My favourite hotplate tofu is from a zi char stall at Blk 279 Bukit Batok East Ave 3. The signboard reads “Mei Chin Seafood” (maybe from eons ago) but the packaging and receipt all read “大食家”。The dish is just a little spicy, with onions, shallots, a bit of chilli bean paste, tofu, prawns, minced meat, vegetables and beaten egg served in a hot plate.

I was having such a craving on Tuesday that I just had to cook it.. and I did, with Prima Taste’s Sweet and Spicy Seafood Sauce, which is recommended for cooking hotplate tofu:

*For crispier tofu with more bite, you can coat it with a light dusting of corn flour and let it fry in the Happy Call before adding it back to the dish. I skipped that step. I also added more ingredients because this was a one-dish meal for us that night.

Ok technically for hotplate tofu, you’re supposed to dish up the ingredients in step 4 first and set it aside. Then in a clean pan, pour in the beaten egg and let it set just a bit. Return the sauce and arrange the ingredients back into the pan when the egg is still a bit a tad runny. This way, you will have an barely-set omelette at the bottom with ingredients and gravy on top. I chose to combine the egg into the gravy for an egg-y gravy over rice. It’s your choice!

Thank you Prima Taste, for sending me your Authentic Asia Cooking Sauces!

The post Happy Call “Hotplate” Tofu with Prima Taste appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

Who doesn’t like creamy gravy over rice? This afternoon, I made a variation of Chicken Stroganoff, cooked Asian style without sour cream, with plenty of sliced onions and button mushrooms in a creamy Carnation white sauce. Oh yes, I airfried the chicken pieces. They’re so tender and juicy.

Many people associate Carnation evaporated milk with Teh-Si, and rightly so. Most would be surprised at the savoury dishes you can whip up with a can of Carnation milk! You can cook mac and cheese, shepherd’s pie, butter chicken, potato soup, baked fish, and lots of other breakfast, lunch and dinner options you never thought possible. And with a 330ml can just costing $1.80 thereabouts (I use low fat. The regular can is even cheaper), it is a budget alternative to cooking cream that comes in little tiny cartons.

For mind-boggling recipes with Carnation milk, go to http://www.carnationmilk.ca/recipes.aspx

Try this recipe over the weekend with a side of crunchy asparagus. You’ll love it as much as we do.

Makes 4 servings

What I used:

16 strips chicken fillet (or you can use chicken breast cut into strips approx. 1- 1.5 inch in diameter)
Garlic powder, a dash of salt and black pepper, and optional italian herb flakes/ paprika (for seasoning)
Half a can of Carnation low fat evaporated milk
1 knob butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large yellow onion
1 can button mushrooms
1 tablespoon Djorn mustard
Cornstarch solution (1 tablespoon corn flour dissolved in 2 tablespoons room temperature water)
200 ml chicken stock
Scissors-cut spring onions

1. Season chicken with garlic powder, salt and pepper and airfry at 160 degrees for 12 minutes. Alternatively, pan-fry them in shallow oil til just done.. don’t over brown them.
2. If panfrying the chicken, remove chicken pieces and add butter and olive oil. If airfrying, heat up your frying pan and add butter and olive oil.
3. Add sliced onions and cook under low heat for about 5 minutes, til onions are soft and fragrant. Add Carnation milk and cook til bubbly, then add chicken stock. Bring to boil and lower to simmer. Stir in the Djorn mustard and continue to simmer for 2 minutes.
4. Add in cornstarch solution, stir to combine. Add button mushrooms, mix well and cook til sauce is thickened. Do a taste test and add some salt if needed.
5. To serve, arrange 4 chicken strips on top of rice and spoon creamy sauce over. Sprinkle spring onions on top and tuck in while hot!

How much I spent:

$5 for chicken fillet
$0.30 for onion
$1.30 for button mushrooms
$0.90 for carnation milk
Everything else from my pantry

Total cost per serving: $1.88

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The best thing about this recipe if that you don’t have to spend lots of money on exotic ingredients rarely used in an Asian kitchen. Sour cream and cooking cream are not essential in this dish.. when you don’t have what a recipe calls for and don’t see yourself using that ingredient frequently, substitute!

