Prawn Heads Stock Base 虾头浓汤底

In South East Asia, seafood or chicken stock are commonly used as a base to cook many dishes. In Singapore, for instance, we use Prawn Heads Stock Base 虾头浓汤底 as a base to cook local delights such as Hokkien Fried Noodles, Prawn Mee, Tom Yum Soup, Steam Boat Soup Base.... etc.

Therefore, I inculcate the habit of stocking different frozen stock bases in boxes as they'll surely come in handy when I decide to cook any specific dishes 'from scratch' instead of using store bought pastes and packet stocks. The prawn heads stock is not difficult to make. I usually collect the prawn heads in my freezer and only brew it when I have few hours of spare time. There's really no fixed rules and methods to brew the stock base. What I'm sharing here is a method that suits my home cooking style, without using extravagant ingredients. Do make your own adjustments accordingly. 

Ingredients (enough for about 2 to 2.5 litre) :

• 2 boxes of raw prawn heads and shells (lunch box size)
• 1 cup ikan bills or small yellow shrimps
• 1/2 to 1 chicken or duck carcass (frozen from leftover meals) or some poached pork meat or bones.
• 1 cup soy beans
• 8 to 10 slices ginger
• 2 mid sized onions (julienned)
• 8 cloves garlic (sliced)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 star anise (broken into pieces)
• 3 pcs cloves
• 1 tbsp peppercorns
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 to 3 tbsp fish sauce (or to taste)
• 1 to 2 tbsp gula melaka/palm sugar (or to taste)
• 2.5 litre water

(tsp = teaspoon; tbsp = tablespoon) 

Method :

1. Heat a little oil and lightly stir fry all aromatic ingredients (i.e. ginger, onions, garlic, cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves, peppercorns)  in soup pot at medium heat till aromatic. 
2. Add prawn heads, shells and ikan bilis into the pot and stir fry till fragrant. 
3. Add water and soy beans into soup pot, cover lid and allow to simmer at medium heat till boiled.
4. Upon boiling point, turn to low heat and continue to simmer for 3 to 4 hours or to your satisfied richness.
5. Turn off heat and allow stock to cool. 
6. Remove scums and strain stock before scooping into respective storage containers. 
7. Freeze till ready to use.

Note : 

The soup taste is not intense or too flavourful at this stage. I usually add seasonings to taste upon cooking as different dish would require different level of flavours and intensity. This would allow some room for adjustments upon cooking.

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Fusion Spicy Bean Paste 炒辣豆酱

How did this Fusion Spicy Bean Paste 炒辣豆酱 come about? Like I'll be explaining in my next post, this unique concoction was created because I realised that I ran out of the essential Gochujang when I was about to cook the Korean Spicy Chicken Stew (Dakdoritang). I needed a paste to cook the stew. It would not make economical sense for me to drive a distance to buy a bottle and I was running out of time. Furthermore, there's no way for me to make my own Gochujang as the authentic Gochujang has to undergo a fermenting process over a period of time. With much deliberation, I thought it would be easier to troubleshoot with whatever ingredients I had on hand. 

Having dug through my refrigerator and pantry, I found the Korean bean paste. I knew I had mostly South East Asian or Chinese spices at home. Since the dish was meant to be spicy, I thought I could give the Korean bean paste a local twist by combining it with local finds such as sambal shrimps and chili powder or paprika. As I'd like to have a nutty feel in this comfort dish, crushed nuts were included.

Ingredients (enough for a jam sized jar) :

• 3-4 tbsp  of Koren bean paste
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 
• 3 tbsp crispy sambal shrimps
• 2-3 tbsp chili powder or paprika powder (subject to how spicy you want your paste to be)
• 2-3 tbsp rice wine
• 2 tbsp crushed nuts
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp cooking oil

(tsp = teaspoon; tbsp = tablespoon) 

Method :

1. Combine all ingredients (except cooking oil) into a bowl and blend well with chopsticks.
2. Heat pot/saucepan with cooking oil. 
3. At low heat, fold in the bean paste and spice mix.
4. Give mixture a quick stir fry. Take note not to burn the paste.
5. Turn off heat when paste thickens and emits aroma. 
6. Allow paste to cool down completely before storage into sterilised jars. 

In comparison to authentic Gochujang, my Fusion Spicy Bean Paste 炒辣豆酱粉 was drier and had a more coarse texture due to the inclusion of crushed nuts. The bean paste fragrance was still prevalent and nobody would doubt it being a spicy bean paste. Maybe this time it deviated just a little with some local twists.

DIY Concentrated Pandan Juice 自制香兰精

Off-the-shelf pandan paste is one convenient option for baking purposes. However, many bakers prefer using homemade ones, especially for baking Pandan Chiffon Cakes. Nothing beats the natural fragrance! This DIY Concentrated Pandan Juice 自制香兰精 is one essential ingredient for making pandan flavors sweets. Really easy!

Method : 

Use a bunch of mature pandan leaves for better and stronger pandan fragrance.

Rinse and wash clean all pandan leaves. 

Cut pandan leaves to small bits. Otherwise, it would be difficult to extract sufficient pandan juice from the blender. And.....this would be kinder to your blender too.

