Blood Orange Quinoa Salad
Caramelised Pineapple Coconut Rice Pudding
Prawn and Lemon Butter Pasta
Chinese Fish Fragrant Omelette
Red Cooked Pork Belly with Lotus Root
Buttermilk Fried Chicken
Thai Steamed Fish with Coconut Quinoa
Dan Bing
Stir Fried Beef with Thai Chive Flower and Bean Curd
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Stewed Egg Salad (Lu Dan)

by | May 2, 2010

Stewed Egg Salad (Lu Dan)

Stewed Egg Lu Dan Salad

Stewed Egg is a very common dish in Taiwan and we call it “Lu Dan”. I loved to order a stewed egg with my lunchbox when I live in Taiwan or I will order stewed egg with my mince rice or mince noodle. Stewed egg is just simply the best friend with a lunchbox.

I always remember the first time my husband tried this stewed egg at home his face looked like he had been struck by lightning. After the first time he tried this stewed egg he fell in love with it. He always asks me to cook this stewed egg if he knows I’m going to cook stewed pork or chicken.

This stewed egg needs to cook in soy sauce and spices for a while and soak in the sauce for few hours to make sure eggs has all the fragrances from the sauce. So, you can imagine this egg has a lot of flavour in it.

 

stewed-egg-lu-dan-recipe
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Stewed Egg Salad (Lu Dan)

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 4 hours
Total Time 4 hours
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 6 eggs
  • 1 thin slice ginger
  • 1 spring onion
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 chili

Seasonings

  • 1.5 tbsp sugar
  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp rice wine
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 star anise
  • 3 cm cinnamon stick
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • 1/4 tsp Sichuan pepper use a Chinese spice bag if you have one

Instructions

  1. Use a little bit of oil to sauté ginger, spring onion, garlic and chilli.
  2. Place all the seasonings into a sauce pan and boil it by full strength gas power.
  3. After sauce boiling we turn the gas power to the lowest and simmer for 2 hours.
  4. Take out the eggs from fridge and leave it aside for while to make sure it’s reach room temperature.
  5. Cook the eggs from cold water and keep moving them when you cooking. (This way can make sure the egg yolk will stay in the middle.)
  6. After the water is boiling we turn the gas power to medium and cook for another 5 minutes.
  7. After 5 minutes we take the eggs out of the hot water and soak it in cold water. Peel the eggs when they have cooled down.
  8. Place the eggs into the sauce we made and cook them for 40 minutes.
  9. After 40 minutes just soak them in the sauce for a couple hours. You will see the eggs turning a light brown colour and it’s ready to eat. My grandma always cook the egg a day before and soak them over night.

 

Dumplings shui jiao

by | Apr 30, 2010

Dumplings shui jiao

Chinese dumplings shui jiao

Dumplings, or shui jiao, are one of my favourite foods. They are really tasty but also the perfect food for a working couple like Chris and I, for whom both of us work shift patterns.

Living in the UK is so different to living in Taiwan. Taiwan has many 7-11 shops which are open 24 hours, night market which are open until midnight and a lot of 24 hours restaurants such as Swensens, N.Y. Bagel and Citystar 24 hours Dim sum restaurant.

Whenever I make dumplings I always make at least 100 to 150. Compared to dumplings that you can buy in restaurants here, which normally cost about £1 each, we can make 100 hundred at home for approximately £10. This works out at around 10p each.

When I’ve made the dumplings I put them in the freezer in case we run out food or feel hungry in the night or just come back home from work.

This recipe is just one of the methods of making dumplings that I have used for a very long time. It’s a very common but also basic flavour in Taiwan. Of course there are so many different kind of filling that you can put it into your dumplings such as shitake mushroom, scallops, cabbage, cucumber, chinese white chive, carrots, prawns and so on.

Maybe you can try different filling at home and you could easily create your own special kind of dumplings!

By the way, some Chinese provinces have a new year’s tradition which is when the people will eat dumplings for New Year’s Eve and sometime they will put a coin inside the dumpling. The person who has the dumpling with that coin will be the luckiest one in the coming year.

