Home-cooked favourite among the Chinese. Simple yet delicious.

Egg Tofu with Minced Pork
Simple steps to follow:

Egg Tofu with Minced Pork

Ingredients:

• Egg tofu – 1 tube
• Cooking oil – 1 1/2 tablespoon
• Ground pork – 80 grams
• Chicken broth or water  – 1/3 cup
• Garlic – 1 clove

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Marinate:

• Soy sauce – 1 teaspoon
• Sesame oil – 1 1/2 teaspoon

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Seasoning:

• Soy sauce – 1/2 tablespoon
• Taucu (fermented bean paste) – 1 1/2 teaspoon
• Oyster sauce – 1 teaspoon
• Brown sugar – 1/2 teaspoon

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For thickening *(mix together):

• Corn starch – 2 teaspoons
• Water – 1 tablespoon

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Instructions:

1. In a bowl, marinate ground pork with soy sauce & sesame oil. Mix all together and set aside.

2. Cut the egg tofu into 1-inch. Pat each piece of the egg tofu dry with a paper towel and coat with corn starch. Set aside.

3. Heat pan over medium-heat, add 1 tablespoon of oil. Pan-fry the egg tofu on both sides until golden brown, transfer the egg tofu to a serving plate.    

4. In the same pan, heat pan over medium-heat, add 1/2 tablespoon of oil. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant, then add in the marinated pork. Stir-fry pork for about 1-2 minutes then add in bird’s eye chili and the seasoning. Stir and mix all together for about a minute.

5. Add in chicken broth or water and bring to boil for about 3-4 minutes. Slowly stir in corn starch mixture over the pork. Bring the sauce to simmer until the sauce thickens about 1-2 minutes.

6. Then, ladle the pork over the egg tofu.

7. Serve with steamed rice & cucumber

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A simple brothy bowl full of flavor, warmth, and savoury.

Seaweed Noodles Soup

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Ingredients:

• Noodles(mee sua/ wheat vermicelli) – 2 bundles
• Dried seaweed – 1/3 cup
• Ground pork – 1/2 cup
• Chicken broth or water – 3 1/2 cups
• Sea salt – 1/4 teaspoon
• Firm tofu – 1/2 block (cube)
• Bok choy (Chinese cabbage) – 1 stalk
• Egg – 1 egg

Marinate:

• Soy sauce – 1/2 tablespoon
• Sesame oil – 1 teaspoon
• Shaoxing wine (Chinese cooking wine) – 1/2 teaspoon
• Corn starch – 1 1/2 teaspoon

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The soup is boiling up in the pot.

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If you like salmon, you’ll love this quick and easy recipe. I’m sure you’ll love this simple salmon with just only 3 ingredients.

Japanese Salmon (Simple)

Ingredients:

• Salmon fillet – 1 fillet
• Oil – 1/2 tablespoon
• Broccoli – florets
• Egg – 1 egg

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Seasoning:

• Soy sauce – 1/2 tablespoon
• Mirin – 1 1/2 tablespoons
• Sake – 1/2 tablespoon

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Instructions:

1.   Combine “seasoning” ingredients in a ziplock bag, marinate salmon fillet overnight (or possible minimum 3 hours).

2.   In a pan, heat oil over medium-heat. Add in salmon fillet, salmon skin side down and cook for 2-3 minutes until crispy. Check the skin, do not over burn it.

3.   Drizzle over the remaining marinade seasoning from the ziplock bag over the flesh side. Flip and cook the flesh side for about 2 minutes, or until cook through (to your liking).

4.   Served with steamed rice, broccoli and omelette.

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When I was a child, I used to watch my poh-poh (grandmother) cooking in the kitchen. Normally, we would make typical Asian dishes – stir-fried, stewed or steamed, which were quite easy to prepare and cook. Poh-poh taught me the technique of cooking. We started from the basic things a person would learn from a culinary school. Under her supervision, I learned how to peel, slice and mince gingers, garlics and onions before trying out the more challenging tasks.  My poh-poh was very patient and she gave me so much advice. After preparing the ingredients, I was only allowed to stand beside her and watched her “doing magic” with her favourite iron wok. Sometimes, she would allow me to do a quick stir in the wok or dish up the food to a serving plate.

Poh-poh had never cooked from a recipe. She cooked by heart.  She took pleasure in cooking and felt good when someone gobbled down the food she prepared.

Like my pop-poh, mum is also a great cook and I love her cooking so much. She is also an excellent baker. When it comes to cooking, she is my inspiration. I remember clearly she spent so much time in the kitchen when I was a kid, filling my childhood with love and food. Passion for cooking – I guess that’s what I inherited from both my poh-poh and my mum.

Baking and cooking are my favourite pastimes. If there is one thing that helps to relieve my stress, it must be either cooking or baking. I love to be in the kitchen preparing food. That is my best moment of deliciously destress!

Anytime is cooking time – any day, any place, happy or sad.  Cooking is a continuous learning process. I fine tune my recipes and my cooking skills whenever I find the end results less satisfactory so that I can improve myself. It’s a never-ending process, but it’s fun and fulfilling!

Not long ago, my sister introduced me a multi-purpose cooking pot. The pot is so versatile that you can use it to cook, steam, stir-fry, stew and grill. I bought the pot from an online shopping mall “shopee.my”. Initially I used it to make some soup or steam some leftover and bring to the office as lunch. After a while, it suddenly hit me that if I repeatedly eating leftovers, my health would soon be affected. So I decided to prepare some easy meals in my office for lunch.

Inevitably occasionally it is nice to eat out but making my own food sounds even better to me. I can make whatever I want as long as I have the ingredients, rather than going around trying to find the food I want in a restaurant. Besides, nothing beats home cooked meals.   

I will share more recipes on I how cook using this cute mini pot. The recipes are simple and easy to follow.

Cooking brings joy, that is for sure, whether I do it alone, or with family and friends. Serving them food that I prepared and receiving their compliments always bring me so much joy and satisfaction. I am glad to be obsessed with cooking for it excites me and comforts me.

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Introducing my “cute mini pot”.

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