My Sweet and Sour Tofu Recipe on Rasa Malaysia

This is my first guest post since I have been blogging for food and cooking nearly two years on my Chinese food blog, a few months later on this English one. Yet I didn’t post any recipes here at first, just focused on reading my favourite food blogs.

Bee from Rasa Malaysia is one of my favourite blogs that I’ve subscribed for a long time. When I first found her blog, I was impressed by her gorgeous pictures and attracted by her passion for Malaysian foods. I’ve tried many recipes from her blog that turned out to be hits in my family. As Chinese New Year is coming around the corner, Bee will be sharing a series of Chinese Recipes on Rasa Malaysia. She can be classified as an all-round Asian food blogger.

You might have heard or tried the Peking Pork Chops, or Sweet and Sour Beef, that are also my Aussie friends’ favourites. In Chinese cooking, we do use tofu a lot. Especially fried tofu is a very popular dish in South Asia. An idea just came up in my mind, why not combine those popular dishes into one? So here comes the Sweet and Sour Fried Tofu. I tried to use as many veggies as I could, including onion, green, red and yellow capsicum, going with Jasmine rice, sprinkle black sesame seeds on top, creating a colourful dish looked like a rainbow. I also name this dish as 彩虹炸豆腐 in Chinese, literally translated as “Rainbow Fried Tofu”. 

Vietnamese Lemongrass Chicken Fillets

Chicken again? Yes, I love to have chicken for every dinner if I can, LOL…Some friends of my daughter have noticed that our family eats chickens quite often. As I got some fresh lemon grass in my fridge, it’s a good reason to cook a dish with lemon grass. I’ve been craving Vietnamese Lemongrass Chicken Fillets for a while.

Lemon grass is commonly used as a herb in Vietnamese cuisine. The fragrance of lemon grass is so sweet, with a citrus flavor, that would enrich the flavour of any kinds of meat, especially for pork and chicken. They can be easily found at any Asian grocery stores. To use the lemon grass, we only need the white stalk by removing the green leaves outside and the end. In order to bring up more flagrance of it, finely chop and/or pound it in with mortar and pestle. Sometimes I’m quite lazy or feel tired, thus I just throw the lemon grass stalks in a mini food processor and chop them for a few seconds. The sweet fragrance smells heavenly.

Mango & Tapioca Pearls Dessert (Happy Australia Day)

Yesterday was Australia Day that falls on 26 January every year. It’s an official national public holiday for celebrations. Many friends of mine will make use of this opportunity to travel, or stay at home doing some gardening. For me, I like to hide myself in some cool places and enjoy some refreshing, cold drinks or chilled desserts as we are still in hot summer here.

This Mango and Tapioca Pearls Dessert was made with an Australian mango in season. It’s quite large, about 510 grams, juicy and sweet. I cooked some tapioca pearls to go with it. The texture of this dessert was like something between drink and pudding. We call it “露” in Chinese, roughly translated as “chilled dessert”. Hong Kong people like to use all kinds of fruit to make chilled dessert, including water melons, rock melons, lychees, all those favourite fruits in summer…Mango is the most popular choice in chilled dessert, I guess. When serving, you can also mix in some milk or coconut milk to add more flavours.

Baked Drumsticks with Soy Sauce and Honey

Most of the time when I prepare meals, I’d think of using chicken simply because chicken is one of my family’s favourite foods. It’s not expensive, a good source of protein, last but not least, it’s versatility. It could be roasted, broiled, grilled or poached, and combined with a wide range of herbs and spices, or whatever I can try.

Amongst all parts/cuts of chicken, drumsticks contain less fat and are cheaper than chicken breast. When it comes to baking, I like drumsticks. The meat of drumsticks is juicier. My family tends to prefer baked drumsticks to chicken breast. Previously, I grilled organic drumsticks, that was a hit in my family. This time, I also adapted the previous method, baked them after a brief pan-frying. This method shortened much cooking time. The browning of chicken skins was easier to be controlled. All the juice was coated inside and kept the drumsticks moist after baking. The marinade I used for the chicken is of oriental taste.

Mapo Tofu (麻婆豆腐)

This popular Szechuan (Sichuan) Chinese dish, Mapo Tofu, is my family’s favourite. Actually, I love every dish that cooked with tofu (beancurd). The dish is a combination of tofu, simmered in spicy chili- and bean-based sauce, together with pork mince or beef mince. That said, it was named for the old woman who invented the dish. As she got a pockmarked face, her popular dish was named as 麻婆豆腐, literally translated as "pockmarked grandmother’s beancurd".

Generally, Szechuan cuisine is very hot indeed. I have to adjust and cook the tofu in mild-hot sauce. The authentic taste of Mapo tufu has to include the powdered Szechuan peppercorns that would give a unique spiciness, as a result of creating a very special effect of numbing and spicy (麻辣). The amount of powdered Szechuan peppercorns used in this recipe was very mild and suits to the taste of the majority. Yet you might like to roast or dry fry (fry on hot wok without any oil) the Szechuan peppercorns in order to bring up more flavour, and add more of it if you desire a stronger taste.

