All posts tagged: easy

Spicy King Oyster Mushroom and Green Bean Stir-Fry recipe

Spicy King Oyster Mushroom and Green Bean Stir-Fry

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It’s been a good while since I last published a recipe here, sorry I have been absent lately but I am finally back on my writing track and I am looking forward to sharing with you more of my beloved recipes! Today recipe is a simple one, with good time management, you can put this dish together from scratch in just under 15 minutes. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Like any other stir fry dishes, it is best to have all ingredients prepared beforehand so that once you start adding your first drop of oil in the hot pan, you will finish the entire dish in merely minutes. Another key point is to act fast and use the right equipment, I always recommend to use a wok for any stir-fry dishes, but a wide heavy bottomed frying pan will do a good job too. Be flexible with the ingredients, you can use any types of mushroom you like or available, such as fresh shiitake, oyster mushroom, chestnut mushroom or a combination of all. But I love …

Sweet Potato Fries with Thai Mango Curry Dip recipe

Baked Sweet Potato Fries with Thai Mango Curry Dip

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Sorry for being absent for the last two weeks. I was busy working on a photoshoot for Ajinomoto Germany’s new marketing campaign. The photoshoot took place exactly a week ago but there were much preparation leading up to the actual shoot. A lot of hard work but it was so much fun at the same time. I can’t wait to tell you more and show you some pictures (I have been showing few on my Instagram account). Anyway, there are still follow-up work to do but I am delighted to be able to write up a simple yet absolutely delicious recipe with you this week. This Thai mango curry dip was one of the recipes which I created for the latest Ajinomoto’s campaign. This sauce/dip is so versatile, you can use it for many different dishes: sweet potato fries (like this recipe here), grilled chicken or prawn skewers, spring rolls or gyoza which I have done for the photoshoot. It consists of only 5 ingredients, so easy to make, it is rich, spicy, umami. Try …

Braised Aubergine Ramen in Spicy Blackbean Sauce recipe

Braised Aubergine Ramen in Spicy Black Bean Sauce

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I have the most vivid memory of my mother making this black bean sauce, she would mash the fermented black bean with the end of the knife handle together with crushed garlic, she would work on it patiently until it was well mashed and combined. After that, she added soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and mix it into a thick glossy paste. The aroma of the umami black bean and the strong pungent garlic filled our tiny kitchen. I have no idea why I remember so well with her making this particular sauce since I had learned so many other homemade sauces from her. But whatever reason it might be, it remains one of my favourite sauces to make if I crave for a taste of home as it will always remind me of this picture, in which my beloved mother and I stood in our kitchen together, making dinner for the whole family. When I was planning this week’s recipe, I wanted to make something Chinese, not because I was homesick (yes I do miss …

Brazilian Cheese Bread recipe

Brazilian Cheese Bread – Pão de Queijo

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These Brazilian cheese bread are crispy on the outside, cheesy and gooey on the inside, almost elastic, such texture reminds me a little of Mochi (a type of Japanese rice cake which is made with glutinous rice flour), one of my childhood favourites. Technically, they are not really ‘bread’ as it requires neither yeast, nor proofing which normally a must for bread making. The recipe calls for just a handful of ingredients and it takes about half an hour to three quarters of an hour to make. These little fluff balls are light as feather, freckled with golden brown spots from the cheese, are best served warm straight from the oven. Slather a couple of them generously with velvety butter and a pinch of flaky sea salt, that’s exactly the way I like to eat them! Alongside with a cup of warm matcha latte and a good book (or a Netflix series!) would be a real treat for me. I imagine it will be absolutely delicious if served with a hearty soup or stew where …

Miso Tahini Dressing recipe and Styling Project

Miso Tahini Dressing and My Food Styling Projects

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Happy New Year my dear readers!! Hopefully this year will be an exciting one for everyone! It will certainly be one for me! I have been so eager to tell you about the food styling project I worked on for the last couples of months, until now, I can finally show you what I have done and what I have achieved so far! This styling project was for an advertising campaign of a well known Japanese food company – Ajinomoto, who specialises in frozen ready made Japanese food products, seasoning and Asian cooking sauces. So far I was involved in two of their projects entailed recipes writing and food styling using their products, in this case a selection of their frozen gyoza. The first one was a video project in which I created a few recipes for their campaign – a salad dressing recipe (which features here) and a selection of dipping sauces for their gyoza. Then I was responsible to style the scenes and demonstrate the recipes in videos. There are three videos in …

