Myhumblefood cookbooks are finally out!!!

Tags

myhumblefood; myhumblefoodcookbook

After two long years my books are finally done and dusted. I’ve compiled two books, the first Myhumblefood book concentrates on Asian home cooking. The second book is a little more fun; along with some Western home cooking, I’ve also added a section on Food Art which is something I really enjoy. They’re both priced at RM 300 a set for people residing in Malaysia, or SGD 120 a set for those in Singapore.

Free delivery for those in Bangsar and Damansara Heights only.

Please PM me for details!

Special note: 50% of gross profit from the sale of the books will be donated to the National Kidney Foundation as well as the Great Heart Charity Foundation. Should you decide to also donate in addition to buying the book(s), 100% of your donation will go directly to these causes.

Thank you all very much for your love and support!

 

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Tin Lung Heen, Hong Kong (Two Michelin star, 2016)

Tags

cantonese, dimsum, Hong kong, hong kong restaurant review, Michelin, tin lung heen, two michelin star

This restaurant is conveniently located in our hotel and has an excellent view. We had wanted to sit by the window and thought we secured a table by the window, but there was a miscommunication and we weren’t able to get a window seat.

Of course we weren’t too happy about that, as the whole point of us going to the restaurant is for dimsum with a view. However, the manager came over to explain, apologize and finally offer us a glass of champagne each and whatever dessert we wanted on the house. Pretty nice of them I thought, and it turned out well since there was absolutely no view that day due to the smog/fog that engulfed Hong Kong.

Century egg with preserved ginger in a puff pastry. Interesting dish, the ginger and century egg seemed to melt together in the pastry. I think I still prefer century eggs as is with slices of pink ginger to go with it.

Baked crab tarts with onion and cheese. This was one tasty morsel! The tart was buttery and flakey and everything a truly well made pastry should be. And how could one go wrong with onion and cheese in a tart?Polo char siew pao with barbecued Iberian pork. While the filling of barbecued Iberian pork didn’t give much to admire, the pastry was to die for! It had a delicate crusty exterior, slightly sweet, and crumbles charmingly upon biting into it. Coupled with the Iberian pork filling, this easily became my favourite dimsum dish of the day.Look at that perfection!

We also ordered the normal steamed char siew pao with barbecued Iberian pork, but without that delicious polo pao exterior, it was just another char siew pao for me….only fluffier.Xiao Long Bao. The skin on this is not as thin and delicate as the one at Marriott in KL, but the filling is much better. Good flavour and texture on the meat and a lovely soup.This was my dining partner’s favourite dish of the day. You can hardly see the siew mai here as the abalone and prawn outweighs the pork base, but the siew mai itself is large and substantial. It had a very satisfying mixture of marinated pork and some mushroom, and even eaten alone, it doesn’t disappoint. Now, add the luxurious topping of a perfectly cooked, crunchy prawn and a tender braised abalone – the humble siew mai then undergoes a delightful transformation. This is a basic dimsum elevated and improved by doing the basics right and pairing it with well cooked ingredients that complement it.Complimentary jelly and sesame biscuitsNo dimsum is complete without egg tarts!!! I loved the egg tarts! The pastry chef at Tin Lung Heen is excellent, seeing that all the pastries were stellar. Warm, buttery, flaky and fragrant – this describes all the pastries that we had that day. This egg tart was no different. I could have eaten a plateful of these tarts. Double boiled milk with birds nest in ginger. This was really good too, very good marriage of milk and ginger. The gelatinous birds nest also has a nice texture to it, and is neither stringy nor tough.

All in all a great meal and good experience. I must add that champagne also goes very well with dimsum!

Tin Lung Heen 天龍軒
102/F, The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong, International Commerce Centre, 1 Austin Road West, Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon MTR)
Tel: +852 2263 2270
restaurantreservation.hk@ritzcarlton.com
Opening Hours: 12:00pm – 2:30pm, 6:00pm – 10:30pm (Mon to Fri), 11:30am – 3:00pm, 6:00pm – 10:30pm (Sat to Sun)
Dress Code: No beach sandals, open toe shoes, sleeveless shirts and shorts for gentlemen

Peking Garden Hong Kong (1 Michelin Star, 2016)

Tags

1 star, Chinese restaurant, Hong kong, hong kong restaurant review, Michelin, Michelin star, Peking Garden, restaurant review

The Michelin Guide baffles me sometimes. I’ve eaten at Peking Garden before, and while I think it’s good, I’m not sure it warrants a Michelin star.

On my previous visit to Peking Garden earlier in the year, I tried some of the other dishes which I deemed to be pretty good. This time I came back to try their Peking duck dish, since I had a (rather expensive) hankering for it.

