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This is supposed to be Vietnamese style. But after more than 10 years of abuse in my mother’s hands, I doubt the Vietnamese can recognise this.
80 spring rolls/ 20 servings
- 1 kg minced pork/chicken
- 800 g prawn, peeled, cleaned and diced
- 6 egg yolks (Singapore eggs sized)
- 6 egg whites
- 3 turnip, peeled and julianned
- 2 large carrots, peeled and julianned
- 300 g glass noodle, soaked and cut into 5 cm pieces
- 8 jew’s ears, soaked and julianned
- 80 Spring Roll Pastry
- 3 tsp salt
- 3 tbsp sesame oil
- 2 tsp ground white pepper
- 80 leaves lettuce
- 80 stalks corriander
- Mix the minced pork, egg yolks and prawns, followed by the salt, pepper and sesame oil.
- Add the vegetables and glass noodle into the meat mixture one at a time, mix well after each addition with your hands.
- Place about 2 heaped table spoon of filling on each pastry skin.
- Wrap the springrolls according to instructions here. Use the egg white to seal the pastry skin.
- Heat vegetable oil in a wok/deepfryer and deep fry the springrolls till golden brown.
- Drain and pat with paper towel to absorb excess oil.
- Serve with the (Vietnamese Chilli Dipping Sauce), lettuce and corriander
Try to ensure that all the ingredients are as dry as possible to avoid the pastry skin from tearing during and after the wrapping. Allow all the cut vegetables and glass noodle to drain well and pat dry with a tea towel. Do not add any soy sauce into the meat mixture.
To test if the oil is sufficiently hot before frying, drop a small piece of pastry skin into the oil. It should float immediately.
When Chris went to the US for a few months in 2008, he found a small restaurant called Chef Chu‘s that sells this amazing dish called General’s Chicken. He went on searching for the same flavors back in Singapore, to no avail. This is one of his attempt, an improvement over a recipe found in a recipe book (which we kinda forgot the title; we found it in the library). While not similar to Chef Chu’s version, this version is flavorful in its own ways.
Serves 5-6 people
- 5 chicken thigh, skinned and deboned
- 6-10 dried red chillies
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 cm ginger, peeled and minced
- vegetable oil for deep frying
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- Some spring onions, chopped thinly (for garnish)
Marinade
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- ½ tsp dark soya sauce
- ½ tsp rice wine
- ¾ tbsp sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 tbsp potato flour
- 2 tsp vegetable oil
Sauce
- ¾ tbsp sugar
- ½ tsp potato flour/starch
- ½ tsp dark soy sauce
- 1½ tsp light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp clear rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp tomato ketchup
- ½ tsp rice wine
- 5 tbsp water
- Remove any visible fat from the chicken, dice into bite-sized pieces.
- Marinate the chicken with the soy sauces, rice wine, sugar, and egg yolk. then stir potato flour and oil. Let stand while preparing other ingredients.
- Soak the dried chillies for at least 10 minutes. Then deseed and cut into 2 cm pieces.
- Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl.
- Heat the oil until about 180 to 200 degrees Celsius (you can test the heat of the oil by dropping one piece of chicken, the oil should start bubbling in a few seconds), then deep-fry the chicken in batches for 3-4 minutes till golden brown. Pat dry with kitchen towels.
- Return 2-3 tbsp of the oil into a wok and heat with high flame. Stir fry the chillies till fragrant (about 30 seconds; do not burn them). Add the ginger and stir-fry for about 15 seconds. Then add garlic and a pinch of salt and stir-fry for another few seconds. Add in the sauce (the sauce may bubble vigorously, keep pouring all the sauce into the center of the wok) and stir until the mixture thickens slightly.
- Return the chicken to the wok, stir-fry the pieces vigorously to coat them with the sauce. Remove from heat, stir in the sesame oil and mix well.
- Transfer to a serving bowl, then sprinkle artistically with green onions. Serve while still warm.
