Rosette Cookies / Kuih Rose / Kuih Loyang / 蜂窝饼

I was gifted with the rosette mould last year, tested it and it wasn't successful. For Chinese New Year, I thought I give it a go again and have to say I am getting the hang of how it works. I am happy with the results.

Recipe : https://mykitchen101en.com/how-to-make-thin-and-crispy-honeycomb-cookies-kuih-loyang-rosette-cookies/

Baked Malaysian Satay

On Sunday at the last minute I decided to try out this satay recipe that I've seen the night before. I have to say I did not follow the recipe completely due to lack of ingredients. Despite this, the meat turned out satisfying especially it was done in the oven and not bbq.

Chicken satay
Recipe by : Lauren's Kitchen

Ingredients A For Chicken satay :
Makes: 25-30 skewers
5 shallots
3 cloves garlic
4 stalks lemongrass ( white part only)

15g ginger
25g galangal
15g turmeric

600g chicken meat
1 tsp salt
2tbsp sugar
1 stick lemon grass (to spread oil on satay while bbq)

Method:
1. Blend all the ingredients (A) . Mix the blended ingredients with chicken , add salt and sugar , combine well . Cover with cling paper and marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hours or even over night if you want.
2.Soak Skewers in water while you are marinating chicken to prevent them to burning.
3. Thread the marinated chicken onto the skewers .
4.Grill it until cook using bbq method / grill in oven (180°c ,10-15min both side) , brush oil on top (both sides) using lemon grass stick .

served with peanut sauce and fresh vegetables

Using the stove to add some smoke flavour

Chinese New Year dishes : Yusheng / Yee Sang / 鱼生

I love this "salad" dish with raw or smoked fish during Chinese New Year. The crispy crunch of the fried wonton, contrast with the fresh fish and vegetable toss in plum sauce is my idea of heaven!

For recipe, please refer to my recipe from last year.

Cantonese Egg Tarts II 港式蛋挞

Over the years, I've made egg tarts on few occasions. The result mostly looked rough and rustic but this time these tarts look  like the real deal! That said, am still trying to achieve a melt in the mouth lighter crust. Mine have slight chewy tart shell. I'll have to work on my short crust pastry technique. However, the filling is exactly what I'm looking for.

Cantonese Egg Tarts

serves : 12-15 tarts

I have halved the recipe from Guai Shu Shu

Ingredients

For tart shells 

1 egg (lightly beaten) 

220 grams of plain flour (sifted) 

40 grams of icing sugar (sifted) 

100 grams of chilled butter (cut into cubes) 

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence (optional) 

For egg custard filling   

220 grams of fresh milk 

75 grams of castor sugar 

2 eggs 

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence (optional) 

Pre-heat the oven to 180°c

In a big mixing bowl, put butter cubes and sifted plain flour together. Use the finger tips to rub the butter cubes and flours together until it become crumby. Add in sifted icing sugars and continue to rub until well mix.

Add lightly beaten eggs and vanilla essence, mix slowly until it become a dough. Put it in the fridge to chill for 20-30 minutes. Note that if you are able to handle soft dough, you can by pass this step. Take the dough from the fridge and use a rolling pin to roll it into a flat sheet with about 0.5 cm thickness.

Use a round cutter to cut about the size of the mould.  Note that this step is optional and will help you to roughly gauge the amount of dough required and you still need to adjust the quantity of dough as you progress.  Use your hand to press the dough against the sides and make it as even as possible. Use a knife or anything sharp to cut off the sides. If preferred, use a fork to lightly make some holes to let any trapped air to escape.  However, this step of making hole is optional. Set aside for later use.

For crispier crust, bake the tart shell in the pre-heated oven of 180 degree Celsius for 10 minutes. However, this step is also optional. 

For filling :-
In a microwavable bowl or mug, heat the milk until boiling hot (if you do not have a microwave oven, just heat the milk over the stove). Set aside for the next step. 

