In The Kitchen With Momster

I couldn’t resist of not buying prawn if I saw it in the market. I love prawns and I love to eat it and cook it in anyway. There are so many types of prawns in the market… ming har, sang har, hoi har, lou fu har…. I don’t really bother as long as it is fresh. Last week bought a kilo of prawns and it is quite big and got to divide it for 3 cooking. Dearie Suki get bored with buttered prawn, Marmite prawn and sweet sour prawn. So the big prawns I bought ended up used in cooking with wantan noodles.

The Sang Har Mee that I love most is the one from Greenview, PJ but dining there is no longer cheap and just a plate of it can cost about RM100. Everything is expensive now but nothing can be compare to our own home cooked meals at home… without MSG, less oil, less salt. Dad teach me how to cook this Sang Har Mee and it turned out great, even Dearie Suki and the kids love it.

Ingredients :
500gm big prawns, clean and de-veined
3 pieces of wantan noodles, loosen it
Some chopped garlic and onion
Few slices of ginger
2 stalks spring onion, cut into 1 inch length
1 fishcake, cut into thin slices
1 egg, beaten
400ml water
Cornstarch for thickening
Oil for deep-frying

Seasoning ingredients :
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp soya sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp Hsiao Hsing wine
Salt, sugar and pepper to taste

Method :
1. Heat oil in pan and deep fry the loosen wantan mee till crispy. Dish up and set aside.
2. Remove oil from pan till left about 1 tablespoon in it. Sautee garlic, onion and ginger till fragrant. Add in the water and the seasoning ingredients and bring to boil for about 5 minutes.
3. Add in the prawns, fishcake and the spring onion. Once the prawns cook, add in the cornstarch for thickening and pour the beaten egg into the pan an give it a stir. Turned off the fire.
4. Arrange the fried wantan noodles on a plate, then pour the prawns and sauce on top of it.

My kids love fish and I love steaming all kind of fish for the kids. It is not only simple but it saves up the hassle of deep frying the fish. Furthermore it is more healthier to have steamed fish rather than fried. I used to steamed the fish with soya sauce but according to my Mom, having too much soya sauce is really bad for the kids.

Apart from fish, my kids love Marmite too. Marmite is made of yeast extract and it is rich in Vitamin B. Since Mom said soya sauce is not healthy, I used Marmite as the sauce for the steamed fish. It turned out really good and it is much more healthier. Goes well with porridge. Here you go for the recipe.

Ingredients :
3 slices of fish fillet
Some young ginger, cut into thin strips
Deep fried crispy shallots
Some coriander leaves
1 tsp shallots oil
1 tbsp Marmite, dilute it with 3 tbsp of hot water

Method :
1. Cleaned the fish and arranged the fish on a plate and top it with young ginger.
2. Steamed for 15 minutes or until the fish is cook.
3. Pour 1 tbsp of shallots oil , crispy shallots and the Marmite sauce over the steamed fish.
4. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice or porridge.

My son was playing outside the house and the Indian man riding a motorbike passed by our house. He is selling the Indian sweet delicacy called Putu Mayam. My son, asked the Indian man to stop because he wants to eat. It is selling at RM0.5o per piece and I bought 4 pieces for the kids.

Putu mayam is a sweet dish of rice noodles with coconut and jaggery as main ingredients. It is popular as a snack or breakfast food here.The process for making putu mayam consists of mixing rice flour with water or coconut milk, and pressing the dough through a sieve to make vermicelli-like noodles. These are steamed, usually with the addition of juice from the aromatic screwpine leaf  as flavouring. The noodles are served with grated coconut and coconut palm sugar.

My kids really love it and they had it during their tea time. I even packed it for them into their bento box.

When you see those small little frog… it may looks disgusting. Actually it is disgusting when I first saw it and I don’t even dare to touch it. But according to Mom, this type of frog is very good to eat because it helps to clean the toxic in our body. My son, Ee-Thern has a very bad skin and he tends to scratch his skin. My Mom advised me to cook some frog for him to eat. I went to the market go get some to steamed it with chinese herbs. The frog’s meat is so sweet and smooth after I steamed it. The next time if I buy again I will stir-fried with dried chilli ( kung pou  style ).

Ingredients :
5 frogs, cleaned and cut into small pieces ( you can buy frogs from the wet market or at times you can find it at the night market )
10 red dates
6 pieces tong kwai
A handful of kei chi ( wolfberries )
Some young ginger, cut into thin strips
Salt, pepper, sesame oil for seasoning
2 tbsp Hsiao Hsing wine

Method :
1. Mix all the ingredients with the frogs.
2. Add the younger ginger on top of the frogs and steam for 20 minutes or till cook.
3. Serve hot.

Cooking prawns again at home. I just love prawns and couldn’t get bored with it even I cook it everyday. There is something I discovered last week…. HP Fruity Sauce. I have been using HP BBQ sauce all the time but have not try HP Fruity Sauce at all. I usually use HP BBQ sauce for all my meat marination or add as a sauce to all sandwiches like tuna sandwich, egg sandwich, hamburger as it has a tangy taste and it is delicious too.

My colleague gave me a bottle of HP Fruity Sauce last week and I took it back and explore it in my cooking. I tried it on the prawns tonight. I am surprised it turned out so good and cooking with this is much more simpler and easy. I can whip up a nice prawn dish within 15 minutes. Give it a try and I bet you will come back for more. Both my kids really love it.

