Pumpkin ondeh ondeh

Previously, I've mentioned that my fil has a secret garden, and occasionally he will harvest the vegetables and fruits and pass them to us. This time round, we got a big pumpkin and some dried roselles from him. Everyone at my aunt's place went 'wow' when they saw the pumpkin, it was really big at about 3.5kg, nice and round. My fil said that he has 'accidentally' harvested the pumpkin, otherwise it would have grown bigger.

Too bad I didn't take a picture of the pumpkin when it was in whole. The pumpkin is sweet and I managed to keep the seeds with intention to grow them too.

With about half the pumpkin left, I took it back from my aunt's place and have in mind a few recipes to try out. I've pureed the entire remaining pumpkin, and used some for my hubby's favourite ondeh ondeh. The balance pumpkin puree is in the freezer, waiting to be transformed!

The pumpkin taste is not imminent in the kueh, but the skin is really soft and with enough palm sugar, I can feel the ooze-sensations!

Pumpkin ondeh ondeh

Ingredients/ Method:
(Recipe modified from previous Sweet potato ondeh ondeh)
200g pumpkin puree
200g glutinous rice flour
10 tbsp water or less (depends on the moisture of pumpkin)
1.5 tsp corn oil
chopped pieces of gula melaka
freshly grated coconut (without skin)

1. Steam pumpkin till soft.
2. Steam grated coconut for about 5-10 mins. When ready, sprinkle a little salt over the grated coconut. (This will prevent the grated coconut from turning bad/rancid.) Set aside.
3. In a bowl, mash pumpkin and add in glutinous flour and oil. 
4. Slowly add in water and knead till smooth dough is formed. Add more water if dough is dry. If dough is too sticky, add more glutinous rice flour. 
5. Chop gula melaka to bite size.
6. Dust hand with some glutinous rice flour, divide dough (about 15-20g each) and wrap in the gula melaka (about 1 tsp or as much as you can to get ooze-sensation). 
7. Put wrapped balls into big pot of boiling water. The balls are ready when it floats on the surface of water. 
8. Toss on plate filled with grated coconut.
9. Ready to be served.

Gula melaka & pandan huat kueh

Gula melaka huat kueh
(Recipe adapted from Guai Shu Shu, yields 24 minis kuehs)

250g self raising flour
150g gula melaka, chopped coarsely
1 tsp baking powder
200ml coconut milk
50g plain water
2 tbsp oil

1. Prepare steamer. 
2. Boil coconut milk, water and gula melaka in a pot on medium-low heat. Stir until all gula melaka dissolved. 
3. Sift in the flour and baking powder to the coconut milk/gula melaka mixture. Add in oil and stir till well combined. 
4. Pour batter to lined mini cups up to 95% full.
5. Steam in steamer for 15 mins on high heat.

Pandan huat kueh
(Recipe adapted from Guai Shu Shu, yields 24 mini kuehs)

250g self raising flour
150g castor sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
50g melted butter
6 pieces of pandan leaves
200g plain water (I used my pandan juice made earlier and mix with water to get 200g pandan water)

1. Prepare steamer. 
2. Blend pandan leave with water. Sieve the pandan juice to a pot and add in sugar. 
3. Boil the pandan juice until all sugar dissolved. (Do not need to reach boiling point)
4. In a separate bowl, add eggs to (cool) melted butter and stir lightly till combined. Set aside. 
5. In another big mixing bowl, sift the flour and baking powder. Make a well in the centre and add in pandan juice, followed by egg/ butter mixture. 
6. Use a hand mixer and whisk till combined.
7. Pour batter to lined mini cups up to 95% full.
8. Steam in steamer for 15 mins on high heat. 

I love how the pictures look like they had a colour-change!

Steamed yam cake II

This is a modified and better version of my earlier steamed yam cake. Try it out if you are craving for one!

 

Ingredients/ Method:

220g rice flour
300g yam, cut into cubes
50g tapioca flour
2 tsp five-spice powder
925ml water 
8 shallots - sliced thinly

30g chinese sausage, diced
30g dried scrimps, soaked and pound lightly 
20g dried scallops, soaked and tear them up loosely  
7 no. mushroom, soaked and diced
2 tbsp cooking oil (or shallot oil) 
1 tbsp cooking oil (to be added into boiling water)

Seasoning
1.5 tsp salt
1 cube chicken stock
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
pepper

1) Fry yam. When ready, dish up and add 2 tbsp oil and toss with five-spice powder, set aside.

