Thai style steamed fish with lime

Months ago in Bangkok, I was there for a holiday with a close friend. We went to this very local casual Thai restaurant which serves fantastic Thai style steam fish, the soup gravy from the fish tasted so heavenly and we fell in love. Ahemm.....Obviously with the fish!!

I always wanted to learn how to cook that fish for my loved ones. Even though I don't have all the ingredients Thai people would use especially those leaves and herbs, but it is my simplified way of cooking this dish with minimum ingredients required and mostly available in your country. In this blog, I also used my newly acquired pink Le Creuset pot, a wonderful pot for cooking. Fresh fish steamed lightly flavored with lime, fish sauce and chicken broth...accompanied with all sort of vegetables. 

Ingredients

 

Fresh fish ( bass fish or trout )

250ml of chicken broth

3 tbsp of fish sauce

4 tbsp of lime juice 

2 tbsp of black pepper

2 tbsp of sugar 

1 tsp of salt ( optional add to taste)

2 big tomatoes halved and halved 

One onion sliced 

Sliced n shredded some gingers 

2 tbsp of minced garlic gloves 

Cooking method

Placed fish into the pot 

Add all chopped vegetables around the fish 

Add all seasoning like salt sugar fish sauce pepper and lime juice into chicken broth and mixed well before pouring into pot onto fish 

Cover the pot with cover

Cook over medium heat for 12 to 20 mins depending on the size of the fish. 

Tip: Fish is ready and cooked when flesh can be separated from main bone.

1. Spoon juices over cooked fish. Drizzle with little lime juice, if desired. Garnish with lime slices. Serve with steamed rice. Happy tummy;p

Nourishing Chinese soup

  Hong Kong is famous for nourishing soup as people there experience weather changes, they love to cook soup to help their bodies to cope with the weather. This particular soup is invented by me and thus I like to name it as " SSiara soup". It is the best home-made soup I had ever cooked.
Filled with love and sweetness ;)which at the same time helps to warm and strengthen our bodies. This soup takes at least two hours to bring out the essence of the soup. Thus, I suggest you to use vacuum cooker or large pot so as to prevent overflow. Normally, I would boil a huge pot of soup good for two days and thus ingredients below are more or 6 servings

Dried longan

Ingredients:
Lean pork meat
Orange and green carrot - 1 each

Dried Shrimp and dried oysters

Sweet corns - 2
Dry ingredients:-
Handful of apricot kernel
Handful of dried longan
Two spoonful of medlar seeds
Honey dates -at least 4
Dried oysters and dried shrimp ( a small bowl)

Medlar seeds

Cooking method

1. Boil a small pot of water to rinse lean pork
2. Use a vacuum boiler or huge deep pot, bring 3/4 pot of water to boil
3. Rinse all dry ingredients and add into the boiling water
4. Medium heat for 10mins
5. Add in meat and vegetables
6. Boil in low heat and simmer till water reduced to half pot or at least 2 hours of boiling
7. Taste and add salt if necessary ( should be tasty enough to drink without adding any salt or sugar)
8. Serve

Enjoy my signature soup!! Sorry for the late input. Hope you enjoy it!!

Coming soon

Beer chicken

There are two very lazy way to cook chicken. Cola chicken n beer chicken. I know my husband will kill me for using his beer to cook chicken and my kids will kill me for using their coke to cook chicken but both are so simple (really simple) which can be done in 20-30 minutes. 

It's really easy, just brown the chicken to seal the juice of the chicken so that it will be nice n juicy. Then cover it with beer and I put a bit of hawthorn (山楂) to give it a hints of sour taste n hawthorn is good for sliming too.

Once the beer is reduced in about 20-30 minutes time, you can either add a bit of salt or dark soya sauce to make the dish look nicer. If you prefer a thicker sauce just put some corn starch solution into it. See! It's really very simple, right?!

Chewy chocolate chip cookies

My kids always love subway cookies so I decided to make some for them. 

Warning : After making these cookies, you will think twice next time when you going to eat a cookies again. There are so much butter and sugar in each cookies but I suppose that's what make them so yummy lol. 

Ingredients 

440g All-purpose-flour 

5g baking powder

5g baking soda

6g salt

225g butter (soften)

290g brown sugar

75g white sugar

2 eggs

20ml vanilla essence 

1 bag chocolate chip

Steps

1. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt in a bowl.

2. Beat butter, brown & white sugar till smooth.

3. Add egg, then vanilla essence, then egg.

4. Mix in flour then chocolate chip.

5. Either use 2 spoon to scoop the mixture onto baking tray or for a more uniform look, roll into ball and flatten a bit. 