Braised Yuba with Mixed Mushrooms and Asparagus recipe

Braised Yuba with Mixed Mushrooms and Asparagus

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The other day when I was writing a family story about how my father mastered cooking after my mother passed away, there I mentioned his specialty dish – ‘buddha vegetables’ –  a vegetarian dish that was made with at least seven different types of fresh and dried vegetables and mung bean noodles braised in a fermented beancurd sauce.  I realised while going through my notes that I had forgotten to include one particular ingredient in the description – Yuba – is also known as ‘tofu skin’, a very popular ingredient in Chinese cooking.  It is a food product made from soy beans, as a result, it shares a similar taste with soy milk and tofu.  But unlike tofu, it doesn’t made with added coagulant.  While soy milk is being boiled, a film is formed on the surface of the liquid, and the film will then be collected and dried in sheet or stick form.  Since Yuba retains its shape and texture after cooking, therefore it is widely used for stir-fried, as a wrapper for dim sum, for braising or for slow-cooked dishes.  Yuba is easily found in …

teriyaki king oyster mushroom recipe

Teriyaki King Oyster Mushroom with Snow Peas

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This wonderful teriyaki sauce is one of the easiest sauces to make, it is deliciously piquant and so versatile that it can be used on nearly anything: meat, vegetables, noodles or grains. I always turn to this sauce when I am not sure what to cook. My favourite one is teriyaki salmon or chicken served on steamy hot rice with a side of nori seaweed and green leafy vegetables. But today, I opt for a vegetarian version with my new found favourite king oyster mushroom. This mushroom has the most meaty texture with the least water content compares to all of its other contemporaries. It holds its shape beautifully when cooked which makes it a brilliant replacement for meat. In this dish, the powerful flavour of the teriyaki sauce is complimented with refreshing and naturally sweet snow peas. The snow peas are barely cooked to retain its freshness and crunchiness, it goes perfectly well with the piquant teriyaki sauce and add a lovely contrast to the tender velvety mushroom. Serve with pipping hot rice as a comforting and satisfying meal. …

baba-ganoush recipe

Baba Ganoush with Pink Peppercorns

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I didn’t intend to be absent from the blog for so long, I had planned for a mere three weeks break but it turned out to be an ongoing journey of self- (re)discovery, and somehow I didn’t want it to stop. During the break, I returned to my drawing board, literally, and my sketch book, doing sketches of all kinds; things that surround me, people who passing by, or even just ideas in my head. And I realised that I have forgotten how much I enjoyed drawing when I was growing up. I also spent a lot of the time reading novels and writing short stories, and I met some amazing people through a fiction writing class. I hope I can share some of the stories with you soon. I haven’t stopped cooking though, as you know if you are following my Instagram account, and can’t wait to share the recipes that I have created during the break. All in all, it has been a relax and inspiring time for me and I am glad that I had made this decision. …

Grilled shrimps, figs and summer squash salad recipe

Grilled Prawn, Fig and Summer Squash Salad in Harrisa Yogurt Dressing

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I love the feeling of my teeth sink into a cold, plump fig from the fridge every late summer morning, the chill does a better job of waking me up than my strong Oolong tea. Beside that I feel especially nurtured eating them first thing in the morning, nothing too overwhelming for the empty stomach, just a hint of sweetness with the most delicate texture, and most importantly, it is packed with nutrients and a good source of fibre. I also love to add a few slices in my yogurt with honey and toasted coconut, or on my crispy toast with a spread of salty goat cheese and a drizzle of honey; bake them in buttery puff pastry with berries jam, or lay them on top of cake batter, bake until they turn dark burgundy and bursting with heavenly sweetness. I especially fond of adding them to salad, with torn mozzarella cheese and dry-cured ham, or with crumbled goat cheese and peppery rocket. So here it is for today, a humble experiment turns into a wonderful salad recipe. The fig provides a subtle sweetness for …

Portuguese Tomato Rice (Arroz de Tomate) recipe

Arroz de Tomate – Portuguese Tomato Rice

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As I was doing some research on Portuguese food for one of my writing projects, I came across a simple recipe which makes use of one of the most delicious summer produces – tomatoes – and they are in season currently and are sold abundantly. Although they are available all year round but the summer tomatoes are definitely more flavorful as they ripen beneath the summer sun, grow into pleasantly sweet, aromatic and succulent fruits that are bursting with flavour. It is hard to imagine not to enjoy these jewels as much as we can throughout the high of summer when they are at their best. I remember how much I fond of many tomato based dishes in Portuguese/Macanese cuisine when I was growing up in Macau: Feijoada, tomato cream soup, stew seafood with chorizo, pan-fried whole fish then braised in rich tomato sauce (this was one of my mother’s specialties), etc. One of my absolute favorites was baked pork chop with rice (it is more like a local Macau special), long grain rice cooked perfectly in tomato paste and then …