No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

With only a few ingredients like snow fungus, sweet potato and some rock sugar, you can easily whip up a decent dessert.  This dessert can be served chilled or warm, after a meal or you can enjoy it at any time of the day.   This cooling dessert  is very much more look forward to especially when we had to tolerate the current hot, humid heat. This is with some beaten egg whites Snow Fungus with Sweet Potatoes  ~   雪耳番薯糖水 Ingredients 1 sweet potato, about 200 g, cut into small pieces 1 piece snow fungus, about 30 g  2.1/2 litres water Cane rock sugar to taste 2 egg whites, beaten  (optional) Pandan/screw pine leaves Method Soak the snow fungus in water till it becomes soft,   Snip off and discard the yellow hard part on the under side of the snow fungus.  Cut up the snow fungus into very tiny parts. In a pot, bring the water to a boil, add in the knotted pandan leaves and snow fungus.  Let it...

This is one of the most popular Butter Cake recipes among fellow bloggers and I've read many reviews about this cake.  Credit must be given to Mrs S K Ng for so generously sharing her recipe.   This cake is moist, fluffy, soft, not overly sweet and the texture is just right.  Must admit that this is the best butter cake that I've ever tasted.  I tweaked the recipe to make a Marble Butter Cake instead. So glad to see that there weren't any cracks on the surface although it rose slightly in the middle. Marble Butter Cake ~   大理石牛油蛋糕      Ingredients (A) 230 gm butter 150 gm vanilla/caster sugar 200 gm self-raising flour 4 egg yolks   (I used 68 gm eggs with shell) 60 ml milk 1 tsp vanilla essence 8 gm chocolate powder a pinch of salt (B) 4 egg whites 30 gm vanilla/caster sugar Method 1.     Line the base of an 8 inch square pan with parchment paper, grease and dust th...

A simple chicken dish, enhanced with fermented black beans and oyster sauce together with a generous amount of ginger and garlic.  The kitchen was simply aromatic as I was sauteing the chopped garlic, ginger and fermented black beans.  Must admit it was a delicious dish to pair well with white rice. Black Bean Chicken  ~    豉汁鸡 Ingredients 750 gm (3 whole leg of chicken, cut into bite size) 2 onions, sliced 1.1/2 Tbsp fermented black beans 1 Tbsp oyster sauce 6 pips garlic, chopped 1 tsp chopped ginger 1/4 tsp dark soya sauce 1 tsp sugar 2 tsp cornflour + 2 tsp water to thicken Method Season the chicken with a bit of salt, set aside. Heat up a wok with some oil, saute the chopped ginger, garlic and black beans till fragrant. Add in the chicken, sir fry for a while, add in the oyster sauce.   Add in 1.1/2 cups of water and let it simmer till chicken is cooked through and tender. Toss in the sliced onions, add in the c...

Easy to make with only a few ingredients and punctuated with a slight sweetness of fig preserve, these little Friands are ideal to serve for tea or a get together with friends.  There's no creaming of butter and sugar, just melting some butter and light whisking of egg whites which is not time consuming and which can be prepared in a jiffy. Orange Friand with Fig Preserve ~  无花果费南雪 Ingredients 100 gm melted butter 80 gm icing sugar 40 gm plain flour 70 gm alomond meal 3 egg whites Zest from an orange or lemon Fig preserve (optional) Method Sift icing sugar and flour into a mixing bowl. Add in almond meal and zest, mix well. Whisk egg whites till frothy, make a well in the centre of the dry ingrdients and pour in the egg whites. Add in melted butter, give it a good stir, and mix well. Scoop batter into a lightly greased Friand pan, about 1/4 full and add in a small piece of fig preserve.  Cover with more batter. Bake in a prehea...

The current hot spell is ideal for making buns or bread as the hot temperature will speed up the proofing process.  Yeast dough 'rises' or 'proofs' best when the temperature is between 80 to 85 deg. F which is about 27 to 29.5 deg.C but right now our El Nino weather is hovering around 32 to 35 deg. C which exceeds the best temperature for yeast baking.  So rather than lamenting on the sticky weather, I made some pan-fried buns.  All along I've been baking bread and buns but this is the first time that I'm pan-frying then.  Not a disappointment and as I was assembling the buns, the rest of the dough kept on rising for it was super hot in the kitchen that day ! Pan-fried Pork Bun  ~  豬肉餡餅   (adapted from 'here' with modification) Ingredients for the Filling 300 gm mince pork 4 stalks spring onions (divided) 1 tsp minced ginger 1,1/2 tsp sesame oil 1 tsp sugar 1.1/2 tsp light soya sauce 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper 2 ...

From Spring Onion pancake , I'm sharing with you a Scallion or Spring onion chicken dish today.  This is more or less like a poached chicken dish except that it's laden with a sauce of scallion oil, chicken broth and Chinese wine.  This dish can be served as it is or chilled in the fridge before serving, Scallion Oil Chicken ~   葱油鸡 Ingredients 2 whole leg chicken, approx 600 gm 4 to 5 stalks of spring onions Ginger, sliced and minced 1 Tbsp Shaoxing wine 6 Tbsp vegetable oil Light soya sauce, salt and a bit of sugar to taste Method Season the chicken with some salt, set aside. Cut out the spring onion bulbs, some to put in the pot and some to make the oil. Chop up the rest of the green part of spring onions. Add the minced ginger into the chopped spring onions, add some salt, mix well. Bring some water to the boil, just enough to cover the chicken, add in the spring onion bulb d three slices of ginger and a teaspoon of salt. Once bo...

These Ham & Egg Parcels are not only delicious but are very simple to make for breakfast.   Serving this for breakfast is a far cry from the usual 'dim sum', curry mee or nasi lemak, and it's healthy and nutritious too.  There's no recipe really but I'll just list down below what are 'hidden' in these parcels :) Ham & Egg Parcels Ingredients 4 slices of cooked ham 4 large eggs Cherry tomatoes Salt, pepper and dried herbs Method Grease a standard size muffin pan.  ( I used a rectangular shape muffin pan) Press a ham slice onto the bottom and up the sides of  the prepared pan, ruffling the edes of ham Break an egg into a measuring cup and then pour it into the pan Sprinkle with pepper, a pinch of salt and some mixed dried herbs Top with tomato halves Bake in a preheated oven @ 200 deg.C for 15 to 18 mins till the whites are completely set  and the yolks cooked. Let stand for 3 to 5 mins. before removing ...