Cong You Bing / Chinese-style Spring Onion Pancake with Ginger Dipping Sauce

Cong You Bing is a Chinese-style unleavened flat-bread, commonly referred to as Spring Onion Pancakes. It uses very few ingredients and is quite easy to prepare and yet has a very remarkable flavour. The dough is a combination of water, salt and flour. This combined with sesame oil, spring onions, salt and pepper and then being toasted in very little oil creates a delicious snack. The recipe here is from a Chinese colleague from years back.

Char Siu Bao/ Chinese BBQ Pork Bun

Char Siu Bao is a Cantonese bbq pork filled steamed bun and is the most popular street food in China. Char Siu is bbq pork and Bao is covered or wrapped. Pork meat is marinated in a maltose-hoisin-rose wine sauce and then grilled over the bbq to a charred, savoury, sweet perfection. Then are then chopped and filled inside a yeast-dough, shaped into buns and steamed. They are served hot, straight from the steamer.

Potato, Garlic and Rosemary Focacia

Focaccia is an Italian bread that is topped with herbs and other ingredients. Which made me ask the very next question - how is it different to pizza which is also as an Italian bread with toppings. And yes! The main difference lies in the topping. Focaccia is usually topped with herbs, olives and/or dry vegetables and finished off with olive oil. It can be served with dips or soups or by itself, dipped in some good quality olive oil. Whereas a pizza is topped with sauces, meats, vegetables and cheese and is actually made on a focaccia dough before the dough could be made a focaccia. Also, a focaccia may be eaten hot or cold while a pizza technically was meant to be eaten hot (though nowadays you have a myriad of options for cold pizza too).

2 in 1 Dough: Pizza/ Focaccia Base Dough

Sometimes the simplest recipes are the best and if it serves more than one purpose, well, you've hit the jackpot. That is what I felt when I got this recipe. And believe me when I say that the texture of this dough looks, feels and tastes totally different for a pizza and focaccia. The same dough used as a pizza base gives you a soft and chewy pizza base and whereas for focaccia it helps you to enjoy a base that is soft and chewy on the inside, yet slightly crusty on the outside.

Pizza dough - risen, knocked down and ready to be rolled out

Easy Toasted Garlic Bread

Yes. That is it. A simple easy garlic bread recipe that you can make with any bread loaf in your pantry and escape that last minute rush to the supermarket for the ready-made ones, when you are just about to sit down and enjoy a big bowl of hot soup. Oh! But that is if you have butter, parsley and garlic at home or at least at your neighbour's and you can borrow it. Otherwise, the drive to the supermarket still looks inevitable. But, won't it be nice to make some garlic bread at home, adjusting the amount of butter, garlic, herbs and salt and grill or bake it to your liking than being forced to eat what the supermarket has to offer you.

Wholemeal Curry Buns

Breadtop is an Asian influenced Australian bakery franchisee, that serves a wide range of breads, cakes, buns and pastries. While their cakes and sweet pastries are all good, they are more in demand for their savoury buns and pastries. Their chicken curry bun and spicy beef bun are the favourites in our house. There, comes the demand from my little ones to try curry buns at home. And their Mum thinks "Why not"?

I've never baked any breads or buns at home. So my first experiment was to bake some plain buns that I made with plain flour. With success at hand, I felt confident to try out curry buns, but with wholemeal. All recipes I read, warned me to avoid working with wholemeal by itself, since it lacks gluten, which is very important to trap air inside to make soft, light bread. So this time I decided to mix plain flour and wholemeal flour to make the buns for my curry buns. The success story repeats!!!

Cinnamon Spice Scones

I've been enjoying making lemonade scones for a while now; which is a simple, easy and no-fail recipe. But today I decided to step up from my comfort zone to make a traditional scone with butter and milk. And then, to pep it up with cinnamon and nutmeg.

I once read that just smelling cinnamon can boost your brain function and improve memory. It also regulates blood sugar and reduces bad cholesterol. Not too bad for a simple looking bark, heh! So now, I have no second thoughts on including this bark in my recipes. Benefit or no benefit, the best thing about using cinnamon in your baking is its sweet aroma filling the air in your house that perks up everyone fast asleep.

I made these scones for a morning tea with my friends and served it with whipped butter and it went very well with most of them. My two little boys, gave me a big thumbs-up and said that I could include this in my kitchen menu, but they want whipped cream to go with it. My big boy, gave a small grunt, a satisfied grunt, which is the best I can get from him at any time, and I know he liked it.

Lemonade Scones

Enid Blyton introduced me to scones.

Every Famous Five adventure has at least one picnic where the four children and their dog goes off to the moor, the beach or the countryside to enjoy a cold lunch of hard-boiled eggs, potted meat sandwiches, puddings and lemonade. In fact, Enid Blyton made me wonder how many things looked and tasted like; treacle pudding, mince pies, jam tarts, sausage rolls, jacket potatoes, cold chicken, ham, tongue sandwiches with lettuce and cream cheese and ginger beer. And then, there is the Secret Seven and the Five Find-Outers, who always gather together for a tea of freshly baked goodies to discuss and solve their mystery at hand. Food is at its height in Malory Towers and St. Claire's with the scrumptious Match tea and the exciting midnight feasts. The list is endless.

The children in Enid Blyton books are always eating and discussing about food. And scones, freshly baked, warm from the oven served with 'running' butter, devon cream, home-made jam and cream tea tops the list.