Yummy Indomie Mie Goreng Cabe Ijo & Other Sambal Ijo Recipes

My sis brought me this from Indonesia & I squealed with delight when I saw it!
I absolutely ADORE Indonesian style cabe ijo (green chilli) flavor profile, and I hardly find it in Hong Kong. That's why I got so excited when Indomie came up with mie goreng (my top favorite instant noodle) with this flavor. And finally, I've tried it!

Yeah yeah, my weekend breakfasts aren't exactly healthy. Weekends are dedicated for indulgence :D
Hmm... weekdays too T_T

My verdict, I tried it twice. The first time, I mixed everything from the packet, although I found it weird that the seasoning included sweet soy sauce (Indonesian sambal ijo flavor isn't normally sweet). It was good, but I'd prefer it without the sweet soy sauce. So the second time I tried it, I left out the sweet soy sauce and it was perfect! The "green chilli" flavors came through and I love love love it!

I had it with a fried egg, Indonesian style, crispy egg white, with still runny egg yolk.
Perfect.

I am not sure if it is available online, but here's how the packaging look like.


Hmmm, sometimes I miss sambal ijo flavors so much I cook stuff with sambal ijo flavors.
Here are some of the recipes:
Udang Goreng Sambal Ijo


Nasi Goreng Sambal Ijo

ENJOY!

Super Easy Choy Sum Shrimp Stir Fry

Another dish my MIL always makes, super sweet veggie, fresh shrimps. Beautiful. Finally I saw her making it recently. It's amazing how she can make the dish taste so good without even using aromatics like ginger or garlic. Very minimal, and the ingredients shine through.

Recipe
- 1 cup shrimps, deshelled, deveined, butterflied
- a pack of choy sum
- vegetable oil, salt, and pepper

Season shrimps with salt and pepper. Heat up frying pan with some vegetable oil, stir fry shrimps until half done and set aside. Stir fry choy sum until they reach the level of tenderness that you like (don't let them turn yellow), season with a bit of salt, add shrimps, stir fry until shrimps are just cooked, and serve.

Perfect for a light meal!

Coca Cola Lime Prawns - Eat Your Drink

It's been a longgg time since I made prawns, and I was suddenly craving it when I saw my colleague brought tomato sauce prawn as her lunch at work. Finally, I managed to make prawns tonight!.
I used Coke & lime this time, I love cooking with my favorite drinks flavors. Sweet, savory, & sour at the same time! It's light too, perfect for summer.

Recipe
- 12 pieces large prawns
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 1 cup of Coke
- 1 lime
- pinches of salt
- a dash of Worchestershire sauce
- olive oil, butter
Melt butter & olive oil in a frying pan, add garlic and onion, saute until fragrant. Add prawns, and quickly add coke and pinches of salt, tasting as you go. You gotta be quick so that the prawns wouldn't get overcooked. If you want, you can mix the "sauce" in a bowl first until you get the desired balance of sweet and salty. Finish with lime juice.

Don't forget to suck all the tasty goodness out of those prawn heads. Lip smacking!

Bakso Goreng Kuah - Fried Chicken & Shrimp Balls in Broth 炸蝦雞波

I made these fried chicken and shrimp balls as an "accessory" to the handmade noodle feast we had last weekend. They're not yet as good as the ones we buy off the streets in Indonesia (I just don't know how they make those crispy-on-the-outside-yet-fluffy-and-airy-on-the-inside "meat" balls), but they were definitely good enough to satisfy my fried balls cravings. Pork would've been better, but since our helper eats with us and she doesn't eat pork, I made chicken ones instead.
個炸雞波其實係個印尼雞麵嘅配菜, 但係妹仔大過主人婆, 所以佢今日出先 XD 老老實實, 冇出面個D整得咁好食, 唔知佢地個D點整可以整到咁有口感嘅, 又彈牙㗎呢? 本來用豬肉肯定會好食D, 但係工人姐姐唔食得, 所以用左雞肉啦.


The recipe is adapted from Lidia's.

- 200 gr ground pork/chicken

- 200 gr small shrimp meat, roughly chopped

- 3 cloves garlic, 1 shallot, minced (and I didn't use green onion)

- 1 tbsp oyster sauce

- 4 tbsp fish sauce

- 2 tbsp white pepper

- 1 tsp sugar

- 2 tbsp corn flour

- 1 egg

- oil for frying

Lidia的食譜:
- 200gf 雞/豬肉
- 200gr 切碎的蝦肉
- 3 舊蒜頭, 1個紅蔥頭, 切碎
- 1 湯匙蠔油
- 4 湯匙魚露
- 2 湯匙胡椒
- 1 湯匙糖
- 2 湯匙生粉
- 一隻蛋
- 大量嘅油, 要嚟炸野

Mix all ingredients in a mixing bowl, heat up oil in a frying pot, shape mixture using two tablespoon and fry until golden brown. I use store bought chicken stock for the broth, garnished with chopped scallion and crispy shallot.
攪均晒D野, 整熱D油, 唔好咁大火, 如果唔係出面燒焦裏面仲生.., 你可以用兩隻匙一交一替咁整D波波, 咁就唔使整到成手都係. 最後就煮雞湯, 攪掂!

