Fish Sauce Sesame Salads Dressing

Oh Yes! It is salad again. Love those crispy cooling salad during these hot season. Another version of Thai/Vietnam style salad.

Ingredients:

Handful of chopped lettuces

Half a bowl of cherry tomatoes

3 clovers Garlic

a knob of Ginger

Chilis (bird eye- for spicy salad)

2 -3 limes (6 tbsp lime juices)

2 tbsp fish sauces
1 tsp of soy sauces

1 tbsp brown sugar

1tsp peanut oil (optional)
1 tbsp of toasted sesame seed

Handful of chopped Coriander

Some chopped Spring Onion

Method:

1) Grind the ginger and garlic into fine paste.

2) Squeeze the lime, drain the seeds.

3) Mix all the wet ingredients together with sugar, chilies, coriander & spring onions.

Mix  

4) Mix the cherry tomatoes in. You can half some of the cherry tomatoes, it looks more appetizing.

5) Toast 1 tbsp of sesame seeds over the hot pan.

6) Mix the salad dressing with all the greens & sprinkle the sesame seed last.

Enjoy.

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Stir Fry Oyster Mushroom (Vegetarian)

Sometimes I do out of stock on "meat" supplies in the fridge due to any kind of businesses- busy with the kids, works, career, classes, baking etc....My kids are kind of carnivorous, of course, I always have a back up plan.

Mushroom to the rescue! Mushroom seriously taste like meat especially its texture. It is always good to add mushroom to our diet as it is very healthy & delicious too. What I like about the fresh mushroom - easy & fast to cook. With very little effort, we can have super delicious weekdays dinner.

Mushroom is high in Vitamin B2, D, Fiber, Potassium, low in calories, cholesterol free, enhances immune system & blood circulation & it is a perfect diet food.

Ingredients:

Handful of fresh mushroom (e.g. Shimeiji, Maitake, Grey Osyter etc)

Some chopped coriander/ spring onion

Lot of minced garlic (4-5 cloves)

Salt & Pepper

Optional (chicken stocks 1 tsp)

Only with these simple ingredients, we just need to cook these up in 5 mins.

Preparing the fresh mushroom, I always buy those "no need to wash" mushroom. If you are not able to get those, it is ok, just brief use running tap water to rinse the fresh mushroom. DO NOT soak mushroom in water, otherwise, it will become too watery when you stir fry the mushroom.

Method:
1) Stir fry garlic with one tbsp of olive oil, then add in the fresh mushroom.

 

2) Sweat the mushroom for 2-3 mins.

3) Add in the coriander or spring onion,chicken stock (it makes the mushroom taste like chicken), salt & pepper to taste.

P/S: There is an alternate version of non vegetarian stir fry mushroom, just add any left over roast meat when stir fry together with the mushroom. Taste superb too.

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Thai Salad Dressing

This simple delicious main course salad is full of flavor & it can be done without using any oil. My kid love this salad so much.  This is a salad that is guaranteed to become a family favorite. It is a perfect side dishes to any seafood- cooked prawn, cooked squid (sotong), grilled fish.

Dressing:

2 cloves garlic

1 bird eye chilies or 1 long big red chilies

1 knob of ginger

2 -3 limes (6 tbsp lime juices)

2 shallots

2 tbsp fish sauces

1 tbsp brown sugar

1tsp peanut oil (optional)

Handful of chopped Coriander

Some chopped Spring Onion

Salads (cleaned, wash & spin dry):

Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, cherry tomato, any salad vegetables

Optional:

Some cooked prawn

Some cooked squid

1) Mix fish sauces with sugar, stir to melt the sugar, squeeze the limes, pick out the seed of the limes. 

2) Grind the ginger, garlic into fine paste.Add in to the salad dressing. The colour of the mixture will change slightly after add in the ginger and garlic paste.

3) Add in all these ingredients that need to be chopped finely- tomatoes, shallots, chilies (hot- bird eye) or big chilies (mild). Mix all these into the salad dressing.
4) The best method to mix the salads well is by using both hand.
5) Pour all these well mixed chopped salad on the green lettuces.
6) Serve Immediately or chill in the refrigerator.

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Simple Delicious Daikon Soup (with Konbu)

As usual on one sunny Sunday I was doing my round of groceries shopping in a mall. For those who live in this region (Souteast Asia), the weather is hot & humid. We love to visit the shopping mall during the weekend.You may not believe how this recipes was created. It was inspired by the soup served  on Japanese events.

Whenever I see other people cooking delicious stuffs,  I will automatically ask them: " This is nice,  how do you cook it?".  From here, I learned the combination of raw material that make this soup delicious.

