Tuesday 30 September 2014

White and Black Fungus Dessert


Honey Rock Sugar can be found in most leading supermarket

Dried Fungus before soak. This can be found in supermarket or Chinese medical hall.


A friend shared with me this dessert. She said this is good for body. This dessert uses simple ingredients and easy to prepare. It is very economical and  very nutritious with lots of benefits to body. Most important it is very nice to eat. Friend said this is good for young and old, boy and girl, man and woman. It is good for hazy weather too. I have read up from Google that both white fungus and black fungus have many benefits to our body.

Ingredients
20g White Fungus/Snow fungus
5g Black Fungus/Wood fungus
1 tbsp Wolfberries(rinsed)
Honey Rock Sugar
4 cups Water

Method:
1.Soak the fungus for about half hour or when they have expanded and soft. Wash clean
2.Put the washed fungus into a pot. Add water that cover all the fungus. Put to boil.
3. Once the soup is boiled, lower the fire and continue to simmer for another 30min
4. Add wolfberry(goji) then add honey rock sugar to your taste. Stir till sugar dissolve.
5. Serve.

Note : You can serve this dessert cold too. Allow the dessert to cool at room temperature then place in the fridge for few hours to make as cold dessert.

Thursday 25 September 2014

Pineapple Tarts (enclosed version)





Chinese New Year is around the corner...and everywhere in the supermarkets or bakery we are seeing cookies. I have a packet of cake flour, why not? Why not making some pineapple tarts. I usually use plain flour but this round thought trying cake flour and find out the result since this cake flour is sitting in my kitchen for a while. To my surprise the pastry was nice and soft and most important melt in the mouth. Isn't this what everyone is looking for - melt in mouth?   By the way, this is a trial and error session and amazingly the result was good! In the past years, I have been baking opened version using plain flour, that is, the one look like flower. I am happy with the result.


This is my melt in mouth enclosed pineapple :


Ingredients for pastry :
360g cake flour
50g milk powder
2 tbsp. corn flour
1/4 tsp sea salt (or any salt)
3 tbsp icing sugar (can increase to more ..that is to your desire)
2 tsp custard powder ( I add for the color purpose)
250g cold soft butter (I used salted)
4 egg yolks (I will reduce 1 eggyolk the next round)
1 tsp vanilla extract


1 eggyolk for eggwash


Pineapple Jam  :
4 pineapples ( I used Malaysia Honey pineapple - weigh about 750g/pc after skinned. total weight is 3000g pineapples)
3 cloves ( can add more if you like say to 6)
1 cinnamon stick
550g sugar


Making of Jam:
Grate the pineapple. I grate the pineapple by hand.  Put the grated pineapple including the juice(do not drain the juice), cloves and cinnamon stick into a wok and cook until it is almost dry. Stir frequently as you cook to prevent burn at the bottom. When it is almost dry, add sugar. Continue to cook and don't forget to keep stiring because at this stage the jam can be easily burnt because of sugar. Cook until the pineapple is completely dry. Off the fire. When it is cool, roll them into small balls. It is about 1/2 teaspoon per ball. Put the jam balls into a container and keep in fridge for future use. Mission Done.


P.S. : If you like your pineapple jam to be darker gold, then, add sugar earlier. But I prefer the normal golden color so I add sugar only when pineapple is almost dry.


Making of Pineapple tarts :
Put all the ingredients ( except eggyolk and vanilla extract ) into a big bowl. Rub the dry ingredients with butter using your fingertips till it resemble breadcrumb. Add eggyolk and vanilla extract. Continue to work into a soft dough.  Set a side for use.  You may keep in fridge if you are not using it immediately. You can keep up to 4 or 5 days. But I prefer to use it immediately to keep fresh.


Scoop 1 tsp of the pastry and wrap with the jam ball. Roll into a ball and place into small cupcake cup and place into a baking tray.


Eggwash the tarts with eggyolk (1 eggyolk plus 1 tbsp water)
Bake the  tarts in a pre-heat 180 degree celius oven for 15mins. After 15 min, bring out the tray of tarts and apply 2nd eggwash and continue to bake for another 5min.  Total baking time is 20min.

