Quick Wantan Mee

With the H1N1 rampantly spreading, we seldom eat out nowadays. We recently had a yearning for Wantan Mee, so I decided to make it myself. It is soooo easy to make, I doubt we'll be having wantan mee in restaurants anymore (unless the Lazy Bug comes and infects us in the future!).

I didn't make any actual wantans/wantons because H and I are both allergic to prawns. I know! What is wantan mee without the wantans, right?! Well, if you wish to have the mee with wantan, I'd say go and buy those ready-made ones in supermarkets (available at the frozen section) and give em a quick fry. Or boil em in chicken stock. There's one brand that's particularly good but I'd forgotten the name. Will go looksie the next time I'm at the supermarket.

So here's the recipe...

QUICK WANTAN MEE


1 pack wantan noodle (approximately 200 grams; available at the chilled noodle and tauhu section in supermarkets)
2 small bunches of Pak Choy (you can use normal sawi but we love baby Pak Choy)
2 pieces chicken fillet (I use 2 pieces of boneless chicken maryland because they're juicier than chicken breasts)
Salt and white pepper

Sauce ingredients (which can be adjusted as you like):
4 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon kicap manis (we use Habhal)
1 tablespoon kicap masin (we use Tamin)
2 teaspoons sesame oil
a pinch of salt

Method:

1. For the chicken; season well with salt and white pepper, steam in a steamer until cooked (about 20 minutes). Once cooked, cut into bite pieces.
2. For the pak choy; cut into bite pieces and throw them into a pot of boiling and well-salted water, boil until cooked. Drain and set aside. You can sprinkle a little of sesame oil and salt on it if you want, but we like it as is.
3. Mix all the sauce ingredients in a large bowl. Set aside.
4. For the noodles; take noodles out of packet, unravel the tightly bunched noodles until all of it loosens. Boil a pot of water, put the noodles in the boiling water. Do not leave noodles in hot water too long. A mere 10-15 seconds in the boiling water would do. If you like softer noodles, boil it until it floats. But I like chewy noodles, so my noodles took a really short dip in the boiling water. The next step is IMPORTANT. If you want springy and chewy noodles (not mushy!), you must prepare a big bowl of iced, cold water on the side. Drain the noodles from the pot, shake off all excess water. Then quickly dunk the noodle into the bowl of iced, cold water. Some people advise to dunk them into hot water again after that, but I don't do this. I just dunk mine in the cold water (for about 5 seconds or so), then took them out while they're still warm. The idea here is to let the noodles stop cooking.
5. Shake off all excess water and put the noodles into the sauce we'd mixed in step 3. Toss until the noodles are evenly coated by the sauce.
6. Serve immediately, with chicken slices and pak choy on top.

Note: Many people like their chicken roasted for this dish. I used steamed chicken because we like steamed chicken. Sometimes we'd marinate the chicken pieces with barbeque sauce (the hickory smoke sauce from Life is good and goes well with this dish, so we marinate the chicken in this), and cooked them in a skillet, on the stove with just a light spray of oil.

Never Underestimate Instant Paste!!

I haven't been able to blog as much as I wish I could because of reasons I've explained in Gib's blog.. so this blog didn't take off as I wanted it too. But nevermind :) All in good time. I have a feeling this place is going to be mostly about FOOD. Because I love food and can't stop experimenting and can't stop talking about it. Heh.

In particular, I like to talk about food that is suitable for the little ones.

But being a lazy cook, I just have to make something clear. Never ever underestimate the potential of good instant paste!

Many a meal in our home is made from instant paste because sometimes I just don't have the time to hover over the stove too much. The little fella isn't a big napper so he doesn't nap more than an hour and a half (tops!), so some days this just leaves me with very little time to cook + bake + surf + blog all in the same time frame. Hehe.

One of my all-time favourites is flavoured rice. Mom used to tell me the trick was in using good quality basmati. How right she is. I use Taj Mahal usually, but recently (pocket a bit high and dry this month!) I bought Giant-brand basmati (beras mati?) and it was surprisingly good. So maybe I'll stick to this for the time being.

If you're looking for something super quick, not too rich, definitely NOT spicy (just slightly spiced, suitable for toddlers because most beryani pastes out there are very spicy! Honestly. Go ahead and try em out..)... go for Maggi Nasi Beryani instant paste.



I'll put up the picture of the instant paste packet tomorrow, along with an update on changes I make when cooking the beryani.

