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.

.

.

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

.
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.

PiggyBeng likes to buy prawns once in a while if he sees good ones in the wet market that he frequents. He knows the prawns much better than me so I will let him do the buying most of the time.

So happened while watching a food show on TV one weekend, there is this restaurant that prepared a very easy prawn dish which is also one of their signature dishes… I decided to try it out since we have some prawns in the freezer.

It is a little unhealthy but the taste was really good!

 .

.

Ingredients

• 300g Medium prawns (cut away the legs)
• 3tbsp Margerine
• 3tbsp Sugar
• Pinch of salt (optional)
• Curry leaves (optional)

.

Methods

1. Heat up wok and melt the margerine. Add in the sugar and continue frying.
2. Toss in the curry leaves (if you have) stir for a while before tossing in the prawns. Stir fry till the sauce starts to caramelized. Sprinkle with some salt if you like it to be saltier as margerine already contains salt.
3. Serve.

Lately I’ve been buying a lot of cauliflowers as Darrius has the liking for them out of the blue. He saw us eating a few times and kept pestering me to give him some. I did not gave him in the past as I don’t boil my cauliflowers till they are soft but leave it crunchy.

Since Darrius is keen to have some so I decided to boil all our cauliflowers real soft so he will have no problem chewing them (most of the time he will swallow without much chewing… lazy fella). Previously I don’t put in that much water to make the sauce but I decided to create a clear broth just so Darrius can have some over his rice.

 .

.

Ingredients

• 1/4 Cauliflower
• Some Carrot slices
• Some Sweetpeas
• 100g Chicken breast meat (thinly sliced, marinate with corn flour and soy sauce)
• 2 cloves garlic (smashed/ finely chopped)
• Few slices of old ginger
• 1 cup Chicken broth (or use non MSG chicken cube)
• 1tsp corn flour mix with some water

 .

Methods

1. Boil some water with a few drops of oil and sugar in a saucepan. First put in the cauliflower chunks, then the carrot and lastly the sweetpeas and drain them after letting it boil for a few minutes. Put aside.
2. Heat up wok with some oil and saute the chopped garlic and sliced ginger till fragrant and add in the marinated chicken slices and stir till 50% cooked. Toss in the boiled vegetables and stir till they are well mixed.
3. Pour in the chicken broth or chicken cube and stir until the sauce boil before adding in the corn flour solution to thicken the sauce.

 .

I will buy a big chunk of pork belly sometime from my regular butcher whenever I go by that market in the city. Then I will cut them into a few parts and freeze them. I will normally have 3 to 4 parts depending on the size he cut for me with each part just nice for 2 persons consumption.

Like usual, both PiggyBeng and myself prefer to have chilies dishes for most of our meals. And this is one of those easy to prepare pork dish which I normally cook.

. 

 .

• 250-300g Pork belly (with skin intact)
• 3-4 Dried chilies (pre-soak with hot water and remove seeds)
• 1 Red chili
• 1tbsp Bean paste (tau-chu)
• 1tbsp Dark soy sauce
• 4 cloves Garlic (smashed/minced)
• 1″ square Ginger (thinly stripes)
• Some water

.

Methods

1. Wash the scums away from the pork skin (use a tweezer to remove any hair) then sliced thinly about 5mm thick.
2. Heat up wok with some oil (not too much as pork belly has lard) and saute the garlic, then the ginger, the chili and the dried chili till fragrant before toasting in the sliced pork belly.
3. Add in the bean paste and dark soy sauce and stir until all are well mixed. Add in a little water (if you need more sauce add more water) and let it simmer for 15 minutes or till the meat is tender.

This is another emergency recipe that I’ve came out with. Like what I’ve mentioned before, I will buy beans (long-beans, French beans, Snake beans) to keep almost every week for those ‘just in case I don’t know what to cook’ occasion. At such time, I will rummaged throw my fridge for stuff that I can use and these beans always come in very handy as they are so versatile.

You can stir-fry, braised, boil, steam and even fried them! The possibilities are endless if you have the creativity to use them. The other reasons why I like to buy and keep them as they have a slightly longer shelf life as compared to other vegetables if you keep them in the right way.

.

.

Ingredients

• 200g French beans (cut into 4cm strips)
• 1″ square Salted fish (use the Kurau/Cod fish type) - sliced
• 2 cloves Garlic (finely chopped)

.

Methods

1. Heat up wok with some oil and lightly fry the French beans till about 70% cook. Lift up and put aside.
2. Add more oil into the wok and saute the salted fish slices till it turns sandy, put on one side of the wok.
3. With the balance oil in the wok, saute the garlic till fragrant before mixing with the salted fish and stir.
4. Throw in the fried French beans and stir well for a few minutes before serving.

 .