cooking

Ninja cooking vs Kung Fu cooking (kung fu chow)

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ninja cooking

I was cooking last night when my better half looked up from where she was sitting at the dining table.

Ling: How come you cook no sound one?
Me: I’m stealth! I’m not doing kung fu chow.
Ling: What kind of cooking is that then?
Me: Erm…ninja chow?

We had a good laugh over that. I live in a studio apartment so I don’t have a gas stove. I have an electric hob and I favor butter and EVOO so my cooking tends to be silent compared to the loud, cacophony of traditional Chinese cooking known as kung fu chow.

Kung fu chow literally translates to kung fu cooking. It’s a kind of wok martial arts that is often accompanied by bursts of flame, the clang of a metal frying utensil on the wok and the sizzle of hot oil coming into contact with water.

The high heat involved produces a lot of “wok hei” – the intense heat that caramelizes and gives noodles its flavor. The elusive wok hei cannot be achieved with a non-stick frying pan and a plastic spatula on a electric heating element with a high powered hood to suck all the smoke away, which is what I have in my condo.

Thus, I tend to do more Western style cooking but I did a pretty good Chinese meal last night – ninja style! smirk

Hand rolled Vietnamese spring rolls with East + West sausages, shrimp and winged beans

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vietnamese spring rolls

I bought this pack of Vietnamese rice paper a while ago and decided to make a surprise supper for my other half last night. I had about 1 ½ hours before she came back and I wanted to try hand rolling these things coz I’ve never done it before. I have eaten a lot of Vietnamese cuisine (even had dog meat in Hanoi) but never actually wrapped even a single spring roll myself.

vietnamese wrap

I was quite surprised to find out that the Vietnamese rice paper are hard, flat circles like a tortilla wrap. You actually have to dip it into warm water to soften it up. My better half later told me that she’s seen a documentary to that effect – the rice paper are mass produced as flat, solid circles.

chinese english sausage

I first defrosted the fresh Chorizo sausage (had one left over) and took out a Chinese sausage (lap cheong). I could insert a joke on the relative sizes here but I can’t think of a tasteful one. Haha! Geddit?

frying sausages

Anyway, I fried up the Chinese sausage and Chorizo sausage (found out later that it’s better to first fry them both whole before cutting) and also a bit of shrimp. No seasoning! I reckon the two flavored sausages would do well.

kacang botol

I also made a pile of carrot shavings and slices and used a couple of winged beans for the vegetable bit. Winged beans are called kacang botol here and people usually eat it as ulam (traditional Malay raw vegetable side). I had wanted it to stick out like the picture but that was harder than I thought. Haha!

making vietnamese rolls

My first two attempts to make one failed – the Vietnamese rice paper are really gooey and sticky after the warm water treatment and it’s not very conducive to wrapping. You cannot mess it up! *One* mistake and the entire wrap is ruined!

sausages shrimp

I put one sliced sausage of each type, a couple of shrimp, then some carrots before sticking in a winged bean and wrapping the works up.

vietnamese rice paper

It took my third try for a slightly acceptable wrap and some came out looking like phalluses which is completely unintended, I assure you.

vietnamese rolls

I chucked it into the fridge to chill and it was really tasty! I made five and my dear ate 3 of them when she came back and left 2 for me but I wasn’t hungry so I only ate it later on in the night as a midnight snack (to the background noise of my neighbor arguing with his girlfriend and telling her not to come over any more and some scuffling and punches – there goes the neighborhood).

chilled spring rolls

The crunchy and crispy texture of the winged bean (kacang botol) with the two sausages made for a really good cold spring roll! It certainly wouldn’t have tasted as good in a tortilla wrap, it needs something more refined, less pushy, and the translucent Vietnamese rice paper fits the bill perfectly! I’ll make this again! 🙂

wondermilk cupcakes

My better half came back with cupcakes, which is perfect coz I had a 4 pints of two different ice cream in the freezer. Heh.

