Dry Cooked String Beans 干煸四季豆

It’s about fire. It’s about the wok. You can’t be afraid of high heat and cook this dish.

I tried to follow the recipe as much as possible with the cook book except that I switched the amount for dried shrimp and meat. It wasn’t much like what I’ve eaten in Sichuan restaurants in Malaysia. They tend to make it spicy and tie the whole dish together with cornstarch.

But this version from this book is absolutely dry.

Fish Head Casserole

My mom shoved me this fish head. Simply because she bought one whole big fish, had the fishmonger to cut them into steaks and she didn’t know what to do with the head.

Well, haha, it’s not hard for me to find a way to cook it. I just flipped the cookbook she passed to me. There it is, almost at the end of this book is the “Fish head casserole”.

Shredded Egg Ball 金丝球 - Balls #2

Chinese New Year is coming soon. Haha, Christmas isn't over yet.
This dish taste pretty good and it feels like eating dimsum. You can prepare the egg balls earlier and steam it or just reheat when it's almost dinner time.

I think I bought the wrong vegetable for garnish. Everything looks too shreddy. I think baby bokchoy or nai-bak will look better. I only realised that when I plated it. But oh well... can't do anything about it. Just went ahead.

Orange Cream Cake - Orange #3

This recipe is from one of my cookbooks that I have to use with caution.
I like the idea of this cake and wondering how will the taste be like... with that amount of cornstarch.

Actually I used a combination of meyer lemons and orange for this cake. The meyer lemons had been with me for a very very long time and I am soooo sorry Alan, LOL. I finally used them up in this cake. I do find meyer lemons to taste similar to a sourish orange, that's why I combined them. The original recipe used orange only.

Oyster Sauce Chicken Wings 蚝油鸡翼

A lot of people asked me, how did I know so many things about cooking at a young age (back then in my early teens). It was through reading the only cookbook that my mom has, the Wei Chuan cookbook. This book provided basic Chinese cuisine knowledge explaining all the cooking terms and the name of the ingredients in English. I can't read much Chinese so, this book was good for me.

As a kid, I loved flipping through the pages and during that time, my favourite part of the chicken is the wing, the middle wing to be exact. Because it has lots of skin and the texture is soft and nice. The picture of this dish is one of my favorites from the book. Glimmering wings.... beautiful. Took me almost 28 years to finally cook it.

Whipped Cream Cake - Bundts #3

The cake looked soooooo short!! Maybe shorter than what I expected.

I wonder where did I go wrong. My pan was a 12 cup pan, recipe called for 10 cup pan,  just that 2 cup difference, but it looked really short, haha, probably I should find myself a tall slim pan. Malaysia has a pathetic selection of bundt pans. Unless I buy those that cost me 3 digits in upmarket areas. I'm too stingy for that.

And it so happened that Lena also baked the same cake (go see hers), and today we are posting it together.
And we are both using the same pan and have the same short cake, haha!
So, I blame it on the pan.

Belanda Hu~ Threadfin with Aromatic Tamarind Gravy- MFF Penang #7

When I saw this recipe... by the looks of it... rather dull, rather boring.
The picture in the book was all beige.... beige only. I can't even see the chilli
But after tasting it.. nooooooooo, it's not.

How often we are taken just with looks, right?

The name.... I curious, how does this fish relate to the Dutch? Belanda is Dutch in Malay. And Hu is fish in Hokkien. Fusioned name :)

Penang Nyonya Hong Bak (Braised Pork with Aromatic Spices) - MFF Penang #6

Hong Bak is a dish common among the Hokkiens. Somehow I do get confused with the Hokkien's version of Tau Yew Bak and Hong Bak, what's the difference? Please let me know because they do look similar to me. Hope to learn more :)

From what I know the East Coast Chinese descendants in Kelantan and Terengganu makes another version and they combine pork with chicken and the ingredients are different too.

Braised Tofu with Mushrooms - Pressed Tofu #3

The day after I cooked this dish, I got some feedback from my BIL via my MIL.
“Yesterday’s dinner was the best”.
I was very surprised.

That night I cooked a simple stir fried cos lettuce with garlic, this braised tofu with mushrooms and clams in broth (a modified version). He didn’t touch the clams as he is trying to avoid foods that may trigger pimples. So, all he ate was this tofu and the lettuce.

Wok Messed Tofu 涡塌豆腐- Pressed Tofu #1

涡塌豆腐Wo Tart Dau Foo
The “tart” here is the same as in “一塌糊涂 Yat Tart Woo Tou” which means “in a complete mess”, “In utter disorder”.

