This famous Thai street food can be such a hearty meal even though it takes no more than 15 minutes to prepare and cook. Do not confuse the Thai basil (holy basil) with its Italian cousin (sweet basil). The Thai holy basil has small, narrow leaves, purple stems, and pink-purple flowers with distinct, spicy and anise-clove flavor.

Serve 2-4

• 3 tablespoons   cooking oil
• 3 cloves              garlic, minced，蒜末
• 2                          small shallots, thinly sliced 小红葱头
• 3                          bird chili or any 1 big red chili, thinly sliced，
• 1                          yard-long beans (optional), cut into smalls sections in 1cm
• 250g                   ground chicken鸡肉
• 1 teaspoon         fish sauce鱼露
• 1 tablespoon     light soy sauce生抽
• ½ tablespoon    dark soy sauce 老抽 （optional）
• 1 teaspoon         caster sugar白砂糖
• 1 bunch              fresh Thai holy basil (use leaves only)泰式九层塔

Method

1. In a wokover high heat, add the oil. One the oil is hot, add garlic and shallots and fry for 1 minute then add chilies and long beans, and fry for another 1-2 minutes, until fragrance and softened.
2. Add the ground chicken and stir-fry for 2 minutes, breaking up the chicken into small bits. Turn down the heat if you need a longer time to break down the ground chicken.Turn up the heat, add the sugar, soy sauce, and fish sauce. Stir-fry for another minute. Add the basil and mix well. Stir fry for 1 more minute. Remove the wok from the heat. Ready to serve with rice.

Tips

1. Substitute the ground chicken with ground pork or sliced chicken. The flavour will remain the same.

The classic Sichuan dish is named after its unique cooking process. “回huí” indicates returning. Twice-cooked pork means that the pork should be cooked twice. Firstly pork is boiled in water until nearly cooked – a simple yet smart method to help lock in the moisture resulting in juicy meat, then use Doubanjiang (fermented bean paste), fermented black soy bean (Douchi), ginger, garlic and side ingredients to stir-fry for flavoring.

 Serves 3-4,

 For boiling the pork,

• 350g pork belly, with skin still attached带皮五花肉
• 1 walnut-sized ginger, thinly sliced姜
• 2 garlic cloves
• ½ tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns 花椒
• 1 Leek (white part only), sliced 大葱 （葱白）

Returning the pork

• 1 tablespoon  cooking oil
• 1 tablespoon Minced ginger
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon Doubanjiang (fermented bean paste)郫县豆瓣酱
• 1 tablespoon fermented black beans 豆豉
• 2 Garlic sprouts, sliced蒜苗
• 2 red chili (optional), sliced
• 1 to 2 teaspoons light soy sauce生抽
• 2 teaspoons sweet bean paste甜面酱
• 1 teaspoon caster sugar 白糖

Instructions

1. Place pork belly in a large pot with enough cold water to cover. Add ginger, garlic, leek and Sichuan peppercorn seeds. Bring to boil and simmer for 30 minutes. If you are cooking a larger amount, cut the pork belly into sections around 15 cm long. Transfer out and set aside to cool down.
2. Smash the head of garlic sprouts and then cut the head part and leaves into 1.5 inch sections. Remove the seeds of red pepper and cut into pieces too. Heat up around 1 tablespoon of oil in wok, fry the pork belly for around 1-2 minutes (Tips  #2 below) until they begin to loose oil and slightly brown.
3. Move the pork slices out and leave oil only, fry ginger and garlic until aroma. Place doubanjiang and dou-chi, fry for another half minute. Return pork slices and give a big stir fry to combine well. Add red pepper, fry for another half minute. Lastly, place garlic spouts, light soy sauce, sweet bean paste and sugar. Combine well and transfer out immediately.
4. Serve with steamed rice.

Tips

1. You can boil a larger amount for example 600g once and keep the left half for another stir frying in following 2 days. Cool down completely and keep in refrigerator, covered with plastic wrapper.
2. If the pork belly is fatty, fry for a longer time to reduce the fat it contained. However, if the pork belly is with lots of lean meat, do not over-fry it. Otherwise, the slices will dry out.

The celebrity chef Nigel Lawson was recently quoted that Pandan leaves are the next big food craze in the US and UK. This unique Southeast Asia plant, which are found in the backyards of many Malaysian homes, has a sweet fragrance that is likened to vanilla. Its extracted juices are the natural food colouring that is commonly used in some popular Southeast Asia desserts. It is also an essential ingredient for making the famous Singapore Chicken Rice.

 Makes one cake (use 25cm cake tin),

 For batter,  

• 6                                         egg yolks (use very fresh egg weighting at 60g each, room temperature) 蛋黄
• 100g                    caster sugar 白砂糖
• 2 tablespoons     pandan juice (freshly made from pandan leaves + 2 tablespoons water)新鲜班兰汁
• 1 teaspoon          vanilla essence 香草香精
• 1 teaspoon          pandan essence斑兰香精
• 115ml                 sunflower oil (canola oil or corn oil is good too)植物烹调油
• 140ml                  coconut milk 椰奶
• 200g                    cake flour 低筋面粉
• 2 teaspoons         baking powder 泡打粉
• 1/4 teaspoon       salt

For meringue 蛋白糖霜,

• 9                                         egg whites (use very fresh egg weighting at 60g each, room temperature) 蛋白
• 100g                    caster sugar 白砂糖
• 1 teaspoon    cream of tartar 塔塔粉

