So yesterday my daughter came home from work with 2 big bunches of freshly picked wild garlic. Her chef at work said to her, “Chinese like to stir fry them” so he picked me 2 big bunches. The gal said he don’t think us Chinese do more than just stir fry! Grrrrrrr…………………

How wrong is he! I am going to do this post and will update all that I have done with wild garlic slowly. I told the gal to remind him that I, little old me, not a chef, never attended a cooking/baking class in my life but I can cook/make all his western wild garlic usage of pasta, pesto, soup, infused oil, risotto, salads dressings, pickled and the like. I can also make Chinese bao, dumplings, pancakes, noodles, curries, crisps, Chinese flower rolls, spring rolls, egg drop soup……endless! So do not annoy me.

Today I made a few things……………….

Beancurd crisps

A few years ago one of my girls introduced me to these type of ‘crisps’ and I have spent hundreds £ buying them. However the standard seemed to be slowly dropping over the years. All I get nowadays is a lot of saltiness and nothing else. On one of my trip back to UK from Malaysia I carried so many in my hand luggage, I was prepared to be on newspaper – woman eating beancurd crips at airport because could not bring on board! I am now quite organised and competent in making them. Here are pics with TIPs

Next wantons

• I wanted to add in the fresh wild garlic and this is how I did it.

Garlic Butter

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Thus far I have cooked 2 dishes. – Salted fish steamed with pork belly

Salted fish braised with toufo.

Fry toufo after coating with a mixture of rice and corn flours before frying garlic and shallots. Add the carrots and a whole head of Chinese leaf cabbage. Including the soaked mushrooms and the soaking liquid. Seasoned with a touch of oyster sauce, salt and pepper and light soy sauce. Hubby loves it.

Slicing, frying and packing.

Signed Sealed Delivered – All mine

Zeepers – Keepers

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The second dish I wanted to make with the chayote fruit is Jiu Hu Char. I grew up in Kuching, Sarawak. My mother will cook this traditional dish – Jiu Hu Char with jicama (bangkwang) every Chinese New Year. It is one of my more favoured dish. We sauced it with baked beans. Even then, it must be the certain brand that begins with the alphabet ‘H’. We were indeed quite spoiled.

Today I used the chayote fruit but I did not ‘cook’ it. I washed and soaked the cuttlefish strands (Jiu Hu, in Hokkien dialect) and drained. In hot oil I fry till the wonderful aroma emerges. Then I added in beaten eggs. Actually would be better if I make omelette and sliced thinly but I am a tad lazy today. All day it has been wet and cold and deary in Hertfordshire. Then I hand sliced the chayote fruit and added in after heat off from my wok. Together with spring onions and one red chili. I do prefer colourful dish. Seasoning was salt and freshly ground pepper, pinch of sugar and I harvested my calamansi lime and added the juice. Served on iceberg lettuce with dash of chili sauce. Heaven is a filled lettuce leaf?

Most enjoyable time was eating these wraps – kekekekekek I love cuttlefish any which way period. Grilled, processed with chili and sugar, dried and fluffed etc. Today’s cook affirm to me that I do prefer to eat my chayote more towards the raw side.

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When I am gifted something, I like to make the best use of it. I like to think ummm……’out of the box’ sort to speak and I enjoy tremendously the drafting period.

I was given some chayote fruits and I wanted to cook something different with them. I have 2 ideas and today I used one fruit to make ngoh hiang. My only criticism is that next time I would not use my nakiri knife. I would avoid julienning them so finely because I missed the ‘bite’. Hence next time I shall slice thicker if I use them like so.

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Sometimes an idea popped into my head and I just have to try it out. Today I cooked a new dish. When I do so, I often put (signatory mine). This idea has been ‘brewing’ for awhile now. The morels have been sitting in the cupboard for more than a year. I am going to buy some more soon so it is time to advance from idea into tummies.

The other day I made some of my preferred chicken and prawns paste. Today I stuffed the morels with them, coated with breadcrumbs, fried, sauced and served. Both the cook and the taster aka hubby are wearing wide beaming smiles. One is happy that an idea which had been brewing for a year finally came to fruition. The other is happy from eating because he loves all manner of fungi.

