Jen's Kitchen Diary

Closed Pineapple Tarts

2012-01-20T15:08:00.000+08:00

My friend S came all the way to my place to pass me a pack of pineapple paste, she wanted me to try as she knows I didn't have time to cook the paste. I have put off the thinking of making pineapple tarts this year but was curious about the taste of the paste and since I have a batch of pastry left, I try it by making some close tart using airfryer. I like the paste, taste like from pineapple with some sourish taste, but my pillow tarts was abit big...LOL..will fine tune the size next time if make.

Pastry:

380g plain flour
20g corn flour
250g salted butter
1 egg

Sift flours in a bowl, rub in butter (cut into small pieces), add egg and form a dough. Chill in fridge for 20min.
Take 10g pastry form into a ball, flatten, wrap with 10g of pineapple paste (roll into ball), form into desire shape. Bake in airfryer at 160degC for 15-20 min till golden color. Remove and cool on rack.

Chi Gu Chips

2012-01-20T14:55:00.000+08:00

Chi gu aka as chinese arrow head, its only available at this time of the year near to Chinese Lunar New Year. I'm curious about this chips as many said its nice to eat but to me the price of ready made ones selling outside are expensive, so I read thru a few blogs and the process seems rather easy to do.
I tried with half kg at first to trial the process, the thickness of the vegetable, the oil temperature etc. Then bought another 1.5kg last weekend and finish a batch with help from Kenny..

Fresh chi gu, bigger better, easier to shred..

After peel off the skin, leave the top part for easy holding while shredding

Shredded pieces for chi gu waiting to deep fried over medium fire

After fried. Preferred the chips to be slightly darker than pale color as it taste better.

Chinese Peanut Cookies

2012-01-20T14:31:00.000+08:00

Lunar New Year is around the corner, as I'm very busy every weekend so those cookie like kuih bungkit which needs abit of time to do I will skip it, went thru some blog and found that Florence's Chinese Peanut Cookies was very popular and well received so attempt double recipes of it, but I omit the coarse peanut. Its indeed melt in the mouth and nice to eat...

Pork floss Brinjal

2011-12-27T16:46:00.000+08:00

This is one of the dishes that I tried with my new toy... Philips Airfryer. Healtier way of cooking without using much oil and at the same time taste the sweetness of the brinjal.

After cut and soak the brinjal for a while, drain and coat the brinjal with some oil, I use my hands to rub the brinjal pieces, only need 2 tbsp oil for 2 big brinjal. Then place the brinjal in preheated airfryer and let it 'fry' at 180 deg C for 15min then remove on plate, sprinkle with pork floss...its that easy..

Sweet Sour sauce Prawn

2011-12-27T16:36:00.000+08:00

Recipe from yum yum issue 72

600g medium size prawns, trimmed and cut slit at the back
1 cup oil
1tbsp shredded ginger
1 tbsp shredded red chilli

sesoning
5tbsp plum sauce
1/2 tbsp lime juice
1tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3tbsp water

1 green mango, peeled and shredded onto a serving platter

Method:

1. Heat up oil fir deep frying, deep frying, deep fry prawn until golden brown. Dish and drain.

2. Leave 2 tbsp oil and saute shredded ginger until aromatic. Add red chilli, seasoning and bring to boil.

3. Lastly add in prawn and stir well. Dish onto the serving platter lined with shredded mango. Serve.

White chocolate & macadamia nut muffin

2011-12-27T16:34:00.000+08:00

Made some muffins for my sis's family when they came over for dinner over the weekend.

300g self raising flour
150g caster sugar
200g white chocolate chips
100g roughly chopped, lightly toasted macadamia nuts
pinch of salt
4 tbsp butter, melted
175ml buttermilk
1 lightly beaten egg

Preheat the oven to 190deg C. Grease a large 6 cup muffin tin. (I use muffin cups)

In a medium bowl, mix the flour,sugar, chocolate chips, nuts and salt with a spoon.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, buttermilk and egg with an electric whisk. Add the flour mixture to the buttermilk mixture, stirring until just combined. Do not overmix.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin or cup. Bake for 25min. Remove tin from the oven and cool for 5 min. Then remove the muffins and cool on a rack.

Store in and airtight container for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.

Make half dozen

Cinnamon Raisin Nut Bread

2011-11-03T17:15:00.000+08:00

Tried delay timing function with my bread machine to make this bread for breakfast. Was woken by the fragrant of the bread, makes a good start for a sunny Sunday morning ;)

Loaf size : 750g 900g
Water 200ml 270ml
Oil 2 tbsp 3 tbsp
Cinnamon 3/4tsp 1tsp
Dark brown sugar 1tbsp 1 1/3tbsp
Raisin 60g 80g
Nuts 60g 80g
Salt 1 1/2tsp 2tsp
Bread flour 350g 460g
Dry Yeast 1tsp 1 1/4tsp

Program : Sweet

Kuih Lapis

2011-10-26T18:03:00.003+08:00

Kuih lapis is one of my favorite kuih, tried this recipe from Popular Kuih Muih published by one publisher, but the batter was quite thick compare to the other recipe that I tried before so the thickness was difficult to manage.

Ingredients
A)
350g rice flour
50g tapioca flour
300ml water
B)
280g sugar
800ml water
5 pc pandan leaves knotted
400ml thick coconut milk
colorings

Method
1. Mix A) in a mixing bowl, stir well.
2. Boil B) till bubbles, pour into A) and mix well.
3. Add in coconut milk and stir well.
4. Divide mixture into a few portions, add desire coloring.
5. Heat a greased 8" cake tin in a steamer, pour in a thin layer of white layer, steam for 5 min or until set.
6. Pour a layer of prefer colour mixture on top and steam 5 min till set.
7. Proceed alternating the colour layer till mixture is used up, make sure every layer is cooked before pouring the next layer.
8. Cool kuih completely before slicing.

I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #12: Traditional Kueh (October 2011) hosted by SSB of Small Small Baker

Small Choux Bun

2011-10-15T09:01:00.001+08:00

Have not made cream puff for a long time, tried this recipe from Michel Roux's Pastry book. The book makes the making of pastry looks easy. Did some chocolate cream and only coat the puff without filling, and some custard filling for another batch of puff.

Choux Paste
Ingredients:
125ml milk
125ml water
100g butter, diced
1/2 tsp salt
1tsp caster sugar
150g plain flour
4 eggs

Combined the milk, water, butter, salt and sugar in a saucepan and set over low heat. Bring to the boil and immediately take the pan off the heat. Shower in the flour and mix with a wooden spoon until completely smooth.

Return the pan to a medium heat and stir continously for about 1 min to dry out the paste, then tip it into a bowl.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating with the wooden spoon.

Once the eggs are al incorporated, the paste should be smooth and shiny with a thick ribbon consistency. It is now ready to use.

Choux bun

For small choux buns, put the paste into a piping bag fitted with a 1 cm nozzle. Pipe small mounds in staggered rows onto a baking sheet lined with greasedproof paper for preference, or directly on greased baking sheet. Lightly mark the top with the back of a fork. Bake at 180 deg C for 15-20min until the outside of the buns is dry and crispy but the inside is still soft. Cool on a wire rack.

Custard Filling

250ml milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
3 egg yolk
55g sugar
20g cake flour
5g butter

1. Pour milk and vanilla essence in sauce pot, stir over medium heat till slight boil.
2. Mix egg yolk and sugar in another bowl, use whisk to mix till egg mixture turns pale color.
3. Sift flour into egg mixture, mix till well combined.
4. Add flour mixture into milk of step 1. Mix till well combined. Put on stove and turn on fire(medium fire).
5. The mixture will be watery at first, continue to stir and it will thicken. When the mixture turn smooth, glossy and thick texture, turn off fire.
6. Transfer custard to tray,cling wrap with the plastic touch the custard, chill. Pipe the chill custard into puff when serve.

Min Jian Kuih

2011-10-02T10:33:00.002+08:00

Made this pancake for today's breakfast, recipe adapt from 'Reviving Street Hawket' by Pang Nyuk Yoon.
I did half recipe.

Ingredients:
600g plain flour
2 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
60g custard powder
300g sugar
900ml water

Filling:
300g peanut (toast at 150 deg C till slight brown, remove skin, grind it and add 150g sugar)
50g sesame seed (I omit it)

Method:
1. Sieve the flour, baking powder and custard powder together.
2. Beat the eggs, add in sugar, flours, water and mix well.
3. Rest the mixture for about 15min to let the gluten in the flour relax.
4. Heat flat pan, grease the pan with little oil, scoop about 1-2 laddle of batter into pan depend on how big the pancake preferred.
5. Level the pancake and fry over v weak fire until cooked. Then add Fillings at on half of the pancake and fold out the other half.

I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #12: Traditional Kueh (October 2011) hosted by SSB of Small Small Baker

Happy Mid Autumn Festival

2011-09-12T14:38:00.003+08:00

Happy Mid Autumn Festival to All!
Manage to squeeze out some time to make traditional mooncake and snowskin mooncake.
On saturday morning I've done some snowskin mooncake with pandan paste with some chocolate pearl mixed in the paste.
As the lotus paste I made couple of weeks back was spoil when I need it to make mooncake, thinking that its still more economical to bake mooncake myself, last minute went to buy 2 kg of white lotus paste and did 14 pcs of traditional mooncakes. The mould is not so sharp, thus the goldfishes are not obvious :(...

Snow skin Mooncake with pandan paste & chocolate pearl

I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011)...

Traditional Mooncake with Lotus paste & Macademia nut

Making Mooncake skin,

Ingredients

300g golden syrup (available at baking supply shops)

90g peanut oil

3 tsp alkaline water

400g plain flour

Method:

1. Sieve flour in a big bowl and set a side. Mix golden syrup, peanut oil and alkaline water in together in a bowl. Add syrup mixture into flour and mix together using a spatula till well combined.

2. Cover the sticky dough with cling wrap and let it rest for 2 hours.

Making of Mooncake

1. Toast preferred nuts or melon seed till golden brown, set aside to cool.

2. Mix nut into lotus paste and knead till well combined-I use macadamia nuts so I chopped it smaller for better bite.

3. Weigh the lotus paste and 40g of mooncake pastry inorder to determine the paste weight require for the mould*. Roll paste into a ball and set aside on a tray.

4. Dust hand with some flour, take 40g of mooncake pastry roll into a ball, flaten it on one palm, place on ball of lotus paste on pastry, wrap paste in pastry. Dust mould with flour. Put the wrapped filling in the mould and press it flat. Knock the four sides of the mould to loosen the mooncake, place palm under the wrapped filling and unmould shaped filling onto palm, place it on baking tray. Keep a distance between each piece of mooncake so that it will be fully baked.