Hope you will find this recipe useful to you. Happy baking. :)

You may also like to view my other post:
1.pineapple-tarts (opened)

























Buns for Breakfast


Few months ago, I bought a new mixer MUM48CR1. Yesterday I decided to use it for my bread kneading. In the past I have been kneading bread dough with my hands. It is really tiring. With this mixer , it save up my time and strength kneading the dough by hands. Making bread become so much easier. I like this mixer. It is really good. The results of the bread is very good. Bread is fluffy and light Whereas hand kneaded bread is heavier but it is still nice. :)
Basic recipe of ingredients adapted from everybodyeatswell

Ingredients for Tangzhong
50g bread flour (1/3 cup)
250ml water (1 cup)


Method for Tang Zhong :
Mix the bread flour and water. Boil it over medium low fire and keep stiring until you see the texture as above picture where the mixture become a little translucent. It is supposed to be boil up to 65 deg C. I do not own a thermometer so I use my own estimation. Transfer TZ into a bowl immediately, cling wrap and leave it to cool down. You can make this one day ahead. And keep in fridge. But once the TZ turn brown/dark you will have to discard.

Ingredients :(about 1080g in total)
540g bread flour
86g caster sugar
8g salt or 1.5 tsp (1 tsp is about 5.5g)
9g milk powder or 1 tbsp (1 tbsp is about 10g)
11g instant yeast or 3.75 tsp (1 tsp is about 3 g)
86g whisked egg or 1.5 egg (1 average egg is about 60g)
59g whipping cream
54g milk
184g tangzhong dough
49g unsalted butter, melted
Preheat oven 180°C.

Method for Bread:
1. Put all the ingredients into the mixer with the dough hook and set it on to level 1 (low speed). Initially it will look like breadcrumbs, after a while, it will combine together. Let it continue to knead until you see a soft smooth dough. Cut a small piece of dough and do a windowpane test. Hold the dough between your thumbs and fingers and gentle spread your fingers and thumbs apart, stretching the dough into a thin translucent membrance. If you can spread the dough without breaking , that mean the gluten is well developed and the kneading is sufficient. And you can put it to rise/proof.

2. Remove dough from the mixer and shape it into a round dough. Place the dough into a very big floured/oiled bowl. Make sure the bowl is big enough to contain the dough when it proof to double size. Cover it with cling wrap and leave it to proof until double size. It is about 40min  to an hour depend on the weather. Hot weather is faster.

3. Once the dough rise to double size, you can start to cut and  shape into your ideal bun or bread. While working on the dough to shape, you may need extra flour. Once it is shape to your idea bun, place them onto a tray lay with parchment paper.

4. Brush buns with egg and put into the preheat oven to bake for 15-20min or until  the top of bun is golden brown. Remove from oven. Then remove bun from tray and let it cool down on a rack.

Refer to my another blog  homemade-chicken-patties on how to make meat patties.


Note : If you do not have a mixer, just put all the ingredients together and knead by hand into a soft smooth dough. Do a windowpane test to see whether sufficient kneading. Leave it to proof to double size.

Tuesday 16 September 2014

Rice Omelette Pancake




Was running out of idea what to make for breakfast for princess. I have some leftover rice from last night in the fridge. My princess like to eat rice and egg.  So I decided to make this Rice Omelette Pancake which is easy to make and nice to eat. I have used ingredients that are easily available in our fridge. You may replace ham with your desire ingredient like minced meat or shredded chicken.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup cooked rice
1/2 slice of picnic ham, cut into small pieces
1 small stalk of spring onion, cut into 1cm length
1 egg
1 tsp fish sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce

Method:
1. Place all ingredients into a bowl and mix them well. You can adjust the seasoning to your taste.

2. Heat up a frying pan. I am using non-stick frying pan. Pour 1 tsp of oil and use a paper towel to coat the frying pan with the oil. Pour in the mixture. Use a spatula to spread the mixture to about 1cm thickness.  Pan fry one side for 2-3min or until golden brown. Turn the other side to fry for another 2-3min or until golden brown.  Remove from fire. Serve.

You may like this too :
1)homemade-oyster-omelette


Tuesday 9 September 2014

Pumpkin Porridge





Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked rice
1 cup (appro 200g)sheddred pumpkin
8 cups water
1/2  chicken breast  sheddred (Seasoned with salt ,pepper, sesame oil and cornflour)
A thumb size ginger. Cut into thin strips.


Seasoning for porridge:
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp light sauce
1/4 tsp salt
A dash of Pepper

For garnish:
A stalk of spring onion, cut.

Method:
1.Put uncooked rice into a large pot. Wash rice. Add water. Cover the pot with lid. Put on a stove and bring to boil.

2.When the porridge is about to boil, add pumpkin and ginger.  Cover with the lid and continue to cook the porridge over high fire until it is boiled. Remove the lid and continue to cook over high fire. Stir occasionally to prevent rice stick at the bottom of pot. Cook until the rice expanded and soft. That is when each grain of rice is opened at both end.

