Homemade Foochow Rice Wine

Glad that my mum came over for a visit. Weather wise not that great, as it has been really windy and wet this week....unpredictable weather really. Never the less, we still manage to do little of this and that.
On Saturday, we went to farmer's market to buy some local produce. We bought some early carrots, which we then steamed and they tasted so tender and sweet.
Today on the way back from town, we stopped by the local strawberry farm just to check if PYO (pick your own) fruits season has even started......well have to wait for another 2 weeks. However they've early strawberries that they harvested from their farm for sales. Not to bad for 2.3kgs of strawberries for 6 quids. Red, plump, juicy and succulent strawberries , one can only imagine......

eaten with cream............hmnnnnnnn.......

One of the specialities of Foochow dish is chicken cook in homemade rice wine. This dish is commonly served to women in their confinement. It deem to help blood circulation and also heat up the body. I've yearning[note: I by no means in confiment, hehehehe] to have this dish for a year now since I don't even know how to make the wine in the first place. Having my mum here would be an excellent opportunity to learn how to make it. Great!

Cooked glutinous rice

Blended wine biscuit and red rice

Homemade Foochow Rice Wine
Ingredients

• 1 kilos of glutinous rice
• water (cover the rice around 1.5inches from rice surface)
• 1 wine biscuit + 250gm red rice (blend them together)
• 1 big glass container that can easily fit 3 litres of volume
  

1. Cook the glutinous rice in rice cooker. Once cooked, set aside and let it cool.
2. Once cool, mix the glutinous rice with blended wine biscuit, red rice and scoop it into the glass container.
   
3. Seal the container and set aside.
4. Within 24-48hrs, the fermentation process will begin. Use a clean and dry chopstick to stir and mix after 48hrs. Then after every 2-3days check and stir again.
5. Then after 30days, the wine is ready for use in cooking.
6. Please note that the whole process require clean and dry utensils, else it may turn the wine bad and has to be thrown away.

Well keep my finger crossed, I will have rice wine chicken during midsummer :-)






And here May's bloom from my garden, tall lupins and mixed color ranunculus.

In Season

One of the best local grown vegetables in May over here will be asparagus. I call it Best of British asparagus. I love them, be it steam, stir fry, grill, they just taste lovely. So sweet and tender they are. They'll be here for a short while only, hence I tend to had them as much as possible while in season. Half a kilos bunch will set you back of 3-5 quids, but well worth it, loaded with all the antioxidant goodness. [quote : some believes it has aphrodisiac benefits as well]
Today I make stir fry asparagus with garlic and XO sauce. Yum yum .....

Asparagus Stir Fry
Ingredients (3-4persons)

• 250gm asparagus
  
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tbsp XO sauce
• 2 cloves garlic -minced
• 1 small bird eye chilli de-seeded
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. Clean the asparagus. Trim the end of the stalk. You can use peeler to peel the skin on bottom of the stalk so that tender bit is reveal, rather than discard them. Sliced horizontally at an angle, separate the spears from the stalk.
   
2. In a pan, heat the olive oil till hot (with some smoke billowing), throw in the garlic and chilli and stir fry till lightly brown. Put in the stalk and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add in the XO sauce and stir fry for 30 secs. Add in the spears and stir fry for a minute then add in sugar and salt. Stir fry for another 30secs. Removed from heat.
3. Served hot with rice and other dishes.

This year I managed to propagate about 20 strawberries plant from last year's runners. So I pot it up onto grow bag and finger crossed it will bear lovely and juiciest homegrown strawberries end June/early July. During credit crunch, it's worth to dig in and grow own veg and fruits, not only is healthy for the pocket, but it will definitely taste so fresh and so good. And at the end of the day sense of achievement to have grown your own.


My strawberry plant in grow bag

Some plants already producing nice flowers, and the fruit is in the making

Chicken Kway Teow Soup

Been doing 34 miles bicycle ride on Saturday, weather was superb. Being May bank holiday this weekend, it was a nice break even though I didn't go anywhere.
So I thought of having a piping hot bowl of chicken Kway Teow soup for breakfast. Light enough to start the day. Back home I could have fresh Kway Teow, here if I'm lucky enough I could find in Chinese shop, else I opt for the dry kway teow in a bag from Vietnam. They taste quite good, but nothing beats the Ipoh fresh Kway Teow.

Chicken Kway Teow Soup
Ingredients (for 2 persons)

• 700 ml of chicken stock (Boil half chicken in 800ml water, a slice of ginger, one handful of dried anchovy, 1 garlic cloves, 1/2 tsp sesame oil, 1 small cube of rock sugar and 1 tsp of salt for an hour.
  
