Thai Red Duck Curry

This Thai Red Duck Curry is one of my favourite curry dishes during my 2.5 years in Brisbane. I remembered we used to drive at least 3 hours once a month to and from our home to Chinatown in order to get roast duck to make this dish. And I must admit that duck meat definitely goes well with something sweet and sour like plums sauce so in this case this dish blends well with lychees and pineapples as one of the ingredients.

Double-Boiled Durian Chicken Soup - 榴莲炖鸡汤

Durian is known as the "King of all Fruits" and in Singapore we can have Durian almost throughout the whole year. And among all the varieties of durian in the stalls, I am sure most of the people will go for either "Cat Mountain King - 猫山王" or "Red Prawn - 红虾" which are bonds to make people crave for more. In recent years there are so many special and delicious products that are made from fresh durian flesh available in the market such as: durian moon cake, ice-cream, muffins, and etc.

Today I am not going to use durian to make any cakes or dessert but rather I will like to share with you on how to make a pot of simple and delicious Durian Soup. From what I have read up, in Thailand many woman or confinement ladies will make this soup to strengthen their body as Durian is consider to be one of the best ingredient. There are different method on making this soup, some of them will use the durian shell, soft white flesh inside the shell or the durian meat itself. But here, I will choose to use the durian flesh together with the seed.

Since you can always find all sort of varieties of Durian at the local Durian Stalls or some supermarket. If you wish, do pick up some and try out this double-boiled durian chicken soup which will surprised you and your family. This soup has many therapeutic effects, including circulating of the blood and qi in your body, nourishing yin and it is also suitable for everyone to consume. For those who loves durian, this soup gives a little hint of durian aroma and sweetness but if you prefer something stronger taste, you can always mixed the soup with the flesh to make it more tastier and creamy texture.

Durian is also rich in protein and contain good source of nutrition in the fruit category. It has a special aroma, which are appetizers to promote the effect of appetite, including dietary fiber which can promote bowel movement. But you should not over consume it because of its rich nutrition that your stomach might not be able to fully absorbed it. And if you eat durian, you can always have a few mangosteen which is the "Queen of Fruit" to cool down your body from eating too much of durian.

Now let's take a look at today's ingredients which only consists of 4 items: -

Ingredients: (serves 2)
6 seeds of Durian Fruit
1 Chicken Drumbstick
2 - 3 Pieces of Pork Ribs
800 ml Chicken broth or Soup stock

Tips:

~ When getting the durian, try to choose those flash that is dry and not too ripe that it can be kept whole throughout the cooking.
~ You can also add in 2 slices of ginger to enhance the flavour of the soup.
~ The natural sweetness and taste of the soup is good enough to consume without any extra seasonings.

If you don't have slow cooker, you can always double-boiled it in another pot over the stove on low heat too.

Method:
1. Trim and cut the chicken drumpstick into pieces, then bring a pot of water to boil.
2. Blanced the chicken and ribs in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, removed, rinse and set aside.
3. Next arrange the Durian neatly into the bottom of the double-boiler pot, then top with chicken and ribs on it and place the pot into the inner pot of the slow cooker.
4. Pour the chicken stock into a small soup pot, bring it to boil then slowly add into the durian ingredient pot.
5. Remember to use boiling water for the inner pot of the slow cooker to double-boiled the soup.
6. Set the slow cooker to AUTO and cook for about 1.5 hours and serve it warm.

After looking at this interesting Durian Chicken Soup recipe, if you are interested in reading more on other related durian recipes such as: Durian Fried Rice, Durian Chocolate Chiffon Cake, Durian Tiramisu, Durian Cheesecake with Chocolate Fudge and etc. Click here (HERE) for more recipe articles.




p/s: If you will like to read more on the chinese version of this recipe, do hop over to my blog at Omy HERE.

