I learnt to make these years and years ago. And even though I’ve tried making them with different fillings, I always find myself sticking to this recipe: minced chicken, shredded carrots, light soya sauce, fish sauce, white pepper, minced garlic. Why? Because I never buy water chestnuts to keep in the fridge, and I’m just plain lazy to shell and devein and mince some prawns.
That said, this does not mean that the above recipe is not delicious. Let me tell you for a fact that anything wrapped and fried with a filling inside will taste darn good. What more if you dip them in chilli sauce first. ;p
These wontons were juicy and unlike my family members who like to douse their wontons in chilli sauce, I like mine with sweet thick caramelly soya sauce.
In a bowl, dump all the ingredients and mix well. Wrap filling in ready-made wonton skins. I used the round big kinds and the smaller square ones.You can wrap them like this if using the round wonton skins.Fry till crisp. Serve hot.
Today The Hubby and I are down with fever. Though his broke yesterday night, mine continued. The worse part about my fever is that the temperature will shoot suddenly, and then I’ll automatically pop two Panadol Extra and five minutes later, I’m A-O-K. It’s some sort of crazy virus that refuses to leave my body.
Anyway, since both our throats hurt a lot, I though I’d make herbal chicken soup. I don’t particularly like chicken soup, especially the Malay-style version where they add in ‘rempah sop’ – powdered spices for soup, usually to make soto ayam. But I do like Chinese herbal soups. When the mood strikes. Like today.
So anyway, it’s dead easy to make this soup because the ingredients are packaged at the supermarket. All you have to do is buy and clean a chicken, dump it into a pot with water, pour all the ‘magic’ ingredients into the pot and simmer over a low fire for two hours minimum. I will only eat the dish when the meat has completely disintegrated from the bones and that they are super tender. But don’t forget the salt, or your soup will just taste of plain water (an often enough mishap each time I make soup).
I bought a ready made packet with all the Chinese herbs like wolfberries, and that white stick like thingies. Then, I discovered I had this other packet which contains just the herbal seasoning in a bag, so I used both. I've used plenty of other brands, like those with ginseng in them too.
I had some red dates in the fridge so I decided to add them too. For added sweetness.Picture not clear because of the steam. 😉
If you’re not Chinese and never made or had Herbal Chicken Soup, go try making one, especially when your throat feels as though a hundred thumbtacks are jammed inside. A few years ago, I even made a pot and slow cooked it on my stove for five hours. A great waste of resources but completely worth it. 🙂
I’ve been in a cooking mood the last couple of days. Just yesterday, after coming home from work, I decided to cook Japanese rice. I had three small salmon pieces in the freezer and decided to add that to the rice. Then, I decided to finish the half packet of frozen edamame lying in the refrigerator by adding them to the rice too.
Marinade salmon for a few minutes with soy sauce (I used Habhal's Kicap Masin, not exactly keeping to the Japanese theme but ...oh well)
When cooked, flake into chunks.
While waiting for the salmon to cook, boil edamame and remove them from their pods.
When rice is cooked, mix salmon and edamame into it but be careful not to smash the salmon too much.Serve in small Japanese bowl.For the rice, once it's cooked, add sugared vinegar and mix well. Also, some salt.
Although I only made 21/2 cups of rice, there were plenty of leftovers and I had to keep distributing them to my poor colleagues. 😀
I wanted to serve my Onigiri with some Japanese-inspired protein. Salmon was too expensive so the best bet was chicken. I got chicken fillets and proceeded to the bottled section for some ready made Teriyaki sauce or marinade. Unfortunately, not a single one of them was halal. Many had alcohol listed as the ingredient. I found one Made in Malaysia which did not have anything suspicious in it but as it did not have the halal logo, I felt uncomfortable.
Lucky for me, I had copied a recipe of Teriyaki marinade from all-recipes.com. Of course it had mirin and sake in it, both I omitted (duh) but the outcome was just as good. Oh, I added just a splash of distilled vinegar into the recipe.
Recipe
1. 1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced or pound fine
2. I clove garlic, crushed
3. 3 tbsp sugar
4. 2 cups soya sauce (I used a bit of light and a bit of dark soy)
5. a splash of vinegar
After marinading, place chicken pieces on a roasting tray and top with a slice of leek and then grill in the oven till done. Once chicken is done, spoon the drippings over the chicken and serve. Yummy! 🙂
I trawled the internet for this recipe and they all read the same thing: rice, seaweed. So I made them exactly as I read them. Unfortunately, without any seasoning, the rice was very bland but I think Onigiri is meant to be just that- plain rice that has just been formed into balls.
I made three cups of rice (because that’s how much my rice cooker can accommodate) and then cooled it. Once cool enough to handle, but still warm, I wet my hands with salt water and formed them into a round shape, made an indentation, filled the dent with tuna and then rolled it again to form a triangle. Ah, the trickiest bit of it all. Forming them into triangles! I mean, how, how, how? I tried and tried but it always turned out lopsided or at most a very deformed triangle. LOL. So, in the end, most I made into round balls.
My NTUC does not have a good selection of Japanese products so I couldn’t get black sesame seeds. I’m going to make my own variation of Onigiri next time using seasoned rice and bonito flakes, sesame seeds and Japanese chilli flakes.
Onigiri - with a leek at the side.Onigiri served with tempura vegetables (Jap sweet potato, oyster mushroom, eggplant) and teriyaki chicken with leek.
The Occasional Cook 