Posted by Eric.N
If you have checked out our blog, you will know that “chicken” is the most blogged recipe in Lama Kitchen. This is because chicken it is the most common dish to be prepared. I definitely love all varieties of chicken recipe because it is easy to be prepared and served for a comfort home meal. Therefore I am constantly looking to modify chicken recipes.
I have once tried the Braised Chicken with Mushroom and Dry Squid. It is a Cantonese style recipe and it has a quite distinct taste than the normal recipe. This recipe has a fresh taste that comes from the shredded dried squids, also adding the fried shallots gives it an extra fragrant which I really like.
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Posted by Bel.C
When I go to the Chinese restaurant for Dim Sum, I always order the daikon radish cake (蘿蔔糕) or taro / yam cake (芋頭糕). However every time after I taste it, it always disappoints me, there aren’t enough ingredients and flavor in it, plus the texture is either too mushy or too hard. They just never taste the same like home made rice cake. Back home my grandma’s cousin sister (姨婆) always made a big serving of taro cake for us, fully loaded with ingredients and flavor. She truly made the best taro cake. I missed it so much that I decided to try this complicated dish.
Taro or Yam Cake (芋頭糕) is not that kind of sweet cake that you find in dessert, in fact it is a savory cake made with the main ingredients of taro or yam and rice flour. It is also one of the Chinese New Year recipes that you can prepare. Traditionally it is cooked and steamed for long period of time in a big round deep mold. When it is done, they are cut into cute diamond shapes. Now they can be found in dim sum cuisines, usually cut into slices, you can either eat it as original or pan fried for extra crunchiness and fragrant.
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Posted by Bel.C
It had been a fun and busy long weekend filled with luncheons, dinners and friend gatherings for the celebration of Tiger Year. On the other hand, I had a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner with my lovely boyfriend. Everything was just great. Here once again, I wish everyone a good start in the Chinese New Year and wish all the couples a happily ever after (有情人總成眷屬).
On the first day of Chinese New Year, I’ve prepared the well known vegetarian dish so called the Buddha’s Delight or lo han jai (羅漢齋). It is traditionally consumed by the Buddhist monks who are vegetarians. However this dish has grown popularity over the years and now can be found in most Chinese restaurants for serving. For Buddhists who are not solely vegetarians will also practice vegetarians on the first and fifteenth day of the month based on the lunar calendar. Therefore this vegetarian dish has become more and more popular and eventually become a traditional dish for the Chinese New Year.
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Posted by Eric.N
This coming Sunday is the first day of Chinese New Year, here I have prepared the famous dish Black Moss Seaweed with Braised Dried Oyster (髮菜蠔豉). This Cantonese dish is famous to be served during the Chinese New Year because the combination of the ingredients of black moss (髮菜) and dried oysters (蠔豉) that has the similar pronunciation with fat choy hao shi (發財好市) in Chinese that signifies good wealth and a good market. Being in a low economy since last year, I sincerely wish everyone has a rich and prosperous Tiger Year.
Black moss seaweed or fat choy can be found in Asian or Chinese supermarkets in the dried food section. It doesn’t look delicious from the appearance as it is black in color and it looks like the human black hair. For that reason, it is named as “hair vegetable (髮菜)”. But when it is cooked, it is actually tasted just like very fine vermicelli in texture except it is in black color. It is used widely in many Chinese New year dishes for good wealth and richness.
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Posted by Bel.C
When we talk about the good food in Malaysia, you don’t want to miss the famous Claypot Chicken Rice (瓦煲雞飯). I remember when I lived in Malaysia with my family, we loved to go to the hawker stall near my house in Klang for the claypot chicken rice. Essentially, the claypot is filled with rice, topped with chicken and other ingredients such as chinese sausages, mushroom and especially salted fish pieces that gave an extra taste. Then the claypot chicken rice is cooked using the most traditional way on top of charcoal fire which makes it so fragrant and delicious.
To cook a perfect claypot chicken rice, the most important thing is to know how to control the charcoal fire. You practically have to stand there to fan the charcoal in order to control for high or low heat, and not to burn the rice. One of the best parts of the claypot chicken rice is the crispy rice bits (not burnt rice) that are stuck on the side and the bottom of the claypot that makes it so unique tasty.
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