Silver Fish Pumpkin Congee

I went marketing this morning and saw a nice piece of Australian Pumpkin, immediately I had an idea to cook pumpkin congee with it.

It's simple, nourishing, tasty and healthy...which I think I need for eating too many guilty food recently!!

This congee taste best with Australian Pumpkin.  It's double the price of normal pumpkin you can find in market but the texture and taste is so much better.  Some market vegetable stall do sell them.  Try asking!

Ingredients needed:

1/2 cup of Rice
1.5 litre Water
Few Dried Scallop (Soak 15 mins till soft)
Handful of Dried Silver Fish (Soak 10 mins before use)
200g Australian Pumpkin (dice till very small)

• Place everything in electric pot to cook till done will do.
• Add a pinch of salt if you like stronger taste.

This congee is good for baby to eat too!

Healthy Brown Rice Porridge

I'm feeling low in energy today and Austin had a swelling tongue due to medication reaction and have not been eating well so feeling giddy so I decided to cook something nice and yet nourishing!

While sourcing for cooking ingredients at wet market this morning, I saw fresh Huai Shan (淮山) and decided to get a piece back home.  Then I continue and brought some fresh mushroom, carrot and spinich too!

Now I find that these ingredients are not sufficient...so I decided to add in some other ingredients that can be found in my fridge ha!

Here's the ingredients required:

1 cup Brown Rice
1.5 litre Water
300g Huai Shan (cut cube)
200g Carrot (Dice)
4 Stalks of Spinich (cut very finely)
6 Red Dates (soak 10 mins and cut half)
1 tbsp Wolfberries (soak 10 mins and leave aside)
3 Fresh Mushroom (Dice)
6 Dried Oyster (soak 15 mins)
One handful of Dried Scallops (soak 15 mins)
1 stalk spring onion (dice)
Salt and Pepper to taste

• Boil Brown Rice with Water till boiling.
• Add in Dried Oyster and Scallop and boil for 15 minutes.
• Add in Burdock, Carrot, Red Dates and Spinich and boil for 30 minutes.
• Add in Fresh Mushroom and Wolfberries and boil for another 15 minutes.
• Season with Salt and pepper.
• Sprinkle some Spring Onions on top of porridge and serve hot!

Enjoy!! 

Healthy Wholemeal Bread

I'm not really a fan of bread.  But recently I seems to like eating wholemeal bread more.  Still many bakery's wholemeal bread isn't nice!

Nowadays I like to bake my own wholemeal bread.  It's fresh, soft and nice.  Most important, I can guarantee the ingredient used are really healthy.

Here's the ingredients needed:
100g Soft Butter
60g Sugar
2 tbsp Condensed Milk
1 tsp Salt
1 Egg
15g Instant Yeast
150g Water
70ml Fresh Milk
50g Quaker Oats
350g Bread Flour
200g Whole Meal Flour

Put butter, sugar, condensed milk, fresh milk,salt, egg, yeast, water and oat in mixer bowl and use dough hook to mix it at medium speed for 5 minutes.

Add in bread flour and whole meal flour and slow beat into a smooth and elastic dough. (Optional to add raisins, nuts or sunflower seeds if like).  Cover dough and let it rest for 30 minutes till it double in size.

Divide dough into desire size (I make about 50g for round empty buns and 70g for those that I wrap with hot dogs).   After rolling dough in to desired size and shape, place it on greased baking tray for 2nd proofing to let it double in size again (DO NOT TOUCH OR MOVE THE DOUGH DURING OR AFTER 2ND PROOFING).
Make sure you leave enough space inbetween the dough.
Preheat oven after 30 minutes of 2nd proofing at 200 degree.

See after 2nd proofing, the small doughs should look nice and round.  Time to bake!!

Bake it at center rack for 10 minutes or till golden brown.

Cool your buns on wire rack before storing!

Buns taste best when it's warm....yummy....I just love eating them!!

Buns are best to be eaten within 3 days.

Good luck in baking!!

Healthy Korean Toufu Soup (Soodubu Chigae)

Ho ho...my favorite cuisine time again...I invented this healthy version Korean Toufu Chigae on last Friday night!  Those on diet can try...again this is very low in calories!!!