Udang Sambal Ijo - Shrimps in Spicy Green Chilli

I had quite a few of crazy stupid food ideas last weekend, but since there were so many things going on (namely, shopping, shopping and more shopping ^_^), I failed to execute any of them. I only managed to make this dish. Luckily, it's pretty damn tasty. Sweet, succulent, springy shrimps with spicy green chilli sambal. It's the perfect dish to clean up some reheated leftover rice, until I realized that we didn't even have leftover rice. I didn't have the time to cook another batch of rice, so we had noodles with this dish, far from perfect. Housewife wannabe FAIL.


Recipe
- a plate of shrimps (the one I bought costs HK$49 a box, they're thai shrimps, deshelled and deveined), I split the back a bit
- 2 cm ginger, bruised
- one whole head of garlic, minced
- 6 shallot, thinly sliced
- 5 large green chilli, sliced thinly, remove the core and seeds if you don't want the sambal to be too spicy
(you can avoid slicing and chopping by throwing everything into a food processor after cleaning and peeling)
- salt, pepper, sugar, fish sauce, ground corriander, cumin, vegetable oil, crispy shallot (optional)

Saute ginger, garlic and green chilli in hot cooking oil, season with salt, pepper, sugar, fish sauce, ground corriander and cumin, add shrimps until they're just cooked, garnish with crispy shallot, serve.

If I had that leftover rice, this could also be a udang sambal ijo fried rice. Dammit. Yum.

Mie Soa with Oyster Sauce Grilled Chicken, Shrimps, Napa Cabbage & Shimeji Mushrooms

I am not a big fan of beehoon (bihun/mai fan/rice noodle), but I am a huge fan of mie soa (min sin), it looks like beehon, but it is more...stretchy and softer. My mom doesn't really cook, but she makes really good simple mie soa with silk squash and a bit of broth. She always made me that dish when I get sick. I am not sick, but I miss the dish and decided to make a version of it with ingredients that I had in my fridge.


Recipe
Oyster Sauce Grilled Chicken
- 1/2 - 1 chicken leg fillet per person
- Oyster sauce, sugar, pepper, oil
Preheat oven to 250C, rub the chicken fillet with oyster sauce, sugar, and pepper generously, add a dash of oil and rub well. Grill until the skin is golden brown and the meat is nicely cooked, set aside while preparing other ingredients


Broth
- 1 box of chicken stock (if you had homemade chicken stock, it'd be fantastic!)
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
- a cup of shimeji mushrooms
- a cup of napa cabbage, chopped
- a cup of shrimps (optional, I added this just because I had it in my fridge)
- a bit of oil, pepper, sugar
Saute garlic with a bit of hot oil, add napa cabbage, add mushrooms, add chicken stock, bring to boil, add pepper and sugar if you wish, add shrimps only at the last step and only until it's just opaque.


Mie Soa
- allow 1/2 to 1 piece of mie soa per person
- Boiling water, salt
Dip mie soa into a pot of boiling water with salt on stove top, just until it's softened, shock with cold water if not consumed immediately. Place mie soa into bowls, add broth, mushrooms, veggie, shrimps and sliced grilled chicken and...


...slurp!

Campaigning for Baby Marcus to win a photo contest to have his photo printed on Hong Kong Huggies Bus has helped SC and I take our minds off SC being in a hospital etc...
Thanks so much for all your support, guys. Greatly appreciate it!
If you haven't voted and you want to, here are the handy links:
First, click LIKE on this page:
Huggies HK Page
and then click LIKE on Baby Marcus' picture:
Baby Marcus' Photo

Thanks againnnn, we don't want Baby Marcus to miss the bus, don't we? ^_^

Chicken & Shrimp Balls FAIL

Another FAIL.
I've been missing bakso goreng (fried pork & shrimp balls) from my hometown so much, I tried to recreate it, but it didn't work out. I've tried twice, and I've failed both attempts miserably.
Mine turned out too...fluffy. They resemble mini fritters more than the dense and slightly chewy fried balls with chunky bits.
Argh!

