Saturday is to go light and easy. My family members will laze around the house to relax. We cook our meals at home and do gardening in the evening.

Most Saturdays after completing the weekly morning marketing trip, my wife would cook a simple lunch for the family. Many a time, she would cook a one pot meal using fresh ingredients just purchased from the wet market. She would normally cook all kinds of noodles, be it mee, meehoon, meesuah, lou shi fun, pan mee, tau chjim(soy bean noodle), yee mee or kuey teow. It can be either soup or pan-fried.

Some of the ingredients are shown here.

Yee Mee Recipe
1 packet yee mee (5 pieces)
200 gm pork, sliced
1 small carrot, shredded
100 gm black fungus, soaked and shredded
3 black mushrooms, soaked and sliced
10 small prawns
2 fish cake, sliced
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon toong choy(salted cabbage), washed and squeezed
1 thumb sized ginger, smashed
200 gm sawi, washed and plucked into 2 inch length
2 sprig spring onions, chopped
2 litre water
1 teaspoon tapioca flour
sesame oil, soya sauce, salt, pepper


Marinate pork(or Chicken) with some sesame oil, soya sauce, salt and pepper.
Boil toong choy(Salted cabbage) and ginger as a soup base.
Blanch sawi and dish out.
Add shredded carrot, black fungus and mushroom and bring to boil.
Toss pork in tapioca flour and stir into soup.
Add prawns and fish cake.
Add in the loosened yee mee and bring to boil.
Stir in egg.

The entire preparation and cooking time is about 45 minutes.

Add salt and pepper to taste.
Garnish with spring onions.
Serve with the sawi and cut chillies.

Yee mee should be eaten hot.

Scallop, Mussel and Peanut Porridge

Having porridge for lunch is a common meal for my farmer grandparents during my growing up years. I had porridge for lunch practically everyday. It was not the fancy or luxurious porridge but plain porridge or sweet potato porridge served with fried salted vegetable, fried salted raddish (Chai Por), boiled salted duck egg or fried salted fish. Occasionally, I had ikan bilis (anchovies) fried with sugar to go with the porridge. I loved this fried ikan bilis. I still craved for this.

I hated the porridge during my growing up years but soon I love this acquired taste for the porridge. I still love to eat porridge for either lunch or dinner. Occasionally, I demanded my wife to cook Teochew porridge for dinner. She will cook four to five dishes to accompany the porridge. Teochew porridge is no longer a poor man’s food. It is being served in five-star hotels and specialty restaurants.

Today, I am sharing with you the one-pot porridge. This one-pot porridge also called the “Cantonese porridge” that goes with different types of ingredient. This most common one is known as the “mussel/peanut porridge”. But I have improvised the recipe by adding dried scallops.

The Recipe for Scallop/Mussel/Peanut porridge (for five persons)

Ingredients:

100 gm of Dried mussel (“tam choy” in Cantonese)
50 gm of dried scallop
50 gm of dried and shelled peanuts
50 gm of ginger cut into slides
one stalk of spring onion cut in fine pieces
50 gm of shredded gingers
one and half cup of rice, washed and drained
six cup of water.
Half a teaspoon of salt.
One teaspoon of white pepper powder.

Soak the dried scallop, dried mussel and peanut in a bowl of hot water for about an hour. Drain away the water and put the ingredients into the pot together with the sliced ginger, pepper powder, rice and water.

I used a pressure cooker. So, the cooking time is about twenty five minutes. For normal pot, the cooking time is about three hours.

After cooking, shake the pressure cooker and let it rest until the pressure knob is returned to normal pressure position. Release the pressure cooker cover lock and stir the porridge. IF the viscosity of the porridge is too thick, add more hot and boiled water to dilute to the desired viscosity.

Sprinkle some sesame oil, white pepper powder and add some shredded ginger and cut spring onion to suit your taste. And here you have this luxurious home cooked porridge for the whole family.

It is very easy to cook. Try this yourselves. If you have problem finding the dried mussel and dried scallop, go to the shops in the Pasar Road market areas in Kuala Lumpur. Alternatively, go to a shop opposite the Central Market (Kwang Yau Heng) that sell all kind of dried seafood.

