Tofu & Seafood Dish

I love to buy those cylinder shape Japanese tofu because I have fond memory of them while in Malaysia. My parents used to order this dish while dining out and I was really impressed by how silken soft it is (10+ years ago) and I especially loved the deep-fried one served in a clay pot. Nowadays, there are variety of tofu sold in the Asian market ranging from extra firm to silken soft. So, this tofu is not that special anymore, except for the unique shape.

I pat dry my cut out tofu, coated it in potato starch and deep-fried til golden brown. I tried one while it was still warm and it was delicious just as it is, crispy outside and silken soft inside. However, I sort of ruin it by cooking the seafood sauce and later added the fried tofu in to simmer. Why? because the potato starch turned gluey, transparent starch when simmering in the sauce. Oh man! I should have just pour the sauce on top as I have planned instead of thinking of warming up the tofu and thus placed it in the sauce to simmer together. Big mistake! So, I pen it down here so that I won't make the same mistake again.

Fried Tang Hoon

I soaked some tang hoon ('bean thread noodles') the other day for making soup noodle. And I was left with one bowl of leftover tang hoon. So, I was cracking my head of what to do with it, either use it for Vietnamese fresh spring roll, making soup with dried bean curd or what. After much thought, why not stir-fry it for lunch since I have some leftover bean sprouts, cut out carrots and tofu & fish balls mix-in-one packet recommended by Lily. Oh Lily, if you are reading this, thanks so much for recommended me to this Korean tofu and fish balls mixed. It is delicious and not to say very convenient to have at home since I can just take it out frozen and boiled it for soup noodle, or defrost it in warm water and sliced it to stir-fry. I have since done both and totally love this product!

MmmMmm... a delicious lunch indeed!

This is the picture of the frozen fried fish cake. It has fried tofu, variety of fried fish cake and fish balls inside.

Another Award! Yay!

Thank you Peony for awarding me with this,



It's an honor and I'm happy to accept it, even though I am creative as in providing links for her to access other food bloggers. LOL! :P

Joke aside, I would love to pass this award on to:


Lily - for her passion in perfecting a recipe and unselfishness in sharing her knowledge.

Big Boys Oven - For their ever creative juices in baking beautiful cakes and bakes.

KookyCulinary - For her creative way of preparing lunch boxes for her daughter.

Fresh from the Oven - For taking beautiful pictures and bakes store-bought quality cakes and bakes.

Tigerfish - For her creativity in dishing out new dishes.

Enjoy the award ladies and gentlemen! :D

Happy Mid-Autumn/Lantern Festival

Tomorrow is Mid-Autumn or Lantern Festival. It is a day celebrated by all Chinese to welcome the abundance of harvest and togetherness. A day where we enjoy mooncakes under the full moon while children happily carry lanterns and walk around the neighborhood. I'm not going to bore you with the long winded detail, just click here for the full story if you are interested.

Look what arrived just in time for me to celebrate it? MOONCAKES!!! A gift from big boss Ray, owner of mytasteofasia.com to thanks me for supporting and doing business with him, how nice huh? I was touched and so very happy because I love mooncakes and it is my yearly treat. Ray, a big THANK YOU for thinking of me while sending this gift. :) It's great being your friend and doing business with you. Love the products you sell and it will keep me coming back for more for sure.

For those who miss Malaysian mooncakes and not as lucky as me, you can buy it online at mytasteofasia.com. It comes in White Lotus with Double Yolks and Pandan Lotus with One Yolk. Check it out! :)

Lastly, happy mooncake/lantern/mid-autumn festival to all my readers! :D

Deep-fried Fish with Soy Sauce

I haven't bought a whole fish for ages. And see what happen when I shopped with Lily (yeah, I get to shop with her a lot these days, :D), I ended out bought two fishes, one was white Pomfret which I steamed it but was too eager to eat it hot and thus didn't take any picture. But since this fish was deep-fried and looking so yummy (not that my steamed pomfret was not yummy), I decided to record it in my blog. Hehe...

