My love affair with hong zao ji 红槽鸡 aka chicken cooked in red glutinous wine didn’t get off to a good start at first.

When I was young, my mum who is Hock Chew, would make her own red glutinous wine or more commonly known here as “hong zao jiu” 红槽酒 (hong zao jiu) for home consumption. She will often make a huge pot of hong zao chicken (to be served with rice), or cook it with mee suah (flour vermicelli) for a simple one-dish meal. But back then, I didn’t dare to touch the chicken at all because I thought it looks all red and pretty scary. 我真不识货! When I grew older, I somehow became a lot more adventurous with food (greedy?) and upon trying some hong zao mian xian outside, I fell in love with this dish. And I wish I had tried my mum’s home made wine back then. Now, she told me that she has “forgotten” how to make the wine no matter how much I begged her T_T I tried looking for the bottled hong zao wine so that I can cook this dish at home, but none of the supermarkets and grocery stalls I checked sell the red kind, all the ones I saw are the yellow type which I think is not authentic - after all, the wine is made from red glutinous rice so how can the final product not be red?!

So help came in the form of a kind, and very generous food blogger Rei from All That Matters (do check out her blog for great recipes and AMAZING bakes). When she read my post at a local food forum asking where I can purchase the red wine in Singapore, she immediately offered to give me some of her home made wine for free. This is such a kind gesture especially when I didn’t know Rei before this. I was incredibly touched by her kindness and generosity and I still am today, as I am writing this post. Thanks Rei! ^_^ If you would like to make your own wine at home, check out Rei’s recipe. I feel so inspired to try making my own wine so that I can have an endless supply, haaa…

For the uninitiated, this dish is also known as a “confinement dish” - a must have for women recuperating after child birth. But you don’t need to be having your confinement to enjoy the health benefits of this dish. This is a super nourishing dish and is said to boost benefits such as lowering bad cholesterol, strengthening cardio, regulating menses and so on. For me, I just love the aromatic and slightly sour taste of the wine, so I try to cook it at least once a month. This is truly comfort food for the soul for me.

Note: The dish can be quite “heaty” especially due to the generous use of ginger and sesame oil, so do not consume this during “that time of the month” or when you’re having a sore throat.

My recipe is based on Rei’s but I made some modifications to suit my own cooking style/preference.

Ingredients
(Serves 2)

- 600g chicken (you can use drumlets/chicken wings portions), or half a chicken, cut to bite sized pieces
- 5 bunches of mee suah
- ginger, cut to thin strips (for garnishing)
- cilantro (for garnishing)

A) For the marinade
- 1.5 tbsp hong zao wine lees
- 1 tbsp ginger juice (grate the ginger, take the ginger pulp and squeeze out the juice)
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp hong zao wine

B) For the stir frying
- 1 cup hong zao wine
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp brown sugar

Directions

For Hong Zao Chicken 红槽鸡 (Serve as a main dish & served with warm rice)

1. In a deep and wide bowl, marinade chicken pieces with the marinade ingredients (A). Marinade for at least 1 hour or overnight in the fridge.
2. Heat wok with 2 tbsp sesame oil and fry the ginger strips till crisp. Set aside the ginger strips.
3. Using the oil left in the wok, add in the marinaded chicken pieces (along with the marinade sauce) and stir fry for a few minutes till well coated.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients (B) into wok, cover with a lid and simmer for 10 minutes on low flame.
5. Open the lid, using a pair of tongs, turn the chicken pieces the other side, cover the wok and simmer for another 10 minutes.
6a. Transfer to a serving dish, garnish with cilantro and the previously fried ginger, and serve with warm rice.

For Hong Zao Mee Suah 红槽鸡面线 (Serve as a one-dish meal)

I prefer a more “watery” consistency as compared to the thicker sauce for the chicken as a main dish, so I added a further 1/4 cup of wine after step 5. To prepare the mee suah and assemble the dish,

6b. Rinse mee suah pieces in cold water to remove the starch, then cook them in a wok of boiling water for about 2-3 minutes, separating the strands with chopsticks.
7. Take out the cooked mee suah and set in a serving bowl. Arrange the cooked chicken pieces on top of mee suah, and pour the sauce over. Garnish with cilantro and the previously fried ginger.

