Gu Cai with prawns

I spotted this plate of greenish white chives-looking vegetables and immediately shouted at Mr Hoby! After his nod of confirmation, I excitedly placed one packet into my shopping bag!

I am super shocked by the price! A small bunch of this cost me AUS$2.90 (it might even be less than 20 strands)! But we are happy! I dunno what is the exact name of this vegie but my mum calls it the white strand gu cai (aka white coloured chives).

I can guarantee that even those vegies-haters would love this plant once you try my mum's recipe of gu cai fried with prawn and deep-fried bian yu(扁鱼)! I cannot find bian yu here and hence, I do without it and its also as yummy.

The trick is to marinate the prawn first before frying: wine, sesame oil, fish sauce, sugar, cornflour and pepper.

Fry the prawn until cooked, remove it, throw in mashed garlic and then the gu cai.

The end results of my frying is shown below. I am surely going to get more from the market this week!

Celebration food- Siu York!

I call this my celebration food! I am in a celebration mood today because I just got a 10/10 for one of my assignment! The last I got full marks for my test is in primary school! Praise GOD for that! So, I decided to celebrate this joyous occasion by blogging about Siu York. My dad in law makes this dish whenever there is a special occasion. I must say he does it the best! 


Few ingredients are needed (coarse salt, honey, 5-spice powder and pepper)  and the marinating process is super simple. 

I like the process of making Siu York. However, I must admit that the steps can be quite complicated and strenuous, however, I enjoyed how the Siu York sprout into life! Look at the Siu York in progress! 

Don't be anxious about the burnt parts because it is supposed to be like that in order to create the crispiness! I did not have the burnt parts the last time round and I ended up having soggy skin! 

After scrapping away the burnt parts, what I got is the  golden brown Siu York! Mr Hoby gave me 2  thumbs up! 

Kaya-an unsuccessful attempt

I made kaya last night and its super unsuccessful! Followed the instructions given by chubbyhubby at http://www.chubbyhubby.net/blog/?p=317 and realised that maybe I should have just followed my mum's instructions. Sometimes I can be quite willful.

In any case, the mistake that I have made is not taking the weight of the eggs into consideration. It should be 5, 600g eggs and 200ml of coconut and I put it 5, 700g of eggs instead. Hence, the result is custardy kaya. But the taste is YUMz! Mum says that it is caused by too much eggs and she suggested that instead of steaming for 2 hours, I should just do double boiling and continuous stirring for 1 hour. I am lazy to stir kaya for 1 hour. I shall do it again when I have more time! Currently, it is an activity for me to de-stress... Mr Hoby loves it and since he is not complaining, I am happy!
By the way, after looking through at least 10 recipes, I think this website has the best one. Try it- http://www.lesdeux.info/nyonya-kaya/489

Hei Zou or Po Yi (slang) - Deep-fried bean curd skin rolls with minced pork and prawn

Why did I choose Hei zou as my first dish to share? One of the very reason is because, it represents my dialect. I call it the Hokkien comfort vintage food! Ha...I remembered the first time when I made it, I was really nervous and excited. I called my mum alot of times just to ask her if I have done the steps correctly and checked with her the steps over and over again. Haha...

I am so glad that I could find most of the ingredient at Brissy. Other than minced pork (which you will see in all recipes),my mother adds minced prawns as well.Now, the trick is to always add corn starch to the mince and 1 egg. Because I cannot find fresh chestnut, I substitute with spring onion instead for the crisp!

Something that I learnt from mum is to use a sheet of wet kitchen towel and wipe the skin at least 3 times to get rid of the saltiness and this also adds moisture to the skin. After wrapping the mince to the beancurd skin, I placed them (in long strips) into the fridge. It is also a marinating process. The next day, I steamed them, cooled them and then cut them into ball cubes like these (shown below). Before frying, I coated them in tapioca flour for the extra crispiness).

Wala! Done!