药材炖鸡 Steam Herbal Chicken

This is a simple and nourishing dish. Hope you will like it too.

Ingredient:

2 nos Chicken whole drumstick

1 tbsp Dark Soy

2 tbsp oil

1 pkt Herbal Soup Mix (药材汤料)

300-500ml Water (depends on how much gravy you like)

1-2 tsp Oyster sauce

1-2 tsp Soy sauce

1-2 tsp Chinese Shao Shing rice wine (绍兴酒)

1 tsp Dark soy (optional, just for the colour)

Pepper to taste

Drizzle of Sesame oil

1 tbsp Corn starch mix with 2 tbsp water

Method:

1. Pat dry the chicken and rub the dark soy onto the skin.

2. Heat the oil in a frying pan, shallow fry the skin part to get a nice brown colour.

3. Dish out and set aside.

4. Bring a pot of water to boil, add the herbal soup mix.

5. Let it boil for 10 mins or so.

6. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, rice wine, dark soy, sesame oil and pepper to taste. (Season it according to your taste)

7. Add the corn starch mix to thicken the gravy. Turn off the fire when the gravy is thicken.

8. Place a big sheet of aluminum foil in a deep dish or bowl. Place the chicken drumstick in the middle and pour the gravy and put the herbal onto the meat. (I wanted to serve it individually, so I have make two parcel as two individual serving)

9. Wrap the chicken up like a parcel.

10. Steam the parcel for 2 hours.

11. It's ready to serve. You could serve it with steam rice or noodles.

Today we had it with some buckwheat soba noodles. So yummy!

p/s : I used the Herbal Soup mix which can easily get in any supermarket. Usually is ready mix. It consist of：

Red dates (红枣)

Gou Ji berries (枸杞)

Dang Shen (当参)

Wai Shan (淮山)

Bei Qi (北芪)

Yu Zhu (玉竹)

Shu Di (熟地)

Chuan Xiong (川芎)

* If the soup mix you bought do not have Shu Di (熟地) it does't matter, with "Shu Di" it will give a dark/black colour soup. So you could just add dark soy in your gravy if your soup mix do not have "Shu Di".

Maki - Sushi Roll

Ingredients:
Cooked rice
Nori- Seaweed
Cucumber, cut into long stick
Eggroll
Crabstick
Mayonnaise

Method:
1. Cover the sushi bamboo mat with a plastic bag or cling firm. To avoid the mat get dirty.

2. Place one sheet of nori onto the bamboo mat, on a flat surface.

3. Put the rice along one long side of the nori, leaving a 2cm(1 inch) border around the remaining three sides.

4. Arrange the cucumber stick, eggroll and crab-stick at the center of the rice. Spread some mayonnaise over the ingredients.

5. Using the mat as a guide, roll nori up firmly from the bottom, enclosing rice around centered ingredients. Fold the maki and apply pressure.

6. Fold the mat forwards again and apply more pressure. Press the nori edges together to seal the roll.

7. Using a sharp knife to trim off the uneven ends. Then cut the maki roll into 2.5cm(1 inch) rounds.

8. Arrange sushi on serving plate with each piece facing up.

9. Ready to serve with some pickled ginger and sushi soy sauce.

Tips:
Moisten your hands in a bowl of water. This will stop the rice from sticking to your fingers, when spreading rice over the nori.

Loh Mai Kai

Ingredients:
500gm glutinous rice, soaked overnight and drain
2 cups water/chicken stock
2 tbsp chopped garlic
2 tbsp chopped shallots
2 pieces whole chicken leg meat, debone and sliced
100gm char siew, sliced
1 Chinese sausage (Lap Cheong), sliced
3 black Chinese mushrooms, soaked and cut into thin slices

Seasoning A:
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp ginger juice, grated ginger and squeeze out the juice
1 tbsp Rice wine
1 tbsp corn flour
2 tbsp water

Seasoning B:
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp Chinese Five spice powder
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
Seasoning powder (optional)
3 tbsp oil

Method:
1. Marinate chicken with seasoning A for about 2 hours.

2. Heat some oil in wok, saute 1 tbsp of shallots and 1 tbsp of garlic until fragrant. Then add chicken and mushrooms to cook for 2 minutes. Dish out and keep aside.

3. Heat 3tbsp oil in wok, saute 1 tbsp of shallots and 1 tbsp of garlic until fragrant, then put in the glutinous rice and seasoning B and mix well. Dish out and keep aside.

4. Use rice bowl or small stainless steal bowl, arrange mushroom slices, chinese sausages, chicken and char siew. Top up with glutinous rice(don't fill it up so much, keep some room about 1cm) and lightly press it down with a spoon.

