Rice cooker Hainanese Chicken Rice 超容易电饭锅海南鸡饭

We had a long day at IKEA to get a new shelve today (but ended up with a lot of other things >.<), Big Guy and I were really exhausted so decided to stay home and have a simple dinner.

I thought of cooking a one-pot dish. But not noodles or spaghetti, I wanted something warm and with nice aroma. Instantly, Hainanese chicken rice came to my mind. Any typical Malaysian will understand why, it's a local cuisine you can find in almost any coffee shop / local eatery. :))

So we had this for dinner indeed. Took me less than an hour to get the dinner ready - including a blanch baby bak Choy and lady's fingers.

I've cooked chicken rice using the conventional method before, but this time I decided to take shortcut by using our Panasonic rice cooker, and they came out surprisingly delicious! 

The rice was so aromatic with a hint of Pandan, the chicken was tender and flavorful, and E kept saying, "thank you mommy for the wonderful dinner, this is too nice!" :D 

Preparation time: 30 min (include marinating)

Cooking time: 30 min

Serving for: 4 pax 

Ingredients:

• 2 cup rice, washed

• 1 tablespoon cooking oil

• 4 clove garlic, chopped 

• 2 shallots, chopped

• 5-6 slices gingers (cut big slices)

• 2 Pandan leaves, tie into a knot 

• 1 teaspoon sesame oil 

For chicken marinate  

• 2 large whole chicken legs 

• 2 teaspoon salt

• 1 tablespoon ginger wine / rice wine

• a dash of pepper

The Making:

1. Clean and marinate the chicken legs for at least 30 minutes. Make sure you rub the salt evenly, including under the skin.
2. Wash the rice as how you usually do (I usually washed 2 rounds) and on the final round of washing, measure the right amount of water as indicated on the rice cooker, and keep the water aside (DO NOT cook the rice yet)
3. Heat up cooking oil in a deep pan, sauté garlic, shallots and ginger slices till fragrance. Add the chicken leg, ginger wine, sesame oil and cook each side for about 3 minutes.
4. Pour the water from step 2 into the pan. Close the lid and let it simmer for about 10 minutes on medium heat or until the chicken has cooked through. Make sure the entire chicken legs submerge under the broth.
5. Add the chicken and broth into the rice, toss in the pandan knots, start cooking the rice in rice cooker as usual (make sure chicken legs are on top with the skin facing up, just like in the picture below).
6. 
   
   
   
7. Once the rice is ready, dish out the chicken legs and chop into serving sizes (I debone the drumsticks so it's easier for little ones). Loosen the rice with a spatula but leave them in the rice cooker for another 5 minutes before dishing out.
8. Serve the chicken with the fragrance rice, cucumber slices, and chili sauce of your choice. It's a joyful feeling to be able to enjoy savory chicken rice at the comfort of home. 

Hoi Fan-loh!

(Means "dinner is ready" in Cantonese ;-)

Useful Tips:

• the ginger wine / rice wine is optional but they do add to stronger flavor, suggest to omit that if you are serving for young toddlers.

• I do not use much salt in cooking (it's not recommended for young toddlers and certainly not suitable for elderly with risk of high blood pressure), hence adjust the quantity of salt as per your liking.

• you may add a stalk of leek when cooking the chicken rice for better flavor. I skipped this since I am using pandan leave.

• I added extra 1 teaspoon of bentong ginger powder into the rice before cooking, but that's really optional if you do not have it at home. The yellowness in the rice actually came from the ginger so don't worry, no coloring is used. ;-)

More tips!

A friend asked, the rice turns out too wet after cooking, what to do to rescue it?

Just use a spatula to loosen the rice, keep a lid open for short while (water will evaporate from the pot) then close the lid and cook for another few minutes. The rice will turn less moist.

