Easy French Onion Soup Recipe

I am not a big fan of French Onion Soup. The ones that I've tried were all too sweet for my taste. But when my friend suggested that we make our own version together, we instantly agreed. I figured that if we are making it ourselves, we could definitely adjust the flavors to suit my savoury taste ;) and we did just that.

We adapted a recipe posted on Jamie Oliver's website by a member, and we love how easy it is.

Here's the recipe.
Our adaptation:
- we omitted the egg yolks
- we used red wine
- we used gruyere and cheddar
- we seasoned with salt and white pepper until we achieved the perfect balance of sweet and savory, but bearing in mind that cheese will be added
- we added grated cheese, then croutons, then grated cheese again on top
- we'd consider adding mozzarella into the cheese mix next to add that "stringy melty" quality to it


The recipe mentioned that using croutons isn't convenient, but we did it and it was easy and yummy. We'd use croutons again.


Grilling in the oven.


Perfectly golden brown.


Out of this world.

Hearty & Creamy Chinese Soup - Fish, Tofu, Coriander & Century Eggs

I am not normally excited about Chinese soups but this one had me going gaga! (Sorry, I spent too much time trying to buy tickets to Lady Gaga's concert this morning. All sold out. I didn't get one. I'll have to scream & dance to the fancam videos on youtube later)

It's so creamy from the fish, hearty from all the chunks of velvety smooth century eggs and tofu, and the coriander made the whole thing so refreshing. I adore! I asked SC's mom for the recipe and it goes pretty much like this...

Pan fry your favorite fish. Add some rice wine, add water, bring to boil. Add tofu cubes and century eggs pieces. Season with salt and white pepper, add (lots of) coriander only at the last minute to keep them green.

Slurpsss.

Soto Sapi - Indonesian Spiced Beef Soup

One of the dishes I served at baby M's birthday party last weekend.
It was a hot day, and in Indonesia, we surely eat hot and spicy soup with a lot of acid to sweat it out. Slurp! If you did sweat, you'd feel like you just did one heck of a workout. Refreshed! Forget makeup, or use something totally waterproof :D

There are sooo many different kinds of sotos in Indonesia, I tried to do the yellow kind.

Recipe
Beef stock
- 1 kg beef (I used brisket and shin), blanched and cut into cubes
- 2 stalk lemongrass, bruised and cut into 5 cm long pieces
- 6 lime leafs
- 2 cm galangal, crushed
- hot water
- salt, pepper, sugar
Spice paste
- 8 cloves garlic
- 6 shallot
- 2 cm ginger
- 1 tsp turmeric (or more)
- 1 tsp salt
- a bit of cooking oil for saute-ing
Serve with
- crispy shallot
- kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)
- lime wedges
- chopped scallion
- and of course rice ^_^

In a large pot, cook beef cubes in hot water with lemongrass, lime leafs, and galangal, bring to boil and simmer for 1.5 hours (minimum, or until tender), or pressure cook for 30 minutes. I made my spice paste by throwing all the ingredients into a food processor, followed by grinding it using a mortar and pestle until really smooth. You can use blender, try to make the paste as smooth as possible. Saute spice paste in a bit of hot oil until fragrant, add into the beef stock, mix well, and adjust seasonings if necessary. Garnish and serve hot.

Can't wait for winter so that I can use this soto as a hot pot soup base. Oh yes!

Roasted Corn, Chicken and Coriander Soup

Summer's too hot for soups?
Hmpfh. I don't think so.
But I do prefer clear soup instead of the rich and creamy ones for summer.
This one started with a minimalist quick chicken broth, to which I added roasted corn, coriander and some citrus juice at the last minute.

Recipe
- 1 chicken, broken down to quarters, excess fat removed
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- 3 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- a big bunch of fresh coriander, chopped
- 4 ears of corn (or you can used canned corn kernels)
- 1 lemon
- cooking oil, butter, salt, pepper, sugar, nutmeg, water (or chicken stock if you want it more intense)

In a stock pot, saute chicken, garlic and shallot in a bit of oil and butter until fragrant. Add hot water (or chicken stock), bring to boil and simmer for 10 minutes to make the chicken stock soup base. While the chicken soup is simmering, slather corn with some butter and grill until golden brown. Remove corn kernels, season with salt and pepper, then set aside. Check on the chicken soup base, season with salt, pepper, sugar, and nutmeg. Turn off heat, add chopped coriander, squeeze some lemon juice, add roasted corn kernels and serve. You can add a bit of fresh chopped chillies if you want more heat.

