Baked Salt and Pepper Quails

Appetizers are very common in western cuisine, yet it’s not unusual on Chinese menu. We often have deep fried salt and pepper quails served as an appetizer in Hong Kong restaurants. The quails are crispy with succulent meat inside. When it comes to home cooking, I always turn to my oven simply because I want to use less oil. The other day I baked these delicious quails with my convection oven, that I used to bake crispy pork belly. It’s so handy and quick to get the dish done. You can use regular built-in ovens as well, only with a few minutes longer cooking time though.

Pan-fried Pork Buns (Shengjian Bao 生煎包)

Wondering if these are steamed buns, not pan-fried buns? They are pan-fried buns (also known as shengjianbao 生煎包). Not joking, it’s real.

Back then when I was up to make these buns and planned to post the recipe on my Chinese food blog, just in time I remembered that some fans had asked me how to wrap and pleat a bun. So I took a video while I did the pleating of a bun. Then I cooked the buns in a frying pan instead of a steamer.

The shengjianbao I tried before in a shanghainese restaurant were round and flat without any pleatings, that looked quite different from mine posted here. Since then, I’ve seen more and more of these pleated buns being served in restaurants. The buns are lined up in a nice and hot oily pan and cooked until the bottoms are very crispy. You might also like to sprinkle some finely chopped spring onions and white sesame seeds on top for garnish. That will make your buns look more attractive.

The texture of these buns is soft and fluffy with a crispy bottom. I like to dip them in some soy sauce with black rice vinegar, whereas my husband likes to have them with extra chilli sauce. Whichever sauce you try, it won’t let you down. The buns taste very delicious on their own though.

Malaysian Curry Chicken (Quick Version)

Whenever I need a quick, simple and delicious meal, Malaysian curry will come up in my mind, one of my most favourite dishes. To myself, what is the most intriguing part is the fragrant coconut cream or coconut milk that’s often added to enrich the flavour. The heat of the curry can be mild to strong. When it comes to making this curry dish, I just love popping in all the vegetables I got left in my fridge. It perfectly goes with steamed Jasmine rice. Yes, we are big fans of rice. Or you might like to follow the Malaysian tradition to add noodles instead of rice. This curry sauce is very delicious and won’t go wrong with any kinds of vegetables and meat.