Long Bean Omelette

I was reminded of this childhood favourite dish of mine when I saw tigerfish’s recipe for green bean omelette egg fritters. Seeing her delicious egg fritters set off an instant craving as I remember my mum used to whip these up and we usually have it with plain porridge. So I phoned my mum and asked her to teach me her version. Our home version is very simple with just a few ingredients – eggs, long beans, garlic, soy sauce, salt and white pepper. But it’s really good like home-cooked food is – it’s delicious, unpretentious and simple.

Ingredients – egg mixture, garlic and finely sliced long beans

Ingredients
(Serves 2-3)
- 5 long beans (can substitute with french beans but double the amount because french beans are shorter), ends trimmed and sliced very thinly
- a dash of salt
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

Mixture (A)
- 3 eggs, beaten
- a dash of white pepper powder
- 1/2 tsp light soy sauce

Directions
1. Heat oil, then add minced garlic. Fry till light brown and fragrant, then add sliced beans.
2. When the beans are somewhat cooked, use your spatula to arrange them into one flat layer in wok.
3. Pour egg mixture (A) over the beans. Gently tilt the wok to ensure all the beans are well coated in the egg. Cook a few minutes on one side until dry and nicely browned, then flip to the other side and do the same.
4. Use spatula to break to smaller pieces. Serve with rice, porridge or as a snack on its own.

Who’s Also Cooking It
- Teczcape
- Soy and Pepper
- PigPig’s Corner (her version comes with preserved radish aka “Chai Po”)

Fried shallots in shallot oil

This is one of my favourite condiments which can be topped over almost any dish. I particularly love these fried shallots over plain porridge, fried rice or oyster sauce vegetables. I love them on its own as well – I can eat it as a snack. In my earlier attempts in deep frying the shallots, I burnt them, because I found out that even though deep frying shallots takes considerably longer than making garlic oil, the shallots go from light golden brown to golden brown really quickly. Hence you need to watch the flame very carefully especially during the second half of the cooking. I made a step-by-step photo guide to show the various stages of cooking the shallots, but the actual timing will depend on the heat of your cooker. Generally, it takes about 12-15 minutes to cook the shallots.

Crispy fried shallots

Ingredients
- 200g shallots (small onions, red or purple ones)
- 350ml vegetable/canola oil

Directions

Step 1: Peel shallots and if you rinse them in water, dab dry with a kitchen towel first. Slice thinly to rings and then use your fingers to gently break the rings into individual circles, as shown in the photo above. For bigger circles, you may want to cut them in half to form crescent shape but that’s optional.

Step 2: Heat oil to medium. You want the heat to be just right – not too low, other wise when you put the shallots into the oil, there will be no “reaction”; nor do you want the heat too high (else the shallots will burn very fast). As you can see in the photo above, there are tiny bubbles which indicate to me that the oil is starting to be heated. You may need to adjust the flame every now and then to ensure the optimal heat.

When oil is heated, add sliced shallots. This is look of the shallots after adding them to the the oil for 1 minute. They are dancing and bubbling mildly in the oil so I turn up the heat up very slightly.

After 4 minutes.

After 7 minutes.

After 9 minutes. You can see parts of the shallots browning. At this point in time, you have to give the shallots your fullest attention (no multi-tasking) because they can become burnt quite quickly from this point on.

After 11 minutes. At this point in time you can see that more than half of the shallots have browned. I let it deep fry for another minute and then I turn off the heat.  The shallots will continue to cook for a little longer in the hot oil even with the stove heat off, till it turns a lovely golden brown.

If you turn off the stove only when the shallots turned a “just right” golden brown, they will cook further in the hot oil and become burnt as a result. Therefore, turn off the heat BEFORE they all turn golden brown.

Shallot oil

Storage & Usage
1) I store some of the fried shallots in a small container of oil (see first photo). I leave this pot in the open for a few days for garnishing my food and I find that they still retain their crispiness after a few days, presumably because the oil insulates the shallots.
2) You can also keep some fried shallots (without the oil, see second photo) in an air-tight bottle and store the bottle in the fridge for roughly a week or two, though I find that they will not be as crispy.
3) As for the remaining oil, it has been infused with the wonderful aroma of shallots. I pour the shallot oil into a container (see photo above), cover it, and use it in my stir-fries (in place of the usual oil I use) which I find is an added flavouring for the food.

