Velle Cooks \\ Baked Sea Bass Chinese Style

 

I don't have a wok that is big enough to steam a sea bass, so I have to bake it on an oven tray. And to keep the fish moist, you will need to foil it up so that it will trap all the nutrients into the sauce.

I found several recipes online, however do tweak the sauce a little to suit oven , your tastebuds and fish type/fish weight. One of the recipe onlines calls it Sea Bass in a Bag or, as the French call it, "en Papillote.

 

Ingredients

1 whole sea bass, cleaned.

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 bunch of green onions, white and pale green parts cut into 2 inch stripes and greens reserved separately.

1 inch of fresh ginger, peeled, julienne. ( 3 tablespoons of ginger)

3 cloves of garlic, sliced.

3 tablespoons light soy sauce

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon sesame oil

75ml of water

Instructions:

1. Put oven in middle position ad preheat oven to 220 deg Celsius. 

2. Line enough aluminium foil to wrap fish on baking dish. Remember to leave enough on the sides to fold them in.

2. Rinse fish and pat dry, rub inside and out with salt. Transfer fish to aluminium foil, sprinkle wiht scallion stripes (white and pale green) and ginger.

3. I like to cut strips on the fish belly and stuff it with green onions and ginger, I do it the same for the insides of the fish.

4. Stir together soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil until sugar dissolved, and pour over fish.

5. Wrap fish with aluminium foil tight.

6. Bake for 8 to 10mins.

Happy Weekend \\ English Breakfast

 

English Breakfast by yours truly!

You probably wondering, hmm, what is so difficult about whipping an English Breakfast in the morning. Well for starters, to me, an amateur cooking mummy who is by day a full time Architect, doing up an English Breakfast actually requires quite a fair bit of planning for me!

I want my breakfast served warm and not have some items cool while some are hot. So here are my steps. It is really a multi-tasking breakfast cooking here.

1. Heat up oven at 180deg.
2. Sliced the baguette or if you have sourdough bread even better. Spread mango chutney on the bread. If you don't have, you can skip this step. Add sliced cheese on top. Put the bread with cheese on a wire rack.
3. Spread out steaky bacon or back bacon on the oven tray. I like to line it with parchment paper as it makes cleaning up easier later. I also cut my tomatoes into halves, season with salt and pepper.
4. Once both bread and bacon are done. Leave one side, you only need 20mins for the bacon and halved tomatoes. 5 mins for the bread.
5. In a frying pan, add 1 punnet of sliced button mushrooms, leave it there for 3-4 minutes. Be patient. Stir once the liquid starts to come out. Add 3 cloves of minced garlic, 2 tbsp butter and continue to sautéed it for another 3 mins. Leave on the heated stove.
6. While waiting for the 3 mins to  be up for the mushrooms, in 1 saucepan, heat up baked beans, add Worchester sauce, sugar, paprika, ketchup (if need) and water. Leave on stove with low heat. Stir occasionally,
7. In another frying pan, sauteed spinach leaves with garlic. Let it sweat by covering the frying pan. Once done, add salt and pepper for taste. For today, I didn't have spinach  leaves, so I'm using French beans here. Same steps but for French beans as they don't have much liquid coming out as much as spinach, you will need to add some water.
8. Now is the time to put the bacon and halved tomatoes into the oven. Keep a timer, last 5 mins to add in the bread.
9. Dish out the spinach or french beans on to plates. Start frying up your eggs, scrambled or sunny side ups. As I have approx 6 eggs to cook, this will probably take up similar timing for the bacon and tomatoes to be done. Before finishing up your eggs, you should be adding your rack of bread now.
10. Dish out the eggs onto the plates. By now your bacon should be done together with the tomatoes and bread. Plate it with the sautéed mushrooms and baked beans. 
11. Serve hot!

Velle Cooks | Breakfast Egg Muffins

 

The most important ingredient is egg! The rest you can add pretty much whatever you like. I usually use bacon (salty and savoury) and cheddar cheese. Sometimes if there are leftovers in the fridge like cherry tomatoes, brown mushrooms or zuchinni, I will just chop them into bits and throw them in as well!

