Torch Ginger Chiffon Cake

First of all, I know it sounds weird. Very weird to use Torch Ginger in a chiffon cake.

Few weeks back, I was in Taiwan, and I had my taste of ginger flower in a chiffon cake in Neiwan, Hsinchu. The flower I tasted was Hedychium coronarium known as 野姜花, and it's a type of ginger not found here. Maybe not that I know of, maybe some people do plant them in Malaysia, but I've just never seen it myself.

Pickled Young Ginger - Full Moon # 1

One of the must haves for Full Moon. The only ginger that my hubby likes. He is a ginger hater, but he loves pickled ginger.

It sounds easy to make pickled ginger. But it's not easy to make nice tasting pickled ginger. I've tasted quite a lot of not so nice ones before. Either too salty, too fiery, or not sourish enough or not enough sugar. One must be daring enough to put in vinegar and sugar. Not enough of either and the ginger taste somewhat off balanced. And the process is important too, and if not, the ginger will be too fiery.

Ginger Milk Curd Giveaway Submission and Entry Reviews and my experiments too

So, the dateline for submission is here. But, the kind hearted may still submit data of their personal experiments with different brands of milk for the benefit of others.

And now, here are the entries and the summary of their result. As I said, failed or successful is ok, as long as one has tried. I was so happy that this sparked a few of them, the intense curiosity to experiment with more and more brands. That’s the spirit!!!!! Kudos to all of you who tried so hard to find the brand that worked for you.

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Sonia
1 entry
Dutch Lady Full Cream Milk - Failed curds

Min
2 entries
Dutch Lady Full Cream Milk- Failed
Dutch Lady Fresh Milk- Successful, softly set

Galronni
3 entries
Marigold Fresh Milk-Succeeded, firm curds
Dumex All in One- Succeeded, soft curds
Marigold HL Milk -Failed

Meldylocks
4 entries
Farmhouse Omega Low Fat Milk – Succeeded, but very softly set
Farmhouse Fresh Milk – Successful with nice curds, extra ginger juice used
Magnolia Low Fat-Hi Cal Fresh Milk – Curds formed, but watery
Anmum Lacta : Curds formed below, but watery top

Annann
1 entry
Dutch Lady Fresh Milk – Successful, soft curds

Cook. Bake.Love
1 entry
Fairprice Full Cream Milk from fresh milk –successful, soft curds

Neyeeloh
1 entry
Dutch Lady UHT fresh milk(full cream) –Sucessful, firm curds

FF
1 entry
Marigold Full Cream Milk (fresh? Reconstituted?)- Failed
The other brands, no pics of curds were shown, therefore, not counted.

Edith
2 entries
Greenfields Choc Fresh Milk – Err… Curds formed, but ultra soft
Emborg Full Cream milk –  Ultra soft curds formed

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Please tell me if I left you out or miscounted the entries.
Dateline for discrepancy ammendments : 18/7/10, 12pm+8GMT
Result of giveaway will be announced on 20th July. 2 winners, ok? Promise.

A few myths are dispelled after all these experiments by fellow bloggers,
Powdered milk don’t work –Myth, proved by galronni
Homogenized milk don’t work – Myth, proved by galronni and Meldylocks.

Most of you did not provide information on how the milk was processed, and we are left in lurch whether the milk was homogenized, UHT, pasteurized, emulsified, sterilized, microfiltered…….
People from your country may be able to find the same milk you used, but this information will be useful for others not from your country, so that they know, the success rate of such and such milk, so that they may be able to decide on the type of milk to use in their own country.


Now, I’m suspecting, whether those whose milk formed curds, but was ultra soft or very soft that doesn’t retain its texture after being scooped, will the curds get firmer if more ginger juice was added, cos Meldylocks, showed us that. The brand she used, Farmhouse Fresh Milk was a homogenized milk, and she increased the juice for the 2nd bowl, and indeed it looked so much firmer than her first bowl with less juice. So, maybe for those of you who had super soft curds that doesn’t retain the shape, try increasing the juice, you might get better results.

Such is the power of a cooperative experiment. The amount of information gathered for all.

Sometimes the amount of juice to use is vague. The ginger you have may be juicier than the one I have. The less moisture it has, definitely the more concentrated the juice is. Therefore my 3 tsp of juice may not have the same amount of protease as your 3 tsp of ginger juice. And every knob of ginger is definitely different. So, maybe if it worked for you this time, it may not work the next, but don’t worry, add more until it works : ) As long as you know the brand worked, it’ll work again, but it’s only the difference in the level of firmness.

