Steam Tofu with Pork Mince in Soya Bean Sauce- A simple dinner dish

It's in mid July middle of winter and it's very cold in Melbourne. I just want an easy, warm and healthy dinner. Tofu is one of my favourite ingredient. It's soft, silky and nutritious. I love the softness of steam tofu with the flavourful stir fried port mince. It's simply delicious with a bowl of white rice in the cold night. 

 

This is the second time i cook this dish. I was telling myself that i have to drop down the ingredient and keep the recipe. It's really an easy and yummy dish for a midweek dinner. It's will be served on dinner table in less than half and hour. 

1 soft/silk tofu
250g pork mince

2 cloves of garlic ( finely chopped)
1 red chili ( finely chopped)
1 inch of ginger ( finely grated)
1 tbsp dried shrimp skin
spring onion for garnish
1 tbsp soya bean sauce

Pork Marinate:
1/2 tbsp soya sauce
1/4 tbsp sesame oil
1/4 tbsp cooking wine
1/4 tsp pepper


1. Marinate the pork mince.
2. Heat the oil and stir fry the garlic, ginger and red chili until fragrance. Then add the soya bean sauce.
3. Add in the marinated pork mince with the dried shrimp skin. Stir fry until nearly cooked.
4. Pour the pork mince on top of the tofu. Steam for 10 minutes
5. Garnish with spring onion, coriander or some freshly cut chili.
6.. Serve with white rice.

Vietnamese Spring Roll Vermicelli

1 package of vermicelli
Fresh vegetable: Mint, beansprouts, Cucumber, diced matchstick size, Lettuce, thinly chopped
Pickled carrots

Roasted peanuts, coarsely crushed
Scallion oil ( 2 tbs chop scallions, add about 2 tbs of hot olive oil and pinch of sugar and salt)
Dipping fish sauce (nuoc mam cham)

1. Place vermicelli in boiling water for about 6-8 min, stirring regularly so it won't stick to the bottom of the pot.
2. Once done, drain and flush with cold water to stop cooking process.
3. In large bowl, combine spring roll with lots fresh herbs, cucumbers, beansprouts, pickled carrots
   and, crushed roasted peanuts, scallion oil and dress with nuoc mam cham (dipping fish sauce).

Vietnamese Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Mam Cham)

Vietnamese Dipping Sauce is used as the sauce for the vermicelli. It can be used as dipping sauce for the spring role as well. It’s tasty and refreshing.

 

Vietnamese Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Mam Cham)

    1 ½ cup  water

    10 Tbsp fish sauce

    6 Tbsp fresh lime juice

    6 tsp rice vinegar

    6 Tbsp sugar

    1 deseeded and finely chopped fresh red chili

    4 cloves of finely chopped garlic

    ¼ cup finely sliced pickled carrots (optional)

1.       Combine water, rice vinegar and sugar in a saucepan, and gently bring this to a boil.

2.       Allow this mixture to cool down.

3.       Add the fish sauce, lime juice, chili, garlic and carrots into the mixture.

Note: If you have any leftovers, just put it into a container and freeze it for another meal.

*** The Vietnamese Vermicelli with Spring Roll Post is coming SOon..

Pickled Carrot

Vietnamese food is one of our favorite foods. It’s refreshing, tasty and healthy. Another than the traditional famous Pho (beef noodle soup), we like to have Vietnamese Vermicelli. Vietnamese vermicelli is a bowl of noodle filled with a lot of colourful fresh veges and herbs. It’s topped with peanut salt and mixed with the Vietnamese dipping sauce (Nuoc Mam Cham).

Pickled carrot is one of the topping for the vermicelli. I like the crunchiness of the pickled carrot. It’s easy to make and it can kept in the fridge for months. Here is the recipe of the pickled carrot.

Carrot

Distilled white vinegar

Salt and sugar to taste

Add carrots along with just enough vinegar to submerge the vegetables in pickling container. Carefully season the pickling juice with roughly equal amounts of salt and sugar to taste. Pickle for at least 1 hr before use. It can be kept in the fridge for months.

Penang Prawn Noodle - Hokkien Mee

Penang prawn noodle is a noodle soup franganced with chili spice paste and prawn broth. The combination of the chili paste and  prawn broth is just simply delicious. The broth takes a long time to cook, the longer it takes the better it tastes.

Back in my hometown, we can have a bowl of prawn noodle either as breakfast, lunch or dinner. It's available in most of the hawker food centre/ kopitiam. In Melbourne, we can get this in Malaysia crusine restaurant, however the taste is slightly milder. To taste a bowl of authentic penang prawn noodle, me and my sister either has to work hard to cook at home or fly back to penang :P

There are a few steps to make a bowl of noodle, but it's worth it when you can taste a bowl of authentic and flavoursome prawn noodle!

