Japanese Baked Pasta

I totally love this recipe and it's rather easy to make too... As I do not have any oven safe bowls, I molded my own bowls out of aluminium foil & they worked great too!

Japanese Baked Pasta























Ingredients:

1. Any pasta of your liking (I used the seashell type)
2. Any meat & veg that you like in your pasta. (I used frozen mixed vegetables & my usual hotdog and crabsticks)
3. Minced garlic
   
4. Light & dark soy sauce
5. Black pepper
6. Okonomiyaki sauce (For topping the pasta)
   
7. Furikake (For topping the pasta)
8. Mozzarella cheese (For topping the pasta)

The 1st picture below shows the pasta after being stir-fried & the 2nd picture shows the pasta after adding the three toppings.

Simple Cold Soba salad

Made this for lunch today =) Haven't been cooking for a longggg time.

As usual, there isn't much ingredients at home, so I have to take out the frozen food to add to my plain soba noodles. (Sometimes I really think I'm really a JUNK + ie, always cooking out of leftovers LOL) But I'm rather happy with the resulting taste of the dressing -- A combination of sweetness, saltiness and spiciness. The crispy strippy crabsticks adds a crunch factor to the noodles and the sweetness of the taiwan sausage is just so...Mmm...nice!

Here goes the the recipe:

Simple Cold Soba Salad (Serves 1)
















Ingredients:
1/2 a bunch of soba noodle sticks
Frozen vegetables or any other vegetables (Eg. broccoli or cucumber)
1 Taiwan sausage (Optional), sliced into thin pieces
2 crabsticks (Tear into strips and fry as shown in Strippy Crabsticks)
Olive oil/other healthy cooking oil
Sesame seed oil
Black pepper


Noodle dressing
3 tsp sesame seed oil
4 tsp light soya sauce
1 1/2 tsp honey
1 tbsp water
1 small chilli padi
Sprinkle of black pepper

Method:
1. Bring the water in the pot to a boil and add soba noodles. Cook for 3-4mins. Stir occasionally.
2. Drain the water and place noodles into ice water. Let it sit for 1-2 mins to cool the noodles.
3. Add sesame oil to frying pan and fry veggies. Add a sprinkle of salt and pepper to taste.
4. Pan fry taiwan sausage slices until glazed.
5. For the dressing, add all seasonings and condiments into a small bowl and stir briefly. (Press on the chilli padi if you like it hot.)
6. Lastly, pour dressing onto noodles. Add taiwan sausage and strippy crabsticks as garnishing. Serve!

Noodles: Hor Fun Wet and Dry

My mum told me that she was going to cook Wat Tan Hor 滑蛋河 (Hor Fun swimming in smooth egg gravy) for dinner that day and she bought 2 packets of thick rice noodles. Suddenly an idea struck me!

Jess thinking to herself: "AHA! Maybe I can do something with one of the packets of rice noodles. Since I have been craving for **Swa Garden's fried Chye Poh Kway Teow, I shall try to recreate my version of that. "

So I went ahead to fry my version of the Chye Poh Kway Teow without any experience in frying Kway Teow and some advice from mum here and there.

End result----> It definitely didn't look any bit similar to the Swa Garden's version except that I added Chye Poh (Preserved radish) and I fried it over high heat to make it dry. The colour was totally different as I added dark soya sauce and I didn't have kailan to bring out the flavour of the dish. I also added alot of other ingredients as you see later.

So it was a marriage between Swa Garden's Chye Poh Kway Teow and Dry Hor Fun and Char Kway Teow. Although 3 is a crowd, my version didn't taste as disastrous as I thought it would be. It actually tasted not bad!

But dad, upon hearing me say that I was recreating Swa Garden's Chai Poh Kway Teow, had an impression that my fried hor fun will taste like Swa Garden's. So his first remark was "都不象!" （It didn't even taste the same!）ZZZzzz...

**Swa Garden is a Teochew Restaurant at MacPherson Rd. I'll try to give a review on it soon! Can't wait to eat their Chye Poh Kway Teow

Wat Tan Hor 滑蛋河 (Hor Fun swimming in smooth egg gravy)

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Ingredients:
1 packet thick rice noodles
Cooking oil
Light and dark soya sauce
Fish sauce (Optional)
Garlic, minced
Prawns
Pork slices (Mum didn't added pork)
Water (Depending on how much gravy you want)
Cornstarch mixed with a little water (For thickening the gravy)
2 Eggs, beaten
Bean sprouts
Fish cake, pan fried and sliced
Spring onions, chopped as per below

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Method:

Hor Fun
1) Heat wok at high heat and add cooking oil.
2) When oil is heated up, add rice noodles to fry.
3) Add light soya sauce (to taste) and dark soya sauce (for the colour) to the rice noodles. (We realised that the hor fun tastes better with more dark sauce)
4) Stir fry to mix the sauce and let the rice noodles sit for a while before flipping them. (Do the sitting and flipping a few times. It enhances the taste.)
5) Dish up the rice noodles and set aside.

