Tangy Green Papaya Soup

Once again, I would call this a base soup.
Once you get to know the flavour of different soup ingredients, you'll be able to play around mixing them up. Lots of soups are various of each other.

The reason why I call this the tangy green papaya soup is because of the use of green papaya and ginger. The ginger gives it a kick rather then focusing on the sweetness that usually comes with papaya soup.
Also, since green papaya is not ripe, it's not as sweet as a ripe papaya.

This is great for a smoothing soup with a bit of a kick.
It's pretty simple and easy to make too. :)

Tangy Green Papaya Soup

Ingredients

• 1 Green Papaya (4lbs)
• 1/2 cup red dates
• 1/4 cup apricot kernel (1:3 ratio for north 北杏 and south apricot 南杏 seeds)
• 1cm block of ginger
• 1 - 1.5 lbs of pork bone
• 4L of water
• Salt optional

Directions

1. Pre-treat the pork bone if it's not done already. Blanch the pork bone and then wash the bones.
2. Start heating the 4L of water while you prep the other items. 
3. Peel the papaya and cut it in half to remove all the seeds.
4. Cut it into 1 inch strips.
5. Rinse the red dates and the apricot seeds.
6. Wash the ginger and slice it up
7. Once the water is boiled, put all the ingredients in except the salt.
8. Bring it back up to a rolling boil and then turn down the heat to medium low so that it's at a soft boil.
9. Let it cook for 1.5 hours
10. Before you turn off the heat add salt and stir if you wish to add salt.

And there you have it. Simple green papaya soup with a kick.

Green Bean, Lily Bulb and Red Date Soup

Here's another easy basic soup.
Honestly most soups will have 4-5 ingredients as base with lots of optional things you can add for flavour and other goodness.

This particular one is simple and pretty mellow tasting. The green bean is considered to be "cold" so for sweetness, instead of honey date or logan fruit, I use red dates to balance out the "cold".

Green Bean, Lily Bulb and Red Date Soup

Ingredients

• 40g Green Beans
• 30g Lily Bulb 百合
• 5 large or 10 small Red Dates 
• 1 Tangerine Peel 果皮
• 1 lbs of Pork Bone
• 4-5 L of water
• Salt to taste

Directions

1. If your pork bone is not pre-blanched and you like to have your soup clear, quickly blanch the pork bones in boiling water for 5 mins, then wash the pork bone.
2. Rinse the green beans, lily bulb and red dates.
3. Soak the tangerine peel in water and scrap off some of the whites when it's soft.
4. Heat 4 L of water in a large pot.
5. Once the water is boiling, add the pork bone.
6. When it comes back to a rolling boil, add the green beans, lily bulb, red dates and tangerine peel.
7. Drop the heat down to a soft boil and let it cook for 1.5 hours. Check the soup once in a while to make sure it's still softly boiling to make sure you're not over or under cooking the soup.
8. At the end of the 1.5 hours, add salt if you wish. Stir and turn off the heat.
9. Skim the fat and you're good to go.

Enjoy!

Napa Cabbage Rolls

This recipe is inspired by Just Bento's cabbage rolls.
Usually the napa cabbage I buy are so big that I usually make giant cabbage rolls, but i found that if I cut the cabbage in half, I can make smaller 2 bite rolls.

For this roll, I make a dumpling like filling with shiitake mushrooms, dried scallops and mini dried shrimp. Asian flavours for an Asian cabbage roll.

Napa Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients 

• 6 Short (and fat) napa cabbage leaves, cut in half for 12 or 12 small leaves
• 300g Ground pork
• 3 Shiitake mushrooms
• 1 big dried scallop or 2 small ones
• 1 tbsp mini dried shrimp
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp low sodium soy sauce
• 1 tsp corn starch

Directions

1. Soak the shiitake mushrooms and dried scallop for several hours to re-hydrate. If you do not have several hours, soak in warm water to hasten the process. 
2. If the cabbage leaves you're using is really wide, you can cut it in half down to middle to make it skinnier. But make sure you can still wrap it around the meat when it's cut in half.
3. Do a quick blanch of the leaves to soften them.
4. Once the mushroom is re-hydrated, cut into small pieces and add it into a bowl with the meat.
5. Shred the dried scallop and add it into the bowl with the meat and mushrooms
6. Rinse the dried shrimp and lightly chop it into smaller pieces, add it into the bowl.
7. Add the sugar, soy sauce and corn starch into the bowl and mix all together.
8. Once it's all mix, spoon the mixture onto the soften napa cabbage leaves and roll.
9. Tuck the tail of the cabbage into one of the sides.
10. Your rolls should have a diameter of about 1 inch so it's a bite size roll. 
11. Steam in a dish for 15 mins and you're ready to go!

Grandma's General Health Soup

One of the benefits of growing up in a large family is the variety of food you get at dinner every day.
When my grandparents lived with us, my grandma would make a different soup every day just because we can finish 1 big pot of soup every day.
This was the one soup she should make at least once on a weekly basis because each of the 4 herbal ingredients in it is good for a different part of the body!
She refers to it as upkeep of the body.

