Chopchop Kalipok

farewell for now

2011-08-24T09:41:00.007+08:00

Dear friends and fellow chopchopkalipok "BBQ" supporters,

it is with much regret that i have decided to conclude this wonderful "chapter" of my life. it was an eventful 3 years and many things were beyond my control. rising food cost, skyrocketing high rental, logistics problems made this small business no longer viable. the coup de grace materialized when i have lost a soul mate that was the "engine" that propels me forward...

perhaps, it is a good thing to just get back on the "terra firma" instead of building castle in the air. i'm thankful to all my "supporters" who continually buy from us even though chopchopkalipokbbq does not have many to offer. it was a great pleasure knowing and serving you.

since i could no longer secure a proper production kitchen, i think it is a responsible thing to stop selling... to those that i have turned away, my sincere apologies to you as i do not wish to sell without proper licensing. i seek your kind understanding in these matters.

it was a difficult decision. but it seems that's the only option for now. i struggled with this decision to delete this blog for a while. after all, it was a chapter of my life story. it may have taken off perhaps in a different era. perhaps lah. haha. instead of taking it offline permanently, i think a note to tell all that we creased production will sufficed.

till a time when i think i can do it again, i will definitely pick up all the pieces where i left it.

so it is farewell for now.

yours sincerely

joseph

p.s: i have stop posting on this chopchop kalipok blog during these down and out days. and for a moment, i dreaded opening this blog. i was surprised to find that i still have a handful of followers (a handful lah). and even an increase in numbers from previously 6 to now 7. hahaha...

well, thank you for making my day!

i will need to pick up my pen or rather the keyboard again...

"MY" pork dried noodles

2009-10-31T15:49:00.003+08:00

how about having lunch at our premises?

we are proud to serve egg noodles with slivers of marinated pork and stir fried premium mushroom toppings. we have blend a combination of no less then 8 ingredients to come up with a sauce for the dried noodles. not forgetting no meal is complete without homemade chicken stock with nutritious tofu and fresh lettuce. yes, we do not cook our chicken stock with msg... all goodness and flavors are derived from hours of simmering chicken bones the old fashion way.

we took extra care in preparing this noodle dish, from buying the fresh produce daily and cooking them with home cooking "touch". even the condiments that accompanied the dish are treated with aplenty TLC. we dare to say that it is truly "MY" pork dried noodles.

"MY" pork dried noodles, $3.00 per bowl.

80 genting lane, ruby industrial complex.
#11-06. cafeteria

opening hours, 11am-2.00pm. closed on saturday, sunday and public holidays.

pajeon

2009-09-08T19:46:00.009+08:00

Despite careful planning of menu and breaking up raw food materials into smaller portion so as to minimize wastage, you will still come to a point where there will be bits and pieces of "leftovers" left forgotten in the fridge. With the world facing a shortage of food and millions are dying of starvation everyday, it is just not right to dump edible leftovers away where in other parts of the world, people will kill for these scrapes...

Inspired by daily Korean soap dramas, chopchopkalipok would like to introduce you to this wonderful instant pancake mix product readily available at Korean food shop. This amazing product is priced at less than $5 for a packet. My only gripe is the preparation instructions are written in Korean. However, chopchopkalipok gathers that this Korean pancake mix should not differ from any other ready to use pancake mix. I simply mixed it to a nice thick consistency with little water. You can also do so with some milk for more flavor. This product is so smooth that sifting the mix will not be necessary.

The mix is already flavored so any additional flavoring is entirely your choice. Slice up all the left overs and simply dump them into the mixture. The difference about doing Korean pancakes is the batter should be just "enough" to coat and hold all the sliced up ingredients during the cooking process. Spoon the content onto a hot lightly greased non stick pan. Let the pancake mixture cook for a few minutes or so.

Use a fork to lift the pancake just a little to check that the pancake is done and nicely brown before you attempt to flip the pancake over. You may need to adjust fire appropriately and cook the other side till it is nicely brown.

Serve hot with a little mayonnaise or sambal chili. Have a great weekend.

ground zero

2009-08-23T08:11:00.006+08:00

Sorry for the long hiatus. Chopchopkalipok has rented a stall in a canteen to fulfill his life long dream of operating a food outlet. Though it is a small stall, the amount of work to set it up was no easy task. More so with a mickey mouse budget. Haha.