• if you are using brown rice or multi grain rice, it generally takes longer to cook and may be harder to chew. What I usually do is to pre-soak the rice in water at least 30 minutes before cooking. This helps to softer the grains. However, if you are cooking the rice for the first time, try cooking plain rice first before attempting this recipe to get the right water consistency.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

PH

Honey Orange Roast Ribs 蜜汁烤排骨

Althought I'm not a big fan of BBQ food, I have always like barbecue ribs; juicy, aromatic pork ribs... I could never resist. As I was craving for it badly last night (and I've no idea why), I decided to make some roast ribs for lunch, plus some drumsticks which are the kiddos' absolute favorite.

So we had double roast for lunch today - honey garlic roast drumsticks and orange honey roast pork ribs, served with a big plate of mixed fruit salad.

My juicy rib... nom-nom

Paired with tangy fruit salad, less guilt.. ;-)

Ingredients:

Serving size: for 2-4 person

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Roasting time: 45 minutes

• 1/2 dozen pork ribs, cleaned

For Marinate

• a pinch of salt  

• a dash of pepper 

• a pinch of brown sugar 

• 2 tablespoon of premium soy sauce

• 1 tablespoon Shao Xin wine

• 1/4 Orange, squeezed.

• a tablespoon of honey for brushing

• extra basil leaves for garnishing

The Making:

1. Rub the ribs with salt and pepper, add in the rest of the marinate and mix well. Keep refrigerated for at least 30 minutes, turn the ribs occasionally to make sure they absorb the marinate thoroughly.

2. Preheat oven to 180°c, roast the ribs in a non-stick tray for 25 minutes.

3. Remove ribs from oven, turn to the other side and brush generously with honey, then pour the orange juice all over the ribs.

  

4. Continue roasting for another 15-20 minutes until the ribs turn golden brown. Your kitchen will be filled with such irresistible aroma by now. 

That's it, your juicy roast ribs are done. When serving, don't forget to pour the remaining gravy in the tray over the ribs, they are absolutely delicious. 

Enjoy!

Lunchboxes for the Pre-Schooler, Part 2

Entering second month of my lunchbox making for the kiddo, some how have new inspirations this round and created more varieties. I am going simpler and making more meals that can pre-make, such as origini (rice balls) and sandwiches, and still healthy none-the-less.

You may refer to the previous post for more idea & tricks to prepare quick and healthy lunchbox ;) Lunch box under 30 minutes - for the busy moms

Rice, Onigiri & Congee

Sandwiches, Burgers & Nuggets

On the lighter side, some simple bites.

My little boy really loves the mommy-made bento, I guess his happy face and healthy growth are the key motivations for me. 

Hope you get some inspirations from this post too, please do feel free to share with me and the rest of the readers your bento ideas too! ;-)

Cheers,

PH 

Lunch Box under 30 minutes, Busy Mom's Survival Guide..

As E entered primary school, he spends long hour in school everyday from 7am to after 3pm (that's a good 8 hours!). After observing and trying out at what the school's cafeteria offers (not the healthiest kind of food choice, unfortunately), I decided to make him healthy lunchboxes so he will be fueled with good food and better nutrition to meet the daily challenges.

Here are the lunchboxes I've been packing for the little siblings for the past weeks. Updated: You may check out lunchbox idea here!

Sandwiches..

Noodles, Pasta & Rices

Being a working mom who reaches home after 8pm daily, making fresh food daily is really quite a challenge (I've no helper at home neither). So I have constantly explored methods or tricks that work for me and make this sustainable in the long run. 

I'm sharing the tricks and tips that allowed me to have those meals prepared within 15-30 minutes. As much as possible I use real food over processed food (one reason why I hardly used sausages or luncheon meat in my cooking), less salt, less sugar and no MSG used.

Note: the lunchbox I prepared are nothing fancy and pretty like most Japanese bento, don't set high expectation :) My priority is to be practical, delicious, nutrition, and must take no more than 30 min! After all E has all grown up now that he doesn't need his "happy meal" to lure him into eating anymore. Lol.

Here's my survival guide.

1. Pre-prepare the meat in single serving size. 

I clean and cut the chicken / meat to cube or slices or minced (when they are fresh from market), keep them into individual pack of 1 serving size each & freeze them in the chiller. The night before cooking, I'll move one packet to refrigerator section, by the next morning I just have to marinate them and use them for cooking right away. They are ideal to be used for making nuggets, making meatball, stir fry or making soup.

