I usually cook my broccolini using an oyster sauce, or just as simple as using only garlic. You could add prawns with the garlic combination.

Ingredients

• 2 bunch of broccolini
• 1 chilli, sliced
• 2 garlic clove, minced
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce (more or less)
• water
• oil for stir frying

Instructions

1. Heat oil in the wok. Add in garlic and stir until the fragrance is out.
2. Add in broccolini and stir about 1-2 minutes..
3. Add in oyster sauce and do a quick stir (you could add more to add the saltiness)
4. Add water 1 tbsp at the time to prevent burning. Stir for 1-2 minutes and serve.

Culinary tradition: Chinese

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It is really hard for me to explain how to cook a very nice homely mie goreng in this blog. As long as you do your stir very quickly, then you got a nice mie goreng. I guess you have to use your senses. Good luck

Ingredients

• 300 gr egg noodles (treat according to the packet instructions)
• 100 gr chicken breast, slice thinly
• about 1 cup meatballs, slice thinly
• 1 tbsp mince garlic
• 1 medium shallot, slice
• 1 large carrots, julienne cut
• 1 small green capsicum, slice
• 1 stalk spring onion, slice
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp sweet soy sauce or just enough to achieve the light brownish colour
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• salt and white pepper, to taste
• oil for stir frying
• deep fried shallot to serve

Instructions

1. Heat oil in the wok. Add in garlic and shallot, and stir until the fragrance is out.
2. Add in chicken slices and stir until the chicken is almost cooked through.
3. Add in meatball slices and do a quick stir.
4. Make a well in the middle and break in eggs in the middle. Add in about 1 tsp salt (you could add some more later on if it is not salty enough). Do a stir  every few seconds.
5. When the egg mixture is still wet, add the carrots and stir.
6. Add the cooked egg noodles and green capsicum and stir.
7. Add in sweet soy sauce and fish sauce and stir.
8. Add white pepper and stir.
9. Now it is time to taste your noodle. Add salt accordingly.
10. Add in spring onion and switch off your stove. Stir.
11. Serve with deep fried shallot.

Culinary tradition: Chinese, Indonesian

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This time he brought back beef round steak. Hmm interesting, that was the first time I cook with this part of the beef. Well, they looked tender as they sliced fairly thin and there was a mallet mark on the surface of the meat. This is my new invention dish. I think the dish is complemented well with the roasted capsicum as by roasting them retains its sweetness. As you can see in the picture, there was quite a lot of juices. I didn’t add any water or beef stock. It was purely came out of the beef.

Ingredients

• about 750 gr beef round steak or tenderloin, cut into long strips
• 3 tsp cornstarch to marinate
• 3 tsp mushroom soy sauce to marinate
• 2 tsp rice vinegar (or Shaoxing rice wine) to marinate
• 1 tbsp garlic mince
• 1/2 tbsp grated ginger
• 1 chili, slice diagonally
• 1 stalk spring onion, slice
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 6 tbsp sweet soy sauce
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1 large capsicum, roasted on the stove, peel the skin and sliced
• oil for stir frying

Instructions

1. Marinate the beef slices with cornstarch, mushroom soy sauce, and rice vinegar for at least 30 minutes.
2. Heat the oil on the wok. Stir the beef until they are about medium rare. Take them out of the wok and set aside.
3. Heat additional oil on the wok. Stir in garlic and ginger until fragrant.
4. Add chili and do a quick stir.
5. Add the reserved beef, sauces and white pepper. Stir for 1-2 minutes.
6. Add sliced capsicum and stir for another minute.
7. Add spring onion and serve with rice.

Culinary tradition: Chinese

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Ingredients

• 1.8 kg or 10 pcs yellow tail fish, clean, gutted, and chopped into 3
• 1 lime, strain the juice
• 2 tsp of salt to marinate
• 1 1/2 tbsp of garlic puree
• 1 1/2 cup of red long chilli puree
• 1 tsp of salt or to adjust accordingly
• 1 tbsp of vinegar or to adjust accordingly
• 2 tbsp of sugar or to adjust accordingly (see note)
• 1 tbsp tomato sauce
• oil for deep frying and stir frying

Butcher: How many kg for the spareribs?

Me: ehhhmmmmm…. give me 3 kg please

Butcher took 4 big pieces of ribs and weight, and they were about 2.3 kg. Suddenly I thought to myself, OMG it was a bit too much if she added more ribs. I shouted my change of mine.

