With the blazing hot weather, it makes people even lazy to go out for food. So while I was in Tesco, I bought some ingredients and decided to attempt cooking bak kut teh for the first time!

Ingredients (for 2 pax)
i. A pack of pre-packed bak teh ( eg A1 bak kut teh)
ii. A pack of Enoki mushrooms
iii. Fu chuk ( you will have to cut into smaller pcs and light fry them)
iv. 2 bulbs of garlic, just wash clean and keep it as a whole
v. 6 pcs of spare ribs
vi: Seasoning: Dark soy sauce

To cook:

1. Bring a pot of about 2.5L water to boil. Don’t have to worry about too much water as it will slowly reduce and thicken as you cook.
2. With another pot, dump the spare ribs into water to blanch it to remove the blood and smell. Remove the ribs from water and set aside.
3. When the first pot of water has boiled, put it the bak kut teh pack together with the garlic bulbs. And add some dark soy sauce now. Let it boil for 10 mins then turn to medium fire and continue to let it boil for another 10 mins.
4. Now, move the blanched ribs into the soup and cook with medium fire for at least 40 mins.
5. In the mean time, you can fry the fu-chuk, heat the wok with little bit of oil and fry for only ONE second. It gets burnt VERY fast!
6. Check your bak kut teh and add salt/more dark soy sauce according to your taste.
7. When you are ready to eat, put in enoki mushroom to cook for about 3 mins and then fu chuk just for a quick soak. Once it is done, you will notice that the soup has thicken up and become saltier and tastier.
8. Serve hot with white rice, and garlic chili in dark soy sauce

Considering this is my first attempt, it tasted really good! Almost as good as Teluk Pulai bak kut teh!

I have had a few cooking attempts lately, and including rosti Will show next!

Ingredients: Baguette, melted butter, and finely chopped garlic.

Melt a small block of butter in a pan or you can steam it, then minced the garlic until fine.

Before spreading it onto the baguette, add the garlic into the butter, add in some pepper and LITTLE bit of salt and mix well.

Now, you can spread onto the baguette.

Heat the oven/toaster first, and toast them at about 120°c for 3-4 minutes until they are crisp.

While waiting, you can move on to prepare the breakfast set.

Fry a bull’s eye egg and a ham to compliment the garlic toast

And and…..not to mention I have to give angpows this year! So, boys and girls, want some angpow?

Being quite pre-occupied with work, I think I am just too exhausted to even go for food hunt or shopping. And I have a big money saving plan for 2011 (hopefully) One can wish right?

Here I will share an easy recipe for Pork Chops in Onion Sauce.

It is important that you store pork/chicken fillets in your fridge and they will just come in handy when you run out of food to cook.

The ingredients used are all you can find in your kitchen.

Clean the pork chops, and cut them into smaller slices if you need. Now, to soften the meat a little, lightly pat the chops with the back of your knife to break the veins.

For marination, it is better if you do it 2 hours earlier or longer.For about 5-6 pcs of small pork chops, you will need:

- Chop 2 red onions, 4 pcs of garlic finely and spread them evenly on top of bottom and top of the meat.
- About 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, dash of pepper, some salt, sesame oil, red wine or chinese cooking wine, and some fresh lemon juice.

Mix everything well and leave it aside or in the fridge.

Now, moving to the sauce, slice 1.5 – 2 big onions for use later.

When you are ready to cook, heat up a non-stick pan with a little bit of oil. And, pour some corn flour on a dry plate to dip the pork chops into the flour before frying.

I prefer to use non-stick pan to avoid the mess and excessive oil.  Flip the chops from time to time to not over-burn.

Fry until light brown. Don’t worry if it is not too well-cooked because we are letting the chops to swim in the sauce later.

For the sauce, put in a little butter to sauteed the onion (or some garlic if you like) till a brown, and pour in broth (beef /chicken stock). What I have in the fridge was the chicken stock we have boiled earlier and froze it, can be used any time.

Watch the broth to boil and stir a little.  Add more broth if necessary.

Now, add some salt and more wine (or chinese cooking wine) to taste.  And also dark soy sauce for the color.

When it is almost ready, pour in the pork chops earlier to let them swim a little.

Let it simmer for about 5 mins and slow fire and it is ready to be served.

Do note that it is better to eat this while it is hot as the gravy will be soaked up by the pork chops in no time.

Verdict? Juicy and tender pork chops for the meal.

Crisis aside, after so long, I felt inspired again after reading this recipe on eatingpleasure.blogspot.com. I tell you, she is great at inspiring people!

My version of: Award-Winning Sweet & Sour Meat Balls.

Why award winning you may ask? It’s my first time cooking this, so I definitely deserve a medal as self-award right?

The presentation is not lip-smackingly good because I was starving!