A box of locally made mee suah noodles

The method of making this steamed egg dish is similar to my Chawanmushi recipe, with some modifications. The main difference is that for this recipe, the eggs mixture just about cover the minced pork (see second photo below), wheras in the chawanmushi, there was more egg mixture compared to the filling. Hence it is recommended that you use a shallow & wide dish to make this. Chawanmushi uses kombu and bonito stock. But since this is the Chinese style, you can also use any clear, light coloured type Chinese soup you are cooking that day (such as this and this) for the egg custard stock. I really love this simple dish, it is comforting and delicious, and I can never seem to have enough warm, fluffy rice to go with it

Ingredients
(Serves 2-4)

- 150g minced pork
- 1/2 tsp vegetable/olive oil
- 1 carrot (but you’ll be only using some of it)

A) For the egg custard mixture
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup water or stock
- 1/2 tsp Chinese cooking wine
- 1/4 to 1/2 tsp light soy sauce (for seasoning the egg mixture, exclude or use less soy sauce if using stock)

B) Marinade for the minced pork
- 1/2 tsp soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp  sesame oil
- 1/2 tsp Chinese cooking wine
- a bit of Chinese white pepper
- 1/2 stalk spring onions, finely chopped (use the green upper part)

Directions

1) Using a vegetable peeler, shave some carrot slices, then stack the slices vertically, cut them to thin strips and then chop to smaller pieces to get finely chopped carrots.

2) Preparing the egg custard mixture

i) Break the eggs into the bowl. To minimize bubbles, do not beat the eggs but gently stir the eggs with a pair of chopsticks using a cutting action.
ii) Add the rest of the ingredients from (A) to the eggs mixture. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

3) Preparing the minced pork

i) Combine marinade (B) with minced pork and mix well. Leave for at least 10 minutes.
ii) Heat wok with a bit of oil, then stir fry the minced pork till they are no longer pink, breaking them to smaller bits using your spatula.  Do not overcook.
iii) Arrange the stir-fried minced pork in a thin layer on a shallow dish. Then pour the stained egg mixture over gently. Top with some chopped carrots prepared in step 1. If you see any bubbles, “flatten” the surface gently with the back of a spoon.

4) Cover the dish with transparent food wrap or aluminum foil.

5) Steam the egg custard over high heat for about 15 mins. To test if the egg mixture is cooked, insert a bamboo stick into the mixture: if a little clear liquid comes out, it is cooked. Serve with warm rice.

Steamed Egg with Minced Pork - Inside

Cooking Notes:
- Straining the mixture through a fine sieve minimize bubbles from forming on the surface of the custard.
- Use a ceramic material for steaming the egg custard. Plastic material will melt during steaming.
- Use a wide, shallow dish for steaming so that you get a thin custard, and also the cooking will be more even.
- If you happen to be cooking Chinese soups (clear, light coloured type) on the day you are making this, you can use the soup as the stock base for the egg custard.
- When steaming the egg custard, make sure the dish is sealed, other wise the evaporating droplets will land on the custard during steaming and cause unsightly bubbles.

I’m excited and happy to see my very first guest post, being published by one of my fave food blogs, Delicious Asian Food. Thank you PabloPabla, for inviting me to guest post. If you would like to read about what I wrote and check out the recipe, do hop over to PabloPabla’s blog to read the article. Remember to check out Pablo’s blog at the same time, because there are lots of wonderful Asian recipes to try out.

I’m be leaving Singapore tonight for a short holiday in Beijing. Will be back soon for more recipes, and maybe some photos from my trip

Kailan with Shredded Scallops

A delicious snack of cup corn, done the short cut way, ready in almost no time at all

This recipe is so simple that it’s almost a bit lame for me to post, and I hesitated for some time if I should post it. But since folks like the 15-minute shorts such as the easy steamed fish, microwaved potatoes and the quickie grilled salmon, I reckon most of us don’t mind a no-brainer recipe once in a while.

