Stir-Fried Roast Pork with Salted Vegetables and Minced Garlic

"Flavoursome dish to best complement your plain porridge or hot steamed rice"

You know? Sometimes we like to eat roast pork (烧肉), so we will pack some meat from the store as dinner over lunch time. We have to leave the packed meat in the office till the night, and hence, we will normally forgo the nice chili as it will go bad if waited till the night. But, by eating just the roast pork without nice chili to go with, the taste of such scrumptious roast meat goes less appealing, I personally think so (smilling).

What I normally do with the roast pork if I were to cook them for dinner is to fry the roast meat with salted vegetables, and some condiments to add more flavour to the whole dish, even without nice chili.

This roast meat dish is indeed flavoursome. It is one of the best dish to complement your plain porridge or hot steamed rice. Just one bowl of porridge/ rice would never be enough, with this best flavoursome meat and vegetables dish!

This is a simple, and express dish to cook on the weekdays. It needs simply 10 minutes to get the dish up.

Serves 4
Ingedients
300 gram of roast pork, sliced
100 gram of salted vegetables, steeped (no less than 1 hour) and julienned
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 slices of young ginger
1 tablespoon of Shao Hsing Hua Diao Rice Wine (Chinese translation: 绍兴花雕酒)
1 teaspoon of oyster sauce
Sprinkles of sugar (less than ½ teaspoon)
2 tablespoon of water
1 teaspoon of cooking oil


Method
1) Heat wok with oil over high fire. Add minced garlic and ginger slices, stir-fry till fragrant.

2) Reduce heat to medium fire. Add salted vegetables and roast meat, stir-fry for 1 minute. Add some water to keep ingredients moistened.

3) Add sugar, and stir-fry for 1 minutes. Then, add oyster sauce, and continue frying for another minute before adding some rice wine. Stir-fry for one minute to combine well.

Sad to say, this roast meat dish is not ideal for diet-watcher (sobbing). It counts more than 500kcal for a portion of it.

Tips: Since the roast meat is salted. It is best to steep the salted vegetables to almost bland. Try steeping it for 1 hour beforehand, if you have the time.
* To create crispness of the roast meat, first add only the roast meat, and reduce heat to extremely low fire. Keep the fire on, and remain the roast meat as it is in the wok, until roast meat is cooked to a crisp. Then, add salted vegetables and resume the remaining steps as stated.

TEFAL Non-Stick Wok with Lid

"TEFAL - a reliable non-stick Cookware"

I love to cook with my TEFAL wok. It's non-stick type of wok with an unique design of Thermo-Spot™ heat indicator right at the centre of its cookware. So does my wok, of course! It gives you the green light to start cooking on it, when it turns red.

I find this thermo-spot is perfect for any first-timer who does not really know when is the best time to start putting in oil or food to cook. Even as a seasoned cook like me (chuckling), I think it is still good to ensure the right temperature (by looking at the occurance of solid red of the spot on the wok/ pan) to start cooking my favourite dishes.


I love Tefal cookware such as wok (for sure), and frying pan in various sizes. Its superior non-stick interior makes it easy for cooking and very easy to clean up after use!

Do not use scrubs to clean this cookware. Normal sponge will do, as any residue of food e.g. burnt substance is never too difficult to be washed away using just the normal sponge with a little dish washing soap. Gently wash this non-stick cookware not only prevents scratches, it helps to retain its long lasting non-stick effect of the cookware.

My tips to you for first time use of this non-stick wok is to soak the wok/ pan with warm soupy water for just while, in order to clean the cookware thoroughly.

Dry the wok/ pan with clean towel, if it is wet or damp when heating it up on the stove. This is for you to save some energy/ gas.

If you have seen the funny tv commercial of Tefal, cooking sunny shide up egg is never been so easy with tefal frying pan. So as to cooking omelette! I like to use my Tefal wok for making omelete. It helps me to make my omelette to stay in perfect shape, with just one-time flipping!

One of the great advantages from this Tefal wok is to help you in saving cooking oil. Less or no oil is required to cook eggs, hot dog, or luncheon meat on Tefal wok/ pan, and you can still make the food tasty, and nice looking ones.

