When I was in my teens, I became interested in cooking, but I have never really had a chance to experiment without getting a earful from my mom :D haha. She didn't like me messing up her kitchen :D I guess now I can understand whenever my girl volunteered to help me in the kitchen :p
Anyway, now that I am blessed with a kitchen of my own, I am glad I get to bake and cook whenever I want. However, I am reluctant now as I have to clean my kitchen myself haha. I am not very good with using the stove, except boiling soup and desserts like green bean & sweet potatoes soup.
Now that I am not working, I try to cook for my girl a few times a week :D I check up healthy recipes from food4tots regularly. It has lots of useful tips and healthy recipes for kids. I decided to make popcorn chicken for today's lunch. I have attempted the fish fingers the other day, but somehow they were not very crispy. I used cornflakes in both occasions. Not quite sure why. Let me know if you know the answer :)
I blanched the sharp spinach (minimal cleaning :p) and after draining it, I added some oyster sauce, sesame oil, and top with the baked anchovies. Noobcook did a detailed photos/method on how to bake anchovies. I found it very useful.
As for the soup, I used my own concoction :D My mom is Cantonese and she is great at making soup. So I picked up some tips from her through the years. Today's soup is Winter melon & white fungus soup. As I understand, winter melon is "cooling" and white fungus is good for complexion :) In this hot weather in Singapore, it is good to drink some cooling soup to prevent getting "heaty". The steps are pretty easy but as I did not measure the ingredients, please find them listed as below.
Ingredients
- Winter melon (I bought the one which is cut and pre-packed at NTUC Fairprice)
- White fungus (soak in water for 10-20mins. It expands a lot so do not soak too much. Size of about half of your palm should be enough.
- Chicken breast (we don't usually eat the meat, it's for taste only)
- 2 big dried red dates (or 6 small ones)
- some barley (about 1-2 tsp)
- water (about 1200ml to 1500ml)
- 1 to 1.5tsp of low sodium salt
Method
1. Heat up a pot of water.
2. When the water starts to boil, add in the chicken breast.
3. Cut the winter melon into cubes, discard the seeds.
4. Rinse barley and red dates.
5. Cut the white fungus into small pieces.
6. Add in all ingredients to the pot of water.
7. Turn heat to low. Cover pot with lid. You can leave a small gap for the steam to escape. Boil for 1 hour.
8. Add salt.
9. Serve hot.
This is the white fungus I used (half of a ball of it will be sufficient):
when i was small, even schooling, my mother always chased me out from her kitchen..same reason..she doesnt want me to mess up her kitchen and disturb her. Oh, i dont know why your popcorn chicken didnt turn out crispy, hope you are able to get it crispy the next time..or maybe try using potato flour and see if it works..i heard that potato flour gives good crisp when doing deep frying..not sure if it helps in baking..thanks for sharing your soup recipe, i'm sure it is also very sweet tasty !
ReplyDeleteThanks lena for stopping by! my daughter was always upset when I got over-reacted with her "help" in the kitchen haha! I wonder if corn flour helps.. I tried coating twice but still they were not crispy :p
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