Mung Bean Filling (For Mooncakes)

Making your own homemade mung bean filling is the secret to creating exceptionally delicious traditional mooncakes and snow skin mooncakes. Rich, creamy, and infused with coconut milk, this sweet pastry paste offers a velvety texture that elevates any Mid-Autumn Festival treat.

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Cantonese Sticky Rice Dumplings (Video 廣東鹹肉糭)

When I first learned to wrap sticky rice dumplings (鹹肉糭) for celebrating Dragon Boat festival, this was the easiest method I went for. It's so much fun. The dumplings tasted so great.

Sticky rice dumpling (Zongzi 糭子 in Chinese) is a classic Chinese food often eaten for celebrating Dragon Boat Festival. It’s mainly made of glutinous rice, stuffed with seasoned pork belly, salted duck egg yolks or many different fillings, then wrapped in bamboo leaves, cooked in boiling water.

My family especially loves the Cantonese sticky rice dumplings and would love to have them all the time through out the year, either for breakfast or lunch.

There are two camps of how to eat these dumplings, dipping with soy sauce or going with white sugar. So, guess which way my family loves to go for? Sugar. In fact, either way is fantastic and delicious.

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How To Wrap a Pyramid Shaped Sticky Rice Dumpling (五角糉 + Video)

I reckon this pyramid shaped sticky rice dumpling is the most beautiful one. It’s the traditional shape mostly made by Hong Kong people. You need four pieces of bamboo leaves to make a dumpling. It sounds too many things to manage. But don’t be nervous. I posted a tutorial video below the recipe. It’s not that difficult as you thought.

Dragon Boat Festival (端午節) is coming on the weekend this year. Get ready to make some sticky rice dumplings (zongzi 鹹肉糭) to celebrate?

When I first learnt to make zongzi, I took the easiest way. Here's the recipe I posted previously. It only needs three pieces of bamboo leaves to wrap a zongzi. If you jump on the bandwagon to try making zongzi at home, I highly recommend the easiest method.

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How To Make Whipped Cream 【Things you want to know + video】

How come my cream won’t be whipped to fluffy, but remains watery instead? Are there any tips on how to make whipped cream? These are the questions I received a while ago.

After posting those three no-churn ice-cream recipes, a few readers asked me to what extent we have to beat the cream.

Answer: For the sake of mixing with other ingredients at ease, we only need to whip the cream until the volume is increased, very fluffy with soft texture. That’s so-called “soft peak” stage. As those no-churn ice-cream recipes are very forgiving, you won’t fail even if you beat it to form stiff peaks, yet not too stiff, as you’ll find it’s very hard to combine with other ingredients as a result the texture of the end product won’t be smooth as expected.

The cream on the strawberry custard pastry I posted previously was whipped till the so-called “stiff peak” stage.

If you feel your head starting spinning between the two terms “soft peaks” and “stiff peaks”, like how I felt way back to when I started to learn whipping cream, you and me are on the same boat. What is soft peak? What’s stiff peak? How do they look like?

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How To Make Ginger Juice

If you’ve visited this blog for a while, you might have known there are some recipes yielded for freshly grated ginger juice. Fresh ginger is a very good and popular marinade ingredient that helps tenderize the meat and expel some awkward smell if there’s any. With ginger juice, you can make a tasty drink that boosts up your body health, or a dessert that satisfies your sweet tooth, or a delicious sauce that takes your whole dish up a level.

But, how do we make ginger juice? And how to extract as much ginger juice as possible? These are the questions I was asked repeatedly. You don’t need to slice or chop the ginger at all. These ways can only give you a few drops of ginger juice. In Australia, ginger root is quite expensive. So we’d like to extract as much juice from a small size of ginger as we can. It’s not that hard as you thought. All you need is an inexpensive ginger grater and your clean hands.

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Homemade Dried Mandarin Peels (陳皮)

Dried mandarin peel / dried tangerine peel (陳皮 in Chinese, literally means old mandarin peel) has been widely used in Chinese cooking for hundred of years. We like to add a little piece of it into our soups, congee and even in desserts. It’s very versatile that can be used in many savoury or sweet dishes. Its subtle fragrance will enhance the flavour and take the dish up a notch.

My mum used to make her own dried mandarin peel. Most of the Chinese people from Hong Kong find that the fragrance of Xinhui mandarin (新會柑), from the province of Xin Hui, China, is the best and benefits our health, thus it’s commonly used as Chinese herbals. The flesh of Xinhui mandarin is too sour to eat, yet people still are willing to get heaps when it’s in season at a quite expensive price, just for the skin.

There’s no way to get any Xinhui mandarins here in Australia. I tried to make my own dried mandarin peels with different kinds of mandarin from local produce, and found the aroma of each is quite different. Up to now, I’m quite pleased with the Imperial mandarin that is most similar to the fragrance of Xinhui mandarin. Best still, the flesh of Imperial mandarin is very sweet. Nothing would be wasted then.

