tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80920921530942982132013-01-08T10:16:37.501+08:00Easy Asian Homecooking RecipesSmoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]Blogger450125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-33649543783506896142013-01-01T17:22:00.001+08:002013-01-01T17:26:57.689+08:00

Here's a sweet start to the new year! I hope that all of you had a great new year's and today's feature is fitting - a festive cake to kick start 2013.  This is an extremely easy cake and looks pretty to boot.  This is one of the talented Donna Hay's delicious creations.  The original recipe called for it to be baked in a rectangular tray but as I wanted two cakes, I used two 5 inch round pans

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-54636439503737830952012-12-25T15:02:00.000+08:002012-12-30T15:02:32.598+08:00

I love rice paper rolls.  Rice paper is extremely versatile and apart from being rolled fresh, it can also be pan-fried or deep-fried.  For today, I decided to use it simply and made some easy caramelised chicken strips and paired the chicken with mizuna for a refreshing taste.  Mizuna is a Japanese herb and is slightly bitter so it added the perfect contrast to the slightly sweet caramelised

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-81183245346136127632012-12-20T15:33:00.000+08:002012-12-30T15:33:25.155+08:00

I am such a huge lover of seafood, clams included.  How about you? Clams are very easy to cook but do note that you should get good quality and fresh ones as clams can become 'off' pretty quickly.  Hence, it is quite important to use live clams especially for simple stir-fries such as today's feature.  For today, I cheated quite a bit and used a Thai chili stir-fry sauce from Yuen Chun.  As usual

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-67018148707820271962012-11-30T20:05:00.000+08:002012-12-02T20:08:31.698+08:00

It's great to break up meaty dishes with some easy vegetarian dishes sometimes.  Today's offer is an eggplant/ brinjal dish simply cooked in some red chili peppers and earthy yellow bean sauce.  Yellow bean sauce is akin to miso but is more pungent and lends a pleasing, earthy taste to a lot of Chinese dishes.  This sauce is extremely versatile and can be used with fish, poultry and more.  If

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-27258424279657797132012-11-25T20:41:00.002+08:002012-11-25T20:41:42.146+08:00

This humble dish is one of my absolute favourites although I should advise you to only cook this in limited doses as too much salted fish is definitely not good.  This dish is cheap, easy and goes perfectly well with rice - almost too well as I have too much rice whenever this is served.  The key to this dish is to get a good blend of fatty and lean pork - if your pork is too lean, the pork will

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-15840547545678528272012-10-31T20:49:00.002+08:002012-10-31T20:49:18.608+08:00

This is one of my favourite vegetable dishes - the soft and texture-filled angled loofah with tofu made more luxurious with abalone sauce.  This is a short-cut method though as I used ready made abalone sauce from Yuen Chun.  This is a great vegetarian dish that is best served with steamed rice.  If you have not tried loofah, you'll really have to try it to taste the unique texture and flavours.

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-7686408458513190492012-10-16T20:44:00.000+08:002012-10-31T20:49:38.034+08:00

Healthy and quick - organic soba noodles tossed with garlic oil, thick soy sauce and accompanied with fish cakes and fresh baby spinach.  An extremely easy and fulfilling dish to put together especially when time is of the essence.  The garlic oil is the only messy part but then I've tried making this dish eschewing the fragrant garlic oil and it just didn't fly, so I just force myself to go

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-55754105662402511742012-09-30T20:23:00.000+08:002012-10-02T20:30:28.121+08:00

This is such a homey dish - spareribs braised in 'nam yu', bean sauce and of course yam.  The yam adds earthiness to the dish while the slow cooked spareribs are ultra flavourful, definitely a great dish to serve with hot steamed rice.  I like to first cook this dish in a wok then braise it slowly in a clay pot.  Serving the pork directly from the clay pot at the table not only makes for a

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-75481724133401134352012-09-30T18:45:00.003+08:002012-09-30T18:46:30.736+08:00

Dear Readers, Just taking this opportunity to wish all of you and your loved ones a Happy Mid Autumn's celebration! Have lots of mooncake! Lots of love, Jasmine _uacct = "UA-4001336-1"; urchinTracker();

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-7899560949194388282012-09-16T19:45:00.000+08:002012-09-16T19:45:00.876+08:00

Tofu cooked claypot style with a variety of vegetables and seafood is always one of my favourite tofu dishes to order.  It is perfectly easy to recreate at home although it is a little bit more time consuming as the dish should be cooked in a wok prior to being simmered in the claypot.  You can serve the dish in the claypot at the table as the claypot does a good job of keeping the ingredients

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-9299684012276307762012-09-09T19:46:00.000+08:002012-09-09T19:46:18.545+08:00

Grilling fish is one of the easiest delicious dishes you can whip up in a short span of time in my opinion.  So when I spotted some dory fish fillets at the local grocery store I thought they would be great grilled combined with a lemon garlic sauce.  The fish fillets were simply marinated with some salt, pepper and olive oil before being grilled in the oven.  I served the fish with an easy lemon

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-86386373715495763902012-09-02T17:58:00.000+08:002012-09-02T17:58:28.832+08:00

I absolutely adore Korean food and I thought a feature on a Korean dish was long overdue so I went with this extremely simple stir-fry of spicy pork.  The main condiments as with a lot of Korean dishes are the gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste) and gochugaru (Korean chili powder).  Apart from the heat, the gochujang also provides an earthiness to the dish while the vegetables in the dish gives

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-81081327302890406992012-08-25T19:24:00.001+08:002012-08-25T19:24:13.817+08:00

This is such a simply delicious dish that can be whipped up anytime.  The only condiment I used was light soy sauce - the pumpkin bathed the chicken in a lovely golden hue while providing a slightly sweeter flavour.  For a finishing touch, stir in some Thai basil for that unmistakable fragrance and you have yourself a great stir-fry that does not require much time and effort.  Today is actually

