June 1, 2021
For the longest time, I have only made spaghetti with meat sauce, never meatballs. That is until my recent visits to Sicilian Butcher in Scottsdale. For whatever reason, I never like meatballs. In my first few visits to Sicilian Butcher, I did not cast my eyes on this item on the menu. Several weeks ago, we dropped into Sicilian Butcher Read More
February 1, 2021
Soon kueh is one of the Teochew delicacies that I wanted to master. I love the chewy skin and the complex texture of the savory filling. Top it with sweet soy sauce and fried shallots, Yum! I spent 5 hours in the kitchen, painstakingly wrapping, pinching and pleating the edges of each dumpling. Well worth the effort. The filling in Read More
January 4, 2021
We ushered in the first day of 2021 with a BBQ on the roof top of our apartment building. Its a beautiful day on a hopefully great new year for everyone. I think I served the best grilled shrimps I have tasted ever, the HUGE shrimps are juicy, bouncy (that’s what Hillary says when she tastes a good shrimp) and Read More
September 24, 2020
We signed up for a wine and food pairing experience at Williamson Wines in Healdsburg this summer. One of the memorable dishes I tried there was a simple corn salad with truffle cheese salt. The taste of truffle really shines through in this refreshing salad. This is a very simple dish, and if you have the grill on standby, fire Read More
September 2, 2020
When my mother-in-law was here to help take care of the kids, her friends taught her to make curry puffs with Betty Crocker Pie Crust mix. Whenever the craving strikes, she would send me to Lucky to pick up a box for her. She can whip up these comfort snack in no time. What’s a trip to Lucky in exchange Read More
August 10, 2020
August 9th – Singapore National Day. I was overjoyed when I found out that Singapore Connect is organizing a National Day-In-Place virtual hawker food fare. Covid has prevented us from making our annual trip home and deprived us of the hawker food that we crave so much. The organizer offered some all-time favorites from bay area Singaporean chefs. We were Read More
July 27, 2020
Part of my Arroz con Marisco recipe calls for 3 cups of seafood stock and steamed mussels. This method of preparing the mussels gave me a cup of rich and flavorful base to start the seafood stock. Bonus: yummy mussels for my Arroz con Marisco. Note: While doing research on how to clean and steam mussels, I learned that when Read More
June 15, 2020
Hanna says she wants to make chive pockets (韮菜盒子). She remembers trying it once when she was young. We frequent the dim sum restaurants that serve southern Cantonese-style delicacies. 韮菜盒子 is a northern Chinese savory snack and we don’t see them in these restaurants often. I thought this will be a nice cooking activity for both of us to spend Read More
May 9, 2020
I saw Thai Banana and Banana tempura batter mix at the Asian grocery store last weekend. I am not a fan of deep fried food, but goreng pisang (deep fried banana) is an exception. This is one of my favorite snack growing up in Singapore, and I couldn’t resist bringing both of them home. I am surprised how easy it Read More
April 17, 2020
New take on old recipe. Coronavirus shelter-in-place forces everyone to be creative and make do with whatever we have. This is my popiah recipe transformed: popiah skin replaced with tortilla skin, bean sprouts and cucumber replaced with shredded cabbage. Looks like street taco, tastes like good old popiah otherwise.
