So yesterday my daughter came home from work with 2 big bunches of freshly picked wild garlic. Her chef at work said to her, “Chinese like to stir fry them” so he picked me 2 big bunches. The gal said he don’t think us Chinese do more than just stir fry! Grrrrrrr…………………

How wrong is he! I am going to do this post and will update all that I have done with wild garlic slowly. I told the gal to remind him that I, little old me, not a chef, never attended a cooking/baking class in my life but I can cook/make all his western wild garlic usage of pasta, pesto, soup, infused oil, risotto, salads dressings, pickled and the like. I can also make Chinese bao, dumplings, pancakes, noodles, curries, crisps, Chinese flower rolls, spring rolls, egg drop soup……endless! So do not annoy me.

Today I made a few things……………….

Beancurd crisps

A few years ago one of my girls introduced me to these type of ‘crisps’ and I have spent hundreds £ buying them. However the standard seemed to be slowly dropping over the years. All I get nowadays is a lot of saltiness and nothing else. On one of my trip back to UK from Malaysia I carried so many in my hand luggage, I was prepared to be on newspaper – woman eating beancurd crips at airport because could not bring on board! I am now quite organised and competent in making them. Here are pics with TIPs

Next wantons

• I wanted to add in the fresh wild garlic and this is how I did it.

Garlic Butter

The post Wild Garlic -Signatory Mine appeared first on Just Julie.

Thus far I have cooked 2 dishes. – Salted fish steamed with pork belly

Salted fish braised with toufo.

Fry toufo after coating with a mixture of rice and corn flours before frying garlic and shallots. Add the carrots and a whole head of Chinese leaf cabbage. Including the soaked mushrooms and the soaking liquid. Seasoned with a touch of oyster sauce, salt and pepper and light soy sauce. Hubby loves it.

Slicing, frying and packing.

Signed Sealed Delivered – All mine

Zeepers – Keepers

The post Salted fish braised toufo – Signatory mine appeared first on Just Julie.

The second dish I wanted to make with the chayote fruit is Jiu Hu Char. I grew up in Kuching, Sarawak. My mother will cook this traditional dish – Jiu Hu Char with jicama (bangkwang) every Chinese New Year. It is one of my more favoured dish. We sauced it with baked beans. Even then, it must be the certain brand that begins with the alphabet ‘H’. We were indeed quite spoiled.

Today I used the chayote fruit but I did not ‘cook’ it. I washed and soaked the cuttlefish strands (Jiu Hu, in Hokkien dialect) and drained. In hot oil I fry till the wonderful aroma emerges. Then I added in beaten eggs. Actually would be better if I make omelette and sliced thinly but I am a tad lazy today. All day it has been wet and cold and deary in Hertfordshire. Then I hand sliced the chayote fruit and added in after heat off from my wok. Together with spring onions and one red chili. I do prefer colourful dish. Seasoning was salt and freshly ground pepper, pinch of sugar and I harvested my calamansi lime and added the juice. Served on iceberg lettuce with dash of chili sauce. Heaven is a filled lettuce leaf?

Most enjoyable time was eating these wraps – kekekekekek I love cuttlefish any which way period. Grilled, processed with chili and sugar, dried and fluffed etc. Today’s cook affirm to me that I do prefer to eat my chayote more towards the raw side.

The post Chayote Jiu Hu Char – signatory mine appeared first on Just Julie.

When I am gifted something, I like to make the best use of it. I like to think ummm……’out of the box’ sort to speak and I enjoy tremendously the drafting period.

I was given some chayote fruits and I wanted to cook something different with them. I have 2 ideas and today I used one fruit to make ngoh hiang. My only criticism is that next time I would not use my nakiri knife. I would avoid julienning them so finely because I missed the ‘bite’. Hence next time I shall slice thicker if I use them like so.

The post Ngoh Hiang made with chayote – signatory mine appeared first on Just Julie.

Yesterday we had very light dinner so we all woke up a tad hungry this morning. I decided to cook this fast dish as I have everything on hand. So breakfast was within half an hour. Managed to cut some spring onions from my garden. Really needs my spring onions to grow faster.

