Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Time flies, I can’t believe Christmas is just around the corner and another year has almost gone by. Festive season are always my favorite. I was growing up in a very big family with 49 cousins then, now about triple in size, and festive seasons have been the best time to get together. We normally enjoy cooking, eating, sharing and celebrating. After married abroad and travelling and living few years in different countries, there are more and more celebrations to enjoy in life.

Since moving to Melbourne, things are a bit quiet, sometimes both our parents have to remind us or send us photos to show what they celebrate. It makes me miss them so much for the good times we used to have. Well, I have to face it. I am not quietly sitting and tearing missing. In here I try to catch up as much as possible and teach my children what Australian festivals have to offer. Of course, one of the best festivals ever is Christmas. I am very grateful we are surrounded by nice and friendly neighbors. We have already celebrated the big event together, one day with the back neighbor and the next with few front neighbors. Our tables were full of different food from different origins: European, Aussie and Asian. What more can I ask for? Friends and neighbors are the closest ‘relative’ we have here. Thanks for their supports and friendship for so many years. Thank you.

For all of you who are reading, I wish you and your entire family a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

Health Star Rating

Health Star Rating

It is a cold start for the Spring in Melbourne. I hope you all have a great week. I keep myself warm indoor and far away from the pollens which I am sensitive to. Besides, starting from this week I have a new challenge to complete. It is to improve a few packaging products to achieve the higher health star rating as possible. Well, the target is 4 stars rating. It is not easy but it is possible since I had done it before. I just need to use my ‘magic’ formulas to turn it right! Fingers crossed!

So, what is health star rating system anyway? It is basically designed to help customers easily compare similar products to make healthier choices. The more stars it has, the healthier the product is. You can find more information at http://healthstarrating.gov.au

Kimchi Recipe

Napa Cabbage Kimchi – Tongbaechu Kimchi

I would say Korean diet is not complete without kimchi, either eating at a Korean family home or at a Korean restaurant. It is a staple food in Korean cuisine. There are so many types of kimchi in Korean cuisine. Today, I am going to introduce a common kimchi called napa kimchi. It is best described as a spicy, slightly sweet, sour and fermented cabbage.

It is definitely a time commitment to making kimchi, but it can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks. Overly fermented kimchi will become very sour. Please do not through it away because it can be used to cook pancake or soup like delicious kimchi and tofu stew called kimchi jjigae (I will post it next time when left over). 

I was first tried kimchi when I met my Korean roommate more than 2 decades ago. Later on, I learned my first kimchi from my dearest Korean friend, Sung (an ex-restaurateur). I failed a few times due to storing and temperature reasons. I have learned from the mistakes, after many times of practice, it makes perfect after all.

Every household has its own method of making kimchi. I’ve established a simple method which is slightly different from Sung’s kimchi. I would use easy ingredients that I can find wherever I live, in South East Asia or in Melbourne. Sung had no complains about it. When she came over to visit my family 5 years ago, she suggested and wanted to help me to dig a hole in my garden to store my kimchi. It likes the traditional method using the earthen jar buried in the ground. She explained that is now not common practice any more due to the limited of land and the modern kimchi fridges. This was a good advice but I told her that my kimchi only lasts for a week, normal fridge would do the job. I normally make Korean feast for the week when I make kimchi. By the way, when talk about Korean food, I really love and miss her mum’s Korean cuisine. I called it master of masters of Korean food. I was thinking of flying to Korea one day and truly to learn from her. I am sure, it will be one day.

Here finally so many years of making kimchi with old school method, I’d written my simple family kimchi for the first time.

(Note: My kimchi is a bit spicy)

Kimchi Recipe

1 large (2 kg) Napa cabbage (Chinese cabbage)

6 tablespoons sea salt or rock salt

4 liters water

Ingredients B:

5 tablespoons Korean chilli powder

2 tablespoons Korean chilli paste (optional)

½ tablespoon sugar

3 tablespoons fish sauce

1 teaspoons grated garlic

1 teaspoon grated ginger

1 large carrot, peeled and julienned

1 daikon radish, peeled and julienned

1 cup spring onion or Chinese chives, cut into 5 cm (2 inch) lengths

1.    Cut cabbage into eight pieces lengthways. Put the cabbage in a large container and sprinkle with salt evenly over the cabbage and between the leaves. Add about 4 liters of water or enough to cover the cabbage. Leave it overnight.

