Fry Fresh Scallops

This morning as usual go to the fishmonger,I was so surprised to see fresh scallops with the shells intact.  this is the first time I ever see this in the wet market since I started doing marketing as young as 12 years old.  I was so excited, me and my whole family like scallops. Its  very cheap too.  It cost me only RM 8 for a kg.  The fishmonger helps me to choose the bigger the  possible for me. 

These are the fresh scallops that I got from the market.  I peel off the shells.  Remove the intestines and drain well.  After peeling and removing all the unwanted parts, it remained about 400 grams in weight.

Anyway, the scallops look so beautiful and fresh.  I decided to stir fry just like the way I used to stir fry la la, another type of shells seafood from the sea.
I gather all the ingredients as bellow,

1 tbs taucu(fermented bean paste),
2 shallots,
 3 pips of garlic,
1 red chili,
1 inch ginger
1 tsp sugar,
1 tbs sesame oil,
1 tbs oyster sauce,
2 tbs cooking wine.
2 tbs cooking oil,
Chopped basil/spring onion(garnish)

Chop the garlic, slice the shallots, cut the ginger and chop into fine pieces, cut the chili into small slices and set aside.

 In a small bowl, put in sugar, sesame oil,oyster sauce and wine and mix well , set aside.

Heat up the oil in a wok, put in shallots, garlic, ginger and chili.  Stir fry until aromatic.

Add in taucu and continue frying for a while.  Add in the seasoning and it has a quick boil.
Lastly stir in the scallops, stir fry until the scallops are cooked, about 2 minutes. Off the fire and add in the basil and have a quick stir. Scoop out and serve hot with rice.

Oh  the scallops are so fresh and so sweet, taste yummy.

Double boil chicken with glutinous rice

Agnes, my friend has become grandmother now.  Although she has confinement lady for her daughter-in-law, she will also prepare some special soup for the young mother.  When I visited them yesterday she served me with chicken soup with glutinous rice.  I like the soup, something special that I never tasted before.  Agnes explained that this is a very nourishing soup for the young mother.  She shared the recipe with me and I am sharing it here. 
This recipe serve 3.  You got to adjust the ingredients if there is more then 3 members in the family.

The ingredients are,

1 free range chicken (about 1.5Kg)
3 to 4 dried scallops,
2 pieces of Korean ginseng(optional)
4 to 6 red dates,
8 to 10 goose berries,
2 to 3 tbs cooking wine,
1 cup of glutinous rice,
2 cups of water,
1/2 tsp of salt..

Clean the chicken and remove the extra fats .  Par-boil the chicken and drain.  Soak the dried scallops, red dates and goose berries and set aside.

Wash the glutinous rice, add in the salt and water into a small sauce pan and cook in medium fire .  Keep stirring to prevent the rice stick onto the pan.  Cook for about 5 minutes.  Drain the rice and let cool. The rice water to be poured into the inner pot for double boiling.

 Use a spoon to scoop the sticky rice into the cavity of the chicken, push as far in as possible until all the rice are inside the cavity.  do not worry that the rice will flow out while cooking, sticky rice will stick together inside the cavity by itself. 

Prepare the double boil pot, pour in the rice water, at this junction,( I add1 more cup of water for extra soup), put in the well stuffed chicken and the rest of the ingredients.

Cover and double boil for 3 hours. 
When its time for dinner, I open up the cover of the pot, mmm..smell good.
Remove the chicken from the inner pot onto a plate.  You can add in salt to taste into the soup, but I prefer the plain taste of the ingredients. At the same time i scoop out the sticky rice .

I prefer to eat the rice, chicken and drink the soup separately.  The rice is so soft and tender, and the soup, though is a little oily but is nourishing and taste good. 

Serve hot .

Calamondin chicken (limau kesturi)

This is a very old recipe from news paper cutting that I kept for more then 30 years.  I have not been preparing this recipe for a long ,long time.  I would like to share this simple and delicious recipe here.  My whole family like this recipe very much because of the sweet and sour flavour and is very appetising too.

