The Household COO

I’ve never liked celery - raw or otherwise.  About the most I’ve ever been willing to tolerate is cooking it in my soup, but I still don’t eat it.  But because celery is purportedly a “cure for gout” - something the hubby suffers from on and off (although you do need to eat about four stalks of celery a day for it to be an effective gout remedy) - I decided to incorporate it into the juice I’ve been blending for him.  To mask the flavour of the celery (although you can still smell it), I blended it with banana, apple, orange, grapes (Red Globe), and strawberries in these proportions:

• one celery stalk
• one medium Montel banana
• one small apple
• one small orange
• about 12 Red Globe grapes with seeds
• five strawberries with their stems
• 150ml of water
• 1 cup of ice cubes

The resulting juice was very palatable.  I’ve discovered that the key to blending pleasant-tasting juice without having to add sugar (because I can’t stomach sour juice) is to make sure I incorporate sufficient quantities of “sweet” fruits, like bananas and grapes to neutralise the acrid tang from an unripe orange or sour strawberries. 

I was also happy to note that based on “risk versus benefits” and “nutrient density” (i.e. vitamins, minerals, fiber and protein per 100 calories), bananas rated under the category of one of the best foods to consume.  I found that particularly interesting since a lot of weight conscious people I know hold the misconception that bananas are very fattening.  I’ve always found that notion perplexing because all fruits (except avocados) are fat free.

Okay, so one stalk of celery mixed in juice that serves four probably isn’t going to be enough to make a huge difference to the hubby’s gout attacks but perhaps it might be just enough to work as a preventative measure (so long as he watches his consumption of purine-rich foods).  Regardless, celery does have some pretty good properties which can only add to the nutrients in my juice.

I’ve also realised that adding about 150ml of water to my juice mixtures help to thin out the juice mixture sufficiently (without diluting the flavour too much) to make it more “drinkable” as the incorporation of the whole fruit (pulp, skin and all) can result in a rather thick mixture.  Blending in ice chills the juice sufficiently to make it more refreshing.

So you see, a healthier diet doesn’t necessarily mean having to eat more unpleasant foods.  There are ways of combining your food so it tastes good as well.  What good news for the hubby…

On Friday, it was another religious occasion for my MIL so she assigned cooking duties to me again.  I was supposed to make Cream of Mushroom Soup and Aglio Olio Pasta.

Ordinarily, I would have thought making one experimental dish was already braving it in the face of such critical palates, so to make two experimental dishes was really flying by the seat of my pants.  But since my MIL wanted Aglio OIio, I went in search for a recipe online and found one on Cooks.com which I will never try again.

My MIL thought it was too oily.  I thought it was too bland.  Aglio Olio not really being my pasta of choice when we dine on Italian, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was aiming for so when it came to the taste test.  All I could say was that I thought it should have been tastier.  Perhaps it was missing some chili flakes, too - who knows?  Anyway, if you know of a fool-proof, to-die-for Aglio Olio recipe, please, please drop me a message below.

Since I had been planning to make cream of mushroom soup for some time now, I had already been scouting around for some online recipes - real recipes, not like that list of ingredients that Aje gave me last time.  Anyway, I found something that looked pretty promising on Home Cooking from About.com, which I ended up modifying to the following effect:

Ingredients:

• olive oil (instead of butter, because my MIL wanted to be healthier, but I think butter will be more tasty)
• 2 punnets mushrooms (about 400g)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper, or to taste
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 cup heavy cream
• Chopped parsley for garnish

Preparation:

Clean mushrooms with a mushroom brush or damp paper towel. Cut half of the mushrooms into slices. 

In a large saucepan, add some olive oil and saute sliced mushrooms until golden. Remove and reserve sliced mushrooms. Add more olive oil to the same pan and stir fry the onions. 

Add whole mushrooms, onions, chicken stock, cream, flour, salt, nutmeg and pepper to a blender and blend until smooth.  Return mixture to a pot and add in the sliced mushrooms. Simmer, stirring often, until thickened.  Serve.

The Review:

The general consensus was that it tasted good except that it needed more salt.  The hubby also thought it either had too many mushrooms, or not enough cream.  Considering that we increased the quantity of chicken stock, that might explain why he thought it wasn’t creamy enough.  Personally, I thought it turned out quite well - much better than the time I tried to follow Aje’s mushroom soup recipe, anyway.

