Simple Cooking Ideas

This is a delicious fast meal which can be taken with a light soup. I am using Malaysian white rice for this recipe.

Ingredients:

3 cups rice
4 pips garlic, chopped finely 3 tablespoon soya sauce
3 teaspoon dark soya sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 small piece fillet of saltfish
3 slices ginger (shredded)
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables ( corn, peas and carrots)
oil for frying saltfish
salt and pepper to taste
3 teaspoon seseme oil
2 chinese sausages, steamed and slice finely

Method:

Chop drumsticks into bites size pieces and season with light and dark soya sauce and leave aside for half an hour. Wash the rice and drain. Add 1 tablespoon oil in a wok and fry the garlic till fragrant. Add in the uncooked rice and fry for 2 minutes. Transfer rice to claypot. Pour water to cover rice at least 1 cm above . Cook the rice over medium heat, lowering the heat when is nearly cook.

Fry the rest of the garlic, add chicken and 1/2 teaspoon salt and fry for about 5 minutes. Transfer to plate and put aside. Slice saltfish thinly and mix with ginger and sesme oil.
Pour boiling water over mixed vegetables and drain.

When the rice is half cooked, add in the chicken, saltfish and sausages . Cook over low heat till rice is almost cooked and add in the mixed vegetables. Cover the pot and continue to cook further til rice is cooked. Lift up the cover and mix the ingredients evenly , add abit of soya sauce if u want it darker and salt, pepper to taste.

Rice is an important food that we Asians eat almost every day. The rice we usually eat is white or polished rice which husk, bran, and germ have been removed during milling so it is less nutritious. Nuritionists nowadays recommend that we eat brown rice which rice with only the husk is removed. It contains alot of vitamins and minerals and is good source of dietary fibre. However, one disadvantage is that it takes 45 minutes to cook and it has a flavour that is a little difficult to get accustomed to.

Malaysia grows it own rice. However, the long-grain rice such as the Basmati rice comes from north of India and Pakistan and Thailand which produce its popular fragrant rice. Basmati rice is used to cook the popular Nasi Biryani. Glutinous rice is also found in abundance here. we use it for nyonya kuih, nasi kunjit, loh mai kai ( cooked with chicken, Chinese style ), chinese dumplings and many other dishes.

This dish is very popular in Malaysia.  It is my personal favourite too.  It is served with chicken curry. I love to cook this rice during special occasion.  This is a recipe for cooking the tumeric rice.

Ingredients:

1 kg glutinous rice
4 large pieces tumeric root
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups thick coconut milk mixed in 1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:

Wash rice. Crush tumeric root and wrap in a muslin cloth. Add tumeric and salt to the rice and leave it overnight.

Line base of Chinese bamboo tray with banana leaves. Drain rice and spread it on the tray. Steam for one hour. Dish out rice into a pot and mix in the coconut milk. Stir well with a wooden spoon. Return rice to steamer and steam for another 15 minutes. Dish out and serve with chicken curry.

This is a simple fried rice dish. It is better to use overnight rice. That will keep rice seperately and will not be sticky.

Ingredients:

4 rice bowls cold cooked long grain rice
4 tablespoons cooking oil
2 eggs
100 gm cooked chicken or lean pork cut into cubes
100 gm small fresh prawns
50 gm chinese sausage (lap cheong) sliced
1 medium-sized onion, chopped
100 gm long beans, cut to quarter inch long
50 gm carrot, cut into small cubes
1-2 tablespoon soya sauce
saltand pepper to taste
1 red chilly , sliced

Methods:

Heat 2 tablespoon oil in 8 in-frying pan. Beat eggs lightly and season with salt and pepper. Pour into pan and make a flat thin omelette. Cut into strips. Steam chinese sausage for 1 minutes and slice thinly.

Heat remaining oil in a wok. Fry onion carrots and long beans for 5 minutes or until soft. Add in pork cubes, prawns and sausage , and fry further 3 minutes. Put in the rice and continue to stir-fry over moderate heat for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle soya sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

Transfer rice to heated serving dish. Sprinkle omelette over rice and garnish with parsley red chilly and fried shallots. Serve while is hot.

4 to 5 servings

Just the other day, my daughter was asking me for a porridge recipe. She has tried cooking porridge but just can’t get the nice texture like those in the Cantonese restaurants. Usually my grandchildre love the porridge in the restaurants as the porridge texture is extra smooth, gooey, light and tasty.

To make good Cantonese porridege , the proportion of water to rice must be correct, which means 1 cup of rice, you have to add 10 to 12 cups water. Another secret you need to know is that the water must be boiling before adding rice.

There are varieties of flavours you can add. The common ones are fish, pork, chicken, century and salted eggs, dried oyster and peanut. Do try this recipe below and let me know how it turns out.

Ingredients:

300 gm chicken, cut into 1 cm cubes
1 century egg, cut into 1/2 cm cubes
1 salted egg, hard boiled and mashed
1 cup of Thai fragrant rice
10 to 12 cups water
Seasoning ingredients:
1/2 teaspoon light soya sauce
1 teaspoon seseme oil
1/4 teaspoon salt and dash of pepper
Thickening mixture:
1 tablespoon glutinous rice flour and enough water to mix smoothly

Garnishing ingredients:

Finely shredded spring onion and parsley
pepper to taste
Chinese crullers ( yau char kwai ) sliced to 1 cm
fried shallots

Method:

Boil water in a rice pot. Add washed cleaned rice and shallot oil. Boil untill porridge is thick and smooth, stirring occasionally to prevent the porridge burning

When porridge is three quarter cooked, stir in chicken cubes and simmer for 5 minutes Stir in glutinous rice flour mixture slowly into porridge . Simmer for further 5 minutes Add in the century and salted eggs. Stir to mix well.

Serve hot with garnishing ingredients.

My grandchildren simply love this!

serves -5 or 6 persons
Ingredients

1 medium rice bowl - Quaker oats
200 gm minced meat or fish
salt, pepper to taste
afew drops of seseme oil
chopped spring onion and parsley
fried onion

Method

Add 4 meduim bowls of water together with oats in a pot to boil. marinate the meat withsalt. pepper, seseme oil and soya sauce for awhile. When the oats is boiling add the seasoned meat Boil slowly until the meat is cooked. Stir it one egg. Turn off fire. Add chopped spring oinions, parsley and fried onion when serve.