My kids just simply love mushrooms and last Sunday, I decided to turn them into 4 ‘Ms’ – Mushrooms Mania on Mouthful Monday! I just simply create this stir fry of Enoki and Bunashimeji mushrooms.  Note: I was told that mushroom contains lots of uric acid which is bad for gout.  Make sure you eat moderately.  Too much of everything is not a good thing tho.

Enoki

Bunashimeji

Ingredients:

1pkt Enoki mushroom
1pkt Bunashimeji mushroom
2 inches thick ginger
2 cloves of garlic
Oyster sauce

Method:

Heat wok with 2 tablespoons of oil. Saute garlic and ginger till fragrant. Add in one rice bowl of water, bring to boil. At the meantime, season stock with oyster sauce or anything of your choice. Add in Bunashimeji to the boiling stock. Bring to boiled again. Lastly, add in Enoki mushroom. Bring stock to boil again and remove from wok. Don’t over cook the mushroom. You should be able to do it quickly.

I’m not the type that is creative with garnishing to my dishes. Probably you can add in some spring onion or carrot. I forgo the carrot, cos we have having ABC chicken soup. If anyone of you cook this with improve version, let me know ya? Can learn a thing or two from you too.

Last night, I was in not exactly in a mood for Japanese but somehow, I ended cooking a full Japanese dinner.  We had Miso soup minus the egg tofu because we already had steam tofu with bonito and on daughter’s special request, we had steam Salmon trout.

Check out the recipe for miso soup by clicking on the link above.  And here you go, the recipe for steam tofu with bonito.  Pretty simple and doesn’t required tedious cooking.

Ingredients:
Tofu
Bonito (dry fish flakes)
Oyster sauce or fish sauce

Method:
Steam tofu and oyster sauce for 5 minutes.  Remove from wok and garnish with bonito.  Pretty easy right?  You may add spring onions or sesame oil if you like.

The above picture is just for show.  In actual, before we dunk into the tofu, we have sky high of bonito you don’t even know there are tofu underneath.

I bought my bonito from the Japanese section in Jaya Jusco for about RM10.90 if I’m not mistaken.  Can anyone suggest other way of eating/cooking bonito?

This is Nien Kau (mandarin).

They are make from sugars (lots and lots of them) and glutinous rice flour. The mixture was then steam in high heat for 24 hours till they turned brownish and sticky.

Some people like to eat them fresh which can be very sweet. But I preferred mine with grated coconut.

This is how you make it:

1. If you have a weeks old or harden nien kau, steam them for approximately 20 minutes. If you want a shorter steaming time, you may cut the harden nien kau into slices. Line them on a plate before steaming them for 5 minutes.
2. Tell the sundry shop that you want the grated coconut for eating and not for squeezing santan (milk). This is to make sure the man grate only the white part of the coconut and not touch the shell at all.
3. Sprinkle 3/4 teaspoon of salt on the grated coconut.
4. Lastly, coat nien kau with coconut.

Other than the above method, you can also deep fried them into fritters with yam or sweet potatoes.  Or how about some bubur cha-cha with nien kau? *drooling!*

Wei, wei, wei, Chinese New Year is just one week away from now. Have you stock up your cookies? This year, I am quite lazy to bake. But because I have few orders from a dear friend of mine, I decided to make just enough for her and also a few for my relatives.

I tried to bake simple cookies this time. To me, the cornflakes cookies is kinda easy to bake.

Just cream the butter, sugar, eggs and flour. Coat them with cornflakes before sending them to the oven. Let me know if you want the proportion for the ingredients.

I find them more presentable and faster if you bake the cookies in mini paper cups but the texture is not completely crunchy especially at the base of the cookies.

I think something is wrong with my recipes. Good for the kids tho as they get to eat the something-is-wrong cookies. *snigger* I remember during my childhood days when my mom make Kuih Kapit for CNY. We only get to get the chau tah (burned) or cacat (distorted) looking ones. The curse has been passed down to this generation as kids STILL get to eat only chau tah cookies but Mom will yell if they ever touch the nice looking piece. 😳

To finish up the cornflakes that I have, I coat them with melted chocolates and deco with some colourful sprinkles.

My Children finished up the whole container of this. By the time I found out, they left only 3 pieces behind. By night time, Baby Princess is crocking! Now I have no more cookies to chia my guest.

