Homemade spaghetti sauce with chicken teriyaki (right)

RECIPE

Ingredients

2-3 medium-sized shallots, cubed

1 big white onion, thin slices

6-8 tomatoes, thin slices

CP’s chicken teriyaki (or any pre-cooked meat), cubed

—

Brown sugar

Olive oil (if possible)

Salt to taste

McCormick’s Italian Seasoning

1. Throw in the garlic. Sauteed them.

2. When the garlic aroma becomes more prominent, put in the slices of onion. Fry them until it becomes smaller, slightly brownish and transparent-like. This takes awhile, so be patient :).

3. When onions turned transparent-like, throw in your pre-cooked meat.

4. After frying, put in the tomatoes. Mix the ingredients, then cover it. The point of this step is to let the water from the tomatoes ooze out :). From my experience so far, the longer it simmers, the better it tastes! :)

This will take a long while, as you need to cover it and check it once in a while. :)

5. For me, the dish is almost done when the tomatoes are smaller and there’s more liquid in the pan. You can also add a little bit of water.

Once done, add a little bit of brown sugar to counter the taste of tomato-ish. If you put in too much, it can become way too sweet, so be careful! You can also add salt to taste (I don’t though, just for health reasons :).

Once the dish is in a bowl, add McCormick’s Italian Seasoning. Seriously, it brings the taste to a whole new level!

Tada! (not a very good picture, but oh well).

The sauce can also be a dish, if you like. :)

One cool Sunday evening, Daron said “Let’s make mee soto“. So that’s what we did! (though me and Julie helped mostly in cutting up stuff, lol). :)

Slice/chop cucumbers, spring onions and coriander leaves :)

Meehoon noodles :)

THE SOUP – chicken, lengkuas (some kind of herb) and…salt? Add vinegar to taste.

Take out the chicken from the boiling pot.

Separate flesh from bones.

Put the bones back into the boiling pot.

The herbs mixed with chicken for the soup. :)

When the chicken is ‘cooled down’, tear it into pieces :)

And there you have it – all ingredients of mee soto placed next to each other, for better convenience serving :)

Don’t forget the dried onions!

Mee soto with soup. Add a little thick soy sauce and chili, and you’re good to go! :)

Thursday afternoon of 24 December 2009

Ingredients Potatoes with Slightly Thick Curry Sauce

1. 1 potato, cut in cubes

2. 1 small white onion, cut in cubes

3. 2 cloves of garlic, cut in cubes

4. 1/2 mushroom or chicken stock seasoning

5. 1/2 tbsp of curry powder

Ingredients Stir-fried Japanese noodles with Scrambled Eggs

1. 1 egg, beat (mixed with black pepper powder and light soy sauce)

2. 1 packet of Japanese yellow noodles

3. Sesame oil, light soy sauce and black pepper powder to taste.

Directions

Preparing noodles

1. Boil water in a small pot. When you see bubbles, put in the Japanese yellow noodles and cover. After 2/3 minutes, when you hear more boiling sounds coming from the pot, quickly take off the lid and turn off the fire.

Pour water out, and put noodles in a bowl. Mix with sesame oil, so that the noodles doesn’t get stuck together.

Cooking potatoes and sauce

1. Heat wok. Put in olive oil. After a few seconds, put in garlic. Stir-fry garlic until it becomes slightly brown.

2. Then put in the onions. Stir-fry both garlic and onions until onions turn slightly brown.

3. Then put in potatoes. Stir-fry all garlic, onions and potatoes. Stir-fry until potatoes has a slight ‘burnt’ edge (still not soft yet, at this point, don’t worry!).

4. Then pour some water into the wok (be careful, the oil and water will be hip-hopping against each other). I realized that if you pour more water, for some reason, the ‘dance’ will tone down.

5. Put in mushroom / chicken stock seasoning, then curry powder. Spread seasoning and powder evenly into the garlic, onion and potatoes.

6. Cover, and make the fire smaller. Thus, begins the journey of slow boiling (we want the potatoes to be really soft, and the sauce to be thicker).

7. Every few minutes or so, check on the food, and stir. I think I must’ve boiled about 15-20 minutes.

8. You will realize that the sauce will become slightly thicker.

Taste the sauce and potatoes. If it is a little tasteless, add more salt (I didn’t have too). If you want more curry taste, then add more curry powder.

If you want more sauce (like I do), add a bit of water (but not too much, because it will dilute!).

9. The potatoes should be really soft, hold together by thick sauce. When satisfied with taste, turn off the fire and serve.

Done!

The sesame oil and the light soy sauce that I love to use.

Cooking Stir-fried Noodles and Scrambled Eggs

1. Put in a bit of oil. Then pour in the egg (beaten).

In split of minutes, ‘mess’ the egg up (turn it upside down, ‘cut it’ with the wooden spatula, etc. You can’t go wrong!

2. Put the eggs at one side of the wok (or you could take it out).

Put in the noodles. Add more sesame oil, light soy sauce and black pepper powder. Stir-fry the noodles, along with the scrambled eggs.

If it lacks taste, add either sesame oil, light soy sauce or black pepper powder. Experiment! Eg. If it needs to be more salty, add the soy sauce. If it needs to have more taste, add sesame oil and/or black pepper powder.

3. The stir-frying shouldn’t take long – less than 10 mins. When satisfied with taste (hopefully under 10 mins), take the noodles out, turn off the fire and serve!

Results: DELICIOUS! :) :) :) :) :)

* The potatoes can serve for 2 persons. Noodles for 1 person.