Loving The Humble Bean Paste

For the longest time, I had a jar of yellow bean paste at the back of my refrigerator. I forgot all about it because I hardly use it in my cooking. If I am not cooking curries, I am probably cooking Western dishes.

I threw out the jar, without even opening it, because it’s gone so long past its expiry date I dare not find out what was growing in there.

And just like that, I have a million and one … okay, maybe five…recipes using yellow bean paste that I needed to cook that week. So, I kinda rushed to the provision shop and bought a jar. Most cooks like a particular brand, and my aunt used to only buy her bean paste from a neighbour who makes them. But I have no preferences, and just bought one with the longest shelf life left.

Yellow bean paste is made from salted and fermented yellow soybeans. The beans are blended with salt, sweet glutinous rice wine and brown sugar, and fermented for about three months.

They are salty and a little sweet too…. the intensity of both flavours is what differentiates one brand from another.

There are many variations of yellow bean paste, especially in Taiwan where it’s an important ingredient in their cooking. The best dishes with bean paste that I had was at the Taiwanese restaurant New Formosa in SS2, Petaling Jaya (46, Jalan SS2/24, 47300 Petaling Jaya. Tel: 03-7875 1894, 03-7875 7478.) They dish out the best fish cooked in bean paste sauce laced with lethal bird’s eye chilli (as well as the most delicious butter unagi and my favourit-est caramelised yam).

It was after New Formosa that I had new found respect for the humble yellow bean paste sauce. I love the aroma imparted from sauteing yellow bean paste, and it usually goes really well with ginger and garlic.

But I love yellow bean paste most when its flavours are lifted by the fiery heat of bird’s eye chilli.

One of my favourite dishes with yellow bean paste is braised pork ribs.

I first had it a long time ago at my husband’s friend’s then girlfriend’s dinner party. I love the dish, but unfortunately didn’t hit it off with the cook. I think I tried to ask for the recipe, but she wasn’t forthcoming and I didn’t persist.

When I saw the recipe for Braised Spare Ribs In Brown Sauce in Deh-Ta Hsiung’s The Chinese Kitchen, I knew I had to try it. I just added bird’s eye chilli, instead of the red chilli stipulated in his recipe. If you can take the heat, use bird’s eye chilli.

My recipe is simpler than Deh-Ta Hsiung’s recipe, and much much more fiery.

RECIPE

BRAISED PORK RIBS WITH YELLOW BEAN PASTE AND BIRD’s EYE CHILLI

(Serves 4)
Ingredients

2 tablespoon of cooking oil

2 inch young ginger, julienned

2 cloves of garlic chopped finely

2 tablespoons of yellow bean paste

4-5 bird’s eye chilli, according to how hot you want the dish

600g pork spare ribs

1 cup water

1/2 teaspoon of sugar, or to taste

Heat cooking oil, and saute the garlic and ginger until fragrant.

Then, add the yellow bean paste and saute until fragrant.

Add bird’s eye chilli. (I slice it coarsely because I want to avoid burning my lips from biting into them).

Increase the heat, and add the spare ribs. Stir until they are evenly mixed with the rest of the ingredients.

Add the water, and bring to a boil. Then, lower the heat and let the ribs simmer slowly covered for between 20-30 minutes, or until the ribs are soft.

Stir occasionally, and season with sugar when it’s done.

Claiming My Chinese Food Heritage

We were supposed to choose our favourite Chinese dish for this month’s StarTwo column, and it got me thinking about my relationship with Chinese food.

My late paternal grandfather came from China. He studied in Chung Ling High School in Penang, and then returned to China fleeing some gambling debt or over some misunderstanding or another. He was the only son, so all his sisters doted on him and I think the unspoken rule was that no one was supposed to speak ill of him.

For awhile, during my teens, he wrote to me in English in the loveliest cursive handwriting. Then, he came here for a visit and never went back…and then he became ‘real’…a human old man.

But that’s a different story…that was just a roundabout way of saying that my father who went back to China with my grandfather and came back here when he was ten loves ‘t’ng sua’ (Chinese) food.

One of his favourite meals is the most watery plain porridge with boiled ikan kembung (sek kembung) and the usual condiments. In the good old days, we had weekly meals when we all ate rice from bowls and with chopsticks.

That might not be so unusual in most Chinese families, except that my mother’s dominant cultural influence is Peranakan. We all ate with our hands every meal, and there was always some gulai or sambal on the table. There was cili padi even in our steamed fish.

