Chinese Styled Fried Rice

My mum has always told me that fried rice is the easiest thing to cook where the preparation time and the actual cooking time is relatively short. Most of the ingredients that one needs for fried rice could be anything that is left in the fridge. The most important ingredient being leftover rice as great fried rice normally is cooked with overnight refrigerated cooked rice :).

Oh yeah, there is this toy in the cupboard that I have not yet opened and I am quite excited to see if it does what the packet says it will do. It is a Rice Mold that I bought from Daiso.


Took it out of the packet, washed it and laid it out to dry whilst I prepared myself to do a Chinese Styled Fried Rice.

Ingredients

2 cups of overnight cooked rice
2-3 shallots (sliced)
1 Chinese sausage (this can be replaced with chicken meat, ham slices or any meat bits you may have left in the fridge) - sliced
2 eggs
1 cup of frozen mixed vegetables (corn, carrots and peas) - washed
A few leaves of lettuce (whichever type you prefer) -sliced
Cooking oil
Sesame seed oil
Soya Sauce, Salt, Sugar and Pepper to taste
1 tomato (for garnishing only)

Method

1) Heat some oil in the wok/pan and put in the sliced shallots. When the shallots turns aromatic, put in the sliced Chinese sausages. Fry these for about a minute or so.



2) Add in the cooked rice and sprinkle a little water (with your hands) into the hot wok if the rice appears too dry. Break up the rice clumps.



3) Make a little well in the center of the rice, pour a little sesame oil into the center and crack in two eggs. Put in a dash of soya sauce into the eggs and scramble them.



4) Add in the cup of mixed vegetables. Add in soya sauce, sugar, salt and pepper for taste.



5) Lastly, add in the sliced lettuce. Stir in and your rice is ready to be served.


I scooped my rice into the rice mold. Since the mold is made of metal, it can get pretty hot. So, use an oven mitten or a cloth to protect your hands *ouch.. I learned this the painful way.


I think I should have to pack in the rice tighter as the rice shape was not as nice as that on the picture on the packet. Oh well, I will do it again soon as I simply love fried rice and I can eat bowls and bowls of it... *carbo meter blowing up...weeeeeee

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Fried Thai Red Rice

I have normally eaten only white rice or brown rice. But the first time I ate red rice was at this eatery Ying Ker Lou - Hakka Cuisine in Sunway Pyramid which serves authentic Hakka Cuisine. The dishes were lovely and I am trying to get some photos to post it up on the blog. I remember taking photos with my camera phone but I cannot locate them now :(


Anyway, I found the red rice very nice indeed and decided to buy a very small packet (I think the 1 kg packet) as any packet larger than that will be a magnet to weevils (gosh, how I detest these little bugs). I cooked them the first time following the directions on the packet 2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. The rice turned out pretty hard. Luckily none of us who ate it had indigestion that night.

Yesterday, I cooked it again but this time, with 2 1/2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. It turned out much better. As I was in a hurry to rush of for my Monday night meetings, I had only enough time to fry it all up with whatever I can find in the fridge. This is the result.


Ingredients
2 cups red rice, cooked
3 shallots - chopped
1 large carrot - diced
1 cup of frozen corn
1 fresh red chilli - sliced
4 pieces of mushroom sausages - sliced
2 eggs, beaten and scrambled
1 tbsp of mini dried shrimps

Method

1. After the rice is cooked, dish it out and fluff it to be cooled whilst preparing the other ingredients
2. Heat up the wok/pan and add a little oil.
3. Once the oil is hot, put in the shallot and fry until aromatic.
4. Add in the dried shrimps and then add in the sausages.
5. Put in the chilli, carrots and corn.
6. Add in a 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 sugar and some pepper
7. Put in the rice into the wok and mix all the ingredients into the rice.
8. Add soya sauce to taste.
9. Finally add in the scrambled eggs and dish it out.

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Crispy Deep Fried Prawns

As promised, I have managed to take a photo of the Japanese Breadcrumbs which I used for the coating of these prawns. Somehow, I am quite sure that it was these breadcrumbs that made the difference in the normal deep fried prawns that I have eaten in the past. It stayed nice and crunchy even after some time. I suppose if this is the case, then this particular dish can be done up and served as a snack, especially for your favorite guy(s) whilst he or they are watching football. Ha Ha.. I think my sister-in-law is not going to thank me for this as my brother is a football fanatic (crazy MU fan).

