IRISH LAMB STEW

250 g thickly sliced bacon*
2 kg roasted lamb pieces, cut into large chunks **
1/2 cup all purpose wheat flour
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 large Bombay (yellow) onion, peeled and finely chopped
150ml water
1 liter canned beef stock
2 teaspoons sugar
500g carrots, cut into 1" pieces
2 Bombay onions, peeled and sliced
1 kg potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" pieces
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste
150 ml dry white wine

1.  Heat a large pot and fry bacon until brown. Remove bacon from pot and keep aside. Leave the bacon oil in the pot and reheat pot.
2.  Fry the finely chopped onion and garlic until lightly brown. Add in flour and fry until lightly browned.
3.  Add in beef stock, lamb pieces, bacon, water, sugar. Bring to boil.
4.  Simmer for at least 1 hour or until lamb pieces are soft.  Add in potatoes, carrots, thyme, bay leaf and simmer for a further half hour or until vegetables are tender.
5.  Stir in wine, salt and pepper to taste.
6.  Serve with a bread of your choice like garlic bread or any rustic bread.

*Buy the trimmed ends of bacon that are cut into chunks. This recipe is also a good ways to use up any left over roast lamb from a party.

**If you are using raw lamb, use boneless lamb shoulder cut into 1" chunks. Marinade with salt and black pepper and toss the lamb pieces in the 1/2 cup flour.  Fry in oil to brown. Leave aside and proceed with the recipe above.

Chinese Style Steam Fish

Chinese Style Steam Fish

(Serves 4)

This is a very easy dish but for it to be successful, you have to get a very fresh fish. In the Chinese restaurants, their fish are still swimming and kept in a tank at the restaurant. But you can buy very fresh fish from your regular fish monger. Here is how you choose: For the fish to be 100% fresh and suitable for steaming, the gills of the fish are still slimy and have traces of mud or sand. The eyes are shinny and the body is firm to the touch. The fish should be steam just al-dente and not over cooked or the flesh with toughen and dry.

600 g whole fresh Pomfret, Garoupa or Red Snapper Fish

2" knob young ginger, skinned and julienned

2 bunches of coriander/cilantro/chinese parsley leaves

2 stalks of spring onions, shredded and soaked in cold water

1/4 cup light soya sauce

1 tablspn rice wine (optional)

2 cloves garlic, chopped fine

1 shallots, sliced and chopped fine

3 tbsp cooking oil

Remove scales from fish taking care the corners between fins and the head. Do not cut away the fins or the tail of fish. Gut and wash fish taking care the inside of the abdomen to remove any blood clot or dark membrane. Pat dry and place fish on a steaming plate, preferably porcelain or stainless steel. Line the bottom of the plate with half the shredded ginger and the other half on the top of the fish and some inside the cavity/abdomen of the fish.

Brown the chopped garlic and shallots in a pan or use the microwave oven on High for 2 minutes. Keep aside.

Prepare a steamer and bring water to boil. I use a wok with a dome shape cover and a metal stand placed at the bottom. Water should cover the metal steaming-stand slightly.

When water is boiling, put in the fish and steam for 7 minutes. Use a timer and set the time. Off the fire and leave fish in the wok for a further 5 minutes. Do not open the lid until the 5 minutes is over.

Throw away the liquid surrounding the fish. Top fish with the garlic/onion oil, the light soya sauce and rice wine. Garnish with the shredded spring onions and coriander leaves. Serve immediatley and piping hot.

Banana Butter Cake

Food cost in Malaysia has gone up tremendously; at least by 25%. With the recent removal of the sugar subsidy, our sugar now costs RM1.90/kg when it was used to be RM1.45/kg and not only that, there is always a shortage, with the local stores limiting purchase of 2 kg per customer. With that, all other food cost that are related sugar have also gone up.

Butter has always been an imported item and again the cost has also gone up. We can never buy cakes or pastries that are 100% butter. Somehow, I always felt taste matters! I still make my own butter cakes,simply because it tastes better and I can't buy them from the local bakeries. They have to be pre-ordered from a 'cottage industry' bakery or home-made.

Here, I have a rich Banana Butter Cake recipe to share. It is always a hit especially among the men, and it is full of chunks of banana.

Tips: (1) Use over-ripe bananas;

(2) Living in a tropical country, I would always chill my butter first.

(3) I use canned Golden Churn Butter, unsalted.

(4) Sift flour with Bi-carbonate of soda at least twice, to incoporate them evenly.

