Cuisine & Culture the Chinese Family Way
Making bread is one form of baking that I always like to do with my children. It’s such a simple food yet the smell never fails to make your mouth water. Ms C loves her bread and the only bread she eats is plain! We can’t get her to eat any other bread, like cheesy bread or even bread with sesame seeds. So this half term, we made bread together to go along with her soup.
Having bought too much strong white bread flour and having some leftover rosemary, I decided to make Rosemary Focaccia Italian Bread. I also added chopped piquanté peppers on top as I had won 6 jars and I in need to use them up!
Last year, I made Chinese Steamed Buns – Man Tou using the Food Network website. So last week I went to my Chinese friend’s house and she taught me her own recipe. She had tried a few recipes but they were not as good as the ones sold in her own country. She had also tried a number of different brands of plain flour but found that the Aldi plain flour is whiter than other brand. Also it is cheap at only 49p. Also by adding strong white flour, it makes the bun spongier. She also taught me a new way to steam buns. I saw it on internet before but I dared not try it until now. Since she taught me once, I have been trying it out and it was great but just slightly oily.
Today is the start of the half term and the kids have a week of sports club to go to. But thanks to the PR for Birmingham International Airport who kindly invite us to a blogger event at the Frankie & Benny restaurants. So today the kids did have half a day off sports club!
Earlier this year, I wrote about Singapore BBQ Pork Slice which are available all year round and they are like pork jerky except that it has been barbecued. It’s one of my favourite snacks. Whenever I am in Singapore, I will buy at least 200g each time and finish it in no time! They are sweet, chewy, meaty and delicious. They are ready to be eaten and can be kept for a couple of days. They are best consumed at room temperature rather than cold.
Green bean soup was never one of my favourite desserts until I came to UK as this is the only dessert I know how to cook. Fairly simple! Soak the mung beans / green beans for a couple of hours or overnight before placing them into the slow cooker, with a 2 to 1 water to bean ratio. Cook it till soft and mushy. After which, add rock sugar or brown sugar. It is then ready to serve.
Glutinous rice is often served as dim sum in Chinese restaurants. They were wrapped up with lotus leaves and steamed. They do sell lotus leaves in Chinese supermarkets typically as a massive pack of 20 leaves. I decided to cook my glutinous rice in my rice cooker instead of using the lotus leaves and steaming it.
Stir fry the meats and add all of them into the rice cooker. It is that easy.
Beanies had selected 10 bloggers to join in their #BeaniesBakeOff for this Beanies Easter Blogger Competition. They had sent me a selection of Beanies coffee to do this challenge.
Last February, we went to Scotland and I came across a Chinese restaurants selling Flowering Tea / Flora Tea. I wondered whether this was for decoration or whether it was a real tea. I am not usually the most adventurous person when it comes to these things but this flower tea was really attractive so I ordered one. I had Flower Lover which is made up of green tea, chrysanthemum, globe amaranth and jasmine.
When the waitress presented me a huge wine glass with a ball, I was shocked. I asked for flowering tea and I get a ball in a wine glass full of hot water. So I decided to poke it with a chopstick then decided I better let it brew. It took about 5 minutes to bloom to a full flower. After the flower had bloomed, it was gorgeous! The flavour was nice and the aroma was gorgeous.
Then last week, I went to Chinatown, London and found one of the supermarkets selling the flower tea one for £1.
So I bought it. I’m not sure what they are officially called. But this is how it looks!
My mother in law is an expert at cooking char siu pork. She gave me her recipe seven years ago but I had never tried to cook it. This is one of my husband’s favourite dishes and he gets to eat it whenever he visits his mum. So I decided it is about time that I would try to learn!
No fresh herbs? Too lazy to chop? Need not to worry! Gourmet Garden is coming to the rescue! I am so pleased to try out the range of Gourmet Garden blends: Garlic, Basil, Coriander, Ginger, Hot Chilli, Lemon Grass and their brand new recipe book: ‘Gourmet Garden Garlic’, part of the 30 Best Loved Recipes collection by Hachette Partworks Ltd. It’s packed with inspiring midweek meals that use a squeeze of delicious Garlic such as Herby Haddock Fishcakes, BBQ Lamb Burgers and Kerala Butter Chicken. All dishes are hassle-free to make and include beautiful full colour photographs throughout.
Recently, Warburtons had kindly sent us their new range of pancakes (chocolate chip and cookie) to coincide with Pancake Day/Shove Tuesday. They are very interesting! Overall, they taste nice but we still prefer their original pancake!
As many of may know, I love to cook Asian food as this is what I was brought up with. Having lived in the UK for over 10 years, now would seem an appropriate time to try old and new Asian food recipes and blog about it.
I always love Chinese sponge cake as they are very light and spongy. On the other hand, my husband is not so keen on them as he feels that the sponge cakes have no content and they are too light. I then saw my Singaporean Facebook friend posted a photo of her steamed cake and I decided to Google it. There are quite a few recipes for the Steamed Vanilla Sponge Cake. I tried two recipes: Siukitchen Steamed Cake and Steamed Pandan Sponge Cake. Both recipes are very successful but I would prefer the latter one as it uses less ingredients.
Mr C loves playing badminton and goes twice a week. Sometimes he doesn’t have time to have a proper meal before his matches. So he normally keeps a selection of energy and protein bars in his exercise bag for a boost on the go.
This week, Mr C tried the Chocolate CLIF Builder’s® Protein Bars:
When I first looked at this Thorntons Continental Luxury Easter, I kept wondering why it is so expensive. It looked like a very well decorated Easter egg but nothing special. Then I looked carefully into the box, and noticed that in fact it also comes with 18 delicious chocolates! How could I miss that!