6. Bake at 150 degrees for 15-17 min. Then cool it for 20 minutes.

How the cookies will look like using 2 spoon to scoop the mixture. (Hand remain clean :)

How the cookies will look like if you roll it into a ball then flatten. 

I like to add more chocolate chips on top to make it look more tempting. 

You can keep half the cookies dough in the fridge and bake it another days or cut the ingredients by half as this recipes produce 30 super big cookies .

Durian cream puff

Always wanted to do cream puff as the recipe look simple and it's so expensive to buy it outside. As it's durian season now, so durian cream puff is a must do cause it's so yummy (to durian lover like me) . 

Ingredients 

(Double portion)

- 1/2 cup unsalted butter (114g)

- 1 cup water (240ml)

- 1 teaspoon salt (5g)

- 1 cup all purpose flour (150g) 

- 2 teaspoon sugar

- 4 eggs

Steps

1. Bring to boil butter, sugar, salt and water. 

2. Once boiled get pan off heat and add all the flour (shifted). Stir till combined.

3. Back to heat till form a dough & think layer at bottom. Let it cool for 5 min.

4. Add in beaten egg little by little till mixture is thick & shiny

5. Pipe onto baking tray and bake at 200 degree for 20 minutes. 

(Remember to wet your finger to press down the tips of puff mixture)

To make cream filling, just whip 1 cup whipping cream (240 ml) , 8 tablespoons sugar (60g) & 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract   till peak. For my durian filling, I simply add durian puree into the whipped cream. 

 

I like my puff to be eaten a bit warm but with cold filling. Enjoy 😋

Apple crumble cinnamon pie

Haiz!! Today is my last day of annual leave, so I woke up early to bake my daughter's fave apple crumble pie for her breakfast; instead of the usual pancake she could have a good warm slice of apple crumble with cold "Haagen dazs" ice-cream. Not sure if I still remember how to makeup, such a drag to go to work.
This warm heartening dessert definitely uplifts your mood a little especially when you complement with vanilla ice cream! Heavenly delicious!!!

Ingredients

-Pastry for single-crust pie (9 inches)
TOPPING:
-1/2 cup sugar
-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
-1/2 cup cold butter, cubed
FILLING:
-1/2 cup sugar
-2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
-1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
-5 small cups chopped peeled tart  apples 

Direction

1. Preheat oven to 400°. 
2. On a lightly floured surface, roll pastry dough to a 1/8-in.-thick circle; transfer to a 9-in. pie plate. 
3. Trim pastry to 1/2-in. beyond rim of plate; flute edge.
4.  Refrigerate while preparing topping and filling.
5. For topping, in a small bowl, mix sugar and flour; cut in butter until crumbly. 
6. For filling, in a large bowl, mix sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add apples and toss to coat. Transfer to pastry-lined pie plate. 
7. Sprinkle with topping.
8. Bake 10 minutes. Reduce oven setting to 375°. Bake 40-45 minutes or until topping is browned and apples are tender. 
9. Cover edge loosely with foil during the last 15 minutes if needed to prevent overbrowning. Cool on a wire rack.

Serve a warm slice with vanilla ice cream 

 

Pecan tart

One of my favourite dessert is warm pecan tart with ice-cream. (The other favourite is warm lava cake with ice cream lol). Both are yummy and simple to make. Making dessert like this is the only way to make my kids eat nuts like pecan and walnut which is good for them I suppose. 

Basic tart shell (can be use for egg tart, chocolate tart or fruit tart etc)

Ingredients 

- 1 egg (beaten)

- 220g plain flour

- 40g icing sugar

- 100g chilled butter (cut into small cube)

- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Steps

1. Using finger tips, rub butter and flour (shifted) together

2. Add icing sugar and continue to rub

3. Add egg and vanilla extract to form into a dough

4. Chilli the dough for 30 min in fridge and it's ready to be use

* if you just want make tart shell (without topping) just bake it for 10min at 180 degree.

* you can make Oreo tart shell by combining 330g Oreo biscuit (without filling)  with 110g melted butter.

 

Pecan tart

Ingredients

- 1 cup light brown sugar (130g)

- 1/4 cup white sugar (30g)

- 1/2 cup butter (115g) melted

- 2 eggs

- 1 tablespoon All purpose flour

- 1 tablespoon milk

- 1 teaspoons vanilla extract

- 1 cup chopped pecan (can put more or lesser as u wish)

Steps

1. Beat egg till foamy

2. Stir in melted butter, sugar, flour, milk, vanilla extract and nut

3. Pour mixture (2) into unbake tart shell

4. Bake at 200 degree for 10 min then 180 degree for 20-40 min depending on size of tart.

* For egg tarts filling, just mix together 3 eggs with 300ml milk and 45g sugar. Just sieve it twice n warm it up (not boil) and pour into unbake tart.

