Similar to western food culture, a Chinese banquet is not complete without a sweet dessert at the end of the meal.  Snow Fungus with pear is a typical sweet dessert soup for those special occasions such as Chinese New Year. 

The dehydrated snow fungus slow-cooked with Asian pear, goji berries, date and rock sugar. Because of the collagen content in snow fungus, this dessert often associated with nourishing and replenish the skin. Hence, it often calls the ‘poor man’s bird nest’.

From traditional Chinese food culture point of view, as Bin Wang mentioned earlier about 药 (medicine) 食 (food) 同 (same) 源 (source), is a common philosophy about how we treat food and medicine as the same things. 

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, we believe it is better to prevent illness by eating appropriate food that is more suited to one's body type and for a specific time and season. This approach is call 药 (Medicine) 膳 (food) 养 (maintain) 生 (life) (the theory to improve health condition and prevent illness by incorporating ingredients with medicinal properties in meals.

From the Traditional Chinese Medicine point of view, there is not a dominant ingredient. An ingredient is rarely be eat on its own but as part of a formula containing several ingredients that act together to achieve a Yin and Yang balanced and harmonious state of a healthy body.

This approach to finding balance is the core Chinese philosophy of the Five Elements Theory, which describe interactions and relationships between things in the universe. The five elements are metal, wood, water fire and earth. The five elements are the mutual-generation cycle or the mutual-restriction cycle.

This Five Elements Theory also manifests in the food we eat. We classify different ingredients as to whether they are neutral, cold, cool, warm or hot and whether it tastes sour, bitter, sweet, salty, and sour and pungent. All these different properties have a different effect on various organs.

Traditional Chinese Medicine uses many common foods as medicine, taking into account both the nature and flavour of food to achieve the medicinal purposes. 

Mushroom/fungi are considered Yin food. Yin foods tend to cool, add moisture, and decrease the body's heat. As foods such as the Snow fungus, it is a tonic herb for Yin Deficiency. Yin tonics have a moist nature that can nourish the Kidneys and Liver or moisten the Lungs and Stomach. 

As mention earlier, it is often used in soup such as the sweet dessert soup with Asian pear. With a gelatinous structure, it is typically food that would rejuvenate the skin.

Generally, we treat fungi as delicious ingredients with medicinal values, quint-essentially an excellent example of the theory of 药 (medicine) 食 (food) 同 (same) 源 (source); Food and medicine as the same things. 

The autumn is here in Brighton. After a few months of hard work to clear all the over-grown weeds, my allotment is getting back to its pre-lockdown stage and it is quite productive. Dahlias are blooming again after some much-needed fertilizer. Colour of the plot is gradually changing. The deep purple of the kohlrabi and radicchio will be the highlight of the season. 

This allotment is a place where I experiment with growing vegetables for my cooking. Although it is the second year that I started working on the plot, there are so much to learn and many first-time, for example, it is my first time growing butternut squash! Although I translated the seedlings quite late in the season, there are about eight pollinated squashes ready for the dining table! I can't wait to experiment with some dishes using the vegetables from the plot!

Whenever I see nice mixed mushroom at the supermarket, I will always buy a few packs to dehydrate at home. It is appetising to smell the transformation from woody-scented fresh mushroom to that savoury umami fragrance of the dehydrated mushroom. 

It is nice to cook with fresh mushroom, especially with some butter and lot of garlic, but I find the re-hydrated mushroom has more flavour and the texture goes very well with slow-cooked Chinese pork dishes. 

I am interested in all different types of edible mushroom. For the next growing season at the allotment, I am planning to grow my mushroom. 

One day I want to go to the forest and learn how to forage wild mushroom from an expert. I know it will be a good experience! 

​It is always amazing to know just the humble flour, water, a tiny bit of salt and a rolling pin one can make such versatile ingredient to make delicious food! 

For someone interested in the food-making process, I find making noodles at home therapeutic. Although it could be time-consuming, the transformation from the basic ingredients that we all can all find in our store-cupboard to a delicious plate of noodles is worth the efforts.

For these noodles, I was using a Korean brand plain flour that I bought before March lockdown. It has been hidden deep in the cupboard that waiting for its time to get to work! 

I shall make a video for the making processes!

These days Instagram is my primary social media apps that I find very easy to use to record things I do and share observations that excite me. It is probably focusing more on activities at my allotment, a little piece of land that get me grounded and allow me to explore the idea of the process of growing vegetables from seeds to service on the table.

​Follow me there!

Easy to make slow-cooked herbal pork belly and Auricularia auricula-judae (black wood ear fungus). Deliciously tender and perfect with a bowl of steamed rice! 

