Double-Boiled Tian Qi With Pork Muscle

Mum's hand is still not recovering quiet well despite of the doctors/methods that she tried to speed up the recovery. She often felt that her right hand fingers are not as flexible as what they are before the injury. She has being visiting one of this famous Chinese Physician in Chinatown area and according to the Physician, she advised my mum to boil this "Tian Qi With Pork Muscle" soup to regulate the blood, heals bruises and alleviating pain.

Since Mum's hand is still not well to lift heavy things or doing the washing and etc, I volunteer to help her prepare the soup according to what the Chinese Physician suggested. Since "Tian Qi - 田七" is usually consumed by man instead of woman due to it's nature of medical value. And for my mum's age of 50+, the physician advised her to divide 38g( 一两) into 3 cooking portion.

"Tian Qi - 田七" is sweet in taste but with a hint of bitterness and it is also warm in nature. This herb helps to promotes blood circulation, stops bleeding, ease bruises and swelling while killing pain. It is commonly prescribed to cure external swelling, bruises or sprains which is just the correct symptom that my mum is facing at the moment.

This soup might contain a lot of side ingredients in order to neutralized the taste of the Tian Qi. According to the Medical Store owner where I bought the Tian Qi from, she advised me to add in around 1/2 Tablespoon of "American Ginseng/Pao Shen - 泡参片" in order to build up the "QI" regulation in her body.

Ingredients: (serves 2)
3 Pork Muscles
9g Tian Qi(田七片)
1/2 Tablespoon Pao Shen(泡参片)
5g YuZhu(玉竹)
5g Huai Shan(淮山)
4 Large Red Dates (红枣)
1 Tablespoon Dried Longan(龙眼干)
1/2 Tablespoon Wolfberries(枸杞子)
750ml Water

Method:
1. Trim the pork muscles, rinse and blanched in boiling water for about 3 minutes, remove, rinse and set a side.
2. Rinse the herbs, except the wolfberries and set aside.
3. Next bring the 750ml water to boil in a small saucepan, add in the herbs(except wolfberries) and the pork muscles. When the water come to boil again, lower the heat and simmer for another 5 minutes.
4. Transfer all the ingredients and soup to a double-boiler which you have placed in the slow-cooker(remember to fill hot water in the inner-pot of the slow-cooker to at least 3/4 high, you can refer to the photos on how I placed the pot in the slow-cooker HERE).
5. Let the soup cooked in the slow-cooker on AUTO mode for about 3 hours, add in wolfberries in the last 20 minutes or so.
6. You can served this soup before meal or before bedtime.

Overall, this is a very flavour soup which can be consumed at least once a month or so. The adding of dried longan and red dates helps to lift up the tired soul and makes you more refreshing. By adding these two ingredients and wolfberries together they make this soup taste sweet from the hint of bitterness of the "Tian Qi" and "Pao Shen".

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Preserved Sausage & Chicken Claypot Rice

Preparing "One Pot" dish is always the best and most convenient cooking method for working mum like me. Sometime when I am running out of ideas on what to cook or too lazy to do all the preparation/washing for cooking I will start thinking of my favourite one pot dish which is "Preserved Sausage & Chicken Claypot Rice".

This dish is preferred to be cooked in a claypot rather than rice-cooker or etc. Only with the claypot it will brings out the flavour and burning effect of the rice at the bottom of the pot which add on that special aroma to this dish.

Since now it is still within the Chinese New Year period (usually it last for 15 days), you can find all kinds of waxed meat/preserved sausages around some supermarket or those dried grocery stalls in the wet market. Out from the few range of "Preserved Sausage - 腊肠", I was attracted to this "XO Charcoal Sausage" which I wonder whether the sausage will have any "XO" liquor taste in it.

Ingredients: (serves 2 - 3)
1 1/2 Cup Uncooked Rice
3 Cup Water
3 Boneless Chicken Drumsticks with Thighs
1 Pair of Preserved Sausage
Some Shredded Ginger
A Few Section of Spring Onion

Marinade For Chicken:
1 Teaspoon of Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon of Corn Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Sesame Oil
1/2 Teaspoon Cooking Wine
1/2 Teaspoon Dark Soy Sauce
Dash of Pepper

