Budget Dinner: Beef & Radish in Chu Hou Sauce Recipe

Fresh beef meat is getting really expensive these days. In Hong Kong, always eating at home does not always mean that you'll spend a lot less! 

Here's how to make the most out of HK$20 beef for dinner. My mil's recipe ;)

Recipe

- HK$20 beef meat, sliced thinly just like for stir frying. This saves cooking time too.

- half a medium radish, skin peeled off & cut into chunks

- 2 cloves garlic, crushed

- 1 cm ginger, crushed

- 1 tbsp Chu Hou sauce (we use Lee Kum Kee)

- a bit of cooking oil

- just enough water to cook the beef & radish

Saute garlic & ginger until fragrant. Add beef, add radish, add sauce, add water, cook until radish chunks are soft.

There's so little beef in this dish but it feels so... hearty :)

Enjoy it with 2 bowls of steamed rice or use it as noodles/pasta sauce.

Save the money for your next fancy restaurant meal... or shoes :)

Father's Day Dinner - Seafood in Sai Kung

We always celebrate special family occasions early to avoid crazy charges & make booking for table less painful :)

So we had our father's day dinner the week before the real day ;)

A lovely seafood dinner in Sai Kung, as requested by SC's dad.

My fil & mil went to Sai Kung market & chose the seafood from the restaurant's shop, and they get delivered to the restaurant, then cooked the way we wanted.

Sweet yummy prawns. Perfectly cooked.

Clams. Absolutely delicious! Perfect with rice.

Fish with broccoli. This was alright.

Obligatory soup. We could do without this. Not tasty enough.

Giant ass abalone! Perfectly cooked.

Scallops with vermicelli with tasty garlicky topping.

I bet I'm not the only one who likes the noodles more than the scallop - despite the fact that it's cooked nicely.

Fried giant ass oysters cooked in wine. Don't judge this fugly looking dish by its appearance...

...because it's so darn yummy!

Mantis shrimps. So tasty!!!!!

Lobster on a bed of fried rice instead of noodles. I'd prefer it with noodles :)

Mostly yummy dishes at HK$330 per person. Much better value for money than the touristy famous waterfront Sai Kung restos. I'd totally go for this one again.

G/F See Cheung Street, Sai Kung

Hong Kong

Tel: +852 2792 0006

Click here for openrice link.

Happy Father's Day Homemade Dinner

We had a simple dinner at home celebrating Father's Day. I didn't make that cake. It's a black and white chocolate mousse cake from Arome bakery, costs about HK$160 (credit card discount) with a free pack of "Japanese" cookies. Good deal!

The dinner prep was really a father-son bonding session. What on earth were they trying to make?


This. Homemade roast pork - the recipe comes with the halogen cooking pot.


Did it work?

We love how it is transparent and we can all argue about the state of the food in the cooking pot. Perfect ice breaker for family gathering!

The father-son bonding only got stronger from there.

Proven by how SC and his dad collaborated plucking out remnants of pig hair...

...and after 15+30 minutes... voila!

Tasty roast pork! The meat's tender enough. The skin could use a little more poking, but not bad at all!

Here's MIL whacking away the siu yuk. She looked damn cool doing it. Don't mess with her.

Tasted AMAZING with rice. Not advisable for those on low carb diet :D

We also had beef curry. Very spicy.


And fish wrapped mangoes FIL learnt from TV.

If I could ever find that TV chef who taught this, Imma have to whack him/her with a cutting board. What a waste of beautiful fresh mangoes!

The cake has tool box shaped chocolate. Everybody loved it.

I grew up without a dad, but I love celebrating father's day with SC's family :)

Happy belated father's day, y'all. Hope you had a fantastic father's day celebration :)

Hairy Crab Feast

'Tis the season to get our hands dirty and wrestle with these hairy ones.


Steaming the crab.

Enjoy while still hot.


In SC's family, the boys only eat the roe, and they leave all the crab legs and claws to my MIL.


Here's how SC eats the crab (well... crab roe).

Claws and legs removed... transferred to MIL's plate.


Open the flap (this one's a boy - as can be seen from the pointy flap).


Open the body, discard the lung (those soft pointy bits).


Pour some vinegar with minced ginger onto the roe.


Ready?


Slurp.

Have you had any hairy crab goodness this season?

Super Easy Choy Sum Shrimp Stir Fry

Another dish my MIL always makes, super sweet veggie, fresh shrimps. Beautiful. Finally I saw her making it recently. It's amazing how she can make the dish taste so good without even using aromatics like ginger or garlic. Very minimal, and the ingredients shine through.

Recipe
- 1 cup shrimps, deshelled, deveined, butterflied
- a pack of choy sum
- vegetable oil, salt, and pepper

Season shrimps with salt and pepper. Heat up frying pan with some vegetable oil, stir fry shrimps until half done and set aside. Stir fry choy sum until they reach the level of tenderness that you like (don't let them turn yellow), season with a bit of salt, add shrimps, stir fry until shrimps are just cooked, and serve.

