Crispy Ricotta Romano gnudi

Serves 4

250g fresh ricotta (1 tub). If using fresh, drain the liquid
200g Italian pecorino romano cheese, grated
1 large egg, lightly beaten
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
pepper
1 cup plain flour, plus extra for dusting

1. Mix ricotta, romano cheese, egg, nutmeg and ½ cup of the flour. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Using your hand, mix ingredients together to form dough like consistency. Add remaining flour and mix to form a stiff dough.

2. Transfer dough to a floured surface and roll into cylinders. Wrap each cylinder in cling film and leave in fridge to rest.

3. Remove from fridge and cut into 1 inch dumplings and scatter over floured plate.

4. Place pasta into a large pot of boiling salted water. As it rises to the top, remove and place in a colander to drain. Transfer to a plate to air dry.

5. In a pan or skillet, add some olive oil and butter and fry the dumplings till crisp brown.

Best served with homemade tomato sauce, basil and extra grated pecorino romano cheese.

* You can freeze the uncooked dough and drop them in boiling water straight from the  freezer.

Crockpot Pulled Pork

Serves 4-6

1 large white onion, sliced thin
1 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
350 - 400g boneless pork butt or shoulder
¼ + ½ of the quarter cup cider vinegar
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
¾  teaspoons sugar
¼  teaspoons dijon mustard
2-3 crushed garlic cloves
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons soy + 4 tablespoons water

Extra
Sugar
Salt
Vinegar
Cayenne

1. Rinse pork roast under cold water and pat dry with paper towels.

2. Place onions in crock-pot. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, paprika, kosher salt and pepper; mix thoroughly. Rub mixture all over roast and place the roast on top of the onions.

3. In a medium bowl, combine vinegar, Worcestershire, red pepper flakes, sugar, mustard, garlic salt and cayenne pepper; whisk to combine. Drizzle about 1/3 of vinegar mixture over roast and soy + water mix. Cover and refrigerate remaining vinegar mixture.

4. Cover crockpot; cook on low for 6-7 hours.

5. Remove meat and onions; drain. Chop or shred meat and onions and mix with extra sugar, salt, vinegar & cayenne.

6. Place the chopped meat back into the pot to keep warm and drizzle about the rest of reserved vinegar mixture over the meat.

7. Serve with coleslaw in a hamburger bun.

* This is adapted from My Baking Addiction. I wasn't over the moon about this recipe but it still tasted good. Will have to experiment more. 

Mini pork pies

Makes 6

Pork filling:
 350g pork shoulder (including fat), or combination of pork shoulder and fresh sausage meat to make 350g (you can use all sausage meat if you like)
 110g back bacon rashers, derinded

2 garlic cloves, crushed

 1 sprig fresh thyme with leaves removed
 salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper

Optional: 2-3 anchovy fillets, chopped, with 1/2-1 teaspoon of anchovy oil

Hot-water crust pastry:
 450g plain white flour, plus a little extra for dusting
 a pinch of salt
 50 ml milk
 50 ml water
 150g butter

Glaze:
 1 large egg yolk

Equipment:
1 jumbo 6-cup muffin tin

1. If using pork shoulder, coarsely chop in a food processor or hand chop with a knife into 1cm cubes or smaller but don't mince.

2. Combine all the other filling ingredients and pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

3. Measure flour and salt for the crust into a mixing bowl.

4. Cut butter into cubes. Add milk and water into a saucepan, and add the butter. Place the pan over gentle heat. When butter has melted, turn up the heat to bring it up to a boil. As soon as it does, pour it over the flour and mix with a wooden spoon till it forms a dough.

5. Turn the dough out on a work surface to bring it altogether. Take 2/3 of the dough and divide it into 6 parts. Roll each part into 6 balls and place 1 in each of the muffin tin.

6. Press each ball onto the base and up the sides of the cup to the top. The pastry may tear but don't worry, just fix it by pressing some more pastry on the tear. This pastry is very easy to work with, so if there's a mistake, don't panic! Treat it like play dough.

7. Spoon equal amount of pork filling into each of the cups.

8. Sprinkle more flour on the surface and roll out the remaining pastry and cut out 6 rounds for the lids.

9. Paint each of the edges of the lids with beaten egg yolk, and over turn it onto the muffin cups. Use a fork and press to seal the egg-yolked edges onto the top of the pies.

10. You can use any left over pastry to make decorations. Glaze the tops using the rest of the egg and make a 1 centimetre steam hole in each pie.

11. Place the muffin tin on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes on middle shelf. After 30 minutes, remove the baking sheet from oven.

12. Remove the pies from the muffin tin carefully using a knife and oven gloves, and place directly onto the hot baking sheet.

