Birthday Party

I had been waiting for so long for this moment to celebrate my youngest daughter’s birthday. It was so precious and was not just for its purpose but also was to celebrate life, joy, food, memory of our family. The party menu plan was mainly to suit my little princess but it was a bit too much for her friends as she loves so much spicy food.  Thus, I decided to cook half of her favorites and other half to cater her littler friends and others.

I love to serve my guests with fresh food as possible with humble cooking methods- back from basics and oriental.  I decided to do Asian high tea with finger foods-mostly savory, a couple types of noodles, fruit and cakes. The day before the event, as usual, began with shopping, chopping, making spring rolls, preparing curry paste, Malaysian satay paste, satay, honey chicken, turmeric chicken and cake. The next morning, I started with curry, stick satay, curry puffs, fresh vegetables for gluten free Vietnamese paper rolls, stir-fried noodles, satay and chicken. Half way done by noon, my eldest daughter asked: “Mum, you forgot jelly!”  In fact, I didn’t forget it but I really ran out of time. Anyway, we tried it but I was sure we didn’t have enough time for jelly to set and as expected we did not have the jelly for our guests. It wasn’t too bad – we had it the next day. Fortunately, we had enough ice-ream for our friends. Finally, I prepared fruit plate and final assemble for all the dishes. Da, da, da…. off my stove, party started on time and food was ready to serve.

Even though it was a bit busy the whole cooking process was so relaxing and enjoyable. Everyone enjoyed the food and kids loved the play. It was the happy and precious moment to see little kids play and enjoy.

Crispy Fried Egg Salad

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. 

Rice and Fried Egg

Last week was a busy week. I was busy with cooking demo in the city and also preparation for classes. My lunch, thus as simple as rice and egg but I was happy with it. I'd love to share the recipe with you here.

Rice is the staple food in many Asia countries, it can have as simple as fried egg to serve with in anytime or when there is a last minute situation (I mean with a busy lifestyle, sometimes there is no time to cook or maybe there is only eggs left in the refrigerator and sometimes I just feel like eating it). In fact, this is a common way and the most convenience cooking in Asian family recipes. Honestly speaking, I do enjoy the nice taste of it. My grandmother and mother had fed me with this delicious egg and now I sometimes cook it for my daughters as well.

Fried Egg

2 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 egg

1 bowl of warm steam rice

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Heat the oil hot in a small fry-pan over high heat. Fry the egg until well cooked or medium cooked and turn over let it fry until well done or medium cooked.

Pour soy sauce into the fry-pan and turn off the heat. Let the soy sauce stand in the fry-pan for a few seconds. Pour the egg and sauce on top of the warm steam rice. Serve hot.

Note: It looks simple but the secret of making the soy sauce nice in here is the method of cooking it.

Cooking time: 5 minutes