Category Archives: Recipes

Chris Cooks… Steaks and Risotto

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Wow it’s been over three months since last time I share my recipe on preparing steamed eggwhites, today I’m assigned to prepare another dish as my mom’s not at home for dinner tonight.

This time I would like to cook something I’m easy at – Steaks, with something I really wanted to cook again for a long time – Risotto. I’ve only tried once preparing risottos during my time in Australia, thanks to Jamie Oliver’s iPhone app, it helps to remind myself the basics of risottos and therefore is no problem to me anymore.

Steaks and Risotto.

View photo gallery at Facebook

Today’s recipe’s divided into 2 parts, the first is being the risotto, and the second’s for the steak. Before anything starts, here’s the shopping list for you:

Serves 4

  • 4 pieces of thin-cut sirloin steaks (means 1 piece per-person)
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • A small portion of Parmesan cheese (no need to be too much)
  • 2 cubes of butter (salted or not whatever)
  • 2 cloves of celery, diced
  • 1 box of mushrooms, finely sliced (supermarkets must have sorted mushrooms pre-packed as a box)
  • 3 cups of rice (Short-grain or medium grain, just not to be a long-grain)
  • Possibly 1 tablespoon of White Wine
  • 750ml (about 3 bowls) of Veggie Stock or Chicken Stock
  • Salt, Pepper and olive oil

Preparing Risotto

Get the pot up, put the Stock in and let it to boil. While that’s heating up, dice the celery and onion into 1 x 1 cm squares, and the mushrooms can be finely sliced. At the time the stock boils, turn off the heat and pour the stock into another bowl or container or something else to let go of it aside, because I’ll need to use that pot to cook the risotto itself.


Dicing up the celery.

Stir, Stir and Stir.

Drip a few drops of olive oil into the pot, turn on the heat (to low level). As the pot should be hot already, you can chute the celery and onion in and stir-fry them to cook. Stir the mixture regularly to avoid burning.

Now you can get the rice out and wash it, washing rice is so basic so I’ll not cover about this here, however remember not to rinse to much otherwise you’ll wash the rice taste out!

Then chute the rice and mushroom into the pot’s mixture and keep stirring – once rice’s added, it’s more easily to burn.

Stir for about 3-4 minutes, taste the mixture to check whether the rice is thoroughly cooked or not. If that’s not yet, keep stirring. Once done you can then start to add the stock in, a small portion each time. You can decide how much you like to add to adjust the risotto’s flavour. Then is the white wine, what I did is roughly dripped some into the rice.

Keep stirring and taste it…

Once you feel almost done – looks and tastes like soft and creamy, you can turn off the heat at this time. Add a pinch of salt and pepper to slight season the risotto, and get the cheese ready – grated it finely straight into the mixture. Add those butter in as well and again keep stirring.

When the butter melted into the rice, your risotto is ready!

Preparing Steak

Preparing Steaks.

Steak is much simple to cook, just follow this easy 10 steps:

  1. Preheat your pan and drip some olive oil in.
  2. Once the pan’s hot enough, just lay your steaks in.
  3. Let the steaks fry for about 2 minutes.
  4. “Wobble” the pan to let the steaks turn a bit (but not to flip them!)
  5. Season the steak with some salt and pepper (no need to be too much)
  6. Now flip over the steaks (use tongs please).
  7. Again let them fry for another 2 minutes and wobble.
  8. Slightly season the steaks again.
  9. Flip over again and fry a bit more (no more then 1 minute) and turn off the heat.
  10. That’s it!

Now everything’s ready and just put them altogether, enjoy!

Steamed Eggwhite Fantasia!

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Immediately after last week’s Frittatas, I have started to plan for this week’s cookery. It was just so quick when I’ve came across the idea of making something about eggs, steamed but tastes like if the eggs are boiled. I was planning the recipe on the day when I’m having Frittatas at work, and heard about my partner’s idea to put some broccoli. This is it, the idea started t0 shape up in my brain: A layered steamed egg, with mostly egg whites!