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

 

chinese-dumplings-shui-jiao
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Dumplings Shui Jiao

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 3 hours
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 3 hours 10 minutes
Servings 150 dumplings

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 150 dumpling pastry sheets 1 pack usually has around 50 sheets
  • 600 g pork mince you can also use beef mince
  • 400 g pork fat or pork belly without skin fat or fatty meat will improve the texture and taste
  • 2 spring onions
  • 1 handful dried shrimp soak in warm water for 15-20 minutes to soften then chop finely
  • 300 g Chinese chive chop finely
  • 30 g ginger chop finely

Seasonings

  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • Couple pinches white pepper

Instructions

  1. Mix all the ingredients and seasonings evenly and leave it on aside for 30 minutes.
  2. Make dumplings as the procedures photo shows. You can use a little bit of water to help the edge of dumpling pastry to stick together.
    how to make Chinese dumplings
  3. Place the dumplings onto a plate with some flour on the plate to prevent dumplings stick on the plate.
  4. Boil a big pot of water and cook dumplings in the boiling water.
  5. When the dumplings float on the top of water they are cooked and ready to be served.

Recipe Notes

The amount of time to prepare these depends on how many you make. I'm pretty quick at making dumplings and I'll make anywhere between 80-150 each time. Typically I'll spend 2-3 hours making dumplings.

 

Shengjianbao

by | Apr 25, 2010

Shengjianbao

shengjianbao

Shengjian mantou, also known as Shengjianbao, is a common and popular dish in both Taiwan and Shanghai. It’s very popular in Shanghai for breakfast and we eat it pretty much any time in Taiwan.

We usually make Shengjianbao with mince and cabbage in Taiwan and people usually use only mince and spring onion in Shanghai.

My recipe for this Shengjianbao is mince with carrots and spring onion because my husband doesn’t like the taste of cabbage so I change the recipe a little bit. I guess people who doesn’t like cabbage will like this dish as well.

Most people tolerate carrot more than cabbage and carrot has special vegetable sweetness for this dish. On the other hand, carrot is also a healthy vegetable and I tried my best to make sure my husband have his daily vegetable all the time to ensure he is happy and healthy.

Here is the recipe for this Shengjianbao.

 

shengjianbao
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Shengjianbao

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 20 minutes
Servings 20 Shengjianbao

Ingredients

Ingredients for filling

  • 100 g beef mince
  • 200 g pork belly remove skin and chop into small dice first
  • 1.5 medium carrots use food processor to mince it
  • 2 spring onions chop really finely
  • 2 thin slices ginger chop really finely

Seasonings for filling

  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper powder
  • 1/2 tsp sugar

Ingredients for the pastry

  • 250 g white bread flour
  • 250 g plain flour
  • 1 cup water
  • 7 g yeast
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1/4 tsp sugar

Instructions

Procedure for making Shengjianbao

  1. Mix yeast and water together. After the yeast melt, mix everything together.
  2. Knead the dough until it’s smooth without lumps and cover by cling film or clean wet kitchen napkin. After covering it up just leave it on aside for 30~40 minutes to allow it arise.
  3. Mix all the ingredients and seasonings for filling together. Use both of your hands to mix it evenly.
  4. Use a scale to weight up the dough 40g per one and after knead the small dough into round shape.
  5. Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough and put 1 tablespoon of filling onto the flatten dough.
  6. Fold it as in the procedures photos you can see and leave the Shengjianbao on aside for 10 minutes to allow the pastry arise again.

Procedure for cooking Shengjianbao

  1. Use a frying pan with a lit or use 2 frying pan but 1 is bigger than the other to fry the Shengjianbao that we made.
  2. Heat up a tablespoon of oil in the big frying pan with medium gas power. Put the Shengjianbao into frying pan with some space between them because the Shengjianbao will get bigger after heat it up.(I put 5 of them in one go and my frying pan is around 9” wide from IKEA.)
  3. We only fry it until Shengjianbao’s button getting a little bit of  colour. Pour 1 cup of water into the pan and cover the lit or the smaller frying pan on top. We use the steam to cook the Shengjianbao.
  4. Cook the Shengjianbao for 8~10 minutes until the water is dry out then it’s cook.

