Memories in the Cooking

I have fond memories of certain canteen food I had during my schooling days. One of them is the satay pork I had during my junior college years. Ingredients: - 1 kg of pork collar meat - 1 tablespoon of light soya sauce  - 1 teaspoon of corn flour  - store-bought satay sauce  - 1 onion, sliced  - 3 cloves of garlic, minced  Procedures: 1) Marinate pork with light soya sauce and corn flour for a few hours.  2) In a frying pan, add some vegetable oil and fry garlic and onions until fragrant. 3) Add pork and fry until it turns brown.  4) Add satay sauce. Add a little water and simmer for 5 minutes until the pork is cooked. Serve. 

My youngest boy loves this dish and asks me to promise him that I will cook it again for him. The dish is smoky with paprika and creamy at the same time. Ingredients: - 500g of beef steak, sliced - 500g of pasta (e.g. penne) - 400g of portobello mushrooms, sliced - 1 large onion, diced - 3 cloves of garlic, minced - 2 tablespoon of paprika - 1 tablespoon of flour - 2 glasses of milk - 1 can of Nestle all purpose cream - 1 teaspoon of salt - pepper - butter Procedures: 1) Cook the pasta in boiling water until soft. 2) Marinate the sliced beef in salt, pepper and paprika. 3) In a frying pan, fry the beef steak until just cooked. Set it aside. 4) Add onions, mushrooms and garlic to the frying pan. Add a knob of butter and fry until soft. 5) Add a tablespoon of flour. Fry it until brown. 6) Add milk and cream until a thick sauce is made. 7) Add the cooked pasta and beef. Adjust the taste with some salt. Serve. Beef Stroganoff goes well in a wrap too. Add so...

I used to buy ready-made Teriyaki sauce at around $5 dollars a bottle (250 ml) from supermarket until I found that Teriyaki sauce is essentially just light soya sauce, mirin, sake, sugar and ginger juice. Not only is it more economical to make your own Teriyaki sauce, it also produces tastier teriyaki dishes. Reason? Home-made Teriyaki sauce produces a shiny and sticky coat on the meat or fish, which is achieved through slowly reducing the mixture of seasoning. By making your Teriyaki sauce from scratch, you could easily produce enough quantity at a faction of the price for a big batch of meat (i.e. chicken wings, chicken cutlets, salmon etc), ideal for a party. This post, I am going to show you how to whip up a Teriyaki Fish Burrito Bowl. Ingredients: - 2 fish fillets  - 20 ml of sake - 20 ml of mirin - 10 ml of Japanese soya sauce - 20 ml of water - 2 tablespoons of sugar  - 50g ginger, grated Procedures: 1) Combine all seasoning and ginger....

Fish with sauteed onions - very rarely do I like the accompanying ingredients on the fish more than the fish itself. This is one dish which I could eat a bowl of rice with just the sauteed onions. This is my Mummy's recipe and it is definitely going to stay for at least my generation. Ingredients: - 1 grouper - 2 large yellow onions, sliced - 1 thumb-size ginger, shredded - parsley for garnishing - 3 tablespoons of black vinegar - 2 tablespoons of light soya sauce - salt, pepper - corn flour - 2 tablespoons of sugar Procedures: 1) Pat dry grouper. Season it with a little salt and pepper. Coat it with corn flour. 2) To a pan of hot vegetable oil, add grouper and pan-fry it until brown over medium fire (around 5 minutes on each side). When the fish is cooked, set it aside on a serving plate. 3) Pan-fry sliced onions until soft. Add shredded ginger and fry until fragrant. Add vinegar, light soya sauce, pepper and sugar. 4) Add the onions on the grouper. Garnish wi...

I have a pot of prawn and chicken broth. I realise that cooking also has a domino effect. This pot of broth came from the cooking Samsui Chicken, Spanish Garlic Prawns and Hokkien Mee. Besides these 3 dishes, the pot of broth will continue to make this Seafood Porridge, San Lao Hor Fun and Prawn Bisque. Wow, that is a 6 dishes bundle! Ingredients:  - 500g of prawns  - 500g of squid rings  - 150g of pork belly - 1 can of razer clams - 4 eggs  - 1 cup of rice  - fried shallots - parsley Procedures:  1) The broth is made from the chicken broth from Samsui Chicken and prawn shells from 2kg of prawns. Refer to the step in the Hokkien Mee recipe.  2) Cook the prawns and squid rings in the broth for about 1 minute. Set it aside.  3) Cook 1 cup of rice with 3 cups of water using rice cooker.  4) In another pot, dry fry the pork belly until brown.  5) Add the thick porridge and 2 large bowls of broth. Add raze...