Rosti cottage pie with fresh Chorizo sausages, bacon, minced pork, fennel, curly kale and kidney

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rosti pie topping

This is my attempt to do a cottage pie with lots of pork inside a pressure pan with a Rosti topping instead of mashed potatoes. I think it turned out pretty good despite the medley of ingredients – that’s what makes it work! 🙂

rosti cottage pie

You will need:

  • Rosti
  • Chorizo sausages
  • Minced pork
  • Fennel
  • Curly kale
  • Eggs
  • Flour
  • Whole pig kidney

frying rosti

I made the Rosti topping first. It’s a Swiss potato dish that comes out flat. It consists of sliced potatoes and herbs and you can make your own but we bought this packaged Rosti that had just enough to fill the pan.

rosti

I needed it to fill the pan coz it’s supposed to be a cottage pie – like a Shepard’s pie, the Rosti needed to cover all the ingredients underneath. I pan fried it until it was cooked and set it off to the side while I made the other ingredients in the pie.

bacon fryup

Next up was the bacon. I fried about 12 rashers of streaky bacon so I ended up with about 3 heaped tablespoons of fragrant pork oil.

bacon grease

Check it out! All this yield from just a dozen rashers of bacon. 🙂

chorizo sausages

The oil was used to fry up the fresh Chorizo sausages. I chose the fresh Chorizos as opposed to the cured sausage coz I didn’t want the flavorful sausages to overpower the taste of the pie.

fresh chorizo sausages

Plus, it was on special when we bought it so it cost just RM 31.57 for 4 sausages – about RM 8 per sausage (!!!). I also set these aside.

sliced fennel

Next, I cut up the fennel to small pieces and set it aside. I learned how to prepare fennel from a YouTube video and wanted to add it to the pie. Again, set this aside. I didn’t need to cook this so everything that needed to be cooked was given the heat treatment then set aside and the raw ingredients were just set to one side to be combined later in the cottage pie.

steamed kale

The curly kale was steamed while I was working on cooking the Chorizo sausages. Steamed kale is the best way to prepare it coz it retains all of it’s nutrients. It tastes delicious too!

kidney

I went on to cook the whole pig kidney. I didn’t slice it up or do anything fancy – it was just chucked into the frying pan with the remainder of the oil from the bacon fry up and then cooked for a bit.

broke spatula

It was a bit of a challenge to do this coz I forgot to take it out of the freezer and I actually broke a spatula while trying to fry it evenly!

pork mince

After replacing the spatula, I took about a pound of fresh minced pork and fried it. There was still bacon grease at this point! smirk

rosti pie ingredients

Now that I had everything I wanted to cook prepared and waiting set off and ready for the final combination. This is everything that goes into the Rosti cottage pie!

egg filling

I used four (4) eggs and beat them with some flour and baking powder…

raw milk

…before topping the mixture off with raw milk. This is an awesome find. It’s unpasteurized and non-homogenized milk. It’s supposed to be heated up before drinking (due to health concerns) but it tasted just fine from the bottle. Every bottle tastes different too coz there’s no homogenized treatment! I love this milk but it’s really *expensive* at about RM 9+ for 1 liter.

butter lined pan

I also used a long tube of butter and greased up the surface of the non-stick pressure fryer.

kidney pie

I then dumped everything except the vegetables into it – Chorizo sausages, bacon, minced pork, kidney.

meaty pie filling

The egg + fresh milk + flour + baking powder mixture was poured to cover all the meat inside.

setting pie

This was cooked for about 3 minutes and right before the egg mixture solidified, I put the pieces of sliced raw fennel into it.

fennel pie

I then closed the pressure pan again and let it cook until everything was done.

kale topping

The steamed curly kale was added on top and then the pressure pan closed so that it’ll retain the pie shape.

rosti topping

I left it for a couple of seconds before opening it again and sliding the cooked Rosti for the topping. It was left for another minute so the general shape of the cottage pie would be firm.

rosti pie serving

I served this just like a regular cottage pie. It tasted really good! The fresh Chorizo sausages and bacon added a lot of flavor to the pie. The minced pork filled it up and the generous bits of fennel and the curly kale topping made this into a full nutritious meal.

rosti pie

I think my Rosti cottage pie with fresh Chorizo sausages, bacon, minced pork, fennel, curly kale and kidney was quite awesome! My better half even ate more than her usual serving! 🙂

Preparing fennel, cooking kale and an all-fruit Cape gooseberry, avocado, date and apricot wrap!