5. Place mooncake into preheated 160 deg C oven. Bake for 15min, remove and let it cool. Brush with egg wash then put it back into oven and bake till 15min or till golden brown.

6. Rest the mooncake for 2 days before eating it.

* There are various mould sizes. Wrap the lotus paste with cling wrap, then press it into the mould. After deduct the weight of the pastry, only the weight of the filling remains. If want to add salted egg yolk, deduct the same weight of paste and replace with yolk.

Mango Yoghurt Cheese Cake

2011-08-25T09:07:00.000+08:00

Randal had been requesting for cheesecake, read this recipe in Yum Yum #73, so try it out and serve it for desert after dinner. He said its very nice and he had 2 servings.
I feel the mango taste in this cake is not that obvious so its a choice for people who do not like to much of fruit taste in cheese cakes.

Ingredients:

500g cream cheese
60g caster sugar
170g mango yogurt (org recipe use 150g yogurt but I adjusted to my taste)
1 egg
grated zest of half lemon
juice of half lemon
120g non-dairy whipping cream (org recipe use 100g but I adjusted to my taste)
-( I use nestle canned cream cos cant find dairy or non dairy whipping cream at the supermarket)

Biscuit base:
160g digestive biscuits - use food processor or rolling pin + plastic bag and break it into fine crumbs
80g melted butter
Wrap 8 inch loose base or springform cake tin with aluminum foil.
Mix biscuit crumbs with melted butter till well combined. Pour into 8 inch loose base cake tin, spread it evenly then press the crumb firmly with back of spoon or cake presser. Chill for 15 min.

Method:
1. Mix cream cheese with caster sugar until soft. Add mango yogurt, egg and mix well.

2. Add in the remaining ingredients, and mix well. Pour the mixture onto the cake tin lined with biscuit base.

3. Steam bake the cake in a preheated oven at 150 deg C for 1 1/2 hours. Let cake cool in oven with door open for about half hour.

4. Put cake with tin in fridge and chill for about 4-6 hours before serve.

Juicy Pork and Chicken Burger

2011-08-25T09:00:00.000+08:00

Made some burger patties for dinner and the left over was ate for breakfast with buns...

Recipe reference from Yum Yum #73

Ingredients:
300g mince pork
300g mince chicken
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 egg
1 tbsp light soy sauce
50 g bread crumbs

oil for frying

Method:
1. In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients untill well combined and sticky. Chill in fridge for 30 min before cook.

2. Remove meat mixture from fridge. Form meat mixture into rounds and flatten into patties.

3. Heat up oil, pan fry burger patties over high heat on both sides and lightly brown. Then place in preheated oven of 180 deg C and bake for 10min. Remove from oven, dish and serve.

3 cup Frog Leg

2011-08-25T08:39:00.000+08:00

Frog leg is one of Randal's favorite food, so when we came across skinless frogs he will urge me to buy it. This time I tried to do a different version on the frog leg instead of the usual frog leg porriage. He doesn't like too spicy food so kong pao frog leg is out, so I did 3 cup version and luckily my trial turns out good enough for him..LOL

3 frogs - chopped into smaller pieces

a few slice of ginger
2 cloves of garlic - chopped

Marinate:
a few slice ginger
1 tbsp wine
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil

Sauce:
2-3 tbsp sesame oil
2 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp wine
some water

1 red chilli - sliced
2 stalk of spring onion - cut into long strips

Method:
1. Rinse frog parts, marinate with the marinade for at least 15min to get rid of the fishy smell.

2. Heat wok with some oil, stir fry ginger and spring onion, add in frog parts, stir fry awhile. Add in sauce ingredients, stir fry awhile. Lastly add in chilli slice and spring onion, dish up and serve.

Banana and chocolate bread

2011-07-27T10:29:00.000+08:00

I made this bread last weekend using breadnaker (it can be done by hand), its a soft and delicious bread, think the sweetness level will depend on the ripeness of the banana, as the banana I used was not very ripe so the bread turn out not so sweet. It taste like cake than bread ;)

300g ripe banana, weigh with skin on
2 tsp lemon juice
500g bread flour
2 tbsp milk powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp butter
1 1/2tsp fast action dried yeast
200ml water
175g milk chocolate (I use semi sweet chocolate chip)
icing sugar and cocoa powder to decorate (I omit this)

Makes 1 extra large loaf

1. Peel the banana and mash them on a plate with a fork, then work in the lemon juice.

2. Lift the tin out of the bread machine, fit the kneader blade then add the mashed bananas, measured cold water, milk powder and butter. Spoon in the flour then add in salt and sugar, Make a slight dip in the centre of the flour and sprinkle in the yeast.

3. Insert the tin into the bread machine. Shut the lid asn set to basic white/extra large 1kg loaf/ bake and select the preferred crust setting. Press start.

4. Dice the chocolate and add to the tin when the raisin beep sounds.Shut the lid and allow the programme to continue.

5. At the end of the programme, lift the tin out of the machine with oven gloves. Loosen the bread wth spatula and turn out on to a wire rack. Dust with sifted icing sugar and cocoa and leave to cool.

Valarie's Cranberry Orange Cake

2011-07-27T10:24:00.000+08:00

Tried made this cake couple of weeks back, I reduced the sugar as I have tried the original taste of the recipe in class and found it too sweet, also did thinner frosting compare to the original recipe just to give the cake a little extra touch.

Dutch apple cake

2011-06-28T20:12:00.001+08:00

When I saw this little snack maker which comes with tempreture setting, immediately I bought it thought that it will be good for making small batch of cakes and cookies,

Didn't find time to use it for baking cakes till recently. Tried baking some blueberry muffins and it was quite well done although the height between the heating element and the rack is very low, well.. doing some small cakes should be just fine for me

Baked a batch of apple cake using this tiny oven again, recipe from Rachel Allen. This cake is nice, we like it.

Valarie's Kuih Lapis

2011-05-28T22:24:00.001+08:00

Did this cake yesterday night since I have some time and there were lots of eggs in the fridge, so attempt Valarie's kuih lapis again as I have failed doing it twice months ago. This round didn't add prunes as I thought doing a plain will be easier to pass. Lukily the end result was quite ok and all like it..^_^

Pandan flavour mantou

2011-05-21T22:59:00.000+08:00

I use this recipe and do a batch of pandan mantou for last weekend's breakfast. While kneading the dough thought that add some flavour to give the bun a twist iso of the plain version thus added a little pandan paste to half portion of the dough, then roll each portion of the dough flat with even thickness and roll it up like swiss roll.

Siew mai

2011-05-17T14:22:00.000+08:00

Have not made siew mai for a long while, made some for weekend's dinner per the kids request...

Chicken with burdock soup

2011-05-17T14:20:00.000+08:00

Recently the weather is so warm that everyone tend to drink more liquid to curb the heat, so boil some soup to clear the body heat else will fall sick sooner or later. Found this recipe in an old issue of Oriental magazine but instead of stew I boiled the soup.

Ingredients:

1 stick burdock
1/2 bird chicken
2 carrot
salt to taste

Method:
1. Chop chicken into big pieces and blanch in boiling water.

2. Peel burdock under running tap water then cut into wedges and soak in water. Peel carrot and cut into wedges.

3. Put all ingredients into soup pot, pour in enough water to cover the ingredients (about 2 litre) and bring to boil over high heat, then turn to weak fire and boil for another 1 and half hour. Add salt to taste.

Deep fried prawn paste chicken

2011-05-17T14:19:00.000+08:00

My friend told me this brand of prawn paste is nice, its avaliable at wet market and sheng siong supermarket price varies, heard zhi char stall are using this brand too. I have not cook prawn paste chicken for quite a while and found the paste at the market near my office, so bought a bottle and try. The chicken taste good and not as salty as another brand that I've tried.

Its very simple recipe: Marinate half kg wings with 2 tbsp prawn paste, 1 tbsp sugar, some sesame oil for a few hours in fridge. Coat wings with tapioca flour and deep fried till golden brown.

Waffle

2011-05-15T09:05:00.000+08:00

Have not made waffle for a long time, read this recipe in this book, so try out for Sunday's breakfast, I did double portion of the original recipe, the texture is soft and nice.

Ingredients:
60g cake flour
65g milk
35g melted butter
30g egg yolk
60g egg white
25g caster sugar

Method:
1. Mix flour, melted butter and milk in a bowl.
2. Add in egg yolk, mix till well combined.
3. In another bowl, use mixer and beat egg white and sugar till stiff peak.
4. Add 1/3 portion of egg white into egg yolk mixture, stir lightly till combined.
5. Pour the egg yolk mixture back into the balance egg white and mix lightly till well combined.
6. Preheat waffle mould, brush mould with some oil, pour batter into mould, cover and let it cook till golden colour.
7. Remove waffle from mould, serve with chocolate sauce, or maple syrup or ice-cream per individual preference.

Scones

2011-04-21T08:39:00.000+08:00

Wanted some change of taste for breakfast, made some scones which is fast to do and good to eat...

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cup (310g) self raising flour
1tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
40g chilled unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1 cup (250ml) milk

Preheat oven to hot 220 deg C (425 deg F) and lightly grease baking tray or line it with baking paper. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Rub butter briefly and lightly with fingertips until mixture is crumbly and resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mixing in 1 tbsp of sugar at this stage will lessen any floury taste. Make a well in the centre. Pour in some milk at time and mix with flat bladed knife, using cutting action, until the dough comes together in clumps. Rotate the bowl as you work. Handle the mixture with great care and very light hands. The dough should feel slightly light and sticky. With floured hands, gently gather the dough together, lift onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a smooth ball. Do not knead. Pat or lightly roll the dough out to 2cm thick. Using a floured 6cm cutter, cut into round. Gather the scraps together and, without handling too much, press out a before and cut out more rounds. Place close together on baking tray and lightly brush the top with milk. Bake in oven for 12-15min, or until risen and golden.
As scones contains little fat, they dry out quickly so are best eaten soon after baking. They freeze successfully.

Pandan Chiffon Cake

2011-04-10T09:02:00.000+08:00

The thought of trouble shoot the failure cake on the old pan from making the cranberry yougurt chiffon cake kept dwelling in my mind, the following I made another cake from the same book using a new chiffon cake tin. The tin is bigger than the old one thus the cake is shorter but result was satisfactory therefore I concluded that the problem lies in the tin and not the oven.

