Quick Meal : Baby Whitebaits Omelette

I supposed to blog this a week ago. But I totally forgotten about it. I cook this for myself over the weekend for a quick lunch. As usual, I would rather eat something plain and simple at home than going out for a meal that is complicated and expensive food. Sometimes when I taste the food selling at coffee shops or hawker centre, especially economical rice stall, I really wonder how long had they kept those meat in the freezer before they cook it. Or, sometimes I can’t help thinking that I’m actually eating unwashed veggies. But it is really unavoidable. When we are busy, we will still eat out even tho we know the fact that the food that they serve is no good.

This time round I didn’t add prawns in there. Just pure whitebaits. A generous amount of whitebaits for my omelette. Yumms!!!

This takes me only 5mins. It’s super quick.

Ingredient (Serves 1)

• a tablespoon of oil
• 1 egg, beaten. Make it two if you want.
• a handful of whitebaits. But please be generous.
• a dash of pepper
• spring onions as garnishing

Method
1. Give the whitebaits a quick wash, drained. You wont want your whitebaits to be too wet.
2. Heat up your pan with a tablespoon of oil in there. Add in whitebaits, toss.
3. Beaten eggs in, stir well. Make sure all your whitebaits are sticked together with eggs.
4. Fry each side till golden pale brown (refer to my picture), a dash of pepper on each side.
5. Dish up, sprinkle spring onions, and serve with steamed white rice.

You don’t need to add any soy sauce nor salt. Whitebaits itself has a mild salty taste. When it’s combined together with the eggs, the taste would be just nice.

Nom.. Nom.. Nom….. Satisfying!

I finished 1 bowl of rice by just eating this omelette.

Give it a try! 😀

Review : My Zojirushi NP-HBQ10 Rice Cooker (Part 2) – GABA Rice

I’ve given my 1st review on my rice cooker not long ago. Tested the review about cooking white rice using normal white rice function. The result was really good. I cooked brown rice two weeks ago, but I don’t have the time to post it. So, now here it is.

Because of the Zojirushi Rice Cooker that I wanted to buy has a function named GABA. Before I buy the rice cooker, I tell myself that I really wanted to know what the hell is all about. I read alot about rice and I did some research. I wanted to make sure that the price that I’m paying for such good technology rice cooker is worthwhile. As I mentioned, the rice cooker has GABA setting that not all rice cooker have.

Before anything else, I’m gonna side track abit and talk about the rice, just to give you a clearer picture. I come to realize that the GABA is actually related to Hatsuga genmai (発芽玄米 germinated brown rice). It is one of the most nutritious rice promoting in Japan. Basically, it is unpolished brown Japanese rice that we are talking about.

A week before I buy my rice cooker, I went Isetan Orchard to hunt for Germinated Brown Rice, and I’ve got this pack of 2kg Japanese Germinated Brown Rice. Cost me S$19.90. Mad expensive. And all the instruction manual is not surprisingly… Japanese. Duh!

It is said that this rice has a softer texture than brown rice and a pleasant fragrance, yet retains the health benefits of brown rice and is marketed in Japan as a health food product. This rice is produced by soaking washed brown rice in warm water for dunno certain degree for 3 days or something. This cannot be done at home. So, they do it, and sell it to the market at such a damn expensive price.

Take a close look at the germinated rice. It’s been germinated by a special process, but still retain it’s brown in color. The bran of the rice has been removed, the germ remain.
For the 1st time I cook this, I didn’t mix it with white rice, and it was a disastrous! Until I carefully see the picture of that packaging (I can’t read Japanese!!). Then I came to realize that I need to add white rice to cook together with it using regular white rice function. The 2nd time, it was much better because I cooked it correctly. So, I conclude, this pack of rice is meant for people who own basic rice cooker at home, but wanted to enjoy germinated brown rice. So, for those who do not have a higher end rice cooker with GABA setting, buy this. I have to be frank, it’s delicious.

This is part of the reason why my rice cooker is so expensive. It has GABA function! Wuahahahaha!!!

This GABA setting on the menu activates brown rice for increased nutritional value. Well, since I’ve got GABA function on my mighty rice cooker, I’ve get myself a pack of medium grain brown rice and give it a try then!

