Fritillary Bulb Soup with pear and snow fungus

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 could hear the cough has become lighter. You can read about the benefits of this soup online (fritillaria benefits). Good to know that it will help to moisten the lungs. Got my husband to drink a bowl as well since the haze has been quite bad.

Breakfast burger with homemade sauce

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 like the sauce to be)
4. Add in some garlic powder with a dash of black pepper.
5. Taste and adjust accordingly.

My ugly but yummy burgers! My husband commented I need to do some part time at fast food restaurants to practise how to stack the ingredients in a burger. lol

Steamed minced meat on egg tofu

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 hand to shape it before putting it on the egg tofu. Remove water from the bowl and place a wolfberry on the top of the minced meat (as shown in the pic). The remaining wolfberries just scatter them around the steaming plate.
4. For the steaming sauce, just make a solution of soy sauce and water and pour it from the side into the steaming plate. I was cooking ABC soup so I took some of the soup and added soy sauce instead.
5. Turn on the electric steamer till it is hot then steam it for 10 to 12 minutes.

This is perfect for weekday cooking isn't it? Once you put the dish into steamer, you have free time to prepare another dish or do some washing before the dinner starts. :) For variation, you can add in some fish paste or chopped prawns or even switch the minced meat to prawns. Sometimes I would add in some chopped onions to add some sweetness and texture to the minced meat.

Traditional baked mooncake

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 yield 12 mini mooncakes (50g)

Recipe
1. In a bowl, add in the sugar syrup and and alkaline water. Mix well before adding in the oil. Ensure that the mixture is well mixed.
2. Put the flour in a mixer bowl. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the mixture of sugar syrup, alkaline water and oil. Use a spatula to mix gently and well incorporate the flour to form a soft dough.
3. Wrap the bowl with cling wrap and leave in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight. (Due to space constraint in my fridge, I transferred the dough to a smaller container and cling wrap for exactly 2 hours.
4. Divide the paste into 35g portions and roll them into small balls. Set aside.
5. After 2 hours, remove the dough from the fridge. Flour your hands and give it a few kneads before dividing them into 15g portions.
6. Put one portion of the dough on one side of a piece of cling wrap. Flip the other side up (like how you close a book) and then use the rolling pin to spread the dough evenly into a circle.
7. Gently remove the dough from the cling wrap and put the filling in the centre. Wrap the dough around the filling and ensure it is fully enclosed.
8. Dust the dough with some flour and place it into the mooncake mould. I shaped the dough to make it elongated so that it can fit in the mould without touching the sides. If you put the round dough in, the sides might get cut to expose the filling. Press firmly on the tabletop before lifting to release the mooncake. (Mine is the press and release type of mould).
9. Place all the mooncakes on the baking tray lined with baking paper. Spray some water on the top of the mooncakes to prevent cracking.
10. Bake the mooncakes at preheated oven 180 degree celcius for 10 minutes. Then remove from the oven to cool down for 15 minutes. The cooling down step is very important and should not be skipped.
11. Do an egg wash for the mooncakes before returning the mooncakes to the oven to continue baking at 180 degree celcius for 15 minutes. Watch over the mooncakes for this second round baking as it might brown earlier than the stipulated time depending on the oven!
12. Remove from the oven and let it cool down completely before storing them into air-tight containers. Do not try to taste the mooncakes at this point as they are not ready. It will take 2-3 days for the mooncake skin to soften and only then it will be ready to serve!

I am very happy to see the mooncakes nicely done. Yeah it is another tick off my cooking checklist! The wrapping part reminded me of making pineapple tarts except that I find that mooncake dough is even harder to wrap. I think I definitely need more practice to improve on that. If you are not confident to wrap like me, I would strongly recommend using the cling wrap and rolling pin method to roll out the dough before moving on to wrapping. Try not to roll it too thinly and lightly dust the dough with flour before you start rolling. It will make wrapping a less stressful step. :) I shall be patient to wait and try my mooncakes in another 2 days!

Lime honey jelly

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 serving.