Remember the silly fad in Singapore, many years ago, where people (me included) are queuing for cup corn selling from the push carts outside shopping malls? Well this recipe is a short-cut way of remaking the cup corn. I think the “proper” way of making this is to get fresh corn, cut the kernels off and steam them. But lazy me bought ready whole kernel corn, microwaved them with butter, season with salt … and voila, your 5-minute snack is ready! I love making this at home because I can add more butter to make it less healthy but more tasty (opps), serve them in a pretty cup (instead of styrofoam cup) and it’s so quick to prepare.

Just three basic ingredients to make your own short-cut cup corn

Ingredients
(makes about 1 teacup)

- 1 3/4 cup whole kernel corn
- a bit of butter
- a bit of salt

Directions
1) Place corn kernels in a wide dish (so that there is more room to mix later) and cover with cling wrap, using a fork to poke holes in the top of the wrap for ventilation.
2) Place the dish in a microwave for 1-2 minutes depending on your microwave heat. If you hear many ‘popping sounds’, do switch off the microwave earlier.
3) Season with salt and butter to taste, mix evenly, and pour into serving cup.  When you pour the corn into the serving cup, do not pour the butter liquid inside or it will be watery.

Note: You can also add the butter in step 2 instead of 3 if you prefer.

The US blueberries are now in season and that’s good news for us too in Singapore because we get to enjoy cheaper than usual blueberry prices as well. NTUC just had a sale whereby they were selling two punnets for only S$4.70! So naturally I grabbed a few punnets. This is one of the first things I whipped up with the fresh blueberries - an easy milkshake. Blueberries are usually slightly sour (at least those that I’ve bought so far), so blending it with sweet ice cream removes the sourness to create a sweet and refreshing taste. This is quite filling and I even had it as a meal on its own.

Ingredients
(Makes one tall glass, or 2 1/2 short glasses for dessert)

- 200g vanilla ice cream
- 1.5 tbsp milk
- 150g fresh blueberries

Directions
Blend everything till smooth, do not overblend or it will become watery. Garnish with some marshmallows and blueberries if you like.

Blueberry Milkshake … Yumm!

This soup is a huge cleaning-out-the-fridge exercise. I had a big bag of leftover potatoes and I suddenly thought of making this soup because I had something like this before when I was young and I remembered I love it. But my mum cut the vegetables to big chunks instead of small dices like what I did. So you can say this is a Chinese-Italian inspired recipe? The cooking is Chinese style, while cutting the vegetables to small pieces remind me of vegetable minestrone soup …. in fact, the taste also ends up a little similar to minestrone soup because of the diced vegetables and tangy taste of the tomato. Oh my, it really taste so good… in my opinion, all the ingredients complement one another so well and the soup tastes nourishing & delicious. Our verdict - we love the soup so much that I can’t wait to make it again!

Ingredients
(Serves 2-3)
350g potatoes, peeled and then diced
1 large yellow onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 carrots, peeled and then diced
1 tomato, cut to small wedges
1/2 chicken, cut to big chunks, skin removed
1.5l water
abit black pepper
salt

Directions
1. Blanch chicken in boiling water for about 5 minutes, then rinse with cold water, set aside.
2. Fill pot with 1.5 litres water, add blanched chicken and the diced vegetables (that includes the potatoes & tomato).
3. Bring to a rapid boil for 10 minutes, then reduce to simmer for about at least another 45 minutes.
4. Add a bit of black pepper and season with salt to taste.

