Kolomee

a) Make shallot oil by frying sliced shallots and salt in a few tablespoons oil. Put aside crispy shallots and oil. Keep some oil in the pan.

b) Make a sauce using oyster, dark, light sauces, white pepper, sesame oil and shallot oil. (Sometimes I dilute these sauces with a little water and cook with some sugar - but do this only if you have time). Put aside.

c) Now make a meat sauce in same pan which you used to fry the shallot oil, add minced garlic, minced chicken or pork and fry till dry. Add dark soy, white pepper, oyster sauce. Add a bowl of water and cook till mince is soft and gravy is thick. You can thicken the gravy further with a little cornstarch if necessary.

d) Quick rinse of fish cake and pat dry. Fry in a little oil. Cut into slices. Or just wipe dry and slice (it's already cooked) but I like to fry it briefly.

e) In a pot of briskly boiling water, add noodles, stir briefly, remove and put under running water to remove starch. Let water come back to boil and add noodles & vegs - remove almost immediately. (Omit the rinsing stage if you're rushed for time).

f) Put noodles into a serving bowl/plate. Toss with (b) and (a).

g) Top with (c), (d) and more (a) and vegs.

h) Add egg omelette and spring onions if you wish.

Good luck!

Mon, 27th Oct 2008

Beef Shank Stew with Garlic & Coriander Cous Cous

And here is Hazel as the cous cous model.

Mon, 27th Oct 2008

Salt/Pepper Tofu with Five Spice Powder - especially for vegetarians.

Rinse and drain a block of tofu, pat dry, lightly coat with cornstarch flavoured with salt, white pepper & five spice powder. Pan fry in shallow oil till lightly golden. Put aside. Fry shallots & garlic till golden brown and crispy. Add to tofu and add some fresh chillies. The chillies will definitely mask the light fresh flavour of the tofu; I actually added them for colour and for their heat to lightly adhere to the tofu; and did not actually eat them. This morsel of tofu/chillies/shallots/garlic is purely an attempt to food style; the chillies were discarded after.

Enjoy!

(For extra flavour, add some salt and five spice powder to a half a teaspoon fresh oil and warm gently through - drizzle a few drops of this flavoured oil on the tofu). This recipe really cannot get any easier.

Sunday, 26th Oct 2008

Lovely wet Sunday - first things first - lemon poppyseed cake baked by Wm, with lemon syrup glaze and a pot of green tea.

Breakfast for my kids - French Toast with Butter and Honey with Milo.

Puffy wholemeal bread soaked with egg. I am very generous with the egg mixture to achieve a lovely custard filling penetrating to the middle of the bread.

Then I made some tuna/potato patties - I just made up the recipe as I went along.

First boil some potatoes (skin on) in a pot of salted water with a small onion. Drain and return potatoes and onion to pot to rid excess water.

Mash with a bit of salt and a small knob of butter - set aside to cool.

In a separate bowl, add finely diced onion, a tin of drained tuna chunks, dried parsley, mayonnaise, egg and a bit of salt and black pepper. Mix well.

I think I should not have added both egg and mayonnaise (one or the other next time) - the mixture was too runny and I added some flour and breadcrumbs to rectify it and to obtain a thicker consistency.

Ok, that seems to have done the trick. I shaped them into patties and coated them with more breadcrumbs. Put on a lightly buttered baking tray and sprinkled a bit more parsley on top.

And bake for about 25 mins till they are lightly browned. No need to turn.

Wait a bit (if you can) before you pop several of these into your mouth.

Here's Mark trying to teach himself an easy song on the piano.

and Hazel in her most casuals with bathers on going next door for a birthday party. I'm hibernating.

Much later I taught Mark to make a creamy mushroom/chicken pasta sauce from scratch. It was good! Well done, Mark. When his exams are over, I'll teach him more easy meals such as steak, roasted pototoes, meat sauce for spaghetti, and maybe how to roast a chicken too.

And I made a beef stew for tomorrow - it's sitting in the fridge now. I love lazy Sundays like today's.

Thurs, 23rd October 2008

At Asia Inc Forum's National Environment Conference.

Dessert

Sat, 25th Oct 2008

Homemade kolomee. Mark's first portion.

and his second - the forgotten fish cake is added.

Friday, 17th Oct 2008

Blackpepper Squids with Broccoli.

Saute shallots and garlic in a smoking hot pan, add squids, lots of coarsely ground black pepper, oyster and dark soy, salt and sugar.

Add broccoli last.

Serve over steaming hot rice. Oh and make sure the squids are fresh.

Thurs, 23rd Oct 2008

So I think I'll wear this tomorrow - I've put on so much weight nothing fits anymore. And I just realised I do not have shoes to match and the sandals are too frivolous. So safe black shoes it will have to be. (The jacket is dark brown, the skirt has large box pleats with a grossgrain ribbon across the hips).

Mon, 13th Oct 2008

Dark chocolate cupcakes with mint choc ice-cream

Cuppy Cakes here too made by Wm

- full of rich dark chocolate, ground almonds and other magical ingredients of egg, flour, sugar.

Mark topped his

with mint choc chip ice-cream (Bulla from SS)

and I did the same too

- some attempt at food styling was made with grated dark choc sprinkled over.

I think there are some banana muffins in the oven right now.

Sun, 12th Oct 2008

Something I've made once before - recipe adapted from here.

Assemble your ingredients. Washed and drained calrose rice, marinated/browned chicken drumsticks, brocolli florets, carrots cut into even rings, mushrooms, half an onion, dried herbs, milk and a tin of mushroom soup.

Firstly brown chicken and put aside, in same pan, fry onions, garlic, herbs and little black pepper.

Add rice. Saute mushrooms in hot pan with a little garlic to release their juices.

Start assembling. Rice first, mushrooms, pour soup/milk over, nestle browned drumsticks into rice mixture and garnish with raw mushrooms/brocolli.

And as if this creamy dish is not quite rich enough, top with grated cheese and breadcrumbs. Portion on left is for my children's dinner tonight and portion on the right is for lunch tomorrow.

After about 20 minutes - I added more milk at this stage as the rice was starting to get quite dry but far from being cooked.

Finally after an hour and a bit, here it is. Quite good but a little bland and we all know I like robust flavours. I did not add salt as I thought the soup will be salty enough but the addition of milk diluted the soup a lot. A little organic vegetable stock & more black pepper added to the soup/milk mixture will do wonders I think.

Just to show the inside - calrose rice is shortgrain and very starchy. This dish is almost like a risotto.

Mark's portion and a smaller one for Hazel on the right.

I had fish curry with brinjals, lady fingers, tofu and beancurd sticks.

Ohgodiamsofatanddepressed:-(