Steamed Egg with Seafood Sauce

Steamed Egg with Seafood Sauce

steamed egg with seafood sauce

In Edinburgh I believe August must be every Edinburgh Chef’s worst nightmare. Edinburgh is an extremely busy city throughout the year but August brings the Fringe and Military tattoo festivals, which bring millions of tourists here every year. At the top of the Royal Mile, where both of the festivals take place is the entrance to the Witchery, the restaurant I work for. So, we are fully booked every night and there are always a million jobs that need to be done. (If you want to come to the Witchery, please make a reservation before you come to have meal, I beg you.)

After 3 days of really hard work in the kitchen, I just don’t have the motivation to cook a big meal so I I’ve recently been eating smaller and perhaps simpler dishes. I suddenly think about a dish that my mother usually cooked for my father and I after she came home from work. This dish is called Steamed eggs with Seafood . This seafood dish is really quick to cook and also really beautiful to look at. The most important thing is you can cook this dish within 30 minutes. Oh my!! It’s a great blessing for working mother and wife.

By the way, Do you still remember my last blog about our ceramic work?? Here is the final result photo of our ceramic works. We had great fun there and hope to go back to Doodle again soon. Personally made ceramic crafts could be a great souvenir to bring home if you visit Edinburgh.

Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

picture frames

 

Steamed Egg with Seafood Sauce

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs
  • 6 prawns
  • 5 cooked mussels you can use any seafood you like including scallops or squids
  • 2 dried shiitake mushroms
  • 1/2 spring onion chop finely for garnish

Marinade for prawns

  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 pinch white pepper
  • 1/2 tsp potato starch
  • 1/4 tsp rice wine

Seasonings

  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp bonito powder (optional)
  • 1.5 cups water
  • 1/2 tsp oyster sauce
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 tsp potato starch
  • 1/4 tsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tsp soy sauce

Instructions

  1. Soak dried shitake mushroom in the warm water for 5~10 minutes until it has softened and slice it.
  2. Wash prawns and dry. Mix with marinade for 5~10 minutes.
  3. Heat the 1 ½ cup water, salt, bonito powder in a pot until it’s hot but not boiling. Pour it into the beaten eggs and stir constantly when you’re pouring the seasoning into the eggs. Sieve the egg mixture into a bowl or deep plate and put half of seafood into the egg mixture. Cover the bowl with cling film and steam it for around 15 minutes to be done.
  4. Heat 1 teaspoon oil and stir fry the shitake mushroom, rest of the seafood and add oyster sauce, 1/2 cup water mixed with ¼ teaspoon potato starch, sesame oil, soy sauce. Bring it to boil and pour over steamed egg.

 

Raspberry Snowflake Cake

Raspberry Snowflake Cake

There are couple things that have made me feel very happy recently. The first thing is my head chef asked me for the Peking duck recipe for the new dish on our restaurant menu. The second thing is Lisa from http://www.koreanamericanmommy.blogspot.com follow my recipe and made her first “three cup chicken” and it turned out really awesome. Here is her blog about this three cup chicken: http://koreanamericanmommy.blogspot.com/2010/07/chef-liv-wans-chinese-three-cup-chicken.html

I feel so proud and also super happy. I wish people who visit my blog can enjoy my recipe and have fun in the kitchen. That’s the greatest thing to me. I feel really honour that my head chef asked the recipe from me and I wish my recipe help him a bit with the new dish. This is the two thing make me feel really happy and I share my happiness with you who is reading this post at moment and wish you have a great day.

Now, It’s the time for the recipe of the day. I’m going to share this Chinese dessert recipe with you. My colleague asked me if there any popular Chinese or Taiwanese desserts? Yes, of course there are a lot of desserts in both China and Taiwan. But I have to say they are different from desserts that are popular in the UK. Here is an example dessert that I share with you today.

raspberry snowflake cake

When the first time I read about this dessert’s name I just fall in love with it. How cute is the name? I guess the name snowflake comes from the layer of coconut powder that actually looks a bit like a snowflake.

Raspberry snowflake cake tastes a little bit sweet and sour and the most important thing is this dessert has to be eaten in cold. You must eat it immediately after taking it out from fridge.

These photos were taken by Chris from Chris Radley Photography

 

Raspberry Snowflake Cake

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 30 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

A

  • 50 g rasberries
  • 450 g water
  • 180 g caster sugar
  • 200 ml milk
  • 50 ml double cream
  • 5 leafs gelatine

B

  • 120 g potato starch
  • 100 ml water
  • coconut powder

Instructions

  1. Cook raspberry, 450g water and caster sugar in a small sauce pan and bring it to boil. Keep whisk it while cooking to help sugar and raspberry dissolve.
  2. Soften gelatine in cold water. Add milk and double cream into step 1 and bring it to boil again.
  3. Turn off the gas and add gelatine into step 2 and keep whisk it to help to mix evenly.
  4. Mix potato starch and water evenly and add it into step 3.
  5. Pour the mixture from step 4. Into a long rectangle shape baking tray with baking paper in it. (Baking paper helps us to take out the snowflake cake easier later.) Put the snowflake cake into your fridge for 1 or 2 hours to help it form. Cover the snowflake cake with coconut powder and it’s ready to serve.

 

Hot and Sour Soup

Hot and Sour Soup

hot and sour soup

Hot and sour soup is a very common dish in both Taiwan and China. People usually have fried or plain dumplings with hot and sour soup. The sourness of this soup is very good for one’s appetite and my mother use to tell me when I got flu that it will go away quicker if I drink a lot of this soup when I was young.

I don’t know if it’s true or not but I think drinking a lot of hot fluid is good for your body when you catch the flu, right? But please go to doctor if you catch flu or don’t feel well.

