The husband also remarked that we’ve been having a lot of heaty and heavy food since our Taiwan trip (fried chicken, Taiwanese braised pork rice and bak chang anyone?)… so slow cooked soups it is this week!

Wintermelon and barley both have cooling properties, and the dried scallops, honey dates, corn and carrots add sweetness to the soup. Cbb loves this so much that she had two bowls of soup and asked for more. This soup can also be cooked over the stove top or in the pressure cooker, although I always find soups made in the pressure cooker not as flavourful.

We love having this soup. Would you like to try it? Anyone can make cook this!

The post Wintermelon pork ribs barley soup in slow cooker appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

Of course, this is a dish which combines most of the leftover vegetables I have after cooking 七样菜 on Day 7 of CNY. Just add all the aromatics together, then toss in some mushrooms, and finally layer with chicken, and dinner is done!

I love my slow cooker (I use Takahi). I can prepare ingredients the night before and place the inner pot in my fridge. Then next day before I go to work, I add hot stock and turn the button to ‘auto-shift’. And dinner is settled for the day. It’s a mad rush every day for me. Let me tell you what I have to accomplish in 2 hours after work. Why 2 hours? Because 8pm is cbb’s bed time and SHE GOES MAD IF I DON’T TUCK HER INTO BED!

5.15PM: Get off work
5.55PM: Pick cbb up from school
6.15PM: Reach home, prepare her dinner, feed her
6.55pm: Cook dinner for the family/husband, prepare my lunch box for the next day, EAT MY OWN DINNER AS I COOK
7.20-7.30PM: Bathe
7.35-7.50PM: Wipe down cbb while she struggles and cries bloody murder
8PM: Feed cbb milk and tuck her into bed

There are some days when my meetings end at 530 or 545.. that’s when I am incredibly thankful for dinners like this. I basically skip the dinner preparation.. EVERY MINUTE COUNTS!

To make a nice stew, you need a base vegetable which melts beautifully to form the gravy, or impart yummy flavours into the gravy. Vegetables like onions, leeks, celery, potato, garlic.. all these are great. For bite and texture, you can add ingredients such as carrots, mushrooms and capsicums (they’re yummy when cooked through, too!). And of course you need a protein.. chicken thighs, chicken wings, beef or pork shoulder are good choices.

The thing about slow cookers is that you can’t really thicken the gravy nicely at the end. So when I need to thicken my stew, I always ladle them into a cooking pan and add my cooking cream or coconut cream. For dishes like oyster sauce chicken, I thicken them with cornstarch slurry. I used cooking cream for this chicken stew, but you could use coconut cream instead (use 100ml instead of 150ml) for a different taste. And add some potatoes if you wish.

Enjoy!

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The post Slow Cooker Creamy Leek and Chicken Stew appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

Here’s another version of my oyster sauce chicken! This time it’s with lots of dark sauce gravy (my niece loves this) so you can slurp it up with rice. Sorry for the less-than-fabulous pictures under poor lighting conditions!

My big tummy nowadays means I prefer to settle dinner using my slow cooker. Just prep everything the night before, add water and turn on the slow cooker on before leaving for work. Remember to cook this on low so the chicken doesn’t end up tough. Contrary to belief, meat doesn’t necessarily get more tender the longer you cook it! Overcook it on high, and the the ‘boiling’ water will overcook the meat. Same goes for cooking soup over the stove top. Simmer instead of boil for long hours to get the meat soft and tender.

The post Slow-Cooked Oyster Sauce Chicken and Potatoes (with lots of gravy!) appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

This dish was supposed to be Slow Cooker Soft Bone Ribs but silly me defrosted the wrong packet of meat! Luckily this recipe will also be good with the pork collar (五花肉) that can’t wait to be cooked, so here’s what we’re gonna have for today.

I was dreaming of a sweet and tangy sauce ala 排骨王 when I thought of the ribs. Imagine sticky ribs slow cooked to supreme tenderness.. I can easily polish off a whole pot by myself! You can either use Char Siew Sauce, Hoisin Sauce or what I used here, HK Style BBQ Sauce in this recipe. This sauce by Chef King (available at Fairprice) is one of the best Char Siew sauce I have tried out of a packet or bottle. I have oven-roasted prime ribs and wings with it and received raving reviews. Give it a try if you can grab a packet.

Apart from Char Siew sauce, you also need plum sauce, tomato sauce, a little bit of black vinegar and Worcestershire. Then it’s all about leaving the pork to cook on low for 3-4 hours in your slow cooker if using pork collar or pork chop slices or about 6 hours if using soft bone or prime ribs. The end result is extremely tender!

One optional step to make the gravy more sticky: ladle a portion from your slow cooker and cook over the stove top for a few minutes until reduced. You can also choose to deep fry the pork but I don’t usually deep fry my food.

This dish is excellent paired with rice and some blanched leafy vegetables by the side. That’s about all you need. The ingredients in this recipe is sponsored by PurelyFresh. I especially like how you can ask for your fresh meat/fish orders to be customised to your liking. I didn’t even have to slice the pork collar myself!

The post Slow Cooker Plum Sauce Pork Chops appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

Shark’s fin melon is a popular ingredient (a type of squash) used in Chinese soups. It is so named because it breaks apart into slivers resembling shark’s fin as it cooks. Its name on Wikipedia is so scientific (“Cucurbita ficifolia”).. if you’re not from Asia, I wonder if you’ve heard of this melon?

The melon is said to decrease blood sugar and good for diabetics. It is commonly used in slow cooked soups but Kenneth has also put up a recipe on his blog.. for roasting! I have never even heard of roasting shark’s fin melon (whole!) and will have to try it some time.

Wan Chai, the Hong Kong cafe at IMM, does a good version of shark’s fin melon soup. Their soup usually comes free with the steamed rice dishes. Jason really loves it and has suggested on (wayyy) too many occasions that I cook it. Ok, since I had my slow cooker out that week, I decided to buy some shark’s fin melon and cook him this cooling soup.

The soup is really easy to prepare if you have a slow cooker. Ok, it’s really easy to cook even if you don’t have a slow cooker. You can cook it on the stove too. First bring to boil, turn down the fire and simmer for at least two hours. The taste is mild at first but as you simmer, the flavour of the melon, pork ribs, carrots and honey dates really come together. I chose not to add dried cuttlefish or red dates as I didn’t want to overpower this delicate soup. My entire family loves it.

Apart from soup, how else do you cook shark’s fin melon? Let me know by leaving a comment below!

The post Slow Cooker Shark’s Fin Melon Pork Rib Soup 鱼翅瓜排骨汤 appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.