Cooking Adventures | The easiest burger patty recipe ever...EVER!

Most time consuming thing I've made to date : burgers

Which took me almost the whole day mostly because of the different things that went into the burger that required much frying, tossing, coating, sautee-ing. (read: greedy and wanted to put everything inside)
 But it was s'good! Even if I do say so myself.

What may surprise you is that the burger patty is one of the easiest things to make!

Here's my recipe for the easiest (potentially yummiest) beef burger patty you will ever need to have...ever!

In 3 simple steps!

p.s. this is the basic recipe, you can add garlic, cheese, onions, etc as you please.

Ingredients :

Egg (1)

Salt &Pepper (1/2 tsp)

 Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce (2 tbsp)

and of course, Ground beef (400 grams)

- use the best beef you can find, really

1. Whisk egg, lea and perrin sauce, salt and pepper in large bowl. Add in bread crumbs and ground beef and mix well....with hands. You mix 'm and you mix em good.

2. Shape into patties, about 1/2 to 1 inch thick, depending on how you like it.

3. Heat oil in grill pan, put em' patties in and cover. About 5 minutes per side.

Enjoice!

Wasn't that super easy? 

Well done, patty your self on the back. :D (hur hur hur, I'm hilarious pls) 

For my burger, 

I added a slice of cheddar, grilled onions, a sunny side up, sauteed portobello mushroom and bacon. :)

I also added salad (trying to be healthy...I didn't eat it) and made onion rings for sides - probably what took the longest.

I'll put up the onion ring recipe next, best onion rings you'll ever have...ever. No lie.

x

Cooking Adventures | Chunky Salted Egg Chicken

Salted egg chicken, how hard can it be? 

That's how I convinced myself to make it hahah!

Truth is, it's not. 

To begin, and this is the hardest part, you need: 

1. to know that you'll need to do deep frying

2. to realize that you'll need to wash your hair after 

- even if you did wash it earlier today because you WILL smell like oil and chicken

3. be okay that there will be oil everywhere and be ready to scrub your counter and soak your pans

4. to get rid of the oil in a environmentally friendly way, there's this oil coagulator powder

you can find in Daiso that turns hot oil solid so you can throw it away (not down the sink).

Alternatively, to avoid 1-4, you can pan fry the chicken instead but it won't turn out as crispy la.

For chicken batter, mix all to form paste:

2 tbsp cornflour

2 tbsp custard powder

1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup water

To fry :

2 chicken breast, cut into cubes

 I used the breasts, but I'd recommend the thigh, it's tender-er.

2 steamed salted eggs

Some recipes only use the egg yolks but I use the whole thing, 
why waste haha. If you wanna use only yolks, up the amount to 3 yolks.

3 stalks of curry leaf

4 chilli padis 

or any amount to your preference of spiciness

1/4 can evaporated milk

To taste:

chicken stock

pepper

sugar 

soya sauce

1. Marinate chicken with pepper, sugar and soya sauce

- my grandmother told me if you use your hands it's more evenly coated. You don't have to but her marinated-everythings always taste the best, just sayin.

2. Mix marinated chicken in batter

- the above technique applies here too, but to each his own hahaha.

3. Heat oil in wok, fry chicken until golden and crispy, remove and leave aside

- do not accidentally drop chicken in when removing. It will splatter, you will get burns in the shape of those splatters. True Story.

4. In another pan, heat oil and butter (I used about 2 tbsps of butter). Fry chilli padi and curry leaves till you smell it - curry leaves will look dark and crispy, be sure not to overcook as it burns easily.

5. Add salted egg and fry till it bubbles. Pour in evaporated milk and let it simmer.

- You can add or reduce evaporated milk depending on how saucy you like it.

6. Add pepper, chicken stock and sugar to taste.

7. Add in the deep fried chicken into pan and fry until sauce thickens.

8. Enjoice.

Barely any pics and these are from my instagram. I tried, but my hands were soaked in either chicken juice or smelling of chilli padi most of the time. How people take pictures of the ingredients and the process while cooking is beyond beyond me haha.

Cooking Adventures | Vinegar Pork a.k.a Chi Kiok Chu

....or is it zhu jiao chu?

As everyone knows, I don't speak an ounce of Mandarin.

So buying pork trotters was a bit of a challenge.

There I was in the pork section of TTDI market, where I approached the butcher hesitantly:

"Hi, uhm... Can I get the trotter?"

"HA? What?" 

lady butcher replies.

"The front trotter?" 

"What is that ah?"

This is where I started a mini game of charades with the butcher lady, waving both my hands in the air in a "trotting" movement

"Ohh! the hand ah?"

"Oh..yes, the hands. I want to make Vinegar Pork, I use this part right?"

"WHAT??"

Between this and watching a pigs leg slapped onto the board in front of me and butchered in to pieces, it was almost a cultural experience for me. Especially since no one in my house 1. goes to the wet market to buy pork and 2. even eats pork trotters.

But not bad hey?

Mum : What is this?

"Vinegar pork"

"Oh, why did you make this? You like eating this?"

"Uhm, not particularly. I dunno? I just wanted a challenge?....maybe"

*insert incredibly mystified look here*

She wasn't as excited as I was.