Jelly Mooncakes, Just One More

My apologies if I am boring you with jelly mooncakes, i promise this will be the last one for this year!  I needed to put this on record for my future reference.  I made traditional ones too, my son was complaining already, in his words, he said he wanted to have 'real' mooncakes! So the mummy obliged for her son, for her loved ones and for tradition sake, after all what is mooncake festival without 'real' mooncakes :)  Post will be up next.

I am quite happy with the results after some twigging of the original recipe.  If you are looking for a nice dessert to make for the festival dinner, why not consider this one, it's pretty, it fits the occasion well enough and to top it all, it's red, the ever loved chinese color!  The nutty taste from the black sesame filling compliments the dragon fruit skin well.    

Recipe 
Source :Adapted from Mooncake Selections by Khoo See Yew

Ingredients for Filling 

• 30g black sesame seed (toasted, then blended until fine)
• 30 gm. caster sugar
• 1 3/4 tsp agar-agar powder
• 150 ml water
• 100ml fresh milk
• 50 ml coconut milk (20ml coconut milk mixed with 30ml water)
• 1 blade of pandan leave

1. Boil sugar, agar-agar powder, and water with pandan leave in a pot until agar agar and sugar dissolves. 
2. Mix in grounded black sesame and stir to make it smooth.  Let the mixture simmer for 2 minutes.
3. Lower flame and mix in fresh milk.
4. Mix in coconut milk.  Turn off flame once mixture start to boil.
5. Pour in small bowls and let it set.
6. Remove from bowl, use a fork to scratch surface (top and bottom). This is to make sure the filling and skin will stick to one another. 

Ingredients for Skin

• 100 gm. sugar
• 4 tsp. agar-agar powder
• 500 ml water
• 100 ml coconut milk (50ml coconut milk mix with 50ml water)
• 150 gm red dragon fruit (mashed with fork so that seeds remain visible)
• 2 blades of pandan leave 
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 3 tbsp honey

1. Boil sugar, agar-agar powder and water with pandan leaves in a pot until agar agar and sugar dissolves.
2. Lower flame and mix in blended dragon fruit.
3. Add in lemon juice and honey.
4. Mix in coconut milk.  Turn off flame once mixture start to boil.

Assemble 

1. Pour in some skin agar agar into mooncake mould (If a see-through effect is preferred (i.e. can see the filling), lessen the amount put in).
2. When it is half set, put in the filling then pour the balance skin mixture into the mould until full. Let it set.
3. Chill in the fridge before serving.

Read More

Crepes...the Malay way

I have not made this for the longest time, in fact i have only made it once in my entire lifetime so far, well twice now!  And that first experience was in my Home Science class during my secondary school days.  Those days girls were made to learn cooking and sewing while the boys learn stuff like carpentry except for urban schools where they had a third option to study Accounting.  Thank God they have revised the syllabus and now everyone learns a little bit of everything, no longer gender bias!  Those classes were fun though! There was always a lot of excitement on days that we get to cook.   I remember the boys crowding around us to share the goodies that we made (provided we didn't ruin it) :)

This is the traditional Malay crepe known as Kuih Ketayap.  Kuih is what we call small, dainty cakes in the local language while Ketayap literally translates to skullcap.  I am guessing that its green colour and texture bear resemblance to the skullcap worn by Muslim men in those days. Filled with shredded coconut cooked in palm sugar it is a perfect match for the Pandan infused crepe. 

Malay crepes have a more rustic appeal to them with a holey and rugged  surface.  They are thicker too.  These days it is not uncommon to see what I would call a Westernized looking Malay crepe which comes with  a smooth and silky surface.  But, i still prefer it in its rustic look.  

They are commonly found in Malay food stalls.  In the mornings you will easily find them in stalls selling breakfast items or at those selling snacks for tea time in the evenings.  So easily available that there is never a need to make them! Why did i make them then??   

I wanted to make something for breakfast and preferably with Pandan in it to link up with Little Thumbs Up event for this month.   Lots of kuihs come to mind when we think Pandan but this is one of the simplest and fastest kuih to make otherwise it wouldnt be one of the very first items taught in school! So, why not i thought, since it has been decades ago...

The trick for doing this is you have to be really fast when you swirl the batter in the pan otherwise you won't get a nice flat round piece of crepe.  And the pan has to be hot to get the holes and indentations.

