Honey Spare Ribs

Saw a slab of rather lean & small spareribs while doing marketing last Saturday, so I bought half slab, which came up to 1/2kg, just nice for 4 of us for a meal with rice.
I usually buy the whole slab & roast it "Tony Romas' style but not this time, not in the mood of roasting today......
Found a honey spare ribs recipe tucked in my of my older recipe books which is handwritten, I don't remember where I copied it from, since the recipe don't require much preparation, I cooked them for dinner today.

Ingredients :

1 kg spare ribs
8 cloves garlic, crushed
2 Tbsp dark soya sauce
3 cups chicken stock

3 Tbsp honey

Blanch spare ribs with boiling water, place them into a pot with the crushed garlic, dark soya sauce, & chicken stock, bring to boil , turn down heat & simmer for 45 mins or until tender.

Remove ribs from the pot, pat dry with a kitchen towel, set the gravy aside.
Deep fry ribs till golden brown, drain.

Return the gravy to a pan, add the honey & bring to boil until slightly thickened. Add the ribs & coat evenly with the sauce.

*I halved the recipe since I've got only 1/2 kg of spare ribs, this is enough for 1 meal, 2 adults 2 kids. I didn't reduce the garlic, used 8 cloves too & I also added some minced ginger !

Cabbage Rice

My siblings & I grew up with this rice, I think it is common in Hokkien family. My mum used to cook it with mustard green, which I hate, so I've changed it to cabbage. I don't eat most vegies when I was young, especially snap peas, long beans, bitter gourd, until today. I eat all kinds of leafy greens, broccoli being my favourite. Sad to say, I wouldn't cook what I don't eat, I know it's unfair to hubby & the girls the smell & taste of those beans & gourds really scare me !

My mum cured her own pork belly, rubbing it with lots of salt & deep frying it. I managed to smuggle some back to KK in May & store them in my deep freezer. As we don't take fatty meat, I'll trim all fats off the cured pork belly before I cook with them.

The ingredients for cabbage rice :

3 1/2 cups jasmine rice

2 1/2 cups hot chicken stock

8 shallots, sliced

5 cloves garlic, crushed

1 Tbsp dried shrimp, washed & minced

4 pcs each of dried scallops & dried shitake mushroom, rinsed, cover with enough water in a bowl, steam it with a dash of Hua Tiao wine till soft, tear the scallops into thin strands & slice the mushrooms

1 small head cabbage, washed & torn into pcs

1 pc Jin Hua ham & cured belly pork, cut into small pcs (omit the Jin Hua ham if you don't have it & replace the cured belly pork with roasted pork)

Heat some oil in a wok till hot, add shallots, garlic & minced dried shrimp, cook till lighly brown & aromatic, add Jin Hua ham & cured belly pork (if using), cook for another 5 mins. Add rice, stir to combine, add the dried scallop & mushroom mixture & 1 cup chicken stock, mix throughly, cover the wok & let the rice cook over low heat. About 10 mins later, uncover the wok, stir through, add another cup of chicken stock, cover & let cook another 10 mins, after that add the cabbage & remaining stock, continue to cook for about 5 mins, season to taste.

* More or less stock can be added to adjust the doneness of the rice. I only added a dash of soya sauce & a little sugar, no other seasoning is required. The flavour from the ham, cured belly pork, dried scallop & mushroom are enough to season the rice. This portion of cabbage rice is enough for our dinner & lunch tomorrow.

Butter Cake

Plain Jane

All Dressed, Ready To Go


The rich & moist butter cake, for a 8 year old girl birthday today. Her mummy requested for pink icing on top. This is a very indulging cake, you either love it or hate it (if you're watching your waistline !). I like this cake when it is still warm, with a cup of coffee for afternoon tea.......

