Sweet and Sour Sauce

This is the sweet and sour sauce I use to make sweet and sour fish. You can also use it for pork and chicken. For the fish, I use my salmon fingers recipe.

Sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
juice of 1 lemon
water
brown sugar to taste

Ingredients
1 small yellow onion
1 small japanese cucumber
1 small yellow or red pepper or both
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup pineapple chunks (fresh or canned)
1 tomato
corn starch (about 1tbsp of corn flour disoolved in 3-4tbsp water)

1. Slice the yellow onion into slivers. Chop the cucumber and peppers into chunks (skin on) and slice the tomato into segments. As for the pineapple, I prefer to use canned ones so that I can also add some of the syrup in the sauce to give that hint of pineapple.
2. In a hot wok, heat about 1 tablespoon of oil and add the onions.
3. When the onions are slightly brown and the fragrance comes through, add the cucumber, peppers and pineapple.
4. Add the sauce mix and stir in the corn starch till you reach the desired consistency. Bring to boil and the sauce is ready to be served.

For the sance mix, you need to taste the mix and adjust the sugar and sourness to your taste.
You can pre-make the sauce and re-heat before serving. Extras can be kept in glass jars and used withint 1 week. Or you can freeze it and use within a month.

Tip #1: To peel the onion easily, simply chop off the top and bottom. Slice the onion into two but not all the way through, leaving the last layer in tack. This will help you peel off the onion easily and beautifully.

Tip #2: To avoid having the onions make you cry and to prevent it from becoming soggy after leaving it to sit a while, slice along the grains (lines you see on the onions).

Gado Gado

For those of you gado-gado fans out there....I am not talking about the typical gado gado you get at Indonesian restaurants, but the healthier version made from cashew nuts and almonds instead of the typical peanut sauce....you know who you are.

I have been at work, experimenting in the kitchen recently. I have managed to get the taste and texture very close to the ones I have tried.

For the sauce (enough to serve 2 as mains or 4 as sides), you will need about 200gm roasted cashews or almonds or a mix of both nuts, fresh red chilli, about 1 inch of lemon grass (the white portion), kaffir lime leaves (about 3-4 large pieces), 1/4 cup of assam juice (tamarind) and 2-3tbsp brown sugar. Just mince all of these in an electric chopper or blender to a texture you like. I like mine creamy but still with chunks. It should form a paste....to serve add water to a consistency you like, stir and warm over medium heat. If stored in a glass jar when cool (as in the paste only without the water), it can keep for about 1 week...just add water, warm it up and serve.

For the rest of the dish, let your imagination run wild...the staples would be shredded cucumber, shredded lettuce, tau kwa, boiled potatoe and hard boiled egg. Other things you may want to add on are hardier vege like boiled cabbage, cauliflower, tempeh etc.

Enjoy!!!

Liquid Aminos

You probably have seen me using this item in my recipe. What's this? It is an alternative to light soy sauce, and in my opinion, a healthier choice. Tastes yummy too. Reminds me of Maggi seasoning.

I use Bragg Liquid Amino. It is made from soy protein and contains no preservatives, colourings, chemicals whatsoever. Hmmmm.....seems like I am almost "selling" this product. Haha.

Anyway, liquid amino as the name suggests contains 16 amino acids. To know more about this, you can check it out at http://www.bragg.com/products/liquidaminos.html

It is a pricier alternative to light soy sauce, at about S$8.50 for a 474ml bottle which lasts me about 3-4months, assuming I use a little everday.

Chicken Rice Chilli

There is something about chicken rice chilli that makes the whole experience of eating chicken rice that much more upbeat. My hubby for one loves the chilli. I have seen him ordering just the rice and ate it with the chilli. So I have decided to make a bottle to store at home.

it's really simple to make and I did it all in under 20min including washing up so I managed to get this yummy bottle done way before my little girl called for attention.

Here's the recipe.

Chicken Rice Chilli

8 - 10 big red chillis

4 - 8 cloves of garlic

2 inch chunk of old ginger

2 tbsp white rice vinegar

Just whizz everything together in an electric food processor. I used a mini electric chopper so I had to chop the chillis and ginger into smaller chunks. Store in any dry glass jar and it should keep in the refrigerator for about 1 week. You can keep it longer if you want but the taste will alter. Enjoy!

Note:

The chilli, garlic and ginger should be kept dry and void of any water droplets or moistyre, This helps the sauce keep longer and prevent from growing mouldy faster.

I also washed the chilli the night before and let it air-dry. Alternatively, you can wipe the chillis dry with a piece of dry cloth.