Magic Pot, Thermal Cooker

I heard so much about this thermal cooker and finally got myself one. There were no recipe books included in the purchase but I saw these simple instructions on usage near the display item and photographed it for reference.

Simple Lunch

I wanted my daughter to have a balanced meal but did not want to spend hours labouring over the stove. So I decided to defrost some minced pork, marinated it with soya (dark and light), oyster sauce, sesame oil and left it in the fridge until I was ready to cook it. For the soup, I fried some chopped garlic, onions and ginger put in some ikan bilis and let the simmer till they turned a little brownish. Then I poured water into the pot, threw in two pieces of dried oyster and three mushrooms and set it to boil for about 20 minutes.

I then washed the spinach and put it aside. When it was near lunch time, I took the minced pork out of the fridge, added a little more sesame oil and put in a whole lot of chopped garlic and mixed them thoroughly with some cornstarch. Then I rolled them into balls and fried them in the saucepan together with some pieces of tomato. For the gravy I scooped some of the soup in the slow cooker for that natural taste. I put the spinach into the soup and let it boil till it is cooked careful not to overcook it. For variety, I fried two eggs and it was a yummy lunch with rice.

Minced pork and tofu

This was a dish that did not materialise till the very last moment. I had a tube of silken tofu and some minced pork. I had an idea of mixing the two. Somehow inspiration came just before I was to serve dinner in half an hour's time. First, I squeezed the tofu from the tube. It was a little mashy and I cut it up further. Then I fried it in the saucepan with some oil, chopped small onions and garlic. When the tofu was turning slightly brown, I took everything out and put them in a bowl.

Next, I fried the minced pork. Prior to this, I had marinated the minced pork with soy sauce, a special sauce for meat that I had bought at Takashimaya, a teaspoon of XO vegetable sauce, some dark sauce, sesame oil and mixed them well. I added water and some cornstarch so that the sauce would thicken, covered the saucepan and let the meat simmer for about 10 minutes or so - can't remember exactly but the important thing is not to overcook the meat. I also added some chilli tomato ketchep to give the sauce a slightly spicy taste.

Lastly, I poured the tofu into the saucepan, stirred things for a while and turned off the fire.To garnish the dish, I used some chopped-up capsicum, cucumber and bits of red chilli.

Verdict from the family: Yum Yum except that I should have used more silken tofu. Next time folks 'cos your mum only makes do with what's in the fridge at a particular point in time.

Tofu omelette

I got this recipe from my friend's blog and have her to thank for making it possible for me to whisk up lunch for two persons this hot Saturday afternoon so effortlessly. I did some small modifications to it and hope that this is what it is supposed to look like at the end of the cooking:

I decided to try this recipe as I happened to have a tube of silken tofu in the fridge. But instead of using small onions to fry the tofu with, I used chopped-up garlic. When the tofu is slightly brownish, I added two eggs that have been beaten with a pinch of salt, pepper to taste and a drop of sesame oil and then I fried them till the egg is cooked and added a little water. As I did not have coriander leaves, I used mint leaves instead and threw in the cherry tomatoes to make the dish look interesting.

Black bean Peanut Pork Rib Soup

This is a soup that I can make using a slow cooker.

Ingredients
Pork Ribs (500 - 800 gms)
100gm small peanuts (with skin)
100gm big peanut (also with skin, the kind we get from the dried-goods stalls)
10 - 20 cloves of garlic

Method
Put all the ingredients into the slow cooker, set it on high and cook. I forgot to ask about the duration but I guess it would be between 4 - 5 hours.

Bak Kut Teh

This is our beloved Pork-rib soup that we nowadays do not prepare our own ingredients but rely most of the time on manufactured packets of the spices to make this dish a hot favourite at home. I have been trying out one or two of these preparations with moderate success in terms of taste and flavour.

My friend gave me a small packet of the Bak Kut Teh that she says I have to try because it is simple yummy.

She advised that I get the pork rib with a little fat in it. All I need to do is to wash and put the pork ribs into the slow cooker, fill it up with water from the tap (sometimes I use water that has just been boiled) and turn on the heat at the 'high' setting for 2 hours. The put in as many cloves of garlic as you like and add the satchet of spices. Cook for another 2 hours and then its Bak Kut Teh time. I think it would be nice to compliment this soup with you tiao (deep-fried dough sticks). So if I think of cooking this soup, I will have to get some yu tiao from the market in the morning.