• 100 gm of cooked skinless chicken breast meat - sliced thinly/shredded
• 100-120gm dry kway teow (Banh Pho)
  
• 2 handful of bean sprouts (washed and removed roots)
• 2 shallots, sliced thinly and fried in 2 tbsp of vegetable oil till brown
• 1 tbsp of preserved radish/turnip
• 1 stalk of spring onion chopped finely
• 1 red chillis thinly sliced
• a dash of white pepper

1. In a pot, boil some water to cook the dry kway teow. When water is boilng drop in the kway teow and cook till soft (this takes about 4-5minutes). Drained and divide them into 2 bowls. Blanched the bean sprout and set them on the kway teow.
   
2. Bring to boil the chicken stock.
   
3. Garnish the kway teow with sliced chicken meat, spring onion, preserved radish and red chillis.
4. Scoop the soup into the bowl and a dash of white pepper.
   
5. Served hot.

Some cut flowers from my spring blooms

White ranunculus, with little blue forget-me-not, little white allium and purple chives flower


This is the real Quuen Of The Night almost black color tulips

Cut tulips Queen Of The Night from my garden nicely wrap as a gift to my friend

Sweet Corn Soup

I think this soup is kind of originated from Chinese takeaway in UK. I hardly remembered having this soup back home except in MOS burger outlets. It is actually quite simple to prepare and nice as well.

Sweet Corn Soup
Ingredients (served 2)

• 500ml chicken stock
• 1/2 chicken breast meat - diced to small cube
• 300 gm sweet corn kernel from can
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 1 tbsp corn starch added with 2 tbsp water
• white pepper
• 1/2 tsp of sugar
• 1 tbsp soya sauce or salt to taste
  
• spring onion for garnishing (optional)

1. Bring to boil the chicken stock, add in sweet corn kernel and chicken meat.
2. Once chicken meat is cook, quickly add in the sugar, soya sauce, sesame oil and mix well.
3. Then add the corn starch mix and stir. At this point your soup should be a little thicken.
4. Add in the beaten egg and stir quickly till egg is cook. Off heat.
5. Put in a bowl and drizzle some white pepper with spring onion. Served hot.

Here's my Dutch Iris blooming in late April.....

Saturday in the field

Tell you a secret, I just acquired a classic English bike - Pashley Princess Sovereign. She's such a classic, handbuild in Straford upon Avon. Me and my cycling buddy who happen to have a brand new slick mountain bike Giant R8, we decided to test drive our little new machine. Off we go for 30miles cycle ride through villages around north Cambridgeshire. This time of the year, one couldn't fail to notice the yellow field as far as your eyes could see. Rape seed oil field. Perfect setting for lovely photos. It was indeed splendid.

Tonite I made Oyakodon. This is a Japanese rice with chicken, eggs and onion cooked in dashi stock. Simple, healthy and deliciously in a bowl.



Oyakodon
Ingredients (for 2 persons)

• 2 chicken breast meat dices in 1 inch cube
  
• 1 large onion sliced
  
• 3 eggs (lightly beaten)
  
• 1 cup Dashi stock
• 1.5-2 tbsp Kikkoman soya sauce
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tbsp sake (optional)
• 2 bowls of steam Japanese rice

1. In a pan, add in Dashi stock, soya sauce, mirin and sugar. Bring to a boil. Add in onion and let it simmer on low heat for 5 minutes.
2. Top the chicken on the onion and let it simmer for 3minutes, turn the chicken over and cook for a furthe 2-3minutes till just cook.
3. Add in the beaten egg and simmer for further 2 minutes. Don't overcook the eggs, a bit runny will be really nice on the hot steamed rice.
   
4. Pour them on top the rice in a bowl. Sprinkle with Japanese chilli flakes.
   

Salted Eggs

I just had a long weekend break, 4 days in total over the Easter. Really nice once in awhile to have a short break. Good for the body and mind :-).
It's been awhile I last posted any recipes. Fear not, infact about 3 weeks ago I anticipated it'll be Easter soon, so I thought egg dish would serve well, of course not the chocolate Easter egg but rather Chinese salted egg[quote: we don't serve salted eggs for Easter].
Salted egg is so easy to prepare, the harder part is to source for duck eggs. I seldom see duck eggs on Tesco egg shelf but somehow there are finest duck eggs in front of my eyes. I remembered my mom used to collect lots of duck eggs laid by our free range ducks, enough to start a batch of salted eggs.

