Pasta with Scallops and Creamy Bacon Sauce

Pasta with Scallops and Creamy Bacon Sauce (for 2 pax)

Ingredients:

160g of pasta

6 to 8 scallops

3 slices of bacon, chopped into small pieces

0.5 white onion, chopped into small pieces

1 teaspoon of minced garlic

40ml of white wine or stock

90g cream

0.5 tablespoon of butter

Parsley

Salt

Black pepper

Instructions:

1) Pat dry the scallops as much as possible, and set aside on some kitchen towels to absorb more moisture.

2) Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet, then set aside. Keep around 1 cup of the pasta water.

3) Heat some oil on a skillet, then cook the bacon until crispy and brown. Remove the bacon, leaving the grease in the skillet.

4) Cook the onion until it softens, then add the garlic and fry for another 30 seconds or so. 

5) Add in the white wine or stock and cook until the liquid has reduced to around half.

6) Turn down the heat and add in the cream and bacon. Cook for around 5 minutes or when the cream starts to thicken. 

7) Add the cooked pasta into the mixture, together with around 30ml of the pasta water. 

8) Season the scallops lightly with salt.

9) Heat up another skillet and add some oil. Make sure the oil is hot, then add the scallops. 

10) Fry the scallops for around 90 seconds on each side, then turn off the heat and add the butter. Make sure each side of the scallop is in contact with some of the butter.

11) Add some parsley and black pepper to the pasta, then serve with the scallops on top.

Scrambled Eggs

Scrambled Eggs (for 2 pax)

The humble scrambled egg - something that is so common and yet has so many variations in the way you can cook it. This recipe is documented down from Gordon Ramsey's Masterclass. 

Ingredients:

5 eggs

Butter
Chives or spring onions, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of creme fraiche

Salt

Pepper

Instructions:

1) Crack the eggs into a nonstick pot. Do not beat or stir the eggs first. 

2) Add around 2 to 3 chunks of butter in, roughly 1 cm thick.

3) Put the pan over the fire. Make sure you have a good spatula on hand. Now stir the mixture, turning it every time from the top of the pot to the bottom of the pot. This ensures that the mixture cooks evenly and doesn't stick.

4) Once the pot gets really hot, take it off the fire and continue to stir. This prevents the eggs from getting cooked too quickly. An estimated timing is around 60 to 90 seconds on the fire, and 20 seconds off the fire.

5) As the eggs start to get fluffy, add in a teaspoon of creme fraiche, a pinch of chives or spring onion, salt and pepper. Mix it well again, and serve.

Baked Rice with Salmon and Cheese

Ingredients:

0.67 cup of rice
300g salmon fillet, cut into 0.5 inch thick slices
150g shredded mozzarella cheese

1 can of Campbell Cream of Mushroom soup (optional)
Salt
Black pepper


Instructions:

1) Cook the rice first, then set aside.

2) On a flat baking dish, spread out the rice in one uniform layer. Lay the salmon uniformly over the rice.

3) If you are using the Campbell soup, spread it over the rice and salmon evenly. (If not using, just add some salt on the salmon.) Add black pepper as desired.

4) Top everything with a layer of the shredded mozzarella cheese.

5) Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees, then put the dish in for 16 minutes (if not using Campbell) or 20 minutes (if using Campbell). Serve.

Campbell Chicken Stew

Campbell Chicken Stew (serves 2 to 3)

Ingredients:

1 can of Campbell soup (either Cream of Mushroom or Cream of Chicken)
3 potatoes, halved
2 carrots, chopped
1 white onion, chopped
4 whole chicken thighs, cut into 8 pieces

Instructions:

1) Fry the onions in a skillet for a while. When it starts to brown, add the potatoes and carrots and continue frying for 3 to 4 minutes.

2) Add 0.8 can of water and bring it to a boil. Once it boils, add the chicken and cover the skillet. The water may not cover the chicken fully. It does not need to, but you can add a bit more water to ensure it will be more cooked.

3) Let it boil for around 30 to 35 minutes. Add the Campbell soup in and mix it till it is smooth.

4) Add some black pepper, and serve.

Pan-fried Paprika Chicken Chops

Pan-fried Chicken Chops (serves 2 to 3)

Ingredients:

2 whole chicken thighs, deboned
1 teaspoon of salt
Black pepper
1.5 teaspoon of paprika

Lemon (optional)

Instructions:

1) Marinade the chicken with the salt, pepper, and paprika, and leave it in the refrigerator for 3 hours or more.

