Spaghetti - New Taste

Spaghetti - well, I will admit that mine cannot match up to English spaghettis but the many that I have tried in Malaysia is not too much to my liking so I experimented with a few recipes and finally I came up with this. I hope that you will like it.

Many supermarkets in Malaysia sell the Prego brand to make fast spaghetti but I don't like to use the bottle Prego. I prefer to make my own sauce and I like to share it with you all.

Ingredients
1. 1 chicken breast
2. 2 to 3 sausages (optional)
3. 1 small can of tomata paste
4. 1 tsp of oregano spice
5. 1 big onion
6. 5 to 6 pips of garlic
7. 2 to 3 tablespoon of parmesan cheese
8. 2 big tomatoes

9. 5 mushrooms

Method A
1. Mince chicken
2. Season minced chicken with salt, sugar, pepper and light soya sauce
( Look through my previous recipes to know the amount used for seasoning
chicken)

Method B
1. Saute onion till fragrant

2. Saute your garlic.

3. Add in your minced chicken and fry till cooked.

4. Add in your mushrooms and fry for a while.

You can use the canned mushrooms.

5. Add in your spice

6. Pour in your tomato puree.

I use the Hunt's brand which it is not too sour.

7. Pour in your tomatoes.

Fresh tomatoes gives a sweeter taste.

8. Pour in water.

The amount is up to you but don't put so much water till your sauce is bland.

9. Simmer for 10 min.

10. Lastly add in your parmesan cheese.

11 If your sauce is too runny (too thin), mix 2 to 3 tbsp of flour with water and add into your sauce.

Ingredients

Soak your dry mushrooms with a little bit of salt. The salt will give taste to your mushrooms and make your mushrooms more chewy.

Fry the ingredients. The orangie reddish pieces are actually tomatoes. And the brown pieces are sliced mushrooms.

Tomato puree is added in

Simmer for about 10 min then add salt to taste.

Cooking spaghetti

When you cook your spaghetti, make sure you add some salt and oil. The salt will give your spaghetti taste and the oil will prevent your spaghetti from sticking to your pot. When the spaghetti is cooked, add a dash of butter.

Pineapple Fried Rice

Hi everyone. Today I would to share a simple recipe with you. It is either you will love it or find the taste too alien to your liking. My elder girl loves it and so do I because we love the slight sweetness of the pineapple in our rice while my younger girl feels there is nothing to shout about. My husband, of course cringed at the sweetness but when I made the dish, he had no choice but to eat it. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Here is the recipe

Ingredients

1. 1/2 to 3/4 pineapple
2. 1 big onion
3. 5 pips garlic
4. 1 chicken breast
5. 3 eggs

The amount of each ingredient can be varied. You can add more pineapple to make it sweeter or more meat. You can also add prawns and mushrooms. Don't forget fried rice is a versatile dish, a dish that you can add in anything to your fancy.

Preparation A

1. Cut the pineapple to small cubes or just pieces.
2. Slice the onion
3. Chop up the garlic
4. Slice the chicken to small pieces

Preparation B

1. Scramble your eggs. Add in a dash of pepper and sesame oil. If you like you can add either a pinch of salt or light soya sauce.
2. Heat your wok and once wok is heated, pour in half of your scrambled eggs.
3. Spread the egg out as thin as you can in the wok by turning your wok in a circle, tilting slightly to one side.
4. Fry the egg till slightly brown and then remove it from wok.
5. Cool it then cut it into thin shreds.
6. These shreds will be used later on to mix into your fried rice.

Method

1. Fry the onion first.
2. Then add your garlice and fry till you get a nice fragrance.
3. Lastly put in your pineapple. Stir for a while.
4. Now add in your rice.
5. Stir everything for a while.
6. Add salt to taste.
7. Scoop out your rice into a nice serving dish.
8. Add in your shredded eggs.
9. Voila! your dish is ready.

Tips

1. Always use an onion. It gives a sweet taste and an 'omph' to the taste.
2. Heat up your rice in the microwave. This will help to lessen time of frying. Cold rice takes longer to fry and they tend to be lumpy so you have a tougher time breaking the rice up.
3. Add a little water as you fry so that rice would not dry up when you fry and get stuck to your wok. If you don't you will find much of your rice is left sticking fast and burnt to your wok by the time you finish with frying.
4. You can add an egg in the process of frying. Here in this recipe I don't do it because I like to be able to see the egg and chew on it.
   
   
   

   Cut onion, chopped garlic, cut pineapple
   
   
   

   

   fry the eggs in the wok

1. 

fried eggs

shredded eggs

Add shredded eggs

Porridge in 30 minutes

When I first got married, my mother used to tell me that the fastest way to cook a meal was to make porridge. I believed her and in the process a lot of mishaps took place till I was too afraid to try cooking porridge again until my 2nd. child came along.