Sadly, there were no emailed in entries. My silent readers remained as my silent readers. Anyway, not to say my silent readers are not supportive, they still are very supportive of me cos they are reading this now : ) Thanks!

Well, I didn’t sit still and did nothing throughout this period.
How can I not join in the fun and experiment?

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My experiments, and I hope you do get better results than me if you ever try out these milk.

Dutch Lady

Type of process: Sterilized, No emulsifiers mentioned
Type of milk: Fresh Milk
Protein Content / 100ml: 3.0gm
Fat Content / 100ml: 3.4gm
Coagulation result and texture: Softly set, visible curds, but curds do not stay in shape after scooped








Magnolia

Type of process: Sterilized,Stablized and emulsified
Type of milk: Recombined Full Cream Milk
Protein Content / 100ml: 3.0gm
Fat Content / 100ml: 3.5gm
Coagulation result and texture: Did not set at all.








Marigold HL Milk (the highest protein content milk in the market!!!)

Type of process: Reconstituted, Pasteurized, Homogenized

Type of milk: Low Fat Milk

Protein Content / 100ml: 5.2gm

Fat Content / 100ml: 1.0gm

Coagulation result and texture: Softly set

Goodday Low fat

Type of process: Low fat, pasteurized. homogenized
Type of milk: Low Fat Milk
Protein Content / 100ml: 3.6gm
Fat Content / 100ml: 1.2gm
Coagulation result and texture: Didn’t set at all











Fresh Goat’s Milk (highest fat content milk I used)
(NBF Ipoh, Tel: +605-5468232, free delivery in Ipoh and Kampar)

First Attempt

2nd Attempt

Type of process: Pasteurized

Type of milk: Fresh Milk

Protein Content / 100ml: 3.7gm

Fat Content / 100ml: 4.5gm

Coagulation result and texture: Firm and smooth

For this one, why I did show two curds? The first one didn't set properly as the top was watery and bottom was firmly curded. So, I suspected, it's the glass. The narrow base didn't cause the ginger juice to incorporate well with the milk when it was poured it, so I did it again with a rice bowl, and hehe, it worked.
So, if yours is watery on top, but curded below, the gushing effect didn't mix things well. And you should know what to do now.


That's all folks for now, I'll add to this post, if ever I do other experiments with other milks.

**************************************

Please put your link here in "comments" if you've tried making Ginger Milk Curd from June 24 to July 15.


The space here, I will update with try-outs that are emailed in.
Hopefully there are entries :)

Entries without either or both
1. picture of milk carton/bottle used
2. picture of failed or successful curds
will be disqualified.

If you used raw milk, which does not come in a bottle or carton, please supply information on where you bought it, so that people who live near you will be able to get their supply too.
Raw milk users who did not include purchase location information will be disqualified :)

Just remember, it doesn't matter if it sets or failed. Just try.

Closing Date: July 15th, 12pm GMT+8.00
Result day : 20th July.

Ginger Milk Curd n a Giveaway 姜汁撞奶

*Warning!!! Long Post Ahead!! Long Post Ahead!!!! Roger.

I saw on a Hong Kong eating show showing this dessert. The man just poured milk into the bowl and the host said, she’ll have that dessert in 10 minutes. So easy? Well, I’ve had this once, made from instant preparation powders brought back by my cousin from Hong Kong. It’s nice, I like it, so let’s try making it.. since the TV says it’s so easy

From Wikipedia:

Ginger milk curd, also known as ginger-juice milk curd or simply ginger milk, is a Chinese hot dessert originated in Shawan town of Panyu District(My grandparent’s place of birth), Guangzhou in the Guangdong Province in southern China. The main ingredients are ginger, milk, and sugar. Water buffalo milk is used in the original recipe.Ginger contains protease. When milk is added to ginger juice, protease catalyses hydrolysis of the protein in the milk, changing it from a water-soluble form to a water-insoluble form, and leads to the formation of milk curd.

Sometimes you will wonder how much one can learn from kids, and I really did learn a lot from these kids’ science project. They did lots of experiments with this simple dessert, from getting the proper PH, the proper temperature for setting. Simply marvelous. But they didn’t test the type of milk used, pasteurized, UHT, homogenized and raw milk. If only they did this, then the experiment will be ultra marvelous.

