Fried Bitter Gourd With Eggs



Cut the bitter gourd in thin slices, marinate with some salts & leave it in the fridge for an hour or overnight(as I just did bcos I bought a large bitter gourd, cleanse & cored and used half to cook with spareribs for dinner last night, keeping the other half for this dish today.) When ready to cook, just wash the salt away & squeeze out all the liquid(that way, the bitter gourd will remain crunchy & nice even after frying). This is ready to mix with the eggs.



Fried bitter gourd with eggs.

I used to be afraid of eating bitter gourd. Right, from its name 'bitter' gourd, it sure tasted bitter. Its after I read from cooking books and learn to prepare this dish that I started to enjoy eating it.

Ingredients:

Half a large bitter gourd (prepared as shown in the first pic)
3 eggs beaten
Pinch of salt
A dash of fish sauce
3tbsp of Corn starch

Method:

Mix all ingredient in a large mixing bowl. Heat up the wok and add in 2tbsp of oil. Fry the eggs in small portion and under medium flame so that the bitter gourd gets cook evenly & the eggs don't get burn too easily. Don't be too impatient to turn the eggs or it won't turn out nice and crispy.

Enjoy!

Layered Fresh Cream Japanese Purple Sweet Potatoes Sponge Cake

I must be addicted to decorating cake with fresh whipping cream. I prepared the sponge cake batter and divided it into 2 portion.  One portion, I baked it in original flavor, spread with fream cream & strawberry syrup and practice the rolling method earlier. The other portion, I added in some mashed purple sweet potatoes and instead of rolling up, I decided to cut the baked cake into half and spread with fresh cream then layered the other half on top. Then I cover the whole cake with fresh whipping cream. Hmm... yum! The kids simply love the fresh cream.

I find the cake a bit plain after spreading it with just fresh cream. Since its already a purple sweet potato sponge cake, I don't want to add any other ingredients. Hmm... I still feel lack of something when I smell something sweet and aromatic. Yes! Its the palm sugar syrup that I prepared earlier. It really match with the sweet potatoes. So after cutting a piece and displaying it on the plate for the camera,  I drizzled some palm sugar syrup over the top.

Done with the photo-taking. Tasted the cake. Yum, its nice! So I pick up my hp again and snapped another close up look of the cake. Don't mind my lousy spreading skill. The cake is yummy & smells really good.

Sponge Roll With Strawberry & Chocolate Syrup

I am practising to roll a sponge cake. Still not very good. Will try to do it again. I also enjoy decorating the cake with fresh whipping cream. Having fun in the kitchen. 

Must Haves In My Kitchen

Fried Shallots Oil (Prepare some thin & evenly sliced shallots and fry in oil. Makes soup, porridge and vegetable dishes taste better when added)

Raspberry in rum. (For Baking)

Raisin in rum (for baking)

Pickled Ginger (Cleans, deskinned and pat dry the ginger, slice as thin as possible + rock sugar + white vinegar)





That's the purpose of the pickled gingers. Eat with century eggs.



Pickled green & red chillies. (Clean, dry with kitchen towel, sliced the green chillies and sieve away the seeds with basket + rock sugar + vinegar. The red one will be blended with fresh garlics as dipping sauce to go with other dish like steam chicken etc.)



Refrigerated Palm sugar syrup/Gula Melaka syrup (Good for baking and dessert)



More to come...

Zhi-char Kuey Tiow Bee Hoon (Chinese Broad Vermicelli + Rice Vermicelli)

I have not cooked this dish for some times. Pardon me if the sauce looks very dark in the picture. (I accidently added in too much dark soy sauce, but it doesn't affect the taste). Again, this dish can be prepared with many kinds of ingredients. Anyway, you prefer. You can add in prawns, sotong, fishcake etc. I always make do with whatever I have in my fridge.

Everyone in the house is either sick or just recovered. Blame the bad weather. So for the time being, I will skip prawns and sotong (squid). If you don't take pork, just substitute it with chicken meat. I still have some fishballs, pork, and fish slices and a packet of baby spinach. And I have a packet of kuey tiow (chinese broad vermicelli) which is not enough for all of us, so I prepare some bee hoon too.

Ingredients :

Kuey Tiow/Bee hoon
Some minced garlics and shallots (sliced) - roughly about half the rice bowl
3 eggs (beaten)
Corn starch (3tbsp corn starch + 4tbsp water)
Dark soy sauce
Light soy sauce
Sugar
Fish sauce
A kettle of boiling water

Sauce :  Fresh baby spinach
              Fish slices
              Fishballs
              Pork slices


First, heat up wok, add in some oil. Add minced garlics and shallots and fry until slightly browned, add in some eggs at this point(this is to prevent the bee hoon from sticking to the wok), let the egg harden a little before adding in the bee hoon. Add some light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and a dash of fish sauce and mix well. Stir fry till the bee hoon is brown. Remove from the wok.

Do the same thing for the kuey tiow. I didn't indicate the amount of soy sauce and fish sauce to use because we might not be using the same brand of sauces thus you have to adjust according to your taste. However, try to use the kind of soy sauce which is salty instead of sweet one as this will affect the taste. Dish up and set aside.

In the same wok, add in some oil, add some garlics & shallots and fry til light brown. Add in the pork slices and stir-fry. Next add in the boiling water (just measure with the bowl that u are going to serve in, like if 5 bowl then roughly about 4 bowl of water will do). Anyway, just prepare more sauce if u prefers it wet. Throw in the fishballs and fish slices. Let it boil and lastly, add in the vegetables.

