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.