So I took over cooking duties on Saturday but D was having a throat infection so options were slightly limited.
Decided to go with congee, also known as Jook or simply rice porridge. Have to remember to take pictures the next time I'm doing this.
There's this porridge stall near my workplace that I eat at once or twice a week. They sell a flavourful bowl of porridge for $2.50. After trying to concoct a simple bowl of porridge, my respect for the flavour they are able to coax into one bowl of porridge has gone up leaps and bounds.
Ingredients:
1) Short grain rice
2) Water (lots of it)
3) Chicken fillets
4) Minced Pork
5) Ginger, minced
6) Garlic, minced
7) Corn
8) Spring Onions
9) Salt, to taste
10) Hua Tiao wine, 1 tsps
11) Sugar, 0.5 tsps
12) Soy sauce, 0.5 tsps
13) Cornstarch, 1.5 tsps
14) Canola oil, 2 tsps
Bear in mind though that you don't need ALL the ingredients listed up there. The kids are not really fans of minced pork in porridge, that'll be me. S likes corn so I was leaning towards corn porridge for her. D likes shredded chicken porridge so that was for him.
(PORK) Begin by marinating the minced pork with the minced ginger and garlic. Stir in the Hua Tiao wine, half a teaspoon of salt, half of teaspoon of sugar, half of teaspoon of soy sauce, 1 and a half teaspoons of corn flour and 2 teaspoons of canola oil. Once mixed, set it to rest in the fridge till it is needed.
(CHICKEN) Still on prepping, boil up some water and cook up the chicken fillets. This shouldn't take more than 8 minutes. Poke the fillets with a fork to check for doneness. The fork should be able to pierce the fillets easily to indicate that it is cooked. Take it out of the boiling water and proceed to shred it with a fork.
(CORN) Slice up one ear of corn and set the kernels aside.
Chop up the spring onions and set that aside.
I wanted fried shallots but forgot that I had run out at home.
The thing about cooking congee is the rice to water ratio. I went with 1 cup of rice (my cup was 160ml) to 12 cups of water. In total I used 3 cups of rice, which called for 36 cups of water (roughly 4.8 litres of water).
My pot was too small for this so I had 2 litres of water simmering on another fire while I was cooking the porridge, adding in water each time I gave it a stir. Anyway, 3 cups of rice results in too much congee, I've found. We only managed to finish about a third of it so I'll be sticking to 1 cup of rice in the future.
Time to cook the congee!
1) Wash up the rice
2) Add the rice and water into the largest pot you have.
3) Cover the pot and let the water boil.
4) Once the water has boiled, lower the fire so as to simmer the congee.
5) 15 minutes later, lift the lid, stir the congee - making it a point to ensure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot.
6) Cover and simmer, stirring again after another 15 minutes.
7) Repeat step 6 another 2 times for a total simmer time of 60 minutes.
8) Lower the fire to its minimum
(PORK) Ladle out some congee into a smaller pot, add in minced pork, breaking it up and cook it for 5 minutes. Season with salt to taste.
(CHICKEN & CORN) Ladle out some congee into a smaller pot, add in the shredded chicken and cook for about a minute, throwing in the corn kernels in the last 20 seconds or so. Season with salt to taste.
9) Garnish with spring onions. Shallots (wish I had those). Season with soy sauce and pepper.
D ended up with shredded chicken congee
S ended up with shredded chicken and corn congee
J ended up with minced pork and corn congee
I ended up with minced pork congee.
Kinda a helpful dish to have if your family has to eat the same dish with slight variations.
Verdict? I found my congee to be too plain. Have to experiment a few more times to coax out more flavour. Perhaps using the water that the chicken fillets were boiled in as part of the stock to cook the congee.
Saturday, 22 August 2015
Friday, 21 August 2015
Kindle Paperwhite 2015
This is the third Kindle I've purchased so far and it's the 2015 Paperwhite edition. Got it for D as his Christmas present. Figured I better get it now than have trouble with Amazon delivering it whilst we were in the midst of moving to Australia.
So how is this, 3rd generation Paperwhite different from its predecessors?
For one, it has adopted the same high-resolution e-ink display as the Kindle Voyage (Amazon's flagship e-reader) - that's a 300 PPI display as compared to the 221 PPI display on its predecessor.
Pricing-wise, it has taken over the 2013's price point of $119 while the older version now retails for $109.
Design-wise it maintains the exact same form factor as the previous model, 6 inch screen, 205g and same built-in front light. It is still similarly energy efficient and still viewable in direct sunlight. The back material feels different, more matte than glossy.
It is still the same battery (6 weeks of operation), 1 GHz processor and 4GB of built-in memory (storing thousands of books) but the RAM has increased from 256MB to 512MB.
It also comes with the new Bookerly font, exclusively designed for digital screens - supposedly enabling you to read faster and with less eyestrain. This font will apparently in the future, be rolled out to the older Kindles in software updates.
So if you boil it down, better screen, 256MB more RAM, new font and a different material for the back of the device.
D's happy with his new reading device and I've been happy with all 3 Kindles thus far.
So how is this, 3rd generation Paperwhite different from its predecessors?
For one, it has adopted the same high-resolution e-ink display as the Kindle Voyage (Amazon's flagship e-reader) - that's a 300 PPI display as compared to the 221 PPI display on its predecessor.
Pricing-wise, it has taken over the 2013's price point of $119 while the older version now retails for $109.
