Simple Recipe - Honey Chicken Wing

Elder son has been complaining..."mom, why don't you come out with new recipe?".  Gosh, he is the most fuzzy one when comes to my cooking.

So today, I tried out a new way to cook chicken wings. Hubby and elder son commented it was tasty, well marinated. Is best if you marinate overnight or at least 2 hours. This recipe of Honey Chicken Wing is very easy, try it out.

Ingredients
6 chicken wings

To marinate:
6 tablespoon light soy sauce
2 tablespoon sweet dark soy sauce
Dash of coarse black pepper
Pounded 2" ginger & 3 cloves garlic
1/4 lemon juice and zest
2 tablespoon olive or any cooking oil
4 tablespoon honey
Pinch of salt


Method
Cut into two separating wing from the drummet
Blanch over boiling water, pat dry
Marinate overnight or minimum 2 hours
Then cook in oven 180°c for 45 mins or cook using stove till cooked.

Note: Since I am out of sweet dark soy sauce, I replaced with dark soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.

Simple Recipe - Carborana Pasta

Since I have some San Remo Bowties (Farfalle) and my elder son loves pasta at times instead of normal rice meal. So I have decided to try to cook for him my version of carborana pasta since he is the only one at home for dinner. The end result, not bad as my son said it was tasty.

Not pretty but tasty

2nd try with carrot

Ingredients
Sliced Garlic
Chopped small onion
Bowties
Smoked bacon, cut strip
Brocolli or Carrot
Fish Cake cube or chicken slice
Butter
Black Pepper
Parmesan Cheese
St Paul Thickened Cream
Salt

Method
In a pot of boiling water, add salt, cook the pasta
When the pasta almost done, throw in the brocolli, set aside.

In a pan, put in Olive Oil
Then brown the garlic and small onion
Add the strip bacon to crisp follow by fish cake
Melt in butter, put thickened cream, pasta water
Lastly pasta, black pepper, pinch of salt & parmesan cheese

The ingredients measurement is totally up to you depending on how much pasta you are cooking and your preference of thickness of your sauce.

Simple Recipe - Stewed Pig Trotter in black vinegar

Never like those version selling outside but at least my late mom in law's version, I will take a little. My husband and two boys love this Stewed Pig Trotter in Black Vinegar.

Is not difficult at all. It only takes longer time as you need to cook till meat is tender.

I will normally buy the 750ml Cheong Chan brand of black vinegar and gula melaka from Melaka itself.

Ingredients

6 tbls sesame oil

Mixture of a bowl of bruised old & young ginger
1 whole bruised garlic

1 whole pig trotter

Water

4" length of gula melaka or use brown sugar

1/2 - 3/4 bottle of 750ml black vinegar

1 tsp Salt or to taste

Method
Blanch the pieces of trotter in boiling water
Discard water

Heat up sesame oil in pot, stir fry garlic and ginger till fragrant
Add pork trotter
Then water to cover 3/4 of the trotter
Boil for 30 minutes
Add black vinegar, cook for 30 minutes
Then add salt and gula melaka
Cook till meat is tender

Adjust accordingly if water or black vinegar is required.

Hubby tasted and commented "this is so good that I could not get it from dining out!". My elder son said "Mom, very taste, not too sour not too sweet". My younger son "just nice". Wow, my skill cooking this dish has improved.. Too bad, my mom is away in Shanghai because this is her favorite dish.

Simple Recipe - Yong Tow Foo

My husband has been asking me to cook Yong Tow Foo. On the Mothers' Day weekend, we went to Pudu market as we wanted to get stuff for steamboat. We came across a fishmonger that selling fish paste freshly made at the stall, so we bought.

My late mom in law used to buy Wolf Herring Fish and scraped its flesh and made fish paste. You will need salt water and tapioca flour. Her Yong Tow Foo was really good.

For me is easier to just get the fish paste and stuff into vegetables of your choice. You can have brinjal, bittergourd, red chillies, long bean, beancurd sheet, towpok or okra/lady's finger.  Then cook sauce to put on top of the stuff vegetables.

After fried before sauce

Ingredients
500 gm fish paste
Vegetables of your choice

Method
Put 1/4 teaspoon salt into 1/4 small bowl water, stir it
Divide the paste
Add into the fish paste 1 teaspoon tapioca flour and salt water bit by bit onto the paste
Hit the paste onto big bowl to make it bouncy.
Stuff paste into vegetables
Heat up work, fry in cooking oil, set aside

Sauce
Pound:
1 tblsp taucheong (bean paste)
1 big onion
1 whole garlic

Heat up wok, put some oil, fry till aromatic the pounded ingredients.
Add some sugar and water
Put the sauce on top of the pre-fried vegetables

I am not an expert in cooking nor a good writer, just simple instruction that hope you can understand 😅. Happy cooking!

Simple Recipe - Stir fry Sweet & Sour Cucumber

This is a simple vegetable dish that goes well if you pair it with curry dish, what my late mother in law used to cook, Stir Fry Sweet & Sour Cucumber.

My husband loves cucumber cook this way, just balance up with vinegar, sugar and salt with fish cake.

