Dragon Year

Today is the 4th day of Chinese New Year. For those who didn't know, it actually goes on for 15 days. 15 days of celebration with food, food, food and more food!

I did a count for Mr. and this year his 8th consecutive Chinese New Year away from his family. Not too bad for me but this year I missed home a lot. Why? A sign of getting old??

Pineapple Tarts
I also managed to get more organised and made some Chinese New Year goodies and cooked a few dishes for Reunion Dinner. Finally had more than a week break during Christmas period and I started making my 1st batch of Pineapple Tarts using the late Mrs Leong's recipe.

Pineapple tarts is a must for me every Chinese New Year. Without fail I will make sure to make some for self consumption. Mr. love them. It's not hard to make but just very time consuming especially on the jam. I always cooked the jam the day before and fridge it before used.


Me granting fresh pineapple using a very antique tool which I bought back to Melbourne during my most recent trip home. Not too sure is it available in SG as it's from Malacca. Super handy tool and made granting a lot easier and fast! I used to had this process but not anymore :D


1st batch of pineapple tarts consist of 6 medium size pineapples and managed to end up with more than 140 of tarts. I shared most of it with friends and keeping about 30 tarts for self consumption.

I did a 2nd batch the weekend before Chinese New Year again for some friends which missed out on the 1st batch and more for self consumption. This time round, I used Little Teochew's recipe for the base.

In comparison, Mrs Leong's base is firmer not as sweet while Miss Teochew is more "melt in your mouth" texture. Both are as good and really depends on individual preference.

Kueh Bangkit
I tried my hand making Kueh Bangkit. I love them and haven't had them for years! Totally clueless who to make it, I went to late Mrs Leong cookbook for help again. I was having doubt how it will result. But never expect it will turn out to be hard as a rock...LOL


Me frying the flour for Kueh Bangkit. Did I fry it long enough? Maybe not. But I definitely made a mess. Flour all over the floor, stove and onto me. Dough was too wet and I ran out of flour. :((((
In the end, I left the mixture in the fridge. Fried more flour and continue the next day. Guess that's definitely a no-no :(((((


Kueh Bangkit which I bought in KL. I would love a wooden mould but doubt I will be able to hid it from the strict Australia customs. Not going to even try.




Raw Kueh Bangkit. It took me quite a while to get the hang of using the mould. The dough kept getting stuck.


Freshly cooked Kueh Bangkit. Nice color, smell really yummy but too hard to even bite into...LOL
Definitely going to try them again. I'm not going to give up on them but not too sure when I will succeed.

Peanut Cookies
I made these just before Chinese New Year. @eiin was very kind to share her mum's recipe and I can't resist not to give it a go. Although it's really fast and easy to make, I still went lazy and used pre-grounded peanut which I had in the pantry. One thing for sure, I will toast and ground my own peanut next time. I strongly believe it will improve the taste and smell.





Reunion Dinner
We invited some friends to have reunion dinner together.


Yu-Sang from Red Hot Wok. This was really yummy. When we first saw how big serve this dish was, we were all afraid half of it not only to be eaten. But we all surprised ourselves because more than 90% actually went into our tummy.


For dinner, we had Yu-Sang, Prawn in Spicy Pineapple Gravy, Roast Duck and Soy Sauce Chicken, Mushroom with Broccoli and Vegetarian Fried Vermicelli. Missing on the table was Chicken Herbal Soup.

I cooked 4 dishes in total and I think I managed well. Started cooking Chicken Herbal Soup the day before and let it continue to cook in my trustable thermal pot. Took me less than 20mins to fried up the Vegetarian Vermicelli. Pounded the rempah for Chilli Prawn the day before and cooked the dish just before starting dinner. As Mushroom with Broccoli, the mushroom was braised in Chicken Soup and some seasoning a few days before and freeze till dinner day.

 

After dinner and all dishes done, another round of food started. This time round dessert: Bubur Cha Cha, Agar Agar and of course Pineapple Tarts and Peanut Cookies.



How did you spend your Chinese New Year?

2011 Birthday Present

On the eve of my birthday, I was chatting with my Sis, nephew and niece through Facetime. The kids made me a Lego birthday cake and sang me birthday song. It made me really homesick. I made me drop a few tears but I got back to normal pretty quickly as well. That's something I have to constantly adjust and get use to. Can't have everything in the world. I gain some and lose some.