I got my Tefal wok at Tangs or NTUC Finest Supermarket. Always look out for discount/ promotion rates from these store, a 20% discount will be offered during GSS or some in-house promotion offer.

One point to note: If you were to go for promotional items, most of the frying pan/ wok will not come with the lid. However, the offer price is surprisely great. I bought 2 frying pans without lid (in 2 different sizes) at only S$19.90.

If you really need the wok lid like me, go for the regular item when it is on sale or get it at percentage discount if you have the membership of these particular stores. I have this new wok of mine from TAngs at 20% during sales season few months ago.

This 10" wok with lid sold at S$90.

Tips: Use wooden spatula on this non-stick wok to prevent scrathes on its surface.
* I like only the Tefal wok and frying pans. I used its rice cooker before, but don't really like it though.

Homemade Tang Yuan in Ginger flavoured Sweet Soup (姜汤手工汤圆)

"Hand made Glutinuous Rice Balls filled with loves for this festive celebration, Dongzhi Festival (冬至)"

Today is Dōngzhì Festival or you called it Chinese Winter Solstice Festival (in Chinese: 冬至). One of the important festive celebrations to Chinese. Chinese calls this celebration as Gua Dong (过冬). Normally 冬至 falls on 22nd December, but this year falls on 21st December instead.

The most essential festive food in 冬至 is Tang Yuan (汤圆) aka Glutinuous Rice Ball. 汤圆 symbolises reunion. Eating 汤圆 together with the family is the best celebration in this festival.

Nowadays, many ready-packed 汤圆 are available in supermarket all year long. It comes with ground peanut, sesame and sugar mixture to serve as dipping condiment. Just make the soup will do. It is convenient and suitable especially for young family who prefers convenience. However, we prefer to make 汤圆 by ourselves. For a home-cooked taste and greater satisfaction for such important celebration. It's also for fun, to my girl!

I make use of this day as family day making 汤圆 together with my girl. She enjoyed making it and we had happy and quality bonding time spent together. My girls learnt to share work with me. I guess it is important as her learning and development path, in my opinion (smilling).

To yield some good bonding sessions with your children and loves one, try this at home!

Serves 4 - 5
Ingredients
For the rice ball:
300 gram glutinuous rice flour (about 1 cup)
1 teaspoon of cherry red colour essence
½ cup of water

For soup:
3 slices of ginger
5 pandan leaves, washed and cut off dead edges, tie leaves into a knot/ bundle
1 lump of rock sugar or brown sugar (about palm size, adjust sweetness to your liking)
1 pot of water, 50% filled (about 1000ml)

Dipping:
Ground peanut mixture (peanut, white sesame and sugar)

Method
1) Place glutinuous rice flour in a clean large bowl. Put some water (in few stages) while kneating the flour into dough, which means mix the flour with a little bit of water, kneat and put a little bit of water again. Repeat the step till it becomes dough. The texture of the dough has to be smooth and a little sticky.

2) Split half the dough. Half of it to mix with red colour, while the other half remains white.

2) Take a small lump of dough, put on your palm and roll into bite-sized ball. Repeat step till all complete.

3) To add ground peanut into the rice ball as its filling: take a biggr lump of dough, put on your palm and roll into (size of fifty cents) ball. Then, kneat with finger tips to flatten the piece. Put half teaspoon of ground peanut at the centre of the dough, fold it half and kneat around the edge to seal it. Tenderly roll it into ball. Repeat step till desired amount of rice balls. Reserve rice balls for later.

4) Boil a pot of water over high heat. Place ginger slices and pandan leaf bundle into the boiling water. Add rock sugar. Bring broth into a boil again.

5) Place rice balls into the boiling broth. Wait till all rice balls rise to the surface of the broth, when cooked. Heat off and serve.

Tips: Colour of the 汤圆 depends on your liking. You may use any other colour, but Chinese prefers red colour as auspicious colour. Alternatively, mae pandan flavour. Pound or blend a bundle of pandan leaves, squeeze its juice, and mix the juice with the dough (to make Pandan flavour rice balls in green colour).
* To know if the rice balls are cooked: rices ball will float on the surface when cooked.

