Stewed Chicken With Vegetables

This is quite an easy dish to cook. For two people you'll need a leg of a chicken, i.e. an upper thigh and a drum stick. Chop it into smaller pieces. (You can de-bone it first if you like.Make it easier to eat. Less messy). Marinate the chicken with salt or soya sauce and pepper.Coat it with ordinary flour and fry in hot oil. Put it aside.

Boil some water, about a litre or a litre and a half. Put in a piece of chicken stock. Then cut one or two carrots, two or three tomatoes, dice a potato into cubes, cut two big onions into wedges or big cubes and cut a few stalks of celery into small pieces and throw all of them into the water. Boil the whole thing for about 20 minutes, then add in the fried chicken and continue to boil it until the vegetables are soft. This will be another 30 minutes or so. If you want the soup to be thicker add in a bit of corn starch---about a tablespoonful or a bit less. The flour from the fried chicken should thicken the stock(or soup) a bit. If not then add the corn starch.

I like this dish because it is simple to cook and quite tasty. You don't have to put in those vegetables if you don't have them in your fridge. You can put in any vegetables that you can find lying about in your fridge for a long time and don't know what to do with them!! What the heck!! Just dump them all in--- after cutting them up. That's the beauty of this dish. No hard and fast rules about the ingredients!!! As long as they enhance the taste of the dish. For more people, just increase the ingredients. That's all. Try it and let me know the results. Enjoy!!

Pa

Tim Bak -- Steamed Minced pork with eggs

For this recipes, you can use either pork or chicken meat. Of course, if you want the best results, pork would be the better choice, and the best choice of pork meat to use would be the belly part of the pig, where the lean meat is layered with fats. In Hokkien it is called "Sam Chan Bak".

For a start, you can buy two or three strips of one and a half inches thick, roughly about 300 grams. Remove the skin and mince the meat. The butcher will do it for you for free. You can also do it yourself using your own meat mincer, which I feel will be cleaner. Then use a stainless steel plate about 8 inches in diameter and about 2 inches deep. This will also depend on the steamer you have. If you have a smaller steamer, then the plate will have to be smaller. You must allow the steam to pass round the side of the plate.

Now for the important part :

Put all the meat on the plate. Add in some pepper -- a dash or two, white soya sauce -- about 3-4 tablespoonful, a dash of Worcestershire sauce (Lea and Parrin), knock in 3-4 eggs and mix thoroughly with a fork, beating slightly. Add in some plain cool water and continue to beat until you get the same consistency. The whole thing should be quite watery. Then steam for 45 minutes. If you find that it is not salty enough, then the next time you cook this dish, add more soya sauce. The same with the pepper.
If the meat is taken out from the freezer, you must allow it to thraw by itself, otherwise the whole thing cannot mix properly. Through practise, you should be able to cook quite a tasty dish. Enjoy!! -- Tell me if you have tried it. I would love to hear from you.

Pa.