Happy Winter Solstice! A guide to make tangyuan :)

Today is the winter solstice festival, also known as Dongzhe Festival..This festival signifies the starting of winter and the start of a new year..well, am not a chinese (only 1/2 though), but the significance of this day are rather obscure previously..I knew about this from my buddy, MF..from last year, which unfortunately, a tad bit late, hence, wasn't able to prepare anything.

Well, according to my dearest sweet MF, once, this celebration was more important than chinese new year, which signifies the starting of spring. It is a humble celebration where all family members come together to prepare and eat colourful glutinous rice balls served in sweet syrup known as tangyuan during winter.

So, of coz la we prepare and eat some yay! (Feeling the winter-ness from the IBS aircond..brrrr =__=)

(Although today was a tough day where we have to do someone else's work (and he was not there to share the burden), AND A LOT PULAK TUH *sigh* SGT XBERTANGGUNGJAWAB! pekena BM bg pkcik tuh xphm!)

It was tiring, and rather time consuming (the labwork, cooking is ever the joy for me), but due to friends letting me do my work first, I manage to complete them by about 4 pm like dat and went home to prepare the tangyuan for all with the help of HF and Noly :)

Receipe - How make tangyuan (enough for 6 - 7 people)

Ingredients

Sweet rice flour/glutinous rice flour
room temp plain filtered water
colourings;
bright pink - I use cochneal red (for the cake colouring)
pale green - I use pandanus leaves (they grew in abundance infront of my house, sure thick with plumbum)
pearly white - original colour of the tangyuan

Enough water - boiling

A pot of water flavoured with 1 bruised lemongrass, 3 pandan leaves and a few thin slice of ginger if you like..these are optional to bring out fragrance and flavour besides sugar..lotsa sugar haha

Methods

1. Bring both pots to boiling at medium fire.

2. While waiting for the pots to boil, use a big bowl, add in yer sweet rice flour and add a wee bit of water (with a pinch of salt, dissolve it well 1st k) lil by lil and mix em up. Use as much flour as you wish (shrug). But I think just now it could amount to 4 cups.

3. Use yer hands to knead em up and divide to 2 portions. I portion you juz add with a 2-3 drops of cochneal red. Knead well and observe the colouring. Adjust to your liking

4. To prepare a green tangyuan, blend 4-5 pandan leaves in a mixer and strain the well..preserving the murky green juice to be mixed with 2 cups of sweet rice flour in a different bowl. Add lil by lil (the juice I mean) and knead well.

How do you know the texture of the dough is right? It should be a lil dry, but must have a springy texture, not brittle so that when you roll them in your palm it made a nice round cute balls.

5. Roll them separately and place in a flour dusted bowl, swish it a bit to let a fine layer of flour to coat the surface of the tangyuans, this will make em not to stick to each other. Place on a tray. This is the parts where the 3 of us played at rolling alot. Its a fun activity for the whole family :)

6. Turn off the fire for the pot filled with flavoured syrup and let it cooled. This should be done in the middle of preparing the tangyuans. If your tangyuans are nearly ready, use ice cubes to cool it down more rapidly. You would like to achieve a slightly warm temperature. This is important so that the tangyuan won't become too squishy or runny when being transferred here after cooking.

7. The water in the pot should be boiling by now. Juz pour in all those round balls and let em cooked up! When they float, it means they're cooked. Simply transfer to the next pot filled with the sweet syrup huhu..and its done!

8. Serves warm :)


I'm not sure about the exact quantification for the measurings, I think you should just do trial-and-error (part of the reason was because at the moment of preparation, my buddies were doing it w/o measuring properly, so I can't vouch for the measurements coz I didn't see it mah self..agak2 je)

(credits to HF for the receipe! Thanks to HF n Noly for helping out muah2!)

Happy Winter Solstice!

The pretty bright pink with pale green tangyuan :)

 Another way to eat the tangyuan, mix ground peanuts with course sugar and some sesame seeds, rolled the cooked tangyuan in and eat em up! Juz like muachi huhu..

