Meat sauce!

Good morrow haters of chick flicks!

The wife asked if I could make some meat sauce so she could take some to work tomorrow! Perfect excuse for some Bloggeration!

My personal pet peeve about the Malaysian approach to all Italian food is buying bottled sauces. Some taste alright I suppose but you'd still have to get over that off metallic taste and whatever preservatives they put in. These sauces are also not cheap, ranging anywhere from RM8 to RM10++ per bottle. And as I've mentioned before, more often than not, to offset the cost of the sauce people would buy the frozen 'mistery meat' ground beef to cook with.

So I propose we do the opposite, save on the sauce and get better quality beef. This recipe should be able to serve 5-6 people, as you would expect from a bottled version.

So I'm using about 250g of ground chuck, freshly ground at my supermarket. A can of tomatoes (you can't make sauce with fresh tomatoes, they are not plucked ripe), some herbs and pantry stuff.

I thought I bought the whole tomatoes version (cheaper by about 50 cents) but this will do as well. If you got the whole tomatoes version, just get a fork and mash it up in the can after you've opened it. 

First, sweat half an onion in a little butter. I would use olive oil, but we ran out. As soon as the onion is translucent, pour in the tomatoes and chopped garlic.

I don't fry the garlic in the oil because if it burns, you're going to have very bitter sauce. You'd also get a more pronounced garlic flavour this way. 

Next add in the beef and dried herbs. I'm using the classic trio of oregano, basil and parsley. 1 tbspoon each. You can also add bay leaf and I think sage would go with beef very well too. If you can find fresh herbs, then by all means. But dry keeps better and will always be there when you need it. A pinch of salt and 1 tbsp of freshly ground black pepper. Don't over salt because you can still balance it out at the end of the cooking.

Now the wait. Keep your heat as low as possible and cover. You'd want it to cook at low temperature so that the meat doesn't dry and the sauce doesn't burn. Oh before I forget, you must use a heavy base pot. This type is the most suitable for long slow cooking. I'm using an IKEA pot. Dirt cheap for what you get.

Keep stirring every 15-20 minutes or so and taste once in a while. It shouldn't taste 'beefy' like a steak. The meat and sauce must be fully cooked so that the meat tastes like the sauce and the sauce taste like the meat. That's some mantra.

Serve with pasta and enjoy! I love food that can be eaten with one cutlery.

Simple Cheese burger

Good evening purchasers of engine oils!

Today's entry is a simple one, but nevertheless another example of how you can save some money and achieve great tasting food without spending extra.

The emergence of the newfound trend of 'burger bakar' has transformed the meat sandwich into another product altogether in recent years. In Malaysia, burgers were often associated with dry flavorless unknown meat patties sandwiched between two sesame seed bun halves. Accompanied with the usual trio of cucumber, cabbage and tomatoes, you also get a healthy dose of mayo and chili sauce. And honestly, it was a great item until the inflation started creeping into the humble Ramli burger. Nowadays a simple burger can cost as much as RM2.50, whilst anything extra can set you up to RM5-6. The more revently celebrated burger bakar will cost you at least RM7-8 for a standard and will go up to to RM15 for specials. Whilst these prices are not bad when you consider what else is out there, it is important to look at what they are putting into your sandwich. 

I've stopped eating hot dogs for over ten years now for a very simple reason; hot dogs or commercially produced frankfurters are made from things that are not worth mentioning here. Just do a quick google and you will see what I mean.

So my biggest challenge this week is not about the cost as much as trying to use fresh beef rather than the 'unknown meat' variety.

Starting with the patty, I am going to use ground chuck. A lot of you who have eaten burger bakar may have noticed that you often found small pieces of bones in your patty. The reason being is that the meat used for these 'commercially prepared ground beef' come from unused parts of the cow and these may contain bones. Ground chuck comes from a fattier part of the cow so you would get juicier burgers. If you are not sure what to get, just ask your butcher, and make sure the meat is freshly ground.

Notice the red to white ratio in the beef. If you buy those frozen ground beef, it is mostly white (fat and sinews). The sinews  are the unchewable part of the beef that can't be eaten in burger form. So more reason not to buy from Mr. Ram. My recipe is very simple: salt, pepper, paprika, onion powder, cumin and corriander seeds (ground). Mix all the ingredients with your hands and roll into small balls. Flatten into that familiar burger patty shape.

My favourite topping for burgers would be onions, caramelized of course. Chop half a large onion and cook them on low heat with some butter. Add a pinch of salt. Keep stirring to stop the onions from crisping up. Normally you won't have an issue if you do a large batch, but with a small one, you need to keep moving them around. When the onions are soft, add a splash of worcesthershire sauce. They're done.

You can cook the burgers on a grill, but I am making only a couple so, a pan is fine. Use a stainless steel or cast iron, not a non-stick. Because you want the brown crust don't you? That's the ticket to flavourtown. Melt some butter and cook your burgers to your preferred doneness. Do not squish the burgers when you cook them. You'll just make them dry. 

