Pork Jerky/Bak Kwa

My only preparation for CNY this year. I like to think that I have grand plans every year. This year, I confess that it creeped up on me and I found myself short of time to do much.

This has always been one of my favourite snack on CNY- I love the sweet and savoury aspect of it, the meaty texture, the crisp of the slightly charred bits. At every home visit, people would sometimes exchanged stories about how long they queue up to purchase the best bak kwa (My hubby calls it Long Yok). I think Bak Kwa is in hokkien dialect and Long Yok is cantonese.

I bookmarked a few recipes to reference to. My favourite is still Sonia's. I reduced the sugar to 50 grams and think the sweetness is just right. However, I think the meat wasn't pressed thinly enough. While it did have a crisp texture, I felt that it was too thick. Nevertheless, we loved it!

Not without a mini incident...

I was chatting with my grandma on the phone while it was it the oven. I set it to high on grill (which is around 250C), took it out to turn it around and my baking paper caught fire. Lucky for me, hubby was there to save the day, but my grandma found it amusing. I could literally feel her glare on me- just like the first time I cooked in her kitchen. So another lesson learned... concentrate when doing something new!

Using my chopsticks, marinating the meat was easy. Turning it round and round, making sure the meat was all gluey. Thanks to Sonia's pictures, I knew what to look out for. That's the reason why I love blogging. It allowed me to learn more about my own culture, food that I grew up loving- I never wish to forget my roots.

And hopefully, this compensate for my lack of preparation (which is what a good Chinese wife should do) for CNY.

Pork Jerky/Bak Kwa
480 grams of pork mince
50 grams of sugar
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1/2 tsp of fish sauce
1/2 tsp of chinese wine
1 tablespoon of dark caramel sauce
1/4 tsp of 5 spice powder
1/4 tsp of salt
2 tablespoon of honey

Marinate meat with all ingredients with a pair of chopsticks. Turning it till it turns gluey. Place in fridge for a few hours (mine was around 4 hours).

Pre heat oven to 160C. Prepare baking tray- Sonia didn't use any baking paper. I did. Press meat into tray as thinly as possible. Bake for 15-20 mins. Remove from oven.

Change oven function to grill high or 240C. Snip meat by using a scissors, knife or pizza cutter into pieces. Place it back under the grill. I find that it is charred within 3-4 mins. Turn pieces and place in oven again.

Cool and eat (if you can wait that long).

Walnut Red Bean Cookies

I know. Here am I still blogging about what I did for Christmas (and the left overs) and Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Again, this year, we are celebrating it in Perth with Hubby's extended family members and it is just NOT the same without the festive feel around us.

While many bloggers have already started blogging about their CNY bakes, I have only just began. This recipe comes from Patisie Chong, a well known cook back in Singapore/Malaysia. I love how unique some of her cookies are and this one is no different.

Bite into one, and you will find red bean paste. You can also use lotus paste but I couldn't find any in our local stores. Probably because it isn't moon cake festive. However, I think red bean suits CNY more yeah?

Walnut Red Bean Cookies (Makes around 10)
200 grams plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
130 grams margarine
70 grams icing sugar
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk

Decoration
60 grams of walnuts
1 egg yolk whisked

Filling
80 grams of lotus seed paste

Preheat oven to 180C and lined a baking tray.

Knead all ingredients (other than decoration and filling) till it become soft dough.
Measure filling into 8 grams balls. Wrap dough around it. Brush with yolk and decorate with a small piece of walnut. Bake for around 20 minutes.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!! May the Dragon Year bring you closer to your wishes!! 

Zhai Choy (Vegetarian Vegetables)

The name sounds ironic. It is a direct translation from a well love dish that I grew up with. Keeping with my vegetarian theme, I cooked this in celebration of CNY for our guest. Once again, without the actual recipe, I went with the guidelines of what I recall grandma doing in the kitchen when I was growing up. She would made this every year-waking up very early in the morning on the first day of CNY so that our whole extended family can enjoy this for lunch.

Top with her super hot chili-one WILL find it hard to forget the taste of this.

