Chilli Crab - Mum Cooks

I love chilli crab but I don’t really enjoy eating it outside. It’s always so messy and the sauces will be dripping from the fingers. It is a waste not to lick the fingers but it is also not so pleasing to lick the fingers in public. Dilemma, always. And the clumsy me may have the crab claw, shell or sauce flying all over and stain my clothes or others.

So I really love it when my mum cooks this. I can eat it as carefree as I want at home. I don’t cook this myself as I don’t dare to ‘silence’ the crabs. So we devised this plan of bringing my mum and the crabs to our house for this filming. And this gets us to think of a new series - Mum cooks. We will get my mum to cook a few more dishes and we will film her cooking them.

Chilli Crab

Delicious and Simple Chicken Rice One-Pot-Rice

Chicken rice is the most popular local hawker food in Singapore. Almost every hawker centre will have at least one stall selling this. Some stalls score well in the chicken and some in the flavoured rice and some in the sauces. Regardless of the scores, most Singaporeans just can’t get enough of this. It’s a comforting plate of food.

We love a good plate of chicken rice. But we couldn’t go out during the Circuit Breaker (lockdown) last year and didn’t want to pay for food delivery. So we attempted to cook this at home using a rice cooker. We used secrets shared by some chicken rice stall owners and improvised and cooked it using a rice cooker. The flavour turns out to be fantastic, especially the rice. I have shared this on my Instagram and many have tried it and love it. Some told me that they've cooked this many many times as her family can't get enough of it.

Chicken rice

‘What’s in my lunchbox’ - Soba and Tofu in Miso Broth

My previous post talked about the background of this lunchbox series and I have posted a picture and recipe that I have cooked for myself to bring to work years ago. I hope this series can give some ideas to those who want to cook a simple lunchbox to bring to work.

This new lunchbox series will come with accompanying cooking video. My lunchbox won’t be those pretty looking ones that take lots of time, effort and skill to make but practical ones which I’ve made for myself for years.

Soba and Tofu in Miso Brother 

Lunchbox - Will it be an In-thing in the Covid Era

The Straits Times ran an article, ‘Beware the Aftershocks of the Covid-19 recession’. And I cannot agree more. While we rejoice the availability of the vaccine to more in the population and looking forward to life as per normal, we need to also be prudent and realistic. The slow down in economy during this past year will not bounce back so quickly. As said in the article, many companies and in turn employees may feel the impact after the end of this month when the government support ceases.

So it’s not the time to splurge. It’s time to stay prudent. Eating more homecooked meals is not just saving money but also healthier. We are very glad to see that there are more working adults started to cook more since the Circuit Breaker and even until now as the default mode of work is still WFH (Work From Home). But from April 5, this default mode will change as the government is allowing 75% of staff to return to office.

Those who have enjoyed cooking and eating homecooked meals all this while can continue to do so by preparing lunchbox. I prepared lunchbox almost every day when I was still working. And I’ve done that for years.

Lunchboxes and Bag

Home-cooked Superior Chicken Stock

I love to drink soup. But whenever we have soup outside, we will wonder what do they add to make the broth tasty. Many restaurants and eateries may add MSG or chicken powder to enhance the flavour of the broth. That is why sometimes we get so thirsty after drinking soup. And my body somehow reacts to an overdose of MSG. My cheek or lips will feel numb and it will normally take hours to get over the numbness.

Years ago, we used to buy packet chicken stock to cook dishes. But I have never use any chicken powder or chicken cubes in my cooking. Yes, they are convenient. But after we started to make our own stock, we don't turn back anymore. We know what we add into the pot of stock and we know how good it will taste.

We normally cook one big pot and store them in containers and freeze them. They can last weeks. No additional preservatives, just the refrigerator.

Superior Chicken Stock

Slow-cooked Soup

Most Chinese will have a soup dish on the dining table and hence the common phrase 三菜一湯. We don't cook 3 dishes and 1 soup all the time unless we have more people over for meals. For the two of us, we sometimes cook one big pot of soup and have just that for our dinner.

I love to cook soups using my beloved slow cooker which has been with me for about 20 years. When I was still working, I normally throw in the ingredients for the soup in the morning and set it to cook in low heat. When we were back from work, a pot of delicious soup was ready for us. Soups cook in low heat will be clearer yet have all the flavours from the ingredients added. This is the reason why we continue to cook our soup and even homecooked stock using our slow cooker.

Watercress Pork Rib Soup

Cheese Twists

Roti Prata is such a popular hawker dish in Singapore that frozen prata doughs are common in the supermarkets for people to satisfy their craving any time they want at home.

I love roti prata. My hubby and I will travel to places to try different versions of it. Some crispy, some doughy. But I have never purchased the frozen version of it until last year during the Circuit Breaker. We were afraid, just like most people, that there might not be enough food as the borders were closed or restricted. So we bought food that can last, just in case.

But the food supply in Singapore was not affected much. So the packet of frozen prata dough sat in the freezer for months. When our freezer was almost bursting, we decided to use it to clear some space for fresh food. We experimented with it to create different things instead of eating it like the normal roti prata. And now, we love it.

Cheese Twists

Rice Cooker Recipes

The rice cooker is normally used as a tool to cook rice in most Asian families. This is probably one of the first kitchen appliances that we bought when we moved in to our own home. For years, we used it to cook white rice and porridge and on some rare occasions, we cooked some bean desserts with it.

When the pandemic started last year and during the Circuit Breaker (lockdown), we cooked all 3 meals every day. It is tiring to cook 3 meals each day for a prolonged period of time. So we thought of some simple and easy way of cooking some of the meals. And hence, the birth of our one-pot-rice or rice cooker recipe series.

Our good old rice cooker

Breakfast Ideas

I have to thank my mother and grandmother for inculcating the good habit of eating breakfast every day since young. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day as it replenishes the nutrients after the body is rested over the night. It helps to restart the body engine and makes one more alert and energetic for the day. I enjoy my breakfast with a cup of black coffee, no sugar and no milk. This gets me going and makes me alert in my job and now, recipe creation.

I started the habit of letting my phone camera eats my food before me when I started to make my own breakfasts at home. It started with store bought bread with homemade or store bought spreads or toppings. Then I started baking my own bread. Over time, we know the importance of consuming lesser processed food and hence I try to cook a lot using fresh ingredients instead of using bottled or canned food whenever possible. 

Bread and Butter Pudding

Radish Cake

Radish Cake or Lo Bak Go or Turnip Cake or Chai Tow Kueh.

This is one of my favourite dishes that my mum has made. This is also the ONE recipe that triggered me to start writing down recipes properly.

Radish Cake

Welcome to My Blog

My hubby has been pestering me to start a blog for a number of years. He has seen me getting frustrated when I can't remember the exact ingredients and steps for some dishes and frantically combing through my scrap books for the bits and pieces of the recipes scribbled in somehow illegible handwriting. I have also always wanted to document as many of the dishes that my mum has cooked since young which we have enjoyed so that we can preserve them and remember how to cook them.

But I have been delaying this project. Time is always the excuse.

Thawed my MacBook Air after a long hiatus