Thai Style Steamed Fish

something Thai

This is a very simple but yet very appetizing dish. I cooked one fish with this recipe for lunch and I still have another one fish in the freezer. Most probably will cook the fish with this recipe again because the taste was so good. If you like Thai food, you can not resist this dish. I am salivating now.....

Steam one fish for ~10minutes(depending on the size of the fish). Meanwhile, melt 2tbsp sugar in 2tbsp fish sauce, 2tbsp asam juice and 2tbsp lime juice and bring it to boil. Remove from heat and mix in 2 stalks lemongrass, 8 shallots, 1 red chili , 2-3 bird chillies, small bunch of Chinese coriander. All of the ingredients have to be finely chopped. When the fish is ready, remove excessive water and serve it with this marvellous thai sauce. Garnish with Chinese coriander leaves.

Pork Rib and Lotus Root Soup

This version of Pork Rib and Lotus Root Soup is from Krystal Coffee Shop, Pulau Tikus, Penang. Whenever I visit this shop, I will always order a bowl of Pork Rib and Lotus Root Soup. Their soup has more different ingredients compare to other shops, maybe this is the reason why their soup is so clear and yet so flavourful. I cooked this soup one rainy night, just the right timing.

The claypot in the above picture is my new toy, La Gourment Truly Oriental Claypot. :)
For the ingredients: 600g blanched pork ribs, a bowl of bamboo roots, red dates, groundnuts, red bean, dried tangerine peel(陈皮), dried cuttle fish and 2.5 litres of water.  Slow cook all the ingredients for 4 hours.

Salted Fish & Pork Claypot 咸鱼花腩煲

Can you recognize this dish? It is a popular dish in central Peninsula Malaysia. We used to order this dish when we were in Kuala Lumpur, but now that we have moved to Penang, we could hardly see this dish in Chinese restaurants here. I adopted a few recipes and modified to my own version, but definitely it was a proven working recipe. ;) This dish goes well with white rice, so remember to cook more rice. The only constructive comment I received was the lack of burnt flavour from claypot. So we will get a claypot soon! :)

For the salted fish:

Cut the salted fish into small cubes. The quantity should be double from the above picture. Fry until golden. Set aside.

For the meat:

Cut 300g 5-layer pork into thin stripes. (It is easier to cut into thin stripes when the meat is slightly frozen. For this, place the pork into freezer for 20 minutes.) Marinate with 1/2tsp sugar, 1/4tsp salt and 1tsp light soy sauce for more than 1/2 hour. Add in 1tsp corn flour and mix well. Blanch with hot oil. Set aside.

For the sauce:

Use medium heat for the whole process. Stir fry 6 ginger slices(It was not captured in the pictures), 1 onions and 8 dried chillies with some cooking oil left from frying the salted fish. Then add in meat, 1tbsp oyster sauce, 1tbsp shaoxing wine, 1tsp sugar, 1/2tsp sesame oil and 1/4tsp pepper and enough water to cover the meat. Add in enough black soy sauce for colouring. Simmer with lid on for 40minutes. Add in half of the salted fish. If it is too dry, add a bit of water and simmer with lid on for another 15minutes. By now the gravy should have thickened(if not turn to maximum heat), add in 2 stalks of green onion and remaining of the salted fish. Mix well and serve immediately.

Tomorrow is Public Holiday and we will have 3 days long weekend! Happy weekend everyone!

Taiwan Sytle Silver Needle Noodle

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It is a recipe from Taiwan TV program(料理美食王). A very simple stir fried noodles, but different ingredients and seasonings from our usual Malaysia version. I personally feel that it is healthier with the use of luffa. It was unexpectedly good even though the recipe only require salt and pepper for seasoning. Hard to believe huh? Let's look at the ingredients.

Ingredients(serving for two):

Silver needle noodle 300g

Luffa cut into stripes

Dried shrimp(soaked)

Mushroom(soaked and cut into stripes)

pork stripes(I used 5 layer pork)

shallot

celery(cut into stripes)

Oopss! What was missing in the plate? I forgot to take a picture before I dumped the shallots to the wok.

 frying shallots

Method:

1. Fry shallots over medium heat until crispy. Remove aside.

2. Leave 2 tbsp oil in the wok. Stay with medium heat.

3. Add in with sequence, mushroom, dried shrimp and pork stripes.

4. Stir fry for a while before add in luffa and silver needle noodle.

5. Add in a small bowl of water, 1/2tsp salt and dash of pepper(add more if you like pepper).

6. Turn to medium low heat and cover you wok with a lid for 1-2 minutes.

7. Open the lid. Now you should expect not much water left, and the silver needle noodle is slightly covered with thick and transparent gravy.

