Tofu with Minced Meat and Mushrooms

This is a firm favourite dish and it's rather common to see such dish on the dining table of Chinese households and restaurant as tofu and mince meat are easy for the children. The only messy bit is one need to shallow fry the tofu which I really dislike cos the oil sputters all over the place even after patting dry the tofu with paper towel. Grrrrr...

So to make this dish, slice firm tofu into squares. Pat dry with paper towel before frying them in some oil. Once the tofu squares are lightly browned, remove and set aside.

In the same pan, if there are still a lot of oil, remove them, if not enough (about 2 or less tbsp depending how much minced meat you have) add some. Add in some chopped garlic and fry till fragrant. Then stir in minced meat (can be chicken or pork, both are equally delish, marinade with some soy sauce, ground white pepper, a dash of sesame oil and a little cornflour). Next stir in soaked and sliced shiitake mushroom. Once the meat is cooked, pour in some water, a couple dashes of oyster sauce and dark soy sauce. Season with some ground white pepper. If you prefer a saltier dish, you may adjust with some salt but seriously oyster sauce alone would be good enough.

Add in the fried tofu and let it simmer on low heat for a few minutes. If you wish, pour in some cornstarch solution to thicken up the gravy but I prefer to simmer mine till drier and the liquid thickened up. Dish up and serve with steamed rice.

Peppery Diced Meat, Potatoes and Peas

**Non-Halal**




This is a creation of my mother and she cooks this a lot when were younger since potatoes are our favourite on the dining table. It's still our favourite dish and now my BoiBoi likes it too.

We normally use lean pork but occasionally we uses chicken meat either breast or thigh. Just diced them evenly and marinade with some oyster sauce, white pepper powder, sesame oil, some cornstarch and a few grains of sugar. Deep fried them till light brown and set aside.

Diced the potatoes to about the size of the meat and deep fried in hot oil till cooked and lightly browned. Set aside.

To assemble the whole dish, fry some diced onions till translucent before adding the meat. When done, put in the fried potatoes and stir well. Next add in some water (not too much as it's meant to be a dry dish) mixed with a dash of oyster sauce, a little dark soy sauce and a little sugar. You can season with some salt too if you wish. Stir and add in some green peas. Then add in lots of white pepper powder, well a lot more than usual but how much depends how hot you can take it. This is a rather peppery dish.

Dish up and serve with rice. Missing this already cos it's soooo yummy. Psssttt we tend to steal bites of this dish by shoving down by the spoonfuls :p without anyone looking before meal time kekeke and I still do this LOL.

Sweet and Sour Pomfret

A simple dish loved by kiddies. I just deep fried a pomfret before pouring the sweet and sour sauce over.



To make the sweet and sour sauce, all I did was fry some chopped garlic in some oil. Added quartered onions, sliced bell peppers and carrots. Stir for a while before adding water. Next, pour in some tomato sauce and tomato paste to taste. Adjust with some sugar. Salt if you like. Add in quartered tomatoes and cover. Simmer for about 3 minutes. When done, pour over deep fried pomfret.

You can used the same sauce for deep fried pork ribs or prawns.

Review: Stuff Your Face Cafe

I've read about Stuff Your Face Cafe in Bangsar Shopping Complex but have yet to visit the place after its make over until recently. Since BoiBoi was with us we decided to check this cafe out which is located on the 4th floor where everything cater to kids are situated on this level.

I loved the clean look of this cafe and it's bright with natural lighting during the day we visited. The wooden white counter has cupcakes, cookies and cakes on display, very clever to tempt little ones. Since it wasn't that hot we sat outside. There was a tableful of cheerful tweens nearby with their mothers sitting at the inside air-con part of the cafe.



We placed our order and we waited quite a while for our food to arrive. Can't blame them as they only cook the dishes upon order to ensure freshness. There is no service charge as well.

Capt'n Hook had a Pink Lemonade (RM7) while I had a Lime and Lemongrass Spritzer (RM8) which is rather refreshing with lime and ginger ale, with a hint of lemongrass.

