Fried Chicken Japanese Flour

Hungry for some fry chicken? How about going out for some finger lickin’ good, KFC aka Kentucky Fry Chicken? Sounds delicious! But it is such a lazy day not wanting to prepare myself and drive out for food.

 Maybe I could just prepare the fry chicken on my own. I remember I still have some frying batter. After checking the kitchen cabinets, yes I do….  Since I have all the things need to fix it. Frying with fresh new oil is healthy too, so let us do our own fry chicken.

The unfortunate thing is the pre-mix batter packaging is in Japanese, and I am not Japanese literate, therefore I am unable to read and explain in detail the ingredient in the packaging but I could tell it is a little salty. Alright, forget the unfortunate and let us begin our own finger lickin’ good at home.

Ensure chicken is not cold or frozen before you fry; else you will end up with half cook chicken. You won’t see it on the outside, but when u cut deep inside the chicken, it might still be raw.

Ingredients

2 Chicken Thighs

1 pack of pre-mix Japanese Batter

Prepare & Cook

Clean up chicken, drip dry

Prepare dry plate, pour batter on it

Turn chicken over round and round

Heat Oil and maintain at medium heat,

Fry about 15minutes

Ready to serve

French Beans Fry Beehoon/ Vermicelli

French Beans Fry Beehoon/ Vermicelli

Ingredient

1 pack French beans

1 chicken breast

5 clove garlic,

4 tablesppon soy sauce,

3 table spoon oyster sauce

Prepare & Cook

French beans cut to 3 cm

Shredded chicken breast

Heat oil fry garlic, add French beans for 5 minutes

Add chicken

2 tablespoon soy sauce,

3 tablespoon oyster sauce

Fry for 7 minutes

Remove ¼ to plate

Add beehoon

Add water

2 tablespoon soy sauce

Fry 20 minutes

Dash of pepper

Garnish with French beans

Ready to serve

Sweet Pea Sprout Mushroom/ Mushroom Tau Miu

Remember the tiny vege, a look alike sprout like the alfafa. Yes, we are using this again today. Previously I had made this with fried anchovies but this time, it will be with a new add on, the mushroom.

Rinse them gently, else all the tiny little leaves will drop off. This dish is simply delicious, taste the freshness of the pea sprout, sweetness of the mushroom... yum!

 Ingredients

1 pack Tau Miu, ½ pack of fresh mushroom 5-6 pieces

1 tablespoon anchovies

2 cloves garlic,, 1 tablespoon oyster sauce, 1 teaspoon sugar

Prepare and cook

Slice button mushroom

Heat oil, fry garlic and anchovies for 2 minutes

Add mushrooms

Add oyster sauce and 2 spoon water

Remove to plate

Add Tau Miu, fry for 20 seconds

Remove and garnish with the mushroom anchovies

Ready to serve

You don’t need to clean your pan after the mushroom.

Just immediately add in the vegetable in order for the left over sauce and fragrant to be in the vegetable.

It will make your vegetable more tasteful

Salmon Fry Fish in 1 plate

Home cooking can be simple and really quick yet delicious. Without any MSG (Monosodium Glutamate or sodium glutamate ) or artificial add on seasoning. 

Ingredients

4 shallots, 4 cloves garlic

1 spring onion

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Prepare & Cook

Fry Shallots, garlic till golden brown. 

Remove to plate

Fry fish low heat 15 minutes. 

Remove to plate

Add fried garlic and shallots on top of fish

Pour 1 tablespoon soy sauce on fish

Garnish with spring onion

Ready to serve.

Mince Chicken Fry Beehoon

I had some chicken in the fridge, so not wanting to have rice for  the day. I figured I should have some beehoon instead.

Ingredients

½ carrot

2 packs beehoon

1 chicken breast

5 clove garlic

4 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

¼ cup water

1 dash pepper

Prepare and cook

Chicken chop to tiny cubes

Carrot sliced

Heat oil, fry garlic, chicken, carrot

2 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

Remove ½ ingredients to plate

Add beehoon

Add water from time to time when pan dry out and beehoon start to stick on pan

2 tablespoon soy sauce

Fry 20 minutes

Dash of pepper

Garnish with carrot

Stir Fry Romaine Lettuce with Fermented Bean Curb

Nothing beats the best simple home cook dish. Romaine Lettuce is called Yau Mak in Cantonese dialect. Everyone is so use to calling it Yau Mak until many does not know the English name of this vegetable. It is a vegetable with folic acid or folate. Those into making a new family member, hope you consume more of this vegetable. I am out of ingredient today to I am using the fermented bean curb for additional taste.

