Mushroom chicken stew

Mushroom chicken stew used to be my family's CNY signature dish. As what I can remember is the aroma of the dish and a thick layer of oil on the gravy. I don't really likes dried mushroom (I hardly eat dried mushroom as I found it chewy and have a feeling of difficult to digest)

Well, since I have a 'bird' from Sheng Siong and few packs of mushroom imported directly from TaoBao, I'm thinking to give it a try.

To my surprise, the mushroom that highly recommend by a friend is indeed superb.

After soaking for an hour, this is how the lil cuties look like. It smell like miushroom and looks like mushroom. I mean like the fresh one.

 then, time to clean up the chicken (oops, I should call it bird as it's just less than a kg)

this birdie is quite clean, even the internal organ is cleared. So, this cut down a lot of the preparation time.

Let the chicken has a hot water bath and standby for cooking.

put in mushroom, sliced ginger and bring water to boil. Chucked in the whole chicken when the water is boiling.

Turn to low flame once the soup is boiling. Simmer 1hr and leave it.

*Do not open the lid as it will continue to slow cook.

Added sea cucumber in the morning and simmer for 30mins.

*Do not cook for too long as it will spoil the texture of the sea cucumber.

The soup is perfect as a base for mee sua.

Most yummy mee sua soup that I have ever had.












* Learned from my aunty who always prepare this during CNY that to complete the dish, ones has to dilute some corn starch and boil it for few minutes. Then the soup base will turn thicker and that's why it is called a stew. (^.^)

mussles steamed egg

Many delicious dishes can be done with eggs. And, one of my simplest eggy dish is --> steamed egg with minced pork.

Here is the latest version of steamed egg.

Ingredients:
1x salted egg
2x eggs
150g of minced pork
a handful of wolfberries
a handful of mussles (can be replaced by crabmeat)
some pepper powder
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp of Maggi light soy sauce
and a cup of water

1. smudge the salted egg by using fork and spoon.
2. Add in minced pork, and mixed well with salted egg.
3. beat in 2 eggs and add in seasonings.
4. lastly, pour in a cup of water, stir well and steam in boiling water.
5. after 20mins, put in the mussles one by one and steam for another 15mins.

Voila. Another version of steamed egg.

Another HappyCall.

Having great time shopping at Sg yesterday & bought so many things. I teased my friend that "we must be out of our mind to shop at Sg for food stuff when the exchange rate is so high now" Anyhow, we had great time shopping and dining. The favorite food that I always hunting for is beef noodles.

Without further hesitation, I bought myself another HappyCall grill pan. It's only $89 (from Metro) Well, I should have said a substitute, not another, since the previous one already has a spot on its surface. I think it's time to change to a new, and of course a bigger one.

Well, just a reminder : kitchen ware is subjected to 30% tax (30% of the purchase price). I had a nasty surprise when the custom officer told me about the above tax rate when she found the pan on the backseat. However, she let me off.

 Tadaa..... Can't wait to launch my new pan.

It comes with a spare 'packing' (the rubber around the pan) and a safety instructions handbook.

The first project is spaghetti with tomato sauce, cooked with fresh shitakae mushroom, cucumber, fresh mussles and Taiwan sausages.

 Taiwan sausages 20 for $3.00. Yummy......

 It's so simple and dinner is ready in half an hour time.

Grilling steak/pork chop should be the next assignment.

making delicious cupcakes by using blender

I bought this blender from Total Image roadshow 5 years ago but hardly use it. I remembered back then, I used it only for making fruit juice and the marinade sauce for chicken rice.

I always wanted to try making cupcakes with this blender after watching the Magic Bullet video clip. Always, but no action taken since then. (shy ^_^)

Last Sat night, it just crossed my mind on having it a try. I cut the ingredient into a small portion which fits in well to the tall cup.

Ingredient: (making 8 cupcakes)
100g butter
100g self-raising flour
60g castor sugar
2 eggs
few drops of vanilla essence
raisins or anything to your liking

Steps :
1. Heat up oven at 175°C.
2. Melt butter and blend it together with sugar.
3. Then add in eggs. Press and hold for 3 seconds
4. Fold in flour by using a plastic paddle. Press 3 times  (one second each)
5. Lastly, add in raisin or anything that you like. Mixed well with the plastic paddle.
6. Pour in the batter into cupcake liners and bake for 18mins.

*remember, do not blend the butter for too long as it will make your cupcakes shrink. Like my choc sun-dried tomato cupcakes.

Below website is just for your viewing pleasure. Looking at the way they compressed the usage of the blender into few minustes of video clips is just like watching magic show!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtpKjgwi4Sc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plbRSugctAA

for the next experiment, I'd like to try on pasta sauce. I'll definitely share it out once I successfully make my homemade pumpkin and tomato pasta sauce.