Wishing you a Happy Hopping Bunny Year!

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May the year of the Golden Bunny brings you abundance of joy, good health, love and prosperity!

Gong Xi Fa Chai!

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xoxo

Angeleyes

Tonkatsu (Japanese Deep-fried Pork Cutlet)

Oh my! Has not been updating this poor blog for so long! *wipe away the cob webs*

Well, I have been busy doing lots of bento creations lately so kind of neglected this blog. I still cook and explored new recipes, just that I do not have much time to update them in here. Will try to be more consistent with my postings here as I have quite a few back dated recipes to share. Also, the kids have been taking up a lot of my time since baby is more mobile now. :D

Today, I wanted to share a very yummy deep fried pork cutlet or commonly known as tonkutsu recipe given by a very talented mom from Hawaii. I actually asked for this recipe more than a year ago *blushed* and only now did I cook this it! That was because I seldom do deep frying since the day my hubby took over the mop from me! So, each time I do frying in the kitchen, I must do a thorough clean up. Since I am such a lazy bum now, I have resorted to do steaming and broiling only! :mrgreen:

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Ingredients

• 3 slices Pork chop/cutlet (about 1cm thick)


• 1 Egg


• Some corn flour (the original recipe asked for flour)


• Some Bread crumbs (panko)


• Sugar  ( I used brown sugar)


• Salt


• Pepper


• Garlic powder (optional)


• 1 tbsp Water


• Oil for frying

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Methods

1. Clean the pork slices then tenderize the meat by using the back of the clever in a criss-cross pattern. Used some kitchen napkins and absorb all excess  liquid.


2. Sprinkle the sugar, pepper, garlic powder and salt onto meat and gently rub them on both sides.


3. Heat up frying pan with oil (enough to fill half the pan) and test with chopstick before frying.


4. Firstly, put the corn flour onto a flat plate and coat both sides of the meat.


5. In another plate, beat egg and add water. After coating the meat with corn flour, coat it with the egg mixture.


6. In another flat plate, fill it with bread crumbs/panko. After coating the meat with egg, coat it with the bread crumbs before frying it in the pan.


7. Keep heat at medium so the bread crumbs would not burn so easily. Fry till golden brown/cooked.

Stir-fried Yau Mak Tam with Dace and Preserved Black Beans

One thing I like to do is mimic dishes that I have eaten in restaurants or stalls which I really like. More so if they are easy to cook type of dishes which do not require a host of ingredients.

My uncle who lives in Ipoh (a town in the northern part of Malaysia) loves to go to this restaurant called Man Choong which serves quite good Chinese dishes. He is a regular there so we get good serving size each time we dine there.

One of their vege dishes attracted my attention sometime back and I so wanted to do that at home but do not have the ingredients. So, one day I went to get a can of dace with preserved black beans to just try out. I have stopped eating canned dace for a while ever since the scare of mercury and was banned but it has been some time now and I think the manufacturers already got those contaminted ones removed.

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Ingredients

• 300g Yau Mak Tam (Romaine Lettuce)


• 1/2 can Dace with preserved black beans


• Soy sauce for taste

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Methods

1. Wash and dried the yau mak tam.


2. In a wok, heat up some oil (I used the oild from the can of dace) and pour in half a can of dace and stir fry for a minute.


3. Toss in the yau-mak-tam and stir till well mix.


4. When the yau-mak-tam starting to look limpy, sprinkle some soy sauce and give a quick stir before dishing up.

Baked Pasta on Bread

It has been a long time since I make any baked snacks at home. We have just too many packets of cookies and other snacks lying around the house waiting to be finished up. Darrius spent half the day in school so he skipped one snack time at home. When he returned, his lunch will filled him up till dinner time and that means, no more snacking time in those 5 days of the week!

I actually made these simple snack some time back when I was trying to find ways to make something interesting to munch...

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Ingredients

• 100g Pasta (I used some characters pasta)


• 6 slices of Bread (cut into star shape)


• Pasta sauce (I used the Leggo's Pasta Bake sauce)


• Cheese bits


• Ham bits

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Methods

1. In a medium sauce pan, boil the pasta with some salt. Drained and leave to cool down.


2. Cut the bread slices into star shapes using a cookie cutter and placed them into muffin tins with the 5 edges  sticking out.


3. In the centre of the bread, put a dullop of pasta sauce and some cooked pasta on it before dropping another dullop onto the pasta.


4. Before sending the tray into the oven, sprinkle with some cheese and ham bits on the top. Bake at 200°C for about 20 minutes or till the edges of the bread turned brownish.

Meaty Bolognese

Now that my baby is at the stage where she is getting more active and mobile, I have less time to prepare lunch hence I will cook and freeze some food which my boy likes. All I need to do is to reheat these frozen food stash before I go and fetch him from school.

One of these is pasta/spaghetti with bolognese sauce. The sauce can be kept in the freeze up to a month. All I need to do is to put appropriate portion into small containers and deep freeze them once they have cooled down.

