Sliced pork in Yu-Xiang sauce & Brocoll

04302008186
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

I was quite impressed with myself tonight. Looking at the above photo of our dinner made me realize that I cooked everything from scratch all in an hour, including prep time!! Father-earth was quite happy with our meal as it's been awhile since mother-earth cooked any broccoli (she actually doesn't like it which is why she won't cook it). I followed Master Lu's method of cooking the broccoli which came out to be a vibrant green color after parboiling. I then sauteed the broccoli with some garlic & a little bit of oyster sauce for flavor. The next dish continues my Shanghainese trend for the week, I saw it in one of Mother-earths Pei Mei's cookbooks and it seemed simple enough. Sliced Pork in Yu-Xiang sauce. Yuxiang translates literally as "the flavor of fish. Now why this name was even used is odd since the sauce has no fish nor does it taste like fish. However, the spices and seasonings in yuxiang sauce were apparently used originally to flavor fish dishes, hence the meaning. I had to revise the recipe a little since I wasn't able to find the clouds ear mushroom at the nearby supermart & I thought mother-earth still had some water chestnuts in the fridge but it turns out that she had bamboo shoots. So I decided that I had to make do with what was on hand & ended up using the bamboo shoots which I sliced into thin strips & then parboiled to get rid of the unpleasant smell. The meat was then marinated before it was cooked in the spicy Yu_xiang sauce.

Easy Salmon Bake

Easy Salmon Bake
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

I used to be intimidated by the term Bechamel sauce, I guess it sounds so fancy & so French that I automatically assumed that it was too complicated to make. Bechamel is one of five mother sauces in French cooking and is also used as a a base for many other sauces, think of it like a jumpstart sauce. So today I decided that it's about time for me to try my hand at making Bechamel also known as white sauce with this Easy Salmon Bake recipe I saw in Yummy magazine. The recipe for the white sauce called for melting 1/4 cup butter then adding in the 3 tablespoons flour combining it very well, cook for 3 minutes then whisk in the 1 1/2 cups milk & cook till sauce thickens, it was soooo easy and the sauce came out so smooth and light. From my research I found that this method I did was called the quick method, apparentlly, classic Bechamel sauce can take over an hour to make what with having to make clarified butter, scalding the milk etc. But I was already happy with the results of my sauce traditional method or not.

Braised Lion's Head 狮子头 in clay pot

Braised Lion's Head
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

It's been awhile since mother-earth made Braised Lion's Head, a dish that evokes memories of my childhood growing up with my sister on D. T. Street. Having decided that I would make this for our dinner tonight, I went online to see if I could find the origins of this classic family favorite of ours. I was really surprised to find that this was a dish that traced it's roots to Shanghai, I always assumed that with it's popularity, it would be a dish from Fujian province where my grandparents are from. Now I'm really curious as to how my grandmother and the other chinese families here in The Pines got introduced to this dish because I can remember eating this since I was but a wee little sprite which was some 30 odd years ago (scary thought!), a time when the internet was non existent. I have been a fan of cookbook author Eileen Yin Fei Lo for quite sometime now, she does things old school, meaning she still uses mainly traditional chinese ingredients in her cooking & she doesn't do short-cuts, (buddha jumps over the wall soup takes 3 days), you can tell that she "honors" those classic chinese dishes that have been around for generations. Her version of this dish was quite simple enough and I had all the ingredients on-hand which was the key thing. The secret to the success of this dish is that the ground meat has to be marinated first before they are formed into huge baseball sized patties, then pan fried till its gets a nice golden brown crust. I did this first step yesterday and placed the patties in the fridge, then after coming home from work I continued on to the next step which is to place some chinese cabbage in claypot with some stock then put in the patties & let it braise for an hour or so till done.

Cyma Lemon Chicken

Cyma Lemon Chicken
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

A recent discovery or should I say discovered by someone else but was brought to my attention, was the Lemon Chicken at this local greek restaurant chain named Cyma. I had been hearing raves about this place for sometime and when I finally did try it out last year I was so disappointed by the lamb that I ordered, I had to send it back to the kitchen because the meat was so tough. I went back again early this year with much hesitation, but my aunt who was with me was a big fan of the place & encouraged me to try out this chicken dish of theirs which she really loved. Lo and behold I was totally blown away, the chicken was falling off the bone tender (which is how I like my roast chicken), you could taste the lemon & rosemary in every bite, the sauce was tangy yet sweet yet not overtly so, plus I loved the addition of feta cheese as a topping. Price wise it was around P350 (US$9) which is pretty reasonable considering how good it was. So today since father-earth wasn't going to be around for lunch ,me & Xtiane indulged ourselves in this heavenly greek fare and stuffed ourselves silly. Just stay away from the lamb though.

Meet Baby Mischa

Meet Baby Mischa
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

Here is a first glimpse of cousin T & M's new bundle of joy. I can already tell she is gonna be a looker!!