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fennel

We got a nice bulb of fennel while grocery shopping during the weekend. It was primarily due to the placecard they had – it sounded good so I bought it. It’s not the cheapest thing at RM 31.90/kg and my love is so good that she knew the fennel I was holding would be around RM 6 before I went to the weighing machine.

fennel price

It turned out to be RM 6.76 but close enough for government work! smirk

I like this vegetable – I had to watch a YouTube video to know how to properly cut it (there’s a bit of root inside that requires a wedge cut with a sharp knife) and I gave it to Ling raw to see if she liked it for my next cooking experiment.

cleaning fennel

It tastes like liqorice, you know, the black candy that’s sold in a long string. It’s due to the strong aniseed flavor, which can be quite intense when eaten raw but goes away when you cook it.

kale

The bunch of curly kale is a US import and quite expensive at RM 52.49/kg. The two stalks we got cost RM 20 and it felt pretty light to me. Kale and fennel are things we haven’t tried before so I wanted to cook it.

curly kale

It was done two ways – I already knew I wanted to steam mine but my dear stir fried hers with some shallots and oyster sauce and I must say, it tasted really good! This kale in this dish alone costs RM 10 though but well worth it.

stir fried kale

Back to the fennel, I wanted to add it into this new all-fruit wrap that I did for breakfast but I totally forgot about it. It was still an interesting experiment though.

fruit wrap

You will need:

  • Natural dates with branches
  • Avocado
  • Nutella
  • Apricots
  • Tortilla wraps
  • Cape gooseberry (known here as Physalis)

apricot avocado dates wrap

The interesting bit about this all-fruit wrap is that everything except for the Cape gooseberry can be split in half and has a seed inside – the avocado, the apricot, and the dates.

avocado

I like eating good dates – these are Tunisian ones still on the branches, semi-dry and premium ones sold under the “Black Amber” label.

dates on branches

I basically put the avocado (with bites taken out of it coz we were hungry) on first and then added the apricots and dates.

fresh apricots

All of these are split in half by hand and the pit thrown away. I just arranged the halves of the respective fruits on the tortilla wrap.

physalis

The Cape gooseberry is sprinkled down the middle for an acidic, citrus-y bite. I’ve seen a lot of high end Japanese bakeries use this as a decoration and the shroud (the leaf like things on the side) is *not edible*. I wonder what the people eating those pastries whole would feel like. Heh.

Physalis (which is what Cape gooseberry is marketed as here) is a nice berry though – it’s yellow and the larger it is, the sweeter it becomes.

cape gooseberry

I finished off the wrap by putting a bit of Nutella on top of the avocado (it tastes great together) before chilling it in the fridge for 5 minutes and wrapping it up.

The dates provides the saccharine sweetness, with the apricots bringing it’s own mild nectarine fructose into the mix, and the avocado gives off a smooth mouth-feel with the Cape gooseberries there for a sour bite.

avocado nutella wrap

I can’t say it’s a successful wrap coz there’s not enough “moisture” inside – I think adding yoghurt would do wonders for it. It’s still a nice experiment even though I totally forgot about the fennel.

