20110116 Pumpkin,Chives,CE Fried Rice Noodle

What does one do with the oil from Salmon bake?

Layers and layers of taste

and aroma in this concoction

for the daring foodies,

3 in this family,

who 

finished up 250 grams 

of rice noodle in one sitting.

Prepare the following mixes 

while rice noodle is being soaked in water.

 Pumpkin

In a pan,

Sautee garlic in olive oil,

add thinly sliced pumpkin pieces,

cover and simmer then add water,

cover and simmer till soft.

Add salt, set aside.

 Chives and Century Egg

In another pan, 

Sautee garlic in olive oil,

add chives and one whole century egg,

chopped to pieces, 

cover and simmer,

sprinkle a little water

and mix thoroughly,

set aside.

In another pan,

Place drained rice noodle

into salmon bake oil.

Top it with the pumpkin

and Chives & Century Egg mixture,

Add a little olive oil,

cover and let simmer.

Mix everything evenly in low heat,

adding soy sauce to taste,

ready to serve.

Yaki Soba Sauce 

goes so well with each serving.

Let me know if you agree.

Radish Adobo with Fish

     I'm not a radish fan except for spare ribs soup with radish.
The soup and spare ribs would be gone before the radish.
The radish in this dish did surprise me.

        Tania, my four-year-old student harvested them.
She said the radish were all picked out before she even finished singing the radish song.
I should tell her the radish were gone before the fish in this recipe.

I have never thought of fish with radish but waking up at 11:30 in this cold weather
sure made me creative.  I just love one dish meals.

Here's how:

Slice

Saute in olive oil, ginger and soy sauce.
Add water and let it boil and then simmer in low heat
until the radish is tender.

Meanwhile, in another skillet,
brown fish fillet on both sides with ginger, then add the garlic.

Pour in the radish stew and let simmer until water is almost dry.

Serve garnished with spring onions.
Regretted why I didn't have any supply.

What's Cooking - Spinach Chicken

Spinach Chicken

Here is another simple dish that is so easy to prepare.  It simply takes half an hour to cook. 

Place two deboned chicken legs on a hot skillet and cover it to cook.

Continue cooking with the cover slightly opened.  Put some chopped garlic on top and turn off heat to let the skillet cool.  This extra little time of waiting for the skillet to cool down saves the skin from sticking on the pan. 

Turn the heat on as soon as chicken is turned.  Add spring onions, garlic, ginger and a little water(optional) and salt to taste.

Add spinach stems,

then the leaves and cover until steam comes off the sides of the skillet.
I have tried this recipe with different kinds of mushrooms and vegetables and it never fails.


Arrange the chicken on the plate, ready to serve.


I am sure you can do better .. please feel free to share.
Enjoy!

20101113 What's Cooking - Stewed Sea Cucumber & Pork Ribs

STEWED SEA CUCUMBER & PORK RIBS

This is one of the delicacies that I have passed on from my father to my hubby and son.  There is no other way to enjoy this dish than to have it cut up in generous portion and cooked long enough for its sticky consistency.   If delicious means highly pleasing or agreeable to the senses, especially of taste or smell,  I can really feel the pain of deception when this "tasteless and bland" dish is served just for the sake of its appearance in which case I mean its emergence in a dish. 

This photo is another one I took with a piece facing inside out to show its thickness.  I have no choice as to thickness when this thing is sold, fresh form at Costco, 4-5 irregular sizes to a pack.  I bought two packs so I can have more of the thicker ones, still thankful for its expediency compared to the cost of buying them in dried form.  One may be able to choose the thickness and size when bought in dried form but cannot ignore the cost of rehydrating them through boiling and soaking for several days for it to re-absorb water. 

 Place pork ribs into preheated wok to get as much oil out of it as possible.  

This is a clearer photo of how much oil can be discarded.

Place the pork ribs back into the wok and season with soy sauce to taste.

Stir fry pork ribs in low heat and observe a darkening color, then add garlic.

Stir fry until garlic is cooked and then add water.

Bring to a boil in medium heat and then simmer in low heat.  This can be transferred to a stewing pot to cook till tender.

Meanwhile, cook ginger in the wok and add the sea cucumber pieces.

Stir fry ginger and sea cucumber pieces then add the stewed pork ribs.

