Cooking with Mum: Red Tofu Braised Chicken

Here is my favourite everyday recipe for red tofu braised chicken. It's made out of a very hard to stomach fermented bean curd mixture, which has an extreme alcoholic pungency and eye watering taste. Considering the mild taste of every other soy product, fermented bean curd tastes like a roundhouse kick to the face. Once cooked however it turns extremely mild and makes a wonderful sauce. If you like blue cheese, you'd probably like this stuff.

Don't worry about this stuff going off, the longer it lives, the more delicious the flavour, I've had a jar for three years that was absolutely delicious. Just keep it in the fridge with the lid firmly screwed on, upside down to prevent mould growth.

With the vague proportions for the sauce, I recommend start small, maybe 4-6 cubes and half a cup of water. Once you start to dissolve the sauce down, you can thin or thicken it up as much as you want. I normally use 10-12 cubes and a cup of water, since I love the sauce on rice.The bean curd we use, normally comes with chilli added, so we don't add any extra.

Red Tofu Braised Chicken

Vague Ingredients:
1-2 tablespoons of sugar for the caraml
1/2 onion, finely diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
500g chicken
Fermented bean curd
1/2-1 cup of water
Sugar
Chopped red chilli

1. Heat up a pot on a steady medium, splash in a tablespoon of oil and once that has heated up, throw in some sugar.

Creating the caramel, essential to thit ko

2. Continue to stir rapidly up the colour changes to a shade of caramel you find agreeable.

Woah! Action shots!

A little bit darker than this

3. Take off the heat immediately and stir in the garlic and onion, stir briskly for about a minute or two, until they have begun to soften and smell fragrant.

Go go go!

4. Throw in the chicken and cook until no paleness shows.
5. Throw in the sugar, as much bean curd as you can stand and the water. The more sauce you want, the more water and bean curd you should put. Add in a little of the liquid that the bean curd was preserved in as well for extra flavour.

So much bean curd

Give it a mush

6. Put on a lid and allow to simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the chicken has cooked through. Taste at this point and add extra bean curd, if you want a stronger taste, or more sugar if you need to balance out the flavours more.

Sticky Chicken

Every home has their own sticky chicken recipe. This is one of ours, specifically my mum's one. I have no idea how she came up with this recipe but its a cracker. Its sticky, sweet, salty, a bit sour and super garlicky! All the best things in a sticky chicken recipe.

Un/fortunately its also Vietnamese so its got fish sauce in it. You have to put it in a hot pan and it stinks up the house. I don't know what the ratios are, you just do.

Sticky Chicken

Uses: Delicious chicken for dinner, fumigation.

Ingredients:

Oil
Chicken wings/drumsticks
Fish sauce
Sugar
White Vinegar
Minced garlic

Instructions:
1. Shallow fry your chicken at a medium heat in oil, until it is this brown. Pat dry and place aside.

2. While you're waiting for your chicken to cook through and brown, mince up some garlic. Set aside.
3. Mix up at least 3 tablespoons of sugar, vinegar and fish sauce together. It should taste a lot like nuoc mam cham.
4. Brown your garlic in a large saucepan. Throw the sauce on top, avoid the fumes and when its starts bubbling like this, coat your chicken in it. Toss rapidly to ensure a good coat.

5. Serve immediately in all its garlicky goodness. No pics cause I ate them all already.

Coast Recipes

I recently went up to the Sunshine Coast with a bunch of friends from work. We went because Jen is sadly leaving us to head back to her homeland of Canada. She will be sorely missed due to her bubbliness, helpfulness, cheerfulness, general awesomeness and many other nesses. I'm not normally the kind of person to go out drinking even with friends, but I made the exception for Jen.

I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE

I stepped up to cook for 10+ people for the event. As always I was extremely nervous, I'm always worried that I'll give someone food poisoning. My Boyfriend went with me and he said that all during the night he had to keep waking me up because I was grinding my teeth in my sleep.

The kitchen wasn't greatly stocked, the one large knife they had was too long, blunt and slipped off onions, they only had one large mixing bowl and no cake tins. For pots and pans, there was a terrible stainless steel pan that burnt everything, had no insulated handle and that J-Dawg referred to as an ugly slut of a pan, an electric wok that could only be placed in one spot as there was only two electrical points in the kitchen right beside the sink and at the end of the island which had no ventilation. The gas burner was set up so left was off, middle was the hottest heat and then right was lowest heat, weird as fuck. There was one colander to use.

