Asian Inspirations

Discover the authentic in Asian cuisine food

Deep-Fry

Top Hats (Nyonya Pie Tee)

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To Prep
Mix the rice flour, bread flour, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Make a “well” in the flour with your hands and add in the water, oil and egg. Mix into a smooth batter (which should thinly coat the back of a spoon), rest for 15 minutes at room temperature.

To Cook
Heat up a pot of oil, drop in a little batter, when the batter floats the oil is ready.
Dip the pie tee mould into the hot oil for 10 seconds and let the oil drip off. Dip the mould into the batter (if you can hear a sizzling sound the mould is too hot, best is to let it cool down and start again). You can coat 1 time, 2 or 3 times if you want thicker pie tee’s.
Gently dip the battered mould into the hot oil (which should cover 90-95% of the mould). As the batter starts to cook, slowly lower the entire mould into the hot oil (oil will seep around the sides of the pie tee and the crispy top hat should drop off from the mould). If the top hat doesn’t drop off the mould, move it up and down in the oil a few times gently.

For the Pie Tee Filling
In pan over a medium heat, cook the shallots until they turn golden in colour.
Add in the shrimps and continue to cook until they’ve turned pink, before adding in the jicama and carrots. Season with salt, sugar and pepper and continue to cook for another 5 mins.
When the vegetables have cooked, remove from the heat and set aside.
In a non-stick pan over a medium heat, add oil and the eggs and cook the omelette. When the omelette has been cooked, transfer it on to a surface to cool before cutting in to thin strips.

To Serve
In each of the hats, place a serving of the fillings along with some of the omelette strips. Garnish with chillies or spring onions and serve!

Fried Tofu with Chilli Sauce (Tau Hu Tod)

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To Prepare the Sauce
Add water, sugar, and vinegar in a saucepan, and cook over medium heat until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly, then add in the fish sauce and dried red chili flakes, and stir through.
Set aside.

To Cook the Fried Tofu
Dry the tofu wedges on paper towels for 1 hr.
Heat oil in a pan or wok over high heat until the oil reaches 200°C.
Carefully lower the tofu wedges into the hot oil and fry for 5 mins or until golden brown on all sides, turning the pieces occasionally with long tongs.
Drain the fried tofu on paper towel.

To Serve
Add chopped roasted peanuts, bird’s eye chilli and coriander on top of sauce.
Serve fried tofu with the dipping sauce.

Chinese Vegetable Spring Rolls

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To Cook
Heat oil in a pan and sauté cucumbers, carrots and black fungus. Combine ingredients for seasoning mix and softened vermicelli. Cook until heated through. Set aside to cool.
Then, divide the cooked fillings into 10 portions and wrap with spring roll wrappers. Seal with flour and water mixture.
Deep fry the spring rolls in heated oil until golden brown. Drain. Serve with dipping sauce.

Braised Eel with Chicken Marinade

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To Cook
Cut eel into pieces (around 1cm thick), mix well with marinade.
Deep fry eel in heated oil until golden brown. Drain.
Heat 2 tbsp of oil. Sauté ginger, garlic, mushrooms, red chilli peppers and spring onions until fragrant. Stir in eel until done. Add wine.
Add sauce mix and simmer until thickened.

Deep Fried Taro Cakes with Scallops

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To Cook
Place scallops into a bowl and mix well with marinade.
Prepare a steamer over high heat. Steam taro for 45 mins. Remove and mash while still hot. Add seasoning mix and combine well.
Divide the mashed taro into 10 equal portions. Put a scallop in the middle of the mashed taro and form them into round cakes. Coat taro cakes with corn starch.
Deep fry taro cakes in heated oil until golden brown and serve.

Stewed Pork Balls in Chinese Braising Sauce

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To Cook
Mix minced pork and bean curd with marinade in a bowl and stir until sticky.
Divide the pork mixture into 3 portions and roll into balls. Heat up oil in a pan and semi deep fry meatballs. Dish out and set aside.
Parboil baby cabbage leaves. Then, place half of the cabbage in a pan and top with ginger slices. Add seasoning mix ingredients and bring to a boil. Add in meatballs and simmer over low heat for 1 hr.
Once ready, add in the rest of the cabbage leaves and cook until sauce thickens.

Deep Fried Lotus Roots with Meat Patties

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To Cook
Place fish meat, pork, spring onions, Chinese parsley and rehydrated mushrooms into a bowl. Mix in seasoning mix ingredients. Combine well. Filling is ready.
Dust a sliced lotus root with corn starch and top with a thick spread of filling. Cover with another lotus root slice to make a sandwich. Repeat with remaining lotus root slices and filling.
Heat up enough oil to semi deep fry the lotus root patties over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, dust all the lotus root patties with corn starch.
Semi deep fry both sides of lotus root patties until golden brown. Dish out and place on kitchen paper to drain off excess oil. Serve.

