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.