8. Add in fried shallot and celery. Mix well and serve immediately.

noodle in wok

Anti Aging Black Sesame Paste

I am not sure how many have noticed that I am using my mobile phone to capture dishes since Herbal Salty Chicken. If not because of the poor photo quality, I would have fallen in love with its light weight. I could cook with one hand and capture with another hand. By the way, if you are interested to know, my camera was on a Taiwan vacation trip. :)

It is raining season in Malaysia now. I always fancy a bowl of Cantonese sweet soup(or what we called tong sui) in a rainy day. Most of the tong sui stalls in Malaysia only sell the bean soup, but not the paste type which is very time-consuming. I miss the rich, smooth and fragrant paste in Hong Kong so much until I decided to make a bowl of black sesame paste for myself. I received a questioning look when I served this bowl of black sesame paste, but luckily the feedback was positive. ;)

Ingredients（Serving for 2-4):

Black sesame 200g(washed, drained)

White Rice 50g(washed and soaked for 2 hours)

Brown sugar in pieces ~80g

Method:

1. Stir fry black sesame in a empty wok over medium heat until fragrant.

2. Blend black sesame with 500ml water until smooth.

3. Filter black sesame water with a fine sieve.

4. Blend white rice with 400ml water until smooth.

5. Filter white rice water with a fine sieve.

6. Mix black sesame paste and white rice water into a pot.

7. Cook with medium heat, keep stirring. Keep stirring in the same direction.

8. When it starts to smoke, add in brown sugar.

9. Add in more water if needed. Adjust the sweetness with brown sugar.

10. Make sure that the paste is not too watery or too thick. 

11. Turn off the heat when it starts to bubble. Serve immediately.

yum yum!

Assam Curry Salmon Fish Head

Assam Curry Salmon Fish Head

It never appear in my mind that salmon fish can be used in local dishes, for example the very appetizing and satisfying assam curry dish. It was until my friend, Lam told me about his mum signature assam curry salmon fish head and brought over a bowl to show off during the recent potluck session. ;)

When we saw this big salmon fish head in wet market, we approached the seller and found out that it was pretty expensive, RM22. The seller explained to us that it is air-flown fresh salmon from Norway, not the frozen type. Queensbay jusco offers a smaller one(the fish head in the above picture minus the bottom part) at RM10. Since this fish head had a lot of meat, which was equivalent to jusco one fish head+another piece of salmon steak(that was just excuse, it was very obvious that he wanted to buy it), so we paid for it. After we bought a pack of assam curry sauce and some other ingredients, we rushed home for a salmon meal. I cooked more rice for dinner and we managed to finish all the rice. :)

For the assam curry sauce, you can also use the ready pack available on supermarket shelf. Most of the ready pack can do a good job, but it is important to add extra fresh ingredients to bring out the flavour.

Ingredients:

Assam curry sauce 1 pack

Onion x1(cut into quarters)

torch ginger flower x1(use only petals)

Tomato x1(cut into quarters)

700g Samon Fish head

Lady finger x(or more)

Mint leaves 1 small bowl

Seasonings:

Salt 1 tsp

Sugar 2tbsp 

Method:

1. Stir fry the assam curry sauce until fragrant.

2. Add in onion, torch ginger flower and tomato and stir fry.

3. Add two rice bowls of water.

4. Season with salt and sugar and bring to boil.

5. Put in salmon fish head and lady finger.

6. Cook over medium heat for 8-10 minutes.

7. Add more salt and sugar if you wish.

8. Serve in casserole and garnish with mint leaves.

Herbal Salty Chicken

I need to come out with more free range chicken recipes as I always bring back some chicken from home. Free range chicken has very firm meat, so not all chicken recipe is suitable. Besides the usual Ginger Chicken Misua Soup and Ginger Chicken, I have decided to cook Herbal Salty Chicken last Saturday. When I tried to make salty chicken last round, I bought 3kg of coarse salt. This time, I opted for a simplify recipe.

Simply rub the chicken with sea salt. I used 2tsp for half chicken. Then steam the chicken with some red dates(红枣), Codonopsis(党参) and Lycium(枸杞) for 45 minutes.

And it is ready to serve. Note the burnt marks on the chicken skin. They are similar to those on Ipoh Salty Chicken. :)

All You Need to Know about Cooking Oils

Are you sure you are using the correct cooking oils or fats for different purposes? And are you sure you have not turned the nutritious oil into toxic oil during the cooking process? If you are not sure, please read on.