I wasn’t all that crazy about Sunday porridge lunches; I’d insist on rice instead of porridge, and once in awhile I did the bratty thing and have bread and butter instead. When I left home, and went to a Teowchew Porridge restaurant, I was amazed that people would pay so much for such simple home fares.

To the child that I was, Chinese food was bland and boring. It was what my neighbours’ kids had to eat (and like) – soup everyday, stir-fried vegetables, tofu and something cooked in soya sauce.

But of course, we had loads of Chinese food at home – tofu stuffed with minced meat, meat custard, fish with yellow bean paste, mixed vegetables, ABC soup. They were alright but more like second-liners or food my mom insisted was good for us when we were sick or when the weather was too hot for spicy food.

Every year at Cheng Beng and All Soul’s Day – after we have paid our respects at our great-grandparents’ graves – the extended family with great-grand aunts and all would have lunch at Ang Hoay Lor.

It’s an old restaurant that has been around since my grandfather’s time, and they serve traditional Hokkien dishes. Nothing hot or spicy there, but the food was delicious even to a fussy child.

My favourite was the bak kee mi sua – vermicelli noodles with slivers of pork fillets coated with tapioca starch. The meat is coated with tapioca flour and then dunked in hot soup, resulting in a silky smooth texture. My mom makes it too at home, and it’s one of the dishes that I have to learn from her.

The other good dish here is leek stir fried with prawns and tofu, and my mom always make this for me when I go home. It’s one of my favourite dishes. So, I guess I am more Hokkien than I care to admit.

Anyway, the restaurant is at 260 Jalan Gurdwara (Brick Kiln Road), Penang (tel: 04-2624841). It’s a typical old restaurant, so expect slow service and grumpy waiters, but the food will make up for all that.

I don’t know when I started appreciating good Chinese food, and I mean home fares and not just restaurant food. Perhaps it’s when I left home, and didn’t have my mother around to pander to what I like and what I don’t.

It’s not so hard to like good Chinese cooking after all. Tastebuds do evolve. Once I became less preoccupied with having everything hot and spicy and sour, I started developing a liking for other flavours – sweet, salty and bitter – that make up the nuances in Chinese cooking.

I began to love how interesting ingredients like yellow soya bean paste is, or how wonderfully aromatic five spice powder and how soya sauce is absolutely the best seasoning ever.

I like ingredients like garlic, ginger and spring onion, as well as the taste and textures of dried ingredients like lily’s bud, black ears and bean curd sheets. Then, there is all the herbs for soup, and the precious Chinese principles for healing through food.

I also started eating at my aunt’s (my mom’s sister), and she has been living in Kuala Lumpur for decades. She cooks all the curries I like, but she also cooks soup and Cantonese-style food. So, I learnt to appreciate the food, and also grew to like Hakka dishes like mui choi kow yoke. I have also found that I like Teowchew food which has a lot of similarities to Hokkien food.

The adult me enjoyed the adventures of exploring different tastes and cuisines. I just didn’t expect to re-discover Chinese food, and grow to like and appreciate it so much. I especially love vegetables cooked the Chinese style, and I have discovered so many vegetables I like – aubergines, bittergourd, marrow, winter melon.

The one vegetable that I was surprised to have fallen for is chives. I never wanted chives in my fried keow teow, but I love them now.

There is a dim sum shop called Sin Soon Lee in Sg Bakap, Seberang Perai (1281, Main Road – tel: 04-5823846 – closes on Wed) that dishes out the most glorious chai kuih with chives. The chives are sheathed in the silkiest of skin that falls apart at the tiniest bite, and the garlicky chives are fresh and fragrant.

Chives stir-fried with tofu is one of my favourites now, so I’m posting it because it’s one of the easiest and most rewarding dishes to make. There is really nothing you need to do with chives except to let its full-bodied flavours speak for itself. It’s like God made spring onions, and then decided to go wacky and up the ante with chives.

RECIPE

CHIVES STIR-FRIED WITH TOFU

1 tablespoon of cooking oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
8-10 prawns, shelled
100g chives, cut into 1 1/2 in segments
1 tofu, sliced thickly and fried
salt, to taste

Heat cooking oil, and saute the chopped garlic. Add the prawns and fry. Then, add the chives and stir-fry quickly. Add the tofu, and then season with salt.

I Can Take Bitterness

I have had food cravings all the time all my life (except when I was pregnant and all food made me sick all the time). I am quite happy to be ruled by my cravings, when it’s cheese cake or asam pedas or kiam chai boi.

