Wanton Noodle

I just love all sorts of dumpling and sui now plus wanton is definitely my other love. So recently I had this craving for it and I had some high fat content minced in the fridge that I want to use up before it spoils..so I make wanton for dinner.

Noodle is definitely to go with it and I decided to make my own instead of buying from the store since I don't have much stuff plan for the day and I need some extra exercise.

This recipe is definitely a keeper since boss compliment that it tasted just exactly like the noodle from the hawker stall, what more, it was seasoned with pork lard.. hehehe...

Ingredients:

• 240g plain flour
• 1/2tsp salt
• 1 teaspoon of lye/alkaline water
• 2 XL size egg
• 1tbsp water

Steps:

1. Mix the flour and salt evenly in a bowl.
2. Then mix the lye water and egg separately in another smaller bowl.
3. Create a hollow in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid mixture and slowly knead the mixture. For me it is too dry and hence I added another 1tbsp of water. If you need more, please do so, but a little at a time. The dough should be very dry and crumbly.
4. Wrapped it up and set aside to rest for 30mins in room temperature.
5. After resting, you will realise that it is much easier to form the crumbly dough into a smoother dough. Instead of kneading it, I press it down with the rolling pin. Not rolling it, not beating it, but press it down. It is just like how those bamboo noodles are made.. (google for info if you not sure how it is).
6. After pressing it around for 5-6mins, let it rest another 30mins, before repeating step 5. By now, the dough is much smoother, but still very heavy and dry.
7. Rest another 30mins (i left it much longer coz i was out to pick up kids and run some errands). 
8. Divide the dough to 3/4 parts. Roll the dough out as thin as you can. I use the pasta roller. Starting with no 1 and stop at no 7 level.
9. After that is done, roll it over the noodle cutter. If you do not own one, just sprinkle the dough with some flour, then fold up and cut with a big knife or noodle knife.

For cooking, I just boil some water, put in the noodle to cook for bout 2mins, then rinse with cold water.

Ramen Tonkatsu Broth with Soy Egg and Charsiew

Hubby had been sort of asking for Ramen for a while and since it is winter, I guess this is a must cook dish. So bought some ingredients and start doing it... extra can be stored to be used for other cooking.

 Ingredients for stock:

• 1+kg chicken carcass
• bout one big take away box of prawn shell (air fried min 10mins on 200c or fry it till crispy and smells good)
• a small piece of gula melaka, 
• a big handful of peppercorn
• one carrot
• pork hock (blanched with hot water to remove impurities and then air fried for 10mins)
• 4pcs bone marrow (blanched with hot water to remove impurities and then air fried for 10mins)
• 6 chicken feet (blanched with hot water to remove impurities and then air fried for 10mins)
• 1 roasted leek
• 1 roasted big onion
• a big handful of dried big anchovies, roasted
• water to cover the pot, roughly 2l
• salt to season to your preference

Steps:

Place all ingredients in the pot and set it to boil for 6-8hrs. Or use the pressure cooker to cook for 2-3hrs.

Note: my pressure cooker can't fit in all the ingredients in one go, so what I did was split it to half, pressure cook half the time then remove the ingredients, place the other half and pressure cook another half the time.

Next the charsiew.
Ingredients:

• 1 slab of pork belly (roughly 800g-1kg)
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup sake
• 1/2 cup mirin
• 2tbsp sugar
• few slices of ginger
• 1tbsp minced garlic
• few pieces of spring onion white
• string to tie to the pork belly

Steps:

1. Measure roughly 3x the length of the pork. Roll the pork belly up and place the string underneath the belly. Start with the middle of the string at the very end of the belly, inter twine the string and roll tie it upwards, try to tie it as tight as possible as the pork belly will shrink after cooking and you want it to hold on to the round shape. 
2. Prepared some hot boiling water and blanched the belly all sides.
3. Then place all ingredients in the pot. If using pressure cooker, cook for 30mins. If normal pot, cook it for 2-3hrs till tender soft. Try to turn the pork around to absorb the sauce if the pork is not fully submerged in the sauce.
4. Once done, remove and cool it so that it is easier to slice.

Soy Egg:
Ingredients:

1. Eggs
2. Water
3. Soy mixture from the charsiew

Steps:

1. Place eggs in cold water, bring it to a boil and cook (entire process takes 4.5 mins for gooey yolk, 5mins for moist yolk, 5.5 mins for just cooked yolk - this is for winter time... during summer, reduce time by 30seconds).
2. Remove the eggs from the boiling water and run it over cold water.
3. Remove shell, soak the eggs in the soy sauce mixture for min 30mins, the longer the better it absorbs the color and taste to the eggs.

Once done, assemble the noodle, charsiew, egg with the other condiments such as spring onion, seaweed, ginger slice, bamboo shoots, etc.

