Stir-fry String Bean with Garlic

Very simple and chinese stir-fry, but it's one of the girls' favourite. You wouldn't believe their other favourite dish is just plain fried egg!

Honey Soy Baked Chicken

I used chicken drummets the first round with the modified recipe

Mid-joint wings second round. Girls prefer the mid-joint wings ...

Ingredient

8-10 chicken drummers or mid-joint wings

2 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1/2 tablespoon dark soy sauce

4 cloves garlic, minced

Some ground ginger

Method

1) Use fork poke the chicken a few times. This allow the marinate to sip inside the chicken.

2) Marinate chicken with all ingredient, preferably overnight in the fridge.

3) Take out from fridge 10min before baking.

4) Put chicken together with marinate on baking sheet, skin side up. Keep some marinate for later.

5) Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree C for 15min.

6) After 15min, turn chicken and brush remaining marinate onto the chicken.

7) Bake for another 5min.

8) Serve with warm rice ... 

Sweet Corn with Carrot and Tomato Soup (Variation of ABC Soup)

This pot is only half full. A3 drank 3 cups and had her rice with the soup. Forgot to take photo before the soup were being attacked ... 

Ingredient

2 sweet corns, chopped to 4 chunks each

2 carrots, cut diagonally into big chunks

1 large tomato, quartered

4 pieces of lean pork meat with bone

3-4 litre water

Some seedless red dates & wolf berries 

1 tablespoon soya sauce (I like to use soya sauce to make the soup a little darker. I don't like clear soup)

Salt to tast

Another pot of water for cleaning the pork

*Remove corn, add in yellow onion and potato and it will be the original ABC soup.

Method

1) Heat water in a small pot just enough to cover the pork. Once boiling, put in pork meat and continue boiling for 5min. Run the pork through cold water. Drain and set aside.

*This step is to clean up the gunk and any excess oil to make the soup cleaner and less oily.

2) Heat 3-4 litre water in a stockpot. Put in sweet corns, carrots, tomatoes, red dates and wolf berries. Bring to boil.

3) Add in pork and let boil at high heat for another 15min. 

4) After 15min, cover stockpot and lower heat to low. Continue to boil for 1.5 - 2 hours.

5) Add soya sauce and salt to taste.

Minced Meat In Salted Black Bean Sauce

First tasted Din Tai Fung's "zha jiang mian" (炸酱面) many years ago when we were still in KL. It absolutely caught my taste bud by surprise. I am not a noodle fan but that 炸酱面 was really delicious, with lots of meat. But recently I've tried the same noodle at different Ding Tai Fung, even the one in Taipei and it does not taste the same anymore. The 炸酱面 from Din Tai Fung nowadays has more chopped bean curd than meat. And so I am making my own version of 炸酱面.

I replaced bean curd with string beans since I don't really like bean curd. I am planning to use celery next round when i make it again. This time I serve the meat with steamed rice instead. So it's called 炸酱饭 ... hahah. 

I made extra gravy as the girls like to eat their rice and noodle with lots of gravy 

Ingredient

250gm minced pork meat

50gm string beans, chopped

1 small red or yellow onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tablespoon salted black bean sauce

2 tablespoon oil

1 1/2 cup water (Less if want less gravy. Add cornstarch if want gravy to be thicken)

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Sprinkle salt and pepper on minced meat. 

2. Heat oil till hot. Put in onion and fry in medium high heat till soft and fragrance.

2. Add garlic. Fry till lightly brown and fragrance.

3. Add meat. Break it up further as you stir fry in the pan for 3-4min.

4. Add salted black bean sauce. Continue to stir fry for another 3-4min.

5. Add water. Let it simmer in medium low heat for 5min.

6. Add in string bean last. Continue to simmer for 2-3min for the beans to soak in some of the gravy.

7. Dish out and serve with steamed rice or noodle.

Oven Roasted Broccoli and Capsicum

Rabbit food for dinner ... LOL

Ingredient

1 medium head cauliflower (about 2-1/4 pounds), trimmed and cut into florets
3 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese (I omitted this)

Method
1. Heat oven to 180 degree C.
2. Steam or boil broccoli in boiling water to soften it.
3. After broccoli is soften, combine with garlic in a large bowl.
4. Drizzle with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. 
5. Transfer, in a single layer, to a large rimmed baking sheet. 
6. Cover the baking sheet with baking paper to prevent it from burning too fast. 
7. Roast at 180 degrees C for about 25 minutes, stirring once. 
8. Sprinkle with cheese. Serve immediately. (I omitted this)

*Different oven have different temperature behaviour. Mine is quite hot and burnt quite quickly. Therefore I usually reduce the heat and bake 10min more than whatever the original recipe instructed.

Adapted from: Crockpot Recipe