2) Fry shallots until fragrant with 2 tbsp oil. Dish up 3/4th of it into a bowl. Continue to fry remaining 1/4th of shallots till lightly brown and crispy. Dish up and set aside.

3) Put back the 3/4th shallots into wok and add in dried scrimps and fry till dried scrimps start to 'jump', then add in chinese sausage, mushroom, and scallops. Dish up and set aside.
4) Mix rice flour and tapioca flour with 425ml water. Add in seasoning and stir.

5) In a wok, boil 500ml water till boiling. Add in 1 tbsp oil. Off heat, pour in flour mixture and stir till mixture thickens. On heat again and cook over low heat till mixture thickens, pour in dried scrimps mixture and stir till well mixed.

6) Pour into 8" oiled square tray and level the top.
7) Steam for 45 mins.
8) Leave to cool before slicing.
9) Sprinkle garnishes like shallots, spring onions on top.

Shallot oil & freshly fried shallots!

面煎糕/ Traditional chinese pancake

It was raining so heavily this morning that it's such a luxury to be staying at home and sleeping in. My lil boy and I actually planned to visit my brother's baby early in the morning and have our breakfast around there, but alas the rain kept us indoor. Zak was so happily playing his 3 sets of Thomas & Friends' train tracks that he doesn't want to get out of the house for breakfast too. A good opportunity for me to try out this 面煎糕 which I chanced upon at Gigi in the House blog. It is really a simple recipe and taste close to the real stuff - sprinkled with store-bought coarsely ground peanuts generously and added with lots of sugar! That's our breakfast plus 2 half-boiled eggs each, what a heavy meal to start the day!

面煎糕/ Traditional chinese pancake(yield 3 pieces of 6" pancake)

Ingredients/ Method
165g all purpose flour
2 eggs
30g caster sugar
1/2tsp yeast
210ml water

Peanut fillings
Coarsely ground peanut
Sugar

1) Mix all ingredients in a bowl and set aside for 30 mins.
2) Heat up a non-stick pan using low heat and pour 1/3 of the batter into it.
3) Cook for about 1 minute or so on low heat. The surface will appear to be "holey".
4) I use a sharp knife to remove the pancake from the pan, and transfer onto a plate.
5) Sprinkle any fillings you like and ready to serve.

I did a thick pancake and 2 thinner pancakes which I rolled them up. Still prefer the thick one, which taste and look so nostalgia, the way it was done when I was a little kid. Now that I don't need to spend 70cents for a small slice of 面煎糕, and can easily churned out fresh ones from my own kitchen! A keeper recipe o(^^)o

I love this picture, "peanut picking", hand model - who else but my lil Zak :D

Year of Water Dragon 2012

Wishing all prosperity, good health, happiness in the Year of Water Dragon 2012!

Let me share with you some of the new year goodies and food that were dished out by me....

1) Steamed "Huat Kueh" - one of my mum's favourite! Hopefully we can "一路發發" in the year of Dragon!

I'm submitting this Steamed "Huat Kueh" recipe to this month's Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY (Jan 2012) hosted by Wen's Delight.

2) CNY cookies - Everything has to be easy and less fuss this year as I'd to lift my hands to do spring cleaning now that my better half is still recovering from his injury. Only managed to churn out 2 types - sugee cookies and pineapple tarts.


- Pineapple open-tarts like pretty daisy! After so many years of preparing the pineapple paste from scratch, this is the first time I'm using store bought pineapple paste. The 1kg low-sugar pineapple paste from Kitchen Capers is a good alternative and I don't mind using it again if lazy bone sets in next year!



- Sugee/Sugi cookies, tasted as good as last year! Still have a big can of sugee leftover due to small quantities prepared this year.


- Osmanthus cookies - Did I say 2 CNY cookies? This is actually not meant to be included as one of my CNY bakes and there's no recipe. I just used the leftover dough from the pineapple tarts and added osmanthus and little more flour. It would have tasted better if there's more crunch and more sugar.


3) Nian gao spring roll or 年糕夹心卷. Another dish I learnt from my mum on how to eat up the otherwise "hardened" nian gao, and instead of coating with egg-flour and fry it which would be a pretty mess with the melted nian gao sticking to the wok.