Shrimp Foo Yong

Shrimp Foo Yong
Originally uploaded by cutejoos


Shrimp Foo Yong 2
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

What happens when a crab-lover like me has to cook Crab Foo Yong for a crab-hater like father-earth? Simple. Just replace the crab with shrimps, which is exactly what I did for our dinner tonight. Saw the recipe in Yummy magazines Jan '08 issue and just couldn't resist trying it out since crab/shrimp foo yong has been one of my all time favorite dishes to order whenever we go out for chinese. I was tempted to try out this particular version because of the fact that tau miao (pea sprouts) was used instead of the usual bean sprouts and it really gave this dish a whole new dimension in terms of flavor. After peeling the shrimp (250g), I deveined it and washed it in some rock salt & water, after draining the shrimp I marinated them in a generous amount of ginger juice, (a staple in our kitchen) for a few mins. While waiting, I combined the sauce ingredients which consisted of oyster sauce, rice wine, stock, sesame oil, sugar, pepper & salt in a saucepan and let it cook till it came to a boil. I then set aside the sauce & returned my attention back to the marinated shrimp which I then strained of the ginger juice. The shrimps were now ready to be added to my 5 beaten eggs. For this dish I felt that a non-stick pan was the best thing to use especially since I was dealing with eggs, I wouldn't want to deal with eggs getting stuck to the wok scraper-rama!! So first I sauteed the garlic, onions & leeks till tender then added the tau miao & carrots, at this point it's best to turn down the heat of the pan to low before pouring in the shrimp/egg mixture. Continuously move the eggs & shrimp all over pan and cook till just set & not dry. Now you can add some cornstarch water into the sauce mixture then cook till thick. Pour this on top of the omelet. This dish is best served while piping hot.

San Bei Ji (3 Cups Chicken)三杯雞

San Bei Ji (3 Cups Chicken)
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

With mother-earth out & about traveling to the Land of our Forefathers, I have been whipping up dishes that I know she doesn't like but which I and father-earth like a lot. One of them is the dish that I cooked for dinner tonight San Bei Ji which literally means 3 Cups Chicken. The name stems from the original recipe which calls for 1 cup Sesame Oil (que horror!), 1 cup Soy Sauce and 1 cup rice wine as the main sauce ingredients that is then cooked with the chicken. This dish is quite popular in Taiwan but traces it's origins to Jiangxi province in southern China. I had to research quite a bit online as there were numerous recipe versions to choose from. The one I finally decided on used only 1/3 cup each of sesame oil, rice wine & soy sauce, which to me sounded like a reasonable portion of ingredients. Cooking this dish was quite easy, I just sauteed the garlic, ginger & chilis in the sesame oil then added the chicken pieces & poured in the sauce mix of rice wine, soy sauce & sugar then let it simmer for 30 mins. I then added the basil leaves & scallions at the very end before serving. That was it, easy peasy and super yummy!!! Go on and try lah!

Earth Day & Buridibod

Earth Globe
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

I knew Earth Day was fast approaching with all the events being advertised over the radio & on TV. So with all the talk of green this & green that I unconciously planned tonights dinner menu to include not one but TWO healthy vegetable dishes, an event that is unheard of in our highly carniverous household. For the first dish, I used the leftover ground pork stir fry that mother earth made extra before she embarked on her annual trip to Lam Hai, I decided that I would saute it with some chayote which I knew father earth liked a lot. The next dish was one that I saw in Yummy Magazine and featured a very interesting combination of ingredients. Imagine grated RAW plantain bananas, mashed sweet potato, mushrooms & malunggay leaves as it's main ingredients. The dish had it's roots in the Ilocos region and was called Buridibod. Believe me I was a bit wary at first to the success of this dish but decided to push all negative thoughts aside and put my faith in the capable editors at Yummy. In a casserole, I first sauteed the garlic, onions & the grated banana in some olive oil till tender then added some chicken stock ( the recipe called for water), then in went the sliced mushrooms & mashed sweet potato & I let it simmer for 5 mins. after which I put in the maluggay leaves & added salt & pepper & a dash of sesame oil. Then came the taste test. The dish was amazing!!! It was creamy but still had some texture from the maluggay leaves & mushrooms. It's so hard to describe how it tasted because it's as if my taste buds were still adjusting to this new flavor experience. The bottom line is that IT IS GOOD & HEALTHY!!!! Happy Earth Day!!!

BAck to Blogging

04/13/2008
Originally uploaded by cutejoos

It's been AWHILE since I updated my blog, sorry to my loyal readers for abandoning you. Now that life has somewhat settled down to normalcy, I think I should jumpstart my blog again but this time I am changing the format a bit and will be focusing mainly on my foodie creations & travels & experiences with food. I know I know there are so many blogs out there talking about food, but what's life without food, food makes life interesting & fun. Food makes the world go round in my book! To start off my blogging with a a bang, I am featuring my first ever crab dish that I cooked on Sunday for lunch. Mamasan brought me home a lovely live crab from the wet market and I was (as brutal as it may sound) quite excited with the prospect of killing my first crab. I tried to remember all Master Lu's lessons in my head with regards to killing & cleaning crabs & was quite surprised to see that it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. I even remembered to remove the sac located near the crabs eyes to remove the bitter taste. Guess I've seen Master Lu do it so many times that I just sorta remembered it by default. I decided to make Crab with steamed egg since the recipe looked easy & I luckily had all the ingredients on hand. Crab with steamed egg is kind of like eating Chawanmushi with a whole crab cooked in it, and believe me, the steamed egg tasted heavenly since the combination of the crabs natural juices mixed with the egg made it extra flavorful. It was cooked perfectly if I may so!