Jas Loves Food

Garden Theme Cupcakes

2009-05-01T09:29:00.006+08:00

This is the first time that i made decorated cupcakes, it's also the first time that i designed cupcakes for children. When Judy first told me that she wanted some flower and butterfly designs, i was thinking of more adult kind of design, those very sweet and pretty that people uses in wedding. But luckily Judy reminded me that they are meant for kids, therefore the design got to be more kiddy. It was then that i realised, oh yah, these are cupcakes are meant for kids, what was i thinking? Perhaps i have been designing cakes for adults, therefore forgotten that children have different perspective. So i quickly when to research on kid's stuffs to come up with this design.

After i finalised my designs, i was very happy and realised that i begin to enjoy making cakes for children. Because i find that cakes for children are usually very cute and by the look of it make one smile. When i was making them, i was very happy and smiling all the time LOL. Hope to have more chance to design children's cakes or cupcakes in the future. They are simply fun to make! Thank you Judy for giving me this opportunity and not forgetting my dear friend, Rachel who recommended my cakes to her.

Man U Fan Birthday Cake

2009-04-30T22:03:00.002+08:00

Beach Theme Birthday Cake

2009-04-14T18:40:00.004+08:00

The client requested a beach theme cake for her friend who loves to dive and photography. Therefore i added a pair of diving fins as well as a camera.

Victorian Rose

2009-04-14T18:22:00.005+08:00

Chilled Bailey's Chocolate Cheesecake

2009-01-09T16:20:00.009+08:00

As i have never tried making any chilled cheesecake before, therefore would like to try one and see what's the difference between this and the baked ones. I find that the chilled ones taste more refreshing as compared to the baked ones, except that the cheese aroma is not as strong. But both are different, cannot really compare, they are equally nice.

This recipe is from Aunty Yochana. It's very nice and easy to make. Thank you Aunty Yo!

CHILLED BAILEY'S CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE

For an 8-inch round cake (i used 7'' round pan)

BASE

1 small pack Malteser candies,crushed to bits with food processor (i omitted this)

12 digestive biscuits, crushed to crumbs with food processor

50g butter,melted

FILLING

1 block Philadelphia cream cheese, softened

1 tsp vanilla

25ml to 30ml Baileys

200ml whipping cream

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 tbs lemon juice

1/4 cup boiling water

1 1/2 tbs gelatine powder

Swirl

1 tbsp butter

50g dark chocolate (i used 75g)

Method

For base

mix crushed Maltesers, crumbs and butter together. Press and smooth evenly in an 8-inch springform pan. Place in a freezer while you get on with the filling.

Filling

In boiling water, sprinkle gelatine evenly, leave to "bloom" for 2 minutes. Stir to dissolve.
In microwave, melt butter and chocolate in 30 sec, stir to combine.
Using a mixer or using a whisk, whip cream till stiff peaks form, chill in refrigerator.
In a mixer (no need to wash after whipping cream), cream the cheese and sugar on high speed till smooth, beat in lemon juice and vanilla.
Stir gelatine mixture and beat to combine.
Fold in whipped cream.
Remove tin from freezer. Pour about 1/4 of batter into chocolate mixture, stir to mix.
Mix in Baileys with white batter.
Pour about half of white batter into tin, add half of chocolate batter, swirl to combine. Add other half of white batter, top with spoonfuls of remaining chocolate batter, swirling to marble patterns.
Chill overnight. To serve, run a knife along the sides of the cake, unmould,and slice.

Notes:

1. Because i used lesser than 50g of butter and omitted the malteser balls for the base, therefore crumbs falls apart when i removed the cheesecake from the pan. But this does not affects the taste of the cake, except for the look :P Stick to original recipe and you should have a nicer base.

2. I used slightly lesser than 1/2 cup caster sugar, which is just nice to me.

3. I used 30ml of bailey's, but i think it's still not enough :P

Nyonya Dish - Ayam Kleo

2008-12-24T11:11:00.005+08:00

Chocolate Cheese Cake

2008-12-24T11:07:00.007+08:00

I have seen alot of blogs baking this cake and all of them raved about this cake. But non of the blogs i visited share the recipe. I was so lucky that I chance upon this recipe is at Florence's blog, so glad that she shared it. This cake is very nice, i am now sharing the recipe with you. Thank you Florence for sharing!

Chocolate Cheesecake
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Ingredients
(A)
250g cream cheese
50g sugar
1 egg
1.5 tsp rum
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Method
1. Beat cream cheese and sugar till light and smooth.
2. Add in the egg, rum and beat till well blended.
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(B)
150g butter
135g sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 eggs
120g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp milk
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Method
1. Line baking pan and grease all around the sides with butter. Preheat oven at 175C.
2. Sieve flour, baking powder and cocoa powder together, leave aside for use later.
3. Cream butter, salt, vanilla essence and sugar till light and fluffy.
4. Add in the eggs one at a time and beat till well blended.
5. Mix in the flour mixture using the lowest speed of your beater.
6. Stir in the milk.
7. Pour half of the chocolate batter into the baking pan. Top it with all the cheese mixture, then pour in the rest of the chocolate batter.
8. Bake for 45 minutes or till a cake tester comes out clean.
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Notes
Cover the top of cake with greaseproof paper or aluminum foil if it is too brown.
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Christmas theme cake for Baby first month

2008-12-09T10:19:00.005+08:00

This cake was requested by a friend who wanted this cake for a mother and the new born baby and at the same time to celebrate early christmas.

Stir-fried Chilli Clams 辣椒炒蚬

2008-12-09T09:58:00.004+08:00

** Hi all, will post the recipe later. Have been quite busy lately. Cheers!

Watercress soup with bitter almond and honey dates

2008-12-09T09:47:00.004+08:00

Ingredients: Pork ribs, watercress, bitter almond, honey dates and red dates.

Jamie Oliver's Pizza Dough

2008-12-02T11:03:00.005+08:00

DH and i fell in love with home made pizza because we have control over the type of ingredients, the amount of cheese and the dough. I used a different pizza dough for this, the recipe is by Jamie Oliver. The pizza is fantastic, the texture is totally different from the previous one. It taste the best while hot, the crust is crispy but it's soft inside.

Jamie Oliver Pizza Dough

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Ingredients
1kg strong white bread flour or Tipo '00' flour
or 800g strong white bread flour or Tipo '00' flour, plus 200g finely ground semolina flour
1 level tablespoon fine sea salt
2 x 7g sachets of dried yeast
1 tablespoon golden caster sugar
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
650ml lukewarm water

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Method

1. Sieve the flour/s and salt on to a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing, drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour-dusted hands. Knead until you have a smooth, springy dough.
2. Place the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl and flour the top of it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm room for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size.
3. Now remove the dough to a flour-dusted surface and knead it around a bit to push the air out with your hands - this is called knocking back the dough. You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in cling film, in the fridge (or freezer) until required. If using straight away, divide the dough up into as many little balls as you want to make pizzas - this amount of dough is enough to make about six to eight medium pizzas.
4. Timing-wise, it's a good idea to roll the pizzas out about 15 to 20 minutes before you want to cook them. Don't roll them out and leave them hanging around for a few hours, though - if you are working in advance like this it's better to leave your dough, covered with cling film, in the fridge. However, if you want to get them rolled out so there's one less thing to do when your guests are round, simply roll the dough out into rough circles, about 0.5cm thick, and place them on slightly larger pieces of olive-oil-rubbed and flour-dusted tinfoil. You can then stack the pizzas, cover them with cling film, and pop them into the fridge.

Source: Recipe taken from Jamie At Home by Jamie Oliver©

** I used 1/4 of the recipe, yields 2 medium size pizza

Orange Capsicum

2008-12-01T16:06:00.003+08:00

I was attracted by this beautiful orange colour capsicum in the supermarket the other day. Actually i only wanted to get 2 capsicum for my pizza but ended up with 4, because of the colours and my photo taking.

Sushi at home

2008-12-01T15:31:00.004+08:00

Everytime when we buy sushi home, DH will complaint not enough. Because DH is a very big eater, he can eat the share of 2-3 person. So if we were to buy take-away sushi, it will takes alot of sushi to satisfy him. So inorder to satisfy his huge appetite, i decided to cook part of the meal.

What do i mean by that? Well, that means we will just buy some sashimi and the egg roll and prepare the rest of ourselves. Items we can prepare at home, such as the Chicken Karaage (i used the frozen ones), steam rice and seaweed. With some seasoning like the japanese soy sauce and mayonnaise, you can wrap your own Chicken Karaage handroll, egg handroll and of course the sashimi handroll in any sizes you want.

This is our perfect weekend, with nice food, nice wine or beer and a good DVD at the comfort of home. Nothing beats this!
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Where to get frozen Chicken Karaage

For the japanese ones, you can get from Kuriya Fish Market (I got mine from Great World City branch).

Otherwise, you can also get from Cold Storage or NTUC.

Cake hunt continues : AllanBakes Cheesecake

2008-12-01T13:37:00.007+08:00

In search of nice cakes and bakes, this time is cheesecake. As it was not a planned cake hunt and it was a Sunday and i was at the west, would like to try Lana's Chocolate cake, but they are closed on Sunday. So the only choice i have got is AllanBakes at The Village Centre. It's located at Pasir Panjang area. No problem with parking, but it's super expensive. We just stop by to get some cakes, and ok i also stop by The Fish Market to get some japanese seasoning, but all in all was only 25 minutes and we were being charged for $2.89. More expensive than parking at Takashimaya! (But we did not check the parking rates, not sure was it per entry charge on Sunday that's why so expensive. Do let me know if you know.)

AllanBakes is located at level 2, a small little shop, whereby you are greeted by the aroma of the bakes and surprisingly the baker, Allan, himself. The smell was so wonderfully that it makes you want to buy everything. However, i heard that they are famous for cheesecake, so i didn't want to waste my calories for the others. Perhaps it was quite late, so the only cheesecakes left in slices were Strawberry, Blueberry and Apple flavour. I chose Strawberry and Apple because i don't really fancy blueberries.

The cheesecakes are not cheap given the location and packaging. It was $4.80 per slice for the Strawberry and $5.00 for the Apple one. The packaging is those normal plastic boxes you see from Bangawan Solo.

Their signature cake is the Strawberry Cheesecake. I would say i was quite disappointed. But the cheesecake was really very ordinary, Newyork cheesecake with strawberry topping. The base was the normal shortcake base and perhaps i only eat it on the next day, it was soggy and oily. As for the cheesecake itself, it was really normal and in fact i find it too sweet. 3/5

As for the Apple cheesecake, the texture is very different from the Strawberry cheesecake. It was like a mousse cheesecake, because the cheesecake kind of "melts" after being left in room temperature for a while. Taste like apple pie, due to the combination of Apple and cinnamon. It is light in texture, flavour wise, not bad but again, too sweet for my liking. 3/5

AllanBakes

3 South Buona Vista

#02-13 The Village Centre

Singapore 118136

Contact number

6774 7100

Opening Hours

Mon to Sat: 10.00 am to 8.00 pm

Sun, Eve & Public Holidays: 10.00 am to 6.00 pm

Jas Pork Bowl

2008-11-24T12:45:00.005+08:00

After the delicious Korean "BBQ" that i had the other day, i marinated another batch of sliced pork wanted to create the same again. But after i got home from the cake hunt, i was too tired and lazy to prepare the BBQ (because it was time consuming to cook them in batches). So instead of that, i wanted to cook something quick and simple. DH likes the japanese beef bowl, Gyudon, so i was inspired by that dish and created this pork bowl.

Jas Pork Bowl

Ingredients

- 400g Pork Shoulder, sliced

- 1 whole brown onion, sliced

- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Marinate

- 3 tbs Korean BBQ sauce

- 1 tbs light soy sauce

- 1 tbs mirin

- 1 tbs brown sugar

- 1 tsp corn starch
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Method

1) Marinate the pork for at least 2 hours.

2) In a wok/frying pan, brown garlic until fragrant, add in the pork and fry on high heat. Do not stir too often but let them lightly brown on each side.

3) Add in the sliced onions, stir and cook till onion soften. Dish up and serve.

Simple Korean BBQ

2008-11-24T12:28:00.007+08:00

This is a quick and easy to prepare Korean "BBQ" at home.

Just marinate sliced pork shoulder meat (those with abit of fats - about 400g for 2 person) with korean BBQ sauce (3 tbs) for 2 hours or longer. Pan fry using claypot to give the additional flavour. (Fry in a few batches, so as to create the "BBQ" effect, because if you were to fry all together, you may not get the "burnt" effect). After the pork is done, using the same claypot, with the left over juice to fry any vegetable of your choice, capsicum or enokitake.

Enjoy

Using lettuce of your choice to wrap with rice, pork, capsicum, raw garlic and korean fermented bean paste sauce. Taste almost like eating Korean BBQ in a restuarant!

Obolo Pâtisserie

2008-11-23T11:17:00.014+08:00

Nikita
Le Cassis Noisette
Pinada Cheese

I heard alot about Obolo but did not try it until yesterday. Because i was mesmerized by the beautiful pictures at LadyIronChef's blog, so i just have to go there to try out the gourmet desserts myself.

Obolo is located along Joo Chiat road, just opposit the famous Bak Ku Teh. If you were to order take away, there is a minor problem which is the parking. You cannot just stop along the road, because it's double yellow line. No doubt there is a small carpark just across the road, but it is always full. So we encounter some minor problem because we have got no where to stop.

Ok, back to the cakes. Because DH don't like sweet stuffs, so we didn't eat there but have to takeaway instead. And since i don't go there often, i ordered 4 slices of cakes at a go, all for myself!! All the cakes are very pretty, but i didn't really have problem choosing. Because i like colours, so i just selected a few nice colours.

Nikita

Cake layered with dark chocolate mousse, cherry-raspberry gelee, pistachio ivoire mousse and kirsch-soaked chocolate almond biscuit.

Do i like this? Hmm.. first impression, it's something different, really a gourmet cake. You can see the effort trying to create this cake. The combination was trying to let you experience different textures in every bite. Creamy, gelee, caky and nutty. I could taste tint of almond from the pistachio, very slight zest of the cherry and tiny chocolate taste. I feel there are too many flavours trying to get attention and not complimenting each other. Not something that will create a lasting impression. Not something that i will say, i will miss eating. 3/5

Le Cassis

Cake layered with dark chocolate ganache mousse, blackcurrant ivoire mousse, chocolate-almond biscuit & crunchy praline feullitine.

