Salted Egg Tofu (咸蛋豆腐)

My inspiration for making this dish comes from my craving on Salted Egg Prawns which I have not eaten for quite sometime. And since recently I am trying to cook quick and simple homecooked dish within a S$20.00 budget for "2 Dishes and 1 Soup". I decided to try out this “Salted Egg Tofu” which surprisingly turns out well received.

Salted duck eggs are normally boiled or steamed before being peeled and eaten as a condiment to porridge or cooked with other foods as flavouring. The orange red yolk is rich, fragrant and less salty compare to the whites portion.

For a while our sense of taste seems to play a trick on us by making us thought that this tofu dish is actually the "salted egg prawn" due to the familiar taste that they both shared.

Ingredients: (serves 2)

1 Tube of Egg Tofu
10 - 15 Curry Leaves

Egg Yolk Coating:
1 Cooked Salted Egg Yolk, mashed
1 Small Red Onion, cut into wedges
10g of Unsalted Butter
1 Teaspoon of Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Of Cornflour
1 - 2 Sprig Extra Curry Leave

Tip:

~ Remove the outer soil from the salted egg, carefully scrub and rinse well. Cooked it in a small saucespan half filled with water on medium low heat for about 10 minutes. Remove, shelled and take out the salted egg yolk. OR

~ Alternatively, break the uncooked salted egg and remove the yolk and steamed it for 8 minutes before mashing.

Although this dish might be quite fattening due to the ingredients used but I guess having it once in a while should be a good enough to satisfy those craving from the fried salted egg with butter taste. What's more to consider when you only need roughly S$3.00 to prepare this.

Method:

1. Slice tofu equally into 8 pieces of the same thickness.

2. Gently coat it with some cornflour and shake off the excess.

3. Pan-fry the tofu with 1 tablespoon of oil till golden brown and crisp on both side, remove and drain well.

4. Use the remaining oil from the pan, saute the 10 - 15 curry leaves using low heat till crispy and drain well. (you have to do this fast as the leaves tends to get burnt very quickly)

5. With the same frying pan, add in butter and olive oil and simmer on low heat till butter melt before adding in the onion and sprigs of curry leaves. (if you prefer something spicy, you could add in a few slices of cut chili at this stage)

6. Continue to saute the mixture on low heat till the onion begin to soften, stir in the mashed salted egg yolk and give it a quick stir till the well combined.

7. Slowly toss in the tofu, swirl the pan to coat tofu evenly with the salted egg sauce.

8. Discard the sprigs of curry leaves and serve the golden tofu with crispy curry leaves as garnish.

[Blog Event] $20 Budget Meal ~ (Closing date: 27 March 11)

Recently while chatting with some facebook and twitter friends about the TV program known as "3 Plus 1 Sr 3(三菜一汤)" showing on every Wednesday, 8.00pm on Channel 8. I realise that the few of us usually have the habit of preparing homecooked dishes either by our own self, parents or helper at home. Especially now when the food pricing is rather high compare to a few years back, I am sure most of the family would rather prepared some simple homecooked food than eat out most of the days.

So here I would like to urge those who loves to prepare simple homecooked meal to join us in this small event in order to accumulated more cooking ideas as well as sharing with each other on how to purchase ingredients with a minimum sum of budget given.

WHO CAN JOIN:

~ Anyone who is interested to help and share more ideas in preparing homecooked meal.

CRITERIA:

~ Prepare any "2 Dishes plus 1 Soup" or "1 Pot Dish" using a Maximum budget of S$20.00. If you are from overseas, you can also particpiate by converting to the appropriate currency value, (ie. US$15.00, RM$50.00, Rp $138,000 and etc)

~ Send in either your blog link with a post of all the prepared dishes plus soup together with at least 1 recipe on the prepared meal.

Or

~ If you do not have a blog, just send in the photos and recipe of your dishes and I will publish on your behalf in my blog, credited to you. (photos can be taken in any form using digital camera or handphone)

~ Please do mention in your blog that you are sharing this post to “$20 Budget Meal” event and link it to this page so as to encourage more readers to contribute.

SUBMISSION:

~ E-mail your "blog link" or "photos with recipe" to ellenaguan@hotmail.com with a subject "$20 Budget Meal" in the following format:

Your Name:
URL of your post:
Name of your dishes + soup:
Estimate amount spent for each dish:
Attachment of your photo in your email (each photo, preferably 500kb or less).

CLOSING DATE:

~ 20 March 2011, 2359hours 27 March 2011, 2359 hours and all entries will be compiled and posted on 30th March 2011.

~ If the respond is good we will held a readers voting event for the best "$20 Budget Meal" family over at Cuisine Paradise Facebook Page for more giveaways.

For example if you wish to cook some delicious and nutritious herbal soup but you do not have those necessary Chinese Herbs in your pantry. Here is what you can do with any purchase of pre-packed herbal soup ingredients from any local supermarket. I bought this FairPrice(Pasar) herbs for S$4.50 + 2 Chicken drumstick for S$3.20 so total I spent S$7.70 for this pot of Chicken Herbal Soup. In this case I will have S$12.30 balance to get ingredients for another 2 dishes.