The herbal ingredients in this soup are simple ingredients that do not require you to go to a Chinese Dr to get exact measurements. So no need to worry about that.
My grandma makes soup by eyeing the amount of ingredients, so I took that and put together some more precise measurements for this post. :)
It's actually quite easy to make once you get use to it. Essentially you through everything together, bring to a boil and simmer for 1.5 hrs and you have soup.

Of course, there's many variations of this. This is the most basic version that my grandma taught me how to make.

Fox nuts - High in anti oxidant (my grandma refers to this one as good for skin)
Lotus Seed - good for kidney and spleen
Lily Bulb - good for lungs and spirit
Dioscorea Opposita - spleen, stomach and lungs

Grandma's General Health Soup

Ingredients

• 56g Fox nuts 芡實
• 60g Lotus Seed 蓮子
• 56g Lily Bulb 百合
• 4 to 5 strips of Dioscorea Opposita 淮山
• 1 to 1.5 lbs of Pork Bones (the more you add the more flavourful the soup)
• 3-5 Honey Dates
• 1 dried Tangerine Peel 果皮 (it's not just any tangerine apparently...)
• 4 to 5 L of water depending how strong and condense do you want the flavour to be
• Salt to your preference

Directions

1. If you do not want cloudy soup, pre-treat your pork bones by blanching it in water and remove the "scum" from the water before you proceed forward.
2. Bring water to a boil. 
3. Add in the pork bones.
4. Let the water come back to a boil, then add in the rest of the ingredients.
5. Once the water is at a rolling boil, then turn the heat to low and cook it on low heat for half an hour. Depending on how much water you use, you might need to cook it at medium low heat to keep a very light boil. A little more then a simmer but not a full out boil.
6. Find the honey dates and squash them so it lets the flavour out! Continue to cook it for an hour other.
7. Add salt and you're ready

Notes: A little salt will help bring flavour out. My mother in law doesn't like to use add salt so she makes a very concentrated soup instead with lots of ingredients to make up for the lack of salt.

Dried Goods for Soup

This is my first post in my Chinese Soup series.
When you start making Chinese soup, you'll start collecting a lot of different types of dried goods.
Some items like Apricot Kernels and Honey Dates are more often used then others like Dried Octopus. You will start to accumulate lots of dried goods over time. I find it very convenient to be well stocked as it requires less planning when deciding what soup to make.
Couple of things to pay attention to when you get started with the dried ingredients:

Chinese vs English names

In my soup recipes, I'll always post both the Chinese and English name that you may find on the label. My advice is to copy Chinese words because I find that sometimes the English name may vary or the English name on the label actually refers to the family of the item and not the specific thing.

For example, Apricot Kernels in the picture above both have the same English name with 2 different Chinese names because they're different from one an other! The one that says "北杏" is bitter and actually considered "poisonous" in Chinese herbal cooking, you shouldn't be using a lot of it unlike the other one! The ratio of 南杏 and 北杏 should be about 3:1. My grandma says it's even ok to make soup without 北杏. So if your soup calls for Apricot Kernels and you relied on the English name, you could have grabbed the wrong bag if all you get is one type.

Supermarket vs Herbal Shops

There are many places you can buy the herbal ingredients. You can pretty much walk into any big Chinese supermarket and there will be an aisle or 2 of dried goods for soup and for cooking. What it really comes down to are 3 things, price, quality and trust. There are some items I will grab at the grocery store because it's convenient and they are labeled in Chinese and English. But there are others that I will go to the Chinese Herbal store to get due to the nature of the item so I want to ensure high quality. Also, grocery store doesn't necessarily equate to cheaper! I've found items there that are more expansive then at the herbal store!

Finding a good herbal store is very very important if you want to get into making Chinese soups. The first herbal store I went to was very impolite and not helpful at all, the second one was really aggressive trying to sell me everything they can get their hands on. The one I go to now is the one my grandma introduced me to. She likes that particular store because the items are good quality and the owner is honest. I'm very fortunate to have my grandma introduce me, but I know not everyone can get that introduction. If you're serious about trying the herbal soups, spend a little bit of time to check out a couple of stores. Compare items from store to store to check quality, price and honesty of the people there. Helpful but non-aggressive clerks are very important when you're new to herbal items. Dried goods are not cheap! It will pay off in the long run to do research before you buy.

The other nice thing about herbal stores is the personal touch. They can teach you how to use the ingredients you're buying! There's so many ways and so many variations of different soups and dishes you can make, so it's great to talk to them and learn new methods.

Set packages vs "loose" items

You can find set packages like the one you see on the left in supermarkets and herbal stores! There's always pros and cons to everything. Soup packages are set for 1 pot of soup. So it's great if you're trying out Chinese soup and you're unsure if you want to buy so much ingredients if you may not make it again. I find some packages of soup even have directions for type of meat and/or veggies to add and how long to cook. Some don't have much info, so you really need to know the ingredients in order to use it. Some supermarket even soup packages in the refrigerator section where they have the meat and veggies all cut up with combine with packages of herbal items ready for you to buy and throw into a pot to cook!

Why you will buy packages vs individual comes down to a couple of decisions. If you're in this for the long haul, it'll cost less to buy all the individual items then these packages. Also, quality of the goods is hard to judge in these packages. Some people argue it's fine and others will argue that you'll get better items if you go to the herbal store. It's really a toss up between the 2. If you know a good herbal store, then you'll probably get better quality for the same amount of money. 

