Gong Xi! Gong Xi!

Chinese New Year is exactly a week away! Gong Xi, Gong Xi to everyone! May the rabbit come hopping in with lots of goodies for everyone!

Chinese New Year used to be all fun and play, it is still something to look forward to but nowadays it comes with a lot of chores and burns some pockets too (side effects of growing up :)). At the end of the day, I think it's all about getting together. The opportunity for family and friends to meet again. Hence, the need for food, food and food since there is nothing better that one can do during these get-togethers than to eat, eat, eat and eat!

This year I attempted to make some cookies. Actually, quite embarrassing to say that this is the first time I am making my own. Better late than never, I am glad that I made the effort this time!

I chose to make 2 traditional ones and 1 not so traditional one but has been around for awhile.



1. Peanut Cookies
This one is for Pa, he loves them. Keeping my fingers crossed that he will love mine too. I used Amy Beh of The Star's Kuali for recipe.


2.Pineapple Tarts
This is my favourite cookie. I just love that buttery, melt in your mouth pastry when it comes with a dollop of nice, not too sweet, sourish and fibery pineapple jam. They are so sinfully delicious. Since, I am on this mission to bake my own cookies, I had to try baking my favourite too. It sure was hard work, I never imagined that it was this much work! One had to grate the pineapples and then cook it over a slow fire for hours before it turns into jam! Apparently I read that one will regret if one uses the blender because of the difference in the texture between grating and blending. Since this is my first time, I obeyed every single advice to ensure no room for regrets, especially when it's so much work! No risk taking! Verdict? It was worth the hardwork. Recipe? Amy Beh again!

3. Cornflake Cookies
This modern day cookie is nothing compared to the other two. Very simple. It is nice but somehow not so authentic...or maybe it's all in the mind only. It's funny that when one starts to grow older, every other thing that is old turns into gold! One thing that I now know for sure is our foremothers(or fathers??) are sure tough cookies to follow :)

Happy Chinese New Year!

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All in One Dishes ala Malaysia

All in One Dishes are part and puzzle of lives where we live. A fast, convenient, economical, balance (best effort :)) but definitely delicious meal all within a bowl. It's usually rice or noodles as the main ingredient with other ingredients like meat and vegetables thrown in, cooked in various styles resulting in countless number of variations!

One will find them almost anywhere; coffee shops, food courts, roadside stalls etc. It's the wisest choice when you are tight on time or in the pockets or in need of something to lift up your spirits! Ask any Malaysian and they will proudly introduce you to their very own list of 'the best...'

With the convenience, one is so very often tempted to buy these All in One Dishes instead of making your own; so I can't help feeling a little proud when I beat these temptations and take the trouble to make them although they may not be as tasty as the ones out there :)


These two are among little one's favourites.

1. Curry Laksa Noodles


I am pretty sure this one is among the top 5 favourite all in one dish among the locals. Noodles and lots of other ingredients thrown in as accompaniment in a coconut milk infused curry soup. There are so many variations to this simple looking dish, at the very least each state has one, giving us at least 13 variations to choose from not counting variations put in by different races in the country. Yes, we are spoilt for choice :) The fragrance from the spices and the creamy coconut milk make this a dish hard to resist (even for the little ones)

One can easily buy prepared curry paste to make this dish but for this time around, I prepared my own. It's a fusion of spices like lemongrass, ginger, candle nuts, turmeric, shallots, garlic, chili and coriander blended with dried prawns and belacan (shrimp paste). Made extra for future convenience. I threw in beansprouts, long beans, tofu puffs (aka taufoo pok in Cantonese), roasted pork, prawns plus hard-boiled eggs as accompaniments. Yummy! I had to tone down on the spiciness to cater for little one but that was easily solved with a spoon of the ever ready sambal belacan in the fridge.


2. Loh Mai Kai


This one is mostly available in dim sum restaurants or old coffee shops. I think this is more Chinese (maybe Cantonese) than Malaysian hence the name Loh Mai Kai which translates to Glutinous Rice with Chicken in Cantonese. Firstly, the rice is seasoned and lightly fried before it's assembled in a bowl with other ingredients like chicken, mushroom, chinese sausage and egg before it is steamed. Soy sauce (both thick and thin) is the main seasoning ingredient giving the dish the brownish colour and caramelized aroma. This dish although looks small can be filling because of the glutinous rice.

