I have been craving for Taiwanese beef noodle for a while. The slightly spicy dark coloured broth, covered by a layer of red chilli oil, so flavourful with the use of many herbs, that the taste linger in the mouth long after finishing the meal. 

And then I found this recipe, it is not just any recipe, but the recipe of the award winning Taiwanese beef noodle from Chef Hou. Initially, I was taken aback by the many steps and time taken to make the broth and sauce. Well, when you have a wish, you will find a way. Ends up, I managed to simplify Chef Hou's recipe and come out with this one. How should I put this? I would say this is the best Taiwanese beef noodle that I have tried! 

I have not tried following through all the original steps in Chef Hou's recipe so there is no way to compare the two. What I did was simply combining the making of the sauce and the broth together, while keeping all the ratio of ingredients intact. I believe the taste is close enough while the effort of making this delectable dish is significantly cut by half. If you are trying to have a glimpse of how this award winning noodle taste like, then wait no more, you will not regret making this!

Taiwanese Beef Noodle

Ingredients

A

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 green onions, cut into 3-inch pieces, reserve some and chopped finely for garnish
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 1-inch ginger, peeled and sliced lengthwise about 1/8 inch thickness

B

• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 4 tbsp Lee Kum Kee chilli black bean sauce
• 6 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1.5 tbsp tau cu (soy bean paste)
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce

C Herb bag

• 1 star anise
• 1/3 tsp fennel seeds
• 1g angelica roots
• 1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
• 6g cinnamon sticks (2 pieces of 3-inch sticks)

D

• 1 kg beef shank / rib
• 1 litre water

E

• 1/6 cup spicy fermented bean curd, mashed
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 1 bay leaves

Others

• noodle of your choice ( I used you mian from NTUC)
• Xiao Bak Choy
• spring onion for garnish

Cooking Directions

1. In a pot, heat vegetable oil and saute A till fragrant.
2. Add B, let it simmer for a minute 
3. Place ingredients C in a herb bag 
4. Add C &D into the pot. 
5. Stir in E and bring to boil.
6. Cook for 20 minutes in pressure cooker or cook until soft (around 4 hours without pressure cooker).

New Orleans, I haven't been there, but I am fortunate to have tried this New Orleans prawns, because they are sooo finger-licking good! This is a strongly recommended dish, it is so simple, barely any skill required but it tasted like a whole lot of efforts had been poured in to make it! 

The weather is so hot recently that it had been a while since my last visit to the wet market. So... no fresh prawn, only frozen one. Somehow I find that frozen vannamei prawn had a slight crunchy texture. I read that some people actually soak their prawns in baking soda to achieve that kind of texture but with these frozen prawn, you don't need to do anything at all!

DG bought a bottle of super spicy hot sauce so we used one tablespoon of it together with one tablespoon of the Frank's hot sauce. The result is - shiok ah~~!

New Orleans Prawn

Ingredients

A

• 30g butter (salted)
• 3 clove garlic, chopped
• 250g (around 9 pieces) prawn, deshelled, tail-on

B

• 2 tbsp hot sauce
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tbsp white wine
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/10 tsp oregano (dried)
• 1/10 tsp thyme (dried)

Garnish

• coriander
• yellow lemon wedges

Cooking Directions

1. In a frying pan, melt butter and saute garlic till fragrant.
2. Add in B and cook until sauce thicken.
3. Add in prawn and cook for 2-3 minutes per side.
4. Garnish with coriander and lemon wedges

新奥尔良虾

配料

A

• 30克牛油（有盐）
• 3瓣大蒜，切碎
• 250克（约9个）虾，去壳，留着尾巴的壳

B

• 2汤匙辣酱
• 2汤匙隐汁
• 3汤匙白酒
• 1汤匙+1茶匙柠檬汁
• 1/4茶灯笼椒粉
• 1/10茶匙牛至（干）
• 1/10茶匙百里香（干）

装饰

• 香菜
• 黄柠檬角

做法

1. 在煎锅，融化牛油炒香蒜蓉。
2. 加入B，煮至汁稍微浓稠。
3. 加入虾，每边煮2-3分钟。
4. 用香菜和柠檬角装饰。

I used to only love heavy cheesecake, the smooth and creamy type, thick enough to be decadent, with crunchy graham cracker crust at the bottom. I was always able to finish off a whole huge slice by myself, and I remember myself feeling so proud of it!

Nowadays I love my waistline ( yes I am glad that I can still find it, thanks to the occasional stomach crunch that I am doing) more, so I started to appreciate light cheesecake, so light and that you can only taste a hint of cheese when you bite down the airy cottony cake. Less guilt too, well at least for me.