The one I bought is Fermented Bean Curb with sesame oil.

There are so many types of fermented food, this here can also be called Fu Yee in Cantonese dialect or some even call it Chinese cheese.  Made out of soy beans, salt and wine. I love its creamy, salty aromatic taste. Unlike cheese, these come in tiny bottles cut into tiny cubes, just like your size of your tiny butter for bread but still soak in some liquid, brine. Don’t pour the liquid away as it will make your bean curb grow cotton fungus. 1 cube for fits in for 1 chinese ceramic spoon. It seems for better improved flavor you could keep it longer example for several years. But I don’t think I will try that as there is an expiry date printed on my bottle.

The one I bought is the white color, there are others which taste a little spicy or a little sweeter or fragrant sesame oil. All of these will come with some brine in the bottle. What is brine? It was said it was some mixture of  vinegar,Chinese rice wine and other seasoning. They will be fermented for over six months with the soy.  Another famous flavor is the red fermented some Chinese call it the “hong fu yee” the ingredient for this comes with red yeast rice. Usually people with marinate this with meat and fry them. You would smell the delicious aromatic smell for this. After frying the meat, it looks dark red.

Ingredients

2 cloves garlic

2 cubes Fermented Bean Curb

Prepare & cook

Fry 2 cloves garlic for 2 minutes till aromatic smell

2 cubes Fermented Bean Curb (squash it)

(if pan dry up due to bean curb, add 1 tablespoon water)

Add vegetable. Fry 2 minutes

Ready to serve

Old Cucumber Soup

Feel like having a soupy day. One of my other half’s favorite. 

For soups I usually use village chicken, or “kampung chicken”. You must be wondering what I meant by that. Village chicken here means the chickens are free and roam all over in the village, not to worry, it will get home by itself. Their meat is much tougher as they have built stronger muscle tissue by running around all day and have less fats. If it is not cooked long enough, the meat will remain real tough to be eaten. Of course when it is in the village, chickens won’t be having any antibiotic or hormone japs for growth. Sounds healthy? That is the old story I know about the village chicken. Unfortunately, these days the modern large production for sales, I have no idea how the processes are.  

Seriously, talking about fats in the soup. I tried using normal chicken once, even after removing the fats on the surface of the chicken, after boiling, the whole pot is still floating with thick yellow fats.

I did not add any artificial seasoning. For me, I bought a whole big pack of dried scallop because it is my favorite. Not your favorite? you could replace it with dried oyster, dried mussel. It is now a Taste -  full soup.

Ingredients

1 old cucumber, 2 dried scallop

½ chicken

1 tablespoon wolfberries, 1 or ½ tablespoon salt

1 dash pepper to chicken

Prepare & cook

Wash clean chicken, remove yellow fats

Old cucumber, wash and scrape of the dirt on skin by using the back of your knife or spoon.

Remove seeds of the old cucumber, slice it about 1 cm each

Par boil chicken 5 minutes to remove impurities

Add all the ingredient

1 old cucumber, 2 dried scallops

½ chicken

1 tablespoon wolfberries

Add more water

Boil 20 minutes at medium heat

Tasting  time, 1 or ½ tablespoon salt

Low heat for another 1 hour or 45 minutes

1 dash pepper to chicken

When you remove the impurities of the soup at the beginning.

1.If you have no time, pour all the soup away together with the impurities.

2. If you have more time another 30 minutes, another old fashion method which is more tedious but makes the end outcome more tasty.

Use a strainer, keep the broth/soup, pour it to another pot or huge bowl. Why we keep the first round of broth because that is the sweetest part of the whole soup dish.

My next job is to rinse all the boiled chicken in water and clean off the impurities stuck in the pot before I really start to boil the soup. Well of course you could use 2 pots if you wish. But this is really a lot of work!

