Homecooked Nasi Lemak

So I got up one morning and felt like cooking nasi lemak (Coconut milk rice) for the first time. Always wanted to try but just the thought of having to go to the market to buy these ingredients got me lazy. It's actually quite easy to make, but there are actually quite a lot of things you need to buy, if you're making everything from scratch.

That evening, I invited my cousins over to try my first-time nasi lemak. I actually also made some "Ayam Masak Merah" but it was odd-tasting according to them. So I shall not include the recipe here, yah? :D Haven't mastered that dish yet. However, the coconut milk rice and the kunyit fried chicken was good according to them. The sambal sotong was easy because I got the ready packed sambal from the market, I only had to add a little salt, big onions and sliced squid (sotong) and stir fry till fragrant. As for the peanuts and anchovies, I did not get the ready fried ones, I got them uncooked and fried them myself. Much fresher that way.

Nasi Lemak

Ingredients
1. Rice
2. Fresh Coconut Milk (Santan)
3. Pandan Leaves (Knotted)
4. Salt
5. Ginger
6. Shallots
7. Peanuts
8. Anchovies (Ikan Bilis)
9. Cucumber
10. Chicken
11. Turmeric Powder (Kunyit Powder)

Coconut milk rice

1. Wash the rice
2. Cook rice together with knotted pandan leaves, a pinch of salt, sliced shallots, and chunks of ginger in a rice cooker.
3. When rice is half cooked, pour in desired amount of coconut milk (depends on how much rice you cook)

Peanuts, Anchovies
1. Get unroasted peanuts (with skin) from the market. Tell them it's for frying, not for soup. The colour of the unroasted peanut should be light brown.
2. Heat up enough oil in a frying pan and fry peanuts in medium fire.
3. Keep tossing until peanuts turn to a slightly darker shade of brown, and then switch off fire.
4. Do not fry the peanuts in high fire as it'll most likely become burnt.

1. Peel anchovies or simply get peeled anchovies from the market.
2. Wash anchovies and drain them dry.
3. Fry anchovies in oil, also in low fire.
4. Patiently stir until anchovies turn golden brown.
5. Quickly turn off the fire and remove anchovies from hot oil. It may not seem crispy at this moment, but they will eventually become crispy once u leave it to cool on a plate.

Fried Kunyit Chicken
1. Marinate chicken with turmeric powder for about 1-2 hours.
2. Deep fry in oil, make sure that the fire is put to medium as to avoid burnt but uncooked chicken.

Lastly, cup the coconut rice in a bowl and place on a plate, fry a sunny side-up, slice some cucumbers and serve with fried kunyit chicken, peanuts, anchovies and sambal sotong.






Next post - Claypot Chicken Rice!! This one's a little tricky. Learnt how to cook this myself. Super delish according to those who tried. :D

Homemade Chicken Rice

We all love chicken rice, don't we? It is something most people wouldn't say no to. The question is, how do you judge a nice tasting chicken rice? The chicken? The rice? Or the chili sauce? Personally, I always taste and judge the rice first, then the chicken and chili sauce. I love chicken rice's rice. It is very important to have fragrant enough rice to go with your bak cham kai (Steamed Chicken) or siew kai (Roasted Chicken). Some places are famous for their Nga Choi Kai(Taugeh/bean sprouts Chicken). In this post I'm going to include a simple dish of bean sprouts too. It is a shame to say though, that I haven't tried making the chili sauce for my chicken rice...

The actual way of cooking chicken rice actually requires a lot of steps, which is basically not practical if you are only cooking for 2 or 3 persons, or if you are simply a newbie in cooking. We want fast, easy and equally as delicious food! That is what my blog is all about.


Homemade Chicken Rice

Ingredients

1. Rice
2. Chicken stock cubes
3. Minced garlic
4. Ginger
5. Chicken thigh
6. Japanese cucumber
7. Chicken fats
8. Taugeh/Bean Sprouts



How to make the chicken

1. Cut off fats from chicken thigh, keep fats aside to be used later on.
2. Clean chicken thighs and marinate with salt for 1-2 hours.
3. Steam chicken in a wok/steamer for about half an hour.
4. Poke chicken using a fork to ensure that it is well cooked.



