Garlic Steamed Scallops over Glass Noodle 蒜茸粉絲蒸扇貝

One of the wonders of living in Hong Kong is the fresh seafood that you can get here on an everyday basis.  Where else in the world are people so snobby about their seafood that they demand it alive until the moment that it is ready for cooking?!

And so we can go to our local wet markets and find an awe inspiring assortment of the freshest seafood of all kinds on a daily basis.  And so we happened upon a catch of fresh scallops, a huge tank full, still alive and kicking. (Well, not 'kicking' exactly.  I think scallops more likely are 'waving'.) The wet market lady shucked the top shells upon our request and then we were off, laughing with glee at our incredible find for the night's dinner.  

And how to cook this treasure of the seas?  Simply steamed in all its fresh glory of course!  And so we made Garlic Steamed Scallops over Glass Noodle, or 蒜茸粉絲蒸扇貝, where the scallops are steamed til just tender while the garlic and scallop juice infuse the bottom bed of delicate glass noodles with a deliciously fresh and tasty flavour.  And how can you beat serving on the shell for presentation?  Yumm, umm.  Beautiful, delicious and easy to make!

Chinese Steamed Egg Custard 蒸蛋

Smooth, creamy, warming, comforting and quietly good tasting - that is a food to die for, is it not?  One of my personal favorites in this category of comfort foods is the Chinese Steamed Egg Custard or  蒸蛋, which most Chinese probably grew up eating at the family table.

But come the time for me to make it by myself in my own grown-up little kitchen, I discovered to my dismay that this deceptively humble little dish is much more elusive than its simple appearance warrants.  I made it again and again, but alas could not achieve the glass like smoothness that should have been. 

 Confused, I thought longingly back to my Grandma, seeing her in my mind's eye as she casually whipped this dish together: me, helping to stir the eggs, Grandma adding the water and salt by eye and then lowering the bowl into our old beat up rice cooker that still required water to be added around the cooking container.  And then, presto!, the perfect steamed egg custard time after time.  I didn't even know that there were other steamed egg textures possible!   But then, there you go, that's Grandma magic for you.  

Chinese New Year Turnip Radish Cake 蘿蔔糕

There is nothing so comforting as comfort food.  Something that soothes, takes you back to your childhood, safe and sound, experiencing the delights of the palate with no holds barred, no reference points.  Just the pure delight of yummy or not yummy and filling the tummy.

For most Chinese many of the annual festival foods will qualify for this definition of "comfort food" and the Chinese New Year radish cake is definitely one of the top challengers. This is a traditional, homey, almost countryside kind of food, but full of knock out yummy soothing comforts for the city enslaved tongue.  

Most people in Hong Kong don't make this kind of stuff for themselves anymore, preferring to enjoy the convenience of buying them pre-made from the many stores that profit from the Chinese New Year gorgings that all Chinese indulge in.  Even the older generation nowadays prefer to enjoy this kind of convenience, much to the detriment of my romantic idealizations of the elder generations keeping of the traditional torch and so on.  But nothing, of course, comes close to homemade taste...

Tiramisu - What More Could You Ask For?

In a rather delightful story of origin the story goes that tiramisu, which means "pick me up", was a dessert favored by courtesans of Venice who needed quick sweet bursts of energy throughout their busy days.  I liked this very much because it seemed so right that this lusciously decadent dessert belong to the category of sexy. Cream, chocolate, cake, coffee and luscious mascarpone cheese.  And a generous drop of rum.  What more could you ask for?

Oil Poached Salmon - Simply Tender

I don't know about y'all (as they say in Texas), but for me watching cooking shows is one of my favorite forms of relaxation.  It just always seems so interesting and...comforting, I guess.  Yes, I know that sounds kinda weird, but surely it is more relaxing than watching the endless blood and violence and perversity that seems to populate the usual TV shows these days.  

So anyways as we were watching all these cooking shows we noticed a cooking technique that, frankly, we had never heard of before.  Oil poaching.  It seemed so weird the first time we saw it but we quickly realized that the technique is similar to water poaching, which is commonly done to excellent effect in Chinese cooking.  

