I save soiled tissues. Don't you?

I usually keep my store bought buns and homemade bread in the fridge. 

I can easily heat them up in my airfryer when we want to eat it. 

Are you aware that you should place a piece of tissue or kitchen towel on the plate in which you will be serving your heated bread, pastries or pizza? If you don't place a piece of tissue or kitchen towel under your heated food, vapours will form on the plate which will make your food soggy. Most of the time, the tissue used is still good enough to be reuse. So, I have been saving them in a plastic container after making sure that all crumbs sticking to it have been removed.  I started this habit after discovering Vinda kitchen towel. The paper is so thick that it is such a waste to discard if it can still be re-use.

When I need to clean my stove after cooking, I will use these tissues instead of a cloth. Though soiled, they are still good for absorbing oils and any drips on the stove. In doing that, I now no longer have to wash my table cloth as often. 

In the long run, that saves me time and water as I can just discard the tissue or kitchen towel once I am done with them. 

You can also consider keeping your used tissue or kitchen towel if you have only used it:

-to wipe your hands dry
-to wipe your mouth
-to dry up containers, pots or pans

It is best to save your soiled tissue or kitchen towel in an airtight container. That will prevent any ants from getting to them if there are still crumbs or residue from food left that you have missed removing.

Here is another good reason for you to save soiled tissue or kitchen towel. It is also handy for wiping off sauce and stains on your table before you wipe it with your table cloth.

I would have had a hard time washing such stains off my table cloth if I had not use a piece of tissue first.

I also re-use soiled tissues to wipe sauces and residues off my plates, containers, pots and pans before I wash them.  

By doing that, I can save the water for rinsing them for other purposes. I will share how I store and re-use such water in my next posting.

Check the Diameter of Your Pots and Pans

Do you know how to measure the diameter of your pots and pans? 

You measure the size at the top, from the inside of the pot or pan, as shown from this product information from Igozo, currently, my favourite cooking utensil brand.

Here are some reasons why you need the mesaurement for the pots or pans you have on hand. 

If you know the size, the next time you buy another pot or pan, you can buy one similar in size to what you already have. That way, the covers can be interchanged and you will not be stuck with a pot or pan without a cover as it has been damaged.

However, if you have a pot that is smaller in width at its base and wider at the top, you should not have any problem using a cover from a pot of smaller diameter as long as the pot you are cooking with is deep enough and the smaller cover is large enough to sit over the food. So, based on how much food I am cooking, I do not have any problem using covers from my 28cm or 30cm pot or pan to cover this 32cm wok that I have.

So, saying, I do not store my pots and pans with the covers they came with. I store them separately on a pot lid organiser.

Do you like to use your pots for steaming food? I do. So, I am always on a look out for heat resistance bowls that I can use on my rack for steaming. It will be easier for you to find bowls in the right size if you know the diameter of your pot. These are some of my favourite glassware to use as they come with covers. I will use the glass covers if I do not want water vapours from the steam dripping into the dishes, which will dilute the sauces in them.

Recently, I bought this two tier tiffin from Igozo. I like it that it is supplied with two stainless steel containers that I can use separately.  I sometimes remove the stainless steel containers and packed food that do not contain sauces in the plastic tiffin carrier.

I discovered that the stainless steel containers fit perfectly on the steaming rack of my 1L mini multi-cooker that I have in my bike shop. So, while boiling water for my coffee in it, I can heat up my leftover home-cooked food to eat on its rack. 

The two stainless steel containers can also be used together for steaming food in the Igozo steam pot that I bought recently. 

With these containers, I can now heat up more dishes while boiling my soup. 

I am sharing all these information because I hope that one day should my children take over my kitchen ware and utensils they will know how to fully utilise them and not think about discarding them if they are still in good condition.  

For example, they may have issue using the tall cover of one of my pots if they are cooking something near a wall mounted hood. They can solve this problem by using a regular flat cover of the same diameter from another pot that I have.

Another note for my children:

Just remember not to heat dishes this way when you are boiling herbal soup or lotus root soup as they can affect the flavour of your dishes.

Love this Pot cum Steamer

I have lots of stainless steel cooking pots in my home. Some were handed down to me and some were received as gifts. I bought one last year that I have been using everyday. That is because my family loves drinking soup everyday and it can also be used as a steamer. I think that it is an energy saving idea to be able to steam dishes in the same pot that you are boiling your soup in. 

Another reason why I bought it is because I think that the supplier is very thoughtful. They supplied the pot with stainless steel bowls and a hot plate gripper that you will need when you are steaming food. Check out the gifts that came with it which makes using it as a steamer easier. And, yes. I received that stainless steel pot with handle too. We often use it to boil instant noodles.

Instead of scalding the soup bones with hot water to clean it, I prefer to place them on a bowl to steam them over the soup. This is because I usually marinate all my soup bones with salt before I freeze them for later use. So the stainless steel bowl that came with the steamer is useful. I will steam the soup bones till it is no longer red. Then I will sieve the liquid in the bowl into the pot of soup and discard the scum. 

I also like to use the bowls to steam a dish like this minced pork dish or boil eggs or heat up cooked rice or leftover dishes.