 I was so worried about having nothing special to cook with I went down with my own cooking gear. I brought down a mandolin, two springform 22cm cake tins, a wire cooling rack and a 12 piece muffin tin. I also brought down cinnamon, green onions, pad thai sauce jar in triple wrap, vanilla bean paste, a large amount of red onions/ brown onions/ garlic/ cucumber, garlic chives and flaked almonds.

Despite all this, the food went down really well. On the Monday night I made pork san choi bow, chicken pad thai and apple crumble muffins. On the Tuesday, I made for breakfast, garlic thyme mushrooms, shaker pancakes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, huge amounts of toast and the other girls made breakfast mimosas. I made a lemon cheesecake and more apple crumble muffins during the day. For dinner on Tuesday, we had marinated Vietnamese beef noodle salad and a marinated Vietnamese chicken noodle salad. For breakfast, Wednesday morning we had more bacon, French toast, hash browns, random fruit salad and more toast.

Here are all the recipes I used or at least variations on a theme. I didn't deviate from these recipes very much so here are their links from earlier in my blog.

 Apple crumble muffin,

Pad Thai

San Choi Bow

Uses: easy appetiser, pretending to be healthy

Ingredients:
1 large brown onion, diced
2-4 cloves of garlic, minced
500g pork mince
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup of kecap manis
1/4 cup of oyster sauce
Pepper.
1 can of baby corn, cut into 2-3cm blobs, I used a large 425g can
1 can of water chestnut slices, tiny 1cm pieces, I used the Valcom brand of 227g
1 stalk of lemongrass or 1 tablespoon of lemongrass paste
1 head of iceburg lettuce, carefully separated into cups
Cooking oil

Optional:
1 minced birds eye chilli
Ginger
1 teaspoon of sesame seeds
Diced shiitake mushrooms
Carrot
Turkey/chicken/beef mince

Instructions:
1. Dice up all your ingredients, onions, garlic, baby corn and water chestnut slices. Place a plate or something, while you get everything ready.
2. Heat your frying pan until hot, pour in some oil and get ready.
3. Brown your onions until fragrant, 2-4 minutes, then throw in your garlic and lemon grass until also fragrant.
4. Throw in all your pork mince, break it up with a spoon until they are all just cooked.
5. Pour in all your sauces, stir to combine. Taste and see what is missing, soy sauce is your salt, oyster is your general tastiness, kecap manis is your sweetness. Season with pepper after.
6. Throw in your baby corn and water chestnut pieces until combined.
7. Get someone else to break off your lettuce leaves. The easiest way to do this is to flip your lettuce upside down, and break it off at the very base of the lettuce, peeling carefully outwards so you reveal a whole unbroken leaf. Or you can try this looks cool but a bit wary.

Marinated Beef

Uses: Salads, rice paper wraps, protein loading

Ingredients:
1kg of beef, I used topside roast
1 large sliced brown onion
4 cloves of minced garlic
1/4 cup of oyster sauce
1/4 cup of kecap manis
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/3 cup of cooking oil
1 stalk of lemongrass, 2-3 tablespoons of lemongrass paste
1/2 squeezed lime
1/2 cup of sliced green onions

Instructions:
1. Place the beef in the fridge while you are chopping everything else up.
2.  Get the beef out of the fridge and cut into thin slices of meat. Slightly frozen beef keeps its shape better and doesn't squish down like unfrozen meat.
3. Mix everything together in a large bowl/tray whatever. Place in fridge sometime before you want to actually eat the food, give it at least half an hour to marinate. Leave a note on the fridge door to shake/stir the meat every time someone goes to get something from the fridge.
4. Heat a large frying pan/wok/grill to a high medium/hot heat, oil with butter or actual oil until melted.
5. Cook the meat in small batches, stirring frequently until the onions caramelise and the meat has a nice char, depending on what you use expect this to take anywhere between 3-6 minutes, the thinner the slices of meat the faster it cooks. Allow the meat to rest slightly before serving.