Me: so sorry.. I changed my mind.. that would be enough thank you (fiuhhhh… what a relieve)

On Sunday morning, I thought this BBQ type of thing would be just perfect for our weekend brunch. So there I was, standing in the kitchen at 9 o’clock, peeling my herbs and pureeing them. By 10.30, my toddler had his ribs with steam rice, and he absolutely loves it. I don’t think the chilli affect him because you can’t really taste the spiciness because of the other herbs. We all had a lovely and full-filling brunch. I suddenly regret myself forbidding the butcher to give me 3 kg instead of 2.3 kg. My husband kept coming back to the kitchen to get some of those sticky juicy spare ribs. When I asked him whether I actually need to cook them twice as much quantity, he agreed. Ehmmm… so I actually should ask for 5 kg of spare ribs to satisfy all the meat eaters at home.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from The Around the World Cookbook

• 1 kg American pork spare ribs
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 cloves shallot
• 2.5 cm fresh ginger
• 1/3 soy sauce (half sweet soy sauce and half the salty one)
• 2 red chillies
• 1/3 cup of tamarind juice (soaked about a thumb size of tamarind in hot water)
• 2 tbsp palm sugar
• 2 tbsp oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation time (duration): 30

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

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The fried pork cutlets are really nice, tender and full of flavour. For some reasons, which I don’t know exactly why, they don’t taste greasy at all as the deep fried stuffs should be. As for the sauce, you could check out the Kylie Kwong style (click on the lick provided under the Ingredients) or you could follow mine. My sweet and sour sauce is simple and it is kind of an Chinese-Indonesian everyday sweet and sour sauce. You could add pineapple, peas, capsicum in the sauce. It just happened that I didn’t have any of them available in the fridge.

Ingredients for the pork

Recipe adapted from Kylie Kwong : Sweet and Sour Pork, for details click here

• 600 gr pork neck fillets
• 1 1/2 tablespoons cornflour (cornstarch)
• 1 tablespoon cold water
• 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 3 teaspoons light soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• oil for deep frying
• 1/4 cup plain flour
• 1/4 cup cornflour (extra)

Cooking time (duration): 60

Culinary tradition: Chinese

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

Sydney’s weather has been unfriendly for weeks now. The rain has been pouring non stop throughout the week and that made me feel like I want to stay indoors. Lucky my husband offered to drive me to the Paddish Market in the afternoon, so I could do some quick shopping. I went to a butcher and bought a whole chicken. I also asked them to chop them into small little pieces, and one of Laksa making task is done. I went to the groceries store next to the butcher instead of crossing the street to get to Paddish Market, because the rain was pouring so bad. It turned out that the grocery store did not have any fresh lemon grass left, however the do have some finely chopped frozen one. I thought that would do for me.

We arrived home at half past six and I went straight to the kitchen to prepare everything. I was hoping that we could have dinner by half past seven. I would say that making laksa is not a hassle or hard work at all. It was pretty simple and quick. Just be aware of the chillies if you are not a big fan of some hot and spicy stuff. I used about 10 dried chillies and to my surprised, it was pretty hot for my toddler liking. My 2 years and 9 months son like a little bit of chilli in his food but this is just a bit way of his range.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken about 1.5 kg, cut into little pieces (ask your butcher to do it)
• 6 cloves garlic
• 4 cloves shallot
• about 2 fingers ginger
• 8 dried chillies or less, soaked in hot water
• about 10 gr belacan/shrimp paste (I used 2 dried blocks of belacan)
• 4 pieces of galangal, about the size of 20 cents coin
• 1 stalk of lemon grass, bruised
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 tsp of turmeric powder
• 400 ml of coconut milk
• about 800 ml of water (water is needed to thin the laksa. They should be light, so add water as needed)
• salt, sugar and lime juice to taste
• a packet of fried tofu puffs
• oil for stir frying
• vermicelli noodles, soaked in the cold water
• egg noodles (optional)
• bean sprouts to serve
• spring onions to serve
• fried shallots to serve

Cooking time (duration): 45

Culinary tradition: Malaysian, Singaporean

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Back to the chicken wing journey from Woolworths to my kitchen. Woolworths sold this bulk pack of chicken wings which sounds economical and ended up me on buying them. I had no idea at that time what I am going to do with them. I thought just buy them first and figure it out later what I can do with them. Anyway, I ended up making this dish because it was almost 2 o’clock in the afternoon and I had to pick up my toddler at kindy. I need something quick and easy for my lunch and there was it Fried Chicken with Sweet Soy Sauce.