The 2nd hand fridge costs me a few sleepless nights(I was told it was "second hand", it probably went through several owners in it's useful life time) which refused to work after 15 minutes of plugging in. The oldie fridge only relented after a few appointments with the repairman to coax it to come out of retirement. I called it "grumpy" as it is pretty noisy with out of balanced fan blades and cooling units. Well, I have no objection to him being noisy. At least I will know that he is still alive. I also had a "heart to heart" talk with grumpy that I depended on him to make a living. It worked. Haha.

Making appointments with contractors to fix up the gas piping, making small mods to existing display case was quite an "ordeal" that tax my patience. Having worked in a previous environment where punctuality is the order of the day, time does not seem to exist with these contractors at all. The only time when the contractors were punctual was when I purchased a new unit of stove stand from them. It dawned upon me that they probably sidelined all the "small jobs". Money talks... I decided to chuck my work schedule plan into the bin and cast my care to the lord during these 2 weeks of putting the stall together. 谋事在人成事在天.

duri & chips

2009-07-30T10:26:00.013+08:00

Chopchopkalipok would like to take this opportunity to pay a little tribute to fish n chips and advise fellow fishing kakis not to discard duris overboard. Please practice catch and release if there is no intention of eating the cat fish.

nineteen tor yu tin

This simple dish is the first and only mat salleh dish that chopchopkalipok had in his younger days. Where got chance to taste other western food like sirloin steak, rib eye steak, lobster thermidor? The availability of western food was also very limited in the early 70's. Road side stalls do not sell western food as the general working class population can barely afford it. Decent western food was only available at those "posh" restaurant. Imagine this, how can my dad afford to take us to "posh mat salleh" restaurant when his monthly wage was only $350 in 1970. The closest we can have is, lb try to "copy" the ang mohs by frying fish with her own batter recipe. Her recipe was more like the "kampung Pagoh" style goreng pisang recipe which was very heavy as the batter had eggs in it. The french fries were also made from local kantang cut into strips.

Fish n chips days were only limited to Christmas and very special occasions. So sister and I really looked forward to it. Though the fried fish may taste like goreng pisang, the kantang french fries soft and limp that need plenty of help from Viagra, we would wolf down as much as our little tummies could hold as we did not know when the next fish n chips day would be...

fast forward to present day

Ok, now that you have portioned and readied the duri fish fillet. You just need to line them up in a shallow container.

Marinate the fillets with generous amount of Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce. Enough to coat the fillets with a little access but not drown the fillets.

Sprinkle white pepper, salt, 七味粉 only on the topside of the fillets as shown on the picture above. As chopchopkalipok uses agaration technique, this is good enough for seasoning the fillets. However, if you have the burning desire to add more or less seasonings, please go ahead. Cooking is not rocket science ya.

Cover the container with cling wrap and chill in the fridge for 3 hours.

Remove from fridge and turn over the fillets. Take this opportunity to rub the seasonings on the other sides. However, you have to be very gentle as the fillets break up quite easily. Cover and into the fridge the container goes for another 3 hours.

Chopchopkalipok recommends a minimum of 4 hours for duri fillets as this fish is pretty bland in taste. However, if you are using a more delicate fish like ikan merah, you may want to reduce the marinating timing to so as not to "overwhelm" the taste of the fish itself...

To prepare the batter, you will need,

all purpose flour 3/4 part
rice flour 1/4 part
tiger beer
cooking oil

Mix the flour and rice flour well. Rice flour will give the extra crisp. However, adding too much will make the batter heavy.

Add in beer at the same time whisking the batter. Agaration the amount of beer to be added. the right consistency should be, the batter must be able to coat the back of the spoon well.

Add in a few table spoon of cooking oil and whisk till the batter is smooth and free of lumps. Set aside the batter for 20 min before using the batter. I would prefer to keep the batter chill while standing the batter.

tip: a drop or two of yellow coloring into the batter will give that long john silver fried fish color...

the kantang

Your choice of crinkle cut or shoestring cut readily available from super mart.

tip: I would prefer to "thaw" those ready to fry frozen french fries before I attempt to fry them. I would use an electric fan to blow dry the fries. I find that this will prolong the crisp of the fries.

cooking

Always fry the french fries before the fish if you are like chopchopkalipok who prefer to use one set of oil for the entire preparations. However, I do not like to keep the oil for second usage. Times are bad, oil very expensive.

Chopchopkalipok prefers to fry in a wok as it is more economical. Haha. More like shallow frying instead of deep frying... Chopchopkalipok will not go through the process of how to fry the french fries and the fish as this had been discuss in my June entry, "let's fry them". However, I would like to share a few tips about my experience with fish n chips my style...

