Mum said this was one of grandpa’s favourite dish, and she loved making it for him because it’s so easy. Besides being so nutritious and full of proteins, I believe it’s the simplest tofu recipe ever. I mean EVER! Don’t you not believe it!

I’ll show you! I’ll show you all!!

Ingredients (serves 3-4)
2 packets of silken tofu, drained of excess water
3 tbs of chopped spring onions
3 tbs of fried shallots
3-4 tbs of dark soya sauce
2 tbs of light soya sauce
1 tbs of oyster sauce (optional)
dash of sesame oil & white ground pepper
a sprig or 2 of Chinese parsley (optional)

Cut tofu into smaller cubes, or not, if you can’t be bother.

Add the sesame oil.

Steam for 5 minutes. Remove from wok and immediately drizzle all the condiments on the tofu. Lastly add all the greens and fried shallots over it.

I took more time posting this than actually making the tofu dish. It’s that fast and simple!

The easiest croquette ever. I mean ever!
The amount of edamame to use simply depends on how much sweet potatoes you’re making. A quarter portion of edamame to sweet potatoes is a good gauge. No condiments are required as these crispies have the sweetness from the sweet potatoes and the saltiness from the edamame beans. I used 3 Japanese purple skin sweet potatoes here for 2 persons. Delish!

Just peel and steam some sweet potatoes till they are soft. Cooks faster when you cut them up.

Then peel open the edamame.

Such funny hairy peas they are!

Mash up the steamed sweet potatoes and mix the edamame into the sweet mash.

Roll and mould the mixture into patties and fry them on a pan of hot oil. Be careful to turn down the heat as the patties brown very quickly.

And you have now these little sweet smiley sunshiney faces!

And please hurry while you’re at it!

Recently I developed a penchant for deep fried foods. Any sort of deep fried golden crispy greatness.  I dip everything I can lay my paws on in a batter and dump them in a cauldron of bubbling canola oil. The sticky glutinous sweet cakes (Nian Gao) and bananas above were the victims of my food forage yesterday.

Coincidently fried Nian Gao is also a childhood comfort food for me. Mum used to sandwich the Nian Gao with sweet potatoes before frying the sweet gooey stuff. She would put the just fried sweet cakes on a kitchen towel to drain off the excess oil before transferring them onto a platter. But somehow only a small percentage of the fried cakes made it to the platter. Most of them had gotten straight into my mouth and then into my quickly expanding mid-section. And I always wonder why I was such a chubby kid!

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Chocoholics be warned. One is never enough!
This is one of the simplest chocolate cake recipe I know, requiring only 5 ingredients, and is very difficult to go wrong.

Ingredients (makes 15 small muffin size cakes)
300gm semi-sweet chocolate chips
300gm unsalted butter
5 large eggs
120gm brown sugar
115gm self-raising flour

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Hello everybody. *taps into microphone*. I am back and I have an important announcement to make.

Chinese New Year is not Chinese New Year without pineapple pastries. Warning. Never attempt Chinese New Year without pineapple pastries. Never! Never ever!!

Otherwise be prepared to face your own gastronomic perils!

And become the laughing stock of the neighbourhood!

And get outcast by relatives!!

Your great grand-children might be black-listed from Havard!!!

Ok I’m a nutcase. What I’m not kidding about though, is how simple to make and delicious these little buggers are.

Ingredients (makes 46 tarts/balls)
220g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
2 egg yolks
375g plain flour
2 tbsp corn flour
50g icing sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 egg yolk for egg wash

About 530gm of cooked pineapple jam.
(either made from scratch or pre-made ones from the supermarket)
To make pineapple jam from scratch, peel and grate 2 ripe pineapples. Then squeeze gently to extract excess juice, but not till its as dry as the Sahara.
Add about 360gm of caster sugar and 5-6 cloves, and cook over low heat till sugar melts. The mixture should be wet and sticky, but with too much liquid. By then you should be exhausted. Put the jam in the fridge and make the tarts another day.

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Nothing spells hearty and comforting like a pie made with a rich, meaty and saucy filling. I always make more of these in advance and freeze them, so I can always heat them up when Mr Pie Craving comes knocking on my door. He can be quite a demanding creature, and drives a hard bargain.

Turn away now if you’re on a diet!

I had hand written this pie crust recipe from the internet donkey years ago but did not note down the source. If this is your recipe and you are reading this, thank you savior! You’ve saved my poor ol’ soul many many times!

Ingredients for pie crust
270gm vegetable shortening
3 cups of plain flour
1 large egg
5 tbsp cold water
pinch of salt

Ingredients for pie filling (makes 2 x 8″ pies plus 3 mini 3″ pies)
700gm of chicken meat (I used thigh because I have a disturbing love for fatty meat)
1 large purple onion
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
5 small potatoes, about 70+gm each
5 small carrots, about 230gm in total
3-4 eggs, hard-boiled and cut into quarters
3 cups of stock (I used chicken & veggie stock)
2 tbsp of Worcester sauce
splash of white wine
2 tsp of cornflour
tsp of chilli powder (optional)
tsp of garlic powder (optional)
1-1.5 tsp sea salt, or more suit taste
your desired amount of freshly ground black pepper

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Every culture/cuisine has their own version of this highly comforting food, and I am not exactly sure where this one I often make originates from. But what I do know is that it knocks your socks off when you eat it. You can make them mini sized for a cocktail party too. It’s lethal people!