5. Fill the bowls with water/chicken stock, make sure the water level is above the rice(aprox 0.5cm).

6. Steam for 50 minutes. Turn over the rice bowl onto a plate and serve.

**Seasoning is subject to individual preference, you can adjust it to your liking.
**You can freeze it up to 6 months. Cool the Loh Mai Kai completely, unmold it from the bowl then use a aluminium foil to wrap it like parcel and Freeze it.
**To cook, take out from freezer(No need to defrost) and steam the whole aluminium parcel on boilding water for 30mins. Discard the aluminium foil and Ready to serve. 

Tuna and Cucumber Sushi

Have some left over rice from lunch, so decided to make some simple sushi for my dinner. Made it with out the rice vinegar and sugar.

My version of sushi

Ingredients:

Cooked rice
Nori
Cucumber, cut into long stick
Tuna
Mayonnaise

Method:
1. Cover the sushi bamboo mat with a plastic bag or cling firm. To avoid the mat get dirty.
2. Place one sheet of nori onto the bamboo mat, on a flat surface.
3. Put the rice along one long side of the nori, leaving a 2cm(1 inch) border around the remaining three sides.
4. Arrange the cucumber stick and tuna at the center of the rice. Spread some mayonnaise over the tuna and cucumber.
5. Using the mat as a guide, roll nori up firmly from the bottom, enclosing rice around centered ingredients. Fold the maki and apply pressure.
6. Fold the mat forwards again and apply more pressure. Press the nori edges together to seal the roll.
7. Using a sharp knife to trim off the uneven ends. Then cut the maki roll into 2.5cm(1 inch) rounds.
8. Arrange sushi on serving plate with each piece facing up, squeeze some mayonnaise on top. Ready to serve.


To make an authentic sushi, check out these websites:
Video Jug - all about Sushi
小小米桶的日式点心坊-寿司类

Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak is a typical Malaysian breakfast. But we also love to eat this for lunch, dinner & supper. (Basically anytime of the day)
The typical condiments are fried peanuts, hard boiled egg, fried anchovies and sliced cucumber.

Nasi Lemak (Rice in Coconut Milk)

Ingredients for Nasi Lemak:
1 cup rice
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
3 screwpine leaves (Pandan Leaves)
salt to taste
1 small piece of sliced ginger
1 small clove of garlic

Method:
1. Clean the rice and drain.
2. Cook the rice in the coconut milk with screwpine leaves, salt, ginger, garlic.

Tips:
If you can't get Pandan leaves, you may replace it with 1 stalk of lemongrass(slightly bruised the bottom part). It add's a different aroma to the rice.


Ingredients for Sambal Ikan Bilis (Anchovies in Hot Sauce)
1/2 cup dried ikan bilis (Dried anchovies)
1 Onion, sliced
4 Shallots
2 tbsp tamarind juice [you may add more if the sambal is too spicy]
Prawn paste (belacan) [Optional]
8 dried chillies, soaked in warm water
1 clove garlic
Salt and sugar to taste

Method:
1. Fry the ikan bilis until crisp and put aside.
2. Grind the prawn paste together with shallots, garlic, deseeded dried chillies.
3. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan and fry the ground ingredients until fragrant. Add in the onion and continue to cook for a few minutes.
4. Add tamarind juice, salt and sugar to taste.
5. Continue cooking and stirring occasionally until the gravy is thickens.
6. Add in some of the ikan bilis and mix well. Keep the remaining ikan bilis to serve as condiments
7. Serve with steaming hot Nasi Lemak.

Tips:
1. If you can't take too spicy, reduce on the number of dried chillies and substitute it with fresh red chillies.
2. Mix tamarind paste with water and strained to get tamarind juice.
3. Tamarind juice is to give the savory and sour taste and in this case it helps to reduce the spiciness.
4. You can cook this sambal in advance and freeze it in the freezer.

Claypot Chicken Rice

Ingredients:
2 cups Rice, washed and drained
3 cups Chicken stock
2 piece Chicken drumsticks, cut into pieces
5 nos Chinese mushrooms, soak and cut into half
1 nos Chinese sausage [腊肠], sliced
2 cm Salted Fish, sliced thinly, fried till crispy
Spring onion & fried garlic to garnish

Sauce:
2 tbsp Light soy sauce
1 tbsp Dark soy sauce
2 tbsp Oyster sauce
1 tbsp Shao Hsing Hua Tiao Chiew [绍兴花雕酒] /Chinese cooking wine
1 tbsp Sesame oil
1/2 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/2 tbsp Cornflour

Method:
1. Mix chicken, mushroom and sauce. Marinate it for 30 minutes.

2. Put rice and chicken stock into a clay pot, cover and bring to boil. Lower the fire and cook with low heat till holes are formed on top. (about 15 minutes)

3. Spread marinated chicken and mushrooms, Chinese sausage on top, cover and cook with low heat till rice is dry and chicken pieces are cooked (another 15 minutes). Remove from fire.

4. Sprinkle salted fish on top, cover and leave to stand for 10 minutes till rice is dry and fluffy.

5. Sprinkle some spring onion on top. Ready to serve. Caution: The claypot is still hot!