Thai Cooking Class- Melbourne

More information of Thai cooking class in Melbourne, please visit www.jeanasiancooking.com.au

Asian Cooking Class, Melbourne

Hi, fried eggs again this week! Why? Well, continue to discover this simple and easy ingredient what can do beyond its nature. I am going to use fried eggs to make delicious Thai-styled salad. My both kids love this dish, especially the spicy and sour flavour.

Meanwhile frying the eggs, I run to the backyard to pick a few sprig of Chinese celery and coriander leaves and start making sauce and salad. It takes less than 10 minutes to make the salad. I hope you will enjoy it.

Crispy Fried Egg Salad (Yam Khai Dao)

2 large eggs, carefully cracked into a small bowl

1/3 cup vegetable oil

½ medium onion or 1 big shallot, sliced

2 sprig Chinese celery, coarsely chopped

2 sprig coriander leaves, coarsely chopped

Dressing:

1 bird’s eye chilli or small chilli

1 small clove garlic

1 ½ teaspoons palm sugar

1 tablespoon lime juice

1 tablespoon fish sauce

Heat the oil in a small fry pan or wok until very hot. Add the eggs to the fry pan and fry for about 1½ minutes (the egg white bubbles) or until the bottom of the eggs turns brown and crispy over medium heat. Carefully flip the eggs with spatula and keep frying for about 1 minute or golden brown. Remove the eggs and drain on a paper towel. Cut the eggs into bite seize or about 16 pieces in total. 

Pound the chilli, garlic and palm sugar with pestle in a small mortar. Add lime juice and fish sauce and mix well. Transfer the sauce into a large mixing bowl and add all the salad and eggs and toss well. Serve on a plate.

Note: If you don’t have mortar, simply chop the chilli and garlic into mince. 

Thai Cooking Class- Melbourne

Pandan Leaf

Pandan leaf also known as fragrant screwpine, it is a long and dark green leaf with the unique scent and flavour.  It is used over Southeast Asia and commonly uses to add into various cakes and desserts. It is also can be added into the rice (while cooking), where it imparts a beautifully subtle fragrance and flavour. You can buy it fresh or frozen from Asian groceries and keep in the freezer. Pandan essence can be used as a substitute in desserts. 

Learn how to use it in Thai cooking class on 27 June 2015 (Sat). More information find in the website www.jeanasiancooking.com.au 

2 Ingrediets - Asian Cooking

2 Ingredients – Simple and Healthy Turmeric Chicken

This is my favourite childhood party dish. Nowadays, I don’t have to have a party to enjoy it and I’ve come up with a healthier option by cook it in the oven.

You simply need two ingredients- 1kg of chicken and a packet of turmeric powder, I normally don’t count salt as an ingredient because we all have salt in our kitchen. Then you need to spend just a few minutes to marinate the chicken and put it aside at least 1 hour at room temperature or overnight in the fridge. Cook it in the oven at 200⁰C, go to enjoy a cup of coffee and it should be ready in 25-35 minutes.

1kg chicken, cut into pieces (chicken drumettes/chicken thigh with skin on)
2 teaspoons turmeric powder
1½ teaspoons salt

Preparation time: < 5 minutes
Cooking time: <35 minutes
Serve 4-6

I hope you enjoy it. Happy Cooking!

Jean 

Vietnamese Cooking Class, Melbourne

Paper Rolls at wet market- Vietnam

Happy Mother's Day

Asian Cooking Class- Melbourne

Stir-fried Lettuce with Garlic (1 dollar dish)

As far as I can recall, imported vegetables such as iceberg lettuce, celery, broccoli were very expensive in where I grew up. They were mainly consumed during special occasions and my mum used to said: "this is special and for occasions only". When she visits me in Melbourne she always asks for iceberg lettuces, celery, broccoli for stir fry. I told her that I am happy indeed because they are good for health and widely available. 

