Archive for October 2016

Korean Jajiangmyeon a.k.a Black-beans Sauce Noodles

Sunday, October 30, 2016 0 Comments A+ a-

jajiangmyeon

I still have half a tub of unused black-beans paste sitting in the pantry. I diligently 'researching' for recipes that using black-beans paste, reason being, I really need to get it consumed before it went expired. I was super delighted to discover that the black-beans paste is actually the key ingredient for the infamous jajiangmyeon. I love jajiangmyeon and I would definitely give the recipe a try.

With the interest of time, I shopped the ingredients in the local supermarket. I get most of the ingredients except for the daikon radish, perhaps it is not in season now. I then substitutes the daikon radish with the normal carrot. 

I adore fusion cooking, hence I am using spaghetti instead of yellow noodles. To my surprise the spaghetti paired absolutely well with the jajiang sauce. The taste is well balance as the saltiness of the sauce is harmonized by the mild tasting spaghetti. Plus, the al-dente spaghetti taste added a great bite (chewy) to the dish. A great thumb-up!

Ingredients
1 carrot (cut into dice size)
1 zucchini (cut into dice size)
2 onion (cut into chunky size)
5 medium size potatoes (cut into dice size)
200 chicken pieces (diced)
5-7 button mushroom (sliced)
cucumber (cut into thin matchsticks)
3 tbsp of black-beans paste
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp of sugar
cooking oil
corn starch solution (2 tbsp corn starch powder and 1/4 cup water)
water

Direction
1. In a shallow pot, heat up some cooking oil. stir fry the carrot for 1 minutes
2. Add in the potato cubes, onion chunks and zucchini. Keep stiring until the potatoes turn slightly
translucent.
3. Add in the chicken pieces and stir for 1 minute.
3. Add in the black-beans paste, dark soy sauce and sugar and stir well till.
4. Add 2 cups of water and close the lid and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
5. Add in the corn starch solution and stir till the sauce is thicken.
6. Garnish the dish with cucumber strips

The jajiang sauce is ready and you can serve it with either noodles or steamed rice.

Mix everything together using my secret weapon, the chopsticks.

Chunky potatoes, zucchini and carrot ... yum

Sesame seeds added the nutty taste to the jajiang spaghetti. Super tasty!

Egg-Ham-Cheese Tortilla Pizza

Sunday, October 23, 2016 0 Comments A+ a-


The gloomy and chill weather led me to switched into hibernating mode. I suddenly feel like a reptile as my movement is slowed down considerably and I am sleepy all the time. These are the days I don't feel like cooking. I just need a quick fix without stepping out from the house. Delivery sounds rather luxurious for me (especially for this month) given the fact that there are a few birthday celebrations taking place this month. I need to save for birthday gifts :(

Pizza is always my favourite quick fix as they are simple to prepare and most importantly no heavy cleaning is required. I do not always have all the basic ingredients for pizza available in my pantry, however, it does not stop me from making pizza at home. For instance, I substituted pizza dough with tortilla wrap (as pizza base) and beaten eggs as the pizza sauce.

Here is the quick recipe of my Egg-Ham-Cheese Tortilla Pizza.

Ingredients: 2 slices of tortilla wrap, 1 beaten egg, hams (in cubes), mozzarella cheese and some pepper.

Direction
1. Spread the egg mix on the tortilla wrap, follow by the hams.
2. Sprinkle some black pepper and top the tortilla wrap with handful of mozzarella cheese.
3. Bake in oven for 12 minutes under 175c.

With the absent of pizza sauce, I was initially skeptical with the taste. To my surprise, the tortilla pizza actually tasted pretty good. The egg blended in very well with cheese and ham. It added extra thickness to the tortilla texture and extra fragrant eggy aroma too. Minus off the sodium from the pizza sauce, my egg-ham-cheese tortilla pizza is deemed to be healthier.   

I like the crisp of the baked tortilla wrap. The tortilla pizza tasted like crispy crackers.

