Little party for little girl

Authentic Asian Cooking- Kimchi Fried Rice

Kimchi Fried Rice

It is the season of Chinese cabbages, so I’d like to touch base a bit of Korean food here – Kimchi. I have been making my own kimchi for nearly 20 years. Thanks for my lovely Korean friend who shares me her authentic Korean cooking. Making kimchi needs a bit of work but I will skip this process because you can find it easily in Asian grocery stores. What I love to share is how to cook kimchi fried rice. It is simple kimchi fried rice that I love to cook at home. My kids love it and I hope you will enjoy it too.

I wouldn’t write the fish sauce seasoning measurements in here because kimchi has its own sourness and saltiness and you need to season it properly by yourself

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons oil

1 clove of garlic (chopped)

300g of beef mince or pork mince

4 cups cooled steam rice

A cup kimchi or more

Fish sauce for seasoning 

1.      Heat the oil in a fry-pan or wok over high heat. Add garlic and stir fry until lightly brown. Add beef mince and stir fried until half cooked. Add kimchi and keep stirring for about 1½ minutes.

2.      Pour in rice and seasoning with fish sauce, stir fry for 2 minutes or until the rice is heated through. Serve hot.

Tata…is done. Happy cooking!

Sticky Pork with Fresh Salad - Asian Cooking

Sometimes don't feel guilty to have a little fat. Life is too short not to enjoy it! Dinner is served.

Northern Thai Noodles Soup

Craving for something super spicy, sour, salty and hot soup which can melt and sweat you in this chilly winter? What I can think of is the superhot Khanom Jin Nam Ngiao – Northern Thai noodles soup dish. Seriously it tastes great and I once cooked it and could not stop eating it, mainly from breakfast till dinner. The broth dish is authentically made of simmer pork ribs, pork mince in mixtures of spices paste, tomatoes, chunk chicken blood (I left it out because it is hard to find in here), with very special dried flower called ‘kapok’. It may be new for you but if you have a chance, have a go, it may surprise you. 

Malaysian and Singaporean Cooking- Melbourne

Chicken Curry Laksa

Chinese Cooking Class, Melbourne

Cold weather in Melbourne. How about having few 'pao's for your morning tea.


More Chinese Cooking Classes details, please visit www.jeanasiancooking.com.au

Malaysian and Singaporean Cooking Class- Melbourne

Don't need to be perfect – daughter and mum school holiday project. My daughter asked me if her curry puffs look good? I said yes, and they don’t have to be perfect.  They simply look beautiful, natural and creative. The most important is you enjoy doing it. See, the picture – looks good.

Thai Cooking Class in Melbourne

Thai Cooking Class.
More information visit www.jeanasiancooking.com.au

Easy Asian Cooking- Stir-Fried Okra

What do you have for your lunch today? I am having the healthy, simple and quick stir-fry okra or lady’s fingers. Take less than 5 minutes to cook. If you like to try, this is the simple way….with 4 main ingredients - garlic, chilli, okra and soy sauce.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil, add in 2 chopped cloves of garlic and 1 sliced chilli and stir fry until the garlic turn lightly brown. Add 200 g of sliced okra and keep stirring for few times. Add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and stir fry for about 5 seconds. Cover with the lid for about 45 seconds (if you like the okra very soft then cover it for a minute with adding couple tablespoons of water). Serve hot with rice.

Secret tips:

-          Is not like old day you can trip the end of the okra to find it is young okra or not. So, look at the lightly green and small okra instead of dark green okra, this is the high chance to buy the young okra.

-          Sliced okra better not to stir-frying too long in order to avoid the mucilage because mucilage increases when heats it applied. That is the reason I try to cover with lid to slightly steam it to make the dish present to eat. 

  By Jean's Asian Cooking 

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

Mother's Day Gift Voucher

Ordering Mother's Day Gift Voucher - Contact Jean: jeancookingclass@gmail.com

Jean's Asian Cooking Classes, Melbourne

Dear valuable customers,

Finally, we are open our cooking classes in Melbourne as restrictions have been eased. Please contact us via contact details below for further information. 

Please visit our new website for the latest update.

Email: jeancookingclass@gmail.com

Phone: 0434 895 893

Update: 1212/2020

Stir- fried Choko with Prawns

Choko (chocho) or Chayote, when did I start to love this funny looking shape vegetable/fruit (I did ask myself when I first saw it many years ago)? It is to native of Central America. But it has become one type of popular vegetables in Vietnam and Cambodia. It provides a good natural sauce of fibre and vitamin C, especially where there is a lack of supplements.