Braised Five-Spice Chicken With Vegetables

The chicken in this dish tastes fantastic in the five spice sauce. When it comes to cooking this dish, it’s very flexible for using any Chinese vegetables you like. It’s quite versatile, suitable for going with steamed rice or porridge. You can cook the chicken in five spice sauce in a day in advance, cool it in the refrigerator, then reheat it and cook some fresh vegetables as you need it. The flavours will intensify overnight.

Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream

Matcha (or maccha) is a well-known Japanese green tea that is traditionally used in tea ceremony. Nowadays, the finely-powdered form is widely used in all sorts of drinks and foods. Just name a few, soba noodles, bakery products, desserts, like mochi and green tea ice cream.

The powdered green tea is very handy to use. The easiest way to make green tea ice-cream is just add a few tablespoons of green tea powder in softened vanilla ice cream (use Häagen-Dazs' if you desire), stir and combine vigorously, then frozen for an hour or so if you like it a bit firmer. It’s pretty easy and “cool”, isn’t it?

Recently I often use my own ice cream maker as I don’t want to let it sit in my pantry without doing any job for me in this hot summer time. Last time, I shared an eggless version of banana ice cream. Here comes an easy version of green tea ice cream. If you don’t have an ice cream maker at home, you can still make some awesome ice cream as well. Some tips are to be shared in the notes below. The key to making flavourful green tea ice cream is to use the good quality of Matcha powder.

Chicken in Tomato Sauce (Chinese Cuisine)

Tomato is a healthy food, not very expensive and can be easily found throughout the year. Long time ago, I read an article on The World’s Healthiest Foods talking about the antioxidant function of lycopene that tomatoes contain:

“This carotenoid found in tomatoes (and everything made from them) has been extensively studied for its antioxidant and cancer-preventing properties. The antioxidant function of lycopene-its ability to help protect cells and other structures in the body from oxygen damage-has been linked in human research to the protection of DNA (our genetic material) inside of white blood cells. Prevention of heart disease has been shown to be another antioxidant role played by lycopene.” – from “Tomatoes” by The World’s Healthiest Foods.

It’s really encouraging me to use tomatoes more regularly in my cooking. Sometimes I just eat them raw, mix them in salad or cook them in soup. Sometimes I cook tomatoes with egg, sometimes with meat. Here’s one of my family’s favourite dish of tomatoes, Chicken in Tomato Sauce. When it comes to cooking tomatoes in Chinese way, I like to adapt my mother’s method, adding brown sugar in pieces (片糖) to cook sauce. The kind of brown sugar would balance the sour taste of tomatoes and produce fantastic results. It’s a kind of homey dish that many kids like to have with rice.

Braised Pork Ribs with Pumpkin

Whenever I go shopping for groceries, I’d often buy a pumpkin back home because their shape and colour are beautiful, taste heavenly sweet, as well as they are rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. After moving to Australia, I have been addicted to eating pumpkin whether it’s cooked in Western or Asian way. There are several different kinds of pumpkin? Which kind is the best? One of my friends said that butternut squash is the best. Yeah, I agree with her. For me, it’s also the best kind to bake in an oven. When it comes to cooking them in Asian way, I just feel the Jap/Kent pumpkin is the most suitable for being braised with meat. Here it’s one of my favourite dishes, Braised Pork Ribs with Pumpkin. Just a side note, I found lots of Chinese food blogs out there that are praising the combination of pork and pumpkin. It seems that pork and pumpkin are good partners to produce an appealing dish.

Do you like eating pumpkin? Which kind of pumpkin do you like the most?

Beef Brisket Rice Vermicelli Soup (Hong Kong Cuisine)

Here comes another popular Hong Kong noodle soup, Beef Brisket Rice Vermicelli Soup. You might have known the wonton soup already. Ever tried this beef brisket noodle soup before? The stewed beef brisket is so tender and goes really well with any noodles, egg noodles or rice vermicelli. As I shared previously, my mother-in-law is an expert in cooking beef brisket. I used her tricks to cook the beef brisket beforehand, then pop them in my fridge. When my lunch time comes, I just need to reheat the beef and add in my rice vermicelli soup. Then a quick and yummy lunch is on my dining table to be enjoyed.

Fried Noodles with Chicken

What’s for lunch today? Our family seldom eats rice for lunch, sometimes clears away the leftovers in fridge. Very often, I like to have fried noodles. Previously I shared the classic Cantonese fried noodles with pork (肉絲炒麵). Here I post another one of my favourite fried noodles, it’s fried with chicken together with lots of vegetables. As a matter of fact, whatever kind of fried noodles dish is placed in front of me, I won’t hesitate to taste and will definitely eat a lot, even though it’s just fried with veggies. So I’ve got a nickname, “Noodle Queen” in my family, haha..