Blogging Friends - The Sudden Cook.

I found a friend of mine on the blogsphere! We knew each other since we were little in primary school and were in the same school all of our schooling years.



Coming from similar backgrounds I could understand her blog name instantly. We grew up with our parents and do not move out until we were married. However we do pick up some resposibilities in the house as we become adult. Unfortunately for some (me), we do not pick up the cooking.

All grown up, married and moved out, we wait at the dining table for food to appear. But like in an insanely twisted horror movie, nothing. Suddenly we find ourselves in a sink or swim situation with cooking. Battling every fear we have and taking every blind corner as confidently as we can, we head to the kitchen with a cookbook in one hand and a clever in the other.

As wonderful as it seems, most of us end up finding cooking not at all as daunting as it seems! I now enjoy cooking, especially the eating part. Tried dozens of recipes and now have plans to collate them and hand them down to my next generation, so that they would not find themselves in a similar situation as - The Sudden Cook!

Birthday Noodles for the Birthday Boy

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. So I decided to make him Lam Mee - also known as the Hokkien birthday noodles. I have not gotten around to find out why it is called birthday noodles. I think it must be because of the work that is required to make it, so it's made once maybe twice a year.

This is a picture of the noodles I made, taken by me.

Quick run through:
Broth - Pork, chicken and prawn broth (made with the shell of the prawns)
Vegetables - Chives (flat), bean sprouts, Chinese cabbage (choy sum)
Meat - Pork and prawns (used to make the broth)
Noodles - Yellow Hokkien noodles
Garnish - Omelet ribbons/strings (made by shredding thin egg omelet), spring onions (shallots), fried shallots. The garnish is one of the most important part of the dish as it gives flavor
Dip/Side sauce - Made with fresh chilli and prawn paste (belacan)

I would love to share the full recipe with you, but it's long and a little daunting.... so I hope you enjoy this so far!

Recipe - Chicken Rice for the Soul

This is a typical Malaysian styled Chicken Rice Recipe. Some call it Hainanese Chicken rice and some call it Ipoh style Chicken Rice. Either way, I think this recipe is a little bit of both and ends up being how I like it.

Chicken Rice is a quick and complete meal. It has many ways you could modify it to suit the taste and preference for you and your family. This recipe is just the basic and I will share some options at the end. This recipe might seem long, but I have written it out as detailed as possible to benefit the less experienced cooks.
Usually it is a 3 to 4 part meal, consisting of the chicken dish, rice, soup, chilli sauce and an optional accompanying vegetable dish. Sounds like a whole day of cooking? Not really, actually if planned well you will not spend more than 30-40 mins straight in the kitchen! However I would suggest you read the entire recipe before starting on it!

Ingredients:
1) One whole medium sized chicken (please go for free range)
2) 2 cups of Thai fragrant rice
3) 3-4 large slices of ginger
4) One large white onion
5) A bunch (5-6 large stalks) of spring onions or shallots
6) 2-3 cloves of garlic
7) Small Lebanese cucumber
8) Coriander for garnishing
9) Soy sauce, Sesame oil, Salt and white pepper to taste

Chilli sauce
1) 2 large Chillies (Asian large chillies)
2) Fresh ginger the size of the nail of your thumb
3) 2 small cloves garlic
4) Soy sauce
5) White vinegar
6) Brown sugar

This recipe will serve 4 medium size eaters or 2 large eaters!

Here is how to:

The Chicken Dish
I will start with this as it might be the most daunting part of the whole meal. But trust me, once you go through this recipe, you will find that it is a walk in the park!

1) Start with getting 1.5 liters of water to boil
2) Cut your spring onions to seperate the bulb part and the leave/green part. To do this grab the bunch with the bulb right at the bottom of your palm and cut at the top of your palm. Add the bulb (white) part into the water. Keep the green part for later.
3) Roughly cut up your white onion and add to the water together with 2 ginger slices.
4) Add about 2 teaspoons of salt and 1 tablespoon of Soy Sauce to the water. Taste before you add the chicken, and add more if needed.
5) When the water is boiling rapidly, carefully place in the whole chicken into the pot.

Now you have 2 option to continue cooking -
a) Busy Woman option
1) After adding the chicken wait until the water starts boiling again.
2) 5 mins after the water starts boiling, cover the pot and turn off the heat completely. You don't have to move the pot to a cool heating plate, just leave it alone.
3) Go to work, finish what ever you are doing. Come back around 6-7 hours and your Chicken is cook right through!

b) I've got time, it's the weekend option
1) After adding the chicken wait until the water starts boiling again.
2) 5 mins after the water starts boiling, cover the pot and turn the heat down to low. Leave the pot for 20 mins and turn off completely.
3) During this time you could move on to the other parts of the dish.

