Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

The rice bucket (饭桶) speaks again! This time, the idea of stir frying black olives with rice came from an item called Black Olive Rice from The Soup Restaurant.

I am currently trying out only simple and easy dishes in anticipation that life will be chaotic and tiring when my little one (trouble) is here. Yes, mom will be here for one month after the baby pops, but I still have to manage myself when she goes home.

I mentally prepare for what is to come by visualizing the various chaotic scenarios. Maybe I can only cook when the baby is asleep (and I am still alive). Maybe I have to resort to Hamburger Helpers (microwavable meals by Betty Crocker). Maybe I’ll just not eat so that I can get back to pre-pregnancy weight as soon as I can (Oops! That is not possible cos then the baby will not have any milk :( ). Lots of maybes…

For now (while I still have a schedule that I can control), I created yet another version of fried rice: Fried Dace With Black Olive Fried Rice.

I used the other half of the can of fried dace (from the Fried Dace With Kailan), all of the black olives, and the stems of the kailan for this dish.

Ingredients (Serves 3):

- 1/2 can of Fried Dace with all the black olives (break up fried dace and olives into small pieces)
- a bunch of kailan stems (cut at the cross section into small pieces)
- 1 red chilli (cut into small pieces)
- 3 bowls of cooked rice
- 1 stalk spring onion (cut into small pieces)
- a few dashes of white pepper
- 1 tsp light soy sauce (optional)

Cooking Method:

1. Heat up 2 tbsp oil in wok. When oil is hot enough, add fried dace, olives, kailan stems and red chilli and stir fry until fragrant.

2. Add cooked rice and a few dashes of white pepper and mix well.

3. Add spring onions and mix well.

4. Do a taste test and if not salty enough, add light soy sauce and mix well.

Cook’s Notes:

- The fried dace is a bit salty, hence the suggestion of the taste test in Step 4 before adding light soy sauce.

- The can of fried dace has soybean oil, so you may choose to use that oil for the stir-frying.

You probably can guess by now that I am a “rice bucket” (饭桶). One of my favorite dishes is fried rice. The ingredients I used here is a slight variation from Pablopabla’s Luncheon Meat Fried Rice Recipe. Thanks Pablopabla for the inspiration!

He added shallots to make his fried rice very 香 (fragrant). I added Dried Mini Anchovies to make mine 棒 (wow) hehe… in my opinion that is.

Ingredients (Serves 2):

- 3 bowls of cooked rice
- 1/3 tin luncheon meat, cut into cubes
- 1 bowl frozen vegetables (I used frozen peas and carrots)
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 tbsp mini dried anchovies (pre-fried)
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- a few dashes of white pepper
- 1 stalk spring onions, chopped
- 1 tsp sambal chilli belachan (to give the spicy oomph!)

Cooking Method:

1. Heat up 2 tbsp vegetable oil in a wok. Add cubed luncheon meat and stir fry until they turn light brown. Then add frozen vegetables and stir fry for a while (2-3 mins).

2. Add rice and mix well. Add beaten eggs and mix well.

3. Add dried mini anchovies, oyster sauce, white pepper and spring onions and mix well.

4. Plate and serve with sambal chilli belachan.

Very 棒!!

Cook’s Tips:

1. You only want the oil to coat the base of the wok. Not much is required because the luncheon meat will have oil oozing out once it is heated up.

2. If you do not want the eggs to “smear” the color of the luncheon meat and vegetables, set aside the luncheon meat and vegetables after step 1. Then after mixing the eggs with the rice (to get a yellowish tinge on the rice), add back the luncheon meat and vegetables.

3. Alternatively, if you want to see pieces of egg in your rice, after you add rice to the wok, make a “well” in the middle then add the beaten egg. Quickly stir fry the eggs in the “well” to get a somewhat scrambled egg pieces before mixing the pieces with the rice and rest of the ingredients.

4. Dried mini anchovies are salty by itself, so go easy on the oyster sauce and do a taste test before adding any more oyster sauce, or if you wish, light soy sauce.

Other dishes that I have made with Dried Mini Anchovies are:

- Spinach Stir Fry With Fishball
- Scallop Fried Rice
- Ground Pork Porridge
- Stir Fried Bak Choy
- Pan Fried Red Snapper Fillet

I made the above Fried Hokkien Mee using the Prima Taste Fried Hokkien Mee premix. Cooking instructions can be found at the Prima Taste website.

I had used a mix of Barilla Thick Spaghetti (to substitute the thick bee hoon) and yellow noodles, and they ended up indistinguishable.

The other ingredients I used were garlic, my leftover pieces of roast pork (cut into small pieces), a few pieces of boiled shrimp, 2 eggs, fish sauce and spring onions (as a substitute for Chinese chives)

A reader, Winnie, was so sweet to provide a simple recipe to make your own Hokkien Mee.