Plain Porridge with simple condiments (ikan bilis powder and fried shallots in shallot oil)

Cooking porridge is one of the easiest things ever. Even easier than cooking rice to me, because there is hardly any risk of using the wrong amount of water – you can easily add more water during cooking if the water dries out, or you if add too much water, the cooked porridge will soak it up after some time (or you can also ladle away a top layer of water). So forgive me for posting such a simple tutorial. But easy as this may be, I was completely clueless when I wanted to cook porridge for the first time. So this little step-by-step pictorial tutorial is for those who have not cooked porridge before :)

Ingredients
- long grain rice
- water

Step 1: Wash rice grains, use your hand to give the water a few swirls and then discard water. You may want to repeat this more than once – some people like to rinse till the water is till completely clear, while others like to rinse till the water is still a bit opaque. Note that the amount of rice used for cooking porridge will be slightly less than the amount for cooking rice, at least for me. For example, I usually cook 1 cup of rice for 2-3 persons, but when I’m cooking porridge, I cook 3/4 cup of rice instead.

Step 2: Fill pot with water. As you can see from the photo above, I fill the pot till about half full. It is not really necessary to measure the water because it is very forgiving – if you add too much water now, you can use a ladle to scoop the top layer of water away, though the porridge will soak up excess water if you leave it for a while. Anytime the water runs dry (you will hear ‘popping’ sounds, just add hot water to keep the porridge watery and simmering.

For those who really need some measurements, for the pot above, I use about 1 and 1/2 cup of rice and I filled the pot with about 2 litres of water.

If you want to be fancy, at this step you can also add ingredients for naturally sweetening the porridge. Ingredients such as soaked dried scallops, soaked soy beans, ikan bilis, red dates etc. I did not add anything extra here because I am making plain porridge.

Step 3: Bring the pot to a boil.

Step 4: Once it comes to a boil, reduce heat to a low simmer. Leave the lid partially opened. This step is VERY important. Otherwise, the water will bubble out of the lid and create a terrible mess and also pose a potential hazard.

Step 5: Now and then (about every 10 minutes or so), use a soup ladle to gently scrap the bottom of the pan to loosen and dislodge the rice grains that stick to the bottom.

Step 6: Cook the porridge according to the consistency you like. If you still want to see the rice grain (photo above), it usually takes about 20 minutes.

Step 7: Another 10 minutes and the grains separates. This is the consistency I like. You can simmer even longer for a more watery, finer and more congee-like consistency.

Tip: If you leave the pot of porridge for some time, you will realise that the rice grains will soak up all the water. Just add hot water, mix well with a ladle and if you like, bring to a simmer again before serving.

Look out for my upcoming ikan bilis powder and fried shallots recipes, which are excellent condiments to go with porridge.

Love porridge? Check out my porridge recipes.

Papaya Milk 木瓜牛奶

This is a popular drink in Asian countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This is my simple home-version. I thought of doing this because I have leftover papaya from making papaya, snow fungus and almonds dessert. The papaya was a little over-ripe and soft so I thought it will be nicer in a drink than eating it on its own. It turns out really nice and a healthy, refreshing drink. Some people also believe that this drink is beneficial to expectant mothers because it is nutritious.  For other known properties of this drink, check out the comments ;)

Ingredients
(makes one glass)
- 200g ripe & sweet papaya flesh, cut into small chunks *
- 200ml fresh milk
- 1 tsp honey (adjust to your liking)

* If you have a whole papaya, slice away the papaya skin (using a vegetable peeler or knife). Cut the papaya in half lengthwise, and use a spoon to scrap out all the seeds.

Directions
1. Blend everything together in a blender until you can get a smooth consistency.

Fancy more drinks recipes?

Nourishing Dessert: Papaya, snow fungus and almonds soup

This is a Chinese dessert which I tried at a famous dim sum restaurant in Hong Kong last month. When I tried the dessert, I thought this is something I can try to recreate at home since I have made something similar before – snow fungus with ginkgo nuts soup.  I thought the combination of papaya, almonds and snow fungus is really nourishing and beautiful.  This soup has health benefits such as improving blood circulation, strengthening respiratory system and improving complexion. I love to drink this dessert chilled.

