Food in foreign languages always sound rather good! This is my cheap and lazy food that always get me through the end of the month when I need to look after my out goings! Very delicious though! When I first moved to UK, my family and friends thought I must be eating a lot of white bread with water, as food are expensive in the UK comparing the costs of food in Malaysia. But luckily, I know how to cook since very young age, so I always be able to eat well with quite low monthly food expenses. I think that was the time when I really started to be creative with ingredients and ways of cooking.

I love to cook simple but delicious food. When you are busy with work and you will (very possibly) search for something quick and easy (junk) food from the supermarket. I know it too well...! But you can make fresh meals from home if you have only 20-30 minutes time for cooking. Try these!

It's been quite a long time since I have wanton soup. This is one of the childhood food memory moments. There was a well-known wanton noodle restaurant in my childhood hometown - Kulai. I remember every week, my parents would take us to have breakfast at the restaurant at least once a week. Sometimes with few of my childhood friends, we  venture there without our parents. We were all so young then (around 10 years old!). I am sooo old now, and since lost contact with most of those childhood friends....

Sometimes, I think I cook and eat as the acts of remembrance...Different food reminded me of different events and/or people in my life. 

To make this wanton soup (which the taste is very different from the "childhood" restaurant), you will need the following ingredients (you can add more or reduce any of the listed ingredients depend on your own taste - all very flexible!):

1. Minced pork (amount depends on how many wantons you intend to make!)
2. Wanton skin (from Chinese supermarket)
3. Some spring onion (thinly sliced)
4. Minced fresh ginger (to taste - the more the better I think!)
5. Light soy sauce (to taste)
6. Salt and white pepper (to taste) 
7. Oyster sauce (to taste)
8. Chinese leaves (as much as you like!) (sliced - for making the stock)
9. White radish/ Mooli (as much as you like!) (cut into sticks for making the stock)
10. Few dried Shiitake mushroom (for stock)
11. Enough water to make the stock
12. Coriander (for garnish)
13. Few fresh chilli slices (for garnish)
14. Fish sauce (few drop or to taste for final touch)
15. Lemon (few squeezes for final touch)

Prepare the wanton first of all. In a large bowl, mix the pork, spring onion, ginger, soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt and pepper together and set it aside to marinate for at least 30 minutes. 

Next, prepare the stock, use a deep heavy pot, add the water, white radish, mushroom and Chinese leaves and bring it to a boil over high heat. Turn to lower heat and simmer the stock for at least 30 minutes or so.

Once the meat has been marinated, wrap about a teaspoon of meat with wanton skin (there is no rule of how you should wrap the meat with the wanton skin, place the meat in the middle of the skin and just close the edges of the skin towards the centre, it will all stick to the meat!). Repeat the process until you have used up all the marinated meat.

To cook the wantons, a lazy way is to just put them directly to the boiling stock and cook for few minutes until the skin is soft and the meat is cooked. 

Or do it properly, you need a separate pan with plain boiling water, put the wantons and cook until the skin is soft and the meat is cooked. It should be under 5 minutes or so. Then drain and put them to the stock and cook for further few minutes before serving.

Serves the wanton soup hot. Just before serving, add a few dashes of fish sauce and a squeeze of lemon to over the soup. Garnish with chilli and coriander. Done. Yum!

This is especially a nice and balanced meal to have during Winter months.

When you are busy and tired - all you want, I suspect, is something sweet with deep flavours! (That's all I want!)
This Coconut milk sago dessert is quite easy to make. Other then some effort to prepare the sago, you can make this in less then 5 minutes!

Ingredients:

1. About 1 cup of white sago pearls (soak the sago in cold water for 5 minutes and then put them in boiling water to cook until they turn transparent. Add more water as necessary during the cooking process. Once cooked, drain and wash the sago in cold water few times and drain completely)
2. Few large tablespoonful soft dark brown sugar (to taste)
3. Coconut milk (at least few large tablespoonful) (to taste)

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together and serves them in a small bowl. You may add more coconut milk or sugar to give it a richer taste. Nice dessert to serve cold during Summer.

I was at my local supermarket this morning to get some basic ingredient, queuing in front of me was a middle age man. He bought a lot of pre-packed pasta meals for £2.5 each. I was almost tempted to ask him why he would rather spend £2.5 for a very small portion of these pre-pack meal then to buy the ingredients to make it at home. If he would to pay me £60 a week, I could make him different and much more exciting dishes everyday!