Enough of all the emotion, back to happy event. Past midnight, I was still chatting with Sis and Mr. suggested I better start hunting for my present. Last year, he hid my present as well and it only took me less than a minute. That was because I knew what he was planning. Accidentally spotted him on KA website. This time round I was total clueless, I was shocked! In fact I spend 2 minutes repeating this question " You really bought me something? When did you have the time to sneak a trip to the shop?". When I finally believed him, I didn't know where to start. Although the current house is not extremely big but there's 3 rooms plus quite a bit of storage cabinets. Most important, I don't know what I'm looking for! How big or small is the present???

The kids got involved started giving me suggestion and asking where am I etc. It did take me a while as I'm expecting a small gift. Don't ask me why but that was the 6th sense at that moment. But I was wrong. The gift was huge and heavy! Definitely something from Matchbox when I spotted the wrapping style.


Same wrapping paper and ribbon as last year.


Kids were both excited when present was found and kept shouting for me to open it up quickly as they were curious too.


Did you manage to guess it right? It's a KA food processor. A kitchen appliance which being missing from my kitchen counter .

It was definitely a surprise. How did Mr. know I wanted one? I had never mention to him before. In fact I was still trying to come up enough reason to convince myself that I need one.

While admiring my new toy, Mr. again suggested to start searching for present #2. This time round I spend even more time reassuring that wasn't something he made up to give me a good work out before bedtime.

It was a lot harder to hunt for present #2. Again without knowing what I'm searching and already looked at all the highly possible areas, I hadn't left with much choices. I almost wanted to give up but Mr. said if I can't find it, it will go back to the shop :( No idea how true but I chose to believe it. Sister who was still online was helping by suggesting areas to look even though she had never being to my place before.


Finally I found present #2 hidden among all the unfolded packing boxes we had in the study room.




It's a Pasta Press attachment for my KA stand mixer!

Mr. know I being eyeing on a pasta machine and decided to buy this when he came across it at the shops. I was shocked how expensive it was when I surfed KA website the next day. Well I can't really scold him for spending so much right? Lucky it's only once a year. :P

Yesterday I finally had the time to study, learn and play with my 2 new toys. It took me awhile trying to figure out the food processor. It has a total of 3 bowls and 2 blades. A large working bowl which matches the big blade. A 4-cup small bowl which matches the small blade. What about the medium bowl? The mini blade is too small and the large blade is too big. After reading the manual at least twice, I finally figure out that the medium bowl is require only when using the shredding disc.

I made a batch of pasta. Using the food processor to make the pasta dough and the pasta press to make the pasta. I only play with 1 pasta disc out of the 6 which came with it. Felt I had too little dough to play with all. I wasn't feeling very confident too and had a Plan B as backup if I needed to.


It didn't take me long to feed all the dough thru the pasta press. 


I didn't end up with lots of pasta as well. Just enough for dinner for 2 and Mr. night supper. It tasted alright but both of us felt the pasta was a bit too thick. Not too sure because of the type or because the dough. Need to have more play to find the answer.





I didn't follow the basic pasta recipe from KA manual book. Came across another recipe while I was researching on the pasta press before playing and decided to try that instead. Plus it was a smaller volume recipe. I tweaked it further by using just egg yolk instead of whole egg.

Egg Pasta Recipe 
1 1/2 cups Italian '00' flour (original called for all purpose flour)
1/2 teaspoon salt
100g egg yolks (original asked for 2 eggs)
1 tablespoon oil
Enough water to mixed into a dough (original didn't state water but mine seem too dry)

Braised Pork in Soy Sauce Bun - 扣肉包

Braised Pork in Soy Sauce,扣肉 is one of many Mr's favourite dish. Every time Mr is back in Singapore, Mummy will definitely cooks this dish for him. When I found the recipe in the late Mrs Leong Yee Soon cookbook, I was happy and determined to give the recipe a try.

 
Bought a few cookbooks from Kinokuniya during our stay in Singapore. Because our baggage was so over-weighted. I hand carried all of them home to Melbourne. Am I crazy or what? Bought the whole collection (box of 6) of Mrs Leong cookbook.


Bought a beautiful piece of pork belly from Victoria market few weeks ago. Just perfect for this dish.I started cooking the night before having the dish. I tried sticking to the recipe as close as possible to accurately test the recipe. 

