Curry Chicken

18Apr2019
We had curry chicken for dinner last evening, then I remember I had yet update my blog with this recipe. It is a long overdue recipe...
I have been very busy so you will see less of me here. I hope all are well for you. Do drop me acomments if you find the recipes are helpful for you. This will motivate me to continue update my blog with new recipes😁. Actually they are not new, they are all stored in my walking computer... The "computer" above the shoulder.😜 . To me to cook the dish is easier than to write the recipe.

This is a very simple dish which is nice to eat and can be use in all occasions. I like cooking this is when there is left over (usually will) , it will become our breakfast too. We will dip bread or prata in curry for breakfast. And if there is still leftover, I will add cabbage into the curry sauce and it will turn into another dish - curry chap chye for next day dinner..haha.

Ingredients:

1 chicken (1 - 1.2kg) - chopped into 10pcs

To season the chicken:

1/2 thumb size ginger - chopped

1.5 tsp sea salt

1 tsp curry powder

Dash of pepper

Rest of ingredients and seasoning:

250g thick coconut milk

3 big potatoes - each cut into pcs

2 TBSP Olive oil/cooking oil

10 small onions - chopped

3 cloves garlic - chopped

1 big onion - chopped

2 stalk lemon grass - cut into 2-3cm length

Some curry leaves(optional)

3 TBSP curry powder add some water to make paste

1 TBSP Demerara sugar/any type of sugar

3 tsp of sea salt 

Water 

Method :

1.Wash and chop chicken into pieces. Season it with salt, curry powder, pepper and ginger. Set aside.

2.In a work add olive oil, onion and garlic and fry them to light brown, add lemon grass, curry leaves and fry another few seconds, add curry powder paste and continue to fry until fragrance. Be watchful at this point: Lower the heat if necessary to prevent burnt.

3.Add the seasoned chicken into wok and stir fry few sec , then add half the amount of coconut milk and continue fry for 30sec then add water that is enough to cover the chicken , add sugar and salt. Adjust the seasoning according to your taste. How much to add or reduce depend on your tastebuds and also how much water you have added.

4.When curry is about to boil, add potatoes and continue to cook until the potatoes are 3/4 cooked.  Add the remaining coconut milk. Continue to cook until curry is boiled and potatoes are cooked. That is potatoes are slightly soft and you are able to cut it through using a spoon. Curry is done. Remove from heat.

Note : Do not over cooked curry at item4 to prevent potatoes and chicken meat overly soft and ended up no meat and no potatoes as they melt into curry. I usually add potatoes only when the curry is about to boil to prevent potato too soft and meat too tough. 

Enjoy!

Toaster Oven Meatball

17Feb2019

Ingredients:

800g Fresh Shoulder Meat 五花肉 - minced

1 egg

5-8 water chestnut - chopped

1cup of chopped raw yam

1/2 tsp pepper

3 tbsp light sauce

1/2 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

4 tbsp potatoes flour/cornflour

Spring onion - chopped

3-4 cloves of garlic - minced

oil for deep frying or toaster oven 250°C

Method:

1. Combined all ingredients in a large bowl.

2.Heat up a wok. Pour in the oil enough for deep frying. With 2 spoons or gloved hand shape the meat into 2cm balls. When the oil is hot enough, put in the meat balls by batch to deep fry until golden brown. Remove from wok and place them into a plate lay with kitchen paper to absorb excess oil. Continue to deep fry the rest of the meat balls until all completed. 

3. Transfer into another place, serve.

Toaster Oven baked:

At item2, roll meat into small balls. Bake in a pre-heated oven.  Roast until it is golden colour. App 30min

Beef Meatballs (Ikea meatball copycat)

9 Mar 2018

Can't decide whether to make "ikea" meatball copycat or seafood pasta, so in the end cooked both. I have wanted to homemade Ikea meatball since last year. However, did not manage to do this dish until today. 

  

I googled several recipes online to have an idea how others make these meatballs. With wisdom from above, this is how I  homemade "ikea" meatball copycat😃..

Surprisingly, it taste very good though this is my first time making it. Hubby and dauggter loved this meatballs and hubby ate half of them. As he eat, he kept saying "nice! Very nice". Daughter too like these meatballs. She said "nice leh!"

This is the recipe. .

Ingredients:

500g minced beef

100g minced pork

1 egg

1/4 tsp pepper

1 slice of wholemeal bread - cut into small pieces

1 big onion - chopped

3 garlic - chopped

2-3 Tbsp milk

1.5 Tbsp light sauce

1 tsp salt

2 tsp corn flour

1 Tbsp oil

Method

1. In a frying pan add oil then onion n garlic a d fry until onion is soft and fragrance. Remove from heat and pour into cutted bread. 