Remove the marinated fillets from chilling about 25mins before frying. Do pat dried the fillet with kitchen paper towels before dipping into batter.

Coat the fillet with batter and allow excess batter to drip off before frying. Fry the fillets one piece at a time. Remove any broken bits of batter from the oil before frying the next fillet.

You may want to drip a few drops of batter to "test" oil, adjust fire if necessary. The first fillet to be fried will be your gauge on how hot the oil is. Adjust fire if necessary.

Remove the fried fish when the batter starts browning. The batter will continue to brown with the residual heat.

Chopchopkalipok like to rest the fried fish and fries on a rack to allow draining of excess oil before transferring to paper towel for more oil absorption.

Last, eat fish n chips when it is piping hot...

"nolema said...: Bro,just a tip... Chill the Beer. The colder you get the mixture, the lighter the batter will be. I even do it with a bowl of ice-water on the bottom of the bowl with the batter.

Another tip. Add a tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese into the batter. Gives it better flavour & makes the batter stick to the fish better."

duri the cat

2009-07-25T13:27:00.012+08:00

Duri, a common catch on almost every other trip to Horsburg lighthouse, Mapur and Tg Pinang. Favor for it's fighting quality if you hook a big one. However, duri scores low points as a food fish. I'm not too sure if this fish really tastes that bad or simply as the name implies, a cat fish, which is a turn off to all anglers...

Anyway, on my Mapur trip a couple of months back. We had good or bad fortune (depending on how you look at it) of hooking up a dozen of decent size cat fishes in the range of 4-10kg. These duris pales in comparison to ang cho in terms of eating quality and some kakis lamented that all these duris will be dumped overboard as we had to make more space for better fishes in our eskies. Chopchopkalipok felt that it is a really a waste to dump all these overboard just because they are cat fishes and decided to fillet the catch with a 4" bait knife. Not exactly an easy task to work with a small knife on a huge carcass. Chopchopkalipok's motto is "make the best out of a situation". With little patience, the carcasses were dressed and the fillets wrapped properly in plastic wraps and chilled down with crushed ice.

Chopchopkalipok's method of storing fish/seafood is,

Never wash seafood or fish with fresh water before storage or at least minimize the contact with fresh water. Only wash with fresh water when you are just about to cook them.

Keep the skin on if any or as a whole. The skin helps to keep the meat good for long storage in the freezer.

Double wrap the seafood/fish with cling wraps before storing in the freezer will prevent frosting on the meat and delay deterioration of the eating qualities of the fish .

These pictures of the fillets show how well the meat were kept after 3 months in the freezer. As you can see, the skin is still "shiny" and the flesh is firm and pinkish in color...

Remove the skin starting from the tail with a sharp knife big enough for the fillet. Make a shallow cut that allows you to "grab" the skin of the tail end. With the sharp edges of the knife facing outwards and already making the first cut on the flesh. Pull the skin towards you while pressing the knife sharp edges against the skin. The hand that hold the knife maintain an angle while the sharp edges separates the meat from the skin. It is no easy feat to maintain the "angle" as angled too shallow, you will waste a lot of meat. If you cut too deep, you will cut through the skin. The hand that pulls the skin may want to pull it in a see saw motion that allows the knife to cut more efficiently...

Once you have successfully removed the skin, you will need to remove the blood residues along the lateral line of the fillet and discard this source of "fishiness".

The fillet is now ready to be portion into however you want them to be. The picture above shows how the fillet is portioned for fish n chips servings.

I would like to start from the rear of the fillet. Using your 3/4 of your palm as a simple guide of how the big the portion should be. Well, there is no hard and fast rule on how big the portion should be, if you have a small palm, the whole of the palm will be quite right. If you are a gorilla, 1/3 of your palm will be good enough.

Start the cut in a single stroke with a shallow angle will enable the portion to look presentable and not too thick in the center to allow shorter cooking time and even cooking of the fish. To make the portion look nice and straight, you may want to trim away any excess flesh and save these trimmings for fish stock or for porridge. However chopchopkalipok do not bother with trimming these away as the portion will be coated in beer batter anyway...

Do stay tune for duri n chips recipe...

hot pot

2009-07-22T09:25:00.013+08:00

One of chopchopkalipok favorite pastime is to window shop at Giant Tampines simply because the car park is free. Ha ha... It is incredibly expensive to park in Singapore and a delight to find a "free" one.