In a big mixing bowl, put egg, sugar and vanilla essence. Use a hand whisk to beat until well mixed. Pour the hot milk to the mixture and use a sift to sieve the custard mixture. 

Pour the custard mixture to the pre-baked tart shells. 
  
Bake the egg tarts in the pre-heated oven of 180˙c for 10-15 minutes. Once the tarts starts to puff up a bit, open the oven door, leave the door ajar and continue to bake the tarts for another 5 –8 minutes. A tart is considered as baked when a toothpick inserted in the centre of the tart, the toothpick stands upright. The tarts is best served warm when the custard is still soft and crust crispy.

Asian Spicy Pickled Vegetables {acar-acar}

Whenever I have excess cauliflower I like to make this pickled salad to accompany meat dishes.
To learn about its origin, please read here .
As I intend to eat the salad on the same day that it's prepared, I didn't follow the usual process of pickling. What I did was ...
 
Spicy "pickled" vegetables
 
Ingredients :-
Cauliflower
Cucumber
Carrots
ginger
garlic
vinegar
sugar
turmeric
fish sauce
spicy Hungarian chili paste (erős pista)
sesame seeds, toasted , for sprinkling

Method
1) Blanch the cut vegetable in boiling water. Start off with carrot (longer to tender) followed by cauliflower and finally cucumber. Do not over cooked as you want a little bite to the vegetables.
Set aside to drain off excess liquid on a kitchen towel. Put aside some of the boiling water to wet the salad later.
2) Grate ginger and garlic. Heat a little oil in a pan and saute the grated ginger and garlic. Once fragrant, sprinkle a pinch of turmeric and stir a bit. Next add in the spicy Hungarian chili paste, sugar to your taste and few dashes of fish sauce (not too much , as the sauce is very salty). Set aside until assembling salad.
3) Place drained vegetable into salad bowl, splash a few dashes of vinegar, and add in the cooked spiced mixture . Coat salad evenly. Taste to check the balance of sweet and sour. If needed add the water earlier.
4) Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds before serving

Baked spring rolls

On Chinese New Year, my family would make spring rolls; a favourite of mine because I love fried foods. Chinese spring rolls as far as my knowledge goes, is deep fried. The spring roll wrappers could be bought at the wet market or the frozen section of the super/hyper market. These wrappers are moist and must be kept moist until ready to use unlike the dry rice wrappers for the Vietnamese spring rolls.
For this occasion, since the Chinese spring roll wrappers are not available to me, I've used the Vietnamese dried type. Filling for spring rolls for me growing up only consisted of carrots,jicama, dried shrimp stir fried. I've noticed many add mince meat but. that is completely up to you. Just make sure the fillings are not too wet.
Once stir fried vegetable and meat have been cooled. Pre-heat oven at 180°c.
Soak Vietnamese spring roll wrapper one wrapper at a time in cold water, lay flat and fill it up with filling. wrap. brush with cooking oil. place on baking tray with parchment paper. Repeat process until fillings is finish. Once wrapping done, sprinkle sesame seeds on top of each spring roll. Place in oven and bake for 15 mins. check if the skin is crispy. if it is, then it is done. Otherwise, keep baking until skin is crisp.
serve hot with any Asian dipping sauce of your choice.

Homemade peanut dipping sauce

By now, many have figured out the short cut in making peanut sauce. It's really not hard especially if you have peanut butter in your pantry. However, in my case, peanut butter is not regularly featured on my grocery list as I'm the only one who eats it and that's dangerous! :D
One day a dish really needed this sauce to make it complete, so I thought why not give it a go with  toasted peanuts in packet that I've got on hand. The recipe still needs tweaking but the result was very promising !

