Trotter and ginger in sweetened black vinegar ????

Pig trotter and ginger stewed in sweet black vinegar is an old traditional Cantonese recipe originally formulated for mothers after birth, to keep new mums warm during the first month after birth. Also many Cantonese families who has new baby will cook a shed load of this, together with some red coloured hard boiled eggs in their shells and some some chicken cooked in homemade rice wine, all

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Pork fillet with black pepper sauce ????

???? Hak jiu gee lau (Cantonese), or Hei jiao zhu liu (Mandarin) - Pork fillet with black pepper sauce
Pork or beef fillet with black pepper sauce is a modern (westernised) Cantonese dish. In the restaurant this is normally serves on a red hot cast iron sizzling dish, the sauce sizzled on the hot iron giving out a lovely smoky flavour waffling in the air makes everyone around mouth watered.

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Pearl barley, water chestnut and fu chook (beancurd stick) dessert soup ????????

Pearl barley = ?? yee mee (Mandarin) or yee mai (Cantonese)
Water chestnut = ?? ma tee (Mandarin) or ma tai (Cantonese)
Beancurd stick = ?? fu chook (Mandarin or Cantonese)
Sugar water (or more appropriately as sweet dessert soup) = ?? tang sui (Mandarin) or tong sui (Cantonese)

Sweet soup or tong sui is Cantonese speciality eaten as dessert. Tong sui is as common as savoury soup for

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Steamed aubergine with glass noodles and minced pork ?????????

Few days ago this Guardian article mentioned aubergine has more nicotine than other vegetables. Guess I may be addicted to this humble spongy vegetable. I have posted quite a few oriental recipes with aubergine. Aubergine is one of those vegetables that must be thoroughly cooked to give it a silky texture and sweet flavour, utterly delicious IMO. Undercooked aubergine is awful feels and tastes

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Garlic fried prawns ????

Gon Jin Ha Look ????

This is my mum's Cantonese dried fried prawns with garlic we called gon jin ha look. Simple and so tasty. We always used very large king prawns (about 5 - 6 " long) and always with the shell and head on. Shells and heads are so good licking and sucking the sweet juice from the head. The garlic cloves are fried till light brown and very sweet.

Large raw king prawns can be

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Steamed pork cake with moi choi ?????

There are so many types of Chinese pickled vegetables. If you have visited one of the larger Chinese supermarkets, you may be baffled with the array of dried or wet pickled vegetables: salt pickled, vinegar pickled, spice pickled, sweet pickled etc.. Everytime I go to those Chinese supermarkets in London I always find something I have never tried or heard before. So many to choose from and

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Red bean soup with chan pei ???????

Red bean or aduki bean is a common oriental ingredient making into thick bean paste filling for buns/cake and also made into sweet soups or tong sui ??

We Chinese love sweet soups for dessert, there are numerous varieties. Red bean soup with mandarin peel (chan pei) is a common Cantonese dessert.


It's easy to make just take a bit of time to cook.

Here is how I make mine.

1 cup of red beans (

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Tang yuan, fermented rice and egg drop sweet soup ??????

Tang Yuan ?? are boiled soft chewy balls normally made with glutinous rice flour.

Today is the last day (day 15) of Chinese New Year called Yuan Xiao Festival ???. It's also a full moon day today. CNY starts on the 1st day of lunar month and end on full moon. To end this festive season, many Chinese will eat soft chewy tang yuan. Most people will have the sweet type but savoury ones are also

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Stir fried rice noodles with beef ????

I love all kinds of stir fried rice noodles to name a few like Malaysian/S'porean/Bruneian chow kway teow ???, Thai pad thai, Hong Kong beef with soft scrambled egg ???? (wat dan ngau ho), but today I am cooking Hong Kong style dried stir fried rice noodles with beef ???? (kon chow ngau ho), similar to chow kway teow.I have eaten many kon chow ngau ho ???? in Wong Kee (London China town) years

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Almond tofu ????

Almond tofu is the Chinese version of panna cotta but much much healthier without the heavy cream and vegan friendly.Almond tofu in Chinese is ???? read as 'sin ren do fu' in Mandarin or 'hung yen dou fu' in Cantonese. This is a Cantonese cold dessert great for the summertime. Most Cantonese dim sum restaurants will have this dessert on their trolleys whizzing around you with all the other

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Prawn omelette ????