I love mine with buttered toasts or sandwiches and a big glass of iced tea.

Mushrooms & Napa Cabbage Miso Soup

I love my veggie tasty, so I made this side dish for a last weekend's meaty lunch. The weather was indeed a bit too warm for a hot soup, but still...miso made things so tasty we would've consumed this in our underwear dripping with sweat if we had to ^_*

Quite a seksi idea? Ahem! No, I didn't think so.

What's seksi though...is this bowl I got from Franc Franc, from a quick shopping trip with Lia of Bentolicious. We both went crazy and I am so glad I did. I love my purchases!

Recipe
- 1 small napa cabbage, sliced
- 1 cup mushrooms of your choice
- hot water
- miso paste
- a touch of sugar
- crunchy seaweed paper/strands for garnish (optional)
Bring a pot of water to boil, add napa cabbage, cook until they reach the desired level of crunchiness/softness, add mushrooms, add miso paste bit by bit until you reach the desired level of flavor, balance it with a bit of sugar. Garnish if you wish.

In 30something C weather like this, turn on your fan/aircon (or take off clothes?) and start slurping.

Chinese Soup - Pig Stomach, Preserved Vegetable & Peppercorn

This is one of the few Chinese soups that I love.
It's very peppery, with a touch of sourness from the preserved veggie, and the tender but still slightly chewy pig stomach. Perfect to warm ourselves up when the weather is cooler.

And if you haven't tried pig stomach, please do :)

When it's done right, you'll love it.


Recipe
- about 1/2 lb pig stomach (if you live in Hong Kong, supermarkets normally sell the cleaned pig stomach and preserved vegetable in a pack, if not, ask if your butcher has it ^_^)
- a pack of sour preserved vegetable (suen choi)
- cracked peppercorns, white pepper (lots of it)

- pork bone (this gives the soup its "essence". A touch of sweetness and meatiness)
- Beancurd sheets (optional)
- salt, hot water

Add chunks of pig stomach, sour preserved vegetable and pork bone into a pot of boiling water, add peppercorns and white pepper, simmer until the pig stomach chunks are tender, season, add beancurd sheets, serve hot.

Happy slurping!

Chinese Soup - Pork, Peanut & Red Date

You might think that I only post junk/unhealthy food...

Hmph!
Think again :D

These days, wherever I go (to the clinics, to the paediatrician, etc) carrying my newborn baby, everyone felt that they're entitled to offer me unsolicited advice.

"Don't wear short sleeved clothes"
"Don't drink cold drinks"
"Don't drink coke"
"I repeat, do not drink coke!"
"Don't wash your hair"
"Don't go out"
"Don't do this"
"Especially, don't do that"
Yada yada yada...

Anyway, they have my best interest at heart, so I greatly appreciate their advice (apart from the one telling me that I am not supposed to drink iced coke! What the...). I learnt new things from them every time :)

This soup was one of the advice I got from a lady in the clinic, who has a super cute baby and judging from the size of her jugs, she seems to have endless supply of milk :D

I guess it's worth trying.
A mom would do anything, remember?

Recipe
- 1 lb pork (pork bone + pork shin for some "meat")
- a handful of peanuts
- a handful of red dates (core removed)
- hot water, salt and pepper to taste

Throw everything into a pressure cooker and pressure cook for 25 minutes, season to taste and slurp~

Although, it didn't make my chest overflowing with milk...it tasted pretty darn good ;p

Chinese Drunken Chicken Soup

If you've never tried this soup...
Please do.
Seriously.
It has just become my favorite Chinese soup!

It's a classic confinement tonic for women who just gave birth, but confinement or not...I love this soup! Plus, unlike other type of slow cooked soup which takes forever to make...this takes less than one hour to whip up!
Fast, easy, delicious & warming for this cooler days....perfect!


Recipe
- Half a chicken, chopped into pieces
- a handful of red dates
- wood ear fungus, soaked in water until soft and sliced thinly
- glutinous rice wine, about half a cup
- 3 cm ginger, sliced thinly
- 2-3 bowls of hot water
- vegetable oil for sauteeing, salt to season

Saute ginger and chicken in a bit of vegetable oil, add sliced wood ear fungus, add glutinous rice wine, cook for a few minutes, add 2-3 bowls of hot water, let cook for about 20 minutes, or until all the flavors merged, season with salt and serve.