I prefer my crepes to have just a mild shade of green.

A cross-section of it.  I made the crepe slightly thinner and went easy on the palm sugar hence a filling that is lighter in color but sweet enough.

Recipe
Source : Baking Diary who adapted from Rasa Malaysia

Ingredients for Crepe

• 120g flour
• 1 egg
• 300ml coconut milk (200ml coconut milk from a carton and added 100ml water)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoon pandan juice (I used 3 tablespoon of homemade pandan extract.  See note below) 

Ingredients for Filling

• 90g Gula Melaka (I used around 80g)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 pandan leaf knotted
• 50ml water
• 1/2 grated coconut - use only the white part
• 1 tsp corn starch (omitted)

Method

1. Place flour in a mixing bowl.  Make a well in the centre and crack in the egg.  Slowly stir in salt and coconut milk and 3 tablespoons of pandan juice. Strain the batter for a lump free mixture. Set aside.
2. Break up palm sugar and place in a pot, add sugar, water and pandan leave.  Cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves then add the shredded coconut to the pot. Stir to combine all ingredients.
3. Heat up a shallow, lightly greased frying pan over low heat.  Add 2 tablespoons of batter in the centre and swirl the pan to coat it to form a thin crepe.   Cook a few minutes on each side and transfer to a chopping board to cool.  You can stack them up.
4. When all the crepes are cooked, place filling on a piece of crepe and roll it up as you would a spring roll.

Note on how to get Pandan Extract

Blend 5 blades of pandan leaves with enough water for the blender to work.  Pour juice over a strainer leave it in fridge overnight.  The sediment at the bottom is the pandan extract.  You will not be able to get 3 tbsp of sediment with just 5 blades of pandan.  I used whatever i got and top it with the juice.

Thank you for the recipe, Jeannie!

I am submitting this post to Little Thumbs Up "Pandan" event hosted by Joceline @ Butter, Flour & Me, organized by Zoe@ Bake for Happy Kids and Mui Mui @My little favourites DIY

Read More

Jelly Mooncakes Again

Mid-Autumn/Mooncake festival has a special place in our family, dad was born on that day according to the lunar calendar  and grandpa named him after it.  My son is envious that my Dad gets to celebrate his birthday twice each year! It's going to be extra special this year as it falls on the same day as my son's birthday according to the gregorian calendar :)

Making mooncakes is now an annual event ever since my first attempt in 2010.  Once you get into it, it's not too difficult and it does not help that prices of commercial ones are rising steeply each year.  I have tried making quite a few variations including the baked ones, snow skins and jellies too.   One that i think i am pretty good at by now is the jelly mooncake.  May sound a little unabashed, but hey 3 years of practice coming to 4 now, must surely do some good :))  It is also among the most popular post on my blog. 

Jelly mooncakes are completely different from the traditional ones taste or texture wise, it only bear resemblance appearance wise.   They make good desserts; refreshing, cooling and most of the time come in bright striking colours.

Every year i attempt new flavors so that those on the receiving end (including my customers, as i do get some orders from them :)) will not find them boring due to repetitive flavors :)

And here's one of the new flavors for this year, Green Tea with Luo Han Guo.  It's healthy appeal made me choose this flavor.  The recipe is courtesy of Amy Beh of Kuali.com.

I love the color contrast in this combo.  I find the green tea fragrance and taste quite strong (but then this could differ with the type of green tea powder used), i am making a self note to reduce it by 20% the next time around.   This is also to prevent it from covering the taste of the luo han guo filling which on its own tasted very nice with flavors coming from fresh winter melon, longan and red dates.  

This one here is a slight variation from the Cendol Red Bean flavor that has been made over the years and with recipe posted here.  Instead of just cendol for the skin, i played around and made another layer with gula melaka.  Hence, named it ABC Jelly Mooncake to make sure its Malaysian shows :)  

An all time favorite, Nespresso Peach.  You will love it if you are a coffee lover, if you are not you will be one after tasting this :))

Recipe - Green Tea Luo Han Guo Jelly Mooncake

Source : Kuali.com by Amy Beh

Ingredients for Filling

• 1/2 piece luo han guo
• 75g palm sugar
• 5 red dates
• 700ml water
• 50g winter melon (finely grated and chopped)
• 5g dried longan flesh (finely chopped)
• 3 tsp agar-agar powder 

