I still remember that time we ordered lobster yee mein (fresh lobster with fried wheat noodles and garlic, ginger and shallots) during lunch in Sydney’s Chinatown; it bumped our yum cha bill to just shy of $1000. We’re talking one lobster shared among the 4 of us, in case there’s any confusion. Thankfully, it was my younger sister, here on a flying visit from her overseas expat job, who paid for the meal.

For the rest of us non-Harvard-educated, non-expat-salaried types, however, here’s a way to indulge in this Cantonese classic without having to sell your kidney. My usual hack for this dish is to use a cheaper crustacean like blue swimmer or spanner crabs; right after Christmas however, I wandered into my local Woolies and saw a pile of cooked lobsters at half price – obviously leftovers from the Christmas trade. I picked up 2 of them (total $40), ate some as-is, and used the rest for lobster yee mein.

Couple of points to note –

• despite the lobsters being pre-cooked, the heads were full of “gao” – you know, that creamy orangey-yellow stuff – which infused the noodles with lots of flavour
• since they were already cooked, I didn’t need to drench the pieces with flour and flash fry” beforehand, but if your last name is Packer/Rhinehart/Lowy and you’re using live lobster, follow the first part of this recipe – https://jackiem.com.au/2018/08/14/how-to-cook-crab-with-yee-meen-noodles/

Lobster Yee Mein (Budget Version)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1-2 medium-sized cooked lobsters, cut into pieces
• 2 cakes yee meen noodles, prepared per packet instructions
• 10 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3-4 inches ginger, cut into chunks and crushed
• 3-4 green shallots, cut into 2-inch lengths
• 2 TBSP oyster sauce
• 1 ½ TBSP chicken powder
• 1 tsp sugar (optional)
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 Tbsp Shaoxing cooking wine (optional)
• 2L water or stock
• 1 TBSP tapioca flour + 1 TBSP water (optional)
• 2-3 TBSP oil

METHOD:

1. Heat oil in frying pan. Add ginger and garlic and fry for 2 minutes or until aromatic and slightly browned.
2. Add lobster pieces followed by Shaoxing wine.
3. Add all other seasoning ingredients plus water or stock.
4. Bring to a simmer, then add noodles.
5. Once noodles are soft, mix tapioca flour with a Tbsp of cold water, then stir in to thicken.
6. Adjust seasoning, remove from heat and serve.

The post How to Cook Lobster Yee Mein first appeared on Jackie M..

This is a more recent recipe for Soon Kuih or Chai Kueh that I used during one of my Live Asian Kitchen broadcasts on Twitch. I was much happier with the texture of the skin, which was softer and less rubbery, hence why I’m posting it here.

(BTW kuih and kueh are the same word in Malay; they can be used interchangeably, though kuih is a more modern spelling, at least if you are a product of the Malaysian education system of the 70s-80s.)

The previous iteration was posted here – http://jackiem.com.au/2017/10/04/make-soon-kueh-aka-chai-kueh/ 

Nyonya Soon Kuih aka Chai Kueh

Pastry –

(recipe for pastry from Nyonya Passions by Andrew Kow)

125g glutinous rice flour

100g wheat starch

100g tapioca starch

300ml water

½ tsp salt

1 Tbsp oil

Filling –

2 Tbsps cooking oil

2 Tbsps garlic, minced

2 Tbsps dried prawns, soaked and minced

500g yam bean (aka jicama/sarkot/sengkuang) – grated

50g carrot, grated

200ml water

1 Tbsp sugar

2 tsps chicken powder

½ tsp white pepper

Garlic oil –

150ml oil

4 Tbsps garlic, minced

METHOD:

1. Make garlic oil by frying minced garlic until lightly browned and aromatic. Set aside.
2. Heat 2 Tbsps oil, then add garlic and saute until lightly browned.
3. Add all other ingredients and simmer until mixture is almost dry and yam bean reaches a translucent appearance. Allow to cool.
4. To make the pastry, combine water, salt and oil in a pot and bring to a boil. Remove from heat.
5. Mix all the flours in a bowl, add the hot salted water and stir with chopsticks.
6. Knead into a soft dough, then roll into a cylinder. Cut into equal portions and roll each into a thin circle.
7. Fill with one tablespoon of yam bean mixture, then pleat and/or pinch to seal.
8. Steam on medium heat for 8 minutes or until the pastry is translucent.
9. Drizzle with garlic oil, garnish with chopped spring onions and serve with chilli sauce.

