Chicken porridge

Yesterday I was telling 2 friends that I want to cook chicken porridge today. I want to make silky smooth porridge like what normally seen in dim sum restaurant. All my previous porridges were all not like that. One of my friend told me to buy ready-made rice which is finely crushed to achieve this kind of smooth porridge and she also said I can crush the rice myself using the back of knife. Anyway I do not want to use this option because it will take time to crush the rice and I don't want to hit or knock anything right now. The ready finely crushed rice is more expensive and I still have 10kg rice in my repository. So no way I am going to restock any rice at any moment now.

I opted for other method I found more towards my style. Since I am cooking rice for dinner yesterday, I cooked extra one more portion. Then I add just enough water into a pot with the cooked rice and start boiling. The rice will turn into porridge quicker this way since the rice is already cooked and I do not have much time to waste at night on a normal working day. After about 15 minutes, I managed to get concentrated porridge. I added just enough water so that it's not watery but is able to turn soft.

I let the porridge cool down a little and took my potato masher and mashed the porridge. When it's mashed and cool down completely, I kept the pot into fridge for today's cooking.

I came back from work and started working on the ingredients. I have salted chicken left from last week. I had already harvested the left over and shredded it into tiny strips. I also had a chicken leg from chicken corn soup that I cooked 2 days ago which I shredded too and kept in container. This is the main recipe for today's meal.

I added like 3 bowls of chicken broth into the pot with mashed porridge in it and boil the mixture. When it started boiling, lower the heat to the lowest, add a handful of groundnuts, all the shredded chicken, chopped carrot, 2 tablespoon of sesame oil and simmer for 30 minutes. Add water when you see it's drying up. Stir often. Add salt towards the end, and taste.

Serve hot, add some pepper on top and garnish with spring onions. It makes a great warm dinner on rainy day like this. I achieved the silky smooth texture that I want!

Sambal fried rice

Left over food is gem :) I always like to use the left-over and mix into rice to make all sort of fried rice.

This time I had left over sambal from Sunday lunch nasi lemak and the spicy marinated pork from dinner. What I need to do is just mix both of the left-overs with overnight rice, chopped carrot and egg, add a little soy sauce and there you go, sambal nasi lemak!

It was very spicy due to too many dried chillies used when I was making sambal but so divine. The outlook is nothing much difference from other fried rice because of the common ingredients used but with a little garnishing with cut spring onions. It makes a great lunch alone food :)

Spicy marinated pork belly

I was looking at this dwaeji bulgogi, korean spicy marinated pork and salivating. I do not have all sort of Korean's cooking ingredients in my kitchen so I figured out I will just sort of use the idea but incorporate what is available in my humble kitchen pantry.

I used thin slinces of pork belly and cut into 1x1 inch in size. I marinated the pork in fridge for about 6 hours using the below ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic, chopped
small piece of ginger, finger size, chopped
1 stalk scallion, cut thinly. I keep the upper part of the leaves for garnishing
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon korean chilli oil
1 teaspoon chili paste (cili boh)
1 tablespoon chinese rice wine
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil


Cooking is fairly simple. Heat up a little oil in wok. Pour the pork in and stir in medium heat. When the pork is cooked, stir in higher heat until you see the edge of the pork is caramelizing. Scoop and serve hot. Garnish with scallion.

Spaghetti with Roasted Salmon and Garlic

Earlier in the week, I mentioned that I purchased 2 salmon steaks. I used one to make salmon teriyaki, it means I have one more left in freezer. Simple maths.

I tried google in the morning on some pasta recipe I can make with salmon and I failed to find any that I like. Most of them are using cream sauce which I dislike because I can never finish the second half of the cream pasta. I felt sick with the cream when I was at the half plate.

I came home and took about 5-10 minutes flipping my pasta cookbook. There is one recipe which I fairly interested in, by roasting salmon and garlic. I didn't use the recipe from the book but just used the idea of roasted salmon and garlic. This is how I made it.