Dry Curry Pork

"Authentic Asian Flavours cooked instantly for Homesick Foreign Landers"

Dry curry means no gravy. It is a good choice as savoury filling of bread, tortilla wrap, naan and roti prata (I love it with steamed rice though :p). I prefer dry curry as the taste is stronger and more intensive to the palate. The curry texture is nott too wet on the rice, but enough to complement it.

Good to cook it if you intend to bring it out to friend's pot-luck party, picnic or as food gift to your relatives. No hassle and no worries that the gravy will spill while travelling.

This Asian flavour is definately a signatory dish to showcase in any function/ food party, especially if you stay in Western coutries. Don't be worried about getting the curry powder mixture, get an instant ready-mixed pack to cook it. The taste is as good and success rate is close to 100% (chuckling).

Serves 3 – 4
Ingredients
350 gram of shoulder butt pork, sliced
2 large potatoes, cut into wedges or bite-sized cubes
1 carrot, cut into cubes or bite-size lengthwise
1 packet of meat curry paste or curry powder, 100 gram (Baba's brand used in this recipe)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 shallots, minced
½ cup of coconut milk (about 100 gram)
Pinch of salt (about ½ teaspoon)
½ cup of water (about 100 - 150 gram)
1 tablespoon of cooking oil

Method
1) Heat wok with oil over high fire. Add shallot and garlic, stir-fry till fragrant. Reduce heat to medium fire, add in curry paste (or powder), and fry for 1 minute (be careful of the pungent smell).

2) Place in pork and stir-fry for 3 minutes. Add water by pouring around the edge of wok. Add in potatoes and carrots, and sprinkle salt. Stir-fry for another 2 minute to mix well all ingredients with the curry paste.

3) Simmer for 20 minutes, without lid on, or until gravy dries up. Add coconut milk, and stir fry for 3 minutes. Heat off, and serve.

It has root vegetables e.g. potatoes and even carrots, cooked together as 1-dish meal for express dinner cooking during your normal working days. Less than 1 hour to get this dish prepared. If you have more time to spare, try to marinate the pork with some curry power/ paste for 15 minutes. Mix 2 tablespoon of curry powder/ paste with the pork beforehand.

This dry curry pork dish counts about 350 kcal per serving.

Tips: Get the instant curry packet from any supermarket stores. Try to locate it at dry goods section. Alternately, get the meat curry mixes from India store in the wet market. The store seller will mix the necessary curry spices for you, when you tell her/ him that it is to be used for cooking dry curry pork (S$0.70 - S$1 worth of amount should be sufficient).

Roast Duck Rice Porridge

“Delicious roast duck rice porridge cooked with leftover duck meat”

My family likes to eat roast duck, so do I.

I always get roast whole duck from the store and packed home as dinner. Just need to cook rice and fry a dish of vegetables. That’s a complete sumptuous dinner meal for us. However, 3 of us cannot finish the whole duck, most of the time. Half duck portion is not enough for us and more expensive to get only half, while whole duck will be too much. However, I still go ahead to get one whole piece every time. Then, what do I do with the leftover duck? It is always a ‘motivation’ for me to get one whole duck right away, it’s the use of cooking duck porridge the following day!

When I got the whole duck chopped and packed home from the store, I will serve only the portion which enough for 3 of us and keep the excessive portion in the refrigerator. This so-called leftover portion will be used to cook porridge for the next dinner meal.

A regular portion of roast duck porridge (with skin) counts about 300 kcal. I’ll leave the choice of removing or retaining the skin to you. With skin, the porridge should taste better, but without the skin, your calorie count will drop by 50 – 80 kcal.

This roast duck porridge saves you from wastage of food. Not only that, the taste of such delicious roast duck porridge is way beyond what you could describe. The taste of roast duck emerges into the porridge, and makes it so yummy and flavoursome. As my personal preference, this way of making duck porridge is much better taste than using the raw duck meat. Both of my hubby and little one agreed. That’s the reason why we like to get big roast duck to eat with rice on the day, and then roast duck congee the following day!

Of course, it is not a must to use leftover duck. You can get or even roast a duck, and then, use it to cook porridge. I believe, the taste will be even greater that way!

It is also not necessary to add crabmeat sticks, try diced salted duck egg or shredded salted vegetables might be a better choice. I used crabmeat sticks for its bright redish colour, and my girl likes it!

