Gingerbread Men

 Christmas is around the corner, my little girl enjoys baking gingerbread men to welcome Santa. 

Christmas voucher is available from now! Please visit our new website or contact us. 

125 g unsalted butter, soften

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup golden syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 ½ cups plain flour, sifted

1 tsp ginger powder 

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

 

3/4 cup pure icing sugar

1 tablespoons boiling water

Any food colours (optional) 

1.    Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush 2 baking trays with melted butter to lightly grease.

2.    Use an electric beater to beat the butter, sugar and egg in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add the golden syrup and vanilla, beat until combined. Stir in the flour, ginger powder, ground cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.

3.    Place the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and roll out until about ½ cm thick. Use a gingerbread man cutter to cut out shapes. Place on trays about 3cm apart. Repeat with any excess dough.

4.    Bake in oven for 10 -12 minutes or until brown. Remove from oven. Transfer to a rack to cool.

5.      To make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a medium bowl. Gradually add 15 ml (1 tablespoon) of the boiling water and mix until smooth. The icing should be a coating consistency. 

6.    Place the icings in small plastic bags. Cut a small hole in a corner of each bag. Pipe icing over gingerbread men to decorate. Finish with Smarties.

One pot fragrant pumpkin rice

Happy Halloween!! This is a dish that we cook when we have a big pumpkin- One pot fragrant pumpkin rice. 

Mix all ingredients below into a bowl to marinade:

150 g chicken thigh fillet or pork, cut into small pieces

2 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoon oyster sauce

¼ teaspoon white pepper

½ teaspoon salt or to taste

 

2 tablespoons vegetables oil

1/3 cup dried shrimp, soaked into hot water for 5 minutes, drained

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 cm ginger, shredded

150 g pumpkin flesh, diced

 

2 cups basmati rice, washed and drained

3 ¼ cups water (for normal rice, 2 cups of rice with 3 cup water)

 

1.    Marinate the chicken with the rest of the ingredients into a bowl and set aside for at least 10 minutes.

2.    Heat oil into the fry-pan or wok, fry the dried shrimps until fragrant. Add garlic and ginger, fry until the garlic lightly brown. Add pumpkin and chicken and keep stir fry until the chicken nearly cooked. Pour it into rice cooker.

3.    Add rice and water and into the rice cooker and let it cooks.

4.    Serve hot and garnish with sliced spring onion or coriander leaves.

 

Jean's Asian Cooking class in Melbourne

 Dear valuable customers,

Finally, we are open our cooking classes in Melbourne as restrictions have been eased. For the safety of our customers and community, we are only open for online classes. Please contact us via contact details below for further information. 

Our new website: https://www.jeanasiancooking.com/

Email: jeancookingclass@gmail.com

Phone: 0434 895 893

3 Flavours Tofu

 3 Flavours Tofu

This is one of my childhood favourite dishes. Sarah also loves this dish very much, she always complains why I only cook half a box 😁. My mum normally uses Japanese eggs tofu but I use whatever tofu that I can find in the market. It is so simple to cook apart from frying the tofu. Happy cooking!

 

Ingredients:

450 g semi-firm tofu (half box), cut into cubes or rectangles

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tbsp dried shrimps, soaked in water for 5 minutes and drained

2 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced

2-3 tbsp ginger flowers, chopped

 ¾ cup sweet chilli sauce or to taste

A pinch of salt (optional)

 

1.    Shallow fry the tofu until golden colour.

2.    Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a frying pan or wok, saute dried shrimps until fragrant. Add garlic and stir fry until slightly brown. Add kaffir time leaves and ginger flowers, stir for another minute. Add sweet chilli sauce and bring to the boil.

3.    Add fried tofu. Stir fry until the tofu is coasted with the sauce. Serve hot. 

                                                                         Ingredients

                                                                   3 flavours tofu

Colourful Summer Rolls

Colourful Summer Rolls

We harvested some of our fresh herbs and flowers from the garden and had fun with decorating our summer rolls. It was a simple cooking, boiled pork, prawns and noodles. The rest were fresh vegetables and rice paper. Served with fresh homemade dipping sauce (lime juice, chilli, water, fish sauce, sugar and garlic) or hoisin sauce. A plate of beautiful summer rolls are ready. Credit to Sarah.

Old Style Char Siew

This time I cooked in the air fryer (200C) but you can cook in the oven. It will be quicker to cook in the air fryer. Turn over the meat once half way of cooking. This is not a very sweet Char Siew, if you like it sweet, please increase the quatity of Maltose.