I managed to satisfy my craving, but I thought the duck tasted a little gamey. I’m usually not squeamish about meat having a bit of that taste of the wild but this was a tad over. Plus, I prefer my Peking duck skin crispy and devoid of the heavy extra fat that this one had.

Perhaps the meat could be more juicy and tender as well.

This crab roe noodle was excellent though! I loved the chewy springy of the noodles coated in crab roe with a dash of black vinegar. Its a novelty, and absolutely my kind of dish!

Total damage for the two dishes:- HKD 816.2

 

Located in: Alexandra Shopping Arcade

Address: Alexandra Shopping Arcade, 5-17 Ice House St, Central, Hong Kong

Phone:+852 2526 6456

Shaoxing Wine Ginger chicken

Tags

chicken, Chinese, easy, easy meals, easy recipe, ginger, ginger wine chicken, healthy, Home Cooking, scallions, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, shaoxing wine ginger chicken, South East Asian, spring onions, white pepper, wine, wine chicken

This dish brings back a lot of memories from my Warwick days. For some reason I remember that the preparation process was long and tedious back then! It involves deboning chicken thighs/drumsticks and skinning and julienning ginger. At the present though, I no longer find it as long and dreary a process. Perhaps I could attribute it to… better knife skills? Or maybe just better knives, I don’t think my knife skills have improved at all since then!

This is a very warming, hearty dish and the sauce is lovely with freshly cooked white rice. It’s currently a favourite with the family and guests who happen to try it! It doesn’t take very long nor need many ingredients and makes a perfect addition to the dining table. I include pictures from two attempts at cooking this dish and I realized that I naturally throw the same ingredients into the pan, despite starting off with perhaps a couple less ingredients in one of the photos. That goes to show that agaration (the South East Asian technique of cooking by guesstimating) isn’t very far off from precision after all!Ingredients from trial number 1Ingredients from trial number 2.

But don’t worry, I’ve consolidated the ingredient list and summarized it as below:-

Ingredients (Serves 4)

• 2-3 stalks of Spring onions including the white bits with roots removed
• 3 inches of ginger, peeled and roughly julienned
• 4 Chicken thighs with skin on, deboned
• 3 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 3 tbsp clear chicken stock/broth
• 1 tbsp sesame oil

Chicken marinade

• Shaoxing wine 1 tbsp marinade
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2-3 tbsp soy sauce
• white pepper
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp corn flour

Cooking Instructions

Upon deboning the chicken, remove the skin from two of the chicken thighs and discard. Keep the skin on for the remaining two chicken thighs. We want some chicken fat rendering in the gravy but not too much!

Trim off the excess fat and remove the tendons from the chicken. Tendons are tough to cut through and unpleasant to eat so be thorough in removing them whenever preparing chicken! Once that is done, cut the chicken meat into bite-sized, uniform pieces so they cook at the same speed. 

Place the chicken in a bowl and lightly mix in the chicken marinade with your hands. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes at room temperature.

In preparing the scallions/spring onions, cut them into thirds or 2 inch sections. You can take some of the green sections to slice thinly for garnishing as well.

Heat up some oil in a pan/wok on medium fire. When the oil is hot enough (i.e. if you drop a piece of ginger into the oil it starts to sizzle right away), slide the ginger into the oil gingerly (I’m so funny I know) and fry for a minute until the ginger starts to turn a little golden and the gingery aroma seeps out. The point of this step is to flavour the oil with ginger as well as prep the ginger so it’s at its best to mingle with the chicken.Add the chicken pieces and fry until half-cooked.

Then, flip the pieces over and add the chicken stock, sesame oil plus Shaoxing wine and cover to cook for a minute. We’re quick-braising/stewing the chicken with some moisture, not searing it to death. Remember, the chicken has to be swimming in a luscious pool of delicious gravy!Upon uncovering, add the spring onion sections into the pan/wok and stir fry for a little while more. Taste to check if it needs more white pepper or salt.

And it’s done!Not the fanciest of dishes but highly satisfying and easy on the stomach. Healthy too!

Check out the before and after picture of trial number 1. I used 10 thighs for that round of cooking!

Wiped clean. ❤

Lobster glass noodle soup with shaoxing wine.

