Homemade Scoby for Making Kombucha

I’ve seen kombucha, a fermented tea drink originating long, long ago from China, around on health food store shelves for a long time.  Never tried it.  But it has stuck around and I've heard more and more about it.  But it's expensive!  

Recently I realized that it could be made at home.  As our dear readers will already know we've much interest in fermentation and its health benefits - probiotics!  anti-oxidents!  We've been fermenting all sorts of things.  This is our first fermented drink.  

Overall I found that homemade kombucha is pretty easy, but you gotta setup a system first.  I really love, love that I can make a refreshing and healthful homemade fizzy drink that the whole family enjoys!  How cool is that!?

Okay, then, the first essential step to homemade kombucha is to make a ‘SCOBY.'  What is this thing with the cute name, you say?  Well, SCOBY stands for 'symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast'.  In reality it's a gelatinous blob (see photo above) that acts as the central control station of kombucha fermentation.  Let's make a SCOBY!

Mango Pomelo Sago Dessert 楊枝甘露

This yummilicious Chinese spoon dessert is just the thing to take advantage of the autumn pomelos that are flooding the market at the moment.  It's pomelo (and mango) time, folks!  

You'll find these kind of desserts in Hong Kong specialty dessert shops, 糖水鋪, which, if you haven't tried yet, you must cuz the desserts they serve are pretty fab!  These dessert shops are in every residential neighborhood, usually open later and into late night, and serve all kinds of traditional and newer types of Chinese desserts.  

This fabulous Mango Pamelo Sago Dessert 楊枝甘露, also known as 芒果柚子西米露,  is one of the newer HK desserts, a most delectable concoction of flavors and textures: chewy sago pearls, juicy pomelo sacs and deliciously sweet mango all tied together with lusciously creamy coconut cream.

Fruit Mooncake 水果月餅

If you've been following our little food adventures, you may recall how delighted I was with our efforts with homemade humble but versatile white bean paste and the revelation that all kinds of flavors could be very successfully infused with it.  Check out our post on Chocolate Filled Raspberry Tang Yuan for one such very successful chocolately infusion.

For Mid Autumn Festival this year we decided to experiment again, this time infusing the flavors and gorgeous colors of fruit into the white bean paste fillings for our homemade mooncakes.  Here are, if I may say so myself, the absolutely beautiful results of our efforts.  Our Homemade Fruit Mooncakes 水果月餅  are out of this world: tender golden crusts beautifully imprinted with traditional mooncake patterns wrapped snuggly about brilliantly hued fruit infused fillings.  

Chrysanthemum White Bean Paste Nerikiri Cake

This lovely chrysanthemum flower is actually an edible treat!  It’s a Japanese sweet treat known as nerikiri and is simply made with white bean paste.  We’ve previously made a super cute Easter Bunny nerikiri with white bean paste and it was super fun as well as delicious.  

We’ve made a Chrysanthemum White Bean Paste Nerikiri Cake this time in the same way, just in time for the Mid Autumn Festival 中秋節.  Chrysanthemums bloom in the fall and are traditionally used as a background to gleaming mooncakes and flowered filled osmanthus jellies that celebrate the festival.   Today the chrysanthemum leads the way as a delicate, gorgeous to look at and yummilicious to eat treat. What a revelation!

Chinese Steamed Egg with Mushroom 香菇蒸蛋

There's absolutely nothing better than a silky smooth Chinese egg custard as we've shown our dear readers how to achieve successfully in our post on Chinese steamed eggs 蒸蛋 (click the link!).  Today we'te going to talk about a twist on the classic steamed egg that had my hubby and little girl asking for seconds and thirds and finally demanding why I hadn't made more!

The twist?  We infuse the intense and fragrant flavors of dried shitake mushroom into our silky smooth egg custard.  Wow oh whoppity wow, why haven't I made this before?  Chinese Steamed Egg with Mushroom 香菇蒸蛋 is so yummilicious:  delicate slippery bites of tender egg custard with delectably flavorful chewy bites of mushroomy mushroom.  YUM!  And we'll show you how to make it to perfection!