Homemade Peanut dipping sauce

Ingredients (estimate only)
Peanuts, toasted, it depend on how "peanutty" you want it
oil for cooking
onion, minced
dried red chillies, to taste
anchovy paste, to taste
salt and sugar, to taste
water, as needed

Method
1) Heat oil in sauce pan. Sauté minced onion until translucent. Add in the anchovy paste, dried chillies and peanuts. Stir it a bit. add water , not too much. you can adjust later. cook until peanuts are blendable.
2) Remove from sauce pan and blend to the preferred texture (smooth or chunky) , pour in back to pan . At this point, season with salt and sugar, also adjust water, if needed.
3) Serve room temperature or hot.

Steamed pumpkin cake

This traditional steamed cake is normally flavoured with yam; which is not easily available to me. Imagine my joy when I found out that it works with pumpkin as well.

Steamed Pumpkin Cake 
via Babe in the city KL
 
Ingredients :-
4 tbsp oil
6 cloves garlic, chopped
6 shallots, chopped
60 g dried prawns, soaked, rinsed and roughly chopped **substitute w anchovy paste 1 pair Chinese sausages, diced **didn't add
200 g minced pork meat ** didn't add
800 g pumpkin, seeded with skin removed will yield about 600 g, coarsely grated
Salt and ground white pepper to taste
Batter (mix them together):-
300 g rice flour
60 g tapioca flour
1 litre water
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
Garnishing:
Spring onion, chopped
Fried shallots
  Preparation :- In a fairly large pan or wok, heat oil and fry up chopped garlic and shallots till soft and fragrant. Add dried prawns and continue to stir fry till fragrant. Next add in sausages and minced meat. Stir fry until meat is cooked and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Give the batter a stir before pouring into the stir fried mixture together with the grated pumpkin. Add in salt and pepper. Keep stirring until batter became thick. Taste and adjust seasonings. Turn off the heat.
Pour mixture into a 22 cm square or even round tray. Even the surface with the back of a spoon or spatula. Steam on high heat for about 45 minutes. The surface should be quite firm. Remove and leave to cool completely.
Garnish the cake by scattering chopped spring onion and fried shallots on the surface before slicing. Serve with garlic chilli sauce.

Home-made pot stickers { Gyōza } { 餃子}

 

I've halved the following recipe which yield 20 wrappers

Gyoza Wrapper Recipe

via justonecookbook

Author: Namiko Chen

Serves: 42-44 wrappers (thin wrappers)

Ingredients

240gm plain flour

½ tsp. salt

120 ml just-boiled water plus more if necessary (should be around 120 - 150 ml)

You will also need:

Potato starch (corn starch) for dusting
3" (8 cm) cookie cutter

While for the filling, I've just followed a rough guide from this video.

Savoury Chinese 5-spice doughnut { Ham chim paeng }

Deep-fried savoury doughnut is typical hawker fare back home; which is usually consumed in the morning or during tea.time. To make this deep-fried savoury doughnuts at home has been on my to-try list for the longest time! I'm so glad that it has been crossed-off from the list.
Please visit My Kitchen Snippets for the recipe.

Steamed Coconut custard Glutinous Rice dessert { Malay cuisine : Seri Muka }

Kuih Seri Muka
serves : 8-10 pax
Base :-
1 cup Glutinous Rice, washed and soaked over night
150ml coconut milk
1/4 tsp salt

Coconut custard
2 egg yolks
3 Tbsp sugar
1 packet vanilla sugar
2.5 Tbsp plain flour
250 ml coconut milk

Method

1) Wash and soak glutinous rice the night before you intend to serve the "kuih"
2) Get the steamer ready.
3) Drain soaked glutinous rice, mix in the coconut milk and salt. Mix well. Pour into a greased square steaming pan**. I used about .........., which I think makes the base too thick. Next time I'll use a slightly bigger pan for thinner layer of rice.
4) Steamed for 30 mins. or until the rice is cooked. Do not fluff the rice, just leave it as is.
5) Make the custard by placing 2 egg yolks in sauce pan. Beat in the sugar and add a little coconut milk and slowly beat in the plain flour, ensuring no lumps. when you get a smooth paste, then add in the rest of the coconut milk.
6) Cook the custard until thicken, then pour onto the glutinous rice base. Place the square pan back to the steamer and steam for 15 mins. If it is not quite set, steam a bit longer. When it is wobbly, remove steamer from heat and let the rice in for another 10 mins. before removing from steamer.
7) After 10 mins. remove from steamer and let it cool fully so that the custard to set fully.
8) Serve at room temperature. If you have left over , keep in the fridge and steam lightly when you want to eat again.

