Was up early in the morning ~ 7am to set off to the wet market for purchases of the fresh ingredients. Made friends with the seafood stall uncle who chose a small but pretty looking "beh kar" (spanish mackerel) and two heavy flower crabs, struggling while he caught them. Went to my regular chicken stall to buy midjoints and was told "fresh chicken comes in 3-joints-wings only". Learnt something new! Then to my regular pork stall to buy huge chunks of lean meat (with some fats) for sweet n sour pork and very lean minced pork (which uncle need to mince separately).
After that, it was the search of Dancing Chef premix paste which made me spend the longest time! Went to three stalls and still did not manage to locate it. Finally, I went to NTUC (hubby joined me after he queued for a long long time and bought his carrot cake and my chwee kuay) and got three packets of pastes - curry chicken, sweet n sour pork and shrimp paste chicken.
Luckily the chicken and sweet n sour pork were marinated from morning. Had invited dad, mum and Phyllis to come over for dinner at 7pm. So I started cooking from 6.30pm (with help from hubby) and finally sat down to eat ONLY 1hr later.
End results pic is as follow:
Tofu soup with Korean wongbok, carrots and minced pork balls - the wongkok and carrots made the soup very sweet, especially since I also added in red dates and dried scallops! The carrots were so soft they melted in my mouth.
Steamed flower crabs with huatiao wine - the wine made the crabs taste sweeter while on the other hand, the balance wine in the bowl was sweetened by the crabs. My first try at it - was quite satisfied with the results.
Homemade otah - recipe was copied from ieatishootipost facebook page but I used Dancing Chef's curry chicken paste instead of thai seafood paste (coz NTUC has no stock). Verdict: all prefer the steamed version vs the airfried one.
Shrimp paste chicken - used Dancing Chef's shrimp paste... not crispy enough coz I had no time to continue airfrying it at 200deg. Tasted not bad yet not too salty (which I was worried of initially).
Sweet n sour pork - great decision to go downstairs to grab pineapple and tomato coz the colour really made the dish more vibrant and tasty looking. The Dancing Chef sweet n sour paste is simply marvellous! Mum helped to clean the plate and left no traces behind!
Recommendations: Dancing Chef premix paste are yummy, contains all natural ingredients and best of all - does NOT contain msg!
(will not be including recipes in this blog. However, if anybody is interested, you can email me and I will reply you personally with the recipe)
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