Baked Nian Gao

I had the opportunity to eat this Baked Nian Gao when i was at a temple lunch and it was so delicious  but unfortunately the contributor could not be found and therefore no recipe.  I am sure there must be a recipe somewhere in the net, so googled and found an image of the cake which looked very similar to the one i ate.  It is HERE and i decided to try it and scaling down the recipe to a third.  The result is very acceptable and i think i should share with all my readers as it is a very easy recipe and can be made in a jiffy.

Kaya Rich Egg Custard Improved

Kaya is a food spread/curd  or custard made from coconut milk,eggs,and sugar. It is wildly popular in Malaysia and in the malay language the word kaya means rich, hence represents the texture. To acquire perfect texture, requires patience and slow cooking under low heat is the way to go.  Knowing me, the most impatient side of me, must find ways and means to achieve with the least amount of effort.  I have found that making this Kaya - Rich Egg Custard  is possible in the microwave and with an addition of one more ingredient, the custard now is no fail if you should follow the instruction of cooking it low and slow

I have added a little STARCH to the recipe and it helps to prevent the eggs from overcooking and gives more lead way to the success of the egg rich mixture.  The starch molecules slow protein coagulation, making the egg proteins more resistant to curdling..

Nutella Flower Bread

There are several Youtube videos making this bread and all of them are pretty good but i find that Steve's Kitchen is clear and his instruction is easy to follow. I have changed the bread recipe and used a bread machine to make the dough.  The result is a lovely googy sweet bread which is too pretty to break up and devout, but who can resist, the fragrance perfumed the whole house.

Puff Pastry Topping Pork Floss Roll

I have tried so many sweet bread recipes for rolls and buns and non has failed. When i want to make sweet bread but am lazy to look for the complicated recipes, meaning recipes using different methods like tangzhung method etc, i will go for this straight method.  Lately i have been making sweet bread with the sponge method as the texture is so much softer with a bite which the straight method lacks.  Instead of making a simple filled sweet roll this time, I topped the roll with a piece of puff pastry and nori, and this really kick up this sweet roll a couple of notches. 

Love Fried Rice For Valentine's Day

According to Wiki,  Qixi Festival (Chinese: 七夕), also known as the Qiqiao Festival (Chinese: 乞巧節), is a Chinese festival that celebrates the annual meeting of the cowherd and weaver girl in Chinese mythology and this festival is the chinese Valentine's Day.  Although the chinese does not celebrate Valentine's Day like the West does by giving flowers and gifts, they demonstrate their love by cooking their favorite foods.  and since rice is a symbol of life itself, to the chinese, and we have all heard the line that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”  For sure, who doesn’t love a great meal, especially when someone cooks it for you?  You do not have to spend alot of time and money, just fry these simple fried rice following these recipes.  I have shared 2 ways and these ways are the simpliest ways to good fried rice.

Please give me a feedback if you should woo your love ones if you should cook this,

 HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY.

Cream Cheese Chocolate Layer/Lapis Cake - Cakes For Chinese New Year

Everyone's oven has been working overtime in most Asian homes especially in Malaysia and Singapore.  The heat is on for baking cookies and cakes for The Chinese New Year Celebration.  How not to join in the fun????  Baking during this time of the year for us here in Colorado is so welcome as the oven heat warms up the kitchen and the aroma from the baking perfumes the whole house (all windows and doors are closed so tightly to prevent the effect of Polar Vortex).  

I will try to share as many recipes and i know you all will like this Cream Cheese Chocolate Layer/Lapis Cake which tasted better when kept, how appropriate to serve to guests who will drop by to 'pai leen' at whatever or whenever they wish.  

Popovers

Can you believe the end of the year is already here? It has gone by so quickly, with a blink of an eye, a few pinches of this, a handful of that and lots of sprinkles with  garnished passion, this year has gone by under my nose, but a new year of hope and prosperity awaits.  A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR to all family and friends.

I find that making POPOVERS at the end of the year is appropriate, POP the old year and bring OVER the goodness to the new year to come.

The popover is an American version of Yorkshire pudding in England. These impressive popovers have only a few humble ingredients - eggs, milk, flour, salt and butter and they make your meal special.  Made well they should have large crowns, lightly crisp. golden brown exteriors and tender, moist, airy interiors crisscrossed with custardy webs of dough.  This recipe is adapted from America's Test Kitchen and unlike most popover batters, this one is smooth, not lumpy.  HIGH HEAT is crucial to the speedy, high rise of these popovers. 

Smile Pao Revisited

Since this is my first posting of this new year, i would like to post something more cheerful as January can be a cold, dreary bummer  of a month. The only way to shake the desire to hibernate until spring, i had to cook or bake something that puts a smile not only on my face but a smile to everyone who enjoys eating these Smile Pao. 

I have found that the previous recipe makes lovely smiling paos, the dough has to tweaked to get the texture not to stick to the teeth.   I realised that fermentation will turn flour into starch and starch is responsible for stickiness, so this time around, i have omitted the wheat starch and used 5 tablespoons flour instead.  I would have loved to use pao flour but unfortunately i am out of it, so i used bleached all-purpose flour.  The starter dough was left on the counter for more than 24 hours and it still makes good smiling paos,  it was still ok cos my kitchen was pretty cold even with the heater on.

