Comfort food recipe – Cold shell pasta salad

Well, I haven’t done a comfort food recipe for a long long time..this one is super easy. I made it for picnic and you can store it in the fridge for a few days and still taste so good…

Cold shell pasta salad

Ingredients

a packet of shell pasta
few table spoons of egg mayo
some rashes of bacon
mix frozen vegies
salt and pepper for seasoning

Instructions

1. Boil the pasta until aldente
2. chopped the bacon into pieces and pan fried them until they are crisp and add in mix frozen vegies
3. Cool down the pasta and then add in the bacon mixture
4. Add the egg mayo and mix it until well combined and season with some salt and pepper
5. refrigerate and serve straight away

There you have it a delicious cold pasta dish, you can add – chopped parsley or basil to give that extra kick but since Pandabear hates herbs I didn’t put any…

Comfort Food Recipe – Taiwanese Burger Buns (Gua Bao)

Evening Bloggy friends, time for another comfort food recipe post. This time is our famous Taiwanese burger bun aka gua Bao. It’s sound rather odd isn’t it burger buns – not the ones you get from fast food joint like McDonalds or Hungry Jacks but this is a Bao white buns make into a shape similar to hamburger buns but instead of it been seasame bun it’s a white bun! I used to have it when I was young in Taiwan and they’re delicious, they used to sell it in the markets – instead of beef patties we have pork belly served with pickled vegies, sugar and peanuts. Kinda like a sweet, salty and tangy taste! Hard to describe. I was so excited when I come across these Burger buns in an Asian Grocery store so I bought a packet. However, it’s been left in my freezer for so long that I decided it was time to cook them and ended up subsituting it with random ingredients in my fridge as I didn’t have any pork belly – the master of random mix! So below is My version of Gua Bao!

Ingredients

1 x packet of Taiwanese burger buns (Gua Bao)
1 x can vegetarian mix vegies
1 x egg
1 x piece of nice steak (for meat lovers)
a small piece of ginger

Instructions

1. drizzle some oil in hot pan and slice the small piece of ginger into julienne and place it into the pan until fragrant and then add in a can of vegetarian mix vegies. You can buy a can of these at any grocery store – they are quite yummy – usually comes with bamboos, mushrooms, fungus, carrots and some soya bean vegetarian vegies and throw in some chopped chinese vegies. It’s one of my most delicious vegetarian dish!

2. pan fry your egg season with salt

3. pan fry your steak and season with salt and pepper. The authentic style is to have it with pork belly which I didn’t have. You would cook the pork belly with garlic, oil, five spice, white pepper, one or two star anise and soya sauce and stew it until the pork belly falls apart. So yeah it’s kinda like a steak burger bun – Asian style hehehehe

4. steamed the burger buns – you can either microwave it for a few minute with drizzle of water on the plate to create some steam effect. Or you can do it the proper way, steam it in a steamer which ofcourse taste better. I went for the microwave option 🙂

5. Last bit is to assemble your burger bun putting everything together. The great thing about the burger buns is that you can place as much filling as you want. Authentic style is to serve it with peanut and sugar and coriander. But I didn’t have them, but the vegetarian mix has it’s own sauce so I used that as a substitution.

ingredients

vegetarian stir fry

It was rather tasty, except I thought the taste of the buns seemed a little funny – then I checked the packet’s expiry date and realised it was expired already! Oops, I quickly stopped Pandabear from devouring into his steak burger bun and told him the buns have expired already. So we had to chuck our buns away and just ate the filling 😦 next time I know to steam my buns straight away instead of leaving them in the freezer and forget about it…

Comfort Food Recipe – Green lips mussels with spaghetti

Hello everyone, I haven’t done a comfort recipe for ages…so here it is..I’m sure I would have mentioned when we were holidaying in New Zealand Pandabear and I both fell in love with the green lips mussels – they are so juicy and tasty. So one day I had a craving for mussels and while I was at Springvale, I found some green lips mussels imported. I was so excited and wanted to make a green lips mussels spaghetti. It’s a very easy recipe and takes only 15 min to whip up.