Variety is another good reason to get individual packages. Once you start making herbal soup, you'll realize there can be may variations and mix and matches of items you can use for the soup.

How to store

Now that you've spent good money on the dried goods, you want to make sure it doesn't go bad when you're not using it. Soup packages are one time use, so as long as you don't open them until you're ready to use them, you're fine.

For all the loose items, you need to keep them in a cool dried area. A cool room is the best if you have one! I don't have one so when I open a package, I will put all the items in jars to try to keep moisture out.

Generally you will not need to keep things in the fridge as long as you can keep it cool and dried. If you put something in the fridge, then it has to stay there until it's all used up. The only thing I keep in the fridge are the dried figs. Everything else is bottled or sealed in bags. The first image in this post is a shelf in my dried goods cabinet. Thank goodness for food saver to reseal packages because I don't nearly have enough jars for everything.

And that's the basics of it to get started! If you currently have nothing at all for dried goods, don't try to go out and buy everything all at once. Your wallet will cry if you do that. When you're starting up, just buy as you need. Slowly build up your collection. Your wallet will thank you for it.

Ginger Red Date Tea for Yang Restoration

Since it's season changing time, it's a good time to look at boosting your immune system.
It's a very simple tea with ingredients that have benefits to boosting different aspects of your body.
If you just read about the ingredients and what's it good for, it honestly seems like something you can drink every once in a while to boost your immune system. But with traditional Chinese medicine, there's a balance to everything so you don't want to over do it either.

My aunt in HK sent me specific date and time to drink this tea as it's the best time to restore balance to the body.
Specifically from Mar 18-22 before 11am every day.
Maybe it's a mental thing but my mom has friends that claim it works and helped boost immune system the years they drink this.
Doesn't hurt to try :)

Ginger Red Date Tea

For 1 cup

Ingredients

• 2 thin slices of ginger
• 1 large Red Date or 2 small Red Dates (seedless)
• 1/2 tsp Brown Sugar
• 1.25 Cup of Water

Directions

1. Wash and cut 2 thin slices of ginger
2. Remove seed from the red date (it's a must! or buy seedless)
3. Add all ingredients to a pot and bring to light boil
4. Turn off heat immediately and let it steep for 10 mins

And you're done :)

Super easy if you have seedless red dates already so you only have to put everything together and heat it up.

If this is too spicy for you, add a little more brown sugar.

Chu Hou Brisket (柱侯牛腩)

If you ever get beef brisket noodle in the food court or restaurant, chances are they would have used this type of sauce for the noodle.

I remember the first time I made this, I assumed that all I needed was the 柱侯 sauce. So that's all I added to a pot of water and boiled my brisket in it. It wasn't bad but it wasn't the taste I was looking for either. After further tasting, testing and research, I realize what some of the other items are that they add to the soup to make the taste stand out.

Here's the version that I make when I make stew brisket with this flavour. My hubby liked it and thought it tastes like the restaurants so I was happy.
It's very simple to make because all you need to do is throw everything into a pot and let it cook together. I like to leave my brisket over night to let the flavour really meld together.

Chu Hou Brisket (柱侯牛腩)

Ingredients

• 1kg Beef brisket
• 1 tbsp Garlic
• 2 Green onion
• 3 Slices of ginger
• 3 Star anise
• 3 Bay leaves
• 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
• Salt to taste
• 2 tbsp Chu Hou Sauce
• Small piece of Rock sugar
• 2L Water
• 2 small Daikon

Directions

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.
2. While you're waiting for the water to boil, cut the Beef brisket into 1 inch thick slices.
3. Throw the brisket into the boiling water and cook it for 5 mins after it comes back up to a boil. This will help you wash and remove impurities so you have a better soup base at the end of cooking.
4. Strain the brisket. Wash the brisket and the pot so you can reuse it to cook the brisket.
5. Rinse the star anise and bay leaves.
6. Chop up the green onion into long strips and slice the ginger.
7. Add a little bit of oil to the bottom of the pot and cook the garlic, green onion and ginger so you can smell the flavours.
8. Add the brisket and 2L of water.
9. Throw in the star anise, bay leaves, cinnamon, Chu Hou Sauce and the piece of rock sugar.
10. Bring it to a boil then turn the heat down to simmer. 
11. Wash and peel the daikon. Cut into 1 inch slices.
12. About an hour into the cooking, skim fat and then add the daikon so the daikon doesn't absorb too much fat.
13. Depending on what type of brisket you have and if there are tendons, total cook time can range from 2 to 4 hours. Check periodically for readiness by poking a chopstick into the brisket. 
14. Optional: Once it's done, you can thicken the sauce by adding corn starch or flour or both. I thicken the sauce for rice dish but leave it alone for soup noodle dish. 

Tip: Use a pot that retains heat or use a thermal vacuum cooker.  This will lower electricity use when cooking. 

For pots that retain heat very well. Bring pot to a boil for 15 mins then turn off heat for 15 mins. Repeat throughout the cooking time.

For thermal vacuum cooker, cook brisket for 30 mins then put the pot in the pot holder for 3-4 hours or overnight. 

