Notes about Recipes in this book

• Stir-fried cabbage with carrots

  • sharifah on March 18, 2012

    Excellent and easy to make. I never bother to pre-soak the cabbage, and it works fine. Sweet heart cabbage works best.

• Delectable broccoli chicken

  • chawkins on April 30, 2012

    More work than other stir-fries, as broccoli need to be blanched and chicken deep-fried (I usually just pan fried) first. But it's truly delectable, my go-to recipe for broccoli stir-fry. I have also substitute shrimp for the chicken.

• Taiwanese pork chops with noodle soup

  • chawkins on October 25, 2014

    Since I had never eaten a bowl of Taiwanese pork chops with noodle soup prior to making this, I have no idea what it should taste like. But this version is quite tasty. I added some greens to the soup.

• Spicy fish curry

  • chawkins on June 09, 2014

    Quick, easy and delicious. He gave you the option to blanch the fish in either oil or water, I chose the healthier alternative. The addition of some vegetables to the dish would be nice.

• Pan-fried salmon with tomatoes

  • chawkins on October 01, 2014

    Quick and easy with simple ingredients

  • adewar on November 24, 2015

    Colourful and easy recipe; good midweek meal

• Hunan-style lamb

  • Ro_ on August 21, 2023

    I used a tbsp of oyster sauce instead of hoisin, since I didn't have the latter in stock. Overall this dish was nice, but quite sweet (would have been even sweeter with the hoisin) and probably not my favourite way to use lamb which is an expensive meat.

• Crunchy peanut beef

  • Ro_ on July 24, 2023

    I didn't have yellow bean sauce so I used a mix of black bean and oyster. Note that the list of ingredients in the book (at least my copy) contains two entries for chilli bean sauce, once saying a tablespoon and later saying 2tsp, without anything in the instructions to explain this. I just added a heaped tbsp and hoped for the best! Overall I really enjoyed the flavours of this dish, it was very punchy and the sauce worked well with the beef. However, I didn't care for the texture of the peanuts in the dish, since they started to go soft and chewy quite quickly. If I made it again I would just scatter the peanuts on top instead of mixing them in.

• Stir-fried garlic pork

  • Ro_ on March 14, 2020

    Delicious balance of flavours, will make again.

• Szechuan-style pork

  • Ro_ on April 26, 2020

    This was kind of weirdly between a soup and a stir fry. It tasted nice enough, but isn't a recipe I'd repeat. The pork ended up getting overcooked in all the liquid.

• Stir-fried fish with black bean sauce

  • Ro_ on March 18, 2020

    I wasn't really a fan of this one. It's the first time I've tried white fish in a stir-fry (I used hake) and I didn't think it worked particularly well. The sauce was also very salty, I'd omit the dark soy sauce next time.

  • Clog on August 01, 2023

    The recipe has been a firm favourite in this household for some 25 years. Very easy to put together. I wouldn't normally expect to use so much dark soy sauce for these quantities, but I suppose we have grown to expect it by now.

• Vietnamese-style beef stew

  • Ro_ on March 28, 2021

    We loved this! Easy to make and delicious. I used a bit less than the full quantity of sugar and it was great, otherwise I think it would have been too sweet. This wasn't a pretty dish but it was definitely a tasty one.

• Calves' liver with spicy black bean sauce

  • Ro_ on May 05, 2020

    This was a different, unusual and tasty way to use up some liver that my partner had bought in great quantity! I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to make it again if I didn't have liver to hand that needed using and I'd already made the usual dishes with it, but it made a nice change. I added some green pepper since I had one to use up.

• Spicy pork with fragrant basil

  • Ro_ on September 08, 2020

    Given that the instructions kept saying "stir fry", there was a lot of liquid in this recipe. Overall it was also quite salty (though I partly blame my particular brand of fish sauce) and didn't have the complexity of flavour of some other recipes in this book. I probably won't repeat.

• Thai-style chilli beef

  • Ro_ on September 06, 2023

    This was a nice dish, I liked the addition of the dried mushrooms (I used dried shitaake). But I don't know if it was special enough for me to make again.

• Peter Ng's sesame-ginger chicken

  • Ro_ on February 15, 2023

    This was a nice dish, but the sesame and ginger for me were lost a bit in the overall saltiness and soy-sauce-ness of the flavours. Maybe I should have been more careful about wiping the marinade off the chicken.

• Thai-style chicken

  • Ro_ on July 17, 2023

    Really lovely dish, lifted by lots of basil! Without the basil it would be less special, but it really makes the dish.

• Fragrant roast aubergine with chicken

  • Ro_ on September 19, 2023

    I will basically love any dish with aubergine and chilli bean paste, and this was no exception. I didn't have any hoisin so used double the oyster sauce, but otherwise stuck to the recipe. The chicken was actually great to offset the unctuousness of the aubergine and oily sauce.

