Creamy Tomato pasta

I sort of made up this recipes when I bought the wrong pot of cream. I wanted to get those really yummy thickened cream, but instead I grabbed the cream cheese for cooking! So I thought why not add it to this bolognaise sauce I was making and Voila!! I think it tasted like Lasagne with out the layers and the cream it was soo good!

What you need:

500 g of mince beef
a bag of pasta (this time I used macaroni)
1 large onions
1 can of Watties Tomato and garlic
3 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper
sugar
mix herbs
chicken stock (for extra oomph)
a chunk of Butter

Boil the pasta with a little oil and salt, I think the oil help so that the pasta won't stick together. Once the pasta is Al Dente, strain and rinse with cold water and set aside.

Heat a pan or pot or what ever you prefer to cook the meat in, as long as you make sure there is enough room to mix the pasta in. I like to use butter to cook the garlic and the onions because it smells so good!


So after the onions and the garlic are fragrant, fried the mince and add the salt and pepper, chicken stock and mix herb. When the mince is half cook, you can add the canned tomatoes and the sugar.



Cook through and then add the pasta. Simmer for a few minutes to make sure that all the taste are absorbed by the pasta.Stir in the Cream cheese just before you turn off the heat.

Zoe's Pork and prawn Shumai

Zoe is a girl who works at this Yum cha place in Taiwan. Her job is to make those yummy yummy dim sum. She happened to visit her cousin in NZ who happens to be a good friend of mine. So here is it! It is actually very very simple, and its nice.

What you need:

Thin Wonton wrapper
200 g Skinless prawn
150 g Pork mince
150 g Fatty pork mince
1 Tbs Sesame oil
1 Tbs fish sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp chicken stock
1/2 tsp pepper

What to do:

Roughly chop the prawn into chunks and combine all the ingredient above. You can also add some finely chopped chinese mushroom if you wish. I didn't put any this time because I was lazy.

Once they are mixed well, use a table spoon to measure a scoop of shumai mix and place them on a piece of wonton skin and wrap it into small shumai parcels.

While you were doing all the mixing and the wrapping, you can actually start preparing the steamer. What I mean by that is boiling the water. So when your shumai is ready, the steamer will be nice and hot! You can use this steamer or any other steamer you have at home. I was very happy with my $6 steamer I bought in this chinese shop on dominion Road.

Arrange the shumai in the steamer like this

And steam for about 10 minutes. and TADAAAAAA.... enjoy them with chili and soy sauce

Lia's Mapo Tofu

I love love love Mapo Tofu.. I think that would be one of my Fave Chinese dish that I actually cook on a regular basis. Not only that its easy, it is also very fast to do.. As long as you have your rice then you are all good to go. Its really super easy.. almost everything you need is in this photo.

Ingredient:
150 g of lean mince pork (you can use chicken or beef if you like)
1 box of firm Tofu (not too hard but the one in water)
1 Tbs of starch (you can use corn flour too)
2 Tbs of fish sauce
2 cloves of garlic
4Tbs of sesame oil
1 Tbs of Gulilin chili sauce
1 ts of Chili oil (I like the chicken flavour)
1 C Water
Salt, pepper and a bit of sugar to taste
spring onions

What to do:

I like to marinade the mince first with fish sauce and pepper before I do anything else. Then mix it well with the starch. Be generous with the 1 table spoon, as long as it looked like a dough then its all good.

While the meat is marinated, chop the garlic into tiny pieces. and cut your tofu into squares. I cut them into decent squares so they don't go completely mushed when you cook them.

Heat your pot and fry the garlic with the sesame oil. Once they become fragrant, and slightly coloured add the gulilin chili sauce and the chili oil in the pot and fried for a little while. Add some soy sauce and let it simmer for a few second before you add the mince. Cook the mince well and add your tofu cube. DO NOT stir too much. Add the water and let it simmer.

At this stage all the juice and the sauce should be incorporated well in the tofu. Add salt and sugar and taste. If need be, you can add extra fish sauce at this stage. Turn down the heat and let it simmer for a few minutes. Mix one and a half tea spoon of starch with 3 table spoon of water in a small bowl. Add it to the simmering tofu and stir gently. add slice spring onions before serving.

