Musings of a Traveling Chef

If you have a bunch of dried shiitake mushrooms in your pantry and wonder what to use it for, try this chicken soup that is perfect for cold, winter weather or even if you're just sick at bed with a cold and flu.  The recipe is based from suggestions of Chinese friends.  Here's to chronicling my two attempts of fixing a simple Chicken and Mushroom Soup from scratch. Chicken and Mushroom Soup Ingredients: 200g chicken breast, cubed in 1.5cm several thin slices of ginger several slices of green onion (white stalk portion only) dried shiitake mushroom, sliced in quarters 1 tsp light soy sauce salt pepper

One of the most loved dishes by foreigners is the Sichuan Spicy Chicken or La Zi Ji.  A typical dish would have either chicken cubes with bones or boneless.  The difference between the two is the flavor as the one with bones will taste much better than pure chicken meat.  However, even though it's flavorful, it's more difficult to appreciate if you have to remove the bones once in awhile while eating it. Every time I travel to a new place, I plan to add learning how to cook their dishes in my agenda.  So, in Beijing, I learned how to cook this dish from Hutong Cuisine.  It was quite a learning experience for a non-chef like me.  The teaching method was perfect for newbies and in the end, I can't believe that I was able to prepare such dish by myself. Sichuan Spicy Chicken "Laziji" Ingredients: 150g Chicken Breast fillet 1 clove garlic Ginger, same amount as garlic 1 strand of Spring Onion (white portion only) A handful of dry chillies 2 tsp Si

To all my readers.. this traveling chef welcomes you to her experiences as a budding chef.  This will chronicle my travels, restaurants, baked goodies, new things I've learned related to baking, studies and anything to do with food. I started this blog to write down these ideas I have in my head that sometimes make me lose sleep.  I will share with you recipes I've tried, tested or will test and my "aha!" moments.  I'm not a culinary graduate but a budding baker.  I would rate my cooking skills as slowly getting there while my baking as almost there.  I prefer baking breads than cakes as I suck in decorating.  You will see it in my photos in my future posts.  So this is just a warning.  However, I'm hoping as I continue to write on this blog, my culinary skills, food knowledge and photography skills will grow.  Cheers and let's go! C.