Shark Fin Soup in Macau

While in Macau, my parents and their friends insisted on having dinner at this place.  They were introduced to this restaurant by a famous local friend (he has connections) last time they were in Macau.  We had spent most of the first and part of the second night in town walking around all the old and narrow alleyways looking for it.  It happens to be a few blocks from Pastelaria Koi Kei.

We finally found it. YEAH!  But as you can see from the first picture, it didn't look impressive on the outside.  I was thinking my parents and their friends must have gotten it wrong, but they recognized the owner who immediately called the celebrity friend, who was out of town at that time, and verified that our group was indeed this famous man's friends.  Once that was all settled the owner told us she knew what to serve us but wanted to know how much we wanted.  

The first dish (the only one I had time to take pictures of - boo me) which was the soup - WOW!  It's their signature shark fin soup.  I've had my fair share of shark fin soups, but I've never seen shark fin soup like this.  

The fins are cooked separately from the soup and are ordered by weight.  I think we ordered one kilograms worth.  Jess said last time they were here is was about three times as much and looked like a mountain.  Again WOW!  

The soup is chicken broth, but not like any chicken broth I've ever seen or tasted.  It tasted so chicken-y, free range chicken-y.  The broth was creamy in color, not clear, and the aroma made my stomach growl.  As I had my first sip, my tummy was all warm and happy.  I'm smiling as I'm rethinking about it.  hhhhmmmmm...  :-)

    

I don't think anyone can ever make chicken broth like that at home.  Look at all that shark fin in just one spoonful of soup and every spoon was that full!!  I was in heaven.  I walked out of there totally satisfied and knowing I could never have another bowl of regular shark fin soup without sighing and remember that one night in some tiny alley in Macau.  

Cleaning Out the Fridge

Yesterday I was going through the fridge trying to decide what to cook for dinner.  I had already taken out some pork chops to grill, but didn't have anything to complement them.  I had a variety of veggies on hand but there was just a little bit of this and that (5 stems of asparagus, one onion, a handful of mushrooms, a quarter head of lettuce, a couple stalks of green onions, half bunch of cilantro, two jalapeno peppers, two cups of blueberries, and leftover blueberry puree).  I needed to go grocery shopping so badly, but didn't have the time, and my hubby was STARVING.  He then said he was craving noodles, so grilled pork chops (I was thinking of making an onion, garlic, mushroom sauce) were out of the question.  

Lucky for me I found two tiny packets of pickled vegetables at the very back of the fridge (something I don't even remember buying that's how far back it was).  I decided to make pickled vegetable with pork noodle soup.  The pickled veggies are not what they sound like.  They are not sour like a cucumber pickle, they are more like cured veggies (I think it's cabbage) since they are salty and a little spicy.  It's called ja choi in Chinese which directly translates to fried vegetable.  I really don't know if they are fried in the preparation though.

I started a pot of water for the Chinese noodles (which I had three opened boxes... I'm starting to realize where my storage shortage is coming from), and another pot heating up chicken stock with a handful of cilantro.  I cubed up the pork chops, marinated it with a little bit of soy sauce, and browned them in a wok and set them aside.  Then I chopped up all the veggies I had in the fridge added a few garlic cloves and stir fried like a crazy woman.  First I put the onions into the wok to caramelize a little, then added the garlic, jalapeno, and mushrooms for a few minutes before stirring in the pork and pickled veggie and finally the asparagus and green onions.  The ingredients are full of flavor so the only seasoning I needed to add was a dash of black pepper.

Now I needed to assemble the dish.  I put a handful of noodles in the bowl, a few pieces of lettuce, some of the stir fry, and topped it off with the soup.  It sounds like a lot of work, but it took me less than 30 minutes, including cleaning the pots, to get it all done.  This dish is also great with rice, or prepared with chicken, beef, or tofu.  It's traditionally only uses onions and the pickled veggies, but it's also tasty with celery and other sturdy vegetables.  It was perfect for cleaning out our fridge.

Now I had to figure out what to do with the left over blueberries that I had gotten for the Father's Day cake.

