Claypot Chicken Rice using Rice Cooker

Claypot Chicken Rice originates from Southern China region, and later spread to countries like HongKong, Singapore and Malaysia. I call it "One Pot Wonder" as it is packed with lots of ingredients cooked in a pot. Normally, the rice is cooked first and the prepared ingredients added 10-15 minutes later.

One of my all time favourite meals, I recreated my own version of Claypot Chicken Rice using rice cooker.

Ingredients
(serves 2-3 person)

1.5 cup of Raw Rice
1/4 pc Chicken (cut into bite size)
1 pc Chinese Sausage
5 pcs Chinese Mushroom
5 cm Salted Fish (baked/ fried to crisp) + 1 teaspoon of sugar

Garnishing
Spring onion (chopped) - Optional

Chicken Marinade
3 tbs ginger (chopped)
1/4 tsp Dark Soya Sauce
1 tbs Oyster Sauce
1/4 tsp Ground White Pepper
1 tsp Sesame Oil
1/2 tsp Corn Flour
1 tbs Shao Xing Wine
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar

Drizzling Sauce
1 tbs Oyster Sauce
1/2 tbs Dark Soya Sauce
1 tbs Soya Sauce
1 tsp Sesame Oil
1 tbs Shao Xing Wine

Method

1. Marinade the chicken in a bowl for at least 2 hours.

2. Soak the mushroom in hot water for about 30 minutes. Squeeze and drain the mushrooms. Remove the stem and dice in cube, biting size. Put aside.

3. Soak the Chinese Sausage in hot water for 5 minutes. Slice horizontally and put aside.

4. Cook the rice as per normal in a rice cooker.

5. 20 minutes prior to rice cooked, put in all the ingredients except Salty Fish.

6. Once rice is cooked, mix in the drizzling sauce and toss.

7.  Garnish with Salted Fish and Spring Onion.

Results

The aroma from the rice cooker is very fragrant and I waited with much anticipation. It turned out to be as good as it smells. Simply mouthwatering, delicious and satisfying! This is definitely a keeper!

Blanched Lettuce with Fried Garlic

I love cooking simple, non-messy dishes. Blanching vegetable and then dressing them with the right amount of oyster sauce, soya sauce, sugar & white pepper can create a simple, delicious and healthy dish. (At least, it is healthier than stir frying, that is what I think)

Other than lettuce, this recipe also works well for other green leafy vegetables like Chye Sim, Tong Ho (Garland Chrysanthemum) & etc). Normally, blanched vegetable is garnished with fried onion instead of fried garlic. However, I love both types of garnishing.


Ingredients
(yields 1 plate for 2-3 persons)

1 Head Iceberg Lettuce (washed & cut, 2 inch length)
5-6 Cloves Garlic (sliced thinly)
2-3 tbsp Oyster Sauce
1 tsp Soya Sauce
1/2 tsp Sugar
1-2 dash White Pepper Powder
Sufficient Oil (to fry the garlic)


Method

1. Heat up sufficient amount of oil in the wok.

2. Under medium heat, fry the garlic until golden.
(Note: To retain the crisp of the garlic, put a dash of sugar right at the end of frying before reserving the oil)

4. Reserve the garlic and oil and put aside until further use.

5. Pour 1-2 litre of water into the wok and boil. It is ok with some oil remained in the wok.

6. Once water is boiling, dump in the vegetable and blanch for about 3-5 minutes.

7. While blanching the vegetable, mix the remaining ingredients with 1 tbsp of the garlic oil in a clean plate.

8. Strain the vegetable, put into the plate with sauce and mix thoroughly.

9. Garnish top of the vegetable with fried garlic and serve.


Results:

Easy and delicious. :)

Sambal Lady Fingers

In Singapore, sambal lady fingers is a common dish at the Mixed Rice stalls. I, myself, like to order this dish but have never tried cooking this. I thought it is time for me to venture a new recipe other than the normal, non-spicy stir fried version.

As I have not much experience in sambal, I started looking for a recipe at the websites. What can be as fast and convenient as the Internet to get information? :)

I came across a few interesting websites and decided to copy a bit here and there and also made a few moderations in the ingredients' quantity as well as seasoning amount.