13. Place it back onto the oven and bake for another 20-25 minutes or until the pies are golden brown.

14. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Serve hot or leave in fridge for a cold lunch.

* This is adapted from Delia Smith's recipe. I've simplified it a little with the ingredients. Omitted the anchovy essence, allspice, sage and mace. I mostly have thyme in my kitchen so that's why I used it in this recipe. You can really use anything you like or have! In this recipe I have doubled the pastry measurements from Delia's original recipe as I didn't find there was enough. 

Kung po frog legs

Serves 2

3 large frogs, cut into pieces
1 onion, sliced
2 - 3 large cloves of garlice, sliced
3-4 stalks spring onion, cut into 3cm length
5 pieces sliced ginger
10 dried chillies, cut into pieces
3 chili padi, chopped
Plain cooking oil to fry the frog legs (preferably one that is very neutral. Peanut oil is best) - enough to fill your frying pan or wok about 1cm of oil.

Marinade:
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cornflour
a dash of finely ground white pepper

Sauce:
1  tbsp Chinese black vinegar for cooking (amount may vary depending on the brand of vinegar)
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp Hoisin sauce
1 tsp tsao tsing wine
2 tbsp sugar
½ tsp salt
100ml water
4 tbsp oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
white pepper


1. Combine ingredients for the sauce. Add vinegar last bit by bit as it tends to get very sour depending on the type of vinegar. Keep tasting.

* You should not have a super sour sauce. If you put more vinegar than you should, you may have to add more sugar and salt and maybe more water to dilute it. If you can't save it, do it again! Having something that's too sour is difficult to fix.

2. Rinse and pat dry the frog meat as much as you can and marinade frog meat for 20 minutes in salt, cornflour and pepper.

3. Heat the oil in a wok and shallow fry for about 2 minutes. Dish out and drain. Retain some of the oil to fry the other ingredients and discard the rest of the oil.

4. Heat up the reserved oil and sauté onion, garlic, ginger, chili padi and dried chillies. Add frog and sauce, and cook for 2 -3 minutes.

5) Remove from heat and add spring onion and toss.

6) Serve with rice porridge or plain steamed rice.

* This recipe is adapted from a recipe I found in Soshiok.com. The sauce is so good, that this dish can be substituted for chicken, fish, pork or beef. 

Singapore fish ball minced pork noodles

Serves 2

A. Fish balls:
2 fillets of mackerel, skin removed
¼ tsp salt
1 chili padi, seeded and chopped
3 stalks spring onions, green part, chopped (save the white parts)
½ clove garlic, minced
pinch white pepper

B. Minced pork:
minced pork, palm sized
½ clove garlic, minced
spring onion, white part, chopped
1/2 teaspoon oyster sauce
Splash soy sauce
Few drops sesame oil
Few drops fried shallot oil (you can find them store bought in a jar)
Splash tsao tsing wine
Pinch white pepper

Mushroom sauce:
5 dried shitake mushrooms
5 large fresh oyster mushrooms (you can use fresh shitake too)
2 cloves garlic, minced,
1 slice ginger, minced
1 small red shallot, minced
1/2 teaspoon dark soy
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Splash Tsao tsing wine
peanut oil
cornstarch (1 teaspoon of cornflour mixed with 2 teaspoon of water)
Pinch white pepper

C. Noodle sauce:
1 tablespoon Oyster sauce
Splash Soy sauce
5-10 drops Sesame oil
1 tablespoon Singlong Super Chili sauce
Very small spalsh of black vinegar (be careful of using too much, put a little bit at a time till you get the taste that you want)
white pepper

Fresh noodles, Hong Kong style or any fresh egg noodles, e.g mee pok
Boiling water with a handful of ikan billis and dried shrimp
Spring onions and fried shallots with shallot oil for garnish

1 Marinade mince pork by mixing all of B together.

2. Add all of A together and blitz t in food processor till it clumps. This will take quite a while. You need to be patient - if you don't process it enough you won't get smooth fish balls.

3. Transfer to a mixing bowl and pick up the mixture and then whack the clump of fish against a bowl a few times. ( I don't know why they do this but my mother said it had to be done.)

4. Divide fish mixture into 8. Wet hands and form fish paste into a patty, add a small marble sized minced pork in the middle and cover and roll into ball. Repeat with the rest. Lightly oil your hands and coat each ball so they won't stick. Set aside.

5. Reserve the rest of the minced pork.

6. Boil dried shitake in small saucepan of water till soft. Drain and reserve the liquid.

7. Cut and discard the stems off the boiled shitake and slice. Slice the fresh mushrooms.

8. Add peanut oil to a sauce pan with garlic, shallot, ginger. Saute till soft and add the fresh and dried mushrooms. When slightly brown, add tsao tsing wine.

