I needed to make a quick and easy snack for a weeknight because I was having some girls over for a clothing exchange party. I was already making hummus, deep fried ravioli and fudge brownies and decided that I was missing cheese. Instead of doing the standard cheese platter, I thought I’d try making a cheese ball, because I already had most of the ingredients that I needed. It’s a nice, flavourful cheese spread.
I love Chinese rice noodle rolls (chee cheong fun). These are steamed and can have various fillings such as shrimp, Chinese BBQ pork, ground beef, or dried shrimp and green onions. They are also delicious plain when served with the flavourful sweet sauce (teem cheong / timzheong) and sesame paste. We order this a lot in Hong Kong restaurants, so I was ecstatic when I learned how easy it is to make. I love making food from scratch to avoid the added preservatives and chemicals. I’ve heard that the cheong fun sold in grocery stores (and used by the restaurants) contain a particularly harmful additive – borax. (For cheong fun with shrimp, see here. For cheong fun with dried shrimp and green onions, see here.)
Personally, I like oatmeal raisin cookies more than chocolate chip cookies. I think I stand alone in this position 😉 But I find that most bakery cookies are either too “oaty”, too heavily spiced, or too thick (I prefer them on the thinner side). So I set out on a mission to find my favourite chewy oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. I tried 8 different recipes and here is the best one. They are buttery, soft and chewy in the middle, and they have beautifully crisp edges. Check out my tips for baking cookies.
I made deep fried ravioli for my Deep Fried Food Party and for my latest clothing exchange party. This has been sitting in my “to try” pile for years now, so I was very happy to finally make it. I compared a milk wash to an egg wash and I compared a bread crumb coating to a corn meal coating. I didn’t notice a significant difference between the milk and egg washes. For the coating, I preferred the bread crumbs, because it gave the ravioli a nice brown colour. Also, bread crumbs coat the ravioli more lightly than cornmeal, so the ravioli maintain their slightly chewy texture.
This Taiwanese popcorn chicken dish is called salt pepper chicken in Chinese (yan su ji). It makes for a delicious snack or it can be served with rice for dinner. My family used to order this every time we went to a particular Chinese restaurant in Markham, ON. It was so good that we sometimes ordered two of them. The best part of this dish is the garnish – deep fried thai basil leaves. Even though I haven’t had it in a very long time, I still think about it from time to time. So I finally got around to making it for myself. In the authentic version, Asian five spice powder is dominant, but personally I prefer to reduce it. Note: This recipe was recently updated and improved!
I made ravioli from scratch for the first time (recipe here). For the filling, I used porcini, chanterelle, and lobster mushrooms with ricotta, parmesan and goat cheese. I wanted to make a sauce that would pair well with mushroom ravioli, but there were so many suitable (and delicious) options, that I couldn’t pick just one or two. So, I made 4 different sauces. They are all easy to make and range from simple and comforting to sophisticated and fancy.
Mushroom Ravioli Sauce Pairing #1 is a comforting and hearty tomato sauce. It is the simplest of the 4 recipes. The tomato contrasts the creamy mushroom filling nicely.
Mushroom Ravioli Sauce Pairing #2 is a rose sauce. It is the only cream based sauce and it’s fun to make because it involves setting vodka on fire. This sauce is very similar to the sauce that I make for my vodka penne (recipe here).
Mushroom Ravioli Sauce Pairing #3 is a white wine and butter sauce that goes really well with the mushrooms. I like to serve this sauce over giant raviolis.
Mushroom Ravioli Sauce Pairing #4 is one of the simplest, yet the fanciest sauce that I’ve paired with mushroom ravioli. If only I could afford white truffles to go with this, because that’s how they serve it in some parts of Italy. I like to serve this browned butter over giant raviolis.
Photo above: Giant raviolis in White Wine Sauce
I’ve been wanting to make ravioli from scratch for a long time now. When I received samples of dried mushrooms from Marx Foods (see my review here), I knew that they would be perfect in ravioli and, more importantly, I would finally get to use my brand new fluted pastry wheel. 🙂
I love designing salads, because you can play with infinite [delicious] combinations of greens, fruits, vegetables, meats or eggs, seafood, nuts, seeds and dressings. You can be creative with textures, flavours, and visual interest. Salads are great for entertaining too, whether they are simple and relaxed or fancy and formal. When I received samples of dried mushrooms from Marx Foods, an online fine foods distributor, I decided to create a salad in their honour. See my review on Marx Foods here.
I discovered the online company, Marx Foods, recently. I had the privilege of trying samples of their dried mushrooms, for which I created the recipes, Wild Mushroom Ravioli, Warm Mushroom Salad with Goats Cheese and Sun Dried Tomato Vinaigrette, and Gourmet Mushroom Risotto. This post will be updated as I make my way through the samples. This is my review of their mushrooms and my experience with their customer service. Note that I am not a professional and this review is based on my personal opinions only.
Company Information:
Marx Foods is an online store that sells fine foods in bulk. Until 2007, they only distributed their products to high-end restaurants. Luckily, they are now offering their restaurant quality products to everyone. They have an excellent assortment of products that range from gourmet salts and organic seeds and grains to pates, sausage and charcuterie. They even offer meats, seafood and truffles. The first rule of cooking is to use the best quality, freshest ingredients available to you. And regardless of your cooking level or taste in food, Marx Foods carries ingredients that you like and use regularly, as well as ingredients that you’ve been wanting to try. [I’m waiting for a special occasion to try their natural white truffle oil. Chef Michael Smith, whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting (post here), went to Italy in search of white truffles and I’ve been wanting to try them ever since.]
It is not uncommon to see egg dishes served at dinner in Chinese homes. This Chinese scrambled eggs with shrimp dish is one of my favourite dishes. As simple as it is, it might take you a few tries to get it right. The only difficulty lies in not overcooking the eggs (or the shrimp). It tastes best when the eggs are in thin sheets that are still wet and slightly runny. I like to keep the seasoning very light to enjoy the taste and simplicity of the two main ingredients.
This is the simplest steamed whole chicken recipe. Not only is it incredibly healthy, it results in meat that is moist, smooth, and tender. Since this is served with flavourful dipping sauces, there is no need to pre-marinate the chicken, so it makes for an easy weeknight dinner. The ginger scallion dip (recipe below) is also very healthy. Update: Someone asked me how to steam cook a larger chicken – I recommend doing two or more rounds (as necessary) of steaming with the heat on followed by steaming with the heat off.
I can’t help but think of my family (and laugh) whenever I make this. This almost never makes it to the table when my mom makes it for dinner. I have to give her credit for being persistent; She spent years trying to fight us off of the chicken while she prepared the other dishes. Whenever her attention was diverted, the four of us would descend like savages and run off with large chunks of chicken. She finally gave up a few years ago, and started steaming 2 chickens – one as an appetizer and one to last through dinner. 🙂 Read the rest of this entry »
Chef Michael Smith is a Canadian chef that has several TV shows – Chef at Home, Chef Abroad, Chef at Large, and The Inn Chef. I think it was his “cooking without a recipe” approach that first made him ‘TV famous’. On October 26, 2009, he came to Queen’s University in Kingston, ON, Canada, to promote his new cookbook, The Best of Chef at Home. I went to see him at Leonard Hall cafeteria where he was serving bowls of chicken stew, and I was so excited when he personally handed me one.
Cooking with Alison 
