Happy New Year - 2010

Time always went past so fast without us realising that it is time for another brand new year again. Today is the 1st day of 2010, a lot of thoughts in my mind and I am really thankful that God has preserves me and my family through out a wonderful and blessed year. While scrolling through my blog posts, I feel so satisfied that even being a full-time working mum, I am still able to catch up with my hobby in blogging and at the same time, prepared all these dishes and bakes for my love ones.

I am also thankful to all my blog readers and sincerely appreciate for your dropping by, comments and supports in my blogs. Without all your supports, Cuisine Paradise will not be able to accomplish such a great achievement in year 2009 to win the BEST FOOD BLOG award which is organised by OMY(omy.com.sg). And with the winning of this award, I am also given a chance to have my very first interview being broadcast on Air with Daniel Ang from FM100.3.

Another Major accomplishment for Cuisine Paradise in 2009 is to be able to have my very own recipes being published bi-monthly in a local parenting magazine called "Parents World". So far, my recipes had being published in 5 issues....... Thanks to Daniel, the editor who gave me such a opportunity to fulfil my dream.... I hope that I might be able to do better in contributing some interesting recipes for the readers......

Finally, before sharing with you some of my personal picks on what I have done in 2009....... Let me send my best and sincerely wishes to each and everyone of you out there that reads and supports Cuisine Paradise a HAPPY & WONDERFUL NEW YEAR ahead and may this 2010 be a great and prosper year for all of you.........

Soup!!! These are the main things that I will cook no matter how busy I am. Even without any proper dishes, we can just have a bowl of homecook soup together with steam rice. I personally believed nothing can compare to a bowl of homecook soup that is full of love and nutrition in it. So if you are interested to know more about the soup that I cook for my family, click HERE for more ideas.....

If I have the time, I love to try out different type of cuisine with different interesting ingredients. And most of all, I love to garnish my dishes with "COLOUR". As frequent readers of my blogs, you will notice that, I love to present my dish in a colourful layout. The reason for this might be partly because of the photo taking but most important factor is, I feel that proper presentation is very important. When you look at the food menu, you will definitely order something that looks good rather than something that looks simple. And with a kid at home, I find that by in-cooperating different colours in the dish, it actually catches their attention and this make it easier for the kid to eat all kind of food by their attractive colours. Interested in any dish? Click HERE for the recipe index :)

2009 is not a baking year for me, as I am working full time, I don't really have much spare time to do baking with my boy like what we used to have when he was a toddler. But on a off, during special occasion or when my boy is craving for his favourite Chocolate cake, muffins or cookies, I will still find time to bake something with him. Baking is always a great bonding time for both of us, as he will help me with the ingredients and preparation then finally he will wait by the oven side for the goodies to be bake while I do the washing up.

In 2009, I am also in the trend of making Kid's Bento. With some great inspiration from my bento pals like Amy(motheringcorner), Susan(Hawaii Bento), I started to collect all kinds of BENTO TOOLS and come up with some of my very own Bento for my kid. Above are some of my favourite Bento that I have made so far...... You can take a look HERE for more ideas too....... Some of my bento were also feature in the magazine together with Rey in May/June Issue.

In 2009, I also add in another new blog-site to Cuisine Paradise known as "Shop, Eat & Travel", where I post some of the food reviews on the stalls/places that we patronise and as well as some places of interest in Singapore such as Dairy Farm Park, Marina Barrage, Bottle Tree Park and etc where you can bring your kids along and have a great family outing. With so many different content of sub-blogs in Cuisine Paradise, I hope that I can have more time to update every blog-site regularly and share more interesting recipes/information with all the readers here.

Lastly, this is my favourite dish that I have done in 2009. Durian Fried Rice is always one of the dish that I wanted to try it out at home. I have heard about this dish serving in one of the Hong Kong Style Cafe in Singapore. From the food review that I have read from google search, this is actually a fried rice dish that consists of some prawns, egg and durian flesh. So I guess you can imagine the taste of a mixture of savoury and sweet combination. For me, since as a little kid, I love to eat durian with steam rice from the influence of my late father, so this an interesting venture for me to try out this dish during the durian season. So if you have tried this dish before and you are interesting to give it a try a home, or maybe you would like to take a look at some of the Durian recipes that I have post.

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Pear And Sweet Corn Soup

Double-boiled pear soup is always one of my son favourite herbal drink, he will always pester me to cook pear soup for him whenever he sees "Pear" in the supermarket. And from my "Soup - Herbal Tea" list you can see two different version of sweet Pear soup.

