Beef in Black Bean Sauce

Another one of those Chinese dishes, like Sweet & Sour, which I had never tasted before until I came to the UK. Can anyone confirm if this is as popular in the far east as it is here in the UK?

The trick to restaurant quality black bean sauce is.... wait for it .....

...NOT TO USE BLACK BEAN SAUCE! :))

Ok, what I really meant was that you shouldn't use black bean sauce bought off a supermarket shelf. Instead, I simply marinate the beef with oyster sauce, soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil and bits of chopped garlic and a few fermented black bean.


Then, in a smoking hot wok, I fry some chopped garlic and a tsp of black beans, then add the beef and quickly fry it, adding the veg shortly before it becomes completely brown. Then add stock and cornflour to make up a sauce, and salt and/or sugar to taste. The better the quality of beef, the more tender it is. If you can afford it, use sirloin or fillet of beef.


So, in essence, I did not use "black bean sauce" at all, just a sauce with some black beans in it. Fermented black beans should always be used sparingly as the flavour is too strong and salty. Crushing too many into a sauce will also give it a bitter taste. Hence, I prefer just to just lightly flavour the stir fry dish with the beans.

Fruits are good for you .. or are they?

We have just done the shopping for the following and this is the picture of our supply of fruit for the next seven days. We are two adults and a child under ten. Seems a lot, dont it? I am so glad we have large variety of fruits to choose from in the shops of Manchester, as you can see there are some mangoes, chinese pears and mandarin oranges in that pile. We have made it a habit to munch on a fruit when we have cravings for sweets and I personally find that sweet seedless grapes is the best substitute.

You'd think that eating all these fruits cannot do anything but good to your health wouldnt you. Well, as I have found out in the last few years, it does have a major health consequence..... your dental health. Consuming so much acid and not immediately brushing your teeth afterwards can have similar effects as eating sweets. My dental bills have gone up as a result and have lost a tooth, and possibly another in the next few weeks. So be warned..... be careful if you intend to go on a high fruit diet!

Malaysian Curry Chicken

This is probably the most common Malaysian curry dish. Not only is it deliciously rich and satisfying in taste, but also simple to cook. Sometimes, when you buy if from the nasi kandar or nasi lemak seller, the sauce can be a bit watery, but when you do it at home, you don't have to scrimp on the coconut milk and can make it nice and thick. The chicken has to be on-the-bone or you would lose 50% of the taste. Even better if you can chop it to bite size pieces, then the marrow is exposed and adds a wonderful flavour to the sauce.

The curry power was shop bought, made into a paste. Other ingredients include onions, curry leaves, and a blade of pandan (screwpine) leaf.



Then I fry the curry leaves, onions, and curry paste, in this order.


Then add chicken to brown before adding coconut milk, water and pandan leaf and left to stew for awhile.


And that is it!

Mango Pandan Sago Pudding

Thanks to Daphne's recipe here, I have managed to embellish this to give it a unique pandan (screwpine) flavour.

Unfortunately, I have not used the best quality coconut milk here, but next time, I will make sure I get something better tasting.


The method is the same as Daphne's apart from me adding a blade of pandan leaf in the coconut milk, and also a drop of green pandan food flavouring. The result is a rich and satisfying dessert!



On a slightly different note, anyone recognise this Chow Kuey Teow seller from Penang? He was featured in a travel programme (Food Planet) in the UK. He has a manual hand operated fan underneath his wok, which I have never seen before. I just thought that his CKT must have been something special to be chosen for this programme, among the many excellent Penang CKT sellers on the island. How do you rate his CKT?

Soy Sauce Chicken

A very popular chinese dish enjoyed all over the world. I use the same recipe that you would find at many Cantonese restaurants, where you can see the chicken hung up whole, on the display window. However, as this is the home version, it was not practical to cook the chicken whole as this would mean making enough sauce to cover the whole chicken. What would I do with the sauce afterwards? In a restaurant, they would make more chickens with it. Shame really, as cooking the chicken whole would mean being able to seal the juices in, making it succulent, smooth and the meat not as dry.

This is a simple dish. Firstly, I cut the chicken to small pieces, then marinate with seseme oil, pepper, dark soy, sweet soy, light soy, 5 spice powder and rice wine. Then the other ingredients are ginger, garlic and spring onions.


masao kitamura


I fry the ginger, garlic and whites of the spring onions, then add chicken and brown them, then add light stock (1/4 of a knorrs cube), ebough to cover 50% of the chicken. This is left to stew, stirring occassionally till the sauce thickens and chicken is cooked. Add salt and sugar to the desired taste.


masao kitamura



After its cooked, garnish with greens of the spring onion and stir.


