Stir Fried Asparagus

A few days ago I ate this delicious salad with asparagus as the main ingredient and I have been craving for more of this vegetable because I love the crunchy texture. So I decided to cook it Chinese style instead just to have a go at a different taste.

You have to be careful not to overcook asparagus because you will lose the crunchiness and the vitamins. I added a little of the Chinese sweet and sour stir fry sauce for that extra oomph! :) You can get this at any convenience store, it blends it very well with garlic.

Ingredients

1 clove of garlic, diced

1 small red onion, cut into fine slices

100gms asparagus, cleaned

2 tsp Chinese sweet and sour sauce

soy sauce to taste

Instructions

Heat oil in pan. Fry garlic and onion till fragrant. Pour in asparagus and fry for 1 minute. Add in sweet and sour sauce and soya sauce. Fry for another 1 minute. Ready to serve.

Crispy Roast Pork

I bought some roast pork from the wet market as I was craving for it. In western countries, roast pork is usually eaten with apple sauce and rosemary. The Chinese normally have their roast pork with white rice together with other dishes.

To make the roast pork fragrant with that extra flavour, sauteed it with garlic, soya sauce and oyster sauce. It really makes a difference to the tastebuds!! I hope the pictures speak for themselves.

Home Cooked Restaurant Meal

Hey ya! Have been away the last couple of days.....hence the blogging hiatus. I wanted to share with you guys this yummy-licious post of some home-cooked dishes at a Chinese restaurant where I recently had a family dinner.

This restaurant is only 3 months old so we decided to try it. Apparently, their portions are quite generous. Well, I hope they remain generous and is not some marketing promotion to draw in the initial customers.

We ordered 5 dishes and they all tasted pretty good. My favorite was the marmite pork ribs where they deep fry the ribs and coat them with marmite sauce. The next 4 were Hong Kong style claypot chicken, ginger spring onion fish, special house tofu and stir fry 'yau mak'.

Are you feeling hungry yet? :) lol

Salted Egg Chicken Porridge

Porridge is enjoyed by a lot of Chinese people. Traditionally in history, porridge, potatoes and rice were the main staple in Chinese meals as they were easy to prepare and not extravagant.

Over the generations, porridge has continued to remain a favorite but these days, people are more creative in the way they cook porridge. Basically, you can add any type of meat and vegetable to cook in your porridge.

I love to eat my porridge with salted duck eggs and shallots. I grew up eating porridge this way and it has stayed with me ever since. To add to the nutritional value, I put in carrots and chicken.

Let me know if you enjoyed this porridge after trying my recipe.

Ingredients

300gm chicken breast meat, cut in thin slices

100gm old ginger, shredded

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp corn flour

1 tbsp soya sauce

Marinade the chicken with above ingredients and leave for 1 hour in fridge.

1 carrot, thinly sliced

2 salted duck eggs, cooked and halved

6 shallots, fried till crispy

Instructions

1. Cook 2 cups of rice in a rice cooker. Keep the lid semi-open if yours is a conventional rice cooker. If your rice cooker has a porridge function, then keep the lid tightly closed.

2. When the water boils, pour in the carrots.

3. Let it boil for 1min, then add in the marinated chicken slices and stir well. Close the lid.

4. When the porridge texture is nice and thick, scoop up in a bowl. If you prefer your porridge to be more diluted, add more water initially.

5. Serve with salted eggs and shallots.

Oranges Galore

There's nothing healthier than eating a whole lot of fruits, especially on a hot day. I love citrus fruits......oranges, grapefruit, etc. Sweet oranges really make my day.

I grew up drinking orange juice but now I prefer eating the fruit entirely. This is after I realized that orange juice does not comprise of the same nutritional benefits as eating the fruit (that's because the juice will not have fiber). But orange juice wins in the department of quenching my thirst anytime! lol......

Here's a tip to choose sweet and juicy oranges. The skin must feel supple and not dry. The texture of the orange should be smooth and not crinkled. A crinkled orange indicates that the orange is not fresh and is semi-dried on the inside. Feel the orange, if it is slightly soft when pressed, you can be assured that it is juicy. A hard orange will lack juice and contains more pulp.

Oranges are a great source of vitamin C, vitamin B6, betacarotene, calcium, folic acid, magnesium, potassium and thiamin. Taking one orange a day is equivalent to 100% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C.

Oranges also reduce the risk of cholesterol, high blood pressure, kidney stones, heart diseases and cancer. The anti-oxidant properties of oranges help to protect the skin from free radicals that cause premature aging.

So with all that said, go eat your sweet, juicy oranges today! :-)

Home Made Chicken Soup

We usually have soup for dinner at least once a week. Soup is good to replenish the fluids and re-energize the body. If boiled with chicken or pork, the essence will be infused into the soup and you get all the goodness, sometimes even better than eating the meat on its own. That's because the sweetness of the meat is all contained in the soup.

I boiled this soup with dried longans, wolfberries, red dates and chinese herbs called 'yuk chuk'. A good soup is boiled for at least 3 hours. If you are short for time, try to boil for 2 hours at the minimum. Do you know that soups boiled with charcoal fire tastes better than those boiled with gas fire?

Another tip to stay healthy........try to remove all the skin from the chicken for boiling soups. Fats from chicken or any meat are bad for cholesterol and unhealthy for the heart.

Anyway, here's my recipe.

Ingredients
Half a chicken, de-skinned
10 dried longans
20 red dates
1 small bowl of wolfberries
1 small bowl of chinese herbs or 'yuk chuk'

Instructions
1. Put a medium pot of water to boil over high flame.
2. Place the chicken into the pot. Remove the residue and excess oil from the pot.
3. Pour in longans, red dates, wolfberries and chinese herbs.
4. Reduce to low flame and boil for 3 hours. Add some water after 2 hours of boiling.

What's the Malibu Pilates Chair?

Today I thot I'd post about my review of the Malibu Pilates Chair. As you know, I'm a fitness buff as well and I write about health and fitness issues on top of my love of cooking and food.

Just finished another site on Pilates......my all time favorite exercise. This time I focused on Malibu Pilates Chair, a very popular equipment used by Pilates practitioners. The best part is it can be used at home or in the studio.

Read in detail about this great machine which does wonders to shape your body. I appreciate any comments you may have. Just drop me a mail at the comments section below. See ya!
http://www.squidoo.com/reviewofmalibupilateschair.