This soup is so clear & delicious. Simple ingredients & it can be made vegan or non-vegan. The "umami" or the pleasant savory taste shines in this soup.

Ingredients for 3 paxs:

1 medium size Daikon (White Radish)

10-15g of dried konbu (Kelp- normal come in square shape, use a damn cloth wipe the konbu)

1 corn

1200 ml water

Method (using pressure cooker):

1) Put all the ingredients in a deep pressure cooker.

2) Cook for 15 mins & let it simmer in the pressure cooker until it cooled. Serve warm.

or

Method (using normal deep pot)

1) Put all the ingredients in deep pot & cook with medium fire until boiling. You may add extra 300-500ml water as the liquid will reduced after 30 mins of boiling with small fire.

2) Let it simmer for 30 mins (mins). Serve warm.

Tips: For those who prefer to add some ribs or lean chicken meat in this soup, pls do so. It tastes equally good. But the soup base will not be so clear after adding the meat.

The secret of success for this soup is the konbu or sea tangle. It is very "umami" & full of fibers. We love to eat the sea konbu & it is great for detox. This soup is super cooling for this HOT summer. 

There are lot of vegetables in this soup, I just need to stir fry one dish & dinner can be served right away. This is a two in one dish- soup & vegetables.

I love to use pressure cooker because it is so fast & we can enjoy soup on a busy weekdays. Kids just love soup. 

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Garlic Fried Brown Rice with Fresh Mushroom

Fried Brown Rice is always a popular option in local vegetarian restaurant. Today, I am not doing the vegetarian version as I need to please the kids. However, you could omit the roast meat in the recipes if you want a vegan version fried rice. The highlight of this recipes is MUSHROOM & GARLIC. 

Ingredients:

3 bowl of  brown rice (it is ok to replace with white rice)

4 cloves of minced garlic

Handful of varieties fresh mushroom (cut into slices)

200g of roast pork (cut into little cubes -see pics below)

2 stalks of spring onion 

2 tbsp of light soya sauces 

1 tbsp of vegan oyster sauces

2-3 tbsp of water if needed

See Vegan oyster sauces below. It also included the dark caramel soya sauces. 

Method:

1) 1 tbsp of vegetables oil dry with the garlic in small medium fire together with the roast pork.

Do not let the garlic burn as it will taste bitter. Do not leave the non stick wok, keep stir frying.

2) In all the fresh mushroom & continuing stir frying. Add in the oyster sauces.

3) Add in the spring onion & brown rice.Keep on stir frying.

4) Add in the soya sauces,pouring the soya sauce in circular motion over the fried rice over medium high fire.

5) You can add around 2 tbsp of water if you think the fried rice is too dry. 

6) It is best served hot.

For those who are fans Japanese Garlic Fried Rice, you just need to change the recipes slightly:

3 bowl of  round sticky Japanese rice

4-5 cloves of minced garlic

3 stalks of spring onion 

3 tbsp of light soya sauces 

Pinch of salt if needed
2-3 tbsp of water if needed

**Tips: The ratio of water : brown rice is 2:1.

Pre-soak the brown rice 4-6 hours ahead before cooking in the rice cooker.

Let it cool down before frying. Normally, I will cook all the rice in the afternoon, half portion is for lunch consumption & the other half to be kept in the fridge for dinner fried rice.

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Simple Lady Finger (Okra) Salad

Super simple easy salad for a busy weekday nights. Okra or ladies fingers are surprising one of the super food that have a lots of health benefits. Okra is packed with dietary fibre that helps stabilisation of blood sugar levels by regulation of the rate of absorption of sugar from the digestive tract. The anti-diabetic property of okra is also attributed to its ability of inhibition of enzymes metabolizing carbohydrates, enhancement of production of insulin, regeneration of beta cell of the pancreas and increased secretion of insulin. In short, we shall include okra or lady fingers into our vegetables list. It is a very common vegetables in this Asia Pacific region.

Salads for 2-3 servings:

6-9ea lady fingers or okra (washed & cleaned)

2 tsps Seaweed sauces* (usually made in Taiwan, made in Korea or Japan)

1/2 tsp shallots oil or garlic oil (fried some vegetable oil with slices of shallots or garlic)

Some toasted sesame 

* If  you can't get the seaweed sauce, just replace it with light soya sauces will do.

Method:

1) Boil a pot of boiling hot water & cook the okra for 4-5 mins.

2) Drain & cool with running tap water. Put aside & slice it.

3) Mix the sliced okra with shallot/garlic oil.