Another cake with different textures, creamy, caky, nutty and crunchy. This cake is better than Nikita, because the combination is just nice. All ingredients were nicely combined to compliment each other. This is like a modern version of gourmet blackforest. The blackcurrent mousse was sour at first, but very quickly blend into the chocolate cake. This cake is nice, because it is very nicely blend of different textures and the flavours are complimenting and not fighting for attention like Nikita. 4/5

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Noisette

Dark chocolate mousse, roasted hazelnuts, chocolate genoise and crunchy praline feullitine.

I would rather eat a Rocher chocolate. Chocolate taste is too mild and i could harder taste the aroma of chocolate. The roasted hazelnut is very over powering, it was more like eating roasted hazelnut paste. It's neither sweet nor bitter (from chocolate), so i wasn't sure what are they trying to create. Simply don't enjoy this. 3/5

Pinada Cheese

Pineapple ivoire cheesecake and rum soaked raisins on a fragrant biscuit crust.

The name sounds very freshing, reminds me of Pina Colada. However the taste does not live up to the name. It was plain sweet pineapple cheese cake with rum raisin. There is something missing that could make this cheesecake better. Maybe some lemon zest to make it more refreshing? 3/5

My overall experience with Obolo

From the packaging, i can see that they are very thoughtful people. Because alot of effort are being put into the packaging to prevent any "damage" to the cakes. First of all, the cake boards were being tape to the base of the box to prevent them from falling onto each other. Secondly, they also tape the sides of the cake box, so that while one is trying to "dismantle" the box to remove the cakes, the cakes will not be "accidentally" disfigure because of the box.

In terms of cakes, they did quite well in balancing the texture. But i think they need to work on pairing the flavours and at the same time come up something that will create an lasting impression not just on the looks but most importantly on the taste. Because if you were to ask me, which is my favourite? Honestly, none. And if you were to ask me, will i go back to them again, i will say yes, but not so soon. Perhaps another 3-6 months down the road. Because i thought they are really thoughtful people, so i believe they will improve on their cakes after customer's feedback. So i am looking forward to eat their improve version of cakes.

** I am really into cakes now. I will pay a visit to Canele Pâtisserie and The Patissier to try their cakes soon. Stay tune.

Obolo

452 Joo Chiat Road

Singapore 427665

Contact number

6348 9791

Opening Hours

12:30pm-9:30pm daily

A rat in the box!

2008-11-22T11:27:00.013+08:00

I am totally exhausted making this cake. Because there were a few hiccups during the process, i was so stressed out and worried that i could not complete the cake on time. But luckily i was calm enough to handle, everything was under controlled and turned out well.

This cake was ordered by a good friend of mine for her colleague, C's birthday. My good friend, E, requested for a mouse, because C was borned in the year of rat and nicknamed rat. C didn't know that my good friend was giving her a cake as a present. So when E passed the box to C and told C be careful and not to shake the box. C casually said "Why? Is there a rat inside?" E bursted into laughter and acknowledge that there was a rat inside. When E texted me about it, i had a good laugh too. What a coincident! There was indeed a "rat" inside the box. LOL

Gamjatang 감자탕 - Korean Potato Stew

2008-11-18T22:58:00.010+08:00

I like to eat korean food but don't know about this Gamjatang (Potato Stew) until my girlfriend, J, told me about it. J is very into Korean food because her husband is a korean. J was so excited that she found a place in Singapore that sells really nice Gamjatang. I don't really know exactly which restuarant, i only know that it's located at Bugis area. I will find out from her again next time.

I chance upon this Gamjatang recipe from Kitchen Wench Blog and since J said that Gamjatang so nice, so i decided to give it a try. I did not follow the steps exactly, because it was too tedious. My Gamjatang turned out still as good, but had i follow the steps more in detail, the stew would be even better. Thanks to Kitchen Wench for sharing the recipe.

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Potato Stew - Gamja Tang - 감자탕

Ingredients

-1Kg pork spine bones (with meat on)

-1/3 head Chinese cabbage, rinsed and core cut out

-5 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and chopped in half

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Soup Stock

-1 large yellow onion, peeled

-2-3 spring onions

-1/2 tsp black peppercorns

-1 head of garlic, peeled

-1 knob of ginger

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Seasoning

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-1/2 head of garlic, minced

-2 tbsp doenjang (Korean fermented soybean paste)

-1 tbsp gochujjang (Korean fermented red chilli paste)

-1 tbsp gochugaru (coarse red chilli powder)

-1 tbsp finely ground perilla seed powder
-Salt

-Pepper

-Sesame seeds

Method
1. Trim the bones of any large white globs of fat that you can see, then immerse the bones in water for an hour to soak out the blood. Drain the bones, then put them into a large pot and cover with water. Slowly bring to a boil and leave to boil for 5 minutes, then throw out the water and drain the bones.

2. Give them a good clean under cold water, making sure you get rid of any scum clinging to their surfaces, then put them back in the pot and once again fill the pot so the bones are covered, then add all the ingredients under ‘Soup Stock‘ (onion, spring onions, peppercorns, garlic, ginger). Slowly bring to a simmer and leave to simmer for about 4-5 hours, or till the meat is tender and beginning to fall off the bone.
3. While the meat and soup stock is simmering, bring a smaller pot of water to the boil and add the Chinese cabbage leaves. Leave them for 1-2 minutes just to blanch them, then remove them and give a quick rinse under cold water to stop them cooking further. Drain, and once they have cooled down, rip them into long shreds with your hands.
4. Once the soup has finished boiling, carefully remove the bones to a bowl and strain the soup, be careful to reserve the liquid (we are just removing the soup stock ingredients). Pour strained soup back into the pot, add the meat and potatoes and the seasoning ingredients (garlic, doenjang, gochujang, gochugaru, perilla seed powder), stir together and taste. At this stage, if you think you’d like it spicier, add more gochugaru to taste.
5. Boil the soup till the potatoes are completely cooked through, then add the blanched cabbage leaves and add salt, pepper and sesame seeds to taste. Simmer till the cabbage is tender and cooked through, then serve alongside rice and banchan.

*Recipe adapted from Kitchen Wench Blog. I had reduced the chilli powder amount because i find it quite spicy after adding the red chilli paste. Original recipe used 2kg pork soine bone.

Nutella Chocolate Cake

2008-11-18T14:40:00.011+08:00

I was searching for a good chocolate cake recipe and I was inspired by the Nutella Butter Cake by Happy Home Baking. I used her recipe to create my own version of chocolate cake by replacing some of the flour with cocoa powder. I really like this cake, this is so much better than the chocolate butter cake that i baked last week. Because the chocolate flavour is more intense and the texture is also very moist. The cake is dense, yet soft, a butter cake that will melts in your mouth. Thanks to Happy Home Baking for sharing the Nutella Butter Cake recipe, which "gave birth" to my version of Nutella Chocolate Cake.

Nutella Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

- 185g cake flour

- 40g cocoa powder

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1/2 tsp baking soda

- 1/2 salt

- 90g butter, soften at room temperature

- 90g Nutella spread

-150g sugar

- 2 eggs, lightly beaten

- 200ml plain, non-fat yogurt

Method
1) Preheat oven at 170 degC. Line bottom of a 20cm (8") round pan with parchment paper. Grease and flour the sides of the pan, set aside.
2) Sift together cake flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
3) With an electric mixer*, beat butter and nutella for 1 min. Gradually add in sugar and salt, beat on high speed for about 5 mins. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl periodically.

4) Dribble in the eggs slowly, beat constantly for about 4 mins.

5) Using a whisk, fold in 1/3 of the flour mixture, follow by 1/2 of the yogurt, alternate ending with flour. Mix till well blended but do not overmixed.

6) Pour batter into the greased pan, smooth the top evenly with a spatula.

7) Bake for about 60mins or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8) Let cool in pan for 10 mins before unmolding. Invert onto a cooling rack and let cool completely.

*I was using handheld mixer.

Chocolate Ganache

(enough to cover one 8" round cake with layered)

- 150g Dark Chocolate

- 150g Whipping Cream

- 30g Butter

Bring cream to boil than pour over chocolate, stir till well blended, add in butter, stir to blend and leave to cool.

Jas Loves Fats - Mini Pork Belly

2008-11-15T09:24:00.005+08:00

Eversince the last time i cooked this mini pork belly, i fell in love with it. It's fattening and sinful, but it's sooooooo good!
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Yesterday i created this braised pork belly with potato, which i think u won't find this elsewhere. Because i had never seen anybody use potato for this before. Why i choose to use potato is pretty simple, because i like to eat potato and i love pork belly cooked this way. So by adding potato, i could eat more of the flavour but not so much of the fats. Well, maybe i am cheating myself, because potato is just as fattening due to it's carbohydrate. Anyway, this is just how i like it. If you are health concious, this dish is not meant for you.

Braised Mini Pork Belly with Potato

- 200g Mini Pork Belly

- about 5 small russet potatoes (cut into abt 3cm cubes)

- 2 tsp brown sugar

- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 clove of shallot
- 1.5 cup of water

Sauces

- 3 tbs light soy sauce

- 1 tbs dark soy sauce

- 1 tbs mirin

Spices

- 1 tsp whole blackpepper

- 1 cinnamon stick

- 2 star anise

- 5 cloves

Method

1) In a claypot or saucepan, lightly brown pork belly together with garlic and shallot.

2) Add in the sugar, let it caramelised for a while, than add in all the spices and sauces.

3) Coat the pork belly with the sauces, than add in the water.

4) Braised the pork belly over low heat for 30 minutes, than add in the potatoes and braise for another 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it simmer for another 15 minute. Garnish with scallions and serve with rice.

Beef wrapped Enokitake

2008-11-14T10:04:00.017+08:00

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Everytime when i shop at Carrefour Supermarket, i will go crazy over buying food. Because of the varieties of food available there, it is like a food heaven for a food lover like me. Because i stay in the outskirt, supermarkets here only sell the basic things, you can't really find something fancy. So yesterday when i was at Carrefour, i bought so much that i overstock my .fridge (because these are really extras) again. I bought beef for sukiyaki , enokitake (金針菇), baby asparagus, arugula (again? Yes, because i really love it), cheese, pepperoni, etc etc... Yes, i am gonna make pizza again this weekend.

Actually i wanted to make beef wrapped enoki and asparagus for dinner. However after i finished wrapping the enoki, i thought it was too much. So i did not continue with the beef wrapped asparagus. But in the end, my DH like it so much that it was not enough. I should have wrapped the asparagus too.

Beef wrapped enokitake

- Approx 300g-400g of Beef for sukiyaki* (because i didn't weigh them)

- 2 small packs of Enokitake

Marinate

- 1 1/2 tbs teriyake sauce

- 1/2 tbs worchestire sauce

- 2 tbs mirin

- 1 tsp sugar

Method

1) Marinate the beef for about 30min than use it to wrap the enoki (about 2cm per bunch).

2) Pan fry each side for about 2-3min or until brown on medium-high heat.

3) Sprinkle toasted sesame seed (optional). Ready to serve.

** If you want additional dish, you can fry asparagus with the same pan (without washing), using the leftover oil and juice. This produce very aromatic asparagus as side dish.

* You can also use bacon to wrap enoki, just omit the marinate will do.

I saved some of the beef and asparagus to make a simple lunch for myself today.

Simple Stir Fry Cellophane Noodle with beef and asparagus

Just marinate the beef with teriyaki sauce, light soy sauce, sesame oil for 15min. Fry some garlic, add in the beef, stir fry for about 30 seconds, add in asparagus. Toss every few second. When the beef is almost cooked, add in 2-3 tbs of water and the cellophane noodle (冬粉), plus one tbs light soy sauce. Cook till water being absorbed and cellophane turns transparent in colour. Add toasted sesame seed and enjoy!

Chocolate Butter Cake

2008-11-13T11:49:00.009+08:00

Radish, Kelp and Pork Ribs Soup

2008-11-13T09:58:00.004+08:00

I bought this chinese recipe book, Invigorating Therapeutic Recipes , for a while but had never tried any of the recipes before. Since i have 90% of the ingredients at home, so i decided to give this recipe a try. The ingredients are pretty basic, besides the usual radish and pork ribs, this recipe call for kelp.

As i find kelp have this "fishy" smell, so i was quite concern that the soup will turn out weird. Nevertheless, i still give it a try. To my surprised, the soup turned out great, but partly due to i did not add too much of the kelp, as i was concerned that it might ruin the whole pot of soup. And despite that i had omitted the ginger, vinegar and wine, we didn't really taste the "fishiness" of the kelp.

Radish, Kelp and Pork Ribs Soup (modified recipe)

Ingredients

- one white radish, medium size

- one green radish, medium size

- one carrot

- 5g Dried kelp, soaked in cold water until it expand and soften

- 500g pork ribs

- 1.5 litre of water

Method

1) Blanch pork ribs in boiling water, remove and drain.

2) Cut all radishs and carrot into about 1 inch rounds.

3) Put all ingredients into water and stew for 2hours.

4) Add pinch of salt for seasoning and serve.

* I did not follow the recipe entirely, because recipe only call for white radish, but i have added green radish and carrot too. That was because my initial intention was to boil 3 carrots soup and i do not want to waste my ingredients, neither do i want to save them for other dish, so i just threw everything in. At the same time, recipe also indicated to add a few slices of ginger, some vinegar and millet wine into the soup, which i believe is to remove the "fishy" smell of kelp. As i do not have millet wine and my DH don't like vinegar, so i omitted these two. As i wanted a soup to remove "heatiness" so i omitted the ginger too. As chinese believes that ginger will help to keep the body warm.

According to the recipe, this soup helps to replenish calcium and prevents osteoporosis.

Medical values of Radish:

Regulates digestion, expels phlegm, heat and toxin. But take note that radish and ginseng cannot be consumed at the same time.

Medical values of Kelp:

Also to expels phlegm and heat from the body.