So here it is…

Ingredient
about 10 green lips mussels
bunch of spaghetti
olive oil
2 x anchovies from tin can
some parmesan cheese
1 x lemon
1 clove of garlic
splash of white wine
salt & black pepper

Instructions

1. Clean the green lips mussels by pulling out the beard and scrub the shells. Boil the spaghetti in a pot of boiling water (remember to add salt to it). Drain and set the spaghetti aside.

2. Olive oil in the pan, add in minced garlic and some anchovies (and if you’re like me a chilli fan, make sure you chuck in some dried chillies), chuck in the green lips mussels, add a splash of white wine. Drizzle with a squeeze of lemon juice. Chuck in the spaghetti and season with salt and pepper.

3. Then it’s ready to plate up and make sure you shave some parmesan on top and drizzle more of the goodness of olive oil and it’s delicious! Ready to be eaten 🙂

close up of juicy green lips mussels

Comfort Food Recipe – Cottage Pie or Shepherds Pie

Evening bloggy friends, hope this post finds you well. Wow, I had an eventful day. Went to the doctor followed by a visit to Jenny Craig. I know you heard me, Jenny Craig – it’s crazy, I can’t believe it I actually made an appointment to see them today. Anyways, stay tuned for my full post on Jenny Craig. Here’s a real easy simple lazy person’s recipe..Cottage pie or shepherds pie. I had loads of potatoes left and they were starting to go off, so I thought to myself it’s time to make a cottage pie or shepherds pie.

Cottage Pie or Shepherds pie

Ingredients

5-6 potatoes
1 carrot
1 cup of frozen peas
1 tin can of tomatoes
1 packet of Masterfood’s cottage pie recipe base
400g of beef mince
1 tablespoon of milk
1 tablespoon of butter
some slices of cheese

Instructions

1. Dice the potatoes and carrots and pop them in a pot of boiling water until they are tender. Set the carrots aside. Mash the potatoes, season with salt and pepper and add in butter and milk.

2. brown the beef mince in a pan and add in frozen peas, add in the recipe base and a tin of tomatoes. Simmer slowly until it’s all well-combined.

3. Grab a loaf tin or square pan and fill it with the beef mince mixture, top up with the mash potatoes and the carrots and spread some cheddar cheese in my case I didn’t have any so I substitute with plastic cheese – works just as well. Then pop it in the oven for about 25 minutes on 180 degrees or until the cheese melts and mash potatoes looks golden brown and crispy.

Enjoy…

Ingredients

Comfort Food Recipe – Warm Chicken Porridge

Evening bloggy friends, sorry I haven’t been constantly posting everyday. Ever since I’ve started working it has prevented from blogging as much due to my sore peepers 😦 So, today I had a day off work and looks like tomorrow I’ve got another day off – yay…I’ll have time to update my blog again. Anyways, this particular recipe is so simple honestly it’s not worth mentioning…but since it falls under comfort food, I might as well make a post…

Warm Chicken Porridge

Ingredient

4 x drum sticks
1/4 of chinese cabbage
a small piece of ginger
1 cup of rice
2 stalks of spring onion
some coriander

Instructions

1. I made my porridge in my rice cooker as it has the soup/porridge function and that way I don’t have to constantly stir it and ensure it’s over cooked. But if you don’t have a rice cooker that has this function simply cook it in a pot and stir often. So washed the rice and chuck in the drum sticks – I used the drum sticks as I didn’t put in any chicken stock and the drum sticks will have some chicken bones to give that extra flavour.