Recipe Notes

In most of the Chinese and Taiwanese cuisine for the filling that we like to use a little fat to make the texture taste better, such as dumplings, Chinese bun. I use pork belly because it’s easy to buy it in supermarket and it has the fat also the skinny part of meat.

 

Vegetarian Spring Rolls Recipe

by | Apr 19, 2010

Vegetarian Spring Rolls Recipe

vegetarian spring rolls

I started my new job this week and finally got some time to update my blog after finishing three crazy days of 14 hour shifts.

I decided to make spring rolls this time and it’s a vegetarian style spring roll. It’s very difficult for my husband and I to eat vegetable everyday when both of us have to work full time so I think vegetarian spring roll can last us for a while and It’s very tasty, easy to cook, convenient and full of different kinds of vegetables.

I hope this vegetarian spring roll recipe will help people who work shifts and also need daily vegetable like me.

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

 

vegetarian spring rolls
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Vegetarian Spring Rolls Recipe

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Servings 120 mini spring rolls

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 1 spring onion
  • 2 bunches green bean noodles
  • 2 thin slices ginger
  • 1 small carrot
  • 3 slices dried bean curd
  • 6 dried shiitake mushrooms
  • 120 g Chinese white chive you can use bak choy or Chinese chive if you can't find white chive
  • 1 bag spring roll pastry cut into quarters

Seasonings

  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1/4 tsp white pepper powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

  1. Soften green bean noodles and dried shitake mushrooms by soaking it into hot water for 10~15 minutes. Chop green bean noodles and shitake mushrooms after soften.
  2. Chop spring onion, ginger really finely and grate carrot.
  3. Chop Chinese white chive and dried tofu curds.
  4. Beaten 3 medium size eggs and use a little bit oil to fry the egg like crepes thin. After the egg is cook just julienne it.
  5. Heat up 1 tablespoon oil in a wok and stir-fry every thing together and mix them nice and evenly. After it has mixed evenly add all the seasonings and keep stir-fry for another 20 seconds. Put it into a bowl or onto a plate to wait for it cool down a bit.
  6. Use spring roll pastry to wrap the filling we made as seen in the procedures photos. Use egg wash to stick the edges.
  7. Heat up 2 cups of oil and deep fry the spring rolls until it turned golden colour. Then, It’s ready to serve!

 

Char Siu Pork Recipe

by | Apr 8, 2010

Char Siu Pork Recipe

char siu pork

A couple weeks ago, my husband’s co-workers asked for a recipe for making Char Siu Pork’s. Over the years I have collected so many different cooking methods for this dish and this is the recipe I chose but I’ve changed some of the seasonings of it. Especially as I can’t find the red food colouring so I decided to eliminate it from my recipe.

I know some people must think: “Why don’t you just use Char Siu Sauce from Chinese supermarket? Why make marinade by yourself?”. But this is part of fun for cooking food by yourself at home! What’s the point that everyone use the same brand of pre-made sauce to marinade the meat and cook the same flavour like other people do? I think that’s so lame! So, I decided to make the marinade myself and brought the flavour into the marinade based of my memories of chair siu pork in my home country.

Let’s get your hands dirty with all the seasoning and enjoy the smell of roast char siu pork.

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

how to make char siu pork
how to make char siu pork
how to make char siu pork

 

char siu pork
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Char Siu Pork

Course Main Dish
Prep Time 1 day
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 day 1 hour
Servings 2 people

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 800 g pork shoulder for roast, cut into 3cm long slices

Seasonings

  • 50 g rice wine or Shaoxing rice wine
  • 70 g soy sauce
  • 50 g sugar I like to use brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp malt syrup you can use honey instead
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 spring onions cut 3cm lengthways
  • 4 cloves garlic crushed
  • 2 tbsp hoisin sauce
  • 2 star anises
  • 1 tsp five spices powder
  • 1 tangerine peel available in Chinese supermarkets
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 40 g oyster sauce

Instructions

  1. Mix all the seasonings together and marinade the pork shoulder slices for 24 hours at least.
  2. Pre-heat the oven to 180C and roast the pork slices until the edges look a little bit burnt. *Please brush the marinade mixture on the pork every 10-15 minutes.

Recipe Notes

I kept half of the char siu pork I made for a Yangzhou fried rice dish I made which I will upload in my next blog post