Conchas/Mexican Buns

Have you ever felt like you have been burned out from blogging?  After blogging for so many years, since 2005, i felt like i am running out of juice.  Lately, i have a lot of aches and pains,  my friend said that i could be suffering from 'A G E', i asked if it was serious and she gave me a straight face which made me want to run to ER and ask if i really have 'A G E'.  I felt so silly when she broke up and laughed her heart out, then she said that i am not young any more and that struck me that she was pulling my leg, yes, i am suffering from 'age'.  After 6 decades of standing improperly, the poor muscles must be off-balanced and causing all these aches and pains.  I am not defeated yet, running out of juice maybe but, i am still cooking and baking.  

I love making sweet breads and when we were in Cancun, Mexico, i saw these attractive bread selling in all the bakeries there and had to look for the recipe.  This attractive bread is Conchas, they are Mexican shell-shaped pastries.  The lightly sweet bread has a sugar-shell pattern on top.  “Conchas” have existed since the early 1930s as it was cited in print in Texas newspapers, so we don't have to go to Mexico to enjoy these bread, just go to TEXAS, but TEXAS is 14 - 18 hours away, so i have to make some and i did.  I made them with this sweet bread recipe which have never failed to produce the best sweet bread ever.  This recipe has been passed on to all my friends and they all loved it, it has now been like a song lyrics to me when anyone wants the recipe.  

Loh See Fun From Scratch

This has been my quest, to make loh see fun from scratch.  Many hours have been spent trying to get the right texture - one that is chewy, slippery and firm to the tooth without using any chemicals.  Getting the texture  to what i wanted it to be was not that difficult as i know that with a ratio of 3 : 1,  - 3 of rice flour and 1 of tapioca starch should be correct.  How much of liquid is the difficult part of the whole process as the dough has to be of the correct consistency to be able to press out of the cendol press or a potato riser with ease.  Looking for  the utensil with the correct size holes has been a long search, until today, am not able to find any..  I have tried using a large perforated ladle and even found a perforated flat plate which i thought would be it.  No, they were  not, the holes were too big and a good practice of how to push the dough through these holes was needed.  What a mess i made??????

The final play was the return of the cendol maker and it did make loh see fun with pointed tails.  What actually happened was, i have learned to recognized the consistency of the dough - water should be added in, a little at a time so the the dough turned into whipped cream/ or buttercream like, then it will be pushed out of the cendal maker with ease.

I have tried with 2 types of rice flour,  one is the Erawan 3 elephant rice flour from Thailand and the other is a rough textured rice flour from Vietnam.  Both of them make pretty good textured loh see fun, only the rice flour from thailand needed to be dry steamed for an hour before using while the rice flour from Vietnam, i used it straight from the packet.

Nasi Lemak with Apricot Sambal Ikan Bilis

The weather is much cooler nowadays especially in the mornings, I don't have to go out for my walks at 6.00 am , could do it at 7.30 am and still feel comfortable.  Then you know that summer is over and autumn is upon us soon.  This summer has been a busy and fruitful -'fruit full' it was, my neighbor's apricot tree was groaning with lush and the lush was on my side of the fence.  As i scamper back to my kitchen with my apricot loot, i was a-brimmed with plans.  There will be apricot jam, There will be pastries - made so many pastries and still have many more apricots sitting on the counter-top.  What i would like to share with you all, was so delicious and it amazed me too that it turned out so well.  I added the pitted apricots to the sambal and  The Sambal Ikan Bilis made with this apricot sambal was the most delicious tasting sambal ever, it tasted fruity.  

Greek Olga Bread

We had a family outing to the zoo and had lunch at a Greek Restaurant nearby.  What do you eat in a Greek Restaurant?  Gyros with Pita/Olga Bread of course.  The grandchildren loved the Pita/Olga bread so much that i had to make some for them at home.

Breakfast Chee Cheong Fun

 

 

I love this type and style of chee cheong fun for breakfast and have been trying to get the texture right but have not been able to get it right until now. Now, my quest is over, i can have this type of chee cheong fun for breakfast with no fuss no muss. A piece of chee cheong fun can be made in the microwave for only 2 minutes without having to heat up a pot of water for steaming or using a crepe pan to fry which is not too bad but the underside sometimes tend to be overcooked and so will be slightly rough.

Smile Pau/Bao

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile, even though it's breaking
When there are clouds, in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile, through your fear and sorrow
Smile, and there'll be tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through
If you'll....


Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear, may be ever so near,
That's the time, you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile,
If you'll just....


Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear, may be ever so near,
That's the time, you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile,
If you'll just....


Smile

I hope you all enjoyed this video and sang along with the lyrics as the lyrics of yesteryears are so meaningful.  Smile is a very powerful tool, even a pau/bao that smiles will make your day.  It is easier to make me SMILE but not so easy to make the pau/bao smile.  It took me 2 days and many paus/baos after, to be able to make them Smiling.  It is not the recipe, any recipe will work if we are able to recognize the function of each ingredients in the recipe.  I have edited this recipe and omitted the wheat starch and replaced it with pau flour as i have found that too much starch makes the dough tasted gummy and stick to the teeth.  The wheat starch write-up is for your knowledge only.