There are quite a number of items in the menu for kids ranging from mac & cheese, sandwiches, fish fingers etc. Each item comes with an orange fruit punch and ice-cream. BoiBoi had a ham sandwich which is basically 2 slices of bread spread with butter with a slice of ham in between served with a small portion of deep fried potato wedges. I tasted the orange fruit punch which tasted basically of F&N orange. Since my BoiBoi doesn't like fizzy drinks, the Alam Flora in the mommy drank it all... that's the worst part eh since they doesn't allow to change or upgrade the drink but it's all right since they doesn't charge for the warm water served for BoiBoi (YAY!!!). A card shaped like an ice-cream cone will be given so that once the kid is done with the food, the kid can bring the card to the counter in exchange for a scoop of ice-cream (choose from vanilla, chocolate or strawberry) with their choice of topping. The kid set cost RM12 which I feel a bit expensive for a simple sandwich.



Capt'n Hook had the daily special of Baked Salmon Perchik (RM20) where salmon is slathered with perchik sauce and wrapped in banana leaf served with a minty onion rice and a warm vege salad. I tasted the salmon which went surprisingly all right with the perchik sauce.



My Fettucine Mushroom Stroganoff (RM16) came last. This tasted totally unexpected cos it doesn't really tasted like normal stroganoff but it's like a riot of texture and taste. The mushroom stroganoff actually doesn't contained sour cream but instead the sauce is a grinded cashew nut base with slivers of mushrooms. Loved the fragrant taste of cashew nut.



I supposed this place is a great place for parents to chill out whilst waiting for their children to finish with their lessons or rollerblading or whatever at the same floor, not forgetting a fantastic place to have a children party here.


Stuff Your Face Cafe
Lot 4-09 4th Floor
Bangsar Shopping Complex
285 Jalan Maarof,
Bukit Bandar Raya, Bangsar
Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 603 2287 3070
Business hours: 10:00am - 7:00pm daily


Technorati Tags: kiddy menu

Steamed Mashed Tofu With Fish Paste

Another dish learnt from my mother which is also easy peasy and very healthy as well. Mom's cooking is the best, I tell ya!

To make this, just mash one block of soft tofu with 200gm of fish paste which you can make yourself or just buy ready made from the wet market. I find the best way to mix them thoroughly is to use your fingers to squash the fish paste. Mix in one egg (can be omitted but it will be smoother if used), a bit of sesame oil or shallot oil or garlic oil :p, some chopped spring onion, salt and pepper to taste. Steam for 15 minutes (I've used electric steamer, so you might need to adjust your timing accordingly). To serve, just sprinkle more chopped spring onion on top. Told ya it was easy peasy!

This was how the mixture looks like before steaming...



And this was the end result...




Technorati tags: tofu

Steamed Tofu With Minced Meat

My mom make this a lot as it's simple and healthy, plus hardly much cleaning up since it's a steamed dish. My boiboi loves this, hence I created this at home using very very basic ingredients which one can easily subtitute with others. One of the best dish to hide vegetables for fussy kids.

All one need is minced meat, here I've used minced chicken fillets which you can substitute or have a mixture of fish paste, prawn paste, or pork, if using chicken or pork, do add some water to the mixture to soften it. Add in chopped or diced carrots, and/or turnips and/or water chestnuts, very flexi here, some spring onions will be nice as well. Pour in some soy sauce and pepper to taste. Mix in some cornflour thoroughly. Set aside.

We use the smaller tubes of egg tofu, if not mistaken it's RM2 for 3 tubes but can use the larger tubes. Cut the tube into half then halves the tofu lengthwise, so each tube will make 4 pieces. Arrange the tofu on a heat proof platter. Place the minced meat mixture on top of the tofu pieces.



Steam the tofu pieces for about 12-15 mins, I'm using an electric steamer so you might need to adjust your timing according to the heat. Serve hot with rice.




Technorati tags: tofu

A Very Simple Fish Paste Noodles

There were times when I'm so lazy to put up something for my boiboi's meal, I would resort to simple Vit's dried noodles. A plain fragrant noodle served with fried egg and some vegetables that I could rummage in the fridge would make him quite happy. When I'm not so lazy, he would have something lavish with prawns and mushrooms.

There was this time I had some fish paste which I bought from the wet market (it's so convenient these days huh?) in the freezer, so I just devised a really simple fish paste noodles which I could cook up very quickly but of course I had to defrost the fish paste way in advance.

Into the fish paste, I added some white pepper and mix them well. No salt is needed as they're already salty to begin with. Boil some water in a saucepan, this would be the soup stock. Once it's boiled, shape the fish paste into rounds or ovals using a spoon or two and add them into the saucepan. Let it come to a boil and season it with salt and white pepper. You may add some soy sauce if you wish. I find that I don't have to use ikan bilis nor chicken stock for this as the fish paste is enough to flavour the stock with some natural sweetness. Add in vegetables, in this occassion, I have carrots and french beans. Drizzle in some garlic or shallots oil. Turn off fire once the vegetables are cooked.