First of all, do our bodies need fat?

Yes, our bodies need fat, the right fats in right amount.

What are the fats in cooking oil?

All cooking oils have a combination of unsaturated fats(which are monounsaturated fat & polyunsaturated fat) and saturated fat. Some cooking oils have trans-fat.

Most of us know that monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat are good fats that decreases overall cholesterol level especially bad cholesterol level. No doubt trans-fat is the bad fat that increases bad cholesterol level while decreases good cholesterol level. But how about saturated fat? Nutritionists, doctors and media all have told us that saturated fat is bad fat and it causes heart disease. But there are studies/articles(read here and here) showing that saturated fat is essential at small amount. It is not confusing at all. We just have to say NO to trans-fat and limit our fat intake per day.

What is Smoke Point?

Smoke point refers to the temperature where cooking oil starts to break down to glycerol and free fatty acids, and later acrolein. Different cooking oils have different smoke point. But whenever the cooking oil reaches its smoke point, it goes from good to bad. A simple rule of thumb is never overheat oil until it starts to smoke.

I notice that most of the cooking oil labels do not specify their smoke point. The table below can be used as a reference. It presents smoke point for different cooking oils(source from wikipedia). I purposely have it sorted from lower smoke point to higher smoke point.

What are the factors that will decrease the smoke point of a cooking oil?

1. purity of the oil(Blended oils have different smoke points)

2. presence of salt(Salt will reduce the smoke point)

3. presence of foreign properties(For example batter)

4. number of times the oil is used(Smoke point drops when oil is reused)

5. length of time oil is heated(Smoke point drops with time)

6. Storage of oil(Smoke point drops when it is exposed to light and heat?)

Unrefined oils vs Refined oils?

Extracted oils which do not go through any further process are called unrefined oils. These oils are rich, outburst and true about their flavors. It tends to have greater nutritional qualities, but has a lower smoke point compare to refined oil. Refined oils are extracted oils followed by degumming, bleaching, deodorization at high temperature to obtain a clear and bland oil. Hygrogenated vegetable oils are considered refined oils too. Refined oils are more stable in high temperature, however it is chemically processed and less nutritive.

Expeller Pressing vs Cold Pressing?

Expeller pressing is a mechanical process to extract oil. There is no external heat applied to the process. However, the process itself will generate heat, up to or above 120 degrees F(depends on the hardness of the raw material). Cold pressing is done in a heat-controlled environment to keep the temperature below 120 degrees F(50 degrees C).

What is High Oleic?

High Oleic oils, as its name suggests, is the oils which have bred with higher amount of oleic acid for stability. Since high consumption of oleic acid(omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids) is believed to increase the risk of breast cancer, it is better to avoid it.

What is vegetable shortening?

Shortening is fat that solid at room temperature. Margarine, substitution of butter is one of the vegetable shortenings. The word "vegetable" made people believe that it is healthier. However, vegetable oils go through hygrogenation process before it can solidify. The chemical process is complicated, but we just have to know that vegetable shortening contains trans-fat, which raises the level of bad cholesterol(LDL) and decreases the level of good cholesterol(HDL).

How do we read olive oil grades?

Extra Virgin: 100% unadulterated olive oil contains no more than 0.8% acidity, highest quality of olive oil

Virgin: 100% unadulterated olive oil contains no more than 2% acidity

Refined: Refined olive oil blend with very little virgin olive oil, "Pure", "Light" and "Extra Light" are in this category.

Pomace: produced from ground flesh and pits left after pressing, and undergo some refining process.

Cooking Method(temperature) vs Cooking Oil?

Basically, we could categorize our cooking methods according to the required temperature to 4 groups. Cold Preparation does not involve heat, therefore could use any oils. Low Heat cooking normally involve boiling liquid, for example blanching and stewing. Baking and sauteing are considered Medium Heat while browning and frying(including deep frying, stir frying, pan frying and shallow frying) are considered High Heat. Chinese cooking which has a lot of "wok hei" falls into high heat category. The cooking oils in the table below are unrefined oils as I do not encourage the use of refined oils. Besides that, I also put some buffer for the smoke point as the smoke point will drop due to several factors mentioned above. Do note that lower temperature groups can use the cooking oils in higher temperature groups but not the other way.

Is Ghee suitable for high temperature cooking?

