Cooking Express

A simple hawker dish, especially common in Singapore and Malaysia. Good stuff for a chilly or rainy day.

The broth is made from dried anchovies, ginger, pepper and salt. The egg noodles, known locally as "yee mee" can be found at most groceries or hypermarts.

Ingredients:

For broth: dried anchovies, ginger, pepper, salt, vegetable oil.

Yee Mee

Tomato

Egg

Lettuce

Mince pork, marinate with soy sauce and pepper

Sliced pork, marinate with soy sauce and pepper

Sliced fish cake

Steps:

Prepare broth.

Soak anchovies for a while to rtemove dirt. Then fry anchovies and ginger in a pan or wok. Once anchovies become crispy, put then and the onion into a stock pot. Add water and salt, then bring to a boil. To get full flavour from the broth, boil for 45 minutes.

Get a nice single serve claypot. Place yee mee into pot, add in tomatoes. Pour broth prepared earlier into claypot. Don't fill up the claypot. Ideally, the claypot should be 3/4 full. Add in a dash of soy sauce. Cover claypot and bring to boil. Open lid, toss in minced pork, sliced pork and fish cake. Close lid and let boil. Once noodle are soft and pork is cooked, taste and season as required. Next, crack in the egg, add lettuce, close back the lid. Turn off the flame and serve.

Farmer's sausage with penne pasta cooked with tomatoes and herbs. The tomatoes are cooked until they become a thick and sauce-like. This makes it stick to the pasta. I can't remember the Italian name for this method of cooking at this moment.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes

Garlic

Basil Leaves (Both dried or fresh works fine)

Italian farmer's sausage

Lettuce

Steps:

Cook penne separately.

Boil tomatoes until skin begins to peel. Remove and put tomatoes into cold water. Peel off skin and chop tomatoes. Remove the stem. Heat up a pan with olive oil and fry the garlic until it changes colour. Toss in the chopped tomatoes and cook. Keep cooking until tomatoes start to turn into a thick paste. Toss in basil and stir. Season the paste to your tastes (sugar, salt and pepper). Often ketchup is used to provide some acidity. Personally, I prefer balsamic vinegar.

When the paste is seasoned, toss in penne. Cook a while to reduce the water from the penne. When the paste sticks to the penne, it is ready. Garnish with lettuce and serve immediately. You can replace the sausage with other meats, or have the penne with the tomato sauce as vegetarian dish.

This dish goes really well with meatballs. More on my meatballs recipe soon...

The broth is prepared with tomatoes, celery, any leftover vegetables and chicken bones.

This pasta is boiled until soft. Then stir fry some bacon bits. Then add pasta, vegetables and boil again. Don't forget to add salt.

You can top it up with sausages or hard-boiled egg .