In a separate saucepan, cook the Vit's dried noodles. Drain and dish up the noodles when done. Pour the soup base into the noodles together with fish paste and vegetables. Serve hot.



Easy peasy but I guess still packed with some nutrients.


Technorati Tags: malaysian food + noodles

Chicken and Prawn Cutlets

My boiboi loves cutlets be it just like that or cooked in tomato sauce or a simple oyster sauce. I remember how my brothers love it when our mom made them. We would polish them up saving the cutlets to be savoured last after finishing our rice drizzled with the sauce.

Making them is pretty simple, just need to mix 150g minced chicken meat and about 100g roughly chopped prawns. Add in some chopped onions and carrots for flavouring and crunch. Other times, I would add in water chestnut. Next, pour in about 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tsp cornflour and pepper. You may mix in one beaten egg to bind but I didn't this round since chopped prawns would be quite sticky enough for that purpose.



Shape the mixture using a spoon and shallow fry them till golden brown.



Place the fried cutlets on paper towels to absorb some of the oil and set aside. You may now serve the cutlets just like this with tomato sauce or chilli sauce.



Otherwise, to cook them in sweet and sour manner, heat some oil and stir in onions. Fry till translucent before pouring in some water and adding quartered tomatoes. Add in tomato paste to taste and season with salt and pepper. Balance it with some sugar. Put in the cutlet and let it simmer for about 5 mins. Remove and serve.




Technorati Tags: chinese food

Kiddy Menu: Tomato Based Vegetables Stew

Found this in my Draft folder. My boiboi was having mild fever last weekend and I made the same dish for him which he ate up with 2 slices of bread. Somehow this slight tangy soup seems to be able to open up his appetite.



When my boiboi was having fever, I made him this Vegetable Stew since I'm sure he will get sick (pun intended) by just eating bread. Moreover, he doesn't seems to have an appetite. This dish just came up in my head in the morning when I was pondering what to feed him during such time.

All I did was just diced up potatoes, carrots and onions. Fry the onions in olive oil till translucent before adding some chopped garlic. Once the garlic is fragrant, add in potatoes, carrots and a bay leaf. Pour in a can of whole tomatoes and break them up into smaller pieces. Add some water to cover up the vegetables. Cover with the lid and simmer for 15 - 20 mins. Sprinkle in some dried oregano, salt and wee bit of black pepper. Give it a stir and serve this with bread.

I gave a bowl to my boiboi and surprisingly he ate them all up with a slice of bread. Not only that! He asked for another slice of bread. He loved it!

Come dinner time, I just cooked up some macaroni and spooned some heated stew over them. Voila, a pasta dish! My boiboi lapped it all up.



He liked this stew a lot cos he simply loved tomato based food. He even asked for this the next day *roll eyes*


Technorati Tags: pasta + kiddy menu

Colourful Vegetables Fried Rice

Hmm it has been a long time I last posted on my fried rice creations. I must live up to my Queen of Fried Rice title bestowed by boo_licious LOL!

I made a very healthy version recently, using loads of vegetables and some eggs cooked with olive oil. By the time I finish chopping and dicing the vegetables, I noticed they were so colourful, hence the name of the fried rice was conjured. From the photo below, you can see I've used carrot, cauliflower, brocolli, green capsicum, yellow capsicumm, french beans, celery and chopped garlic.



To cook my version, first fry a couple of eggs with some olive oil till slightly set. Dish up and set aside. In the same wok, pour in more olive oil and add in garlic when its heated. Stir till fragrant before dishing in the vegetables. Add some salt and mix well.

Pour in cooked rice, I've used half portion of white and brown rice each, and quickly stir to mix. Season with some soy sauce and pepper before mixing in the eggs. Give it some stirs before dishing out.



I'm very happy to see my boiboi eating up the rice happily without any complaint. It has never been so easy to convince him to eat his cauliflowers or brocollis!!! He scooped one tiny brocolli floret and told me "Ohhh mummy, this is so cute... baby brocolli." Awww man... my boiboi digs anything that come in "baby" version which he thinks it's for (big) baby like him! So this is another version of rice where you can "hide" stuff to kid the children.