Serves 2 – 3
Ingredients
1 cup of rice grain
1 bowl of “leftover” roast duck meat with skin intact, deboned and shredded (do not discard the piece bones, keep for later)
6 crabmeat sticks, cut into small pieces
2 medium eggs
1 teaspoon of light soy sauce
Pinch of salt and pepper
1 pot of water, 50% filled (about 1500ml)

Method
1) Rinse rice grain 1 to 2 times. Boil rice grain with a pot of water (water level 3 times more than cooking steamed rice) over high heat.

2) When water boiled, reduce heat to medium fire. Add duck bone and meat into the pot. Simmer for 30 minutes, or until water is reduced by half, and becoming porridge. Remove bones. Add in light soy sauce, salt and pepper, and stir well. Add shredded duck meat and crabmeat sticks. Reduce heat to low fire, and simmer for another 10 minutes.

3) Add eggs, let it simmer for 1 minutre before stirring briefly to mix the eggs with the porridge right before heat off. Serve hot.

My porridge wasn't really smooth and gluey, as I did not stir it constantly while boiling. I made it cooked more like a rice porridge (soft rice with excessive liquid) meal instead, this time. To make it a smooth congee, stir the rice grain constantly throughout the cooking once it's boiled.

Tips: Do not use tiny duck bone as you might have difficulty to remove from the porridge, after using it to boil and add flavour to the porridge. It’s not necessary to debone and shred the duck meat, if you have complete piece of meat and prefer to eat it that way.
* Use 2000ml of water instead of 1500ml for the congee, and stir continuously (and occasionally mash the softened rice grain) while simmering to achieve more watery and smoother consistency, if preferred.
* Do not dry up the water in the porridge. Leave it watery instead, as the porridge may absorbs the water completely and leaves it too dry for the palate. Add water if its liquid is going to dry up when simmering.

Non-Spicy "Szechuan Hot & Sour" Soup

"Non-spicy version for small children"

Szechuan Hot & Sour Soup, tasty and fulfilling soup dish. All of us like it, but it's spicy as Hot & Sour Soup added with some chili oil and paste. My girl likes the Hot & Sour Soup, and she takes the spicy one. However, younger children or toddlers may not be advisable to take spicy dish as thier stomach is not strong enough to take it.

Hence, I have a version of non-spicy Hot & Sour Soup here for the children. Ingredients and method of making it is almost same as the spicy Hot & Sour Soup, just without adding the chili oil or chili paste, that's all.

Serves 4
Ingredients
6 cups of chicken stock/ broth
1 cup of dried tree ear fungus aka cloud ear fungus (Chinese translation: 黑木耳), julienned or diced
1 cup of bamboo shoots, julienned
1 cup of dried shiitake mushroom, soaked and julienned
200 gram pork shoulder part, julienned
1 cup of white bean curd aka tofu, julienned
2 large eggs

3 tablespoon of white vinegar
2 tablespoon of Zhejiang black vinegar (Chinese translation: 浙江黑醋)
1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Sprinkle of salt and white pepper

½ cup cornstarch slurry (water and 2 tablespoon of cornstarch mixes)

Garnish:
Sprinkle of white ground pepper
Parsley, brunoised
1 teaspoon of black vinegar (Optional)


Method
1) Put chicken stock in a pot. Bring stock to boil over high heat. Add meat, shiitake mushroom, bamboo shoots, cloud ear fungus. Reduce fire to low heat, and simmer for 20 min.

2) Add in white vinegar, black vinegar, lemon juice, sesame oil, and sprinkle salt and pepper. Stir well, and simmer for another 10 min.

3) Stir in cornstarch slurry till consistency is slightly thicken.

4) Break eggs in a bowl, briefly beat with serving fork (beat no more than 5 strokes). Slowly swirl eggs into the soup (in few stages). Stir constantly till egg-drop forms strips. Add tofu, and simmer for 1 min. Heat off, and garnish with some black vinegar, if more sourish taste preferred. Serve hot.

Fresh Prawn Dumpling (鲜虾水饺)

"Make happy dumpling with your happy children at home!"

I like to make either wanton or dumpling as one of the soup dish for dinner. Full with meat and prawn in each dumpling. Usually, I make the dumpling for the family by my own. Now, I have much help and joy to make this dumpling dish, with my little girl.

