Sunday, May 31, 2009

Fried Carrot Cake (Chai Tow Kway 菜頭粿)

Fried Carrot cake (Chai Tow Kway) is a common hawker dish that you can easily find in any part of Singapore. There are 2 types, typically the more 古早 Sweet Fried Carrot cake that is usually cooked with sweet sauce and is dark in color and the more savory one, Crispy Fried Carrot cake.


Personally, I favor the crispy kind more because I don't really like sweet sauce kind of food for instance, Char Kway Teow. Don't ask me why because I have no idea! My parents love Sweet Fried Carrot cake so I do take them occasionally especially if I am having breakfast with them and it happens that they are ordering that. I'm not a fussy person so I eat whatever is serve to me.

Prince Charming personally like both of them, one thing for sure he much prefers the Sweet sauce kind in the morning or as supper. He is not a very fussy eater as well so he eats what I serve to him! HAHAH :P

I made this Sweet Fried Carrot Cake as a supper for Prince Charming on Friday night. He likes it except that he finds the "Chai Po" or persevered radish too salty. I suggest soaking it in water to remove some of the salt content before using it.




Sunday, May 24, 2009

Seafood Rice and Roasted Chicken

I made these for our dinner on Saturday. Although I have been spending quality time in my sweet kitchen, I haven't been hardworking enough to take pictures. Prince Charming is having his exams soon and I don't want to take up his precious time. As you know I am still a novice in Photography and it is so obvious because out of so many pictures that appear on my site, only 1% were taken by me. The latest one was the twin yolks! :(


Anyway, I'll learn to brush up my photography skills using a DSLR. I need more time!!!
Prince Charming was nice enough to offered his help for these pictures because I cooked it SPECIALLY for him! ;)
I want him to have a good dinner before he starts his studying schedules!


The Seafood rice comprises of prawns and squids only. They were the only seafood I managed to grabbed at NTUC on Friday night :( I replaced the usual raisins with dried cranberries and I though they were a perfect match! Dried cranberries comes with a tint of sourness and a little sweetness that works well to make the rice taste amazing! I used pork broth in place of water for the cooking and the aroma spread throughout my whole kitchen. Ahhhh wonderful smell!

The recipe for this roasted chicken came from a new recipe book that I accomplished lately. I topped the chicken with some honey and used the juice remains from the roasting with some brown sugar to make into a sauce to go with it. Tender juicy was what Prince Charming screamed when he made the first bite! That totally makes my day!

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Meatball Soup & Steamed Dumplings

Prince Charming is down with some cough and some irritable throat, so I had to go easy with our dinner. He has specifically requested something light but not too plain. All I can think of was something soupy and less greasy.

We dropped down to the supermarket at the mall and did some grocery shopping. Due to the cough that Prince Charming has been struggling with, I decided not to attempt anything with poultry. My mummy always stop me and my siblings from taking any poultry whenever we are down with some coughs. I think according to Chinese, poultry products tend to worsen the condition of the cough. I am not too sure if there is any scientific research about it but I dare not take the risk. Looking at how Prince Charming cough while sleeping makes me sad :(



Serves 2~3

Ingredients Amounts
Minced Pork200g
Corn flour2.5 tsp
Minced Prawns
2 ~ 3
Soy Sauce2 ~3 tsp
Sesame oil3 tsp
Pepper
2 tsp

Carrot, diced

1 medium size

Green onions, sliced

1 medium size
Pork broth
1 Can
Chye Sim
3 stalks

Water

300 ml
  1. In a pot, pour the pork broth followed by adding in the green onions and carrots. Bring to cook over medium heat. Scoop away the fats that surface when boiling.

  2. Turn the heat to low and continue with the cooking of the soup.

  3. In a clean bowl, mixed the minced pork and prawns with pepper, sesame oil, corn flour and soy sauce. Keep the marinated mixture in the fridge till later use.

  4. Observe the boiling soup and make sure that the diced carrots are softened. Roll the marinated pork mixture into small balls and drop into the boiling soup. The meatballs will float up when it is thoroughly cooked.

  5. Add in the Chye Sim and simmer for another 3 mins.
* You may boil some mee hoon and top it with the soup. This serves as a Mee Hoon soup*


No additional seasoning was added to the soup and it tasted really sweet. The meatballs were springy and matches well with the soup base. Prince Charming had 2 big bowls of the soup of which one was served with Mee hoon :)


I used the left over pork mixture and wrap them into Siew Mai look-alike dumplings. I topped the dumplings with some wolfberries and it makes the dumplings look even cuter. Prince Charming call them "Fat Dumplings". The skins were shanghai dumpling skins which I got from Cold Storage, tasted good without the typical yellow noodle like taste comparing to the local yellow wantan skin.


On a side note, you may add in some wolfberries into the soup base as wolfberries have a general sweet taste and is good for the eyesight. Another knowledge that I learnt from my mummy :)


*UPDATES: Please ignore the word "Chicken" on the first two pictures of this entry. There were no poultry involved and I had no idea WHY did I added in Chicken. Sigh. Am I getting old?

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Homemade Grill

On Friday, I met up with a couple of ladies from a local forum which I joined months ago. It was really nice hanging out with them! You would not believe that all of us only knew each other for not long, but we could relate to each other pretty well :)

After the mini gathering, I went off with Prince Charming to the supermarket for our BBQ Grill shopping! We have been talking about doing this for sometime and it seems that every time we talked about it, I would forgotten it the next moment! I have a bad memory to admit frankly.

Anyway, both of us finally had our taste on our own grilling session and it was FABULOUS!
Prince Charming commented that the grill tasted way better than the ones we had outside. I guessed it's because we had them in adequate amount comparing to surfeit ourselves when we dine outside.

We had the grill like the Koreans - Wrap the grilled food with sauce onto fresh leaves of lettuces.
It was awesome! I did the sauce using Gochujiang( Korean red pepper paste), some brown sugar, sesame oil and water. The sauce tasted heavenly. Try them out!