Sushi at home

Everytime when we buy sushi home, DH will complaint not enough. Because DH is a very big eater, he can eat the share of 2-3 person. So if we were to buy take-away sushi, it will takes alot of sushi to satisfy him. So inorder to satisfy his huge appetite, i decided to cook part of the meal.

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What do i mean by that? Well, that means we will just buy some sashimi and the egg roll and prepare the rest of ourselves. Items we can prepare at home, such as the Chicken Karaage (i used the frozen ones), steam rice and seaweed. With some seasoning like the japanese soy sauce and mayonnaise, you can wrap your own Chicken Karaage handroll, egg handroll and of course the sashimi handroll in any sizes you want.

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This is our perfect weekend, with nice food, nice wine or beer and a good DVD at the comfort of home. Nothing beats this!
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Where to get frozen Chicken Karaage

For the japanese ones, you can get from Kuriya Fish Market (I got mine from Great World City branch).

Otherwise, you can also get from Cold Storage or NTUC.

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Simple Korean BBQ

This is a quick and easy to prepare Korean "BBQ" at home.

Just marinate sliced pork shoulder meat (those with abit of fats - about 400g for 2 person) with korean BBQ sauce (3 tbs) for 2 hours or longer. Pan fry using claypot to give the additional flavour. (Fry in a few batches, so as to create the "BBQ" effect, because if you were to fry all together, you may not get the "burnt" effect). After the pork is done, using the same claypot, with the left over juice to fry any vegetable of your choice, capsicum or enokitake.

Enjoy

Using lettuce of your choice to wrap with rice, pork, capsicum, raw garlic and korean fermented bean paste sauce. Taste almost like eating Korean BBQ in a restuarant!

Beef wrapped Enokitake

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Everytime when i shop at Carrefour Supermarket, i will go crazy over buying food. Because of the varieties of food available there, it is like a food heaven for a food lover like me. Because i stay in the outskirt, supermarkets here only sell the basic things, you can't really find something fancy. So yesterday when i was at Carrefour, i bought so much that i overstock my .fridge (because these are really extras) again. I bought beef for sukiyaki , enokitake (金針菇), baby asparagus, arugula (again? Yes, because i really love it), cheese, pepperoni, etc etc... Yes, i am gonna make pizza again this weekend.

Actually i wanted to make beef wrapped enoki and asparagus for dinner. However after i finished wrapping the enoki, i thought it was too much. So i did not continue with the beef wrapped asparagus. But in the end, my DH like it so much that it was not enough. I should have wrapped the asparagus too.

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Beef wrapped enokitake

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- Approx 300g-400g of Beef for sukiyaki* (because i didn't weigh them)

- 2 small packs of Enokitake

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Marinate

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- 1 1/2 tbs teriyake sauce

- 1/2 tbs worchestire sauce

- 2 tbs mirin

- 1 tsp sugar

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Method

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1) Marinate the beef for about 30min than use it to wrap the enoki (about 2cm per bunch).

2) Pan fry each side for about 2-3min or until brown on medium-high heat.

3) Sprinkle toasted sesame seed (optional). Ready to serve.

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** If you want additional dish, you can fry asparagus with the same pan (without washing), using the leftover oil and juice. This produce very aromatic asparagus as side dish.

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* You can also use bacon to wrap enoki, just omit the marinate will do.

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I saved some of the beef and asparagus to make a simple lunch for myself today.

Simple Stir Fry Cellophane Noodle with beef and asparagus

Just marinate the beef with teriyaki sauce, light soy sauce, sesame oil for 15min. Fry some garlic, add in the beef, stir fry for about 30 seconds, add in asparagus. Toss every few second. When the beef is almost cooked, add in 2-3 tbs of water and the cellophane noodle (冬粉), plus one tbs light soy sauce. Cook till water being absorbed and cellophane turns transparent in colour. Add toasted sesame seed and enjoy!

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Oh yum, Salmon!

Yum! Last night dinner was our favourite salmon and baked potato!!!

Oktoberfest at Home

Oktoberfest at home. Gourmet sausages (Spicy Italian, Tomato & Basil and German Bratwurst) and Grilled Plum Chicken.

Marsala Chicken

Roast Lemongrass Sakura Chicken

Both of us loves to eat roast meat, especially roast chicken. My hubby does not like the aroma of western herbs (which i loves), so i will normally omit them in my roast. But i always like to experiment new flavours so i tried out lemongrass this time. It turned out very nice. The aroma of the lemongrass makes this roast taste a little bit like "Hainanese Chicken Rice" because of the "ginger" flavour (but i did not put any ginger in it). My hubby said if only there was rice, it will be a perfect meal. Because the gravy was very good and will goes very well with rice because of the oriental flavour.

