Baked Coconut Chicken in Portuguese Style

Both coconut milk and chicken are my family’s favourite foods. Cooking both of them together will definitely win everybody. This Portuguese coconut chicken looks like curry, but it’s not hot at all. This time I’ve deliberately added many different vegetables that cooked in coconut sauce, topped with creamy baked cheese. Who can resist the chicken inside? Ha…

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Kung Pao Chicken Recipe

Kung Pao chicken (or Kung Po chicken, 宮保雞丁) is a very famous and popular Chinese dish, originating in Sichuan province, central-western China. This dish is quite hot, yet you can adjust the amount of chilies and suit your preference to mild or little hot in home cooking anyway. Many people are very curious about why this dish is called Kung Pao chicken instead of chili chicken or fried chicken. According to Wikipedia, the dish is named after a late Qing Dynasty official, Ding Baozhen (1820 -1886). He was born in Guizhou, served as head of Shandong province and later as governor of Sichuan province. His title was Gōng Bǎo (宮保), or palatial guardian. The name "Kung Pao" chicken is derived from this title.



Nice stories about Ding were spreading around Chinese community. Ding was very found of foods and skillful in cooking. He also hired many famous cooks in his home to cook for his guests. There was a dish, fried diced chicken, often served on his guests’ tables. His guests loved this dish very much. So they named his fried diced chicken as Gong Bao Chicken.

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Pork and Chive Dumplings (韭菜餃子 video)

If you really like to try any Chinese snacks, these pan-fried dumplings (jiaozi 餃子) must be on the top of your list.



The thin and soft dumpling pastry is filled with mince pork and Chinese chives. The bottom of each dumpling is fried to be brown and crispy. They are best served with black vinegar dipping sauce, and/or chili paste with soy sauce.



Kids in many Chinese families, especially those who are living in northern provinces of China would learn how to wrap dumplings at home from a very early age. It’s quite amusing to watch kids wrapping dumplings. They would first pick those dumplings they wrapped, eating with a great satisfaction.



There are many different ways of wrapping dumplings. Some are practical, some really artistic. I posted a video below showing how to wrap a dumpling easily and beautifully. I learned this method of wrapping dumplings from one of my Peking friends.



Basically, you can just seal the edges of dumplings and make sure not to let any fillings leak out when cooking. That’s it. When it comes to eating dumplings, flavours and taste always come before the looking.



Why not make some for your family or with your family if you haven’t tried before? Wrapping dumplings is fun.

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Sweet and Sour Chicken Recipe

Sweet and sour sauce is a kind of versatile sauce, going very well with any kind of meat, like pork, beef including chicken of course. This dish, pan-fried chicken in sweet and sour sauce is perfect for going with white rice. You can deep fry the chicken if you like. This time I just pan fried the chicken for saving the oil, good to health as well.

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Lemon Tart Recipe

These lemon tarts are so elegant and especially delightful for afternoon tea. The fragrance of lemon is so tempting and its sourness just balances the sweetness of crust. Every time I make this tart, it becomes a big hit in my family.



Prepare 4 round 10cm tart moulds



Ingredients

Sweet crust:

• 125 gm plain flour


• 1 large egg yolk


• 100 gm cold unsalted butter


• 50 gm caster sugar


• 1/8 tsp salt


• 1 to 2 Tbsp ice-cold water

Lemon curd filling:

• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter


• 1 large egg, lightly beaten


• 1 lemon zest


• 40 ml fresh lemon juice


• 2 egg yolks


• 60 gm caster sugar


• 1 tsp icing sugar


• 8 slices lemon, for garnish

Method



To prepare sweet crust:

1. Combine the flour, salt and sugar in a medium bowl.


2. Cut the butter into small chunks and add to the flour mixture. Use a pastry blender if you have, or just use knives in a criss-crossing motion, blend the butter into the flour mixture until it has the consistency of damp sand, with a few pea-sized pieces remaining. (Note: don’t use hands, the butter would melt quickly otherwise.)