2) On a pan under medium-high heat, heat some oil, then place the chicken thighs in, skin-side down. Leave it for 5 minutes, then flip it over and leave for another 3 minutes.

3) Serve with a little bit of lemon.

Baked Zucchini with Parmesan Cheese and Paprika

Baked Zucchini with Parmesan Cheese and Paprika (serves 2 to 3)

Ingredients:

2 whole zucchini
150g of grated parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon of parsley
2 teaspoons of paprika
1 teaspoon of sea salt
Olive oil

Instructions:

1) Cut the zucchini length-wise, then halve each piece.

2) Mix the salt, parsley and paprika together in a bowl.

3) Lay the zucchini (skin-side down) on a tray, then pour the seasoning over it evenly. Drizzle some olive oil over it, and sprinkle the parmesan cheese over it.

4) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius, and bake the zucchini for 18 minutes.

This is a new low (or is it high?), OCBC

So I recently made a trip to London for business, and took Uber from the airport to my hotel. I was charged GBP56.85. On that day, the average spot rate was 1 GBP = 1.7585 SGD (retrieved from poundsterlinglive.com) 

When I checked my OCBC credit card bill, the SGD equivalent was $103.98 - translating to a conversion rate of 1 GBP = 1.829 SGD.

Holy shit. A FX charge of 4%.

It's amazing how upfront commissions for wealth management products have gone down over the years - in Singapore, you can transact in unit trusts at 0% front-end load, or in stocks for 0.08%. And banks are still ripping off customers by sky-high FX charges.

I quickly checked the bill for my Uber trip back (hotel to airport) - the GBP 46.05 fare translated to SGD 84.10, effectively a 3.87% FX rate given that the average spot rate was 1 GBP = 1.7582 SGD.

That's what most banks are - institutions licensed to cheat customers in a legal and legitimate way.

Grilled Duck Legs

Grilled Duck Legs

Recipe passed down by my mother. It will take quite a long time though - almost two hours. But at least the meat wasn't dried out and the skin was really crispy.

Ingredients:

2 duck legs

Salt
Black pepper

Instructions:

1) Clean and dry the duck legs as much as possible, then use a toothpick to poke holes over the skin.

2) Season with salt and black pepper, then leave it outside in room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes.

3) Dry the duck legs again with a kitchen towel, then place it into the oven at 160 degrees Celcius for 90 minutes at 'bake' mode. The oven does not need to be pre-heated.

4) Turn the oven temperature up to 200 degrees Celcius, change the settings to 'grill' and leave it for another 15 minutes. You can use the fan setting but remember to monitor it closely or it may get burned.

Steamed Minced Pork with Eggs

Steamed Minced Pork with Eggs (serves 2 to 3)

For this dish, the minced pork is actually the main, not the eggs.

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 salted egg
250g of minced pork
2 tsps of sesame oil
1 tsp of light soy sauce

100ml of water
Pepper

Instructions:

1) Mix all the ingredients together. You may need to cut the salted egg yolk into smaller pieces so that it will mix better.

2) Steam it for 8 minutes, and serve.

Parmesan Mushroom Rice

Parmesan Mushroom Rice (serves 2 to 3)

Looks like risotto but it ain't risotto. Taken from Plain Chicken.

Ingredients:

4 tbsp of butter
200g of white mushrooms
2 tsp of minced garlic
1 cup of raw rice
250ml of chicken broth
200ml of milk
0.25 cup of grated parmesan cheese
2 tsp dried parsley

Salt
Black pepper

Instructions:

1) Melt the butter in a skillet, then add the mushrooms and cook for around 4 minutes.

2) Add the garlic and rice (remember to wash it first) and cook for around 2 minutes.

3) Add the chicken broth, milk and a bit of salt. Mix well, then cover and let it simmer for around 20 minutes.

4) Add the parmesan cheese, parsley and black pepper, mix well, and serve.

Salmon Porridge

Salmon porridge (serves 2)

An improvisation from my previous post on plain porridge, this time with salmon.

Ingredients:

120g of rice
Water and/or chicken stock (with a rice-liquid ratio of around 1:7 to 1:8)
Dried scallops (optional)
200g salmon fillet, chopped roughly into cubes

Instructions:

1) Rinse the rice (at most twice).

2) Boil the water/stock, then lower the heat and add the rice in and salmon cubes in. If you want to add dried scallops, add them in now.

