the little kitchen of yotsuba & clan

Last night, I made hóng zāo chicken mee sua (红糟鸡面线), a dish I grew up with. But since it's for a birthday, I added an egg as per Fuzhounese tradition. Been wanting to make this dish for a long while, especially following the reflections I had on some family history and heritage last year; a rare occasion when I wrote about something family-related without the baggage . In Singapore, this dish is more widely known as a postpartum confinement dish of Hokkien origins. But to the Fuzhounese (Hokchew), it is a traditional Fuzhounese dish. For this dish, the key ingredients are the hóng zāo (red yeast rice lees) and the hóng zāo wine (red yeast rice wine, called qinghong in Fuzhou), both of which are specialities of Minhou county in eastern Fujian, where my paternal ancestors were from. In Singapore, the hóng zāo wine isn't as readily available (at least, up until recently), so it is usually substituted with Shaoxing wine. But recently, I came across 2 local brands that brew...

Last night, I made prawn stock from scratch, referring to the recipe by Nomadette (IG @nomadetteats ). May have made the mistake of (s)mashing the prawn heads too early, and I only had garlic, shallots and bay leaves on hand. But it turned out okay; briny, savoury, sweet with a punchy prawn aroma that lingered at the end. Home made prawn stock The thing nobody really tells you about making prawn stock from scratch is how it can stain things bright orange and the smell of prawn stock sticks to everything (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞ Anyway, I ended up with about 1L of prawn stock, and froze it all in ice cubes, which makes it easy to store and portion. I'm mostly cooking for myself or for Hubby and myself, so storing it this way helps. So most recipe authors will say it can be kept for up to 1 month. But I found that if I keep things like these constantly frozen at -18oC, it's usually still safe to consume up to 3 months or maybe even 6 depending, so long as it remains constantly frozen and is re...

Threw together this nanchatte sui-gyoza (なんちゃって水餃子) soup for a quick Friday night dinner. Nanchatte なんちゃって sui-gyoza 水餃子 literally means mock/faux boiled dumplings. They're not actually boiled dumplings, just bite-sized pieces of the filling and the wrappers boiled up in soup. They're supposed to be like dumplings that broke apart while cooking in the soup. The inspiration for this was Takeru's campfire nanchatte sui-gyoza in the anime Sozai Saishuka . But they look nothing alike... ( ˆ𐃷ˆ ) Takeru's nanchatte sui-gyoza , episode 9, Sozai Saishuka no Isekai Ryokouki . The recipe I used was the gyoza recipe by RecipeTin Eats . The filling was beef mince, cabbage and chives, as per the recipe, but I added chopped water chestnuts. Just 2 water chestnuts, but in hindsight, I should've left them out. The soup base is  shirodashi (50ml Ninben Shirodashi to 700ml water) with Chinese cabbage, seasoned with a little salt, sugar and ground white pepper, and a splas...

It's the last day of Chinese New Year, which we call  Chap Goh Mei (Hokkien for "fifteenth night") or Yuanxiao Festival (元宵节) in Singapore and Malaysia. Being another day for reunions, it is customary to eat tangyuan , aka kueh ee , as their roundness symbolises unity, togetherness and completeness. Tangyuan (汤圆) is the name southern Chinese use, while yuanxiao  (元宵) is the name northern Chinese use. In English, we just call them glutinous rice balls or sticky rice balls regardless of how they're made or what their fillings are. And in Singapore, we call them tangyuan, as the majority of Chinese Singaporeans descend from southern Chinese settlers. Today, it's just Hubby and me. We're introverts, so all the festive gatherings and partying really wear us down. So it's really awesome to be enjoying a quiet, peaceful night. The warming ginger and rock sugar tong shui  and the chewy peanut-filled tangyuan was comforting. Peanut tangyuan, ginger tong sui , Ter...

Hubby's colleague gifted him a panettone for Christmas. As much as we appreciated the gesture and accepted the gift with gratitude, I was eyeballing the huge panettone wondering what to do with it. Because nobody in either side of our family eats it, even at our annual family Christmas luncheons. It's not quite like fruitcake, which they do eat. So I found out online that I can use it to make French toast. Just without added sugar. I used the panettone French toast recipe by David Leibovitz and looked at the tips in the recipe by Vintage Kitchen Notes (1 inch thick slices, quick soak 15-20 seconds). Leftover panettone French toast ( Originally posted on the little world of yotsuba & clan on 14 January 2026. )

After many years, my husband and I have finally moved into a place that is solely our own, where I have carte blanche.... To think the first meal I'd cook in our new kitchen would be leftover Christmas turkey porridge. The leftover Christmas turkey porridge is an annual Boxing Day family tradition of my MIL's side of the family. After the annual Christmas family lunch, they'd make turkey porridge with the leftover turkey, using the turkey carcass to make the stock and then using the stock to make porridge with jasmine rice, leftover turkey meat and a little ginger. Leftover Christmas turkey porridge I didn't have the turkey carcass because my MIL had first dibs. But I managed to take home the drumsticks and wings. So I used those and liquid chicken stock to make the stock. In a slight deviation from my MIL's recipe, I added some corn. She'd scream blue murder and lecture me about not doing it the "right way" (which mostly just means her way). But ho...