Shao Xing/ Rice Wine Chicken.

i like how sometimes i psyche myself up bad to cook a particular dish, but see it take a completely different course half-way through the cooking process? yeah, i'm weird like that. anyway, i was going to prepare the usual honey-glazed chicken schtick, but when i got all the ingredients together, i decided to try something completely new instead.

Shao Xing (more often referred to as Chinese Rice/ Cooking Wine) Chicken is a dish i used to indulge in whenever i had the opportunity to visit Cantonese restaurants in singapore. i've never really gotten down to its true recipe--mostly because my family doesn't cook it, but from what i can tell, it's a lot about drowning your chicken in rice wine. drowning dead birds in alcohol, can't be that hard!

so this is NOT the authentic recipe, but it's nice enough to enjoy with my bowl of rice.

Ingredients.
2 pieces, chicken drumstick & thigh (i.e. 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs)
2 inch, ginger (finely sliced/ diced)
2-3 cloves, garlic (bruised and minced)
3 sprigs, spring onion (finely sliced)
1.5 cup, chinese rice/ cooking wine (dark variety)
1 tbsp, salt
1 tbsp, ground white pepper
1 tbsp, light soy sauce (which i find optional, but only because i'm weird)
1 tbsp, sesame oil

Serves.
2

Step 1: Marinating the Chicken.
combine all the ingredients into a bowl, and just massage the marinade into the chicken for about 5-10 minutes, before sealing the bowl up with some wrap, and leaving that to marinate for at least 3 hours (i like overnight because the marinade really gets into the meat).

Step 2: Double-Boil.
when ready, just transfer that bowl onto a steaming rack in a nice big pot. fill that with water until the water reaches about the centre of the bowl. put the lid on, switch your medium-flame on and let everything boil for at least half an hour; stop depending on how cooked you like your chicken. a full hour more or less guarantees well-cooked meat.



Removing & Adding Oil.
the fat from the chicken probably melted to give you a layer of oil on top of the gravy. if you're not a fat of that, which makes no difference to the taste for the dish, then slowly remove that layer of oil. after that, add the sesame oil in.



i know; the irony!

Final Serve.
simple dish, but pretty delightful results i thought. served well with some rice as a main, side or entree!

Simple Slow-Roast Kangeroo Fillet.

my good friend, affectionately known as Cazzie Cumface--i'm Fiona Fisting to her, made the most splendid roast lambshank last friday. apparently, she was inspired by the slow-roast rosemary chicken i cooked for her one night, so she took part of the recipe for a ride.

what i was most enamoured with were the vegetable sides she had added to the roast. in her attempt, she simply cut some sweet potatoes, pumpkin and brown onions, and left them on the side of the roast. the vegetables not only added flavour to the gravy, but also soaked up the juices pretty well.

for last night's dinner, i decided to give this simple slow-roast recipe a test.

Ingredient.
the food.
3-4 pieces, kangeroo fillet (substitutable with any red meat)
6, baby carrots (washed and chopped into halves)
2, spanish/ red onions (you SHOULD use brown ones!!!)
2, green apples (granny smiths)
4, roma tomatoes

the marinade
2-3 sprigs, rosemary (just the leaves)
1 lime (juiced)
1 lemon (juiced)
2 tbsp, sherry
1 tsp, salt
1 tsp, ground black pepper

missing.
potatoes (recommend desirees; skinned if you don't like it)

Serving.
2

Step 1: Marinating.
throw all the marinade ingredients together. i like to have my rosemary thrown into the grinder so that they end up nice and fine. add the meat to the marinade, and let set for at least 3 hours (i prefer overnight marinate).

Step 2: Roasting.
in a nice big roasting pan, lay your meat in. around or beside it, lay the rest of the food (i.e. carrots, apples, onions, etc). cover it with a lid or with some foil, and set your fan-oven to 160-170degreeC. when the oven's ready, put the pan in.

Step 3: Deciding When to Remove.
now, here's the tricky part. in general, i've devised my own inch theory on slow-roasting. for every inch of meat, we leave it to roast for 1.5 hours. so the thinner it is, the less time you want it in the oven otherwise it will get a bit overcooked.

the vegetables, however, have to remain in there for at least 3 hours.