Potato Rice

My grandma's one-pot meal recipes were not created by design. They were spontaneously decided based on the ingredients available at the particular moment. Some of those recipes were probably handed down by the earlier generations of our ancestor. The good thing is that those recipes were perpectuated. I am glad to have inherited those recipes to share with my next generation. My children disliked those one-pot meal in the early stages. But now they are accustomed to them and loved to eat them. I cook one-pot meal for lunch practically three to four times a week. I also packed the one-pot meal for the children to school and for myself to office. They said it is nice and "easy" to eat. This is because the lunch break in school is very short. Only twenty five minutes break.


My wife and I continue to improvise other one-pot meals. One of my wife's creation is the potato rice. The method of cooking is the same as the other one-pot rice.



Recipe for the Potato Rice.



Ingredients:-


400 - 500 gms of Potato cut into small cubes

350 gms of Onion, sliced them

200 gms of meat (Chicken or pork) cut into cubes

6 cloves of garlic, sliced them

3 pieces of shallots, sliced them

50 gms of ginger, cut into thin stripes.

2 teaspoon of Oyster sauce

1 teaspoon of sesame oil.

1 teaspoon of light soy sauce.

Half teaspoon of salt.

2 tablespoon of cooking oil.

3 cups of rice

3 cups of water.

Sprinkes of white pepper powder


Firstly, heat up the wok. Pour in two table spoon of cooking oil to fry the ginger, shallot and garlic until they turn golden brown and emitting strong aroma. Add in the meat and the potato and stir fry until the meal is cooked. Finally, add the oyster sauce, sesame oil and the salt and fry further for about thirty seconds. Sprinkle some white pepper powder onto the potato. Turn off the fire and transfer the whole lot into the rice cooker with the rice and water added in.

The cooking time is about 30 minutes. The potato rice will be ready for eating. If you prefer more pepperish taste, sprinkle more white pepper powder on to the potato rice.

After some time, my children complained that the potato rice was dry. My wife improvised the recipe further, by cooking the potato and the rice separately.

Instead of transferring all the fried ingredients into the rice cooker, she transfer the stuff into a pot. Water is then added into the pot until it covers all the potatoes and simmer for about fifteen minutes, or maybe longer, depending on the quality of the potato. Taste the potato before switching off the fire. The potato must be soft. The rice is cooked separately as normal plain rice.

The cooked potato is then mix with the rice for eating. And here, you have a plate of moist, aromatic potato rice that I really enjoyed eating. So are my children.

Give yourselves a try. You would not regret this.

Kai Choy (Mustard Cabbage) Rice.

Kai Choy(Mustard Cabbage) is not a popular vegetable due to its bitter taste and fibrous texture. This is typically used by the Chinese to cook with the left over meats after the Chinese New Year re-union feast.

During my growing up years, I ate lots of Kai Choy. My grandparents do not grow or buy Kai Choy. They got them free of charge from the wholesaler by baskets. Whenever there was over supply of Kai Choy in the market, the wholesaler would asked my grandparents to help to get rid of them.

We would have consecutive days of meals with Kai Choy. We would have Kai Choy fried with Ikan Bilis (Anchorvies), garlic and shallot, Salted Kai Choy (home-made salted vegetable = harm choy) and Kai Choy rice.

Occasionally, I like to eat Kai Choy rice. Nowadays, it is not easy to find Kai Choy in the market. Only during the Chinese New Year season, this vegetable is available in abundant in the market.

If you wish to buy Kai Choy rice, I know of only one restaurant that sell this, that is "Sek Mie Choy" in Salak South town.

Kai Choy rice is an economical and easy to cook one-pot meal. Traditionally, this Kai Choy rice has no meat, but I have modified the recipe by adding either cubes of chicken meat or or pork.