Acknowledgment: This recipe is based on a recipe we found in the book The Flavors of Asia. I have modified the recipe so that it is closer to the Chef Chu’s version than the one in the book. 
This is a pretty quick and dirty cheatsheet for a nice stir-fried glass noodles. Much of the flavour is really up to your own taste, so feel free to adjust the ingredients as much as you want. Love it!
Serves 3-4 people
- 300 g glass noodles
- 6 shallots, minced
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- 1 medium potato
- 5 pieces chicken nuggets (or similar product; unprocessed meat is even better, but I’d not be a cheater that way, would I?)
- 4 tbsp light soy sauce or shoyu
- 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1½ tbsp granulated sugar
- 4 tbsp tomato sauce
- a pinch of salt
- lots of ground white pepper
- vegetable oil
- 1½ cup warm water
- Soak the glass noodles in tap water for about 10 to 15 minutes.
- (If you’re using nuggets or processed meats) Fry the chicken nuggets until golden, slice them afterwards.
- Peel and cube the potato and fry them until slightly golden.
- Heat about 3 tbsp of vegetable oil in a wok on high heat. Fry shallots for a minute. Then add garlic and stir-fry for another 15 seconds.
- (If you’re using unprocessed meat) Slice the meat to bite-sized pieces and stir-fry until no longer pink.
- Add both the fried cubed potato and sliced chicken nuggets and stir fry for another 15 seconds.
- Add the glass noodles to the wok and immediately add water. Reduce the heat to medium.
- Add all the sauces (soy sauces and tomato sauce), sugar, and salt. Add lots of ground white pepper. Ground white pepper will add a slightly spicy flavour characteristic of my stir-fried glass noodles, so be generous with it.
- Stir-fry until the water is reduced completely. Taste the noodles and adjust the flavouring as needed.
- Increase the heat to high and stir-fry for another 45 seconds to 1 minute. This step will add a slightly caramelized flavour to the stir-fry so don’t skip the step.
- Serve immediately.
I like my glass noodles shorter, so I typically stir-fry the glass noodles vigorously. The glass noodles will typically break to shorter pieces and, as added benefits, the ingredients will mix really well together. You can choose to stir-fry the noodles more gently to prevent it from breaking, but that requires much more finesse than this way. ;)
If you have some sweet soy sauce, you can replace the dark soy sauce and some sugar with the sweet soy sauce for better, more caramelized flavour.
You can complete the first two steps in a single batch of frying to save time.
This recipe is a simplification of my more complicated semur recipe. Semur uses minced beef as well and not so much of a cheat than a real recipe. However, it takes much longer to cook and sometime I’m just lazy and will opt for this recipe instead. I will be posting the recipe for semur the next time I manage to cook it.
Acknowledgment: This is an original recipe.
This Foo Yung Hai (some sort of omelets with fillings) recipe was born out of my frustration when searching for Foo Yung Hai recipe online. You see, I’ve eaten Indonesian-style Foo Yung Hai a lot when I was small, and I was pretty sure that those recipe I found won’t recreate the same flavour. This one does come close, even though it uses beef instead of pork that my mom used. Oh well. It tastes great!
Serves 4 people (Makes 2 omelets)
- 200 g minced beef
- ¾ onion, sliced thinly
- 1 tsp ginger, minced
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- 1 shallot
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1½ cup water
- ½ chicken stock cube
- ½ tsp dried basil or 1 tsp fresh basil, chopped
- White pepper, black pepper, salt—to taste
- Vegetable oil
- 8 eggs
For the sweet and sour sauce
- 3 tbsp white rice vinegar
- 2 tbsp white wine
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 3 tbsp tomato sauce
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- 2 tsp cornflour
- 1½ cup water
- 2 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- ½ tsp ginger
- ¼ onion, chopped roughly
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- To prepare the sweet and sour sauce, mixed vinegar, white wine, sugar, tomato sauce, and soy sauce in a bowl.
