Chu Hou Brisket (柱侯牛腩)

If you ever get beef brisket noodle in the food court or restaurant, chances are they would have used this type of sauce for the noodle.

I remember the first time I made this, I assumed that all I needed was the 柱侯 sauce. So that's all I added to a pot of water and boiled my brisket in it. It wasn't bad but it wasn't the taste I was looking for either. After further tasting, testing and research, I realize what some of the other items are that they add to the soup to make the taste stand out.

Here's the version that I make when I make stew brisket with this flavour. My hubby liked it and thought it tastes like the restaurants so I was happy.
It's very simple to make because all you need to do is throw everything into a pot and let it cook together. I like to leave my brisket over night to let the flavour really meld together.

Chu Hou Brisket (柱侯牛腩)

Ingredients

• 1kg Beef brisket
• 1 tbsp Garlic
• 2 Green onion
• 3 Slices of ginger
• 3 Star anise
• 3 Bay leaves
• 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
• Salt to taste
• 2 tbsp Chu Hou Sauce
• Small piece of Rock sugar
• 2L Water
• 2 small Daikon

Directions

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.
2. While you're waiting for the water to boil, cut the Beef brisket into 1 inch thick slices.
3. Throw the brisket into the boiling water and cook it for 5 mins after it comes back up to a boil. This will help you wash and remove impurities so you have a better soup base at the end of cooking.
4. Strain the brisket. Wash the brisket and the pot so you can reuse it to cook the brisket.
5. Rinse the star anise and bay leaves.
6. Chop up the green onion into long strips and slice the ginger.
7. Add a little bit of oil to the bottom of the pot and cook the garlic, green onion and ginger so you can smell the flavours.
8. Add the brisket and 2L of water.
9. Throw in the star anise, bay leaves, cinnamon, Chu Hou Sauce and the piece of rock sugar.
10. Bring it to a boil then turn the heat down to simmer. 
11. Wash and peel the daikon. Cut into 1 inch slices.
12. About an hour into the cooking, skim fat and then add the daikon so the daikon doesn't absorb too much fat.
13. Depending on what type of brisket you have and if there are tendons, total cook time can range from 2 to 4 hours. Check periodically for readiness by poking a chopstick into the brisket. 
14. Optional: Once it's done, you can thicken the sauce by adding corn starch or flour or both. I thicken the sauce for rice dish but leave it alone for soup noodle dish. 

Tip: Use a pot that retains heat or use a thermal vacuum cooker.  This will lower electricity use when cooking. 

For pots that retain heat very well. Bring pot to a boil for 15 mins then turn off heat for 15 mins. Repeat throughout the cooking time.

For thermal vacuum cooker, cook brisket for 30 mins then put the pot in the pot holder for 3-4 hours or overnight. 

Slow Roast Coconut Cauliflower

I think this has to be one of the simplest ways to make cauliflower. Especially if you already have the oven going to cook something else. Just add in an extra rack and put this on top.

I had wanted to try cooking with coconut oil because it's supposed to be good for you. I brought it but haven't used it beyond making popcorn so I decided to try with the cauliflower.
The aroma was very nice but it did not taste very strong in coconut flavour. So if you want stronger coconut flavour, you'll probably need to add some coconut flakes.

Since I usually bake the cauliflower only if I'm baking something else (ie chicken etc), the heat in the direction below is alter for that.
If the only thing you're baking is the cauliflower, you can bake it at 400 degrees F for 25-30 mins instead of the lower heat.

Slow Roast Coconut Cauliflower

Ingredients

• 1 Cauliflower
• 1 tsp Coconut Oil
• Sprinkle of Salt
• Sprinkle of Pepper

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and add that second rack for the cauliflower.
2. While the oven is preheating, remove the leaves of the cauliflower.
3. Wash your cauliflower in salt and water. Let it soak in case there are bugs so they'll come out.
4. Once you've had a good soaking, peel the outer layer of the stem because it tends to be too hard to eat. 
   
5. Cut up the cauliflower and it's stem into bite size pieces. 
6. Throw into a baking dish.
7. Salt and pepper the dish and mix it up.
8. Add bits and pieces of the coconut oil on top of the cauliflower and spread around as much as possible so that when it melts, it will cover all the cauliflower.
9. Bake it for 45 mins to an hour in the top rack, pending on how soft you like your cauliflower

Tip: The length of time in your oven will really depend on things like is your oven convection or not to determine how well hot air gets circulated around the different dishes you have in the oven. If you don't have a convection oven, it will take longer since it's on the top shelf. Try to stagger the dish so they're not completely on top of each other and flip it around half way through so both sides gets even cooking.