Although I found a recipe for Ginger and Sesame Oil Chicken, I ended up making a modified version of it for my in laws when I changed my recipe plan on the spur of the moment.  While I was grocery shopping, my initial intention was to cook the chicken with the broccoli and cauliflower.  At the last minute, I decided to cook this dish instead because I remembered that there weren’t many dishes that hubby liked to eat.

Since I made the decision at the last minute, I didn’t have the recipe on hand and had to improvise on the spot based on what I could remember.  It turned out that my MIL thought the flavour I made was really good and told me to remember how I made it so I could reproduce it in future.  Now a compliment about my cooking from my MIL is a really big thing, hence I’ve decided to write down the recipe here.

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken thigh, skin and bone removed, cubed
• 1 chicken breast, skin and bone removed, cubed
• Ginger, sliced
• 1 tsp garlic, minced
• 4 Tbsp sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp chicken concentrate
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce*
• 1 Tbsp dark soy sauce (for colouring)*
• 1 tsp sugar*
• dash of pepper*

Method:

1. Marinate the chicken with 1 Tbsp of sesame oil and 1 Tbsp chicken concentrate.
2. Heat remaining 3 Tbsp sesame oil and stir fry garlic and ginger.
3. Add chicken pieces, stir-fry until cooked.
4. Add remaining ingredients* and mix well.
5. Serve.

I don’t know why they call this ABC Soup, but it’s been one of my favourites since I was a kid.  I suspect nearly every Chinese family must make this soup.  I reckon it’s also probably of the easiest soups to make.  Ordinarily made with pork, I used a chicken carcass for the stock base.  I still think it tastes just as good.

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken carcass
• 2 Potatoes, chopped
• 1 Carrot, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3-4 Tbsp concentrated chicken stock

Method:

1. Fill a pot with water up to the half-way mark and bring to the boil.
2. Add chicken stock.
3. Add chicken carcass and bring to the boil.  Scoop away the frothy bits to make a clear soup.
4. Add carrots, potatoes and onion.
5. Boil until carrots and potatoes are soft, and onion has disintegrated.
6. Serve.

Last night, I cooked for my in laws and one of the dishes I made was steamed salmon.  My mother makes a similar dish and I love it.  I have never tried cooking it before because it was just hubby and me eating and hubby hates salmon.  It seemed rather pointless to cook a whole salmon for myself so I never bothered trying to figure out how my mother made this until last night.

I borrowed a recipe from my favourite authentic Chinese Recipe site but modified it slightly:

Ingredients:

• 1 piece of Salmon, rubbed with a little salt
• 2 tbsp Sesame Oil
• 3 Stalks Spring Onion
• 1 tsp Minced Garlic
• 2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
• Dash of Pepper

Method:

1. Chop the white bulb of the spring onions into small pieces. Cut the green stalks into 5 cm lengths.
2. Place the salmon pieces onto a heat-resistant serving dish.
3. Stir-fry the garlic and spring onion in sesame oil.
4. Add the soy sauce and pepper.
5. Smear the mixture over the top surface of the salmon
6. Steam for 8 minutes until the salmon is virtually cooked through.
7. Remove from heat and serve.

Although the hubby had nothing nice to say about this recipe and stayed as far away from it as possible, I was quite pleased with the results.  Knowing that this wasn’t something hubby ate, I made certain I made him three dishes that he would eat, so I was rather annoyed that he still had to comment on the smell and style of cooking I elected to use for this fish.  For someone who hasn’t even tasted the dish, he sure had a lot of negative comments to make.

Personally, I would have been quite happy eating the entire dish myself, so if you like salmon, then you really ought to give this recipe a shot.

The first time I ever cooked for my in laws was sometime back in May this year.  Although it wasn’t entirely a disaster, it was far from acceptable.  Since it was just my FIL, my MIL, hubby and I eating, I decided to make the following:

Honey Roast Chicken Steaks
Spinach Soup
Sweet and Sour Pork

The Chicken Steaks

The only thing turned out exactly as planned (or almost) was the roasted chicken.  I’d made it only once before back in the days when hubby and I lived on our own and it turned out pretty well then, too.  I fell short this time because I was making a larger quantity and didn’t have enough sauce to marinate the chicken properly.  The flavour was still approved but because I made it with chicken breast pieces, my FIL didn’t really enjoy it as much as he would have had it been thigh pieces.