Creamy Chicken pasta

I pinched this recipes of Claire, I am not sure where she got this one from. One day Charu and I were invited to come over for diner at Claire's place. We had this for dinner with a glass of Riesling... they go really well together I thought or Sav if you like Sav





1 bag of pasta
2 cloves of garlic
1medium onions
a bag of silver beet or spinach
4 slices of shoulder bacon
2 boneless and skinless chicken thigh
500ml of cream
Salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese
70g of silvered Almond

Boil water in a big pot with some salt and olive oil. I put olive oil in so that when you rinse your pasta afterward they won't stick together so much. you don't have to do it if you don't want to that's fine too. Boil your pasta until its cook but a little harder than Al-dante ( I don't know how to spell this sorry). Rinse with cold water and set aside.

While the pasta was boiling, I started cutting out the white bits form the silver beets. I like to remove most of the white bits on the silver beet, I don't really like it so that why i cut it out. Cut the leaf, wash and set aside.


Chop the garlic and slice the onions. I was being good today that I trimmed the fat off the bacon! *yay for me!* and cut the chicken into chunks. Actually you can do what ever you want here.


Heat a big pot or big wok or pan and add some Olive oil just enough to fry the garlic and onions until they are fragrant. Then add the bacon and the chicken. At this point i added a bit of salt and pepper and a little bit of chicken stock powder to season the meat. Once they look half cooked you can add the sliver beet and close the lid.


Cook in low heat for a few minutes. Add the pasta in and mix well.


Once the pasta is mixed thoroughly, you can then add the cream let it simmer for a bit. This is why I suggest to under cook the pasta at the beginning.

Once its almost ready you can add some cheese or if you have Parmesan the go wild with the Parmesan. I was lucky to have a friend that work at fontera, She gave me a block of Parmesan cheese.. nom nom nom!

Hamburg steak Lia's style

Nia (my ex flat mate) and I were randomly watching you-tube one night and found this "How to" channel and one of the video was how to make a Japanese hamburg steak . I can't remember which video it was I would have modified it anyway to make it simple and quick.

Ingredients:

500g premium mince beef (I like it because it's lean)
2 -3 cloves of garlic (depending on the size)
1 medium onion
1 large egg
1/2 cup of bread crumbs
a good squirt of Japanese mayo
2 tbs of soy sauce (kikoman style soy sauce)
1/2 ts of sugar
a little pinch of Dashi (japanese bonito stock)
a little pinch of pepper

What to do:

I actually baked these hamburg steak in the oven.. they became a little dry, but its not bad... you can of course bake them covered to keep them moist or pan-fried them would be another option and in summer... they are great on the BBQ.

Chopped the garlic and the onions (fine) and combine all the ingredients in a large bowl except for the bread crumbs. You might want to wear swimming goggle, I personally hate chopping onions, it always makes me cry, You can always use those fancy blender like magic bullet or something.

Add the bread crumbs. You don't have to add all of your bread crumbs at this stage, you can also add more, it depends on the softness of your mince, the size of your egg, how big if you mayo squirt etc. So as long as you can make them in to a round firm dough, then its all good! If you find that you add too much bread crumbs and your dough feels abit too hard, you can always add extra mayo to soften it up a little.

Then make it into hamburger patties, just like this and bake, or fried or what ever you want to do with them really.. you can also freeze them for rainy days :)

Broccoli and Blue cheese soup

I came up with this recipes when was sick with the flu. I think it was last winter sometimes... that day I was wondering around the supermarket cold isle looking for those ready made soup in a bag. I was originally looking for those creamy country chicken soup but there was none! I was rather disappointed actually,then I saw this bag of broccoli and blue cheese soup and i thought to my self "YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMM" So I proceed to read the ingredient written on the bag, as I do because I am a compulsive reader and I read anything when I realised that "oh its simple and I have most of the stuff at home, apart from the blue cheese" So instead of buying the bag I went home with a thing of blue cheese and a thing of French stick!

What you need:

1 small leek
4 medium potatoes
2 clove of garlic
5 florets of broccoli (i used frozen ones today)
a dash of butter
a small wedge of blue cheese
a can of evaporated milk (you can use 250 ml cream)
Salt and black pepper to taste

What to do:

Chopped garlic and slice the leek and potatoes thinly (you might want to leave the cut potatoes in salt water to prevent it going brown). I only used the white stuff, I didn't really want to inclube the green stuff because it looked a bit yucky. Melt some butter in a pot and fried the chopped garlic until it goes golden and fragrant. Then add the sliced leek. Once they look cooked and smell nice, you can add a little bit of water to the pot and add the thinly sliced potato and broccoli. Boil for a few minutes.