Sweet n Sour Pork

2008-11-11T21:33:00.006+08:00

This is one of the favourite dish of my DH that i had never cooked before. Because i had never like this dish as i find the flour content is so high, almost like 70:30 of flour and meat, it like eating fried batter. But since he like it so much, so i thought i should just give this dish a try.

After i cooked this dish, my view towards sweet n sour pork have changed. It's very very good! I love this dish! To be honest, i had never ever eaten such nice sweet and sour pork in my life. Because those that i have eaten was either too much batter, or the meat too dry, or the sauce not nice, etc... so eversince, i never eat it again. But this one is so nice that i want to cook it and eat it again. However, the batter needs to be improved, as it turned soggy very quickly. I like something that can remain it's crispiness longer.

Sweet n Sour Pork

Ingredients
- 300g Pork tenderloin, cut into bite size
- 1 whole green pepper
- 1 whole red pepper
- 1/4 of pineapple
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 clove of shallot

Marinate - A
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp corn flour
- 1/2 tsp rice wine

Frying Batter - B
- 1/2 cup water
- 60g All purpose flour
- 30g Corn flour
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 egg
- 1 tsp cooking oil
- Pinch of salt

Sweet and Sour sauce - C
- 3 tbs ketchup
- 2 tsp plum paste
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tsp oyster sauce
- 1.5 tsp corn flour
- 2 tsp sugar
- 4 tbs water

Method
1) Marinate the meat using A for 20-30min
2) Prepare B and C
3) Dip pork into the batter and deep fry over medium heat until golden brown. Set aside.
4) Fry garlic and shallot until slightly aromatic, than add in green and red pepper. Fry the peppers for about one minute than add in the sweet n sour sauce mixture.
5) As the sauce thicken, add in pineapple and pork. Stir till all evenly coated than serve.

** recipe adapted from Rasa Malaysia, but i have double the sauce amount as the original recipe's sauce was too little. I have also modified some of the steps and ingredients amount. But really thanks to Rasa Malaysia for such a great recipe! Other than the batter needs to be improved, this recipe is definitely a keeper!!

Home cooked Sweet n Sour pork is definitely much better than those selling outside, because we can control the amount of batter and also the quality of the meat. What i like about this dish is that, not only the sauce is nice, but the meat is very tender and juicy. The thought of it makes me crave for it again. It's really very good!

Pizza with Salami, Mushroom, Caramelized Onion and Arugula

2008-11-09T12:17:00.008+08:00

After making my first pizza, we are so addicted to it that we have to eat it again. What i like about homemade pizza is that i can control everything. I like my pizza with thin crust and lots of toppings, lots of cheese! Yes! Yum!!!

I used the same pizza base as my first pizza. However, perhaps the water that i used was slightly too hot, so the yeast seems not working. Nevertheless, i still continue with the whole process (as i was rushing out that day) and luckily the pizza dough still "grew", but the "look" of the crust seems more like bread (as i didn't take note the last time, so i don't know is it me or the crust).

But since we are so into homemade pizza now, i wanted to try other recipe too. My next pizza crust will be from Jamie Oliver. Stay tune.

Today's Pizza topping

- 100g hungarian salami (very salty, different from the white hungarian)
- lots of mushrooms
- lots of cheddar cheese
- lots of mozzarella cheese

- caramelized onions
- rockets and more rockets

*** rockets goes very well with the cheese and salami. Taste damn good!

Happy Birthday Shuhua!

2008-11-07T10:36:00.009+08:00

Hurray! Finally i managed to sent out this cake "successfully". The last time i tried to bake a birthday cake for Shuhua, the cake didn't rise. So despite i finished decorating it, i didn't give it to her because the cake was not nice. And why did i bake it so early when it's not even her birthday? Because i have a super busy schedule this week, so i thought of giving her a early surprised. But luckily i managed to squeeze out sometime this week and baked her this cake. Because i didn't want to disappoint her.

Ok, back to my cake that didn't rise. So i thought it was me, must be because i don't know how to fold the batter correctly, so the cake didn't rise (as i only started baking cakes recently). However, after a while than i figure out it could be due to my baking powder instead. So i went to search how to test if the baking powder is still effective (it's not expired!).

To test the effectiveness of baking powder, just mix one teaspoon of it with half a glass of water. If it bubbles, this shows that it's still effective, otherwise replace it. And most importantly, do not store baking powder in the fridge, because condensation may reduced the shelf life/effectiveness of baking powder (this is what happened to mine). So now i know who's the culprit!
.

I have chosen purple colour for the sofa, because this is Shuhua's favourite colour. And instead of the usual buttercake, i created this special flavour for her. Hope that she likes it.

It's her birthday today. Happy Birthday Shuhua!

.** Medium used for decorating: Marshmallow fondant. All are edible.

Claypot Chicken with Mushrooms

2008-11-06T12:24:00.006+08:00

Coffee Macarons using Italian Meringue

2008-11-05T09:20:00.004+08:00

After trying the various flavours, i thought to myself, i should give italian method a try. Since i am experimenting with macarons now, i should also try out the kind of macarons produced by different method.

Actually i did consider using italian method before but the idea of the extra step puts me off. Because besides whipping the eggwhite, italian meringue requires adding boiling syrup into the eggwhite. And the syrup is supposed to reach about 120degree before i can pour into the eggwhite. There seems too many rules and guides to follow, which is something i don't like. However, for the love of macaron and the challenge, i finally gave it a try. But i did not use and thermometer to measure the temperature, i just boiled the syrup and pour into my eggwhite.

To my surprised, the outcome was amazing! I had never have such nice and smooth macarons before. They looks beautiful! However, this could due to luck that i have succeeded, because i did not follow the instructions exactly. Besides not measuring the temperature, i did not mix the unbeaten eggwhite with the almond meal and powdered sugar, i just pour them into the beaten eggwhite separately and mixed them together.

I made two flavours, one is original and the other is coffee. Both me and my DH loves the coffee ones. Not only the speckles are cute, they taste delicious too. But due to the sugar used is higher for italian meringue, resulted a very sweet shell.

Italian meringue observation :

1) Requires longer baking time.

2) Uses more sugar, therefore sweeter shell.

3) The shell seems harder as compared to french meringue.

4) Produced a much smooth shell.

5) Not so sure for the resting time, because for the first batch, it has been rested for two hours (rainy day and humid), but all cracks. The second batch maybe 30min later, all came out beautiful with feet and only a few cracks.

Will try to use this method again.

Green Tea Macarons and Black Sesame Macarons

2008-11-03T19:52:00.011+08:00

Eversince i managed to bake macarons successfully, i am so obsessed into baking them. Because i wanted to try baking with different flavours and with different nuts. Today i tried out one new flavour, black sesame macarons and the green tea macarons again (because i didn't like the colour that i got the other day). Black sesame macarons are sandwiched with black sesame buttercream and green tea macarons are with green tea buttercream. I like both of them, the black sesame one reminds me of the chinese dessert, black sesame paste (芝麻糊) and the aroma of the green tea is very nice especially with green tea buttercream (this is better than pairing with chocolate gananche like what i did the other day).

Chocolate macarons again

2008-11-02T14:25:00.004+08:00

Chocolate macarons with mocha ganache

After my first success with chocolate macarons the other day, i tried to make it again a few days later. However, i didn't get the feet this time. I was so sad and depressed, as i thought i have loose it. But luckily when i tried again yesterday, i got it back again. Yes! I was so happy. But i am still quite bad in getting the right consistency in terms of the batter. I really need to practice and be able to produce consistent results all the time.

Green Tea and Hazelnut Macarons

2008-10-29T15:58:00.009+08:00

Tried to bake green tea macarons today, not sure is it due to the green tea powder or i added too much. The green colour is quite ugly. The bottom one is hazelnut macarons, trying to play with the colours too, but in the end some have feet some doesn't, not sure if that was caused by the hazelnut or colouring or eggwhite. Because i think i have overbeaten the eggwhite for the hazelnut ones.

So far i have tried original, chocolate, pistachio, hazelnut and green tea macarons. And my favourite are pistachio, hazelnut and green tea macarons. However, i think that the hazelnut does not goes very well with bitter chocolate ganache, because the taste of the bitter chocolate is too overwhelming that the hazelnut aroma was being masked. As for the green tea, it was still quite alright with bitter chocolate.

Anyway, i only have bitter chocolate ganache. Because i am still in the beginning stage of baking macarons, therefore my success rate is still not 100%. So concentration is still on the shell rather than the filling.

My First Homemade Pizza

2008-10-29T11:58:00.008+08:00

I have always wanted to make pizza at home, but all the recipes that i found seems so lengthy and tedious. Than i chance upon a pizza recipe from Baking Mum's blog, which seems quite manageable for me, so i decided to give it a try.

But being first time in making pizza, i don't know how thin to roll. So in the end the pizza was not the crispy type, but luckily it wasn't too thick either. I will try to roll thinner next time because i prefer crispy pizza base.

For the original pizza base recipe you can refer to here. I have substituted some of the plain flour with wholemeal for a healthier version. Thanks Baking Mum for the great pizza base recipe!

Salami & Mushroom Pizza

Pizza base

Ingredients

2 tsp instant dry yeast

150 ml lukewarm water

200g bread flour

50g wholemeal bread flour

1/2 tsp salt

Toppings

70g White Hungarian Salami

150g Mozzarella cheese

150g cheddar cheese

1/2 red pepper

1/2 green pepper

1 whole brown onion (caramelized)

mushrooms

barbeque sauce

Method

1) Sprinkle the yeast into 50 ml of the water. Leave to dissolve for 5-10 minutes.

2) Add about 2 tbs of the flour and mix to a smooth paste then stir in the remaining water. Cover and leave the yeast mixture for about 30 minutes or until it is bubbling and foamy.

3) Combine the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast mixture. Combine the ingredients and knead into a dough until it's smmoth and elastic.

4) Leave to rise under a clean tea towel for about 1 to 2 hours or until doubled in size.

5) Punch down the dough and knead for a couple of minutes. Divide the dough into 2 balls. Press each dough ball out flat and using a floured rolling pin, shape into a 25-30 cm (10-12 inch) diameter circle. Using your knuckles, press just inside the edge to raise them slightly.

5) Leave to rest for 10-15 minutes. Preheat oven to 220C.

6) Add toppings and bake in the middle rack of the oven for 10-12 minutes or until crispy and golden or till base is cooked.

** I don't have pizza pan, so instead of forming two round pizzas, mine was a rectagular pizza. Pan size around 15"X13"

** the topping combination was very nice! (Created by me :)

** I did not knead my dough until elastic, it was still breaking even after kneading for about half an hour, so i just leave it as it is. Not sure it was due to i substituted 20% of the bread flour with wholemeal. Anyway, it did rise and it taste good too. So the end results is more important :)

**Because i replaced part of the bread flour with wholemeal, hence resulted a not so crispy pizza. So if you want a crispy pizza base, you should follow the original recipe.

Fried Rice Vermicelli with Braised Soy Sauce

2008-10-28T12:53:00.003+08:00

Still remember the braised soy sauce pot that i cooked the other day? This is one of the meal that you can prepare using the left over sauce. Simple and nice.

Fried Rice Vermicelli with Braised Soy Sauce

- serves 2

Ingredients

- 200g Dried rice vermicelli (soaked in hot water until softened)

- 3-4 cups of Braised soy sauce

- 1 tbs light soy sauce

-1 pair of chinese waxed meat (or any type of meat you like)

- 6-10 dried chinese mushrooms (soaked in water till soften), thinly sliced

- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Method

1) In a frying pan/wok, add one tbs of oil and stir fry the waxed meat till cooked, than dish up and set aside.

2) Add another tbs of oil into the pan/wok, add in the garlic and lightly brown them.

3) Add in the chinese muchrooms, stir fry till slightly fragrant than add in the softened rice vermicelli. Give it a few toss than add in the braised soy sauce and light soy sauce. Turn the flame to medium and cook until the sauce are being absorded.

4) Return the cooked waxed meat into the pan and stir to mix. Serve with lettuce and tomatoes for a square meal.

Bon Appetite!

Centre PS Macarons

2008-10-28T10:34:00.007+08:00

I heard alot about Centre PS's macarons, so I went all the way to Guan Chuan just to try these macarons. Why i said all the way, because they only have one outlet and it's located away from public transport. We almost have a hard time locating it. And i have to go there twice before i get to taste their macarons. Because the first time we went was on sunday and they closed on sunday, so we only got to eat them the following week.

I was lucky because i went there about one hour before closing and there were only two boxes left, one in box of 5 the other box of 10. So i bought the box of 10 so that i can try all their flavours.

Light brown - Caramel and salt - It nice but very sweet.

Yellow - lemon - again taste like kong guan lemon biscuit.

Navy blue - black sesame - Very nice aroma. Not as sweet as the rest, but it's not as chewy as compared to the rest.

Blue - Violet - Not sure what is that. Nothing special, taste like original.

Dark Pink - Raspberry - Mild raspberry taste with hard chewy centre.

Light Pinks- Strawberry and Lychee - mild strawberry taste, also hard at centre. Love the lychee, very refreshing and nice aroma.

Purple - Lavender and chocolate - Very nice. I like the combination and not too sweet. It was my favourite.

Orange - Bergamot - Tint of orange flavour with buttercream filling.

Chocolate - Strong chocolate flavour and not too sweet.

Overall, in general their macarons are sweeter than Canale. But i like some of their flavours such as the lavender, sesame and lychee were really nice.

Centre Ps Pte Ltd

78 Guan Chuan Street#01-43

Singapore 160078

Tel: (65) 6220 1285

Website: http://www.centre-ps.com/

Email: concierge@centre-ps.com

Canele Macarons

2008-10-28T09:39:00.005+08:00

I have heard alot about macarons from Canele but have yet to try them out. So when i was there, i just bought all their twelve flavours, so i can taste all at one go (i know, i am mad, mad about macarons).

Pinks for rose and raspberry - Rose is with buttercream, ok, don't really fancy that. Raspberry seems to pair with raspberry jam? Not too sure, taste like jam to me, very sweet.

Yellows for lemon and passionfruit - Lemon with buttercream, reminds me of the kong guan lemon biscuit. Passionfruit - i love this unusual flavour, it was sweet and tangy. But PK didn't like that at all. He said it taste weird. So i guess this flavour is very subjective, it's either you like it or you don't.