I chanced upon a medium size clay pot with simple flora designs selling for $5. The clay pot's glazing is not of exceptionally good quality but the fit of the cover to the pot is just perfect. Looks sturdy and well built. For the low price of $5 what more can I ask for right? I did not even bother to "condition" the clay pot by soaking the pot in a tub of water overnight. Sifu told me that by soaking the pot into cold water will prolong the lifespan of the pot when fired in high heat...

Wife rang me up one day that she would like to have something "soupy" when she is back from flight. I was so preoccupied that day with my other love (aero-modeling) that I had conveniently forgotten her request till she was standing in front of the door... A hungry woman is an angry woman. Whoops... The clay pot and frozen chicken stock is my life saver for that day.

The beauty of having a hot pot is that the only work is to go to the super mart. Pick up some vegetables, mushrooms, seafood or whatever you fancy. They even have pre sliced meat platter now. Do you know that Singaporean are spoilt with so many choices that it takes more effort to decide what to buy then to prepare the meal.

You can choose to boil up the chicken stock over the stove before "dumping" all the ingredients in and eat them at one go. Or you can heat up the stock over a portable stove and "cook as you eat". The key thing about hot pot is the stock. Do not over salt/season the stock in the early stage of cooking hot pot as the ingredients will gradually flavor the stock with it's goodness... I do not like to crack an egg in a hot pot either as it will make the stock murky and unappetizing. If you fancy having an egg, I would suggest to hard boil quail eggs first and the hot pot is used to "heat up" the quail eggs. You may want to use the same method for noodles, dumplings and wantons too.

Do not forget to add 葱油 to the hot pot to give that extra flavor. Chopchopkalipok will also prepare a simple dipping sauce for boiled meat and seafood.

dipping sauce recipe (1 serving),

lightly brown chopped garlic 1 tsp
chili sauce 1 tbsp
tomato sauce 1 tbsp
hot dog mustard 1 tbsp
maggi seasoning a few dashes
七味粉 a few dashes
葱油 1/2 tsp

May entry for chicken stock recipe.
June entry for 葱油 recipe.

nineteen tor yu tin

2009-07-15T16:59:00.006+08:00

I’m always fascinated by the Indian man frying my favorite mee goreng at the make shift hawker stall next to the Malayan railway station in late 70’s.

The way he grabbed the yellow noodles and chucked them into the kuali with much vengeance.

Wah, so “man”…

The sizzling sound of diced bean curd, pre-cooked minced mutton, diced potato, tau gay and all ingredients mixed into the fiery kuali.

A series of hard knocks on the kuali with the long handle chahn which produced the high pitch “klang klang” completed the showmanship.

He would then add the “secret” tomato ketchup mix last, to give that unmistakable flavor before turning up the heat for a quick final stir.

I would always stand as close as possible to watch the man in action. To feel the intense heat on my cheek and savor the “aroma”. I would “replay” the same scene of me emulating him in frying the mee goreng in my childish mind.

Heat oil in kuali.

Grab a bunch of noodles and throw in.

Fry.

Throw in diced bean curd, pre-cooked minced mutton, diced cooked potato, tau gay, green peas, vegetable.

Fry.

Make a hole in the heap of noodle. Add more oil if necessary. Crack an egg in it.

Fry.

Lower Heat.

Add secret mamak tomato mix, msg, soya sauce.

Full power to the rocket booster!!

That’s the way to fry a mee goreng.

Power!

I relished every moment of that action…

lb would always caution me to back off from that “rocket booster”. Just in case, the close proximity of the propane tank and heating element did not agree with one another and decided to explode…

lb– lao bu / 老母

breakfast quikfix

2009-06-30T10:21:00.010+08:00

Pancakes are easy to make with everyday items found in the kitchen. The recipe does not consist of kytonite materials from space and cost peanuts. Alternatively, any shelf bought pancake mix will also do the quick job of fulfilling the role of the most important meal of the day. Do a search online for pancake recipe and plenty will surface.

My recipe is,

2 cups all purpose flour.
3 tsp baking powder.
2 tbsp fine sugar.
1 eggs lightly beaten.
2 cups buttermilk/milk
a pinch of salt.
3 tbsp soft butter.

simply mix flour, baking powder, sugar and salt well in a bowl. remove sugar if making savoury variant pancakes.

mix buttermilk, eggs,and soft butter well.

add the liquid mixture to the flour and mix well.

adjust the consistency with the liquid mixture till the pancake mix is able to coat a tablespoon well is a good start.

grease the pan lightly with a little butter. Scoop a spoonful of pancake mixture onto the pan. Wait till you see the mixture "firmed up" before turning it over. The first pancake is always a dud. you will need to adjust your fire or consistency of the mix to get it correct the next time...

