Recently Tried Recipes

One of the hardest things I've yet to accept is the lack of time to do the things I want and long to do. Sometimes it gets me down, and I do the unthinkable of blaming it on B, but most of the time I've given up on getting things done ASAP, but choose to spread the work to be done within a few days. Hahaha!

For example, the Serunding Daging (Beef Meat Floss). It took me almost 5 days to get it done because I didn't have time to shred the meat as finely as I wanted it to be. [Tried in August 2017.]

Ironically, despite my attempt in shredding the meat as finely as possible before cooking it, they clumped together during the cooking process. Ha! I shouldn't have invested THAT much time. ;)

The recipe from Fried Chillies I referred to uses coriander seeds, cumin and fennel seeds. I'll probably find another recipe to try out as I didn't enjoy tasting the coriander seeds in my mouth. I picked out as many seeds as I could but alas, guess what? I've still got a container of the floss in my fridge as I haven't picked out as many as I am hoping to before consumption! :D

Nevertheless, it was good eaten with rice or even pasta! It's very useful to have some at standby should you need to have a quick meal to get out of the way.

Hoping to try the Chinese version one day. ONE DAY when I believe I have all the time in the world, haha!

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Angku Kueh (Red Tortoise Cake)

This is one of my favourite childhood snacks to have. My paternal grandmother would bring over tons of it when she visited and the ones with peanut filling were always quickly snapped up. I haven't tried making the peanut filling yet, but like mentioned above, ONE DAY I shall!

Initially I thought it was hard work, but after getting the hang of it the first round, the second one was a breeze. Well, I had the hubs helping me out as we were rushing to have food ready for Brendan's 1st birthday party. :)

Recipe from Nasi Lemak Lover. Tried in May 2017.

Hmmm, I wish I could have some right now. *tries not to drool* It turned out to be a huge hit with my Malaysian and Singaporean friends - and thank goodness there was enough for them to bring some home with them. :)

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Mee Hoon Kueh [July 2017.]

One of my friends was always sharing photos of this dish on Facebook and yes, it seems like most people know this dish as Pan Mee. The hubs said the same thing when he saw it the first time.

Recipe from Nasi Lemak Lover.

I believe they're the same thing, especially when Pan Mee condiments are added to this broth of pulled dough pieces. I made it plain the first time, like how my grandmother did it - just spinach and dough in broth. That was it.

The second and third time I made it, I added Pan Mee condiments of minced meat and mushroom, and fried anchovies.

In all honesty, as much as B loves the dish (he loves his carbs), it is quite time consuming to prepare it as a meal. Letting the dough rest for at least an hour before pulling it and cooking it in boiling water can take a while. Zzzz

Just last night I threw away the rest of the dough I didn't finish using the day before. :(

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Lei Cha [Tried in July 2017.]

I first ate this dish in Ipoh, when the hubs and I were still in an unmarried relationship. His father advised me that not everyone liked this dish and there were two ways of eating it, drown your rice and condiments with the broth, or eat your rice with enough broth as you please.

It turned out that I enjoyed the dish very much. I would request for it whenever we were in Ipoh for the weekend. Later on, we found a coffee shop in Kepong serving it, and some of our friends loved this dish as well.

The recipe I tried is from The Star Online with some of my own condiments. It's extremely hard work and the taste was 90% to what we were used to. The broth is heavy in terms of flavour but it looks watery in the picture. I'm not sure how I'd tweak it should I attempt the recipe again.

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Pumpkin recipes - Steamed pumpkin and radish cake.

I replaced a portion of radish with pumpkin instead, curious to see how it would turn out. Pumpkin, as you know, is mild tasting, so you couldn't tell that it was one of the ingredients in this dish.

Pan-frying leftovers are always so much tastier. I love the colour, if not disappointed in the lack of taste. :)

Pumpkin No Churn Ice-Cream

I was so excited to discover that you can make ice-cream without the need of an ice-cream maker!

I soon realised that unfortunately, I could mostly taste the cream in it, no thanks to pumpkin being mild flavoured, remember? It gives you a gorgeous colour, no doubt about it, but taste wise, it was a bit of a disappointment.

But it didn't stop us from finishing it, especially when you want something cold to end your meal. 

I'm hoping to try another flavour and see if it'll stand out. :)

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Roast Duck Curry [Tried in July 2017.]

OMG ... I LOVED the curry paste!

The hubs had brought home some leftover roast duck he had for lunch with a colleague. He commented that the duck was lean and wasn't very appealing (in taste) so could I please make it better?

