Stir-fry Fish with Fermented Black Beans

Hi! Here's another quick and simple dish to add to the list. Aahhh.. this is a lazy weekend for me! :D


Stir-fry Fish with Fermented Black Beans
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Ingredients
- 1 Basa fish fillet
- Fermented Black beans (hmm.. this is tricky.. I don't know how to put the measurement for this.. around 20 beans? 1 spoonful? hehe)
- Garlic
- 1 stalk of spring onion

Method
1. Rinse some fermented black beans with water and mash them a little
2. Chop spring onion
3. Cut fish fillet into preferred size
4. Marinate fish with mashed fermented black beans
5. Chop garlic finely
4. Fry garlic in a pan till fragrant
5. Add marinated fish pieces with mashed fermented black beans
8. Stir fry fish pieces till they're cooked
9. Add chopped spring onion and stir through together
10. Serve with rice

Notice that I didn't add any soy sauce or salt to the dish. That's because the fermented black beans I used were quite salty. They gave the fish just the right amount of flavour. ;)

Quote of the day ~ A smile is the best accessory to wear ~

Otak-Otak (Spicy Fish Mousse)

For once, I decided to start blogging with Twenty Something & Cooking instead of Happee Monkee. I feel bad having to use the same material twice. So today, I decided to dance to a different tune.

Lately, I've been invited to a few gourmet events. One was Taste of Melbourne last Friday and just yesterday I met Peter Doyle of Est. at a Kiehl's launch. To tell you the truth, I hadn't heard of him before and apparently, he's quite a big shot in the culinary world. The man in flesh is really down-to-earth and friendly, a little shy and very unassuming. It's nice to know that fame and glamour doesn't always impact someone negatively.

Anyway, after all the gourmet eating, I think it might have gotten to my head as much as my stomach. Otak-Otak is a very conventional home dish. I love how the spice, herbs and fish works so well into a moussy smoothness. I don't know why it's called Otak-Otak because it translates as 'brain' in Malay. Perhaps there is truth in the belief that eating lots of fish makes you brainier. I'm not sure. But what I'm sure is that it's absolutely yummy.

Otak-Otak (Spicy Fish Mousse)
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• 400g white fish fillets
• 1/2 cup (8 tbsp) of red curry paste
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• mint leaves
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons of lime juice
• 1 cup of coconut milk
• 1 teaspoon of fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp white pepper

Method:

1. Chop fish into small pieces or to make into a paste, work it in a food processor.
2. Mix all the ingredients together.
3. Marinate for 20 - 30 minutes.
4. Steam it on medium-high heat for 15 minutes until cooked and set.

Variation:

1. Make an aluminum foil envelope or a loaf tin and bake for 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 170C till skewer comes out clean.
2. Bake in a bain marie (loaf tin) in a pre-heated oven at 150-175 degree Celcius (300-350 degree F) for 20-25 minutes till skewer comes out clean when it is put into the centre of the fish cake.

Carrots and Baby Corn Porridge

What a tiring and stressful week. Both my youngest sister and my hubby are sick. Both have been sick since Tuesday. My sister was down and still is with cough and flu. And my hubby is down with viral fever, so his body temperature is going up and down like a yoyo from Tuesday till today. It freaks me out as this is the dengue season. Dengue fever dangerous it could be fatal as it reduces victim white blood cells. Fortunately, 2 doctors said my hubby does not have dengue symptom. *Phew.

My sister requested for carrot porridge. I thought that it is boring with just carrot in the porridge. So, I tested out this recipe. I add in baby corns and chinese cabbage. My hubby said it feels weird with the crunchy baby corn, as porridge should be soggy and soft. But they finished the whole pot. :)

Ingredients: (serves 5)
1 medium size carrot (peel off skin and cut into thin strips)
3 fresh baby corns (peel of the husks and cut into cubes)
3 leaves of chinese cabbage
1-2 slices of ginger (optional)
50g of thinly sliced pork or chicken meat
10 tablespoonful of cooked rice
1.5 liter of water
salt to taste

Method:

1. Add water and rice into a pot. Boil them at high heat for 10mins.
2. Add in the pork or chicken meat. Leave it to boil for 5mins.
3. Add in the carrot, baby corns, chinese cabbage and ginger. Leave it to boil for 5mins.
4. Then reduce the heat to medium - low. Continue boiling for another 30mins.
5. Constantly stir the ingredients to ensure that the rice (rice will be porridge at this point) does not stick at the bottom of the pot.
6. Depends on how thick you want the porridge to be, you can turn off the heat at your likings. Add salt to taste.
7. You can serve porridge with salted duck eggs.