But I have been having strange cravings lately – salads and brocolli and brussel sprouts – maybe my body is telling it needs more greens. Maybe that’s why I ate so much fruits when I was pregnant (a long time ago).

But my latest craving is downright weird – I want bitter gourd! How did that come about? I never touched bittergourd when my mom cooked them… who needs more bitterness? I first changed my mind about bittergourd when I did the Flavours food guide for Seberang Perai, Penang 3 years ago.

It was the bitter gourd soup cooked with pig’s tail in an old restaurant in Bukit Mertajam that first opened my taste buds to the appeal of bitterness. BTW, the restaurant is so old the phone number listed on its signboard only has five digits.

Bitterness is one of the five essential flavours in Chinese cuisine – sweet, sour, salty, spicy and bitter. Bitter gourd is somewhat of an acquired taste; it’s actually bitter-sweet and I like the complexity that its bitterness lends to a dish. It’s actually invigorating, especially when the bitterness provides the end notes.

Or maybe I am just older, and have swallowed enough bitterness to not be bothered by bittergourd ….haha you know Chinese woman and sufferings…I am allowed trite cliches like this – even if I hate them in writings by Chinese authors (yup, not a fan of Adeline Yen Mah).

Whatever… I am reconciled to the fact that I like bittergourd. There is a restaurant in Petaling Jaya with a menu dominated by dishes made with bittergourd. I know I am way older than my colleagues; they absolutely won’t do bittergourd…sigh.

Luckily, I have other friends. My friend Boon Hooi came over for dinner, and I made her cook her mother’s bittergourd dish. I thought it’d be a plain bittergourd omelette, but her recipe uses yellow bean  paste. It’s delicious, and there was hardly any bitterness left after she had salted the bittergourd slices.

When I cooked this dish again, I didn’t salt the bittergourd because I wanted the bitterness…. really I do, don’t know why. I think it’s better with the slight bitterness. I don’t know if it was just the bittergourd I bought that day, or the yellow bean paste, but the bitterness was neither domineering or overwhelming.

The saltiness of the yellow bean paste was a good balance to the bittergourd, and the egg adds richness, and there is just a tinge of sweetness from the sugar used. The bittergourd absorbs all that flavours, and completes it with its bitter tinge.

I had also taken my aunt’s advice and chosen bittergourd with ridges that were far apart. I am trying to get her to make bittergourd soup – it’s good for cooling and strengthening the body, and improving blood circulation.

One last note, I made this with duck egg the first time, and it was way tastier … must be the higher cholesterol.

Recipe

Bittergourd Stirfried With Yellow Bean Paste and Egg

1 medium bittergourd
1 tablespoon of salt
1 tablespoon of cooking oil
1 tablespoon of yellow bean curd paste
1 egg
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
salt, if needed and according to taste

Halve the bittergourd and remove the seeds. Slice the bittergourd. Marinate the bittergourd slices in salt for 15 minutes. Let it sweat, and then rinse the bittergourd. Drain well.
In a wok, heat the cooking oil and saute the yellow bean curd paste until fragrant. Keep stirring so it does not burn.
Add the bittergourd slices, and mix well with the yellow bean curd paste.
Add the water, and lower the heat. Let it simmer gently until the bittergourd softens.
Break the egg, and beat a little. Pour into the bittergourd, and leave it for half a minute or until the eggs are cooked.
Serve hot

Elephant Ears – Palmiers

I love puff pastry, but I doubt I’d ever get around to making them – all that folding and referigerating, and folding and refrigerating…. definitely too much work.

I love store-bought ready-rolled out frozen puff pastry sheets. It’s a staple in my freezer, and I usually stock up whenever I am in supermarkets that stock them (Cold Storage, Bangsar Village, certain Carrefour and Giant outlets).

Pretty much anything you wrapped in pastry puff, or put atop a puff pastry sheet – and then bake – come out delicious. You can make savoury or sweet dessert with puff pastry, like palmiers.

I first came across the recipe for palmiers in Lily’s Wai Sek Hong, and in Joy The Baker.

This is definitely one of the easiest recipes to make, but I tried it mostly because I like its name – elephant ears and even pig ears.

There is not much of a recipe for this one… 2 ingredients – puff pastry sheets and sugar.

Just sprinkle your work surface with sugar, then lay the pastry sheet on it. Sprinkle some more sugar on the pastry sheet. Roll the sheet up, from both ends; meeting in the middle. Refrigerate for about half an hour, or longer if you have the time (and patience). Slice the roll in 1/2 inch pieces, and bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 10-12 minutes. You can add 1 tsp of ground cinnamon for more aromatic palmiers, or not…

Just be more bold than me… sprinkle loads of sugar…I like my palmiers but I suspect it should have been much sweeter…. so don’t stinge on the sugar.

