Minced Meat Noodle 2

I was experimenting DouBanJiang (Chinese bean Paste) in this minced meat noodle dish.  If you have a DouBanJiang in your fridge, did you buy the spicy one or plain one?  I saw two versions and decided on trying the plain one first because I was afraid the spicy one would be too spicy for my girls.  To spice it up, I can always add chili oil or chili paste in my bowl.

I learned this presentation from Chef Chen Kenichi as this was how he served his minced noodle in his cookbook, cool huh?  I seem to only pile it in the middle but this was a great idea from him.

I'm sharing this noodle with Presto Pasta Nights, an event created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast.  This week host is Ruth herself! Check out her delicious round up on July, 2nd! 

Ingredients:

1/2 lb ground pork

1/2 carrot, minced

Some Nai Pak or Bok Choy, minced

1 small bag of Enoki mushroom, minced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 Tbsp. Chinese rice wine (white)

1 heap Tbsp. DouBanJiang (Chinese bean paste)

1 Tbsp. hoisin sauce

Salt to taste

A little sugar

2 cups of water

Thickener:  (cornstarch + water) or (potato starch + water) equal amount

I bag of dried egg noodle, cook as package direction, rinsed in cold water.  Mix in with some soy sauce and a little sesame oil, mix to blend well, set aside.

Method:

1.  Cooked noodle as directed above.

2.  Heat a large skillet, when heated, add in oil.  Then, add in ground pork and stir-fry until pork is no longer pink.  Add in garlic and carrot and stir-fry well.  Then, add in veggie and stir-fry well.

3.  Add in Doubanjiang, hoisin sauce and stir-fry well.  Add in rice wine to deglaze the pan.  Add in water, stir well.

4.  When boiling, season to taste with salt and a little sugar.  Add some soy sauce if needed.  Add thickener and stir until thicken.  

5.  Lay some seasoned noodle in a bowl.  Top with minced meat sauce on the side or on top of the noodle.  Stir well and enjoy!  Of course, you can add minced scallion and crispy fried shallots and enjoy with bird eye chili (chili padi) as condiment.

Easy Baked Tilapia Fillets

This baked fish is super easy even for busy working mom or stay at home mom.  Total time in preparation and cooking is less than 20 minutes.  It looks like it has crusted top, but it has not, all it has on top is just spices and salt.

I used Italian herbs seasoning because I couldn't use Teriyaki sauce or Chinese seasoning in this as it needed to be paired with my macaroni pasta.  You can say it was a western dinner night.  :)

Ingredients:

Fish fillets of your choice, washed (I used Tilapia here)

Sea salt grinder to taste

Italian herbs seasoning grinder

Extra virgin olive oil or spray

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 450'F.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

2.  Place the fish fillet on the baking sheet.  Spray it with cooking spray or drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on top and coat the fish.

3.  Grind some Italian herbs seasoning all over the top of the fish fillet.  Lastly, grind some sea salt on top.  Just the top layer would do, if not it might be too salty.

4.  Place in preheated oven and bake for 10-13 minutes or until the fish is cooked through.  Serve hot and enjoy!

Peanut Butter Banana Cupcakes with Junior Mints

I had relatives coming over to my house and I wanted to bake something for breakfast.  I really liked my peanut butter banana cake so why not?  I made it into cupcakes because it was easier to consume and I had the idea of using the Junior Mints as decoration on top.  What do you think?  Cute or not?  Since we would be leaving to Yellowstone National Park the next day, cupcake was an excellent idea for traveling.  I just put the leftover in a ziplock bag and we could eat it in the car.  They liked it and my girls would choose to eat this instead of croissant.

The recipe can be found at my post Peanut Butter Banana Cake.  Just instead of using a square pan, you lined the cupcakes pan with cupcakes paper and fill it 2/3 full and decorate the middle with a Junior Mint.  Bake in the same temperature but for only 20 minutes.  Let it cool completely before storing.

Watermelon Soup

Do you know all part of watermelon can be consumed?  I know the white part of the watermelon can be used to boil soup and the soup is actually healthy for us.  Watermelon is a cooling food so this soup is best to consume during the hot summer days, especially good to relieves heatiness.  This soup is sweet on its' own and you only need to season it with a little salt to bring out the overall flavor.  I saw the Chinese used the white part of the watermelon in boiling soup from the Chinese's cooking show and was really intriguing.  So, when I cut the watermelon, I saved the white part to try it myself.  I discard the green skin but I read that some people use it to make salad.  I saved it in portions in ziplock bags and freeze it for later use.  Just defroze it a day before in the refrigerator. 

This soup is really delicious, very sweet and has the cooling effect.  Watermelon is in season during summer days so what a great way to utilize most part of the watermelon eh?  It is similar to the sweet soup came from fruit such as apple or snow pears.  Since this soup is very cooling, it is not advisable for pregnant women to consume.