 My friend, Iera, HF and Noly :)

MF looked so happy eating em after working so hard with the cultures, it cools my heart..thats the joy a cook gets when they fed the people they love haha

Manga review: Shingeki no Kyojin

An opening for the long awaited post for a blog that is full of 3 months old cobwebs lol. A great manga with intense violence and gore, Shingeki no Kyojin, or 'Advancing Giants'. At first the name sounded like a baseball oriented manga..or something about sport of the sort, but when I read them reviews, well, maybe a few months or so ago, it does not, by all means related to sport. It's a really awesome manga with an exponential burst on the storyline a little further inside. Hence, one has to be patient and to keep on reading to reach to the exciting parts. You could feel ultimate fear from reading this manga, boy I haven't felt this way since 'Monster'.

Title: Shingeki no Kyojin
Status: Ongoing
Nationality: Japanese
 Genre: Drama, Shounen, Psychological, Supernatural, Tragedy, Horror, Mystery, Action, Mature
Source: mangafox

Written and drawn by Hajime Isayama sensei, this great manga was nominated for the 4th Taisho Manga Award and winner for the 35th annual Kodansha Manga award for Best Shounen category as explained in Mangafox. The scanlator group responsible for the current chapters is the TDX Scanlation Group. Currently scanlated at ep 28, the manga has soared in popularity while being able to maintain a non-generic shounen storyline. Truly, a jewel amongst jewels.

The manga is centered around Eren Jaeger (middle) and his foster sister, Mikasa Aekerman (on right), and later with increasing importance, their great buddy, Armin Arelet (left). Their lives were in a setting where giants and titans (fyi, they eat humans for no plain reason) roam freely with the population of humanity dwindled to the ones living behind gigantic walls, about 50 meters high. This actually occurs few hundred years ago before the presence of our 3 little heroes I think.

Armin, Eren and Mikasa

Hence, these kids never see the wide plains, the forest nor the sea. Very pitiful. The walls got a few layers, Wall Maria, the outermost wall, Wall Rose, the middle one, and Wall Sina, the centermost wall. The situation is that the higher your ranking/nobility/level, you'll have clearance to stay at the inner side of the wall. And of course to avoid the walls to be breached easily, the concentrations of population was placed at 4 corners of each walls. This is because the giants has a tendency to target a mass number of humans rather than the scattered ones. So, the probability for the walls to be breached at these 4 sides are much higher than the rest, and ammunitions were concentrated to these sites. Its pretty sick strategy don't you think? But necessary.

The view of the layer of walls

The kickstart of the story was initiated with the presence of a 50 meter titan, exceeding the height of the wall, breaking the wall near Eren's hometown and letting loose all the normal giants ranging between 15 - 3 meters. It's a total massacre with Wall Rose being compromised. Eren, together with Mikasa, saw the death of his own mother, being ripped and chewed by a giant which ignite his already pumping desire to kill the sonuvabitches (ehem, excuse me hee :D). He entered the military, learned the 3D maneuver gear, and enter the Scouting Legion, juz so that he could kill more giants and maybe save humanity just a wee bit. Later on, he acquired the ability to turn himself into a 15 m giant, with no way of controlling it. From this you can even smell the stink of a scheme don't you? Soon he and his friends realize that, the danger was not just outside the walls..

The types and ranges of giants that devour humans for pleasure..scary..

The latest page of the manga :)

Eren, in his giant skin

A coloured scene, by a fan (i think), where Eren fought the 50 m titan.

This manga gave me goosebump. Sometimes, I feel intense fear. I would say the mangaka was able to bring us into his world which is full of despair, horror and death. The storyline is powerful, the drawing, getting better although a lil shaggy but enough to illustrate the necessary information. I was really thankful that I browse through mangas in Mangafox when this manga got an update. What luck. It seems that the updates came once a month lately at about 40 page. And, again I was thankful because I was patient and read through till the end. A jewel amongst jewels indeed. A must read for the adults.