Marinated Chicken

Uses: salads, rice paper wraps, rice whatever really

Ingredients:
1kg of diced, brined chicken thighs, skin off
1 large sliced brown onion
4 cloves of minced garlic
1/4 cup of oyster sauce
2/3 cup of kecap manis
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1/3 cup of cooking oil
1 stalk of lemongrass, 2-3 tablespoons of lemongrass paste
1/2 squeezed lime

*Brine/brining is a technique where you put chopped meat, normally chicken into a salt water bath. You literally chop the meat, throw on some salt, cover it in water and leave it for the same time you would a marinate. Brining both seasons the meat and makes the meat more tender as the salt enters the cells of the meat and causes the meat to absorb more water, increasing its weight and moisture by as much as 20%. It's good for meat like chicken breast which has a tendency to dry out and have little flavour or if you're cooking a whole roast, where one part of the roast cook and dry out faster than the other, ie breast versus thighs. Check out this site for a more scientific explaination.

Instructions:
1. Dice your chicken thighs into bite sized chunks. Place into a large bowl/tray and add about 1/4 cup of salt, you can use more if you are pressed for time. 
2. Cover the chicken in cool water until the chicken just barely floats. Leave for some time before proceeding with the rest of the marinade.
3. Drain off the chicken, chop everything else up.
4. Mix everything together in a large bowl/tray whatever. Place in fridge sometime before you want to actually eat the food, give it at least half an hour to marinate but no longer than a day. Leave a note on the fridge door to shake/stir the meat every time someone goes to get something from the fridge.
5. Heat a large frying pan/wok/grill to a high medium/hot heat, oil with butter or actual oil until melted.
6. Cook the meat in small batches, stirring frequently until the onions caramelise and the meat has a nice char, depending on what you use expect this to take anywhere between 5-10 minutes. Allow the meat to rest slightly before serving.

Ben's Chinese Restaurant

As an ethnic child, nothing was more time consuming than teaching your parent how to do something in a mishmash of English and their native language. For me, it was always with computers. My dad is like early fifties and never grew up with a computer, I'm pretty sure they weren't invented, readily available back then and I'm pretty sure that 1950-1970s Vietnam had bigger things to worry about back then. Like I don't know, the Vietnam war, like recovering from it or fleeing the country on boats.

 For such an intelligent man, my dad just doesn't understand or refuses to understand, how computers basically work. He has piles of meticulously written notes telling him how to turn on a computer, how to save pictures, how to copy links, how to password protect his word documents, how to submit emails and that sort of thing. He is the type of guy who types with two fingers basically.

Herpderpderp.com@yahoo

At the same time he is also a very paranoid, overly cautious and yet entirely mislead by "legit" stuff. He does things like forward chain emails about urban legends, he clicks on online ad banners, he still uses Internet Explorer, he has massive handwritten lists of all his email contacts on sheets of paper and he safely ejects USBs cause it could destroy his work. He once took me home from the library, before we had a internet ready PC, because he was trying to make an email account and he couldn't think of a user name. When I suggested he use his real name, he said the North Vietnamese government could track him down and send him to gaol.

Anyway, both him and VGirl don't have Paypal or Ebay accounts because they refuse to have them in case hackers get their accounts and steal all their money. Yet somehow internet banking is okay without virus protection software. My dad got me to buy him some stuff off Ebay and therein lies the problem.

It was a very painful twenty minute phone call where I had to explain to him how to copy and paste links from his word docx document to the main body of his email since I couldn't open the file, finding the flowers when he was referring to them by the numbers he had assigned them in the email, not understanding that Australia customs confiscates almost everything, explaining that he had to pay postage and handling on the Aussie orchids he wanted, explained I didn't have enough money in Paypal to pay for it and explaining that internet transfers weren't instantaneous.

Yep

To top it all off, I died in Don't Starve on day 82. This is a big deal.

You also never went out, cause your parents didn't trust you to order for them but you could fill out their tax returns and other important paperwork. Ben's Chinese Restaurant used to be the only place my family ever went to when we went out. It was cheap, there were huge proportions, there were menus in Vietnamese and there was karaoke as well. There would be anywhere between 10-20 of us split between two tables, adults and kids of course.

