Christine's Recipes: Easy Chinese Recipes

Creme caramel (Valentine's Day Dessert)

2012-02-13T15:47:00.000+10:00

My hubby is a lover of eggs. He loves every egg dish, no matter it’s savoury or sweet. For Valentine’s Day, it’s quite natural to make something sweet, something simple. I don’t want to stand before the stove for a long time and make a dish. To myself, Valentine’s Day has to be a relax day with minimum cooking time, if not dining out. So I prepared some crème caramel, a classic French dessert, for the celebration yesterday. I often think crème caramel is quite similar to the Hong Kong steamed custard. The former is baked in an oven, whereas the latter is steamed in a wok. The hightlight of the French dessert is the caramel, presented with a stunning, elegant looking, flavoured with sensational caramelized syrup. Super delicious.
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Banana Chocolate Crepe

2012-02-07T15:05:00.000+10:00

When I spotted this crepe maker was on sale at Aldi, it quickly became one of my kitchen gadget collections. Hadn’t hubby encouraged, I would’ve taken one or two more days to consider. You might easily guess who is the person in my family loves to have crepes the most? Back home, off I went to whip up one of his most favourite versions, banana chocolate crepe, which costs 9 dollars each from a dessert bar. With this crepe maker, I can easily make as many good-looking crepes, just like those professional ones, as we like. If you don’t have a crepe maker, you still can make tasty crepe with a non-stick pan.
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Beef Mince Congee (Beef Rice Porridge)

2012-01-30T12:36:00.000+10:00

This is an old-fashioned breakfast I always had when I was a primary-school aged kid. To me, a bowl of nice and hot congee before going to school seemed to be a luxury enjoyment, although it didn’t cost much at all. The traditional way of enjoying the congee is to go with a plate of steamed rice noodle rolls (豬腸粉) or deep-fried dough , aka “you tiao” (油條).

You can make some plain congee a day or a few days ahead, and store it in fridge. Whenever you need it, just bring it to boil and pop in some marinated beef mince. There you go, a nice and hot breakfast is served in a few minutes. This congee is best served hot. The highlight of it is the soft, tender and just cooked beef mince. That’s why Hong Kong chefs often ladle boiling congee over beef mince. You might like to replace with any meat you like, for example, pork or chicken.
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Blessing Cookies (Fortune Cookies) for Chinese New Year

2012-01-24T12:38:00.000+10:00

These blessing cookies (aka fortune cookies) are fantastic as snacks enjoyed during the Chinese New Year as an alternative to the traditional butter cookies, that are often presented to relatives and friends. You can place your hand-written blessing notes inside. What a meaningful gift to your loved ones.
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Cheat’s Sweet Egg Twists (Chinese New Year Snack)

2012-01-21T15:12:00.000+10:00

23 January, Monday is a big day for Chinese people all over the world. Only two more days to go, then we’ll start the year of Dragon. Yay! Our family celebration often starts from the New Year’s Eve dinner (團年飯). Not only we enjoy the relaxed festive holidays, but also many delicious traditional Chinese foods, being around with family and friends with lots of fun. Some traditional savory and sweet snacks, like radish cake, taro cake, glutinous rice flour cake and cookies, seem to be a must on my list. Yet, sometimes, I like to tweak a traditional dish into a modern and quick one.

Ever tried a traditional sweet egg twists (蛋散, dansan) ? It’s my childhood CNY snack in Hong Kong. Some Chinese restaurants offer egg twists as dim sum. The egg twist is primarily made of flour, egg, sugar and lard. Its soft and crisp texture makes it very addictive to people who have a sweet tooth. If you are already tired of making too many CNY foods but still need some snacks to fill in on the go. Here’s a cheat’s version of sweet egg twists I tried the other day. You could make some at the moment when your visitors suddenly dropped by. Best of all, this cheat version doesn’t need any lard at all in order to make the twists crispy. Take a look at the recipe, and you’ll know how.
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Mandarin Pancakes for Peking Duck (Chinese New Year Celebration)

2012-01-10T11:45:00.000+10:00

Chinese New Year Day falls on the 23rd of January this year, about two weeks time to go. We all start thinking about what we should cook for the celebration. The traditional dishes, like radish cakes, coconut pudding, steamed fish and Chinese mushrooms seem to be a must on our list. I’m still searching new ideas of cooking something new to my family.

After I served the first piece of pancake for hubby, then quickly went back to fry my second piece for myself, I heard he yielded out a word, “YUMMY”. At the very moment, I knew this dish could be on my Chinese New Year menu. It’s a perfect appetizer.

