Poutine - the canadian snack

Clearing stock, here is another recipe thats easy fast and delicious. Only few ingredients. Apparently poutine is like a national dish in Canada. Here is what google yields of its origin:

Poutine, a Canadian dish made of french fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. It first appeared in 1950s rural Québec snack bars and was widely popularized across Canada and beyond in the 1990s. Poutine may be found everywhere from fine dining menus at top restaurants to fast-food chains.

Ingredients: 

-either potato to slice and make fried, or frozen fries

- curd  , replaced with cheese i have on hand.

- gravy i had from previous roast of chicken, thicken and add soy sauce some flour to thicken. this one could have been more diluted to reduce saltiness.

- variation  - added some slice of sausage and half of diced yellow onion. (loved the onion additional flavor).

Bake or Fry potato which ever way to cook it up. I used oven, just dump frozen fries inside preheating oven for 10-15 mins while i get busy on other things. Set 175 C for the fries 18min add sausage slilces . At 5 min left, drop in yellow onion into the oven to bake as well slightly. Gravy leftover just drop the teared chesse slice into gravy and nuke it in the microwave for some hot sauce and melted cheese goodiness. Drizzle on top of fries, sausage and onion mix and serve hot.

Sidenote: being asian, not a simple drip of gravy goes to waste. I nuked gravy together with one slice of white bread from my freezer. Tools to clean up gravy :)

                 

 

Mixed Chilli Oil - my recipe

Due to the problems at work, i need to start clearing my stocks and ingredients. Suddenly saw my bag of dried mala chilli. Here goes, chilli oil experiement or what i called now the chatGPT/Internet/IG cooking.

                            

Remove the top of chilli , remove seeds. Crush the chilli to finer pieces (no processor or blender) so its all hand work. Heat an almost one small bottle of oil (target storage). Fry the chilli on low heat.

Chop and mince up some garlic 4-5 cloves, only had  yellow onion , so 1 slice and diced it goes. In it goes.

Had some cumin leftover, in it goes. 

Add some paprika powder, add some sugar and salt.

Toss in generous amount of sesame seed. I got half a bag from prometer just not long ago =.=

Turn to high heat, fry till brown and fragnant. 

Turn low or off the heat. Add some soy sauce to the mix.

Let cool. There the chilli oil ,which turns out pretty good. Will try this out with peanut butter for the noodle flavor bomb recipe.

Braised pork belly

This is part 2 of my remaining half of pork belly. It goes to the original braised pork belly or black soy pork (oh tau yew bak) plan. My intention is to make it really soft by braising , trying to achieve the taiwanese ru rou style aka melt in mouth.

INGREDIENTS  

For the saute on pan cooking part:

1 slab pork belly About 2 pounds -  using what's left from roasting

2 tablespoons soy sauce  - reuse the soy liquid from mayak egg marinate lots of them to create liquid

5 slices fresh ginger powder , dash of it about 1.5 tablesppon

3 stalks green onion Cut into 1 inch pieces replace with diced white onion, red onion, garlic, half tomato i got lying around and mixed meat powder

4 tablespoons chinese cooking wine You can use your favourite white wine instead - swapped to my cheap 2L Belo Vino 

2 pieces star anise Broken up - skip since i dont have

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon Optional -add a dash of it

For the dark soy sauce part, heat separately in pot.

2 tablespoons dark soy sauce

2 tablespoons brown sugar - used sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

 

Cut the pork belly up into 2 centimetre thick chunks.  This is the traditional Chinese way of serving it.  Place meat directly on pan to fry no need oil lots of it will be extracted from the meat. After browning the meat in a separate pan saute the onion, fragrances along with the other seasoning ingredients and  the soy sauce mix cook for 15 minutes.

Add the browned meats, to saute pan and finally transfer to the pot with dark soy sauce and the brown sugar. Bring to a boil and then turn it down to a slow simmer. Cook until the liquid condenses into a thick gravy i just leave it up to 2 hours. It turned out similar like those ru rou pot broken down meat.

That's it, ready to serve! Result is pretty satisfying even though lacking the rare 5 spice powder in burek/balkan land.

Roast Pork Belly Recipe

There is first for many in cooking aspect this year. Pork belly sells on cheap today about 5xx dinar (RM25) for 1kg. First thought was going for braised pork , then i saw it had the bony parts as well. So here goes partial of the purchase to roasting pioneering trip -- in the oven it goes. 