Ratings: 9.5/10

Oh how I wish the updates were sooner... :)

Eid-ul-Fitr of 2011/1432

 Happy Eid to all :)

After 1 tiring-but-super happy week, I am back. Here. Again. At the same spot.

My head and my heart are still there, at my hometown, refusing to follow me here to step back to reality. I can't even push myself to continue finding materials for writing my thesis, although there's more than 10 tabs of articles from various journals waiting meekly for this damn sluggish eyes to discern their contents and make use of em. (sigh)

My raya was different from the rest, like always. I'd say that I might be one of the not-so-often-comes-by antisocial peep (kinda) around. I think its juz me (maybe), coz my other family members did went around visiting some of their friends. Raya in Malaysia means visiting relatives as well as friends and eating your heart out at those different locations near and far. For me, I'm already contented with spending my time with the close circle of my puny family consists of my mom, my big sis and my two lil bros besides my darling hubby. Well, the part on eating is of course a must :) I don't know why I'm like this. Maybe coz I'm always on the run all the time, never going on a vacation together with them at all after I entered matriculation, only going back once a blue moon..it makes me value and treasure the scarce time I had on every single waking moment of my life with my family when I have the chance. Although, they didn't seem to notice my weird introverted obsession to them (laugh). Hubby was really understanding; he knew I missed my family intensely, and the selfless him sacrifices his time with his family for me and my family. I'm happy, yet deeply troubled with guilt. Sigh.

The best thing about raya would be the granting of permission from my ma with the exclusive rights to cook food for more than 30 people with ingredients and utensils covered. HAHA. I like! At my hometown, I can use big BIG pots and pans, casseroles, pyrax and ceramics..juz name it, anything! (I know I'm weird, but I prefer 'unique'). Hence, I decided to prepare two sets of food comprised of our yearly comfort food, a delightful yet refreshing chicken soup for eating with cubed rice or vermicelli and an array of dishes for Nasi Ambeng.

 The chicken soup was a must; my siblings love a healthy and light chicken soup made in a big 10 L pot. Although its quite easy, the most weird thing is that we only made this during Raya. The soup must be simmered with the chicken carcass and herbs at least for 6-8 hours before it could be presentable enough to be eaten. I think I've refilled the pot 3 times and recook. I believe everyone consumed an astonishing cumulative amount of more than 20 L soup give of take. The soups are used as broth for eating noodles and rice cubes.

Yep, I've been introduced to an authentic Nasi Ambeng in Muar previously by my darling friend and I immediately falls head over heels for it. The delish adventure was recorded here :) There were 5 main items for a basic nasi ambeng; the rice, usually medium grain or thai fragrant rice; the chicken cooked with coriander seeds, cumin and fennel known as ungkep chicken, the coconut floss seasoned with tumeric, herbs and spices, the noodles fried in molasses and crushed candlenut and lastly a dish with fried tempeh and all the tofu derivatives with a tinge of chile de arbol. To me it was awesome. But my family didn't like it, too dry they said. Pity haha. Nonetheless, I'm happy I was able to make em. I think I made like 5 birds for the chicken ungkep. Delish with fragrant rice as well as cubed rice and ketupat ho.

Homemade nasi ambeng..the lighting sucks sigh..

Well, I juz realized this time around, I didn't take that many pictures coz I was so busy in the kitchen until I forgot. The pictures taken by my hubby mostly blurred badly due to some wrong settings (sigh) well2..At least I did enjoy the event to my heart's content. Feeling bliss all the way~

A warm raya to be remembered always :)

Going Korean with All the Authentic Goodies!!

I love korean. Their dramas (I was sobbing pretty badly when I watched Secret Garden, even my heart ached for the stuntwoman-millionaire couple..I even strongly rooted the furniture designer-gay wannabe architect's relationship in Personal Taste), their people (so-so plastic pretty~ like asian barbie doll), and of course their food (those darling kimchis and grilled meats yum2!)! Everything about them is fascinating haha. I'd say that I was head over heels for japan before, but now, Korea has come to join the rank of apples for my eyes (not juz 1 mind you, gotta be fair with the judgment).