If you’ve cooked this ahead of time and want to heat up the sauce for dinner, add some chicken stock to the hot pan and stir to “loosen” the milk and starch. Enjoy!

White sauce cooking on the stove top:

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A hearty stew is usually made up of a few core ingredients- potatoes, onions, a type of meat (beef and pork are common and impart great flavour) and (surprise!) celery. I know how most of you feel towards celery. Trust me, no one knows celery better. In a desperate attempt to lose weight (the wrong way) more than ten years ago, I survived on ONE stalk of raw celery per day. I hated celery. I lost a lot of weight (so would anyone, on the crazy diet) and lowered my blood pressure to a healthy range (it was 160/100 at my peak- very scary) and still hated celery. But I knew it was, and still is, good for me. What I want you to know, though, is that cooked celery tastes NOTHING like its raw form. It tastes earthy and potato-ey if cooked in a stew, and is essential to making a great stew. It is also used in chicken pie fillings.

Please do not leave out the celery if you decide to cook this dish. Please do not cook this dish if you intend to leave out the celery- it will not do this stew justice.

The version I’ve done above is a cross between a soup and stew because today I decided to serve this with rice instead of bread. This was after about 1.5 hours of slow cooking on a lowered flame. The stew gets thicker as it simmers. After two hours of slow stove-top cooking, this is what you’ll get:

A beautiful comforting soup, great with some warm crusty bread roll.

Makes 4 servings

What I used:

500g pork shoulder, chopped into 2-cm pieces (use beef if whoever you’re cooking for takes beef)
1 large onion, wedged
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 litre chicken stock (use beef stock if whoever you’re cooking for takes beef)
1 small Beijing cabbage, chopped
2 potatoes, chopped into chunks
2 carrots, chopped into chunks
1 tomato, wedged
4 stalks celery (leaves and white stems removed), chopped to 1-cm pieces
1 can mixed beans (kidney beans, chick peas etc, optional)
5 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp corn flour

1. Marinate pork pieces in some oyster sauce, soy sauce and corn flour for 15 minutes.
2. Heat up the oil in a pot, brown meat on both sides then set aside.
3. In the same pot, fry the onions til slightly soft, then add the garlic. Fry for 1-2 minutes then add the celery.
4. Fry for 5 minutes. Add stock if too dry.
5. When the celery is softer, add the rest of the stock and return the meat to the pot. Scrape the sides of your pot with the stock to get all the goodness.
6. Add in the carrots, potatoes, tomato, cabbage and bring to boil. Lower flame and simmer for 1 hour.
7. Stir in tomato ketchup and oyster sauce. Continue to cook for 30 minutes or til consistency is to your liking.

How much I spent:

$2.35 for pork
$1.20 for Beijing Cabbage
$0.60 for potatoes
$0.40 for carrots
$0.30 for tomato
$0.40 for celery
Everything else from my pantry

Total cost per serving: $1.32

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Because this is so good, I recommend that you make a batch of this in a large pot. Cover leftovers and refrigerate.. heat it up for dinner the next day. You can also freeze leftovers in an airtight ziplock bag (keeps for 2 weeks if frozen properly) and reheat when you feel lonely.

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I am back from Bali and now my tummy still feels spicy! Bali is a destination I have never thought of going. I have never been a fan of “getaways” where people relax in a resort or villa and spend money in bars. I am not adverse to any kind of travelling though- of course I had to sneak in a visit to the Kintamani volacano with a road trip out to Ubud from Seminyak, and add in lots of local food exploration. This was a birthday trip for Jason- he enjoyed the time and villa immensely and that is all that matters, for now only, while stocks last, for a limited period til 20 July. I don’t see myself ever going back to Bali again! It’s just not my kind of travelling.

With the exception of Naughty Nuri’s bbq ribs, we had Indonesian food for the rest of our meals. We had guidebook-recommended meals, hole-in-the-wall nasi padang meals, Anthony Bourdain featured Bali Guling (what was the guy thinking?), and in all honesty, the best things I’ve had in Bali were the chilies. They have this amazing mix of shallots fried in coconut oil, with green and red cut chilies which has the ability to single-handledly maximumly-up (there’s no other way to describe it) any meal you have in Bali. Or Singapore, or Italy, Hong Kong? France, London.. Cambodia.. the moon, etc. Mars. You get the idea.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will try to make this amazing shiokadoodles condiment and put it up here if successful. But today we’re going to learn to cook prawns.

