Diced Chicken with Spicy Chilies 辣子鸡丁 – Eat What Tonight
It’s a no wonder that many people love this as a side dish that goes with beer or alcohol. For me, I had it served with rice but it was still very good nevertheless. Simple as it may seem but the marinated chicken along with the gingers, garlics, dried chilies and Szechuan peppercorns all give the dish a very flavorful aroma.
It doesn’t take long to whip up this dish as well and a bit regretful that I prepped too little in this instant as it was gone in an instant after serving up and below recipe is meant for 1 to 2 pax so you be sure to double or triple the serving as I’m pretty sure it will be a real popular dish.
A tomato based chicken stew that packs a punch because a good abundance of vegetables such as celery, tomatoes, carrots, onions and potatoes are used for the stew ! And coupled with the chicken pieces, this dish can be easily polished away with rice, pasta or even bread.
If you are tired of all the roast stuffs for Christmas already, this hearty recipe can certainly bring you some healthy comfort. I used a fresh whole kampong chicken for the stew which hence makes it all the more better. It has that bit of sweetness coupled with some sourish-ness from the tomatoes and with the amount of vegetables used, it can easily make a one-pot meal too.
To prevent the potatoes from getting too mashed up too, they were added halfway through the cooking time which was pretty ideal as the texture was just right on spot for the softness yet without becoming too mashy. I also added a touch of red wine right at the end which helps to bring out the flavours even better. Hope this dish will delight you as much as I do.
Prepped up a Christmas recipe using my new cookware from Modori ! And it’s none other than the new Goodle Collection which comes in a 24cm frying pan, an 18cm sauce pan, a 28-cm wok and a square or rather rectangular egg pan. Wholly made in Korea, this new series of cookware from Modori comes in a sleek black colour with wooden handles and cover knobs.
So I started off the usage with the 24cm frying pan as it looks really presentable serving these meatballs in cream sauce with the pan itself, saving the hassle of plating. Some personal opinions of what I so liked about this Goodle Cookware is that first, I don’t need to feel “heartache” over burnt gas marks on my pots and pans anymore. Since I am using a gas stove for cooking most of the times, burnt gas marks are always an inevitable issue on pots and pans, no matter how hard I try to maintain them. And since these new cookware are entirely in matt black, the problem of gas burnt marks cease to exist and I can keep my beautiful pots and pans for a much longer period of time staying well as they originally were.
Secondly, food colour stains especially when you cook curries often is another hassle. I guess the black colour serves well to conceal away all such unsightly stains as well. I also heard from many people being concerned about cookware with wooden handles having a hole and that water will eventually corrode the wood which I guess is true to a certain extent but I’m glad that the Goodle cookware will not have this issue as the “hole” in the handle is entirely concealed.
Another concern I do have are the rivets on cookware, be it on the lid of the pot or the cooking pan itself. If you used a pan or wok long enough, it is apparent that oil stains or dirt will appear around the rivets which sometimes might be difficult to clean away, especially those on the lids of the pots and pans itself. So imagine when you use the lid to cover the pot again during cooking, the steam vapour will just fall back onto the food itself, which make it really unhygienic. The Goodle cookware is entirely rivet-less which makes it another plus point to own.
And if you may ask, out of the 4 cookware my most commonly used thus far has been the frying pan and saucepan. The frying pan makes good for cooking everyday dishes whilst the saucepan is ideal for soupy dishes. And if I need to cook vegetables or a larger serving of food, the 28cm wok is easy to maneuver around.
Aesthetically wise, they sit beautifully on the stovetop as well and for technical aspects of the cookware you can find them easily over on Modori website here. So far, the heat retention and non-stick coating has been excellent and stains can be easily washed away without much effort too.
With that, it’s time to hop onto the recipe for the day. Other than indulging the meatballs in the cream sauce, the sauce itself is good for pasta too.
Spanish Mackerel Fish Balls Soup – Eat What Tonight
The mackerel fish is utilised to the maximum in this dish with the fish meat for the fishballs and the fish bones for the soup. Though this is not the official type of fish to be used in the commercial fishballs that we often patronised, but the natural taste and freshness of the fishball soup made from scratch is something that we probably unable to find elsewhere. I used Tianjin Preserved vegetables 天津冬菜 to season the soup itself with a touch of light soya sauce to enhance the flavour and the rest of it comes purely from the fish bones.