Matcha Buns With Adzuki Bean Filling

While looking through my freezer, I realized I still have some sweetened adzuki beans,
ahha we shall have matcha bread for tomorrow breakfast. I've used this coffee buns
recipe, it's a straight dough method. I've changed the coffee powder to matcha powder to go with the sweetened adzuki beans filling. I've doubled the recipe to make 18 buns, at 58g of dough each. Bake at 180C for 16 mins.

Sunday Morning

At 8.30am this morning, hubby suddenly suggested that we have breakfast at home. Huh.... I don't cook on Sundays & there isn't any bread in the bread bin & there was no bacon or sausages in the freezer. Not wanting to disappoint him, I said ok, so I started to go through the freezer & pantry. Well there's canned button mushrooms, baked beans, eggs, onion & from the freezer, we have ham, cheddar cheese & oh there's still 2 sausages ! No bread in the freezer, so hubby set off to the nearest bakery to get a loaf of bread (have not been buying commercial bread for ages, didn't know half a loaf cots RM 3!)
Guess we have the basic ingredients on hand, open the baked beans heat it up, one dish done. I sliced 2 onions, a can of button mushroom, the sausages & chopped some ham. Melt a knob of butter with some olive oil in a large saucepan, cook onion till lightly brown, add chopped ham, sausages & the button mushroom, cook for about 10 mins, season with lemon pepper. Next on the list is cheesy scrambled egg, break 5 eggs into a bowl, with 5 Tbsp of milk, add grated cheddar cheese, salt & pepper, whisk with a fork until well combined. Heat a large saucepan, melt butter, pour the egg into the pan & cook over low heat, stirring continuously until scrambled egg is done.
This is nothing fancy or healthy, just a quick Sunday breakfast, most important is that we enjoyed ourselves, just the 4 of us.......

Chocolate Banana Cake

I have a sweet tooth, so I must have dessert, be it a slice of cake , souffle, biscotti ...... anything sweet, with coffee to complete a meal. After the chicken risotto, we had this chocolate banana cake for dessert, it was indeed a very satisfying meal, guilty though.......

This cake is another variation to my chocolate cake, it's 3 layers of chocolate sponge, with 2 layers of caramelized bananas, flambe with a dash of dark rum, sandwiched between my light chocolate fudge. I love any desserts made with bananas.......

Baked Chicken Risotto

I was going through my freezer on Thursday night, wondering what should I cook for lunch yesterday. There are prawns, squid & chicken breast in it. Not prawns again, we've had prawn wanton noodle on Thursday, got to control my seafood intake cos' my LDL is on the little high side (it runs in the family), have been delaying my blood test this year, got to go soon (lazy again !)
Back to the lunch, well I was deciding between Paella, no cross out, too indulging for a weekday lunch, prawn risotto, no just had prawn yesterday & I have no time to make prawn stock. I left the house yesterday morning @ 7.15am to run some errands & was only back at 10am. So since I have a red capsicum in the fridge & some salami in the freezer, I decided on the easy chicken risotto which is oven baked.

Ingredients :

1 chicken breast, sliced
1/2 cup salami, sliced
1 red capsicum, seeded & chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed *
1 tsp turmeric *
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 cup short grain rice *
1/2 tsp pepper
1 can chopped/crushed tomatoes
3 cups chicken stock
1 cup frozen peas
Chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 190C.

In a large oven proof pan over medium heat, melt some butter with 2 Tbsp olive oil, cook onion, garlic & salami till lightly brown, add capsicum, turmeric & pepper, cook for another 2 mins. Add rice, tomatoes, 2 cups stock, stir well to combine.

Place pan in oven, bake uncovered for 10 mins, stir in peas, chicken breast & remaining stock, bake for another 10-15 mins or until rice is cooked, stir in chopped parsley.

*I'm a garlic lover so I must have used 10 cloves of garlic. I don't like my risotto to be coloured by turmeric, so I've replaced the turmeric with a pinch of saffron strands, infusing them in the chicken stock for the flavour & colour. As for the rice, I used the medium grain arborio rice that I got from Tong Hing.