Liu Sha Bao aka salted egg custard bun

Ever since I had this in Singapore 2 years ago, I have been wanting to make this. So bought my salted eggs from the Chinese supermarket and here goes....

Trolled the internet for recipes and for the custard, it all seems the same, except for the buns. There were 2 recipes that caught my eye end decided to make both just to see what the difference was.

So here is my experiment and the results.

Ingredients

80g salted egg yolk (6 yolks)
110g caster sugar (I used icing sugar)
55g custard powder
55g full cream milk powder (I used 50 gm coconut paste)

60g coconut milk

20g corn starch (1 tablespoon)

110g butter, room temperature

Note: While getting all my ingredient ready to make the custard, I realised that I had run out of milk powder. How, how? While out shopping, I saw a new product (to me, that is). It said coconut powder (satchets of 50gms each). So I bought a packet to try and was I lucky to have it on hand. 

Basic Chinese steam bun doug

Method
1. Some recipes call for steaming the salted eggs, but I just cooked them like you do for hard boiled eggs. Left the eggs in hot water for 10 mins.

2. Let the eggs cool and then separate the yolks from the whites and mash the yolks.
3. Next, In a mixing bowl, cream the butter slightly and mix in the rest of the ingredients.
Refrigerate the mixture until firm. Portion into balls and freeze till solid. 

Steam on high heat for 10 mins.

Recipe 1 - adapted from http://sunflower-recipes.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/char-siu-bao-using-water-roux.html

Water Roux

Using water roux makes a difference to the texture of the bao.

Ingredients

25 gms flour

125 ml water

Method:

Whisk the water and flour together, sieve and gently cook (stirring all the time) till thicken like pouring custard. Cover and leave to cool.

Dough
0.75 tsp quick (instant) yeast
75 - 100ml water

1 portion of water roux as above
300g plain flour, all purpose or HK flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
15g cooking oil or melted lard
50 - 60g sugar
0.5 tsp salt

extra flour for dusting

Method:

1. Mix the yeast with water and leave aside for about 10 - 15 minutes while the roux is cooling.
2. Mix the water roux with yeast liquid, sugar, salt and oil.
3. Sieve the flour and baking powder together.
4. Either using a bread machine or mix by hand, mix the liquid with the dry ingredients together till combined. Add the last few tbsp of the liquid bit by bit, stop when a soft but not sticky dough is formed. Do not knead. Leave for 10 - 15 minutes. Then give it a quick knead till the dough is smooth, do not over knead. If the dough is very sticky add a bit more extra flour.
   
5. Cover and leave to rise for about 1.5 - 2 hours at room temperature till dough is about 1.5 in size.

Recipe 2  - adapted from http://foodmanna.blogspot.sg/2012/08/basic-chinese-steam-buns.html#more

Ingredients
Dough starter

300g hong kong flour

1 packet instant yeast = 2¼ teaspoons

2½ tablespoon sugar

125 mL full cream milk

1 portion of water roux

Method:

Add flour, yeast, sugar and water roux into a mixing bowl and pour the milk. Roughly incorporate water roux into the flour and set aside covered with damp tea towel for 15 mins to let the flour absorb the water.

Mix the flour mixture to a dough, add more milk or flour if required. The dough will be a bit sticky at first, knead until it's soft and smooth. It takes approximately 20-25 minutes depend on how you knead it. Coat a mixing bowl with oil. Place dough in a mixing bowl, cover the bowl with wet cloth or cling wrap and let the dough rest for 45 minutes or until it double in size.

When dough is double in size about 45 minutes, punch air out and knead into a ball. To maximize the flavor. Proof a second time round in the fridge left overnight.

Ingredients for bao

Dough starter (recipe above)

80g Hong Kong flour or plain flour

40g corn starch

3 tablespoon lard (I used butter)

½ teaspoon ammonium bicarbonate (I omitted as I did not have)

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon white vinegar

Method

1. Add all the ingredients to the dough starter. Knead well for 10 mins to form dough. 
2. When the dough is ready, divide into 10 portions. Meanwhile, set water to boil in a steamer.
3. You can either flatten the dough pieces with your hands or roll out the dough and use a cutter to cut rounds , and place a frozen custard filling ball in the center. Pinch up the sides of the dough to completely enclose the filling.
4. Place each bao on each paper cup liner or a small piece of baking paper with its seam sides down. Rest the bao in warm mist for 10-15 mins.
5. Steam baos for about 8-15 mins until done. The steam timing varies if you have multiple layers of baos to steam. The layer that is closest to the direct steam will take 8 mins to cook.