We made this dumpling dish together, with my mum and my girl. First, place 1 spoon of meat mixture in the centre of the dumpling skin. Add 1 prawn, and wet finger tips with some water and wipe around the edge of the skin.

Just fold the dumpling by half.

Use finger tips to lightly pinch the edge of the skin to make it stick. With a little help of the water at the edge of the skin, the dumpling will be sealed tightly.

My girl loves the fried ones. So, I always make fried dumpling instead of the soup one. She loves to eat my dumpling, and also, loves to help to make the dumpling!

I was so happy that my girl likes to help me, and helped for making a good dinner for all of us. She is indeed rendering big help, nowadays, when come to preparing food.

This time, not only for her own fun, she did a good job in helping me to prepare this dish. Neat and nice dumpling making makes this dinner meal hearty and happy one!

Simple dish, but many steps to make the filling. However, it's not difficult to do it! Even a 7 yrs old kid is able to do it good. Make this as one of your family day program, and you will sure have fun out of it!

Serves 5
Ingredients
1 packet of vacuum-packed dumpling skin (round-shaped)

Filling:
300 gram of minced pork meat
2 water chestnut, finely diced
Minimal amount of spring onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of light soy sauce
1 teaspoon of white sesame oil
Pinch of salt and white ground pepper
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
1 cup of shrimp, shelled (about 12 - 15 pcs)

To fry the dumpling: (Fried dumpling 炸水饺)
1 cup of cooking oil

OR

To make soup base: (Dumpling soup 水饺汤)
1 cup of soy bean, pre-soaked, for at least an hour
1 chicken stock cube
1 pot of water, 70% filled (about 1000ml)
Another pot of water (to pre-boil dumpling)

Method
1) Briefly chop minced pork, water chestnut and chopped parsley to combine well. Place ingredients in a large bowl, add in light soy sauce, salt, pepper, sesame oil and cornstarch. Mix all ingredients well.

2) Wrap the meat mixture with 1 sheet of round dumpling skin: Place 1 tablespoon of pork mixture in the center of the dumpling skin. Add 1 prawn before wrapping it, with 'tip' of water around the edge of dumpling skin in order to make it stick.

To fry:
1) Heat wok with oil over high fire. When oil is heated, add pinch of salt to the oil. Reduce heat to medium fire. Place no more than 5 dumplings at a time in the wok, and fry till golden brown. Drain fried dumplings on kitchen towel. Serve.

To make soup:
1) Boil a pot of water, put the dumppling and boil till cooked. Set aside.

2) Boil another pot of water over high heat. When water boiled, put soy bean and chicken stock cube. Reduce fire to simmer for an hour, or until bean is cooked and soften.

3) Place cooked dumplings into the soup right before heat off. Serve hot.

Basic Homemade Pancake

"Simple pancake you can make at home, for hearty breakfast or tea time snacking."
Ray, one of my blog reader, requested for a pan cake recipe about 1 month+ back. I promised to write my pancake recipe for him, and I delayed it till now (sobbing). "So sorry, Ray. It's not that I don't have time to do it or due to complication of this recipe, it's just because I did not really feel like having pancake during my diet period (Pancake is higher in carbohydrate)." However, I had it this morning! It was raining this morning, ran out of ready breakfast food at home, and I have much peanut butter left in the refrigerator going to expire in one month time, and thus, I made pan cake with making use of peanut butter as its filling (chuckling)!

This is a basic pancake recipe with most basic taste. Thus, eating it plain might not be as nice as putting some sweet savoury filling such as jam, peanut butter, honey, chocolate syrup, and etc. However, with its simplicity in the steps of making such pancake, your success rate of making this pancake nice is almost 100%!

Your children will definately love it, especially eat it with Nutella (chocolate & hazel nut cream paste)! My girl loves the Nutella filling, and even cheese! Just top it with a slice of Cheddar cheese, she could have at least 2 pancake at one go! Whatever you like, wide variety of savoury fillings are available to complement your homemade pancake!

In any case, if you wish to just eat it plain, I'll suggest you adding more egg yolks and flavouring agents, for instances, vanilla essence, pandan leave (or juice), orange juice, and etc. If eating it as tea time during sunny day, served it with ice-cream!