The mandarin pancakes are best served when they are still warm. They are chewy and springy in texture, going so well with the crispy duck skin. One more remark, the hoisin sauce is a must because it adds more flavour into the wrappers. Traditionally, Chinese people use cucumber and the white parts of leek (京蔥). But you could replace with julienned white parts of large spring onions, or add any greens you like.
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Banana Apple Muffins

2012-01-04T14:56:00.000+10:00

Happy New Year, everyone! Before the new year’s eve, I finally uploaded the last batch of recipes and photos to my publisher. Right at the moment I hit the “upload” button, I started feeling like over the moon, so released. I can’t wait to see my first cookbook in print. Thanks so much for all your support and leaving encouraging words on my fan page and blog.

Here comes one of my favourite snacks, cup cakes, as the first blog post in 2012. They are easy to whip up in the last minute. This time I tried the new muffin tray bought from Ikea. It got deeper holes, so the cup cakes took a bit longer baking time. I was very pleased with the tall, and gorgeous looking of these cup cakes as much as I love their taste. The banana and apple are perfect partners to make me an enjoyable and delicious snack as a reward to myself whenever I finish a project.
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Chocolate Crackle Cookies (Christmas treats)

2011-12-20T15:35:00.000+10:00

We’re going to enjoy a very hot Christmas festive season as usual in a few more days. Although I still haven’t got myself used to celebrate Christmas in summer, I’ve learned to create imagery pictures of snowing scenes in my mind by enjoying some cold desserts or something look like snow. What I like about these cookies is their snowy look with natural cracks produced by both of the magic of baking powder and icing sugar, giving me more of a Christmas feel. Best of all, the crunchy outside and the fluffy, soft inside make these cookies so enjoyable.
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Steamed Vegetable Dumplings (五彩蔬菜蒸餃)

2011-12-13T20:46:00.000+10:00

You might’ve noticed that my family and I are not vegan eaters. But I do love having many different vegetables served on table, sometimes enjoy a no-meat day. These dumplings have got several vegetables in five different colours for fillings, and can be a perfect light lunch, or snacks for tea time.
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Pan Fried Fish Fillet (Hong Kong Style)

2011-12-06T10:16:00.001+10:00

This is one of my favourite homey dishes often cooked by my mother. I always feel that she’s the best in cooking it. The fish fillet is pan fried perfectly and the sauce is just balanced. It is suitable for kids and seniors, and meat lovers of course, excellent with hot steamed rice.
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Sweet Green Mung Bean Soup (Hong Kong Dessert)

2011-11-30T12:01:00.001+10:00

This recipe has been posted long ago on my Chinese food blog. Here comes the English version for those who love the traditional Hong Kong sweet soup. This sweet green mung bean soup is great for summer, served either in warm or cold. There is one special ingredient, stink grass listed in this recipe. Hope you won’t be scared off by its name, 臭草 (literally means “stink grass” in Chinese). I don’t quite know how and why this little, humble herb got this unpleasing name. In fact, the herb smells very fragrant that makes this Hong Kong sweet soup very special. No other herb can replace it. Many of my Chinese fans claimed that they can’t have the sweet soup without this little herd.

Those two tinny sprigs were gift from my friend who grows them in her backyard. You might try your luck to see if you can source some from any Asian grocers nearby. If no luck, just the green mung beans and seaweed can also make you a good dessert. Hope you like it as much as my family does.
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Japanese Enoki Beef Rolls

2011-11-21T17:41:00.001+10:00

When you are stuck with something, haven’t got much time for cooking, still want some good foods to fuel your body with energy. Here’s a quick, simple and delicious dish with authentic Japanese taste. These beef rolls are classic, easily found in the menu of any good Japanese restaurants. If you want to save up much time for lining up for a table, then all you need is to get the ingredients. And you can make this dish on the go. The beef rolls go really well with steamed rice.
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Baked Pork Chops with Caramelized Onion

2011-11-11T12:15:00.001+10:00

Caramelized onion and pork chops are wonderful partners. If you haven’t tried it before, do give it a go. You’ll know how fantastic the taste is. Making caramelized onion is quite simple, just need a bit of patience and time. After baking, the pork chops become tremendously tender and juicy.
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Baked Sweet Potato Chips

2011-11-01T22:22:00.001+10:00

Ever tried baked sweet potato chips? Do give it a go if you like this delicious vegetable or want your kids to have a healthy alternative to chips. To me and my daughter, it’s absolutely a tasty snack or side dish. When I started to take photos of these freshly baked sweet potatoes chips, my daughter grabbed one from behind. Pretty understand it’s quite a torture for her to wait until I finished all shootings as usual. So this time, I just took one shot, off I went on with my other cooking, then let her have as many chips as she wanted.
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Steamed Chicken with Wood Ears and Dried Lily Buds

