Spring Onions

Coriander leaves

Spring onions


Chinese cooking uses a lot of spring onions and coriander leaves. But how to keep the leaves fresh for a week or two? Even you wrapped it with paper and refrigerated it still turn yellow.

Here is a very simple way to keep it. What you should do is wash the spring onions or the coriander leaves clean, leave it air dry, then transfer it to a container, covered it up. It should be kept refrigerated at all time.

It will last at least two long week!!

Scramble Egg Bread

Tired of sandwiches?

Why not try this sweet scramble egg bread? It is fast, easy, delicious and healthy too.

Beat or whisk 2 medium size eggs with 1 tbsp full of sugar. The egg mixture supposed to taste sweet.
Cut bread into the shape of 2 or 4 triangles.
Heat up the non stick frying pan with a bit of butter or 1 tsp of cooking oil

Dip the bread into the egg mixture, make sure the bread is well coated.
Fry it.
Make sure the heat is low or else the bread will get burn very quickly :)

Dessert - Peanut Dumplings

Chinese like to eat colorful dumplings on the 22nd December each year when it is very close to the Chinese New Year celebration. Legend has it that by eating the dumplings, you become one year older and will have a "rounded" year ahead (meaning a better and happier year). But nowadays you can eat it anytime so long as you know how to do it.

My sisters used to cook the dumplings plain i.e. just with the sugar solution or syrup. They made the dumplings into very small red, green and white. It looks very appetizing. Although the dumplings were plain but with the nicely cooked syrup, they were very tasty.

Nowadays, you can get the ready mixed colorful dumpling dough from the morning market in December.

This peanut dumplings we going to make is without color. I will show you how to use the fruit coloring in the future.

First cook the syrup by boiling the 150g of sugar into 600 ml of water. Add "Pandan" leaves as the flavor enhancer. They will give the syrup a very pleasant smell. When the sugar fully dissolved, pour them into a mixing bowl, discard the pandan leaves.



Pound peanut candy with mortar & pestle (you can get it from Ikea) until they are finely ground. As peanut candy were sweet so it will make the dumplings tastier. Put it aside.

You may keep in a jar for future use. This is the same peanut candy I used it for Apple Salad.

Now mix 200g of glutinous flour with approximately 160ml of warm water. Knead the dough until they are well mixed.

Okay now we are ready to make a dumpling. Simply roll a small piece of dough into a ball shape, then press it flat. Scoop about 1 tsp of peanut onto the middle, wrap the peanut nicely make sure no peanut was spilled onto the outer layer of the dough. If you are skillful enough, add more peanuts. I like it with a lot of peanut filled inside.


So you will continue making quite a lot of peanut dumplings (30-40 pieces) and leave them on a tray. We have to cook them before it turned too dry or it will crack. If you feel the dough is too dry, just put a drop of water on you palm and roll.


Here is how to cook them. Boil a pot of water. When the water started boiling, put in the dumplings one by one. They will sink and when it cooked, it floats. Let it continue cooking for a minute before scooped it out into the sugar syrup.


Transfer a few pieces of dumplings with syrup into a nice bowl and serve.

Try it out, it is yummy.

Salmon Spaghetti

This is a very yummy pasta - SALMON SPAGHETTI. It is not difficult to cook it at home. In fact I found it very easy.

First you have to fry the Salmon (Not necessary to coat with salt as we will add some to spaghetti later). Once done, break the salmon(discard the bones) into some smaller pieces.

I always use the spaghetti no. 2, I find the size just right. So boil some spaghetti in the salted boiling water according to the time specified.

Get ready 1 tbsp of finely chopped garlic. Saute it using the extra virgin olive oil. It was done when the garlic turned light brown. Discard 1/2 of the garlic (you can use all if you like garlic) and put the rest (the garlic and the oil) in a nice serving plate (or mixing bowl).

Drain the spaghetti when it was done and pour straight onto the garlic oil, add 1 tsp of chicken stock granules and salt to taste. Add the salmon, mix all together.

Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese and parsley flakes on top. Serve.

Try it out!!

Crispy Biscuits

How do you keep the crispy biscuits?

Yes keep in the air-tight bottle or container. To prolong their crispy life, just throw in one or two cube sugars (those we throw into the coffee) into it. This is because sugars absorb the moisture in the air and hence keep the biscuits crisp.

But the best way is to eat it FRESH!!

Recipe - Dau Yew Bak - Soy Sauce Pork

This is the Black Soy Sauce Pork. The very basic version.