The Eastern way to cook soup and western way to cook soup are so different. Most of the western ways to cook this soup are to puree the soup to make it really smooth and soft but in eastern people usually like chunks of meat, fish and vegetables in their soup that they actually can see it. I have to cook a few different kinds of “western soup” when I work and it’s a precious experience for me because I can learn western cooking during work and learn eastern cooking from my family or learn it by myself in my personal time. It’s always fun to learn new things, don’t you think?

Credit: These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

 

Hot and Sour Soup

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 1 ltr chicken stock
  • 80 g pork loin
  • 10 wood ears soak in warm water for 15 minutes to soften then julienne
  • 1 medium carrot julienne it
  • 300 g fresh tofu drain the water and cut into 5cm strips
  • 2 eggs beaten

Marinade for pork

  • 1 tsp soy sauce
  • 1/2 tsp potato starch
  • 1/2 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp rice wine

Seasonings

  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1.5 tbsp dark rice vinegar
  • 1/2 tbsp normal rice vinegar
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp ground pepper
  • 1/2 tsp sesame oil
  • 2 tbsp potato starch

Instructions

  1. Marinade the pork for 15 minutes.
  2. Boil a pot of water to blanch pork, carrot, wood ear and tofu then leave it on aside.
  3. Boiled the chicken stock and add all the ingredients from step 2 to bring it to boil again.
  4. Add soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, salt into the soup, then mix the potato starch with a little bit water first (Remember the potato starch with water must be mix evenly and without any lumps) and add into the soup to make it look a bit dense and sticky.
  5. Turn the gas power to lowest heat and pour the egg into the soup. Stir the soup gently after 30 second and turn off the gas.

 

Drunken Chicken

Drunken Chicken

drunken chicken recipe

When I was a child I always thought you prepared drunken chicken by feeding the chicken a bottle of rice wine before cooking. I thought if the chicken was drunk enough it would make the meat taste of alcohol. Now I think how silly I was but who knows these things.

I love the taste of drunken chicken even if I’m not a big fan of food that tastes of alcohol. This drunken chicken uses Shaoxing rice for which people who have tasted it know it has a strong but special flavour. Some so called celebrity Eastern chefs use Shaoxing rice wine in many dishes but this really isn’t the way to use it.

This drunken chicken is best served as a cold dish making it a great summer dish. It’s refreshing, tasty but not too strong. I hope you enjoy making this dish.

These photos were taken by Chris from: Chris Radley Photography

drunken chicken procedure

 

Drunken Chicken

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 7 hours 30 minutes
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 2 chicken legs including thigh, de-boned
  • 2 spring onions cut into 3cm lengthways
  • 2 thin slices ginger
  • 1 tbsp goji berries
  • 1 thin slice Chinese angelica root
  • 2 thin slices liquorice root

Seasonings

  • 200 ml Shaoxing rice wine
  • 1 cup stock I used chicken stock
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 tsp salt
  • Couples pinches sugar

Instructions

  1. Use some salt to marinade the chicken legs for 20 minutes and use a few sheets of cling film to wrap the chicken as displayed in the procedure photos below.
  2. Use a small sauce pan to boil the water, stock, spring onion, ginger, goji berries, angelica root, liquorice roots, salt and sugar. After boiling reduce to lowest heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Leave it aside to cool down.
  3. Add Shaoxing rice wine into step 2.
  4. Steam chicken for around 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked.
  5. Remove chicken from sling film and soak in marinade for at lest 6 hours. Leave in a fridge overnight.

 

Pearl Meatballs

Pearl Meatballs

pearl meatballs recipe

Because of the layer of glutinous rice that surrounds this meatball we give it the great name of “Pearl Meatball”. This is because the rice looks translucent and the colour and shape of this meatballs looks like a pearl.

This dish can often to be seen in banquets and parties in both Taiwan and China because people love the name, the taste and also the pretty shape of it.

I loved this dish when I was younger and I remember my grandfather found out I love this dish and he just keep cooking this pearl meat ball dish pretty much everyday. So one day, I got really tired of this dish and I have to tell my grandfather to cook a new dish in a very sweet and none hurt his feelings way. I know what he did is for love but some time even though a dish is so tasty you still have to take break from it some time or you will just feel tired of it.

There are so many dishes that my grandfather cooked for me when I was young and now I share with you all these recipe and I hope you will enjoy it just like me and cook those dishes for your love one.

Credit: These photos were taken by Chris at Chris Radley Photography

 

Pearl Meatballs

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Servings 12 meatballs

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 200 g beef mince
  • 120 g pork fat or you can use 220g of pork belly without the skin and 100g beef mince
  • 2 dried shiitake mushrooms
  • 1 tbsp dried shrimps available in Chinese supermarkets
  • 2 thin slices ginger
  • 1 small carrot
  • 1 1/4 cups glutinous rice soak in water for at least 1 hour

Seasonings

  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 1/2 tbsp potato starch
  • 1 egg

Instructions

  1. Use a food processor to mince the meat together and after the meat has totally blended, add an egg to mix for another 30 second.
  2. Plate all the meat into a mixing bowl and start to beat the meat for few minutes to help the meat get that wonderful elasticity texture. (This step is a great therapy for the daily stressful life, lol).
  3. Soak dried shitake mushrooms and dried shrimp into a bowl of warm water until it’s soft. Chop the shitake mushrooms roughly.
  4. Two thin slices of ginger chopped finely and wash and cut the carrot roughly.
  5. Use a food processor to mince mushrooms, shrimps, ginger and carrot finely and mix them with step 2 evenly.
  6. Add all the seasonings with ingredients together and mix them nicely.
  7. Make the mixture into small but equal size balls and cover the meatball with a layer of glutinous rice.
  8. Use a bamboo steamer or regular steamer to steam the meatballs for 12~15 minutes with full gas power.