Homemade Kiwifruit and Apple Jam

Recently I have posted a "Blueberry & Banana Jam - 蓝莓香蕉果酱" (click HERE) over at my "Omy blog" which is written in Chinese. And since I have some extra Kiwifruit in the pantry which mum bought it from the recent kiwifruit promotion at the supermarket, I decided to use it to make this jam.

Spreading some lovely homemade jam on warm toasted bread is definitely a wonderful things to start off the day for morning breakfast. My mum loves to have jam on either toast or plain cracker for her morning breakfast so whenever there is extra fruits in the fridge I will make some lovely jam for her.

To start with we will need some fresh kiwifruit, apple and lemon together with caster sugar. There are a few types of kiwifruit available from the fruit stalls or supermarket depending of which countries they are from. I am sure you have tried the green kiwifruit and golden kiwifruit which is yellowish after removing the outer skin.

You might like to take this photo as reference to shows the steps and changes that took place while cooking the jam.

Ingredients: (make about 1 cup)
2 Medium Size Green Kiwifruit, about 150g
1 Apple, about 150g
220g Sugar
Rind of 1 Lemon
Juice of Half Lemon

Method:
1. Bring a pot of water with jam bottle in it to a boil and boil them for 5 - 8 minutes or so to sterilize them, removed and invert for them to dry.
2. Peel off the skin from the kiwifruit and apple and chopped them into fine cubes.
3. Place all the above ingredients in a heavy-duty saucepan(choose a slightly higher saucepan as the mixture will rise as it boils) and bring to boil over medium high heat and stirring occasionally.
4. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly and skimming foam as necessary.
5. Cook about 10 minutes, until mixture begins to look syrupy and thickens slightly.
6. Once the mixture is stiff enough with a glossy outlook remove the pot from the heat and start filling the jam bottle.
7. Fill the jam near to the rim, screw the cap on and leave it to cool.
8. The jam needs to be refrigerated to prevent mold from forming and it can be kept in the fridge for 2 - 3 weeks.

Note:

1. The jam will look rather watery when done, but don't worry it will thicken up when it cools down to room temperature.

Kiwifruit consists of twice as much vitamin C as there are in oranges so in fact you need one kiwifruit each day to get that amount to replenish your daily intake. But if you or your kids don't prefer to eat the fruit as it's own, perhaps you can consider to some kiwifuits to make some smoothie or jam like what I have shared above.

PinkyBerry High-Tea

This will be a long post that consists of 3 short recipes that might come in handy for any teatime treat. Since recently there is a lot of fresh and nice strawberry available at the supermarket, I really cannot resist the temptation to get a box too. And moreover, I also wish to do a post of “PINKY” theme whereby I can include a few short and sweet recipes for my guests. So here you go…….. welcome to my “PinkBerry High-Tea”……

For starter, let's have a cup of Berry Smoothie to cool down from the summer heat. Smoothie is a blended beverage made from fresh fruit (fruit smoothie) or vegetables. In addition to fruit, some smoothies might include crushed ice, frozen fruit, honey, yogurt or fresh milk. This "Berry Smoothie" here is pretty easy to whip up, what you require are:- fruit blender, some strawberries, honey(optional) and fresh milk.

Ingredients: (serves 2 - 3)
5 - 6 Medium Size of Strawberries
200ml of Strawberry Milk
50ml of Fresh Milk
1/2 Tablespoon Honey, optional

Method:
1. Rinse and trim the strawberries, cut it into halves then blend it together with fresh milk and honey till smooth and creamy.
2. Transfer it to serving cups and top with extra strawberry slices as garnish.

Note:
~ You can use mixture of strawberry & plain milk or either one type for this smoothie.

Chocolate usually goes pretty well with strawberry as it perfect it with an extraordinary flavour. It is not difficult to make this beautiful treats, but you may take a bit of practice on how to dip and yet not drop the strawberries in the melted chocolate.

After our Berry Smoothies, let's have some Chocoberry to start off this afternoon high-tea. These are some easy to make and yet presentable sweet treats whereby you can impress your guest with different kind of decoration design. I am sure this will help you to score more points no matter your guests are Kids or Adults, they will definitely loves these.

