Purple Carrot Soup

I spotted the purple carrot during my grocery shopping. It was imported from Australia. Thinking of giving it a try on my home cooked dish, so I bought a packet of 2. 

This is what I cooked the purple carrot into. The purple carrot soup with lean pork slices, onion and garlic. The kids are inspired by mummy's magic purple soup.They poured the soup into white rice to make their magic purple rice. Kids, it's not magic, but it's the Iodine. 

Purple Carrot Soup (Serves 4)

Magic Cooker Recipe

Ingredients:

1 purple carrot, peeled and cut into cubes
1200ml water
100gm lean pork slices
1 onion, peeled and quartered
5 cloves of garlic
half tsp of white pepper, mashed

Seasonings:
Sea salt and light soy sauce to taste

Seasonings:
Sea salt and light soy sauce to taste

Method:
1. Bring the water to boil in the internal magic cooker pot.
2. Add all the ingredient and leave it simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Put the pot into magic cooker. Leave it for 2 hours.
4. Remove the pot from the magic cooker, and heat it up on the stove.
5. Add seasonings to taste and it's ready for serving.

Bak Kut Teh (Pork Ribs Tea Soup) in Philips Pressure Cooker

Philips Electric Pressure Cooker is a good kitchen helper. It is definitely helpful in terms of shortening meal preparation time. This round, I’m cooking my version of pork ribs soup. Just put in all the ingredients, and when cooking is done, just serve it with blanched enoki mushroom and Romaine lettuce. Enjoy!

Bak Kut Teh （Pork Ribs Tea Soup)

Cooked in Philips Electric Pressure Cooker

Serves 5-6

Ingredients:

450gm of pork ribs, chopped into pieces
250gm of pork belly, cut into bite size
20 meatballs
6 caps of dried shiitake mushroom, dehydrated and stalk removed
200gm of enoki mushroom, cut-off the bottom part and cleaned
3 bulbs of garlic, cleaned, leave the skin on
40gm of bak kut teh spices mix (I use a packet of "Claypot" brand Bakuteh Kau)
Romaine lettuce 
1 liter water

Seasonings:

1 tbsp of oyster sauce
1/2 tsp of dark soy sauce (for coloring)
light soy sauce to taste

Dipping Sauce (Mix-up all):

3-5 cloves of chopped garlic
a handful bird's eye chili, chopped
1 tsp of dark soy sauce
light soy sauce to cover the chopped garlic and chili
juice of 2-3 calamansi

Steps:

1. Put all the ingredients and seasonings, except the Romaine lettuce and enoki mushroom into the internal pot.
2. Place the top lid onto the electric pressure cooker and turn it clockwise to get it locked. Select the “Beef/Mutton” menu, and ensure that the vent is closed and pointed to wards pressure cooking.

3. Blanch the enoki mushroom for 1 minutes, drain and set aside.

4. When the soup is completed with the cooking process, leave it for a few minutes until the pressure is released.
5. Add in the enoki mushroom and lettuce. Serve hot with rice and the dipping sauce.

Fried Angel Hair

My daughter loves noodle. For example, she likes rice flour noodle (mee suah) and vermicelli (bee hoon). I try to discover more kids recipes to please her palate. This fried Angel Hair is whipped up for that purpose. Not only the kids need a healthy diet, the adults gain the benefits too. She likes the noodle. But she eats pretty slow since she is learning to chew her food. Her teething is still in progress. 

I just wonder if kids have problem to digest the angel hair since it is made of Durum wheat? 

By the way, this recipe is modified from the Fried Noodle with Minced Pork and Fungus. 