There are so many ways of cooking Dau Yew Bak or so call Black Soy Sauce Pork.

Surprisingly, only pork belly is nice to be used in this recipe.

Marinate the pork belly (about 300g) with 2 tbsp of premium soy sauce.

Marinate them for few hours; you can marinate in the morning and cook it for dinner. (optional- I have added 1 tsp of 5 spices powder)
Get ready the garlic, wash it clean and to be cooked with its skin.

Get ready the candy sugar cubes.


Saute the meat together with the garlic and cube sugar in 2 tbsp of hot oil.

When the meat started to shrink, add
1. 500ml of water,
2. 1 tbsp of soy sauce,
3. 1 tbsp of black thick soy sauce.

In the even the water dry up mid way, add addition hot water.

This is the hard boiled eggs. (Boil the egg in the boiling water for 5 minute. Turn the heat off, leave it covered for about 20 minute. Un-shell it under running water).


Put the hard boiled egg into the soup. Let it cook together with the meat. Occasionally turn the eggs so that they have even brown color on its surface.

When the meat is tender, about 30-45 minute later, add the starch (1.5 tsp mix with 2 tbsp of water) to make the soup not to watery, add salt to taste (in fact the soy sauce eliminates the need to add salt). The sauce suppose to taste a bit sweet, so add a little bit of sugar if required. Some like it salty some like it sweet, so you have to adjust the flavor according to your family preference.

When you get the taste right after a few trials, you can venture into other versions of Dau Yew Bak which give stronger flavor.

A) Dau Yew Bak with 5 spices powder.
B) Dau Yew Bak with dried squid.

Afternoon Tea with Cheese Tarts

This is a hot Saturday afternoon. Stay home, make tarts and have a nice afternoon tea with beloved family.

Of course, with the freshly baked cheese tarts.


Our Cameron Highlands' tea is nice.

Cheese Tarts - Part 3

Practice makes perfect.

Most of my kid's classmates love cheese tarts. I have been making cheese tarts for several times. I think I have improved the look and taste of the tarts.

I like to bake the tart shells ready as they can be kept for about 2 weeks. Sometime I made 2 recipes (refer to cheese tart recipe in Part 1) which will give me approximately 120 - 130 shells. This is also more convenience as we can use the whole 250g of butter.

You can put 2-3 pieces of chocolate chips at the base of the shell.

Fill the tart shells with cream cheese, use nozzle.

Top it up with blueberry jam.


Then bake it.


My daughter said she felt very happy as her friends love the cheese tarts so much.

Yeah, she had felt the joy of giving.

My daughter with her sweet smell of success.

Recipe - Chocolate Cookies with Almonds

As a housewife, we would try to find something easy to cook or bake but never compromise on its taste and nutrient, so that we have some sweet time for ourselves; to watch a movie, to read a book or go shopping.

This is the chocolate cookies I like to bake for the family. It is simple and delicious and absolutely terrific for afternoon tea and party. The most important thing was that you can always bake this cookies fresh. How? Keep the unbaked chocolate mixture in the refrigerator, as and when you need it, cut and baked them. So you always have a freshly baked cookies at home. What a good idea, isn't it?

Here is how to do it:

Cream 250g of butter and 150g of fine sugar together. Beat till mixture is fluffy.

Mid way, add 1 tea spoon of chocolate 'emulco' and an egg. Continue at medium speed or high it doesn't matter. When it was completely mixed, stop the machine.

Now, sieve 400g of multi-purpose flour or plain flour and 20g of cocoa powder (choose the premium quality for a better taste) and 1/4 tsp of baking powder into the batter. Add gradually.

Use spatula initially as it was very sticky and messy. When finished adding the flour, uses hand to rub the batter until the mixture is well mixed.

Adding almond flakes will give the cookies the extra crunch. You can replace almonds with hazelnuts, walnuts, and so on. Instead of flakes, you can use crushed/ground nuts too.

Finally, blend in the 150g of almond flakes.
Get ready a square baking mould, size 9" x 9". Spread a piece of cling film on top of it. Ensure that you left some excess cling film by the sides. The purpose is to cover the chocolate mixture later.

Okay, now pour the chocolate mixture into the baking mould. Press the chocolate mixture to make it firm and compact and has a smooth surface.

Use the excess cling film to wrap the firmly pressed mixture.
Keep it in the refrigerator for a few hours or over night. The purpose is to get it harden to make the slicing easier.

