Shredded Chicken Mushroom Hor Fun (香菇鸡丝河粉)

{Collaboration with Redmart} 
#Freshnessrecognition #redmartcom
Poached chicken using Fresh Kee Song Organic Lacto Whole Chicken and shredded chicken breast to cook this dish! The chicken breast meat is soft and juicy which is prefect for this dish. 😊 With Redmart delivery, I do not have to worry about rushing to market to get my fresh produce 

For this dish, I poached one whole chicken and did two dishes. After chicken is cooled, I removed the chicken breast and shredded for the Hor fun. Some of the chicken stock was used to braise the mushrooms. 

For recipe on poaching chicken, please refer to the link below: 

https://miniscooking.blogspot.com/2019/03/instructions-clean-chicken-by-rubbing.html?m=1

You can buy a chicken breast from wet market and use the same method of poaching but reduce the cooking time to 8mins, off heat and cover for 10mins. Removed to cool and shred and set aside. 

Braised mushrooms recipe 

Ingredients: 

• 10-12 pieces of dried shiitake mushrooms (I used the small ones so that I don’t have to slice into smaller pieces. I Braised about 20 pieces of smaller ones.) 
• 5 cloves of shallots , sliced 
• 5 cloves of garlic, minced 
• 2 slices of ginger 
• 2 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
• 2 small pieces of rock sugar
• 700ml homemade chicken stock (about 2 cups), plus water from soaking mushrooms. 

Method: 

1. Rinse shiitake mushrooms with water. Pour enough water over mushrooms to cover them. Placed a small bowl on top of the mushrooms to submerge them in the water. Soak them overnight until softened. If rushing for time, use hot water. Don't discard the mushroom water!
2. Slice the softened shiitake mushrooms into thin slices or into halves. I didn’t sliced mine as I used small ones. 
3. Heat a clay pot with 2.5 tbsps of oil. Sauté ginger, shallots and garlic till fragrant. Add mushrooms and Stirfry for 8-10mins. This is to add fragrance to mushrooms and it’ll make the taste of mushrooms smoother. 
4. Combine the mushroom water, oyster sauce, sesame oil, light and dark soy sauce, and chicken stock from poaching chicken. 
5. Add to the clay pot, cover and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for 1 hour until the mushrooms are incredibly soft and infused with all the flavours. 
6. If the water is drying up while you are simmering, top it up with more water/ chicken stock to cover the mushrooms. 

Note: 

This can be a standard recipe for braised mushrooms so you can serve the braised mushroom onto rice or tossed into your noodles. You can also top them on vegetables like kai lan or broccoli. 

Assembling the Hor fun: 

1. Once the braised mushrooms are ready, adjust the taste accordingly by adding more seasonings. As the Kway tiao is plain, I made the sauce slightly more salty as it’ll complement the Kway tiao. Prepare potato starch water to thicken the sauce by mixing 2 tbsps of potato starch to 3 tbsps of water. Add slowly to the mushrooms sauce slowly and stop once the sauce thickens. 
2. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Blanched caixin/shanghai green and set aside. Blanched thin Kway tiao for a minute and drained. Transfer to plate and add half a tablespoon of shallot oil to Kway tiao. Mixed well. 
3. Spoon mushrooms sauce on Kway tiao. Add braised mushrooms, shredded chicken and blanched vegetables. Topped with fried shallots and served hot. 

Soy Sauce Chicken with noodles aka See Yau Gai Min (Collaboration with Redmart)

#FreshnessRecognition #redmartcom

Ingredients: 

• 1 Kee Song Organic Lacto Whole Chicken 
• 6-8 dry shiitake mushrooms (soak to rehydrate) 
• 2-3 hard-boiled eggs (optional) 
• 1 thumb size old ginger (sliced into thick slices) 
• 10 cloves of garlic (smashed) 
• 2 stalks of spring onion  
• 2 stalk of coriander roots (separate stem with roots and leaves) 
• 2 cloves of star anise 
• 1 piece of cinnamon stick 

Seasonings: 