2. Slice the chinese cabbage finely. Pour enough water to the top of the pot and slice the ginger and put that in. Start the cooking process. Once the meat is tender, tear it apart with a fork and get rid of bones and chuck in the chinese cabbage and continue cooking

3. Once the chinese cabbage is cooked, add some salt for seasoning and there you have it a delicious warm chicken porridge and serve with some chopped spring onion & coriander and drizzle with some sesame oil and it’s fit for any wintery day 🙂

Comfort Food Recipe – Massaman Tofu Curry with Turmeric Rice

Evening Bloggy friends, anyways hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. Last night we went out for a family dinner along with a friend at this Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant and followed by some ice kachang which was quite refreshing except after eating the ice kachang and stepping out to the cold wind made us freezing…Well, this particular recipe is one of my favourite curries – I’ve made a post before about Massaman Curry, but this time I’ve decided to make the tofu version of it and serve this with Tumeric Rice…oh yeah it’s meant to be a vegetarian dish but I couldn’t have my curries completely with no meat, so I cheated and chucked in some chicken thighs 🙂

Hope you like it…

Massaman Tofu Curry with Turmeric Rice

Ingredients

1 can of Masaman curry paste
3-4 potatoes
3 carrots
1 packet of fried tofu
4-5 pieces of chicken thighs
1 brown onion
a can of coconut milk
1 tbsp of fish sauce
1 teaspoon of sugar/palm sugar
2 tbsp of turmeric powder
2 cups of rice
a small bunch of basil

Instructions

1. I started off to cook my turmeric rice, start off rinse and wash the rice and add turmeric powder, follow by pinch of salt and add about 1/2 cup of coconut milk from the can. Mix it together and cook it in a rice cooker.

2. Dice potatoes, carrots, fried tofu, chicken thighs and onion into bite size. Pour oil in the pan chuck in onion, stir fry it until it’s golden brown add in chicken thighs and stir fry about a minute and add in the massaman curry paste – you can buy this at any Asian grocery store – I would recommend buying the thai brand with a lady’s face on the can – this brand is really good. Stir fry it about a few minutes until it’s fragrant and add in potatoes and carrots. Continue to stir fry it for a few minutes and add in the remaining can of coconut milk.

3. Boil the pot of curry and then turn down the fire and simmer for about 30 minutes until the potatoes are cooked and chuck in the fried tofu (as fried tofu cooks very quickly it will absorb some of the curry juice) if you find the curry pot is getting a little thick in the sauce, add some water and mix it around to get the right consistency. Add some fish sauce and sugar and taste to make sure it’s perfect.

4. Your turmeric rice should be ready, open the lid of your rice cooker and mix the turmeric rice around so that the flavours are well mixed.

5. Serve your curry with turmeric rice and garnish with some basil..and it will go well with some thai style salad – the dressing is pretty easy. Just chopped finely some red chillies and add some fish sauce and lemon juice and balance it right and choose your salad – red onion, cos lettuce, tomatoes and some basil..

and there you have it a nice Massaman Tofu Curry with turmeric rice 🙂

enjoy…

Ingredients

Massaman Curry

Massaman Tofu Curry with Turmeric Rice

Thai Salad with dressing

Comfort Food Recipe – Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup & Dumplings

Hello Bloggy friends, hope this post finds you all well. Well, this week hasn’t been too bad. I met up with my GP on Monday to continue to the treatment of my nasty wart, and when she examined my feet she said to me – looks like the liquid nitrogen did nothing, to be honest we can keep going with the treatment but I don’t think it’s going to make a huge difference. So she referred me to a podiatrist, I was thinking to myself – great, she’s going to charge me for a consultation fee and plus I have to pay $$$ to see the specialist. However, my female GP was so kind she said to me I won’t charge you for today, and I’ll see whether I could book you in to see the podiatrist – Yay 🙂 within 5 minutes I was referred to my podiatrist who seemed like a great chap. As he couldn’t tell whether my wart was a wart or maybe it’s a corn, he did similar treatment except he scrapped off some of my skin and it started bleeding and we went for the aggressive liquid nitrogen – which stings and it hurts!! Sorry about the gruesome information, but this is the first time I ever come across this type of weird thing happening to me….