Rosemary Pork Stew

My friend said that this is a very easy-t0-prepare meal that tastes simply delicious for the little effort that is put into it as it is cooked using a slow cooker.

She advised that I get shoulder pork for this dish.

Ingredients:
Shoulder pork
Rosemary leaves (fresh)
Chillies (optional)
Garlic
Tomatoes (sliced or cubed)
Pinch of salt

Method
Put all the ingredients into the slow cooker and put in enough water to cover the meat.
Turn on the heat to high for 4 hours.
When the meat and other ingredients are cooked, season it with a little thick black sauce (tau yu), salt, sugar, pepper and a little bit of sesame oil.

She gave me some rosemary leaves and I can't wait to try this dish!

Baked Salmon

This works well with Salmon belly.

Firstly, wash the salmon belly and season it with a little salt. Cover it well with Kunyit powder (fresh from the market or Little India). Belachan chilli would also serve as a good alernative. Add a little olive oil.

Secondly, put the fish onto foil and bake it in the oven (I only have a small oven toaster) and bake it till you can hear the oil crackling.

Cooking is like art, she said, so I will have to experiment and improvise along the way.

Recipes from a friend

I visited an artist friend of mine yesterday and spent almost a whole day at her house. She took time to introduce me to the various herbs and plants in her garden giving me valuable tips on how to grow and care for them as well as some lilies and a few other types of plants to take home so that I could enrich my garden with them.

She walked me through her drawings, paintings and sculptures that gave me a glimpse into the artist in her and she prepared a simple lunch that was healthy and tasty and we had it at the dining area beside an airwell that had a small pond, potted plants, ferns growing on the moss-covered rocks and some of her pottery pieces around it.

In return for all the hospitality and the enjoyment of her art, I showed her a few features of blogger so that she would know how to upload her pictures onto her newly created blogs that include one on food. She shared with me so many recipes that I could try and I was really grateful as I am running out of ideas on how to feed my family efficiently and with imagination.

Hence, the category in this blog on 'Recipes from a friend' will be a record of what she had told me. I have to get these recipes down coherently so that I will not forget, because my long-term memory is not working well. I will upload photos of my experiments with these recipes in time to come.

Thanks to my friend, I will now look forward to cooking simple meals for my family.

Yee-Foo noodles

This is another of my favourite easy-to-cook dish. I am not giving a recipe because I cannot remember exactly what I did. Cooking to me is like art, totally based on 'feel' and experimentation and sometimes mood. Only the main steps are listed and the rest up to anyone's imagination and creativity. The ingredients can be substituted with others that you fancy.

Prepare 2 sets of ingredients:

Set 1: Broccolli, oyster mushroom, tomatoes and garlic.
Set 2: Chicken strips marinated in soya sauce, sesame oil, ginger for 2 hours or more.

To cook: Fry some sliced garlic in a little oil for a minute or two, then pour in the marinated chicken and stir-fry. Add some water or in my case, I used some of the herbal soup I was boiling instead so that the gravy will be more tasty. Add oyster sauce, dark sauce and a little sugar if you like. The thicken the sauce put in a few teaspoons (about 3) of cornstarch. Continue to stir.
Lastly, put in the yee-foo noodles and let it soften in the gravy. Use a pair of chopsticks or fork to mix the noodles well.

Terriyaki sauce and chicken drumsticks

No hassle cooking. I love to steam food because cleaning is much easier for mums like me who do all the washing up as well and who wasn't made for the kitchen in the first place.

I was shopping at Takashimaya when I found this bottle of Terriyaki sauce that is suitable for fish, chicken and meat. God must have taken pity on me. So the next day I decided to try the sauce on two medium-sized chicken thighs that I had defrosted.

Here's how to do this dish:

1. Wash two chicken thighs and cut away excess fat in the skin.
2. Pour some of the Terriayaki sauce onto the chicken thighs and marinate well. Crush a few cloves of garlic and slice some pieces of ginger and mix them with the chicken thighs (I put them back in the fridge as I have a phobia about food spoiling).
3. Two or three hours later, take the chicken thighs from the fridge and put them into a steamer. Steam them for about 40 minutes.
4. When the time is up, take the chicken thights from the steamer and place them on a nice plate and garnish the dish with cucumber, tomatoes or whatever you think will make it look nice.

