Steamed Minced Meat and Egg

In need of a quick small filler dish? This is an easy way to get an extra dish in with almost no effort at all.
This is almost like the egg custard dish but with meat so it honestly doesn't look as smooth since the meat underneath will affect how the egg on top looks.

I normally cook this with pork, but it can be done with chicken as well.
If the meat is too lean, it will be dry and tough. So it's good to go with a medium fat meat which is why pork is so good to use.
If using chicken, I would only use dark meat.

You can make this any size you want. This is perfect for steaming in your rice cooker when you're cooking rice if your plate fits.

Steamed Minced Meat and Egg

Ingredients

• 300g Minced Pork/chicken
• 5 Eggs
• 5 Egg Shells of Water
• Soy Sauce
• Sugar

Directions

1. Mix the chicken with the soy sauce and sugar.
2. Pour the meat into the bottom of the steaming plate and flatten.
   
3. In a small bowl, mix together 5 eggs with 5 egg shells full of water so it's a 1 to 1 ratio. When I crack the egg, I save half and use that as my measuring cup and add 10 of those egg shell of water. Almost the same ratio as egg custard but a little less water because meat juice will flow out as you cook!
4. If you want the top to be smoother, run the egg through a sieve. Can't have bubbles if you want that very smooth surface. If you really don't care, just gently pour on top of your meat.
   
5. Wrap the dish with cling wrap.
6. Pop it on top of your steaming device and bring water to a boil. Lower the heat to a gentle boil for 10 to 15 mins depending on how big your plate is. If it's in the rice cooker it'll be a little bit more cooked then it needs to be but it's definitely the easier way to cook this dish.
   
7. And you're done. Feel free to garnish with chopped green onion and a little bit of fish soy sauce.

Butternut squash roast chicken in La Cloche

One thing I like about winter is the winter veggies. Butternut squash is probably one of my favourite

For an easy to make dinner, I decided to roast my chicken with the squash in the La Cloche.
It only takes about an hour to an hour and 15 mins depending on the size of your chicken. It allows you time to do other things while it's baking and you get a nice and moist chicken when it's all said and done.
Simple and delicious. 

Ingredients

• 1 Whole chicken
• 1-2 Tbsp Minced Garlic
• 1 tsp Oregano
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 butternut squash
• 1 1/2 tsp Olive oil

Directions 

1. Preheat the oven to 375 Degrees F.
2. Wash the chicken
3. Put 1/2 tbsp of garlic, 1/2 tsp of oregano and 1/2 tsp olive oil on your hand and rub it in-between the skin and the breast meat under the chicken if you're able reach in without breaking
   
   skin. This is similar to what I do to turkey but the chicken skin is much more delicate so I try to be more careful.
4. Salt and pepper the entire chicken and rub 1/2 tbsp garlic and 1/2 tsp oregano over the skin of the chicken.
5. Set it in the la cloche
6. Take the butternut squash and peel it with a peeler.
7. Cut it in half and scoop out the seeds and stingy inside with a spoon.
8. Cut it down to strips about 3/4 inch thick
9. Toss the squash with the rest of the garlic 1 tsp of olive oil and salt and pepper.
10. Put the squash around the chicken. I even put a couple of slices on top of the chicken breast.
11. Cook with the la cloche covered for 45-55 mins depending on your bird size
12. Take off the lid and let it cook for an other 15 mins for color.

Then you're done :)

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.

Curried Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Fall is time for pumpkins and all the wonderful winter squashes. I love pumpkin soup. It's yummy on it's own or as a soup base for noodles. If you want to use it with noodles, try cooking frozen Udon noodles in with the soup. 

The first time I made pumpkin soup, I just cut it up, peeled, boiled and blended it. The roasting method takes a little longer but I find it's less work overall because peeling can be a pain. It also adds another flavour to the soup because it's now roasted.

This recipe will make everything from scratch including the soup base! You can replace the soup base with instant broth if you already have it available.

Curried Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

• 1 Medium size pumpkin
• 2 onions
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• 1 chicken shell
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp garam masala
• pinch of nut meg
• Sprinkle of Savory powder
• Sprinkle of cinnamon powder
• 2-3 L water
• Salt to taste

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
   
2. Cut the pumpkin in half and use a spoon to the scrap of the insides. (save seeds to roast for pumpkin seed snack)
3. Cut the pumpkin into smaller pieces and line them into baking trays. If there's an empty space, add the onions as well. There's no need to cut up the onion.
4. Add a bit of water to the trays and then put it into the preheated oven to bake. Baking process should take 30 min to an hour depending on your oven, size of your pumpkin etc.
5. While the pumpkin is baking, get your soup base ready. Start with 2L of water in a pot and bring it to a boil.
6. Add the chicken shell to the water along with the bay leaves and let it simmer for the entire time you bake the pumpkin. Add more water as necessary. 
7. You can poke the pumpkin with a fork to test it's readiness. Once it's soft it's ready for blending.
   