Back to Melbourne, I need to wait for the season to cook. Yes, yes, there are a lot in the market now. Thus, ya! Time to cook choko! I love to use it for simple stir-fry, like normally used in Vietnamese and Cambodian cooking. I love its natural flavour that surprisingly matches well with other ingredients. Here a simple recipe called “stir-fried Choko with prawns”.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

120 g prawns, peeled and de-veined (if use large prawns, diced)

1 choko (400 g or 14 oz), peeled, deseeded, cut into strips

Soy mixture (mix in a bowl):

½ tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Dash ground white pepper

     Heat the oil in a fry-pan, add the garlic and prawns stir-fry for 1 minute or until the prawns are nearly cooked.

     Add the choko and the soy mixture and stir well. Cover the fry-pan with a lid and cook for a minute. Add two tablespoons of water and have a quick stir, cover it again and keep cooking over medium heat for about 2 minutes or until the choko is softened (if you like it crunchy and tender you can cook for just a minute instead). Serve hot with rice.

Prep & cooking time: <15 minutes

Serve: 2-4

I grew a couple of choko plants a few years ago in my back yard and it was very easy. You may think about doing it.

Chinese Cooking Class, Melbourne

Stir-fried Snow Pea Leaves (snow pea shoots) with Garlic

Snow peas, everyone knows snow peas. It is commonly used in either western or Asian cooking. How about snow pea leaves or some may call it snow pea shoots? If you have ever seen them in the market or you already have them in your backyard, what the next thing to do is turn them into a simply delicious stir-fry dish. I cannot describe much in here how tasty they are. I only can tell you that my toddle loves it very much. Basically, they taste naturally sweet. Try this simple and healthy way to cook snow peas leaves.

Stir-Fried Snow Pea Leaves (snow pea shoots) with Garlic

300 g (10 ½ oz) snow pea leaves

2 tablespoons oil

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped 

¼ teaspoon salt or to taste

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Discard the coils of the leaves and rinse the leaves thoroughly.

Heat oil in a fry-pan or wok and fry the garlic over high heat for 20 seconds or until lightly brown. Add the snow pea leaves, salt and soy sauce and stir fry to coat well in oil for about 2½ minutes. (If they are still tough, cover with lid and cook for another 1 minute).  

Preparation time:  >5 minutes                                   

Cooking time: 5 minutes

Asian Cooking Class in Melbourne

What is coming up this weekend?

1. Basics Asian
If you love Asian Food but don’t know how to start or have trouble how to balance the flavour or how to manage in stir fry, this is the class for you. This class is designed for you to learn real hands on home cooking experience.

Date and Time: 28 February 2015 (Sat) - 10:00am - 1:15pm
 
2. Authentic Vietnamese

Learn to cook delicious and popular Vietnamese street food:
 
• Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls with Prawns, Pork and Fresh Herbs
• Classic Vietnamese Dipping Sauce
• Vietnamese Cabbage and Chicken Salad with Homemade Lime Dressing
• Grilled Lemongrass Chicken
• Broken Rice
 
Date and Time: 1 March 2015 (Sun) - (Sun) - 10am - 1:15pm

More information contact jean: jeancookingclass@gmail.com or visit www.jeanasiancooking.com.au

Happy Lunar New Year 2015

Happy Lunar New Year
Xin Nian Kuai Le
Chuc Mung Nam Moi
Gung Hey Phat Choi

Malaysian and Singaporean Cooking Class, Melbourne

Malaysian and Singaporean Popular Food 2 Come to join us to cook delicious and popular Malaysian/Singaporean popular food in just a few hours. Learn to prepare paste from fresh herbs and spices...        Curry Laksa Paste Chicken Curry Laksa Noodles Char Kway Teow Chicken Satay      Extra Bonus (Demo): Prawns and Chinese Chives Fritters - Cucur Udang    Date and Time 21 February 2015 (Sat) – 10am- 1:15pm   Fee: $130 per person Visit www.jeanasiancooking.com.au or Contact: jeancookingclass@gmail.com

Malaysian Cooking Class, Melbourne

Street Food

Market

When you bring the little one to the market, that is what happening....doesn't want to go away