This is an idiot proof “recipe” which will impress your mother-in-law, boyfriend, husband, tour guide, school professor or the fat cat next door. Two categories of human will hate you though- the ones on a no-carb diet and those who are constantly on a detox fast, because you will eat lots and lots and lots of rice with this. Yeah, yeah, I cooked this dish for me to hate myself.

Oh, and go ahead and cheat on the dish. I did, with this:

Makes 2 servings

What I used:

250g prawns (I used frozen cooked prawns because I wanted to see how they would taste in stir-fry but I regret.. 原諒我吧! Please use fresh proper prawns for this dish.)
1 packet Lee Kum Kee “Sauce for Tomato Garlic Prawns”
1 large red onion, sliced not diced
1 tbsp olive oil

1. Heat frying pan til smoking hot. Add in the olive oil and swirl it all around.
2. Add the onions and cook for 3-4 minutes til aromatic and soft.
3. Add the prawns and fry til pink, then add the packet sauce.
4. Quickly stir fry to combine, cook for 1-2 minutes then serve hot with lots of rice.

How much I spent:

$1.60 for Lee Kum Kee sauce
$2 for prawns (I used bouncy frozen cooked shrimp)
Everything else from my pantry

Total cost per serving: $1.80

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The sauce is amazing- even though I didn’t cook with a wok over a huge flame ala zi-char stalls, I could taste lots of wok-hei in the dish. Someone should invent an instant “Wok Hei” seasoning and sell them in packets like this. So instead of “Sauce for Tomato Garlic Prawns” or “Oriental Spare Ribs”, we can have a “Wok Hei Flavour” packet. Quite cool, don’t you think?

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I made this for dinner on Thursday- one for ah-mm, one for 88, one for me and two for Jason. Two portions of chicken thigh that is.

Makes 4-5 servings

What I used:

5 chicken thighs
1 packet Seah’s Spicy Fried Chicken Spices
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp water

Combine all ingredients except chicken
Coat chicken with mixture (remember under the skin too) and marinate overnight in fridge
Preheat oven to 190 degrees
Place chicken in pyrex/ glass dish skin side down and cover dish with foil
Bake for 35 mins, then remove foil
Flip the chicken over so that the skin faces up now
Bake uncovered for 10 mins or until skin is brown and crispy
Rest for 10 mins before serving

How much I spent:

$3.93 for chicken (i bought frozen chicken thighs 2 kg for $8.65)
$2.80 for Seah’s spices
All other seasonings from my pantry
$1.20 for fries (1/3 pack of farmland crinkle cut fries)
$1 for broccoli (half a head of broccoli)
$0.70 for Ayam Brand baked beans (1/2 can)

Total cost per serving: $1.93

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This recipe is super easy and I love to marinate meats overnight and just pop into the oven the next day. No mess, no excessive oil, no clean up and so delicious! For a full time cook like me, I know it will start to get dreary if the cooking process is complicated, takes up too much time for so-so results (my creamy mushroom risotto is another story! the time spent is so worth it!), and requires big-time wash up afterwards.

Since I am now cooking for the family on a limited budget, I choose to buy frozen meats which I defrost the night before. This meal just costs 1/3 or 1/4 of the price outside. I am such a budget cook- can you believe I am challenging myself on a $25 MAX weekly budget for Mon-Fri (sometimes Saturday) lunch AND dinner for 3-4 people? After two weeks at it, I just wanna say YES it can be done! One ingredient can be used many ways in a number of meals throughout the week, like I can buy a brinjal and use it to cook assam fish on Monday, then a brinjal and cheese gratin on Wednesday. Ah-mm and 88 are eating chicken, fish, pork, tofu, soups, and lots of vegetables- cooking at home helps your health and wallet!

I feel heart pain when I got to know people were throwing away the McDonald’s meals after buying Hello Kitty. Do you know that your 4 meals = my 1 week budget for my whole family lunch and dinner? Time to plan my meals for next week!

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