Bite On It!

Sometimes it is a hassle to prepare ingredients just to cook a small dish. When I need to grind or ground chillies or other condiments, I prefer to do a huge batch and keep them in the freezer for future use so I don’t have to wash my blender every time I want to cook or use the particular ingredient or mix.

This is when the small bottle container comes in handy. I used to give Darrius some bottled/jar food when we were traveling and I will keep these bottles as there are quite useful for keeping moist items. In this case, I stored the excess dried prawns sambal so I can use them when I need to and don’t have to go through the hassle to grind just a small portion.

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Ingredients

• 1 cup Dried prawns
• 7pcs Red chillies (cut into big chunks)
• 2pcs Chili padi (cut into small chunks)
• 4-5 cloves Garlic (cut into small chunks)
• 7-8 pcs Shallot (cut into small chunks)
• 1″ Belacan (cut to smaller pieces)

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Methods

1. Mix all the cut ingredients into a big bowl. Scoop 3-4 spoonful into grinder and grind till everything are really smashed up. Continue till all ingredients are done.
2. To store, put them into small bottles, around 2-3 portions in each bottle. Store them in the freezer.
3. When you need to use, bring one bottle down to defrost in the fridge. One small bottle can stored up to 3 portions (use 3 times for cooking a normal plate of vege).

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Yes! I finally made my first tom yam soup! Thought it might not taste as good as the authentic Thai tom yam but according to PiggyBeng and my MIL, it tasted just like the real thing lest the spiciness…

What actually made the soup super yummy was the fresh coconut juice which I added into the soup and boil to perfection!

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Ingredients

• 300g Fish bones
• 300g chicken bones
• 500g Prawns (medium to large size)
• 3 Squids (cut into rings)
• 200g sliced fish
• Kuay Chap (or any types of rice or glass noodles)
• Lots of Chili padi (mixed red and green and slightly smashed)
• 6 stalks Lemongrass (slightly smashed on the head area)
• 4-6 pcs Kaffir leaves
• 1pc Galangal - 2″x3″ (partially smashed)
• 3 Onions (sliced into rings)
• 1 bulb Garlic (partially smashed)
• 4-5 Tomatoes (cut into 4 parts and removed the seeds)
• 3-4 Lime (squeeze out the juice)
• 3.5 litre Water
• 1 Coconut (juice only)
• Salt and Fish sauce to taste

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Methods

1. Boil the fish bones and chicken bones for an hour or 1.5 hours. Removed the bones.
2. In a wok, boil the prawns’ shell with 1-1.5 cups of water for 15 minutes and sieve out the juice, put aside.
3. Throw in the lemongrass, galangal, garlic, onions, kaffir leaves and chili padi into the fish and chicken broth and let it boil for another 30 mins.
4. Add in the tomatoes and boil another 20 mins till the skins come off. Add in the prawns juice, lime juice and coconut juice. Stir and let it boil.
5. Add in salt or fish sauce to taste. Tom yam soup is ready.
6. In a saucepan, boil some water with a few drops of oil and cook the kuay chap or rice noodles till soften and drained till dry.
7. To prepare individual bowl, scoop some tom yam soup into a small saucepan, throw in the squid rings, prawns and sliced fish and let it boil. Add in the cooked kuay chap, let it boil and pour into a bowl. Served.

We bought quite a lot of prawns during one of the week as I intended to cook tom yam. All these while I have been cooking Nestum Chicken but have never tried cooking Nestum Prawns before so I thought I’ll just give it a try. It turned out quite ok except the prawns that I bought was not deep sea prawns so it was not as springy as it should. I used sea-reared prawns. However, the colours was quite good… redish.

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Ingredients

• 12 Medium to large prawns (recommended to use deep sea prawns)
• 2 Chili padi
• 2 strands Curry leaves
• 1 tblsp Brown sugar
• 4-5 tblsp Nestum
• Light soy sauce
• Corn flour
• Pepper

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Methods

1. Deshelled the prawns (disect the back and remove all the dirt) and marinade with light soy sauce with sprinkles of corn four and pepper for about 1/2 hour.
2. Heat up wok with a little oil and fry the prawns lightly on small fire until 85% cooked (all curled up), lift up and put aside.
3. Heat wok with a little oil and fry the chopped chili padi and curry leaves. Once fragrant, put in the brown sugar and fry for a while until half melt and quickly pour in the Nestum and stir until the sugar is mixing well with the Nestum.
4. Add in the prawns and continue stirring for 20 seconds, lift up and serve.

We had a crustaceans fiesta last weekend. As I wanted to clear the Prima Taste DIY Singapore Chilli Crab since the expiry date is drawing near and PiggyBeng was craving for some prawns. So we went to the market and grabbed some crabs and prawns and had chilli crabs on Saturday and asam prawns on Sunday. I prepared the chilli crabs and PiggyBeng was the chef for the asam prawns.

This was one of PiggyBeng’s ’specialities’ and it tasted so yummy that I wallup almost 3/4 of it!

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Ingredients

• 10-12pcs Big Prawns (Tiger Prawns) - cut the shell along the ’spine line’ lightly so the sauce is able to sip into the prawns
• 20-30g Tamarind (add 8tbsp water to get the juice)
• 1/4tsp Black soy sauce
• 1tbsp Brown sugar

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Methods

1. Mix tamarind juice with black soy sauce and brown sugar.
2. Clean prawns and dried them using some kitchen towel before marinade for 20-30 minutes in the tamarind juice mixture.
3. Heat up wok with 2tbsp oil on medium fire, slowly place the prawns and let them fry on slow fire till cooked. Lift up when cooked.
4. Pour the remaining marinade juice into the wok and sti till boil and glaze the cooked prawns.

I had a request from Angeline a few weeks back asking for some spicy dishes. I seldom cook spicy dishes as they are rather heaty but I know my PiggyBeng will loves them so I have to cook one or two dishes of hot stuff once in a while. Though my MIL will cook some fish gulai (curry with no coconut milk and a more sourish version) but that ain’t enough so I will try to add some varieties if I can.

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My mom gave me some habaneros (one of the most intensely spicy chili peppers - Wikipedia) during my last trip back to KL and I have totally forgotten about them sitting in my chilies box in the fridge. Some has started to rot when I checked them out so decided to cook them asap!

Ingredients

• 300-400g Longbeans
• 100g Dried shrimps
• 7-8pcs Shallot
• 4 cloves Garlic
• 5pcs Red chilies
• 1pc Habanero or 3pcs Chili padi (I put them all!)
• 1/2″x1″ Belacan (Shrimp paste)
• Water or Tamarind juice
• Sugar (in case too spicy)

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Methods

1. Wash longbeans and cut to 2″ long. Heat up wok with some oil and lightly fry the longbeans till 60/70% soft. Lift them up.
2. Grind (blender) dried shrimps, shallots, garlic, red chilies, habanero and belacan. Add about 3 tbsp oil and fried the paste and adding a little oil after every 2 minutes and fry till fragrant. (try to fry using medium fire)
3. Add in fried longbeans into the chili paste and stir for a while, add some water (about 3/4 cup) and cover, stir occassionaly till the longbeans turn soft. Serve.