Popcorns

Popcorns

Ingredients:
2 tbsp corn oil
3 tbsp popcorn kernels
3 tbsp honey or maple syrup or melted chocolate or salted butter

Method:
Heat two tablespoons of oil in a cleaned and dry pot over medium heat. Add the corn kernels, cover and cook, shake the pot vigorously (keep tossing the kernels to prevent burnt), until the kernels pop.
Remove from the heat and once there's no poping sound, transfer the popcorns to a large bowl. Drizzle honey over the popcorns and toss through the coating, then set aside.

Curry Chicken

My mom likes to cook Chicken or Vegetables Curry when we go to her house fortnightly.
As usual, she likes to prepare a lot of "hae bee hiam" (dried shrimps with chillies, chilli padi and shallots). She will also add some candlenuts if she remembers to buy it from the dried food stall at the wet market.

Her original recipe is very simple. She doesn't use ginger, lemongrass and dried spices like Star Aniseeds and Cinnamon Sticks. Her Chicken Curry is unique and very popular in our family.

Fresh grated whole coconut, bought from a Indian stall at dry market.

I boiled the potatoes instead of fried.


Chicken Curry
Modified from my Mom’s recipe

Ingredients:
1kg Chicken piece
5 potatoes, boiled and peeled
1 carrot, peeled and cut into chunks ~ optional
1 packet of fried taupok (fried beancurd, 10 squares) ~ optional
(when we were young, in the 70s, my mom likes to add "fried pig's skin ~ aka bak puay in hokkien" into the curry.)
700ml Coconut milk (can use Kara brand in packet)

Spice Paste:
2 slices Old Ginger 老姜, chopped ~ can use galangal 蓝姜
A handful of Dried Shrimps 虾米, soaked and drained
2 Fresh chilies, seeded & chopped (my mom uses more dried chilies and chili padi)
A handful of Shallots, sliced

3 tbsp Baba’s brand meat curry powder
1 tbsp Chili powder

5 tbsp of cooking oil
1 piece 2-3cm Cinnamon stick
2 pieces Star Aniseeds
1 stalk Lemongrass, bruised, use the white part only
2 sprigs of Curry leaves

Seasoning:
1 tbsp of sugar
Salt to taste

Method:
Prepare the spice paste by putting all the ingredients into a mortar and use pestle to pound into a paste.

Heat oil in a large pot, fry the curry leaves, cinnamon, star aniseeds and lemongrass till fragrant. Add in the spice paste and gently stir-fry until fragrant.
Add in the chicken pieces, stir gently until well coated with the spice paste.

Add in the coconut milk, carrot, stir to mix well and simmer gently until cooked through.

Add cooked potatoes and seasonings to taste and then remove the pot from the heat and allow it to stand for a while before serving. Serve hot with toasted French bread or Steamed hot rice or cooked beehoon (rice vermicelli).

Prawn, Tomatoes and Chives Omelette

Ingredients:
3 eggs
6 cherry tomatoes
a handful of chopped chives (about 1 cm length)
100g of cooked prawns, shelled
1 tbsp cooking oil

Seasonings:
2 tsp light soya sauce
1/2 tsp sugar

Method:
Beat the eggs in a bowl lightly with seasonings.
Heat the cooking oil in the hot frying pan. Fry the chives and tomatoes for a while. Then pour the beaten eggs over the chives and tomatoes and cook for a few minutes. Turn the heat to low fire. Add the cooked prawns on top. Stir the omelette when the bottom is brown. Serve hot with rice.

Teriyaki Chicken Mid-wings

This is a very simple dish, goes well with hot rice. Yum! I use teriyaki sauce instead of “烧肉酱”.
The recipe can be found here.

Pie Kia

"Pie Kia" sounds like "naughty kid" to me. Actually, I think it means “塔仔”.
The pies are very small and delicious! Great for parties! When I saw this "pie kia" featured on the Straits Times some times ago, I was wandering what's the taste of the pie? I saw many different type of mini pies on display. Too many choices, so I picked a few of my favourite fillings like "mushroom", "curry chicken" and "sardines". Then I brought home with four "Pie Kia" and hope my hubby and children will like it.
Once I reached home and ate one of the pie kia(s) ~ the curry flavoured chicken pie which didn't make me feel guilty, as it's very small. It's delicious, I must say. After eaten that, I don't want to make my own pie anymore.
The other three pies were eaten up by my children and hubby.

Where to buy: AMK hub
Price: S$1.50 each

Coconut Cream Agar-Agar

椰浆菜燕

Coconut Cream Agar-Agar
Ingredients:
7g agar-agar strands
100g granulated sugar
150g coconut cream
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 3/4 cups (700 ml) water

Method:
Boil the Coconut cream in a pot. When it's boiled, immediately turn off the fire. Whisk the egg into the mixture. Set aside to cool.

Soak the agar-agar stands in the water till softened. Drained and place in a pot filled with water and stir well. Add sugar and vanilla essence and cook further till the sugar has dissolve completely.

Pour agar-agar mixture (using a strainer) into a baking tin, let it cool a bit. Then pour in the coconut cream mixture (strained) over the agar-agar mixture. Refrigerate for 4 hours or until set. Serve cold.

Milo Agar-Agar

Milo Agar-Agar

Chocolate Layer:
8gm agar-agar strands (soaked in water and drained)
1 3/4 cups water
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup MILO powder

To prepare chocolate layer:
Cook agar-agar in water till dissolved Add sugar and MILO, stir well to dissolve sugar; strain. Spoon mixture into a 20 x 20cm square pan or any desired jelly mould. Allow to set, then lightly scratch surface with fork.

Milk Layer:
10gm agar-agar strands (soaked in water and drained)
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup CARNATION Full Cream Evaporated Milk
a few drops of vanilla essence

To prepare milk layer:
Cook agar-agar in water until dissolved. Add sugar and stir well until dissolved; strain. Stir in CARNATION FuLL Cream Evaporated Milk and essence. Carefully spoon milk layer over chocolate. Chill until set. Serve cold.

Spicy Fried Potato with Coriander

This dish is very easy to prepare and delicious! My daughter said it's a very good recipe.

This recipe was given by a trainer at the Nee Soon South Community Club. It was an open house and everybody was invited to watch them cooking dishes using potatoes only.

At the end of the session, everybody was given a bag of potatoes to try the recipe at home.

Here's the recipe.

Spicy Potatoes
Recipe by Pauline D Loh
(serves 4)

Ingredients:
2 large potatoes
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp Vegetable oil
2 shallots, chopped
Some coriander leaves 芫茜, chopped

Method:
Peel the potatoes and dice in small cubes (I slice it thinly).
Place potatoes into a mixing bowl and add chilli and turmeric powder, salt and pepper. Toss to coat potato cubes completely.
Heat up a non-stick frying pan and add a little oil. Fry shallots and potatoes until brown and cooked through.
Garnish with chopped coriander and serve.

This is very good to eat with plain bread, rice or indian breads such as chapatti or naan.

Note: You can substitute chilli powder with concentrated tomato paste for colour, and not too spicy.