my little cyberspot - January 2005

31 January 2005, Monday, 8.42pm

Grilled miso chicken

Here's a really simple dish that can be cooked up in minutes.

Grilled miso chicken

400-500g chicken pieces, cut into bite-size chunks*

6 cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped

2 slightly heaped tbs of miso**

2 tbs sake

2 tbs mirin

1-2 tbs soya sauce (see note **)

1. Combine all the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Set aside for up to 1 day in the fridge.

2. Pre-heat oven at maximum temperature.

3. When the oven is ready, lay out the chicken pieces on aluminium foil and place at tray level closest to the grilling heating element. Grill for 15 minutes, turning over halfway to ensure even cooking. Serve immediately!

* Instead of chicken pieces, you can also use chicken wings. The main point is that the pieces must be fairly small, e.g., size of chicken wing. This is because grilling is usually done with fairly small/thin pieces of meat. You can't, for example, grill an entire chicken carcass, (you'd have to roast that!) but you can grill individual small chicken pieces.

** There are various types of miso. Shiro-miso is white, light and made with rice. Aka-miso is red, medium and made with barley. Kuro-miso is brown/black, strong and made with soya beans. Any miso is fine for this recipe, although different miso might give you a slightly different taste. I used a kuro-miso known as kuro dashi miso. Most miso is quite salty, and this miso was no exception. Therefore, I did not add additional soya sauce to the meat. However, you may wish to taste the miso you are using and if you prefer, add 1-2 tb of soya sauce to the chicken to taste.

24 January 2005, Monday, 7.04pm

Vietnamese spring rolls

The long weekend gave me enough time to feel rested and inspired to cook at home once again. I decided to make Vietnamese spring rolls for Sunday dinner - a refreshing change from the numerous portions of yummy (but oily) Chicken Rice I've been having. It turned out to be a good decision - the rolls were so easy to make & they tasted healthy and scrumptious!

Below is a pic of the ingredients. It may look like a lot of work, but it isn't, really! More than half of the ingredients are vegetables requiring minimal preparation: Mint, parsley, basil and spring onions need only be washed and chopped. Beansprouts - simply blanch them; and cucumbers - just chop them into long strips. Simple!

The non-vegetables require just a tad bit more work. I threw the shrimp (unpeeled) into a pot of boiling water and left it there for about three minutes to cook. After peeling & halving the shrimp down through the spine, I returned the heads & shells to the water for five more minutes to give me a yummy prawn stock. Then, I used the prawn stock to cook the bee-hoon (rice vermicelli). This turned out to be a good move (thanks for the tip Melp!) - the bee-hoon was absolutely yummy on its own, sweetened with the prawn stock, and I just had to add 1 tablespoon of soya sauce to make the bee hoon taste perfect.

As for the chicken minced meat you see in the pic, Husband cooked this up in a jiffy - he stir-fried it with fish sauce, onions and garlic. It was all ready in a flash!

Some of you may be wondering about the rice paper for the rolls. Here's a closer look:

I purchased these at NTUC, but Cold Storage should have them too. The sheets are hard and translucent, almost plastic-y to touch. They need to be softened in a open basin/bowl of warm water. Hint: Use a basin/bowl big enough so that the sheet need not be bent when immersed in the water. Each sheet took about 1 to 2 minutes tops to soften. Then, we dried off the excess water with a clean dish towel and we were ready to roll!! (no pun intended!!)

It turned out to be a nice, leisurely dinner. We took turns dunking sheets in warm water, drying them, spreading ingredients all over them and rolling them up. There was no need to worry about sealing each roll, as the slightly damp rice rolls sealed themselves automatically!

Ah... I forgot to mention the final touch - the dipping sauce. This was an absolutely amazing and very easy to do sauce. Here's the recipe:

Dipping sauce for Vietnamese spring rolls

1/2 cup of water

1 tbs sugar

1 tbs fish sauce

2-3 tbs finely chopped parsley leaves and stems

1. Dissolve the sugar in the water. Add the rest of the ingredients and serve!

Overall, I found Vietnamese spring rolls much easier to do than, say, poh piah. Bee hoon is much easier to prepare than shredded radish. And Vietanamese spring rolls are much healthier as they contain so many herbs and veggies! I really loved the contrast of fresh mint, sweet shrimp and crunchy beansprouts. This dinner turned out to be quite a memorable and lovely one for both of us! ^__^

Other things you can add to your spring rolls: shredded carrots, strips of egg and slices of vietnamese pork chop!!

