Cooking with frozen ingredients

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.

Love this Pot cum Steamer

I have lots of stainless steel cooking pots in my home. Some were handed down to me and some were received as gifts. I bought one last year that I have been using everyday. That is because my family loves drinking soup everyday and it can also be used as a steamer. I think that it is an energy saving idea to be able to steam dishes in the same pot that you are boiling your soup in. 

Another reason why I bought it is because I think that the supplier is very thoughtful. They supplied the pot with stainless steel bowls and a hot plate gripper that you will need when you are steaming food. Check out the gifts that came with it which makes using it as a steamer easier. And, yes. I received that stainless steel pot with handle too. We often use it to boil instant noodles.

Instead of scalding the soup bones with hot water to clean it, I prefer to place them on a bowl to steam them over the soup. This is because I usually marinate all my soup bones with salt before I freeze them for later use. So the stainless steel bowl that came with the steamer is useful. I will steam the soup bones till it is no longer red. Then I will sieve the liquid in the bowl into the pot of soup and discard the scum. 

I also like to use the bowls to steam a dish like this minced pork dish or boil eggs or heat up cooked rice or leftover dishes.

Are you curious to know why the cover for this pot is so high? Other than a steaming rack, it is also supplied with two extra trays for steaming additional dishes.  This photo will give you an idea of where the extra trays can be placed in order for you to steam additional dishes. 

You can see the slot inside the pot at Level A, where tray 1 can be placed to sit on in this photo.

Tray 1 should be placed in the pot before the water is boiling. You will find this gripper more useful once the water is boiling or when you need to make some adjustment to place the tray to sit properly on the slot. It is also easier to use it to remove the tray from the pot while it is still hot.

Tray 2 can be placed on top of the steaming rack but if you do not have extra item to steam in it, you  don't have to use it. I often place Tray 2 on top of the pot itself, if I only have two dishes to steam or heat up.  Due to its tall cover, you should not have any problem steaming anything on top of tray 2.

However, you may have issue using the tall cover if you are cooking something near a wall mounted hood, like the one I have in my kitchen. I solved this problem by using a cover of the same diameter from another pot that I have.

You can check out some of the soups I made with this pot cum steamer at the following link:

Convert Your Vegetable Dish Into A Soup

Yes, I do hope to win something from Igozo for sharing about this pot cum steamer that I bought from them last year. Wish me luck @iGOZO #igozocookandwin

Update:

Check out what I won from iGOZO for this post.

iGOZO BEAUTE STAINLESS STEEL MIXING BOWL (18/20/22/24/26/28/30CM)

Satay My Way

Whatever I cook, I try to do away with some of the steps whenever it is possible to. For satay, it will be attaching the meat to the skewers to grill. I do not use the wooden skewers or grill the meat. I stir fry it like it is shown in this video.

However, I marinate my meat with the following sauces:

-garlic oil

-ginger juice
-soya sauce

-sugar

-cornstarch

For the satay sauce, I mix the following ingredients together:

1) 1 big scoop of crunchy peanut butter

2) 8 Tbsp of canned peaches syrup

3) Sugar

4) Half a lemon squeezed for juice 

5) Lingam Chillie sauce 

I do not add the sliced onion or the peanut sauce to the stir fry either, which I think helps keep the dish moist. I will give it a try the next time I cook it.

Check out how a Westerner cooked Chicken Satay.

Now check out how an Aisan do satay from scratch.

Cooking with Bitter Gourd

Children, your dad loves eating peppers and bitter gourd. Here is a recipe that we should try making for him.

Since we are small eaters, we should not have any problem cooking the second dish too with just one large bitter gourd.  As I have tried it with cucumbers, we can also use the steamed dish to make soup for dinner if there are any leftovers.

Classic Chinese Chow Mein

I found this recipe for Chow Mein on Yummly (link shared is no longer valid).

These are the ingredients I usually use to marinate my meat:

1) garlic oil

2) soya sauce and/or oyster sauce

3) sugar

4) white pepper
5) cornstarch

Meat should be marinated for at least 15 to 20 mins.  Marinated meat can also be kept in an airtight container and store in the freezer for later use.

If you like, you can add the following ingredients to the chow mein:

1) Prawns
2) Sliced Fish cake

Always fry the meat slices first before adding prawns as they take a longer time to cook.  You can add the cabbage once the prawns have changed colour.  Sliced fish cake are already cooked, so you can add it after cabbage has wilted.