One thing you have to realise about the older Chinese generation is that chicken thigh is preferred over chicken breast.  The leg of the chicken is considered the best part of the chicken.  The breast is considered tough and dry.  I, on the other hand, think that the meat on the thigh is slimy.  To each, his own…

The Spinach Soup

The Spinach soup was a recipe I managed to get off the internet at another website which I cannot recall (my favourite and most trusted site for Chinese Recipes didn’t have a recipe for this soup).  This is the recipe I found:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 6-ounce skinless, boneless, chicken breast
• 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
• 3/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil, or as needed
• 1/2 pound fresh spinach leaves
• 4 cups chicken stock, or 4 cups storebought chicken broth mixed with 1 cup water
• 1 slice ginger
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• Salt and/or pepper, to taste

PREPARATION:

1. Wash the chicken breast, pat dry, and cut into thin strips approximately 2 inches long and 1/8-inch thick. In a medium bowl, add the rice wine, 1/2 teaspoon sugar and a few drops of sesame oil to chicken pieces.
2. Marinate the chicken for 20 minutes.
3. While the chicken is marinating, prepare the spinach leaves. Wash the spinach leaves and cut off the stems. Blanch the leaves in a large pot of boiling water for 1 - 2 minutes, or until the leaves turn a bright green. Plunge the blanched leaves briefly in cold water first to stop the cooking process, and then drain thoroughly.
4. Bring the chicken stock or chicken broth and water to a boil. Stir in the soy sauce and remaining 1/4 teaspoon sugar.
5. Add the chicken strips. Bring back to a boil and cook until the chicken turns white and is cooked through. Add the ginger and spinach leaves and bring back to a boil. Stir in the soy sauce. Taste and adjust the seasoning if desired. Serve hot. Serves 4 to 6.

I honestly don’t know how it would have turned out had I followed the recipe to the letter, although I do think the recipe is overly complicated when it could have been simplified.  The reason I didn’t follow the recipe was because my MIL suggested I use ikan bilis (read: anchovies) stock rather than chicken stock for the soup base. 

As is usually the case when an experienced person watches a beginner bumbling along, it is difficult not to make a contribution or suggest how things should be done, especially when she noticed my recipe wasn’t exactly the way this soup is supposed to be made.  If I recall correctly, the soup we usually have in the restaurants all use ikan bilis stock as well.  I should probably still have added some chicken flavouring to the soup or at least some salt because the soup turned out rather bland. 

It wasn’t a total disaster, but it didn’t exactly taste great either.  My second attempt to make this soup at a later date (using my own recipe, heavily modified off this one), when it was just hubby and I eating, turned out a whole lot better.

The Sweet and Sour Pork

This was probably the single biggest failing of the entire night.  Although the sauce tasted pretty authentic, the final texture was all wrong.  When I was selecting the recipes I wanted to cook for dinner the night before, I somehow missed the fact that the sweet and sour pork dish was made of mince pork.  The first time I used this recipe, I substituted the pork for chicken because the hubby doesn’t eat pork.

My FIL, on the other hand, is a pork man.  No meal is complete without at least one pork dish, so I decided to make this dish especially for him.  When I discovered too little too late that the pork was minced, I made a rash decision to make pork balls, add a layer of batter over them, deep fry and then cook the sauce to pour over. 

Why couldn’t I just stir-fry the mince?  Because I knew that mince meat wasn’t considered “meat” in the eyes of the men in this family (especially after hearing the argument that ensued between the hubby and my SIL when they were studying abroad where the hubby complained that mince meat was not meat).  The comment that followed after dinner only served to reconfirm my suspicions that my FIL felt the same way about meat as my hubby did.

So instead of chopping up potatoes, I cooked them in the microwave, mashed them, and added them to the pork mince.  Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan because this was the last dish I had been working on and my time management on the whole cooking session was rather poor.  By the time I got around to the pork dish, it was nearly time for dinner so I panicked and just stir-fried the pork, skipping the part about making pork balls.

