Pad Ka Prow - 13 May 2011

Apologies fellas, it's been a while since the last update, been busy with work and stuffs. Anyway, this time, it's a classic Thai dish - Pad Ka Prow - or Stir-fried Pork with Thai Sweet Basil. Simple simple dish to make.

Had my Bangkok trip this week and brought home some ingredients back. The most important in this dish is of course the basil itself. Definitely different to the local ones here, the Thai sweet basil has larger leaves and the aroma is stronger and more pungent. Then, the fish sauce too, has got to be the Thai fish sauce. The Chinese and the local fish sauce is less salty and more fishy :P.

The ingredients;
10 cloves of garlic (Yes, you do need heaps of these)
3 bird-eye chilly (Depend on how spicy you want it to be, I like mine rather mild)
300 gr mince pork (You can use chicken if pork's not halal for you)
A handful Thai sweet basil (Tried to use the local once, not as good as the Thai's)
2 tablespoon Thai fish sauce (Please use only Thai fish sauce - I use the Squid Brand Thai Fish Sauce)
1 tablespoon Sweet Soy Sauce (READ: Kecap Manis)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (Stir-fry purpose)

No salt and pepper needed, trust me. First the fish sauce is already salty, then you wouldn't want the pepper smell and taste to overcome the basil. Then I like to use the sweet soy sauce because it adds a mild sweet taste to the whole dish as well as some colour. You can always use sugar, but please do use the sweet soy sauce if available.

Let's get cooking;
1. Mince both garlic and chilly finely and stir-fry until the garlic releases its aroma.
2. Once they are done, put in the pork and starts breaking up the meat. Sometimes, minced meat would just crumbed together to form meatballs. We don't want this.
3. Dump in the wet ingredients and continue until the meat is done.
4. I like my basil leaves not thoroughly cooked, so I put them just 10 seconds before the whole dish is done.
5. Plate, garnish and serve with warm jasmine rice.

Spaghetti Aglio e Olio - 17 April 2011

Sunday afternoon, waiting for the evening to come, how could I ever let the afternoon pass just lazying around in front of the computer watching some Korean variety shows? Then my growling baby stomach started complaining, it's time for some light lunch. Ransacking through the refrigerator, not much ingredients to make something worth eating. Then after 10 minutes of looking though the cupboard, I finally found the perfect meal for a Sunday brunch - Spaghetti Aglio e Olio.

Probably the simplest and quickest out of all the pasta recipes (Bolognaise Sauce in tin can is NOT counted), Spaghetti Aglio e Olio is a must-try even for a newbie. Though this would my first attempt to make my own, a friend cooked and taught me once. A shout to NENEK RATNA!

Now, let's go to the ingredients;
2 cloves garlic
2 cloves shallot (READ: Bawang Merah)
2 tablespoon of olive oil (I used Bertolli Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
A spoonful of diced bacon
Half a teaspoon of dried chilly flake
A pinch of mixed Italian herbs
Spaghetti

Shall we start with the cooking process?
1. Cook the spaghetti half-way through (You wouldn't want to cook it too well-done, since we're going to stir-fry the pasta later on)

2. Thinly Slice the garlic and shallots (Please do not mince them), then stir fried them in medium to low heat olive oil until the fragrance came out. Then dump in the italian herbs, chilly flake, and the bacon. (I put the bacon last because I didn't want crispy bacon)

3. Once all the ingredients are cooked, throw in the half-cooked pasta in the sauce and stir-fried until the pasta is cooked through. I prefer mine to be 90% cooked, so it might take around 2 minutes or so.

4. Serve on a plate and garnish with a wee bit of dried herbs on top.

Originally, the recipe needs cheese, but I'd skip that sin part. Also, many recipes on the net doesn't use shallots, but my mentor NENEK RATNA mentioned it brings the extra aroma and flavour to the overall dish. Very true.

A really simple pasta recipe, perfect for those who are too lazy to go out, but too hungry to have home-delivered food.