Ingredients: (serves 3 - 4)
8 Medium Strawberry
80g 70% Dark Chocolate
30g White Chocolate
Some toothpicks, optional

Method:
1. Gently rinse the berries with tap water then spread them out on a clean dish towel to dry
2. Dry completely before you start dipping and make sure not a drop of water should be left on the berries.
3. Chop/break the dark chocolate bar into small pieces, put the chocolate pieces in a small microwave safe dish.
4. Melt chocolate in the microwave, for about 1 minute at 20 minutes interval on medium power. (Give a quick stir at each interval to even out the melting process)
5. If it still did not melt, continue melting in 15 second increments in the microwave. Stir the chocolate. It should be smooth and have no lumps.(because sometime it depend on the voltage of your microwave)
6. Once the chocolate is melted, start dipping by cover about 2/3 of the strawberry with chocolate.(this looks prettier than covering the entire strawberry)
7. Put the dipped berries on some greaseproof paper and set them in the freezer for about 5 to 10 minutes before decorating it with the white chocolate.

Note:
~ If you are having difficulty holding the strawberry, skewer it just under the green bit with a toothpick just like what I have done in the photo shown above.
~ If you don't prefer white chocolate, you can used chopped nuts, shredded coconut, colour bits and etc to decorate your chocoberry.
~ These Chocoberry should be stored in the refrigerator and eaten at room temperature within 24 hours.


For snack, we will be having this “Strawberry Cupcake” which is made from Strawberry Milk and freshly diced Strawberry. The texture of the cupcake will be slightly moist due to adding of fresh strawberry and when put it near your mouth; you will be able to smell that sweet and fragrance strawberry milk aroma in it.

This simple recipe can bakes about 8 mini cupcakes within 30 minutes including the preparation and baking time. In this way, you can get everything ready and bake it just a few minutes before the guests arrive. I am sure they will be impressive by your little healthy “Strawberry Cupcake”.

Ingredients: (makes 8 mini cupcakes)
100g Cake Flour/Top Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
60g Caster Sugar
50g Butter, melted
1 Medium Egg
30ml Strawberry Milk
3 Medium Strawberry, diced
Extra Slices of Strawberry for topping, optional

Method:
1. Sieved the flour and baking powder together and set aside.
2. Use the electric beater, beat the egg and sugar till white and creamy.
3. Slowly add in the melted butter and continue to beat the mixture.
4. Next add in strawberry milk while the mixer still still beating, then gradually beat in the sieved flour mixture till well combined.
5. Use a spoon or spatula to stir in the diced strawberry and carefully not to over mixed it. (don't worry the mixture will be kind of gluey)
6. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake case till 3/4 full, top with a thin slice of strawberry and bake in a pre-heated 180 degree oven for about 15 minutes.
7. The surface of the cupcake will not be golden in colour so do not over baked it, test it with a skewer or toothpick check whether the center is cooked through.

Note:
~ You can replace Strawberry Milk with plain milk and 50g of butter with 50ml of corn/olive oil.
~ The texture of the cake will be slightly moist and the surface will be a bit sticky due to the adding of milk and fresh fruit.


Since today’s theme is “PinkyBerry High-Tea”, all the items we have will be based on Pink/Strawberry. So after some light refreshment and snack, we can relax and let go ourself in some heart to heart conversation with a pack or two of "Strawberry Flavour Pocky" to spice up the some discussion topics.

Pineapple & Bitter Gourd Chicken Soup

I get the idea of cooking this soup from my recent Taiwan Trip which we have a similar soup during one of our lunch meal. From the soup ingredients that they served, I replicate a similar soup, which taste just as closed as what we had. I was delighted with the end result even though initially I was still worrying about the outcome due to the different type of Bitter Gourd that we have in Singapore.

