Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

What does a Chinese (who does not celebrate Christmas), do on a nice sunny Christmas day when most Western restaurants are closed? Hehe… she goes to eat dim sum!

This early bird caught the dim sum! There I was with J, at Mayflower Seafood Restaurant at 10:30am, when seats were still available and we did not have to queue for half an hour to eat!

The dim sum in Mayflower Seafood Restaurant taste very much like the ones from the famous Crystal Jade chain of restaurants in Singapore, except that the shrimp in Mayflower’s dim sum is a bit super-sized (See the Har-Kow picture below). A familiar taste was all I needed today. Eat with their chilli to provide the extra oomph!

The Char Siew Sou is warm on the inside and flaky on the outside. The crust just falls apart in your mouth as you bite into the slightly sweet taste of the warm Char Siew.

Bean Curd Skin Roll stuffed with ground pork and bamboo shoots, swimming in a dish of gravy was something I had not had for a long time. The pan fried version (a dry version with shrimp) is also served, but we opted for the steamed dim sum variety than the fried ones.

Then came my favorite… Phoenix Claw! I had to keep an eye on the cart-ladies to see whether the one with the Phoenix Claw was coming to our table so that I could get my hands on the Claws! These Phoenix Claws were cooked to tender perfection and the smooth skin falls off the bones easily. Trust me… I can eat the whole plate all by myself, but of course, J wanted some too.

Because we can buy Char Siew Bao from Ranch 99, we did without the Char Siew Bao and decided to have two servings of Chee Cheong Fun instead - one with shrimp and one with Char Siew. The Chee Cheong Fun was not steaming hot, which was a bit of a disappointment, and the “skin” could be a bit thinner, but dipping the Chee Cheong Fun in the tasty soy sauce was delicious.

Ahhhh… the cart lady with the Egg Tart came around. “Egg Tart” I said in off-key Cantonese, with my index finger showing “one” and pointing to the Egg Tarts excitedly.

Look at these dainty Egg Tarts. Flaky crust filled with a soft and smooth filling that is of the right sweetness and the right amount to finish in just two bites. A sweet taste to balance the savory dishes we had.

And what a better way to end the meal than with a warm bowl of soft Soy Bean Curd with light syrup. The spoon cuts gently into the piece of soft Soy Bean Curd (”Tofu Fa” in Cantonese), and the Soy Bean Curd melts in your mouth. This dessert is very popular and goes very quickly, so be sure to specially order it from the waitress or catch the cart lady when she comes by your table, but make sure you do this at the end of the meal so that the Soy Bean Curd is warm.

This was a great Christmas brunch (breakfast cum lunch) indeed! I’ll give it two thumbs up!

By the way… don’t mistake this for another restaurant of the same name nearby:
Great Mall Mayflower Seafood Restaurant
222 Great Mall Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 935-6999

This much coveted one is:
Mayflower Seafood Restaurant
428 Barber Ln
Milpitas, CA 95035
(408) 922-2708

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas. I spent my Christmas morning in Mayflower Seafood Restaurant.

It’s the Christmas weekend and I would like to wish one and all…

A Merry Christmas filled with laughter and cheer…

Lots of drinking, be it coffee, wine, champagne or simply sparkling juice…

Lots of eating of fresh food and fine dining.

As for me, it’s the crab season here in the Bay Area, so I’d might just head on down to San Francisco and eat a plate load of big fat dungeness crab!

Enjoy!

I meant the George Foreman Grill, not the person.

The George Foreman Grill gave my sardine sandwich beautiful grill marks on the bread.

Remember my Sardine Experience? This time round, I followed Keropok Man’s suggestion to add some lime juice to the sardine mix. It tasted pretty nice. Thanks Keropok Man!

The George Foreman Grill is also good for making panini sandwiches, heating up (very quickly!) plain old peanut butter and jam sandwiches, ham and cheese sandwich and even making fajitas!

I use the George Foreman Grill quite often (I bought the smallest one). It has served me well, heating up my breakfast PBJ or ham and cheese sandwich and leaving behind very pretty grill marks. The George Foreman Grill just takes about 3 minutes to heat up. Since there are top and bottom grill plates, the food is “grilled” on both sides… that means the food is heated up / cooked in HALF the time as compared to if I were using a grill pan over the stove.

I had grilled chicken wings on my George Foreman Grill before. Because the plates tilt slightly towards you, the oil drips out onto a little holder (provided). Healthy living? Yes. Checked.

Although the grill plates for this model are non-removable, the plates being stainless steel makes cleaning a breeze. Just wipe the plates down with a dry paper towel, then again with a damp paper with some soap. And again with the last damp paper towel. No fuss no muss cleaning? Yes. Checked.