2011-10-21T11:11:00.001+10:00

Steamed chicken has been my most favourite dish cooked by my mother from childhood. Many young kids don’t like eating those foods in dark or black in colour. I and my daughter might be the odd ones. I love the black fungus, cloud ears and wood ears very much, especially steamed with chicken. The texture of cloud ears is so delicate and smooth, absorbed all the goodies of chicken after steaming. My daughter would pick all the cloud ears to eat and always complaints that she couldn’t have enough of them.
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Grilled Sanma (Japanese Style)

2011-10-11T11:45:00.001+10:00

Whenever we have fish on our dinner table, I’d feel it’s a very satisfying and rich supper, no matter what kind of fish we have. This dish is a super easy and quick one, yet delicious enough. Sanma is commonly used in Japanese cuisine. To make this dish, all you need is an oven/grill. I used my toaster oven that is pretty quick to grill a small amount of meat. If you don’t have an oven at home, you can pan fry it oven medium-high heat. Both of the fish skin and bones are very crispy. You can eat the whole fish literally, given that you’re skillful and experienced in eating small fish with bones.
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Sweet Potato Glutinous Rice Balls

2011-10-03T11:55:00.000+10:00

This Chinese dessert reminds me of the western molten cake (aka lava cake), that often make people utter “ooz” and “aah” after cutting or biting open the tiny cute ball. Not only does this sweet treat taste heavenly, but also it has an appealing presentation with its melted filling running down. You can impress your family and friends with this easy-to-make dessert in any occasion.
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Traditional Mooncakes (廣式月餅)

2011-09-26T23:09:00.000+10:00

Mid-Autumn festival (中秋節) is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar every year. So we finished this year’s celebration two weeks ago. You might’ve wondered why this recipe comes so late. Actually, I've also juggled whether I post its English translation this year or keep the draft until next year since I posted the Chinese version. Here you go, the traditional mooncake recipe that’s been sitting for a long time in my draft folder has come alive on this blog. As I need more time working on my cookbook project, the posting on this blog has been slow down a bit. Yet, I've been cooking and working very hard. For the past few weeks, I uploaded a few batches of recipes and photos to my editor. Thank you all for bearing with me for such a slow posting pace recently.
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Homemade Golden Syrup (For Making Mooncakes)

2011-09-13T15:46:00.000+10:00

What made this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival special to me was that my homemade traditional mooncakes were loved by many of my friends. All major ingredients I used were homemade, from the salted eggs, and lotus seed paste to this golden syrup. Sharing those mini golden mooncakes (recipe coming soon), loaded with natural sugar fragrance with my friends was really a joy.

Golden syrup, also known as invert syrup, is commonly used in making different desserts that brings in a good flavour. For those who are allergic to honey can use golden syrup instead.

Back to mooncake making, what makes the pastry of traditional mooncakes unique is the magic made by this golden, high-quality syrup, so that’s why the traditional mooncakes smell so fragrant. To cook golden syrup is a bit tricky, two important factors has to be kept in mind: timing and temperature. Otherwise, it’d either be burnt, or too runny, if it’s cooked too long or too short, or cooked on too high heat.
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Lotus Seed Puree (蓮蓉)

2011-09-05T22:41:00.000+10:00

Lotus seeds are extensively used in making Chinese desserts or fillings in steamed buns. As the mid-autumn festival is coming around the corner, I’m going to prepare a large batch of lotus seed puree, over 1 kg, and make some traditional mooncakes for my family and friends.

My mother-in-law used to make lotus seed puree in a traditional way many years ago. She had to press hard and mash the cooked lotus seeds into a smooth paste with a wok spatula. It nearly took her half a day to make a small batch every time. Making lotus seed puree at home is quite tedious, yet showing a great love for the family in action.

Here’s a good news for those who have modern kitchen utensils. Armed with a food processor, you could make some with ease and skip the most tedious part. Needless to say, you could use store-bought, canned lotus seed puree. Wait, believe me, there’s nothing better than the homemade. The freshly made puree smells so fragrant, with the right amount of sweetness perfectly suits to my family’s taste. Best of all, all the ingredients used are natural.
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Chocolate Mousse

2011-08-18T12:01:00.003+10:00

Sometimes, unexpected things would happen to get in the way of our daily routine. This dessert was made to cheer my daughter up as I hadn’t had enough time to cook dinner for her before she went out the other day. She missed her favourite pumpkin soup and favourite pasta. Before she dashed out the door, I promised to make her this chocolate mousse.