Ingredients
(yields a plateful for 2-3 persons)

10-12 stalks Okras/ Lady Fingers (diagonally sliced)

1 Red Chili (julienned)

3 tbsp Cooking Oil

Sambal/ Chili Paste ingredients

6 Red Chili (Deseeded)

3-4 Dried Chili (Soaked & Deseeded)

3-4 Bird's Eye Chili (Deseeded) - Optional

1 inch Belacan/ Dried Shrimp Paste (Toasted)

1 small grip Dried Shrimp (Soaked for about 15 min)

6 Shallots (Peeled)

3 cloves Garlic (Peeled)

2 tsp soya sauce

1/2 tsp sugar

Method:

1. Blend all Sambal ingredients and set aside.

2. Heat up wok and pour in oil.

3. Once wok is heated, add sambal/ chili paste and fry for about 5 minutes or until fragrant.

4. Add the lady fingers and fry for another 5-10 minutes.

5. Add some water if more sauce preferred. Add seasoning (salt, sugar, soya sauce) suiting to own preference.

Note: Taste the sauce & also the lady fingers!

6. Add julienned Chili last and stir fry a few more moments before dish up.

Results

Yummy! Satisfying and definitely a keeper for me!

Black Dace Tofu

Tofu is one of my favourite dishes. It is high in protein and nutritious. On its own, it tastes bland; but when cooked with the right sauce, it can be turned into something delicious.

Last year, I learnt a great tofu dish from my ex-housemate. It is simple to cook, with simple ingredients, yet yuuuuummmmy! It is my all time favourite and I introduced this to my family and they liked it too.

Ingredients

(yields 1 plate for 2-3 persons)

2 blocks Pressed Tofu (suitable for frying, cut in 1 inch/pc)

2-3 stalks Scalion (cut into 1 inch long)

1 Red Chili (Deseeded & Julienned)

2-3 Red Bird's Eyes Chili (Deseeded & Julienned) - Optional

3-4 cloves Garlic (chopped)

Sauce

1 tbsp Cooking Oil

2-3 tbsp "Organic Forest" Black Dace

1 tsp soya sauce

1 tsp sugar

some water

Method

1) Heat up sufficient oil and fry cut tofu until golden brown. Do not over fry or the tofu become too crispy.

2) Put fried tofu aside and reserve about 1 tbsp of oil in the wok.

3) Saute garlic and chili for about 1 minute when oil is heated.

4) Add the black dace and saute for about another 1 minute or until fragrant.

5) Pour water and the remaining sauce ingredients and continue cooking for another 1-2 minutes.

6) Add fried tofu and scallion and stir fry just to ensure all tofu covered with the sauce.

5) Dish up and serve.

Results

I've cooked this a couple of times and every time I get the thumbs up. I think the black dace from "Organic Forest" is the key to the success of this dish! If I am using other brands, I need to tweak on the amount of water, sugar and also a bit of "Hsao Shing Wine" right at the end to make it more flavourful. The other key is to always taste the food before dishing up. :)

Steamed egg (Chawanmushi)

I've been searching for all kinds of steam recipe as I want to try out my latest gadget, the "Magic Thermal Pot". One thing that I really would love to try for quite sometime now is steamed egg. Furthermore, I have a bunch of eggs sitting in the kitchen which I have to clear of as soon as possible before they turn bad.

I am not really familiar with steam dishes and as I will be having this alone, the following recipe is modified to be as simple as possible so I do not need to buy too many ingredients that I could not finish later.

Looking at the ingredients & methods below, it is not complicated at all.

Ingredients:
(yields 4 small cups)

8 small dried scallops (soaked until soft, water reserved)

4 Shiitake mushrooms (stalk removed, thinly sliced)
4 eggs

Stock:
2 cups water
1/2 tsp sugar
3/4 tbsp light soy sauce

Pinch of salt
Dash of pepper

Garnishing:

1 stalk spring onion (chopped)

Method:

1) Wash the dried scallops and soak until soft. Reserve the water.

2) Add additional water to the reserved water to make 2 cups of water. This will be used as the stock.

3) Bring pot/ wok of water to boil.

4) Divide the scallops and mushrooms into 4 cups.

5) Mix Stock ingredients to the eggs and beat the mixture lightly with chopstick. Do not overbeat as this will create unsightly bubbles later on.

6) Strain the egg mixture into the cups.

7) Cover the cups with clingwrap.

8) Steam under low heat for 20 minutes or until the egg mixture sets.

Results:

The first attempt failed; the taste was great but the texture of the egg was not smooth. I guess it was my fault as I cooked under high heat and let it boiled away for around 5 minutes before transferring the pot to the outer pot. This taught me a lesson that I should follow the instructions carefully!

I made a 2nd attempt and this time I made sure I only put the cups in after I remove the pot from heat. It turned out really smooth and very very delicious.

Homecook food finally~

It has been a few months since my last post. I have been adapting to the new room and new housemates. Since I have been downgrading my life style now (no more having a house to myself), it is hard for me to do or cook what I like since I am sharing the kitchen with others.

I have come to know that my housemates also cook once in a while. Out of spontaneity, I proposed to cook during this weekend and have an eat-in day. I promised them pizza while one of my housemates will be cooking Chinese dishes for dinner.