Note: It's best to use overnight cooked rice that have been kept in the fridge. I usually use the rice straight from the fridge. Otherwise, I find them a bit too sticky to my liking.

Technorati Tags: rice + malaysian food

Mushrooms Angel Hair Aglio Olio

Easy peasy super quick meal to prepare for the family - Mushrooms Angel Hair Aglio Olio. Just get the types of mushrooms you loved, sliced them into smaller portion. Cook the angel hair pasta in a pot. In another pan, heat extra virgin olive oil. Chuck in loads of chopped garlic. Stir till fragrant but don't brown the garlic! Next, stir in the mushrooms. Put in the cooked angel hair pasta, season with salt and freshly grinded black pepper. Dish up some for the kid and sprinkle in some chili flakes for adults. Topped with some freshly grated parmesan and more black pepper before serving.

Adult portion as shown above and kid's version below.



Technorati Tags: pasta + kiddy menu

Baked Macaroni

I saw in a forum, someone described a quick simple meal by merely cooking some pasta, then pour a can of canned creamy soup all over and topped with grated cheese. Next bake the pasta till the cheese melts and browned.

So I did just that one day... cooked some macaroni till al dente and set aside. Fried some chopped garlic and onions in some olive oil. Next placed in some ham, carrots, mushroom, spring onions and celery. Stir till cooked before pouring in a large can of cream soup. Mixed in the cooked macaroni and poured into a heat proof dish. Topped with grated mozarella and parmesan cheeses. Baked till browned.

Very easy and delicious but I think my version here does not have enough soup. Next time, I'm gonna use 2 large cans instead. Try it, it's a wonderful dish to hide in vegetables for fussy eaters.

Technorati Tags: pasta

Kiddy Menu: Shepherd's Pie

**Non-Halal Post**



I had watched Nigella's Christmas Bites during Christmas where she had made a scrumptious Shepherd's Pie using minced venison and pork. I picked up a couple of tips from her for this recipe, one of them is to use part pork to make the pie juicier and the other is to simmer the meat for an hour. I've made Shepherd's Pie previously using minced beef meat and another time chicken meat. Urrgghhh the meat turned out tough on both occasions. So with these 2 information, I confidently set out to make my third pie. Traditionally Shepherd's Pie is made of minced lamb but this time, I made one using minced beef and pork.

I guesstimate my way as usual, so I had a portion minced beef and equal amount of minced lean pork, some sliced button mushrooms, chopped carrots, chopped leek, chopped celery and some chopped onions. I marinade the meat together with some Worcestershire sauce, oyster sauce and corn flour(very Asian of me huh? haha).

In a pot, heat up some olive oil and fry some chopped garlic and onion till fragrant before putting in the meat. Brown the meat thoroughly and add in carrots, leek and celery. Stir a bit and break up the meat pieces in the process. Add in some salt and black pepper to taste. Pour in water enough to cover the meat up. Season with more Worcestershire sauce. Add in one bay leaf; some dried basil and oregano; and the sliced mushrooms. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour on low heat.

Meanwhile prepare the usual mash potatoes and add in butter and some hot milk for a fluffy mash. When the meat is ready, pour into baking dish and top with the mash potatoes. Another tip I learnt from Nigella was to fluff up the mash with a fork to have some peaks all over in order to have some browned crispy bits. Dot the mash with butter all over. Bake in the oven till the mash is browned.

I'm very satisfied with this version... finally got the combination right, more or less. Best served hot and I have to put this pie under Kiddy Menu as this is one of the best dish to hide all sorts of vegetables from fussy eaters. My boiboi, a mash potatoes lover, walloped two servings and stole more mash from my plate! Cheeky lil fella there.

Technorati Tags: Shepherd's Pie + nigella lawson + kiddy menu

Baked French Toast

'Twas Sunday morning and we're too lazy to go out for breakie. I checked the fridge and found some stale bread which is good to be converted into french toasts but I was too lazy to fry them one by one. So what I did was pile the bread slices onto a baking tray. Mixed up some eggs, milk, castor sugar and cinnamon powder. Poured over the bread slices, making sure they're enough to be soaked up by the bread.



Sprinkled some brown sugar on top and dotted some butter all over too. Lastly, I placed some grated cheese all over and bake in the oven till browned.



Cut them up and serve while they're hot. Very easy, not much cleaning and best of all very yummy too! Boiboi had 2 servings!!!