Anyways, one of our friend was coming over for dinner and since he’s into chinese food – I thought I’ll make some Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup along with some pan fried dumplings. I’ve posted the Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup recipe before, but this time – I’ve made it a little spicy to make it more Authentic 🙂

So here it is

Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

Ingredients

1.5kg beef shank
5 cloves garlic
3 ginger slices
1 large tomato
1 large onion, cut in wedges
2 tbsp chili bean paste
1 tsp sugar
3 star anise
1/2 cup regular soy sauce
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
1/3 cup rice wine
1 bunch of coriander for garnish
2 stalks spring onion

Instructions

1. Dice the beef shanks into chunk size and boil some water and then flash the meat with the hot boiling water. Set aside to cool

2. Slice tomato and onion into wedges and slice the ginger and spring onion. Pour some oil into the pot and chuck in ginger and sliced garlic and stir fry it for a few minutes, then chuck in the sliced tomato and onion and add in the spring onion and stir fry for another few minutes.

3. Then chuck in diced beef, chilli bean paste, sugar, star anise, rice wine and soya sauce. Stir fry for another few minutes until all ingredients are mixed well. Add enough water to cover the pot of beef shanks and bring it to boil, then turn down to simmer. It usually takes around 2-3 hours for the meat to be tender and that the soup is flavoursome. You can serve this with some white noodles..garnish with some coriander and chopped spring onions.

4. For pan fried Dumplings – my previous post has dumplings recipes and then just pan fried them until the bottom of the dumpling is golden brown add 1/2 cup of water to create steam and then place a lid on to steam it – there you have it lovely pan fried dumplings.

Comfort Food Recipe – Stir Fried Prawns Vermicelli

Okies, so I went and bought a packet of vermicelli from Asian grocery store – thinking it was rice noodles, even when soaking the noodles it looks like rice noodles however, once I started stir frying it – it became clear and turn into vermicelli…..clear noodles, can’t complain..it still tasted pretty good, just a little surprised why I didn’t pick it up when I bought the packet 🙂 so here it is…

Stir fried prawns vermicelli

Ingredients

packet of vermicelli
bunch of prawns
some spring onions
minced garlic
1 table spoon of soya sauce
1 table spoon of black caramel sauce
some left over roast chicken pieces

Instructions

1. Peel and devein the prawns and leaving the tails on if you like. Soak the packet of vermicelli in hot water until the noodles is soft and drain and leave it aside. pour some oil on the pan, and chuck in minced garlic and some sliced spring onion (leave 1/2 of them behind for later use). Then chuck in your left over roast chicken pieces (I had them left over from my roast chook from woolies – but you can use chicken thighs or chicken breast – I was just lazy)

2. Then chuck in the vermicelli, add soya sauce, black caramel sauce (you can also add oyster sauce as well) and stir fry for a little longer until all ingredient incorporated if you find the noodles are alittle dry add some water and then chuck in the prawns (don’t cook them too early as prawns overcooked becomes chewy) and then to finish it off add the rest of the sliced spring onions and there you have it delicious stir fried prawns vermicelli and if you’re like me into chillies make sure you throw some in as well 🙂

Comfort Food Recipe – Blue Swimmer Crab Fried Rice

Evening bloggy friends, hope this post finds you all well. Pandabear had a day off work today so for some reason, when he’s around I don’t really feel that productive. I woke up late this morning and because there’s no gym or swimming activities happening this week I was feeling very demotivated. By about afternoon time, I made myself a banana smoothie out of my stickmaster 🙂 pretty happy and then late afternoon brave the cold cold wind and went out to QV and Chinese store to buy some ingredients both for cooking and baking…it was so heavy carting groceries without my bluey trolley, I took my trust backpack and it was good carrying my groceries – but it was so heavy – poor Pandabear he’s sick so couldn’t go out to help me 😦 then I was silly enough to want to do Jamie’s Cook Book Challenge at night baking a cake!! I know I’m mad…and I didn’t have the right equipment as well so had to improvise it was a disaster – I will update on the next post…