So, here it goes for today. It started off with my pizza and it was well received by them. I am very glad but it is a pity that I did not capture a few shots!

For dinner, my housemate cooked for the night:

a) Chye Sim with fried silver fish

b) Braised brinjal (I helped to do the dressing)

c) '9 chye' with fried tofu and preserved egg

d) Fried chicken with salty egg yolk

e) Fried capsicum, onion and carrot with olive oil (I cooked this using the remains from the pizza!)

Outcome:

It was great! I like the atmosphere in the house. People getting together, communicating and most important of all, having fun and enjoy the meal. We had a great time and a good meal.

Baked Stuffed Mushroom

I have a bunch of leftovers ingredients (shitake mushroom, capsicum & onions) in the refrigerator as I did not manage to finish using them when I made vegetable pizza last week. I thought that I should do something special with them instead of stir frying them.

I decided to bake stuffed mushroom topped with cheese after looking at a blog recommended by my BF (http://foodelicious.blogspot.com/). It is something that I have not attempted before but seemed not too complicated. I just browsed through some of the recipes available online, adapted some of the ingredients and came out with my own version of baked stuffed mushrooms.

As this is only a side dish for our dinner, I just made 6 buttons of mushrooms.


Ingredients:
(yields 6 buttons)

6 buttons Shitake Mushroom

2-3 Shallots (minced)

10 strips Capsicums (cut to small size)

1 tsp Oyster sauce

1 tsp "Shao Hsing" wine

1 tsp olive oil

Grated cheese

Method:

1) Soak the mushrooms for 15 minutes. Cut off the stems, chop stems into small pieces and put aside. Leave the cap uncut.

2) Preheat oven at 180 deg C.

3) Heat up pan with olive oil. For the filling, stir fry the minced shallots, capsicums and stems until fragrant, around 3-5 minutes.

4) Towards the end, add in oyster sauce and Shao Hsing wine and stir fry for another 1 minute. Put the filling aside.

5) Grease the baking pan with olive oil. Place caps at the baking cap and brush with a little olive oil.

6) Put around 1 tablespoon of filling onto each cap and top up with cheese.

7) Put baking pan with the stuffed mushrooms into the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until cheese slightly browned.

Outcome:

It is yummy! I was urged to take out the mushrooms from the oven earlier as we were already half way through our dinner and it would have become our dessert if we waited any longer. The cheese has melted but both of us agreed that it would have tasted much better if it was baked longer for the cheese to brown. I am very satisfied with the outcome as this is a creation of my own version of baked stuffed mushroom and it turned out rather pleasing!

Ants Climbing the Tree (without ants version)

For the past few days, I have been cooking for dinner for the two of us at home as we think it is healthier and we are sick of packing and eating the same food everyday from this area. Since both of us are not very picky eaters, we are very happy to have very simple dishes everyday. Simple means 1 soup + 1 vegetable dish to go with rice.

Normally, the ingredients are prepared (soaking, washing, cutting & etc) a day ahead so that I can start cooking after I reach home from work. This definitely cut short the meal preparation time.

Today, I am cooking a dish named "Ants Climbing the Tree". This cuisine is mostly available in Chinese restaurants. I've always found this dish fantastic and very appetizing. It is a hot and spicy dish which originates from Szechuan, China. As the bits of meat are fried together with the mung bean vermicelli, the presentation resembles ants climbing up a tree.

However, I am going to skip the meat as both of us do not fancy eating meat.

Ingredients:

(2 persons)

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 bundles dried mung bean noodles

1/2 small chili pepper (chopped)

1 tsp ginger (minced)

1 stalk chopped spring onion (cut in small rings)

1 dash sesame oil

Mixture of sauce (mixed ahead):

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tbsp rice wine
1 tsp spicy fermented bean paste

1 tbsp soya sauce

1/2 cup of chicken stock (I used water)

Method:

1. Soak the mung bean vermicelli in warm water for about 10 minutes. Drain well and cut into shorter lengths (around 1 inch) and put aside.

2. Heat up the wok under medium heat and pour in the vegetable oil. Swirl the oil around the wok.

3. Add small chili pepper, ginger & spring onion to the wok and stir fry briefly until aromatic.

4. Stir in the mixture sauce and noodles. Let the noodles absorb the sauce. Keep tossing briefly around 2-3 minutes and then sprinkled with some sesame oil.

5. Dish up.

Outcome:

It did not come out as much as I wished it could. It was so different from the ones I have tried in the restaurants. Furthermore, the noodles lumped together and it was very dry. It was not spicy enough though the overall taste was OK. In the end, we managed to finish it as it was edible. I would not rate this dish very high but hope to improvise my skill and ingredients in future.