Well this was a very cute type of fried shrimp in wonton skins. If you would like the recipe, please click here. Just keep in mind that the wonton skins browns very quick so you need to set the heat into low medium, as I burned my first batch. To make it easy for you to roll the batter into the wonton skins, use to spoon to form a ball and place it straight away into the shredded wonton skins and roll.

Preparation time (duration): 45

Culinary tradition: Chinese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!

Ingredients

• 1 kg of calamari/cuttle fish, clean the translucent bone, ink and skin, cut
• 3 tomatoes, cut in cubes
• 1 capsicum, cut in long strips
• 2 green long chillies, slice
• 2 cloves, sliced thinly
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 cup tomato sauce, more or less
• 1 tbsp chilli sauce, more or less
• salt and sugar to adjust
• oil for stir frying

I have been wondering for a long time on how the restaurants do their deep fried fish. I have been experimenting for a long time to get to this point. When my dad came last February, he offered me to cook several dishes for our family dinner on Chinese New Year’s eve and one of them is this dish. I watched him while he pour and rub the cornflour on the fish. He simply poured the cornflour on his hand and rubbed in on the fish, but you could still see the fish skin underneath. After the fish is deep fried, it was crunchy but not the sort of crunchy that I would think the fish should be.

I thought to myself maybe I should go extreme with the cornflour. I usually put the cornflour on a plate and then dip the fish on that. This time I pour lots and lots of cornflour on my hand and rub it all over the fish until the fish turned white. Then VOILA a very nice crunchy fish.

For adding Nutrisari in the sauce, I was told by my sister in law who were told by her aunt. Using Nutrisari, give a punch taste to the sauce and make the colour of the sauce brighter.

Ingredients

• whole medium size snapper, clean and gutted
• juice from a whole lime
• salt to marinade the fish
• corn flour to coat the fish
• 2 cloves of garlic, slice
• 1 small onion, slice
• 1 or 2 long green chilli, slices it
• 1 small tomato, cut into wedges
• half of a capsicum, cut into squares
• half cup of pineapple pieces
• half cup of peas
• 1 sachet of Nutrisari, diluted with 300 ml of water (see note)
• 3 tbsp of tomato sauce
• salt, sugar(I didn’t add the sugar), vinegar to taste
• diluted corn flour to thicken the sauce
• oil for stir frying

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find fresh petai in Australia, at least not that I know of. All I could get is frozen petai or petai in can. I usually buy the frozen one, however when they are defrosted, they become soggy and you couldn’t really achieve how the petai should be taste like in a dish, if you know what I mean. My aunt actually suggested me to use the can one instead of the frozen one because she said they are crunchier and taste fresher. Well next time I’ll definitely give a can one a go.

I believe not everybody will love petai because of its distinct smell, and if your toilet could complain, it will reject you from doing your things there. The smell will remains for quite sometimes in the bathroom. To prevent you from curiosity, have a go with cooking something different for your dinner tonight, then you will understand what I meant.

Ingredients

• 1 kg prawns, head off , shell off and vein off but keep the tail
• 500 gr potatoes, cut into cubes and deep fried
• petai also known as Sator (could be found in Asian groceries store, frozen or canned in brine)
• 1 tomato, wedges
• 1 tbsp garlic puree
• about 1 cup of chilli puree
• 1  tsp salt or according to your preferences
• 2 tbsp vinegar (different brand might have different level of sourness, so don’t add everything at the same time)
• 3 tbsp sugar or according to  your preferences
• 1 1/2 tbsp tomato sauce
• oil for stir frying

A little information about Kwetiau Goreng for those of you who have no clue about them. Kwetiau Goreng is also known as Cha Kwetiau or Fried Rice Noodles. It is a common dish in most Asian household, especially Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean. You definitely could find it in Asian food court and hawker stalls.

Ingredients

• 500 gr rice noodle
• 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 2 cloves of shallot, sliced
• 3 small chillies or according to your preferences
• 1 tomato, cut into wedges
• prawns or chicken or beef or pork (I used beef balls)
• 3 eggs
• 3 tbsp of sweet soy sauce or as needed (When added to the noodles, stop when the noodle is brown enough)
• 1 tbsp of fish sauce
• salt and white pepper
• 1 tbsp of tomato sauce
• oil for stir frying
• bean sprout ans slices of spring onions to serve

Jap Chae is a translucent glass noodle made from sweet potato starch. It is stir fried with various vegetables (such as carrot, spinach, onion and mushroom) and sesame oil. It could be combined with beef or seafood, flavoured with soy sauce and sweetened with some sugar. It also could be topped with shredded egg omelet, sesame seeds and spring onions. They taste very light and healthy.

