Low-carb tuna sandwich

This low carb tuna sandwich has less than 6g net carb per serving

 

Tuna from the can is not something that I eat very often. Mostly because I am not a fan of the extremely fishy smell and in order to get rid of the smell, a lot of effort is required in preparing the tuna filling. Hence, I usually only shop for tuna in water or brine and add a host of other ingredients like lime juice and zest, bird eye chilli, pepper, olives, scallion and cheese to get rid of the smell.

However, since I am currently craving for sandwich and have yet to replenish my grocery supplies, I only have canned tuna chunk in spring water in the pantry to fill the sandwich. So, I shall be having tuna sandwich due to this lack of option.

Preparation time: 40 mins

Carb: 7.5g | Fiber: 2.15g | Nett carb: 5.35g | Protein: 28.9g

Ingredients (serves 2)

For the low carb coconut bun:

3 eggs

3 tablespoons cream cheese

1 tablespoon coconut flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

For the sandwich filling:

1 can of tuna in spring water

10 cubes of feta cheese (1cm cube each)

3 tablespoons cream cheese

5 olives (sliced thinly)

4 bird eye chillies (minced)

1 sprig scallion (chopped)

1 lime (juice an zest)

4 tomato slices

1 cup lettuce (shredded)

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Prepare the bun as shown in this Youtube video
2. Mix together all the sandwich filling ingredients (except for lettuce and tomatoes)
3. Sandwich the filling in between two coconut buns and serve

Chilli lime beef and black fungus carbonara

Chilli lime beef and mushroom carbonara made using Shirataki noodles

Jumping into the hype train is not quite my thing. Usually, I am either late or miss the train altogether and it had never been an issue for me. But not this time. If only I had discovered Shirataki noodles sooner, I would saved myself months self-deceit — psyching my brain into beliving that shredded vegetables taste just like noodles. Shirataki noodles on the other hand, is real! With 1g of carbs net carbs and 2g of fiber per serving, it tastes really close to pasta al dente!

Thanks to experimenting with this holy grail miracle konjac noodles, I discovered this spiced-up version (pun intended) of carbonara sauce. Adding bird eye chillies and lime into an otherwise ordinary carbonara sauce only makes the flavour profile more exciting. It makes for a good balance of acidity, creamy, salty and spicy — I promise.

Here goes there recipe.

Carb: 14g | Fiber: 5.4g | Nett carb: 8.6g | Protein: 60g

Preparation time: 30 mins

Ingredients (serves 2):

1 packet Skirataki noodles

100g sliced beef

50g black fungus (shredded)

50g oyster mushrooms (shredded)

4 bird eye chilies (minced)

2 cloves garlic (minced)

Juice of 1 lime

100ml cream

3 tablespoon grated Parmigiano cheese

1 egg yolk

Butter

Salt to taste

Chopped spring onions for dressing

Method

1. Rinse Shirataki noodles thoroughly and toast on a frying pan to reduce its water content
2. Melt butter on a saucepan and stir fry beef slices till desired doneness
3. Add garlic and chillies and saute until soft
4. Add black fungus and oyster mushrooms and stir fry
5. Add toasted Shirataki noodles and stir fry for 3 minutes
6. Reduce heat and stir in cream, grated Parmigiano cheese and egg yolk and temper till sauce thickens
7. Add salt and lime juice to taste
8. Garnish with chopped spring onions and serve

 

Brunch Egg

There is just something about piercing a fork through a runny piece of egg yolk kept intact by an invisible membrane, sending the liquid gold spilling over delicious little things. I find that strangely satisfying. Do you?

Back to the subject at hand. I had eggs for brunch. It’s something I put together by deconstructing my sunny side up. The reason? I love sunny side ups but I like my egg white extra crispy around the edges and the yolk extra runny. So it makes sense to cook them separately. While I was at it, I thought why not add other ingredients and make it a meal? So here goes the yet-to-be-named brunch egg.

I have yet to name this dish. Maybe someone could help me with this?

Carbs: 5g | Fiber: 1.3g | Nett carb: 3.8g | Protein: 18.3g

Preparation time: 30 mins

Ingredients (Serves 1)

2 medium eggs

100g sliced Portobello mushrooms

5 pitted black olives (sliced)

3 cubes of 1 square centimetres feta cheese

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon butter

3 sprigs coriander leaves (chopped)

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Melt the butter and sauté the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and keep aside.
2. Heat up the vegetable oil and fry the egg white
3. While the egg white is still runny, sprinkle sliced olives and sautéed mushrooms on top.
4. When the edges of the egg white starts to brown, reduce the flame, add egg yolk and cover the pan with a lid to cook the yolk to desired consistency
5. Sprinkle coriander leaves and feta cheese crumbles and serve

Kaffir Leaves Lamb Shoulder Chop

I had a Eureka moment with this recipe experiment and am really excited to blog about it!

Have yet to find a suitable name to describe its exciting burst of flavours but, lets call it kaffir leaves  lamb shoulder chop.

