Prime Rib Roast II + Recipe

Prime Rib Roast II + Recipe
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

This was a simple treat for ER on his birthday. He and I spent a good part of the day in marketing and then making pineapple jam. No joke, the jam took us several hours to prepare.

My intention was to prepare prime rib roast differently from the original recipe by just doing pan-roast but, the sauce was not that tasty. The flavours of spices were a bit raw and overpowering! Finally decided to do the last browning in the oven and basting with the marinate sauce. With an extra tablespoon of honey for glazing during the last step of the cooking, it turned out not bad :)

I really like it! Two family members prefer Chinese-style roast though. Anyway, ER said it had the taste of roast ribs served in Kenny Rogers :)

This is my new found recipe that I picked up from a magazine while at the hair salon in mid-January.

Recipe:
Prime rib roast

Ingredients:
1 kg prime ribs
Marinating sauce:
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp oyster sauce
3 tbsp tomato sauce
2 tsp paprika
2tsp mustard powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Season the rib with marinating sauce and set aside in the fridge for several hours or overnight.
2. Sear the rib in hot oil. Transfer this to a roasting pan and brown in the oven till done. Baste the meat with sauce a few times during cooking.

Here's what I did:
Besides adding ½ tbsp of sugar to the marinating sauce and using extra 1 tbsp honey for glazing, I had left the meat to cook till just done while searing and then only did the browning in the oven.

Prime Rib Roast I

Prime Rib Roast + Recipe
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

This was a simple treat for ER on his birthday.

Stir-fried Celery

Stir-fried Celery
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

My mind was kind of blocked about what vegetable dish to cook...but still managed to come up with this.

Pork And Prawn Patties

Pork And Prawn Patties
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

The meat patties shown here were made with a little difference: an idea from a cooking show, I had added in some white bread and prawns. ER said they were nice.

Char Siew

Char Siew
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Yummy home cooked char siew or roast pork.

Cabbage Fried Rice

Cabbage Fried Rice
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Cabbage is the last ingredient I would use in fried rice but, recently, it has been included in such dishes with varies ingredients. Not bad at all as it turned out. Um, it in fact makes fried rice a healthier dish with fibre~

My 1st encounter with cabbage used in fried rice was from a TV show that featured homey dishes by ordinary people.

Double-boiled Winter Melon With Pork Chops

Double-boiled Winter Melon With Pork Chops
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

This evening, I was the assistant cook to the husband. Ingredients were prepared as per his instructions. He had learnt this dish from watching a cooking show that features renowned cooks or cooking instructors from Taiwan. Sadly though, this channel will cease transmission on 29th of February 2008. We were told it has become less popular among the subscribers. With it two of my favourite programmes will be gone!

He had been talking about this dish since last week...finally he cooked it with the ingredients bought a day earlier.

Stir-fried Button Mushrooms Mixed Vegetables

Stir-fried Button Mushrooms Mixed Vegetables
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

I miss the king oyster mushrooms that have been randomly absent from the supermarkets' shelves. Today I have decided to replace it with fresh button mushrooms in this dish instead.

Steamed Threadfin With Bean Sauce

Steamed Threadfin With Bean Sauce
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Pan-fried Pork

Pan-fried Pork
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Fried Prawns

Fried Prawns
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Curry Threadfin - Leftover

Curry Threadfin - Leftover
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Steamed to reheat, the same goes with my meat curries.

Curry Threadfins + Recipe

Curry Threadfins + Recipe
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

My Version:
Recipe:
Curry Threadfins

Ingredients:
3 threadfins [about 700g] – cleaned and rub with some salt and pepper
½ cup curry powder – mixed into a thick paste with some water
1 tbsp coriander powder
1 ½ tsp turmeric powder
5 cloves garlic – chopped
3 shallots – chopped
1onion – sliced
2 tomatoes – sliced
1 slice assam gelugor - washed
2 serai / lemon grass – sliced each into halves
3 slices ginger
1 cup of water [use more water if thinner gravy is preferred]
150 mls coconut cream from a packet
Salt, sugar and ajinomoto to taste
Canola oil

Method:
1. Heat a frying pan until hot and fry the fish in oil till lightly brown. Remove and set aside.
2. Add oil in the same pan and stir-fry the shallots, garlic till aromatic. Add in sliced onion and fry till translucent. Add the curry paste, coriander powder, turmeric powder, lemon grass, ginger and fry till the oil separates.
3. Add coconut cream, water and assam gelugor and stir till contents boil.
4. Lower the heat to low, add in fish and allow to simmer till done.
5. Add salt, sugar and ajinomoto to taste during simmering and before turning off heat, add in the tomatoes.
6. Serve with rice.

Stuffed Beancurd Sheets

Stuffed Beancurd Sheets
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

This is one of our favourites :)

Roasted Pistachio nuts

Roasted Pistachio nuts
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Both cashew and pistachio nuts were supposed to be roasted before Christmas but had been postponing the task. So, just before watching cable TV, I started to roast the nuts first this morning.

Rika is supposed to use the pistachios in cookies…she may not have time to bake them.

Roasted Cashew nuts

Roasted Cashew nuts
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Excerpt: Solutions to problems with nuts that concern health:

1. Shelled nuts if roasted, may remain fresh longer if they are kept in the refrigerator. If planning to store them longer than six months, consider putting them in the freezer.

2. Sliced and chopped nuts will go bad faster. So, whenever possible, buy whole shelled nuts and cut them up as required.

3. Discard any spoilt/mouldy nuts. Mouldy nuts contain aflatoxins which are cancer-causing agents produced by a fungus

Prawns In Fermented Bean Sauce

Prawns In Fermented Bean Sauce
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

The above dish is shelled prawns cooked with soy bean paste, onion, chilies and seasoned with sugar and ajinomoto and garnished with some chopped tomatoes. I have used two heaped tablespoonful of ground bean pastes for 300 g of prawns. This is a nice dish to go with plain rice or plain porridge…on the salty side though~ Next time I will have to remember to reduce the amount of bean paste and thicken the sauce with corn flour solution.

Stuffed Mushrooms

Stuffed Mushrooms
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Yummy~

"Niang DouFu"

"Niang DouFu"
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Stuffed beancurds and beancurd sheets

Stir-fried Sweet Turnips

Stir-fried Sweet Turnips
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Sweet turnip is known as "ubi sengkuang" in the Malay language.

ER had wanted me to use them as filling for Chinese steamed buns but, I had cooked and served them as a vegetable dish.

Stir-fried Chicken With Button Mushrooms And Preparation Directions

Stir-fried Chicken With Button Mushrooms
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Chicken stir-fried with lots of garlic, a few “chilli padi” and slices of young ginger in oyster sauce flavoured to taste with pepper, sugar, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and ajinomoto. When the chicken is almost done, a can of button mushrooms was added in and braised for a while.

Sambal Cucumber And Celery + Recipe

Sambal Cucumber And Celery + Recipe
Originally uploaded by Food Trails.

Stir-fried 1 tablespoon of chopped garlic in oil till fragrant. Add in 2 peeled, cored and sliced cucumbers and 1 stick of sliced celery and fry for a while. Add in the prepared sambal blachan, a little salt and ajinomoto to taste and swirl to coat the vegetables with the spicy sauce. Vegetables should remain al dente.

The spicy chilli paste recipe is here: Sambal blachan So far I like this one best. With the new chopper blender we acquired last November, the ground paste used in this dish was much finer.