During my trip at Taiwan, what we mostly saw is this White Bitter Gourd which is available at their supermarket or vegetable stall. It is kind of different from the Green Bitter Gourd that we have over here. This White Bitter Gourd is cultivates by Taiwan agriculture and is known as “白玉苦瓜” which is a very common vegetable used in most household or restaurants. It is very popular among the Taiwanese because of its colour and it does not have any bitter taste at all too. It is normally used to cook this soup dish known as “Pineapple & Bitter Gourd Chicken Soup -凤梨苦瓜鸡” which is what I am going to share today.

Since we cannot find any "White Bitter Gourd - 白玉苦瓜" in Singapore(if anyone of you know where we can get this in Singapore, please share with me) we have to focus on another key ingredient which is the "Pineapple - 凤梨". Try to get the good grade pineapple which is golden in colour and most important it must be sweet and fragrant so that your soup will be burst with that light and refreshing taste. And according to the fruit seller, what I got over here is known as the "Honey Pineapple" from Thailand which cost S$2.00 for half of the portion.

Ingredients: (serves 4)
4 Chicken Drumsticks
1 Medium Size Bitter Gourd, 500g
1/2 Thai Honey Pineapple, cut into big chunks
1 Medium Carrot, cut into chunks
8 - 10 Red Dates(红枣)
1/2 Tablespoon Wolfberries(枸杞)
1.5 Litres of Water
1/2 Chicken Stock Cube, optional

Method:
1. Trim the fat and remove the skin from the drumsticks, rinse and set aside.
2. Bring a pot of water to boil, blanched the drumsticks for about 5 minutes in boiling water, removed and rinse again.
3. Add 1.5 Litres of water to the soup pot and bring it to boil.
3. While waiting for the water to boil, cut the bitter gourd length-wise into half, scraped off all the seeds and white pits in it then cut into 1"/1.5" thick slices.
4. Place the bitter gourd slices in a big mixing bowl or so, add in 1 teaspoon of salt briefly rub it/massage together with the bitter gourd slices for a few seconds. (this is helps to reduce the bitterness of the bitter gourd)
5. Next, rinse it well and drop it into the boiling water together with all the above ingredients except the wolfberries.
6. When the soup mixture comes to boil again, reduce the heat to medium low and simmer it for about 30 - 40 minutes.
7. Add in the wolfberries in the last 5 minutes and you can season the soup with some salt or chicken stock cube to taste if you prefer.


If you are curious with the taste of this soup, I can guarantee you that it is not bitter at all. And when cooking this soup, you will be delighted with the fragrance that is being release from the pineapple as it smell so wonderful. But a point to note:- as this is a very cooling soup due to the combination of bitter gourd and pineapple, for those who is weak, just recover from sickness or after menses perhaps you should avoid taking this soup or if you want just take it in small amount. If you do try out this soup, please leave me your feedback and share with me your opinion :)

Pear And Sweet Corn Soup

Double-boiled pear soup is always one of my son favourite herbal drink, he will always pester me to cook pear soup for him whenever he sees "Pear" in the supermarket. And from my "Soup - Herbal Tea" list you can see two different version of sweet Pear soup.

But today instead of cooking pear dessert soup, I decided to try something different. I got this idea from my colleague whose mum is a very good Cantonese cooker as well as soup maker. I used to hear from her that one of her favourite soup that her mum always boil for her is this "Sweet Corn & Pear Soup". So after confirming with her roughly what are the ingredients used, I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients: (serves 4)
300g Pork Ribs
1 Sweet Corn, cut into section
1 Large Shingo Pear, cut into quarters
5g Sweet & Bitter Almond(南北杏)
1 Honey Date(金丝蜜枣)
5 Large Red Dates(红枣)
5g Wolfberries(枸杞)
1000 ml Water

Method:
1. Blanched the pork ribs in boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain them thoroughly, then set aside.
2. Use a clean pot, bring 1000ml of water to boil, add in sweet corn, pear and the rest of the ingredients except Wolfberries.
3. When the soup comes to boil again, lower the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes or so until it is favourable to taste, add in the wolfberries and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.
4. You can serve it with rice or before meal.