One of the main street where you can find a stretch of korean shoplots

On my way back from Kulim of the north of Malaysia we purposely take a detour to a (not so) famed Korean town in Ampang, which is situated pretty near to Ampang point. My baby hubby really wanna make me happy, he desperately looked for a genuine Korean mart for me for my birthday (misty eyes) coz I rolled left and right on the floor wanting a korean grill exactly like the ones in the korean movies. Really. I literally did it, the pampered I am. And bottomline, ITS WORKING. yay! (ngeeeee~ happily frolicking in excellent mood despite havta overnight at the lab today)

What he managed to get me, was a Korean mart's information, we didn't know we're actually entering a residential area full of Koreans living in Malaysia! It was amazing! I never seen a Korean town before, only china town. All the notice boards were written in hangul! And the best of all, there's plenty of Korean shoplots, not juz groceries supplies, there's some boutiques, restaurants, barbershop, etc2. The best of all, I saw a shop selling a large number of readymade banchans (sidedishes for eating with rice)! I felt like I entered a korean drama while walking around sightseeing and listening to hangul speakers chattering lively here and there. I wonder why this place aren't popular for the Korean fanatic fans hmm...

One of the Grill house..

We purchased all our fair share of korean items from here, Phill Mart :) There's actually Lotte mart juz the opposite. I counted 3-4 grocery shops along this one stretch.

The wet items in the shop..you can get various kimchis from cabbage and radish, some pickles as well, and even rice cakes

The meats...i think its pork (shrug) not sure tho since everything were labeled in hangul

Some dry items..ooohh..i really don't know what they are..

Frozen items..like nuggets and the like ah..

Phill mart also sells pots and pans from korea..those kitchenware used in dramas!! haha..Bless them!

An example of a korean grill..it has many sizes and shape..and the price was affordable :)

The heat didn't bother me at all, I immediately fall in love with a grill that I  really wanted (Babaekyuguhlil) where we use a portable stove on top and grill marinated beef, of course, Korean style (no pictures yet! XD). I even purchased a medium sized Ddukbaegie, an earthen bowl, which is imperative for making stews. Other minor items that I grabbed so readily (which makes my hubby took healthy gulps of suffocating air) were the kimbap mold (so pretty, orange in colour huhu), mulyeot (corn syrup for making delicious candied chicken), black sesame seeds, a kilo of gochugaru (hot pepper flakes, a must for every spicy korean dish), and korean seasonings for meat. hoho. I'm super happy I feel like dancing there and then.

The nice ahjumma helped us translate most of the items. The thing is when going to this kind of store, we must have in mind what we want to buy, as in our target. If not, you'll be chasing your own tail hoho

Pity my hubby paying for everything huhu..Shooo happy!

This is heaven for home-self-acclaimed chef who loves to try out korean cooking like me :D Ready the wallet and you're ready for war.


Korean Town
Location: Ampang, Kuala Lumpur
Nearest POI : Ampang Point
Coordinates : N 03.12378 E101.63475 (its the parking lot in that area)
Business hour for most shops: Not sure (normal working hours)

Rating: 8/10

Koeyteow Kungfu a.k.a Koeyteow Hongkong

What is a koeyteow? It is some sort of flat noodles made of rice flour, soft and white in colour and somewhat oily (if you get fresh ones), if its in the fridge, it tends to harden, so let it thaw outside prior to usage, although the texture won't be as soft as the fresh ones, but the outcome once cooked is the same. Very addicting! I'm a hardcore fan of koeyteow as compared to other kinds of noodles and pasta :D
___________________________________
Sorry for the trivia XDXD

Why it is name as above? God knows why XD My humble personal views tells my heart that it is so due to the very chinese-like one meal dish; thickly soupy, not hot, and pleasantly mild (although in my case, it's not so mild..already adapted it to a malay tongue hoho) (feeling syiok sendiri again).

