When cooking for children, you can’t run away from making clear soups. I don’t mind because I love soups anyway. Nobody loves soup more than The Little Girl. So one day, when I had the time to cook a full but simple lunch, I decided to make fishball soup. But I also had silken tofu and then because I was feeling a bit extravagant, dropped in two eggs too. The result? A yummilicious hearty soup made the Asian way (read, economical).
Recipe
1. In a pot, add in some oil. Add a sliced onion, some minced garlic and a bit of ikan bilis.
2. After onions have softened, add water to desired level.
3. Season with salt (plenty of it) and white pepper.
4. Add in fishballs.
5. Followed by silken tofu.
6. And then lastly, gently drop in eggs.
7. Check seasoning. If not cooking for children, I would add a few slices of red chillies.
Yesterday for lunch, I made roti jala. I called Mummy for the recipe and prepared the batter. For those who do not know, Roti Jala or Roti Kirai is a crepe batter like pancake. It’s really time consuming to make. My batter turned out fine if not a little bland (yes, again) but it’s a real pain to get the batter through the holes of the roti jala mould. Mummy says the copper based ones are better. I may get one just so that I can try making it again.
Luckily for me, Mummy popped by at the right moment. She helped make a few roti jalas and then surreptitiously disappeared, leaving me and The Domestic Helper to finish the job.
This is how you make Roti Jala.
Thin Batter: 1kg of plain flour, water, a little bit of carnation milk, two eggs and salt. Plus a few drops of yellow colouring.
The Domestic Helper remembered Mummy blended the mixture to make it even smoother so she blended it. It helped a little bit.
Pour the batter into the mould and then swirl it around in the hot pan like a net.
Close up view of the netted batter in the pan.
Use ghee or regular (and much healthier) oil to dab the roti jala while it is cooking. Take a few strands of pandan leaves to baste.
Put two roti jalas together and then fold it in half and then into a neat triangle. Or diamond.
Fold right side and then fold the left side to look like this.Repeat process until batter is all used up.Close up view.Best eaten with chicken curry and a side of salad.Lovely salad made up of crisp baby romaine, large thick slices of juicy tomatoes, creamy boiled eggs and fragrant coriander leaves topped with tangy chilli sauce and ketchup.
I’ll never forget the story of how a close friend, during our Secondary 1 or 2 School Carnival, brought her tub of bright orange batter. The Malay girls from 2/3 (or was it 1/3?) had to come up with a halal food stall for the carnival and we all agreed that each of us bring a tub of roti jala batter to cook on the spot and serve it with chicken curry. I can’t remember whether we all contributed a pot of chicken curry or a kind classmate’s mother donated a whole big pot of it. What we remember clearly to this day was dear W_ bright orange batter. She was teased mercilessly the whole day. But it was great fun. They don’t make funfairs like back then anymore. 😀
Frankly, it’s easier to just buy roti jala but I always feel cheated. They only give two or three roti jalas and furthermore, there aren’t many places selling them here.
I made this fried rice and served it together with my steamboat to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. It’s my own recipe after trying a ginger fried rice at Johnny’s, a steamboat joint Last Aunt brought The Hubby and I when we visited them in KL some six years ago. It was rather bland as again, I didn’t add enough salt. I tasted though, but to me it tasted fine but of course, it wasn’t to the guests. But they didn’t mind because I also served an assortment of chilli sauces that day. I really have a problem with salt.
In oil fry a copious amount of blended garlic and ginger.Once aromatic paste is cooked, add in diced chicken breast.Stir in finely sliced French Beans.Before stirring in the rice, crack in three beaten eggs. Add lots of ground ginger (powder, Mcormick), salt and white pepper. Ginger Fried RiceThe Rice in the Wok
On Saturday, I decided to have a get together with my family for a steamboat lunch. I had seen an episode (actually many episodes of it) of Kylie Kwang’s Cooking with Heart and Soul’s Steamboat Recipe. During the Chinese New Year period, I bought an electric steamboat at Giant, together with the many hundreds of Chinese families who were busy buying their ingredients and carrying the same electric steamboat as me. I even remember the pleasant small talk with the couple right in front of me at the check-out counter. They were so pleased I was buying one, thinking that I too would be celebrating the New Year and proceeded to tell me the merits of eating steamboat.
