Shaoxing Wine Ginger chicken

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chicken, Chinese, easy, easy meals, easy recipe, ginger, ginger wine chicken, healthy, Home Cooking, scallions, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, shaoxing wine ginger chicken, South East Asian, spring onions, white pepper, wine, wine chicken

This dish brings back a lot of memories from my Warwick days. For some reason I remember that the preparation process was long and tedious back then! It involves deboning chicken thighs/drumsticks and skinning and julienning ginger. At the present though, I no longer find it as long and dreary a process. Perhaps I could attribute it to… better knife skills? Or maybe just better knives, I don’t think my knife skills have improved at all since then!

This is a very warming, hearty dish and the sauce is lovely with freshly cooked white rice. It’s currently a favourite with the family and guests who happen to try it! It doesn’t take very long nor need many ingredients and makes a perfect addition to the dining table. I include pictures from two attempts at cooking this dish and I realized that I naturally throw the same ingredients into the pan, despite starting off with perhaps a couple less ingredients in one of the photos. That goes to show that agaration (the South East Asian technique of cooking by guesstimating) isn’t very far off from precision after all!Ingredients from trial number 1Ingredients from trial number 2.

But don’t worry, I’ve consolidated the ingredient list and summarized it as below:-

Ingredients (Serves 4)

• 2-3 stalks of Spring onions including the white bits with roots removed
• 3 inches of ginger, peeled and roughly julienned
• 4 Chicken thighs with skin on, deboned
• 3 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 3 tbsp clear chicken stock/broth
• 1 tsp kicap manis
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp sesame oil

Chicken marinade

• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2-3 tbsp soy sauce
• white pepper
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp corn flour

Cooking Instructions

Upon deboning the chicken, remove the skin from two of the chicken thighs and discard. Keep the skin on for the remaining two chicken thighs. We want some chicken fat rendering in the gravy but not too much!

Trim off the excess fat and remove the tendons from the chicken. Tendons are tough to cut through and unpleasant to eat so be thorough in removing them whenever preparing chicken! Once that is done, cut the chicken meat into bite-sized, uniform pieces so they cook at the same speed. 

Place the chicken in a bowl and lightly mix in the chicken marinade with your hands. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes at room temperature.

In preparing the scallions/spring onions, cut them into thirds or 2 inch sections. You can take some of the green sections to slice thinly for garnishing as well.

Heat up some oil in a pan/wok on medium fire. When the oil is hot enough (i.e. if you drop a piece of ginger into the oil it starts to sizzle right away), slide the ginger into the oil gingerly (I’m so funny I know) and fry for a minute until the ginger starts to turn a little golden and the gingery aroma seeps out. The point of this step is to flavour the oil with ginger as well as prep the ginger so it’s at its best to mingle with the chicken.Add the chicken pieces and fry until half-cooked.

Then, flip the pieces over and add the chicken stock, sesame oil plus Shaoxing wine and cover to cook for a minute. We’re quick-braising/stewing the chicken with some moisture, not searing it to death. Remember, the chicken has to be swimming in a luscious pool of delicious gravy!Upon uncovering, add the spring onion sections into the pan/wok and stir fry for a little while more. Taste to check if it needs more white pepper or salt.

And it’s done!Not the fanciest of dishes but highly satisfying and easy on the stomach. Healthy too!

Check out the before and after picture of trial number 1. I used 10 thighs for that round of cooking!

Wiped clean. ❤

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Lobster glass noodle soup with shaoxing wine.

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big head prawn, big head prawn noodle soup, Chinese, chinese lettuce, chinese soup, chinese soup noodles, coriander, dinner, easy meals, glass noodles, healthy, Home Cooking, huatiao, large prawns, lobster, lobster glass noodle, lobster glass noodle soup, lobster noodle, lobster noodle soup, lunch, Noodles, One bowl meal, prawns, seafood, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, Soup, South East Asian, stew, wine broth, wine soup

Here is the second half of the lobster (first half of which went to making the lobster pasta) and the easier recipe of the two. The original version called for fresh river prawns/big head prawns but since I had the lobster, I figured I could use that instead and add in some large prawns as a bonus. Since there is no recipe that I could refer to online I tried to recreate the taste the best I could remember. Turns out I’m actually quite satisfied with the results! Now without further ado, the recipe:-

Ingredients (4 pax)

• 1/2 lobster
• 6 large prawns (in my first attempt I used 3, but the attempt with 6 prawns tasted better)
• 1 inch ginger, sliced
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp minced onion
• 1/2 cup Shaoxing wine (maybe a dash more if you like)
• 5 cups chicken stock
• Chinese lettuce (I used a quarter of a head), cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 150g Glass noodles
• Spring onions chopped into large three inch sections.
• Coriander for garnish
• Finely chopped spring onions for garnish
• salt

The array of ingredientsGlass noodlesLarge lobster.

