Seafood and Turkey Bacon Paella

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 green capsicum, seeds removed, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
200g turkey bacon pieces
or rindless turkey bacon, cut into thin strips
1 large tomato, chopped or
200g canned chopped tomatoes
200g paella rice or arborio rice
½ tsp saffron threads, crushed
1.2 litres hot chicken or fish stock
400g mixed seafood (marinara mix)
lime wedges to serve (optional)

Method:

Heat oil in non-stick frying pan. Add onion, capsicum, garlic and turkey bacon and cook over low heat 5 minutes. Add tomato and cook 2 minutes.

Add rice and stir to coat in the oil. Add saffron threads and heat for a few seconds, then pour in hot stock. Bring to the boil, stir lightly and simmer 5 minutes.

Mix in seafood, return to a gentle simmer and cook 10 minutes or until rice in tender and liquid is absorbed, stirring occasionally. Serve with lime wedges if you like.

Tom Yam Bouillabaisse

Ingredients:

½ kg Prawns (shells on, whiskers trimmed)
10 Mussels (shells on)
10 Large Squids (cut into large pieces)
1 can Pacific Clams (drained and keep the stock aside)
2 Large Onions (chopped)
100 g Baby Corns
2 Green Peppers (quartered)
8 abalone mushrooms (cut into 2)
3 tbsp Tom Yam Paste
2 Kaffir Lime Leaves
3 stalks Lemon Grass
½ cup Coconut Milk
6 tbsp Cooking Oil
2 Cups Water

Method:

Fry the chopped onions in hot oil till softened. Add the tom yam paste with the kaffir lime leaves and lemon grass. When fragrant, add the prawns, mussels, squids and toss to ensure an even distribution of spices.

Add 2 cups of water, stock from the can of pacific clams and coconut milk . When the broth begins to boil, add the baby corns, green peppers and abalone mushrooms and the drained pacific clams.

Switch off fire and leave the stew to complete cooking in its own heat. This also ensures the seafood is not over cooked.

Serve in large bowls with a basket of bread.

Stir-Fried Lo Shi Fun

Ingredients:

1 kg Lo Shi Fun
600 gm Bean Sprouts
300 gm Minced Pork (marinate with a bit of soy sauce, pepper and sugar)
50 gm Dried Shrimp (pre-soaked)
3 pcs Dried Chinese Mushroom (pre-soaked and sliced)
3 cloves Garlic (minced)
3 slices Ginger
2 tbsp Oyster Sauce
1 tbsp Soy Sauce
1 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
1 tbsp Cooking Oil
Salt and Sugar to taste
1 stalk Spring Onion (cut into slices)

Method:

1.Stir-fry the bean sprouts with the ginger slices until half-cooked. Dish up and keep aside.
2.Heat the cooking oil and fry the dried shrimp and minced garlic until fragrant before adding in the minced pork. Fry for 1 minute before adding in the sliced mushrooms
3.Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, salt, sugar and a little water and let the ingredients simmer for 1 minute before adding in the lo shi fun.
4.Continue frying until all the ingredients are well-mixed before adding in the bean sprouts and continue frying for 1 minute.
5.Garnish with spring onion and serve immediately.

Vegetarian Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

Ingredients:

1/2 box spaghetti (or any other kind of pasta you prefer)
4-6 cloves garlic
2 tomatoes
1 large handful arugula or baby spinach
olive oil
red pepper flakes
salt and pepper

Method:

Start boiling water for the spaghetti.

Heat a generous pour of olive oil on low heat in a pan large enough to fit all the cooked spaghetti.

Chop the garlic and add to the olive oil. Cook over low heat until the garlic softens and turns a little translucent, then remove from heat.

Boil the spaghetti and drain.

Heat the garlic and oil up again slowly, then add the pasta to the saucepan. Lightly saute the spaghetti in the olive oil and garlic while adding the pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

Once the spaghetti is fully coated with the garlic and oil mixture, remove from heat and toss with the arugula or baby spinach.

Cantonese-Style Pickled Vegetables

Ingredients:

1 chinese radish
1 carrot
3 cucumbers
1 large piece young ginger

Seasonings:

4 tbsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup white vinegar

Preparation:

Peel carrot, rinse radish, cucumbers and young ginger, cut all vegetables into a diamond shape.

Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar to make sweet and sour pickling stock and pour into a container.

Cooking Instructions:

Marinate radish and carrot with 2 tbsp salt for 1 hour. Flatten; rinse with cold water and drain.

Marinate cucumber and ginger with 1 tbsp salt for 20 minutes, rinse and drain.

Put all ingredients in the sweet and sour pickling stock and seal. Refrigerate for 24 hours. Ready to serve.


About this dish:

When eating, use a clean, dry utensil to remove the pickled vegetables to prevent spoilage.

The pickling stock may be reused when the vegetables are eaten up. If there is not enough stock, simply add sugar and vinegar in the ratio of one to one to replenish it.

Happy Dumpling Festival

The Dumpling Festival (or Duan Wu Jie) is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month (May 28 this year), honours scholar-poet Qu Yuan who took his life by jumping into a river. He did so because he was greatly saddened when the King refused to take his advice, leading to a war. Fearing that fish would eat Qu’s body, his friends and supporters made dumplings and threw them into the river so that the fish would eat them instead of the body.

There are so many types of dumplings available for sale in the market now and you can even buy the dumplings at any time of the year, but for me, eating the dumpling on the day of the Festival has a lot of significance. When we were young, my mom would make the dumplings a few days before the festival and for the next few days, we would be eating the dumplings for breakfast and supper. Nowadays, we would just buy the dumplings from the market and eat them on the day of the festival.

Talking about the different types of dumplings, my favourite is still the ba chang (with pork) but I prefer the green bean filling to the white bean filling as I find them more fragrant. It is quite difficult to find them as those dumplings available for sale in the market are normally with the white bean filling. There is also the Baba-Nyonya dumpling and the gan-suei (non-meat glutinous rice) dumpling (plain or with red bean filling). The normal price of the dumplings can be between RM2.60 to RM3.20 depending on the type and size but since the price of the ingredients and bamboo leaves had gone up, it might be more expensive . Anyone know where I can get nice and reasonably priced dumplings in PJ?

Happy Dumpling Festival!



You can check out the recipes for the different types of dumplings here.

Sliced Chicken With Pear

Ingredients:

200g Chicken breast
1 Pear (150g)
15g Ham
20g Mushroom
1 Egg White
100g Peas
5g Scallion
2½ tbsp starch
1 tbsp cooking wine

Seasoning B:
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp starch water
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt

Method:

Cut the chicken breast into pieces and marinate with the cooking wine. Coat the chicken pieces with starch and dip in egg white. Preheat the pan with oil, fry the chicken breast till golden, drain up.

Cut the pear, ham and mushroom into slices.

Mix seasoning B well to be the cooking sauce.

Fry scallion briefly and take it out, Fry pear, ham and mushroom for a while and then put in the chicken breast. Add the cooking sauce and mix all the ingredients together. Turn off heat and dish out.