  With this pre-packed herbs, follow the instructions at the back of the packet and you will have a pot of delicious soup in a few hours time. Before this, perhaps you would like to take notes on a few items when preparing the soup.

SOME PREPARATION NOTES

~ Always rinse the herbs with either running water or warm water in a bowl to watch away any dirt in it.

~ Depend on your preference, get ready either chicken bones, chicken drumsticks, pork ribs or pork fillet. Trim, rinse and blanched them in boiling water for about 5 minutes, rinse well before use.

~ You can use a auto-timer and cook the soup in slower cooker even if you are out of your house so that the soup will be ready during meal time.


Lastly I hope that everyone can help to contribute some of your homecooked dishes so that we can get the opportunities to learn from each other and add on more cooking ideas to our "2 Dishes, 1 Soup(两菜一汤）" recipes bank.

[Included Microwave Version] Pandan Ginger Milk Custard (薑汁撞奶)

Ginger Milk Custard (薑汁撞奶) is a lovely dessert especially for those who loves the fragrant and hint of spiciness from the ginger. For those who loves dessert or dim sum, you would have tried another similar version  known as Steamed Egg with Ginger Juice or Chinese Panna Cotta. But this ginger milk custard can be consider much more easier to prepare compared to the steamed version once you are familiar with the steps and controlling the heat of the milk used.

To start off with this dessert, you would need 3 main ingredients which are:- Full Cream Fresh Milk, Old Ginger Juice and Castor Sugar.

This is the 1st batch that I made on without adding the Pandan Leaves so it is fully ginger taste dessert.

Ingredients: (make 2 portions)

250ml Fresh Full Cream Milk
2 Tablespoons Fresh Old Ginger Juice
1 Tablespoon Sugar
4 Pandan Leaves, optional

Method:-

1. Rinse and remove the outer skin of the ginger, use a vegetable grater to grate the juice in a cup then sieved the mixture to extract the ginger juice.
2. Place 1 Tablespoon of fresh ginger juice in each ramekin/pudding cup.
3. Simmer milk and pandan leaves to rolling boil(less than 90 seconds, you will see small bubbles forming at the sides of the pot), remove pan from heat and add in sugar, swirl the pan for about 10 times to melt the sugar using the heat from the milk.
4. Next, lift the pan to a height of about 4 - 6" high and pour the warm milk into the prepared ramekin cups.
5. Place the cups aside for about 5 - 10 minutes to cool and set the custard.

Note:-

~ Mostly recipes yield for "Full Cream Milk" with at least 3.8% fat to achieve a firm texture for the custard but for this recipe I have also tried using low-fat milk which success with a smooth and silky texture too.

~ The ginger used must be OLD ginger which produce a "darker" yellow liquid after grating is the key ingredients of this dessert. YOUNG ginger juice won't make the custard set.

~ You can also prepared this using microwave method shown below.

These are my lovely Pandan Ginger Milk Custard after being set for about 5 minutes at the table top. The texture is so smooth that it just glide down your throat leaving a hint of ginger and pandan aroma in your mouth.

MICROWAVE VERSION

For a quick and hassle free method, you can do a few trial using your microwave for making this dessert depending on your microwave power. (For your information, my microwave power is 1100W)

Ingredients: (make 1 portions)

100ml Fresh Full Cream Milk
1 Tablespoons Fresh Old Ginger Juice
1.5 Teaspoon Sugar
2 Pandan Leaves, cut into 3" long pieces (optional)

This photo shows the Microwave version of Ginger Milk Custard where the texture look similar a compared to the stove cooking method.

Method:-

1. Rinse and remove the outer skin of the ginger, use a vegetable grater to grate the juice in a cup then sieved the mixture to extract the ginger juice.
2. Place 1 Tablespoon of fresh ginger juice in either a ramekin cup/small bowl.
3. Microwave milk and pandan leaves in a microwave safe cup/bowl for 50 seconds in a 25 seconds interval. (the timing will depend on your microwave power, but remember not to let the milk boiled)
4. When done, removed the cup and add in 1.5 teaspoon of caster sugar.(do not stir)
5. Using another cup/bowl, pour the milk mixture to and from the cups for about 10 - 12 rounds.(this is to cool down the heat from the milk)
6. Lift the cup to a height of about 4 - 6" high and pour the warm milk into the prepared ramekin cup/bowl.
7. Place the cup (covered with another plate) aside for about 5 - 8 minutes to cool and set the custard.

[Promotion] Burger King Tendergrill Chicken for S$1.00

(Print or download this promotion advertisement to your phone for redemption)

If you have missed out last week McDonald's 1-FOR-1 great deal. Here is another even better offer from Burger King where they are having a one-day promotion starting tomorrow, 10th March(Thursday) from 11.00am at all Burger King restaurants in Singapore (except Escape Theme Park) for the S$1.00 Tendergrill burger. (Usual price from S$5.25.)

HOW TO REDEEM

~ Redemption is easy, all you need is to flash the related advertisement or promotion in any visual form when ordering. It can be coupon print out, newspaper clipping, MMS, edm etc.

~ Redemption period is from 11.00am till restaurant closes on 10th March.


For more details you can visit their site at:-
~ Website : www.burgerking.com.sg
~ Facebook : www.facebook.com/BurgerKingSingapore