This is my second attempt on cooking Jap Chae. It is a simple dish to cook for a quick healthy meal, but I couldn’t say my first attempt on cooking this dish is a big success. I used an average quality of sesame oil, as a result I need heaps of sesame oil to get the smell of sesame. I kept adding more oil as a result it tasted very greasy. It was okay when it was hot, but at that time we were going out of town and it was autumn. I packed some of them in a lunch box. Goodness me, it was pretty disgusting as we could see the cold gelatin of oil around the noodle. We ended up having a ready pack cheap sausage rolls and hot dog.

For this second attempt, I pretty much searched the whole aisle of oil shelf to make sure I get the best quality sesame oil. To my surprise there is a black sesame oil that I never aware of. I thought they are the same just different quality. This black sesame oil has a very strong intense smell of sesame and it is just perfect for my Jap Chae.

For those you want to try cooking this dish, I suggest:

• To have a ready good quality black sesame oil ready in the pantry.
• Cut and slice all the ingredients before hand. Then boil the water for cooking the noodle.
• While you heat the wok for cooking the vegetables, the noodle has to be in the pot already. Well you have to multitask though. In 5 minutes the noodle is ready to be drained, washed in cold water to stop the cooking process and tossed with black sesame oil. By that time, all the vegetables will ready to be tossed with the noodle.

To see the recipe, click here.

Preparation time (duration): 45

Culinary tradition: Korean

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I believe that some of you might think that this particular fried rice is too much hassle, because the fish need to be washed, patted dry, and then fried. Not only that, if you live in a small apartment, the fried smell will last for at least two days. Ehmm what was I thinking posted this recipe? Encouraging people not to cook this particular fried rice. To be honest, I actually got the fried teri from my friend, because we got a lot of left over from our charity market. I felt sorry to the fish and then decided to turn them into fried rice dishes. However, I still need to do the frying all over again because they weren’t cooked and crunchy enough.

My tips before you start:

• It is best to have an overnight rice for fried rice (mine wasn’t).
• Always use a generous amount of oil to stir fry the rice so that your rice stays dry and the grain doesn’t stick to each other.
• Although the fish has been washed before they are deep fried, they are still salty. Be careful on the amount of salt used. The taste of the rice should be mild in terms of saltiness, so that when they are combined with the fish, they are kind of balancing each other.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of uncooked rice, cooked (for a better result, store it overnight in the fridge)
• 1 cups fried small fish (you could find a dry small fish pack in Asian groceries store) *see note
• 1 large carrots, slice thinly or cubes
• 250 gr of fish cakes or balls, dice thinly
• 3 eggs
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cloves of shallots, sliced thinly
• 1 or 2 small chillies, sliced
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce (I used Cap Dua Angsa Brand)
• salt and white pepper to taste
• generous amount of oil for stir frying
• spring onions to serve
• slices of cucumber to serve

Me: (holding a bunch of herbs) Is this Thai’s basil leaves?

Staff: No, that’s Vianemit mit. (No offense to Thai’s people.. that was what really happened)

Me: ??? What? Pardon me ???

Staff: Vietnemit mit (keep repeating the same things again and again)

Me: (then I get it) Ohhh Vietnamese mint leaves. What do you use to make Tom Yum soup? Basil leaves?

Staff: No leaves.

Me: Oh OK

Here’s how my Tom Yum soup looks like. The tom yum paste really helps to give an intense tom yum flavour, but most importantly don’t forget your chilli pure for the heat and tamarind for the sourness.

This is another alternative on how to serve Tom Yum Soup, with egg noodles and poached egg.

