Steamed Fish with Fremented Black Beans, Garlic, and Chilli Recipe

A classic Chinese dish. Very easy to prepare and super tasty!

I used to hate steamed fish (don't we all?). Ugh. It's not something that I normally had when I was still in Indonesia (back then, we preferred deep fried fish with sweet and sour sauce heheheh). I was just not used to eating fish skin being silky smooth (I would think that silky smooth = slimy), and I felt that the steamed fish with ginger and scallion served with soy sauce is just too...subtle for my taste. I want explosions. Subtle isn't my thang.

After a few years in Hong Kong, I learnt to appreciate and enjoy steamed fish. Yes, even the subtle kind...but this explosive one is one of my favorites. Never gets bored of this flavor combo!

Recipe
- 1 fish (choose your favorite. I love pomfret/grass carp/hung yao. You can  use fillet too), cleaned well
- 1 cm ginger, julienned
- 2 chilli, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tsp fermented black beans
Place fish on a plate. Scatter some of the minced stuff on top of the fish and in the cavity of the fish, steam until the fish is just done. The above fish takes about 8-10 minutes to steam. You can use a steamer or a wok. Fill wok with hot water, about 1.5cm deep, place a shallow bowl or plate upside down, place the plate with the fish on top of that bowl, cover wok and steam.

If you want a short cut (I always do), you can opt to not use ginger and chilli, simply buy Lee Kum Kee's black bean and garlic sauce and 1-2 tsp all over your fish before steaming.

Perfect with (lots of) rice.

Just A Simple, Healthy, Thrifty and Tasty Menu

I love one pot/one dish meals (I am lazy like that), and I have to learn from SC's mom to make the most out of a minimum budget. She whips up multiple dishes menu daily, three meals a day minimum!
This is an example of a her simple lunch menu.
Meat, fish, vegetable, rice.
Very well balanced, easy to make, and inexpensive.
She is my guru!

Stir fried chicken with ginger, garlic and scallion.


Pan fried grass carp, simply seasoned with salt and pepper. You can also steam this if you don't want your flat to be perfumed by fish oil :D


And choy sum stir fried with garlic and chinese wine.
Served with fluffy jasmine rice.
I have a longgg way to learn to be able to create thrifty, healthy and tasty meals like her.
Give me a shout if you need any of the recipe.

Hope your Monday's yummy.
Mine gives me headaches T_T

One of My Favorite Breakfasts - Sausage Donut, Yamazaki Bakery, Hong Kong

Let me state the obvious here.
I haven't been blogging much. Hmmm, correction. I haven't been blogging at all!
I am sure you don't want to read my 74983275984 lame excuses (work, life, stress, baby, relationships, home, mortgage, renovation, health, insurance, never cooking, blablabla etc etc etc) , and NO, I am NOT having another bun in the oven :D

One of the less-cliched reason that I haven't been blogging is...(it's pretty lame)...that I am addicted to instagram!!! Crazy huh? I have a collection of god-knows-how-much photography gear, and now I am addicted to taking pictures with my phone and editing them with free apps. And it's not as if I had lots of followers or likers or my photos are exceptionally fantastic. But I can't help it. I'm gonna need an instagram rehab soon. Just in case you want to see what my addiction is like, I'm @mochachocolatarita on instagram.

I don't know why the content of this post is not related to the post title at all...I guess I have a tendency to ramble.

Now, since I haven't been cooking much, I'd like to share one of my favorite breakfasts with you. I am sharing this one simply because when I tweeted "sausage donut" one morning. Someone asked me "Sausage donut???? What's that???!!! Is there such a thing?"

Yes there is, it's from Yamazaki bakery and it is fan-freaking-tastic! Imagine stretchy chewy and very slightly sweet donut dough, with a tasty frank in it, deep fried to a glorious golden brown until the exterior is sufficiently crispy and the interior is fluffy. That and a cup of coffee.

What a heavenly morning!

It's been a while since I had this breakfast. I am so gonna buy it tomorrow.
Now, excuse me while I instagram the heck outta my life.
You should too.
See you there!

Caramelized Grilled Banana with Condensed Milk

A simple yet decadent treat for a sloth x glutton crossover like me.


Preheat oven to 200C. Get some super ripe bananas (I like using mini or emperor bananas as they are not mushy), peel the skin and halve them length-wise, place them flat side down on a lightly greased pan, on top of each one, add a tiny bit of butter (about 0.5cm dollop). Put the pan on the top rack of the oven, grill until gloriously golden. Remove from oven, drizzle some condensed milk over them (I used both original and chocolate condensed milk) and devour.

If only I had some cheddar to shave on top, it would've made the whole combo even more deliciously unreal. If you wanna improve the presentation (aka, not making them look like a pile of crap, like mine T_T), you can dust some powdered sugar, or serve it with ice cream, add a dainty piece of mint leaf etc.

As you can see, I didn't bother T_T

Easy Roasted Pumpkin Cheesecake with Peanut Butter Oreo Crust Recipe

Halloween is coming and I feel obligated to do something pumpkin to compensate the lack of slutty costume planning. So this is what I did.

You know my baking is the exact opposite of refined. No cute decoration, it's not a super smooth cheesecake, not done in a proper cake mold. It's pretty rough around the edges with bits of roasted pumpkin in it...or maybe I should call it "rustic".

And don't ask me what's with the peanut butter. Why did I think that peanut butter plus roasted pumpkin plus oreo would be a good idea? I don't know. But, luckily, the end result was pretty damn delish. Phew!

Recipe
- 1 block of cream cheese
- a quarter of a small (around 15cm diameter) pumpkin, remove seeds, remove skin
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 3 tbsp cream
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 1 whole packet of oreo
- 2 heaping tbsp peanut butter
- 1 tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 180C, roast pumpkin until soft. Meanwhile, prepare crust. In a food processor, pulse oreos + peanut butter + butter until smooth. Pour into lightly greased pan. Set aside.

Once soft, remove roasted pumpkin, set aside to cool down, cut into chunks. Cut cream cheese into chunks, throw it into food processor, add the rest of the ingredients, pulse until everything's combined. Don't worry about little bits of pumpkin. Pour batter onto the crust, bake in 150C oven for about 20 minutes. Cool down and refrigerate.

Or spoon the custardy warm batter fresh out of the oven with a spoon, and ofcourse, lick the spoon clean.
Yum!

Now tell me more about your slutty Halloween costume...