Tags

big head prawn, big head prawn noodle soup, Chinese, chinese lettuce, chinese soup, chinese soup noodles, coriander, dinner, easy meals, glass noodles, healthy, Home Cooking, huatiao, large prawns, lobster, lobster glass noodle, lobster glass noodle soup, lobster noodle, lobster noodle soup, lunch, Noodles, One bowl meal, prawns, seafood, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, Soup, South East Asian, stew, wine broth, wine soup

Here is the second half of the lobster (first half of which went to making the lobster pasta) and the easier recipe of the two. The original version called for fresh river prawns/big head prawns but since I had the lobster, I figured I could use that instead and add in some large prawns as a bonus. Since there is no recipe that I could refer to online I tried to recreate the taste the best I could remember. Turns out I’m actually quite satisfied with the results! Now without further ado, the recipe:-

Ingredients (4 pax)

• 1/2 lobster
• 6 large prawns (in my first attempt I used 3, but the attempt with 6 prawns tasted better)
• 1 inch ginger, sliced
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp minced onion
• 1/2 cup Shaoxing wine (maybe a dash more if you like)
• 5 cups chicken stock
• Chinese lettuce (I used a quarter of a head), cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 150g Glass noodles
• Spring onions chopped into large three inch sections.
• Coriander for garnish
• Finely chopped spring onions for garnish
• salt

The array of ingredientsGlass noodlesLarge lobster.

So we shall start with the prawns. De-shell all the prawns and set the shells/heads aside. Do NOT throw them away! Then devein them and cut each prawn into three sections.Size of the prawn heads and my hand, just for comparison. Lots of flavour in those prawn heads! 

Cut the lobster into half. If the lobster is as spiny as this one, do use a towel and be very careful when handling it. A pair of strong kitchen scissors would be a great help here.

More pictures of the lobster… as you can probably tell, I’ve added pictures from a second lobster noodle attempt into the mix. The second lobster looked way fresher and more succulent with its firmer white flesh and golden globules.

When you’ve managed to cut the lobster into half lengthwise, chop the tail into three parts and dig out some of the flesh from the head (I forgot to do that here) and set that aside with the prawns. Leave the orange/golden stuff behind.

Heat up some oil in a large pot and fry the ginger, garlic and onions until the onions are translucent and the aroma of the ginger comes out. It helps to crush the ginger before or during this step.Add the prawn shells and fry until half cooked (almost that coral colour they become when they’re fully cooked) before adding the lobster head to the pot.Continue frying for a minute or so, adding a little oil if it gets too dry. Then add the shaoxing wine to soak up all that flavour that’s coming from the prawn shells and lobster head. I actually would have liked to add another half cup of shaoxing wine but I was worried my family may not like the taste so I stuck with half a cup, but go ahead and use that extra half a cup if you like. 

Add the stock and simmer for around 15 minutes before turning off the heat. Cover the pot with its respective lid and leave it for perhaps an hour.

Then, remove the prawn shells from the stock (if you had a strainer bag in the first place, use it to hold the prawn shells because it can be a chore to pick them out from the soup).

Toss in the lobster and prawn meat that was set aside earlier, along with the spring onion sections, lettuce and glass noodles. The reason why we cook the shells and the meat separately is so that we can extract the most flavour out of the seafood from the shells without overcooking the meat, which is only added at the end. If you were to cook the meat right at the start, you’re going to end up with some very hard, overcooked and dry chunks of prawn/lobster which is such a waste of good seafood.

Place the lid back on and bring the soup to a boil.

Add the sesame oil at the end and season with salt. Top with chopped spring onions and coriander. Easy peasy!

Home cooking

Tags

deep fried breaded prawns, ebi fry, ebi furai, eggs, fried vegeables, healthy, Home Cooking, malaysia, onion and egg omelette, pork cutlet, singapore, steamed fish, steamed tofu and minced pork, steamed tofu and pork, tonkatsu

 

Just a quick post on what I made for dinner the other day when my family came over to Singapore. Typical food that you’d get in a Malaysian/Singaporean home.

Steamed fish, tofu with minced pork, fried egg onion omelette, stir fried vegetables and something that veers towards Japanese cuisine, the fried pork cutlets and prawns (Tonkatsu and ebi furai).

 

My kitchen, with the deep fried tonkatsu on a cooling rack and the ebi fry bubbling in the hot oil.

Beautifully golden ebi fry. My first attempt at it, will put up posts on how to make the tonkatsu and the ebi fry. Both dishes use almost the same method of preparation and cooking though 😉

 

Whoops, this picture came out sideways. This is the tofu dish, but I think I went overboard with the minced pork topping. May need to put up a proper post on this dish too. It goes amazingly well with rice and healthy to boot.

Steamed barramundi fish with lots of spring onions and chinese parsley (cilantro).