For Garnish:
Spring Onion, cut diagonal rings
Chilli, cut into rings

Method:
1. Rinse the uncooked rice a few times and soak it with 3 cups of water (usually the amount of water is twice the amount of uncooked rice) in the claypot for about an hour or so.
2. Washed, trim away the fats and skin of the chicken, cut into bite-size pieces and marinate it with the above marinade for at least 20 minutes.
3. Cut off a little slice from the top of the preserved sausage, peel off the outer layer of the skin (we always removed the outer layer of the plastic skin before eating), cut the sausage into 0.5cm thin slices and set aside.
4. Preheat a small saucepan and saute the shredded ginger and spring onion with 1 teaspoon of oil till fragrance, add in the marinated chicken pieces and fry for about 30 second on each side or till it turn slightly brown in colour.
5. Removed and set aside for later use.
6. Cook the rice over medium heat, when the water begins to boil, lower the heat and let it cooked till the water level is almost the same as the rice, arrange the sausage on top of the rice with the half cooked chicken in the center. (you have to work fast so that the water will not dry out before you finished add the ingredients)
7. Cover the lid of the claypot and simmer the rice and meat over very low heat for about 5 - 7 minutes till the meat is cooked through.
8. When done, garnish it with extra spring onion, cut chilli and drizzle of dark soy sauce and served hot.

Note:-
~ The reason that I pan-fry the chicken pieces is to shorten the cooking time and at the same time enhance the flavour of the chicken.

For those who love one pot dish, I am sure this will be a quick and easy dish for you. And instead of having this all-time flavour at those stalls outside, why not try to grab some fresh ingredients and prepare this dish for you and your family instead.

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Simmered Bitter Gourd & Chicken In Casserole

This "Simmer Bitter Gourd & Chicken In Casserole" is one of our favourite dish and I will be very excited whenever my mum told me that she is going to cook this for dinner. Every since my mum started to look after my boy while I was at work, she was very keen in experiment new dishes from the "Taiwan Cooking Series" which she will never missed an Episode from her Mio TV. So today, I am going to try cooking this dish with some guidelines and instructions from my mum......... :)

As you can see from the photos, you only required very basic ingredients which you can easily grab from the supermarket or some of them are even available in your fridge/pantry. The KEY ingredients for this dish are "Bitter gourd/Bitter Melon - 苦瓜" and "Fermented Black Beans - 豆豉" which both combined to bring out a cross between bitter and salty fragrance. For the meat portion, you can either used chicken wing/chicken pieces, pork ribs or even deep-fried fish slices. After all cooking is something that you can play around with the ingredients to come out with different varieties of dishes according to your liking. So for the above main ingredients and seasonings, you can whipped up at least 3 different dishes using pork, fish and chicken.

In order to have some extra flavour for the meat, it's always good to marinate it at least 20 - 30 minutes before cooking. For this simmered dish, I have pan-fried the chicken wings till slightly golden before adding them to simmer so as to pretend them from breaking up easily during simmering. The adding of chilli is to spice up and enhance the flavour of this dish, but if some of your family members cannot take spicy food, perhaps you can consider to leave chilli out or add less.

Ingredient: (serves 2 - 3)
6 Chicken Wings
1 Medium Bitter Gourd
1/2 Tablespoon Fermented Black Beans(豆豉)
1 Small Red Chilli, cut into rings
2 Slices Ginger
1 Clove Garlic, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon Cooking Wine

Seasoning:
80ml Water
1 Teaspoon Oyster Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Dark Soy Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sesame Oil

Method:
1. Trim the chicken wings, rinse and wipe dry. Marinate the chicken wings with 1 teaspoon each of light soy sauce, oyster sauce, corn flour and some pepper and sesame oil. (leave it in the fridge for at least 20 - 30 minutes before cooking)
2. Rinse bitter gourd, cut into vertical halves, scrape off the white pith and cut into about 2" long vertical pieces. (Rub the bitter gourd pieces with 1 teaspoon of salt for about 30 seconds and rinse off as the salt will help to reduce the bitterness)
3. Heat 1 teaspoon of oil in the wok, pan-fry the marinated chicken wings on both side till slightly golden, removed and set aside.
4. Next add in the chopped garlic, ginger, chilli(optional) and fermented black bean, give it a quick stir and saute them till fragrance, add in the bitter gourd pieces.
5. Keep on stirring the bitter gourd mixture for a few seconds then add in the chicken and seasoning when the mixture comes to boil, lower the heat and let it simmer(remember to cover the pot) for about 10 minutes or so till then chicken wings are cook through.
6. Removed and serve warm with rice.


I must admit, this is a very tempting dish especially it's "Sauce". I can have two bowls of rice just with this dish alone whenever my mum cooked it. And now mum is kind of jealous that I can also whipped out the same dish as her :p

Bitter Gourds are very low in calories but rich with precious nutrients such as an excellent source of vitamins, folic acid, zinc and also it has high dietary fiber. This fruit is rich in iron which contains twice the beta-carotene of broccoli and twice the calcium of spinach. If you don't like to eat the fruit perhaps you can considering boiling some "Bitter Gourd Pork Ribs Soup - 苦瓜排骨汤" for this hot weather.....