Final Serve.
when the vegetables are just about done (5 mins before the 3-hour mark), just pop the meat back into the oven to warm it. then you can have everything ready for serving.

be sure to serve the food with a generous supply of gravy. remember also that the gravy may be used for further roasting of other vegetables. just pop more vegetables in the gravy, and let them roast for the same duration.



i really recommend adding some carbo staple like potato for the roast. because i forgot, i'm going to serve mine with some bread.



ETA:
spanish onions turned out really weird; please use brown onions!

Stir-Fried Beef Salad.

it's strange how i find myself cooking at the best of times and at the worst of times. when i'm happy i cook to please; when i'm depressed, however, i cook to relieve my mind of the looming unhappiness. from my experience, i can vouch that the old adage applies: love is an important ingredient for good food. clearly, i'm not meant to be a full-time chef.

today's recipe, sadly, stems from the sad side of life :(

anyway, enough of my bs. this recipe is a rehash of my housemate, linzi's. much credit goes to her then.

Ingredients.
500g of sliced beef (they sell in Asian Grocers for steamboats)
4-5 potatoes, skinned & diced (Desiree)
6-7 baby carrots, skinned & diced
2-3 onions, skinned and diced/ sliced (brown)
3-4 cloves, garlic (bruised and minced)
5tsp chinese rice wine
3tsp cooking oil (olive in my case)
3tsp honey
2tsp crushed basil leaves
2tsp chilli flakes
2tsp five spice powder



Serves.
3-4

Step 1: FRY! FRY!! FRY!!!.
before you start, start your oven to about 220degreee Cel.

heat your pot/ wok over a medium flame. when it's hot enough, fry the garlic and onion till brown. add the beef strips in, and before it cooks fully, add the condiments (i.e. wine, honey, basil leaves, chill flakes and five spice powder). stir-fry a little more, then add the vegetables.

fry everything till the vegetables are more or less cooked, remove from fire and transfer to an oven-safe ware.



the oven should be ready by now. cover the food with some foil and set the salad into the oven for about twenty to twenty-five minutes.



remove from oven, leave the foil on for at least ten minutes to trap some steam, before serving.

Final Serve.
good with some mash, rice or any other form of carbo. or eaten alone really.

Dark Sauce Pork.

since we're all pressed for time thesedays, i'll share another fuss-free recipe handed down to me by my granny. the dish is quite a popular (or at least common) one that you can find at most ala carte cooked-food stalls back in singapore. as per normal, my granny does it slightly differently from the rest.

due to the fact that i lack some necessary ingredients for the full-blown recipe, i'll be delineating the differences between what my gran does and what i've done. this way, anyone attempting the full recipe might get a notional understanding of going about cooking it.

Ingredients.
500g, San Chen Rou (三辰肉)--literally, three-layer meat/ pork* (i'm using spare ribs instead because it was all i had in the freezer)
10-12 pieces, Chinese Dried Mushrooms (shitake's good)
4-5 cloves, garlic
2 inches, ginger
2 tbsp, Five Spice Powder
5 tbsp, Chinese Rice Wine
1.5 tbsp, ground white pepper
2 tbsp, light soy sauce
.5 cup, dark soy sauce
2 tbsp, sugar



Missing In My Attempt:
5-6, egg
200g, dried tofu

Serves.
4

Step 1: Preparing the meat and everything else.
chop the meat up into bite-size portions, and braise the pork with abt 1.5l of boiling water, and drain the water away. my grandma says it rids the pork of its overly pungent taste.

soak the mushrooms in boiling water until they're all soft. put the water aside to be used for the cooking later. slice the mushrooms.

bruise and dice the ginger and garlic.

full version:
slice the dried tofu into bite sizes.

hard boil the eggs, shell them and set aside for cooking later.

Step 2: The Cooking.
oil your pot or wok and set it on top of a medium flame. when hot enough, throw the garlic and ginger in and stir fry for a minute, making sure that you don't brown it too much.

throw the pork and mushrooms in. add the water in which the mushrooms were soaked as well. stir fry for a bit, before you throw everything else in: (in no particular order) light soy sauce, five spice powder, ground pepper, rice wine, dark soy sauce, and sugar.

bring the whole pot over to your smallest flame, put a lid on it. leave to simmer for about half an hour.



full version:
before you put the lid on, throw the eggs and tofu in. let them soak up the sauce and simmer with the rest of the ingredients.

