Saturday, June 17, 2006

Meme

Thanks to Gattina who tagged me for this 10 Things I Miss of Mum's Cooking Meme, because it helps to 'invoke' the memories of my mum, who has passed away when I was in my teens. She is a wonderful cook, it's a pity I didn't get to learn even 10% of her skills. She hardly baked things like cakes or cookies, mainly home-cooked meals. Here's what I miss most:

1) Abacus seeds - this is a traditional hakka dish, made from yam and shaped into abacus seeds -like shapes. Though my mum is a Cantonese, she makes the most delicious abacus seeds.

2) Chicken wine - a dish comprising of chicken cooked in a generous amount of chinese wine, very aromatic.

3) Curry chicken - best paired with french loaf

4) Steamed fish - cantonese style, steamed to perfection.

5) Fish porridge - Teochew style, where soup made from the freshest fish is poured over rice, with a topping of fragrant fried dried shrimps(something which my mum 'invented').

6) Assam fish - cooked in a tangy tamarind gravy, I always have one whole fish to myself

7) Sweet and sour pork - a dish found regularly during festivities such as Chinese New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival etc.

8) Ngor Hiang - meat rolls. I made this some time back.
9) Peanut puffs - each one is painstakingly moulded into the shape of a curry puff, but much smaller, filled with a sweet peanut filling, usually made during Chinese New Year.
10) Agar agar jelly - different colors and shapes. Simply but very comforting.
Next I shall hand the 'baton' over to Evelyn and Ching :)

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

thx for yr clarification angie. whats HTHs by the way?

Unknown said...

U're welcome Evan. HTHs = hope that helps.

Anonymous said...

i see, thx. i'm quite a "dinosaur" with all that terms.

Cuisine Paradise said...

Wow.. that alot of great food... I love all of those food that you list... esp Curry chicken and Chicken Wine... Yummy.....

Unknown said...

Ellena, yup, my mum cooks very well ;). I haven't figured out the recipe for the chicken wine, do you have any suggestions, since you churn out some great soups, and this is like a soup dish :)

Gattina Cheung said...

Angie,
I like all the dishes your mom made! Her invention of adding dried shrimps in fish porridge already tells how much she cared about nutrition and the "mouth feel"! That simple agar agar jelly still told her extra time and steps to make the multiple-layers right?! Angie, thank you so much for sharing your mom's wonderful food!

Unknown said...

Gattina,

Yeah, I always put a BIG tablespoon of dried shrimps on top ;p

Sorry my wordings not very clear, not multi-color jelly, some days she'll make green, some days red :)

My pleasure to share, it helps me to remember these dishes, see if I can replicate them now.

Cuisine Paradise said...

Em...Angie, Your chicken wine is the "米酒鸡汤"(which means used rice wine to stew the chicken in herbs) or just stir-fry dark soya chicken cook in rice wine?

Unknown said...

Ellena, it's closer to chicken stewed in rice wine and herbs, and lots of ginger, if my memory didn't fail me :)

SeaDragon said...

Angie,
My mum used to cook a drunken chicken soup that's very similar. She used sesame oil to saute the ginger first, then add chicken pieces with some water, then add rice wine and seasoning. This was served with mee sua in our house. However no other herbs were used.

Unknown said...

SD, thanks for the tips. Your mum's recipe sounds close, it's just that I don't recall if herbs were used. I will try it out. We just have it as a soup with rice, very 'warm' feeling after that with all that wine :)