Veggies :Oven baked onion rings

Having tried deep frying onion rings, I've also experimented with oven baked onion rings to create a healthier alternative to this sinful yet delicious finger food. Here's what I did...

Oven Baked Onion Rings

Ingredients:

1 large yellow onion, cut into rings (Only bigger rings are used)

1 tbsp milk
1 egg white

Crumb Mixture
Breadcrumbs
2-3 tbsp cornmeal (Optional)
1 tsp paprika (Optional)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Method:
1. Mix all ingredients under crumb mixture together.

2. Mix milk and egg white together.

3. Dip onion rings in milk and egg white mixture.

4. Next, dip into crumb mixture.

5. Repeat steps 3 & 4 for thicker crumbs coating

6. Lightly grease oven tray with olive oil and preheat at 200 degrees. Bake for around 30 minutes at 170 degrees, flipping onion rings after approx. 10 minutes (Baking time varies from oven to oven. Best gauge is when onion rings turn golden brown)

Veggies :Fried Kai Lan

I'm sure many people has eaten stir fried Kai Lan but what about Deep Fried Kai Lan? I came across this recipe in the same cookbook as mentioned in previous post and decided to give it a shot! The verdict? Me and mum felt that it tasted like "cai poh" (Chinese pickled radish).. So weird.. Haha.. But I think it taste goooood.. A good substitute to "cai poh". But the down side is that it also has to be eaten the moment it is cooked as it will lose the crispness pretty fast. But overall an interesting dish to try.

Fried Kai Lan

Ingredients A:
500g kai lan
A small portion of carrot, diced

oil for deep-frying

1/2 tbsp shredded ginger

1/2 tbsp chopped garlic

Ingredients B:
1 tsp caster sugar

1 tbsp shredded dried cuttlefish (I ommitted this)

1 tbsp small ikan bilis, fried until crispy

Seasoning:
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp light soya sauce
a little shaoxing wine
a little corn flour water for thickening

Method:

1. Separate kai lan into leaves and stems. Cut leaves into fine shreds and cut the stems into slices. (I diced my stems)
2. Heat up oil for deep frying, deep fry kai lan leaves until crispy. Dish and drain. (I suggest adding all the leaves to deep fry at the same time so that it doesn't burn that easily. Oil shouldn't be too hot and only fry the leaves for approx.1 min)

3. Leave 1 tbsp of oil in wok to saute ginger and garlic until fragrant.

4. Add in kai lan stems & carrots to stir fry for 1 minute.
5. Add seasoning and stir fry till cooked.
6. Thicken with corn flour water and dish up.











7. Put fried kai lan leaves on top of stems, sprinkle Ingredients B over it and serve.

*Fry your stems and carrots first and deep fry leaves last to ensure crispness*

Meat : Veggies :Deep fried onion chicken in special sauce

Found this recipe inside one of the cookbooks called Hawkers' Fair Simplified. The taste turned out pretty good except that the onions turned soft and not crispy after a while if not taken hot. The chicken wasn't very crispy after a while too. I think its the corn flour that was used.. I should experiment on what flour is best for frying one of these days when I'm more free...

Anyway, I made some changes to the recipe as you will see later.

Deep Fried Onion Chicken in Special Sauce (Best eaten hot!)

Ingredients:
2 chicken thighs, removed bones
1 onion, cut into think rings

Corn flour for coating chicken

Marinade:

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1 tsp curry powder (Couldn't find this at home, so I used the Curry instant noodles seasoning instead and cut back on the salt.)

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 egg

1 tbsp water

1 tbsp corn flour
1 tbsp sesame oil (Not in the recipe)

Coating for Onion Rings (Mixed):
1/2 egg
1/2 tsp salt

Sauce:
2 tbsp tomato sauce

1 tbsp chilli sauce
1tsp worchestershire sauce
1/2 tsp curry powder

1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp light soya sauce
3 tbsp water
1 tbsp sesame oil (Not in the recipe)
A dash of Shaoxing wine (Not in the recipe)
A dash of pepper (Not in the recipe)

Method:
1. Combine chicken thighs with marinade and season for 30 minutes. (I left for around 3 hrs)
2. Then coat with corn flour and deep fry in hot oil until golden brown. Dish up and leave to cool before cutting into serving pieces.

3. Dip onion rings in egg and salt mixture, the coat with corn flour and deep fry in hot oil until golden brown. Dish up and arrange on top of chicken.