Note: Sauce was the broth from soaking the morels mushrooms. It included cornflour, mushrooms granules, and a touch of salt & pepper. Add oyster sauce and a dash of sherry. Lastly add in a pinch of sugar.

TIP – I did not pour sauce on top all over because we are not finishing them all at once. So sauce only on your bowl before eating.

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There is a Farmfoods supermarket near my house. They recently had an offer on their raw prawns. I am a fan! Needless to say today I went to town on them. I made 3 different types of pastes

1 – Ratio of 50/50 chicken mince to prawns

2 – Mince half prawns to fine paste and the other half mince to about 70%. The paste helps to stick and the rest for that nice bite.

3 – Mince half the prawns to fine paste, half to about 70% and then add more whole prawns. I put 2 whole prawns into each wraps.

The first tub of paste 50/50 was used to make yong liew – here

From the young liew we have 2 meals for 2 days.

The second tub of paste was used to make prawn toasties – here

And the third tub was use to make beancurd wraps – here . I have actually make 3 different types of wraps for 3 different usage. Note – I fried these wraps just lightly. This is because I want to air fry them before serving. This ensures that they are more crispy and also help to get rid of some oil. It will brown more then. As for the ones for freezing I fried them literally just a minute on each side. Next, I have to wait a few hours. Let them lose their crispness before storing them into zip-lock bags. Then freeze them. TIP – for the freezer ones I used a longer beancurd sheets because I air fry them for noodles. With curry noodles they would be a great ‘soaking’ vessels for curry broth.

All these I got from 2.5 kg of prawns because they are on offer now 3kg for £30! I hope you enjoy trying!

p/s will update my braise dish when it is cooked.

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I love prawn toasties. However they often tip a tad onto the oily side. My daughter is a big fan of prawns. Even my husband, who termed them as scavengers/cockroaches of the sea, loves prawn toasties. So I have to think of a way of frying them yet not too oily. This is how I have done it.

Prawns paste recipe – 500g prawns. Add 1 tablespoon of cornflour. Include salt & pepper to taste. Use 1 tsp of sesame oil (optional) or you can use shallots/garlic oil. Add in half cup water more or less slowly till combine into a paste. TIP – I added more prawns after my paste is done. I like to have that ‘surprising’ prawn bite texture, so I do not blend them too finely. It is entirely up to you.

TIP – Melt a 50/50 measure of butter/oil. To fry, place a tablespoon of the butter and oil mix onto a non stick pan. Place the bread paste side down and leave it for 2 minutes on medium heat. Press down with a flat wide spatula. Then flip over for a minute before removing. Repeat with all the slices using a tablespoon of the butter and oil mix each time. It is that simple.

Before serving place into air fryer and on max heat, heat for 5 minutes. Remove, slice as you wish and serve. This removes more oil and crisp them up to perfection. Goes very nice with beer! Enjoy!

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Since then I have been thinking and thinking. Is there a way to pacify the Western’s palate? In the West, anything crispy is considered the best. Chicken skin is like the holy grail after crispy bacon of course.

I have also neglected to update my blog for awhile. I have only been cooking the same old, same old and simple food. But my kitchen has been producing ‘experimental’ food lately. This recipe is not my usual authentic cook but I experimented and I think it is quite cool.

I was gifted some special rendang paste that flew in all the way from Kuching, Sarawak courtesy of my classmates. Today I used it to marinated my spatchcock corn fed chicken. Then I vacuum sealed it.

I seasoned my potatoes with Masala and my favourite spices before vacuum sealed ready for the SousVide in one layer.

For my crispy skin, I removed the skin after SousVide and pan fry them – kekekekekeke

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Awhile ago I wrote a post on Yong Liew. In this dish, you stuff fish paste into different vessels. Then you fry them or cook them in your chosen broth. Please refer to this recipe here

Today I have an update. I tried this combo a few times. I found I really like it. Good fish paste is very hard to get in the UK. More often than not, I am most disappointed. Can’t even get the fish I want most times when I feel like making. So I decided to combine chicken and prawns and I found it very palatable. So this is a new take on Yong Liew I am not posting again my recipe again. Please use the link above as guide. Instead this update will be all pics with guidelines.