I could only think of curry and had to find a recipe I thought suitable. The thing is, I can't recall where I took the curry paste recipe from. *ponders*

The curry was delicious, but would have tasted so much better with lychee and eggplant, both of which I didn't have. Grapes and mandarin just made it weird.

Nevertheless, I wish to emphasize that the curry paste was da BOMB.

Now where the heck is the recipe??

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Kuih Bangkit. [Tried in May 2017.]

I had cravings in May 2017. I was desperate to taste the creamy coconut in my mouth that I trawled the internet for a recipe I could follow.

Whilst they didn't look anything like kuih bangkit as I didn't have the mould, they tasted like it. I was so happy. I asked my friends to try it during Brendan's birthday party and made them take some home, too, otherwise I would devour everything. 

Now that I have the mould (thanks to the BFF for bringing them over), I shall make them again!

But one fine day!

Because, I shouldn't.

If I'm on a diet and all ... :D

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Laksa Johor [Tried in August 2017.]

I've only eaten this dish once, and it was a homemade version of it.

I loved the thickness of it, and the use of spaghetti that the dish just stuck in my head since ... 10 years ago?

For the first round, I blanched the diced french beans as I thought they would be too hard to chew. For the second round with leftover gravy, it was raw and it made such a huge difference. It brought out the flavours of the gravy and the dish was altogether whole.

There are plenty of recipes out there that will tell you what fish should be used (mackerel, tuna, parang or sardines) but I used sardines and they tasted good enough for me.

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Right.

The pictures are making me hungry as I relived my cooking moments.

Have a great weekend!

Possibly Mooncake Biscuits

Mid Autumn Festival was on Monday, 8th September. Mooncake fillings have evolved from traditional fillings of lotus paste, red bean or nuts to tiramisu, coffee, chocolate, etc. My favourite is always lotus paste with egg yolk, wrapped in snow skin, which needs to be kept in the fridge.


The Asian grocers have been selling boxes of mooncakes for the whole month. The only time I had mooncake was when Gary offered us some when we paid him a surprise visit last month. 

As much as I wanted to eat mooncake (lotus paste with egg yolk, please), I couldn't bring myself to buy a box. *shrug* My cravings weren't that strong.

I thought I'd make my own, haha, although not in the traditional sense. I don't have the moulds!

I went with Shanghai pastry, and followed the recipe here. I bought red bean paste as I was too lazy to make my own.

Do you think they look more like siew paus?

After making a batch sized according to the recipe, I decided to make them a bit smaller, just nice for one person to devour it in 3 bites.

The buttery pastry, although not flaky, is good enough to make you want more. This way, the paste was less sweet. Packaged paste is sadly very underwhelming and next time, I think I'll need to make my own.

I'm not happy with how pale they turned out to be, despite baking them just a bit longer. Perhaps milk should be omitted from the egg wash?

Without salted egg yolks, the recipe can make about 20+ pieces if you prefer smaller sized ones.

Ingredients:

Filling

700gm red bean paste

Pastry

250gm salted butter (mine was unsalted, so I added 2 dashes of sea salt into the flour mixture)

150gm icing sugar

380gm plain flour

1 large egg

60g custard powder

Egg wash

1 egg yolk

1 TBSP water

1 TBSP milk (will omit this the next time)

Black and white sesame seeds for decoration.

Directions:

1. Sift flour and custard powder. Set aside.

2. Beat butter and icing sugar til creamy, for 2-3 minutes only.

3. Add in egg and beat til combined. Mix in flour and custard powder and combine to make soft dough. 

4. Wrap in cling film and store in fridge for 30mins.

5. Roll red bean paste into 1 inch balls, set aside. If you're lazy like me, you'll just spoon 1 inch worth of paste into your dough later on.

6. Remove dough from fridge, roll into 1.5 inch balls and set aside.

7. Prepare small bowl of egg wash and another one with black and sesame seeds.

8. Flatten dough balls and insert paste into middle. Wrap it with dough carefully before rolling it into a ball.

9. Place on tray lined with baking paper. Gently flatten it, brush with egg wash and sprinkle sesame seed on top.

10. Preheat oven at 180'C yet? Anyway, bake them for 20 mins at 180'C.

Put them under the grill for a while (til the top turns a bit brown) to warm them up before consumption.
Yums!

Notes:

*I added some roasted pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds into the red bean paste to add a bit of texture.

*Baked them 5 minutes longer.

