So my right hand is in a hard plastic splint so I can’t really do all the swishing you would expect of a satisfying stir-fry. But the husband still need to eat right? I decided to make one of the easiest no-effort-needed dishes I can think of: Mui Fan 烩饭.

For a super quick dinner, I gathered all the core ingredients I needed: prawns, leafy vegetables, eggs, mushrooms and carrots.. and in 15 minutes, food is on the table!

You should really add some meat slices in this dish, but since I didn’t have any, I left them out. And although Mui Fan is a delicious, convenient and comforting dish to cook, I don’t actually recommend you cook it too often because of the sodium content. Yes, the gravy is so delicious, you will tend to finish every last spoonful. What kind of blogger am I to discourage you from cooking a recipe I’m posting? I dunno, a conflicted one maybe. And since I’m at it, this dish also has way too much carbs as compared to protein and vegetables, so only cook this in an emergency, like when your hand is in a splint.

You’re welcome to cook this everyday, though, in all sorts of variations, if you just want to eat tasty stuff. The gravy is great for hor fun and ee mee too. I love it! Enjoy!

The post 15-minute dinner: Mui Fan 烩饭 appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

I can’t believe it’s already the end of the year. 2015 seemed to have whooshed by in a flash! I had fun cooking and experimenting, although not as much as I’d like due to job demands and terrible lighting at dinner time :) I hope to bring us even more quick and simple recipes in the coming year!

I have posted about 100 recipes in the past year, and if you’re looking for a few to start with, here you go! My favourites of 2015, in order of preference:

1. Creamy Homestyle Chicken Stew, June 2015
Recipe at: https://budgetpantry.com/homestyle-chicken-stew/

This is a family recipe, passed down from my 80-year-old aunt. I’ve never seen anyone else cook chicken stew this way! Everything is from scratch and I don’t use canned soups or packaged creams. I ate this as a child and still love this today. My favourite way to cook this is on the stove top. This dish is perfect with rice and my #1 comfort food! Try it and you’ll know why!

2. Airfried Cod Fish with Crispy Skin, HK Style, January 2015
Recipe at: https://budgetpantry.com/airfried-cod-fish-with-crispy-skin/

I often cook this dish, or variations of this dish using different types of fish like sea bass and salmon. The best part is that it can be done easily in the airfryer. You don’t have to worry about over steaming it, nor do you have to care about skin that sticks to the pan (and messy splatters!) if you choose to fry in oil. I love how the rock sugar and boiling hot oil (that you ladle over at the end) really makes a difference to its flavour.

3. Mongolian Chicken, October 2015
Recipe at: https://budgetpantry.com/mongolian-chicken/

I seldom deep fry my food, but when I do, I make sure it’s worth it! And this is worth it! ‘Mongolian Chicken’ doesn’t seem to be available in Mongolia, just like how Singapore Noodles is non-existent here, but deep fried chicken pieces slathered in creamy, buttery gravy perfumed with evaporated milk and curry leaves is too good to pass up, no matter where this dish really is from.

4. Wok Fried Kam Heong Prawns, October 2015
Recipe at: https://budgetpantry.com/kam-heong-prawns/

One of my missions for 2016 is to make seafood-in-a-bag with kam heong sauce! Imagine crabs, prawns, lala, corn and carrots served Dancing Crab style but with kam heong sauce.. I think it’ll be a great match. Let’s see if it happens!

5. Salted Egg Sotong, March 2015
Recipe at: https://budgetpantry.com/salted-egg-sotong/

I did a few versions of salted egg sauce this year. This version is my favourite. I prefer not to steam the egg yolks first to get the sandy texture and more fragrance. The addition of stock also made a big difference to how this dish turned out. This recipe recorded the highest hits ever for the blog, with over 5000 unique views in a day!

6. Traditional Pumpkin Rice 南瓜饭, May 2015
Recipe at: https://budgetpantry.com/traditional-pumpkin-rice/

This is another of my go-to recipes for fuss-free dinners, especially when I don’t know what to cook! When you’re out of ideas, all you want is to throw everything into the rice-cooker and let it do its magic.

7. Airfried Cajun Salmon, December 2015
Recipe at: https://budgetpantry.com/airfried-cajun-salmon/

When cooking salmon, always remember not to overdo it! I’ve had my airfryer for 3 years – it’s the first generation Philips 9220 and it has served me well. The one thing I have cooked the most in my airfryer? Salmon. I will never pan fry salmon again with this fool proof recipe. Just wash, sprinkle on Cajun spices, and airfry for 7 minutes in a preheated 180C AF. This recipe is so simple, dinner is literally on the table in 10 minutes, including prep time!

8. Low carb lunch idea: Grilled Cauliflower Steaks, June 2015
Recipe at: https://budgetpantry.com/grilled-cauliflower-steaks/

One of the most beautiful dishes I have photographed.. I’m not a fan of cauliflower when it’s stir fried but when roasted, grilled or baked, cauliflower is totally transformed, emitting a delicious, intense, nutty flavour. So good!

9. Hakka Abacus Seeds for Noobs, December 2015
Recipe at: https://budgetpantry.com/hakka-abacus-seeds/

I had to include this because it was the most back breaking thing I have ever attempted. If you’re a noob at this like me, you’d like this recipe.

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So that’s my round-up for 2015! Thank you for sticking around, especially those who are with me on my Facebook Community – you have no idea how much your likes, shares and comments mean to me!

Love,
Chris

The post 2015 Budgetpantry’s recipe round-up! appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

Zichar is a huge part of my life. It is what I want to eat after a long trip abroad and a zichar experience is must for overseas friends. For the unfamiliar, “zichar” literally means “cook-fry”. Zichar stalls can be found in almost every coffee shop in Singapore. A meal can be cheap, like $4 for a one-dish-meal of fried rice or noodles, or it can also run into the hundreds, like in the case of communal dining where prawns, crabs, fish and many other dishes become the stars of the table.