2.    Next day morning, rinse the cabbage under the running water 2 times and drain well. Squeeze any excess water from the cabbage. Cut cabbage into small pieces.

3.    Mix ingredients B well in a big bowl. Add the cabbage and mix well. Tightly pack each cabbage in a glass container. Keep at room temperature for 2-3 days, after this the kimchi must keep in the refrigerator at all time.

4.    Serve the kimchi into bite pieces to eat into a serving bowl.

I hope you will like too!

Yam Cha

Well, #18 & #19 new recipes of yam cha are finalised and accepted. #20 recipe is still on the way and looking for suitable ingredients. I am glad to be involved in the new recipes development with no MSG in the products. It is good to see the future yam cha in the market getting healthy and locally produced. Proud to be Australia made.

Asian Food

Lunch tasting at Asian Inspirations.

                                 Cambodian rice cracker with dipping sauce

 Thai green curry fried rice

 Malaysian chicken satay

                                                   
                                                       Vietnamese paper rolls

                                                                  Hokkien Char

   
                                                               Japanese style grilled beef

                 
Tasting time

Springvale Snow Fest 2017

It was fun at Springvale snow fest. Open until 7pm tonight. 

Fruit tree - Avocado

What do you expect when you grow a fruit tree?
It is kind of rhetorical question, isn’t it? Of course, we all expect to get what we pay for when we buy a fruit tree. We especially hope to get what it is said in the label and photo. However, from our experience, sometimes things turn out to be different from the photo and label. The worst part is we have to wait for a few years of hard work to find out that it wasn’t what we paid for.

The story began 7 years ago, my husband (Bo) bought a Hass avocado tree, according the photo and name on the label, from one of major nurseries near our place. It started to flower a few years later but did not fruit and we almost chopped it down.  A couple of years later, it started to bear fruit. We were so excited, yay, we have our own avocado, especially our kids because they love avocado very much. When the fruit got bigger we had a closer look and realized that they don’t look like Hass, What? Not Hass? So, what it is? He said don’t know and have to wait until taste it. My goodness, got to wait again for few more months. Then harvesting time came and it was time to taste it, oh….oh..no…not so great news, it isn’t Hass. Bo was quite upset. What are we going to do with it? We can’t really return to the nursery and get a refund, can we? I guess we can if we had its receipt. Moreover even if we had the most that we could get is a refund for the tree and we can’t do much about the tree, chop the tree???? Grow another one, have to wait for another 4-5 more years? How are we going to trust the nursery again? Well, sometimes, it is what it is, we have to accept it and keep it. Bo has a philosophy, actually he’d learned from a children book that he read for Sarah, our youngest daughter. The book said that even you try the food that you don’t like, keep eating it for five days in a row, you eventually will like it. Yah, actually, the avocados are looking good, it is still avocado, just not what we expected - Hass avocado.

The story hasn’t end yet. See, Bo has never given up. One day when I was away he started his garden plan and secretly planed two more avocado trees….what can I said, we’ve got to wait for a few more years to tell you the story. To be continued…

Vietnamese Pizza -Vietnamese Cooking

Vietnamese Pizza- Banh Trang Nuong

Vietnamese Pizza- Banh Trang Nuong

Vietnamese pizza! Yes, you read it right Vietnamese pizza? It is one of popular street foods in Vietnam, especially for the young generations. It is quite a modern snack and I like it, no, I should say I love it very much. Not just because the pizza is so delicious but also the creativity, adventure way of cooking and serving it.

On Saigon’s street, I loved watching vendors cooking, husband and wife working together. The wife cooked on a small charcoal grill while the husband looked after the charcoal, took the orders and payments. Using the tiny and movable grill stove with the love of cooking proves to earn enough to put food on the table. It brought back my childhood memory when my little hands helped my late grandparent to look after the fire in their home commercial kitchen. In old days, grandfather used the traditional method of selling food by plying from village to village. 