Chinese New Year - "Cakes"

New Year is full of traditional food. How the food sounds like makes it key to have at new years.
For example, seeds is important because it sounds like you're raking in money.

"Cakes" is an other important items to have at new years.
Now, when I say cake, I don't mine the fluffy cakes you normally buy for birthdays.
I'm talking about the type of food that you will eat at a restaurant for Yum Cha (some of you may call it Dim Sum).


Once again, this tradition stems from how the name of the cake sounds like.


The Chinese New Year Cake is called 年糕 (Nian Gao)

It's made of glutinous rice flour and sugar....

So what's in a name?
The name is suppose to imply being preposterous year after year. 
年 is year
糕 is cake but it sounds similar to the word high. 
So you want to be "higher" this year then you were last year and you want to keep on going "higher" every year.

3 typical "cakes" that are commonly sold during New Years and often given as gifts. They are New Year Cake, Taro Cake and my favourite Daikon (White Radish) cake. 

How to eat a 年糕: 
Don't just cut into it and eat it like you would a piece of cake.
Yes it's sweet but it's made of glutinous rice flour so it's sticky and can be very stiff when it's cold in the pan!
All 年糕 is made up of us, glutinous rice flour, rice flour, sugar, coconut milk and water. It's not a light cake.

Directions

1. First, cut your cake into square pieces. 
2. Do not go beyond a 1 cm thickness or else it might be a little too thick and too chewy.
3. Scramble an egg to dip the pieces of cake in.
4. Heat your pan to medium-low heat.
5. Dip the pieces of cake into the egg, coat all sides and put it onto the hot pan.
6. Medium-low heat is important because you want to be able to warm the piece of cake all the way to the middle without burning the egg coating it.
7. Once the piece is warmed up and your egg is nicely cooked, it's ready to eat :)

Best served warm so it's soft and chewy instead of hard and chewy.

(PS it's a bit of an acquired taste, so best to try it either at a restaurant so you don't have to waste a whole pan if you don't like it!)

Singapore Style Fried Turnip Cake (星州炒蘿蔔糕)

New years is time where I get a lot of 蘿蔔糕. My dad makes batches every year and I make sure I get a batch or 2.
As much as I love 蘿蔔糕, I would like to eat it in a different way then just pan frying it. (I don't do the steam option myself but some people like it)

One dish I really like eating is Singapore Style Fried Turnip Cake (星州炒蘿蔔糕)
It's awesome and can be a full meal, although it lacks the veggies you should always eat....

It's actually really easy to make and and great for lunch.

Singapore Style Fried Turnip Cake (星州炒蘿蔔糕)

This makes 1 plate Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients

• Half a boneless Chicken Thigh Meat (cooked or uncooked will add to cooking time), can be replaced by pork if you like pork but I would not recommend Beef as it's a bit too chewy
• 4-6 "squares" of Turnip cakes 
• 1 Green Onion
• 1 Egg
• 1 TSP of Chili Garlic Sauce

Directions

1. Cut up your turnip cake into bite size pieces. I make mine into about 3/4 inch cubes.
2. Heat up a pan to medium heat and toss it in. Add the Chili Garlic Sauce
3. If your turnip cake is not pan fried yet and you like a crispy exterior, start cooking it first.
4. While your cake is slowly cooking, cut up the meat into bite size pieces.
5. If the meat is already cooked and just needs to be reheated, throw it in the cake that are still crisping up
6. If the meat is raw, plate the cake when it's cooked nice and crispy and then cook the meat.
7. Dice your Green onion
8. Scramble your egg and add it in.
9. Add in the green onion when the egg is almost done cooking.
10. Plate the dish when the egg is cooked

Very fast if your meat is already cooked or if your cakes are pre-pan fried :)

Tip: to get nice solid egg pieces, before you add in the egg, dig a whole in the middle of your pan, then pour the egg in there. Give is half a min to start firming up on the underside then mix in the other ingredients with the egg.

Bean Sprouts Noodle

This is probably one of my favourite noodles.
I always ordered it when we went to yum cha as a kid.
It's so easy to make that anyone can make it at home!

It's also very versatile. Add in additional things like meat and more veggies to make it a complete meal.

Bean Sprouts Noodle

Ingredients

• 400g Bean Sprouts
• 2 Green Onion
• 1 Yellow Onion
• Noodles - Depends on the size, I used 6 150g dried noodles in the picture.
• 1 tsp garlic
• 1-2 tbsp Soy Sauce (to taste)
• White pepper powder (optional to taste)
• Meat (optional)

Directions

1. In a pot, add some water, set temperature to high and boil the water.
2. Wash the Bean Sprouts in a tub of water. Get rid of anything that's mushy and limpy. 
3. Your water should be boiling by  now. Add your noodles into the pot and stir. Cook until 80-90% cooked. 
4. While the noodle is cooking, wash your green onions and cut into 2 inch strips.
5. Cut your yellow onion into strips as well.
6. Your noodles should be done by now, pour the noodles into a metal strainer to strain the water.
7. Let it sit there and drain as much liquid as possible so you're not bringing it over when you add the noodle to the wok.
8. In a wok, set the heat on medium and let the wok heat up. Cook the garlick, yellow onion, white part of the green onion and bean sprouts.
9. Bean sprouts are cooked when they are translucent.When most of the bean sprouts are translucent, add in the noodles.
10. Mix the noodle well with the rest of the items in the wok. Pour the Soy Sauce in a circle pattern around the wok and noodles. Mix well.
11. Pepper is optional so you can add this after to your own plate if you like.