Cooked a cup normal white rice using Quick cooking setting, it takes me about 20 to 25mins. While I’m still using my old basic cooker for brown rice cooking, I will normally pre-soak my brown rice for 1 hour and then take another 25-30mins to cook it. Little did I know that by doing that, I actually spent 1 hour 30 minutes hour to get my brown rice cooked. Insane, right? But I can tell you, it pays to eat good rice. Because apparently, it’s the same way with this new one, taking anywhere from 1 hour 30 minutes to 1 hour 45 minutes to cook brown rice.

As if that wasn’t crazy enough, the GABA setting on my mighty rice cooker will take at minimum 3 hours and 15 minutes to cook! According to the instruction manual, the rice cooker will begin activating the brown rice, after which will start cooking automatically. During the brown rice activation process, the temperature in the Inner Cooking Pan is kept at about 40 degree Celsius for 2 hours. Insane!

Still, I cooked a batch of brown rice using the GABA setting. I do it over the weekend.

I was sold totally when it is said that by activating brown rice, GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), a naturally occurring nutrient in brown rice, increases to 150% of the amount contained in non-activated brown rice. This process also makes brown rice softer, thus making it readily edible. So, you still don’t know what is GABA? It is actually a type of amino acid said to lower blood pressure, relieve stress & many other health benefit. Replenishing GABA to the body can also help fight insomnia, depression and other neurological conditions. Researches also found that a regular intake of GABA helps improve kidney function, lower blood pressure and reduce sleeplessness. MIGHTY RICE!!! 😀

So, are you sold by now? Hehe…

The rice was nice, fluffy, tender and not at all like the horrible brown rice you get served all along. Eating brown rice cooked with GABA setting is really a great way to eat a little healthier while avoiding the full blast grainy texture that people usually hate about brown rice. Seriously, I never liked brown rice like the one I’m having now.

Although this rice is stickier than the normal rice. But if you look carefully, you can see how loose & fluff the kernels of rice are.

Take a close look. Did you see the rice has a brown line on every grain, and there’s a tiny germ kinda thing stick at the end of the grain?

I’ve eaten exceptionally good rice before at high end Japanese restaurant in Singapore. The rice that made me want to eat another bowl. There was a definite difference!

This GABA rice is the rice that really makes me wanna eat one bowl after another. 3 hours and 15 minutes cooking time, I would say, it’s worth the wait.

I love my rice cooker! 😀

Next time, I will get myself a pack of Japanese short grain brown rice instead. Stay tuned!

Long Bean Flavorful Mixed Rice (豆角有味饭)

This cooked long bean rice is full of flavor. Some of you must be asking what is 豆角 (dou jiao). 豆角 is literally long bean in Cantonese. We usually called this 长豆 in Singapore.

This is a ONE POT dish that my grandma used to cook for me during my childhood time. This pot of flavorful rice can serve the whole family with little effort, and it is really good if your cooking need to be done way in advance, because this can be well kept in your rice cooker up to 2 hours or longer if you want. It is not a quick meal. Because you need some effort when it comes to preparation. I would say, it’s more on a quick-quick-slow meal. Like Tango dance 🙂

It’s a busy Saturday today. Max went Bintan for company trip. I’ve got to send my car to the garage to get it serviced, drive to the market and get some fresh ingredients. Reached home around 1pm, and start to do all my cooking preparation. I choose to cook this mixed rice today because I’ve got some errand run around later at 4pm, and need to fetch Max from the ferry terminal at 5pm, which this timing supposed to be my dinner preparation time. I don’t want him to reach home without dinner being served after his long day. So… here it is.

The ingredient that I’m gonna use here is common ingredient that you could easily get from the market. This recipe could easily feed 4 to 5 adult.

Ingredient A – (Rice)
3 cups of Jasmine Rice (the ordinary chinese rice that you have at home)
500ml water

Seasoning for Rice
2 cloves garlic – peeled, washed, chopped
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce

Ingredient B – (Long Bean)
3 tbsp oil
4 shallots – Peeled, washed, and sliced.
3 slices of ginger – Julienned
3 tbsp dried shrimps – Washed, soaked till soft, drained.
1 pair Chinese sausage (腊肠)- Washed with hot water, drained, remove skin, sliced.
10 long beans – washed, cut into 1 inch length.

Seasoning for Long Bean Mixture
1 tbsp Shao-Xing Wine (Chinese cooking wine)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
a dash of pepper
a dash of sesame oil

Ingredient C – (Roasted Pork)
1 tbsp oil
1 clove garlic – finely chopped
200g Roasted Pork (烧肉) – chopped into bite size

Seasoning for Roasted Pork
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp soy sauce

The list of ingredient is long eh? But It’s worth preparing. Trust me.

