Steam egg with silken tofu and prawns

How was everybody's weekend?

Mine was pretty eventful, my husband and I went shopping with 1 of his best friend for household items as his friend has just shifted into his new flat. We had a great time helping to look around for  suitable stuff for his new place. I was pretty happy with the trip and it brought back memories of when my hubby and I were shopping for our new place. And I discovered this really delicious donut at Ikea. $2 for 4 pieces. It was covered in snow sugar and it has chocolate fillings within. OMG. Its super delicious~! You guys gotta try it when you are there. No pictures I'm sorry..was too busy eating. LOLx...We ended the day at his friend's place, playing with his son. Absolutely adorable...
Wish we have kids soon...but I guess good things have to wait...=)

On Sunday, we went on a family + furkids gathering at K9 Kulture.

Left the house with an excited Kira

The Journey...

we tried very hard to make the furkids look into the camera....

The food for human is not bad. I did not order any food for Kira as I am always a tiny bit sceptical with outside food... They tend to look greasy. But my cousins' furkids enjoyed the meatballs. We had a ball of a time but I was totally exhausted by the end of Sunday.



Thus after an eventful weekend, my husband and I were really on low batt mode and he requested for a simple 1 dish porridge dinner. I readily agreed and decided to make steam egg with silken tofu and prawns.

I found a recipe online from Weeknite Meals blog and made the following adaptions : (http://weeknitemeals.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/steamed-silken-tofu-with-shrimp-and-egg/)

Ingredients:

1 pkg Silken Tofu 1 tube of egg tofu
10-12 large fresh Shrimp
2 eggs ( I used 3 instead) 2 scallions
1 ½ tsp (each) chicken flavored seasoning, soy sauce
2tsb chicken stock  Replaced with water
1 tsp sesame oil

Instructions :

1. Slice silken tofu into 1 cm thick pieces. Cut off tips of scallions, rinse and thinly slice into pieces.
2. Remove shell and head from shrimps. Rinse well, butterfly the shrimp and remove guts, then place on top of shrimp.
3. In a bowl, crack the eggs and whisk together with 1 ½ tsp chicken flavored seasoning  and some chicken stock  light soy sauce.
4. Pour egg mixture on tofu and shrimps.
5. Steam for 10-15 minutes. Remove and set aside.
 6. Mix together 1 ½ tsp light soy sauce with 1 tsp sesame oil, and pour on the steamed tofu and shrimps.
    Garnish with thinly sliced scallions.

The final product :

Did not turn out smooth..=_=

Notes:

- The reason I did not use scallions was because I bought my ingredients from a supermarket and the quantity they sell is too much for a single dish. I am worried that I will have wasted thus did not add them in. Feel free to add it when you try this out on your own.

- I replaced chicken stock with water as I do not have ready chicken stock and I am not in favour of chicken stock cubes thus decided to use water instead. I estimated about 3 halves of the egg shells amount but should have added more I feel as my egg did not turn out as smooth as chawanmushi.

In the end I added preserved choysum for dinner. 

Hubby love the steam egg with tofu and prawns. We both feel that the sesame oil really brings out the flavour a lot.

This is really a simple 10mins dish that is really helpful for us working adults. Not to mention that it is considered a healthy dish as well~!

Now, I wonder what should the correct amount of water to add for steam egg.....hmmm....

Pan Fried Promfret with Caramelised Onion Topping + Tofu & Egg Omelette

For the longest time, I wanted to cook fish. I mean, I love eating fish thus it only makes sense to try to cook them.

I set out to search for a recipe that I can handle. I wanted to make this fish dish I had whenever my friends and I goes to Haja Maimunah. It has this sweet & spicy black sauce. (omg...I wish I can have some now) I searched and I found this recipe instead from Annelicious Food.

This is a Chinese recipe I think and I decided to try this instead since I am not sure where to get the Malay recipe. Will get it from my dear friend Nora soon. Keep you guys posted...

