~ seeking peace spice by spice by spice
I made this for breakfast for the girls the other day. I used ready made crepe. I spread Hoisin sauce over the crepe, but then afterwards I realised that I should have used plum sauce. I did have plum sauce in the fridge. I love this.
The Little Girl has been craving for laksa. She just loves laksa and so do I but I’ve got absolutely no idea how to make it. The Malay style laksa which looks the same as the Singapore one uses fish. Well. I decided to cop out and do the Singapore style Chinese version which doesn’t use fish at all in its gravy.
At my favourite (actually, not favourite but more like convenient) NTUC, I called my mom and asked her what goes into the paste. Oh, the usual, she replied. Onions, garlic, lots of dried shrimp,… Simple enough. I grabbed the ingredients I needed and then when I wanted to buy the tau pok (fried/dried tofu) I noticed this…
Well, well. I grabbed that packet.
Back home in the kitchen, I made the paste. In a blender, I added onions, garlic, a bit of belacan, dried shrimp, bunga kantan (ginger torch flower), lemongrass, fresh turmeric. And blended all of them with a bit of water to form a paste.
After which, I fried the paste in oil till the oil separates from the paste, added coconut milk and water. Then, I added in the ready made paste. I added fishballs, tau pok, and a bit of daun kesom (laksa leaves) and then, voila! My first attempt at making laksa.
I love dumplings. The gyoza or pan-fried version. It is, however, not easy to execute. I’ve watched how it is done on TV and on Youtube plenty of times but it never turned out great. This is my second attempt and though better than my first attempt, still has loads of room for improvement.
For the filling, I mixed minced beef with a bit of water and hoi sin sauce and sesame oil. For the dumpling skins, I used ready made Swatow skins from NTUC. The next time I make these gyozas, I will make my own skin so that it would be better and more refined. This ready made method, though lacking in finesse, is still delicious and cheaper than eating gyozas from the coffeeshop.
I seem to have some sort of memory loss. I though I posted this already but it seems I haven’t. Oh well. I wanted to post about this Thai Green Curry. I like Green Curry. It’s rich and flavourful. I got the recipe from the internet after my friend told me that she had cooked a successful green chicken curry from a recipe off the web. I thought I’d give it a go and whaddya know? It turned out delicious. The only problem was that my chicken was tough. First time ever. I didn’t boil the chicken long enough. But seriously, this is so simple yet delicious to make that there really is no point paying so much from a Thai restaurant when you can do it yourself at home cheaply.
After I made this, I think buying agedashi tofu now is pretty ridiculous because this dish is ridiculously easy to make.
For the tofus, simply fry soft tofu! Just coat the tofu squares with corn flour. I used a mixture of corn flour and rice flour. Dust the squares of soft tofu just before you want to plop them in the hot oil. I realised that when I did the coating early and saw that while I was waiting for the oil to get hot, the tofu disintegrated. It got stuck tot he metal bowl and somehow sitting in the corn flour mixture made them go soft. Luckily for me, I managed to salvage whatever I had.
The sauce is just dashi stock, soy sauce, sugar. Well, the original recipe also calls for sake and mirin. Even omitting the alcohol resulted in a yummy sauce.
And then, add the two together and you get agedashi tofu!
The Occasional Cook 