9.  Add enough mushroom liquid to cover. Add the rest of the ingredients, except cornstarch. Boil for 10-15 mins. When taste is right, slowly add the cornstarch to thicken. Set aside on very very very low heat to keep warm.

10. Mix all the ingredients for the noodle sauce C.

11. Boil water in one pot for noodles, and boil water in another pot with ikan billis and dried shrimp.

12. Add the fish balls into the pot with ikan billis & shrimp. Let boil for 5 mins.

13. Boil the noodles for 2-3 mins and drain. Divide into bowls and mix it with the sauce.

14. While fish balls are still boiling, boil the minced pork in the same pot with a strainer/kitchen spider until meat turns opaque. Remove from water and add on top of noodles.

15. Add the mushroom sauce on top of noodles.

16. Remove fish balls and transfer onto noodles.

17. Garnish with fresh spring onions and fried shallots with shallot oil.

18. Spoon some of the ikan billis/shrimp/fishball/pork stock into bowls as side dish.

* This is my own recipe so and I'm not very good at taking down measurements so these are just estimates. I don't even normally follow other people's recipes to the tee either - cooking is all about gut feel! 

Fillet O' Fish sandwich

Serves 2

Fish:
2 fillets of mackerel, patted dry (I leave the skin on but you can remove it if you want)
1/2 - 1 cup of plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 beaten egg with a splash of milk
1 cup panko bread crumbs with a dash of cayenne pepper
Oil for frying

Tartar sauce:
2 heap dessertspoons of mayonnaise
1 tablespoon capers
3 sweet spiced gherkins (you can use the large pickles just reduce the number), finely chopped
1/2 medium white onion, finely chopped
salt & pepper

Bread:
1 full loaf of ciabatta cut in half (or whatever bread you like really!)

1. Mix all ingredients for the tartar sauce.

2. Place flour, egg and bread crumbs in three different shallow plates.

3. Heat some oil so that it covers the base of a shallow frying pan.

4. Coat the fish fillets in flour, egg, and then bread crumbs, and fry till golden brown. 2 - 3 minutes on each side. Drain on paper towels.

5. Split the ciabatta in half and spread one heap tablespoon of the sauce on one side of the bread.

6. Place the fillet in between the bread. Serve with chips and salad.

Crockpot Singapore chicken curry

Serves 4

Chicken & marinade:
4 chicken drumsticks and 4 chicken thighs (you can add one more of each for the super hungry ones)
4-5 local potatoes, peeled and halved
1 tablespoon or about 1 inch knob grated fresh old ginger
5 cloves grated garlic
1 tablespoon turmeric
2 tablespoon chili powder
230g can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons chicken curry powder
pinch of salt and ground white pepper

2 medium red onion, sliced
1-2 teaspoons peanut oil
1-3 red chili padis, chopped (1 for mild, 2 for medium, 3 for very spicy)
4 green cardamon pods, do not crush
4 cloves
12 curry leaves or about 1 stalk
1 stalk lemongrass, bruised
1 1-inch cinnnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 cups water
200 - 250ml coconut milk
2-3 dessert spoons soy sauce

- 1 french loaf, sliced.

1. Marinade the chicken pieces and potato in the marinade. Let it sit while you prepare the rest.

2. Slice the onions and heat the oil in a wok or pan. Saute the onions till they’re very soft, caramalised and brown, about 15-20 minutes, on medium to high heat. If onions begin to burn, add 1-2 tablespoons of water and continue cooking till they're brown and soft. (You can skip this step and just add the onions raw if you're pressed for time!)

3. Add chili padi, cardamon, cloves, curry leaves, lemongrass, cinnamon, fennel and caramalised onions into the crock pot. Add the chicken pieces with marinade and 2 cups of water. Stir to combine.

4. Set cooker on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours.

5. In the last hour of cooking, add the coconut milk and soy sauce to taste. Add as much coconut milk as you like. Some people like it more coconutty, some more brothy. Up to you!

6. Serve with sliced french bread.

* I adapted this recipe from Curry and Comfort. I found the cooking time makes for a very very very soft and tender chicken that's falling off the bone. If you want your chicken to still have some firmness to it, cut down the cooking time by 1 hour on high and 2 hours on low. If you do cut down the cooking time, then remember to cut the potatoes slightly smaller.

* To save more time, you can skip step 2 and just add the onions straight into the crockpot and omit the peanut oil.

