choke. jook. chook. congee. porridge.

choke. jook. chook. congee. porridge.

Fish Congee with a Salted Turnip and Black Bean Relish

I have an affinity with Jook. Every time I make Jook it turns out perfect. Wait.. that means I have an affinity with steak, seafood, pasta.. oh uh.. nevermind. Anyways, I'm gonna reveal the technique for making fantastic Congee, ya know', Hong Kong style'(high pitch).

I make Choke on rainy cold days and days I have constipation, because I think it works. Some people think eating Chook will lead to fat loss, and when they eat a lot of Porridge, they become fatter.



As you can see above, I added some CANTON power to my congee. You will find out more about it in the recipe list below. CANTON powah!!

The Recipe

1. Caramelize shallots on low heat with vegetable oil. When golden and crisp, set aside and leave to cool.
2. Wash rice with water until water runs clear. In a saucepan, saute ginger and spring onions in oil(canton power), then turn off the heat for the oil to infuse. Cool for 15 mins. Add rice and coat with the ginger and spring onion oil. Leave to absorb. 15-30mins. Add 3 times the amount of water to rice and bring to boil. Simmer 20-30 mins until ready. Stir occasionally.
3. On a nonstick pan on medium heat, season cod fillets and sear them until white and flaky, about 3-4 mins a side. Remove fish from pan and set aside, flake into pieces when cooled. In the same pan, add a touch of oil and saute chopped garlic and salted turnips(chai poh). Add salted black beans and dried chili flakes. Add a little water and sugar. Add in caramelized shallots. Toss and set aside.
4. To serve, ladle the congee in a bowl, top with cod flakes and add salted turnip relish and spring onions.

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if this doesn't make you hungry then i don't know what will

if this doesn't make you hungry then i don't know what will

I present you:
Uncle Dee's Spicy Ginger Sweet and Sour Black Bean Minced Pork of Unsurpassed Awesomeness.

Yes. It is that good. Especially with a bowl of hot rice and sauteed bak choy. I had this for dinner and I'm still watering in my mouth now. God almighty. That is how good it is. Lucky for you, I am going to share the recipe. Haha :D

The Recipe
1. Add oil in a hot wok. Add in chopped garlic, dried chili and grated ginger. Saute for 2-3 mins. Add minced pork and saute until they are cooked through.
2. Add salted black beans, spicy bean paste, chicken stock, shaoxing wine, a dash of HP sauce, sugar, soy sauce and worchestershire. Let the minced pork simmer in the mixture for 2-3mins.
3. Add a little chinese black vinegar. Mix cornstarch with water. Add in to thicken. Add in beaten egg and turn off the heat. Drizzle with toasted sesame oil.
4. Serve with hot rice and bak choy. Done!

I don't measure the amount of ingredients I use for this. It all comes from my gut. I guess that is why it's called Uncle Dee's Spicy Ginger Sweet and Sour Black Bean Minced Pork of Unsurpassed Awesomeness.

I hope you enjoyed it. Cheers.

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bangers and mash, a "proper" one

bangers and mash, a "proper" one

The Brits will tell you, "if it's not proper, it's not good for you." I cannot agree more, so today I'm going to show you how to make bangers and mash, the 'proper' style.(Yeah! now that's what I'm talkin about')

Rule #1, everything must be fresh. Fresh sausages. No instant mash potatoes. Proper gravy. Fresh butter. Fresh herbs. Sea salt. Freshly cracked black pepper.



Rule #2, serve piping hot. I served my potatoes straight from the pan, sausages nice and hot, in tribute to "proper-ness."



Rule #3, make sauces and gravy from scratch. Use fresh herbs for better aroma.

In the honor of the thirty-third degree of Proper-ness, I present to you:

The Recipe.
serves 4

12 medium Spicy Fennel Sausages or Cumberland Sausages
2 tbsp Canola Oil
6 medium Red Onions, sliced
4 sprigs of Fresh Thyme, leaves picked
2 cloves of Garlic, sliced
4 medium Russet Potatoes
Sea Salt
Freshly Cracked Black Pepper
Freshly Cracked White Pepper
1 stick of Butter, halved into 2 separate portions
1 cup of Milk
1 cup Chicken/Veal Stock
3 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 cup of Roux (optional)

Mash
1. Start off by baking the potatoes, whole in a 200 degree celcius preheated oven. 45mins to an hour. Set to cool when fork tender. Peel skin with a paring knife.
2. Mash potatoes with a fork or a ricer. Transfer to a saucepan, add milk and put it on low-medium heat. Stir continuously until most of the liquid have evaporated. Add in 1 portion of butter, salt and pepper. Stir until you get a creamy texture.
3. Serve hot.