You can eat the pancakes on it's own or with your favorite jam and butter. To make it more interesting, thinning down good quality jam with some fruit juice over a low fire. Add some fruits and adjust taste with a little sugar. For thinned orange marmalade, add a little brandy or grand marnier will up the fun.

grease and filth, be gone in the name of bio wipe!

2009-06-26T10:50:00.008+08:00

Being almost a full time house hubby, I have the time or kaypo enough to give those persuasive, smooth talking "aunty 杀手" salesmen a chance to peddle their wares. I chanced upon this product, "bio wipe" while having my favorite wan tan mee at Hong Lim Complex hawker center.

Salesman ah beng was demonstrating the "wonders" of this bio wipe to clean impossible stains and filth. He vandalized the wall and pillar column of the HL Complex with a marker pen, crayons, paint, black engine oil, grease etc. Just a few squirts of this wonder product on the vandalized wall, the stains were gone!

Ooh, I'm impressed...

The ah beng salesman even joked that he was doing the town council a favor by helping them to clean the wall. Ha. Funny fellow...

"Uncle, this thing so powerful, will it damage my timber flooring or not?" I casually asked.

"Sir! You mean my hand is tougher than your timber flooring?" Ah beng salesman retorted while he squirted a plenty of this "bio wipe" on his hands and rubbed them together as if applying premium moisturizing lotion. He then shoved both his hands in my face and frantically waving them.

Ok, I'm convinced by his brave act of putting his hands on the line...

First look at this colorless liquid did not reveal any sign of "potency" though it did smell like brake cleaner. The instruction also mentioned that it is non toxic, non caustic, non flammable and friendly on the hands. I supposed since it is named "bio wipe", it should be bio degradable. Hmmm...

The instruction also calls for the bio wipe to be diluted to a ratio of 1 part "bw" to 10 part water.

Ok, now for the field test.

A few squirt on the greasy stove and a quick wipe down with a rag.

Lo and behold, the grease and filth are all gone as advertised. I would suggest a second wipe down with a wet cloth to rid the stove of the car brakes cleaner odor.

Cleaning job done in 2 minutes.

mise en place

2009-06-24T12:06:00.007+08:00

Mise en place (MEEZ ahn plahs) is a French term for having all your ingredients measured, portioned, cut, peeled, sliced, grated, etc. before you start cooking.

I would get very impatient with my wife when it is her turn to cook. With much good will and good faith, she always seems to be getting into a lot trouble and time putting food on the table or more importantly, on time. As the saying goes, "a hungry man is an angry man".

She will make up for it by spending a substantial amount of time preparing a meal which I felt is counter productive. As much as it is a common knowledge to always prepare your "mise en place" before attempting any culinary venture. I noticed that it is a conveniently forgotten task by many novice in the kitchen. Chopchopkalipok would like to share with you, my simple and effortless way of doing your mise en place. Which will aid you in preparing a meal for your love ones in a chopchopkalipok fashion.

Make it a point to understand your household's needs in terms of,

1. The usual quantity/amount of food types consumed in a single meal.

Geared with this simple knowledge, you will be able to "portion control" these raw materials accordingly. These portioned items or I called them "food ingredient packs" can be kept in a chiller or a freezer if the intent to cook much later. This will aid in speedier food preparation when you just need to de-chill or defrost the right quantity of item for the recipe. e.g, a chicken leg will defrost quicker than a whole chicken. This practice will help to reduce wastage and prevent contamination of bacteria by reducing exposure of uncooked food to the environment.

2. Their preference of the food type e.g if they consume more vegetable, meat, seafood, etc.

With a little profiling work, you will be able to shortlist and decides the kind of ingredients, portioning amount, recipes or even determine your marketing/shopping list for the week. Make an effort to portion up the raw materials ASAP after your marketing before storing them into the fridge. The Reynolds cling wrap is your best friend in this task. To go further, put a date to remind you of the date of purchase to avoid keeping food in the fridge for too long...

3. How often do you do your marketing of fresh food, groceries and stock ups.

The frequency of making that trip to the supermart or market will determine the "workload" of having to prepare mise en place. Twice a week to the super mart or market will be a good start to keep "work load" to the minimal of no more then 15 minutes of portioning, wrapping and storing food items. Buying more "convenient pack or prepared" food items will reduce your mise en place "workload". Though it may cost a little more due the packing instead of buying in bulk. IMHO, the savings in time, effort and wastage will offset the higher cost.