Chinese New Year - "Cakes"

New Year is full of traditional food. How the food sounds like makes it key to have at new years.
For example, seeds is important because it sounds like you're raking in money.

"Cakes" is an other important items to have at new years.
Now, when I say cake, I don't mine the fluffy cakes you normally buy for birthdays.
I'm talking about the type of food that you will eat at a restaurant for Yum Cha (some of you may call it Dim Sum).


Once again, this tradition stems from how the name of the cake sounds like.


The Chinese New Year Cake is called 年糕 (Nian Gao)

It's made of glutinous rice flour and sugar....

So what's in a name?
The name is suppose to imply being preposterous year after year. 
年 is year
糕 is cake but it sounds similar to the word high. 
So you want to be "higher" this year then you were last year and you want to keep on going "higher" every year.

3 typical "cakes" that are commonly sold during New Years and often given as gifts. They are New Year Cake, Taro Cake and my favourite Daikon (White Radish) cake. 

How to eat a 年糕: 
Don't just cut into it and eat it like you would a piece of cake.
Yes it's sweet but it's made of glutinous rice flour so it's sticky and can be very stiff when it's cold in the pan!
All 年糕 is made up of us, glutinous rice flour, rice flour, sugar, coconut milk and water. It's not a light cake.

Directions

1. First, cut your cake into square pieces. 
2. Do not go beyond a 1 cm thickness or else it might be a little too thick and too chewy.
3. Scramble an egg to dip the pieces of cake in.
4. Heat your pan to medium-low heat.
5. Dip the pieces of cake into the egg, coat all sides and put it onto the hot pan.
6. Medium-low heat is important because you want to be able to warm the piece of cake all the way to the middle without burning the egg coating it.
7. Once the piece is warmed up and your egg is nicely cooked, it's ready to eat :)

Best served warm so it's soft and chewy instead of hard and chewy.

(PS it's a bit of an acquired taste, so best to try it either at a restaurant so you don't have to waste a whole pan if you don't like it!)

2016 Happy Chinese New Year

It's that time of the year again
Wishing everyone a happy new year.
Good health and may all your wishes come true

新年快樂！身體健康！心想事成！

Singapore Style Fried Turnip Cake (星州炒蘿蔔糕)

New years is time where I get a lot of 蘿蔔糕. My dad makes batches every year and I make sure I get a batch or 2.
As much as I love 蘿蔔糕, I would like to eat it in a different way then just pan frying it. (I don't do the steam option myself but some people like it)

One dish I really like eating is Singapore Style Fried Turnip Cake (星州炒蘿蔔糕)
It's awesome and can be a full meal, although it lacks the veggies you should always eat....

It's actually really easy to make and and great for lunch.

Singapore Style Fried Turnip Cake (星州炒蘿蔔糕)

This makes 1 plate Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients

• Half a boneless Chicken Thigh Meat (cooked or uncooked will add to cooking time), can be replaced by pork if you like pork but I would not recommend Beef as it's a bit too chewy
• 4-6 "squares" of Turnip cakes 
• 1 Green Onion
• 1 Egg
• 1 TSP of Chili Garlic Sauce

Directions

1. Cut up your turnip cake into bite size pieces. I make mine into about 3/4 inch cubes.
2. Heat up a pan to medium heat and toss it in. Add the Chili Garlic Sauce
3. If your turnip cake is not pan fried yet and you like a crispy exterior, start cooking it first.
4. While your cake is slowly cooking, cut up the meat into bite size pieces.
5. If the meat is already cooked and just needs to be reheated, throw it in the cake that are still crisping up
6. If the meat is raw, plate the cake when it's cooked nice and crispy and then cook the meat.
7. Dice your Green onion
8. Scramble your egg and add it in.
9. Add in the green onion when the egg is almost done cooking.
10. Plate the dish when the egg is cooked

Very fast if your meat is already cooked or if your cakes are pre-pan fried :)

Tip: to get nice solid egg pieces, before you add in the egg, dig a whole in the middle of your pan, then pour the egg in there. Give is half a min to start firming up on the underside then mix in the other ingredients with the egg.