Egg gravy and other ingredients
1) Fry the garlic till fragrant (Just a little brown)
2) Add prawns and pork immediately to stir fry.
3) Pour approximately a cup of water into the wok for the gravy. (Depending on how much gravy you prefer)
4) Add fish sauce (Alternatively, light soya sauce) to taste and some dark soya sauce if you like some colour in your gravy.
5) Pour some cornstarch water in to thicken the gravy.
6) Add beaten eggs slowly as you stir gently.
7) Finally, add hor fun first, then the bean sprouts and spring onions. Stir a little and you can serve now.

Jess' version of Fried Chai Poh Hor Fun

Ingredients:
Cooking oil
Garlic, minced
4 tbsp Chye Poh (soaked in water for a while to remove saltiness then empty the water)
Spring onions, chopped
1 packet thick rice noodles
Light and dark soya sauce
Bean sprouts
1 Egg, beaten (Optional)
Prawns, stir fried with garlic beforehand
Fish cake, pan fried and sliced

Method:
1) Heat wok at high heat and add cooking oil.
2) When oil is heated up, add chye poh and fry for ard 2 minutes till colour turns paler and it looks crisp.
3) Add garlic and spring onions to the chye poh and fry till fragrant. (Just a little brown)
4) Add rice noodles to the garlic and chye poh to stir fry for a minute.
5) Add light soya sauce (to taste) and dark soya sauce (for the colour) to the rice noodles. (Add more dark sauce)
6) Stir fry to mix the sauce and let the rice noodles sit for a while before flipping them. (Do the sitting and flipping a few times. It enhances the taste and makes it drier.)
7) Next, add bean sprouts and stir fry for a minute.
8)Then add beaten eggs over the rice noodles. Let it sit for a while before frying.
9) Lastly, add the cooked prawns and fish cake. Stir them around a little.
10) Serve.

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鸳鸯河
Consists of wet hor fun and dry hor fun.
Proudly brought to you by Mum and I.

Noodles :Aglio Olio with White Button Mushroom

Flu has decided to visit me this morning to make me feel sick the whole day...But since I'm lazy to do my work, I've decided to update my blog. Otherwise, Markie will start saying that my blog is coming to an end soon. Like my previous blogs. ARGHHHH.. Totally not supportive, next time don't cook nice food for you already. Humph!

Anyway, the food of the day is Aglio Olio.

An easy to make dish and an all time favourite. The basic ingredients are just spaghetti, olive oil, plenty of garlic and red pepper. Sounds easy right?

I've tried this dish many times and I think the best combination is still with white button mushroom. So, I fried this for a BBQ session with my Markie & the womenz. Comments were all pretty positive (although it was already cold), so here's my recipe for my version of aglio olio for you to try it out!

Aglio Olio with White Button Mushrooms









Ingredients:
1/2 a packet of Spaghetti/Linguine (The actual amt should be a little less than that)
2 packets of white button mushrooms, sliced into 2mm slices (Quite expensive @ approximately $3.95 each)
4 tbsp butter (Amt can be increased to suit your taste)
5 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic, chopped finely
Salt and black pepper to taste
Red pepper flakes (I used finely chopped fresh red chillies)
Parsley for garnishing (It really adds to the taste too)

Method:
1. Cook pasta until al dente, about 8-10 minutes.

2. Add salt to the water while pasta is being cooked.

3. Drain pasta immediately into a colander when it is cooked and toss it abit to remove excess water. (Pasta should be placed under cold water only if you are making a salad to stop the cooking process)

4. Place 3 tbsp of butter and 2 tbsp of olive oil into a hot frying pan. Add 2 tsp of garlic when butter has melted and fry till fragrant.

5. Add button mushrooms and let them sit in the frying pan until bottom is caramelized.

6. Toss mushrooms and fry for another 5 minutes. (You may want to add more butter or olive oil if you find the mushrooms very dry)

7. Add salt and pepper to taste. Dish the mushrooms out.

8. Add 3 tbsp of olive oil to hot pan. Then add the remaining garlic and chilli to fry till garlic is slightly browned.

9. Add in the cooked pasta and stir fry. At this point, add 1/2 of the sauteed mushrooms and some excess liquid to the pasta for more flavour.

10. Season your pasta with salt and pepper to taste.

11. Lastly, place the remaining mushrooms on top of the pasta and sprinkle parsley generously over the top.

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... =)

Noodles :Menu for the day (Part 1) ---Lunch

Lunch
I went to Isetan at Shaw on Saturday to buy soba, udon, seaweed and also tsuyu to test out for my family X'mas gathering. Was thinking of having some Japanese dishes on that day.

