Saturday, March 19, 2011

Happy Jellies

Recipe for the 2 layer agar-agar:

BROWN LAYER AGAR-AGAR:

* 2tsps agar-agar powder
* 500ml water
* 100g gula melaka, chopped finely
* 2 pandan leaves

WHITE LAYER AGAR-AGAR:

* 2tsps agar-agar powder
* 100ml coconut milk
* 100ml evaporated milk
* 350ml water
* 100g sugar
* 1/2 tsp salt

1. Put all brown layer ingredients into a pan. Bring to boil over medium fire. Stir with a whisk until agar-agar dissolvesand mixture is smooth. Turn off fire. Removes pandan leaves.
2. Fill jelly mould half full with the brown mixture. Cool for 1 min, then leave to set in the fridge for 20 mins.
3. Prepare white layer the same way. When the brown layer is partially set, remove from the fridge and pour the white layer over. Put it back to the fridge to set for at least 30mins..

Green tea soy bean milk jellies







Palm sugar jellies







Chrysanthemum jellies


Coconut milk jellies


Yellow sweet potatoes layered jellies

Friday, March 18, 2011

Green Tea Chiffon Cake

Red bean paste.

Green tea fresh cream.

My first green tea chiffon cake.
 
Turn the chiffon cake upside down to cool.

Couldn't resist the urge to peek & see whether the cake is ok and still attached to the mould.

Separated from the mould. (Haha..I forget that usually, chiffon cake is turned upside down after being separated from the mould. No wonder I find it hard to spread the fresh cream over the top as the skin keep sticking to my spreading knife.)
 
Nice? I totally love this chiffon cake. Had intended to spread the cream all over the cake but in the end, settled with this 'design'. Not bad also right?

Could't wait to cut through the cake to see whether the inside is ok. Its perfect. Added a scoop of the red bean paste that I prepared earlier. Its a nice combination always.

The texture is light, soft & spongy. When I cut it with the spoon, the cake will spring up to the actual height. I am absolutely satisfied.

I bought this book and had tried the green tea souffle swiss roll and it was great. So today, I decided to give the green tea chiffon cake recipe a try. You will see me trying out the various recipes in this book. I am not sure if its alright to copy the recipe here as this seems a bit unfair to the author. The recipe is written in detail and very easy to follow. Its a good book. Do try to get it and happy baking!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Tomyam Mee Goreng








Ingredients for tomyam mee goreng:

1 pc firm/hard toufu - diced
some bean sprout (its S$0..20 as shown in the pic above)
900g cooked yellow noodles
1 tomato - cut into quarters
1 big onion - cut into quarters
fishcake - sliced thinly
1 red chilli - shredded
8-10 fresh prawns (squid/diced chicken fillet)
1 stalk of fresh green spring oinon cut lengthwise

paste :
3tbsp maggi tomato sauce
2tbsp maggi chilli sauce
1tbsp oyster sauce
2tbsp tomyam paste
2tbsp light soy sauce
a dash of maggi seasoning
1 tsp sugar
a dash of fish sauce
3-5 tbsp water
(mix all in a large bowl and set aside)

Usually when I want to fry noodles, I will prepare some fried shallots and mashed garlics in oil till light brown. Take out and set aside. Leave the oil in the wok and once the wok is hot, add in the diced toufu and stir fry til light brown. Add in the prawns, fishcakes, onion and tomatoes. Give it a quick stir then add in the bowl of tomyam paste mixtures and mix well. Lower the flame here as the sauce will get burn easily if the fire is too high.

Add in the yellow noodles in portion, mixing with the sauce constantly until every strand is coated in the sauce. Turn the fire to medium flame and lastly add in the beansprout and green spring onion. Mixed well. Done.

On a plate, topped the noodles with some shredded red chillies, fried shallots or thinly cut fried egg sheets(I didn't put today). Squeeze some lime juice. Garnish with some parsley. Ready to serve.