Ingredients/Method:
1 packet of spring roll skin, small
Yam
Sweet potatoes (can be the yellow, orange or purple ones)
1 Nian gao
1 tbsp corn flour + 3 tbsp water

1. Clean and slice the yam and sweet potatoes of equal sizes.
2. Steam them for about 5-8 mins on med-high. Set aside and cool.
3. Slice up Nian gao of almost same size as the yam & sweet potatoes.
4. Arrange yam, Nian gao and sweet potatoes on top of each other and place on a piece of spring roll skin.
5. Roll up and secure edges of spring roll skin with cornstarch mixture.
6. Heat up pot on med heat and fry with enough oil to cover the spring roll, until golden brown.

I'm submitting this Nian gao spring roll recipe to this month Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY (Jan 2012) hosted by Wen's Delight.

4) Crispy skin roast duck, recipe adapted from Peng's kitchen. My first time roasting duck which yield a delicacy to savour when I invited my relatives to my house on the 6th day of CNY. Although the process of preparation is easy, there is the long hours of air/sun-drying the duck before it can be sent to the oven for roasting. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the process thoroughly and would attempt to do it again (of course, when I have the luxury of time!)

I'm submitting this Crispy skin roast duck recipe to this month Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY (Jan 2012) hosted by Wen's Delight.

5) DIY Spring Roll, which signifies good luck, prosperity and abundance! This is a special spring roll made good by my mil, but due to her health condition, she has not made it for many years. My hubby jotted down the recipe based on his mum's brief dictation years ago, and it's my must-have once a year! Another dish that we prepared when my relatives came but my skill needs improvement...lol. Anyway, my hubby & me had it for breakfast on 7th day of CNY as well, which happened to be "人日" and aren't we supposed to eat at least 7 types of vegetables on this day? This dish would fit the bill!









Hope everyone has many many good years ahead!

Purple Sweet Potato Ang Ku Kueh (红龟粿)

As mentioned earlier, I'm not into making kueh-kueh so far because of its perceived difficulty, and especially if it calls for homemade paste-like fillings. Until now that AB's theme is traditional kueh that I started 'looking seriously' into kueh recipes from books as well as many wonderful blogs.

There are many recipes that caught my eye, especially this purple sweet potato ang ko kueh from Frozen Wings and Honey Bee Sweets. I'm sold! I love the purple hue, and what's even more comforting to know is that the colour is 100% natural from the root, no addictives! Since I've have some left-over lotus seed paste from my earlier hakka pumpkin kueh post, it makes life easier (haha .... being lazy). Like HBS, I love peanut fillings ang ku kueh, so this would be next on the list. Of course, the mung bean fillings seems pretty easy & straight-forward to prepare, so I would give it a try too!

Ingredients/ Method:
(Recipe yields 24 pieces)
Purple sweet potato ang ku kueh skin
200g sweet potato, steamed and mashed
300g glutinous rice flour
1 tbsp rice flour
2 tbsp caster sugar
4 tbsp cooking oil
200ml water (I added slightly more as the dough was a bit dry)

*Filling: About 200g - 250g lotus seed paste

1. In a large mixing bowl, knead all the ingredients together and gradually adding the water as needed. The dough should be a soft pliable dough but not sticky.
2. Cover the dough and let rest for 20 minutes.
3. Rinse the banana leaf with hot water and dab dry it. Cut out oval shapes slightly bigger then the kueh size. Brush with some vegetable oil on the surface.
4. Divide the dough into 30g each and roll round.
5. Flatten the dough, place about 1 heap tbsp of filling in the middle, then wrap and seal nicely.
6. Place in the mould which is slightly dusted with rice flour and press down with some pressure.
7. To unmould, knock on the side of the table and let the kueh gently fall out on to your palm.
8. Place kueh on greased banana leaf and arrange on a steaming tray.
9. Steam at medium high heat for 10 minutes.
10.Brush some cooked oil over the surface of the cooked kuehs to prevent sticking.

I'm submitting my post to Aspiring Baker #12: Traditional Kueh hosted by Small Small Baker this month.

Steamed Rice Cake (蒸米糕)

Today is a public holiday in Singapore as all our Indian friends celebrate Deepavali. For us, it's a good day to go out for a nice family lunch and R&R at home. Also gave myself an indulgence by arranging a masseur to our house for a full body rub ~ heavenly! Of course, there's some time for making some steamed rice cake. BUT, the supposedly quick & easy recipe became a pro-longed preparation. Sigh. Anyway, the colourful cakes brought along smiles and fond childhood memories, especially with extra coating of red sugar!