As usual google around and quick search in IG for reference.

INGREDIENTS

Little bit drop oil - rub on skin side

Sprinkle generous amount salt on skin

Marinate mix for meat - missing many items like 5 spice powder, star anise for more traditional chinese style , so jebiga screw it just go basic.

Pork belly 0.5kg i think

Some recipe calls for blanching the pork first. I skipped it, just go straight patting the pork dry with paper towels. Slicing the skin provide more area to crunch the skin i think, didn't do it though since my meat is already cut up already.

Place it on the wire rack. Rub the meat spice mixture on bottom side. Just few drop oil rub on skin, then spinkle generous amuont of salt on skin. Had to tie up the meat slabs since its already sliced thin when bought.

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C. First go for about 30 minutes. Lots of oil/lard dripping for pork belly. Next roast at 15 minutes interval, keep watching the skin. 2 rounds and its ready, total of 1 hours roasting at 200C.

Remove the roast from the oven. Chop up and serve with whatever you like this crunchy goodness.

DIY Goulash vegetarian

 Bought a goulash mix , its a powder packet. Custom adjust it since i don't cook beef, i turn it vegetarian.

Goulash Ingredients:

Yellow Onion – used both yellow and red

Green Bell Pepper – you can use other colors of peppers if desired (used frozen mixed)

Ground Beef (omitted) , i fried minced pork mixed separately to eat together.

Garlic - minced garlic

Tomato Sauce - replaced with a dash of ketchuo

Diced Tomatoes – 

Beef Broth - replaced with chicken stock

Worcestershire Sauce - dont have, changed to vegetarian stock mix

Seasoned Salt  - used normal salt

Italian Seasoning - omitted

Bay Leaves

Dry Macaroni Noodles – used chinese ramen noodle

Cheddar Cheese - omitted. ate with cheese bread stick, super nice combo with cheese.

Paprika powder-  2 tablesopon ,season with salt and sugar.

Red and yellow chilli 3/4 each.

Root vege - carrot, potatoes

Start by  browning protein (i fry it separetly) , brown the onion and bell pepper, toss in garlic until fragrant.

Pour in tomato sauce and diced tomatoes along with mix, broth and Worcestershire stock/paprika for some added depth of flavor. add some bay leaves. remove leaves after cooking

Add in the seasonings , blanch noodles separately and serve with sauce..

Yangpa Jjangajji -pickled onion and chilli

Saw on insta an easy no cook version by eboake. taste great due to soy + sugar duh. i soak 1 day and removed onion, continue use to soak as mayak egg liquid.

Chopped onion

Chopped chilli

1/2cup soy sauce

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup vinegar

1 cup water

Add minced garlic variation.

Hainan chicken rice chili sauce

 suddenly mau makan chicken rice chilli . go google for a simple recipe. ok straight forward, except that i got no blender. so going handmade (chop) and expect rougher textures.

INGREDIENTS:

1 red fresh chilli straight chopped  de-seeded

3-4 mala dried chili , soak , cut and remove those with mould

5-8 cloves garlic depends on size and if u like lots of them , peeled chopped minced

was going for ginger powder, but i forgot eventually. well still ok taste wise.

2 tbsp chicken stock/seasoning powder

1/8 tsp salt to taste , use feeling pinch of salt

1/2 tbsp rice vinegar   - sub with old vinegar

2 tsp sugar to taste - 1.5 pack sugar

juice from 2 limes - no need so much lemon juice. about half to 3 quarter

DIRECTIONS:

In a food processor, blend Hand chop and whack everything to a smooth paste as possible. 

Season to taste with sugar, salt or chicken seasoning powder, if needed. Serve with my roasted chicken meat. Taste ok la, acceptable in Euro land.

Keeps for about a week in the fridge.

Sweet and sour chicken - easy recipe

Simple and easy recipe. 2 parts recipe as below, mix chicken salt corn flour. i used 1 egg its fine as well. Cut in some potatoes to be fried in oil.

Mix sauce recipe, set aside. Saute minced garlic some sliced onions and diced tomato. Cook till mushy, add sauce mix in , cook for few minutes. Add fried chicken + potatoes in. Done and ready. 