Sausages
1. Get a pan on medium high heat. Drizzle canola oil. Sear sausages at about 5 mins a side. Set aside to rest for a further 2 mins before serving.

Onion Gravy
1. Saute onions and garlic on low heat until it's nice and soft, about 20 mins. Add in thyme and saute for another min. Add in chicken/veal stock, balsamic vinegar and let it simmer for 5 mins. Add in roux if you desire. Season to taste with sea salt and white pepper.

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very vegetarian post, vegan friendly :D

very vegetarian post, vegan friendly :D

This post is dedicated to vegetarian Buddhists, vegetarian hippies and hot vegan women, because I love you all. This is not my original recipe. I was reading amateur gourmet and this recipe immediately gave me a boner(lovely huge one). So without the slightest thought I ran down(literally) to the market to buy the ingredients to make this. That was how emotional I felt.

When you mix ginger and scallions, they give you CANTON power. Like in all Cantonese cuisine, the slightly sophisticated combination of ginger and scallions always never fail to impress. In this recipe, there is CANTON power. Also salty aroma from the soy sauce, woody caramel-y creaminess from the roasted cauliflower and tingly ting sensations from pickled cucumbers. CANTON power is basically what westerners will tell you, "Mm! 'tastes like Chinese." If you're living in the US and if you order Chinese takeout, don't be surprised to sense some CANTON power secretly lingering in most dishes.

The Recipe

1. Using a really sharp easy peeler, swipe a medium cucumber into strips. Put them all in a bowl and add 1 tbsp salt, 3 tbsp sugar. Let it pickle for about 15-30mins. Taste occasionally. If it's too salty, rinse it off and add more sugar.
2. Boil a pack of Buckwheat Soba noodles(without the wrapper) for 3 mins. Test for al dente. Drain off in a colander and submerge in ice water to stop cooking. Drain again and set aside.
Tip: To make ice water really cold, add a tbsp of salt.
3. Trim a medium cauliflower. Cut it out into nice pieces. On a hot pan, add grapeseed oil, sear cauliflower for 5 mins a side until well browned. Season and set aside.
4. Finely chop 3 large sprigs of scallions and grate 1 thumb of ginger. Transfer into a bowl. Add 1 tbsp Kikoman, 1 tsp really good sesame oil, 2 tsp chinese black vinegar or sherry vinegar and a touch of white pepper.
5. Toss soba with scallion mixture. Rinse off salt and sugar from cucumber pickles. Serve soba in a bowl, top with pickles and roasted cauliflower.
6. Eat with chopsticks otherwise it won't be good.

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truffled mushrooms, fresh mozzarella toast. a sexy post

truffled mushrooms, fresh mozzarella toast. a sexy post

This is very sexy. It is just very sexy. Very, very, very, sexy. To you, not me. I don't know if it's sexy or not, if you think its sexy, then I will feel sexy. Because I don't find food sexy. But some people(especially women) do find some food sexy, if they feel sexy, I feel sexy.

The Very Sexy Recipe

1. Toast 4 slices of bread and set it aside.
2. On a hot pan, add a knob of butter, garlic and fresh thyme. Saute for 5 mins.
3. Add about 400g of sliced button mushrooms and a pinch of salt. Cook out the water about 10 mins.
4. When the mushrooms are starting to color nicely, add another knob of butter. Toss and coat.
5. Remove from heat, transfer mushrooms into a bowl, drizzle truffle oil and season.
6. Peel off bits from a mozzarella ball and evenly spread over the 4 slices of toast.
7. Top with mushrooms, and grill on high for 5 mins.
8. Serve hot.

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No cooking on Fridays

No cooking on Fridays

Today is no cooking Friday. That means eating out and no picture tagging, because nothing matters. Chillaxxxah! ;) Have a good one. Cheers.