This is what I've done:
- 1 chicken thigh fillet
- a cup of shrimps
- a chunk of jicama (bengkoang)
- 1 small clove garlic
- 1 shallot
- 3 tbsp flour
- 1 tbsp corn flour
- 1 tsp baking powder (I dunno why I added this? Maybe this is the thing that makes the balls too fluffy?)
- salt, pepper, sugar, oyster sauce
- 1 egg
- a bit of oil (I dunno why I added this too)
I minced and mixed everything in food processor, not too fine, leaving some chunky bits, scoop a bit of the mixture at a time using two teaspoon and deep fry in hot oil.

The taste was ok, but let's face it, the above flavors could hardly go wrong. But the texture...it's just...not it!
Clearly I must have done something really wrong. What did I do to ruin it?

Does anyone have good bakso goreng recipe? Do share. Please, pretty please? T_T

I'm desperate.

Teriyaki Shrimps

This was one of the dishes I made for our boxing day lunch.
Crunchy, springy, succulent shrimps with rich and sticky teriyaki sauce.
So easy, so tasty.

Recipe
- 1 box/plate of shrimps (I used defrosted frozen Thai deshelled shrimps you can buy from most local supermarkets here, very springy!)
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- 1/2 onion, thinly sliced
- a sprig of spring onion, cut into 5cm long chunks
- Teriyaki sauce, sugar, soy sauce, white pepper, corn starch dissolved in a bit of water, cooking oil

In a bowl, mix sauces until you achieve the desired balance of flavors. Saute garlic and onion in hot oil, add shrimps, add sauce, cook until the shrimps turn opaque, pink and curled. Don't overcook the shrimps. Add spring onion chunks, serve.

Sigh~

When will I try making more complicated dishes again?

Probably never.

Heheheh.

Prawns and Eggs - A Classic Hong Kong Dish

A recipe stolen copied from SC's mama...and I can never do this dish the way she did, I can't put my finger on it...the Chinese traditional wok? the fire? the oil? the air? I dunno, but hers is just always yummier. I guess it's probably that mama's magic touch eh?


Recipe
- 2 cups of shrimps, shell removed, deveined, butterflied
- shrimp marinate: tiny bit corn starch, chicken stock powder, salt, pepper, chilli powder
- 4 eggs, beaten
- a sprig of spring onion, chopped
- fish sauce, pepper, olive oil

Marinate shrimps while preparing the rest of ingredients. Season beaten eggs with fish sauce and pepper, add chopped spring onions in too. Heat up oil in a wok, add shrimps, cook quickly until it just turns pink, pour egg mixture, let cook for a bit, scramble a bit, remove and serve. Do not overcook the shrimps and the eggs.

Good luck trying, I'll just go to her place to have this dish ;)

Fried Shrimps with Indonesian Sweet Soy Sauce - Udang Goreng Tepung Saus Kecap Manis

During those last few no-appetite-everything-taste-horrible months, what have I been eating? Just one or two spoonful of rice with a bit of healthy dishes, thanks to SC's parents home nearby. As a token of my appreciation, once I felt good enough to whip something up, I'd bring homemade cakes, desserts or a dish to family dinners.

This was one of those days.

SC's family dinner will be attended by a bunch of lazy boys who won't eat anything with bones or shells. I gotta make something they can pop into their mouth without having to struggle and wrestle with any inedible parts.

Hm, I had a pack of shrimp meat in my fridge.

Perfect.

Let's do some Fried Shrimps with Indonesian Sweet Soy Sauce

Ingredients
- 1 lb shrimp meat, cleaned, deveined, butterflied
- For frying: corn starch; 1 egg, beaten; bread crumbs seasoned with a bit of salt & pepper; olive oil
For the Sauce:
- half an onion, sliced thinly
- 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
- 1 cm ginger, peeled and crushed
- sweet soy sauce (the dominant flavor), worchestershire sauce, ketchup, light soy sauce, pepper
- a bit of corn starch and water for thickening
- freshly squeezed lemon juice

Ready?
Season shrimps with a bit of salt and pepper, and squirt some lemon juice on them. Prepare the frying ingredients on plates and bowls just like below...


Heat up some oil for frying.


Dip shrimps into corn starch, then egg, then seasoned bread crumbs...


...and dip into hot oil, fry over medium heat...


...until they're gloriously golden.

Do this dish right before serving. If you had to wait, you can recrisp the shrimps in the oven for a few minutes.

Now, the sticky sauce.

Saute garlic, onion and ginger in a bit of oil until fragrant, pour kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce), light soy, worchestershire sauce, ketchup, mix well. Add a bit of water, bring to boil, taste and adjust flavors until you achieve the perfect balance of sweet and savory with a bit of a tang. Thicken with corn starch and water mix, do not pour over shrimps until right before serving.