Ingredients:

Chicken breast
Egg 2
Corn flour
Salt

Pepper, Bell pepper, Onion, Carrot, Diced tomato

Sweet and sour sauce :
Life brand tomato sauce 4tbsp
Chili sauce 4tbsp
Sugar 5 tbsp
Vinegar 2 tbsp
Soy sauce 3 tbsp
Water 30ml - replace with apple/orange juice for a sweet twist.

Apple pie filling recipe - trial and error

Looking at cheapest material where i am now. -apples 

First time in life, im gonna try my hand at making sort of jam/ spread using apple pie filling recipe.

Ingredients - 

4-5 apples i think i cored and peeled up to 6 of them  (bought cheapest Gala, smaller and fresh).

Dice them and put aside.

On medium heat pan drop in .

2 tbspoon - butter  ( i used margarine aka fatty spread here).

2 tbspoon water - substituted with apple juice since i got on hand

1 tbspoon cinnamon powder - bought 1 small pack just for this experiement.

1 tbspoon sugar - sub'd with 1 pack litttle brown sugar

Add diced apples. 

Keep cooking until they turn soft. Dont have a masher, i kind of wanted something like McD's apple pie filling. So i cut them smaller while cooking until they soften and water. 

Add cornstarch 1tbspoon  - i use feeling measurement.

Cook until apples soften to your liking.

Let cool off, then keep in jar - i suppose refrigerate. Will update back how long it lasts.

This recipe yields me like 3/4 of a big jar. Labor intense, cut and dice apples while watching swordsmitch arc kimetsu no yaiba. But taste is pretty good, like those from mart shelf, minus all the preservative im guessing it depends alot on apple sweetness level, or to compensate by adding sugar.

The skins from peeling, throw them into oven. i baked 10 min 100c 2 times, then go for 15min 125c. Abit charred, but its crispy. Maybe last round should've gone 10min 100c as well. Make use of everything, these ideas i get after looking around random insta post.

 

Raita - timun/zuchinni yogurt mix

This indian salad is pretty straight forward. Makes a great low calory snack or when you feel like need something to bite.

Core materials that makes the taste matter: 

Zuchinni  1pc

Indian onion 1pc

Red Paprika (quarter)

Apple (quarter or half if you like sweet)

Diced tomato - (quarter)

Jogurt 2.8% - pour in as needed use jour brajn

Lemon  (quarter)

Chop slice and dice zuchinni into small size. Salt and let sit 10 minutes. Continue dicing up the rest of items. Squeeze zuchinni to discard water and mix all together. 

 Add a dash of salt and sugar. 

Squeeze lemon juice. mix , mix and ready to serve.

Optional - add chilli powder (don't make much difference to me). 

Optional - add parsley flake or cumin powder or mint flake (don't have these so no idea what's the difference).

I serve with some fried onion since i like crunchiness. tomato may contribute to watery gravy ,may opt to leave it out if you like less watery yogurt sauce. 

Chilli oil + peanut butter noodle

 trending recipe for easy and yummy dry noodle. works with ramen or any soup instant noodle i suppose.

boil the noodle, drain in cold water and leave aside to dry.

chopped garlic , chilli (powder/gocuhjang), scallion, sesame.

heat oil up and pour into the mix

add soy sauce and lao gan ma , then mix in the peanut butter.

mix noodle in, add with any dry condiments you like - fried onion or peanuts & anchovies.

probably top with finely sliced cucumbers would taste refreshing

One pot vege rice + protein of choice

 another one of those prep meal stuff. again to reduce cooking to 2 times during weekdays.

i would usually like to have rice. 

rince rice, and soak for 30 minutes minimum.

chop - onions, carrots, potatoes, paprika and frozen corn.

its good to have chicken stock . if no  replace with water+butter+chicken seasoning+garlic seasoning or any of choice. 

will be good to add ginger slice, but im lazy, i go with tumeric ginger powder.

all these mix into into your rice pot, if no rice pot use a large cooking pan and cook for 25-30min .

watch the fire as the rice turn fluffy lower the heat.

usually for the protein i go with chicken + onion.

premarinade with dark soy bean, vinegar, basil leave soy sauce and garlic or any type of choice.

fry in pan till slightly char. 

optional either stir fry some simple vegetable or add water with corn starch to make gravy. 

once vege/ protein with gravy is ready, pour into your rice pot at low heat.

mix . then you get prep meal rice + protein + vege.

next will probably try those mushroom gravy style chicken.

