Old Cucumber Soup 老黄瓜汤

The Chinese name of this vegetable (yes, I know technically it is a fruit, but I don’t think it’s wrong to call it a vegetable in cooking :P) is 老黄瓜, literally translated as ‘old yellow cucumber’. According to this site, old cucumber is actually matured cucumber, hence its brown, wrinkled and hard skin. Looking at its dried-out skin, you might never have guess that consuming it is good for the skin and helps prevent aging! It is also high in dietary fiber, calcium, iron and rich in vitamin A, B6, and C … So, are you sold on the wonderful properties of this soup yet? If you are, let’s start cooking!

Ingredients
(Serves 3)

One small to medium size Chinese old cucumber
1.3 litres of water
10 red dates
6 dried scallops
200g pork ribs
1 piece dried cuttlefish (optional)
1 sweet corn, cut to small pieces (optional)
1 medium carrot, peeled and cut (optional)
salt

Directions

1. Scrub the skin of the old cucumber clean and cut it in half, length-wise. Scoop out the seeds using a spoon. Cut into small pieces.
2. In a small pot, blanch the pork ribs in boiling water for about 5 minutes (so as to remove the irky bits). Drain and set aside.
3. In a pot, add all the ingredients and bring to a boil for about 5-10 minutes. After which, simmer the soup over low heat for about 30 minutes. Season with salt if desired.

Notes:

- The reason for leaving the skin on is to prevent the flesh from turning mushy after cooking.
- Some people like to consume the seeds so if you do, then you don’t have to scoop them out.
- If you like your soup to be thick and rich, you can continue boiling for up to 2 hours.

Adding a piece of dried cuttlefish (along with the dried scallops, red dates & other ingredients) makes the soup sweeter.

Scoop out the seeds using a spoon.

Another photo

Another ‘Yin’ soup
- Watercress Soup

Further Reading about Yin and Yang Foods
- Yin & Yang of Chinese Cooking
- Chinese Food Theraphy
- Yin & Yang: balancing health with food

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This recipe is submitted to Weekend Herb Blogging, a food blog event started by Kalyn’s Kitchen and hosted this week by Archana’s Kitchen.

Pancakes look so cheery to me when topped with all kinds of wonderful foods - a great way to uplift moods & kick start a day ^^

Home Made Pancakes
(topped with honey kiwi fruit, blueberries & banana nut crunch cereal, drizzled with diluted honey syrup, & … served with words that don’t really rhyme :P)

Ingredients
(makes 8 pancakes)

Credit: This recipe is taken entirely from here.

- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (or plain flour)
- 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
-  1 tablespoon white sugar
-  1 1/4 cups milk
-  1 egg
- 3 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

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Note: You can use fruits, ice cream, cereals and nuts as toppings for your pancakes, and also drizzle some maple syrup to sweeten if desired. Get creative! I don’t have maple syrup, so I substitute with using honey that’s diluted with just a little bit of water at room temperature.

Experimental - I use kiwi honey which my mum bought for me from NZ to make the syrup for one of the pancakes.

(Almost) Half Eaten =x

The kiwi & kiwi honey my mum bought for me from New Zealand. Sweeeet

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This post is submitted to Pancakes on Parade, a food blog event by the wonderful, wonderful Susan, aka The Well-Seasoned Cook

Of course, I am talking about finally finding the perfect Bak Kut Teh spices One whiff of the herbs and you can feel the difference, one taste of the soup and you know it is the one!!

Ok, maybe I exaggerate a little, but I do find the spices really good. Maybe it’s no false modesty that it’s called “Best Bak Kut Teh Spices”, or for me at least

Starflower Brand “Best Bak Kut Teh Spices” S$3.20

Not sure if it can be found elsewhere, but I got it from the famous “Lim Chee Guan Bak Kwa Shop”, Singapore (in Chinatown on New Bridge Road between Temple and Mosque streets).

A herby concoction - an assortment of chinese herbs such as dang gui , yu zhu, wolfberries and a packet of herby tea pack.

