Happy May Day!

The dramatic cook is back – apologies for the hiatus – I have played the biggest April Fool’s  prank with you all – by being absent for the whole month of April!!
 
Junior is scolding me big time and threatening that all my followers will be vanishing.

I reasoned that I am writing the blog for my own pleasure and refuse to feel guilty.

I did many projects during my absence, you can see from the pictures of my beautiful results.  The dramatic cook has many talents.  All my projects could be found in www.knitty.com or www.ravelry.com.

And if you are in the New Jersey area, remember to come to our performance of Julius Caesar, directed by humbly yours!  (see poster)

Spring slowly crept in and is almost gone.  It is my pleasure to change some of  my pics here to reflect the season.  There are hyacinths, lilies, tulips, columbines, etc. in my garden and yes, they are all perennials.  I always marvel at the fact that there is so much life beneath the earth during the deep winter.  All I did was planting once, and these flowers come back year after year.  

Whilst I am writing, I am waiting for my Japanese sponge cake to be cooled – how can I leave you with no mentioning of food!

This is a new recipe that I am trying – absolutely no oil!  The original recipe is attached here.  I did not have caster sugar, so I just used the organic sugar that I have.  I also don’t know what it means by “the eggbeater leaves a thin ribbon”, so I just beat the egg and sugar mixture for around 12 minutes as suggested.  The result – the center collapsed a bit too much, but it smells good and I can’t wait to taste it.

Happy 1st of May and this is my month.  I hope I will not let you wait too long for my next blog.  Meantime, make the best use of each new day and don’t forget to try something new whenever you can, like me.

Lion’s Head

Do you know Chinese people love meatballs too?  Yes, and the Chinese style meatball dish called Lion’s Head (獅子頭) has a long history, it is a dish good enough for the royals!

After yesterday’s turkey egg pancake rendition, I have about 2.5 lb turkey minced meat left and tonight I have two hungry boys to feed.

The traditional Lion’s Head used pork and must be about 60% lean, 40% fat.  However, nobody eats so much fat any more.  The most famous kind of Lion’s Head is firstly deep fried and then braised in stork.  Again, who has the time to make stork?!  And deep frying?!  No way – I almost never deep fry anything, except stir fry.

So here is my very yummy and speedy version – it is another East meets West!

Open a can of Campbell great for cooking Cream of Chicken soup, yes, your heard it right.  I meant to use chicken broth but I am running out, so I went ahead and tried something new.  I will give tips later if you are using chicken broth.

Put it in your wok and add one can of water, so it is just as if you are preparing the soup.
Using an ice-cream scoop, scoop up balls of meat and gradually drop them into the soup.  (For marinating instruction, please see the previous post.)  I did about 12 balls.

Simmer the balls a little bit before you check to see if they are formed, do not stir too much.  After about 10 minutes, they should be quite well cooked, put in sliced nappa cabbage, some chopped garlic, ginger and scallions, cover and cook for another 5 minutes.  Finally, cut well soaked vermicelli into 2-inch lengths and drop them in.  Stir gradually, cover and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.  You can tell if vermicelli becomes transparent, it is ready.  

Please note vermicelli is like any noodle, it absorbs liquid like a sponge.  Serve the dish immediately with rice.  If you let it sit for too long, the whole dish may become very mushy.  You should also consume the whole dish in one sitting.
 
If you are using chicken broth instead of canned cream soup, the sauce is clear rather than creamy.  If you want, you can thicken the chicken broth by adding some corn starch, make sure you keep stirring when you add the corn starch.  Otherwise, you can still enjoy this dish as if it is a dish with soup.

We three finished the whole thing and someone almost wanted to lick the dish, yum!

Turkey Meats Corn and Eggs say Pancake

Wow!  What kind of title is that?

Don't we all jumble our words from time to time?  Don't we all, as mothers, when we open the pantry door or the fridge and say - what can I cook tonight?  This does not seem to go with that and; there, there's a left over baked potato from 2 nights ago ......

Tonight is one of those nights, with Senior being away, my fridge is half empty; and I just marinated a 3 lb package of minced turkey meat which was on sale - I stared at the bowl for a long time and wah la, a light bulb turned on!

