Ice-skin Mooncakes with Custard Fillings

Chinese Moon Festival (Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋節) is around the corner. I haven’t eaten any mooncakes for ages. Suddenly, an idea came to my mind: why not make some for my family and friends this year? My daughter loves eating mochi very much. So I’m sure she would love this modern mooncake because its taste and texture are very similar to Ice-skin Mooncakes. I adapted the recipe that was given by one of my friends. Here you’d find making ice-skin mooncakes is not that hard you imagine. I brought along some ice-skin mooncakes to share in a family’s gathering. Before leaving, a kid eagerly asked for my recipe as she loved it very much and wanted to do it by herself. I bet whoever likes to eat mochi and custard would love these cute and yummy Ice-skin Mooncakes too.

Meatballs with Pasta Recipe

I love cooking Angle Hair pasta. Not only does it taste good, but also quick to get it done, especially on a hectic day. The Angle Hair pasta I used in this recipe is fantastic, that only needs two minutes to cook until al dente. This dish Meatballs with Angle Hair Pasta is my daughter’s favourite. When it comes to cooking this quick dish, it won't take too long to prepare fresh meatballs. Sometimes I just use the meatballs that cooked in advance and kept in freezer. Then grab them out to cook in the last minute. The pasta absorbs all the flavours of the sauce, going really well the juicy meatballs.

Fried Rice with Minced Beef

Here’s my favourite dish for all seasons, Fried Rice with Minced Beef (生炒牛肉飯), which is also a very popular one-dish-meal offered at any Chinese restaurants. The rice has to be sty-fried really hot. Having combined with the fresh minced beef and crunchy lettuce, this dish is very healthy and nutritious. When it comes to frying rice, I love adding heaps of meat and vegetables. It’s also suitable for elderly or young kids, helping them intake more protein and veggies.

Salt and Pepper Prawns

I think many people would have tried or heard of this popular Chinese dish, salt and pepper prawns (椒鹽蝦). It’s quite easy to find this dish on the menu of a Chinese restaurant. The basic requirement of cooking this delicious dish is to get really balanced taste of salt and pepper mixture. The secret ingredient is a bit of five-spice powder. Either fresh or frozen prawns will taste yummy after deep-frying. Mind you, after deep-frying the prawns, the oil is quite messy. I found it’s hardly to recycle and use the oil again. So I used a small amount of oil just enough to cover the prawns in order to save money.

Spicy Eggplants with Minced Pork in Clay Pot

This popular Chinese dish, Spicy Eggplants with Minced Pork (魚香茄子) is always in our family’s menu. Although I can easily get very big eggplants here, when it comes to cooking this dish, I like to use the smaller ones, purple in colour, with a slim and long shape as well as soft skin. Having said that, no matter what kind of eggplants you choose, this dish would definitely be delicious. The spongy texture of eggplant absorbs all the flavours and sauce, giving you a heavenly taste. Some people might not like its bitter taste. But if the sliced eggplants are rinsed with salty water before cooking, this step will help remove much of the bitterness. More importantly, the eggplants should be cooked thoroughly.

Green Tea Chiffon Cake

This Green Tea Chiffon Cake is quite easy to make. Once you have got all the ingredients in your pantry, you can bake a beautiful green tea chiffon on the go. My family loves every dessert that made of green tea. When I was writing this recipe, I heard my husband’s voice coming from our kitchen, “Where’s the green tea cake? I can’t find it.” I told him it was put into fridge as it’s got cream on it. Having written up this recipe, half of the cake was gone. Oh dear!

Baked Chicken Wings with Honey & Lemon

Whenever we have chicken wings for lunch, dinner or snack time, my daughter would never have enough. One of my friends even screams out, “Chicken wings, I love you.” , when any wings are on table. I don’t know if chicken wings have got any magic. Last week I baked chicken wings with honey with lemon juice. It became a big hit in my family as expected. When all the chicken wings are gone, the same question still came to me, “Did you leave some more in the pan?” Uhh…

Salmon Miso Soup

My daughter requested me to cook miso soup for her one night. So it triggered me to think of the yummy miso soup that we tried at Itamae Sushi (板前壽司) in Hong Kong. They mainly used salmon to cook for dashi, that was a big hit. Luckily, I found an Asian fish market selling salmon bone skeleton, together with much meat on it, only costs a few dollars a kilograms. If you’re from Western countries, you might not like to use the fish bones at all. Chinese families like to use them to cook fish soup. The 2 dollars-and-something salmon bones made us a very delicious miso soup last week. I didn’t really need any dashi powder at all. Our family enjoyed this natural and delicious soup very much.