Method
1. RICE – Rinse and soak rice in water for 30mins. Drained and set aside.

2. ROASTED PORK – Heat up wok, a tbsp oil, chopped garlic, fry till fragrance. Add in roasted pork, give it a quick toss under high heat. The pork will release some oil during stir frying. And this is what we want. The oil! Add in sugar & soy sauce, fry till the pork looks brownish and caramelized. Heat off, dish up. And by now, your kitchen is full of stir fried roasted pork aroma, that makes you wants to put one into your mouth immediately… Cantonese called this method of stir-frying roasted pork as 爆烧肉 (bao-siu-yuk). It’s simply enhancing the flavor of the roasted pork.

3. LONG BEAN MIXTURE – Heat 2 tbsp of oil in wok, fry shallots till golden brown, add ginger and fry till fragrant. Add in the rest of the ingredients – Chinese sausages, dried prawns, long bean. Sizzle in Shao-Xing wine, give it a quick toss. Add in seasoning – salt. sugar. pepper, sesame oil. Heat off, dish up, set aside. You don’t need to thoroughly cook this. What you need is just kinda combine all of them and make sure that they are evenly coated with flavors & fragrance.

4. RICE – Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a wok, fry garlic till fragrant. Reduce to low heat, sizzle in seasoning for rice – light soy sauce, add rice, dark soy sauce and oyster sauce. Fry evenly at high heat for awhile. Off the heat. Transfer fried rice and add 500ml water into rice cooker. Switch on and cook for about 13 to 15 minutes. Using time to time yourself is always the best choice.

5. When the water almost dried up, add in fried long beans mixture, and roasted pork.

6. Cover it, continue to cook until the rice cooker automatically turn to “Keep Warm” mode. Leave it there for another 5 to 10 mins. Stir well – But I would prefer to use the word “Messed it up”. LOL!

8. And serve!

I couldn’t tell you how delicious this pot of mixed rice is. But the fact is that, my dear father-in-law ate HALF POT of the rice on his own. Scroll up the picture and see the rice in the rice cooker once again. The rice in my rice cooker is almost full. The space is juuuuuust nice when i shut the rice cooker cover. When we return home, and I open my rice cooker. Wanted to serve Max some rice, I rubbed my eyes twice when I saw my pot of rice left with half pot only. If I knew this mice my father-in-law could eat so much, I would have cooked more.

So, you want a bowl?

Max loves it too. He ate two bowls 🙂

Shiratama Dango (Japanese Rice Dumpling)

In my previous post about Rice Dumplings with Adzuki Beans & Brown Syrup, it is actually Shiratama Dango wannabe. Because I didn’t go and hunt for Mochiko. But this time is the real Shiratama Dango that I’m making. I found Mochiko & Kinako in Meidi-Ya Liang Court! Mad happy!

I love Japanese food. But I have reserve when it comes to their desserts. And I must confess that I don’t like those traditional Japanese sweets that are based on sweetened beans. For the most part they are way too sweet for me, and I always imagine that if I were to make them for myself I will definitely adjust the sweetness level.

Diabetes leh! Hahahas…

I had been reading about Shiratama Dango recently. This is the 1st time I make Japanese dessert, and I somehow I find myself courageous. Hahas. Okays, before I start writing, allow me to give a simple explanation about this Japanese dessert :-

Dango is literally a Japanese dumpling made from Mochiko (Rice Flour), related to Mochi.

Shiratama-ko (白玉粉）is sweet or glutinous rice flour, or mochiko, mixed with a little corn starch or potato starch.

Kinako is a soy bean flour that is commonly used in Japanese cuisine as it is a healthy topping that contains Vit B and protein. Kinako is produced by finely grinding roasted soybeans into powder.

This is easy to make. Trust me. If you know how to make Tang-Yuan (汤圆), you can make this. And once you know how to make this, you will not want to pay S$5 – S$7 for a miserable portion of this dessert at Japanese Restaurants.

