Top 3 Recipes of 2018

With 2018 coming to a close, I thought it’d be nice to revisit some of my favourite recipes since I started this food blogging-writing-thing. (Who would’ve thought I’d last this long, eh? 😋)

Also, in the past few months, I’ve gotten many new readers (‘many’ is subjective here; so maybe like, two). So if you’ve only recently stumbled upon the blog (a very belated welcome to you!), allow me to save you time scrolling through the archives in search for a recipe to try, because here are three of the best ones so far! (Again, ‘best’ is subjective.) Now I know how parents feel about picking their favourite child – sure you tell everyone you love them all equally, but deep down you know you have your biases. (Or is that just me..?)

Most popular: Secrets to Crispy Pork Belly Skin.

This recipe was posted waayy before I found my voice on the blog. Back then, I made really traditional Malaysian food like pulut tai-tais, kaya (coconut jam) and shaorous (crispy Cantonese pork belly). While most of them turned out real nice, they weren’t nearly as fun to make or as interesting to read compared to the culture-blending recipes I come up with these day.

But almost two years on and 30+ weird, cross-cultural recipes later, my most popular and most searched for post is still this classic Cantonese crispy pork belly. I guess the classics are just timeless, eh? Technically though, this isn’t even my recipe, because I learnt it from my mom! It’s her secret technique for getting really crispy skin for pork belly, characteristic of the best siuyoks out there. The recipe is near fool-proof, and I even got to post about it on Food52 awhile back! So, if you’re looking for a cult classic, do try it out! But be warned – the article was written during a time when my prose was basic, my photography was bad, and my cooking have yet to become blasphemous.

Most geeky: Chocolate + Water = Magic

Okay this one is just me going full-on nerdy. It’s a post where I explore the magic behind a geeky, Heston Blumenthal-inspired mousse, made with just two ingredients – chocolate and water. I even drew an embarrassing xkcd style 4-panel comic strip to explain how this works! Looking back at it, this really is one of the few times I let my overly geeky self fully take over. 🤓

Most loved: Lotus Paste & Salted Egg Doughnuts

This. This is my real bias. It’s hands down the recipe I’m the proudest of in the past year. To be honest, I didn’t expect much from when drafting out the idea for this in my head. I mean, it’s just a mooncake flavour stuffed into a doughnut, right? But man, by lightening the lotus paste into a more flowy custard, and with the addition of that salty-sweet salted egg yolk sauce, this was BOMB.

So if you’re deciding on a non-conventional recipe to make from the newer posts on the blog, I’d highly suggest you try these out! Sure, they do require a bit of work, as doughnuts often do,but man it is SO. WORTH. IT. So please go make some; you can thank me later.

Anyway, enjoy these articles, and I’ll see you next year!

P.S. Psst, there’ll be major additions to the blog next year, so check back real soon for some exciting news!!!