4. .Streamline those recipe.

Everyone has a few favorite recipes kept in that secret kitchen cabinet. However, I will attempt to save a few pennies and prep time by "streamlining" my recipe. For instant, if a recipe calls for whole garlic to be use while another requires chopped garlic for that flavoring. I will only buy "ready to use" chopped garlic that comes in a tub for both recipe. The purist will argue that there is a difference in taste between chopped and whole garlic. Honestly, I doubt many can tell. So I'm not bother about it.

5. Stock, sauces, condiments.

Set aside some time or twice a month to prepare those stock, sauces, condiments that are ever so crucial in making a dish a winner. "Portion and freeze" them for future usage will cut down cooking time of a dish considerably. An alternative like ready made freeze dried/dehydrated "bouillon cube" will also do the trick though nothing beats freshly made stock. Ready made sauce can be bought off the shelf though I would suggest some work are needed to enhance the flavor further.

6. Organize your kitchen and prioritize the work.

Make an effort to organize and "familiarize" yourself with your kitchen setups so that you do not hunt high and low for that salt, cleaning rag, teaspoon, etc. You will find that it is pleasurable to cook "within reach". Plan your work well when cooking multiple dishes. Common sense will tell you to cook food that requires longer cooking time first. "Visualize" the recipe to mentally prep you before cooking the dish. Some recipe may even require you to prepare certain ingredients before hand.

sunday is chicken stock day again

2009-06-21T09:43:00.006+08:00

An eventful trip to Gua Musang has resulted in a bit of a delay in updating my blog. I hope I have not lose any readers out there (if there are any?). Haha.

Anyway, I'm going to continue about the chicken stock thingy because it is a Sunday. For those of you who have try out this simple and wholesome recipe, I hope the chicken stock has serve you well. Do you remember that we do have those cooked chicken after straining the stock properly?

This is what I normally will do,

I will shred some up for sandwich fillings preparations (for that lazy afternoon when cooking is the least I want to do). Mix the shredded chicken with good quality mayo, a bit of premium butter, season well with salt and pepper. Or to go further, spiced up the filling with cayenne pepper or cumin powder. For that added crunch, add crispy bacon bits... I recalled that a friend did mention that it is hellish to eat wholemeal bread. But I assure you, not with these fillings... but please do not count the calories. God bless your soul...

I will also keep some of these for that kuay teow soup luncheon or dice up the chicken into cubes for fried rice and stir fried vegetable dishes. Nothing is wasted in my kitchen and I do take pride in that.

Have a great weekend folks.

let’s fry them

2009-06-11T22:30:00.016+08:00

Instead of the usual fried chicken wings for kiddies parties. Why not fry some squids. Both the kids and adults will love them. Serve them hot as mains or snacks. These snacks are great for watching that football match too.

Preparation: Now that you have cleaned the squids nicely. You can “flower” the squids by scoring lightly with the tip of the knife in crisscross fashion on the inside of the body. Lastly, cut up the body into bite size strips. The head may be served whole or halved if the head is too big.

Dry up any excess moisture from the sotong pieces with paper kitchen towel and marinate the squids with a beaten egg.

While marinating the squids with an egg, prepare and mix some plain flour (80%) with rice flour (20%) in a mixing bowl.

Seasonings: Sparingly add some ground cumin spice, ground coriander, sea salt, ground black pepper, paprika into the flour mix. Mix well with a whisk.

Cooking:

Heat up a generous amount of oil in a fryer. I would normally use a wok as it is quicker and save on gas consumption. Once the oil is almost on the verge of “smoking”, the oil is ready for frying. Simply coat the squid pieces with flour mixture. Dust off any excess flour and slide them into the well heated oil. Bear in mind that frying seafood requires quick handling and workings. I would recommend frying the squids in batches to avoid over cooking the squids.

Once the sotong is nicely brown, remove them from the oil and drain off the excess oil.

More seasoning can still be sprinkled to the fried squids if necessary. I love to dust 七味粉 before serving.