 

Nonya fried chicken (inchi kabin)

Tags

chicken, chilli powder, coconut milk, curry, fried chicken, ginger, heritage food, inchi kabin, malaysian, nonya food, nonya fried chicken, South East Asian, spices, straits

Ingredients:

1 small chicken – 1.25kg – 1.5kg, chopped into sections

Marinate:

• 2 tbsp curry powder
• 3 tbsp grated ginger (or if u can find it, galangal)
• 5-6 shallots
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 4 tbsp coconut milk
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 chilli padi (optional – just for the extra kick if you like it spicy)
• 2-3 stalks lemongrass (optional – I didn’t add this in this time round, but I remember my grandmother putting some in hers.)
• 1 tsp salt, or to taste
• 1 tsp sugar, or to taste

1.  Trim the excess fat and skin from the chicken pieces and pat dry.
2. Combined all the marinate ingredients together (blend it if you can, it makes the paste so much smoother. I didn’t ;( )  and add in the chicken. Mix well, really get the marinate into every nook and cranny, then cover with a cling wrap and let the chicken marinate in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.

3.   Remove the chicken from the fridge at least half an hour to an hour before frying.

4.    I tried frying the chicken two ways, one with my brand new air fryer, and the other using the conventional deep frying method.

5.    For the air frying method, I added a little oil to the chicken and mixed it well before placing the pieces into the air fryer. Here’s the result:

It’s actually pretty good. Saves me quite a bit of oil and manages to also be healthier.

6.   As for the deep frying method, heat up enough oil to completely submerge the chicken pieces. This should be on high heat.

7.   Gently drop the chicken pieces into the oil, taking care not to overcrowd the pot.

8.   Skim off the brown bits from the surface of the oil. This is to prevent being burnt bits floating around the oil and sticking to the chicken.

9.   Fry until the chicken turns golden brown (because of the marinade, the chicken will tend to be on the darker side) and starts to float, take care not to overcook the chicken. Remove from the hot oil and place on a kitchen towel to drain off the excess oil

10. Serve. Obviously the deep fried chicken is going to taste better than the air fried ones. However, for the health-conscious, the air fryer is a pretty good alternative.

Juicy spiced chicken!

Spicy and Sour Szechuan Pork glass noodles

Tags

Chinese, dinner, glass noodles, hot and spicy noodles, lunch, ma la, Noodles, pork, sichuan, sichuan glass noodles, sichuan hot and sour noodles, sichuan peppercorns, sweet and sour, szechuan, szechuan peppercorns, vinegar, zhejiang vinegar

Spicy and Sour Szechuan Pork glass Noodles

Back at Warwick I ate a lot of junk food. By junk food I mean instant noodles and pre-frozen meals. There’s one particular type of instant noodles that I used to love, some sort of Szechuan spicy glass noodles in numbing, vinegary soup and peanuts. I used to add lots of bacon to it, a sinful, spicy bowl on a cold winter day.

I don’t know where I can find this particular brand of instant noodles anymore so I searched online to see if there’s a recipe that comes close to the description of “Szechuan, spicy, numbing and sour” and I was pleased to come across this recipe ;D I adapted it slightly, not much change, and I loved the result! I must say though that there’s quite a bit of seasoning that goes into the noodles.

Ingredients (recipe taken and adapted from http://tofoodwithluv.blogspot.sg)

• 150g sliced pork tenderloin (or minced pork if you prefer it)
• 80g glass noodles
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1 1/2 cups chinese cabbage, cut into 1.5″ x 1.5″ squares
• Oil for frying

• 1 tbsp chilli powder (or more)
• 1 tbsp chilli oil (“la yu”)
• 1/2 tsp chilli bean paste (“Douban Jiang”)
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp chicken stock powder
• 1/3 cup water
• 2-3 tbsp Chinkiang black vinegar
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1/4 tsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp finely ground toasted Szechuan peppercorns/ or about 3-4 kernels crushed whole Szechuan peppercorn (or more if you like that numbing taste)
• 1 spring onion, sliced
• A handful of Chinese coriander/cilantro for topping

• Marinade:
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp cornflour
• 1 tbsp water

Method

1. Marinade the pork and set aside for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, cook noodles in boiling water for 10 minutes or until cooked. Rinse under cold running water for a minute until all the starch is gone. Leave it to sit in a bowl of iced water so the strands don’t stick.
2. Heat up 1 tbsp oil in a wok and brown the meat, if you are using minced meat, break it up as you go along. Push the meat aside and add 1 1/2 tbsp oil. Fry the garlic and ginger, then add the chilli powder, chilli oil and chilli bean paste. Fry for about a minute, then mix through with the pork.
3. Add the soy, wine, sugar, vinegars, chicken stock powder and water. Bring to a boil and simmer 1-2 minutes until the sauce is slightly reduced. Add sesame oil, Szechuan pepper and turn off the heat.
4. Toss the blanched vegetables and cooked noodles in the sauce until it’s thoroughly incorporated and transfer to a serving dish. Top with some chopped spring onions and cilantro.

