Stuffed Squids

Found some squids hiding in my freezer the other day. They were the left over from PiggyBeng's Assam Curry Fish that he cooked during the weekend.

Have wanted to use them to fry some vermicelli but did not have all the ingredients so came out with this idea instead... stuffed squid since I found a small piece of pork belly. Have not attempted this one before so not sure if it will turn out nice or a total disaster. :|

As usual, there is no definite portion to this recipe as I only have 5 pathetically small squids...

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Ingredients

• Squids


• Pork belly (minsed)


• Chili padi


• Garlic (about 2 cloves)


• Corn flour


• Salt


• Pepper

Sauce

• Juice from the steamed stuffed squids


• Corn flour


• Salt

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Method

1. Minced the pork belly. Add in chopped garlic and chilies with a little corn flour and water to hold them together.


2. Stuff the minced pork mix into squid.
3. Steam the stuffed squid for about 10 minutes


4. Remove the juice (was surprised that there were lots of it - no idea where it came from). Add corn flour with a sprinkle of salt and pour into the wok to cook the sauce. Remember to stir so it would not turn lumpy.


5. Once the sauce began to boil (lots of bubbles), pour over the stuffed squids. Serve.

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Note: Do not stuff the squid till you fill the whole squid as the stuffings will come out when the squids shrunk during the steaming process! So, just stuffed them about half will be just nice. :) That was why you see so many pork balls around the stuffed squids...

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8 Treasure Vegetarian Delight

Finally a vegetarian dish! I seldom cook dishes that made up with just vegetable as PiggyBeng thinks there are not filling... he needs his meat (very carnivorous hor?)

This dish was actually inspired by PiggyBeng's 3rd uncle's wife (sar-jim). They are a staunch Buddhists and will go on a vegetarian diet on every 1st and 15th of the Chinese Lunar month. We went to their house on one of the 15th and they served a similar dish so I thought I can concoct one myself by using some of my favorite ingredients.

It's not a difficult dish to prepare but do take up some time as there are 8 items that needed to be prepared individually before cooking it. And the best part is... there's no exact recipe because I just cut and put in all the ingredients I have with me.... so if you want to feed more mouths.... just put more of the items you like.

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Ingredients

• Lotus roots


• Lotus seeds


• Gingko nuts


• Peanuts


• Carrot


• Brinjal (eggplant)


• Button mushrooms


• Enoki mushrooms


• Water


• Salt and soy sauce for taste

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Method

1. Boil peanuts, lotus seeds and gingko nuts until soft in a small pan (one after another).


2. Sliced lotus roots and carrot thinly. Cut brinjal into a few sections and cut each section into 4 or 6 triangular piece. Cut button mushrooms into 4 sections each.


3. Firstly, heat up wok with approximately 2 tblsp of oil and fry lotus roots, followed by carrot, button mushrooms and brinjal. Then add in the soften peanuts, gingko nuts and lotus seeds.


4. Pour in the water and let it boil and cover. Stir occasionly and continue to boil in slow fire for at least 30-45 minutes until all the vege are soft.


5. Add salt or soy sauce before putting in the enoki mushrooms. Covers for another 10 minutes and serve.

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Note: Remember to remove the 'heart' from both lotus seeds and gingko nuts as they could be bitter.

You can boil them in a claypot too if you own one.

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Sambal Winged Bean (Kacang Botol)

Legume is among one of my favorite food. And there are quite a few types of legume sold in the nearby market. One of the day during my weekly market trip, I saw my regular vege seller is selling winged beans.

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It has been a long time since I last cooked winged beans and knowing PiggyBeng will like spicy dish, I decided to get some and cook some dried prawn sambal with the winged beans I bought.

This is a short-cut recipe as I did not blend the sambal myself (lazy me) but used those ready made sambal belacan which I bought from the market... which is pretty handy! Saves a lot of time and don't have to wash the blender too! :P

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Ingredients

• 300gm Winged beans


• 100gm Dried prawns


• 2pcs Chili padi (cut strip)


• 2tblsp Sambal belacan (from ready made)


• 2 Cloves garlic


• 50ml Water


• Salt for taste


• Soy sauce for taste

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Methods

1. Wash and sliced the winged beans to around 0.5mm thick in a slanting position.


2. Dried prawns can be used as whole or could be chopped into tiny pieces depending on individual preference. I used them whole this time.


3. Heat up about 2 tblsp of oil in wok and fry dried prawns until fragrant then put in the chopped garlic and ontinue to fry for another minute.


4. Put in sambal belacan and fry till fragrant (you will feel your nose starts to itch and feels like sneezing) then thrown in the chili padi and continue stiring.


5. Next, put in the winged beans and stir before pouring about 50ml of water in. Stir and over for 3 minutes and stir and over for another 2 minutes. This will helps soften the beans.


6. Sprinkle some salt or a few dash of soy sauce before serving.

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Chinese Style Pork Chop

Not that I love to eat pork that much but it seems to be a really versatile ingredient in many types of cooking.

Ever since Darrius started taking solid, I have been buying lean pork to add into his porridge. Will buy around RM2-3 of lean meat each week and sometimes I'm left with a huge chunk in the freezer after slicing a few pieces for Darrius's porridge. As it is lean so the best and simplest thing to do with it is to make some pork chops ala Chinese style.