Well, back to Vietnamese pizza – how to cook? Unlike normal pizza which you normally use dough, you have to use a thin rice paper sheet, top with butter, quail eggs, dried pork, dried shrimp, spring onion, fried shallots, chilli sauce and tomato sauce. It is crispy, spicy, porky, savory and very delicious.

You can use gas barbeque on low flame if you love BBQ outdoor. I use gas stove with a small grill support on top (watch out, make sure not get rice paper burn!) and it turned out pretty good except without the charcoal smell. 

Here is the Vietnamese pizza recipe: 

Vietnamese Pizza Recipe- Banh Trang Nuong

(Chargrilled Rice Paper with Quail eggs, dried pork and dried prawns)

5 rice papers

Butter/oil

10 quail eggs or 5 small chicken eggs

5 spring onion, thinly sliced

½ cup pork floss or dried pork

½ cup dried shrimp (wash and drain well)

Fried shallot (optional)

Chilli flake (optional)

Chilli sauce/ Sriracha sauce

Tomato sauce

Heat the grill to low heat. Place one rice paper at a time. Add a bit of butter, two quail eggs, dried shrimps and pork floss in the center. Use the spoon to spread well all ingredients around and grill for one minute or until the eggs are cook though.

Sprinkle with spring onion, friend shallot and grill until the rice paper is crispy. Drizzle with chilli and tomato sauce.

Fold the rice paper. Serve hot and wrapped in a paper.

As a pizza, you can use any topping as you like, like cheese, bacon, salami, olive...be creative the way you like your pizza to be.

I used our homemade fish mince instead of pork floss as in the picture. Kids enjoy it very much, the hot one with the chilli sauce was for my youngest kid and the BBQ sauce was for my eldest who doesn’t like hot food.

Vietnamese Pizza- Banh Trang Nuong

Catfish vs Parrot fish

Yay, I found catfish in the market and I saw the beautiful parrot fish too. But I have no idea how to cook it. It is too beautiful to cook. Anyone try it before? How is the taste?

Khmer Beef Stew with Noodles

A weather forecast suggests it would be the coldest day tomorrow in Melbourne. In order to have a warm comfort food tomorrow, no matter how complicated the dish is, mummy has to be ready for it.
Here is the plan - cook a big pot of warmer, delicious and aromatic stew- Khmer beef stew noodles (kurtiew korko). It never goes wrong in winter and kids love it. The only few dishes that they enjoy eating from morning to night. Why? Because it can be served with French bread in the morning, with noodles at lunch and dinner. Voila, kill three birds with one stone. It makes mum's life easy too!

Chronuach- Cambodian Food

One of our family favorite Cambodian dishes- spicy, salty, sweet, sour and 'stinky yum'.

Kimchi

Chinese cabbage (wombok/napa cabbage) is cheap during this winter in Melbourne. My family is kimchi's fan especially my youngest daughter. Well, after so many years of making kimchi, I realise I haven't written down into recipe- always old school, feeling, tasting and tasting. I will keep reminding myself to write it down when I make it next time. The ingredients that I use to make kimchi are Chinese cabbage (soak in salty water overnight), radish, Chinese chive or spring onion, carrot, sugar, fish sauce, ginger, garlic, Korean chilli paste, Korean chilli powder as shown in the picture above. 

Few days later, kimchi is ready to eat or make a nice kimchi fried rice (recipe at easy Asian recipe) 

Kaffir Lime

Kaffir lime fruits from the garden

Grilled Beef with anchovies and lemon dressing

3 Main ingredients: Beef, anchovies, lemon/lime juice

Other: seasoning with sugar 

Classic Chiness Broccoli with Salty Fish

It has been a while since I last posted. Life has been very busy with kids, family and work. Well, just had a quick photo shot after cooking. Nothing difficult, only few ingredients. 

4 main ingredients: Chinese Broccoli, salty fish, garlic and carrot
Other: oil, water and cornstarch

Chinese Cooking Class in Melbourne

Chinese Cooking Class in Melbourne
Contact Jean: jeancookingclass@gmail.com

Happy Lunar New Year