Before I got married, the only snack which I knew how to cook with Ikan Bilis (Dried Anchovies) was my so-called Ikan Bilis Snack recipe. After getting married, I cooked that dish for one of the meals and my wife remarked that her family version is slightly different. Sour and Spicy Ikan Bilis (a name I coined out) is slightly more elaborate but if you ask me, has a more complex but delicious taste compared to Ikan Bilis Snack.

If you compare the two recipes, you will realize that Sour and Spicy Ikan Bilis has more ingredients compared to Ikan Bilis Snack. The combined use of thinly sliced aromatic shallots, fresh chillis and garlic with ikan bilis with a twist of lime makes this dish truly appetizing and refreshing. You can eat it as a snack (provided you have a couple of glasses of drink to help you quench your thirst) or as an accompaniment to steamed white rice. Give it a try as it is really simple to prepare and cook.

This is my wife’s recipe for Sour and Spicy Ikan Bilis Read the rest of this entry »

Watercress and Red Dates Soup is my wife’s favourite soup. It is a popular soup among the Chinese and is another one of those really simple soup to cook. You can either cook it over the stove, slow cooker or even double boiled. The ingredients used are also pretty simple and the cooking steps are suitable for beginners whilst the nutritional benefits are aplenty. Though some restaurants use the older shoots for cooking this soup, I prefer the younger shoots as they are more tender and chewable-friendly

To cook this soup, I actually boil the meat (pork) for about 1 to 2 minutes and removed the scum appearing on the surface of the boiling water to get rid of potential “unpleasant” taste. The water is thrown away and the meat is then cooked into the soup. I prefer using bony pork parts (eg. ribs, shoulder, back) for this soup but you can also use chicken parts.

As for the watercress, I will pluck the tender shoots / stem with its leaves intact and discard the main longish stems. The shoots will shrink in size upon cooking by at least 70% in volume. Hence, you might have 3 soup bowl volumes of watercress shoots but upon cooking, you will be left with approximately 1 bowl or less.

This is my recipe for Watercress and Red Dates Soup Read the rest of this entry »

This is my first attempt at this recipe. I still have more than half a bottle of plum sauce in my fridge and following from last Sunday’s shopping trip, I have 300 grammes of pork loin chops. So, what I did was to marinade the pork loin chops overnight so that on Monday, I could whip up a simple dish in less than 30 minutes when I get home from work.

This dish essentially relies heavily on the commercially available plum sauce, which you can get from supermarkets or asian groceries. Though it is widely used in duck cooking, personally I think it works well with pork too (especially loin cut or ribs). The taste is a mixture of sour and sweet, with a distinct aroma from plums used. The plum sauce I have uses a little bit of chilli in its ingredients and hence, it has a slight hint of spiciness to it, but which otherwise is unnoticeable. I would say that it is an appetising dish and is a worthy companion to steamed white rice.

This is my recipe for Plum Sauce Pork Loin Chops Read the rest of this entry »

This was a quick dish which I whipped up last Thursday. I had gotten home slightly early and decided to cook something simple based on what I have in my fridge. I still had 1 more tube of Japanese Tofu in the fridge and a small piece of pork tenderloin which would be easy to defrost. With a little bit of mushrooms and carrots, this is what I cooked. A simple, yet delicious dish of tofu.

I decided to place a piece of tofu each on soup spoons just for the thrill of it. It’s quite handy as you can just pop them into your mouth. Otherwise, just arrange the tofu onto a suitable plate for steaming. My daughter was going ooh! and ahh! and was delighted by the “cuteness” of this dish. Perhaps you might want to try this to impress your little ones as well.

This is my recipe for Steamed Japanese Tofu with Minced Pork Read the rest of this entry »