A bowl of liquid gold! Slurp!

Creamy Fish & Tomato Soup

Another soup that's supposedly good for me (in terms of being a milk-producing cow ^_^)...but I love this one. Creamy fish soup with a bit of a tang from the tomatoes :)

As always, it's super duper easy to make.

Recipe
- 1 piece of grass carp belly (around HK$15), or you can use your desired type of fish
- 4 tomatoes, cut each into 6-8 sections
- 2 cm ginger, crushed
- hot water, olive oil for pan frying the fish, salt and white pepper

Clean the fish thoroughly, scrub with a bit of salt to get rid of any slimy surface, season with salt and pepper generously, pan fry with a piece of ginger until the skin's golden brown in a bit of hot olive oil. Add hot water into a pot, add tomatoes, the remaining of ginger, and the fish, bring to boil, simmer until the soup is creamy. Season with salt and pepper.

Warmth and comfort in a bowl...
Helped with my milk production...and NO PAPAYA!

Yeah! *doing my little victory dance*

Fish & Papaya Soup - Things Only Mothers Would Do

I hate papaya.

Ew.

Ew.

Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ewww!!!

But sc's mama heard that drinking fish & papaya soup will increase my milk production (currently, my production is seriously lame ^_^')...and I do want the best for lil' Marcus.

So, I thought, I'd only drink this Chinese soup wearing a mother's hat.

I was surprised to learn that the soup is pretty tasty :D
Thank God! I drank a few bowls of this...and now my milk production improved from seriously lame to...just lame :p

I'll continue to drink more of this.

Recipe
- 1 large slice of grass carp belly (around HK$15)
- 1 small papaya
- hot water
- salt and pepper to taste, olive oil for pan frying the fish

Clean fish, rub with salt and pepper, pan fry in hot olive oil to brown the skin. Cook the pan fried skin with chunks of papaya in hot water until the soup turns rich and creamy. Season with salt and pepper.

The soup is tasty and don't worry, I don't think you will suddenly produce some milk because of this :D

Canned Food Party

Celebrating our love for canned food, a few close friends and I decided to have a canned food party, or was it actually my excuse for serving my guests with bad food? Ahem ahem ;)

Here are the easy breezy food I served that day...
Canned Fruit Salad

- 1 can of mandarin oranges, drained
- 1 can of peaches, drained
- 1 can of grapes, drained
Dressed with mango yoghurt, a bit of condensed milk, lemon zest and lemon juice.
Easy peasy. PS. You can also use a mixed fruit cocktail.

Corn Kernels with Bacon and Coriander

- 1 can of corn kernels, drained
- a few slices of bacon, cut into small pieces
- a sprig of coriander, chopped
- lemon juice, black pepper
Cook bacon pieces in a hot pan until they're browned and most of the fat has been rendered, add corn, let brown, add coriander at the end, add black pepper and squirt some lemon juice.
Done and done.

Indonesian Home Style Sop Ayam (Clear Chicken Soup)

- 1 small chicken, remove excess fat and most of skin
- 3 cloves of shallot, cut into sections
- 2 carrots, peeled and cut into 3mm thick chunks
- 1 small potato, cut into cubes
- a handful of macaroni (since I don't have them, I used fusili)
- half a can of hot dogs (cut into chunks)
- half a can of spam (cut into cubes)
- olive oil, ground nutmeg, hot water, salt, pepper, crispy shallot, spring onion/Indonesian celery/coriander

Saute shallot in hot olive oil, add chicken, add carrot and potato chunks, add hot water, bring to boil, cook until you have a nice chicken stock and the carrot and potato chunks are tender, add hot dog and spam chunks, season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, garnish with crispy shallot and greens, serve.

Since back home we serve sop with perkedel (Indonesian potato cakes), I tried to make my own perkedels (again, after failing many times)...

Perkedel Kornet (Indonesian Potato Cakes with Corned Beef)
|
- 2 large potatoes, peeled and sliced (about 2-3 mm thick)
- 3-4 tablespoon canned corned beef
- crispy shallot
- 1 egg, beaten
- ground nutmeg, salt, pepper, olive oil for frying and baking
I microwaved sliced potatoes on high for about 10 minutes, or until softened. They get a little watery after microwaving, thus, I drizzled a bit of olive oil and bake them in 200C oven until most of the liquid is gone (this way, it takes shorter time compared to baking the potatoes soft, and less greasy compared to deep frying the potatoes prior to mashing). Mash while the potato chunks are still warm (it's ok to leave a bit of chunks), add corned beef, season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, crush some fried shallot into the mix (optional), and mix well. Roll about 1 tbsp of potato mix into a ball and flatten slightly. I refrigerated mine overnight, but if the potato balls are firm and dry enough, it is not necessary (I just couldn't risk another failure). Heat up oil for frying (medium heat), dip each potato cake into beaten egg and fry until golden brown. I've tried baking them, coating them in panko breadcrumbs etc, but nothing's as good as the authentic deep fried version ;)

My first successful perkedels! Yeahhhh~ it's a day to remember!

