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KY cooks – Garlic Fried Rice with Seafood

It’s been a while since I posted any home cooked dishes. So here’s one, a simple garlic fried rice with seafood recipe.

This is something that you can prepare in less than half an hour, garlic fried rice is a pretty classic Japanese dish, I just add some seafood to kick it up a notch a bit. While traditionally they also use spring onion, I replaced it with red onion due to availability and that worked out well to add that crunchiness and freshness element to the dish.

garlic fried rice with prawns and scallops

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cup of rice for 2 person
• 2 large eggs
• prawns (you can also add squid or other seafood)
• scallops(optional)
• 2-3 bulb of garlic, chopped or cut in slices
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of soya sauce, some salt & pepper
• 3-4 tablespoon of cooking oil

ingredients – garlic, onion, rice, prawns, scallops

Cooking instructions:

• heat up cooking oil
• fry garlic till a shade before golden brown, remove and set aside
• using the same oil, fry prawns (with a dash of salt), then remove and set aside
• sear scallops with shells on, then remove and set aside

the key is to fry the garlic, seafood, and rice separately

Cooking instructions part 2:

• with the same oil, fry eggs till 80% cooked
• add rice, and stir for a minute
• add soya sauce, salt, and some pepper
• add garlic and continue to stir for another minute
• add garlic and prawns, stir for another minute
• serve while hot (arrange your scallops with best of your artistic ability)

start with the egg, then rice, onion, then everything

The key to this dish is to have the garlic and seafood fried separately. This allows better control and ensures that each ingredients are cooked properly since they have different cooking time. Try it!

More recipes from yours truly can be found here.

KY cooks – Deep Fried Butter Squid recipe

Most of my raw seafood are sourced from mom, who works at a wet market in Penang. She’d pack them frozen in layers of newspaper so that they remain as such during the journey back to KL. The interesting part is, I usually never really know what I’m getting.

So the latest shipment includes squid, one of my favorite seafood, but also one that I have little experience in preparing. I scouted around the internet a little bit and came up with this recipe of deep fried butter squid, an inspiration from several sources, and some personal preference in taste.

home made deep fried butter squid, yum yum

This dish takes a little longer and more steps than most my other recipes, but the end result turned out pretty good, definitely worth the effort and it’ll be something that I shall make again.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoon rice flour
• 3 tablespoon corn flour
• 1 tablespoon black pepper
• 1 egg (beaten)
• squid (300-500 gram)
• 1 inch ginger
• half a bulb of garlic (you can have more)
• 2 red/green chili
• salt to taste
• 2 tablespoon butter
• vegetable oil for deep frying

ingredients – squid, flour, egg

cooking instruction 1 (deep frying):

• mix rice flour, corn flour, and black pepper in a bowl
• beat an egg in another
• clean squid, you can cut them in rings for bigger squid, remember to remove eyes and beak too
• dip squid into egg, then flour mix, then deep fry till just a shade before the desired golden brown color
• set a side these fried squid

just a simple two phase cooking procedure

What I really like about this dish is the infusion of butter into the crunchy layer of the squid as well as the fried garlic/ginger. The chili adds a different dimension as well as giving the dish a little bit of a kick. Fresher squid would yield an even better result in my case, but overall the turned out was better than expected.

Check out my other recipes too if you like these style of cooking. Bon appetite!

KY cooks – Bacon Fried Rice and Red Spinach Soup

Simple meal for two of bacon fried rice and red spinach soup. This is something that I cooked up last night because bacon was calling my name, and at the same time I wanted to fix something real quick instead of making elaborate dinners.

a complete meal – bacon fried rice and red spinach soup

Total preparation and cooking time is about an hour, but that is because you need more than half that time to boil the chicken bones (for soup) and making rice in the first place. Actual active cooking takes place in less than 20 minutes.