3. Use a fork to beat the egg yolk with cold water. Slowly pour the egg mixture over the flour, stirring until the mixture becomes moistened. The dough should stick together and be able to hold the form of a ball.


4. Cover the ball with plastic wrap. Smooth the ball of dough with a rolling pin to form a flat disc that fills the corners of the plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. (Note: If it has been chilled for a long time, it may need to soften slightly at room temperature before use.)


5. Unwrap the disc and place on a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough from the center of the disc to the edge, until the crust is the desired thickness. If the dough is sticking to the rolling pin, try placing a sheet of plastic wrap over it and then rolling it out.


6. Use a cookie cutter to trim out 4 dough discs with around 0.5cm bigger than each tart mould in size. Place the dough into each tart mould. Carefully press the dough into the tart moulds. If any cracks appear during the transfer, use lightly floured fingers to push the seams back together. Trim the excess from the edges of the tart moulds. (Note: practice makes things perfect.)


7. Prick the surface with a fork and chill for 10 minutes in the freezer. Bake blind for 20 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 200C / 390F.


8. Remove from the oven and brush the base of the tarts with lightly beaten egg. Return to the oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until the base of the crust is golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To prepare lemon curd filling:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk the lemon juice, the egg, egg yolks and sugar until smooth. Transfer the mixture to a heavy-based saucepan and cook over medium heat until the mixture begins to thicken, about 10 minutes. Beware not to let the mixture boil.


2. When the curd is thick enough to coat a wooden spoon, reduce the heat to low and continue cooking for 10 more minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter, until melted. Strain the curd through a fine sieve into a medium bowl and stir in the lemon zest.

To decorate tarts:

1. Pour the lukewarm curd into the tart shells. For ease of slicing, chill for at least 1 hour in the refrigerator.


2. Dust with icing sugar and garnish with lemon slices. Refrigerate any remaining tarts for up to 3 days.

Pan-fried Pork Chops with Spicy Salt

This dish, pork chops with spicy salt could be a snack anytime or a main dish for dinner. If you bring this dish to a party for finger food (you have to cut into bite-size beforehand, of course), it won’t let anyone down. The red chilli and green spring onion (shallot) are very attractive to eyes and make people feel craving for more. The pork meat is very tender, with aromatic flavours. This time I only cooked five spicy pork chops. It seemed not to be enough. I have to add three more next time then.

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Cantonese Wonton Soup Recipe (廣東雲吞)

This wonton soup is a comfort food. The wontons are silky, slippery, the stock is aromatic. These Cantonese wontons are very popular in Hong Kong. The fillings of Cantonese wontons are mainly prawns (shrimps) mixed with minced pork. Yellow chives seem to be a must to be added. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to find any yellow chives throughout the year in Australia. So I just used spring onion (shallot), adding a fresh green flavour though. The flavours of the soup are rich and the texture of wontons is very tender.

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Hainanese Chicken Rice Recipe (海南雞飯)

Ever tried the famous Hainanese Chicken Rice? I’m not quite sure if this popular dish was originated from Singapore or Malaysia. Some friends told me that it was from Singapore. Is it right? No matter you go into a Singaporean or Malaysian restaurant, they would definitely offer this dish on their menu, not very expensive and worth trying if you didn’t. The chicken meat is very smooth and tender, going so wonderful with the unique chili sauce. I can’t describe how yummy is the rice. It’s not ordinary white rice, but is cooked with chicken broth. So you can imagine that’s a luxury treat when you order Hainanese chicken rice with not-so-expensive price, enjoying a dish with rich flavours. However, it’s quite disappointed when I go into some restaurants that only offer salty and oily rice instead of the premium rice cooked with chicken broth.



When it comes to cookIng this dish, there’s a traditional way of using the whole chicken. Due to my family’s craving for chicken legs, I simply used chicken legs so that I saved more of my energy and time for cooking. That’s good to me and my family.

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