8th Post- San Bei Ji (One of Chicken dish in Taiwan)

Today I will introduce one of popular dish in Taiwan named Sanbeiji (三杯鸡), translate as “Three Cup Chicken”. This dish has been a popular chicken dish in Chinese Cuisine where you can find in Taiwan. The dish originates from the Jiangxi region of southern China and has become a specialty of Ningdu. However, it has become popular especially in Taiwan that it is said "a restaurant that cannot cook Sanbeiji is not a true Taiwanese restaurant."

For the origin of the dish, it has numerous versions by one of it is a sympathetic prison warden cooked the dish for Wen Tianxiang, a national hero of Song Dynasty by using the limited resources available before the national hero’s execution. Through those stories it often noticed that a cook who placed three cups of sauces into an earthenware pot and cooked it for a long time.

The dish obtains its name regarding to the three cups of sauces required. For each chicken, a cup for each of soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil are added. The chicken is cooked together with the sauces in an earthenware pot on high heat for 10 minutes, and then on low heat to allow the meat to absorb the sauces.

The dish is usually served in its cooking pot when the sauce has 80-90% evaporated. When it is served at the table, the chicken should be sizzling, even popping on the cusp of burning. This gives the chicken a crisper texture and richer flavor which differ from most other Chinese or Taiwanese stewed dishes. The dish is recommended to be eaten with either steamed rice or rice congee. Other meats, such as pork or frog can be replace with chicken in this dish without suspecting the taste.

Following above is the introduction dish of Sanbeiji, thus when you pay a visit to Taiwan, you can try search for Sanbeiji to have a new try for the well known food of Taiwan. Hopefully this can be contribute an idea of what to dine in Taiwan for those people who wants to visit Taiwan in sooner later or future.

7th Post- Baking of Cupcakes

Hey there comes to the 7th post and I am going to introduce the process of making cupcakes. The process I will list down later on is the simple vanilla cupcakes among variety of cupcakes, thus I hope it can be dedicate to people who wants to bake cupcakes.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups purpose flour

1 1/3 cups sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 large eggs

PROCEDURE:

1. First, preheat oven to 350 degrees, then line standard cupcake pans with paper liners.

2. Prepare a large bowl to combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Next, add shortening, milk and vanilla and beat with electric mixer for 1 minute on medium speed. While beating, scrape side of the bowl with a spatula.

3. After that, add eggs to the mixture and continue beat for 1 minute on medium speed. Scrape bowl again then continue beat on high speed for 1 minute and 30 seconds until well mixed.

4. Lastly, pour cupcake batter into paper liners until 1/2 to 2/3 full.

5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in preheated oven. To know whether cake is baked, insert toothpick to center and as result should be come out clean.

6. When the cupcakes are complete baked, cool for 5 minutes in pan then remove and place on wire racks to cool completely.

7. Once cupcakes are completely cooled, frost with own favourite frosting or decorate as own desire.

Usually creams are being used in decorations of cupcakes, if you wish to make cupcakes tastier and nicer you can add some chocolate chips, slices of fruits or even spread jam on top of cupcakes. Making cupcakes as birthday present or cakes can be delight and creative with own creativity. Therefore anyone of you can try to bake some cupcakes during free time if you never try before.