Duck with plum sauce

Duck with plum sauce

A very easy peasy dinner to prepare!

Ingredients:
2 duck breasts
salt
2 tbsp plum sauce

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 220 deg C.
2. Make diagonal slashes on duck skin so that it renders the fat quicker and also to get a cripsy skin. Salt the skin.
3. Heat a frying pan. No need to add oil as the duck will render its own fat.
4. When pan is hot, sear the duck skin side down and cook for about 3 mins until skin looks brown and crispy. Turn duck onto other side and cook for another 3 mins or so.
5. If you are using an oven proof frying pan, then you can put the whole thing into the oven. If not, remove from fry pan and place onto a baking tray.
6. Cook with skin side down for about 8 mins for pink meat, but if you down like it too pink, cook for another 2 mins.
7. When time is up, remove from oven and fry skin side again for about 1 min to get it cripsy. Remove and let it rest for a min or two while you prepare the sauce.
8. Using the fat rendered from the duck, add the 2 tbsp of plum sauce into the oil and stir till well mixed.
9. Cut the duck into slices and pour sauce.

soon kueh

Soon Kueh

Had left over bangkwang filling after having made and ate popiah last Sunday. Freezed that and then today decided to make soon kuehs to take to work for the next few days.

Ingredients for skin:

1 cup wheat starch
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1 cup boiling water
2 tsp oil

Method:
1. Measure the wheat starch and tapioca start and put into bowl. Make a well in the centre of the bowl and pour boiling water. Use a wooden spoon to mix the water and flours.
2. Cover with a cloth and leave for about 10 mins.
3. After 10 mins, add in 2 tsp of oil into the warm dough and start kneading until mixture comes together.
4. Roll out the dough and cut into rounds.
5. Place filling on dough and press together.
6. Oil a plate and place uncooked soon kueh onto it.
7. Heat a steamer and place soon kueh and steam for about 15 mins.

Before steaming

After steaming

Mun Ye cake

Mun Ye cake

Had a catering order for about 20 people for Mun Ye. Made a cake for the sweet little baby. Baby was born on Valentine's day. How nice is that?!

Daddy sent a picture of her in a carrier, hence the model of it.

Gyu maki

Gyu maki (Beef roll)

Had friends from Singapore who stayed a night at our place before going back to SG. Friday night, prepared niku jyaga, kinpira gobo and chicken karaage for them. No pictures though.

Then on Saturday, my intention was to send them to Windsor, go home buy some beef and they could then have roast beef and yorkshire pudding for dinner before leaving for the airport. But they asked me to hang around with them, which I did but then which left me with not much time to cook my roast beef, so ended up making gyu maki, squid in soya sauce and miso soup with tofu and wakame.

When you want to make a simple tofu and wakame miso soup, soak the wakame in cold water till it expands but do not add to the miso soup until you want to drink it, otherwise it become too soft.



Note: For halal version, please omit the mirin. (sweet rice wine)

Ingredients:

12 pcs of thinly sliced beef
half leek or negi - julienned
green pepper - julienned
carrot - julienned
3 tbsp soy sauce )
3 tbsp mirin ) sauce mixture
1 tbsp sugar )

Method:
1. On piece of sliced beef, lay equal amounts of leeks, peppers and carrots and roll tight.
2. When all the beef have been filled and rolled, heat a saucepan will 1 tbsp oil. When pan is hot, lay the beef in the pan.
3. Fry for a couple of mins till the beef is coloured, then turn it to colour the other side.
4. When beef has been coloured on all sides, add the sauce mixture.
5. Fry till sauce has reduced and caramelizes.
6. Remove and cut the beef into half diagonally and serve hot.






Gyu Maki before frying

Buta Jiru

Buta Jiru

Buta means pig an Jiru means soup, so literally pork soup!

Promised my friend Judy that I will show her how to make miso soup. Most of the miso soups that you get in restaurants are just tofu with seaweed, but in home cooking in Japan, almost anything can be thrown into the soup. For example, you can have:
sliced onions with beaten eggs
nameko (a kind of slimy mushrooms) with tofu
clams with tofu
cabbage with sliced pork
mange tout

These are just a few ideas, but what I made to show is called Buta Jiru. And because it was last minute, I only used what I could find in my pantry and freezer.
You can add burdock root or gobo as well.

Buta Jiru

Ingredients: for 4 ppl
Daikon - cut into quarters and sliced thinly
Carrots - ditto
Belly pork - sliced
Konnyaku - blanched in hot water for a few minutes and cut into slices
Dashi - 1 packet
Miso - 1 ladleful (you can use red or white, I used a combination of both)


Method:
1. Bring about 3 cupfuls of water to the boil and then add dashi.
2. Add all the ingredients and simmer till daikon has softened.
3. Lower the fire and you could either slowly stir the miso in the ladle to slowly dissolve it or use a strainer and strain the miso through.

chap go mei dinner

Chap Go Mei Dinner

Soaked some buah keluak as I wanted to make it for the dinner with friends, but as these buah keluak have been kept for so long, I was afraid that half might be bad and not useable. So did not make them and kept them for the dinner tonight. But my goodness, only 2 were not good, the rest were as good as black gold. Pun intended!

Initially thought it was just going to be us 2 old foggies again, but then I thought it was the last day of CNY, I invited the children back. So last night cooked the buah keluak and the babi pongteh first as they need time to cook. And digressing a little, I think I mentioned it before in my previous buah keluak post, no need to go through all that trouble to ketok them with a hammer or the lesong but just hand them to Pat who uses a band saw to cut them. Simple! hehe. Anyway, back to dinner....
So tonight, just prepared and cooked the fish tempra and szechuan green beans with minced pork.

Ayam Buah Keluak


Babi Pongteh


Szechuan green beans with minced pork


Fish Tempra

Sambal Lengkong - Fish Floss

Sambal Lengkong aka Fish Floss


I have been wanting for the longest time to make this dish. I have been asked by a friend for the recipe and told her that I would try it out myself first before giving it to her.

I looked at so many recipes on the net and the one that appealed to me was Lily's recipe Lily's blog. as it uses the microwave to cook it. I am all for quick and fast food!

This is her recipe below. I modified it slightly.

Ingredients:

2 pieces of fish fillet
300 ml thick coconut milk
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 heaped tablespoon Thai Red Curry Paste - use less if you dont want it too spicy
1/2 tsp roasted belacan powder

Method:

1.Bring a saucepan of water to the boil. When it comes to the boil, put the fish fillets in for a couple of minutes until it is cooked.

2. Flake them when they are warm and they should be flaked very finely.
Mix the red curry paste, belacan, salt and sugar with the coconut milk in a large microwable bowl until well combined.

3. Add in the flaked fish and microwave on high for 2 minutes. Stir thoroughly. Cook further, until it is almost dry. (I had to microwave it for more than 2 minutes)

4. Turn them onto a baking tray and put in a pre-heated oven at 160 deg. Bake for a couple of minutes but watch carefully as they will catch and burn very quickly. Once the floss is coloured and crispy, put them into a food processor or liquidiser and process them till it gets nice and light and airy. (I added this step)

Below is the final result.