Ingredients (makes 32 medium magical meatballs)
500gm minced pork
handful of water chestnuts (about 10)
3 small purple/red onions
5-6 cloves of garlic
3 sprigs of coriander
1/2 carrot, diced
2 large eggs
2 tbsp corn flour
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tsp salt 1 tsp black pepper
dash of chinese cooking wine
Vegetable oil for frying
1 tsp five spice powder (optional)

Finely slice the onions. Put on your goggles if you must.

Smash the garlic with the knife and give them hell!

Heat some oil in a pan and fry the onions and garlic to softened them but do not overcook. Remove from pan when soft and fragrant.

Finely chop the rest of the ingredients, crack in the eggs and mix everything into the minced meat, including the fried onions and garlic.

Give everything a good mix…..

And roll them up into balls.

Bake or pan fry the meatballs in medium heat, turning the balls over to evenly cook all sides.

Serve with some baked vegetables. I had mine with butter baked carrots, purple, red and sweet potatoes.

Ps: It’s also wonderful with your favourite gravy!

I know many Asian families have their own hand-me-down methods of making this dirt cheap vegetable dish. Bean sprouts are available in most markets / supermarkets and are so cheap its ridiculous. The above sprouts dish costed me a whopping S$1.10 (approximately USD0.75).

While it is a widely consumed veggie, not many people realise how richly nutrient-fied it is, probably due to its humble appearance. Half a cup of raw, uncooked bean sprouts contains 1.2g of dietary fibre, 31.5 mcg of folic acid and 7mg of vitamin C. Folic acid is especially important for expecting mums as it’s deficiency is linked to cleft palates and neural tube defects.

Ingredients
2 large handfuls of fresh, crispy beansprouts, washed
1 piece of firm tofu, cubed
handful of sweet peas
1 tbsp of garlic, minced
3 tbsp of sesame oil
1-2 tbsp of oyster sauce (depending on preference)
pinch of sea salt to taste

Heat sesame oil in a wok or pan. Fry tofu on all sides, then remove from pan. (*life saving tip: always pat dry tofu with kitchen towels to prevent splattering).

With the pan still heated, brown the garlic and throw in the peas and add oyster sauce. Throw in the beansprouts and give it a quick stir, adding some sea salt if you like. Quickly remove from heat to prevent overcooking.

Always remember that overcooking veggies is a criminal offense!

And there you have it. The cheapest healthy food you can get.

PS: I’d love to hear from you your favourite variation of this wonderful veg. Please!

Yeah I know it’s a little too late but hey, some people love gingerbread so much they don’t wait for X’mas to savour them! I made this on Christmas eve and the house couldn’t have smelt more festive.

Ingredients (yield depends on your cookie cutter, I made about 32 trees)
110gm unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
110gm brown or muscavado sugar
1 large egg (about 60gm with shell)
2/3 cup full-flavour molasses
420gm plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Sift flour in a medium bowl and add salt, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until it turns into a light cream.

Add egg and molasses and beat till well blended.

At this point you might see curdles. Do not panic, it’s not the end of the world. Yet.

Gradually add flour mixture in 3 to 4 additions until all the ingredients are blended and the mixture turns into a sticky dough.
Divide dough into 3 portions, cling wrap them and chuck them into the chiller for 3-4 hours or better still, overnight, until the dough is firm enough to be manageable. Dividing the dough into many portions allows you to work in batches. Otherwise once out of the chiller, the dough softens and it will be much stickier and messier.
Now that the dough is firm, flour the work top generously and flatten the dough to about a quarter inch thickness, and (yes finally!) cut the dough with your Christmasy cookie cutter.

Line the deliciousness on baking paper with about 1 inch gap as they expand during baking.

Bake at 175 degrees Celsius in a preheated oven for 15-18 minutes (depending on the size of your cookies), or until the sides turn a little brown, or when the cookies are slightly firm at touch.
Decorate to your heart’s content or if you’re anything like me, pop them straight into your mouths.

It’s the favourite gastronomical season of many. I love the warm woodiness of gingerbread spices and molasses. It’s a pity gingerbread is often revisited only during the year end holidays. Maybe I should get Mr Brer Rabbit out more often and not just once a year.

This, I promise you is a quick, easy and painfree Gingerbread cupcake recipe. The ingredient list may look long but that’s it. Throwing everything together is not difficult and the end product is definitely worth it if u live for gingerbread. Colleagues loved it so much they are asking if I take orders. If only I have kitchen elves helping me with the washing, then I won’t mind! Any volunteers?

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