• Lettuce wrapped chicken

  • Ro_ on June 21, 2023

    I used breast instead of thigh (since it's all I had), I was worried it would be dry but actually the texture of the meat was nice, and moist enough. I also subbed in radishes instead of water chestnuts, but I should only have stirred them through at the end because they lost most of their crunch in the frying. This was the first time I had made deep fried beanthread noodles, I still can't decide if I liked them or not! It was nice to have some crunch in the wraps, but sometimes they seemed almost gritty. The flavours of the chicken were nice, it didn't especially need the hoisin sauce. I'd possibly make this again, but I think I've had better similar recipes.

• Indonesian-style coconut chicken

  • Ro_ on July 25, 2023

    I added a little bit of chopped green bell pepper since I had some to use up. Overall this was a nice dish, quite comforting, somewhere inbetween a curry and a stir-fry. I would have liked some chilli heat in there somewhere, and possibly a bit more zing (maybe some lemon juice over the top at the end, instead of just the zest). As with all recipes in this book, I'm very sceptical of the amount of salt stated and always add much less.

• Mussels in coconut curry sauce

  • Ro_ on August 01, 2023

    This was an "OK but not great" recipe. I didn't mind it, but other family members (who are mussel lovers) found it to have too much curry: it's true that the sauce ended up quite fluorescent yellow but I suppose a lot depends on the curry paste or powder you use.

• Sweetcorn pork fritters with coriander

  • Ro_ on April 29, 2023

    I used tinned sweetcorn, I wasn't quite sure about the drained Vs non drained weight called for, hope I got it right. The fritters were large and puffed up a lot, giving a crunchy outside but a soft inside. The flavours were quite subtle, again making me wonder if I used too much sweetcorn for the amount of seasonings. If I made these again I would make them smaller - using a tablespoon rather than the instructed ladle to size the fritters.

• Vietnamese-style noodle soup

  • Ro_ on April 21, 2023

    I couldn't get Chinese cabbage so I used very finely shredded savoy and it was fine. I also had a little bit of minced pork to use up, so added a few minced pork meatballs. Overall this was a nice, healthy, relatively simple soup. Not particularly outstanding, but very nice. Obviously a lot rests on the quantity of the stock, I wouldn't make this unless I had good quality home made stock.

• Hearty meatball vegetable soup

  • Ro_ on November 29, 2022

    We enjoyed this: it felt light and healthy, but tasty too, and hearty enough thanks to the beef meatballs. I made my own stock using chicken thighs, ginger, lemongrass and spring onion whites, supplemented with a bit of dry chinese stock powder. A lot rests on the quality of broth here, obviously - using entirely powdered broth won't do. Next time I would add more noodles, could reduce the quantity of greens slightly. Also some chilli for colour and heat finished it off nicely.

• East-West chips

  • Ro_ on March 15, 2020

    The method for chilling then double cooking the chips gave a great texture (I found they needed 2 x 10m). But the instruction to add two teaspoons of salt into the spice mix ruined the whole thing: waaaay too salty, they were only just edible. Such a shame, but I'll make these again with much less salt another time.

• Simple Beijing-style marinated cucumber salad

  • Ro_ on January 01, 2021

    I made this in a bit of a rush, meaning that I forgot to squeeze the cucumber after salting/draining, and also I didn't have time to leave it to sit overnight: I just left it for two hours or so in the fridge. Nonetheless, the results were delicious - this was a great dressing for cucumbers, a little sweeter than some other Chinese cucumber salad recipes I've tried, and a really nice kick from the chilli bean paste. I will definitely make again.

• Broccoli in fragrant wine sauce

  • Ro_ on February 02, 2021

    A nice, simple and tasty broccoli dish. Would make again.

• Spinach with fried garlic

  • Ro_ on February 26, 2020

    This was nice enough but needed more salt and sugar than I gave it (to be fair I didn't measure so may have gone under Ken's amounts) and would have benefited from some chilli flakes or similar as well. The fried garlic was nice, and simple to do, but didn't add enough flavour to the whole dish.

• Stir-fried spicy broccoli

  • Ro_ on March 28, 2023

    I loved the flavours of this recipe, a delicious way to eat brocolli. The only thing I'd say is that once I'd added the liquids, oils and sauce to the wok, putting the broccoli in after that it didn't really stir fry so much as kind of baste in the sauce. Still good though.

• Simple stir-fried mushrooms

  • Ro_ on August 06, 2023

    These were OK but nothing special. A lot of water came out of the mushrooms which didn't really evaporate during the final stir frying, so if I made them again I wouldn't add the 150ml water suggested in the recipe as it doesn't seem necessary.

• Spicy Malay-style laksa

  • Ro_ on October 03, 2023

    I omitted the prawns. This was a nice laksa, but I think I've made better. The flavours could have been punchier.

• Indonesian-style fried rice

  • Ro_ on September 26, 2023

    The overwhelming taste her was the shrimp paste - I think the stated quantity is too much. It could all have done with a note of sweetness and a note of acid/citrus.

• Thai-style curry rice

  • Ro_ on June 30, 2023

    I liked the flavours of this rice quite a lot, but the texture came out quite gloopy - especially once I had added the egg mixture. Maybe my rice wasn't quite steamed enough then cooled enough before it went into the fridge overnight? Not sure.