Bottom line: I only want to cook one dish and it should contain some of this minced meat and vegetables.

I remembered a dish that my mom would make for us when she was in the mood for extra work.  It is called 煎蛋角(mini pan fried savory egg pancakes).  It is made with fish paste and eggs.  I quickly got to work and here I present to you, my version of pan fried mini pancake with minced turkey meat, frozen corn, mashed potato, and eggs.

Marinate the minced meat with salt, soya sauce, pinch of sugar, cooking wine and corn starch.  About half a pound of meat is good enough for 2-3 servings.  Mash one cooked potato and mix with meat, add about half a cup of frozen corn too.  For added flavor, I also chopped up some cilantro and garlic real fine and mixed them in.  Finally, I cracked 3 eggs and mixed in with all these ingredients.  

Heat the pan with some olive oil, spoon in the mixture as if you are frying pancakes.  Pressing flat the pancake a little bit, this way it is quicker for the pancake to be cooked through.  Have patient, do not turn the pan cakes until they are well formed.  You might want to turn the fire to medium or medium low.  You only need to turn it once.  Just be sure both sides are golden brown and all meats are evenly cooked through.

Remember, you can substitute meat with fish paste which you can find in the butcher or the frozen section in a Chinese grocery store.   You can also substitute cilantro with scallion.  If you are using fish, don't add the potato or the corn.  I added the potato because I really happened to have an old cooked potato sitting in my fridge.  Also, very important: if you are using fish paste, stir in only one direction.

Serve with soya sauce for dipping.  I did not need to dip as it is already very flavorful.  Junior ate two big bowls of rice with many pancakes and lots of soya sauce.  We had a great dinner.  I hope you will try this out and let me know whether you like it.

Simple Pleasure – Mrs. Fun’s Home-style Sticky Rice

Our stomach is a creature of habit, don’t you agree?  I don’t know since when, but my stomach would crave for rice if I don’t eat it for a few days.  

On occasions when it is necessary for me to go on for a few days without eating rice, like going on a retreat, the first thing I’d do when I get home is to hit my rice cooker.

The rice cooker is really my good friend.  I have gone through a number of different rice cookers in my life time and this latest one I own is a special kind made in China.  The inner pot is made of clay/stone, whereas if you buy a more regular kind in places like Bed Bath or Costco, the inner pot is usually made of aluminum or alloy of the likes.

Do you know you can use the rice cooker to cook different things?  You can use it like an electric cooker.  Say if you just add some hot water, after it is boiled, you can use it to cook ramen noodles.  That’s what a lot of college students do.  You can use it like a steamer and steam food right on top of the rice, or steam other food with the attachment that is provided by the rice cooker.  My current rice cooker also comes with an attachment for you to steam a sponge cake – which I have never tried yet.

Today, let’s talk about how you can cook sticky rice.  Now, if you don’t have a rice cooker, you can use stove top, or you can use a steamer.  

Before cooking, you have to soak some Chinese dried mushroom, at least for a few hours, if not overnight.  Cut off the stem before you soak them.  An hour or so before the cooking time, also soak some dried shrimp with hot water to make them soft.  The other two ingredients are lean Chinese sausage and scallions.  (See picture)  You can get all these from any Chinese grocery store.  Finely diced all these ingredients, as shown in the other picture.

Prepare the rice: I usually do half and half – half regular rice and half sticky rice (glutinous rice).  Say if you use two cups of rice, then add two cups of sticky rice.  Following the direction of your rice cooker as to how much water to use to cook the rice.
You can use all sticky rice, but that makes the texture really sticky and rather difficult to handle.  It is all up to you.  I find the mix of half and half just right for me.

My rice cooker has a feature to beep when the water of the rice starts boiling, that is the time for you to add the mushroom, dried shrimp and sausage.  If yours does not have the beep, or you are using stove top, watch when the water of the rice brings to a boil and add these ingredients.

After the rice cooker has done its job, let’s wait for at least 10 to 15 more minutes before you open the lid.  That way, you can be assured that all ingredients are nicely cooked and steamed through.

Add the scallions, then add some sesame oil, soya sauce and white pepper to taste.  Mix all these real nice with the rice ladle or wooden spoon, or both.  The mixing is quite a work out, so be patient.