20 January 2005, Thursday, 6.30pm

Yet Con & Chicken Rice

It's so typical for pregnant women to have food cravings. And I for one take no exception to this.

I without a whimper of a doubt have a confirmed, undeniable, unexplainable, irrepressible and (as of now) irrevocable craving for Chicken Rice! An amused colleague asked me which part of Chicken Rice do I crave, i.e., the rice, the chicken, the soup?! I thought about it and said, "Everything." The combination of oily, chicken-y, starch-y, soup-y flavours. EVERYTHING. ^__^

Thankfully, Chicken Rice is most abundant in Singapore. (It would be horrible if I had a craving for something obscure like beetroot or pomegranate.) There are so many great Chicken Rice stalls out there. One of my favourites is Yet Con at 25 Purvis Street (near Raffles Hotel). Here's a review I found on the web. To the uninitiated, Yet Con is situated along a row of shophouses lining Purvis Street. It's got an interior akin to Katong Bakery - entering Yet Con is like going back in time to the 1970s. Marble-topped circular tables and sturdy wooden chairs. And let's not forget the distinguished Hainanese gentleman dressed in a starched shirt, standing sternly near the door. When patrons order food, waitresses shout out the orders to him and he notes them all down and calculates the bills with a pencil and an abacus. It's really all quite quaint.

And I haven't even gotten to describing the food yet! The Chicken Rice in Yet Con is consistently good - oily, smooth skin, tender, non-dry meat, fragrant rice. Yet Con also serves other Hainanese dishes including fish maw dishes, hainanese pork chop and so on - all very good! I dragged husband there for a craving-satiation exercise last week and something tells me I'll be back there soon enough!

I'm also happy to report that I can cook my own Chicken Rice. But recently, I haven't had much strength to cook at home - it's amazing what being pregnant does to your energy level. I was told to think of it this way - I have become a FACTORY-cum-INCUBATOR for another living being. A lot of energy goes into making and sustaining a living thing yknow!!

Well, I guess in the meantime, I shall have to depend on the Loy Kees, Boon Tong Kees, Five Stars and Yet Cons of Singapore to keep me happy! Here's some pictures of Chicken Rice for those who, like me, share the same craving. Enjoy!

16 January 2005, Sunday, 9.30pm

First scan of baby

Baby is currently smaller than a peanut, but larger than a red bean. 10.3mm... hmm. That's about the size of, well, maybe a large soya bean or a lare rice grain? Comparing the baby to food is making me hungry... *tummy growl* ^__^

15 January 2005, Saturday, 5.22pm

Ode to cat

Every day and every night
I stare out the window
Or at a wall
My eyes are blank
My mouth is closed
Boredom fills me.
I sniff I twitch I yawn
And then I flop on to the floor
Sounding a careless "meow"
Waiting for someone to pat me
But no one is there.
So back on my fours I go
To sniff to twitch to yawn
To live the boring life that will
never change
Meow.

I wrote this poem a while back when I realised how bored Meow must be sitting, staring and sleeping all day. Today, managed to catch a few "telling" pictures of her "boredom in action". Isn't she a sweet but terribly bored-looking cat?

13 January 2005, Thursday, 2.32pm

Look! Look!

In case the words are too small on screen, it reads, "Pregnant". ^__^ Pregnant? Indeed I am! Am 7-8 weeks pregnant!

Please pray for the baby's continued growth and safety.

By the way, just to add - let it be known that Clear Blue's electronic pregnancy test kit (which can be found at Guardian Pharmacy) is like THE BEST kit ever. We tried the "+" or "-" kits, or the even weirder, "if it's two lines, you're pregnant, if it's one line, you're not" kits and ended up oogling the indication bar - is it a "+" or a "-"/is that a second line, it's rather faint though - until we were cross-eyed! The electronic test kit has several signals that put fluttering hearts to ease. First, it signals when it has succeeded in drawing up your urine. Then, it signals when it is processing the urine sample (to show that it is working. Other kits kinda jus make you stare at it blankly for 3 minutes, in rabid anticipation for something to happen!) And then finally, it gives you a very clear, "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant" sign. Highly recommended! Even though it's slightly more expensive, it comes with three test sticks, which means you can re-do the test over and over again, just to be sure!

