Chee Cheong Fan (Steamed Rice Rolls)

About one more month before a long overdue visit back to Singapore! Meanwhile, this breakfast item was made using the recipe from My Kitchen Snippets. Rather than going through the trouble of making the sesame sauce which, to me is the most important part of chee cheong fan, I got my sister to bring me a bottle of this sesame sauce from Kwong Woh Hing. I highly recommend this for chee cheong fan sauce or if you like it on your niang tofu etc. It's not too expensive either but you have to order a certain amount before they deliver and it's not really available on normal stores. Their thick dark soy sauce is also perfect for half-boiled eggs.

Ingredients
150g rice flour
1½ tbsp wheat starch
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp Oil
450ml water
½ tsp salt
toasted sesame seeds
2 tablespoons of Kwong Woh Hing sesame sauce diluted with 1 tablespoon of hot water

Steps

1. Mix the dry ingredients together first in a bowl before adding the water, stirring it well so no lumps are formed. Add the salt and oil last and set aside for at least 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, prepare your steamer. For me, I use two lightly oiled metal plates that fits snugly on top of a steaming rack for my pot and interchange them while steaming. Always heat up the plate first in the steamer before pouring in the batter for about a minute. I have a small ladle that produces just the right thickness of chee cheong fan, so you might need to adjust accordingly for the right amount for the size of the plate you are using.
   
   
   
3. Steam the batter for about 2-3 minutes (cover it with the pot cover), then remove it and let it cool before rolling up the rice sheet.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Slices/cut it with scissors, pour over the sesame seed sauce and some fried shallots and some toasted sesame seeds if preferred.
   
   
   
    
   

Spicy Stewed Chicken with Potatoes

You know there are certain dishes you cook so that you can just soak your rice with the gravy? Well, this is one of those. If you don't like it spicy, you can skip the dried chili or add more if you like it. This is nicer with chicken drumsticks or thighs because the meat is considered not as 'tough' as breast meat. I like to cook such one pot dish nowadays because time is of the essence when taking care of an active baby, but when I still missed the goodness of simple Chinese dishes.

Ingredients

4-5 drumsticks

Thumbsize ginger, sliced thinly

3-4 potatoes, peeled and quartered

3 dried chilli

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

2-3 tablespoons oyster sauce

Steps

1. Heat up 2-3 tablespoons of cooking oil and brown the potatoes first, scoop it up and set aside.
2. Add the ginger slices and stir fry until fragrant. Add the chicken next to brown it and then the dried chilli.
   
   
   
3. Pour the dark soy sauce over and stir fry it well, then add in the potatoes and oyster sauce and pour enough water to cover the ingredients. Let it come to a boil then turn it down to simmer until the potatoes is tender and chicken is cooked through and falling slightly away from the bones.
4. Taste to check the seasoning, add some light soy sauce or sugar to taste if you prefer. Serve it with plenty of gravy with rice :)
   
   
   

Thai Grilled Chicken

I never imagined a simple ingredient such as the coriander root can make such a difference to a marinade. Yes, that is the secret to this super-delicious grilled chicken shared by a very generous lady Nuk from her chef sister. She made this for one of our gatherings and I immediately begged her for the recipe, with measurements that is. And so, here it is to be shared with all you readers :). Just a note, I marinade this for two nights in a fridge, so the flavours really seeps into the chicken, but one night would be enough too.

Ingredients

1-1.5kg fresh chicken, cut into four parts

Coriander root (2-3)

4 garlic cloves

Freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoon oyster sauce

2 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3-4 tablespoons coconut milk, for basting the chicken while grilling it

Steps

1. Clean and cut the chicken into four parts, you may cut it even smaller if desired, but it might make the basting a bit more challenging ;)
2. Pound the garlic, coriander and black pepper together in a mortar, then add the rest of the ingredients except coconut milk and mix well.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Rub it well into the chicken pieces and leave to marinade overnight.
   
   
   
4. Take the chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before grilling in the oven preheated to 180°C. Remove the garlic and coriander pieces and pat dry the chicken pieces before placing it skin side up on a aluminum lined tray.
   
