House of Annie

Cookbooks Galore

We happened to be at Popular Bookstore, a bookstore in the nearby BDC neighborhood of Kuching. They have a wide selection of cookbooks, but not the usual ones by international publishers and authors famous in the West. These were mostly books by local authors and publishers, focusing on local dishes and cuisines. Annie was in heaven.

One of the books she was reading was called “Mama Steamed Delicious” by Jamie Jong. It was all about steaming different kinds of savory Chinese dishes. Annie kept saying to me, “Ooh, look at this recipe! I wanna make this!”

One of the recipes she was interested in trying was this Steamed Stuffed Squid. It looked simple enough, and sounded like it would taste terrific. So, she bought the book. Soon after, we went to the market to pick up some large squid and other ingredients.

Steamed Stuffed Squid Recipe

adapted from “Mama Steamed Delicious” by Jamie Jong

Ingredients:
400 grams squid (cleaned, heads & skin on)

Filling:
300 grams minced poprk
1 salted egg
1 Tbsp chopped garlic
1 Tbsp chopped shallots
dash of pepper

*Note: the original recipe called for a salted egg but we used a regular egg and about 1 Tsp of salt.

Method:
1. Clean out the squid bodies, reserving the heads and not removing the skin.

2. Mix the filling ingredients.

3. Spoon the filling into each squid, about 3/4 full.

4. Use a toothpick to skewer the squid and secure the head back onto the body.

Stuffed Squid, Ready for Steaming

5. Steam over high heat for 15 minutes. Remove and let cool before cutting the body into chunks.

6. Arrange the squid chunks and spoon over some of the liquid collected from the steaming plate.

Serve with rice.

This was a completely delicious dish. The minced pork filling with the garlic and shallots was so tasty! I ate my squid with a little sweet chili sauce drizzled on top. The kids gobbled up their squid pieces (sans chili sauce) and declared to Mommy that it was good.

I am amazed that this steamed squid dish was so easy to prepare. The hardest part was cleaning out the squid. But if you can get your fishmonger to do it for you, then this recipe wouldn’t be hard at all!

I hope that you will get to try this steamed stuffed squid recipe out.

Aloha, Nate

Jar of Marmite

So this last time when we ate it at the restaurant, I decided I would have to try to make Marmite chicken at home. This decision was easy for me to make because my kids wolfed down that dish and clamored for more. I figured why spend the money ordering it outside, when I could easily make it at home. It looked simple enough. After googling some recipes, I realized it was pretty easy.

So I set out to get myself a jar of Marmite. Then I gathered the rest of the ingredients I needed—some chicken breast, a little bit of vegetables to add color—carrots, peppers, celery and onions, and some other seasonings. I was good to go.

Spoonful of Marmite

Most of the recipes I looked up called for deep frying the chicken. Oh well…good thing I had made that resolution not to be afraid of deep frying! But honestly, I think a shallow pan fry would have been just as good.

As for the sauce ingredients, most recipes also called for maltose but I didn’t want to invest in yet one more ingredient that I would hardly use (the Marmite was my splurge already). So I improvised and managed to come up with this lovely and pretty tasty dish.

The only change I’d make is to add a little less Marmite—2 Tablespoons was just a little bit too potent. But you must not let this potent flavor dissuade you from trying it. Marmite in chicken, when used in just the right amount gives the chicken a subtle new character that is hard to explain but very addictive eats.

Marmite Chicken Recipe

adapted from the Star Online recipe by Amy Beh

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 a carrot, sliced thin
1/2 a bell pepper, cut into large dice
1 stalk celery, cut into large dice

Marinade:

1/2 tsp ground pepper
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
1 Tsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp corn starch

Sauce:

1 Tbsp Marmite

1 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp chicken bouillon
100 ml water

Method:

1. Season chicken with marinade and marinate for 1 hour.

Marinating Chicken

2. Deep fry chicken in hot oil until browned. Remove from oil and drain.

3. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pan and fry the vegetables until softened. Add the sauce ingredients and reduce until sauce is thickened.