What are your favourite zichar dishes? For me, these three are a must-order when I come back from long trips: prawn paste chicken, hot plate tofu and sambal kangkong. For one-dish-meals, I tend to go for dry-fry stuff like Hong Kong noodles, dry beef hor fun or this one, San Lou Hor Fun (三撈河粉).

What are the “三撈”s here? The term is literally translated to “three-tossed”: Hor fun, fish slices and bean sprouts. This dish is flavoured simply. The taste of the dish really comes from oil (and high heat!), a little garlic and light soy sauce.

I got my hor fun from the wet market. Due to hygiene reasons, I always scald them briefly in hot water to loosen, and then dry completely before using. If you’re using those from the supermarket which come chilled, they tend to clump together. For those, you can microwave them to warm and loosen them up before using. The idea is to keep the hor fun as dry as possible.

I cooked the hor fun separately, dished them up and set them aside. I then fry the bean sprouts and fish slices before returning the hor fun to the wok to combine. Give the hor fun some more time in the wok to get that slightly charred flavour.

For bean sprouts, I used normal bean sprouts but I removed the head and tail. You can skip this step as it can be a little tedious, or if you’re lucky, you can find silver sprouts at certain supermarkets although they’re not common. Add some chilli padi for heat and colour if you like. This dish is pretty easy I say!

The post 三捞河粉 San Lou Hor Fun / Fried Fish Hor Fun appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

One of my must-order dishes whenever we go out for zi-char is Kam Heong Lala (clams). I love lala and tried to cook it once at home during Chinese New Year (I think it was last year or 2013). Let’s just say I didn’t particularly enjoy the experience. To clean fresh lala, you have to soak them in a basin of water with a bit of salt for to purge out the sand and impurities, and then change the water a few times and repeat. It took me a much longer time than expected to get them clean, so I decided to go with prawns this time.

I chose large grey prawns for this dish. Using a pair of scissors, I snipped away the long whiskers and legs, then starting from the ‘opening’ between the head and the body, I made an incision and snipped all the way along the back and removed the dirty veins one by one. It takes a little more time, but I make sure that my family doesn’t eat any crap especially when I’m cooking at home.

This dish is relatively easy to make. Actually, any type of stir fried Chinese dishes are quite easy to cook. The most important thing is using fresh ingredients and the correct seasonings. Kam Heong dishes get their distinctive flavour from curry leaves and curry powder. If you can’t really take heat, I suggest you leave out the chilli padi as curry powder already has a hint of spice. Other than curry leaves and powder, the gravy ingredients can all be found in a Chinese kitchen – light soy sauce, oyster sauce, dark sauce, garlic, shallots and dried shrimps.

I left the shells on for a few reasons. The shells help to prevent moisture loss and prevent the prawns from being overcooked. And it’s just so much more tasty to eat with your hands and suck the gravy off the shells! A lot of the flavour also comes from the prawn heads, so leave them on for the best flavour.

This recipe will be great for clams, fish and even lightly fried chicken pieces. I am imagining this gravy poured over steamed fresh fish, like barramundi or garoupa – not so common but yummy I’m sure! I hope you enjoy this as much as my family did!

The post Wok Fried Kam Heong Prawns 干香明虾 appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

I promised myself that I will improve on the salted egg sauce from the earlier Salted Egg Crayfish recipe. For that recipe, I used salted egg yolks which were steamed and mashed, along with pumpkin puree, no additional liquid, and too much evaporated milk. The result? Too thick, creamy and buttery, and I couldn’t really taste the salted eggs nor feel its texture.

Yesterday, I decided to practise some more. I had suspected that steaming the egg yolks beforehand would take away some of the flavour and all of its texture, so I worked with raw yolks today. Instead of steaming, I cracked the egg yolks into a dish and tried as much as I could to mash them with a fork. Because raw salted egg yorks are firm, sticky and ‘gluey’, you’ll need to get a spoon ready to scrape them off the fork back into the dish, then repeat. You don’t have to spend a life time doing it – we’ll still need to break them up some more in the wok. Cooking the egg yolks directly in the wok without the extra step of steaming them = more salted egg flavour and a more sandy texture – the way it should be.

Another thing I did differently was add more liquid. Although I loved the taste and fragrance of evaporated milk, adding it without a good water:evaporated milk ratio results in not much gravy to speak of. I had a bowl of chicken stock on standby and added it bit by bit til the consistency was right. I would say the addition of stock made a huge difference to the dish.

With more liquid, adding evaporated milk became a less stressful affair. I didn’t have to worry about the sauce clumping up because I know I can add more chicken stock if I had to. This recipe is pretty straightforward. In short: fry curry leaves and chilli padi in butter and oil, add salted egg yolks and break them up with your spatula, add chicken stock bit by bit, followed by the evaporated milk and sugar, do a taste test at this point, and finally toss in your crispy squid.

I am pretty happy with this version. The flavour of the salted egg yolks was not overpowered by the butter and evaporated milk, and I simply loved the sandy texture.. as you break down each morsel of salted egg in your mouth, the flavour becomes more and more intense and goes straight to your brain. This sauce will go great with fried chicken and prawns. Yums. I don’t really eat sotong. I should really have cooked this with juicy, fat prawns instead. What was I thinking? The husband almost licked the plate clean! He tan dio lor. I hope you like this, but please don’t eat this often. Deep fried squid, butter, salted eggs and evaporated milk too many times a month = a recipe for heart attack. Don’t do it! But since you won’t listen, what can I say but enjoy the recipe!

The post Salted Egg Sotong (Squid) appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.