I find that instead of cutting the pork belly into bite sizes it is better to slow-cook the meat in a big slab, that way you can be sure than after few hours of cooking, the meat remains tender and the mouth-feel of the pork fat and skin is just jelly-like without feeling greasy. Blackwood ear fungus and pork are always good together, after few hours of cooking, the fungus will be tender and soaked up all the delicious savoury flavour of the pork and herbs.

​https://www.instagram.com/p/CFaHxrJAbKT/

I think I have finally found my niche. I have been thinking what can I do to cook something original, using simple and typical Asian cooking ingredients? I am very interested to create comtemporary South East Asian food, something that is distinctively regional, but at the same time appeals to wider non-asian foodies.

This ice-cream seems to fulfil my quest for the originality in South East Asian dessert! Using black glutinous rice to make ice-cream is such an interesting idea. The soft and sticky cooked glutinous rice works very well to create a creamy texture without having to use eggs. Once combined with some fresh coconut milk, the darkish colour turns purple. A rather luxurious colour for dessert.

Purple and green are beautiful together. I used the juice of pandan leaves in various elements; the crisps, the cookies crumbs and the pandan kaya sauce. The grassy freshness of the pandan juice always work with coconut and rice.

Everything on that plate is made of sweet potato! Except the small white specks of desiccated coconut!
Such beautiful colours of different varieties. I have been conceptualising and visualing it in my head a plate of colourful vegan ice cream, using every bits of the sweet potato; the flesh and the skin, different textures and mouth-feel...

The ice cream is made of roasted orange flesh sweet potato and coconut milk and sweeten with golden syrup for the some caramelise flavour. The creamy ice cream is compliment with various other textures: honey sweetened purple sweet potato mash, tuile and roasted skin crisps.

Very happy with the colours combination and flavours...Not bad for doing all these by experiment without any recipes!

"Prototypes" for something interesting to come!

I am not a coffee drinker. I don't need coffee to start my day. I find them quite smelly especially first thing in the morning! It is like the smell of strong coffee passing through your urine.

But for experiment sake, I made this toasted dandelion root "coffee", which to my surprise, it tasted rather nice! It has the mouthfeel of the coffee but kind of herbal-ly and smoother than the actual coffee. Definitely feeling healthier after drinking it. So much goodness of this plant that we all regarded it as weed. We will try all sort of ways to get rid of it from our precious garden. It is such a waste!

So far, I had tried the dandelion flowers to make a cake. It was delicious. Now I only need to eat the leaves to complete my experiment with dandelion!

The dandelion "coffee" is rather easy to make. First you need to gather as much as you can the dandelion roots. Discard the leaves, wash thoroughly. Pad dry them and then cut them into small pieces. 

Once you have done the cutting, put the root in a metal baking tray and roast it in the preheated oven (150'C) for 90mins. And then 180'C for 15mins (all ovens are different, you have to experiment and use your own judgement. I think once it is dried and brown, you can stop the cooking process).

Take the roasted dandelion root out of the oven and let it cool down completely. I left it overnight before the final preparation stage.

In the morning, I put the cool dandelion root in a pan (with a pinch of dried lemon peel, this is optional, I think the lemon peel add a touch of zing-ness to the final product!) and dry roast it for few minutes until the root pieces have just toasted and slightly "burn". Remove the pan from the heat and take out the pieces and then let it cool down complete before grind them into fine powder.

To make the coffee, instead of pouring hot water over the powder. I made the coffee Greek way by cooking the water and dandelion root powder for few minutes. Then strain the liquid through a coffee filter. Add sugar to taste..YUM! I was surprised that the liquid ended up so much like a real dark coffee despite of the light brown colour of the roasted root.

Give the dandelion a try! How can you not look at this "weed" in a different light from now! It is such a useful plant! 

Two days ago I celebrated my first anniversary working as a savoury chef at the Real Patisserie Kemptown. A year ago, from a passionate home cook, I ventured into a professional kitchen without any prior experience. I was expected to start from dish washing but I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to learn to make their signature savoury quiches. 

A month of intensive training with Jo, I was given the chance to work on my own for their savoury section making 12 quiches a day. Three days a week...and a year later...I have made at least 1750 quiches! 8 pieces a quiche, so that make at least 14000 customers had eaten my quiches. OK, Maybe 13997 customers! As I know a regular customer who always come for the bacon, leeks and free range eggs pie. Someone so in love with of one of the chicken coriander quiches that I used to make, he came back later that day to buy another piece but unfortunately it was sold out by then and a woman so addicted to the bacon, courgette, mushroom and wholegrain mustard quiche; that is the ONLY quiche she wants to eat!

I am glad that Jo let me go a bit crazy with the decoration of each of the quiches and let me try new flavour combinations and products. I really want our customers to feel that they are giving themselves a special treat (both visually and taste-wise) whether it is for their regular lunch out or for a special occasion. 