When you look at the process, it seems easy, right? I made 8 times of failed curds before I saw success. I only did 125ml each time, but hey, have to eat them up even thought they are failed curds, still edible, just that either they are too soft or still in liquid. Milk is fine..but ginger. So much???? I’m not in confinement, so my body cannot take so much of that, lest overload then deep trouble.  Hey, do you know that this is the perfect dessert for that day of the month?? Maybe you want to try making this on that day :)

I read a few blogs before I did it. All had different instructions, some to pull milk 6 times, some 10 times, some never pull but just tilt pan left and right. Some look for bubbles by the periphery of the milk, some look for steam… But all are playing the guessing game. And from many of the comments I saw (from reader’s tryouts), lots of them ended up with thinned down yogurt. I failed 8 times, some as thinned down yogurts, some still as milk. 

After my failed curds, I tried searching in Chinese again. One site said,80- 85C and guarantee success. But when I did it with my pasteurized and homogenized milk, it failed. I was at 80C because I was trying different temperatures. If you want to know what brand of milk that was, it was Goodday, fresh, homogenized, pasteurized milk.

I don’t know about you, maybe you can make it, but I can’t. Until I thought of the shop that I always buy natural yogurt from. If they can make yogurt with it, definitely I can make milk curd with that. So the next day, I went there to buy my RM3 worth of raw milk (about 600ml). Worked like a charm. The surface set almost immediately (you can test it when you touch the surface and no white liquid sticks to your finger) and was fully set in 10 minutes. Out of 5 attempt, 4 set nicely and one failed* because I didn't boil the milk properly and a skin formed on top. Explanation after the recipe.

Ginger Milk Curd Recipe (do it bowl by bowl)
One rice bowl amount: 
30ml (2 tablespoons) old ginger juice (Mine are the regular ones that are imported from China)
250ml milk
1Tbsp sugar


*I always do 125ml/bowl
Or if you want to fill a 6 oz ramekin (I find this amount just nice for 1 serving)
3 tsp ginger juice (15ml)
125ml milk

1 heaped tsp sugar

1. Put ginger juice into setting bowl.
2. Bring the milk and sugar to a boil, turn off the heat .Check temperature with a thermometer. Let it cool down to 85C. (If you don’t own a thermometer, leave the milk to cool down in the pot for 10 seconds)
3. Pour milk from 6 inches above bowl.
4. Let the curd set for 10 minutes
5. Enjoy warm or chilled.

*If you want to make more than this amount, pulling the milk might be required because a larger amount may take longer than 10 seconds to reach 85C.
If you can make yogurt with that milk, then you can use that same source of milk to make this ginger milk curd, because both processes act on the milk protein.

*When this attempt failed when all others succeeded with raw milk, the only difference was the layer of insoluble milk skin. Then I suspected that the proteins that are necessary for coagulation are all in the skin. I checked the internet and truly enough, I found on wisegeek, that when milk is heated, it forms a skin/membrane on top. The skin is comprised of solid proteins that combine with the milk’s fat molecules, which begin to evaporate as the milk is heated. These proteins, casein and beta, clump together when the liquid reaches a temperature of around 113 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (45 to 50 Celsius). As the heating continues, the soft protein layer begins to dry out, which is why the milk forms a skin on the liquid’s surface. (So, when the protein is no longer in the milk, it cannot react with the ginger’s enzyme, protease). To avoid the skin from forming, just remember to stir it from time to time. And this does not happen with skim milk because skim milk does not contain fat. There is nothing for the protein molecules to bind with.


About pulling/stretching the tea (teh tarikking):
Some recipes call for this step, but I find that, the temperature’s way too low after pulling. From the lab experiment report, the optimum temperature for setting is between 62-67C. When I finished pulling it for 6 times, my temperature was at 50-60C (From various attempts). The temperature of the ginger juice has to be taken into account, the absorption of heat into the setting bowl has to be taken into consideration as well. And don’t forget, the pouring of milk from a distance into the ginger juice will reduce the temperature further. So, I don’t pull it anymore. And I find that, if I do it 125ml at a time, the moment I turn off the heat, I put in the thermometer to check, by the time the reading is stable, it’s already 85C, and it takes about 10 seconds. Larger amounts of milk may take slightly longer. So, I don’t find it necessary to pull the milk. Just turn it off, wait til all the bubbles go away and there, 85C. So, when it’s 85C when you pour it down, by the time it mixes with the ginger juice, touches the bowl and getting cooled by the pouring action, it’ll settle to a nice 62-67C.

See the spoon floating????