Cooking Notes
Try to cut the vegetables to uniform, small diced cubes like the spoonful shown in the first photo. In my opinion, the soup tastes better if the vegetables are diced, and it helps the vegetables to release more favour too. It does take a bit of time to cut all the vegetables though. So if you are running short of time, you can also use the faster way of cutting the vegetables to large chunks

Mee Suah Soup - A Simple and Homely Bowl of Chinese Vermicelli 面线汤

This is a simple dish - and when I say simple, it really is as simple as simple can possibly get. Simpler than crawling out of the house to buy food back =P The method is almost like cooking instant noodles. It came about because one day, I was home alone and I didn’t feel like cooking anything elaborate or going outside to buy food. And there is almost no food in my fridge anyway for anything fancy. So I remembered that my mum used to whip up this simple one-dish meal when I was in the afternoon session of school. It was fast to cook so it’s great when I’m rushing to school. This being the minimalist version, all you need is some mee suah (Asian Vermicelli noodles), eggs, spring onions, soy sauce and sesame oil, which are food that one always find in an Asian pantry at all times anyway. It is definitely a quick and quite satisfying treat for lazy bums like me. And it beats having instant noodles all the time

A box of locally made mee suah noodles

For those who aren’t familiar, mee suah is the Hokkein (a dialect group) name for what is known as flour vermicelli. The other names are 面线 “mian xian” in Chinese or “min seen” in Cantonese. The ingredients in this type of noodles are mainly wheat flour, salt and water. It is commonly used in classic dishes like “Longevity Noodles” and “Hong Zao Mian Sian“. They are often arranged in small bundles and sold in paper boxes. The noodles cook really fast (like about 2 minutes in boiling water), that’s why I always keep a packet in my pantry at all times as it is good for emergencies

Ingredients
(Serve 1)

- 40 to 60g mee suah (That’s about 2-3 bundles)
- 1 to 2 eggs, beaten and season with a bit of soy sauce (I use abt 1/4 tsp for 1 egg)
- light soy sauce
- sesame oil
- vegetable or olive oil
- water
- 1 stalk of spring onions, chopped thinly (optional) - I used dried that day coz I didn’t have fresh ones
- fried shallots (optional)

Directions
1. Rinse mee suah in cold water to remove the starch, then cook them in a wok of boiling water with a bit of oil added for about 2-3 minutes, separating the strands with chopsticks.
2. Take out the cooked mee suah and set in a serving bowl. Discard the water in wok and pat the wok dry.
3. Heat some oil in the pan and spread the oil evenly. Pour the egg mixture slowly and cook a thin layer of egg. When the egg is cooked (lightly browned), use your spatula to break them to strips.
4. Add one serving of plain water and season with light soy sauce to taste. Pour everything over the noodles.
5. Garnish with a few drops of sesame oil, chopped spring onions & fried shallots.

Cooking Notes
You can spice up this minimalist mee suah soup in the following way:
- A richer soup. The recipe below may taste bland to some, but this is the version which my mum cooked in the past so I find the blandness familiar, comforting and tasty. But if you like a richer soap base, you can use home-made broth, instant miso soup or instant broth cubes such as knorr to favour the soup.
-  More ingredients. Some also like to add cooked pig liver to their mee suah soup which I will try next time. You can add anything you have in your pantry to this dish - such as crab sticks, hot dogs, boiled quail eggs, bak choys etc…

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I’m sending this simple noodles soup to Presto Pasta Nights which Katie of Thyme For Cooking is hosting this week.

This soup is “low-fat” because it does not contain any cream like most western soup recipes call for. But if you prefer a creamier texture, you can add roughly 60ml of double cream after step 3 to thicken the soup. As I used the home-made vegetable broth (feel free to use store bought ones if you prefer) which I had made in advanced to make this soup, making the soup is a breeze … I just need to boil, blend and serve… an easy ‘peasy’ recipe, literally (can’t resist the pun )

I don’t usually love to eat peas, so this is an excellent way to make myself consume lots of peas because I think peas just taste better this way.

