Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

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.

Soto Ayam is a classic Spicy Chicken Soup, commonly found in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia (”Soto” means “soup” and “Ayam” means “chicken”). The soup is yellow in color due to the use of turmeric as one of its ingredients.

Add yellow noodles to this Soto Ayam and turn it into Mee Soto (Noodle Soup), a great light lunch and participate in Presto Pasta Nights. (*Phew!* Ruth accepts any noodle dish from any culture as entries.)

I was eating chicken salad for a few meals, and every time I boiled the bone-in chicken breast meat, I kept the chicken bones and the broth as a reserve for making this Soto Ayam.

The recipe is fairly simple. Turmeric, ginger, lemon grass, shallots, cloves, cardamons and star anise are all aromatics, contributing to the fragrance of the Soto Ayam. Oh and by the way I was shopping for whole cloves the other day and just FYI, Mccormick cloves sold in Safeway are at an exorbitant price of about US$5 for a small 0.62 oz bottle. If possible, get them from an Asian supermarket. That cost me only US$0.99 for a packet of approximately the same volume.

The Soto Ayam / Mee Soto Recipe below is based on approximated amounts because the amount of various ingredients to add depends on individual taste.

Ingredients (Serves 2):

- 1 handful of fresh / dry yellow noodles
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 1 chicken breast, bone in
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 lb bean sprouts, pluck off roots and blanched

Garnish:

- 1 small shallot, sliced
- 2 stalks spring onion, chopped
- 2 stalks cilantro, chopped

Soup Ingredients:

- 4-5 slices ginger
- 1 stalk lemon grass (the white part only)
- 1 small shallot
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- 5 whole cloves
- 3 cardamons
- 1 star anise
- 1/2 tsp pepper (or more if you like a very peppery tasting soup)

Cooking Method:

1. Cook yellow noodles and set aside. Deep fry sliced shallot (from Garnish) until fragrant. Set aside. Grind the ginger, lemon grass and shallot (from Soup Ingredients) together using a mini food processor. Set aside.

2. Bring chicken broth to a boil, add chicken breast and salt, reduce heat setting to low and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove chicken from broth, shred chicken and set aside. Return chicken bones to the broth. Note: If you like me, have chicken broth made from leftover chicken bones, continue to simmer all the bones in the broth.

3. Heat up 2-3 tbsp cooking oil. When oil is hot enough, saute all the soup ingredients until fragrant. Pour in the chicken broth (together with all the bones) and cook under low heat (simmer, not boiling) for about half an hour till aromatic. Filter off the soup ingredients and get the soup only into serving bowls.

4. Add cooked yellow noodles, blanched bean sprouts and shredded chicken into the bowls. Garnish with chopped spring onions, cilantro and fried shallots.

Oops! The yellow noodles were all hidden under the shredded chicken bean sprouts and garnish :) but this is Mee Soto all right - yellow noodles in Spicy Chicken Soup (Soto Ayam).

Sometimes I get into a rebellious mood (and only to regret later). Remember how my gynae had warned me not to put on too much weight too rapidly during this last stage of pregnancy or the baby fat will remain with me for the rest of my life?

Sometimes statements like “DON’T eat so much” or “DON’T eat sugary and fatty stuff” or “DON’T put on weight too rapidly” do not serve their purpose. See the pattern here? The statements all begin with “DON’T…”. Now, if I say “DON’T think of a pink elephant”, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? A pink elephant right? This is becos the brain sometimes cannot process a negative statement as quickly as a positive one.

So the rationale is that if you want something to work for you, you gotta psycho your brain in a positive way, like “Remember to take your pre-natal vitamins”, rather than “DON’T forget to take your pre-natal vitamins”.

Anyhow… becos I want to blame somebody if I really do have excess “baby fats” (in this case, my gynae, cos she said DON’T put on weight too rapidly”), I made Orange Muffins. Orange Muffins with empty calories - (sinful) sugar and (blistering barnacles!) butter.

My Orange Muffins recipe was gotten from Baking Mum’s Madeleines Recipe. I have a muffin tin that can bake six muffins and I could make ten muffins out of her recipe.

I am not particularly excited about muffins, becos they (like those you get from Starbucks) are usually quite big and bleh (the middle part). I only like the top and bottom part of muffins becos those parts are the crispy bits. These Orange Muffins that I made out of a regular-sized muffin tin (same muffin tin I used to make Portuguese Egg Tarts) turned out to be a good size for me becos I had enough crispy top and bottom and just sufficient soft part of the middle of the muffin to make me happy.

Oh. I need to add some notes here. The recipe had called for cake flour. Er… what flour? Cake flour. According to the Joy Of Baking website, “Cake flour has a 6-8% protein content and is made from soft wheat flour. It is chlorinated to further break down the strength of the gluten and is smooth and velvety in texture. Good for making cakes (especially white cakes and biscuits) and cookies where a tender and delicate texture is desired. To substitute cake flour for all-purpose flour use 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cake flour for every cup of all-purpose flour. Make your own - one cup sifted cake flour can be substituted with 3/4 cup (84 grams) sifted bleached all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons (15 grams) cornstarch.“

I did not have cake flour, so I used all purpose flour and cornstarch according to the instructions above. The end-result was that my Orange Muffins was of a slightly more dense texture than if I had used cake flour.

These Orange Muffins are good for breakfast, tea-time or an anytime snack. I have eaten four Orange Muffins and I am not feeling guilty yet.

Can I bake Pineapple Tarts to save my life? The answer is “Not yet”. The fingers on my two hands are enough for me to count the number of times to date I have baked whatever-that-can-be-considered-baking, so I qualify to be called a newbie baker.

I made a Pineapple Upside Down Cake when I was in Secondary 2 Home Economics Class. That was when I was 14 years old. I actually scored 8 out of 10 for that assignment, would you believe it? After that, the baking streak in me started to disappear as I get older.

I don’t know why I am suddenly interested in making Pineapple Tarts. This is a Chinese New Year goodie and we are nowhere near Chinese New Year now. Maybe it’s because my friend Angela recently took out all her baking gear and will be going full force into baking her delicious crunchy raisin cookies and trying out other new cake recipes, so I decided to follow suit and bake something. Pineapple Tarts were the first thing that came to my mind.

I bought the Pineapple Tart mould from Phoon Huat, Singapore’s leading supplier of bakery, beverage and confectionery ingredients. I had also bought a few other types of mould which I hope to be using to make other kinds of local kueh from Singapore. Wish me luck :)

I had mixed feelings about how these Pineapple Tarts turned out. For the first batch, I used the mould wrongly. What a dork! Notice how some of the tarts were “taller” than others? Also, the colour of the pastry was not what I had desired. I was looking for a light yellow pastry, not something so brown. Angela said that this could be because I had used the top tray of my oven instead of the lower trays.

Lessons learnt:

1) Get to know your oven. Apparently, at the same temperature setting, my big oven behaves differently from my small toaster oven.

2) To get a brownish tinge on the pineapple jam, you need to add cinnamon powder.

3) Baking Pineapple Tarts is a real tedious process. It took me more than half a day to make the pineapple jam, prepare the pastry and then bake 60-70 of these little golden gems. No wonder they are always sold at a premium.