4. Leave 1 tbsp of oil in wok, pour in sauce ingredients and cook until thick. Pour over onion rings and chicken. Serve hot. (I feel that the sauce should be left aside as a dipping sauce)

Meat : Veggies :Christmas Potlucks

Christmas is always a busy time of the year for me as I'll usually have gatherings with my family and friends. So whenever there's gatherings, there will be potlucks! This year, there's only 2 potluck sessions, one with my family and the other with my Frenz184.

Family Potluck
As mentioned in previous entries, I made cold soba and udon for my family. I added baked potatoes at the last minute. Anyway, this is the 1st time that some of my relatives are eating cold noodles and they are probably not used to having their noodles cold. But ultimately, my noodles finished in no time. =) I wouldn't post any more pics of the cold soba & udon already as they can be found in earlier entries.

So here's my baked potatoes--->

Frenz184 Potluck
Here's what we had for dinner that day. We don't have alot of people, just 5 of us. But being kiasu, we prepared too much food...lol

The yummylicious fried rice (My favourite!) and fried chicken wings (2nd favourite!) were contributed by Cheryl with the help of her mum (or the other way round =x), fried finger food contributed by Sharon's mum and Pearlynn did up the fruits yogurt. As for me, I prepared black pepper bruschettas this time round and according to Cheryl's parents, it was pretty good. Yeah! So here's my recipe for the black pepper bruschettas. Enjoy!

Black Pepper Bruschettas (Makes around 16)










Ingredients:
1 big chicken breast, deboned
1/2 tbsp of sesame oil
1 small yellow onion
1/2 a red capsicum (depending on individual liking)
Singlong black pepper sauce (can be found in NTUC), amount depends on individual
A splash of Shaoxing cooking wine (Optional, but nice to have)
1 baguette (Delifrance is the best!), sliced diagonally
1/2 a packet of Mozarella cheese

Method:
1. Slice chicken breast into small pieces
2. Place chicken into a plastic bag and marinate with sesame oil and 1 heaping spoon of black pepper sauce (Marinate overnight for better tasting chicken)
3. Chop onion and capsicum into small cubes.
4. Using medium fire, brown the onions in the pan and add capsicum. Fry for 1 minute.
5. Add chicken and continue frying.
6. Pour in 2-3 tbsps (depending on individual) of black pepper sauce while chicken is around half cooked.
7. When chicken is just cooked, turn on high fire and add Shaoxing wine to the side of the frying pan/wok that is nearer to the flames. (My mum said that this is to give the food a 'wok hei' taste.) *Chicken can be done ahead of time*
8. Scoop some chicken onto each slice of baguette and top with mozarella cheese.
9. Finally, bake bruschettas at around 150 degrees until the cheese melts and browns.

Makan Places :Waraku Japanese Restaurant (Part I)

Here's introducing my favourite Japanese restaurant at the moment ---> Waraku Japanese Restaurant . It may not be the best but I feel that it is pretty authentic and value for money. And probably that's why you can always see Japanese dining there.

Anyway, Waraku currently has 5 outlets, with its newly opened outlet at Eu Tong Sen Street. My favourite outlet remains the one at Cuppage. I've eaten twice at the Marina Sq outlet but felt that the standard is always not there. Another time at the East Coast outlet before they changed their name to Waraku (It was known as Sento back then). Not too bad there, but out of the way.

So much for the talking...Here are some delicious food which me and Char ate there the other day. Cheers!












I ordered the Rindo set which consisted of Pork katsu don, cold soba & udon. All these for just $14.90++ !!!
The pork cutlet is very cripsy on the outside and juicy on the inside. It absorbed the delicious sauce that was poured on it. Yum Yum!


Char ordered Curry Katsu Don as she wanted to try the curry. She felt that it was quite good, while I felt that the curry at Curry Favour is much better. But the rice is well cooked unlike Ichiban Boshi's or Genki etc.

Look at Char's contented look!











Our final dish was Agedashi tofu and unlike the usual presentation method of putting the tofu into small bowls, we had our tofu in a huuuuugee wooden box with the words 千都 , which refers to the previous name, Sento.

That's all for Part 1, tune in for Part 2, hopefully soon!

Meat : Noodles :Meatballs for the carnivorous Marky

I decided to bake some meatballs for my Marky yesterday as it seems like an easy thing to do...So I went online to check out what is needed to make the meatballs and bought everything from NTUC. I also changed the seasonings that the online recipes have to Chinese ones.

The results?
A batch of delicious meatballs with crunchy onion bits and without the oil that usual meatballs have as I baked them with only a little olive oil...Try it!