4) Season well with the seaweed sauces or light soya sauces.

5) Sprinkles some toasted sesame on top.

6) Serve immediately.

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Fry Mixed Vegetable with Korean Spicy Hot Sauces

Simple & quick vegetarian stir fry for healthier diet. This is great to serve with white rice. Extremely easy. Love the rainbow colour of this dishes. it is good to incorporate different colours vegetable in our diets. It will never go wrong with all sort of varieties of vegetables.

Ingredients (2-3 pax):

Vegetables:

50g Brown mushrooms

50g White mushrooms (or any mushrooms of your choice)

3 Napa cabbages leaves

1/3 Red bell pepper

1/3 Green bell pepper

1/2 Red onion

1 Knob of sliced ginger

2 Cloves garlic

Sauces:

2-3 tbsp Chongga Kimchi Sauce (TOS)

3-4 tbsp of Water

Salt to taste

1 stalk of spring onion cut into inches

1 red chili sliced

 Method:
1) Brown the ginger & onion with 2 tsp of oil in a wok pan.

2) Add in the mushroom & continue stir fry for a min or two.

3) Add in all the vegetables except the chili & spring onion. Stir fry with the kimchi sauces & water, add salt to taste. Reduce the sauces to the consistency that you like. Do not put the lid on. I like mine a little dry with very little bit of sauces.

4) Last in the spring onion & chili. Serve hot immediately.

Tips: For stir fry, try to use the non stick pan because we can reduce the stir fry oil that need to be used to brown the garlic & ginger at the beginning. The result is more or less the same.
Tips: Prefer to use ceramic coated wok pan. It doesn't stick at all.

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Coolest Oatmeal Walnut Cranberry Vegetarian Cookies

It has been quite sometime that I write baking recipes on my blog. I love baking, it was kind of like de-stress therapy. My little girl always tell me, when I cook or bake anything that she likes, please put it on the blog. When the day she became an grown up adult & when she miss my cooking, she will check out on my website. I asked, how about my collections of cook books & notes? Who will inherit it? She says, it is all mine. Sweet.Yeah, this is one of her favorite cookies.
I always make extra & share with my kid's ex-nanny, Carole.

Ingredients:
150g Brown sugar
128g Big roll oatmeal
192g AP flour
pinch of salt

112g unsalted butter (can replaced by canola oil if you like, cookies will be slightly hard)
6tbsp pure maple syrup
1tsp baking soda
2 tbsp of boiling water
1tsp vanilla essence

1 cup of walnut (roughly chopped)
1 cup dried cranberry

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 160C. Line baking tray with silicone sheets or parchment paper.
2) Mix oatmeal, flour, salt, sugar in a big bowl. Put aside.
3) Melt the butter in a saucepan using small heat, cook until golden brown about 5 mins. Careful, don't burn it.
4) Remove from heat & stir in maple syrup & vanilla essence.
5) Add boiling water & baking soda in a small bowl, stir vigorously to dissolve & pour immediately into the brown butter mixture. Stir quickly & it will become foamy.
6) Pour this butter mixture into the dry ingredients.
7) Mix quickly with a few strokes & fold in walnut and cranberry.
8) Do not let the mixture sits for too long. It need to be done quickly. Otherwise, it will become difficult to handle.

9)Use an ice cream scoop to scoop up the dough, flatten the dough slightly.
10) Leave some gap about 2 inches between the cookies dough as it will expand.
11) Bake for 15-20mins, rotate the pan half way if needed.
12) Let it cool & keep in an air tight container for up to 2 weeks.

Love this healthy cookies recipes as it is not too sweet & not too oily. Best thing of all it does not contains egg, which mean it can be kept longer.

p/s I have tried replacing the butter with canola oil, the result is not too bad. Definitely it is not as flavorful  compared to butter. However, some people just love their cookies crisp & slightly hard. It is just personal preference. It is fun to create your own version of oatmeal cookies.

Tips: You can replace the cranberries with raisin or sultanas.
Tips: You can replace the walnut with almond or any dried nut.

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Stir Fry French Bean with Dried Shrimp - Asian Chinese Style

Today we are going to cook this simple "Stir Fry French Bean with Dried Shrimp". All material are easily available in the Asia market. This is a very appetizing recipes,  it goes well with rice.

