Minced Chicken with Bottle Gourd (Lauki)

Frankly, I hardly buy any Asian gourd or melon.  But since I am trying to eat healthier, I also want to explore into unfamiliar Asian vegetable.  Asian melon and gourd are one of them.   For me, stir-frying it with eggs or make soup with it should be a very safe approach because my mom did that.  But I was out of drumsticks and we had eggs for lunch, so I needed to think of another approach.  Hence, this was created.  Later, when I did a search on this, I found out that it was actually very common in Indian cuisine.  Perhaps next time I can try cooking it with Indian spices and recipe.  Indian version is more mushy while this stir-fried version has a bite to it.

Bottle gourd has lots of benefits, one of them is low in fat and calories while high in dietary fiber.  Also said to treat urinary tract infection, balancing liver function, treatment for blood pressure and heart disease and more.  You can read more about the benefits here.

Brownie from Scratch

I used to buy brownie in a box because I liked the fudge liked texture and it was fool proof.  Or because I always thought brownie was hard to make?  But I stopped buying it after I was aware of partially hydrogenated oil, just like a lot of other things that I used to buy.  Anyway, both my girls have been bugging me to make brownie for them.  They loved brownie but I don't buy them in the store so I had to make it for them.  I found an easy recipe with great reviews and decided to try it (recipe link provided in the next page).  It was good and but not very fudge like, not sure whether I over baked it or not.  Nevertheless, my girls loved it!

Would definitely try this recipe again without the chocolate frosting.

Snow Fungus Sweet Soup with Lotus Seeds (雪耳莲子糖水)

Sometimes I feel like making some sweet dessert soup for my family.  After reading about how great the black fungus/ wood ear and white snow fungus for our bodies, I decided to cook it more often.  Since black fungus has more health benefits, I cook it quite often in stir-frying dishes.  But I don't want to neglect the snow fungus as it has a beauty benefit that makes one face looking younger just like bird nest.  But bird nest is expensive and not everybody can drink it often, whereas snow fungus is really affordable.  I read that in order to have that beauty benefit, you have to eat it at least three times a week.  I couldn't possibly cook it that often but when I do make it, I am making sure I am cooking a big pot and have at least three bowls of it. :-)

Picture with ingredient names listed for your convenient.

All these ingredients have health benefits, not just the snow fungus so this sweet soup is really nutritious.  For example, goji berries is high in antioxidant and vitamins, red dates/ jujubes nourishes blood and replenishes Qi, lily buds is cooling, reduce heatiness, treats cough and helps with insomnia, lotus seeds improves digestion, removes heatiness and calms the spirit.

I have a question to ask.  Does adding sugar to cook together with the snow fungus making it soft and gelatinous?   For this, I added the sugar in the end and the resulted snow fungus was crunchy.

Roti Jala with Chicken Curry

Roti Jala is a Malay cuisine where 'roti' means bread and 'jala' means net.  You need a special roti jala mould with five holes to make this fish net looking crepe. You can buy the plastic roti jala mould in the bakery supply stores in Malaysia for only RM$1 each, very cheap.  It's texture is more like a soft crepe and the yellow color is derived from the turmeric powder.  It mostly serves with curry or rendang.

My chicken curry is made from A1 chicken curry paste.  I added red onion and used boneless and skinless dark chicken meat.  I was thinking of serving it with frozen roti canai that I bought recently but then I saw Sonia's roti jala post and decided to give it a try.  I bought the roti jala mould for years but never tempted to make it.  Glad to say that I finally did it and since it was pretty easy to make, would love to make it once in a while from now on.

White Radish Soup

I loved Korean radish and have been buying it to make kimchi, braise chicken Chinese style or Korean style and not forgetting to make soup.  Radish is cooling so eaten best when you feel that your body is heaty or a cough is coming.  Simmering radish with pork said to be reduce fever, stop coughing and prevents gallstone and kidney stone.

I made this soup for my cough that I developed after I came back from Malaysia.  I suffered the worst jet leg ever, couldn't sleep well for the whole week and then started to have sore throat and coughing that prevented me to sleep for another week.  Not cool at all.  My dad said my body didn't want to come back to the U.S. and thus it made me suffered.  ;-D 

  

Green Tea Buns

My previous green tea buns recipe has bread improver in it and I know that a lot of people have no access to bread improver.  I stopped using bread improver few years back as I have no idea what was in it.  So, sharing with you here another recipe that has straight forward ingredients list with no bread improver or bread softener.  It is basically a Haiji white buns recipe with added green tea powder.  I like to use this recipe as a base and create other variation of bread recipes.  Enjoy!