Junior and Senior both love a lot of soya sauce and they usually do that after they scoop the rice to their own bowls.  I personally prefer milder taste.  

Sticky rice is a pretty popular dish if you go to Chinese Dim Sum (see my earlier post titled “Drinking Tea, Touching Heart”).  It may come wrapped in lotus leaves, or come in a stir-fried style.  The wrapped kind would taste similar to mine, soft and easy to consume.  The rice in the stir-fried style is much harder and more difficult to digest.  I can never eat too much of that.

This is another one of my favorite home style dish.  I tried a few times using this prepared sticky rice to substitute turkey stuffing.  The rice tasted so good after absorbing all the fats and juices from the turkey, it was heavenly!  

Return to Basics – Simple Utensils, Simple Ingredients

After writing my last post, I always thought about the old days.  Comparing my kitchen with my mom’s, it is way too luxurious to the point of wasteful.  It goes with a lot of things nowadays if we compare us to people living in the 18th or 19th centuries.

For example, I have a whole walk-in closet all to myself.  I have clothes enough to see me to my dying days!  I have over 100 pairs of shoes (this is a rough estimate, I dare not count and don’t tell anyone!), I think.  What else?  Simply too much stuff every where, sigh.

I remember my mom just had two gas stove tops, a big pot for soup, a wok and may be another smaller pot for cooking.  Her seasoning: salt, sugar, soya sauce, vinegar and corn starch, and may be some cooking wine.  And best of all, she always cooked with her long chopsticks!  She would cook her whole chicken in the wok, marinated with soya sauce and sugar – lots of ginger and garlic.  Yes, if you want to try, that’s all you need.  By the way, she was one of those women who could start from scratch – I mean really from the killing to the de-feathering to the gutting out the you-know-what and to the cooking.  I witnessed that many times!

Compared to her, I am very “chicken” (meaning not brave at all).  I would not even chop up a whole chicken.  Yes, do you know the Chinese people will chop up a whole chicken with the bones and all?  They don’t do carving, they do chopping – we are a violent and savage kind of people.  We chew the bones and eat chicken feet; by the way, that is one of my favorites!

Here is a dish I tried the other day reminiscing my mom’s technique.  It is called Potato Chicken Stew 薯仔燜雞.  Look how I just used a pair of long chopsticks to do my cooking.

The Chinese people see potato as a vegetable more than a staple, and we use potatoes quite a bit in our dishes – and then we serve them with rice – yes, a lot of carbs!  This is never a health food blog and I will never claim to be a health nut.  I can never abandon my traditions.

Simple ingredients: marinate some chicken wings with cooking wine, soya sauce, crated garlic and ginger; cut up one or two small onions and 6-8 medium potatoes.

Heat the wok with some cooking oil and stir fry the chicken wings till both sides are browned, add some water and put in the remaining of the ingredients.  If you use the long chopsticks to cook, you are as good as me; if not, just use any regular turner or a wooden spoon.  Cover it whilst you prepare the sauce: soya sauce, sugar and corn starch stirred in cold water.  Corn starch is always the medium to make the brown sauce; the brown color comes from the soya sauce.

As to the proportions, you really have to play with it.  Let’s say start with 2 tbsp of soya sauce to half tbsp of sugar and 1 tbsp of corn starch.  This is a really rough suggestion as I never measure when I cook.  Tips: start smaller, it is easier to add water if it is too thick. If you start out with too much water, you have to keep adding on the corn starch to make the sauce thick.

Pour in the sauce, let’s cook it for about 5 minutes on medium and check the consistency of the sauce.  If you like it, cover and cook the whole thing for another 15-20 minutes.  Make adjustments if necessary by either adding more water or more corn starch.  Taste the sauce too, and see if it is to your liking, otherwise add more soya sauce or more sugar.  This is a savory dish, so the sugar is just to balance the taste, not to overpower the savory soya sauce taste.

So here you are - a very filling and comforting dish, serve it with lots of white rice.  I remember when we were young; our six siblings would fight to lick the dish.  Try it, it is really fun!

The Story Must Be Told

Not all cooking story ends well, and this one is particularly cruel and sad.  if you are not ready for some tears, please don’t read this post.  