Notes:
Beware! Please DO NOT over-steam!!! Otherwise, the custard filling will explode out of the bao.

Serve immediately but beware that the molten filling is steaming hot!

You can keep any unused filling in the freezer and use them anytime when you make any bao dough.

**Both recipes worked well for making the liu sha bao but recipe one was a bit soft. I had left over dough and made char siu baos and for that, recipe 1 did not work as it was soft and I could not get the pleats. Recipe 2 is a longer and more time consuming recipe but works well if you want to make char siu baos.

Liu sha baos before steaming

Liu Sha Baos cut with 2 doughs 

Char Siu baos with 2 doughs. The dough at 1 o'clock is mishappen as it was too soft to pleat

Cross section of char siu bao. Nice and fluffy

Gyoza - updated

Wanted to have gyoza over the weekend, so defrosted my gyoza skins but then did not have time to make them, so when I did want to make them, the skins were not useable.

So went about making my own skins and actually, they are not that difficult to make. 

dough: (double this for the amount of filling, but easier to make it in 2 batches - or just halve the filling recipe)
1 cups (250g) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (60g) warm water
flour for work surface
* 1 cup of flour gets me 20 pieces of skin

dipping sauce:
2 parts soy sauce
1 part vinegar (red wine or black)
a few drops of sesame oil
chili garlic paste (optional)
minced ginger (optional)
minced garlic (optional)
minced green onion (optional)
sugar (optional)

Combine all filling ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly (I mix by clean hand). Cover and refrigerate until ready to use (up to a day, but preferably within an hour or two).

Make the dough, Method 2 (my mom’s instructions): In a large bowl mix flour with 1/4 cup of water and stir until water is absorbed. Continue adding water one teaspoon at a time and mixing thoroughly until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. We want a firm dough that is barely sticky to the touch.

Both dough methods: Knead the dough about twenty strokes then cover with a damp towel for 15 minutes.
Take half the dough and roll out using a cutter. Keep all unused dough under damp cloth.
What I do is cut it using a smaller size cutter and then roll out to the size I want and also rolls out thinner after being cut. (2nd picture shows smaller cut out and then bigger after being rolled out.































Ingredients:

1 pack gyoza skin or own self made version
250 gm minced pork (for halal version, you can use minced chicken or turkey)
250 gm minced beef (or all pork)
4-5 pcs Chinese cabbage – can be substituted for cabbage
2 sprigs - chopped spring onions
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
salt
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice wine (omit if you are making the halal version)
splash of sesame oil
1 tsp corn flour mixed with a little water

Dipping Sauce:
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp black vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
dash of la yu – chilli oil

Method:
1. Boil some water in pan and when boiling, add cabbage into pan until wilted. Remove from pan and dunk in cold water. Remove from water and squeeze out the water from the cabbage and chop finely.
2. In a bowl, add the 2 different kinds of minced meat, spring onions, cabbage and ginger.
Add the salt, soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil. Mix well.
3. Take a tbsp of the mixture and place on a gyoza skin. Dab a little of the corn flour slurry on the top half of the skin and fold into half. Pleat the skin. Repeat till all the meat has been used up.

4. Heat a little oil in a flat base frying pan. When hot, place the gyozas in the pan and leave for bottoms of gyozas to get brown. After 5 mins, add 150 ml water. Cover. Leave lid on for about 7 mins for gyoza to steam/fry. Remove lid and check to see that skin has become translucent. If not ready, add a little more water and cover for another 2 mins.

5. When gyozas are cooked, remove and place on plate with bottoms facing upwards.
6. Serve and eat with dipping sauce.

Radish Cake/Chai Tow Kuih

This is taken from Lily Ng's blog. Thanks Lily.

Ingredients:
about 500 gms radish - shred finely or use a food processor to cut
500 gms rice flour
4 tbsp tapioca flour
1 tbsp
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp soya sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp white pepper
about 750 ml water

For frying a plate :

1 bowl of diced radish cake
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1/2 - 1 tsp of fresh ground chilly or sambal olek
1 tbsp chopped preserved turnip (chai poh)
1/4 tsp sugar(omit if the chai poh is the sweet type)
1/2 tsp dark soya sauce
a handful of taugeh(green bean sprouts)
1 tsp chopped spring onions
a dash of white pepper
1 egg
2 tsp oil

Method:

To make the Chai Tow Kuih

Mix the ingredients together in a large glass bowl and microwave on high, 2 minutes at the time, stir well, until mixture has thickened or you can put them in a saucepan and cook over medium heat till the mixture has thickened.

