Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

No. This is not a scene from Fear Factor.

It is a plate of herbs and spices for making Bak Kut Teh, also known as Pork Rib Tea (a literal translation from the Hokkien dialect to English).

I bought this packet of herbs and spices from a Herbal Shop in Tiong Bahru Plaza, Singapore before I came over to Silicon Valley. It claims that Bak Kut Teh is “Effective in (more…)

You eat with your eyes first, don’t you?

I was so inspired by the pretty picture in Elise’s recipe (Flank Steak Stir-Fry with Asparagus and Red Pepper) that I decided to come out with my own version of beef with broccoli and yellow pepper stir-fry .

I had some issues with chewy beef previously, so this time I bought the thinnest beef available. Interestingly it’s called “Hong Kong Fat Beef for Hot Pot” (from Ranch99), but it’s not fatty at all. It came sliced in thin pieces already, so it saved me some preparation time.

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It’s interesting that both webster.com and dictionary.com define “spring roll” as an “egg roll”. Being curious, I went to take a look at my packet of spring roll pastry sheets in the freezer. The ingredients for making those pastry sheets only had wheat flour, water and salt, and no eggs at all. Eggs are only used as a “glue” to keep the wrapped spring roll in place. In Singapore, spring rolls are also known as “popiah”.

I bought my spring roll pastry sheets at 99 cents for a packet of 25 square sheets. They always come in square sheets because it makes for easy folding. I couldn’t find the same kind of turnips that is found in Singapore (ones with brown skin, and when cooked, tastes sweet - see picture)

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