Category: Recipes

Homemade Tomato Sauce 自制番茄酱

I watched the Japanese Movie Little Forest the other day. It tells a story of a little girl living in the countryside. She plants vegetables and fruits and makes dishes with them. One scen is about her making tomato sauce with the tomatoes she plants. So I imitated her way of doing that.

前几天，我看了一部日本的电影，名字叫做《小森林》。电影讲的是一个女孩住在乡下，她自己种植蔬菜和水果，并且用自己种的东西做各种美食。其中就有一幕是讲她用自己种的番茄做了番茄酱。所以我也模仿她的方法，在家里自己做番茄酱。


First, wash some cherry tomatoes. Actually, you can use small tomatoes or big ones, depending on how big your jar is. 

And cut a cross at the bottom of each one.


Then put them in hot water for several seconds. If your tomatoes are bigger, let them stay longer in hot water.


Put them into icy water. 


The tomato skin can be easily removed.


Put peeled tomatoes back into hot water. Boil them with a little salt. Don’t put too much. 


The jar should be sterilized. I put the jar and the lid in the boiling water for a while.

Then put the tomatoes along with some salty hot water into the jar. Please don’t  make the jar too full. 


Then put the jar into hot water. And boil it for several minutes. Make sure the lid is not cover too tight.


After boiling, cool the jar for a while and tighten the lid.

The movies says, put the jar in the fridge. When you feel hot in summer, you can take a bite, and it makes you feel very cool.

I took them out and heat in a pan with some sugar.

Then poured them on cooked spaghetti. It tasted really great.

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Tomato Beef Stew 番茄炖牛肉

This dish will take over one hour.


Cut beef into medium cubes.


Put beef cubes in the pan with cold water and turn on the stove.


When the water gets boiled, there will be a lot foam.


Take beef cubes out and clean them.


Heat the oil in the pan, put in ginger slices and some garlic slices.


Add in beef cubes. And stir fry for a while.


Then put in a little cooking wine and light soy sauce. Stir evenly.


Add in enough hot water over the beef. Then cover the pan with lid and cook for at least 40 mins.


Three tomatoes need to be peeled off. First cut a cross at the bottom. Then put them in hot water for around 1 minute. Lastly, remove them into cold water. And it will be easy to peel them off.


Chop them into small bits.


Use another pan. Heat the oil and put the tomato bits in.


When the tomato juice comes out, pour in a bowl of water. 


Keep stirring till the tomato sauce becomes a little condensed.


When 40mins is over, add tomato sauce into the beef along with several sugar cubes and some salt.

Cook for another 30 mins.


If you don’t feel like eating anything, this dish will make your appetite better.

Chocolate Chip Cookies 巧克力曲奇

The dough needs to be put in the fridge for over 24 hours.

Part A

Flour around 200g

bicarbonate around 3g

Baking soda around 3g

Salt around 4g

Mix them well.

Part B:

Butter around 140g,

Brown sugar around 100g

White sugar around 70g

Whip them till the butter’s color turns light.


Then add one egg and a little vanilla esscence. Keep whipping for another minute.


Mix Part A with Part B well.


Add in chocolate chips. Mix well.

Then put the dough in a bag or a box and put it in the fridge for over 24hrs. 


Preheat oven with 175degree.

Divide the dough into small parts.

Make them in ball shape. Cos they will expand during baking, so make sure there is enough space for them to expand.


Bake for around 15mins.


Crunchy outside but soft inside. They taste really good.

Bacon Potato Soup 培根土豆浓汤


Cut potato and onion into small pieces. (Here I used two potatoes and one onion.)


Heat the oil in the pan. Put in the bacon bits.


When the bacon bits get a little burnt, take them out.


Stir fry onion first.


Then the potato pieces.

Add in enough water that covers potato pieces. Boil them till potato gets soft.


Use blender to smash potatoes.


Put smashed potato back into the pan.


Add a little water or the soup will get burnt easily. Also add in light cream, salt and black pepper powder. Keep stirring till all the things mix well.


Ladle the soup out into bowl, and add in the bacon bits. 

Black Sesame Round Bun And Mini-hamburger (黑芝麻圆面包和迷你汉堡包）

I promised my husband that I would make hamburger for him. And today I tried.

First, I baked black sesame round bun.


Bread flour around 160g

Plain flour around 40g

Sugar around 30g

Salt around 3 g

Yeast around 3 g


Add in milk around 60g and 3/4 of one egg.


When everything mixed well, add in black sesames. And keep kneading until the dough becomes less sticky.


Add in 15g butter. Just knead, knead and knead. If you are really stressed out recently, it’s a good way to release your negetive energy outwardly. You can even punch the dough. When the butter is completely absorbed by the dough, you can stop and take a rest. Kneading really takes a while.


Then cover the bowl with a wrap or wet towel until it expands to 1.5 or twice of its size.


Divide the dough into several little even-sized dough. Knead them to let the inside air out and make them in round shape.

Then put the small dough on the baking pan and put the baking pan into the oven. Place a bowl of hot water under the baking pan. If the water gets cold, replace it with another bowl of hot water.

When the small dough expands again to 1.5 or twice of their size, they can be taken out.


Brush the dough with the rest 1/4 egg.

Preheat the oven with 180 degree.

And bake them for around 18 mins.


The bun part is done.


I cut the round bun into two parts. In the middle I put carriage, tomato slice, cheese and pork chop. And make them mini-hamburgers.

You can design your own burger with this round bun, and of course you can make it bigger if you want.

This round bun can also be good if you just spread jam in it.