When I was born, our family lived in a house that was situated in a big court yard behind a temple in Wanchai, Hong Kong.  You heard it right, a temple where people actually came and burned incense and worship the idols.  Apart from doing different businesses, my father had involved in being something like a Taoist priest or a Buddhist monk (sans the bald head appearance).  That's why he was able to strike a deal with the owner of the temple to let our 3-generation family of nine to stay in the big house.  Big but not anything grand - I was too young to remember details of the architecture but I do remember we had to put out buckets on strong rainy days.  The court yard was heaven to us kids, it must be around the size of one tenth of an acre or so.  Small in American standard but huge in Hong Kong - Hong Kong has an area of 426.3 sq. miles and has a population of over 7 million people.

There was a slope at the back of the court yard leading up to a road, many a night our father would get off from the bus and just hopped down from that slope to greet us, he did not bother to use the proper walkway.  It was in this bushy slope where he caught a mother rabbit that brought us children joy for many months.

Father had a slight limping on his left foot, he got hurt when the Japanese bombed his hometown in China during world war II.  So when I said hopping, he was literally hopping because of his limping.  For him to be able to catch the rabbit was because she was too heavy to move fast.  Not long after that, she gave birth to seven cuties inside our made shift cage.  The four of us, my two older sisters, my #4 brother and I, were totally enchanted to witness the beautiful lives and touch the soft fluffiness. I have a #1 brother but he was put under the charge of a family friend who was supposed to tutor him and gave him a head start in life.  Now looking back, none of us liked that arrangement.  It took a long time for us to get along when he moved back as a teen and we had many episodes of bad quarrels.  

Very soon, our lives were centered around these seven beautiful creatures.  We would rush home every day after school to tend to them.  We played with them and even had rabbit races.  Since I was the youngest, I only got to keep one, and each of them had two.  

The four of us became quite famous in the neighborhood because we have “pets”.  You see, because of tight spaces and all, having pets are not as common as in America.  I still remember one very dramatic chapter when we had to chase after several bullies because they kidnapped one of our baby rabbits, put it in a paper bag and refused to give it back.  It was too long ago for me to remember what they had wanted.  However, I remember this scene vividly: we rallied quite a big number of the neighborhood kids and chased the bullies all the way to the top of the stairs of our local post office.  Our voices were so loud that the officials from the post office came out and queried them.  We got our rabbit back and we felt quite heroic and triumphant.
 
Hong Kong is probably one of the best managed city in the world.  The Government, from very early days, had foreseen great influxes of immigrants from China and other regions.  These people were actually welcomed as they provided an excellent supply of labor.  Instead of allowing folks to stay in made shift huts which could be very hazardous, the Government would build blocks and blocks of high rises to house them.  

We were not one of those despondent immigrants but my father thought it would be great if we could also move into one of those very low costs housings instead of suffering the old house that badly needed repair.  He pulled some strings and we got fortunate.  We were allowed to move in one of those buildings with toilets and drains, etc. slightly before my first grade.  Did I forget to mention that we were using well water and no flushing toilets in the temple house?

The evening before our big moving day, we were celebrating with a big feast.  A few tables of extended family members and friends were invited.  After we got back from school – something was very wrong.  Where were the rabbits?

It is suffice to say that all four of us did not eat a single bit of dinner that evening.  We were not even allowed to be dismissed from the table.  We held up and cried all the while they were enjoying their delicious meals.

I am retelling this story not to point fingers at our parents.  I love them very much.  They were hard working folks who did their best for the six of us.  None of us parents were given any user manuals when we had our kids.  For a set of parents who did not even graduated from their elementary schools, we were very fortunate to turn out quite well.

The Asian concept of treating pets and animals are just quite different from the West.  Parents in the old days also did not pay much attention to children’s emotional needs.  They would actually do something quite tough and strict in order to set an example or teach us a lesson.  My parents are passed now and I can retell this story with fond memories of them.  I am so glad that I became a Christian before I got married.  Although I also have so many flaws, at least I have the Bible as my user manual to raise my kids.

So you know now, if you are cooking that particular type of meat, don’t invite me to dinner.  