I have garlic and shallots oil ready. I also have minced pork ready as I always have some in my fridge. This is for a quick kon loh mee or sometimes hubby like the mince on brioche fingers! Try it. It’s very good the combo of sweet brioche and slightly salty mince. I also use them as toppings for a lot of other dishes of mine. Today I added some fish balls for the hubby too. Oh and I also like to tail my beansprouts when I am sat down watching the television. Then I will put them into a vacuum container in my fridge. Last for days and only soak and rinse with cold water when you want to use them and never before!

When I come back from Malaysia I usually dry my salt fish from Kuching. Then I fry them all up and portioned them. They go into my freezer and I eat at will. The loh shu fun was from Singapore, and it is not a bad brand. I happened to see them in a shop yesterday. So, I am a few packets richer now.

TIP – Please season with salt, pepper, pinch of sugar etc. I did not with mine because my mince were highly seasoned and I used shallots and garlic oils. To me just a touch of dark soy sauce and oyster sauce was enough. Season to your taste and make it yours. There is also no need for corn-starch slurry because I used 2 eggs. Break and mix, smooth and yum already. Season anyhow you wish. Make the dish yours.

Note – Just for F-Sake use a claypot. If not please don’t call it claypot noodles. Frying on a wok then serving it in a claypot is wrong! Call it stir fry if you do that! Enjoy.

The post Claypot Loh Shu Fun (Claypot Silver Needle Noodles) 瓦煲老鼠粉 with Salt Fish (Ham Yue) Ikan Masin appeared first on Just Julie.

The joy of hubby working from home is having lunch with him in the garden. Such a day as today makes it special. The sun is shining, the hubby though British enjoys and loves my cooks and can take spicier than me!

Step A – blend onions and garlic and fry in your pot slowly.

Step B – blend the Fresh Chili, dried chili, curry powder, lemon grass whites and tauchu (fermented yellow beans). Add a tad of the mashed sweet potatoes to help blend easier.

Step C – blend the washed and soaked dried shrimps.

Step D – After frying everything for about 15 minutes, it’s time to rinse the blender out. Make sure all the steps from A – C are done. Rinse it with some water and add in your chicken stock. Use any other stock you want but I happened to have and prefer chicken stock. I do not like my kuah rebus to look brown. Add in your mashed sweet potatoes. Allow everything to come to a boil. Then, let it simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.

Optional – Today the sweet potatoes are a tad stringy. I decided to blend them a little. Hubby does not like the stringy bits. I am going to be extra kind to him. I saved half a poached chicken breast from the chicken rice the other day for him. He don’t know it yet but he is going to buy us tickets to Malaysia for Christmas – hahahahahahaha

It is much easier to cook mee rebus than say, curry chicken. Once you blended A, fry in pan, then B and so forth. When your broth is simmering, tidy the stuff into the dishwasher. You can then go watch television and pick your beansprouts. To assemble, just boil some water in your kettle to rinse your noodles and beansprouts. Put the prawns fritters into the air fryer to crisp up and then just serve on top of your dish. Make the dish your own family recipe but adding or taking anything out you do not like.

TIPs – Seasoning is the time you adjust to your taste. A pinch of salt, sugar, more chili if you need spicier. I added some black pepper freshly ground in the frying process. We are now told turmeric and black pepper are good for us. Have fun cooking and making the recipe your own.

The post Posh Mee Rebus simplified – Signatory Mine appeared first on Just Julie.

This is an update post to my old post HERE with TIPs I have learned with age. I like to think with age come wisdom? I much preferred to make it this way nowadays. It is easier and for me a lot more convenient. My recipe remains the same but cooking method differ. I do not do everything in a day.

One day to wash, portion my chicken and marinate. Another day to cook and lastly to assemble and steam. I usually make quite a few to gift to friends and feed my freezer.

I don’t like my rice mushy but al dante. I actually give my chicken a spa treatment, chopped and marinate them beforehand, 2 days ago. I stored them in vacuum sealed containers. I also cooked the chicken and mushrooms yesterday and soaked my rice last night. Today it is only a matter of slicing the Chinese sausages, assembling and steaming them. I made 2kg of glutinous rice and a whole big fat chicken it takes two rounds of steaming. Tasting and packing takes time.

TIP – Save some of the chicken oil to oil your stainless steel tin ramekins.

TIP – I have discovered it is better to use water chestnut flour. Corn starch turns your stock watery but water chestnut flour would not.