The Recipe for Kai Choy Rice (for five persons)

300 gms of Kai Choy, cut into small pieces

one teaspoon of dried shrimps ( small size shrimp)

200 gms of chicken meat(optional)

three pieces of dried Shitake Mushromm cut into small slices

two teaspoons of white pepper powder.

one table spoon of cooking oil

three pieces of shallot (medium size)

five cloves of garlic

one and a half teaspoon of salt

two teaspoons of sesame oil,

two teaspoons of soy sauce.

three cup of rice, washed and drained

three cup of water.

First, fry the sliced shallot and chopped garlic in a wok with one tablespoon of cooking oil until they turn golden brown and emiting strong aroma. Then, add in the chicken meat, mushroom and dried shrimps and stir fry until the meat is cooked. Then, transfer them into the rice cooker with all the rest of the ingredients dumped in.

Cooking time is about 30 minutes and the yummy pepperish Kai Choy rice is ready for eating.

If you like more spicy stuff, sprinkle more white pepper powder and add sambal to the rice. It has that Ooooomph... factor and drive you for more helpings.

Believe it or not. I can eat up to three Chinese rice bowls of Kai Choy rice at a time. Big "Farn Thung" uuh..

Pumpkin Rice - An "Accidental" Crop

Pumpkin was grown behind the kitchen as an "Accidental" crop. My grandparents did not grow pumpkin for commercial reason. Occassionally, they bought pumpkin for cooking and threw the seeds behind the kitchen.

The pumpkin grew among the weeds and creeped up to 30 feet away from the seed. The lucky rats and the jungle fowls had the first harvest. That was the indication that the pumpkin were ripe for harvest. As an "accidental" crop that did not required much effort, the harvest wasn't bountiful. Each creeper bore four to five pumpkin fruits only. And the size of the pumpkin depends on the soil condition and rainfall, ranging from one kilogram to four kilogram.

The picture is one of the local variety of pumpkin available at the market.


The golden colour one on the right is an American variety. This is usually available locally during the Chinese New Year festive season as an ornament, as well as an offering.




During the harvest season, we ate lots of pumpkin. We ate steamed pumpkin, pumpkin fried with dried shrimps and pumpkin rice.

The pumpkin has rich nutritional values, based on research done in USA. It contains Zinc 1 mg, Selenium .50 mg,Vitamin C 12 mg, Niacin 1 mg, Folate 21 mcg, Vitamin A 2650 IU, Vitamin E 3 mg, Protein 2 grams, Carbohydrate 12 grams, Dietary Fiber 3 grams, Calcium 37 mg, Iron 1.4 mg, Magnesium 22 mg and Potassium 564 mg



Pumpkin rice is one of the easiest to cook one-pot meal.

Ingredients for pumpkin rice (for five persons)

500 gms of pumpkin, with skin peeled off and cut into 1 cm by 1 cm cube

one table spoon of dried shrimps.

two table spoons of soy sauce.

one tea spoon of salt.

three cups of rice

three cups of water.

200 gms of chicken meat cut into small strips (optional)


Put all the ingredients into the rice cooker and cook for approximately half an hour.

The sweety yummy pumpkin rice is now ready to eat. Sprinkle some white pepper onto the rice to enhance the flavour.

One-pot Hokkien Chicken Rice

Everybody knows Hainan Chicken Rice. Some of you may have tasted this dish. Many of you also knew and tasted the Claypot Chicken Rice. How many people have tasted the Hokkien one-pot chicken rice? What is that?


This is another value for money one-pot meal handed down by my "Ah Mah".

People says that the world is not fair. Yes, I agreed totally. Human being does not treat another human being equally. Human being also does treat their domesticated animals equally. There is always discriminated by colour, gender, look, size etc.

My grand-parents reared chicken, ducks and pigs. There was obvious discrimination in rearing the chicken.

Hens were preferred over the cockerels. If there were too many matured cockerels, they would fight for control over the hens. Moreover, the hens lay eggs. So for economic reasons, the number of cockerels in the farm was kept to only two for reproduction purposes.

