Broccoli with Mushroom and Abalone (Optional Sea Cucumber & Fatt Choy)

A luxurious dish; one doesn't just cook this dish on any ordinary day. It is only on special occasions like birthdays or festive seasons like the Chinese New Year that I cook this dish. It is a very simple dish to cook; the process involves braising the mushrooms, sea cucumber and baby abalones (if they are not already ready to serve) and blanching the broccoli.


Ingredients:

• 18 pieces medium sized Shiitake mushrooms
• 1 head of broccoli
• 1 can of ready-to-serve baby abalone (10 pieces)
• For festive season, add
• 1-2 pieces sea cucumber
• Prepare them 5 days in advance by soaking them till they are about 4 times the size of the dried ones and removing the entrails.
• Fatt choy, the amount depends on you.
• Put them into a sieve and run the tap water onto them.
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 tbsp light
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
• 1 tsp white pepper powder
• 1 tbsp cooking oil
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp corn flour plus some water for thickening of sauce.

Method:

• Soak the Shiitake mushrooms for about 3 hours till they are plumped up. Remove the stems.

• Wash and cut the broccoli into florets. Soak them for about 30 minutes.

• Open 1 can of ready-to-serve baby abalones. Separate the abalones from the sauce. Keep the sauce for later use.

• Cut the sea cucumber diagonally about 1 1/2 cm wide.

• Heat up the wok with cooking and sesame oil.

• Saute the garlic till they are fragrant.

• Add the mushrooms and saute the mushrooms till they are fragrant.

• Add the chicken broth and abalone sauce into the wok. Let is boil.

• Add sea cucumber.

• Add the seasonings - light and dark soy sauce, salt and white pepper powder.

• Cover the wok and let the mushrooms and sea cucumber braise in the sauce over very low fire till they are both soft.

• While the mushrooms and sea cucumber are being braised, prepare the broccoli.
• Boil a pot of water and prepare a pot of cold water.
• Add the broccoli florets into the pot of boiling water. Blanch them for about 5-8 minutes.
• Remove the florets and dunk them into the pot of cold water to stop them from cooking further.

• When the mushrooms and sea cucumber have softened, remove them from the sauce.

• Add in the baby abalones to heat up. Remove them immediately once they are hot.

• Add in the fatt choy.

• Let the sauce boil.

• Add the corn flour water to thicken the sauce.

• Arrange the broccoli florets, mushrooms and baby abalones on a serving plate.

• Pour the sauce over them.

• The dish is ready for serving.

No-Knead Bread

The No-knead Bread method of bread baking is one that uses a very long fermentation time, usually ranging from 18-24 hours. As the name suggests there is no kneading involved. The gluten strands that gives the bread its texture is formed from the long, slow rise of the dough at room temperature. Only 4 ingredients - all-purpose or bread flour, salt, yeast and water - are used to make this bread. The ingredients are mixed and let sit for at least 18 hours (although some bakers have let their dough sit for less) and proofed for 2 hours (again, some bakers proof for only 30 minutes) before it is baked in a covered dutch oven for 30 minutes and uncovered for 15 minutes to get the rusty colour. The dough is wet and looks shaggy when mixed. However, we should not add too much flour when handling the dough or else the bread will be dense.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups bread flour
• 1/2 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cup warm water

Method:

• Add all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.

• Stir them up so that they are mixed evenly.

• Add the warm water to the bowl.

• Mix the dry ingredients and warm water up till they form a shaggy dough.

• Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and let the dough sit at room temperature for 18 hrs.

• Flour the counter-top.

• Tip the dough onto it. Add some flour on top of the dough.

• Shape & put it on parchment paper.

• Put the parchment paper with dough into a bowl to hold the shape of the dough.

• Proof for 2 hrs.

• Heat up a dutch oven for 30 min at 230 deg C.

• Transfer parchment paper with dough into the pre-heated dutch oven.

• Bake the dough for 30 minutes with the lid on and a further 10-15 minutes with lid off.

• Let the bread cool down before slicing.

Mini Japanese Pancakes

Japanese Pancakes are good for breakfast or morning and afternoon tea breaks. The difference between these pancakes and the normal ones are in the meringue. For normal pancakes, we just mix all the ingredients and fry. They are round and big but thin. For Japanese Pancakes, the beating of the meringue is important; the egg whites are whipped with sugar which give the pancake its fluffy nature. Vinegar is used to stabilise the meringue to hold its form. Usually Japanese Pancakes are fried using a ring mould. The size of these pancakes are dependent on the size of the ring. The pancakes are soft, fluffy and tall. For my mini pancakes, I have not used the ring mould; instead, I just piped the batter directly onto the non-stick pan.


Ingredients:

• 2 egg yolks (I use Grade B eggs - about 68 g egg with shell.)
• 20 ml or g full cream milk
• 10 ml or g vegetable oil (I use corn oil.)
• 1/4 tsp vanilla essence (Optional.)
• 40 g all-purpose flour
• 3 egg whites (From eggs of about 68 g with shell.)
• 1 tsp vinegar (I use rice vinegar.)
• 50 g castor sugar (You may reduce or add more.)

Method:

• Add the egg yolks into a mixing bowl.

• Add full cream milk into the bowl.

• Add vegetable oil into the bowl.

• Use a whisk to mix the three ingredients till they are well combined.

• Add the vanilla essence. Continue to mix till the vanilla essence is incorporated.

