“I wanted to make this album for a long time and finally have a double boiler. I hope you will try and make this. This was taught to me by my ex MIL who hailed from China. She passed away nearly 3 decades ago but she taught me a lot of 康熙帝 Kāngxī Di’s cooking and Chinese herbs.” – 25th January 2015 (Facebook)

My original blog was lost but due to Facebook’s albums I was able to retrieve some photos and this album. Today while talking to a lady I was suddenly reminded of this as I do need to partake in some goodness aka pure chicken essence with herbs, as I am still not as strong after suffering and recovering from Covid19. I need to renew my energy and boast some strength.

I decided to take out my double boiler and start working on ‘healing’ myself a bit. So I resurfaced these photos and redo this album in my new blog. This time my blog would never be lost as hubby has saved all in 3 different places, 3 copies – kekekekeke He had also written a program to update automatically each time I update it.

As I boil more and more ‘healing soups’ I will be posting new photos but for the moment these are old photos just to explain the procedures. I never post soups much even though we have herbal soups at least twice a week. I always thought people know how to boil soups. Recently I realised this is not actually true.

I do know that nowadays many people won’t be boiling tonic soups or make chicken essence like this but I have always drank chicken essence this way. I would never drink the jars stuff as when comparing the taste, the jar stuff tasted like chicken stock with ajinomoto. To me they are only suitable for seasoning a dish.

A lot of tonic stuff nowadays come in packets and you only need to steep them with hot water. Again that’s fine but they are not the Real McCoy.

This IS The Real McCoy.

The pipa ( Chinese: 琵琶) pronounced as ‘pee-pah’ is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 26. Pipa toufo should resemble the shape of a pipa.

Every time I go outside to have food, admittedly not that often, I always order pipa toufo if it’s in the menu list. I love this dish a lot but I have always shy away from making it as I don’t like the frying bit. However as my old recipe was in the old blog which is lost, it is time to update into this new blog but with hopefully a new look. I wanted to make for some weeks now as I have not been in any eatery places barred once this entire year! (Covid19)

For the past few weeks I was really looking forward to cooking and eating this. Needless to say as you can see from these pics, today I am wearing a huge smile on my face. Recently I have been challenging myself to try and plate Asian food nicely, I am quite happy today with my amateurish attempt. One needs to try in order to learn right?

Actually with age come wisdom? Experiences of cooking thus far enable me to fry these babies with NO SPITTING at all. I tried my ideas today and it worked! So I will share my TIPs

TIP 1 – Steaming the pipa toufo the night before and allowing them to ‘dry’ overnight is helpful in the no spitting department.

TIP – Coating the pipa toufo and letting them rest for 30 minutes before a quick frying is double happiness to NO SPITTING

TIP – I always thought pipa toufo can look better. More like a pipa (琵琶) so I have decided to use a mushroom stalk and some chives. I am wearing a happy smile because it works. Well I think in my eyes my pipa toufo looks more like a pipa

TIP – You may and can change the protein but remember not to liquefied them or your pipa toufo will taste tough. Likewise you can add water chestnuts, spring onions and others. using celery is good too as it gives that extra crunch.

TIP – I used a shimeji mushroom for the pipa look and chives for the pipa strings.

Again use my recipe as a guide, mind my TIPS and own this recipe yourself. Good luck and enjoy cooking.

Disclaimer – Written quickly, if you find any mistakes please poke me as I am lazy to check now.

Some friends have been poking/nagging me to update my blog as it is still missing a lot of recipes from the old blog. I have also not updated this blog for a while. However, though I have been cooking, I just don’t think my daily cooks deserved or needed to be blogged.

Update : TIP – Not only must you not mince your protein and toufo too much you must also DRAIN your toufo well before mixing so your paste is easier to handle and not liquidly.

It is without a doubt that if you want to eat something to your taste or if you are fussy with your food then you have to learn to make it yourself. I have to admit I am quite fussy though my close friends will say I am extremely fussy.

I, on the other hand blame my parents for teaching me to eat well and my father-in-law, fish monger extraordinaire from Devon was a good cook too. So I have been influenced by the best from both sides of the world.

I am not sure how many times I have made this throughout the years but normally this is made with pork belly minced. I wanted to encourage a friend to add this to her menu repertoire so I created this chicken breast meat and prawns combo. I think this time this simple combo is actually not too bad judging by my food critic hubby. This is the 3rd time I made them in so many weeks and he still loves them! The first time was way too ‘tough’ and I realised I must not mince the chicken too much. I practise and learn as I have willing guinea pigs The family actually prefers beancurd skin to springrolls skin wraps.

Barred the rice wine this is actually halal. I am not sure what can be used to get that ‘alcohol’ taste but my friend would have to experiment that by herself kekekekekek

Featured in this post is my signature beancurd wrap with a piece of Nori wrap in the middle. My husband really loves this because he says it taste better! The umami ……

I actually prefers Fu Pei Guen – 腐皮卷 to Ngoh Hiang (五香 / Lor Bak) I think this is basically because I am not a big Chinese five spice fan. I do not mind a light hint of it but I hate it when I burrrrpppped an hour later and still ‘taste’ it.

Anyway my advise is use my recipe as a guide, add or minus as much or as little as your like to suits your taste and make it your recipe. The only warning I can give is that you don’t make your recipe too wet.