Green for pistachio - with buttercream, very mild pistachio flavour.

Purple for violet - don't know what was that, taste like some flavouring with buttercream.

Browns for chocolate (Guanaja - 70% dark chocolate, feullitine (the one with flakes on top) and coffee ) - All are fine, but my favour was the feullitine, it was very good!

Beiges for salty caramel and praline noisette - i like them both. I like the aroma of the nutty flavour in the praline noisette. I had always like caramel and salty caramel balance out the sweetness. But PK didn't like the salty caramel, he finds it too salty.

Orange for bergamot - taste like just another kon guan to me but in orange flavour.

Overall, i think Canale's macarons are nicer than alot of others, because most of them are not too sweet. My favourites are the Passionfruit and feullitine follow by praline and salty caramel.

However, i find their sales strategy is weird. One mac for $2.30, 12 for $28.50 (whereby 12*2.30 is only $27.60). I thought the more you buy, it should be cheaper? Anyway, we are actually paying for the packaging.

Roast Capon Chicken

2008-10-28T08:55:00.007+08:00

Last night was the first time that my hubby and i had capon chicken. To our surprised, the meat was very different from normal chicken, it was very tender and juicy. We didn't know what is capon chicken until we google. In short, capon chicken is castrated rooster. You can read more about that here. It's very good for roast, because it's huge and my hubby thought it would be very good for curry chicken too. Hmm... I shall try that next time.

Pistachio and Chocolate Macarons

2008-10-27T09:54:00.005+08:00

Yes! I finally succeeded in making chocolate macarons! I was so happy, because this was known to be the most difficult to make of all flavours. When i first saw my chocolate macarons rising nicely with feet, i was jumping with joy! That's the power of chocolate macarons. Haha..

After concurring chocolate macarons, i am also into making macarons with different nuts and different flavours. Those in green are pistachio macarons, I like the nutty flavour, it's more aromatic as compared to the 100% almond meal macarons.

I only add in a quarter of the colouring, therefore didn't expect the colour to be so intense. But doesn't this colour reminds you of christmas? Perhaps this can be one of my christmas macarons too.

Making macarons can be very addictive because i like to see them in different colours and flavours. You will see more of my macarons in the next few weeks. I simply enjoy making them.

Girl in the Garden - Birthday cake for Shuhua

2008-10-26T10:27:00.005+08:00

Happy Birthday Shuhua!! May you be happy always!

Chocolate Macarons

2008-10-24T17:09:00.008+08:00

After my two successful batches of macarons over the past two days, i wanted to try out chocolate macaron , which apparently to be known as the tougest. I don't know why, I did try to search for more information, but nobody explain why.

I was telling myself if i am successful with the chcolate macs, this shows that i might have got the technique right. Because to be frank, i am still not convinced that i can make macarons. I thought it may be due to luck.

When my chocolate macarons were out from oven, i told myself, "See! i told you! It was luck"... sigh... i was very sad and disappointed. But i am going to try again!

Braised Soy Sauce Pot

2008-10-23T14:49:00.004+08:00

It has been a long time since i last cooked braised soy sauce pot. It's simple and delicious. Just prepare the sauce and put in what ever ingredients you like. What i put in my pot were chicken drumsticks, chicken wings, mini pork belly, hard boiled eggs, beancurd and fried beancurd. The best part about this dish is that you can keep the left over sauce in the fridge and use it to cook again. Or if you have left over ingredients, it can turn into lunch the next day. Just boil some noodle to go with the sauce and ingredients. Yum!

Braised Soy Sauce Chicken

Sauce Ingredients

- 1 whole garlic, light mashed

- 2 shallots, peeled

- 1 cinnamon stick

- 3 star anise

- 8 cloves

- 30g rock sugar

- 3 tbs dark soy sauce

- 2 tbs light soy sauce

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 4 chinese bowls of water

Ingredients (just put anything that you like, this was what i put):

- 2 drum sticks

- 2 chicken wings

- 200g mini pork belly

- 2 beancurd

- 2 hard boiled eggs

Directions:

1) Lightly brown garlic and shallot than throw in cinnamon stick, star anise and cloves. Over low heat, fry till you can smell light aroma from the spices, add in some water (2tbs) and the rock sugar.

2) When the rock sugar melted, add in the 4 boils of water, bring to boil. Add in the dark and light soy sauces and salt.

3) When the sauce comes to boil, add in all ingredients except the chicken. Let it boil for 15-20min over medium-low heat (with lid cover), than add in the chicken.

4) Let the chicken cook for 10min (15min if you are not using claypot) over low heat (with lid cover) than turn off the flame. Let the pot cover and braised for 1-2hour, undisturb (meaning, don't open the lid and stir).

** You can used any type of cooking pot, not neccessary claypot. However i enjoy using claypot because of it's ability to retain heat.

** If you are new to using claypot, take not that you are not supposed to use it over high flame or the pot will cracks.

Macaroning Again

2008-10-21T10:19:00.006+08:00

After yesterday's results, i wanted to see if that was luck or what. So i made macarons again today. And to my surprise ALL have feet! Yes, all! And out of the whole batch only about 10% cracks. It was really amazing!!! I was really happy with the results. After struggling to make them so many times, i finally made it!

I am very happy that this batch turns out so well. Despite that the feet were big, at least they have feet. So this is really a good start. However, i am still not quite convinced, so i tell myself i can only said that it's successful if i am able to make another 5 batches with the same results (as in with feet, but hopefully better looking ones **Grin**).

I am going to try chocolate macaron next. I heard that is the most difficult to make. I will post on my macaron making journey after i am really "successful" with them. Macaron battle continues...

13 is an unlucky number? I don't think so.

2008-10-20T09:42:00.001+08:00

After failing for 12 times, i finally see some results on my batch 13 macarons. Yes! I see feet!!!!! Yippee! Hurray!!! I was so happy and could not believe my eyes when i saw those feet. It was very unexpected. Because when i was folding in the ingredients, i found the batter was very dry, so i thought that's it, i am going to fail again. Nevertheless, i still continue with the whole process. After piping, i let them rest for 1 hour than send for baking. And 9 minutes later, when i opened the oven door, i was shocked and very surprised.

I wouldn't say that was successful. Because for this batch of macarons, only 25% with feet and almost 50% of the whole batch have cracks on top. But no matter how, i was very pleased with the outcome, because that was very unexpected and i had never seen any feet on my last 12 batches before. So these little feet were really some consolation to me. At least it gave me some hopes to continue with my macaron battle.. **Grin**

I will try again tomorrow and see if this was luck or i might have got the technique right.

Playing with marshmallow fondant - Birthday cake for my godson

2008-10-17T09:21:00.004+08:00

I wanted to bake a fondant cake for my god son, therefore made this cake for practice. I spent 3hrs from covering to decorate, but still have not complete. Mainly because this is my first time using MMF (marshmallow fondant), therefore very slow at moulding the shapes and figurine. Furthermore, i also encountered problem with covering the cake, as my MMF tore and broke when i lift it up. Therefore, it took me quite a while just to cover the cake. It was very tedious and time consuming, but i had fun doing it. Especially when i see everything starts to come together, i was jumping for joy :) Hopefully i can make one for Jadon in Nov.

Claypot Cabbage Rice

2008-10-16T10:29:00.004+08:00

Claypot Lemongrass Chicken

2008-10-15T18:38:00.005+08:00

Claypot Lemongrass Chicken

Ingredients
- whole chicken, chop into small pieces
- 2 stalks of lemongrass, finely shreadded
- 3 cloves of garlic, remove skin and lightly flatten with knife
- 2 shallots, remove skin

Marinate
- 1 tbs dark soy sauce
- 1 tbs light soy sauce
- 1 tbs chinese wine
- 1 tsp brown sugar

Method
1) Marinate the chicken for 1 hour.
2) Brown shallot and garlic in pan till mildly fragrant. Than add in the lemongrass and fry for one minute.
3) Throw in the chicken and brown them on high heat for 2min. Transfer to heated claypot and simmer on low heat for 15min, with lid covered.
4) Stir the chicken and simmer for further 5min, with lid cover than turn off the flame. Without opening the lid, let the chicken to continue simmer for further 15-20min.

Verdict: The chicken turns out to be very nice and fragrant. You may notice no water is added, however end of the cooking time, you will see gravy. Those are from the chicken itself.

Lotus Root, Pork Ribs, Walnut Soup

2008-10-15T18:23:00.005+08:00

Lotus Root, Pork Ribs, Walnut Soup (serves 4) - Using Thermal cooker

Ingredients

- lotus root (about 2 - peel than sliced into 1.5cm thick)

- Dried black fungus (about half cup, soak in water for about 20-30min till soften)

- walnuts (about 1 cup)

- wolfberry (about 1 tbs)

- 400g pork ribs

- about 8 small chinese bowl of water

Method

1) Just blanch the pork ribs for about 5min, than wash.

2) Put all ingredients into pot and boil for 30min, than transfer to thermal pot. Leave to cook for 2-3hr. Ready to serve.

Verdict: The soup turned out to be very nice. Mildly sweeten due to the wolfberry, nice even without salt. Initially i wanted to add red dates, however i ran out of that, so i added wolfberry instead.

**The above ingredients are in approximation, because i do not usually weigh my ingredients when it comes to soup. I just throw a little bit of each to cook :)

Purple Rice

2008-10-14T18:56:00.002+08:00

Just wanted to share this beautiful purple rice. I have some leftover uncooked purple cabbage, too little for frying a dish, so i dumped them into the rice cooker to cook together with the rice. It turn out to be a pot of beautiful purplish rice. (due to the lighting, the actual colour was more intense and nicer than this photo)

Oh yum, Salmon!

2008-10-10T12:51:00.004+08:00

Yum! Last night dinner was our favourite salmon and baked potato!!!

Rainbow Beans Soup

2008-10-09T12:51:00.001+08:00

Oktoberfest at Home

2008-10-08T12:44:00.000+08:00

Oktoberfest at home. Gourmet sausages (Spicy Italian, Tomato & Basil and German Bratwurst) and Grilled Plum Chicken.

Roast Lemongrass Chicken

2008-10-07T12:42:00.001+08:00

Marsala Chicken

2008-10-06T12:20:00.001+08:00

Rong Guan BBQ ... Alexander Village

2008-10-02T17:31:00.004+08:00

Whenever we are lost of what to eat, we will go to Alexander Village Food Centre. Because there is this famous duck rice, which is so good that P and i wouldn't mind eating every week. But last sunday, we though of trying something new, so we tried out the Rong Guan Zi Char. To our surprised, the food came very quickly and there were very nice too (so much nicer than the Ah Nam experience that we had in Changi). The stingray was very juicy and the sauce was good, the kangkong was aromatic and the "duah tao" was good! Will go back again soon!

Is it worth waiting? ..... Ah Nam Zi Char

2008-09-23T16:30:00.000+08:00

It has been a long time eversince we go to Changi Village Food Centre. So over the weekend we headed down to Changi happily, but in the end filled with disappointment. First of all, the food centre was closed. So we have got no choice but to look for other alternatives. Just opposite the food centre, there was this "Bak Gut Teh" seems very "famous" (because of the crowd), so we thought of eating over there. But the business was so good that there were no empty seats available and there were few more people ahead of us. P and i dislike queuing, so we headed somewhere else.

We walked across the road to the coffee shop and managed to get a seat despite the crowd (it was 6plus on a sunday, but could be due to the foodcentre was closed?). When we looked around, saw this "Ah Nam BBQ Seafood" (with newspaper cutting introducing the food). Thinking that it was "recommended", it should be not bad, so we placed our orders. Unpleasant moments began... first of all the waiting time. We waited slightly over an hour for our food. Yes, no joke (we don't like to queue, because we don't like to wait so long for our food). When we placed our orders, the lady did not warn us, otherwise we would not have eaten there. Second, the food was not fantastic (despite we were so hungry). The sambal for the stingray was not nice, it was not aromatic. The "lala" was also not nice, because they used the same sauce as the stingray for that. The veggie had got this funny taste.... like some kind of soap... and the squid... again using the same sambal.... sign... we came all the way to Changi Village, waited super long for an unpleasant dinner... I was so sad, because i love to eat, therefore eating an unpleasant meal will make me very unhappy and feeling disatisfied. I don't know about you. Will you feel the same?

Lesson learnt: "Recommended" food may not be nice. That was the second time we got "cheated" by recommended food. First was the Fried prawn noodle at Esplanade, "recommended" by Makansutra. The food was only passable, it's not so nice till you need to go all the way there.

Let's go Yum Cha! ... .. Red Star

2008-09-22T14:43:00.004+08:00

It has been a long time eversince P and i last when to yum cha. Because we seldsom goes, therefore had no idea where we should go. So instead of looking for somewhere new, we went to somewhere "old" instead. My parents used to bring me to Red Star when i was young (about 20yrs ago) and eversince i grew up, i had never been to this restuarant before. Thinking that it will be a good experience so we headed for Red Star.

We were there around 11am on a Sunday morning, the place was crowded and messy. Because the reception counter was not in front but situated in the middle inside. It took us a while before we could "recognised" this reception. And they have a very bad queuing system too. Guests were supposed to sit and queue, without any queue number. In other words, you will have to sit, stand and move and sit again (keep repeating every minute), in order to join the queue. And the person who was supposed to be in charge of the queue was so blur that he just gave the seats to someone who just arrived and was not in the queue. That was really annoying! But luckily, we wasn't consider late, so we didn't have to wait long to get our seats.

What i like about the place is that they are still using the "Dim sum carts", which is what yum cha is all about. Having the waiter/waitress, pushing the dim sum carts around and we will order from this "live menu". Other than nice dim sum, I think this is one of the best experience about yum cha. However, the food there was not fantastic. So nothing much worth mentioning. I know there are some other places still have this dim sum carts practice, so i don't think i will come back here again.

