How To Cook Crispy Noodles With Sauce

You may have come across a number of different iterations of crispy noodles depending on the type of Asian restaurant you frequent; in this Lockdown Malaysian Cook-Along (yes, I'll explain in a bit) I made 2 different versions - one using vermicelli (aka rice sticks, depending on the brand), and one using fresh thin egg noodles (aka wonton » Read More

How to Make Sweet Potato Dumplings with Red Bean Paste Filling

  These sweet potato dumplings are pretty easy to make; you can used ready-to-use red bean paste (in cans or packs at your local Asian grocery store), though in this Live Asian Kitchen, I used the homemade red bean paste I’d made a couple of weeks earlier. Other popular filling options include lotus seed paste or mung bean paste. The » Read More

How to Cook Stir-Fried Xinjiang-Style Cumin Lamb

I’m not going to claim this stir-fried Xinjiang Cumin Lamb dish is the real deal (hence why it’s titled Xinjiang-STYLE) since I’ve yet to even visit China, plus I’ve adapted it to accommodate what I had on hand ingredients-wise along with my own flavour preferences. I discovered that half a leg of lamb (my recent purchase - see previous post) » Read More

How to Make An Easy Nut-Free Carrot Cake

I rarely bake because I’m not much of a cake eater, but I have on occasion had to use up some leftover carrots, in which case my go-to option is to bake it into a carrot cake.  This recipe was originally sourced from the Thermomix recipe community, but I’ve made so many adjustments that it bears no resemblance to the original. I find Western » Read More

How to Make Yee Chai Peng (Ear Biscuits)

Yee Chai Peng (Cantonese for “ear biscuits”) were these intriguing spiral-patterned, curved fried pastries from my childhood in Malaysia, which were crunchy, slightly sweet and yet savoury. The only ones I ever ate were factory-made; this wasn’t one of those things that you would find people making fresh at home or at their street stall - certainly » Read More

How to Make Jackie M’s XXO Sauce

I remember when XO sauce started popping up in Chinatown menus as an option for your stir-fried Chinese dishes a couple of decades ago, and thinking it must refer to cognac. I eventually learned that it was in fact a condiment made with dried scallops, an ingredient that’s expensive enough that it would deter me from ever entertaining the thought » Read More