Ingredient 1 (Shiramata Dango)
4 tablespoons of glutinous rice flour
2 tablespoons of Mochiko
about 8 tablespoons of water
pink & green coloring
some Kinako – for finishing

Ingredient Source…
Glutinous Rice Flour – Any convenient store. NTUC / Cold Storage & etc.
Mochiko – So far I only saw it at Meidi-Ya Liang Court. It cost S$6.90/pack.
Kinako – Daiso sell S$2.00/200g pack. Meidi-Ya sell S$3.00/300g pack.
Pink / Green Coloring – Genera convenient stores that carry basic bakery stuffs should have. NTUC / Cold Storage / Sheng Siong / Phoon Huat & etc.

Method
1. Combine two flours in a bowl. Drizzle in half of the water and use fingers to stir and moisten the ingredients. U can use spoon instead. No issue here. Then, gradually work in the remaining liquid, kneading the dough into a PlayDoh type of consistency, that is firm yet soft and smooth.

2. Divide dough into two, use a toothpick to dap a few drops of coloring, and continue to knead till the color turned evenly on the dough. Just like this…

3. Oh yea.. this is my favorite part here. It’s PlayDoh Time! Divide them into small little cute balls. About 5 grams each. Just estimate will do. You should be getting about 16 to 17 balls in total.

4. Drop them into the boiling water one by one. Give it a gentle stir to avoid the balls sticking to each other.

5. Until the balls float on top, it means they are cooked. Let it simmer for another minute. At this point of time, you can prepare a bowl of ice cube water.

6. Dish up the balls, and drop them into the ice cube water and let it cool down completely.

7. Once it has cooled down, scoop it up, and it’s ready.

Lovely color! I should have make some white balls instead. I’m so engrossed with the color dough until I forgotten to keep some dough for white leh! Sigh!

Nice?

Topped with some Kinako…

Love!!! ❤

I really love the taste of the Kinako. It has a taste that is very much similar to the peanut butter that is indescribably good.

You know what I did? I actually scoop a spoon of Kinako straight my mouth. Eating plain Kinako just like that. It taste soooooo good!!! 😀

Okay.. I’m crazy.

Oh Yea… You will have to eat this cute little balls with something really sweet. Because this Shiratama Dango itself is basically tasteless. It’s normally eaten together with Sweet Adzuki Beans. Or alternatively, you can eat with Brown Sugar Syrup or something else sweet. It’s up to you. So, here’s the basic sweet adzuki bean method.
 
Ingredient 2 (Sweet Adzuki Beans) 
half cups of adzuki beans
50 grams of brown sugar. This is sweet enough for me.
water

Method (Sweet Adzuki Beans)
1. Pre-soak adzuki beans for 5 hours. This is to shorten the cooking time.
2. Cook adzuki beans with water till soft.
3. Add in sugar. Stir till sugar is completely melted. Remember to adjust your own sugar level to your preferred sweetness. Heat off. Serve.

I like it when my sweet adzuki beans is more watery. And I mess it up like this!

This is the way! 😀

Review : My Zojirushi NP-HBQ10 Rice Cooker (Part 1)

Before I start off with my rice cooker review. Let me briefly tell you what I had been using all these while.

This is my old rice cooker. The big one belongs to my Mother-In-Law. The small one is mine. My mother gave it to me. All of us loved this rice cooker so much because of it’s petite size. It can only cook upto 3 cups. That is juuuuust nice for us. The big rice cooker is more suitable for party time tho. Haha…

Seriously, I don’t feel like throwing away the mini rice cooker that my mama gave me. I just keep it.

As all of you aware, I’ve got myself a new Zojirushi Rice Cooker that cost me alot.

I love eating rice. I’m rather particular and opinionated on how rice should taste. But people always says rice makes me fat. Serve me some noodles, porridge, bread, pita & whatever, and I’ll kindly stick up my nose and pout about the lack of plain rice to eat my meal with. Okays, I shall cut the crap about myself.

Here’s the function available on this rice cooker…

Another reason why I spent so much for this rice cooker is because it comes with stainless steel inner bowl. It has real heavy weight. I like it.

And another impressive part is that, the upper detachable lid is also stainless steel. In which, none of the Tiger rice cooker models has this. This lid is a real thing!

It has this steam vent set on top, to capture the steam water. Detachable and washable.

This morning, I decided to give it a try. But I’m not really hungry. So, I just cooked half cup of rice. I used Japanese Sakura Hitomebore Rice here. Added the water according to the white rice level. The water indicator is really really useful.

Pressed Regular White Rice on the menu and start cooking. 45mins later, my rice finally ready. It looks ordinary when it’s just cooked.

But when I loosen the rice, the rice gives me a deliciously fluffy texture.