Cook One Fish in Two Ways （一鱼两吃）

Compared to fried fish in western countries, Chinese people always choose to cook fish in different ways, like fish soup, braised fish in brown sauce, or steamed fish.


I bought this sea bass from supermarket. Yet, I found it too big and we didn’t have a pan big enough to cook it. So I decided to divided it into two parts. Fish head for the soup. Fish body and tail for the braised one.

Fish head soup is very popular in China, since many people think this dish is very good for health. Nutritious elements in fish will be contained in the soup.

在中国，鱼头汤是一道很受欢迎的菜。很多人认为鱼头汤对身体很补，鱼里面的营养物质会融合到汤里面去。

It is not difficult to make fish soup.

1. Heat the oil in the pan, and fry two sides of the fish head. When the color turns a little brown, pour in the hot water. 

锅内热油，将鱼头两面煎黄，然后加入热水没过鱼头。

2. Add two or three ginger slices, salt and green onion.

加入两三片姜片，盐和葱段。

3. Cook the soup with low heat. The longer you cook it, the whiter will the soup color become.

转小火煮汤，汤煮得越久，汤的颜色就会越白。

4. When the soup color turns milky white, add some tofu ( better be silken tofu) slices into it.

当汤的颜色变成奶白的时候，加入一些嫩豆腐。

5. Cook for another 20 minutes or so. 

再多煮二十分钟左右，让豆腐更好地融合汤的味道

I really think silken tofu is a perfect match to fish soup.

我真的认为嫩豆腐和鱼汤是绝配。

Braised fish in brown sauce

This dish can be done while fish soup on the stove.

1. Similar to the soup above. Heat the oil in the pan, and fry two sides of the fish body. When the color turns a little brown, add in a little light soy sauce, dark soy sauce （light soy sauce contains salt, dark soy sauce is for dark color) and sugar.

和鱼头汤的做法有点像。首先把鱼两面煎黄，然后加入生抽，老抽（生抽含盐，老抽为了上色）和糖。

2. Make the fish coated with sugar soy sauce. And pour in hot water.

让鱼身裹满糖汁，然后加入热水。

3. Put in some ginger slices. Cover the pan with lid.

再加入一些姜片，然后盖上锅盖。

4. When the sauce in the pan become less than 1/4. Take the fish out.

当锅内红烧汁剩下不到1/4时，把鱼盛出来。

5. Keep hearing the sauce in the pan until it becomes very condensed. And pour it onto the fish.

继续加热锅内的红烧汁，至到变得浓稠，然后盛出浇在鱼身上。


Dip the fish with sauce before put it into mouth. It really tastes great.

把鱼肉蘸了红烧汁再放进嘴巴，味道会更好。

A Quick Dish – Penne Salad


Get penne cooked first.


Chop a cucumber into thin slices.


Half boiled egg:

Put egg and cold water in a pot. Don’t put the lid on. Heat the pot until many big bubbles appear at the bottom. Then turn off the stove and remove the pot. Cover the pot with lid for two minutes. Then take the egg out and put it into cold water.


Mix the penne with cucumber slices, half boiled egg, and salad cream.


The penne salad is done.

Stir Fry Shrimps With Vegetables （蔬菜炒虾仁）

This is a healthy and quick dish. 

  
Prepare shrimps and vegetables. (I chose frozen ones, which are really convenient)

Marinate shrimps with 1 tsp light sauce, 1 tsp cooking wine, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp starch.

 

Frozen vegetables in boiled water for 2 minutes. 
 

 Heat the oil in pan, and stir fry shrimps till the color becomes reddish. And remove the shrimps out.
  
 

Stir fry vegetables for 1-2 minutes.

  
Add in the shrimps and a little salt. Stir fry evenly.

  
Ready to serve.

  

Super Easy Way to Cook Chocolate Lava（超简单巧克力熔岩蛋糕制作方法）

   
   
Part A:

Butter around 25g

Chocolate 40g

Heat butter and chocolate in a bowl which is in hot water.

Keep stirring till they melt.

Remove them from hot water to get cool.

   
Part B

Whip an egg with around 15g sugar till the color becomes light.

   


Pour Part B into Part A.

Do make sure the chocolate is cool already.

 

Put around 15g flour into the mixture. Stir evenly. Then put the bowl into fridge for 30 minutes.

  
Preheat oven with 200 degree.

Brush butter onto the inner wall of baking bowl.

  
Pour the chocolate mixture into baking bowl.

Put into oven for ten minutes.

  
When there are some small cracks on the surface of cake, the cake can be removed from the oven.

   

If you like, you can spread some icing sugar.

Try to scoop it with a small spoon.

And you will be surprised!

   

Stir Fry Chicken With Vegetables （鸡腿肉炒蔬菜）

 

Boneless chicken leg around 300g

 Cut into medium pieces.

 

Marinate chicken with 

1 tsp light sauce 

1 tsp dark sauce

1 tsp cooking wine

1 tsp starch

For 15 mins.

  

Prepare vegetables: onion, carrot, green chili, ginger, celery.

  
Heat the pan. When the oil is heated, put in the ginger slice.

I always doubt whether my pan is actually a mirror. 🙂

  
Put the chicken into the pan. Keep stirring.

 

When the chicken become shrank and the edge become a little burnt, it can be taken out.

 No need to wash the pan, and also keep the oil in it.

Heat the pan and put all the vegetables in it. 

If you don’t want your dish to be very spicy, you can put the chili minutes later than other vegetables.

  

Put the chicken into the pan. Stir fry them for around 2 minutes. Add a little salt if you think it tastes a little plain.

  

Ready to serve.