Cake baked in water bath tend to be more moist, which I think is the optimal texture for cheesecake. Adding oreo in the cake allow more depth in the flavor and every bite into the oreo crumbs is a pleasant surprise!

Oreo Cheese Ogura Cake
Make on 8"x8"cake

Ingredients
A

• 120g cream cheese
• 100ml milk
• 100g butter

B

• 6 egg yolks
• 100g cake flour

C

• 6 egg whites
• 100g caster sugar

D

• 30g crumbled oreo

Cooking Directions

1. Over gentle heat, melt ingredients A.
2. Add in egg yolks and sift in cake flour. Mix until just combined.
3. Whip egg whites while adding in caster sugar in 3 stages. Whip until stiff.
4. Take 1/3 of the meringue and mix well with egg yolks mixture.
5. Pour all the egg yolk mixture, together with oreo into meringue and mix until just combined.
6. Bake at preheated oven, with water bath, at 160C for 60-80 minutes

奥利奥芝士蛋糕

做8“x 8”蛋糕

配料

A

• 120克奶油奶酪
• 100毫升奶
• 100克牛油

B

• 6个蛋黄
• 100克蛋糕粉

C

• 6个蛋清
• 100克砂糖

D

• 30克奥利奥，压碎

做法

1. 用文火，熔材料A.
2. 加入蛋黄，筛入低筋面粉。混合直到刚刚结合。
3. 蛋清打到发泡，细砂糖分3次加入，打到硬性发泡。
4. 拿1/3的蛋白霜，与蛋黄糊拌匀。
5. 把所有的蛋黄糊倒入蛋白霜，再加上奥利奥，搅拌直到刚刚结合。
6. 在已预热的烤箱，用水浴法，在160℃下烤60-80分钟。

Have you watched the movie Ratatouille? If you have, surely you remember the idealistic and ambitious young rat Remy, who was gifted with impressive senses of taste and smell. The movie ended with a high note, when Remy impressed the food critic Ego with a plate of wonderfully made ratatouille.

Well, turned out that the food it served is more likely to be called vegetable Tian than ratatouille, due to the shape of the vegetables being cut, or more accurately, sliced. As quote from serioueat.com, 'Technically, a tian is any casserole cooked in an earthenware vessel by the same name, but these days it almost always refers to some kind of layered vegetable dish that's gratinéed (browned on top) in the oven.'

So here I am presenting this healthy dish - vegetable tian!

One thing to note is that there will be water coming out from the vegetables after baked, it is absolutely normal. However, if you prefer it dry you can always take a step further by pan-frying the vegetable first before arranging them on the plate, and that should solve the problem. 

Vegetable Tian
Make one 8"round pan 

Ingredients
A

• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped

B

• 1/2 green zucchini (medium small size),sliced
• 1/2 yellow zucchini (medium small size),sliced
• 4 tomatoes, sliced

C

• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper

C

• 1/2 cup grated parmesan (or mixture of parmesan & gouda, parmesan & mozarella)

Cooking Directions

1. In a pan, stir fry A until fragrant.
2. Lay A evenly over a pie pan.
3. Arrange B nicely on top of A.
4. Sprinkle C on top.
5. Cover and bake at preheated oven at 190C for 30 minutes.
6. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake for another 25 minutes uncovered.

The first time I made this, I didn't have any cornmeal in my pantry, perhaps I should have substituted it with other type flour but well, I didn't do it too. Ended up, half of the dough stick on the pan while cooking and cut the height of my english muffin to half. Dwarf muffin it became...

Now I learnt, I dusted a lot of cornmeal and finally, I get to see my english muffin rising high and proud. Somehow, I am really addicted to that sandy touch of the muffin! It is not as chewy as those I have in MacDonald, and is softer in texture!

Place a slice of cheese with a sausage patty on top of the halved English Muffin, how does it look?

No more MacDonald Sausage McMuffin I guess?

English Muffin

Ingredients

• 115g bread flour
• 75g fresh milk
• 8.5g butter
• 5g sugar
• 0.4 tsp instant yeast
• 17g egg

Cooking Directions

1. Combine all ingredients together and knead. The dough is soft, hence you may need a stand mixer to knead it.
2. Leave the dough to rise for around 1.5 hours or until double in size.
3. Heavily dust a pan with cornmeal.
4. Divide the dough into 3 and shape each portion round. Use your palm to flatten the dough.
5. Place the dough on the pan and let rise for another 1.5 hours.
6. Cook the muffin on the pan for 15 minutes each side over medium heat. If the muffin browned before cooked through, pop them in preheated oven at 180C for another 5-10 minutes.