Cranberry Yogurt Chiffon Cake

2011-04-10T08:33:00.000+08:00

My friend recommended this recipe from this book, but some problem with my old chiffon tin thus the cake didn't turn out as presentable as expected. Nevertheless the cake taste good, not sweet at all, will try other recipe from the book...

Stir fry prawn with ketcup

2011-04-02T23:20:00.000+08:00

This is a easy and common dish to do. Did my own version of this dish with the prawn given by mum in law some time ago.

Ingredients:
about 500g Prawns
chopped garlic
corn starch

Sauce:
6 tbsp ketcup
1 tsp vinegar
11/2 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp water

Method:
1. Rinse and trim prawn. Cut slit at the back of prawn, devein and marinade prawn with sugar, salt and pepper for 15min.
2. Coat prawn with corn starch. Fry in hot oil for 1-2 min. Remove and set aside.
3. Pour sauce ingredients in wok, stir fry for a while, then pour prawn back into sauce, stir fry the prawn till sauce thicken and dried. Dish and serve.

Breaded Fish Fillet

2011-04-02T23:00:00.000+08:00

This is one of my preferred brand of frozen sutchi fillet, found it sometime last year at ntuc supermarket, thought that the packaging looks much appetising the the rest in the freezer, so bought it and did fish and chips, to me as long the fish didn't have the mud smell like some other brand its good enough. If there are stock of this brand I will buy and keep in freezer as the stock is not so frequently available.

Simply marinade it with salt, pepper and some sesame oil for about half hour, then coat with flour, egg and bread crumb, then deep fried till golden color.

Assam Sotong

2011-04-02T22:41:00.000+08:00

Craving for sontong or squid so I use my mum-in-laws chilli paste and cook some spicy sour squid.

Ingredients:
500g sotong/squid - weight is before cleaning and clearing the unwanted parts
1 tbsp chilli paste- the paste is quite spicy for me so i only use 1 tbsp
2 tbsp assam paste mix with half cup water- not sure how much to use but add in a few tbsp of the mixture and taste it before adding more
2 tbsp sugar

Method:
1. Clean and cut squid into smaller pieces.
2. Add squid into wok, stir for a while and there will alot of water in the wok. Throw away the water. Remove squid and set aside.
3. Add in a little oil, fry the chilli paste for a while, then pour in squid and a little assam juice and sugar. Taste the sauce, if not sour enough, add more assam juice. Dish and serve.

Quick and Easy Nutella Cake

2011-03-13T08:35:00.000+08:00

Recipe from Agnes Chang's 'I Can Bake' book

Ingredients:
250g butter, softened
200g soft brown sugar.
4 eggs, lightly beaten
300g self raising flour, sifted
5 tbsp milk

6 tbsp nutella chocolate hazelnut spread
60g hazelnuts, chopped coarsely (I use pecan nuts)

Method:
1. Put all ingredients for cake into a mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy.

2. Pour 2/3 portion of the cake mixture into a greased and lined 22cm/9 inch round baking tin and spread to level. Spoon the nutella into six blobs. Top with the remaining 1/3 portions of the cake mixture, swirl a few times with a skewer, then smooth the top.

3. Sprinkle nuts on top and bake in a preheated oven at 180degC for 45min-1 hour until cooked and golden brown.

4. Remove, leave to cool before cutting into pieces and seves as snack.

Sweet Sour Pork Ribs

2011-03-01T17:01:00.000+08:00

Bought some meaty pork ribs before chinese new year and its being laying in the freezer for quiet a while, last week I took a couple of days leave to stay home while my helper was on home leave (she never return...arrrggghh ) as I have more time to do dinner I did this dish with my own version of sauce...

Ingredients:

500g meaty pork ribs

Half capcicum-diced

1 small yellow/brown onion-cut into chunk pieces

1 tomato-seeded and cut into chunks

5 cloves garlic-chopped

Marinade:

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp cooking wine

1tbsp sesame oil

Half tsp pepper

Half egg white

Tapioca starch for coating

Sauce:

4tbsp tomato ketcup

Half cup water

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp mirin or any cooking wine

1 tsp vinegar

Method:

1. Rinse ribs, add in marinade and mix well. Place in fridge for a few hours.

2. Remove ribs from fridge, add in egg white and mix well. Heat up wok, coat ribs with tapioca starch and deep fry over low heat for at least 10min or till meat is well cooked. Dish up and set aside.

3. Heat up wok with a 2 tbsp oil. Add in onion and stir fry for a while, push to one side and add in garlic and sauté till garlic is fragrant. Add in the other vegetables, stir fry a while.

4. Pour in the Sauce ingredients and let it simmer for a while, pour in the fried ribs and cook till sauce is thicken. Taste the sauce, if its too sour add more sugar. Dish and serve.

Sweet Bread

2011-02-27T21:50:00.000+08:00

This bread was done couple of weeks back, as I forgot to buy food for next day's breakfast so attempt this bread that I saw from a HK forum long ago, its called pai pao (排包) in HK.
The bread taste sweet and the dough suppose to be rolled into a swiss roll and arrange on tray for final proofing, but somehow on the day of doing the bread the proofing was slower then other times so I find the easy way out roll each dough into ball and lined them onto tray. The final proofing was so slow that I once thought that maybe the yeast was dead, I thought since it didn't rise well, will try to make a prata or something else next morning....surprising later that midnite the buns finally finish proof to double the size, all in all it took me 5 hours to finish making this bread....^_^

Chinese New Year Cookies

2011-01-30T21:27:00.000+08:00

To me Chinese New Year season should have some cookies and sweets place at home whether its store bought or hand made. Thus will try to find time to make at least one type of cookie for festive season.
Pineapple tarts, kuih bangkit, kuih makmur and my helper did the pork floss roll.

Pineapple is a must that I would do for Chinese New Year. This time tried an old recipe from a friend's mum recipe collections. Saw that Lurpak butter was on offer so bought some and made the tarts, this year didn't have time to cook pineapple paste so use store bought paste and add a little blended pineapple pulp, cook it till dry then add the store bought paste and mix till soft and manageable texture.

Pineapple Tarts

Ingredients:
700g plain flour ( I use up the left over top flour)
450g butter
4 egg yolk
2 egg white

Method:
- Rub butter into flour till well combined. Add in eggs to flour mixture to form dough. Put the dough in a plastic bag and chill in fridge for 15min.
-Place a batch of dough between two large plastic sheets or baking paper, roll it about 3-4 mm thick, sprinkle a little flour on the surface and place cutter on it and cut out the shape. Place on baking tray line with baking paper, roll pineapple paste into round ball and place on cut out dough.
- Glaze tart with some beaten egg, and bake in 170-180 deg oven for 20min.

There were some left over dough from the pineapple tarts, thus I wrap it with ground peanut and form into kuih makmur...

This year did Valarie's kuih bangkit again, as last minute didn't manage to find fresh coconut milk, store bought one still works out fine.

Kuih Bangkit

Spiced Carrot Muffins

2010-12-28T09:06:00.000+08:00

Quote from the book Muffin Galore-These muffin are really mini carrot cakes-perfect for lunchboxes and afternoon tea.

Made a batch of these muffins for office breakfast party on xmas eve, was dwelling on whether to put topping on the muffins as I thought some colleagues may not like to have cheese topping, finally decided not to add any toppings.

(Makes 12)
Ingredients:

300g plain flour
225g caster sugar (I reduce to 200g)
2tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tsp gound cinnamon
1 tsp salt
175ml vegetable oil (I use melted butter)
175ml milk
3eggs, lightly beaten
100g peeled carrot, grated
120g walnut, chopped
150g raisins

For topping (I didn't do)
85g cream cheese or full fat soft cheese, softened
40g butter, softened
125g icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180deg C/350deg F/ Gas mark 4. Grease a 12cup muffin tin or line the cups with paper muffin cases.

2. For the muffins, mix the flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, mix together the vegetable oil, milk and eggs. Add in the grated carrot, walnut and raisins to the dry ingredients, mix till combined. Add the well ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients. Mix briefly until just combined.

3. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, dividing it evenly. Bake in the oven for 20-25min. or until risen and golden. Cool in the tin for 10min, then turn onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

4. For the topping, beat together the cream cheese or soft cheese and butter in a bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the icing sugar and vanilla extract until the topping is thick and speadable. Spread a large tablespoonful of the topping mixture on top of each muffin before serving.

Roast Turkey and Logcake

2010-12-27T08:31:00.000+08:00

My sisters and their families came to my place for gathering during Christmas day. Each brought some food, which includes honey baked ham, roast pork, macaroni cheese, I did a roast turkey and some other simple dishes. Try my luck on a logcake too but my skill of doing the swiss roll sucks, end up the cake looks alittle collapse.
Thanks fellow blogger friend C for the beautiful Christmas card, all say the card it's a nice gift for the festival.

Valerie's Fruitcake

2010-12-17T15:56:00.001+08:00

Learn this cake at Ms Valarie's class last year. This is the second time that I made the cake, thought that fruit cake will be nice addition for the office's Christmas party besides the usual turkey and logcakes. This time I replace the brown sugar with molasses, those who taste it said its nice as its not so sweet, also its not as hard as those selling outside.

Orange Poppy Seed Muffin

2010-12-17T15:45:00.001+08:00

My friend Y(thanks Y!) gave me some poppy seeds many months ago, almost forgot about it till recently that this ingredient pop up in my mind, thought that muffin was the easiest recipe to use up this ingredient.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cup (310g/10oz) self raising flour
1/4 cup (40g/ 1 1/4 oz) poppy seed
1/3 cup (90g/3oz) caster sugar
125g (4oz) unsalted butter
1 cup (315g/10oz) orange marmalade
1 cup (250ml/8 fl oz) milk
2 eggs
1 tbsp finely grated orange rind

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to moderately hot 200deg C (400deg F/Gas 6). Sift the flour into a bowl,. Stir in the poppy seed and sugar, make a well in the centre. Put butter and 2/3 cup (210g/7oz) ot the orange marmalade in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until butter has melted and the mixture is combined. Cool slightly.

2. Whisk together the milk, eggs and rind in a jug and pour into the well. Add the butter and marmalade. Fold gently with a metal spoon until just combined. Do not over mix- the batter should still be lumpy. Overmixing will make them tough.

3. Fill each muffin paper cup or muffin tin hole about three quarter full and bake for 20-25min, or until muffin are risen, golden and come away slightly from the tin. If use cup, skewer should come out clean when poke into the centre of the muffin.