Hokkien Mee is my husband's favourite hawker dish and I have been wanting to cook it at home with the freshest and best ingredients. So, I finally did it today and he loved it! Now, he is lamenting that he has one less dish to eat outside as I have raised his expectation on Hokkien Mee. Hilarious! Ingredients: - 500g fresh prawns, peeled (set aside the heads and shells) - 500g squid rings - 250g of pork belly - 400g of yellow noodles - 400g of thick mee hoon - 2 tablespoons of sugar - 1 chicken cube - a lot of spring onions, cut into a few inches long - 1 bulb of garlic, crushed - 6 shallots, chopped - 1 tablespoon of pepper corns - 2 tablespoons of fish sauce - 1 teaspoon of dark soya sauce - pepper Procedures: 1) In a pot, add a little vegetable oil. Fry half the garlic and shallots until fragrant. Add prawn heads and shells and fry until pink. Add chicken cube, white pepper corns, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 4 bowls of water. Boil for at least 30 minut...

I am cooking an anyhow soup to go with my anyhow stir-fried maggi mee (yes, my family demand, the recipe is in this blog). This fuss-free Cucumber Ikan Bilis Chicken Soup is cooked by my slow-cooker. Ingredients: - chicken bones or chicken feet  - 2 cucumbers, sliced  - 1 handful of ikan bilis - 1 ikan bilis cube  Procedures: 1) Place chicken bones/feet, cucumber and ikan bilis in slow cooker.  2) Add enough water to just cover it.  3) Let it cook for 2 hours on high setting. Serve. 

As part of our family drama day, we also recreated the scene of Mr Beaver's Dinner from CS Lewis' novel - "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe". Here is our version of the marvelous fish!  Ingredients: - huge seabass (about 1.2kg)  - 2 lemons cut into half slices  - 1 box of cherry tomatoes  - 1.5 tablespoons of sea salt  - 1 teaspoon of mixed herbs  - 3 bulbs of garlic, remove the skin  - 1 box of dill (about 90g)  - 3 tablespoons of olive oil  Procedures:  1) Rub 1 tablespoon of seasalt to both sides of the fish and the fish stomach.  2) Cut slits into both sides of the fish. Insert a slice of lemon into each of the slits. Insert a few slices of lemon and  a few stalks of dill into the stomach of the fish.  3) Place a few slices of lemon on a baking tray and lay the fish on it. 4) In a mixing bowl, mix together olive oil, mixed herbs, the rest of the dill, sea salt and some crushed gar...

Here is a not-so-pretty but super delicious Victoria Sponge Cake. This recipe is for a small cake. Feel free to scale it up. Ingredients: - 2 large eggs - 100g of plain flour - 100g of sugar - 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon of baking powder - 50g of whipping cream - strawberry jam - icing sugar Procedures: 1) Whip sugar, eggs, plain flour, baking powder and vanilla extract until it gives a smooth batter. 2) Pour into a cake tin. Bake at 190 degree celsius for 30 minutes. 3) Cool the cake on a rack. Cut it into half through the cross-section. 4) Whip cream until firm peaks. 5) Spread whipping cream and jam between the 2 layers of cake. 6) Sprinkle with icing sugar.

For family activity today, we recreated the scene of Mr Tumnus' tea from the CS Lewis novel "The lion, the witch and the wardrobe". Amongst the many yummy goodies, the tea also comprises the " brown eggs", lightly boiled. Isn't that our Singaporean soft boil eggs?  Ingredients:  - 4 fresh eggs  - a kettle of boiling water  Procedures:  1) Transfer the boiling water from the kettle to a pot. Let the water reboils. 2) Slowly lower the fresh eggs into the boiling water. Switch off the fire.  3) Let the eggs stay submerged for 7 minutes. Cool them in cool water. Serve.