Fulfilling indeed is Food Blogging. For those of us who love to cook and blog, it is indeed a fulfilling hobby and I have been enjoying this “double-treat” hobby for the past 1 1/2 years. Of late, this hobby has also been paying off financially in the form of advertisements which appear on this blog. The monthly income from this blog is more than sufficient for me to pay for one whole year’s hosting and blog-related fees (and also subscription to internet broadband at home).

What I have discovered is that apart from the recipes or text in each post, food photography plays an important part in the success of the food blog. Hence, I have been hard at work trying to improve on my food photography lately. If you have a food blog, pay as much attention to your food photography as to your blog contents. As they say, a new reader might fall in love with your blog at first sight!

Going back to advertisements - you will notice that I have this longish vertical advertisement on the sidebar from Foodbuzz. I am honoured to be a Featured Publisher of Foodbuzz as that entitles me to special privileges and earnings from their advertisement network. I am not allowed to reveal the terms of payment by reason of the confidentiality agreement but suffice to say, it is one of the best advertising programmes out there in terms of payout. To sign up, you will need to complete a survey (which I also did) and await their approval. Only food bloggers qualify. If you are a food blogger and have not joined Foodbuzz, you are missing out a lot!

As for me, I think I am really going to enjoy the following months of food blogging and I hope you will enjoy this asian recipe blog too

It’s time for another comfort soup and this time, I am featuring the Chinese White Radish Soup. The chinese white radish is also known as white radish (surprise!) or amongst the Japanese as the Daikon Radish. It basically looks like a white carrot which is oversized. It is quite a versatile vegetable as you can use it to make lo bak kou (turnip cake), stirfried, pickled or cooked in soups like the above. I am given to understand that amongst the chinese who practice or partake in traditional herbal medicine, the white radish is a no-no in the diet of the patient during treatment as it supposedly absorbs all the medicinal values. Anyone knows about this?

Anyway, the Chinese White Radish Soup is a simple recipe which is suitable even for beginners. Just prepare the ingredients, drop them into a crockpot / slow cooker / double-boiler or pot and simmer it. A good tasting healthy soup awaits you when it is done. I usually add dried cuttlefish and dried oysters for added taste and flavour but that is optional. Give this soup a try. It’s delicious.

This is my recipe for Chinese White Radish Soup Read the rest of this entry »

Satay, grilled skewered pieces of meat, was not supposed to be the highlight of that day. Rather, Portuguese Grilled Fish in downtown Chinatown / Petaling Street in Kuala Lumpur. It was the 15th May, 2008 and I finally got to me Bee Yinn of Rasa Malaysia after knowing and reading her blog for well over a year. As we were a little bit early that day, we decided to stop by at Zainal’s Satay which is located along the road leading to Petaling Street. If you are coming in into Petaling Street from the traffic light junction of KotaRaya, you will see Zainal’s Satay on the right hand side of the road. This was my first time eating Zainal’s Satay though I pass by this place almost daily.

As we were still intending to dig into the Portuguese Grilled Fish in a short while, we decided to place an order for 10 sticks of chicken satay (which costs RM0.60 each). I was used to eating Nyok Lan Satay (also known as Restoran Malaysia) in Kajang and would deem that the best so far but Zainal’s Satay is not too bad either. The satays were well marinated and comes slightly sweetish with a hint of tumeric (which also gives it a nice yellow tint). Thankfully, Zainal does not overly grill the satays till they become carbonised meat sticks. A little bit of carbon here and there is still acceptable Read the rest of this entry »

Dragon Fruit, also known as Pittaya, is commonly found in South East Asia especially Vietnam and Malaysia. This nutrition-packed fruit is believed to be native to south Mexico but has found itself to be a firm favourite over here in Malaysia. There is the white flesh variety and the other being the red flesh variety. Both come with tiny edible seeds not unlike kiwi fruit seeds. The dragon fruit is actually the fruit from a cactus plant and it has a bright red skin which can be peeled easily. I have previously written a post to document my visit to a dragon fruit farm (with pictures to boot!) and you might want to read that to know more about this fruit.

The dragon fruit is best eaten chilled but do take care with your clothing because the red coloured dye drips easily due to its juiciness. With its beautiful looks, it is no wonder that the dragon fruit is also used extensively to decorate cakes and in this instance, to add colour and taste to jelly (agar-agar). You don’t have to use a lot of dragon fruit to make one recipe of dragon fruit jelly. Nice to impress, easy to make.

This is my wife’s recipe for Dragon Fruit Jelly Read the rest of this entry »