All Care Animal


Then serve with rice!

Fast Food Britain!

Firstly, have a look at this picture. Lovely isn't it? A thin sheet of settled snow in my garden and a sunny blue sky ... you can imagine the next scenario ... go under the Christmas tree and start opening your presents. However, there is something wrong with this picture.... it was taken this morning, 6th April! Now all the freshly planted plants are going to die and we'll have to plant them again when the snow clears. So much for global warming!



For the rest of this blog, I will do a rundown of some of the fast / convenient foods I have had over the last few weeks. Due to surgery, I was not able to cook for awhile and so had to rely on convenience food to keep me going. They were not the best, but there is a place for them in today's society, especially as they can be cheap and very convenient. SO here is a review and countdown, from the worst to the best...

No 8:
A microwave bacon cheeseburger, complete with the bun. All you have to do is unpack it and microwave for 2 mins. Cost only £1. The pattie taste vaguely like meat.


No7:
A chicken tikka masala pie. The filling consist of a lightly spiced creamy chicken curry. Tastes bland and the crispy puff pastry was the best bit. Just pop into the oven to bake for 20 mins. COst only 72p. About 3.5 - 4in long.


No 6:
Tesco's Tuna Sweetcorn Pasta. The sauce is actually yogurt based, and At 550kcal per pack, not as heavy as a mayo based dish. Tastes fine, I'd give it 3/5. Cost £1.70



No 5:
A subway sandwich. This 12inch chicken and bacon sub cost £4, including a drink. I can never finish such a large one, so I shared it with my son. We both enjoyed it but I still think it cost too much for a piece of bread with bits of cheap veg and meat.


No 4:
Singapore Chow Mein from a local takeaway. Cost £4.50, which is about average in price. Taste is ok, but I would have preferred if they had used the thicker variety of egg noodles. Frying "sang mein" this way just does not taste right.


No 3:
Yung Chow Fried Rice from the same takeaway. Rice was delicately fried with wok hei ... had good taste without the brown soy sauce flavour. The only thing that spoilt it was the use of cheap soft luncheon meat in the rice. Cost £3.80.


No 2:
Sushi pack from Tesco. I dont know how to describe what is in it as I am not a big fan of Japanese cuisine. However, I thought this was nice enough, with the fresh tasting smoked salmon, a tasty piece of yellow sheet (which I dont know what it is!, and nouri that was not too dry or wet. Only slight complaint was that the rice was slightly on the hard side, but I think this is probably normal with all sushi that is not made to order. Cost £3.


And for the No 1 dish....

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My favourite noodles..ho fun! But this is slightly different .... it's a packet of instant noodles from Hong Kong. The chicken flavour soup base reminded me of, when a kid, a hawker whom used to pass my house selling "tok tok meen" ... where he clapped two pieces of bamboo together to make a distinctive noise to let everyone know he was coming. This instant ho fun was soft and succulent when cooked properly and with the seasoning oil, smooth as well. Cost only 38pence!!!

If You're Not The One

Something different today... one of my other hobbies apart from cooking is music. No just singing, but also recording, writing, composing and also listening. So today, I have uploaded a song I sang over a karaoke track. I am sure you are all familiar with this song, though obviously not the voice. Feel free to do a Simon Cowell on me, if you want, it's all just a bit of fun!

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA

APRIL FOOL

Ok, in case anyone has not sussed out yet, yesterday's blog was an April Fool, hehe! The pics were obtained from various sources from the web and it was actually rabbit rather than cat! Sorry if I have upset anyone!

Kitten Tikka Masala

Ok, before I begin, I must say that this dish is not as cruel or unpractical as some may think. Read on and you will undertand how it makes sense.

The kitten meat was obtained from a fresh roadkill, with the permission of the owner. From her point of view, I have helped her dispose of the kitten. I must emphasise on the term "FRESH". It has to be fresh or else it could be contaminated and eventually become poisonous to eat. This way, it will be the same as preparing and eating a freshly slaughtered chicken.

Fortunately, this kitten was mostly intact, only the head was damaged, so I just skinned it and removed the innards and it looks like a clean carcass ready for cooking.


I made sure I used a strong sauce, just in case the meat has unusual strong aromas. So, just a can of this rich Patak's sauce was adequate to coat the meat with a full spicy rich and tangy flavour.


The resultant dish was delicious, tender and truly enjoyable!