Claypot lap mei rice

Ingredients
150gm rice
1 waxed duck drumstick
2 liver sausages
2 waxed sausages
1/2 slice waxed pork
3 black Chinese mushrooms (soaked whole)
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1/2 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 bunch Chinese mustard

Method
1. Rinse waxed meats and wash Chinese mustard leaves.

2. Rinse rice and put in claypot. Add sufficient water and cook until water is almost absorbed.

3. Put waxed meat and mushrooms on top of rice and pour both light and dark soya sauce over it. Cover and cook two minutes. When water is fully absorbed, lower flame and allow rice to cook a further 6-8 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, steam or blanch Chinese mustard leaves. Arrange in middle of plate.

5. To serve, remove waxed meats and slice. Arrange on top of mustard greens together with mushrooms. Serve with hot rice.

Claypot lamb

Ingredients
1kg lamb (cut into large cubes)
200gm ginger (sliced thinly)
1 carrot (sliced)
200gm canned bamboo shoots (sliced)
50gm soaked wood ears (mok yee)
100gm Chinese mushrooms (soaked)
1 tsp garlic (crushed)
1 tbsp sesame seed oil
4 tbsp oil

Seasoning
1 tbsp salted red beancurd (nam yue)
3 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup Chinese rice wine
1 tsp pepper
Salt

Method
1. Drain mushrooms and reserve water.

2. Heat oil and sesame seed oil in a claypot. Fry ginger and garlic till fragrant. Add salted red beancurd and lamb cubes. Stir fry five minutes and add the seasonings and mushroom stock.

3. Bring to boil and add mushrooms. Simmer till tender and then add carrots, bamboo shoots and wood ears. Cook another 10 minutes.

4. Serve hot. Garnish with Chinese celery (kan choy), shredded scallions and red chillies.

- From the article Quick meals with lamb by Je'n.

Claypot fish and chicken with coriander leaves

Ingredients

350g garoupa or tenggiri fillets
230g chicken thigh meat, deboned and sliced
2 tsps light soya sauce and pepper for seasoning chicken
Oil for frying fish
1 heaped Tbsp taucheo or fermented bean paste
2 large onions, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, smashed
4cm knob of old ginger, smashed
3 pieces of asam keping
4 dried chillies, soaked in hot water, seeded and cut into two
1 large bunch of coriander or Chinese parlsey, cut into 4cm lengths
3 stalks spring onion, cut into 4cm lengths
170ml water
Salt to taste

Method
1. Fry the fish fillets in hot oil in the wok and set aside.

2. Fry onions, garlic and ginger in 2 Tbsps oil till fragrant. Add the finely chopped fermented beanpaste, and stir for a minute. Add dried chillies and saute.

3. Put in the chicken and fry for a minute. Add asam keping and saute. Add water and stir.

4. Heat up a claypot, pour the contents of the wok into it. Let it simmer for just five minutes. Add the fried fish and taste before adding salt if needed.

5. Add in the Chinese parsley and spring onions and lift off the flame.

Note: You can also use thin slices of belly pork marinated in soya sauce, a little sugar and pepper and dry them first before adding to the claypot.

Claypot chicken wings in oyster sauce

Ingredients
500g chicken wings
2 stalks spring onions, cut into sections
1cm ginger, sliced thinly
5 chinese mushrooms, soaked till soft and halved
3 tbsp cooking oil

Seasoning:
1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
3 tbsp oyster sauce
Dash of ground pepper
1/4 cup water

Extra 1 stalk of spring onions, cut into sections

Method
1. Cut chicken wings into 3 sections at the joints. Discard the tips.

2. In a pan, heat up cooking oil and fry spring onions and ginger slices until fragrant. Add chicken wings and mushroom.

3. Add Shaoxing wine and continue to fry. Meanwhile, heat up claypot until smoking hot.

4. Transfer all the contents into the claypot. Add water and the remaining seasoning, except the extra spring onions. Bring to a boil. Cover claypot and simmer over low heat until chicken wings are tender.

5. Before serving, add extra cut spring onions. Stir well and serve while still hot.

- Contributed by reader Jo

Chinese sambal belacan

Ingredients
Red chillies
Dried shrimps
Red onions
Belacan
Salt

Method
1. Grind red chillies, dried shrimps and red onions separately. Filter if watery.

2. Heat oil and fry belacan until fragrant.

3. Add in ground dried shrimp and fry until fragrant.

4. Add in ground red onions, followed by ground red chillies, and fry until fragrant. The dish should not be watery.

5. Add some salt to flavour.

6. Remove and serve.

- Recipe courtesy of reader Sook Yee

Cheong mang foo kwai

Ingredients
750g pumpkin (slice off a small portion of the top, scoop out the seeds, then wash clean)

Filling
Minced:
100g chicken meat
100g prawns
75g sotong paste
75g waterchestnuts, chopped fine
2 tbsp chopped spring onions
2 tbsp Chinese yin-sai

Seasoning:
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp Chinese five spice powder (ng heong fun)
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp cornflour

Vegetable:
12 pieces black mush-rooms (soak, then bring to boil together with 1 tsp oyster sauce, 1 tsp sugar, pinch of salt, dash of pepper and 1 tsp sesame oil)
50g gingko nuts (peh koay) (shell, remove skin then boil till soft)
10 quail eggs, boil and remove shells
10g fatt choy (soak)

Garnishings:
Carrots (shape into tortoise head, legs and tail)
Broccoli (scald in boiling water, with 1 tsp soda bicarbonate added in)

Gravy:
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
A dash of ajinomoto
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
tsp pepper
1 tsp Maggie chicken stock granules
1 tsp sesame oil

Thickening:
Mixed together:
1 tsp wheat starch
2 tsp water
2 tbsp cooking oil

Chopped fine:
2 pips garlic
2 slices young ginger
1 tbsp Shao Xing cooking wine
1/2 bowl of water or soup stock

Method
1. Mix filling ingredients with the seasoning and chopped spring onions and yin-sai. Stuff this mixture into the hollow part of the pumpkin. Steam for 20-25 minutes or till cooked.