And you're done!!

Tip: If you want to add meat to make this a complete meal, cook the meat at the beginning and then remove it before you cook the rest so it doesn't become too tough. Add it back into the dish once the noodles is done cooking.

Tip 2: You can add more if you like more bean Sprouts. I normally add more then what's listed just because I love my veggies!

Stuff Squid Tubes with Pork and Water Chestnuts(馬蹄)

Sorry it probably doesn't look the prettiest in the world but it's very tasty!!

Instead of just stuffing the tubes with only meat, I like to mix in Water Chestnuts.
It's a little bit more work but very worth while.
Water Chestnuts brings a nice sweetness to the dish as well as a nice crunch. The sweetness and the crunchy texture is what makes the dish so special.
Actually, the meat mixture I use can be cooked as a dish on it's own and this dish is actually a twist on that one. :)

If the meat is seasoned well, there's no need for a sauce. If you didn't have time to season the meat, then you can pour a little soy sauce or make a thicker sauce with soy or oyster cause and some corn starch.

The squid tubes I buy are already washed and cleaned but I always wash myself and double check to make sure the bone is not left behind. There's only 1 bone in the squid and it's quite easy to find and rip out if it is left behind.

Stuff Squid Tubes with Pork and Water Chestnuts

Makes 6 tubes Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients

• 1 Package of squid tubes, about 6 tubes in the package.
• 200g of minced pork
• 4-5 water chestnuts
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground white pepper (optional)

Directions

1. Mix the soy sauce, sugar and white pepper into the minced pork and let it sit and marinate.
2. Peel the water chestnuts with a knife and then mince. The volume of the chestnut should be less then the volume of pork. So start off with 4 and see how much you have and add the 5th chestnut if required. All depends on the size of the water chestnut.
3. Add to the pork and mix well.
4. Wash the squid tubes and strain to dry.
5. Stuff the pork and water chestnut mixture into the tube. Stuff about 3/4 full. The squid will shrink!! NOTE: Left over pork mixture can be pan fried to look like hamburger meat!! Very tasty on it's own.
6. Place in a dish that can be used to steam.If you have time, leave the dish alone a little longer so it can sit and marinate.
7. Set up your steaming equipment and heat the water.
8. Once the water is boiling, place the plate in place for the dish to be steamed.
9. It should only take about 15 mins. After 10 mins, check on how the dish looks, you can even us a meat thermometer to poke the middle to check temperature of the meat.

Once it's cooked you're done and ready to eat :)
If you didn't have time to let it marinate or you didn't use pre-marinated mince pork, then you might want to add a bit of soy sauce or make that oyster sauce.
The flavour will come from the meat and the water chestnut!

Variation

Instead of using Water chestnut, use Lotus Root. It also has a sweetness like water chestnut but it's less crunchy. Volume wise, I like to use the same volume of minced Lotus Root as pork so it's 1:1 volume wise.

Intro to congee and trick to making smooth congee in short period of time

Congee (粥) is a rice dish that can be eaten at any time but it's a very common dish at breakfast, brunch and late night snack times.
You can find it when you go yum cha (some people like to call it dim sum but dim sum actually refers to the food you eat there), cafes, food court or specialty restaurants that specialize in congee, noodles and fried rice.
It can be full meals on it's own or one of the many dishes you eat.

It's also a very common dish to eat when you're sick as it's suppose to be easy on your digestive system so it doesn't zap the energy you need for healing.
Although when you're sick, you're eating very plain congee with minimum things added to it.

Congee is very very versatile. You can make many different variations depending on what you put in it. You can either add the additions at the beginning and let things cook together to enhance the flavours or add it at the end. If you look at the menu at a congee restaurant, you'll find that most of the different flavours are things they can add to a plain congee base and cook so they do not have to have 10 different pots of congee all waiting for people to order. Great idea for even home cooking if you need to save on time and you want a different congee flavour every day.

Besides all the different things you can add to the congee, there's 2 distinct style and it's determined by how the rice appears.

The most common kind you'll find is the one where the congee is a porridge with the rice all broken down and smooth. My parents will cook the congee for several hours to ensure all the rice is broken down. Some people will put it in one of those pots that stay hot over night for the rice to break down. Others even go to the extent of putting the congee through a food processors to ensure that it'll be smooth.
To make this style of congee, you use very little rice to make lots of congee. The water to rice ratio is huge. 1.5 to 2 rice cooker cups of rice makes a huge pot of congee that can be enough for 5 people to eat at least 3 bowls each.

The other kind is 潮州粥 (Chiu Chow style Congee). This one is not as common. You usually have to go to a Chiu Chow style restaurant to find it. The rice in this congee is solid and not broken! It's almost as if you made a soup and added cooked rice to it after. Very different then the more common style congee. I find this one definitely more filling then the other one as it requires more rice.
There are other Asian countries that cook this style of congee too so it's possible to eat it at those restaurants but I don't have a full list of what style each country cooks as I haven't tried them all myself.

