Song Fish Head

My hub loves fish and so, I'm contantly on the hunt to search for fish recipes to satisfy his cravings. It can be curry fish head, assam fish head or simply just a steamed salmon fish head. Today, I will be sharing my recipe for song fish head :)

Ingredients for 2 song fish head (6 pax serving):

- 1 Song fish head, sliced to halve.

- Spring onion, sliced into thin silken threads for garnishing.

- Ginger

- Garlic

- Onions

- Oil

- Rice Wine

- Fermented beans

- Water

How to cook:

a) Handling the fish head

- Clean and rinse the fish head thoroughly with salt.

- Place ginger slices between the fish head and set steam for roughly 15 minutes.

b) Preparing the sauces
- Add oil in the frying pan.

- Once its heated, add chopped garlic and onions. Fry until there is fragnance.

- Add fermented beans and some water. Continue to stir gently. 

- Once its boil, add some rice wine and let it boil for a minute or so.

- Turn off the fire and pour the sauce over the fish head.
- Lastly, garnish with spring onions and it is ready to dish out.

Minced Meat Potatoes Baked Beans

One of my favourite quick dinner fixes...this is, in fact, the 'meat' dish for the meal :D

Ingredients (for 6 pax share):
- Two cans of baked beans (I chose "Ayam Brand Hi Fibre Baked Beans" for my young children)

- Approx 300g of minced pork (costs me about $4 from NTUC), seasoned with some corn flour, sesame oil, soya sauce, and pepper.

- 4 potatoes of medium size, chopped into cubes

- Some garlic, chopped finely
- 1 tablespoon of cooking oil
- 1 tablespoon of tapioca starch

- Spring onions (optional)
- Water
- Salt to taste

How to cook:
- Boil the potatoes and set aside.

- Heat the wok with cooking oil.

- Add in the garlic once the wok is heated.
- Put in the minced meat once the garlic turns slightly brownish and add in some water. Reduce the heat slightly so that the water will not dry up so fast and leave it to boil. This will not take longer than 10 minutes.
- Then add in the baked beans and half a can of water (use the baked beans' tin can) and leave it to boil.

- Add tapioca starch to thicken the gravy and salt to taste. Leave it to boil for another 3 mins.

- Lastly, add the boiled cube potatoes and stir evenly in the mixture. Garnish with chopped spring onions (optional) before serving.

* You may also replace minced meat with diced luncheon meat. Taste equally fantastic! slurp!

Our Dinner - 1 Fish, 1 Vege and 1 Egg

19 July 2013

My 3-dish dinner prepared with love for my family (爱心晚餐). :D

Make a guess which is the hot favorite for the night? Yeah, think you guess as much...it's the egg rolls! Strangely, kids just love eggs right, in any way you cook them....gee:))

From left: stirred-fried beansprouts, song fish head and egg rolls.

Fried Egg Rolls ('Egg Popiah')

19 July 2013

I chanced upon this very nice 'egg popiah' from Facebook and decided to cook for my family. Very favourable response from my little customers (aka my children) for my 1st attempt! They loved it and asked for more! Hee! :p

I love that this dish doesn't required alot of ingredients. The only challenge lies in your frying skill :D

Ingredients for 3 egg rolls (6 pax serving):

- 2 pieces of picnic ham, chopped.

- 8 eggs, mixed and stirred till smooth.

- Spring onion, chopped finely.

- Oil

- Soya sauce for taste

How to cook:

- Break the eggs, mixed and stirred till mixture turned smooth.
- Add the chopped ham and spring onions to the egg mixture.
- And add 2 tablespoons of soya sauce to the egg mixture.
- Heat the non-stick frying pan with oil enough to cover the frying pan.
- Pour the mixture onto the pan and leave it to cook.
- When the mixture is about 75% cooked, start rolling the egg slowly so as not to break the egg in the midst of rolling. I use pair of chopsticks together with spatula and roll slowly. As my rolling speed was rather slow, it was cooked by the time I complete rolling ;D and ready to dish out.

This is close to 75% cooked. When half of the watery portion is cooked, its about time to start rolling the egg. Any delay, the fried egg will be too hard to roll! Have fun experimenting! ;))

 

Stirred-fried Beansprout with Japanese Cucumber

19 July 2013

I usually will prepare 2 vege and 1 meat or 1 vege, 1 meat and 1 soup for dinner. So on the same day I did the egg rolls, I had fried beansprouts as my vege dish. Eh, don't think beansprouts cheapo dish. If you add other ingredients, it becomes a superb dish!

 

Ingredients (5 pax share):

- A packet of fresh beansprouts, about 800grams.
- 1 Japanese Cucumber (of average size), sliced.

- 1 young carrot, cut into strips.