Simmer until sea cucumber is soft and tender or of desired consistency.  Watch out that sauce doesn't dry up totally.


Please let me know how you love this dish.  
I shall post the cleaning procedure for fresh sea cucumber in another blog.
Enjoy!

What's Cooking - Rice Noodle with Squash & Ground Pork

I was craving for fried rice noodle on my way home from class at 10:00 pm tonight

so I dropped by Taiwan Sugar, a grocery store, for frozen ground pork,

and went to the organic store beside it for the rice noodle and onions. 

I thought I've got everything until I caught sight of this lone squash by the doorway.

You should have seen me walking all the way home,

carrying a thankful smile at the thought of having things at my fingertips

even at this hour of the night.

There are only two things in my mind, squash rice noodle and squash rice noodle

as I took the elevator up.  Here it is. A proof of what was an imagination an hour ago.

Rice Noodle with Squash & Ground Pork

I put the frozen ground meat into a heated pot to defrost and cook.   Added two sliced onions to the oil that comes out of the meat.

    Added soy sauce to taste, let simmer and set aside.

Soaked the rice noodle in drinking water to soften.

Sliced half of the squash into thin pieces for lesser time to cook.

 In another pan, I heated  the chopped garlic in olive oil and added the thinly sliced squash.

                    Covered the pan and continued cooking for a while before adding 3 Tbsps. water.

                                                                  See photos 1 & 2

Photo 1

Photo 2

 To tell you the truth, reality slowly crept in as I put the drained rice noodle on top of the garlic heated in olive oil as in (Photo 1).  For sure I was in panic mode when I added this cooked squash on top because my logical mind meant to put the cooked ground meat at the bottom of the pan and layer the drained rice noodle on top to absorb whatever liquid the ground pork and onion mixture got, As in (Photo3) & (Photo4).

pretty mistake

Photo 3

Photo 4

 With all the necessary ingredients in its proper place, covered the pan to continue cooking and adjusted the heat to low.  Tossed and mixed evenly as you see on the top photo.


In retrospect, I have to admit that the whole process was not clear in my imagination.  This was another one of my spur of the moment attacks.  I am now having another thankful smile for my ever appreciative family.
It is in moments like this that I do not have to worry about time limits, grades and score.


There might be some ideas that come to mind as you read this blog.  Please feel free to share.
I still have a lot to learn about posting, organizing my thoughts and using the right words for clarity but I am not the kind to wait till I learned the whole thing because I know it is impossible to learn if I do not get myself exposed and be vulnerable.

Sauteed Spinach,Garlic & Egg

Here is another simple recipe that is easy to prepare

and takes less than 10 minutes to cook.

Sauteed Spinach,Garlic & Egg

Heat chopped garlic in olive oil,

Add spinach stems,

Put in the spinach leaves
 cover till leaves wilt
 Add 3 pcs scrambled eggs
 cover for a minute.
Toss and mix well.
Serve

What's Cooking - Four deities Soup (四神湯)

Sishen Tang or four gods soup, also four courtiers is a Taiwanese
delicacy that originated in Eastern Taiwan.
It got its name from the four main ingredients
in Chinese medicine,
namely:
yam(yam),lotus seed,Poria,Gorgonas

Ingredients & Easy Steps
The traditional recipe calls for pig's small intestine
but I used pork belly .

One whole cleaned pork belly.

Can be bought from a traditional Chinese Medicine/dry good store.
Composed of the four main ingredients,namely:
yam(yam),lotus seed,Poria,Gorgonas

I just realized that I forgot to wash the dust off
before throwing them into the pot.

Put the whole thing into the stew pot with pork ribs.

I made use of the space in the pot to steam these stuff with the soup.
This is the pork sliced diagonally on the serving plate.
The chicken breast is for my  future chicken salad recipe.

Steamed the pork and chicken breast for 10 minutes
while the pork belly and pork rib soup
continued to cook for another two hours
or until it reached the desired tenderness.

Served with garlic chopped garlic and soy sauce.

Sishen Tang or four gods soup, also four courtiers is a Taiwanese
delicacy that originated in Eastern Taiwan.
It got its name from the four main ingredients
in Chinese medicine,
namely:
yam(yam),lotus seed,Poria,Gorgonas