Simple fried rice recipe

I sometimes wake up at 5.45am to prepare for 1 or 2 pax to bring to work. As my time limit is 15min (#flash cooking) I need to find something easy. As I am slow in prep work I will try my best to prepare seasoning, cut the fruits, onion, garlic, vegetables and meat (unless its frozen) ahead of time.

Recipe

Overnight rice _ I use brown rice 1 cup with 2 and half cup water in rice cooker the night before and chill in fridge.

Vegetable _ corn/home grown kai lan. Can also use carrot and bean

Fish cake (optional)

Meat (slices of chicken / pork / prawn ) season with salt

Sauce _ I uses the regular eating spoon ( 1 and half tablespoon light soy sauce, some dark soy sauce, some white pepper, 1 tsp sesame oil

2 eggs

1 mid size onion and 4 clove garlic _ prepared the day before

Cooking

1. Heat a non stick pan or wok. Add in oil. Stir fry onion and garlic, meat, vege (hard type), add in sauce. Put in the rice (seperate if any rice clump together). Create a hole in middle with spatula, add oil if use normal wok (I didnt add as mine is non stick) break 2 eggs season with soy sauce, sesame and pepper. Cover egg with the rice and stir it. (If have time you could beat the egg, pour on non stick with oil, pour egg in 1 layer. Cook and cut into slices). Lastly put in vege (soft type) then done.

Mum simple curry puff recipe

This are my mum recipe and I always ate a lot of it. I wanted to make a batch which I have tried to freeze it and bake it in air fryer whenever I just want to pack for my breakfast to work! It's really easy, cost efficient, time saving and more healthy since the one bought outside are all fried with very little meat in it.

Tips- dont put in boil eggs if intend to freeze it. Mum was saying freezing boil eggs are not healthy for man.. lol.. not sure if it is those old wife tale but I shall just follow.

Ma karipap recipe

Filing

Pot
A) 400-500g potato – Boil till fork can go in

B) Pan
i) Small pcs of Kayu manis - half a finger

ii) 200-300g bawang besar - chop till fine

iii) 3 tablespoon curry powder

1 tsp jintan manis powder (wash on sieve dap with towel, dry fry for less than 5 min and grind)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt

iv) 300-400g daging chicken, Minch pork

v) 2-3 stalk curry leaf

Dough
i) 500g flour
Half tsp salt
ii) 1 egg – small

95g cooking oil
iii) Half cup cold water. If dough don't stick then put more water

Filling Steps

Boil the potato 15-20 min.use fork to check for doneness. Even if u off the fire, potato will continue cooking in the hot water.
1. Put 2 tablespoon oil. Fry the Kayu manis till fragrant (medium fire). Then put onion until soften.
2. Meanwhile add jintan manis, curry powder, salt and sugar into the meat. Stir and mix.
3. Put the meat into the frying pan and cook till cook which take around 10 min. If too dry when cooking, can add a bit of water.
4. Cut the cool potato into cube. And add the potato into the fry pan and 2 -3 stalk curry leaf. Mix it. Too dry then add water during cooking. Put on tray to cool. Divide into 4 and use on the dough proportionately.

Dough Steps
1. Put on big plate, put the flour and salt. Make a hole in the centre and put egg, oil and water mix it. if can't bind then put a bit water till bind. Water cannot put too much as it will fail. Use hand. Use medium strength. Set aside and rest 15 min. Divide into 4 portions. Around 15gram dough that make 24 curry pap

My mum will fry the curry puff. If bake then sapu egg on top so it b glossy colour. Tray put a bit of oil to avoid sticking.

My style is after I made the curry puff I will arrange in a tray, freeze it. When heating, I will just put some oil on freeze curry puff and dumb into air fryer. 

Empress electric lunch box by cosway - How to use (Picture)

How to use the Empress Electric Lunch Box

I have previously written about the unboxing of the lunch box and how please I am using it. I notice a reader commented that they are still unsure on how to use this electric lunch box despite reading the user manual and my posting on the unboxing.

Initially when I started using it, I was also confused since this is a fairly new concept of cooking.

Thus a picture says a million words. So I present to you a picture and a guide. I hope it helps you! There may be grammar errors, but I was trying to get to the point instantly.

Just remember not to put too much water, otherwise it may overflow and damage your electric appliances. In a way, you may liken it to steaming food in a wok - just that instead of using gas, you are using a plug instead. 

Oh I also like to cover my pot with those tea cup plate [not in the picture] to prevent steam water from dripping into my food. That is entirely optional for you to do.

There are various brands of electric lunch box in the market but I really like this brand (quality material, plug that is compatible in Malaysia and adequate heat distribution just to name a few). I have been using this for 3 years now and it is one of those little investment that gives you tonnes of benefit from cost saving to a better health from home cooking.

Happy cooking!

Versatile Basic Fried Chicken / Katsu Chicken Recipe

I love making this recipe. It is simple and I prefer to buy the Chicken Fillet parts in the supermarket.