Chilie paste:
30 red chillies
10 dried chillies
20 shallots
10 cloves garlic
4 tablespoons of water
12 tablespoons of cooking oil

Stock Ingredients

1.5kg of prawn , peeled, devinded and keep the prawn head and shell seperately
1kg of pork neck/shoulder

Toppings/Others
1 package of yellow noodles
1 package of rice vermicelli
Kangkung ( water spinach)
Some bean sprouts
Hard boiled eggs
Some friend shallot crisps ( store bought)


1. Blend the chili paste ingredients.
2. Heat up the wok and add cooking oil. Stir fry the chili paste for until fraganced. Dish up and set aside
3. On the same wok (unwashed), add in a little oil and cook the shrimp topping. Add in a little chili paste, sugar, and salt. Pan-fried the shrimp until they are slightly burned. Dish up, let cool and sliced them into halves.
4. On the same wok ( unwashed), add in a little oil and stir fry the prawn shell and head until cook, add in water, bring to boil and simmer on low heat for 2 hours.
5. Drain the foam out regularly.
6. After two hours ,add in half of the chili paste, then add in the pork neck/pork shoulder (whole peice) into the broth and cook for another 1-2 hour on low heat until the pork is cooked. Take the pork out, set aside until cool. Slice the pork into pieces and used it for topping.
7. Add some salt and sugar to taste.

To assemble:
1.  In boiling water, cook the yellow noodle/ vermicelli, bean sprout and kangkung then place in a bowl.
2.  Assmble the pork slices, egg, and prawn on top of the noodle
3. Ladle hot soup over
4. Last and not least, sprinkle some fried shallot and add chillie paste to your taste.

An Adult Birthday Cake

This is a birthday cake for my colleague. We were planning to give him a real ‘surprise’ on his birthday. We came out with the Adult theme birthday cake to make fun of him as he likes to call a pair of boob as soft cake. 

We were excited about the cake. It’s going to be a real surprise and we were pretty sure he’ll like it.

After the brainstorming of our ‘girl’ team, we come out with this design. The theme colour of the cake is hot pink. The bra design should have laces and polka dot. He (the figurine) definitely needs to put the hands on the pair of the boobs. 

This cake needs to have the ‘wow’ effect. The main feature of the cake is the boobs and the man’s figurine. It took me a while to find out what mold I’m going to use to shape the boobs. I walk in and out of my kitchen and I found a round container. It’s the perfect size and shape!  Ta dah!!! Here is the finished cake.

After I brought the cake to office, my colleague added a ‘mold’ on the top left hand side of the mouth and we also wrote our birthday wishes on the pad. 

Overall, we had great fun for this birthday celebration. The cake plays a main role in this party!

Durian Mille Crepe

Durian is in season now in tropical country. There are so many durian posts on Facebook from my Malaysia friends. I was drooling when looking at the photos on facebook. I’m a huge fan of durian; it’s just too ‘stinky’, yet delicious.

In Melbourne, there are some fresh durians available from the Asian market such as Footscary Market. I believe the durian was frozen during the transportation from Asia to Australia. The other option to get durian in Melbourne is the frozen durian from Asian Grocer. There are two types of Frozen Durian- Malaysian Durian and Thai Durian. A colleague of mine was showing me a photo of durian cake and everyone keep talking about durian. I want to make something with Durian to satisfy my craving!

 Mille Crepe has been in my to-do list for a long time. I decided to make DURIAN mille crepe. It sounds Yummy for durian lovers!

Mille Crepe is a very labour intensive cake as you need to make ‘thousand’ layers of crepe (in fact, 20 crepes are enough). It took me one and half hour to make the crepe.

Here is the crepe recipe (Adapted from A Baked Creation).

Crepe Batter (Make 8’ Cake)

6 tablespoons butter

3 cups milk

6 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

7 tablespoons sugar

A pinch of salt

The Crepe

1. Make the crepe batter the night before.
2. In a small pan, cook the butter until brown. Set it aside.
3. In a small pot, heat the milk until it starts steaming and then set it aside to cool for 10 minutes.
4. On medium-low speed with your mixer, beat together the eggs, flour, sugar, and salt. Slowly add the hot milk and browned butter to the mixture.
5. Pour the batter into a container, cover and refrigerate overnight.
6. The next day, bring the batter to room temperature. Place a nonstick 8-inch pan over medium heat. Swab the surface with the oil, then add about 2-3 tablespoons of batter and swirl to cover the surface. 
7. Cook until the bottom just begins to brown, about 1 minute, then carefully lift an edge and flip the crêpe. Cook on the other side for no longer than 5-10 seconds. Carefully flip the crêpe onto a baking sheet lined with parchment. Repeat until you have 20 perfect crêpes

Durian Cream

900ml whipped cream

500g Frozen Durian (the more the better? I just love more intensive taste of durian)

Mashed Durian

1. Whip the cream until it hold
2. Smash the durian and fold into the cream.

Assembly the Mille Crepe 

To assemble, lay a crêpe on a plate. Pipe or use an icing spatula to completely cover the crêpe with a thin layer of the durian cream. Cover thedurian cream layer with a crêpe and repeat to make a stack of 20, with the best-looking crepe on top. Chill for at least 2 hours. Set it out for 30 minutes in room temperature before serving.