Once they are soft add the blue cheese and let it melt. At this stage if the pot is getting dry due to liquid evaporation then add the milk/cream. Simmer in low heat for a few minutes until the blue cheese melted. I then used a hand blender to destroy all the chunky bits in the soup ( I turned off the heat during this demolition procedure). Once everything is not so chunky anymore, add a pinch of salt and black pepper to taste. TADAAAAAAA its done!! Its a good winter soup!

Lia's Style Hainaneese Chicken Rice

I love this dish! For some reason this is one of my fave home cooked dish! When I was flatting with Nia she used to cook this chicken heaps! I think she learned this recipes form her mom. I won't say its quick and easy but Its not bad! It took me about an hour to cook this food for lunch today. which is not bad.. considering how many things you need to prepare for it aye. I am puting down the recipes for 1 whole chicken, that was what I did today. If you don't want to use whole chicken its fine too, you can totally use chicken pieces. The reason why I used whole chicken today was that a size 16 chicken was on special in count down only $10 and I can't resist. LOL Anyway now I am sort of still having a temporary flatmate, I can cook for 2! yay! So you can adjust the rest for smaller portion :)

Ingredient:

1 x Size 16 whole chicken
a thumb size garlic
1.5 Liter of water
1 ts of salt

Chicken seasoning
1.5 bulbs of garlic (~ 10 cloves)
10 cm ginger
10 Tbs Sesame oil
4 Tbs cooking oil
6 Tbs fish sauce (please adjust according to your liking)

Rice Seasoning
1 packet of Prima taste Hainaneese chicken rice pouch
2 cups of rice
6 Shiitake mushroom (I used fresh ones, you can use the dried ones if you like)
1 ts sugar
3 Tbs of fish sauce

What to do:

Add water in a big pot and the chicken. Peel and slice your ginger and add it together with the salt. Boil on high with open lid until water is boil, then lower the heat and close the lid and boil for another 20 minutes. Turn it off and close the lid, leave to settle for another 20 minutes. the heat of the water will cook the chicken thoroughly.

Chop garlic (extra fine) and grate the ginger. If you prefer you can put them together in a blender. Heat a pan with 4 Tbs of cooking oil and fry the garlic ginger mix on low heat. Add the sesame oil gradually. Once they turn golden brown add the fish sauce. Make sure to remove from the heat straight away after the addition of the fish sauce, because it will burn the mixture faster.

Cooking the rice is the easiest bit. Cut the shiitake mushroom as desired. then mix 1 pouch of the prima taste fragrant hainaneese rice seasoning, sugar and fish sauce with the rice. Instead of using water to cook the rice, use the Chicken stock from the boiled chicken. Cook in the rice cooker as per normal.

So once the chicken seasoning is cooked, I de-boned the chicken and add the seasoning to the chicken and mix it well. At this stage if you think you need abit more taste, you can always add extra sesame oil, fish sauce or sugar.


This is what the rice looked like after cooking... at this point i like to mix the rice so the yummy mushroom are evenly distributed in the rice. Serve the rice with the chicken and any asian vegies, such as Bok choi, Choi sam or Gai lan. Anyway.. below are my left over for lunch tomorrow! YAY!

Simple Moroccan Meat Balls

I really like to cook this when I was still flatting during my undergrad years... Because it's quick, easy and cheap. When you are a student quick, easy and cheap is definitely the way to go. This meal is one of those random recipes I created because these particular ingredient was loitering the pantry and the fridge. The key to this dish is the Watties Moroccan style tomatoes in a can! If you can't find this in your supermarket, you can add extra olives, cumin and extra helping of that Cajun spice to give it that extra zing to a plain can tomatoes.

Ingredient:

• 500g Prime beef mince (i think it would be yum yum with lamb mince too, I have never tried it though, its quite hard to find lamb mince)
• 2 cloves of garlic
  
• 2 ts of Cajun spices
• 2 tbs flour
• Salt and pepper
• Sugar
• 1 egg
• Olive oil
  
• 1 large onion
• 1 can of Watties Moroccan style tomatoes
  

What to do:

1. Chopped garlic into fine pieces and combine with the mince, Cajun spices, flour and egg, Add a dash of salt, pepper and sugar. Mix well and make little balls.
2. Pan fried the meat balls in olive oils and pat dry on tissue.
3. Chopped some onions in any way you like, and used the remaining oil on the pan to fry the onions until they are slightly transparent.
4. Add the meat balls and add the can of Watties Moroccan style tomatoes and simmer for a few minutes.
5. You can season with salt and pepper and a little bit of sugar to make sure they are yummy!