Pan Fried Promfret with Caramelised Onion Topping

Ingredient

• 1 black Pomfret
• 1 large Onion
• 3 slices of ginger, julienned
• 1 + 1 tbsp Soy Sauce
• ½ tbsp Sugar 
• ½ tbsp Sesame Oil
• 1 tsp Salt
• some Spring Onion for garnishing

Method

1. Clean fish, pat dry using kitchen towel. Rub 1 tsp salt all over the fish.
2. In a non-stick pan, or Happycall pan if you have. Heat a tablespoon of oil, pan fry the fish under medium low heat. Just fry it slowly. Like that, you will have nice and crispy fish skin outside and soft fish meat inside. Heat off, dish up.
3. Using the same pan, add in ginger and sesame oil, fry till fragrant. Heat off. Pour a tablespoon of soya sauce on it, set aside.
4. In a skillet, heat a tablespoon of oil, add in onion, under medium heat, fry till onion turned soft. Add 1 tbsp soy sauce and ½ tbsp Sugar. Continue to fry till onions turned caramelized. 
5. Pour caramelized onion on top of the fish, pour over the ginger and soya sauce, sprinkle with onion and there you are.

As I did not manage to dry the fish properly before frying, the fish skin stuck to the pan and I ended up with a skinless fish.I followed this recipe pretty strictly but added water when I was caramelising the onions as the sauce appears too concentrated.  Here is my end result of the dish.

Pan Fried Promfret with Caramelised Onion Topping

(pretty ugly right.=_=' Will try harder next time)



Notes :
- I made 2 slits across the body of the fish front and back to allow it to be cooked easier. Read it on another blog while I was searching for the recipe.
- The recipe calls for a large onion and I bought the yellow onion instead of the red one thinking it will be sweeter. Will try with the red onions next time.
- As the recipe did not specify if the soy sauce should be dark or light soya sauce, I decided to add dark soy sauce. My sauce turned out to be rather black unlike what I saw on Annelicious Food blog. Could it be due to the dark soy sauce I used is the thick version similar to those we get from Hainanese chicken rice stall? hmm..
- I wonder if the flavour would be better if we add a little oyster sauce here? Will it go well with the dish?

Personal Thots:
The flavour turns out nice except for it becoming skinless. lol. Hubby says that its abit blend but I thought the taste was ok except that the onions could use abit more sugar. It tastes similar to what my mum cooks except that she will add in some chilli. I should probably do that the next time. lolx~!

I have also searched for a tofu & egg omelette. For the longest time, my hubby and I enjoyed the dish at my mother-in-law's place. Thinking that that recipe should be relatively simple, we tried but always failed to get the correct taste. Determine to succeed this time I googled and found this recipe which is close enough from Cloud9Food .

Tofu n Egg Omelette

Ingredients- 110g hard tofu
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 tsp soya sauce
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- dash of pepper
- a little oil for frying

Method

1. In a small bowl, mash the tofu with the back of a spoon. Crack an egg into the tofu and mix gently until well combined.2. Add the soya sauce, sesame oil and pepper to the mixture and mix well.

3. In a small non-stick frying pan or small egg pan, heat up a little oil over medium heat.4. Pour the tofu and egg mixture into the pan and smooth the top of the mixture so that the height is even.
5. Cook over medium heat until the tofu omelette is golden brown and firm underneath. With a small spatula, slowly separate the omelette from the sides of the pan. When the mixture is solid enough to turn, quickly flip it over with the spatula (it can get a little tricky here). 
6. Cook the other side, until the omelette is golden brown on both sides and firm. Cut the omelette up into cubes or wedges with your spatula. The inside should be firm and not runny. Serve hot or cold.

Tofu & Egg Omelette

(Nicely done but should have fried it longer...)

 

Personal thots :
The only thing I changed is to use egg tofu instead of hard tofu.
I would say mashing up the tofu really makes the job a lot easier as oppose to slicing it into big pieces. The taste was good but as compared to what my mother-in-law cooks, something is still lacking. Could it be I need to fry it longer? Hmm...