It brought back fond memories and I remembered it was good, so we decided to have dinner there one night. It wasn't as good as I remembered.

The menus were fabulous laminated folders that were slightly sticky.

Chinese banquet

Vietnamese Banquets

Chinese side

More Chinese food

Vietnamese food

Vietnamese side continued and the chef specials

Lunch special

The Vietnamese super special

More Vietnamese food, steam boat!

All the pretty lunch specials

The second page of pretty lunch specials

It was a pretty plain restaurant to be honest, we went on a weekday but it was still pretty busy. Lots of Vietnamese families and older Aussie couples eating, also lots and lots of children running around.

The tables.

We got bottles of water as soon as we sat down, most of our table was laid out already. We also got a basket of condiments including a house made tuong ot, or chilli paste and a bottle of Sriraicha.

H20?

CHILLI!

I didn't particularly want anything from the Chinese side so I went with the Vietnamese side and picked the prawn meat on sugar cane with vermicelli salad (cha tom bao mia yi bom). My mum rarely the prawn meat part because of the sheer number of prawns required to make it to her salad, possibly 90% prawns/pork mince and 10% seasonings. She also complains it takes a while to make which is odd because you just blitz it in a food processor.

Deceptive.

I adored the prawn, it was exactly how I remembered it. It was deliciously savoury, crispy edged, slightly sweet and there were huge amounts of it. I didn't like anything else. The salad was literally a mouthful of soggy carrot pickles, that were so finely shredded to be turned into mush when they pickled, dried out julienned cucumber, bean sprouts and finely shredded lettuce.

This salad was mostly vermicelli noodles to be honest, and the vermicelli noodles used were what is called banh hoi in Vietnamese, a much more delicate strand of noodle that's probably only as thick as a drawn pencil line. Its normally used for weddings and fancy things since its hard to make and topped with a green onion oil. It makes it bloody hard to eat in a salad since this one wasn't well made and it was falling apart with each mouthful.

Regular vermicelli size noodles

Super fine banh hoi type noodles
Technically both could be banh hoi, since they are parcels but the second is more skillful

This is my nuoc mam cham, fish sauce. It was perfectly seasoned, not too salty, not too sour and not too sweet.

Nuoc mam cham

I ordered a coconut juice drink. It was served warm with ice in it. Like bath water warm, all the ice melted in seconds. I wonder if they used those coconut juice packets that you can get frozen?

Not worth the money, buy yourself a packet of young coconut juice instead

My Boyfriend ordered the chicken noodle soup. Exactly as it says on the packet.

Mostly onion.

The soup was good, it had a solid flavour and would be something of the calibre that my mum would produce. My Boyfriend argues that it didn't have much flavour. Unfortunately we both agree that the rest of the soup was terrible, it was marred by the fact that the noodles were undercooked and still a touch hard, the chicken used was just steamed/boiled breast pieces and there was just huge amounts of green and white onion everywhere and not much else. And the kicker?

Ben's Chinese Restaurant:
Atmosphere: 5, your average local Asian restaurant, sticky menus, lots of rowdy Asian kids and none of the waiters speak much English
Service: 5, average. Got our food. We left our umbrella behind and they ignored my Boyfriend for ten minutes, so he just went back inside and picked it off the floor, he had to ask another customer to move to get to it.
Food: 4, pretty bleh all around, thank god its so cheap otherwise I'd be more upset about the whole thing

Marinated beef salad and Peanut Butter Choc Chip Cookies

Marinated beef is my go to recipe and crowd pleaser whenever I have dinner night. Its easy to prepare in advance, its fun to cook in a wok for large amounts of people and being the wok master is always fantastic. This beef recipe is easily adapted to whatever proportions you want, and whatever marinade inclusions you want. Maybe not so much a recipe but a guide line?

This recipe can also be used for rice paper rolls. This time I served it with vermicelli noodles and a salad selection. 

My mother's favourite brand of vermicelli noodles. They come in a packet of eight, and come out in little squares, perfect for one meal. Literally heat water to boiling, shove in noodles and cook until just before al dente. Drain and put somewhere safe. Be careful cause these suckers love water and to get grossly soggy.