How to make the bean sprouts

1. Wash bean spouts thoroughly.
2. In a pot of boiling water, put in bean sprouts and let it boil for about 10 seconds then quickly drain bean sprouts. Overcooked beansprouts will lose its crunchiness.
3. Add some oyster sauce and fried onion/garlic on top of beansprouts and serve.



How to make the rice

1. Wash rice and drain off the water.
2. In a wok, add 2 tablespoons of oil/chicken fats. Saute minced garlic till fragrant, then add in chicken stock cubes and chunks of ginger.
2. Add in washed but uncooked rice, and stir fry for 3mins or until rice turns golden brown.
3. Boil the rice in a rice cooker.

Serve chicken rice with sliced Japanese cucumber and chili sauce.



You can also saute some minced garlic and serve in a saucer together with some oyster sauce in it. Goes very well with the steamed chicken.



Stay tuned for the next recipe that I am going to share - Nasi Lemak.

Fried Glass Noodles (Dong Fun)

Fried Glass Noodles (Dong Fun)

Ingredients
1. Glass Noodles
2. Chinese mushrooms (soaked in hot water till soft, sliced)
3. Fish cakes (sliced)
4. Sliced carrots (optional)
5. Minced garlic
6. Chicken/Ikan bilis stock cube (half), light soy sauce, fish sauce, pepper to taste.

Method
1. Saute garlic in oil till fragrant.
2. Add in half a stock cube, then add sliced mushroom and fish cake and stir fry.
3. Add in glass noodles and keep stir frying while gradually adding light soy sauce, fish sauce and pepper.
4. If it gets too dry, add a little water.
5. Serve hot.



This dish is super yums.. try it :)

Homemade Char Siew

I don't know about you but I'm quite particular when it comes to char siews. This is because I'm not at all a fan of 'sweet' food. I don't mean to say I don't like puddings or desserts.. just that, personally, any meat or vegetables eaten sweet is kinda strange, for example, 'ku lou yuk', sweet and sour fish etc. If it's something sweet, it has got to be real good... or else I won't eat it simply because I don't like sweet cooked food!! :D
So let's come back to the topic.. I usually won't opt for the typical dry, pale-looking char siews that are served when you order wan tan mee at any regular stall. No offence but the worst char siew I have tasted is Singapore's char siew!! I still remember it was wantanmee I ordered, it didn't look much different from our Malaysian wantanmee, except that it was red. the charsiew, the noodles, everything. And worst of all, it was so sweet!! Gosh. Won't try it again. On the other hand, I do know a place that sells quite good char siew. I can't remember what it's called but it is located in Sunway Mas near Aman Suria. I don't know how to describe how good it is, but you just can tell the difference when you see a good charsiew and an average char siew. LOL.
So I tried to make my own char siew, and I dare say it tastes better than the normal dry char siew as I mentioned just now :p

Here's the recipe, but unfortunately I only took one picture.



Char Siew

Ingredients
1. Pork Belly
2. Sugar
3. Salt
4. Pepper
5. Dark soy sauce
6. Light soy sauce

Method
1. Clean and leave the pork belly as one piece without cutting.
2. Marinate pork belly with sugar (i used raw sugar here. You can be quite generous with your sugar), dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, salt and pepper.
3. Bake in oven at about 190'c for 30mins each side, which means the baking time is about an hour.
4. When done, slice char siew and serve with white rice.

Fried Meehoon

Fried meehoon

Ingredients
1. Meehoon (soaked in water till soft)
2. Prawns
3. Choy sum
4. Light soy sauce
5. Fish sauce
6. Oyster sauce
7. Chicken/Ikan bilis stock cube (I use knorr's)
8. Minced garlic

Method
1. Saute garlic in 2 table spoons of oil till fragrant
2. Add chicken cube and oyster sauce and stir well.
3. Add in choy sum and fry until half cooked and then only add meehoon to avoid overcooked vege.
4. Add light soy sauce and fish sauce to taste. If desired, add some pepper to enhance taste
5. Fry meehoon thoroughly and set it aside inside the wok.
6. Add one teaspoon of oil and put in prawns, fry till prawns turn pink (again, so that the prawns will not be overcooked)
7. Stir well and serve hot.