I served my deep-fried fish on a bed of scallions in plain soy sauce. I wanted my fish to remain crispy instead of soggy laden with soy sauce. So, I pour soy sauce on a plate, piled the scallions on top and then placed my deep-fried fish on top of the scallion and then drizzled a little hot oil on top.

Introducing: King Oyster Mushroom

Have you seen this in the Asian market and wondering what it is? It is called king oyster mushroom which is also referring to as almond abalone mushroom in China as when it is cooked, the texture is similar to that of abalone. I was told of this mushroom when shopping with Lily (she introduced me to a lot of things eh...hehe). She told me this is the fresh abalone mushroom (instead of canned) that we read about in the forum. I was like really and quickly grabbed one to try. Since that day, I have been buying this mushroom every time I was in an Asian market. I really like the meaty white steam as well as the cap as this mushroom really soaked up the flavor of the broth you cooked it in.



This is what I came out with. Just a simply stir-fry and then cooked it in a oyster sauce flavored broth and top on green veggie. So good man, even my hubby finished it all. I also stir-fry this mushroom with sliced chicken breasts for variation. If you spot this mushroom in the store next time, do give it a try ya! :)

Ground Pork & Mushroom Dried Noodle

I organized an annual potluck picnic in the park this past Saturday. It's an event where we meet and eat in the park where the kids can enjoy some outdoor play time. The weather turned out to be so cooperating and nice, and we had a fun time eating a variety of food. Too bad, I don't have a picture of the spread because I didn't bring my camera out. But I did take a picture of what I brought to the picnic before we left the house.

Moist Chocolate Cake

I wanted to try this Moist Chocolate Cake because it looked so good and easy. This cake indeed turned out very soft, moist and delicious. Thanks Pupsha! :o) I have tried several recipes from her blog and it all turned out great. I simply love her easy recipes!



I made a mistake though. Can you spot it?

Don't think you can since I bury my mistake from your eyes. LOL! Anyway, I made a mistake by baking it in a bundt pan since I thought it would make a prettier cake. What a disaster!!! My cake got stucked on the pan again and turned out broken. The picture above is the only piece that was presentable. I purposely bought PAM for baking with flour and thought this would solve my problem. Since I also saw a review of this item at American Test Kitchen the other day with colorful result. They tested it with bundt pan and said all their cake turned out non-stick and beautiful. So, I quickly went out and bought one (even paid more to get the exact same brand). However, not in my case though. *sob sob* Pam, why you let me down? Do you think I should let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes first before I invert it on a cooling rack to cool completely? I inverted mine while the cake first out of the oven and it literally got broken into half. Aiyaya.... just horrible!

Anyway, this cake is simply delicious, so soft and moist and now it's my keeper recipe. Next time I would bake it in a square/round pan and lined with parchment paper and greased it, just for precaution. Oh, for my bundt pan, I only need to bake it for 30 minutes.

Japanese Seaweed Salad

I bought myself a packet of dried seaweed (Dolkak-Cham Miyuk) at H-Mart while shopping with Lily the other day. She told me a little bit would do because it expands a lot. So, I just used a scissor to cut a small corner off and soaked it in hot water. After 30 minutes, when I opened the cover, whoa! it really EXPAND A LOT and thus I left with extra seaweed. I only need about 1/2 cup for my Gochujang tofu soup. So, what about the rest of the seaweed? I need to do something with it and thus turned it into the seaweed salad that I concocted myself.

Green Tea Daifuku/ Mochi

Daifuku is a Japanese sweet consisting of a small round glutinous rice cake/mochi stuffed with sweet filling. Most Daifuku are covered in a fine layer of corn or taro starch to prevent them from sticking to each other, believe me this is one sticky dessert without the flour. I adapted my Green Tea Daifuku from Hugbear aka LeeLee and used the basic red bean paste as filling. I have tried it plain with toasted ground peanuts before and it was yummy as well.

Chocolate Swiss Roll

What can I say, after seeing the Swiss roll one after another popping up at East Meets West Kitchen, I got motivated. I adapted this easy Swiss roll recipe from my previous Pandan Kaya Jelly Roll . I wanted to use this recipe again because (1) I wanted to proof that I can still make a Swiss roll without the 1 Tbsp. of hot water (as in the original recipe). (2) No butter or oil was used in this recipe, thus a healthier version.

