This meatball soup is quick and easy to whipped up, an ideal dish for weekday dinner.

The chicken soup base is clean and fresh, the tender-crisp baby bak choy adds a lush green colour to the soup.

To turn this into a one dish meal, simply blanched some noodles and add it to the soup.

Pad Kra Pao is a popular dish found in Thailand and Thai restaurants. Pad means stir-fry while Kra Pao means Thai basil, hence Thai basil is the main ingredient in this dish.

Thai Basil has a distinct aroma, different from sweet basil. However, both types of basils can be used in this dish.

Pad Kra Pao is usually make with minced pork or minced chicken, we can also use beef or even seafood. This dish is essentially Thai Basil stir-fry with any choice of meat.

The classic way to serve this dish is to pour it over some rice and top with a fried egg.

This delicious Thai Basil Minced Pork rice is definitely satisfying.

Old cucumber soup is very popular with many Chinese families as it is touted to have many health benefits.

It helps to eliminate body heat, has anti-ageing properties, good for the skin and rich in nutrients.

Old cucumber is “cooling”, consuming it will counter the “heat” in our body. This soup is good especially on days when the weather is hot and humid.

Chinese believed that drinking soups regularly will boost our body’s immune system, dispel heat and toxins.

The slow and long cooking make this soup taste robust and potent. This is a rich and full-flavored soup.

The traditional way to prepare this dish is both time consuming and laborious. You need to stir-fry the glutinous rice in the wok till it was cooked. Stir-frying glutinous rice in a wok is difficult as glutinous rice is sticky and easy to get burnt.

When cooking this dish, full concentration is necessary to ensure that the rice and ingredients are properly cooked at the same time.

To make cooking easier, we can use a non-stick frying pan. Another cheating way is by pre-steaming the rice first before stir-frying; or stir-fry first follow by steaming. Though the texture of the rice will be slightly different.

This is a very versatile dish, you can serve this for breakfast or snack or at the end of a eight course meal. You can choose what ingredients you want to put in, you can have more or less than eight ingredients.

As this is prepared for our Chinese New Year celebration, I have added extra ingredients to make this more luxurious. Our friends will be impressed by this traditional savoury fried glutinous rice.

Opening the cover of the claypot, clouds of steam along with the aroma of the cured meat, waft through the dining room.

The trickiest part in cooking claypot rice is controlling the heat so that all the ingredients are cooked perfectly at the same time.

This claypot rice is prepared by cooking rice in the claypot first, before adding pieces of marinated chicken, preserved meat and salted fish.

The marinated chicken, preserved meat and salted fish bring a wonderful combination of flavour. The rice absorbs all the extract of the ingredients and is fluffy and firm, not mushy, while the chicken is tender and moist. An important part of the claypot rice experience is the layer of crisp/charred rice (guoba 锅 耙) at the bottom and side of the pot.

Drizzle some specially-make flavourful sauce over before mixing and enjoy.

Steamed pomfret is a classic Teochew dish. The emphasis is to retain the original freshness and sweetness of the fish and less heavy-handed in seasoning.

For steamed dishes, it is important to use the freshest seafood and quality ingredients for taste and flavours.

In Chinese, fish, yu 鱼 sounds like 余 – surplus or abundance. Chinese also believe that by having surplus at the end of the year, we can make more in the next year.

年年有余 – may you have more than you need year after year.

This is a fresh and clean tasting dish, so the condiments used are meant to enhance the flavour of the dish.

Simple, unpretentious food always tasted good.

On the first day of Chinese New Year, it is our family tradition to make this vegetarian dish. This is a one pot dish and is normally cooked in large quantity. It can also be served as a side dish.

It is an old tradition to have vegetarian food on the first day of Chinese New Year. Some for religious reason, some for good health and enhance longevity.

I simply like the dish and this is a good change after indulging in all the festive delicacies at the reunion dinner.

There are many names and variations to this vegetarian dish. Buddha’s Delight or Jai or Chap Chye; some use fermented beancurd while others use fermented yellow beanpaste to cook the dish.

This dish is vegetarian and consists of various types of dried and fresh fungis, bean products and vegetables. The long list of ingredients provide an interesting texture and flavors. The red fermented beancurd also imparts a unique savoury taste to the dish.

Healthier but still totally satisfying.

Traditional Chinese families take festivals and festive feasting seriously. This dish is a staple in our family during Chinese New Year.

This dish is expensive as it uses high end dried seafood.

Dried shitake mushrooms come mostly from Japan and China. Japanese ones are said to be superior in taste, fragrance and appearance.

Abalone are prized for their springy texture. They come from all over the world and have different grades.

Springy gelatinous sea cucumber is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine.

Dried oysters are called hou see in Cantonese, which sounds like 好事 (good deeds) They come in different grades, depending on their size and country of origin.

This is a treat you don’t want to miss.

Minced pork, prawns and a variety of vegetables are mixed together, seasoned with five spice powder and wrapped tightly in beancurd skin.

They are first steamed, then pan fried till crisp with juicy meat fillings.

These rolls have many variations, different dialect groups and many families have their own version.

This took me years of trial and error, many rounds of fine tuning and adjustments before the rolls received the seal of approval by my family and friends.

Although I have made this countless time, I still take the liberty to substitute or remove or add ingredients every time I made them. After all, culinary art is about curiosity and evolutions.

On days when I crave for lighter food, I turn to this sliced fish soup with a generous serving of vegetables.

We don’t eat fish bones but we can definitely make delicious broth out of it. Making soup with bones encourages using leftovers and avoid food waste.

This nourishing soup is made from fish and fish bones, with no added milk and no added soup stock.

The milky, light brown soup is soothing, full of flavors and packed with nutritious goodness.

When ready to eat, just add fresh sliced Batang Fish (Spanish Mackerel) to the soup along with selected vegetables. And top with fried shallots, fried anchovies and peanuts. Complete with a plate of sliced red chilli, vinegar and soy sauce for dipping.

This soup is just amazing.