Pancake (Non-Dairy)

Lately my princess wanted to keep away from dairy products. Pancake which is sold in the market are added with cow milk. She has been seeing her friends having pancake and waffles and craving for it. So this morning to give her a 'surprise'  I have did some slight modification on my homemade-pancake recipe.

Princess is happy and finished 2 large pancakes.
Obviously when she is happy I am happy too!


Ingredients
1.5 cup self-raising flour
1 cup Non Sweet Soy milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 eggs, beaten lightly
3 tbsp caster sugar

Method
Add lemon juice into soy milk and let it stay for about 5-10min. I do this to achieve buttermilk texture. You can substitute lemon juice with white vinegar or apple cider. Note: if you do not have lemon or vinegar,  you may omit it. Just soy milk is fine.

Sift flour in a large bowl.  

In another bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together for few minutes. Add the above buttermilk(soy+ lemon juice). Whisk them together. Then gradually whisk the egg mixture  into the flour. Whisk until mixture makes a smooth batter. Tranfer batter to large jug. 

Heat up a non-stick frying pan. Highly recommended non-stick pan.

Pour about 1/4 cup of batter into frying pan. Cook pancake until you see bubbles appear on surface and almost dry. Turn the pancake with a spatula to lightly brown other side. Cover pancakes on plate with foil to keep them warm. Continue to make more pancakes with remaining batter.

Serve pancakes topped with your desired jam and butter or margarine

P.S.  If you are using a normal frying pan, oil the frying pan with 1 teaspoon of oil. Then use a kitchen paper towel to wipe away excess oil. Note: the first piece using normal frying pan will not look so desirable. But subsequent one will be perfect.

Note: If you do not have a metric measuring cup at home, you may use any kind of  drinking cup which you use for your water or coffee etc.. Just make sure you use the same cup to measure all the rest of ingredients

You may like to view my other posts :
1Rice-omelette-pancake
2kimchi-pancake

Simplified Rice Cooker Chicken Rice

Bought a large chicken yesterday morning from ntuc. Deboned on my own, and made this simplified rice cooker chicken rice. I used to cook this quite often when my children were in primary school for their lunch. And they loved it. Even my mother-in-law who is a very good cook also like this.

My children like to eat chicken rice. When running out of time and craving for chicken rice, this is the fastest way and no hassle. Quick cook and yummy to eat. Less things to wash.  Traditional way  is boiling the chicken in hot boiling water. And cook the rice separately. See Ama's chicken-rice.

The 2 different ways of cooking the chicken rice, has their unique taste. The chicken rice cooked in this way is softer but more flavourful and tastier than traditional way. Because the meat is cooked with the rice. So the flavour of meat is in the rice. However, it is more difficult to control the texture of rice and chicken. So, if you desire to have better texture of rice and tender chicken meat, traditional way is recommended.

For time when I have to prepare 3 meals a day and needed to fetch children to and from school, it can be quite a challenge. So, I always like to find new and easy way to cook simple meal for family to save time. Of course the easiest way is to go to a chicken rice stall in hawker centre or coffeshop to buy 2-3 packets for the children. But my family always prefer homecooked food.
Personally, I love to cook for my family. I like my children to have sweet memories of homecooked food and childhood. So one day when they have grown up, wherever they are on this earth, when they think of home and childhood, these will be their sweet memories for a long long times. :)

I have not been cooking chicken rice in this way since children entered into their secondary school. So, yesterday, it brought back lots of sweet memories as we ate our dinner. What a wonderful day!

Ingredients:
1 chicken  about 1.4-1.5kg
2 cups uncooked rice
2 cups of water (minus 2 tbsp)

Seasoning for rice
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp chicken powder(optional)
2 thumb size ginger (cut into 3 pcs, use the base of a mug to lightly hammer the ginger)
4-5 cloves of garlic removed skin
2 stalk spring onion
3-4 leaves pandan leaves

Seasoning for chicken
1 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp light soy sauce
Dash of pepper
1 tbsp sesame oil
1-2 tsp corn flour

Method:
1. Wash and rinse chicken. Deboned. Removed skin.  Add the seasoning for chicken. Marinate the chicken for minimum 20mins or more. You can prepare in the morning and cook at dinner time.

2. Rinse the rice once. Add water..
Add the seasoning for rice except spring onion and pandan leaves. Put into rice cooker and set cook. Cook rice in the normal way when you put rice to cook in rice cooker.

3.When the rice & water just started to boil, lay the chicken on top of the boiling rice. And add spring onion and pandan leave. Closed the cover of rice cooker and let it continue to cook until rice and chicken is cooked. Rice cooker will automatic switch to "warm" when the water dry up. And rice is ready to serve.

4. Remove and discard garlic,ginger, pandan leaves and spring onion from the rice. Serve rice and chicken in a plate with sliced raw cucumber and sliced raw tomatoes.

Happy Cooking

Note: I am using a simple stainless steel rice cooker with only 3 functions "porridge" "warm" "cook". So, please make necessary adjustment according to your rice cooker. My rice cooker total cooking time is 20mins for rice. I know some rice cooker take an hour to cook and quick cook is minimum 30mins.