Ingredient:

1600ml water

1 chicken drumstick

2 pieces of pork bones with some meat (from pork chops or ribs)

2 Chinese dried honey dates

1 and 1/2 carrots, cut into big chunk

Watermelon white part, from 1/4 of the watermelon or about I big bowl (the white part in the middle of the green skin and red flesh)

Salt to taste ( about 1/2 tsp.)

Method:

1.  In a pot, add in water and let it boil.  When boiling, add in pork bones, scoop out anything that float on top.  

2.  Add in drumstick, honey dates and carrots, turn the heat to low and let it simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours or until the pork meat is tender.

3.  Lastly, add in watermelon and let it simmer for 20 minutes.  Season to taste with a little salt.  The soup will be very sweet on its' own, add a little salt to bring out the full flavor.

Stir Fried Macaroni with Broccoli and Tuna

This meal was created when I took out the fish fillet to defroze in the refrigerator and ended out too lazy to do a Chinese stir-fry dinner for the night.  I loved baked fish because it was easier and healthier.  The baked fish above was really easy which I will provide the recipe in a later post.  Since I was not cooking rice, I had to come out with a dish to complement my American style baked fish .  I came out with stir-fried macaroni pasta and added broccoli and tuna in canned.  I did a similar pasta dish before but with a different pasta.  This pasta dish alone was healthy because it had broccoli, tuna and extra virgin olive oil. 

Have you tried turkey bacon before?  I tried it at Denny's when I ordered my healthy breakfast (egg white scrambles, turkey bacon and chicken patty).   I was hooked since then because it was really crispy and good and less fat than the original bacon.  I would recommend you to cook the bacon in a convection microwave oven if you have one, it was really crispy and most of the oil oozes out during the cooking process.

I'm sharing this noodle with Presto Pasta Nights, an event created by Ruth from Once Upon a Feast.  This week host is The Sweet Kitchen. Check out her delicious round up on June, 18th!

Ingredients:

Macaroni, enough for 4 persons, cooked as package direction and set aside

2 cups broccoli, cut into small pieces

2 cans of tuna in oil, drained

4 cloves of garlic, minced

Lemon juice, fresh or bottle

Black peppers

Chicken stock or 1 tsp. chicken stock granules

White wine

Salt to taste

1 tsp. sugar

Extra virgin olive oil

Optional:  microwave crispy turkey bacon to garnish before serving.

Method:

1.  In a saute pan, add in some olive oil, then garlic.  Fry a little, add in broccoli, stir-fry until broccoli is cooked.

2.  Add in white wine and chicken stock if used.  Add in macaroni and stir well.  Add in tuna and mix well.

3.  Season to taste with salt, sugar, pepper, and chicken stock granules (if used).  Lastly, drizzle with a little lemon juice, stir to mix well.

4.  Serve with crispy turkey bacon on top.  You can add a side dish if you like.

Chinese Water Chestnut Cake

My friend gave me three packets of water chestnut flour recently.  I wanted to try this Chinese water chestnut cake for a long time and finally I got my chance.  The above is my Chinese water chestnut cake without the bits of chestnuts.  I didn't have the water chestnuts but decided to make it anyway.  It turned out pretty good I think, tasted like cold jelly straight from the refrigerator.  I will certainly play with this recipe in the future because I saw others people water chestnut cake in yellow color instead of white.

This cake is actually served during Chinese Lunar New Year by Chinese, depended on where they are located.  I don't think we Malaysian eat this during Chinese New Year.  I pan-fried this with the equal mixture of flour: rice flour.  The batter was really crispy!

 

This recipe is graciously shared by Florence.  I changed it a little bit.

Ingredients:

250g water chestnut flour (馬碲粉)

500ml water
600g fresh water chestnut (I omitted this)
750ml water
300g - 400g rock sugar/golden rock sugar (I used 400g)

Method:
1. Wash fresh water chestnut thoroughly and cut or crush them into your desired size. (I omitted this step)
2. Mix water chestnut flour with 500ml water and strain for use later.
3. Cook rock sugar with 750ml water till sugar dissolve. Add in the crushed chestnut pieces.
4. Pour water chestnut mixture into rock sugar solution and keep stirring until thicken. (Keep stirring until it turned transparent and gluey)
5. Pour the thicken chestnut mixture into a well greased 8 inch pan.
6. Steam on high heat for 30 minutes.

Note:  You have to let it cool in room temperature and then let it set in the refrigerator.  It will harden and turned jelly like after that.

Stir Fried Pork with Long Beans

This dish was created with something I had in a restaurant here.  They stir-fried it with a kind of Chinese preserved vegetable (usually come in small packet selling for few cents each and slightly spicy, gosh what does it called!).  Anyway, I omitted here because I hardly buy Chinese preserved vegetable.   I read that it is best to eat less of the preserved food, more so if it is from China.  I even stay away from the salted fish and used only dried anchovies as substitute.  The motto for me is "If I don't buy, then I don't have to cook with it, thus we don't have to eat it", with this motto, we certainly eat less of the preserved and salted food.  It is hard to resist from not buying all the times, so once in a blue moon, I gave in.  Do you all stay away from certain unhealthy food? 