Best for the kids is, to have this pancake served with some fruits e.g. banana slices, strawberries and blueberries. With the presence of some fresh fruits, this pancake meal will be added with much more nutritional values, for both the adults and children.

To make this pancake, and keep it simple, no machine or pancake maker is required.. Use just the frying pan to cook it. Make small round English pancake (use self-raising flour) or a large thin sheet of pancake as French crêpes (use plain flour). However, if you have a pocket sandwich toaster, make use of it! I made with both frying pan and pocket sandwich toaster, just to show you the difference in shape. The ingredients used in both of these pancakes shown were the same as below:

Serves 2 - 3
Ingredients
For Pancake Batter:
5 spoonful of all-purpose (plain) flour, sieved
½ teaspoon of baking powder
1 egg
1 cup low-fat milk (Choose full cream milk for children, as desired)
1 tablespoon melted butter
Pinch of salt

For Sweet & Savoury Filling (as your choice):
2 tablespoon of peanut butter with chocolate paste
1 tablespoon of condensed milk

Method

1) To make batter: In a large bowl, place sieved plain flour, baking powder, and salt together. In separate bowl, break egg, and add milk and butter, combine well. Add egg mixture to the flour mixture, stir and mix well till smooth consistency created.

2) To cook with frying pan: Heat a frying pan over medium fire. Grease frying pan with drops of olive oil or butter. Ladle a small scoop of batter onto hot surface, and spread to form a thin layer circle (about ¼ thickness).

3) Cook until light brown on one side, and flip to the other side to brown it. Serve with filling of your choice.

4) To cook with pocket sandwich toaster or pancake maker: Simple pour the batter onto the toaster or maker (90% filled). Toast with designated timer. Ready to serve once time ups, and surface of pancake turns light brown.

Tips: When cook with frying pan, flip pancake at right point. When there are some bubbles rise on the uncooked side of pancake, it tells you that it is ready to be flipped.
* Light golden brown colour appears on the surface of pancake is good enough. Do not overcook it.

Chinese Seaweed Soup

"House Specialty Seaweed Soup You'll Never Missed"

Seaweed is known to be healthy food which contains lots of vitamins and minerals benificial to both adults and children. Moreover, it's a good culinary ingredient. Many of us like to have seaweed in the soup when eating "Yong Tau Foo (Assorted vegetable with fish paste stuffing) meal. I have another recipe of seaweed soup besides having it with Yong Tau Foo here. Very simple, and yet tasty soup!

You may get dried seaweed from various grocery shops in neighbourhood, or supermarkets (dried food section). Most of these seaweeds were dried and formed into large sheet of round or square shape, sold by packet. This dried seaweed sheet looks black in colour when in large sheet, but in fact, it is dark greenish colour in individual strips. Unlike those Japanese or Korean seaweeds in thin greenish sheets which good for instant consumption, this kind of dried black seaweed needs to be cooked before consuming it. After cooked, the hard and crispy seaweed pieces will turn into soft and tender texture, disintegrated in the soup.

Seaweed counts extremely low calorie (about 30 kcal). So, this soup dish counts less than 150 kcal for a portion of regular bowl. However, to make this soup even better taste, I fried the seaweed pieces before putting into the soup. This type of dried seaweed absorbs oil surprisingly fast, and hence, it has added with 50 kcal more calories. To fry it or not, I'll leave the choice to you.

Just give it a try!

Serves 4
Ingredients
1 large sheet of dried seaweed, break/ cut into smaller pieces (amount used depends on your preference)
8 fishballs
300 gram of lean pork meat (about one palm size), thinly sliced or julienned
2 medium eggs
1 chicken stock cube (Chinese translation: 鸡精块)
Pinch of salt and ground white pepper
1 pot of water, 50% filled (about 1500ml)

To season lean meat slices:
1 tablespoon of light soy sauce
5 tablespoon of corn starch (to coat the meat slices)

To garnish:
1 tablespoon of Zhejiang black vinegar (Chinese translation: 浙江黑醋)

Optional:
2 tablespoon of cooking oil (to fry seaweed pieces into crisps, and reserve for later)

Method
1) Season pork meat slices with light soy sauce, for about 15 min. Set aside. Bring a pot of water to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium fire, and add chicken stock cube into the boiling water.