Here how one dollar dish works in Melbourne. If you’ve already got oyster sauce and soy sauce in your pantry but if you don’t, it is worthwhile investing a few dollars for these basic ingredients for Asian dishes. You don’t need them much and they cost you peanuts every dish.  

An iceberg lettuce is $1 to $3 depending on season. I paid a dollar for a good size iceberg lettuce at Coles last week and I used half of it only. It took me about few minutes to prepare and less than five minutes to cook. The sweetness and crunchiness were great and natural.

Stir-Fried Iceberg Lettuce with Garlic

300 g (10½ oz) iceberg lettuce

1 tablespoon oil

1 big clove garlic, finely chopped 

Soy mixed (mix all in a small bowl):

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

½ tablespoon soy sauce

1/8 teaspoon sugar

Break the lettuce into pieces, wash and drain well.

Heat oil in a fry-pan or wok and fry the garlic over high heat until almost golden. Add the lettuce and soy mixed and stir fry for about 1½ to 2 minutes.

Preparation time:  5 minutes                                         
Cooking time: 4 minutes

Serve 2 - 4

I hope you will enjoy this simple dish. Happy Cooking!

Phat See Ew

Phat See Ew

My daughter asked me if I can cook soy sauce noodles for her because we haven’t had it for a while. For us, that is a soy sauce noodle dish – Phat See Ew. It is really stir fry noodles with soy sauce as the name tells in Thai. Actually, the name of ‘See Ew’ is soy sauce in Teow Chew which is a dialect from Guangdong province in China. It is one of the popular street stir-fried noodles after Pad Thai in Thailand. It is also a kind of sister or brother of Char Kway Teow.

Phat See Ew is traditionally cooked with sliced pork. However, my daughter is not a big fan of pork, so I mostly use beef or chicken, nothing wrong with that.

Phat See Ew has its unique flavour of slightly sweet which comes from Thai sweet dark soy sauce. I have two versions of Phat See Ew – with Thai dark sweet soy sauce and with normal dark soy sauce. Both work beautifully. Below is with normal dark soy sauce because sometimes it is hard to find the Thai sweet dark soy sauce.

It normally takes me less than 15 minutes to prepare and cook. The recipe looks slightly long, compared to other recipes, but after making soy mixture everything becomes very easy. The most important technique to remember is you need very high heat and do it one plate at a time.

I hope you will like it too!

Phat See Ew Recipe: 

Marinate the meat:

100 g (3½ oz) pork/beef/chicken

½ teaspoon fish sauce

½ teaspoon dark soy sauce

Soy mixture (mix in a bowl):

½ tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon dark soy sauce*

½ teaspoon palm sugar

1 ½ tablespoons vegetable oil, divided

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 egg

250 g (9 oz) fresh flat rice noodles

70 g (2½ oz) Chinese broccoli (phak khana), trim the end and cut into 5cm (2 inch) lengths

¼ teaspoon ground white pepper

To serve (optional): pickled chillies or chilli flakes

Marinate the pork with fish sauce and dark soy sauce in a small bowl.

Heat ½ tablespoon of oil in a wok/fry-pan and fry garlic about 15 seconds or until lightly brown. Add the pork and stir-fry for about 1 minute. Take it out and put it in a small bowl.

Clean the wok and heat 1 tablespoon of oil in high heat, crack in the egg into the wok and slightly scramble for about 15 seconds and push it to a side.  Add the noodles and soy mixture and toss well until the noodles are heated, about 45 seconds. Mix the noodles and egg together for another minute (stop stirring the noodles for about 15 seconds if necessary to get the noodles slightly burned) or until soy mixture is absorbed.

Add Chinese broccoli and cooked pork and stir-fry for 1 to 1½ minutes. Add white ground pepper and keep stirring the noodles until mixed well and cooked through.

Serve with pickled chillies or chilli flakes.  

*(I used thick caramel dark soy sauce, if your dark soy sauce is not thick/dark enough, you can add more)

Preparation: < 10 minutes                                                

Cooking time: < 7 minutes

Serve 1