Chinese New Year Recipes Part 3 - Simple Garlic Steamed Prawns 蒜茸蒸中 蝦

We are progressively getting stuffed to the brim with food! For dinner tonight one of the highlights was actually a very easy dish of steamed prawns drizzled in aromatic garlic oil, spring onions and XO sauce. Mom taught me this years ago but I've added my own twists since..

Dad bought some gorgeous, large Australian prawns from the wet market so i decided to keep the prearation simple to bring out the prawns' flavour.

Garlic Steamed Prawns 蒜茸蒸中蝦
serves 3-4

Ingredients
Prawns, large (roughly 15 pcs) 600g incl shell
Garlic, grated or finely chopped 6pcs
Spring onions, finely chopped 2-3 stalks
Corn starch 1 tsp
Salt 1/2 tsp
Oil 3 Tbsp
XO Sauce 1 tsp

Directions
1. Wash and de-vein prawns. You can choose to keep the heads or remove them like i did (great for making seafood stock!).

2. You can lay out the prawns on a dish anyway you like, but in my case i like to do them "scorpion" style not just because i think it looks more impressive, but for practical reasons. This way after the prawns are cooked the shape holds and keeps seasoning in place (see photos and you'll know why!). Here's how - lay prawn on cutting board sideways, curled and gently slice prawn into half, leaving the top and tail ends connected. Flip tail end over, carefully pull through the hole in the centre and voila! Lay neatly on dish.

3. Lightly sprinkle corn starch over prawns and spread out evenly. Set aside.

4. In a lightly heated pan, add oil and saute garlic until very mildly golden brown. Note that if you grated the garlic this process happens much sooner and you need to keep stirring quickly to avoid burning the garlic. Add in salt, stir in XO Sauce and remove from heat.

5. Sprinkle spring onions over prawns, then evenly spoon hot garlic oil mixture over prawns. I love the sizzling sound when the oil hits the spring onions!

6. Prepare for steaming! In a wok, add hot water and bring to a bubbly boil. Even better if you have a steamer but I do it the old-fashioned way. Place dish on steaming rack and steam on medium heat for 5-7 minutes depending on the thickness of your dish. Once done, carefully lift lid and make sure no water droplets fall into the dish.

7. Serve immediately, and if you like, just a very small dash of soy sauce on top.

This is extremely easy, quick and minimal preparation time! You can actually add much more oil to fry the garlic, then drain off the excess oil through a fine mesh and keep it covered for future use! Think vegetable stir-fry or even over steamed fish!

Eat up!

Official Photographer - Dad (very dedicated!!)
Sous Chef - Jack

Recipe: Best Ever Soft-Baked Choc Chip Cookies??

I'm still very much a beginner at baking stuff, because it requires some sort of precision and technical understanding. I'd much rather cook day-to-day dishes because it allows me to improvise based on whatever I could get my hands on in the fridge!

Of late, I've been researching on the net on Soft-baked Chocolate Chip cookie recipes - because Kays absolutely LOVES them, but always has a hard time looking for good soft-baked cookies. So far, his choices have been limited to Subway & Pepperidge Farm (sold at supermarkets), and we always wished that Marks & Spencer would stock something like this, but with no such luck. So this weekend I decided to give him a little treat:

 Ah Mak's Soft-baked Chocolate Chip & Macadamia Nut Cookies

After going through various recipes, I'd realised that the common ingredient amongst all of them was Jell-O instant vanilla pudding mix! THAT is the secret to the soft & chewy centre, while the outer crust is nice and crispy.

Another tip when trying out recipes from the net. If you're not experienced or not sure whether you'd like it, reduce the portions stated in the recipes PROPORTIONATELY so that you don't end up with a huge batch of food which you don't like. Since this is the first time ever I've tried out cookies, and I'm always worried that they'd turn out too sweet or too many, I halved the original recipe and and luckily so because it still yielded almost 25-30 cookies!

This recipe is so amazingly simple, and best of all, minimal washing required! The family was happily chowing them down and Kays has requested for white chocolate chips + cranberries next, and Mous suggested sultanas/ raisins~. The dough is standard, so knock yourselves out coming up with new combinations!