If you are inexperience, this is what will happen to your porridge.
1. Your porridge will be so thick.
2. Your porridge will taste bland
3. Your porridge gets burn most of the time.

Now the steps to remedy it.
1. 1 cup of rice to half pot of water.
The pot is roughly about 10cm in diameter. Not a big pot. Add water if it becomes too thick.

2. Marinate your meat with the 4 ingredients
sugar + salt + pepper + light soya sauce

3. Do not stir.

This is the secret that no one will share with you. In fact some will even tell you to stir your porridge. If you do then you will need to be near the fire most of the time stirring the pot to ensure that nothing sinks and gets burn at the bottom (if you are using fire) but even if you are using a rice cooker, there is no necessity to stir the porridge. I do stir but for a reason.

You can cook your porridge in 30 minutes.
1. Use gas to boil your porridge.
2. Boil the porridge for about 15 minutes.
3. Lower fire and start pressing the soft grains against the rice pot.

Use a ladle. Any ladle. Keep stirring and pressing. In no time your porridge will be smooth and you will get the consistency of a good porridge. In addition you will save cost of cooking porridge. Normally porridge takes an hour to two to be ready. If you use a rice cooker it will take time and if you use gas, even if you don't stir, you still need time for the porridge to cook.

To make your porridge fragrant
1. Use screw pine leaves

I would advice you not to use fragrant rice which can be quite expensive and I always have my doubts over the authenticity of the fragrance. I believe they uses some kind of food perfume which can be harmful to our health.

2. When the porridge is ready, add a dash of sesame oil and some spring onions.

You can choose to add fried onions.If fried onions are done at home, then feel free to use them but if you buy it from the shop I would strongly advice you not to use it. The oil could turn rancid and it is definitely cancerous.

O.K. let's boil chicken porridge.

Ingredients
1. 1/2 chicken
2. 4cm ginger
3. 4 to 5 pieces of scallops
4. 3-4 screw pine leaves (optional)

Method
1. Cut chicken to bite size and marinate for at least 15 minutes.
2. Wash your rice and put in the amount of water you want.
3. Slice or shred your ginger.
4. Wash your scallops.
5. Put everything to boil.
Rice, chicken, ginger, scallops and screw pine leaves
6. After 15 minutes, lower your fire and start stirring and pressing the rice grains against the pot till you get a fine porridge texture.
7. Add salt to taste.
8. You can add some spring onions and fried onions.
9. To add fragrance, put a dash of good sesame oil.
10. Your porridge is now ready.

scallops

ginger

Add a few drops of sesame oil for fragrance and to make the porridge is smoother. You can use other types of oil

Add the marinated chicken pieces. Doesn't look too good, right? But don't worry the porridge is really tasty

Sorry, my camera is again not doing justice to the delicious food. The porridge is ready. The black spots are actually light soya sauce. The light soya sauce enhances the taste of the porridge. Some people even added pepper. It is up to individual taste.

A variation to porridge

1. Add salted egg

2. Add century egg

3. Just plain white porridge to eat with fried fish and salted fish.

4. Just plain white porridge to substitude the eating of rice

Bread crumbs

Hi, everyone. Did you all have a good weekend? Well, mine was fantastically busy. My brother and his wife and some relatives came back and you know....... it is entertainment time. Of course it was enjoyable. We get to go places that ordinarily we don't because we don't have time but when someone comes back for a visit, all the 'no time' will be 'have time' for this and that. And then of course we get to eat lots of good food. Ha! Ha! Ha! Furthermore, it was Hari Raya.

On Friday, a group of us made an appointment to visit an old Malay classmate who was and still is as crazy as us eventhough she holds a high position today. She is the Vice Principal of a secondary school. But friends when well bonded are still good friends. In my group was an Indian, a Ceylonese, 3 Chinese and a Malay. We have other friends of different race but they were busy visiting and devouring delicious cookies and good homecooked food. While visiting, a group of young Malay boys from the village just walked in and the host welcomed them warmly. This is the custom of the Malay. But we too have our 'open house' where anyone of our friends can just drop in without the need to make any appointments. But with this Malay friend, we did so that she would cook for us. She is single and she hardly cooks so how could we just go and visit her without eating? Nah... impossible so we told her we were coming and she had to cook! Fortunately for us, she cooks twice a year. One is on Hari Raya and the other is on..... I can't remember. Sorry. And I want to share with you that we five ladies got lost. Her house was so near, just a row behind the row of houses of the main road. We went round and round, perhaps no less than 10 times when one of us in great desparation recalled that Jasmine's house was a white house and lo and behold, we saw the white house in between the front row of houses. What utter relief! What could have made one of us able to remember? I guess we were propelled by pangs of hunger so we could not give up.Desparate for food......!