What did they do with the excess cockerels? Some of these young cockerels were slaugthered (the unfortunate ones) for the Hokkien Chicken Rice. The rest were castrated by a "Chicken Doctor", and reared as prized cockerel, eunuch chicken ( Cantonese called this "Yim Kai", Hokkien called this "Ieam Kwuei") until full size. The "Yim Khai" meats were succulent and tasty and had good texture. These eunuch cockerels were mainly sold during the Chinese New Year festive seasons for the big feast.

Not many of the cockerels were lucky to live up to maturity like this one.

But this one has a tough job though, you know. Once the performane was under-rated, it became "Ayam pencen" (retired cock) and would end up in curry chicken pot. Who says life is easy for animals?


Observing the "Chicken Doctor" performing the castration was interesting. He skillfully removed the testicles from the cockerels near the anus, without making a major incision. He sterilized his equipment with hot water and wiped with alcohol. After he had stitched the incision, he applied some dark cream ( presumbly antiseptic) and the castrated cockerel was up and running.

So you see, the farmer discrimated the cockerel and prefered the hens. Otherwise, where on earth do you get all the eggs in the market?

The one-pot chicken rice is comparable to the claypot chicken rice. The difference lies in the way of cooking.

For claypot chicken rice, the rice is cooked first. When the rice started boiling in the claypot, the marinated chicken, Chinese sausage, pre-mixed sauce, (optional salted fish) and rice wine are added in and cooked further until ready to eat.

To cook the Hokkien one-pot chicken rice, all the ingredients and the rice are dumped into the cooking pot at one go and cooked until ready for eating. I loved to eat my grandma's chicken rice but sometimes a small fragment of chicken bone in the rice would hurt me when it get stucked in between my teeth or cut my tongue and gum.

I have therefore modified my grandma's recipe. I used chicken fillets only instead of chicken with bones. I also fried the ingredients in the wok first, to get better aroma and fragrance. Then transfer into the pot with raw rice for cooking. I also substituted oyster sauce for the thick black soy sauce. The end result is a hybrid of hainanese chicken and claypot chicken rice. Looks like Hainan chicken rice, golden yellowish colour, with small cubes of chicken fillets. Wow!!! Easy to cook, nice to eat.

I always cook for my family of five. So, I used the recipe for 5 persons as the benchmark.

The ingredients to cook this one-pot chicken rice are:-

3 piece of shallot

6 cloves of white garlic

1 piece of ginger (one portion cut into stripe and one portion minced into paste= two table spoon of paste).

250 gms of chicken fillet

1 piece of Chinese sausage(optional)

2 teaspoon of oyster sauce.

1 teaspoon of sesame oil.

2 tablespoon of cooking oil.

3 tea cups of rice.

1 teaspoon of salt.

First, fry the ginger, garlic and shallot with the cooking oil. Once they turn golden brown in colour, add in the chicken fillet and Chinese sausage. Fry further until the fragrance and the strong aroma of chicken and sausage emitting. Add in the oyster sauce and sesame oil, stir further to ensure a thorough mix. Transfer the whole lot into a rice cooker and cook with rice and appropriate amount of water.

15 minutes later, you can smell the strong aroma of chicken rice emitting from the rice cooker's vent. The one-pot chicken rice takes about 25 minutes to cook perfectly.

Sprinkle some white pepper powder on the cooked rice.

You have this wholesome, yummy and value-for-money home cooked chicken rice that is nice to eat. If you like, you may add slices of cucumber, tomato and some sambal or cut chillies.

Long Bean Rice by One-pot Chef

My "Ah Mah" has another yummy savoury rice cooked with one pot. The Long Bean Rice.

My grandparents grew long beans for sale and for own consumption. Besides the long bean, the young leaves of the creeper plant were also edible. They tasted best in soup. Better than any other green leafy vegetable you find in the market.

The long bean leaves goes very well with "Pan Mee". I still have this craving for my mom's pan mee with long bean leaves. But today, I cannot find long bean leaves anywhere in the market. To satisfy my craving, I am planting long beans in my backyard now.