You can eat them with rice, or mash potatoes, even with some chippies or wedges. I think it would be nice with warm Turkish bread and some salad on the side :)

Banana bread

I am one of those people who always have a good intention of eating fruits but never got around to it.. I ended up with a bunch or rotten fruits >_< So this time i bought some bananas to eat with my morning cereal (I've decide to start eating cereal again FAIL!!!) and Someone gave me a whole bunch of extra bananas.. which i didn't eat and it started to look really yucky. So I was being smart.. before those bananas went rotten... I chucked a whole lot of them in the freezer with banana bread in mind. After choosing the recipes on Google, I settled for this banana bread recipe. I did change a little bit since i made 2 loaves of bread... and I forgot to add the salt. But I thought it turned out ok ^_^

Ingredients

• 6 ripe bananas, Defrosted and smashed
• 2X 1/3 cup melted butter
• 2.5 cup sugar
  
• 2 egg, beaten
• 2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt (which I forgot)
  
• 3 cups of all-purpose flour

Method

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). The original recipes said there is no need for a mixer for this recipe but I used it mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl and the to in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Shift flour and baking soda in a different bowl and add into the wet mixture using a wooden spoon. Pour mixture into 2 buttered loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Soon doo boo Jjigae (soft tofu soup)

I actually find this recipe supper yummy!I made it last friday, my friend Irma came over for dinner and she said she was craving for soft tofu soup. i didn't quite follow the instruction.. I know being a scientist you meant to be able to follow protocols to the dots! but I figure a little bucket chemistry in cooking won't hurt. Here is the Original recipes, I took it from Mangchi's korean cooking blog.

Ingredients:

• 12 dried anchovies
• kelp (about 3 cm x 20 cm cut into pieces) half onion, 5 cloves of garlic, 3 shiitake mushrooms
  
• 50 grams of mince, 1 cup of mixed seafood,
  
• 2 green onions, 2 chili pepper
  
• 2-5 tbs of korean hot pepper flakes
• sesame oil, 2 tubes of soon du bu
  
• 4 tbs of fish sauce, and 4 eggs
• Salt, sugar and some magic powder

How to prepare the stock

1. Pour 5 cups of water into a pot and boil
   
2. I put the anchovies, kelp and garlic in one of those tea pouch before i put them in the boiling water so i don't have to worry about picking them out later.
   
3. Add half onion, 3 dried shiitake mushrooms, boil it over high heat.
4. Approximately 10 minutes later, lower the heat to low medium heat and boil it for another 20 minutes.
5. Set aside the stock, take out the mushrooms and chop them into small pieces.

Making the soup

1. Heat a new pot or if you are going to fancy you can use that earthen korean cook ware
2. Add a dash of sesame oil (you can use normal cooking oil but i love the smell of sesamee oil) and fry the mince until its brown.
   
3. Add 2 tbs – 5 tbs (1/4 cup) of hot pepper flakes and keep stirring for 1 minute. The trick to making good soon doo boo jiegae is not to burn the chili flakes (said Il soo's mom) at this stage you can add extra oil if you think you need more. I like spicy food so i added about 4 table spoon of chili flakes. NOTE: I used this particular chili powder because i have some left over form my kimchi making escapade on the weekend. You don't have to use this but I thought it was quite nice with this one compare to the fine ground chili powder.
4. Once it looked cooked add your mix seafood and mushrooms cooked for about 1 to 2 minutes.
   
5. Add your stock into the pot and season with salt, sugar, fish sauce and magic powder NOTE: You are probably wondering about the crazy magic powder... DUN DUN DUN...
   This is it! The magic Powder. I think They call it Dashida.. It makes everything taste good!
   
6. Add your tofu (you can break it in the pot or you can cut them before hand its up to you)
7. Boil for a few minutes then add Sliced chili, eggs, and sliced spring onions.
8. Drizzled with some sesame oil before serving

There you go! Serve with a bit of rice and Kimchi on the side! It was yummy specially in a rainy winter evening!

I don't have that fancy earthen cookware thing :(

Almost demolished

New cooking blog!

Hello hello... I have decided to start another blog for my fave recipes that I have tried and love over the past years.. these recipes are random recipes that I collected from different sources such as Internet, or from Someone's mom.. Please enjoy it and let me know if its any good I will try to make it straight forward and quick.