Check out the video if you're still unclear http://www.abc.net.au/tv/pohskitchen/stories/s2924623.htm

Baked turmeric and curry chicken wings

I had defrosted some chicken wings but has absolutely no inspiration what to do with them. Based on the main gravy going with it (carrot and parsnip sauce) I've decided to pair the sauce with turmeric as carrot and turmeric have been proven to pair well from experience. This turned out Good!

Baked Turmeric and Curry chicken wings

Ingredients
Chicken wings, cleaned

Marinate, quantity not exact, sprinkle the spices all over making sure each wing will be well coated
ground cumin
turmeric
curry powder
chilli powder
garlic powder
salt
black or white pepper
yoghurt, just enough to coat the wings

1) Marinate chicken wings in the fridge for minimum 30 minutes
2) After 30 mins. remove chicken wings from fridge and start to pre-heat oven at 200°c/400°F/Gas mark 6.
3) Let oven heat for 20 mins. while wings sit in room temperature.
4) Once oven is hot enough, place chicken wings on greased baking tray in one layer.
5) First bake for 25 mins. and remove from oven. Increase to gas mark 7 and flip wings over and bake for another 20 mins. until skin is browned and crispy and you're 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.

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.

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.

Chow Mein, Asian stir-fried noodles 炒麵

I think every Chinese household has a different versions of chow mein. This kyliekwong 's version (as seen on Tv Paprika) uses ginger, which I've never included in my version before this. Also, her soy base sauce was much more straight forward to prepare than mine. Anyway, here's how I tweaked her recipe based on what is available in my kitchen .

Chow Mein 炒麵

Serves : 1

Ingredients :-

One serving of spaghetti pasta (kw's recipe uses flat rice noodles)

few slices of ginger

2 cloves of garlic

half of red onion

cabbage (kw's uses chinese cabbage)

spring onions

white pepper to taste

thick soya sauce

light soya sauce

oil for stir-frying

* sesame seeds omitted (totally forgotten about it!)

* bean sprout was omitted (not available in my kitchen)

* You may also add any kind of meat / seafood of your choice.

Preparation :-

1) Cook spaghatti pasta according to your brand's instruction.

2) In the mean time, prepare sliced ginger, chopped onion , garlic, spring onions.

3) Heat oil in a wok, sauté ginger, onion and garlic until fragrant. Next in the same wok, put the dark soya sauce (enough to cover the pasta) , simmer it for a bit. Then toss-in the cooked pasta and stir-fry until soya sauce colour pasta fully. Next , toss-in cabbage, spring onion and neam sprout and continue to stir-fry for a bit. Add light soya sauce and white pepper to taste. Stir-fry for a about 3 minutes and it's ready.

4) Serve with toasted sesame seeds.

Chinese Laughing Dumplings (笑口棗)

Don't they look mouth-watering? Thanks Do what I like for sharing this wonderful recipe. Taste wise is as good as the ones I usually get during dim sum breakfast or sunday market..light, crunchy on the outside, soft inside with a hint of sweetness!
Only thing to be aware of is the temprature of the oil when frying the dumplings. Do ensure oil is not too hot or dumplings and sesame seeds would burnt rather quickly. .
 
Chinese Laughing Dumplings (笑口棗)
click here for recipe.