4. Heat the remaining marmalade and push it through a fine sieve. Brush generously over the top of the warm muffin Leave them to cool on wire rack. Serve warm or at room temp.

New York Cheesecake

2010-11-30T10:05:00.000+08:00

Thought of doing a cheesecake to use up the sour cream before it expires, try this recipe as its quite small portion compare to other cheesecake recipes, this portion is just nice for my family. Although this is a rich cake but all like it. Recipe from 孟老师的下午茶...

(I use a 7" cake ring althought the book recommended 6" springform pan)
Ingredient:
A. Base : 120g digestive biscuit 30g unsalted butter - melted
B. Cheese filling: 400g cream cheese- thaw at room temp for about half hour
                          75g caster sugar
                          2 eggs
                          130g sour cream
                          10g cake flour
                          grated lemon peel from 1 lemon
                          2 tbsp lemon juice
                          1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1. Base: Break biscuit into small piece, put into a plastic bag, use a rolling pin and pound the biscuit into fine crumbs. Add melted butter into biscuit crumb and mix till well combined, press the biscuit crumb into 7" spring form tin or lined cake ring. Chilled for about 15min.
2. Beat cream cheese and sugar using low speed in mixing bowl till cheese is soft, add in egg one at time, mix till well combined then add the next egg. Add sour cream and flour and mix till well combined, lastly add in lemon peel, lemon juice and vanilla essence, mix well.
3. Pour cheese batter onto biscuit base, place cake tin in a tray, place the tray in oven, pour in a cup of hot water in the tray, bake cake over double boil at 180 deg for 20min, then lower 10 deg and bake for further 40min.
4. Turn off oven, open a little gap of the oven door to let cake cool for about 15min, remove cake ring/tin,let cake cool completely place cake in fridge and chill for 5 hours before serve.

Madeleine

2010-11-16T08:14:00.002+08:00

Wanted to bake something since I haven't been baking for a while, browsing thru the book 孟老師的下午茶, thought this recipe was quite fast to do and portion was small, this recipe taste nice and not very sweet.

(per recipe yield 15 pcs)
Ingredients:
100g unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
100g egg

1/2 tsp vanilla essence
100g cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
orange zest from 1 orange
1tsp orange liqur

Method:
1. Mix butter, sugar and salt over doble boiler till well combine. Remove from double boiler, leave to cool, add in egg, vanilla essence and mix till well combined.

2. Add in orange liquor and orange zest and mix till well combined.

3. Fold in sifted cake flour and baking powder till well combined.

4. Spoon batter into madeleine mould, bake at 180 deg C for 20min or till golden color.

Stir fry vegetarian kidney

2010-10-28T16:31:00.000+08:00

Recently have been too busy with some family matters that I was just not in the mood to do any baking and any posting here.

My colleague always like to order this dish if they were to cater food from the old factory canteen, the canteen aunty is kind and generous to share with us the dishes whenever we ask her about dishes she did. This dish was very easy to do.

Frozen vegetarian kidney is available at some wet or dry market stall that sells beansprouts and tofu.

Thaw the vegetarian kidney (1 pkt), rinse and slice it thin--though the kidney is already cut into pieces in its original package but I prefer it to be thinner.
Shredded a few slice of ginger thinly.
Sauce : Oyster sauce, water, a little sugar.

Method:
- Heat wok, fried ginger with some sesame oil till fragrant. Remove and set aside.
- Add kidney into wok, add in a teaspoon of oyster sauce, litter sugar and some water, bring the sauce to boil, let it simmer till the sauce is reduce to slightly thicken. Do taste test, if not salty enough can add some oyster sauce.
-Add in ginger and stir awhile, remove from wok and serve.

Happy Mid Autumn Festival

2010-09-23T08:18:00.001+08:00

This year manage to do 16 pieces of traditional mooncakes with Florence's mooncake recipe(mooncake skin), and 22 pandan snowskin mooncakes as the kids's favourite is pandan flavour, the pandan paste was bought from phoon huat.
Glad that my family like the mooncakes;)

Sweet corn agar agar

2010-09-14T14:42:00.000+08:00

This recipe was an old collection, thought of bringing something to my sister's place for her kid's birthday party, this dessert suddenly float up in mind, made it very last mintues and brought it to sister's place and let it fully set....

Ingredients:

2 pack of agar agar powder

500ml coconut milk

250g sugar

1000ml water

1/4 tsp salt

1 can of cream corn

some pandan leaves

Method:

1. Bring water and pandan leaves to boil, mix sugar and agar agar powder and add into water, bring to boil.

2. Add in cream corn, bring to boil.

3. Add in coconut milk and salt, once the mixture boil turn off fire. Pour mixture into mould and let it cool down before place in fridge and let it set completely.

Lotus Paste

2010-09-13T11:24:00.001+08:00

I find the store bought lotus paste are abit too sweet, the thought of making lotus paste for mooncake have been wondering in my mind for the pass few weeks, found some time on Saturday late afternoon, quickly cook it before the mood goes away...

Chwee Kuih

2010-09-04T08:20:00.000+08:00

There was a pack of preserved radish lying in the fridge quite some time, tried to use it up but fried egg omelette with was too much, so I use some for next morning's breakfast as topping for this kuih.

Ingredients:
350g rice flour }
30g tapioca foour }
1tsp salt } (A)
2 tbsp oil }
600ml water }
900ml boiling water

Topping:
4tbsp chopped shallot
180g chopped preserved radish ( soak for 1 hour, squeeze dry)
1 tbsp sugar
dah of pepper
4 tbsp oil
1/2 cup water

Method:
1. Topping: heat oil, fry chopped shallots till fragrant, add preserved radish and seasoningm stir well, add in water and simmer till preserved radish in soft and fairly dry.

2. Batter: Combined (A) in a bowl, mix well, pour in boiling water and stir well.

3. Pour batter into greased small cups or patty tins, arrange on a tray, steam over high heat for 10minutes, leave to cool and remove from cups, top with prepared topping.

Deep fried beancurd with shacha sauce

2010-08-31T13:48:00.000+08:00

Bought a few bottle of sha cha sauce from Taiwan while touring there last year, I have use it as dipping sauce for steam boat but still prefer our local spicy sauces. So try to make use of it for dishes when chance upon recipe that uses it so as to finish it fast.
I change the original recipe a little as I find the recipe is abit on the salty side.

Ingredients:

2 japanese beancurd
adequate minced pork
1/2 big onion (minced)
1 stalk sping onion (shredded) } for garnish -- I didn't have it at the point of cooking so didn't add it
1 red chili (shredded) }

Seasoning:
2 tsp shacha sauce
1tsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
1tsp chicken stock granules
300ml water

Method:
1. Cut one japanese beancurd into 6 parts. Deep fry in hot oil until golden brown. Dish up for later use.

2. Heat up wok and pour in oil, saute onion shreds, minced pork, and shacha sauce till fragrant. Pour in water, beancurds and seasonings, bring to boiled. Dish up and pour in cornflour solution(I didn't add as I prefer to simmer till sauce thicken), sprinkle shredded spring onion and chilli on top. Ready to serve.

3 cups chicken (三杯鸡)

2010-08-31T13:41:00.000+08:00

Quote from original recipe: Traditional 'three cups' dishes uses a cup each of sesame oil, soy sauce and rice wine. In this dish the amount used have been reduce to make it less oily and salty.

I cooked two pieces of boneless chicken thigh, thus half of the refrence recipe was sufficient, however the soy sauce that I was using is quite dark so I only use 1 tbsp of it.

Reference recipe..
Ingredients:
1/2 chicken
10 cloves garlic
10-12 slices old ginger
1-2 red chili
3-4 stalks basil

Seasonings:
1/3 cup black sesame oil
1 cup rice wine
1/3 cup dark soy sauce
1/2 tbsp rock sugar
1 cup hot water

Method:
1. Rinse chicken and chop into small pieces. Cut bigger cloves of garlic into halves.

2. Heat sesame oil to about 100 deg C, add ginger slices and fry over low heat till fragrant. Add garlic and fry till lightly browned, then add chicken and fry well over high heat.

3. Fry chicken till it turn white, then add the other seasonings and bring to a boil. Pour into a heated claypot, put the lid on the cook over medium heat till chicken is cooked through and the liquid is dry (about 150-20min).

4. Stir in slice chilli , then add the basil. Turn off heat immediately.

Green tea chiffon cake

2010-08-01T22:30:00.000+08:00

Have not been baking for a while lately, the thought of baking something just pops up of my mind, have been wanting to try the recipes from the book Okashi by Keiko Ishida as the recipes looks so tempting and not complicated to do. Bought a small bottle of green tea from takashima basement and attempt this cake. The result of this cake turns out alright comparing to my recent attempt on other chiffons.
The fragrant of the tea in the cake was pretty mild when the cake was warm, its much stronger when the cake is cool.

Make one 20cm cake (my tube pan is bigger so the cake looked shorter)

Pastry flour 70g (I use top flour)

Green tea powder 10g

Egg yolk 5

Castor sugar 20g

water 70g

canola oil 60g (I use corn oil)

Meringue

Egg white 180g (about 5 eggs)

Castro sugar 90g

rice flour or corn flour 10g

1. Preheat oven to 160deg C.

2. Sift flour and green tea powder twice. Combine egg yolk and sugar in a bowl and mix well. Add water and canola oil and blend together. Add flour and green tea powder mixture and mix until batter becomes sticky. Set aside.

3. Make meringue. Combine sugar and rice or corn flour. Beat egg white until foamy. Add half of sugar mixture and continue beating for a few minutes, then add remaining sugar and flour mixture and beat until egg whites are glossy, with stiff peaks.

4. Add one third of meringue into egg yolk mixture and fold in lightly, then add remaining meringue and fold to incorporate completely.

5. Pour batter into and ungreased chiffon cake tube pan. Bake for 40-50min. When cake is done, remove cake from oven and turn it over, leaving it to cool.

6. Once cake has cooled completely, carefully run a knife or spatula around the sides of the cake to loosen it before inverting onto a wire rack.

Holiday Bread

2010-07-08T15:42:00.000+08:00

This bread was done sometime ago using bread machine, the recipe is from the machine manual. This bread texture is rather soft compare to some that I've tried from the manual.
Lately have been really busy thus haven't got the time or mood to do or try new recipes, some plan items have also been put on hold for quite while, just hope that everything will settle down soon.

loaf size                     750g     900g

water                     100ml    120ml

milk                         140ml    180ml

oil                            2tbsp    3tbsp

salt                         1 1/2tsp   2tsp

sugar                     4tbsp       5tbsp

bread flour              380g        500g

walnut chopped      60g           80g

dry yeast               1 1/2tsp      1 3/4tsp

Program : sweet

Valarie's Ultimate Chocolate Muffin

2010-06-11T17:27:00.000+08:00

A few weeks ago made 3 recipes of this muffin to use up the buttermilk in one round of baking, prefer not to keep it for too long once open.

