Steamed Fish Paste Egg Roll

~ Posted on Thursday, December 23, 2010 at 8:40 AM ~

When my mum was still alive, she used to make this occassionally as one of the dishes for dinner. I used to love eating this as it contains 2 of my favorite food: fish and egg. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to get the recipe from her. And it was just a couple of days ago that I remembered this dish... oh, how I long to be able to taste my mum's cooking and the regret of not learning to cook all the yummy dishes from her when she was alive...

I remembered how my mum made the fish paste. She would go to the wet market in the morning, buy a certain type of fish (can't recall what name) and back home, will start scrapping out the fish meat and smash them in the mortar using the pestle until the fish paste mix nicely and sticky enough.

Anyway, I did some research around the Net and more or less got the idea of how to make this dish again. I don't have the luxury of time and energy in smashing fish meat in mortar and pestle, so I took a shortcut and bought the ready-made fish paste from the morning wet market.

There are other versions of this dish if you Googled it around, such as other ingredients which you can add in, like carrots slice, chilli, scallions, or even a seaweed sheet on top of the omelet. But this dish that my mum made is very simple and easy. Just fish paste and egg. So I'm sticking to that. And hence, this is my 1st attempt of making:

STEAMED FISH PASTE EGG ROLL.

PREPARATION TIME: ABOUT HALF AN HOUR

* Less than 5 minutes to pan fry the eggs
* Less than 5 minutes to prepare the fish paste egg roll
* 10-12 minutes for steaming process

Ingredients / Tool Required:

Steamed Fish Paste Egg Roll

* Fish paste (quantity up to you!)
* 2 eggs (at room temperature)
* Few drops of cooking oil
* A pinch of salt (optional)
* Optional: Vegetables of your choice-broccoli, carrots, cauliflower etc!

Tools:
Non stick pan, plate, knife, steamer

What to Do?

* Beat the eggs and add in a pinch of salt (optional).
* Heat up a non-stick pan and pan fry the eggs into thin omelet.
* You can add in your vegetables on the add at this point of after the eggs cooled down.
* Transfer the omelet to a clean chopping board (I used a plate) and let it cool down.
* Spread a layer of fish paste on top of the omelet. (If your layer is thick, then fish paste portion is more)

Steamed Fish Paste Egg Roll

* Slowly roll up the omelet, make sure it's firmly rolled.
* Carefully transfer the fish roll to a steamer.

UPDATES ON 8th Feb 2014: * If you don't have a steamer, you can also steam this in your rice pot. I tried this method recently where after the rice was cooked in the rice pot and it was in 'Keep Warm' mode, I just put the plate with the rolled egg into the rice pot and leave it to steam by itself.

Steamed Fish Paste Egg Roll

* Steam for about 10-12 minutes or until fish paste turns opaque.

Steamed Fish Paste Egg Roll

* Cut the fish roll into slices (thickness up to you)
* You can serve with your choice of dipping sauce or eat it as it is.

THE RESULTS

Steamed Fish Paste Egg Roll

CLOSE UP SHOT

Steamed Fish Paste Egg Roll

Steamed Fish Paste Egg Roll

UPDATES ON 8th Feb 2014: Added carrots onto the egg

REACTIONS FROM MY "GUINEA PIGS"

ME
"Yum-yums!!! Almost as close as to mum's cooking! Ahhhh... such nice memories and so good to be able to replicate this dish again!"
BEN

Steamed Fish Paste Egg Roll "Mmmm! Mmmm!" (I had to immediately cut a slice and let him try as he kept bugging me when he saw the fish paste egg roll! And Ben had about 4-5 slices of this for his dinner! Way to go Ben!)

HUBBY
"Delicious! Thank you for the wonderful fish paste dish!" (this is a very good compliment as my hubby is not the type who likes to eat fish balls, paste and stuff like this...)
MIL
"Hou sik ar!! (which means Delicious in Cantonese)"

So there you go.... my 1st STEAMED FISH PASTE EGG ROLL attempt!

Overall, I'm very happy with this attempt though I can only take credit for the egg roll and on the preparation/presentation side . After all, the fish paste was bought elsewhere and all I did was just slap on some onto the egg sheet and roll away! Though I'm happy to inform the dish is all eaten up with compliments on how delicious it is. What a good way to boost up my cooking morale! And I'm really happy cos it brings back memories I have when my mum made this dish.

To view my other recipes, feel free to hop over to my Recipe Library page for more info! Brought to you by:

Our Bling-bling Christmas Tree is up!

~ Posted on Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 9:08 AM ~

Previously, we've not been bothered with Christmas tree decorations and just use a very small table top Christmas tree (like 1 feet or something) which was used long long ago when my father in law was still alive and had a car workshop which my MIL will put the mini tree up whenever Christmas time is near. So, with this year, hubby decided we should get a Christmas tree! And so, we've been searching for an appropriate Christmas tree for some time.

Table top? Put on the floor? 3 feet? 4 feet? Artificial? Real one?

How about the deco? Get those already come with the deco? Or buy them separately?

Gaaaa... all these questions...

And finally hubby bought our first proper Christmas tree!

It was a 4 feet artificial Christmas tree, it came with some basic ornaments and has this fiber optic thingy at the end of the firs which lits up the tree in few different colors when you turned on its switch. As in, you see the tree changes colors every few seconds. Nice! And the fiber optic thingy is very safe and Ben could touch it without us having to worry he might fry his fingers or get himself electrocuted... What a bling-bling tree huh?

Ben admiring the changing lights on the tree...

Ben adjusting one of the ornaments...

And the tree blinking in different colors...

After the pictures above were taken, my MIL has moved the tree onto the TV cabinet as she's scared Ben is going to pull down the tree. And  I  have also quietly took out and nicely told her NOT to put in some of the ornaments she sneakily added into the Christmas tree.

Just in case you want to know, Chinese New Year ornaments SHOULD NEVER NEVER EVER be mixed into a Christmas tree. Thankfully, my MIL has gotten the hint after my very polite pep talk and has not been adding in her Chinese New Year ornaments anymore...

Now, we only have to put up the Christmas presents below the tree and we're done!

To those of you who are celebrating Christmas, my family and I would like to wish you a blessed Christmas and a wonderful year ahead!

And those who are not celebrating Christmas, have a wonderful holidays and year ahead too!

** This post has also been submitted to the "Show Me Your Tree" blog hop...
Show Me Your Tree

Ben's Photography Skills...

~ Posted on Monday, December 20, 2010 at 9:09 AM ~

One day, while Ben was sitting on my lap fiddling with my camera, I decided instead of worrying that he's going to break it and then taking it away from him as usual, I decided to teach him how to use it. My camera is very easy to use, just point and press the button on the top right corner.

Picture below taken using hubby's company camera while Ben was fiddling with my camera...

And look what happened when I taught my 21 months old toddler how to use the camera...


Very close up shot of his shirt...

The window in front of mummy's computer table,
black blob on bottom left is because of Ben's finger covering the lens...


Ben's and mummy's right knees...

Close up shot of himself...

Cute eh? I think my boy's got talent! Cool