The Chili Sauce
While you are waiting for the chicken to cook, you could prepare the chili sauce. This chili sauce is a particular one we have with Chicken Rice and is different from dipping chili sauce.

1) Add all the ingredients in to a blender together with half a cup of water and blend. That's it!
2) If you do not like it too spicy, try reducing the amount of chilies or remove the inner parts of the chili.
3) Wear gloves when working with chili, this could help avoid any accidents!

The Rice
The rice for this dish is not plain white rice, but rice that is soft and delicious you would not mind eating it on it's own.

(Please start this only when you have completed 'The Chicken Dish' part, to ensure that the soup is full flavored)

1) I make my rice following 1 part rice to 1.5 part water. If you like it other way, please modify the recipe. So for 2 cups of rice I will use 3 cups of soup from the chicken. Yes, you know the water you use to boil your chicken in? That's it.
2) Put the soup in a pot and turn on the heat to get it boiling
3) Heat up a frying pan to medium heat and start sauteing the chopped garlic with some vegetable oil.
4) Before the garlic browns, add in the rice. If you washed the rice, make sure it was drained well before pouring it in!
5) Countinue stirring the rice in the pan for around 3-4 minutes, then pour the content of the whole pan, into the boiling soup. Please be careful when doing this part!
6) Do not stir the mix in the pot. Just leave it to come to a boil, then turn down the heat.
7) When the rice has fully absorb all of the soup, turn the heat off and stand.

The part about sauteing the rice with the garlic was a little Chicken Rice secret shared with me by a wonderful cook of a friend. Even she doesn't know exactly why, but this was handed down to her by her mother. I have tried to cook the rice without this part and it just did not work out as well. So this part is important!

Plating and Presenting
There are several ways you could plate up this dish. Either an individual dish or the Chicken in the middle to share. Up to you!

Plating the Chicken
1) Cut up the chicken to pieces, depending on your preference. Either to quaters, 8 or 16 parts.
2) Place it on a large plate.
3) In a small bowl add 2 table spoons of soy sauce and 1 teaspoon of sesame oil. Add in one large ladle of soup. Pour this mixture all over the chicken.
4) Garnish with Coriander and sliced up spring onions.
5) Place slices of cucumber around the plate.
6) Serve the soup on the side.

Your Chicken Dish is ready to serve!

Options and Preferences

If you don't like poached chicken, I know some who don't, what you can do is bake the chicken in high heat after they are cooked. Do this after cutting the chicken up to 4 parts, then bask the skin a little with some oil and put it in a hot hot oven so the skin crisps up without drying out the meat.

Easy Mushroom Aglio Olio Recipe

This is my favorite quick and easy dish. I love pasta and mushrooms and whip this up really quickly one day when all I had was pasta and mushrooms!

Here is what I did. I am not going to use any exact measurements as I don't think anyone does that when they are cooking. You can try this with my simple instructions or modify it to suit your taste.

Ingredients:

One serve of Spaghetti
2 medium size cloves of garlic, chopped
2 table spoons of olive oil
handful of fresh white/button mushrooms, chopped or sliced
a sprinkle of chili flakes
salt and pepper to tast
grated Parmesan

Method:

First cook your spaghetti according to the instructions on the packet. Make sure it's al-dente or cooked to your liking.
Place a fry pan on medium heat and add about 3/4 of the olive oil in. Do not wait until the pan is too hot before adding the oil as it takes the flavor away. Add in the chop garlic and stir. After a few minutes add in the mushrooms. Stir until mushrooms are cooked. Sprinkle in the chilli flakes, salt and pepper to your liking and add the spaghetti.
Stir rapidly to get an even coating all over the spaghetti. Once it's done serve, pour the rest of the olive oil all over it and grate Parmesan over the dish.

Tips:

• Do not wash your mushrooms or it will soak up the water and expels it when cooking. Instead you should wipe it or peel it.
• The dish might get a little dry as the mushrooms will absorb the oil in the pan. If this happens add in a table spoon of water right after adding the mushrooms.
• Add your chili flake before you add the spaghetti if you like a little more heat. This will allow the heat of the chili to mix with the oil.
• For a vegan dish, just leave out the cheese!

Too easy!