Ok, to create this dish:

You need about 200g of minced meat for 2 pax, it can be pork, beef or chicken.

I bought a ready-packed mince meat from Tesco at about RM4.80.

For more springy and sweetness, I added prawn meat. For cruch,  minced about 3 shallots depending on the size, and some corn flour. I used wheat flour here because I ran out of it.

For marination, I added about 2 spoons of red wine, sesame oil, light soy sauce, and pepper, and a little pinch of salt.

The best part about DIY is, you can almost add anything you like! You can even have minced carrot or sengkuang in your meatballs. Leave it alone for about 20-30 mins.

After that, I rolled the minced meat into balls of 8.

It is advisable not to make a TOO big ball because it will be hard to pan-fry it.

Now, heat up some oil in the pan and place the meatballs slowly onto the pan with your hand so the shapes maintained.

Use only medium heat.

And, step back! The oil may be sparkling all over out of the pan and you definitely will not want to be scalded.

But, remember to turn the meatballs from time to time to make sure that they are not burnt.

Keep turning it until they turn golden brown. To make that they are cooked thoroughly, use a chopstick to poke, if you can poke through without having meat stuck to your chopstick, they are done!

Take them out for a rest on a kitchen towel to absorb the oil.

Now, move on to the soul of the dish – tomato sauce.

For the sauce:

- Chopped garlic & one big red onion
- Diced tomato marinated in fruit vinegar
- About 6 packets of Ketchup and 1 packet of Chili sauce
- 1 spoon of sugar.

Sauteed the onion first till golden brown, add in garlic and continue for about 30 secs. Add in the diced tomato without the vinegar, and smash it with your ladder. Now, when you get a tomato pulp, add it the tomato, chili and sugar mixture. Heat and stir it for a bout 2 mins, add water if you must, until you see bubbles. Then, turn off the fire.

Place the meatball on your rice and pour the sauce covering them.

It is time to serve the dish! I DIY some sliced potato to go with the tomato sauce.

For the cost, it cost about less than RM10 for 2 pax, including all the ingredients, rice, oil and etc.

Absolutely delish!

I am proud to show you a recipe of luxurious pasta without breaking your arm of leg.

The ingredients for 2 pax:

- 4 slices of bacon sliced thinly, 1 sliced big onion, 1 diced tomato, tomato paste, herbs & spices (whatever you have at home), boiled pasta & olive oil.

I pre-cooked my pasta already and leave aside with olive oil added to prevent the spaghetti from clumping.

The spices I have at home: black pepper, rosemary & Italian herbs.

Now, pour in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and heat up the wok. Throw in the sliced onion and garlic, stir fry a little and pour in the diced tomato.

Continue to stir till the onion turns golden brown and you can see the tomato starting to become pasty. Then, pour in for about 3/4 can of the tomato paste. You can add some water and let it simmer for about 3-5 mins.

Heat up a non-stick pan on the side (if you have more than 1 stove), pan-fry the bacon a little, and fry the sausages.

Now, you can see your tomato base is becoming thicker and almost ready. Add about 1/4 teaspoon of salt to flavor and throw in the cooked bacon. Mix them together.

Now, on a plate, serve the spaghetti and pour the sauce of top accompanied by the sausage. Finally, dash all the herbs & spices you have on top and stir well.

The taste? Heavenly and priceless!

In fact, the cost for this meal for 2 pax is definitely cheaper compared to what you pay for outside. Now, let’s see the breakdown of cost.

1. 100g of pork bacon – RM4.80
2. One tomato – RM0.30
3.  Two sausages – RM8
4. 3/4 can of tomato paste – RM5
5. Pasta for 2 pax – RM 2

For about RM10/pax, you get to eat sausage and bacon instead of minced meat, it is worth the effort right?

And, and also, I started to learn different recipes. Here is a dish that I personally like, and it is quite easy to make.

You need few slabs of pork belly, about 3 slabs for 5 or 6 pax.

Clean the pork belly, and marinate with 5-spice powder (五香粉), pepper, salt, and dark soy sauce.

Leave it aside for about 20 mins for the spices to sink into the pork belly.

On the other hand, you will need some cinnamon, star anise ( ba jiao), peeled garlic and lightly smashed, and the spice that looks like nails is known as 丁香 (ding xiang).

Anyone knows what is 丁香 in Chinese?

Now, heat up a wok of oil and dump the pork belly into the hot oil.

Caution! Stand further away to avoid the splashing of the oil.

Fry the pork belly until golden brown and you know it is done!

No no, this is not ready to be eaten yet. We need to stew it now.

Simple and easy – Spaghetti with tuna and bacon.

Ingredients for 2 persons: A canned of tuna in sunflower oil, chopped garlic and onions, 2 pieces of bacon.