4. Add the fried chicken to the pan and toss to coat. Dish out and serve with rice.

Marmite Chicken

The combination of savory saltiness of the Marmite with the sweetness from the honey (and maltose if you have it) is just such a smart Chinese invention. Instead of sweet sour, this new dish brings in sweet savory which is just as good! Try it out and let me know if this is as good as the ubiquitous sweet sour dishes the Chinese are so popular for.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

How’d it Get So Tender?

Oh, during the dinner, Nate and I had a discussion about how they had gotten the pork so tender and the beans so creamy. We ended up pondering double-boiled soups, pressure cooker cooking and slow cooker cooking. All of which I could not do as I didn’t have any of these items at home. Oh well…

I started the soup in the late morning as I wanted to make sure that I gave the soup plenty of time to simmer to get optimum flavor. I did my usual parboiling of the bones and tossing out water from the first boil. Then I started the bones again with new water.

Once that came to a boil, I put in my presoaked black beans and lotus roots along with some red dates. As soon as they all came to a boil, I turned the soup down to low and let it simmer for more than 4 hours.

How do I Get it So Tender?

After that time, I must say, my beans did not soften and get creamy the way the restaurant’s did. It wasn’t hard but it wasn’t creamy. I even made sure not to add any salt until the end as I had learned that beans don’t soften up when you add salt while cooking it. But somehow, the beans still had some bite to it. I couldn’t wait too much longer so I seasoned my soup and a little later served it for dinner.

Esther still drank up the soup and ate the beans but she told me, “mommy, the beans are not as good as the one we had yesterday, but I still ate it!” I guess that is not the worst criticism to get. Overall, I managed to achieve the same flavors in the soup as the restaurant but I didn’t manage to get the tenderness in the meat or the beans. If you know how I could have done this without using a pressure cooker or crockpot or double boiler, would you leave a comment and let me know?

Pork Lotus Root and Black Bean Soup Recipe

Ingredients:
500g pork bones (usually the neck bones are good to use, or rib bones are also good)
8 cups water
10 red dates, washed and rehydrated
4-5 tubular pieces of lotus root (choose the ones that look least bruised and discolored), joints cut off and sliced 1/4 inch thick)

Sliced Lotus Root

1/2 cup dried black beans or peanuts, soaked for several hours before use (at least 2-3 hours)

Dried and Soaked Black Beans

salt to taste
dash of fish sauce
pinch of chicken bouillon

Method:
1. After parboiling pork bones and tossing out water from first boil, rinse bones and boil again in 8 cups water.
2. Once water comes to a boil, add red dates, black beans and lotus roots. Let stock come to a boil again and then set the fire to low and let simmer, covered for 4-5 hours.

3. Once the pork bones, beans and lotus roots are tender, add seasonings—about 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp fish sauce and a pinch of chicken bouillon (or to taste). Stir and simmer to incorporate flavors. Taste and adjust seasonings accordingly.
4. Serve and enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

This recipe using lotus root was entered into the Weekend Herb Blogging recipe roundup, organized by Haalo of Cook Almost Anything and hosted this week by Lynn from Cafe Lynnylu.

Stuck in a Rut

I considered making Pim’s fried chicken but Nate was a little sick and it wouldn’t be a good idea to do anything fried. Then I thought of making my simple go-to dishes—oyster chicken, soy sauce chicken, or even curry chicken. But none of these choices really appealed to me.

I felt like I was really stuck in a rut. I needed to do something different. After all, it was Sunday, I wasn’t rushing too much and I had not taken any work home. So, I was really free to explore new dishes.

Right around late morning, I thought, “I’ll do something steamed”. And suddenly I recalled a recipe I had bookmarked a long time ago in one of Amy Beh’s books. It was for steamed chicken with salted fish. Hmm…I have salted fish. So, I looked for the book and there it was, this very recipe.

Amy Beh had written a little footnote on the bottom of the page saying “This is a simple yet tasty dish to cook. When you find that you have run short of ideas as to what is good to serve your family, you can try this recipe.”

It was like she KNEW what was on my mind—I had run short of ideas. I was looking for something good to serve my family (Nate had just come home after a week away in KL), and I wanted something easy but tasty. BINGO! That settled it.

