Matsutake Kaiseki

When a friend of ours passed us a batch of freshly picked Matsutake mushrooms from Yunnan, I decided to turn that into a feast of mushrooms for six people, Iron-chef style. 

Fine Dining Takeaway Part 2: At Home By Ando

Continuing our series on fine-dining takeaway meal, we took up Chef Agustin’s generous offer to check out the new “at home” menu from Ando. I suppose this is extra challenging for him and his team given they were still settling at this new restaurant and kitchen, and then everything just changed at last minute with the dine-in ban and everything, but they pulled this off marvelously.

Ritz at Home

We took up the generous offer from the team at Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong to check out their new home delivery menu. As much as I love cooking at home, it’s good for a change every now and then when someone did the work for me, and with their meal set said to be enough for 4, we asked two of our friends to join us at our place on a Friday evening, something we haven’t done in ages.

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.

The Ramen Story - Making it at home

I took on the experiment of making ramen from scratch at home not on a mission to create the perfect bowl but to try to see how difficult it was even to make a half-decent version.

I first got this idea when I picked up the book by Ivan Orkin, the chef behind the legendary Ivan Ramen (first in Tokyo, then New York City). In the past I always thought ramen is nothing more than a bowl of broth made with pork bones, slices of charsiu and noodles, but I was fascinated by the complexity of Chef Ivan's recipe of no less than a dozen different ingredients that went in, each requiring separate set of processes to prepare. This is why I decided to try on a simplified version as an one-off project in my own kitchen. I meant to start during the Chinese New Year break but at the end I didn't start until one week after.

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.

Dinner for Two (Part 3) - Heart-shaped Dessert

Originally I wasn't planning to make any dessert after our previous 2 courses of ravioli and chicken - thought we would finish the dinner with some cheese instead. But at the very last minute I changed my mind - after all it didn't sound right not having something sweet for Valentine's Day dinner so I squeezed an extra course in using simply ingredients I had in hand.

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.

Forty Dollars a Day

How much do you spend on food each day? Do most of you even consciously count? What would you do if you could spend only 40 Hong Kong Dollars a day on food?

Some friends and I were having this conversation one random day, and decided to experience this ourselves. For 3 days at our own choosing, we pledged to spend only HK$40 a day (equivalent to around US$5.2). "Why 40 Dollars?" you might ask. Well this is partly inspired by the Hungry for Change campaign organized by Justice Centre Hong Kong, a local NGO advocating for refugee welfare, and 40 dollars is daily food allowance provided to asylum seekers stranded in Hong Kong since they were not allowed to seek employment. (even worse when they were only provided $40 "worth" of food, not $40 in cash - so they don't even have a choice of what to eat)

Piedmontese Dinner at Home

It's stressful enough to have friends coming over for dinner, let alone friends who really *know* food and won't miss a heartbeat telling people what they like/dislike. I came back from Piedmont eager to share some of the goodies we acquired during our holiday, so I asked a few friends - who shall remain nameless - to come over to our place at the first Saturday evening since we returned. That's the beginning of a stressful (yet fun) weekend.

Risotto with White Truffles

Originally I was planning to make some pasta going with the piece of white truffles we got at the Fair in Alba, but the house didn't come with a pasta machine (plus I got a little lazy once we settled in), so instead, I bought some rice in the market and made a risotto instead one evening.

Just a slightly fancier home dinner

It all started with us wanting to open a bottle of Piedmont wine ahead of our trip to the region late next month. Figured it's good to have some background knowledge of the geography and produce of the area to make the journey more fun. This is when I decided preparing something for dinner that would go well with the wine.

Easy Summer Recipe Part 4 - "Green Monday" Salad

Since late last year, I have been working with the social enterprise Green Monday team to develop a few vegetarian recipes for a project that they do with The Link REIT, which managed several wet markets in Hong Kong in their real estate portfolio. Beginning in January, those recipes were printed as colorful leaflets and be distributed at the markets on a weekly basis throughout the year as a way to promote green living and inventive cooking. 

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.

Cater for a Wine Gathering

I found it challenging enough to host a dinner for 4 at home on a Friday evening, and yet the week after, I doubled the challenge to help catering food for a fund-raising event for 70 people.

My good friend Mr Y owned this marvelous wine cellar/lounge facility in a harbor-side building near Tin Hau called Hip Cellar so I asked him whether he could lend us the venue for a charity event to raise funds for our church's growth project. We thought it would be great from a social gathering and fund-raising perspectives, entertaining a cozy crowd with people from church and friends. Once we were confirmed the date of the first Friday of August, we began to plan for the event.

A Friday Dinner Challenge

Hosting a dinner at home on Friday evening is always a bit of a challenge, given both of us have a day time job. That plus we were out most of the evenings this week - that means I had even lesser time to shop for ingredients and prepare some of the food in advance, hence I needed to be much more careful with planning and executing, trying to make use of ingredients readily available at home than those obscure items that were a bit tricky to find, for example, and try to start even earlier for some of the dishes to spread out the prep time.