My salad plate. Grated carrots. Blanched bean sprouts. Weirdly cut up cucumber and shredded lettuce. ONTO THE RECIPES.

Marinated beef. Shake for deliciousness.

Ingredients: 

Thinly sliced beef. 400g of beef is enough for six servings.1kg is plenty to feed about 6-10 people for one round. I normally use cheapo meat like topside, you could use any type of steak, if you can afford it, whatever you feel like. The marinade makes even topside taste good.

Lemongrass - minced at least the white part of two white stalks.

Garlic cloves - minced at least two cloves

Onions - white/brown/purple, at least one solid medium

Lime juice - at least half a lime squeezed in

Oyster sauce - two-three tablespoons, I lie I just chuck it over until the bowl is covered in a spiral of oyster sauce, usually enough to cover the top as you can see in the instruction picture

Soy sauce - see above

Sesame oil - see two above

Sweet soy sauce - see three above

Cooking oil - two tablespoons to make the meat shiny is what my mother says.

Chilli - one hot chilli. Or chilli flakes if you want. Dried chilli could do I suppose

Pepper - black or white, just a wee bit.

My best friends. Also sinister empty orange juice

Instructions:

Mix it all together. Massage with hands. Alternatively put it in a box, and shake it like a polaroid picture. Shove in the fridge for at least half an hour before you eat. I normally do it 4-5 hours in advance. Stir the mixture as you please for extra flavour. Cook in at butter or oil for as long as it takes for all the meat to turn brown or when the onions begin to soften, at that thiness it will take less than a minute. Reoil the pan as required and scrap off burn bits as needed.

MIX.

Notes:

- For an easy time with the beef, either get your butcher to slice it into ham thin slices or freeze it up to an hour beforehand for an easy time. Soft beef is murder to slice since it slides everywhere. Also tiny slivers of beef tend to burn in the pan when cooking cause you can't pick them up.

 - you can use like stirfry beef if you want, but it tends to be too thick for this recipe. Freeze and maybe use a mandolin to slice it thinner?

- This is not a particularly saucy marinade, its mostly coating the meat. If desired, double, triple quantities for the marinade as wanted. Its not a great idea cause the sauce burns and sticks like crazy on pans if not dealt with quickly

- You can mix and match whatever ingredients you want really. The basic tennants are something sour for tenderness, something sweet for balance and caramelisation, something salty for deliciousness, something that smells good whilst cooking to entice. In this recipe, sour = lime juice, sweet = sweet soy sauce, saltiness = soy sauce+oyster sauce, smells good = lemongrass, onions, garlic and chilli. 

 - alternatives to some of these flavours can include

 - sour, lemon juice, orange juice, vinegar, pineapple juice

 - sweet, honey, sugar, condensed milk, peanut butter. The more you put in the more likely it is to burn though. 

- saltiness - salt? Hoisin sauce, satay sauce. Iunno, premade sauces too I guess.

- smells good - ginger, galangal, cumin, lemongrass, onions

- spice, curry powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, chilli flakes, sambal, harissa

 - Always fry off a bit of the meat before officially serving as you can then balance the flavours as needed.

The finished product

Probably my signature cookie, its never gone wrong but it might now that I've said that since I'm typing this post in advance. Originally stolen from this site, not much was changed from the original recipe cause its a pretty fantastic recipe. I'm just rehashing the recipe with a few tips that everyone should know.

A batch from earlier this year.

Use: 
Bribing nurses for favours. Pick me up on sad days. Fantastic fodder for cookie cutters since the peanut butter really helps hold the shape. Burnt ones can be smashed into vanilla ice cream for utter deliciousness

Ingredients:
1/2 cup softened butter
3/4 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 splash of vanilla essence
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup plain flour
1-2 teaspoons of baking powder
3/4-1 cup chocolate chips

Various junk you need:
2x baking trays
Cooling rack or a cool wire rack
Large mixing bowl
Wooden spoons

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 175C, if you oven overheats a steady 150C is fine too
2. Line your baking trays with baking paper
3. Mix butter and sugars until creamy.