Chicken with an Accent

And really, she was right. It was so easy to do and sooo delicious. Don’t be put off by the idea of using salted fish—it was the accent to an otherwise normal chicken dish.

The little flecks of salted fish gave this dish so much yumminess that it was very hard to stop eating. When you go looking for salted fish, try to find the ones that are a bit more meaty (most Asian grocery stores should carry some salted fish). Of course, over here in Kuching, the choices for salted fish are amazing and the one I got was a freshly salted fish—it wasn’t dried out, it was still somewhat soft.

You do have to marinate the chicken for at least 4 hours before cooking so I do recommend you plan ahead. Other than that, the rest of the ingredients are really simple—some young ginger, and some salt fish and you’re good to go. The only change I made was to fry the salt fish first before cooking the ginger and chicken. I thought that would allow the chicken to pick up even more salted fish flavors.

Steamed Chicken with Salt Fish Recipe

adapted from “At Home with Amy Beh 2” by Amy Beh

Ingredients:
500g chicken (I used 10 chicken drummets)
scant 1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp Shao Hsing wine
1 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 large thumb young ginger, peeled and finely julienned
50g meaty type salt fish, sliced (actually, I just eyeballed it—I used about a 2”x1/2” piece of fish)

Sliced Salted Fish and Julienned Ginger

Garnish (optional): sliced red chillies and diced green onions (I didn’t use this)

Method:

1. Season chicken with salt, sugar, Shao Hsing wine and sesame oil. Mix and leave to marinate for at least 4 hours or overnight in the fridge.

2. Heat oil in a wok, and fry the salt fish slices till they are golden and slightly crispy. Take out of the oil.

3. In the same oil, fry the ginger slices till fragrant (about a minute) but make sure they don’t get crispy or too brown. Adjust your heat accordingly.
4. Add chicken pieces (along with any marinate) and toss around till they have lost their raw look, about 3 minutes.

5. Dish out the chicken (and all the sauces) and place on a steaming bowl (I used a small oval pyrex dish). Sprinkle the fried salted fish on top of the chicken pieces.

6. Steam over rapidly boiling water for 20-25 minutes or until chicken is cooked. Make sure your steamer has a lot of water to begin with so it doesn’t dry out in the middle of steaming.

Make sure you have plenty of white rice to eat this dish with. It is PERFECT with the rice. Only setback? It’ll lead to overeating! Try it and let me know what you think.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

Sweeter Without the Shrimp

But every so often, my mom would make this style of egg fuyong—she would dice up some french or green beans and add some chopped up shrimp. After frying them, she would add the beaten eggs. Another dish I love!

These days I don’t eat as much shrimp. Firstly, they are expensive here in Kuching. Secondly, I am trying to cut down on shrimp (even though I love it very much) because of our concerns with wild-caught shrimp, and shrimp farming practices. So for this dish, I no longer add shrimp. I add diced onions instead for sweetness.

Also, I find that pickled daikon (takuan) or pickled radish works really well in this egg fuyong. It adds some sweet/sour flavors to this already umami-filled fuyong. And this is a great way to get my kids to eat their veggies without complaining.

Faster than a Frittata

What is an egg fuyong anyway? I actually didn’t know that they were called fuyongs until I went to the US. To me, they were just egg dishes. I believe that they are to the Chinese what frittatas are to the Western world. They are savory egg dishes with fillings mixed in.

However, the Chinese versions are much faster as we are not as concerned with keeping the dish together looking like a pie. It’s a quick toss and turn of the eggs and if some chunks break off, no biggie! Just flip pieces around until everything is cooked through and plate up.

Try it and let me know what you think.

Egg Fuyong with green beans, onion and daikon recipe

Ingredients:
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 cups french beans or yard-long green beans, diced
1 large yellow onion, diced
1/4 cup diced takuan or pickled radish
5 large eggs, beaten
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp soy sauce

Method:
1. Heat oil in a non-stick pan or well-seasoned wok over medium heat.
2. Add onions and stirfry till starting to turn translucent, about 1 minute.