My Favourite place for Tonkatsu....Tonkichi

2008-09-20T14:20:00.002+08:00

Finally we are back here again! My favourite place for my Tonkatsu fix. I love their tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet with bread crumbs), because they are soft and tender. Besides the usual sauce, they also offer you the toasted sesame seed to go with the Tonkatsu. I love the aroma of sesame on the cutlet, that was fabulous! Yum!! (But i also enjoy grinding the sesame seeds, that was fun too .. grind.. )

Address: Takashimaya Level 5

Snowskin mooncake with Champagne Chocolate Truffle

2008-09-18T16:43:00.005+08:00

"oh no! Not again?" You must have just said that, right? Sorry, i just said that the Mixed Nuts was my last mooncake of the year and yet i still made these yesterday. Well, that's because i still have some lotus paste left, so i do not want to waste them. Furthermore, i did not really make any snowskin, so i just made this last batch (really!) of mooncake for this year. These are really yummy, and now i regretted that why i didn't make these as gifts! Not that my other mooncakes are not nice, but these are just something different. I really like the aroma of the champagne truffle. Yum!!

Mixed Nuts Mooncakes - My last batch of moonies for Yr 2008

2008-09-16T11:37:00.006+08:00

Yes! It's finally it's over! I am feeling relieved but with abit of sadness. Relieve is because i have been making mooncakes for the past one month, therefore kind of sick and tired of it. As I had never repeatedly bake the same kind of things before. Sad is because i kind of miss it already, yes, i am not joking. Perhaps is because this is my first mooncake making experience and i have so much positive feedbacks about them that makes me very happy and satisfied. Furthermore, mooncake is not like any other bakes, but it's part of our chinese culture. So not only it's very meaningful to me, i feel very proud that i can make them too.

(For my own records)

My first batch of mooncakes were for my granny and relatives in Malaysia. I made as per my mum's request - not too sweet and not too oily for the lotus paste, because my relatives are all very health concious. Therefore i reduced the oil and sugar amount, but this made the paste on the dry side. My mum did complaint that it was slightly dry, but at least it was a "healthier version" that my relative will appreciate. (Morale of the story, healthy food are not nice! LOL..)

My second batch were for my husband's colleagues and bosses. This batch were made using white lotus paste. All his colleagues like it and didn't believe that they were made by me, because they looked and taste good. I was very happy, because that was a compliment to me.

My last batch of mooncakes were for my in laws and best friends. Sad to say my skill is still not good, the skin were a flop, but the paste was the most perfect of all. For the skin, because i had forgotten to add in the melon seed and i only added them in the end. Therefore caused my mooncakes to be "overweighted" (too much filling for the small mould to handle), resulted very distorted mooncakes (partly also because i had made the skin too thin). As for the paste, it was the most perfect of all because they were very soft, everybody loves the texture. And both my friends commented that they were better than those store bought ones.

Finally the mixed nut mooncakes, that was an unexpected production. I had never planned to make any mixed nuts before, because i don't like it. I still remember the first time i tasted it was during my childhood time. And i still remember i threw out after the first bite, because the taste was weird and "horrible" (to me) . But my mother-in-law said that her favourite mooncakes are the mixed nuts, so i added it into my list just for her. But i am glad that i made them, because again, i have got good feedback on them. My friend told me that, initially her mum only have a small slice for fear that they were too sweet, but after the first bite she finished the whole mooncake and commented that they were better than the store bought ones as the sweetness was just right. As for myself, i still don't fancy this type of mooncake, however, i can accept my mixed nuts and don't mind eating them.

As i am still very new to baking, therefore this mooncake making experience was a tough one for me. Because i was learning through recipes, therefore lots of trials and errors here and there. But overall, i am still very glad that i learn how to make it, because it is something very meaningful to me. I will definitely make them again next year, because homemade mooncakes are the best because they are free from preservatives and most importantly labour of love. And i had never enjoy mooncake so much in my life until i tasted my own mooncake. Finally, i should thank my husband who asked me to make them, otherwise i am not sure if i will ever bother to learn how to make them.

Roast Lemongrass Sakura Chicken

2008-09-15T17:22:00.014+08:00

Both of us loves to eat roast meat, especially roast chicken. My hubby does not like the aroma of western herbs (which i loves), so i will normally omit them in my roast. But i always like to experiment new flavours so i tried out lemongrass this time. It turned out very nice. The aroma of the lemongrass makes this roast taste a little bit like "Hainanese Chicken Rice" because of the "ginger" flavour (but i did not put any ginger in it). My hubby said if only there was rice, it will be a perfect meal. Because the gravy was very good and will goes very well with rice because of the oriental flavour.

.
I wanted to try out some new wine, so i got this Carmenere, which i had never heard off (partly because i am not a regular wine drinker :P). First taste was alright, but when i drink again, i didn't like it. It's not aromatic, but very strong alcoholic taste, some how like the chinese red wine that i have tried sometimes back.
.
Lemongrass Roast Chicken
.
Ingredients
.
- 1 sakura chicken
- 2 stalks of lemongrass (sliced)
- 1 clove of garlic
- 3 shallots
.

Marinate

- 1tbs lemon juice
- 2 tbs dark soy sauce
- 1 tbs soya sauce
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tbs brown sugar
- 1 tbs mirin
.
Method
1) Clean the chicken and remove the cavities.
2) Put all marinate and ingredients in a ziplock bag, than add in the chicken and rub the marinate all over it. Leave to marinate in the fridge for 4 hours or over night.
3) Remove chicken from fridge and leave chicken to cool till room temperature.
4) Preheat oven to 180 degrees and roast chicken for 40min. Than turn the chicken over to roast further 15min or till cooked.
5) Serve with fresh cucumber, tomatoes and rice.

Specialty shops - Korean

2008-09-08T21:51:00.002+08:00

Korean Supermarkets

1) Seoul Mart - Parkway Parade

80 Marine Parade Road, B1-84A Parkway Parade

Tel: 6440 6708

2) Lotte Mart - Bukit Timah

Lorong Kilat #01-02 Kilat Court

3) Sol Mart Pte Ltd - Orchard

8 Grange Rd #B1-08 Cineleisure Orchard

Business hour: 10 am - 10pm

Tel : 6734 3204

4) Koreana Trading Pte Ltd - Tanjong Pagar

163 Tras St, Lian Huat Building, #01-01

Tel : 6324 5016

5) Shine Korea - Bugis

175 Bencoolen Street

#01-10/11, Burlington Square

Tel: 6238 8897

6) S-Mart Korea Emporium - Chinatown

34 Craig Road

#02-10 Chinatown Plaza

Tel : 6224 7753

Specialty shops - Japanese

2008-09-08T10:35:00.001+08:00

Japanese Supermarkets & Others

1) Meidi-Ya Supermarket

177 River Valley Road
#B1-50 Liang Court Shopping Centre
Singapore 179030
Tel: (65) 6339 1111
Business Hours: 10:00 am ~ 10:00 pm (daily)
Website: http://www.meidi-ya.com.sg/

2) Isentan Scotts Supermarket

350 Orchard Road
Shaw House
Singapore 238868
Tel: (65) 6733 1111
Business Hours: 10:00 am ~ 9.30 pm (daily)
Website: http://www.isetan.com.sg/

3) Fish Mart Sakuraya

80 Marine Parade Road
#B1-83D Parkway Parade
Singapore 449269
Tel: (65) 6345 4714
Business Hours: Mon-Thu, Sun & PH: 11am ~ 9:30pm, Fri & Sat : 11am ~ 10pm
Website: http://www.sakuraya.com.sg/e-fishmart.html

3 South Buona Vista Road
#02-01/02 The Village Centre
Tel: (65) 6773 6973
Business Hours: 11am ~ 9am (daily, except Chinese New Year)

4) Daiso Singapore

i) IMM
2 Jurong East Street 21
#03-85 IMM Building 609601
Floor area : 30,100 sqft (2,800 msq)

ii) PLAZA SINGAPURA
68 Orchard Road
Plaza Singapura
Singapore 238839
Floor area : 7,300 sqft (700 msq)

iii) VIVO CITY
1 Harbour front walk
#03-0616A106B
Floor area : 12,200 sqft (1,130 msq)

Homemade Salted Eggs - Part 2

2008-09-06T12:39:00.008+08:00

Day 28 of Homemade Salted Chicken Egg
Salted Chicken Egg vs Salted Duck Egg
Cooked Salted Chicken Egg vs Cooked Salted Duck Egg

As promised from previous post, i will update the results of this homemade salted eggs. Today is day 28 since i started to prepare these batch of salted eggs. When i first cracked open the egg, i was very delighted to see the "solid yolk" that salted egg should have. And for the sake of this experiment, i crack opened another store bought salted egg for comparison. Firstly, you can see that the colours are very different. Secondly, the textures are also very different (after cooked), the duck egg is oilier than the chicken egg. Because from what i know, duck egg is supposed to have more fats than chicken eggs, so this explains the oilier yolk for the duck egg. In terms of taste, i tried a few of my homemade salted eggs, some were saltier, some were not. This is partly because the salt does not "cling" well to some of the eggs and also partly because i didn't put enough salt. But i still prefers the taste of salted duck eggs to chicken eggs, because the flavour is stronger. However, if you want a "healtier" version of salted eggs, than the winner will be the homemade ones.

Overall, i would said that this is quite a successful experiment, you can actually make your own salted eggs. The benefit is that if you didn't put so much salt, they are actually not as salty as those store bought ones. In other words, you can actually eat the whole egg. Because i don't normally eat the egg whites of store bought salted eggs because they are usually too salty. However, i will not be using these homemade ones for my mooncakes, because i prefer the colour of duck eggs for my mooncake. But i will definitely continue to make my own salted eggs for normal consumption.

You can find the recipe for making salted eggs here - using salt, or here - using brine.

Links: Know more about eggs

Shanghai Walnut Mooncakes & Chocolate Mooncakes 上海核桃月饼和巧克力月饼

2008-09-05T11:12:00.010+08:00

I have been baking mooncakes so many rounds until i am really tired and sick of them even before Mid Autumn Festival. I do enjoy making mooncakes but not in mass production. Because this is my first time making mooncake, so i am quite slow in wrapping the skin and the filling. It took me hours to make 20 mini mooncakes. I am not exaggerating, if i am not wrong i spent 4 hours in the kitchen just to make the 20 minis. Luckily i am not making them for sale, otherwise i will go crazy inside the kitchen. But partly also because i wanted to make the skin as thin as possible, which explained why it was so time consuming for me. Because the thinner the skin, the more difficult it is to wrapped the filling. But than again, still have to blame on my skill, i am just not good in wrapping them.

I was baking another round of mooncakes yesterday (the 3rd batch of mass production since last week, 1st batch for my Granny (20pcs minis + 80pcs Horlick cookies), 2nd batch for his colleagues (20pcs minis)). This batch of mooncakes were also meant for his colleagues. I baked Walnut Mooncakes - 18pcs and Chocolate Mooncakes (for kids) - 16pcs. Walnut mooncakes were adapted from various sources and the Chocolate Mooncake were adapted from Aunty Yochana's blog.

(Pardon my calculations of mooncakes here, so that i will remember how much to bake next time, that is if i am still baking them again. haha)

The Chocolate mooncake dough is like a cookie dough with cocoa powder, the filling was lotus paste mixed with chocolate chips and almond nibs. It's very fragrant, but does not really taste like mooncake. My hubby commented that the filling taste like "Dou Sar" (Red Bean Paste). I used Cartoon moulds for the chocolate mooncakes, but because of the colour of the dough, the cartoon characters didn't turn out so well. Anyway, i just hope that both adults and kids will enjoy them.

Baked Mini Traditional Mooncakes - Part 3 传统小月饼

2008-09-04T11:31:00.016+08:00

These batch of Baked Traditional Mooncakes are meant for my hubby's colleagues. But this time i have increased the oven temperature, which i had forgotten the last time. I baked for 10min at 200degree, than rest than baked for another 10min at 180degree, seeing that it's not brown enough, i baked for a further 5min. I dare not extend any longer because the last time i tried baking for further 8min, my mooncakes "exploded" (should have taken a picture of that).
..

Eventhough this may be the 3rd time (since Aug) that i am baking mooncakes, I still have not improved much. Because i still feels that the mooncakes looks under baked.. or could it be due to the colour? But i am very happy with the thickness of the skin as compared to my very first baked mooncake , at least these are much thinner. However, my wrapping skin is still very bad, because some parts of the mooncake are still uneven in thinkness.

Forget about Royce, we have Jas! - 自制香槟巧克力

2008-08-26T22:09:00.009+08:00

I was craving for Royce chocolate last night and really really want to eat nothing but chocolate. So i decided to try making them. And huala! Here's my Jas Chocolate! Yummy!!! It's good enough for me!

Jas Champagne Chocolate Truffle

Ingredients:

- 180g Dark Chocolate

- 40g White Chocolate

- 100g Whipping cream

- 3 Tbs champagne of your choice

- Cocoa powder for coating

Method

1) Bring the whipping cream to boil. Remove from heat.

2) Add in the chocolates and stir till well blended.

3) Add in the champagne and stir till well mixed.

4) Refrigerate till harden. At least one hour. (however if you have chocolate mould pour direct to chocolate mould instead.)

5) Use two teaspoons to shape and drop into cocoa powder. Refrigerate for 1 hour before consumption.

Note: 1) Must work fast or the truffle will be soften very quickly. Alternatively, put the chocolate over ice bath while shaping.

Beggar's Chicken

2008-08-25T13:31:00.009+08:00

My in laws came to our place yesterday, so i thought of impressing them by cooking them a good lunch. As my mother in law was working in the food industry, so not only she can cook very well, her expectation of food is very high too. However, instead of impressing them, i ... Arrh!!! Sigh.... i should have just roast a chicken instead.

As i found this "Beggar's Chicken" recipe, so i thought it will be a good dish to impress them. But instead of impressing them, i had blew it instead. Because my dough was too thin at the bottom, the juice leaked out during baking. So in the end the chicken was very very dry. I was so disappointed and embarrassed.

I will try this recipe again but will be more careful with my wrapping in future. Lesson learnt for the day: " Never attempt a new recipe if you are out to impress".