This is the recipe for the Crispy Deep Fried Prawns

Ingredients
12-15 Medium -sized prawns

Marinade
1/2 tsp with
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp sesame oil
some pepper
1 egg (beaten)
Oil for frying

Batter for frying
2 tbsp of plain flour *
2 tbsp of corn flour*
3 tbsp of breadcrumbs (Ottogi)*


* mixed together

Method

1. Shell prawns, leaving only the tails intact
2. Slit the back to remove the veins, wash and pat dry
3. Add in the marinade and leave for at least 30 mins
4. Heat oil in a wok or a pan. Test the hotness of the oil by dipping a chopstick. When bubbles form around the chopstick, then the oil is hot enough
5. Take a prawn from the marinade and dip it into the beaten egg.
6. Remove from the egg and roll it into the batter.
7. Shake out the excess batter and place prawn in the hot oil.
8. Repeat with the rest of the prawns
9. Fry the prawns until they turn golden brown
10. Remove and drain on the paper towel
11. Serve hot or cold on its own, or with chillie sauce or mayonnaise

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Tom Yam Soup (Kung)

I had a sudden craving for tom yam soup and I blame it on the weather. I was looking for the simplest recipe that I could find over the next and in recipe books and other than using those pre-packed tom yam paste, I found several. What I did was improvised as some of them had ingredients that I didn't know what they were, let alone where to get them. So, made a list of the ingredients and went to the wet market, towing babe and JW with me. Managed to pick up all the stuff that I needed but the best part of shopping in a wet market is that you get free stuffs. I was as the vegetable stall to buy 6 extra large fresh red chillies (not for the soup, but for something else) and asked to have a stalk of spring onions. The auntie said "RM2 for the chillies. The spring onion auntie *chia lu* (belanja/gift)". See, I don't see any of the hypermarkets giving me free spring onions even when the grocery bill runs up to several hundred ringgit :(.

This is about the simplest soup plus the quickest I have ever made. I cooked it in a pot over the stove but the leftovers were just chucked into the slow cooker to preserve. Maybe there will still be some left when I come home tonite.

Ingredients

10 fresh prawns (cleaned and trim off feelers, legs and all sharp bits
2 white squids (cut into bite size)
100g of chicken breast meat (cubed)
2 stalks of lemon grass
2 inches of galangal (lengkuas)
6 pieces of kaffir leaves
6 pieces of chilli padi
2 tomatoes
2 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice
2 tbsp of fish sauce
1 tsp of chillie oil
600ml of water
spring onions for garnishing

Method

1. Heat up a little oil in a pot and if you have the clay pot, it is even better.
2. Throw in the galangal and lemon grass. Stir them around and when they turn fragrant, pour in the water.
3. When the water starts to boil, put in the all the rest of the ingredients and keep stirring until it boils.
4. Add a little salt and sugar for taste.
5. Ready for consumption anytime.

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Prawns with Mango & Fruits

When you have lots of fruits in the house and they are going to rot faster than you could eat them, the best way to get rid of them would be to cook them up into a dish and if that is the only other dish available for the meal, people you invite to have dinner with you will have no choice but to down them... haha.. it is either that or plain rice with soya sauce or marmite soup.

I bought some lovely mangoes recently and they are pretty cheap, if not very cheap. They are almost 20cm in length, very sweet and going at RM10 for 5 pieces. There are lots of fruits in the fridge that were becoming over ripe pretty fast so I decided to cook up this super unusual dish which I call Prawns with Mango & Fruits.

Ingredients

20 pieces of White Prawns, deveined, cleaned and drained.
Sugar
2 tbsp cornflour
1/2 Big Onion (diced)
2 Oranges (only the juice is used)
5 Water Chestnuts (diced)
3 Jambu Air (apparently this is call Water Apple) (diced)
1 mango (diced)
1 tsp of lemon juice
1 tsp Olive Oil

Method

1. Put in 2 tsp of sugar into the clean prawns and leave aside for a short while. The sugar will make the prawns nice and "crunchy" (for want of a better word).
2. Just before cooking, a quick rinse of the prawns or the dish might be very sweet. Put in the cornflour and toss the prawns in it.
3. Heat up some oil in the wok and when the oil is hot, put in the prawns.
4. Stir the prawns around until they turn pink and starts to curl up. Dish them up and set them aside.
5. Meanwhile, squeeze the juice out of the oranges.
6. Add in a tsp of lemon juice to give it that little tartness (optional)
   
7. Heat a the olive oil in a non-stick pan. When the oil is hot, put in the onion.
8. Add the orange (with lemon) juice and put to boil on a low heat.
9. Add in all the fruits except the mango. Put the mango last as they are very soft and too much cooking will make them squishy
10. Add in the prawns and make sure the orange juice covered all the ingredients in the pan.
11. Add 1 tsp of cornflour if there is too much liquid in the pan (certain oranges produces more juice)
12. Put in the mango last before dishing up.
13. Garnish with some parsley and serve.