Pan fried eggplant dipped in egg

Tags

Chinese, easy meals, Egg, eggplant, healthy, pan fried eggplant dipped in egg, pan-fried, quick meals, side dish, Snack, truffle oil

Yes I know the picture above makes this post seem like it is about pot stickers instead of eggplant. I’m saving that post for another day. Today it is just the eggplant.

Ingredients

1 fat eggplant, sliced into equal thickness (around 0.5 – 0.7 cm would be good)

1 egg, beaten and seasoned with a pinch of salt and white pepper. If you like you can also drop a couple of drops of truffle oil into the egg mixture

2 tbsps Olive oil for frying

Instructions

1) Heat up the oil in a frying pan on medium high heat

2) Coat each side of the eggplant slices with egg before placing them in the pan.

3) Fry until the bottom down side of the eggplant slices turn golden brown, before flipping it to fry the other side

4) Pat off the excess oil or place the fried eggplant onto some paper towels.

5) Serve

Fu Sing dim sum – Hong Kong, Sunshine Plaza

Tags

century eggs, chee cheong fun, dim sum, fu sing, fu sing sharkfin seafood restaurant, Hong kong, lunch, Noodles, polo char siew pao, polo pau, roast pork, siew yoke, sunshine plaza

I must say, I’m not a big fan of dim sum. And tapas for that matter. I never understood why food must be in small portions and shared among many people while I’d rather have a large bowl or plate of something and relish everything by myself. Yes a glutton I am. So I cringe whenever I hear the word “dim sum” whenever we go out to eat.

Last year however, we went to this dim sum place in Hong Kong that just blew my mind away. I regret that I didn’t take more pictures nor spend more time on the names, so I’ll have to go back to the restaurant to do a proper review. This post for now is just a bookmark on places to eat in Hong Kong 😉

I can’t remember what this was now, probably some fried shrimp/fish paste. But the crispy fried skin and the springy, flavorful insides were a really good combination.

Polo char siew pau and a part of a plate of viciously attacked char siew in the corner of the picture.

The polo char siew pau has a sweet, crumbly topping which is the first thing you taste when you bite into it. Then it just sinks in and gives way to the sweet char siew filling on the inside. The bun is warm, fluffy and has all the texture and taste to make the experience quite delightful.

And about the char siew in the corner? What can I say… the picture speaks for itself? 

Left: Chee cheong fun (Prawns wrapped in silky noodle roll)

Right: Some sort of peppery milky soup with beancurd skin

The peppery soup kinda tastes like my grandmother’s tu toh th’ng (pig intestine soup with lots of white pepper). It is nice but I’d like to concentrate on the chee cheong fun. My issue with the usual chee cheong fun is that the skin is a little too chewy and the prawns, not too fresh. Here the rice noodle skin is like silk. Really slippery and delicate but not too delicate that it just falls apart. It has a nice feel on the tongue and goes well with the fresh prawn and sauce. The best chee cheong fun I’ve tasted so far.

Glass noodles. I’d say this is good for people like me who needs proper noodle/rice dishes instead of the little portions everywhere. It tastes fresh, most likely because of the celery, yet savory and not too greasy. 

The rest of the meal. The siew yoke is divine, I’ve such a weakness for siew yoke that I love even the chunky chewy ones. These however are delicate, have crispy skins and tender, tender meat. Love this!

There was also the crispy fried yam, I can’t remember what it was stuffed with but I know I’m going to order it again when I go back.

There’s also another noodle dish in the far bottom left, made of thick rice noodle in a milky soup with mushrooms that was also pretty good.

Last but not least is the century eggs. I do not know why we can’t get century eggs as good as these in Singapore and Malaysia. I just don’t understand why. The ones in Hong Kong have a gooey yolk middle and jelly-like “whites” while the ones here are hard… I could eat two plates of the century egg along with some ginger by myself! The slightly pungent, velvety egg yolk with the sharp, tangy, crunchy preserved ginger is absolutely divine.

A proper post on this restaurant is definitely in the pipeline.

Fu Sing Sharkfin Seafood Restaurant 富聲魚翅海鮮酒家
1/F, 353 Lockhart Road,
Sunshine Plaza,
Wanchai, Hong Kong
灣仔駱克道353號三湘大廈1樓
Open from 11-3pm, 6-11pm.