** Where to find Beggar's Chicken in Malaysia?

** More stories on Beggar's Chicken and this

My comfort food - the King of Fruits 榴莲

2008-08-25T12:56:00.004+08:00

I was so depressed after cooking the unsuccessful "To impress in laws lunch". I wanted to get some good durians to comfort myself. As i chance upon a blog recently talking about how delicious this "Cat Mountain Durian" (direct translation from 猫山王榴莲) is, i decided to give it a try. We went to the durian shop 717 at Highland Centre looking for this 猫山王榴莲, but bought the "XO durian instead. Because the boss said that the season for 猫山王榴莲 was over, the stock now is not so good so advice us to buy XO durian instead. Since he is the expert in durian, so we take his words for it and bought the XO durian instead. Anyway its cheaper than the 猫山王榴莲, so why not. (猫山王榴莲 cost $20/kg and the XO is $12/kg). As it was "New arrival" (as in the lorry just came to deliver the durians) so the seller asked us to take more, as they are "fresh". Thinking that i am durian lover, my "loving husband" agreed almost immediately and we took four! But that was too many durians to finish, because that was only the two of us eating. Anyway, we bought four, which cost us $65.

Even though i love to eat durian, but i don't eat them often. Therefore i don't really know the difference between each type of durian. I only know a few types, which are XO, D24 and some D... but i do not know how to differentiate them or how different they taste. But at least what we bought were considered nice, because the seller were able to give us what we want - our favourite "Bitter sweet" durian! We only managed to finish 1 and a half durian last night, still have a few more to go...

** Just realised that they even have a durian trading blog.

** Just to update, we tried to finish the "left over" durian last night, than we realised that most of them do not have meat inbetween anymore. So not sure if it's because XO "breed" is like that. So from the pictures above, what you see is what you get. Nothing more from it.

Steam Herbal Chicken - 蒸药材鸡

2008-08-23T09:54:00.011+08:00

Steam Herbal Chicken

Ingredients:

(A)

2 Whole drum sticks and 2 Whole chicken wings

(B)

6 Dried Longans (龙眼干)

8 Red dates (红枣)

1 tbs wolfberries (枸杞子)

15g Rhizoma Polygonati Odorati (玉竹)

2-3 slice of Angelica Sinensis (当归)

Seasoning:

(C)

1 tbs Oyster sauce

1 tsp light soy sauce

1 tbs rice wine

1 tsp sesame oil

2 cups of water

Method

1) Bring all (B) ingredients to boil in the 2 cups of water for about 20-30min, until water reduced to about 1-1.5cups.

2) Remove from heat, add in all the seasoning in (C), stir till well combined.

3) Place a heavy duty aluminium foil on a plate and place the chicken in the middle.

4) Pour in the herbs together with the sauce. Wrap up the aluminium foil and steam the whole parcel for 1hr over medium-high heat.

Note:

**If you are using a wok for steaming, be careful and use more water. Otherwise the wok will dry up very fast. Therefore do not use high heat for steaming at wok.

** You can omitt the Dang gui herb if you do not like this herb.

Snowskin Custard Mooncake - 冰皮奶黄月饼

2008-08-21T16:42:00.021+08:00

Find the snowskin too naked, so dusk with cocoa powder. Just for fun. Haha..

Custard Filling
Lotus Paste wrapped Custard filling

This batch of snowskin mooncakes is using a different recipe. This recipe requires steaming, which is more tedious and time consuming as compared to all the previous snowskin recipes that i have tried. The texture is not bad, it's soft and slightly chewy and it don't have the floury taste. But it's very sticky and needs to put lots of flour to handle as compared to the "non cooked" recipe. What i like about this recipe is the non floury taste. But what puts me off is that this requires steaming of the dough. In other words, you still need to wait for them to be cool before using (which will takes quite a while). But overall, i still prefer this to other recipe because of the taste and texture. Personally I like this recipe by Florence (for the snowskin)! Thanks Florence for sharing!

Because i was just trying out the recipe, so i only used 50% of the original recipe. And i have also made some minor adjustment to the portions of the ingredients.

Snowskin

Ingredients:

45g glutinous rice flour

35g wheat starch

1 1/2 tsp rice flour

4 tsp castor sugar

50ml boiling water

70ml skim milk or milk (original recipe 62.5ml)

20ml coconut milk (original recipe 30ml)

1/2 tsp corn oil

Method:

1) Dissolve sugar in the boiling water and leave aside to cool.

2) Sieve the flour mixture into a large mixing bowl. Add in the milk, coconut milk and lastly the cooled syrup. Mix till you get a smooth batter, otherwise strain the mixture till smooth.

3) Pour this batter into a greased bowl and steam on high heat for 25 minutes.

4) When the dough is cooked, leave it to cool for a while and while still warm knead in the corn oil till you get a smooth dough.

5) Wrap the dough up with glad wrap and chill it in the refrigerator overnight or till the dough is very cold before using it.

Note:

1) As i didn't want to wait, so i just chilled the dough overnight and only use it the next day.

2) I use 25g dough and 30g filling for this mooncake.

Custard Filling

Ingredients

1 large egg yolk

20g cake flour

20g corn flour

20g custard powder

90g caster sugar

36g coconut milk

86g fresh milk

20g butter, melted

Method

1) Combine all ingredients is a bowl (that can be used for steaming), mix till well combined than add in the melted butter.

2) Place the mixture into the wok/steamer and steam for 20min. Open and stir the mixture after the first 10min.

3) Remove from steamer and cool filling before using.

Source for custard filling: Y3K Mooncake Magazine

Note:

1) The quantity for the snowskin recipe does not match the custard filling. Because both are a combination from different sources. And my intention was to try out the taste and texture only, therefore i did not finish using both the ingredients. And hence do not know how much of moonies can they yield. You can do an estimation yourself by adding up the ingredients and divide by the amount of dough and filling required by your mould and judge accordingly.

2) This custard recipe is much better than the one i made previously. This is much softer and nicer. However, this recipe may not be appealing to people who don't like coconut, because the coconut flavour is quite strong despite that i had already reduced the amount. Eating this custard mooncake is like eating "Nonya Kueh", because of coconut milk flavour.

** Just to update: the skin was very good on the first and second day, but turns very hard on the third day. But than again, this could be due to my inexperience in handling the dough.

ABC Soup - 马铃薯汤

2008-08-21T11:18:00.005+08:00

Whenever we eat "zhi cha", they will have this soup call the "ABC soup". Because it consist of C = carrots, B = ? and A = ? hmm... don't know why it's called the ABC soup...

Anyway, my soup consist of carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, onions and pork ribs.

Olive oil from Turkey - 来自土耳其的橄榄油

2008-08-21T11:09:00.007+08:00

I bought this bottle of Olive oil when i was on holiday in Turkey. It has been more than a year and i had totally forgot about it until i was packing my pantry the other day. I bought it because this oil was extracted via the traditional method and also because of the packing. So it's like a souvenir too. Will try it soon!

Homemade Char Siew - 自制叉烧

2008-08-19T23:14:00.023+08:00

Yellow Zucchini - 黄色西葫芦

2008-08-19T23:14:00.022+08:00

I was attracted to this fruit because of the vibrant colour. As we are always told that we should eat food from a variety of colours so i bought it without hesitation. As the stall owner said this can be used to stir fry, so i added this Yellow zucchini to my original intended dish, Stir fried bean sprout with beancurd. The dish turn out to be very good! The zucchini actually taste almost like the normal zucchini, but i think it's sweeter. But than again, i had never eaten fried zucchini before, so it could be all fried zucchini are sweeter.

Wanted to know more about this fruit so i search on the net and i found out that these yellow zucchinis are also known as "Yellow Summer Squash". Both normal zucchini and yellow zucchini belongs to the same family which is the "Summer Squash" fruits. The name "summer squash" refers to the inability to store these squashes for long periods of time (until winter), unlike winter squashes (eg the butternut squash). They are best consumed within 3 days.

How to select? Just choose those that are small and firm and free of bruises or blemishes. The skin is edible too, so no need to removed.

Wife's Biscuit - 老婆餅

2008-08-18T11:48:00.021+08:00

Since i was into this mooncake making mood, so i went to look for other chinese pastries recipes. And i chance upon this wife's biscuit recipe from Florence blog, which is one of my favourite chinese pastries. Since i have all the ingredients at home, so i decided to give it a try. Initially i was still quite worried about how it's going to taste. Because i have tasted alot of wife's cake, but so far my favourite is still the Hong Kong - Yuan Lung Wife's biscuit. Because other wife's biscuit is either too sweet, or the taste is not so nice. But this wife's biscuit, to my surprise, taste very very good! I am not exagerating. Because my husband who don't usually like this type of pastries said that it's good! My mum likes it too and she commented that it's even better than some in the market, because it's not too sweet. Thanks Florence for this great recipe!

Wife's Biscuit

Ingredients:

Water dough
100g cake flour
25g icing sugar
25g butter (cubed) or shortening or margarine or lard
40g water
.
Oil Dough
100g cake flour
45g-50g shortening or lard (will try with 50g next time)

Filling
50g Candied winter melon (chopped to bite size)
55g-60g castor sugar (i used 55g and it's just nice)
70g commercialized cooked glutinous rice flour (Koh Fun)
18g shortening
15g roasted white sesame seeds
12g dessicated coconut
120g boiled drinking water (at room temp)
Egg wash1 yolk + 1 tsp water + pinch of salt
.

Method

Filling:
Put all ingredients into a big bowl, mix till well combined. Divide filling into 12 equal portions.
.
Water dough:
1)Rub butter into sieved flour and icing sugar till bread crumb state.
2) Add in water till a piable dough is formed.
3) Cling wrap dough and rest for 30 - 45 minutes.
4) Divide dough into 12 equal portions.
.
Oil dough:
1) Rub shortening into flour till well mixed.
2) Cling wrap and leave it aside to rest for 30 - 45 minutes.
3) Divide dough into 12 equal portions.
.
Method
1) Flatten a piece of water dough and wrap in the oil dough.
2) Press and roll out dough into a longish flat piece with a rolling pin.
3) Roll it up Swiss roll-style.
4) Turn the dough 90 degrees and then roll it into a longish flat piece.
5) Roll it up Swiss roll-style again.
6) Pinch the 2 side edges and shape it into a flat circular shape.
7) Put a piece of filling in the centre of the dough and wrapped it.
8) Flatten it and make 2 snips into the dough using a pair of scissors.
9) Apply egg wash.
10) Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C for 20–25 minutes or until golden brown.

Note: I baked mine for 20 min at middle rack than transfer to top rack for 3min. But i find it was too dark. So perhaps can try 18min at middle rack and 3min at top rack instead.

Lotus Leaf Rice - 荷叶饭

2008-08-18T10:39:00.014+08:00

I had never seen dried lotus leaf for sale before. Therefore when i first saw it at the grocery store, i told myself that i have to buy it. Lotus leaf rice is one of my favourite, so naturally my first cooking with the lotus leaf will have to be the Lotus Leaf Rice. And why i titled this blog as "Part 1"? Because i still have lots of lotus leaves left after preparing two packs lotus leaf rice. So the Part 2 will be my Lotus Leaf Chicken.

Actually it's quite simple too. I just need to wash and soak the lotus leaf with hot water overnight than i can use it for wrapping the next day. Just prepare the glutinous rice as usual and add in whatever ingredients you like. For my version of lotus leaf rice:

Lotus Leaf Rice

Ingredients:

- 1.5 cup of chicken stock + 3/4 tsp salt
- 150g glutinous rice (soak overnight)
- 75g normal rice
- 5 chinese dried mushrooms (soak in water till soft)
- one chinese sausage (sliced)
- half a cup of dried shrimps
- half a chicken breast (use de-bone chicken thigh or drumstick will taste even better)
- 2 shallots (sliced)

Marinate for the chicken meat (overnight)

- half tsp chinese 5 spice
- 2 tsp light soya sauce
- 2 tsp dark soya sauce
- 1 tbs shao xing wine
- 2 tsp of sesame oil
- 2 tsp of oyster sauce
- dash of pepper
- 1/2 tsp of cornflour

Method

1) Fried the chicken till half cooked, set aside.

2) Fried shallot, dried shrimp, chinese mushrooms and chinese sauage till fragrant, add in both rice and chicken stock, just enough to cover the rice and cook till stock being absorbed. Dish up and wrap them in lotus leaves. To seal in the fragrant, i clingwrap the lotus leaf parcel and finish with aluminium foil (but this is not neccessary, as i have not prepare lotus leaf rice before, so i just wrap additional for security purposes).

3) Steam for about 2 hours.