 - 4 pieces dried beancurd (or known as "tau pok"), sliced.
- Garlic, chopped finely
- 1 tablespoon of cooking oil
- Water
- Salt to taste

How to cook:

- Heat the wok with cooking oil.

- Add in the garlic once the wok is heated.

- When garlic turns slightly brownish, add the carrots and little bit of water (2 tablespoons). Stirred fried for short while.

- Then add beansprouts, tau pok and some water (enough to cover half of the vege will do as don't intend to make this too watery). Again, stirred fried for short while to ensure that its evenly cooked.  

- Lastly, add the cucumber and stirred fried for another minute. 

- Add salt to the dish before serving.

Minced Beef Baked Rice with Mozzarella Cheese

My three lovely kids simply love cheese, any type of food as long as it comes with cheese, seems to enhance their appetite almost instantly!

As a working mother, it has been and always will be a challenge to provide delicious and nutritious dishes for the kids. I don't want to bore them with weekly all-in-one menus but it is a challenge to create out-of-the-box menus.

I have always wanted to include baking dishes in my menu but sadly, was unable to do so as I don't possess an oven. I only own a microwave oven which essentially is good for warming food but not for baking ;(

For this baked rice dish (prepared on 30 Dec 2011), I attempted using the microwave to create the 'melting cheese' effect typically seen on baked rice. Oh well, beggars can't be choosy! But I don't mind praises for being innovative hahaha :p

Overall, the dish was okay...only thing is I over estimated the portion but well....I should be thankful that there were no complaints from my hubby and kids though haha...

Ingredients (8 pax share):

- 300 grams frozen minced beef, rinse once with tap water and once with hot water, then set aside (I got the frozen ones as it can be kept longer so if I didn't get a chance to cook this weekend, I can keep for next weekend. I got mine from NTUC XTRA. Typically okay as my kids don't reject. In fact, they loved it!)
- 250 grams frozen mixed vegetables (or you could prepare your own, which is cheaper, cut the carrots in small cubes etc and throw in some potatoes in small cubes too if you like. I usually get Watties (from New Zealand) from the supermart.)
- 200 grams mozzarella cheese, sliced (it's pretty sticky so I opted to slice it. Faster and easier. You can also choose those already sliced or in cube forms but they are more expensive.)
- 1 can baked beans
- 1 medium size onion, chopped finely
- Rice
- Salt to taste
- Water
- Cooking oil

How to cook:

(1) Rice
- Cook the rice as per usual method but with slightly more water/
(2) Mixed Vegeatbles
- Boil a pot of water for the mixed vegetables.
- When water is boiled, pour the mixed vegetables into the pot and add a pinch of salt into the water. -
- Leave it to boil over medium heat for about 10mins. then scoop up and set aside.

(3) Minced Meat
- Heat the wok with cooking oil.
- Add diced onion once wok is heated.
- Add the minced beef once onions turns brown, add some water then fry over medium heat.
- Keep stirring to break up any lumps of meat.
- Add salt to taste.
- When minced beef is half done, add the baked beans and pour in enough water to cover the meat. Continue stirring till minced beef is 3/4 done (medium cooked), scoop up and set aside.

(4) Once Steps (1) to (3) are done, scoop the rice into a corningware. It cannot be fully filled up (about 3/4 filled up with rice).
- Add the minced beef with baked beans to fully cover the top of the rice.
- Spread the sliced mozarella cheese over the minced beef mixture.
- Put the entire pot into microwave oven and start the oven. (The one thing I regreted was I didnt monitor the timing. I did short intervals of 10 mins heating on-off to check on the 'status' of the cheese. I stopped the microwave oven once the cheese is melted to my desired level.)
- Sprinkle the mixed vegetables on top of the rice before serving.

Note: Remember you have to eat the baked rice piping hot otherwise its not gonna be the same!

Soupy Mee Hoon Kway (手工面)

23 June 2012
Having eaten the handmade mee hoon kway at the hawker center and foodcourt, my son fell in love with it. Any food centres we been to thereafter, he would request for mee hoon kway. So much so that he even started asking me to cook for him at home on my 'cooking' days, aka weekends. Luckily, the girls liked it too so mummy happily went to scout for the ingredients to do the cooking. I personally feel that the right ready-made mee hoon kway is important to make this dish delicious.

Ingredients (4 pax share):
- 2 packets of mee hoon kway (refer to bottom on mee hoon kway pack)
- 4 eggs
- 1 packet foo chow fishballs, 2 for each pax.
- 1 packet of cai xin (any vege will do)
- 1 pot of homemade pork broth (slighlty bigger than average size pot)
- salt to taste

How to cook:
- Heat the broth until the water boils, then reduce the heat slightly so that the water is just bubbling.
- Add in the fishball till turn soft.
- Add in the vege for another 3-4mins.
- Add the egg.
- Add salt to taste before serving.

I liked this brand, Sakura, bought from NTUC Xtra.