Chai Kueh (Just like the Pasar Malam's one)

Chai Kueh Recipe

Fillings Ingredients

300-400g jicama (yam bean or sar kot)
3 Tbsp Dried Prawns

150 g mince pork (optional)
100g Carrots

2 dried fungus if big one, if small one maybe 3 to 4 soaked and thinly sliced
2 Tbsp Chopped Garlic
1 Tbsp Oyster sauce

2 Tbsp Soya sauce

1 Tbsp sugar

¼ cup of water

Salt to taste
2 tsp white pepper

Method :

Wash and soak dried prawns for 10-15 minutes. Chop it coarsely.

Shread yam bean (jicama) and carrots into long strips.

Heat up 4-5 Tbsp oil and stir in garlic till fragrant.

Add in dried prawns and mince pork and fry till fragrant.

Add in yam bean (jicama) and and carrots. Stir fry for about 5 minutes. Then add oyster sauce, soya sauce, sugar, and water. Stir it for a minute or so and let it simmer till vegetable is soft, cooked and liquid reduced. Add in salt to taste and white pepper.

Leave it to cool.

Pastry/Skin Ingredients

165 g Wheat Starch Flour ( Tung Mein Fun)
85 g Tapioca Flour
420 g hot boiling water
5 Tbsp oil

I Tablespoon of normal wheat flour to use for dusting and rolling

Method :

Mixed wheat starch flour and tapioca flour in a large mixing bowl.

Add in boiling water and mixed it thoroughly with long wooden spoon till you get a translucent like dough. During this time the dough is actually very thick and sticky. Just continue to stir and get the translucent like dough.

Close it up and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Add in oil gradually (1 Tbsp oil at a time) and knead into a smooth dough. You might need some spare Tung Mein Fun with you as when it is too sticky you need to add a little to reduce the stickiness.

Rolled out dough into a long sausage roll and divide into about 30 pieces. During this time use the normal wheat flour for dusting the surface for rolling the skin out for wrapping the filing.

To make Chai Kueh:

Prepare the steamer.

Lightly oiled the steaming tray. I use baking paper for convenient reason.

Roll out the skin pastry into a circle with about 7 cm diameter. You can use a little normal wheat flour to smooth out the rolling and kneading.

Put 1 Tbsp filling in the center.

Pleat the edge of the skin and wrapped it up tightly. How to wrap please watch this video http://www.youtube.com/user/christinehoau .

Arrange the Chai kueh on the steaming tray. Brush with some oil before steaming.

Steam for 12 minutes or until the skin is translucent.

Then enjoy this yummy snack that Malaysians love!

Autumn around the corner .......

It has been busy time in December, January and February. Busy with baking macarons for Christmas, Valentine's Day and of course some additional income selling home made fresh, crunchy Yee Sang for Chinese New Year. Meanwhile all these happening I did a lot of exploring cooking and trying new things such as Chai Kueh (very local Malaysian delicacy), Hong Kong style hawkers food i.e. porridge, egg tarts, Portuguese egg tarts, Poh Loh Yau Pau (pineapple bun), Korean cuisine i.e. Sun Doo Boo, home made sauce for marinating for Bulgogi and yummy and soft banana bread. The list will goes on but I did had a good time baking and cooking in the kitchen. Now finally have to return to the real life of working, so it mean less hours in the kitchen. However I should not complain as the workings hours are fantastic, So I am grateful for that. I will post my Chai Kueh recipe here that I improvised from Ho Siew Loon's recipe. That is all for now and hope to write more soon ......... Cheers

More Parisian Macarons .... the big buttons .....

Lately just addicted to bake macarons and experiments with various options. Just like to be daring and different. Some came out cute and sexy, while some came out just like meringue. However the journey of learning to bake macarons is very interesting and entertainment that full of drama to see the outcome and tasting session.

Recently I did milk tea which is so yum. Normally the recipe just say tea powder but I actually add milk powder in it was just so yum. I hate playing with colours in macaron as I am not sure it is healthy to have so much colour in it. However if vanity is important to you hence colours in macarons are important.

For my family we do not like artificial colour in our baking or cooking hence it looks like we will have boring colours in our macaron and very limited flavour. So again in life we have choices and up to one to choose what is good for them and what they want.

