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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Happy Halloween!

Relief! Relief! Little one's final exam for this year is now over! Try as much as I could not to be stressed by his exams, I found myself pushing him to the limits. Of course to make it easier for him, I made him nice treats along the way to bribe him :) and tried my best to help him.

Since Halloween is around the corner and now that he has all the time for fun plus he had always felt that it's a pity we don't celebrate Halloween where we are, I thought why not make it up by letting him have some virtual Halloween fun. I got him to put some Halloween effects on the photo of one of the bribe food that was prepared for him during the exam. Hence, creepy crawlies, eyeballs, skeletons and all on my rice. It's nothing compared to his idea of Halloween fun, he would really love to dressed up in some creepy costume, go trick- or-treat, play pranks and frightening others...boys being boys

It was seafood baked rice actually. Rice which was fried with choice of seafood (I used prawns, cuttlefish, mussels and fish paste), some mix vegetables and cream. Topped it with cheese and baked it. Simple one-dish meal that was fast and delicious but fattening. Good for little one but not for me :-(

Anyway, Happy Halloween!

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Sambal Haerbee (Dried Prawn Condiment)

This is the first time I am posting something which did not come from the oven. :)

I believe the term Sambal Haerbee instead of its English translation (thanks to Google:) ) would sound more familiar to those who the share the same motherland with me, especially those from the Hokkien clan.

This dish has been around for awhile. Do not underestimate this humble dish, it can really go a long way. Goes very well with almost anything that one can think of, it's the imagination that is the limit. Among commonly known usage are having it as a condiment for rice or noodles (dry, soup based or even instant noodles) spice for stir-frying vegetables, meat or even as a dish on its own. It's also good on breads, a sprinkle on top of whatever sandwich spread will give the sandwich an extra umpph. This is also something that many of us will sneak along during overseas trip just in case the local food becomes a little difficult to appreciate :) Having said that, I have to admit that the taste is acquired, it's not something that one will like instantly due to the strong scent from the dried prawns.

Back then, I remember it was always prepared by one family member and shared among the rest. This makes sense because it takes quite some effort and sweating due to the amount of time required to stand beside the burning stove to fry it until it is dry.

Nowadays, it is found in stores but it is difficult to get some decent ones. Maybe because of the hike in the price of dried prawns, you get very little of it in them. It's just not sambal haerbee when there's no haerbee :( What one gets is mainly shallots and chilly seeds.

This dish is made by frying blended dried prawns with a spice base. For this version, I added in some small anchovies for extra bites.

Have sambal haerbee will go a long way...

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Happy Birthday to the Greatest Man in My Life

It's the birthday of the person who means the world to me.

I decided to bake him a cake instead of getting one from the bakery like in past years. Felt that I should take this opportunity to go an extra mile for him. This will be my first attempt to bake a birthday cake ever since I started this baking journey. Started browsing for something nice, simple and along flavours that will appeal to him. For fear of failure, I did a trial run before the real day. It was too important to take it as another one of my baking adventures. I know I cannot afford any failures for this one. A big thank you to my dear friends who graciously became my testers and provided feedback based on the first run.

I settled for a Coffee Walnut Yoghurt Cake. This cake had a crumbles topping instead of cream which I thought he would prefer. It took some extra effort to prepare the crumbles, a combination of crushed biscuits, walnuts, coffee, butter and sugar. The cake itself was quite simple though.

The cake tasted great although it didn't look as good as I would have wished for it to be. As this is a very rich cake, it was naturally soft and moist with a strong coffee flavour.

Birthday boy was indeed happy. It made my day!

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Chocolate! Chocolate!

This is indeed chocolate heaven! Cocoa powder and occasional burst of melted chocolate from the chocolate chips! As a bonus, there was mashed bananas mixed in plus a whole piece of banana wedge right in the centre. It is really delicious, good ratings from family members and friends whom i shared it with. Personally, I love it!

This recipe was courtesy of fellow blogger, Honey Bee Sweets. The way a piece of banana was hidden right in the centre was a very nice and creative breakaway from the entirely monotonous chocolate taste, something that was different, sweet, soft, moist and fragrant . The texture of the muffin itself is very soft and moist too. Best eaten warm for the hot, melting chocolate chip effect.

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Treasures in a Bun (Chicken Curry)

Something Asian, if not wrong this is Malaysian (I had better unclaimed this as it can potentially spark another debate on food origin :)) The first time I tried this was from a shop in Kampar, Perak many years back. This is a definite pleasure for chicken curry and bread lovers. They go really well together.

It takes some extra effort to make this. This is not the first time I've made it due to popular demands. The chicken curry will need to be prepared separately. Furthermore, it is really important to ensure that the bread is soft and pillowy to make it a nice dip for the curry. For this, I diligently followed a sweet bread dough with overnight sponge dough recipe (by Alex Goh). Which means, one has to start yearning for it at least 8 hours in advance to make this happen! The sponge dough really made a lot of difference to the texture of the bread and it was well worth it.

The chicken curry is then wrapped with some foil before it is wrapped with the bread dough. I eggwashed the top of the bun and sprinkled some toasted sesame seeds to give it a nice crunch although the original version of the bun does not have them (think hamburger buns :)) I remember that the original version was a lot bigger too but I made mine a lot smaller, individual portions so that everyone has one to dip and eat it in their own way...


Step by step guide on how to eat this bun (or maybe I should I say it is a loaf as it is quite big to be called a bun?)

1. To be eaten hot.
2. Cut through the top of the bun to reveal the nice little package of chicken curry.
3. Open up the foil for the yummy curry. I think the heat makes the curry creamier and increases the ability of the meat to absorb the flavour of the spices and also becoming more tender , in short it became tastier!
4. Tear the bun and dip into the curry
5. Indulge!
   

Truly finger licking good, hats off to the one who first thought of eating curry and bread in this manner...:)

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