2. Add milk into the bread n fried onion mixture. Combine them.

3. In a large bowl add beef and pork, egg, salt, light sauce, bread mixture and corn flour.

Combine them and mix well.

4. Prepare a baking tray layed with parchment paper.

Wear disposal glove and take some meat mixture and roll into 1inch meatball with hands. Place meatball onto the baking tray. Continue to roll all the rest of the meat mixture until all are made into meatballs.

5. Place tray of meatballs into preheat oven  200°C and bake for about 20-30min.

Rose Dumplings (Guo Tie)

The ingredients measurement is just estimation. As I do not measure when I do cooking. So, it is all based on feeling and experience. Please adjust the seasoning according to your desired taste. 😊

Ingredients:

300g Minced Pork

1 cup Chinese Cabbages(cooked, chopped)

1 tsp minced ginger
1-2 stalks of green spring onion - chopped

1 tbsp Chinese wine

A dash Pepper

1 tbsp Light sauce

1 tbsp Oyster sauce

1 tsp Fish sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp Corn/Potatoes flour

2 packets of Japanese guo tie wrapper

Method:

1. Squeeze the water out from cooked cabbages and chop into small pieces.

2. In a large bowl, put in all the ingredients and mix them well combined. Set aside.

3. Place 4 guo tia wraps in a row, put some meat mixture in the middle in a "straight line".  Cover and row it into a rose

4. Put some oil in a flat bottom wok or fry pan over stove, place the roses on the frying pan and pan fry until the bottom is a little brown. It is about few minute. 

5. Add stock or water. Cover and cook until liquid dry up and guo tia is cooked. Serve with sheddred ginger with vinegar.

Dumplings (Shui Jiao/Guo Tie)

Ingredients:

220g minced meat

2 leaves of nappa cabbages

4 black mushroom - chopped finely

2 stalks spring onion - chopped

1/2 thumb size ginger - minced

1 tbsp shao xing wine

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp cornflour

1/4 black pepper

1 packet of ready made dumpling/guotie skin

Method :

1. Blanch cabbages in boiling water for about 2min. Remove from water and squeeze out as much water as possible. Finely chopped.

2. Put all ingredients together. Mix well.

3. Use wrapper and wrap into shiu jiao/guo tie

4. Boil water in a pot. Place the shui jiao in once the water is boiling. It is cooked when it float on the water. Let it boil for another 1 minutes. Remove from water and serve.
I serve it with kimchi soup. 😊

For Guotie/panfry dumplings:
1. Heat up some oil in a flat-bottom pan. Prefer non-stick pan. Arrange dumplings on the pan and pan fry until one side is lightly golden brown.

2. Add in some water. Cover the pan with the lid and let it simmer until the water dry up and dumpling is fully cooked. Remove from pan and serve with shredded ginger and black vinegar dip.

Miso Stew Beef

Ingredients :

1kg short rib beef or beef brisket  cut into cubes

1 raddish/ daikon into cubes

1 carrot cut into cubes

1 big yellow onion cut into 8 pieces

3-4 garlic remove skin (no cutting)

1 thumb size ginger sliced into pieces

Some fresh swiss brown mushroom

Seasoning:

2 tbsp miso + 2tsp korean honey critron tea + 1tsp dried garlic mixed together

1 tbsp light soy sauce 

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tbsp shao xing wine

1 tbsp rock sugar(roughly 5 or 6 pieces)

1/4 five spices powder

a dash of pepper

10 black pepper corn

1 star anise seed

2 bayleaf (optional)

2 tbsp oil

1 litre of water

1-2 tbsp of cornflour / potato flour + 2tbsp water

Method :

1. Sear beef brisket in the wok with 1 tbsp of oil. Once it is slightly brown, transfer into pressure cooker.

2. In the same wok, add another 1 tbsp of oil, put in the big onion, garlic, sliced ginger, peppercorn, bay leaf and star anise and fry till it is fragrance. Transfer them into the pressure cooker.

3 Add all the rest of seasoning into the pressure cooker except cornflour. Add water that cover the meat.

4. Close and lock the pressure cooker and set to cook for 15min.  After min 15, off the pressure cooker and  release the pressure.  Unlock, add raddish and carrots and mushroom into pressure cooker. Close and lock the pressure cooker and set to cook for another 25-30mins. 