Surivor note: DIY Quick Kimchi - derivation from kimchi pack base

So to be lazy and not cook that much that often i found the Chinese Market selling kimchi in little packs. Psst, this probably finish in 1-2 serving. Then i got an idea, why not use this as base and make my homemade kimchi batch. 

 Recipe: 

 Zuchini/Krastavac 1pc 

Cabbage (no napa cabbage here) less than half of small ones. 

Paprika/green chilli  - half pc

Yellow/Holland Onion/Luk Crni 1pc 

Garlic/Luk beli 7-9 cloves 

 Red apple/Jabuka - half sliced and diced. 

Carrot 1pc small sized 

Salt 2 tablspoon 

Sugar 3-4 spoon or to taste 

Vinegar/used old vinegar 1 spoon 

Red chilli powder since no gochugaru - 3-4 spoon to taste 

Lemon 1/4 or 1/3 , use your feeling. 

White sesame 

A drizzle of honey - optional 

1. Zuchini, slice into small bitesize piece, sprinkle salt. Set aside for water to discard. 

2. Cabbage, chopped into size u like, i like smaller fine slice. 

3. Boil water with salt. This is brine - once boiled let it rest 5 min. Dump cabbage in for 10 min. 

4. Add water to the pot, soak for 5 min . Drain and sprinkle salt over cabbage, let rest 15-30 min for salt to soak in. 

5. Rinse cabbage, drain, let it dry. 

6. Chop up the rest of veggies into smalle pieces. 

7. Mix salt sugar vinegar chilli powder to cabbage, add in the little kimchi packet for the base. 

8. Mix all together, test and add what is lacking to taste. 

9. Let it rest in room temp for one night. (up to here, will check back if this round 2 ferments great) 

10. keep in fridge for up to 2-3 weeks.

Tastebud -Authentic Indian Cuisine restaurant @Sentul

Happen nearby Sentul area and was searching around for foodie in evening. Chinese stalls seems to close by noon business hours mostly and those that's recommended seems abit far. 

Not very keen on western/fusion style resto so here we go , with the better rated indian restaurant. Were looking forward to order the paneer puri however it wasn't served on the day we went.

The restaurant is clean and cozy, not really big though it has a 2nd floor are to serve larger crowd. I suspect serving time will increase when there is a 3-4 family crowd onwards. 

The waiter/owner are very friendly and also recommended some dishes since we are not that all familiar with indian style cuisine.

Went with metil puuri , really nice and fragrant, an order of mixed vege pulao (aka nice with vege in served in indian style metal bowl) , and fish briyani. 

All the dishes are excellent, really loved our spices and curry. And the kids demolished the mango lassi we ordered.

Parking at the petrol right beside the shoplot row.

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Zok Noodle House @ Puchong

We are at nearby IOI boulevard area, so quick google brings us to this noodle house that is pretty much hyped on internet/blogs. Price are pretty standard at < RM15/RM10 per bowl and servings size are moderate or just right. The shop is located right beside IOI boulevard, so parking can be tricky but get on boxed parking and we will be 'saman' free :)

We had the spicy noodle with prawn wanton/chicken chop- it's unique tasting , not that spicy to me, and full of spices flavor that reminds me of those chinese mala style. The noodle is the mixian type so it kind of falls into the category of Go Noodle spicy noodle. I'm a fan of spiciness so this one is unique but fall short in the spiciness category.

The Wanton Prawn noodle (left) is the house special. Nothing too special about the soup after the recent tasting at Flying pan mee the soup on this one plains in comparison. The prawn wanton however lives up to its hype and is almost comparable to authentic HK prawn wanton. Noodle is the chewy texture aka QQ type so its a plus.

The curry noodle is said to be the popular dish, wife opt for no clams (si ham). Curry soup is ok thick , but compared to flying pan mee curry it's pretty obvious that the thick santan laden soup at flying pan mee is the winner in my book.

TLDR , Zok noodle serves pretty standard above par noodels - the prawn wanton is the highlight signature of the shop. We skipped dimsum as RM6 & above per serving is pretty steep price. In all honesty, the food here is pretty much over-hyped by reviewers/blogger.

