Food experiments from my little kitchen

That day I came home did not really feel like to cook but my boy asked to eat at home. I did not have enough time to prepare our usual soup so decided to make something easy and simple so that he can have some soup for dinner. The ingredients in the soup are black fungus, dried mushrooms and eggs which are normally stocked in my kitchen. I only prepared a very small portion so the measurements are all estimated. Ingredients 5 to 6 pcs dried black fungus  3 to 4 pcs dried shiitake mushrooms  1 beaten egg  chopped spring onions (garnish) chicken stock powder (you can replace with fresh stock if you have)  water  dark soy sauce  light soy sauce pepper  Cornstarch solution  Recipe 1. Soak the black fungus and shiitake mushrooms till softened and cut them into thin shreds. Discard the soaking water for black fungus, you can keep the soaking water for mushrooms.  2. Add the soaking water for mushrooms in a pot a...

Our family loves chicken wings particularly just the mid joints! My regular chicken stall at the market does not sell the mid joints alone so I would usually buy it from NTUC. That day they happened to have promotion for 2 packs so I bought and braised it with mushrooms and black fungus. Ingredients 12 mid joint wings 3 dried shiitake mushrooms some black fungus Ginger slices Chopped garlic  Spring onions (garnish) Water Marinate Soy sauce White pepper Cornstarch Grated ginger (optional) Sauce 1 Tbsp Oyster sauce 1 Tbsp Dark soy sauce Light soy sauce Sugar  White pepper Sesame oil Recipe 1. Soak the dried mushrooms and black fungus till soften. I leave it to soak about 2 hours. You may retain the water for soaking mushrooms if you want to use it for braising. Cut the mushrooms and black fungus into slices and set aside. 2. To the wings, add soy sauce, white pepper, cornstarch to marinate. You can add some grated ginger to it. Let it sit in the mar...

My usual cooking routine at home consists of a soup and two dishes and I will make sure that we will have one vegetable dish. This is very important as I always feel that when we eat out, we do not take in enough vegetables. But I don't really like to eat fibrous vegetable or vegetable stems. Yup I am a picky eater when it comes to vegetables. So my usual vegetable choices are broccoli, baby spinach (hoi chai), shanghai green or japanese green. Recently I discovered spinach is not bad too! When I am feeling lazy, I would just blanch it. But on other days, doing stir fry is great. :)  Ingredients Spinach Bunashimeiji mushrooms Garlic slices Chicken stock powder Sugar Soy sauce Sesame oil  Recipe 1. Heat the oil in the wok and add the garlic slices. 2. Stir fry till fragrant, then add in the spinach. 3. Stir fry at high heat till the spinach has wilted. Add in some water, chicken stock powder, sugar. 4. Let it cook for a while before seasoning with soy sauce a...

Marketing can be challenging when cooking for a small family. Like when I buy a cabbage, I probably have to cook it twice in the same week. That day I bought one to make chicken soup on one day, the other half cabbage was sitting in the fridge so I wanted to make something like chap chye but a simpler version with all the possible ingredients I have at home. This is another time saving dish because it allows me to do some quick washing up when the vegetable is cooking. Ingredients Half a cabbage (cut into chunks) 5 small dried shiitake mushrooms Some dried black fungus Sliced carrot Sliced ginger Chopped garlic Sauce 1 Tbsp oyster sauce 1 tsp tau cheo White pepper Sugar to taste  Some water Recipe 1. Soak the mushrooms and black fungus till soft. Remove the stems from mushrooms and cut the mushrooms into strips. For the black fungus, remove the thick part and cut them into pieces. Retain the liquid for soaking mushrooms. 2. Heat the oil in the wok and stir fry t...

I prepared this dish because my dear husband is a meat lover. If I don't cook enough meat for dinner, he would ask me why I cooked so little. It happens that I had one chunk of pumpkin sitting in my fridge so I decided to combine it with minced meat. It turned out to be quite a nice combination. Ingredients approx 80g minced meat 1 small chunk of pumpkin 1 dried shiitake mushroom chopped garlic chopped shallots white pepper soy sauce sesame oil Sauce 1 tbsp oyster sauce 1 tbsp normal dark soy sauce 1 tsp sugar  Recipe 1. Soak the dried mushroom in a bowl of water and set it aside to soften before cutting it into small cubes. Do not throw away the water.  2. Cut the pumpkin into cubes but not too small else it will disintegrate during cooking. Marinate the minced meat with soy sauce, white pepper and sesame oil. 3. In the wok, heat up the oil and put in the chopped shallots. Let it cook for a little while and turning translucent, then add in the garlic fo...