We had a good time. We polished her rendang and her yummy cookies. She said it is a secret and this got me all excited to unravel it. Well, wish me luck and if my Malay friend, Jasmine is reading this blog, I hope she will not be offended because she will understand that each person's hand in holding the ladle produce a different taste. Right Jasmine, my friend? We will come again next year and perhaps I will share with you my secret recipe of cooking chicken curry. No, I don't mean to say yours was no good, I would just like to share mine with you since you entertain more than me.

I used to entertain but now.....sigh....really busy. Yeah, my friends reprimanded me for not joining facebook. I think I just registered but I am not sure if I will have the time for facebook. Then why manage two blogs? I don't have to talk or reply right? Here I just talk as if I am writing a dairy. Well.... enough of my preamble. Let's get down to serious matter. Yes, learning to make bread crumbs.

Whenever a recipe calls for bread crumbs, my heart really crumbles because I don't store bread crumbs as I seldom do deep frying. Not that I am so health conscious that I forgo frying but there is a story behind it.

The secret story - One evening I fried 10 fish. They tasted absolutely wonderful but the oil hang in the air and no matter what I did even listening to old wives' tale that if we covered the wok, the oil smell would be reduced but that day..... the oil hang in the air settling on towels and the study room with three

computers. It was in the sitting room as well. Oh, my gosh. I don't what came over me, I used an oil based perfume and spray the entire house. At last I managed to overcome the smell of oil but you know what? I killed all my husband's fishes over night.

A week later, he cleared his aquarium, declaring very sweetly that he would not rear any more fish. Quilt ate into me and I apologized profusely. But he was firm in his decision. So, you see why I don't do deep fry often. Now, let's get to the point on how to make bread crumbs before I rattle off again.

Ingredients
8 pieces of bread

Method
1. Dry them in the sun.
To do a quick job would be to toast it over and over again in the electric over.

2. Break the pieces.

3. Pound them to fine powdery form.
Your bread crumbs are ready for usepan>

bread

Pound the bread

Bread crumbs ready for use

The uses of bread crumbs:

1. To coat your pieces of chicken for frying.

2. To be added into your mince meat to make meat balls.

3. To coat your prawns and fish for frying.

4. To thicken and give taste to your carbonara sauce.

5. To make chicken or meat patties.

6. To spread over dishes.

If you have any more use for it, please let me know. Bye.............

Long Bean Rice

It is a Hakka dish that uses pork but I have substitued pork with chicken meat.

Ingredients
* A handful of long beans
* 1/2 chicken or 1 chicken breast
* 3 cm ginger
* 5 pips garlic

Marinating sauce
* 1 tsp sugar
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1/4 ground white pepper
* 1 tsp sesame oil
* 1 tsp oyster sauce
* light soya sauce
* dark (thick) soya sauce

Method

Step 1

1. Cut your 1/2 chicken into bite sizes. If you are using chicken breast, slice it (thickness is too your liking)
2. Marinate chicken with the marinating sauce for at least 15 minutes. You can put 1 tbsp of Chinese rice wine.
   
   Do not use too much light soya sauce and use just a little dark (thick) soya sauce. If you put in too much dark soya sauce, your chicken will be black or at least dark brown and the taste changes. The amount of marinating sauce can be altered to suit your taste. Make changes if necessary.
   

Step 2

1. Boil 2 cups of rice. Put in 2 or 3 pips of smashed garlic if you want
   
   I use open fire and not the rice cooker. I don't like rice cookers eventhough it is move convenient. The reason is rice cooker takes longer and it igets messy. The bubbling rice water splashes everywhere. If you boil rice over fire directly, the rice cooks so fast that you hardly have time to run to the garden to water your plants. And it is so much cleaner. OK, the amount of water is the same that you use for the rice cooker. Actually everything is the same except that instead of using the rice cooker, you boil rice over open fire.
   

Step 3

1. Saute ginger (slice thinly) first as ginger takes longer time to be fragrant.
   Put in your chopped garlic.
2. When you think your garlic has turned slightly yellow, put in your chicken. Fry your chicken till it is half done.
3. Quickly put in your (cut 3 to 4 cm long beans) and do a quick fry. Your rice should be almost ready now.
4. Put everything into the rice pot and put off fire.
5. Let the pot remain over stove till it is dinner time.

You are done but please do not eat immediately as the fried ingredients take a little time to seep into the rice.

Marinate chicken pieces.

Cut your long beans to 3 to 4 cm or even longer if you like.

Slice your ginger or shred it as shown in the photo (shredding would allow everything to be consumed) and if you notice there are 2 forms of garlic. One is darker in colour and one is lighter. The lighter ones are put into the rice to be boiled together.

Boil rice.

Fry the chicken.

Fry the long beans last. Then add salt to taste.

LONG BEAN RICE