ABC Soup

You may wonder... How did this soup got its name. What ingredient represents A, B or even C? My mum calls it ABC soup; my mum-in-law calls the same name too. Hmmm, I guess maybe because it is really, really easy to prepare and it is just as simple as ABC ^_^

Firstly, cut up some carrots, potatoes, tomatoes and an onion (heehee the words rhyme!). If you have Chinese cabbage in your fridge, you can chop some up too! The Chinese cabbage adds sweetness in the flavoring. 

Before that, boil a pot of water with some chicken or pork. Preferably parts with bones such as drumsticks, thighs, ribs or the porky's legs. Once done with the chopping, put all the veggies into the pot. Let it boil for about 20 minutes and turn down the heat to let it simmer for another 30/40 minutes. You can add in a chicken cube for seasoning, or salt / soy sauce is fine as well.

And that's it! Your soup is ready to serve and be eaten! XD

Have a great Thursday and weekend will be here sooner than you think. ^_^

Tata!

Express Baked Chicken & Mushroom Pasta!

Yup, you read that right... Express version. LOL! When I was trying to figure out how to make this chicken pasta, I searched over the Internet and found some useful recipes. But I thought, I'll try to keep it simple lah! Instead of creating my own white sauce, I've replaced with canned mushroom soup ^_^

Alright, so here's my cooking experiment...

First, slice up some onions and chicken meat. You can either buy canned mushroom that has been sliced, or the whole mushroom. If it is whole, just slice them up too! Marinate the chicken with some pepper. I used grounded black pepper but I think white pepper is fine. Just use whichever type of pepper you have okie?

Boil the pasta until it is al dente. If it is very soft, it might break into small pieces when we mix our ingredients. While the pasta is being cooked, in a separate pan (or wok), stir fry the onion until fragrant. Then tip in the chicken and fry them until they are quite cooked. Add some herbs - mixed herbs or thyme / basil are fine. I prefer stronger herbs so mixed herbs or oregano are okay for me. Remember to pour in the mushroom when the chicken is about 90% cooked. The canned mushroom is already cooked so that sort of saves time for me. 

Once the pasta is ready, drain them and pour them into the wok. Add in the mushroom soup into the mixture. Pour in some water in the can, maybe 1/3 in order to clean out the remainder that is stacked in it. Stir stir and mix mix everything until all ingredients are well coated. Yum! 

Oh yes, remember to heat up the oven before you use it. Turn it up to Gas 5 / 180c.

Last but not least, taste your pasta. Add some salt for seasoning... And taste again before you scoop 'em up into a casserole dish. Or a deep plate that can be placed in an oven.

Sprinkle on some grated cheese or cheddar cheese slices. Then place the dish into the oven for about 5 minutes or until the cheese has melted, or slightly brown. Ready to serve!

Sorry folks, I didn't manage to take a photo once the pasta is ready to be served. Had to put LittleMissPoochie to sleep because she was tired. Plus we were so hungry that we started to dig in : P

Nonetheless, I think it came out quite good. The pasta was well coated with the sauce. Perhaps a little more sauce would've been nice. Then it would give a creamier texture. 

TheLoyalFan says: "Really liked the mushroom taste. Cheese could be a little less strong though."

Hmmm, I think the cheese I used was a Parmesan. Not too sure myself. The block of cheese has been sitting in the fridge so I use it lor... I think my experiment turned out quite OK. The mini research that I did online helped me also - just to make sure what I have in mind on the methodology is reasonable (methodology... Bombastic lingo :P)

OK, tata everyone! Have a good week and keep cooking!

Black Beans Pork Ribs

Hey!

I found some black beans in my fridge and realized that some of the beans had gone bad. Mouldy. So I thought I'd try to make black beans ribs, like the dish you can eat at Dim Sum. Well, almost similar lah... and I googled a recipe that used a slow cooker to cook this dish. Thought I shall give it go ^_^

Let's get started!

First, ensure your ribs have been chopped into smaller pieces. Maybe 1 or 2 inches in length. Marinate the ribs with Chinese Wine and black pepper. Then pour in the black beans, chopped ginger and garlic followed by corn flour. As black beans are salty itself, there is no need to put soy sauce or salt in it. I've mixed about 2 tablespoons of black beans in my ribs (I made the dish for 4 pax). To reduce washing up, put all the ingredients and mix them up in the slow cooker pot. Haha!

Once all the ingredients have been well mixed, turn the knob to "auto" mode and let it simmer away for 3 hours.

Mmm... taste wise, it is quite good - not too salty. If you find the black bean's taste is too strong, you can either balance it with a dash of sugar and some water to dilute the taste. Mum said that I could be  a little more generous on the corn flour. I was afraid that if I put too much, the meat may be starchy. Perhaps 1 tablespoon or 2 of corn flour could create a smoother and juicer meat texture. And it would be nice to garnish some spring onion on the ribs.

TheLoyalFan says: "Was thoroughly yum yum. Even better with longer juicier ribs!"

-.-"""

Oh wells, I guess we could try to chop longer next time lor...

Till then, keep nomming!

Om Om Omelette!

A simple yet can be a delicious dish, I think the omelette is a flexible dish. How so? Well, it is flexible because you either cook it with eggs only, or adding different ingredients to create a more wholesome, awesome egg dish.

I'm not sure about you, but at my home, the omelette is versatile. We can combine with all kinds of ingredients - from simple sliced onions, French beans, bitter-gourd to a combination of seafood such as crab sticks and prawns. If you have the opportunity, do try it at the nearest restaurants in your area. Or when you visit Kuala Lumpur ^_^

I'm happy to share one of our household's favourite - the tomato omelette recipe.