Fried Angel Hair with Minced Pork and Fungus 碎肉木耳炒面
Serves 4

Ingredients:
4 servings of angel hair, cooked per the instruction on the packaging (remark: salt is added to the hot boiling water)
200g minced pork 5 stalks of chives, cut into 1.5” length
a few florets of black fungus, soaked, drained and cut into strips
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 onion, peeled and chopped
3 Shiitake mushroom, soaked, drained and cut into strips
cooking oil
water (retained from the angel hair boiling process)

Seasonings (Mix-up):
1.5 tbsp of dark soy sauce
1 tbsp of oyster sauce light soy sauce to taste
dashes of white pepper powder
150ml water

Steps:
1. Heat up oil in a wok.
2. Add minced pork and leave it to fry for a while before stirring. Fry and get the minced pork separated.
3. Add onion sauté for a few minutes, stir in garlic to sauté till fragrant.
4. Add mushroom and black fungus. Stir-fry for few minutes.
5. Toss in angel hair. Add seasoning to mix well. Stir-fry for a few minutes. Add more water if needed.
6. Add chives to mix well with the noodle. Stir-fry for another 1 minute before done.

Fried Noodle with Minced Pork and Fungus 碎肉木耳炒面

I’ve been cooking this for a couple of times. It’s definitely a simple and delicious meal to warm up your tummy. What’s more is it can be made in less than 30 minutes. I just learned to add more healthy ingredients in our daily meal. In this case, I have black fungus added. For a healthier version, I would suggest you to substitute yellow noodle with organic wheat noodle. In this way, you won’t feel guilty of consuming yellow noodle.

Fried Noodle with Minced Pork and Fungus 碎肉木耳炒面
Serves 5

Ingredients:
600g yellow noodle, blanched in boiling water
bean sprout
200g minced pork
5 stalks of chives, cut into 1.5” length
2 florets of black fungus, soaked, drained and cut into strips
5 leaves of napa cabbage, cut into strips
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 Shiitake mushroom, soaked, drained and cut into strips
cooking oil

Seasonings (Mix-up):
2tbsp of dark soy sauce
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
2 tbsp of chili paste
4 tbsp of light soy sauce (or adjust to taste)
dashes of white pepper powder
150ml water

Steps:
1. Heat up oil in a wok.
2. Add minced pork and leave it to fry for a while before stirring. Fry and get the minced pork separated.
3. Add onion sauté for a few minutes, stir in garlic to sauté till fragrant.
4. Add mushroom, black fungus and napa cabbage. Stir-fry for few minutes.
5. Toss in yellow noodle and bean sprout. Add seasoning to mix well. Stir-fry for a few minutes.
6. Add chives to mix well with the noodle. Stir-fry for another 2 minutes before done.

Spinach and Meat Porridge

This is a scheduled post.
A good way to add iron to baby’s diet is by feeding her spinach. The iron content in this green leafy vegetable is the richest among the others. From the info I got from a program, a newborn baby is having iron in her body through her mother. The iron will be used up for red blood cell production by the time the baby is 6M. So, it’s necessary to add this element to baby’s diet after you start feeding baby solid food since the source of iron in infant formula is no longer able to fulfill her needs. 

Spinach and Meat Porridge 

Ingredients: 

1 tbsp of white rice, rinsed
1 tbsp of millet, rinsed
5 pieces of soft lean pork (you can substitute it with another type of red meat or white meat)
spinach, chopped
200ml hot boiling water

Steps: 

1. Put all the ingredients into a small slow cooker, except the spinach and meat.
2. Add the meat when the porridge starts boiling.
3. 15 minutes before the porridge is ready, add spinach. Stir to mix up all the ingredients. Continue the cooking.
4. Off the power and leave it cool for a while.
5. You can either remove the meat from the porridge before feeding, or retain 1 or 2 pieces of the meat and puree the porridge before feeding.

Bitter Gourd and Pork Stir-Fry 苦瓜炒猪肉

Some useful tips were picked up from a Chinese cooking show on how to reduce the bitterness of bitter gourd. First, the cord need to be removed thoroughly. Second, after cutting the bitter gourd, marinate it with a pinch of salt. Lastly, blanch it in boiling water with salt and oil added. I applied the tips while preparing this dish, and the bitter gourd tastes less bitter. 

