Braised chicken with egg noodles/wonton noodles recipe

Braised chicken is quite easy to make. It can be served with rice or noodles. I particularly like to use it on egg noodles or wonton noodles. The following recipe is actually from my mum. As usual, when I first received the recipe, it was provided without the proportion of each ingredient. Seems like most seniors would cook by following their instincts and they don't usually measure ;)

Don't worry, I have all the ingredients and their measurements listed based on my taste buds. However, I would suggest altering the portions of the seasoning/marinade based on your liking.

Recipe:

(3-4 servings)

For braised chicken:

6 chicken drumsticks

6 slices ginger

1 chopped onion

2 chopped carrots

4 hard boiled eggs

1 tablespoon corn flour mix well in 2-3 tablespoons of water (reduce the amount of corn flour if you prefer the gravy to be more liquid or vice versa)

2 tablespoons oil

450ml water

Salt

Marinade:

3 tablespoons light soya sauce

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon dark caramel sauce

1 1/4 teaspoons 5 spice powder

1 teaspoon sugar

A few dashes of pepper

1. Marinate the chicken drumsticks with the marinade and store in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

2. Heat oil in a deep frying pan/wok/pot with a lid for later use. Add in onion and ginger. Stir fry for a while until the onion is soft.

3. Add in chicken together with the marinade. Add in carrots. Continue to stir fry until the skin of the chicken is lightly brown. 

5. Add in water and mix well. Bring it to boil.

6. Add corn flour mix to thicken the sauce.

7. Cover with a lid and simmer for about an hour or until the chicken is tender. Add in the hard boiled eggs 10mins before it's done.

8. Add salt to taste. You can serve the dish with rice or with egg noodles by following the recipe below.

For egg noodles:

4 egg noodles

A bunch of Choy Sum(Asian green veggie) - wash and cut

Fried shallots

Chopped spring onions and corianders

A pot of boiling water with a tablespoon of salt

1. Blanch the Choy Sum in the boiling water. Remove it from the water and leave it aside.

2. Loosen the egg noodles or wonton noodles before adding it into the boiling water for about 30secs. Remove the noodles from the boiling water by using a big strainer and let the noodles run under the cold tap water for a few secs or you could use a big bowl of cold water. After that, place the noodles back to the boiling water for a few secs to warm before transferring the noodles to a plate.

Note: I use to cook each noodles individually or you can cook all at one go if you like.

3. Add some blanched Choy Sum follow by the braised chicken and egg together with its gravy to each plate of noodles.

4. Garnish with fried shallots, chopped spring onions and corianders before serving.

Easy homemade chicken satay recipe

Satay is a popular delicacy in South East Asia. In Malaysia, satay stalls can easily be found in many hawker centers, on the street as well as at night markets a.k.a pasar malam in Malay. Satay is a dish where well marinated meat skewers are grilled and served with peanut sauce. It's usually accompanied by diced cucumbers, onions and ketupat (rice cake). In Melbourne, a number of Malaysian restaurants such as Paparich, The Mamak and Little Ipoh offer scrumptious satays in their menu. There's also a famous Indonesian satay restaurant called Kedai Satay in the city and South Yarra.

Making your own satay from scratch require quite substantial effort. The list of spices/ingredients for the marinade and the peanut sauce actually put me off. However, I did come out with homemade chicken satay in the end. And it was easy because I used a ready made satay making kit!

Well, I stumbled upon this box of satay kit when I was browsing the Malaysian/Singaporean food aisle at Hometown Asian Supermarket on Elizabeth Street. This ready made satay marinade and peanut sauce are actually from Singapore, produced by Prima Taste. It has no MSG too. Thus, I thought of giving it a try.

Since I was going to make satay, I bought a packet of Nona brand ketupat rice too. There are multiple mini rice packets that could be boiled into ketupat (rice cakes).

Making satay suddenly becomes so simple thanks to the ready made marinade and satay sauce. One just need to follow the instructions on the packet. I did add a pinch of salt to the chicken though. Besides that, I used the oven's grill function to grill the satay instead of using an electrical grill or BBQ set as it is easier to clean.

What's the verdict you may ask. It was amazingly good! I reckon the satay made from using Prima Taste's marinade and peanut sauce is comparable to Little Ipoh's. Voila! I could make satays too!

Recipe:

(2 servings)

1 box of Prima Taste satay kit - contains marinade, satay sauce mix and peanut paste.

