Smoky Wok

Everyone, well almost everyone loves the ever popular beef kuey teow (flat rice noodles) dish right? My preference is for the dry version - a staple of Hong Kong hawker food fare.  Well, instead of trying to re-create the famous dish at home, I opted for an easier version with less emphasis on the ubiquitous wok breath ('wok hei').  Anyway, I made do with the ingredients I had on hand which were beef (of course!), flat noodles, cabbage, garlic (one of my least favourite things in the kitchen is peeling garlic) and topped everything off with some freshly made sambal (chili paste) that the bf made.

Chicken katsu is one of my favourite Japanese dishes and the addition of these golden and crispy panko-encrusted chicken dish is most welcome at many meals.  It is quite easy to make these at home, just remember to watch out while frying and to fry at a moderate heat to ensure that the chicken is throughly cooked.  Instead of the usual tonkatsu sauce, I served these with some spicy Thai sauce which is a great change.  Recently, I have taken to making bento and the extra katsu will be frozen and then reheated in the oven at a later date for my bentos!



Simply serve these with rice and a simple salad and you're all set for a satisfying meal.  I marinated the chicken breasts in a mixture of mirin, soy, salt and pepper prior to coating them with panko.  Panko is Japanese style bread crumbs and can be found in most regular grocery stores.  The panko makes the dish extremely crunchy and is very versatile as well.  Always great to have some in your pantry.  For my rice, I added some savoury furikake (a mixture of roasted seaweed, sesame seeds and egg this time) which are easily available in Japanese grocery stores.  It's a convenient and yummy addition to plain rice, I have to say.



This recipe is one of my Yuen Chun Recipes.

This is an old favourite of mine given a slight sprucing up with some yellow bean paste or otherwise known as taucu in Malaysia.  Yellow bean paste has a savoury, distinct and earthy taste (much like miso but slightly stronger).  It lends itself well to a lot of dishes and I'm just starting to experiment with this almost staple condiment (in a lot of Malaysian kitchens) outside of the usual dishes they are added to.  Today's dish is very simple, if you can't eat pork please feel free to substitute with chicken thighs or even chicken wings.  The thick caramel sauce I used gives a beautiful glaze to the dish while the taucu kicks up the earthiness.