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Hearts & Hearts - Valentine's Day Cookies

Today is a very special occasion because both the Chinese New Year and western Valentine's Day happens to be fall on the same day on 14 February. In this case, no matter which event you are celebrating I am sure this year will be a great and loving year for everyone of you.

On this double-occasion, I guess anyone will be delighted to received such a box of self-made Valentin's Day cookies. For this set of "Butter Cookie With Melted Chocolate & Rose", I have add some rose petal on the half side of some heart shapes cookies before baking or for another design, I add the rose petal on the half hearts that is coated with white chocolate.

Baking is always full of fun and creation, ie. with a cute gift box, some assorted sizes of heart shape cutters, butter cookie dough, chocolate icing and colourful heart shapes sprinkles you can get everything done within an hour or so......

Ingredient: (make 20 - 25)
150g Top Flour
125g Butter, cut into small cubes
1 Tablespoon Icing Sugar
20g Milk Powder
1/2 Egg Yolk
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence

Method:
1. Sieved flour, milk powder and icing sugar in a mixing bowl.
2. Rub in butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Beat egg yolk and vanilla essence together before adding into the dough.
4. Quickly mix everything to form a soft dough, divide it into two portion in separate plastic bag and chill in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes or so.
5. Roll dough out to 0.5cm thickness on a lightly floured tabletop and cut out with assorted heart shape cutters.
6. Place cut dough on baking tray that is layered with baking paper, pop the whole tray into the fridge while waiting for the oven to preheat to 180 degree. (keep the dough in the fridge after cut out will retain it's shape)
7. Bake the cookies for about 15 - 20 minutes (depending on the size of the cookies/oven type) till slightly golden brown.
8. Remove from oven, and rest the cookies on the tray for about 2 minutes before transferring them to wire-rack to cool completely before doing the icing/decoration.

For Decoration/Icing:
50g White Chocolate, melted
Some Assorted Colour Heart Shape Sprinkles
Some Dried Rose Petal, roughly cut

Method:
1. Melt the white chocolate by using either double-boiled method over a pot of simmering water or using microwave method (starts with medium/medium low heat of your microwave to melt the chocolate at 20/30 second interval, stir the mixture on and off till the drizzling consistency that you prefer).
2. Do not over cooked or else it will be harden.
3. Purchase edible dried rose from floral tea-shop/Chinese medical hall, use a small scissor to roughly cut the petal into small parts that is resemble the rose use in the photos here.
4. Use your creativity to decorate your lovely cookies in your way to express your loves and cares to your love one, family or friends......

This is a pretty simple design as I used 5 assorted colour heart shapes sprinkles to join them into a flower shape. So wait no more, if you still wondering what to get for this Valentine's Day, maybe you can start pulling those ingredients from your kitchen pantry and start working on something :) Here I wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year & Valentine's Day.

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Glutinous Red Date With Osmanthus Syrup

There are all kinds of Chinese New Year after meal desserts and the most common few are:- Yam Paste With Gingko Nuts, Red Bean Puree With Lotus Seeds, Tang Yuan, Chng Teng and etc...... But what I am going to share with you today is something really simple and yet it will impressed your guest with it's "Golden Outlook". I have named it "桂花元宝" in Mandarin which mean Osmanthus Ingots.

This recipe required 3 main ingredients which are Red Dates(preferably those HUGE one so that it will be easier to do the stuffing), Glutinous Rice Flour(the filling) and the most important ingredient "Osmanthus Flower - 桂花" which will brings out the floral fragrance of this dessert. And in order to sweeten this dish and enhance the flavour of the stuffing, I will make a syrup using "Rock sugar - 冰糖" and "Candice winter melon - 冬瓜糖".

In order to slit open the Red Dates and remove the seed easily, it's best that you soaked it in warm water for about 5 - 10 minutes as to soften it. But if you wan to save the trouble of removing the seed, you can purchase those that is without seeds. I saw this HUGE red dates from one of the groceries stall near my area and it cost only $0.80 per 100g. With these detail photo above, I am sure it will give you a better ideas on how to prepare this Chinese New Year dessert.

Ingredients For Ingots:
16 - 18 Huge Red Dates, removed seeds
50g Glutinous Rice Flour
30ml or more Water

Method:
1. Rinse and clean away the soil/dirt on the outer skin of the red dates.
2. Soaked them in a bowl of warm water to soften it so that it will be easier to cut open and remove the seed in it.
3. Place the glutinous rice flour in a medium bowl, slowly add in the water and stir till it form a dough. (you might required more water)
4. Pinch about a marble size portion of the dough and stuffed it in each Red Dates.
5. Arrange the stuffed dates on a plate and steam it in a pot of boiling water on Medium heat for about 5 minutes.
6. When done, removed the dates from the pot, set aside to cool while preparing the Osmanthus Syrup.