TIP – When you fill your stainless steel ramekins, tap it on a chopping board but do NOT press hard. If you press hard you will have uncooked rice in the middle! Tapping is done at a slight angle so your rice don’t jump out.

TIP – Arrange your filled ramekins on your steamer. Then add the soaking rice water to just barely noticeable on top. That would be enough if you have soaked overnight.

TIP – I prefer a 40 minutes steaming on medium heat after water boiled. If you plan to freeze and steam again before eating adjust your time accordingly.

With all my love – enjoy making. They freeze extremely well. To eat just defrost in fridge overnight and them steam for like 10 minutes. Double the time if steam from frozen but common sense prevails – aka depending on the size of you LMK

The post Loh-Mai-Kai-糯米鸡 with belt and braces appeared first on Just Julie.

Hubby and the gal totally enjoyed it! Actually I have bought a few packets of the Szechuan Preserved vegetables to try. I told my mother we can’t buy them in big brown jars anymore. We used to get them like that in the olden days. Nowadays they are all prepacked and sealed. I can’t read much Chinese. I have trouble picking which to buy. So I bought one of each of the lot. I tasted them all before using and only 1 packet went into the bin.

All these packets were were all right except for the seaweed one. Terrible especially when I am used to the Japanese wakame salad. This was the only packet I binned.

TIP1 – I have never done this stage before and my mother said ‘why are you not hygiene conscious?’ She said must do this stage to ‘clean’ them. Yup, that is my mother. She don’t mince her words! She then insisted I must fry shallots and garlic in oil. I should keep frying until I can smell them. Only then should I add in the drained preserved vegetables.

TIP2 – You must give the preserved vegetables a good toss. Adding the sugar is also essential. This gives the preserved vegetables a much nicer extra crunch!

The post Szechuan Preserved Vegetable with Meat appeared first on Just Julie.

I cooked a simple one pot braised dish tonight but thought I will blog it for my son. He bought his own place and moved out for a few years now and he has picked up some cooking skills along the years. In fact in the last year he has been cooking his own food a lot and so his skills is much improved, The wonderful thing is he is actually enjoying it. He said cooking his own food saves him a lot of monies. I attribute that to his frugal mum and her Chinese teaching! On the other hand my gal is not that interested in cooking except learning the few dishes she loves! Alamak!

Many a times I get a text or a call, “mum how do I cook this or that” or even “mum, I remember that sauce you cooked for…., how do I cook it?” I have to admit, it gladdens my heart. One gained a bit of knowledge here and there and a lot of peoples’ post a recipe for others to follow but I noticed they never give out the “important” tips! I like to think I am not like that at all. I share everything I know because to me there is actually no point in keeping the knowledge I have gained as secrets, for each individual cook will ultimately turn out to be different. No one can replicate another cook exactly even if the recipe is followed to the letter.

Tip – Rinse the bought fried toufo with hot water and drain before using. This will remove the “factory oil” taste.

Sauce – Water from the soaked mushrooms, sieved to remove impurities. Oyster sauce (1 tbsp), salt & Pepper, pinch of sugar and I used water chestnut flour instead of cornflour to thicken. It might be an age thing but I have moved away from using a lot of soy sauces or cooking anything with thick, sweet, sticky sauces. Not sure why but I have gone off those for the moment. I have been using water-chestnut flour more instead of corn-starch for sauces. It is lower in carbohydrates too. It cannot be a substitute for all food but for sauces it is fine.

TIP – It is important to freeze your beef beforehand to harden it a bit and use a very sharp knife to slice to 1mm thickness or in the case thinness! Actually if you learn to handle beef well, there is no such thing as tough beef, well not in my book anyway!

TIP – Just before you add your beef to your pot, you can marinate with anything you like, salt & pepper, soy sauce, cornflour if you want velveting but I did nothing today. I tend to stay away from using ‘tenderiser’ powder like bicarbonate soda etc. If you slice thinly you just do not need it. However the most important thing to remember is to add a couple tablespoon of oil and mix well just before adding to your pot as this will separate them nicely and they won’t clump together. I used shallots and garlic oil. Of course you may use sesame oil.

All my TIPs are based on my experiences of cooking almost daily for nearly 3 decades. Enjoy.