Chicken Katsu Hand Roll

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To Prep
Cut the cucumber in to thin horizontal strips before removing the seeds. This should leave strips of just the flesh that should be trimmed to fit the hand roll.
Add the sushi vinegar to the cooked sushi rice and gentle fold in to the rice until well incorporated.
Pound the chicken using a meat tenderiser to make it thinner and flat.
Dip into the flour, then the egg and finally the breadcrumbs.

To Cook
In a pan with enough oil to fry, cook the chicken until golden and then drain on paper towels.
When the chicken has cooled slightly, cut it in to sections that are small enough to fit on to the hand roll.

To Make the Roll
Cut nori sheets in half. Place sushi rice and then the lettuce, cucumber and chicken slices onto one side of nori.
Fold the nearest corner of the nori over the filling and start to shape.
The finished hand roll should be shaped conically to prevent any rice from falling out from the bottom.
Sprinkle some tonkatsu sauce over the top and serve!

Pork Cutlet with Curry Sauce (Pork Katsu Kare)

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For the Tonkatsu
To tenderize the meat, pound with a meat pounder, or just use the back of the knife to pound in a crisscross pattern from top to bottom, then left to right.
Season meat with salt and pepper.
In a large bowl, add ½ tbsp of oil and whisk. With oil added, the meat and panko coating will not fall apart when while deep frying.
Dredge meat in flour making sure that it is coated evenly then, remove excess flour. Dip into egg mixture and dredge in panko. Remove excess panko.
In a wok, heat oil over medium heat to about 180ºC.
Tip: If you don’t have a thermometer, stick a wooden chopstick in the oil. If you see tiny bubbles appearing around the tip of the chopstick, then the oil is hot enough.
Gently lower tonkatsu into the oil. Keep a close watch on the oil’s temperature to avoid burning the tonkatsu. Deep fry until golden brown; about a minute on each side.
Remove tonkatsu from oil and leave to drain on top of a wire rack for about 5 mins. Do not be tempted to cut into the tonkatsu crust to check if the meat is ready as we need it closed to retain heat.
After 5 mins, bring the oil back to 180ºC and return tonkatsu to fry for another minute.
Make a small incision on the meat with the chopstick. If you see clear liquid oozing out then the tonkatsu is ready. Drain on wire rack or, paper towel.
Tip: If you use a paper towel, try to keep tonkatsu upright so it does not get soggy on one side.
Cut tonkatsu into 3 pieces (or more) by pressing the knife directly down instead of moving back and forth. This way, the crusts will not come off. Then cut again in between.

For the Japanese Curry
Peel and cut onion, potato and carrot into bite size chunks.
In a large pan, add vegetables and fill the pan with water enough to immerse the vegetable. Bring to boil and simmer until vegetables have softened.
Add 2-3 blocks of curry roux to the pan and let simmer while stirring until curry is thick and smooth.

To Serve
On a plate, lay sliced tonkatsu over a bed of rice, then add the curry sauce. Garnish with fukujinzuke (pickled radish).

Indonesian Mashed Banana Fritters

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To Cook
In a mixing bowl, mash bananas with flour, sugar, salt (optional) and coconut cream into a sticky, slightly moist mixture.
In a wok or large saucepan, heat the oil to a very hot temperature. Using very damp fingers, pinch about 1 heaped tbsp of the mixture, roll it into a ball and gently lower it into the hot oil. Deep-fry for 3-5 minutes, turning occasionally, until crispy and golden brown on all sides. Be sure not too fry too many balls of batter at once for this will lower the temperature of the oil. When finished, remove from the oil and drain on paper towels.
Move the fritters to a serving dish and serve warm with ice cream or with a scoop of coconut cream on top.

Thai Spicy Fried Pork Patties (Tod Man Moo)

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To Prep
Combine all of the ingredients for ajad in to a mixing bowl and mix well before leaving to stand overnight.
In another mixing bowl, mix the ground pork with the curry paste, then add the egg, water, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves and spring onions. Continue to mix well until all of the ingredients are evenly distributed.
Roll the pork mince in to balls approximately 1 tbsp each, and then flatten into 3cm thick patties.

To Cook
In a wok, heat oil over medium-high heat and add the pork patties to fry until golden brown.
Remove, drain on paper towels and serve with pickled ginger and/or ajad on the side.