The soup, the chicken and the rice.

After countless "threats" and pressure from my foodie gang members, I give you my first post to the blog.

I will start off this post with something traditional, a cosy food that reminds me of home - Hainanese chicken rice.

Step 1: The soup/stock
1. boils a pot of water, adds in ginger(thumb size), some spring onions and a pinch of salt.
2. put the whole chicken in.

3. once the chicken is cooked, removes it from the pot and set it aside.
4. put the cabbage into the stock and let it boils.



Step 2: The chicken
1. take a bowl, mix it with 3 teaspoons of sesame seed oil, 1 tablespoon thick caramelized soya sos, 2 tablespoons of kicap and 2 teaspoons of Yeo's Garlic Chili sauce.
2. Set the chicken into a baking tray.
2. rub the mixture around the cooked chicken.
3. put some sliced ginger, some chopped spring onions and garlics on the chicken.

4. wrapped the chicken with an aluminium foil. The idea is to "steam" the chicken in the oven.
5. put the chicken into the oven at 200 degrees for 30 mins.

Step 3: The rice
1. Heat up a wok with some vegetable oil.
2. Put in the washed rice, stir fry it for a while.
3. Add in some thick caramelized soya sauce (to colour the rice). Stir fry for a while.
4. Once all the rice has an even brownish colour, put it into a rice cooker with some ginger.
5. Take enough chicken soup from the pot to cook the rice.

While waiting for the chicken and the rice to be ready, we can prepare some chili dip. Here we are going to use Yeng's chilli dip recipe. It is simple, easy and tastes bloody good.

This is the end result:



This can serve up to 4 persons, an equivalent of 2 Yengs :)

Minimalist Kerabu

Quick, simple kerabu.

All the non-meat stuff from my fridge - Cherry tomatoes, coriander, spring onions, chillies, cucumber, and lemon.

Onions were fried on low heat to make it soft and sweet. Other stuff (except lemon) chopped up and dumped into mixing bowl. Mixed with lemon juice, fish sauce, a little sugar, salt and pepper to taste.

For topping, marinaded strips of meat (chicken or pork) with salt, pepper, and oyster sauce.

Coated lightly with Balacan Chicken flour. Deep fried till crispy!!

Pile on plate and enjoy :)

pork madness

woot! this is yeng yee, or yengs la. easier. :)

first of all, must do the customary thank you to yang berhormat tuan punya blog ini. so, many many good fortune to you shawn hehe.

so shawn, chuan and i planned to gather during the weekend for some good cooking and good eating. unfortunately chuan was caught up with his digital fantasy adventures and feigned ignorance to his fellow foodies. not the types to be dismissed, we held our noses higher, flared our nostrils at him and walked on.

chuan, this is what you missed man!

this is only a quarter portion of the ribs we bought. crazy eh? we had this for supper saturday night, and man was it delicious with some beer. i'm gonna let the food pic speak for itself and share the recipe instead.

marinade:

finely chop up some garlic, ginger, coriander, bird's eye chilli. mix them up in a bowl with some fish sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil. let the marinade sit for a bit to infuse all the flavours, and then pour it all over the ribs. it's best to let the ribs marinate overnight, but if desperate then 10 minutes will do.

cooking:

preheat oven to about 220c. put the ribs in for about 1/2 hr then switch to grill for about 10 minutes, or until you're happy with the doneness.

i must say that this makes an excellent midnight snack. saturday night ended good :)

next day was bak kut teh! whheee! don't know about you, but for me there's not many things better than a good bak kut teh brunch on a sunday. except maybe spongebob or samurai jack.

if you don't expect to achieve best-in-klang-road-stall type bak kut teh, it is actually very simple to cook and can be delicious too. all you need are some pork ribs, meat (belly if you can get it, else chops with some fat in it), garlic, and a good packet of bak kut teh spice.

in our case, it was Lian's for the job. even comes with a separate marinade for the meat. high class man.

put the spice sachets into the wok together with lots of garlic and water. bring all of it to a boil and enjoy the aroma. then put in the marinated pork and simmer for about an hour.

about 10 minutes before serving, put in some dried tofu (tau pok) and some mushrooms. lettuce too if so preferred. toss in some coriander as garnish....and ta da!

those fat fingers are not mine by the way, hehe.

at this point we were ready to return to our caveman instincts. meat! meat! man eat meat! but as any bak kut teh connoisseur worth his salt will tell you, the meal is not complete without a good side dish and an excellent chilli dipping sauce.

enter our kick-ass works of art.

if all these doesn't make your taste buds tingle with love and fill you with orgasmic vibes...you seriously need to enjoy life more. drinking more beer will help.

we finished all that in two sittings, lunch and dinner. well, the sittings were only 2 hrs apart, so it doesn't really count. but hey, it was as good as it gets. i couldn't ask for more.

the beatles said that all you need is love. last weekend, all we needed was pork. *burp*

Pork Chop Rice

(Quickie Post... beer and book waiting. hehhe)

Was koreking thru my fridge, and realised I had some of the ingredients needed to make a dish I saw on TV recently -- Spicy Pork Chops!! Well, too be honest, I can't remember what the actual ingredients were, just remember seeing chillies, coriander, basil, and.. err... pork chops. What I do remember is that it looked blardee good and I promised myself I'd try it some day soon.

Here's what I used for my version: Lemon, coriander, spring onions, garlic, ginger, and Chillies (only had 3 left. Yengs ate all when he was over recently :p ).

chop chop chop chop.. squeeze squeeze lemon.

Added in some oil (ground nut oil would be nice and fragrant, but I only had sunflower oil), soy sauce, fish sauce, dark caramel soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and a dash of cinnamon powder.

Pork chops were first seasoned with salt and pepper, then dunked into a plastic bag filled with the above marinade. Urut-urut the fella a bit, then let it sit (in the fridge) for a while to soak up some flavour.

Onto baking tray and into the a pre-heated oven (200^oC) for 30 mins.

5 mins before done, drain the baking tray of all the lovely juices. Works great as a dipping sauce!!!

Switch oven to grill mode to crisp the surface of the chops.

Served with steaming hot rice and a mata kerbau.

It was good :) Odd thing was it that it tasted as though it had santan (coconut milk) in it. Somewhat like percik. Really really odd. Only think lacking was chillies. Definitely MORE chillies next time.

*burp*

More crazy foodies in the house

LIfe has been quite hectic recently, and once again, I have neglected my blog.

So how? play cheating loh... I've invited two of my Kaki Makan to guest author in this blog. They're both crazy over food, adventurous in cooking, and .. errr.. aiya, I leave it up to them to intro themselves lah :)

Look out for Yeng Yee, Chuan, and lots of food.

p.s. I'll be back in Malaysia next month! Woooo!!!