   
   
   
5. Bake for about 45 minutes, using the coconut milk mixed with the remaining marinade, basting every 15 minutes.
6. For the last 5-10 minutes, turn up the oven temperature to 225°C if you like the skin brown and crispy, but keep a close watch on it otherwise it will burn easily at this point.
7. Traditionally, this is served with som tum and sticky rice. In our household, it just went very well with some hot rice and chili :)
   
    

Salted Vegetable Seafood Soup

When I was working in Singapore, I used to like to 'tabao' or pack food back to the office so I can enjoy my lunch without joining the lunch crowd with a book. A little bit anti-social I must admit but lunch crowds in Singapore are quite a turn-off sometimes. One of my favourite item to tabao is a soup with some rice, and there was this stall in a coffeeshop at the end of Killiney Road that sells fish soup with rice that comes with a side of sambal and fried anchovies and egg. It was quite value-for-money too although the stall owner can be a bit 'cold' at times. So fast forward to life in Sweden now where there's no coffee shop to buy food from, this is a home-made version which is, besides knowing exactly what goes into the food is that you get to decide what 'liao' / ingredients to put in. And no extra charges for more vegetables or chilli!;)

Ingredients (serves 2 or a greedy one person)

1 block of tofu

1 tomato

Half a carrot

Half a packet of salted vegetable or 'suan cai'

Choice of seafood (prawns, fishballs, fish roll or fish cake)

Choice of meat (chicken or pork or fish slices)

A thumb size knob of ginger

1 preserved sour plum (left-most in picture, you use it for steaming fish or cooking salted vegetable duck soup too)

Half a cube of ikan billis stock with enough water for a big bowl of soup or use home-made stock if you have

Pepper and fried shallots for garnish

Steps

1. Cut the tofu and tomatoes into quarters and slice the pork, ginger, carrots and salted vegetable.
   
2. Bring your stock or water with stock cube to boil before adding all the ingredients and let it simmer for about 10-15 minutes until all the ingredients are cooked through and tender. Adjust seasoning if required.
   
3. As an alternative, you can turn this into a noodle soup by adding noodles or vermicilli into the soup. Otherwise, serve it hot with rice along with a side of chili padi.

Messy Baby Food

Some of you already know we had a son who is about 6 months + now and we have been letting him try new flavours and texture since he was about 4 months old. So here's a blog about what we've tried so far besides the normal cereal you can buy in powder form from the stores. But before that, here's a picture of him and a call for followers of this blog to help vote for him (the video is named 'Isac försöka sitta 4+ månader') in a Swedish baby product contest that's ending 4 September, daily votes are allowed, so thanks for your votes in advance! :)

You can either click on this link if you are 

a) using mobile phones (
http://m.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsecure.exhost.se%2Fmam%2Fsite%2Fmam_games_compete%2F3&h=lAQG5ndNE&s=1) or

b) using the computer (https://www.facebook.com/MAMBaby/app_421533767881196?app_data=video_131)

Despite all experience in cooking, when it comes to baby's food and taste, I must say I still feel like I haven't got the hang of making my own baby food. I especially want to introduce Asian flavours to him since it will be what I will be cooking most of the time.

Sometimes it feels quite discouraging when he just takes one or two spoonfuls and decided he doesn't like it. The rest of the meal time is then just spent cleaning up mess. Good that we have quite a tolerant and baby-food-loving dog in the house.  So far he really likes mangoes, avocados, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, pears and prunes. He doesn't like potatoes, carrots, rice porridge and peas. If you have any ideas, please share with me! One thing I picked up from the Swedish handbooks for baby food is using garlic press to purée food since I cook in small amounts and my one attempt at freezing a larger batch of food also went down the drain since he doesn't like defrosted food cubes.

Carrot purée with rice cereal - score was 3/10 :/

 Carrot, broccoli and pork purée with rice porridge - score was 5/10

 Anchovies, dried scallops and chicken with rice porridge - score was 7/10 for first day, and then went down to 4/10 after that

Broccoli and carrot mash - score was 7/10 

How the garlic press is essential in making your own baby food

I was using the fine sieve before that for the potatoes and broccoli mash...took me ages and he only ate a little

My piggy peas ice cube..they only lasted once 


Our messy eater :)

Sambal Tofu Goreng (Without tempeh)

I've always liked Malay food and this is one of those dishes I like to order when I am at any Malay store and I've never thought about making it myself since one of the ingredients - tempeh is not available here in Sweden. I've contemplated making my own and even got a sample of the starter from http://www.tempeh.info/, but I haven't got around doing it yet. I promise I will do it!