Surpise Gifts!

2010-06-04T12:02:00.000+08:00

Weeks ago received a parcel from fellow blog C, as I was not at home when the parcel arrived, have to go post office to pick it up. I could't wait but to open the parcel on the spot...there were so many items in the package, the cups were so nice and pretty...Thanks C for the delightful surprise!

Besides the above parcel, there was also a lucky draw gift from being a facebook fan of 'Shop n Bake'.

Steam Herbal Prawn

2010-05-21T09:20:00.001+08:00

As we already had some fried food for Saturday lunch, so planned to steam the prawn instead of deep fried it for dinner. I only use some common herb like wolfberry(苟杞子), dang gui (当归), yu zhu (玉竹)and some cooking wine , water, salt and pepper, steam for about 8 min and a simple dish is done.

Drunken Spare Ribs

2010-05-21T09:12:00.000+08:00

These few week most of my family was down with cough including myself, so I tried to avoid cooking fried food, did this dish a weeks ago but I think I bought the wrong type of ribs as it doesn't cook thru very well.

Ingredients:

500g spare ribs, cut into small pieces

2 cups oil for deep frying

3 rbsp shredded ginger

50g black fungus, soaked and cut into pieces

Marinade:

½ tsp salt

½ tsp sugar

1 tsp light soya sauce

1tbsp cornstarch

Seasoning:

½ tsp light soya sauce

1tsp oyster sauce

½ tsp sugar

500ml water

300ml Chinese cooking wine

1 tsp corn starch water for thickening

Method:

1. Mix spare ribs with marinade and marinate for 1 hour. Pan fried in some oil for 2min. Dish and drain.

2. Leave 1 tbsp oil in wok, sauté shredded ginger until aromatic. Add in spare ribs, black fungus, seasoning and bring to boil. Cover with lid and simmer with low heat for 30min.

3. Lastly add in cooking wine and simmer for 10min. Thicken with cornstarch water. Dish up and serve.

Yellow River

2010-05-21T09:05:00.000+08:00

Attempt recipe from Alex Goh's new book 'Magic Bread', the recipes from this book uses a gelatinized dough which makes the bread soft and springy without using any bread improver...my shaping skill sucks so most of the bun wasn't shaped very well.
The soft texture of the bread doesn't last as long as expected, about 2 days later it turned abit hard.

Ingredients:
A 100g bread flour
70g boiling water

B. 300g bread flour
100g plain flour
75g sugar
6g salt
20g milk powder
9g instant yeast

C. 175g cold water
60g cold egg

D. 75g butter

E.300g raisins (I use 170g)

Method:
1. Add the boiling water from A into flour, mix intil well blended to form dough. Cover and set aside to cool.
Keep it into frigde for at least 12 hours.

2. Mix B until well blended. Add in C and knead to form rough dough. Add in A and knead till well blended.

3. Add in D and knead to form elastic dough. Add in E mix untill will blended,cover it cling film. Let it proof for 40 min.

4. Divide the dough into 80g each and mould it round. Let it rest 10min.

5. Flatten the dough and roll it into oval shape.

6. Place it onto greased pan and let proof for 45min.

7. Egg wash and cut the top portion with sharp knife. Place some butter on top and sprinkle with some sugar.

8. Place in the middle shelve of the oven, bake at 180 deg C for 12-15min.

Braised Egg Tofu with Mushroom

2010-05-13T16:07:00.000+08:00

I like this dish. Have been attempt re-create it a few times, and finally got quite close to the original dish.

Ingredients:
300g egg tofu (about 2 tubes)
one small canned mushroom (cut into smaller pieces)
a few slice of carrot
1 egg
spring onion for garnish (optional)

1 cup of water
2 tbsp of concentrated abalone stock (can use concentrated chicken stock)
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
potato starch water(mix 1 tbsp potato starch with 2-3 tbsp water)

Method:
1. Slice the tofu into 1 cm thick pieces. Deep fried each side till golden. Set aside.
2. Pour water and concenrated abalone stock into wok, stir till combined, add in carrot and canned
    mushrooms, add in tofu, oyster sauce, soy sauce, bring to boil.
3. Beat the egg in a bowl, slowly pour egg into wok, at the same time stir the content in the wok so as to
    break up the egg.
4. Add in potato starch water and thicken the content, lastly add in chopped spring onion and sesame oil.
   Server warm.

7 minute frosting Pandan Cake

2010-05-11T09:17:00.001+08:00

Made this cake for mom on Mother's day. Learned this cake from Anna's Cooking Art, it is actually chiffon cake with meringue topping, rather easy cake to do.

Stuffed Doughstick with Fish Paste

2010-05-06T12:30:00.001+08:00

Thought of doing an easy dish, this dish came to mind, this dish was commonly know to stuff with squid paste, all preferred to use fish paste instead of squid paste, thats good as just bought the fish paste from of the shelf else squid paste have to do from scatch.

Cut youtiao(doughstick) into 3 pieces lengthwise. Mixed some chopped corinder into the fish paste and stuff sufficient amount into doughstick, pan fry till the side with fish paste is slightly brown. It can be dip with chilli sauce or mayo.

XO sauce

2010-05-04T14:29:00.001+08:00

Attempt 1 portion of the xo sauce from the lesson in Chef cooking studio, forgot to buy chilli padi on the day that I planned to cook the sauce so this batch of sauce is not as spicy as those that we tried from the class but I like it. Its not a difficult recipe but cutting the yunan ham and salted fish really push my arm power to the limit...

XO sauce is like a very useful sauce, besides using it as a dipping sauce, we also eat it with plain rice, and most of all used it for doing dishes like stir-fry asparagus...

This dish do not required seasoning, 6 large prawns, 1 capcicum, some slice carrot and about 6-8 asparagus, stir fry the prawn and vegetables with some oil, stir in a little water then seasoned with one and half tablespoon of xo sauce, stir fry a while and its done. Simple and fast dish.

Fried Prawn in XO sauce (XO 酱炒虾)

2010-04-15T15:50:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday, my friends and I attended XO chilli sauce class at Chef Cooking Studio conducted by Chef Keong, besides learning the xo sauce, he also teach a couple of dishes using the xo sauce, this dish is one of them. Chef Keong gave each student a small portion of the sauce so that we try it on dishes or use it as condiment. I intended to cook a prawn dish that day so this sauce came just in time, so did this dish for dinner.

Lily's Scones

2010-04-08T15:42:00.000+08:00

Have not made scones for quite sometime, since need to made something quick for breakfast so I attempt this recipe from Nigella Lawson's Domestic Goddess book, its very easy and quick to do and most important its nice as mention in the book but on one condition best to eat when its warm...

Ingredients:

3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
4 ½ teaspoons cream of tartar
¼ cup cold unsalted butter, diced
2 Tablespoons vegetable shortening,
1 1/3 cups milk
1 large egg, beaten, for glaze (I didn't do the glaze)

Tools:

2 ½ inch round cutter
1 Baking pan, lightly greased
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Sift flour, salt, baking soda and cream of tartar into a large bowl. Using a pastry cutter, add vegetable shortening and butter until the mixture is like fine crumbs. Add milk all at once, mix very lightly until just blended (do no over mix). Turn out onto a floured surface and knead lightly to form the dough.

Roll out to about 1 to 1 ¼ inch thickness. Dip the cutter into some flour, then stamp out at least 10 scones. You get 12 in all from this, but you may need to re-roll of the last two. Place on the baking sheet very close together – the idea is they bulge and stick together on cooking – then brush the tops with egg wash. Put in the oven and cook for 10 minutes or until risen and golden.

Always eat freshly baked, preferably still warm from the oven with butter or clotted cream and healthy dollop of jam.

Grilled Nam Yee Wings

2010-04-06T16:23:00.001+08:00

My friend S gave me some nam yee (chinese femented beancurd) last year. I've tried using nam yee to do ribs and pork chops, this time tried it with chicken wings, Randal likes it very much...

Ingredients:
Half kg mid joint wings

sauce:
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 pc nam yee
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp cooking wine
dash of white pepper

glaze:
1 tbsp honey
1tbsp water

Method:
1. Rinse wings. Mix the sauce ingredient to gather till well combined. Pour the sauce over wings and marinate for at least 2 hours in the fridge.
2. Preheat oven till 200 deg C. Place wing on grill rack and apply some oil on the wings, put into oven and grill over top bottom heat for 10 min, brush some sauce from the marinade on the wing and continue to grill for a few min, flip the wings and grill for 5 min. Remove wing from oven and place in plate and set aside.
3. Heat wok and pour in the glaze ingredient, pour wing into wok, stir the wings a while till the honey mixture is thicken and absorb by the wing. Remove from wok and serve.

Banana Chiffon Cake

2010-03-25T10:49:00.000+08:00

Learned a few chiffon cakes at Ms Anna's class last week, attempt the Banana Chiffon cake last weekend and bring it to mil place. The batter was too much for my 9" chiffon tin, so pour the balance in a smaller tin, but somehow I find the outcome of the bigger cake was a little under bake. The cake was not sweet but very fragrant...

Mandarin Orange Buttercake

2010-03-19T11:40:00.000+08:00

A friend share this recipe sometime ago, but I kept pending doing it till recently, I reduced the sugar amount cos afraid that it would turn out sweet but it turn out to be not sweet at all so the original amount should taste just nice. Thanks BK for the nice recipe.

Stir fry Potato with Chicken and Mushrooms

2010-03-05T12:46:00.000+08:00

Saw a similar dish on TV a week ago, so Randal request to cook this, I didn't note the ingredients so just cook my own version.

Ingredients:
300g Chicken - chopped into small piece ( I use chicken mid-joint wings)
2 potatoes - cut into cube
5 mushrooms - soaked
2 stalks of spring onion- cut into long strips
3 shallot- slice thinly
1tbsp chop garlic

chicken marinate:
pepper
1 tsp light soy sauce
a little sesame oil

sauce:
1-2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine
1 tbsp sugar
water

Method:
1. Rinse and marinade the chicken for at least 2 hours in the fidge.

