Pandan Chiffon

Have not made chiffon cake for a long time, so use the free time on Saturday afternoon and bake a pandan chiffon, this time I use juice extracted from pandan leaves, I did use a tiny bit of pandan paste to enhace the colour of the cake...


Ingredients:

A)5 Egg yolk
50g castor sugar

B)70ml coconut milk
70ml corn oil
40ml pandan juice (blend 10 pandan leaves with half cup of water, strain)

C)120g cake flour
3g baking powder

D)5 egg white
60g castor sugar
⅛ tsp cream of tartar

Method:

1)Place oil in a small bowl and warm it in another boil of hot water.

2)Preheat oven at 180°C.

3)Beat A. till thick and light yellow in colour.

4)Mix together B and add it into 3. and mix well.

5)Add egg white into bowl beat till forming, add cream of tartar, continue to beat till forming becomes thick white colour add in sugar over three times while beating, beat till its stiff peak.

6)Sift C 2-3 times.

7)Mix ⅓ portion of egg white to 3. mix well, add ½ portion of flour into 3. mix well, then another ⅓ portion of egg white to 3 mix well, then add 2nd half portion of flour in to 3 and mix well and lastly pour the mixture back in to bowl with the last portion of egg white and mix well.

8)Pour batter into chiffon tin, even out the surface, lift it about a few inch above table and drop it with a ‘bang’, put the pan into oven and bake for 40-45min. till, check that the skewer comes out clean without batter when inserted into the center portion before removing the pan from oven.

9)Invert the pan and let the cake cool completely before removing cake from tin.

Sambal prawn

Saturday's dinner...bought some prawns before the CNY, use half of it to make siew mai and the other half to cook it with my mum-in-laws chilli paste plus some instant maggie belachan plus some sugar and 2tbsp of water...

Mee Siam

On the 2nd day of CNY, my mum-in-law cooked mee siam, she have not cook it for a very long time, we missed it so much that we kept eating it throughout that day, we even brought home some for next day's breakfast. I forgot to take picture of the dish on the spot, only took picture of the dish the next morning, doesn't look as nice compare to freshly cook ones by still taste delicious.

Pen Cai (盆菜)

One of the dishes for the reunion lunch at my mum's place was pen cai(盆菜), first time ordering this dish through my sis, the top layer was covered with lots of good stuff like prawns, abalones, sea cucumber etc, there was a pork trotter in the middle of the pot and the base was covered with bai cai and raddish...

Saturday's Dinner...

As usual I will cook a pot of soup with some dishes. As my daughter was down with cough, so cook batang fish with teriyaki sauce i.s.o the usual pan fry way. But both kids still prefer the imperial ribs to the fish.

ABC soup

Batang fish with teriyaki sauce

Imperial Ribs

Imperial Ribs 京都排骨

Ingredients:
Short ribs 400g
Potato starch 2 tbsp

Marinade:
Salt ½ tsp
Sugar 1tsp
Wine 1tsp
Light soy sauce 1tsp


Seasoning
1tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2tbp tomato sauce
1tbsp chilli sauce
1tsp sugar
4tbsp water
1tsp sesame oil
1tbsp shao xing wine

some starch mix with water

Method:
1. Wash ribs and cut into sections. Marinate for about 30min-1hour. Then mix well with potato starch.

2. Heat about 1 cup of oil and pan fry ribs over low heat for 5 minutes. Then fry over high heat for about 1 minute. Drain oil.

3. Combine seasonings, pour into wok and bring to boil. Then add in ribs and stir well for about 2minutes. Then add in starch water and stir till gravy is fairly dry.

Kuih makmur and Butter cookie

Got too much left over dough from making the pineapple tarts, and since I have some ground peanut so I add about 30g of icing sugar to the dough and make kuih makmur from it, bake at 150ºC for 15min.

Also did some butter cookie on friday nite, forgot to take picture of it before Kenny store it in the bottle. Must thank my friend S for giving me the recipe.

Pineapple tarts

Kenny and I made about 100 pieces of pineapple tarts on saturday afternoon, decided to twist alittle of an old recipe given by an ex-colleague...

Pineapple jam:

Ingredient:
1kg pineapple – grate
300g sugar
2 pieces of cinnamon stick

Method:
Drain away the juice in the grated pineapple. Put the pulp and cinnamon stick in a pot and cook over low heat till quite dry, add sugar and cook further till the jam is dry.

Pastry:

Ingredients:
380g plain flour
2tbsp milk powder
3egg yolk
250g butter (golden churn)

Method:
1. Leave the butter in room temperature for about ½ hour. Sift the flour with the milk powder. Cut the butter into smaller cubes and rub it with flour till it looks like bread crumb.

2. Add in egg yolks and mix it with the flour mixture till it form a dough. Wrap the dough with a plastic sheet and chill it in the fridge for at least 20min.

3. Take 1 portion of the dough and place it on a plastic sheet, place another plastic sheet on top of the dough, use a rolling pin and roll the pastry into 5mm thick. Press out desire shape using a cookie cutter, brush some egg wash on the pastry, form the pineapple jam into a ball and place it on top of the pastry.

4. Preheat the oven at 170°C. Bake the pineapple tarts for 15-20min till tart is golden brown colour. Remove from oven and let the tarts cool on rack.

Abacus seeds

The other day Kenny was asking for this dish while reading about it on a magazine, so bought a piece of yam last weekend to try it, forgot to do measurement so the recipe is a rough estimation of what Kenny and I did, I didn't add alot of tapioca flour because partly I ran out of flour at that moment and also tapioca flour is quite difficult to digest, so for my stomach and my mum's stomach sake my dough is softer compare to the usual ones.