Steamed Rice Cake (蒸米糕)
(Recipe adapted from "Make Your Own Pastry - 自己做糕点, yields 14 cups)

Ingredients/ Method:
200g rice flour
200ml coconut milk
160ml boiling water
2 tsp double-acting baking powder
120g sugar (i reduced to 100g)
1/4 tsp vanilla essence

1. Sift rice flour and 1 tsp baking powder.
2. Combine rice flour and coconut milk and mix well.
3. Add boiling water, mix well and set aside to cool.
4. When cool, stir in 1 tsp baking powder and set aside for 1 hour.
5. Add sugar and vanilla essence in batter and mix well.
6. Line aluminium cups with paper and arrange on steamer tray. (I used small paper cups instead.)
7. Pour batter in cups until 90% full and leave to rise for 30 mins.
8. Steam over rapidly boiling water for about 15 mins.

Note: (1) The next time I make this, I would probably dilute the coconut milk with half portion water. (2) Add just a drop of your favourite colour to the batter (about 130ml).

I'm submitting my post to Aspiring Baker #12: Traditional Kueh hosted by Small Small Baker this month.

Hakka pumpkin kueh (客家南瓜饼)

This post has 2-firsts for me, first time making lotus paste and first time making this type of kueh. Although making the paste is easy, I won't say so for the kueh. Because I'm not used to handling this type of sticky dough, I sorta regretted when I first started. Not wanting to waste my efforts and ingredients, I persevered and finally completed them. If you ask me whether I will do it again, I will hesitate and that's because the kueh turns out good despite the 'daunting' experience for me.

Homemade lotus paste
(Recipe adapted from Amanda's blog)


Ingredients/ Method
200gm white lotus seeds
160ml oil
120gm sugar (reduced from 180gm, but I still find it too sweet for me)
1tbsp condensed milk
1 tbsp honey
A pinch of salt

1. Soak pumpkin seeds in hot water overnight. (I bought my lotus seeds which green centre already removed. If fresh lotus seeds, please remove green centre.)
2. Wash and drain lotus seeds. Cook lotus seed with water till soft and tender.
3. Blend the lotus seeds till smooth.
4. Heat up a wok/pan, melt half the sugar until it turns golden brown in color.
5. Pour in blended lotus seeds, remaining sugar, oil and salt.
6. Cook over medium flame, stirring all the time until the lotus seed paste thickens.
7. Stir in honey and condensed milk. Continue stirring till paste leaves the side of the wok/pan.
8. Cool before use.



Hakka Pumpkin Kueh (客家南瓜饼)
(Recipe adapted from 汗牛养生馆 - 家常点心 yields about 20 pieces)


Ingredients/ Method
150gm glutinuous flour
100gm wheat starch/ tim sum flour (澄面粉)
500gm Pumpkin
100gm sugar (reduced to 80gm)
100gm homemade lotus paste

1. Deskinned the pumpkin and slice the pumpkin into small pieces.
2. Steam for 10mins on high, and mashed.
3. Add sifted glutinuous flour, tim sum flour and sugar into the mashed pumkin to form pliable dough.
4. Steam dough for 10 mins. Remove and allow to cool.
5. Divide dough into 30g each. Flatten dough and wrap with lotus seed paste. Roll to form a ball and light flatten. (The dough is quite sticky to handle, dust some dim sum flour on working surface and hand.)
6. Add some oil into wok. Pan fried till golden and ready to be served.

I'm submitting my post to Aspiring Baker #12: Traditional Kueh hosted by Small Small Baker this month.

Steam Carrot Cake (萝卜糕)

I had another go of this carrot cake recipe which was originally shared by Honey Bee Sweet. This time, I added more of everything - radish, mushroom, dried scrimp, chinese sausage (腊肠), but forgotten I had to increase the liquid and flour and as a result it was more 'densed' with ingredients! Nevertheless, it still tasted good... we love it steamed than fried. Healthier choice and less cleaning to do without the frying (",)

Ingredients/ Method
(Adapted and modified from Honey Bee Sweet's Dim Sum Fried Carrot Cake)

Set A:
650g white carrot / turnip, peeled and shredded
340ml water

Set B:
5 shallots, peeled and chopped fine
3 tbsp dried shrimp, soaked and cut into smaller bits
7 dried mushroom, soaked in water till soft, then cut into small chunks
3 Chinese sausage, casing removed and cut into small chunks
3 tbsp vegetable cooking oil

Set C:
155g rice flour
15g corn flour
15g wheat starch powder
340ml chicken stock (or use 340ml water + 1 chicken bouillon cube)