Will post the recipe here soon as I'm still experimenting and I had learn a lot that a recipe could not have teach me what I am learning every time I baked macaron. So worth the journey to bake macarons frequently and experimenting it with my own instinct and adjust according to what I visual what I want it to taste and look like.

Another success in Macarons

Yes ...... finally I am confidence in baking macarons and now need to be more creative in flavor and colours. More macarons coming hopefully next time it will be with more colours.

Macaroons ............ or Macarons ............ finally I could bake Parisian Macarons

Last weekend I baked a very successful batch of Parisian Coffee Macaroons with chocolate cream with hint of Kahlua. It was so good and looked like the one that you buy from the shop. I was so happy as never once I could get the whole batch that had the same consistent outcome like the recent batch. I will definitely baked more of macaroons in the near future.

I have to beat the egg whites according to my guts feeling and time it according how I think it should be and also the drying part I used oven which was fantastic as my surrounding not good enough to let macaroons to be dried properly. So finally all came out well and good. Another happy day of baking ...... hooray and I was yelling to my loved ones when I see the foot in my macaroons ..... That was how happy I was. :)

Quite sometime ago ........

I have been very busy with projects and a few weeks away to Malaysia. Now I guess I have more time to blog and update my version food recipes. Recently I successfully cooked Indian Rojak which is actually quite tasty. Will update the recipe soon. And yes Christmas is just round the corner.

Fettucine or Spaghetti Carbonara - Italian version

This is a very simple and delicious Carbonara recipe given by an Italian lady. This is nicer version as compare others using thickening agent as it has tasty flavoring of bacon, egg and parmesan in it. It is pure egg and parmesan cheese. This dish serve 4 only cost less than AUD10.00 which is actually very cheap. You can use any type of pastas as the actual recipe require Fettucine pasta.

Serve 4

Ingredients

1. 2 tablespoon of olive oil for cooking and 2 tablespoon for cooking the pasta
2. Cut 600 gram of bacon into Match stick or you could substitute with ham but bacon is nicer as when you fried it the aroma and the texture is just lovely. 
3. 2 big onions sliced.
4. 1 clove of garlic finely chopped
5. 250 grams of dried Fettucine or Spaghetti or you can use fresh pasta too
6. 1 cup of chopped parsley
7.  2 cups of dry White wine
8. 1 cup of shredded parmesan cheese
9. 1/2 cup cooking cream or pure cream or lite cream
10. 6 eggs, lightly beaten
11.  2 tablespoon of cracked black pepper
12. 1 tablespoon of salt

Methods :

1. Boil a pot of  hot water. 
2. Heat pan up, then add the 2 tablespoon of Olive Oil
3. Fried the bacon till it is crisp. Then spoon up the bacon into a plate.
4. Use the same pan fried the onions for about 4 to 5 minutes till it is soft and translucent.
5. When the pot of water is at the boiling point stir 1 tablespoon of salt into the water and 2 tablespoon of olive oil. Then put the pasta into the boiling water and cook till it is al dente, normally it takes 8 to 10 minutes cooking time. 
6. Once the onions are done put the bacon back to the pan. 
7. Pour the wine into the bacon and onions and gently simmer for at least 5 to 8 minutes.
8. Then mix the beaten eggs, cream with the parmesan cheese. Make sure it is well combine. 
9. When the pasta is al dente, remove from the pot. 
10. Toss the pasta into the pan where the bacon and onions in. 
11. Then mix the egg, cream and cheese mixture with the pasta and sprinkle with the cracked black pepper and parsley. 
12. Off the fire and toss quickly. Serve immediately. 

Note : The eggs mixture should not be done but just at the point of cook and creamy and the sauce should be slightly thicken and the cheese at the point melting. No salted is required for this dish as the bacon will release the saltiness and the saltiness from the parmesan cheese.

Preserved Vegetable with Belly Pork (Mui Choy Kaw Yoke) - recipe from my mum (a typical Hakka dish)

This is a typical hakka version recipe as it is more sweeter as compare to Cantonese version where it is more savory and they use salty mui choy. Being pure breed Hakka and was brought up with the sweeter version hence the below recipe is a typical Hakka Mui Choy Kaw Yoke.