Anytime you feel like eating cookies, take the whole thing out from the refrigerator and unwrapped the cling film. First cut the 9x9 bar into 4 equal stripes. Then slice the chocolate stripe into thin pieces, about 3mm thick. If you are a bit slow like me, keep the rest back to the refrigerator. Do it one by one. It is difficult to cut if the chocolate bar get soften.

Lay them on the baking tray and bake at 180 °C for 18 minutes. (Always pre-heat the oven) Depends on the type of oven you have, some have good functions and there are those without fans. Keep an eyes if you bake it for the first time and you can adjust the temperature to say 170 degree for 20 minutes.

Let it cold before you served.

Have a nice morning or afternoon tea with your love one. Bake with LOVE and serve with a warm heart. Enjoy!!

Believe It or Not - Garlic & Mosquitoes

I have an excellent home remedy for the annoying mosquitoes.

GARLIC


So kill mosquitoes no more. No need mosquitoes swatter, no need any aerosol.

Just put few packets of smoke garlic (i found the smoked garlic the most effective) at anywhere that attract mosquitoes. The smell of the garlic will chase them away or the number of mosquitoes will significantly reduced. A few packet under the study table, computer table, your living room, any where you like.

keep garlic in a nice bowl, in a beautiful basket; use it to decorate your floor. Not bad actually.


Try it, it is effective. Amazing.

VICKS VapoRub and Night Time Coughing

I received an email from a friend quite sometime ago about this amazing Visks Vaporubs can relief the night time coughing.

I was not sure if it is true. I have to test it out before I can tell people how good how efficient the wonder of the Vicks Vaporubs against the night-cough.

My son was sick last week-end. He started with sore throat then subsequently his sickness deteriorated to have cough and flu.

So I tired this amazing Vicks Vaporubs. Hey, It worked. He slept soundly throughout the night. (I get him to sleep in my room so I can monitor him just in case he caught fever at night.)

For a comfortable sleep, remember to wear a pair of loose socks.



Try this remedy. It works 100% of the time although the scientists at the Canada Research council (who discovered it) aren't sure why. To stop nighttime coughing in a child (or adult as we found out personally), put Vicks Vaporub generously on the bottom of the feet at bedtime, then cover with socks. Even persistent, heavy, deep coughing will stop in about 5 minutes and stay stopped for many, many hours of relief. Works 100% of the time and is more effective in children than even very strong prescription cough medicines. In addition it is extremely soothing and comforting and they will sleep soundly. It was a surprising finding and found to be more effective than prescribed medicines for children at bedtime, in addition to have a soothing and calming effect on sick children who then went on to sleep soundly. An adult friend tried it on herself when she had a very deep constant and persistent cough a few weeks ago and it worked 100%! She said that it felt like a warm blanket had enveloped her, coughing stopped in a few minutes and believe me, this was a deep ( incredibly annoying!) every few seconds uncontrollable cough, and she slept cough-free for hours every night that she used it.

Recipe - Soy Bean Paste Pork Ribs

This is a simple set lunch I cook for my kids after their school - Soy Bean Paste Pork Ribs.
Leave your comments if you have something to say.

This recipe came from my youngest sister-in-law who stay at the Northern part of the Malaysia. Whenever we balik kampung (go back to home town - Kedah), they will cook whatever great dishes they can served and once we said good, the next time you go back, your favorite dishes will be on the table.

I love cooking soy bean paste pork ribs. First it is easy to cook and very fast; second of course it is very very delicious.

This is soy bean paste. 1 full tbsp. This is the most important ingredient for this dish. The aroma of the soy bean paste will waft through the kitchen when cooking.

You can use any reliable brand.

This is the shallot paste already mixed with garlic. 2 tbsp shallots, 1 tsp garlic (approx. shallots - 8, garlic - 2 cloves)

This is organic chili powder (100% Chili). 2 tsp (you can add more if you like it super hot)

About 300 g of pork ribs.

As usual, heat up approx. 3 tbsp of oil. Saute the shallots and chili paste until you can smell the good smells of the onion. Add the soy bean paste and stir. If the sauce was too dry, add some water. Always use medium heat.

Toss the ribs into the sause. Saute for a about 5 minutes. Add 1/2 tsp of sugar.

Add about 300 ml of water and simmer the meat gently for about 30 minute or when the sauce slightly thicken and the meats were tender.

But I use pressure cooker. It is fast. Just add 150 ml of water.


When the pressure is up, cook for 10 minutes.

To add some green, just trim the head and tail of the lady fingers. Steam for 5 minutes.

You will enjoy the saltiness of the soy bean paste and the sweetness it carries. It is amazingly delicious!!