My Ah Mah's long bean rice was extremely delicious. The long beans were harvested directly from the farm when they were still young and premature and then cooked within the next hour. These young beans were dark green colour as compared to the matured ones which were available from the market. The matured long beans are either green or light green in colour. My grandma's home grown long beans were succulent and crunchy with a fruity sweet taste.

Again, this is a simple to cook, wholesome and economic meal (see the picture above).

For 5 persons (average eater only), all you need are:-

1. three small shallots (sliced)

2. half of a white garlic bulb

3. Shredded ginger

4. 150 gms of pork or chicken (cut into small cube or slice)

5. 450 gms of long bean (you can have slightly more, if you wish) cut into 1 inch strips.

6. 3 cups of rice (teacup size) & appropriate amount of water.

7. 2 teaspoon of oyster sauce.

8. 1 teaspoon of thick black soy sauce

9. 1 teaspoon of sesame oil.

10. 2 tablespoon of cooking oil.

11. 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

My Ah Mah sometimes cook in a wok and at other times cook in a pot. Both produced the same results. She used only the wood fire. Slow cooking to get the best aroma out.

For me, why bother to use fire wood? Where to get firewood uh? So messy and dirty lah. I also modified a little bit. Use a wok over the gas stove for the ingredients and cook with the electric rice cooker. Wahlao ay! Cleaner and easier. This is called :INNOVATION". Not a perfect recipe but still can get a distinction, 98% of the best..

I fry the ingredients in the wok. Starting with the shredded ginger, follow with garlic and shallot until they turn golden brown colour. Add in the meat and stir fry until it is cooked. Add in the long bean, oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, sesame oil and salt. Stir fry until a strong aroma of the meat and long bean emits from the wok. Turn off the fire and transfer those stuff into the rice cooker, with the rice and water.

About 25 minutes later, the yummy yam yam long bean rice is ready.

Give yourself a try. You would not regret it.

Good Food from Ah Mah (grandmother)

To me good food mean a value for money wholesome and tasty meal. Not those five-star restaurant or hotel foods that can puncture your wallet. My good foods are either from easy to cook home recipes, hygienic road side hawker stalls, food courts, coffee shops or restaurants.

Surprisingly, you can still find value for money foods from stand alone restaurants in the Klang Valley in Balakong, Sri Kembangan, Puchong, Kepong and Kelang Lama areas.

Today I am sharing with you Ah Mah's home cooked food = cook with one pot only. The YAM Rice.

During my childhood days, my grandparents and parents were farmers. We grew cucumber, long bean, french bean, pumpkin, sweet potato, tapioca, banana and bamboo shoots. We also reared pigs, ducks and chickens. We practised pure organic farming. No chemical fertilisers and no pesticides. The droppings from the ducks and chicken and the waste from the pigs were used as fertiliser. The ducks and chickens roamed freely in the vegetable plots hunting for insects and worms. They were fed only once a day with oats and corn. The pigs were fed with cooked banana trunks. rice husk and left over foods collected from restaurants. No commercially processed feeds for the pigs, chicken or ducks. Once a week the pigs were let out to roam freely in the bamboo farm to feast on the young bamboo shoots. Pigs were quite destructive when they were let free in the bamboo farm. So, their freedom was restricted.

Our products were sold to the traders at the Central Market (now this place has been converted to an art market for tourists). Our products were in good demand due to the "kampung" or "choi yuen" style of production.

Back to the YAM rice cooking. Because they were farmers and had little time in the kitchen, all ingredients were dumped into one pot to cook. First, the ginger, garlic and the shallot (all in strips/slice) are fried in the pot with a tablespoon of cooking oil. Once these spices turn brownish with strong aroma emitting, the dried shrimp and the pork (in small pieces of ten sen coin size) are added in and fry until cooked. Add two tea spoon of oyster or soy sauce , one tea spoon of sesame oil and salt. Stir fry. Add Yam (cut in small cube) and stir fry further. Finally, add the rice and water (appropriate amount) and start to cook. About half an hour after, depending on the fire, the YAM Rice is ready for eating. Yummy Yummy Yummy.

You may add sliced cucumber, spring onion and sambal belacan (cooked) to the YAM rice.