Bite On It!

Sorry that I have not been posting regularly here as I have too much to handle! I have quite a few photos lined up and are just waiting for me to finish up the recipes.

I love to do fried rice when I have extra left over rice from the night before. Sometimes I will even purposely cook more rice if I have ingredients for fried rice the next day.

One of the days, I managed to get some baby octopus from the afternoon market behind my house and was excited to cook them. PiggyBeng cooked some and I still have about half which I ended using them to cook Seafood Soba and this yummy seafood fried rice on a separate day.

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Ingredients

• 4 bowls of Cooked rice (refrigerated)
• 150g Prawns (shelled)
• 150g Baby octopus (cut into small chunks)
• 100g French beans (cut into 1/2″ long)
• 2 Eggs
• Chopped garlic (optional)
• Bonito flakes for garnishing
• Salt/light soy sauce/pepper for taste

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Methods

1. Heat up wok with some oil and gently stir fry the French beans till soft, lift up and set aside.
2. If you like to have garlic in your fried rice, using the same wok but add more oil and saute the chopped garlic until they are fragrant.
3. Break the eggs and continue to stir until eggs are ‘fried’.
4. Toss in the prawns and baby octopus and stir until they are half cooked.
5. Toss the French beans back into the wok and mix them well with the rest of the ingredients.
6. Add in a few dash of salt/light soy sauce and pepper for taste.
7. Sprinkle some Bonito flakes as garnish.

I’ve always love noodles. In fact when I have nothing better to eat I will first think of cooking a packet of instant noodles to nurse my hunger. That means, I have a huge stock of instant noodles nestling in my kitchen. :mrgree:

Besides instant noodles, I will buy other types of noodles occasionally. One of my latest craze is Korean and Japanese noodles. I bought a packet of Soba sometimes back from Daiso during my last trip to Singapore. I have wanted to cook the cold version but my hubby is not a fan of cold noodles so I decided to make it hot instead.

During a visit to the afternoon market near my place, I found some baby octopus and bought a kilo. At home I found some frozen prawns my hubby bought and the idea hit me… why not some seafood Soba? This is definitely a healthier choice! My boy love his bowl of Soba too. Without the baby octopus of course…

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Ingredients

• 2/3 packet Buckwheat Soba
• 200g Prawns (shelled and leave tail unshelled)
• 200g Baby octopus (clean and cut into 4 sections)
• 150g Hong Kong choy sum
• 2tbsp Wakame (Japanese seaweed)
• 1.5L Water
• Fish sauce + pepper for taste

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Methods

1. Boil water in a medium large pot. Throw in the prawn shells and let it boil for 20 minutes so the soup will have a good aroma.
2. While waiting for the soup to be ready, heat up another pot of water in a medium saucepan. Add a little oil and sugar. When the water boil, blanch the Hong Kong choy sum till 90% cook and remove from pot. Using the same pot of boiling water, blanch the Soba till springy soft and set aside. Do the same to the Wakame.
3. Remove the shell from the soup.
4. While the soup continue to boil, toss in the prawns and the baby octopus till they are cook. Remove them from the soup and put aside. Add fish sauce and pepper
5. In a bowl, place some Soba and top with Hong Kong choy sum, prawns, baby octopus and Wakame. Pour enough soup to cover Soba before serving.

I hardly cook Salmon now as they can be a little costly. My PiggyBeng don’t fancy them as he complaint that salmon is too oily. While I was preggy with Darrius, I ate a lot as I read from some medical articles that salmon has the highest amount of Omega 3 which is good for brain development.

Then while I was in Jusco during one of my shopping trip with Darrius, I decided to get a few slices for the both of us. And this is my fish dish…

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Ingredients

• 1 slice Salmon fillet
• 2tbsp Light so sauce (preferably the Kikoman special fragrant sauce)
• 1tbsp Sugar (I used brown sugar)
• 2tbsp Water
• Few dashes of ground black pepper
• Corn flour

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Methods

1. Wash salmon and dry it completely with a kitchen towel. Sprinkle some light soy sauce and corn flour lightly coating both surfaces. Heat up frying pan and pan fried on low fire. Remove from pan when both surfaces turn golden brown.
2. Using the same pan, add a little oil (1tsp) and pour in the mixture of light soy sauce, water, sugar and grounded black pepper and let it boil. The sugar will caramelized after a while and pour onto salmon fillet.

I guess I have been neglecting this blog big time! I have been extremely busy minding my  demanding ‘boss’ and also the long stay in KL plus my cupcakes e-shoppe as business was quite good when I was in KL.

This is a dish I concocted after our meal at one of these Hong Kong Char-Chan-Teng or eateries. Bosco soup is extremely popular among the Hong Kong people. From my understanding, this particular dish/soup has something to do with the European/Portuguese influence. It tasted very much like the minestrone soup.

Normally these eateries or restaurants where this soup is served, they will use macaroni but I am cooking for little boss so I used the Alphabets noodles instead.

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Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Alphabets noodles (boil in a separate saucepan)
• 2.5 cups Water
• 1/2 stick Carrot (cubed)
• 1/2 stick Celery (cubed)
• 1 Onion (cubed)
• 1 Tomato (removed seeds and cubed)
• 15g Silveryfish
• 2tbsp Tomato puree/paste (NOT ketchup)
• Sugar, salt and pepper to taste

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Methods

1. In a medium saucepan, saute the onion first with some oil. Then saute the carrot, celery and tomato cubes till fragrant and add in the Silveryfish and stir for a while.
2. Pour in the water, stir till it starting to boil and add the tomato puree. Let it boil for a while.
3. Drain the alphabets noodles and pour into the tomato soup and continue to let it boil for a further 5 minutes or so. Add sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
4. Sprinkle some dried herbs before serving.

Here is another easy and yummy chicken dish. I’ve always like braised chicken dishes as they are just so simple to cook and great for toddlers. Previously I’d put up a similar recipe but instead of chicken I used pork.

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Ingredients

• 3pcs Chicken drumsticks (cut into smaller pieces)
• 4-5pcs Chinese Mushrooms (soak and cut into half)
• 4-5 pips Garlic (coarsely chopped)
• 1×1″ Old Ginger (sliced)
• Dark soy sauce
• Light soy sauce
• Oyster sauce
• Water

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Methods

1. Heat up wok with oil (2-3 tbsp) and saute the ginger slices and chopped garlic till fragrant.
2. Put in the chicken pieces and stir fry for 2 minutes then add in mushroom and dark soy sauce. Continue to stir before adding in water (around 1 -1.5 cup), stir and cover and let it simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Add in light soy sauce and oyster sauce (depending on your taste) and continue to stir.
4. Let it simmer for another 10 minutes or so before serving.