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All Steamed Up

I bought this new book which featured all steamed dishes. Steaming sounds a bit boring doesn't it? But steaming seems to be easiest way of cooking. It's fast, it's healthy and most of the time, the wholeness of the food remains intact. I was attracted by the photos too. Moreover, hubby being a typical chinese loves steamed dishes :)

I made 2 of the dishes from this book for dinner.

1. Steamed Tofu with Ham and Mushroom
I think this one looks interesting enough to earn a place on the Chinese New Year reunion dinner table! To me, it looks like a little gold bar! Huat uh! ( meaning Go forth and Prosper! in the Hokkien dialect :)) The little pieces of traditional/hard tofu is fried before a piece of carrot, ham and mushroom is stacked on it, held together with a string of spring onion and lastly, steamed. A little gravy made from some oyster sauce, soya sauce and chinese wine is then poured over it.


2. Vietnamese Style Steamed Chicken
I am not too sure if adding Sour Plums qualifies this dish as Vietnamese Style! But sour plum was the main ingredient (both the pickled and the sauce), giving it a tangy, sourish and a little spiciness from the fresh chillies.

They both are simple dishes. Not extraordinary delicious but they simple, pleasing and comforting when served during dinner on one rainy night that day.

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Masak-masak di San Diego (Playing Kitchen in San Diego)

Goodbye 2010, Welcome 2011!

Although 2010 had its share of downs, i am thankful for the way it ended. We spent the last two months of the year with my sister and her family in San Diego. Oceans apart, we have not seen each other for a few years. It was indeed a blessing to be in each other's company during this holiday season, co-incidentally it was also our birthday month. We couldn't even recall when was the last time we had the opportunity to do so.

This post is for her. Sweet memories of some fun that we had in her kitchen. The work, the rights, the wrongs, the chatter, the laughter, the satisfaction, the disappointments... It was like playing Masak-Masak, just like in the good old days only this time it was for real! Masak-Masak means Playing Cooking in the Malay language, pretending to cook with things that we collected, leaves, flowers, bugs and everything else with our toy cooking utensils (nothing fancy, just basic items like pots and pans, not like what they have these days, makeplay kitchen set that comes complete with hobs, ovens, baking sets etc, literally a whole complete kitchen)

First on the list is a Fruit Pastry Cake for her birthday. Very happy because I got to use fresh peaches, strawberries and blueberries, readily available and much cheaper than back home.
We made something similar for her friends as Christmas gifts. The icing sugar created a snowy effect on the cake, perfect for the wintery mood.

Next, our breakfast collection

Bread of course!

The soft, pillowy and milky Japanese Cream Bread


A healthier variety, Raisin Oatmeal Loaf


I forgot to take a photo of the end product but this one deserves mentioning. It was meant to be a nice, sweet smelling and braided Orange Raisin Bread but it turned out gigantic! My fault, a shopping trip to a nearby store took longer than planned because i got distracted! Nothing serious, only way bigger than it should be and as a result a little on the dry side! Sorry, sis!


Muffins, starring blueberries (still easily available though at tail end of season)!

Desserts

Orange Butter Cake
That's the way we like it...simple, no frills

Traditional Chinese Dessert, Tau Foo Fah

Malaysian Flavours!
She knew i missed the tongue burning sensation that is common in the food that we make back home. We tend to spice up every other thing with chili, be it in the freshest form, sambal or the ever ready bottle of chili sauce. Thank you for making these 2 dishes, Sambal Grill Fish with Chilean Sea Bass and Black Pepper Crab with Alaskan Dungeness Crab. They tasted so good, i enjoyed every bit of it! It certainly satisfied the craving for some hot, spicy food :) Relatives / friends if you are reading this, make sure you get her to make you these if you are visitting! :))
I can't wait for you to make them for me again...this time at my place. Will be missing you so badly...

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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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