Long time no see....

It's been two weeks since Mark left to go to Kaohsiung for work, but I am happy to report he's coming back to Xiamen late this afternoon.

So, for the special occasion, I went to the market to buy some groceries, so that I could use my culinary skills to prepare one of our favourite dishes, stir fried garlic prawns.

I picked up a little more than a 1/2 kilo of large prawns, vegetables which included, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and garlic. The total cost of the above mentioned was 60 kaui, which is about 9USD.

Yea, it's going to be tough when we move back to the U.S.

My last cooking class..

Well today was the last of my cooking classes held by Chef Siew. We had the added pleasure of her son Daniel's company today, as he was feeling a little under the weather.

We met up at 9am to go to the market, where Siew scattered around looking for items that we needed to make our dishes, and I kept Daniel from harassing the fish that kept flopping around.

We made stir fried rice, along with chicken in black bean sauce, and some soup for Daniel. We had pork chops that were made previously, so we just cooked those up to have with our rice. We were going to make lemon chicken the way Mark liked, however, we had too many dishes and decided to make it another time.

Stir-fried Rice

Chicken with peppers in black bean sauce

I had a lot of fun cooking with Siew and learning the Chinese/Malaysian dishes. I'm very thankful of her patience and time while attempting to pass on her knowledge onto a novice cook. I'm not sure how well my dishes will taste without my teacher, but I do know that she is a phone call away. Assuming of course she answers the phone.

No rest for the weary........

So, I thought after Sunday's marathon, I would have a day off, but nope, Siew and I met first thing Monday morning to head back to the market to purchase foods for our next dishes.

Today's cooking class was the spicy pork, vegetarian noodles, beef brisket or stew, and spicy pork with aubergine.

After cutting up all the vegetables, garlic and I still can't believe how much garlic that woman needs to cook with, chopping the pork and cutting up the beef we were ready to start. First was the stew since it takes the longest. We threw in the vegetables and the meat and let that do it's job while we started the spicy pork with aubergine, the came the spicy pork with onion and leek.

No room on the counter - so the floor was used.

Afterwards Chef Hong announces I would have to make the noodles on my own, if I want to pass the test. This, I think, shouldn't be difficult since I tried this one on Mark and he seemed to live through it. I was doing great for the first minute, and as I was about to add the noodles, Chef Hong stops me, almost failing my test. The mushrooms have to go in first she screams. Hey, I protest, we didn't have mushrooms the first time, we cooked this dish, how was I to know. She let that minor incident slide, so then I added the rest of the vegetables and finished my dish. The Chef added a bit of dark soy to give my noodle dish a bit of colour and the spicy stir fry noodle was done.

The Chef passed me, probably because she knew we wouldn't buy any more wine if she failed me. She's no fool!

Dinner Party

Since we met Mark and Siew, we had promised to cook one of our favorite dishes for them. It's a Meditarrean pasta dish which, to us, is very yummy. Had she stayed in Xiamen, I'm sure we would have pushed this off to next year, but time is of the essence at the moment.

As we invite her and tell her what we're making, she suggests that we need more food, and our cooking class will now be Sunday night. The menu will now consist of my pasta dish, garlic prawns, lemon chicken, and steamed fish. The invitees were Siew, along with her two little critics, Ben and Daniel, Yih, Siew's sister, and Allen.

I started earlier in the day since I know how chaotic it will be in our kitchen. It's quite small, in fact most bathrooms are bigger than our kitchen. My dish was done, so I met up with Siew and off we go to the market to purchase vegetables, ginger, chicken and prawns.

We start off with the lemon chicken first, while Mark is entertaining Daniel and Ben. Both eager to eat..NOW! Daniel kept asking his mother to cook quicker.
Later Yih and Allen come over, and pasta is served along with the chicken. Mark, though enjoying it, prefers to have the chicken in bread crumbs. Mark wants to know if Siew can teach me how to do this. And you wonder why he and Daniel get along so well.

Later the prawns, and then the steamed fish. The food was outstanding. Daniel who has quite the adult palate was impressed with my pasta dish and really that's all that mattered.

Another food post....

Now that Tina's getting cooking lessons from Siew Hong, it's a wonderful happy place here. It seems that we always have extra food in the house, and good food not the kind of stuff that I used to cook up...

Last Sunday Tina decided that she would do some of her homework and cook up some noodles so that if things went horribly wrong she could get help in her class the next day. Nothing went wrong and we enjoyed an excellent vegetarian noodle dish.

Monday was class so when I arrived home we got to try the food that Hong showed Tina how to cook. As she mentioned in our last post - I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Tuesday was even more great food, first a chicken and mushroom dish and after we devoured that we moved onto finishing up the spicy pork and vegetable dish. Ahhh.....

Last night, Wednesday, I get a text while on the bus coming home letting me know that Tina is over at Temptations with Hong going over Tina's cooking notes. Ok, that's actually good timing as this happens to be a Wednesday night where I don't have a conference call, so I go straight over to Temptations instead of heading home.

Tina and Hong are about a third of the way into a bottle of good wine and deep into food discussions. Actually they could have been talking about anything, all I was paying attention to was setting down my computer and picking up a glass of wine and relaxing with them. At some point Tina and I were going to go out to dinner, but Hong convinced us to order in from a local restaurant that they really like.

So, last night we sat over at our second home and enjoyed some really, really spicy fish, some squid and beef barbecued on sticks, sweet and sour octopus, and some fried rice.

Tonight Tina's cooking up one of her old western standbys - pasta in a homemade meat sauce. Mmmm, good food...

