Chinese Salted Egg 鹹鴨蛋

You want to know why homemade food is worth your time and effort?  Because it tastes so incredible, that's why!  Since we have started making more and more things from scratch I have discovered that it's not really about money saving, but about super taste!  Which is great if you love food and eating like we do.  Very consistently homemade foods taste waaaay better than than the crappy commercial stuff you pay for.  

We recently tried making our own Chinese Salted Egg and 'Wow!' were we happy with the results!  The bright orange yolk was lusciously greedily oily while the egg whites were salty, yes, but also permeated with the scents of star anise, cinnamon and szechuan pepper used in the brine. Chinese Salted Egg is super easy to make, you just have to find a source for fresh duck eggs (chicken eggs can be substituted, I've heard), brine the eggs and then wait for 20-30 days.  What?! So long you say!  All good things come to those who wait...we promise!

Chocolate Birthday Cake | Kid Project

I always try to bake and frost a cake whenever family birthdays roll around.  Birthday cakes are always so happily received so I don't mind the time it takes to produce them.  As my little girl has gotten older she's always buzzing around me in our teensy tiny kitchen, wanting to lend a small but messy hand to my culinary endeavors.  Especially around cake baking time.  

So recently, when her daddy's birthday came around, she begged and begged to help with his birthday cake and I thought, why not?  My plan was simple.  Divide the cake batter into three smaller pans, thereby ending up with two cakes for me to stack and frost and one small cake for my daughter to frost all by herself.  That way, I reasoned, my little girl could have fun and we would still have a decent looking birthday cake (mine) to celebrate with.  Little did I expect that my cake effort would pale in comparison to my little girl's cake!

Christmas Sugar Cookies

This year for Christmas we made our first real sugar cookies, my daughter and I.  These Christmas Sugar Cookies were not perfect looking by any means, but looked adorable and tasted really great (not too sweet, just right!).  And most importantly, my little girl had a blast "helping mommy" with the all important task of painting the cookies.   These christmas sugar cookies are a great food project to do with kids because, as I discovered, they will look great no matter how they are painted!

Steamed Salted Sun Dried Fish 蒸南倉鹽鮮魚

For a long time I have fantasized about making my own dried salted fishes.  (Very sexy, I know!)  My 媽媽 keeps tantalizing me with stories about when my 爸爸 used to make his own dried fishes (which for some reason I can't remember at all).  She always describes my dad's homemade dried salted fishes as incredibly tasty!  All one would need is a simple mesh structure of some sort, with a door that you could latch securely.  Then, bam!: you could have an endless supply of tasty (and cheap!) gourmet adventures in dried foods.  

Alas for the one simple, sad fact:  we don't have a garden!  Not even a balcony, not in cramped Hong Kong where real estate is at such a premium.  Just a shoebox sized apartment bursting at the seams already with all of our stuff and a teensy tiny, itty bitty kitchen.  So we were very excited recently when my 老公's mother discovered this Salted Sun Dried Fish at the Aberdeen Fish Market.

Hairy Crab Vending Machines?!

Published: 2013-12-03

Continuing in the spirit of our last post on the delectable Steamed Hairy Crab, we wanted to share some funny news that has been circulating.  There are now Hairy Crab vending machines!  Truely, I kid you not.  These vending machines are showing up in China, in the subways I believe, and they sell live hairy crabs!  Check it out in this video (in japanese):

Steamed Hairy Crab 清蒸大閘蟹

Autumn leaves do not fall in Hong Kong (because we have no trees!), but the Hairy Crabs, 大閘蟹, seem to fall out of the sky, carpeting our city streets as the northern winds begin to blow.  Everywhere you look now it is hairy crabs:  the supermarket, the wet market, the street side shops temporarily transformed over to exclusively sell the little mittened crabs.  

These little crabs, distinctive by the brown fur merrily coating their front pinchers, are originally from Yangcheng Lake and Tai Wu Lake (where my daddy grew up!) in Jiangsu province.  Nowadays these hairy critters are the impetus behind a huge annual gastronomic money making affair.  Gastronomic because the hairy crabs are revered for their richly fragrant roe and succulent golden fat.  Money making because the crabs are very expensive, costing from 100-400  HKD each!  

But hey, what's the use of money if we can't use it to satisfy our every culinary desire...

Look at that unctuous crab roe and golden fat!

Tofu with Shrimp 蝦仁豆腐

Tofu with Shrimp, or 蝦仁豆腐,  is a braised chinese dish that looks deceptively simple but is gorgeous when you eat it.  A soothingly mix of textures: the crunch of the sweet shrimp, the silkiness of the tofu flavored with the sea tastes of the fresh shrimp, the succulently tasty creamy sauce that clings gently to all.  This dish is divine!  

I had forgotten about it for a long time and recently, suddenly, recalled it and made it for dinner.  Yum!  It was one of my childhood favorites at the dining table.  And now, guess what, it seems that my little girl loves this dish too!  She just kept asking for more...

Steamed Chinese Preserved Duck Leg 蒸臘鴨腿

As the winter winds finally creep into Hong Kong after the usual overly long hot summer heat, our minds (and tummies!) begin to drift towards the consideration of warming, comforting winter foods.  

This chinese preserved duck leg 臘鴨腿 is one of our favorites. Raw duck leg is first salted down with spices and chinese rice wine, then hung to slowly dry under the sun.  Wonderfully dense textured, intensely concentrated duck meat flavor, infused throughout with a delectably fragrant oil.  This is seriously good stuff!

Fruit Jelly Candies

One never quite believes how much your own child can "love, love, love" candies, as my little daughter puts it.  With tender mother's concern you scheme that you will specially prepare for your kid all kinds of delicious nibbles and treats that will teach them to love candy less.  Which of course doesn't really work as well as you had hoped cuz your kid still "loves, loves, loves" candies.  

So with that humble pie lesson in mind I have been thinking that I can perhaps make candy that is a bit healthier than the candy you buy.  And so, with my little girl's help, we made these surprisingly delicious real fruit jelly candies.  She really loved the fact that she was making candies!

Anise Pumpkin Cookies

My daughter and I made a tiny little jack-o-lantern for Hong Kong Halloween.   Then after Halloween was over I felt bad about poor Mr. Jack-O, smiling toothily away, not knowing that we were about to toss him out like a used wash rag.  

So I decided we were to make pumpkin cookies from the ol' fella and even added a twist of our own, making Anise flavored Pumpkin Cookies.  Because I love anise and am always trying to find ways to use that bottle of heavenly liquorice scented anise extract hiding in the cupboard.  Weird sounding combination, but you know what, the flavors really go together!