Stewed Chicken Wings with Chinese Black Mushrooms

Here’s one of our family’s most favourite dishes for dinner. You can’t image how my kids like eating stewed chicken wings with mushrooms. Whenever I cook this dish, my kids will finish a big bowl of rice with the yummy chicken wings and sauce.

I think the mushrooms from Japan is the best ones that most suitable for stews. These mushrooms were bought by my mum from Hong Kong when she visited our family. My kids are really “experts” in eating mushrooms. Their taste buds can easily detect and differentiate the best mushrooms from the mediocre ones, even though I didn’t teach them in this regard. By the first bite of my mum’s mushrooms, they said, “Love these mushrooms indeed, delicious!”

The best dried mushrooms are thicker and bigger in size with sweet aroma. Try to find the mushrooms with best quality. It’s worth every dollar.

Stir-fried Broccoli with Beef

I just feel the look of broccoli is very appealing and beautiful. Needless to mention its rich nutrients. Yet, not many people like to eat it. In Chinese cooking, people seldom cook them in water then eat because it tastes quite dull.. If it is stir-fried with meat and seasoned with delicious sauce, it could be turned into a super star on the table. On the menu of Chinese banquet, broccoli could be highly possible there as broccoli is quite expensive in Hong Kong, that is categorized as a luxury vegetable.

Banana Pastry Dessert

This recipe was suggested by my sister when she traveled to Australia and visited me. She said she tried this dessert, banana pastry at a dessert café in Hong Kong. Immediately I baked one for her, that only took me less than 30 minutes. It’s really yummy and easy to make. The hot banana inside the pastry with smooth chocolate sauce tasted heavenly. Who can resist the temptation of ice-cream as well?

Stir-Fried Asparagus with Chicken & Bacon

Asparagus is quite expensive in Hong Kong throughout the year. I still can remember that a plate of blanched asparagus might cost a fortune in some Chinese restaurants. Luckily, I can easily find beautiful and fresh asparagus when they are in season in Australia. Asparagus could go very well with chicken. This dish, stir-fried asparagus was also enriched with the flavour of diced bacon. Yummy!

Baked Lamb Shanks with Mashed Potatoes

It’s quite cold these few days in Brisbane. The weather reminds me of my favourite dish, the baked lamb shanks. The meat is really tender, coating with rich sauce, that would literally fall off the bone and melt in my mouth. We like to serve the lamb shanks with an Italian seasoning, gremolata that adds extra flavours to the meat. What a comfort food in chilling days!

Soy Sauce Chicken (With Less Soy Sauce)

To cook a whole chicken is really a challenge. If the chicken thigh is cooked, the other parts might be over-cooked and the meat turns tough. When it comes to cook the whole chicken in soy sauce, it yields experiences and skills to control the heat and cooking time.

I found it’s much easier to get satisfied results with this cast-iron casserole. It heats foods evenly and retains the heat inside for longer time. The cast-iron casserole is extremely good for slow cooking. So I used it to cook the popular Chinese dish, soy sauce chicken. Traditionally, the amount of soy sauce that has to be used is quite a lot. It has to cover the whole chicken. Having done the cooking, it’s a problem of how to recycle the soy sauce as it’s too much. With the cast-iron casserole, the cooking calls for smaller amount of soy sauce that easily consumes, either for going with white rice, or frying noodles. It’s extremely yummy!

Baked Coconut Chicken in Portuguese Style

Both coconut milk and chicken are my family’s favourite foods. Cooking both of them together will definitely win everybody. This Portuguese coconut chicken looks like curry, but it’s not hot at all. This time I’ve deliberately added many different vegetables that cooked in coconut sauce, topped with creamy baked cheese. Who can resist the chicken inside? Ha…