Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

Mom’s in town and I haven’t been cooking. I thought she would whip up some kick-ass dishes for me and J but I was dead wrong. She hasn’t been cooking either.

Coming from Singapore, a place where cheap and delicious food is readily available and people’s favorite past-time is eating, she was more interested to eat out and see what the Bay Area has to offer. We are not talking about any fancy shamcy restaurants here. The Ranch 99 deli was enough to make her happy.

We bought roasted duck from Ranch 99 two times in ten days. J and I ate the meat, while mom was happy eating the bones with porridge. I am not ill-treating her - she said the duck bones were very tasty.

I also had a taste of the duck feet and cow stomach from the Ranch 99 deli. These are things I would never have thought buying on my own, simply because they look too weird to be eaten J doesn’t eat such things.

Mom is good at eating stuff with bones, be it duck feet, chicken feet or fish. She would bite off a piece of meat with bones, manoeuver her tongue around the the bite, spit out the bones and eat the meat. I must have gotten that tongue-skill from her, that’s why I would be the one eating the stomach part of the fish (which has bones) while J takes the upper body of the fish, the meaty part. I wonder if this tongue-skill helps in French kissing?

Angela gave me a recipe for making Peng Kuih (translated to English, it means “Rice Cake”). Peng Kuih has a glutinous rice filling that is fairly easy to make. The recipe for making the dough also looked relatively simple. However, I had a hard time making the dough because the way the dough formed was way out of my expectations.

I mean, I am familiar with how a cookie dough looks like when I mix multi-purpose flour with eggs and a creamed sugar/butter mixture. That is a firm dough which I can roll out easily with a rolling pin.

This Peng Kuih recipe however, seemed to have too much water (to make the dough) and the batter needed to be heated over low heat to form a firm dough. I’ll probably use less water next time. I tweaked the recipe a bit and added shallots for more flavor.

Ingredients (Makes about 7 Peng Kuih):

For filling:
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 3 pieces dried shitake mushrooms, soaked and chopped into pieces
- 25g (about 3 heaped tsp) of dried shrimp
- 1 small shallot, sliced (amounts to about 2 heaped tsp)
- 250g glutinous rice

For dough:

- 140g rice flour
- 10g tapioca flour
- 300ml water
- 2 drops red food coloring

Seasoning for filling:

- 1 tsp dark soy sauce (this is to give the filling a nice brownish tinge)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- a few dashes white pepper
- 1/2 cube chicken stock

Preparation and Cooking Method:

To make the filling:

- Wash glutinous rice then soak in water for 2 hours. Drain off water then steam for another 20 minutes. Make sure the water does not cover the rice when steaming.

- Heat 2 tbsp oil in a wok. Fry garlic, mushrooms, dried shrimp and shallots until fragrant. Add seasoning and mix well.

- Add steamed glutinous rice and mix well. Set aside.

To make dough:

- Sift rice flour and tapioca flour. Add red food coloring to water. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture, slowly add water and mix well to form a wet batter.

- Transfer wet batter to a wok and continue to stir well under low heat until a dough is formed.

- Dust work top with tapioca flour. Transfer firm dough to work top and knead until smooth. Divide into small portions.

- Use a rolling pin to flatten out each small portion and place flattened dough into Peng Kuih mould.

- Transfer some filling onto the flattened dough, use a teaspoon to press filling into the mould, then wrap filling with dough and use rolling pin to flatten it out.

Note: You can also simply wrap filling with dough and press onto mould. I did not do that as I was not sure how much dough is required to fill the mould. Also, I did not want a Peng Kuih with thick and uneven dough, so I used a rolling pin to flatten the dough before pressing it onto the mould.

- Remove excess dough from the sides of the mould. Invert mould, give it a hard knock and let the moulded dough fall out. Remove excess dough from the edges.

- Place moulded Peng Kuih onto cut pieces of banana leaves. Place on steaming tray and steam over low heat for 15 minutes.

The steamed Peng Kuih is a little sticky so I like to pan fry the Peng Kuih before I eat it. That makes the skin a bit crispy - ummmm… I like! Peng Kuih is best eaten with your favorite sweet sauce (I used ABC Kecap Manis - Perfect!).

What’s Beethoven’s favorite fruit or should I call it an herb? He even wrote a piece of music for it. Take a listen below. (Download may be a bit slow.)

Beethovan’s Symphony No 5. - I seriously think that Beethovan loved bananas :) don’t you?

Do you know that a banana plant is not a tree? Instead, it is called a pseudostem. Ok. You knew that?

