Cooky Quotes

" Respect your kitchen, and your kitchen will be fruitful "

Archicook - ChenSen Au

Mom's the Best!

It's only a few more days to Mother's Day and I thought of making one of mom's best recipes. It is simply easy and hassle free to make, plus, it is a great dish!

Now, a lot of people might think that it's going to be some sweet food, well sorry to disappoint anyone, it's a pork dish! Haha... Well, check out the recipe below, and make sure to try it, I guarantee it's going to be good, as agreed by many of my relatives who just love this dish of my mom.

Ingredients:

500g Pork Belly

50g Chinese Mushroom

6 piece of Lump Sugar

4 cloves of Garlic

1 tbsp of Brown sugar

1 tbsp Vegetable Oil

2 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce

2 tbsp Light Soy Sauce

1 tbsp Oyster Sauce

Water

Method:

1. Soak the Chinese Mushroom for 4 to 6 hours so that it is really tender. Otherwise, soak in hot water for at least 30 minutes. Slice and leave aside.

2. Cut the Pork Belly into approximately 1cm cubes.

3. Heat up a pot, put in the sliced mushroom and lightly fry over low heat for a couple of minutes. Add in the sugar and vegetable oil, continue to saute for a couple more minutes.

4. Add in the Pork, followed by Dark Soy Sauce, Light Soy Sauce, Oyster Sauce and enough water to cover the meat. Close the pot with lid and bring to boil over high heat.

5. Turn to low heat after boiling for about 5 minutes, braise for at least 30 minutes. In between that, constantly check the water level in the pot, make sure it does not dry off.

6. Make sure there is enough sauce left right before serving, add some water if there is not enough, and braise for 1 or 2 more minutes if you do so. Done! Best served with white rice or noodle. Enjoy!

Sesame Chicken

We always see Sesame Chicken around, and hence I wanted to make my own version. But I did not want to go through the hassle of frying the chicken, so I came up with my own version, I think it was not bad, hopefully other people likes it.


Ingredients:
400g Chicken meat (any parts will do)
60g Chinese Mushroom
30g White Sesame
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
1 tbsp Salt 1 1/2 tbsp Pepper
1 glass Water
2 tbsp Malt
2tbsp Chinese Shao Xing Cooking Wine
2 tbsp Sugar (preferably Brown Sugar)
2 cloves Garlic
2 slices of Ginger
3 tbsp Vegetable Oil

Marinade:
1 tbsp Salt
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
1 tbsp Pepper
1 tbsp Corn Flour
2 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Sesame Oil

Method:
1. Marinate the Chicken for at least 30 minutes
2. Lightly toast the sesame in a clean wok, take them up when they start to brown, put aside.
3. Heat up a wok, lightly fry the mushroom without any oil, add in 1 tbsp of sugar, add in 1 tbsp of oil when they start to caramelize. Add in the ginger and garlic later on, followed by another 2 tbsp of oil. Keep stir-frying.
4. Add in the chicken, fry them till the colour of the meat changes, add in the seasonings and water. Cover with lid if possible, bring to boil.
5. Remove lid, add in the wine. While still boiling, stir in the Malt, make sure it is fully dissolved. Bring to boil again.
6. When the sauce has thicken, quickly stir in the sesame. Done and ready to serve.

Japanese Feastathon

My mates and I decided to go to the city at night on Friday to chill out a bit and enjoy some good food. Initially, we wanted to go Star City again, but obviously, time was jealous of us and would not let us go further than spending our time in feasting. If you guys do come to Sydney and wanna let yourselves wild on feasting Japanese cuisine, this one is really a good one, you can't call it perfect, but it's really worthy.


The you go, I think most people who are familiar with Sydney would know this restaurant, quite a number of my mates have visited the place, besides vegos (no offence!HaHa), I think the feedback is relatively good.





Well, the place is not really big, it's just a typical shop lot, offering heaps of goodies inside! Wait till you check out the things served...















As you can see...small place but constantly packed! We waited for some time that night, due to the fact that we did not place a booking earlier...Luckily the food is worthwhile the waiting!


Oh yea! I forgot to mention, the reason of the place being such a big hit is the fact that, it is buffet style! So you can eat as much as you can, and for those small eaters, sorry to say thism but it won't be worth it. Haha

Getting the picture yet?
















A lot huh? There was actually even more! But I just couldn't be bother anymore, my hands and mouth was busy moving about grabbing food and consuming them that I totally forgot to take the pictures of the food... Briefly, there was salmon sashimi, red tuna and ebi sushi (and many others which I do not know their names, but tasted great!), mussels (fresh and big ones!), miso soup, udon, soba, dessert etc! I wish I took all of the picture so that they could talk for themselves, but apparently that is not the case...



Anyway, check out the group photos...
















Haha, special thanks to Joon Wayn, or not no one would be taking the picture, and because of that, he's not in the photo, your contribution to my blog is appreciated! HeHe, let you play my guitar longer... lol

From left, Lip Son, me, derrick and her girlfriend, who came all the way from Malaysia.