I bought a pack of mid-joint wings from supermarket that day, wanting to make some baked wings. But my husband suddenly fell sick and was not feeling well. In the end, I decided not to bake as baked wings can be quite heaty. I switch to steaming the wings instead and it turned out just as yummy. Ingredients 1 pack of mid joint wings (approx 10 pcs) 2 dried shiitake mushrooms (pre-soaked) 1 knob of ginger Spring onions Marinate 1 tbsp oyster sauce 1 tbsp soy sauce 1 tsp Chinese wine  1/2 tsp sugar  Some sesame oil  Dash of white pepper Recipe 1. Prepare the marinate in a bowl and marinate the wings for 15 minutes.  2. Slice the soaked mushrooms into strips and slice the ginger into thin pieces. 3. Smash white part of spring onions and cut the spring onions diagonally into strips. 4. Place the white part of spring onions along with some ginger on the bottom of the steaming dish. 5. Arrange the chicken wings on the dish and ensure there is no over...

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...

I am always very interested in trying out steamed dishes because they are usually easy to prepare and require less monitoring - meaning I can steal some time to wash the dishes and take a peek to see what my son was doing. One recipe I often cooked is Steam minced meat on egg tofu as it is easy and my son loves it. I was googling "steamed minced meat" and one of the blog posts that caught my eye from GoodyFoodies! - Steamed minced pork with tung choy It is a common home cooked dish but my mum has never really cook this for me. I read that this is more of a Cantonese dish and I am Hainanese/Teochew. That explains why! haha I bought a pack of tung choy from the wet market and quickly got down to making my own version below. Ingredients 250g Minced meat  2 Tbsp Tung choy 1/2 tsp Minced garlic 1 dried shiitake mushroom Cornstarch Soy sauce Pepper Sesame oil Coriander  Recipe 1. Soak the dried shiitake mushroom and cut it into slices when it has softened. 2. ...

On most weekdays, I would cook soup using pork ribs or chicken in the slow cooker. Sometimes when I am really busy or tired, then I will go for quick soup recipes like this one I am sharing below - tomato egg drop soup. I am not exactly a tomato lover but this soup tastes really good. Simple and nutritious!   Ingredients Tomato Egg Bunapi mushrooms Chopped spring onions (garnish) Ikan bilis Soya beans Recipe 1. Wash the ikan bilis and soya beans and put them into the stock bag. 2. In a pot of boiling water, add the stock bag and let it simmer for 20 minutes. 3. Chop the tomato into cubes and remove the bottom from Bunapi mushrooms. Crack the egg in a bowl, beat it and set aside. 4. After 20 minutes, remove the stock bag from the pot. Add in tomato cubes, mushrooms and let it cook for a few minutes. 5. Taste the soup and season it with salt if you like. Pour in the beaten egg slowly and stir gently in circles using chopsticks. 6. Garnish with chopped spring onio...

I have never really eaten pumpkin as a child. Somehow I do not recall my mum cooking pumpkin at all. I only remembered the sinful stuffs like chicken wings and curry etc. Yet when my son started taking solids, I was told that pumpkin is good. We gave him pumpkin porridge then slowly I incorporated pumpkin into our weekly soup menu. Here is one really simple yet tasty soup to share. Ingredients 300g Pumpkin 4 Dried Shiitake mushrooms 250g Pork ribs Salt Recipe 1. Soak the dried mushrooms in water till softened. Discard the water. 2. Cut the pumpkin into big chucks and remove the skin. (You can leave the skin on if you wash it really clean)  Don't cut it too small as it will soften and disintegrate easily after cooking. 3. Wash the pork ribs and blanch it in boiling water for a few minutes till the scum is floating. Remove the scum and rinse the pork ribs again. This is to produce a clear soup. 4. Place the mushrooms, pumpkin and pork ribs into slow cooker and add hot...

My son loves to eat mushrooms particularly bunashimeiji mushrooms. You can get it from the supermarket either the white ones or the brown ones. Usually I would add them to the vegetables and stir fry or sometimes chop them up and add into the omelette. One day I chanced upon this blog entry from Just one cook book - seared scallops and decided to try making a similar sauce and cooking just the mushrooms itself. While cooking, I was wondering how would the taste turn out to be but luckily it is approved by both husband and son. Hence, decided to share this recipe on my blog. ^^ Ingredients Bunashimeiji mushrooms Shallots Garlic  Butter Soy sauce Some stock or water Cornstarch solution  Recipe 1. Cut off the bottom part of the mushrooms and discard. Chop some garlic and shallot to set aside. Reason why I had shallots is because I happened to have some chopped ones in my fridge. It can be replaced by onion. 2. Add some butter to the pan and heat till it melt....