Simple Recipe - Double Boil Winter Melon Soup

Our friend, an old uncle gave us a big winter melon, which was from his own garden. So I figure out the way to double boil winter melon soup with it as this is one of my children's favorite and it quite expensive to order this.

Firstly I need chicken stock but instead of buying cube chicken stock, I boiled my own using since I have chicken bone.

I have all the ingredients I need at home, so I gave a try to make this soup. As it was really big, I cut into 2.

Ready 😉

Cut into half

Ingredients
Winter Melon
2 Dried Chinese Mushroom
6 Dried Scallop
Fish Maw
Minced/Slice Meat (chicken/pork)
Ginger, minced
Salt
Pepper
Chicken bone or any parts

Method
Boil half pot of water
Add in chicken bone
Boil slow fire, put in salt and pepper
Set aside

Soak mushroom and scallop in water. Once the mushroom soften, cut away stem. You can throw the stem into the chicken stock.
Dice the mushroom.

Soak fish maw (cut to your desire size) in hot water. Discard the water and squueze water out of the fish maw.

Marinate meat with chinese wine, corn flour, pepper, sesame oil and soya sauce.

Cut a hole and dig out the seed in the winter melon. Cut the winter melon into cube.

Heat up wok, add little oil saute minced ginger, diced mushroom follow by minced meat. Add in the water which used to soaked the mushroom and scallop. Stir till mushroom is soft and minced meat is cooked.

In a double boiler, add in water then put a bowl to hold the melon into the double boiler. Put the saute ingredients into the melon and top with fish maw. Scoop your chicken stock into melon and double boil for 1.5 hours. There you go the sweet winter melon soup.

Double Boil

GEM - House of Indian Cuisines

Me, hubby and my two boys all love Indian cuisine especially briyani or banana leave rice.

Whenever Deepavali comes, the boys will be excited as hubby's store supervisor will invite us to his house. His wife cooked delicious mutton and fish curry, aromatic fried chicken and prawn sambal.

We went to GEM, a semi fine dining restaurant in Brickfields which served good food. Hubby and I have both on different occasions been here twice. The first time I had lunch here was a treat by my Australian boss and second time with all the managers from various country after a half yearly meeting. As for hubby, once with his friends and another with his lawyer.

We ordered one each of Prawn Briyani (RM21.90) and Mutton Briyani (RM22.90) for the 4 of us. Dishes were Bhuna Mutton (RM23.90), Chicken Coconut Curry (RM20.90) and Mushroon Pepper Fry (RM14.90). Me and younger son did not quite like the  chicken curry but not my hubby and elder son.

Since there were leftover dishes and gravy, the boys decided to try their plain naan which was very good.

Both boys gave their nod for second visit. Glad they love the food here as much as us.

The Curries with Briyani

Plain Naan

Location:

GEM

124, Jalan Tun Sambathan, Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur 50470

Opening hours: Daily 11.30 am - 11.30pm

Simple Recipe - Parmesan Garlic Spagetti

Since is a fasting month, my son has a problem with the food being sold in his school canteen. Is either not much choice or the food is tasteless.

So we have to either home cooked from home or buy something for him to bring to school for his recess time.

This morning, I woke up an hour earlier as he has requested for spaghetti.  So I marinated the chicken strip a day earlier and luckily I still have the smoked bacon in freezer.

He told me he will wake up earlier to help me even though I told him not necessary. True enough, he woke up earlier but I have already started boiling the water to cook the pasta.

He loves cheese so he added more cheese to his pasta but to me it tasted very strong cheesy as I prefer to be more plain taste. The end result, he exclaimed "yummy"! 

Try this out, simple to cook Parmesan Garlic Spaghetti.

I still have time before sending him to school, thus I have time to blog this recipe.

Ingredients
Spaghetti
Smoked bacon strip
Chicken strip
Olive oil or any cooking oil
Salt
Black pepper
Parmesan cheese
Garlic slice

Method
Boil water in a pot. Once boiled, put dash of oil and some salt, I put about 1.5 teaspoon
Cook the spagetti for approx. 15 mins or till cooked.

