Home Cooked Char Siew Pork

Home Cooked Char Siew

Every so often, we would marinate a piece of pork (butt side) and have it kept in the fridge over night. The very next morning, we would barbecue that piece of pork in the oven on three hundred eighty degree celsius for about thirty minutes. Once it is is ready, I will slice the meat and separate them into different lunch boxes with a cup of steam rice. I will also add some sliced cucumbers with the rice and barbecue pork.

This is one of the meals my wife or I would prepare for our kids to take to school. We sometimes also take the char siew pork rice to work. This is a simple, fast, and fresh lunch we prepare. For the sauce that we use to marinate the pork with, we purchase it from T&T Supermarket. There are all kinds of marinate sauce on the shelves in the aisle for sauces in the supermarket. So, making the char siew pork isn't that difficult at all.

Kampung Style Fried Chicken

Kampung Style Fried Chicken

Sometimes when I run out of idea on what to prepared for dinner, I will just cook the simplest of cuisines which I had learned during my bachelor days. I used to leave in the military barracks and cooking wasn't exactly something I do everyday. But I was definitely a curious lad. I always made my way to the mess kitchen because I often work late and have the mess staff cook me simple meals like fried chicken, fish or even eggs.

Plain Fried Chicken

Until today, I still remember the way they fried chicken in the mess kitchen. Chop up the chicken to small pieces and deep fry without any seasoning or marinate sauce. After the chicken pieces are fried then dip into the sauce. Usually, chilli sauce but tomato ketchup also taste pretty good with the fried chicken. At other times, the cuisines can be really flavourful and mostly authentically Malay cuisines. Curry is a cuisine that was available in every meal.

Fried Enoki Mushrooms

Fried Enoki Mushrooms

There are certainly many ways to cook a mushroom. Just like any other main ingredient in cooking, there are many different recipes that can turn the cuisine into something creative, presentable and flavourful. The first time I have seen the Enoki Mushroom cooked this way was in Singapore's Rochor's market place. We often go to Singapore when we were still living in Malaysia and this was a favorite place to visit. Not so much for shopping there but it was one place many tourist would pass through.

Enoki Fritters

The Enoki Mushroom is mixed with rice flour batter for this cuisine. The batter is a mixed of one cup of rice flour, two spoons of corn starch, one egg and a pinch of salt for taste. Mix everything together, including the Enoki mushrooms with cold water. The batter has to remain thick, if it gets too watery than add more rice flour to thicken it. Once the batter is ready, scoop using a ladle, one scoop at a time into a pot of hot cooking oil. Removed from the cooking oil into a serving plate once the fried fritters turn golden brown.

Serving Cantonese Cuisines at New Lakeview Seafood Chinese Restaurant

Cantonese Yong Chow Fried Rice

My family and I went to New Lakeview Seafood Chinese Restaurant for a dinner yesterday. We just wanted to dine out for the night. Initially, we had planned to go to Costco for some shopping and for dinner but someone suggested that we go to New Lakeview instead since we had not dine there for awhile already. Seems like a good idea, so we headed to Sixth Street on the intersection of Twelve Avenue in Burnaby from Costco Wholesale.

Cantonese Style Beef Fried Noodle

When we got there the parking lot was full and we had to park the car on the road side on Twelve Avenue just next to the restaurant. As expected, the diner was full with dinner crowd but we were just in time. A family of diners were just leaving as we entered. Within a few minutes, the table was ready for us. So, quickly we just placed our orders without even looking into it. In fact, we have already decided on what to order before arriving. We were going to have the quick and fast meal.

Honey Garlic Pork

We had planned to order the Yong Chow Fried Rice, which is a famous Cantonese fried rice, the Beef Fried Noodle, another famous Cantonese noodle cuisine and lastly the Honey Garlic Pork, our kids favorite Cantonese cuisine. We only had to wait less than fifteen minutes and the three cuisines were served. Very quick, with the crowd in the diner to serve and the line of people waiting for their pick up orders to consider. We took less than twenty minutes to complete our dinner. Really authentic, delicious and importantly the portion were excellently large. That was a really quick meal.

Deliciously Simple Teriyaki Fried Chicken

Teriyaki Fried Chicken

One of the simplest fried chicken recipe must be the teriyaki fried chicken. And it taste really wonderful. First cut some chicken drumsticks into smaller pieces. Like one whole drumstick into two pieces. Then, prepare a pot with about two cups of cooking oil. Once the cooking oil is heated up, slowly drop in some of the cut chicken pieces. Allow the chicken meat to cook until golden brown and transfer them onto a plate to settle for a few minutes.

