Post #160

this dish we sometimes have at chinese restaurants, and its VERY VERY chinese. a great 70% veg and 30% meat ratio type dish, its fantastic!! i wasnt so sure whether it would turn out ok, but it worked out well :)


-tofu and mustard green with pickled cabbage + minced pork-

so so easy! start the pan with chopped garlic, then the mustard green. add a small splash of water and put the lid on. meanwhile, chop the tofu (i used the cylinder ones for this dish) and arrange in a dish. cover with lid and pop it in the microwave for 2-3 minutes, until cooked. when the greens are almost cooked, add the chopped pickled cabbage, and then the marinated minced pork. season, add a small drop of oyster sauce and round it off with corn starch water. absorb the excess water from the steamed tofu, arrange the mustard green around the tofu, and pour the pork mixture over, and its done!! YUM.

Post #159

got too much time on hand, and i thought *just out of the blue*, why not try make some gnocchi from scratch?! not sure how this idea creeped out, cos i dont even like gnocchi all that much...

so with half a butternut pumpkin in the fridge, i thought i'd give pumpkin gnocchi a go. at least its meant to be softer and fluffier than their potato counterpart?! well so i thought...

having looked up a few recipes on the net and from my collection, i had my first ever attempt *and sadly, possibly the last...* on gnocchi. yes already sounding so defeated. so here's the result...



looking quite normal actually, but i've added so much more flour than the recipe suggests. but the dough kept sticking onto my hands, and was i suppose to knead it?!


-butternut pumpkin gnocchi with herbed butter + parmesan-
-spiced yoghurt lamb chop-

the gnocchi is nowhere near light and fluffy...

the positive tho is the brussel sprouts dish. nice and... christmas-y?!


-braised brussel sprouts in orange butter-

simply caramelise off some bacon, add the sprouts and a handful of currants, season. then zest and juice of an orange, close the lid and let it cook its merry way. round it up with a knob of butter, and its done! somehow the flavours remind me of a xmas glazed ham!! a must for xmas!!

Post #158

took such a long break i almost forgot how to log on its embarrassing!!

tho no posts for a long while the cooking continued, albeit in a rather lazy and un-gourmet like fashion. lets try again, with less rambling...

a jap inspired meal~


-nasu dengaku - grilled eggplant with miso, topped with tomato avocado + rocket salad-
-cold soba noodle with crunchy cucumber-
-panfried pork chop with sweet soy-

eggplant. my continuing exploration into non-greasy eggplants ~ its time to stop deep frying eggplants!!!! first score the eggplants, brush with sesame oil and grill for a few minutes. mix miso, mirin, sugar + sesame oil into a paste. spoon the mixture on top of the eggplants and grill till tender. keep an eye out on it so it doesnt get burnt!! once done, top with salad and with soy vinaigrette.

Post #157

ok, I think its kinda about time for a western food post. tho I must admit that ive been rather slack nowadays I've really only been cooking chinese food for dinner. a stir fry is always quicker to whack up than anything else. love my chinese heritage. hehe.

this is not by any means any extravagant candle light western cuisine. i've stuck with the quick-to-whack-up theme and made pasta and salad. recently i found some lovely handmade fresh pasta selling at coles, and i couldn’t resist the temptation. i've always wanted to make my own pasta knowing that it would taste a million miles better than the dry packet ones. but the thought of investing another piece of kitchenware and the image of hubbys face when flour is dusted all over the kitchen pulled me back to crude reality. yes, to the extent that i would rather pick up the packet of expensive handmade fresh pasta and dump it in my shopping basket, with no regrets. this one leek and herbed spaghettini!!!

in order to bring out the pasta i kept the sauce as simple as can be. i've decided to cook it with fish, lemon and a touch of cream. so so simple but tasty!! to cook the sauce, i started the pan with finely chopped onion, leek and garlic, sautee and then add a splash of stock and some chopped chilli. place the piece of cod in the broth, then add seasoning, lemon zest and lemon juice. close the lid and let it simmer till the fish is just cooked. then add a dash of fresh cream in, let it bring to the boil again and the sauce is done. meanwhile, cook the pasta in a separate pot. great thing about fresh pasta is they only take 2 minutes to cook!! scoop the al dente pasta across to the sauce, add a sprinkle of chopped mint and toss to combine. DONE!!