Ingredients:

600g yam
300g tapioca flour (can add more if want more chewy texture)
water

½ bowl of dried shrimps (soaked and chop fine)
3-4 mushrooms (soaked and chop fine)
½-3/4 bowl mince meat
1 tbsp mince garlic
1 tbsp shallot

½ tsp oyster sauce
dash of msg
dash of pepper
2-3 tbsp water

Method:
1) Peel skin of yam. Place yam in pot, add in water, water should cover 90% of the yam. Boil the yam till soft, use a chopstick to poke into yam, if it goes thru’ w/o much force, then it is ready, do not pour away the water.

2) Place yam with ¼ cup of the water into food processor and blend till its very smooth.

3) Pour out the yam onto a big plate, add tapioca flour and form into a soft dough.

4) Roll the dough into small rods and cut into small sizes, then form into smaller balls and depress it with finger to form a abacus seed shape.

5) Boil a pot of water, add the seeds into boiling water, when seeds float up to the surface, remove it from the water and add to another pot with cool water, drain and set aside.

6) Heat up wok, add about 1 tbsp of oil and 1 tbsp of sesame oil, add in shallot and fry till fragrant, add in garlic fry till fragrant. Add in mince meat, fry till cook, add in dried shrimps and fry till fragrant, add in mushroom. Pour in abacus seed, oyster sauce, msg and pepper and continue stir frying, lastly add in 2-3 tbsp of water and fry for another 5 min, test the taste, can add more seasoning if desire. Serve warm.

Below is the recipe written by an ex-colleague few years ago...

Abacus seed recipe (Hakka dish, to serve 4 people)

1. Yam (fist size)
2. Tapioca flour (half kg or less) add more tapioca flour if you want chewy seeds
3. Dried scallop (2 pcs)
4. Minced meat (pork, 50cents)
5. Oyster sauce (half spoonful)
6. Chop garlic
7. Black fungus (half a pc, palm size)
8. Cuttle fish (1 pc, palm size)
9. Mushroom (4 pcs)
10. Dried shrimp (less than a hand full)

Note:
Item 3, smash up the scallop
Item 7~9, sock in water and cut into strips; item 10, sock in water and cut into small pcs

Prepare yam paste
1. Boil water in a wok (estimate enough water to submerge yam)
2. Peel skin off yam and cut into about 6~8 blocks
3. When water is boiling, put blocks of yam into wok
4. Close wok, boil for 20~25 minutes
5. Use a chopstick to poke into yam, if it goes thru’ w/o much force, then it is ready

Make abacus seeds
1. Put boiled yam (w/o water) into a mid size bowl
2. Smash yam into a paste with anything you have that can be used
3. When the yam is smashed up, add in the flour and knurl the mixture into dough
4. To make the abacus seed, roll the dough into a rod and cut into size, like an abacus
seed
5. Put a pot of water to boil, put cut up abacus seeds into the boiling pot to cook
6. When the abacus seeds float, remove them into a plate or bowl

Prepare the dish
· Heat up a big spoonful of oil in medium fire in clean wok
· Put in the chop garlic when oil is heated
· When garlic turned slightly brown, put in the dried scallop, minced meat, cuttle fish
and dried shrimp. Stir fry the mixture
· When you smell a fragrance, add in the black fungus, mushroom, oyster sauce and a
3/4 cup of water
· Mix the ingredient well and close the wok to simmer for 10 minutes
· Your Hakka abacus seed dish is ready to be served with parsley and fried onion

Oatmeal Prawn

This dish is very easy to cook but need to use lots of oil to do the deep fry part.

Ingredient
a) 500gm of big prawn (trimmed, washed and drained)
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of pepper
1 tbsp of corn flour
oil for deep frying

b) 2 eggs (beaten)
3 tbsp of butter

c) 1 tbsp chopped garlic and shallots
1/2 cup of curry leaves
a few chilli padi

d) 200g of oatmeal

Method

1) Marinate the prawn with salt and pepper and coat it with corn flour, leave a side for about 15min.

2) Heat up the oil, put the prawn in it to deep fry for 1min, then dish it out and leave aside. Remove oil from wok.

3) Put the butter into heated wok, pour in the beaten egg slowly and stir the eggs non-stop till it breaks up into pieces and fry till golden colour. Add garlic, shallots, chilli padi and curry leaves and fry it till fragrant.

4) Add in the oat meal to 3) and continue to fry, add a little oil if its too dry. Then add in the prawn and fry till done. Serve when its warm.

Chwee Kuih

Tried to make chwee kuih again last weekend, using Leong Yee Soo's recipe, both Kenny and I feel that the texture was too chewy, very different from the traditional ones, will not do it again.

Ingredients:
565ml water
140g rice flour
1 heaped tbsp sago flour
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp oil

oil
2 cloves garlic, lightly bashed
115g chopped, preserved, salted radish
dash of pepper

Method:
1. Mix well 225ml of the water with the two types of flour and salt in a bowl. Add the oil and mix till well combined. Set aside.
2. Bring the rest of water to boil and pour gradually into the rice mixture, stir all the time to prevent lumps forming.
3. Arrange the moulds in a steamer tray over boiling ware and steam empty moulds over moderate heat for 5 minutes.
4. Pour rice mixture into each mould and steam for 10-15min or till well cooked. Remove the rice cake from steamer and allow to cool for about 10min, before taking them out of the mould.

To cook the radish:
Add about 2 tbsp of oil into wok, and fry garlic till fragrant and light brown, add in radish and fry over low heat, add pepper and stir occasionally to prevent burning, cook radish for ½ hour.

Place a spoonful of cooked radish on top of the steam rice cake and serve.