Some of the ingredients used

This is the papaya I used for the recipe. Was surprised when I cut it open to find that it is yellow fleshed but it turned out still tasty in the dessert soup. I would have preferred orange flesh papaya though, I think the dessert will look prettier in orange :D

Ingredient: Snow Fungus

Ingredient: Chinese Almonds 南北杏

Ingredients
(Serves 6-8)

- 2 litres water
- 20 grams (1 piece) snow fungus (aka white jelly fungus, white wood ear, silver ear, 雪儿)
- 500g of cut ripe and firm papaya
- 1 tsp bitter almonds (aka Northern almonds/北杏) and 1 tsp sweet almonds (aka Southern almonds /南杏) – see cooking note 1 below
- 5 pandan leaves, tied to a knot
- 120g rock sugar (冰糖) (adjust to taste)
- 10 pitted red dates (红枣)

Directions
1. Soak snow fungus in a bowl of hot water (covered) for about half an hour, then carefully discard water. The white fungus should be puffed up and turn a whiter shade. Using a pair of kitchen scissors, trim and discard the dark yellow hard part on the centre underside of the fungus. Cut the rest of the fungus to smaller pieces and reserve for step 2.
2. Peel (using a vegetable peeler or knife) the papaya skin. Cut the papaya in half lengthwise, and use a spoon to scrap out all the seeds. Cut into small, bite-sized chunks.
3. In a soup pot, add water, cut fungus pieces, pandan leaves, red dates and almonds. Bring to a boil and then simmer (with lid partially closed) for 20 minutes. Add papaya pieces and simmer till the papaya are soft (about another 20 minutes or more, see cooking note 2 below).
4. Add rock sugar to taste and off the flame when the sugar is fully dissolved. Discard pandan leaves. Serve warm or chilled.

Cooking Notes
1. Bitter almonds in its raw state are said to be toxic if consumed in large amounts. Even though these almonds are cooked, do not add too much of it to be safe (1 tsp is more than enough to me). You can also substitute with sweet almonds if you are more comfortable with it.
2. Step 3 – If you like your snow fungus to be more crunchy, you can add papaya to the ingredients first instead of adding it after simmering the snow fungus.

Related Articles
- Ingredient: Snow Fungus
- Ingredient: Chinese Almonds (Coming Soon)

Fancy more Chinese desserts recipes?

Beat the Heat: An easy to make mocha ice blended for a relaxing afternoon

This is my very cheap and fuss free way to enjoy mocha ice blended at home. It can’t get any simpler than this. How simple? I just put everything in blender and blend for a few seconds. I’m a lazy and short cut cook. So this recipe is not really authentic, I think “real” mocha ice blended uses coffee shots or at least coffee beans. But the taste is good! And at least I get to enjoy mocha ice blended at a fraction of the price outside, in the comfort of my home and with minimal effort :)

Mocha Ice Blended

Some of the Ingredients

Ingredients
(makes one glass)
- 1 packet of 3-in-1 instant coffee mix powder
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 200ml milk
- ice cubes (about 6-8, adjust accordingly)
- 1 tbsp caster sugar (adjust to your liking)
- whipped cream (optional)

Tools needed
- a blender that can blend ice cubes

Directions
1. Just place everything in a blender and blend until the ice is nicely crushed to fine consistency. If you like, add whipped cream on top and dust cocoa powder over the whipped cream using a fine sieve.

True taste of home-cooked food: “Tau Yu Bak” 豆油肉

I grew up eating this dish so this is true taste of home-cooked food to me. Salty and savoury, this dish goes really well with rice and steamed buns (for kong bak bao 扣肉包). Every family has a different way of cooking this dish. My family’s version is quite no fuss – just one type of soy sauce (dark) and no need to grind garlic (or shallots). I re-created the dish from memory of the taste and I let my mum taste test the dish and she said it was good. She liked that the sauce is just the right amount – not too much so it’s still aromatic (but enough to drizzle rice and soak the meat). The recipe is also very forgiving (for example, if too much soy, add more water) and flexible (If you need to add more water, soy sauce or rock sugar to season, do so a little at a time, so that it’s easier to adjust). Do not overdose on the spices (like star anise, cinnamon) because a little goes a long way.

Serving suggestion (with rice)

I was secretly feeling a little pleased with myself after whipping up this dish, until my mum told me that this, to her, is considered “VERY easy cooking – I cook this for the family last time when I am feeling lazy”. Mummy is so frank :P

Ingredients
(serves 3-4)
- 500g pork belly, no need to slice (that works out to 4 slabs of meat for me)
- 3 tbsp dark soy sauce 酱油
- 1 litre water
- 4 eggs (or any amount you like)

Some of the ingredients

(A) Stewing Ingredients
- 8 dried Chinese mushrooms
- 1 cinnamon stick 桂皮
- 1 star anise 八角
- 4 cloves 丁香
- 4 small pieces rock sugar 冰糖 (see picture above)
- 1/2 tsp Chinese 5-spice powder 五香粉
- 1.5 bulbs of garlic, separated into individual cloves (do not need to peel)
- dash of white pepper powder