To serve...

Place crispy shrimps on a plate, pour sauce over and squeeze more lemon juice if you wish.

The boys loved the shrimps, SC's mom wiped the caramelized onion clean...

...and SC's dad ended up doing the dishes.

Opppps :D

Shrimps and Strawberries - Will You Drink THIS Coffee?

Shrimps and strawberries? Don't they look good together? To me, they look more gorgeous than Brangelina on Oscar's night. Plus, they are more than just a pretty face, they taste fantastic. Ehm, I am sure Brangelina taste fantastic too..but they are just too unattainable, while this combo is easy to achieve ^_^

Shrimps and Strawberries

I was inspired by a modern Chinese dish I've tried in some Hong Kong eateries. Normally, they serve strawberries with deep fried pork ribs or chicken. I want it quite light, fresh and spring-ish, so I replaced the deep fried meat with fresh shrimps, and add fresh strawberries to the otherwise just-strawberry-jam sauce.

Recipe
- 1/2 lb shrimps, peeled, deveined, butterflied
- 4 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced, or you can use half an onion
- 1 cup of fresh strawberries, halved
- olive oil, salt, white pepper, strawberry jam, white wine, lime juice, lime zest

Marinate shrimps in lime juice, lime zest, salt and pepper while preparing other ingredients. Saute shallot in olive oil until fragrant, add shrimps until they started to change color, season with salt, white pepper, add strawberry jam, a shot of white wine, taste, adjust if necessary, the flavors should be sweet, savoury, and tangy. Add fresh strawberries at the very end, and try not to cook everything for so long to avoid overcooking the shrimps.

Will you drink THIS Coffee?

I know that for food and drink looks doesn't matter that much....flavors are more important...blablabla...but would you drink coffee from a machine that says "POO"? Well, that's the coffee machine in my work place. Not very appetizing, innit?

Sauteed Shrimps in White Wine - Would You Like A Fructus Lycii with That?

It's that time of the month's again...which means that I get unreasonably bitchy and we get to feast on wonderful photographs posted in Still Life Food Photograpy community. Be sure to drop by when you're not hungry, or it would be such a torture (that just happened to me, now I have to be a scavenger, hunting for remnants of lunch or snacks from my colleagues' desk).

The theme this month is shellfish, and I particularly love how photogenic shrimps are, so here's what I made:
Sauteed Shrimps in White Wine

Recipe
- 2 cups of medium sized shrimps, keep shell on
- 5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- butter, olive oil, salt, sugar, black pepper, lime juice, lime zest
- white wine
- italian herb mix (oregano, sage, thyme, rosemary)

Saute garlic in butter mixed with olive oil, add shrimps, season with salt, sugar, black pepper, and herbs mix, add white wine (I added 2 shots), bring to boil, cook until the shrimps turned vibrant red, squirt lime juice and grate lime zest, serve hot, with steamed rice/potatoes/pasta.

So quick, easy and tasty, I literally sucked everything outta the shrimps' shell, including the head. Oppps.

Ehm, would you like a Fructus Lycii with that?

I wouldn't want a fructus lycii with anything, but wolfberries would be great, thanks.

I bet you might want to order a steaming bowl of Smilax Glabra Roxb Soup too! It helps your body combatting Hong Kong notoriously humid summer.

Those would be great names for anyone's first born.
"Meet Mr. Smilax Roxb"
"The Oscar goes to...Smilax Roxb!!!!"
"The name is Roxb, Smilax Roxb"
Damn. Mochachocolata-Rita sounds so pitifully plain right now.

Shrimps and Shitake Mushrooms in XO Sauce - Grumpy Songs I've Been Singing

I've been singing these grumpy songs for a while. Heck, these have been put on "repeat all" for as long as I could remember....

Album Title: It's Time to Move On (and end the lease)

Track 1. My Bathroom isn't My Sanctuary (...I wish I could curl up on my bathroom floor and cry, but the shower drain won't unclog, the sink won't drain my tears, and you have to yank the toilet handle three times...oh woo wooohhh...or it won't flush your sadness away...)