At the same time, I baked the pineapple cookies too. This time I’ve replace the pineapple with Buah Kurma (Dates) cos I really want to keep it a simple baking session.

You can find the pineapple cookies recipe here. All you need to do is replaced the pineapple jam with Buah Kurma. Very simple task.

This is how it looks like inside.

I’ve done baking for CNY and earned myself a back pain from the 5 hours of baking. *ouch*

Short Talk – Leaving for a cruise vacation is so exciting that one might forget a lot of important chores like booking for car rental in advance. Everyone remembers getting the cheap flights, but people often forget the airline tickets at home or the hotel when traveling in large groups.

With the Chinese New Year drawing nearer, I find myself getting more lazy to cook. Blame it on the lazy bugs in me. But what do you expect after a tiring days spring cleaning for the oncoming festive season? Thus, no cooking means no update in my ‘Mouthful Monday’ category too. So, I thought of this quick, delicious and yet healthy meals for the family.

The proportion shown here is enough to feed a family of 2 adults and 3 children.

Ingredients for the porridge:

• 3/4 cup of fragrant rice
• Water

Method:

Clean rice and soak them in water preferably overnight. In the morning, rub soaked rice with your palm. Discard water and replace with clean water. Simmer rice for about an hour on slow fire till your porridge gets very soft. Add more water if it dries up. The texture should be a runny.

Now, we are ready for the steamboat!

I prepared my children’s favourite dishes, that is the fish noodles. They are basically fish paste that was shaped longish like noodles. So, no rules as what you should or should not have. Here are some ideas for you – fish balls, squid, shrimps, chicken fillet, fish fillet, pigs intestine, mince pork, bean curd sheets (foo chok), tau pok, yong tau foo, chinese cabbage, baby corn, button mushrooms… Well, just to named a few here. It is up to your preference and availability from the market.

Since I don’t have a steamboat pot, I substitute them by using the electric rice cooker. They work the same. Filled half of the pot with porridge.

Food that required longer cooking like red meat should go in first.

Replaced cover and bring porridge to a boil again. Well, if you really want a more perfect steamboat, you may add some ginger shred, sesame oil, spring onions or fragrant shallots.

Baby Princess was curious why food was cook on the dining table. Well, I have not done this for ages! I’m pretty excited about it too.

Oh, and she is planning to mess them up too. “Daddy, quick! She took the soya sauce!”

Well, the next time I’m going to make it a big feast so that I can have all the dishes mentioned earlier. The  fish balls, squid, shrimps, chicken fillet, fish fillet, pigs intestine, mince pork, bean curd sheets (foo chok), tau pok, yong tau foo, chinese cabbage, baby corn, button mushrooms, ginger shred, sesame oil, spring onions, fragrant shallots…. Bon appetite 🙂

I have not been cooking for the past few weekends. The reason is very simple. I.Am.Just.Plain.Lazy. *insert evil laugh*

Another reason could be the new opening of Jaya Jusco in Bandar Bukit Tinggi. They are situated just a stone throw away from where we live. So tell me, what makes us not going there every weekend be it window shopping, indulging their glorious food or even acting like an Ah Soh buying 10 packets of Tops Detergent priced at RM9.90 just because other Ah Soh is doing the same thing? 😳 (you must be crazy to think that I’ve actually done that)

Ok, back to me being lazy to cook. So far, the craziest things we had (or maybe not that crazy but my Mom think it is!) for dinner is 12 pieces of donuts from Big Apple. My Mom freaked when she heard that.

Hmm… what is the best way to make my Hubby freak then? Bill from Häagen-Dazs®!

The fondue set is as expensive as my dinner but we deserved a pampering once in a while.

The thick, creamy and rich chocolate. Such a sinful meal, I would called it. Fruits platter on one side, and…

… ice-creams and cakes on the other side.

Dunk the ice-cream in the hot chocolate *drooling*

or if you favour…

coat them in crunchy almond nibs.

Chocolate chips cookies is sinful enough, but when you dunk them in the melted hot chocolate…

… start counting the calories. Gotta watch that waistline la, Dude!

I’m lost for caption. Can anyone suggest something catchy or hillarious for the bubble speech?