Anyway, I searched the internet and found Kylie’s recipe here. I followed her recipe, omitting all those that called for Shaoxing wine, and some Australian concoction called ‘Chinese BBQ sauce’.
The little steamboat party was a success! The only problem was, I felt sick at the end of the day. I’m not much of a seafood person so by dinner time, eating the same thing again, made me feel rather queasy. I understand now why my Chinese friends only do this elaborate steamboat thing once a year. And this year will be the last year I’ll ask students to write in their journals of their New Year Celebrations. I won’t be salivating at the mention of steaming broth and tons of raw seafood and meat for a long long time.
Prepare the broth by boiling lemongrass, garlic cloves, spring onions and sliced ginger for an hour before transferring into the electric steamboat when the guests arrive.
Some of my many many ingredients for the steamboat.
Boiling choice ingredients in the broth
Lots and lots of green leafy vegetables
I think I overkilled the whole dish. There was an overabundance of food, and my colleagues told me I should never have followed Kylie’s recipe. They would always serve steamboat un-marinated and with plain rice. But no, I made ginger fried rice. And I baked chicken wings Chinese-style. Here’s a list of the food I served that day.
1. Ginger Fried Basmati Rice
2. Chinese-Style Baked Chicken Wings
3. Steamboat
a) boiled quail eggs
b) tofu
c) taupok
d) Shitake mushrooms
e) A huge plate of green leafy vegetables (Bai Cai)
f) Squid (marinated in de-seeded red chilli, oil and sugar and salt)
g) Cod Fish Slices (marinated in chopped coriander stems, oil, sugar, fish sauce)
h) Shabu-Shabu Beef (marinated in szechuan peppercorns and salt)
i) prawns
j) mussels
k) baby corn
l) fried ngoh hiang and some other tofu-like with filling thing (from NTUC)
m) fishballs
n) roasted sliced duck breast (frozen, from NTUC)
It was fun nonetheless and I wish Last Aunt and her brood could be here with us. Next time then. (But not steamboat)
Rather than continue to be fuming mad at 4 graduating class students who didn’t hand in their class work, posting one more of my culinary experiences will make me remember that there is no point in getting angry with students. Life goes on, and I hope after posting this, I’d have a restful sleep and hope to have a pleasant day tomorrow.
Fried noodles is a very simple all-in-one meal which a lot of Malay families whip up when guests come knocking on the door. It’s quick to cook and tasty. You can also find this in many Malay stalls, especially the school canteen. I mean, all Singapore school canteens will have a Malay stall selling mee goreng every single day. Sigh. But it always tastes better when you cook it yourself. This way, you can add all your favourite ingredients into the dish.
Fry chilli paste (blended onions, garlic and dried chillies) in oil till cooked. Add meat (chicken, sliced beef, prawns, squid). That day, I only used sliced beef courtesy of Mum.
When meat of choice is cooked, add fresh yellow noodles and chye sim.
Add tomatoes last. Before adding in the chye sim, season the noodles with tomato ketchup and a teeny weeny bit of soya sauce.
Eat with lots of kalamansi lime juice, freshly squeezed.
One may think it’s such a simple dish to make that it doesn’t even warrant a place here but this blog is also meant for my daughter when she grows up. And I’ve tried cooking this before and have failed rather miserably. Here are my tips for cooking the perfect mee goreng:
#1 DO NOT add salt. Yellow noodles are already salty so adding more salt will just make the dish, well, more salty. Furthermore, the ketchup added will add enough flavour to the noodles.
#2 If cooking for the first time, do not add eggs. Reason being that the noodles might dry up very fast since you are not experienced enough to work quickly with the eggs. When adding that one egg, the trick is to crack one in before adding in the noodles and let it cook first. Do not break the eggs into tiny particles. It can get too messy.
#3 If the noodle dish seem dry and you really want a ‘wetter’ dish, DO NOT in any circumstances add water. I have added water before thinking it will save my dish from being dry but all it did was make my noodles soggy and awful.
#4 Do not add too much soya sauce. Too much and your noodles will turn blackish.
Shasha's Mee Goreng
And while I was cooking this dish, I had completely forgotten about the baby. I knew he was somewhere in the kitchen but when I turned around after my dish was near done, I saw him…
More mess to clean up.
For how to cook fried noodles bee hoon style, click here.
The Occasional Cook 