Tamago Yaki - Japanese egg roll

Tamago Yaki - Japanese Egg Roll
I thought it would be nice to do a step by step tutorial for making Tamago yaki.

Ingredients:
4 eggs - lightly beaten
6 tbsp dashi stock
1 tbsp sugar
2/3 tsp soy sauce

Method:
Mix all ingredients together. Grease pan with some oil.

Pour egg mixture to cover bottom of pan.


Roll egg to the bottom of pan.


Push egg back to the top of the pan and pour in another tablespoon or 2 to cover pan again. As you push the egg, try to shape it into an oblong.


Repeat process till all the egg is used up.

Lor Ark - Stewed Duck

Lor Ark - Stewed Duck

Another craving by Liana! This time it is stewed duck.

Yong Tau Fu

Yong Tau Fu

Liana wanted to eat some yong tau fu, so bought some bitter gourd, aubergines, green chillies and tau pok. The fish paste is ready made from the Chinese supermarket. Cut and stuffed the vegs and tau pok with the fish paste and shallow fried them after which I braised them in yellow bean sauce. Unfortunately I ran out of the yellow bean sauce so added in black bean sauce as well.

Puttu Mayam

Puttu Mayam

This is a back dated post. Made this on Sunday. Just felt like making it. Made this a couple of years back when I got my colleague in India (previous company) to buy a muruku maker. This little gadget is quite useful. It comes with a few attachments.

Liana says it does taste like the real thing. hehe. Don't know if there are many places in Singapore still selling it. One place I think that still does it the Indian stall in Ghim Moh market. If you go looking for it, bear in mind that this is a breakfast item.

Ingredients:
200 gm rice flour
1/4 tsp salt
350 ml boiling water (more or less)
orange sugar
grated fresh coconut (skin removed)

Method:
1. Steam rice flour for 5 mins.
2. Remove from steamer and add salt and boiling water and stir till it forms into a soft dough. Using a puttu mayam mould, put the dough into the mould.
3. Squeeze out the dough moving in a circular motion.
4. Steam the puttu mayam over high heat for about 10 mins.
5. When cooked, remove from heat and eat, served with sugar and grated coconut.

July's Challenge

The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She choose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

There were 2 recipes for us to choose from and we could either pick one or do both. I decided to try both but on separate weekends.

Did the mallows 2 weeks ago, it was ok but my marshmallows didn't out out as goodlooking as some others that I see on the forum!

I preferred the Milan Cookies. They tasted divine but the funny thing is that a day after baking, my hubby took it out from the tin to have one and he said it had gone soft and I thought - "oh no" - but I had one too and it's different - it soft and chewy, not like on the day when I baked it when it was nice and crispy. Did anyone have the same problem?



Mallows(Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies)
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website

Prep Time: 10 min
Inactive Prep Time: 5 min
Cook Time: 10 min
Serves: about 2 dozen cookies

• 3 cups (375grams/13.23oz) all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (112.5grams/3.97oz) white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter
• 3 eggs, whisked together
• Homemade marshmallows, recipe follows
• Chocolate glaze, recipe follows

1. In a mixer with the paddle attachment, blend the dry ingredients.
2. On low speed, add the butter and mix until sandy.
3. Add the eggs and mix until combine.
4. Form the dough into a disk, wrap with clingfilm or parchment and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.
5. When ready to bake, grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper or a silicon mat.
6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
7. Roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness, on a lightly floured surface. Use a 1 to 1 1/2 inches cookie cutter to cut out small rounds of dough.
8. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.
9. Pipe a “kiss” of marshmallow onto each cookie. Let set at room temperature for 2 hours.
10. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or silicon mat.
11. One at a time, gently drop the marshmallow-topped cookies into the hot chocolate glaze.
12. Lift out with a fork and let excess chocolate drip back into the bowl.
13. Place on the prepared pan and let set at room temperature until the coating is firm, about 1 to 2 hours.

