'Asian cooking' archive

Chicken and coconut cream soup

I tried it at a Thai restaurant last weekend, bought a Thai cookbook and made the soup last night with a few modifications of the cookbook recipe. Thai food is wonderful, if you haven’t tried it, and I am really, really smitten. The same cooking techniques as most of Southeast Asia but the dishes have a more piquant flavor from aromatics like lemongrass, galangal and kaffir lime leaves, all of which you will find in most Thai dishes.

Tofu and baby corn stir fry

It isn’t just vegetarian; it’s a vegan dish — no meat and no animal by-products whatsoever. No, we’re not turning vegan. We’re not even going vegetarian. But no-meat vegetable dishes are great accompaniments to meat and fish dishes. We had this tofu and baby corn stir fry with fried alumahan several days ago. What is alumahan? Oh, it’s the name for any of several varieties of mackerel.

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.

Budget cooking part 3 (twice-cooked chicken and tofu)

Probably the most valuable lesson I learned in Chinese cooking is that by cutting meat in smaller pieces and adding vegetables and sauce to them, one comes up with a whole lot more. Meat is expensive, vegetables much less so. Tofu is healthy and has this fantastic ability to absorb flavors. By putting them together in one dish, not only is it economical, it is healthier too.

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.

Chicken and cabbage spring rolls

Unable to find decent ubod (heart of palm), my immediate decision was to make some Vietnamese spring rolls instead. But my husband, Speedy, wanted the garlicky salty-sweet sauce that traditionally goes with lumpiang ubod so I decided to simply substitute shredded cabbage for the ubod. And that was what we served.

Why chicken and not pork? Because, for health reasons, my mother-in-law is banned from eating red meat.

Squid lo mein

The kids rarely get up before 9.00 a.m. on weekends. After my husband and I enjoyed steaming bowls of pork noodle soup at around 7.30, I went about preparing this lo mein dish which, as I predicted, became brunch for my younger daughter and, by the looks if it, will be part of my older girl’s lunch…

…there are three different colors of noodles on the platter — green, orange and red. Vegetable noodles. Spinach, carrots and beets. You can buy the dried variety in most supermarkets. The recipe is very simple; the ingredients, minimal.

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House On A Hill

Fish & seafood

• Braised tilapia
• Pasta with clams in red wine sauce
• Pan-fried kitang with tofu-egg salsa
• Baked mussels with butter and cheese
• Lemon-butter-garlic prawns
• Baked fish and spinach
• Steamed pompano with ginger sauce
• Fish fillet with corn sauce
• Salmon and tomato soup
• Sweet and spicy talakitok in a flash

Healthy veggies

• Baked stuffed potatoes
• Cheese-topped buttered vegetables
• Pork and baguio beans with oyster sauce
• Fried chicken and vegetable salad
• Broccoli and potatoes frittata
• Baked fish and spinach
• Fruitier vegetable salad
• Salmon salad with mango-lemon dressing
• Roast pork loin and spicy kangkong
• Oven-fried potato chips