Home made Ramen with Tonkatsu Broth

My demanding husband had requested that I prepared the nice tonkatsu ramen and after shopping for all the ingredients, finally, managed to do that.

For the broth (do note it takes a long time to prepared).

Ingredients:

• 2 pieces of pork trotters (the one with more bones, less meat, cut to small pieces)
• 1 chicken carcass
• 1 big onion, cut to half, lightly roast in the air fryer (I put it for 5mins, 200C)
• 2 spring onion, cut to half
• 1 pc of ginger, roughly 1 inch
• 4 bulbs of garlic, skin removed
• 5 litres of water

Steps:

1. Put the trotters and carcass in the pot along with 2 litres of the water.  Leave it to boil.
2. Then drain and wash the trotters and carcass. Scrap the skin and bones off those scum.
3. Then put all the balance ingredients plus the trotters and carcass in another clean pot and boil.
4. Next there are two options. You can lower down the fire and boil for 10hours. Second option, use the thermal pot. Once the water boil, leave it to boil another 20mins on low fire and move it into the thermal pot. Repeat the boil for 30mins 8hrs later and do this for 3days.
5. By the fourth day, it should be ready. If you have heavier taste bud, season with some soy sauce, otherwise, you may served it this way.

The noodle:

Ingredients:

• 400g bread flour
• 180ml water

Steps:

1. Pour the flour into the noodle maker.
2. Start the machine and add in the water.
3. Boil some salted water with oil and cook the noodle.
4. Can served with eggs, corn, endamame, flower fish cake, seaweed strips, carrot, charsiew, spring onion, etc

Home Made Ramen

I love ramen and so does the little girl. Since this week, I managed to get the chicken carcass and pork bones, we are cooking ramen today.

For the broth:
Ingredients:

• 2 chicken carcass, roughly 300g
• 1 pork ham leg, roughly 800g
• 3 tablespoon of salt
• 1 onion, cut to 4wedges
• 6pcs of garlic, smashed with skin intact
• a pinch of crushed pepper
• 8 slices of ginger
• 1.5l water

Methods:

Washed the chicken carcass with salt (scrub) and hot water. Rinse the pork leg with hot water. This is to remove all the dirt and smell if there is any.

As usual, I try to save some gas or electricity, so I used the thermos cooker. Dump all ingredients in, bring it to boil on high and then lower the fire and leave it to boil for 25mins. Moved it into the thermos cooker. Leave it overnight. Boil it again for another 25mins on the next morning and I uses it on the next day though the recipe I found online cook it for 2-3days. It is really up to you how thick and flavourful you want the broth to be. Anyway, no salt for the soup since I'm using the pork ham leg that is already salty.

For the noodle, the original recipe found online asked for kan sui (alkaline water) but I dont have it and dont like it, so I'm using egg yolk and soda bicarbonate to substitute it.

Ingredients:

• 600g of bread flour
• 4 egg yolk
• 300ml water
• 1/2tablespoon of soda bicarbonate

Methods:

1. Pulse the bread flour and soda bicarbonate with the yolks, one by one. 
2. Add in the water, little by little caused you don't want the mixture to be too moist. The dough should be crumbly and gravel like.
3. Remove the dough from the mixer. Use the hand to press the mixture together to form proper dough balls. I have bout 8 balls. 
4. Flatten each ball and run it through the largest setting of your pasta roller a few times, folding it each time. Do it till the dough is smooth out. 
5. Fold it till square and stack up in a container, covered with wet towels. Store it in the fridge. The recipe called it for overnight, but I had it for about 5hrs.
6. Use the pasta roller and use the thinner setting to flatten the dough. Then use the pasta machine to cut the dough. I had two types, one the thinner one for the girls, at her request and the thicker one for us.
7. Upon cutting up the noodles, dry them on rack or hang it on the chopstick to dry. Now with the cool weather, it takes about 20mins to dry them up.
8. After drying, you can either cook it directly in a pot of boiling water or store it in the fridge. But prior to storing, do dust with some flour. Since it is dried, it requires a lot lesser flour to keep them apart. 
9. On the cooking part, after cooking it on the boiling water for about 3mins, pour the noodle into cold water to give it a springy taste.

Homemade Egg Noodle Soup

Finally unpacked my wedding anniversary cum valentine's pressie from hubby. It arrives late afternoon on the day before our shipment arrives, so I wasn't too keen to get it unpack coz the whole place is so messy and not that I have the time to do anything with it yet.

And, the first thing I made was egg noodle. The girl loves noodle and I'm sort of worried that the dried noodle is not that healthy after all compared to the one mommy made with some love of course.. hehehe... :p

The noodle was served with honey soy pan fried pork (the pork was sliced, marinated with soy sauce and honey only, then pan fried with some olive oil).

After searching and searching, I finally settled for the recipe from http://chefwo.com/update-version-egg-noodle-recipe/ with some modifications to the method since I'm not using hand to do this.