The above recipe will make 2 cups of jelly which is just nice for my family of three. You can adjust the taste of the jelly before you add the gelatin. It is better to make it sweeter than your desired taste as it will taste less sweet when it is done. The amount of gelatin will determine the firmness of your jelly. If you decrease the gelatin, it will become more wobbly. Mine is closer to the firmer texture. I actually like this jelly more than konnyaku jelly as it is less of a choking hazard for toddlers. 

Spicy salmon fusilli

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 it on the serving plate.
4. Heat up the wok and add some oil. Once the oil is hot, add in the chopped onions then the garlic. Cook till the onion turns translucent.
5. Put in the chilli sauce and tomato sauce (I used equal proportion, you can adjust to your taste). Then add in some water.
6. Let it boil till it starts to thicken. Add in 1/2 tsp of Italian herbs.You can adjust the taste or the thickness  of the sauce here.
7. Add the salmon flakes and mix well. Transfer the sauce onto the fusilli.
8. You can add some steamed broccoli if you like to have some vegetables.

For my son's portion, I did not add any chilli sauce. It was done with only tomato sauce and tasted great too. I think it would be great to add in chopped tomatoes too if you happened to have it in your kitchen.

Minced meat with egg tofu

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 translucent then add the minced meat.
4. Stir fry the meat until it is no longer pink then add in the sauce. Let it cook for a few minutes and when it starts to thicken, you can return the egg tofu to the wok and mix well. 
5. Turn off the heat and serve on plate. Garnish with spring onions.

The sour taste from tomato sauce, balanced with the sweetness of kecap manis and savoury from the soy sauce makes quite a good combination. I am so happy it turned out well. I can now put my sauces to better use. :)

Steamed chicken with black fungus

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 sauce, rice wine and salt. Adjust the taste to your liking. (I did 1:1 proportion for oyster sauce : rice wine.) As rice wine is sweet, it is okay to add salt to balance the taste.
5. Pour the sauce over the chicken then sprinkle the wolfberries on top.
6. Steam the chicken for 15 to 20 minutes. (Mine took about 20 minutes in the electrical steamer)
7. Garnish with spring onions and put a dash of pepper if you like. Serve hot.

My husband gave thumbs up for this dish. Personally I am surprised as it tastes better than my expectation. The chicken turned out to be smooth and tender. Very nice to go with rice. I can see myself cooking this often for weekday dinners. :)

Steamed cake

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. You can always add raisins or vary the ingredients to come up with more variations! :) This recipe makes only 3 cupcakes. You might want to double if you want to make more.

Banana yoghurt bread

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. In another bowl, put in the beaten eggs then add mashed banana, yogurt, maple syrup and brown sugar. Mix well after each addition.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Stir gently using spatula till it is well combined. Do not overmix.
5. Pour the batter into the bread pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Mine finished baking at 35 minutes. Check with a toothpick to poke and see if the middle comes clean.
6. Remove from oven and let it cool for at least 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

I am quite satisfied with the result although there is definitely room for improvement. It is my first bread. :) The bread smells really great when it was baking. It does not taste sweet at all even with the brown sugar. (note: original recipe calls for 1/4 cup but I decided to add in 2 Tbsp last minute.) My husband gave it thumbs up too! Very healthy bread too with the yogurt and oil-free. I can see myself making this again!

Steamed cod with garlic sauce

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 pan. Add sugar to balance the taste. You can adjust the taste to your liking here.
4. When the fish is cooked, pour away the water and move the fish to the serving plate.
5. Pour the sauce over the fish. Sprinkle the spring onions and serve.

One lesson I have learnt from many recipes online is adding sugar. I never know putting in sugar can make such a difference in the taste. It balances the savoury taste and makes the food even more delicious! If you have rock sugar, that is best! Else you can also use normal sugar like I did.

Enoki bacon maki

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 did 4 at a time to better control the cooking.
5. Cook till it is slightly brown (about 3 minutes) then turn it to the other side. During the cooking, cover the saucepan from time to time so that the mushrooms can be cooked. Arrange them on the plate.
6. If you prefer some sauce, you can prepare a simple one like mine. Just water and add some oyster sauce, soy sauce and sugar with some garlic powder. Heat till boiling and thicken with cornstarch solution. Drizzle on the maki and it's done.

My husband didn't quite fancy this dish in the end as it is a mouthful to eat. Lol Maybe enoki fans will like it. lol