Food experiments from my little kitchen

Due to a recent infection, my son has been coughing every night without fail. Even with the strong cough medicine prescribed by the doctor, his cough has been persisting and often worsened at night. It was very worrying as he seldom fall sick like this. I chanced upon a kind soul (Ms Shuzhi Xu) sharing a recipe for cough on a Facebook cooking group - fritillary bulb soup . I was so delighted and went to medical hall to get the ingredients to prepare for the soup. The shop assistant advised me to get the pre-packed versions they have if I am not going to cook often. Below is the instructions printed on the box. In addition to the pack, I have added half a pear (the pear I bought was very big) and some snow fungus. Also, I added some rock sugar to sweeten the soup in order to entice my son to drink. :p I am really amazed that this soup works wonder! I let my son drank a small bowl yesterday and he did not cough at all during the night. This morning he coughed a little but I cou...

I hate to wake up early on weekends because we always have to wake up early and rush to work on weekday mornings. However, the nearest mall is now under renovation and we have limited options which is why I tried to prepare some simple breakfast at home instead of eating out. My son suggested having burgers for breakfast that day. I thought this is a pretty good idea hence sharing it in my blog. You can easily get the burgers from supermarket along with meat patties like me or you can make them yourselves (I have not tried making bread yet!) I will share the simple sauce recipe that I used below. It is really easy and tasty! Try it and you will know. Ingredients Mayonnaise Tomato Sauce Garlic powder  Black pepper Vinegar Recipe 1. Depending on how much sauce you need, prepare the mayonnaise and tomato sauce in the ratio 2:1 2. In the bowl, add the mayonnaise and tomato sauce to mix together using a fork. 3. Add in about 1/2 tsp of vinegar (depends on how tangy you lik...

It has been a while since I last blogged my recipes. My laptop was down (I probably need a new laptop), my son has been down with fever and cough and Singapore was also down with very bad haze weather. I have taken a stretch of leave to care for my son at home and it was really exhausting compared to going to work. He requested for me to cook his favourite egg tofu again and I decided to make the easy dish that I often cooked when I have no idea what to prepare - steamed minced meat on egg tofu! Ingredients 1 tube egg tofu Minced meat Coriander Wolfberries Soy sauce Pepper  Sesame oil Water/stock  Recipe 1. Marinate the minced meat with some soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil. I added some chopped coriander for some additional flavour as I happened to have it in my fridge. 2. Soak the wolfberries in a bowl of water to soften. Cut the egg tofu into small circles and place them on the steaming plate. 3. Using a small spoon, scoop some marinated meat and use your ...

I had a great time baking Chinese new year cookies at the start of the year. For someone who is still new to baking, I was very interested in making traditional cookies and snacks (because I love to eat them so much!). So in one of my impromptu visit to Phoon huat, I bought the ingredients for making mooncakes. After much procrastination, mainly due to me going to work full time now, I finally found a weekend night to do it. ^^ Before doing it, I actually spent quite some time watching various YouTube tutorials posted to get an idea how to wrap the mooncakes etc. and also reading up on many bloggers' recipes and blog entries to understand the process and what are the important steps to achieve successful mooncakes. The recipe below is adapted from Happy Home Baking - traditional mooncake . Ingredients Dough 100g Plain flour 70g Redman sugar syrup 2ml Alkaline water 25ml Peanut oil Paste I used ready-to-use green tea lotus paste (420g) Note: This recipe will yiel...

I was cutting vegetables to make Japanese curry for dinner when an idea suddenly popped in my mind. I had bought a bag of small limes with plans to make lime honey tea for my husband when I am free. Then I had this idea to make lime honey jelly which sounds great for this hot hazy weather. So I tried it out with the gelatine that I had at home and it was great success! ^^b Ingredients 2 small limes 3 Tbsp honey 250 ml water 3 tsp gelatin  Recipe 1. Heat up 250ml of water till it is warm. (note: not boiling, just warm enough to dissolve the gelatin) 2. Cut the limes into halves and squeeze the juice into a small bowl. Remove the seeds and pour the juice into the warm water. 3. Add in 3 Tbsp of honey then stir to mix well. 4. Add 3 tsp of gelatin and mix thoroughly till it is fully dissolved. 5. Pour into desired container and let it cool down before transferring to the fridge. 6. It will take about 4 hours to set. Best to let it chill overnight in fridge before servi...

A trip down to the supermarket with my family with a trolley and we ended up buying a lot of stuffs which I usually don't buy. That includes a cute bag of alphabet pasta for my son and fusilli for us. In order to put it to good use, I decided to make pasta for a quick lunch. I remembered how I used to buy pasta sauce and always ended up throwing away the unfinished portion because I only used it once or twice before it expired. So this time, I tried to make a simple sauce with whatever I had at home in order not to waste and it was a good lunch! Ingredients Fusilli Salmon Chilli sauce Tomato sauce Italian herbs  1 finely chopped onion 1 tsp chopped garlic Salt Pepper Recipe 1. Marinate the salmon with salt, pepper and olive oil and steam it till it is done (about 7 minutes for me). 2. Use a fork to flake the salmon and set aside. 3. In a pot of boiling water, add some salt and put in the fusilli. Boil it for 8 minutes or until al dente. Sieve the fusilli and put i...