Final Serve.
like i always say: best served with rice! (yes, i'm a proud yellow, rice-loving "smells a bit like soy sauce" chink.)



Additional Notes:
San Chen Rou. i'm quite sure this refers to streaky slab, seeing as how they both refer to the cut from the pig's belly. it's important to use this cut of the pork because this dish actually depends on the oil you'll get from the layers of fats for additional taste. and yes, it gets pretty oily after a while, so consume with discretion.

Recooking. my grandmother reboils the dish whenever we have a meal. the more you recook it, the nicer it gets. basically, it takes time for all the ingredients to infuse one another. so if you can, cook a whole pot of it and experience the wonders of this dish getting tastier by the day. you may also add new hard-boiled eggs whenever you run out.

Wounds & Dark Sauce. the chinese believe that people with wounds that are still healing should avoid eating dark-colored food, especially dark sauce. it causes the wound to heal with a dark tone; i've got brown patches on my legs from when i was young as evidence. seeing as how i just got inked at the nape, i really shouldn't be promoting this recipe right now. oops :(

Fuss-Free Steamed Salmon.

i was tempted to call this the idiot's guide to steaming fish, but it occurred to me that it wasn't like i didn't learn it from observing my grandmother in the first place. nobody's that gifted.

the recipe is good for most fish, but i chose salmon over the others simply because it was on sale and i really do love the taste of these upstream-swimming fuckers.

Ingredients.
2, salmon fillet
1 inch, ginger
2, red chilli
1, tomato
4 tbsp, chinese (rice) cooking wine
1 tsp, salt
1 stalk, spring onion/ scallion (not included this round; i ran out)

Serves.
2

Step 1: Salt, Chop, and Splash.
my salmon fillets came nicely packed for cooking, so there's no real preparatory action needed before we start.

take a few stabs in the fillet with your knife, and salt the fillets.

chop the ginger, chilli and spring onion up, setting them all atop the fillets when you're done. slice the tomato into about 12 pieces, and line them along the side (skin up).

splash the cooking wine over, and set everything aside in the fridge for 10-15 minutes.



Step 2: Steaming.
while the fish is set aside, we can prepare the steamer. i'm using a wok and steaming rack. i boiled water with an electric kettle to save time, and then pour that into the wok over the fire.

when the water reboils in the wok, place the bowl on to the rack, and set the cover on. let it steam cook for 10 minutes.



take the lid off and see if the fish is cooked. it should flake off quite easily when it's ready.

Final Serve.
that's all for this fuss-free recipe. it can be taken as a main, or as a side with some steamed rice.

Stone Soup sans Stone (aka Beef Stew).

Background.
one of the most popular children's stories is perhaps that of the stone soup. lest you've never heard of it (and just where have you been?), a hobo chances upon a village and convinces its people that he has magic stone capable of making the best soup ever. the only problem is that his magic stone required the help of some garnishing, which he didn't have.

impressed and eager to savour the wonders of that magic stone, each village household contributed something from their kitchen. from celery, to potatoes, to meat, every item was added to the pot as an exchange for a portion of that magically tasty soup. with that many ingredients added to the pot (with the stone in it), the soup naturally turned out amazingly delicious.

Wikipedia would have you believe that the moral of the story lies in the virtues of co-operation, but i like to see this as simply good marketing. at most, it's an ingenuity for cooking leftover ingredients. this story has inspired so many people that it has come to a point where some people are actually taking the recipe as illustrated in the story quite seriously...

anyway, a fortnight ago when i was desperately trying to rid my then soon-to-be-rotting vegetables and expired scotch fillets, i thought i'd give this Stone Soup--sans stone and storyline recipe--idea a try, and it actually was quite lovely.

i realise that this recipe might sound a lot like a beef stew.

ack.

beef stew. d's stone soup. po-tah-to. po-teh-to.