Perfect for a light meal!

Steamed Pork with Black Beans and Garlic - Hong Kong Style, My Mom in Law's Recipe

I am so blessed with a MIL whose cooking I absolutely ADORE! She makes dishes that are tastier than those from the restaurants! Last weekend, she made us this absolutely delicious steamed pork dish and I was right by her side taking notes.

What's so special about the dish? She doesn't use pork ribs, because she raised 3 naughty boys who wouldn't eat anything with bone in them. She used "mui tao sao yuk" part, and we get juicy tender bits (daam daam yuk) with tasty sauce that could make us eat 10 bowls of rice.

Here's her recipe:
- Pork meat (about HK$15 worth from Park & Shop - sadly, sometimes cheaper than local wet markets). You can replace the pork with chicken, or tofu puffs as vegetarian option
- a handful of Chinese fermented black beans, rinsed
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- a dash of oil
- 2 tsp corn starch
- a dash of light soy sauce
- chopped fresh chillies and spring onion

Throw everything into a plate like this:


Mix well.


Add chopped chillies. She added on just half of the dish, to accommodate those who can't eat hot stuff.


Steam for 15 minutes.


Garnish with spring onion.

Serve with lotsssssssssssssssssssssssssssss of rice.

Hong Kong classic flavors at its best.

Hong Kong Roast Pork (Siu Yuk), Apples & Mustard Mayo Sandwich

Hmmm...

When life gives you bread...

...I'd say, ditch your low carb diet and make sinful sandwiches.
Did I hear amen?

There's a story to this loaf of bread.
Baby M wandered around a local bakery (A1 bakery), grabbed a bag of bread and dropped it on the floor. The bread slipped outta its protective plastic bag, lying helplessly on the floor, begging for us to buy it. Uh oh. The staff saw this, and she was being very nice. She offered to clean up the mess, never demanding us to buy the bread. But we are people with conscience, especially when we are trying desperately to find some excuses to eat carbs. So, we bought the bread.

On the way home, I simply bought a strip of roasted pork belly with crispy crackling & juicy tender melt-in-your-mouth meat *gulp*
So siu yuk sandwich it is!
Here's what I put together. I don't think I can call this a recipe, and I didn't make the roast pork nor the bread. We are spoiled with having numerous roast pork shops in Hong Kong. But if you wanted to make the roast pork, I am sure there's a good recipe online somewhere.


First, I generously buttered my bread and grilled them.


Pork and apples, they are best friends, right? Slice the apples thin and arrange them on the toasted bread.

Add the pieces of siu yuk. Lots of them.

For the dressing, I mixed mayo, mustard, and a touch of honey, then slathered it generously on the sandwich. You can leave the sandwich open, or top it with another piece of butter toasted bread.

What a beautiful sight!

I need to bring baby M to bakeries more often!

PS. If you're a Kpop fan and you love 2PM, I went to their Hands Up Asia Tour concert in Hong Kong last weekend. If you wanna see the pics, check it out here.

Hearty & Creamy Chinese Soup - Fish, Tofu, Coriander & Century Eggs

I am not normally excited about Chinese soups but this one had me going gaga! (Sorry, I spent too much time trying to buy tickets to Lady Gaga's concert this morning. All sold out. I didn't get one. I'll have to scream & dance to the fancam videos on youtube later)

It's so creamy from the fish, hearty from all the chunks of velvety smooth century eggs and tofu, and the coriander made the whole thing so refreshing. I adore! I asked SC's mom for the recipe and it goes pretty much like this...

Pan fry your favorite fish. Add some rice wine, add water, bring to boil. Add tofu cubes and century eggs pieces. Season with salt and white pepper, add (lots of) coriander only at the last minute to keep them green.

Slurpsss.

Homemade Yumminess from Guang Zhou Trip

Just here to show off share all the yummy homemade food I had during our trip to Guang Zhou.

We stayed at SC's grandma's place in China and we were absolutely spoiled by all the awesome homemade food. They still try their best to always make everything at home using the freshest ingredients. Amazing! Look at those little pieces of dry shiitake. They're little bites of heaven!


Fresh veggies, simply stir fried.


Tasty stir fried tofu with pork. I ate almost half of this. The weather was cold and digging into this with steaming hot rice...oh my. I miss rice. I hate my 2nd day of low carb diet. Ugh.


Awesome soy sauce chicken.


Tasty tasty soup.

As soon as we finished lunch, uncle started to make radish cake.


Look at all the goodies to go into the radish cake.

Chinese sausages, preserved meat, dry shrimps...fragrant!


The pickled vegetables that inspired us to make our own in Hong Kong. Not as good as grandma's!


A typical breakfast during my holiday...pan fried radish cake, pickles, yogurt...


...and homemade sticky rice dumpling chock full of precious things!

We gotta go back to Guang Zhou again soon!