If you would like to share this dish with the little one, don’t slice the chillies up. Leave them as whole, so the adult could still enjoy the spiciness of the chillies on their own plate.

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg of chicken wings
• juice from 1 lime to marinade
• salt to marinade
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 clove of shallot, sliced
• half punnet of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• small chillies, according to your preferences
• 3/4 cup of sweet soy sauce
• salt to taste
• oil for deep frying and stir frying

Cooking time (duration): 20

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

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

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken (about 1.6-1.8 kg), cut into small bites about 20 pcs
• 2 tbsp lime juice to marinate
• 1 1/2 tsp salt to marinate
• 250 gr green long chilli, puree
• 1 /2 tbsp garlic puree
• 3/4 tsp salt or to taste
• 1 tbsp vinegar or to taste
• 1/2 tbsp tomato sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar or to taste
• oil for deep frying and stir frying

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

My suggestions before you start to cook this dish are:

• When you marinate the chicken, make sure all the pieces is coated evenly with the marinade mixture. Do not put too much sweet soy sauce, just enough to cover. Otherwise, when you deep fried them, they will be darken and bitter on the outside (because the sweetness in the soy sauce make them to burn quickly) and under cook on the inside.
• Use medium heat to deep fried them, so they don’t get burn to quickly on the outside.
• When you want to stir fried the chilli, use generous amount of oil to start with. What I meant is heaps of oil, where the oil is covering the chilli mixture.
• I found that everytime I bought chillies, they always have different level of heat, so always remember to adjust the sweetness, saltiness, and sourness to taste.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken (about 1.6-1.8 kg), cut into small bites about 20 pcs
• 1/2 cup of sweet soy sauce or just enough to coat the chicken, could be more or less
• 3 tbsp of garlic puree (2 tbsp for marinating and 1 tbsp for stir frying)
• 2 tsp of five spice powder or ngo hiang powder
• 1 tsp of white pepper
• about 1/2 kg potatoes, cut into wedges and deep fried
• 250-300 gr of red long chilli puree
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tbsp of vinegar or to adjust accordingly
• 2 tbsp of sugar or to adjust accordingly (see note)
• 1 tbsp tomato sauce
• oil for deep frying and 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

This is actually the first time I made this dish. I called my grandma from Indonesia to dig up some information since she was originated from Padang. I am not sure about other people’s grandmother. When my grandma explains about how to cook a dish, she never give me any measurement on how much each ingredients should be. So I always have to rely on my memory on how the dish should taste like. I still regret I didn’t really put so much of an interest while she was cooking before. Anyway, I didn’t want to fail as my husband also had the same craving as I was. I surfed the net and found some useful information.

According to my first effort on cooking this dish, I conclude that:

• Put little bit of salt when marinating and cooking the meat, as I didn’t. The meat flavours became bland if eaten by itself, well the gravy sure helps the flavour, but I think it is better to marinate and cook with the salt.
• Do not overcook the meat, because it is really hard to thin the meat and skewered them into the sticks as they tend to break. I ended up with a quite thick chunk of meat about 4 mm thick, where it supposed to be half the thickness.
• I found mine was not dry enough like the one sold in my hometown. But after a while, I realized that in my hometown, they sell this kind of satay using a cart, which they could push around the neighborhood and town. The skewered satay sticks are not wrapped in the cling wrap (they probably haven’t realized that there is this thing invented called cling wrap) or stored in a container. They are simply placed in an open shelf inside the cart(don’t even get me started about the hygienic issues), and that is probably the reason why the meat in the skewers dry up as they circle the town.
• Always topped of your Sate Padang with fried shallot. This is a must have as it could enhance the flavour.

Ingredients

• 1 kg gravy beef, cut into long strips
• 1 lemon grass, smashed
• 2 cm galangal, sliced and smashed
• 4 pcs lime leaves
• 4 pcs bay leaves
• 2 cm ginger, pureed
• 5 cloves garlic, pureed
• 5 cloves shallot, pureed
• 6 big red chillies, pureed
• 1 small red chilli, pureed
• 1 tbsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tbsp turmeric powder or 5 cm of turmeric, pureed
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1/2 sdt sugar
• 1 tbsp salt
• 500 ml of water, or just enough to cover the meat
• rice flour to thicken the gravy sauce
• satay stick
• rice cake to serve
• fried shallot to serve

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