Old cucumber and peanut soup

This started off as peanut soup, but I really wanted the 'cooling' effects of the old cucumber that I was harboring in the fridge. Thus, I decided to do something like ABC soup (ang mo kio, bawang and candang), which is essentially a vegetable soup with pork stock.

Ingredients
1/2 cup peanuts
5 to 6 big dried scallops
1 big old cucumber, cubed and seeds removed
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 carrot
1.5l boiled water
500g pork bones for stock

Method
1) Boil the water in a kettle. Put the bones in a pot and pour the hot water over it. If you're very 'cantonese', you would at this point let the bones sit for about 2 minutes before pouring out the water, then you would repeat the process. This is essential for removing the 'porky' taste and making sure that the soup stays clear. I was making a weekday dinner so didn't bother.

2) Throw everything else in the pot and bring to a boil. Once it comes to a rolling boil, skim the surface of the soup to remove the scum. This is also essential in ensuring that the soup stays clear.

3) Turn down to a simmer and let it slowly bubble away for 1.5 to 2 hours. Better still if you have a pressure cooker, then you can reduce the time down to 40 to 60 mins. Again, being a weekday evening, I only had an hour to spare, but the peanuts weren't soft enough, and the pork and peanuts still had a lot of taste in them. Again, being really cantonese, we don't usually eat the soup ingredients, so all the taste has to be eked out of them.

4) Serve with steamed rice.

Five spice pork chops

The age old question of - what to cook? It struck me that perhaps its time for another 5 spice recipe, haven't done something 5-spice related for a long time. Inspiration came to me - if you can stud a christmas honey baked ham with cloves, you can certainly stud a pork chop with cloves. I added the brown sugar to replace honey, which tends to burn in the oven. Instead of doing the usual bake or grill, I decided to do a covered casserole so that it will retain its moistness, rather than having it all evaporate in the oven heat. The result was that generated a lot of juice which was retained which makes a nice sauce together with the marinade.

Ingredients

2 pork chops

1 tsp 5 spice powder

1 tsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp mixed spice

Cloves

1 tbsp light soya sauce

1 tbsp shao shing wine

Method

1) Marinate the pork chops for 15 mins. Stud the pork chop with the cloves. Pat dry and place into the casserole and cover.

2) Preheat the oven and bake at 200 deg C for 12 to 15 mins until cooked.

3) To make the sauce, pour out the juices and mix with the marinade. Thicken the sauce either the corn flour mixture of by reduction.

Pear and white fungus soup

Wanted to make this for a long time but never had the chance. Surfed and found a few recipes, and these were the easiest which I adapted. Benefits of Honey link and Soup Queen link. I was too lazy to double boil, and so I just used my special AMC pot's heat retaining properties, but this recipe is for normal pots. The result went down well, even with a year old toddler.

Ingredients (feeds 10 - yes there are a lot of people to feed in my extended family!)

5 pears, Chinese Ya pear or fragrant pears are both ok

10 - 15 red dates

2 bundles of white fungus

1 packet (about 150g) winter melon strips

Approx 2 - 3l of water

Method

1) Soak the white fungus in hot water for 20 minutes. Once softened, remove the hard yellow core and cut up into bite-sized pieces.

2) Pare and core the pears and slice them 1/8 inch thick. I soak them briefly in some salt water to prevent them from turning brown.

3) Pour dates and pears into a pot, and add enough water to cover all the ingredients.

4) Bring to a boil and boil at medium heat for 20 minutes. Turn down the heat to a simmer for 10 minutes. Add the winter melon strips and white fungus and simmer for another 20 minutes. If you prefer less crunchy fungus, you can add it earlier, around the time u turn it down to a simmer.

5) Serve either warm or ice cold.

Casserole chicken

This is my mom's recipe, which we ate our way through our childhood. After she passed, I spent quite a bit of time experimenting and trying to recall from my childhood the possible things she might have put into the pot. And then I remembered that my mom is like a Jamie Oliver - bare basics. And so that's what I did - bare basics.

So here it is, but altered to my own taste buds, but the basic taste is the same.

Ingredients

4 drumsticks (Mom used to use 1 whole chicken for the family)

1 tbsp light soya sauce

2 tbsp chinese wine

1/2 tsp sugar (I used brown since this is going into the oven so there will be a nicer caramelized taste but you can use ordinary white sugar)

Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups water

1 medium carrot and 2 small potatoes (optional - my mom always added them but I don't)

1/2 thumb sized ginger, sliced thinly

2 star anise

Method

1) Marinate the chicken with the soya sauce and chinese wine. Just 10 minutes should suffice.

2) Put everything into a casserole and pour the water in. It should just cover the chicken, but if you need you can top up with more water.

3) Bake at 180 dec C for 1/2 hour and serve with freshly steamed rice.

The first taste transported me back to my childhood!