  

You could test it out. This time round, keep the broth, next time you could pour all away. Add new water to boil. See how the huge sweetness of the soup changes when you eat at dinner table. 

Baby Carrots Design with Cabbage

Carrots are full of vitamin A. Normal huge carrot seems big and juicy but I find it a little hard and old for me. It is personal preference. You may buy any kinds of carrots as you wish. So I decided to get a packet of baby carrot. For me, I prefer baby carrots because of 2 reasons. Firstly, I could just take a couple of them and chew them like bugs bunny when I feel bored, else I could cook them as and when I like with some other vegetables or meat as a dish. My multitasking carrots.

Prepare your tiny knife for the design cutting. This would be one of the kid’s favorite as it is small and cute with designs.

Ingredients

Baby carrot, ¼ cabbages

2 tablespoon dry shrimp

1 teaspoon sugar and salt

1 dash pepper

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

Prepare & Cook

Cut carrot to any design from triangle, square, hexagon. etc

Heat a tablespoon oil

Fry dry shrimp remove 1/2

Add baby carrots first for about 20 seconds

Add cabbage

1 teaspoon sugar and salt

1 dash pepper

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

Stir fry it

Remove to plate

Garnish with the fried dry shrimp that was remove earlier.

Ready to serve

Why do we fry the carrots first. This is because carrots need a longer time to get cooked compare to cabbages. If we put in the same time, the carrots will still be a little raw for me.

Mung Beans Dessert

Mung Beans Dessert.

Some call it Mung Beans, some Cantonese call it green beans, some call it green gram. What about you? It was said that it is full with vitamins and also for Chinese believe it could clean heat and toxins in the body as this bean is park under the cooling category. Mom only mentioned not to have this if I have diarrhea.  Well, I can’t really comment much as I am no doctor here. Eat at your own risk. Many many Chinese have this as a sweet dessert, so that is what I am going to make for now.

Before you start to make this dessert, you would have to soak mung bean for about 6 hours but NOT more than 8 hours. If do more than eight (8) hours, you don’t need to make mung bean dessert anymore, you can change to cooking vegetable bean sprout dish (Taugeh). If you soak them for too long, the roots start to grow, your green bean would look like infested with worms because you will see tiny little tails growing out on each bean or just like some tiny worm trying to squeeze out from the shell. So if you don’t feel like having this dessert, you may sprout them and get bean sprout meal.

How to determine the beans are cook. The beans will start to turn soft and the skin of the beans will start to peel off.

  

I bought the rock sugar in tiny cubes so I could just spoon it out instead of weigh it.

Wonder what is pandan leaves? It’s also known as screwpines.

Gula Melaka = palm sugar.

Ingredients

1 pack green beans

2 tablespoon of rock sugar , 3 pandan leaves

½ pack dry longan or 15 pieces

½ roll palm sugar

Prepare & cook

Boil beans 20-30minutes with 3 pandan leaves

Add 2 tablespoon of rock sugar

Add dry longan

½ roll palm sugar

Use low heat, boil another 15minutes

If it dries up, add ½ cup water

Taste the sweetness

If not sweet enough for you, add more sugar,

Boil another 20-30minutes

Check the beans texture, if it is still intact with the dark green skin, continue boil.

Hmm... the sweet aromatic smell of the palm sugar and longan, can't wait to eat them.

Sorry this look so messy in the pot, I should have taken it after i place it my bowl, but I forgot to snap it as i was to eager to eat them up.  Next time hopefully I would remember to snap one.

Wrap Bake Fish

Most of the food I made was fry fry fry. Today we are doing something different. I am going to bake a fish. It is my first time, I was so worried that it will burn and turn black as I have not much experience in using oven. But it is always worth a try. Cooking can’t be perfect for the first time. It takes numerous trials and error to be a good chef.

To avoid being burnt, I decided to use the aluminum foil to wrap up my fish. This was because I am not sure how long would it take this portion of fish to cook. Or would it turn to charcoal if I bake it too long.