Cooking with Hong

This is week two of "Cooking with Hong". Sounds like a good name for a cooking show, no? She has stepped it up a bit, and has gone from beginner lesson to intermediate, in one quick week. I feel like I'm learning Chinese again. It starts off slow, and the accelerates to the speed of light.



We head back to the market, where this time, for the very first time we actually bought meat. Yup, the meat we keep saying that we will pass on, since we don't know where it came from, nor how long it's been sitting on the table. Ah, poor Mark, I hope he has a good stomach. I figure if it's good for Hong and her kids, we should be able to survive, just make sure you get to the market early while the meat still fresh.

After picking up the meat, vegetables, and fruit we were off to cook. Instead of one or two dishes, it turned out to be a marathon of cooking. Yea, she expects me to remember all of this. Good luck.

First we start off with sweet and sour pork, and apparently only a dish for Laowai's since most Chinese and Malaysians actually don't eat this dish. Mark, feel privileged. Again, Hong shows me how to prepare and cook the meat, and then onto the sauce.




Since we have enough meat, we make a nice spicy pork dish, a typical dish for Chinese, and then another dish which will be used for pork chops. We also made soup, for Ben, who was feeling under the weather, and a quick chicken and mushroom dish. This time the chef allowed me to marinate the meat and of course, insisted that I sing to the meat. According to her, it tastes better.

The poor little kitchen couldn't handle all the dishes, the the chef and the little helper bee, so, I did what I do best and stepped aside to let the chef prepare her creations, periodically stepping in to see how the food is prepared. I took notes. Hey, she's the expert!

Spicy Pork with vegetables

Sweet and Sour pork
Ben's Pork Soup

After a couple of hours of cooking, Hong's creations were ready for the food critic.
It came from a 7 year old boy, her son, Ben. The verdict? Yup, Ben loved it!

The food critic, Ben

Later that night, the other 7 year old, Mark, had the opportunity to taste our dishes. Like the first critic, also loved it. I think it had something to do with my singing voice.

Are you sitting down?

Okay, it's not a dream or nightmare, depending on how well you know me, but my sister Hong is doing what many have tried over the many years to do in my life. Yup, I'm learning to cook, the Chinese way with a little bit of a Malaysian theme.

One of the reasons that I'm doing this, is because cooking with the wok is delicious and very quick and according to Hong very easy. Clearly she hasn't seen me in a kitchen. By the way, the word wok is Cantonese and not Chinese. The Chinese word for wok is guo(1). Since she is moving back to Malaysia, I am picking her brains before she leaves us to embark on a new journey.

Yes, we will definitely miss her, but that's another blog for another day.

I can hear you already Nancy, "you know how many times I have tried to give you quick easy meals?'" Yes, I know, but somehow with more time on my hands and trying to immerse myself in the Chinese culture, it seems appropriate.

So over the course of the next few weeks, the quest is to teach me a few dishes, such as garlic prawns, sweet and sour pork, stir fried rice, steamed fish, and anything else drums up in that little mind of hers. She is a patient sort, I will give her that!

First thing Monday we made our way to the local market. Here we picked up the necessary vegetables and chicken needed for our dishes. Siew was very good with telling me which stalls to go for the various items. It was a zoo, much more so than usual. That's because everyone goes first thing in the morning, when produce is fresh and abundant. It's also more expensive.

We hit the stores to pick up the spices and then we went for coffee to discuss our plan of action and for me to take notes.

We made (or I should say Hong made) two dishes, one was a quick chicken stir fry, and the other was stir fry noodles. I was her little helper bee. She gave me the recipe step by step, but didn't give me the exact measurements. You just know, she says. Great, that's coming from someone who is a chef. I would like to actually make something that Mark can eat I protest. Don't worry she declares. Mark you are a trouper!

Okay, we chopped up lots of vegetables and garlic. Lots and lots of garlic. That should keep dracula or most of our friends away! We started marinating the chicken, prepared the wok, and then added all the ingredients. I asked, how much of this or that and the response? Oh, one or two drops of this, a little bit of that, a dab of this. Define a dab I. I don't know, she says. Okay, are we talking a teaspoon or tablespoon? Yea, maybe a teaspoon, no, maybe two. Don't worry just add until you like the flavour. Oh brother.

Second dish, stir fry noodles. Prepare the wok again, and then add your noodles and vegetables. Again, a big ol' guess as to how much of each ingredient you add. Add spice to taste and you are set. All done she declares! Mmm, are you going to let me try and cook this I ask? Next time, Apparently even the chef didn't trust me, so next week we shall attempt this on my own.

Mark was the lucky recipient of these dishes. I figured we had enough for two days. That was before Mark ate all of it. Somehow I think next week when it's my turn, there may be leftovers!

I have pictures to prove it..

Okay friends and family, I don't want you to die from shock, but last Friday I was over at a friends house where she entertained some of us and invited her local friends so that they could teach us laowais how to make dumplings. Yea, you read correctly, I actually learned how to cook something!
It's quite simple really, you just need to have the ingredients and patience. Okay, the latter is where I lack sometimes. You add the ingredients in,to a medium bowl, mix together, and place the mixture into a little round dough used for dumplings, fold in a manner in which the Chinese are content with, and you boil them, 3 times. They want to make sure that your pork/chicken is cooked. The sealing of the dumpling is the trickiest part to making the dumplings. It has to be sealed correctly, or our teachers would give the dumpling back to you to fix properly.

You can see from the picture who the pro is here!

And here's my proof. My first dumpling!
I even brought some home to Mark, so he can try them and yes he enjoyed them very much.