Pre-boil the spaghetti first till al-dente. Add some salt while boiling so your spaghetti will not be tasteless. And add some olive oil when you drain the water so that your spaghetti will not stick together.

Put some sunflower oil from the tuna can and heat up the pan. When add in onions first, and followed by garlic. Fry them until they turn slightly golden brown.

Now, add the bacon first and followed by the tuna.

The content in the picture above is only for 1 person.

Add the sunflower oil as you cook if it gets too dry. Add a little bit of salt and pepper to season.

After about 3 minutes, you can start to see tuna chunks that turn slightly brown and a bit crisp.

Remove it from pan and serve it on top of the spaghetti.

If you think it is too dry, you can open a can of campbell mushroom soup to go along with it.

Eat it while it is hot, absolutely delicious! And it cost you not more than RM15 for 2 persons

On another note, this year will be my last year of receiving angpow.  Goodbye money.

Back to recipe, my mom creatively thought of the recipe of stuffed yellow capsicums.

Here you will need about 3 pieces of capsicums, cut into the shape shown above and clear the seeds. Make sure it is like a boat shape to hold the stuffing.  For the stuffing, it is minced pork + fish + prawns and a some chives for the color. Marinate the minced meat with some salt.

Then, fill in the capsicums with the meat. Not to overfill it though, it might be too hard to be cooked.

Now,  the capsicum boats should look like this.

Deep fry in wok till golden brown.  Then place it on a plate.

For the next step, you need to stew the capsicum with filtered water, cover with lid and let it simmer for about 15-20 mins to make sure that the meat is fully cooked.  Also, make some starch with corn flour to make the stew thicker. Add a little bit of salt, make sure don’t overdo with salt!

Then serve!

I love this dish! It’s easy, and quite a balanced dish with meat and vegetable.

Thanks to Coco for inviting us, a bunch (like about 20) of us conquered Oyster King in The Gardens. It is located next to the Korean stall Ko Hyang. We also celebrated Wilson‘s birthday (again!).

Fried Oyster  @ RM6

The round, firm and juicy oysters sitting on top on the omelet. Ever since my first failure of cooking o-chien myself, I told myself just to eat out instead.

All of us loved the o-chien! And only RM6 and in a shopping mall, it was worth every cent.

Garlic Oyster Noodles @ RM6.

This is something like hokkien mee but with more gravy. I loved this too as the gravy was good and you might bite into the juicy oysters in your noodles.

Pumpkin Cake @ RM5.

The cake has been steamed till soft, and paired with sauce and fried shallots, it was the perfect combination.

Dried Oyster Glutinous Rice  @ RM6.

With achar on the side, it refreshes you after taking a bite from the glutinous rice.

Wu-chai-kou.

I forgot the name of this dish, but it was something similar to the pumpkin cake, but with softer and smoother texture.

Fried Carrot Cake has always been one of my favorites. When I go to the stall, I will usually request for double eggs and mince the carrot cake into smaller pieces. And it is heavenly!

The next time if you are looking for street food when you are in The Gardens, you should definitely go to Oyster King.

By following a recipe book, you can whip out an awesome Kam Heong Chicken too!

My signature dish from now on. ^_^v

If I can do it, you can do it too!

Ingredients:

i. Pieces of chicken, best to use chicken thighs. There are about 9 pieces of chicken here. Marinate the chicken for 30 mins, I used a small spoon of salt + black pepper powder.
ii. Curry leaves
iii. Dried shrimps (chopped into smaller pieces)
iv. Pounded small red onions (about 7 pcs)
v.Chopped garlic (about 6 pcs)

The main super star – the sauce.

I don’t really have an exact measurement of amount, but you can go by heart too. Here I used (for 9 pcs of chicken)

i. 2 tablespoons of meat curry powder
ii. 1.5 tablespoons of oyster sauce
iii. 1 tablespoon of light soysauce
iv. 0.5 tablespoons of sugar
v. 1 tablespoon of dark soysauce

Mix the sauce.

Ok, now you are ready to go.

Heat up some oil in the wok, then dump in the chicken. I coated the chicken with some corn flour to avoid oil splattering out from the wok.

Fried the chicken till light golden brown. At this time, it is actually 99% cooked already.

Then, heat up some oil again and dump in the dry shrimps.

Warning! Dry shrimps will jump everywhere now, be VERY careful not to scald yourself. 

Then, throw in onions and garlic, stir fry for a while and then curry leave, and finally the sauce.

Lastly, throw in the chicken to fry a little more and make sure the chicken is fully coated with the sauce.

Serve.

Now, anyone wants to order Kam Heong chicken from me? ^_^

You can actually recycle the ingredients for kam heong crab, kam heong lala, or kam heong prawns, or even kam heong pork!