It’s a breeze to make, easier than cookies… and prettier too. Goes well with coffee or martini n 7-Up with lotsa ice (best remedy to stem the madness creeping up as you find that beloved child smeared in paint smearing the walls and furniture, and then paints her palms (jeng, jeng, jeng…)…..nurturing artisitic instincts is more important than my loathing of housework, I know!

Duck Eggs

My late grandmother used to rear ducks in her backyard. We never went near them; they were stinky and noisy. But we knew that their eggs were good. Each time we visit, I’d always ask for her onion egg omelette, and it’s still one of my favourite dishes.

On Chinese New Year, the family would gather in my grandma’s house and everyone would be gambling. There were tables for adults, and sessions for the kids to slay indulgent uncles (if the kids lose, the uncles would return the money). In short, no one wanted to cook.

So, we all go round the corner to pack char keow teow for everyone – 15-20 packs. And in typical Penang fashion (in those days), we brought our own eggs. We brought duck eggs for our char keow teow, though I can’t recall if we ever had enough for everyone.

It was considered a treat for duck eggs are richer, and more delicious.

In Bukit Mertajam, Penang, there is a char keow teow stall famous for using duck eggs. The stall is a stand-alone on a dark-ish street, but the hawker does non-stop business. His char keow teow is different from the more famous Penang one; he uses lard and duck eggs to fry his char keow teow and that is a lethal combination. For the ultimate indulgence, order a duck egg sunny side up doused with the uncle’s yummy soya sauce.

Yet, I have never bought duck eggs. For one thing, I hardly see them or maybe I have just not been looking.

On a recent trip to the market in Raub, Pahang, duck eggs caught my eyes. And when an aspiring chef among us asked the makcik selling it for the teluk itik masak lemak (duck egg with coconut milk) recipe, it got me interested. That young culinary student went back to the Raub resthouse and cooked the dish, and it was so delicious.

I went back to the market and bought 5 duck eggs – they are 60cents each, but they are bigger than chicken eggs. It took a few weeks before I got around to cook the cili masak lemak, and now I wondered why I waited so long.

Masak lemak cili padi is a Negeri Sembilan Minang specialty, and always gets my mouth watering. I like it with daging dendeng, fish with buah bacang and chicken. Duck egg is another good pairing because it can hold its own along the richness of the santan and the heat of the cili padi.

I used 10 chilli padi for my two duck eggs, and it was way too hot for me. My lips was literally burning by the middle of the meal, but I couldn’t stop piling on more rice so I could have more of the gravy. My lips actually felt swollen, and I actually had vanilla ice cream to cool down…but I am not complaining. Just warning that a few chilli padi actually goes a long way, or maybe I am just a wooz…oh well :=)

TELUR ITIK MASAK LEMAK CILI PADI

RECIPE

6 cili padi, or more according to your tolerance for chilli

2-3 shallots

turmeric, 1 inch

1 lemon grass, crushed

Thick coconut milk, from 1 coconut

2 kaffir lime leaves, optional

2 duck eggs

salt, to taste

Blend/pound the cili padi, shallots and turmeric until fine.

Put the blended ingredients in a pot with the lemon grass and coconut milk, and cook gently over a slow fire. Let it come to a boil gently so the coconut milk does not curdle.

When the mixture is bubbling, break the egg one by one into a ladle and gently lower it into the pot without breaking the yolk.

Remove from heat when the eggs are cooked.

Serve with hot rice, and lots of ice water.

Chicken Stew for Rainy Days

It was raining cats and dogs last Saturday evening, and the last thing I wanted to do was go out…even to feed a hungry child. So, there was no choice but to cook. And I had three chicken legs, some potatoes and carrots. I am bored of A-B-C soup, so I decided to make chicken stew.

This was my mother-in-law’s recipe. I actually can’t remember the recipe anymore, but the basic instructions were to brown the chicken, and then cook it slowly with the potatoes and carrots.

It’s actually real easy, except for browning the chicken. Browning the chicken is easy enough too, but the floors get greasy and that involves mopping (which is what I hate to do the most!).

So, of course, I have tried cooking the stew without browning the chicken. But it just doesn’t taste so good. So, now I brown the chicken.

Last Saturday, I was lazy, so I cut the chicken into big pieces – less to brown. Not such a great idea – the stew is nicer with smaller pieces of chicken.