2. Multitask. Maximize usage of your utensil. 

When I boil the meatballs / fish balls and vegetables in the wok, I use the heat to steam the white rice that was cooked the previous night. This makes it super fast, and I will just close the lid and get myself changed, the food is ready when I'm done. ;) 

3. Prepare all ingredients the night before. 

After the kids had gone to bed, I'll then wash and cut the veggies, soak to soften the noodles / spaghetti the night before then store them in air tight containers in the fridge. This drastically shorten the cooking time the next morning - generally only takes me 15 min.

These were the BPA container I used to store baby food when they were little, how convenient. :)

4. Sandwich is the fastest when you have absolutely no time.

I have prepared a variety of sandwiches for the duo - Eggs, ham, tuna, cucumber, cheese, grilled chicken breast (leftover), all these can be ready in like 5 minutes. Coupled them with some healthy sides and you have quite a complete and awesome meal!

Some of the sandwiches I've made for the kiddos...

5. Prepare healthy snacks that can be added to lunchbox. 

Cereal bars, mixed nuts, crackers, cookies & fruits that can be served whole (grapes, blueberries, strawberries, banana, cherry tomatoes). All these add some variety of colors & nutrition to the lunchbox.

Somehow my duo have pretty good appetite so having extra snacks allow them to fill the tummies instantly, conveniently instead of eating junks. ;-)

6. Use an Insulated Bag to store all food in one bag, nothing goes missing!

The food container, drink packets, foldable fork & spoon are all kept in the same bag, and the insulated functions allow the food to keep warm and stay spill proof at the same time. You can easily find them from Daiso for RM5.30, or just get one from the departmental stores.

This also takes the weight away from E's already heavy school bag...

Some of the insulated bags I used. Fuel  is one of my favorite brands, especially the foldable forks and spoons, been using them for 5 years and counting. 

7. Use a good flask to keep the food fresh & warm

I have tried putting fried noodles directly into the container and it turned sour by afternoon (effort wasted!), tried some plastic flask too and only keep warm for about an hour or so. Finally I dug out the Thermos  food flask which I used to store baby porridge when they were little. Still good as new!

I rinse the Thermos with hot water before using, then keep the soup / rice / fried noodle/porridge in there, it can keep warm up to noon time (6-8hours) without problem.

* reminder: must train little ones to handle hot liquid with flask with care.

8. Keep small containers for titbits

I used normal BPA free lunchboxes that comes with standard 1 or 2 compartment, so having some small containers allow the flexibility of having the cut fruits, veggie or snacks arranged neatly instead of having everything mixed up. Best of all, these are things I can prepare the night before.

Most of these items are available from Daiso, except the Fuel foldable fork & spoon which we bought during our trip in Australia. You can find this brand in most major departmental stores nowadays. Those silicon cupcake holders are meant for baking but well, find them ideal for storage too.

  

9. Last but not least, plan the weekend grocery list.

I do my grocery shopping once a week, this ensure I have supplies for cooking variety for the kiddos throughout the week and any leftovers are used up for weekends cooking. What I usually have on the list...

Note: I have free supply of fresh herbs from my garden, so I can just toss in some fresh herbs when cooking for natural flavoring.

That's all folks...

Hope this helps all the busy moms or dads or grannies or caretakers out there. There's no secret really, but just need pre-planning and determination to provide the kiddos good food. 

However, on days I'm busy or tired I would take a day off from cooking and inform E to purchase food at the school cafeteria. I think it's important to stay flexible and don't be so hard on ourselves. :-)

Thanks for reading. Do feel free to send your questions or suggestions, I shall attempt my best to respond. If you like this post and think it would be useful for your friends, colleagues, family or simply anyone you know, feel free to share it, like my Facebook page   and shout about it ok? ;-)

Note..

Many have concerns if the food can stay warm for such long hours without turning bad, I too had the same concern. So what I've practiced is that for all the new recipe I attempted, I'll cook extra and bring to office in a separate flask, so I know if the food taste and smell alright or not. 

Xoxo,

PH