Prawn omelette is always a favourite with everyone in the family. Simple, easy and delicious. Can make this about 10 minutes from prep to dining table if you have peeled prawns all ready for you fresh or frozen. I normally buy smaller peeled raw prawns for this, unless peeled king prawns are on offer. Not bad with frozen cooked prawns too if you don't have raw prawns.Using different herbs will

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Lemon chicken ???

I love all things sweet and sour and lemon chicken ranks very high on my favourite list. It is such a simple recipe but so very tasty. Beats KFC anytime.If you don't already know a good recipe, this is how I make it. The recipe I like is chicken coated with cornflour (cornstarch) then shallow fried/deep fried. The chicken coating is very crispy and sauce is tangy and flavoursome. I prefer to use

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Jingdu ribs (Cantonese sweet & sour ribs) ???

I have recently discovered Asda pork ribs are fantastic and great value. The ribs are in big chunks and full of meat. The pack I bought last week was labelled as 800g but the actual weight was around 900g.Take a look and drool at my favourite Cantonese Jingdu ribs ??? . It's sticky, sweet, sour and finger licking good.Jingdu ribs are available in most Cantonese style restaurants. Most are quite

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Char siu bao using water roux

I made these char siu bao (bbq meat steamed buns) with a simple yeast dough. This is not the traditional smiling (cracked top) bao recipe which takes about 2 days to prepare. Traditional smiling bao also needs super white bleached fine milled flour (Hong Kong flour) which is not easy to find even from Chinese supermarkets in London. I used standard non bleached plain flour, the buns are not

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Braised potato and belly pork with red fermented beancurd ???????

This is my mum's recipe and has been a favourite since I was a kid. This dish does not look very pretty but it is very tasty comfort food. The braising method is similar to hong shao pork. The meat is succulent and potato chunks are soft and absorbed all the meat and sauce flavour. I can eat this every week and still don't get tired of it.The secret to make the potato very tasty is to deep fry in

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Steamed ribs and butternut squash with black bean sauce - ???????

Had this last night it was very tasty. It's steamed pork spare ribs with black bean sauce on a bed of butternut squash. The ribs were tender and juicy coated with lots of black beans mixed with garlic, ginger and chilli. The butternut squash was soft and sweet. A recipe to keep.Here is the recipe to share with you.Ingredients:450 - 500g pork ribs**, chopped into small chunks or buy them ready cut

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Moo goo gai pan ????

The first time I heard of 'moo goo gai pan' said in American/English years ago, I had no idea what it was. Then I figured it out it must be chicken with mushroom, still took me many years later to figure out what 'pan' is in Chinese till I Google and found out it is ?(slices). This dish name has appeared in many American movies or tv whenever Chinese food is mentioned, even The Simpsons also

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Mooli and pork wrapped in flaky pastry ?????

These are nice little dim sum pastry balls great with a cup of Chinese tea. I am using traditional Chinese flaky pastry for this recipe but if you can't be bothered you can use bought puff pastry. Chinese flaky pastry is made up of two type of pastries layered together. Here is how to make this yummy dim sum.For the filing:500g peeled mooli or daikon, shredded/grated into shreds by cheese grater

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Fried nian gao (egg fried sticky rice cake)

This is a simple breakfast common during the CNY season. Nian gao will harden after a few days, most people will fry it with egg to soften the cake and also given it a nicer flavour. Sometime if I have sweet potato and/or taro I would use them to sandwich nian goh and dip in egg to fry which is also very tasty too.Here is just a simple fried nian gao with egg. Dead simple to make.Cut some nian

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Soy Sauce Poached Chicken ??? and Master Sauce ??

I love poached chicken, the meat is so juicy and tender. That is why I love Hainanese Chicken rice. Another of my favourite is soy sauce chicken (See Yau Gai ???). This poaching liquor is a mixture of light soy, dark soy, sugar and spices normally referred to as master sauce (lu sui ??). Chicken poached with this sauce is a lot more flavourful than just poaching with water or plain stock like

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