Baked Spam and Pineapple in Teriyaki Sauce

I've made this before...I liked it so much, I made it again! The recipe can be found here.

For dessert...I didn't wanna bake anything...I served a very summery Indonesian classic...
Iced Canned Fruit Mix

- 1 can of longan
- 1 can of lychee
- 1 can of rambutan
- ice, iced water
Mix the canned fruit with some of its syrup, add iced water and ice cubes until you achieve the desired level of sweetness, and serve ;)
Very very refreshing!

Could the above food (plus rice) serve 5 big eaters? Of course not! We also ordered 9 pieces of chicken from KFC with waffle fries ;) ...and we taught our Hong Kong friend to eat like a true Indonesian, i.e. plate instead of bowl, rice + corn + perkedel (carb+carb+carb), eat with your bare hand, shape rice and stuff into a small mountain, shove into mouth with your thumb...and don't forget...one leg up on the chair.

Too bad I didn't get a picture of that as my hand was dirty with food. The scene was priceless!

Soto Betawi - Indonesian Creamy Beef Soup

Nothing I love more than a get together than involves...ehm, food.

Especially some food that has a special sentimental value to us.
Oh, my hormones are making me extra sappy and romantic these days~
That's right. Blame it all on the hormones.

So, last Friday, after having been craving this dish for a while...my friend Ieie and I decided to brave the lack of instant seasoning pack and make the dish we went through our college days with...from scratch. Gasp!

Making anything from scratch might be nothing special for most people. But for Ieie and I, instant seasoning princesses, it calls for a celebration.

Soto Betawi
Recipe
adapted from here

Beef stock
- 1 lb beef (I used brisket, you can use other parts of beef with some offals)
- 1 galangal, crushed
- 1 stalk lemongrass, crushed
- 3 salam leaves (Indonesian bay leaves)
- water
Boil beef with galangal, lemongrass and salam leaves until tender. I used a pressure cooker, so this only took 30 minutes, if you are not using pressure cooker, bring to boil and simmer for at least 1.5 hours. Since I wanted to get rid of the fat from the brisket, I prepared this one night ahead, cool it down and keep it in the fridge. The next day, the fat has hardened and I could take it out easily. If you are using leaner meat, you can skip the fat removing process.

If you don't eat beef, replace it with other kinds of meat. Next time, I will add some bone-in chicken pieces too, to give the soup some glorious golden tinge.

Spices
- 5 shallot
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 2 cm ginger
- 1 tbsp ground corriander seeds
- 1 tsp cumin
- white pepper, salt, olive oil
I threw everything into my food processor and pulsed until it forms a fine paste. In Indonesia, we normally use mortar and pestle.

Soup
- 400ml coconut milk
To finish the soup, bring beef and stock to boil, add spices, and add coconut milk. Adjust seasonings and spices according to your taste. The soup is done.

Other Ingredients
- 2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced into 8-12 sections each
- 2 tomatoes, sliced into 8-12 sections each
I pan fried the potato slices on a non stick pan with minimal amount of olive oil (only about 1 tbsp), pan fry slowly on medium heat until softened, crank up the heat afterwards to brown the surface. Alternatively, you can soften the potatoes by baking or microwaving them.
The tomatoes do not need to be cooked.

Garnish
- spring onion, thinly sliced
- crispy shallot
- red chillies, sliced thinly
- Indonesian sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
- emping (belinjo crackers) or prawn crackers (optional)
- lime (quartered)
To serve, place potatoes and tomatoes in a bowl, scoop some beef, pour soup over it, sprinkle some crackers, crispy shallot and spring onion. Serve with kecap manis, chilli and lime slices on the side as condiments.

Yummy with steamed rice ^_^

I am crap at food styling. But although the above pictures were crappily styled, the way we devoured it was even worse...

We devoured the soto with a mountain of Indonesian crackers.