• 1/2 cup of dark soya sauce (1-2 tbsp to marinate chicken) 
• 1/2 cup of light soya sauce 
• 2 tbsps of rice wine 
• 2 tsp of five spice powder 
• 1 tbsp of rock sugar
• 1.5 liters of water 

For noodles: 

• Fresh HK style thin wanton noodles bought from wet market 
• A handful of caixin (Blanched) 
• Shallot oil (pre-prepared by frying crispy sliced  red onions. Separate oil and shallots when done) 
• Sliced green chili 

Method: 

1. Prepare chicken. Use salt to rub over chicken and inside cavity to remove scums and smell. Rinsed off. Used kitchen towel to pat dry chicken. Use 1-2tbsp of dark soya sauce to marinate chicken and inside cavity set aside for 30mins. 
2. Prepare a pot big enough for chicken. Add the rest of the ingredients (except chicken) and the seasonings and bring to a boil for 10mins. 
3. Slowly lower chicken breast side down and submerged in sauce. Use a ladle to scoop sauce over chicken to ensure even colour of chicken. Once sauce starts to boil, lower to a simmer for 20mins. Flipped chicken once during simmering and scoop sauce over chicken to ensure evenness in colour. Off heat and cover with lid for 20mins to allow the rest of the heat to cook through chicken. 
4. Remove chicken from pot and set aside to allow it to cook down. Brush some sesame oil and braising sauce over chicken. 
5. Reheat sauce with mushrooms and egg and allow it to simmer for another 10 mins. Off heat. 
6. Scoop 2 ladles of braising sauce into a small saucepan or pot. Bring it to a simmer. Add a tsp of oyster sauce and adjust taste accordingly. Prepare corn flour slurry by mixing corn flour with water. Thickened braising sauce with corn flour slurry. Set aside. 
7. Prepare a plate. Add a tbsp of shallot oil and a tsp of light soya sauce and 2 tbsps of braising sauce. (Optional: add chili paste for spicy version.) 
8. Prepare another pot of water and bring it to a rolling boil. Blanched caixin about a minute and set aside. 
9. Boil noodles in hot boiling water for about 45 seconds, drain noodles using a slotted spoon or ladle. Then transfer quickly to cold water for a quick rinse and transfer back to boiling water for another 10-15 seconds. Then drain noodles and place on prepared plate with sauce. Toss noodles with sauce and mix well. 
10. Chop chicken into pieces. You can either served with rice or noodles. Assemble chopped chicken, mushrooms and blanched caixin on noodles. Serve with green chili. 

Cheesy Tomato Rice with sardines (Collaboration with Ayam Brand)

Ingredients:

• 2 bowls of cooked rice (I used overnight rice)
• 1 can of Ayam Brand Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 3 tbsps of tomato paste / ketchup
• 3 cloves of minced garlic
• 1/2 finely chopped yellow onion
• 1/2 cup of mixed vegetables
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp chicken powder
• Optional: Mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese

Method:

1. Heat wok with olive oil from Ayam Brand Sardines in Olive Oil. 
2. Once heated, add finely chopped onion and minced garlic. Sauté till fragrant. 
3. Add mixed vegetables and Stirfry for a minute. 
4. Add cooked rice. Quickly break up rice grains and mixed well. 
5. Once rice grains are broken up, add tomato paste and quickly mixed well with rice. 
6. Add seasonings, salt, sugar and chicken powder. Adjust taste accordingly. 
7. Off heat and dish rice into oven-proof baking dishes. 
8. Top with sardines and then mozzarella cheese. 
9. Baked in preheated oven of 190 degrees for 5-10mins till cheese melts and brown. I used airfryer to brown cheese at 190 degrees. Lastly, I sprinkled some grated Parmesan / Parmesan cheese powder on top before serving. 

Note: For those who does not like cheese, you can omit cheese toppings. Serve tomato rice with sardines on top. Lightly heat up sardines in pan or microwave. I heat up the sardines by placing on top of rice and placed into preheated airfryer for a minute. 