2) When stock cube immerges into boiling water, add in fish balls. Coat meat slices with corn starch. Make sure all sides of meat are well-coated. Add in the coated meat slices.

3) Reduce heat to low fire, and simmer for 30 minutes, or until meat slices are tender. Add in seaweeds, and simmer for another 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper, and stir well.

4) Break eggs in a bowl, briefly beat with serving fork (beat no more than 4 strokes). Set aside. Then, return to the soup, increase heat to medium-high fire. When the soup starts boiling, bring the beaten eggs back, and slowly swirl eggs into the soup (in few stages). Stir constantly till egg-drop forms strips. Heat off. Garnish with black vinegar and serve hot.

Tips: Use fork or soup ladle to break up the seaweed in the soup, if it is difficult to scope into serving bowl when serve.
* The purpose to coat meat slices is to have smoother consistency of meat in the palate. It gives very smooth, tender and kinda chewy bite of the meat instead of dry and coarse feeling. The meat will taste much better with corn starch or flour coating.
* Garnish the soup with some black vinegar gives you a pleasant sourish taste in the soup which will increase your appetite and add frangrance into your palate. This seaweed soup will be so much tastier, with just a few drops of Zhejiang black vinegar. In any case, if you decided to forgo the vinegar, add a little bit more salt to taste. Otherwise, the soup might taste a little too bland.

Layer Cake (千层糕)

" Thousand Layer Cake which you can even make at home"

Layer cake is an expensive cake to purchase at bakery, especially at those renowned bakeries such as bengawan solo and etc. One layer cake costs about $18 to $25. Actually the high price of this layer cake, not just for its taste, but also the effort of making such cake. It's time consuming as it's baked layer by layer.

I got the recipe from one magazine, and tried it!

The ingredients I used here are not something hard to obtain, method is simple, too. Just that, more time and attention will be needed to get it done. Perhaps I was lack of patience for first trial, my cake layers were much thicker than it supposed to be (sobbing)!! The layers were uneven, too. :( ~ But, but... the taste is good though (chuckling)!

Give it a try, with more patience and details to it. You can make it better! Check it out:

Serves 6 - 8
Ingredients
15 medium eggs (8 whole eggs: use both egg yolk and egg white, but separate the white and yolk in two different bowls; Another 7 eggs: only white will be used.)
340gm butter
340gm castor sugar
225gm cake flour, sieved
5 tablespoons of condense milk
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1 baking tray (size 8 x 8 x 2 inches)

Method
1) Mix butter and vanilla essence in a mixing bowl, whisk until light and fluffy.

2) Place egg white (of all 15 eggs) and baking power in another mixing bowl, and whisk on maximum speed until the mixture is thicken and firm (till fluffy and adhere onto upturned spoon).

3) Add in sugar, bit by bit, and continue whisking till finish. Add in condense milk. Continue whisking.

4) Add egg yolks, one at a time (total 8 yolks), whisk well after each addition of yolk till completed.

5) Fold the egg mixture into the fluffy butter. Mix well.

6) Add in sieved flour till all well combined.

7) Line the baking tray with non-grease paper and grease it with butter.

8) Using a large scoop, pour in 2 scoops of the cake mixture and spread it evenly on the baking tray. Bake it in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 5 - 7 minutes.

9) Once the layer turns golden brown, remove it from the oven, using the back of a spoon, gently press to even out the layer.

10) Repeat steps 8 and 9 till cake mixture is completed. Slice into smaller pieces when cool. Serve.

Tips: You may wish to add prune into the layer cake. Use 200gm of prune halves. Place them in alternate arrangement.
* Increase 2 more minutes baking time for each layer if the surface of layers hasn't turned golden brown.
* Use both the top and bottom heat, but you may place the baking tray at the upper level of the oven to have your cake baked more at the top and not so heated at the bottom.

My CORNING VISIONS Cookingware

"Glass pots from VISIONS, I love it!"

Corningware from VISIONS has always been my favourite cookware.
I love its elegant look, beautiful colour, and durability of the glass itself.

The glass pots from VISIONS come in various sizes, but the design/ look and colour are always the same. This makes VISIONS glass pots outstanding and recognisable from its branding.