400g chicken thighs

A pinch of salt

Vegetable oil for brushing the satay

4 Nona mini rice packets

1 cucumber

150ml water for making the sauce as per instruction

Bamboo sticks (the number of sticks required is dependent on how big each satay you make. The box says use 350g of meat for 24 sticks. I only managed to make 10 sticks using 400g of chicken!)

1. Cut chicken into small cubes. Marinate the chicken with the marinade from the box and a pinch of salt. Keep in the fridge overnight.

2. Cook the mini rice packets as per instructions on the packet and cut into cubes. It takes 60-90 mins. So make sure you start this earlier as it needs to be cooled before you could cut them into cubes.

3. Cut cucumber into cubes and keep aside.

4. Thread the chicken meat using the bamboo sticks. Brush oil on each side of the chicken sticks.

5. Grill in pre-heated oven at 220-240c for 5mins. Flip each satay stick and grill for another 3-4 mins at 220-240c. Adjust the temperature from time to time so that the satay is not too burnt.

6. While grilling the satay in the oven, start making the peanut sauce by following the instructions on the box.

7. Serve satay with peanut sauce, ketupat (rice cakes) and cucumbers.

Kitchen scale

Not sure how many people are still using an analog kitchen scale in a digital world today. I was one of them (if I'm not the last) until very recently when I finally bought a digital kitchen scale. Yes, I'm not kidding!

Before I introduce you to my new digital kitchen scale, I should give credit to my old analog kitchen scale. My analog kitchen scale was actually a free gift from My Chemist. It had served me well for many years that I reckon it should get a long service medal. Its achievements during these years are countless. It certainly played an important role in filling our tummies with all the yummy cakes and cookies that I baked. So I think it's a good time for a retirement. Wait, I'm not giving it away just in case the digital one fails! Who knows?

Well, I always wanted to get a digital kitchen scale but I just don't really have the time to search for one. ALDI recently had a baking ware sale and the digital kitchen scale was only $9.99! I thought it was cheap and thus, I just bought one without any hesitation.

There were a number of designs to choose from and I decided on a glass surface as it looks classy and I reckon it is easier to clean. The digital kitchen scale comes with 3 measuring functions namely measuring weight in g or lb.oz, measuring water in ml or fl.oz as well as measuring milk in ml or fl.oz. 

Besides that, there's a tare function where one could weigh ingredients using a container without including the weight of the container. How convenient!

The digital kitchen scale certainly makes my life easier now. Well, I suppose there's no more excuses for inaccurate weights of ingredients if the recipes don't work now :p

Hokkaido cupcakes with strawberry cream filling recipe

I love Hokkaido cupcakes! Its soft and melt-in-the-mouth sponge cake together with the sinful yet yummy whipped cream is simply irresistible.

During my sponge cake exploration, I baked Hokkaido sponge cupcakes multiple times in search for the best recipe. Below is the recipe I am happy with after tweaking the recipe from KitchenTigress. This recipe produces a light, soft and fluffy sponge cake. I have been baking other flavours of sponge cupcakes by tweaking this recipe as well and it works magically all the time.

Other than the sponge cake, the whipped cream is as important because it helps to turn a cupcake into a superstar. I reckon the sweetness of the whipped cream is very much dependent on individual preferences. Joy of baking has a good video tutorial on how to make a simple whipped cream as well as fruits and chocolate flavoured whipped cream.

Well, I baked my favourite Hokkaido cupcakes again. This time, I baked them using paper cups (which help to hold the shape) instead of cupcake cases. Besides that, I piped the cupcakes with strawberry cream filling. Look! These Hokkaido cupcakes look so adorable.

Recipe:

(12 cupcakes with big cupcake cases, 16 cupcakes with paper cups)

The sponge cake:

60g egg yolks

25g castor sugar

50g corn oil

80g milk

85g cake flour

180g egg whites

55g castor sugar

1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar in a mixing bowl until pale and thick.

2. Add corn oil and whisk to combine.

3. Add milk and stir to combine.

4. Sift in cake flour and mix well. Leave the batter aside.

5. Beat the egg white in a mixing bowl.

6. Gradually add in the sugar when the egg white starts to thicken. Beat until stiff peak stage.

7. Add the egg white mixture onto the egg yolks mixture in 3 batches. Mix until they are almost combined on each addition. Lastly, scrape down and fold until every thing is evenly combined. Bang the batter on the table for a few times to release the big air bubbles.

8. Pour the batter into the cupcake cases, about 3/4 full each. Otherwise, you end up having tall cupcakes like mine. LOL.

9. Bake in the preheated oven at 165c for about 25mins on the lower rack.

10. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let them cool on the wired rack.