It did send us back to our young, cute, but far-from-innocent college days :D
Ah, nostalgia~

Black Chicken (Silkie), Mushrooms & Coconut Soup

When I was browsing through my photo folder to see which food gets flaunted shown off shared today...I suddenly realised that...I still owe you a soup recipe from my junk food fest birthday bash!

The feeling of owing a lot of people (and by "a lot of people" I meant...like two of them ^_^) is not good.
- It's like there's a heavy stone that needs to be lifted off my heart (I was told that this is a result of eating too much unhealthy food and burping will easily solve this)
- It's like there's a heavy person sitting on my shoulders (I was told that this is only natural for a person who spends almost her whole waking hour in front of a computer)
- It's like there's something that clouds my mind, demanding solutions (I was probably only thinking about dinner right after lunch)

I guess all of my "not good" feelings aren't caused by my owing people recipes after all :p

Anyway, here's another super simple recipe.

You love super simple recipes, don't you?

Recipe
- 5 cups of mushrooms of your choice (but straw mushroom and its earthy scent is a must for me), cleaned, sliced
- A pack of coconut meat that's chopped into pieces, rinsed
- 1 silkie chicken (black chicken), rinsed, pat dry
- olive oil, water (or stock), salt, pepper, sugar

Heat up a pot, saute mushrooms with olive oil, add the rest of the ingredients, add water (or stock), bring to boil, lower down heat and simmer for min 2 hours, remember to skim the floaty fatty bits. Season with salt and pepper, add a bit of sugar if you want to have the tasty effect of MSG (without adding MSG), serve hot.

Subtle chicken flavor, earthy mushrooms, sweet 'n smooth coconut...nuff said.

Why did I use black chicken (silkie)?
- I haven't tried it before
- Black is so "in" this winter
- My Chinese friends told me that it has more health benefits (lower calories, lower fat content, more antioxidant) than our good ol' regular chicken
- I was told that it is more mildly flavored than regular chicken (sc hates chicken that smells too "chickeny")
- Have you seen a silkie before? They're so mighty cute I started to feel bad cooking them~

Would it work with regular chicken? I think it would, try it and let me know?

Pumpkin, Carrot & Corn Chinese Soup in a Pack

One of the beauties of living in Hong Kong....apart from...
- HK$10 wonton noodle
- Coffee shop whole day breakfasts
- In some places, food being smashed on your table delivered to you within seconds after you uttered your orders
- HK$18 BBQ pork lunch boxes
...is Chinese Soup in A Pack

The locals drink their Chinese soup religiously.
Each soup has its own health benefits such as...as quoted the locals:
- good for skin
- good for the heart
- good for heat
- good for cold
- good for health
good good good...I wonder if they have some soups that's good for love/good for career/good for the economy?

My knowledge about Chinese soup is...nonexistent.
I don't know which ingredient goes with what, and I don't know which soup is good for what.
I might have been drinking soup which is "good for gentlemen"...since I seem to have grown quite a lot of moustache these days. Oppps. (No, Rita. Don't blame it on the soup. You've had moustache since...like..forever)

Anyway, based on my Chinese soup related cluelessness, soup in a pack is my best bet.

Last weekend I've chosen...
Pumpkin, Carrot and Corn Soup Pack

It's a Chinese soup combo that I haven't seen before, and despite the persistent scorching heat, autumn is coming, so something with pumpkin sounds perfect.

I just grabbed a pack, it costs HK$18.50 (around USD2.3), it has all the necessary ingredients for the soup. I've added another pack of pork tenderloin too.


...and it doesn't get easier than this.
Simply dump everything into a pot (an impatient bitch that I am, I used a pressure cooker ^_^), add boiling water, bring to boil and simmer for about 1 hour.

Since I use a pressure cooker, I could've been drinking a bowl of soup after just 15 minutes.
But I want everything richer, sweeter, thicker, and tender, so I cooked my soup for 25 minutes. For pressure cooking vegetables, that's like...forever!

See my darling cooker blowing off steams?

That promises deliciousness.

...wow!
The soup is naturally sweet from all the sweet ingredients with a touch of meatiness from the pork tenderloin, I simply added a bit of salt to make everything perfectly balanced.


Yum!...and the meat? Melt-in-your-mouth tender.

Now back to the most important issue again. Does anyone know any soup that can make me richer, slimmer, prettier, and also smarter?
(Note to self: Chinese soups can only do so much, not the impossible)

Easy Sop Buntut - Indonesian Ox Tail Soup

I can't believe what just happened!!!
All the crap I've been typing for several hours has gone!

