Lotus Roots and Sweet Corn with Dark Red Kidney Beans

After a break from the blogsphere and a short vacation in Bangkok to celebrate my birthday, I am back again to this hot hot country.

To prevent hydration during this super hot and humid period, pls rem to have more fluid intake!!! Soups help to add on to your fluid intake so cook them :)

This is a healthy soup. With the addition of dark red kidney beans, it enriches the soup further.  Leaving you with the recipe :)

Lotus Roots & Sweet Corn with Dark Red Kidney Beans
Serves 3 to 4

1 segment of lotus root, cleaned and sliced

1 pc chicken breast 

1 sweet corn, de-skinned and cut into smaller pcs

100g of dark red kidney beans

8 to 10 red dates, pitted and rinsed 

3 dried figs, rinsed

2 honey dates

2 litre of water

salt to taste

1. Remove chicken breast skin and all excess fats and blood residues. Wash and drain.

2. Put 2l water to main pot and bring to boil.

3. Meanwhile, bring a separate small pot of water to boil, put in chicken breast and blanch it for another 1 minute to remove oil and scum. Briefly rinse blanched chicken breast meat under running water and place  it into the boiling main pot. Add in all other ingredients (except sweet corns if you want to eat them) into main pot and leave to boil on high heat for about 20 minutes. 

4. Bring down to low heat and let simmer for 2 hours. 

5. Just before serving, bring soup to boil, add in sweet corns and let cook for 5min or till done and then add in salt to taste. Serve.

Air Fried Shallots

Are you a fried shallot lover like me? I love having them in my noodles and congee, not just purely for garnishing but for the crispy feel. Fried shallots taste so so good.

While I love fried shallots, I never like making them on my own. Hate the peeling and slicing, and most of all the frying part, so usually Mum gives me a bottle when she makes them. Lately the supply from mama stopped and I am too ashamed to ask. I thought I could try making fried shallots with my air fryer!

And so I did. Did not know that shallots cost this much nowadays. A small pack cost me 2 bucks! Okay, move on. Did the needful - peeling, rinsing and slicing. Finally the air frying part. Made it. No sweat and I whatsapped a pic of the end product for Mum to see. Mum said she will pass me sliced shallots to air fry for her from now on! Hahahah! 

Air Fried Shallots

2 to 3 handful of shallots, peeled, rinsed and sliced

some oil for coating 

1. Preheat air fryer to 180deg C for 5min.

2. Dislodge air fryer net and pour in sliced shallots. Spread out shallots evenly in air fryer net.

3. Using a cooking brush, brush a layer of oil over shallots and put to air fry on 180deg C for 10min.

4. After 10min is up, stir shallots about to even them out as they will fly about in the net as they get lighter when fried. Put back to airfry again for 10min or till done.

5. Remove and let air fried shallots cooled before storing in airtight container.

6. Garnish your noodles or fried rice with these air fried shallots.

Beef Bulgogi

Another Korean meal for dinner, upon Hubby's request. Since I had a bottle of beef bulgogi sauce bought from Lotte Mart in Seoul from the last trip, I aceded to the Hubby's request.

Brought out the Makgeolli (Korean Rice Wine) and had it with the meat. Not quite a meat lover, but I thoroughly enjoyed that meal of meat and wraps, and drinks! Still can salivate at the thought of it. I wanna cook this soon again!

It would have been abit more work if I made the meat marinate from scratch for I would need pear puree, onion puree and many more ingredients for it. As usual, I took a short cut and used store bought beef bulgogi sauce! Easy peasy. No more lazy shortcuts when I finish up that little bottle.

We had bought more beef than we intended to cook and I marinated it all anyway, just store it in 2 tupperwares. You can freeze 1 portion of the marinated meat, and just bring out to thaw before cooking it. The other portion I merely refrigerated it and let the marinate does its job for like 20 hours before cooking it the next day.  Yummy!

And so with the remaining portion of frozen marinated beef, I cooked them and had it with rice. It was good!

Wrap style or with rice? Your choice :)

Beef bulgogi with a sunny side up.

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I am hungry as I write.

:P

Beef Bulgogi
Serves 2 to 3

370g fresh chuck tender beef (you can use sirloin beef too)
6 to 7 tbsp store bought beef bulgogi marinade
2 garlic, minced
1 tsp sesame oil
1 yellow onion (or 2 if you like onions), de-skin, halved and cut into 4 pcs for each half
dashes of ground black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder (optional but I just wanted to add it hehe)

Garnishing
White sesame

1. Wash beef and dap dry with a kitchen towel. You may choose to slice it when frozen so that you get thin pcs from easier slicing, or be like me just slice it after drying and at room temp. If you are letting the meat be marinated in fridge overnight for more than 6 hours, not slicing it too thinly is okay. Longer hours of marinating tenderizes the meat.
2. Place sliced beef into a container. Add in all sauce, and ingredients and mix well to coat meat evenly. Cover and place in fridge to marinate for at least 2 hours, or better still, overnight.

3. When ready to cook meat, heat 2 tbsp of oil in frying pan, place in marinated meat, break up meat and stir fry till cooked, which takes less than 5 min. Beef slices get cooked fast.

4. Serve immediately with some white sesame sprinkled over. Eat with lettuce and ssamjang plus other sides that you like or enjoy it with plain rice.

Mango Honey Yoghurt Popsicle

The unusually hot and humid weather is making me crave for anything cold to cool my body. Very unlike me, for I am one who is not into icy cold stuff. It is the same with my hubby! And so I thought it was about time I put my popsicle mould (I bought some 1 year back!) into good use.  Make some healthy fruit and yoghurt popsicle, will you?

I have got 2 ripened mangoes, a tub of yummy honey yoghurt, a blender and a popsicle mould, so let's do it :)

I got this from Japan Home.

We love this thick and creamy yoghurt.

A must have in our fridge.

This is a super fast and easy popsicle recipe. Seriously, it couldn't get any easier than this! Best of it all was that these are yummy and healthy sweet treats for yourself, and your littles ones :)

Fret not if you do not have a popsicle mould, you can do good even with paper cups, plastic cups or shot glasses for dainty icy treats. Spoon blended mixture into paper cups, cover with clingwrap and stick in centre of clingwrapped cup with a short straw or a snipped wooden chopstick for support of the popsicle.

Wooden chopstick would have been the better support option but I did not have them, so I used straws. It was quite okay too just that you would have to held it with more care :)

Mango Honey Yoghurt Popsicle

220g mango puree (I used 2 Thai Honey Mangoes)
170g Greek Honey Yoghurt

1. Slice and place mango pieces into blender. Blend!

2. Spoon in Honey Yoghurt into mango puree and blend again.

I filled the moulds with half of the mango yogghurt puree, then spoon in half a tbsp of honey yoghurt and finally topped it off with the remaining mango yoghurt puree. Use a chopstick and loosely stir the puree to create a swirl pattern.

3. Spoon puree into popsicle moulds or paper cups. Do not fill to brim of mould as popsicle will "pop up" slightly when frozen.
4. Place into freezer.

I had extra puree and so the remaining were poured into paper cups.

5. When removing, wrap mould with a hot dish cloth and carefully dislodge popsicles. Enjoy!