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things I want to eat on a cold rainy day

things I want to eat on a cold rainy day

When the weather is cold, when my hands and feet are white and when it's air conditioning outside, I make soup. Not just any soup! But the kind of soup that gives you some sort of 'chi' feeling to your body. I don't know why, but somehow, someway, something tells me it's good for me.

What you see in the picture above is what I call, the "Level 4 Chi Soup." In my world there are 10 levels of chi, level 1 being the type where its distinct enough for you to know there is a hint of "chi" and level 10, the type that makes blood spurt out from every hole in your body. Level 4 is perfect for the weather now, because it's just rain. If I'm somewhere that is snowing then I'd probably bring it up to a 7.

In the soup I made, there are root vegetables, garbanzo beans and smoked ham. Don't ask me why ingredients like that produce "chi", because it is difficult for me to explain. The only thing I can tell you is that you will feel it when you eat it, unless you like lying to yourself.


Besides the "chi" factor, boiling root vegetables will give you a better soup base. I used carrots, green radishes, onions and potatoes. The starch from the potatoes will work the soup, making it thicker as you simmer. Carrots for sweetness. Radishes for a mild peppery flavor and "chi"(don't ask why). Onions for flavor. Imagine how your taste buds will like a deliciously thick soup that has the sweet aroma of onions, peppery tones from the radish and sweetness from the onions.

If you have taste buds like mine, you would have immediately spotted a missing element. Acidity. Yes, I got that covered too, it's just not shown in the picture. I added 2 medium tomatoes, quartered with seeds. Yep. It's perfect.

The Recipe

1. In a stock pop, boil a slab of smoked ham with water 4 times its weight. That means, if you have a 500g slab of smoked ham, you use 2 litres of water. Simmer for 30 mins.
2. Add in carrots, radishes, onions, potatoes and tomatoes. For a 500g slab of smoked ham, I used 1 medium carrot, 1 white onion, 1 medium radish, 2 peeled russet poatoes and 2 quartered tomatoes.
3. Add 1 tbsp of white peppercorns and 1 tbsp of dried herbs(I used rosemary, oregano and thyme). Simmer for 30 minutes.
4. Remove the smoked ham, dice it up and throw it back into the simmering stock. Then I add 1 can of chick peas(garbanzo beans). Simmer for 5 mins then turn off the stove.
5. To serve, place the ingredients in a bowl, then ladle over hot stock. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, crack black pepper and sprinkle a little salt. Great with bread.

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the art of instant noodle crafting

the art of instant noodle crafting

When making instant noodles, I like to keep it simple. The soup base is readily prepared for us. If I wanted to mess around with it, I'd be better off making my own soup base. Underneath the unhealthy notion that MSG is bad for us, I cannot give a shit. In the middle of the night when I'm hungry and busy, I will make instant noodles. If it's two nights in a row, I'll make something else. Either way, you're going to find out, because I'll be posting it here.

Especially on a rainy night. I don't see why I should spend money on food deliveries when I have instant noodles at home and I'm hungry and I can cook.

Over the years, I have come up a list of things that can go well with a certain types of instant noodles. Give it a try if you like.

For Chicken based Instant-Noodles(Ramen)(Maggi Mee), things you can add:
- Sesame Oil
- White Pepper
- Hua Tiao Jew (Rose Wine)
- Chicken Franks
- Beaten Egg
- Leafy Greens
- Leftover Roast Chicken
- Char Siew
- Celery
- Cabbage (yum)
- Chili Flakes, Padi, it's good with heat

For Korean Kimichi based Ramen:
- Hard Boiled Egg
- Scallops
- Cabbage
- more Kimchi
- Bitter Greens
- Rice
- Tofu
- Rice Vinegar (just a touch)
- Ham
- Sancho Pepper
- Squid
- White fish fillets

For the curry base:
- Beaten egg
- Roasted Chicken
- Chickpeas
- Cabbage
- Cauliflower
- Fish Fillets
- More curry powder
- Lime
- Curry Leaves

For the Tom Yam base:
- Prawn
- Tofu
- Lemongrass
- Lime
- Radish
- Green Beans
- Soy Beans

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