Quesadillas

Tried the recipe from recipetineats.com and it was a big success! Well received from all family members thus posting it here.

Made the chicken for protein. Yummy!

Chicken & Fish Maw Stew

The original recipe called for sea cucumber, which I did not have. I was also lazy to cook another vegetable and protein dish so I added both into the stew.

Ingredients:

• Prepped fish maw
• Chicken parts (to be marinated the night before)
• Dried mushrooms (to be soaked in water the night before)
• Dried scallops
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Baby Napa cabbage
• Abalone sauce
• Rock sugar
• Cornstarch solution

Cooking method:

• Marinate chicken parts the night before with soy sauce, dark sauce, cooking wine, oyster sauce or abalone sauce, sugar and corn starch.
• Stir fry chicken parts till brown and remove from wok.
• Add some oil into wok again and then add in rock sugar. Stir till it dissolves.
• Sauté garlic and ginger. When it is nice and aromatic, add in mushrooms and fish maw. Stir fry until mushrooms and fish maw look softer and add in cabbage.
• Add in leftover water from mushrooms and turn up the heat. Add in dried scallops at this point. Let it boil for 5 minutes.
• Prepare cornstarch solution.
• Add chicken parts back to wok. Add abalone sauce and continue boiling at low heat for 5-10 minutes to thoroughly cook chicken.
• Add in cornstarch solution and stir for another minute or two, until liquid becomes a gravy and it is ready to be served.

金汤花胶 Golden Fish Maw Soup

It’s December and I’ve been feeling cold ever since we got back from cold cold Sapa! Got the chance this holiday to experiment around with some online recipes and will be posting 2 fish maw recipes in anticipation of CNY. Found all these recipes from Xiaohongshu and tweaked them with great results, but no photos to prove it unfortunately 🥲

How to prep fish maw:

• Wash and steam dried fish maw together with some slices of ginger for about half an hour.
• Prepare a container of cold water and dunk steamed fish maw and ginger into it. Leave in the refrigerator overnight. It will be soft and ready for cooking the next day.

Ingredients for soup:

• Fish maw
• Red dates
• Gan Cao
• Dang Sheng
• Jujube
• Dried conch
• Dried scallops
• Chicken bones
• Chicken parts (to be added later into the soup to prevent it from being overcooked)
• Pumpkin

Cooking method:

• Blanch chicken bones and wash them before adding to soup pot.
• Add red dates, Gan Cao, Dang Sheng, dried conch and dried scallops to the soup pot and bring it up to a boil. Lower heat and keep it to a low boil for half and hour.
• Steam the pumpkin and blend the steamed pumpkin to add to the soup later on.
• Blanch chicken parts and add to soup. Allow the soup to continue boiling for another 10 minutes.
• Add blended pumpkin and softened jujube to soup. Stir thoroughly and boil soup for another 5 minutes and then it is ready for consumption.

Cherry tomatoes & garlic pasta update

I tried the recipe from the previous post, and happy to report that it works! With a few of my own tweaks, as always.

I felt the texture of the sauce was not to my standard because I couldn’t blend it properly in the pan (note: use the blender instead of blender stick next time). Then in my haste to pour in heavy cream, I poured in too much, resulting in a soup like texture (because I had also added pasta water earlier to soften the texture) now. Added in a can of tomato sauce and more cheese than I had intended to. Turned out pretty ok.

Instead of greens, I decided to add mushrooms to add a different flavour profile to the dish. I also left some unblended baked garlic to use as garnish. Yum yum. Definitely an easy enough dinner to prepare again in future.

New recipe to try soon!

Because life took over and I found less and less time to cook. Re-attempting cooking, without a helper now.

Rice Cooker Chicken Rice

Since sending home our live in helper late last year, I’ve been busy finding more recipes and ways to clean the house more efficiently again! Feels like a fresh restart in a whole new house.

Found this gem of a recipe recently and storing the recipe and link here for future references.

Simple rice cooker chicken rice recipe by Spice N Pans. They have one of the best local food recipes in my opinion.

Will keep the recipe link for future use!

Hakka Yellow Wine Chicken

This is a recipe close to my heart as my mom is hakka and I remember having this dish cooked by my mom, aunts and grandma throughout my childhood. Here goes my rough interpretation of the recipe

Ingredients

1 whole chicken, chopped into small pieces
1 pc of ginger, thumb sized, julienned
Small black fungus (rehydrate if necessary), roughly 2 handfuls
3 cups of yellow glutinous rice wine
1 cup chicken broth
4 to 6 cubes of rock sugar
A pinch of salt

Cooking Instructions

1. Heat the sesame oil in a claypot on low fire.
2. Fry the ginger till it is aromatic and some edges are browned.
3. Place chicken pieces into pot, skin side down, and allow it to brown slightly before turning.
4. Add the rock sugar cubes and stir till mostly dissolved. Allow chicken pieces to brown more.
5. Add yellow glutinous rice wine. Allow mixture to come to a low simmer.
6. Add chicken stock till it covers chicken pieces and let it come to a rolling boil. Once that it achieved, lower the fire to simmer for another 30 to 45 minutes.
7. Add a pinch of salt I taste before serving.

