Tracy is one of my best blogger friend and also the only one that I had mit up with so far. She is a very
Enthusiastic person who always try out new recipes. She can even whip up a dessert late in the night or wakes up early in the morning to bake or prepare dishes. I really admire her way of doing things and she really encourage me a lot during my downtimes and pushing me trying all those interesting recipes. Like now, I do not need to buy any commercial ricotta cheese because she is the one who taught me how to make it. Thanks pal.
Recently I bought my son over to her house and she is really very warm hearted hosts who whip up a wonderful meal and dessert for us. We really appreciate it so after I came back, I decide to try cooking these two dishes which we had eaten at her place. The
1-2-3 Chicken Stew is a recipe that is pass down to her from her mum, it's a really easy and wonderful dish that everyone should give it a try. The original recipe contains only chicken or chicken with potatoes but I add in some greens and tomato to enhance the colour and give it some extra flavour.
1-2-3 Chicken Stew
Ingredients:
500g Chicken Pieces, cut into bite size
4-6 Cloves Of Garlic, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon Tau Cheong Paste, 豆酱
2 Tablespoons Sugar
3 Tablespoons Black Vinegar,黑醋
1/2 - 1 Teaspoon Dark Soy Sauce
1 Packet Of Sweet Peas,甜豆
1 Medium Potato, cut into small cubes
1 Small Carrot, cut into small cubes
1 Medium Tomato, cut into wedges
1/2 Cup Water
Methods:
1. Wash and clean the peas then saute it in a pan with some oil, garlic and half the tomato wedges for 1 minutes, dish and set aside.
2. Cut, wash and drain the chicken pieces then set aside.
3. Preheat the pan with 1 tablespoon of oil then saute the garlic, tau cheong paste, sugar and black vinegar until fragrant then add in the chicken pieces.
4. Stir-fry the chicken for about 30 seconds then add in the potato, carrot and tomato.
5. Next add in some water, cover and simmer the chicken for about 5 minutes till the potato and carrot are tender.
6. Lastly thicken the sauce with some cornstarch water and serve.
Notes:
I used 2 chicken drumsticks and 3 chicken wings.
You can use this recipe to cook pork ribs instead of chicken too.
Other than the chicken stew, this is one of their family favourite dish which is the Stew Pork Belly. She aslo gave me some fresh whole nutmeg which I had never come across in Singapore. The whole Nutmeg looks similar like a chestnut which wrap in a shell.
This stew pork belly dish is very different from those that I had eaten before. This fragrant of the nutmeg make this dish very refreshing and the taste is more towards the sweeter side rather than the salty pork belly that we eaten outside. For those who loves stew pork belly, maybe you can give this dish a try but you must be prepared because this is not a salty dish.
Stew Dong Po Pork Belly
Ingredients:
500g Pork Belly(三层肉), blanched and cut into 3 sections
3 Slices Of Ginger
2 Nutmeg(豆蔻)
2 Star Anise(八角)
20g Lotus Seeds(莲子), soaked till soft
6-8 Shallot, sliced
15g Rock Sugar
2 Tablespoons Dark Soy Sauce
200ml Rice Wine/Cooking Wine
200ml Water
Some Cornstarch water
Methods:
1. Wash and cut the pork belly strips into 3 sections then blanched in boiling water, drained and set aside.
2. Soak the lotus seeds in warm water until soft, drain and set aside.
3. Preheat a claypot with 1 tablespoon of oil then saute the ginger, shallot, star anise and nutnug until fragrant then add in the blanched pork belly and lotus seeds.
4. Saute the above for 1 - 2 minutes then add in dark soy sauce, rice wine and water.
5. Simmer the mixture over lowest heat until pork is tender and fragrant for about 3 hours.
6. Thicken the sauce with some cornstarch water and serve.
Note: You can add in hard boiled eggs or firm doufu according to your preference. 
Since young I had this habit of eating Durian with warm white rice. For some of you, you might share the same interest as me while for other you might think... Er.... "Durian and White"! Actually, it really taste great to eat durian with rice, especially when you had those top grade can creamy durian. Do give it a try if you happen to have rice and durian at the same time..... It taste as great as the Thai "Durian with Glutinous Rice" dessert.....
Tracy is one of my best blogger friend and also the only one that I had mit up with so far. She is a very Enthusiastic person who always try out new recipes. She can even whip up a dessert late in the night or wakes up early in the morning to bake or prepare dishes. I really admire her way of doing things and she really encourage me a lot during my downtimes and pushing me trying all those interesting recipes. Like now, I do not need to buy any commercial ricotta cheese because she is the one who taught me how to make it. Thanks pal.
Other than the chicken stew, this is one of their family favourite dish which is the Stew Pork Belly. She aslo gave me some fresh whole nutmeg which I had never come across in Singapore. The whole Nutmeg looks similar like a chestnut which wrap in a shell.
This stew pork belly dish is very different from those that I had eaten before. This fragrant of the nutmeg make this dish very refreshing and the taste is more towards the sweeter side rather than the salty pork belly that we eaten outside. For those who loves stew pork belly, maybe you can give this dish a try but you must be prepared because this is not a salty dish.
Saw this very interesting cherries recipe from Obachan's Kitchen. Since cherries are in season now, I decided to get some and try out this recipe. In the original recipe, they called for 1kg of cherries, but I only used about 500g and I already think that it's a lot.
As like what she had mention, she soaked her pitted cherries in Sherry. But for my case, I soaked them in Grand Mariner(orange liqueur) to make enhance the cherries favour in a better way.
Overall, this cake is very moist and soft. It had a slightly light almond scent fragrant because of the added almond essence. But for those who is not an almond fan, then I think you should omit it or else you won't like the scent of the cake.
In the recipe itself, it said used 1 cup of milk for the flour batter, but I only used about 1/2 cup because I found that my flour batter is already quite watery. So if you do want to try out this recipe, please add in the milk slowly and stir until an pouring cake batter consistency. 
For those who had went thru the traditional confinement food, you might have try this Herbal/DOM Chicken Essence before. This soup contains pure chicken juice with herbs and DOM instead of water soup. It's a very "PU(朴)" herbal soup that not only suitable for confinement mum but also can be taken about once a month after the menstruation period.
The way I did my double boil is by placing another pot into the slow-cooker and switch to auto heat to cook. Because I am too lazy to stood by the side on and off to check the heat and water level for normal stove double-boil.