So we shall start with the prawns. De-shell all the prawns and set the shells/heads aside. Do NOT throw them away! Then devein them and cut each prawn into three sections.Size of the prawn heads and my hand, just for comparison. Lots of flavour in those prawn heads! 

Cut the lobster into half. If the lobster is as spiny as this one, do use a towel and be very careful when handling it. A pair of strong kitchen scissors would be a great help here.

More pictures of the lobster… as you can probably tell, I’ve added pictures from a second lobster noodle attempt into the mix. The second lobster looked way fresher and more succulent with its firmer white flesh and golden globules.

When you’ve managed to cut the lobster into half lengthwise, chop the tail into three parts and dig out some of the flesh from the head (I forgot to do that here) and set that aside with the prawns. Leave the orange/golden stuff behind.

Heat up some oil in a large pot and fry the ginger, garlic and onions until the onions are translucent and the aroma of the ginger comes out. It helps to crush the ginger before or during this step.Add the prawn shells and fry until half cooked (almost that coral colour they become when they’re fully cooked) before adding the lobster head to the pot.Continue frying for a minute or so, adding a little oil if it gets too dry. Then add the shaoxing wine to soak up all that flavour that’s coming from the prawn shells and lobster head. I actually would have liked to add another half cup of shaoxing wine but I was worried my family may not like the taste so I stuck with half a cup, but go ahead and use that extra half a cup if you like. 

Add the stock and simmer for around 15 minutes before turning off the heat. Cover the pot with its respective lid and leave it for perhaps an hour.

Then, remove the prawn shells from the stock (if you had a strainer bag in the first place, use it to hold the prawn shells because it can be a chore to pick them out from the soup).

Toss in the lobster and prawn meat that was set aside earlier, along with the spring onion sections, lettuce and glass noodles. The reason why we cook the shells and the meat separately is so that we can extract the most flavour out of the seafood from the shells without overcooking the meat, which is only added at the end. If you were to cook the meat right at the start, you’re going to end up with some very hard, overcooked and dry chunks of prawn/lobster which is such a waste of good seafood.

Place the lid back on and bring the soup to a boil.

Add the sesame oil at the end and season with salt. Top with chopped spring onions and coriander. Easy peasy!

Nonya fried chicken (inchi kabin)

Tags

chicken, chilli powder, coconut milk, curry, fried chicken, ginger, heritage food, inchi kabin, malaysian, nonya food, nonya fried chicken, South East Asian, spices, straits

Ingredients:

1 small chicken – 1.25kg – 1.5kg, chopped into sections

Marinate:

• 2 tbsp curry powder
• 3 tbsp grated ginger (or if u can find it, galangal)
• 5-6 shallots
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 4 tbsp coconut milk
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 chilli padi (optional – just for the extra kick if you like it spicy)
• 2-3 stalks lemongrass (optional – I didn’t add this in this time round, but I remember my grandmother putting some in hers.)
• 1 tsp salt, or to taste
• 1 tsp sugar, or to taste

1.  Trim the excess fat and skin from the chicken pieces and pat dry.
2. Combined all the marinate ingredients together (blend it if you can, it makes the paste so much smoother. I didn’t ;( )  and add in the chicken. Mix well, really get the marinate into every nook and cranny, then cover with a cling wrap and let the chicken marinate in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.

3.   Remove the chicken from the fridge at least half an hour to an hour before frying.

4.    I tried frying the chicken two ways, one with my brand new air fryer, and the other using the conventional deep frying method.

5.    For the air frying method, I added a little oil to the chicken and mixed it well before placing the pieces into the air fryer. Here’s the result:

It’s actually pretty good. Saves me quite a bit of oil and manages to also be healthier.