  

Ingredients

1 piece fish, foil wrap (depends on size of fish)

2 shallots, 4 garlic, 1 tablespoon soy sauce

Some Enoki mushrooms

Prepare & Cook

Slice shallots and garlic

Mix it on fish front and back

Put cod fish on foil wrap

Pour olive oil all around on fish

Place Enoki mushroom around the fish

Wrap fish with foil, cover it

Poke some hole on the top of the foil

Bake 20 minutes 220-240Degrees

Ready to serve

Why do we need to poke some hole on the top of the foil, this is because there is heat while you bake the fish, heat need to circulate around in the fish to cook it. If you have wrap up the whole fish and did't make the holes, your foil would be bloated up like a huge balloon.

Sprinkle some salt if you still feel its too bland.

Fast Plate Stir Fry Pork

I was watching some Korean Drama until I forgot to cook. The Korean drama was called Ohlala. Story about family, love and reincarnation.

So what can I do with such a short time. Just open the fridge to see what I have. Oh yes, a piece of pork meat. Next, let us check the kitchen cabinet, I had no idea of any special ingredient as my mind was too tied up on the Korean drama. Chasing series really takes up lots of time. 

Well I will just use the common things that I have for now in the cabinet. 

Ingredients

Pork cut to cubes or strips (shredded)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

1 dash pepper

Prepare & cook

Marinate pork with soy sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

And pepper for 20mins/ 1 hour

Heat abit of oil, fry pork 10-15minutes

Ready to serve

While the pork is busy marinating itself, I could boil some rice or just make a salad. Yippie! 

Broccoli Fish Maw

Fish Maw, sound like fish claw. Since when does fish have claws? More, more.. It is MAW, it is an air bladder to make the fish stay deep in the water for swimming and balance their weight.  You would be thinking that this would be in all fishes in the world, so did I. But it seems not all fishes have it.

It is like a rubber bag where is can expand and contract itself. It is an organ for the fish, but it is another delicious food for us. We call it the fish maw! It does taste fishy when it is soaked wet in water. Since it was like a rubber bag, it would be chewy and crunchy after cooking. But this depends on the way you cook them.

But if you don’t cook it well, it would be really really fishy and really unpleasant to be eaten. It is a well known delicacy during Chinese Lunar New Year, where fish maw will be cooked together with chicken broth, black mushroom, sea cucumber (not a vegetable but a sea creature which looks like a cucumber) and simmer for a few hours. You could make it at home, but it sounds like a lot of job, no worries you could have it at any restaurant. Since I have a pack of fish maw laying around from a gift pack, so I might as well cook it. But today I am not cooking this special Lunar dish. I will be making it simple broccoli fish maw.

The longer you soak, the softer the maw.

Ingredients

1 pack broccoli, ½ carrot

1 fish maw size 15cm

5cm ginger

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

1 tablespoon wine

Add dash of salt, dash of sugar

Prepare & cook

Soak the fish maw till it turns soft (soak for 1hour)

Fish maw cut to strips (square or triangle shape 2-3cm)

Slice ginger

Heat a teaspoon oil fry ginger

Put ¼ cup water boil fish maw 10-15 minutes,

Add dash of salt, dash of sugar

Add Chinese Wine simmer for 1 minutes. Remove

Fry carrots, broccoli

Add 1 dash salt, oyster sauce

Add fish maw and stir for 1 minute

Ready to serve

Note : If you still feel that it is fishy, you may add a dash of pepper.

Chayote Vegetable Garlic

Don’t get mistaken with Coyote, spells almost the same, sounds almost the same, but it is definitely not the jackal or the fluffy brush wolf. It is totally opposite and not meat. Chayote here is a type of vegetable.

When I first saw this vegetable with the curls, I thought it was paku-pakis (Diplazium esculentum) a type of vegetable fern. Seems like it was not a very favourable vegetable as there were still many packets on the shell.

After reaching home, and having a second look it seems like it does not seem like what I thought it was. It did not really look like the paku-pakis anymore as there was not as much curls as it was supposed to have as a paku-pakis. And the leaves looks like maple leaves. Something must have gone wrong. I did not think it could be a poisonous vegetable else it won’t be sold in the supermarket. As I was not quite sure about the taste of the vegetable anymore, I decided to cook it the simplest method. Garlic. This is to have a more clear taste of the vegetable for the first time.