8. If you have a blender that can withstand heat, use a spoon and scrape the pumpkin meat right into the blender. Add a little bit of the chicken stock to help it blend.
   If you do not have a blender that can withstand heat, scoop all the pumpkin meat into a big bowl to let it cool. Blend after it's cooled.
9. Once you're done blending the pumpkin, blend the onion with the garlic as well using the same method.
10. Remove the chicken shell from the stock and add the pumpkin and onion puree into the pot with the chicken stock.
11. Add the cumin, garam masala and nut meg and sprinkle savory and cinnamon powder. Let the mixture simmer for 5-10 mins for the flavours to combine together.
12. Taste and add as much salt as you want to bring out the flavours.

Yummy on it's own or as a soup base for Udon noodles!!!

Enjoy!

5 Spice Chicken Congee

I had chicken that was over marinated because we left it marinated for way too long. So what to do with a salty chicken? Make congee with it :)
Turned out it was a pretty awesome mistake. It made a weeks worth of breakfast and some lunches since you can reheat it in the microwave in the mornings.

5 Spice Chicken Congee

Time: 60 mins Makes: 1 big pot of Congee

Ingredients

• 1 Cornish Hen or 1 Small Chicken (depends on how much meat you want)
• 1 muk or 1.5 muks of rice (frozen over night)
• 1/2 tsp or 1.5 tsp salt (pending on which bird you picked)
• 1/2 tsp or 1.5 tsp 5 spice powder (pending on which bird you picked)
• 1 green onion
• 1 cm block of ginger
• 1.5 - 3L of water

Directions

1. Wash your Cornish hen or chicken. Dry and then rub the chicken with the salt and 5 spice powder. Let it sit for 30 minutes to marinate or leave overnight in fridge if you desire.
2. Start off with 1.5L of water and bring to a boil.
3. Wash the green onion and ginger. Cut the green onion into smaller pieces and put both green onion and ginger into the water.
4. Add the rice
5. Once the water is back up to a boil, add the hen. The amount of time it makes Congee is about the amount of time required to cook a chicken so it's safe to add at the same time.
6.  Monitor the thickness of the congee and add more water as required. You'll probably want to increase it by at least 0.5L if you want to leave it unmonitored. 
7. Let it simmer at medium-low heat for half an hour until everything cooks through.
8. Once it's cooked, take 2 forks and shred the meat into the congee.

Serve hot. Great for breakfast or brunch. 

Pesto Chicken Baked in La Cloche

I've been having a lot of fun with the la cloche. I found that baking chicken in the la cloche actually helped keep the chicken moist.

I had left over pesto sauce that we made an other day so I decided to use it on the chicken.
I rubbed the sauce in-between the chicken breast and the skin so it would get to the meat directly.
It's my favourite thing to do when baking a turkey and I'm glad it also works for a chicken.

Pesto Chicken Baked in La Cloche

Makes 1 Chicken, Prep time: 15 mins Cook Time: 40-60mins

Ingredients

• 1 Whole Chicken, washed and dried
• 3 carrots
• 3 sticks of celery
• 1 Onion, quartered and 1 quart cut into 1/8
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• Salt and peper
• 1 Tbsp Pesto sauce

Directions

1. Preheat the over to 375 F.
2. Wash and cut all the veggies
3. Placed the washed and dried chicken onto the la cloche dish.
4. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and rubbed it in.
5. Use your hand to separate the skin from the breast meat of the chicken. The middle part to separate the 2 halves of the breast will stay but that's ok.
6. Use your hands and rub the pesto sauce on the breast meat under the skin. This will help marinate the meat directly
7. Put a quarter of the onion and half the garlic in the tummy of the chicken.
8. Rub the rest of the garlic along with left over pesto sauce onto rest of the chicken (the legs, wings and back)
9. Sprinkle the veggies around the chicken.
10. Put it in the oven with the lid on top.
11. For a 1.4kg Chicken, I cooked it for 40 mins covered                                                                               and 15 mins uncovered.

Enjoy

Cooking Class in Chiang Mai - Thailand

I was recently in Thailand for my honeymoon and when we went to Chiang Mai we decided to do a cooking class to learn how to cook Thai food.
Many places have these types of cooking classes for tourist when you travel. Sometimes it's just about how luck you get when you get to the place to see if there's time and room for you to take a lesson.

We were lucky that there were many classes to pick from in Chiang Mai so we found one that was able to work into our schedule.
We joined a one day course at the Thai Kitchen Centre.
The course included a market tour in the morning where they take you to the market and introduce you to the different ingredients.
And then after the market tour you go back to the kitchen and start cooking your 4 courses.
We got to make an appetizer, a soup, a curry paste that you will use in a curry, a stir fry dish and a dessert.


If you go in a group, you don't have to all pick the same dishes, you pick the dishes you want to learn and they will split you up into groups to go to different stations and learn the different dish.
Between me and my husband, we made 8 different dishes that day and we shared the food with other people at our table so we got to sample all the dishes they were teaching during the course.
My husband made:

Glass Noodles Salad (left)

Thai Herb Soup (right)

Pad Thai

Green Curry Paste for the Curry (Below)

And for dessert - Black Sticky Rice Pudding.