6.   As for the deep frying method, heat up enough oil to completely submerge the chicken pieces. This should be on high heat.

7.   Gently drop the chicken pieces into the oil, taking care not to overcrowd the pot.

8.   Skim off the brown bits from the surface of the oil. This is to prevent being burnt bits floating around the oil and sticking to the chicken.

9.   Fry until the chicken turns golden brown (because of the marinade, the chicken will tend to be on the darker side) and starts to float, take care not to overcook the chicken. Remove from the hot oil and place on a kitchen towel to drain off the excess oil

10. Serve. Obviously the deep fried chicken is going to taste better than the air fried ones. However, for the health-conscious, the air fryer is a pretty good alternative.

Juicy spiced chicken!

Tom Yum Goong

Tags

chilli padi, clear soup, fish sauce, galangal, kaffir leaves, lemongrass, lime, lime leaves, prawns, Soup, sour, South East Asian, spicy, thai, tom yum, tom yum goong, tomatoes

So I’ve always loved tom yum goong, but never tried making it myself. So when I saw a tom yum recipe on the high heel gourmet’s blog (http://highheelgourmet.com/2013/04/25/tom-yum-goong/) , I was really motivated to make it myself! Hers looks delicious and authentic.

I then made tom yum goong on two occasions following her recipe and found that its not only tasty but really healthy as well! Just look at the ingredients:-

Attempt 1: (No coconut milk used, smaller glass prawns and forgot to include the milk and prawns into the picture)Attempt no. 2: (With tiger prawns and coconut milk and a couple of shallots)

Ingredients (for two), adapted from: http://highheelgourmet.com/2013/04/25/tom-yum-goong/

4 full stalks of lemongrass (I used 5… or more depending on whether I wanted to finish em all)

5-6 Kaffir lime leaves

Galangal, peeled and sliced thinly, 4-5 pieces (for a 1.5 inch diameter knob of galangal), or 7-8 for a smaller knob – I think its a good idea to smash it a little, to release the flavour and smell

Shrimp or prawns with head and shell – I might have used 300g cuz there’s no such thing as too many prawns *Greedy*

1 can of Straw Mushrooms, these variety of mushrooms are the best kind for tom yum in my opinion

3-4 limes

Fish sauce  2 tablespoons

6 cups of liquid in total ; Water/soup stock/coconut milk with 1 cup in reserve. I used 1 young coconut which gave me 2 cups of coconut milk which I find essential as an ingredient in tom yum soup. Without coconut milk I feel like there’s something missing and it doesnt turn out as aromatic

Salt, as needed (Prob 2-3 tsps according to your taste)

Spring onions, cut about 1/4” long, 2 tablespoons

The green parts of the spring onion, 5-6 “leaves” for tying the bouquet garni if you don’t have a string designated for cooking

Cilantro, cut about 1/2” long, (saving the top leaves for garnish) 2 tablespoons

5-6 pods of chilli padi/birds eye chillies

Optional ingredients

Nam Phrik Pao  3-4 teaspoons (I didn’t use this, but perhaps I should have!)

Milk   1/2 cup (I used 3-4 tbsps when I thought the chilli was going to kill me from the level of spiciness…it helped to neutralize it a little)

Tomatoes  2-4 medium size, quartered (I used about 2)

Young coconut flesh (Unfortunately I ate mine so it never made it in to the soup)

Rock sugar  2-4 crystals (Just to eliminate the slightly unpalatable taste from the herbs, not enough to make the taste sweeter)

Cooking Instruction

1) For big prawns like the ones I’m using here, peel them, leaving the heads intact. De-vein the prawns and keep all the shells.

If you are using shrimp (smaller-sized prawns), pull the heads off alongside the shells and save them, also then deveining them. Set them aside.

2) Boil the 6 cups of liquid before adding the shrimp/prawn shells and shallots, and over the course of cooking, add water or stock as needed.

3) Meanwhile, boil another pot of water. This is where you’ll blanch your spring onion leaves so that it becomes malleable and you will be able to tie the bouquet garni with it. Blanch until soft then remove immediately.