I used all of it for a nice cottage pie, as well as my version of the kale – coming up in the next post! 🙂

Herb marinated thigh with grilled Portobello mushroom, okra and chicken couscous

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This is a completely home cooked meal that we made from scratch *together*! 🙂

chicken couscous rice

Of course, we didn’t rear the chickens, plant the mushrooms or made the couscous but other than that, everything was done properly and it turned out to be a wonderful meal! I wanted her to have a good impression of couscous since I like it so we made that with chicken essence from cooking the chicken!

couscous chicken

You will need:

  • Chicken leg/quarter – drum and thigh (one per person)
  • Herbs (fresh is better)
  • Portobello mushrooms
  • Fresh milk
  • Salt and pepper
  • Okra
  • Couscous

I didn’t take the traditional photo coz some things were done on the fly. I also decided against using the OXO Chicken Cubes and went with the flavorful chicken goodness that the pressure pan cooker produced.

chicken

The chicken leg (cut that includes the drum and thigh) were selected very carefully – my dear choose two of the best on offer, with a larger one for me. Strangely enough, this cut is called Chicken Maryland in some places, but for me, that is a dish, not a quarter cut of chicken.

marinated chicken

It was then marinated with a variety of herbs and spices for a full 24 hours while wrapped in an air-tight bag inside the refrigerator.

frying chicken

The chicken was then taken out of the bag and then fried with a bit of oil inside a pressure pan. The bits of garlic and lemon used to marinate the chicken is also fried alongside but save a bit of the juices for the end.

grilled chicken

The pressure pan was then closed and the chicken allowed to cook for 30 minutes with a turnover at the middle. That’s her part, cooking the chicken. I did the much easier couscous and BBQ mushrooms. 😉

chicken essence

I bought store-brand Tesco couscous. I wanted to go for the whole wheat version but at her suggestion went with this instead. You’re supposed to add 1.5 parts of water to 1 part of couscous.

cooking couscous

However, I decided to use 1 part water and the remaining 0.5 parts were composed of an equal mixture of fresh milk (which I find makes couscous taste better) and the sauces from the pressure cooked chicken.

couscous

I cooked the couscous and let it stand for 5 minutes before fluffing it out to individual grains using a fork. It turned out fine except for a little caramelization at the bottom, which was discarded.

Oh, and we also blanched some okra (lady fingers) in hot water and ate most of it before leaving two (2) each for the dinner plates. smirk

portabello mushroom

The Portobello mushrooms are the huge teacup sized ones that cost RM 4-5 each and should only be cooked for a minute or so to retain the awesome juiciness of these flavor absorbing beauties.

grilling mushrooms

The couscous was infused with the natural flavor of chicken derived from the juices during pressure cooking and tastes absolutely wonderful! It’s a bit like chicken rice, except it’s couscous.

xx hot peri peri

I didn’t think the dish needed any other flavoring but put in some Nando’s XX-hot Peri-Peri Sauce anyway. I reckon our version tastes better than Nando’s any day! :p

chicken couscous

It was an awesome collaboration in the kitchen that resulted in a delicious dinner!

Death by Chocolate Ultimate Breakfast Wrap

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death by choc wrap

I made this sinfully delicious wrap for *breakfast* over the weekend. I just woke up and wanted to get something to eat. We went grocery shopping the night before and we always get a huge tub of ice cream before heading back. My dear picked this one:

death by chocolate

It’s appropriately called Death by Chocolate Premium Ice Cream. It’s described as “a chocolate lover’s delight featuring decadent chocolate ice cream, chocolate candy pieces and crunchy almonds”. It also has bits of chocolate brownies inside!

death by chocolate ingredients

To make the Death by Chocolate Ultimate Breakfast Wrap, you will need:

  • Wholegrain tortilla wraps
  • Death by Chocolate Premium Ice Cream (or any other ultra chocolate ice cream)
  • Soft cheese stick from a bakery
  • Muesli

The muesli is not just there to give it a healthy illusion – it actually tastes really yummy! It’s Dorset Cereals – 50% of the contents are fruit, nuts and seeds. I was eating the Super Cranberry, Cherry and & Almond – described as “an exquisite blend of cranberries, cherries and almonds with raisins, sultanas, sunflower seeds and toasted cereals”. It’s essential for the crunchy texture it provides!

muesli

I also thought that putting a soft cheese stick (we got it from a bakery) would make this a more substantial meal since we’re going to share it. I was right since it was so good I think she ate more than her fair share. smirk

