Occasional stories, food and travel inspiration
Fish and eggplant may sound like a bizarre combination, but trust me, this curry is fantastic. When our daughter was due to arrive my mother came to stay with us in Shanghai. Every day she did the
After paying homage to the Vietnamese pork roll in my last post about Mini Vietnamese Pork Buns, it's now time to honour the simple and delicious Vietnamese Chicken Salad (Goi Ga). Vietnamese salad
I've been meaning to make chocolate bark ever since I saw Chocome's deluxe version at the Adelaide Good Food & Wine Show back in October. Then Amy from Amy's Town made some lovely 'Chose Your O
We always have a big lunch on Christmas Day with around two dozen family and friends. It's always a joyful day, with incredible food (everybody brings a dish), plenty of merry-making and lots of kids
We have this amazing smallgoods producer in South Australia called Standom, who make all kinds of smoked and preserved meat products. How good are they? Well, put it this way: my Bavarian-born, Ham
Welcome to The Great Australian Pavlova Blog Hop! This post should really be called How Not To Make a Pavlova. Let me explain. A few weeks ago I was chatting with some Aussie food bloggers abou
I miss Shanghai. It's a big, brash, frontier city where buildings go up seemingly overnight, hundreds of new restaurants open every week and you can buy virtually anything at 9pm at night. Want a f
Every year I cook something as a Christmas gift for family and friends. My daughter usually helps, and we spend a fun couple of hours baking and wrapping. Last year we made snickerdoodles, those lovel
My dear friend Eli once cooked me a delicious rice salad when we were both living in London in the early 2000s. As an Australian-born Chinese, I've eaten a lot of rice. I've had it steamed, fried,
My dad's friend, Barry, is an amazing gardener, growing all kinds of vegetables, fruits and flowers. He is generous with his crop, too, always giving away bags of lemons, tomatoes and whatever else is
Char Kway Teow (Fried Noodles) is one of the ultimate Malaysian hawker dishes. When I was holidaying in Malaysia in August, I ate Char Kway Teow nearly every day, mostly for supper at 10pm. I'd wan
Posting a recipe for guacamole seems odd in a way. It's a bit like posting a recipe for making a ham and cheese toastie - it seems like such a simple thing to that no recipe is required. However, I
We've been cooking a lot of stir fries lately - they're easy and quick to prepare, you can use whatever you have in the fridge, you only need one cooking pan and dinner is on the table within minutes.
My dad's friend, Barry, gave us a bag of lemons today. They say when life gives you lemons you should make lemonade. So that's exactly what we did. INGREDIENTS 5 lemons, washed. 1.5 litre
If you were living in Australia in the 80s you probably would have seen this TV advertisement starring a then unknown Aussie actor. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt1YV9Bj72c] Did you r
I seem to have developed a semi-serious addiction to chai lattes. There's something about the combination of cardamon, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and star anise that is just so lovely and warming. And
If you're a chilli addict like me, you'll love this dish. For this is no ordinary cucumber salad. This dish was inspired by the 'hot salad' we used to buy from the Xinjiang restaurant opposite our
Fresh picked crab is an absolute luxury. Picking the crab meat out of its shell is both time consuming and finicky work so it's a real labour of love. I am extremely fortunate because it's a labour
I've never cooked with baby octopus before. And truthfully, I still haven't. You see this dish was created by Mr Hungry Australian. Sunday morning we were down at the Torrens Island Markets when
Sometimes the simplest things in life are the best. A ripe peach. A perfectly soft boiled egg. Bread fresh out of the oven. I'd also put garlic mushrooms in this category. True, it's a dish that re
UPDATE: this recipe has been simplified and re-blogged here. And I've changed the photo above to the new version. But please do read on for a story about my grandmother and how this recipe came to be.
Weisswurst (white sausage) served with Sauerkraut, red cabbage and potato mash is real German comfort food. So when I wanted to spoil my (German) husband this week, I immediately thought of cooking h
This is what I make when I'm in a mad hurry and have no time to think about cooking. Honey Soy Chicken is ridiculously quick and easy to make; it literally takes only a couple of minutes. You chuck
I have a confession: I'm a slow cooking novice. I've steamed, I've baked, I've stewed, I've boiled and I've stir-fried. But until yesterday, I'd never slow cooked before. I know I've been, ahem, sl
Yesterday my daughter told me that she wanted to go to her Grandma's house for a snack because "she cooks so much better than you." When asked to explain, she said, "I only like Popo's cooking. I don'
Brrrrr! I find this cold weather very tiresome. Winter in Adelaide is nothing extreme but I'm a summer girl and I don't cope well with it. All I want to do is huddle close to a heater, wrapped in l
Good food doesn't have to be complicated. This recipe is a case in point. Fried rice couldn't be easier or quicker to make yet it tastes simply wonderful. And it makes you feel warm and loved in the w
I love the convenience of two minute noodles, literally 'convenient noodles' in Chinese. With some veggies and a beaten egg thrown in, a snack is never more than a couple of minutes away. However, t
Fish and eggplant may sound like a bizarre combination, but trust me, it really works. I love this curry of my mother's. She made a big pot of it for me when my daughter was a newborn. I was consta
As a working mother our mum was always time-poor. So when I was a young girl learning ballet she used to attach the silver sequins to my tutu by stapling them on. Those of you nifty with a needle may