3. Add takuan and green beans. Add 1/2 tsp salt. Saute till green beans are slightly cooked, about 1-2 minutes. Watch heat, make sure vegetables are not burning. If too hot, lower heat a little.

4. Beat eggs with remaining salt, white pepper and soy sauce. Beat to incorporate flavors.
5. Pour beaten eggs over beans and onions. Make sure that egg covers all the vegetables. Let uncooked egg run to the sides as you cook.

6. When one side is set, about 2 mins, turn over to other side. It’s ok if you end up breaking the eggs a bit. I normally flip about one quarter at a time.

7. Let other side set. If needed, flip over once or twice more to fully cook.
8. Plate up and serve with rice.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

Big and Bold

Our friend tells us that there are actually two types of Sarikei chicken – the kampung (village) chicken and the non-local chicken. Basically, the kampung chicken is descended from local chickens, is allowed to roam freely outside, and is slaughtered at 7 months, about 1 kg in weight. Since it is a free range it has a deeper color and flavor compared to factory farmed birds.

The second type of chicken is not descended from local stock but instead imported as chicks. The farmers raise them in limited compounds on chicken feed for 3 months and then dry corn for 4 or more months until they reach between 2-3 kgs. The way these chickens are raised somehow causes the meat to become more tender while still having “free range” flavor.

These chickens are not easy to come by, as they are raised on small family farms and sold mostly to people “in the know”. They aren’t cheap, either. The bird that we bought through our friend was about 2 kg and cost us a whopping 42 Ringgit (which works out to roughly USD $2.80 per pound)!

Sarikei Chicken

There are a few popular ways to cook a Sarikei chicken, but the best recipe happens to be one of the simplest: 8 Treasures Herbal Soup. The “8 Treasures” (“bek ting” in Hokkien, “ba zheng” in Mandarin) refers to the 8 different types of dried herbs that are used in this dish. Interestingly, they aren’t always the same 8 ingredients; they vary slightly depending on who assembles the packages.

In this particular package, we have ginseng, angelica, sliced yam, Solomon’s Seal, clematis, gingko nuts, goji berries, and chinese dates. We placed the herbs (minus the fruit) into a large pot with a couple liters of water and brought it to a boil. We boiled the herbs for about half an hour to extract the flavor.

8 Treasures Herbal Soup

Then we added half the Sarikei chicken, cut into pieces. Covered the pot and reduced the heat to simmer. After about 45 minutes we added the fruits and simmered another 15 minutes.

You could skim off the fat at this stage, or turn off the heat, let the pot cool and then keep it in the fridge overnight. The next day you can scoop off the congealed fat before reheating the soup. Serve in individual bowls. Some people take out the herbs but I don’t mind eating them as they’ve softened due to the boiling.

8 Treasures Sarikei Chicken Herbal Soup

The different herbs add different flavors to the soup. The ginseng of course adds an earthy bitterness while the nuts, dates and berries add a balancing sweetness to the soup. But the real star is the Sarikei chicken.

You know that feeling that comes over you when you take that first sip of a really yummy, homemade chicken soup? That warm, comforting, “ahhhhh”-ffect that soothes your body and soul? This Sarikei chicken’s deep flavor intensifies that feeling two-fold. The slurp-a-liciousness is good to the last drop.

Aloha, Nate

Options, Options

There may be 3 main ingredients to a Chinese chicken salad, but they’re not always the same from recipe to recipe. Iceberg lettuce is the standard, but we prefer Romaine lettuce whenever we make ours. We’ve also found that mixing in some shredded won bok (napa) cabbage is a nice addition. You can use softer lettuces such as red leaf but they tend to wilt faster.

