Old Style Christmas Card

Well, I realize that tomorrow is our last day with wonderful 2013. Time really goes by. Chrismas is over but I can still feel and enjoy the joyful moment until today. This year, we received quite few Christmas presents from family and relatives, including FIVE CHRISTMAS CARD! I was so excited to read them. Well, don't you? LOL

I mean, its been a long time a go since people started to replace the old style Christmas card with new method such as: text messages or emails which seems to be more effective and time saver. Your friends and relatives will receive your Christmas greeting in just a second after you send it. Even these days, in social media era when every places seems to get closer and closer, we can send Christmas greetings through various ways such as: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Path or Blackberry Messenger. And the fun fact is that you can add pictures of you and your family (in colour!) then send them along together with your Christmas greeting. Your friends and relative will receive it in just a second! How awesome is that! And as we all can see, Christmas cards have been forgotten.

Like it or not, Christmas cards do take time and efforts, just like. I describe above. But actually I miss them now. I miss the colourful card (sometimes you can find one with musical instrument attached and play Christmas songs while opened), I miss the beautiful words of Christmas inside. I think Christmas cards are personal compare to short messages we used on Twitter. We may call it old style but Christmas card will never be totally forgotten. Somehow I feel that someday people will get bored of all these social media phobia and return to use the old style Christmas card again. 

Anyway, I still want to give you my own Christmas greeting here my fellow readers. I hope your Christmas there as merry as ours here. Merry Christmas and Happy Welcoming New Year 2014

Fish with Salty Soybean Paste

Soybean is commonly found on Asian cuisine. Its made of soybean (obviously) and has been preserved with salt and other ingredients so that it can be keep for longer time without being rotten. The taste is salty with dark brown colour and you can still see the soybean inside. This time, I want to share a recipe using this soybean paste.

Basically you can always use anything other than fish to cook with soybean paste, such as: shrimps, squids or eggs. This time I choose fish instead.

Fish with Salty Soybean Paste

Ingredients:

1/2 kilos fresh fishes, wash and cut into half. Sprinkle with salt and lemon, leave it about 15 minutes. Then deep fried the fishes until golden brown.

10 pcs of green beans, sliced

10 pcs green pepper

2 cm ginger, smashed

1 dried tamarind

1 lemongrass

1 bayleaf

Half tomato, sliced

1 tsp of Oyster sauce

Blended ingredients:

10 pcs shallots

5 pcs garlics

1 cm ginger

A spoon of of dried prawn

Shrimp paste

How to cook:

Add oil into medium size pan and heat it

Add smashed ginger and fried for 2 minutes, then add all the blended ingredients, stir for 2 minutes

Add tamarind, lemongrass, bayleaf and the green pepper and sliced tomato, stir well

Add the sliced grean beans and oyster sauce, then let all cook for about 5 minutes, then add 1 cup of water to blend all the ingredients. Cook until the green beans become soft.

Add the fried fishes into the pan and stir well so they covered completely inside the sauce, leave it for 5 minutes for to fishes to absorb the sauce.

Ready to serve ^^

Note: since I have already use enough salty ingredients such as soybean paste, shrimp paste and oyster sauce on this, I do not add anymore salt into the recipe but you can always add salt anytime you like :)

Spicy Sausages Fried Rice

My last post about Crab Soup with Corn here  is an usual menu for main course. Now, I want to share another favorite menu for my family, this time for breakfast. It Spicy Sausages Fried Rice. We all love fried rice for breakfast and I usually combine it with other type of additional and not just sausages. I love to combine it with scrambled eggs, pepperoni, mushroom, salted-fishes, etc. So, basically, you can always replace the sausages with other additional dish you like. 

Spicy Sausages Fried Rice

Ingredients:

- Two plates of rice (I usually keep the rice inside the freezer over night to get rid of the moist we usually  find in hot rice. Cold rice will taste crispy when used as fried rice. But its your choice :) )

- 2 garlics, finely chopped

- Chicken breasts (as many as you like), thinly sliced

- Sausages (as many as you like), sliced

- 6 onions, thinly sliced, fried

- 2 eggs, scrambled

- Sweet soy sauce

- Oyster sauce

- Spring Onions and Parsley, finely chopped

- Salt and pepper

Ingredients to blend using a blender:

- 10 onions

- 3 chillis (add more if you want)

- 1 ounce of dried shrimp

- 1cm of ginger

How to cook:

Add butter or cooking oil into medium size fried pan and heat it.

Add chopped garlics and stir for a while

Add all the blended ingredients, stir for about 2 minutes.

Add chicken breasts, oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce and stir well

Add sliced sausages and scrambled eggs. Stir well altogether.

Add cold rice into the pan, stir well for a few minutes until all the ingredients mixed well and the white rice turn into brown colour.

Add salt and pepper then sprinkled with fried sliced onion.

Sprinkle with finely chopped spring onions and parsleys.

Ready to serve :)

Happy breakfast...