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Ingredients

• 500g Meat (chicken/pork/beef) minced/ground


• 80g Frozen mixed vege - optional


• 4 Button Mushroom (sliced/coarsely chopped) - optional


• 1 jar Bolognese/pasta sauce - I used the 575g jar


• Pepper and salt for taste


• 250g pasta


• Olive oil (to fry the meat and to seperate pasta/spaghetti)


• Water

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Methods

1. Heat up a frying pan with some olive oil and stir-fry minced meat till 70% cooked.


2. Toss in the mix vege & sliced button mushroom and continue to stir.


3. Add in the bolognese/pasta sauce and mixed well and add in water (about 1/2 cup). Stir till cook and sprinkle with pepper and salt to taste.


4. In a pot, boil 1.5 little of water, add a teaspoon of salt and wait till boil before tossing in pasta/spaghetti and cook according direction on the package. Drain and add in some olive oil to avoid them from sticking to each other.

Chicken Gingko Nuts Porridge

Gosh... been ages since my last post here! Apologize for the long absence! Having 2 kids and managing a few blogs are the reasons why I hardly post here!

The weather in Penang has finally turned cooler with more frequent rainfalls... which is really a blessing! We were having the longest hottest weather for the past few months and all of us are so glad the rain has finally returned!

During the hot weather, I seldom do a lot of stir-frying or deep-frying but more to boiling soups and porridge for the family. Darrius fell sick a few times and his cough took a long time to recover too which is why I steamed most of our dishes for his sake.

Here is another healthy porridge which I have been preparing for the family...

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Ingredients

• 1.5 cup Rice (wash and drained)


• 3L Water


• 80g Gingko nuts ('heart' removed)


• 1 stick Carrot (medium - shredded)


• 2pcs Dried scallops


• 100g Groundnuts (washed and pre-boiled to remove dirts)


• 2pcs Chicken thighs (cut into small pieces)


• 10g Goji berries (Wolfberries)


• 1tbsp Oil + salt to be added into rice and soak for 10 mins


• Salt for taste


• Lettuce for garnishing

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Method

1. In a pot, when water is boiling add in the soaked rice and let it boil.


2. Add in the chicken pieces, dried scallops, shredded carrot and groundnuts and let them boil on low fire.


3. Stir the porridge constantly every 15-20 minutes so it would not stick at the bottom.


4. Boil the porridge for an hour and when it gets thicken, add in the gingko nuts and continue to stir and let it boil for a further 20 minutes.


5. Turn off the fire, sprinkle the goji berries and mix well into the porridge.


6. Serve hot with shredded lettuce.

Simple Seafood Alfredo Portobello

Ever since I have 2 kids, I am always looking for easy to prepare dishes which takes less time to cook and something Darrius will enjoy as he has been a little fussy lately. As I have to cook 2 meals a day, sometimes I really have to scratch my head to think of what to cook since PiggyBeng can be quite fussy too.

Kids being kids, Darrius loves Western food more than his daddy so I'll try to cook stuff that PiggyBeng likes least for lunch. It is during lunch I will cook pasta or spaghetti which PiggyBeng tried to avoid as he thinks these carbo food are too fattening!

Being pressed for time, I don't cook these sauces from scratch anymore which I used to do last time. Now, I'll just grab a few cans of those pasta sauce each time I visit the supermarkets and they come in real handy when I want to have a quick bite for both Darrius and myself.

Campbell's came out with quite a few pasta sauce recently and I guessed this is the perfect time to try all of them... With some frozen fresh scallops stash from our reunion dinner, I made some yummy cream pasta that don't require much time.

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For this dish, I used the Alfredo Portobello sauce...

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With some fresh ingredients...

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Ingredients

• 150g Spaghetti or pasta of your choice


• 2 pips Garlic (sliced thinly)


• 4-5 Button mushrooms (caps + stipes)


• 3pcs Fresh scallops (sliced half and cut into 4 sections)


• 80g Fresh medium prawns


• 1 can of Campbell's Alfredo Portobello sauce


• 1/2 cup Water (optional)

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Method

1. Heat some water in a stock pot - half filled with a teaspoon salt and let it come to a boil. Toss in spaghetti or pasta and cook till preferred softness. Drained, add a teaspoon of olive oil, mix and set a side.


2. In a frying pan, add some oil and saute garlic till golden. Lift up and set aside.


3. Using the same frying pan, add another tablespoon of oil and stir fry mushroom, scallops and prawns till 70% cooked.


4. Add in the whole can of Alfredo Portobello sauce and mix well with the ingredients. Add 1/2 a cup of water if you want it to be slightly diluted and stir till cooked.


5. You can either pour on top of your spaghetti or you can toss in your spaghetti and stir fry it for a minute. Garnish with the saute garlic and some vegetables.


6. If you love herbs, you can sprinkle some mixed herbs for extra flavors.