2. Heat wok pan fry chicken till slightly brown, dish and set aside, then pan fry potatoes till brown too, dish aside.

3. Add a little oil, fry shallots and garlic till fragrant, add the chicken, potato and mushrooms, stir fry a while, add in the sauce ingredients, add water till it covers at least 3/4 of the dish, simmer at low fire till potato is soft and chicken is fully cooked, stir the content in between so that its well cooked by the sauce. By then the sauce should be cooked till less than half.

4. Add in spring onion stir fry a while. Dish and serve.

Fried Spiced Wings

2010-03-02T15:39:00.000+08:00

Ate this dish a few weeks ago, so ask the aunty chef who cooked this dish for recipe and its sounds so simple to do. Attempt it last weekend for dinner...

Ingredients:
6 wings and 6 drumlets
1 tsp grated ginger
dash of pepper
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp five spiced powder

rice flour

Method:
1. Rinse wings/drumlets, add in the marinate ingredients and marinade in fridge for about 1 hour.

2. Heat oil, coat each wings sparingly with rice flour, fried till wings/drumlets are golden brown, dish and serve.

Yuan Xiao (元宵)

2010-03-01T14:11:00.002+08:00

The 15th day of the first chinese lunar month(Sunday) was the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration, tang yuan (glutinous rice ball) is the dessert that some or many chinese family will eat on this day. Bought a pack of japanese mochi flour sometime ago, tried making the tang yuan with it, the flour is abit more sticky compare to the local glutinous flour, maybe because the nature of japanese rice is more sticky, the tang yuan turn out more chewy as compare to nomal type.

Japanese Mochi Flour

We like to add sweet potato to the sweet soup, I sweeten it with orange sugar.

Pineapple tarts

2010-02-12T17:30:00.001+08:00

These tarts are the last batch of cookies that I made for this coming chinese new year, this time I adjust an old recipe for the pastry...

Pastry:
250g butter (I prefer to use goldencurn for its rich butter fragrant)
400g flour
1 egg + 1 yolk

Method:
1. Leave butter at room temperature for half hour, cut into smaller pieces and place in flour, use finger tip to rub butter with flour till it resemble bread crumbs.
2. Add in the eggs and mix till it form a dough(do not over mix), chill in fridge for 30min.
3. Take a portion of dough and roll between two plastic sheets, dust with little flour, use cookie cutter and cut out desire shapes, place on baking tray thats lined with pachment paper, form the pineapple paste into a ball and place on top of pastry. Apply glaze to the tarts.
4. Bake at preheated 170degC oven for 20mins.

Valerie's Sugee Cookie

2010-02-09T08:56:00.002+08:00

Learned this cookie at Ms Valerie's class, its so easy to do, the recipe is also not very sweet compare to others, my family like this cookie...will sure do it again.

Valerie's Kuih Bangkit

2010-02-09T08:46:00.002+08:00

I have never succeed in making kuih bangkit after many attempt, so have to attend class to learn. Was very delighted that this batch of cookies turn out nice, fragrant and of course it does melt-in-the-mouth.

Plain Man Tou - 白馒头

2010-02-08T12:24:00.002+08:00

Tried this plain bun from 孟老师's new book 孟老师的中式面食 , it was quite easy to do, the book says 'using the basic ingredients and shortest time to make this basic plain mantou', it took me slightly more than an hour and we can have fresh piping hot bun for breakfast...

Ingredients:

Water 260g

Instant yeast 5g (1tsp+1/4 tsp)

Plain flour 500g

Fine sugar 25g

Salad oil 5g

Method:

1. Mix water with yeast.

2. Mix all the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, pour in 1 and mix till well combined using a spatula.

3. Use hand to knead the flour in the bowl till it form a dough.

4. Bring the dough to table and continue kneading till it becomes a smooth dough.

5. Rest dough for 5 min.

6. Roll the dough into a rectangular shape, about 5 mm thick.

7. Roll the dough like a swiss roll from the long side of the rectangle, cut into 8 equal portions, place each dough on a piece of baking paper/grease proof paper.

8. Place the dough in steamer, cover and let it proof for 20 min.

9. Start boiling the water in the steamer, steam over medium high fire for 15min ( timing count from water starts boiling)

Chilli Crab

2010-02-03T14:32:00.000+08:00

While shopping for grocery on weekend morning, Kenny saw some female chilli crabs since is not so easy to get female crabs at supermarkets, bought two and cook it with my mom-in-law's chilli paste, we did this dish through taste and estimation, it taste as good as those selling outside.

Blueberry Muffins

2010-01-21T08:33:00.001+08:00

Woke up one morning thought of baking something for breakfast, this recipe includes some lemon zest, which gives some refreshing taste for a warm breakfast...

125g caster sugar

1tbsp grated lemon zest

265g plain flour

1tbsp baking powder

2 lightly beaten eggs

225ml milk

115 unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla essence

225g fresh or thawed frozen blueberries (I use 125g of thawed frozen blueberries)

1)Preheat the oven to 200degC. Place 12 paper baking cases in muffin tin.

2)In medium bowl, stir the sugar, lemon zest, sifted flour and baking powder with a spoon.

3)In a large bowl, beat the eggs, milk, butter and vanilla with a whisk until smooth, about 1 min. Add the dry ingredients and stir until the blueberries are just combined. Spoon the batter into the cases.

4)Bake in oven for 20 min. Remove tin from the oven and cool for 5 min. Serve muffin immediately.

5)Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days, or freeze for up to 3 mths.

Make 1 dozen

Pork Rib Soup with Lotus Seeds and Huai Shan

2010-01-19T14:36:00.002+08:00

Bought some dried octopus from the wholesale dried goods shop at bugis sometime ago, its much bigger than the usual ones that selling at the market, the soup taste very sweet with it.

Ingredients:

75g White lotus seeds (莲子)

38g Huai shan (淮山)

1 dried octopus

2 candied dates (蜜枣)

300g pork ribs

4 slices ginger

Salt to taste

Rinse ribs and scaled it in boiling water for 3 min.

Peel dried octopus. Soak it in warm water for 20min. Rinse all remaining ingredients. Soak lotus seeds and huai shan in water for 30min.

Put all ingredients into a pot. Add water(app. 2 litre) and bring to the boil. Reduce to low heat and cook for 2 hours. Season with salt. Serve.

Function of ingredients:

Dried octopus strengthens Qi; regulate blood chemistry; improves skin texture and strengthen the body. White lotus seeds and huai shan strengthens the Spleen and Kidneys, while regulating Qi flow and improve skin texture. Candied dates and ginger neutralize gastric acid; benefit the Spleen and cure Asthenia.

Roast Pork

2010-01-19T07:41:00.000+08:00

First attempt on the dish and was easier than expected, recipe was reference from kuali, quite statisfied with the end result but there's still room for improvement...

Stir fry rice cake with Seafood

2010-01-08T08:02:00.001+08:00

Bought a pack of korean rice cake from korean supermarket at Burlington square, initially wanted to cook it as a spicy dish but later change my mind, just stir fry it with garlic, fish fillet, shrimps and some vegetables, season it with chicken powder and simmer a few min with a little water and its done. The rice cake texture is a little more on the springy side compare to those dries ones that we usual bought..quite nice.

Herb and Walnut Bread

2010-01-07T07:58:00.001+08:00

Try one recipe from the new bought breadmachine recipe book, but I adjust it a little by replacing the fresh herbs with dried ones(I use what's available in my kitchen). As I can't get hold of fresh rosemary that day so I sprinkle some dried rosemary on top of the loaf when the bread was baking half way in the machine. The bread still linger the rosemary fragrant when I reheat the balance bread from freezer after a few days, the fragrant brought out nice appetite...

Ingredients:

185ml/ 3/4 cup milk

105ml/1/2 cup water

3tbsp extra virgin olive oil

450g/ 3 cups bread flour

50g/1/2 cup chopped walnut

1tsp garlic powder

2 tsp dried mix herbs

11/2 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

1tsp instant yeast

1. Pour the milk,water and olive oil into the bread machine pan. If the instruction for your machine specify that the yeast is to be placed in the pan first, reverse the order in which you add the liquid and dry ingredients.

2. Set the bread machine to basic/normal setting, medium crust, then press Start.

3. About 1 hour before the cycle end, sprinkle a little salt and dried rosemary on top of the loaf(I like the smell of rosemary on baking bread, I think the fragrant will help increase the appetite)

4. Remove the bread at the end of the cycle and turn out on to a wire rack to cool.

Salad

2010-01-04T10:05:00.000+08:00

Thought that a western style roast chicken should go with salad instead of the usual stir fry vegetables, never did a salad for meals before, also tried created a simple salad dressing than to use bottle ones.

1 lettuce

Some cherry tomatoes

1 small Carrot – sliced thinly

Sauce:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp chopped sage

1 tsp chopped mint

Ground black pepper

½ tsp salt

2tbsp sugar

1 tbsp honey

A little stock or water

Juice of half lemon

1 tsp vinegar

Method:

1. Rinse lettuce and break into big piece with hand, place all vegetables in a big bowl. Mix the sauce together. Chilled the vegetable and sauce in fridge separately.

2. Just before dinner, mix sauce and vegetable till will combined, serve.

Roast Chicken

2010-01-04T09:45:00.001+08:00

Watched Jamie Oliver did the roast turkey on tv and it looks delicious and easy to do, so I tried putting the herb butter mixture on chicken for christmas day dinner, the chicken tasted quite nice and we finish the whole chicken....

Ingredients:

1 chicken (approx. 1.5kg)

2 tbsp butter (soften)

2 tsp chopped sage leaves

Black Pepper

1 tsp salt

3 stalk of celery-chopped

3 small carrot – cut into big piece

1 onion- cut into chunks

1 tsp Salt and 1 tsp black pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

Method:

1. Rinse chicken, chopped off chicken legs and neck of chicken. Leave aside to let it dry a little. Meanwhile chopped up the vegetables and mix together with salt, black pepper and olive oil.

2. Apply butter herb mixture on chicken and chicken cavity. Place marinated vegetable on foil lined tray, place chicken on top.

3. Place chicken in preheated 180 deg C fan oven, baked for 45min then turn to 200 deg C to bake a further 10-15 min to make the chicken skin more brown.

4. Poke the thick section of chicken (thigh) with a satay stick to check the chicken is cooked. If clearn liquid flow out then is done. Remove chicken from oven, remove chicken on plate, let it cool down a little before serve.

Quick Honey Wings

2009-12-21T07:44:00.001+08:00

The was suppose to be grilled dish, but tried cooking it in wok...