How about: Bananas are considered as herbs. Oh you knew that too?

Well, I for one did not know that until someone mentioned it in Weekend Herb Blogging, so now I am also using bananas (copycat, kiss the rat, go home let your mother slap) as an entry to this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging hosted by Rinku.

In Singapore and in some other Asian communities, a banana is a slang term used to describe an Asian person who is perceived as acting like a white person - yellow (skin) on the outside and white on the inside. It’s like “Look at that Chinese speaking with an American accent. He’s a banana.” I am not a banana. I still speak with a Singaporean accent.

In terms of nutritional composition of a banana, a banana contains 93% carbs, 3% fats and 4% protein. No wonder when I was on a weight loss program a few years back, my “spa lady” flipped when once, I told her I ate TWO bananas that day. “Noooooooo! You can only eat ONE!!!” she shrieked.

She will probably shriek even louder if I tell her I mixed THREE bananas with butter and sugar etc to make banana muffins. She’s definitely into “thin is beautiful” and wants all her clients to think the same.

Anyways, since I am out of her weight loss program (since working out in the gym or having a bout of stomach flu was definitely more effective), I made Banana Muffins. I had googled and looked at quite a number of different Banana Muffin recipes before deciding to try Wandering Chopsticks Banana Bread Recipe. Well, she used a loaf pan that’s why hers is called “Banana Bread” whereas I used a muffin tin, so I call them “Banana Muffins”. She also used yogurt, which I was kinda surprised (”oh, you can use yogurt in baking??”) but was pleased since I had yogurt leftover from making my chicken pies.

Ok. I know what’s in your mind right now. Where are the muffins? Well, since I like the top part of muffins only because they are cripsy, I decided to quarter my Banana Muffins into bite sized pieces after the initial baking, so that I could have more crispy bits. :)

I made a slight alteration to Wandering Chopstick’s recipe, based on the ingredients I had on hand and after some “consultation” with her since I am a baking idiot.

Ingredients (Makes approx 12 muffins):

- 5 tbsp salted butter (you can choose unsalted butter if you so wish)
- 155g (or 3/4 cup) white sugar
- 3 overripe bananas, mashed
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 2 eggs
- 200g (or 1 1/2 cups) multi-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
- 1/2 cup yogurt

Baking Method:

1. In a large bowl, cream butter, sugars, bananas and vanilla well. (I used a fork to do the mixing.)

2. Beat eggs by adding them in one at a time. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and toasted walnuts with butter/sugar/banana mixture. Add yogurt and gently fold in the yogurt. Do not overmix.

3. Put muffin cups into muffin tin. Transfer mixture into the muffin cups (till 80% full). Bake in a preheated oven at 325F for about 30 minutes or until browned.

These Banana Muffins are light and not as buttery as my Orange Muffins. The toasted walnuts provided a nutty texture and of course, keeping the bananas till they were blackened and overripe contributed to the sweetness and overall kick to these Banana Muffins.

Steamed fish, Teochew style is typically done with the simplest of ingredients - shredded ginger, pickled sour plums, mustard greens (salted vegetable), sliced shitake mushrooms and garnished with green onions. However, being a pork lover, I could not resist adding in a bit of minced pork to add more juice and flavor to the fish gravy.

Although I am a Teochew, I am shy to say that the only dishes I am familiar with, off the top of my head, are Teochew Steamed Fish, Teochew Porridge (Congee) and Or Nee (Yam Paste).

Amy Beh from Kuali has a great Teochew-Style Steamed Fish recipe. What I have below has a few more ingredients.

Ingredients (Serves 2):

- 1 pomfret (you can also use garoupa fish)
- 1 tbsp ginger, shredded
- 1 stalk spring onions, shredded
- 1/4 lb (or less) minced pork, seasoned with salt, pepper and corn starch
- 2 shitake mushrooms (I used dried ones, so I soaked them in warm water before slicing them up)
- 1 tomato, cut into wedges
- 1/4 lb preserved green mustard, cleaned and shredded
- 2 preserved sour plums (I used a Japanese brand preserved plums that are red in color)

Seasoning for fish:

- 1/2 tsp salt
- a few dashes white pepper
- 1/2 tsp corn starch
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp rice wine or shaoxing wine
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 pc chicken stock dissolved in 1/2 bowl warm water

Garnish:
- 1 stalk spring onions, shredded
- 1 red chilli, shredded

Preparation and Cooking Method:

1. Wash fish and pat dry. Make a few slits on each side of the fish. Rub lightly with salt, pepper and corn starch. Remember to do this within the fish stomach as well. Then stuff a few shreds of ginger and spring onions into the slits and fish stomach.