Ghee is a clarified butter which is widely used in Indian cooking. It is popular with its toasted flavour and high smoke point. But note that ghee has very high saturated fat content Natural ghee does not contain trans-fat, but restaurants may substitute with the cheaper version of "vegetarian ghee", Vanaspati/Dalda(hydrogenated vegetable oil) which contain trans-fat. Therefore, use ghee moderately and avoid "vegetarian ghee".

How many type of oils should we have in a kitchen? 

I would say at least 2 types, or even better 3 types of oils. Choose oils from different category depending on your cooking habits. It is also best to buy different oils each time as they all have different nutritional content. For me, I do a lot of Chinese cookings(sometimes deep frying snacks), therefore I normally have one bottle for high temperature cooking and another bottle(mostly extra virgin olive oil) for cold or low temperature cooking.

 What to note when we shop for oil?

1. If you see "refined" and "hydrogenated" at the label, put them back to the shelf.

2. Look for trans-fat at the nutrition table. Get the one with 0g trans-fat. But this is not true all the time, some manufacturers still claim their cooking oil with 0g trans-fat while their cooking oil actually has 0.5g trans-fat.

2. Watch out for vegetable cooking oils like canola, sunflower, safflower, soybean, corn oil etc. These oils, when they are unrefined, have very low smoke points. So even though some is not labeled as "refined", but the fact is most of them are "refined" to withstand higher cooking temperature.

3. Do not use vegetable shortenings(margarine). They contain trans-fat.

4. Keep a bottle of high smoke point oil for high temperature cooking. Never heat oils above their smoke points.

So it is time to review your cooking oils and shop for new oil if needed.

Have a good weekend and let me know if you like this post. If most of you find this helpful, I am going to do another post on the cooking oils available in the market. And do let me know if you find any incorrect facts in this post, I will verify and fix it.

Sweet & Sour Pork

I could still vividly remember that my mother used to cook 1kg of pork(sweet & sour pork) for dinner and we(M&D, two brothers and I) would just clean the plate. If you cook, you would definitely know that it was a big big plate of sweet & sour pork. Anyway, we were at our teenage that time. :)

Back to sweet & sour pork, it is one of the most popular(or widely accepted) Chinese dish in Western. It is a dish easy to cook, hard to fail. :) And so, I cooked this for the recent potluck dinner at my place. Guess what, it turned out to be the third delicious dish. But there were only 3 main dishes that night. Sob. Sob. Never mind, I will try harder next time.

The ingredients:

5 layer pork(lean, fat, lean, fat, skin) view picture

Onion 

tomato**

Capsicum**

Pineapple**

The seasonings:

Salt

Sugar

Pepper

Egg(added right before cooking)

Corn Flour(use for coating)

The Gravy ingredients:

Plum sauce

Tomato sauce

Chili sauce

Sugar

Water

Corn flour & water (for thickening)

** Optional. Skipping one or two of this item will not degrade the dish.

Cooking Steps:

1. Cut the pork into small cubes.

2. Use the back of the knife to soften the meat.

3. Marinate the pork with the seasonings. Set aside for more than an hour.

4. Mix the marinated pork with one beaten egg.

5. Coat with flour and fry until golden in color. Remove aside.

6. Remove excessive oil from the wok, leave about 2 tablespoon of oil.

7. Stir fry remaining ingredients until fragrant.

8. Add in the gravy ingredients.

9. Bring to boil.

10. Add in the fried pork.

11. Thicken with corn flour and water.

12. Serve immediately

Bean Sprouts with Salted Fish

I am from Ipoh, the town of bean sprouts. ;) In Ipoh hawker stalls, it is very common that the owner will throw in a handful of fresh, crunchy and fat(yes, fat! Ipoh bean sprouts are fat!) bean sprouts whenever it is possible. But, I seldom cook this dish as I prefer green leafy vegetables. But after I got some very nice salted fish from Kuala Kurau, Perak, this dish appeared in my mind.

Here is my recipe:

Fry the salted fish stripes until golden and crispy. Remove aside. With the remaining frying oil, stir fry some shredded ginger until fragrant. Now switch to maximum heat. Add in 300g bean sprouts, 2-3 stalks spring onions(cut into reasonable length), little bit of salt(the salted fish is salty enough, the salt is just to make sure that the bean sprouts alone do not taste too bland), enough pepper to your liking. Stir fry for a while(less than a minute), serve immediately with salted fish on top.

Seafood spaghetti in Tomato Sauce

I have not cooked spaghetti for long, until I read some tips on cooking spaghetti recently. Needless to say, I was tempted to try it.

