Cooking - Carbonara

Simple, easy and fast cooking for lunch or dinner! It is so easy that it can be done in 20 minutes! Fulfilling and hearty food! Read along on how to cook it!

Ingredients: 

• Spaghetti
• Bacon 6 - 8 sliced into small bits
• Shredded parmesan cheese
• 1 whole egg with egg white
• 2 eggs with only the egg yoke
• chopped 2 cloves garlic
• chopped onion (with or without is fine)
  

Let's start cooking!

The sauce

• Add the eggs into a large bowl
• Add a generous amount of shredded parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Mix all ingredients together

The pasta and bacon

• Boil the spaghetti (6 mins - 8 mins) and taste if it is al dente
• Set medium head on a non stick pan.
• Add oil (you can add any type of oil you like)
• Add the bacon and cook til it is cooked and not brown
• Add onions and cook it til it is clear
• Add garlic and turn the heat to low heat.
• Use tongs and transfer the spaghetti to the cooked bacon pan and mix well
• Transfer the mixed spaghetti onto the sauce bowl and mix well
• If the sauce starts to dry, add the boiled pasta water onto the bowl and mix

Delicious flavours! You can eat it just the way it is or you can add some basil to the mix to make it look pretty!

Cooking - Crabmeat Soba

I have been craving a lot of cold foods lately because the weather has been insane! It's so hot in Hong Kong. The moment you walk out the apartment you can feel the heat wave just came through your body and it's a on going sweating for the day. YAY! For deodorant! FYI, not many Hong Kong locals wear deodorants. Nasty!

Last weekend my friends and I went to Kurotaki to get some cold soba. I am a fan of soba, specially during summer. It's healthy, light and I like the taste of buckwheat. Even though the soba itself is light but my friends and I didn't eat light. We had seafood hot pot with soba, Pork Katsu with soba etc.

Tender Pork Katsu & Buckweat Soba is a perfect match!

Green Tea Soba - Sashimi- Seafood hot pot - Soft Crab Sushi

Yes, it was feast! After having soba, I thought I'd go purchase a pack of soba myself and cook it at home! Just to let you know, mine isn't the real version on how to make it. I simply just alternate the ingredients that I found and already have inside my fridge. The only thing I purchased was the soba noodles. All ingredients are less than $15USD!

Let's start cooking!

Crab Meat Soba

 Ingredients

• Cucumber (Use as much or less as you want)
• Carrot (Use as much or less as you want)
• 1 egg
• Crab meat (Use as much as you want & use any protein you want)
• Buckwheat Soba (Use as much as you want)

Cooking time

• Slice all the ingredients into small thing stripes
• Place each ingredient separately in a bowl or a plate
• Boil hot water
• Add the soba. Usually takes 2-3 minutes to cook.
  Taste the soba and see if you like the texture of the soba noodle. 
•  Remove the soba and hot water using a vegetable basin.
• Rinse with cold water
• Prepare a bowl of ice with water. Add the soba in.
  If you don't have ice, you can skip this.
• Drain any excess water from the soba and add it on a plate.
• Add all the ingredients on top of the soba

The Sauce! 

FYI, this is my alternative way to make mine because I don't have all the ingredients to make the sauce at home. 

• 3-4 tsp Japanese soy sauce
• 1-2 tsp sugar
• mix well 

*** Taste the sauce and if you like it more sweet add sugar. If you like it more salty add a bit more soy sauce. 

Finally, before eating the soba place your soba inside the fridge to cool down. I placed mine for about 15-30mins before serving. Afterwards, simply add the sauce (Little by little) inside your soba and mix them well so you won't find it too salty for the dish. 

The dish may not look so grand but it's my alternative way and it still achieve the flavour I want. 

YUMMY! - Photo from Instagram @kitty_cheung

Enjoy!

Cooking - Shredded chicken vegetable milky soup noodle

I had this recently in a small little restaurant "Cheong Long Ting" (滄浪亭) in Mei Foo Sun Chuen. It is a Shanghainese restaurant and many Mei Foo locals go there. It opens for breakfast and dinner only and it is packed every day! For dinner hours you have to be there at 6:30pm sharp! If not you will have to wait for the table or order take out. By 8:00pm most of the popular dishes will be sold old. In the end you can just only have what the restaurant still have. Click on Open Rice to view more about the restaurant.