This paste is 500g chicken meat, 500g prawns, 1 tsp shallots oil, 2 heap tsp cornflour, salt + pepper to season and half cup water.

As I am frying the stuffed vegetables, I decided to fry some prawn crackers first. This not only flavoured the oil but less wastage because I will bin the oil after.

TIPs 1 – Put in more oil in the beginning when frying the prawns crackers. Then remove as I go on.

TIP 2 – First fry the inside out stuffed toufo-pop. They need more oil to crisp all round evenly.

TIP 3 – Then comes the stuffed aubergines as they also needs more oil to fry. If you have stuffed the paste well, the stuffing will remain intact. Your pot must be just right for the pieces to sit up close and personal. This ensures the stuffing does not break loose or fall out.

TIP 4 – When frying the toufo, it is a MUST to handle gently and this soft toufo breaks easily. Remove some oil before placing the toufo in stuffing side down. Leave them to fry for a good 2 minutes before flipping gently or you will mess them up, aka breaking.

TIP 5 – Remove even more oil before frying mushrooms and chilies. When you tidy your chilies to stuff, you must consider which side to place them. This way, they can be placed stuffing side down in the oil. You literally only need to fry the paste side. Remember you do not need to fry the vegetables. This means your paste stuffing will NOT fall out of your chilies.

TIP 6 – You can stuff bak choy and anything you wish. Just needs to gently press the paste into the nooks and corners. Again you make sure oil is only like 1cm deep. Just fry the paste side for 2 minutes. Then flip and remove. The residue oil will wilt the leaves.

TIP 7 – You can freeze toufo-pop because they freeze well for months. You can also freeze ‘hard/tough’ vegetables like bitter gourds. But soft vegetables like aubergines, bak choy, long beans, do not freeze well. They become horribly soft and mushy when defrosted. Well, you can if you like baby food.

Side Note – After you stuffed your vegetables they are all in room temperature. When hot oil hits them, they cook in minutes. Please do not fry too long. This is especially important for the toufo-pop if you want to freeze them and air fry another day. Today I braised some with ginger and yellow beans because hubby is nursing a bad tooth abscess. Hence all the soft toufo goes to him but he loves the stuffed chilies too.

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Yesterday we had very light dinner so we all woke up a tad hungry this morning. I decided to cook this fast dish as I have everything on hand. So breakfast was within half an hour. Managed to cut some spring onions from my garden. Really needs my spring onions to grow faster.

I have garlic and shallots oil ready. I also have minced pork ready as I always have some in my fridge. This is for a quick kon loh mee or sometimes hubby like the mince on brioche fingers! Try it. It’s very good the combo of sweet brioche and slightly salty mince. I also use them as toppings for a lot of other dishes of mine. Today I added some fish balls for the hubby too. Oh and I also like to tail my beansprouts when I am sat down watching the television. Then I will put them into a vacuum container in my fridge. Last for days and only soak and rinse with cold water when you want to use them and never before!

When I come back from Malaysia I usually dry my salt fish from Kuching. Then I fry them all up and portioned them. They go into my freezer and I eat at will. The loh shu fun was from Singapore, and it is not a bad brand. I happened to see them in a shop yesterday. So, I am a few packets richer now.

TIP – Please season with salt, pepper, pinch of sugar etc. I did not with mine because my mince were highly seasoned and I used shallots and garlic oils. To me just a touch of dark soy sauce and oyster sauce was enough. Season to your taste and make it yours. There is also no need for corn-starch slurry because I used 2 eggs. Break and mix, smooth and yum already. Season anyhow you wish. Make the dish yours.

Note – Just for F-Sake use a claypot. If not please don’t call it claypot noodles. Frying on a wok then serving it in a claypot is wrong! Call it stir fry if you do that! Enjoy.

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