Stuffed Onion Rings

I came up with this dish on the day that I ran out of idea of what to prepare for our dinner. I have some ground meat in hand and decided to mix it up with a few other ingredients and stuff it in some onion rings. Turn our pretty good to have it with rice.

Ingredients:

2 medium size onions – cut into ½” rings
3 tbsp of flour
2 eggs - beaten

Crispy Tofu with Shrimp Squares

I like this dish a lot. In fact I made a bit more and freeze some of it up so the next time I wanted to eat this all I have to do and take it out of the freezer and fry them up. You must be thinking why I like to freezer most of my food rather than eating them fresh. Well, I don’t cook everyday especially our Asian type of food and when I do I usually cook a bit more and freeze them up so I can have it anytime I want. It is usually dishes that freeze well like rendang, curries, stew, soup, curry puffs and etc. So now you know why I need two fridges when there are just two of us ha ha..

Anyway, back to this dish. My mom used to make this dish for us. When I called her last week on her birthday I asked her how to make this dish and she told me roughly what she put in it. I gather all the ingredients and made this the following day. The squares turn out really well. They were crispy on the outside, nice and moist on the inside.

Steamed Pan Fried Buns

The first time I tried this type of bun was in New Zealand. My good friend Shereen took me to a tiny Asian restaurant and they serve this type of buns and they were really good. I tried making it at home and they turn out pretty well. The filling of the buns are raw and you have to pan fried and steam cook them at the same time. It is very much like dumplings or gyoza. The dough of these buns is slightly different from the normal steamed buns. It has thinner and chewy dough. I like it a lot as the fried bun has a crispy golden brown bottom and serve with Chinese black vinegar dip but I just like it as it is. I am surprise Carlos like this too as normally he is not very adventurous enough to try out new food. I made some with sesame bottom but you can make it plain if you like.

Baked Eggplant with Garlic Sesame Dressing

I am trying to cut down on meat in my diet and I am cooking more vegetable dishes for myself. I still cook meat as Carlos still like his meat. Anyway I love eggplants (aubergine/brinjal) cook in any style. Did you know that eggplant skin contains a powerful antioxidant called nasunin? Nasunin is supposed to be good for brain health, helping to protect the fats in brain cell membranes (which protect brain cells from free radicals). Eggplant is also an excellent source of fiber and manganese. So it is good to have more eggplant in our diet.

Initially for this dish I plan to steam the eggplant but I was too lazy to take out my big steamer so I end up putting them in the oven. I actually like it better this way as the eggplant is not too mushy and by baking, it gives it a nice toasty aroma. To some people this dish might sounds bland but it is far from being tasteless. The soft eggplant just soaks up all the yummy dressing. They were so good and all I need is just this one dish for my meal.

Baked Scallion/Green Onion Pancakes

Crispy, flaky, and savory scallion pancakes are one of our very favorite Chinese restaurant treats. This Chinese pancake is very much like the Indian parathas and other type of flatbreads. When I saw these pancakes at Seasaltwith Food website I know I just have to try it out as they look so fluffy and crispy. Best of all it was baked and not pan fried. I’ve done this before but it is without the yeast so the pancakes were much denser. True to how Angie’s described it. They were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Do hop over to Angie’s website to check out her step by step video on how to make this.

Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

I like this noodle dish after having it at a Taiwanese restaurant a few times but never attempt making it at home. I always thought it involves a lot of work and time consuming but it is not so after I read through some recipes online. It is just putting all the ingredients in a pot and let it simmer away. In a few hours you will be rewarded with rich beefy broth with tender beef and white radish. It is so good that I am planning to cook it again soon.

Chinese Style Braised Honey Spare Ribs

This dish is super easy to make. With just a few ingredients it turns out a wonderful dish to have it with rice. All you have to do it let the ribs simmer for some time and the meat will be so tender and literally fall off the bones when you eat it. I actually bought a whole rack of ribs and get the butcher to cut it into smaller pieces.

