Cantonese-style vegetable dish

Last Sunday at the local market I was intrigued by one stall selling something I thought was pak choi ; but the seller told us the origin of this veg. is France. Whatever it is, the taste is good and do remind me of the chinese pak choi.
This is a simple preparation, you only need cooking oil, sesame seeds, ready-made crispy shallots/onions and soy sauce. This method also works well with iceberg lettuce, egg noodles, bean sprouts or anything that you could think of.
Cantonese-style Vegetable dish Ingredients
1 bunch of Vegetable of your choice,
1-2 tablespoon of cooking oil
garlic, optional
light soy sauce, to taste
For garnishing
ready made crispy shallots/onions
sesame seeds, toasted
Method :-
1) Heat water in sauce pan , and blanch vegetable just until wilted to take away the rawness. Drain.
2) In a non-stick pan, toast some sesame seed. After toasting, set aside to be used later as garnish.
3) In the same non-stick pan, heat up the cooking oil, once heated and if you're using garlic as aromatic, start saute until golden brown and remove from heat. If not using garlic, just removed heated cooking oil from heat and pour in dashes of soy sauce to taste. Mix in the blanched vegetable and mix well. And you're ready.
4) Serve on a dish, garnish with toasted sesame seeds and crispy shallots.

Shanghai Mooncake 上海月饼

Tomorrow, September 19, Chinese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese celebrate the the Mid-Autumn Festival . Traditionally the day is to celebrate the end of autumn harvest. You can read the legend of the festival from the link given and why moon cake is serve on the day.
There are many variations of moon cakes ; however, for a more manageable bake, I've chosen to try the Shanghai Moon cake. The traditional filling of lotus or bean paste has been replaced with poppy seed paste ; of which I think works well with the pastry. Give it a try!

Shanghai Mooncake
via :Simply Hanushi
Ingredients (Makes 4)
20 g icing sugar
6 g egg, lightly beaten
40 g butter, cubed
60 g plain flour
10 g custard powder (sub. with milk powder)
Some black sesame seeds / pumpkin seeds / melon seeds, for sprinkling
Filling
130 g ground poppy seed (traditionally it is lotus paste, but I couldn't make it in time)
 a little bit of milk
vanilla sugar, to taste
icing sugar, to taste
lemon zest
Method
1. Filling: Heat enough milk to turn ground poppy seed into paste, be careful not too wet. Once heated pour into ground poppy seed, mix in sugars and lemon zest. Mix well and divide into 4 portions and form into balls
2. Sift plain flour and custard powder together. Set aside.
3. In a bowl, sift icing sugar and add in egg and butter. Beat well till well-combined.
4. Add in the flour mixture slowly and knead into a soft dough. Divide into 4 portions of around 35 g.
5. Flatten a piece of dough into a round shape and wrap in a filling. Seal the edges to form into a ball.
6. Place the sealed ends facing downwards on a baking tray. Brush egg wash on the surface and sprinkle with some black sesame seeds / pumpkin seeds / melon seeds on top.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Salty short bread

Salty Shortbread 

Source : No salty
Time : kneading + freeze 30 mins. + bake 20 mins. + rest 1 hour

Ingredients
For dough
200gm butter, melted - warm not hot!
100ml whipping cream
375gm plain flour
2 egg yolks
8gm salt

For Toppings
1 egg yolk, for egg wash
seeds of choice (sesame, poppy, sunflower) or
grated cheese

Method
1) In a bowl, combine salt and plain flour and set aside.
2) In another bowl, mix warm melted butter with whipping cream and egg yolks. Add in the flour/salt into wet mixture. Knead until just come together. Do not over knead!
3) Roll out dough to about 0.5 to 1cm thickness, depending on your liking. Place on a sheet and let it set in freezer for 30 mins.
4) When dough has been rested for 10 mins. Start pre-heating the oven at 200°c.
5) Remove dough from freezer after 30 mins. and let it defrost a little. Cut dough into desired shapes and sizes. Glaze with egg yolk, sprinkle with your choice of topping(s).
6) Bake in pre-heated oven for about 20 mins. or until golden brown and crispy.
7) Let it rest for at least 1 hour before serving.

