Super Soft Pau

When my friend. Lena wanted to make pau, i suggested that she try out this Tien Tsin Pau recipe. She liked the pau skin alot and has been suggesting to friends to try it.

The recipe is HERE

Hakka Pestle Tea Rice/Ham Cha Farn/Looi Cha Farn

This dish is from the Chinese migratory Hakka dialect group and is several hundred years old. The Hakkas, especially this sub-group called Ho Poh , have a unique tradition regarding this dish as medicinal, a detox meal which is also reputed to boost metabolism and servet his supersalad, with 7 types of vegetables, on the seventh day of Chinese New Year just like the cantonese tradition of serving Yee Sang which most chinese are accustomed to.

Ham Cha Farn(salty tea), Looi Cha Farn(ground tea) or Thunder Rice, has a lot of variations. The tea used ,be it green or black signifies and determine the flavour and taste of the dish. It is sometimes kept simple by grinding the tea, add salt to taste and hot boiling water, to make a broth. However others may add roasted peanuts, sesame seeds or both together with the tea leaves and herbs like mint, basil, perilla and saw coriander, in the grinding process to make into an almost medicinal tea broth. This alters the flavour of the dish significantly. The taste however, is not for everyone. Some find it enervating and refreshing, others do not like the bitter or strong herbal notes.

The essential ingredients are Farn(Cooked Rice), which can be puffed rice (mee chang) or rice grains fried with garlic and a little oil, prior to cooking and three of the seven ingredients which will determine a good Ham Cha Farn/Looi Cha Farn are dried shrimps, choy poh(preserved radish) and firm tofu. These three are to be sauted and seasoned with sugar and white pepper..

To complement the tea and rice, a wide variety of carefully selected vegetables (including blanched long beans, cabbage, carrots, four-angled beans, chye sim, celery, are used. It should be noted that meat and fish is seldom added to this diah as the the main idea is to eat lots of vegetables, making this dish cheap, hearty , nutritious and a fibre-rich.

Continue for recipe HERE

Pan-fried Fish Fillet with Pace Picante Sauce

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received 2 bottles of Pace Picante sauce. They arrived just in time, making my cooking dinner easier as i was under the weather and did not feel like cooking an elaborate dinner, not that i cook elaborate everyday but at least it must be substantial.

I would usually serve pan-fried fish , fillets or whole fish with some maggi or soya sauce as this way it is more friendly for the younger ones in the household, but since i have Pace Picante Sauce, i decided to serve the adult's portion of the fish with some Pace Picate Sauce, smeared on top, straight from the bottle. It was a hit and thank you Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program.

Continue HERE for recipe

Pandan Flavored Ban Jian Kuih

According to Wikipedia - a QUEST is a journey towards a goal and my QUEST is to make the perfect ban jian kuih and the GOAL is that it should be chewy and honey-combed.

Many attempts and i am still 'in search of"???.

For recipe continue to read HERE

Lo Sam Chung Yoke/Red Cooked Belly Pork

I have many a time been told that 'lo soi' means 'old water' but am not able to argue that it is not so, you know why? if you can't read or write chinese, i don't stand a chance in this debate.

Tell me if i am wrong, to me - 'lo' means to steep it with meat/eggs/tofu in this very savoury and aromatic liquid, which is called 'The Mother/Master Sauce'. This way of cooking is also considered to be a kind of "red-cooking" method. I like to refer this sauce as 'The Mother Sauce' rather than 'The Master Sauce' - cos????? I would like to credit all Mothers who will be the one, diligently cooking in any home kitchen from dawn to dusk

Recipe can be found HERE

Rice wine Residue Sweet Soup

Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter. ~Carol Bishop Hipps

Looking out and this is what i can see - my backyard.

Yes, it is 'Bittersweet October" , today and the week to come is promised chill in the air as the changing of the leaves start to fall, in fact they have started to fall awhile back. Nothing takes away the chill or tastes better than a bowl of warm soup.