I would make a batch, and laid it flat on the tray (I save the plastic tray packaging), freeze it and whenever I want it, I would take out the required portion, put it into my air fryer, drizzle some oil on it, bake it for 15-20 min in an air fryer at 200 Celsius. Viola I have my fried chicken in minutes! It is like making your own instant fried chicken.

Though the recipe is basic, it is still tasty and you could eat it by itself.

Below are my all time favorites~~
1) Chicken Burger patty - Sandwich between bread and put your favorite sauce and lettuce. You would have a Chicken Burger in minutes! This are one of my favorite choice when I bake the loaf bread.

2) Teriyaki Chicken - I just bought the Teriyaki sauce and drizzle some and eat together with rice and broccoli

3) Japanese Chicken Curry - I use the curry that was sold in a cube. I make the soup base using carrot and onion. Then add in the cube and cook till the curry thicken (which I use my happy call for the water to evaporate faster. You may use a shallow pan). Then I would match it with rice and the fried chicken.

The katsu chicken calls for panko crumbs which are bread crumbs thus I uses bread crumbs. The bread crumbs that I bought are pack in 500g.

There is no fix weighing measurement on the recipes. So far I still have leftover bread crumbs after I have done about 1.5kg of fillet. I will just store in the fridge for those unused bread crumbs.

Recipe:
A) Marinate
500g Chicken fillets
Salt (About 1/4 tsp or to taste)
Pepper

C) Dipping station
Put 2 tbsb Plain flour into a plastic bag
Beat an egg in a bowl
Put some bread crumb into a plastic bag. If not enough then add more bread crumb accordingly.

Steps
1) Season chicken with Salt and Pepper to taste, set it aside for about 20 min. Meanwhile prepare the dipping ingredients while the chicken marinate.
2) Put all the fillet into the flour bag. Shake the bag. The idea is to coat it lightly with flour.
3) Dip into the egg
4) Put the chicken into the bread crumb bag. Shake the bag to ensure the chicken is coated.
5) You may fry it, air fry it for 15min at 200 celcius or you could lay the raw fried chicken on a flat plastic tray that was line in plastic bag, bag it and freeze it for future use.

White loaf bread recipe - how to use wheat flour (tepung gandum) / mid protein flour / all purpose flour to make bread

How to use wheat flour, plain flour, all purpose flour for bread making

I have ran out of Bread Flour or High Protein Flour and I have a bag of Vital Wheat Gluten just lying around after a 1 time use from certain baking project and a few bag of wheat flour. It got me thinking how do I adapt both of this ingredients together to make my bread.

a) Vital Wheat Gluten is the natural protein found in wheat. A small amount added to yeast bread recipes improves the texture and elasticity of the dough. The amount to add into your flour depend on the protein level of your flour which is normally indicated under the percentage of protein in the flour. For example if your flour is just 10% for every 100g then you could add around 6g of Vital wheat gluten for every 100g as high protein floor is around 12-16% protein level. However I did not follow this principle. I added more. So far the results did not back fire.

b) As you know the high protein flour will encourage the bread to rise better as compared to mid protein flour. The less the bread rise, the harder the bread will become.

At first I tried to combine this two ingredient: wheat flour which is the most common flour together with vital wheat gluten but it still doesn't rise the way I want it. The bread was rather hard and compact.

2nd time I experiment again by combine with Bread Improver. I added too much and it turns out, the bread rise was rather unstable - it rise very fast but deflated. The bread also tasted soupy.

c) Bread Improver is a mix of various acids and enzymes that serve to strengthen the gluten in the flour and feed the yeast, both of which yield a better loaf. Every 500g of floor, you may add 5g of Bread Improver.

As the saying goes, the third time is a charm. Finally my bread turn out right after all the hard lessons that I have learned!

Oh yea, I also like to weigh my dry ingredients in a few bags (like your very own premix) if i know I will bake again to save time and hassle. I only added the instant yeast, liquid and oil during the actual dough making process. I notice that if I chill the premix, I need to put lesser liquid otherwise the bread will not come out right.

Below are my recipe to success! Do note that some of my flour doesn't have a brand thus did not specify the protein level. I just added more Vital Wheat Gluten but I follow the ratio of Bread Improver to the T.

Bread making is a labor of love. You could buy bread anywhere and it is time consuming but all worth it when you have the end results.

Recipe:
A - Tips: I will bag this into a few bags in advance and store in fridge to save time
450g wheat flour (Tepung Gandum) / plain flour / all purpose flour. Optional: Substitute 100g flour with whole meal flour.
50g Vital Wheat Gluten
5g Bread Improver
5g Salt
30g Sugar

B - use on actual dough making
250-320g water / milk (the actual is 320g water. But if I store the premix [step A] in a fridge, the premix will have trap some moisture so I will start with 250g water then slowly add if it was not enough)
10g instant yeast

C
30g butter / olive oil / grape seed oil (my preference is olive oil)

Steps:
1) Mix in A and B in a stand mixer. The amount of water depend on the dough - I will use my hand and knead the dough whereby if it is too hard then I will add a touch more water and continue beating. The amount of water would be just nice when i stick a finger into the dough and some of the dough stick to my finger. I would continue beating till the dough feels elastic, almost smooth and soft (but not too soft).

