Pan-Fried Oyster Sauce Drumlets

I have been doing quite a lot of kids bento for Darrius lately which prompted me to come out with a lot of finger food recipes.  Though Darrius is pretty receptive to what ever I served him but there are still food that he will refuse. Therefore I will try to create different recipes using the same few ingredients.

Darrius is a huge fan of the pan-fried soy sauce chicken so I used that recipe to make drumlets which is very convenient to be packed into bento box as compared to chicken drumsticks. Today I am using oyster sauce instead.

Previously I never keep any oyster sauce at home simply because PiggyBeng believed that oyster sauce was made of left over water from fish in the market. o_O Yeah, apparently my BIL who used to operate a Chinese restaurant in Europe and he was told that this was how oyster sauce derived from. :P

Luckily I do watch TV and I've learned from a Master Chef (Tho-tho) from Hong Kong that oyster sauce actually came from boiling the fresh oysters with some ingredients.

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Ingredients

• 6 Chicken drumlets


• 1tbsp Oyster sauce


• 1tsp Brown sugar


• 1/2tsp Dark soy sauce


• Dash of pepper

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Methods

1. Wash and dry the chicken drumlets with a paper towel. Marinade the chicken drumlets with all the ingredients and best leave over night.


2. Heat up the wok with little oil (the skin from the chicken will release oil) and pan fried all the drumlets on low heat.


3. When the drumlets are about 90% cooked, pour in the remaining sauce from the marinade and cook till all the drumlets are fully glazed with the sauce.

Simple Chicken Teriyaki on Skewers

Yesterday I went to Tesco to do my weekly marketing and has wanted to look for some chicken wings but they ran out of stock. Only saw some miserable chicken thighs and some ok looking chicken breast meat so decided to get a pack of the latter.

Normally I'll use them for stir-fying with some vegetables but since I have quite a few pieces, I decided to de-bone them and make some simple teriyaki chicken on skewers since Darrius likes eating 'satay'. I pan fried it as I was lazy to start the oven. :P

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Ingredients

• Satay/bamboo sticks


• Japanese cucumber

Marinade

• 300g Chicken breast meat fillet (cut into square bite size)


• 1tsp Black sauce


• 1tbsp  Light soy sauce


• 1tbsp Mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine)


• 1tsp Corn flour


• 1tsp Olive oil


• 1tbsp Brown sugar


• Dash of pepper

Sauce

• 1tbsp Brown sugar


• 1tsp Corn flour


• 1tsp Black sauce


• 1tbsp Light soy sauce


• 1/2 cup Water

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Methods

1. Debone the chicken meat if there's any, wipe dry with a paper kitchen towel and cut into square bite size.  Marinade and leave it for a few hours in the chiller.


2. Heat up frying pan with some oil and slowly pan fried the chicken cubes till cooked. Lift then up and put aside.


3. Continue on the frying pan with the sauce ingredients and cook till it comes to a boil and toss in the chicken cubes and let the sauce absorb into the chicken cubes on low fire. Lift up and skewer them onto bamboo sticks  and alternate with a slice of Japanese cucumber.

Fried Pumpkin with Dried Prawns

I used to buy pumpkin on a weekly basis last time when Darrius was still on porridge. I cut down after he moved on to rice so I only buy once in a while. I normally steam a few slices in the rice cooker and smash it up with the rice and serve it to Darrius. Pumpkin is highly nutritional and good for kids as well as adults.

There was still a big portion left after a week so I decided to cook this dish, one of my favorite pumpkin dish. Not sure where this dish originate from but I learned it from my mom.

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Ingredient

• 200g Golden pumpkin (cut into thick slice)


• 30g Dried prawns (soften by crushing them in a mortar & pestle)


• 1tbsp Garlic (corsley chopped)


• 1tbsp Brown sugar


• 1/2 cup water


• Light soy sauce for taste

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Method

1. Heat up wok with some oil and fry the dried prawns till fragrant. Lift them up and keep aside.


2. Add some more oil to the wok and pan fry the pumpkin slices till golden brown. Lift up and set aside.


3. Add oil to the wok again and saute the chopped garlic till fragrant. Toss in the pumpkin, stir and add in the brown sugar. Add in water, stir and simmer for 5 minutes.


4. Toss in the dried prawns and continue to stir before adding some light soy sauce. Lift up and serve.

Japanese Sweet Potato Broiche

Though I am a part time cupcake seller, I must confess I seldom bake any other stuff besides... well, cupcakes! :P My oven is solely for my cupcakes and sometimes my Ah Beng will use it to make some grill stuff and that's about it.

After checking out a few new blogs, I decided that I need to be adventurous again and try new things with my oven. Then I spotted this really nice looking bread which is called broiche from Javapot's blog. I must say it looked really tempting then so I quickly went to get some bread flour and sweet potatoes.

Since I was in Jusco, I bought the Japanese sweet potatoes thinking it might have more flavors as compared to our local grown ones.

This is my very first time baking anything using bread flour or bread as a matter of fact! Though I have helped my mom a couple of times in making steamed paus I've never ventured into bread making alone.

One thing about bread making is, the proofing period which can takes a while. Being so inexperience in this area, I can say that I have no ideas how long I should proof my dough! Well, at least the broiches turned out quite ok... when it is fresh out of the oven! :P

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Ingredients

• 125g mashed sweet potato


• 210g bread flour


• 2 eggs


• 1/4 tsp salt


• 1/2 tsp instant yeast


• 36g sugar (add slowly)


• 107g butter, room temperature

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Method

1. Mix and knead all ingredients except sugar and butter. I'll suggest using a gloves as the ingredients will sticks onto your fingers.


2. After 5 min, add sugar slowly. (I added mine too soon so that's why it did not raise as much as it should)


3. Add butter after 15 min and knead until you get a soft pliable dough.


4. Let the dough rest in room temperature for 1 hour.


5. Divide the dough into size required (the dough should be light and airy under your fingers but still a little sticky so u glaze your palms with some butter before handling).


6. Cover/wrap and refrigerate dough over night.


7. Next day, shape chilled dough as desired and placed them into greased tins.


8. Cover/wrap shaped dough and rest in warm place for another 1.5 hours or at least double in bulk. (I was a little anxious and inexperience so did not let it proof enough)


9. Bake in a pre-heated oven @ 190 degrees for 30-35 min or until golden brown (including the base).


10. Cool in tin for 8 min before removing them and completely cool them on rack.