I scooped out *almost a pint* of the Death by Chocolate ice cream into a tortilla wrap and sprinkled muesli on it before adding on the cheese stick. I couldn’t actually wrap it so we ate it like a soft taco.

death by chocolate us

I had one bite and she had one bite and we started taking bigger and bigger bites and before long it was all gone. It’s coz we used so much ice cream in the wrap, it’s the exact opposite of the healthy Greek yoghurt sandwich I made. This one is absolutely delicious – so much so that it was devoured more than eaten. Haha!

death by choc

I gave her more though coz I know she really liked it. <3

Pork & Prawn Salsa Burritos with Century Egg + Cheddar Cheese

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surf turf fajitas

I’ll call it Surf and Turf Burritos except it doesn’t exactly qualify as such. Heh. I made this for our anniversary – it’s a bit of an eccentric mix between East and West, and it sounds like fusion gone completely wrong but for some reason it works! 🙂

pork prawn century fajitas

You will need:

  • Plain flour tortillas
  • Prawns (shrimp – and lots of it)
  • Pork (minced)
  • Newman’s Own Medium Chunky Salsa
  • Duck century egg
  • Aged cheddar cheese
  • Iceberg lettuce

minced pork

We got the Jamie Oliver Pink Himalayan Salt and Tellicherry Black Pepper on sale. It was something like RM 7.99 each from Meatworks, which makes it a pretty good deal. I used it to season the pork and prawns.

jamie oliver tellicherry pepper

I actually wanted to make crispy tacos for our anniversary but went with fajitas (burritos to be more concise, it doesn’t have grilled meat and it’s wrapped) instead – our brand of choice is Mexican Discovery Plain Flour Tortillas.

newmans own salsa

I first pan fried the minced pork with a bit of olive oil and added ½ of a 1.5 kg bag of defrosted peeled prawns into the mix before adding in the salt and pepper.

salsa reduction

The salsa was added into the mix at this point instead of during the wrapping process. I figured the prawns and pork could do with a bit of taste. I simmered the concoction on low heat until it reduced to just a bit of sauce.

pan heating tortillas

Next, I diced duck century eggs (there are chicken and quail versions nowadays too but I like tradition) and cheddar cheese into bite-sized chunks…

iceberg lettuce

…and went all ninja on the iceberg lettuce. smirk

pork prawn fajitas

The tortilla wraps were heated for a few seconds on a frying pan (that’s why we used Mexican Discovery, it has a higher moisture content and can be subjected to this) before being used as a base to wrap all the ingredients.

wrapping burritos

I scooped in the hot pork and prawns salsa mix before adding sliced iceberg lettuce, century eggs and cheddar cheese. The entire tortilla is wrapped up burrito style.

The trick to doing this well is to not over-fill the tortilla wraps.

berkeley farms moose tracks

My love came with dessert – a double slice of cake, which we ate with a 1.5 pint tub of Berkeley Farms Moose Track ice cream. The ice cream is loaded with peanut butter cups (kinda like Reese’s Pieces) and fudge and I originally thought this Californian ice cream was pretty crappy but changed my mind after eating it a second time.

It’s a good desert to finish everything off!

ling hb fajitas

I think it has become somewhat of a tradition for me to cook during our anniversary and I’m glad I managed to do it this time too. I’m lucky to have you dear! *hugs*

century egg fajitas

The pork and prawn fajitas may sound a bit weird but it goes well together. Try out the duck century egg and cheese combo – they both have that umami taste to it, and I’ve finished the rest of the tortilla wraps with that and a bit of lettuce and honey glazed ham. 🙂

Sweet pineapple + Greek yoghurt sandwich with alfalfa sprouts & beans, vintage cheddar and Chiang Mai strawberry on Poppy seed bread

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pineapple yoghurt sandwich

I made this vegetarian (it’s almost vegan if not for the dairy products) sandwich for my dear one morning. We went out grocery shopping and I took whatever I thought would taste good in a breakfast sandwich – a sweet start to the day.

