Prawn Linguine

Here is one of the rare non-oriental dish I make occassionally. I have an aversion towards rich foods such as those made with cheese or cream or other dairy products, so the sauce used here is heavily based on tomatoes and various herbs and spices.


Below are the main ingredients for the sauce. The veg used are onions, garlic, red capsicum, and a medium tomato. I use pre-cooked prawns as raw prawns gives out too much liquid and dilute the sauce too much.



Firstly, I fry all the veg together, but careful not to brown them too much, as they still have to be stewed later on. I add mixed herbs and a generous portion of chopped dried parsley. Better to use fresh if you have it at hand though.



Then I pour in the can if chopped tomatoes, and also one T of tomato puree. After this, I add some stock. Knorr's chicken stock if you dont have any homemade ones at hand. I also add salt and sugar to taste. Sugar is VERY important here, otherwise the dish will taste too sour. Then I let it stew for about 10 - 15 minutes till all the veg goes just soft, but not to a pulp.



I also ensure that the liquid is reduced significantly, according to how thick I want the final product to be. Then I add the prawns. Remember that the prawns will let out juice as well and dilute the sauce, so do allow for this.


Give it a good stir till the prawns start to curl up. This should take only about 3 minutes. Any longer and the prawns will be overcooked. I also add the fresh tomato at this point. I know it sounds like a lot of tomatoes, but each different form of tomatoes gives it additional and unique flavours.



Then pour over your pasta and serve! I didn't bother showing how I cooked the pasta because if you need instructions on how to do that, then you probably will not be interested in reading this anyway. ;-)

Lobster Fried Ho Fun

Another treat for the Chinese New Year fortnight. Managed to get a frozen Canadian lobster. Added some other bits of seafood and then fried it with garlic, rice wine, soy and oyster sauce, then poured stock over it and thickened with cornflour. Then I poured the whole lot over plain fried ho fun (with a bit of sweet and light soy). This is my version of "wat tan hor" but without the egg cuz I never seem to get it right and always overcook the egg.

Chinese New Year Celebrations In Manchester 2008

Last weekend in Manchester's Chinatown, we had the annual Chinese New Year carnival. Here are some of the shots I took on that lovely sunny afternoon.


The lion dancers went around Chinatown and into many Chinese business premises around the periphery. Made a lot of noise and I noticed many visitors were taken aback by the firecrackers.



The main street in Chinatown.



Some restaurant folks laid out their stalls oudoors selling their products at vastly inflated prices!









We were lucky enough to be dining inside a restaurant when the lion dance came in!


And what did we eat?
Assorted meat Cantonese Fried Ho Fun


Chicken feet with Black Bean Sauce with rice.


Beef Brsiket in Egg Noodle Soup

Chinese New Year Dinner

To celebrate CNY, I cooked up something with a red theme. Not all thew dishes were of this colour but two were. Not a massive feast as there are only the three of us in the family, but nevertheless, I ensured that it was something we dont have everyday.

For once, healthy eating was not a consideration!

Here is the meal all laid out. Rice and drinks not in view.




Butter tiger prawns, made with curry paste, butter, curry leaves, green chillies and garlic. Garnished with coarse black pepper and garlic salt.



Deep fried battered squid. Batter was made light and fluffy by using egg and carbonated water.



Sweet and sour pork. Using the same batter as the squid somehow did not work so well, as it got soggy very quickly once the sauce was added. Next time, I will make a tougher batter for the pork. Sauce was shop bought.




Thai shrimp crackers. Cositing 4 times more than ordinary prawn crackers, but tastes only twic as good, so I would consider this a bit overpriced!



Got another week and a half left of CNY, so I'll have plenty more excuses for more unhealthy meals like these!

CNY Greetings

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Have a prosperous and stomach filling new year!

Hainan Chicken Rice

Here is a dish I cook about twice a month. There is not that much work involved, but does consume a fair bit of time because of the lengthy cooking process of the chicken, hence there is a lot of waiting around. It is certainly not a dish you can do after a long day at work and you want to cook a quick dinner. Even here, I have taken some short cuts because of time constraints.





To start with, the raw ingredients here are simple.. chicken, ginger, garlic and spring onions.



Bring them all to boil, then I add the chicken. If I had more time, I'd fry the ginger and garlic first and include the oil in the pot.



After 1 minute, including time to turn the chicken over as I did not have enough water so submerge the whole chicken (why? .. I'll explain later), the chicken has now gone white and I quickly put it under cold water to tighten up the skin.



Then I boil it again in the same pot.



After 15 mins, I turn off heat and leave it for another 30 mins. Then I give it another cold water bath!



Now, I lay it aside to dry. I ensure I keep it suspended in the air so that the whole surface dries. Some people may prefer to use a hook and hang it up.



Now, I boil down the stock. Earlier, I said I did not have enough water to submerge the whole chicken. That is because, the more water I use, the longer it takes to boil the stock down and I did not have the time. I also add a bit of Knorr's chicken stock here for additional flavour. Of course, I add salt, sugar and pepper to taste as well.



With the stock ready, I add it to my rice, with a blade of screwpine (pandan) leaf.



When the chicken is dry, I rub it with sesame oil, then chop it the Chinese way. The sauce is a mixture of sugar, stock, soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper and spring onions





The first pic of this blog showed the dry version of the dish. I prefer mine soaked with sauce like this!!