Bitter Gourd and Pork Stir-Fry 苦瓜炒猪肉

Ingredients:
half bitter gourd, cored and cut into thin slices

1 red chili, seeded and cut into strips

1 green chili, seeded and cut into strips

200gm pork belly, cut into 0.5mm thickness

1 tbsp fermented soy bean

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced

1 tbsp fermented soy bean

500ml water

cooking oil
half tsp of salt

Seasonings (Mix up):

1 tbsp of oyster sauce
light soy sauce to taste

1/2 tsp of sugar

1 tbsp corn flour

100ml water

Steps:

1. Marinate the bitter gourd with a pinch of salt. 

2. Bring 500ml of water to a boil. Add 1/2 tsp of salt and a tsp of cooking oil. Blanch the bitter gourd for 2 minutes. Drain the water.

3. Fry pork belly in a non-stick pan. 

4. Add bitter gourd and stir fry for a while. Add fermented soy bean to mix well. Stir fry for 1 minute.

5. Pour in the seasonings. Leave it a while without stirring. 

6. Lastly stir-fry till the sauce is thickening. Dish out and serve hot with steamed rice.

Stuffed Bitter Gourd Soup 酿苦瓜汤

I’m not fancy over the bitter gourd soup boiled with pork ribs. Instead, my favorite is stuffed bitter gourd soup. I learned this from my mom. The secret behind this dish is the fermented soy bean used to marinate the grounded pork. It neutralizes the bitter taste of the bitter gourd and it brings out the flavor of the bitter gourd soup. Yummy!

Stuffed Bitter Gourd Soup

Ingredients:
half bitter gourd, core removed 300gm
grounded pork
1 tbsp goji berries, soaked in water for 5 minutes and drained
salt or light soy sauce to taste
600ml water

Pork Marinades
1 1/2 tbsp fermented soy bean, mashed
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
2 cloves of garlic, minced

Steps:
1. Marinate the minced pork for 2 hours in the fridge.
2. Stuff the bitter gourd with marinated minced pork. Shape the left over minced pork into meat balls.
3. Bring water to a boil. Pour the water into the inner pot of slow cooker.
4. Add the stuffed bitter gourd and the meat balls. Boil the soup over high heat for 1 hours.
5. Turn the cooking mode to slow cook. Continue the cooking for another 2 hours.
6. Toss in goji berries. Add salt or light soy sauce to taste.
7. Serve hot with steamed rice.

Pork Belly with Chilies 辣椒炒肉

This is a quick oriental dish. The pork belly is paired with green and red chilies. It contains animal Protein from the pork and vitamins from the chilies. And not to forget about the source of antioxidants from the garlic and chilies too. Yes, provided they are not cooked under high temperature. With just little bit of light soy sauce and oyster sauce, you’ll have a tasty and flavorful pork belly dish. 

If you are facing problem on how to cut the pork into thin slices, here’s the useful tips. First, you freeze the pork for about 20 minutes. Then, you remove it from the fridge. The pork is semi-frozen, so you can easily cut it into thin slices. 

Pork Belly with Chilies 辣椒炒肉

Ingredients:

300gm pork belly, sliced into ½ cm thickness
2 red chilies, seeded and cut into strips
2 green chilies, seeded and cut into strips
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
spring onion, cut into 1.5" length
1 tbsp cooking oil

Seasoning:

1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce

Steps:

1. Heat up oil in s non-stick pan. Pan-fried pork slices at both sides. Add light soy sauce and stir to coat the pork slices. Dish out on a plate.
2. Leave about 1 tbsp of oil in the pan. Sauté garlic till fragrant. Stir in spring onion, green and red chilies.
3. Toss in pork slices. Stir-fry all the ingredients with oyster sauce.
4. Dish out and serve hot with steamed rice.

Steamed Minced Pork With Salted Egg 咸蛋蒸肉

There are a lot of version for steamed minced pork. I personally like the two versions among all. One is with secret ingredient - the salted fish, while the other one is with salted duck egg. Both are considered not so healthy though. The secret taste enhancer is the white pepper powder, so don’t forget about it.

This is a simple Chinese dish which looks bland but it tastes marvelous to me. What is your version then?

Steamed Minced Pork With Salted Egg 咸蛋蒸肉
Serves 5-6


Ingredients:
300gm minced pork
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 salted duck egg, egg yolk mashed
spring onion, chopped

Seasonings:
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
dashes of white pepper powder

Steps:
1. Mix up all the ingredients except the spring onion in a heave proved shallow bowl. Leave for 15 minutes.
2. Bring a pot of water to boil.
3. Sprinkle the chopped spring onion on top of the minced pork mixture. Steam for 20 minutes.
4. Best to serve hot with steamed rice.