I don’t want to toot my own horn but this is one damn good sandwich! 🙂

You will need:

breakfast sandwich recipe

  • Dole pineapple slices (the canned stuffed that comes in a ring for burgers and such)
  • Greek yoghurt (plain)
  • Alfalfa sprouts (I got a mixture of broccoli and alfalfa sprouts)
  • Combo beans (comes with slight sprouts and adds texture)
  • Aged vintage cheddar
  • Strawberry jam (I used a gourmet Chiang Mai strawberry spread)
  • Poppy seed bread

I chose to use poppy seed bread as it goes really well with this. We had 3 different kinds of bread at that time and this seemed the most appropriate choice.

greek yoghurt

The true secret to this sandwich though is the Greek Yoghurt. I got the plain, natural full cream version and the texture of this compared to regular yoghurt is remarkably similar to sour cream. I ate a lot of this when I was in university (alfalfa sprouts too) and loved it – it’s thick, spreadable, and piles on like nothing else.

bean sprouts

I spread scooped about a good *heaping* inch of the Greek yoghurt on one side of the bread and used the Chiang Mai strawberry gourmet jam on the other.

alfalfa beans sprouts

Next, I spread some mixed beans with sprouts on the Greek yoghurt side of the bread (so it’ll sink in and provide texture and taste).

…and topped it off with a healthy handful of alfalfa and broccoli sprouts.

homemade vintage aged cheddar

The last bit on this side before putting it together is adding some crumbled pieces of premium handmade no-preservative vintage Tasmanian Farm True Cheddar Cheese that’s been aged for 18 months. This can be a bit intense so you’ll notice there’s *two different sandwiches* – I spread just a little yoghurt and omitted the cheese for my dear.

I took a pineapple ring (refrigerated) and put it on the Chiang Mai strawberry jam side for the finishing touch!

his hers

It’s an awesome sandwich, if I say so myself. The secret to making it good is that everything (except the bread) needs to be in the fridge so it’s cold. It’s supposed to be a breakfast sandwich.

I like making sandwiches and I consider this fruit and yoghurt concoction with cheese on poppy seed one of my best sweet breakfast sandwiches. I use my love as a taster, she’s an awesome cook, but she’s honest with my sometimes (admittedly) bizarre culinary creations. I’ll know if my sandwich experiments failed.

breakfast sandwich

This isn’t one of them. 🙂

greek yoghurt sandwich

The pineapple ring and strawberry provides a tangy morning juice kinda vibe and the slightly sour thick Greek yoghurt goes well with the fruits and alfalfa sprouts and beans for texture and taste. The 18 month aged true cheddar cuts across with a savory tango on your tongue. It’s a very refreshing start to the day!

Home made deep-fried Mars bar

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deep fried mars bars

Deep-fried Mars bars are the stuff of legends. It originates from fish and chip shops in Scotland and is the epitome of unhealthy eating! I decided to make my own using a entire new bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) to give it a healthier veneer. 😉 I not only did it with a Mars bar, but also battered and deep fried some other of our favorite candy bars.

candy bars

  • Snickers
  • Mars
  • Twix
  • Kit Kat Chunky
  • Cadbury Crunchie

I opened up a new bottle of fairly good quality EVOO – the bottle costs about RM 30 and you can’t reuse the oil since deep frying Mars bars causes the oil to turn entirely black (a snippet I heard from an interview in Scotland, where the battered deep fried Mars Bar originated) and chocolate will sink to the bottom.

deep fried mars bar recipe

Here’s my recipe for the deep-fried Mars bar:

  • Aroma Banana Fritter Flour
  • Colavita Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Mars bar (and the other candy bars)

plating

This project was done for our anniversary – I wanted to make Ling something sweet which also means something to us. Those are our 5 favorite candy bars and I wanted her to try the notorious battered deep fried Mars bar for our anniversary.

evoo

It’s very simple really – I heated up the 500 ml of EVOO in a frying pan until it’s hot (contrary to popular belief, fair quality EVOO can be used for deep frying – you won’t reach the smoking point) and prepared the batter.