3) Once it boils again, lower the heat and let it simmer for 25 to 30 minutes. Stir it occasionally to prevent any rice from burning at the bottom of the pot and to help break the salmon into smaller pieces.

4) Porridge is ready.

Steamed Chicken Wrapped in Paper

Steamed Chicken Wrapped in Paper

Ingredients:

2 whole chicken legs
1 bunch of spring onion
3 to 4 dried Chinese mushrooms, halved
Lup cheong (optional)
Sesame oil
Light soya sauce
Cooking wine

Instructions:

1) Immerse the Chinese mushrooms in water, preferably overnight.

2) Marinate the chicken with some light soya sauce and sesame oil. If possible, do it a few hours beforehand.

3) Place the spring onions in the centre of a piece of baking paper.

4) Place the chicken legs on top of the spring onion, and the mushrooms and lup cheong around it. Drizzle some cooking wine over everything.

5) Wrap everything in the baking paper (fold lengthwise then breadth-wise), and steam for 30 minutes.

Plain porridge

Plain porridge (serves 2 to 3)

Perhaps the word "plain" isn't really a good adjective - this is so tasty that it can be eaten on its own, especially if you use some chicken stock and dried scallops. For me, I used one small packet of Swanson chicken stock (250ml) and used water for the rest.

Ingredients:

⅔ cup of rice
Water and/or chicken stock (with a rice-liquid ratio of around 1:7 to 1:8)
Dried scallops (optional)

Instructions:

1) Rinse the rice (at most twice).

2) Boil the water/stock, then lower the heat and add the rice in. If you want to add dried scallops, add them in now.

3) Once it boils again, lower the heat and let it simmer for 25 to 30 minutes. Stir it occasionally to prevent any rice from burning at the bottom of the pot.

4) Porridge is ready.

Steamed Garlic Prawns

Steamed Garlic Prawns

One of the few recipes that I followed most of it. Sourced from meatmen.

Ingredients:

10 large prawns
2 tablespoons of chopped spring onion
4 tablespoons of chicken stock
1 tablespoon of light soy sauce
1 tablespoon of hua diao wine
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
0.5 tablespoon of salt
1 tablespoon of minced ginger
2 tablespoons of minced garlic

Instructions:

1) For the seasoning sauce, mix the chicken stock, light soy sauce, hua diao wine, sesame oil, salt, minced ginger, minced garlic, and 1 tablespoon of spring onion.

2) Cut away the feelers and legs of the prawns, then devein them. Using a sharp knife will make the deveining process much easier; if not, use a pair of scissors and cut the prawn along its back. Make sure you split enough of the shell and flesh so that the prawn can be spread properly for seasoning.

3) Lay the prawns on a steaming plate, and add the seasoning sauce to the slit along the prawns' back.

4) Steam for 6 to 7 minutes.

5) Garnish remaining spring onion over the prawns, and serve.

Success rates for Servant Enhancements in Fate/Grand Order

So I have been playing the mobile game, Fate/Grand Order, for the past 10 months. I have always been quite curious on the probability rates of their servant enhancements, which can be broken down to the following categories:

• Success - gain the normal experience points
• Super Success - gain 2x the normal experience points
• Great Success - gain 3x the normal experience points

Now that there is a campaign on this, granting double the probability of getting a Super or Great success, I decided to log down the actual observations to estimate the probability. 

After 1,729 observations, which is definitely a sufficiently large sample size, 1,306 were Success, 362 were Super Success, and 61 were Great Success. 

Interestingly, the probability seemed to have stabilised from the 400th to 900th attempt at around 79% (for the Success probability). Subsequently, the trend seemed to be clearly going down (which is good for me as I got more Super and Great Success occurrences).

Based on the observed data, the odds during the campaign are:

• Success - 75.53%
• Super Success - 20.94%
• Great Success - 3.53%

Which also means that during normal times, the odds are around:

• Success - 87.77%
• Super Success - 10.47%
• Great Success - 1.76%

My guess is that the actual probability settings are 88% / 10% / 2%.

Steamed Squid with Garlic and Soy Sauce

Steamed Squid with Garlic and Soy Sauce

Ingredients:

3 whole squids
5 teaspoons of minced garlic
1 teaspoon of butter
1 teaspoon of sugar
6 teaspoons of light soy sauce
2 teaspoons of fish sauce
1 teaspoon of oyster sauce
2 teaspoons of sesame oil
2 teaspoons of cooking wine
A handful of spring onions

Instructions:

1) Clean the squids, cut it to rings and place it on a steaming plate.