I think everyone knows how to cook spaghetti, so I will only share some tips that I have picked up along the years, some of it which I have neglected but later re-discovered the importance of them. 

1. Avoid cooking too much of spaghetti

Do not laugh. It is a very common problem and I have heard it many times. "I always end up cooking too much spaghetti." A nice dish will turn to a bad one when someone has to stuff himself with the extra plate. A pack of 500g spaghetti is meant for 5 person serving. But if you are a small eater, or you like more ingredients than noodle(just like me), remember to reduce the amount further.

2. Add good amount of salt to the boiling water for cooking spaghetti

It is very important because the spaghetti will absorb some of the salt and have a taste of ocean. If not the result will be very bland spaghetti. Worst is this can not be corrected later by adding salt to the pasta sauce.

3. Use big cookware and sufficient water for cooking spaghetti

The boiling water need to fully cover the spaghetti. This is to make sure that all the spaghetti are evenly cooked. Remember to stir the spaghetti at the beginning and occasionally during the cooking.

4. Toss the drained pasta with olive oil

I thought that this is only to prevent sticky spaghetti.But since I am going to serve the spaghetti right away, there is no need to do so. This step was skipped until a Taiwan chef explained that the second reason is to let the spaghetti absorb the aroma of the olive oil. However, this has to be done while the pasta is still hot.

5. Ingredients that are going to make perfect red sauce or tomato sauce spaghetti

Since I am blogging about red sauce spaghetti, I will keep other spaghetti recipe for next time. :)

I should have tried to make my own tomato sauce. But anyway, I am still using the ready type from the shelf since it is more convenient. Even with the ready sauce, I will add extra ingredients to make it more tasty.

Garlic. The strong, sharp and spicy garlic taste is going to balance the sweet and sour tomato sauce.

Onion. It is going to give some natural sweetness to the sauce.

Mixed herbs. A must for tomato sauce spaghetti.

Black pepper. Not white pepper. Add some coarsely grinded black pepper during cooking and add again when serving.

Salt and Sugar. For seasoning.

Tuna in Can. A few spoons of it for thicker sauce. Normally I will dilute the tomato sauce(ready type) with 50-100ml water and later thicken with mashed tuna.

Seafood. Use all your favourite seafood, prawn, squid, mussel, scallop....

Cheese or Cheese Powder. I personally prefer melting some cheese in my spaghetti sauce. 

5. Toss the spaghetti with the sauce

Transfer the spaghetti to the sauce in your pan and toss it. Make sure that spaghetti is well coated with the sauce and serve it immediately. My old practice was to add the sauce to the spaghetti in serving plate. I was worried that all the sauce will be absorbed by the spaghetti and leave no more sauce if I were to toss it. I also thought that it was nicer to serve this way. But the Italians do it for a reason. It is easier to toss it in the hot pan then to mix it in the plate later.

The happiest thing in cooking is to have someone slurping the noodles and not forgetting to give nice comments in between the slurps. I had it last Saturday. Yipee! 

**Share with me your tips on cooking spaghetti if you have any.**

Shallow Fried Fish

**This is a shallow-fried fish**

I know that many do not like the thought of frying, especially deep frying in their kitchen. They will straight away scrape off the idea once they think of the oily mess. But this dish requires shallow frying, which means less oil needed, less fat produced and of course less oily mess. So, let's move on. :)

First, you would need to clean the fish. Pat dry with kitchen towel. You would also need a small bowl of finely shredded ginger. The ginger will shrink later so make sure you have more ginger.

Ok, next heat the non steak pan with some oil, just enough to fry the ginger. Fry the ginger in medium low fire until golden, but not burnt. Remove the ginger. Use the existing oil to fry the fish, both sides. This time turn the fire to medium high. Since we are not doing deep fry, the fish skin are not crispy. Hold the fish with one side of the skin facing down for 15 seconds. Turn upside down for another 15 seconds. Then you could have the result of deep frying. :)

Place the fish and ginger as the above picture. Mix 2 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tbsp oil(use the remaining oil). Drizzle the mixture to the fish. And it is ready to be served.

Western Breakfast

What is your favorite Sunday breakfast or brunch? I believe many would fancy a western breakfast, some even wish for a full England breakfast which include fruit juice, cereal, a plate of fry-up, toast and a cup of coffee or tea.