After the stress of making dinner for my in laws, needless to say I didn’t volunteer to cook again for quite a while.  I was also extremely grateful to my MIL for her patience in cooking for all of us day after day - especially with so many fussy eaters in the family.

This is apparently another of the hubby’s favourite dishes which I was supposed to learn how to cook from my MIL but never got around to it. 

Ginger and sesame oil chicken - how hard can it be to make?  The ingredients are practically listed in the title.

So, when my in laws were holidaying in the States and I was responsible for cooking dinner, I decided to do a little experimenting of my own.  I cooked my own version of ginger and sesame oil chicken using sesame oil, ginger, chicken stock, and dark soya sauce.  I only added the latter because the food looked kind of light compared to what I remembered my MIL serving so I figured that was the ingredient I was missing.

The hubby thought it was darker than what my MIL usually cooks, but I was pretty sure it was the same.  When my MIL came back from her holiday and made it, the sauce looked just as dark as mine did.  If there’s one thing I’m pretty good at copying, it’s making my food look like the person’s I’m trying to copy.  Taste, on the other hand, is another matter altogether.  For instance, I successfully copied the “look” of my mother’s stir fry beehoon once.  Unfortunately, it tasted nothing like hers…

In this instance, my version of the ginger and sesame oil chicken didn’t taste too bad, but I could tell I hadn’t gotten the ingredients quite right.  Something was missing.

Well, I found the recipe online and now I know what I did wrong.  I was supposed to use soya sauce, not chicken stock.  I was also supposed to use more sesame oil (I only added a teaspoon and I fried the chicken in regular canola oil).  So here’s my version of the recipe I borrowed with slight modifications that I intend to try again the next time I cook:

Ginger and Sesame Oil Chicken

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp soya sauce*
• 1 Tbsp dark soya sauce*
• dash of pepper*
• pinch of sugar*
• ginger, shredded
• 2 Tbsp Sesame oil
• 2 chicken breast, sliced

* Seasoning ingredients

Method

1. Heat sesame oil in a wok.  Stir fry ginger until fragrant.

2. Add the chicken pieces.

3. Add water and the seasoning ingredients (*).

4. Serve.

Thanks to the power failure yesterday, I ended up with a whole pot of brown rice that I didn’t know what to do with.  The power was cut while the rice was partway through cooking and by the time it came back on, it was too late for the rice to be ready in time for dinner so we ended up having to cook a batch of white rice instead.  Since the brown rice was already partially cooked, I had to let the rice cooker complete its cycle anyway.

So the hubby suggested I make fried rice for tonight’s dinner… 

Well, I have made fried rice before - during my home economics class in highschool.  I can’t say it turned out wonderfully - at least my memory of it wasn’t great.  If I remember correctly, the grains of rice were too hard but the rest of it was okay.  All I remembered from that lesson in school was what my teacher said about fried rice being known as the seven-jewelled wonder in Chinese recipes, or something along those lines.  Basically what it meant was that true Chinese fried rice is usually cooked with seven different ingredients blended into the rice.  I didn’t question her since she was also Chinese, so I figured she ought to know what she was talking about.

At home, fried rice was what Mum made whenever she had left overs to dispose of.  So much for “seven-jewelled wonder”…  But mostly what I remembered and loved about my Mum’s fried rice was the Chinese sausages and the lovely colouration from the peas, carrots and corn.  So I decided I was going to repeat that in my batch of fried rice, plus some chicken to appease the hubby’s taste for “real” meat.

I adapted my fried rice recipe from my trusty cooking resource - Healthy Chinese Cooking - with my own personal modifications to the ingredients.  I didn’t get to seven different ingredients (unless you count the rice) but I did managed to include six different ingredients (chicken, chinese sausage, egg, carrots, peas and corn). 

How did it turn out?

Well, I got two votes out of three.  Sad to say that the hubby was less than thrilled to see peas, carrots and chinese sausage in the mix.  Even the corn wasn’t particularly welcomed.  Hubby’s note to wife: no peas, carrots, corn and chinese sausages in fried rice in future; corn is only okay when eaten with steak.  Well!  I like fried rice with peas, carrots, corn and chinese sausages!  And apparently so did Gavin and the maid (who told me my dinner was “sedap” - Malay for “delicious”).