Chinese Salted Duck Eggs
Ingredients

• 6 large duck eggs
  
• 400-500gm salt
• 700ml water
• 1 glass container for 6 eggs

1. Boil the water in a pan, once boiling add in 400gm of the salt and stir. Add salt until the solution reached saturation point (meaning any salt added will not dissolved).
2. Turn off heat and cool the salt solution.
3. Once cooled, pour the salt solution into the glass container. Add in the eggs. Note that due to the saltiness, the eggs will tend to float. It's important to cover all the eggs in the salt solution. You can leave in a clean cloth on top to immerse the eggs into the solution. Close the glass container and leave it for up to 18-25days.
   
4. After that period, you can hard boil the eggs and served with rice porridge.

Tulips and Magonolia

Begining of April, spring bulbs blossom here and there, especially tulips, one of my favorites. There are many to choose from, be it colors, height, petal's shape and early or late flowering. They're so easy to grow, so far I have yet to have any failures in growing tulips :-), One has to grow them in the autumn to get spectacular display in spring, hence my favorite plant. The only drawback is that one need to lift the bulb after 3years as the flowering quality degrades over the year. But that gives me more reason to buy more new bulbs every year :-) . And tulips make good cut flowers. For tulips lover, one should visit Kuekenhof garden in Holland .
Some of you may go over to Japan to chase cherry blossom, but I'm content with what we've got over here....spectacular Magnolia blossom with sweet fragant. I managed to photograph some magnolia tree in blossom (not in my garden but my neighbor's). :-)
Enjoy the color again from my garden................. oops (some of you may wonder, food blog turning into gardening blog, fear not....I still have lots of recipes to share....just that spring is the busiest month for me in the garden.....always nice to hear neighbors commenting on how nice one garden is :-).

Dwarf white tulips with apricot stripes

Tulips Queen of Night (Apparently not as black as I hoped)

Dwarf Tulips yellow and red stripes-look like a crown

Tulip White Dream
Tulip Red Apeldoorn with Tulip white dream
Giant Tulip Red Apeldoorn
My favorite border of Red Apeldoorn

Spectacular Magnolia

Whole tree full of blossom

Close up shot of Magnolia

Picture almost perfect :-)

Vietnamese Spring Roll

Whenever I fancy Vietnamese meal, this is one of my favorite. It's none other than rice paper spring roll. This little gem is easy to prepare, no cooking required, fresh herbs from garden and generally a really healthy meal.



Vietnamese Spring Roll
Ingredients (for 8 rolls)

• 8 large cooked prawn-peeled and cut into halves
• 50gm of rice vermicelli
  
• 1 cup of julienned carrot
• bunch of fresh mint leaves-shredded with hand
• bunch of fresh corriander leaves-shredded with hand
• bunch of chives-chopped
  
• 4 lettuce leaves-used the soft green leaves-shredded with hand
• 16 pieces of 6 inch diameter rice paper

SAUCE

• 2 tbsp fish sauce (Nam Phla)
• juice from 1 lime
• 3 cloves of garlic minced
• 2 bird eye chillis chopped
• 2 tbsp of caster sugar
• 3 tbsp of water

1. In a bowl, place the dry vermecilli, pour in hot boiling water to cover it for 5-10 minutes until it softens. Drained and set aside.
   
2. Prepare the sauce. Add all the sauce ingredients and set aside.
3. Immerse one rice paper at a time in warm water till soft(takes less than 30secs). Lay two soften rice paper overlay half of each other on a flat plate.
4. On one end of the rice paper lay the lettuce, top it with carrot, rice vermicelli and chives. On the other end lay 4 pieces of prawn. Roll paper up halfway, fold in the sides and continue to roll till the end.
5. With a knife sliced the roll into half.
   
6. Served with sauce.

A real good healthy snack for hot days. :-)

Spring into BST

Today we tuned our clock an hour forward, better known as British Summer Time(BST). So much to look forward to, as daylight is getting longer, weather is getting warmer and yes my spring bulb flowers are starting to take shape and showing off their vibrant colors. I love fresh cut flowers for display in my home, beauty and fragant, will definitely lift up your mood. Again enjoy the spring colors.

White Hyanciths, her perfume is so sweet . I planted them in the fall

Blue Delft hyancinths, so sweet they are in their almost dark blue purplish color

My hyancinths border in front garden, they filled me with lovely fragant

The versatile daffodils

Different varieties of daffodil cut flowers from my garden

Blue muscari, yellow primrose and white ranunculus

Early single white tulips in bloom

I think this is Queen of Night Tulips


My favorite white Ranunculus, look so beautiful with layer of petals

Also known as Persian buttercup-Ranunculus

So beautiful, isn't it?