Ingredients:

A bunch of long beans, washed and cut into 2 inches

2 pork chops, thinly sliced and marinated with Chinese wine, soy sauce, white pepper and cornstarch

Chinese preserved vegetable (optional)

3 cloves of garlic, minced

LKK Oyster sauce to taste

Method:

1.  Heat up a wok, when heated, add in garlic and preserved vegetable (if used) and fry until fragrant.  Add in marinated pork slices and stir-fry until pork is cooked.

2.  Add in long beans and stir-fry well.  Season to taste with oyster sauce, add a little water if needed.  Stir-fry until long bean is cooked.  Serve hot.

Peanut Butter Banana Cake

I am not sure whether you have noticed.  I have been baking lots of banana cake lately, ranging from just plain, marble, chocolate and now I am trying with peanut butter!  I needed variety so that even though I have been baking almost the same thing but it tasted different.  As I was figuring what else I can put into the banana cake or how to make it different and peanut butter came to mind.

I added chocolate chips per my daughters request, but I didn't add much.  You can add more if you like.  Since the top was kind of bland, I decorated it with heart shape chocolate chips design.  It turned out well don't you think?

This turned out great!  We all loved it and we could definitely taste the peanut butter in it even though it was subtle.   Evy even ask me to make it again.  If you are a fan of my banana cake recipe, give this a try too, providing of course you have no peanut allergy in your household.

Before baking

Ingredients:

(A)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil (or vegetable oil)
1 large egg
1/4 cup milk (I used 1%)
2 bananas, smashed (I used frozen)
2 heap Tbsp. creamy peanut butter (I used Jiff reduced fat)

(B)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

(C)

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, separate  (or as needed)

Soft, moist and yummy!

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350'F. Spray a 8" square baking pan with baking spray with flour.  Set aside.

2. In a big bowl, hand whisk together (A). Add in (B), whisk until well blended.

3. Take half of the chocolate chips and mix in with the batter.  Decorate the other half on top of the batter.

4. Bake for 30 minutes or until a bamboo stick inserted in center comes out clean.

5. Cool on wire rack and store in air-tight container.

Chi Ku Teh (Chicken Dark Herbal Soup)

Bak Ku Teh, a popular herbal soup that is dark in color that uses pork ribs, meat, etc.  But there is another version that uses chicken.  This is my first time uses chicken drumsticks for this soup because I believed the pork ribs made the soup sweeter.  After trying this, I can say it was good with chicken too, the drumsticks tasted good with the herbal flavor in it.  I loved to add boiled eggs and taufu pok (fried beancurd puff) in mine.  I was planning to create a marble eggs in this but decided against it at the last minute because I was afraid a piece of the egg shell might fall off and my daughter might accidentally drank it.  Thus no beautiful marbling effect with my boiled eggs here.

For this chicken dark herbal soup, I just used the A1 Bak Kut Teh premix that easily available at any supermarket in Malaysia.  I always bought some of these to bring back here whenever I am back in Malaysia. Got to stock up on food that I can't get it here right?  I noticed there were two types, one was without the Chinese herbs, just the premix and was selling at a cheaper rate.  The other one was in bigger packaging and included some Chinese herbs in it. I bought the one with herbs and just followed the packet direction in cooking this.  My hubby bought some fried yu tiao from Denver and we had this soup with some yu tiao just liked how I used to eat back in Malaysia.

Spicy Long Beans with Minced Chicken

This is one easy and delicious Malaysian dish we often have at home.  At home, we normally cook it with home made sambal belacan and pounded dried shrimps.  Living in the U.S., I managed to find a cut short for this dish many years ago.  I combined the shrimp paste in soy oil (Thai product) and fish sauce (to substitute belacan) to recreate this dish.  Now making this dish is so convenient, just open a bottle!

I finally saw some fresh looking long beans at my Asian store here, so I grabbed a big bunch as I haven't cooked with it for a long time.  Evy loved this long beans too.  If you don't have children at home, feel free to add bird eye chili or chili paste/sambal to make it spicier.  You can use ground pork/beef if that's what you have a home.

Ingredients:

A bunch of long beans, washed and cut into 2 inches length

1/2 chicken breast, cut into small pieces and then minced

1/4 cup of chopped onion

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 heap Tbsp. of shrimp paste in oil

Fish sauce to taste

1/2 tsp. sugar

Method:

1.  Heat up a wok, when heated, add in some cooking oil.  When hot, add in chopped onion and garlic, stir-fry until fragrant.  Add in minced chicken meat and stir-fry until no longer pink.

2.  Add in long beans and stir-fry well.  Stir-fry until long beans are cooked.  Add in shrimp paste and mix well.  Season to taste with fish sauce and a little sugar.  Serve hot!

Note:  You don't have to add water for this dish, but make sure you have enough oil to cook the chicken and long beans.