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Additional Reading: All About Bak Kut Teh

This meal cost like S$8 for two persons and takes less than 30 minutes to cook & prepare. So easy and economical, heh

Ingredients
(Serves 2)

200g spaghetti
200g minced beef & 100g minced pork (or use 300g minced beef)
100ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp chopped
10 tbsp pasta tomato paste
1 tbsp chopped parsley/basil
1/2 cup red wine/red cooking wine (optional)

Directions
1. Bring a pot of water containing salt and oil to a boil. Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package, drain and set aside.
2. In a saucepan, heat oil and saute garlic & parsley/basil.
3. When fragrant, add pork and fry for 2 minutes, gently breaking the minced meat to bits using a wooden turner.
4. Add the minced beef and fry evenly till the meat is cooked.
5. Add the tomato paste, followed by the red wine & vegetable stock.  Stir evenly. Simmer for about 5 minutes without covering until the meat sauce has evaporated to the right consistency.
6. Serve the cooked spaghetti on a plate and pour the meat sauce over.

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This dish is submitted to Presto Pasta Nights, a food blog event by Ruth.

Thanks to We Are Never Full for the reminder on adding red wine

Only one photo because I was really so hungry when I was preparing this meal, I swear I almost feel myself fainting, haha! I wonder if anyone has fainted while preparing a meal? This reminds me of the characters in the game Sims 2, who will collapse on the floor due to inadequate sleep/food/shower, but the minute you do something about it (like feed them), they will rejuvenate on the spot (& you see their health bar rising). While I was cooking this, I pictured my health (the green bar) slowly dropping to red, and my mission is to cook and eat this in time before my health bar drops to zilch (over imaginative mind at work again?).

Luckily, this is such a quick and easy pasta dish so I didn’t faint (thankfully)! It tastes so good this time round too (most probably due to my hunger :P)

Aglio Olio is a dish that holds sentimental value for me, because when I was a TOTAL noob cook (I consider myself a beginner noob cook now, haha), this was the dish I use to learn some culinary basics. In the words of my friend w who taught me the dish, it’s “very easy to cook, but difficult to perfect”. The first few times that I cooked this, the fire was too strong and the garlic was burnt. If I didn’t put the correct amount of salt, the dish turns out either too bland or too salty. And there must be a correct amount of garlic and olive oil to bring out the favour. If you want to practise your culinary skills, this is a good dish to start, heehee!

Ingredients
(Serves 1)

100g spaghetti
1.5 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp chopped garlic
5 large prawns/shrimps (shells & veins removed)*
1/2 cup chopped fresh english parsley/basil (I use 1/2 tbsp of dried basil)
chilli flakes (optional)
salt

* Note: Didn’t have the time to de-vein my prawns this time round, though the extra-large tiger prawns I buy usually do not comes with veins :[

Directions

1. Add some vegetable oil and salt to a pot of water, and boil the spaghetti till al dente (according to the instructions on the package). Drain & set aside.
2. In a saucepan, heat olive oil and stir fry chopped garlic, parsley/basil and chilli flakes till they are infused with the oil.
3. Add the prawns and stir fry till they are cooked. Toss in the pasta and stir evenly.
4. Season with salt and stir well. You can garnish with parsley flakes, cheese and garlic bits before serving.

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I’m submitting this dish to Presto Pasta Nights, guest-hosted (for the first time) by Closet Cooking this week.

This is a quick and healthy vegetable dish, and fuss-free enough for busy nights

Ingredients
(Serves 2)
200g Napa Cabbage, cut to 2 inch length
1/2 carrot, sliced thinly
100g button mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp garlic

Seasonings
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp Chinese rice wine (hua tiao jiu/shao hsing jiu)

Directions
In a wok, heat oil. Saute garlic till lightly browned. Stir fry carrot for one minute, then add the mushrooms and stir fry for another minute. Add the cabbage and cook for about 2 minutes, or till the leaves are softened. Add the seasonings, mix well and serve.

Another Photo

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Brief Info on Napa Cabbage

Napa Cabbage, also known as Chinese cabbage, Peking Cabbage & Celery Cabbage, is a vegetable that is rich in Vitamin C and other nutrients. If you think you are not familiar with this vegetable, it will probably ring a bell if you hear “kimchi”, as this is the cabbage which is used in most varieties of the famous Korean appetizer.

Napa cabbage has long, oblong-shaped leaves that are flat and wide. Napa has crispy, fibrous leaves, which is why it is often called “celery cabbage”. It is a mild and sweet favour, and is often used in stir frys in Asian wokking. Always store this vegetable in a plastic bag as it absorbs the flavors of the foods around it.

For some strange reason or another, some of the local supermakets in Singapore labeled this vegetable as “endives”, which do not seem like the correct name for this vegetable. Please correct me if I am wrong!

