Creamy Laksa in an instant

Strangely with my mum's laksa recipe in my hands, I still cannot achieve the result like hers. Mum's laksa has a authentic taste and the broth (base is coconut milk) is so thick that you know having another serve is a sin. The best part of mum's laksa is she does not use blachan/blacan. Mum believes that blachan and shrimp paste cause cancer and also it can cause acne or wounds to have an infection. I am not sure about the cancer part but do believe that it can cause infection cos I have witnessed it before.
Anyway, mum's laksa is tasty and sinful and the sad part is that I cannot master it. Having a craving to have some homemade laksa, I went to buy a packet of laksa paste. Picture below:

Well I was too lazy to follow the packet's instructions and unwilling to use 1 1/2 cup of coconut. So I decided to make some modifications, and the result turn out to be like some takeaway food courts' laksa from Chinatown in Sydney. Taste is okay even though i still prefer mum's but if you are a laksa fan of any takeaways..try the following modifications i did....


Ingredients
200g rice noodles, soak then boil 2-3 mins. Drain and set aside
a few pieces of seafood mix aka crabsticks
1 packet fishball
4 pieces fried beancurd
1/4 cup dried shrimps, soak
2-3 red chilli
2 candlenuts
2 garlic cloves
veg
2 chicken bones
250ml lite coconut milk
1 cup lite milk
salt, pepper and sugar
note: you can replaced fishballs and crabsticks with anything you like

Method
Chicken stock:Boil 3cups water with chicken bones and 2 garlic cloves salt and pepper.
Paste: blend dried shrimp, chilli and candlenut with 1-2tbsp water and mix with packet paste. Heat wok with 1tbsp oil and fry paste till fragrant.
Then add chicken stock to paste when boiling, add in coconut milk and milk and simmer with all ingredients. Add salt and pepper and sugar for taste
Serve and garnish with spring onions.

more Japanese food

It was a great weekend, our tomodachi (friends) brought us to a Japanese restaurant in North Sydney called 'Rahmen Genki'. It is quite difficult to find the place if you are not familiar with the North Shore and also it is located at a corner of an alley in the inner suburb. However with our friends' directions we managed to find it and had a great meal.

Since it was our first time there, we were recommended to try their Katsu Curry, Ramen and Katsu Don. Unfortunately they do not serve sushi or sashimi, only cooked food. So we did try all 3 but I did not manage to take a picture of the Katsu Curry as I was busy trying my partner's Shoyu Ramen (somehow when my partner order something different from mine, his also seems tastier). Oh well, I really enjoyed my partner's food more than mine cause my Katsu Don, the pork cutlet was a bit cold and the rice was a bit too dry.

Even though the place is relatively small (most customers sit outside cos the kitchen takes up 3/4 of the restaurant), lots of family dine there with their children and their big prams. This is when I realised that Rahmen Genki is such a family oriented place that they have a dish delicated only for Children (Small Shoya Ramen-AUD4.50), which I was glad to see as most Japanese restaurants in Sydney are either not prams welcome or the children dish/set cost a bomb.

To cut my story short, Rahmen Genki has over 30 different dishes of Ramen and Donburi dishes.
Price range: AUD8.50 - AUD14.50.
Serving: Big (it was so filling our lunch(@1400HR)that we only ate dinner at 2am.)

Here's the photo I took...Shoyu Ramen followed by Katsu Don (Pork Rice)



Rahmen Genki
Location: Shop 6, Wikes Avenue, Artamon Tel: 9410 3777
Open: Lunch 11.30am-2.30pm Dinner 5pm - 9pm
(closed on tuesday&public hols)
Travel: free parking 1hour/take train to Artamon and walk for about 10mins.
Note: During winter, wear warm clothing (most likely you will have to sit outside).
During dinner hours, waiting time can be as long as 1 hour.(while waiting you can browse at their collection of manga, magazine and culinary books - all in Japanese though). * Do not browse at their culinary books cos it will only make you hungrier.

more Kikkoman sauce

more Kikkoman sauce....it just taste so good and user friendly that I cannot stop marinating with it and throw it into my wok. Also, since I left some beef from our last sukiyaki session, I decided to marinate it with Kikkoman and cook Gyudon.

