Ramen cooking

It's back to the office on a Monday! Weekends always pass so quickly. Dear and I have started a gym routine on Saturday mornings. We also cooked up ramen again over the weekend, this time with charsiu.

We did it the amateur way by marinating the meat with the same marinate as the ramen eggs. And the results were less desirable than I had expected. Conclusion: there's no shortcut to making the charsiu. Must make it properly with the correct method to get the best results! 

This time, we cooked this brand of ramen. Toride is a ramen chain in Japan, and we bought this during our visit to the Ramen Museum in Yokohama.

 Our pork belly slices that we bought from NTUC Finest.

Marinating in the fridge.

And our end result. The colours don't look that fantastic, I know. Luckily the ramen packet provided sesame and marinated ginger, so they made the bowl looked much better.

The broth is those milky pork bone kind. And the noodles were very thin, like vermicelli, but with the texture of normal noodles. And the texture was very good indeed. The noodles were springy and didn't grow fat in the soup.

Personally, we preferred ramen with a shoyu base. So this is our favourite home cooked ramen so far. Lucky Dear is having the last packet to himself!

Saba fish dinner at home

One of the meals we cooked at home during the New Year break was grilled saba fish. Since the kitchen belongs to Dear's Mum, I am always very paiseh to intrude into it, and can only think of very simple dishes when we want to cook up something in the kitchen when we are in the mood.

The saba fish with rice combo is one of them. We had bought a small packet of Japanese rice (the rice we cooked that day wasn't very good because we couldn't use the rice cooker. Only downer of the meal.) that we wanted to use when doing some simple Japanese cooking.

Dear was going into our neighbour's shore to run some errands, so we took the opportunity to visit the fish wholesaler in Woodlands to pick up some stuff!

The saba fish we bought. Three fillets were sold for $6.

It is insanely simple to prepare saba fish. Yet it costs so much more to eat it in restaurants. Simply run some salt on the fish, place it skin down (to get that crispy skin) into the pan with hot oil, grill for about three mins before flipping the fish. And cook again for abt three mins. Then a tasty dish is done!

And I discovered the supermarkets now sell fruits individually?! So I bought one lemon from the supermarket when I was buying steak for dinner, to squeeze onto the fish before eating it.

 Flipping time! See the lovely colour of the fish!

We also prepared a portobello rocket salad to go with our meal as we wanted to finish the rocket in the fridge. I suggested the combination when I saw the mushrooms going on sale at the wholesaler. $5 for 2 boxes!

Dear is the portobello mushroom chef and he stir-fry the mushrooms with some olive oil. Serve the mushrooms together with the rocket and drizzle sesame salad dressing on top. Yummz!

And this is our dinner:

Grilling the fish was so simple that Dear cooked the remaining fillet for dinner by himself on a weekday night.

Portobello mushroom rocket salad. 

I really love how delicious and simple the meal is!

We cooked ramen egg!

Happy new year! It was a long weekend that passed too quickly. Pretty depressing to be back at work today. : (

We did lots of cooking over the weekend, because we had bought some stuff we wanted to try our hands at, and with all the year end spending, we wanted to save some money. Plus, it is always so difficult to eat out during the festive season. Restaurants are packed and serve unappetising set dinners on the holidays. 

Dear was very nice and cooked steak the other night while I was at his place for mahjong. Then the next day, he cooked ramen for the two of us, while I was again, dragged into playing mahjong.

Here's how to cook the wonderful ramen egg: 

Boil the eggs for 6 to 7 minutes, depending on how well done you like your eggs to be. We boiled it for about 6mins, and it was a little too soft when we peeled the egg shells. But it came out pretty ok after we marinated it in the fridge. I think 6.5 mins might be the sweet spot.

After boiling the eggs, cool them down in running water. We were kiasu and did a ice water bath as well. Then, peel them and place in the marinate for 3 hours.

For the marinate:

I used the recipe from Chubby Hubby. It said to combine 1 cup light soy sauce, 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 10 ginger slices. Mix them in the pot, boil the mixture and cool it down.

