Mushrooms & Pea Sprouts Stir-Fry

by PatriCa BB 雪冰

“It’s just the abalone sauce you need in your stir fry!”

In order to fully appreciate the freshest taste and natural sweetness Of the fresh pea sprouts as well as the highly nutritious mushrooms, minimal use of condiment to taste is more than just required. I needed only the abalone sauce in my recipe.

If you are a vegetarian, use the mushroom sauce. Otherwise, the Abalone sauce is the best to go with this stir fry! That’s because the golden spring mushroom (金源菇) used in this recipe yields a tinge of ‘seafood’ taste after cooked. Hence, adding abalone sauce was sure to good in enhancing the flavor of this seafood-tasted mushroom in the dish. More

3-in-1 Miso Dish

by PatriCa BB 雪冰

“New Easy & Nutritious Dinner Dish”

Instant idea to come out with the dish. I had a big portion of Salmon fillet leftover from my son’s cooking as he took only a slice out of the whole fillet for his porridge dinner.

Was pondering a question of cooking our all-time favorite Teriyaki Salmon or not, I had decided to do a new 3-in-1 dish this time. Yea, I always associate Salmon fish with Japanese cuisine naturally, I would not skip in this creation, too. Haha. Use miso paste as the base of the gravy to the dish, I think any dish creation would just never go wrong. :) More

Fried French Bean & Dried Shrimps (虾米四季豆）

by PatriCa BB 雪冰


“Delicious home-priced restaurant dish”

This is a vegetable dish which I loved most. We always eat this whenever dining out in a particular “Zhi Char” stall (Local Chinese stir-fry stall) nearby. They cooked it really simple and nice, especially the crispy dried shrimps, it really does complement the steamed rice so greatly! However, paying S$8 each time for my regular ordering of this simple French bean with just the dried shrimps, I did feel the ouch… Hence….. Needless to say, I tasted, and tried cooking it at home, of course.

Simply head to the supermarket, get packet of French bean (S$1.50) and a handful of dried mini shrimps (S$0.20), you are now ready to cook a simple and delicious dish at home on your own! More

Kangkung, water spinach, water convolvulus

Stir Fried Kangkong with Fermented Bean Curd Cubes (腐乳炒通菜)

by PatriCa BB 雪冰


“Kangkong, in a ‘Hong Kong’ way”

While Sambal Belacan Kangkong is a popular vegetable dish in Singapore and Malaysia, this Kangkong with fermented bean curd is pretty common in Hong Kong.

As you know, I am a die hard fan of Hong Kong (and its food!), I will not miss eating and cooking some of these signature Hong Kong household dishes by my own. More

Achar Pickles

Homemade Achar (Asian Pickled Vegetables)

by PatriCa BB 雪冰
“Achar, the best side dish for me!”

Helloooooo… Long time no post and hope you miss me (chuckles). I promised one of my readers who requested Achar recipe on my FaceBook to post the recipe for her soon. And, I hope this doesn’t come too late for her liking. :) Achar is known to be a Nyonya dish, but well-liked by many other Asian dialects, too. This is an Asian-style pickled vegetables dish which tastes sweet and sourish with a little bit of spicy flavour in it. Achar goes so well with plain porridge, rice, nasi lemak, fried bee hoon, or even to be eaten on its own!

Blanch and Squeeze dry the vegetables till really dry. Simply pat dry the pineapples.

Cooking Achar is simple, but the preparation is not so. It involves many steps, from making the seasoning paste (rempah) till cooking the dish… Preparation usually takes up to 1 hour while cooking the dish takes only 5 minutes to complete. As for my version of Achar, I’ve added my open-secret trick to this recipe, the blanching of vegetables including cucumber. Many recipes used just the raw vegetables and they find it taste equally great, but I prefer the additional blanching step (but of course a MUST to squeeze-dry them after that). To me (taught by my mum), the blanching is an important step to retain the crunchiness of the vegetables for even longer time! The standing procedure of the dish is also essential in making the Achar. It is best to store the Achar for more than a day (in the refrigerator) before consumption. This is to ensure the spice flavouring has been fully sponge-in by the vegetables.

Sound complicated? But seriously, it’s worth all the effort! More

Claypot Chicken & Eggplant Stew (惹味茄子鸡煲)

Alluring Claypot Chicken & Eggplant Stew (惹味茄子鸡煲)

by PatriCa BB 雪冰

“It might sound familiar to you, but this is my new dish.”

I was so excited when had the first taste of it as I was unsure how the taste would be, actually. This is an entirely new dish which I have created and cooked just last night, I considered it as a success by the fact that the entire dish including the gravy was entirely wiped up. Mum kept praising and describing to me how flavorful the dish was, and even gave me idea to adapt the same recipe for tofu stew. Not just them, I had extra rice to go with this dish, too. :)

As usual, this is simple and fuss free to cook. If you need a flavorful dish to whet your appetite, cook this. :) More

Cabbage Roll

Chinese (Napa) Cabbage Roll (如意白菜卷)

by PatriCa BB 雪冰

“Simple 3-in-1 Festive Dish, as simple as 1.2.3”

Fish, shrimps, crabs, pork knuckle and poultry are important food symbols during the Spring Festival. However, we cannot omit the importance of having greens during such festive celebrations, especially in this modern society. Having too much meaty and seafood stuff, in addition to sweet beverages and alcohol, it might not be as abundant as we think we would received in the end of the day, if we do not take the right balance in our diet. :) Besides, vegetables do play an important role in symbolizing closeness (in relationship) and vitality to life. ‘Closeness’ (亲 ‘qing‘) has the similar pronunciation as ‘Green’ (青 ‘qing‘) in Mandarin. Lettuce, as 生菜 ‘sheng cai’, in Chinese，the first character, ‘生’, has often been related with the character ‘生’ in 生气, the flow of vitality to life. It also symbolizes money making, 生财 ‘sheng cai’. So, how can we omit having vegetables here?

Well, I have used Napa cabbage in my recipe. Napa cabbage, be a symbol of gratifying and satisfactory. The auspiciousness has been elevated to its fullness, with the stuffed filling in these Napa cabbage rolls. This way, you won’t end up eating solely vegetables or meat. You’ll have the best of both worlds, three indeed (plus the prawn meat in the stuffing, too). Don’t forget, it’s steamed!: D More

Fried Bitter Gourd & Fish Balls Soup

Fried Bitter Gourd & Fish Balls Soup

by PatriCa BB 雪冰

“Special fried bitter gourd soup. Try it and you will know how great it is.”

Yeah, just the bitter gourd and fish balls, this soup relies on these ingredients for a last-minute explosion of its natural flavours. Simple, simple, simple. It’s all about simplicity, just like my principal concept of managing things. Simply, but never tolerate on the essentiality in nutritional values. I thought vegetables and fish balls are good enough to make up a vegetable-and-protein dish. Moreover, it’s boiled in soup.

Low-fat, healthy and, it was delicious, but…. yet, not ‘so’ low-fat. Why? In order to make the bitter gourd more flavourful and easy to drink in soup (to make the soup taste more robust and not-so-bitter), I pan-fried the bitter gourd. Yes, extra oil has been loaded on with the additional step here. However, these fried bitter gourds did make the soup much more flavourful, on the other hand… We really liked it alot! More