Gyudon aka Beef Domburi (Domburi means bowl) is a Japanese. Gyudon is beef serve with rice and it is a rice dish often found in Japanese food chains. Also it is usually serve with a raw egg whereby you will have to break the yolk and mix well into your beef and rice. However if you are not a big fan of raw egg, you can cook you egg on top of your beef before it is cook.
Here's the fast and simple recipe for all beef lovers.



Ingredients
Beef, thinly sliced (prefer sirloin)
Kikkoman Teriyaki sauce
Onions, thinly sliced
1 Egg, beaten / not beaten

Method
Marinate beef with 2-3tbsp Kikkoman sauce (overnight/20mins)
Heat wok with a dash of oil.
Add onions, fry till golden brown.
Add beef leaving the sauce behind. Then pepper. Stir.
Mix 3tbsp water with left over sauce.
When beef is about to cook, add egg and then the remianing sauce above.
Cook for about 2-3mins.
Garnish with spring onions / cut seaweed and serve with rice.

a SAUCE must have

Finally I found the ultimate sauce - 'Kikkoman' this is actually the correct soya sauce that one must have in their kitchen. An original, tasty, time saving sauce. Also with recent reports of fake soya sauce from the Chinese's market and heaps of food imitation that cause lives, having Kikkoman in my kitchen makes me feel safe when I cook. At the same time, knowing that Kikkoman is the only soya sauce in the market that does not produce carcinogenic substances during production which is harmful to us. Also it has been certified safe by 'The Joint Food Safety and Standards Group, UK'.

No doubt Kikkoman sauces do cost a bit more than the other brands however when it comes to usage, Kikkoman last longer. Since it is naturally brewed for months while other brands are usually made from HVP method (hydrolysed vegetable protein)which may contains carcinogenic substances, for the price we pay, Kikkoman guarantees safety, taste and value.

Sound like I am promoting Kikkoman >:}

Anyways..recently I cooked a stir fried dish using Kikkoman Teriyaki Garlic Roasted Sauce and it was 'Oiishi' (japanese - delicious)


Teriyaki Stir Fried (Cooking & Preparation time: no more than 20mins)

Ingredients
Green veg / frozen
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 Chicken breast / any preferred meat /seafood
a bit of oil
Kikkoman teriyaki marinade sauce

Method
Marinate meat with 3-4 tbsp sauce overnight if not just 5-10 mins
Heat oil add in garlic and then chicken and then all above ingredient and stir
Add 1tsp cornflour with 4tbsp water. Stir
Dash with pepper and sesame seeds and serve with rice.

Is my blog burning?

Is my blog burning? is actually a blog cooking event propose by Il Forno I missed the first few events however i managed to take part in the recent one host by Wena and the theme is "catch of the day" i did a dish called steam fish in minutes quite awhile back and posted it up for this event and it was accepted >:-) it is a relatively simple dish that i used my rice cooker to cook with and it is a dish taught by my mother who is brought up in a traditional teochew family.
Oh before i forget, to all dear food bloggers, please check out Wena's site as there are lots of innovative, mouth watering dishes...that u dont want to miss.

Fried Rice Paradise

Often we do enjoy our fried rice from takeaway or any Asian restaurant and when we try to remake this dish in our home kitchen, it simply just taste different. Reason behind this tradesecret is "over night rice". The best thing to do, is to cook excess rice and then store them in the fridge. Another reason why commercial fried rice taste much better than home cook ones, is due to the large amount of oil used, which is very unhealthy if one consume it often. So here's another tip to create similar effect, is to cook rice in chicken stock and then store them overnight and thus while using it for fried rice, you do not need to add excess oil.
Here's a quick simple fried rice recipe.

Ingredients
Over night rice
2 eggs, beaten
sliced chicken / any preferred meat
1 onion, thinly sliced
frozen veg / green veg
salt and pepper for taste
a dash of sugar

Method
In a non stick pan, add 1tbsp oil then eggs and stir followed by chicken till it turn white add in onion and frozen veg.
Stir for a few mins and add in rice and add in salt and pepper.
To enhance taste: you may add tomato ketchup / Maggie chilli sauce / soya sauce with dark soya sauce / ketchup manis - Indonesian sweet sauce.