My son loves egg tofu very much. He always make sure I buy egg tofu whenever we go supermarket. So I have to find ways and means to incorporate egg tofu into my cooking. Minced meat egg tofu is a very common dish and I also cook it quite frequently using oyster sauce. But I wanted to make a different sauce this time so decided to experiment using tomato sauce and kecap manis which I seldom use and we love it! Ingredients 1 tube egg tofu Minced meat 1/2 onion 1 clove of chopped garlic  Tomato sauce Kecap manis Soy sauce Corn starch Spring onions Recipe 1. Chop the onion into dices and marinate the minced meat with soy sauce and cornstarch. 2. Cut the egg tofu into slices and pan fry them on the pan with some oil for at least 3 minutes each side to brown it. Remove and set aside. Make the sauce using tomato sauce, kecap manis and soy sauce. 3. Heat up the oil in the wok and add in the chopped onions and garlic. Let it cook for a little while till the onion look tran...

I like to steam dishes when the weather gets hazy. It makes things a lot easier in the kitchen. I remembered my mum passed me some dried stuffs last month and I have not started using black fungus. When I was searching "steamed chicken with black fungus" in Google, I found this recipe by My Kitchen Snippets - Steamed chicken with mushrooms and black fungus . Got really tempted to try out the recipe as it did not seemed too difficult.  Ingredients 1 chicken leg (deboned) Dried black fungus Dried wolfberries Spring onions Cornstarch Soy sauce Rice wine Oyster sauce Pepper Salt  Recipe 1. Soak the black fungus and wolfberries in separate bowls. After the black fungus expanded, remove the centre which is hard and cut them into thin slices. 2. Cut the chicken leg into bite size pieces. Marinate in soy sauce, pepper and cornstarch and place them on the steaming dish. 3. Add the black fungus to the chicken and distribute evenly by mixing. 4. In a bowl, add oyster...

This morning I woke up realising I forgot to buy bread for breakfast and wondered what should I do? Because I have five types of medicine to take every morning, I try to take them before going to work. It is such a hassle every morning but I have no choice. (>_<) Suddenly saw an old post-it note on my fridge with the steamed cake recipe and so I made it for breakfast! Ingredients 1/2 cup flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 egg 2 Tbsp milk 2 Tbsp honey 1 Tbsp oil Recipe 1. Measure flour and baking powder and put them in a mixing bowl. 2. In another bowl, put in the egg, milk honey and oil. Use a fork or whisk to mix well. 3. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl containing the dry ingredients. 4. Use a spatula to mix well. Do not overmix. Just ensure it is well combined. 5. Steam for about 10 minutes or until toothpick comes clean when poked. I used sugar last time when I first try steaming cake but I find that it is dry. Honey gives the cake a very nice moist texture....

I have recently baked two banana recipes - fluffy banana cake and banana walnut cupcake . Now I got another bunch of bananas from my mum to clear. One of my colleagues told me if she were me, she would prefer to eat the bananas rather than baking it. Strangely I love banana cakes very much but not exactly a fan of the fruit itself. Anyway, I had one plain yoghurt sitting in my fridge for quite some days. What can I do to kill 2 birds with 1 stone? The answer is Greek yogurt banana bread from Running with spoons. The ingredients are available at home and I was so curious about not adding any oil or butter. How would it turn out to be? ^^ Ingredients 1 1/2 cup Plain flour 1 1/2 tsp Baking soda 1/2 tsp Salt 2 Eggs (lightly beaten) 2 Bananas (approx 1 cup mashed) 1/2 cup Plain yogurt 1/4 cup Maple syrup 2 Tbsp Brown sugar  Recipe 1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree celcius and grease the bread pan. 2. Sieve the flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Mix well. 3...

My son loves to eat cod fish and we steam cod very often. When I first started steaming fish, I usually stick to using just soy sauce and sesame oil. Lucky my son was still quite young then, so he did not complain about eating the same thing. I spend a lot of time reading recipes and hoping to find easy yet tasty recipes for steaming fish and steaming with garlic is one I strongly recommend! Hong Kong Style steamed cod fish by Annielicious is one such recipe that inspires me. Ingredients 1 slice of Cod Ginger slices  Minced garlic Chopped spring onions (garnish) Oyster sauce Soy sauce Water Sugar Recipe 1. Steam the cod fish with some ginger slices for 7 minutes or until it is cooked. (I used an electric steamer and it also depends on the thickness of the fish) 2. In a pan, heat up some oil and put in the minced garlic. Keep the heat at medium and cook till the garlic turns brown. 3. Put in some oyster sauce, soy sauce and water to mix in a bowl and pour it in the...

Bacon-wrapped vegetables seemed to be a common dish when I go Japanese restaurants for meals. The other day I had left over bacon from my breakfast so decided to make enoki bacon maki essentially enoki mushrooms wrapped with bacon. I think this dish can go with or without sauce but since my husband loves sauce, I made a simple one below. Ingredients 4 pieces of Bacon 1 pack of Enoki mushrooms Some butter or oil Salt Pepper Sauce Oyster sauce Soy sauce Sugar Garlic powder Recipe 1. Cut off the bottom part of Enoki mushrooms and divide the pack  into 8 portions. 2. Take 4 pieces of bacon and cut them into equal halves. 3. Place 1 stack of mushrooms on the edge of the bacon (nearer to you) and roll the bacon to wrap it up. Press the mushroom a little to wrap it tight. Repeat for the rest of the bacon and mushrooms. Put a little salt and pepper when you finish wrapping. 4. Put a little butter (or oil) on a heated sauce pan and put in the enoki bacon maki . I di...