Ingredients: (18 pieces)
90g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
40g sugar
1.5 tsp melted shortening (I used Crisco)
3 tbsp cold water
White sesame seeds for coating

Method:
1. Sieve flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Stir in sugar.
2. Add in the melted shortening and water, mix to form a soft dough.
3. Rest dough for 30 minutes.
4. Divide dough into 10g pieces and shape it into round balls.
5. Wet the round dough balls with water and coat it with white sesame seeds.
6. Deep fry coated dough balls in oil, turning the dumplings with a ladle till golden brown.
7. Use absorbent kitchen paper towel to get rid of excess oil.
8. Cool before storing in an air-tight container.

Notes:1. Oil should not be too hot while you slide in the dough balls, otherwise the sesame seeds will get all burnt out. Increase the heat after you have slided in the dough balls. An easy snack to do but you have to control of the heat while deep frying. Would advise you to fry 2 at time until you get the rhythm of the heat control.
2. If you like the dumplings to be of larger size, you can increase the dough balls to 13g each.
3. Floured your hands if you find the dough a little sticky to handle.

 

Bibimbap Imitation { Korean cuisine }

You know sometimes when you see a dish that you really fancy in magazines, etc..but it didn't come with a recipe, what do you do? Me, imitate!! I'll lock that dish in mind or if i'm not tooo lazy to get a pen and paper, i'll quickly write down with guesses on what goes into the mysterious dish and hopefully be able to cook it as soon as possible ;)

So, the following dish was inspired under similar situation..Tadaa! my version of Bibimbap!

Bibim bap is Korean and it simply means mixed (=Bibim) rice (=bap) . After researching online, the way to eat this meal is to mix the rice/vege whatnots thoroughly with spoon or in this case, chopsticks. See here for the original serving of Bibim bap.

I didn't bother to look for the actual recipe, the ingredient was "what you see is what you get" basis minus some bits which are not available in the 'super' i.e. a bit of Hungarian pickled cabbage, 1 egg -sunny side-up, spring onions, toasted sesame and dash of soya sauce and its ready!

The crunchy soury taste of pickled vege. and everything else matches so well, an appetising comfort food, and a keeper for those lazy days. 

Stuffed Chilli Peppers

That's the recipe I tried for yesterday's lunch. The usual stuffings that I'm familiar with are mince pork+rice or fish paste. I think meat or fish stuffing + pepper helps to balance the spiciness of the pepper. While this vegetarian version that I tested was packed with spices, take a bite and it'll woken up all your senses! This dish is great with a plate of steamed rice... Ooh la la. This is certainly a keeper!

Stuffed chilli peppers
Recipe from Spice Hut

Ingredients:
8 chilli peppers
2 large potatoes
1 small onion
1 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tsp MDH Pav Bhaaji Masala (omitted, since not available)
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
salt to taste, oil for saute

Method:
Peel the potatoes, wrap them in paper towels and cook in the microwave for 8-9 min. Remove, crumble them. Keep aside. Place coriander seeds in a ziploc bag& pound roughly with a rolling pin. Finely chop the onion.

Hold the chilli pepper in the palm of your hand and make a long slit along one side, using a small knife. Remove the seeds & white part inside the pepper with your fingers or spoon. Repeat with all the peppers. When done make sure to clean your hands with soap. Preferrably wear gloves.

Heat oil in a non-stick pan. Add the onion, saute till translucent. Add the Pav Bhaaji Masala, red chilli powder, cumin seeds, crushed coriander seeds, salt to taste. Saute for 2 min. Add the crumbled potatoes & adjust salt. Mix well till potatoes are coated well with the masalas. Turn off stove. Cool this stuffing for a bit.

Pack the stuffing in the prepared chilli peppers. In the same non-stick pan, heat more oil. Once oil is hot, reduce heat to medium low &carefully (use tongs) place the stuffed peppers into the oil, slit side up. Let it cook like this for 5 min.

Turn off stove, remove stuffed chillies and place them in a baking dish. Bake for 15-20 min in a preheated 325 degrees oven. Serve hot.