Ingredients
(Serves 3-4)
Recipe from 500 Soups by Susananah Blake

600ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp olive oil
2 shallots, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
500g frozen peas
1 tbsp chopped fresh mint, plus extra to garnish
Salt and ground black pepper
Some good quality extra virgin olive oil (for drizzling) - optional

Directions
1. Heat oil in a saucepan. Add the shallots and cook gently for about 2 minutes.
2. Stir in the peas and vegetable stock. Bring to the boil, then remove from the heat.
3. Process the soup in a blender or food processor until smooth.
4. Stir in the mint, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Pour the soup into serving bowls, garnish with mint leaves and extra virgin olive oil if preferred.

Cooking Notes
- You can serve the soup warm, or cold (leave to the soup to cool and then chill for at least 2 hours before serving).
- After step 3, check the consistency of the soup and stir in a splash of vegetable broth if necessary.
- You can also substitute other types of broth such as chicken broth.

I’ve finally taken the plunge of making my own soup broth for cooking. I guess this is almost a certain inevitability for those who cook though I think it happened a little sooner than I expected.  Make no mistake, that as a humble noob at cooking, I was never a purist in the kitchen and I have always been a huge consumer of convenience foods. I am not so arrogant as to scoff at those who are using commercial, store-bought broths for I value their convenience as well. But I would just say that the benefits of making my own vegetable broth kind of outweigh the convenient aspects of it - or should I say that once I started making my own broth, there is no turning back for me =)

Benefits that I am reaping from making my own vegetable broth

- Cutting down on food wastage and leftover vegetables. I often find myself with a good amount of leftover vegetables by the end of the week. Vegetables that has lost their prime-of-their-life glow but is you know, still edible. Making your own vegetable broth is an excellent way of using up these leftovers and reducing the guilt because when it comes to your own home made vegetable broth, almost anything can go into it.

- Practicing my lack-lustre chopping skills. I love to chop the vegetables to small pieces to speed up the cooking process. Some people hate making vegetable broth due to the chopping, but this is exactly the part I love - I find that chopping has a theraupeutic effect on me, almost like meditating. But if you are impatient, you can cut the vegetables to bigger chunks.

- Home-made tastes better. To me, it is clearly the better taste that is free of the hints of chemicals & commercial-ness. Do you need a more compelling reason?

- You can adjust the taste to your liking. Each time you make your vegetable broth, you can adjust the ingredients to get a different taste - for example, more garlic for an earthy, homely taste. I personally also like to add too many onions because I just love the taste and smell of onion soup.

Making Vegetable Broth

Some Tips

- Collecting vegetables early. Start collecting scraps early. Once you know you can’t finish using the vegetables, store them in the freezer so that they stay fresh, especially when you know you won’t be making the broth so soon. Vegetables that have withered a little or lost their colour slightly is ok to put into the broth - but not vegetables that is starting or have already gone bad.

- Making a large batch and freezing them. Making a large batch at one time and freezing them in small containers. Do not refreeze the broth once it has thawed, therefore fit them in volumes which you use for your recipes and soups (such as 600ml and 1 litre containers).

- Using energy-saving gadgets. Energy-saving gadgets such as a pressure cooker and a thermal pot is ideal for making home-made broths because they cut down on cooking time, and you also do not lose that much liquid from the steam evaporating.

- Storing. Store in fridge up to 1 week, store in freezer for a few months. For those I store in the fridge, I like to use a jug type of container (like the one you see in the first photo) for easy pouring when I use it. For those you wish to freeze, store them in shallow small containers with tight fitting lids.

- Usage. The uses of your home made broth is so versatile. The common use is as a base for soup, and you can toss it in stir fries, sauces and basically all kinds of recipes.

What types of vegetables to use?

The type of vegetables to use is subjective as everyone has their own preferences. The following is just a guide, so you can be flexible and add anything according to your preference.

- The base ingredients. Typically, the essentials that make up the body of the broth are garlic, onion, celery and carrot. These ingredients add a lot of flavour, depth and sweetness to the broth.

- Other good choices. Besides the above ingredients, other good candidates are mushroom, rosemary, parsnip, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, bell pepper, corn cob, zucchini, spring onions (scallions) & asparagus, to name a few.

