Taste of Childhood

It's been a long time since I last fried bee hoon at home. I'm not sure why I stopped cooking this, perhaps I got tired of frying bee hoon and moved on... I'm glad I tried this one tonight, it's really easy and it could have re-ignited my interest in this dish. However, my boy had indicated that he did not enjoy bee hoon in general. He did have second helping, though.

I was inspired by this post to try my hand at fried bee hoon tonight. It was one ingredient in particular, canned stewed pork ribs, that struck me. I didn't use to enjoy the taste when mom cooked this but somehow, after seeing the photo on that post, I was determined to try it. I doubled the recipe and used organic brown rice bee hoon. I would need to do much more to improve on the presentation too.

With my girl doing Home Economics classes, I am hopeful that she will soon take an interest in cooking. She is definitely more keen in sewing, especially in this past year. She had actually put together two outfits on her own for her dolls! At least she takes after my mom in this area, while I try my hand in cooking and baking.

Steamed Glutinous Rice

This is one dish the 2 guys at home really enjoy. My son loves anything made with glutinous rice but I have to limit his intake as old people would say that kids are not able to digest it well. Besides, he will soon be obese if we don't start to control his food intake. As for hubs, he totally loves the steamed glutinous rice from a certain stall at the Tiong Bahru Market & Food Centre.

After tasting Gina's version at the KC Hi-Tea recently, I told myself that I had to try it out again. While there is nothing rocket science about this dish, practice is the key to success. I used the recipe from here.

I remembered that my first attempt at it did not yield any memorable results as there were some uncooked rice. This time around, there wasn't any uncooked bit but the rice could be a little softer. I'll have to add slightly more water to it. As I wanted to have a "white" version, I omitted all the dark sauces and used oyster sauce instead. That yielded a somewhat brownish appearance. Guess I would have to leave oyster sauce out as well if I want a totally white version.

I thought that I could also increase the taste quotient of this next time. However, my boy said this worked just fine for him. Hubs still misses that version from Tiong Bahru... a taste of childhood, maybe?

Korean Pancake

It's been a really long time since my last post, I had been away was one reason. The other, I have not found any recipe that inspired me to take out the mixer and spatula. I'm tempted to bake something for my colleague who will be celebrating her birthday this weekend, but I'm afraid she won't eat the cake as cakes are calorie-laden...

While chatting with a cyber friend, she told me about a particular Korean pancake premix that tasted amazing... ok, if you had seen what ingredients she added, it would be hardly surprising that the pancake DIDIN'T taste amazing. So, I visited the Korean grocery store near my home and found the same packet of Korean pancake premix! Oh, did I mention that she doesn't live in SG? Psst, this premix is supposedly FREE of MSG too!

Since I was on leave, I went out to the local wet market to buy Chives (or koo chye) and prawns. My friend insisted that I had to use chives as that's what makes the pancake yummy. Thankfully, my regular vegetable stall has a bunch remaining and sold them all to me without any hesitation.

From my experience with this pancake, I realised that a flat-based frying pan would give the best looking pancakes. As I used a wok, I ended up with slightly thin pancakes. My friend is right, the pancake tasted really delicious and this is something that I won't hesitate to serve my guests in future. It will be an interesting talking point too!