After all that explanation, onto the tip.
Here's the trick my friend taught me to make that smooth congee without cooking the congee for hours or using the blender.
It's very simple, just freeze the rice before you cook it!!!
Wash the rice that you are going to cook, drain it and then freeze it for at least 2 hours.
I froze it over night as I was making the congee in the morning.
The frozen rice broke down much faster then unfrozen rice.
Within 20 minutes, the rice was broken down and basically the congee was ready to eat.
You can continue to boil it down so it thickens up to a thickness you like.
I found my congee continued to thicken up even after I turned off the heat and it was starting to cool.
It was definitely a lot thicker by the time I was finished eating and trying to pack up the left overs. Perfect for the next several days :)

Give it a try, definitely simple and makes it much faster to get your breakfast up and going in the morning.

Red Date Tea (紅棗水)

Dried Red Dates (紅棗) are commonly used in Chinese soups so it's always in the pantry. Besides soup, I like to make it into tea.
I find it especially helpful after that time of month or when I feel light headed and I'm looking pale (usually due to lack of sleep and my blood pressure is lower then normal).
My Chinese Dr recommended it to me when he noticed how pale I was and after a week of drinking this tea, I really did feel better and look normal rather then pale.

According to Chinese medicine, red date helps strengthens your blood. Since I have poor blood circulation and low blood pressure, he recommends using this tea to strengthen my blood.

Red Date is herbal so it's safe for anyone to drink and it's sweet!
You can also easily buy it from Chinese supermarkets or the Chinese seafood and dried medicine stores. There's different grades of Red Dates but I honestly haven't notice a difference myself.
If you don't have much time, get seedless Red Dates.
If you have the time, then it doesn't matter but removing the seeds is time consuming as the meat sticks to the seed.
The picture to the right is my current bag of Red Dates. I brought it because it's sealed in 4 packages
inside so I don't have to worry about the storage of the remaining Red Dates as much. Yes it's wasteful but I don't use it enough to justify getting 1 big package.



Why remove the seed? This is a bit harder for me to explain. In Chinese Medicine, they believe in balance in your body for hot and cold. It is said that the seed in the Red Date will contribute to the "hot" in a bad way and can throw off you off balance so you should remove the seeds.



How to Remove the Seed?
They easiest way I found was to cut a slit along the long side of the Red Date.
I cut all the way to the seed and dig in.
I use my knife to scrape the side of the seed to keep as much of the meat as possible in the date.
Just scrape on all sides and pull the seed out.

Red Date Tea

Makes 5 cups of tea Prep Time: 0 to 20 mins Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients

• About 5 cups of water (I fill my Britta Jar once and use all the water there)
• 10-15 Dried Red Dates (My mom uses even more but I find this to be the minimum amount, the more you use the sweeter and more potent it is!)

Directions

1. Boil the water in a pot.
2. Once it's boiling, add in the seedless Red Dates.
3. Boil for 10 mins.
4. Let it simmer for about half an hour.

And it's ready to drink :)
You'll get a nice bit jar of tea that you can drink warm or cold.

Quick and Easy Fried Rice with Sausage

This is a super easy to make fried rice. Usually done in 15 mins, about the time it takes to cook the sausage. I like to use sweet sausages for this particular recipe but honestly you can use any meat when you make fried rice. I just find sweet sausage to be very easy to use as it's full of flavour so there's less things you need to do when you need to cook something fast.

Trick to cooking good fried rice is using day old rice. After the rice has been cooked and been in the fridge for a day, it's at a good dry level that makes it perfect for fried rice.

Quick and Easy Fried Rice with Sausage

Makes about 7 bowls of rice Prep time: 10 mins cook time: 10 mins

Ingredients

• cooked rice - 3 rice cooker cups when uncooked rice
• 400g of Sausage (I use Chinese Red Sausage or Sweet Longaniza)
• 2-3 Green Onions
• 2 Eggs
• Soy Sauce
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tbsp oil

Directions

1. Start to heat up the pan
2. While the wok is heating, cut the sausage into bite size pieces.
3. The pan should be hot by the time you're done cutting, add the oil and the garlic to the wok. Then add the sausage you just cut up.
4. While the sausage is cooking, dice up the green onion
5. Stir the sausage around so it cooks evenly and scramble the eggs in a bowl.
6. When the sausage is done cooking, mix in the rice and stir around. The rice will change colour due to the sausage. Add a touch of Soy Sauce. I usually pour straight from the bottle and make a circle around the pan.
7. Once it's well mixed and the rice is all warmed up, mix in the green onion.
8. Make a hole in the middle and pour in the scrambled egg.
9. Let it cook a little bit before mixing the rice into egg

And you're done :)

Simple, fast and tasty.

Steamed Tofu with Minced Shrimp and Pork

In this dish, the pork and shrimp mixture nicely contrasts the softness of the tofu creating a very nice feel in your mouth when you eat it.
It's not too complicated to make as long as you have minced pork on hand as the shrimp can be minced up quite fast.
Any pork and shrimp left over can be cooked on it's own in a "meat ball" which is quite tasty on it's own.
The shrimp is actually the star of the dish while the pork is used as a binding agent for the pork since it's not fully minced and needs help to stick together.