Cauliflower Mix Vegetable

This is my favourite dish. I can eat this whole dish by itself though it taste better with steam rice. The main ingredient is cauliflower. Together with carrots, the gravy tastes sweet and fragrant when fry with chopped garlic. The grey oyster mushroom blends in very well. Here is the list of ingredients

Ingredients:
(serves 2-4)


350g cauliflower (cut into small florets)
75g of carrot (sliced thinly)


50g grey oyster mushroom (cut into small cubes)
20g pork meat (sliced thinly)


3 cloves of garlic (chopped)

1/2 tablespoon of oil
2 tablespoon of water

Method:

1. Heat up pan or wok with oil in medium to high heat.
2. Add in the chopped garlic. Stir fry the garlic till turn golden brown. Then add in the sliced pork (you can replace pork with beef or chicken). Stir fry the pork for about 1min.
3. Add in the cauliflower and carrots. Mix the ingredients together.
4. Add in the water. Close pan or wok lid. Let it cook for about 1min.
5. Lastly add in the grey oyster mushroom and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. (You can replace the oyster mushroom with button or Champignons or cup mushroom).
6. Stir fry all the ingredients for about 1min.
7. Close pan or wok lid. Let it cook for about 5mins or when the cauliflower is quite soft.
8. Serve while it is hot.

One Pot Rice

Have I ever mentioned that I'm lazy? No? If you haven't noticed, I've only been cooking really simple dishes. It doesn't take more than 30-45mins time for me to prepare and cook a meal. ;)

There are also days when I'm really really lazy, where I don't do any cooking at all. However, it doesn't mean that I'll eat out. I just need to prepare some easy ingredients and simply throw everything into a rice cooker and let it cook for me! *lol*

So, on one of those days, a recipe like this comes in handy:

One Pot - Chicken Rice
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Ingredients (for 2 persons)
- 1 cup of Rice
- 1 Chicken breast fillet
- 8 dried chinese Mushrooms
- 1 stalk of Spring onion
- 1 small piece of Ginger
- Garlic
- Soy sauce or salt
- Oyster sauce
- Sesame oil
- Dark soy sauce

Method
1. Wash and add 1 cup of rice into a rice cooker
2. Cut chicken fillet into bite size pieces
3. Marinate chicken pieces with soy sauce or salt
4. Chop garlic finely
5. Cut ginger into thin slices
6. Cut mushrooms into slices (make sure you soak the dried mushrooms much earlier)
7. Add chicken, garlic, ginger and mushrooms into rice cooker
8. Add water - the usual amount for 1 cup of rice + extra (adjust accordingly to the additional ingredients)
9. Add salt or soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil + dark soy sauce and mix everything thoroughly. (I added according to my own estimation - no fixed measurements here)
10. Turn on the rice cooker and let it do its work while you enjoy your favourite tv programme, book or food blogs!
11. When it's cooked (you can smell it!), add finely chopped spring onions and serve!

*Note: It might take a little longer than usual to cook because of the extra stuff you've added to the rice. By the way, you can also stir fry the chicken and mushrooms with garlic, ginger and the sauces before you add them to the rice cooker, that is if you're not lazy and want the chicken to have more flavour. You can even add some veges to it if you want a more balanced meal (I take the spring onions as my vege! *chuckles*). Feel free to improvise on it. There are no fixed rules for cooking! ;)

The result:

I call this the one pot rice. :D It's simple yet tasty and filling. Although I might get lazy sometimes, I still managed to add another post to this blog! *grin* Looks like I'm not that lazy after all! or maybe I've started improving! ;)

Quote of the day ~ You will see it when you believe it~