• Sift the flour into the egg yolk mixture.

• Mix till the batter is smooth without any lumps. Set aside.

• Add the egg whites into a dry clean bowl.

• Add vinegar into the bowl.

• Use a hand held mixer to whip the egg whites.

• Once big bubbles are formed, start adding the sugar in three batches, mixing well after each addition.

• Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks.

• Fold the egg whites gently into the egg yolk mixture in 3 batches, taking care not to deflate the meringue.

• Transfer the batter into a piping bag. (You may use the ring mould.)

• Heat up a non-stick pan.

• Wipe some oil onto the pan using a kitchen towel.

• Pipe the batter onto the pan in a circular manner going up vertically till 2.5 to 3 cm high. (I made about 5 pancakes in one pan.)

• Cover the pan.

• Let the pancake cook under very small fire.

• Open the cover after about 3-4 minutes and flip the pancakes to the other side.

• Once the other side is brown, remove the pancake to be cooled on a metal rack.

• You may serve the pancakes with jam or butter if you wish.

Pork Chop with Roasted Vegetables

Usually on normal days I will stew, braise or stir-fry lean pork for my husband and children. Once in a while I will make char siew or roasted pork for them. Sometimes I make a Western meal to give them a change by pan-frying the pork and making a sauce to pour over it. Usually, it will be accompanied by roasted vegetable, mashed potato, soup and homemade baguette. A wholesome meal I think for the family. 

Ingredients:

• 3 pieces of lean pork about 150 - 200 g each (3 servings)
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• Cooking oil
• 6 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• A dollop of butter

• 1 small head of broccoli
• 1 small carrot
• 1 small red capsicum
• 1 small yellow capsicum
• 1 large potato
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil

Method:

• Marinade the pork with light n dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, salt & pepper for at least 3 hrs. The pork would taste even better if it is marinated overnight in the refrigerator.

• Take the pork out from the refrigerator 1 hour before it is to be pan-fried.

• Heat up a pan with cooking oil.

• Add 6 tbsp all-purpose flour into a plate. Add 1 tsp garlic powder into the plate. Mix up the flour and garlic powder.

• Coat pork with flour mixed with garlic powder n pan fry it till cooked. Keep the marinating sauce.

• Wash pan.

• Heat up the pan and put a dollop of butter into pan. Pour the marinating sauce into it. Thicken the sauce with flour. Keep on stirring the sauce until there are no lumps. Pour over pan-fried pork.

• Roasted Vegetable
• Wash and cut up 1 head of broccoli.
• Peel of skin of 1 carrot. Slice it into 0.5-cm slices diagonally.
  
• Wash and cut up 1 small red capsicum.
  
• Wash and cut up 1 small yellow capsicum.
  
• Wash and slice 1 large potato into 1-cm slices.
• Arrange the cut vegetable on a baking tray, with the hard ones (potato and carrot) in the centre.
• Drizzle salt, pepper and olive oil on the vegetable.
• Roast the vegetable at 180 deg Centigrade for a total of 40 minutes.
• After 20 minutes, remove the capsicum and broccoli.
• Remove the carrot and potato after 40 minutes.

• Arrange the pork chop and roasted vegetable on a serving plate.

• The Pork Chop is ready to be served.

Mutton Curry

Goat meat or mutton is considered to be the healthier option among all meats - beef, pork, lamb, turkey and chicken. This is because when it comes to fat, it is leaner than the other meats. It also has far lesser calories. According to the article,"Nutritional Facts About Goat Meat You Should Know" in Times of India, while red meats are high with saturated fat that increases cholesterol level and leads to heart disease, goat meat has very low level of saturated fat and will not harm heart health. Goat meat also has higher level of iron when compared to similar serving size of beef, pork, lamb and chicken. Iron is an important nutrient, a lack of which will lead to anaemia. Goat meat is also packed with protein, another important nutrient for our bodies. Goat meat also contains vitamin B which is known to help in burning body fats and vitamin B12 which helps in getting us healthy skin.

Mutton has a very strong smell and one of the best ways of cooking it is in the curry. The many spices - cinnamon, star anise, cardamon, cloves used in the curry will help to ease the smell of the meat.


Ingredients:

• 750 g mutton (5 people)
• Spices to saute:
• 2 sticks cinnamon
• 3 pcs star anise
• 3 pcs cardamon
• 3 pcs cloves
• Ingredients to blend:
• 2 inch ginger
• 5 pcs shallot
• 7 cloves garlic
• 2 sprig curry leaves
• 3 medium-size tomato, cut into wedges
• 3 medium-size potato, cut into big pieces
• 2 tbsp turmeric powder
• 1 tbsp sweet cumin
• 2 tbsp meat curry powder
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• Salt, to taste
• Cooking oil
• Water

Method:

• Heat wok with 5 tbsp cooking oil.

• Saute spices till fragrant.

• Add blended ingredients & saute.

• Add curry leaves.

• When fragrant add mutton and stir.

• Add turmeric powder, sweet cumin, meat curry powder & chili powder.

• Add enough water to cover mutton.

• Add potato & 1/2 of the tomato.

• Transfer all into pressure cooker to cook till mutton is soft.

• After about 30 minutes, turn off fire & let the pressure be released.

• Open the cover of pressure cooker & add the balance of the tomato.

• Add salt, to taste.

• Cook for about 5 minutes without cover.