Method

1. Bring palm sugar, luo han guo, dates and water to a boil.
2. Once it comes to a boil, reduce flame and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes.  Strain drink to remove impurities.
3. Squeeze out excess water from grated winter melon.  Add into drink.  Add chopped longan flesh.  Bring to a boil then let it simmer for 15-20 minutes again.
4. Leave 500ml of the drink in pot (You can use all of it but 500ml will be enough for around 6 pieces, i wanted to have the extra to drink!)
5. Add in agar-agar powder.  Stir well making sure agar-agar dissolve.
6. Lower flame and turn off once it comes to a boil.
7. Pour in small bowls and let it set.
8. Remove from bowl, use a fork to scratch surface (top and bottom). This is to make sure the filling and skin will stick to one another. 

Ingredients for Skin

• 4 tsp agar-agar powder
• 130g castor sugar
• 650ml water
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tsbp green tea powder

Method

1. Put sugar, agar-agar powder and water in a pot and boil until agar agar and sugar dissolves.
2. Turn off flame.  
3. Add in green tea powder, mix and stir until even and dissolve.
4. Add in milk.
5. Strain the mixture.

Assemble

1. Pour in some skin agar agar into mooncake mould.
2. When it is half set, put in the filling then pour the balance skin mixture into the mould until full. Let it set.
3. Chill in the fridge before serving.

Read More

Kampar Curry Chicken Bun

One last post for MFF Perak.  This bun was made popular in Kampar hence the name Kampar Curry Chicken Bun.   The uniqueness of it is there is a curry chicken parcel wrapped inside the bun.  To eat it, one will have to tear/cut open the bun, unwrapped the parcel then dip the bun into the curry and eat it with the chicken.  I have made this a couple of times (and posted it too) and it's always very well received by family members and friends.   We usually have it for dinner.  

I normally make it in portions for individual serving whereas for the real mccoy it is one giant bun with most probably half a chicken in it to be shared out.  Imagine the size of the bun!  To get an idea of it, do hop by my friend Lena's place.   The other difference is i like sprinkling toasted sesame seeds on the bun :) 

A peak into the bun! Curry with soft, fluffy bun is just too tasty! 

To make this, you need to cook chicken curry and wrapped them in sweet bread dough.   You can use your own favorite recipes for them but here I am sharing a speedy recipe for the curry and a bread dough recipe which one can either hand knead or use a breadmaker.

Recipe
Chicken Curry 

Ingredients

• 3 whole chicken legs cut into 6 pieces each 
• 1/2 pack of chicken curry paste (I used A1 brand) 
• 1 big onion sliced and grounded
• 2 stalks lemon grass, bruised
• 1 star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Handful of curry leaves
• 1 russet potato, cut in medium size cubes
• 200ml water 
• 50ml coconut milk
• 2 tbsp cooking oil

Method

1. Heat up oil and fry onion until fragrant.  Add in curry paste and continue to fry until smells fragrant.  Add in spices.
2. Add in chicken and mix well until chicken turns opaque.
3. Pour in water and let it simmer until chicken is cooked.  Add in potatoes half way through in order not to overcook them.
4. Add in coconut milk.

Bread Dough

Ingredients

• 300g bread flour
• 200g plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 50g sugar
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 1 tbsp milk powder
• 200ml water
• 60g butter
• 1 egg

Method

1. Combine all dry ingredients: flour, salt, sugar, milk powder and instant yeast in a bowl. Make a well in the center. Whisk and combine all wet ingredients: water and egg then add into the well of the dry ingredients. Knead until you get a dough shape and gluten has developed, then knead in the butter. Keep kneading until the dough is smooth, not sticky and elastic.  
2. If  using a bread maker add all wet ingredients into bread maker first followed by dry ingredients. Add yeast the last.  Select Dough function.  Once the cycle completes, remove dough from the bread pan. 
3. Shape the dough into a smooth round and place in a bowl. Cover and let it rise till double in volume.
4. Punch out trapped air using knuckles.
5. Divide into equal portions and shape into balls to make smaller buns or use whole if making one big bun.  (I managed to get 5 portions of 175g each).

Assemble

1. Wrap some chicken curry into a parcel with aluminium foil (I managed 3 pieces of chicken with 2 tsbp of potato cubes).
2. Wrap the parcel with bread dough.
3. Egg wash the buns and sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds on bun.
4. Bake @ 180C in a preheated oven for 20 minutes till golden brown.