Sotong

2009-06-09T08:26:00.008+08:00

I love to go squiding. The best sotong season is from June to early September. A quick check with the fishing charter to see if the sotongs have arrive. With a good team of sotong anglers, to hit 600 pieces of sotong is a relative easy task. An arsenal of 3-4.5 size squid jigs in orange and pink colors will suffice. Opt for thin FC leader will ensure a hookup most certainly… Do ensure that sotongs are properly iced as the carcasses will continue to produce “heat” for a while. A tip on selecting sotongs from wet market, choose those with a “translucent” body with very clear spots and bright eyes. The body should be firm to touch.

A tip on selecting sotongs from wet market, choose those with a “translucent” body with very clear spots and bright eyes. The body should be firm to touch. Fresh squid should not smell fishy or "squidy".

Though squids and it’s mollusks brethren are nice to eat, they can be nightmarish to clean because of their notorious ink sac. However, I have a simple way to overcome the mess of cleaning sotong with just 2 cuts. I would divide and pack the whole squids into several “Food Ingredient Packs” and freeze the packs. Do not wash the squids until you are ready to cook them.

Remove the packs from the freezer when you are ready to cook. Wait for the squids to thaw.

The right time to clean a squid is when you are able to slit the body lengthwise with a knife while the squid is still in a semi frozen state. The body is now slit open with the guts and innards still in solidified state. Remove the solidified gut and “plastic” spine as a whole.

The second cut is make between the eyes and the tentacles. Cut through the head and squeeze out the beak.

No ink is leaked even when the cut has punctured the ink sac as the ink sac is still frozen.

偷师

2009-06-07T14:39:00.008+08:00

During our fishing trip to Thailand. We had this particular stir fried vegetable dish almost every day at the local 大排挡. I could not recall the name of this dish. However I did recall that the dish have fresh spinach stir fried with sliver of roast pork and fresh whole chilies. I had the opportunity to steal a look at the lady cooking this dish as our table is next to her stove and “work station”. I get to learn how this simple and delicious dish can be served at home…

Well there isn’t really a recipe, I hope my narration on how to cook this wonderful dish will give you an idea how this dish is done.

As always, I did not follow the “recipe” to the letter. I substituted the spinach with fresh kai lan that came in “convenient pack” at $1.20 from our local super mart. I would remove the leafy part and cut the stem length wise into thin slices. You can substitute with any greens of the day of your preference.

You will need to pick up some roast pork of about 250 gms and have them sliced up. You may want to decide if the porky slab should be thin or laden with fat. I would prefer the fatty sort. A general tip on how to buy roast pork is that always buy from a reputable stall that sell their pork fast and did their roasting act daily. Do sample their roast pork to make sure that the roast pork do not have a “porky” smell. The fat should be whitish and firm. Lastly, the roast pork should not be “slimy” to touch.

You will need some fresh chilies though I would use the dried ones as they are more convenient to keep. Bear in mind that you will need to use more dried chilies in proportion to the fresh ones. I stick to a ratio of 1.25 dried produce : 1 fresh produce.

The rest of the ingredients are,

a few thin slices of ginger.

2 whole garlic.

3 tbsp oyster sauce

¼ cup chicken stock mixed with 1 tbsp fish sauce

White pepper

葱油

Heat some oil in the wok and sautéed the ginger slices, dried chillies and whole garlic till lightly brown.

Add the roast pork slices and fried for ½ minute.

Add the kai lan or green vegetables of your choice. Toss them around and add the oyster sauce. Fry them till you notice that the vegetable has changed to a different hue of green.

Add ¼ cup of chicken stock with fish sauce. Reduce the stock and very quickly remove the fried vegetable from the heat.

Serve the fried vegetable with 葱油 and a bit of white pepper.

Agaration

2009-06-05T08:28:00.008+08:00

(ah-gah-ray-shun)
The noun form of the Malay verb "agak-agak", which means to estimate.

I will use this term many times over like a broken record as food tasting is pretty subjective. There is really no right or wrong in food tasting as some may like it spicy, sweeter or even bitter. More so when it comes to seasoning. If you like it saltier, add more salt then. So do not split hair over it. However, I do follow this golden rule, “it’s always best to err on the side of putting less seasoning first”.

IMHO, a recipe is just a general guideline on how a dish will most likely taste. There are just too many variation (from the ingredients to the size of a teaspoon we use) that makes precise measurement difficult. An example will be, if the recipe calls for a “large” egg. How do we determine how large an egg should be? If we were to use a smaller egg, wouldn’t the seasoning called by the recipe a tab too much? Common sense and cooking goes hand in hand… Keep that precise measurement mentality for science class or when you need to build that rocket ship to Mars. Your cooking will taste better if you, “cho nan agak agak jiu ho”.