10 January 2005, Monday, 8.09pm

Claypot chicken rice - the easy way!

I am quite fond of cooking claypot chicken rice the easy way. And what is the easy way (scratch head)? Well, it's none other than using a rice cooker! The result is quite authentic, especially if you follow the recipe below. Cheers!:

Claypot chicken rice (in rice cooker!)

3 chicken thighs (with bone), chopped into 10-12 small pieces

2 "lapcheong" a.k.a. chinese barbecued sausage

Handful of chinese mushrooms, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes

1 tb sesame oil

2 tb chinese wine

2 tb dark soya sauce

1 tb light soya sauce

Handful of lettuce, shredded into long strips

1 cup of rice & 1.5 cups of water *

1. Marinate chicken thigh meat with the sesame oil, chinese wine and soya sauces. Put in fridge while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

2. Remove stems from mushrooms & slice in half.

3. Slice "lapcheong" into thick slices. (Try not to eat too many pieces while you're at it!)

4. Boil the rice in rice cooker. After 15 minutes **, open rice cooker & add chicken thigh meat. Be sure to flick off excess marinade before putting meat in. *** Then, add the "lapcheong" and mushrooms on top. Close the rice cooker and allow the cooker to finish cooking the rice, approximately another 5 minutes.

5. Open the rice cooker & be enthralled by the amazing smell. Stir up the rice & all the ingredients and serve immediately on a bed of shredded lettuce. (This recipe serves two and a half! Jus kidding! It serves two - one greedy husband and one wife who's watching her weight!) ^__^

* Different people have different measurements for cooking rice. For me, I've always used the proportion 1 cup of rice to not more than 1.5 cups of water. In this recipe, you can substiute half of the water with chicken stock for added flavour!

** My rice cooker usually takes 20 minutes to finish cooking rice. Basically, add the chicken meat, "lapcheong" and mushrooms five minutes before the rice is done. For me, this would be 15 minutes after the rice starts cooking, but it might be different for you!

*** The reason you flick off excess marinade is so that not too much marinade stains the rice. This results in the final rice being black & white, i.e., some of the rice is stained and some isn't. I find this looks quite authentic to real claypot rice!

Final note: Other items that go well with claypot rice include pork floss, salted fish & cut chillis!

6 January 2005, Thursday, 6.34pm

What breed of cat are you?

I thought this quiz was cute only because of the pictures you get at the end. Like so (see below). Try it!

Ragdoll
You are a Ragdoll! You are known for your laid
back attitude. You are the ultimate in
low-maintenance. You'd rather hang out around
the house all day than seek adventure.

What breed of cat are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

4 January 2005, Tuesday, 9.33pm

All my recent cravings

Dinner tonight consisted of all my recent food cravings - from breaded prawns, done using the tonkatsu recipe from one of my previous posts (just replace pork cutlet with prawns!) to heartwarming oyster veggies & a new addition to my "menu", daikon & pork soup, also known as butajiru. We first had this lovely soup at a Japanese restaurant in Chiangmai and I've been craving for it ever since. I adapted a recipe posted by Obachan, one of my favourite Japanese food bloggers. But, I used less miso and added dashi. Also, used soft-boned pork ribs, instead of pork pieces, for a fuller flavour. It's good to be cooking again after a hiatus! Yay! ^__^

2 January 2005, Sunday, 8.23pm

Absolutely disgusting

The Straits Times had this report on a 17-year old Sri Lankan girl who escaped death by tsunami, but was subsequently gang-raped by six men, hours after being washed ashore, homeless & an orphan. I cannot ... even ... begin ... to ... express ... how ... tremendously ... outraged I felt reading this.

Apparently, experts say that the sexual abuse of vulnerable children becomes more prevalent in times of conflict and trauma, such as that caused by tsunami. There was also another report of someone allegedly molesting his own granddaughter.

I really don't understand human nature sometimes. And sometimes, it is really beyond my heart and mind to accept such realities of utter depravation and crass immorality. No amount of aid in cash or kind will be able to transform or transplant the scrape-bottom sinful nature of humankind. No amount of reconstruction, re-development or re-building. At a time like this, such a gut-wrenchingly disgusting story reminds me that we are all inately sinful, no matter what. This world is going to the dogs. And only God, through Christ, can save us from ourselves.