batter

I should note that this brand isn’t ideal as it doesn’t coat the chocolate bars properly. I have beer batter meant for fish and chips from NZ in my pantry but I totally forgot about it. The banana fritter batter only has baking powder, flour and salt so you can use those three in the right proportions if you want.

deep fried mars bar

My first test was done with the Cadbury Crunchie bar – I had hoped that it’ll melt the honeycomb center but it didn’t. I also realize that the batter was too thin and fixed it for the rest of the chocolate bars. I then battered and deep fried the Twix, Kit Kat Chunky, Snickers and then Mars last – after I have perfected my technique.

black oil

I coated the Mars bar with the batter and dunked it into the hot oil. It tastes a while to melt everything. 1-2 minutes is ideal since it melts down most of the chocolate bar inside the batter while retaining its shape.

fried candy bars

Deep fried Mars Bar verdict:
It’s the best! The gooey caramel and nougat melted while the chocolate was runny – biting into it is awesome. The crispy batter gives way to a hot mess of goodness! Surprisingly, Snickers gives Mars a good run for its money with the addition of peanuts.

deep fried candy bars

Twix did really well too, the biscuit inside softened and turned it into something *magical* and I loved the deep fried Kit Kat Chunky as well. Crunchie was disappointing coz the honeycomb center didn’t melt but the other awesome candy bars more than makes up for it.

eating deep fried mars

You wouldn’t believe it but between the two of us, we ate all the candy bars! I made my dear promise to eat half (she ate more like 1/3) and we both agreed that the deep fried Mars bar is a delectable, if somewhat expensive venture (due to the use of EVOO).

deep fried mars

We loved it! Just be prepared for the sugar rush of your lives! 😀

Cooking at MAGGI Celebrity Potluck with Belinda Chee!

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cooking belinda

I had the awesome opportunity to cook with Belinda Chee a couple of days ago! She created a hearty Fish and Vegetable Soup recipe and I helped her create the dish. It’s a contest called Celebrity Potluck organized by MAGGI and we were the second team to present a dish.

maggi celebrity cooking

I asked Belinda about why she choose this recipe – it’s something that she cooks herself at home and it’s easy to cook but tastes delicious at the same time.

maggi kitchen

The first team came up with a Seafood/Vegetable Tom Yam Soup. Peter Davis (of Mixed Martial Arts fame) cooked the first one and Sazzy Falak cooked the vegetarian version. It’s basically the same thing, except one has more protein in it, had a nice chat with Peter about MMA competitions and weights categories too.

belinda chee

Anyway, I actually cooked twice in this MAGGI Celebrity Potluck event. The first was helping Belinda out with her recipe and it goes like this:

fish vege soup recipe

Yup! I didn’t realize that the walls of MAGGI Masak-Masak Kitchen was actually hand-written with the 3 recipes from the 3 different teams. It was so nicely done I thought it was the décor!

sixthseal belinda

The trick to Belinda’s Fish and Vegetable soup is to stir-fry the thinly sliced shallots with a bit of oil in the pot first before anything else. Chopped garlic and ginger was added to the mix and sautéed for a while for that extra bit in taste.

chef muluk

The item that makes this really fast and easy are the MAGGI Ikan Bilis Stock Cubes. These are soup cubes (ikan bilis is the local word for anchovies) that produces the wonderful flavor and aroma. It’s really very versatile as I came to find out later.

tasting

I tasted it while we were cooking and it’s delicious! You just need 2 MAGGI Ikan Bilis Stock Cubes for 1 litre of water – it’s a standard, convenient pre-measure that makes it easy to scale up or down.

sarawakians

That makes it really convenient to cook delicious and fast dishes! Two MAGGI stock cubes for each liter of water, it can’t get any easier than that. It’s also surprisingly tasty since the ingredients they use basically concentrates the flavors so you get instant stock/soup/topping/whatever you can think of.

