No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

  A Fish Maw soup, nutritious and nourishing for the body and only requires 4 main ingredients.  Fish Maw is basically dried fish bladder is rich in collagen which helps to give a smooth complexion and also high in calcium, helps in blood circulation as well.  This Fish Maw soup with mushrooms and beiqi is delicious and versatile and can be served with rice, noodles or one can just enjoy it on its own. Mushroom Beiqi Braised Fish Maw Soup Ingredients 30 gm mushrooms (to soak till soft and discard the stem) 20 gm fried fish maw 10 gm astragalus slices (Beiqi) 300 gm chicken leg, cut into 2 (seasoned with some salt) 6 dried scallops (soaked in water for a few minutes) 4 pips of garlic, sliced 1.25 lt of water Salt to taste Method Saute the sliced garlic till fragrant.  Add in the mushrooms, saute for a while, then add in the astragalus slices, water and let it simmer for half hour.  Add the chicken, dried scallops and let it simmer for another 20 minutes. Meanwhile, blanch the fish maw i

  The batter for these muffins was chilled overnight in the refrigerator as I wanted to experiment with achieving taller muffins.  They were baked in a jiffy and ready for breakfast.  The muffins were soft, moist, crumbly and deliciously infused with some strawberry jam.  Chilled batter jam muffins       Ingredients 286 gm plain flour 80 gm caster sugar 40 gm brown sugar 2 'L'eggs 1/2 tsp salt 1 Tbsp baking powder 1 cup buttermilk (milk + 1 Tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice to make up 1 cup) 113 ml oil 1 tsp vanilla Strawberry jam or other jam as desired Method Sieve and whisk the plain flour, baking powder, salt, caster and brown sugar into a mixing bowl.  Set aside. With a ball whisk, whisk the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla till well combined.  Pour this into the dry ingredients.  Mix till just combined. Cover with cling wrap and chill in the fridge for a few hours or preferably overnight. Next day, divide the batter into the paper lined muffin pan.   With an ice cream sc