The result is a satisfying meal that has has all your essential dietary needs (I think). There’s meat, egg, vegetable, soup, and rice. As an Asian, that’s all I need.

bacon is the key ingredient here, obviously

Recipe for two plates of bacon fried rice, ingredients:

• streaky bacon (150-200 grams), cut them in squares
•  half a bulb of garlic, chop em up
• 2 eggs
• rice for two person (I cooked 1.5 cups)
• chili padi (optional)
• 1 table spoon of dark soya sauce
• 2 stalks of spring onion, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• minimal cooking oil

open up the rice and crack a couple eggs in there, stir

Instructions:

• heat up a table spoon of cooking oil (you don’t need much since bacon will release more oil)
• fry bacon, garlic, and chili padi at the same time till bacon is cooked and garlic is fragrant
• add rice, dark soya sauce, stir
• after 3-4 minutes, open up the fried rice at center, add half a spoon of oil and crack the two eggs into it
• let the egg cooked for a bit before stirring it with fried rice for another 3-4 minutes
• add spring onion, salt & pepper and keep stirring for another minute or two
• serve while hot

the red spinach soup is real simple to prepare

Ingredients and instructions:

• wash red spinach with plenty of water and pluck off the stems
• boil 3 bowls of water with chicken bones, wolf berries optional (you might want to pre-boil once to remove impurities, I use chicken bones from chicken chop cut)
• I boil it while rice is cooking, that took about 45 minutes
• add red spinach, keep boiling for another 15 minutes (while frying rice)
• add salt and a bit of pepper and it’s ready to be served

Do check out other recipes if these are thing stuff you like to eat, they are usually pretty simple to prepare. Good eating!

KY cooks – Mint and Egg Soup

This is one of the fastest soup to prepare that is perfect to clear up sinus problem – the mint and egg soup. Everything can be done in about 10-15 minutes, and makes a perfect companion to another dish, or even to be consumed just by itself.

I’ve always thought that making the mint and egg soup means chucking everything into the pot and just boil away. As it turns out, the process involves a few more steps in between, and here’s how you do it:

the two main ingredients – mint leaves and egg

Ingredients (for two as companion dish):

• a bunch of mint leaves – pluck and use only the leaves
• 1 egg – lightly beaten
• ginger – in strips
• 3-4 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon oil
• half a chicken cube (or soup stock if you have)
• salt and pepper for seasoning

with some oil, fry ginger, garlic, then the mint leaves

Cooking instructions:

• with a pot, heat up cooking oil then fry ginger as it takes longer to cook
• a minute or two later, add in garlic
• when garlic is fragrant, add mint leaves, stir till you can smell the mints, around 1-2 minutes
• add egg, and cook it to the consistency of soft scrambled egg
• add 1.5 bowl of water and chicken cube (or soup stock)
• bring to boil, add salt and pepper  according to taste

make a scramble egg, almost, then add water and chicken cube

So there you go, 2 small bowls of mint and egg soup ready to serve. The frying process, together with the addition of ginger and garlic really brings out the flavor of the soup. The only little tricky part with the mint soup is that mint leaves generally doesn’t last very long in the fridge before turning black and bad. You should always cook it at the lastest 1-2 days after purchasing for best results.

Get cooking! There are more recipes here.

and it’s ready to serve after boiling for a couple minutes

P/S: the recipe for prawn dish on the photo above is here.

KY cooks – Fried Prawns with Soya Sauce

It’s time for another recipe sharing session. This time it’s seafood – fried prawns with soya sauce, a simple to prepare and yet pretty luxurious dish (just because prawns are so expensive these days).

I had some prawns in hand thanks for mom who actually works in a market, and since I ran out of asam to make my favorite nyonya style sam prawn, I went online to look for something simple to prepare, and landed on this fried prawns with soya sauce recipe from Babe KL. I know Babe KL & Capt’n Hook personally and was sure that her recipe wouldn’t go wrong.

trim off all sharp edges, add pepper, salt, corn starch

Anyway, here are the ingredients you need:

• big prawns, I had XL prawns, bigger the better
• 1 bulb garlic – chopped
• 2 inches ginger – cut into stripes
• 2 tablespoon corn starch
• salt & pepper
• 1 tablespoon worchestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoon dark soya sauce
• 1 tablespoon soya sauce
• a couple stalks of spring onion
• cooking oil

cook the prawns and place it aside

Prawn preparation steps:

• trim off the all appendages of the prawns with a scissor
• clean and pad dry the prawns with paper towels
• marinate prawn with salt, pepper, and cover with corn starch
• heat up some cooking oil and fry prawns till reddish (2-3 minutes)
• set prawns aside

ginger, then garlic, then prawns, and all the sauces, finally spring onion

there you go, classic fried prawns with soya sauce

So there, the dish really turned out pretty well, I actually wished that we had put in even more garlic & ginger cos they really brought out the taste of the prawns and went well with rice. For those who likes it a little sweeter, feel free to add a teaspoon of sugar too.

For more recipe from yours truly, click on my cooking category.