At first it was the citrusy aroma from the kaffir leaves added with the heat from the ginger and bird eye chilli that made my mouth water. However, drizzling the dish with a little bit of lime juice right before eating sealed the deal for me. I am in love — with a piece of lamb chop!

Kaffir leaves grilled lamb chop

Carb: 3.9g | Fiber: 0.2g | Nett carb: 3.7g | Protein: 17g | Fat: 35g

Ingredients (serves 1)

200g lamb shoulder chop

5 kaffir leaves (chopped)

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

1 tablespoon light soy sauce

1 tablespoon grated ginger

1 tablespoon chopped spring onions

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 bird eye chillies (chopped)

1 clove garlic (grated)

A pinch of salt to taste

Juice from 1/4 lime

Method:

1. Add all grated and chopped ingredients with olive oil, sark soy sauce, light soy sauce and salt and mix
2. Coat lamb chop with the marinade and refrigerate overnight
3. Let the lamb to stand at room temperature while preheating over to 200 degree Celsius
4. Roast to desired doneness and drizzle with lime juice just before serving

Asian Inpired Salad with Spicy Strawberry Dressing

Asian-inspired lettuce and napa cabbage salad with Japanese soft-boiled eggs dressed with spicy strawberry vinaigrette

Spicy strawberry vinaigrette

 

I came home today to an almost empty fridge because I have been so busy with work lately even the sheer thought of grocery shopping made me tired.

Upon raiding the fridge, I found 4 pieces of strawberries (50g), 3 small eggs, 2 pieces of back bacon (47g), a few pieces of bird’s eye chillies, Chinese cabbage and lettuce. Very random ingredients.

So, I thought to myself, “while I could eat the lettuce and stir fry the Napa cabbage, I am not a rabbit and I can’t sustain with only leaves for dinner. Hence the journey of putting together everything I can find and turning them into a big bowl of salad, hearty enough for me to survive the night.

Out of curiosity I tried making salad dressing combining strawberries, bird’s eye chilli, garlic, cumin and dried parsley.

Then a mix of Japanese soft-boiled egg, fried back bacon bits, napa cabbage and lettuce for the salad.

 

The result, I loved it — or perhaps it was due to the state of hunger I was in. Nevertheless, I do think that the earthy and nutty taste of the cumin and the spiciness from the chilli added a touch complexity to the otherwise ordinary strawberry vinaigrette and it went very well with the eggs!

Carb: 9.8g | Nett carb: 7g | Protein: 20g | Fat: 39.4g |Calories: 455.3 kcal

Cooking time: 30 mins

Ingredients

Spicy Strawberry Salad Dressing (Serves 2)

50g strawberries

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 clove garlic

1 bird’s eye chilli

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon dried parsley

1 stick Equal stevia

Salt to taste

Salad (1 serving):

2 eggs

A bowl of ice water

100 gram lettuce

100 gram Chinese cabbage

47g back bacon

Method

1. Mix all salad dressing ingredients in a blender and puree the ingredients
2. Fry the bacons until crispy
3. Cook eggs in boiling water on medium flame for six minutes then stop the cooking by soaking the cooked eggs in a bowl of ice water for 2 minutes
4. clean and cut vegetables into bite size
5. Assemble salad

 

Steamed Egg

There is nothing more comforting on a chill rainy morning than a dish of warm, silken steamed egg.

It is quick and easy to prepare but the secret of making it smooth and silken tofu-like lies in you — patience! You will need to steam the eggs in low heat.

I got a little impatient this morning and raised the temperature of the steamer after 5 minutes of low heat steaming. The result: not very smooth steamed egg surface! Nevertheless, the custard-like texture maintained.

Steamed egg

Steamed egg 2

Carb: 1.5g | Nett Carb: 1.2g | Protein: 12.9g | Fat: 8.7g | Calories: 132kcal

Preparation  time: 20 mins

Ingredients (Serves 1)

2 medium eggs

3 small button mushrooms (sliced)

6 halved shell of water (Ratio 1 egg:1.5 shell water)

1 teaspoon sesame oil

A pinch of salt

Scallions for garnishing

Method

1. Beat the eggs
2. Add water, sesame oil and salt into the eggs and stir the mixture gently
3. Remove any bubbles that formed on the surface with a strainer
4. Add sliced mushrooms into the mixture and steam in low heat for 10-15 minutes
5. Garnish with scallions and serve

Porky burger for low-carbers

Every now and then in this low carb journey, I discover recipes that make me go, “who needs carbs when you can eat food like this?” This is one of them. Another non-Asian food recipe coming your way.

This burger recipe was inspired by a cheese-stuffed burger video that I found on YouTube. However, I would recommend saving your carb quota by seasoning the meat with only cayenne pepper and a little bit of Worcestershire sauce and leave all the other ingredients out because cheese is already quite flavourful on its own and do substitute the bread with fried eggs.

Here goes a picture of the finished product — pardon the cramp plate because I really have very little platting skills !