Salted Fish and Chicken Fried Rice

A friend of mine gave me a piece of salted fish and it has been sitting in the freezer since last year. I thought of using it to make Laksa Johor but change my mind and used it for fried rice. It has been the longest time since I have salted fish. I cook this fried rice for lunch on weekdays as I don’t think my husband can stand the stinky smell of the salted fish. I am sure he will ‘pengsan’ (faint) ha ha.. gosh they taste so good in fried rice. I still have half of it and maybe used it for claypot chicken rice.

Fish in Fermented Black Bean Sauce

My mom and grandma hardly cook anything with fermented black beans so I am not familiar with this ingredient at all. We only used bean paste/tau cheong in our cooking. I only start using it after seeing some of my friend here cooking with it. They will use it to cook pork, fish or vegetable. As for me I like to cook fish with it. I just love how the fish soak up all the wonderful flavor of the fermented black beans. I will steam the fish if I can get them real fresh but since this tilapia came frozen I decided to pan fried it first before cooking it in the sauce.

Wuxi Chicken Wings/Ginger Wine Soy Sauce Chicken Wings

It has been awhile since I cook with chicken wings. I bookmarked this recipe from Sonia’s right after she posted it at her blog. I just love how her dish/wings look, dark and glistening with soy sauce glaze. This is such a nice simple dish and goes really well with rice.

Ingredients:
Source: Nasi Lemak Lover

18 pcs Chicken Wings (mid section)
1 tbsp light soy sauce
½ tbsp Shao Hsing cooking wine
1 spring onion - cut into 1"
5 slices ginger
1/3 cup water

Chinese Beef Stew with Daikon and Carrot

I love daikon especially in soup or stew. I’ve stop eating them for a couple of years after being admitted to the ER for eating too much of it ha ha...Well, I am back cooking it again but this time I know I have to limit my consumption of it. I made this dish a few months ago and only get to post it now as I have put out all the Kelantan dishes first for last month. Do check out the round up here .

Stew beef with daikon is a traditional Cantonese stew and I see a lot of the online recipes called for Chee Hou sauce which is a readymade soy beans, ginger and garlic paste used for braising meat. Since I don’t have it I just add some tau cheong to it. I just love this dish especially the thick sauce that is so perfect over white rice.

Pork Jerky/Bak Kua and Shrimp Fried Rice

I’ve been very busy for the past 2 months. Flew to New York twice to take care of Diana and don’t have time to do much especially cooking, baking, blog posting or blog hopping. Meals at home are mostly simple salad, sandwiches or one pot meal. Just before I flew to NY, I wanted to finish up the few pieces of Bak Kua in the fridge. I am too lazy to turn on the big oven just to warm them up I simply cut them up and throw it into the fried rice. Carlos like it a lot and told me to cook our next fried rice meal again with it but I told him he might need to wait till the next CNY before I make another batch of bak kua again. So if you have any leftover of bak kua from CNY why not use it to make fried rice. I am pretty sure you are going to like it.

Prawns Wrapped in Taro Paste

This is another prawn dish that is nice to serve for Chinese New Year. I made this dish a few years ago but never posted it in my blog. I am recreating it again so I could post it here for my record. This dish will be ideal as an appetizer too. The taro which is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside compliments well with the succulent prawn within.

Ingredients:

15-18 large prawns – shell,deveined and leave the tail intake
2 tbsp flour

Creamy Butter Prawns/Nai Yau Har

My mom cooked a lot of traditional dishes for our Chinese New Year reunion dinner and one of them is this prawn dish. She once saw a chef on TV demonstrating a prawn dish using evaporated milk and she cook it for us. We like it a lot but I tweak recipe a bit by adding additional ingredients to it. Many Chinese families like to cook prawns/shrimps, as a prawn in Cantonese is ‘Ha’ which in English means ‘laughter’ and that associate with the idea of happiness and joy all year round. Being Chinese, all the dishes serve during the festive season need to have auspicious name or meaning to it. This is my version of mom’s dish. Finger licking good!!

 

Szechuan Style Eggplant

I made this dish when I was under the weather not too long ago. With the medicine, coughing and stuffy nose and all, my taste bud went haywire. No mood to cook or appetite to eat anything except for rice porridge and soup. There were 2 eggplants in the vegetable compartment and it is going soft and wrinkles on me. I always have this habit of buying egg plant but never cook them so it always end up in the garbage bin but I am not going to let that happen this time.

