Saturday, August 30, 2008

accumulated birthday celebrations

Yesterday we had a belated birthday celebration for my sister, my niece and myself. For some reason, all these birthday celebrations have been accumulated since July to August. Then later on, we went to Ap Lei Chau market for buying seafood and cooking at home. Sorry I made a mistake for not uncovering one of the dishes. Guess what - it's my nieces' and nephew's favourite dish "(white rice - means tiny) fish omelette" (白飯魚煎蛋). Yesterday, all the seafood were so fresh. Besides, it's really cheap. HK$93 for 3 small garoupas. $45 for 1.2 catties of razor clams. $25 for 1 catty of "PP shrimp". $30 for 2 catties of clams. $25 for 1 catty of snails. $24 for 0.75 catty of "white rice" fish. $20 for 0.4 catty of red clams (北寄貝) without shells. $24 for 0.6 catty of spare ribs. $25 for 1.5 catties of chicken thigs. $5 for 1 catty of bean sprouts. $15 for 1.25 catties of Beijing Choy Sum (vegetable). So total is around $350 (incl. eggs/scallions...etc.). $350 for 12 people on a seafood dinner - amazing! Besides, I enjoy cooking as always. I even like cooking until sweating. It is a good exercise. I really hope I can go to those professional kitchen in the restaurants someday and try cooking there, as it will make me sweat even further.

-The left one is for all the dishes (oops. made a mistake for not uncovering the omelette!)

-The middle one is the red clams with bean sprouts. Ok for this one, I prepared the sauce first as it is a quick stir fry. The sauce is oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, white pepper powder, sesame oil, corn starch. Then I used some chopped garlic and scallions to quick stir fry the clams first with quite a large amount of oil 3 soup spoon (for this kind of clams, we need to be generous with using oil.). Then the clam meat will become more tender and the juice will be stored inside and not to be hard to chew. Remember the wok should be heated up quite much but the oil should be cool. Then for the bean sprouts, you need to drain it well. Again the wok should be heated up. Then put more oil as well (about 1.5 soup spoon. Actually it should be more to 2.5 soup spoon but I cut down a bit for health purpose.). Put the ginger slices and garlic and the white parts of scallions into the wok and make it a bit brown. Then put the bean sprouts and very very quick stir fry it for a 30 seconds. Cover the lid and cook for another 30 seconds. Then put back the clams for another quick stir fry. Remember it should be high heat all the way. Then put the sauce in the middle and thicken it. Done!

-the left one is easy. PP shrimp in boiling water. But remember to put some ginger slices in the boiling water and some wine.

5 comments:

Michael said...

Happy Birthday!

Stella said...

Happy Belated Bithday my friend.
Wish you forever 25th like principal Alan Tam. Forever young at heart. Are you a Leo?
You shall have a guessing game for us to guess your birth date and birth year.
It will be fun.
Did you really cook all the dishes?
Too bad I cannot enlarge these 3 photos as I usually can. I'd like to enlarge as I can look closely. If they can provide smell it is even better.

Anonymous said...

Looks like a dinner from the restaurant.

in the sea said...

Stella, I wish you didn't quote Alam Tam. I will throw out. haha :)

Yes, as per my birthday I'm Leo but I don't count on those star sign or Chinese animal sign. I don't even count on the blood type. I don't believe in one month there will be so many people with the same character.

Mmh... with the maid's help for washing the vegetable and working on the grilling the chicken thighs, I did all the other dishes.

Stella said...

Wow you are really a chef. Now I noticed most of the good chefs are guys.