Nancy Ho

Went market this morning to get a whole chicken, planning to make prawn paste chicken.
The chicken seller showed me the chicken head, something that i am not very keen to see.
Then he said: "Its a female chicken." Frankly speaking, i have no idea how to identify a female or male chicken.
Out of curiousity, i asked him "what's the difference beteeen female or male chicken?"
He then told me "Female chicken tastes better and have smoother meat. Usually i sell the male chicken to the cooked food stall."

Wow, i never knew that. With my new found knowledge, i went to test my mum.
Guess what!! She knows .... to mum its like common sense
Maybe the older generation have knowledge that they learn from their experiences.
They use to rear chicken that's why they know better compared with us urban people

So how do you identify the female and male chicken just by looking on the head?
Hahah ... just look at its crown. That's why the chicken seller show me the head!!

Chloe loves to eat kaya with white bread esp kaya and butter.
The thought of spending $5-6 dollars for a bottle almost every month does sound a little scary!!
After asking my aunt and surfing the web for kaya recipes.
I found this recipe from Lucy which i found it to be easiest to understand and prepare

Ingredient
400 ml coconut milk
400ml of eggs
500g of sugar
a few strands of pandan leaves (bruise slightly to allow it to release the flavour)

Method

Dissolve the sugar in the egg mixture using simmering water. till the sugar dissolve.
Strain the mixture through a sieve
Transfer the mixture into the inner pot of a double broiler, add in coconut mik gradually
Followed by pandan leaves
Cover the pot followed by steamer cover. Stir the mixture every 5 mins till thicken






I will remove the pandan leaves once the mixture thickens, otherwise it gets difficult to stir
I find it useful to use timer to remind myself to stir the mixture

My mum can cook a mean curry fish head.
One of the many dishes that both me and my brother loves.
Mum's biggest critic was my dear brother!!
Someone who is extremely picky over his food
After many failures, mum's curry fish head finally made it.


Ingredients
300g Onions
4 cloves of garlic
fresh chilli
dried chilli (quantity according to taste)
lemon grass
3 tsp fish curry powder
medium size "ang zhuo" fish head (teochew)
Assam juice
salt and sugar
Vegetable - ladysfingers, bringal and tomato

Method
Grind the onions and garlic in a blender (do not blend it too finely)
Grind chilli separately
Stir fry the onion and garlic with about 2 tbsp of oil
When its fragrant add in chilli paste, adjust according to taste
Then add in curry powder, continue to stir fry in low fire till fragrant
Add in assam juice and lemon grass (pound the ends a little).
Add salt and sugar to taste
When the mixture boils, add in the fish head, turn over when one side is cooked
Add in the vegetable half way through cooking the fish head

Chloe loves to eat bread!! But she cannot eat too much of white bread (as she tend to get bouted)
So i tried to introduce her "ang moh" bread since i love them
I usually goes to German butchery, swiss bread or simply bread to get my weekly dose.
Too bad Chloe don't quite like them ... sigh!!

Having a preschooler who don't like whole grain bread, we usually have leftovers.
So what to do with them?? Make croutons

Here's the recipe adapted from Super Baby Food from Ruth Yaron

Cut the bread into small cubes put it into a small plastic bag.
Add some olive oil, italian herbs (but chloe don't quite like it) and permansan cheese into the bag
I ask my girl to shake everything together
Then put into oven and bake at 170 deg for about 15 mins

Guess what! She finished the crouton neat within 10 mins (which uses about 3 slice when i made them)
What a good way to make her eat my kind of bread hehe!!

I am a simple SAHM (Stay at home mum) to two lovely children - Chloe and Caleb and of course my lovely hubby - BH
After the birth of Caleb, i begin to realised that there is a huge body of knowledge when it comes to being a SAHM.
These knowledge does not just came from me alone but my mother, aunt and of course internet
I wish to keep all these information, be it traditional or modern views for my children to keep
At the same time, it can be a means to keep my tried and tested recipes.


Special thanks to my mum (my best friend) and aunt for sharing their wealth of knowledge
BH for doing up all the back end work to make this BLOG possible.

Please note however that these are my personal opinion and information provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Dumpling festival is very significant day in my family.
Both my mum have aunt formed a great team, one cannot make dumplings without the other.
My aunt does not know how to wrap dumpling but she is good in making cooking the ingredients, while mum is the reverse of my aunt.
They have been doing this since mum was pregnant with me, so you can imagine how many years mum have been making dumplings.

I have watched them since i was a kid, always been fascinated with how they wrap the leave.
When i am much older i had attempted to try to wrap the dumpling but i had never been successful.
This year with 2 kids tagging along, i tired again. Guess what!! I succeed after a few attempts
Mum was not able to explain to me how to wrap, but she simply demonstrated. So, i tried to rationalised it and somehow managed
It was then that i realised the trick to wrapping is to ensure that the two corners are folded properly and leave is aligned vertically.

The type of dumpling that my family made is the traditional nonya bak chang.
According to mum, not many people actualy do it this way anymore as it is extremely time consuming to wrap.
This recipe is being passed down from my aunt's mother in law (who is a nonya) who had since passed on.
Glutinous rice are steamed prior to wrapping and all ingredients cooked. Being a true blue teochew, yam paste was also added to the dumpling



From the photo, you can see that the rice is stained blue using plant extract of butterfly pea (clitoria) or bunga telang (my aunt plucked them around her estate)
As for the recipe will post on a later date after confirming with my aunt on the proportion.

ingredients
Glutinous rice 6kg
Meat 1.5kg
Dried Chestnut 600g
Dried Shrimp 300g
mushroom 200g
shallot 600g
coriander seed powder 100g
pepper dash to 2 tbsp
wintermelon strips 600g
dark soya sauce
bamboo leave 500g
salt small amt