See the curd don't fall back in place... it stays put

About adding vinegar to the ginger juice,
Although my attempt with Goodday was fine with vinegar, but it is not with raw milk. It curdled up, not in a good way. Click on the picture to have a larger view.







Ok, so here goes the giveaway..

It is open to all residing in Malaysia and Singapore only with a valid Malaysian and Singaporean address.

Let us help out the blogosphere by trying to make ginger milk curd, with any brand or source of milk.
To join, you must make ginger milk curd and do a post on it. It doesn't matter you failed or succeeded, as long as u tried.

Send in a link to your website/blog to this page (through comments)
Or if you don’t have a website, email me (wendyinkk at yahoo.com) the pictures and details of the milk used to me. I'll post the emailed in try-outs in the other page.

One type of milk per entry, means if you tried out 4 types of milk, 4 entries, even though it's just one post.

Details that must be included in your post or email:
1. Pictures of milk curd that shows
     i. floating spoon on top to show that the curd has set firmly
     ii. a spoon of the curd or the eaten area of the curd to show the texture.
2. Brand of milk used, and if possible picture of milk carton/bottle
3. Type of process: Pasteurized/Homogenized/UHT/Microfiltration/Raw/Recombined/Sterilized
4. Type of milk: Fresh/Full Cream/Low Fat/Skim milk/Raw Milk
5. Fat and protein content on label by g/100ml (leave this if it’s raw fresh milk)
*If using raw unprocessed milk, just include information on where you got your supply, and skip step 2,3 and 5.
And any other information that you think may be important.

This is to help others who are interested to make ginger milk curd. Makes life easier for everyone when information is easily available.

Others who are not from these 2 countries may also submit your curd “report”. It’ll be so nice of you to do that. We’ll learn from your experience too.

Dateline is 15th July 12.00noon GMT+8.00

Oh yes, what’s for the giveaway?
Actually it’s not a Kitchenaid or an expensive book or some fancy bakeware….just 2 sets of bamboo bowls and spoon, like those in my pics. So, there'll be two winners.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you the one I’ve used, they will be brand new. I’ve bought quite a lot of these few years back, and they’re not from Daiso :)

Oh ya, I've actually tried out a few brand of milk from supermarket shelves. So far, one brand gave me fair result, not as good as raw milk, but it set with spoondable curds. I won't spoil the fun... but will spill the milk for you on result day.

Click here to see the entries and the brand that they used,

People Who Have Tried Making Ginger Milk Curd

Dong Po Pork 东坡肉

Mike loves pork belly.. any pork belly. So does my mother in law. I only like it if the fat layer melts in the mouth with no fatty smell.

There are many recipes online, some requiring pre deep frying and usually this is restaurant’s method to speed up the cooking. The supposedly actual way is to slowly cook it in wine and soy sauce… no extra oil involved. I searched and searched, and found this recipe . Does this look good? Sure it does. But I think she skimped on the spring onions. The recipe called for trimming the sides to make it really squarish or at least, have straight sides, but to me, that seemed wasteful. So, I didn’t do that, just let it stay the in original shape. Initially one should use a clay pot to do this, but I don’t have one. So, I just used a heavy based pot that won’t burn as easily as a single layer stainless steel pot. 5 ply pots will be even better.

The belly turned out so good. The flavour was good, very good. I didn’t add any salt or additional seasoning to it and it taste absolutely good. Even when it was slowly cooking, my mother in law exclaimed about the fragrance. Oh please try this, but please have patience for almost 3 hours of work :)

1kg (+/-200gm) pork belly, skin on (original recipe called for 1kg, but I only have 800gm, it worked well, and I think the seasoning will even be enough for 1.2kg)
100gm spring onions
50 gm ginger (weighed skin on)
500gm Shao Xing Wine (the one I used was fermented for 5 years, and is more expensive than the regular 2 year old wines)
100gm light soy sauce
20gm dark soy sauce
80gm brown candy sugar(1pc) or rock sugar

1. Bring a pot of water to boil and cook pork belly for 5 minutes. Drain.
2. Cut spring onions into long lengths to fit base of pot. Slice ginger and sprinkle over.
3. Put boiled pork belly onto spring onions, skin side down.
4. Put in both soy sauces and sugar. Lastly wine. Add some water if the liquid level is too low. Make sure the pork is at least almost covered with liquid.
5. Bring pot to a boil on high heat, reduce to low and simmer for 2 hours (flipping the pork halfway), or until it is tender enough to be easily poked thru with a chopstick.
6. Remove pork belly (no gravy) from pot and put into a steaming dish, skin side up.
7. Steam on high heat for 30 minutes.(This is a crucial step, do not skip this)
8. Pour gravy (in pot) over pork when it has finished steaming.

