Strictly speaking, this soup should belong to dessert, since it’s a sweet soup not a savory soup.
Main ingredients are white fungus (soak in the water first till completely softened and remove the yellow bottom), red dates (remove the core), barley (wash clean), lotus seeds (remove the green sprouts in the middle if there is any to avoid bitter taste) and wolf berries.
Put all ingredients in a pot. Here I used a rice cooker. Add in enough water.
Also add in several sugar cubes according to your preference.
I chose “soup” function on the rice cooker. And it cooked for approximately 3 hours. If you use normal pot on stove. You can bring to boil with high heat first, then simmer with low heat for 1.5 hours.
Soup is nice. Because it contains red dates and white fungus, it is also called beauty soup.
1. Prepare a Saba fish fillet. Cut into halves. And make a cut on the skin side.
2. Boil some water. Add fish fillet in. Once fish turns white, take them out. Soak in cold water and wash them clean.
3. Heat a pan. Add in 1 cup water, 1/4 cup cooking wine, 1/4 cup mirin, 1 tablespoon sugar. Bring to boil. Dissolve in 1 tablespoon miso. Put fish in. Also add in a little ginger slices. Simmer for 5 mins.
4. Add in green pepper. Simmer for 2 mins. And take the pepper out.
5. Dissolve in another tablespoon miso. Turn up the heat and reduce sauce for a little while.
6. Take the fish out into the plate. Pour the sauce over fillet. Serve with green pepper and green onion shreds.
My husband only like two parts of duck: leg and breast. Just a simple pan seared duck breast with sauce will make him very happy. Don’t forget he is the guy who can never forget about teriyaki chicken.
I also added pan fried potato as side to this dish.
Prepare a potato. Peel it and cut it into medium thick chunks. Boil some water in a pot. Add potato chunks in and boil for about 10 mins. Or just till potato turns almost cooked and becomes a little soft. Drain them and set a side.
Season duck breast with salt and black pepper. Cut cross on duck skin with a knife several times just to prevent curling during frying.
Heat a pan. No need to add any oil since duck contains much fat. Skin side down. Sear with low heat till golden brown.
Then flip over to sear the other side. Flip again when it turns brown in color. Sear the skin side till it becomes hard and crispy. Set it aside.
You can use the same pan to fry potatoes. Or if you think duck oil is not healthy, you can use another pan. Fry potatoes till golden brown.
For the sauce. In a sauce pan, add in 2 tsp light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sugar, 2 tsp fresh lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon water. Simmer to reduce.
Cut duck breast into slices. Arrange them and potatoes in a plate. Pour sauce over the duck
Dog Conch has a very cute name Gong Gong here in Singapore. My husband told me he never tried gong gong before. We were planning to give it a try when we went to Bintan. Yet, we changed our mind to try local Indonesian food instead.
Today, we saw live gong gong at supermarket. We were very curious about them. it was also the first time for my husband to see live gong gong. And we decided to buy some and cook at home.
We bought 10 gong gong, around 500 g @ S$1.5, very cheap.
I put them in a basin. and soaked them in salty water. After 30 mins, they spitted much dirt. I rinsed them again and again till water is clear.
Boil some water in a pot. Add in several ginger slices and salt.
When water boils, add gong gong in. And boil for 20 mins.
Rinse them under water and wash them clean.
Place gong gong in a plate. Spread some chopped spring onion, ginger and garlic.
Heat a pan. Add in 2 tablespoon oil. Pour oil over the spring onion and garlic.
Everytime my husband and I go to a new place, we will definitely try the local food. During our stay in Bintan, Indonesia, we also want to try more local food other than Nasi Goreng and Mie Goreng. As I mentioned before, the food in the hotel is not very nice, we plan to have food outside the resorts. And there is free shuttle bus from our hotel Angsana to Lagoi Bay. We took the late afternoon bus to go there. I was thinking about seeing sunset there. Yet, when we got there, it’s almost dark. Too bad we missed sunset.
Famous love lock @ Lagoi Bay
We chose a restaurant just in front of the beach and sea – Warung Yeah.
For the food, we ordered the first one Sego Tahu. And it looks ike this.
It’s a tofu dish. The specialty lies in sauce. Sweet and spicy. My husband loves it.
We also ordered a grilled round fish. Outside skin tastes a bit spicy. Flavor goes in so the inside fish is also very tasty. Dipping it in the Indonesian special chili sauce just makes it more yummy.
Here is my favorite Indonesian finger food, called Jajanan Pasar. Outside layer is banana leaf. Sticky rice is wrapped by it. And the filing inside rice is chicken and vegetable. It’s really special. I guess I love all the sticky rice snacks.
The price is very reasonable compared to hotel. And you can enjoy the sea view at the same time.
During our stay in Bintan, Indonesia, My husband and I chose Angsana Hotel to live for one night.