Table for one?

2009-06-03T21:26:00.007+08:00

So how do I cook for myself when I’m home alone? I’m sure it is no less a daunting task to cook for one either. However, with carefully planning and preparation of food ingredients “packs” every weekend. The task to cook for just one person will not be difficult and time consuming.

We do have those little pack of chicken stock tucked away in the freezer right?

1. Cook the chicken stock pack over the stove with a small sauce pan. Adjust taste with seasoning or chicken powder if necessary.

2. Blanch the kuay teow, shredded chicken and chai xin in another pot of boiling water. Plate the blanched items in a bowl.

3. Pour the boiled chicken stock over the kuay teow, shredded chicken and chai xin.

4. Garnished with 葱油, white pepper and served.

Prep time just under 15 minutes.

There is really no reason to gorge yourself silly with those instant noodles.

I would prefer the fresh kuay teow from the market stall as the fresh ones are not easily broken into bits and taste better. However, the supermarket pre packed kuay teow will keep better for longer period of time. A plus for busy couples.

Green Apple, Celery Smoothie

2009-06-03T00:03:00.006+08:00

How about a glass of refreshing smoothie to keep those pesky heat away? Smoothies are quick and easy to fix. Invest in a good blender to do a better job. A smoothie is a blended, chilled beverage made from fresh fruit or vegetables. In addition to fruit, many smoothies include crushed ice, frozen fruit, honey or yoghurt. You just need to be creative or just simply “fruits of the day”.

I like to add bitter gourd(the “mini” variant) to celery and green apple. The elderly folks have the idea that with the inclusion of bitter gourd and Chinese celery will help to lower blood pressure and keep one as cool as a cucumber…

Celery 40%

Green Apple 25%

Bitter Gourd 15%

Chinese celery 20%

Ice

Salt to taste

Celery forms the bulk of the ingredients while the green apples help to mediate the bitterness of the mini bitter gourd.

Cheerz.

葱油

2009-06-01T07:56:00.002+08:00

I make this useful condiment every week or whenever I ran out of it. 葱油 gives that extra flavor to the mee pok dry, fried kalian dish, kuay teow soup or almost anything even salad. Like Mat Salleh add olive oil to spaghetti to prevent sticking. Try using 葱油, oyster sauce, bacon bits to that spaghetti, it is damn shiok!!

Thinly sliced Shallots - 2/3

Chopped garlic - 1/3

Dried chili – optional

Oil – generous amount - agaration

Cut up a handful of shallots into thin slices and fry them in generous amount of oil.

Add chopped garlic when the fried shallots are lightly brown.

I like my 葱油 to be a bit spicy, So I add some crushed dry chili and chili seeds.

When the shallots and garlic are nicely brown, remove them from the heat before it gets over done. Do bear in mind that the browning continues with the residual heat of the oil. Keep the 葱油 in a metal container for other uses.

I would prefer to use a metal/ cast iron shallow pan/skillet when frying these shallots and garlic as I felt that the browning are nicer and more even compared to non stick pans…

Sunday is chicken stock day

2009-05-31T19:55:00.003+08:00

Chicken stock is so easy to make and really useful to extract that extra flavor or “oomph” in that plate of fried vegetable, stew, hor fun or meat dishes… My chicken stock is too simple to screw up with affordable ingredients. Sorry, got no 金华火腿 because no money.

1 free range chicken quartered with skin removed.

crushed black pepper corn (agaration)

sea salt (agaration)

2 bay leaf

½ large onion

4 slices of ginger

Begin by blanching the chicken with hot water to remove as much blood and scums as possible. Retain the chicken.

Simply boil another pot of water and dump everything (except sea salt) in. Agak agak the amount of water to boil. Slightly more than enough to cover the chicken will be a good start. The more water the less flavor. To have more stock then use more chicken lah. I use a medium size pot.

Boil the chicken for 5 minutes (remove scum if any) before lowering the heat to simmer the stock for an hour.

The key to a clear stock is to put in the chicken pieces into boiling water and do not stir the pot when simmering. Go watch your favorite Korean DVD but remember to check that you do not evaporate the pot of stock.

Strain the stock and keep the cooked chicken aside for other uses.

Lastly, adjust the taste of the stock with salt. I would prefer to add salt at a later stage of the cooking as some kuay / 鸡 are more flavorful like LKB. Hence less salt is needed.

Pack the cooled down stock into smaller portion and freeze them for future usage.