There are two types of 'mui choy'. One is preserved with salt and the other is darker in color which is 'teem' – sweet one. The sweet type is more 'mui' which is soft in cantonese, the softer the better, it will melt in the mouth. This dish could be presented in a fancier manner but for homecooked meals this is good as it is.

Serves 6

Cooking and Preparation time : Approximately 2 hours

Recommendation : To cook the night before or a few hours before serving as it is taste much nicer.

Ingredients

1. 1kg pork belly
2. 1 whole clove of garlic (chopped)
3. 5 cm size of ginger (chopped)
4. Chopped1 small brown onion if used French shallots then maybe two or three if it is small  
5. Soaked and finely chopped 1 table spoon of dried prawns (soaked and finely chopped) 
6. Soaked and finely chopped 2 or 3 dried small cuttlefish  
7. 5 tbsp light soya sauce 
8. 500g preserved vegetable (teem mui choy) 
9. 5 tbsp dark soya sauce (also known as Thick Caramel Sauce by Cheong Chan) 
10. 2 dash of sesame oil 
11. 1 tsp sugar 
12. 1 tsp of white ground pepper 
13. 5 tbsp cooking wine (wong chau or shao xing or hua tiau or sherry) 
14. Peanut Oil or any oil that is suitable for stir frying

Optional

1. 1 tbsp Corn Flour 
2. 2 tbsp water

Garnishing

1. 2 or 3 stalks of coriander 
2. 2 stalks of spring onions finely chopped

Serve with Man Tau (8 pcs)

Methods:

1. Boil a pot of water.
2. Remove leaves of mui choy from stem, wash and steep in water to remove excessive salt. Cut into 1-inch lengths. 
3. Cut belly pork into 1 inch cube or 1 inch thick slice (as that depends how you want to present it).  
4. When the pot of water reach boiling point put the belly pork into the hot water and boils for further 20 to 25 minutes.  
5. Then remove the pork from the hot water and keep the stock for later use.  
6. Drip dry the pork. 
7. When it is cool apply 3 tbsp dark soya sauce onto the pork. Once well colour, then heat the pan up with oil and slightly brown the pork by small batch till finish.  
8. Then clean the pan or use a new pan heat it up with some oil (2 or 3 tbsp). Stir fry the garlic, ginger, and onions until fragrance. Add the dried prawns and dried cuttlefish to the pan. Stir fry for at least 3 to 5 minutes. 
9. Then add the mui choy into the pan. Continue stir fry for 2 to 3 minutes. Then add at least 1 ladle or more if required of the reserved stock into the pan. 
10. Add the rest of the dark soya sauce, sugar, light soya sauce, cooking wine and pepper. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes till boiling point. You can then taste and adjust the tasting according to your taste with sugar and salt. 
11. Once this stage is complete then it is the assemble part.  
12. You can present it in any manner that you like but the importance part is the skin of the pork always faces down on the dish and alternate spoon of the preserved vegetable then pork. 
13. Once assemble to your desire way then you need to ladle the reserve stock into the dish where the pork and preserved vegetable are in till it covers at least ¾ full of the dish.
14. Then cover with aluminium foil and steam in a steamer for at least 1 hour to 1.5 hours as depend on your steamer and the dish that you use. You can check at 1 hour and see whether the pork has gone soft. If it is still not tender further steam for another 30 minutes or so till the pork is tender and soft. 
15. When you test it is soft then you can remove it from the steamer. 
16. Once it is being removed from the steamer pour the stock out from the dish gentle as you do not want your arrangement being mess up.  
17. If time allows, I will recommend to chilled the gravy that you have just pour out in the fridge for at least an hour to scope out the fat, however if you do not care about the fat then you can boil the gravy and thicken it with cornflour (1 tablespoon of cornflour and 2 table spoon of water) or you can just leave the gravy texture as it is.
18. Then overturn the dish where the pork and preserved vegetable is in into a plate. 
19. Then pour slowly the hot gravy over it and sprinkle/garnish it with coriander and spring onions if desired.

Enjoy this dish with “man tau”.It is really delicious.