Kimchi Meat Soup

Kimchi soup using minced meat with taukwa and mushroom

Kimchi soup with pork sabu sabu and glass noodle

Homemade kimchi.

Ingredients:
2 cups of water
1 clove garlic - minced
1/2 yellow onion - sliced
1 tbsp salted soya bean(豆鼓)
1/2 tbsp korean chilli paste
Kimchi - any amount ( I used homemade)
3 tablespoon minced meat or beef shabu shabu
1 pc of tau kwa(hard beancurd) -cut into pieces
1 pkt Enoki mushroom
2 stalks spring onion -  cut inch length
1 stalk chinese celery - cut  inch length
1 tbsp fish sauce


Method:
1. Put water into a pot and bring to boil. Add sliced yellow onion , garlic, salted soya bean and korean chilli paste.

2. Seasoned minced meat with 1-2 tsp light soy sauce, dash of pepper, 1 tsp sesame oil and 1 tsp cornflour. No seasoning required if use beef shabu shabu.

3. Use spoon to scoop minced meat into small balls and add into the boiling mixture. Add kimchi.

4. Remove the "root" part of Enoki mushroom. Rinse. Then add the Enoki mushroom and tua kwa into soup.

5. Add 1/2 - 1 tbsp of fish sauce and light soy sauce into soup or your desired taste.

6. Sprinkle cut spring onion and chinese celery. Remove from fire and place soup into a bowl and serve with rice.

P.s. : you may add tanghoon /glass noodle in above 4.

You may replaced pork with beef sabu sabu or sliced chicken.

You may like to view also my other post:
1. kimchi
2. kimchi-pancake

How to fry rice without sticking on stainless steel wok

My family love eating fried rice. Recently I switched from hard anodised wok to stainless steel wok. From many reviews learnt that stainless steel wok stick easily. Many find stainlese steel wok stick more than other wok, so how to use little oil to fry rice yet rice doesn't stick on wok?
In the past, when i was using hard anodized wok,  after heat up wok, i will lower the heat first then crack an egg onto the wok then i put in the rice.
I find stainless steel wok is more hot than other wok when it is heated up. When i do the same hard anodised wok method on stainless steel wok,  before i could even put in the rice, the egg cooked immediately.

So how to solve this problem?
I did these 2 methods and both work.

1. Put 1- 2 spoons of oil in the stainless steel wok. Let the wok heat up a while, oil the wok. off the fire then crack an egg into the wok so that the egg will not cook too fast. You need runny egg. Quickly add in the cooked rice when egg is still runny. With very quick "action" stir the rice in the wok to coat every grains of rice with the egg. Then on the fire again. With high fire fry the rice. When rice is coated with egg, it will not stick on wok.

2. Crack an egg onto cooled cooked rice. And mixed them together. Do this process just before frying. Make sure every grains is coated with egg. Put 1-2 spoons of oil into cleaned and dry stainless steel wok then on the fire. Pour in the egg coated cooked rice. With high heat fry them.
This method give a very egg fragranced rice. Taste very good as every grains had been coated with egg.

Suggestion rice vs egg:
1) 2-3 cups of rice (measure before cooked). Cooked then cool down at room temperature or overnight rice is the best for doing fried rice.
2) 1-2 eggs

You may like to try these egg recipes
1) pan-fry-prawn-omelette
2) rice-omelette-pancake

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

No Knead Sandwich Buns

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp fine sugar
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup plain flour

Glazing :
1 egg beaten
Some white sesame

Method :
In a big bowl , add flour, salt, sugar and yeast. Use a spoon to simply mix them together.  Pour in the water and use a pair of chopstick or a rubber spatula to mix all wet and dry ingredients well. This whole process take about 5min.
The dough should be wet and loose.

Use cling wrap to cover the bowl. Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it is double in size( or at least flattens on top and dough has  many small holes),  take about two hours. Longer rising times will not hurt the dough.
Allow the dough proof for minimum 3hours. I proof it for 6hours. You may allow dough to proof overnight in the refrigerator and then shape it in the morning.

Shape the buns
After 6 hours proof in room temperature, shape the dough into desire shape.
Prepare a piece of baking parchment paper on a aluminum baking tray. Sprinkle  about 2 spoons of flour on a working surface. Pour out the dough from the bowl onto the floured surface using a rubber spatula. Using a pastry cutter divide dough into 6 portions. DO NOT KNEAD. Dust hands with flour and shape dough into oval shape with the help of the pastry cutter. Then place them on the tray lay with parchment paper.
Cover the shaped dough with a dry towel or clingwrap. Let the dough proof for another 1 - 1.5hours.

Preheat oven at 210°C and the rack placed in the middle.

After 1.5 hours proofing, eggwash the uncook bun with brush. Sprinkle some sesame on top of the dough.  Use a kitchen scissor to cut the top of the uncook bun. Put into preheated oven to bake to 20 minutes.

For this same recipe without the sugar, you may use it to make No Knead Artisan Bread and for pizza base