Big tart .... Small tart both are yummy... Enjoy :)

Korean Stew Chicken with carrot & potato

Ingredients
Whole chicken -chopped into pcs

Korean marinate sauce (with pear juice)

Potato & carrot -peeled & cut in chunk

1 Big onion peeled & sliced 

5-8pc Garlic peeled

Sesame oil 1 tbsp

Corn starch 2 tsp

Methods 

1)Marinated chicken with soya sauce, sesame oil , corn starch & Korean sauce at least 2-3hrs prior to cooking

2) add oil (a little more than usual) to pan fried potato & brown little, set aside 

3) add oil, brown the whole garlics, then pour in the chicken pcs to pan fried,

4) Add in the potato, carrot chunks, onion and cover with water to stew for at least 20-30mins under medium fire, lid on. Stirred in between.

5)once the stew gravy has thicken, stir in another 3 tablespoons of Korean Marinate sauce n leave it to cook  for another 5 mins without the lid, 

6) garnish n serve 

陈皮炸排骨 Sauté fried pork ribs with preserved mandarin peels

"  " Who says we are not allowed to be weak and strong and happy and sad — human, basically."

This dish is a very traditional canto style of cooking pork ribs. Taste it and you will love it!!

Soak till soften 

Ingredients 
Spare ribs 450 g
Dried preserved Mandarin peels
Green onion(s) 3 pcs
Garlic 1 tsp [minced]
Shallots

Marinade 
Premium Oyster Sauce 2 tbsp
Sugar 1/2 tsp
Cooking wine 1 tsp

Light soya sauce 1 tbsp
Minced mandarin peels

Baking soda powder 1/2 tsp

Egg white 1

Sauce
Hoisin Sauce 2 tbsp
Sugar 1/2 tsp
Salt 1/2 tsp
Water 5 tbsp
Corn starch 2 tbsp 

Direction

1. Rinse and soak the Mandarin peels till soften, shred half portion and mince the remaining half.
2. Mix the spareribs with marinade and the minced peels.
3. Dust the spareribs with cornstarch and deep fry in hot oil until golden and done.
4. Saute garlic, shallots, mandarin peels in 1 tbsp oil.  Sizzle wine and return in the spare ribs.  Stir in the sauce mix and saute 
5. Serve hot and garnish with coriander and shredded green onions

Braised pork ribs with pumpkin 豉汁排骨蒸南瓜

My darling sister's two handsome sons love pork so I decided to put up another simple method of preparing pork. It is healthier too as it requires steaming instead of frying. 

Ingredients:

• 330 gm pumpkin, peel and deseeded
• 320 gm pork ribs chop into small chunks
• spring onions 

Marinade:

• 1 tsp light soy sauce 
• 1 tsp of baking soda powder
• 1 tbsp of black bean sauce 
• 1 tsp cornflour
• 1/2 tsp Chinese wine
• sesame oil
• White pepper 

How to cook

Rinse pork ribs and drain well

Mix with seasoning 

Set aside for half an hour. 

Cut pumpkin into 2-inch chunks.

Boil some water in a wok 

Add in pumpkin n cover with lid

Simmer pumpkin till medium soft

Drain out cooked pumpkin n add seasoned ribs on top 

Steam for at least 10mins over medium heat. 

Sprinkle some spring onions 

Steam another 2 mins

Serve hot 

Stir fried pork chop with onion

It had been a tough week for me. Stressed with roster, fighting for test slot, going for friend's wake.....studying for test.....
An old friend sudden reappearance...reminded me of those painful moments...

Today is a gloomy day too....raining whole day, grey sky almost all day long just like my mood.

Sudden appetite for stir fried pork chop...

So hopefully the dish does not turn out to be as black as my face ;p

Ingredients 

-Pork chops 

-Big onions (sliced)

-Garlic (minced)

Seasoning 

1/2 tsp of soda/ baking soda powder 

1 tbsp of oyster sauce

1 tbsp of dark soya sauce 

1 tbsp of light soya sauce

1/2 tbsp of white vinegar 

1 tbsp of sesame oil

2 tbsp of ginger sugar (alternative brown sugar)

A dash of black pepper

How to cook:

1. Marinate the pork, minced garlic and onions with above seasonings

2. Set aside in fridge for over night or few hours 

3. Heat a fry pan with 2 tbsp of oil

4. Stir in marinated pork chops

5. Stir fry under low to medium heat 

6. Add a little hot water if getting too dry

7. Stir well n cover with a lid
8. Simmer till cooked  

9. Garnish with coriander n serve hot