Home-cooked: Chinese cabbage with mushroom

What you need:

• Chinese cabbage, sliced thinly
• Mushrooms, sliced thinly
• Chilli, sliced
• Garlic, minced
• Shallot, minced
• Oyster sauce
• Water
• Salt to taste

Heat up some oil in wok. Fragrant minced garlic and shallot. Add sliced chilli and then sliced mushroom. Stir-fry a bit then add in the sliced Chinese cabbage. Add in some oyster sauce and water, depending how much gravy required. Cook a while and then cover with hood. Let it simmer in low heat for a min or 2 and also add salt to taste. Stir-fry for another 2 – 3 mins and it is ready to be served.

Home-cooked: fried egg with cincalok

What you need:

• 2 eggs
• 2 tsps cincalok
• salt and pepper

Whisk eggs with a little dash of salt and pepper, then cincalok. Heat up some oil in wok. Whisk the eggs in, fry equally on both sides. Serve when it’s cook.

Home-cooked: steamed fish with taucu sauce

What you need:

• 1 medium size fish (I'm using Tilapia [fei zhou]), fresh and cleaned

For the taucu sauce:

• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 salted plums, minced
• 3 tsps salted plum's sauce
• 3 - 5 red chilli's (I'm using cili padi), minced
• 5 - 7 tsps whole bean paste (taucu, you can add more if you prefer more taucu sauce), minced
• Sugar, to taste
• A dash of sesame seed oil

Add minced garlic, plums, cili padi, taucu and plum sauce into a bowl. Stir it evenly. Add a dash of sesame seed oil and sugar, continue to stir evenly. Taste the sauce to ensure it is salty, sweet, sour and spicy enough. Once ready, set aside.

Place the fish into a steaming plate. Pour the sauce all over the fish evenly, cover it like a blanket. Set aside. Heat up a wok of water. Once boiling, place the plate of fish on the steaming tray and cover with hood. As fish is on the big side, steam it for 10 mins. Once ready, off the heat and let the steam 'cook' the fish for another 10 mins before serving it. Scrape the sauce into the steamed water (from fish and steaming, you can see from pix below the water surrounding the fish) and mix it together as gravy and serve.

Steamed fish with taucu sauce

Home-cooked: stir-fry honeyed wild boar with ngaku

Stir-fry honeyed wild boar with arrowroot

As I still have a chunk of marinated wild boar meat with honey, I thought of cooking it with some arrowroot. So here goes... what you need:

• Marinated wild boar meat (you can find recipe here), sliced thinly
• 3 small arrowroots (ngaku), sliced thinly
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Salt and thick soy sauce to taste
• Water for gravy, depending how much you want

Heat up some oil in wok. Fragrant the minced garlic. Add in the sliced meat and stir-fry a bit before adding in the sliced ngaku. Add in some water, salt and thick soy sauce to taste. Cover with hood and let it simmer in low heat until cook and meat is tender. As wild boar meat is hard, it does take a while for the meat to be tender. Serve immediately once ready.

Home-cooked: wild boar meat in honey

Hubby’s recipe

What you need:

• A chunk of wild boar meat
• Some honey
• Sugar
• Light soy sauce
• Pepper
• Onion, cut it into slices

Marinate the wild boar meat with honey, sugar, light soy sauce and pepper overnight as wild boar meat has a distinct smell.

Heat up some oil in wok or pan. Place meat in and let it cook. Once almost cook, remove it and let it cool down a little before slicing the meat. After slicing it, place it back into the same wok and continue cooking. Add the sliced onion for some zest and stir-fry it until cook. Serve when ready.

Note: make sure you slice the meat thinly as wild boar meat is very rubbery hard.

Home-cooked: stir-fried ABC

What you need:

• 5 small arrowroot, cut into thin strips
• 1 carrot, cut into thin strips
• A small handful of dried cuttlefish in thin strips, from the wet market
• 1 1/2 tbsps scallop sauce
• 1 garlic, minced

Heat up some oil in wok. Fragrant the minced garlic and then cuttlefish strips. Once fragrant, put in both arrowroot and carrot strips. Stir-fry a bit then add scallop sauce and some water (depending how much gravy you want). Cover with hood and let it simmer in low fire. Stir-fry and simmer until cook. Serve it immediately.

Note: I always soaked the dried cuttlefish to ensure it is clean and soften.

Home-cooked: special cabbage soup

What you need:

• Some dried scallops
• Cabbage, peeled off and tear it into smaller pieces
• 1/2 cube of Knorr Ikan Bilis
• A dash of salt

Boil a pot of water. Once boiling, put all the ingredients in. Salt to taste. Let it boil another round then lower the fire to let the soup simmer for an hour or so. After that, it is ready to be served.

Note: I always soaked the dried scallops a bit before cooking. In a way to soften it and also ensure it is clean.

Home-cooked: choy kwon soup

What you need:

• Choy kwon, literally means dried vegetable but I do not know it’s official name in English
• 3 to 5 red dates
• Some chicken bones
• A few cuts of dried cuttlefish
• A dash of salt

Cut choy kwon into 1 1/2” length pieces. Soak it in a bowl of water. Set aside. Boil a pot of water. Once boiling, put all the ingredients in. As for choy kwon, make sure to squeeze the water before putting it inside the pot. Salt to taste. Let it boil another round then lower the fire to let the soup simmer for an hour or so. After that, it is ready to be served.

Home-cooked: steamed cat fish with salted plum

• fresh fish, I’m using cat fish
• ginger, shredded
• salted plum (sap shuin mui)
• cili padi, sliced thinly
• sesame seed oil 
• salt

Pat some salt onto the fish. Place fish in a wide plate then sprinkle the shredded ginger and cili padi, also the salted plum and a tsp of it’s juice including a dash of sesame seed oil. Heat up a wok of water. Once boiling, place the plate of fish on the steaming tray in the wok and cover with hood. Let it steam for about 10 mins for a big fish and 8 mins for a small one. Serve it immediately once cooked, it taste better and fresh.