Steamed Tofu with Minced Shrimp and Pork

Makes 8 blocks Prep Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 10-15mins

Ingredients

Main:

• ~50g  of Minced Pork
• 100g Shrimp (peeled and shelled)
• 1 package soft or silky Tofu (Other Tofu like all-purpose or firmer ones are fine too but in a steam dish, you can use more delicate tofu)
• 1 tsp Soy Sauce
• 1 tsp Sugar

Sauce - Optional:

• 1/2 Tbsp Oyster sauce
• 1 tsp Sugar
• 1/2 Tbsp Corn Starch
• 1/3 cup water

Directions

1. On a cutting board, start chopping up the shrimp and mince the shrimp. It does not have to be finely minced, you can have some bigger pieces but you'll want to have at least 1/2 to 3/4 shrimp in a nice paste
2. Mix with the mince pork. Use just enough to help bind the shrimp together, you may not need to use all 100g. I personally like more shrimp then pork
3. Add soy sauce and sugar and mix
4. Open the package of tofu and very carefully rinse the tofu water off.
5. Cut the tofu into enough pieces to fit your steam dish. I'm able to fit 10 pieces before I run out of room.
6. Put all the tofu pieces onto the dish and lightly score the top with a hash pattern.
7. Put a spoon of the pork and shrimp mixture on top of each tofu piece. (picture to the right)
8. Cover the dish with saran wrap and steam for 10-15 mins.
9. Keep an eye on the meat, the pork will be the longest thing to cook so depending on how much pork you used, the cooking time can vary.
10. Once it's done steaming, you'll still find a considerable amount of water in the dish, try pouring as much out as possible.

The dish is basically ready but if you find it too bland because the tofu is bland, either make the sauce or just add fish soy sauce to the dish.

1. If you want to make the sauce, in a small bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the sauce.
2. Heat it up in a skillet until a boil.
3. Cook until the sauce is at the right thickness to your liking.
4. Remove from heat and pour on top of the tofu.

Fuzzy Melon and Chicken

Fuzzy melons are awesome in taste and texture.
It also absorbs flavour so when you cook it with meats, it becomes very flavourful.

This is a very simple dish. The melon takes time to soften when cooking but length of time depends how soft you like the melons.
The melons are cooked as soon as it's translucent.
I personally like them a bit softer so I cook it a bit longer.

This is the base recipe for you to scale if you need to cook more.

Fuzzy Melon and Chicken

Makes 1 Plate Prep Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 10-20 mins

Ingredients

• 1 small fuzzy melon (just 1 of the melons in the picture on the left)
• 200g chicken
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• ~3/4 cup of water, use as necessary
• Optional handful of "Bean Thread Noodle", usually the bag says rice noodle but it's not vermicelli. Chinese character for it is 粉絲 and it's very different from vermicelli which is 米粉

Directions

1. Cut the chicken into bite size pieces and add in the soy sauce and and sugar and mix.
2. Use the blunt side of a small knife to scrape off the skin of the melon.
3. Rinse the melon and cut into strips (refer to picture on the left). Cooking time will depend on how big you cut the melon.
4. Add a bit of oil to a heated pot and add the garlic.
5. Cook the chicken until 70% and then scoop out the chicken into the bowl or plate you will be serving with. Leave behind any liquid left from cooking the chicken. This will be flavour for the melon.
6. Add the melon into the pot. Add a little bit of water and cover the pot to cook.
7. Stir every so often and add more water as necessary to make sure you do not burn the pot or melon.
8. Cook the melon until it's translucent. Can take anywhere from 10-20 minutes depending on how big you cut the pieces and how much water you're using.
9. If you are cooking noodles, add the noodles when the melons are translucent. Add more water if necessary, really depends on what type of noodles you're using.
10. Add the Meat as well to finish cooking. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes.

Done :)

Note: If you don't have 粉絲 on hand, you can always use potato starch noodle as well.

Maple Miso Spare Ribs

These ribs are one of my favourites to make.
I love Maple Syrup. Ever since I got real maple syrup and tried cooking with it, I've been addicted to cooking with it. It's so good. I love it for my pancakes, but cooking with it adds a nice depth to your food.

This is definitely a fusion type dish since maple syrup is mainly from North America :)

Maple Miso Spare Ribs

Makes: 1 Plate Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients

• 1 lbs spare ribs (cut per rib)
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp corn starch
• 1 heaping tsp Miso
• 2 cloves garlic - minced
• mirin or other type of rice wine to deglaze (optional)
• 1 to 2 tbsp maple syrup

Directions

1. Wash your spare ribs to help get rid of chipped bones and then cut them per rib.
2. Marinate it with the soy sauce, sugar and corn starch for a minimum of 10 mins. The longer the more flavour your meat will have.
3. Mince your garlic
4. Heat your pan. Once it's hot, add oil and add the garlic and miso. Quickly stir.
5. Add the spare ribs and mix well. Keep stirring so your meat doesn't burn.
6. Add a little bit of water and cover to cook.
7. Check and stir your ribs every several minutes. Add more water if required, don't have to add too much, just a little to help the miso dissolve and to keep meat from sticking to pan.
8. Once your meat is ready, add a splash of mirin to deglaze the pan. Stir things around.
9. Turn off heat and add the maple syrup. I like to have all my ribs coated with maple syrup.