Side track abit… Saw the rice paddle? The rice paddle comes with little bumpity bumps, which are supposed to help with mixing your rice and is supposed to keep rice from sticking to your paddle. Unfortunately, I don’t like the paddle, as rice still sticks to it. If you want to keep it rice-free, you’ll need to have a little bowl of water to store it in, otherwise when you store the paddle in the holder, the rice will simply crust on it.

Let’s take a close look at the rice.. Nice?

Ahhh… The rice tasted utterly fantastic.

And let’s see the fluffiness… It doesn’t looks only nice looking. It taste delicious too.
It’s not just it’s immediate taste; there’s a distinct aftertaste with the rice that is, in fact, sweet and tasty. I appear to be addicted to the rice, which isn’t exactly the greatest thing when you’re trying to lose weight.

Let’s add some furikake on top…

What about making it into Onigri?

Yummm~!!!

In overall, this rice cooker produces very delicious rice on a consistent basis provided you use the correct amount of water and the setting.With Extended Warm, keeps rice moist and fluffy for a much longer period of time without drying up. It’s easy to clean outside and inside too. For the cons part, so far the rice paddle not the greatest, which it doesn’t really affect me. I can always get another one.

Upcoming next, I will blog more about my experiment on my rice cooker. The next one would be GABA Rice.

Stay tuned!

Rice Dumplings with Adzuki Beans & Brown Sugar Syrup

I’m gonna make Rice Dumplings with Adzuki beans & Brown Sugar Syrup. It’s kinda Japanese Style. I remember I read one of the recipe online, but I’d forgotten where I saw it. I supposed to make the dumplings larger and dimpled so that they’d have tiny wells for holding thick brown sugar syrup. Hmm.. what about piling up some adzuki beans in those indented dumplings? We shall see…

To avoid confusion, I shall separate the recipe into 3 portion. The Adzuki Beans, The Rice Dumplings, and The Brown Sugar.

The Adzuki Beans
I saw a beautiful pack of Organic Adzuki Beans at Tebrau Jusco JB a week ago, and I don’t know what should I do with it. But I just can’t help buying it. Hahas!

It’s beautiful isn’t it? This cost me RM 7.60! Mad expensive!

Since I’ve got myself a new rice cooker, and I’d need to test the limit. I shall give it a try.
After I bought my rice cooker, the 1st thing I cook is not rice. It’s Adzuki Beans! Hahahas…

I supposed to pre-soak the beans before I cook, so that the beans will get soften easily. But I skipped this step. I’m lazy. You all knew it. So, I just throw half cups of beans into the rice cooker, water, set as “Porridge” and start cooking.

What you need here is just half cups of Adzuki beans, water, and some rock sugar.

The Porridge menu takes about 1 hour to cook. The 1st 1 hour, the beans is abit soft, but still within the bean shape. So, I decided to cook another hour. And here, the beans started to “flower” and soften. I leave it there as a “Keep Warm” mode till the next day morning, and the beans is softer than last night…

I added a piece of rock sugar in there, to give the beans a hint of sweetness. Just a hint of sweetness will do. The Adzuki Beans is now done. Set aside for later use.

The Rice Dumplings
I supposed to get some Mochiko sweet rice flour. But… I skipped this. So, I just use glutinous rice flour instead. So, what I made now is literally Tang Yuan (Chinese rice dumplings with sweet soup)

Ingredients
1 & half cups of glutinous rice flour
half cups of water.

This is easy. I used my Kitchen Aid mixer to knead the dough. Stress free! Just knead for about 5mins, and it’s done! It should be kinda PlayDoh type of consistency that’s firm yet soft and smooth.

Once the dough is done, roll it in this way… into a 12-inch-long log. Just eyeball it yourself.

Cut it crosswise into about 12 pieces. If you are unsure about the size, it should be about 10grams each dumpling. Roll each one into a 3/4-inch ball and then flatten it into a thick disc, about a scant 1/2 inch thick.

Use your index finger or thumb to make an indentation in the center. Set aside and repeat with the remaining dough.

You’ll form about 23 to 24 1 inch wide dumplings in total.

Bring water to boil, cook the dumplings.

After all the dumplings float to the top, let them cook for another minute, then use a skimmer to scoop them from the water.

Drop them into a bowl of cold or room temperature water to let them cool. The hot dumplings will cause the water turned cloudy. So, you could change the cold or room temperature water for 2 to 3 times to get rid of the cloudy water. I changed the water twice.