Are you curious to know why the cover for this pot is so high? Other than a steaming rack, it is also supplied with two extra trays for steaming additional dishes.  This photo will give you an idea of where the extra trays can be placed in order for you to steam additional dishes. 

You can see the slot inside the pot at Level A, where tray 1 can be placed to sit on in this photo.

Tray 1 should be placed in the pot before the water is boiling. You will find this gripper more useful once the water is boiling or when you need to make some adjustment to place the tray to sit properly on the slot. It is also easier to use it to remove the tray from the pot while it is still hot.

Tray 2 can be placed on top of the steaming rack but if you do not have extra item to steam in it, you  don't have to use it. I often place Tray 2 on top of the pot itself, if I only have two dishes to steam or heat up.  Due to its tall cover, you should not have any problem steaming anything on top of tray 2.

However, you may have issue using the tall cover if you are cooking something near a wall mounted hood, like the one I have in my kitchen. I solved this problem by using a cover of the same diameter from another pot that I have.

You can check out some of the soups I made with this pot cum steamer at the following link:

Convert Your Vegetable Dish Into A Soup

Yes, I do hope to win something from Igozo for sharing about this pot cum steamer that I bought from them last year. Wish me luck @iGOZO #igozocookandwin

Update:

Check out what I won from iGOZO for this post.

iGOZO BEAUTE STAINLESS STEEL MIXING BOWL (18/20/22/24/26/28/30CM)

Roast your pork to boil soup

I usually remove the pork ribs from my soup to create another dish.  Learn from Chef John that you can make your soup more aromatic if you roast the pork ribs first. Check out the second dish he cooked with the pork ribs.

I usually mix a few table spoons of water with sugar (or honey), garlic oil, soya sauce (or oyster sauce) to flavour my pork ribs. The sauce will thicken once the liquid is reduced.

We love eating eggs

We love eating eggs. Other than eating it sunny side up or hard or half boiled, we also like eating it scrambled.  This is a recipe that I picked up from your Aunty Janice

There is a story behind why I use garlic oil in my cooking. I always have on my kitchen counter a pot of minced garlic which I have cooked with about two cups of oil till it is golden brown. If you have children at home who do not like to bite into garlic in their food, you can use garlic oil to marinate your food or as cooking oil to infuse its flavour in your dishes.

Since my daughter don’t like eating onion, I usually scoop the fried onion slices out of the frying pan before I add the scrambled eggs in the pan to fry. Then I pour the onion back on a portion of the eggs to fry. So one side of my scrambled egg with onion dish does not have onion in it.

I always fry scrambled eggs in my Korean double sided pan so that I can easily flip it over to fry the other side. If one side is not golden brown enough for me, I will flip the pan over to fry again. It saves me the hassle of using a spatula to check for doneness and to flip the egg over, which can break up its neat shape.

This is the kind of scrambled eggs my son enjoys eating. With sliced tomatoes in it. I found the way it is cooked in this video interesting. 

You can refer to this cooking chart I prepared if you do not understand Mandarin.

This is another version I found on Wok of Life.

Other than fresh produce, we can also cook scrambled eggs with preserved vegetable like preserved radish. Preserved radish can be purchased whole or minced up, sweet or salty. I prefer to use the minced up salty version. As it is salty, it is best to soak it in water for a while to reduce its saltiness. I will cook it the same way I cook my scrambled eggs with onion by replacing onion with salty preserved radish.

You can also see how it is cooked in this video.

We can also steam our scrambled eggs.  I have not steamed eggs with salted eggs and century eggs in a while.  Found this video from Ruyi Asian Recipes.

It is interesting to discover that it can also be steamed with Chicken Essence.

Here is a East Meets West scrambled eggs recipe that I would like to try.  I found it at All Recipes. 

Here is another version from Everyday Gourmet with yoghurt added.

Fried Toast Sandwich

Do you know that sandwiches can be deepfried?  See how it is made in Korea.  It is a popular street food that you can find at traditional markets there.

These are the ingredients and steps to make nine sandwiches.

Can pick up some tricks on how to make the work easier if you watch how it is made at a stall in high quantity.

Don't Throw Away The Fat

When I was younger my mother used to buy pork fat without any meat on it. This she cut into cubes and fried in a wok till the lard dripped off it and the fat became crunchy bits. If you visit a hawker stall selling noodles and they taste better compared to others, it is likely that there is lard drizzled over it or in the soup. Some stalls will even serve their noodles with the fried crunchy bits and if you are a regular customer, they may even add more of it on your request.

If you would like your noodles or dishes cooked with lard, this is how you can render it from the fat. 

This is how I get my dose of lard every week. Every Saturday, we will buy a packet of Siew Yok or roasted pork from the wet market. To heat it up to eat, I air fry it in a metal container with garlic oil and sugar.  I always have a packet of instant noddles at home and I will use the lard left in the container to make Kon Loh Mee or dry-tossed noodles. These are the ingredients I add to the lard to toss with my noodles:

-garlic oil  
-soya sauce and/or oyster sauce
-sugar
-sasame oil

For those of you who eat bacon for breakfast or use it in your dishes, here is a way you can save the lard you cooked off it.

My family used to enjoy watching "How It's Made" when we subscribed to Astro. This is how bacon is made.