1. In a large pot, add shredded carrot and water and start boiling mixture. Cook for about 5 to 8 minutes till the vegetables are slightly cooked. Do not throw about the water, leave the whole mixture together and set aside till needed.
2. In a saute pan, add vegetable oil at medium heat and stir fry the shallots till fragrant. Then add in Chinese sausage, mushrooms and dried shrimp. Cook mixture for a couple minutes then add the carrot water mixture in. Let it stew for about 8 to 10 minutes and then off the fire. Set aside till needed.
3. In the meantime, prepare the steamer with boiling water and grease a 8" round steam pan lined with parchment paper.
4. In a large mixing bowl, add rice flour, corn flour and wheat starch. Pour in the chicken stock and mix well. Then pour the carrot mixture into the flour mixture and stir well. The mixture will be lumpy and thick.
5. Pour it into the prepared steamer pan and let steam on medium heat for about 40 minutes till cooked.
6. Remove from steamer and let cool completely before cutting into it.

Note:
a) Remember to increase the liquid and flour to have more kueh than ingredients!
b) More shallots to be added as requested by T.
c) I did not use parchment paper, instead I oiled the pan so that it will not stick.

As I made this on Saturday afternoon, I re-heated the the carrot cake by steaming them again for about 5 mins this morning. Slice and serve for our simple breakfast today!

Sandra's birthday cake

These days with the ease of checking out blogs, emails and playing games on the iphone, there's not much push for me to use the laptop which I'll use it to edit my photos and write a post. Therefore you will see that this is quite a delayed post, as my cousin Sandra has celebrated her birthday 3 weeks ago!

We had a potluck party as her house, and had a very sumptuous dinner - roasted piglet, 933 curry chicken and mutton, porridge with tonnes of ingredients, garden of greens (salad), otak-otak, many many durians (D24, mao shan wang, 666), cherries, and of course the best is ah ma's home-cooked dishes with love - curry chicken, nourishing soup!! I contributed the birthday cake and fried dim sum carrot cake ;-)

Turning to the birthday cake, I planned and made a fruity pastry cake thinking it would be a very safe bet. How wrong was I? Somehow the cake did not rise to enough, the top was very hard which I had to cut it away, it was quite dry; nothing close to my earlier 2 attempts which turned out very delicious. I kept thinking why it had gone awry, and like rewinding a tape, I suddenly recalled that little zak was playing with the oven when i was baking the cake! At that time, I didn't give much thought except to adjust back the temperature from 220 to 170 deg C. God knows how long the cake was baked at such extreme temperature? The next time, I should keep an eagle eye on my boy as he's getting very "helpful" and always curious and fiddling with things. And whenever I'm baking, he will push a chair and stand beside me at the kitchen. These extra pair of hands doesn't really help at the moment, and alot of times it made me more busy and sometimes 'irritated'. Nevertheless, I know I have to, and yes I do enjoy these moments briefly for time flies so fast that when he's a teenager, he may be with his friends and do not want to be with the mummy anymore ;-( After finishing this post, I must give little zak many hugs and kisses!!

Dim Sum Fried Carrot Cake

When I saw Honey Bee Sweet's post on dim sum fried carrot cake, it caught my eye because they really look yummy! The ingredients and method are pretty straight-forward and I managed to try it out yesterday. As I hardly cooked at home, I had to "borrow" the chinese sausages from my dad, and the shallots from my aunt. I guess the rest of the ingredients are within their expiry dates...opps! HBS had them pan fried, which I didn't but they are still good. I'm going to make this again, for sure! Hope over to HBS for the method/ ingredients for preparing this dish ;-)

This is a steamed version, not fried yet

4 24 28 29 35 42 34

The set of numbers are definitely not my vital statistics or codes to my safe box; it's the winning numbers of yesterday's Toto $6 million draw. Although i did not buy any Toto tickets for yesterday's draw, I prepared some 'huat kueh' (發糕) especially for my Wendy's mil and relatives for them to "FATT FATT" (發發). Not too sure whether any of them is a overnight millionaires? If not, we still have the Hong Bao Draw on 26 Feb 2010 ;-) Good luck everyone!

The 'huat kuehs' are nicely packed and given as a gift to my Wendy's mil! We went to their house on the 2nd day of CNY, and as usual, we enjoyed the sumptuous dinner prepared by her .

These lovely sweet hearts paper cases is one of my favourites and i had used them for my mini 'huat kuehs'.

To good health and wealth in 2010!