 Following it step by step. Pounding garlic and shallots as finely as possible.

 After slow cooking on the stove for more than 2 hours. 


 The next day after cooled. 


The instruction didn't state to sliced the pork and continue to cook in the sauce again but I did it as that's what Mummy always does. Letting the pork to soak in more of the amazing gravy. As I had left the dish over night to cool, a pretty thick layer of oil had formed and harden. I couldn't help to scrap and dump it away. I'm just trying to be more healthy :P

 Sliced pork ready to be place back into the pot of gravy. I continue to let it cook for at least another hour since I need to get busy with the bun.


As for the bun, I started mixing the ingredient and let the dough raise 1st thing in the morning. But it wasn't looking good after proofing for 2 hours. It doesn't seem to have raise double in size. In fact I don't think it had raised at all. :( I was disappointed. No idea what went wrong but I always don't have much luck when it has to deal with yeast.

That didn't stop me from continuing the next step which was splitting the big dough into hen egg size and roll them flat before brushing some oil and fold it into 2. After steaming for 15-20 minutes, it looked pretty good for a 1st timer if I may say so myself.

 Hot steamed handmade bun

  
The final product

Separate the bun, place a slice of pork in between and drizzle a bit of gravy on top of the meat. All ready to be enjoy :)

I'm very happy with the flavour of the pork. Initially I was afraid the end product will be too salty as the recipe required a few tablespoons of dark soy sauce. Although it's dark soy and not light soy, there's still quite a bit of saltiness in it. I also did add a tablespoon of dark caramel sauce to sweeten the pork. This recipe is definitely a keeper and most important Mr loved it.

Two Asian Kitchens by Adam Liaw

I wasn't into Masterchef from the 1st season and never got suck into the 2nd either. Did watch a bit on the 3rd while having dinner for the past few weeks but can't say I enjoying it or not. Too much drama, too much crying. Let's just says it's a ok dinner table program for the moment.
I got very curious after all the fuss on twitter when Adam Liaw's 1st cookbook was out available on the shelves. I hadn't add any new addition cookbook onto my collection for quite a while and was keen to go thru the recipes in this cookbook. When I finally managed to find 1 in Big W, I bought it. It was the cheapest I can find at Doncaster Westfield. Plus we do love Singapore/Malaysia/Japan style food. Majority of our meals are Asian cuisine so do see myself using the recipes more than the rest of the cookbooks I owned. Maybe? Or just another excuses???

The 1st dish I tried was Fire Chicken (bul dak).


I did change the recipe slightly as my pantry didn't have some of the ingredients and I could find any nashi pear and was too late to try pop into a Oriental supermarket to get some nashi pear. I also tone down the spiciness just in case. The amount stated in the recipe seem to be too much for both of us to handle.

Differences in my version of Fire Chicken

1. I had some chicken drumstick in the freezer so decided to use them instead of whole chicken. Too lazy to chop the whole chicken up into pieces.
2. Ran out of sake (no idea how did that happen as I'm always well stocked). Never bought korean rice wine before so I substitute with japanese rice wine which I found in the pantry. What's the different? Honestly totally clueless.
3. I used korean corn syrup instead of honey/rice malt syrup/mul yut (korean malt syrup). Assuming this is a korean style dish can't go wrong substituting ingredients with korean stuff right?
4. To ensure the dish is not going to be too spicy, instead of using 3 tbsp of chilli powder, I used 2. Skipped the red birds eye chillies.
5. I do know korean like to use nashi pear for sweetness when marinating meat. I'm guessing nashi pear acts the same in this recipe. Since I can't find any, I replaced it with onion. Adam told me on twitter that apple should do the job as well. Why didn't that occur to me?? hmmmm.

This recipe is a keeper for me. Both of us enjoyed the dish. Reducing the amount of chilli into this dish was a smart call because this dish was still a bit too spicy to have it on it's own. But great having it with white rice.

2nd dish I tried was Seafood Char Kway Teow.


This time round, I sticked to the recipe especially on the sauce. Did use my own version of chicken stock. Stir-frying this dish using a cast iron wok brings so much wok-hei flavour to the dish. With my homemade chilli paste, it taste even better than some of the others sold in restaurant. 

3rd dish I tried was Beef Rendang.