For me-it was a taste of home. 

Zhai Choy (Vegetarian Vegetables) 

1 small bunch of mung bean noodles- soaked and drained
1 small packet of fah cho-soaked 
1 can of button/straw mushrooms
1 small bunch of chinese cabbage-shredded
around 10 shitake mushrooms dehydrated and sliced

Seasoning
2-3 tablespoon of light soy
1 tablespoon of dark soy
1/2 cap full of chinese cooking wine
lots of pepper.
pinch of salt
(traditonally, grandma will also add fermented beancurd but I couldnt find it in time and left it out)

Fry everything together and add seasoning. Dish up and serve hot with rice! =)

Baked Nien Gao

So this is an awfully late post- given that CNY was over more than one month ago! To add to the lateness, I spotted this recipe in 2008 by Little Corner. Two years later, I finally digged out the recipe that I printed and saved in my folder. It was one recipe that I kicked myself for not trying earlier- because it is dead easy and certainly a good talking point when we bought it to celebratory gatherings.

One batch certainly yields enough for heaps and heaps of people. I split mine into two serves and brought it to TWO gatherings. Talk about saving time and effort huh? ;p

My mother-in-law asked me over the phone what did I bring to one of our family gatherings (My father in law's cousins). I proudly said "Nien Gao!" which she replied "now that is an interesting dish to bring!" Phew.. I thought I nearly failed the "daughter in law test" given that we regretfully did not manage to return to Malaysia for our first CNY as a married couple. In fact, I felt like I have failed the "best granddaughter" test too when I had to tell my grandmother the same thing in Singapore. Though they understand, one cannot deny the pain that I felt when I heard the disappointment in our parents and grandmother's voices.

So hopefully we will be back next year!

ps- recipe from Lin.

Almond Cookies

I can't can't can't get enough of these cookies. They must be one of the easiest but yet so delicious cookies to make. I have previously posted them about it here. Looking back though, I didn't feel that I have given it enough credit so here am I doing this again!

Since baking these cookies, friends and family members have been requesting for the recipe. They are so powerful that a friend of mine who has never done any baking in her life decided to give it a go. (She said she felt embarrassed about asking me to bake for her every week). I can see why though, these have a melt in your mouth texture and the crunch of almonds is irresistible.

I have tried using canola oil as I couldn't locate corn oil... and others have attempted it using olive oil. One observation I have is that the texture depends alot on the humidity of your kitchen and country. In summer, I have to add a little milk or oil as it tends to be drier. Play it by ear is the best way I think!

This is from my favourite nonya cook book of all times by Patrica Lee. 

Almond Cookies 

250grams of silvered almonds
450 grams of plain flour
225 grams of icing sugar
260 grams of peanut oil
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Egg wash- 1 egg yolk.

Preheat oven to 150C. Toast almonds. Reserve 50grams for garnishing.

In a mixing bowl, mix plain flour, icing sugar, baking powder, soda and salt together. Add in corn oil and almonds. Knead to make dough.

Shape dough and brush with egg wash. Press some reserved almonds on it. Bake for 20-25 minutes till brown.

Happy Tiger Year!

Gong Xi Fai Cai!

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! What a lovely year it was and now we have approached the Tiger year.

I kept this recipe for more than 2 years now. Finally this year, a chance to try it out! Golden Pineapple Tarts.

Sure enough, it lives up to its name of being hard work. Yet every second was worth it. The night before, I cooked the pineapple filling. Soon after, the kitchen was filled with lovely scents of cinnamon and star anise.

On Friday, I quickly tapped away on my computer, completing all my paperwork before 2.30pm! SCORE! Time go home and make the dough.

Truth be told, the dough wasn't difficult to make. It was, however, encasing the pineapple filling into the dough that was tricky. Mine started out huge, then it became slightly more manageable.

Finally, an unglam picture of the hubby. It was the moment of truth when he bite into it.

He was kind and finished every bite of it. I found the dough/short bread to be too thick and wish I could have practice more to put more filling in it. Having said that, we both agreed that the filling was lovely and wasn't as sweet as commercially bought ones.