But today instead of cooking pear dessert soup, I decided to try something different. I got this idea from my colleague whose mum is a very good Cantonese cooker as well as soup maker. I used to hear from her that one of her favourite soup that her mum always boil for her is this "Sweet Corn & Pear Soup". So after confirming with her roughly what are the ingredients used, I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients: (serves 4)
300g Pork Ribs
1 Sweet Corn, cut into section
1 Large Shingo Pear, cut into quarters
5g Sweet & Bitter Almond(南北杏)
1 Honey Date(金丝蜜枣)
5 Large Red Dates(红枣)
5g Wolfberries(枸杞)
1000 ml Water

Method:
1. Blanched the pork ribs in boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain them thoroughly, then set aside.
2. Use a clean pot, bring 1000ml of water to boil, add in sweet corn, pear and the rest of the ingredients except Wolfberries.
3. When the soup comes to boil again, lower the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes or so until it is favourable to taste, add in the wolfberries and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.
4. You can serve it with rice or before meal.

Note:
~ Shingo pears are one of the popular export fruits. They have light golden brown peels, and taste very sweet and juicy yet have crunchy texture.



This is indeed a very delicious soup that is full of natural sweetness and fragrance that is infused by the sweet corn and pear and the rest of ingredients. This taste just as good as the sweet dessert version but if you don't prefer to mix something sweet to go with your meal. I will suggest that you can have this soup either before meal or after your meal.

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Braised Chestnut Chicken

Cooking one pot dish is always one of my favourite, especially those using Claypot method. I love the way the food is being braised with the sauce under low heat and slowly cooked through. Out of so many claypot dishes, braised Chicken with Mushroom and Chestnut is always one of our favourite and we can just have this dish with extra bowl of rice just to polish up the gravy which is so flavourful.

But this round as I was rushing to prepare the food in a short time before going out, I didn't use the claypot, instead I give the basic ingredients a quick stir to enhance the flavour then braised it in a heavy-duty saucepan for about 20 minutes till the chicken is cooked through. Then I transfer it to a Corning ware pot to keep warm and easy serving.

Ingredients: (serve 2)
5 Medium Chicken Wings, cut into halves
6 Fresh Shiitake Mushroom
1 Bunch of Spring Onion, cut into sections
8 - 10 Fresh Chestnut
1 Small Carrot, cut into 0.5cm slices
1 Medium Red Onion, cut into wedges
1 Large Chilli, deseed and cut into section
1 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce
100ml Water
Some Cornstarch Solution

Method:
1. Clean, trim and cut the chicken wings into wing and drumlet portion. Lightly marinate it with some pepper and light soy sauce. Set aside while preparing the rest of the ingredients.
2. Bring a pot of water to boil, add in the fresh chestnuts and let it simmer for about 10 minutes on medium heat. Remove, drain well and peel off the shell and outer skin.
3. Preheat a heavy-duty saucepan with 1 tablespoon of oil, saute the onion wedges and spring onion for about 20 seconds, add in the carrot and chilli and continue to fry for another 30 seconds.
4. Next add in the marinated chicken pieces and continue to stir on and off till the outer layer of the chicken is slightly brown.
5. Add in the oyster sauce and stir till all the mixture is combined, add in the chestnut and mushroom.
6. Give it a final stir, pour in the water, bring it to boil then lower the heat and simmer it for about 15 - 20 minutes till the chicken pieces are cooked through. (while simmering the chicken, give it a few stir on and off for even cooking)
7. When done, remove it from heat. Dish into serving plate and top with extra spring onion and chilli for garnish.
8. Serve hot with rice.

Note:
~ You can omit adding chilli if you are to serve this dish to kids. But by adding chilli it will enhance the flavour ever better.
~ Adding cornstarch solution is to thicken the sauce and give it a glossy outlook too.

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Fish And Watercress Soup

Watercress is widely used in either Asian or Western cuisine. Mostly in Asian countries, we used it to boil soup with different ingredients like chicken or pork ribs. It sometime refer to as a cooling soup for heaty weather. Whereas in Western cuisine, Watercress is usually eaten raw or appears as a garnish, in salads or on sandwiches. This is a great vegetables that is loaded with iron, calcium, folic acid and vitamins A.