(5) Mash bananas COARSELY.

BANANA BUTTER CAKE

(makes 2 loaves of 5"x9")

12 oz butter, chilled and cut into smaller cubes

10 oz caster sugar

2 tbsp condensed milk

2 tbsp evaporated milk

6 grade A eggs

16 oz flour

1 full teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 1/2 cups mashed bananas or 8 medium bananas

1 Sift flour with bicarbonate of soda at least twice.

2 Beat butter with sugar in medium speed until light and fluffy.

3 Beat in the 2 types of milk, alternating with each other, starting with the condensed milk.

4 Increase beater speed and gradually beat eggs, one at a time, until just combined.

5 Fold in flour in two batches.

6 Mix in mashed bananas quickly.

7 Put mixture into two loaf pans of 5" x 9" and bake at moderate oven (180 deg Celsius) for 1 hour.

8. Cool cakes out of pan in a rack.

Hakka Kao Yuk

This is a traditional Hakka dish. The Hakkas are one of the indigenous people of China (there are more than 1000 different dialects spoken in China). This dish is cooked three times before it reaches the dining table: boiled, fried and steamed. The key ingredient of this dish that's found in the sauce is the 'Nam Yee' which is made from fermented taro or yam cubes, rice wine and ground red rice.

HAKKA KAO YUK

(STEAMED BELLY PORK WITH TARO)

1.5 kg belly pork with skin

800g taro root

1 tbsp light soya sauce

2 squares 'Nam Yee' with 3 tbsp sauce liquid

2 tbsp thick soya sauce

2 tbsp light soya sauce

4 tbsp sugar

1/2 tspn 5-spice powder

4 tbsp minced garlic and shallots

1/2 cup water

1 cup oil for frying

spring onions and coriander for garnishing

1. Wash and remove any hair from the pork's skin.
2. Bring a pan of water to boil and boil pork for about 15-20 minutes in simmering water.
3. Remove and pat dry with paper towels. Coat pork with the 1 tablespoon of light soya sauce.
4. Peel and halve taro length-wise. Slice taro into 1cm thickness.
5. Heat up 1 cup oil in wok. Fry taro pieces until lightly browned. Remove and leave aside.
6. With the remaining oil, fry the pork and brown on all sides and skin began to blister.
7. Remove and soak fried pork in cold water.
8. In a small mixing bowl, combine 'Nam Yee' , dark and light soya sauce, 3-spice powder and sugar with the 1/2 cup water together.
9. Leave about 3 tablespoon oil in the wok and reheat. Fry the minced garlic and shallots until lightly browned.
10. Add in combined sauce ingredients and bring to boil and let simmer for a while or until sugar has dissolved. Let sauce thicken a little and sauce began to bubble and looks glossy.
11. Dish out and leave aside.
12. Slice pork pieces into 1cm thickness and 2" wide. Coat pork pieces with half the sauce.
13. In a heatproof dish, arrange pork pieces alternating with taro pieces, with the pork skin and rounded sides of taro faced down.
14. When finished, pour all remaining sauce into the arrangement.
15. Prepare steamer and steam the dish for about 1 hour or until pork is soft and tender.
16. To serve, turn over onto a serving plate and garnish with shredded spring onions and fresh coriander leaves.

Mini Chicken Pies

My 11 year old daughter had just started secondary school and school ends at 2pm and sometimes at 3pm if there is extra-curriculum activities. She usually had much time to have lunch or the canteen food was not to her liking and she usually comes hungry and wanting to have a snack. I made these pies for her lunch box or for a snack after school.

MINI CHICKEN PIES
(Makes about 10 pies)

2 chicken breasts, deboned and skin removed
1 carrot, diced
250g button mushrooms, quartered or smaller
300g cauliflower, cut into small florets
2 medium Bombay onions, diced
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tspn parsley flakes
1 tspn dried oregano
2 tbsp oyster sauce
salt and pepper to taste
2 tspn cornflour mixed with 1/4 cup water
10pcs x 4" diameter aluminium foil disposal pie dish

400g frozen puff pastry
(I use 'KAWAN' brand ready-rolled puff pastry, 40g x 10pcs pack)
1 egg, beaten for glazing

1. Dice chicken breast into 1cm cubes.
2. Heat oil in a pan. Saute onions until transparent.
3. Add in diced chicken, carrot, mushrooms and cauliflower. Stir-fry until chicken is lightly browned. Stir in dried hearbs, oyster sauce, salt and pepper.
   