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I wanted to try out some new wine, so i got this Carmenere, which i had never heard off (partly because i am not a regular wine drinker :P). First taste was alright, but when i drink again, i didn't like it. It's not aromatic, but very strong alcoholic taste, some how like the chinese red wine that i have tried sometimes back.
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Lemongrass Roast Chicken
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Ingredients
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- 1 sakura chicken
- 2 stalks of lemongrass (sliced)
- 1 clove of garlic
- 3 shallots
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Marinate

- 1tbs lemon juice
- 2 tbs dark soy sauce
- 1 tbs soya sauce
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tbs brown sugar
- 1 tbs mirin
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Method
1) Clean the chicken and remove the cavities.
2) Put all marinate and ingredients in a ziplock bag, than add in the chicken and rub the marinate all over it. Leave to marinate in the fridge for 4 hours or over night.
3) Remove chicken from fridge and leave chicken to cool till room temperature.
4) Preheat oven to 180 degrees and roast chicken for 40min. Than turn the chicken over to roast further 15min or till cooked.
5) Serve with fresh cucumber, tomatoes and rice.

Yellow Zucchini - 黄色西葫芦

I was attracted to this fruit because of the vibrant colour. As we are always told that we should eat food from a variety of colours so i bought it without hesitation. As the stall owner said this can be used to stir fry, so i added this Yellow zucchini to my original intended dish, Stir fried bean sprout with beancurd. The dish turn out to be very good! The zucchini actually taste almost like the normal zucchini, but i think it's sweeter. But than again, i had never eaten fried zucchini before, so it could be all fried zucchini are sweeter.

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Wanted to know more about this fruit so i search on the net and i found out that these yellow zucchinis are also known as "Yellow Summer Squash". Both normal zucchini and yellow zucchini belongs to the same family which is the "Summer Squash" fruits. The name "summer squash" refers to the inability to store these squashes for long periods of time (until winter), unlike winter squashes (eg the butternut squash). They are best consumed within 3 days.

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How to select? Just choose those that are small and firm and free of bruises or blemishes. The skin is edible too, so no need to removed.

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Claypot Chicken Rice 2 - 砂煲鸡饭

This claypot chicken rice is simply delicious and very easy to prepare.

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Claypot Chicken Rice - using rice cooker

Serves 2

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Ingredients:

2 Whole Chicken Drumsticks - score the drumstick, so that the meat can be cooked faster.

2 Chicken wings

1 pair of chinese sausages (lup cheong) - cut into small pieces

6 chinese mushrooms

2 shallots

1 clove of garlic

some scallions for garnish (optional)

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Marinate for chicken:

1 tbs light soya sauce

1 tbs dark soya sauce

1 tbs oyster sauce

1 tbs sesame oil

dash of pepper

sprinkle some sugar

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Method:

1) Marinate the chicken for 4hrs or overnight.

2) Cook rice in rice cooker as usual (about 1.5 cups of rice), but with slightly lesser water.

3) Fried the shallots till brown, set aside together with the oil.

4) Fried the garlic than add in the mushrooms, than the chicken parts (and the marinate) and cooked the chicken till 90% cooked, set aside.

5) While the rice is still cooking, but almost dry up, add in the chicken parts in no.(4) (with the sauce) and the chinese sausage.

6) Chicken rice should be ready about 10 minutes after the "rice cooked" sign on. Remove the chicken (you may want to check if the chicken is cooked, if not leave inside for further 10min. Because individual rice cooker may give different results) and other ingredients. Add dark soya sauce (any amount, to your own liking), the fried shallot and oil. Stir thoroughly.

7) Serve with stir fried vegetables.

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Fried KL Noodle - Da Lok Mien

Hubby was craving for KL noodle, so i search for recipe and try to cook it. It turned out not too bad, but could improve further. But partly due to i did not follow the recipe entirely, because recipe called for using of lard, which i didn't want to add in. Not because i don't eat lard, but rather because i do not want to buy a pack of lard just for the noodle.

Special dinner, by the Special someone - 特别的人, 准备的特别晚餐

Lazy dinner - Baked rice

After cooking lunch, too lazy to cook dinner. So just chop and throw everything into a baking dish and made this baked rice. Consist of minced pork, eggplant and my favourite cheese.

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Healthy dinner - 健康的晚餐

My square meal consist of 3 colours vegetable with mushrooms and pork, and baked salmon. Yum yum!!

Claypot Chicken Rice - the rice cooker way

Craving for claypot chicken rice, so i decided to make it for dinner. But we don't have a claypot at home, so i made it using rice cooker instead. Outcome, the chicken rice was really very very delicious, except that it doesn't have the aromatic claypot smell. But that was good enough for us.

Dinner 晚餐 - 17 Jul 08

After surfing the net for the whole day, no energy to cook dinner... so just cooked a Lazy curry and Sunny side up :P

Dinner 晚餐 - 16 Jul 08

Our dinner for last night were fried "Ma Lai Feng Kwong" 马来风光 (fried kangkong) and Stir fry chicken, mushroom and broccoli. Served with brown rice. Yum Yum! Healthy dinner!

Watercress Soup - 西洋菜汤

Our dinner for last night. We had this very nutritious HK style soup, Watercress with duck kidney and pork ribs, Fried fish on banana leaf and fried eggs.
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Ingredients for the soup:

2 bunch of Watercress, 4 duck kidneys, a few slices of ginger, 1 tbs Sweet almond, 1tbs Bitter almond, 3 honey dates, 1 luo han guo, 300g pork, some pork bones and some dried orange peel.

Good for: Clearing heatiness, clearing heat from lungs and prevent cough.