* If you have some spare chicken bones (thigh, drumstick, whole carcass), or even chicken feet and neck, chuck them in. Bones make the brother sweeter. Before serving, just fish them out.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Serves 4 - 8

Base:
150g digestive biscuits
50g butter, melted
Tiny pinch of salt

Curd:
2 large lemons
2 large eggs
150g castor sugar
100g cold butter, cubed
1 heap teaspoon cornflour

Meringue:
3 egg whites
120g castor sugar

Base:
1. Crush the biscuits in a bowl, or use a food processor. Drizzle in the melted butter and add pinch of salt.

2. Turn it out onto a base of 20cm baking tin. Preferably the detachable ones. Place in fridge or freezer.

Curd:
3. Zest both lemons, and then squeeze out the juice. Add both into a saucepan and whisk in the two eggs.

4. Add the butter and sugar and then heat it to medium heat before gently whisking in the cornflour.

5. Lower the heat when the mixture thickens and simmer for a minute. Take it off the heat.

6. Take the baking tin out of the fridge/freezer and pour in the curd. Put it in the fridge to set.

Meringue:
7. Separate the egg whites from the yolks. Whisk the whites in a super clean bowl till it has firm stiff peaks. (By hand, it will probably take 20-30 minutes.)

8. Add in the sugar and whisk again till the meringue is thick, smooth and glossy. When the bowl is over turned, the meringue should not fall out. (By hand, it is another 20-30 minutes)

9. Spoon the meringue into a piping bag with a star nozzle. (I don't have one so I just used a zip lock bag and cut off 1cm off the corner.

10. Pipe it onto the top of the lemon curd however you like.

11. To caramalise the top, you can use a blow torch. I don't have one so just heat the oven grill to as hot as you can. Place the pie as close to the grill as possible. Watch it carefully as it burns quickly.

* I got this really great and easy recipe from Sortedfood. Check out their YouTube videos. Totally amazing! 

2 ingredient pizza dough

Makes 1 large pizza to feed 2-4 persons (2 very hungry people!!)

1 cup self-raising flour + extra 1/2 cup for dusting

1 cup natural yogurt

1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees Celsius. 

2. Mix 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of yogurt in a bowl. It will become sticky and gloopy. 

3. Turn it out onto a very well floured surface. Keep dusting with flour and kneading for about 4-5 minutes until it comes together. 

4. Press it out onto a baking sheet or greased foil and drizzle the top with olive oil. 

5. Add whatever toppings you like. (pictured above was smoked duck, camembert cheese)

6. Bake for 22 - 25 minutes.

*Tip: I used a mixture of the flour and some cornmeal as a dusting at the kneading stage to give extra texture. If you want, you can also add garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, curry powder etc to the dough for another flavour dimension. 

Quick banana muffins

Makes 6 muffins

250g self raising flour
1 teaspoons double acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch of salt
115g caster sugar

75g cooled melted butter
2 medium eggs
125ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 heap teaspoon honey
4 medium ripe bananas, mashed

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

2. Melt butter and allow to cool.

3. Mash bananas.

4. Mix all the the dry ingredients in one bowl.

5. Beat 2 eggs and add the wet ingredients, including butter and bananas.

6. Make a well in the dry ingredients, and add in the wet ingredients.

7. Stir lightly with a fork. Do not over beat.

8. Fill a greased muffin tray almost to the top.

9. Bake for 20- 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out dry.

10. Leave to cool for 5 minutes in the tin before removing from the tray.

* I got this recipe from Nigella Lawson (but I added more bananas!)

Super easy Irish soda bread

Makes one loaf

500g flour (

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

2. Add lemon juice to the milk and let it sit for a few minutes to let it curdle.

3. Add the bicarbonate of soda and salt to the flour and mix.

4. Add the curdled milk to the flour mixture and mix.

5.  Tip it out to a floured surface and knead just a little with a bit more flour. You won't be able to knead it like proper bread dough as it's soft. Be very very light and gentle with the dough. Shape to whatever shape you want.

6. Line a tray with baking sheet and plop the dough on top. Sprinkle with flour.

7. Put it in the oven for 45 minutes. It's done when you knock at the base and it has a hollow sound.


Note: If using wholemeal flour, it tends to be very grainy. You may need to add some plain flour so it won't be too sticky. Use slightly less than 2 cups of the milk & lemon juice mixture. This will not rise as much as using plain flour, and the texture is very dense like a cake.

Tip: You can add oats, sunflower seeds, melon seeds, or whatever you like to the dough to give it more texture and nutritional value.

* This recipe is from Crumbsfood. They're two sisters who are Mums and have extremely easy and fast recipes. Check out their YouTube channel and blog.