I was having one of those really uninspired days, where my mind goes blank and believe it or not, I almost started by writing a couple sad versions of "What does one write when one has nothing to write? Writing about having nothing to write?"...then thought better of it and wrote paragraphs after paragraphs on how I grew up with sop (soup) back home in Indonesia. Yawn.
It was pure crap.

I guess the universe didn't want me to inflict such a lethally boring article to my readers' soul (who are probably bored to the bone at work, or at home, refreshing their Facebook or Twitter pages every few seconds, seeing one boring update after another, or even none), so when I clicked "Publish", I was faced by the feared "Page cannot be displayed" error message.

I always pride myself of being the "click-save-after-every-little-update" girl, I thought I would never be those who lose an unpublished draft, no matter how painfully boring it was. I was (again) wrong. I lost that boring draft. Thank God.

What the heck did I wrote?

"I didn't like sop then, but now I do."
Imagine that sentence being stretched into a 2,000 word article. Yawn. A long yawn.

But, oh dammit, I lost the recipe draft too!

Easy Sop Buntut - Indonesian Ox Tail Soup

Recipe
- 1 lb ox tail (chopped into chunks)
- 1 large onion, chopped into chunks, or 6 shallots
- 1 carrot, peeled and chopped into bite sized chunks
- 1 cup straw mushrooms (totally optional, you can also use potatoes)
- 2 cups of chicken stock (or use powder/cube)
- olive oil, hot water, salt, pepper, nutmeg (use quite a lot of it, it's the dominant spice in this dish)
- 1 sprig of spring onion, chopped (garnish)
- crispy shallot (garnish)
- juice of 1 lime (garnish)

I used pressure cooker to dramatically reduce the cooking time. Of course, it also works without a pressure cooker, it should taste even better.

Saute onion/shallot in olive oil, add ox tail pieces, brown them a bit, add carrot chunks, potatoes (if using), add chicken stock (add water if you want more soup), add salt, pepper, nutmeg, cook in pressure cooker for 25 minutes. If you're not using a pressure cooker, bring to boil and cook until meat is tender, at least 1.5 hours, the longer the better. Once the meat is tender, add mushrooms (if using), adjust seasoning, garnish with spring onion and crispy shallot, squeeze juice of 1 lime. Serve hot with steamed rice and you can do perkedel (Indonesian fried potato cakes) as a side dish.


Don't let the clean and clear looking broth fool you, it is bursting with flavors.

Now please please please tell me I am not the only one who's lost a boring draft? Misery loves company (Wah! How evil).

Honey Pork and Grapes with Chinese Soup - What Does Your Mug Say about You?

Hungry no more, people! This food scavenger found another treat after a dig. Gosh, there are so many hideous food photographs I found in my hard disk, they made me cringe...with happiness, knowing how far I've come...although I also know how far I still need to go. You can check out my earlier posts to see how hideous my photos were.

Back to food, you know how we love combining sweet, sour and savoury, right? This is one of those combos that worked.
Honey Pork and Grapes Stir Fry

Recipe
- 0.7 lb of pork neck meat, sliced thinly
- half an onion, cut into big chunks
- 1 cup of green seedless grapes, halved
- honey, fish sauce, white pepper, olive oil

Saute onion in olive oil until fragrant and slightly caramelized, add pork neck meat, cook until the meat pieces as done, add fish sauce, add honey, add grapes and cook until the grapes are slightly caramelised. Serve with steamed rice and wash it down with...

Pork Bone and Hairy Melon Soup

Recipe
- 1 lb pork bone (you can use ribs)
- 2 hairy melons, peel, cut into big chunks
- hot water, salt, pepper
I used pressure cooker, so it was quick, but you can cook this in any pot. Throw pork bones into boiling water, cook for minimum 1.5 hours (for non pressure cooker). With pressure cooker, you just need 20-25 minutes. Add pieces of melons, cook until softened, season with salt and pepper, serve. Light, clear, and refreshing.

What Does Your Mug Say about You?
Now, an exhibitionist that I am, I love doing or using everything that reflects me. Home decor, clothings, food, you name it. So, I love these mugs from Indigo, Prince's Building, Central. Choose one that reflects who you are: Toy Boy? high maintenance? daddy cool? yum mum? cheeky monkey?

For myself, this time of the month, I think I'd have to custom order Raging Bitch.