Directions
1. Soak dry mushrooms in small bowl of hot water till puffy, then drain water. Squeeze out the water from mushrooms and trim away stems. Set aside.
2. Prepare 80% cooked hard boiled eggs. To do that, place eggs in saucepan of cold water (enough water to cover eggs one layer). Bring to a boil for about 2 minutes, off the flame and cover with lid for about 7 minutes (for 100% hard boiled eggs, it’s about 10 minutes). Rinse the eggs with cold water till they are cooled. Peel when cool enough to handle. Set aside.
3. In a pot or wok (this will be what you will be using for the braising later), brown pork belly on both sides on medium heat (about 5 minutes for me on each side – see photo below). Do not wash the pot or wok because you want the juices from browning the meat in the stew.
4. Add half of the dark soy (1.5 tbsp) directly over the meat on one side, flip over, and drizzle the remaining dark soy over the other side of the meat.
5. Add water and the ingredients in A. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmer (with lid partially closed) for an hour.
6. Check the water level to ensure that the braising sauce is not dried out during the simmering.  You will need to add more water (a little at a time) when the water is drying out.
7. Add peeled hard boiled eggs prepared in step 2 to the stew. Taste and season the sauce (example – for sweeter, add rock sugar; for saltier, add more dark soy; not enough gravy, add more water etc). I usually add about 4 more cubes of rock sugar at this point because I want a bit of sweetness to balance the saltiness.  Simmer for another 15 minutes.
8. When it’s ready to serve, take out the pork belly and slice to desired length. Serve with rice or steamed buns. Garnish with spring onions or coriander.

Browning whole stabs of pork belly for more favour in the stew (step 3)

Putting all the ingredients together (step 5)

Cooking Note
1. I did not add oil to the wok in Step 3 because I left the fat on the pork belly (for favour). If you trim away the fats, you may need some oil.

Variations
1. You can add other ingredients such as tau kwa (fried beancurd/豆干) and tau kee (fried beancurd skin – the type for braising, not for fuchok) at step 7.
2. If you want marbled eggs (like Chinese tea leaf eggs), do not peel the eggs. Instead, gently tap the exterior of the eggs with the back of the spoon to form cracks evenly around the egg, careful to leave the entire shell still intact and covering the egg. This will create the beautiful “marbled” look and also allow the flavours to seep through the eggs.

10-Minute Angel Hair Pasta Soup with Pacific Clams and Veg

Cooking for one can be quite a hassle, so I usually have to settle for “fast food” like takeaway, instant noodles or a bowl of museli with milk. It’s not that I hate instant noodles or fast food, I love them. But sometimes I do like the idea of cooking for one. So this is one of my “fast-to-cook-and-good-to-eat” meals when I’m home alone. And it’s almost a non-recipe. Very fast, delicious and you can clear whatever ingredients (such as yong tau foo, frozen dumplings, dried seaweed, meat balls, leftover roast meat) you have in the fridge.  The trick for me is to use angel hair pasta which is to me, like the western version of our local bee hoon (rice vermicelli) with its long thin strands of noodles. They usually cook in 2 minutes, just like instant noodles. My pantry, for this reason, is always well-stocked with angel hair.

Ingredient: Angel Hair

Ingredients
(Serves 1)
- angel hair pasta (Capelli d’angelo) for one person (about 80g for me)
- any ingredients you have in the fridge (I use pacific clams aka bao bei and baby bok chai that day)
- water and salt to cook the pasta
- 300ml home made soup stock (or cheat with plain water and seasoning cube)

Directions
1. Bring a large pot of water with some salt added to a boil. Then add angel hair pasta and cook according to the package instructions (mine is 2 minutes). Drain the pasta and set in a soup bowl.
2. Rinse the pot you cooked the pasta. Then add soup stock (home made or instant) to it. Bring to the boil. Blanch whatever ingredients you have in the soup stock until cooked (for my clams – 30 seconds;veg – 10 seconds) Most ingredients will cook in under 2 minutes.
3. Pour the boiling soup and ingredients over the angel hair pasta. Garnish with sliced spring onions, chilli padi and/or fried shallots.

Cooking Notes
- If you’re using simple greens, you just have to blanch them in the last 10-20 seconds.
- If the ingredient is something which will colour the soup (e.g. cai xin), you can cook it in step 1 instead of 2.