Easy non-greasy meatballs (Makes 25)

Ingredients:
400g ground beef
1 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
A pinch of salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 small yellow onion, chopped finely
1 egg
8 heaping tbsp bread crumbs

Method:
1. Marinate ground beef with oyster sauce, salt & black pepper. (For convenience, place everything in a clean plastic bag & mix)

2. Add yellow onion and egg. Mix well.

3. Slowly add in bread crumbs and mix well as you add. (You should get a moist mixture & the meatball should not fall apart)

4. Shape the meatballs into desired shapes and place on a slightly greased oven tray. (Use olive oil to grease tray)








5. Bake for ard 15-20 minutes at 200 degrees in a pre-heated oven, flipping the meatballs over after 5-10 minutes.








6. Here you have it! Meatballs for the hungry!









Some ideas on how you can eat your meatballs:
1. Meatball spaghetti with mushroom pasta sauce & fresh tomatoes













2. Meatball pasta with shitake mushrooms in black pepper sauce

Seafood : Sweetbakes :Japanese Soba Fish and Corny Cornflakes Cookies???

Cheryl and I are in need of exercise so she came over to my house yesterday for a walking session to ECP. This was followed by a hearty & quite healthy lunch at my place. I made a Jap & Korean fusion bibimbap. Haha..I'm always coming up with weird stuff...So here's our lunch..

Salad with Japanese Mayo & black pepper
Japanese rice with soba fish & egg + plenty of seaweed and Japanese rice seasoning


Later in the afternoon, I got Cheryl to help me with the corny cornflakes cookies which I got from The Lazy Chef. Actually, I don't really have much experience with baking and Cheryl was the one who taught me how to fold in the flour =) It was a tedious process because everything had to be done manually as my mixer had been loaned out.

Anw, it turned out pretty good except that it tasted better with the cornflakes mixed into the dough. My sis commented that she liked the buttery taste of the cookies. So here's the recipe:

Corny Cornflakes Cookies (Beware: Makes around 300!!)











Ingredients:
450g butter(soft but not melted)
600g plain flour plus a pinch of salt
1 egg
250g fine sugar
1 medium pack unsweetened cornflakes

Method:
1. Cream the butter with the sugar till creamy and pale white

2. Add the egg and mix well

3. Sieve the flour with the salt and fold into the egg and the butter mixture.








4. Mix well into a soft pastry dough

5. Crush the cornflakes into smaller pieces

6. Make small balls of dough with the fingers.

7. Roll these into cornflakes to coat evenly








8. Bake on ungreased trays at 180 degree in a preheated oven till brown.

Makan Places :Swissotel Merchant Court - Ellenborough Market Cafe

I just had buffet dinner with my family + Marky & Jeff. We planned this buffet to treat my parents to a good meal after we got our pay. Anyway, we chose Ellenborough Market Cafe for the supposedly famous durian pengat which I kept hearing people say that it's good.

Well, I don't really think it is value for money as we paid ard $38/pax after taxes. I seriously think we should've gone somewhere else. However, the place is pretty nice with good ambience.

And I wouldn't say that the food is totally bad or anything..I must give them credit for some of the better tasting food like...the black pepper crayfish, cold soya braised duck, succulent prawns salad, squid salad, bread & butter pudding, fondue, ah balling (glutinuous rice balls with black sesame fillings - it has a thin outer layer & the sesame filling just burst with flavour) and durian pengat (which is good but too jelat for me, so I only took a mouthful)

I can't comment much on the cakes & pastries as I was too full to take them but I forced myself to take a bite out of a mini strawberry cake, which turned out niceeeee.

Below are some of the pics that I took.. Marky kept telling me to eat and don't take so many pics...I think he felt embarrassed sitting beside someone who kept taking photos of the food. Anyway, enjoy the pics!

From the left down: Black pepper crayfish, black bean sauce fish, fried prawns, prawns salad, some chicken thingy(can't remember the name), squid salad, seafood roll, pandan chicken)




Salmon & tuna sashimi

Samosa

Fruits & marshmellow fondue

Ah balling in peanut soup & extra peanut topping
Fruit tartlets

Strawberry mousse cake
Durian pengat


Chempedak Creme Brulee

Interruption to my foodblog :12 days of Christmas

Found this cool bollywood style song on youtube. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owK5tHjL0aE

Noodles :Zaru udon as promised

Hey guys, I've just tried the zaru udon for dinner today and it's goooooooood. I had my 2nd attempt at the zaru soba and it turned out perfect too! I think my previous failure was because of the longer cooking time. This time round, I took ard 5-6 minutes to cook the noodles and I constantly stirred the noodles.