Don't be a cooking snob! Try those instant pastes!

Really Easy Baked Salmon

The truth is that I am a lazy cook who enjoys good food. I cook because I can't tolerate food that is not done to my taste and I get really frustrated when we pay good money (lose so much $$$$) for food that's not even tasty enough!

Anyway, because I'm a lazy cook, I tend to cook my food very "simply" (simple and err... I'm always looking for short cuts).. and because of my love to simply cook with whatever there is in the pantry, H has taken to calling my dishes "ONE STEP TOO SHORT". Huh! Which basically means that I always ter-forgot (or purposely forgot!) to do a certain required step in preparing that dish (recently I really did forget to strain / tapis my agar-agar before I added in the fruits and chilled it) or I'd miss out a certain required ingredient for the dish (like the fact that I didn't have sago beads for my pengat pisang last weekend and put in some corn flour instead to make it thicker).

But this dish is something of a favourite to me because it's so simple, you just can't go wrong. Plus it tastes so good too. If you're having a busy day and want something you can just shove into the oven, this is it.

REALLY EASY BAKED SALMON

Ingredients:
1 piece salmon
2 teaspoons olive oil (I use really good quality olive oil because good ingredients make a lot of difference)
2 teaspoons of lemon juice (we opt for bottled concentrated lemon juice from Berri)
Seasonings; salt, fine black pepper, a small amount of fresh dill (or a sprinkling of dried dill from McCormicks)

Method:
- Heat oven to 175 degrees Celcius.
- After cleaning your salmon, pat dry with kitchen towel and put it on a plate, season generously (according to personal preferences) with salt, fine black pepper and fresh/dry dill.
- Place salmon in a piece of aluminium foil (large enough to wrap the salmon in).
- Drizzle olive oil and lemon juice all over the top of the salmon.
- Wrap the salmon in the foil, careful not to let the oil and juice escape.
- Place salmon on a tray, put the tray in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes.
- If you prefer your salmon dryer / "crispier", open the foil after 20 minutes and bake the salmon for a further 10 minutes.

NOTE: H likes his salmon not-totally-cooked (he likes them soft and juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside, whereas I like mine thoroughly cooked and somewhat dry!), so he bakes it for 15 minutes covered, 10 minutes opened. I cook mine as stated above.

Serve with lemon wedges, roasted potatoes and if you have it... an avacado salad would be perfect!

Atuk's Marble Cake

It's only fitting for the first ever recipe that I share with friends to be Gibran's favourite cake; my Arwah Atuk's marble cake, which was my favourite cake too when I was growing up. This was the cake I made for Gibran's first and second birthdays because he gets really sugar-high if he eats chocolate cake. Hence I much prefer making this cake for him, and I usually top it off with a Buttercream Icing recipe which I got from Aunty Ani, the mother of Arwah Ninie who was one of my oldest and closest friends. The icing recipe however I will share another time. And since this is the first time I'm sharing recipes, please let me know if I can improve in any way! Thanks :)

GIBRAN'S GREAT-GRANDMA'S MARBLE CAKE.

Ingredients:
8 oz. butter.
8 oz. sugar (I use fine granulated sugar)
8 oz. plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
various colourings (I chose to use red and green colourings)

Method:
1. Using a mixer, beat butter and sugar until creamy.
2. Add egg one at a time, beat until incorporated and creamy.
3. Fold in flour, alternate with evaporated milk. This means a bit of flour, fold in. Then a bit of milk, fold in. Continue this until all flour and milk have been folded in. My Mom says the last to be folded in should always be flour because the batter will be softer that way.
4. Fold in vanilla extract.
5. Separate the batter into three different bowls.
6. Colour the batter in one bowl red. Colour the batter in another bowl green. A few drops of colourings would suffice. I leave the third bowl in its natural yellow buttery colour.
7. Now we pour the batter into a square greased and lined cake pan using this method; first put in a scoop of yellow batter, then green, then red. Repeat this process (just put in the batter at random) until all the batter is in the pan. Shake the pan a little to level the top of the cake batter.
8. Bake at 175 degree celcius, for approximately 50 minutes or when a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

This cake is nice and oh so moist because of the evaporated milk! Perfect for tea-time with a cup of Nescafe or teh tarik ;)

NOTE:
- You could add half a teaspoon of cocoa powder (instead of colouring) to one bowl of batter in order to give the cake some chocolatey swirls.