Ingredients.
2 pieces, beef steak (i'm using t-bones for their marrows)
2, carrot
3-4, potato
2, mustroom (i'm using cups)
2, tomato
2 sticks, celery
1, onion
3-4 cloves, garlic
2-3, red chilli (depending on how spicy you like the soup)
1, lemon
2 stalks, spring onion/ scallion
1 bunch, parsley (abt 5 stems worth)
1 tbsp, black pepper
4 tbsp, butter (optional; see Step 2)
1 cup, flour (optional; see Step 2)
2 tbsp, red wine (optional; see step 3)
4 tbsp, honey (optional; see step 3)


(missing in picture: onion, garlic, spring onion)

Serves.
4-5

Step 1: Chopping, Slicing and Dicing!
chop, slice, dice the steaks and vegetables, then have all of them thrown into a pot. add enough water to drown all the ingredients and start your fire. i recommend a small to medium flame, on which you allow the soup to cook very, very slowly.



when the soup comes to a boil, add the pepper and lemon juice in and allow everything to simmer till it reduces to about 4/5 to 3/4 of the original amount. stir intermittently.

after at least half an hour, you can taste the soup and see if you're happy with the results so far. if you are, *ta-da*, you're done and can skip the next two steps.

Step 2: Thickening the Soup.
if you'd prefer a slightly thicker soup (stew-like), you'd have to thicken the mix.

first, melt the butter in a bowl, and stir in the flour slowly until you've got all the flour mixed with the butter. coating the flour with butter prevents the flour from clumping up when you add it into the soup.

slowly stir the buttered flour into the simmering soup, and let everything boil for another 5 to 10 minutes, or until the soup thickens.

(taste it, and if you're happy so far, skip the next step.)

Step 3: Adding Extra Unimportant Clear-Before-They-Expire Things.
i'm simply adding what's left of my red wine and honey into the soup, then let simmer for another five minutes.


(see additional notes below on use of slow crockery pot cooker.)

Final Serve.
the versatile stone soup can be enjoyed as a main (accompanied by bread or steamed rice), or as an appetiser or a side.

i like mine with rice!



everyone should try to make hir version of the stone soup out of the odds and ends lying in your kitchen. as my friend, fiq, likes to say: just throw them all in and hope for the best!

;)



Additional Notes.
1. Use of Crock Pot. i'm leaving everything in a slow crockery cooker overnight. additionally, slow cooking it allows the meat to get really very tender. you needn't go to such a drastic measure, because direct heat works just fine. just be sure to be slightly patient to allow the soup to boil in due time.

2. Recooking. the remainder can be reboiled whenever you decide to have some. the more you boil, the thicker and tastier it gets really.

3. Not Stew-like. i used .5 cup of flour instead of the recommend 1 cup as described above. this is just a personal preference of not wanting the soup to end up stew-like.

Rosemary Chicken with Vegetable Side.

obviously, i haven't been updating. the reason is that doing nothing can be an absolutely major preoccupation when you're back home in singapore for a holiday. there're so many ways to loaf, how does one even begin?

i know, i know, i know, woe is me.

what is most refreshing, however, is the fact that i'm again back to being looked after by my dear family (aka mom and grandma). it's been a while since someone else made sure that meals are decided and prepared without my active input--if i had any input it would be a specification on what i want to eat. as much as i aspire to be the bitch of the kitchen who decides what is and isn't cooking, i have to say i could very well get used to the life of being served.

on a cooking note, there're a couple of family recipes that i intend to learn while i'm back. among the mean dishes that my grandma is capable of producing, i'm particularly interested in mastering her Dark Sauce Pork, Lotus Root & Pork Rib Soup, and Hainanese Fried Vegetables. highly doubt i'd have the chance to figure out seasonal dishes like Longan Ginkgo Nut Soup, and rice dumplings this time around, but we'd see how things go.

until i learn those precious family recipes, i'd instead be clearing the backlog of recipes attempted back at ryce's place a month ago, beginning with a recipe introduced to me by my very good sydney-sider friend, fiq.

(because fiq remains skeptical towards both my cooking and fledgling relationship with the oven, i'd disclaim that the recipe has been reworked to my liking, and should therefore not reflect on him in any way--especially not on his mastery over his own kitchen and food.)