Biscotti

I haven't posted a recipe because this was a way to salvaged a too dense cake by drying the sliced failed caked in the oven until it turn crispy just like how a biscotti  should be;)

Pastry with peach

Simply use shop-bought puff pastry, cut into squares, use a knife to slit (not too deep) another square about 1cm inside each squares to stop the pastry puffing too much where the filling to be. Placed sliced tinned peach. and then glaze with egg wash on the sides. Bake until pastry turn golden brown. Easy!

Tzatziki

Tzatziki
Ingredients
2 medium-sized cucumber, peeled and sliced thinly
1x175gm yoghurt
few tablespoon of sour cream, or to taste
salt
pepper
garlic powder
parsley, chopped finely
Method
1) Slice or julien cucumber thinly. Sprinkle liberally with salt and let it sit for 10-15 mins. not more
2) Meanwhile, mix together yoghurt, sour cream, garlic powder and finely chopped parsley. Check taste and adjust accordingly. *Leave out the salt for the time being.*
3) After 10-15 mins. squeeze and drain all the liquid from the cucumber and mix into yoghurt, then check seasoning. And it is ready!

Homemade turmeric rice { Nasi kunyit }

Sticky rice or Glutinous Rice is commonly featured in SE Asian cuisine. It could be used in both sweet and savoury dishes. As the rice could be quite rich, we consume only in small quantity, and even on special occasions.
I followed the easy instructions given in the video below. I think I added too much water; hence, a bit too sticky. Since I didn't have a proper steamer, the result is satisfactory for now.

Yellow Sticky Rice

For soaking overnight :-
Glutinous rice
turmeric powder, to taste
tamarind pieces (sub. with lemon juice)

Seasoning
white pepper corns (sub. with white pepper powder)
coconut milk (see video)

1) Clean and soak rice in soaking ingredients with enough water to cover rice, overnight.
2) Drain rice, place rice on steaming dish. Heat up steamer.
3) Cook rice as per video instructions.

Caramelised red cabbage

I have tried cooking caramelised red cabbage a number of times but was never satisfied with the result until this recipe!

Caramelised Red Cabbage
adapted from No Salty

Ingredients
1 medium head red cabbage
1 apple
100g butter (reduced to 50g + vegetable oil)
50-60gm sugar (adjusted to taste)
50ml balsamic vinegar (adjusted to taste)
2 pinches of cumin seeds
salt & pepper, to taste

Method
1) Thinly slice red cabbage and apple, about 1cm width.
2) Heat a heavy duty sauce pan, melt butter (and vegetable oil), sprinkle in the sugar and stir until sugar dissolved.
3) Sauté cumin seed a bit before adding in red cabbage and apple.
4) Season with salt and pepper and dashes of balsamic vinegar, stir well. Put on the lid and let it braise for 30 mins.
5) After 30 mins. remove lid and let it continue to simmer to thicken the sauce. Check seasoning and it is ready to serve.

Poppy seeds bread pudding

Okay, I know this looks strange..haha. If you like poppy seed desserts you will like this.
After many years living in Hungary, strangely I haven't tried Mákos Guba before this. Perhaps because I am still getting use to poppy seeds. Slowly, I got used to it, but only in poppy seeds pie! Well, I think it is time to  add another dessert which feature this ingredient into my limited experience.
Poppy seeds bread pudding {Mákos Guba}
adapted from I like Baking

Ingredients for 6 servings:

6 pcs stale crescent rolls (you could also use sweet bread, baguette)

450 ml milk

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped (or sub. with vanilla sugar)

40 g unsalted butter

75 g ground poppy seed (I used much more for 3 pax)

75 g castor sugar (or to taste)

4 tbsp honey

1 finely grated lemon rind

1 pinch of ground clove (sub. with ground cinnamon)

Method (for pictorial, check out the link provided!)
1) Pre-heat oven at 180°c. Lightly grease baking pan (26x17cm)
2) Slice up  the rolls/bread and set aside.
3) Add vanilla seeds, honey and butter into milk and bring it to boil.
4) Pour boiled milk over the rolls/bread prep. earlier.
5) Mix together poppy seeds, lemon zest, ground cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle all over rolls/bread. Mix well. Be careful not to mush up the bread.
6) Pour the mixture onto the greased baking dish, prep earlier and let it bake in the pre-heated oven for 15 mins. or until the edges of bread are crispy.
7) Serve warm. To serve, you could sprinkle with icing sugar and drizzle over some custard.