Mission accomplished... managed to get rid of some of the items cluttering up the fridge but also resulted in this comment which I overheard whilst I was washing up in the kitchen... "I think we should convince her not to watch too much AFC - Asia Food Channel episodes. Her dishes are turning wierd lah".... hahaha

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Buttered Prawns

I love to eat prawns and you can virtually cook them in whatever way and I'll still eat them. I was at Mid Valley yesterday, mainly to settle my overdue Maxis handphone bill and also to try and get me some porky balls to make porky balls porridge...thanks to my fav Superheroes super bloggers. They always inspire me to search for better foods to eat :D.

I managed to get my pork balls but along the way, I also saw that they had very fresh white prawns at the supermarket and I decided, what the heck, I can always try do to a simple prawn dish to go with my porky balls porridge. So, decided to just get 12 of these babies back (haven't really decided what to do with them yet at this stage).

Got home, put the rice into the rice pot for my porridge and opened the fridge to find out what is in there. Saw a half used tin of evaporated milk and some curry leaves which were drying up. That gave me an idea. I'll just do my version of Prawns cooked in butter and milk.

The ingredients and method is very simple and it might not be really the full blown recipe for Butter Prawns that you would find elsewhere. For the more authentic Prawn recipes, you could try these sites :

Babe in the City - KL
Cooking Momster - My Kitchen

But if you wanted something simple like mine, then all you need are :-


Ingredients

12 medium/large prawns
2 tsp of cornflour
1 tbsp of oil
1 globs of butter (haha about 2 tsp)
1/3 tin of evaporated milk
2 sprigs of curry leaves
2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
1 red chilli (chopped)
salt and sugar to taste

Method

1. Wash and drain prawns (I chopped off the front part of the prawns' heads as they are very sharp and dangerous).
2. Put in the cornflour onto the prawns and stir it abit.
3. Heat up the oil in the wok and stir in the prawns until they turn orange in color. Remove prawns from the wok and set aside.
4. Put in the butter into the wok and when hot, add the garlic.
5. When the garlic turns fragrant, add in the evaporated milk.
6. Stir until the liquid thickens, then add in the chilli and the curry leaves.
7. Add sugar and salt to taste.
8. Pour in the prawns and mix well.
9. Remove and serve with steamed hot rice (in my case, hot porky balls porridge)

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Fried Lady's Fingers (Okra) in Dried Shrimps and Belachan

I have heard from some of my friends and the office tea lady that lady's fingers (okras) are very good especially for the knee joints. This could be due to the sap (gluey) like thing that emits from the vegetable when you cut it. But it is this very gluey thing that gave me a hard time cooking this dish last night.

I like lady's fingers when cooked with Assam Fish or Fish Head Curry but yesterday night was a work night and I really didn't have the time or the energy to attempt to cook such fanciful meals. So, I decided to make a very simple dish of fried lady's fingers with dried shrimps and belachan.

As I was cutting the lady's fingers, I notice the gluey stuff. Tried to wash it off but it still kept dripping out of the cut parts of the lady's fingers. Decided to soak them in some water and I think maybe I should not have done that as they were getting even worse. Anyway, I rinsed and drained out the water but when I started cooking it in the wok, it didn't that long to find my lady's fingers swimming in a pool of glue...alamak.. quickly scooped it out. Luckily it tasted ok but I know there must be a way to get rid of all that gluey stuff.

If SueSue of CookingMomster-My Kitchen or Babe of Babe in the City-KL is reading this post....HELP!!!!!

If you want an equivalent recipe for lady's fingers, I would suggest you visit CookingMomster's post and maybe Babe also has a post (tried to find it but I couldn't just yet). I will only post my recipe when I find out how to get rid of all that glue from my dish... :(

Can see the glue or not??

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Marmite Prawns

I love to read food blogs and have subscribed to more than 20 of such blogs and without fail I will go through most of them, if not all every day. And I will be so inspired by these food bloggers who are also great cookes (& bakers) and their abilities to whip up the yummilicious stuff. A few days ago, I was at Cooking Momster's blog and saw her Marmite Prawn post. Wow.. this is top restaurant quality type cooking wor. So, that evening, went to get me some prawns to try out her recipe.

I almost followed her ingredients and method to the T, except that I wanted more gravy as I love Marmite. When I was a kid, I used to spread it on bread and eat it just like that. But I eat Milo spread on bread too.. in fact, I eat anything spread on bread.. haha.. I love bread.

Get her recipe here. The only difference is that I added a little bit more Marmite and water and then thicken it back slightly with cornflour. It was very lovely that I almost took out bread to wipe off the remaining gravy on the plate :)

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