutoffs taken away the next day instead of festering in the warmer weather. Served with boiled rice, it made a lovely light dinner on a nice spring evening...Yumms!

 

Meatloaf with crunchy cheesy topping

Meatloaf is one of those easy dinner recipes where you just need to scrunch everything into the loaf tin and leave it to bake. This one has a special topping made from crispy pancetta mixed with breadcrumbs and grated cheese. The topping needless to say was yummy but the loaf itself was quite plain. I have another meatloaf recipe that tasted better so next time I'll use the topping from this one on it.

 

Inchi Cabin

It's been years since I had inchi cabin, the crunchy fragrant nonya style fried chicken. So for a simple lunch with a friend, I decided to fry up some chicken wings, and the recipe for inchi cabin caught my attention. It uses a simple marinade of curry powder and coconut milk, the secret is in the frying, it's fried twice over very high heat to achieve the crunch!

 

Cheat beef rendang

A fb friend recommended M&S Malaysian rendang paste, I didn't even realised that they stock such a thing and of course I have to test it out. It turned out to be not bad with a few adjustments that is, it definitely needed a bit more punch so extra chilli powder was added. And next time , I think I will add some kerisik for texture as the paste is ground very fine, other than that it is a good paste. Served with tomato rice and cucumber without the fuss of peeling shallots, chillies, garlic and pounding spices, nothing to complain about!

 

Sweet and sour pork ribs

Finally, I managed to find the time to make this dish. Chopping the ribs into bite size and frying them in batter does take some time but once that is done, the sauce just takes moments. While cooking, I had my kitchen door open to dispel the greasy smell you get when deep frying as a result the smell of the finished dish floated out of my kitchen to a group of my neighbours who happen to standing outside chatting and I heard comments about what a lovely smell, just reminds me of my neighbours when I was a child commenting on lovely smells from my grandmother's cooking.

 

Pork ribs in Vietnamese pho

Hmmm, this is sort of a hybrid dish of the Bak Kut Teh and the Vietnamese Beef Pho. I had some leftover pork ribs but no Bak Kut Teh seasoning, I had some Vietnamese pho paste but no beef, so it was a no brainier, mix the two together and fingers crossed that it will taste right. Next, ransacked the larder, found some mushrooms, ransacked the fridge and found some lamb lettuce, in they go into the pot. Turns put, it's not too bad really, I had it with koay teow for lunch and then rice for dinner, works best with rice and some chilli padi, of course!

 

Corn cakes.

I've never had corn cakes before and these are my first so I really can't say if they taste right. What I can say though is that this is a great way to get my toddler to eat vegetables that have not been mashed into an unrecognisable form. In this version, I had chicken, red pepper and corn and as I write this I also realised that I had forgotten to add in basil when I cooked it! Nevertheless, the corn cakes still tasted fab!

 

Individual chicken pie

Individual chicken pie...this is my cheat recipe for days when I'm too tired to cook from scratch. Simply get hold of ready made puff pastry, a tin of cream of mushroom, frozen peas, carrots and chicken breast. With a quick flash in the pan to stir fry the chicken, leave to cool. While waiting, roll out the puff pastry and then add a little of each ingredient followed by 15 minutes in the oven...serve with a salad and you will end up with a simple meal cooked in no time and very little washing up..yay!

The cut open pie...

 

Assam Pedas Fish

I have made Assam Pedas fish a few times now, though the taste is passable, the fish is not. What I mean is I'm not used to the type of fish found in this region and is fast discovering the most of them don't cook well in curries, most disintegrate into the curry so I end up with fish flavoured curry rather than curry with pieces of fish in it! However, my search for the perfect fish to curry here seems to be over as the plaice that I used seemed to hold together pretty well and tastes quite similar to the ray or pari which goes really well with the assam sauce. This time round, I also have my daun kesom or Vietnamese coriander which makes it a truly fragrant dish...Yumms!

 

Sup Ekor

Oh what joy when I saw ox tail for sale at Makro!! It was to be my very first purchase with my new membership at Makro, so excited I was that I didnt even realised that I dropped my new membership card at the car park! Back to the ox tail, I have been wanting to make this aromatic soup for a long long time, it comes to mind particularly during Winter. And now I know where I can get ox tail and have a tried & tested recipe, I will definitely be making this again.