Chinese Chicken Curry

Chinese Chicken Curry has a slight difference in taste and style from the Indian Chicken Curry. The ingredients are basically the same except that we have (a) serai and (b) tau foo pok (dry bean curd) and we do add some asam jawa to give the curry a slight tinge of sourish taste. Of course we squeeze (c) 1/2 a small lime just before we eat (for extra sour taste) and when we eat this curry with noodles.

(a) serai

(b) tau foo pok

(c) small limes

Spices (clockwise) : star anise, jintan manis, jintan putih, cinnamon and cloves

Ingredients
1. 1 big onion

2. 4 to 5 bibs garlic

3. 4 to 5 cm ginger

4. 4 to 5 dry chillies

5. 2 to 3 big tomatoes

6. 3 to 4 potatoes

7. a small fish ball size asam jawa

Method

Step 1 : Cut your chicken pieces ( I have used 1/2 a chicken and a piece of breast meat)

Step 2 : Put in the potatoes, garlic (some added here while some would be blended) and ginger

Step 3 : Put in your asam jawa

Step 4 : Put everything to boil

Step 5 : Add in 2 tablespoon of chilly powder
( you can just put 1 tablespoon if you don't want your curry to be too hot)

Step 6: Add in 2 tablespoon of meat curry powder (don't use the wrong curry powder. The smell will be different.

Step 7 : Boil till chicken is half cooked.

Step 8 : In a separate wok, fry the blended ingredients ( tomatoes, onions, garlic, dry chillies and if you have not put in your ginger to boil, you can blend the ginger here)

Step 9 : Put in your serai and fry till fragrant.

Step 10 : Put in your curry leaves. Fry till fragrant

Step 11 : Put all the fried ingredients into the boiling pot and allow to boil for another 15 mintues.

*** You can choose to add either coconut milk, evaporated milk or yoghurt or don't add anything after the curry is cooked. We add the following for various reasons:
a) to thicken the curry
b) to give taste
c) to reduce hotness of the curry

Step 12 : When your curry is ready, chop in chinese parsley. (optional as it depends on individual taste)

Step 13 : Add your tau foo pok.

chicken curry

chinese parsley

Homemade Tom Yom Soup

Good evening. It is 8.12pm here in Malaysia and I have just taken my dinner. While waiting to take my bath ( my younger girl is in there and she takes at least 1/2 hour), I thought I would share with you a homemade Tom Yom soup.

On a cold day, it would be so wonderful to have a bowl of warm soup and here in Asia, we love hot and spicy soup and one of it is Tom Yom soup. Tom Yom is actually a Thai dish but we have concocted our own recipe which is also really delicious. This soup can be drank on its own as an appetiser. But here we add noodles to it. We also sometimes have it with rice. Wow! Really delicious.

We can buy the Tom Yom paste in the supermarket but some of us may not like the oil in the paste so here I will share with you a very simple but delicious recipe that is really mouth watering.

Ingredients :

1. 3 stalks serai

2. 3 tomatoes (you can add more)

3. 3 stalks kafir leaves (You can add more)

4. 1 carrot

5. bird eye chillies

6. 5 to 6 asam keping

(They are dry and smell sourish. They give the sour

taste to the soup )

7. 2 onions (You can add more)

8. some fish balls (If you like)

9. 1 chicken breast piece

10. 10 button mushrooms (optional)

Method :
1. Cut the chicken breast piece to small bites

2. Cut the onions into small chunks

3. Cut the carrot into small chunks.

4. Cut the tomatoes into small chunks.

5. Smash the serai and bird eye chillies

6. Put all into the pot of water and add in the kafir leaves.

7. Boil for 1 hour.

8. Add salt to taste.

Tips : You can add in anything that you fancy. And the best part is throwing everything in and allowing it to boil but mind you to keep an eye on the water level. We don't want a burnt pot of Tom Yom!

Here in this recipe I am using chicken. You can do away with chicken but use sea food products : prawns, cuttlefish and crab meat.

Have a nice dinner!

Simple Steamed Fish

HELLO..........! A long loud hello to you all. Sorry it has been a long while since I put up anything to share with you. The reason is simple : BUSY!!! This weekend I am free as Cocuriculum Day project has failed and my friends are sitting for their government exam (PTK). So school is off for this weekend. I want to wish all my friends 'ALL THE BEST'. I am not sitting for the exam because I took mine in June, I think. I will resit next year. So since I am free, I will be able to share something this week and it will be Simple Steamed Fish.

Ingredients
1 fish
5cm ginger
a stalk of chinese parsley
a stalk of spring
onions
fish sauce

Steamed the fish for about 10 minutes
Pour away the water.
(We do it because if we use the water, the fish smell is very strong)
Now add your ginger (in thin strips)
Add a dash of light soya sauce and fish sauce.
Steam for another 10 minutes.
Remove the fish and garnish it with chinese parsley and spring onions.

(cut your spring onions to small rings and roughly chop up your chinese parsley)

Voila! Your steamed fish is like the one you eat in the restaurant.

Add ons:

Mushrooms - You can add thin sliced mushrooms

Tomatoes - 2 tomatoes, a small ball of assam and some red bird eyes chillies. Sliced the chillies so that your sauce will be hotter.By adding these ingredients, you have actually got a different taste - sweet sourish and hot.

Fish

Look at the eyes of the fish. If they bulge like this, it means that the fish is cooked.

Pour away the water. If you don't your steamed fish will smell strongly of fish smell.

Add chinese parsley and spring onions and if you like garlic oil.

Rat Noodles

Ha! Ha! Ha! Frightening when you look at the title, right? You must be thinking that this person must be out of her mind to fry rats with noodles. 'Rat noodles' is a translated version of Chinese for 'loh shi fun'. Don't worry, nothing exotic here. Just want to share something slightly different in smell. Smell makes a lot of difference when we eat. Sometimes the food can smell quite odd but if we really eat it, it can be quite tasty. But food is all about smell, right? If it doesn't smell good, it means it is either not edible or the taste of the food is not up to our liking. Of course sight is important too as how we lay out our food and how we place it before the person who is going to eat it but don't forget sight can be tricky. Looks does not necessary means that the food is good. Well, enough of my talk. Let's get down to business.

I am going to fry 'rat noodles' for 4 person

Ingredients

1. 1 packet of rat noodles
2. 1 chicken breast
3. 1 bunch of chinese parsley
4. 3 to 4 pips of garlic
5. 4 to 5 dried mushrooms

Method A

1. Soften your mushrooms before hand. Sock them in a pinch of salt. Salt will give a chewy feeling to your mushrooms.
2. Minced and season your chicken with the usual salt, sugar, light soya sauce and pepper.

Method B

1. Boil water in a pot.
2. Once the water is boiling, put your rat noodles in and wait for a little while. Don't be too long otherwise your rat noodles will be too soft for frying.
3. Chop your garlic.
4. Slice your softened mushrooms.

Method C

1. Heat oil and fry your garlic till fragrant
2. Fry your seasoned minced chicken till cooked.
3. Fry your sliced mushrooms
4. Put in your rat noodles and toss for a while.
5. Add salt to taste.
6. You can add a little thick soya sauce for colouring.
7. Lastly put in your chinese parsley. The smell will now be completely different and smell affects taste buds!

* You can actually add anything here. You can have an egg omelette. The method is shown in the other recipes. Browse through my recipe to find how out how I make the egg omelette.

rat noodles

chinese parsley

add dark soya sauce to give a some colouring

I have added some mustard leaves (sawi)

Here is the fried rat noodles with chinese parsley