Preparation of salmon:
1.Preheat oven to 200 celcius
2.Clean and dry salmon
3.Place salmon on a piece of aluminium foil
4.Brush some olive oil to the surface of salmon, sprinkle salt and parsley flakes.
5.Cut 2 cloves of garlic into very thin slices and arrange on top of salmon
6.Bake for 15 minutes


Ingredients for the sauce:
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 carrot, chopped into tiny pieces similar to onion
6 cherry tomatoes
oregano flakes
tomato puree
1/2 teaspoon sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Boil a pot of water, add a little salt and cook spaghetti al dente according to the packet's instruction.
2. Heat some oil in pan and slightly brown the garlic
3. Add onion, carrot and tomatoes in and stir till fragrance
4. Pour in tomato puree and add 1 can of water by filling the puree's can
5. Stir and let it boil for a while, add sugar and salt
6. Add oregano as much as you like and ground pepper then simmer for 10 minutes
7. By this time spaghetti should be already done, drain and toss into sauce, stir well
8. Take the salmon out of oven and flake it. Remove any bones
9. Mix roasted salmon flakes and garlic into spaghetti and do not forget to pour in any juice on the aluminium foil. That juice contains the real fish oil top with omega-3.


Serves 2
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time when all baking, cooking pasta and sauce are done at the same time: 20 minutes.


Note: There are a lot pot/pan to wash later :p




I asked WL if he wanted to have soup with the pasta and he said YES! So I requested him to help me open the can of campbell mushroom soup but he got away after pouring everything in a pot and ask me to stir the soup when it's boiling. That's the reason I didn't manage to debone the salmon properly. I was stirring soup and deboning salmon at the same time. There were some bones left in the salmon flakes but who cares, we are not kids. :p We could take it out while eating. The roasted garlic mixed into the spaghetti really well too. The taste is just perfect, something different from the usual minced pork spaghetti that I make. He started dinner without waiting for me when I was still in kitchen washing cooking utensils and I can hear him chanting "hao chi!hao chi!". This normally happen when I cooked something new for him. Bliss

Be healthy and see you!

I have not been talking much here about my feeling for the coming little one in our family. Some how maybe I should jot down a few lines so I can remember this joyful moment in any future. I am almost at the end of second trimester where people claimed is the most comfortable time during pregnancy. I feel the first trimester is the best :p

For the past few weeks, I have been experiencing a lot of little actions in my belly. He has been a footballer, swimmer and gymnast. Yesterday I tried to hold the little gymnast and wanted to let him know how much I wish to cuddle him right then. I caught him right on the fist or the feet, I don't know. Today we did a lot of high-five together. I had never feel this happy before for being kicked inside me. There are times where he surprised me with a stronger kick that makes me stood up all of sudden or woke me up from my usual nappy work hour. It is a miracle to think that I have a little man inside me and he is growing stronger and bigger everyday. I am loving this little gymnast everyday even more and can't wait to say hi to him. I look at the stuff we bought for him along the months everyday and feel happiness surrounding all over me.

Happiness still top over all other small uncomfortable things that I experience along the journey. I try swimming to relieve my back ache but it does not help much. We got a massage pillow to relax my back muscle 3 minutes every night but everytime I sit back again on the chair or couch, the back ache just came back. I started to feel the ache since week 15 or so, pretty early in the pregnancy period. It is affecting my outing time too like I cannot be walking in shopping mall for more than 2 hours or else I feel like my back is going to collapse if I don't lay down right away. After 4pm everyday is off hour for me. I do not want to sit in office anymore. Anyway, I still have to commit to certain occasions that required my attendance but to reject some of them which I think I can be absent to. So I hope friends will understand why I just can't attend some of the activities that they organized.

Other than the backache, it is the hugging a basketball to sleep feeling that makes me sleep light every night nowadays. I just cannot sleep sideways which I am forcing myself to right now or I will be pressed to a breathless point by the little gymnast and all the extra weight. So I spend longer time in bed to compensate for the missing sleep hours in the night.

Despite all these, I am still very happy. Both husband and I really enjoy having this little companion-to-be in our everyday life. So be healthy and see you!

Chicken rice

Yesterday when I mentioned to WL that I want to cook chicken rice on Monday, first thing he reminded me was that he wants coriander with the chicken. Okay, I hate the smell of coriander and I don't eat it. Then he gave me another option, how about scallion? Hmmm, I don't have any of the 2 vegetables he requested. This means that I have to make a trip to hypermarket on my way back from work today. So I packed my bag earlier before my normal off hour and dropped by the hypermarket on my way home. I looked at the basket of coriander and I was so glad that they were all either turned yellow, black or not fresh. yay! No need to eat coriander and I don't have to stand the smell of it! :P I searched for scallion and found a pack with 3 stalks for RM2.99. It's pricey for such a small vege and it's not going to be any main dish, just for garnishing but no choice, I have to buy it for the exchange of smelly coriander. I also grabbed a Japanese cucumber for the green later

I came home and started poaching the chicken when the rain started to fall. I felt so relieved that I am already at home admiring my kitchen.

