Tofu and Pork in Chilli Bean Sauce (Video)

Tofu is an inexpensive nutrient-rich food. You can make lots of delicious dishes with it. Here’s one of my favourite tofu dishes - tofu and pork in chilli bean sauce (魚香豆腐).

The savoury and spicy taste of the whole dish is very appetizing. This dish goes perfectly with a bowl of steamed rice.

Read More

Purple Sweet Potato Snowskin Mooncakes

Ever thought of using purple sweet potato to make some snowskin mooncakes for Mid-Autumn festival celebration? Both the texture and taste are wonderfully good.

After the first attempt of making mooncakes used my own branded mould, I was itching to make another batch with a different filling.

A purple sweet potato (purple yam) has been sitting in the basket on my kitchen benchtop for quite a while. Guess that it’s perfect for my second attempt. The purple sweet potato grown in Australia is quite dry itself, with less water content compared with other kinds of sweet potatoes.

Read More

Pandan Snow Skin Mooncakes with Coconut Mung Bean Filling

How nice to make these fragrant pandan snow skin mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival? It's fun and divinely tasty. Step-by-step photos are in the recipe below.

Mid-Autumn Festival (aka moon festival or mooncake festival, 中秋節) is one of the important festivals in Chinese calendar. I’ve grown up from a family that would have store-brought mooncakes every year. Since I moved to Australia, I’ve been pondering over the idea of making my own mooncakes. After many years, I made some traditional and trendy ones finally.

Coconut milk and pandan juice often go well together in making Chinese dessert. Off I went with this idea and made these mini snow skin mooncakes for our church gathering.

The smell, taste and colour of both coconut milk and pandan are very unique, that you hardly find any other things to replace them.

Fresh pandan leaves are not common here. I could source some frozen ones though, and was glad that it was a big hit in our gathering.

Read More

Traditional Mooncakes (廣式月餅)

Mooncake is a must-eat snack during Mid-Autumn festival (中秋節) that I grew up with.  Once you gather all ingredients needed for making your own mooncakes, you'll feel not that difficult as you thought.  

Mid-Autumn festival (中秋節) is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar every year. So we finished this year’s celebration two weeks ago. You might’ve wondered why this recipe comes so late. Actually, I've also juggled whether I post its English translation this year or keep the draft until next year since I posted the Chinese version.

Here you go, the traditional mooncake recipe that’s been sitting for a long time in my draft folder has come alive on this blog. As I need more time working on my cookbook project, the posting on this blog has been slow down a bit. Yet, I've been cooking and working very hard.

For the past few weeks, I uploaded a few batches of recipes and photos to my editor. Thank you all for bearing with me for such a slow posting pace recently.

Read More

Japanese Enoki Beef Rolls

Here’s a quick, simple and delicious dish with authentic Japanese taste. These Japanese enoki beef rolls are classic, easily found on the menu of any good Japanese restaurants.

When you are stuck with something, haven’t got much time for cooking, still want some good foods to fuel your body with energy. Here’s a quick, simple and delicious dish with authentic Japanese taste.

Read More

Beef Stir Fry with Mustard Sauce

This beef stir fry with mustard sauce is quick and nourishing. The mustard sauce is so appetizing and makes the stir-fried tender beef much more delicious.

To make this dish, nothing is too complicated once you choose the right cut. Whenever I make stir fry dishes, I always like to use skirt steak beef. The grain of the meat is clearly seen running from one end to the other.

If you slice across the grain of the beef, that means cutting off the tissue, your beef will be tender after briefly stir-frying over high heat. Make sure not to over-cook the beef though. Some of you might live in the other side of the world, like US, you can use flank beef steak.

The highlight of this dish is the mustard sauce, taking the beef up a level. The taste of the sauce is not too spicy, but a bit sweet mingled with sour. So this dish is also very appetizing. If you’re into spicy food, you might like to increase the amount of hot mustard sauce.

Read More

Long Yan and Goji Tea

It is a traditional Chinese natural cure for insomnia handed down from generations. I love the sweet fragrant smell of long yan. It’s very appetizing and comforting.

Long yan (also known as longan, “gui yuan” 桂圓 in Chinese) is a popular tropical fruit. The flesh is very sweet and juicy. I and my family like to eat it fresh, even though it’s quite pricey here in Australia.

The dried ones, dark brown in colour, are less expensive, good for making Chinese soups, desserts and teas.

In Chinese medicine, long yan is a natural cure for insomnia. Goji (aka wolfberry, or Goji berries, 枸杞 in Chinese) is also found good for eye health, giving your a feeling of calmness and quality of sleep.

Read More