Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

Korean Beef Bento Box $5.99

Beef Don $3.99

I think beef is the way for me to go
So I bought a couple of beef bentos

I like to eat beef, any way it’s done
And these beef bentos can be lots of fun

The beef tasted a bit sweet
But that’s the way the Japanese, Korean and I like it

You wanna know where the beef bentos came from?
Grab them from Nijiya Market before they are gone

Remember to buy red chilli pepper too
Sprinkle on the beef and make your tongue go “WooHoo!”

Why am I writing poetry these few days?
Geez I don’t know. My mind is in a haze
Back to the beef bento subject, anyways…

The beef was tender, there was lots of it.
I used the microwave to reheat.

The beef bentos came with pickled red ginger too
Not my favorite but that would do

What more can you ask for, it’s like $5.99
It’s Japanese fast food that you can dine

And the beef don is only $3.99
The portion is also just about fine

I can go on with my rambling, but I think I’ll stop
Just go grab YOUR bento box.

Nijiya Market specializes in imported organic and Japanese food. I like to browse their deli section and take time to ponder which Japanese bento box I should buy. The food arrangement in all their bento boxes is aesthetically pleasing.

Nijiya Market’s bento boxes are economically priced. Of course, you cannot compare their quality to an upscale Japanese restaurant because WYPIWYG - what you pay is what you get. The Unagi Don bento box costs only $4.99 and the unagi sometimes come with tiny soft bones.

Besides the Unagi Don, I have also tried their Salmon Sashimi. A plate of Salmon Sashimi costs anywhere from $5.00 to $7.00, depending on the size. Do take note to always check for the date of the packaging. Most of the time, the fresh ones are tucked below the older dated ones.

I am starting to eat more soybeans and other kinds of nuts and beans for their nutrients, so I bought one large bag of Edamame. It costs only $1.99 for a 14oz bag (about 400g), which I can savor over about 5 servings. This is really cheap compared to a bowl or plate of Edamame you get at a Japanese restaurant. One small bowl or plate of equal serving costs at least $1.90. Salted Edamame taste better than the plain boiled ones.

Nijiya Market typically have sales on weekends only. When I get lucky, I can even get a packet of frozen Harkow (Shrimp Dumplings) and SiewMai (Prawn/Crab Dumpling) for about $2.00 a packet. It’s the Ajinomoto brand and this brand is definitely much tastier than the Amoy brand of dimsum from Ranch99.

One product that I was disappointed with, though, was their S&B brand wasabi. It did not provide as much kick as I would have liked. But S&B was the only wasabi brand Nijiya Market had.

I was also upset that I did not feel well after the unagi lunch yesterday. :(

Is it me? Or is it the unagi?
It cannot be me! Cos I LIKE unagi!
I ate the same thing as my hubby.
Then what can it be? What else can it be?

I thought, I pondered… I know! It must be …
The thing that is growing inside of me
Is making me all queasy
Just because I ate unagi.

The next time I go to Nijiya Market, I may buy Unagi Don again, just to see if that thing inside of me is really the culprit. Humph!

Ok. I am not a super cook. I am just a pretty, good one. I eat out sometimes too. In my recent search for spicy food, I was introduced to Penang Village - Malaysian Food.

Picture above shows Indian Mee Goreng - an Indian style stir fried egg noodle with tofu, potato, shrimp, chicken, calamari, egg and bean sprouts added with shrimp sauce.

This tasted very much like the Mee Goreng from Punggol Choon Seng Seafood Restaurant in Singapore. Very authentic, spicy and tasty.

I think I can live in the Bay Area for the long term, provided my favorite restaurants stay open. I say this because one of my favorite sushi restaurants (they serve large pieces of salmon and unagi) had a change in management. The new management is renovating the restaurant now and I won’t be surprised if they increase their menu prices.

Then there was this Chinese restaurant which served Peking Duck with the egg wrapper, not the bun. They closed down and the new Chinese restaurant took Peking Duck off their menu. Grrrr…

And yet another tragedy happened to another Chinese restaurant which sold roasted duck and soy sauce chicken. At their door is a sign saying they have sewage problems and they are currently fixing it. Come on! It has been almost a year!

So, Penang Village, please stay open!
I like your food, is that a bad omen?
I don’t know, cos the rest of my favorites…
They closed down, and left me in the lurch.