Other Cooking for One Ideas
- Mee Suah Soup
- Cheater’s pita pizza
- 10-minute egg fried rice
- easy steamed fish with rice
- Hong Kong style instant noodles

Easy, fast and healthy: Steamed tofu with minced meat

Recently, I love to steam foods because I’m not in the mood for heavy duty cooking. Not only do steamed foods cook very fast, it is also healthier and the clean up is easier (not greasy). And this is one of my latest successful kitchen experiment. These bite-sized tofu pieces are pretty to look at and easy to eat. I used egg tofu instead of normal tofu because it is easier to cut them to uniform sizes (tried with a rectangular block of tofu and I cut them badly) and it’s also more fragrant with egg added to the tofu. But if you do not eat egg, you can always use white silken tofu.

Ingredient: Egg Tofu

Ingredients
(Serves 2-3)
- 1 tube silken egg tofu 蛋豆腐 (150g)
- 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 15 wolfberries, soaked in water till puffy (about 20 minutes)
- 1/2 stalk spring onion, sliced thinly or cut to wispy strips

(A) Meat and marinade
- 50g minced pork (can substitute with chicken)
- 1/2 stalk spring onion, sliced thinly
- a few thin carrot slices (peeled using a vegetable peeler, stacked together and finely chopped)
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp cornflour
- dash of white pepper powder
- 1 tsp Chinese cooking wine

Directions
1. Cut egg tofu in half along the “dotted line” (if any), remove packaging and cut to thin and even slices (see detailed step by step photos). Arrange tofu pieces on a steaming plate (with a bit of depth).
2. Mix ingredients in (A) evenly in a small bowl and allow to sit for at least a few minutes.
3. Mould a small amount of the marinaded meat mixture (about 1 tsp or less) into a ball and place on top of tofu slices. Top each meat ball with a wolfberry. Drizzle 1/2 tbsp light soy over the tofu slices.
4. Steam over high heat for about 5 minutes (starting from the time the water in steamer is boiling), or until the meat is cooked (see cooking note 1 below). Before serving, use a spoon to drizzle the soy liquid collected in the plate over the tofu slices. Garnish with chopped spring onions.

Recipe tweaks
1. Water Chestnuts For more crunch, you can add 1 fresh water chestnut, peeled and finely chopped into mixture (A).
2. Chopped Prawns (shrimps) You can also add 1 to 2 prawns (peeled and veins removed), and then chopped finely to mixture (A).
3. Silken Tofu You can substitute egg tofu with white silken tofu.

Cooking Note
1. To test if the meat is cooked, insert a fork or skewer into the meat to make sure the juices are clear (no blood).

Related Article
- Ingredient: Egg Tofu

Refreshing and healthy dessert: Osmanthus Flower Tea Jelly (桂花糕)

When I was vacationing in Hong Kong 2 weeks ago, one of my shopping missions (besides cheapy clothes and anime toys) was to buy some dried osmanthus flowers to bring back to Singapore. I had this dessert in mind when I bought the flowers. And this dessert was the first thing I made in the kitchen after my trip. I love the wonderful aroma of the flowers, which is unbelievably distinctive and yet, gentle at the same time. For more information, check out my article on osmanthus flower.

Ingredient: Dried Osmanthus Flowers (桂花)

The flowers are more readily available, fresher and cheaper in Hong Kong than in Singapore. At the store where I bought it, one tael (Chinese measurement, where 1 tael (一兩) =37.8g) of the flowers costs only HK$15. I bought quite a few packets back to store in my freezer. To find the flowers, determined me walked the whole stretch of “Dried Seafood Street” at Sheung Wan with my sister (she was also there on vacation so we met up for a day), and when my sister smelled how aromatic the flowers were when I was purchasing them, she also bought 2 packets (though she had no idea what to do with them hehe).

Konnyaku Jelly Powder (Pre-sweetened type)

Jelly moulds I used

Ingredients
- 1 packet of pre-sweetened* konnyaku jelly powder (mine is 250g)
- water (according to the konnyaku jelly powder box instructions; mine requires 1250ml)
- dried osmanthus flowers 桂花 (1 to 1.5 tsp for every 400ml water)
- 2 tsp wolfberries, soaked in water till puffy (about 20 minutes)

* If you’re not using pre-sweetened mix, add appropriate amounts of sugar to taste.

Additional tool(s) needed
- jelly moulds

Directions
1. In a pot, add water and bring to a boil. When water is boiling, lower heat and then add osmanthus flowers. Simmer for a short few minutes (roughly 2 minutes).
2. Add konnyaku jelly powder. Stir until the powder is fully dissolved. Off the flame.
4. Add 2-4 wolfberries to each jelly mould, then pour the jelly solution prepared in step 2 to fill each mould. Let the jelly cool down a bit in room temperature and chill in fridge till the jelly is set.

Similar Recipe
- Chrysanthemum Tea Jelly

Related Article
- Ingredient: Osmanthus Flower