Crispy Crusty Potato Pancake - 10 April 2011

I was craving for some rosti lately (Thanks to someone posting up Marche's rosti), and since the Marche in Jakarta is not as good as the one in Singapore, I got to at least try to make them. Searching in Youtube for a rosti recipe, I came across a recipe for crusty potato pancake by Food Wishes, and looking how simple the technique and ingredients are, I thought I at least got to try this.

So this afternoon was just the perfect timing for the pancake. Please go to this site for the full recipe and how-to-make video: http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2010/12/crispy-crusty-potato-pancakes-always.html. I altered the recipe a abit by adding some sausages and bacons. The main ingredients were prepared, and we have, potatoes, onions, egg, nurnberger sausage, bacons, and some green onions. Then for seasonings, we have salt, black pepper, Italian herbs, and paprika powder. I skipped the sour cream shown in Chef John's recipe.



Two things to keep in mind is to really really drain and squeeeeeeeeze the potatoes dry before adding the wet ingredients, and make sure to add it just before frying. Don't let it settle because it will turn watery and bye bye crispy crusty crunchy potato pancake.

So here's the end-results. Crispy Crusty Potato Pancake, accompanied by pork nurnberger sausages, topped with a spoonful of pan-fried diced bacon, and finished with a touch of spring onion for garnish.



What's better and more importantly healthy to go with this kind of dish? (No, I'm not paid by Three Leg Brand for helping them promote).

Grandma's Birthday Bash

Yesterday was grandma's 84th birthday. We had been celebrating her birthday since 2007, and it was always a different day in the year because she uses the lunar calendar to set the date. To her, there is nothing more more important than family gatherings. And any typical Chinese families, family gatherings without food is not considered one.

Our feast hadn't been changed since some donkey years ago. Maybe some dishes had been ditched to a new one, but mostly are just the same one every year. No matter how often our family had been munching the same dish every year, there is very little sign of monotony. For her grandchildren, we had been eating her food since we could ever remember, so our taste buds have been so accustomed to it.

So let's start introducing the feast with the "Tan family" cuisines.

Typically, we start the dinner with meatball. They are made of ground pork, ground shrimp, dried shrimp, plain flour and potato starch. Then they are made into balls and deep-fried. The good thing about these is they're always better the next day and even better the next. No re-frying needed, just put them in the oven.



Then, we have the seasoned jelly-fish. It's always made the day before, and the amount of vinegar, sugar and chilly is essential.



The next dish is universally Chinese, it's the "Lap Cheong" or Chinese sausages. They simply steamed, and used some minced garlic, vinegar, and chilly for the dipping.



A chicken dish is next. We had the boiled chicken, with stir-fried scallions and garlic as the seasonings (READ: Pak Cham Kee). In our family, we are very very strict about eating only free-range chicken. And there is no better way to cook them than this method (Not even KFC, or Ayam Bakar Babeh). Free-range chicken is less-fatty, less-chemically-enhanced, and the taste is incomparable than their cousins in the cages.



The next dish is kinda new to us. It's a combination of grilled sweet corn, some mixed nuts, ground pork and dried scallops. It's was really weird at first, but as you chew the corn and mixed nuts, the sweet corn juice makes the dish totally refreshing.



Then, next is stewed sea cucumbers with pork meat, shiitake mushrooms and cuttlefish. Very distinct Chinese dish, each Chinese ethnic groups have different cooking method, ours is a typical Hakka dish.



Not much seafood? wait for the next one. It's fried garoupa fish (I think). Very simple friend fish with sweet and sour sauce sprinkled on top.



For soup, we have the usual fish-ball soup. We didn't actually make the fish-ball ourselves, got them from a nearby market.



Of course this wouldn't be a a birthday bash if there weren't any noodle dish. This one very very messy dish is the highlight of the meal. Our noodle is stir-fried with ground pork, shrimps, cuttlefish, fish-ball, chicken gizzards, bean sprouts and garlic chives.



We had Tamarillo mocktail for desert, but I forgot to snap a picture. It's blended tamarillo fruits mixed with a wee bit of tamarillo syrup and Sprite. The perfect desert after such a hearty meal.