D doesn't eat blueberries (he'll pick out the blueberries in a blueberry muffin), so I was left to either eat 2 cups all by myself with a side of puree, or find a recipe to incorporate them with what I have at home.  

I found a recipe for blueberry crumb cake in the 2002 Martha Stewart Holiday Baking magazine.  I didn't have enough blueberries, sour cream, or butter, but I substituted the puree for the 1/4 cup shortage of sour cream and half the blueberries in the batter (I saved the rest for the crumb topping).  I used what was left of the butter for the crumb topping which was only about 1 1/3 stick).  I had to bake it for an extra 15 minutes than what was suggested (equaling to 55 minutes).  I couldn't find the exact recipe on Martha's website, but this is a pretty close one Classic Blueberry Crumb Cake.

I know in baking you should never stray from the recipe, which I've learned the hard way more than once.  But as you can see from this and past posts I am sometimes fairly relaxed.  This time around I was lucky.  The cake came out very yummy and not too sweet.  Now I just have to convince D to give it a try and get in some much needed grocery time.

Simple Chinese Breakfast

Last night D and I found out we need to go on a business trip to Seattle again.  Last week while  sleepless in Seattle (lol), I had started this blog.  So this morning I made D's favorite, a simple and quick breakfast of congee, eggs with basil, and spinach with garlic.

Congee is basically rice porridge which is cooked with a little bit of rice and a lot of water.  You can have it plain with side dishes or add flavorings and ingredients like fish, chicken, vegetables, use stock instead of water, use beans instead of rice... You can be as creative as you like as long as your taste buds can handle it.  Today I cheated and used leftover rice and cooked it with water, so it became pow fan which is more like rice soup.  

I stir fried baby leaf spinach with half a bulb of garlic.  Yes, that's a lot of garlic, but we love garlic.  We are foodaholics as well as garlic-holics.  I feel garlic loses a lot of the harsh smell and taste and becomes really nutty and yummy once cooked through.  Or maybe that's just me and I've been walking around stinking like garlic all this time (lol).  The garlic is a little smashed and practically left in whole cloves since I'm very lazy with mincing garlic (takes too long and makes my hands smell).

I also made D's all time favorite of basil and eggs.  It's a Taiwanese dish that D has grown up with, and he requests on a regular basis.  When we've had it elsewhere, it's always been in an omelet form where as I've never mastered the art of omelets so I've always made it as scrambled eggs.

My baby up close

I've never eaten fresh basil before meeting D, but it's an important ingredient in Taiwanese cooking.  So he introduced me to basil when we first met, and I'm obsessed with it now.  I've even grown my own pot of basil, because it's expensive the way I use it, which is a lot, (now that I think about it, just like garlic).  

I've tried growing them in a garden from seedlings, and I ended up nurturing weeds that looked like basil for about a month before my mom told me that I wasn't growing basil.  I was so disappointed.  Then my father-in-law bought a entire tray of basil to be planted, but they only died within a week.  Again disappointed.  Finally, my sister from San Fran told me that it wasn't possible to grow basil in our weather.  She's been trying herself and hadn't succeed because we don't get enough sunlight or heat throughout the year.  I was so sad thinking I would have to control my basil usage.

My basil before a "hair" cut 

But a few months ago while at the local market buying basil, I came across small pots of basil that cost less than the tiny bag of basil I usually buy.  Of course I usually eat Thai basil, and I think this was sweet basil, but it was still basil, right?  So I picked the fullest out of all the 3" pots and went home so proud of myself.  D immediately was like "oh no, she's going to kill again".  

My basil afterwards and D oh so happy

Well, I did research on growing basil and got lots of tips online.  My basil travels from windowsill to windowsill following the sunlight around our apartment.  I give it bi-weekly plant food feedings, and when we are out of town for more than a couple of days, I find it a sitter.  It's even survived a case of fungus flies.  I was so scared it's little roots wouldn't make it.  D says I treat it like it's a baby.  And my baby has grown into an 8" pot!  I'm so proud.  Well, my next venture is to try to grow my baby a sibling of Thai descent.  Wish me luck!