No matter which method you prefer to consumed this leafy vegetables. Today, I am going to share with you another way of cooking watercress soup with Fish instead of the common ingredients we used to add like "Chicken or Pork ribs". I am sure you will like this new way of preparing your usual watercress soup.

Ingredients: (serves 2 -4)
500g of Fish Fillet
1 Bunch of Watercress
2 Slices of Ginger
4 Red Dates
Some Wolfberries
800ml Water

Method:
1. Cut off the stem portion of the watercress, rinse it well and reserve it for the boiling soup.
2. As for the leaves portion, removed those wilted leaves, rinse a few times to get rid of the soild and dirts then set aside for later use.
3. Clean and cut the fish fillet into big portion, marinate it with some cornstarch and light soy sauce and set aside in the fridge.
4. Cut the tailbone into halves, fry it with 1/2 teaspoon of oil and ginger slices till fragrant.
5. Pour in water and sprinkle some salt, bring to boil together with the watercress stem and red dates, then lower the heat and continue to simmer for another 20 minutes.
6. When done, strained the soup, add in the watercress leaves and boil briefly.
7. Lastly add in the marinated fish fillet and wolfberries, cook until done.
8. Season with salt and pepper serve hot with rice.

Note:
~ I bought the tail portion of sea bass from the wet market, and I ask the fishmonger to separate the tailbone and fillet for me.
~ For this soup, try to get a bunch of young watercress because of the short cooking time.

I have tried cooking a few version of the watercress soup in this blog before and this is indeed a new taste that you might want to try it out. It is full of Nutrition by adding fish and vegetable in a one pot soup. And I am sure this will add to your collection of making a new watercress soup than the usual one.

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Seafood Mui Fan

"Mui Fan" is one of the most common dish found in Singapore Zhi-Cha" store (煮炒摊) in either hawker center or coffee shop. But now you can also find them listed in most of the Chinese restaurant where they add in more exotic ingredients. Although I used to cook this dish very often but it didn't come across my mind to post a recipe on this until I was chatting with one of my blogger friend about this a few weeks back. After that conversation, I thought this recipe might be of some use for those reader who stays overseas and craving for the local Zhi-Cha dish.

This is one of my favourite dish that I have learnt from my late dad. He used to cook this for me whenever I am in a rush for work or coming back late for dinner. As he will add in my favourite ingredients to make the egg sauce and spoon it on top of the pipping hot rice to create a hearty homecook meal. You can use whatever ingredients that you prefer from either seafood, meat or poultry to create different version according to your liking. For today, I will use prawn, fishcake, crabmeat stick and bunch of choy sum(菜心).

Ingredients: (serves 2)
8-10 Medium Size Prawns
1 Large Fried Fish cake, cut into slices
4 Imitation Crabstick, cut into halves
1 Bunch of Choy Sum
1 Medium Rice Onion, cut into wedge
3 Cloves Garlic, finely chopped
2 Eggs
2 Rice Bowl of Cooked Rice
100 ml Water
1 Tablespoon Cornstarch Solution

Method:
1. Wash, clean the prawns, removed the shell of the body(head retain), slit the back of the prawn and remove the dirty or vein.
2. Marinate prawns with some cornstarch, pepper and cooking wine. Set aside.
3. Trim and wash the choy sum and set aside to drain well.
4. Preheat the pan with 1/2 tablespoon of oil, saute the minced garlic and onion till fragrant, add in the marinated prawns.
5. Give it a quick stir for about 10 - 15 seconds, till it slightly changed colour, add in the choy sum and stir-fry for another 5 seconds.
6. Next add in the fish cake slices and crabstick, and give it another quick stir before add in the water.
7. When the water comes to boil again, crack in the eggs, gently give it a few stir to separate the egg then stir it the cornstarch water to thicken the sauce.
8. Off the heat, season it with some salt and pepper before spooning it on top of the rice.
9. Serve hot with some cut chilli in light soy sauce.

Note:
~ If you are not sure what is "Fish cake", refer to the picture above(2nd row, on the left). It usually come in either rectangle or oval shapes.
~ Mixed 1 Tablespoon Water with 1/2 Teaspoon Cornstarch

Sometime when you are run out of idea on what to cook for your family or yourself. Or you are too tired to do all the preparation or washing for your meal. Maybe you can consider to give this a try, just add in anything that you can find in your fridge to make into a sauce base to go with your rice. Isn't this a quick and easy for anyone that craves for some comfort homecook dish.

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