Chinese Daikon Brisket Stew 清湯蘿蔔牛坑腩

Finally we here in Hong Kong have felt the cool soothing touch of the occasional autumn breeze!  As usual, it's been a long, hot, humid summer and we're just crazy glad that the weather has cooled down enough to allow us at times to live with open windows and no air conditioner blasting away.  

The change in the weather been so uplifting in a way (silly me, I know!), that I have been inspired to start dreaming of warm, fortifying autumn dishes for our dinner table.  This Chinese Daikon Brisket Stew, or 清湯蘿蔔牛坑腩, is one of those comfort dishes that fills you up heartily, tastes just yummilicious with tender beef and meltingly soft daikon swimming prettily in a clear soup that will give you strength to fight against the autumn chills.

Chocolate Ganache

I don't know about you dear reader, but I love me my chocolate.  And if at all possible I like to have chocolate...with chocolate!  So these little Chocolate Ganache filled Chocolate Macarons are a great favorite of mine (see our recipe for Chocolate Macarons here).  This creamy, soft yet solid ganache filling is super yummiliciously chocolately and a great filling for macarons.  

Try this super duper simple to make Chocolate Ganache that dries to a perfect semi solid state, creamy when you bite into the macaron, but solid enough to keep its lovely round edged shape.

Chocolate Macarons

In Hong Kong there are many places nowadays selling this very frenchie delight of the macaron, one of the many of the patisserie of that nation that has traveled far in fame and glory.  I have bought them as a treat for my little girl and she was ever so delighted with them, these light, airy, sweet, nutty, colorful little delicacies that look almost too pretty to eat.  But they are so expensive!  And my girl was always longing for them!  

Then I got addicted to watching The Great British Baking Off, the most delightful baking show ever, and I noticed that the home bakers on the show often made macarons for decorating their luscious creations.  They made it look so easy that I thought, if these folks can do it so can I!  So I made these elusive Chocolate Macarons.   And to be honest these lovely chocolate delights were not as hard as I thought it was going to be!

Homemade Mung Green Bean Flour 自製綠豆粉

Mung beans skins off

When making our Macau Almond Cookies 澳門杏仁餅 during the Chinese Mid Autumn Festival I discovered that I could not find one vital ingredient for the cookies: mung bean flour also known as green bean flour or starch.  So I thought to use some elbow grease and just make it myself.  

It turns out that it is not so hard, just needing a bit of time and patience to make this nutty, roasty, aromatic Homemade Mung Green Bean Flour 自製綠豆粉.

Macau Almond Cookie 澳門杏仁餅

Chinese Mid Autumn Festival 中秋節 is just around the corner and my little girl is beside herself with anticipation!  (It's her favorite holiday of the year plus she gets to stay up late!)  

The yearly celebration of the biggest moon of the year, the harvest moon, Mid Autumn Festival so much fun here in Hong Kong! There are moon cakes to make, shopping expeditions to make, lanterns to light and little children to dress up in festive Chinese attire , moon gazing outings to plan!  

After an early preparation of our traditional double yolk lotus seed paste mooncakes and our five nut mooncakes, I thought why not make an extra traditional treat to have on hand in case of the extra munchies?  I ended up making some of these delectably light and flavorsome Macau Almond Cookies  澳門杏仁餅, quite easy to make and delightfully easy on the eyes.

Easy Homemade Strawberry Jam

Recently I've happily discovered an important fact.  It turns out that you can make your own homemade fruit jam pretty easily and quickly!  Wow, oh wow!  

I've always hankered after making my own fruit jams, dreaming of the fresh, sweet sticky goodness that I could feed my family (and myself, of course!) if only I could make my own jam.  But I was intimidated by all the talk of canning jars and sterilization and super large pots of boiling fruit.  It all sounded so serious and ultra time consuming!  

And then I found out (by finally watching the amazing Great British Bake Off, OMG I'm totally obssessed with that show!) that if you only wanted one jar of jam to eat, why, that was easy peasy to make!  And so I tried it out and made my first jar of Easy Homemade Strawberry Jam.  Just like that I was in jammy heaven, sunshine and happiness in a jar! 

Asian Chili Hot Oil Sauces 辣椒醬

We reviewed the cookbook The Asian Kitchen - Fabulous Recipes from Every Corner of Asia by Kong Foong Ling (see our cookbook review here) and here we present the recipes that we used in our review.  

As you can probably see we decided to make a smorgasbord of Asian Chili Hot Sauces, one from each of three different countries.  What a fun idea it turned out to be!  Easy to make, gorgeous to look at.  And best of all, you can travel around the world with the tip of your tongue, all while eating a home cooked meal!

Cookbook Review - The Asian Kitchen - Fabulous Recipes from Every Corner of Asia

We recently got an opportunity to review The Asian Kitchen - Fabulous Recipes from Every Corner of Asia by Kong Foong Ling, a cookbook packed with recipes from the many fabulous cuisines of Asia.  Not only recipes from Burma, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam, but also packed with interesting introductions into the food culture of each country, suggestions for planning meals and a handy pictionary of the more exotic food items and kitchen utensils required for the recipes.

I have to admit that at first I was not sure how to go about this review, there was so many recipes to look at!  But then once I had settled into my comfy chair with the cookbook I found myself quickly lost in the delights of the specialities of each cuisine.  As I'm sure many of you have, my family and I have traveled here and there in Asia and we have delighted in good food wherever we found it.  Fond memories of yummilicious foods that we had eaten in distant lands danced through my mind as I turned the pages.

But what recipe to review?  I wanted to make everything at first but finally decided on a smorgasbord of Asian Hot Chili Oil Sauces.  What could better showcase the similar yet unique variations that are celebrated by The Asian Kitchen?

(We have a special treat for our dear readers, a giveaway of two copies of The Asian Kitchen - Fabulous Recipes from Every Corner of Asia.  See the end of this post for details on how to enter. )

Chinese Pickled Yellow Mud Clam 黄泥螺

This rather strange looking tidbit is actually an incredibly delicious and addictive delicacy from the sea.  Or rather from the windswept tidelands of Ningbo 寧波, Zhejiang 浙江 (my 媽媽's home province!)  Only here are found these little mud clams, these innocuous and plain looking burrowers of wet mud that are used to make these famous Chinese Pickled Yellow Mud Clams 黄泥螺.  This Chinese delicacy can be traced all the way back to the Song Dynasty (that's around 1000 years of eating these delicious clams!)

Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Duck Egg 咸蛋蒸肉餅

A dear reader reminded us that we have not yet posted this classic Chinese dish, the Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Duck Egg, or 咸蛋蒸肉餅 (thanks H Gotts!)  We make this all the time!  

Actually this comfort dish is probably prepared in Chinese family homes of the South on a weekly basis.  A quick easy to make dish full of strong savory flavors, filling to the stomach, with the delicious treat of salted duck egg on top.  A taste of Steamed Pork Patty with Salted Duck Egg is a taste of home!