ygblog4

before i came over to australia on march 1, i tried my hand at cooking kung pao chicken twice at home in singapore. i first enjoyed kungpao chicken at this food stall in an industrial canteen at quality road, somewhere in jurong. it is called seng's kitchen and it is the only stall (in that canteen) that stays open in the night because its regular customers come from all over singapore.

i found out that this dish is quite easy to prepare. the ingredients, other than the chicken, include dried chilli, ginger, garlic, black sauce, light sauce, oyster sauce, sugar and corn starch. one other essential ingredient, which i do not add to it, is vinegar. i was told that it is the vinegar that gives it its subtle taste. i do not like vinegar and cashew nuts, which some people also add to the dish.

for the chicken, i use breast meat or the boneless part of the chicken. you can cut it into cubes but i prefer to cut it into strips. i use pepper, sesame oil and hua tiao wine to marinate the chicken.

the dried chilli has to be de-seeded and cut into about 3cm long. the ginger - which cost $26 a kilo in melbourne - is cut into strips. the garlic is chopped until it is quite fine.

for the sauce, i use one spoonful of black sauce, one spoonful of light sauce and one spoonful of oyster sauce. i also add two spoonfuls of water before adding the corn starch. you have to stir the mixture till the corn starch dissolves in the sauce.

first, fry the chicken pieces until they are almost cooked. remove from pan. fried the garlic, ginger and dried chilli until fragrant. then throw in the chicken. finally, pour in the sauce.

you can substitute the chicken with other meat. i have also tried cooking kung pao pork.

most people when they make their own pizzas choose to use commercially produced pizza paste. i prefer to cook my own paste. when the price of tomatoes is low, like now - it is $1.00 per kilogram - it is time for me to make pizza paste. whenever my daughters saw me preparing the paste, they would know that it would be pizza eating time soon.


in the past, i would buy about 4 kilograms of tomatoes; this time around, i bought only 2 kilos. i will leave the tomotoes to ripen fully before i start cooking them.


first, i will boil a pot or container of water to blanch the tomotoes. this is to facilitate the removal of the skin. when the skin of the tomatoes in the boiling water starts to wrinkle or crack, i will fish it out and dump it into a basin of tap water.

after removing the skin - which is quite an easy task - i will cut the tomato into four parts.

next, i will chop some cloves of garlic and some onions. i do not cut them too fine. i cut about 10 cloves of garlic and 2 onions. i fry the chopped onions, first, in olive oil, and then the garlic bits. this will be followed by the tomatoes. the rest of the ingredients that are added are basil leaves, bay leaves and a small can of tomato puree. other ingredients added later but not shown here include salt, sugar and a dash of black pepper.

when it starts to boil, i will turn down the flame to let it simmer for about an hour. at first, the paste will be quite watery but at the end of the one hour of simmering, it will become quite dry.

my wife's friend waxed lyrical about the 'authenticity' of the chicken curry that she prepares using the prima's ready-to-cook meal kit. she even specifies the number of potatoes - three, no more, no less - to go into the pot.

i am inclined to agree with her regarding the quality standard of the curry. i have cooked chicken curry using paste from a number of brands like a1, tean's, woh hup and hai's and none can beat the one that i have cooked using the prima's paste.

i find the singapore curry among the easiest to prepare as i normally do not have to make reference to the instructions printed at the back of the pack, except to check the amount of water that goes into the pot and the amount of water needed for the pre-mix.

i do not like chunky potatoes, so i cut them to bite size. as for the chicken, i usually buy the thighs or drumlets. whether thighs or drumlets, i still cut them into smaller pieces. as we are not 'chilli persons' - meaning we do not consume a lot of chilli, i do not add the extra hot chilli powder to the curry.

the curry also goes very well with baguette, french loaf or mantou.

vee,


using this packet of konnyaku powder - also from phoon huat - i was able to make the jelly in one simple step. okay, lah, if you want to add the freshly cut strawberry slices, then add one more step.


with this pack, you do away with:


1 weighing 210gm of caster sugar

2 mixing the sugar and the powder

3 adding citric or malic acid

4 adding colouring

5 adding flavouring


i made them for ida. she ate two and your mom ate two. looks like i have to finish the lot myself. someone suggested that i should have used the clear powder to make the jelly, then the bits of strawberry would appear to have been crystallised within the jelly.

i have blogged about this before here. each time i want to cook chilli crabs, it seems like i am going into battle with them. i will be armed with an array of knives, especially those with a sharp pointed end, a pair of scissors and pliers. i am quite wary of mud crabs because i had a painful experience before.

the recommended way - printed at the back of the pack - is to submerge the live crabs in cold water until they stop moving. i prefer the traditional way, the way used by my mother: that is plunging the knife right into the heart of the crab. the pliers i use are to aid me in removing the shells and the scissors are used to cut away the sharp tips of the legs.

if you use the prima's ready-to-cook meal kit for singapore chilli crab, do not use the whole portion of the chilli crab premix - which is actually corn starch, otherwise your gravy will turn out to be very starchy. use slightly more than half the portion with the same amount of water (30ml).

these days, the crabs sold at the ntuc supermarket seem to be smaller in size but the price per kg remains at $13.90. with chilli crabs, there is no need for extra ingredients. still, sometimes i add spring onion although the recommended garnishing is coriander leaves.

three of us had the chilli crabs, together with bread which we dipped in the gravy, for lunch today.

reducing cost of cooking

these days, with rising prices of many food items, one has to scout for cheaper ingredients to reduce the cost of cooking at home. for fresh food, there is no house brand, so you have to look for cheaper alternatives.

i came across this recipe in hochiak asian food website and decided to give it a try, with slight modifications. whenever i prepare soup at home for two persons, i normally use either the old cucumber of winter melon. each of these items will cost slightly more than a dollar. with white radish, i need to pay half the price only.

however, i have also been advised not to eat too much white radish because it is believed by the chinese that eating it will render western medication ineffective (kwei yeok).

i use the some of the ingredients - white radish, dried dates and cuttlefish but i substitute the dry oysters with dried scallop (one piece only). i also drop a piece of rock sugar into the water, something i do when preparing the other soups.

when the soup starts to boil, i will turn down the fire to let it simmer for about an hour or so. the other day when i prepared winter melon soup, i extended the simmering time and ended up with a dry pot.