* The next day, I grilled it for a few minutes just to warm them up before having them for breakfast. It'll give a nice brown top and looked much more appetising. Very yummy when served nice and warm.

Food For Friends And Crew

I went crazy last week, drawing up a menu for Sunday's picnic as well as going through my fuel plan. It was the only thing I could do while sitting around and resting during taper week. Besides the night run on Tuesday, I only managed a 5km run on Saturday, just to warm up the legs.

Playing checkers with sable cookies ... I'm so pleased to have successfully tweaked the
chocolate recipe to something I really like! 

Besides cookies, a tray of brownies and some veggie curry puffs, I wanted to bring chicken skewers (without satay sauce) and fried meehoon (vermicelli) but decided against it. Since the picnic will be with the support crews, I doubted anyone would want to move their party to the barbie pit across the road.

My puffs are always so pale!
Brownies, as always, a winner hands down!

Nevertheless, we had chicken skewers for tea on Saturday since I had marinated the chicken the day before.

I think there were 17 sticks in total.

Mmmm, it needed a bit more honey. Otherwise, I love how the finely chopped lemongrass tastes like crushed peanuts, adding texture.

Cooked this a few weeks ago with coriander, dried mushrooms, shrimps, shallots and accompanied
by fresh sambal.

Fried meehoon is a favourite go-to dish of mine, probably because I used to eat so much of it back home when I was younger. Like fried rice, it doesn't really matter what the ingredients are as long as they provide enough taste and colour. 

A celebratory Magnum ice-cream!

Sticking with tradition, I celebrated my run with a Magnum ice-cream. I loved the biscuit bits in the chocolate crust! I wanted to share it with the hubs but he said it was too sweet for him. *shrug* More for me!

Joanne, I think you would love this! 

Me and my Magnum, after Melbourne
Marathon 2013! PB, yay!
p.s. Lemmie the lemon tree is now dead.

Fish Noodles Soup

This post has been sitting in the draft folder since last year. I made this dish twice in November and absolutely enjoyed it. :)

Who would have thought that I would miss tangy fish noodles from home?

It was such a joy (and relief) to come across the recipe which simplified its cooking, making it possible for me attempt this dish. Otherwise, I'd just shove my cravings back into its cage and pretend it never happened.

First attempt on 22nd November 2013.

If you already have your stock in hand, your preparation and cooking time will be reduced and would take not more than 1.5 hours.

For sambal belacan and fried silver whiting, I usually refer to this recipe. I tend to make just enough sambal belacan for 3 portions as I don't want to keep them too long in the fridge. The fried fish pieces are fairly simple, and you may use your preferred choice of fish.

For the fish noodle recipes, I referred to both Kelly Siew Cooks and Maangchi and have adapted them to my own.

Fish Noodles Soup

Serves 2.

Ingredients:

1/2 litre of chicken stock

thumb size ginger, sliced thinly

a pinch of dried anchovies

2 pieces of pickled mustard green, sliced thinly

2 tomatoes, cut into wedges

2 salted plum (asam boi?)

2 TBSP of Shao Xing rice wine

2 tsp of fish sauce

1 TBSP of sesame oil

vermicelli, soak in hot water and set aside.

1/4 cup of evaporated milk (or fresh milk)

salt and pepper, to taste.

for garnish

coriander

spring onion

fried fish pieces

Directions:

1. Fry ginger with sesame oil until fragrant in a pot.

2. Add chicken stock to the pot, and throw in the anchovies, mustard green, tomatoes and salted plum.

3. When it starts to boil, add the rice wine and fish sauce. Close, reduce heat and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

4. Remove foam from the surface, if any.

5. Check the vermicelli to see if they are soft enough. If yes, drain water and set it aside. 

6. Shut off the heat. Remove anchovies or leave it.

7. Taste broth, and see if it requires some salt or white pepper.

8. Add milk into the broth before pouring over the noodles. You may want to gradually pour in the milk and taste it first. You don't want to pour too little or too much.

Second attempt on 27nd November 2013.

Hope you'll give it a go!
When winter comes, I supposed I'll cook this dish again. :)
 

Yu Sheng, Yee Sang, Prosperity Toss

During Chinese New Year, you will hear the Chinese greeting each other 'Gong Xi Fa Cai' ('Congratulations on your wealth!') and 'Wan Shi Ru Yi' ('May all your wishes be fulfilled!')