Simple Cornflake Cookies

Cornflakes are so yummy even when eaten on its own. It's even yummier when eaten in a cookie form, and the best part is that it is so easy and quick to prepare.



Here's the easy steps to making yummylicious cornflake cookies.


Cornflake Cookies

Ingredients
1. Cornflakes / Special K
2. Honey
3. Melted Butter
4. Tiny paper cups

Method
1. Using low heat fire, melt butter in a pan/pot.
2. In a mixing bowl, pour in desired amount of cornflakes/special K and mix with melted butter.
3. After stirring it thoroughly, gradually pour in honey and continue mixing until well coated. Add honey until cornflakes are sticky.
4. Fill cornflakes into tiny paper cups and bake it in the oven at 160'c for about 15mins or until golden brown.
5. Store them in an air-tight container and it can just last you up to 2weeks.

Easy Pizza

Crave for a pizza but don't wanna order Pizza Hut or Dominos? Here's an easy way to fulfill your crave without having to wait for half an hour or more, or having to pay RM25+ for a regular pizza and end up eating only two slices, cause you're not really hungry hungry, you just... feel like a pizza.



Easy Pizza

Ingredients
1. Button mushrooms
2. Mozzarella cheese
3. Tomato sauce/paste
4. Spam/sausages/luncheon meat
5. Bread

Method
1. Slice button mushrooms and luncheon meat
2. Spread butter on bread like usual, and then spread tomato sauce/paste on.
3. Place sliced button mushrooms and luncheon meat neatly on top of bread, and then sprinkle mozarella cheese.
4. Lastly, toast pizza in oven toaster for about 5mins, or until cheese is melted.








I made this for breakfast, hence the cup of hot milo, hehe..
This pizza tastes almost as good as the ones in the market as long as you use good mozzarella cheese! :xx Confirm cheaper too :D

Tasty Onion Chicken

Hi all! Today's dish is a very simple and at the same time super tasty.. The only thing i need to use to cook this chicken dish is shallots. Easy! You will realize that most of my dishes will definitely consist of garlic and onion.. That's because they are not only healthy stuffs but they really give the dish that 'fragrance'. I love garlic and onion! I can eat them cooked or raw. Both yummy. Onion and garlic haters, u don't know what you're missing... Onions and garlic may give you bad breath if eaten raw, but absolutely healthy especially garlic!
I have a few friends who is very particular about not having any garlic or onions in their food.. But what they don't know is that garlic and onions are the ones that make ur food so yummy! Can you imagine hokkien mee, maggie goreng, etc without garlic? I can't :p

I used only shallots to cook this dish (not including the marinating part). What's special is that I don't slice the shallots like how i usually do, so they are their original onion shape. It may look very normal but the taste is yummmeh!!



Tasty onion chicken



Ingredients
1. Shallots (peeled, unsliced)
2. Chicken thigh

Method
1. Marinate chicken with oyster sauce, light soy sauce, fish sauce and a dash of pepper.
2. In a wok, add in oil and saute shallots. In this dish I don't slice the shallots.
3. Add in chicken and stir fry for about 3 mins and then add about 1cup of water, then close lid and let it simmer for 5-10mins. Make sure chicken is thoroughly cooked.
4. Open lid and keep stiring until sauce becomes thickish. I need not add any cornflour to thicken the sauce, but if it doesn't become thick, you can add cornflour.
5. Serve with white rice!

Quick Pancakes

It was raining this evening and I thought it would be nice to have something sweet to munch on, so I looked through the fridge and found some self raising flour, butter, castor sugar, icing sugar and eggs. But no milk.. So I used water instead. Totally impromptu. I didn't think it would turn out nice but it did! :D

I don't know the exact measurements for the ingredients used for my pancakes as I simply put how much I felt was sufficient..

If you bake at home, these are the stuffs you might already have lying in your pantry or fridge.





Ingredients (Makes about 10 small sized pancakes)
1. One cup of self raising flour/all purpose flour
2. Castor sugar
3. One egg
4. Milk (I used water instead)
5. 1 tablespoon of butter

Method
1. Mix self raising flour, castor sugar, butter and eggs together.
2. Add in water or milk and continue mixing.
3. Batter shouldn't be too thick nor too flowy.
4. In a non-stick pan, melt 1/2 teaspoon of butter and pour in pancake batter in medium fire.