Thanks to the inspirations of Rasa Malaysia and Fresh from the Oven. It is the generosity of such great food bloggers who shared their secrets and kitchen knowledge that allow a novice like me to learn so much.

Here is wishing everyone a Prosperous New Year filled with happiness and joy. Not forgetting the most important one GOOD HEALTH!

HUAT AH!

I'm Back!!

I'm BACCCCKKKKK!!!!!

Wow! What a 3 weeks. I can't believe it has been THAT long since I posted a post. AR and I spent 10 days in KL/SG last week and it was a blast. Wedding planning + good food + Chinese New Year celebrations = Happy Daphne.



It has also been at least 2 years since I last celebrated CNY at home. Sitting at our round table, enjoying our steamboat dinner, laughing, joking...and then my customary walk with grandma to the flower markets. Life is simple but oh so good.



Meeting up with my girlfriends was so much fun. How I miss their company and our girly chats.


This trip back, AR and I were reminded that we have 3 more months till we say our vows.


I will be back with more food posts soon! =)

Sunday Lunch with the boys- Yu Sheng and Pan Fried Dumplings

Sunday came and we had friends over. What's CNY without celebrating with your friends right? Our 2 friends were from different backgrounds- The first guy, Australian Caucasian was fascinated with Yu Sheng and the tradition that goes behind it. The second guy, born in Penang but grew up in Australia only tasted Yu Sheng once a few years back. That didn't stop us from tossing Yu Sheng as high as we could (with chopsticks!) and saying our wishes for the year in English.



I prepared the dumplings the evening before and pan-fried them in the morning. Crisp with juicy meat filling! Here's a budget tip, instead of using goyza skin/dough, use dumpling/suai gow skin. Often, the dough for dumplings is cheaper, contains less preservatives and is generally bigger than the goyza skin. Larger diameter of the dough = more filling!

Pan Fried Dumplings (makes 24)
300 grams of pork mince
1 can of sliced chestnuts chopped

Seasoning
2 tsp of sesame oil
1 tsp of corn flour
2 tablespoons of soya sauce
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
1/4 cup of huo tiong jiu

24 dumpling skin
1 egg- beaten
24 shelled prawns (optional)
1/4 cup of oil

Marinate pork mince with seasoning. Stir in chesnuts. Refrigerate mixture for 2 hours. Put a tablespoon of mince and a prawn in the middle of the dumpling. Using your thumb and index fingers, seal the dumplings by dappling some egg on the edge of the dough.

Heat pan with oil. Gently pan-fried each dumpling, turning them over after approximately 3 minutes. Serve with dumplings soya sauce.

Note- I also made some vegetarian tong fun with sea moss, mushrooms, cabbage and black fungus. Easy peasy stir fry. =)

Braised Siew Yoke, Mushrooms, Fah Choi and Dried Oysters + Chili Prawns

I do apologize for the reaaallly long title of this post. Tried shortening it but it doesn't give this dish justice so I reverted back to its really long name. If anyone knows the official name of this dish, that would be a great help as well.

This is a classic CNY dish in our household. Last year, when grandma came to celebrate CNY with AR and I, my mum cooked this dish for my dad. This year, grandma is back with mum and dad so it was my turn to give it a go. See Popo- we can't do without you!

The braising style of this dish means it needed to be cooked slowly over a long period of time. It was worth it, however, when the final product = a mixture of melt in your mouth siew yoke (roast pork) and juicy sweet mushrooms. Dried oysters need to be hydrated in hot water for about 30 minutes prior to cooking. It gives that unique texture and sweetness that adds to the overall taste of it. Fah Choi or sea moss was added in as it sounded like "Fa Chai" which means lots of wealth!