Pour into a 10 inch round cake pan and steam on high heat for about 1/2 hour.

Leave to cool.

To fry one serving
Cut the cooled cake into cubes.

Using a non stick pan, heat 1 tsp oil and pan fry the diced kuih until very fragrant.(do not stir or turn kueh until it is brown on one side).

Remove kueh to the plate and heat the other tsp oil.

When oil is hot, add chopped garlic and fry until fragrant before adding the chilly.

Add the chai poh and sugar and saute until well mixed.

Add in the pan fried kueh and dark soy sauce. (Black version)

When well mixed, crack in the egg and fry until egg is cooked.

Add in the taugeh and stir fry (do not overcook the taugeh). Add  spring onions.

Dish out and dash with white pepper.

Enjoy while it is piping hot.

If you want the white version, omit the dark soy sauce.

Nonya Dumplings aka Nonya Bak Chang

Updated with pictures on how to wrap the dumplings.

Most years I miss the date for making the bak changs or dont manage to get the leaves but last year, after teaching a friend how to tie the bak changs and then because I had balance of the leaves, decided to make some for myself this year. But just enough for myself and Pat does not like glutinous rice.

This recipe is taken from Mrs Leong's book with with modifications.

In her book and my mum's recipe, they both ask to steam the rice and wrap the dumpling with the cooked rice. Tried that and found that the dumplings do not wrap nicely. So tried it again but this time with uncooked rice. Lo and behold, it is actually easier to wrap  uncooked rice!

Also for my friends who do not take pork, you can use chicken instead!

Makes 10 dumplings

Ingredients:

500 gms glutinous rice (soaked overnight)
salt and pepper
oil*
20 bamboo leaves, cooked in boiling water till soft (about 15 mins)
* Note: After soaking the rice and when ready to wrap, season the rice with salt and pepper and oil as this makes sure that the rice will not stick to the bamboo leaves upon unwrapping it.

Filling Ingredients:
500 gms belly pork or chicken thighs
6 pcs dried mushrooms (soaked)
60 gms sugared winter melon
4 cloves garlic ) ground
2 big onions    ) together
sugar to taste*
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 - 2 tbsp coriander seeds - toasted and ground

Note: Please be heavy handed with your seasoning as it is going to be covered with rice, so even if you think it is too sweet, rest assured it is not as the rice will balance out the sweetness!

Method:

1. Place belly pork in saucepan with enough water to cover and bring to boil. Boil over moderate heat for about 20 mins. Cool and set aside and cut into cubes. Continue boiling stock till it is reduced by half.

2. Cut soaked chinese mushrooms and sugared winter melon into tiny cubes.

3. Heat oil and fry pounded garlic and onions. Add pork, salt sugar, pepper and dark soya sauce. Fry for a few minutes. Add stock, mushrooms and sugared melon. Continue cooking over medium heat for about 1/2 an hour.

4. Add coriander powder and stir well. Reduce heat and simmer till almost dry. Remove and cool.

5. After wrapping the dumplings, put them in water and boil for about 30 - 45 mins, making sure that the water covers the dumplings.

Note: Since I did not have the cowpea flower, I used blue colouring instead.

Ang Ku Kueh

Ingredients for skin:

300g glutinous rice flour
150g sweet potatoes
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp corn oil
water as needed
1/8 tsp orange red colouring (optional)
Banana leaves cut to small circles


Peanut Filling:
300g ground, roasted peanuts
150g caster sugar
some boiled water

Method:

1. Mix ground peanuts with sugar and add in some water to make into a paste form. Shape into small round balls of filling for dough.

Mung Bean filling:

200 gm mung beans/green beans – wash and soak overnight in cold water
100 gm sugar
2 tbsp vegetable oil

Method:

1. Drain the mung beans and place on a steaming tray. Steam over medium heat for about 30 mins till soft.

2. While beans are still hot, place beans, sugar and oil in a food processor, process till fine and becomes a paste. If you do not have a processor, you can use a potato masher to mash the beans.

3. Shape into 10-12g balls and set aside.


Method for skin:

1. Steam cut sweet potatoes for 10-15 minutes till cooked and soft. Mash through a wire sieve and set aside.

2. Sieve glutinous rice flour into a mixing bowl. Make a hole in centre of flour and add the sugar, mashed sweet potatoes and corn oil. Add the coloured water a little at a time and mix and knead well until the colouring is even and dough is pliable. If dough is too dry, add a little more water. Knead till dough does not stick to the hands adding more oil if necessary. Let dough rest for 20-30 minutes.