I used light soya sauce because I don’t have worcertershire sauce (Lea and Perrins), and it worked just as well.

Don’t leave out the cinnamon and star anise though; it gives the stew a nice aroma.

You can also use different types of vegetables like leeks, and a tomato or two. I like cabbage in the stew, but no one else in my family does. So, I sometimes add some cabbage leaves in the leftovers and cook them until they are all wilted.

Everyone else eat their stew with bread. I like mine with rice, and with sambal belacan.

CHICKEN STEW
(for two)

Ingredients

4 chicken legs. cut in 6 pieces
1 tablespoon of light soya sauce
1 teaspoon of ground white pepper
1/2 tablespoon of flour
1/2 cup of cooking oil
2 star anise
1 inch of cinnamon stick
2 big onions, cut into wedges
2-3 potatoes, peeled and halved
1-2 carrots, peeled and cut in medium chunks
1 tablespoon of tomato sauce
1 cube of chicken stock
1 1/2 cups of water
salt, to taste

Marinate chicken with the light soya sauce, ground white pepper and flour for about 15 minutes.

Heat the cooking oil, and then brown the chicken. Set aside.

Heat a tablespoon of the cooking oil, and add the cinnamon stick and star anise. When they are aromatic, add the onion wedges.

Then, add the potatoes and carrots, and chicken.

Add the tomato sauce and chicken stock cube.

Add the water, and let the stew simmer over low heat until the potatoes and carrot are soft. It should take about 30minutes.

Just before removing from the heat, taste it and season with salt. If you think the stew is too watery, add half a tablespoon of flour (diluted with 2 tablespoons of water).

1-2-3 Cookies

I tried to do icing two weeks ago, just to take on a new task in the kitchen and try something unfamiliar for Dec’s cooking column Test Kitchen.

I chose to do icing because I generally avoid frostings on cake because they are just too sweet for me. God gave me sour tooth, not a sweet one. I have always love how pretty icing is though, and I do love beautifully iced cupcakes.

My experiment was not a roaring success. I was struggling because I had never made icing, and the instructions in the cookery books I referred to were not of that much help.

Still, I was desperate…I had as usual left it to the very last minute to deadline.

So, this week, I decided to give icing another go. I had loads of icing sugar left, and my curiosity has been piqued.  I don’t like icing, but I noticed that the little girl aka BOSS finished the icing first before she even bite into the cake.

For a change, I decided to ice cookies instead.

As for the icing, I didn’t refer to the recipe. I just added enough water to the sieved icing sugar till I got the consistency I wanted. I have not used colouring much, so I think I put too much – ended up with a batch of garishly-iced cookies.

I, of course, was clumsy with the piping; partly because I don’t own a proper piping bag and the one I made with ziplock bag and baking paper didn’t hold. So, in the end, I just used a spoon and kinda dribble the icing on the cookies.

So, yeah, my iced cookies are wonky!

I think it’s time to go for icing lessons, and maybe some baking classes too.

I was just happy that my cut-out cookies actually held their shape, thanks to Nigella Lawson’s recipe – and from her  Domestic Goddess book,  no less.

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Recipe

Butter Cut-Out Biscuits

(From Nigella Lawson’s How To Be A Domestic Goddess)

175g soft unsalted butter
200g castor sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
400g plain flour, plus more if needed
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
300g icing sugar, sieved, and food colouring

Preheat the oven to 180C
Cream the butter and sugar until pale, and moving towards mousiness, then beat in the eggas and vanilla extract.
In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients, and add them to the butter and eggs, and mix gently.
Halve the dough, warp in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for an hour.
Sprinkle a suitable surface with flour, place a disc of dough on it, and sprinkle a little more flour on top of that. Then, roll it out to the thickness of about 1/2 cm. Cut into shapes, dipping the cutter into flour as you go, and place the cookies a little apart on the baking sheets.
Bake for between 8 and 10 minutes. Cool on the rack.
Put a couple of tablespoon of just-not-boiling water into a large bowl, add the sieved icing sugar and mixed together, adding more water as you need to form a thick paste. Colour as desired: let the artistic spirit within you speak, remembering with gratitude that children have very bad taste.
Makes 50-60.

Kerabu Timun (Cucumber Salad)

WHEN people go on diets, they opt for salads. But the kind of salads I eat only make me pile on more rice on my plate. I like Western salads, but I don’t make or eat them all that often. The kind of salad I make is called kerabu – it also uses raw vegetables, but the dressing couldn’t be more different.

