Chinese Vs Italian

Wonton Mee is one of the old time favourite dishes in Malaysia. However, there are many versions of wonton mee in Malaysia. The ingredients are basically the same but the dish comes with different sauces. The most common ones are the ones with black sauce, we call those the "Black" ones. Then there are the Famous Johor Bahru version wonton mee which comes with chilly sauce, hence the name "Red" ones. As for those people who dislike both the black or red, do not despair, cause there are the "White" ones available too. The "White" ones basically comes with light soy sauce. Because they are not very popular, you will have to specially mention to the vendor when placing the order.

I have a very weird liking (or disliking ?) about wonton mee. I only like the red ones. Other than the red ones, I don't really like eating wonton mee. Weird huh ? Anyway, my personal favourite wonton mee is from the famous Johor Bahru stall - Ho Seng Kee, located in Century Garden. It is my whole family's favourite too. Frankly speaking, till today, non of the wonton mee I have tasted can beat the Ho Seng Kee's wonton mee.

Well... there is one that I came across many years back, which is pretty good too. It is from a corner coffee shop in Skudai. I think the name of the coffee shop is called Jin Jin or Jing Jing. Other than wonton mee, they also serve the braised chicken feet noodle. But when I eat there, I like to order the wonton mee and additional chicken feet to go along... yum !

Ooh... all these wonton mee talk is making me miss my favourite wonton mee. Thank goodness I will be going back home soon, so I can have a big feast of wonton mee to satisfy my craving :) Can't wait for that.

Hahaha... I think I am getting a little off the track here. Now back to what I intended to write. Yes, wonton mee. Since I am so particular about wonton mee, I don't eat any of the wonton mee here in Sydney. So I ended up making my own.

I actually made my wonton mee almost from scratch. Well, I mean I made the wonton myself, except for the skin and roasted the char siew myself. Pity I don't know how to make the noodle myself, or else it will be perfect. Er... almost perfect. I didn't make the sauce myself, I ended up using some bottled chilly sauce imported from Indonesia. And boy it was HOT ! I am one person who can't take too spicy food, so I used only very little chilly sauce on my wonton mee, enough to get the taste but not enough to get the colour.






Ok, I guess we are done with noodle ? Well... not quite yet. Talking bout noodle, I was just thinking the other day, that Chinese noodle actually has some similarity to Italian pasta, or was it the other way round ? Anyway, here's some example: Hokkien Noodle vs Spaghetti; Kuey Tiaw vs Fettuccine; Thin Noodle vs Angel Hair Spaghetti. Haha... interesting, isn't it ?

Well, I have come up with a simple pasta dish that can be done in 5 - 10 minutes. The Garlic Prawn & Mushroom Angel Hair Spaghetti. It's so simple and yet the aroma and the taste of this dish is simply marvelous.

Ingredients:
I am not putting the quantity down as everyone has their own preference

Prawns, de-shelled and de-veined (marinate overnight with finely chopped garlic if preferred)
Mushrooms, cut to small pieces
Garlic, finely chopped
Angel hair spaghetti
40g of butter (per serve)
White wine (approx. 50-100ml per serve)
Salt & pepper
Parsley (fresh or dry), finely chopped

Method:

1. Cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the packaging. Cook it just a fraction under as it will be cooked further again later. Drain the spaghetti and rinse it with cold water. Set it aside.

2. Heat up a frying pan on medium to high heat. Put a slice of butter in the pan and put in the garlic. Stir fry the garlic until it is almost golden brown, then throw in the mushrooms. Continue to stir for a while, then throw in the prawns.

3. When the prawns are almost done, put in the spaghetti. Sprinkle some salt over it then pour in the white wine. Give everything a quick stir and turn off the heat.

4. Sprinkle some Parsley flakes and ground black pepper onto the dish. Drizzle some olive oil around the pasta, if desired. Serve hot.

Buon appetito !

Scones Fever

Raisin Scones

Cheese Scones

Scones. I got to know about scones only when I came over here to Australia. I remember my first scone, it was from a small little cafe in Hunter Valley. Served with cream and jam. Mmmm.... I still remember me asking my friend, what scone is. Hahaha....

Now that I know what scone is, I have attempt to make some myself. Well, for a start, there are so many variety of scones out there. So to help me make a decision of which scone to make, I got my tester to decide for me (he's gonna taste them anyway). So here's two of his favourites - Raisin and Cheese.

I made these with two different recipes, but both tasted almost the same. Here's the recipe for both:

Raisin Scones:

150ml milk

150ml cream

1 egg

330g/3 cups self raising flour

2 tbs caster sugar

1 cup chopped raisins

1. Preheat oven 200°C. Line large flat oven tray with baking paper.

2. Whisk 150ml milk, cream and egg together until well combined. Combine flour, sugar and raisins in a large bowl. Add milk mixture and stir gently to a soft dough. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently until dough comes together.

3. Press dough out to 2cm thick. Cut scones from dough with a 5cm round cookie cutter and place onto tray flat side up. Press dough together gently and repeat using the remaining dough. Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with a little sugar. Bake 12-15 minutes until golden and well risen.

Cheese Scones:

225g self raising flour

65g butter, cubed

Pinch of salt

30g cheddar cheese, grated

150ml milk

1. Preheat oven 220°C. Line large flat oven tray with baking paper.

2. In a bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

3. Mix in the cheese and then the milk to make a soft dough. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently until dough comes together.

4. Press dough out to 2cm thick. Cut scones from dough with a 5cm round cookie cutter and place onto tray flat side up. Press dough together gently and repeat using the remaining dough. Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with a little sugar. Bake 12-15 minutes until golden and well risen.

As I have 150ml cream left over from making the raisin scones, I have decided to create another flavour of scones using the rainsin scones recipe. For those who know me well, you might have already guessed it - yup, Chocolate Scones ! :)

The recipe for my chocolate scones is exactly the same as the raisin scones except adding 3 tbs of chocolate powder into the flour mixture, increasing the sugar to 3 tablespoons and substitute the raisins with chocolate chips.

I didn't manage to take photo of my chocolate scones because they were gone before I even had the chance to bring out my camera :p hehehe...

Ngor Hiang / Loh Bak

I did my routine grocery shopping on the weekend and on my list was pork mince to make wonton. However, I came across some bean curd skin and decided to change my mind to make ngor hiang instead. Ngor Hiang, also known as Loh Bak in Penang is a dish where the pork is marinated in five spice powder, rolled in bean curd skin and fried to crispy golden brown. Hence the english translation would be Five Spice Pork Roll.

Being my first attempt at making it, I have to search for the recipe. So I went online and found one in one of my favorite blogs, Rasa Malaysia, who has a new blog Nyonya Food. Check it out here. I somehow changed the recipe a little to suit the ingredients I have.

So, instead of strips of lean pork, I used pork mince. I also replaced onion with scallions/spring onion instead to give it a little colour. I omitted the cucumber, which is optional anyway cause I really don't like cucumber and the rest are pretty much the same.

When I started rolling, I realized that my bean curd sheet is really large and I didn't want to cut it. So I ended up with really big long roll of ngor hiang =) Nonetheless, the result is what matters and I think it came out quite alright.