In hotter weather, salads are a go-to food. This enoki mushroom recipe is a Chinese cooked salad, which means that like last week’s aubergine recipe, the mushroom is steamed before the sauce goes on, and the mushrooms soak up the flavours as it cools with the sauce. You can also look into using other sorts…
Category: recipes
Steamed aubergine with tahini sauce – a simple Chinese salad recipe
Aubergines (or eggplants) are my favourite – not only healthy, but they are a veggie that can be cooked in so many different ways! Now that the weather is getting warmer, this simple Chinese salad recipe is very tasty – and can be prepared in advance. Not only so, steaming preserves the vitamin content really…
Corn and red kidney beans – a staple food from northern China
When people think about the staple food in China, white rice usually comes to mind, but this is actually not true in Dongbei, the north east of China. Maize (corn) is the traditional staple there, and the most well-known version is a porridge made from maize kernels: Da Zha Zi. Nutritionally speaking, corn tends to…
Chewy Chocolate Meringues
There’s something incredibly feminine about meringues. Maybe it’s the shape in which they are piped, twirling skirts dancing on the oven sheet; maybe it’s their white colour, made bronze at the right places with a fire torch or in the oven. The way you can mess about with them and they would still be unapologetically…
Steamed eggs, tofu, fish and prawns – a simple protein-rich recipe
Egg whites, tofu, white fish and prawns – it’s a protein fix! This recipe is inspired by Chinese steamed eggs.
Crostata di Marmellata – a traditional home made Italian tart
Crostata is a very typical home made cake in Italy and because everyone likes it and it requires no special effort, it’s baked at any opportunity. The ultimate classic is made with apricot jam, but its base, called pasta frolla, is the perfect match with any flavour of jam and marmalade. I bake it to…
Peperonata, more than a side dish
I love this dish because it requires few ingredients and provides a lot of flavour. It is a great side dish to present at a dinner party – but I love it solo or with a naughty slice of cheese on top – just like how I’m making it today, with my favourite smoked provola…
Three cup chicken (san bei ji) – a Chinese recipe with basil
One of the most common questions associated with this recipe is: why is it called three cup chicken? Simply because it’s mainly flavoured with 3 cups: 1 cup of sesame oil, 1 cup of soy sauce and 1 cup of rice wine. That’s the idea anyway! In reality, you don’t want to use a full…
Chinese New Year recipe – Bak Kwa (barbecued pork jerky)
It’s my first Chinese New Year in Singapore and there’s so much information to take in about the uses and traditions of this special day. To avoid any faux pas, I kept it simple and decided to make at home one of the best known delicacies in Singapore and Malaysia. Bak Kwa (Chinese barbecued pork…
Pancake Day Recipe – Doughnuts
Fat Tuesday (also known as Pancake Day), Valentine’s Day and then Chinese New Year: next week looks packed with reasons to celebrate with something very sweet, don’t you think? While living in Singapore means that I can breath and feel the build up to Chinese New Year everywhere, I still have so much to learn…
Fish al cartoccio with a side of courgettes/zucchini
Chinese New Year is approaching and you can definitely feel a seafood fever in the air when you go to the local wet markets in Singapore. Far from boasting any authority on the matter – I’ll leave this to the Chinese household of Blender&Basil – I’ll limit myself to show you how I cook fish,…
Chinese big plate chicken stew (dapanji) recipe with homemade flat noodles
A big plate of chicken is a great dish to share for a festive gathering, and for winter, this stew really warms you up! The name, dapanji, literally means a big plate of chicken, and, as you can probably imagine with a name like that, there are many variations of this recipe. Dapanji is actually…