Strawberry whipped cream:

300ml whipping cream

1 1/2 tablespoons castor sugar

A few drops vanilla extract

2/3 cup strawberry purée

1. Pour whipping cream onto a chilled mixing bowl over a bowl of ice water. Add in sugar and vanilla extract. Beat until the cream is at soft peak stage.

2. Add in strawberry purée and beat until stiff.

To assemble the cake:

4 strawberries (for 16 cupcakes)

Icing sugar (for dusting)

1. Cut strawberries into quarters.

2. Pipe the strawberry whipped cream into each cupcakes.

3. Add a quarter of strawberry on top of each cupcakes.

4. Dust the cupcakes with icing sugar.

5. Enjoy the cupcakes with joy!

Butter garlic prawns recipe

Prawns are one of my favourite seafood. They are not only delicious but also nutritious as prawns are high in protein and low in fat. Prawns are a good source of omega-3 fatty acids too. However, you might want to reduce the intake for prawns if you're high in cholesterol.

It doesn't require too much of seasoning to cook prawns as they are naturally tasty. Besides that, almost any cooking methods work well on prawns but make sure you don't overcook them as overcooked prawns are tough.

Well, butter garlic prawns are quick and easy to cook. This yummy dish goes well with bread, pasta and even rice.

Recipe:

(2-3 servings)

20 large prawn cutlets with tails on

60g butter

1 whole garlic (about 10 cloves) - finely chopped

A bunch of coriander - finely chopped
A lemon wedge

Salt

Pepper

1. Melt butter in a frying pan. Add in garlic when it's hot and stir fry until lightly brown.

2. Add in prawns. Quickly stir fry until the prawns turn pink in color.

3. Season with salt and ground pepper to taste.

4. Mix in coriander, squeeze the lemon on the prawns and serve.

Easy oven-steamed emperor herbs chicken recipe

Emperor herbs chicken is a Chinese dish where herbs stuffed and marinated chicken is wrapped by layers of parchment paper and aluminium foil before steaming for hours. This cooking method helps to produce juicy and tender chicken with tasty herbs broth. Apparently, this dish was named after an emperor's favourite dish and thus, emperor herbs chicken. Thankfully we don't need to be an emperor to enjoy this dish today!

It's not difficult to create this dish from scratch, you just need to gather all the required herbs such as dong quai (chinese angelica), liquorice, codonopsis, ginseng root, red dates and goji berries. However, I chose to use the ready made packet which consists of all the main herbs except red dates and goji berries. The ready made emperor herbs chicken packet usually comes with a packet of herbs/spices as well as a plastic wrap that can be steamed and a sheet of aluminium foil.

There are a number of brands producing emperor herbs chicken packets. These packets can be easily found at Asian supermarkets which carry Malaysian or Singapore products such as Hometown Asian Supermarket on Elizabeth Street as well as Laguna at QV. So far, I have tried the A1 brand (from Malaysia) and House of Yi (from Singapore). I prefer the later as House of Yi's herbs are not 100% grounded into powder. You can still see the herbs in small bits. It also has a stronger herbs taste as compared to the A1 brand.

By following the cooking instruction on the packet, the chicken is to be steamed for 2 to 2.5 hours. That's a tad long for me and thus, I decided to cook it using the oven-steam method like how I cooked the oven steamed chicken previously. With oven, the cooking time is significantly reduced to 1.5 hours. It's important to replace the plastic wrap with parchment paper if you're using an oven! Otherwise, the plastic wrap might melt, causing a health hazard.

Recipe:

(4-6 servings)

1 whole chicken

1 emperor herbs chicken packet

A handful of red dates without seeds

A handful of goji berries

1/2 cup of water (if you would like to have more broth)

1. Lay aluminium foil follow by sufficient parchment paper on kitchen top.

Warning: do not use the plastic wrap as supplied if you're using an oven.

2. Wash the chicken and rub the herbs all over the chicken.

3. Wash and rinse red dates and goji berries before stuffing them into the chicken. You could leave a few on the chicken.

4. If you're looking for more broth, pour 1/2 cup water into the stomach of the chicken where the red dates and goji berries are stuffed.

5. Wrap the chicken tightly with parchment paper, follow by aluminium foil.

6. Bake for 1.5 hours at 190c. Rest the chicken in the oven for about 10 mins once it's done.

7. Cut the chicken and serve.

Easy miso salmon recipe

Salmon is another superfood that one cannot miss. It's rich in essential vitamins and minerals as well as omega-3 fatty acids. I love salmon's unique taste. It's super easy to cook too. Frankly, I can't think of what doesn't go well with salmon.