It tasted as good as it looked.

The skin was soft and melted in my mouth

No fatty smell at all.

Seaweed Beancurd Rolls with Ginger Sauce

This recipe caught my eye because I had extra seaweed from my Sushi dinner. I can’t finish the whole pack.

My first time doing real vegetarian stuff. Actually this is called mock fish. But I prefer to call this in its real state. For the first time, something in a local Chinese publication worked for me!!! Right up to the sauce.

Although the original recipe called for black vinegar and I don’t have that, I used Worcestershire which is sour as well. And it did just fine. I added the cornstarch solution at the end because I find the sauce too liquidy. The sauce is really good. Fragrantly ginger, but without the heat on your tongue. Light hint of sourness…just nice. Mother in law said she’ll use the sauce for real fish 

Actually, I only did half of the recipe in the book because the original called for 6 Tbsp of ginger juice. That’s really a lot. So I tried halving everything and see how much gravy I’ve got, and it was just nice. Well, I only doused 60% of the rolls in sauce, cos I left out the ends and some loosely wrapped ones to munch on cos they weren’t that pretty and can’t stand up straight on the plate. So, I f u want to sauce up all the rolls, use the full recipe.

What u will need

3 pieces of Seaweed sheets
Large beancurd sheet (this is pliable even when dry, not the totally dry type. I bought this at a sundry shop. I saw this at Jusco too. Tesco may have this)
cut into pieces slightly bigger than seaweed sheets. 1 large beancurd sheet can make 6 smaller pieces.
9 pieces of soft bean skin rolls (dou bao, 豆包),
Not to be washed, squeezed to remove excess water and marinated with 1 egg, ½ tsp salt, dash of pepper, 1/2 tsp sugar and 1 tsp milk powder. If vegan, omit the egg and milk powder and replace with 1 tsp cornstarch as binding agent.
Edible Glue,
½ Tbsp tapioca starch mixed with 2 tsp water. Bring 80ml water to a boil. Pour boiling water over starch. Mix and u will have edible glue.

How to roll??

1. Lay 1 piece of cut up beancurd sheet and brush all over with glue.
2. Paste seaweed sheet.
3. Arrange 3 pieces of marinated soft bean skin rolls onto seaweed.
4. Roll up tight and apply more glue on ends before finishing up the rolling.
5. Steam on medium heat for 5 minutes and reduce to low heat for 15 minutes. Leave to cool down before cutting up. (You can do until this step, one day in advance and chill in fridge.)
6. Cut rolls into inch long pieces and trim the ends.
7. Deep fry in hot oil until golden brown. Drain on absorbent paper.
8. Arrange rolls on plate and prepare sauce. Pour sauce over and serve.

Ginger Sauce (full recipe)
6 Tbsp pure ginger juice
4 Tbsp sugar (Yes, u need this amount to tone down the heat of the ginger, but still leaving the ginger very fragrant)
2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbsp light soy sauce
1 Tbsp sesame oil (original recipe was 2 Tbsp, but to me that seems too much. I used only this amount and it was just nice for me, but if you're using blended sesame oils like Ghee Hiang blue label or Deer brand, use the original amount)
1 tsp cornstarch mixed with 2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp cooking oil
Mix together everything except cornstarch solution and cooking oil. Heat pan/wok and put in oil. Pour prepared sauce mixture into wok and bring to a boil. Lightly thicken with cornstarch solution.
Pour sauce over beancurd rolls.

Honey Ginger Tea 蜜糖姜茶

I'm not feeling good tonight.

Every woman is different. Some feel the pain during, some before. Usually, I feel it, before, but not always. And it's only for a short while. Tonight it came by longer.
Before I was ever pregnant, the signs will come exactly 2 days before and after I've had children, it's no longer consistent, and having 2 kids so near has made me forgotten how these days feel like.

So, I made myself a cup of ginger tea, sweetened with honey to make it more palatable. I love ginger, so I don't find it difficult, even if I need to drink a lot of this.

2 inches of ginger, skin on and sliced thickly and smashed.
slightly more than 1 cup water
1 Tbsp honey

Put ginger and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer on low heat for 5 minutes.
Pour tea into a cup and put in honey to sweeten.

Good for days like this :)

Husbands or sons, if you see your wife or mother not feeling good, try to make her this to make her feel better.