I think that’s hard to imagine what the dish will be at last, so you can just think about eating boiled eggs with a twist:

Ingredients checklist to make one serving:

  • About 4 eggs, in which to extract their egg-whites, and keep only ONE egg yolk.
  • 1 piece of bacon (I prefer to choose one with less fat)
  • 1 small portion of Cauliflower
  • A pinch of salt
  • 1/4 portion of tomato
  • A piece of  chive (for garnish)
  • Just a little bit of olive oil

Prepare the following equipments:

  • A wok or a “pot” that will fit some water, your glass cup and a riser in.
  • A glass you prefer (preferably one that can see-through)
  • A metal riser (to be sit in the wok for steaming)
  • A pan
  • Chopping board
  • A few bowls.
  • A timer

Click here to check out the photo gallery.

With every thing’s ready, we would begin to spark the fantasia by the eggs first. You will gonna need only ONE egg yolk, while keeping all the egg-whites. To do so, beat the eggs slightly to create a small hole on top, and tilt the egg slightly to “pour” the egg white out, hold the egg yolk up until all the whites are out, then you’re free to let go the yolk as well (to another bowl, actually I would prefer to sit the yolk in a tablespoon, which will make things better go later).

Keep doing the same for all other eggs, and let them sit for later use.

Now turn to the tomato and cauliflower. It’s simple as you only need to do one thing to them – chop it, as fine as possible. Once done, sit them in another bowl for later use. Then do the same to the bacon, cut it roughly into about 1cm x 1cm pieces.

When the bacon is ready, heat up the frying pan with olive oil, and chuck the bacon in to stir-fry it until it’s golden brown. Turn of the heat and leave it there for later use (again).

It’s time now to make the real thing, fill some water into the wok, get the riser in and start the heat until the water is boiling. Get your glass up and fill about 1.5 cm of egg-whites in, it’s a bit hard when you use a spoon to scoop the egg white, I found that it’s easier to get the egg white if you pour it.

When the water in the wok starts to boil, and your glass of egg white is ready, just put the glass in, close the wok-lid and let it steam for about 5 minutes. (Set the timer now man!)

5 minutes later, turn off the heat and open the lid (beware of the steam, it’s hot!!), carefully get the glass out (with a cloth as the glass is also extremely hot!). Now the egg white should be really in white colour (otherwise put back to steam for another 2 minutes). Scoop all the bacon in(sans the excess oil, you’d not like so much fat, right?), just on top that cooked egg white. Then pour another 1.5 cm layer of raw egg white into the glass, turn the heat on and put the glass back to steam for 8 minutes.

The whole process thereafter is same, do the same thing again and again for the remaining tomato, cauliflower and the rest of egg whites, with some salt added. So the layer break-down should be like this (from bottom to top):

  1. Egg White
  2. Bacon
  3. Egg White
  4. Tomato
  5. Egg White
  6. Cauliflower
  7. Egg White

If at any stage you found the egg white has not turned opaque yet, just put back to steam for 2 minutes or more, until it’s turned white colour (this is important, you must make sure the egg is cooked every stage otherwise you’ll have food poisoning fantasia when you eat!!)

Okay back to the track, when the rest is cooked, you are then ready to put the egg yolk in. Your egg yolk should be ready in a table spoon, and all you need to do is hold-up that spoon, and slightly “slide” that egg yolk into the glass, right on top of the last layer of egg white. Steam for 10 minutes.

After that, the egg yolk should look cooked (remember if you don’t feel like the thing is cooked through, just chuck it back to steam for longer, and keep checking it). Then you can put chives on for garnish and steam one more time for 1 minute.

Lastly you can get the thing out of the steaming wok and just let it cool down a bit. You’re then ready to enjoy this fantasia!

My Frittata Feast

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My Fritata Feast

Click to check out my photos of the cooking process!

Weeks ago, SBUX has introduced Frittata as a new lunch option, along with the launch of “My SBUX lunch” promotion. This has immediately recall my memory of my Aussie study time, which when I first learnt about Frittatas and how to make it. I came across on making Frittatas because I had to study cookery during my uni time. Frittatas have become my favourite food and I had keep making it at Australia and when I first back to Hong Kong. As such this has lighten up in my mind to make this delicious Italian feast again today, for my family and my partners at work.

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