The Mystery of Fried Rice

 

 

It gives me pleasure that I got a request to write about something that I think is second nature to me – how to cook Fried Rice?!

As far as I remember, I have been cooking fried rice for eons – I can do it with my left hand, I can do it with my eyes closed, I can just do IT without too much thinking!

It took me by surprise, of course, when I needed to chronicle everything in order to write my blog, that after all, making a great dish of fried rice is actually not as simple.  I just find it no big deal because I have been doing it forever.

So for the beginners, if you see all these fancy pictures – don’t panic.  I am introducing here a more “advanced” level of fried rice.  You see, I have certain standard to keep, right?  If my pictures are not colorful enough, I might be scolded by Fun junior.  To cook a dish of fried rice can have just three to four basic ingredients, or you can add as many as you can assemble in your fridge.

Now to start this dish, it is with the basic understanding that you already know how to cook rice.  If you don’t know how to cook rice on stove top, don’t ask me, because even I just cook rice with a rice cooker.  You can get a decent rice cooker for as low as 20 bucks.

The best rice to use for fried rice is old rice you store in the fridge, you can store rice for up to 4 or 5 days in a closed container.  You can even freeze cooked rice and reserve for later use.  I normally keep each night’s left over rice in a container, and after a few days, I might have enough old rice to cook a dish of fried rice for lunch.

The other two recommended basic ingredients are eggs and green beans.  They are nutritious and add just the right color to the rice.  If you eat scallions, dice them and it will add a special flavor too.  However, I knew this little girl who would pick out each and every piece of green beans and scallions before she consumed the rice, so you have to know your audience before you prepare.  The bottom line is: you can add whatever vegetables and meat, finely diced, and egg is a must.

Here in the picture, I have garlic, scallions, bell peppers, celery and ham.  I will only use frozen green beans or frozen mixed vegetables when I run out of fresh ingredients.  Use oil to prepare the wok and stir fry the garlic, bell peppers and celery just so they are somewhat cooked and tender.  I will withhold the ham and scallions as ham is already cooked and scallions only need very little cooking time.  However, if you are using frozen veggies and frozen rice, you should stir fry them first.  Put these all aside.

Beat the eggs slightly as if you are preparing scramble eggs, oil the wok and pour the eggs in, do not stir them.  Meantime, you should use a fork to loosen the old rice.  If you are slow in doing this process, loosen the rice before you do the eggs.  You must loosen the rice because old rice tends to stick together.  Do not add water to separate rice because you do not want the dish to become mushy.
This is probably the most important process for a successful dish, so pay attention.  When the eggs are half cooked, pour in the rice over the eggs, now stir and mix the eggs and the rice.  In doing so, you are doing two things – coating the rice with the uncooked eggs and cutting up the cooked eggs into small portions.  Pay attention to the heat setting, if you are working not as fast as me, you might want to use a low to medium setting to allow yourself more time.  Otherwise, the eggs will become over cooked.  I generally keep the heat to medium or medium high because I work very fast.

After the rice and eggs are mixed and cooked through, pour in all the rest of the ingredients, stir fry some more and add soya sauce, salt & pepper, and maybe garlic powder and ginger powder.  The seasoning process is really up to you, if you need to watch your salt intake, the ham already gives you enough.  Some people will add fish sauce, some will even add ketchup.  

This is my home cooking version and is pretty time tested.  When you eat out, you may come across different kinds of fried rice.  Pineapple and ham are a good combination, but you have to watch that the pineapple is drained of excess water.  If you want to use tomato, make sure you take away the seeds and the liquid inside.  The main key to a successful dish of fried rice is to keep it as dry as possible.  The more liquid content you put in, it will change the consistency of the dish.  One more thing, if you are vegetarian, a good substitute for ham is fried bean curd or marinated bean curd.  Diced them and add to the fried rice.

Garnish with cilantro or as you can see in my picture here, I have some cute mini red bell peppers.  Fried rice can be a simple lunch, or if you serve with soup & salad, quite a satisfying dinner.  Let me know if you have success, or what other variations you come up with.  Till next time!

Hot Pot to the Rescue!

