Improvised gluten-free muffins (basic recipe)

I remember the time when I was really scared to start gluten-free baking because it seemed so complicated, so many types of flour, so easy for things to go wrong, for the baking to fail. A couple of weeks ago, I baked some muffins (if you can call them that) without following any gluten-free recipe [...]

Considering making pickled vegetables

As long-standing readers here may have noticed, I like the idea of making from scratch at home products which are often bought as ready-made commercial products. I’ve had a reasonable amount of success with soya bean milk, tofu and salted eggs, which are all very easy.
I’ve also considered making soya sauce at home. While it [...]

for San Francisco readers: Asian Culinary Forum (10-12 Oct, 2008)

For those living in the San Francisco area, I just heard about this event, the Asian Culinary Forum.

Asian Food Beyond Borders
Friday – Sunday, October 10 – 12, 2008

To celebrate our 2008 theme, “Asian Food Beyond Borders,” ACF is presenting an entire weekend of exciting classes, tours, workshops and panel discussions for your enjoyment. Choose [...]

Chef Chan at the National Museum & cooking lectures/classes

I’ve been trying out dim sum recipes (steamed radish cake, water chestnut fritters and chewy pumpkin cake) from the cookbook by chef, Chan Chen Hei, without any idea who he is.
But I’ve just discovered that he’s opened a new restaurant at the National Museum of Singapore (the same place with this food history exhibit [...]

Another word on tofu coagulants

This homemade tofu thing is getting complicated.
Yesterday, I came across this information from Wholesome Living, an organic shop in Singapore that conducts all sorts of cooking workshops:
Commercial bean curds contain chemical substances such as bleaching agent, de-foaming agent, preservatives and coagulant (calcium sulfate a.k.a. gypsum). Commercial tofu manufacturers usually utilize calcium sulfate as a coagulant [...]

Making tofu at home P.S.

Sorry, in the last post, I missed out a whole bunch of great links with more photos, tips and information about making tofu at home.
The first is this super set of photos & instructions from Chow.com. The best thing about this is that it provides a cheap & easy solution to the problem of finding [...]

Traditional coconut graters

Some time back I wrote about different types of graters, especially those used for grating coconut. [Also read here how we make coconut milk at home.]
One thing that fascinated me was the various styles of traditional coconut graters used in different cultures, and on a recent trip to the National Museum of Singapore, I was [...]

Natural food colourings II

You may have already seen my earlier posting on natural food colourings here.
Since then, I came across this interesting video podcast from Curbly- DIY Design Community on natural colourings for Easter eggs, which suggests:
• For blue, use red cabbage
• For red, try whole beets (not canned), cherries, or cranberries
• For light green, [...]

Steamed radish cake 蘿蔔糕

Ever since I started experimenting with different foods in an attempt at food rotation, I’ve been thinking of cooking this dish. It’s made from Chinese white radish, also known as daikon (and most confusingly, can be called ‘carrot’ when translated into English, as I’ve noted here).
What held me up was trying to think of substitutes [...]

Q: When is a yam not a yam?

A: When it’s a sweet potato or a taro!
I have recently discovered that I have been using imprecise names, and probably confused some of you in other parts of the world where different words are used.
For example, I learnt from reading this that in America, what are called ‘yams’ are really varieties of sweet potato [...]