Category Archives: By Cuisine

Chinese, Poultry

Steamed Chicken Wings with Taro and Mushroom

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Steamed Chicken Wings with Taro and Mushroom

I’ve been having a lot of success with steaming lately. Both the salted fish chicken and the stuffed squid were delicious dishes that met with the approval of the whole family. Thus, I decided to go about trying yet more dishes from this latest cookbook I bought which was all about steaming.

The recipe I decided to try next looked a little bit more complicated but actually turned out to be quite easy and yet filled with yummy flavors. Also, Nate thought it had shades of Khau Yoke flavors without the crazy amount of work that Khau Yoke actually takes. And as for the presentation, it’s a dish with the "wow" factor. When presented tableside, it really looks like something that could have come out of a fancy Chinese restaurant.

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Malaysian, Pork

Recipe for Fried Pork with Evaporated Milk

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An extremely delicious dish that had the whole family clamoring for more.

Fried Pork with Evaporated Milk

fried pork in evaporated milk

One day while I was cooking dinner, our helper Jessie (who gave us the recipe for Braised Squash with Lemongrass) mentioned this dish that she makes for her catered lunches that is always in demand. She said it was a fish dish that used evaporated milk and curry leaves. According to her, kids loved this dish.

I thought it sounded really good and asked if she would be willing to make it for us. She was very agreeable and told me that if I got her the evaporated milk, she would make it. She even bought the fish.

Now, having Jessie cook a dish for us on a weekday night is already a God-send. But not only that, this dish turned out to be extremely delicious. We ate it up and clamored for more. Fortunately, there was half a can of the evaporated milk left and Jessie told us that we could do this same dish with pork.

I just happened to have pork in my freezer (riblets to be exact—but pork belly chunks would’ve been even better). So Jessie agreed to cook this dish again the next day and even she agreed to wait till we got back home from work before starting to cook, so we could learn how to do it for ourselves. And now we get to share it with you!

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American, Shellfish

Fried Squid Fail

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Squid, squid, squid. Every time I go to the market, I pass by the fish section, and whenever there is fresh squid there, they taunt me. “You are too chicken to try to cook us!” “Nyeah, nyeah, we know you’re not going to buy us—coward!”

Tray of Squid at Stutong Market

tray of squid

And truth be told, I walk away. Every. Single. Time. Without buying them. In the back of my mind, I think to myself. “C’mon, I can do this. Cooking squid isn’t that hard. What’s the big deal?” And then I think, “Oh man, the year is going to go by and I’m going to have to confess that I didn’t try cooking squid even though it was part of my resolution.”

So finally, one day, I stopped and taking a deep breath, I approached a fish vendor and bought half a kilo of his smallest squid. Because I didn’t know any better. And because small ones would cook faster and I would be less likely to botch it. See…I had my mind set on frying calamari. So I took home my half kilo and set to work.
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