7 dishes + steamed soon hock later
my OPS primary school buddies came over for a 12pax homecooked dinner on 23.6.2016. ^^
i did 8 dishes + dessert.
7 dishes + steamed soon hock later
dinner menu
#1 claypot rice
#2 claypot tanhoon prawns
#3 crab beehoon
#4 chilli crab
#5 fine braised pork ribs
#6 steamed soon hock
#7 白米粉
#8 ocra in nonya sauce
#9 choc banana cake (dessert)
i make an awesome claypot rice.
most recently-
i usually cook about 2.5cups for claypot rice, obviously not enough for 9pax lunch or 12pax dinner.
hence added 3 other dishes with carbs – claypot tanhoon, crab beehoon & white beehoon (WBH)白米粉.
for this evening i cooked 3 cups rice. still a delicious, excellent dish everybody liked, but not quite as wonderful as the previous 2.
the claypot tanhoon was superb la! ^^
very nice peppery taste with coriander flavouring & whole garlic. plus i added quite a bit of thinly sliced belly pork, all i fried till fragrant before adding stock.
i used a fried prawn heads & shells stock & added a very intense chicken stock (from 2 chickens + carrots). & i only added the tanhoon & topped with cooked prawns when the guests were here & ready to serve.
this the second time i cooked this dish. first time was some days ago just to test out the dish.
will post a recipe later! ^^
i fried the prawns with shells in butter first.
prawns were quite good, but next time i will cut out this step & just precook the prawns in the claypot stock first la…
its really a wonderful dish & quite easy to make.
the tanhoon were so infused with the pepper, stock flavours, very tasty la…
i was doing the final cooking for several dishes only when all arived & ready to serve, so forgot the garnishing.
just throwing a few coriander stalk will make the dishes even more appealing la.
the crab beehoon was my very first attempt.
it was really excellent, very intense & flavourful.
i had a stock base of chinese cabbage to balance the shellfish taste, then added the same prawn stock as the tanhoon prawns plus a lot more intense chicken stock. it was a big dish with quite a bit of beehoon so needed quite a lot of stock.
several friends liked it better than the white beehoon because it was more intense. for myself i like both.
i bought 4x500g crabs at chinatown market @ S$30/kg for the 2 crab dishes this evening.
i did not want to get the larger crabs (there was only 1 other option as the only larger crabs the women had were like 600-700g crabs) as it is easier to manage smaller crabs (cracking the pincers etc) & i thought 2x500g crabs were ok for 1 dish.
same thing like tanhoon prawns, i precook the crabs.
then when all guests arrived, just added beehoon into stock & braised (infused) & added the crab last.
beehoon was super & crab was ok.
the chilli crab i did 1 hr+ beforehand. couldn’t manage so many dishes even though just the final cooking when all arrived.
i knew my chilli crab sauce was good, tasty. but as some friends mentioned the crab meat seemed to have like “disappeared” 散去a bit.
so this dish not quite satisfactory to me….need to improve.
i think i will try to get 800g crabs next time, and only cook when guest arrived.
it may seem like there is no difference why not just cook when guest arrived anyway.
but in fact, there will always be errors in preparation, and when a dish is done in ample time, there is time & focus to rectify, adjust the taste. whereas if everyone is waiting for dinner, it is rushed & unless everything turns out perfectly, there is unnecessary stress & we will forget things in a rush. my cooking philosophy is the whole process must be a very relax, fun, enjoyable one so i plan the dishes & preparation in a way that there will not be last minute rush & stresses.
i had an ocra dish with nonya sauce. easy to do, can be done a bit beforehand & real easy stuff.
the fine braised pork ribs deserved a special mention here. 🙂
i had the motivation to reproduce a really tasty & tender pork rib dish after tasting my friend’s dish at the OPS potluck dinner on 21.5.2016.
even though the above 2 photos did not look as nice as the ones i had in the recipe post, in fact the pork ribs were super tasty & tender.
i am very happy with this dish! ^^
for purpose of photography, it would be better to serve on a dish with bits of simmering sauce like the photo in the recipe posts. haha! 🙂
steamed soon hock
i was deciding on hk steamed song fish head or 金香鱼头.
the latter requires deep-fry which i avoid if i can. & song fish head is fishy not for everyone.
steamed soon hock
happens that when u bought crabs the day before, i also bought a soon hock.
so i did a hk steamed soon hock, 11 mins for about 700g fish, about S$10.
steamed soon hock
very very nice fish, meat so so tender 幼 but firm like red garoupa not mushy like seabass.
by comparison, it’s finer more幼 than red garoupa and same sweet fish.
white bee hoon 白米粉
this the second time i made white bee hoon 白米粉.
i decided it was not worthwhile making 三楼米粉. for me both are essentially the same dish same preparation.
but for 三楼米粉you need to crisp the beehoon. so it took really quite long & more precise, to me quite unnecessary effort to produce almost similar results (but got crispy beehoon outside).
& also to have it flat & crispy it is difficult for the big quantity i had. i would have to fry 2 times or serve a small dish (1/2 the size).
white bee hoon 白米粉
So, white bee hoon 白米粉 it was!
white bee hoon 白米粉
& a very good one at it. 🙂
very tasty. it did not have the shellfish flavours like the crab beehoon as i only used chinese cabbage base + chicken stock, but it was very tasty.
to me as good as tampines 844.
wiped clean
all the food were wiped clean! 🙂
red dragon fruit
a friend brought red dragon fruit.
very sweet & good texture.
lychees
another friend brought lychees the small seeded 糯米荔枝, very nice.
& a friend brought a big bag of very sweet mangoes for me. not ripe yet so we did not take this evening.
ah seng durians
i bought 13.6kg MSW 猫山王 musang king durians from ah seng.
ah seng durians 13.6kg
durians were really wonderful.
ah seng durians 13.6kg
why buy in malaysia at RMB50/kg when you get like almost guaranteed good MSW from ah seng?
ah seng durians 13.6kg
my friends only opened 5 boxes. so i kept 1 box & got 2 others to bring 1 box each back.
ah seng durians 13.6kg
i really enjoyed these ah seng MSW durians.
a most fun evening with good friends from primary school going 50/51yrs!
c.h.e.f andy
c.h.e.f 