3. Add sheddred chicken and stir to loosen the chicken. Add seasoning. Bring the porridge to boiled. Off fire.

4. Serve in a bowl. Garnish with spring.

Note: Remove the lid when porridge is boiled is to prevent the porridge over flow during the cooking process

Saturday 6 September 2014

Homemade Pancake (Dairy)





This morning decided to make pancake as I have made some blueberry jam last night. I usually see friends like to buy pancake pre-mix. When my children were toddlers, I have tried pre-mix once or twice but usually couldn't finish the whole packet and it goes into waste bin.  Ever since I read through recipe books and also viewing several blogs, I realised that making homemade pancake is really easy. What we need is all purpose flour plus baking powder or just  self-raising flour which I have them  all the time in my kitchen. The rest of the ingredients are also common in my kitchen cabinet. Also, I am sure of what we eat unlike those pre-mix which probably with added preservative.

Ingredients (Yields 8pcs of abt 12-15cm)
1.5 cup self-raising flour
1 cup fresh milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 eggs, beaten lightly
3 tbsp caster sugar

Method
Add lemon juice into milk and let it stay for about 10min. I do this because I do not have buttermilk at home. You can substitute lemon juice with white vinegar. Note: if you do not have lemon or vinegar,  you may omit it. Just fresh milk is fine.

Sift flour in a large bowl. 

In another bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together for few minutes. Add the above milk added lemon with juice. Whisk them together. Then gradually whisk the egg mixture  into the flour. Whisk until mixtute makes a smooth batter. Tranfer batter to large jug.

Heat up a non-stick frying pan. Highly recommended non-stick pan.

Pour about 1/4 cup of batter into frying pan. Cook pancake until you see bubbles appear on surface and almost dry. Turn the pancake with a spatula to lightly brown other side. Cover pancakes on plate with foil to keep them warm. Continue to make more pancakes with remaining batter.


Serve pancakes topped with your desired jam and butter or margarine

P.S.  If you are using a normal frying pan, oil the frying pan with 1 tbsp of oil. Then use a kitchen paper towel to wipe away excess oil. Note: the first piece using normal frying pan will not look so desirable. But subsequent one will be perfect.

Note: If you do not have a metric measuring cup at home, you may use any kind of cup for drinking your water or coffee etc.. Just make sure you use the same cup to measure all the ingredients

You may like to view my other posts :
1. kimchi-pancake
2. rice-omelette-pancake

If you are allergy to dairy milk, you may like to try my non dairy recipe :
1. Non-dairy-fluffy-pancakes using coconut milk
2. Soya pancakes


Please leave a comments if you have tried the recipes and welcome your sharing. 😊

Tang Hoon Prawn (Glass Vermicelli)冬粉虾


Tang Hoon冬粉 is also called glass vermicelli noodle that is common in Asia countries. The one that I am using is made from green bean. You can cook into tang hoon soup or fried tang hoon. 
This Tang Hoon prawn recipe that I am sharing with you here is one of  my mum-in-law's signature dish . It is easy to cook and nice to eat. This is also a common dish found in the Thai restaurant. Usually it is cooked with crab. But my brilliant mum-in-law replaced it with prawn. She usually cook the prawn with the shell. As the prawn with shell will be more juicy and tang hoon soak with the juice from the seafood also tastier. However, I have choose to remove shell before cook as it is easier for my children.

Ingredients
150 -200g Glass Vermicelli (Tang Hoon)
8 big prawns, without shell, season with salt n pepper.
A thumb size ginger, sliced
2 stalks  spring onions
1 garlic, minced
2 small red onions (shallots),  minced
1Tbsp oil for frying
Some water for soaking vermicelli
Seasoning:
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
1 Tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp Hua Tiao Chew (Chinese cooking wine)
Dash of pepper
1 tsp sesame oil
1- 1 &1/2cup of water, about 240ml or more

Note: please adjust the seasoning to your desired taste.

Method:
1. Soak vermicelli in water until it is soft. Remove from water n set aside.  Discard the water.
2. In a corning ware with a lid or a kitchen ware/casserole that can be put over stove fire, pour in all the seasoning including water. Boil over medium fire.
3. Meanwhile in a wok, put oil and fry the red onion n garlic until golden brown. Remove from wok and put the fried shallots n garlic including the oil into above 2.
4. When the mixture is boiled, lower fire and put in the sliced ginger, then vermicelli. Top up with prawns, then spring onion.
Cover with the corning ware lid. Turn to moderate high fire and cook until prawns is cooked. In the process you may add 1/4 cup of hot water if it is too dry n prawn still not cook. Once the prawn is cooked, turn off fire.
5. Serve.