Continue for recipe HERE

Step-by-step Mui Choy Kau Yoke

A task which usually take 5 minutes was not so and it was so frustrating.  Anyway, how difficult or time-consuming it was, i made a promise to post the step-by step on How to make Mui Choy Kau Yoke and .........

the promise is kept

The step-by-step can be found HERE

Mui Choy Kau Yoke

This is a very popular dish in Asia which appears on the dinning table during any asian festivals.  It is very deliciously sinful, mouth watering. 

Taste the intense flavour and the fats of the pork melting in your mouth.  . The preserved Mui Choy (dried salted veggie but sweet) has a nice balance which is light tasting  and goes well with the meat soft texture.  This dish might not be so acceptable by healthy freaks who shy away from most fat but in this case the fat actually gets soaked up by the 'mui choy'  and become very 'mui', giving glory to it's name.  "Mui" in cantonese means 'soft' . 

Continue for recipe HERE

Gado Gado

Gado gado is a classic, traditional Indonesian salad drizzled with a luscious. mouthwatering  peanut sauce which has a rich, nutty flavor and a delightful creamy texture. Gado gado is such a hearty and filling salad that it can easily be eaten as a complete meal. A variety of vegetables can be used for this salad - like carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, french beans, kangkong etc.  Preparing the vegetables is no big deal, just remember

to allow the water for blanching to return to a rolling boil after adding each vegetable to ensure they are cooked according to the times allocated. DRAIN the blanched vegetables and rinse under cold water to refresh.  For the potatoes - cooked them with skin on until fork tender, peel skin away and then cubed.  The only tedious prep is making the Peanut Sauce -if you have 'sambal paste' ready, it is not a big deal.  It will be easier if you don't want the roast the peanuts - use crunchy peanut butter.
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Ingredients

Satay Sauce

Cooked potatoes—peeled and cubed

Green beans—cut into 1 1/2 to 2 inches lengths - blanched

Cucumber - sliced

Cabbage - cut into bite size and blanched

Bean sprouts - blanched

Fried Tofu - cut into bite size

Sweet peppers - cut into bite size

Hard boiled eggs - cut into quarters

PREPARE the satay sauce following the method from Malaysian Satay

To assemble the salad:

 ARRANGE equal amounts of each vegetable on plates, garnish with egg quarters, and drizzle with satay sauce to serve.

Chicken With Red Wine Residue

I have always wondered why dishes cooked with Red Wine Residue are so craved for.  Now that i have cooked with it, i can understand the craving.  I cooked this chicken dish with the red wine residue from my homebrewing, added wood ear fungus for texture and it was so delicious.  The depth of flavor in the sauce was so robust and made this dish so acceptable that the plate was licked clean and i did not have to clean the plate.

Ingredients:

2 lbs chicken - cut into bite size
1 - 2 ozs wood ear fungus - soak, woody parts removed and cut into bite size

3 heaped tbsp red wine residue(refer to Homebrewing - Glutinous Rice Wine

2 shallots - chopped

2 cloves garlic - chopped

1 tbsp chopped ginger

1 tbsp soya sauce

1/2 cup chicken stock

2 tbsp oil

Pepper and salt to taste

Sesame oil

Coriander or Spring onions as garnishings

Method:

Sprinkle salt and pepper to the chicken pieces.

Heat wok and add in 1/2 tbsp oil, just enough to coat the wok.  Brown the chicken pieces by batches, do not crowd  the wok.  Remove and set aside.

Add in  the rest of the oil and saute the chopped shallots, garlic and ginger until fragrant.

Add in the red wine residue and continue to saute until aromatic.

Add in the browned chicken pieces, wood ear fungus and chicken stock.  Bring to the boil, add in the soya sauce and reduce heat to simmer.  Cover the wok and simmer until the chicken pieces are cooked through.

Remove wok cover and cook down the sauce.

