Mushroom & Shredded Chicken Ipoh Hor Fun 香菇鸡丝怡保河粉

Running out of ideas to cook a simple lunch or dinner? Fret not. Try cooking this simple and fuss free mushroom and shredded chicken Ipoh hor fun. I like that there is no worries about stir frying anything and getting my kitchen all greasy, and a meal can be served all in 30 minutes!

I was brought up with a belief that these instant stock contains a significant amount of MSG, so I tried to avoid using them as much as I could. My office mate told me that certain instant stock were okay so I gave it a try since I was just gonna cook the Ipoh hor fun as a dinner meal for just two of us.  Not too bad though, at least I did not have to gulp down tons of water after the meal

Hubby asked me on the difficulty of cooking this dish and I gave a crisp reply of 1 out of 5 star - Easy! And so I conquered another hawker-centre-kind-of-food at the comfort of our own home. More to come!

Mushroom & Shredded Chicken Ipoh Hor Fun

Main Ingredients

1 packet Ipoh Hor Fun (rinse under running water to soften them)
1/2 chicken breast (wash and pad dry with kitchen towel, season with 1/2 tsp salt, a dash of pepper and 1/2 tsp sesame oil. Leave in refrigerator to season for 1 hour or more.)
1 small pack of chye sim vegetable (wash and cut into bite sizes)
4 dried Chinese mushrooms (add more if you wish) - rinsed and soak in water till softened, remove mushroom stems and set aside. Keep mushroom water.)

Gravy
240ml chicken broth (I used Swanson's instant chicken broth)
1/2 bowl of mushroom water
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1/2 tbsp sugar


Thickening agent
1 tbsp cornstarch mixed with 2 tbsp water

Some pickled green chillies (Optional)

A dash of pepper (Optional)

1. Cook chicken breast meat to a small pot of boiling water. Remove and shred meat. Set aside.

2. In another small pot, blanch chye sim and set aside. Blanch rinsed Ipoh hor fun in same pot and portion them on serving dishes.

3. Pour chicken broth into saucepan, add in all gravy ingredients. Add in mushrooms and let gravy mixture comes to a boil and allow mushrooms to cook.

4. Remove mushrooms and set aside. (You may choose to leave it in) Add in thickening agent and stir to prevent clumpy starchy bits. Let simmer to thicken.

5. Place shredded chicken meat, chye sim and dried mushrooms on top of Ipoh hor fun. Spoon thickened gravy over noodles and ingredients. Place green chillies on side of noodles and add a dash of pepper. Serve immediately.

Prawn Noodles with Prime Ribs

My mum is a great cook and cooks wonderful laksa and prawn mee. She is my inspiration when it comes to cooking. Always yearn to be a great cook like my mum and here I am, on this journey. I'm lovin' it!

Tried cooking prawn mee for the first time ever. Not a bad try but could improve further. Nevertheless I am gonna document this down and do better the next round :) Gonna be some time later before I cook this again since prawn mee soups are laden with cholesterol that we all ought to be aware of!

Prawn Noodles with Prime Ribs

(Serves 2)

2 servings of yellow noodles or vermicelli
300g prime pork ribs

300g to 350g tiger prawn shells (heads and tails) - I collected this over few weeks because we don't eat prawns that often

12 tiger prawns or more (deshelled and deveined)

fishcakes, as desired

4 tbsp oil 

8-10 pc garlic (minced)

1 tbsp dried shrimps (minced)

1 tbsp of dark soy sauce
1 tbsp of rock sugar or brown sugar
Pepper, to taste
Salt, to taste

3 tbsp fried onions (2 for saute-ing, and 1 for garnishing -optional)

2.5l of water
4-5 red chili (chopped) - optional

chilli powder - optional

1 small bunch of beansprouts or kangkung - optional

1. Put a small pot of water to boil for blanching prime ribs to rid scums and excess oil. Drain and set aside.

2. Boil 2litres to 2.5litres water - for soup base.

3. Heat oil on high heat in a large pot or wok. Add in washed and cleans prawn shells and saute till fragrant as well as colour cha ges to orange.

4. Add in minced garlic, dried shrimps and sugar and stir fry till fragrant. Stir in fried onions.

5. Add in the boiling water into pot/ wok with prawn shells and mix well. Add in dark soy sauce and pepper. Stir well.

6. Add in prime ribs and mix well. Let boil on high heat for 5min and then lower heat to simmer for 1.5 hour and turn off heat. When ready to serve, let soup come to boil on high heat, use a strainer to remove prawn shells and place in prawns with a strainer to blanch them. Remove and set aside. Do the same with the fish cakes. Sliced the fishcakes thinly after blanch. Thereafter taste soup and add salt to taste, if required.

7. Blanch noodles in a small pot and place in serving bowl. Blanch washed bean sprouts in same pot and place over noodles.

8. Place blanched prawns and sliced fishcakes into bowl. Ladle prawn soup and prime ribs over noodles. Garnish with fried onions and chilli powder if preferred. Serve.

Wanton Mee with Cha Siew & Choy Sum

Singapore is a food paradise and there are just so many local delights to eat and try here.  Hainanese chicken rice, char kway tiao, Laksa, Wanton Mee and so many more that are yummy.