I am submitting this post to Malaysian Food Fest Perak month hosted by 

WendyinKK of Table for Two....or more



And

Little Thumbs Up "Egg" event organized by Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY and hosted by Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out.

Read More

Simply Eggs

I made this dish with a funny/cute/naughty name with the egg theme on Little Thumbs Up Event in mind.  I posted another one with funny name here quite recently if you are interested to read about it. A coincidence that it was chicken in the last one and egg in this one :)

Apparently this is a popular dish from Thailand.  There are many versions of the story behind the name.  Some say a son-in-law made them for his mum-in-law while the naughtier version goes the other way round where the mum-in-law will make them for her son-in-law when she suspects that he's misbehaving and this serves as a warning to to be good or ...

Whichever the truth maybe, this simple dish of lightly fried eggs drizzled in a sweet tangy sauce is quite appetizing and delicious.

This recipe comes in handy when there are some hardboiled eggs lying around, like during Easter or after attending celebrations like a baby's full moon or weddings.  An alternative to Sambal Telur, especially when something not too spicy is the choice of the day.

Recipe
Source: Thai Table 

Ingredients

• 2 sprigs cilantro
• 2 - 3 Dried whole chilis
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 3 tablespoons Palm Sugar
• 2 - 3 shallots
• 1/3 cup cooking oil
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tbsp tamarind pulp mix with 3 tbsp water (remove pulp to get tamarind paste

Steps

1. Boil eggs by adding cold water to cover the eggs in a small saucepan. Once the water starts to boil turn down the heat.  For eggs with runny yolks, let the water boil for 3 minutes and 5 minutes for hard boiled ones.  Pour out the hot water  and run the eggs under cold water for a few seconds then let them sit in a pot of cold water.  When the eggs are cooled, peel them.
2. Peel and slice shallots thinly.
3. Heat up oil in a wok.  Add eggs and fry until they are slightly browned.
4. Remove eggs and drain out the oil.
5. Fry dried chilli in the remaining oil.  Remove and drain out the oil.
6. Fry shallot slices until golden brown.  Remove and drain out the oil.
7. Remove any remaining oil from wok.  Over low heat, add palm sugar, fish sauce, water and tamarind paste.  Add extra water if necessary to get enough sauce. 
8. Adjust taste to preference.  It should be a combination of 3 flavors, sweet, salty and sour in balance.
9. Cut eggs into halves.  Pour over sauce. Add on fried chilli.   Sprinkle on shallots and cilantro before serving.

I am submitting this post to Little Thumbs Up "Egg" event organized by Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY and hosted by Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out.

Read More

Village Fried Chicken

This is my second post for MFF Perak.  I am not particularly familiar with Malay cuisine from the state although it is where i hail from.  The only dish that comes to mind is Rendang Tok :))  I did some searching and bumped into a few writeups that covered a Perak cuisine promotion at a hotel restaurant somewhere back in 2011. It has a good showcase of Malay Perakian cuisine that will leave one mouthwatering! 

One of the dishes featured was Ayam Goreng Kampung Tanjung Malim (aka Tg Malim Village Fried Chicken).  Apparently there is this small restaurant (or warong in Malay) that is very popular for Nasi Padang.  To those who are not familiar, Nasi Padang is rice served with dishes cooked in Minangkabau (ethnic group from West Sumatra) style.

Caught me by surprise as I have not heard of it although I come from Slim River (yeah, we are fortunate to be 'slim' people effortlessly!) which is very near to Tanjung Malim.

Coincidentally there was a recipe for this dish in the writeup by Big Boys Oven.  So i thought i will take this opportunity to try out something closer to home.  Here's Ayam Goreng Kampung Tanjung Malim, Big Boys Oven's take.  I must find an opportunity to try the real mccoy when i go back home the next time.

Kid's first bite before he ended up finishing 2 pieces...

Verdict? 

If you have tried Malay style spiced fried chicken, this one is similar.  I used free range chicken so the meat is slightly tougher although i did take precaution not to overfry them.  There is a nice fragrance to the chicken although there are not too much spices used in the marinade.  I like that the onions and ginger are sliced and not minced as it ended up with lots of shallot and ginger crisps to go with the chicken when eaten with rice.  I made a simple dipping sauce commonly used with Malay dishes to go with it too.  Coupled with some greens it made a decent meal.