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Homemade Soy Milk (With or Without a Soy Milk Maker)

I’ve got many goodies brought from the last trip back to Hong Kong, including intangible, great memories and tangible things, like this new kitchen toy – Joyoung soymilk maker. It’s recommended by my friend. After a long search from online and different local electric stores in Hong Kong, I got my hands on one finally in Shatin. Each only costs HKD580. I found the soymilk maker quite helpful. Not only does it help make soy milk easily, but also quickly make a variety of creamy soup or porridge in twenty minutes. The end result of the first attempt to make soymilk with this machine was very satisfied. I’ll definitely enjoy more homemade soy milk from now on. Happy !

Don't get disappointed if you don't have one. You still can enjoy fresh homemade soy milk without this soymilk maker. The result will be equally good, with more time and effort required though. The method is posted after the recipe.

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Pizza Dough

What I like about homemade pizzas is that they are equally tasty as those from Italian restaurants. Best of all, you can choose whatever toppings and add as much as you like. The first and utmost thing is to make the pizza base. Then the following steps are straight forward, just sprinkle your favourite toppings, pop it in an oven, wait for 5 to 10 minutes, the whole family can enjoy a delicious pizza fresh from the oven.

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Homemade Chicken Stock

Chicken stock is nutritious and delicious on its own. It can also help to form a rich-flavoured base of any savoury dishes. Many of my readers and fans asked me where I get the chicken stock, whether I made it myself. When you are too tired or don’t have time to cook, the store-bought stock might be your first choice. I’m quite fond of using Campbell’s chicken stock (Hong Kong version 史雲生) for making Chinese dishes, especially for noodle soups, or the salt-reduced Campbell’s chicken stock (Australia) to make other dishes.

Homemade chicken stock is another choice. It’s quite simple and doesn’t take too much time than you expect. Best of all, you can have the real unsalted stock with rich flavours. All you need is to make use of some leftover chicken bones (carcass) and vegetables. You can use a whole chicken if you like of course. Put all ingredients in a large pot for several hours of slow cooking. Refrigerate or freeze it until you’re ready to use them.

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How To Peel Garlic

Whatever dish we make, western or Asian, we need garlic cloves quite often. Garlic can enhance dishes with great aroma and nutrition. Way back thousand years ago, garlic was widely used as a medicine. Unfortunately, peeling garlic is not a pleasant job. Many of the traditional Chinese dishes, like braised tofu with roast pork, have to use whole garlic cloves, not minced garlic. Is there any easy way to get the troublesome peeling job done?

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How To Make Caramel (Tips and Video)

Both this post and video were requested by my fans after I posted the crème caramel recipe for Valentine’s Day. Some fans found it’s quite tricky to make the caramel. But for making the custard, it’s quite straightforward and they could successfully made silky smooth custard. If only the caramel was not crystallized or burnt, they would’ve enjoyed a perfect dessert. I was asked if there are any tips and tricks when making caramel. Hope this short post on tips and video might be a help for you who are after some tips and making caramel video.

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Homemade Golden Syrup (For Making Mooncakes)

What made this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival special to me was that my homemade traditional mooncakes were loved by many of my friends. All major ingredients I used were homemade, from the salted eggs, and lotus seed paste to this golden syrup. Sharing those mini golden mooncakes (recipe coming soon), loaded with natural sugar fragrance with my friends was really a joy.

Golden syrup, also known as invert syrup, is commonly used in making different desserts that brings in a good flavour. For those who are allergic to honey can use golden syrup instead.

Back to mooncake making, what makes the pastry of traditional mooncakes unique is the magic made by this golden, high-quality syrup, so that’s why the traditional mooncakes smell so fragrant. To cook golden syrup is a bit tricky, two important factors has to be kept in mind: timing and temperature. Otherwise, it’d either be burnt, or too runny, if it’s cooked too long or too short, or cooked on too high heat.

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Lotus Seed Puree (蓮蓉)

Lotus seeds are extensively used in making Chinese desserts or fillings in steamed buns. As the mid-autumn festival is coming around the corner, I’m going to prepare a large batch of lotus seed puree, over 1 kg, and make some traditional mooncakes for my family and friends.

My mother-in-law used to make lotus seed puree in a traditional way many years ago. She had to press hard and mash the cooked lotus seeds into a smooth paste with a wok spatula. It nearly took her half a day to make a small batch every time. Making lotus seed puree at home is quite tedious, yet showing a great love for the family in action.

Here’s a good news for those who have modern kitchen utensils. Armed with a food processor, you could make some with ease and skip the most tedious part. Needless to say, you could use store-bought, canned lotus seed puree. Wait, believe me, there’s nothing better than the homemade. The freshly made puree smells so fragrant, with the right amount of sweetness perfectly suits to my family’s taste. Best of all, all the ingredients used are natural.