3. Divide dough into equal portions to fit mould and roll each into a round ball. Flatten each ball of dough slightly and add a small ball of filling. Pinch and seal the edges to enclose the filling.

4. Spread some oil over the dough and press into a ang ku kueh mould. Knock mould lightly to dislodge kueh and place on a piece of banana leaf .

5. Steam for about 10 - 15 mins.

Did a few without using the mould

With mung bean filling

Tofu Fa

Tofu Fa

Years ago, before the hype of homemade tofu fa came about, I used to make my own soya bean milk and from there using gypsum made tofu fa.

But these last couple of years just sort of got lazy and when I did want to have tofu fa, I would buy the "house brand instant" tofu fa.

Then when the hype picked up, I tried doing it again but this time using store bought soya milk and gypsum, but somehow the tofu did not want to set. Thinking that there was some additive to the soya milk, I made my own soya milk and added gypsum. Still did not set, so gave up making.

Then found this recipe on HK's blog..

Before making it, I was a bit skeptical as to the texture of the tofu fa. I thought it would be like jelly seeing that the recipe called for the use of agar2 powder. But after an hour in the fridge, boy was I smiling away - it really is soft and silky - just like the real tofu fa and so much more easier to make! Thanks a million HK!


Ingredients:
1/2 tsp agar-agar powder (Picture below)
600ml unsweetened soya bean milk at room temperature

(Syrup)
50ml water
100g dark brown sugar
thumb-size ginger (smashed)


Method:
1/ Pour 300ml of soya bean milk into a pot and heat it up over gentle fire on the stove.
2/ Mix the agar-agar powder into the other 300ml of soya bean milk, then add this mixture to the pot.
3/ Stir the contents in the pot, and once soya bean milk boils, remove it from fire and remove any froth that appears on the surface.
4/ Sieve into a container and let it set in the fridge till firm before serving with syrup.
5/ As for the syrup, bring water, brown sugar and ginger to a boil in a pot till sugar dissolves and it is ready to be used.

Kuih tutu revisited

Putu piring aka kuih tutu (Revisited with step by step photos)

Made this some time ago and then recently promised R that I would make some to pass to her and also at the same time S asked me for step by step photos of how to make this, so it was like killing 2 birds with one stone!

As I mentioned in my previoys post, do not press the flour firmly otherwise it will become hard the following day. Just softly pressing the flour into the mold makes the flour soft even on the following day!

Ingredients
1 cup rice flour
60ml ( adjustable ) water dissolved with a generous pinch of fine salt
a couple of pandan leaves cut into 2 inch pieces
Filling:
80gm gula melaka chopped and mixed with a tsp of caster sugar

Method：
1. Place the rice flour on a piece of kitchen paper on a plate. Mix it up with the pandan leaves and microwave on high for a minute and a half. Discard leaves and cool the flour.

2. Drizzle water evenly over the roasted flour, stirring with a fork. The flour should just be moistened and not soggy, forming big crumbs. Press the crumbs through a sieve, with the back of a ladle. It should yield a fine crumb texture. For ease , do in very small batches.

3. Spoon rice crumble into the mould. Add 1 tsp of gula melaka-sugar mix. Do not allow the gula to touch the base of the mould.

4. Top with another spoon of rice crumbs. Press gently with spoon for a smooth finish.

5. Steam for about 15 mins.

Cover with cloth to prevent water dripping onto the kuih

This is what I meant when I said to make sure that the sugar does not touch the flour, otherwise it will make a hole!

Steamed Pork Buns

Steamed Char Siew Buns


One of my facebooks friends made some char siew buns recently and she said she got the recipe from the internet and what she made looked good which prompted me to make some too.


Here's my simple char siew recipe


Ingredients:
500 gm pork shoulder
2-4 Tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tsp Oyster sauce
2 tbsp honey
2 tsp light soya sauce
1 tsp dark soya sauce
1 tbsp rose wine
2 tbsp garlic powder or minced garlic
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tpsb brown sugar


Method:


1. Mix all the marinade ingredients into a tupperware or ziplock bag and add in the pork and make sure pork is throughly coated. Leave for a couple of hours or overnight.
2. When you are ready to cook, heat a little oil in pan and place the pork in the pan and fry for about 15 mins on each side, covered.
3. Once char siew is cooked, place it on the grill pan or bbq to caramalise some of the pork.
4. Boil the remaining marinade as gravy for the char siew.