Topped with some forages from my garden. Wash and soak in cold water with a touch of vinegar before using.

The post Braised mushrooms, fried toufo with beef appeared first on Just Julie.

I have been asked many times to post my chicken curry recipe. This is especially so since I posted my roti canai with chicken curry recipe few years ago. Link Here

I have actually posted before in my old blog that was lost. This second blog won’t be lost so easily as hubby now runs a few HD back up – kekekekeke – Here, I aim to share and explain to the best of my ability how I cook my chicken curry. If you have any questions I will try to answer but I am sometimes very lazy and don’t check my blog for yonks. Apologies. Explanation is based on cooking a big nearly 2kg cornfed chicken and about the same weight in potatoes as my hubby being white British have a thing for potatoes like myself having a thing for rice.

Curry recipes are a dime a plenty on the internet but I daresay each and every household will have their own style. I am not a big fan of packet paste as I have spent monies on buying expensive kitchen gadgets I prefer to make my own paste. This is what I call my ‘Chinese’ style curry because there are no other spices except star anise, chilli and turmeric powder. My rule if thumb is I do not add too much spices with chicken, especially if cooked the ‘Chinese’ way.

Other spices like cumin, coriander, fennel, mustard seeds, cardamom, cloves, cassia bark etc etc I would only use if cooking red meat or Indian curries. This is of course entirely up to the individual cook. I would blog another red meat curry one fine day. Meanwhile if you like to try my rendang. the recipe is here – Beef Rendang or Serunding Daging you might enjoy. Those are the ones that used a ton of other spices.

.

First thing to do is blend the red fresh chillies (seeds removed and topped), onions, garlic, lemon grass (white parts only), a small chunk of belacan (Yes I like belacan in my curries) and the dried chilli I have previously boiled and blended with some of the boiled water. (very spicy) You can do a batch of these and just freeze in small pots. I blended everything together to make the base for my curry.

Fry the blended base and star anise in oil (medium flame) slowly and steadily. Here I am using leftover oil from when I fried my prawns beancurd wraps yesterday for the extra taste. You can always plan your cooking as not to waste flavoured oils. After about 10 minutes or so add in chilli and turmeric powder. I used a heap teaspoon each as my family can take quite spicy food. Adjust to your taste. Meanwhile gently fry and fry (tumis) You want to fry till you can see the oil separate from the paste. Set aside a tablespoon for frying chicken.

When the oil and paste are both distinguishable, (I would say took me the better part of half an hour in total) Only then do I season with salt and a pinch of sugar. As you fry (tumis) the paste will turn darker. Now is the time to add in curry leaves. More tumis and I gave it a taste test. If it taste like there is a need to call the fire brigade spicy then you can add in another pinch of sugar. (kekekekek)

I have 2 tins of coconut milk ready. The last time I went back to Malaysia, I was sadden to see people using coconut in packets and tins. In UK unless I buy coconut and take out my grating stool I have to use tins. No choice. So I nagged (I shall not name) please go to market buy fresh coconut!

Next add in the kepala kelapa first (coconut head). You may laugh but that’s how the oldies I knew used to called it. Even in Cantonese it is called Coconut head or “yeah Cheong tow” or even first squeeze of the shredded coconut juice. Then you let your curry sauce come to a boil before adding the rest of the coconut juice from tin and rinse your blender with half cup water. I do not add any more water to my curry. If I want to make a big pot for a gathering, I have been known to use 6 tins of coconut milk and a carton of coconut water. Feeding myself, family and friends I do not add water as I am not doing business.

While the curry sauce is simmering, it is time to fry the potatoes. It takes me 2 rounds of frying.

When the potatoes are done, it is time to fry the chicken. I have marinated my chicken with soy sauce only. Add a big tablespoon of the fried chilli paste which had been set aside earlier. Mix well and fry the chicken. I used a blow torch to torch the chicken skin to remove some of the oil. After frying use a slotted spoon to scope the chicken into the curry sauce. Add as much or as little of the fried chicken oil as you wish. Top with the potatoes. Bring to a roaring boil and turn off the heat. The chicken curry is now done.

I removed the star anise and as much of the curry leaves as I could before serving.

The post Chicken Curry ‘Chinese’ style – signatory mine appeared first on Just Julie.