'Chinese recipes' archive

Chicken and spring garlic

Does bawang na mura or spring garlic sound unfamiliar to you? If it does, click here so that you’ll have a better idea bout the two dishes that I’m going to show you. There are two recipes in this entry, one for fried rice and the other for a stir fried dish, and both include spring garlic among the ingredients. No great mystery. Spring garlic is prepared in very much the same way as spring onion, a.k.a. onion leaves, scallions (not to be confused with shallots) or dahon ng sibuyas, except that, these days, I peel off the outermost layer of the leaves and bulb which I find too fibrous for eating. I didn’t always do that but I do now — better practice.

Black pepper pork and caramel cake

The title might sound strange but the strangeness is more apparent than real. The first part, black pepper pork, was what we had for dinner. The second part, caramel cake, was our dessert. But it wasn’t just a dessert. My husband ordered it especially for tonight because it is our 17th wedding anniversary. Special cake and special dinner for a special occasion.

Today was also the day we lighted the Christmas tree…

Ma Po tofu

There are two recipes for Ma Po tofu in the archive but I don’t mind posting a third. Any recipe can be improved or tweaked further to suit the cook’s or the diner’s palate. In the case of Ma Po tofu, I was looking for a particular combination of spices and seasonings that would give it that certain oomph! That happened yesterday, finally. How? I added an essential ingredient that I did not have during my previous attempts at cooking the dish — Sichuan peppercorns.

White (Hainanese) chicken

Based on Kylie Kwong’s recipe as cooked in her TV show, this is a simple chicken dish that requires a large pot and a very sharp and very heavy cleaver. The pot has to be large enough to contain the chicken and the cleaver has to be heavy and sharp enough to cut through the bones. The only cooking skills required — knowing how to simmer, cut, slice, mix and pour. The cooked dish is not colorful but what it lacks in color, it more than makes up for in flavor.

Speedy’s winter melon soup

If the term winter melon does not sound familiar, it is none other than “kundol” — yes, the sugar-coated candied delicacy. Contrary to popular belief, “kundol” is not a fruit but a vegetable. The texture is similar to “upo”, or bottle grourd, but more watery and more translucent.

I used one winter melon for a soup dish several days ago and reserved the last one because my husband said he had a very good recipe for it.

Shrimp and shiitake fried rice

I added grated ginger to my fried rice. Why grated ginger? My kids hate biting into pieces of ginger although they do enjoy the flavor of ginger itself. By grating the ginger, they get only the wonderful flavors and aromas — pungent, piquant and spicy. I sampled a small spoonful of the shrimp and shiitake mushroom fried rice — just a small spoonful because I am allergic to shrimps — and it tasted great.

Sweet and sour fish: don’t forget the ginger

Deep in the archive of Pinoy Cook is a recipe for sweet and sour fish. I used whole tilapia and took photos with my first digital camera — a point-and-shoot 1.3 megapixel Olympus. That entry was posted in April 2003, one of the first entries in my food blog. I look at that entry now and realized that cooks do get better with practice. The same thing is true with photography buffs. While the recipe itself has stayed pretty much the same, I have picked up a few techniques here and there that makes this version of sweet and sour fish just a little bit better.

Steamed fish with oyster sauce

Just last month, I did a steamed fish experiment and both turned out well… Let me add another to my repertoire. Minus the minimal preparation time, this one is ready to serve in 30 minutes and cooks inside the oven in a tent of aluminum foil. I suppose that makes it a baked fish recipe rather than a steamed fish recipe but if we’re going to be strict about definitions, the fish was cooked in the steam inside the foil tent so I still say it is steamed fish.

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House On A Hill

Fish & seafood

• Baked fish and spinach
• Pan-fried kitang with tofu-egg salsa
• Tilapia with shredded corn and coconut cream
• Fish croquettes
• Sardines frittata in tortilla
• Salmon salad with mango-lemon dressing
• Baked pompano and red cabbage
• Clams spaghetti with white wine
• Fried lapu-lapu with pineapple sauce
• Sweet and spicy talakitok in a flash

Healthy veggies

• Orange porkloin steaks and buttered veggies
• Pritong tilapia (fried St. Peter’s fish) and cheese-topped chili-cauliflower bake
• Fish fillets and togue (mung bean sprouts) stir fry
• Sunday lunch in the garden
• Fish fillet and vegetables in sour cream
• Chicken, squash and zucchini saute
• Swiss rosti (a.k.a. fried potatoes)
• Boiled vegetables with butter and thyme
• 10-minute stir fried chicken, quail eggs and vegetables
• Chicken & Broccoli Pasta