Chilli sauce recipe can be found here >> http://jackiem.com.au/2017/09/16/make-chilli-sauce-dim-sums/

The post How to Make Nyonya Soon Kuih aka Chai Kueh first appeared on Jackie M..

Mud crab with ginger and shallots and yee meen noodles is a bit of a special occasion dish at Chinese restaurants here in Australia because of its price tag, but it’s actually quite easy to achieve at home, especially if you use cheaper varieties of crab like I did here. I usually go for spanner crabs, which usually go for about 1/3 the price tag of live mud crabs.

The yee meen noodles is Cantonese/Hong Kong-style and you should be able to find them easily at your local Asian grocery store – they’re dried and shaped in round cakes about 12 inches in diameter.

Crab with Yee Meen Noodles

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 crabs, cut into pieces (approx 1 ½ kg)
• 2 Tbsp tapioca flour (or cornflour)
• Oil for deep-frying
• 1 cake yee meen noodles, prepared per packet instructions
• 10 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3-4 inches ginger, cut into chunks and crushed
• 3-4 green shallots, cut into 2-inch lengths
• 1 ½ Tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 ½ tsp chicken powder
• ½ tsp pepper
• 2 Tbsp Shaoxing cooking wine (optional)
• 1L water or stock

METHOD:

1. Heat oil to 180°C.
2. Drench crab pieces tapioca flour.
3. Deep-fry for about 3 minutes. Remove and drain.
4. Heat 2 Tbsp oil in frying pan. Add ginger and garlic and fry for 2 minutes or until aromatic and slightly browned.
5. Add crab pieces followed by Shaoxing wine.
6. Add all other seasoning ingredients plus water or stock.
7. Bring to a simmer, then add noodles.
8. Once noodles are soft, mix remaining tapioca flour with a Tbsp of cold water, then add to frying pan.
9. Adjust seasoning, remove and serve.

The post How to Cook Crab with Yee Meen Noodles first appeared on Jackie M..

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It’s nice to make things from scratch but I was the ultimate busy cook as someone who ran and was head cook in my own perennially short-staffed restaurant so I do apply a lot of shortcuts to my recipes whilst trying to retain flavour and “authenticity” (a loaded term, about which I shall write another time), as you would know if you’ve followed my work for awhile. Nevertheless, this is one of those things that are definitely worth your investment in time to make yourself – the texture and flavour is incomparable to commercially-available fried shallots. It stores practically indefinitely outside the fridge, so I would suggest this as something you can do once in a while on a weekend, and then keep for weeks or months. Hide it from your dinner guests though; if they’re anything like my family they’ll be grabbing fistfuls of them to drown in their bowls or plates of noodles – it’s very addictive. I don’t know if this is across the board, but if you do resort to commercial fried onions/shallots, you might want to check the ingredients list – I’ve always found the fried onions in Asian grocery stores contain cornflour – presumably to absorb the extra water content in onions prior to frying. Fried shallots tend to cost a fair bit more (nearly double that of fried onions) but certainly the brands I buy are, according to the listed ingredients, purely shallots and oil – so you’re not paying for bulk in the form of flour. If you live in Southeast Asian-dense neighbourhoods in Sydney, you might come across local cottage industry-type fried shallots packed in takeaway containers at the counter of Asian grocery stores; they’re a great step up from the imported, factory-packed ones, but I still think homemade tastes better, and costs a lot less as well. Key points from the video above – 

• Make sure the onions are sliced thinly and evenly – this means hand-slicing, unless someone knows of a food processor that can achieve the same result.
• Keep moving the onions around in the wok as they tend to cook fastest around the rim.
• Remember to remove the onions BEFORE they look ready – ie. a creamy, very light brown hue – otherwise you’ll end up with burnt onions, since the heat from the oil will continue to darken the onions after you remove them from the wok.
• Scatter the onions loosely on paper towels; if they’re in a big lump the steam will get trapped and cause the onions to go soggy.
• Allow to cool completely before storing, otherwise they’ll go soft.

Good luck and don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel >> http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=jackiemsydney – so you don’t miss out on the rest of this series

ps. Did I mention this video was made using my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro laptop? The overhead shots were from an external webcam clamped onto my exhaust hood but the rest of the video used the built-in webcam. And yes, thanks to my aversion to watching myself on camera, I missed the video editor’s typo on one of the text overlays until I had signed off on the work. Let’s see if you pick it up

The post How to Make Crispy Fried Shallots or Onions first appeared on Jackie M..