Note: if you don’t want to make your own marshmallows, you can cut a large marshmallow in half and place on the cookie base. Heat in a preheated 350-degree oven to slump the marshmallow slightly, it will expand and brown a little. Let cool, then proceed with the chocolate dipping.

Homemade marshmallows:
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup (168.76 grams/5.95oz) sugar
• 1 tablespoon powdered gelatin
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 2 egg whites , room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. In a saucepan, combine the water, corn syrup, and sugar, bring to a boil until “soft-ball” stage, or 235 degrees on a candy thermometer.
2. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let dissolve.
3. Remove the syrup from the heat, add the gelatin, and mix.
4. Whip the whites until soft peaks form and pour the syrup into the whites.
5. Add the vanilla and continue whipping until stiff.
6. Transfer to a pastry bag.

Chocolate glaze:
• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 2 ounces cocoa butter or vegetable oil

Melt the 2 ingredients together in the top of a double boiler or a bowl set over barely simmering water.





Milan Cookies
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website

Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 0 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 0 min
Serves: about 3 dozen cookies

• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups (312.5 grams/ 11.02 oz) powdered sugar
• 7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon extract
• 1 1/2 cups (187.5grams/ 6.61 oz) all purpose flour
• Cookie filling, recipe follows

Cookie filling:
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested

1. In a mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and the sugar.
2. Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.
3. Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.
4. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread.
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
6. While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream.
7. Pour hot cream over chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well.
8. Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
9. Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.
10. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.

Chwee Kueh

Chwee Kueh

This is another Chinese snack or breakfast item that Singaporeans tend to have. Also made these a couple of years ago and then last week, my travel agent here – who happens to be Singaporean and I were talking and I showed her my blog and she asked if I had to recipe for this. Told her I go I step better and make it for her.

Had this recipe from Jo of Jo’s Deli when I was first looking for it some years ago, Then I thought I would surf the net to see if there were any other recipes out there.

Tried both recipes in succession and found that Peony’s recipe (that she had copied from Jingle) was slightly better.

As you can see Jo’s recipe only calls for rice flour and tang min flour whilst Peony/Jingle’s recipe has the addition of corn flour, I halved both recipes and each halved recipe yielded about 12 – 15 kuehs each.

The reason why I said I preferred Peony/Jingle’s recipe is because after cooking, there is no indentation in the kueh whereas in Jo’s recipe there is one and is slightly harder, so perhaps the corn flour makes the kueh softer!

I have put down both recipes in case you want to try both as well!

Jo’s recipe
For kueh:
Rice flour 320g/160
Tung min flour 2 tbsp/1
Water 400g/200
Salt 2 tsp
Water 1400g/700


Mix the first 4 ingredients in a mixing bowl.

Boil 1400g water. Pour into batter prepared earlier. Sthingy batter into greased small stainless steel bowls and steam for 15 minutes.

Peony/Jingle’s recipe

Kueh Ingredients :
300 g of rice flour/150
25 g of wheat starch (deng ming fen)/15
25 g of corn flour/15
1 tsp of salt
2 tsp of oil
400 ml cold water/200
1000 ml boiling hot water/500

Method :
1. Put rice flour, wheat starch and cornflour into a mixing bowl.
2. Add 400 ml of cold water to the flour mixture, use a wooden spoon to stir.
3. Bring 1020 ml of water to boil, make sure it boiling hot with big bubbles. Only
add in 1000 ml of boiling hot water to the flour mixture.
4. Pour the hot water over the flour mixture, then stir it, add salt & oil to batter
and mix together well.
5. Keep stirring until batter is like glue texture. If the batter is not
transparent, or looks watery glue texture, bring it over the stove to cook it
again, until a portion of it stick to the wooden ladle. Remove from fire. **
6. Wet the mould, pour the batter into the mould, filled about ¾ full. Then add 1
tsp of cold water as topping before bringing batter to steam.
7. Steaming time about 15 - 20 mins. After 20 mins, open the cover, check to see if
there is a depression of water content in the centre, leave the fire on, let it
cook for 5 mins more with cover off, to steam dry the pool of water in kuih
center. Once dried, turn off fire.