If you’re concerned about having to de-bone the fish and might not be able to do it professionally liked myself, you can actually get the fish sellers to do it for you nowadays which is literally what I did as well. So everything came nicely de-boned with the fish bones separately packed as well. This definitely saves a great deal of hassle and makes your cooking so much a breeze.
I preferred my Mee Goreng slightly moist which is how this one turns out to be liked. No colouring MSG was added, so it’s probably as wholesome as it can. Nevertheless the taste was still awesome and for this, I would recommend using Maggi brand of tomato and chilli sauce as they bring out the essence of the Mee Goreng noodles much better.
Chicken can simply be replaced by seafood or even eliminated. The yellow noodles I had was chilled and hence the extra step to blanch them in boiling water to loosen them. But if you are having noodles that are freshly purchased, this step can be skipped and noodles can be used without blanching. This recipe is straightforward and easy and requires minimal preparation effort.
Wanted to share this before the Chinese New Year as they look really auspicious as a dish for the festive. Not exactly a recipe to begin with as all the ingredients are ready-made but the creativity of putting them all together makes it a really delightful dish for sharing especially during the reunion dinner.
For this, I used Lion Dance brand Bao Xin Wan meatballs which has a juicy meat center filling before wrapping in popiah skin and tying them with pandan leaf knots before deep frying to a crispy golden brown hue.
All it takes are just 4 simple ingredients to make these auspicious looking “money bags”. It’s crispy on the outside, chewy on the interior and finally biting into a juicy and savoury center filling which turns out to be surprisingly good. You can always replace the meatballs with the normal ones without any filling which I believe will turn out to be equally awesome as well. But for this, I do strongly recommend these ones with a center filling as you can literally have the 3 layers of texture all in a single “money bag”. Believed this will be a hit with the kids as well as it looks tempting and delicious enough to entice the little ones.
Easy, wholesome and fast is this Tomato and Egg Noodles Soup. To make it entirely vegetarian, I included some plant-based meat strips instead of the usual poultry. This dish can be served up within 30 mins so it makes a good and healthy quick meal. Most of the ingredients are pretty common as well which can be easily found in everyone’s pantry kitchen. You can use any kind of noodles you desire but for this, I used the dry La Mian Noodles from Prima.
The soup comes on a hinge of savouriness and sourish-ness from the tomatoes. You can adjust the seasoning to cater to your preferences as well. Whilst I find the commercially-sold tomato soup base can be a bit too strong for my liking, this homecooked one can cater to my tastebuds better.
In fact, this recipe was unintentional as I only had wanted to clear out the abundance of tomatoes sitting around and not wanting to waste them, I prepped up the tomatoes soup and turn out to be surprisingly appetising.
Since Chinese New Year is approaching where everyone is whipping up their best dish, I thought I would share another lunar festive recipe again. The Chinese long cabbage is always in abundance during the lunar festival and most households will commonly stock up this vegetable, usually for soup broth in Pen Cai or just purely for hotpot purposes. And so with a little twist, I used it in a double boiled soup where the soup ingredients are wrapped and cooked within the cabbage itself. Thereafter the leaves of the cabbage are opened up liked a “soup bowl” which make it very presentable and pretty.
The gist of this dish itself is actually the presentation of the cabbage and soup at the end of it. While I had the soup ingredients with some of the common items that we often stocked up in the fridge liked mushrooms, carrots, chicken and meatballs, you are free to replace them with anything of your choice. Usually I preferred to incorporate the water that’s being used to soak mushrooms and scallops into the cooking itself as they are natural seasoning, so be sure to give them a rinse first before soaking them to use.
The “double boiled” in Chinese cooking also meant that the soup is steamed over 2 layers of segregation and in this case, the real soup bowl is one and the “cabbage soup bowl” is another. 2 hours is quite a bare minimum for double boiling over the stove but there are also ready electrical appliances in the market that caters to such usage which probably can shorten the time. Hope this recipe is in time for the CNY menu planning !
