CoCo's Hotplate Tofu without the hotplate

Haha... as you can guess, this dish is inspired by one of my favourite tze char dish, hotplate tofu. Of course, I don't have a hotplate at home, so explains the name too. Haha... Very simple and delicious to make!

prawns, butterflied
1 stick of egg tofu, sliced
1 egg, beaten
4 mushrooms, diced
2 spring onions, cut
1 medium onion, quartered

Seasoning:
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 teaspoon sambal belacan (optional)
1 teaspoon of sugar
6 tablespoons of stock or water

Stir fry mushrooms with a pinch of salt till the mushrooms soften.
Add in seasoning, onions, spring onion and prawns and fry till just cooked.
Add in tofu. Mix carefully till everything is coated with seasoning.
Make sure your tofu and prawns are evenly distributed around the frying pan.
Pour in beaten egg around the frying pan, move the pan around to distribute egg all over pan.
Lower heat and cover the pan for a minute.
Serve!

Sapphire

When to the Sapphire on Saturday for dinner. Surprisingly, the open air restaurant was quite empty even at 6.30pm. Were we too early?

We started with their French Onion Soup - $10.80. Very rich in flavour, but wished there were more cheese on the toast. And why were there spring onion on French onion soup, I would never know.



I ordered their Chicken Pasta - $24.80, which they indicated was their specialty. It was basically chicken meat aglio oli pasta with olives, sun-dried tomato and some herbs I think. But they put SO MUCH olives into the pasta, it turned out a little too salty. All the black stuff you see in the photo, yah, it's olives. But overall, it tasted quite ok, just a little too salty.



Hubby ordered this Moroccan spiced chicken - $32.80. It's quite delicious really! It tasted like those smoky Indonesian BBQ chicken. A little charred on the outside, but juicy on the inside. Interestingly, their vegetables included xiao bai cai. Fusion cooking? Haha...



Dessert was what they called Jewel Peak - $15.80. It's actually ice cream, but it was quite disappointing to me because I find the ice cream not rich enough. The chocolate ice cream is just not chocolate-ty enough! Obviously they used cheapo brand of ice cream to make this "peak". Sigh~



Overall, it was an average tasting meal. If you want something better, I can easily name a few. So why do we still go there? For the ambiance of course. Located at the highest point in Singapore, there's no sound of the busy traffic or shopping crowds. Just birds chirping, insects humming and the soft music playing in the background. Of course, everything taste better with a fantastic view of the city and it's sunset.



Sapphire @ The Jewel Box
Mount Faber

Ah Hui Big Prawn Noodles

Hubby recommended me to this prawn noodles stall at Longhouse Food Court at Upper Thomson Road. I think this is already quite a popular stall as most of the people go there for their prawn noodles.

The food came quite quick, which I love, and another thing I love? You can never go wrong with fragrant home made deep fried pork lard and fried shallots. Not those factory made, dried up, flavorless, pathetic excuse of a fried shallot many food stores buy.

Anyway, the soup have pretty good flavour, the jumbo prawns (I got 3 pieces) was very sweet and scrunchy, and again, I love the pork lard and fried shallots. Of course, this pales in comparison to the Wah Kee Prawn Noodles, but it was good nonetheless.

The noodles comes with a side of the usual chilli padi and their ultra hot chilli powder. Word of caution, it is hot! I only added a small pinch and it was enough to make me sweat with a runny nose. Though there was this guy at the next table who poured the whole thing in plus more into his soup. Siao~! Haha, everybody's taste is different!

Ah Hui Big Prawn Noodles
Longhouse Food Court
183 Upper Thomson Road
Big prawn noodles - $6.00
Regular - $3.00

Honey Lemon Drink

I make this drink everytime somebody in the family has sore throat or the flu. It's packed with vitamin C and very soothing on the throat. Besides, it taste great! Don't have to be sick to enjoy it! :)

I make about 1.5 litre each time, which is about 3 full glasses. For that, I need:
3 full tablespoons of good honey
1 lemon

Mix honey with lukewarm or cold water (DO NOT USE HOT WATER FOR HONEY - I heard that it destroys the good enzymes in it)
When honey is properly mixed, squeeze in juice of half a lemon.
The other half of the lemon can be sliced and just throw it into the drink for more flavour.

Best served chilled - refreshing and delicious!

CoCo's Butter Sambal Prawns

Managed to buy some fresh prawns from the supermarket the other day, so decided to grill it. Wanted to try something different, so instead of the usual sambal sauce, I wanted to up the flavour by melting about 2 tablespoons of salted butter on the frying pan and fry some curry leaves in the melted butter.

I then pour the flavoured hot butter into the sambal sauce and spread it onto the prawns that has been cut open.

I then pop the prawns into a preheated oven of 200 degress celsuis for just 8 to 10 minutes. The smell when it's baking is heavenly! The taste is even better! A simple must try to impress anybody!

Chikuyotei Dining - Niku Udon

Hubby had the craving for the Wagyu Beef Sukiyaki I had the other time at Chikuyotei, so we drove all the way to Orchard just for dinner.



Me, I wanted to try something different, so I ordered their Wagyu Niku (Beef) Udon.



The serving wasn't very big, but the starchy udon can be quite filling, so that little bowl was enough for me. The Wagyu beef was, of course, very tender. Unlike the usual beef that clump up when you chew too big a piece, it melts in your mouth within a few bites. The soup was very light but tasty. Overall it was a very simple dish, just beef, leek and udon. Add a dash of Japanese mixed spiced pepper and you have a hearty meal! YUMS!

Pan Fried Nian Gao

This is another traditional dish that is served during Chinese New Year. You can check out the meaning and other details here, Nian Gao!



For me, this is a dish that makes chinese new year morning special. Mum would make these for breakfast and we'll eat the sticky, delicious, sweet cakes while watching tv.

I've been eating these for years, but this is the very first time I'm making them myself. Thankfully, with my Mum's instructions, they tasted very close to how my Mum makes them.

It's really simple to make, the only problem was cutting the sticky, gooey, 'gao'. I guess you can try dipping your knife in oil, or hot water, or freeze the nian gao 1st.

When you have cut them into squares, make the batter. It's quite like making tempura batter. It's best to use self raising flour, but if you don't have it, mix plain flour with a little baking powder.

So, just mix flour, egg with a little cold water to get a thick batter. Coat the nian gao and pan fry it with a little oil in medium heat. Before turning over, put a little batter on top to get an even coat on both sides. When the gao is nice and golden brown, it's ready!