Enjoy.

p/s if you have read till here then I think you deserves a big HINT

HINT – if you do not want to use so much prawns and loves the prawns taste, you can soaked a handful of dried shrimps and blend them to dust and add to your fillings. You will NOT regret it.

Second HINT – Fry a tiny bit of the fillings and taste. See if you need to adjust the seasonings etc before wrapping.

Third HINT – After wrappings leave your wraps to dry a bit before frying. Wet = oil spitting.

Update – 8th October 2020 – I made another batch today with equal amount of chicken, minced pork belly and prawns. Everything else remains the same but I added fresh coriander and if you like coriander then it’s good.

Hubby requested I wrap smaller but with nori – my signature fu pei guen. He prefers the nori for the extra umami taste.

Today I am going to make Loh Mai Kai aka glutinous rice chicken. It’s another dish that disappeared with my old blog and now that we are in lock down and it’s too cold to go into my garden yet, I will update to this new blog.

I make this dish once or twice a year only, hence it is not worth it for me to buy the proper bowls. Now that was before. I have since been given a set of stainless steel bowls especially for making this dish. I do not like using tin foil either so stainless steel bowls it is! If you do not have any then using rice bowls is all right too. I will never order or eat this dish outside, especially in London because I do not know how many times they have been steamed and re- steamed nor how long and how many days they have been kept. Have they been kept safely and hygienically and so on.

Once in a blue moon I will order at Dim Sum restaurants just to try but am too often disappointed with the soggy soft mess. I much preferred my glutinous rice to be al dente aka with a bit of a bite. Plus the fact my home made ones has more ‘liew’, toppings.

Mushrooms should be plum thick and saucy, chicken should taste of chicken which one can only get from chopping a whole chicken yourself. The Chinese sausage should be thin but not too thin with a bite to them, not soft so one can taste the different texture.

I always like to serve my home made Loh Mai Kai 糯米鸡 with spring onions and crispy garlic. Freshness from the spring onions and crunch form the crispy garlic, umami taste of the mushroom, sweet Chinese sausage, smell of sesame oil mingling with rice wine …………..

First updated on 19th April 2017 – Old lost blog

The weather has been pants this last week. I have just taken into the house my baby okra plants as it has been quite cold and they are still not quite strong enough yet. It has been drizzling on and off the whole week but today is the worst! All day drizzling with the temperature just 13°C!

So today is a great day to have something with wine and ginger. My friend gave me a jar of home brewed glutinous rice wine. Today is the perfect day to use it up! I have a corn fed chicken and I am going to cook half of it.

Harvested some gigantic spring onions to add to my pot of yum.

Sarawak Laksa – a dish I cook a few times a year when I feel the urge and when I really, really miss the taste and when I feel a bit hardworking. I always ended up slurping a big bowl of the broth though.

I am quite particular when cooking Sarawak Laksa. I will buy fresh prawns, clean them, fry the heads and make a big pot of prawns broth. You can do this days or weeks ahead.

Then I will buy a corn fed chicken and boil it for chicken broth. Both the broths with be combined to make the main Sarawak Laksa stock. First fry the Sarawak laksa paste and then add in both the broths and bring to a boil. Let the stock simmer slowly for an hour or so or as long as you can stand it, before sieving and transferring to another clean pot.

TIP – You can make this the night before than on the day itself you only need to reheat and add in your coconut milk and evaporated milk. When I make this I never have enough broth and even worse when I invite my friends who all insist on tapaus! I think next time NO tapaus

To make the sambal to go with this I always used the sieved paste. My way is to fry the paste with the ‘oil’ from the Sarawak Laksa broth and add belacan, dried chillies & udang kering (dried shrimps). Season with a pinch of sugar to taste. Please refer to the pics.

Sarawak Laksa is special to all who have grown up with it. In fact for Sarawakian aboard the mere mention of Sarawak Laksa will make us really homesick! This is the same as Asam Laksa to Penangites. Non other paste in the world can compare to it’s distinctiveness. One taste you will be hooked forever. Like my friends here who have never eaten Sarawak laksa before until I cooked for them. Now they will always ask me for Sarawak Laksa when we do have a gathering. However my pastes are precious.

I am indeed lucky to have classmates who will bring over and classmates who will send me the paste. I am seriously considering importing Sarawak laksa paste to sell in the UK ——- if only I were 10 years younger and bother to – kekekekeke

The weather have been absolutely glorious and I have decided to fry chicken for my boy lollipop as I have not make my double dipped twice fried crispy chicken for him for a long time.

He always insisted that he preferred my fried chicken to the well known chain ones but I only fry for him a handful of times a year.

After the wet and cold of winter the weather have been almost spring like the last few days so today it is my special Double dipped twice fried crispy chicken day.

I much preferred to buy whole chicken and chop it myself. The chicken has been thoroughly massaged with salts and rinsed clean before chopping ready for marinating.

I did not have any buttermilk but I have lemons, milk and double cream so I decided to make my own buttermilk for my chicken marinate.

It is better to marinate your chicken overnight but if you do not have the chance then a good 3 to 4 hours would be preferred.

Frying time is given based on the fact that my chicken pieces are at room temperature.

Double dipping and twice fried makes the chicken really crispy. Remember the whole trick is to shake the seasoned flour away after each coating.

Enjoy!