1. Fry egg with oil, then add garlic.
2. Add (cooked) noodles.
3. Add (a few dashes) fish sauce.
4. Add prawn broth/chicken broth.
5. Remove before the noodles soak up all the broth.

I am confident this would work too, because the steps are essentially the same as the Prima Taste cooking method. The main points to note are:

- Asian fish sauce is made from anchovies, salt and water. Use it in moderation (a few dashes will do) because it has an intense flavor.

- If you buy prawns with shells, you can use the heads and shells to make prawn broth (Boil prawn head and shells with spring onion and ginger). Otherwise, use chicken broth from a can (for convenience).

- The noodles will soak up the broth and “expand” and turn soggy, so Step 5 of Winnie’s cooking method is very important! Remember to remove the noodles and set aside the broth if you are not serving immediately!

For the sambal chilli, Glory brand works for me! Add a bit of lime juice to the sambal chilli for the extra oomph!

In Singapore, I love the Hokkien Mee at the Wisma Atria Food Court. There is a branch at Suntec City Food Court too! The queue is always soooo long!

Here in the Bay Area, I make my own. Making Fried Hokkien Mee isn’t difficult at all, ya? Do you have any other ingredients you would like to add to yours?

I told mom not to cook too much when I was back in Singapore as I wanted to eat stuff that I don’t know how to cook or food that I cannot find in the Bay Area.

The above is a picture of Sam Lo (it’s in Cantonese, pronounced as “some loh”). I think it refers to the trio mix of noodles (thick bee hoon), fish slices and mung bean sprouts, stir fried in a hot wok and mixed with some broth and corn starch.

I like the smoothness of the fish slices (I wonder what fish they use?) and the thick bee hoon. I needed to add more dashes of light soy sauce and green chilli as the dish was not salty enough. That aside, it was a pretty satisfying meal for my first “hawker” food for my Singapore (food) trip.

I was there way before the lunch crowd arrived, hence the premises looked empty.

Hong Kong Street (Hock Kee) Seafood Restaurant
Blk 117 Commonwealth Drive
#01-733
11am - 2pm, 5pm - midnight
Tel#: 64753558, HP: 9735 9804

Hehe… Please don’t be mislead by the word “restaurant” here, thinking it’s some fancy schmancy posh eatery. It’s basically what we call a “coffee shop” or “tze char” stall and has other stalls too, like the boneless chicken rice stall (inside, right) and drink stall (inside, left) you see in the picture.

This “restaurant” used to be called Hong Kong Street (Chun Kee) Seafood Restaurant. The owners changed but the new owners maintained the “Hong Kong Street” brand name. The original Hong Kong Street (Chun Kee) has moved to Alexandra Village.

Here is a variation of Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice) from my earlier Fragrant Fried Rice post.

This version is typically found in Indonesian restaurants. It has a hint of sweetness from the sweet soy sauce, and a little heat from the spicy belachan (shrimp paste). Again, the same aromatics - shallots and garlic are used to provide the fragrance, albeit they are used in lesser amounts here.

Ingredients (Serves 2):

- 4 tbsp cooking oil
- 1 large chicken leg quarter, deboned and cut into bite sized pieces
- 2 bowls cooked plain rice
- 2 tsp sweet soy sauce (I used ABC Brand, Kecap Manis)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 fried egg

Paste Ingredients:

- 60g (or 20 oz) shallots, equivalent to 2 medium-sized shallots
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 chilli padi (small Thai red chillies), or 2 dried chillies, pre-soaked in water
- 2 tsp belachan (I used Glory Brand belachan paste)

Garnish:

- a few pcs prawn crackers (optional)
- a few slices cucumber (optional)
- 1 tsp fried shallots
- coriander leaves

Cooking Method:

1. Grind paste ingredients into a smooth paste using mortar and pestle.

2. Heat up 2 tbsp cooking oil. Medium heat. Saute paste ingredients until fragrant. Add chicken and stir fry to mix well.

3. Add plain rice and stir fry to mix well. Add sweet soy sauce and salt. Mix well and then set aside.

4. Wipe wok clean. Heat up another 2 tbsp cooking oil. Medium to high heat. Add egg and drizzle a bit of sweet soy sauce on the egg. Add a sprinkle of chopped coriander to the egg too.

5. Arrange fried egg on the rice and garnish with fried shallots and coriander leaves.

Cook’s Notes:

1. Add more belachan paste or chilli padi if you want more heat on your Nasi Goreng!

2. You can choose to do without the chicken and add shrimp instead, or just cook the rice alone and eat it with a side dish.

3. Typically, Indonesian style Nasi Goreng will come served with prawn crackers and cucumber. I didn’t have those, so I did without them.

4. You must use medium to high heat to fry the egg or the egg will become soggy and oily.

5. Thanks to Melting Wok’s recommendation to buy ABC Brand Kecap Manis (sweet soy sauce). I managed to find that in Ranch 99 and have been adding that to my fried eggs ever since!