Mee Siam

Mee Siam

Some of you may be more familiar with the Nyonya version and others might prefer the Malay style Mee Siam. I can't place my Mee Siam in neither category because it's not the wet version like the Nyonya nor is it as spicy as the Malay one. So I'll just call it Mum's Mee Siam!

Mee Siam Recipe

Ingredients:
1 pack of Rice Vermicelli (500gm)
2 tbsp garlic, minced
2 tbsp dried shrimp, soaked and chopped coarsely
100gm small prawns, remove shells
1 piece of firm tofu
3 eggs
Chives
Beansprouts
Chinese celery

Seasoning:
3 tbsp minced salted bean paste (tau cheong)
4-5 tbsp tomato sauce
1 tbsp chilli boh / blended chilli paste
Salt & pepper to taste

Method:

1. Soak rice vermicelli in water until soft, then drain and set aside
2. Beat the eggs and make a few thin omelettes in a small non stick pan. Let it cool down before cutting the omelettes into 0.5cm wide strips. Set aside.
3. Cut the tofu into long strips and pan fry in non stick pan until slightly brown and firm to handle. Set aside.
4. Cut the chives and chinese celery 1 inch long. You can put as much greens as you like. 
5. Now you are ready to fry your mee siam. First heat up 2 tbsp of cooking oil in wok. 
6. Stirfry garlic mince and dried shrimps. Then add the salted bean paste & chili paste, fry until fragrant. Gradually add the prawns, chinese celery, chives and beansprouts, in this order.
7. Next place the rice vermicelli into the wok and mix it with the other ingredients. Keep stirring while cooking the rice vermicelli. Add tomato sauce and continue to stirfry for another 6-8 minutes.
8. Do a taste test at this point. Your noodle should be soft and breaks off easily.

Seafood Noodle Soup

Seafood Noodle Soup

My first bowl of seafood noodle soup was at Bayan Lepas, Penang island when we took a family trip to see dad's housing projects up North

Brinjal & Fishcake in Bean Sauce

Spaghetti & Meatballs

Spaghetti & Meatball

Japanese Egg Roll (Tamagoyaki)

My boys love tamago as it is or on sushi. They could gobble up 6 of these each every time we dine in a Japanese restaurant. Not that I don't let them have their fill.... it's quite a pinch to pay RM2.00 per piece especially when they eat so much of it! And it's just eggs..... sigh, I'm showing signs of being a typical wife/mum when every dollar must match its worth!

So back to the egg rolls...

I've searched online and even bought a local Japanese recipe book to learn a couple of basic dishes. The thing is I don't want to spend a lot on ingredients that I won't use regularly... I won't buy a square tamago pan unless someone tells me where to find one for less than RM70! I know... it's just a pan but square in shape! Most recipes require the few basic elements like dashi & shoyu, quite fair seeing that I use a lot of shoyu for my Jap/Chinese fusion dishes. As for dashi, if you can find those that come in little sachets instead of the paste, you'd be able to keep them for quite awhile.

So initially, I tried using my square cake pan but I had to use a lot of oil to keep the egg from sticking to the pan. Can you imagine me trying to flip the egg while handling a really hot pan with no handles with my kitchen mittens? So much for creative ideas...

My flat 10 inch nonstick pan became my bff when I have to make tamago for the kids. I don't get a perfect rectangle but that hardly matter because both ends usually end up in my mouth before serving!

Tamagoyaki Recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 large eggs
• 40ml warm water
• 1 tsp dashi 
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp Japanese soy sauce
• 1 tsp mirin (optional)
• Salt & pepper to taste

Method:

1. Break eggs in a bowl and lightly beat them
2. In a separate bowl, mix all other ingredients in water until dissolved
3. Heat up a pan. If you do not have a square pan, use your widest non-stick round pan. Add a swirl of oil, making sure the entire pan is coated.
4. Then pour in just enough egg to cover the pan as you would making a crepe.
5. When the egg mixture starts to dry up, start rolling the it from one end of the pan to the other. This might take a bit of practice. You may need to use both a spatula and a pair of chopsticks initially.
6. Leaving the rolled egg on one end, heat up a little oil on pan then add more egg.
7. Swirl the egg again to coat the entire pan. Lift the rolled egg section so that the egg mixture gets under the roll as well.
8. Starting with the egg you have rolled on Step 5, roll the egg back towards you. Then pour more egg again.
9. Keep doing step 4-8 until you have used up all the egg mixture.
10. Transfer the egg roll onto a sushi mat if you have or like me, you could use a aluminium foil. I place the egg roll onto the foil and cover the egg. Then I use a kitchen towel to wrap up the foil to shape the egg as it is very hot to handle.
11. Once the egg has cooled down, cut the egg into thick slices and serve!

Seafood Porridge Teochew Style