As usual, this dish can be obtain almost anywhere, but the one's that's decent are hard to come by. I only can remember 1 shop selling good koeyteow kungfu, and it was in my matriculation collegue which is about 7 years ago hoho

And again, a delightful day for me to present a very Malaysian dish for all to go ahead and try (although the name is somewhat suspicious haha). The taste is slightly different, but I can assure you that it might be one of the best ones you've ever tasted in a restaurant. My style weights more on hot-thick-mild-slightly sour-savoury taste :)


For 3 servings (big portion per person)

Ingredients

For the noodle
1 pkt of koeyteow
3 A size eggs
a dash of light soy sauce and pepper
1/2 cup vege oil

For gravy
1 big onion - julienne
4 cloves garlic - julienne
4 chile de arbol*optional (this is mild-hot)
1/4 chicken breast - cut to cubes
some medium size prawns - about 10 like dat; shelled leaving the tails intact
2 tbs oyster sauce
2 tbs light soy sauce
1/3 cube chicken stock (i used maggi)
1 1/2 - 2 cups of vegetables like (really, its up to you, cut to ur liking);
- carrots - julienne
- cauliflowers
- baby kailan/bok choy
1 egg*optional
4-5 cups water depending on how much gravy you want
1 - 2 tbs vege oil
 2 tbs corn starch (dilute in some water)
lime juice

For garnishing
1 sprig chopped coriander leaves - very important as it contributes to the tastes as well
some fried shallots

The ingredients for the gravy

Method

Lets prepare the noodle first;
1. Crack and egg and beat profusely until creamy, with rapid hand like 1 min or so

2. Wash the noodle in running water to distangle them and divide the noodles to 3 parts.

3. Add in 1 part in the bowl containing the beaten eggs and add a dash of pepper and soy sauce to it. Stir well. Leave for like 2-3 mins for the noodle to partially absorb the egg mixture

4. Heat the 1/2 cup oil in a wok (must use wok plz) you gotta fry em in a deep well so it'll be something like a heap of noodle that clings to each other..more like a thick omelet
5. Please pour in the mixtures when its really hot yea, if not it'll not be crispy

6. Similarly repeat these steps to prepare more koeyteow for each serving..note that you'll need to add more oil if it runs low, and you can prepare the next koeyteow when you are frying the current one

7. Flip the egg-koeytoew mixture gently in a sliding manner yea, if you do it harshly it'll break, not nice to see, not nice to eat ;D aiyooo..each side should be about 5 mins or so i guess? whats important is that it must be crispy! please use medium-low flame while frying, but high ones when prior to adding the koeyteow mixture.

Next, the gravy, this is relatively easy to cook;

1. Stirfry the onions and garlic together until fragrant prior to addition of bruised chile de arbol and oyster sauce. When the oyster sauce are crisp, go for the light soy sauce. At this point the mixture'll look somewhat like a thick paste.

2.Add in the chicken chunks and cooked em up until opaque. All the time do use medium heat. Add in the 4 cups water and chicken stock and let it simmer for 5-10 mins

3. Add all the veges together and leave em in for like 5 mins (put the green leafy ones at the last 1 min, dun wanna overcooked them)..use medium-low heat

4. After the 6-7th min, I usually taste it and adjust the salt, pepper and lime powder (you can use lime juice) prior to addition of liquidify cornstarch.

5. Stir until the liquid becomes deliciously viscous. At this point, I usually add the prawns for 1-2 mins tops in order to preserve the sweet taste as well as maintaining the texture. Close fire and add in the chopped coriender leaves and stir. (*optional = before adding prawn, for those who wants to put egg in, beat it for good and pour slowly in a circular motion, at the same time use the other hand with the ladle to stir in an opposite direction..juz like when you make egg-drop soup)

Pretty easy right? XD

How to serve?