I can still hear grandma telling me "Don't you dare buy the skinny siew yoke, this dish needs abit of fat!" LOL



Braised Siew Yoke, Mushrooms Fah Choi and Dried Oysters (serves 8)
500 grams of siew yoke (roast pork)
200 grams of dried mushrooms
50 grams of dried oysters
10 grams of fah choi/sea moss (or half a small packet)
1 tablespoon of garlic
1 cup of stock

Seasoning
1/4 cup of oyster sauce
5 teaspoons of sugar
1/4 cup of Hua Tiao Jiou
2-3 tsp of sesame oil


Method

30 minutes prior to cooking soak these ingrediants in warm water separately: Sea Moss, Dried Oysters and Mushrooms. Trim the stalks and cut mushrooms in half. Give a few snips to the sea moss as well ( You won't get a whole chunk of sea moss that way)

1) Gently heat a deep pot with a tablespoon of oil and fry garlic till fragrant. Add mushrooms and dried oysters with 1-2 tablespoons of oyster sauce (out of the 1/4 cup) and 4 teaspoons of sugar. Stir to mix. Simmer for 45 minutes or so-checking every 10 minutes and stirring it. If it appears dry, add some of the stock.

2) Add siew yoke, another tablespoon of oyster sauce, sesame oil and 1/2 of the remaining stock. Stir and let it simmer for another 30 minutes.

3) During the last 15 minutes of your cooking, add sea moss. Taste the gravy to see if it needs more sugar and oyster sauce. Add stock if the mixture appears too dry.

4) Serve with rice, prawns and veges! =)

_________________________________
This is another dish that is classic in my household in SG. We love this prawns..and I can't get enough of this sauce!!!



Chili Garlic Prawns (serves 2)
300 grams of fresh prawns-head removed.
1 red chili
1/2 tablespoon of garlic
1 tomato quartered
2 tablespoons of Tabasco sauce
3 tablespoons of Lea and Perins Worcestershire Sauce sauce
1/2 red onion chopped
come of tablespoons of stock/water
olive oil

Heat oil and fry garlic and red onion. Add quartered tomato, water, tabasco sauce and lea and perins. Simmer till it becomes a sticky sauce. Add the prawns and fry quickly. Serve hot with rice.

Ps-did you notice that the first dish yielded 8 servings? Yes..that was our lunch and dinner for the next 2.5 days! It freezes well and the flavors were more intense the next day.

Chendol Agar Agar

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Although the atmosphere isn't as festive as SG, KL or any Asian countries, the lovely greetings made me feel part of it. It was funny ringing home last night, especially we were asked "so how did you spend your day!?"-probably expecting an exciting answer and they were greeted with "work" and "writing". LOL.

For CNY, food plays a big part. Families reunite to have meals together, how meaningful is it? So despite not being able to be with my immediate family members, we did attend a gathering of some sort. We were at a steamboat dinner on Monday. Ar's dad's cousins (= AR's uncles) have always been kind and welcoming, inviting us over for dinners/lunches/celebrations. This year was no exception and they invited us to be part of their family tradition of having a steam boat dinner.

My grandmother has always taught me to be courteous. The "don't go empty handed" rule always come in place and so far... I don't think I attended any gatherings of some kind without bringing something. But I also know that Auntie Annie is a fantastic cook and she would probably prepare lots of food

So Peony's recipe of Chendol Agar Agar (Jelly) caught my attention straight away! Yes, it requires abit of patience but it was worth every second of it. How pretty it is? The best thing is that I made this the day before, so I just need to change, grab box from fridge and turn up for dinner! Oh, and did I mention that the steam boat dinner was held on a 36C day? LOL

You may say that it's not real chendol, especially since I took short cuts and couldn't find red beans in time. Also, they sell gula melaka by the CHUNKS here, it took me like 15 minutes to grate 5 grams of it man.... since I was baking cookies, cooking dinner AND making this agar agar at the same time, I gave up and used brown sugar instead. However, it does taste close to the real thing and looked impressive. Speaking of which, I was outside the play around talking to a mum and when I turned around, my whole box of agar agar was clean out. GONE! NO MORE...

Thank goodness I tasted one as I was cutting it.

