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I've made a promise to cook at home more often instead of just parking my lazy ass by SC's mom dining table, stuffing myself with her delicious treats every day. Call me silly, but if I continued doing so, I am sure that I'll totally forget how to cook and this blog might have to either close down or transferred to SC's mom.
So, on Monday, I told SC about the plan, he was excited, although a bit unhappy about having to wait for 30-45 minutes for dinner instead of going home to a whole table of fully cooked meal ready to be devoured. Too bad!
Every day after work, he'd ask me what I planned to cook...and he'd give a very generous amount of criticism "helpful suggestions" on every dish that I've planned. Including this one. I love sweet and ripe fresh pineapple chunks in savoury dishes. Pineapple gives a dish an exotic touch...and turns it...summery!
So, I told SC that I wanted to cook grilled chicken with pineapple chunks.
His helpful comments:
- Why would you cook chicken with pineapple?
- Pineapple is always cooked with pork (and by pork, he meant beef. The dish his mom always makes for him)
- I should remember to use corn starch (SC thinks that corn starch is the essence of Chinese cooking ^_^')
My response?
Since you're such an expert, how about you do the cooking tonight?
SC's response?
Pretended that he didn't hear me :P
Typical! :D
How here's my super simple dish...
Recipe
(serves two)
- 1/2 fresh, ripe pineapple, peel skin off, remove core, cut into chunks (if fresh pineapple isn't available, you can use canned pineapple)
- 2 boneless chicken leg fillet (for grilling I like them with skin on), trim excess fat off
- seasoning for chicken: salt, pepper, olive oil
- for the pineapple: sugar (or you can use golden syrup), a bit of hot water, salt, fish sauce, a bit of corn starch dissolved in water (optional)|
Season chicken with salt, pepper, add a bit of olive oil, grill skin down on a hot pan (I used non stick, so I didn't need so much oil) to brown the skin. Once the skin's brown, lower the heat and flip the chicken, cook until the chicken is thoroughly cooked. If you wish, you can let the chicken finish grilling in the oven. Set grilled chicken aside (I cut mine to a bite sized chunks, you can serve them whole).
Get rid of excess fat from the pan, add pineapple chunks, let them caramelize a little (I was too impatient to wait for that), add sugar, salt, hot water and a touch of fish sauce to season. If you don't want the sauce to reduce much and you want it thickened, use corn starch & water mixture. The corn starch mixture will also help the sauce to "hang on" to the meat (this is a lesson learnt from SC ^_^).
Garnish with freshly chopped chillies, crispy shallot and coriander to make the dish even better. SC doesn't like them at this moment (he's having a weird moment), so I didn't use any ^_^'
Next time, let's let SC do the cooking, shall we? ;)
As promised, here's the savoury bread pudding...for all the salty gals and boys out there.
Ridiculously easy to make and absolutely delicious, it's worth all the calorie splurge :D
Recipe
- 2 slices wheat bread, buttered generously, rip into chunks
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
- half a small tin of corned beef (you can also use sliced franks, chopped bacon, etc etc)
- mixed dry herbs (rosemary, oregano, sage, thyme), nutmeg, black pepper, a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar, a dash of paprika, a bit of grated lemon zest
Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Mix the beaten eggs, milk, corned beef (crushed with fork to allow it to distribute evenly), most of the grated cheese (leave some for the top), and seasonings in a bowl. Add slices of buttered bread, submerge them in the creamy and eggy mixture, and pour into a lightly greased baking tin and top with the rest of the cheese. Bake in the middle shelf for about 40-50 minutes or until it springs back when touched, and if you want the top to turn really golden brown, transfer to top shelf and continue baking for a few minutes.
Let's see...creamy, cheesy, meaty and eggy bottom...
...with golden delicious topping.
Good morning!
If this slice of heaven and a cup of good coffee/tea don't put a smile on your face...I dunno what will ^_^
Remember good ol' sticky rice dumplings? The Tuen Ng festival is over...but we still have some of this from SC's mama. We could have sticky rice dumplings for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a few days straight ^_^
For breakfast...or lunch...or snack...I like to have my sticky rice dumplings with...
a bit of soy sauce and Indonesian ABC chilli sauce.
If you noticed, SC's mama loves her sticky rice dumplings with lots of beans and not much meat filling.
Thus, for dinner, I can't just have sticky rice dumplings this way...I need something more substantial.
So I decided to have them with Teriyaki Braised Pork Ribs and Vegetable & Mushrooms in Oyster Sauce.