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170℃. I use an oven thermometer to make sure to get the exact temperature. Use oven function of ‘Fan Plus’. Place the rack in the lowest level of your oven.
2. First let’s make the pandan juice. Pandan leaf is not a juicy plant. To ‘squeeze’ the juice as much as you can, thinly cut the leaves then add them in the food processor with two tablespoons of water. After it comes a paste, place in a cheese cloth. Then squeeze the juice out in a bowl.
3. Now let us cream the egg yolk. Place egg yolks into a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to whisk the yolks on medium speed (30 seconds). Gradually add into sugar and beat on high speed until the eggs have tripled in volume resulting a nice and light batter. This takes about 5 minutes.
4. Add into wet ingredients Mix into the corn oil, coconut milk, pandan paste, vanilla essence. Sift into the dry ingredients of cake flour, salt and baking powder. Gently fold them into the beaten eggs until you can’t see flour anymore.
5. Now let’s make meringue. Use an electric mixer, beat the egg whites over medium speed for one minute. Then add Cream of Tartar and whisk for one more minute. Then gradually add the sugar and beat over high speed for about 5 minutes.
6. Now that the batter and meringue is done, It is time to mix them both together. Add one third of the meringue to the batter and mix it with a spatula so that you get a light green batter which is easy to fold. Then add the rest of the meringue to the batter and GENTLY fold the mixture in.
7. Before you pour the mixture into the tin, give your batter bowl a few sharp blows by banging it on the table. This will get the big bubbles to rise to the top and burst.
8. Now pour the mixture into the cake tin slowly making sure that as many of the big bubbles burst while the batter flows over the rim of the cake tin. Remember pouring the batter into the same portion of the tin and you will see that the batter flows around the tin without trapping more air. 
9. Now put the cake into the oven. Make sure that the oven thermometer shows 170 °C and put the cake tin as lowest in the oven as you can. It is critical to have more heat at the bottom than the top or else the top will brown, crack, become dry and start to sink before your baking is done. At around 15 to 20 minutes, you cake would have risen and start to crack. The entire baking time takes about 55 minutes.
10. Once baking is done, overturn the cake and let it cool. Use a funnel to elevate the cake. This is important because if the cake is too close to your tabletop, condensation takes place and you will spoil the surface of the cake. To speed up the cooling process, you can drape a wet towel over the cake tin. This takes about 60 minutes. Once your cake is cooled, it’s time to remove it from the tin.
11. Use a sharp knife and with one movement separate the sides of the cake from the tin, pressing your blade as firm as possible on the cake tin.

It is the time of the Year! With the Chinese New Year around the corner, you can find pineapple tarts just about everywhere in Singapore or Malaysia . Every bakery that churns them out is claiming that it’s tarts are the best. But I found out today these melt-in-mouth homemade tarts with buttery crumbly pastry and fresh homemade pineapple jam are the BEST I’ve had so far. It calls for simple and fresh ingredients with minimized use of sugar. No preservatives added at all.

 Makes 100 pieces  

Wrappers

• 510g                    plain flour/all purpose flour 中筋面粉
• 350g                    unsalted butter
• 100g                    condensed milk 炼乳
• 2 egg yolks         room temperature

Homemade pineapple filling (pineapple jam)

• 3       ripe pineapples
• 250g      granulated sugar 白砂糖 (adjust the amount of sugar by 20% based on the ‘sweetness’ of you pineapple)

Method

Step 1  make pineapple filling/jam

1. Peel the pineapples. Cut away some of the core but not totally remove it (By leaving small part of core so the jam has some bites in.) Cut into small cubes. Put 1/4 of the pineapples into a blender till it becomes puree (do not add water). Do the same with the rest of pineapple cubes. Sift the pineapple puree so to remove some of the juices. Don’t throw the juices away – the byproduct makes a couple of glasses of good fruit juice.
2. Cook sifted the pineapple puree in a wok or sauce pan over medium heat for about 10 minutes till juice almost evaporates. Now add in sugar. The mixture will turn watery again after sugar added. Continue stirring with a wooden spoon for about 15 minutes till it becomes a thick paste.Reduce the heat to low and cook for about 60 minutes. Stir from time to time to avoid burning. Scoop out the pineapple jam into to bowl and let it cool completely. Scoop a small portion (10g) and use your hand to shape it into a ball. If you find it is too watery to difficult to make it into a ball, just place the jam the fridge for a few hours then try again.

 Step 2   make the wrappers

8. Sift the flour. 面粉过筛. Cut the butter into small cubes. Use your fingertips to rub butter in the flour till the mixture resembles bread crumb. Add into the mixture the egg yolks and condensed milk. Use your hand to combine them together till it becomes a soft dough. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and leave it in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Step 3   Assemble

11. Divide the pineapple filling/jam into 100 portions (8g each) and roll them into a small ball
12. Roll the dough into 100 portions balls (10g each) and roll them into a small ball
13. Flatten a piece of the dough ball, place a pineapple jam ball in the middle. Bring the edges together and press tightly to seal. Roll it in between your palms to shape it into a ball.
14. Use a paring knife, cut the criss-cross shape on the top to create pineapple pattern. Or use any fun or desired small-size cookie cutter or pastry cutter that you happen to have at home.
15. Place all the little pastries on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
16. Apply egg wash with a brush. Try to brush the entire pastry ball including top and sides.
17. Preheat the oven to 165℃. Place the baking try in the upper deck of the oven. Bake for 24 minutes or till they become golden brown.
18. Cool completely before enjoying.