Track 2. AirCon Waterfall (...here I am sitting in my living room, an umbrella in hand, sheltering me from the air con rain...)
Track 3. Want A Pump (...since my pump betrayed meee, I can't spin no more, no more...just a broken hearted washing machine...)
Track 4. Burn, baby Burn (...if you smelled something smoky, baby don't worry...the kitchen power plug just got a little too charcoaley...)
Track 5. Wet Wet Wet (...a puddle by my feet, oh so fishy...a leaking kitchen sink, what an unpleasant discovery...)
Track 6. A Loud Pop (...and finally, the light bulb gave up, everything turned dark..but it's been a while, so I guess it's just normal...for the lightbulb to pop..pop...pop)

Not exactly a #1 album material, but they are exactly what have been bugging me for a while. I felt so sorry for troubling my landlord, but I felt more sorry for me, for having to put up all the malfunctions in this flat. There must be something in the water...everything in this flat broke! But on the bright side, this flat inspires me so much, and the location? It's unbeatable.

I probably won't be cooking until I get settled down in a new flat, which would make this dish one of the last dishes I cook in this flat, but who knows, I might surprise you guys by washing my dishes elsewhere...try me ^_^

Shrimps and Shitake Mushrooms in XO Sauce

Recipe
- 1 pack of fresh shitake mushrooms, each sliced into 3-4 parts
- 1 lb shrimps, deshelled, deveined, butterflied
- 1 large clove of garlic
- 1 cm ginger, crushed
- dark soy sauce, sugar, white pepper, salt, XO sauce, olive oil

Marinate shrimps with a bit of salt and pepper, saute in olive oil until just pink, set aside. Saute garlic and ginger in olive oil, add mushrooms until cooked, add shrimps, add dark soy sauce and XO sauce, taste, serve. Perfect with steamed rice or noodles/pasta.

I'll stop singing those songs, and replace em with happier, brighter, and more colorful songs. Soon.

Shrimps, Beef & Eggplant in Spicy Satay Sauce - Do You Like Dishwashing?

Remember those days when your mind went blank? When you had absolutely no idea what to cook? When you asked yourself "what do you wanna eat" and the answer is an annoying mental shrug?...and when you asked someone else hoping for an easy answer, you were always given the ever so helpful up-to-yous? (Damn, I hate up-to-yous).

Yep. I had one of those yesterday.

Then I remembered, when in doubt, drench anything in Lee Kum Kee's Satay Sauce, and everything shall taste delicious! OK, I got the sauce covered. Now...what would "anything" be?

I wandered around the market and nothing said "buy me, eat me"....finally, I got a pack of minced beef, since it tastes especially good with satay sauce; a pack of peeled shrimps, because no defrosting, no peeling, no deveining necessary (convenience wins me all the time), and the fragrance of shrimps on this dish? Unbelievable!

Gosh, I still needed some kind of vegetables. Does eggplant count as veggie? OK, I don't care. No soaking, no peeling, no fine chopping necessary; it soaks up sauces like a sponge; it's soft and creamy; and heck! The purple would look really nice with the orange of the shrimps. Thus...

Shrimps, Beef & Eggplant in Spicy Satay Sauce

Recipe
- 1 pack of minced beef (about 0.7 lb)
- 1 pack of peeled shrimps (about 15 pcs)
- 1 long eggplant (cut into bite sized chunks and pop in the oven with some olive oil until softened, I used 250C for 10 minutes)
- 6 cloves of garlic, crushed
- half an onion, chopped roughly
- 3 red chilli (with seeds for the heat)
- 2 dried lime leaves (optional)
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- a bit of grated lemon zest
- 1 pack of Lee Kum Kee Satay Sauce for Hotpot (I prefer this, its liquid form makes it easier to handle, but add bit by bit and adjust as it can be too tasty)
- a bit of kecap manis (optional)
- olive oil for sauteeing

Saute garlic, onion, and chilli in olive oil, add beef, cook until almost done, add softened eggplants, add sauce, lime leaves, grate lemon zest, add shrimps, when the shrimps are just done (pink, curled and no longer transparent), turn off the heat, drizzle lemon juice, kecap manis, and serve with steamed rice. Important: never ever overcook the shrimps.

The cooking was a blast, and now the dreaded part begins...

There were times when I really thought I was so twisted and actually enjoyed washing dishes.
I was wrong.
Who the heck loves washing dishes? Oppps, maybe there are people who really find dishwashing theurapetic, soothing, calming, the bubbles are fun, even turning them on (hello, dishwashing fetish), whatever. NOT. ME.

I just hated the idea of piles and piles of dirty dishes towering in my kitchen sink. Thus I did them, even tried to enjoy it, without success.

Will these cake shaped dishwashing sponge cuties make dishwashing more enjoyable? Aren't they just so adorable?

I just wanted to bite that chocolate cake off its rack...or maybe the green tea swiss roll...


...or take a bite off that piece of watermelon?...

Whatever it was....they did not make me feel like washing dishes. SC, dish washing is yours, suck it up.