Note:
~ Shingo pears are one of the popular export fruits. They have light golden brown peels, and taste very sweet and juicy yet have crunchy texture.



This is indeed a very delicious soup that is full of natural sweetness and fragrance that is infused by the sweet corn and pear and the rest of ingredients. This taste just as good as the sweet dessert version but if you don't prefer to mix something sweet to go with your meal. I will suggest that you can have this soup either before meal or after your meal.

Curry Chicken With Longan & Pineapple

Since this is the Deepavali week holiday and last week I have being invited for a Curry Sampling at CURRY ON! I think maybe I can share a simple and healthy Curry Recipe with everyone here. So what come in your mind when you read the heading of the post and see the photo. LONGAN + PINEAPPLE + CURRY ? ? ? ? ? ? = NICE?

From the ingredients here, you can see that it doesn't required any coconut milk or cream. All you need to get is these simple and healthy stuff which can satisfy your taste buds on curry and also help you to watch your waistline. The main ingredient that provide the fragrance is the Kaffir Lime Leaves which makes give this dish a very refreshing taste and fragrant. I have use this leaf to cook another Chicken Dish a few years back. You can click on this link for more details.

The Longan used in this recipe is from can which contain syrup, you can easily grab a can of this Longan in syrup in any supermarket or convenient store.

You will be surprised with the taste of this dish, it is something like a cross taste between Sambal and Tom Yum Chicken. It is very easy to prepared without much hassle. All you need is to cut the chicken breast meat into cubes, marinate with instant curry paste. Furthermore you can even use canned pineapple to replace the fresh type. Overall, this is a very refreshing dish because the gravy is infuse with Kaffir Lime leave aroma and Longan. It is an very appetising dish that goes well with steam rice.

Ingredients: (serves 2)
2 Tablespoons of Thai Red Curry Paste
1 Chicken Breast Meat, cut into cubes
1 Slice of Fresh Pineapple, cut into cubes
15 Longan In Syrup
2 Tablespoons of Sryup, from the longan can
1 Tomato, cut into wedges
2 Small Red Onion, cut into wedges
1/2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
4 Small Kaffir Lime Leaves, shredded

Methods:
1. Clean and trim the fat from the chicken breast, cut it into about 2" cubes.
2. Marinate the chicken with about 1 teaspoon of Thai red chilli paste and 1/2 teaspoon of light soy sauce for about 10 minutes.
3. Heat up a small saucepan with olive oil, saute the onion till fragrant.
4. Next add in half of the tomato wedges and some shredded kaffir lime leave then continue to stir-fry for another 15 second or so.
5. Spoon in the remaining chilli paste and continue to saute until fragrance then add in the marinated chicken cubes and fry till the meat is cooked through.
6. Next add in the pineapple cubes, longan, remaining tomato wedges and give it a good stir till combined.
7. Lastly stir in 2 tablespoons of syrup juice from the longan can and bring the mixture to boil for about 10 seconds.
8. Dish up and served with some balanced broccoli and steam rice.



Note:
~ You can get those instant Thai Red Chilli Paste by "Asian Home Gourmet" in most supermarket.

You can served this as a side dish or as a individual Main Course like those in the restaurant with steam rice. This is the 2nd time I tried using Longan as a ingredient in the dish. The other dish which I used Longan is "Stir-fry Pork Fillet with Longan" which you might be interested to take a look too :)

Durian Fried Rice

I have heard about this Durian Fried Rice from one of the Hong Kong style cafe called "Central" where they have a few branches in Singapore, one of it located at the basement of Takashimaya. I guess not many of us will dare to take the risk on trying this dish on the combination of seafood fried rice with Durian. But to me, this is always an interesting dish to try on since from young I always love the combination of white rice serve with durian flesh.

