I love eggs and eat them often for dinner. Usually, I eat eggs when I’m being lazy, but I decided to make a slightly fancier egg dinner. It was simple to make and delicious. If you want a healthier meal, simply omit the hollandaise sauce. I took this opportunity to learn how to poach eggs properly and I tried Julia Child’s Blender Hollandaise Sauce recipe. See my post on How to Poach an Egg here.
I love love love eggs. So, I’m well practiced at soft boiling, scrambling, and making sunny side up and over easy eggs. I even stir fry and steam them in Chinese dishes (recipes in the Asian – Other Asian Foods category). But I never poach them. So when I watched Anne Burrell poach eggs on the Food Network, I figured it was about time that I learned this technique. So I did some research online and pooled together some tips for poaching eggs. I was very excited to learn (from Anne Burrell) that poached eggs can be made ahead of time. Apparently, restaurants do this all the time. So you could easily make several batches of these one day in advance if you’re having guests over for brunch or dinner.
Pictures above: From my Poached Eggs with Asparagus, Prosciutto and Hollandaise Recipe here.
I love fresh fruit salads. I like serving them with brunch, or as a snack or dessert. Instead of following a recipe, I usually choose fruits based on 2 textures and 4 colours. I like to use one fruit that adds a slight crunch, so I usually use grapes (red or green) or apples (red or green). Then I choose fruits of each of the colours: red, green, white, and orange. For the red, I like to use strawberries or raspberries. For the green, I like to use kiwis. For the white, I like to use bananas or pears. For the orange, I like to use citrus slices (orange, tangerine, and/or grapefruit), mangoes, peaches, or nectarines. Sometimes I like to add blue or purple by adding blueberries or plum slices. Use any fruits in any combination that you like. You could try making an exotic fruit salad using fruits like papaya, pineapple, passion fruit, lychee, dragon fruit, etc.
If you’re eating the salad right away, there’s no need to dress it. But if it’s going to sit for a while, then you should dress it with some freshly squeezed lemon juice (do not substitute with bottled lemon juice) and some honey or white granulated sugar to taste. This will prevent certain fruits from browning.
When street vendors in Thailand make deep fried chicken wings, they marinate their wings in a rice flour or glutinous rice flour slurry. This allows them to skip the step of coating the chicken with flour. You could do this too, as it’s simpler and less messy (related article here that inspired my recipe). I prefer to pre-marinate my wings before coating them in rice flour and deep frying them. If you prefer to use glutinous rice flour, note that it works great in a slurry or as a light coating, however if you use it as a light coating, it may give your wings a slightly powdery look. I’ve also tried using a combination of rice flour and cornstarch, but I much preferred using just rice flour.
Eating Chinese “Hot Pot” is when everyone cooks their own food in a large pot of boiling water that is heated from below and placed in the middle of the table. The pot has to be heated throughout the meal by flame or an electric burner to keep the temperature of the water at a boil. Since different foods require different cooking times and since everyone is putting new raw food in and taking cooked food out at all different times, it’s important to keep the water hot enough to kill any bacteria. As long as your water keeps boiling, you have nothing to worry about, so don’t let this scare you out of trying hot pot 🙂 Oh and don’t forget to keep two sets of utensils separate, one for handling raw food and one for removing and eating the cooked food. I Love eating hot pot! The water is often flavoured with a soup base (I prefer the spicy variations). Typically, you have a selection of thinly sliced raw meat (ie. beef, pork, lamb), raw seafood (ie. shrimp, fish balls, squid, mussels), vegetables (ie. mushrooms, daikon radish, lettuce, other chinese veggies), tofu, beef balls, etc. You can buy meat that has been sliced for the purpose of hot pot in asian grocery stores. You select what you want and then you cook it in the pot. The meats take seconds to cook since they’re sliced so thinly. When your food’s ready, you remove it from the boiling water and eat it with various dipping sauces. Dipping sauces differ widely from region to region in China and are often very flavourful to compliment the blandly cooked food. It is also common to add a whole raw egg to the dipping sauces. I love that but with rising concerns about bacteria in eggs, my family and I are a bit more hesitant to do it now. I haven’t had hot pot in a few years now so I’m not sure if restaurants still supply raw eggs for their dipping sauces.
