Super Cheesy Baked Egg with Broccoli

Cheesy is pretty much what I am all about. I kinda overdid this a bit. Well a lot. The amount of grated cheese I added to this thing was ridiculous, but hey... the block of cheese was gonna expired soon, I had no choice right? Plus, there's never too much cheese in my book ^_^

So this was one of my last low carb breakfast before I went on a chain of business trip. I'll surely go back home and make this easy treat again.

Recipe
(served just me ^_*)
- 1 egg, beaten
- a dash of cream
- lots of grated cheese (like a tiny mountain of it), I used cheddar, but if you had a bit of mozzarella to go with it, it'd be nice too
- a handful of chopped broccoli (just used some leftover, a handful of frozen peas would be nice too)
- a bit of pepper
Preheat oven to 200C, throw everything, except a bit of grated cheese to put on top, bake until golden brown and fluffy. Serve with chilli sauce or tabasco.

And I got slimmer a bit eating this sinful thing? Howww?

Five Spiced Beef Short Ribs & Spicy Broccoli in Chinese Rice Wine

Broccoli. What is it to you?
To me...
- 2-3 pieces of annoyingly raw and tasteless florets always appear beside my fast-food-joint sizzling steak, along with equally annoying pieces of raw and tasteless carrot. Normally I still (really really reluctantly) eat them (out of guilt)
- It is a great supporting actor/extra. It would be nice to see them winning an award for a leading role sometime
- It tastes fantastic with butter, cream and bacon (but what doesn't?)
- When it's done right, the stem is nutty and the florets greedily absorb whichever poison you throw them into (oh yeah...)
- It is a luxury. Despite its anti-cancer fame and its great taste, I hardly choose broccoli for weekday meals because I don't want to spend valuable minutes having to blanch and shock them. On week nights, every second counts!

I wanted to make my broccoli more than just an extra. If it had to play a supporting role...it should flavor its azz off and win the audience's heart.

Five Spiced Beef Short Ribs & Spicy Broccoli in Chinese Rice Wine

The pan fried five spiced short ribs are smoky, sweet-savoury and rich...the broccoli has to be subtle enough not to overpower the ribs, but still flavorful and fragrant enough to be noticed. The Chinese rice wine gives the tang needed to balance the flavor of the ribs.

Recipe
The Ribs
- 1 lb short ribs, cut into pieces, poke all over with fork
The Marinate
- salt
- sugar (salt vs sugar ratio = 1:1)
- ginger powder (or you can use crushed ginger)
- five spice powdera
- white pepper
- 1 tbsp corn starch
- sesame oil
Rub marinate all over the ribs, rest for at least 30 minutes. Pan fry on a hot pan (you almost need no oil, the ribs will release some oil) until you get enough brownage, don't flip them around too much to keep 'em tender, if possible just flip them once (I know how tempting it is to flip and turn and flip and turn. Just tell yourself to STOPPP!)

Broccoli
- 2 small heads of broccoli, cut into small florets, boil for a few minutes with a bit of salt until they reach your desired tenderness, drain and dip them into ice cold water to retain greenage
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 cm ginger, crushed
- 2 small red chilli, chopped (I didn't remove the seeds. I enjoy the extra "bite". If you don't like things spicy, remove core and seeds or omit chilli)
- 3 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- salt, sugar, white pepper, chinese rice wine, a bit of hot water
Saute shallot and ginger, add garlic, chilli, wait until fragrant, add broccoli, season with salt, sugar, white pepper, chinese rice wine, add a bit of hot water to blend everything, bring to boil, drain, serve with the ribs.

Submitting this recipe to Weekend Wokking - Broccoli, created by Wandering Chopsticks, hosted this month by Noob Cook. Check out the round up for some serious broccoliciousness!

Chicky Love

"First love never dies" yeah. right. I don't think so. Everybody had their puppy love, and I forgot mine as easily as I forgot to bring my office access card every morning :)

If there's one love I can never get over, is my love for chicken. Call it my chicky love. The scene of a young girl waiting impatiently by the kitchen for the chicken to be served, skillful little hands meticulously peeling the meat off the bones, the big grin full of joy after every bite, face smeared by chicken bits and pieces while licking the bone of the fried chicken thigh, everything are still so vivid in my mind.

So, I hope I will certainly bore you with chicken-and-chicken-again postings. MUHAHAHAHA.

This one is "adapted" from Jamie Oliver's Tender & Crisp Chicken Legs with Sweet Tomatoes. I've tweaked it so much due to (un)availability of ingredients and time constraint, it finally became something else (doesn't it always?)

Ingredients
- 4 x Chicken thigh fillet, cut half = 8 pieces
- as much tomatoes as you can fit in the oven tray (slice each tomato into approx. 8 parts)
- half an onion, just cut into a few parts
- a few cloves of garlic, don't bother to even peel the skin off (this is so Jamie)
- some broccoli
- olive oil, salt, pepper

Rub chicken fillets with some salt and pepper, to dramatically shorten cooking time, I pan fried the chicken fillets to crisp the skin. Pre-heat oven to 200 C, lay everything on oven tray, spread everything evenly, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle salt and pepper (I did this rather generously), bake for about 30 minutes or until the chicken meat is cooked through and covered with tomato juice.

You'll get tender, tasty, tomatoey and juicy chicken with crispy skin, chickeny tomatoes and broccoli...and the juice....hmm I think I just fell in love all over again.

PS. My sous chef is so against chicken. Between you and me, I think it's just jealousy.