500 g chicken,
5 to 6 calamondin,
1 tbs spoon of palm sugar or brown sugar,
1 inch cinnamon,
3 tbs soy sauce,
5 shallots,
2 red chillies,
1 tsp corn flour,
 1 tsp water,
2 tbs cooking oil,
chopped spring onions or parsley (garnish)

Clean and chop the chicken into bite pieces, drain.  Cut the shallots and chillies into slices and set aside.Extract the juice from the calamondin and scrape out some of the pips.  Mix it with the soy sauce, cinnamon and sugar. Mix the water and the corn flour for later use as thickening.

Heat up the oil in a wok, fry the shallots and chillies until fragrant.  Add in the chicken and continue stirring for 1 to 2 minutes.  Add in salt to taste and add the calamondin sauce prepared earlier.

Cover and simmer until under slow fire until chicken meat is tender.  Add in thickening, garnish with spring onion or parsley when serving.

This dish goes well with rice.  Serve 4 to 5 persons.

For a festive occasion, a whole chicken can be marinated in the juice sauce, with honey added, and baked in an oven, basting with the sauce until brown.  Decorated appropriately. (suggestion by the author)   I have not try this baking before.  I will try and share the outcome.

Classic Lemon Pound Cake

I was watching Asian food Channel last week, I was attracted to what Anna Olson baking on the TV show. I watch the way she did the measurements for the ingredients, and the whole process until she completed the baking.  I like her way of preparing baking and cooking as well, simple, easy and delicious.  She was baking classic lemon pound cake. Immediately after the show I got the recipe from the web and copy down.

As the recipe call for sour cream, so I have to buy from the grocery the next day. I started preparing the baking after gathering all the needed ingredients,

 The ingredients are,

1 cup of unsalted butter, just cooler then room temperature,
1 1/2 cups of sugar( I reduced to 1 1/4 cup)
1 tbsp of finely grated lemon zest.

5 large eggs, room temperature,
1/3 cup of sour cream (full fat),
1 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract,
1 cup all purpose flour,
1/2 cup cake + pastry flour,( I used self-raising flour),
1/2 tsp salt.
1   9"x5" loaf pan (greased)
preheat the oven to 160 degree C.

Beat the butter and sugar and lemon zest  until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Lightly whisk the eggs with a fork in a bowl, add this to the batter in a few additions, scrapiong down the bowl in between.
In another bowl stir the sour cream and vanilla together and beat this in to the batter .

In another bowl, sift the all-purpose flour, cake flour and salt.  Add into the batter, mixing un til fully incooperated, scarping to the bottom of the mixing bowl to ensure this.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, tap it a few times to make it level, and allow any air bubbles to escape.

Bake the cake for 65 tp 70 minutes, until tester inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clear.

Oh!  smell so good.   Next , have to prepare lemon glaze while the cake is still hot.

I need, 3 tbs lemon juice,  2 tbs water and 1/3 cup of sugar.

This is a very simple glaze.  Put all the ingredients into a small sauce pan,

cook over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved.

At the meantime, poke holes in  the warm pound cake using a bamboo skewer,

This is to ensure that the glaze can get into the cake.
Brush the glaze over warm cake.

Can see the shine after brushing the glaze onto the cake.
Let the cake cool completely in the pan before removing to serve.(the glaze will set once the cake is cool).

The cake smell and taste so good, I had 2 slices after my dinner.  Oh, I like it very much because
 the sweetness is cover by the sourness of the lemon, so it is not very sweet but feel so fresh, AS Anna Olson said that this lemon pound cake will bring freshness to your table weather served with afternoon tea or as dessert after a big meal.

Long Bean Omelet

Have you ever seen purple long beans?  The beans look like small snakes or long worms at first glance.  After second look, ya they are long beans no doubts but in purple colour.

