This is the 4th installation of my home cooked meals under $10 series. Today I will share one of my favourite Cantonese dishes of all time and is full of flavour.
First dish is the Cantonese soy braised chicken and the ingredients needed include:
1 full chicken cut into 6 to 8 pieces – SGD 6.90
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
2 teaspoons of mushroom seasoning
2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons of sesame oil
1.5 tablespoon of oyster sauce
1 tablespoon of Chinese cooking wine
1 tablespoon of honey
1 square of ginger sliced
Cost of seasoning and ginger – SGD 1.00
The total cost of the dish – SGD 7.90
First, stir fry the minced garlic and sliced ginger in 1 tablespoon of cooking oil.
When the garlic and ginger is fragrant, add in oyster sauce and fry them for 20 seconds.
Add in the chicken and fry them until the chicken is lightly coated with the oyster sauce and garlic for about 1 min.
Add in the dark soy sauce, sesame oil and Chinese cooking wine. Stri fry them until the chicken is nicely coated with color. This should take another 1 min.
Add in half a bowl of water or if you have chicken stock. The water should cover the chicken slightly midway and let it braise in high heat with the pot covered for 15 mins.
After 15 mins, add in the mushroom seasoning, honey as well as additional dark soy sauce if you find the color not dark enough. This is the point where you can taste the gravy and add any condiments till it fits your tastebuds. Bring the chicken and gravy to boil on high heat without the cover for another 8 mins.
Before serving, if you wish for your gravy to be thicker, you can add in a little bit of corn starch water but personally I do not like the gravy starchy and over boiling over high heat without the cover, the gravy should have boiled down and thickened.
You can poke a chopsticks into the chicken pieces and if there is no blood water or residue on the chopsticks, the chicken is done. The chicken should be coated a nice glossy brown color from the gravy and the eat should be moist and tender. This dish is perfect with white rice.
The next dish; fried tomato egg is something very simple to make and can be found in many restaurant in China. There are many ways of cooking this but I made mine more like a scrambled egg style.
The ingredients needed:
4 eggs ( bought from the market) – SGD 1.00
2 tomatoes diced – SGD 1.00
2 tablespoon of ketchup
Stir fry the tomatoes with 1 tablespoon of cooking oil until the tomatoes soften and start juicing.
While frying, the tomatoes will release their juices and you should also flatten and smash them as much as you can while frying them.
When the tomatoes are more or less squashed up, pour in the beaten egg. If you wish to have a more solid version, you can leave it in this state before overturning it.
As I like them scrambled styled, I stir fry them as soon as I pour in the egg mixture so that it is more fluffy and soft. The egg cooked this way is moist and juicy like scrambled eggs. Fry them for 1 min before adding the tomato ketchup and quickly stir fry them on high heat until the base of the pan is dry without juices.
The dish is done and is surprisingly appetising as it is sweet and sour at the same time with the juices from the fresh tomatoes and the compliment of the ketchup.
The total cost of both dishes is SGD 10
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