The crispy fried noodles are typically made from rice or bean thread noodles. But sometimes we’ve used fried won ton strips or even fried wheat noodles. In a pinch, you can just crumble up a packet of Top Ramen noodles and toss those in! ;-)

As for the chicken, most of the time we use boiled chicken breasts for the salad. Sometimes if we’re lazy, we’ll shred up some rotisserie chicken that we got from Costco. Of course, you could use some other poultry in place of the chicken like duck or turkey, but I wouldn’t go too far astray there! After all, it is called Chinese chicken salad. :-)

And More Options

Beyond the main ingredients, you can add many other things to the Chinese chicken salad to keep it interesting:

• chopped cilantro
• shredded carrots
• sliced cucumbers
• julienned red bell peppers
• a can of Mandarin oranges
• ground peanuts
• cashews
• sliced almonds

The sky’s the limit! What are some things that you like in your Chinese chicken salad?

The thing that ties this whole Chinese chicken salad together is the dressing. It’s got to have sesame oil in it. To balance it, you can use white vinegar, but we prefer to use Japanese rice vinegar. Annie has a dressing recipe that we really like:

Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing Recipe

Ingredients

2 stalks green onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
2 1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup sugar (or 2 packets Splenda) or to taste (original recipe called for 1/2 cup which I found to be too much)
1/4 cup Japanese rice vinegar
1/4 cup sesame oil

Method

Put it in a jar, cover with the lid and shake it up to mix. Dress the salad right before serving. Use just enough to coat the leaves - you don't want to drown the salad.

Aloha, Nate

Winging It

Since I had gotten all my ingredients, I did not have time to wait for her to respond to my email for the recipe. I decided to wing it instead. And it worked out really well. It was quite easy like she said and full of wonderful Chinese spice fragrance. Also, the addition of tendon gave the stew a wonderful mouth feel.

The only problem I faced was that I started the stew much too late. I started prepping my ingredients around 4pm and realized at that point that my tendon wasn’t going to get cooked in time for dinner. Thanks to a can of Spam and some eggs, my family sat down to a simple dinner of scrambled spam and eggs and a simple veggie stirfry. The stew? It continued to simmer away till close to 9pm.

This problem turned out to be a good thing. First, stews are always better the next day anyway and secondly, I didn’t have to worry about dinner today.

If you have a chance to get some tendon for this stew, go for it. It is an ingredient that isn’t that exotic really. The texture is soft and gelatinous once it’s cooked down and the tendon absorbs a lot of the lovely flavors. I know it doesn’t sound like the most appealing thing but when tendon is cooked right, it is simply amazing! Unctuous and silky with just the right amount of sticky chewiness to delight your palate.

Beef Tendon

As for the beef, this is not the time to use an expensive cut. I went for a cheap cut with some fat marbling (chuck or brisket is a good cut for stews). Cut into large chunks and browned in a bit of oil before putting everything together for the long simmer, the meat breaks down and becomes tender and flavorful.

One other important ingredient would be the daikon. On its own, it adds some sweetness but more importantly, the daikon holds together really well in long braises unlike the potato which would break down to a starchy mess. It also absorbs all the flavors from the broth making it work harmoniously with all the rest of the ingredients.

As for the flavoring ingredients, the spices used in this stew are reminiscent of Asian five spice. Cinnamon, star anise, and ginger all added sweetness and heat. Some simple seasonings and a long simmer and the beef stew is done. Try this out if you’re looking for another way to cook a cheap cut of beef!

Chinese Beef Stew

Ingredients:
1 kg (about 2.5lbs) of beef (chuck or brisket is good), cut into 1 inch cubes
500g (about 1 lb) tendon, cut into bite sized pieces (1 1/2 inches)
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup Shao Hsing wine
2 cinnamon sticks
3-4 star anise
1 fat thumb ginger, peeled and sliced into thick disks
1 medium piece of rock sugar (or to taste), if you can’t find rock sugar, use regular sugar
1-2 tsp salt
1-2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 large or 4-5 small daikon, peeled and cut in large chunks
2 cups water

Method:
1. In a large, heavy bottomed dutch oven pot, add vegetable oil and turn heat to medium.
2. Brown beef chunks on all sides being careful not to crowd the meat. Brown in batches until all the beef is done. Remove beef and add Shao Hsing wine. Scrape the bottom of pot till all the browned bits have melted into the wine. Turn down heat a little if the wine is evaporating too quickly.