The temperature is freezing and the wind is howling.  The wind chill factor was so high that I literally felt my fingers frozen today as I wheeled the shopping cart to my car.  After I got into the car, for a brief moment, memory from childhood flashed back.  I did not grow up in a place where there was something called heat.  

Hone Kong is a sub tropical city and the temperature rarely goes below 60 degree F. even in winter.  However, there is still some chance that when a cold front hits, the temperature can go below 50 F and even below 40 F.  

On many of those evenings, my mom would gather us around the kitchen stove and we would eat hot pots.  As we got older, things got more sophisticated and my dad would bring in some sort of gas stove, we would gather around the dining table, with the hot pot in the center, and the whole family will enjoy the warmth as well as the yummy food.  Nowadays, the most popular style of hot pot is probably the electric kind as it is the safest.  There is also no need to worry about the gas running low.

Depending on what region you come from, the kind of food, the soup base and the sauces used for hot pot can vary a lot.  

I am Cantonese from Hong Kong and we tend to prepare our soup base with fresh produce and almost no spices.  People from the northern region of China, or even people from Taiwan tend to put a lot of condiments and spices in their soup.  I always start my hot pot with some chicken bouillon in water, and then I would cut up some pieces of daikon, carrots, or even pumpkin (I eat these too once they are cooked).  This will make the soup base very “sweet”.  Bottom line is, there is no strict rule for soup base, even a pot of hot water will do.  

Let’s rewind now and talk about what to buy for the hot pot.  Again, there are a lot of choices.  For meat lovers, you will find in either the Chinese or Korean grocery stores; there are a lot of pre-packaged, very thin sliced meats: beef, chicken, pork, etc.  They are not marinated.  The reason for the thin slicing is that it will be cooked almost instantly once it is immersed in the hot pot.  For seafood lovers, some people would prepare shelled shrimps, oysters, squids etc.  These require more cleaning and slicing and since we are not big seafood fans, we usually would go for fish balls, tofu-fish balls, beef balls, or any kind of frozen whatever balls, ready to be cooked.  H-Mart in Edison, NJ has a big selection of prepared “balls” or fish products especially for hot pot.

Our family loves lots of vegetables for our hot pot.  Different kinds of mushrooms and fresh vegetables like watercress, yu-choy, bok-choy, etc. are used.  Tofu or bean curd products are also very popular.  I guess you can be as creative as you want and try to incorporate food that you like to be cooked.

The final main thing that we need to address is a must – the sauces!  When we do hot pot, what everyone needs are two bowls.  One is for mixing the sauce, and one is for holding the food you ladle out from the hot pot.  You see, when you get freshly cooked food from the hot pot, it carries quite a bit of water, you do not want to put the food directly to your sauce bowl lest the sauce will be diluted very fast.  Instead you want to bring the sauce to your food bowl.

So how are we going to prepare the sauce?  Again, it runs the whole gamut – to name a few – soya sauce, sa cha sauce, vinegar, hoi sin sauce, miso, sesame oil, oyster sauce, chili sauce, etc., you can experiment and be as playful as you want.  What I like to do is I always cut up finely some garlic, scallion, ginger and cilantro for people to put liberally on their individual sauce.  Try to experiment with different combinations and come up with your favorite individualized sauce.

So let’s recap, first you go to the grocery store and get all the ingredients that you like to use, make sure you have all the sauces too.  When you get home, whilst the hot water and soup base is being prepared on the table, wash all the vegetables, chop up the garlic, etc. and put out the sauces for every one to choose.  After everyone get their sauces, the soup base should be ready.  Let’s get around the table and start putting the food in.  Pay attention some food cooks faster than others, and always watch that when raw meat is added, wait until the meat turns color and the water boils again before you consume the other food that is in the hot pot at the same time.  Don’t try to put too much food in all at once, it is always more enjoyable to cook some and eat some.  Of course to aid getting out the food, a ladle and a pair of common chopsticks would help.  There are also specially designed wired ladles for hot pots.  I am sure you can  find them in Asian grocery stores.

Definitely hot pot is not something you should eat in a hurry, it is something for everyone to be involved and enjoy.  After all, what better way to spend a cold winter evening by gathering around a hot pot, enjoy freshly cooked food and warm lasting conversations.
It will certainly drive away any winter blues but bring in toasty warm feet.