And you're done :)

Miso: It doesn't matter what type of miso you use. I find the taste is relatively the same between yellow and red miso. I don't find much of a difference between Korean and Japanese miso either.

Tip: you do not need a lot of soy sauce in this dish because the soy flavour really comes from the miso itself.
Also the Miso may be salty so do not add too much of both or your dish will be salty.
Balance it out with more sugar.

Sour plum pork spare ribs

This is a super easy pork spare rib dish to make. Great when you don't have time and you need to do other things. It's yummy and has a nice fruit sour taste that can help stimulate appetite.
If you have an electric steamer, you can leave it alone unmanned. You can do the same with the rice cooker method if you have a big enough rice cooker. I used my stove top steamer so I couldn't leave it completely unmanned but I can sit at the table and work on other things while it cooks.

I honestly don't use measuring spoons when I cook, but I can give estimate for how much of each sauce I use. Please use it as a guideline, it really depends on your taste if you want more or less.

Sour plum pork spare ribs

Makes 1 Plate Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients

• 2 lines of spare ribs
• 2 Sour Plums
• 1/2 tbsp full of ground bean sauce (full as it over the top and not flat top)
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp corn starch

Directions

1. Add the ground bean sauce, Soy Sauce, sugar and corn starch to the plate/container you're going to use to steam the ribs and mix together.
2. Take 2 plums out of the jar and add it to the plate. Squeeze the plum to break it apart. Mush the plum around and mix with the rest of the sauce.
3. Wash the ribs and cut the ribs into individual blocks (1 hard bone per block, if there's no hard bone, make it about the same size as the others)
4. Add the meat to the plate and mix with the sauce. Let it sit and marinate.
5. Add water to your steamer and boil the water. Wait for it to get to a good boil and steam hard.
6. Optional step, saran warp your plate so you avoid too much water in your dish.
7. Place your plate into the steamer.
8. Steam for 20 mins and check if the meat is all cooked. It really depends on how big your plate is and if you had to stack the ribs together. If you didn't have to stack, it's most likely done. If you stacked, poke around to make sure
   it's all cooked.

Tangerines(桔) - Chinese New Year Fruit

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Chinese New Year is a time for huge celebrations and family gatherings.
In Asia, they have a week off and many people take additional time off to travel back to their home village to celebrate with extended family.
Traditionally it's 2 weeks of celebration.

It's very festive in Asia but here in Canada, we do what we can.
Close to the time of New Year, you'll see lots of New Year stuff on sale, ranging from food to decorations.
Food is very very important and everything we eat has meaning behind it!

The meaning is derived from the way the name of the food sounds like (sometimes they even come up with special names just to be used around the celebration). And that brings us to Tangerines.

Tangerines usually go up in price around New Year for this reason. It's considered one of the "New Year" food and everyone buys it, so price goes up. Why do we eat Tangerine?

Well, there's a specific Tangerine that is called 桔. 桔 is Luck!
Luck is very very important in Chinese New Year.
So if you want luck, you must get the fruits and have them in your house to bring you luck.

There's usually another name I call the tangerines by which sounds like "Gold" in Chinese but my mom says 桔 is slightly smaller.

Either way, both the fruits work during New Years because it sounds good when you say the name.
So how can you tell if it's the right one? Usually there's special New Year packaging on the fruit so it'll be hard to miss.

I wish you all good luck for the new year.

Ma Po Tofu

Serving: 2-3 if it's the only dish

Cooking time <10 mins

Prep time <10 mins not including marinating time

As always, if possible, marinate the meat in soy sauce, sugar and corn starch for a min of 15 mins before cooking. If not possible, then as long as possible.

You do not have to finish all the cutting before you start cooking, that will shorten prep time as long as you can multitask :)

Ingredients
1 package of Firm /"Old" Tofu
300g Mince Pork
2 cloves of Garlic
a bit more then 1 tsp Ground Bean Sauce (If you use the tsp, don't scrap it flat, overload it)
1 tsp Chile Garlic Sauce
2 Green Onion, chopped

Thickening Agent - if required
- Water (just enough to dissolve the Corn Starch)
- 1 TSP Sugar
- Corn Starch (pending how much water is there in the wok)

The Sauces that are used: 

Directions
1. Heat the pan and add the oil and garlic when the pan is hot. Stir the garlic around.
2. Add the pork and stir.
3. While the pork is cooking, rinse the tofu and cut into cubes. Not to small because when you stir fry it, it might break smaller.
4. Add the Chili Garlic Sauce and the Ground Bean Sauce and mix.
5. Add the tofu when the pork is 80% cooked.
6. Since Tofu is technically cooked already, heat until it's warm and pork is 100% all cooked.
7. Check how much water is in your pan and if you want to get rid of it/thicken it. If I have a lot, I usually pour out a bit of the water to use to dissolve the corn starch and sugar. Pending on how much water I have, I use anywhere from 1 TSP to 1 TBSP of Corn Starch. Make a hole in the middle and pour in the solution and mix. The moment it bubbles mix in food with the sauce.
8. Add in green onion and mix
Done! :)

Tips:
Firm or "Old" Tofu is firmer and will not break as much when you cook!
Cut bigger pieces so when it breaks, it won't disintegrate into mush