Ondeh Ondeh

Happen to find this recipe in some old notes, since Kenny bought some orange sweet potatoes last weekend, I took 1 and make this recipe. The dough was up to my expectation but the palm sugar was a bit too sweet...

Ingredients:
200g sweet potato
100g glutinous rice flour
water (about 70ml)
gula melaka
grated coconut + pinch of salt

Method:
1) Remove skin of sweet potato and steam or boil it till soft.

2) Mash the sweet potato into paste, add in glutinous rice flour and add water 1 tbsp by 1 tbsp till a soft dough is form.

3) Rest the dough for about fifteen minutes.

4) Steam the grated coconut with pinch of salt for about 10min. Remove and aside to let it cool.

5) Slice the gula melaka into small pieces, as small as possible so that it will melt when boiling the dough later.

6) Roll the dough into desire ball size, press a hole in the center, place a little chopped gula melaka in the dough and seal the dough properly.

7) Boil a pot of water, place the dough(with gula melaka) in the boiling water and boil till the dough float. Scoop up the dough and roll it over the grated coconut.

Yaki Soba

Have not cooked this noodle dish for a long time, so bought some yakisoba noodles and the yaki soba sauce from Isetan Scotts a couple of weeks ago and cooked this dish for breakfast that weekend.

Ingredients:

3 pack of noodles - Rinse

2 eggs

some mince pork

1/4 cabbage -shredded thinly

shredded carrot

1/3 bottle of yaki soba sauce

1-2 tbsp japanese cooking wine

Method:

Heat up wok, add 2 tbsp oil, fry the egg till half cooked and break it into smaller pieces, add in mince pork and fry till the pork is cooked, add in the vegetables, stir a while then add in yaki soba sauce and cooking wine follow by noodles. Stir fry the noodles for a few min, make sure the noodles are coated with the sauce evenly. Dish the noodle once its done(should be able to taste the sauce blend with the noodle) .

Stir fry Chicken with Cashew Nuts

My mum prefer to cook chicken breast in a no frill less oil manner mainly for the kids health sake and most important the kids like the dishes very much, I tried to do it slightly differently...


Ingredient:
1 piece of boneless chicken breast - slice to about 3 mm thick
1/2 cup of cashew nuts

Marinate:
dash of pepper
1 tsp wine
1 tsp soy sauce

Sauce:
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/4 cup water

Method:
1. Fry cashew nuts on low fire with some oil till golden brown, dish and set aside. Fry the chicken breast slices with some oil on high fire for a few minutes, just make sure the meat turn white and not completely cooked. Dish and set aside.

2. Remove the oil from wok, pour in the sauce follow by chicken and the cashew nuts, stir and simmer a while and let the chicken coat with the sauce. Dish and serve.

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Have not made chiffon cake for a long time, finally made it after numerous request from Trenyce, as I don't have pandan leave at that moment so I use pandan paste for this cake. This round I took reference from the basic chiffon cake recipe of 曾美子's chiffon book.


Ingredients:

A. 5 Egg yolk
50g castor sugar

B. 80ml coconut milk
80ml corn oil
1 tsp pandan paste

C. 120g cake flour
3g baking powder

D. 6 egg white
60g castor sugar
⅛ tsp cream of tartar

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 180°C.

2. Beat A. till thick and light yellow in colour.

3. Mix together B and add it into step 2. and mix well.

4. Add egg white into clean bowl and 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.

5. Sift C 2-3 times.

6. 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.

7. 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. Check that the skewer comes out clean without batter when inserted into the center portion before removing the pan from oven.

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

Assam Curry Fish

Attempt this dish again without using premix as I don't really like the taste of brahim's premix sauce, using the chilli paste given by mom-in-law and some estimation on other spice, the dish turn out much better than using premix sauce...



Ingredients

300g batang fish fillet
2 tbsp chilli paste (MIL say there's chilli boh, buah keras, shallot, galangal, lemongrass and garlic in it)
1 tsp belachan
1 tbsp fish curry powder
1 cup of water mix with 1 tbsp assam paste - strain the juice
1 tbsp sugar
1 cup of water
1 tsp salt
lady fingers
tomatoes


Method:

- Fry chilli paste, curry powder and belachan till fragrant, add in assam juice and water. Add in perferred vegetables, bring to boil, add in fish fillet and let it simmer for a while. Lastly add in sugar and salt to taste. Dish and serve.

Simple Pasta

Last friday nite Kenny suggested to cook some pasta for dinner, which reminds me that I have yet to try chef yong's tomato sauce. I did bought the canned tomato and bay leaves some time ago after reading the recipe in one of the issue of last year's 色香味 magazine but didn't manage to cook it. I just cook the sauce and pour it on the pasta, Kenny suggested that should have added some meat but I prefer it this manner..simple, and not heavy to the stomach...nice.

Basic Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

45g Tomato paste
400g Chopped can tomatoes, juice reserved (can use whole tomato from can to chop)
300ml Water
100ml Olive Oil
50g Onion- - finely chopped
50g Carrots- - finely chopped
50g Celery - - finely chopped
1 piece Bay Leaf
1 ½ tsp Salt
1 tsp Garlic - - finely chopped

Pasta -- half packet.


Preparation Method:

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Saute the garlic until fragrant and add in the onions, carrots, celery and bay leaf. Saute until fragrant.

2. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes until a bright red colour. (Use non-stick pan or heavy bottom pan otherwise will get burnt easily)

3. Pour in the chopped tomatoes, juice and water, bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Season with salt.

4. Bring a big pot of water to boil, add in desire amount of pasta, boil for about 10min, drain away the water. Place the pasta in a bowl and set aside.

5. Scoop some pasta on a plate, scoop some tomato sauce on it and serve warm.

Dumplings/Gyoza - 锅贴

One of the dishes that I tried for the Chinese New Year was guo tie or gyoza. Its one of the main dish in some part of northern china during the CNY as it does symbol some auspicious meaning for the festive season if I'm not wrong, so make use of this opportunity to practise making some for last weekend dinner. Manage to pick up the trick of rolling the dough into a round disc but the dumpling skin was still too thick, the kids only like the filling but not the skin, have to do more practise on rolling the skin...

Ingredients

Dough

300g plain flour

140-160ml water

1 tbsp oil

pinch of salt

Filling

300g mince pork meat

chive -- chopped

2tsp light soy sauce

1/2 tsp pepper

1tsp wine

1 tsp sesame oil

11/2 tbsp corn flour

Method:

1) Mix the mince pork meat with the sesaonings till well combined then add in chives(up to indiviual preference the amount used), leave it in the fridge to marinate for at least half hour.

2) Sieve flour on table top, make a hole in the center of the flour add in salt and slowly pour in a little water at a time, till a dough is form, continue to knead into a smooth dough. Use the oil to grease a bowl, leave the dough in it, cover with cling wrap and let it rest for 15min.

3)Roll out the dough into cross section diameter 2 inch long dough, cut into smaller pieces, roll into small balls, press the dough ball flat, roll into a diameter 4 inch flat and thin disc using rolling pin. Wrap some meat filling in it. Place on a plate.

4)Pour some oil in wok, place the dumplings in wok and let it fry a while. Pour in a cup of water and cover the wok, let the water boil till evaporate. Dish and serve the dumplings with some black vinegar mix with shredded ginger.