Sweet and Sour Pork

One of the popular dishes in the Chinese cuisine is the Sweet and Sour Pork. Chicken can be a good substitute. It is not difficult to cook this dish at home. Here's a very basic recipe from Amy Beh's recipe collection.

Ingredients
500g belly pork meat, cubedMarinade (A):
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp Chinese five spice powder (ng heong fan)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/4 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp oil
1 onion, quartered
1/2 ripe tomato, quartered
1/2 a red capsicum, cut into wedges
100g cucumber, cut into wedges with the center soft centre portion removed

Sauce Ingredients (combined):
3 tbsp tomato sauce
1 1/4 tsp sugar or to taste
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
Dash of pepper
250ml water
1/2 tsp chicken stock granules
3/4 tbsp corn flourEnough oil for deep-frying.

Method
Marinate pork cubes with the marinade for several hours or preferably overnight. Dip the marinated pork in the beaten egg and toss in plain flour, then deep-fry until golden brown. Remove and drain from oil.

Heat wok with two tbsp oil in a wok, fry onion briskly for half a minute and add in combined sauce ingredients. When the sauce begins to boil, add in pork, capsicum, tomato, onion and cucumber.

Stir well to mix. Dish out and serve immediately.

Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies

A friend used to bake very lovely oatmeal cookies. Oatmeal cookies are a classic favorite with that extra bite. For that something extra, raisins can be added to give that extra fruity taste.

Here's an oatmeal and raisin cookies recipe from Sunmaid that you might want to give it a try.















I N G R E D I E N T S
- 3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups quick or old fashioned oats
- 1 cup Sun-Maid Natural Raisins
- 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, optional

D I R E C T I O N S
- HEAT oven to 350 degrees F.
- BEAT butter, sugars, milk, egg, and vanilla in a large bowl until light and fluffy.
- COMBINE flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. Gradually add to butter mixture; mix well.
- STIR in oats, raisins, and walnuts.
- DROP dough by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
- BAKE 12 to 15 minutes.
- Remove from cookie sheets and cool completely.

Healthy French Fries

We all know that too much fat is bad for health. French fries is one popular snack but they do come with a lot of fat or oil being deep-fried and there is also a tad too much of salt. But have you heard that french fries can be healthy too? Here you can read about healthy french fries.

Thanksgiving Turkey Recipes

Perhaps this Thanksgiving, you may want to try a new way of cooking your turkey. Recipezaar has lots of Thanksgiving turkey recipes for you to try out. Who knows you may come up with something all your own from the ideas from the recipes.

Sun Maid Recipes

Anyone who loves cooking and baking would welcome new recipes and new ways to come up with interesting and nice food.

Here are more recipes for your collection and for you to experiment with. If you are located in the US or Canada, you can even request for a free recipe booklet.

Happy cooking!

Hakka Recipes

If you have Hakka friends and have been invited to savour their family Hakka dishes and has been dying to get a hold of the recipes, well despair no more as I've got the recipes just for you.

A passionate cook in Kuala Lumpur has all these Hakka food recipes and more and I mean much more! Stumbled upon them at HappySurfer's blog.

Little Guy Big Kitchen as his blog is called has loads and loads of recipes from salads to cakes to local Malaysian dishes to fusion food, all meticulously categorised. The sites on his blogroll are also worth checking out. The site is easy to navigate and is filled with mouth-watering pictures. Cooks and food-lovers will love this site.

Pineapple Tarts

Were you looking for recipes for Pineapple Tarts? Well, what do you know! A search on Recipe Zaar brought forth six pineapple tart recipes. You can give them all a try or pick one that you think will yield you the best pineapple tarts. Happy baking.

Create Your Very Own Cookbook

Most of us have our recipes in a physical recipe book. With the Internet being so readily available, having our recipes filed in an online recipe seems like a logical next step. But how do we go about it? Some of us set up blogs.

Would you like to have an online Cookbook? Yes, your very own Cookbook where you can file in recipes you come across online. Recipezaar has such a Cook book. Why not sign up for it and make collecting and referring to recipes much easier.

A Tomato Dish

Here's an easy tomato dish - a salad, a side dish or an appetizer. Your choice.

Caprese Tomato Salad
by Zola
www.dinnerwithzola.com/recipes

Serves 4

4 ripe medium-sized tomatoes (You choose your favorite type. For presentation, you probably want round ones as opposed to Roma or pear shaped.)
4 balls of fresh buffalo mozzarella
Italian dressing (You choose your favorite. Homemade or commercial.)
Basil for garnish
Salt and pepper to taste

The amounts of ingredients for this recipe are approximate. Amounts depend on how large the tomatoes, how big the mozzarella, and how much dressing you want.

All you have to do is slice the tomatoes into one-third-inch slices. Same with the mozzarella balls. (You can save the ends of both for something else.) Place the slices on the plate by alternating the tomatoes with the mozzarella: red, white, red, white.

Now drizzle on dressing. A couple of tablespoons per person usually does it, but it's up to you. You can leave this to marinate for up to an hour or you can proceed to the chiffonade (below) right away.

When you're ready to serve, take the basil leaves and remove them from the stem. Stack the leaves on top of each other. You're going to make what's called a chiffonade. Stacking the basil leaves just makes it easier. Slice the basil on a diagonal, very thinly. You'll have basil "ribbons" or a chiffonade. Sprinkle them on your tomatoes and mozzarella. Sprinkle on salt and pepper to taste and you're ready to go.

This makes a quick light appetizer that's pretty in the summer. Or it can be a side salad or even an Italian side dish to go great with grilled summer foods.

How to Pair Food and Wine

Are you planning a dinner party but not sure what wine goes with what food?

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According to Arcamax, with a basic understanding of wine and food combinations and some creativity of your own, you won't go wrong.

The first thing to remember is that there really are no strict rules for pairing a particular wine with a type of food. If something tastes good, go with it -- and enjoy.

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Arcamax offers a few pointers to get you started:

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1. Try to match a wine's sweetness, flavor, acidity, etc., with that of the food you are pairing it with as your wine is meant to complement the taste of the dish, not overpower it.

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2. It is not a strict rule to match the color of the wine with the color of the meat.

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3. We have often heard to serve red wine at room temperature. In actual fact, red wines should be server slightly below room temperature (65° - 60°) with the exception being light bodied red wines. These benifit from being chilled slightly. White wines can be served chilled (55° - 60°) but not cold; this is to be left for Champagnes and sparkling wines.

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4. Try matching a wine with foods from the same region, for example, choose an Italian wine to go with an Italian dish.

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The above tips should give you some confidence to making your own combinations but before you do, you may want to check out the recommended food and wine combinations from Arcamax.