Credits & further reading::

- Different varieties of napa cabbages
- Basic Info from About.com
- Wiki: Napa Cabbage
- Info from Melissa.com

This post is submitted to Weekend Herb Blogging, created by Kalyn’s Kitchen, and hosted by Maninas: Food Matters this week.

I renamed it “basic grilled steak” because it’s so simple. Just salt, pepper, olive oil, a piece of steak, and you’re ready to grill! (plus … I wasn’t using the rib eye cut :x).

My only complaint? The cleaning up. I didn’t know that cooking steak emits so much fumes, and I have to wipe the kitchen thoroughly afterwards =O

Basic Grilled Steak
(brushed with olive oil, and seasoned with salt & pepper)

Recipe from VideoJug

Ingredients
(Serves 1)

- 200 to 300g steak
- 60 ml olive oil
- salt and pepper

Directions

Begin by placing the grill pan over a high heat and allow it to become very hot. Brush both sides of the steak with a light coating of oil and season both sides with salt and pepper to taste, just before cooking it. Now that the grill pan is really hot, place the steak onto it.

Cook the meat until the bottom is crispy and brown. You can check to see how it’s cooking, by turning one end up, to see how the crust is building up. Brush once more with oil and turn it over to the other side. Now reduce the heat to medium. The cooking time will depend on the type of pan you use, the steak’s thickness, and how well done you like your steak.

Some Neat Tricks from VideoJug:

- Season the steak just before cooking it. Otherwise, the salt with draw all the moisture out of the meat and will affect the taste.
- Don’t ever turn the meat more than once. It makes it very tough.
- The video shows you how you can test your steak for readiness, but I have absolutely no idea what it’s talking about (I’m a noob cook!) Maybe it will make better sense to you

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I’m submitting this recipe to Bookmarked Recipes, a food blog event run by Ruth’s Kitchen Experiments, featuring food made from recipes bookmarked from anywhere - like a cook book, food magazine, food blog or food website.

The objective of the fundraiser is to help Bri and her family raise US$12,000, for meeting her out-of-pocket medical costs for ONE YEAR . For more information about the cause, click here.

Here are some ways you can help::

- If you have a blog/site, you can help spread the word about the event
- Make a monetary donation
- Offer a prize on your blog for the fundraiser
- Participate in the June Special Edition of Click by shooting yellow food.

(Note: The above is paraphrased from my friend’s blog post )

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In line with this month’s theme, I’m submitting a photo from my Mango Pasta Salsa blog post for Click.

Mango Salsa Pasta

So just as I was about to give up, my mum came to the rescue! She told me that the “secret” is adding anchovies (aka Ikan Bilis) to make the porridge really sweet and flavourful. Ah…. anchovies, the secret ingredient … why haven’t I thought of it? And true enough, after another round of experimenting, the pork porridge finally tastes nice and flavourful - the way I want it to be

Pork Porridge (猪肉粥)
(garnished with anchovies, fried shallots and spring onions

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Ingredients
(Serves 4)

250g minced pork
1 1/4 cup rice
12 cups water
2 tbsp dried shrimps
10 red dates
10 dried scallops
2 tbsp (deep fried or plain) anchovies (aka ikan bilis)
century egg, cup to small pieces (optional)
chopped spring onions and fried shallots for garnishing (optional)

marinade
1 1/4 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp corn starch
1 tsp sesame oil
Ground white pepper

Directions
(Recipe slightly adapted from simcooks)

1. Add washed rice, dried shrimps, anchovies, red dates, dried scallops and water to pot, bring to a boil.
2. Leave the lid partially open and reduce heat to medium. Stir the bottom of the pot every now and then to prevent the rice from sticking to the base.
3. Boil for about 30 minutes to get congee (very fine consistency). Add more hot water if needed.

4. In the meantime, mix the pork with the marinade and leave for about 10 minutes. After which, scoop about 1/2 tbsp of the marinated mince meat and mould into a ball (see photo above).
5. When the porridge has cooked to the consistency you liked, place the meatballs into the porridge, increase heat and allow meatballs to cook for about 3 minutes. It is better to cook the meatballs only when you are ready to serve as overcooked meatballs are tough.
6. Serve & garnish with century egg, ikan bilis, spring onions and fried shallots.

Pork Porridge (or rather congee),
served with pork balls, century egg, and garnished with spring onions & fried shallots

Similar Recipes:
- Pumpkin Porridge

Thanks Margot!