Well, this particular recipe – I kind of made it up hehehe Alot of times I like to experiment, as most of you know I’m a freelance cook, I don’t usually follow recipes for my cooking. So we went to Victoria Market and I spotted these nice blue swimmer crabs, so I bought 2 of them. To be honest back home in Perth I never buy crabs, I hate the thought of chopping them up – as most of you guys know I have creature phobia – ie fish, cray fish, lobster, crabs etc. Anything that has eyes that stare at you when you try to chop them up, I struggle with it. So I thought surely chopping up crabs is an easy thing to do since they are dead. I was wrong, the eyes keep staring at me..but eventually I did it quickly!!

Blue Swimmer Crab Fried Rice

Ingredients

2 x blue swimmer crabs
minced garlic
2 x eggs
some red chillies
2 tablespoon of soya sauce
some basil
handful of garlic
steamed rice
parsley for garnish

Instructions

1. chop up the blue swimmer crabs and make sure you take the full shell out and bash the legs (it’s so cruel :-() so it’s easier to get the meat out. Add oil to the pan, chuck in minced garlic and sliced red chillies and throw in the crabs. Stir fry it until the blue swimmer crabs starts to turn orange. Then add 1 tablespoon of soya sauce and continue pan fry for a few minutes.

2. Dish out the crabs, leaving juices behind – throw in steamed rice (it’s best to use over night rice) and beat the eggs and pour in the eggs and stir fry it together, add 1 tablespoon of soya sauce and once the fried rice is done, throw back in the crabs and toss it with some basil and it’s ready to serve onto the plate. Garnish with some parsley and there you have it a delicious blue swimmer crab fried rice. 🙂

Blue Swimmer Crabs

Blue Swimmer Crabs Fried Rice

Close up

Comfort Food Recipe – Fish Coconut Curry with loads of vegies

Evening bloggy friends, well – today I dragged myself out of bed and make my way to the the swimming pool I figured it’s probably better to swim in the morning than afternoon. Why? Afternoon, there tend to be more people in the pool and I’m actually quite conscious of myself and I get really uncomfortable sharing the spa with this random guy. So I made a wise decision to swim in the morning cos when I got home I was so tired…where did this tiredness come from and took a nap and woke up. Hello..its the time of the month…no!! Thank goodness I went swimming in the morning. 🙂 that was a close call.

So I made this fish coconut curry with loads of vegies last night it is totally packed with vegies. I know Pandabear can’t take spicy food, but I figured it’s time to train him slowly to adjust his pallet to spicy food. Cos, I’m sick of not being able to eat spicy food and making mild food all the time. So here it is…

Fish Coconut Curry with loads of vegies

Ingredients

1 large piece of mackerel (you can use any type of fish)
1 cup of coconut milk
2-3 large table spoon of Malaysian curry powder
a handful of string beans
1 whole onion
1/2 cabbage
1-2 carrots
1 tomato
small handful of basil
minced garlic

Instructions

1. chop up all the vegies – carrots, cabbage, tomato, onion and string beans. Heat up the pan with some oil and add in minced garlic. Stir fry the vegies and add in the curry powder – I’ve recently bought this Malaysian Ayam curry powder from an Asian grocery store and it’s yummy 🙂 keep stir frying it for a few more minutes add in coconut milk. Depending on how thick you like your curry stew, I would also add a cup of water and bring it to boil and then simmer for about 15 minutes until all vegies are cooked. (just a tip you may want to leave the string beans last as they cook a lot faster than other vegies)

2. Chop up the mackerel into quarters and throw them into the curry pot. Mackerel and fish items cooked really fast, so when the fish starts to turn pale then, it’s ready. Throw in some basil to add additional flavour. Serve it with some hot steam rice 🙂

Here it is…

fish curry in the pot

You may have notice why there’s some rosemary and straw fries on top, cos I throw them in from Jamie’s cook book challenge just to give that extra texture – I know I’m mad!! But it tastes delicious, even though it was a bit spicy. Pandabear went for seconds 🙂