Cathy, my friend' s maid, gave some of the beans to me after her harvest, about 12 of them.  Too much for fry rice but too little to fry with (sambai dried prawns).  Oh ya, just nice enough for long beans omelet.  My mom used to cook this dish to go with plain porridge during our younger days. Mm....yummy , recalling those were the days eating long beans omelet with brothers and sisters.  This is a very simple omelet, just eggs, long beans, salt and pepper.

Well, I have 12 long beans,
4 eggs,
dash of pepper,
1/2 tsp soy sauce,
2 tbsp cooking oil,
4 pip of garlics,
salt to taste.

Wash and trimmed ends of the long beans. Slice very thinly, set aside.
Mince the garlics.  Use a fork beat up the eggs in a bowl with pepper and soy sauce.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, put in the chopped garlic and fry till fragrant.  Add in the sliced long beans and keep on frying.  Add in salt to taste. 

When the beans are almost cooked, arrange them in to one flat layer in the pan.  Pour in the egg mixture over the beans, ensure all the beans are well coated in the egg.  Cook for a few minutes on 1 side until dry and nicely browned.

Then flip to the other side, continue to fry until golden brown. I used the spatula to slice into 4 pieces.

Simple and delicious long beans omelet is done, taste as the same of the green long beans  though is  purple in color.

Fish with black bone chicken essence

Chinese New Year is a festive of exchanging presents and goodies, and a lots of good verses to be spoken especially with older generations of parents and grandparents around.
As usual, i will receive oranges, dried mushrooms, abalone, cookies and on and on.  I was especially attracted to a yellow box with a picture of black bone chicken.  With curiosity I read the label and was amazed to find out that was black bone chicken essence, there are many brands of chicken essence in the market but never see a black chicken essence before, quite interesting.  This is from Elken ( a famous direct sell company).   I found a leaflet which contain the box of chicken essence, it explained that this essence is free of fat, free of cholesterol, free of preservatives, no artificial colouring and no added flavouring, another leaflet which has a simple recipe for cooking fish.

So, today I am going to try out this special chicken essence and follow the recipe given.

The recipe called for grouper slice, but I have a whole fish of other kind, so cut into half for easy frying. (I double all the ingredients, I  used 1 bottle of normal chicken essence with a bottle of  black bone chicken essence)

The ingredients,

1 bottle of black bone chicken essence,
1 slice of grouper fish (about 300g)
1 tbsp young ginger
3 tbsp cooking oil
1/2 tsp of chopped spring onions
1/2 tsp of goji berries
salt and pepper
cornflour(optional)

Clean the fish and use kitchen tower to dap dry the fish.  soak and clean the goji berries in water, finely slice the ginger and set aside.
Heat up the oil in a frying pan, pan fry the fish until cook.

Dish out the fish onto a serving plate.  Pour out excess oil and leave about 1 tbsp oil on the pan.  Stir fry the ginger until fragrant, add in the goji berries, salt and pepper.  pour in the chicken essence.  Bring to boil and pour the cooked mixture over the fish, Garnish with spring onion or parsley and serve hot.

Curry Sweet Potato Soup

Yesterday while looking for some health remedies at www.health.com, I came across this interesting soup, curry sweet potato soup!  This is the first time I see a soup with curry powder. I would like to share with you guys out there.  I modified the original recipe by reducing the ingredients to half of it because the original serve for 5.

The ingredients are,

2 tbs. cooking oil,
1/2 cup chopped shallots,
3 cups (1") cubed peel chopped sweet potato,
1 1/2 cup (1") cubed peel chopped carrot,
1 tbs. grated ginger,
2 tsp. curry powder,
3 cups refused salt chicken stock( I use only water),
Salt to taste.

Heat the oil in  a sauce pan, fry shallots and ginger until fragrant, add in sweet potato, carrot and curry powder, stir and mix well.

Pour in the water, let boil and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until the carrot and sweet potato are soft.  Add in salt to taste.

Pour into blender and blend till fine.

The creamy sweet potato soup is ready to be served.

I like the sweetness of the sweet potato and the fragrant smell of the curry powder.  I would this easy and delicious soup to my friends.