2) Boil around 1 cup of water, then add the garlic in and a pinch of salt.

3) Let it simmer for 5 minutes, then drain. Mix the butter with the garlic uniformly.

4) Mix the sugar, light soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil and cooking wine together. Pour it onto the squid.

5) Top the squid with the garlic-butter mixture, then steam it for 3 minutes.

6) Garnish with spring onions and serve.

Crispy Ikan Bilis

Crispy ikan bilis

When I was young, my mother used to deep fry ikan bilis, and they were wonderfully crunchy and addictive. Now given that I stay in an apartment, there was no way I was willing to deep fry it, so I opted for the next-best option - the microwave.

It turned out to be very easy, just that you need to do it multiple times for bigger quantities. The smell is quite strong too, so make sure your place is well ventilated.

Ingredients:

Ikan bilis
Oil

Instructions:

1) Wash the ikan bilis (I usually wash them for two rounds), then let them dry. The key to getting crispy ikan bilis is to ensure they are as dry as possible. I spread them out on a tray and left them near the window for several hours.

2) Spread out the ikan bilis on a tray or microwave-safe dish. They should be in a thin layer.

3) Drizzle some oil over the ikan bilis.

4) Put the tray into the microwave, cover it and switch it on high power for 2 minutes.

5) Pour the ikan bilis onto a kitchen towel to let it absorb any excess oil.

6) Store in an air-tight container once it has cooled.

Stir-fried Chinese Spinach with Chilli

Stir-fried Chinese Spinach with Chilli

Ingredients:

1 bag of Chinese spinach
1 teaspoon of minced garlic
2 teaspoons of chilli paste
1 teaspoon of sesame oil

Instructions:

1) Preheat the wok and add some oil, then saute the garlic for a while.

2) Add the chilli paste and stir fry it for a short while.

3) Add the spinach and mix it uniformly until the spinach has wilted. It should just take one to two minutes.

4) Add the sesame oil, mix it, then serve.


Because of the particular brand of chilli paste I used, I didn't need to add any salt. If you are using another brand of chilli paste, you may need to add a bit of salt.

Japanese Marinated Beansprouts

Japanese Marinated Beansprouts

I have always loved the marinated beansprouts from ramen restaurants, and can finish off several helpings even before the ramen arrives. While having Ippudo in Osaka, I thought of trying to make it myself as it shouldn't be too difficult.

I searched for recipes online, but had to modify and experiment quite a bit before getting the exact taste I wanted. It also tastes better after you have left it overnight in the fridge, as the beansprouts would have soaked up all the seasoning and flavour.

Ingredients:

300g of beansprouts

1 tablespoon of baked sesame seeds

2 tablespoons of sesame oil

2 teaspoons of light soy sauce

2 teaspoons of Japanese seven spice powder (or chilli powder for more spiciness)

0.5 teaspoon of salt

Black pepper

Instructions:

1) Immerse the beansprouts in water for 10 minutes or so. Clear away as much dirt and sediments as possible, along with the stray roots.

2) Boil a pot of water, then add the beansprouts in. After around 2 to 2.5 minutes, remove the beansprouts and run them under tap water to cool them down quickly.

3) Mix the sesame seeds, sesame oil, light soy sauce, salt, black pepper and Japanese seven spice powder together in a mixing bowl.

4) Drain the beansprouts as much as possible. This is important - if the beansprouts are still wet, the excess water the dilute the seasoning.

5) Add the beansprouts into the mixing bowl and mix well.

6) Leave it in the fridge, preferably overnight.

For the beansprouts, I used the Sakura brand. I tried another brand during one of my experiments and it turned out quite disappointing. Sakura's beansprouts also seemed a lot cleaner than other brands.

Baked Fish with Asparagus

Baked Red Garoupa with Asparagus

The fish can also be substituted with salmon or barramundi. For the asparagus, I used Mexican asparagus - they are thicker and have more bite, but normal asparagus will do as well.

The cooking time for the fish and asparagus are quite similar, which makes this dish even more convenient.

Ingredients:

2 fillets of red garoupa

300g of asparagus, cut into approximately 3-4cm pieces

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

Lemon (optional)

Instructions:

1) Season the fish with salt and pepper, then lay them on a baking tray with the asparagus. Try not to overlap any of them.

2) Add a little bit of lemon juice on the fish - the amount is up to your preference.

3) Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the fish and asparagus.

4) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius, then grill it for 12 minutes.