Best served with honey or mapel syrup.

I didn't have any honey nor mapel syrup, so I improvised and used icing sugar instead, lol.





...which wasn't bad at all. Looks pretty, too. Try it! :)

Min Sin (Thin Vermicelli) Porkball Noodles Soup

Minsin Noodles with spinach and homemade porkballs in soup

Ingredients for Soup
1. Ikan bilis (Anchovies)
2. Scallops
3. Shallots
4. Spinach


Ingredients for porkball
1. minced pork
2. fish sauce
3. light soy sauce
4. pepper
5. minced garlic

Marinate minced pork with fish sauce, light soy sauce, pepper and minced garlic, for about 1-2hours.

Method
1. Cut shallots into slices and saute with slight oil in a pot until fragrant.
2. Add in peeled ikan bilis and stir well. Lastly, add in scallops. Add water and leave to boil for 2 hours.
3. Meanwhile, shape minced pork into ball shapes. Pan or deep fry the balls until thoroughly cooked.
4. When porkballs are done, set aside.
5. After 2 hours of boiling the soup, sift out ikan bilis and scallops. U can pick out the scallops and include it in the dish.
6. Dump in Minsin noodles into hot soup and bring to boil. When the noodles are half cooked, dump in spinach. Boil till noodles are soft and spinach is cooked. Add salt and pepper to enhance taste.
7. Lastly, place porkballs on top of the noodles and serve hot.



This is a recommended dish for people who are not feeling well or sick as ikan bilis stock and spinach are both very nutritious. Spinach has a high nutritional value and is extremely rich in antioxidants, especially when fresh, steamed, or quickly boiled. It is a rich source of vitamin A (and especially high in lutein), vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, magnesium, manganese, folate, iron, vitamin B2, calcium, potassium, vitamin B6, folic acid, copper, protein, phosphorus, zinc, niacin, selenium and omega-3 fatty acids (Wikipedia, 2010). Also, minsin noodles doesn't require much chewing and are easy to swallow.. So instead of porridge all the time, try this! Much tastier :)
As I'm totally not a fan of porridge, my mum will normally cook me this instead. She uses chicken instead of pork balls though, slightly healthier and not so fatty.

Simple French Toast

French Toast

Ingredients
1. Milk
2. Butter
3. 2-3 eggs
4. Bread

Method
1. Melt one teaspoon of butter in a non-stick pan.
2. Pour milk into a plate, and then coat bread with milk. Do not soak the bread.
3. After coating bread with milk, dip it into beaten eggs and immediately pan fry it in moderate fire for 1 min each side.
3. Serve with honey/mapel syrup/condensed milk and butter.



Yummy!
Ideal for breakfast/tea.

Mun Yee Meen

Hi all! I finally got started with my blog after procrastinating for months. I will most of the time be blogging about food! My own homecooked food, to be exact.. I might also throw in some useful house hold tips along the way.. Comments are very much appreciated!!! Whether good or bad.
Today I will share a recipe of a tasty yet easy dish that I always cook. If you're Chinese, staying overseas and miss our Malaysian 'tai chow', maybe u can try this! :))



Ingredients
1. two yee mee
2. Pork/beef/chicken cubes
3. Choy sum
4. Prawns
5. Chopped garlic

Marinate meat with dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, oyster sauce, and a dash of pepper for about 1-2hours.

Method
1. Heat up wok, add in 2-3 tablespoons of oil. Saute finely chopped garlic until fragrant, and then add in marinated meat and stir fry until meat is slightly cooked. Do not stir fry for too long as dark soy sauce might get burned even though the meat is not fully cooked.
2. Add in yee mee, and 2-3 cups of water, depending on how watery/dry you like your noodles to be. Close lid and let it simmer for about 5 mins, occasionally opening the lid to stir.
3. When yee mee is almost soft, add in choy sum and prawns.
4. Stir fry until prawns turn pink and choy sum cooked.
5. Serve hot with chopped raw garlic (optional).



Decorate the dish nicely by placing prawns and vegetables on top of the noodles.