After both the eggs and marinate have cooled down, place the eggs in the marinate. We left the eggs in the marinate for 3 hours.

Cooking the ramen:

We brought back ramen packs from our recent overseas trip. : ) Cooking ramen is as easy as cooking instant noodles with these convenience packs!

And this is our final product. We didn't prepare char siew this time, perhaps next time. As you can see, the broth of the bowl behind is milkier. I prefer the other bowl of ramen as the milky broth was too pepperish for me, while the other bowl had a shoyu base and was light enough for the soup to be drank.

Cooking ramen can be an easy affair, and yet an impressive dish to serve guests when they come for dinner. 

Our ramen egg : ) Pretty, isn't it? I'm happy to get such a result on the first try!

Steak night

Dear got pretty interested in cooking a steak and so we made ourselves a steak dinner after one of our Japanese lessons.

He appointed himself as the chef and had even read up on how to prepare a steak. So proud of him. : )

We got ourselves a steak from Cold Storage and another one from those gourmet meats store to see what's the difference in the meet quality.

Step 1: Lay the meat in room temperature for 30mins before cooking.

Step 2: Rub the meat with salt and pepper before placing the steak into the pan. Dear rubbed it with oil too. 

Our meat sizzling in the pan.

Step 3: Flip the meat over after a couple of minutes. 

The exterior of our steak looked a little dark but it was not burnt. Phew.

Step 4: After the steak is ready according to your preferred doneness, place it on a plate and rest for a five to 10 minutes before serving. This is to let the meat juices to move back into the centre of the meat. The cooking process had forced them to the sides and if you cut the meat right after it is out of the pan, the juices will come rushing out.

Our end product: steak served with nacho chips and rocket salad in sesame sauce.

I also made some caramelised onions with the leftover meat juices in the pan. Just throw chopped onions into the pan after removing the steak and cooked the onions til they turn light brown. Add water along the way when the mixture gets dry and continue sweating the onions. Throw a pinch of sugar in for some sweetness in the sauce.

Of course, this looks incredibly home made, especially since we do not have nice plates at Dear's house, but it's a cozy meal for two from the heart, cooked by Dear. : )

What's the difference between the two pieces of meat? The one from Cold Storage had a stronger beefy flavour while the other one was more delicate and had a better texture too. Now I know where to buy my steaks from.

Durian 'lao ban' Beancurd Pudding

Dear and I did many things over the long weekend. Besides our Jap lessons, we also squeezed in a session of badminton, and did some home cooking.

I finally made my durian beancurd pudding. We didn't take photos as we were both busy making the pudding together. But it's simple, make a durian puree and add it into the beancurd mixture. Refer to the recipe of the original flavoured here.

What I did for the durian beancurd was to mix durian (peeled them off from the seeds), with some water and milk (I didn't add that but I think you should) and mashed them up to get the durian puree. Doing it in a blender will be most helpful.

Then I poured the durian puree into the beancurd mixture that was already boiling in the pot and stirred them together.When the mixture in the pot is ready, remember to sieve it as you pour it into the bowls to cool down. This will prevent any durian pulp from being transferred to the bowls.

I also omitted the coffeemate in the original recipe so that my durian beancurd uses as many natural ingredients as possible.

Here is our accomplishment:

The colour looks the same as the original flavoured ones, lol. But it's slightly more yellowish in real life.

Pasta with sesame dressing

I love the Japanese sesame dressing. I always finish my salads when dining out if it is served with the dressing. And the cold noodles from Taiwan (I can't forget the ones we had there) and Japan? They are SO yummy because of that nutty fragrant taste.

One fine day, I finally decided to buy those bottled sesame sauce from the supermarkets to try and see if I can replicate the tastes of my favourite dishes.

Brought this from Kuriya Mart for over $6. Decided to buy it cos it's a different brand from the usual ones, so it should taste good rite? LOL.