2) Add in C at low to medium speed. I notice if I use high speed, the risk of the dough splitting is higher.

The end result is that when you stretch the dough it will be elastic and you could do a windowpane test.

Proceed to let the dough rise for 1 hr by covering the bowl with a wet towel. Shape the dough and put into the bread loaf pan that has been line with non stick baking paper. Let it rise for another 1 hr.

3) Bake (I have my little quarks when it come to baking loaf bread. I do not like it if it is too brown. I like it light brown but I want the inside to cook as well)

At 190 Celsius - Bake for 12 min. Lower the temperature to 160 Celsius for 20 min. Remove bread from bread tin, flip it upside down / side way and put on tray - bake for 20-30min.

I would love to hear your comment on this recipe or what method you use to make nice bread out of plain flour!

Cheers n happy baking! ;)

Shanghai moon cake

I have tried this and the results are great! I will definitely make this recipe again.

I have obtained the recipe and picture from Guai Shu shu

Short Crust Pastry

• 80 grams of butter, chilled and cut into cubes and keep in the fridge waiting for later use
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 200 grams of self raising flour, sifted
• 40 grams of sugar powder
• 30 grams of custard powder
• 20 grams of milk powder (not in picture)
• 1-2 tablespoons of milk (not in picture)

Fillings

• 4 salted egg yolks (pre-steamed for 5 minutes or microwave for15 seconds)
• 50 grams of chopped walnuts
• 350 grams of lotus seed paste

Egg washing

• 1 egg yolk plus 1 tablespoon of milk plus a few drops of cooking oil, beat and sift

Others

• Some melon seeds  for decoration
• Some sesame seeds for decoration

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Picture obtained from Guai shu shu site

• Mix the chopped walnuts to the lotus seedsfillings, knead until well mixed. Divide into 4 balls (or your desired number of balls), wrap a salted egg yolk in each ball. Shape round and set aside for later use.

• Sift custard powder, self raising flour, icing sugar and milk powder in a bowl. Add the cold butter and use fingertips to rub the butter until it resembles some crumbs. Add the beaten egg yolk and cold milk, lightly knead until it forms a pliable dough. If the dough is too dry, add teaspoon by teaspoon of milk gradually.

• Divide the dough into 4 equal balls (or your desired number of balls). Take one ball, flatten the dough, wrap a ball of filling, seal the edges and transfer to the cupcake cups or a lightly greased tray.  Egg wash the dough as thoroughly as possible and baked in the oven for 10 minutes.

• After 10 minutes, egg wash for the second time and while it was wet, put the melon seeds and sprinkle with some sesame seeds. Send back to the oven and baked again for another 10-15 minutes. The baking time is for your reference and depends very much on the size of your moon cake. (Note: Alternatively, you can choose to egg wash once, but you have to put the melon seeds and sesame seeds once you do your first egg wash).

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CONCLUSION

This is the ratio of one filling to one skin (1:1) However, do make provisions for yourself and choose a ratio that you are most comfortable (possibly 1.2 skins : 1 filing) with and come out with a presentable moon cake. This dough can be rather dry, remember: Add cold milk TEASPOON BY TEASPOON until you are able to handle it. Handling shall be light and swift for the pastry.

Char siew recipe by meatman

I have tried this and it appears simple and easy to execute! There is no need for special sauce purchase.

I obtained the recipe from meatman  but I cut down to a quarter of the recipe to fit into my air fryer at 160 degree for 15 min, glaze and continue for another 15 min at 180 degree.

Below is the original recipe. I will continue trying for other char siew recipe as there is a few variations!

Servings: 6

 

• Time: 30 min

• Skill: Easy

Ingredients

1. 2kg of pork shoulder
2. 2 tbps of five spice powder
3. 2 tbsp of white pepper
4. 3 tbsp of sugar
5. 4 tbsp of light soy sauce
6. 2 tbsp of dark soy sauce
7. 3 tbsp oyster sauce
8. 3 tbsp taucheo (beanpaste)
9. 2 tbsp chinese rice wine
10. 8 tbsp of honey

Instructions

1. Cut 2kg of pork shoulder
2. Add the five spice powder, white pepper, sugar, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, taucheo (beanpaste, chinese rice wine, honey and mix them up even with your hands
3. Cover and let it marinate in the fridge overnight
4. On the next day, lay out the meat on an oven wire rack
5. Roast them in 2 batches, for 15 mins in an 180 degrees celsius oven
6. When done brush marinate sauce on meat
7. Then back in the oven again for another 15 minutes
8. Once done, drool!