Homemade Salted Mustard Greens (雪菜/雪裡紅)

Salted mustard greens (雪菜/雪裡紅) are very popular in stir-fry with meats, tofu and noodle soup in traditional Chinese cooking. I often keep some in my fridge, and throw a bit of it whenever I like to enhance the flavour in my Chinese dishes, like green beans stir fry, shredded pork rice noodle soup.

It’s pretty easy to make salted mustard greens at home, simply add a small amount of salt. After a few days, you can enjoy the aromatic pickled vegetables. Compared with those canned ones, you're 100% sure it's healthy without any preservatives at all.

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Orange Chocolate Swirl Cakes (w/thanks to Josephmark)

If you haven’t tasted any Chinese or Hong Kong cuisine, you might be as curious as those staff at Josephmark, a leading creative design company in Brisbane. Last Wednesday was my big day. On that day I felt myself like a “food ambassador” from Hong Kong, cooked a 3-course lunch for Josephmark staff. Apart from the downside, as all my kitchen pots are not big enough to cook for the whole company, only catered for a bunch of people who were curious enough to taste the authentic Hong Kong foods. I was totally thrilled by their positive responses. I pan-fried my homemade dumplings in their newly renovated kitchen, cooked a full pot of beef brisket stew going with steamed rice, indulging them with creamy mango puddings to end their lunch.

Too bad, I forgot to take photos of each dish on that day because I was too busy with cooking and chatting. Luckily, I was reminded that a few photos of the whole group should be taken as souvenir at the end.

The next day, I found this humble lunch was mentioned in Josephmark’s newsletter. Hey, you guys at Josephmark are very efficient and awesome! The line, “Ho so tasty” caught my eyes instantly and I was thrilled by their likings.

It took me by surprise that I got a thank-you card with a lovely gift the next day. My heart was so touched when reading the words in the card. Having unwrapped their gift, I found two beautiful silicon moulds that I spotted in a kitchenware shop and have been juggling whether to buy them or not for a while.

Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to use them, then baked some buttery orange chocolate swirl cakes twice before I wrote this post.

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Egg Custard Pastries (Cheating Version of Egg tarts)

Egg tart is a very popular dessert in Hong Kong. People like to have a cup of milk tea (奶茶) along with one or two egg tarts for tea, feeling energy boosted up in heaven. My family and friends are big fans of this little angel. As for myself, I’m really addicted to eating the fragrant, silky egg custard inside the tart shells. Although making egg tarts is not difficult, I sometimes like to take a short cut and make some to ease my craving on the go. I might call this quick dessert as “Cheating Version of Egg tarts”.

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Steamed Whole Fish (with Cleaning Tip)

Over the past few days, I got a cold and soar throat. It’s not very serious, only with a bit of dizziness while standing or walking because of a minor infection in my left inner ear. My appetite was affected, still loved to do cooking in my kitchen. Needless to say, the easiest and simplest dishes were my first choice.

Suddenly realized that I haven’t steamed live fish for a while. In Brisbane, we don’t have many choices though. Silver perch is quite easily found in a nearby Asian grocery store. Quickly, I decided to have a steamed fish dish to sooth my soar throat. This is a traditional Chinese way of steaming a whole fish, simple and easy, and that provides with enough proteins for my family. The staff nearly did all the cleaning job for me. So I didn’t need to spend a long time in the kitchen for preparation and cooking.

If you have tried live silver perch, you might notice there’s something like slippery gel on the fish skin. Many people don’t bother it at all, but I’m not quite into it as I feel the slippery stuff quite nasty. Water can’t wash it away easily. Gladly, there’s a very simple trick to get rid of the slippery, nasty thing away.

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Drunken Chicken Legs

I’ve got a large amount of drunken chicken sauce left after trying Alvin’s recipe. I wonder how I should do with this leftover. I didn’t want to waste it, nor felt I had drunken chicken enough. So, I decided to make a second round of drunken chicken.

This time I used chicken legs only and made it as an appetizer. This dish was served cold with sour and sweet cucumber. The texture of the chicken skin was smooth and the meat absorbed all the sweet wine flavours. It can be served as a refreshing appetizer in summer, or a side dish for meat lovers.

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Ricotta Chocolate Pastry with Strawberry Compote

I got my family really addicted to this dessert, Ricotta Chocolate Pastry with Strawberry Compote last week. The smooth ricotta was going so well with the black chocolate as the filling inside, and the flaky puff pastry, crunchy almonds outside. The taste was sophisticated, combining the sweet and bitter filling with the slightly tangy strawberry compote served.

Ricotta is a kind of “young” cheese that contains only 13% fat. The dessert was light and served as a perfect ending of our dinner.

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Laksa-Fried Chicken with Mint Sauce

This recipe was created by Adam Liaw who won the title of MasterChef, Australia recently, inspired by fried chicken stalls in Malaysia. The name of the dish, Laksa-Fried Chicken with Mint Sauce, really got my attention. I have ever thought that laksa could be used in frying chicken due to all my previous encounters of laksa in soups. Flipping through the pages of the MasterChef Magazine and browsing all the mouth-watering recipes, I felt this dish was a must to try first. (I made Alvin’s drunken chicken before buying this magazine.) It’s a big hit in my family when the laksa-fried chicken was served on the dining table before my family. My hubby even made a remark that this dish was even better than the roast duck we ate in a restaurant on the day celebrating my birthday.

Amongst all the MasterChef magazines I bought, this issue is very special, so to speak, it’s a celebration of the achievements of the top four finalists along the journey in the competition. To me, it’s quite amazing that you’ve found someone who you know via twitting/blogging was mentioned in a magazine right in front of your nose. Congratulations on the feature of your blog, Ellie.

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Drunken Chicken (醉雞)

When Alvin placed his Drunken Chicken with Bruised Salad before the MasterChef judges, it’s amazing to watch how the judges were impressed by Alvin’s creation on TV show. The satisfaction shown through the judges’ facial and verbal expressions really got me want to try Alvin’s drunken chicken at that moment. The meat is succulent and penetrated with the rich flavour of Chinese rice wine. Best of all, it’s simple and easy to make. Yet, I never thought that mirin could be used in this famous Chinese dish. The mirin adds a bright touch to the chicken and enhances the flavour of the stock.

Alvin’s dishes always shine his cleverness of mixing sweetness, tang and heat as Matt Preston, one of the MasterChef judges quoted on the magazine,

“Alvin stole our hearts with this dish (in fact, it was George’s favourite of the series), which he put up at the start in the childhood memories challenge. At its best, Alvin’s food is loaded with crunchy textures and a delicious interplay of sweetness, tang and heat. This dish is no exception.” – Matt Preston

Follow Alvin’s thinking of how to incorporate childhood memories in cooking, I also added some wolfberries (杞子) that my mother used to put in this dish because my mother believes they are beneficial to our health, still keeping the traditional savory taste by adding a small amount of soy sauce. (Hop over to see how I made use of the sauce leftover - Updated on 11 Aug. 2010)

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