I buy CP Korean Popcorn Chicken whenever there is an offer running for it.
The popcorn chicken taste good by itself after it has been air fried, which is the way my daughter loves eating it. I can also use the meat for making sweet and sour chicken. So what did I do with the packets of chillie sauce that came with them? I have been saving them in the fridge. Recently, I discovered that I can add about 2 tablespoon of the chillie sauce to my bell pepper dish to change its flavour.
Since I did not add meat to this batch of bell peppers dish I made, I decided to add the leftover pan fried pork cutlet from yesterday, by slicing them up.
Love the way it turned out and brought it to work at eat for lunch.
I wonder if you have noticed that I have placed the metal container in a plastic container. I usually store my food in metal containers so that it will be easier to heat it up later over a pot of boiling water. As the food is still hot, it will be difficult for me to handle the metal container. So I will use a plactic container as an insulator. This time I made a wrong judgement and use a plastic container which was too small so I was not able to cover it up tightly. The sauce spilled into the reusable bag and I have to wash it.
So, remember to always use a plastic container that is larger so that both containers can be closed properly.
I like the chillie sauce from CP Korean Popcorn Chicken so much that I started looking out for Korean chillie sauce. If you are doing the same, don't ever buy Spicy Korean Sauce from Lotus's. It does not taste anywhere near that from CP.
I usually cook frozen food, meat or fish without defrosting them. It is because I can defrost and cook the frozen ingredients at the same time by steaming it over the soup I am boiling for the day.
I can put my frozen ingredients for soup, directly into the pot of water to boil. I do that for frozen chicken feet I used to enhance the flavour of the soup.
However, I prefer to place the frozen soup bone, pork or chicken in a round metal container and steam it over the soup. You can see from this photo that while I am boiling my soup, I can also steam enough rice for the day and frozen dumplings (dimsum). From my experience, I know that some soups can affect the flavour of the dishes I am steaming up. So I do not do that if I am boiling herbal soup or Lotus root soup.
I steam the meat till it is no longer red with blood before putting it in the soup to boil till tender. I then sieve the liquid in the metal container into the pot of soup to remove the scums. This is how the meat should look like before I put it in the soup.
It is easier for me to remove the scum from the meat in the metal bowl then while it is boiling in the soup.
If I plan on using my airfryer to cook a pork or chicken dish, I will marinate the ingredients first in a round metal container before storing it in the freezer. When it is time to cook it, I will remove the cover and pop the metal container in the airfryer to cook for about 10 to 15 minutes on one side and turn the meat over to cook for another 10 to 15 minutes. I then pour it into a pot, add about half a cup of water to boil it over low fire till the meat is tender enough. After tasting it, I can then decide if I need to add salt or soya sauce or oyster sauce to the dish.
My favourite dishes to cook this way are Oyster Sauce Chicken and Ayam Percik. You can see how I am supposed to cook the Ayam Percik from its packaging.
This is how I cook my Ayam Percik dish with frozen chicken.
I noticed that I am able to speed up the cooking process by not thawing the frozen ingredients I used.
Apam Balik (煎弄包)is one of my favourite street food because I love eating the peanut fillings in it. I buy it almost every weekend at the Batu 11 Cheras morning market. I would have bought it for my son too but he prefers the crispy type. So, I ventured out to learn how to make it after seeing that many of my friends from my former school days could make them so well.
One of my friends shared the mould with cover for making Apam Balik that she has. She bought them from Melaka thirty years ago!
I am sure you have seen the 5" or the 7" or the 10" in size flat pan currently used by vendors of Apam Balik. You do not have to buy any of them to make your own Apam Balik.
If you use a non stick pot, like I did, you do not have to apply oil to its surface before you cook it.
When I applied too much oil to the pot, this was how it turned out. The colour was uneven. So, I ate my mistake.
Once it is cooked, you can loosen the edge with a spatula. You then pull on it with a tong to fold your Apam Balik in half, right in the pot. I used this sugar tong.
Once it is folded, it will be easier to remove it from the pot with the tong and the spatula.
This is how my first piece turned out.
As I have to cook lunch before I rush off to the bike shop before 10.00am, I decided to use up all the batter that I made and kept overnight in this mixing bowl with cover from Igozo.
I was able to make eight pieces because I used my rice scoop to pour the batter in the pot to cook. My Apam Balik did not turn out very crispy though the edges were. So, if you want your Apam Balik to be crispy, pour in less batter because the thinner the layer is, the crispier it will turn out.
I applied the peanut butter filling only on the two peices that I ate. The rest, without fillings, were kept to be eaten the following morning for breakfast.
I used the same mixing bowl to store them and kept it covered in the fridge.
This morning, we used the air fryer to heat up two pieces for five minutes and they turned out crispy. My daughter likes it, as is, without any fillings added. I had mine with peanut butter, of course.
Here is another version from Asian Inspirations which I have not tried making.
This Apam Balik recipe from Lauren's Kitchen is interesting as it uses instant yeast.
If you prefer the less crispy version, you can watch her making it.
This is a follow up to the remaining Apam Balik I made. I should not have used the mixing bowl to store them. I should have layered each piece with a kitchen towel and store them in a larger container that will allow me to lay them flat in it. Today (13 November), I discovered that they were stuck together and they broke up into pieces when I try to remove them to reheat in the airfryer.
This time, as I wanted them to turn out more crispy, I heated one side up for three minutes and turned them over to heat up for another four minutes. They tasted alright without the peanut filllings. The last peice I made was the crunchiest because I used the last remaining batter which is less than a scoop.
I will stick to my friend's suggestion. Instead of cooking the batter up ahead, I will only cook the quantity I want to eat. I was told that I can keep the batter in the fridge for more than a week.
