Chawanmushi w/ salted duck egg

Chawanmushi w/ salted duck egg
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

Today mother-earth decided to host a mahjong game for a good friend of ours visiting from Hawaii. So since I had to man the kitchen I decided that chawanmushi or steamed egg would be the perfect dish to serve for dinner, the rest of the dishes (pork barbeque, spinach soup) I would just buy at a favorite restaurant near our store. For this chawanmushi, I got the recipe only recently from my cousin B who took the Beginner's cooking course at CCAC, she was totally raving about how easy & delicious it was, so I really had to try it out. Having made steamed egg before I changed my method a bit when I was advised by our Hawaiian friend to lower the flame when steaming this dish, he said it will result in a more smoother texture & he was right! Although cooking time was extended for 10 more mins. It was sooo smooth & silky. Plus I added some chopped salted duck egg on top for added flavor. The entire dish was devoured by one & all.

Fish Fillet w/ black bean sauce

Fish Fillet w/ black bean sauce
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

For mother-earths welcome home dinner I decided to cook her a fish dish which I again saw in Yummy magazine. I think there must've been an error in their recipe because the dish certainly lacked in saltiness, and the one big boo boo I did was I didn't taste the sauce before adding it to the fish. I normally do do a final taste test but I don't know why I completely forgot it this time. Plus the fish was a tad bit overcooked by maybe 2 minutes. Recipe said 10-15 minutes steaming and I only did 10 mins. can you imagine if I did it for 15 mins.? It would have been as tough as pork. The only saving grace is that the finished dish looked so lovely.

Sliced pork in Yu-Xiang sauce & Brocoll

04302008186
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

I was quite impressed with myself tonight. Looking at the above photo of our dinner made me realize that I cooked everything from scratch all in an hour, including prep time!! Father-earth was quite happy with our meal as it's been awhile since mother-earth cooked any broccoli (she actually doesn't like it which is why she won't cook it). I followed Master Lu's method of cooking the broccoli which came out to be a vibrant green color after parboiling. I then sauteed the broccoli with some garlic & a little bit of oyster sauce for flavor. The next dish continues my Shanghainese trend for the week, I saw it in one of Mother-earths Pei Mei's cookbooks and it seemed simple enough. Sliced Pork in Yu-Xiang sauce. Yuxiang translates literally as "the flavor of fish. Now why this name was even used is odd since the sauce has no fish nor does it taste like fish. However, the spices and seasonings in yuxiang sauce were apparently used originally to flavor fish dishes, hence the meaning. I had to revise the recipe a little since I wasn't able to find the clouds ear mushroom at the nearby supermart & I thought mother-earth still had some water chestnuts in the fridge but it turns out that she had bamboo shoots. So I decided that I had to make do with what was on hand & ended up using the bamboo shoots which I sliced into thin strips & then parboiled to get rid of the unpleasant smell. The meat was then marinated before it was cooked in the spicy Yu_xiang sauce.

Braised Lion's Head 狮子头 in clay pot

Braised Lion's Head
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

It's been awhile since mother-earth made Braised Lion's Head, a dish that evokes memories of my childhood growing up with my sister on D. T. Street. Having decided that I would make this for our dinner tonight, I went online to see if I could find the origins of this classic family favorite of ours. I was really surprised to find that this was a dish that traced it's roots to Shanghai, I always assumed that with it's popularity, it would be a dish from Fujian province where my grandparents are from. Now I'm really curious as to how my grandmother and the other chinese families here in The Pines got introduced to this dish because I can remember eating this since I was but a wee little sprite which was some 30 odd years ago (scary thought!), a time when the internet was non existent. I have been a fan of cookbook author Eileen Yin Fei Lo for quite sometime now, she does things old school, meaning she still uses mainly traditional chinese ingredients in her cooking & she doesn't do short-cuts, (buddha jumps over the wall soup takes 3 days), you can tell that she "honors" those classic chinese dishes that have been around for generations. Her version of this dish was quite simple enough and I had all the ingredients on-hand which was the key thing. The secret to the success of this dish is that the ground meat has to be marinated first before they are formed into huge baseball sized patties, then pan fried till its gets a nice golden brown crust. I did this first step yesterday and placed the patties in the fridge, then after coming home from work I continued on to the next step which is to place some chinese cabbage in claypot with some stock then put in the patties & let it braise for an hour or so till done.

Shrimp Foo Yong

Shrimp Foo Yong
Originally uploaded by cutejoos


Shrimp Foo Yong 2
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

What happens when a crab-lover like me has to cook Crab Foo Yong for a crab-hater like father-earth? Simple. Just replace the crab with shrimps, which is exactly what I did for our dinner tonight. Saw the recipe in Yummy magazines Jan '08 issue and just couldn't resist trying it out since crab/shrimp foo yong has been one of my all time favorite dishes to order whenever we go out for chinese. I was tempted to try out this particular version because of the fact that tau miao (pea sprouts) was used instead of the usual bean sprouts and it really gave this dish a whole new dimension in terms of flavor. After peeling the shrimp (250g), I deveined it and washed it in some rock salt & water, after draining the shrimp I marinated them in a generous amount of ginger juice, (a staple in our kitchen) for a few mins. While waiting, I combined the sauce ingredients which consisted of oyster sauce, rice wine, stock, sesame oil, sugar, pepper & salt in a saucepan and let it cook till it came to a boil. I then set aside the sauce & returned my attention back to the marinated shrimp which I then strained of the ginger juice. The shrimps were now ready to be added to my 5 beaten eggs. For this dish I felt that a non-stick pan was the best thing to use especially since I was dealing with eggs, I wouldn't want to deal with eggs getting stuck to the wok scraper-rama!! So first I sauteed the garlic, onions & leeks till tender then added the tau miao & carrots, at this point it's best to turn down the heat of the pan to low before pouring in the shrimp/egg mixture. Continuously move the eggs & shrimp all over pan and cook till just set & not dry. Now you can add some cornstarch water into the sauce mixture then cook till thick. Pour this on top of the omelet. This dish is best served while piping hot.

San Bei Ji (3 Cups Chicken)三杯雞

San Bei Ji (3 Cups Chicken)
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

With mother-earth out & about traveling to the Land of our Forefathers, I have been whipping up dishes that I know she doesn't like but which I and father-earth like a lot. One of them is the dish that I cooked for dinner tonight San Bei Ji which literally means 3 Cups Chicken. The name stems from the original recipe which calls for 1 cup Sesame Oil (que horror!), 1 cup Soy Sauce and 1 cup rice wine as the main sauce ingredients that is then cooked with the chicken. This dish is quite popular in Taiwan but traces it's origins to Jiangxi province in southern China. I had to research quite a bit online as there were numerous recipe versions to choose from. The one I finally decided on used only 1/3 cup each of sesame oil, rice wine & soy sauce, which to me sounded like a reasonable portion of ingredients. Cooking this dish was quite easy, I just sauteed the garlic, ginger & chilis in the sesame oil then added the chicken pieces & poured in the sauce mix of rice wine, soy sauce & sugar then let it simmer for 30 mins. I then added the basil leaves & scallions at the very end before serving. That was it, easy peasy and super yummy!!! Go on and try lah!