Good Food & Wine Show, Sydney

This is my first time going to a food show in Sydney. The exhibition covers 3 big halls at Sydney exhibition centre. It has a good range of promoters from food suppliers, drinks, wine, beers, cocktail, kitchen appliances and cookware. There are also celebrity chef cooking shows, provided one get the tickets before hand through ticketek. It has a good showcase of innovative kitchen appliances such as prawn peelers, portable pizza maker, flexible bakery trays and lots more. In such an event, one must not forget to treat themselves to a good show bag, therefore we got ourselves one of the best show bags which is the "Good Taste" (by Woolworth) - $5 which contains, 2 magazines, 1 cooking book, Kikkoman Honey Soya sauce and heaps of other food samples. Also I managed to try new gourmet as most promoters were giving out samples for free. It was really a "mouth opener" (if there is such a word)
After spending over 3 hours in the exhibition show, we decided to head home. Afterall our hands were full of goodies.

3 Steps Minced Pork Noodle

Minced pork noodle aka 'Bah Cho Mee' in Singapore is one of the most well-known dish u have to try when one is in Singapore. It is usually serve dry with thin/flat egg noodle. The recipe i am posting up is slightly different compare to the ones we usually have back home...it has more gravy. However this noodle dish is simple and can be serve with either thick white noodles / udon / shanghai noodles / egg noodles.



Ingredients (Serve 2)
250g thick white rice noodles / any preferred noodles
shitake mushroom, thinly sliced
bak choy
coriander and spring onions

Sauce
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp oyster sauces
1 1/2 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 1/2 tbsp sweet dark soya sauce
1 tsp sugar
cornflour mix with water
3/4 cup water

Meat
300g pork minced Marinate in
1tsp 5 spiced powder
OR
1tsp nutmeg powder, 1/2 cinnamon powder & 1tsp brown sugar
Plus
1tsp light soya sauce
salt and pepper
a dash of sesame oil

3 steps method
Boil vegetables and set aside followed by noodle, rinse in cold water and drain.
Pan fry garlic, shitake mushroom and add in marinate pork and add in all ingredients for the sauce and simmer for 20 mins.
Garnish with coriander and spring onion and serve.

*add in black vinegar & blachan for extra taste*

Satay Pork not Satay Babe

in many countries, there are food categorize under the 4 seasons (summer,spring,winter&autumn)and since winter is in..i decided to cook this spicy dish even though i am not a big fan of chilli...and with the basic idea that, satay pork does contain chilli and peanuts...i went ahead and tried to use the different types of spices i have in the kitchen to marinate the pork and to my surprise it turn out well *cos asugi really enjoyed it >:)



Ingredients
5 pieces of soft pork ribs without bones / pork shoulder, diced / chunky
MARINATE WITH
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp brown / white sugar
salt and pepper for taste

1 onions, chopped
Garlic, minced
1/2 peanuts, blend (used peanuts for baking to avoid any tedious steps)
1 tbsp sweet dark soya sauce
1 tbsp blachan paste (more if preferred)
--------------------------
Method
before marinating boil hot water with a pinch of salt and pour onto pork and rinse
(to remove any smell)
fry onions and garlic
add in peanuts and blachan paste till fragrant then add pork followed by a bit of water.
cook and serve with rice.

Coca Cola recipe

Recently we bought a big munchy combo for our movie session " eternal sunshine of a spotless mind " (rating 9/10 stars...a must watch movie) anyways hoyts popcorn combo has a few varieties however we decided to choose the large popcorn and a large coke .....to our shock...the popcorn and coke is so big...that I think they may want to rename it to XLARGE..
due to the super large coke we had (.....had trouble drinking it though)....i decided to post a coke recipe for all those coke drinkers whose coke turns stale / gasless / off ....instead of dumping it to the bin...try the following....and of course you may used fresh coke....(by any chance...if someone is going to try it with Pepsi...pls drop me a msg / email and let me know the result ..thanks)

Chicken and Mushroom - recipe based on a book by Elizabeth Candler Graham & Ralph Roberts.
Ingredients (serve 2-4)
5 tbsp butter
1 can mushroom
sliced swiss / mozzarella cheese
4 chicken breast, halved flour with salt and pepper to taste

Method
melt 2tbsp butter in a pan.
add mushroom and stir and remove.
add remaining butter and pan fry flour chicken breast till brown.remove
add in coca cola and boil. turn in mushroom and remove.
place chicken breast in a casserole dish. pour coca cola and mushroom over and bake at 35 mins in a 350degree oven. Turn chicken and bake on the other side. Add sliced cheese on top and bake for another 10-15 mins.