Quay Po Cooks: coleslaw

Showing posts with label coleslaw. Show all posts

Monday, October 22, 2012

Honey, I am home! Where is my dinner?

Tips for working couples

I came across this article in The Wall Street Journal titled “Putting the Honey Back in 'Honey, I'm Home'”.

If you and your partner are a working couple, I am sure you can relate to this article. I could, because yours truly has been there, and done that.

It is a drag to have to cook when you've just returned home after a hard day's work, isn’t it? If you are like me and do not think that char kway teow, KFC, or pizza are a good answer and do not want to nag your partner into pulling his/her share of the work, I have a suggestion. How about making a big batch of pulled pork during the weekends? Divide the pork into meal sized portions, and store in properly sealed containers and put them in the freezer. Before you leave for work, just take one container out of the freezer and put it into the fridge. By the time you return from work, it is ready to warm up on the stove top and whip up a delicious meal. All you have to do is to mix the pulled pork with your favorite BBQ sauce and heat it on the stove to make pulled pork sandwiches. If you wish to do a little more work, you can serve them with corn on the cob, fried or roasted potato wedges and coleslaw. You might even add some butter sauteed green capsicum to the pulled pork. That will make a perfect meal but if you are too tired, don't even bother. Eat the pork with some fresh tossed greens or some quick stir fried spinach will be fine too.

P.S. I have a lot of recipes and tips for working couples and am thinking about featuring these under a title of "Tips for working couples.

Pulled Pork Burger

Please click on the picture to get the recipe for pulled pork

How to prepare corn on the cob:

This is featured on the Asian Food Channel (Official) Facebook page

on 25th October 2012

Hust the corn, pull off the silky threads. Drop the corn into a large pot filled with boiling salted water. Cover the pot and bring water to a boil again. Turn off the heat and keep the pot covered. After about 5 minutes, serve with lots of butter and salt.

How to make coleslaw:

Ingredients:

1 medium cabbage

2 carrots, peeled and shredded

½ cup mayonnaise

1 Tbsp sour cream or buttermilk

1 cider vinegar

1 tbsp sugar, or to taste

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Method:

Remove any wilted outer leaves from the cabbage. Quarter the cabbage, cut out its core, then shred them. In a large bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, vinegar, sour cream or buttermilk, sugar. Add the shredded cabbage and carrots. Mix well until the vegetables are uniformly coated with the dressing.

Season to taste with salt and white pepper. The sweetness and tartness can be adjusted to your taste with more sugar and vinegar. If you prefer more creamy dressing, add more sour cream. Refrigerate for at least an hour, up to four hours, before serving.

In a large stainless steel or glass bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, vinegar, sour cream or buttermilk, the optional mustard or horseradish, and the sugar and celery salt.

Add the shredded cabbage, carrots and onion. Mix well until the vegetables are uniformly coated with the dressing.

Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Adjust the flavoring with more vinegar if it's too sweet or more sugar if it's too tart. You can also adjust the creaminess with more sour cream or buttermilk if you like.

Refrigerate for at least an hour, up to four hours, before serving.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Stuffed Japanese cucumber (kyuri) with spicy coleslaw

Today I found 2 Japanese cucumber in the fridge and a head of cabbage. This is something I made up just for fun:D I like the crunchiness of the cucumber. The roasted walnut and the tiny slice of strawberry compliment the slightly spicy mayonnaise dressing. This makes an impressive and delicious appetizer, don't you think?

Ingredients:

2 Japanese cucumbers (kyuri)

1 cup of shredded cabbage

2 tb mayonnaise

1 tb extra virgin olive oil

¼ ts paprika

¼ ts salt

½ ts ground black pepper

1 tb maple syrup

3 to 4 walnuts

2 strawberries thinly sliced and half

Method:

Lightly toast the walnut and glazed with maple syrup and quarter each walnut and set aside. Prepare the dressing with mayonnaise, extra virgin olive oil, paprika, salt and ground black pepper. Add shredded cabbage and mix well. Cut Japanese cucumber in about 1 ½ inch long per piece and remove the seeds and make a recess in the center to be filled with coleslaw. Top it with a piece of walnut and strawberry. Leave in the fridge for 1 hr before serving.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.