Ginger Braised Chicken, My mom's style

First of all, Happy Mothers' Day to all mothers.

My mom… how to tell u about my mom. Widowed when I was just 11. She raised us, 3 siblings and 1 cousin, fed us well, gave us all we ever needed. No luxuries, but never deprived of anything. We have our computers, our Nikes(no DKNY or GA), piano lessons(but no piano, I practiced at my teacher’s), Honda C70s(3 of us got 3 bikes, no cars), local tertiary education, first car downpayment… all with her working from 6am to 6pm in a coffee stall passed down since my granddad. My great grandfather had another shop somewhere else, but it’s my granddad that operated this one.

My mom is the type where she’ll play with us, roll on the bed with us when we were young. Not all fun at all times, she never spares the cane if we got tooooo funny in the house. But I could count how many times I was severely canned, just 2. And each time, the moment she put down her cane, she’ll quickly grab ointment to put on our skin. Skin deep… truly skin deep. Even at age 63 now, we still can grab her neck by our elbow and play with her. A very fun mother, but dun try to be too funny, ya know what I mean.

She retired and sold off the business since Hannah came by. Took care of her and Joanna and made that her new job. One that she never regretted, although she does receive jests from others that she forsake money to be imprisoned with kids. To her, nothing is more important that to have your granddaughters hug you and kiss you everyday, and miss u like mad when you’re not around.My mom always say,” If you don’t take care of them, they won’t have that special bond with you, something that money cannot buy.”

My mom is a lazy cook. Haha!!! Ask her to cook sweet and sour pork, and she’ll give u a stern no. Cos it makes her fry the meat and cook the sauce later, something that she hates to do. Since her retirement, she watched a lot more TV than she used to, and definitely more cooking shows. She’s improved a lot and got more adventurous with ingredients. Her stews and braises have always been good, and these few years, her soup is getting better and better. Can u imagine that I taught her how to cook when I was 6 or 7??? If u read my “about me” you’ll know that I watch grandaunt cook a lot, and mom never cooked at home that time. For a few weeks, grandaunt wasn’t home, and mom had to cook. She had to ask me, what did grandaunt use for this dish and that…. So I became her “sifu”. I was so bad, telling her ketchup here and ketchup there, because I loved ketchup (hey I was 7!!!). and if she really did cook sweet and sour fish, I’ll be there instructing her to put in more and more ketchup. If you can imagine how bad her cooking was, I tell you, even her blanched veggie tasted yucks( no ketchup ok)!! What if your kids were so frank telling u that your cooking sucks??? Will that stop u from cooking?? My mom didn’t, and she cooked even more(on Sundays). By the time I was 9, she could cook the most wonderful dinners ever (every mother cooks the best!!!!). No more complaints.

This ginger braised chicken is one of my mother’s forte. No ketchup here. No one does it as good as she does, and that includes me, her earlier “sifu”. Never ask her for recipes, she never cook with one and when she does, it always sucks. Freehand is always better with her. But I’ve jotted down what I’ve done today(after referring to my mother to confirm ingredients used) for ur reference.

My mom's Ginger Braised Chicken
1.2kg chicken whole legs (3 pcs)
80gm ginger, julienned (about ¾ cup)
2 Tbsp oil
½ tbsp salt
2 Tbsp oyster sauce
3 Tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
¾ tsp sugar or slightly more if ginger is pretty hot
3 cups water

1. Chop chicken legs into pieces, I chopped them into 8 pieces each.
2. Heat wok until very hot. Put in oil and fry ginger until fragrant.
3. Make sure the wok is well smeared with the ginger oil. Put in chicken and spread it around. Do not toss them immediately. Let it sit in the wok for 30 seconds, then only u start to use ur spatula to flip the chicken pieces. Stir fry chicken in wok until the chicken looks opaque and skin starts to brown slightly.
4. Put in all the seasonings. And continue to stir fry until the seasonings dry up a bit, but be careful not to burn.
5. Put in water and simmer on medium low heat until chicken is tender.

My mother’s advice: Best if cooked in a claypot.
And weeks later, after I did this, she did this, and luckily I was there to capture the process. This is my mummy dearest doing her best dish, not me.

And lastly a picture of my mom with Lyanne.... see their resemblence?? Lyanne is very attached to her, even though they meet nnly once a month. Lyanne even sleeps with my mom :)

And here's another one with all her grandkids

These pics were taken 8 months back, so everybody has grown..