Leek and Roasted Pork Stir-Fry 蒜炒烧肉

Leek and roasted pork stir-fry is almost an instant cooking. I omitted the fried bean curd for my simple version. This is so simple and yet satisfying home cooked dish.

Leek and Roasted Pork Stir-Fry 蒜炒烧肉

Ingredients:
2 stalk of leek, rinsed and sliced diagonally
Roasted pork, cut into bite-sized
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
1 tbsp of cooking oil
50ml water

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of oyster sauce

Steps:
1. Heat up a wok. Dry-fry the roasted pork till fat released from the pork.
2. Top up 1 tbsp of oil. Saute garlic till fragrant.
3. Add leek and stir fry for few minutes. Pour in water and bring to a boil.
4. Season with oyster sauce. Mix well and stir for a while and dish out.

Roasted Pork Fried Rice 烧肉炒饭

Another fried rice whipped up with whatever left-over ingredients from the fridge. This is my way of savoring simple home cooked meal.

Wishing everyone Happy 2012!

Roasted Pork Fried Rice 烧肉炒饭
Serves 2

Ingredients:
half cup of red rice
half cup of white rice
2 eggs
some roasted pork, cut into small pieces
bak choy (only the stalk), sliced into pieces
leek (only the white portion), sliced horizontally
half onion, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
Cooking oil

Steps:
1. Mix up the red rice and white rice. Rinse and cook in rice cooker. Once cooked, cool it down.
2. Heat up oil in the same wok, scramble the eggs. Set aside.
3. Add some oil, fry the roasted pork. Brown the onion and add garlic and leek. Sauté till fragrant.
4. Add cooled steamed rice, bak choy and scrambled egg. Stir fry to mix well. Season with light soy sauce and continue to fry till fragrant.

Sausages Rice 腊味饭

I learned this recipe from a Taiwanese cooking show. I memorized the cooking steps and finally tried it myself last Saturday. I omitted the soy sauce per the original recipe since the sausages were already very salty. With lots of fried shallots, leeks and juices from the sausages, the rice tastes so delicious! Beware that the liver sausage is very salty. Luckily I added just one.

Sausages Rice 腊味饭
Serves 2

Ingredients:
2 Chinese sausage
1 Chinese liver sausage
3 chicken cocktail
1 cup of rice
1 stalk of leek, use only the white portion
10 shallots
1 tbsp of oil
water

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of Shao Xin wine

Garnishing:
some chopped spring onion

Steps:
1. Rinse the rice. Pour it into the rice cooker. Add water up to 1 cup level as per the indicator. Drain water into a bowl and set aside for later use.
2. Make a few shallow cut on the Chinese sausage skin.
3. Put all the Chinese sausage in a non-stick pan. Pan-fry to remove excess oil from the sausage.
4. Add some oil to the pan. Add the shallots. Half way of doing this, add chicken cocktails to pan-fry together till you brown the shallots. Off the flame.
5. Mix the fried shallots to the rice. Arrange Chinese sausages and chicken cocktails on top of the rice. Select the quick cook mode and start the rice cooking process.
6. 3 minutes before the rice cooking is done, mix up the leek with the rice and let the rice continue to cook.
7. When the rice is cooked, sprinkle a tbsp of Shao Xin wine and stir the rice. Remove the sausages. Keep the rice warm for another 5 minutes.
8. Slice the sausages. ( I remove its external skin).
9. Serve the rice with sausage slices. Garnish with some chopped spring onion.

Fried Red Rice With Minced Pork 红米肉碎炒饭

A simple way to whip up a balanced meal is to combine all essential source – carbohydrate, protein, vitamins & minerals and fats. Fried rice is one example. I cook quite a lot of it recently, and I haven't get bored of it yet.