After we arrived at Bintan Ferry terminal, staff from Angsana welcomed us and let us take a short rest in their lounge, which is just at the terminal hall.
Then we took the Angsana shuttle bus to hotel, and it takes about 15 mins.
The minute we got off the bus, a staff strike the gong in front of the hotel hall to welcome us.
It’s not peak season, but there are still many tourists in the hall busy with check-in or check-out procedure. A friendly staff guided us to the sofa. Then welcome drink and dessert were served to us.
We ordered Mi Goreng (stir-fried noodles) and Nasi Goreng (stir-fried rice). They served us with a kind of cracker first. My husband likes it. It also contains a special bean. As you can see, the lunch is really in big portion. Both of us like the chili sauce. It is special, because it also has sour tomato flavor. Hmmm, food is good. But considering the price, it’s not that good.
It was supposed to be many water activities, but got called off due to bad weather. We were so looking forward to participate in releasing the sea turtle, but we were just told that activity already finished.
walking along the beach or lying down on the beach is quite relaxing.
Then we went to the activity room to have some fun.
Soto ayam, (a kind of chicken soup, and I add in glass noodles and some vegetables)
bread and tea,
Indonesian special snack,
freshly made omelette,
and fresh fruit.
Breakfast is nice to me. But if let me rate the food, I will probably give it 3.5 out of 5. Just compared to the cozy room and warm service, food is not that great.
Before we left, my husband tried their special banana coffee.
If you are going to Bintan, you can take Angsana Hotel into consideration. We had great experience there.
And in the morning, we found some monkeys fighting/playing just in front of the hotel.
My husband and I went to Bintan (Indonesia) for a short 2D1N trip. A highlight of our Bintan tour was the Mangrove Tour. It is available at Angsana Bintan Resort. It is probably by an external service provider rather than Angsana, but Angsana Bintan will help to facilitate the booking, including 2-way transport to and from the Mangrove Tour.
The price of the Mangrove Tour was around $45 SGD per person. It is rather pricy, but quite worth it if you like nature. First, the driver will arrive at Angsana Bintan to pick you up, and drive you to purchase the ticket from an office. Then, he will drive you to the Mangrove. Total travel time is approximately 15 minutes.
Upon reaching the Mangrove, life vests are provided and we boarded a small boat (maximum capacity should be around 6-8 people, but we were the only tourists at that time). There will be a boat driver, and also a guide. Amazingly, the Indonesian guide spoke Mandarin (and quite good Mandarin in fact)! Apparently, there are many Chinese tourists to Bintan.
The Mangrove Tour itself is around 1 hour in duration. Other than looking at the mangrove trees, the guide will give some explanation. The people there used to burn mangrove tree roots to make charcoal, but the practice was banned due to environmental concerns. There are also many animals in the Mangrove. We managed to spot a snake (coiled up in the tree branches), a monkey (can be seen in the video), bird (should be kingfisher), as well as small fish. Apparently, there can be monitor lizards as well.
Overall, it was quite an unforgettable experience. There should be no such equivalent tour in Singapore (possibly there is land tour, but not river tour of mangrove).
Note that the Fireflies tour is exactly the same tour as the Mangrove tour, but it is at night. We did not go for the Fireflies tour. Note that it can be very dark in Bintan at night, as there are very few street lights. Most places are completely dark at night.
I was born and grew up in northern part of China. Actually, my family didn’t have the habit of having soup during the meal. I know that people from southern part really like soup. Soup to them is a must-have dish on the table.
My husband is a soup lover. He basically likes all kinds of soup. Influenced by him, I start to realize soup’s charm.
There is a chicken rice stall near where we live. If you order chicken rice there, a small bowl of lotus root & peanut soup will be served as well. My husband loves the chicken rice there and also their soup. He mentioned more than once how much he loves the soup with lotus root and peanut in it.
That’s why I decided to cook this soup.
1. Rinse ribs under water.
2. Place all ribs in the pot. Pour in enough water covers and even higher than the ribs.
3. Bring to boil with high heat. Skim the soup.
4. Add in several ginger slices, lotus root chunks, some peanuts. Turn to low heat. Cook for 1-2 hrs.
Nice soup takes long time unless you have pressure cooker.
Season with salt before serving.
The amazing part of the soup is that it tastes a bit sweet even without adding in any sugar.
Saba fish is very popular in Japan. And Saba fish fillet is also very commonly seen here in Singapore. I buy them sometimes.
This fish can be easily roasted by oven.
1. Preheat oven to 200 degree C.
2. Season fish fillet with salt and black pepper on both sides.
3. Into the oven for 15-18 mins. Because my husband likes the crispy fish skin, so when I put the fish into oven, I usually set the skin side up. At the last 5 mins, I will turn the fish over and place lemon slice on the fish.
Cooking For Fun 