Considering everyone's stomach was at the brink of bursting, we decided to take a small walk at Hyde Park before fetching the bus, check the memorial behind Joon Wayn and me, always wondered what it is, HaHa...


The other one is Lip Son with me with the scene of the waterfront opposite the memorial.



A memorable night! Everyone was satisfied with the food and we had a great time feasting! Check out the place if you have not done so!

Stir-Fry Bassa with Bean Paste Sauce

A lot of people tend to relate fish fillet to deep frying and Fish 'n' Chips. But let me state it clear, there are a lot more that you can do with them, for instance, the easiest way, is simply to stir-fry them!

Having said that, a lot of people would then question, but wouldn't that spoil the texture of the meat? You must fry it before you can stir-fry it, or not it will be come scramble fish!

"Wrong! I say" That is not necessarily the case. Well, today I went grocery shopping and I found some nice Bassa fillets at Coles' fresh meat department, and so I decided I to test my hypothesis. (To others that is, I personally knew that it can be done, at least my mom has done that for countless times.) Well, here are the ingredients:

500g Bassa Fillet (about 2 1/2 piece of fillet)
One Brown Onion
1/2 Red Capsicum
1/2 Green Capsicum
2 cloves of Garlic
3 thin slices of Ginger
5tbsp Vegetable Oil
2tbsp Yellow Bean Sauce
2tbsp Sugar

Marinate:

1 tbsp Corn Flour
2 tbsp Plain Flour
2 tbsp Sesame oil
2 tbsp Chinese Shao Xing Wine
2 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
2 tsp Sugar
2 tsp Lemon Juice
3 tsp Salt
3 tsp Black Pepper









Method:

1. Slice the Bassa fillets diagonally and bring to marinate. Leave aside for 10-15 minutes.
2. Chop the Capsicums and Onions into petals.
3. Heat up the oil in a wok, add in the fillets and roughly stir-fry tll partially cooked. Bring up and leave the remaining oil in the wok.
4. Add the brown onions and capsicums into heated oil, followed by the fine chopped ginger and garlic. Add sugar to get the cemeralization and bring out the fragrance of the ingredients.
5. Add in the fish again and stir-fry thoroughly, stir in the bean sauce about 5 minutes before the dish is done or when you do not see anymore red or raw spots on the fish. Bring to boil, serve hot.

Black Fungus Soup with Tofu and Meatballs

Ingredients:

250g Fresh Soft Tofu
50g Black Fungus
20g Mustard Green
100g Minced Pork
30g Sweet Raddish
1 tbsp Salted Raddish
2cm Ginger

Marinade (for the meatballs)
1 tbsp Pepper
2 tbsp Sesame Oil
2 tbsp Corn Flour

Method:
1. Soak the black fungus for 30 minutes beforehand and marinade the mince pork for about the same amount of time as well.

2. Roughly cut the fungus into big pieces. Slice the mustard green into cubes and mix with the black fungus in a pot filled with 3 quarters of water.

3. Fine chop a few slices of ginger and add to the pot. Bring the pot of water to boil and turn to low fire, leave to braise.

4. Fine chop the remaining ginger, sweet and salted raddish and add to the mince pork. Use spoon or hand to form meatballs according to own preference and add into the pot of soup.
(The soup is still being braised all the time)

5. Cover the pot and leave to braise another 10-15 minutes. Done, serve hot.

Indonesian Night Market

Let's reinterpreate it, Indonesian Food Market? Hahaha, the event last night drew a huge crowd, with the visitors ranging from fellow Indons to asians and even whites! Yes, anyone would call it a success I think? Hahaha...

A couple of bands actually performed, each for for a short period, which continuosly drew attention of hundreds of people while they were eating while standing, talking to their mates etc. Ofcourse, these bands were the spotlights of cameras and video recorders, luckily not many people use film camera nowadays...

Hmm, everyone was busy buying queing up to get their own food, with the Indonesian taste ofcourse. The storeowners on the other hand was busy packing and attending customers, it was a hectic night, but everyone seem to be enjoying...

Now what's that queue of people up to? hmm...

Ahhah! SATAY!!! Indonesian style that is, no wonder...

There was really a lot of food, much of it which I do not know what are they called, though they had their names written on sign boards, wasn't much of my concern anyway, Haha! However, a lot of it is quite similar to what you would find back in Malaysia, like apam balik, kuih, goreng-gorengan, bakmi etc. Too bad my photography skills are not that up to standard to picture them all to post it here... Nevertheless, the function of food was and is always to draw peolpe to gather together...

Hence, let's look at the gathering of some familiar faces, haha...

Hehe. see them? It's Kum Tak and Lee Shean, trying to avoid the camera, haha...

See that couple behind? Livee and Fui Kiat! So into eating their stuff... Delicious huh?

Wait, what about me?

Thanks to Ryan for his photography skills, managed to get a good one of me...Hehe

Anyway, I am still figuring out how to upload large amount of pictures...Maybe I'll use Flicker or something...Hmm...Till next time...