2. Remove pumpkin to a big serving dish. Decorate pumpkin.
Heat a wok with oil and saute chopped ginger and garlic.

3. When fragrant, add in the cooking wine, then water.

4. Mix in the vegetable ingredients and stir well. Add in thickening and bring to a boil.

5. Pour ingredients surrounding the assembled tortoise. Garnish as desired.

6. To serve, slice through the pumpkin together with the filling.

Note: This dish is appropriate for the Chinese New Year, especially with the tortoise which is symbolic of long life. Thus here you have longevity together with fatt choy and the other ingredients around that will bring
wealth and prosperity throughout the year.

Century/hard-boiled eggs with fried ginger and dark Chinese vinegar

Ingredients
4 century eggs (cut into two)
3 hard-boiled chicken eggs (cut into two)
1 Tbsp chopped young ginger
1 Tbsp cooking oil
2 Tbsps Chinese black vinegar (or balsamic vinegar)
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tsps soya sauce
2 Tbsps chopped Chinese parsley
1 Tbsp chopped red chillies (optional)

Method
1. In a serving plate, lay all the eggs, set aside.

2. Heat the cooking oil in a small shallow pan, brown the chopped ginger, turn off the fire and add dark vinegar, soya sauce and sesame oil.

3. Pour the sauce on top of the eggs; sprinkle chopped parsley, chilli and serve.

Tips:

1. Century eggs in supermarkets are usually chicken eggs. I used the duck century eggs which can be bought from the Pudu wet market in Kuala Lumpur.

2. More black vinegar could be added for more sauce.

3. A little brown sugar could also be added to the sauce.

4. Instead of cutting the eggs into two, they can be cut into cubes too.

Catfish and black bean soup

Ingredients

500g black beans
3 litres hot water
1 kg catfish
1½ tbsps salt
1 tsp white pepper
10 seedless red dates
1.4 cm length ginger (sliced)
2cm length of dried mandarin orange peel
1 tbsp chopped spring onion

Method
1. Soak the black beans in water for half an hour and change the water twice.

2. Put the soaked black beans in a soup pot and add the hot water, boil under medium heat for half an hour.

3. Wash and clean (take out the stomach and gills) the catfish, rub it with a tablespoon of salt and wash off the salt with water. Pat dry the fish. Cut the catfish into big chunks, marinate them with half a tablespoon of salt and a teaspoon of white pepper. Put aside.

4. In a non-stick pan, pan fry the catfish chunks and ginger slices with a little oil until they are light brown. Scoop out the fish and ginger slices and put aside.

5. Add the fish and ginger slices, red dates and mandarin orange peel to the black bean soup. Continue to boil the soup for 15 minutes and lower the heat to boil for a further 45 minutes.

6. Add salt to taste. The soup should look thick and yummy; serve with some chopped spring onion.

Cabbage rolls with fatt choy and dried oysters

Ingredients
12 dried oysters, soaked in water
40g fatt choy
3 Tbsps oil
6 cloves garlic
2 stalks spring onion, white part only
4 thin slices ginger
3 tsps premium grade oyster sauce
2 tsps light soya sauce
½ tsp salt (or to taste)
2 Tbsps Shiao Xing wine
6 cabbage leaves, blanched in boiling water
400 ml chicken stock (steeped from a chicken breast simmered in 1.5 litres water and 1 tsp sea salt)
1 tsp cornflour

Method
1. Soak the oysters for two minutes in water.

2. Heat oil in wok. Fry whole cloves of garlic till golden and set aside.

3. Fry ginger and the sliced white parts of the spring onion. Add the dried oysters.

4. Splash with the wine and add the oyster sauce and soya sauce.

5. Add the chicken stock and simmer the oysters under low heat for 20 minutes. Add the garlic and simmer for another five minutes.

6. Add the fatt choy, stir and lift the wok off the flame.

7. Put two oysters, a clove of garlic and some fatt choy on a blanched cabbage leaf and roll up.

8. Steam the rolls for five minutes.

9. Heat the remaining gravy in the wok, add a little more salt if needed and thicken with cornflour mixed with a little water. Pour the sauce over the cabbage rolls.

Broccoli with mushrooms

Ingredients
200 gms broccoli
1 carrot
10 Chinese mushrooms
1/2 can button mushrooms (or straw mushrooms)
50 gms fresh oyster mushrooms
2 tbsp oyster sauce

Method
1. Soak Chinese mushrooms. Wash vegetables and slice carrot into pretty shapes.

2. Cut broccoli into small florets and blanch in boiling water till cooked. Remove and arrange in circle on plate. Keep water for stock.

3. Heat one tablespoon oil in kuali and fry carrots for three minutes. Add mushrooms. Stir and add vegetable stock. Simmer five minutes. Season with oyster sauce and thicken with cornflour.

4. Scoop into middle of broccoli florets and serve. You can add prawns and meat to mushroom sauce if so desired.