- Vegetables you may want to avoid/add in moderation. Some vegetables you may want to avoid include: Beetroot (unless you don’t mind a broth with an intense red), tomato (too tangy for my palate, personal preference), coriander (the taste can be overwhelming for some), portobello mushroom (unless you don’t mind a darker colour) … and the list goes on.

If there is a vegetable you have but ensure if it’s suitable to go into a vegetable broth, either check it out online first … or use your intuition. For ingredients you are using for the first time, start by adding a small amount to test if you can accept the taste. After a few rounds of experimenting, you will become quite the expert at concocting your ultimate home made broth recipe.

Filter the broth through a fine sift so that you get clear, particle-free broth

And now, on to my recipe. Here’s my simple way of making vegetable broth:

Ingredients
(makes about 3 litres of broth)

Vegetables:

- 3 carrots
- 3 celery stalks with leafy green tops
- 2 stalks of spring onions
- 1-2 bay leaves
- broccoli (in moderation)
- a few cracked black peppercorns (in moderation)
- a few thyme spigs
- some parsley
- some button mushrooms
- 2 garlic bulbs (separate to cloves and smash them)
- 2 red onions (peel away the skin)
- 1 yellow onion (peel away the skin)
- 1 corn cob, cut to chucks
- a little bit of salt to taste

Note: I tend to use a lot of onions so the onion flavour is quite intense. Feel free to lessen the amount in your version.

Directions

1. Chop the vegetables up. Chopping them to smaller dices helps to speed up the cooking process but leaving them as bigger chunks if you don’t have time is fine as well.
2. Add chopped vegetables and 3.5 litres of water in a pressure cooker (or any other types of cooking pots, stockpots you have), cook for as long as you can. I cook mine in a pressure cooker for at least 3 hours.
3. When the broth has cooled down, filter it through a fine sift.
4. Store the home made broth in containers. They can be stored for roughly a week in the fridge and a couple of months in the freezer. When freezing, store them in exact volumes (or in ice cube trays for smaller portions) that you use for your recipes; do not re-freeze once they have thawed.

References and great reads:

- Vegan Yum Yum: Homemade Vegetable Broth

- Blogher Article: How to Make Vegetable, Meat, Chicken, or Fish Stock and Five Reasons You Should Be Doing It

- Squidoo: How to Make Great Vegetable Broth

- the kitchn: Tip: Save Vegetable Scraps for Stock

The method of cooking this black pepper dish is similar to cooking Singapore’s famous black pepper crabs, just that I can’t eat crabs at the moment (update: because I am on braces, one more year to go) so I substitute with prawns instead  :P  Plus I haven’t mastered the courage to kill crabs yet.  It’s still tasty nevertheless because one can never go too wrong with black pepper, and the de-shelled prawns are easier to eat than crabs (just consoling myself, haha).

Ingredients
(Serves 2)

- 8 large prawns (or better known as ’shrimps’ in other parts of the world)
- 2 stalks of spring onions
- 1 tbsp chopped garlic
- 1/2 tbsp black peppercorn (adjust to your liking)
- 1/2 tsp light soy sauce
- 1/4 tsp dark soy sauce
- 40ml water
- 1/2 tsp brown sugar
- small knob of butter

Directions
1. Remove the head and shell of the prawn, leaving only the shell tail intact. De-vein by cutting along the top middle part of the prawns and remove the black veins.
2. Cut the spring onions to 2-inch length, separate thick bottom white stalks from the top green portion.
3.  Pound the black peppercorn using mortar and pestle till coarse (not powdery).
4. Melt butter in heated wok, add garlic, crushed peppercorns and thick spring onion stalks and stir fry till garlic is lightly browned.
5. Add water, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and brown sugar.
6. Add prawns and the rest of the spring onions, stir fry till prawns are cooked. It only takes a few minutes.

Yum Yum

I am submitting my recipe to the Original Recipe event hosted by Lore at Culinarty. Check out others’ recipes around the week of 15th.