Chendol Agar Agar (with shortcuts! and adapted from The Culinary Journal)

Chendol Layer
150 g cooked red beans (cook about 100g), sprinkle sugar on top of red beans while it is warm (I omitted it because I couldn't buy red beans in time)
1 packet agar-agar powder (swallow brand)
3 pandan leaves (omitted also)
150 g sugar
30 g brown sugar or gula melaka.
250 ml thick coconut milk,
700ml of water
pinch of salt
one packet of 300 g chendol, drained

Method :

1. Boil water with coconut milk, agar-agar powder, sugar, gula melaka/brown sugar, salt and pandan leaves. Remove pandan leaves and sieve.

2. Bring mixture to a quick boil, add cooked red beans and chendol.

3. Pour into a 6-inch x 8-inch x 3-inch tray or any desired mould and leave mixture to slightly set.

note- the setting time for me was about 30 minutes, which I thought it was unusually long. Hence, I added more agar agar powder to the gula melaka layer which shortens the setting time. But the weather was really hot then, and I had to cool it down in an aircon room.

Gula Melaka Layer
450 ml water
2 pandan leaves, knotted (omitted)
80 g gula melaka/ brown sugar
1/2 packet of agar agar powder

Method :

1. Boil water with gula melaka, pandan leaves and agar-agar powder. Sieve.

2. Pour gently onto slightly set chendol layer.

3. Leave to set. Once it turns cold, chill in fridge for a couple of hours before serving

Also check out Imperial Kitchen as the original recipe was in the Straits Times by Thng Lay Teen

Chinese New Year Cookies

I have succumbed to peer pressure. Have you seen cookies from Little Corner, Peony's, singairishgirl...etc? How can I NOT feel it? There are cookies EVERYWHERE.

All those pineapple tarts, peanut cookies, cornflake cookies... wow. Those ladies were hard at work for tomorrow's big day. On top of that, AR looked at me with those eyes and said... "no cookies?"

Alright, I got the message. =)


Almond Cookies


My grandma loves this and so does AR (ironically, his name rhymes with almonds). It's an amazing recipe because I got a non-baking friend to make this. So proud of her. Apparently she said I'm not making them fast enough for her. Still contemplating setting up a small cookie business online when the demand calls for it. I'm sharing this recipe here because I think good things deserve to be shared but if anyone would like to place an order in Perth, let me know *wink*

makes about 80 cookies

250grams of silvered almonds
450 grams of plain flour
225 grams of icing sugar
260 grams of peanut oil
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Egg wash- 1 egg yolk.

Preheat oven to 150C. Toast almonds. Reserve 50grams for garnishing.

In a mixing bowl, mix plain flour, icing sugar, baking powder, soda and salt together. Add in corn oil and almonds. Knead to make dough.

Shape dough and brush with egg wash. Press some reserved almonds on it. Bake for 20-25 minutes till brown.

Cornflakes Dark Choc Cookies


Now this is a different twist to the usual cornflake cookies you see on the market. It's on the chewy side instead of crispy. The original recipe calls for white chocolate but I'm really not a big fan of it. I mean, white chocolate is not the real stuff! So... i used dark chocolate instead.

Having said that, I think white chocolate might give this more of an edge than dark though.

oh! I couldn't find glace cherries in time so I didn't include them in. I threw in a handful of cranberries instead.

makes about 60 cookies

2 eggs
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1 tsp of vanilla essence
1/2 cup of olive oil
150grams of dark chocolate chopped coarsely
handful of cranberries (use raisins if u like)
1 cup of plain flour
3/4 cup of self raising flour
1/2 tsp of bicarb
about 2 cups of crushed cornflakes.

Whisk eggs and sugar in a bowl till combined. Add in essence and oil, chocolate and dry ingredients. Fold it all in. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hr (I left if overnight though...).

Preheat oven to 180C. Prepare baking trays.

Roll spoonful of mixture into balls. Coat them with cornflakes, place them on tray and flatten slightly. Bake for about 15 minutes. Stand cookies for 5 minutes before transferring them to wire racks to cool.



Tonight is CNY EVE. To my readers, family and friends-

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

May the new year bring prosperity, wealth and most importantly, GOOD HEALTH!