Later on, I surf the net and found out that it has a fruit where is called vegetable pear with smooth skin and crunchy texture.  It is pronounce as Cha-yo Tee, Sechium edule. But it is a categorize under the gourd family, also known as mirliton, choko, chrisophine (not Christopher) and other names in different countries. This totally green vegetable carries a total of 15 names. Cool? In fact, I read some blogs, Chinese calls it dragon beard vegetable. 

I have yet to try out any Chayote fruit, if I do, I will sure share the recipe.

Ingredients

1 pack Chayote leafs

3 cloves garlic

Prepare & Cook

Heat oil

Fry 3 cloves garlic

Add Chayote

Parsley Powder

1 table soy sauce

1 table oyster sauce

While cooking, it cross my mind, since I had no idea how this vegetable would taste I added some soy sauce and oyster sauce, just in case the vegetable was bitter.

 

Egg Wrap Chicken Burger

Many of us do not cook our burgers meals at home. It is another quick meal for us. Cheapest and fastest Burger Meal. Usually we would go out and take-away (take home) a burger from the closest burger stall located outside 7-11 store. They usually sell the famous local brand “Burger Ramli”. Cost about 2.50 for the plain burger. We could skip the part of washing the pan and plates after cooking. But recently, we have stopped buying from this stall near our home.

The story goes, one late afternoon, while we were passing by the stall, they had just started to unpack their things for business of the day. We saw them taking out the whole packet of bread bun from a dirty long grey container. I was wondering why the container was so so so dirty, it has lines of dirt on it. Looks like the container was never been washed. After they remove the bun, I took a closer look. The container was the trash bucket! OMMggg! How could they do this?? How could they put the whole packet of bun which they are about to sell for the day in that dirty trash bucket!! Even if the bread buns were still in their own plastic wrap. I felt so disgusted, so unhygienic.

What if the plastic wrap had holes? Or accidentally broke open? Imagine the germs, virus or god knows what would have stick to the bread buns. Oooooh My!!

I told myself, I would never buy from this stall forever.

Please note that this was only for this particular stall. I ain’t saying that all stalls do this.

After this incident, we bought our own burger patty from the supermarket. Can’t be lazy and skip the washing pan part now. It is either you wash the pan or you eat the buns from the trash bucket. Make a choice.

We will be using the normal prepack chicken burger. I forgot to get the bread bun, so I will be using the normal square bread. Since it is made at home, you could make 2 or even 3 chicken meat patties burger! You may add on your lettuce, cucumber slices, tomato or just anything you fancy! Superb Kids snack!

Ingredients

2 chicken meat patties,

4 slices bread

2 eggs

Cooking it

Fry burger with half tablespoon butter, fry both sides

Remove from pan

Fry egg, once egg start to cook, turn over/ flip over

Put burger on the center of the egg.

Cover it up.

Ready to serve 

Sweet Cabbage Soup with Spice Ball

I was thinking of having a bowl of soup but not a huge bowl soup. Just a little pot for 2 of us on a rainy cold day. I did not want to boil the 2 hours soup and cook another 2 dishes for the day. So I decided to make this 1 dish which includes the meat and vegetable. This 1 pot full dish is simple. Just open your fridge to see what you have. I had some squid. If you don’t have chicken, you can add seafood.  Working ladies, this is another quick cooking meal for you when you arrive home from your tired and stressful work day. 

 

Ingredients

1 or 2 pieces chicken drumstick (slice the center open up the meat)

6 medium cups water for soup

4 shallots,  4 cloves garlic,  3cm ginger

1/2 cabbage, 2 spice balls (rempah balls), 1 squid

4 dash pepper, 1 tablespoon soy sauce,

3/4 tablespoon salt, 1/2 tea sugar (if required)

Prepare & Cook

Clean up the chicken and squid

Chop garlics and shallots

Heat some oil, fry shallots, garlics , ginger for 3 minutes

Add chicken and fry till golden brown

Add squid, add 2 dash salt, mix and stir

Put everything from the pan and the spice ball into pot, boil ½ -45 minutes, hour

Add Cabbage Last 7 minutes

Rempah ball = Spice ball, it consist of many types of herb spices. This will bring out some aromatic smell of the soup.

Sorry I forgot to snap the photo of the spice ball before cooking. Its just a piece of white cloth tied with a string tied at the centre with some herbs in it. I will snap it next time. No worries, stay tuned!