Six Flavour Soup (六味汤)

Trying this soup today! The only difference is I added in Honey Date (蜜枣) and doubled the recipe – I normally use 250g of pork bones/chicken bones for my Chinese soups, to last 2 dinners. Recipe is from Wan Siang TCM.

Ingredients

• 2 pcs of Chinese Yam
• 10 pcs Solomon’s Seal Rhizome
• 10g Lotus Seed
• 10g Lily Bulbs
• 10g Fox Nuts
• 10g Dried Longan
• Meat (2 drumstick or 100g pork rib)
• 700ml water

Cooking Instructions

1. Rinse all herbs
2. Blanch the meat
3. Add all ingredient into pot with meat and bring to boil
4. Store in thermal cooker for at least 3 hours otherwise simmer for at least 1 hour
5. Reboil the soup when serving

Black Bean Soup

This is my own concoction after I tried to clear my fridge of herbs 😅 and found that it tasted really good! My youngest drank it all, ate the beans and asked for seconds and thirds. Here goes.

Ingredients

– 250g pork ribs/bones
– 1 dried octopus or cuttlefish
– 6 pcs hou si
– 150g black beans, rinsed thoroughly till water runs clear
– 2 red dates
– 1 pc Huang Qi
– 3 pcs Gan Cao
– 2 pcs Dang Shen

Cooking Instructions

1. Rinse all herbs and ensure that impurities are removed from dried goods.
2. Blanche pork ribs, remove and wash to remove scum.
3. Put all ingredients into a pot of water and boil for 10 minutes before simmering for another 45 minutes. And it is done!

Black Chicken Soup

It recently occurred to me to start logging all the different concoctions of Chinese herbs I use in soups (my own and from all over the Internet. Tried this recipe recently because I was craving black chicken soup and everyone wanted seconds. So up it goes! This recipe belongs to The Burning Kitchen.

These are the herbs used. I added in dang gui and shu di in this picture but I don’t be using the shu di for this recipe. 😊

INGREDIENTS
1 Black Chicken
10 gm Dang Shen abt 4 thin slices / 1 thick slice (cut into 1/2 cm widths)
5 gm Wolfberries 1/2 TBsp
4-5 red dates
5 gm Hwang Qi 1 long strip
3 gm Zhong Xiong 4 slices
2 gm Gan Cao 3-4 thin slices
5 gm Gao Li Shen Xu 4-5 sticks
2 Bowls Boiling water
5 Dried Longan Optional
2.5 litres water

INSTRUCTIONS

PREPARATION METHOD

• Cut off the feet and head of the chicken and discard the head. Cut off the claws of the feet and wash clean. 
• Remove the chicken skin and fats. Cut the chicken into half. Clean the insides and rinse well. 
• Rinse all the herbs except the wolfberries
• Place the chicken and chicken feet into a stainless steel bowl / porcelain pot with cover.
• Put all the herbs into the bowl / pot except the red dates and wolfberries.
• Add in 2 bowls of boiling water and cover the pot. If you are using the stainless steel bowl, cover with aluminium foil or a stainless steel plate that fits. 

NOTES

PREPARATION TIPS

1. Remove the skin and fats from the chicken so that the soup won’t be too oily.
2. Use aluminium foil to wrap around the bowl to form the shape first if you are using a stainless bowl without cover. When you lower the bowl into the bigger pot, slowly place the aluminium to fit around the bowl.

COOKING TIPS

1. Lift the aluminium lid slowly off the foil. The steam will rush out and you might get burnt. Do it slowly to let off the steam through the gap before adding in the red dates and wolfberries and cover it again.
2. Check the water level in the big pot throughout the double boiling process. If the water level is running low, add only boiling water. Caution: If there is no water in pot, the soup will dry up and the pot will be burnt.
3. Salt is optional to the soup as the soup itself has its natural sweetness.

WHAT TO DO AFTER CONSUMING?

if you do not want to eat the chicken…

1. Add 1 bowl of boiling water and boil again for a second time over medium low heat for another 15-20 mins. Discard the meat after. 
2. There is no need to double boil again, simply boil it as the chicken is still quite tasty. In this way, there’s no need to waste any chicken meat which would be tasteless and can be discarded.