In a pan, fry the bacon and then chicken. Set aside.
Then brown the garlic, put in the pasta
Sprinkle black pepper, pinch of salt
Add in some pasta water gradually
Follow by parmesan cheese
Lastly put in the pre-cooked bacon and chicken

Simple Recipe - Prawn Fritters

I have not been cooking Prawn Fritters for a very long time. My elder son dislikes prawn so I have to fry his with just big onion or even without big onion!

You need to have dipping chilies sauce for prawn fritters. And we prefer homemade dipping sauce.

Batter mixture with big onion

Chillie Sauce

Crispy Prawn Fritters

Ingredients
350 gm wheat flour
2 tblsp rice flour
2 eggs
2.5 teaspoon salt
2 diced big onion
Water
Prawn

Method
Mix all the above to form a batter
Then add in prawn
Heat up wok, put in cooking oil
Fry the fritters

For dipping chilies sauce
Ingredients
5 red chilies, cut small, discard seeds
8 dried chilies soak in hot water, cut
Half clove garlic, cut
6-8 tblsp rice vinegar
2 lime (for juice)

Method
Blend all above except lime juice
Then add 2 teaspoon sugar & pinch of salt and lastly lime juice

Simple Recipe - Creamy Butter Squid

This was the first time I tried to cook this Creamy Butter Squid. It turned out not bad as hubby and sons love it. You can replace squid with chicken strip or prawn. With prawn you do not need to dip into flour to deep fry, just lightly fry with cooking oil with some curry leaves will do.

Ingredients
2 squid, cut rings
8 tablespoon carnation evaporated creamer
1 salty egg yolk
1 stalk curry leaves, remove from strm
Pinch of salt
Dash of pepper
1 tblsp Butter
2 Bird eye chillies, cut
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp chopped garlic

Method
Marinate squid with dash of  salt & pepper & chilli powder for at least 30 minutes
Roll onto mixture of wheat and rice flour
Heat up wok, pour in oil to deep fry the squid, set aside

Steam the salty egg york, then use spoon break into tiny pieces

Heat up wok, put butter
Throw in curry leaves, garlic bird eye chillies, curry powder
Follow by salty egg york, once foamy add evaporated milk, pinch of salt
Lastly stir in the fried squid

Simple Recipe - Fried Fermented Red Beancurd Chicken Wing

No one can resist fried chicken wings. My younger son especially the happiest person when he saw marinated chicken wings in the fridge which I have marinated a day earlier. He exclaimed & smiled knowing I will be cooking this dish.

The easiest way to marinate chicken wings is using fermented red bean curd.  My mom will normally marinate and keep a week in the freezer, it will be even tastier.

Ingredients
8 pairs Chicken Wings
2.5 cube fermented red beancurds smashed
1 tablespoon red beancurd sauce
Dash of pepper
1/5 teaspoon thick soya sauce
1/4 teaspoon sugar

Method
Marinate overnight
Heat up Wok
Add in Oil
Fry the chicken wings till cook

Dragon Boat aka Dumpling Festival

This is the day which falls on chinese calendar 5th day 5th lunar month of the year, celebrated by all chinese around the world yearly. There is a legend behind this which you can easily googled.

Grand Dragon Boat Race festival will normally be held annually in Penang. As in China, there will be 3 days off day. In Hong Kong, they observe as national public holiday.

We celebrate this day by eating rice dumpling. Every year our friends will be giving us homemade dumpling. As this year hubby business partner's mom just had a surgery, she did not make any. But we are so blessed to receive dumplings from our son's friend, Mindy. Her mom made such a yummylicious dumpling full of goodies with glutinous rice with fillings such as chestnut, dried scallop, dried oyster, Chinese mushroom and roast pork.

Choices of savory or sweet dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves

My husband insisted that we must follow the tradition, there must be dumplings to be eaten on this day. By the way is one of his favorites.