Since I like eggplant a lot I convinced myself to cook it and 20 minutes later a plate of aromatic, spicy and sweet dish to have it with my porridge. This is exactly what I needed to clear up my nose and head. I made this dish with hot bean paste which is commonly used in Szechuan cooking. You can get it any Asian store and some supermarket even carries it.

Long Bean Rice

My friend Roselind from PA mail me some organic home grown long beans not too long ago with some bitter gourd and it was just perfect to cook this meal. I remember growing up eating this long bean rice. My mom used to cook this so often. She was a seamstress back then and she teaches sewing at my grandfather shop lot 6 days a week so by the time she gets home it will be late evening. She will usually cook something quick like this one pot meal with bitter gourd soup and a sambal dish to go with the meal for us. She will stir-fry all the ingredients first and then cook it in the rice cooker. Once she pops it into the rice cooker she can cook the sambal. Once a while she will substitute the long beans with yam/taro, ‘kai choy’/mustard green, cabbage or pumpkin as it depends on what we have at home. I like this type of meal as I can cook a bit more and have it again for the next day.

Stir Fry Beef with Green Chilies

I’ve lunch at Le Shio Asian Fusion at Delaware a few times and they have this particular dish called Beef in Jalapeno peppers that Carlos and I like a lot. I tried to recreates it at home. Instead of just using Jalapeno peppers which I find a bit too spicy I added some non-spicy Shishito peppers to it. As for the beef I used top sirloin but you can always use any cut of meat that are good for stir-fry or replace it with any type of protein of your choice.

Ingredients:

10 oz beef top sirloin – cut into long thin strips
15 shishito peppers/chilies – seeded and cut thinly
5 jalapeno peppers/chilies – seeded and cut thinly
2 cloves garlic – chopped
1 tsp chopped ginger
Salt to taste

Dan Dan Noodles

Dan dan noodle is a classic dish originated from Chinese Szechuan cuisine. It consist a spicy meat sauce with preserved vegetables in it and it is served over noodles. You can use either pork or beef for the meat sauce and since I like this noodle on the dry side so I just omit the broth part. I never try the original Szechuan noodles before but I understand that they were pretty spicy. I did put some chili in mine but please feel free to adjust the amount of spiciness to your preferences. I find this meat sauce is pretty good to eat with rice too.

Hakka Braised Pork with Black Fungus (Char Yoke)

Non-halal

Even though we are not Hakka but my mom do cooked some of Hakka dishes for us like the Yong Tau Foo , Kau Yoke, Mui Choi Kau Yoke, Abacus Beads and this Char Yoke. She will make this particular dish only on special occasions like Chinese New Year or Mooncake Festival. This is quite a simple recipe with not too many ingredients other than the adding the red fermented beancurd and five spice powder to the dish.

I put off making this dish for something because I don’t like the splashing of the oil while deep frying the marinated meat. I did get splashed a bit by the oil while trying to turn the pork but it is all worth it as the dish turns out really well as the pork is tender and the black fungus (woodears) are soft yet slightly on the crunchy side. It goes really well with steamed rice. Since I don’t prepare dishes like this often I cook a bit more so I can freeze some of it. When I wanted to eat it, all I have to do is defrost and reheat it with a few tablespoon of water.

Chinese Chives Pocket

These chewy and crispy pockets are favorite Chinese snack here in the US. It is filled with ground meat, eggs and garlicky chives. They do sell frozen ones here but I like making these pockets myself as I can add whatever I like into the filling. You can always modify the filling according to your preference like adding tofu, mushrooms to it or omit the meat for vegetarian version. You can also add as much chives as you wish to it too. I even freeze some uncooked ones so I can have it anytime I wanted to. By the way, I will be away from my blog. My sister and I will be visiting Yellowstones , Salt Lake City , Mount Rushmore and Las Vegas . I won't be able to reply to all your comments as I am not taking my laptop with me. If there is anything urgent you can always email me as I will check it daily.