Personally, when I did the taste test after cooking it, I thought it tasted pretty good, too.  The funny thing was that it sort of lost it’s flavour when I sat down to eat dinner and I’m not sure why.  The same thing happened with the soup.  I made soup with Chicken, carrot and cabbage and when I tasted it after cooking, I thought it was pretty good.  Funny how it lost its taste later.  I wonder if this is what some chefs experience when they say they can’t eat their own cooking?  After cooking for so long, it’s like their appetite for food just disappears.

Anyway, if you take the maid and Gavin’s word that my fried rice was yummy and would like the recipe, here it is…

Ingredients

• 1/2 pot of Cooked Rice (this is how much I used, but you might want to decrease the quantity because I think it’s a little too much. The recipe from Healthy Chinese Cooking calls for 2 bowls of cooked rice)
• 1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
• Dash of Pepper
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 Tbsp Concentrated Chicken Stock
• 2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
• 3 Eggs, beaten
• 1 tbsp Minced Garlic
• 200g Frozen Mixed Vegetables (peas, carrots and corn)
• 3 pieces of Chicken breast
• 2 Chinese sausages

Method

1. Place rice into a large bowl and break it up so the rice grains are separated.  Add sesame oil, pepper and salt and mix until the seasoning is evenly distributed.

2. Microwave the vegetables on HIGH heat for 2 minutes until cooked.

3. Chop the chicken breast into cubes and marinate with chicken stock and soy sauce.

4. Heat a small amount of oil in a non-stick wok.  Fry the garlic until fragrant, add the meat and fry until cooked through. Set aside.

5. Pour beaten egg into the center of the wok and allow to half-set (do not stir).

6. Add rice, peas, marinated chicken and chinese sausages. Stir to mix.

7. Serve when rice is heated through.

I also made soup, which was basically yesterday’s soup recipe without the cooking wine, and instead of spinach, I added carrots and cabbage.  Tasted pretty good, too - at least, I thought so.

I thought I should record the details of this recipe that I made off the top of my head.  It worked out a lot better than the one I copied from a recipe off the internet, too…  Just had to mention that since I’m so proud of myself.

When we go for a Chinese meal, one of the dishes I love to eat is Spinach soup with century egg.  Of course, I don’t eat the century egg - I just like the flavour of the soup and the spinach.  So naturally when I saw a recipe for Chicken Spinach Soup on the internet, I just had to try it out.  Regrettably, it was rather bland and the chicken was tasteless and dry.

So here’s the recipe I used today (just in case I ever have trouble reproducing it again):

Ingredients:

• 1 Chicken Thigh, sliced (although I’m sure you could use more - this was all I defrosted from the freezer before I even thought about what I was going to make for dinner)
• Concentrated Chicken Stock
• Cornflour
• 1 large bundle of Spinach, washed and chopped into manageable portions
• Chinese Cooking Wine

Method:

Marinate chicken pieces with 1 Tbsp of concentrated chicken stock and cornflour.  Fill half a pot with water and bring to the boil.  Add 1 Tbsp of concentrated chicken stock.  Add chicken pieces.  Add Spinach.  Taste for flavour (add salt if necessary).  Add 1 Tbsp of Chinese Cooking Wine.  You can also add a dash of pepper if you like.

And that’s it.  Now wasn’t that easy?

This is a quick and easy recipe my MIL shared with me recently when it comes to stir-frying those dark green leafies…

Ingredients

Bundle of leafy greens
Oil for frying
A dash of Chinese cooking wine
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp minced garlic

Method

Heat the oil in the wok.  Add garlic and stir fry until crisp.  Add vegetables.  Add cooking wine and soy sauce.  When the vegetables are cooked, remove from heat and serve.

Told you it was quick and simple…  I don’t have any pictures, but well, we’ve all seen stir-fried veggies before so I’m sure you’re not missing much. 

There are other alternatives when stir-frying vegetables.  You can also use concentrated chicken stock or the traditional oyster sauce.  The oyster sauce variation is the one you usually see in Chinese restaurants.