Lower the flames and stir in the corn starch, be careful not to break the fish slices. Then  increase the fire and let the sauce thicken. Turn off the gas and stir in the beaten eggs and slowly fold in. Add more eggs if you want.

Put some pre-fried kuey tiow and bee hoon in a bowl and serve with some sauce.

My family likes to add in some black vinegar with a splash of white pepper powder and some fried shallots.

Enjoy!



**Attached are some past pictures of the same dish that I have cooked but with different ingredients.


Mui-Fan (Same method of preparing the sauce and add in seafoods and instead of beehoon or kuey tiow, its served with piping hot rice)

Zhi-Char BeeHoon, topped with some homemade pickled chillies.

This is more complicated but definitely yummy. First steam the chickens rubbed with some salt to extract out the chicken essence then prepare the sauce in the chi-char style. Its really delicious.

Japanese Purple Sweet Potatoes Butter Cake

I simply love Japanese purple sweet potatoes. My whole house is always filled with the wonderful aroma of the sweet potatoes and gula melaka whenever I bake this cake. I am a bit disappointed with the colour of the baked cake this time, when I cut it out because its not as green as the one that I made previously as shown in the pictures below.



This was made 3 weeks ago.

This few months ago.



Its the same cake as the one directly above. See the natural green? Isn't it beautiful?



The ingredients are :

Plain flour 200g

Butter 200g

200g castor sugar (here I use 90g only)

4 eggs

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

200g mashed purple sweet potatoes

50g diced puple sweet potatoes

100ml coconut milk

Optional: 

I always likes to try adding in other new ingredients, such as Hershey's semi sweet choc chips, raisin/raisin in rum, cranberry/cranberry in rum, cheese etc. I even tried splashing some palm sugar syrup on the cake & put to bake & it smells heavenly. I had even tried splashing some in between the batter and its really yummy too. Just reduce some sugar if you want to add the palm sugar syrup.

 

Preheat ovem to 175C. Beat butter, sugar & salt until light & fluffy. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add in mashed & diced sweet potatoes and coconut milk. Fold in shifted flour, baking powder and soda. Mix well.

Pour batter into an 8-in baking pan and put into the oven to bake for 45mins or until cooked.

Steam Fish Slices & Steam Egg (Chawanmushi)

This little bowl of steam red garoupa fish slices is for Vance.

 

This one, with the red chillies is for Vince.

What's for lunch today? Well, the timing for lunch today is different for everyone. So, in order to make sure everyone gets to enjoy piping hot dishes serves with hot rice, I decided to prepare the dishes in smaller portion for everyone.

Vanesse is away at school for the Choir Camp since last friday and will be back only around 1pm later whereas Vince is attending tuition till 11pm. He is usually hungry when he returns home after that. Myself & Vance are sick, so the best thing to eat is steam food. Vance can't take eggs as he had just recover from fever last night, so I gave him just the steam fish slices and rice.

Its funny that children's appetite can be affected by the way a dish is presented to them. Vince used to hate eating fish with the skins but today, he finished everything without any complains. Vance also hates steam fish but when he sees the cute little orange bowl that I used to steam the fish, he is so happy and he too, finished a big bowl of rice today. Moreover, I don't have to worry about them choking by fish bone too.

Here's the ingredients :

Steam Fish 

Red Garoupa fish slices

Slices of /shredded gingers

1tbsp of light soy sauce

A few drops of sesame seeds oil

Boil some water in the a covered wok. Arrange the fish slices in a small dish, topped with some gingers and add light soysauce and sesame oil. Once the water in the wok is boiled, put the small dish of fish on the steaming rack and steam for 7mins or till cooked.

Garnish with some diced fresh spring onion and chinese parsley and serve hot.  



Chawanmushi/Steam egg.



Smooth and springy. Just add some soy sauce and its yummy.

Steam egg (ingredient for 1 person)

1 egg
1 tsp of corn starch
Hot water/chicken stock(if available)
Some minced pork(today's menu)/chicken meat/1 small fresh prawn
A slice of shitake mushroom(optional)

Well, this dish may look simple but to make really smooth and nice steam egg, it really requires some patient and methods. Remember always that the proportion of water and egg is 1:1. (My mum taught me this) Its ok to have slightly more water as the egg will be softer this way. The small soup bowl is just perfect to make 1 egg. Just add in all the ingredients, beat well and fill hot water to 8/10 full. I tried to add in just 1 tsp of corn starch today & I find the egg is actually more springy this way.

After mixing everything, try to scoope away the bubbles on top of the egg mixture. Usually, I don't mind. Firstly, make sure there is enough boiling water in the wok. Put the small bowl of egg into the steaming rack and cover and cook in high flame for just 30s and then quickly lower the fire and let it steam slowly for 8-9mins. Usually, I will just turn off the gas after this and keep the wok covered and serve only when the table is ready. If the egg is steam in very high flame, it will turn hard and ugly and lumpy.

Some might noticed that I didn't add in salt here. There are times when I add in salt and for some reason(which I don't understand) the egg becomes greenish and in the end I had to throw it away. Just add some soy sauce to the egg and enjoy! I just prepared another portion for Vanesse and keep it in the wok covered and just heat up when she is home.
Attached below are just one of the nice picture of the steam eggs that I had previously made and shared with my friends in FB.