The Perfect Soft-Boiled Egg

One of my ongoing breakfast quest is the perfect soft-boiled egg. I prefer my whites to be just cooked and my yolk to be running. This calls for precision timing. I generally use my eggo, but alas the need to measure water precisely means that I often end up with overcooked eggs when I get it wrong.

I'm currently on one based on Heston's soft-boiled eggs. But I've changed it so much it's probably not really that anymore. What I did in the following is cover eggs with water, put over my medium stove, low heat, turn off when the water boils, leave for a minute and then spoon out.

Using Heston's faithfully, I get the following from my stove.

The hardest part is patiently waiting for the water to boil and then turning it off straight away. I am not known for my patience, but I occupied my time with some push-ups, etc. As you can see, it's NOT soft-boiled. I may have let it sit a bit longer than the 6 minutes, but I think that's not the main problem. Maybe my stove didn't boil the water quickly enough?

I've had a few instances of undercooking the yolk, but I seem to be swinging too far the other way.

As you can see, it's an ongoing experiment. So far, the winning methods appears to be slowly bringing to boil and turn off and take out immediately.

Cantonese-Style Carrot, Corn, Watercress and Pork Bones Broth Soup

For those of you have chinese friends, you may have encountered this staple. It's also one of my favourite chinese dishes (can soups be described as a dish?). It is so easy to make, the hardest part is waiting for it to become rich with favour! I like buying my bones and watercress from the monthly Farmer's Market, so it's nice and fresh!

Step 1: Pre-cook the bones so that the icky red bits can be cooked and rinsed off. My Mum likes to look it all the way through. We don't want floaters messing up our clear broth. I am not as fussed.

Step 2: Wash veggies, taking extra care with any dirt still attached to the watercress. Cut up carrot (peel if you like, it depends on how lazy I am feeling) and corn cob into smaller pieces.

Step 3: Put everything in pot. You may want to start with the bones and carrots first, and then add the corn and watercress. Don't add the watercress until the water is boiled (that's what my Mum tells me!)

Step 4: Once boiled, turn heat to low and let it simmer away for at least 4 hours! This is the hardest part, but the longer it simmers, the richer the favours are!

How I like to cook fried shanghai dumplings

So my mum came up the other week with two bags full of shanghai dumplings, made by a yum cha chef. So what's a girl to do but eat dumplings? The dumpling comes raw, so the question is how to best cook the dumplings so they're nice and crispy on the outside, and cooked through on the inside?

The follow is my method of making delicious fried dumplings at home! 

So get your dumplings out, bring a pot to boil, put your dumplings in and cook. 

Some lovely frozen dumplings

I forgot to take a photo of the dumplings in the pot... but cook dumplings until they float to the top, that's a good indication that they're cook through. 

Getting fried

Heat a pan, add some oil in. Once it's nice and hot (but not smoking!), and place your dumplings in (because of any water bouncing off against the heat and oil). Turn over a few times to ensure all sides crisp. Sometimes I add extra oil to ensure it fries nice and crispy.  

Serve up nice and hot!

Serve up on plate of choice, add sauces as desired. I sprinkled some vinegar and chilli oil. DELICIOUS!

Simple Meals at Work Showcase Week

I've been struggling lately with healthy breakfast, lunches and snacks. Only lately have I managed to string together some light, healthy meals for myself at work. So to motivate myself to stay on track this week, I'm going to showcase some of the meals I come up with, using simple ingredients that's easy to buy and store at work.

So watch this space!