Yields 25-30 Cookies (depending on size)
Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups All Purpose/ Plain Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 cup Butter (approx 230g) - softened at room temperature and cubed
3/4 cup Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Caster Sugar
1 pack (1.5oz) Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 cup chopped Macadamia nuts (I was too lazy to chop them up and decided they'd have giant chunks instead!)

All ingredients are easily accessible 

(instant vanilla pudding mix can be found at Cold Storage/ Marketplace outlets)

Directions:
1. Preheat Oven to 175 degrees Celsius.
2. Sift together Flour & Baking Soda, set aside.
3. In a mixer with paddle attachment (or if you want to tone up those arms - do it by hand!), cream Butter, Brown & Caster Sugar until smooth & shiny. Add Instant Pudding Mix and blend till well-incorporated.

My Red Kenwood Patissier Mixer - BFF since I discovered baking!

4. Stir in Eggs & Vanilla Essence (at this point the mixture looks a bit gross, like pulpy oatmeal coated in clear jello... but it's normal!)
5. Gradually add in flour and mix till it becomes a nice smooth pasty dough.
6. Remove from mixer and add in Chocolate Chips & Macadamia nuts.
7. Wrap bowl with cling wrap and place in fridge to chill dough for 20 mins.
8. Line baking tray with ungreased baking sheet and spoon dough mixture onto tray. As a rule of thumb each optimal size for me was about half an ice-cream scoop. Allow around 2 inches of space between cookies so that they have room to "grow" in the oven... I was too greedy - scooped too much placed them too close together!! (ref: pics below)
9. Place in oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the centre should come out clean. Let cool on rack and store chilled in an air-tight container.

See how crowded and fat my cookies became! :(

But thankfully they still turned out alright! 

I had to gently cut them apart when they're done.

I'm happy to report that this recipe is perfect! Not too sweet, just crumbly & crispy enough outside and cake-like soft centre on the inside!

Eat Up!

Ah Mak's Home-Cooked Dinner in under an hour!

Comfort food for us has always been a yummy home-cooked meal from Mous. But since the parents have moved back to HK several years back, I've taken over in whipping up a dish or two from time to time so we can revisit our favourites. It's never anything fancy, just some simple form of stir-fry, and a flavourful soup with rice.

This is exactly why I decided to start this blog a few months ago - to document delicious, yet easy-to-do dishes that I've grown up with! My aim is to share these recipes with those who love to cook, but more importantly, those who DON'T cook! Hopefully these recipes will show them that a home-cooked meal is easily achievable and what joy it is to feed family and friends. :)

Today, after a long hiatus from the kitchen aside from baking stuff, I'd decided to cook a simple dinner for Kays and Jack. I grabbed some quick groceries from the supermarket (spent less than $15) and got cracking. Dinner was ready within 1 hour, just as the 2 boys reached home!  (Didn't cook soup this time round)

from left: egg with tomatoes, spicy eggplant with pork, 

blanched lettuce with oyster sauce

I don't move especially fast, nor do I have special shortcuts to be able to whip up a meal relatively quickly. The only key to this is PLANNING.

What I'm about to say is probably common sense to most, but if not planned properly, one would spend lots of time, re-cutting, re-washing utensils, or end up in a last minute rush... All of which still happens to me from time to time.

1. Plan your ingredients/ utensils - what do you need, how much do you need and when do you need them? Are there common ingredients (like garlic & onion) that will be used more than once? If so, combine the quantities and wash, peel, chop etc altogether.
2. Plan your preparation steps - for me, it almost always goes like this: wash, cut, marinade, cook. And as much as possible, I find way to work a few steps in parallel to save time.
3. Plan the order of the dishes you want to cook - for example I would leave any deep frying to the end, because I want to retain the crispiness, just as I would steamed fish or prawns, because you don't want the food to turn cold while you prepare other dishes and have to reheat it again and overcook the meat.