Best Roast Potatoes

Taken from Jamie's Family Christmas ep 3 on Channel 4

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 1.5kg Maris Piper potatoes, peeled
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Olive oil
• 1 bulb of garlic, broken into cloves
• Red wine vinegar

Flavour combo 1:

• A good couple of lugs of olive oil
• A bunch of fresh rosemary, leaves picked

Flavour combo 2:

• 50g butter, cut into little cubes
• A bunch of fresh sage, roughly torn
• 1 clementine

Flavour combo 3:

• 2 tablespoons goose fat
• A bunch of fresh thyme, leaves picked
• A couple of fresh bay leaves

Method: How to make perfect roast potatoes

1. Preheat your oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5. Peel your potatoes with a knife or speed peeler and cut any larger ones so they’re all an even-size - twice the size of a squash ball is about right. Wash your potatoes in cold water to get rid of any extra starch then tip into a large pot, cover with cold water and season well. Bring to the boil and cook for about 6 to 7 minutes, so that they’re parboiled, then drain in a colander and leave to steam dry for 3 minutes. Give the colander a bit of a shake to help chuff up the potatoes – this will help to make them super crisp later on.

2. At this point, you need to decide which flavour combo to go with. Tip your potatoes into a tray or pan in one layer, and add your fat – olive oil, butter or goose fat – then season really well with salt and pepper. At this stage, I’m not going to add any more flavour. Toss your potatoes in the fat, or use a spoon or fish slice to mix it all up. You could get the potatoes up to this stage the day before, simply cover them with cling film or tin foil and pop in the bottom of your fridge or in a cool place until you need them. Put your potatoes in the hot oven to cook for 30 minutes until lightly golden and three quarters cooked.

3. Now’s the time for my new trick. Gently squash each potato with a potato masher to increase the surface area – the more of your potato that’s in contact with the pan, the crispier it will be. Whichever fat you’re using, you now want to prepare the rest of the flavourings. Add a good lug of olive oil to a small bowl and add the herbs, garlic and a splash of red wine vinegar, then scrunch and mix it up a bit. If you’re using butter, peel in a good few strips of clementine zest with a speed peeler – you won’t eat these but they’ll add amazing flavour. Add the flavour to your potatoes and give the pan a good shake, then pop back in the hot oven for 40 to 45 minutes until perfect for your liking. You’re looking for gnarly, crispy, bubbly and delicious.

4. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper to drain off some of the excess fat, then tuck in! I’d be happy with any of these flavour combos, but this year I’ll be going for butter, but maybe with the rosemary and garlic. So you really can mix it up however you like.

Breakfast Pear Pancakes

From Jamie's Family Christmas, ep 2 from Channel 4

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 cup of self-raising flour
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 large egg, preferably free-range or organic
• A pinch of sea salt
• 1 pear
• A few knobs of butter
• Natural yoghurt, to serve
• Runny honey, to serve

Method: How to make Poppy and Daisy’s pancakes

1. Put the flour, milk, egg and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk until smooth. Once combined, grate in the pear, core and all, then stir it through with a spoon.

2. Put a large pan on a medium heat and add a knob of butter. Once that melts, add the batter, a spoonful at a time. You’ll need to cook the pancakes in batches, cooking them for a few minutes until golden on the bottom then flipping them over and cooking for a few minutes more until they’re done.

3. When they’re golden and fluffy, serve them right away with a dollop of natural yoghurt and some runny honey drizzled all over the top.

TIP: If you sweeten the batter, thicken it with just a little more flour then pour them into a Yorkshire pudding or muffin tin they also make the most delicious muffins.

Yin and Yang foods

This is an interesting link which classifies yin and yang foods.

From the link
Examples of cooling and heaty foods:
Cool (yin) Foods:
Bamboo shoot, banana, bitter gourd, clam, crab, grapefruit, lettuce, persimmon, salt, seaweed, star fruit, sugar cane, water chestnut, watermelon, lotus root, cucumber, barley, bean curd, chicken egg white, marjoram, oyster, pear, peppermint, radish, strawberry, tangerine, and yogurt, broccoli, cauliflower, zuccini, corn, tomatoes, pineapple, turmeric.
Neutral (balanced yin and yang) Foods:
Honey, corn, abalone, apricot, beef, beetroot, black fungus, carp, carrot, celery, chicken egg yolk, cuttlefish, duck, fig, kidney bean, lotus fruit and seed, milk, olive, oyster, papaya, pork, potato, pumpkin, radish leaf, red bean, plum, sunflower seed, sweet rice, sweet potato, white fungus, yellow soybean, brussels sprouts, snow peas, sweet potato, taro, dates, figs, raspberries, raisins, sage, rosemary, thyme, brown rice, apple.
Heaty (yang) Foods:
Pepper, cinnamon bark, ginger, soybean oil, red and green pepper, chicken, apricot seed, brown sugar, cherry, chestnut, chive, cinnamon twig, clove, coconut, coffee, coriander (Chinese parsley), date, dillseed, eel, garlic, grapefruit peel, green onion, guava, ham, leaf mustard, leek, longan, mutton, nutmeg, peach, raspberry, rosemary, shrimp, spearmint, sweet basil, tobacco, vinegar, walnut, jackfruit, durian, leek, shallots, spring onion, , apricots, blackberries, black currant, mangoes, peaches, cherry, mandarin orange, grape.
eaty/yang foods:
• grow under the hot sun;
• are sweet;
• have lots of fats;
• rich in sodium;
• are hard, dry or spicy.


