Chinese Rice Wine, Anyone?

Weekend lunches are normally lite meals, i.e. A all in one dish and if yours truly is in an exceptional good mood, there will be a side dish to compliment the main one. It's always a last minute kind of thing after consulting the men in the house. I am thankful that they are not too fussy eaters except that I need to remember a thing or two that they just can't get themselves to eat.

Made Rice Wine with Chicken and Vermicelli, a traditional Chinese dish.

I am sure Chinese mothers out there would know this, a dish commonly served during confinement. So, this post is for all those nice people who prepared this for new mothers who were under their care during confinements! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts~

This is a simple dish to prepare provided you have rice wine in your kitchen. Not sure if it works with other types of rice wine but the one I used is the traditional Chinese rice wine which is made by fermenting glutinous rice at home, not any commercial winery. It's hard to find people who knows how to make this nowadays, it's mostly folks from the older generation. Maybe we have ourselves to blame for not learning from them but as far as I can remember, the making of it comes with many taboos that one needs to follow, failing which the wine will not turn out well. Excuses maybe but this could have prevented the younger generation from persevering and picking up the know-how. I am lucky enough that I still get my supply from my extended family ever since the supply from my side of the family stopped when we loss our matriarch :(

Coming back to the dish, it is prepared by frying some ginger strips with chicken and 1 cup of rice wine. When chicken turns brown, add enough water to use it as soup for the noodles. The noodles has to be prepared separately before pouring the soup over it. It needs to be washed under running water and cooked in some boiling water.

Remember me mentioning about a side dish to go with the all-in-one? This time the fried egg played this role!

Simple dish but it felt good and warm in the tummy and at heart too when pictures of matriarch and the big jars of wine fermenting in her kitchen came flashing back on that wet sunday afternoon...

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Pretty Blue Babies

I really like this one. It tasted so good and because it has a healthier element, it felt extra good to serve this to loved ones. Added to that it was an easy recipe making me want to share it so that you can try making it at home for your loved ones too. This recipe is worth a keep (thanks to Happy Home Baking) and will used it as a base for more variations .

What's so special? Instead of butter, the recipe called for vegetable oil. I used organic extra virgin olive oil. This is the first time I am using olive oil for muffins. I was very happy with the results. It was a lot less oilier for sure, making it very light, soft and fluffy too. I was really surprised by the difference between using olive oil and butter. There was a nice hint of freshly cut grass coming from the olive oil which blended well with the fragrance from the bananas and the occasional burst of blueberry juice from the fruits although slightly sourish was just right to balance of the entire sweetness.

The muffins rose up very well too, this is the first time I got such a nice dome for my muffins.

Try it out and let me know if it's worth your thumbs-up too!

Ingredients:
(makes 9 muffins)

210g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, lightly beaten
100g sugar
1/4 cup (60 ml) oil (I used extra virgin olive oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 medium sized bananas, mashed (Pisang emas preferred for its fragrance and sweetness)
1 cup of blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Steps:

1. Mix and sift flour, baking powder, baking soda in a bowl. (Not sure if sifting it twice was the reason why it rose so nicely)
   
2. Toss blueberries with 1 or 2 teaspoon of the flour mixture in a sieve, and set aside. Coating the blueberries with flour helps to keep them from sinking to the bottom.
3. Beat egg and sugar until well blended and sugar granules looked slightly melted.
   
4. Add in oil, vanilla essence and mashed bananas. Mix until well blended.
5. Add in flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Stir lightly until blended. DO NOT over stir as it will make the muffins tough (Very important).
   
6. Fold in blueberries gently.
   
7. Fill muffin cups until almost full.
   
8. Bake in preheated oven at 200 degC for 20 to 25 mins.

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