Dear and I decided to cook it for a cold pasta dish for dinner after our Jap class. We topped it with whatever we can grab from his mum's fridge, so pardon the unhealthy fried chicken and uninteresting topping :p

It is very difficult to cook at his place (we always try to be simple) cos I can't possibly buy the sauces and ingredients for a more elaborate dish rite; there'll be so much leftover sauce and food. Can only wait for when our new house is ready before we tackle more dishes which require more ingredients.

We boil the spaghetti and chilled it in a cold bath before tossing it with the spaghetti. Taste wise, the sauce was not bad. But I'm not sure if it is because there were still some water attached to the spaghetti (we just lifted the noodles from the cold bath to our plates), the sauce was a tad watery.

I think it will taste good as a salad dressing. That's what I'm going to use the rest of the bottle for!

We also cooked up chawanmushi using the pre-packed packaged from Seng Choon. We had saw it at the supermarket some time back and thought it was worthwhile a try since it only costs less than $2. 

 The package comes with mushroom and corn. We also throw in chunks of the fried chicken. lol.

Just mix water, 2 eggs with the mixture and pour everything in bowls to place into the steamer. Cover with aluminium foil and steam them for 20 mins.

Our final product. It's actually quite tasty, though not as flavourful as the ones made from scratch. But at less than $2, it's a good DIY pack for fuss free chawamushi.

Making Lao Ban Beancurd

I'm not a fan of Tau Hauy but came to like the modern version of it in pudding form after trying the famed Lao Ban beancurd.

Our interest in it was fuelled with the opening of its rival 51 beancurd pudding at Tampines Mall. So convenient to get beancurd pudding now!

And then I stumbled upon a friend's facebook post about a recipe which claims to replicate the texture of Lao Ban beancurd, with a highly similar taste. And the recipe looks very easy!

So I told Dear that we have to try it out for ourselves and learn to make a new food.

Here's the recipe from Hardwarezone forum that I used.

Makes 2 bowls of 175ml each.

To Make Soya Milk
30g of 'Polleney' Soya Bean Milk Powder
15g of 'Unisoy' Soya Bean Milk Powder
350ml of water
Stir everything together, doesnt matter if you get some bubbles.

OR

350ml of Drinho/Vitasoy/Yeo's/Seasons Soya Milk


Making The Dessert
350ml of soya milk
15g of 'Nestle' 'Coffeemate' coffee creamer
10-15g of sugar to taste(not required if using carton-ed Soya Bean Milk)
7g of Phoon Huat's instant jelly powder

1. Heat the soya milk till its hot. DO NOT BOIL.
2. Stir in coffee creamer till its fully dissolved.
3. Stir in sugar till fully dissolved.
4. Stir in instant jelly powder till its fully dissolved.
4. 350ml of soya bean milk makes 2 bowls. Pour into 2 bowls and leave to cool. Optional: Sieve out bubbles using an oil sieve.
5. Leave in fridge. Enjoy. 

While there are not a lot of ingredients to buy, a couple of items were more difficult to get.

Not all supermarkets sell Polleney soya powder. I got mine from the NTUC at Clementi Central.

The Phoon Huat jelly powder is in high demand since the recipe has been circulated over the internet. The stores run out of them often. I had to make a second trip before being able to buy one. So, it's best to call the store first to check if the powder is in stock before making the way to the shop.

 Stirring everything in over fire.

Ladling the pudding mixture into the bowls after sieving. I would say sieving is not necessary if you have already stirred in everything well with no lumps.

Leaving it to cool for a while before placing them into the fridge.

Our homemade beancurd pudding after two hours in the fridge! The surface looks uneven as we couldn't wait to scoop a spoonful to try the taste, lol.

Verdict: Texture passed. Taste passed (although it was 90 percent identical to Lao Ban and yummy enough for a cheap easy homemade version).

One tip: make sure the beancurd mixture is very hot (when there's evaporation but the mixture is not boiling) when you add in the jelly powder. This will allow the jelly to cool down and therefore, coagulate.

I'm not sure if that sounds real basic, but I, as a kitchen noob, didn't know the mixture has to be hot and had added my jelly powder to a luke warm mixture because I was cautious of overheating it. Plus, nowhere online did anyone stress this point.