Chinese Cooking Terms & Ingredients

2008-08-17T11:55:00.000+08:00

1. 味精 ~ Monosodium glutamate (MSG)
2. 醋 ~ Vinegar
3. 白醋(工研醋) ~ Rice vinegar
4. 白醋 ~ White vinegar (西洋料理用的)
5. 烏醋 ~ Black vinggar
6. 酱油 ~ Soy sauce
7. 蚝油 ~ Oyster sauce
8. 麻油 ~ Sesame oil
9. 白酒 ~ White spirits
10. 加饭酒 ~ Rice wine
11. 桂花酒 ~ Osmanthus-flavored wine
12. 芝麻酱 ~ Sesame paste
13. 辣椒醬 ~ Chili sauce
14. 沙荼醬 ~ Chinese barbecue sauce
15. 南乳 ~ Fermented red beancurd
16. 薑粉 ~ Ginger powder
17. 调味蕃茄醬 ~ Ketchup
18. 蕃茄醬 ~ Tomato sauce (普通甜的)
19. 蕃茄醬 ~ Tomato paste (義大利料理用的)
20. 豆辦醬 ~ Chili soybean paste
21. XO醬 ~ XO sauce
22. 豆豉 ~ Salted black bean
23. 薏米 ~ Pearl barley
24. 西贾米 ~ Sago
25. 沙莪粒/西米/小茨丸 ~ Pearl sago/Pearl tapioca
26. 紅豆沙/烏豆沙 ~ Red bean paste
27. 綠豆片 ~ Split mung bean
28. 芝麻 ~ Sesame Seeds
29. 蓮子 ~ Lotus seed
30. 蓮蓉 ~ Lotus seed paste
31. 栗蓉 ~ Chestnut puree / Chestnut paste
32. 蜜棗 ~ Preserved red dates
33. 紅棗 ~ Chinese red dates
34. 棗泥 ~ Red date paste
35. 百合 ~ Dried lily bulb
36. 金针 ~ Tiger lily buds
37. 陳皮 ~ Dried orange peel/Dried tangerine peel
38. 豆腐 ~ Tofu
39. 腐竹 ~ Dried beancurd sticks
40. 腐皮 ~ Beancurd sheet
41. 酸菜 ~ Pickled mustard-green
42. 蒸山芋 ~ Steamed sweet potatoes
43. 咸黄瓜 ~ Salted cucumber
44. 脱水蒜粒 ~ Dehydrated garlic granules
45. 冬菇 ~ Dried black mushroom
46. 木耳 ~ Fungus
47. 黑木耳 ~ Black fungus / Dried black fungus
48. 海带 ~ Kelp
49. 燒海苔 ~ Toasted nori seaweed / Toasted seaweed sushi nori
50. 板海苔 ~ Nori seaweed / Dried sea laver
51. 燕菜 ~ Agar-agar
52. 蝦米 ~ Dried shrimp
53. 鱼干 ~ Dried fish
54. 鹹蛋黃 ~ Salted egg yolk
55. 皮蛋（糖心/ 硬心）~ Preserved duck eggs (soft and hard yolk)
56. 咸鸭蛋 ~ Salted duck eggs
57. 牛肉粒 ~ Dried beef cubes
58. 牛肉片 ~ Dried beef sliced
59. 猪肉松 ~ Dried pork floss
60. 腊鸭 ~ Preserved duck
61. 鸭肫干~ Preserved duck gizzard
62. 烤鸭 ~ Roasted duck
63. 方便面 ~ Instant noodles
64. 面条 ~ Egg noodles
65. 米粉 ~ Rice noodle
66. 粉丝 ~ Cellophane noodle
67. 餛鈍皮 ~ Wonton wrapper/Wonton skins
68. 水餃皮 ~ Dumpling wrapper / Dumpling skins /Gyoza wrapper
69. 春捲皮 ~ Spring roll wrapper /Egg roll wrapper

Contributed by MissyLing from SMH forum, edited by Jaslovesfood

Chinese Baking Terms - Bread, Cake & Cookie

2008-08-17T11:53:00.000+08:00

麵包, 蛋糕, 餅干

1. 麵包/麵飽 ~ Bread
2. 土司麵包/吐司 ~ Toast
3. 法式吐司 ~ French toast
4. 裸麥麵包 ~ Rye bread
5. 派/批 ~ Pie
6. 塔/撻 ~ Tart
7. 凍派/凍批 ~ Cream pie
8. 蛋塔 ~ Egg tart / Custard tart
9. 法式蛋塔 ~ Quiche lorraine
10. 戚風蛋糕 ~ Chiffon cake
11. 海綿蛋糕 ~ Sponge cake
12. 泡芙 ~ Choux pastry/ Puff
13. 瑪琳/焗蛋泡 ~ Meringue
14. 蛋蜜乳 ~ Eggnog
15. 可麗餅 ~ Crepe
16. 煎餅/熱餅/薄烤餅 ~ Pancake
17. 厚鬆餅 ~ Pikelet / Hotcake / Waffles
18. 墨西哥麵餅 ~ Tortillas
19. 曲奇 ~ Cookies
20. 慕斯/慕思 ~ Mousse
21. 布甸/布丁 ~ Pudding
22. 司康/比司吉 ~ Scones
23. 舒芙蕾 ~ Souffles
24. 洋芋塊 ~ Hash brown
25. 英式鬆餅/瑪芬麵包 ~ English muffin
26. 鬆糕/瑪芬 ~ American muffin　
27. 格子鬆餅 ~ Waffle
28. 手指餅乾 ~ Sponge fingers / Ladyfingers / Savoiardi (義大利名)
29. 蘇打餅干 ~ Saltine crackers
30. 威化餅乾 ~ Wafer biscult

Contributed by MissyLing of SMH forum, edited by Jaslovesfood

Chinese Baking Terms - Dried Fruits & Nuts

2008-08-17T11:51:00.000+08:00

干果,果脯

1. 腰子豆/腰果/腰果仁/介壽果 ~ Cashew nut
2. 花生 ~ Peanut
3. 瓜子/南瓜子 ~ Pepitas /Dried pumpkin seeds
4. 崧子/松子仁 ~ Pine nut
5. 栗子 ~ Chestnut
6. 干粟子 ~ Dried chestuts
7. 核桃/核桃仁/合桃/胡桃 ~ Walnut
8. 杏仁/杏仁片/扁桃 ~ Almond
9. 北杏/苦杏仁 ~ Apricot kernel / Chinese almond / Bitter almond
10. 南杏 ~ Apricot kernel
11. 榛果/榛仁 ~ Hazelnut / Filbert / Cobnut
12. 開心果/阿月渾子 ~ Pistachio
13. 堅果/澳洲堅果/夏威夷果/澳洲胡桃/澳洲栗/澳洲核桃/昆士蘭龍眼/昆士蘭栗 ~ Macadamia / California nut
14. 山胡桃/胡桃 ~ Pecan
15. 石鼓仔/馬加拉/油桐子 ~ Candlenut / Buah keras (in Malay)
16. 白果/銀杏 ~ Ginkgo nut
17. 罌粟子 ~ Poppy seed
18. 亞答子 ~ Atap seed
19. 乾椰絲 ~ Dessicated coconut
20. 龍眼乾/龍眼肉/桂圓/圓肉 ~ Dried longan
21. 葡萄乾 ~ Raisin / Dried currant
22. 無花果乾 ~ Dried fig
23. 柿餅 ~ Dried persimmon
24. 桃脯 ~ Dried peach
25. 杏脯 ~ Dried apricot
26. 蘋果脯/蘋果乾 ~ Dried apple
27. 蜜漬櫻桃/露桃/車梨子 ~ Glace cherry/Candied cherry
28. 蜜漬鳳梨 ~ Glace pineapple/Candied pineapple
29. 糖水批把 ~ Loquats in syrup
30. 杏子酱 ~ Apricot jam
32. 杏桃果膠 ~ Apricot glaze
33. 水蜜桃罐頭 ~ Peaches in syrup
34. 切片水蜜桃罐頭 ~ Sliced peaches in syrup
35. 綜合水果罐頭 ~ Cocktail fruit in syrup　

Contributed by MissyLing from SMH forum, edited by Jaslovesfood

Chinese Baking Terms - Flavourings

2008-08-17T11:49:00.000+08:00

调味品

1. 抹荼粉 ~ Green tea powder
2. 馬蹄粉 ~ Water chestnut flour
3. 葛粉 ~ Arrowroot flour
4. 杏仁粉 ~ Almond flour/Almond meal /Ground Almond
5. 海苔粉 ~ Ground seaweed
6. 涼粉/仙草 ~ Grass jelly
7. 椰絲/椰茸/椰子粉 ~ Desiccated coconut/Shredded coconut
8. 果子凍/果凍粉/啫喱 ~ Jelly
9. 魚膠粉/吉利丁/明膠 ~ Gelatine sheets/Powdered gelatine　
10. 大菜/大菜絲/菜燕/燕菜精/洋菜/洋菜粉/瓊脂 ~ Agar powder
11. 白礬 ~ Alum
12. 硼砂 ~ Borax
13. 石膏 ~ Gypsum
14. 鹼水/(木見)水/ 碳酸钾 ~ Alkaline water/Lye water/Potassium carbonate
15. 食用色素 Food colouring
16. 香草豆/香草莢/香草片/香子蘭莢 ~ Vanilla bean/Vanilla pod
17. 香草精/雲尼拉香精/凡尼拉香精 ~ Vanilla extract/Vanilla essence
18. 香草粉 ~ Vanilla powder
19. 班蘭粉/香蘭粉 ~ Ground pandan/Ground screwpine leaves/Serbok daun pandan (in Malay)
20. 班蘭精/香蘭精 ~ Pandan paste/Pasta pandan
21. 玫瑰露/玫瑰露精 ~ Rosewater/Rosewater essence
22. 皮屑 ~ Grated zest/Grated rind

Contributed by MissyLing of SMH Forum, edited by Jaslovesfood

Chinese Baking Terms - Types of Sugar

2008-08-17T11:47:00.000+08:00

糖类

1. 黑蔗糖漿/糖蜜/甘蔗糖蜜 ~ Molasses
2. 金黃糖漿 ~ Golden syrup
3. 楓糖漿/楓樹糖漿/楓糖 ~ Maple syrup
4. 玉米糖漿 ~ Corn syrup/Karo syrup
5. 葡萄糖漿 ~ Glucose syrup
6. 麥芽糖漿 ~ Barley malt syrup/Malt syrup
7. 麥芽糖 ~ Maltose/Malt sugar
8. 焦糖 ~ Caramel
9. 果糖 ~ Fructos
10. 乳糖 ~ Lactose
11. 轉化糖 ~ Invert sugar
12. 日式糙米糖漿 ~ Amazake
13. 綿花糖霜 ~ Marshmallow cream
14. 冰糖 ~ Rock sugar
15. 椰糖/爪哇紅糖 ~ Palm sugar/Gula malacca (in Malay)
16. 黃砂糖 ~ Brown sugar
17. 紅糖/黑糖 ~ Dark brown sugar
18. 粗糖/黑砂糖 ~ Muscovado sugar
19. 金砂糖 ~ Demerara sugar
20. 原蔗糖 ~ Raw sugar/Raw cane sugar/Unrefined cane sugar
21. 白砂糖/粗砂糖 ~ White sugar/Refined sugar/Refined cane sugar/Coarse granulated sugar
22. 細砂糖/幼砂糖/幼糖 ~ Castor sugar /Caster sugar（适用于做糕点）
23. 糖份混合物 ~ Icing sugar mixture
24. 糖粉 ~ Icing sugar/confectioners’ sugar
25. 糖霜/點綴霜 ~ Icing/frosting/Snow powder
26. 蜜葉糖/甜葉菊 ~ Stevia/honey leaf
27. 代糖/阿斯巴甜 ~ Aspartame/Artificial sweetener/Sugar substitute
28. 什色糖珠 ~ Coloured sugar pearls
29. 巧克力米/朱古力米 ~ Chocolate vermicelli
30. 巧克力削/朱古力削 ~ Chocolate curls
31. 巧克力珠/朱古力珠 ~ Chocolate bits/Chocolate chips
32. 耐烤巧克力豆 ~ Choc bits (澳洲的英文名) / Chocolate chips (美國、加拿大的英文名)

Contributed by MissyLing of SMH forum, edited by Jaslovesfood

Chinese Baking Terms - Types of Flour

2008-08-17T11:41:00.000+08:00

面粉类

1. 麵粉/中筋麵粉 ~ Plain flour /All-purpose flour
2. 低筋麵粉/低根粉 ~ Cake flour/ Soft flour /Weak flour /Low protein flour
3. 高筋麵粉/筋麵/根麵/高根粉 ~ Gluten flour /Strong flour /Bread flour /Baker’s flour /High protein flour
4. 雜糧預拌粉 ~ Multi-grain flour
5. 小麦面粉 ~ Whole meal flour
6. 全麥麵粉 ~ Whole wheat flour
7. 澄麵粉/澄粉/澄麵 ~ Non-glutinous flour / Wheat flour /Wheat starch
8. 自發麵粉 ~ Self- raising flour
9. 粗玉米豆粉 ~ Polenta / Yellow cornmeal
10. 粟粉/粟米粉/玉米粉/玉米澱粉/太白粉 ~ Corn flour /Cornstarch
11. 生粉/太白粉/地瓜粉 ~ Potato starch / Potato flour
12. 樹薯粉/木薯粉/茨粉/菱粉/泰國生粉/太白粉/地瓜粉 ~ Tapioca starch /Tapioca flour
13. 蕃薯粉/地瓜粉 ~ Sweet potato flour
14. 臭粉/胺粉/阿摩尼亞粉/嗅粉 ~ Powdered baking ammonia /Carbonate of ammonia /Ammonia bicarbonate /Ammonia carbonate /Hartshorn
15. 發粉/泡打粉/泡大粉/速發粉/蛋糕發粉 ~ Baking powder
16. 蘇打粉/小蘇打/梳打粉/小梳打/食粉/重曹 ~ Baking soda /Bicarbonate of soda
17. 塔塔粉/他他粉 ~ Cream of tartar
18. 卡士達粉/蛋黃粉/吉士粉/吉時粉 ~ Custard powder
19. 卡士達/克林姆/奶皇餡/蛋奶餡 ~ Custard /Pastry cream
20. 蛋白粉 ~ Egg white powder
21. 粘米粉/黏米粉/在來米粉/在萊米粉/再來米粉 ~ Rice flour
22. 糕仔粉 ~ Cooked rice flour
23. 糯米粉 ~ Glutinous rice flour /Sweet rice flour
24. 鳳片粉/熟糯米粉/糕粉/加工糕粉 ~ Fried sweet rice flour /Fried glutinous rice flour
25. 綠豆粉 ~ Mung bean flour / tepung hun kwee (in Malay)
26. 小麥胚芽/麥芽粉 ~ Wheat germ
27. 小麥蛋白/麵筋粉 ~ Wheat gluten
28. 酵母/酒餅 ~ Yeast/Ibu roti (in Malay)
29. 麵包糠/麵包屑 ~ Breadcrumbs

Contributed by MissyLing of SMH forum, edited by Jaslovesfood

Chinese Baking Terms - Butter n Cream

2008-08-17T11:23:00.000+08:00

牛油奶油

1. 牛油/奶油 ~ Butter
2. 軟化牛油 ~ Soft butter
3. 瑪珈琳/瑪琪琳/乳瑪琳/雅瑪琳/人造奶油/菜油 ~ Margarine
4. 起酥油/起酥瑪琪琳 ~ Pastry margarine / Oleo margarine
5. 豬油/白油/大油/板油 ~ Lard /Cooking fat
6. 酥油/雪白奶油 ~ Shortening
7. 硬化椰子油 ~ Copha
8. 椰油 ~ Creamed Coconut
9. 烤油 ~ Dripping
10. 牛油忌廉 ~ Butter cream
11. 淡忌廉 ~ Light cream/Coffee cream/Table cream
12. 鮮奶油/忌廉/鮮忌廉 ~ Cream/Whipping cream
13. 包括﹕1 Light whipping cream
14. 2 Heavy whipping cream/Heavy cream/Thickened cream
15. 3 Double cream/Pure cream
16. 酸奶油/酸忌廉/酸奶酪/酸乳酪 ~ Sour cream
17. 酸奶 ~ Butter milk
18. 牛奶/鮮奶/鮮乳 ~ Milk
19. 奶粉 ~ Powdered milk / Milk powder
20. 花奶/淡奶/奶水/蒸發奶/蒸發奶水 ~ Evaporated milk
21. 煉奶 ~ Condensed milk/Sweetened condensed milk
22. 起士/起司/芝士/乳酪/奶酪/乾酪/乳餅 ~ Cheese
23. 起司粉 ~ Powdered cheese
24. 奶油起司/芝士忌廉/奶油乳酪/凝脂乳酪 ~ Cream cheese
25. 瑪斯卡波尼起司/馬司卡膨起司/馬斯卡波涅起司/義大利乳酪 ~ Mascarpone cheese
26. 優格/乳果/酸奶/酸乳酪 ~ Yoghurt
27. 優酪乳 ~ Yoghurt drink/drinking yoghurt

Contributed by MissyLing of SMH forum, edited by Jaslovesfood

Claypot Chicken Rice 2 - 砂煲鸡饭

2008-08-16T13:27:00.012+08:00

This claypot chicken rice is simply delicious and very easy to prepare.