Full England breakfast is too heavy to me. Normally I prefer to cook a plate of all my favorites for a non-working day's breakfast. Yes, the best thing of preparing your own breakfast is you could get rid of what you dislike and cook just everything you like. :)


Starting a lovely morning with fried egg with perfectly done egg yolk(sprinkle some pepper on top), mashed potatoes(russet potatoes mixed with milk, salt and pepper), fresh lettuce, toast with butter, back bacon and jumbo sausage. Get the good quality bacon and sausage. You won't regret. It is going to make the whole plate different.


My plate, with a cup of espresso

No bake cheese cake

4 days Raya holiday was over! I had a contented holiday, shared a good friend's happiness at her wedding, hosted Alor Setar's VIPs for a day trip(besides all the good food, we went to Gua Lang. It was my first time there too, did not know that Ipoh has such a beautiful place), went hiking with my family(a great exercise for my mum, she was complaining muscle pain the next day), did some shopping at Jusco(where my mum bought a box of mooncakes for my auntie and got herself a nice blouse), visited my uncle and, of course spent more time with my family.

My mum cooked all the delicious meals. In return, I made her cheese cake. But she does not really like cheese, so we could have more pieces. ;) I hired my brother as the event photographer, and had fun pulling him away from TV/computer/newspaper each time I needed him. :)


I used Philadelphia cream cheese which had recipes on the package. It was just 3 simple steps to make a cheese cake, mix, beat and pour. To make the base, I mixed the melted butter with the biscuit crumb and press into a lined springform pan. Then, I used a electric mixer to beat all the ingredients. The last thing I did was just to pour the mixture on top of the biscuit base and place it into refrigerator.


I made two layers just because I was using Oreo as the base. I did not want my whole cake to look dark in color. By the way, the chocolate layer was made by mixing 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to the mixture.


My Oreo cheese cake

Everyone enjoyed the cake(except my mum, she only had one small slice) and I made a second cake the next day. It was a lemon cheese cake. But the photos are with the event photographer, so no photos to show.

Sweet & Sour Crab

Finally, it is over which mean I have more time to spare in kitchen. :)

But too bad that I have to post some very bad quality photos because I have left my camera in office again. :( But please believe me, it actually tasted better than what is in the photo. ;)


Coat the crab with thin layer of corn flour and fry it.
I did not do deep fry because I did not want the crab roe to be overcooked. So I only fried one side of the crab.


The sweet & sour sauce.
Stir fry garlic, ginger, spring onion and bird's eye chili until fragrant.
Add in chili sauce, tomota sauce, plum sauce, oyster sauce, light soy sauce, sugar and water.
Place in the crab, mix well and thicken with egg.


Serve with fried and steamed mantou(Chinese bun).

A wonderful dinner with Sweet & Sour Crab, served with mantou.

Chinese Medicine Chicken Soup

When I was clearing my refrigerator(it is always full), I saw few packets of Chinese medicine. These packets have different Chinese medicine in the correct ratio for Chinese soup. It is very convenient for lazy people like me. I could not remember when did I buy it. Luckily Chinese medicine can last for years. It just happened that I had Silkie(or people just call it black chicken) in the freezer. So, I just dumped everything in with 3 rice bowls of water and let it cooked for 11/2 hours.


ready packet.


the ingredients....


Haft silkie or black chicken


served with meesua


the soup was so sweet and nourishing


home made black soy drink

Sushi Episode I

The kids requested for sushi since Chinese New Year. I was so forgetful that every time I did not bring back the stuffs. It was dragged until I gathered all the ingredients, Japanese rice, Vinegar, Japanese soy sauce, wasabi, bamboo mat, seaweed, Japanese cucumber, tuna and unagi. Unagi was a standard request from an over-aged kid. ;) This time, I made only 3 different type of sushi, unagi nigiri, cucumber maki and tuna gunkan. But it was good enough to make the kids happy and satisfy.

I titled it "Sushi Episode I" because we are going to have Sushi again, hopefully soon. Next time, I want my favourite salmon nigiri and tobiko gunkan.

Fried Rice in Egg Wrap(Nasi Pattaya)

Hello everybody, I am back and found this 'Edit Posts' in my blog. It was actually quite sometimes ago. :)

After having nasi pattaya at Mamak for years, then one day, I decided to try out the recipe in my own kitchen. The ingredients were simple. Prawn. Chinese Sausage. Egg. Rice. The highlight of this dish was the Huang Shang Huang(皇上皇) chinese sausage that I bought from Guang Zhou.

This dish gave a twist to the normal fried rice. We had fun wrapping the rice and finishing it. A simple change can make a big difference. I hope you are inspired if you are running out of idea for tonight's dinner.


the process


My plate