Ingredients:

Appx. 500g chicken wings

Sauce:

2tbsp honey

1tbsp cooking wine/sherry

1/2 tsp dark soy sauce

1/2 cup water

Marinade:

salt

black pepper

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp paprika

Method:

1. Rinse chicken wing, marinate it the the marinade, place in fridge for at least 2 hours.

2. Heat up wok with 2 tbsp oil over medium fire, pan fry till wings are evenly brown on both sides.

3. Combined sauce ingredients together, add sauce to wings, make sure all the wings are cover by the water, lower the fire and let the wings cooked till water dried up. Remove the wings and serve

Taipei Trip'09

2009-12-04T11:24:00.001+08:00

This trip was quite good, Taipei is a nice place, the people are very friendly and polite, there are lots of variety of food, the attractions are rather easy to locate given that we visited all the places on our own, not difficult to find places as the public transports reaches almost everwhere. Manage to cover most of the places that we wanted to visit.

This first few days was cold, kept raining...

On the second day, after visited Sun Yat Sun Memorial Hall...

We went to Hello Kitty Resturant for lunch, which was only one mrt station away from the memorial hall...

this burger was very big...

Even the toilet looks so sweet...

the cakes and pastries looks so cute and sweet...

Braised Pork Belly with Mushrooms and Eggs

2009-11-13T17:00:00.001+08:00

There were some pre-cut pork belly laying in my mum's freezer, so I suggested to braise it with some eggs since we haven't ate braised pork dishes for a while. I like to cook the meat a bit longer so as to make sure its tender, thou it doesn't look nice but the taste was...

Ingredients:

1 kg pork belly - sliced

a few chinese mushrooms (soaked)

a few hard boiled eggs

1 star anise

1-2 cloves of galic (smashed slightly)

800ml water

Seasoning:

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1/2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp chinese cooking wine

1 tsp dark soy sauce

Method:

1. Rinse pork belly and place in pot. Place in mushroom. Pour in water, add in star anise, seasoning and stir well. Bring to boil, lower the heat and braise for 30 min, add in hard boiled eggs, boil for another 15 min then off fire.

2. Half and hour before dinner, turn on the heat and let it braise till gravy thickens. Dish and serve.

Valarie's Chocolate Macademia Cheesecake

2009-11-05T07:53:00.001+08:00

Made this cake over the weekend for Kenny...Happy Birthday! Dear...

Mexican Bun

2009-11-05T07:51:00.000+08:00

This bread was very popular in S'pore sometime ago, saw this recipe in the recent issue Famous magazine, so made a batch for last weekend's breakfast, except for Trenyce all like this bread although the topping was a little bitter, Kenny said that the filling can be optional...

Dough ingredients:

400g high protein flour or bread flour
40g caster sugar
10g salt
1/8 tsp bread improver (I omit this)
8g instant yeast
190ml cold milk
1 egg
30g butter

Topping
120g butter(melted), 120g icing sugar
1tbsp coffee essence
1tbsp instant coffee powder
2 eggs, 120g plain flour

Butter filling
250g butter, 200g sugar

Method:

1. To make bun, combine high protein flour, sugar, salt, improver and yeast in a mixer. Add in cold milk and egg, beat until form dough. Lastly add in butter, continue beat until smooth and elastic dough is formed.

2. Keep dough into warm place. Cover and leave aside for 50min. Divide dough into 50g each portion. Wrap in a cubed of butter with coated sugar. Place onto greased baking tray.

3. Leave the dough to rise for 40min or until double in size.

4. To make topping, mix melted butter, icing sugar, coffee essence, instant coffee powder and eggs. Add in flour, mix until well combined. Keep aside.

5. Pipe topping mixture onto rised bun and bake in preheated oven at 190degC for 20 min.

1st Project from my new toy

2009-10-29T14:47:00.002+08:00

Bought a singer sewing machine with the intention to do altering of pants length, but the thought of make something else kept dwelling in my mind, then decided on a quilt for Trenyce, thought it will be easy to do with my almost zero knowledge on sewing...but almost gave up when I dive in and when doing this quilt...lucky my friend and Kenny advise to keep it simple...no need basting as our weather is pretty warm here...else I won't know when I will complete this quilt, finally after few months of struggling its completed last weekend with many mismatch here and there...LOL

Valarie's Steam Cake

2009-10-29T14:33:00.001+08:00

Did valarie's steam marble cake last weekend, the cocoa powder from the recipe was a little too much
that the cocoa part of the cake was a bit too bitter but the plain batter taste nice, so next time have to remember to reduce the cocoa powder if to do this cake again...

Fried Noodles

2009-10-29T08:11:00.001+08:00

Randal requested for fried noodles for Saturday's lunch, thinking that the usual yellow noodle does have strong alkaline after taste, chose claypot noodle since I haven't eaten such noodle in fried version for a long time and also take this opportunity to practise fried noodle...

Ingredients:

The above amount of ingredients is enough for 2 pack of noodles, but I only cook one and half pack for my family..

claypot noodle

chopped garlics

eggs

minced chicken meat /pork

shredded carrot

beansprouts

slice fish cakes

Sauce:

1 tsp dark soy sauce

1tbsp oyster sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 1/2 cup water

1 tsp maggi concentrated chicken stock

Method:
1) Heat some oil in wok, saute garlic till fragrant, add in fish cake and fry till it turn slight golden color, push the fish cake to aside, add in minced meat and stir fry till completely cook, add in the eggs and fry till half cook, break it into smaller pieces, add in shredded carrot and mix with the other ingredients.

2) Mix the sauce ingredients together, pour it into wok together with (1) ingredients, add in noodle the sauce should cover the noodle partially, cover the wok and let it simmer for a few min. Open cover and add in beansprouts, stir and mix the noodle to make sure the noodle are covered by the sauce, cover wok again.

3) After few min, open and stir the noodles to make sure the noodles are soften and sauce cooked dried , if not all noodles are soften, add a little water and let it simmer a while more. Dish and serve.

Valarie's Rum Ball

2009-10-16T08:07:00.000+08:00

Learn this recipe the other day and it comes in handy just in time, with help from Kenny and Trenyce we did a batch of close to 100 rum balls for 3rd sis's twins baby's full moon celebration...

Shrimp Paste Chicken wings

2009-10-16T08:00:00.001+08:00

The taste of shrimp paste chicken wings recipe that I tried previously was abit too salty, have been finding a better recipe, thus the bottle of shrimp paste have being sitting in the fridge for a long while. After hearing my colleague's advise on using the prawn paste, I created this recipe and the taste of the wings turns out ok except the color as I don't want to use red coloring like those selling in the market...all give thumbs up for this dish...

Ingredients:

Half kg wings

½ tsp Grated ginger paste

1 tbsp LKK shrimp paste

1 tbsp cooking wine

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 ½ -2 tbsp sugar

Tapioca starch for coating

Method:

1. Rinse wings and marinate with the rest of the ingredients for a few hours in the fridge.

2. Remove wings from marinate bowl, coat each wing with tapioca starch, deep fried till golden color.

Happy Mid Autumn Festival! (中秋节快乐）

2009-10-02T23:58:00.008+08:00

This year I'm quite lazy, didn't make my own lotus paste, and also didn't do much mooncakes too, just do enough for mum and own consumption...

White Lotus with Single Yolk Traditional Mooncake

Pandan Snowskin Mooncake
(I tried yochana's recipe and we like it. Thanks Yochana for sharing)

Baked Salmon with Butter

2009-09-25T07:58:00.005+08:00

Saw this dish in a book and thought its very quick and easy to do, I don't really like to cook salmon due its fishy smell during pan frying, but Trenyce love salmon so I try to find other

method of cooking salmon, instead of the pan fry version with teriyaki sauce. This dish turn out quite nice, doesn't smell as fishy as the usual pan fried version...

Ingredients:

Slice of salmon

some enoki mushroom (I use whats available at home i.e. king oyster mushroom)

1/4 sprig green onion (I don't have it so didn't add)

some shredded green and red bell pepper (I don't have it so didn't add)

30g butter

4 slice lemon

1 tbsp mirin } I added these for better taste

pinch of salt }

Aluminum foil

Method:

1. Wash salmon and pat dry, seasoned with a little salt.

2. Cut away roots of mushroom, sliced (for king oyster mushroom), wash and strain.

3. Brush some butter on aluminum foil to avoid stickiness. Put in salmon, lemon slice, mushroom, bell pepper, add in mirin sequentially, and seal the opening.

4. Bake salmon into preheated oven at 180degC for 8-10 min or until cooked.

Tiramisu Cake

2009-09-18T08:00:00.005+08:00

Made a simple tiramisu cake for my mum-in-law's birthday last weekend, but was told its not the day that I remembered..*blush*....still the family enjoyed the cake.

Reference of recipe from Phoon Huat demo class.
I use 8" square cake ring...
Ingredients:
300g sponge finger
cocoa powder
Coffee syrup:
50g brown sugar
10g coffee powder
1 tsp coffee emulco
some coffee liquor per individual preference
-Put all ingredients in a pot except liquor and coffee emulco, bring it to boil, let it cool completely then add in emulco and liquor.
Cheese Cream:
50g caster sugar
100g coffee liquor
3 tsp coffee powder
12g gelatin powder } mix together and place over double boil till gelatin dissolves
36ml water }
3 egg yolk
250g mascarpone cheese (thaw 1 hour before use)
250g whipping cream
Method:
1. Beat whipping cream till soft peak and keep chilled.
2. Boil sugar, coffee powder and coffee liquor until sugar dissolves, cool a little, add in gelatin and egg yolk and stir till well combined.
3. Break the cheese into small piece and stir till it resemble thick cream, add in step 2, stir till combined, add in whipping cream, stir till well combined.
4. Wrap the bottom of cake ring with aluminum foil, place it on a cake board, place 1 layer of sponge finger in cake ring then brush with coffee syrup(can soak sponge finger with syrup then place in cake ring), pour half potion of cheese cream on top of sponge finger, spread the cheese evenly, lay another layer of sponge finger then brush with coffee syrup(can pour more syrup over the sponge fingers, pour the 2nd half of the cheese cream on top of sponge finger spread the cheese evenly. Keep chilled overnite or at least 4 hours.
5. Remove ring(can use hairdryer to blow the outside of the ring for easier removal of ring), dust with cocoa powder and serve chilled.

Pizza

2009-09-11T22:33:00.007+08:00

y family likes pizza, they can have it for any meal, sometimes I will made it for breakfast, I will do the bread the night before and bake it slightly brown, this way I will not need to wake up early to make the bread and the final product can be done very quickly. This breadwas done using bread maker, the bread was soft, I add a little mix herbs to bring out the flavour of the plain bread.