Technorati Tags: bread + breakfast

Kiddy Menu: Sneaky Pasta Sauce

I don't have much problem with my boiboi when it comes to eating. Except for hard or soft boiled eggs, steamed fish and tasteless food (yeah my boiboi dang smart one, if it's not tasty enough he will politely decline the food after one or two bites!), he virtually whacks everything.
Like most kids, he loves his pizza, pasta (but he always referred them as spaghetti); and being the Chinese boy in him, he likes noodles but black ones as he fondly called them ranging from fried to dry style (kon low) noodles. Just like his daddy and mummy, he's not really fond of plain rice which is good for me since I don't need to crack my head, planning what kind of dishes to cook to go with rice. At times, a simple pasta or pizza would be sufficient to satisfy his little tummy.

Even though I don't have a picky eater, I would like to share this with the mummies and daddies who are having problems getting your kids to eat their vegetables and meat. It's fairly easy to disguise stuff that your picky eaters avoid altogether especially vegetables. Just chop up the vegetables and sneak them into pasta sauce, meat patties (children loved this and so am I haha), pizza, soup, fried rice, omelette and so forth.

This time round, I'll show you how to disguise vegetables and meat into a tomato based pasta sauce. Chopped up some garlic, any combination of vegetables but try to limit them to either two or three choices in one go. Don't get over-zealous haha! Remember to chop or dice them into really tiny pieces. Minced some meat. Do use tender cut. Over here I've used some chicken thigh, not too much else those picky eaters will find them hard to chew.



You can use canned whole tomatoes but usually I liked to chop up some seeded fresh tomatoes. To remove the hardy skin, slit the bottom of the tomatoes slightly in a criss cross manner then dunk them in simmering water for a short while. Remove and voila, you can then peel off the skin easily by peeling the slitted skin from the bottom.

Heat a pan with some olive oil and stir in the garlic. Once fragrant, add in the minced meat. Keep stirring to separate the minced meat as much as possible. You don't want big chunks here. Once slightly browned, pour in the tomatoes. Add some water and simmer. Add in some salt just for taste or you can omit this altogether if you have younger kids. Spoon in some tomato puree or paste to intensify the tomato flavour. You'll need to add in some sugar to counter the acidity of the tomatoes, a couple of tablespoons was sufficient for my pot of sauce. Place in a bay leaf, some basil (can also use dried form) and a few cracks of black pepper. Next add in the vegetables. Just remember that hardy vegetables go in first. Simmer the sauce till thickened and its done!



To serve, just boiled pasta of any shapes that fancy your kids (to make it fun, you may use those animals shaped ones) according to instructions on the packet but for my boiboi, I usually cook the pasta a little longer for a softer texture. I noticed my boiboi don't chew his food long enough hence it's better to have softer pasta. What the heck they know about having their pasta al-dente anyway??? *tongue*

Spoon the slightly cooled sauce over the drained pasta. Sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top and see your picky eaters' eyes literally lit up when you serve to them! Mine did!!!

Hope you'll find this useful, or you may wanna try this Carrot and Potato Cheese Omelette, enjoy!




Technorati Tags: pasta + kiddy menu

Kiddy Menu: Carrot and Potato Cheese Omelette

My boiboi dislikes egg done hard boiled or half boiled. Strange huh? The only way to get him to eat eggs is to make an omelette out of them. Actually omelette is a perfect way to sneak in vegetables for fussy young eaters but thank goodness my boiboi is fine with vegetables except for corn. He does eat popcorn though! Anyway, I was surprised that he actually ate up some corn omelette that I've made out of fresh corn kernels.

To sneak in vegetables in an omelette, just chop vegetables like spinach, brocolli, french beans and etc into small pieces or shred some carrots or just about anything that tickle your fancy. You can also combine some of these ingredients. Fry them in some olive oil to soften the vegetables before adding lightly beaten eggs. Wait till it's almost cook before placing some cheese (easiest would be cheddar slice) on top. Next fold it up and cook till it's not runny. Make sure to cook the eggs thoroughly so that it can be safe for children's consumption. Noticed that I've omitted any seasonings like salt, pepper or soy sauce? One does not need to any of these as the vegetables itself are tasty enough to be eaten without seasonings. The cheese alone would impart some saltiness.

In this picture, it's a carrot and potato cheese omelette that I've made for boiboi's breakfast. He ate this up heartily with some tomato ketchup. Check here for another version of similar omelette.



Technorati Tags: omelette + kiddy menu