Hubby loves eating Wanton Mee.  Since I have tried my hands at making my own cha siew the last round (and it wasn't all too bad for a 1st timer!), I thought why not make cha siew again, then wrap some wantons and... cook Wanton Mee for dinner, for him - my hubby :)

I used the same cha siew meat recipe that Mum has always used.  This time round I added some maple syrup to the marinate so that the meat could be sweeter (which I like!), hehe~

I was a tad lazy to make my own wanton skins, so I bought ready-made ones from the supermart.

It was my first time making wanton.  I have seen my Mum make them before and had tried helping her with the wrapping part, so it was not all too difficult.  Afterall, with the wide amount of info we can get from the internet and with youtube, anyone can more or less self-learn cooking and baking easily.

Anyway... long post ahead.  Beware.

Airfried Cha Siew 
(Improved version)
150g pork butt (shoulder)
1/2 tbsp soya sauce
1 tbsp cha siew sauce
1 tbsp maple syrup (you can use honey too)
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
3 pcs garlic
A pinch of red food colouring (optional)

1. Mix all ingredients (except the meat) together and test taste to see if it is of your desired sweetness. Place in meat and coat well and let it season for 2 hours, or overnight, if possible.
2. Preheat airfryer at 200deg for 5 min.

3. Place marinated meat on baking tray and airfry 5 min.  Brush meat with sauce on both sides and continue letting it be airfried for another 5 min.

4. Brush sauce on both sides, reduce temperature to 180deg and airfry for about 15 min until charred at some areas. Same thing, brush sauce and flip at every 5 min interval till done.

5. Remove cha siew and slice when slightly cooled.


Wanton Soup

Filling
* 300g minced meat
* 4 pcs of water chestnuts (de-skin and minced)
* 3/4 tbsp of minced dried sole fish
* 3 tbsp sliced spring onions

1 packet wanton skin wrap

Marinate
1 tsp sesame oil
1.5 to 2 tbsp soy sauce (I use premium grade soy sauce by Kwong Cheong Thye and the soy sauce tastes salty sweet)
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tbsp Shaoxing / hua diao wine
1/2 tbsp cornstarch

Soup base
1 small handful of anchovies (remove head, wash 2x and drain)
1 carrot (de-skin)
1 onion (de-skin, wash and leave as whole)
1200ml water
1/2 pcs of dried sole fish

1 bunch of choy sum vegetables (or any type of vegetable of your choice)
Salt to taste (after soup has been cooked)
Finely chopped spring onions (for garnishing - optional)
1/2 tbsp fried sliced onions (for garnishing - optional)


1. Combine all filling ingredients with * asterisk in a bowl.
2. Add in all marinate ingredients into meat mixture.
3. Mix meat mixture with a fork/ a pair of chopstick/ spatula till well mixed.

4. Cover with clingwrap and leave in fridge for 2 hours to 4 hours.
5. Meanwhile, cook the soup base.  Place all soup base ingredients and water into a pot and bring to boil.
6. Lower fire and let soup simmer for further 45min.
7. Turn off fire and leave till ready to be used.  Remove all soup base ingredients.
8. When ready to wrap wanton, gently tear off each piece of wanton skins and leave on a clean dry plate (with each wanton skin stacked on each other).
9. Prepare some water in a small saucer (for dapping around wanton skin to help stick the skin together)
10. Place a piece of wanton skin onto the palm and scoop a teaspoon heap of marinated filling on centre of skin.
11. Dip a finger with some water and dap it around half side of skin.
12. Bring the skin together to form a triangle shape, then bring 2 ends of the triangle to meet the centre with the help of some dab of water.
13. Apply slight pressure to to crumple up the excess skin, forming a rounded "bottom" (fillings portion).  Repeat the same for the remaining wanton.  Keep in airtight container.
14. Bring the pot of soup base to boil (add choy sum and cook, then add salt to taste), and at the same time, bring a small pot of water (for blanching of dumplings) to boil.
15. Add a few drops sesame oil/ cooking oil to the boiling water (for blanching).
16. Lower heat to medium, gently put in required amount of wanton into water and let it cook.  It will float when done, then leave for about 20 seconds more before scooping it up with a sieve.

17. Put wanton into bowl and scoop soup and choy sum over wanton.

18. Garnish with spring onions and fried onions.  Serve on its own or with wanton mee.


Wanton Mee

Sauce for each place of noodles
1 tbsp fried shallot oil or sesame oil
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sambal chilli sauce
1 tsp tomato ketchup (optional)
1 tbsp of soup base (if preferred)

1 small pack of egg noodles
Water

1. Put a small pot of water to boil (for blanching of the egg noodles).
2. While waiting for the water to boil, prepare the sauce for each plate of wanton mee. Mix well.

3. When water comes to a boil, put in loosen bunch of egg noodles and cook till al-dente.
4. Place blanched noodles into a bowl of room temperature water with strainer and do a quick blanch back at the boil water for 3 seconds, strain well and place noodles on the plate with sauce.

5. Place some pieces of wanton, sliced cha siew and choy sum on top of egg noodles and serve immediately accompanied with soup and some green chillies.