Mashed Sweet Potatoes (Convectional and Convention Oven Recipe)

Sweet potatoes are super healthy, packed with nutrients, good in helping cancer-fighting, and boosting our immune system. They are tasty and versatile in cooking. I often like using them to make desserts, like this Bubur Cha Cha, or make chicken curry. Sometimes, I just throw some in my oven to cook them as snack. They are low in starch as compared with potatoes. I made this mashed sweet potatoes as a side dish to go with the lemon garlic chicken thighs as a main, that’s served with some salad. I couldn’t complain anything when having this delicious meal.

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Shredded Chicken and Green Bean Noodles with Sesame Dressing

This is my take on the delicious shredded chicken with sesame sauce, that I tried at a Shanghai noodle shop in Hong Kong. It’s served cold, very refreshing.

The shredded chicken meat was so tender and moist. The sesame sauce was very aromatic and intriguing me to dig into the dish until it’s finished. It’s an appetizer actually. I replicated that dish and added some noodles, turning it into a light meal.

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Char Siu in Pressure Cooker

Ever wonder you can make char siu (Chinese BBQ pork) in a pressure cooker? With my recent kitchen toy, Instant Pot, I made this char siu dish with a significantly shorter cooking time. The pork meat was so tender and juicy. I don’t need to worry anymore, in case I forget my baking in oven, risking to ruin our dinner with over-baked, dried meat.

How about making the burnt marks on the surface? If you scroll down and browse the recipe below, you might yield to me something like this, “Is it that simple?” Yes, it’s downright simple and easy. Just a few minutes, you’ll get your char siu look exactly the same as those from oven. Previously, a few readers asked if we could make char siu without char siu sauce. Sure, you can. This is the recipe that you don't need any char siu sauce. I substituted it with two sauces that mainly made from fermented foods. The taste is evenly good as those baked from oven. Here’s the previous baked char siu recipe using oven.

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Caramel Sauce Recipe

Caramel is an amazing, classic sauce for many kinds of dessert. Once the white sugar is cooked into amber or dark brown colour, it gives a wonderful caramel smell. Previously, I made a simple caramel for creme caramel (a French custard dessert), with only sugar and water. This time, a small amount of butter and cream were added to increase its creaminess. I drizzled some over my cake. I didn’t feel it’s too heavy, but wanted to have more. If you’ve ever tried caramel sauce before, you’d know how wonder it tastes.

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Baked Sriracha Honey Chicken Drumsticks

This baked chicken drumstick recipe is a no-brainer. It won’t fail you at all, if only you forget your baking goods in oven. I know, you won’t as some tender, juicy chicken drumsticks with sticky, yummy sauce on are expected in just a while .

Our family loves Sriracha sauce, a Thai hot sauce, very much. It tastes tangy-sweet, a bit spicy, yet not too hot. The sauce is very popular in many countries and has got many people hooked. One of the magic jobs done by Sriracha is that it can make baked meats so flavoursome. I didn’t need a second thought and squeezed some of this magic sauce to marinate the chicken drumsticks.

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Chinese Yam and Pork Shin Congee (Pressure Cooker Recipe)

Chinese yam (aka 淮山 or山藥 in Chinese) is commonly used in Chinese cooking, especially for making soup and congee.

Again I experimented my new kitchen toy, Instant Pot, to make a large pot of pork congee. How was the outcome? I was quite impressed by its pressure cooking power. After running only a cycle of its “porridge” function, about 20 minutes, all the rice turned to be very soft and started to break apart. The texture was like the “Chiu Chau Teochew” (潮州粥) version. It’s good enough indeed. Yet my family used to have the Cantonese version, with all grains totally broken down, giving you a thicker consistency, not as runny as Teochew version.

So, I took one more step to achieve that consistency. It’s not that complex as I thought. Simply press the “saute” button and cook for 15 minutes or so. Voila! The congee was just like the one that we used to enjoy. Initially, I had a bit of worry if the rice would stick to the inner pot bottom. Luckily, it proved that I got the right pressure cooker to make our favourite Chinese congee.

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Pumpkin Puree (Instant Pot Recipe)

It’s pumpkin season again. I’ve got a large beautiful pumpkin for just 1 dollar. Pumpkin is so versatile. It can be used to make a savoury dish, dessert, cake or rice dish. You name it, you can make it. Even this simple pumpkin puree can be used as filling or sauce, subtly giving a natural sweetness to your whole dish.

I don’t want to miss any chance to test my new kitchen toy, Instant Pot. I was quite impressed with its steaming function. It really shortened a lot of cooking time, even though the size of the pumpkin chunks were quite large. The flesh was very soft that could be easily scooped out with a spoon. Without a doubt, if not using a pressure cooker, you can steam it in a wok or large pot.

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