Cooking with Oranges (Part 2): Citrus Pasta

For the past few days I have been cooking with products from Trepunti, an online shop owned by a Sicillian farmer. I shared my recipe for a dish prepared using Sicilian blood oranges and fennels, which were hardly an innovative combination. Neither does this one actually though I did make a slight change. 

Make-ahead Meat Dishes

From what the names suggest, pork rillettes and gyuniku shigureni sound like two dishes from entirely different worlds, but in reality they were surprisingly similar. Both were meat based and made use of only a small set of ingredients; both involved slow cooking to bring about the intense flavor, and both can be made ahead and served at room temperature (no reheating required!), which made them great candidates as part of a simple home-cooked meal.

Young Ginger Roots Part 2: Main Course and Dessert

I half-jokingly told my friends that I have bought so many young ginger roots at the market that maybe I should prepare the whole dinner using that as the major theme. And come to think of that, it’s not a bad idea at all. So after the appetizer of the tomato stuffed with ponzu jelly and young ginger garnish, here’s the main course dish and dessert.

Summer Produce: Young Ginger Roots

Ginger root might be available all year long in local wet markets and grocery stores, but you will only see the milder young ginger root (子薑) in early summer, beginning at around the time of Dragon Boat Festival until early August. It’s rather easy to distinguish them – the regular, mature ginger roots are often tougher with dark, thick skins; while the young ginger roots, though in the same size, her thinner and paler, almost translucent skin, looks juicier and more tender, with a pinkish tint towards the tip.

More Summer Recipe: Skillet Cake

I looked at my new Nambu Tekki cast iron pan and wanted to do something with it, that’s when I decided to make a simple skillet cake, something that is easy to make and I can enjoy all day – from breakfast to afternoon snacks to dessert. This is arguably one of the easiest cake to make – as long as you could mix and stir you should be able to master this rather quickly.

Summer Recipe: Southern Style Corn Fritters

While spending late evenings watching the French Open on TV a few weeks ago, I was looking to fix up something quick to munch on. That's when I saw the cob of corns in the refrigerator, the one that I left behind by accident after getting a few of them in the weekend farmer's market for my bento lunches.

Perfect One-dish Dinner: Three Cup Chicken

I was home alone on a weeknight and wanted to prepare something real simple myself for dinner. I happened to have a bunch of fresh Thai basil that I picked up at a specialty grocery store the day before so I thought the "Three Cup" Chicken (三杯雞) would be perfect, something that was easy to make, can be done in less than 30 minutes start from finish and worked well with just a simple bowl of rice for a one-dish dinner, for one.

The Timeless Savarin

When our friends R and A asked us to bring a dessert to dinner at their place recently, I decided to do something simple yet classic, making use a small set of readily-available ingredients in the kitchen (hence saved me another trip to the supermarket in a cold winter day).

Risotto as Dessert

Part of my New Year Eve dinner menu paid tribute to some of the memorable dishes I had over the past year - I thought this was a good way to end the wonderful year with. When I was thinking what to do for dessert, I remembered the impressive bowl of rice pudding served by Chef Stephane Jego at L'Ami Jean in Paris when we were there in the summer. It looked ordinary and unassuming, but that combined with the sauce was one of the best desserts I have tasted. So I decided to replicate that with a touch of my own, bringing in the element of fusion.

Beef Tenderloin with Chimichurri Sauce

Last weekend, I made a bunch of Chimichurri Sauce to go with the meatball skewers we prepared for a church reception. Afterwards, I decided to make an extra batch using leftover ingredients to for a makeshift steak dinner at home.

My favorite new kitchen toy plus waffle recipe

I can confidently declare the Waffle Maker is my favorite new kitchen toy of the year. Ever since we got it as part of the cooking workshop we attended at a kitchen studio a few months ago, we have been using it quite regularly, mostly for breakfast but I also found it useful for a quick lunch sandwich too (so far my favorite was pulled pork sandwich)

Let's make some brownies!

Many have said the most difficult part in baking is the precision in measurement. Well no doubt there are solid grounds for that reasoning since baking is more of a science and there are certain rules that need to be strictly followed, especially for stuff like bread or certain types of cakes. But there are baked goods that are more forgiving than the others - and brownies is one of them. Of course every small things you changed will still make a noticeable difference in the end products, but in brownies, those differences are often acceptable. Maybe that's why I love making them at home since there's less pressure on getting everything right all the time.

Belated holiday recipe: Pecan Pie

With a Christmas Eve dinner to host at home and another party at a friend's place a few days later, I decided to bake a couple of pies for dessert, something I could prepare in advance. While many associated Christmas with panatone or stollen, it's more an American tradition (especially those from down south) to have pecan pie as part of the celebration meal (more so for Thanksgiving but also for Christmas too)

Everything looks better in bite size

I have this silicone bite-size brownie pan at home for a while, but I didn't use it that often until I realize it is good not only with brownies (saved you the hassle of cutting that fudgy chocolate sweets into pieces) but many other pastries as well. Bite-size pieces are not only convenient to be carried around for picnic or as snacks in between meals or as party food, they certainly look cuter and more presentable - line them up on a plate, stack them up like a tree, or just pile them in a deep bowl - just be creative!

Cheap Comfort with a Simple Fish Chowder

I made a fish chowder as one of the meals during the forty dollars a day "challenge". It was the first cold(er) day of this winter and I felt like I wanted something warm and comforting. Plus making a stewed soup was one way to make a piece of cheap frozen fish fillet taste better than it normally does, and I could prepare ahead of time and just reheat later.

Easy Summer Receipe Part 3: Cold-brewed Tea

Many of our friends were very kind to bring us souvenirs back from whenever they happened to spend their holidays and tea leaves seem to be a popular choice. We have been having this little problem of overstocking with teas, but now we finally figured out a way to consume those - whether in tea bag form or as loose leaves - at a faster rate.

Easy Summer Recipe Part 2: Cornbread

Last time, I shared the recipe of a super-easy Pasta Salad to make for a big group meal, and this time, let me show you something even easier. Most people in Hong Kong probably have their first taste of cornbread at KFC, where it's offered one of the side dishes for their fried chicken meal, but this is almost as easy to make at home as to order one at the KFC counter.

Easy Summer Recipe Part 1: Pasta Salad

Pasta Salad was the first thing that came to mind when I thought about what to make as side dish for a barbecue last week. I always look for something stronger in flavor to beat the hot and humid summer days so I think a tapenade dressing - with olives, capers and anchovies - would be ideal. It can be prepared from start to finish within 30 minutes if you push it, and is certainly a crowd pleaser with the appetizing bold flavors.

Recipe: Tres Leches Cake

Tres Leches literally means three milks in Spanish, because three kinds of milks were used - evaporated milk , condensed milk and the regular whole milk. We Hong Kongers are more familiar with evaporated milk (花奶/淡奶) and condensed milk (煉奶) for their wide use in local street foods and drinks such as milk tea and toasts, but they are almost as common as a cooking ingredient in many Latin American dishes. So for those from overseas, they should be readily available in supermarkets stocking Asian or Latin American grocery items - try find them in those specialty spots.

Home-style Hash - a hearty, one-pot meal

There are times I would challenge myself to cook an elaborate, multi-course meal at home, and there are times I just want to do something simple. Last weekend definitely belonged to the latter category. I was late coming back from a furniture shopping trip at Horizons Plaza on Saturday (okay, I did pick up a few clothes along the way too) so I picked up just a few items from the grocery stores in the same building and did something quick and easy.