This dish is commonly known in Malaysia and Singapore. Eons ago in the olden days of China, fishermen would feast on their catches on the 7th day of Chinese New Year. Don't ask me why, but I suppose for the rest of the year, most of the fish are sold for income? :D

Now the 7th day of CNY, according to Chinese customs, was when humans were first created.  Supposedly. So it is known as 'Renri' (but pronounced as 'ren re'), which means 'everyone's birthday'.

So it became a custom for the families to gather for dinner, and served an appetiser dish called Yee Sang, which is the Cantonese of Yu Sheng (鱼生). The direct translation is 'raw fish'.

The homophone of it brings you to the phrase Yúshēng (余升) which means 'increase in abundance' which I suppose, that is why this dish is also known as the 'Prosperity Toss'.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Having this dish served (before the main course) symbolised continued wealth and prosperity.

It sounds like the Chinese are really into their wealth, eh? :)

Anyway, this dish is now so commercialised that it is available at restaurants even during the days leading towards Chinese New Year in Singapore and Malaysia.

 Enough of brief history.

If you love this dish so much, you can now recreate this dish anytime you want as a delicious salad for your meals!

My first attempt wasn't too shabby. :)
Yee Sang for two!

I made it as one of our dishes for dinner the night before Chinese New Year, based on Noob Cook's recipe. I followed it as closely as I could, and it turned out great!

The second time I made it was the next day, the 1st day of CNY as my contribution to dinner over at WC's house. It was improvised a teensy bit, with the addition of some coriander, which I had realised was missing the first time.

My mum insisted that the vegetables needed to be shred as thin as possibly, which created more work for me and took up a LOT of my time. I'd peel the vegetables and then slice them finely with a knife.

Next time, I'm not going to bother with that and just use the grater!

And I think you should, too!

And I told her that. ;)

Glutinous Rice Balls - Jian Dui and Loh Mai Chee

I've learnt that playing with glutinous rice flour is a tricky thing. You need to get the dough just right, not too wet and not too dry.

A few years ago, we made tang yuan (glutinous rice balls) for Winter Solstice Festival because we were rather unfortunate to have bought yucky frozen ones from the supermarket. 

Life would have been easier if it had been yummy. ;)
Those manufactured and sold in supermarkets, I mean.

Back in 2010.

Sometimes, I get annoyed with the husband who, when feels like it, will challenge go against the norm of things ... er... whatever you may call it. He said that 'tang yuan' need not be round and proceeded to make a variety of shapes including that ring you see in the picture above.

This year, I'm glad he was too busy to help me whip up a quick batch.

Just peanut fillings this time.

I didn't realise it was the Winter Solstice Festival until friends and family started wishing everyone on Facebook. Soooooo ...

I rummaged through the kitchen racks and found that I had just enough flour to make 20 balls filled with crushed peanuts. Phew!

I love my crushed peanuts. I had some left from my earlier attempts at making 'jian dui' (fried glutinous balls) and 'loh mai chee' (glutinous balls coated with rice flour) on different occasions.

At first, I had the intention of sharing with you my jian dui and loh mai chee journeys but changed my mind and deleted the draft. Then I realised that I had to, just to remind myself NEVER AGAIN to play with glutinous rice flour.

It's too freaking sticky!

Steamed Yam Cake and Steamed Radish Cake

Steamed Yam Cake (Orh Kueh, 芋粿, 芋头糕)

Ever since I found out that YB was a huge fan of the steamed yam cake, I have always wanted to make an attempt at the recipe. I would often ask my mum why she hadn't made any of late, and she would tell me that the these days, yam (or taro) are are quite expensive.

Fair enough.

Although I was really hoping for her to share her recipe with me. :)

Honestly, I never thought I would come to this stage where I'd be making any of our Malaysian dessert delights but I suppose when you're up for a cooking challenge (and always planning to tickle your hubby's heart through his tummy), you'd get there eventually.

Yam or taro is sold here in Melbourne for AUD $9.99 to $10.99 per kg, and the tuber roots tend to be packaged cut into half, lengthwise. They are not the rounds one we have back home, but longish, possibly 5-6cms longer than your hand.

My description is awful. I forgot to take a picture, sorry.

I adapted the recipe from Rasa Malaysia's site based on what I had in the kitchen as I was too lazy to keep buying all the ingredients to complete the recipe. I tend to stretch my weekly grocery budget whenever I plan to try out a new recipe, so I really should stop browsing the Internet for ideas and do something productive like cleaning the house. :(

Instead of shallots, I used some red onions instead, since they are quite pungent aromatic anyway.

For the topping, I used chopped red chilli, chopped coriander, dried turnip bits and chopped dried shrimps. I definitely missed the taste of shallots!