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Lemongrass (香茅) is a popular herb used in many Asian cooking, especially for Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian and Indonesian cuisines. It has a refreshing citrus flavour with a hint of ginger. It blends very well with garlic, chillies and cilantro, hence is widely used in making soup, curries, marinade and stir-fry dishes. It is also used to flavour tea, drinks, baked goods, desserts and pastries. Essential...

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The Christmas spirit is in the air! Can you feel it? I certainly do. I always enjoy the joyful atmosphere of Christmas even though I don’t celebrate the occasion. Seeing Christmas decorations, listening to Christmas songs and eating Christmas cookies really put me in a jolly holiday mood. With this festive vibe cheering everywhere, it makes me (ie this home chef) feel like cooking less and join in the...

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Congee or porridge (粥) is not only a staple food among the Chinese community but also one of the first few baby foods recommended for weaning. It is a versatile dish which can be easily prepared and served with added ingredients like fish, chicken, pork or veggies to enhance the flavour and increase its nutritional value. The texture and consistency of the congee is determined by three main factors which...

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The ease to manage and chew makes patties a kids-friendly food. That’s why most kids find food appealing when presented in the form of patties. Patties are suitable to be served as a light meal, during kid’s parties or even to be packed into a kid’s lunchbox. They are also great as picnic food since proper cutleries are not required for eating. I would recommend to include greens when...

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Beside apples, oranges are the most common imported fruit that my mom usually used to buy for the family when I was a child. But, I disliked oranges then, as more often than not they weren’t sweet but rather sour. I thought I was the only one who had this bias against oranges until I discovered that my hubby also disliked oranges. Maybe, we might also have influenced our son who also didn’t show much interest...

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Lately I have tried out many recipes from Annabel KarmelN1 Family Cookbook magazines (spring and summer editions) in my cooking. I love its wide selection of kid-friendly recipes which are both simple to follow and wholesome. Also, the required ingredients and seasonings are quite basic and easily found in the supermarkets. Besides that, the recipes include many fun and healthy ideas suitable for all ages...

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  My daily schedule always goes haywire during my son’s school holidays. It’s no exception for this long year-end holiday. As expected, I hardly can find time to do my photo-shooting and blogging.  My time has been “robbed’ so to speak. Whenever my son spots me using the computer, he will “bug” me like a buzzling bee! No way of escaping from his “radar screen”! HELP!  At the end of each...

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I brought my laptop with me during my recent holiday break in KL hoping to “squeeze” in some time to update my food blog. In the end, I decided to give my laptop a holiday break too. LOL! Now that the holiday is over, it’s time to crank up my “engine” again and get back to my daily routine. I seriously MISSED the blogging world and can’t wait to share with you all the great recipes I tried and tested...

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Asparagus (卢笋）tops my list of premium vegetables. There are two common varieties that I can find in the local market, all imported, from Thailand and Australia respectively. If I were given a choice, I prefer the ones from Australia for its better taste. However, its price can stretch my weekly budget. Hence, I would normally buy them only when they are in season when prices can drop by half. Otherwise,...

It was only in recent years that cordyceps militaris/ chong cao hua (虫草花), a Chinese medicinal herb became increasingly popular among Chinese traditional medicine practitioners, nutritionist, chef, and even homemakers. I was first introduced to it by my mother-in-law recently. Translated literally into English, it means “worm grass flower”. But it is neither flower nor grass, nor does it resemble...