No bake chocolate hearts

Recipe same as this .

Stir-fried rice

Fried rice is best from left over rice; so, when you have plain rice left over from Chinese take-outs, keep it in the fridge and use it to cook fried rice. In the case where you would like to try this using fresh rice, then before cooking store your cooked plain rice, uncovered, in the fridge for at least 2 hours to dry it out a little.

Chinese-style Fried rice
Ingredients
Day-old cooked Rice or freshly cooked, quantity according to portions you need
1 shallot or red onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1 cm ginger, minced or slice
1-2 tsp sesame seeds
mix vegetable, according to portions you need
few dashes of oyster sauce
few dashes of light soy sauce
white/black pepper , to taste

Method
1) Heat oil in a wok, put in minced onion and ginger. Cook until fragrant. Then add-in minced garlic & sesame seeds, cook until browned. Be careful not to burn garlic or it will taste bitter.
2) When aromatics are fragrant, add in mix vegetables. Stir-fry for a few minutes.
3) Add in rice, seasoning and mix everything well. Stir fry until rice is "jumping" in the wok because you want to achieve the "char" (not burn) flavour in the rice.
4) Serve hot as side dish or main.

Oat meal cookies without butter

When clearing the pantry, I found a jar of oat meal unused for quite some time. I thought using it to bake would be a nice change. Since I normally do not stock-up on butter, I needed a cookie recipe that doesn't include butter and what a great recipe I found on A Foodie Loves Company .!
I am pasting the whole recipe here. The only tweak I did was totally eliminate the  1 1/2 cups of sugar from the recipe and the result is definitely sweet enough for me .
No Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from: All Recipes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder 3/4 tsp salt
cinnamon, to taste  1/2 to 1 cup white or brown sugar 1 c brown sugar
1 1/2 cup oats
3/4 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350  2. Stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar, and oats.   3. Make a well in the center and add canola oil, eggs, and vanilla   4. Mix together with a spatula. Form the dough into balls and place on cookie sheet slightly flattening them out   5. Bake 10-12 minutes

Chinese style Angel Hair Pasta

Fried vermicelli rice noodles is comfort food for the Cantonese. We eat them in the morning, afternoon, night and sometimes even during parties as the noodles could be pair with endless flavours. Since it is harder to get vermicelli made of rice flour in my area, I have learned to substitute with angel hair pasta whenever I crave the Cantonese staple.

I will not be including a recipe in this post. What I do is I toast the pasta first either on a skillet or in the oven for maximum 10 mins. on medium heat or until pasta is browned. Next you simply cook the pasta per package's instructions, once cooked to al-dente, you toss it in Asian-inspired aromatics and you're good.

Oven baked Sesame meat balls

Oh, baking meat balls is so easy! Just pre-heat oven at 204°c/400°F/Gas mark 6 for at least 20 mins. before putting your meat balls in. Bake for 20-25 mins. and it is ready! No oil splatters or greasy kitchen to clean ;)
Sesame meat balls
Ingredients
500 ground pork, or your choice of ground meat , you can also mix 2 types of meat
garlic granule, to taste
1/2 tsp cumin,
1 tsp ground paprika
salt & pepper , to taste
1 egg
1 day-old bread
bread crumbs & sesame seed, for coating
Method :-
1) Soak stale bread in milk/stock/water for few minutes. Squeeze out the excess liquid after few minutes and tear into pieces
2) Put ground meat in mixing bowl, add cumin, garlic granule, ground paprika, salt, pepper, torn bread and crack in the egg. Use your hand to mix the ingredients until well combine. Let it rest for 30 mins.
3) While meat is resting, start to heat oven at 204°c/400°F/Gas mark 6 for 20  mins.
4) Shape meat mixture into balls, coat with bread crumbs+sesame seeds. Place on well-greased baking dish. Bake first for 10 mins. After 10 mins. take out from oven , flip over the meat balls and bake for another 10-15 mins., until meat is fully cooked.