5. Once it is cooked. Switch off pressure cooker. Release the pressure. Unlock,  add the cornflour water. Stir well. Serve with rice.

You may adjust the seasoning accordingly.

This is another way of cooking  Stew beef over stove. 

All Times Favorite Deep Fried Meat Balls

Ingredients:
550g minced pork
1 egg
4 stalks spring onion - chopped
1 carrot -chopped
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp breadcrumb

Some oil for deep fry

Method:
Combine all ingredients. Let it seasoned for at least 20mins.
Heat up oil. Using 2 spoons to scoop the meat and make it into small meat balls. Deep fry  the meat until golden brown.
Remove from oil and place them on a plate lay with thick kitchen paper towel to absorb extra oil from the meat.
Serve.

You may be interested in my Homemade Fried Meat Balls. For healthier choice, you may want to try Steam Minced Meat and also this Char Siew/BBQ pork

Black Pepper Stir Fry Meat

Ingredients:
300-400g pork fillets thinly sliced ( can replace with beef)
1 tbsp black pepper sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1/2 tbsp mushroom sauce
1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp corn flour (can substitute wt potatoes flour, but reduce to half tbsp)
1 tbsp water

Ingredients for stir fry:
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic -minced
1 small red onion/shallots  - minced
Thumb size old ginger thinly shredded

Garnish:
2 stalks of spring onion cut into 1 inch length
1 red chilli padi cut into slices (optional)

Method:
1. Place sliced meat into a bowl or plate, add all the ingredients together and mix them well. Set it a side to let the meat season for at least 20min. Seasoning of meat can be done earlier the day and use clingwrap to cover and leave it in refrigerator to keep fresh.

2. In a wok over a medium fire, i use a stainless steel chinese wok but sometime I do use non-stick, put in all the stir-fry ingredients and fry until the garlic and red onion turn light golden brown.

3. Put in the seasoned sliced meat  and stir fry until the colour of meat turn pale colour. If the fire is too strong, it will dry up the sauce, so add about 1-2 tablespoon of water and continue to stirfry 2-3min or until meat is tender and cooked. Put in the garnish and stir fry for another few sec when the spring onion turn a little darker tone. Off fire and dish up the meat into a plate and serve with white rice.

Enjoy cooking. Do leave your comments. 😊

You may be interseted in Steam Minced Meat

Toaster Oven Crispy Roasted Pork(Siew Yuk)

Have you cook your food in a toaster oven before?
I do it all the time. I do not own a microwave oven. So my toaster oven become very handly. I reheat food in it. I cook char siew in it. I bake chicken wings and chicken thighs and chicken chops  in my toaster oven. My neighbour was amazed when she saw me grilling the chicken wings and chicken chops in the toaster oven. So whenever I make small portion of otah, I will prefer to use toaster oven. Just set to the time
 that I want and go do my housekeeping and doesn't need to worry that kitchen get burn down. That is how I was able to cook simple meal with toaster oven and keep the house and coaching my children when my children were young. Toaster oven is my "good friend" in my kitchen. I use toaster oven to roast cashew nuts and almond if the quantity is small. I do have a big oven which I use for normal cake and bread baking and grills.
For small portion, I would prefer using toaster oven as it save energy and easy cleaning. So, my toaster oven is quite heavily utilised. Currently I am using a toaster oven with top and bottom grill function. And it has up to 60min timer. The only thing it doesn't has is the temperature setting. Once, the timer is set to the desire time, it will start to heat up and the heating up is very fast within a few seconds. Unlike those big oven which require preheat.

As I tried alot of different kind of food in the toaster oven, the only one i have not try is the crispy pork belly. Decided to give it a try..and I am very satisfied with the result. It was crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. Few years ago, have tried using my big oven to do this dish. The roast pork was nice, but was "horrified" by the cleaning...the whole oven was very dirty and oily after roasting the belly pork. Tried once and never want to try again. It took me a long time cleaning the oven and a few days to get rid of the smell.
Through the previous experience, this time using toaster oven, I did some "precaution" to minimise cleanning job. I wrapped the pork with aluminim foil before putting it into toaster oven.

This is a successful crispy roaster pork which is yummy and easy to make. Will do this more often from now on..

You may find me in facebook page Catherine's Cooking Journal

Ingredients :
Belly pork with skin on
Coarse sea salt

Marinate:
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tsp Five spies powder
1 tsp Shaoxin wine

Directions :
Boil a pot of water, blanch the pork belly in the boiling water for 1-2min.