The paprika will make the burgers look a bit dark but nothing to worry about. 

Now for the cheese. Mozarella. End of story. Spend a bit on some moza slices (about less than RM1 per slice) and you'd be amazed at the result bro. The trick to melting cheese is very simple. Place the cheese on the patty while it is still on the pan finishing its cooking. Splash a bit of water (careful, hot fat) and cover for about 20 seconds.

That's some creamy looking melted cheese man!

Assemble the usual suspects!

That's it! Took me less than half an hour from start to finish and cost about RM4-5 per burger. A bit higher than your roadside fare, but certainly cheaper than the burger bakar establishments with their bone chips in patties and chewy sinews.

Enjoy and keep cooking!

Hailam chicken rice

G'day father figures and role models!

Today's entry is kind of a knee jerk reaction. I was watching the Asian food channel when I saw datuk Jimmy Choo talking about his favourite food which is Hailam chicken rice. I was going to make lunch anyway so i thought I'd check out some recipes on the interwebs. Found a few under Hainanese Chicken Rice and for a lack of cultural understanding I am going to assume that Hailam and Hainanese 'probably' refers to the same recipe. For now. Don't get your knickers in a twist.

Continuing on from my previous Chinese themed recipes (see kailan oyster and stramed fish) I'm afraid this is another one. And it's kind of great because the kailan dish goes great with this, and if you've tried the steamed fish, some of the methods are very similar.

So ingredients (serves 3-4 hungry peeps)

Half a chicken 

Ginger

Garlic cloves

Cucumber

Rice

Chillies

Light soya sauce

Sesame oil

Ok here be stepz:-

1. Weird thing out of the way first. You have to extract chicken oil. As you are trimming and cleaning your chicken, save the excess skin and fat. Put them in a shallow pan over low heat and render the fat out. What? You got problem wid dat?? 

2. Place the chicken in a pot and cover with enough water to submerge it. Oh try to leave the chicken as whole as possible. Don't cut it into small pieces yet. Put 4-5 slices of ginger (young ones), and 3 cloves of garlic.

3. Bring the water to a gentle simmer and turn the heat to low. Continue simmering for about 15-20 minutes. Turn the heat off and cover. Leave the chicken in there for 10-20 more minutes to finish cooking. It is very important to low and slow the chicken in order to get that juicy meat texture. Hard boiling will just dry out the meat and make it tough. Notice that no salt is used at this stage. 

4. Gently remove the chicken from the pot and put it aside to cool. Using a skimmer (get one at japanese random object shops like daiso) skim off the gunk you see floating on top of your broth. Alternatively, use a strainer and transfer the broth through it to ensure you have a clear and clean liquid. Take about 2 cups of the broth to use as soup and add some salt to it. Very easy.

5. Now for the rice. The key here is both aroma and flavor. You get flavor from the broth but you get the aroma from the fat. So start by frying sine finely chopped garlic in 2 tbsp of the rendered chicken fat. Add the rice (soaked and rinsed until water is clear) and stir until the grains are covered in the fat. This will ensure that your rice will be nice and fluffy and not soggy. Transfer everythg into a rice cooker. Add in the chicken broth at 1:1 ratio. 1 cup rice = 1 cup broth. But if you want softer rice i guess you can put in a bit more. Add some salt and let the rice cooker do its magic.

6. You're almost there. Now you need to make the chilli dipping sauce. I made more than i needed so feel free to reduce the amount of ingredients. 4 large red chillies, 4 bird's eye chillies, 4 cloves of garlic, some ginger, sugar, salt and some broth to tie it all together. Just adjust the sugar and salt until you get the right balance. Squeeze 2 tbsp of lime juice right at the end and stir.

7. I removed the chicken meat from the bones to make it easier to eat. I really hate how chicken rice shops just splinter the bones into the meat and make it hard for people to eat. Sliced some cucumber and garnished with herb of the month; corriander.

8. Soy seasoning: crucial stuff here. Since the chicken is not seasoned, the saltiness from the soy sauce won't overpower the chicken flavour. I used about quarter cup of soy sauce and mixed that with some of the chicken broth. Added some sliced ginger, and about a tbsp of sesame oil. Check for taste, it shouldn't be overly salty. Pout the mixture ober the chicken just before serving

So there you go! The dish is quite simple to make but there are a lot of steps involved. The key ingredient here is the chicken broth / stock which goes into everything. So one way to shorten your cooking time is to have this on hand, as well as the chicken fat. Trust me, the chicken fat is crucial. Don't skip it or you might as well forget about the whole thing. 

So economics. Half a chicken cost me about RM7 and the rest of the ingredients are mostly pantry stuff (the ligjt soy in particular is a convenient little addition to my fridge nowadays) so I'd put it at about RM12 total. Serves 3-4 people while eating out you'd probably pay about RM6-8 for a plate of chicken rice. Papa Rich (scumbag kopitiam) charges RM10++ for a plate (i think it is more) which is ridiculous if you ask me. So the savings are not bad if you are willing to spend over an hour watching over rendering fat. BOOM!