Hakka Lei Cha

Hakka Lei Cha is one of my favourite dish. It is packed with lots of healthy fibre from various vegetables and the yummy green tea soup.

Another best part of it is I get to use some home grown harvest like basil, parsley and mint from my garden.

Ingredients:
For the soup:

• about 3/4cups of dried anchovies, washed and drain
• 2l water
• one big handful of basil, roughly 1.5cups (not pushed down, but just put on the cup to measure) 
• a small bunch of mint, after chopped should be roughly 1/4 cup amount
• 3-4 sprigs of parsley
• 1/4 cup of peanut (roasted)
• a small handful of tang-o veggie if you like it to have a little bitter taste
• 2 tbsp of green tea powder (i used japanese green tea)
• 1/8 tsp salt

Other ingredients:

• 2cups of rice - cook like normal
• 3 big cloves of garlic (I'm using local Perth grown garlic that's currently in season and very fat)
• 3/4 Australia leek, sliced finely
• 5 snake/long beans, cut to small cubes
• 3/4 carrots, julienne
• 1/2cups of finely sliced cabbage
• 300g sweet potatoes shoot (mine is home grown too)
• 3tbsp pickled radish, washed
• 3pcs of hard tofu or known as tau kua
• 1/4 zucchini, julienne
• 3pcs of fresh button mushroom, cut to thin slices
• 3tbsp oil to saute

Steps:

1. Place 1/2 cups of the anchovies and water in a pot and boil for roughly 15-20mins. I used the pressure cooker to do this and kept pressure for 4mins. Removed the anchovies and place it in the air fryer along with the balance of the anchovies and AF at 180c for 7mins. If you don't have an AF, just use a non stick pan to fry it (without oil) till it is all crispy.
2. Place all the rest of the ingredients along with the fried anchovies in a blender and blend till it is as smooth as you can get. Add in some of the stock if required as the mixture can be too dry and a bit hard to blend.
3. Pour in the mixture into the stock and let it get into boil and set it aside. That should be about 2-3mins.
4. AF the tau kua at 200c for 3mins, or slightly pan fried it with a little oil. Set aside.
5. Heat a little oil and saute the garlic (divide the garlic to 8 portions for those veggies) and fry the veggies separately. Set them aside.
6. When you want to serve, just place the rice on the bowl, scoop the veggies around the rice and pour in the soup stock to serve.

Note:

• The veggies may vary depending on your preference or seasonal availability. Some also serve with toasted sesame seed and/or peanuts.
• For those who are allergic to peanuts may consider substituting with pine nuts (if you are not allergic to it).
• My first attempt of making this dish, I used pesto sauce instead coz I didn't have basil with me. If you are using pesto sauce, omit the basil and peanuts.

Simple Easy Dhall

Tonight, I decided to try out the Airfryer Chicken Varuval recipe and since I'm making that, we go Indian theme tonight. So, to feed the girl, I made curry dhall that she loves.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dhall, pre-soaked with hot water for at least 30mins to removed the phytic acid
• 1/2 onion, sliced thinly
• 1 carrot, cut to big cubes
• few pieces of curry leaves
• 2 tablespoon of dhall spice (pre mix but if you don't have it, you can also make this combo yourself - 1 tsp garam masala, 2tsp tumeric powder. 1/2tsp curry powder, 1/8tsp cinnamon powder, 1/2tsp cumin powder, 1/2tsp cardamon powder)
• 2tbsp home made tomato sauce, recipe here
• 3cups of water
• 1tbsp oil
• 1tsp salt

Steps:

1. Pre heat the pressure cooker pot. I used high saute mode. Heat up the oil
2. Add in the onion and curry leaves. Saute till the onion is soften.
3. Add in the spice and fry till it form a paste like mixture in the pot.
4. Add in the dhall, carrot and water.
5. Change the pressure cooker to manual pressure mode and select KPT 12mins.
6. Once done, let the pressure valve fall before opening the cooker and season with salt.

*KPT = Keep pressure time

Easy Peasy Chocolate Chip Cookies

By demand of my daughter, I need to churn out some chocolate chips cookies but it is already almost 8pm, so got to do a quick one. Here it is the recipe for a quick easy peasy chocolate chip cookies:

Ingredients:

• 150g butter
• 3/4 cup raw sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 3/4 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• slightly more than 1 cup of chopped chocolate (or you can use chips, I was out of chocolate chips)

Steps:

1. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla extract till it is smooth and fluffy at medium speed.
2. Then slow down the mixer speed and add in the egg.
3. Finally add in the plain flour and baking powder and mix till it forms a soft ball dough.
4. Preheat oven to 180c.
5. Remove the bowl from the mixer and use the spatula to fold in the chocolate chips or chopped chocolate.
6. Scoop the mixture out, roughly one ice cream scoop and place them on a tray lined with either baking paper or silicon mat. Make sure to leave some space in between as the cookies will get slightly bigger.
7. Reduce the heat of the oven to 160c if it is fan forced, otherwise keep it at 180c. Bake the cookies for 18mins, or when u poke a skewer into it and it comes out clean.

Home made Tomato Sauce

This home made sauce is great to go with pasta or to spread on pizza or to cook with some minced or whatever you creativity allows you.

Ingredients:

• roughly 1kg of fat juicy red ripe tomatoes, cut quarter
• 1 large onion, lightly chopped
• 6pcs of cloves
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 3 tablespoon of any type of berry jam
• 1 teaspoon of paprika
• 1/2 stick of cinnamon
• 10 tablespoon raw sugar
• a big pinch of rock salt
• 1 teaspoon of mixed herbs
• 2 cups of malt vinegar
• 1 big handful of basil leaves
• roughly 2 tablespoon of fresh mint leaves

Steps:

1. Place all the ingredients except the basil and mint leaves in the pressure cooker (if you don't have one, use a normal pot). Set for it to cook in the pressure cooker for 15mins, or on the stove top for about an hour to soften all the ingredients and it is all juicy and nice.
2. When it is done, turn of the heat and add in the basil and mint and give it a stir.
3. Next, let it cool down slightly before blending them either in the blender or you can use the stick blender.
4. Transfer them back into the pot or pressure cooker and cook with lid open till it thickens and no longer runny. The viscosity should be roughly the same as store bought tomato sauce.

Beef and/or Pork Adobo

Heard bout this Filipino dish for a while but has not tried eating or cooking it. And a friend recently attempted it and hence I thought I'll give it a try since it is rather easy.

Ingredients:

• roughly 350-400g of beef, slow cook fillet, slice to roughly 1.5cm thickness
• pork rashy, roughly 200g, cut to 1.5cm thickness
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup malt vinegar
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3pcs of bay leaves
• 1tbsp of peppercorn
• sprinkle of crushed pepper

Steps:

1. Put everything into the pressure cooker pot, mix it evenly. 
2. Turn on the pressure cooker, set to manual, KPT5mins.
3. After the 5mins, cover the valve with a piece of cloth and manually release the pressure.
4. Then leave the valve setting to baking and set to bake for 5mins.
5. Once sauce thicken, it is all ready to be served with your favourite veggie, rice or noodle.