Sardines Squares (Collaboration with Ayam brand)

Ingredients:

• 2 pieces of ready instant puff pastry (bought from supermarkets) 
• 1/2 medium-size yellow onion (finely-diced) 
• 3 cloves of garlic (minced) 
• 1 medium size tomato (finely-diced) 
• 1 can of Ayam Brand Sardines in Extra Virgin Olive Oil 
• 5 tbsps of tomato paste (can replace by ketchup) 
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp mirin ( can replace by sugar) 
• 1 tsp oyster sauce 
• Dash of pepper 
• Egg wash - 1/2 beaten eggs mixed with 1 tbsp water 
• Optional: Garnish with parsley leaves or mayonnaise on top 

Method:

1. Heat pan. Pour olive oil from Ayam Brand can sardines into pan. 
2. Once heated, add finely-diced onions and minced garlic. 
3. Sauté over low heat about 3 mins till fragrant. 
4. Add finely-diced tomatoes and cook for a minute. 
5. Add tomato paste and mixed well. 
6. Add seasonings, salt, sugar/mirin, oyster sauce and pepper. (Adjust taste accordingly) 
7. Add sardines from can. Use spatula to break sardines into smaller pieces (about an inch). 
8. Mixed well with sauce. Simmer till sauce slightly thickens. Off heat and set aside to cool. 
9. Preheat over at 200 degrees. (Lower to 190 degrees if your oven’s temp is higher). . 
10. Prepare egg wash. 
11. Remove instant puff-pastry from freezer. Sliced into 12 squares. You can sliced it smaller and make it mini bite-size. 
12. Placed on baking tray lined with baked paper. 
13. Used a brush to apply egg-wash on each squares. Scoop a spoon of sardines mix in the middle of each square. Baked in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes till pastry puffs up and brown. 
14. Remove from oven. Garnish with parsley leaves or top with mayonnaise and serve. 

Note: For spicy version, add finely chopped chili or chili padi when cooking the sardines. 

Poached Chicken rice (白斩鸡饭)

Instructions: 

1. Clean the chicken by rubbing some salt all over it and inside the cavity. Rinse and set aside. Rub a tsp of salt lightly on chicken and inside cavity.  Then stuff some garlic, spring onion, some ginger into cavity. 
2. Boil about half pot of water. Add garlic, ginger, spring onion, coriander stalk with stem , Shaoxing wine into pot. Bring it to a boil. Hold chicken by the neck and dip into the boiling water up and down many times before submerging it in water. 
3. When the water starts to bubble and simmer, lower heat and cover to simmer chicken for around 20 min, depending on how big the chicken is. 
4. Off the fire after 20min and cover the lid and let the chicken stay for around 20 to 25 minutes. 
5. Transfer the chicken out and soak it with iced bath. Turn over several times or until the chicken is cooled down. Remove and Drizzle some sesame oil on chicken. Chop chicken into pieces when it is completely cooled down.  

Sauce: 

• Use 1 cup of chicken stock from poaching chicken , add light soya sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil, mix well. 
• Use a small saucepan to lightly boil it and pour over chopped chicken. (I didn't measure so pls adjust accordingly to your taste). 
• Drizzle a tbsp of garlic oil over chicken and topped with crispy fried garlic and coriander. 

Chicken rice: 

• I cooked 2.5 cups of jasmine rice. Add 2.5 cups of chicken stock from poaching chicken to the rice. Add 5 slices of ginger , 8 cloves of garlic (smashed), 4 Pandan leaves (washed n tie in a knot) and 1 tbsp of salt. Add also about 2.5 tbsps of chicken oil to rice (by rendering chicken oil from chicken skin, it’ll makes the rice smells heavenly!) If you don’t have chicken oil, can also use garlic or shallot infused oil to fragrant rice or you can leave it as it is. 
• On rice cooker to cook as normal. When rice is cooked, wait for 5 mins before opening up to fluff the rice. 

Note: Alternatively, you can use a packet of Prima hainanese chicken rice mix, mix well with rice, if you find it troublesome to prepare the fragrant oil.