Oh ya, I also had 3 additions and they are bonito flakes for the udon and grated white radish + spring onions for the tsuyu. Everything is perfect and ready for my X'mas celebration. So happy... =)

Makan Places :Dunman Food Centre

I went to Dunman Food Centre, which is at Onan Rd for dinner yesterday..It is not easy to find parking lots here so Daddy usually asks us to get down to order the food while he finds a lot. There's quite a number of stalls selling delicious food and I will recommend those stalls here...But I realised that I didn't take down some of the stall names.. haha..So I shall just describe them.

(All stalls are on the 2nd level)

1) Frog leg porridge stall
This stall sells super fat and juicy frog legs as compared to the 'famous' Geylang frog legs (I have no idea why everyone still wanna eat their supper there when the portion is pathetic and it's not worth the money.) They serve piping hot and yummy white congee too. This stall is at the corner on the right when you walk up the stairs.

2) Ding Xiang (顶香) #02-16
This stall serves traditional carrot cakes which are cut into strips instead of the minced pieces that normal stalls sell. Also on their menu are Char Kway Teow and oyster omelette. We ordered the black carrot cake that my mum prefers and the uncle really added alot of dark sauce. Delicious!

3) Jia Hui BBQ (佳辉 BBQ) #02-21
We always like to order this stall's satay and chicken wings. Fabulous! The satay is always very tender and if you like your satays sweet with honey marinade, this is the stall for you!

4) Mini muffins confectionery
(Its a new stall so I can't remember the stall name. Anw, its opposite a wanton mee stall behind)

You can find freshly baked muffins here at $1.20 each. They have many flavours to choose from. We ordered a chocolate chips muffin, a banana almond muffin and I can't remember the last flavour.. =Þ Their muffins looks really tempting and they taste good when its hot. But not that fantastic when it's cold though.

5) Lau Hong Ser (老鸿生啰口惹 ) #02-14
Although there are many people praising this rojak stall, we had bad experiences with this stall, not just once. The 1st time, the auntie told my mum that she has to wait 1hr. 1 HOUR for a bloody rojak!

Yesterday when my mum asked the auntie how long will she have to wait, the auntie gave a very 'hao lian' face and took a long time just to reply my mum that she will have to wait 1/2 hr. My mum didn't order.

And I don't even see alot of people ordering the rojak.

In the end, my dad still went on to order. He even has to keep going back to ensure that they remember our order as it was a very long wait. Finally when we got our rojak, it was a disappointment. The sauce was super sticky, too sweet and our fried doughsticks + Tau pok were not even crispy. Waste of time.

Seafood :Menu for the day (Part 2) ---Dinner

Dinner
Dinner was more like an experiment as I wanted to try cooking beer batter fried fish as I just bought frozen dory fish from NTUC Fairprice the other day. It comes cheap in a packet of 3 big fillets. As for the beer part, I used Carslberg which was the only type of beer I have at home.

The Good:
1) The fish tasted good when it is piping hot.
2) The taste of the paprika and cajun seasoning was strong as I liked.

The Bad:
1) There was totally no beer taste although I put in more than 1/2 a can.
2) I didn't really like the eggy taste of the batter although the egg is supposed to make the batter thicker.
3) The batter turned soft after leaving out for a while.

As a result, I shall not post the recipe at the moment until I find the perfect batter.
Below is the beer batter fried fish when it was just fished out from the hot oil.



As this was only a trial, I followed my mum's advice and took only 1 fillet to experiment with. I then made another dish with the remaining fillets. I made a paprika mayo fish, which is like my own invention. You may think it sounds weird but its really good & easy to make! Here's the recipe...

Paprika Mayo Dory

Ingredients:
2 fillets of any kind of white fish (I used dory fish)
3 heaping tsp of mayonnaise
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tbsp of paprika
Salt & pepper to taste
2 tsp of dried basil leaves

Method:
1) Dry the fish fillets with kitchen towel to ensure that the end product will not be watery.

2) Preheat oven at 200 celsius

3) Mix mayonnaise and paprika together, adding lemon juice a little at a time. Mix until fairly smooth.

4) Sprinkle salt & pepper on the fish.

5) Using a spoon, spread the paprika mayo mixture onto the fish.

6) Sprinkle basil leaves on the fish and bake fish at 175 celsius for 10 mins. After 10 mins, increase temperature to 250 celsius and bake for another 10 mins. (Baking time may vary depending on different ovens. Just make sure that end product is a nice brown and not watery.)

_____________________________________
**Note that the paprika mayo sauce can be also used on prawns too! A really versatile sauce.
Here's a pic of the prawns that I've made before.