Yesterday I walked for about 4 hours to look for a suitable place around East Brighton Park to pick some blackberries...A lot of efforts to walk there, but only managed to find about a handful of the ripen and reasonable size berries. Maybe too early to have any fruit or too late that everyone before me has already picked all the decent one!

With less than 300g of blackberries, one can hardly make any decent amount of jam, so I decided maybe it is OK to mix these wild British summer berries with some cultivated British plums! So it is not too confusing a jam - authentic taste of the Britishness!

I mixed 300g of blackberries with 500g of British plums. Both have a sharp and sour note..Perfect together. I prefer using less sugar in jam, so the flavour of the fruits will be retained rather just a sweet sugary jam. (The jam might be a bit runny, but I think that is OK!)

Ingredients:

1. 300g Blackberries
2. 500g British plums
3. 1/2 of lemon juice
4. 1 stick of cinnamon
5. Few Juniper berries
6. 2 Star anise
7. 2-3 cup of sugar (depending on your taste)

Firstly, put all fruits (washed and dried) and all ingredients (except sugar) in a pot, and slowly simmer them until soft and juicy. Then add the sugar and turn to higher heat and bring the juice to the boil and thicken the mixture. Test the mixture with a very cold saucer (put it in the freezer compartment), if the jam mixture wrinkle when push with the finger, the jam mixture if ready to be potted and sealed.

I can't wait to try this jam with some home-made fresh scones. I will keep these jam to share it with my friend visiting from Malaysia this coming October -  a little authentic taste of the Britishness for him!

Finally found an alternative way to upload images on Weebly. I don't know what is going on with it, kept having problem to upload images direct from my computer. 

I have cooked/ learned quite a few dishes since April 2012. These Chinese Pork Jerky, (Bak Kwa) 肉干, were inspired by   the Biltong (South African beef jerky) my friend gave me to try. She mentioned about the kind of Chinese jerky she had when she was a child. After some research online, I found out that, the process of making the Chinese Pork Jerky is quite similar to Biltong (except the pork is marinated in some Chinese sauces and the end of the BBQ stage)

These Chinese pork jerky is a must-have-snack for Chinese New Year in Southeast Asia. You will find many pop-up stalls along the roadside, in front of the shops selling this snack. Each brand will have their own celebrity's endorsement. You will smell the sweet BBQ fragrance all over the street. It is the kind of snack always reminded me of Chinese New Year.

I have not been back to Malaysia to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family for few years. I have almost forgotten about the taste of these pork jerky. From my earlier jerky research, I came across some really easy recipes to make the Chinese pork jerky at home. It is so easy, I am starting to question why is it during Chinese New Year, these special snack is particularly expensive! I am sure a homemade version will be free of any preservatives and artificial food colourings!

To make this jerky at home, you will need the following ingredients:

1. 1kg Minced pork
2. 2 tbsp Soy sauce
3. 1 tbsp Dark soy sauce
   
4. 2 Large tbsp honey
5. 1/4 cup sugar (Ideally unrefined cane sugar)
6. 1 tbsp Chinese BBQ sauce (this can be found in Chinese Supermarket)
7. 1 tbsp Sesame seed oil

Put everything in a large bowl and mix well. Set aside to let it marinate for overnight.

When it is ready,  arrange some of the marinated minced pork in between two sheets of baking paper. Use a rolling pin, flatten them to about the thickness of 3-5mm. Carefully peel off the top sheet of the baking paper and set aside (with the bottom sheet of baking paper attached ) the flatten minced pork. Repeat the same process with new baking paper until you have used up all the minced pork.

Pre-heat the oven to 130'C. Bake each flatten minced pork sheet separately in a different tray for about 5-8 mins. The colour of the pork will be darken. Remove it from the oven, and set aside to cool down. Repeat the process until all minced pork sheets are baked. This is the first drying process.

Once the pork are cooled. Carefully remove it from the baking paper. Then cut the semi-dried pork sheet into squares (or rectangular shapes). You can keep the squares in a air-tight container for later use. Or you can turn the oven to 150'C to finalise the cooking process. Arrange the pork squares in the baking tray, return the tray to the oven and bake for about 5 mins or until the pork is fully cooked. These Chinese pork jerky should be moist and tender. Over cooked it, you will get a tough and hard jerky!

Now who want to place their order for this Chinese pork jerky for the coming Chinese New Year!??