Fried Red Rice with Minced Pork 红米肉碎炒饭
Serves 2

Ingredients:
3/4 cup of white rice
1/4 cup of red rice
3 heaped tbsp of minced pork, marinated with a tsp of light soy sauce and dashes of white pepper powder
2 eggs, cracked in a bowl
1 Romaine lettuce, root discarded, rinsed under running water and cut into strips
100g Enoki mushroom, root discarded, cut length wise into half
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
Cooking oil

Seasonings:
Light soy sauce

Steps:
1. Mix up the red rice and white rice. Rinse and cook in rice cooker. Once cooked, cool it down.
2. Heat up oil in a wok. Scramble the eggs and set aside.
3. Heat up oil in the same wok, fry minced pork and get it separated.
4. Add garlic and sauté till fragrant. Add Enoki mushroom and the scrambled egg. Mix up all the ingredients.
5. Add cooled steamed rice. Add light soy sauce and fry till fragrant. Toss in the lettuce, mix well and of the flame.

Pork Lard (Air-Fryer Recipe)

Ever since I started to post a few simple recipes cooked with Air-Fryer, I receivd quite a number of emails and comments from time to time. Thanks to all my readers who's willing to try out my Air-Fryer recipes. I’m glad you loved it. Regarding to your enquiries, I’m sorry to say that I have very limited time to reply one by one. I’m new to the Air-Fryer too, but I’ll try my best to explore more about it. Thank you for your support. I appreciate fellow friends who shared with me the useful tricks.

What I’m going to share with you today is not a dish, but a dish complement instead. It’s the pork lard, non-halal food.

During a time when cleaned up the freezer, I found a box of left over raw pork belly. The pork belly was too fat that I didn't want to use it for my cooking. So, I thought off making pork lards with the air-fryer.

To make this, you just have to cut the pork belly into small pieces. Then, arrange it in the airfryer basket. Fry it under 180 deg C for about 15 minutes or more (depends on the size of the pork belly). The pork belly is now turned into golden brown pork lard, like this.......Next, you can use it to garnish your dish or to delish up your fried noodle.

Mushroom and Char Siew Fried Rice

My husband brought back a packet of fresh Shiitake mushroom instead of dried Shiitake per my shopping list. Not knowing what to do with it, I just add it to the fried rice. It was not bad at all. It’s quite tasty with the combination of char siew (Chinese roasted pork), egg and fresh Shiitake mushroom with rice. Here comes our simple lunch on Sunday. 

Mushroom and Char Siew Fried Rice

Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 cup of rice, rinsed, cooked in rice cooker and cooled
2 eggs
1 piece of char siew (about 8cm length), sliced and chopped into small pieces
8 pcs of fresh shiitake mushroom, rinsed and sliced
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
1 stalk of spring onion, chopped
cooking oil
light soy sauce to taste

Steps:

1. Heat up oil in a wok. Scramble the eggs and dish out.
2. Heat up oil in the same wok, saute the char siew. Add mushroom and garlic. Stir-fry till fragrant.
3. Add cooled steamed rice. Sprinkle the rice with light soy sauce to fry till fragrant. Toss in the scrambled egg. Fry till you observe the rice is "jumping" in the wok. Dish out.

Potato With Meatballs 马铃薯与肉丸

This is one of my childhood favourite. My mum cooked this quite frequently when I was a kid. I used to eat only the meatballs until I learned the benefits of potato. Well, my mum has several version of this dish. She played around the potato and meatballs. Sometimes, she deep-fried the meatballs and potato. Sometimes, she just fried the meatballs, and at times, she just cook potato and meatballs from raw. Despite of the different methods, the dish turns out to be delicious. 

As for my version, I pan-fried both the potato and meatballs. Remember about the meatballs that I prepared up-front? I moved it from freezer to to fridge just before I left to work. It'll will be ready to cook when I come back home. I want my cooking to be therapeutic instead of problematic after long hours of working.