I can assure you that you will like this soft and chewy dumplings.

The Brown Sugar Syrup

Ingredients
3/4 cup Muscovado. Or any dark brown sugar. You may use Molasses if you like it darker.
1/4 cup water
Pinch of salt

Incase if you are unsure what is the difference between Molasses and Muscovado. Here is the packing difference for your reference :

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Heat over medium high heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to vigorously simmer for about 3 minutes, until the syrup has kinda caramelized and thickened.

When the syrup is done, take it off the heat and wait for the bubbling action to subside before stirring in the salt. Set the brown sugar aside and let it cool.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
How to eat? Here….

For each portion, put 2 to 3 tablespoons of adzuki beans in a bowl. Top with some dumplings, and a drizzle of the sugar syrup.

The dumplings are dimpled, and as I mentioned, they’d have tiny wells for holding thick brown sugar syrup just like this….

Oh yes! Must eat this dessert with a spoon to ensure that you get some of each of the ingredients in every bite.

Messed it up! Haha!
Yumm!!! 😀

I should have get some kinako and put on top! Regretted for not buying it that day. Darn!

Quick Meal : Bak Kwa Fried Rice

A real rush hour today. No bluff. Max is coming home to fetch me in 20mins time. Max don’t have the time to eat dinner at home. So, we’re heading to coffee shop for a simple meal, which could makes my life much easier by just eating coffee shop food. But I just don’t feel like eating outside food today. I’m kinda… Urgh! I’d rather eat my own simple cooking than eating out. But he’s in a rush, and he wanted me to eat dinner with him.

Since I need to sit at the coffee shop and eat with him, and he need to rush for his duty after his quick dinner. I decided to make myself a real quick bento for myself to bring along.

Looking at these ingredients… It’s obviously fried rice lah!

As usual, I dig out whatever I have in the fridge…

Actually, I don’t have much left-over. I knew it. But when I saw a bowl of left-over Japanese rice in the fridge, I’m so mad happy! Hahaha… And I saw a pack of Bak-Kwa lying on the table. And immediately I know I should make fried rice!

Ingredients (Serve 1 hungry girl)

• a bowl of left-over rice
• a tablespoon of oil
• 1 beaten egg
• a handful of Bak Kwa
• a chopped shallot
• a handful of spring onions
• some red chilli
• some chinese parsley (optional)
• 4 to 5 tablespoons of soy sauce (judge by your own taste).
• few dashes of pepper

Method
1. In a wok, toss the Bak-Kwa till it looks lightly charred. Just lightly charred will do. Don’t over fry it. No need to add oil on the wok. Bak-Kwa itself is oily enough. Dish up, set aside.

2. Beaten eggs on the wok. Just fry it messily. Like frying scrambled eggs. When it is about 70% cooked. Dish up, set aside. Eyeball it yourself. I always do this additional step instead of frying the egg directly onto the rice and fry, because I felt that the eggs would looks nicer on my fried rice if it’s been scrambled beforehand, so that it would be evenly distributed in pieces.

3. A tablespoons of oil on the wok, fry chopped shallot till fragrant. Add in chilli & rice. Give it a quick toss. Add the rest of the ingredients (eggs, spring onions, bak kwa, chinese parsley) into the wok. Not to forget soy sauce & pepper. Give it a toss for another 2 to 3 mins should be good enough. Dish up & serve.

Tada!

You will have to agree with me that this is really easy.

If you were to notice, I only used Soy Sauce & Pepper for this fried rice. Reason is because I don’t want to add too much of a flavor that might mess around with the Bak-Kwa taste. It’s Bak-Kwa fried rice. The “lead-actor” must be Bak-Kwa then.

Some people like to use salt for their fried rice, and used dark soy sauce to achieve brownish color for their fried rice. But for me, I always like to use Soy sauce alone, sometimes will use abit of fish sauce to enhance the taste (when I don’t feel lazy). Soy sauce itself is light dark in color. It will give the fried rice a pale brown color, which I find it really nice looking. And it has it’s unique oriental saltiness that goes very well with fried rice.

Look at my bowl of fried rice… It’s simple, and it looks nice 🙂

I get this done in 15mins time. Another 5mins to wash up the mess in the kitchen. Total 20mins. Thou it’s abit of work here, but I can assure you that this fried rice taste much better than coffee shop Cze Char fried rice that cost at least S$4.00 a plate! 😀

Would you like to have a bowl now?