MIX DAMN YOU MIX

4. Mix in your egg, vanilla, flour and peanut butter until a smooth paste is formed
5. Shove in your choc chips, don't overmix or bad things will happen

Cheap arse choc chip bits

6. Keep wide space on all sides when laying out these bad boys cause they have a tendency to hostilely invade each others territory. That different combo of flour seemed to slow down the rate of expansion while still making a nicely fluffy cookie :)

7. 10-12 minutes in if you like em soft. 12-14 if a bit chewier. This is your average when your oven is right, if going at a lower heat, go for a few minutes longer.
8. Shove them on a wire cooling rack and for gods sake wait until cool to eat, they crumble like sand, but show surprising resiliency post cooling down

I couldn't find my wire cooling rack so I ended up using first a pasta colander as seen on the upper left and then the ingenious idea of using one of my oven racks turned upside down. Please take pity on me and buy me a baking tray or a wire cooling rack.

Masterchef 2012 and nuoc mam cham

YEAH ANDY WON. ANYONE BUT JULIA FTW.


I wasn't super keen on Andy winning, I personally thought that Masterchef was over for me when Amina got kicked out just before Italian week. I'm really surprised some of the final 6 actually remained, like Alice who was average in cooking, never cooked anything spectacular but was excellent in team challenges. She also had a crazy samurai sense of honour when it came to competitive things, like choosing savouries in her immunity challenge with Mindy. Alice felt like the dark horse for this years Masterchef, I liked her but I don't think she was good enough to have been where she was in the competition.


The rest of the final six were consistently good throughout the competitions, having gone for immunity challenges or winning multiple immunity boxes and things. On the other hand, I hate Debra. Consistently terrible in team challenges and having no experience in any other culture's food besides stock standard Western cooking. I remember her glass breaking moment for me was the dismal yum cha challenge, where she captained the red team to failure even with Mindy taking the reins, and then proceeding to blame Mindy for sabotaging her leadership and not supporting her. Uhhh, awkward. 

I was just glad Julia didn't win. Arrogance personified. Some of her comments throughout the show have made me double take at her sheer rudeness, she seems like she has the potential to be really mean. 


Poor Audra getting knocked out for her salad. It was really a bad choice though, the criteria were set down and if you're not going to follow judging criteria in the finals to the T, yowza. 


Um. I haven't out or made anything worth posting in a while, however I have a doggy play date tomorrow and am cooking lunch so I figured I would include my much bandied about recipe for nuoc mam cham. The Vietnamese BBQ sauce. It goes on everything :) I didn't bother taking many pictures either, just because its not really difficult. Measure junk out, mix, taste, fix. You get the picture. Its a good Vietnamese staple to know how to do though!

Nuoc Mam Cham - Fish dipping sauce

Use: 

Everything Vietnamese should probably be eaten with this basic sauce. Well everything that isn't a soup I guess. Salads, summer rolls, vermicilli salads, steamed chicken, noodles, any sort of fish, whatever you fancy.

Staples:

Sugar, white/brown is okay. Palm sugar melts badly.

Hot Water to dissolve stuff

Fish sauce - squid brand is what we use

Lemon juice OR lime juice OR white vinegar. Lemon/lime based on preference. Vinegar is frequently used if you want this mix to last pretty much forever. I would say, lemon/lime juice would only last a week or something.

No lemons for me. White vinegar it is.

Additionals:

Garlic
Chilli

Ginger

One birds eye chilli cause I could feel it scorching my eyes with my glasses on

Notes:

Same ratio for the staples barring the lemon/lime/vinegar. So if you use one cup of sugar, ditto for fish sauce and hot water. Or one tablespoon, one of each in equal quantities.

Instructions:

1. Mix one part sugar (tbs, tbps, cup, litre whatever) to one part hot water. Stir until dissolved

2. Add same amount of fish sauce to this mixture, stir until mixed.Add the lemon/lime/vinegar/acid of some sort.

3. Taste and see what it needs, too salty, add more water or acid. Ideally all the flavours should be balanced.

   a. Once you're happy with the taste, you can add in diced/minced garlic and chilli if desired. Traditionally if eaten with fish or duck, ginger can be added in as well. 

Keep in the fridge in a clean, sterilised jar. Stir before use otherwise no floaty bits for you.

Tomorrow I will have more things to post! I promise! At least one cookie recipe or another Vietnamese dish :D!