Crystal Skin Dim Sum Wrapper 水晶皮製作

Have you ever had Dim Sum 點心?  You know, that Cantonese teahouse tradition where tea is paired with tiny delectable dishes or steamers of sweet or savory treats.  Sooo goood!  And in the midst of these delectable treats have you ever had those dumplings where the skin was transparent enough to see through to the inside filling?  So amazing amirite?!  

Well these thin transparent wrappers are known as Crystal Skin Wrappers, 水晶皮.  So delicate these wrappers: thin enough to see through yet strong enough to pleat and hold the shape of the dumplings with ease.  Check out the beautiful Har Gow 蝦餃 shrimp dumplings (photo above) that we made with this crystal skin!

Tricky wrappers to make but we managed through much trial and error to get it just right.  Check out how to make the most excellent Crystal Skin Dim Sum Wrappers 水晶皮, both thin enough to see through and yet pliable and easy enough to work with to make and hold the pleats necessary for these fancy dim sum dumpling shapes.

Har Gow Shrimp Dumpling 蝦餃點心

Our latest Dim Sum adventure!  Naturally it must be the world famous Shrimp Dumpling, also known as Har Gow.  Anyone can tell you that Har Gow 蝦餃 (and that other superstar Siu Mai 燒賣) is a must at any dim sum lunch!  (Psst..check out our fab Siu Mai 燒賣 recipe!)

Psst...For those who don't know what Dim Sum 點心 is, it's a food tradition started in Chinese teahouses where little steamers or plates of delicately made foods both savory and sweet were served to go with fragrant cups of tea.  Today this food tradition is still going strong in Dim Sum restaurants everywhere!

Okay, first, confession time: we've been having lots of har gow dumplings lately.  Cuz we wanted to make the perfect Har Gow and our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd attempts were just not quite right.  The dumplings that we managed to make were tasty but the wrapper, oh, the wrapper was quite the bitch to get right.  Too sticky, too thick, too lumpy, etc...

Attempt number four, finally, we got it!  Oh the Har Gow 蝦餃 we made!   Perfect and delicate little dumplings of deliciously sea sweet shrimp fillings encased in thin translucent skins, all wrapped with the quintessential 13 nos of pleats that form the distinctive half moon Har Gow shape.

Homemade Limoncello - Italian Lemon Liqueur

Do you find yourself ever going on food tangents?  You know, an idea pops into you head, a food idea mind you, and you’re off down the rabbit hole, chasing a new food adventure.  So much fun, amirite?!

Well, this time I got tangled up in an old food obsession of mine, lemons.  I LOVE lemons, they are so amazing!  The flavors and fragrance from the peel to the juice that they gift to us is just endless and wonderful.  I mean, have you ever had lemon curd?  To die for amirite?!  

Anyhoo, I discovered a traditional Italian liqueur called limoncello that can be simply made at home  with lemon peels, vodka and sugar syrup.  Of course I had to try it right away.  Straight down the rabbit hole I went.

At the end of this food adventure I have to honestly say I cannot believe how well it turned out.  It was gosh darn mind blowing.  Our homemade Limoncello liqueur was astounding: so fragrant, so lemony, so delicious, so beautiful!  Surely a gift of nectar from the gods of lemon ;)

Osmanthus Egg Imitation Shark Fin 桂花翅

This dainty and marvellously delicious stir fry, the Osmanthus Egg Shark Fin  桂花翅, is a dish fit for an emperor!  Or, rather fit for an Empress as this dish was originally created as a tribute to the redoubtable Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧太后, she who ruled China from behind an embroidered screen for five decades from 1861 until her death in 1908.  

Hong Kong Crispy Noodles 港式煎麵

This ridiculously delicious dish is something probably anyone who has ever eaten at a Chinese restaurant has had before.  These Hong Kong Crispy Noodles 港式煎麵 or 兩面黃, also known as Crispy Chow Mein or Hong Kong Style Fried Noodles is a dish of lush contrasts.  It features a bottom layer of pan fried crispy crunchy golden browned noodles topped with a savoury stir fry of vegetable and meat/seafood with an extra heaping of soy flavored sauce.  That extra heaping of sauce trickles through the crispy crunchy noodles, softening and flavoring some while leaving others still delightfully crunchy.  

Savory tender bites of veggies and meat mixed with crunchy bits of noodles...eating these HK Crispy Noodles is so much fun!