Adjust taste with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle with sesame oil and garnish with coriander and/or spring onions.

Enjoy

 Serves

Kuih Lapis Rainbow

It is strange but it is true with our tastebud, there are so many kinds of food that i do not like when i was younger but love them now.  Kuih Lapis which is chewy is one of them,  I like this Traditonal Nyonya Kuih Lapis  which is rich and soft.  But!!!  now that i have tried making this recipe after too many requests for this chewy type, and surprising i liked it.  I think i know why i did not like this chewy type cos i have eaten too many badly made ones.  I found that this kuih will be good if a considerable amount of thick coconut milk was used in the recipe.  I shall not call this 'Nine Layers Koh' cos i have made it with 10 layers.  I wanted to have 3 colors, so i ended with 9 layers - 3 layers of every color and a topping layer thus making it 10 layers.

Ingredients:

A:
80 gm rice flour
80 gm all-purpose flour
180 gm tapioca starch
2 x 400ml cans coconut milk(SAVOY brand)
100 ml water
240 gm fine granulated sugar
1/8 tsp potassium carbonate & sodium bi-carbonate solution aka 'kan sui'
1/4 tsp salt

B:
Food colorings
Pandan paste
Vanillin

Method:

Mix all the ingredients A in a large bowl and then pass through a fine sieve onto to a large microwave-safe bowl.

Microwave the batter, one minute at a time, stirring after every minute.  I did 3 times(my microwave is only 900 watts).  The sugar should have dissolved and the batter thickens slightly.

Measure 3 portions weighing 435 gms. Leaving the rest of the batter as the topping or last layer.

Leave one portion white and divide into 3 bowls - each weighing 145 gms.

Color the next portion pink and divide into 3 bowls - each weighing 145 gms.

Color the last portion with pandan paste and divide into 3 bowls - each weighing 145 gms.

Color the topping layer with a darker red color.

Heat a 9 inch greased pan in the steamer for 5 - 10 minutes, then pour in one of the white color batter.

Steam for 5 minutes and if the layer is cooked through, pour in one of the pink color batter and steam for 5 minutes..

When pink layer is cooked through, pour in the green layer and steam.

Repeat with these layerings until all 9 layers are done.

Finally pour in the topping layer and steam until cooked through and further steam the whole kuih for another 10 minutes.

Remove from steamer and allow kuih to cool to room temperature before cutting.  Use a very sharp knife for cutting.  Although i like the plastic crinkle cutter, it does not do a very good job on this chewy cake.

Serves

Chicken And Wood Ear Fungus Wine Soup

This dish is a confinement dish.  The chinese, especially the cantonese would cook this dish as a post-natal diet for the whole month of confinement after childbirth.  During pregnancy, a woman may feel bloated and feel like there is a lot of gas in the tummy. This is due to the softening of our body ligaments and etc to make way for the baby’s growth. To expel those gas from the stomach, one soothing food we can take is ginger but after childbirth, gas is bloating in abundance, ginger and more ginger in every dish will help, as food prepared with ginger develop a tendency to move outward.  The chinese do not encourage fresh fruits and vegetables, so ginger is the only source of fiber.  After delivery, the body is susceptible to 'cold' and must be kept warm, therefore wine is the best as it moves  upwards and pushes up the energy. Wood Ear Fungus helps to prevent various forms of bleeding and prevents blood clotting   All these practices are considered efficacious for curing the body's imbalance but especially as a preventive therapy against ailments in later years.  I, the renegade must remain cognizant and respectful of the indigenous beliefs and practices linking the events of reproduction and the health status of women.



Ingredients and Method

 
Recipe is the same as Chicken With Stone's Ginger Wine except peanuts are omitted, vegetable oil and glutinous rice wine were used instead of sesame oil and Stone's Ginger Wine.  This dish was cooked for my friends to enjoy the Home-brewed Glutinous Rice Wine. 

 

Serves