Spiced Carrot Muffins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...