Thursday, February 13, 2014

Stuffed Green Peppers


Ingredients
Fish paste (can be bought in Chinese grocery store's freezer aisle)
2 big green peppers
Corn starch (1 tablespoon)
Lee Kam Kee garlic and black bean sauce (2 tablespoons)
1 egg white
White pepper (1 teaspoon)

Steps to cook
1. Cut green peppers in halves, then for each half, cut into quarters, then half of the quarter resulting in about 6 pieces from each half.
2. Scoop out fish paste from container, mix in white pepper, egg white, and corn starch.  This mixture helps to bind the fish paste together and stick really well.  Since you'll be using the garlic and black bean sauce, you don't really need to add any more salt or soy sauce at this point.
3. Prepare some additional corn starch in small bowl for next steps.
4. Before stuffing, coat the inside of pepper with a little cornstarch, this will help the fish paste to stick the peppers.  Then, use a small spoon to stuff fish paste into the pepper.  Make sure not to stuff too much or it won't cook through.
5.  After stuffing fish paste, coat a little corn starch onto fish paste side.  This will help the fish paste not to stick to the pan when frying.
6. After stuffing all the peppers, now frying time.
7. In a non-stick pan, heat up wok in medium heat, put peppers in pan fish paste side down.  Pan fry for a few minutes until golden brown, then flip to other side and cook for a few more minutes.  Flip a couple more times until fish paste feels firm when you press with spatula.  This indicates the fish paste is cooked.  After all peppers are done, remove from wok.
8. Add garlic and black bean sauce in wok, then add the peppers back in, stir fry in sauce for a few minutes, remove from wok.  Done!


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Steamed Egg Made Easy

This is the perfect dish to make whenever you need to add a "third" dish, or just want something other than meat and veggies.  It only takes 5 mins to prep and it's absolutely great for kids.  It has this smooth custard-like texture that's super yummy.  You can add any other ingredients from ground pork to Chinese mushrooms to dried shrimp to this.  It's great when you mix with rice, my kids would just finish their bowl of rice in 5 mins and ask for seconds!


Ingredients
3 eggs
1 salted duck egg
1 cube of chicken bouillon (optional)
A pinch of sugar
Sesame oil
Green onion





Steps to cook
1. Crack salted duck egg and put into bowl.  Use a spoon to mash egg.
2. Crack 3 eggs and add into bowl.  Add bouillon, sugar, then beat everything together with a fork or chop sticks.
3. Add 1.5 cups (exact measurement) of warm water to eggs.  Continue to stir the egg while pouring water.  The ratio is 1 egg to 0.5 cup of water.  This ratio will ensure great consistency.
4. To remove the bubbles on top, lay a piece of paper towel on surface of egg mixture, lightly dab around the whole surface, especially around the rim where the bubbles reside.  Carefully lift towel off.  This will get rid of all the bubbles!
5. Drizzle a little sesame oil on egg mixture, then add chopped green onions.
6. The trick to perfectly smooth looking steamed egg: wrap bowl tightly with plastic wrap (microwavable kind).  This will prevent residual water of the steam from dropping onto the egg making it look like a crater!
7.  Boil water in wok with steam rack in center.  Once water is boiling, put your bowl in wok, covered and steam for 14 minutes.  Voila!  You will end up with the best looking and tasting steamed eggs!

See!  No air pockets inside either!













Sunday, February 2, 2014

Baked Pork Chop Fried Rice


Ingredients: 
4 pork chops (enough for 2 meals)
2 big tomatoes (cut into medium-sized slices)
2 small onions
1 can of tomato basil soup
3 eggs
Shredded cheddar & jack cheese
Soy sauce
Salt 
Sugar
Sesame oil
Worcestershire sauce
Cornstarch

Steps to cook:
1. Marinate pork chops with ingredients in red above.
2. Cook rice in the morning or the night before. 
3. Stir-fry onions with salt and sugar (cut into thing rings) and set aside.
4. Pan-fry pork chops on high heat until golden brown (about 3 mins per side), turn to medium heat to cook for another few minutes per side.  Remove pork chops from wok and set aside.
5. Heat up oil with high heat in wok (make sure to put enough to prevent sticking).  Add "cooled" rice. Stir-fry rice for a few minutes and separate any clumps.  Add 3 eggs directly onto rice and mix-in.  Continue to stir-fry until eggs are cooked.  
6.  Almost done!  Next is to layer everything into a large baking dish (I use Pyrex glass casserole dish)  - see below for steps

This is how you layer the ingredients in baking dish:
1st layer - fried rice
2nd layer - pork chops
3rd layer - onions
4th layer - tomato slices
5th layer - tomato basil soup

7. Cover dish with foil.  Bake in oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.
8. Take out dish.  Remove foil, put generous amount of cheese on top.  Put back in oven and bake for another 15 minutes.
9. Turn oven to 450 for 5 minutes to brown the cheese.

Done!

Yup, it's a lot of work...but very yummy!