Juz use a plate or a bowl with less depth, add the koeyteow omellete and pour in the viscous liquid carefully. Topped with cayenne pepper, fried shallots and a wee bit of spring onions or coriender leaves and wallah! you can eat oredi huuu :)

Tips;
- use 1 egg for 'marinating' each portion of koeyteow for 1 serving, it is best to use A or AA size
- the best composition of this one dish meal is when the viscosity is not too high or too low
- low viscosity will dampen the koeyteow-omellete duo and make it less crisp
- do not combine the gravy with the noodle if you're not eating immediately

 Hidden treasures..yumyum..

Taucheow plum Stingray~The cravings of all time :D

I made this because I'm tired of eating the stingray with the normal asam rebus/pedas style..and I dont have a grill to make a babeque stingray..we bought 1 1/2kg before..tamak nye pasal :P tapi the flesh was soooo exquisite. ah before starting I must teach how to get a good stingray before cooking.

 How to choose a good Stingray for cooking
Credits to my beloved ma for this~

1. pick the whitest flesh you can find (nowadays can't find really white ones anymore, but a bit pinkish is ok)
2. look for the ones with vivid grains (the lines of the chunks were obvious)
3. choose an adequete size - don't go for the palm size one, you'll taste nothing..better bought the ones already cut to big pieces
4. smell it, dont ever bought the ones with urine smell @__@||| very bad tasting

Note that within 1-2 weeks in frozen condition, the taste of the fish will still be exquisite

And yeah, if yer google the name, you won't find anotha like this baby, coz its a syiok sendiri name that I gave. It does not have any relation with the teowchew peepz (whose cooking I adore so much~<3 especially the Loh Pak Kor)...drooolll (got pork one, of coz I can't eat XD) Well, this name actually came from my pa, I remembered he used to call taucheong/tauchu as taucheow (he was a hokkien btw)..and the plum..err..juz my craziness for sourish things taking over, tsk..tsk (grin)

Well, surprisingly, it tastes really good! The taste of the sour plum really brings up the flavourful bean paste and the sweet sweet flesh of the stingray gave it a final overall completion of heavenly texture and flavour. I heard the angels singing when I taste it haha


Well, a really good side dish with hot steaming rice :)

Servings of 2-3

Ingredients
3-4 clove garlic - chopped
1/2 bulb big onion - julienne
2 cayenne chilli pepper - julienne then pulse (dry blend)
2-3 chile de arbol - bruised
2 tbs bean paste/taucheow (i love the ayam piru brand, the texture is exquisite as compared to the others which were too salty! really, my big pot of bangkuang cha was destroyed juz because my taucheow was not nice T__T)

 the texture of the taucheow..

1 tbs oyster sauce
2 sour plum - soak in water for +-30 mins

stingray enough for 2-3 person :)
3 tbs vege oil
pepper and light soy sauce to taste
(hmm..did i put anything else..xingat la..i made this a long time ago edi)

Method

1. Add in both garlic and big onion into a wok with heated vege oil and stir fry until fragrant and translucent.
2. If you want your dish not to be too hot, add in the dry blended chillies now and stir fry until crisp, and then go for the taucheow..you must keep on stirring this til the paste was fried well..it'll sting a lil huh, but its worth it
3. When you feel that the taucheow is crisp, add the oyster sauce and stir sumore.
4. Drain the plum and add in with 1 cup of water together oh and don't forget the chile de arbol.. At this point the liquid will be a lil watery, but already has a thick consistency. Let it simmer like 5 mins. If its a wee bit dry, add in a lil more water..

5. At this point, do some tasting to adjust to your tastebuds. If too salty or sour, go for some water, if too bland, add some salt and a dash of pepper to your liking. If you like you can add chicken stock at this point, but juz a pinch
6. Add your beautiful fish and cover lid for 3-4 mins at medium fire.