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-87881749274223814502012-08-23T08:02:00.001+08:002012-08-23T08:02:29.348+08:00

I love holidays as much as the next person but the post-holidays blues are just so difficult to combat, don't you think? Well, I guess then it's time to look forward to the next holiday :o.  Today's feature is an exceedingly simple Chinese style omelette made with bitter gourd or bitter melon.  The slightly bitter taste of the vegetable goes surprisingly well with the egg and you'll really need

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-78910344788705789642012-08-18T16:13:00.002+08:002012-08-18T16:13:51.894+08:00

It's the start of a long weekend for those of us in Malaysia - yay!  Well, first things first - today's feature is a spicy bean paste dish made with Indian mackerel.  Indian mackerel is well of course a species of mackerel and lends itself better to being fried, at least in my opinion.  Indian mackerel or ikan kembung in Malay is used a lot in spicy or curry dishes due to its' rather 'metallic'

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-8054999464998243872012-08-11T19:04:00.002+08:002012-08-11T20:23:09.789+08:00

Buffets are dangerous affairs - yes, I tend to overstuff myself, but since we rarely go for buffets, guess it's alright to indulge once in a while?  Lemon Garden is the coffee house at Kuala Lumpur's Shangri-la and it offers an extremely wide and sumptous spread where you get to pick to your heart's delight.  Overall, I think the buffet is extremely worth the time, price and your appetite

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-64491108025501779792012-07-31T20:27:00.000+08:002012-08-02T20:30:02.855+08:00

_uacct = "UA-4001336-1"; urchinTracker(); Macaroni is one of my favourite pastas - very versatile and equally delicious cooked both Western and Asian methods.  For today, I took a page from one of my favourite Hong Kong 'char chan teng' fare and whipped up an extremely easy and soothing macaroni with brown enoki mushrooms in abalone and chicken broth.  I did cheat though and used abalone

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-40681279893427409632012-07-29T18:28:00.001+08:002012-07-29T18:30:00.208+08:00

Whenever I order pizza, I always prefer the thin crusted variety - hence I thought of using roti paratha or roti canai, the ever-popular Indian flatbread as a base for a Thai flavoured pizza.  This is so easy that it's hardly a recipe and is more of an idea as you can play around with toppings of your choice or even the sauce.  For today, I used one of my favourite sauces from Yuen Chun that is

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-83859527932585295972012-07-03T20:26:00.003+08:002012-07-03T20:26:51.768+08:00

I'm back from my long awaited Nepal trip and I've been suffering from very acute post-holiday blues since yesterday! Anyway, I thought I would like to share with you my dear readers - photos from my much anticipated and highly enjoyable and eye-opening trip in Nepal.  I totally adored the place and I can't wait to go back!  It's pretty hard to totally describe how excellent it was so I shall let

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-52212090919118540572012-06-23T21:58:00.000+08:002012-06-23T21:58:16.050+08:00

Today's feature is a variant of the popular Chinese style sweet and sour fish - the fish is pan-fried instead of deep-fried as is the norm in restaurants especially and plum sauce is used instead of ketchup.  By the way, I've  had comments in the past regarding the use of ketchup in 'authentic' Chinese cooking and after a bit of research, it appears that ketchup originated from China - so go

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-91587459418520179572012-06-17T14:06:00.000+08:002012-06-17T14:06:35.890+08:00

I hope you've all had an enjoyable weekend and Happy Father's Day!  You may notice that salads are not frequently featured as by and large, I am hardly a 'salad person' but my palate does crave for some salad once in a while.  Today's feature is an extremely easy, refreshing and appetising salad - something you can whip up in minutes.  As always, you can adapt the ingredients to suit your

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-63391832286242456552012-05-31T22:28:00.001+08:002012-05-31T22:28:41.200+08:00

I love braised dishes - somehow spareribs go incredibly well in braised dishes and I thought bittergourd or bitter melon would make be a good vegetable to accompany the spareribs.  The savoury bean sauce meanwhile ups the earthiness of the dish.  Chinese bean sauce or also known as 'taucu' in Malaysia is made from yellow beans and is a little reminiscent of the famous Japanese condiment, miso. 

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-60918435083891897572012-05-07T20:42:00.002+08:002012-05-10T19:55:01.332+08:00

There's nothing easier and more satisfying than a good old homestyle simple stir-fry, make it spicy and I'm in for sure.  I have relied on the good old stir-fry on many a tired weeknights and I always end up with a good, relatively healthy and of course always delicious meal.  I have to admit though that I have only recently began to appreciate snake beans.  Snake beans are cousins to the more

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-22396244945500743572012-05-05T22:36:00.001+08:002012-05-10T19:37:25.457+08:00

I hope that you are all enjoying your weekend.  I have been hard-pressed for time to cook recently so I thought it would be a good change to feature a review on this blog which is pretty rare.  Bonga is one of my favourite Korean restaurants in Kuala Lumpur so far and I'm quite happy to recommend this authentic Korean eatery for all you Korean food fans in the area.  The restaurant occupies 2

Smoky Wok (formerly Tastes of Home)http://www.blogger.com/profile/04966792588380354927[email protected]5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8092092153094298213.post-59503612499875004982012-04-30T21:31:00.002+08:002012-05-10T19:57:28.136+08:00

The weather has been very unforgiving lately - the sweltering heat in Malaysia right now is almost unbearable.  I have succumbed and I have been feeling under the weather since the past few days but I digress.  Today's feature is an exceedingly simple stir-fry seafood dish and the seafood of choice today is squid.  This dish is made easier by the use of one of my favourite sauces from Yuen Chun,

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