Delicious Fried Chicken

In a bowl pour some teriyaki marinade sauce into it. Dip the chicken meat, piece by piece into the sauce and transfer them into a serving plate after they were dipped. If there are more chicken meat, repeat this whole process. I usually have to fry the chicken meat twice because I use a small to medium size pot to fry all my meats. The whole process usually takes less than thirty minutes. That would leave me enough time to prepare two other simple cuisines.

Makan Place for Authentic Malaysian Cuisines

Briyani Chicken Rice

I hosted a program in my work place and catered food from the Malaysian restaurant on Sixth Street in Burnaby that serves authentic traditional Malay cuisines. Makan Place as they are named is one of the two traditional Malay cuisines restaurant in Vancouver. I frequently dined in Makan Place but each time before we actually go there, we need to call to make sure that they are open for business. They are very infrequent with their opening days and times.

Chicken Satay

As far as the authenticity of their cuisines, they are pretty much the best in Vancouver. Having mentioned that, sometimes their cooking standard is not consistent. There are times that we find the Malay cuisines to be really good and there are times we also find them to be inconsistent with their cooking. So, it is dependent on the mood of the cooks. Some of their best cuisines would be the briyani chicken rice, and the satay.

Fried Vermicelli

I like their Mamak Mee Goreng, which may not be the most authentic of Mamak Mee Goreng but it is really flavourful and tasty. Usually Mamak Mee Goreng is fried with a thick prawn gravy but Makan Place do not have that in their Mamak Mee Goreng. The Mamak Mee Goreng served at Makan Place are more appropriate as Mee Goreng (Fried Noodle) instead. My kids like their Nasi Lemak. Not the best Nasi Lemak but still authentic Malay Nasi Lemak.

A Taste of Sicily

Risotto Ball

I was invited to judge in a business presentation competition for start up companies and among the presenters were a restauranteur. He owns the Mr. Arancino outfit which operates a food truck business in Vancouver. In his presentation, he actaully brought along some samples for the judges to try. It was a first for me. I have never eaten or tasted anything Sicilian before and it was pretty good stuff. There were three different edible gooey balls for the judges to try.

The Gooey Risotto Balls

But the competition was not a food tasting competition, we enjoyed the treats but it was the business presentation that we were judging on. The edible gooey balls were called risotto balls and supposed to be one hundred percent Sicilian recipe. We were treated with three different selections each and we all enjoyed them. Crunchy on the outside but flavourful and tasty in the inside. The inside were stuffed with different ingredients, one was sweet, another was cheesy and the last was beans with rice. Mr. Arancino serves nine different variety of the delicious gooey risotto balls.

Continental Breakfast

Fish and Chips

I woke up this morning with breakfast already done and ready. My kids decided to prepare breakfast for us today. They wanted us to take a break from kitchen duties. So, they had planned to wake up early in the morning, earlier than my wife and I. We usually are earlier than them and have their breakfast ready when they wake up. There were nothing special today, they just wanted us to take a break for the day.

Home cooked breakfast

Like anytime when they decide to cook, we leave the kitchen to them. But usually they will clean up after. And they will usually prepare Western type of cuisines because it seems easier to cook Western cuisines. This morning was no different but what they had prepared and cooked were on the heavy side. So, it became our brunch instead of breakfast. The kids cooked fish and chips for breakfast with butter toast bread, green salad, a piece of teriyaki eel. For the chips, it was fried sweet potatoes.

Penang Char Keow Teow from Home

Famous Penang Char Keow Teow

This was the second consecutive weekend with three days off. So, I invited some friends over to enjoy some Penang Char Keow Teow. Earlier in the week I found raw cockles in a Korean grocery store on Kingsway. It was so surprising to me, as I had been searching for cockles for a very long time and to see them being sold in a store that I frequent a lot was even more surprising. In Penang, the cockles are an item in the famous Penang Char Keow Teow.

Penang Char Keow Teow with Cockles

So, it was an opportunity for me to show off the cockles to my Malaysian friends. What better way to do it than to invite them over to my home for the Penang Char Keow Teow. The cockles are used in many of the famous Penang cuisines. For example, the Penang white curry noodle, in steam boat dishes, and lok-lok stalls in the pasar malam. With the cockles, I am finally able to complete my list of the required items for my Penang Char Keow Teow.

Penang Char Bee Hoon

With the cockles, it makes the Penang Char Keow Teow even more authentic. Already, my home cooked Char Keow Teow is the most flavourful and authentic in Vancouver, the cockles makes it even better and closer to home. Most of the friends that came that day had a second helping. So, I had to add different noodles. Instead of Char Keow Teow, the fried noodles became Char Bee Hoon at the end. And the orders just kept coming.