So how come this tofu is given this name?
It doesn’t look messed up, does it?

Actually, the tofu is slightly messed up.

Lemon Curd - Lemon #2

Whenever I make buttercream, I tend to have yolks left. This is a good option to clear off the yolks.

My hubby's relatives from Australia brought us some homegrown lemons, and so, they are organic and wax free. So happy!!! So, with the extra yolks that I have, what am I waiting for, hehehe, make lemon curd!!

Strawberry Meringue Baskets - Strawberry #3

I made this sometime ago because I happened to have a tub of greek yogurt. Ipoh's latest shopping center Aeon Station 18 has opened not too long ago and on my first visit, I saw a new range of products brought into Ipoh city :) Finally greek yogurt has arrived.

I've been visually attracted to this meringue basket sometime ago... and it was supposely to be filled with whipped cream and topped with strawberries. I decided to borrow that concept and use greek yogurt and fill it with strawberries too, rather than just on top. And add some texture and flavour contrast with a chocolate ganache as sauce.

Kiwi Buttermilk Pancakes - Pancakes #1

I saw the use of kiwi in buttermilk pancakes in a local women’s magazine, but I didn’t note down the recipe, but I knew it used buttermilk. It was very pretty.

I have never used buttermilk before this. I mean buttermilk from the carton. The cultured buttermilk that I’ve got looked like watered down yogurt. If you add lemon juice/vinegar to milk, that is not buttermilk but soured milk. It can give you similar results, but not as good

Pang Susi - MFF Melaka #2

This bun is called pang susi, bun Susie, pan susie…. no matter how it's spelt, it's a special bun from the Kristang community in Melaka. No, there's no girl inside this bun, not a girl named Susie. The inside is a sweetish spiced minced pork filling wrapped with sweet potato dough.

Chocolate Raspberry Cake - Rasps Whole Cakes #3




  This was the first birthday cake that I made for ME. My birthday was months ago, more than half year ago... as you all know, I post very slowly.

Personally I felt awkward making a cake for myself. But it's because my kids now understand that birthdays are something special for a person, then I can have my own cake and blow it too. I can't wait for the day when my kids will bake me my cake because no one will buy me one ... get it? LOL.

Crispy Mashed Tofu 脆口豆腐 - Tofu # 3

I first ate this tofu about 20 years back. It was popular back then.
Nowadays, I don’t see many restaurants serving this anymore.

There was a short period of time when few young men started a “Tai Chau 大炒’ eatery few doors away from my mom's shop. One of the guys was the son of our long term customer, Ah Sor 阿傻 (nickname meaning Silly Man, or Mad Guy), who has become a family friend. One day my mom just casually asked him how to make this crispy tofu, he apologized that he can’t teach her, but he can make her some.

Buttery Dinner Rolls - Plain Rolls # 3

This is a Peter Reinhart’s recipe, found in the book Baker’s Dozen. This book has very very few pictures and most of those that I have attempted are those with pictures. I guess pictures do play a very important role whether or not we want to read through the recipe, moreover try it out.

Apple, Carrot and Orange Coleslaw - Salad Week # 3

Recipe tried out in August 2011

This is another beautiful recipe from my white elephant.

Coleslaws or affectionately called as 'slaw'. It's basically a raw cabbage salad. The most common is found in KFC, the whitish cabbage mush served with your favourite fried chicken. My FIL who doesn't eat vegetables eats coleslaw.

Coffee Chiffonlets with Dulce De Leche Whipped Cream - DDL Week # 3

Recipe tried out in July 2011

Another post with the DDL that my brother brought back from Brazil.
SSB or Min, does this qualify for the cupcake month for Aspiring Bakers?

The cake in the book looked very pretty. I don't have any mini tube pans or anything like such. I only have lots of disposable aluminium muffin casings that I am dreading to finish up. So I used this in place of mini tube pans and made 12 cupcake sized chiffonlets ;p

Torta Dulce de Las Tres Leches - DDL Week # 1

Recipe tried out in March 2011.

Long fancy name huh, LOL. Simplified, translated it's a 3 milk cake with Dulce De Leche. Refer here if you want to make your own DDL.

I modified the recipe from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. I love the idea of a sponge soaked in milk, muahahahaha! So so sinful. Usually this cake is soaked with evaporated, fresh and condensed milk. But Rose's version ditched the evaporated milk and used cream. I love cream!!!! And I on ther other hand ditched the condensed milk and used DDL. Muahahahahah! I think by now non dairy lovers would have scrammed from my blog.