After I discovered that lima beans aren’t bad in a soup (recipe here), I tried eating them whole in a succotash. I was surprised at how much I liked this simple combination of lima beans and corn. This healthy side would be great for a picnic or a barbecue. I paired it with tilapia. My recipe was inspired by the Snapper with Succotash recipe from the Everyday Food magazine subscription that a good friend of mine gave me. This is a simple, one pot meal. One pot meals are perfect for weeknight dinners and this dish cooks in just a few minutes. It was a bit too healthy for me, though, so I added a creamy lemon and dill sauce (recipe here). I wish I could have taken a picture of the sauce poured over the fish, because it looked very pretty, but I accidentally dropped my camera into the sauce and broke it. 😦
When I cook white fish or salmon in a healthy way (ie. steamed or poached), I usually like to pair it with this rich sauce. I wish I could have taken a picture of the sauce poured over the fish because it looks much prettier than the picture below. But I accidentally dropped my camera into the sauce and broke it. My camera was just 8 months old 😦 (Canon SD1200IS, dark grey colour). I ordered a new one online right away.
Creamy Lemon Dill Sauce Recipe
makes enough sauce (approx 3/4 cup) for 2 to 3 fish fillets
3/4 cup whipping cream
1/4 of an onion, diced finely
3 garlic cloves, minced finely
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp dill, chopped finely
1/8 teaspoon ground mustard
coarse salt
black pepper
Celery is not one of my favourite vegetables, but when I have leftover celery, I like to make stuffed celery sticks. They’re great snacks and they’re very quick and easy to make. I’ve posted two versions of stuffed celery sticks here, one sweet (kid friendly) and one savoury that’s sophisticated enough to entertain with.
I’ve been trying to incorporate more legumes into my diet in hopes that I’ll develop a better appreciation for them. I love hummus but I don’t like eating chick peas whole. So when I first heard of people deep frying chickpeas, I knew I had to try it. It was the perfect snack for a poker night that I hosted, because I needed a vegan alternative for one of the guys.
Congee (jook) is Chinese rice porridge that can be served at any meal time (from breakfast to late night snack). It can be a meal within itself or, if served plain, it can act as the rice substitute when eaten with meat and vegetable dishes. Also, it is kind of like the Chinese equivalent to the Western chicken soup cold/flu remedy. Congee is made by boiling rice in excess water. Depending on the region in China, the texture, wateriness, seasoning, and accompanying side dishes of congee vary significantly. So make it to your taste. I like it all ways but I prefer congee that has been boiled until the rice breaks down, becomes very soft, and results in a slightly watery, semi-thick porridge. Sometimes, I use my immersion blender to give the congee a smooth, homogenized consistency.
The best accompaniment for any congee is deep fried dough sticks (you tiao / yau char kwai). When I’m eating plain congee (on its own and not as a rice substitute), my favourite side dishes are the flavourful and cost effective salted duck eggs (see recipe here), spicy fermented bean curd, preserved vegetables with chili (ie. radish or turnip), pickled lettuce stems, or shredded dried pork (also known as meat floss). I also love ground white pepper in my congee. To make plain congee, use my recipe below but omit the pork and preserved duck egg.
I first tried this unique combination of strawberries with balsamic vinegar 3 years ago. I was hesitant at first, but was surprised at how much I liked it. I ate it regularly for several months. Then I got sick of it and completely forgot about it until now. So when strawberries went on sale last week, I bought some and made this again. I’ve tried this using white granulated sugar in comparison to icing sugar and I prefer the flavour of granulated sugar. I love serving strawberries in balsamic vinegar with vanilla ice cream when entertaining. I like eating them on their own too.
Cooking with Alison 