So one day we decided to do some deep fry (which we seldom do) chicken midjoints (which didn't come out so great) and as a consequence of having all that oil in the pot already we decided that we might as well try oil poaching the nice salmon fillet that we had also bought for dinner.

Chinese Steamed Crab 清蒸花蟹

Actually in a way there is nothing particularly Chinese about this Chinese Steamed Crab 清蒸花蟹.  It's a simple straightforward preparation that celebrates fresh seafood for its sea sweetness and tender succulence.  

Or maybe I should take that back.  Thinking about it, this dish is actually very representative of the manifestos of Cantonese cookery.  Freshness first, then simple yet subtle preparation to bring out the best of the natural taste of the fresh food. Anyways this is one of the many styles in which the Chinese eat crab which they love in general with a passion.

One of my earliest food memories is of having my mother, who loves crabs but for some strange reason will never admit it, absolutely astound me with the dexterity and speed with which she crunched her way through a mountain of crab shells with the utmost of ease.  I mean, from my youthful perspective, those crab shells were like iron shields and my mother was Superman or something.

Hong Kong Noodle Dishes - Food Toys

I got hooked on these bubble toys when our baby was just walking and one of our favorite outings was going for a short walk around the neighborhood in the evenings when the usually chaotically traffic choked streets got quieter.  These bubble toy dispensers have always been around in Hong Kong dropping forth all sorts of cool toys packaged inside the 'bubble' and are usually located at the local convenience stores or in stores that only specialize in bubble toys.

It was just that I never really took much notice of them before.  At first it was just a diversion for the baby, something to interest her and have fun together with.  But then I discovered that they also dispensed really cool food toys and from that moment on I secretly became just as obsessed with them as my little girl and nowadays we argue over who gets to choose the machine we buy from that day.

Tomato Egg Stir Fry 蕃茄炒蛋

You know how there are some foods that, when you smell, see or taste them, take you straight back to when you were just a wee girlie or laddie and were just tall enough to sit in the 'real' chairs and eat with the big people?  Ah, life was good then!  I didn't have to do a thing back then, just sit in my wee chair and eat to my heart's content all the yummy food that Grandma cooked each day.  Oh dear, I'm getting a tear in my eye...  How I miss Grandma and her wonderful cooking!  

She's the real reason that I have all these strong food memories for real Chinese home-cooking.  Grandma cooked proper delicious Chinese meals everyday of the year.  One favorite dish of mine that she made a lot was Tomato Egg Stir Fry 蕃茄炒蛋, a homey dish that, when well done, is a perfect combination of tastes and textures as well as being simple and quick to make.

Nowadays, whenever I gobble down the first couple of bites of this delicious Chinese comfort dish, I swear I can almost hear my dearest Grandma pottering about the pots and pans in the kitchen.

Hong Kong Honey - Wing Wo Bee Farm

You probably wouldn't believe that a 'Blade Runner' city like Hong Kong has its own local honey, I sure didn't at first. I was doing some research on honey as an alternative for sugar and looking for places to buy some quality honey.  We wanted to find alternatives to sugar so we could sweeten food for our little girl without too much worry what with all the bad tales about refined sugar these days.

To my amazement I discovered that there is a little bee farm, Wing Wo Bee Farm, or 永和蜜蜂場, right smack in the middle of Hong Kong, in Shatin in fact, run by Beekeeper Yip Ki-hok since 1983. A real bee farm in the land of skyscrapers! Amazing!

Berry Tart - Summer Dreaming

There is always the magic of unknown pleasures inside the covers of any cookbook as you hold it in your hands for the first time.  And then if you do commit to the cookbook and try the recipes inside, you may find that you are punished for your hopes, merely satisfied, or amply rewarded.  

We found a little cookbook of Italian dessert recipes at a used book store one day and bought it out of curiosity (even though there were no pictures inside which is kinda weird for a dessert cookbook) and, honestly, because it was quite cheap.  And this time around we were very well rewarded with the sublime pleasure of the Summer Berry Tart.