Done! easy right :) I hope that you realize after the dish was ready, you'll get to sample a sweetish taste that came from the fish, and that's why its important to use a good fish for the dish

Try out and lemme know

So yummmehhh~ hmmmm my hubby loves it although he dislike sour food

Bistik Egg/ Telur Bistik

 Yum2~

I write about this due to some demand from my darling sis's friend, Kak Syahida and a few more friends :) Another 2 really easy recipes on request are Stingray in Taucheow-plum (the syiok sendiri name that I give one) as well as Kueyteow Kungfu (tak tipu, really, its the real name, and no, the noodle don't dance or jumpe or do karate). Yeap, I'm gonna write about all of em in one go..of course in a different posts heheh

Telor Bistik or bistik egg is one of the popular side dish, really2 strike the fondness in my darling hubby heart coz its the kind of egg where you add in meat in it. (He's abit of a carnivore)This dish can be found on nearly any menu in a malaysian restaurant serving the usual dishes like tomyam, ayam merah or daging merah, the usual telur bungkus..bla bla..If a telur bungkus (wrapped egg) has gravy with full of sweet sourish goodies inside, the bistik egg is totally the opposite, at which the gravy outside, d egg inside..simple

And until now, I still wonder why the name's like dat..if actual spelling in english, peepz out there will spell it as 'beefstick'..hmm maybe it originally got beef inside? only the inventor and God know now XD

Well, this is just my rendition;

3-4 servings; to be eaten with white rice, ideally with another vege dish and a meat dish

Ingredients
2 eggs
1/4 chicken breast (or any fleshy parts, no bones plz)
1 medium size big onion/spanish onion - julienne
2 cloves garlic - julienne
2-3 tbs mix vege (the one with peas, cubed carrots and corn)*choose either
mixed hard vege (DIY urself-eg, carrots/cauliflowers/baby corn/etc) - go for 1/4-1/2 cup - cut em a lil small k
1 tomatoes (1/2 quartered, 1/2 cut to cubes)
1 tbs tomatoe sauce
2-3 tbs chili sauce
1/2 tbs oyster sauce
some light soy sauce (dun use kicap tamin/kipas udang etc ye)
some vege oil
a dash of pepper
a bit of sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 tbs cornflour
1-2 cups of water
2-4 chile de arbol*optional
for garnishing - some coriander leaves, sliced cayenne pepper*optional


Method

Making the eggs
1. Take 1/2 of the julienned big onions and stir fry em in a wok with a bit of oil til fragrant at medium fire
2. Add in the cubed chicken and stir sumore til opaque. Add some light soy sauce to it. Keep on stirfrying for 1-2 mins more. Move out and let em cool a wee bit and we can start with preparing the sauce yea.

Making the gravy
1. Add in the rest of the big onion with garlic and stir fry til fragrant preferably in the same wok (juz now didn't have water ait, hence it'll be no prob if it stain abit)
2. Add the oyster sauce, chili sauce, tomatoe sauce and stir. Don't add water yet, I'd say we let em became crisp and the sputter of oil hurts the hands

3. You can add bruised chile de arbol now if you like, if not just continue with a cup or two of water and make em homogenize. It depends on how much gravy you want really. Add in veges and let em simmer. Remember, the gravy aren't suppose to be thick yet, so its really ok if its watery

Okeh, lets prepare the eggs
1. Beat the eggs til fluffy and add in a dash of pepper and some light soy sauce. You can replace with a pinch of salt if unavailable.
2. Combined the eggs with the cooled chicken cubes as well as the cooked onions prior to the addition of tomatoes

3. Fry it in another wok. Why? Coz we want the egg to have some depth for it to hold all the chicken pieces. Well, if you like flat, can oso use the flat frying pan. Basically you're making an omelette with goodies inside XD

By the time the eggs are ready, you can dish out in a nice plate and pour in the simmering gravy after adjusting the taste with some salt, sugar and pepper, as well as the thickening of the liquid with dissolved corn flour.

Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and some chillies like the first pic

How to know what it taste like? It has a balanced salty-sour-sweet taste with a hint of hotness. The mildness of the gravy is dependent on the chef in charge who should adjust it according to the respective family's tastebuds.


Done!