I was shopping in Costco few weeks back and saw they sell beef ribs! First time ever and I have been shopping there for a couple of years. I am not sure I am just unlucky in missing them or they only just started as we get more choice to to Restaurants not doing business during lockdown.

I sincerely hope they will continue selling as both my boy and I love them especially show cooked in Sousvide.

Some pics on how I cook ours today.

Beef ribs cooked this way maintain the tastiness and the meat will be melt in the mouth cottony soft.

You can cook the gravy in anyway you chose. I used bone marrow sauce today from the supermarket. It was not bad. I added a beef OXO cube and freshly ground Sarawak pepper.

You can marinate your beef ribs with anything you like. I am partial to using wholegrain Dijon mustard too.

p/s if you do not have an industrial blow torch you can pan sear in a hot wok, preferably cast iron with butter but do not forget to add any residue to your gravy pot.

p/s You can also thicken your jus/gravy with a lump of beurre manié – “kneaded butter” – dough, consisting of equal parts by volume of soft butter and flour if you are not serving with mashed potatoes.

The possibilities are endless – kekekekeke

Beef Stroganoff is originally a Russian dish of sautéed pieces of beef served in a sauce made with sour cream. From its origins in mid-19th-century Russia, it has become a very popular dish around the world, with considerable variation from the original recipe.

It is a very easy dish to cook and pleasantly nice to eat especially if you add a more liberal dash of brandy. I have not made it for a long time but recently I am so lazy I just want to cook dishes that takes less than an hour from start to finishing cleaning my kitchen.

Hubby loved it and had 2 bowls for his lunch! That mean I passed. He can have 2 bowls but no more bread.

Remember you can add more mushrooms, onions etc. When I could I love to add whole small onions. it is entirely up to you. As there is so many variation of this dish make it your own by cooking it to suit yourself.

Today we are still in lockdown in the UK due to Covid-19. This morning I woke up in a cooking mood. At first I wanted to cook 3 meals for today, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

However I ended up only cooking 2 meals. Brunch of roast chicken with noodles and dinner is traditional old British stew.

So early in the morning I phoned my mother in law and went over with her the steps for cooking this dish. I have watched her enough time cooking it but it’s nice to hear her instructions kekekekekeke She did give me a very crucial information that I did not know before!!! Then I realised why I don’t like cooking stews. It sticks to the bottom of my pan and I need to soak overnight to wash!

However due to my mother in law’s tip I cooked the best stew ever and nothing stuck to the bottom of my pan. My son woofed down 5 dumplings when he came back from. I will definitely cook this for him again! His ‘so good mum’ makes me so happy.

It is seldom that I cook stew because I am also not a big fan of stew but today I cook for my son as I know he loves a good stew with dumplings, lots of my special dumplings. Also when he last went out to do shopping with his Dad a fortnight ago he bought a stew pack – a packet from the supermarket containing the root vegetables for stew. I think that is a big HINT!

I have a few potatoes left so I decided to add them in too to bulk it up a bit. Both the hubby and the son were really happy!

Note – Traditionally you can serve this with mashed potatoes but I prefer to stew the potatoes as well. One step of work less.

As I am going to cook spaghetti bolognese today I just realised that my recipe in my old blog is still missing from this new blog. So I have decided it’s time I update it here in this new blog.

My boy asked for his comfort food and I made the bolognese sauce today so he has a few meals as his tapau.

There are many ways of making a bolognese sauce and almost every household has their own secret recipes. This humble origin from the Italy city of Bologna is now a household staple here in England. The French add in bouquet garni, some uses a touch of cream and in UK children from baby to the elderly love spaghetti bolognese. It is fed to baby like rice porridge in Malaysia. Of course the Italian purist would say we have corrupted their dish.

This take about 30 minutes of cooking, an hour of simmering and after that it is a very flexible and versatile sauce with many usage.

In the UK we too are under quarantine and have since moved to quite stringent quarantine, just short of a total lockdown due to this virus Covid 19.

I have not left my house since Friday the 13th. As I am of the high risk group I decided to quarantine myself early on. In the last 2 weeks my husband and son have been doing the groceries shopping but of course they come back with nothing matching my list and we just have to laugh. It’s eat what we can.

As of Tuesday my daughter work decided to shut down and she brought back a lot of milk, chips and eggs. My son managed to finally purchased for me 2 whole chickens (after 3 weeks) so we are good for a while.

We have now decided not to go out at all and only things that needed to be topped up would be done by my son who is front line staff and is working right though.

Mummy is very proud of her boy and of course have to cook what he loves and he loves Carbonara , his mum’s Carbonara to be exact. (Also because my double cream is on it’s due date today) kekekekekeke

As I looked in my blog I found that I have not post this recipe in this new blog. It was on the old blog that was lost sadly so today I typed in this 30 minute recipe.

I am not even going to argue about whether Carbonara is only made with olive oil, no cream or vice versa. I believed that in different parts of Italy is is made differently as some parts will have dairy and some not BUT this is how I was taught and this is how my son love his! PEACE

The weather is abysmal today. Rain rain and more raindrops, not heavy rain just constant wetness.

Hubby needed lunch earlier as he has a meeting and I decided to go for tender slices of beef in bagels with onions, cheese and mushrooms. An easy half hour cook.

I bought a piece of beef skirt for £5. it weight about a kg. Beef skirt is not too expensive and when cook this way it is not bad to eat and hubby loves it as not too fatty. otherwise he is not a fan of red meat. I often use beef skirt to cook stir fry, leeks, Chinese leave cabbage etc.

My tip on making the beef really soft and tender – Hubby loves his beef this way. It’s the secret Chinese way. Often I have been asked by the Brits what is the Chinese secret to making really tender beef with our stir fries, just like the ones they get from the restaurants and this is the way.

The secret is bicarbonate of soda. The most important secret is not too much and do not marinate too long. You want to tenderizes the beef not turn them into mush. if you do it this way I guarantee you no more tough beef.

However this is unnecessary with expensive cuts of beef like chateaubriand, filet mignon etc

TIP – Do not season your beef before o when frying. Salting the beef now draws out the juice and won’t leave them tender and juicy. Season AFTER frying.

TIP – If you want to use as stir fry Asian style lose the worcestershire sauce and instead use soy sauce, touch of rice wine and a tsp of cornstarch. Loosen the marinated beef with sesame oil before hitting the pan to flash fry with garlic, ginger etc. Then use your tender beef to fry your vegetables of choice.

Shepherd Pie brings back a lot of memories. This is because I have to make a potato mash for it.

Two and twenty years ago my ex boyfriend went to Malaysia to meet me. The very first Western dish I made for him is mash potatoes. He was telling me how to make it nice as he finds the ones in Malaysia, funny tasting. I still remembered he said taste like chicken?

He was mashing the boiled potatoes but for some reason I can’t remember why, he had to pop to the sundry shop and left me to continue. So like a true Malaysian I sat on the floor and mash the boiled potatoes adding in butter slowly, alternating with a milk, a pinch of salt, some freshly ground pepper like I was told.

When he came back from the shop I had finished and he was shocked to discovered I added in the entire 250g of butter Well I was not told how much to add in! I was tasting as I was adding and it tasted better and better with more butter and so I added more and more butter until the whole block was gone!

The silly things we do that now seems so funny. Nowadays I am only using half a block but I have moved from using milk to cream for that really rich taste.

Just for some extra information –

If you use lamb mince it’s Shepherd Pie

If you make with mince beef and red wine it is Cottage Pie.