Potato With Meatballs 马铃薯与肉丸
Serves 4


Ingredients:
3 potatoes, peeled and sliced
16 meatballs
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 onion, peeled and sliced
cooking oil
200ml water

Seasonings:
Light soy sauce to taste

Steps:
1. Heat up oil in a wok. pan-fry the potato till golden yellow. Drain and set aside.
2. Add 2 tbsp of oil in the same wok. Stir-fry onion till fragrant. Add garlic to saute till golden yellow.
3. Pour in water and bring to boil.
4. Add fried potatoes and meatballs. Let it simmers for few minutes. Add light soy sauce to taste.
5. Serve hot with rice.

Pan-Fried Meatballs 炸肉丸

I always spend my Sunday morning preparing big quantity of food that can be frozen for our weekdays' consumption. For example, home made pasta sauce and meat sauce. Today, I prepare a batch of meatballs. Later it can be used to make meatball spaghetti bolognese, meatballs in tomato sauce and others.

That's how I work out to cut down my cooking time on working days.

Pan-Fried Meatballs 炸肉丸
Makes 25 meatballs


Ingredients:
500gm minced pork
1/2 onion, peeled and chopped
cooking oil


Marinades:
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
dashes of white pepper powder
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp corn flour

Steps:
1. Mix up he minced pork with chopped onion and marinades. Leave it for half an hour.
2. Shape the marinated minced pork into meatballs. Allocate the meat balls on a baking tray. Rub the surface with little bit of water for a smoother look.
3. Heat up oil in a non-stick pan. Pan-fry the meatballs in batches until golden brown.
4. Put in on kitchen towel to remove excess oil.
5. Serve it on its own, cook it into dishes or fridge it up for later use.

Air-Fried Wanton

For my 3rd experiment of cooking fresh food with air-fryer, I made an attempt to fry wanton. This is not a satisfying result that I'm looking for. The wonton skin is not as crispy as the deep-fried version. It's little bit hard but turns soft very fast. The filling also turned dry after the air-frying.
I'll figure out the correct method of making crispy wanton in air-fryer. Stay tuned!

Watercress Soup 西洋菜汤

Usually I boil soup with either Chinese herbs or root vegetables like carrot, potato, radish, nagaimo or lotus root. This time, I made a change to boil soup with green leafy vegetable, the watercress. My mom used to cook this soup with pork ribs, white pepper corns and red dates. So, I just follow her style and this time I cook it for my parents instead. However, you won’t taste the difference between my version and my mom’s version. This could be what I inherit from my mom. :)

The soup is refreshing, but not too cooling with added pepper corns and red dates. The watercress contributes lots of fiber. However, the vitamins may be partially loss throughout the simmering process.

Watercress Soup


Ingredients:
2.5 liter water
1 big bunch of watercress, rinsed and cut into 2.5” length
1 chicken carcass, blanched
300gm of pork ribs, blanched
12 red dates, rinsed and make a cut on each date
1tsp of white pepper corn, cracked
Salt to taste

Steps:
1.Bring water to boil in a pot.
2.Add cracked pepper corns, red dates, chicken carcass and pork ribs. Leave for simmering for 1 and a half hours.
3.Add watercress and bring to boil. Let the soup simmers for another 1 minutes.
4.Add salt to taste and serve warm.

Nagaimo Soup (Slow Cooker Recipe) 淮山、杞子、红枣汤

These days I don't have time to boil soup during weekdays. Soup boiling at home is only limited to once or twice a week over the the weekend. This Nagaimo soup was my creation last Sunday. I called up hubby to buy some Nagaimo when he was out to the wet market. I always have add on to my shopping list from my ad-hoc  inspiration. :-)

Nagaimo is good for girl's growth as it helps to generate female hormone that aids in breast and ovary forming. That's what I learned from a Traditional Chinese Medicine. If you are worried if the Nagaimo is too cooling, you can always add some white pepper corns or ginger to the dish. That is what I did for this soup. 

Nagaimo Soup

Ingredients:

180gm of nagaimo, skinned and cut into bite size

250gm of pork ribs, blanched in boiling water

8 red dates

1 tbsp of goji berries

1/2 tsp of cracked white pepper corns (optional)

2 slices of ginger

1.3ml of hot water

Seasonings:

salt to taste

Steps:

1. Pour hot water into the slow cooker pot.

2. Add all ingredients. Leave it simmers for 3 hours.

3. Add salt to taste and serve hot.