I have so much fun working there and learned a great deal of how to run a section in the well established local bakery. From morning ingredients stocks check, place daily order with the supplier, make soup, produce the quiches and all the background food preparation. 

I was quite comprehensive initially when they offered me a trial to work there. From all those "dramatised" cooking/ restaurant programmes on television, I get the impression that working in the professional restaurant will be quite unpleasant with all the shouting! I am a quiet and calm person, I don't feel I will be able to fit in! But at the bakery, everyone is helpful and working together to make sure things run smoothly. Other chefs, patissiers and bakers are friendly and willing to share their knowledge. I learned so much by observing or just being around at the bakery!

Yes, working at a professional kitchen is stressful, but it is a kind of good stress that keep you motivated. Even though a bakery is different from a restaurant, we do have to keep the schedule of getting food ready for the shop on time. 7am breakfast, 10am for quiches to be on display, 11am soup should be ready for lunch time and all the preparation for the next day. 

One year on, I feel that I am no longer a home cook, but a chef! Everything I cook from now will have to be to the professional standards!

Come try our quiches at REAL PATISSERIE Kemptown (Brighton) if you have not done so!

Get ready for the summer garden parties! But the problem at the moment is the weather. Why is it getting colder again? And the grey and the rain! All the cherry blossom are being ruined. I hope there will be summer!

These beautiful and vibrant raspberry creme tarts will surely bring a little bit of the summer feeling back on the table. Such a festive colour scheme. It is almost like Chinese New Year celebration all over again! 

I have been thinking to make some unusual tarts, something that is visually stunning and full of summer flavours. I was planying with the idea of tart au citron, but using fresh and frozen raspberry instead of lemon. After some initial research for the basic, I spent many hours in the kitchen experimenting and making all these tarts from scratch; the chocolate sweet pastry (probably needs to put more cocoa powder to make the tart cases darker), the raspberry creme and the jelly. The sharpness of the fresh raspberry jelly complement very nicely with the raspberry creme. Perfect with the chocolate tart case.


For me, these tarts are like little edible artworks. I am always excited when people can/ willing to eat my creations (experiments!)...and I have a guinea pig..:)

I am quite happy that I have learned one more sweet pastry making skills..Everytime when things turn out exactly as my vision, and turn out looking professional, I have the urge to push myself a little bit further to do something even more exciting and difficult!

What's next!!

As I continue clearing up my garden after too many months of neglecting it, I found more uses for weeds that I normally would dig up and discard. Such a waste for things edible that grow organically and locally just outside my kitchen! 

I have never thought of eating dandelion flowers, mainly because I can not visualise them in any dishes other than as one of the decorative elements in a salad. (Not a big fan of cold salad!). I like the taste of the flower, but you have to eat it in quite a big pinch to be able to taste the subtle sweet nectarly flavour.

I picked a large bowl of the flowers wondering what to do with them...(They do grow like mad in the garden) After separating the tiny bright yellow petals from the calyx (the outermost green sepals that form/protect a flower), and thought wouldnt it be great to create a cake that accentuate the subtle nectar flavour of the flowers. Nectar...honey...So that is the origin of this dandelion flowers and honey butter cake!

It is quite a simple and down to earth cake, no fancy icing or decoration that would distract the natural flavour of the cake. After all, dandelion is just one of the weeds that we see little value of and constantly looking for ways to eliminate them from our precious garden! (Although in Chinese herbal medicine, dandelion seems to be useful in clearing heat and relieves fire toxicity....)

To make the cake:

1. About a generous cup of dandelion flower petals
2. 225g Self-rising flour (sifted)
3. 115g Unsalted butter (soften)
4. 90g Castor sugar
5. 115g Honey
6. 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (this could be any milk)
7. 2 Large eggs
8. Extra honey and few tablespoonful of lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 170'C. Line and grease a rectangular bread tin and set aside.

First, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and light, then gradually add the honey and keep beating until very well combined. Add the egg one at a time and beat continuously then add the dandelion petals. Beat the batter for another few minutes.

Using a metal spoon, gently fold in the flour and milk.

Pour the mixture to the prepared bread tin and bake for about 45 minutes or until the cake is cooked (check after 30minutes) (if the inserted skewer to the centre of the cake comes out clean)

Remove the cake from the tin and use the skewer, poke holes to the top of the cake and then brush the honey and lemon juice liquid overall the top of the cake. Leave to cool completely overnight.

To give the cake a refreshing Spring-look, you could decorate it with extra dandelion petals or other edible wild flowers. (Here, I also found out that the beautiful pale blue "forget-me-not" flowers are also edible!)

I am now fascinated about eating weeds or other edible wild plants!

NOTE:
Make sure that all the wild flowers you picked are free of pesticides. Personally, I won't eat anything that is not from my own garden, or if from the wild, I will only eat anything edible that is high above the ground!