Note:
~ For the procedure of the stuffing and steaming you can refer to the above photo for clearly explanation.

Ingredients For Osmanthus Syrup:
1/2 Tablespoon Of Osmanthus Flower
10g Rock Sugar
2 Strips of Candice Winter Melon, finely chopped
80ml Water
Extra Osmanthus Flower for topping

Method:
1. Bring water to boil in a small sauce, add in rock sugar and stir till the sugar melted.
2. Lower the heat, add in chopped winter melon and Osmanthus Flower and let it boiled for about 15 seconds.
3. Add in the cooked glutinous red dates and stir it through the sugar syrup and simmer till the syrup became a bit sticky.
4. Off the heat, removed the red dates and served it in small serving cups, drizzle with some osmanthus syrup & chopped winter melon then sprinkler some extra osmanthus flower to enhance the fragrant and outlook.

You can prepared all the ingredients and steps up to the steaming of the red dates and cooked the Osmanthus Syrup just before serving. Or alternatively, you can prepared everything and stored this dessert in the fridge and served it as a cold dessert. So no matter which method you prefer, I am sure this will make a great dessert for your guests this coming Chinese New Year.

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Prefect Valentines Gift

Valentine's Day is just a few days around the corner and I am sure most of us are cracking our head on what's the prefect gift to get for our love ones. But no matter what's your gifts are, I am sure anything that has CHOCOLATE in it will made a lovely gift for your darling or friends.

For me, I am a chocolate lover and I love anything that consists of Dark Chocolate. And to me, "Chocolate Brownie" makes a prefect snacks and gifts for all occasions. I have tried this recipe which given by one of my best pal, Tracy sometimes back but the end-result was not very satisfied because I seems to have over-baked it. But this round, I finally managed to get my prefect brownie with moist and gluey melted chocolate in it....... For those who are interested in this recipe, here it goes...

Ingredients:
250g Butter, melted
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Caster Sugar
4 Eggs
1 1/3 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Cocoa Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
150g Dark Chocolate, roughly chopped
40g Roasted Almond, roughly chopped
40g Roasted Macadamia Nut, roughly chopped

Method:
1. Put the butter in a microwave safe bowl and melt it on high 2 minutes, pause to stir after each minute.
2. Sift all the flour ingredients together and set aside.
3. Next add both the sugar to the melted butter and stir till the sugar became almost melted and gluey.
4. When the sugar mixture is cool off, add in the egg one by one and use a balloon whisk and beat till well combine.
5. Next slowly whisk the flour mixture into the egg mixture till well combine.
6. Lastly stir in half each of the chopped dark chocolate and nuts then pour into a square or rectangle brownie tin.
7. Sprinkler the remaining chocolate and nuts on top of the mixture, give the whole tin a few bang to knock off the air bubbles inside.
8. Bake in a preheat 180 degree oven and bake for about 18 - 20 minutes depend on the tin size.
9. The brownie will pull away from the sides of the pan and when test with a skewer, it will be a bit moist inside.
10. Cool. Cut into bars.

Notes:
a) If using those black coated baking tin, you have to reduce baking time by 3-5 minutes.


After the brownie has cooled off, cut it into bite size. Grab a nice and lovely gift box, packed it with the brownie cubes and perhaps some extra chocolate or candy. I am sure this will make a Prefect Valentine's Gift for anyone......

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Braised Chicken Wing With Arrowhead & Mushroom

After some "hit and run" introduction of "Arrowhead(Cigu) - 钱菇" on my previous post (Deep-fried Arrowhead Chips) as the Starter of the meal. Now we head over to the Main course for today which is this "Braised Chicken Wing With Arrowhead & Mushroom". Usually during Chinese New Year, most or almost all the Chinese Family will whipped up a few of their Special Dish to serve their guest. And they will always named them with Auspicious Word which brings luck, healthy or prospect in career.

Since this is one of our Chinese New Year dish, I named it as "搌翅高飞" which translated as "Spread your wings and fly high". This can be used for either moving up to a high level in your career or study because "翅 - Wing" comes from a similar meaning from the "Chicken Wings - 鸡翅".

Arrowhead(Cigu) which is one of the Chinese New Year ingredients that is available during this time of the year. You can either grown the corms to decorate the house during this festive season or you can use it to make into "Arrowhead Chip" or even more.... (click HERE to read more...)