Ingredients

• a kg of prawns in shells
• 1 liter water
• tom yum paste to taste(they come in bottle and sachet)
• 4 pcs galangal, smashed (as big as 20 cents coin)
• 1 lemon grass, smashed (use just the white part)
• 1/2 cup of tamarind juice, or to taste
• 1 tsp of puree small red chillies, or to taste
• 6 kaffir lime leaves
• Fish sauce to taste
• fresh mushrooms or can of button mushrooms
• spring onions to serve

This is the first time I cooked fried rice using pineapple. I like to try something new and it was exciting especially the decorating part. Few things that I could do better next time I cook Pineapple Fried rice are:

• When you buy pineapple, make sure that you just store them for 2 days top. Mine became so sweet after 5 days and it was so good to eat the pineapple by itself that I feel sorry for pineapple to be put in the fried rice I guess it is nice to have a slightly sour pineapple so that the fried rice would have those tangy taste. rather than just sweet.
• When you cut your pineapple open, make sure that the pineapple pieces that you want to add later on to the fried rice are placed on the strainer, so that they don’t turn your fried rice soggy.
• The pineapple shells should be placed like a dome shape, so that all the juices are drained.
• This is ‘a must do thing’, store your rice at least overnight on the fridge. I will store mine at least 2 or 3 days on the fridge so that the pineapple juice from the pieces will not affect my fried rice.

Ingredients

• 1 whole pineapple, about 2 cups for the fried rice
• 4 cups of cooked rice, store it overnight in the fridge
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 3 cloves shallot, sliced
• 5 small chillies, sliced
• about 10 prawns tail on
• 1 pack fish tofu (about 200 gr)
• 2 carrots, cut into small cubes
• 2 zucchinis, cut into small cubes
• 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1/2 cup sweet soy sauce
• 1 tbsp white ground pepper
• salt to taste
• 1/2 cup oriental baby celery, chopped
• sliced spring onions to serve
• oil for stir frying

Preparation time (duration): 60

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

My family loves this dish so much that I cooked this dish twice already for this week. I know what you all are thinking… so much for cooking the same ingredients over and over again. What I love about this dish is that i don’t have to cook the vegetable dish to accompany them. How good is that huh.. just cooking once and you got everything come in one dish; prawn, soy, and vegetables.

A little tips from me though before you start cooking this:

• You could deep fry the tempe because the un-fried tempe will thicken the sauce slightly. Of course they taste so much better because of the frying process, but I try to avoid as much deep frying as possible
• Remember to add the salt and sugar later after the salted soy bean sauce because the sauce is really salty. I once did a stir fry Kang Kung (water spinach) with salted soy bean sauce and it was extremely salty that I have to eat them little by little with lots of steam rice.
• Add your beans just minutes before you turn off the stove to have those yummy vegetables crunchiness.
• You could also add silken tofu (coat them with corn flour and deep fry until slightly yellowish brown) or your favorite vegetables.

Ingredients

• 250 gr of prawns, shell off, keep the tail on
• 150 gr of tempe, cut in cubes
• 1 small punnet of baby corn (about 8 pcs), cut diagonally
• 200 gr of french beans, cut 3 cm in length
• 200 gr of fish tofu cubes, sliced
• 1 tomato, slice in wedges
• 1 small chili, sliced (for extra spicy)
• 1 red chili, sliced
• 1 green chili, sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 2 cloves of shallot, sliced
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 2 tbsp of salted soy bean sauce (I used “Tauco” brand “Cap Hati Angsa”)
• salt and sugar to taste
• 3/4 cup of water
• olive oil for stir frying

Preparation time (duration): 30

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I usually cook this dish on my lazy cooking day. We don’t have to spend money on dining out and takeaway. We could eat carbohydrate, vegetables, seafood, protein and spice all come in one dish. Most importantly we could eat peacefully on dining table without my two years old interference, because he absolutely loves this dish.

You can never go wrong when cooking this dish. It is never too dry or soggy. Most noodles absorb liquid and tend to turn soggy, but this Hokkien noddle is really good with absorption. The taste is much better when it is served slightly wet. You could cook the noodle with absolutely any combination of vegetables, seafood, chicken, or fish that you prefer.

Ingredients

• 500 gr of Hokkien noddles
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 cloves shallot, sliced
• 1 tomato, cut into wedges
• 5 small red chillies
• 5 pcs of prawns
• 3 eggs
• 200 gr of fish balls, sliced
• 1 small carrot, julienne cut
• 1 small zucchini, julienne cut
• 2 cup of choy sum
• 2 tbsp sweet soy sauce/Kecap Manis
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tsp tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup sliced spring onions
• salt and white pepper to taste
• oil

Cooking time (duration): 20

Culinary tradition: Chinese, Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!