-creamy lemon fresh spaghettini with cod-

fresh pasta has an indescribably lovely texture ~ much spring-ier (but not chewy) and velvet-ier than its dry counterparts!!! considering a plate of pasta served in a restaurant would cost more than $20 at the minimum and chances are they also use dry pasta, this is actually not bad for value, as one packet renders 2 servings!!

and to go with the pasta, I also made a salad - yes hell we are healthy!! hahaha… i picked up 2 pomegranates the other day because they were discounted. and i made a chopped cucumber, pomegranate, olive, almond and mint salad with a lemon and balsamic vinaigrette. pome bursts!!!!


-chopped cucumber, olive, almond + mint salad with pomegranate-

Post #156

when our friend suggested that we have hotpot at her place on the labour day public holiday, my mind for some bizarre reason wondered off to wonton and dumpling land. i never ever really had to make wontons or dumplings from scratch because my mum is literally a wonton/dumpling-machine *no kidding* and our fridge rarely falls short of wonton/dumpling supplies. i would only help mum out on the odd occasions, making a batch or two when mum's mass producing them. anyways, i'll save the wonton/dumplings for another post.

reason why i raised this topic is because i had to make wonton n dumplings, i had to buy some pork mince. and i have never bought any meat in any sort of large scale (and yes, 1kg of pure meat with no bone is considered large scale in my household). my method of "measuring" anything that uses the concept of grams or kilograms has always been descriptions of "numbers" (if the item can be counted, e.g. 8 prawns) or "handful" or "scoop" or "half" or "quarter" (if the item cannot be counted). so after i asked for 1 kg of pork mince and saw the huge pile of meat that got shoved into the plastic bag, i thought i should have stuck with 2 handfuls...

so what i'm trying to get at is that i had too much leftover mince, and hubby asked if i could make this well-known shanghai-nese dish called 獅子頭 (lion head meatballs). hubby for once came up with a sensible food idea!!


-獅子頭 *lion head meatballs*-

this was my first attempt. i found from googling that they come in 2 forms - in soup or braised in thick sauce. hubby prefers the latter. and there's this variation i found on the net that i particularly wanted to try with the mince mix -combining pork mince (i used 80% lean and 20% fatty), finely diced onion, chopped shallot, grated ginger, some tofu, corn flour, n the basic seasoning. then grab a small handful of mixture (about size of an egg) and dab it repeatedly from the palm of your right hand to the left - apparently this gets rid of the air in the meat mixture. pop them in the pan one after another to sear the outside till golden. you can achieve better looking balls with perfect round shape and golden coating by deep frying them. then pour in some water, cover the lid and let them bubble away for a few minutes. then surround the balls with bok choy and let it simmer for a bit more, adding seasoning and a bit of oyster sauce and soy sauce. when the balls are cooked through and the veg are cooked, round it off with some corn starch water to make a thick sauce and its done!!

the tofu adds a good softness to the balls. this helps especially when the there's protionately less fatty mince used. and best to chop the onions really small! great alternative to italian meatballs!! :)

Post #155

i've got these beautifully thick pork chop sitting in the freezer for long enough. only reason why they've been abandoned in there is because they're not the easiest piece of meat to play with. and they are so big and thick... it kinda puts you off. but once you're gutsy enough to take them out of the freezer, you dont really have a choice, but to deal with it... hehe.

and with some leftover dishes that need to be also consumed tonight, i couldnt just pan fry the big pieces of meat with a side salad and call it dinner. so i decided to chop them up into smaller pieces and asian-ise it!


-lemon pork chop-

i've never tried this sauce on pork chop... it has always been a friend of chicken wings, but it worked wonderfully well with pork chop too :) and i must say, producing less fat in the sauce as well!! i was a bit worried that the pork will turn out tough as they're so thick! but afterall, they ARE beautiful pieces of meat, they were still tender and juicy.

will definitely make again.

Post #154

its been a few months since my last post, and in all seriousness it was due to diff things that happened - theres good news and also bad news, but be it good or bad, i feel that we've grown to be that little stronger.

and life goes on. so does the cooking.

i'm not sure why, but chinese food seems to be dominating our home dinner menu lately. thing with chinese food is, they are so easy and quick to whack up, fantastical!!


-hoi tong tofu *海棠豆腐*-

my take of this dish which can be found in menus of all chinese restaurants!! steamed egg white custard topped with a bed of diced tofu, prawn, crab sticks and sugar snap peas in a light xo glossy thick sauce. feels like having 2 dishes combined in one, but absolutely delish~!

see the 2 layers! tho it was kinda like topping overload...