On the overall, I am pretty satisfied with the end results but could have done a better job at pan frying the fish. This definitely calls for practise. I vaguely remember my mum commenting that the fish has to be very dry to get a good fry. I should have consulted her before I try this dish.. =_='

The tofu and egg omelette, a dish that is surprisingly simple and nice but I am having trouble getting it just right. 2 simplest ingredients but requires lots of knowledge and experience in handling I guess.

My dinner turns out pretty decent and hubby seems to enjoy it as well.
(Though I hope its not coz he bobian....)

Now how did your dinner cooking episode go? =)
I have bought my next ingredient, chunjang (black soybean paste).
Can you guess what I am gonna make next?
Can't wait till my next round of cooking...

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Mich of Piece of Cake at this post.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

My 1st try at Chocolate chip cookies was about a month ago where I finally plucked up the courage to try a recipe from my friend's blog(www.gracephua.blogspot.sg/2012/11/chocolate-chip-cookie-10.html?m=1)  (After almost a year of procrastination...lolx) It turned out super delicious and I could not help but look forward to my next bake.

After sharing my 1st results with Grace, she encouraged me to participate in themed baking events on http://smallsmallbaker.blogspot.sg/p/aspiring-bakers.html .

Guess what? In October, their theme is - Aspiring Bakers #36: Choc-a-Cookie (October 2013) hosted by Genie of Honeybee916food  ~!!!
(http://honeybee916food.blogspot.sg/2013/09/aspiring-bakers-36-choc-cookie-october.html) 

I decided to try and bake another batch of cookies and participate as well. Wish me luck~!! \(^-^)/

As I love banana chocolate and being a newbie to baking, I decided to hunt for a recipe to create banana chocolate chip cookies. And guess what? I found the following recipe from allrecipes.com. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/banana-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Ingredients :

- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2/3 cup butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup mashed bananas
- 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

1) Preheat Oven to 200 Degrees Celsius.
2) Grease cookie sheets. Shift flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda together and set aside.
3) Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
4) Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
5) Mix in bananas
6) Add flour mixture and stir till combined then add in the chocolate chips.
7) Spoon the dough onto the greased cookie sheets.
8) Bake in preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes.

As I am a novice, I followed the recipe exactly except that I refrigerated the dough overnight.

The Dough is ready for a chill out at The Refrigerator.

 

 

After much anticipation of having moist & cake-like banana chocolate chip cookies, I finally put my 1st bake into the oven.

However, as I am a tv-addict, I dropped into drama series while waiting and my first bake turn out to be crispy. (=_=")

*Warning to self : Never watch the TV while baking.

At least not drama series.

 

After wasting the 2 cookies, I decided to concentrate and tada~! Successful attempt~!!

Looking nice and fluffy. *anticipating*

Success~!!

 

My 1st food taster, my beloved hubby, says not bad and decided to bring them to work. I was hoping he share a few pieces with his colleague and asked for feedbacks but he said nope he didn't. He was gonna have them all. ( -.-)looks at his tummy...No......

 

I brought some to the office and offered 1 to my colleague who says its not bad. Quite nice. You cannot imagine the happiness bubbling inside me. I let out a delighted "woohoo"...lolx!

 

Having said that, my personal opinion of the recipe would be as follows:

 

> definitely will use milk chocolate chips instead as I feel that semi-sweet choc chips does not seems to bring out the correct flavour...Prefer it to be sweeter...

> Would definitely use extremely ripen bananas as much as Ivan can tolerate (he often try to discard my bananas when I am allowing them to ripen) (-_-')
> I think a little more butter would be better as well.

 

Special thanks to my guru, Grace Phua, for sharing with me her knowledge whenever I am in doubt and for my hubby, who helped me creamed the butter and sugar when my arms cannot take it...*I lost my mum's mixer...haiz.*

Apologies to my furkid, Kira, who kept sitting near me patiently and expectantly...Mummy's gonna bake your cookies & cake soon ok...

Anyway, to sum up, the satisfaction that I get from a successful bake is no lesser than cooking.
It is even much more rewarding when you get praises or appreciation. *grin*
I am definitely addicted to both baking and cooking but I really got to scale down the portions though... =Þ

Now on to the next dish / bake~!