So, let's start the clock!
Serves 3-4 persons

7:00 pm 
- Put on my apron and line up all the ingredients!
- Cook rice on "quick cook" mode
- Wash & cut ingredients :
4 tomatoes, roughly diced
2 stalks spring onions, finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 eggplant, cut into thick strips (you may want to soak the cut pieces in salted water to prevent them from oxidizing)
1 head lettuce, peeled, washed and drained

 

 Cut tomatoes into wedges and then dice, pulp portion optional

7:15pm
- Marinate/ Prepare other ingredients:
4 eggs, lightly beaten with 1/2 tsp salt
300g minced pork, seasoned with 2 tsp light soy sauce, 1 tsp sugar & some pepper
1 packet Lee Kum Kee Spicy Garlic Eggplant Sauce
2 Tbsp tomato ketchup
- Line up all prep-ed ingredients and I was ready to roll!
 

 All in the right place!

7:25pm
- Half fill a large pot with water, add 1 tsp salt, drizzle some olive oil and bring to a boil
- Then working in parallel, heat up a wok/ frying pan. Once it's hot enough, add 2 Tbsp oil, swirl around and pour in the beaten eggs. Flip over once the bottom has cooked, and randomly chop up the "omelette" as you stir fry. Remove and set aside.

- Rinse the wok and return to heat. Saute half of the chopped garlic and add chopped tomatoes and stir on medium/ high heat. Season with 4 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 2 Tbsp tomato ketchup and stir quicky for about 30 seconds. Add in cooked eggs, coat with sauce... and voila!!

- Meanwhile, my rice is also cooked!

Savoury flavours from the eggs go very well with the tanginess from the tomatoes 

- very appetising especially for kids!

7:35 pm

- By now, the pot of water should be boiling quite furiously. Gently add in the lettuce leaves and make sure all of it is submerged. Cook on medium heat for 2 minutes before draining and placing in a serving dish. Drizzle some oyster sauce, and you're done!

Can't get simpler than this!

7:45 pm

- Ok, time for the last dish. First, heat up wok on medium/high, add 2 Tbsp oil and stir fry eggplant until cooked through and softened. If it still looks a little too chewy, add 2 Tbsp water and leave to boil until reduced. Set aside.

- Return the wok to medium/ high heat, saute remaining chopped garlic and very quickly stir in the minced pork, pressing down from time to time to ensure it's cooked through and separated into small chunks. Add LKL spicy garlic eggplant sauce, stir through and allow to simmer for 1 minute before adding in eggplants and spring onions. Simmer for 2 more minutes, and serve! Easy right?

 

Fragrant, mildly spicy pork with squishy eggplants - I like~

... And 1 hour is up! Eat up! :P

CNY Recipes Part 1: Sliced Abalone with Lettuce

Chinese New Year is around the corner and I'm now planning the menu over the first few days of the festivities since Kays' family will also be in town. Cooking for 8-10 pax per meal is no easy feat! So, I usually pick the simplest recipes and outsource whenever possible to make my life a little easier. :P Of course there's actually no expectation from the family to really slave over the stove, but I guess I've inherited the need for tradition from my mom so it's a self-imposed thing to make sure everything is religiously followed.

First off, this is a quick and extremely simple recipe from mom which I'd use for CNY either for reunion dinner or on day 2 of the new year. The traditional way is really to stew the abalones in the can in a pot of water first for an hour or so, but if not done properly, the abalones sometimes become a little tough. This recipe ensure abalones are still tender and juicy~

Serves 4-6
Ingredients:

2 cans Abalone (I usually buy the Mexican or Australian ones - Calmex or New Moon are good)
Garlic, Chopped
1 Lettuce

- Gravy for Abalone - 
2 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
2 tsp Sugar
1 tsp White Pepper
2 tsp Sesame Oil
1 tsp Corn Starch
1 Tbsp Water
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce

- To cook lettuce -
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Chicken Powder
1 Tbsp Cooking Oil
 
Directions:
1. Open Abalone cans, drain and reserve stock. Thinly slice abalones
2. Bring large pot of water to boil. Add salt, chicken powder and oil. Blanch lettuce slices for approx 1 minute or until soften and quickly remove from pot & drain.
3. Mix oyster sauce, sugar, pepper, sesame oil, corn starch, water & soy sauce
4. In a non-stick pot, saute chopped garlic, add gravy mixture and cook til reduced
5. Add in abalone slices and bring to a boil
6. To serve, line dish with cooked lettuce and spoon abalone & sauce over. EAT UP!