Cooking stories

Of late I've been experimenting cooking hawker dishes from home.  Maybe it's because we had stocked up on food in our recent trip and so Chef Bel has been on a roll.

Here are some cooking stories from the past month.

1) Shallot oil

We ran out of shallots in our kitchen and I was inspired by my grandma to make a bottle of it.  I got a packet of shallots and started chopping them one Saturday morning.  I cooked it in oil and guess what, I burnt the first batch (boohoo).  I started again and this time determined not to burn them, I think I didn't brown them enough so now I have half a glass bottle of limp looking chopped shallots immersed in oil.  It doesn't look very appetising and I am wondering what to do with it.

Verdict: 0/5

2) Char Kway Teow 

Thanks to a dear friend who introduced me to this Singaporean lady's website.  She has so many recipes and one of which is a local favourite, char kway teow.  I had extra flat rice noodles one weekend and decided not to waste them and googled for a char kway teow recipe.

http://delishar.com/2014/10/fried-flat-rice-noodle-char-kway-teow.html

This is the second time I am trying her recipe but for some reason I find the seasoning stipulated not enough.  I had to add more of it to get the right balance of sweet and salty in this dish.  Overall not too bad for a first attempt.  One of the tips is a very hot wok so you get slightly charred noodles whereas I was pretty mild with the heat.

I didn't use much oil either so this was a healthy version

Verdict: 3/5

3) Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodles

K bought back two boxes of Prima Taste's Prawn Mee from Singapore and for his birthday dinner at home (remember we had a big Sunday roast for lunch which I blogged prior to this?), I decided to cook something a little different with help from Prima Taste.

We've tried this before but in soup form.  I was thinking more of the dry version, i.e. fried hokkien mee and this is actually option 2 printed on the box.  I gathered my ingredients as you can see below, improvising squid rings with some frozen squid balls.

You honestly won't go wrong with Prima Taste.  We finished our dinner in no time, especially with a dollop of chilli mixed in.  That prawn stock used to fry the noodles was so authentic it was like we were back home.

Verdict: 4.5/5

4) Bak Kut Teh

Again using Prima Taste here.  We've tried many brands of bak kut teh and have shortlisted two or three brands we like, one of which is Prima Taste, which is also the priciest.

Hubby was very sweet to cook a big pot for me last week.  He had a dinner appointment but prepared dinner for me so I didn't have to cook when I got home from work.  He kept it warm for me in our magic pot which was really useful and so all I had to do when I reached home was to cook a portion of rice to go with. The good thing about these magic pots?  The meat was falling off the bones by dinnertime.  Highly recommend these life changing pots.

Verdict: 5/5

5) Wholesome chicken porridge

This is one of our favourites for lunch on a weekend.  A wholesome chicken congee which gives us a warm fuzzy stomach after polishing off a bowl of this chicken goodness.  For the pic above, I used chicken drumsticks and boiled it with rice and some ginger slices.  I threw in a handful of red goji berries for some added sweetness and colour.  I added some light soy sauce and fish sauce to taste.  When the chicken was cooked, I took it out and shredded the meat before mixing it in the porridge.  I love how we can oomph it up with some chopped spring onion, coriander leaves and our current favourite - ikan billis - and finished it off with a light drizzle of sesame oil and a dash of white pepper.  Oh.so.good.  So good that we had it for lunch two days in a row.

Verdict: 5/5