Penang Village oh Penang Village!
I like your website’s Hotpot Curry Beef Image.
Please wait for me to go there again,
Don’t make me crave for you in vain!

What do you do when you have extra sambal belachan from the Prima Taste Mee Siam Premix? Definitely not throw it away dude! Sambal belachan is a precious commodity in a sambal belachan scarce land!

I made Nasi Lemak! Good old Nasi Lemak - with fried chicken, cucumber and coconut rice. The squid you see in the picture came out of a can, so no recipe for that, but in case you are interested, the brand is “Old Fisherman” with a picture of an *yes you guessed it* old fisherman on the top right hand corner.

Ingredients (for 2 servings):

A. Coconut rice:

- coconut milk
- rice
- pandan leaf

Method (for cooking coconut rice):

1. Instead of adding water to the rice grains as you normally would, replace water with coconut milk.

2. Tie a blade of long pandan leaf into a knot and submerge it with the rice and coconut milk.

3. Cook as you normally would for plain white rice.*

*I find that the bottom layer of my rice in the rice cooker tended to burn if I used anything other than water, so what I did this time was to cook the rice in the cooker until I hear a cackling sound then transfer the pot to a steamer to finish the cooking, i.e. when the rice looks fluffy, you are done!

B. Fried Chicken: - The simplest list ever!

- 2 chicken wings (or as many as you want to eat)
- corn flour (or multi-purpose flour)
- 1 egg white
- panko bread crumbs (or any fried chicken coating)

Marinate for chicken wings:

- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp pepper (white or black - doesn’t matter)
- 1/4 tsp cajun seasoning (or any chicken seasoning powder)
- 1 tsp cooking wine

Method:

1. Mix chicken wings with marinate and keep refrigerated for at least half an hour.

2. Heat up a pot of vegetable oil.

3. In the meanwhile, **dip the marinated chicken wings into some corn flour, then egg white, then dredge with panko bread crumbs.

4. The oil is hot enough when you put in a bit of bread crumbs and they sizzle. Deep fry the chicken wings until they turn golden brown on each side and you see that no more oil is oozing out of the chicken wings. Remove from the oil and place them on paper towels to drain off excess oil.

**To make cleaning up easier later, cover 3 plates with plastic wrap before you put flour, egg white and the panko bread crumbs onto the respective plates. In this way, when you are done coating the chicken wings, just remove the plastic wrap to throw it out and your plate remains clean.

To serve:

To make my Nasi Lemak look more authentic, I bought banana leaves to put over my plate. When I reheated the Nasi Lemak with the banana leaves, the banana leaves and coconut rice let out a wonderful fragrance. Awesome!

“Irresistible spiced vermicelli served in a tangy sweet-sour tamarind gravy and an assortment of garnishes and sambal chilli. An authentic Singaporean dish that will tempt you with its fragrant aroma.”

What an apt description on the box! The Prima Taste Mee Siam premix had four packets of ready-to-cook paste in the box: mee siam paste, bee hoon sambal, sambal chilli and lime juice. Ahhhh…. The Sambal Mee Siam Gravy was delicious… the Sambal Belachan was heavenly.

Here are the cooking instructions out of the box:

A. To cook bee hoon:

1. Soak dry bee hoon (see picture below) in a pot of water until soft.

2. Heat Bee Hoon Sambal with 75 ml water in a wok or frying pan on medium heat for 1 min. Stir well.

3. Add soaked bee hoon and stir-fry. Mix the gravy with the bee hoon until gravy is evenly soaked up by the bee hoon.

4. Transfer to a serving bowl.

B. To cook Mee Siam gravy

1. Mix Mee Siam Paste with 450 ml water in a pot and bring to boil.

2. Simmer for 2 mins. Do not cover pot.

C. To serve

1. Portion bee hoon into individual bowls.

2. Stir Mee Siam gravy gently before pouring into bee hoon.

3. Add garnishes and serve with Sambal Chilli. Add lime juice to taste.

Just look at the amount of Sambal Chilli that came with the premix! (*drool*)

For the prawns, what I did was after step A4, I used a paper towel to gently wipe the wok free of bee hoon, then add a bit of oil and stir fry the prawns. Because the wok still has the sambal flavor, the prawns was delicious!

This tasted so good. So so good!