You can see my virgin attempt of zaru soba below, which I had for lunch today. Wasn't too bad but I felt that the brand of soba that I bought wasn't as springy as I liked. However, the sauce was pretty good. I give a thumbs UP for that.

I shall try the udon soon.

Veggies : Noodles :Tofu Galoreeeee

Tofu aka 'Cheese of Asia' is really a wonderful invention and I can't live without it. It is full of benefits and we should all eat more of this insignificant but nutritious food. I've just cooked thes 1st recipe yesterday for my family and it was great! I also used the remaining marinated minced meat to cook the 2nd dish today.
Just to share with you 2 simple yet delicious tofu recipes that you can try at home...Cheers!

Steamed Prawns on Tofu with Minced Meat
(Adapted from FOOD & travel Volume II Issue 10)

Ingredients:
300g of fresh prawns, shelled and deveined
1 box of silky tofu
1 egg white, lightly beaten
Salt & pepper to taste
100g of pre-marinated minced meat (Salt, pepper, sugar, light soy sauce, sesame oil)
A splash of Shaoxing cooking wine

Oyster sauce to taste
1 bunch of spring onions, chopped
1 bunch of parsley, chopped
1 red chilli, chopped

Method:
1) Chop prawns into small pieces
2) Place tofu in a bowl with beaten egg white and seasoning. Mash into a rough paste
3) Add chopped prawns and lightly mix
4) Steam over high heat for 10mins

5) Add minced meat to the cooked tofu

6) Garnish with spring onions, parsley and red chilli

Minced Meat

1) Fry minced meat on high heat until almost cooked
2) Add Shaoxing cooking wine

3) Next, add oyster sauce to taste and a little water to make the sauce

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Golden Tofu with Minced Meat Sauce on Rice Noodles

Ingredients:

1 portion of rice noodles
A dash of sesame oil
1 tube of egg tofu, cut into thick slices
3 crab sticks (Optional), cut into small pieces

100g of pre-marinated minced meat (Salt, pepper, sugar, light soy sauce, sesame oil)
A splash of Shaoxing cooking wine

Oyster sauce to taste

Method:
1) Boil rice noodles until al dente

2) Put rice noodles under cold water and drain the water

3) Add a dash of sesame oil to rice noodles to prevent sticking together
1) Dry tofu properly with kitchen towel
2) Fry tofu until golden brown
1) Fry minced meat and pieces of crab sticks on high heat until almost cooked
2) Add Shaoxing cooking wine
3) Next, add oyster sauce to taste and a little water to make the sauce
1) Pour the minced meat sauce onto your rice noodles
2) Add tofu and garnishes if needed

Meat : Noodles : Veggies :What the baked chicken should have looked like...

In my 4th post, I mentioned about baked chicken and how disappointingly hard they were, here are some pics of what baked chicken should look like, although these are chicken drumsticks while the previous post's one is chicken breast.



Actually the marinate for both chicken is the same, but I have no idea why the outcome is so different.. Haha
Anyway, you may want to try this marinate next time when you are baking chicken.

Baked Chicken
Chinese Style (1 large drumstick ) **Amount is based on rough estimates**
+ Salt (A pinch)
+ Pepper (A pinch)
+ Sugar (1 teaspoon)
+ Honey ( I like to add more honey in my marinate, but it's up to personal preference)
+ Light soy sauce (2 teaspoon)
+ Dark soy sauce (1 teaspoon)
+ Sesame seed oil (2 teaspoons) *I like the taste of this, so I usually add quite abit*
+ ShaoXing Hua Diao Cooking Wine (绍兴花雕酒) (A dash of this if you like)

Easy Style (This is not in the picture)
+ Singlong Black Pepper sauce (Available in supermarkets)
~ This is our fav brand of black pepper sauce and is highly versatile. You can use it as marinate for meats & fish, fry spaghetti, crabs and button mushrooms with this.

Method:
Just preheat your oven before baking (Medium heat)
Make slits on chicken for faster cooking
Spread a little honey on chicken
Place chicken on a lightly greased tray
Bake for 10-20 mins for chicken breast meat and up to 30 minutes for a thick piece of chicken drumstick. (Always check your chicken every now & then as cooking time varies for different ovens)
When chicken is almost cooked, you may increase the temperature by a bit to achieve a nice golden brown colour.

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Crispy Baked Wedges

(Amount is based on rough estimate)
+ Salt
+ Black Pepper
+ Dried basil leaves
+ Paprika powder

Method:
Just preheat your oven before baking (Medium heat)
Place cut potato wedges onto a lightly greased tray
Sprinkle the above ingredients onto potato wedges
Bake until golden brown (Estimated timing: 30mins)