Ingredients:
400g bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 1/4 tsp fast acting dried yeast
3 tbsp olive oil
200ml water

To make with breadmaker
1. Lift the tin out of the bread machine, fit the kneader blade then add the measured cold water and oil. Spoon in the flour then add the sugar and salt. Make a slight dip in the centre of the flour and sprinkle in the yeast.
2. Insert the tin into the bread machine. Shut the lid and set to dough. Press start.
3. At the end of the programme, lift the tin out of the machine, tip the dough out on to a lightly floured surface, knead well then cut into 2. Roll each shaped circle and transfer to 2 large greased baking sheet.
4. Spread tomato sauce and sprinkle preferred ingredients on top follow by mozzarella cheese. Leave in a warm place for 30min or until the dough is risen around the edges.
5. Bake in a preheated oven, 220deg C, for 8-10min or until the cheese is bubbling and the edges of the pizza are browned. Transfer to plate and serve immediately.

Nut and Raisin Bread

2009-09-09T07:31:00.006+08:00

was feeling lazy the other day but have to prepare for next day's breakfast, so breadmachine
became handy, I picked out this recipe from the BM manual and throw in all the ingredients and let it ran till its done. This bread texture was soft compared to some other recipe from the same manual.

Loaf Size:750gWater/milk 250ml, Butter 2tbsp, Salt 1 ½ tsp, Sugar 2tbsp, Bead Flour 450g,
Dry Yeast 1 ¼ tsp, Raisin 50g, Chopped Walnut 30g
Loaf Size:900gWater/milk 330ml, Butter 2 ½ tbsp, Salt 2 tsp, Sugar 2 ½ tbsp, Bead Flour 520g, Dry Yeast 1 ½ tsp, Raisin 75g, Chopped Walnut 40g

Program : Basic

Tip: Add the raisin and nuts after the acoustic signal During the second kneading phase. (I didn't follow this part, just add in everything together)

Soy Sauce Stewed Chicken Wings

2009-09-01T07:30:00.003+08:00

I know that we can't finish a whole chicken in one meal so I adjust the original recipe and cooked wings with the sauce, easier to serve and eat too...

Ingredients:
500g chicken wings/drumlets

Stock Ingredients:
200g sugar
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2tbsp shaoxing wine (Chinese cooking wine)
½ tsp szechuan peppercorns
1 star anise
1 piece cinnamon stick
3 cloves
200ml light soy sauce
1000ml water

Sauce (to serve)
2tbsp stewed chicken stock
1tbsp chicken broth
1 tsp light soy sauce
1tsp dark soy sauce
1tsp sesame oil

Method:
1. Rinse the wings.

2. Cook the entire stock ingredients in a deep pot, bring to boil, add in the wings and drumlets, cover, stew over low heat for 15min until cooked through.

3. Remove the wings leave to cool and cut into pieces.

4. Heat up 1 tbsp oil in the preheated wok, add in sauce and bring to boil. Pour the solution over the wings and drumlets. Serve hot.

Handmade Noodle (Ban Mian)

2009-08-28T08:18:00.005+08:00

Last weekend, I felt like cooking noodle or something else for a change instead of the usual porriage for lunch. So I attempt made some noodles with my new toy--noodle maker which my friend S bought for me sometime ago, the noodle texture is softer than the usual ban mian that's selling outside.

Ingredients:
Noodles:

500g plain flour
1tsp salt
1tbsp oil
240g water

Other ingredients:

Ikan billis

Mince meat - marinate with sesame oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce, pepper, corn flour

fish ball

carrot (slice)

Vegetables

2-2.5L stock

Method:
1. Mix plain flour with salt in mixer with dough hook, add in water and mix a while, add in oil and mix till the mixture becomes a smooth dough.

2. Rest the dough in a covered bowl for 1 hour. Use noodle maker and roll the dough into thin sheets first (no.7 and no. 5 on noodle maker) , then roll it into broad noodles. Dust with flour in between the process.

3. Boil stock with ikan billis, add in slice carrot and boil for a while, add in marinated mince pork, boil till pork floats, add in adequate amount of noodles and bring to boil, stir the noodle with chopstick to prevent it from sticking together, lastly add in fish ball boil till it floats and vegetables. Server immediately.

Crispy Butter Prawns

2009-08-19T09:52:00.005+08:00

Tried this recipe from Quick & Easy Hawkers’ Fair, I used normal chilli as I give the outcome benefit of the doubt that it will turn out less spicy so that kids can ate it too, lucky its not spicy at all.

Ingredients:
1 kg medium size prawns
8 cups oil for deep frying
50g salted butter
½ bowl curry leaves
1 tsp chopped chilli padi (I use 1 normal big chilli)

Batter:
3tbsp plain flour
2tbsp corn flour
1 egg
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
100ml water

Seasoning:
1tsp sugar

Method:
1. Trim prawns, wash and drain.

2. Heat oil for deep-frying, coat prawns with batter and deep fry in hot oil until golden brown & cooked. Dish and drain.

3. Melt butter in a wok, sauté curry leaves and chilli padi until fragrant. Add in seasoning, prawns and stir fry until well mixed. Dish up and serve.

Cheese Chiffon Cake

2009-08-18T08:45:00.005+08:00

Attempt this recipe from the book 戚风蛋糕零失败 couple of weeks back, the side of the cake shrunk while cooling down so I thought fault was at the oil I used, so last week tried again with japanese salad oil as its lighter compare to other type of oil besides butter, but the side of the cake still shrunk and the cake looks like mushroom...

The cake taste more like japanese cheese cake than chiffon cake as its more wet and dense..

Ingredients:

A: 150g cream cheese
5 egg yolks
50g castor sugar

B: 30cc lemon juice (2tbsp)
Lemon zest of 1 lemon
50g yogurt
80cc salad oil (1/3 cup)

C. 6 egg white
80g castor sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

D: 105g cake flour } sift twice
3g baking powder }

Method:

1. Place cream cheese at room temperature till it turn soft. Place in in mixing bowl, stir with

whisk till smooth paste.

2. Add in egg yolk one at a time, mix well on each addition.

3. Add sugar in A and mix till well combined, smooth and pale yellow colour.

4. Place B over hot water till its warm. Add B into cheese mixture.

5. Add in D & mix till well combined.

6. In another bowl, beat C till stiff peak.

7. Scope 1/3 potion of egg white into cheese mixture, mix lightly till combined. Pour cheese

mixture into remaining egg white, mix lightly till well combined.

Valerie's Apple Crumble Pie

2009-08-05T07:35:00.005+08:00

Attended Ms Valerie's Apple Crumble Pie class last week, thanks to my friend S for recommending this class, lucky that I manage to sign up at the last minute. Although Valerie gave each student a big tasting portion, Randal asked for more after tasting it, so I made 1 batch for Sunday's breakfast. The part on making the crumble is rather tricky, so ask Trenyce to help me did it. The crumble is very crispy, even after a few hours, the crispiness still stays, we love this recipe.
...camera ran out of battery, so didn't get to take the interior of the pie...

Black Pepper Crab

2009-07-30T14:27:00.004+08:00

Wanted to cook black pepper crab that I learned at chef yong's class weeks ago, but couldn't find soft shell crab last weekend, so bought some crab to cook chilli crab but forgot to buy the main ingredient dried chilli or chilli paste, so used chef yong's black pepper sauce recipe and cook black pepper crab instead...

Braised Duck with Sea Cucumber

2009-07-23T16:20:00.005+08:00

The sea cucumbers that my mum gave me during CNY are sleeping in the freezer, so I tell myself better cook it while I have the mood and the time, for this dish I didn't really follow any recipe, just come up with my own version. I used claypot to cook this dish as I felt it will gave the dish a better flavour and taste.

Ingredients A:
½ duck – chopped into small pieces
6 dried Chinese mushrooms – soaked
2 medium sea cucumber – pre-soaked in water
4 slice old ginger

Ingredient B:
3 cloves
1pc cinnamon bark
1 star anises
1 tsp salt
3 clove garlic
600ml water

Seasoning:
1 tbsp oyster sauce
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
¼ tsp pepper
1 tbsp cooking wine

Method:
1. Rinse duck. Cut mushrooms into half. Cut sea cucumber into large pieces.

2. Heat up 1tbsp oil in wok, fry ginger for awhile, add in sea cucumber and fry for 1-2min, add in duck meat and fry till all sides of meat looks cooked, add in mushroom and mix well.

3. Pour in seasonings and ingredient B. Cover and bring to boil, let it simmer over small fire for 50min or till duck is cook and soften. Serve.

Kuih Dadar

2009-07-22T16:31:00.004+08:00

After tasting the delicious kuih dadar selling at the company's canteen, I tell myself must try this recipe. I did consult the aunty who made the kuih on the recipe, and she shares it generously but there were no exact measurement of the ingredients use, only manage to see her fried the pancake and how the texture of the batter looks like. And I did an experiment last weekend...the texture turn out a little more springy than aunty's kuih, hmm...think maybe more water will be better...for filling I picked an existing recipe and adjust a little.

Ingredients:
240g plain flour
50g tapioca starch
1/2 tsp salt
450ml pandan juice – cut 10 pandan leaves into thin strips and blend it with 450ml water

Filling:
200g palm sugar, roughly chopped
100ml water
2 pandan leaf, knotted
250g grated coconut

Method:
1. Sift flour, tapioca starch and salt into mixing bowl. Pour in the pandan juice. Using a balloon wisk, gradually incorporate the flour into the liquid, making a smooth batter free from lumps. Cover the bowl and allow the batter to stand for 20-30 minutes.

2. To make filling, cook palm sugar and water in a pan and cook until sugar dissolves. Simmer for 10min until liquid start to thicken and become syrupy. Add the pandan leaf and grated coconut and continue cooking over low heat for 10-15 mins until the coconut fillings is thick and glossy. Most of the liquid should be evaporated. Remove and set aside to let it cool.

3. To fry pancakes, heat a small frying pan (preferably one with a non-stick surface) over medium heat. Dip kitchen towel with a little oil and brush the pan with it. Ensure the pan is sufficiently hot.

4. Stir batter. Pour a larder of it into the pan and immediately rotate the pan so that the batter covers the base in a thin layer. Allow batter to set and cooked.

5. Turn the pancake out onto a plate or tray. Continue making the pancakes till batter is finish, you might need to thin down with a table spoon or two of water as you go.

6. Place a spoonful of filling in the center of the pancake, fold both sides towards the middle and roll the pancake away from you, neatly enclosing the filling and creating a parcel.