Ingredients
1 Cucumber
1 or 2 Fish cake
Red chilli (optional)
Garlic
1 teasp Sugar
8 - 10 tblsp Rice Vinegar
Pinch of salt

Method
Cut cucumber, soak in hot water
Discard water when cold. This will make the cucumber crunchy
Cut fish cake and cut strip ted chilli
Heat up wok
Add cooking oil
Throw in garlic
Follow by fish cake, then cucumber
Put in rice vinegar, sugar and salt

The vinegar and sugar must be balance where the dish will not be too sour or too sweet.

Best Fluffy Kaya Puff in Ipoh

For kaya puff lovers, go for Sin Eng Heong Confectionary which has been in business for more than 50 years, if you happen to be in Ipoh.

For someone who dislike kaya puff giving her thumbs up, you can tell how yummy it is.

This shop version is a mini type of kaya puff with extremely good kaya filling flaky pastry selling at RM0.90 per piece.

However you need to be very patient as you need to queue and the line is worst during weekends or public holidays.

Even on weekday, you still need to queue. My husband detoured to Ipoh from his Penang business day trip back to KL and he told me that there were 15 people in front of him and a full load of tour bus passengers behind of him. He was lucky just a minute earlier then the tour bus. If not, could not imagine how long he has to wait for his turn.

Besides kaya puff, he also bought mochi which to me is ichiban! There is lots other varieties there and I heard that their pastry with salted egg is good too.

Location
Sin Eng Heong
No 64 - 66 Jalan Mustapha Al-Bakri
(Jalan Clare) 30300 Ipoh Perak
Tel: 05-2439659

Simple Recipe - Western Brunch

Usually every Saturday, I will go to my husband's office to help him in his paperwork or administrative even accounting. However last Saturday he had to go to his customer's factory due to some issues with their production and he got stuck there till late evening.

So with whatever ingredients that I have, I made my kids something they like, western set brunch with spaghetti, bacon and chicken whole leg.

I marinated 3 whole leg chicken with the following seasoning which I was amused as at one glanced my younger son asked me "mom today's brunch looked pretty! and also when he asked me what I used coz he said it was tasty.

I told him just simple sauces that I have:

Soya sauce 3 tblsp
Chinese cooking wine 6 tblsp
Teriyaki sauce 3 tblsp
Black pepper
Ginger juice
Pinch of salt

As for spaghetti, first time trying to cook Aglio Olio with lots of slices of garlic, olive oil, pasta water, salt, black pepper and parmesan cheese. It turned out mmmm...not bad and I topped it with fried bacon.

What I did was, boil pot of water to cook the spagetti for 20 minutes or as per instruction in the packing. A video I watched advised to puts lots salt into the water. I added some olive oil.

Then in a wok, put in olive oil and brown the garlic then add a scoop of pasta water follow by salt and black pepper. Then switch off the stove  Once spagetti is cooked put into the wok and toss. Then top with additional black pepper and parmesan cheese and toss till all evenly spread.

I boiled the kids their favorite pandan juice with pandan leaves from my mini garden to go with their meal. A happy meal for them but my husband got jealous when he said that I cook the boys a special meal whenever he is not around! I had a good laugh.

The beauty of Orchids @ Rawang

Family owned business of 4 hectares land with more than 600 species of Orchids, this is the place if you are Orchids lover. Is amazingly beautiful. This nursery provide orchids to local government agencies and also hotels.

We visited this nursery at least once a year. Earlier, we had bought a driftwood and we were here to look for Orchid plant just with leaves that can fit into the driftwood.  Look at my husband's new creation below with what we bought.

Location:
United Malaysian Orchids Sdn Bhd
Lot 988 Batu 23
Jalan Batu Arang
48000 Rawang
Selangor

Mussels @ Two Sons Bistro, Publika

When Two Sons Bistro just started business, we walked in but was unable to get a table as we did not make any reservation. It was packed and we did not manage to dine here as was advised that waiting period will be long.  This time, we called up to reserve a table. It was a Sunday but the restaurant was not full.

Definitely mussel that you must try here. We had their top selling butter cream chilies mussel which was indeed very good, highly recommended.

Mussels size 900gm RM55

Escargots RM25

We tried clear ginger with lemongrass clam 450gm (RM25) besides aglio oglio spagetti and wild mushroom soup. Total for 4 pax RM168. The clam didnt go well with me and hubby but the kids said it was alright to them.

The mussel or clam will come with either garlic bread or french fries, your preference for selection.


Location:
Two Sons Bistro
A4-G2-08, Jalan Dutamas 1
Solaris Dutamas
50480 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 017 223 8018

Opening hours: 10.30 am-10.30 pm

Best Dried Curry Chee Cheong Fun @ Restaurant Yap Hup Kee

When Sunday comes, Restaurant Yap Hup Kee located at Jalan Brunei Barat is our favorite place for dried shrimp curry chee cheong fun and minced meat loo shue fun.

They have yong tau fu as well which is good too.

Try the curry dried shrimp chee cheong fun and I am sure you will love it.

Location:
Restoran Yap Hup Kee
45 Jalan Brunei Barat
Off Jalan Pudu
55100 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-2148 9220
Opening hour: 9am - 5pm, 5.30 -11pm