Hope this is useful for you. I love how Dear was also very interested in making the puddings and we had a fun weekend trying them out.

Now, I want to try to make durian pudding! And, with my newfound beancurd pudding making skill, I can make these for a potluck during friend's gatherings. Yeah!

Prawnfishing

Sometimes we don't know what to do when the weekend comes because it seems like we have done everything already. But in the end we still always manage to have fun.

Last Sat, we wanted to go jogging but it seems like the whole of Jurong was closed for YOG so we ended up in the KFC of the sports stadium for a light lunch. Talk about the irony. Then we decided to go prawnfishing in Ponggol to while away time, and cook our prawns for dinner.

The prawning was quite disastrous initally. I think we only caught 2 prawns in the first hour. We rented a rod for three hours. So I sat there as Dear was fishing, watching everyone else haul up a prawn regularly.

I asked myself how come we are always so lousy and how come we always come back to prawn despite our incompetence. Things got better when Dear decided to switch bait. We caught another two soon after switching. We were so bad that the staff, a China man, came over and gave us a crash course on prawn fishing.

It was quite embarrassing, in my opinon, as it is not the first time a staff has to teach us. And things became great when an uncle who was prawning near us gave his rod because he has to leave ahead of his time. He gave Dear some tips too, he said to go to the bridge in the pond and literally place the bait in front of the prawns.

 So with two rods now, we practised what the uncle taught. And I amazed myself! I think I caught like maybe 5 prawns in forty minutes! Dear was amazed at me too. I was hauling in prawn after prawn. There was even one instance when I just threw in the line and a prawn just bite the bait immediately! So fun! But fun things end too soon and we had to return our rods soon.

I must say luckily we had a run in the last hour, or else we will be pitiful again. This time, our catch was 12 prawns!! It's our highest catch ever, although of cos it pales in comparison to the pros. So we drove to Dear's house after packing the prawns in plastic bags.

Our catch of the day. All killed by Dear's mother. The three of us squealed in the kitchen as she killed the prawns. The juices of the one of the prawns squirted on Dear's face, heheheh.
Dear's mother stir fried the prawns with ginger, Hua Diao wine, and sesame oil. The end product was quite good!

From grey to red. Chow time! Our dinner: Dear's homecooked instant mee goreng with prawns and a sunny side up. Slurp!

And we concluded a nice simple day *_*

random

I've been meaning to blog but we have been so busy and the busy work means Dear and I just have little time to hang out together.

Nontheless, I discovered that we have done quite a fair bit of stuff together. Here are some random photos.

Wondering where we had this? In Dear's hse! We cooked this together, I'm think that the presentation was not bad. Sure looks like something from a home-cooked restaurant, hahaha.

The shine on the spaghetti: dun think that it is oil or what. It is glistening beads of cod roe ok! we cooked cod roe spaghetti using the sauce that I bought Dear for one of his xmas present.

It smelt a little fishy initially when I mixed the sauce with the spaghetti but in the end, it did taste fine. Shall be an option to cook when we have a house together. :)

And all the preparation for the cook out. Including a nice can of mushroom soup.

And our nice cosy dinner

A couple of weeks ago, we visited Everything with Fries at Holland Village.

We ordered the soup (i think it's chicken soup) which came with an fried egg. Surprisely nice!

Dear's pork chop with curry flavoured fries. Not bad.

And my breaded wild salmon with onion and sour cream flavoured fries. Not bad but I think I can't really appreciate it. Tasted like an above average salmon to me, that's all.

Desserts, which we got free of charge because of vouchers we used. The pink one is strawberry and the other one is peanut butter. Not very nice cos it's all creamy inside and you just feel like you are eating cream.

And some sinful indulgence at Mad Jack.

My fried chicken rice set: extra sin.
Dear's handburger: not that sinful. But Dear didn't really like it.

I'm still processing the photos from my bday. We took many photos at Universal Studios Singapore, so I needed some time to photoshop.

And I've just rem that Dear has not blogged about his third london trip!!! Must bug him!!