Blend pandan leaves with half to one cup of water (depending on how much pandan leaves you have). 

 Blending ends when pandan leaves are all mashed.

 Sieve the mashed pandan leaves few times to extract pandan juice.

Do not be surprised that a whole bunch of pandan leaves may just yield a small portion of pandan juice. 

Bottle the juice in refrigerator for a day. If there is excess water content, you would see a significant difference in the container. The dark green color content sinking at the bottom of the container is the real pandan extract. Pour away the excess water atop.

This DIY Concentrated Pandan Juice 自制香兰精 can be kept in the refrigerator for about 2 weeks. You know that it is expiring when the paste starts emitting rotten leaves smell. Therefore, make good use of your DIY Concentrated Pandan Juice 自制香兰精 to make all sorts of pandan flavor bakes such as cakes, custards, cookies while it is fresh and good.

Preparing Pre-made Sambal Paste for Future Use

Do this if you do not intend to blend the various fresh spices on your own. To me, this method makes more sense as I do not cook spicy dishes all the time. It is not only convenient, it is also very budget friendly! 

Buying fresh pre-made sambal mix from traditional spice stalls in wet market is easy. These stalls sell pre-made spices mix for various cooking methods (e.g. curry chicken, seafood, vegetables etc). Just tell the stall owner what you intend to cook and they would recommend you the appropriate stuffs. For instance, it costs me only a dollar to buy a packet of fresh sambal seafood mixed spices.

This is typically how the fresh mixed spices look like from the traditional spice stalls. All wrapped in a plastic sheet. This bundle would allow me to cook many dishes for a while. Of course, you do not use the fresh mixes spices as it is....you need to further process it to store for future use.

Heat cooking oil in skillet/wok, add lemon grass and stir fry the sambal mix thoroughly on the same day you make the purchase. Afterwhich,  you may store the fried sambal paste in a container. Chill (not freeze) in the refrigerator for future use. This sambal paste would come handy for cooking spicy dishes. If you do not intend to fry the paste on the same day, store the fresh spice mix in a freezer until you are ready to deal with it.

How to make a 2-Minute Microwave Oven Poach Egg

Whenever I make a poach egg, that means I want a quick solution to my meal preparation. I found a quicker way to make poach egg besides the traditional method of poaching in boiling water - the microwave oven!

This method would not take more than 2.5 minutes. Plus, if you like rich runny egg yolk from the poach egg, do not use low cholesterol eggs. Go for the normal ones that come with bigger egg yolks.

Prepare an egg and cooking oil. 

Coat the base of the bowl/plate with a little cooking oil so that we could easily remove the egg from the bowl/plate when cooked.

Crack an egg into the bowl. Ensure that the yolk is intact. Use a toothpick to poke a small hole on the egg yolk. Do not break the yolk.

Put the bowl with egg into microwave oven. Cover egg with a microwave lid.

Set microwave oven to 180 degrees celsius (356 degrees fahrenheit) and 2-minute (or up to 2.5-minute) timer. 

Remove bowl from microwave oven after 2 minutes. This is how the egg should look like. Continue on a 10-seconds segment if you find the egg too raw for your personal liking.

At 2-minute timer, you would have a runny egg yolk.

At 2.5-minute timer, your egg yolk would not be runny. The yolk would be nicely contained instead. Some people prefer it this way. It is really your choice. 

Homemade Tomato Pizza Sauce / Base

Due to sheer stubbornness, I have been reluctant to use canned or bottled tomatoes paste/sauce in my cookings, be it pasta sauce or pizza sauce. I may use a little ketchup for color enhancements, but very rarely will you see me using 100% bottled or canned sauce. 

What's better than FRESH? Since I have abundance of harvests from my little herb & vegetable 'garden', I thought it would be appropriate that I make my own bottle of sauce for the homemade pizza (refer to my post on Homemade Hawaiian Pizza) that I am planning for dinner.

Ingredients & Condiments :

• 5 tomatoes
• 1 cup of fresh mix herbs (i used sweet basil, english parsley and cilantro) 
• 3 to 4 cloves of garlic 
• 1 onion (optional)
• cooking oil
• 1/2 tsp grounded pepper
• 1 tsp sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 3 tbsp ketchup/tomato sauce (for color and flavour) 

(tsp = teaspoon; tbsp = tablespoon) 

Method :

Chop tomatoes and bring to boil in water.

Upon boiling, transfer the tomatoes to a bowl of ice water. The tomatoes will quite naturally peel by themselves.

Finely chop the garlic, onions (if any), mixed herbs and get ready to cook the pizza sauce.

Add cooking oil and sauté finely chopped garlic and onions (if any).

Toss in the boiled tomatoes and stir them with a spatula till the tomatoes become puree. Use low heat.

When tomatoes are cooked till puree form, turn in the finely chopped mixed herbs, 1/2 tsp grounded pepper, 1 tsp sugar, a pinch of salt, 3 tbsp ketchup/tomato sauce and stir well. Turn the heat off and allow the sauce to cool before use or storage. 

Remember to sterilize your bottle(s) if you are going to store the sauce in freezer or chiller for future use.