Well, if I like your bubble speech, you are in for the next fondue *treat with the Queen. How does that sound? 😉

* Terms and condition applied.

The original recipe of coconut shake called for coconut milk (santan) and milk. I am somewhat sitting on the balancing scale – watching the calories, modifying the recipe and you get a rating of 7.5 out of 10 of result here. This is my version of coconut shake for health freak people like me.

Ingredients:
The oldest ‘young’ coconut you can get. Avoid using too ‘young’ coconut as the flesh hasn’t produce any milk. Yet!

Method:

Freeze the coconut juice and coconut flesh in ice cube tray for approximately 3 hours. I dare not over freeze it in case my 9 years old blender can’t take the pressure and it might break the blade. Blend the freezed coconut cube for about 2 minutes.

A cool drink to quench your thirst.

You can get the chinese herbs from chinese medical hall. Double boiled them with spring chicken for 3 to 4 hours.  However, I don’t quite like the sweet taste from honey dates.  Maybe I should replace them with red dates instead. Hmm….

Ingredients:

• 400gm Glutinous rice
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• Salt
• 20 white peppercorn
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 cloves
• 2 pandan leaves, knotted
• 100ml thick coconut milk

Method:

1. Wash and soak glutinous rice in water. Mixed turmeric powder, cinnamon sticks and 1 tablespoon of salt for five hours or more.
2. Drain well the soaked rice, then place in a steamer with peppercorns and pandan leaves and steam for 15 minutes.
3. Remove the steamer and add 1 teaspoon of salt to the coconut milk before mixing it to the rice. Mix well then steam for another 15-20 minutes. Fluff up the rice and continue steaming for another 15 minutes.
4. Remove rice from steamer and set aside to cool.

The result? Mine failed cos I cook them in the rice cooker. Note in mind: STEAM them! No finishing picture too as the photographs turned out VERY unpleasant looking it deem unfit to be posted in jessielingdotcom! At least not to my standard la.

Being a Foochow, I am ashamed of myself as I speak very little of my mother’s tongue. But if you tell me “nehrekong”, I will be “hui ya ruah”. That’s all I know. *rofl*

Ok. Don’t learn that. Those are very bad! *wipe tears away*

I adhered foochow cooking from my Dad. Mind you, he is a very good cook. During Chinese New Year, he is the one storming up in the kitchen. When I was young, I used to be my Dad’s little kitchen slave helper. I can’t deny I’m a good observer. I observed him all the time especially the ingredients and substitution that he used. It benefits from there. Without A, you can go for B and came out with C 😉

One of the simplier dishes that most Foochow love is smashed tofu soup or tau-hu rong (tau-hu = tofu, rong = soup).

Ingredients:

2 soup bowl of water
4 pieces of Tofu
3 cloves of garlic
Minced chicken/pork
Crab meat/tiny lala (optional)
Chicken granule/stock for seasoning
Tapioca flour
Chives & corriander leaves for garnishing
1 Egg

Method:

Heat oil and saute your garlic till brown. Measure 2 soup bowl of water into wok. Close wok with lid. At the meantime while waiting for the water to boil, smashed tofu using the back of a fork.

Depending on individual. I like mine smashed into very small pieces. If you prefer chunky or bite size tofu, work your way out then.

Washed your tiny lala using a sieves under running water. If you are using crab meat, break them into fine strand.

However, this two are optional ingredients. You may obsolete them if you want.

Marinate your minced chicken/pork with a dash of pepper and soy sauce. Add a tablespoon of tapioca floor to meat before cooking.

Your water should come to a boil by now. Dump in your smashed tofu, tiny lala/crab meat and marinated meat. Stir them so that the meat will break up into tiny pieces again. Cover wok with lid again and bring them to a boiled.

On the other hand, stir approximately 6 tablespoons of tapioca flour into 1/2 bowl of water. Once your soup came to a boil, thickens soup with tapioca mixture. Stop at the consistency that you want. Season with chicken stock/granule. Switch off fire and drizzle egg. Stir soup quickly.

Garnish with chives and corriander leaves before serving.

I cook this soup for my Hokkien in-law to try. The first thing that came out from my Sil’s mouth is, “What happen to the tofu? Why all smashed up?” They love it eventually but I never cook this soup for them again.