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.