Price? Only US$19.99 from amazon.com. Cheap? Yes. Checked.

Lots of ground beef and lots of mushrooms please! It’s only when you cook your own meals that you can have extras of whatever you like heh!

I call Spaghetti Bolognese the “all-time safe pasta dish” because this is a pasta dish that tastes the same everywhere and anyone can make this easily. I like my Spaghetti Bolognese with Ragu’s Chunky Mushroom Sauce - Woohoo! More mushrooms!

I did have bloopers the very first couple of times I made this when I was still a pasta newbie.

- Too much spaghetti - because I didn’t know the quarter coin estimate.

- Used half a medium sized onion for a one-person meal - just because I had that leftover in my fridge. Eeeew! That nearly became an oniony pasta dish.

Anyways, I am a Spaghetti Bolognese expert now. Oh… except for that time when I forgot to buy tomato and onion and the dish ended up a wee bit dry despite adding the Ragu sauce. Oops!

So, the ingredient list and cooking method below is a record for myself because I read that pregnant women go through “pregnancy amnesia”. Forgetfulness is likely to worsen as a pregnancy progresses (thus the term “last-trimester fog”). And even after the baby is born, sleep deprivation will continue to fog the brain. Geez!

Ok. Be rest assured that all these were written with a clear mind. *Phew!*

Ingredients: (For 2 pax, because the baby is supposed to be drinking milk)

- 2 quarter coin estimate, spaghetti
- 1/3 lb ground beef
- 1/2 tsp minced garlic
- 1/2 a medium sized tomato, cut into small pieces
- 1/2 a medium sized onion (white or yellow), cut into small pieces
- 8 medium sized button mushrooms, sliced (I threw away the stem)
- salt and pepper
- 6 tbsp Ragu Super Chunky Mushroom Sauce

Seasoning for ground beef:

- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp cajun seasoning
- 1/2 tsp corn flour

Cooking Method:

1. Cook spaghetti according to package instructions.

2. Season ground beef with seasoning mix.

3. Heat up 2 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan. When oil is hot enough, add garlic, tomato, onion, mushroom, a pinch of salt, a dash of pepper and stir fry until onions become translucent, tomatoes and mushroom softens.

4. Add ground beef and stir fry until color changes.

5. Add Ragu Super Chunky Mushroom Sauce and mix well.

Spaghetti Bolognese - The all-time safe pasta dish. Oh wait! I knew I forgot something…

6. Add cooked spaghetti and mix well. :) Add grated parmesan cheese, if desired.

J asked me what happened to the You Cai and Watercress soup that I used to cook? How come we don’t have that anymore? To which I replied: “Oh, that’s because I have already posted that recipe in my blog.”

J: Wide eyes, jaw drop, speechless.

Yes yes, I need to eat more greens. So this time round, I got some Bak Choy for stir frying. The Bak Choy is best eaten immediately after cooking. Also, be careful not to overcook the Bak Choy - 3 minutes is sufficient. As with all other vegetables, overcooking will decompose (destroy) the proteins and vitamins in the vegetables as a fellow blogger wrote in her post on “Over cooking, microwaving, re-heating and re-frying destroys essential nutrients“.

Here’s my easy Chinese recipe for stir-fried Bak Choy:

Ingredients (Serves 2):
- about 8 “bundles” of Bak Choy (I don’t know if “bundles” is the right description, but if you know what is Bak Choy, you’ll know what I mean. If you don’t, then er… well, then you don’t know.)
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 heaped tbsp dried anchovies - the mini ones

Preparation & Cooking Method:

1. Cut off the ends of the Bak Choy “bundle”. Rinse the Bak Choy in running water to remove any dirt. You shake of excess water, but you do not have to completely dry the washed Bak Choy because during the cooking process, you want the leftover water droplets to steam the vegetables. Read on…

2. Heat up a frying pan with 2 tbsp oil. Medium heat. Add minced garlic and dried anchovies and stir fry until fragrant.

3. Add rinsed Bak Choy to the frying pan and stir fry for about 30 seconds, just to mix the Bak Choy with the garlic and dried mini anchovies. (There won’t be any oil splatter here because the volume of Bak Choy will overwhelm the amount of oil in the frying pan.)

4. Put the lid on the frying pan and allow the Bak Choy to steam for about 3 minutes. 3 minutes is enough if you want the Bak Choy to still be a bit crispy. Any minute longer is a minute too long and the Bak Choy will be too soft.

5. The dried mini anchovies are already salty, so do a test taste and add a pinch of salt if necessary.

6. Serve with rice or porridge (rice congee).

Remember - 3 minutes is all you need to cook the Bak Choy! 3 minutes! Oh… I am repeating here to remind myself…