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Ingredients

Marinade

• 250gm Lean pork (slice to about 1cm thick)


• 1tsp Black soy sauce


• 1tsp Light soy sauce


• 1tsp Cooking oil


• Sugar


• Pepper

Topping Sauce (optional)

• 30ml Water


• 1tsp Corn flour


• 1tbsp Tomato Ketchup


• Salt


• Pepper

Decoration

• 1pkt Snow peas

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Method:

1. Marinade pork for 1/2 hour or more.
   Heat up wok with about 1 tbsp of oil and fry the marinated pork on slow fire.


2. When the pork are all cooked, pick them up and use the remaining oil to cook the topping sauce. Mix all the ingredients and pour into wok and stir until boil. Pour in the pork chops and stir lightly before taking out.


3. For the snow peas, boil in water with a dash of salt and oil for about 1-2 minutes (not too long or the peas will not be crisp)

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Note: Before marinating the pork, tenderise it first by using the back of the clever and chop lightly in a criss-cross way for a few times so the meat will not be tough to bite.

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Stir-fry Kai Lan with Pork

Kai lan (kale) is one of our favorite green leaf vegetable. In fact this is the only vegetable I was allowed to eat during my confinement.

So far, the best way to cook kai lan is to stir-fry with either meat or prawns and add in a little rice wine to boost the taste. On lazy days, I will just do the plain stir-fry with some soy sauce... of cause not so delicious lar! :P

If you look closely when you are in the market, there are actually a few types of kai lan on sale. The common ones are those in skinny bundle which was planted locally here. Another type is those they called Hong Kong kai lan where all the bundles came in almost similar sizes. The type I like is those with thick stem and really huge leaves (pictured above).

Today I'll cook it with pork since I still have some left in my freezer. ;)

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Ingredients

• 300gm Kai lan


• 150gm pork/chicken/prawns


• 2cm ginger (sliced into fine stripes)


• 2 tblsp glutinous rice wine /cooking wine


• 2 tsp corn flour


• Water


• Soy sauce


• Sugar


• Pepper

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Methods

1. Marinade meat with some corn flour, pepper and soy sauce and leave it for 30 minutes.


2. Cut kai lan into 5cm long and separate the stems and leaves.


3. Heat up wok and fry ginger till fragrant and throw in the marinaded meat and fry for 1 minute before adding in the kai lan stems. Sprinkle some water, stir and cover for 2 minutes. Add in the leaves and cover for another 2 minutes.


4. When the kai lan looked soft, pour in the rice wine and continue to stir.


5. Mix around 5 tblsp of water with corn flour, sugar, pepper and soy sauce for the sauce in a small bowl. Mix well. Pour into the cooked kai lan and stir until the consistency became thick before scooping out.

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Longbean Baskets with Pork and Salted Fish

I have a bundle of longbeans and have no idea what to do with them. Was thinking to just stir-fry with some meat but the idea was rather boring so came up with this dish instead.

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The process does look rather intricate but fret not! It's rather easy to do and it taste good too! :)

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Ingredients

• 12 stalks longbeans


• 300gm Pork


• 15gm salted fish (mui heong type)


• 2 pcs chili padi


• 1 tsp corn flour


• pepper to taste


• water

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Sauce

• 1 tsp Corn flour


• 30 ml water


• Pepper


• Soy sauce

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Methods

1. Boil water with a little oil and salt and put in longbeans and boil until 80% soft. Take out and let it cool.


2. Minced the pork and add in chopped salted fish and chilies with corn flour and some water (to hold the mixture together). Mix well and add in a dash of pepper.


3. Weave the longbeans into a basket shape.


4. When all the longbenas have been weaved, stuff the minced pork mixture on top of the basket.


5. Heat up the frying pan or wok and add in a little oil and start frying the baskets (the top first).


6. When all the baskets are all golden brown...lift them up from frying pan.


7. To prepare the sauce, mixed all the ingredients. Heat up the wok with a little oil and pour in the mixture and stir slowly until it boils. Glaze the baskets with the sauce.

Ayam Masak Pedas

I seldom cook poultry dishes because these days chicken meat sold in the market are mostly from chicken factory farms where chicken are being fed with feeds that contained high level of chemicals which speed up the growth of these chicken.

As grains (corn and wheat) are getting more expensive, most factory farmers do not feed their chicken the way the small time kampung (village) farmers does. Also, in the village, the chicken will have the opportunity to run about picking on other natural food which are more nutritional and without chemical. That is why, farm-run chicken are far more expensive.

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I bought some yellow-skinned chicken from the Taman Yulek wet market in Cheras during my recent KL trip. Can't find this kind of chicken in Penang and according to my mom, only in this market they sell such chicken. Not sure if these are factory farm reared chicken or not but looking at the size (quite huge), I suspected that it must be but since my mom said it tasted much better than the ordinary chicken meat bought in the supermarkets so I bought a few pieces back to Penang.

Found some tumeric powder in my kitchen cupboard so decided to try cooking a dish with it. I remembered tasting something like that during my college's day near Wangsa Melawati in one of those Malay's gerai makan (food stall). It's not so spicy but the taste of tumeric is really refreshing... I just love tumeric! If using fresh tumeric, the taste would be even better!

Since I only cook for 2 pax, therefore, the portion used may not suffice if you need to feed more mouths! :)

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Ingredients

• 1 pc Whole chicken thigh (chopped into smaller pieces)


• 1 tsp Tumeric powder


• 1 pc Onion (sliced into rings)


• 2 pcs Chili padi (sliced)


• 1 stalk Lemon grass (sliced thinly)


• 1 tsp Lemon juice


• A pinch of salt

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Methods

1. Marinade chicken meat with tumeric powder, lemon juice and salt for at least 1/2 a day... the longer the better!


2. Heat up oil in wok/frying pan and fry the chicken until slightly dry and take out


3. Stir-fry onion, chilies and lemon grass until fragrant


4. Add in chicken and any left over juices from the marinade and fry for 2-3 minutes


5. Serve with hot rice :)

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