Remove from water. Use kitchen paper towel to dry the pork belly

Place the pork belly skin down, rub the wine the all over the meat except the skin, that is the sides & the bottom of the meat.

Combine salt , pepper and five spices powder and rub all over the meat including the skin. No need to finish the amount of marinate seasoning. Just make sure every part is rub with this seasoning.

Turn over to have the pork belly skin up, poke the skin with a small knife sharp tip or any pricking tool you have. I used a special pins to do this job. Poke alot of time..the more the better. Leave the pork belly in a plate, do not cover and leave it in the fridge one day if you can. However, due to time constraint, I left it in fridge for 2hours. Purpose is to let the pork be dry to get the crispy effect.

Wrap the pork belly with a piece of aluminum foil & have the skin exposed,  then, cover the skin with a thick layer of coarse sea salt.

Place the pork belly with skin which is covered with coarse salt facing up laying on a baking tray.

Put the tray of pork belly into the toaster oven and  with setting top and bottom grill and set toaster oven timer to 60mins to "roast" the pork belly.

After 60min, remove from toaster oven. Remove the layer of coarse salt first then remove the aluminium foil. Careful there may be some hot liquid oil. Discard liquid or keep it to make sauce. Place the pork belly with skin facing up back into tray and return it into toaster oven again. Set toaster oven timer 30min. Let the pork belly continue to roast until the skin turn golden brown and crispy.

Remove from toaster oven. Cut and serve.

Note: my toaster oven temperature is approximate 220°C~250°C

You may like to try a different recipe using the belly pork to cook in different style Braised Pork / Kong Bak

Char Siew (BBQ Pork)



Hi! I am back. Sorry I have stop for a while after my last posting. Today I like to share with you my mother-in-law's yummy char siew.

What is Char Siew?

Char Siew is actually BBQ pork.  It is actually pork marinated with soya sauce , oyster sauce, sugar , pepper, sesame oil,etc.... and roast or grill in oven or pan roast. Those char siew that are selling in the local roasted duck stall are usually added with red colouring. As for my family recipe, we refrain from adding any colouring as colouring is unhealthy to body.

I usually cook this dish whenever I want a simple dinner and can rush off quickly after dinner where washing and cleaning is minimum. This dish can also be done in advance. You can choose to marinate the pork one day in advance and store it in the fridge and cook it early in the next morning or just before meal time. I usually marinate the pork in the morning and cook it in the evening before meal time. In the past, I used my mini oven toaster to make this dish. In oven toaster, it take about 30min to 45min to completely done. But I noticed that there are usually more water produced from the meat during the roasting process and meat is tougher. You can choose to roast it in the oven at temperature 220 degree celius for 30minutes. Meat will be tender and juicy. 

For leftover Char Siew, you can store it in the freezer or chiller for next day use or longer, depend on how long you need to keep. Leftover Char Siew can be added into fried rice.

For the one in this picture, I used the Happy Call Pan to make the char siew. It is very fast and meat very tender and juicy too. Total cooking time is about 20minutes and we can have yummy char siew to go with white rice and vegetables or cucumbers.

This is how I do my Char Siew ....

Ingredients :

800 gram marble meat/shoulder meat/tender loin ( chinese called it 五花肉)

3 tbsp oyster sauce (you can replace with mushroom sauce but oyster sauce taste better)

2 tbsp black soya sauce

2 tbsp raw sugar ( you can use white sugar)

1 tbsp honey

1/4 tsp ginger powder

1/2 tsp pepper

2 tbsp sesame oil ( to be added last)

Method

1. Wash and cut the meat into strip of approx. 2cmx2cmx 15cm, you may choose to have it longer but not fatter.

2. Add all the rest of the ingredient except sesame oil. Mix it well. Last add in the sesame oil. Mix it well. Let the meat marinate for at least 2 hours in the fridge, that is in the chiller area.

3. Heat up Happy Call Pan (HCP) if you have one, and place the meat in the pan. Cover and cook in medium fire for 10min. Turn the meat or the HCP. I suggest you turn the meat instead as there are juice and it can be messy. Let it cook another 10minutes. Let all sides of the meat be a little brown. Off fire and cut into slices like the one in picture. Serve.

3. Alternatively, you can choose to roast in the oven. Preheat oven 220deg celius. Lay baking paper on a baking tray. Place meat in a baking tray. Roast in the oven for 30minutes or until it is slight brown.

Enjoy your cooking. Have a blessed day! (^ ^)