KookyCulinary

During those pre-cooking days before I discovered that cooking is actually not too difficult and scary, we used to eat out a lot. One of our favorite haunt is the Korean restaurant. I love all the banchans while the hubby love all the meat especially Kalbi and Bulgogi. Nowadays we still eat at the Korean restaurant but not as often as before. That is because we discovered how easy it is to make Kalbi and Bulgogi at home!

All that is required is a trip to the local Korean grocery store for a pack of beef short-ribs and a bottle of Kalbi sauce. Pour the Kalbi sauce over the short-ribs and marinade overnight. Then just grill them or pan-fry them if you don’t have a grill. It tastes just like those in the restaurant. Usually I will also buy some banchan from the grocery store to accompany the beef. 

It’s not the prettiest looking food but definitely very delicious! Another attempt at making claypot chicken rice. A huge improvement over the previous attempt but still not quite there yet. I think it’s the missing salted fish that is causing this dish to be different from the ones that we eat outside. However ever since the day that I found out how salted fish was made, I have been avoiding it. Oh well, I guess I will try again and hope the third time is a charm. : )

Another day on the grill. This time we have steak. I like to keep my steaks simple. So usually it’s just a sprinkle of seasoning like the McCormick’s Montreal Steak Seasonings on the steak before putting it on the grill. For vegetables, I have corn and green peppers. For dessert, one of my favorite - grilled bananas.

Recipe:
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
10 chicken wings
1/2 cup hot sauce
1/4 cup butter

1. Mix flour, paprika and cayenne pepper together. Coat chicken wing with the flour mixture and keep in the refrigerator for an hour.
2. Combine butter and hot sauce and heat in a little pot till melted.
3. Deep fry wings in hot oil for about 10-15 mins
4. Remove, drain and add the hot sauce to the wings.

With summer coming to an end soon, we have been trying to squeeze in as much grilling as possible before we have to hibernate the grill for the winter. I love grilled food but I think I love it more because I don’t have to do it!! Hahaha!  Hubby is the grill pro so I leave all the grilling to him. I can sit back & wait for the food.

Last weekend, he made these chicken wings. It was delicious! Reminds me of the chicken wing that I used to eat in Malaysia.

He also grilled some corn and asparagus to go along with the wings. I think these 2 vegetables are my favorite grilled vegetables. Sometimes we will wrap the asparagus with bacon before grilling but sometimes it’s just plain seasoned with salt & pepper like the ones below.

Vancouver/Richmond Trip Part 3:

Since there are so many restaurants in Richmond, we usually like to try different ones everytime we go there. This time, we headed over to Sea Harbour for dinner.

We ordered Hand Shredded Five-Spice Chicken. The chicken was good but it was not anything special. Pretty ordinary but the salt-based dipping sauce that accompanied it was good.

Minced Pork with Chayote. Very tasty and delicious.

But the best dish of the night would have to be the Dungeness Crab with Kabocha Squash Hot Pot. I’ve never had Kabocha Squash before. It turned out to be very sweet and really add depth to the black-bean based sauce. Will definitely have to come back for this again.

Taking a break from bentos, this is an easy dish that I make often

Spaghetti with Crunchy Onion Chicken.

I don’t have the exact measurement but roughly all you need to make Crunchy Onion Chicken are:

• French’s French Fried Onion. (Substitute with Panko or Cornflakes if not available) - finely crushed
• Eggs
• Chicken Breast
• Flour

Method:

1. Coat the chicken breast with flour, then dip it in the eggs and finally coat it with French Fried Onion
2. Bake in the oven at 400 for about 20 minutes.  

I confess I have been so lazy lately!! I have been cooking a lot of one-dish meals or cooking instant food. This is one of them. Using Brahim’s Satay Sauce, I pan fried the chicken first before coating it with the Brahim Satay Sauce. Then just served with peanuts and cucumber. Delicious & easy!

Got a tray of mangoes from Costco last week and surprisingly, they were pretty good. Anyway, since I had lots of mangos, I tried out a Mango Chicken dish that I saw in the recipe book.

Verdict: It was ok. I think I should have used fresh orange juice instead store-bought OJ ‘cos that made the sauce a little thick.

Edited to add recipe: (sorry for the long delay.)

2 pcs chicken thigh
mango - shredded
onion - shredded
red chili - shredded

Marinade for chicken:
1 egg
1 tsp ginger juice
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sesame oil

Ingredients for sauce:
250ml fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tbsp plum sauce
1 tbsp chili sauce
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
corn flour for thickening

1. Marinade the chicken thighs for 3 hours. Coat with corn flour and deep fry till golden brown. Drain & cut into small pieces.
2. Mix all sauce ingredients together and bring to a boil. Thicken with corn starch slurry. Add in the shredded mango, onion & red chili. Mix well & pour over chicken. Serve while hot.

Recipe adapted from Hawkers’ Fair Simplified

DH is a meat person and he loves pork ribs. When we were living in KL, we used to drive to the Tony Roma’s in Singapore just to have their BabyBack Ribs!! Anyway, he saw this new recipe in my recipe book and wanted to try it out. I was a little hesitant because the main ingredient is nam yee. Why hesitant? Beacuse all those bottles of nam yee & fu yee always look a little dusty in the Asian store. I always wonder how long they have been sitting on the shelf.
Anyway, after some hunting, finally I manage to find a bottle of nam yee that still looks pretty “fresh” in one of the stores here. So we did end up making this dish. It turned out pretty good.
I think DH is finally getting used to my “Don’t eat, I have to take a photo first! ” habit. He even put the bunch of cilantro on top of the ribs for decoration. hehe……

Edited to add recipe:
Ingredients:

• 1 kg meaty spare ribs
• oil for deep frying

Marinade:

• 2 pieces nam yee (fermented red bean curd)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp chopped coriander leaves
• 1 tbsp nam yee juice
• 2 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1/2 tbsp light soya sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1/2 tsp five spice powder
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• dash of chicken stock granules
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 6 tbsp corn flour
• 1 egg
• 100 ml water

Method:
1. Combine spare ribs with all the marinade & mix well. Marinade for 3 hours.
2. Heat oil & deep fry till golden brown. Dish & drain. Serve.

*Recipe adapted from Hawker’s Fair Simplified