4. Crush the lemongrass along the stalks and slice them lengthwise. Peel the galangal and slice it thinly. Tear the kaffir lime leaves towards the main stem, leaving the stem intact to keep them attached. Lay the blanched spring onions as below and place half the lemongrass on top, followed by kaffir leaves, galangal, more kaffir leaves and the rest of the lemongrass. Tie all of them into a bouquet garni so it doesn’t float all over in your soup.

When you’re done, cut the bundle down the middle (please make sure that both sides are equally secured by the spring onions) so it fits into your pot.

5) Place the bouquet garni into the pot and bring to a boil again, then lower the heat and let it simmer for another 10 minutes.

5) Season the soup. The high heel gourmet (a.k.a. Miranti) says that first we must get the salty aspect right. First, add the fish sauce, followed by some salt. When you’re happy with the saltiness, drop the rock sugar into the pot (Always handy to have some crushed ones ready at hand, its easier to apportion and cook). The rock sugar is meant to offset the bitter taste of the herbs. Then you taste the soup again to ascertain if more salt is needed.

6) Take out the shrimp shells and leave the bouquet garni.

7) Increase the heat to high again. Add the mushrooms, tomatoes, young coconut flesh if you have it, and the prawns/shrimp.

If you want your Tom Yum to be quite hot and spicy, you can add chilies right now, but if you want it somewhat spicy but not over the top, you add them later once its done boiling.

8) Let it come back to a boil, then turn off the heat right away. At this stage you can add the Nam Phrik Pao, crushed chilies, lime juice, and milk if you like.

9) Garnish with green onion, a slice of lime and cilantro.

It was yummy and really simple to make!

Much thanks to the high heel gourmet for her meticulous recipe and cooking instructions (though I’m afraid I might have deviated here and there and not done her much justice):

http://highheelgourmet.com/2013/04/25/tom-yum-goong/

Coming up soon: Tom Yum Goong

Tags

clear soup, fish sauce, galangal, healthy, kaffir leaves, lemongrass, prawns, Soup, sour, South East Asian, spicy, thai, tom yum, tom yum goong, tomato, tomyum

Adapted from High Heel Gourmet’s recipe. Hers is the real deal though 😉

http://highheelgourmet.com/2013/04/25/tom-yum-goong/

Shredded Chicken and Mushroom Hor Fan

Tags

Chinese, healthy, Home Cooking, Noodles, South East Asian

Shredded Chicken and Mushroom Hor Fan

This was one of my favourite dishes back in secondary school when I was studying in Queensway (Singapore, not KL where I wouldn’t have so much freedom to buy food like this 🙂 ). I’d walk over to the hawker center across the road and buy a packet of chicken hor fan in dark sauce with plenty of green chillis and the special chilli sauce they had at the store. Then I’d bring it home and eat it comfortably in my air conditioned room. Bliss~

It’s been a while since I had it, since I don’t know where the Hor Fan uncle has moved to now. So I looked up recipes for chicken Hor Fan online and I must say there weren’t very many recipes on chicken hor fan. Mostly Ipoh Hor Fan. I did manage to find one that I adapted and used. The ingredients are pretty simple and doesn’t need a lot of work to make. I’m only lacking the special chilli sauce from Uncle’s stall =( I can’t remember what it tastes like anymore, only that it was very good.

500g of kuay teow

Ingredients (for 1 pax)

1. 1 Chicken breast (or half if you’re not a big eater)
2. 250 gm fresh or packaged Kuay teow/hor fan/flat rice noodles (the thinner ones are preferable)
3. A couple stalks of chye sim washed and chopped into two equal lengths

For the sauce

1. 1 dried Chinese mushroom (I used Japanese mushroom since I didn’t have the Chinese type), soaked in hot water until soft and slice. Remove the stem
2. 1 cup chicken stock
3. 1 tsp light soy sauce
4. 1 tsp dark soy sauce
5. 1 tsp oyster sauce
6. 2 tsp corn flour
7. 1/2 tsp sesame oil
8. Pinch of salt
9. 1 tsp sugar

Cooking Instructions

1. Prepare the Kuay teow according to the packet instructions. For the packet that I used, I slid the semi fresh noodles into some hot water (put some salt into the water to flavour the noodles) and let it soften a little before separating the noodles with chopsticks. Shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes, otherwise you’d have soggy mush on your hands. Drain water and arrange kuay teow in the serving plate. Just so you know, the picture below shows 500g of cooked kuay teow … you need half of this for one serving.

2. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and boil it. Once it is cooked, shred the chicken and top the kuay teow with the chicken pieces.

3. Blanche the vegetables in boiling water for about 1 minute, stems first as they take longer to cook. Don’t overcook them as you’d want to keep the vegetables crunchy.

4. Combine all the sauce ingredients, bring to a boil then simmer until the sauce thickens. Taste as you go along and adjust to your liking. The sauce should have a heavy enough taste to flavour the noodles.

Pardon the random bits of corn floating around, I had used some corn and carrot chicken broth as the base.

5. Once the sauce has thickened, pour over the chicken and noodles.

Serve with a spicy sauce and garlic oil. It was good, but one of these days I will try to create a chilli sauce to go with this dish. Perhaps something spicy, sour and sweet would be nice I think. 

Amah’s Orh Kuay (Steamed Yam Cake)

Tags

Chinese, light meals, nonya, Snack, South East Asian

 

 

Steamed yam cake topped with red chillies, fried shrimp, spring onions and fried shallots

This is a snack found in South East Asia, each family would most likely have their own special recipes of making the steamed yam cake. I like to think of it as a Straits Chinese (Nonya) dish as I always eat it straight out of my Amah’s kitchen and I’m unashamedly Nonya-biased.

This is a dish that takes some preparation time as well as plenty of practice to get the consistency right. A dry batter would give a tough cake while a wet batter makes for a cake that falls apart too easily. Once you’ve got the basic yam cake, pair it with chilli sauce (my Amah also has a good recipe for this) and top with plenty of sliced red chillies,   fried shallots, shrimp, and spring onions. Coriander works as well too.

Now I have to disclaim, my Amah’s sense of measurement is, like many chinese grannies out there, by agaration (sense of feel, with no particular weight towards using measuring tools). Agak agak all the way. Apparently the amount of ingredients she uses each time changes as well according to my aunt. So this is as close as I could get for proper measurements.

 

Ingredients (for one turnip cake, enough to feed 10-12)  

1. 500g dried shrimp, heh bee (soaked overnight in water)
2. Rice flour (1/2 pack which would be around 300g, Erawan brand – a thai brand)
3. 1 large yam (make sure its firm not mushy)
4. Aginomoto (1 tsp)
5. White pepper (6 shakes)
6. Salt (1 tsp)
7. 3-4 bowls water (I suppose this is a soup bowl size? Refer to pictures to agak agak the water content)
8. Sliced Red Chilli, chopped spring Onions and fried Shallots for garnish
9. Cake tin

Cooking Instructions

1. Soak shrimp overnight in water. Drain the shrimp and reserve shrimp water

2. De-skin the yams and cut into chunks. If you’re like me and have never handled yams before, here’s a pictorial:

3. Wash the yams, drain off the water and set aside.

4. Mix the shrimp water, rice flour, aginomoto, pepper and salt along with the bowls of water and stir til combined 

5. Deep fry the drained shrimp on high fire with lots of oil to cover it. Doesn’t matter if it bubbles over, make sure its fried long enough so when it cools it is crispy

6. Remove shrimp from the wok and get rid of excess oil, leave enough oil to fry the yams.

7. Fry yams until tender on high fire, make sure there’s enough oil so it doesn’t stick. May want to cover the wok while it cooks

8. Add a helping of shrimp to the rice water mixture

9. Once you’re able to easily break into the yam with a fork, add the rice water and shrimp mixture and lower the fire to a slow burn.

10.  Stir til mixture thickens to a paste, randomly mashing but not overdoing it

11.  Ladle into the greased cake tin once it’s become thick and gloppy

12. Steam for an hour

13.  Serve with fresh red chillies, fried shallots, fried shrimp, chilli sauce and I’d put in coriander as well. It tastes best with homemade chilli sauce and fried shallots instead of store made ones. Will put up the recipe for chilli sauce soon.

And there you have it, a savoury yam cake topped with bright garnishes and sweet spicy chilli sauce. A snack I often ate in the sweltering hot weather under the cooling fan in my Gran’s living room. Nothing beats the homemade flavor.

Steamed yam cake topped with red chillies, fried shrimp, spring onions and fried shallots