Location: link

Zok Noodle House @ Kenari (竹面馆）

11, Jalan Kenari 4, Bandar Puchong Jaya, 47100 Puchong, Selangor

Flying pan Mee & Yiu Tiao @Jenjarom

If you are visiting Fo Guang Shan temple aka dong Chan shi these are pretty good treats for your tummy practically opposite the temple area.

Both are sold in their house/stall. So expect a very kampung environment. We were told that we should Park right beside their stall else others may ask for RM2 fees.

The clear soup pan Mee soup is sweet and it's actually mee hun kueh (hokkien) or what is widely known as hand torn strips pan Mee. The other 2 varieties sold are dry pan Mee and curry soup pan Mee. Curry soup pan Mee is pretty unique, and thick of santan taste. So good and sinful food 😅

The other home stall selling the yiu tiao and ham chim pheng should not be missed. They are only one street apart , right across , lorong 4 & 3. Super crispy, tasty and cheap priced. You can have then with red bean soup and another barley/fucuk (or something close to it) when eating in.

TLDR; cheap tasty pan Mee RM5 each , and cheap yiu tiao/ham chim Peng that's actually nice and fresh @ RM1 each. I wouldn't miss them on my trips to FGS now. :)

Time to visit 5pm onwards.

Flying pan Mee
飛板面（仁加隆）
Lorong 8, Kampung Sungai Jarom, 42600 Jenjarom, Selangor
https://maps.google.com/?cid=9853290796726671121

You tiao
油條
117-123, Lorong 4, Kampung Sungai Jarom, 42600 Jenjarom, Selangor
03-3191 3942
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZBrFszYKACRHAq1DA

Restoran Yan Yan A One @ Old Klang Road

This place opens 24hrs a day, so its pretty convenient & cheap @ RM3 per plate of dim sum. Quite a steal at OKL area. Parking is aplenty just go around the shoplot or in front of it to find em. The resto seems pretty understaffed wonder how they survive peak hours so don't expect super fast service here.

 Fried carrot cake is good, thick mixture of radish but can't taste any presence of shrimp or char siew which is the normal ingredients. Food are steamed/fried upon order so they are hot n good to go. The shirmp roll is a quite oily, its inside is ala poh piah style with a little sengkuang added. To me, this one is too oily.

Loh Mai Kai is good, tasty and with decent moisture & softness. So to LMK fans this one is good,at least in my book.

Siew mai is pretty tasty, in tiny potions and have good balance of pork meat thats soft and tender. Ham wrapped pork ball is what i googled the unique dish here. It's decent and since its steamed i kind of like it.

Chee cheong fun HK style, nothing special. Safe to skip it.
Not in photo list are: sesame ball ; filling is hard to get cooked. We ordered 2 glass of barley , which are really thick so it's still worth the RM3.50 per glass price tag.

Total damage comes to RM34. That's ok la for a dim sum meal.

Let's Joy Cafe @ Taipan USJ

Actually just want to keep a post on the type of Coffee description as shared on menu of Let's Joy Cafe. It's a decent tasting lunch with the technical team guys. 

+ points the place serves pork. So here's my pork cutlet rice and top up with black tea. Total damage comes to RM21 approximately after adding SST or whatever service tax.

Yut Kee Restaurant

Finally we made an impromptu to the famous eatery. Tbh I'm not all that impressed with the food.

We ordered roti babi and pork chop ala Hainan style. The gravy looks like it's Abit too watery although the recipe still hold itself intact to taste. Would be superb if it's thick gravy instead. The pork chop comes in 2 pieces of soft egg dip fried serving while the roti babi is what your bread dipped in egg fried style.

Overall the damage is rm3x including of drinks. Still a decent meal at Yut Kee but it's Abit overhyped and not too much to shout about. (Probably getting alot of hate for this blunt honest comment lol)

Mobile blogging is still very clunky experience. 😅

Beryl sales 2019 @ Sri Serdang

Our annual pilgrim to Beryl's CNY sales. It's happening now till 2nd Feb so hurry if you haven't done your chocolate haul.

They had a new sales lot just right beside the old factory/sales office. However I noticed the sales are a little lesser than previous years discount wise. <20% off in fact close to only 10% off.

Chit chat with one Malay staff that speak fluent Mandarin. They stop selling defect chocolate during sales period now...don't know what's the exact reason but it's one of the cheaper alternative we looked for when buying for own consumption.