Chocolate and cream are wonderful partners, that work so well with a spirit-boosting result. It’s a quick dessert. What I need to do is to whip up the cream and egg white, then combine all the ingredients, chill in my fridge. Then the dessert is ready to serve at any time. She's very happy with the reheated soup and pasta, followed by the chilled chocolate mousse.
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How To Juice a Pomegranate (Easy and Quick) + Bookdeal News

2011-08-09T12:36:00.003+10:00

This draft of this post has been sitting way too long in my folder. Finally, I managed to edit and hit the publish button and get it alive on my blog. It’s been quite an exciting and busy fortnight since I officially got a bookdeal from a large, prestige publisher. The theme of my first cookbook will be simple recipes for home cooks, with many of them are classic Hong Kong dishes that I grew up with. Please bear with me for my posting backlogs.

Back to my favourite fruit, pomegranate. Pomegranate juice is a very healthy and refreshing drink in summer. Although it’s still cold down under here, I love making desserts with its lovely juice. After I made the pomegranate soufflé, immediately a fan posted a question about how to juice pomegranate on my fan page.

The arils, wrapped inside the white pulp membranes, compose of edible red-diamond-like flesh and white hard seeds inside. Trying to get the lovely juice from the edible flesh sounds quite troublesome, yet it’s worth the work. Here’s a hack around that I experimented, much easier than I thought.
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Pomegranate Sorbet

2011-08-01T17:17:00.003+10:00

The jewelry-like fleshy seeds of pomegranate are the most attractive to me. The seeds contain fabulous sweet, slightly tart flavour, very suitable for making refreshing juice for summer days. Well, it’s still winter here, so the first idea that came up in my mind was to make a warm soufflé to end our dinner with one of the giant pomegranates sent by Royal Pom. What else could I make good use with the other giant pomegranate? I am a kind of person who can enjoy ice-cream on a freezing, windy day. Although the weather was quite cold and wet last week, I couldn’t help craving for this beautiful pomegranate sorbet. Again, this pomegranate sorbet served as a perfect ending of my dinner last week.
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Pig’s Trotters in Ginger and Sweetened Vinegar 豬腳薑醋

2011-07-25T14:26:00.006+10:00

This traditional Chinese dish conveys a mystical message even in Chinese community, as it’s often cooked for women post-labour. In fact, it’s a dish that everyone, including men, can enjoy, and needless to have a fear of embarrassment. Many Chinese yumcha restaurants offer this dish with a very pricey tag. The pig’s trotters (aka pork knuckles) are so moist, tender and succulent after the slow cooking in the tasty sweetened black vinegar. The natural collagen of pig’s trotters is very good for our health too. Both of my daughter and hubby especially like the hard boiled eggs that soaked in the tasty sauce. They can finish one after another. What I have to do is to make sure they don’t over eat.

Every family has its own version of this dish. The recipe I posted here is adapted from my mother-in-law’s cooking. She used to cook this dish for her daughter and every daughter-in-laws in her family, including me of course. Lucky me, I could learn from her in person during my travel back to Hong Kong. Hope you’d enjoy this dish as much as I do. A side note, my MIL only uses the Pat Chun Sweetened Vinegar（百珍甜醋）, because she loves its taste the most and doesn’t need to blend it any other kind of vinegar.
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Pomegranate Souffle

2011-07-14T22:31:00.003+10:00

What draws me to pomegranate, might be its vibrant red, perhaps its healthy benefits to our body. Comparatively, pomegranate contains much more antioxidants than many other kinds of fruits. Some people might be put off from its acidity and astringency. But for me, I just like its unique flavour. I can’t explain how and why I fell in love with this fruit during my first encounter. Not only does its juice taste great, especially in cocktails and mixed drinks, but also it can be a wonderful ingredient of making desserts. Take this soufflé as an example, the tangy taste of the pomegranate provided a perfect balance to this elegant dessert, which ended our dinner perfectly the other day.

This soufflé was baked with Royal Pom’s complimentary pack of two giant pomegranates that I’ve ever seen that big. They were very nice, perfectly grown, and juicy. Only one pomegranate was far enough to make juice for two large soufflé cups. I was very satisfied with the taste and texture, as well as amazed by its colourful looking. But I don’t quite understand why the soufflés turned into light purple in colour, instead of light red. Anyone has any idea?
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