Ingredients (Recipe serves 2 - 3 pax):
3 Dried Mushroom
15 Anchovies
50g Abalone Mushroom
10 Fish Balls
1 pack Toufu
1 pack Needle Mushroom
10 slices of lean meat
1 Garlic (slice)
1 Stalk Spring Onion (Dice)
1 tbsp Korean Hot Pepper Flakes
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tsp Sesame Oil
1 Onion (slice thin)
700 ml water

Boil water in earthen pot (or normal pot if you don't have any earthen pot).  Add in anchovies, slice garlic, slice onion and dried mushroom in to make soup base.  Boil for 15 minutes in low to med fire.

While boiling the soup base, wash and cut all the other ingredients first.

Once the soup base is ready, strain and put the soup back to the pot and remove the rest of the ingredients.  However, keep the dried mushroom OK.  Slice it and put back to the soup base.

Add in the hot pepper flakes stir well and add in the pork, fish balls, abalone mushroom to boil for about 5 to 7 minutes.

Lastly add in the seasoning and toufu and boil for another 5 more minutes.

Sprinkle spring onions on top and serve!!

It's very appetizing and guilt free!  Who says dieting got to be boring??

Healthy Dumplings (Jiao Zi)

I had very bad gastric problem recently and have been seeing specialist and still no solution yet.  Since then I've been trying to eat more healthy (less oil, less meat, less fried food, no coconut, less spicy food as well).

However today I have urge to eat dumplings so in order to balance it out, I decided to make healthy dumplings myself instead!  Less meat, more veggie and mushroom...

Here's my recipe for healthy Dumplings (makes about 30 to 35 dumplings):

300g Minced Pork (tell the pork seller to mince from totally lean meat with 0 fats!)
300g Dice Mushroom
300g Dice Spring Onion + Chinese Parsley
300g Dice Carrot
1 Onion dice
1 tbsp Corn flour
1 tsp Sesame Oil
1 tsp Pepper
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tsp Light Soy Sauce
1 pack of ready to wrap dumpling skin from supermarket (make sure it's those for dumplings not wanton)

Just mixed all ingredients and seasoning together and leave it in fridge for 30 minutes.

To wrap, prepare a bowl of water.  Wet the dumpling skin with water to make design you like and scoop a spoonful of ingredients  onto the skin and wrap it up!

Now after wrapping up all the dumplings, you can choose to deep fried it (no no if you are on diet ha ha) or steam it.  I choose to simmer in water+ a bit of oil in wok instead (because I'm lazy to bring out my steamer ha ha)

It takes about 5 to 7 minutes to cook and my healthy dumplings are cooked!  Eat with black vinegar + shredded ginger is the best!!  Have fun wrapping!!

Healthy Kimchi Chigae

I've been thinking to create a blog to share with everyone that loves to cook and bake and here I am. I hope that people will read my blog and like the recipes shared!

If you like Korean food and wish to reduce weight...try this. It's simple to cook, tasty and most importantly for those on diet...wow...very low in calories!! Try to use a small earthen pot to cook this soup or else a small pot can do too!
Although this is my first attempt to cook this soup, but I must say it taste wonderful!! My hubby don't like to eat kimchi but he ate a lot of rice tonight with this soup.
Ingredients (serving for 2):
250g Kimchi (cut into 2cm length), 2 Stalks of Spring Onion (cut 3cm length), 1 Pack Soft Toufu (cut 1 cm cube), 15 Big Anchovies, 2 Eggs, 900ml Water, 1 tbsp Korean Hot Pepper Paste, 1 tsp Fish Sauce

• Boil 900ml water with 15 Anchovies for 15 minutes with med fire. Remove and discard Anchovies after boiling the soup base.
• Add in Kimchi and 1 tbsp hot pepper paste into the soup and continue boiling for 5 minutes.
• Add in Toufu and Fish Sauce and boil for another 5 minutes.
• Lastly add in spring onions and crack in 2 eggs and turn off fire (Do not stir the eggs immediately - stir only after adding into the soup for about 2 minutes).
• Optional to sprinkle dash of toasted sesame seeds and 1 tsp sesame oil before serving.

Kimchi is good if you have constipation problem! I like it very much because it helps to expel my stomach wind too!!
This Chigae goes very well with just plain rice or even with Instant noodles.
It's so expensive to buy kimchi from the Korean Mart or local Supermarket. Well, I'll teach you to make nice and tasty kimchi soon...so right now, enjoy your chigae!!