This dish was my contribution for the Adam Liaw Cookbook Feast which was orgainsed together with a few friends. Each of us was to pick a dish from the cookbook, prepared it and eat it together. Great idea especially able to test out a few recipes in 1 sitting.

Additional dishes we had for the night:

1. Black Hokkien Noodles
2. Nasi Lemak
3. Green Tea and Pea Corquettes.
4. Mango Pudding
5. Pearl Pudding
6. Nine Layer Cake (Kuih Lapis)

I'm not going to include the above mention dishes as I'm not the one who prepared it. Not sure did they stick to the recipe or not.

I did try to stick to the recipe on this dish as well. Might had added a bit too much turmeric for the base paste. As there's a few friends who can't take spicy food at all, I decreased the number of red birds-eye chillies from 6 to 4.

The beef was so soft and melts in the mouth after the long duration of cooking. It smells fantastic guessing because of coconut but it wasn't as flavoursome. Something was missing but I can't pinpoint what it was.

The 4th dish I tried till present was Black Belly.


I was suprised how simple and easy this dish was. Very nice caramelisation on the pork which I like.Mr. loved it too.

The 5th dish I tried was Gong Bao Chicken which I can't find a picture off!!! ARGH!!!
As usual, I decreased the amount of dried chillies but I will increase the amount of sichuan peppercorn next time I cook this dish. I prefered to have cashew nuts in my Gong Bao Chicken so I replace peanuts with cashew nuts. But as for the sauce, it was much taster than off the shelves bottles ones.

Just remembered, I also did the Chilli and Garlic Oil which I didn't take any picture. It was spicy and serving it together with my egg noddles.

I did make full use of this cookbook right?

Jools's Favourite Beef Stew

I have totally lost track on the cookbook challenge. I'm being too busy during weekends and recently very poorly organised. Plus all the extra time travelling to work doesn't help at all. I'm so behind that I'm not sure should I still continue or skip the themes I miss. Plus I will be away for 7 weeks in 3 months time. Definitely don't see myself stepping into the kitchen during the 7 weeks other than helping mum to do some cooking or washing. But I did mention to Mr. I'm thinking of documenting our vacation journey as I didn't manage to do it last year. Even suggested to split the load. I can concentrate on food and he on diving + places we travel. Should we? Good idea? Hope with IPhone + IPad + Macbook we won't have any more excuses :P

Back to food, last month we already experienced some cold weather in Melbourne. During such weather, I always hope to have a hearty meal and stew will pop into my mind. It's easy to  cook, minimum preparation, just dump everything into a big pot, slide into the oven.

Found this recipe from 1 of the Jamie Oliver's cookbook that I owned. I was wondering which to try as there are two very similar recipes in this book. In the end, chosen this because I had never cooked parsnip or even tasted them before. A good chance to give it a go.



Cookbook : Jamie's Dinners
Author : Jamie Oliver

Jools's Favourite Beef Stew
serve 4

Olive oil
A knob of butter (skipped it, don't think it makes too much different)
1 onion,peeled and chopped
A handful of fresh sage leaves (got it from my herb garden)
800g stewing steak or beef skirt,cut into 5cm pieces
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Flour, to dust
2 parsnips, peeled and quartered (might had cut it too small )
4 carrots, peeled and halved
1/2 a butternut squash, halved, deseeded and roughly diced
Optional: a handful of Jerusalerm artichokes, peeled and halved (skipped this as well)
500g small potatoes
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1/2 bottle of red wine
285ml beef or vegetable stock (does beef cube count?)
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated (ran out of lemon at home)
A handful of rosemary, leaves picked (got this from my herd garden as well)
1 clove of garlic,peeled and finely chopped (Australian garlic which I love!!!)

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Put a little oil and your knob of butter into an appropriate sized pot or casserole pan. Add your onion and all the sage leaves and fry for 3 or 4 minutes.



Toss the meat in a little seasoned flour,then add it to the pan with all the vegetables, the tomato puree, wine and stock, and gently stir together.











Season generously with freshly ground black pepper and just a little salt. Bring to boil, place a lid on top, then cook in a preheated oven until the meat is tender. Sometimes this takes 3 hours, sometimes 4 - it depends on what cut of meat you're using and how fresh it is. The only way to test is to mash up a piece of meat and if it falls apart easily it's ready. Once it's cooked, you can turn the oven down to about 110 degrees and just hold it there until you're ready to eat.