1. Preheat oven to 190deg. I have a really good muffin tin that is non-stick, so I don't have to spray oil or lay muffin liners.
2. Beat about 6 eggs in a bowl, add salt, pepper and chopped ingredients (bacon, tomatoes, spinach, bell peppers , it's really up to you).
3. Pour the mixture into the muffin tin, about 70% of the muffin tin and top with cheddar cheese. 
4. Bake egg muffins for about 15-20mins till golden brown.
   

Look how much they have puffed up when they are taken straight out from the hot oven! But they start to deflate quite soon!

Velle Cooks \\ Salmon Patties and Chicken Pot Pie

 

The chicken pot pie crust using frozen prata. While I set the salmon to bake in the oven, I started on the chicken pot pie filling.

Chicken Pot Pie

For the pot pie filling, I used chicken thigh as they are much more tender as compared to chicken breast. Added frozen vegetables, chicken stock, butter and flour. Stir to a thick consistency.

1. Chicken thigh cube to bite size pieces. Poach in boiling water for 15 minutes. Reserve the chicken stock used for poaching.
2. In a pot, add a thick slab of butter. On low heat, melt the butter. Add one finely diced yellow onion and saute until translucent and slightly soft.
3. Add 6 tbsp of plain flour and cook off the flour until it turns slightly pasty. Add 3 ladles of chicken stock followed by half a cup of fresh milk. Stir until the liquids thicken up into a creamy sauce.
4. Season with black pepper, fresh thyme, 1 tsp salt and 1 bay leaf. Add the chicken and frozen vegetables and stir for a few minutes. Remove from stove.
5. Spoon the chicken cream into ramekins or bake ware, top with frozen prata. Fork the sides of the edges and cut some slits in the centre to allow the chicken cream to steam through.
6. Apply egg wash on the part of the pastry. Bake in preheated oven at 180 fan mode for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

 

Prata Hack \\ Portuguese Egg Tarts

 

Ingredients

• 3 frozen pratas
• 3 egg yolks
• 60ml milk
• 80ml whipping cream
• 25g sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

 

Method

1. Cut the frozen prata into half. Make the ends of the prata meet to form a cylindrical shape and press into a muffin tin to form the base of your tart. I use a non-stick muffin tray. Once you have shaped your prata base, put in the fridge to chill.
2. In a bowl, add egg yolk, milk, whipping cream, sugar and vanilla extract and mix well. This is the egg custard mixture.
3. Preheat oven at 200 degrees Celsius. Take the prata base from the fridge and fill them with the egg custard mixture till 90% full. Bake for 20mins or till top is caramelised. Once they are out of the oven, the egg tarts will be so puffy! But don't be surprised when they start to cool and shrink.
   

Home Made Pancake - throwback

hubs in the kitchen. early sunday morning. making pancakes while my 2 sons Jules and James are disturbing him. He measured 3 cups of all purpose flour, 3 tsp baking powder, 3/4 tsp salt and 3 tbsp sugar, 1/2 cup milk, 1/3 cup melted butter, 3 eggs and whisk everything in a big glass bowl. Let it sit for at least half hour.

while the batter was sitting...hubs started to do the blueberry sauce.
Punnet of blue berries, cup of orange juice, 4-5 tablespoons of sugar, stir in a saucepan, reduce for at least half hour. Stir continuously.

 Above: while the blue berry sauce is reducing...hubs has started to make his pancakes.

 hubs made mini pancakes for the boys

 stacked mini pancakes topped with fresh strawberries, chopped bananas and drizzled with honey

Korean Hotpot - Army Stew (Budaejjigae)

Budgaejjieae or Army Stew as it is more commonly know originates during war times when food were scarce. Its like a hotpot korean style where you can find all sorts of ingredients in it, like throwing all the leftovers in and boil. Koreans in the past uses leftover food from the US Army so that explains the SPAM luncheon, sausages and baked beans that is found in all army stew.

For us, to save money and not eat at a korean restaurant. WE dashed to our local supermart and bought veggie, sausages, frozen stripes of beef and pork, tofu, 1 packet of shimeji mushrooms and 1 packet of kimchi! And we threw in our packet of SHIN korean ramen!!!

OMG.
it tasted just as good as the restaurant's.
and way cheaper.

 the boys enjoying their hotpot soup.