Their most popular dish is the shredded chicken vegetables with milky soup noodles. The bowl of noodles tasted good but it was kind of salty to me. The chicken had a bit too much salt in it for my own tastebuds. Also, because it is in a restaurants and we all know that restaurants love their MSG, I ended up had to drink plenty was water to get the dryness and taste off my mouth.

Cheong Long Ting version

Today, I decided to make the same dish at home with less salt to marinate the chicken. I thought of making this because it is super easy! Why pay $40HKD ($5USD) for a bowl of noodles when the I can purchase the ingredients less than $40HKD ($5USD) for 2 servings?!

Ingredients: 2 servings

• 1 Chicken breast (You can use any part of the chicken. I chose chicken breast because it's healthier.
• 1 cup of Chicken Stock (You can make your own chicken stock)
• Shanghai Noodles (Add as much you like. I just did half a packet for 2 servings)
• Chinese cabbage ( LOVE THIS!) 
• Filled evaporated milk

Let's start cooking!

• Slice the chicken breast into small little slices or into small little cubes. Remove all fatty tissues and skin from the chicken.
• Add 1 tsp of sugar, salt and pepper to marinate into the sliced chicken and mix.
  (Adjust according to how much protein you have)
• Let it sit for 20-30mins to let it marinate.
• Wash the Chinese cabbage and cut them into small little pieces.
• Add 1 cup of chicken stock and 2-3 cups of water into a pot.
  (I add water because chicken stock alone is salty for me.)
• Set the chicken stock up to a boil.  
• Once the chicken stock is boiled add the chicken breast into the stock and let it cook.
• Get another pot to boil some water in it and add the Shanghai noodles.
• 3 mins later take the Shanghai noodles out and drain. Then place it into a bowl.
• Taste the chicken stock if there's not enough flavor add salt or if it's too salty add more water.
• Once you are content on how it taste, add the Chinese cabbage. 
• Add 3 tsp of filled evaporated milk or more til the chicken stock turns milky white color. 

Once the soup turns into a milky white colour you can turn off the heat, add the soup into the bowl of noodles and you are ready to serve!

The home cooking version! Absolutely, no oil added!

Can you tell the difference?

This bowl of noodle is super easy to do! It takes no less than 45 mins for this meal! The only time consuming is just marinating the chicken breast. Also, if you are not a person that loves to wash dishes, this dish doesn't take much dishes to wash afterwards. 

Super easy! Super fast! Healthy eating! Enjoy!

Cooking - Sweet & Sour Cucumber Dish!

In this hot & humid weather in Hong Kong, I pretty much lose my appetite on having any hot or warm food. I decided to share a cold dish recipe for all occasions! This dish is very healthy and without any cooking at all! It's suitable as an appetiser, snack or a meal depending on how many cucumbers you want to put in it.

The ingredients. This is only my intake on how to do this. 

Ingredients

• Cucumbers
• Garlic
• Fish sauce
• Sugar
• Vinegar
• Sesame Oil

Let's make the sauce!

• Wash all the cucumbers and cut them up into slices. If you don't like the skin you can peel it off. I personally love it with the skin, it gives a crunchier bite to it!
• Dice 4-5 cloves of garlic and put it in a bowl.
• 1 tsp of Sugar
• 1 tsp of Fish Sauce
• 1 tsp of Vinegar
• 1 tsp of Sesame Oil
• Add all the ingredients together and mix!
• Add the cucumbers in the sauce mixture and mixture them together. 
• Put in the refrigerator for 20 mins or over night for the sauce to really soak in.

Tip : Taste the sauce before putting the cucumbers in. If you like it sweeter, more salty or more sour you can add to your sauce depending on your own taste. 

Marinate at least 20 minutes. Best over night!
Occasionally toss and turn the cucumbers around to absorb the sauce.  

Super easy! Super fast! Healthy eating! Enjoy!