** the other option is to put the mixture in a sauce pan and stir till mixture has thickened slightly, then continue to number 6.



Radish Topping

Ingredients :
80 g preserved radish (chai poh)
4 pieces of garlic, chopped fine

Method :
1. Soak the preserved radish to remove some of the saltishness. Drain dry.
2. Fry the garlic till fragrant. Remove and put aside.
3. Fry radish with low fire till soft.
4. Add more oil, if necessary, fry until the radish starts jumping all over the pan.
5. Once fragrant, turn off the fire, add fried garlic and top the kuehs with it.




If you look carefully, you can see that the top 2 and bottom right chwee kuehs and indentations while the bottom left and middle kueh is flat.

Png Kueh

Png Kueh

The last time I made this was a couple of years back and the other day when I was talking to mum about it. She said she was going to make it for church sale so I thought I’d make some as well. Not that difficult to make. Just soak the glutinous rice overnight and then it would make steaming the next day so much quicker.

Png Kueh

Makes 6 pcs
Ingredients for the Dough
100g Rice Flour
25g Tapioca Flour
175ml Boiling Hot water
pinch of Pink food colouring (paste)

Ingredients for the fillings:
1 cup White Glutinous Rice (wash, soak for 4 hours or overnight)
1/2 tin of Braised Peanuts – optional (I did not use them)
50g dried shrimps(soak in water, drained)
5 dried mushrooms (soaked, drained and sliced)
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tbsp Sesame oil
water
1 tsp sugar

Method for making dough
1. Add flour into a mixing bowl.
2. Pour boiling hot water and using a wooden spoon, quickly stir to mix together
3. Cover the bowl with a plate. Let it stand for 10 mins(to cool it)
4. Remove and add colouring and knead to form a dough.

Method for Filling
1. Put glutinous rice in steamer and steam for about 15mins until cooked. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in frying pan.
3. Add dried shrimps and stir fry till fragrant. Add peanuts (if using), mushrooms and rice and stir fry with rest of ingredients. Add glutinous and fry till well mixed. Add a little water if too dry. Leave to cool.

Method for making the kueh
1. Take a portion (50gm) of pink dough.
2. Flatten it into a round and add about 1 tbsp of cooked rice.


3. Pull the sides up to make back into ball.
4. Put the dough in the mould, press to flatten and spread to cover all the mould.


5. Turn over, and knock on the side of the mould to release the dough.

6. Brush it with a little oil, steam over rapid water for 10 mins.

7. Serve with sweet sauce or chilli sauce.

Orchids

Orchids


Previously when friends came for dinner and brought me an orchid plant as a present, I would put them on the window sill for the duration when the flowers are in bloom and after that, the leaves will wither away and then just throw it away or just have leaves and nothing else. I got tired of this and wondered if there was a way to revive the ochids. Searched the net and the answer was so easy. Just soak the whole pot in lukewarm water for 8 hours – I soak mine in the morning before I leave for work and drain the water away in the evenings. Just do this once a week and look at my plants – they have been blooming away. I am so thrilled!

Easy peasy summer Salads


When it is really hot, we only want to eat salads, so here are a couple of what have.

Prawn, avocado and mango salad


Ingredients: - for 2 persons
16 Cooked prawns
1 Avocado – cut into cubes (mixed with lemon juice to prevent it darkening)
1 Mango – cut into cubes
Salad leaves
½ lemon

Dressing
2 tbsp Low fat mayo )
2 tbsp Tomato ketchup ) Mixed together
1 tsp sweet chilli sauce (optional) )

Method:
1. Lay salad leaves on plate. Then layer with the prawns, avocado and mango.
2. Pour dressing over and serve.

Parma ham, avocado and Melon salad


Ingredients – for 2 persons
8 slices parma ham – tear into bite size portions
1 avocado – cubed and sprinked with lemon joice to prevent discolouration
½ cantaloupe melon – cubed
Salad leaves

Your favourite dressing.

Method:
Same as the prawn avocado salad.