Ingredients :
15 - 20 pcs medium sized prawns, trimmed and cleaned
Some cornflour for coating
Some chopped garlic
1 no. tomato, cut into cubes
3 tbsp HP Fruity Sauce
1/2 cup of water
1 tsp sugar
Some cornstarch for thickening
Some spring onion for garnishing

Method :
1. Dust prawns with some cornflour.
2. Heat oil in pan. Stir fried prawns for a minute or till it turned orange colour. Dish up and set aside.
3. Leave 1 tbsp of oil in the pan. Sauteed chopped garlic till fragrant. Then add in tomato and stir fried for a minute.
4. Add in HP Fruity sauce and water. Simmer till boil and add in sugar and the prawns.
5. Thicken with cornstarch.
6. Dish up and garnish with spring onion.

Personally I would prefer the savoury type of yam cake rather than the sweet type. I never like sweet stuff thought I like to make them for the family. One of my favourite is Yam Cake. Last weekend I make Yam Cake for tea-time at home. Just make a small tray of it and it is just enought for 4 of us at home.

My 3rd aunty gave me the tip on measuring the rice flour and water which you can never go wrong with it and the texture turned out just nice and firm, not too soft nor too hard. Her secret recipe of measurement is 1 : 2 ( 1 cup of rice flour and 2 cups of water ) using the rice bowl or any size of rice bowl.

Ingredients :
1 small yam, peeled the skin and cut into small cubes
1/2 bowl dried prawns, soak in water and chopped
Some chopped garlic and onion
2 bowls rice flour
4 bowls water
1/4 tsp five spice powder
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt

Garnishing :
Fried shallots
Fried crispy dried prawns
Spring onion, chopped
Red chilli, cut into thin strips

Method :
1. Heat 1 bowl of oil in pan. Deep fry the cubed yam till golden brown. Dish up and put aside.
2. Pour away the oil and leave about 2 tbsp in the pan. Sautee garlic, onion and dried prawns till fragrant.
3. In a big bowl, mix rice flour with water. Mixed well.
4. Pour the batter into the pan and add in five spice powder, pepper and salt.
5. Add in the fried yam cube into the batter and cook batter till slightly thick and pour the batter into a well greased square tin.
6. Steam the yam cake for about 40 mins or till cook.
7. Leave aside to cool and garnish with fried shallots, dried prawns, spring onion and chilli.
8. Serve with chilli sauce or sweet sauce.

Dearie Suki is not back for dinner and the kids had their dinner in Ah Mah’s house and for me I just cooked one greendish for myself. I was searching over the fridge to see what I have and found a bag of kailan I bought few days ago. When I eat at the restaurant I love to order this dish they called it kailan chau kailan or yin yeong kailan. It is a greendish whereby the kailan leaves is cut into small pieces and deep fried till crispy and the stems is stir-fried with oyster sauce. I had this for dinner all by myself.

Ingredients :
200gm Hong Kong Kailan
A handful of ikan bilis
Some chopped garlic
2 tbsp Hsiao Hsing Wine
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp oyster sauce

Method :
1. Separate the kailan. Trim stems and cut into small pieces. Shred the leaves finely.
2. Heat oil in pan and deep fry the shredded leaves in hot oil till crisy. Removes leaves. Next deep fry the ikab bilis till crispy. Remove and set aside.
3. Scald kailan stems in boiling water till cooked through. Remove and keep aside for later use.
4. Heat oil in wok and sautee garlic till fragrant. Drizzle in the Hsiao Hsing wine and add in the cooked kailan stems. Add in oyster sauce and salt. Stir fried for a minute and dish up on a plate.
5. Arrange the deep fried kailan leaves next to it and top on with deep fried ikan bilis.

Note: This dish has a nice crunch when you serve it immediately.

It is quite hard to find lala ( clams ) either from the wet market of night market nowadays. Last Tuesday I saw it at the SJ night market and I quickly grab a plate of it at RM5. Lala is always my favourite no matter how you cook it. I think my Dad cooked the best lala dish at home. Yummy and I learnt to cook the lala from him in many ways.

Since it was a rainy day last Tuesday, I cooked Black Pepper Lala Soup added with a lot of chopped ginger and some Chinese wine for supper. Dearie Suki don’t eat lala and can you imagine, I had that big pot of lala by myself. Wow… yummy, yummy, yummy…

Ingredients :
1 kg lala, cleaned and soak in salt water then drained
2 tbsp chopped ginger
1/2 tbsp whole blackpepper corn, crushed a bit
1 litre water
Salt to taste
2 tbsp Chinese wine
Some Chinese parsley

Method :
1. Heat oil in pan and sautee chopped ginger till fragrant.
2. Add in water and black pepper corn. Let it simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Add in lala and season with salt to taste. Let it simmer for another 5 minutes or till lala is cook.
4. Pour in the Chinese wine and garnish with Chinese parsley. Serve hot.

The Momster’s is in Today.com. I discovered this blog while I was searching for some other information in the blogsphere. Finally I registered myself in today.com and this blog will be used by me to write down all my experiences in cooking and baking.

It has been a wonderful years for me with two lovely, active and growing up children and a supportive husband. I am a full time working mother and looking forward to be a stay at home mom if money permit me to do that. But I am definately looking forward for the day to come. I have the passion for baking and cooking. Despite my busy working schedule, I still find myself sometime to squeeze in to be with my family. Hence, I still cook everyday and bake almost every weekend. With this blog I will post as much recipes as possible and also the food that I cook and tested at home. Enjoy and  I hope you will like it.