500 g pork belly (skinless, strip) or pork shoulder
Char Siew mixture (in a small bowl):
20 g fermented red beancurd/Nam Yu
1/2 tbsp Nam Yu water/sauce (in the same jar)
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsps Maltose/Malt sugar or more
3/4 tsp five spices powder
1 1 /2 tbsps Shaoxing wine or rose wine

Marinate the pork with the Char Siew mixture overnight. Bake it in the preheat oven at 200C for about 20 minutes. Turn over the other side and continue to cook for another 10-20 minutes or until cooked (It depends on how thick the meat is).

Keep the remaining mixture sauce in the small pot and bring it to the boil until absorbed and thick. Pour the sauce on top of the Char Siew.

Simple Keow Teow Soup

Simple Keow Teow Soup

I often cook a quick Keow Teow noodles soup at home if I have leftover noodles. So, few days ago, I cooked this dish with kids. It is a very simple dish. I made only 2 portions because I only had 1/2 pack of noodles left.

I boiled about 430g chicken breast in 1.5 L water, 2 tsp salt, a bit of pepper and 4 instant cuttlefish nuggets. Boiled the noodles in a separate pot until just soft. Kids helped to chop 2 cloves of garlic and spring onions. Sarah fried the garlic to make garlic oil. Peeled or sliced the cooked chicken breast...tatata...our breakfast is ready. Have a nice day everyone and keep safe!

Black Pepper Pork Ribs

1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) pork ribs, cut into pieces

6 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon whole black pepper

4 tablespoons sugar or palm sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons fish sauce

Place the garlic and black pepper in a mortar, and use a pestle to grind to paste. Add sugar, salt and fish sauce into the mortar and mix well. 

Marinate pork rips with the garlic and black pepper mixed sauce for 2 hours or overnight in the refrigerator. 

Preheat the grill on 220⁰C. Grill the ribs 20 minutes or until cooked through or cook in the air fryer. 

Hokkien Char (Fried yellow noodles)

Hokkien Char- This is our simple way of cooking Hokkien noodles (yellow noodles) without lard. It is simple and delicious! hope you like it too!

Ingredients:
2 tbsps vegetables oil
2 cloves garlic
5-6 prawns - preferred skin-on
500 g yellow noodles
150 g choi sim or more

Soy mixture (mix in a bowl):
2-3 tbsps dark soy sauce
2-3 tbsps oyster sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp raw sugar or to taste
A bit of black ground pepper
1/4 tsp salt (optinal)
2 cups water

Heat the oil in a wok or big fry-pan and stir fry the garlic until lightly brown. Add prawn cook for 1 minute, or until coloured. Add noodle and stir fry for 1 minute. Pour the soy mixture and let it boil for 5 minutes.

Add choi sim into the noodle, stirring couple of times. Cover the wok with lid on and let it boil for another 5 minutes or thicken. Serve hot.

Thai Grilled Fish Wrap in Leaves- Miang Pla Pao

Miang Pla Pao

Hello especially for all from Europe and Australia that used to attend the classes, I hope you all are cooking delicious food in your kitchen. Today, I am going to post something that many asked me to teach before but normally I would said no. The reason is it takes time to prepare, hmmm...actually not, it needs time for resting the dough. But I can show you a simple video how to make it and you can do it at your home. So, what it is? It is roti canai!! Happy cooking. Enjoy the video. 

                                       Round roti, egg with onion roti and square roti. 

                                                               Making roti canai

Homemade crispy Pork

My little girl loves crispy pork very much. It is our regular meal at home, she never tired of it. It is not difficult to cook at all. You need to have patient to wait for couple of day. Good food always need time to process. Hope you will like it. Happy cooking!

A quick video of cooking crispy pork

Bean sprouts challenge week

Last week was a bean sprouts week. Why I said that? Because it was my first time to make green bean sprouts by myself and turn out they over grown. One cup of green beans turned out massive bean sprouts. Thus, I had to cook whatever dishes that I could think of using bean sprouts. Of course I missed out some ingredients especially the Khmer Laksa that show on the middle top picture, it almost just laksa soup with bean sprouts. What a bean sprouts week, don't you think? 

Chocolate birthday cake for hubby

I made a birthday cake for hubby few days ago. I felt a safe to have homemade cake during the pandemic. It turned out nice and delicious. I used our garden produces to decorate the topping. I was happy with the result. 

Lotus flowers

Jean's food stylist