Take Away Briyani Chicken Rice

Briyani Chicken Rice

My wife and I decided not to cook or eat out yesterday evening, so we went to Briyani Garden in Surrey on 128th Street to take home the briyani chicken rice instead. It was a nice comfortable drive there from our home. We crossed over the Pattulo Bridge from Burnaby into Surrey and drove along Scott Road until 80th Avenue intersection when we make a left turn. Just a couple of blocks on 80th Avenue, turn right onto 128th Street. And a few blocks away, the Briyani Garden Restaurant is on the left.

Briyani Goat

Briyani Garden Restaurant is not really a restaurant with presentable store front, it seats in a light industrial area and look more like a hole in the wall type of canteen. But the briyani cuisines that they served there is decently good. There is authenticity to the cuisines served there but the down side is their presentation which many of their patrons complain about. The diner is small, not really ideal for a family dine in, and the ventilation is also not that perfect.

Beef Burger

I guess that is the main reason why this restaurant is always empty. Most of the orders are take aways, the patrons rather take away than dine in their facility. On that day, we ordered the briyani chicken, briyani goat, and their unique spiced beef patty burgers. Pretty authentic and flavourful but won't be the best I have ever had. Their menu prices are the crowd puller because the prices are the lowest I have seen for a briyani cuisine in Vancouver.

Potstickers and Honey Garlic Pork

Pork Potstickers

I wanted to have something simple and quick to prepare. Something that I can just pull out from the freezer or fridge and put into the wok or oven. Yesterday, I was busy at the office, got home really late and so did the kids from school. And a warm home cooked meal would be most ideal in a cold winter night like this. So, I opened the freezer and took out a bag of potsticker which I had bought about a week ago from Costco Wholesale.

Pan Steamed Pork Stickers

I poured about a cup of water and three spoons of cooking oil into a wok. Heat it up on medium heat and put in about twenty to twenty five pieces of the pork potstickers. Arranged the potstickers with one side touching the bottom of the wok. And that is all I have to do. No spices, sauces, gravy or whatsoever is needed during the cooking. It is that simple. When the potsticker is done, I just heat up the sauce that came with the potsticker in the microwave oven.

Honey Garlic Pork

Then, also from the freezer, I pulled out a bag of honey garlic pork which I had bought from Costco Wholesale too. Lay the breaded pork nuggets in a tray and oven bake them for about fifteen minutes. The breaded pork nuggets were pre-cooked when we bought them, so all that is needed was warming them up. And fifteen minutes in the oven was just enough. Like the pork stickers, the honey garlic pork came with small bags of honey garlic sauce which was warmed up and poured onto the breaded pork nuggets.

Sambal Stuffed Fried Black Pomfret

Sambal Stuffed Fried Black Pomfret

Yesterday, when I got home after work, my wife had taken out a piece of the black pomfret from the freezer to thaw and I took the opportunity to cook the sambal stuffed black pomfret. The fish has to be cleaned. And then, cut from the shoulder down to the stomach but avoid from cutting through the stomach. Cutting along the back of the fish on both sides without cutting through the stomach, I can stuff in the sambal.

Sambal Stuffed Fried Fish

Even the sambal was mixed from curry powder with water. And then, drop several spoons of cooking oil and simmer the mixed curry powder in the hot cooking oil for several minutes until the curry aroma fills the room. Immediately after, stuff the thick curry gravy into the fish. Fill both the openings from the back of the fish until the curry powder is filled to the stomach. In a clean wok, drop about five spoons of cooking oil and fry the whole fish in the cooking oil.

Fried Tofus

Once one side of the fish is cooked, turn to the opposite side. There are two types of sambal that can be stuffed into the back pomfret. My mom likes to prepare her own sambal for this fried fish. She has one clove of garlic, three bulbs of shallots, five red chilli peppers and add a pinch of salt, in a blender. Mix everything in the blender and without any further cooking, just stuff the sambal paste into the fish. Other fish that are used in place of the black pomfret is the torpedo scad fish.

Homecook Yong Tau Foo

Fried Tofu Yong Tau Foo

We had time to prepare the Yong Tau Foo with egg plant, fried tofu, soy bean curd sheet, and okra for dinner yesterday. What actually happened was that we we able to come home slightly earlier than usual. This is one of those days where we did not have very much to do at the office and just felt that we can come home early. With the extra time, we decided to prepare the Yong Tau Foo. So, like usual, my wife and I took whatever we needed out from the fridge to prepare for dinner.