As now is the Durian peak seasoning, I decided to grab a few from the fruit stall to test out some interesting recipe which I have keep in view for a long time. So based on the food review from some of the blogger who have tried this dish, I came out with my own version of Durian Fried Rice. Since I always fancy the idea of mixing rice with durian, I found this combination of fried rice is very special and the taste do blend in well with the fried, rice and egg. I didn't add any seasoning to this dish, and not even to the prawn as well.

Ingredients: (serve 1)
1 Small Rice Bowl Of Cooked Rice
3 Seeds Of Durian Flesh, 80g
5 Medium Prawns, devein
1 Egg, optional
1 Teaspoon Wolfberries
2 Cloves Garlic, finely chopped
1/2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
Chopped Spring Onion

Method:
1. Pre-heat a frying pan with oil and saute the chopped garlic until fragrant then stir in the prawn and fry until cooked through.
2. Next stir in the cooked rice and give it a quick stir to separate each of the grain from sticking together.
3. Push the rice mixture to aside(refer to the picture above) then crack an egg into the pan and stir-it through to the rice mixture until combine then add in the wolfberries.
4. Lastly, push the rice mixture aside again and add in the Durian flesh and give it a quick stir to loosen the paste then stir it into the rice mixture till well combined.
5. Remove the pan from heat, and sprinkle chopped spring onion into rice mixture, dish up and serve warm with extra seeds of durian.

Note:
a) If you want it to be a bit savoury, you can add 1/4 teaspoon of salt or seasoning to stir-fry the fried before adding the durian.

Related Post:
1) Rice With Durian
2) Baked Durian Cake
3) Durian Chocolate Chiffon Cake
4) Green Bean With Durian
5) Thai Style Durian Sticky Rice

Banana & Orange Cinnamon Jam

Remember the Banana and Passion fruit Jam that I posted in April? My mum really love the taste and fragrant of that jam so since she gave me some banana on Friday I decided to try out another type of Banana Jam. This round I use the combination of Banana and Orange together with a touch of Cinnamon Powder. So you can imagine the sweetness of banana, tangerine fragrant from the orange and a touch of Cinnamon spice................


As usual, you don't really need any fancy ingredients. All you required is about 2 medium size banana, 1 big orange and some cinnamon powder. And don't forget to get two glass jar for your jam. (you can use re-cycle jam bottle for this)

Ingredients:
2 Ripe Medium Banana, about 200g
1 Large Orange, without peel about 100g
Grated Rind of 1 Orange
Juice of Half Orange, 50ml
1/4 Teaspoon Cinnamon Powder
200g Caster Sugar
2 Small Jam Bottles

Method:
1. Weight and pour the sugar into a small heavy duty saucepan, then add in the grated orange rind. (Washed, clean dry the orange and grate the rind)
2. Cut the orange into half, juice half of it to get about 50ml of juice then cut off the outer peel of the other half of the orange, remove the pith and membrane.
3. For each section, cut between the fruit and membrane on each side. Lift out each segment and drop it into the saucepan together with the sugar.
4. Next weight and mash the banana with a fork then add it into the saucepan together with the orange juice and cinnamon powder.
5. Stir all the mixture over medium low heat for about 10 - 15 minutes.
6. When the mixture begin to boil a lot of forms will form, do skim away those form and continue to cook until the mixture is clear and thicken.(refer to the above picture for details, the jam will continue to thicken further after it is cool to room temperature)
7. Pour the cooked jam into the sterilize glass bottle, covered and let it cool to room temperature before storing it in the fridge.

Note:
a) Bring a pot of water with jam bottle in it to a boil and boil them for 10 minutes or so to sterilize them, removed and invert for them to dry. (you can do this while cooking the jam)

Related Post:
1) Homemade Banana & Passion Fruit Jam
2) Homemade Mango Jam
3) Homemade Plum Jam
4) Homemade Strawberry Jam