Claypot Chicken Rice - using rice cooker

Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 Whole Chicken Drumsticks - score the drumstick, so that the meat can be cooked faster.

2 Chicken wings

1 pair of chinese sausages (lup cheong) - cut into small pieces

6 chinese mushrooms

2 shallots

1 clove of garlic

some scallions for garnish (optional)

Marinate for chicken:

1 tbs light soya sauce

1 tbs dark soya sauce

1 tbs oyster sauce

1 tbs sesame oil

dash of pepper

sprinkle some sugar

Method:

1) Marinate the chicken for 4hrs or overnight.

2) Cook rice in rice cooker as usual (about 1.5 cups of rice), but with slightly lesser water.

3) Fried the shallots till brown, set aside together with the oil.

4) Fried the garlic than add in the mushrooms, than the chicken parts (and the marinate) and cooked the chicken till 90% cooked, set aside.

5) While the rice is still cooking, but almost dry up, add in the chicken parts in no.(4) (with the sauce) and the chinese sausage.

6) Chicken rice should be ready about 10 minutes after the "rice cooked" sign on. Remove the chicken (you may want to check if the chicken is cooked, if not leave inside for further 10min. Because individual rice cooker may give different results) and other ingredients. Add dark soya sauce (any amount, to your own liking), the fried shallot and oil. Stir thoroughly.

7) Serve with stir fried vegetables.

Rose Tea - 玫瑰花茶

2008-08-14T12:59:00.004+08:00

Horlick Doggie Cookies

2008-08-14T12:08:00.016+08:00

Fried KL Noodle - Da Lok Mien

2008-08-14T11:59:00.005+08:00

Hubby was craving for KL noodle, so i search for recipe and try to cook it. It turned out not too bad, but could improve further. But partly due to i did not follow the recipe entirely, because recipe called for using of lard, which i didn't want to add in. Not because i don't eat lard, but rather because i do not want to buy a pack of lard just for the noodle.

Mooncake Boxes 2008

2008-08-14T10:27:00.004+08:00

This post is for my own record of the mooncake boxes that i bought this year.

Pink boxes - for 4 pcs of standard mooncake

Orange boxes - for 8 pcs of mini

Boxes for 4 & 6 minis

Individuals for one standard mooncakes

Homemade Salted Eggs - 自制咸蛋

2008-08-12T13:14:00.009+08:00

Hahaha.... I am very ambitious right? I even try to make my own salted eggs. Well, actually that is because i could not find nice salted eggs for my mooncake, that's why i wanted to try making them. But these eggs takes 30days to be ready, so i will only publish the recipe if it's successful. And if this is successful, i will have a 100% homemade mooncake, from mooncake skin, mooncake paste to the salted egg! Yeah! Wish me luck!

Note:

I am using normal chicken eggs instead of duck eggs, because according to the egg seller, they are not allow to sell fresh duck eggs in Singapore.

For my own tracking:

Day 1 - 9 Aug 08 (21 days will be on 30 Aug, 28 days will be on 6 Sep)

Homemade Mooncake Golden Syrup - 自制月饼糖浆

2008-08-12T12:55:00.023+08:00

Actually Mooncake Syrup can be bought off the shelf. However since this is one of the most important ingredient in making traditional mooncake (which also what my hubby prefers), so i want to learn how to make it from scratch. With this, than can i proudly said that this is "Homemade" mooncake. Haha...

.
Mooncake Golden Syrup
.
Ingredients:

1000 g sugar
600 g Hot water
2 slices Lemon
210 g coarse sugar
60 g water
.
Method:

(1) Into wok, add water and coarse sugar and cook over medium heat.
(2) Into saucepan, boil 600 g water.
(3) When sugar in wok turns caramel in colour, swirl the wok but do not stir.
(4) Pour in the hot water and then pour in the 1000 g of sugar and 2 slices of lemon. When boiling, reduce to low heat and boil mixture for 45 mins. until thick.
(5) When cooled, store in bottles and keep for a very long time.
.

Homemade Lotus Paste - 自制蓮蓉

2008-08-12T12:11:00.020+08:00

Red Lotus Paste

Ingredients:

- 500g Red Lotus Seed
- 380g Sugar
- 300g Peanut Oil
- 2 tbs Maltose
- Pinch of salt
- 1 tbs alkaline water (for soaking of lotus seed)

Method:

1) Follow the above slides for preparation of lotus seed.
2) Cooking of the paste; brown 1 cup of sugar from the 380g sugar with some oil till caramelized.
3) Pour in blended lotus seed, oil (some, not all, as we will add gradually while cooking – about one third), salt and all the sugar. Cook over high heat until boil, than turn to low heat. Stir every now and than to avoid burning. When the oil gets lesser, gradually add in the remaining.
4) When all oil is blended with the paste, add in the maltose & fry until the paste no longer sticks to the wok and the paste is considered done.Dish up and cool.

Notes:

** You can add in a few stalks of Pandan Leave for additional fragrant. Add towards the end, but before the paste gets too thick.

** This recipe a reduced sugar and reduced oil version. Therefore paste will not be able to keep as long as standard recipe. Because sugar acts as a preservatives and oil will prevent the paste from getting mouldy.

** If paste is going to be used within a few days, it's best keep air tight in room temperature. If want to keep for longer period, than store in fridge. But that is not so ideal, because condensation in the fridge, might make the paste to produce water.

** Any further reduction of oil, may course the paste to become very dry. In fact, i find it slightly dry, so can increase the oil to about 350g.

Recipe source: Adapted from Aunty Yochana's Blog .

Black Bean Chicken Soup - 黑豆鸡汤

2008-08-12T11:44:00.010+08:00

Ingredients:
Black chicken, Black fungus, Black beans, dried oysters, wolfberries and red dates.

Will update the benefits of the ingredients later.

Mooncake ingredients and Mooncake moulds

2008-08-12T10:59:00.013+08:00

My mooncake making shopping: Kuo fen, wheat starch, lotus paste, mooncake moulds, mooncake boxes, melon seeds, etc.
Want to try out which brand is better, so bought two.
Because one of them have black particles, so bought another brand to try.
Three difference brands of kuo fen for snowskin mooncakes; 2 HK and one Japanese flour.
Traditional Wooden Mooncake mould ( $14.50 )
Plastic Japanese moulds - 55g ($5 each)

Floral mould - 63g

Cartoon Moulds - 65g

Notes & Updates:

1) Newly bought wooden mould have to be oil bath, so that it will not break while using. Because you need to knock the mould on hard surface to remove the mooncake. Just soak the mould in oil overnight than wash it.
.
2) The Japanese Kuo Fen is better than HK Kuo Fen, because the snowskin produced is much finer and without the "floury" taste.

Special dinner, by the Special someone - 特别的人, 准备的特别晚餐

2008-08-11T18:12:00.007+08:00

Baked Shanghai Mooncake & Rainbow Snowskin mooncake - 上海月饼和彩虹月饼

2008-08-11T17:19:00.012+08:00

I was baking new mooncakes again yesterday. This time round, i tried to bake the Shanghai Mooncake (bottom right), Rainbow Ice cream soda snowskin mooncake (bottom left) and my favourite Flaky skin mooncake (Apple design). The Shanghai Mooncake was quite successful but not the other two. I still cannot achieve the flaky effect for my apple mooncake. As for the rainbow soda, still not perfect, the colours are not as even as i what i expect. Will have to practice a few more rounds.

I also tried to cook some custard paste yesterday but failed, I steam the custard for too long. It became crumbles instead of paste. Haha.. But i don't really like the taste too, because the coconut flavour is too strong.

The centre is cheese. Both my mum and i like the combi, because the cheese makes the mooncake not so sweet and more aromatic.

六味汤

2008-08-11T17:07:00.009+08:00

Ingredients:

500g of chicken meat (or pork)
5 bowls of water

Rhizoma Dioscoreae (淮山)
Arillus Longan (龙眼干) - Dried Longan
Semen Nelumbinis (莲子) - Lotus seed
Bulbus Lilii (Ba Hup)
Semen Euryales (Xu Sa)
Rhizoma Polygonati Odorati (玉竹)

Method:
1) Boil the chicken with water for 1 hour.
2) Put in all ingredients and boil for further 3-4 hours.

Chiffon Cake?

2008-08-08T17:53:00.004+08:00

Winter Melon Soup - 冬瓜汤

2008-08-08T10:20:00.006+08:00

Soup, soup and soup! I love soup! This is Winter Melon soup. Very simple ingredients. Only using chicken, winter melon, red dates and wolfberries. It will be even nicer if i were to add some chinese ham (火腿), but just ran out of it.

Snowskin Mooncake with Black Sesame Paste - 冰皮黑芝麻月饼

2008-08-08T09:49:00.016+08:00

This is Ground sesame seed with lotus seed paste. Taste quite good, the aroma of the sesame is very strong, it's kind of like eating the sesame filling dumplings (汤圆). Recipe is the same as my first snow skin mooncake.

Baked Rainbow Flaky Skin Mooncakes - 彩虹酥皮月饼）

2008-08-08T09:10:00.012+08:00

After trying the traditonal mooncake, now i wanted to try others. So tado! I baked the flaky skin mooncakes. Hmm... but this is not as successful as compared to my other mooncakes. I think partly was because i was experimenting with a very small quantity, therefore more difficult to handle. Why? Because with a tiny little bit of dough, i need to split them into four portions to add colours into them. That's why so difficult to handle. Just imagine, i was only making the skin for 5 mini flaky skin mooncakes, which is the size of a golf ball. Nevertheless it was a pretty good experience and i will definitely try again, because they taste great!

Actually, i have added 3 different colours. But because first time playing with colours, so i only added abit. In the end the colour didn't came out. The colours that i have added were Pink, Yellow and Green.

Jas Loves Food

Garden Theme Cupcakes

Man U Fan Birthday Cake

Beach Theme Birthday Cake

Victorian Rose

Chilled Bailey's Chocolate Cheesecake

Nyonya Dish - Ayam Kleo

Chocolate Cheese Cake

Christmas theme cake for Baby first month

Stir-fried Chilli Clams 辣椒炒蚬

Watercress soup with bitter almond and honey dates

Jamie Oliver's Pizza Dough

Orange Capsicum

Sushi at home

Cake hunt continues : AllanBakes Cheesecake

Jas Pork Bowl

Simple Korean BBQ

Obolo Pâtisserie

A rat in the box!

Gamjatang 감자탕 - Korean Potato Stew

Nutella Chocolate Cake

Jas Loves Fats - Mini Pork Belly

Beef wrapped Enokitake

Chocolate Butter Cake

Radish, Kelp and Pork Ribs Soup

Sweet n Sour Pork

Pizza with Salami, Mushroom, Caramelized Onion and Arugula

Happy Birthday Shuhua!

Claypot Chicken with Mushrooms

Coffee Macarons using Italian Meringue

Green Tea Macarons and Black Sesame Macarons

Chocolate macarons again

Green Tea and Hazelnut Macarons

My First Homemade Pizza

Fried Rice Vermicelli with Braised Soy Sauce

Centre PS Macarons

Canele Macarons

Roast Capon Chicken

Pistachio and Chocolate Macarons

Girl in the Garden - Birthday cake for Shuhua

Chocolate Macarons

Braised Soy Sauce Pot

Macaroning Again

13 is an unlucky number? I don't think so.

Playing with marshmallow fondant - Birthday cake for my godson

Claypot Cabbage Rice

Claypot Lemongrass Chicken

Lotus Root, Pork Ribs, Walnut Soup

Purple Rice

Oh yum, Salmon!

Rainbow Beans Soup

Oktoberfest at Home

Roast Lemongrass Chicken

Marsala Chicken

Rong Guan BBQ ... Alexander Village

Is it worth waiting? ..... Ah Nam Zi Char

Let's go Yum Cha! ... .. Red Star

My Favourite place for Tonkatsu....Tonkichi

Snowskin mooncake with Champagne Chocolate Truffle

Mixed Nuts Mooncakes - My last batch of moonies for Yr 2008

Roast Lemongrass Sakura Chicken

Specialty shops - Korean

Specialty shops - Japanese

Homemade Salted Eggs - Part 2

Shanghai Walnut Mooncakes & Chocolate Mooncakes 上海核桃月饼 和 巧克力月饼

Baked Mini Traditional Mooncakes - Part 3 传统小月饼

Forget about Royce, we have Jas! - 自制香槟巧克力

Beggar's Chicken

My comfort food - the King of Fruits 榴莲

Steam Herbal Chicken - 蒸药材鸡

Snowskin Custard Mooncake - 冰皮奶黄月饼

ABC Soup - 马铃薯汤

Olive oil from Turkey - 来自土耳其的橄榄油

Homemade Char Siew - 自制叉烧

Yellow Zucchini - 黄色西葫芦

Wife's Biscuit - 老婆餅

Lotus Leaf Rice - 荷叶饭

Chinese Cooking Terms & Ingredients

Chinese Baking Terms - Bread, Cake & Cookie

Chinese Baking Terms - Dried Fruits & Nuts

Shanghai Walnut Mooncakes & Chocolate Mooncakes 上海核桃月饼和巧克力月饼