I turned this into Chocolate Swiss Roll because I wanted to use Nutella as filling. Little did I know this combination can hardly see the swirling effect of Swiss roll. In addition, I didn't roll it once out of the oven and thus the top got cracks. :( Anyway, as long as it still tasted good right? ;)

Look what I found

Ooh...ooh...got caught!


Mom, I'm just tasting sister's cookie.


It's yummy, mommy! Sorry for the mess ya!

This is what happen when her sister lay her cookie around and she found it. Often time she would knock over her sister cup of water/juice/Milo too! What a "tham jiak" little girl I have! :) She just want a taste of everything.

Tagged: 12 Layers

Layer One : On the outside
Name : Ching
DOB : Prefer not to tell, but a LEO here.
Eye Colour: Dark Brown
Hair Colour: Black
Righty or Lefty: Righty

Layer Two : On the Inside
Your Heritage: Hokkein lang here.
Your Fears : Death of loved ones.
Your Weaknesses: Can't swim and gullible.
Your Perfect Pizza: Pizza Hut's pan pizza.

Layer Three: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Your Thoughts First Waking Up: Need to bring my girls to the Zoo.
Your Bedtime: Around 10-11pm. Hard to stay up with little one since my schedule catered around her.
Your Most Missed Memory: Travelling overseas with my parents.

Layer Four: Your pick
Pepsi or Coke: Pepsi.
McDonald's or Burger King: Burger King.
Single or group dates : Both. I value family time but once in awhile I like group dates.
Adidas or Nike: Don't really care.
Tea or Nestea: Tea.
Chocolate or Vanilla: Chocolate always.
Cappuccino or Coffee: Cappuccino.

Layer Five: Do You
Smoke: Never, don't like people who smoke either.
Curse: No.
Have a crush: No, how can I? LOL!
Think you've been in love: Definitely.
Go to school: Graduated. Horray, finally no more exams!!
Want to get married: Already.
Think you're a health freak: Not really, believe everything in moderation.

Layer Six: In The Past Month Have you...
Drank alcohol: Not a alcohol person.
Gone to the mall: Nope, I should!
Eaten sushi: Yes.
Dyed your hair: Nope.

Layer Seven: Have You Ever...
Played A Stripping Game: Never, are you kidding?
Changed Who You Were To Fit In: Never, if you want to be my friend, love me for who I am or get lost! :P

Layer Eight: You're Hoping
To Be Married: Done that!
For a: Long and healthy life with my hubby and two daughters.

Layer Nine: In a Boy (For guys, In a Gal)
Best Eye + Best Hair Color Combination: Who cares?
Short Hair or Long Hair: Short of course!

Layer Ten: What Were You Doing
1 Min Ago: Doing this.
1 Hour Ago: Eating breakfast.
4.5 Hours Ago: Sleeping.
1 month Ago: Donno leh.
1 Year Ago: 9 months pregnant and wondering who's my 2nd daughter was going to look like.

Layer Eleven: Finish The Sentence
I Love: My little family, parents & siblings.
I Feel: Happy and fulfilled.
I Hate: Hypocrites.
I Hide: When I need time to be alone and think.
I Miss: Being around my parents and siblings.

Layer Twelve: Tag Five People
Anyone who hasn't done this, feel free to do it.

Stir-Fried Rice Macaroni

I was introduced to this rice macaroni by Lily while we shopped together at the Asian store. She told me this dried noodle resembled the "lor see fun" and since I have been wanting to eat "lor see fun", I quickly grabbed it and put in my cart. Sorry for the empty packet because I only remembered to take a picture after I done cooking it. Lily, thanks for the recommendation! :)

This is what I came out with. Stir-fry rice macaroni with "chai hsin" and fish cakes. The sauce I used were oyster sauce, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar and sesame paste. It tasted pretty good along with some cut chili padi. But I don't think it really resemble the "lor see fun" leh. Man, I miss eating "lor see fun" with ground pork.