- Heat oil in a saucepan and fry onions until soft. Add ginger, and fry for a few more seconds. Then add garlic and fry for about 30 seconds.
- Add the sauce mix to the saucepan, followed by water. Heat under medium heat until it begins to simmer.
- Add cornflour, stirring until it dissolves. Simmer in medium-low fire for about 15 minutes. Stir occasionally. The sauce should be more sweet than sour and the flavour should not be too strong.
- Meanwhile heat 2 tbsp oil in a wok and fry onions for the omelette fillings until soft. Add ginger, garlics, and shallots. Fry for another 30 seconds.
- Add the minced beef to the pan. Fry until it is no longer pink, ensuring that there is no large pieces.
- Add white pepper, black pepper, basil, and soy sauce and mix thoroughly.
- Add water and half the stock cube (you can cut it into small pieces before adding). Mix well and let simmer until half the water has been reduced. Add salt to taste. Further reduce the water until only a little is left.
- To make a single omelet, heat 1 tbsp oil in a flat, medium frying pan. Meanwhile, whisk 4 eggs together and mix in half of the meat mixture.
- When the oil is hot, pour the mixture and fry under high heat. Keep scraping the egg to the center so that the watery mixture will run down and set faster. When the egg is half set, lower the fire to medium low. Fry until the egg looks set, then flip the omelet. Fry for another 15 seconds and slide to serving plate.
- Fry the other omelet.
- When serving, pour the sweet and sour sauce on the omelet.
If you are making 1 omelet or more than 2 omelets, you can make the meat mixture wetter and save the unused mixture (and sweet and sour sauce) in the fridge. The next time you want to fry the omelet, warm the meat mixture and follow the step from the preparation of the egg-meat mixture onwards.
This recipe should work well with minced pork or minced chicken too. Perhaps with some minor adjustment to the flavouring.
Acknowledgment: This is an original recipe.
This is a very simple sweet and sour fish recipe. The sweet and sour sauce (with minor adjustments) may also go well with other meat, although we have not tested it yet.
Serves 3-4 people
- 400 g fillet of any white fish
- Tempura breadcrumbs
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- ½ white onions, sliced
- 1 tsp ginger, minced
- 1 tomato, cubed
- 2 cm length of leek, sliced (optional)
- Sunflower or canola oil (for deep frying)
- ¼ cup of warm water
For the marinade
- 4 tbsp light soy sauce
- scant ¼ cup mirin
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 tbsp cornflour flour
For the sweet and sour sauce
- 1½ tbsp white rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp white wine
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1½ tbsp tomato sauce
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 tsp cornflour
- Slice the fish diagonally to bite-sized pieces.
- Mix soy sauce and mirin for the marinade and marinade the fish slices for 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile measure and mix all the ingredients for the sauce thoroughly in a bowl.
- Discard half of the marinade and mix egg yolk into the fish and marinade. Stir in the cornflour and mix well.
- Prepare a plate of breadcrumb and coat the fish slices in breadcrumb.
- Heat oil in wok for deep frying, and deep fry the fish slices until golden brown and cooked through (approx. 3-4 minutes). Pat dry with paper towel.
- Discard the deep frying oil, leaving about 2 tbsp of oil in the wok. Fry, under high heat, the onion until soft. Add the ginger and garlic mince and fry for another 30 to 45 seconds, ensuring that the garlic does not burn.
- Lower the heat to medium and add the tomato. Fry for 30 seconds.
- Pour the sweet and sour sauce into the wok. Rinse the sauce bowl with warm water and pour the warm water into the wok as well. Mix and cook until thicken slightly (about 2 minutes).
- Turn off the fire and mix the fish into the wok. Mix thoroughly with the sauce. Add the sliced leek and mix a little.
- Serve warm.
Cornflour will seal the juice and marinade in the fish. It also thickens the sweet and sour sauce. You can instead use potato flour as well. If you choose to do so, use less amount of potato flour.
Acknowledgment: This is an original recipe.
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