Ingredients

to grind

1 large onion

3 garlic cloves

8 dried chilli, soaked in hot water

1/2 thumb size galangal

for the dish

1 block of tofu, cut into cubes and deep fried until golden brown

1 large onion, sliced

1 lemon grass, sliced

1 large thumb size tamarind paste 

1 green chilli, sliced

6-8 prawns

a handful of green beans (I used the frozen kinds which works well in this dish)

1 box/can of coconut milk, about 160ml

salt and sugar to taste 

Steps

1. Blend the ingredients stated above until fine and fry it with 2-3 tablespoons of cooking oil in a pan over medium heat until fragrant.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Add in the lemon grass, and the fried tofu until well mixed.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Add in the coconut milk and let it simmer while you blend the tamarind paste with about 3 tablespoons of water, sieve to remove the seeds and add in to the pan.
   
   
   
4. Add in the rest of the ingredients except the prawns and turn the heat down to low and let it simmer until it is almost dry.
   
   
   
5. Add in the prawns before it's done and cook it through, adding salt and sugar to taste. It should be slightly sourish sweet and spicy, with a sticky sauce coating the ingredients. Serve with rice.

Carrot Cake Muffin

It's been a while since I baked, and this was made a while back for a gathering with some friends who brought their toddlers along. I know there's a few camps about giving kids sugary stuff beyond or before a certain age. I haven't decide which camp we will be but this cup cakes has the natural sweetness of carrots and raisins, so if you decide to scale back the sugar amount in the recipe, I'm sure it will still be delicious :). Most of the 'sinful' stuff can be blamed on the icing, but this is made from cream cheese which you can lightly sweeten to 'convince it is a dessert', using the words of Jamie Oliver. This recipe is adapted from Alex Goh's Carrot Muffin recipe.

Ingredients

140g margarine

180g sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

40g honey

2 eggs

400g milk

400g plain flour

3 tablespoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

220g grated carrots

100g raisins

115g cream cheese

50g soft butter

150g icing sugar

grated zest of one orange

Steps

1. Cream the margarine, sugar, salt and honey until light and then add in one egg at a time, ensuring it is smooth and light.
2. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon powder well in a bowl first, then add in to the egg mixture alternating with the milk until well-blended.
3. Add in the carrots and raisins towards the end and scoop into individual muffin cups (80%) full. Bake at 190°C for 20-30 minutes.
   
   

   
   

   
   
4. Prepare the icing by beating the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar and orange zest together until well mix and smooth. Ice the cup cakes when they have cooled.

Mee Sua Soup - Longevity noodles in soup

I am trying to start posting from my iPad so if any alignments looks strange, please pardon me while I make adjustments. With taking care of our 5 month old son, I have gotton really lazy at switching on my mac, but I would still want to keep updating the blog and especially since there has been quite a few likes even though I have not been able to update so regularly.

Living in Lund, one of the highlights is gathering with friends over a home-cooked meal. That's where I learn new dishes, new flavors and this is one of them. Chef Anlai, who has just become a restaurant owner ( Mui Kong at
Kyrkogatan 21, Lund 22222, Sweden) cooked this for their son's first year birthday earlier this year. I love it so much that I asked him how it was prepared and this is my take on it and hope it do justice. One thing you should be aware that these longevity noodles are quite salty in nature, so if you cooking a large amount, I suggest you soak the noodles otherwise the soup stock would be too salty to be enjoyable. The toppings can be varied, this is just a suggestion of what you can use.

Ingredients (3-5 servings)
1 packet of longevity noodles
200g lean pork, sliced into thin stripes and marinade with soy sauce and pepper
A handful of dried lily bulbs, wood ear mushroom, dried chinese mushroom, all soaked till hydrated.
A large handful of bean sprouts, soaked in hot boiling water
Quails eggs or normal eggs hardboiled
Fish balls and meatballs of your preference
300g pork ribs to make the stock,6-7 slices of ginger
3 spring onions, sliced finely
Sesame seed oil for drizzling over

Steps
1. Prepare the stock by boiling 1.5 litres of water with the pork ribs and sliced ginger. Remove the ginger and pork ribs when done.



2. Stir fry the lean pork, dried mushrooms and wood ear mushroom until done, set aside as topping for the noodles.



3. Prepare the dried lily bulbs by snipping away any hard ends, tie a knot(optional) and blanched it for a few minutes in boiling water, drain and set aside.


4. Wash the noodles once and bring the stock to boil. Add the noodles and cook until al dente. Add in the sliced spring onions and sesame seed oil.



5. Serve hot in individual bowls and top with the toppings and the best part is, you get to decide which and how much topping you want!