QUICK MEAL : Tteokbokki (Korean Rice Cake)

Tteokbokki!

I had been wanting to eat this popular Korean Snack since a year ago! But I just don’t have the opportunity to buy it. The 1st time I saw this from a TV show, I already tell myself that I’m gonna find this. Several times I saw it at Takashimaya Basement. But it cost S$5 for a tiny bowl which I think there’s only about 5 to 7 pieces of rice cake in there. And the Tteokbokki that they’re selling is being kept at one corner, and it is obviously no longer warm. Max stopped me from buying it. Feelin’ miserable.

I saw this when I was in Jusco Tebrau City JB over the weekend. Without a 2nd thought, I just grab it. I don’t care! Hahahas!!!

This pack of Rice Cake (600gm) cost RM9.90, and Tteokbokki sauce (150g) cost RM7.90.

RM 9.90 + RM 7.90 = RM 17.80 * (exchange rate 2.39) = That would be around S$ 7.45 only!!! And with this pack of rice cake, I can cook alot!!! And cooking at home, I will get piping hot Tteokbokki. Hahaha!!!

This supposed to serve as a snack I suppose? It shouldn’t be a main course right? I’m not sure. But I think there’s no rules here. It’s weekend. We normally won’t take breakfast nor lunch over the weekend. We wake up slightly late, and had brunch instead. So, the next meal should be around 3pm. And normally we just eat light food as hi-tea, because dinner time is just near. A pack of rice cake like this, if I serve it as a hi-tea snack, it should be able to make 7 to 8 servings easily. And if u wanna make it as a meal (lunch maybe?), then, it serves about 4. This is my assumption. Because I only cooked half pack just to give it a try and keep the remaining in the fridge for the next round. I don’t throw a party of 8 you know? But even if I cook for 8 pax, I just paid S$ 7.45 for that pack of rice cake & Tteokbokki sauce only. Not expensive.

As usual, I dig whatever I have from the fridge. Korean cook Tteokbokki with lots of veggies and fish cakes. But I don’t have fish cakes at home. So, I don’t bother. I just cook using whatever veggies I have. That’s my lazy style. Ha!

Okays! Here’s the recipe.

Ingredient (Serves 4 small eater as Hi-Tea Snack)
300gm Korean Rice Cake
75gm Tteokbokki Sauce (or just estimate it yourself, about half pack of the sauce)
1 cups of water
some fish cakes (if you have some, go ahead and add it in)
1 small onions, julienned
1 spring onions
some carrots, julienned
a handful of cabbages, julienned
a pinch of salt to taste if you want. It’s up to individual

Method
1. In a sauce pan, bring the water to boil. Put the rice cake into the water, let it simmer under medium heat. Use a spatula to press the rice cake, you should know it when the rice cake is about to turn soft. The water will turn starchy. Just gauge it yourself.

2. Add in the Tteokbokki sauce, give it a quick stir. Add in all the veggies (and fish cake, if you have some). Mix well.

3. Simmer under low heat for awhile, taste. If you think you need to add a pinch of salt, go ahead. But I personally don’t. Until the veggies turned soft, off the heat and serve.

It’s easy isn’t it? Another quick meal done in less than 20mins.

Ahhh…. I love the color of Tteokbokki.

Look at the rice cake. It’s soft and chewy texture. I love it.

Max doesn’t like it. Although the Tteokbokki sauce taste sweet and spicy, which is quite nice. He complaint that the rice cake itself is rubbery and tasteless. Urgh! This is a rice cake! He expect it to taste like what? Like albalobe? (-_-)

Max mama likes it. When Max is grumbling about the rice cake, she commented that I should try cooking it in Chinese Style. Because she say his son is a CHINESE MAN (chinese-taste-bud). Ha! Maybe she is right. She know her son well.

If you wanna try making this, Rice cake & Tteokbokki sauce should be available at Korean food stores or hypermarkets that carry Korean Imported stuffs. I’m unsure which hypermarket has this, but I could remember there’s a Korean Mini Mart at Vivo City basement. Just opposite Giant. And another Korean Mini Mart at Kallang Leisure Mall. Besides that, I believe Orchard – Takashimaya, Istetan, CK Tang & etc should have Korean Imported stuffs. 

Try it! Remember to post your photos on Facebook and show it to me if you did yours ok?

Stay tuned 🙂