Recipe (variation in blue)

Source : Big Boys Oven 

Ingredients

• 1kg Chicken, cut (I used 2 thighs and 2 wings around 600g)
• 50gm Red onion, sliced
• 30gm Garlic, chopped
• 10gm Ginger, sliced
• 10gm Chicken curry powder (2 tbsp)
• 0.5gm Turmeric powder (1 tsp)
• 0.5gm Curry leaves (2 sprigs)
• 2nos Eggs (1 egg)
• Cooking oil
• Seasoning (1 tsp salt)

Method 

1. Marinate the chicken with all ingredients in a mixing bowl.
2. Leave it aside for 30 minutes. (I left it for 2 hours)
3. Heat up the cooking oil in a wok.
4. Fry the marinated chicken till golden brown.
5. Remove them from the wok and absorb the excessive oil with kitchen papers before served.

Dipping Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 chili padi
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 2 shallot-sliced
• 2 tablespoon of sweet soy sauce
• 1 tbsp lime juice

Method

1. Mix everything together.

I am submitting this post to Malaysian Food Fest Perak month hosted by 

WendyinKK of Table for Two....or more



And

Little Thumbs Up "Egg" event organized by Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY and hosted by Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out.

Read More

Little Chicken Biscuit

This was initially my first post for MFF Perak.  I was all excited about it because it was finally showtime for my homestate.  Unfortunately disaster has to happen and I realized after completing my intended last post for MFF Perak, this first one had gone missing.  How terribly upsetting! Wonder any of you encountered problems if you were blogging on 23 Aug.    Whenever I opened a particular post that has been published in Edit mode, it overrides the post with the most current post that is in draft mode.   

So, this is a rewrite of that particular post minus all the excitement.  It's no fun trying to rewrite it, it just isn't going to be the same anymore. 

As far as I know, this biscuit was made popular by two Chinese bakeries, Pun Chun in Bidor and CB Red Label in Kampar.  Although its name says chicken biscuit, there's no chicken in it. Puzzling huh?  This is what I found out...based on the archives from New Straits Time back in October 4, 2001, as told by Mr Khong Wai Koh, the son of the creator of the biscuits for Pun Chun Restaurant, the late Mr Khong Yin Chiew.    Apparently there is a similar biscuit in China and it was called Siew Foong Paeng (Peacock Biscuit).  His father used the same name as well as a picture of the peacock for branding.  To his surprise, everyone called it the chicken biscuit instead, probably because they thought the peacock was a chicken.    The name stuck and was eventually used for branding instead :)

There are 2 variations for this biscuit one is thick and chewy and the other is thin and crispy.   I love both variations but kid loves the thin and crisp.  This recipe is for the thin and crisp one. They are very fragrant and be warned that they are kinda addictive, once you start you may end up munching until there's none left!

I am happy to have tried it in conjunction with the MFF event.

Recipe

Source : Sea Salt with Food who adapted from Flavours by Debbie Teoh

Ingredients

Part A

• 30g Fermented Red Bean Curd (nam yue)
• 1 Large Egg
• 50ml Milk
• 60ml Cooking Oil
• 1 tsp Sesame Oil
• ½ tsp Sea Salt
• 30g Confectioners Sugar (i used icing sugar)
• 30g Maltose

• 100 g Candied Melon (tung kwa), chopped
• 80 g Sesame Seeds

Part B

• 300 g All-Purpose Flour, sifted
• ½ tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 2 tsp Five-Spice Powder
• ½ tsp Ground White Pepper
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• ¼ tsp Ammonia Powder (omitted)

Method

1. Place ingredients from Part A into a large mixing bowl and stir to mix until salt dissolves. Add candied melon and sesame seeds.
2. Sift together the remaining ingredients from Part B and add to the bowl.
3. Mix to form a dough. Rest the dough, covered with cling film, for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 170˚C and grease baking trays. Divide the dough into 15g balls. Place the dough balls, well spaced out, between two plastic sheets. Roll out thinly into 7 cm discs with a rolling pin and place onto the trays.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until brown and crispy. Do not over bake, or it will taste bitter. Cool completely before storing in airtight containers.

I am submitting this post to Malaysian Food Fest Perak month hosted by 

WendyinKK of Table for Two....or more



And

Little Thumbs Up "Egg" event organized by Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY and hosted by Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out.

Read More