malioboro ayam tulang lunak

Tender chicken thigh, covered lovingly with delicious salty egg sauce. How tender? Very tender. Super. Extremely.

pandan chiffon cake

My older sister was inspired to bake a pandan chiffon cake by an episode of Masterchef Australia where a contestant, Jay Huxley, was eliminated because his rendition of Ms G's pandan chiffon cake was a flop. She remembered that she has a recipe for chiffon cake from her mother-in-law and told me that she was going to make one. I'm not one to pass up a chance to blog, so I said, "Count me in, count me in, count me in!"

Plus, I still haven't figured out how to take great pictures while my hands are covered with food. Have to incessantly wipe my grubby paws before getting them on my camera. Not a problem when I'm not the one cooking.

napa cabbage clear soup with prawns & vermicelli

When I was in Beijing, China for a year to learn mandarin, I went through a phase of eating lots and lots of napa cabbage, either fresh or in kimchi form. I don't eat as much of them now as I did then, but they are still my favourite vegetable.

So, why do I love this vegetable so much? Napa cabbage, or wombok, has this natural sweetness that I really like. Unlike other cabbages, the napa variety does not smell funny (normal cabbage), nor does it taste bitter (brussels sprout).

cafe asia stir fried chicken with fresh mushroom

Cafe Asia, or Asian Cafe as we like to call it, is a frequent hang-out, mainly because my parents and sister like this place so much. Personally, I can't see why.

Last night we went there again, the restaurant was almost at full capacity with all kinds of Northbridge riff raff. There was a multicultural family at one table, a quintessential Italian nonna and nonno at another, and there were asian students all abounds.

crispy fried salmon & gochujang watercress

This is one of the quick easy meals that I like to make when I'm not in the mood for spending 40 minutes whipping something up. And of course, the omega-3 boost is not a bad bonus either.

I thought this up quite by accident actually. I had some hot pepper paste (korean: gochujang) in the pantry that I had bought in a whim but had not been using. So I made this recipe up to utilise the gochujang and to alleviate my guilt.

wonton noodle

OK, this may be a cheat version of wonton noodle (pangsit mie), but I can't help but to love it. I had such a nostalgic craving for a bowl of this noodle one day, I decided to reconstruct it. Obviously nothing can beat the original, but this was the closest I can get to the one I usually eat in my local noodle shop back in my hometown. I have to warn you this recipe uses store-bought wontons and noodle.

bamboo-shoot-hearts-prawns

One of the reasons why I heart this dish is because I can cook it whenever I want to. The bamboo shoots are canned and I usually have some frozen prawns in the freezer. I love it for the texture of the bamboo shoots combined with the sweetness of the prawns, the spiciness of the chillies and the saltiness of the soy sauce.

This dish is perfect as a side dish, I wouldn't serve it as the main dish as it is not substantial enough. It goes very well with milder dishes like my i-feel-better-already chicken porridge or my hearty tofu & pork.

chako bbq

After our first failed attempt at having the all-you-can-eat barbecue at Chako, we made sure that this time we came in early and arrived just before their lunch hour opening time. It's actually pretty great coming so early, food arrived in a matter of minutes, the waitperson was attentive and not frantic.

We ordered everything in the menu in our first order, then the second and subsequent orders we only got things that we liked. I liked the pork short ribs, whereas my husband liked the beef. The meats came marinated, but somehow the marinade of one dish was a bit similar in taste to another. So, it was a bit monotone on the palate.

stir-fry chicken & noodle with egg sauce

This stir-fry chicken is originally supposed to be served with rice. But, I modified it to my liking by serving it with noodle and adding the egg sauce, and voila! For those of you who has rightly said that I am way too much of a carnivore, this one is for you. There are more vegetables than meat in this dish, so it's super healthy.

oxtail soup

I cannot tell you how much affection I have for my grandmother. Because of her, I now have a multitude of comfort-food dishes which I can draw on. But, more importantly, these dishes always bring back to me such fond memories of her.

And now, I have the pleasure of sharing these simply great food with my dear husband. But, I do hope you will enjoy it as much as we have.

Without further ado, I bring to you oxtail soup (sop buntut). There are a many different ways and a many different ingredient variations in which you can cook oxtail soup. But this particular one was my grandmother's version and one that I have known all my life and loved.

destiny crispy chicken with honey

Crispy chicken with honey black pepper - $8.99

We were in Vaughan looking at properties and we got so carried away that we forgot to have lunch. Initially we wanted to go to Chako Barbecue Izakaya and have a big all-you-can-eat feed, but when we got there it was already 2.30pm (their lunch service stops at 3pm). So, we ended up next door at Destiny Asian Fusion.

red soup

For you non-asians, I know what you're thinking, what the heck is red soup (or sup merah)! It's actually a very common recipe in Chinese families. I'm guessing that it's made up during the war when the only meat they could find was the canned variety.


Every family has a different recipe, this is my family's recipe which I have modified a bit. My mother got this recipe from my grandmother, and now she has given it to me (plus her modifications).

I guess that's how family recipes are passed down, you might choose to add a little bit of this or that and adapt the recipe to make it your own. I do have to say that you cannot modify or remove the tomatoes as an ingredient. The tomatoes are the crucial ingredient which makes the soup red.

chop-chop fried noodles

Continuing on my speedy recipe series, today I will introduce you to my chop-chop fried noodles. What I sometimes do when I can`t be bothered cooking is buy a whole roast chicken from Coles. I eat the thighs & drumsticks with rice. But I hate eating the breast meat, so I usually let someone else eat it. More often than not, though, I ended up making it into my chop-chop fried noodles.

1. Wokka thin egg style noodle
2. Whole roast chicken
3. You choy
4. Chop-chop fried noodles