Ingredients. (See below for update.)
(for the chicken)
1 whole chicken (small)
2 onions (brown for us)
5-6 clove, garlic
5 inch, ginger
.25 cup, rosemary
2 lemons
3 tbsp, honey
2 tbsp, olive oil
2 tsp, salt
.5 cup, dry white wine (i'm using a semillon chardonnay instead)



(for the vegetables)
5-6 baby carrots
.5 bunch, cauliflower
2 lemon leftover, from the chicken prep.
4-5 potatoes (missing in this round because we didn't have them)
(ignore the leek-like vegetable in my photo)



Serves.
3-4

Step 1: Preparing the chicken!
dice and even mince as fine as you can the onions, garlic, ginger and rosemary. mix them together and juice the lemons in. this is going to be the stuffing for your chicken.

rub the salt, honey and olive oil onto the chicken, remembering that you need to get some of it under the skin. when done, stuff the chicken with the mixture. i like to stuff some of it under the skin as well.

leave the stuffed-up chicken in a pot, and let it marinate in wine for at least 2 hours.



Step 2: Preparing the Vegetables.
other than the lemons, chop everything else up, and line the bottom of your baking tray with the vegetables. throw the lemon remains in as well. as the chicken cooks, the juices from the chicken will fall in with the vegetables to give you an interesting gravel.

Step 3: Roasting!
preheat your oven to 150 degrees C. place the chicken on top of the vegetables, and pour the rest of the marinade into the tray. set the tray in when ready.

every .5 hour, you'd need to baste the chicken with the marinade/ gravy in the tray. make sure to flip the chicken as well.

the chicken should cook for at least 1.5 hours, until it turns a nice golden brown or when the juices run clear.

remove from oven when done.



Step 4: Remove Stuffing.
pretty self-explanatory, use a spoon to remove the stuffing from your chicken, and have it mixed into your vegetables.



Final Serve.
check your vegetables for taste, and throw some pepper in for taste.



you can either serve the chicken whole like me, or chop it up into more decent looking proportions :)



Additional Notes.
fiq recommends that the ingredients for the stuffing from Step 1 be blended into a liquid, or at least into a thick paste. his version of this chicken is left in this marinate overnight. also, he recommends some soy sauce (abt 2 tbsp), although he doesn't use any wine in his recipe.

(look out for my attempt at a Cottage Pie, and a Chocolate Fudge Cake topped with Chocolate Mousse over the next few days...)

ETA: 4 1422 April 2007, Wednesday
after several attempts, i've come to the conclusion that:
(A) there's no need for honey,
(B) Semillon Sauvignon Blanc (mine's always a Wolf Blass) is a good dry white,
(C) there needs to be enough wine to reasonably submerge the chicken--no worries, you won't inebriate, at least 3cups therefore.
(D) you should replace brown with red/ spanish onions,
(E) it's good to let your chicken marinate for 24 hours, and
(F) there's no need for soy sauce.

Vegetable Stir-Fry with Sweetsavoury Sauce

hoookay.

here's an uber simple, basic stir fry dish that you can make with almost any combination of vegetables.

-------------------------------------------------

Vegetable Stir-Fry with Sweetsavoury Sauce

This is kind of my own invention (the sauce).

I've had the older people (the parents) advise me in the past, to not put sugar with vegetables, but i plain disagreed and did it anyway.

They love the sauce.

And I've been making it this way ever since. :)

note: green leafy vegetables will shrink to half the portion after its been cooked. so keep that in mind when trying to figure out how much vege to cook.


Ingredients.
Any Vegetable for 4, cut up to bite size
(here I've used British spring green, tomatoes and radish)
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 onion, medium sized, diced
1 tbsp cooking oil

Optional ingredient:
8 crab sticks, cut into bite size

For the sauce:
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp white sugar
1 tbsp corn starch (for thickening)
1/2 rice bowl of hot water
salt & pepper to taste

Serves.
4-5


Step 1: Cut everything up
It should look somewhat like this.


Step 2: Boil the radish
This is useful information.
Radish is generally hard and tasteless when its not very cooked.
When you boil it, it goes soft and juicy and sweet.
You'll know its done when it turns semi-transluscent.


Step 3: Make the sauce
Get a bowl and put in all the ingredients for the sauce and mix it up.
The reason why we use hot water, is to dissolve everything.
It will look cloudy and brown now, but when you cook it, corn starch goes clear.
Leave this aside.