I made

Chicken Satay (left)

Chicken in Coconut Milk Soup

Red Curry Paste for my Red Curry with Chicken (right top bowl)

Chicken with Basil Leaves (right bottom dish)

And for dessert - Sticky Rice with Mango.

We had a lot of fun, I really appreciate the cookbook as I don't remember much anymore. It's a pity that some of the recipes we learned that day isn't exactly the same as the cookbook. sometimes the instructor will teach you their style so you can compare it with the book. I'm still trying to hunt down the sauce for the spring rolls they taught in class because it's different from the one in the book and it was amazing.

One challenge I'll definitely have is finding the ingredients here in Canada to make all the food. I can find most of it, but some of it just isn't the same. So I'll be doing some experiments at home as soon as we are not sick of curry anymore and we get a pastel and mortar so we can make the curry paste.

I'll post as soon as we're successful :)

Cheers

 (PS this is a Butterfly Pea drink. I didn't really taste much flavour, it was a bit sweet, but it was very cool to see it change colors from blue to purple wen you add in lime juice!)

Fuzzy Melon and Chicken

Fuzzy melons are awesome in taste and texture.
It also absorbs flavour so when you cook it with meats, it becomes very flavourful.

This is a very simple dish. The melon takes time to soften when cooking but length of time depends how soft you like the melons.
The melons are cooked as soon as it's translucent.
I personally like them a bit softer so I cook it a bit longer.

This is the base recipe for you to scale if you need to cook more.

Fuzzy Melon and Chicken

Makes 1 Plate Prep Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 10-20 mins

Ingredients

• 1 small fuzzy melon (just 1 of the melons in the picture on the left)
• 200g chicken
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• ~3/4 cup of water, use as necessary
• Optional handful of "Bean Thread Noodle", usually the bag says rice noodle but it's not vermicelli. Chinese character for it is 粉絲 and it's very different from vermicelli which is 米粉

Directions

1. Cut the chicken into bite size pieces and add in the soy sauce and and sugar and mix.
2. Use the blunt side of a small knife to scrape off the skin of the melon.
3. Rinse the melon and cut into strips (refer to picture on the left). Cooking time will depend on how big you cut the melon.
4. Add a bit of oil to a heated pot and add the garlic.
5. Cook the chicken until 70% and then scoop out the chicken into the bowl or plate you will be serving with. Leave behind any liquid left from cooking the chicken. This will be flavour for the melon.
6. Add the melon into the pot. Add a little bit of water and cover the pot to cook.
7. Stir every so often and add more water as necessary to make sure you do not burn the pot or melon.
8. Cook the melon until it's translucent. Can take anywhere from 10-20 minutes depending on how big you cut the pieces and how much water you're using.
9. If you are cooking noodles, add the noodles when the melons are translucent. Add more water if necessary, really depends on what type of noodles you're using.
10. Add the Meat as well to finish cooking. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes.

Done :)

Note: If you don't have 粉絲 on hand, you can always use potato starch noodle as well.

Pesto Chicken Beer Crust Pizza

At my parent's house we cook Chinese food every weekday. Since we have all the Chinese seasoning on hand, cooking Chinese food is the easy way out. On weekends my brother and I like to mix things up sometimes if we're not feeling lazy. Pizza surprisingly can be quite labour intensive depending on what type of ingredients you use.

If you use things like pepperoni, already cooked meats, pre-sliced veggie and shredded cheese, then it's super easy.

For this Pizza, I used homemade beer crust dough and Pesto sauce.

I'll eventually write separate posts for those items.

Pesto Chicken Beer Crust Pizza

Makes 1-12 inch pizza, Prep Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 20 - 40 mins

Ingredients

• 300-500g Pizza Dough (Depends on crust thickness and size of pan)
• 1 Chicken thigh meat (sliced and cooked)
• half an onion sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 Tbsp Pesto Sauce (a little more doesn't hurt)
• 200g Mozzarella

Directions

1. If you're making your own pizza dough, make it and let it sit for 30 mins while you prep the rest of your ingredients.
2. While the dough is sitting, slice up the onions and dice up the garlic. Cook in a little bit of oil in a pan on medium heat to slowly caramelize the onion. Doesn't have to be fully caramelize when you use it for this pizza.
3. Cut the chicken meat into small bite size piece. Add to the pan and cook the meat
4. Let your toppings cool
5. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (or to the max heat your pan allows, I like 400 as it makes my crust nice and crunchy)
6. Grate your mozzarella
7. Roll our your pizza to your prefer thickness. The one in the picture above was cracker like because I like my super thin crust pizza.
8. Spread the pesto on the dough. Since this is pesto, cover even the the edges, your crust will taste awesome.
9. Spread a thin layer of cheese
10. Add the chicken, onion and garlic topping.
11. Add the rest of the cheese
12. Bake until the crust is brown and the cheese is all melted. Depending on thickness of your dough, can take anywhere from 20 mins to 45 hour. So keep an eye on it.

Not too complicated. :)