4. Add in about half-cup water and cover for about 1 minute or until carrots are soft.
5. Cook further, stirring until liquid has been reduced to about 1/3 of the total mixture.
6. Stir in cornflour mixture.
7. When sauce has thicken, dish out pie-filling mixture onto a bowl and let cool until just warm before using.
8. Roll out pastry to fit pie dish. Using pie dish as a template, cut out 10 pcs that are 1cm larger than the diameter and 10 pcs that are of the same diameter of the pie dish.
9. The larger ones will the base and the smaller ones will be for the top.
10. Spoon in filling after the bases have been fitted into the pie dishes. Add in about 2 teaspoons of gravy to every pie.
11. Wet the edges of the cut pastry and place the smaller rounds of pastry on the top of the pies. Press with finger to seal edges together. Use a fork to make patterns around the edges of the pies.
12. Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius. Brush pies with egg wash and bake for 35-40 minutes

Note: Unbaked pies can be kept frozen and packed in freezer bags for up to 1 month. Thaw in fridge before cooking as usual.

How To Butterfly Your Fish

How To Butterfly Your Fish

Have you ever wish that you could present your fried fish toped with a sauce in a butterflied manner, just like in the restaurant? Actually most good fish mongers should be able to do this for you but sometimes you might overlooked the matter and had to do it on your own at home. Here are photographs to show you how. If you need to deep fry the fish before topping it with a sauce (eg a sweet and sour sauce), dust the fish all over while it is still wet with some rice flour just before deepfrying.

The Perfect Sweet & Sour Sauce

The ever famous sweet and sour pork/chicken/fish is a must-have in every chinese restaurant and take-away food outlet. The balancing of the yin yang is typically and well presented in this dish, blending well the two contrasting flavours. Although this dish appears far too often in Cantonese cuisine, the sweetness varies depending on the region. The ingredients vary and any type of sweetening and souring agent can be used.
Here is the perfect sauce for you to try at home, bearing in mind a few tips for success:

• Plum sauce is used as it gives a shiny glazing for the end result.
• Tapioca starch is used instead of corn flour for thickening as the latter gives a murky looking sauce and the former a transparent looking sauce, thus not giving your meat a 'covering' but instead a see-through coating.
  
• Rice flour is used for the meat (pork or chicken) coating as it give a crispier or crunchier bite as compared to other flour like cornflour or wheat flour.
• Sauce should be just enough to coat the meat and not drown in it.
• Be sure that the oil is hot enough for deep frying otherwise they will be soggy and oily.
  
• Seafood such as prawns and fish are delicate and so the sauce should be complementary and not over-powering. Some fine tuning with lime juice and pineapple pieces or even chillies can be added to give it a tropical flavour.
• When cooking seafood for this sweet and sour dish, they not necessary to be marinated. Just coat the seafood with the dampness from the washing of the seafood with riceflour and deep fry.

If possible, get your local fish monger to 'butterfly' the fish for you. To 'butterfly' the fish is to split by cutting the fish with a sharp knife starting from the tail right up to the base of the head. You will get one side of the fish with the bones intact and othet side without bones.

SWEET & SOUR PORK
(KOO LOO YOKE)
Serves 4

400g shoulder or loin pork, cubed

1/2 tbsp rice wine or Shaoxing wine

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1/2 tsp sugar

2 egg white, beaten

4 oz rice flour

oil for deep frying

Sauce ingredients:

1 clove garlic, sliced

1 medium onion, diced

2 tbsp plum sauce

1 tbsp rice vinegar

2 tbsp tomato sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp tapioca flour

1/3 cup water

1/2 red or yellow pepper, diced

1/3 length cucumber, seeded and cubed

Method:

1. Marinade pork cubes with, rice wine, light soy sauce and sugar for about 1 hour.

2. Mix all sauce ingredients together expect the oil and the vegetables.

3. Stir in beaten egg white into marinated pork cubes and toss the pork in the rice flour. Do this in a bowl. Shake off any excess flour.

4. Heat up cooking oil in a wok until hot and deep fry pork cubes in medium heat until brown.

5. Remove and keep aside on a serving platter.

6. Leave about 2 tablespoonful of oil in the wok. Reheat oil and fry garlic until light brown. Add in onions and cook lightly.

7. Pour in sauce ingredients and bring to boil.

8. Toss in bell peppers and cucumber. Boil for a further 10 seconds.

9. Pour sauce onto fried pork cubes and serve.