What are these? These were dried shrimp. In Asia these dried shrimp are very common. By looking at the pictures, you can already tell the different. We bought the really fresh dried shrimp from Tanjung Sepetang, it is the highest quality & not too salty. Heard that these dried shrimp was imported to South Korea to make kimchi too. Don't forget to buy the dried shrimp from the local fisherman.
Check out my trip to Tanjung Sepetang:
http://fabulouscake.blogspot.com/search?q=kuala+sepetang

In this recipes, you will need the mushroom sauces, I find it quite handy to use pre-prepared minced mushroom sauce for saute. This is optional, you do not need use it if you don't have. Just replace the minced mushroom with minced meat.

Ingredients:

200-250g  french beans

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

1-2 tbsp of dried shrimp

1-2 tbsp of the minced mushroom sauces or replaced this with 50g of minced meat

1 tbsp of soy sauces

1 -2 chili padi, sliced finely (optional, if you like spicy)

Approx 1/4 cup of water

1tbsp of vegetable oil for saute

Method:

1) Wash & cut the french beans into 1.5 inches length.

2) Heat wok with oil, saute the garlic & dried shrimp with medium heat for 1 min.

3) Add in the minced mushroom sauces/ minced meat & chili padi , continue to stir fry for another 1 min.

4)Add in the rest- french beans, water, soy sauces. Let it simmers with medium high heat until it is fairly dry.

5)Salt is unnecessary because the dried shrimp is actually quite salty. You can add in a little bit salt if you have a heavy taste bud. 

6) To decide: pick one of the french bean out of the wok & eat. You will know.

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Bibimbap - Mixed Rice with Vegetables

Whenever I travel, I always like to observe what is the eating culture of that particular country. I love to pick up a few cooking tricks or recipes from the locals.  In fact, I find that Korean are very pragmatic. Their regular food is so practical & easy to prepare. Though Korean food is not made with expensive raw material like the Chinese (especially Cantonese food- expensive fish,  abalone, crab, lobsters, expensive sea cucumber..etc). But I still think their food is quite healthy& good. Besides, we do appreciate the simplicity of their cuisine. When I prepare the Bibimbap,  I feel like I am making a very similar Chinese dishes - 擂茶，which is also made with different variety of vegetables.

I will provide the authentic bibimbap recipes here. You will find some of the ingredients I use is slightly different because we use whatever raw material that are available in the fridge. Just be flexible & create your own Bibimbap. You can sneak in some of your family favorite vegetable or etc..... As you can see, my kid favorite fish cake is in her bibimbap. Feel free to adjust the amount of vegetables. There is no hard & fast rules.

Ingredients:

Pre-prepare cooked rice

Handful of bean sprouts

Handful of spinach

1-2 stick of celery

6 pcs of shiitake mushrooms

250g of ground beef or pork

1 carrot

2 eggs with spring onion

Soy sauces

Hot pepper paste  (Korean Gochujang)

Garlic

Sesame seeds

Sesame oil

Vege oil 

** Options my sneak-in ingredients:

Some stir fry fish cakes

Some stir fry onion with pork strips

Some bell pepper

Some cucumber with gochujang

 1) We need to cook all the ingredients separately & arrange on the plate for easy assemble on the later stage.

2) Bean sprouts -cook it in a pot of hot water + pinch of salt for about 2-3 mins. Drain & mix with 1 clove of garlic & sesame oil.
3) Spinach -cook in a pot of hot water + pinch of salt for about 2-3 mins. Drain & mix with a tsp of soy sauce & sesame oil.
4) Celery -stir fry with vegetable oil + garlic in high heat for about 1-2 mins.
5) Mushrooms - Slice it & stir fry with vegetable oil + 2tsp of soy sauce + 1tsp of sugar. Add sesame oil.
6) Ground beef- stir fry ground beef with 2 cloves of garlic +2 tsp soy sauce + 1tsp sugar + black pepper + sesame oil.
This is what I have observed , in Korean kitchen, they add sesame oil to almost any dishes. Sesame oil is a very important ingredients in Korean food.
6) Carrot - stir fry carrot with 1 garlic + vegetable oil.
7) Eggs- pan fry eggs with spring onion & cut into strips.
8) Prepare a bowl of cooked rice. It is the fun time to assemble the bibimbap.

 9) Get everything ready. Prepare a chopstick to arrange the mix vegetables. I find it easier to use chopstick.

10) Assemble the assorted vegetables nicely on top of the rice. Display your proud moment & present it to you guest.

This plate belongs to my 7 years old, she make a big fuss because I spend too much time arranging the vegetables. It was almost 8pm & she is creaming for dinners. She make a big fuss & tell me next time mummy can cook this dishes but mummy need not arrange it so nicely. That's is because she is too hungry.

To enjoy Bibimbap, serve with a bowl of pipping hot seaweed soup. Yummy~

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