Pongteh Chicken: Nyonya Blackbeans Sauce Chicken

Sunday, October 16, 2016 0 Comments A+ a-

Pongteh Chicken

Impulsive buying is a common act when I shopped in the Asian supermarkets. I am vulnerable to discounted items on the shelf. I will find ways to convince myself that I need to buy them even without ideas on what I am going to do with them. The tub of black beans paste is not an exception. It has been sitting in my pantry for quite some time. I finally put it into use when I spotted it has merely a month life span remaining.

The very first dish I attempted with black beans paste is a Peranakan dish from South East Asian named Pongteh Chicken aka blackbeans sauce chicken. It is a popular dish serve in Nyonya Restaurants and is best enjoy with fluffy white rice and sambal belacan (shrimp paste chili).

Ingredients
350g chicken piece (highly recommend chicken thigh)
5-8 shiitake mushrooms (socked in water overnight)
4 medium size potatoes (boiled and cubed)
5 shallots (minced)
5 cloves of garlic (minced)
3 tbsp of cooking oil
3 cups of water

Sauce
2 tbsp of blackbeans paste
1 tbsp of dark soy sauce
1 tbsp of light soy sauce
1 Duong Thot Not palm sugar
salt to taste

Direction
1. Heat up the cooking oil in the pan and stir fry the minced shallots and garlic till fragrant.
2. Add in the chicken pieces and sauce. Stir till the chicken pieces are well coated with the sauce.
3. Pour in the water and add-in the boiled potatoes and shiitake mushroom.
4. Close the lid and simmer for 30 minutes.

A simple scallion omelette complement the dish perfectly. Fantastic dinner for the day! I received great compliments for my pongteh chicken.

Tips 
I highly recommend to use chicken thighs for the dish as the thighs are more suitable for extended simmering as compared to chicken breast. 
Blackbeans Sauce Chicken

Sesame Sweet Potato Balls Recipe

Sunday, October 02, 2016 0 Comments A+ a-


We bid good-bye to Ms. Summer and we now welcome Mr. Fall.

Weather starts to turn chill since early of the week and I longed for a bowl of sweet potato soup to warm myself up. I've gotten a 500g of sweet potatoes from the supermarket and was so ready for the 'great dessert for the day'. Somehow there was a change in plan after I spotted a simple recipe on purple sweet potato pancake with sesame seeds. It is deemed to be a healthy snacks as you barely need anything else except the sweet potatoes and sesame seeds. I was so tempted to give it a try and I actually traded off my long-love sweet potato soup.

However, the initial recipe turned out to be failure. The texture of the mashed sweet potatoes was way too soft and they kept falling apart. The sweet potato mixture kept on getting stuck on the frying-pan after contacting with the heat (even with low heat). Only 20% of what I made were in good shape. Check out the last image attached, in case you are curious on how the 'defect' pancakes looked like.

Hence I attempted to salvage the sweet potato mashed by transforming them to  delicious yet sinful pan-fried sesame sweet potato balls instead. 

 Ingredients 
400g of sweet potatoes (skinned and sliced to 2-3cm thick)
200g of all purpose flour
2 tbsp of sesame seed
a pinch of salt
sugar (optional)
cooking oil (sufficient for pan-frying)

Directions
1. Steam the sliced sweet potatoes in the steamer until they turned soft.
2. Mashed the sweet potatoes.
3. Add in the all-purpose flour, salt, sesame seeds and mix everything well.
(You may add-in sugar if you prefer the sweeter version or vice versa)
4. Use both of your palms to shape the mashed sweet potato to any circular form you prefers.
5. Heat-up the cooking oil in the skillet and pan fry the sweet potato balls till golden brown.

The nutty taste from the sesame seeds has indeed added a great twist to the sweet potato balls. It helps to balance up the sweetness from the sweet potatoes. Pretty addictive snack I would say. I can easily finish the whole 400g of sweet potato balls all by myself.

 The defects ... 

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