2. Heat up 1-2 tbsp oil. Add in shredded ginger, pork and mushrooms and stir fry until fragrant, then add in the rest of the ingredients and seasoning and bring to a boil.

3. Arrange fish on a steaming tray and pour mixture from (2) over the fish.

4. Steam over high heat for 12-15 minutes or until cooked. Garnish with shredded spring onions and chilli.

Cook’s Note:

- According to Amy, when the eyes of the fish has popped out, this is an indication that the fish is cooked.

- This Teochew Style Steamed Fish can be a bit salty becos of the presence of many salty ingredients like light soy sauce, fish sauce, chicken stock and preserved green mustard. You may wish to omit the chicken stock and just use plain warm water.

Melting Wok revealed her secrets to me about her Spicy Honey Chicken after I asked her how come my dish looked more like Tomato Paste Chicken rather than Spicy Honey Chicken?!?

Sim Cooks Tomato Paste Chicken

versus

Melting Wok’s Spicy Honey Chicken

The only ingredient I did not add was an onion, because I had used that in my Chicken Pie and forgot to buy another one when I wanted to make her Spicy Honey Chicken.

Ok. So here are the secrets revealed and lessons learnt. (Note: You will need to read her Spicy Honey Chicken recipe first for this to make sense.)

Sim Cooks: I used a canned tomato paste (looks like tomato paste you use to spread on pizza dough) and bought a cheap Safeway brand. I needed to add water when heating up the paste cos it looked like the paste and all was going to burn and catch fire.
Melting Wok: I did not add water, cos for me, the tomato paste was not too thick - I used bottled ones.
Lesson #1: If you want more gravy, get a tomato paste with a lighter consistency. Bottled ones are useful cos you can then SEE the consistency of the paste inside. O, and don’t be a cheapskate. Safeway brand tomato paste sucks.

Sim Cooks: I pounded two chilli padi into a chilli paste using my mortar and pestle.
Melting Wok: Mine is a home-made chilli paste and is more watery & oily. I add cooking oil to my chilli paste before I store it in the refrigerator because that keeps my food moist from drying and sticking into the pan. Generally, if you use store-bought chilli paste, you must always put enough oil before you stir-fry your aromatics, spices, and spoon in some cooking oil before you add any thick paste in, or anytime while simmering the sauce. It’ll seal in the moisture. Otherwise, use more cooking spray before you start cooking.
Lesson #2: Matt or Glossy? The beautiful glaze you see from Melting Wok’s Spicy Honey Chicken is probably due to her more moist and oily chilli paste. So, matt or glossy? If you want matt, just shoddily pound a couple of chilli and make them into a paste. If you want glossy, er… pull up your socks and do some work!

Sim Cooks: How come my chicken is not crispy? Grrrr….
Melting Wok: I did not simmer the pre-pan-fried chicken too long. First, the chicken was almost done; second, I wanted to maintain the light crispy texture of the chicken, hence I did not let them sit in the sauce too long; third, I wanted lotsa sauce, enough to eat with my white rice, so I briefly let the chicken simmer in the sauce at low heat right after I briefly stir-fried the chicken at high heat, and last, the sauce did not have other liquids, hence, it’d only get thicker and dry up even more if you let the chicken sit in the sauce too long, and last, the more honey you add, the thicker it gets.
Sim Cooks: *Brain freeze* Can you speak in English?
Lesson #3: De-frost brain and re-read the above.

Sim Cooks: I did not have onions. Was I already off to a bad start?
Melting Wok: The onions added a light caramel texture and sweetness to the sauce.
Lesson #4: Always keep an onion handy in the pantry.

Sim Cooks: You said “add honey to taste” … the honey bear asked me to press his tummy a few times. Was a few times too many times too much?
Melting Wok: I’ve only used, I think, about 3/4 of tbsp of honey. The more honey you add, the thicker the sauce gets.
Lesson #5: Never trust the honey bear.

I had some chicken as leftovers and I did not want to eat that with rice again cos the taste of the tomato paste was a wee bit strong. So I mixed them with some spaghetti and chopped cilantro and I managed to get a pretty good Spaghetti With Tomato Paste Chicken.

Thanks Melting Wok for your additional tips on making Spicy Honey Chicken. I’ll be keen to make that again and eat with fragrant Basmati Rice.