In Australia, fresh salmon can easily be found from the local markets or supermarkets. There are generally 3 types of salmon sold in the Queen Victoria market. They are the New Zealand salmon, Australian Salmon and Tasmania Atlantic salmon. I found that the Tasmanian Atlantic salmon has the best texture among the three. NZ salmon is a bit too soft and easily breaks apart when cooked while Australian salmon is a bit hard.

Well, this miso salmon recipe is of Japanese style. You can actually bake, grill or pan fried the salmon using the same recipe. All would end up as a perfect salmon dish. I chose to grill using the grill function in my oven. To be honest, there wasn't much difference from baking it except that there was a bit more browning effect when using the grill mode.

Recipe:

(4 servings)

4 slices salmon

Oil for brushing on the salmon.

2 tablespoons water

Marinade:

3 tablespoons miso paste
2 1/2 tablespoons mirin
1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger (I used Masterfood freshly chopped ginger)
4 teaspoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons light soya sauce

1. Add the marinade into a bowl and mix well.

2. Marinate the salmon slices with the marinade. Store in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

3. Scrape off the marinade from the salmon slices. Add water to the marinade and mix well. Keep for later use.

4. Brush each salmon slices with oil.

5. Line salmon (skin side down) on the baking tray.

6. Grill in the oven using grill mode at 200c for about 8mins.

7. Flip the salmon over to brown the skin. Grill for another 5mins.

8. Pour the marinade over the salmon and grill for another 2-3mins.

9. Remove from the oven and serve.

Suggestion: serve with rice and salad veggies for a complete meal.

Little Chef @ Wills Street, Melbourne review

It has been a while since I last went to Wills Street and so I was surprised to see a new Chinese restaurant named Little Chef. Looks like the former Japanese cafe - Hashi has closed down and Little Chef has taken over the place.

Little Chef is a small restaurant offering Chinese food like dumplings as well as Chinese dishes and noodles. It has a better seating arrangement and it actually looks quite cozy and more pleasant than before. I was just hoping that they serve decent food so I could add them to my list of take away restaurants during busy workdays.

Pan fried pork dumplings

Pork dumplings in chilli oil soup

On my first visit, I took away pan fried pork dumplings, pork dumplings in chilli oil soup as well as mapo tofu with rice. Both the dumplings tasted almost the same. The skin was thick and they were a bit salty and oily to me. The dumplings were just not to my liking.

Mapo tofu rice

The mapo tofu tasted a bit weird too, probably due to the chilli oil that they used. Besides that, there were hardly any minced meat in the dish but only tofu. I thought there should be minced pork in mapo tofu dish?

Anyway, I thought of giving it a second chance as its location is really convenient for me to grab a quick meal. This time, I ordered sweet and sour pork with rice and Kung pao chicken with rice.

Sweet and sour pork rice

The sweet and sour pork wasn't great and it literally only consisted of pork, onions and probably a slice of red capsicum and carrot.

Kung pao chicken rice

The Kung pao chicken was worse. It didn't taste like the Kung pao chicken dish I used to have at all. Perhaps it's a different style?

Oh well, looks like Little Chef didn't make it to my list of take away restaurants.

Healthy tuna pasta recipe

After eating out over the weekend, I was looking for a simple and healthy home cooked meal for the whole family including my little one. Tuna pasta naturally came to my mind. After searching through my fridge, I actually found a few good ingredients to make it a one pot pasta meal. This is an easy yet nutritious recipe. Look! It's colourful too!

Recipe:

(4 servings)

1-2 onions - chopped and diced.

1 red capsicum - diced.

2 carrots - cut into the shape you like.

2 cans tuna - remove the water or oil.

2 bunches of baby broccoli - cut into shorter stems.

500g pasta

2 tablespoons olive oil

Parsley flakes

Salt

Pepper

1. Cook pasta and carrots in a pot of boiling water with some salt until soft.

2. While boiling the pasta, heat olive oil in a frying pan. Add in onions and red capsicum. Stir fry until the onions are a bit soft.

3. Add in tuna and mix well.

4. When the pasta and carrots are soft, add the baby broccoli to the boiling water (just to scald the veg). Drain the hot water.

5. Add the pasta, carrots and baby broccoli to the frying pan and stir well.

6. Sprinkle parsley flakes all over the pasta. Add salt and pepper to taste and mix well.

7. Dish out and serve.