Plants in the garden are slowly awaken from their winter's sleep. The sun is shinning and the heat is building up during the last few days. Few vegetables that I left in my garden over the winter have survived and they have grown quite enormously. I didn't expect the mustard plants to survive the winter or the attack of many snails and slugs in the garden. They are the nice surprise after ignoring the garden for the last few months! To make space for this year vegetable, I have to starting to clear them out. I will not waste anything edible things in the garden, so I picked all the young leaves and make them to a kind of pesto. It has the wasabi flavour, rather strong but excitingly fresh!

I used some of the pesto as sauce to cook chicken wings. It was quite delicious. The mustard pesto add Spring flavour to the dish. I am quite pleased that the winter is over, my garden will start to burst into various colours. Can't wait for my secret garden to appear again!

To make the pesto, I blend a handful of mustard greens, few cloves of garlic, a tablespoonful of lemon juice, oil and some salt to taste. The pastel green pesto can be eaten raw as tipping sauce too.

The chicken dish is rather simple. In a pot, heat some oil and add the chicken pieces to cook until lightly brown. Then add generous amount of the pesto and cook for few minutes. Add some water to make the sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Cook further until the sauce is lightly thicken. Add the chopped mustard greens and stir until the greens wilted. Done and ready for the plates! 

The beetroot rice has the most wonderful combination of red and pink, a nice constructing colour to the green pesto chicken. The finely chopped beetroot were added to hot cooked rice, so the colour will lightly dye some of the rice. It also adds sweetness to the rice. A great way to add colours to the boring white rice!

A colourful plate of food really make me feel happy and feeling healthy! I love Spring!!

I am so poor that I have to resolve to eat weeds, again! (Not the kind of weeds that make you go crazy!)

Kidding aside, this is my second attempt to eat weeds growing in my garden, and I found out that bittercress (hairy) is actually edible. Hurray! More free food and how can you beat this "locally" source seasonal food! You can at the same time clear up your garden from weeds and save some money from your weekly food shopping!

I mixed finely chopped bittercress and some surprises (mustard and chards that survived the winter) I found from the garden and mixed them with homemade partially salted eggs and fresh eggs for this delicious spring vegetable omelette. 

The bittercress as its name suggested has a hint of bitterness, but I rather like it with the salted eggs. It has a refreshing "spring" flavour in it..Give it a try! (I am not dead yet few hours after eating the weeds!)

You can see my first attempt of eating weeds here.

Note from http://eatt1.tripod.com/amp9.html
Medicinal plants of the Cruciferae family 
Bitter cress (Cardamine hirsuta) is a herb that is found throughout Europe. It is usually found in shaded valleys and cultivated places throughout the island. Its white flowers are in bloom between January and April. Its leaves have a culinary use due to their hot and peppery taste. Medicinally, it was used for the treatment of vitamin C deficiency and skin problems and as a diuretic.

Coincidentally another GREEN food I found in unpublished folder.

This green tea opera cake I made few years ago as a treat for the colleagues after I won the sweepstakes event; fluffy green tea sponge cake with alternate layers of homemade raspberry jam and dark chocolate ganache. 

I wonder what is the progress of the new church in Eastbourne that I designed....

Oh no! The GREEN is back again! Unintentionally...

I think this blog could be all about green! I just love the freshness of the colour green represents especially now that we are finally welcoming the Spring. The air is fresh and breezy. I feel lighter (but I am actually getting heavier after almost a year working at the bakery!) Everything in the garden is growing fast. I can see the English parsley I planted last year survived the Winter. More green food to come!

This is a rather easy to make, but appetising...scone or it is actually a bread (?) This is kind of a typical scone recipe but with swiss roll making process and a twist (quite literally!). I love the distinctive layers of white and green, it is so beautiful and photogenic. 

The pesto is a blend of fresh watercress with pine nuts, Grana Padano cheese, salt and pepper. I can imagine t is equally nice as a pasta sauce.

What other green food to make?!

The green is back! Still my favourite colour, although my friend who is a Fengshui "not-yet" master advised me that green is the inauspicious colour that will slow down my career progress and my auspicious colour is red! If I would to take his advice, I probably need a whole new wardrobe!

This is an experiment with whole mung bean (dried green bean you could get from Chinese grocer, they are relatively cheaper to buy than form your typical supermarket) and rice flour inspired by a type of Nyonya kuih recipe. I think this could be evolved into something much more existing..The mung bean layer is sweeten with coconut milk flavour and the top white layer is slightly salted coconut milk. Perfectly healthy snack!

The flours I used for this "cake" kuih are mainly rice flour with a small amount of tapioca and plain flour.

"note to self: the dried beans must to soaked overnight and cooked until very very very soft!"