The use of "Shiitake Mushroom - 香菇" here symbolised longevity and sizing opportunities.


This dish required 3 main and 2 side ingredients like what you have seen from the above photos. If you don't prefer Chicken Wings, you can swap it with chicken pieces instead. You can also replaced the dried Shiitake Mushroom with the fresh type or any mushroom of your choice......But if you are cooking this dish during normal days then I suggest that maybe you can replace the Arrowhead with Fresh Huai Shan which have the similar texture.

Ingredients:
4 - 5 Medium Size Arrowhead
5 Chicken Wing
6 Medium Size of Dried Shiitake Mushroom
1 Large Stalk of Spring Onion, cut into section
3 Slices of Ginger
3/4 Tablespoon of Oyster Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Dark Soy Sauce
80ml Water

Method:
1. Rinse, clean and marinate the chicken wings with dash of pepper and 1 teaspoon each of light soy sauce, sesame oil and cornflour. Set aside in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.
2. Rinse and soaked the dried mushroom in hot water till soften, removed the stalk on top, set aside the mushroom water for cooking.
3. Rinse the Arrowhead, peel of the outer skin, cut it into halves or quarters depend on your preference.
4. Heat up a small heavy-duty saucepan with some oil, saute the marinated chicken wings on both side till slightly golden colour, dish up and set aside.
5. Next add in the ginger and spring onion continue to fry for 30 seconds till fragrant, add in the soaked mushroom (try to lightly squeeze dry the mushroom before adding in) and fry for another 30 second before adding in the Arrowhead.
6. Next add in the oyster sauce, dark soy sauce and chicken wings, give it another quick stir to combine all the ingredients before adding in the water.
7. When the mixture comes to boil, lower the heat and let it simmer for about 12 - 15 minutes till the chicken is done and the arrowhead is slightly soften.
8. You may wish to thicken the sauce with some cornstarch solution if you prefer.


Finally after 15 minutes or so of braising the ingredient, here comes our main dish for today; "搌翅高飞". Hope after eating this dish, we can climb up another level of our current life/career just the what it named for.... spread out the wing and fly high.......

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Deep-Fried Arrowhead Chips

Usually about a month or so before the Chinese New Year, you will be able to catch a glimpse of these "Arrowhead(cigu) - 钱菇" at most of the vegetable vendors in the wet market. This bulb-like corms of the arrowhead is sold roughly about S$3.00 per kg depending on individual stalls.

And don't under estimate this corms, it can be used in many way, e.g:- You can grow some of this a few weeks before Chinese New Year so that you will be able to get a pot of Jade Green arrow-shape leaves plant on New Year. Or you might like to cut it into slices and deep-fried into golden chips which you can served as one of the New Year snack or you can also use it as one of the ingredient for making soup or cooking.

But from most housewife myth which I heard from one of my colleague Rebecca, the main purpose to grow this Arrowhead(Cigu)is because the pointed end of the corm resembles the genitalia of a baby boy and in the olden day, especially Chinese believed that nothing is more important than to being able to pass down the family name. So most of the parents will cultivate arrowheads for the newly wed couples hoping that they be able to have a grandchild in the same year.

So no matter what reason you bought this for..... you can always use this to make a very simple snack for the coming Chinese New Year, but the slicing and frying process can be quite tedious if you are doing a large amount. Although I have grown this corms twice in the past years, but this is actually my first time frying this Arrowhead chips. And if you are keen to try this out, I guess you still have some time to grab a few of the nice and decent corms from the wet market before Chinese New Year on the 14 February.......

Ingredients:
6 Large Arrowhead Corms
Metal Slicer
Oil For Deep-frying
Pinch of Salt

Method:
1. Rinse the corms, sliced off the base and use the vegetable peeler to remove all the skin.(retain the head portion so that you can hold it easily while sliding the corms into slices)
2. Set it aside to air-dry for about 10 to 15 minutes.
3. Bring half pot of oil to almost boil, hold the corms and slicer above the pot of oil (or you can pre-sliced some before the oil brings to boil).
4. Slice the corms into thin slices into the hot oil, deep-fry over medium heat till it turn golden colour.
5. Remove and drained it on paper towel.
6. Toss them with pinch of salt and stored in air-tight container when cool.


After some slicing and frying... this is the end result of my Arrowhead Chips which some claims that they taste even better than the normal potato chips that we used to eat. To me, I find that it has a very fragrant taste and indeed it's a new experience of making my own chips. And don't you feel that these round chips look similar to those "Golden Coins - 遍地黄金" which translated into Mandarin mean "Gold all over the floor".

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