Verdict from husband and son: Yum, yum

Honey-Lemon Chicken

Before I forget what I did, I’d better quickly recall how I cooked this dish before it is lost to people like me. This creation has been highly rated by people who are usually highly critical of my cooking - my husband and son. What prompted me to think of this recipe was really that I did not want to be using light and dark soya sauce and oyster sauce to cook chicken with. I think things should be done or consumed in moderation. Other than rice, most things are best not taken in large quantities daily.

I have no time to list the ingredients so this recipe will be written not in the conventional way. Here goes:

Defrost 5 pieces of chicken wings each chopped into two parts. I chose not to remove the skin but you can if you want to live a little more healthily. Next I marinated the chicken wings with two tablespoons of honey and some soya sauce. I made sure that the each piece of chicken wing was well-coated with the honey and sauce before putting it back into the fridge. Afte about 4 hours or so, I was ready to cook. Before that I went to the garden to pluck about 6 basil leaves from my scrawy basil plant that is now almost ‘botak’(bald), rummaged in the fridge for some cilanto (Chinese parsley, yim sai), washed them and chopped them into smaller portions.

Next I put a general sprinkling of black pepper onto the chicken and put in some sliced ginger thowing in lemon juice squeezed from half a lemon. I crushed two cloves of garlic (skin removed) and then I was ready for the fire. First, I heated some oil in the saucepan (non-stick) and put in the garlic together with the cilanto and the garlic. When they were sizzling I put in the chicken together with the sauce. I let the chicken fry for a short while till the skin turns slightly brown. Then I added some stock from the herbal soup I was brewing and stirred the contents well ensuring that the chicken is cooked evenly. I put on the lid and let the chicken cook on a small fire for about 10 minutes.

Turned out to the a success! Cooking is like art, really. Other than technique you need to have ‘feel’ and the right kind of mood to come up with something unique.

Sushi with imagination

I need energy to blog and I need to supply energy to people in my family in the least time-consuming and hassle-free way and sushi is the kind of food that you can eat anytime and anywhere without fuss. Best of all, it is easy to make and you can sit down at the dining table in comfort instead of labouring over a hot stove.

I learned how to make sushi from a Korean classmate many years ago. She invited me and a few other ladies to her house for lunch and pleasantly surprised us with the announcement that we would have to make our own lunch. She had already cooked the rice and prepared the fillings for the sushi. We sat around the dining table watching her demonstrate how sushi is made and had a great time chatting and trying our hands at sushi-making. In such a lunch-time gathering we did ran out of things to talk about because it was so hands-on and there will be so many questions, mistakes, corrections and laughs. We even got to take some sushi rolls home for our respective families to enjoy.

Though I do not make restaurant-standard sushi, my family members have always shown their appreciation for my efforts. Over time, I learned that you just need to ask the individual what kind of filling they would like to have. You can put anything they fancy as long as it is not mushy or soggy. I have used crabsticks, meat floss, carrots and I imagine dried shrimps fried crisply with chilli would be delicious.

There is no restriction as to what makes a good sushi. I used to purchase expensive Japanese rice grains for my sushi in the past. Nowadays I just use good quality Thai rice that did just fine. For me I am particular about how the sushi is cut. It has to be neat and each piece of the same height when placed on the plate. The shape can be round or squarish depending on my mood at the point in time when I am rolling the sushi. About 3 cups of rice will give you 10 rolls of sushi. It took me an hour to complete the job that includes cutting the sushi and packing them into boxes.

Meatballs - Pressure Cooker

Once in a while, this happens in this blog - I post something irrelevant to the subject of flowers. This time I just want to share a new interest which is experimenting with a pressure cooker that I bought having heard all the good things about it such as tasty and nutritious meals that can be prepared in half an hour or less.

Having read the safety precautions and understood the concept of how the pressure cooker works, I looked in my fridge to see what was in there and came up with the idea of cooking meat balls. It turned out surprisingly to be very successful as all family members praised the results to high heaven. It's quite a feat to achieve considering that people know me as one who photographs food and not one who cooks. I have photographed the key steps before commencing the pressure cooking. Arranging the meatballs and other ingredients in the pressure cooker.

Adding the chopped lettuce at the side.

Adding the sauce so that it covers the meatballs.

Yummy meatballs, even I agree that they were delicious. I actually had a lot of fun arranging the ingredients in the pot. The dish when served could be made more colourful with brocolli or bits of a green pepper that was in my fridge. Cucumbers would do fine too.