Chilli Crab - The Singapore Style

Husband is a big fan of crab. I have been thinking to cook chilli crab to make him happy but the my only problem is how do i kill and wash live crabs? After some searching, i found this

It looked easy to me, like just one chop and is dead? The sweet and sour chilli crab recipe i found from Rasa Malaysia looked easy to me too. I decided to pluck out my courage and venture into chilli crab. 

End results?

Sweet & Sour Chilli Crab

The taste is about 90% similar to what we had outside. The only 10% difference was that i didn't have mantou to go with the crabs. Most importantly, Husband loves it!

Inspired Garretts Popcorns (Happycall Pan)

Lately, almost every girl friend of mine is crazy over this new wonder equipment - Happy Call Pan. It is well known for non grease after cooking; saving more time and effort of cleaning. Seeing all the craze, i decided to invest into one Happy Call Pan for myself. 

The first cooking experiment i conducted with this pan is to make some popcorn based on the recipe provided by Munch Ministry However the caramel popcorn turned out nothing like what i was expecting, crispy aroma flavour alike of the famous Garretts Popcorn. I was somehow disappointed with the first attempt. 

First attempt

Note my disappointment has nothing to do with the Happycall Pan, i was kinda of expecting achieving the same type of popcorn like Garretts.I couldn't sleep the whole night, thinking what went wrong. And i decided to make a second attempt on caramel popcorn the next day. I made some changes to the recipe and added in a few more steps. End results? Perfect i would say! It had the brown crispy outlook i was looking for and most importantly the caramel aroma! 

Second attempt & success!

I was so happy with my popcorn!

Thinking to make some inspired Garretts Caramel Popcorn? You may like to follow my modified recipe below (with additional steps). You need not own a Happy Call Pan to make popcorn, you just have to get a basic non stick pan and cover with the lid when the corns are popping.

 

Ingredients for making basic popcorn (recipe adapted from Munch Ministry)

• Half cup of corn maize (normally found in the dried goods of supermarket where they displaced dried goods like red bean, sago etc)
• 2 table spoon of corn oil

Method

• Heat the pan and pour the oil into the pan with low fire
• Put one or two corn maize into the pan to test if the oil is hot enough. The corn maize will slowly turn in a circle if the oil is hot enough
• You may put the rest of the corns into the pan and cover the lid of pan or Happy Call Pan (which ever you are using)
• After 20 seconds or so, you will start to hear the corns popping. Turn off the fire once the popping stopped
• Pour the freshly popcorn into a baking tray 

For Caramel Sauce

• 70 gram of unsalted butter
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 2 tbsp of brown sugar
• half cup of pure maple syrup
• 1 tsp of baking soda

Method

• Put the butter, salt, brown sugar and pure maple syrup into a sauce pan and boil it over low heat
• Stir slowly till the sugar dissolved
• Remove the sauce pan from heat and put in the baking soda, somehow you will see a foam appearing after putting baking soda, do not be alarmed. Continue stirring till the foam slowly dies down. Your caramel sauce is now ready for use

Making Caramel Popcorn (The additional steps from me)

• Pour the caramel sauce over the popcorn in the baking tray
• Using a spatula (i use a salad spatula), stir the caramel sauce evenly into the popcorn
• Prehead the oven at 180 degree Celsius and bake the popcorn for 8 minutes
• Take out the popcorn, stir the popcorn one more time evenly
• Put the popcorn into the oven and bake it one more time at 180 degree Celsius for another 8 minutes

 And your caramel popcorn is done! 

 

Steam Rice Cake (Putong Putih)

I had some left over rice flour and coconut cream from the Chinese New Year baking. I did a little google and found this steam rice cake also known as Putong Putih, which is originated from Philippines. The recipe looked easy to me and i decided to give a try on it. The recipe i found required the following ingredients:

• 1 cup of rice flour
• 1 cup of coconut cream
• 1 tbsp of sugar
• 1 tsp of baking powder

I decided to modify the recipe as i felt that the above recipe may produced a very salty rice cake. Note it required 1 cup of rice to 1 cup of coconut cream. Surprisingly my modified recipe turns out yummy and my 3 years old little girl happily finished one rice cake by herself. I found the taste to be very similar to the Malay Tutucake found locally and decided to make some gula melaka syrup to go with it. End result? Superb! My helper loved it so much and requested me to do a new batch. 

Below is my modified version of recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup of rice flour
• 1/2 cup of coconut cream
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1 and 1/2 tbsp of sugar
• 1 tsp of baking powder

Method

• Sieve the rice flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl
• Put the remaining ingredients into the mixing bowl and hand whisk till the sugar dissolve and there are no more lumps in the batter
• Line the muffin tray or steaming cups with some paper cups and pour in the batter till 1/2 filled. 
• Steam over high heat for 30 minutes

You may prepare some gula melaka to go with the steam rice cake. Trust me, it tastes heavenly!

KL Hokkien Mee

KL Hokkien Mee is a very popular dish in Malaysia. It is cooked and served with prawns, squid and most importantly the dark soy sauce which makes this dish yummy. Being a Malaysian, husband always complains that the noodles in Singapore can never be on par with the ones in Malaysia. To satisfy his craving, I made countless attempt to cook this dish and am proud to announce i have sort of mastered it. Well...at least husband has no complaints and finished everything..

For 4 to 5 pax

Ingredients

. 1 packet of fresh flat yellow noodles, can be found in local wet market

. 8 big prawns, shells removed and keep for later use

. 2 squid, cleaned and cut into square pieces with grid lines

. 2 pieces of round fish cake, sliced into thin pieces

. 1 packet of choy sum, washed and cut

. 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
. 2 eggs

Sauces

. Sesame oil

. Hua tiao Jiu

. Dark soy sauce

. Oyster sauce

. Light soy sauce

. 1 cup of chicken stock

. 1 tablespoon of corn flour to mix with one cup of water, forming a corn mixture

Preparation

. Marinate the squid and prawns with 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce, hua tiao jiu and sesame oil for 30 minutes

. Soak the noodles in tap water for 30 minutes before cooking and rinse off the water

To cook

. Heat up the wok and pour in about 20ml of oil

. Once the oil starts to get hot, put in the prawn shells and stir fry for 2 to 3 minutes or till a prawn fragrance is formed in the oil. Remove and discard the prawn shells

. Put the prawns and squid into the wok, stir fry till half cook and take out, put aside for later use
. Put the minced garlic into the wok and stir fry till fragrant

. Pour the cup of chicken stock into the wok

. Once the chicken stock in the wok starts to simmer, put in the choy sum and noodles

. Stir fry the noodles and choy sum for about 1 to 2 minutes and add in the oyster sauce, dark soy sauce and light soy sauce.u (There is no standard amount to put in for the above mentioned three sauces, you may add in accordance to your taste preference. i normally make a swirl round the wok putting the sauces. You may put in more dark soy sauce if the noodles is not black enough)

. Once the sauces are so called absorbed into the noodles, add in the prawns, squid (which was cooked earlier) and the fish cake slices

. Stir fry for 1 to 2 minutes and add in the corn mixture

. Continue to stir fry for another minute, let the noodles simmer and you will see a thick gravy formed

. You may add in the eggs now and simmer for another 30 seconds

The noodles are cooked and you can serve it with sambal chilli. Enjoy!

Finally

Finally I made some action is creating a cooking blog. Husband has been telling me to create a cooking blog to share and blog about the dishes(which he think are good); and okay after like maybe the thousand times he asked me to do, I sort of create one.. Munchy Mum. Just hope that people who love to cook or learning to cook will find my blog useful for them.