Oriental Chicken and Celery Salad served with Sesame Ginger Oil

Another month has passed from my last post.  It took me more than a week to get this post up.   This is due my new role and additional responsibilities in my working life.  This month is the second month for this new challenge of my career.......hope everything will be getting smoother soon, and I should able to get back to my normal blogging momentum.  

Time flies.......and I just noticed I had been in blogging world for more than 365 days.   Is time to celebrate my 1st Anniversary of this blog - My Trials in the Kitchen.  I feel so bad that I unable to cook something special for this special occasion, instead, I wish to share an Oriental style of salad recipe.  The special of this salad is the dressing.  Instead, the common mayonnaise dressing, I have used the sesame ginger oil.  These has enhance this salad with the natural nutty flavor from the sesame oil.  And of course this is also an easy to make recipe.  Let's find out how easy it is...

Simple Dry Potatoes Curry with Long Beans

Its been for more than a month since my last post, as for the past whole month all of us who live in Sabah, Malaysia are in the stage of "alert" and  "fear" that caused by a group of armed militants that had intruded into Sabah since February 9.   This incident has been worrying both me and Simon since then, of course it also have affected our blogging momentum.   On top of that, my new "add-on" responsibilities in my working life also has play a role in this slow down too.  My thousand apologies again to all the readers of this blog.

Today I wish to share with all of you (especially to those curry lovers) a simple and easy to make dry curry - Dry Potatoes Curry with Long Beans.  This dry curry recipe is delicious with the combination of the hearty potatoes and fresh fine long beans that makes a perfect vegetarian main dish (perfectly match with plain rice), it could also can be treated as a tasty starter or an excellent side dish too.  To make the potatoes and long beans smoother and absorbed in the dry curry, I deep fried the potatoes cubes and boiled the long beans to half cooked, as I love the beans softer.  Oh ya, I forgot to tell you one of my important ingredients in the dry curry is coconut milk, so you can imagine how tasty of curry.  Let's find out the steps to make it!

Chinese Fish Maw Soup #SundaySupper

Happy Sunday and Happy Yuanxiao Festival!  The traditional Chinese Yuanxioa Festival is celebrated on the 15^th day of the first lunar month.  Because the first lunar month is also called "yuan" month; the night of the 15th day of “yuan” month is the first night that the moon gets full; xiao means "night, "so the festival is named Yuanxiao Festival or Shangyuan Festival, Yuanxi Festival or Lantern Festival. 

In Malaysia and Singapore, this day is celebrated by individuals seeking for a love partner, a different version of Valentine’s Day. Normally, single women would write their contact number on mandarin oranges and throw it in a river or a lake while single men would collect them and eat the oranges. The taste is an indication of their possible love: sweet represents a good fate while sour represents a bad fate.  This day often marks the end of the Chinese New Year festivities. 

This Sunday our #SundaySupper theme is “Souper Sunday Supper”.  We are required to cook and share a soup recipe to warm up with during a chilly day or any time of the year.  Our hostess for this week is Pam from The Meltaways. 

I took this opportunity share one of the popular soup recipes among the Chinese during this Chinese New Year – The Fish Maw Soup.  There are few types of fish maw in the market – the processed and the unprocessed.  I choose the processed type which means is already fried and ready, that you just need to soak in the water and ready to cook immediately.  I have use chicken broth for the base of this soup and I add in with some Chinese Shao-Hsing wine.  The other ingredients are mushrooms and I have used two types of mushrooms – the shitake mushrooms and straw mushrooms (in can form) which are perfect for this soup.  For those who love it to be thicker you may add in some cornstarch diluted in some water and lastly a beaten egg to make the soup even smoother, delicious and of course is ideal to warm you up during the cold seasons. 

Shrimp in Szechuan Sauce #Chinese New Year Recipe

Chinese New Year is round the corner, I was busy with this festive preparation.   Shopping, spring cleaning, etc,  but I don't want to miss out to share this recipe to with all of you, as it is perfect for your culinary during this festival.

What have you plan to cook for the coming reunion dinner on the eve?  I am sure shrimp is one of the dishes that you will bring to the reunion dinner's table as its symbolized the "Happiness".   

Today, I wish like to share with you a simple shrimp  recipe - Shrimp in Szechuan Sauce.  I am sure for those who love to add on some spicy taste on the seafood, this recipe will be perfect for you as the sauce is not too spicy and some sweetness in it.  That for the sauce.  What about the shrimps?  I pan-fried it to almost 80% cooked before I add it into to sauce.  This is to prevent the shrimps not over-cooked, so that you could still taste the freshness of the shrimps.  Of course, the crunchiness of the shrimps is important too and let's find out how it goes......

Wish all of you with a Prosperous & Happy Chinese New Year and Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Old Fashioned Pork Chops #SundaySupper

This weekend #SundaySupper theme is all about "Retro Recipes", to bring back food memories that you had enjoyed during those days.......  It can be from your family members or any others.  I have chosen Old Fashioned Pork Chops.  It wasn't from my home's kitchen but it from a restaurant with classic or retro design that I visited with a bunch of my high school leavers class-mates during the 80's in the city of Kuala Lumpur.  I remembered they serves wonderful Pork Chop.  As we are staying about 40 km away from the city, we spent about an hour plus in a public transport (those days bus) to reach the city for our farewell gathering.

The taste of the pork chop is still fresh in my memory.  The pork chop is pan-fried style instead of deep-frying which was the popular at that time.  Even though the presentation is not that pretty, but when I first bite on the pork chop, I thought I have fallen in love with it, especially the mushrooms gravy on top, it just marvelous.  All of us enjoyed the food and the day very much.  

So, when I see Isabel posted this week event, I thought it was time to go back to old-fashioned cooking method - pan frying pork chop.  I season and coated the pork chops with a thin all purpose flour for about 3 hours, fully covered in the fridge before I fry.  As both me and hubby like half moist chop, its turned out just perfect for us.  My hubby even don't need the gravy and eat them up together with some mix veggies and peas.  As for the preparation - this no-fuss, easy method and you will get a beautifully browned old-fashioned pork chop for weekend or weekday supper.  Enjoy!