Browning Beef

3. Return the beef to the pot along with the tendon.
4. Add the cinnamon sticks, star anise, ginger, rock sugar, salt, soy sauce and water to the pot. Bring to a boil and skim off any scum that rises to the top.

Rock Sugar, Cinnamon and Star Anise in Beef Stew

5. Turn heat to med low and let simmer for an hour.
6. Add daikon and bring to a boil again. Immediately lower the heat to low and simmer for another 3-4 hours or until tendon and beef is tender. Make sure that the water level is close to the top of the meat (otherwise, whatever pieces are sticking out might get dried out and tough—stir every hour or so to ensure all the pieces get cooked through).
7. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Chinese Beef Stew with Tendon

Plate up and enjoy this hearty stew with some rice. Leftovers would also be good with dry-tossed wonton noodles.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

If at First You Don’t Succeed

When I returned home to Hawaii, I was invited to a party where some Chinese university students were making dumplings. Again, their skill at dumpling skin rolling was impressive. I tried my hand at making one but it came out woefully lopsided.

Since we were living within heavily Asian communities in Honolulu and San Jose, we had ample access to factory-made, store-bought dumpling skins like the ones we used for our Won Ton Soup recipe. Fresh, store-bought skins are good enough for our use. But I secretly harbored the desire to make my own skins at home.

Get Some Tips First

Last October for our Anniversary, I got Annie the Asian Dumplings cookbook by our friend and fellow food blogger Andrea Nguyen. We were both excited to get the book, and pored over all the recipes trying to figure out which ones we wanted to make. The very first recipe is her Basic Dumpling Dough. That’s a very good place to start!

So when we decided to throw a homestyle Japanese dinner party for our friend Paul and his family, we knew gyozas were going to be on the menu. Earlier in the day of the party, I prepared the dough:

Basic Dumpling Dough

taken from “Asian Dumplings” by Andrea Nguyen

Ingredients:

10 ounces (2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
about 3/4 cup just-boiled water

Method:

1. Put flour in a bowl and make a well in the center. Stir the flour while you add the water in a steady stream. Keep mixing until you have a shaggy dough.

Mixing Water into Dumpling Dough

2. Knead the dough to bring it together into one large ball.

3. Transfer the dough to a floured work surface (I used a Silpat silicone baking mat) and knead it for a couple of minutes until it becomes smooth and elastic. Seal the dough in a zip-top plastic bag and let it rest for up to 2 hours.

Kneaded Dumpling Dough

4. After the rest, pull out the dough and cut it into 4 roughly equal sections. Roll each section into a 1-inch thick log, then cut each log into 8 pieces. Shape each piece into a thick coin or disc. Lightly flour the top and bottom of each disc.

5. Andrea recommends using a tortilla press to flatten out each dough disc. We don’t have a tortilla press, so we used two small plates and a cut-up sandwich bag to press them flat.

6. Now here comes the fun part. Holding the flattened disc gently, use a dowel rolling pin to press on just the outer edges of the disc. Roll back and forth once, then rotate the disc. Roll, rotate. Roll, rotate. Add a little flour if necessary to keep it from sticking and tearing.

Rolling out Dumpling Skin

7. You don’t want to make it too thin. It has to be thick enough to hold whatever filling you’re going to put in it. The final dumpling skin should be just over 3 inches in diameter.

Finished Homemade Dumpling Skin

(If you need to see the rolling process in action, Andrea just uploaded a new YouTube video on “How to roll out Asian dumpling wrappers”.)

Try, Try Again

Since Annie was making and wrapping the gyoza, she let me finish rolling out the dumpling skins. And guess what? With enough practice, I got to be good at it! I was more than happy – I was giddy with glee :D

I had finally made my own dumpling skins, skins I could be proud of!

Thanks, Andrea, for your wonderful cookbook! We will definitely be cooking (and posting) more recipes from it in the years to come.

Aloha, Nate

I am entering this post in the Presto Pasta Nights roundup, hosted this week by Once Upon a Feast.

Hungry for more food made from scratch? Click below:

Blueberry Muffins Recipe

Homemade Whole Wheat Tortillas

Korokke

How to Make Miso Soup From Scratch