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How To Juice a Pomegranate (Easy and Quick) + Bookdeal News

This draft of this post has been sitting way too long in my folder. Finally, I managed to edit and hit the publish button and get it alive on my blog. It’s been quite an exciting and busy fortnight since I officially got a bookdeal from a large, prestige publisher. The theme of my first cookbook will be simple recipes for home cooks, with many of them are classic Hong Kong dishes that I grew up with. Please bear with me for my posting backlogs.

Back to my favourite fruit, pomegranate. Pomegranate juice is a very healthy and refreshing drink in summer. Although it’s still cold down under here, I love making desserts with its lovely juice. After I made the pomegranate soufflé, immediately a fan posted a question about how to juice pomegranate on my fan page.

The arils, wrapped inside the white pulp membranes, compose of edible red-diamond-like flesh and white hard seeds inside. Trying to get the lovely juice from the edible flesh sounds quite troublesome, yet it’s worth the work. Here’s a hack around that I experimented, much easier than I thought.

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How To Remove a Pear Core

After posting the classic dessert, Poached Pear in Red Wine, some readers sent me emails asking how to remove the pear core without doing much damages to the pulp? If you have a little kitchen gadget like mine, removing the pear core is pretty easy.

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Converting Grams to Cups (Problem & Solution)

Mastering converting grams to cups is essential for achieving consistent baking results and navigating international recipes with ease. Whether you are adjusting a recipe or comparing volume versus weight measurements, understanding how ingredient densities affect volume ensures your breads and cakes turn out light, fluffy, and perfectly balanced every time.

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How To Wrap a Chinese Bun (Video)

My family can’t live a day without bread. Except I have been addicted to making tangzhong breads for my family, recently I make more Chinese steamed buns as they can be kept in freezer for two weeks or so. Whenever I need them, just grab a few of them straight from the freezer and pop them in the wok to steam or pan fry, then enjoy fresh and hot buns after ten minutes or so.

After posting the pork bun recipe, I was asked by my fans on how to pleat Chinese buns. Last week, when I made some buns again, I took a short video when I pinched a Chinese bun. No tricks at all. It’s very simple, just needs some practice and you’d find great satisfaction in the process of pleating buns. Practice makes things perfect. A side note, I’m just an amateur and start learning how to take videos for blogging. Please pardon me that the video looks a bit dark. Yet, the whole process of how to go about pinching a bun is shown clearly. Hope you all find it helpful and like it.

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Homemade Fresh Pasta

One of the most luckiest things I came across last week was getting a pasta machine from  Kmart. Believe it or not. It’s 15 dollars. Here, you can’t get one without 100 dollars, or even 145 dollars from those classy department stores. I was too lazy and not motivated to make any fresh pasta until I got this new kitchen toy. There’s nothing wrong with using the ready made pasta from supermarkets, very quick and handy. Yet nothing can compare with homemade fresh pasta, given you have a bit of spare time. The process is simple and easy. All you need is a pasta machine to help you roll out a dough made by 3 to 4 ingredients and cut them within a minute.

By adding a small amount of Semolina flour that is commonly used in making pasta, you’ll enjoy delicious pasta with a hint of wheat flavour, light yellow colour and stretchy texture.

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Homemade Salted Eggs (鹹蛋)

Salted eggs are normally brined duck eggs. Chinese people use them to make moon cakes（月餅）, glutinous rice dumplings (粽子) and many other dishes. Some families I know, like to steam salted eggs that go with congee for breakfast.

In my good old days, salted duck eggs are often sold covered in a thick layer of salted charcoal paste. Nowadays, the producers might know how to do marketing and give the humble salted eggs a nicer presentation. The salted duck eggs I come across here recently almost have the salted paste removed, wrapped in plastic, or vacuum packed. The best salted eggs should have a briny aroma, translucent egg white, with the yolk bright orange-red in colour. The yolk that releases oil after being cooked is considered as a high quality product.

Sadly, here in Australia, it’s quite hard to find fresh duck eggs, yet it’s much easier to get some cooked ones. Weird, isn’t it? If any fresh duck eggs put on rack for sale in any Asian grocery stores, they would be gone very quickly.

As I have been missing and craving this homey food very much, I brined a dozen and then cooked several traditional Chinese dishes with the salted eggs. Would you like to know what dishes I cooked? I'll post them in a series later on.

I was glad to hear that Penny of Addictive and Consuming and Trix of Tasty Trix would host an International Egg Incident Party. Lucky enough I can manage myself to participate this time. Here in this post, I share an easy way to make salted eggs at home. This time I used chicken eggs. If you can find fresh duck eggs, that’s even better. But I found the end result of using chicken eggs was very satisfied. This recipe was tested for many times. Not long before, I shared this recipe with my Chinese readers, all salted egg lovers were fascinated and many of them tried it on the next day they read my recipe with satisfied outcomes. Here’s a picture of my fan's salted egg. She shared her joy with me when she successfully made some delicious salted eggs.

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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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