Both my grandmothers made kerabu. My paternal grandmother’s kerabu was simpler; more like a dish she puts together with whatever is available. My maternal grandmother – a Nyonya who wore sarung – recalled frying kerisik (fried grated coconut) to go into her kerabu.

The basics of a kerabu dressing in my family’s kitchen is kalamansi lime juice, shallots, sugar and either sambal belacan (a Malay condiment made by pounding red chilli with shrimp paste) or bird’s eye chilli;  for the spicy-sweet-sour flavours that whet the appetite and get the tongue tingling.

We always have a jar of sambal belacan at home, so it was a matter of deciding what vegetables we want to use.

One of the easiest kerabu to make is kerabu timun – made with cucumbers, dried shrimps and sambal belacan. It’s nice to add pineapples too if you have them. You can also add prawns to this kerabu.

I can eat loads of rice with just a plate of kerabu timun, and they are easy and quick to make if you have sambal belacan. If you don’t, just substitute with chilli, preferably the most fiery one you can get.

RECIPE

1 big cucumber, deskinned, deseeded and quartered
1 teaspoon of salt
3-4 shallots, sliced thinly
Juice from 4-5 kalamansi limes, or accdg to taste
1 tablespoon of sambal belacan
1 tablespoon of sugar, or accdg to taste
2 tablespoons of dried shrimp, soaked in hot water, drained and pounded lighty
1/2 bunga kantan (torch ginger flower), sliced thinly (optional)

Salt the cucumbers, and leave aside for ten minutes. Then, drain.
In a bowl, add the shallots to the kalamansi lime juice. Leave for five minutes.
Then, add sugar and sambal belacan. Mix.
To make the kerabu, add the dressing and dried shrimps to the cucumbers and mix thoroughly. Garnish with bunga kantan

Home Fares – Potatoes and Chicken

I didn’t grow up with French fries, mashed potatoes, potato salad or baked potatoes. The only potatoes I knew were those in curry chicken laden with coconut milk, or fried potato wedges to go with pork chop, or with meatballs.

But my favourite potato dish was a simple one – thick slices of potato with pork. It was the most nondescript and comforting dish, and I probably took it for granted for years.

I didn’t even bother to learn how to make it until my aunt taught me how to cook it because my daughter loves it (and we know who is the BOSS).

We substitute the pork with chicken now, and it is an easy dish to make. Still, I made a mess of it the first time because I didn’t know how much soya sauce to put in, and threw in way too much. Even with all the gravy, you actually only need about 1 tablespoon of light soya sauce… I actually stood and watched my aunt make the dish before I got the seasoning right.

Anyway, this is a good dish to serve to children, and easy enough to make… and easier to eat.

POTATOES AND CHICKEN

1 tablespoon of cooking oil

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 chicken thigh, deboned and cut into 4-5 pieces

4-5 potatoes, peeled and sliced thickly

1 tablespoon of light soy sauce, or to taste

2-3 shakes of ground white pepper

a pinch of sugar

1 cup of water

Heat cooking oil, and saute garlic.

Throw in the chicken over high heat, and stir for a minute or two.

Then, add potatoes and stir.

Add seasoning, and stir.

Add water, and bring to a slow boil.

Then, lower the heat to low and let it cook slowly covered.

It’ll take between 15-20  minutes for the potatoes to soften (but not crumble). By then, the gravy would have thickened.

If you like more gravy, add more water and adjust the seasoning.

Cookies, not!

It’s Christmas, and everyone seems to be baking fancy cookies with white icing and what-nots. I have fantasies of baking snowflake cookies and gingerbread dolls to hang on the tree (which I also put up and decorate in my head), but I know my limitations.

I am not a baker, I have long realised that. But I was recently hit with pangs of maternal guilt for feeding my poor child store-bought cookies. So, I decided to do right by her and bake her proper chocolate chip cookies.

Every blogger online seems to have a chocolate chip cookie that they swore is the best. I only have chocolate chips, regular flour, butter and white sugar (ran out of brown sugar) and not a single nut in the house.

In the end, I decided to try Donna Hay’s chocolate chip cookies. What I decided to do was to reduce the sugar because most cookie recipes I have tried are too sweet. But I guess it was a tad zealous to take away 1/2 cup of sugar.

I thought the cookies were not too bad, but they were not exactly a hit with the boss…even though I served it with Milo. She’d rather have yoghurt….sigh.

Anyway, I may not make the best cookies, but I can buy them. I have enough stocked up to last the week, I think.