Egg Plant Yong Tau Foo

As we were taking the vegetables out from the fridge, we realized that some of the vegetables needed to be cook or else they may spoil within the next few days if we do not cook them. So, as we were going through what needs to be cooked and taking them out, we piled up the right vegetables and items for the Yong Tau Foo cuisine. That was why we cooked so much at the end. After dinner, we kept the leftovers and will be taking them to work tomorrow.

Soy Bean Curd Yong Tau Foo

In Malaysia, the Yong Tau Foo which is a traditional Hakka cuisine has been enjoyed by Chinese Malaysians of all clans for many centuries. Today, nearly every cook in Malaysia, Hakka or otherwise, knows how to prepare the Yong Tau Foo. In fact Hakka cuisines are simple cuisines with simple recipes. Anyone with a desire to cook can easily learn them. Unlike, the traditional Baba Nyonyas cuisines that uses variety of herbs and spices, Hakka cuisines utilizes very little of them.

Malaysian Curry Noodle with Chicken

Malaysian Curry Noodle

Since it was a long weekend and the extra off day just fit nicely within the Chinese New Year period, we decided to organize a get together with some of our Malaysian friends at our home last week. We had cook up a large pot of curry gravy for the Malaysian curry noodle. Our purpose was to have friends over since we had not organized any gatherings at our place for a long time. Therefore, to make it simple, we cooked the curry noodle.

Curry Noodle

The pot of curry gravy was enough to make and serve approximately twenty five bowls of curry noodle, which was several bowls short for those who wanted seconds. So, the wife decided to prepare some Penang Lobak and Vegetable Spring Rolls too. I was rather contented with just the curry noodle because I had not have curry noodle for a very long while and one bowl of it was good for me. The kids too, rather have more of the vegetable spring rolls than second bowl of the curry noodle.

Steam Garlic Jumbo Shrimps

Steam Garlic Jumbo Shrimps

My wife learned a new Jumbo Shrimp recipe and we got to sample the new cuisine the first time yesterday. Over the years, she has picked up a lot of recipes from friends and also from youtube. Since we moved to Vancouver, she had become a pretty good cook over the years. We always get to try out her new recipes and often these new cuisines she learned actually turns out to be pretty tasty and flavourful.

Jumbo Shrimps Cuisine

For the ginger jumbo shrimps, start with about a pound of hard shell jumbo shrimps. Devein the shrimps and stack them in a plater with their backs facing up. Before getting the shrimps into the plate, she blanched some glass noodle and put the noodles in the plate first. With the shrimps already placed on the noodles, garnish some fried garlic with the garlic oil on the shrimps and place the whole plater in a steamer.

Lettuce with Garlic Oil

The steaming took only about ten minutes from the moment the water started boiling in the steamer. And within that same time, we got another dish prepared for serving. We blanched some lettuce and garnished with the same fried garlic and the garlic oil. The two cuisines took us less than an hour to prepare and cook. We always like cuisines that is easy and fast to prepare. And on weekdays we most certainly like to be able to take the least of time in the cooking process.

Malaysian Curry Chicken and Tofu Cuisine

Malaysian Curry Chicken

Every so often, I would crave for a spicier dish and my wife or I, would suggest that we cook the curry chicken or curry fish. Among the curry cuisines that we cook at home, the curry chicken is the second most frequent curry cuisine after the fish curry. We always have fish or chicken in the freezer. Whenever we feel like having a spicier dish, we just need to take it out of the freezer, thaw and within an hour after that, there is a pot of curry on the stove ready to be served.

Gulai Ayam

Nowadays, the chicken part that we like to cook with is the drumstick or the leg as it is called in the Asian grocery stores here. The drumstick is meatier and is the cheapest part of the chicken to buy. We would usually cut the whole drumstick into two pieces for coking. But we do sometimes use the thigh and very seldom cook a whole chicken. The chicken wings we use them for other chicken cuisines like barbecue, roast or bake chicken wings.

Curry Chicken

Yesterday, I started with five spoons of cooking oil in the pot. Then, added a bowl of meat curry paste (started with five spoons of Babas curry powder with one cup of water). Simmer curry paste in the hot cooking oil with a handful of curry leaves, one stalk of lemon grass, one piece of cinnamon stick, a few anise star and cloves. Once the room is filled with the curry leaves' aroma, add in the cut potatoes, and followed with the chicken meat.