Think I overcooked it, left it in the oven for too long. It was a bit too dry when I pulled it out from the oven. Both of us prefer to have more gravy for our bread. Plus most of the vegetable were all mashed up. Can't find any pumpkin, can only see pretty small chunks of carrot and parsnips if you notice on the 1st photo. It's still a nice and hearty stew regardless. Will try experience more stew recipes this winter :-)

Cookbook Challenge (Outdoor) - Whole Grilled Fish with Curry Paste

5th Cookbook Challenge Theme is Outdoor.

Dish chosen : Whole Grilled Fish with Curry Paste
Cookbook : Holiday
Author : Bill Granger

I had always wanted to try this recipe ever since I got this book but I have no idea why I waited so long. In fact when I saw the 5th challenge theme, this dish popped up immediately. Barbecue/Grill definitely link to outdoor.

This recipe stated it serve 4. But with only 2 of us, we didn't had any problem finishing up the whole fish. We love seafood maybe that's why. Plus I didn't serve it with rice as suggested. I roasted some potatoes and pumpkin with home grown rosemary instead.

Ingredients
1.5kg Whole Snapper, cleaned, gutted and scaled - I'm not sure how heavy this snapper was. The picture looks strange too because I had all the fins cut off.


2 tablespoons Red Curry Paste - This is the curry powder used to cook fish. I have another curry powder specific for meat and it's the same brand but packaging in green instead of yellow. I'm not too sure what's the different between the curry powder for fish and meat but was told by my FIL I should have both in my kitchen. I just follow his instruction.


1 Lime, sliced, plus 1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons Grapeseed Oil (or other light-flavoured oil)
Sea Salt
Freshly Ground Black Pepper

To Serve
Steamed Rice
Lime Wedges

Using a sharp knife, make four or five diagonal cuts in each side of the fish. Push the lime slices into the cavity of the fish.
I also placed some lime slices in the diagonal cuts.



Mix together the red curry paste and lime juice and spread over both sides of the fish. Leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes. - I used more than the suggested lime juice. I didn't manage to marinate for at least 30 minutes. I was running a bit behind time.


Arrange two large pieces of foil slightly overlapping on your work surface and drizzle with half the oil. Put the fish in the middle of the foil, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with the remaining oil. Wrap the fish up well in the foil, then wrap another layer of foil around it.

Preheat your barbecue or chargrill to medium-high. Cook the fish 7-8  minutes on each side, or until the flesh shows white and firm through the cuts you made. Serve with steamed rice.
The weather wasn't suitable for barbecue therefore I popped the whole fish into the oven and finish it off by grilling it.




This is a really simple recipe. Most important is the freshness of the fish. It wasn't too spicy nor too sour even though lime was used. Both of us enjoyed this a lot and it was something different from my usual way of cooking fish.

Cookbook Challenge (Rice/Noodles) - Chicken Briyani

3rd Cookbook Challenge theme is rice or noodle. I kept pestering Mr. to pick a recipe from the pile of cookbooks I owned. In then end, he chosen a dish which I had cooked and even wrote before. Does it still considered a challenge??

This time, I did follow the recipe pretty strictly. Included all the herbs even though knowing Mr don't like them. I did went through the end product and try picking all the herbs out.

As usual, I didn't use any tomato puree. I used a lot more tomatoes instead.


I didn't colour the rice and still wondering why the rice turned out brown.


Maybe because the shallots were burned?


Every time I cook, I spend ages in preparation. Just like baking, I like to wash all the ingredients and chopped them up, placed them into individual bowl/plate, placed them all next to the stove before turning on the heat. Totally opposite from Mr.


This time I managed to shot more photos during the cooking process.


Frying ginger, garlic and chillies. I added red chillies this time to more it more spicy.


Waiting for the tomatoes to break down. It did take a while.


With the chicken pieces added in.


I did have it in on the stove for a while to thicken the gravy. Knowing Mr. loves the gravy, I did increased the liquid ingredients amount.


Frying ginger and garlic for the rice.


Added in the pre-prepared shallots.


With all the herbs and rice without liquid


Liquid added in. I cooked the rice on the stove instead of rice cooker. I had never done that before. No idea what trigger me to give it a try. Lucky it turned out fine.