Monday, January 22, 2007

Fish Ball Noodles

A fellow blogger mom asked for this recipe.

This is the basic recipe I used for my fish cake noodles - although, obviously, for the lack of many of the ingredients, I had to substitute and make do with whatever I had. By the way, I got the recipe from here.

For the noodles, I highly recommend using the one I have in the picture below. The noodles taste nice and light and my kids love them. I did not at all follow the exact measurements of this recipe, although, I did use it as a 'guide' to gauge how much of the ingredients are needed.

In the end, IMO, these things are really up to your own tastes and preferences when you cook - because you and your family are the people who are going to tuck in.

Would be really nice with some pickled green chillies, I think.


Ingredients:


* 2 tbsps cooking oil
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 cm ginger, minced
* 6 cups water
* 3 tbsps Concentrated chicken stock
* 1 tbsp sliced preserved cabbage (optional)
* 12 fish balls
* ½ tsp sesame oil
* Pepper to taste

* 300gm thin rice vermicelli (mai fun)

Garnishing:

* 1 cup bean sprouts, tailed and blanched
* 1 stalk celery, cut into 1 cm sections
* 1 stalk of scallion/spring onions, finely chopped
* ¼ cup sliced fried shallot

Directions:

1. Heat oil, stir fry garlic and ginger until aromatic
2. Add in water and bring to a boil. Add chicken stock and preserved cabbage, simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Stir in fish balls, sesame oil and pepper to taste; cook for 5 minutes until done.
4. When serving, place vermicelli into individual bowls. Add garnishing and pour hot soup over the vermicelli.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Sotong Kangkung

The secret of any sotong kangkung or rojak buah is needless to say, its sauce, because the main ingredients usually are served raw or simply blanched before they are served with the sauce. Here I have included the recipe of this nice sauce to be eaten with ‘yong tau fu’ and sotong kangkung type of rojak. Follow the recipe exactly and you will not be disappointed!

Mix all these together:

1cm cube belacan (held to a flame but be careful not to burn it!)
3 Tbsp petis
1 Tbsp dark soy sauce
1 Tbsp sweet soy sauce
10-12 small extra hot chillies ( cili padi) pounded
1 Tbsp chili paste (or as much as u like)
7-8 Tbsp sugar
salt to taste
80-100ml warm water
and finally, 1-2 Tbsp pounded roasted peanuts and 1 Tbsp roasted sesame seeds, for sprinkling on top of rojak

The original ingredients for sotong kangkung (according to my recipe) would be:

300gm kangkung
1 sotong kembang (sliced)
1 cucumber (sliced)
½ pineapple sliced and cut into small portions
4-5 fried tofu (sliced)