Design-wise it maintains the exact same form factor as the previous model, 6 inch screen, 205g and same built-in front light. It is still similarly energy efficient and still viewable in direct sunlight. The back material feels different, more matte than glossy.
It is still the same battery (6 weeks of operation), 1 GHz processor and 4GB of built-in memory (storing thousands of books) but the RAM has increased from 256MB to 512MB.
It also comes with the new Bookerly font, exclusively designed for digital screens - supposedly enabling you to read faster and with less eyestrain. This font will apparently in the future, be rolled out to the older Kindles in software updates.
So if you boil it down, better screen, 256MB more RAM, new font and a different material for the back of the device.
D's happy with his new reading device and I've been happy with all 3 Kindles thus far.
Wednesday, 12 August 2015
Cooking Daddy - Ham and Egg Breakfast Cups
I haven't cooked in a while so it was great to have a little time to jump behind the kitchen.
The item I am cooking today? Ham and Egg Breakfast Cups. It's not breakfast but I was hungry and I had been planning to try this out for quite a while.
Ingredients Needed:
1) Bread
2) Eggs (1 egg for each slice of bread)
3) Ham
4) Cheese (whatever kind you prefer)
6) Salt
7) Black Pepper
8) Melted butter
Items Needed:
1) A rolling pin
2) Muffin tray - or in my case muffin cups
3) A brush
Steps:
1) Grab the slices of bread that you want to use, stack them together and use a knife to cut out the sides of the bread slices.
2) Use the rolling pin to completely flatten each piece of bread
3) Butter the insides of the muffin cups.
4) Next fold the flattened pieces of bread into your muffin tray or muffin cups.
5) Dip your brush into the melted butter and butter the insides of the flattened pieces of bread.
6) Bake the bread in your oven at 170 degrees Celsius for 5 to 8 minutes.
7) Tear up or slice up the ham and cheese as you're waiting for the baking to be done.
8) Arrange them as you wish around the muffin cups.
9) Once that is done, crack an egg into each cup.
10) Sprinkle salt over the eggs to your liking
11) Sprinkle a little black pepper over each muffin cup.
12) Throw everything back into the over at 170 degrees Celsius for 14 to 20 mintes. (the timing really depends on how well you like your eggs done.)
13) When they come out of the oven, wrap them up in the aluminum foils for about 5 minutes, the eggs will carry on cooking in that time.
14) Serve!
Happy cooking!
The item I am cooking today? Ham and Egg Breakfast Cups. It's not breakfast but I was hungry and I had been planning to try this out for quite a while.
Ingredients Needed:
1) Bread
2) Eggs (1 egg for each slice of bread)
3) Ham
4) Cheese (whatever kind you prefer)
6) Salt
7) Black Pepper
8) Melted butter
Items Needed:
1) A rolling pin
2) Muffin tray - or in my case muffin cups
3) A brush
Steps:
1) Grab the slices of bread that you want to use, stack them together and use a knife to cut out the sides of the bread slices.
2) Use the rolling pin to completely flatten each piece of bread
3) Butter the insides of the muffin cups.
4) Next fold the flattened pieces of bread into your muffin tray or muffin cups.
 |
| 2 plain white bread and 1pandan slice for variety! |
6) Bake the bread in your oven at 170 degrees Celsius for 5 to 8 minutes.
7) Tear up or slice up the ham and cheese as you're waiting for the baking to be done.
8) Arrange them as you wish around the muffin cups.
9) Once that is done, crack an egg into each cup.
10) Sprinkle salt over the eggs to your liking
11) Sprinkle a little black pepper over each muffin cup.
12) Throw everything back into the over at 170 degrees Celsius for 14 to 20 mintes. (the timing really depends on how well you like your eggs done.)
13) When they come out of the oven, wrap them up in the aluminum foils for about 5 minutes, the eggs will carry on cooking in that time.
14) Serve!
 |
| I forgot to butter my muffin tins, so it was difficult getting them out of the muffin tins. |
Monday, 3 August 2015
Windows 10 finally!
Yeah, I couldn't resist tinkering around.
Tried the method I mentioned in the previous post another 2 or 3 times to no avail before moving on to the next method. Which was actually a lot more simpler.
Basically, go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and download the tool that you need, 32-bit or 64-bit.
Then once the file is downloaded, run the file.
I tried burning it onto a DVD but apparently my 4.7GB disc was too small. Haven't used one of those in ages, wasn't aware they came in different sizes.
Anyway, I ran the file off the PC and the installation process began.
The installation process itself was quick and painless.
Haven't done nor intend to do any benchmarks - so just a quick real-world feel. Not much noticeable difference between the speed of running Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 but the ease of use is so much better with Win 10 - it just feels more "Windowslike"
Tried the method I mentioned in the previous post another 2 or 3 times to no avail before moving on to the next method. Which was actually a lot more simpler.
Basically, go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and download the tool that you need, 32-bit or 64-bit.
Then once the file is downloaded, run the file.
I tried burning it onto a DVD but apparently my 4.7GB disc was too small. Haven't used one of those in ages, wasn't aware they came in different sizes.
Anyway, I ran the file off the PC and the installation process began.
 |
| nearly there! |
The installation process itself was quick and painless.
 |
| I've got my start bar back! |
Haven't done nor intend to do any benchmarks - so just a quick real-world feel. Not much noticeable difference between the speed of running Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 but the ease of use is so much better with Win 10 - it just feels more "Windowslike"
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