Chicken Chop Suey
Topic: Chicken
Chop suey is a chinese term literally means mixed pieces. What it consists of varies from place to place, but its most common form consists of meat and also shrimp, etc.) cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery and bound in a starch-thickened sauce, my hubby's favorite sauce. He likes thick sauces so much. This is different with the Vegetable Chop Suey that I posted before, that was served as side dish only and I made this one as a main dish.

Ingredients:
700 g chicken, sliced into serving portions
1 medium carrot, sliced
1 cup baby corn, cut into 1 inch length
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 small head of cauliflower, cut into florets
1 bell pepper, diced
1/3 cup black fungus, soaked in water and sliced
1/2 cup celery, sliced
1 onion, sliced thinly
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cups chicken broth
1 thumb-sized ginger, crushed
1 tbsp. cornstarch
2 tbsp. cold water
1 tsp. sugar
3 tbsp. oyster sauce
3 tbsp. cooking oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Heat oil in a pan. Stir fry the carrots and cauliflower until done. Set aside.
2. Brown the chicken in the remaining oil. Add garlic, onion and ginger and stir fry until the onions are transparent. Add black fungus, stir, then add broth and sugar . Bring to a boil and simmer until the chicken are done, then add the mushrooms, celery and baby corn. Simmer for another 2 minutes.
3. Stir in the previously stir-fried vegetables. Add the bell pepper.
4. Blend the cornstarch to the cold water and mix with the oyster sauce.
5. Pour in the corntarch mixture to the vegetables and stir, cook for 2 minutes.
6. Season with salt and pepper.

Sauteed Shrimps (Dry)
Topic: Shrimps
When you want the very natural taste of shrimps aside from grilling, then this is the best way to cook it, very simple way and no strong ingredients to distract its natural taste. My brother came to our home the other night and he brought some shrimps, he requested me to cook it like the way our mother did way back home, "no soup, not too oily and just few spices", that was how he described it. Here's how I did it:

Ingredients:
500 g medium shrimps, trimmed
1 small onion, sliced thinly
1 thumb-sized ginger, grated
1 ripe tomato, sliced
1 stalk green onions, cut into 2 inches length
2 tbsp. cooking oil
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt

Directions:
1. Heat oil in a pan, saute onions and ginger until ginger becomes aromatic, then add tomatoes and saute until smooth.
2. Add in shrimps, salt and sugar, stir ocassionally and cook until done.
3. Stir in the green onions. Turn off heat and serve.

Braised Chicken Fillet
Topic: Chicken
This dish was cooked by my sister yesterday as one of our side dishes on Iftar time, at first she was hesitant to serve it, she said we might not like it because in the first place she did not able to taste the seasoning because we were all fasting. Actually this dish is very common is many chinese restaurants and they called it braised chicken, either wings or any part of the chicken. The recipe I am posting below is my own recipe for this dish and I don't know if my sister used the same ingredients or not in the picture but if you cook it this way, the result would be almost the same.

Ingredients:
300 g chicken breast fillet
1 onion, sliced
1 bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, crush
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1/2 tsp. black pepper powder
1/2 tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. cooking oil

Marinade:
3 tbsp. lime juice
1/3 tsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. sugar
salt

Directions:
1. Marinate chicken for 30 minutes. Drain.
2. Heat oil in a skillet, fry the chicken until brown. Add garlic and onions and stir until the onions are smooth.
3. Add remaining ingredients and cook until the chicken are done.

Serve.

Fruit Salad with Ice Cream
Topic: Desserts
Since it is Ramadan nowadays, we always craved for desserts afer Iftar or after Tarawih prayer. I know that like many people said, sweets is good to break the fast but in our home, we only ate few dates to follow the tradition of Prophet Mohammad PBUH then after that we ate our main dishes like noodles, pasta, chicken, meat, some bread, etc. We ate our dessert between Iftar and Sohoor time. Last night our dessert was a simple fruit salad which made of Fruit cocktail and some fruits in our fridge. I just combine it all, add cream and milk and that's it.

Ingredients:
2 cups fruit cocktail
1 apple, cubed
2 bananas, sliced
1 peach, cubed
2 kiwis, sliced
1 cup grapes, seeded
1 cup corn kernel
125 ml thick cream
2/3 cup condensed milk
Ice cream

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Mix well.
2. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and serve.

Banana Split
Topic: Desserts
A banana split is an ice cream-based dessert. The classic was served in a long dish called a "boat". A banana is cut in two lengthwise and laid in the dish. There are many variations, but the classic one is made with scoops of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream served in a row on the split banana. Usually,the toppings are chocolate syrup over the chocolate ice cream, pineapple over the vanilla and strawberry over the strawberry icecream. Sometimes it is also garnished with whipped cream, cherries, nuts or cereals.

At home, we always made banana split regardless of any ice cream flavor it would be, as long as it is an ice cream and banana, then we usually used chocolate syrup as our toppings and garnished it with some nuts or cereals, then that's it.