cooking belinda chee

The Fish and Vege Soup was left to simmer for 15 minutes and served to the audience afterwards. I didn’t get to eat this one coz it was all gone by the time I got down from the kitchen on the stage. Haha!

mystery ingredient cookoff

No worries though coz there’s a second cooking competition! I was paired with Belinda again and 4 other members of the media joined us for the MAGGI Mystery Ingredient team challenge to create a dish with the following:

  • 1 mystery ingredient
  • MAGGI Stock Cubes
  • Ingredients from the table
  • 30 minutes for everything

mystery ingredient

It felt like a I was in one of the popular cooking shows on TV. Heh. We got “Dory Fish Fillet” from the mystery box and there was a mad rush to grab items from the table.

ingredients table

We could only use those and some of them were nicked by other teams and once it’s taken, it’s gone, we had to make do with what’s left!

masak masak kitchen

Our well equipped kitchen island!

dory fish fillets

We wanted to make something a little different so we went fusion and decided to bake the fish fillets. We’ll just use ginger, garlic, shallots, button mushrooms and celery (I know, a lot of people went “Celery?” too, but it worked out well) to pile on top of the dory fish fillets.

baking

The fillets were sliced and then marinated – the most important part of the cooking. It was a quick marinade (more of a topping) made with MAGGI Tom Yam Stock Cubes. We crushed two of the cubes into 2 tablespoons of water (it’s very versatile – you can use it like this too) and then realized we didn’t have starch to thicken the mixture (!!!).

cooking contest

Luckily, there was custard powder on the table. It’s flavor neutral e.g. not sweet, and it coagulates the tom yam topping to the texture we wanted, so that’s perfect! We dissolved that into the hot water with 2 MAGGI Tom Yam Stock Cubes and poured the mixture on top of the fish fillets before adding MAGGI Thai Chilli Sauce and MAGGI Concentrated Chicken Stock and chucking it into the preheated oven (220 Celsius) for 5 minutes.

siamese fish fillets

We were running out of time and we thought 5 minutes wasn’t enough but that’s all the time we had in the 30 minute cooking challenge. It turned out fine coz dory fish fillets cooks really fast! We all tasted it and concluded it was delicious!

judges

I ate a lot of it myself coz it was so good! There were a couple of fish fillets left after we plated 3 of them for the judges (Siew Ling, the Brand Manager was one of them) and everyone came in and ate some. We didn’t have enough to serve everyone – it’s my fault guys, sorry, I was the one who ate the rest of the fish fillets. I evaded the question at the time, but it was me who ate it all. I apologize. It was tooooo good! smirk

team belinda

Our dish was presented to the judges and we didn’t win but we all got a consolation prize anyway! It was a large senduk (a kitchen utensil used for scooping stuff from liquids) which was perfect! I cook a lot more nowadays since it’s a common hobby I share with my girlfriend. I cook for her sometimes, she cooks for me sometimes. The MAGGI stock cubes will really come in handy here. I want to try out Awal’s recipe for Golden Braised Chicken with Fresh Mushrooms. It was the winner and a well deserved one! It’s so tasty that I must cook it at home – I shall be using the recipe add to my kitchen accomplishments! Haha! 🙂

maggi stock

It was a really fun session! Thanks for helping with the photos Sue Ann! 🙂 I got to cook in a nice kitchen (the MAGGI Masak-Masak Kitchen is really something) and got great tips from the MAGGI Executive Chef (Chef Muluk) and I learned the versatility that comes with MAGGI Stock Cubes. The sky is the limit, it’s not just for soup, but can be used for practically anything! I can’t wait to try it in my kitchen. I’m planning to cook a nice dinner as a surprise for my girlfriend during our anniversary and I bet she’ll love the golden braised chicken. It’s always better to cook than to eat out, I believe – cooking comes from the heart.

maggi celebrity potluck

We named our dish Siamese Fish Fillets. The crunchy texture of the shallots and ginger goes really well with the baked dory fish fillets topped with MAGGI Tom Yam Stock Cubes. I’ll share the recipe we used if anyone is interested! 🙂

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