Sorry was in a hurry to make my buns that forgot to take pictures of the char siew!


Ingredients:
For dough
3 cups All purpose flour
2 tsp yeast
1 cup warm water
½ tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp vegetable oil.


Method:
1. In a large bowl add water, yeast, salt sugar and oil. Mix well until the dry yeast is fully dissolved.
2. Add 3 cups of flour to the yeast water. Mix with a wooden spoon, then knead for 2-3 minutes.
3. Set aside in warm place and cover with cling film until the dough doubles in size.
4. After the dough has risen, knead it again for 1 minute to remove any extra gas. Set it aside in warm place and cover with cling flim for 30 minutes.


To make the buns:
1. Split the dough into 16 smaller pieces.
2. Take a few dough balls and put them on a floured cutting board. The rest of balls should be in the bowl, covered, to prevent them from getting dried out.
3. Roll out each ball into a disk 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter.
4. Place a disk into your palm and add 2-3 tbs of filling mixture to the center of it.
5. Lift the edges of the disk up around the filling, then press the edges together to seal the filling snugly inside the bun.
6. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling, until you’ve made 16 buns.
7. Put 6-7 cups of water in the bottom of a large steamer and place each bun on the rack.
Baking cups also work well. When you place the buns on the rack, leave a 1 inch gap between them because they will get bigger when steamed.
8. Wait for 20 more minutes to let the dough rise even more.
9. Bring to a boil over high heat, and steam for 20 minutes.

Baos before steaming

After steaming

Ready for makan!

Bubur cha cha

Bubur cha cha

Was "talking" to my internet friends about bubur cha cha and that made me crave for it and when I wanted to do it, had no yam, so had to wait a couple of weeks before I managed to get to the chinese supermarket to get my yam. And when I got it, here is the finished product!


Ingredients:

200g yam (taro)- diamond shaped dices
100g orange color sweet potato - diamond shaped dices


For the coloured starch:
100g tapioca starch
Very hot boiling water
Red food colouring
Green food colouring


1 can - 400 ml coconut milk/cream
1/4 tsp salt
100g sugar, or to taste
3 pandan leaves, knotted


Method:

1.Steam diced yam (taro) and diced sweet potato separately until soft (about 10 - 15 minutes) .

2. Using a spatula, add very hot boiling water to the tapioca starch in a mixing bowl, bit by bit until it becomes doughy. Separate into 2 bowls abd add a drop of red and green in each bowl. Mix well. When it can be handled with bare hands, roll into 1cm thickness and cut into diamond cubes. Cook in boiling water until they become translucent and float to the top. This will take about 10 mins. Remove and leave in iced water until needed.

3. Put coconut milk/cream, sugar, salt and knotted pandan leaves into a pot and bring to a gentle boil, stirring continuously.

4. Add the yam and sweet potato and tapioca cubes.

5. Serve hot or cold.

soon kueh

Soon Kueh

Had left over bangkwang filling after having made and ate popiah last Sunday. Freezed that and then today decided to make soon kuehs to take to work for the next few days.

Ingredients for skin:

1 cup wheat starch
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1 cup boiling water
2 tsp oil

Method:
1. Measure the wheat starch and tapioca start and put into bowl. Make a well in the centre of the bowl and pour boiling water. Use a wooden spoon to mix the water and flours.
2. Cover with a cloth and leave for about 10 mins.
3. After 10 mins, add in 2 tsp of oil into the warm dough and start kneading until mixture comes together.
4. Roll out the dough and cut into rounds.
5. Place filling on dough and press together.
6. Oil a plate and place uncooked soon kueh onto it.
7. Heat a steamer and place soon kueh and steam for about 15 mins.

Before steaming

After steaming

Glutinous Rice

Glutinous Rice

Soon Kueh

Soon Kueh

Another experiment as mum said she coulnd't get the skin rihgt. Made it some time ago and the last time I made it, I made it with wheat flour, so today thought I'd try it both ways - with wheat flour mixed with tapioca flour (my original recipe) and another one from another book - this one is rice flour and tapioca flour - the kind that is sold normally.

I prefer the one that uses wheat flour as is transparent and a bit more chewy whereas maybe I didn't follow the 2nd recipe correctly as the dough was a bit soft and difficult to mould. But after steaming it was alright although I did not take any pictures of it.

Filling is not supposed to be dark but as I had left over from popiah I made last week, I added dried mushrooms and dried prawns.

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.