Bite On It!

Bittergourd is not everyone’s favourite due to its bitter after taste. However, if it is cooked with a particular ingredient, it can taste just as heavenly….

This is one of my favourite dish but not to my PiggyBeng… he don’t fancy eating bittergourd be it fresh or cooked! My mom ever gave him a glass of fresh bittergourd juice which was supposed to detox of bodily waste…. poor PiggyBeng was so horrified over the after taste!

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Ingredients

• 1 medium Bittergourd - sliced to 4/5mm thick in a slanting manner
• 200g Chicken breat meat - sliced thinly
• 1 chili - chopped
• 4 cloves Garlic - chopped
• 10g Preserved black beans
• Corn flour
• Salt
• Black soy sauce
• Light soy sauce
• Pepper
• Water

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Methods

1. Heat up wok with some oil, lightl fry the sliced bittergourd till 70% soft, lift up.
2. Add in more oil into wok and sautee the chopped garlic, chilies and preserved black beans.
3. Add in chicken (marinated with some corn flour, light soy sauce and pepper) and stir until about 50% cooked, add in the fried bittergourd, add in a little dark soy sauce for a dark tone.
4. Continue to stir for a while and add in some water (around 1/4 cup), stir and cover for 3-4 minutes. Stir until the bittergourd looked soft.
5. In a small bowl, mix water with 1tsp of corn flour and a dash of salt. Pour into the cooked bittergourd and lift up when the sauce is thicken.

With the festive season recently and insane weather, good ole veges’ priceshas somehow sky-rocketed in the wet market. Not to mention the limited choices offered by these vege sellers.

Last Sunday was Chap Goh Meh (last day of the Lunar New Year) and the wet market was basically a battle ground with people mountain-people seafighthing for whatever is left on the racks… not to mention about the insane price increased for the occasion. Therefore, I seldom swing to the wet market now as I can’t really tell what I’m paying for is actually the right price… these sellars will just tell me so much is the amount and I will pay them… pretty silly isn’t it? Even if I asked, I still can’t mentally calculate the $/kati/kg or whatever… I’m not a math person.

So, as a customer, I should have the rights to know what I am paying for. Where else but supermarkets where they won’t feel offended if you dump back that bundle or packet of spinach if the price is not right? I love shopping at supermarket these days… apart from not to have to wake up early, battle with the crowd and with air-condition, they are just as good from the good ole wet market though I must confess that sometimes some fresh produces are not ‘very’ the fresh but at least I can see the dates it has been packed. Best of all, it indicates the weight and the $/kg. Fair deal especially when I’m buying price controlled items. The chicken sellars always give me different quotes!

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Back to the topic, I saw these gigantic beans last Sunday at Tesco. My mom bought them a few times when I was back in KL the last time but so far I’ve not seen them being sold here. OK, must confess again that Penang is still quite backward! It is called lentil beans… it’s a bigger version of the sweetpea but lest the shinny surface. One thing I like about this bean is, it’s crunchy even after I fried them for quite a while.

Ingredients

• 1 pkt of Lentil beans (around 10pcs cut diagonally about 1″ in length)
• 25g Ikan bilis - chopped
• Carrot (a few slices)
• Light soy sauce and pepper for taste
• Water

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Methods

1. Heat up wok with some oil and lightly fry the lentil beans for about 5 minutes. Lift up.
2. Add some more oil to the wok and fry the chopped ikan bilis till fragrant (3 minutes)
3. Throw the lentil beans back into the wok and stir for a while then add in the sliced carrot and continue to stir for another 2 minutes
4. Add a little water (around 1/4 cup), stir and cover wok for 2-3 minutes
5. Before lifting, put a dash of light soy sauce and pepper to taste

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Note: Ikan bilis is generally salty, so if you prefer it to be saltier then add more light soy sauce or if you prefer to use salt, you can put a pinch but not too much or it will over the sweetness of the beans

Yesterday was my 2nd wedding anniversary to my fat piggy. He has a conference call at 8pm (not 3, not 4 kind of timing) thus we can’t go out to celebrate. So I prepared a simple dinner, of course, with his favourite ingredient…. fish.

I have wanted to try cooking this dish for a while as it’s quite a popular dish here in Penang. And I must say, it’s expensive too as it used thick fish fillets. I would recommend to use sang-yu (the fish we used in yee-sang), kurau (also known as cod) or salmon as they have a stronger texture. I used siakap (barramundi) as we just purchase two whole fish last weekend… it cost us RM76 for 16 slices! Siakap was not meant to be deep fried but that was what i’ve got….

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Ingredients

• 4 slices Fish fillets
• Some flour and salt (to cover fish fillets)
• 1 pkt Beehoon (vermicelli) - soaked
• 2 Onions - sliced thinly
• 1 Red chili - sliced
• 1 Chili padi - sliced
• Grated carrot and Chinese cabbage or bean sprouts (preferred amount)
• Light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and pepper for taste
• Water (to soften the beehoon)
• Sambal belacan with calamansi juice
• Oil for deep frying fish fillets

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Methods

1. Pour enough oil in a small sauce pan to deep fry the cut fish fillets until light brown. (Those selling at the stall will normally deep fried with flour batter so the fish fillet would not break up easily)
2. Heat up wok with oil and sautee the onion, chilies and all the vegetables (if you are using bean sprout, add in when beehoon is almost ready) for few minutes till soft.
3. Add in beehoon and stir for a while, add in preferred amount of water, stir and cover.
4. Pour in dark soy sauce, stir, add in light soy sauce and pepper to taste and continue to stir for a few more minutes till beehoon is soft.
5. Served with sliced fish and sambal belacan… Yum!

Been eating too many sweet cookies previously and when I discovered this salted cookie, it’s kinda nice for a change. I’ve adapted this yummy recipe from one of my baking idol, Aunty Yochana.

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Ingredients

• 250g Butter or margerine
• 75 g icing sugar
• 3/4 tsp Salt (orignal recipe ask for 1 tsp.)
• 10 g blended seaweed (nori) - blend till fine
• 300 g Cornflour
• 80 g Hong Kong flour (pau flour - I used the Blue Key brand)

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Methods

1. Beat butter or margerine, icing sugar and salt till creamy
2. Add in blended seaweed, corn flour and Hong Kong flour and mix into a dough.
3. Roll a small dough to about 4-5mm thick and cut out with a cookie cutter or place dough into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe onto baking tray
4. Bake at 150C for about 20 - 25 mins (don’t over baked or it will turn brownish)
5. Remove from oven and leave to cool before storing into containers

Happy Lunar New Year!!!

My apologies for the long break as I seldom cook these passed weeks. What I have been busy about is not with my wok and pans but rather with my new toy, the oven. Those who has been visiting my other blog knows that I am into baking these days. Have been experimenting with a few recipes and thought I should share some of the successful ones with my dear readers here.

Got this recipe from one of the site (lost the link) and it was by Donna Hay. For those of you who loves chocolate, this is a must try recipe.

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Ingredients

• 125g Butter
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 1/4 cup Flour
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 2 tbsp Cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup Milk
• 100g Dark chocolate

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Methods

1. Mix butter and and sugar and beat until light and creamy (use a mixer)
2. Gradually add the eggs and mix well
3. Sift over the flour, baking powder and cocoa and beat until combined
4. Fold through the milk, stir in the dark chocolate and spoon the mixture into medium muffin pan.
5. Bake at 320F or 160C for 12-15 minutes.