Cheese-stuffed pork burger for low-carbers

Here’s what it looks like inside — can u see the cheese oozing out?

Here’s what it looks inside, with cheese oozing out

Carb: 3.4g | Nett carb: 3g | Calories: 559.6kcal | Protein: 50g | Fat: 34.5g

Preparation time: Less than 30 mins

Ingredients (1 portion)

150g minced pork

2 medium eggs

1 oz cheddar cheese

1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon cooking oil for frying

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 cloves of garlic

Method:

1. Fry the eggs. Use a round tin pastry cutter as mould if you would like to have perfectly round eggs
2.  Mix the Worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper into minced pork
3. Form a ball with the pork mixture then make a well in the centre.
4. Stuff the grated cheddar cheese into the well and then seal carefully to make sure that there wouldn’t be any leakage while cooking patty
5. Heat up the butter and oil mixture and drop 2 cloves of crushed garlic into the pan to infuse the garlic flavour into the fat
6. Pan fry the patty while basting it with the garlic infused fat every once in a while until the meat is cooked
7. Stack the egg and burger patty up and serve!

 

Low Carb Debal Chicken

Low-carb debel chicken with less than 5 nett carb per serving.

This dish brings back nostalgic feelings of growing up in historical Malacca — a small state located at the south of Peninsular Malaysia that was colonised by the Portuguese in the 15th century. As I am writing this post, a popular Portuguese-Eurasian folk song Jingli Nona is playing in my head and I am very tempted to clap and dance to the beat. Here’s the Youtube clip to the song for those of you who are not familiar with it.

Now back to the dish. Debal chicken is a fusion dish that is very popular among the Portuguese-Eurasian community from my home town. This is a sort of east-meets-west kinda dish. The word debal means “leftovers” in Kristang, a creole language spoken by the Portuguese-Eurasian community back home and this dish was originally made using Christmas leftovers.

The original recipes is higher in carbs as it contains potatoes and a few other ingredients and this dish is usually served with rice. I have omitted those ingredients and reduced the use of aromatics like onions, ginger and garlic to reduce the carb content. I am also happy to have this dish served on a bed of blanched cabbage or steamed cauliflower rice instead of white rice.

Carb: 5.6g | Nett carb: 4.9g | Calories: 602 kcal | Protein: 68g | Fat:39g

Ingredients (serves three)

500g chicken (marinate in soy sauce and pepper for 20 mins)

100g smoked bacon/roasted pork belly

1 1/2 cup homemade low carb chicken stock

2 teaspoons crushed mustard seeds

1.5 tablespoon red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Salt to taste

Julienne:

25g onion

1/2 inch ginger

1 clove garlic

Blend into paste:

12 dried chillies (soaked in hot water for 20 minutes)

50g onion

6 bird eye chilli

1 inch ginger

1 inch galangal/blue ginger

2 cloves garlic

Method:

1. Heat up 2 tablepoons of cooking oil in a pot. Add julienned aromatics and stir fry till wilted
2. Add marinated chicken, smoked bacon and spice paste and cook until the oil separates from the paste
3. Add crushed mustard seeds, chicken stock, vinegar and salt to taste.
4. Let simmer for 15 minutes

 

Poached egg on mushrooms with Hollandaise sauce

Poached egg on mushrooms with Hollandaise sauce

Not a very Asian kind of breakfast but I have yet to discover a low-carb Asian breakfast recipe that is worth mentioning. The search is still on because so far, Asian breakfasts are good only when they are carb-laden!

Less than 3g nett carbs per serving breakfast. Poached egg on mushrooms with Hollandaise sauce

Meanwhile, I made a modified version of egg Benedict this morning. Poached egg on a bed of sautéed brown mushrooms with Hollandaise sauce sans bread. The verdict? I loved it! I love the creamy earthy flavour from the mushroom sautéed with butter. The coriander leaves gave the mushroom an added more kick. The combination of those flavours —  runny egg yolk from the poached egg and the smooth and creaminess from the Hollandaise sauce — sent me straight into breakfast heaven!

Carb: 3.9g | Nett carb: 2.9g| Calories: 441kcal | Protein:66.4g | Fat:44.3g

Serving time: slightly more than 30 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)

Sauteed mushrooms

200g button mushrooms

2 tablespoon butter

5 sprigs of coriander leaves

Salt and pepper to taste

Poached egg

2 Eggs

1 cup water

Vinegar

Hollandaise sauce

2 egg yolks

4 tablespoons melted butter

A few drops of vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Sautee the mushrooms in melted butter until tender

2. Add salt and pepper to taste then remove from heat and fold in chopped coriander leaves

3. Poach an egg in water laced with vinegar and layer poached egg on top of sautéed mushroom when done

4. For the Hollandaise sauce, whisk together egg yolk and a few drops of vinegar on a double boiler

5. Drip in melted butter a little at a time to emulsify the egg yolk and do not stop whisking

6. Remove from heat when sauce thickens and add a dollop of the sauce on top of the poached egg to serve