Ingredients

• 500gm all purpose flour
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 3/4 cup of cold water
• 1 1/4 tsp of salt

Method

1. Put in all the dry ingredients in the big bowl of the magi mix and then the egg and cold water.
2. Blend with the dough mixer for about 5mins.
3. Leave it to set for an hour while I go prepare the pork to marinade, cut the broccoli and setup the noodle maker (also a new toy.. kekeke)
4. Take it out and knead and use the noodle maker to cut it as per instruction. Remember to keep dusting with flour. I used like almost another cup of flour for it.
5. Time to test your noodle perfection. Hold one strand and pull, you should be able to pull it very long! Isn’t it great!
6. Since I don't have a noodle dryer/rack and lack of time, what I did was laid it on the top of a big container straight to dry.
7. While drying, pan fried the pork, boil the soup, add in the broccoli and then just dump all the noodle in it.
8. Served... slurp slurp..

Next time, I'm gonna try putting in more eggs, less water.

Weekend Meals

The yummy Penang Laksa (or Asam Laksa)




And burger for snack:

Prawn Noodle

Ingredients:

- 450g of prawn and shell (remove shell and head and keep aside for the soup), deveined
- sawi (no kangkung in my fridge), roughly 200g
- 4 pieces of dried lar mien (my mom got that from klang for us)
- 6 cups of water for the soup and another 6 cups to cook the noodle
- 1 tablespoon of cane sugar
- pinch of salt
- pinch of pepper
- 2 teaspoon of miso
- 1 tablespoon of sweet soy sauce
- half onion (chopped to small pieces)
- 1 tablespoon of oil
- 1 tablespoon of sambal (dont ask recipe coz I got this fr my mom and dunno how it was prepared..)
- one piece of ginger (roughly bout 3cm size)

Method:
1. Boil the shell with the water and ginger for about 5mins. Leave it for another 5mins and remove the shell. Add in sugar and miso.
2. Boil the water and add in the noodle. Turn off the fire once the water boil again and leave the noodle there.
3. Heat up the wok, add in oil and saute the onions. Add in the sambal, and fry till it is fragrant.
4. Drain the noodle and add in to the wok. Lightly stir it.
5. Add in the soup, sawi and sweet soy sauce. Cover the wok and let it boil.
6. Mix the prawn with pepper and salt. Pour in to the wok. Cover for bout 2mins.
7. Done, ready to serve.

* Excluding the preparation of the soup, it takes about 15mins to cook the dish.

Soup Noodle with Stuffed Bitter Gourd

The start of my lonely days... so, the amount is just for me alone....

Bought a piece of bitter gourd and instead of just frying it like that, I googled for some innovative way of cooking it. The normal recipe called for stuff fish or prawn paste, but since I dont have any supply of any, I used minced pork instead.

Ingredients:

• Half a bitter gourd, cut sideway one inch thick, removed the middle part and rub with salt. Leave for 10mins.
• 2 tablespoons of minced meat, marinate with a pinch of salt, pepper, 1 teaspoon of sweet yellow bean paste, 1 teaspoon soy sauce and 2 teaspoons of corn flour.
• 1.5 cup of water
• 1 piece of dry noodle (pre cooked lightly with boiling water)
• 2 teaspoon of miso paste
• 2 slices of tamarind
• one bunch of vege (any type that you like)
• one small egg
• 1 teaspoon of fried garlic
• a little oil for frying

1. Washed of the salt from the bitter gourd. Stuffed the minced meat in the bitter gourd.
2. Heat up the oil and fry both side of the meat stuffed in bitter gourd.
3. Add in water after both side of the meat on the bitter gourd is golden brown. Add in tamarind and leave water to boil for about 2 mins.
4. Add in miso paste and stir till even. Then add in vege.
5. Add the noodle and hit the egg on top of the noodle. Leave it to boil for a min (or till egg is cook).
6. Done, served (remove the tamarind before serving).

Weekend Meals

Fishball Noodle

Pineapple Fried Rice

Tuna Fried Bread (slightly modified version of the prawn fried bread thought by teacher in the secondary school)

Later Fish Maw Radish Soup

Spaghetti with fried lettuce, tomoto, and onion, served with mixed cream cheese, mixed herbs and parsley.

Sauted Mushroom with Creamy Dry Noodle

Dried noodle with cream cheese and scallion and garlic sauted with mushroom...

Mee huen kueh with yong tau fu and radish soup:

Creamy noodle with sauted mushroom and wasabi:

Food Pictures

Bake Tuna with Mushroom

My Fav veg, plain stir fry

Spicy Chilli Fish

Pork Chop Onion Noodle

Fried egg, grilled tomato and prawn, and steam butter carrot

Pork Prawn Burger with Pork Chop

Pictures of Food

Again, these are without recipes. Too long ago, cant remember the recipe well... hehehe...