First, slice up some onions and cut the tomatoes into wedges. Remove some of the seeds from the wedges. This is because when the tomatoes are being fried, the mushy seeds will become watery, making the omelette wet. Then depending on the number of people you are cooking for, crack some eggs into a bowl. Let's say, you are cooking for 4 people: Perhaps cracking 4 eggs or 5 eggs (if you like your omelette to be more... "Egg-gy"). Season the eggs with some pepper and soy sauce. Whisk them away, Sous Chef!

Frying and simmering away!

And here it is... the final porduct!

All nice and charred... NICE!

To be honest, this is not my first time cooking this dish. However, my previous attempts didn't turned out as how it would look like the photo above. It was always wet because of the tomatoes, and I just suddenly thought of this idea of removing the seeds. Hahaha, abit slow to figure that out ^_^ Nonetheless, it was yummeh, babeh!

TheLoyalFan says: "Very nice! Tomatoes indeed can be added into omelettes."

Yup, you are looking at my crock pot chicken too : P Both are fantastic with rice! Om nom nom noms...

Have a great weekend, folks!

Cooking Again - Crock Pot Chicken

Hey everyone!

It has been a while, okay lah... a long while, that I have written stuff in my blog. Over the past year, I've been busy adjusting with a new member in my family - LittleMissPoochi. She has been a bundle of joy to TheLoyalFan and I ^_^ We are truly blessed and thankful for her well being.

Alrightie then, let's get back to more cooking!

With LittleMissPoochi around the house, I find it challenging to prepare a meal. So Mum taught me a recipe that doesn't require much attention... which is cooking with the Crock Pot a.k.a. Slow Cooker.

The thing about this wonderful pot is that one doesn't need to jaga fire - standing by the hob, ensuring the fire is right in order to avoid our dish being burnt. All you need to do is put in all your ingredients and turn it on. So lots of our mothers (and our grandmothers) like using the crock pot as it can stew the meat, making the meat all sooo soft, juicy and yummy!

First, ensure your chicken is thawed and marinate it. Before you marinate, trim off some of the fat from the chicken in order to reduce the oil. I marinated my chicken with 3 ingredients - Chinese wine, soy sauce and white pepper. This is the same marinate method that I used for my steamed chicken. Cut some ginger into thin strips then soak some gei zhee (goji berries) and yoke chook. For the Chinese herbs, I soaked in water, about 2 or 3 tablespoons of water.

Once your ingredients are ready, put everything including the water from soaking the herbs, into the crock pot. Leave it in the pot for 2 hours. I adjusted the heat to high mode.

And after 2 hours...

Tadaaa!

Chickens were stabbed to check whether inside is cooked ^_^

I must say, this dish turned out great! A variation of my steamed chicken and I.LOVE.IT! Well, I'm a very ching chong kind of person. The sauce was tasty and complemented well with rice. Mum and CuteFuzzyBear gave a thumbs up for my attempt (yay!)

TheLoyalFan says: 'Such a good dish to come home to after a long day. Its good to have sous chef back!'

I'm glad that sous chef is back too! : P

Stay tune for more posts on my culinary journey back home. Till then, keep nommings!

The attempted sticky ribs...

It is, so far, a relaxing week for many Malaysians as we only work 3 days! Well, that's because there's Diwali and Awal Muharram - both are national public holidays for all of us! Weee... so, without any hesitation, it is time to try out a new recipe which I was really excited.

After reading much recipes from the Internet, I've decided to simplify it. So here goes...

First things first, we must have THE ribs. TheLoyalFan and I headed to our nearby market to buy some pork ribs. The friendly butcher chopped the ribs into half... it wasn't baby ribs so have to chop lor... Then, it is marinate time!

Give the ribs a good rinse and drain well. Finely chop about 2 cloves of garlic and place into the bowl of ribs. Season it with salt, pepper, BBQ sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Massage these goodies on every surface of the ribs. Be generous on the seasoning but go easy on the BBQ sauce as this is a dry marinate.

Grilling in ze BBQ pit, with a LID! 

Now it is time to grill. You can either use an oven or on a BBQ pit. For this, I use a BBQ pit with a lid. I grilled the ribs for 2 hours. During the first hour, it was an indirect grilling and we flipped it about every 10 minutes to even out the cooking. For the last half hour, we basted the ribs with honey to get that 'sticky' effect.

Et voila! Moi attempted ribs. The chicken was part of dinner too!

Yum yum yum! I think it was a success on my simple marinate experiment. After having the ribs, I can't wait to have another round of this ribs again! Nonetheless, there are some tweaks need to be done in order to perfect my ribbies. TheLoyalFan and I thought that we should baste the ribs with a honey & BBQ sauce mixture instead of just honey. Also, I think we should cook it longer so that the meat would just fall off from the bones... *slurp slurp slurp*

TheLoyalFan says: 'Nom nom nom nom nom noms...slurp!I wish I could have this everyday!'

Mmm Mmm...

Something New and Something To Try Out Soon!

Look!

A gift from TSS when we met up the other day at her house for dinner. I was really happy and touched for this wonderful gift. : )

Looks like there are lots of recipes to try out and I shall pass on the food revolution to all of you ^_^ I hope my journey with this book will be fun and enjoyable. Stay tune for more posts on recipes from this book! : P

Happy Weekend everyone!