My best attempt of trying to have a "balanced meal" ^_^
Teriyaki Braised Pork Ribs
Recipe
- 1 lb pork ribs
- 1 clove shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 small clove garlic, crushed
- 2 cm ginger, crushed
- Teriyaki Sauce (I used Kikkoman), rice wine, hot water, olive oil, sugar
Saute ginger, garlic and shallot in a bit of olive oil, add ribs, add teriyaki sauce, rice wine, a bit of sugar and hot water (just until it barely covers the meat), and pressure cook for 25 minutes. If you don't use a pressure cooker, bring to boil and simmer until the meat is falling-off-the-bone tender.
The Teriyaki Glaze
- Teriyaki sauce
- Rice wine
- Sugar
- braising liquid
- corn starch dissolved in water
Mix everything, bring to boil and keep tasting it until you achieve your preferred balance of sweet and savoury, thicken with corn starch mixture. It should be more on the sweet side. Drizzle over the ribs.
Yum! Sticky sticky!
Vegetables and mushrooms in oyster sauce
You don't need a recipe for this :)
It's basically shredded Chinese lettuce and sliced shiitake mushrooms stir fried with a bit of ginger and oyster sauce.
This weekend's breakfast and lunch menu = you know it! Sticky rice dumplings! Hmm, maybe with bacon and scrambled eggs ^_^
One night...I just felt a really really strong urge.... to bake.
Something sweet and sticky...but most importantly something easy.
You see, I don't handle failures very well, especially close to midnight ^_*
On another note, you know that sometimes couples have differences.
Ahem. Nothing principal, just...reconciliable differences.
Such as...different air conditioning temperature, love/hatred towards durian, and stuff like that.
Speaking of differences and bread puddings...SC and I are different.
I like my bread pudding pale and soft...like this...
...and he likes his like this...
Golden brown, sweet and crunchy top, with soft and fluffy bottom.
How did we handle it? I cut a big chunk off the right corner when it was still pale, and dump the rest back into the oven to achieve SC's preferred state of bread-pudding-ness. It worked pretty well, we both got what we wanted :)
Now, how easy exactly is this bread pudding?
Recipe
(adapted from allrecipes.com)
- 2 slices of bread
- salted butter/margarine
- 1 cup of milk
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/3 cup sugar
- a dash of vanilla
- a dash of cinnamon
- a couple handfuls of dark chocolate chips (optional, you can use raisins)
- maple syrup for glazing (optional)
- chocolate syrup and condensed milk to serve with (optional)
Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Slather bread slices with butter, super generously ^_^ and tear down into pieces (doesn't have to be very small). In a mixing bowl, mix beaten eggs, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and milk, whisk (or use a mixer) until well combined. Add bread pieces into the batter and let the bread soak all those eggy creamy goodness. Grease a baking pan, pour batter with bread, add dark chocolate chips here and there, and bake for 20-30 minutes or until it springs back when touched. If you want the golden brown, ultra crispy finish like SC, slather maple syrup on the surface, crank up the oven to 200C, place bread pudding on top shelf and bake until golden but not severely burnt. Serve with ice cream, chocolate syrup, condensed milk or devour as is. It is good enough. No. It's beyond!
I am sooo gonna make a savoury version soon ^_^
Stay tuned!
What does it mean by Hong Kong style burger?
It means...
- Generic burger sweet buns you can buy from supermarket, probably from Garden bread
- You can hardly tell if the patty is beef or pork or anything else?
- Salad sauce = Miracle Whip + Sugar + Water
It also means bloody DELICIOUS!
I order the above tower-of-sin (double cheeseburger + fried egg), it's yummy to the max! I didn't care that I could not tell if it was beef or pork.
This was the double pork cheese burger...equally delicious, tasted pretty much the same as mine minus the fried egg...
Some of us ordered fish burgers...and since it's so small, I didn't have the heart to ask for a bite to try ^_^
If you thought that the tower-of-sin I've ordered could fill me up...
Think again!
I've also requested to order a serving of Hong Kong style deep fried chicken leg and a pile of Hong Kong style fries, and since we had to share the fried chicken...
The ever so elegant Jason Bonvivant meticulously dissected the chicken using fork and knife ^_^
I was waiting for him to do a bad job at cleaning the chicken meat off the bones, as I planned to gnaw what remained on the bones ^_^'
...and because we were food bloggers...
...we were obnoxious and did not care if others were waiting impatiently to eat the food, sowry! ;)
Wanna see what did we wear? Check it out here.
In case you're in town, give it a try.
Go early as the place gets so damn packed at lunch time.
Si Sun Fast Food
(時新快餐店)
G/F, 1A Whampoa Street, Hung Hom
Hong Kong
紅磡黃埔街1A地下
Tel: +852 2362 1279
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