Steamed Tofu

Turn and mix everything in pot together than add a canned of coconut milk and a cup of water. Allow the gravy to boil. Then, add a pinch of salt for taste. While I was preparing and waiting for the curry chicken to cook, I also put a block of soft tofu in the steamer. Once it was done, garnished it with garlic oil, fried anchovies, chopped spring onions and light soy sauce. When the curry chicken was ready, I served both the curry chicken and the steamed tofu for dinner.

Preparing The Famous Penang Lobak

Penang Lobak

Last night my wife prepared about fifty rolls of Penang Lobak. She will usually prepare the Lobak for a few meals. Have the Lobak fried and keep them in the freezer for later consumption. It is chore for everyone at home when she does this. She will prepare the stuffings and one of us will help her with the wrapping and another with the frying. And sometimes we rotate the roles. But the process of making Penang Lobak starts with the shopping list.

The Famous Penang Lobak

Usually, I am assigned the role of buying the ingredients for the Lobak. I would go to T&T Supermarket where I can find all the right items for the Lobak in one place. The best part of the pork for Lobak is the butt. Then, the next item would be the taro. A whole medium size taro will be enough for fifty rolls. Three other items to make the authentic Penang Lobak would be a canned of water chestnuts (small canned), soy bean wrapping sheet, and a pack of five spices.

Pork Meat Stuffings

We will prepare the meat first. Cut the pork meat into long strips (four to five inches) and marinate with the five spices over night in the fridge. The next day before wrapping, clean and cut the taro to small cubes (about one cm cubes). Also cut the water chest nuts to the same cube size as the taro. Mix the meat, taro and chestnuts together. Add a pinch of salt for taste and start to wrap the mix into the Lobak rolls. We normally fry up all the Lobak rolls to keep for later consumption but steaming is another alternative. The Lobak is best served warm with tofu and slice cucumbers.

Still The Best Fried Chicken in Town

Fried Chicken with Sambal and Rice

I still like LA Chicken which serves, by my personal standard and taste, the best fried chicken in and around Vancouver. LA Chicken which is located on No. 5 Road and Thorpe Road in Richmond serves really flavourful, tasty and crunchy fried chicken. And, for a tray of twenty pieces of fried chicken thigh and drumsticks, it is only thirty dollars including tax. A tray of the twenty is good for potlucks, birthday parties and family gatherings.

LA Fried Chicken

I am fond of taking home the twenty pieces tray and having the fried chicken as the main course for dinner. Some times supplementing the fried chicken with sambal, sliced cucumbers and a bowl of steam rice or chicken rice, or coconut milk fragrant rice, or simply rice with garlic oil. And, usually we will not be able to finish the twenty pieces of fried chicken in one meal because the fried chicken are cut in large pieces. Then, the leftovers are kept for the next meal or stuffed into wraps for lunch the next day.

Fried Chicken with Rice

LA Chicken serves two different recipes of fried chicken. We like the spicy recipe over the original recipe. But both are coated with crunchy chicken skin. Other than fried chicken, LA Chicken also serves coleslaw, potato fries, mash potatoes and chicken sandwiches. I noticed that their business are usually pick ups, there are fewer dine in customers. Every time I go pick up my order, I normally have to wait about twenty minutes which is not really that long. And the wait is worth it.

Simple Tasty Sweet and Sour Pork

Simple Sweet and Sour Pork

This morning we eat rice with sweet and sour pork for breakfast and took the rest to work for lunch. My wife and I woke up quite early this morning. So, we decided to have a heavier breakfast to prepare the kids for a long day in school. Anticipating that they have several extracurricular activities after school and will be back only after six in the evening, we wanted them to eat right. And with the extras from the breakfast, we packed into their lunch.

Simple Recipe

We also supplemented this morning's breakfast with fried vegetable spring rolls. I have bought some frozen spring rolls from Foody Supermarket about a week ago. This was another easy and quick dish to prepare. All we had to do was fry them in a pot of hot cooking oil and serve when ready. And the kids loved these vegetable spring rolls. In comparison, the Sweet and Sour Pork required a little more time for preparation but still manageable in that time frame.

Vegetable Spring Rolls

I followed a simple recipe for the Sweet and Sour Pork. Initially, I prepared about two pounds of pork sliced into three to four inch strips, and one whole onion also cut into strips. (Can also add different color capsicums) Then, in the wok, drop two spoons of cooking oil, and a pinch of chopped garlic. Once the garlic turns golden brown, add the meat and the onions. Allow the ingredients, especially the meat to cook for about two minutes. Then, add two spoons of sugar, one spoon of honey, a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt for taste.