Cold/yin foods:
• grow in little sunshine;
• are salty;
• are lean;
• rich in potassium;
• soft and wet;

Roast chicken with a tomato based pasta

Its been quite some time since I've had to cook, with the heat and all. Thankfully the weather has turned cooler so this is the most complicated (yes, it's kinda sad - this is considered complicated) dish that I've done in a long long time. Been inspired by all my pseudo cooking in Cafe World and I must say it has inspired me.

Ingredients
1 cup pasta (I used shells because they can retain the sauce better)

tomato sauce
1 tin canned stewed tomato - I have been told to use whole tomatoes and break them up, its tastier than pre-chopped ones
1 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp parsley

roast chicken
10 chicken wings (mid portion, not drumlet)
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 tbsp worchester sauce
1 tbsp rosemary
1 tsp dill
1 tbsp thyme
1/2 tsp mixed spice

Method
1) Marinade the chicken, preferably overnight. Preheat the oven to 220 deg C.
2) In a pot, lightly saute the garlic, be careful not to burn it. Pour in the tinned tomato, herbs and spices
3) Prepare the pasta according to the instructions on the packet.
4) Roast the chicken at 220 deg C for 5 minutes, turning down to 200 deg C for another 13 to 15 minutes or until cooked.
5) Assemble by plating up the pasta, then pouring on the sauce and finally topping off with roast chicken. If there are any drippings from the roast chicken, you can pour it on top.

Shui gao 水餃

I just had a hankering for dumplings, haven't had them in ages and somehow felt like doing all the wrapping. Saw the yellow skins which I bought, but saw a new product, white skins which they call 'shanghai 水餃 skins'. Might try that next time.

Ingredients (makes about 32 or serves 3 - 4 pax)
400 - 500g mince pork
50g prawns, devined and chopped into tiny bits (the bigger, the more prawn to bite into)
2 tbsp light soya sauce
2 tbsp Shaoxing cooking wine
2 tbsp corn flour
1 packet 水餃 skins
A little dish of water
3 - 4 bowls prepared broth (chicken or pork is fine)

1) Marinate the pork and prawn with the soya sauce, wine and corn flour. Set aside for 10 - 30 minutes for the taste to develop.
2) Carefully peeling off 1 skin, place it in the centre of your palm. Place about 1 ping pong ball sized pork ball in the centre (it depends on the size of your dumpling skin, but should be no more than 1/3 filled. Don't over pack it otherwise it may burst during cooking.
3) Dot the edges of the skin and carefully fold into a semi circle. By this time, you would see the magically, the dumpling becomes 2/3 full.
4) Dot the semi-circular edge with more water and gather the edges.

5) Carefully slide into a pot of water on a rolling boil. Once it floats up (about 1 - 2 minutes), its done! But I was a bit 'kiasu' and let it cook for a further 30 seconds to make sure it was fully cooked.
6) Carefully place in a bowl and pour over the broth. Serve with egg noodles if desired.

Optional: If I wanted to make Shanghainese dumplings, I would replace prawns with chopped chives.

5-spice Tea Braised Ribs

My uni friend once told me that instead of cooking normal bak ku teh, you can substitute with tea for a change. That got me thinking - together with 5-spice like what they do with tea eggs, this is a tasty yet simple recipe. I actually used green tea (高山茶) but only because I didn't have any black or red tea at home but the tea taste wasn't strong enough. On the other hand, it had a nice 'gum gum' (sweetish tea) flavour. Black or red tea would also give it a slightly smokey flavour.

Ingredients (for 2)
750 ml freshly brewed red or black tea e.g. tie guan ying, oolong or pu er
500 g spare ribs
1 stick cinammon
1 star anise
1 tsp 5 spice power
2 tbsp black soya sauce
2 tbsp light soya sauce
1 handful gei zi (boxthorn) (optional)
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tsp crushed garlic
1 small onion, chopped
1 thumb-sized ginger, sliced

Method
1) Marinate the spare ribs with dark and light soya sauce.
2) Brew the tea and set aside. The tea leaves should not be added to the pot and boiled otherwise they become bitter.
3) With a little oil, fry the aromatics (garlic, ginger and onions) until fragrant. Add the spare ribs and brown them.
4) Add the tea, and all the other ingredients. Bring to a boil before turning down the flame to a simmer and simmer down for 20 mins.
5) Serve with freshly boiled white rice.