Step 3: Stir-Fry!
Heat up the oil in the Wok.
When the oil is hot, throw in the onion and garlic and fry till its fragrant.
(essential in most chinese cooking.)

Now, by order of cooking time (or vegetable hardness), throw the remaining into the wok.

Pour in the sauce all around the vege and continue frying till the vegetables cook.
Use the wok's cover to trap the steam to speed cooking up and to keep the juices in.


Final Serve.
We were lucky. Someone bought us some duck to go with our vege!
It was sweet and savoury and oh so good.
Everything goes really well with steamed white rice.




I'm getting hungry just typing this.
Someone needs to teach me how to make roast duck.

:)

Grilled Fish with Parsley Ham Sauce, Steamed Vegetables & Steak Strips.

ryce and i did a bit of grocery shopping last saturday for this week's meals. during our headless-chicken scouring of the aisles, ryce insisted that we grab some fish because she's not had those in a while, so we did. Barramundis were the specials on sale at the deli, so we got a good big slab of that.

today, ryce decided to ask her best friend, Jac, and the latter's boyfriend over for some "gourmet food" (my claim). i figured i'd cook the slab of fish before it rots, and do it in a fashion similar to what i did a couple of months ago. the idea here is to keep the fish as simple as possible, but topped with a sauce that contains some other kind of meat. in my earlier attempt, it was a parsley crab sauce.

Ingredients.
(the fish and its marinade)
Fish, enough for 4 people
2 inch, ginger
4-5 clove, garlic
.5, onion (brown in this case)
1, lemon
1 cup, white wine (dry)



(for accompanying sauce)
1 cup, milk
2 tbsp, cream cheese
2 tbsp, butter
3-4 stalk, parsley
2-3 slice, smoked ham (i normally use other seafood)



(for vegetable side)
.5 whole, cauliflower
4 baby carrots

NOTE:

1) we'd be using the fish marinade as dressing for the vegetables.

2) i'm not explaining the process for the beef strips. basically, i'm using one piece of scotch fillet which will be sealed in a pan, then left in the oven at abt 150 degrees for another 10 minutes. it'd be coated with a pesto quite alike what i did for the coriander pan-fried lambchop, only this time i'm using parsley instead of coriander/ cilantro.



Serves.
4

Step 1: Marinating & cooking the fish.
Mince the garlic, ginger and onion up before tossing them together in a big bowl. Squeeze the juice out of your lemons into the bowl, then grate the skin for some zest. Pour the wine in, then place your fish steaks into the mixture. leave it to marinate for at least half an hour.



just before you cook the fish, preheat your oven at 175 degrees. then place your fish steaks (skin at the bottom first) into the oven to grill for about 15 minutes. mid-way, flip it over to cook on the side of the skin.

(this would be a good time to place your beef steak into the oven for about 5 minutes after you've sealed it in the pan.)

Step 2: Preparing the vegetables.
while waiting for your fish to marinate/ cook, dice your cauliflower and carrots up. Toss them together and prepare to steam them for a good 10-15 minutes. remove from heat when done.

Step 3: Preparing the sauce & marinade sauce.
while the fish is cooking, mince the parsley and dice the ham up into finer pieces. over a medium-small flame, pour the milk into a small pot. add the cheese, butter and ham into the milk. when it simmers to a slow boil, add the parsley in and let it simmer for another 5-6 minutes. keep stirring to prevent any overburn.



concurrently, over a medium flame, pour the remaining fish marinade into a pot. let the mixture reduce by about half.



remember to take your beef steak out from the oven when it's ready. slice it into thin slices as a side.



Final Serve.
it was only after i had finished cooking everything that i remembered that my earlier attempt at this was done with nothing but wine and rosemary for the fish's marinade. the garlic and ginger turned out to be slightly over-powering this time round, and i'd gladly reduce the ginger to about an inch, and garlic to 1 or 2 cloves.

i did however really enjoy the reduced marinade as a dressing for the steamed vegetables. likewise, the parsley ham sauce tasted well, only i still think fish should be matched only with another seafood-based sauce. i would have gone with either crab or prawn.