I have been using VISIONS glass cookware from to cook my daily meals for more than 5 years. These 3 pots are my second set are newly bought last month since the 2 pots from first set were old already...

No worries though, it is not due to crack or any unusable reason. It is ME that like to use new things especially kitchenwares, once in a while (winking smile).

The very first set I had came with 2 different sizes pots - 1 medium and 1 big ones. This second set of pots comes in 3 different sizes. Big, medium and small. The pots from first set was more deep (taller in height) while second set comes in broader in term of width.

I use the largest stew pot for boiling herbal tea and cooking mee hoon kueh or dishes which needed plenty of soup/ gravy. Medium pot for most soup and dessert recipes while smallest pot will be used for cooking instant noodles for 2, sometimes.

Why do I prefer VISIONS? Hmm.... Actually SIMPLYLITE is quite a good choice, too. I like the all white and French white designed glasswares. The Floral printed or patterned CORELLE glasswares are not my choice, as I personally find it looks a little bit "aunty" (old fashioned). However, all these glasswares are in white colour without see-through.

I prefer cookingware which can see through! PYREX is good, but again, don't fancy the total clear white appeal.

I prefer VISIONS lemon yellow see-through version. Its elegant appeal attracts me alot indeed.

Visions cookware comes with 10-year warranty.

Durable, versatile, and beautiful cookware from VISIONS makes me felt in love with cooking. If you are thinking of buying it, try to look for one on sale. They will be on discount on some festives sales and/ or yearly sale period such as Christmas, Singapore Year-end sale and etc. I bought mine from Tangs Singapore with 20% discount during their in-house sales period.

Sometimes, NTUC Fairprice will extend 20% discount on the sets during thier product promotion offer. Check out the NTUC Finest (Thomson Plaza has one) which I used to get my set from there, too.

A set of 2 to 3 glass pots costs about S$100 to $150 (regular price).

Stir Fried French Beans with Prawns

French bean isn't long bean, eventhough their colours and shapes are similar, but the length and texture of these beans are in great difference. Frence bean is much shorter than long bean, and french bean tastes more crunchy while long bean is softer than the other, after cooked. French bean looks smoother and thicker on its skin while long bean looks more 'wrinkled' and thiner than the other.

I love both beans, but for different kind of cooking and recipes. I like to cook long bean with either sambal chili, or chop and mix it in the eggs to make an omelette with long beans. As for french bean, my favourite recipe, of course, is this one!

Simple & fast cooking method with great taste!

Serve 4
Ingredients
Handful of french beans, trimmed and cut into 2" long, crosswise
4 large fish balls, sliced
8 - 10 medium prawn, shelled, cut a deep slit and devained
1 teaspoon of light soy sauce (to season the prawns)
1 teaspoon of Hua Diao rice wine (花雕酒)
Pinch of salt and pepper
Sprinkles of sugar (much less than ½ teaspoon)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
⅓ small cup of water

Method
1) Season prawns with light soy sauce for at least 10 minutes. Set aside. Heat wok with oil over medium-high fire. Add garlic, and stir-fry for 1 minute till fragrant.

2) Place french beans into wok, and add water to create sizzling effect. Sprinkle sugar, and stir-fry for 3 minutes, or until french beans turn from light green to bright dark green in colour.

3) Add in sliced fish balls, and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add salt and pepper, mix well with the ingredients. Reduce heat to medium-low fire. Cover wok with lid to simmer the ingredients for 1-2 minutes.

4) Add prawns, and sprinkle Hua Diao rice wine. Stir-fry for 3 minutes till prawns are pinked and lightly curled. Heat off, and serve.

With less than 15 minutes preparation and cooking time, you will get this healthy and tasty vegetables dish served for your dinner.

This french bean dish counts less than 150 kcal for a decent portion. You may considered it as low-fat dish, but moderate in nutrients since it has the greens and two kinds of meat/ seafood.

Tips: Simmer the french beans for a couple of minutes if you find the french beans are still too raw (if you wish to totally eliminate the greenish taste), but do not over cook the french beans till too 'old' (soft). To retain slight crunchiness of the french beans gives better taste and texture in the palate.
* Sprinkle some sugar when first added french bean in the wok to enhance its bright green colour.