Chicken preparation:
1. Clean 2 chicken legs and cut off excess fat and save for later use.
2. Fill water into pot with a teaspoon of salt , amount enough just to cover the chicken and start the fire
3. When it's almost at the boiling point, put the chicken in the pot and let it simmer. Control the heat so that the water does not boil. We just want to poach it for about 45 minutes.
4. Prepare a small bowl of salt mix with sesame oil and a brush for applying the mixture to chicken later
5. At the end of 45 minutes, take the chicken out from the hot water and place it directly into cold water to stop the cooking process. Save the chicken broth
6. Brush the salt and sesame oil mixture onto all sides of chicken
7. Cut into desired size and apply the left over salt and sesame oil mixture onto the chicken pieces.
8. Pour about 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and sprinkle some pepper on the chicken. Garnish with a lot of cut scallion

Rice preparation
1. Wash rice for 4 and set aside
2. Heat up the chicken fat that you saved earlier in wok until the oil is generated from the fat.
3. Saute chopped garlic (2 cloves) and ginger (small piece)in the chicken oil
4. Mix the rice into the wok and cook for a while maybe about 2 minutes
5. Scoop the rice into rice cooker
6. Scoop the oil layer from the chicken broth into rice cooker. Add the broth until desired water level required to cook the rice according to your rice cooker instruction
7. Sprinkle some salt and pepper into the rice cooker and start cooking
8. Serve rice with slices of cucumber on side

Soup preparation
1. Start boiling up the left over chicken broth
2. Put in slices of carrot as much as you like and some fish balls into the broth and let simmer for 5-10 minutes
3. Add salt and pepper
4. Garnish with scallion





Serves 2 with chicken but with 2 extra bowls of rice saved for tommorrow :p faint..

WL came back with a box of salted chicken in his hand and said it's from his colleague's baby fullmoon and he wanted to ring me to tell me not to cook so we can eat the salted chicken. But he also said my cell was switched off. There is a phone at home, and he forgot we have another phone that he can reach me. I switched on my cell and saw his misscall at 6.52pm. Hello husband, at 6.52pm, the chicken is already cooked. Can you not call me at 6.52pm and tell me no need to cook? Hahaha... Anyway, the salted chicken has to sit in the fridge until 2 or 3 days later because I do not want to eat chicken everyday :p

Salmon teriyaki

Yesterday I purchased 2 salmon steaks again from Jusco. I am eating salmon too often but I have not yet bored of the taste and I love the texture a lot. This morning when I was planning on Sunday's meal, I have breakfast, lunch and dinner in mind but suddenly I felt disaapointed because I forgot to get lemon yesterday. There goes my usual baked salmon with lemon. I have butter, but it's so boring to use butter. Teriyaki! Yes, that's it salmon teriyaki! I wanted to have salmon teriyaki for so long but everytimeI look at the price of salmon teriyaki in restaurant, I gave up. But the problem is I do not have teriyaki sauce too. :p Afraid not, I quickly went online and searched for teriyaki sauce recipe. Oh mine, it is so easy to make one.

Teriyaki sauce:
3 tablespoon mirin. I substituded with chinese rice wine because I don't have mirin.
3 tablespoon soy sauce
sugar/ brown sugar/ honey , as sweet as you like. I used 1.5 tablespoon of honey which is perfect to my liking.
1 clove garlic and 1 small piece of ginger choppped

Combine everything in a pan and cook till everything dissolved and mixed together. Set aside until it cool down before use.


Marinate salmon in the teriyaki sauce and refrigerate. Turn the salmon over in the half period of your marination time. I marinated since 10am and used it at 6.30pm. So I turned the salmon over in the marinade at around 3pm. I do not want to pan grill the salmon. I prefer oven as usual. Pour all the teriyaki sauce you used to marinate the salmon in the aluminium foil you folded with the salmon. Heat up oven for about 5min at 200 celcius and bake for 15 minutes





Perfect to serve with white rice! Yummy