Fried Bitter Gourd With Eggs


Cut the bitter gourd in thin slices, marinate with some salts & leave it in the fridge for an hour or overnight(as I just did bcos I bought a large bitter gourd, cleanse & cored and used half to cook with spareribs for dinner last night, keeping the other half for this dish today.) When ready to cook, just wash the salt away & squeeze out all the liquid(that way, the bitter gourd will remain crunchy & nice even after frying). This is ready to mix with the eggs.

Fried bitter gourd with eggs.


I used to be afraid of eating bitter gourd. Right, from its name 'bitter' gourd, it sure tasted bitter. Its after I read from cooking books and learn to prepare this dish that I started to enjoy eating it.

Ingredients:

Half a large bitter gourd (prepared as shown in the first pic)
3 eggs beaten
Pinch of salt
A dash of fish sauce
3tbsp of Corn starch

Method:

Mix all ingredient in a large mixing bowl. Heat up the wok and add in 2tbsp of oil. Fry the eggs in small portion and under medium flame so that the bitter gourd gets cook evenly & the eggs don't get burn too easily. Don't be too impatient to turn the eggs or it won't turn out nice and crispy.

Enjoy!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Layered Fresh Cream Japanese Purple Sweet Potatoes Sponge Cake


I must be addicted to decorating cake with fresh whipping cream. I prepared the sponge cake batter and divided it into 2 portion.  One portion, I baked it in original flavor, spread with fream cream & strawberry syrup and practice the rolling method earlier. The other portion, I added in some mashed purple sweet potatoes and instead of rolling up, I decided to cut the baked cake into half and spread with fresh cream then layered the other half on top. Then I cover the whole cake with fresh whipping cream. Hmm... yum! The kids simply love the fresh cream.

I find the cake a bit plain after spreading it with just fresh cream. Since its already a purple sweet potato sponge cake, I don't want to add any other ingredients. Hmm... I still feel lack of something when I smell something sweet and aromatic. Yes! Its the palm sugar syrup that I prepared earlier. It really match with the sweet potatoes. So after cutting a piece and displaying it on the plate for the camera,  I drizzled some palm sugar syrup over the top.

Done with the photo-taking. Tasted the cake. Yum, its nice! So I pick up my hp again and snapped another close up look of the cake. Don't mind my lousy spreading skill. The cake is yummy & smells really good.

Sponge Roll With Strawberry & Chocolate Syrup


I am practising to roll a sponge cake. Still not very good. Will try to do it again. I also enjoy decorating the cake with fresh whipping cream. Having fun in the kitchen. 

Must Haves In My Kitchen

Fried Shallots Oil (Prepare some thin & evenly sliced shallots and fry in oil. Makes soup, porridge and vegetable dishes taste better when added)

Raspberry in rum. (For Baking)


Raisin in rum (for baking)

Pickled Ginger (Cleans, deskinned and pat dry the ginger, slice as thin as possible + rock sugar + white vinegar)


That's the purpose of the pickled gingers. Eat with century eggs.

Pickled green & red chillies. (Clean, dry with kitchen towel, sliced the green chillies and sieve away the seeds with basket + rock sugar + vinegar. The red one will be blended with fresh garlics as dipping sauce to go with other dish like steam chicken etc.)

Refrigerated Palm sugar syrup/Gula Melaka syrup (Good for baking and dessert)

More to come...

Zhi-char Kuey Tiow Bee Hoon (Chinese Broad Vermicelli + Rice Vermicelli)


I have not cooked this dish for some times. Pardon me if the sauce looks very dark in the picture. (I accidently added in too much dark soy sauce, but it doesn't affect the taste). Again, this dish can be prepared with many kinds of ingredients. Anyway, you prefer. You can add in prawns, sotong, fishcake etc. I always make do with whatever I have in my fridge.

Everyone in the house is either sick or just recovered. Blame the bad weather. So for the time being, I will skip prawns and sotong (squid). If you don't take pork, just substitute it with chicken meat. I still have some fishballs, pork, and fish slices and a packet of baby spinach. And I have a packet of kuey tiow (chinese broad vermicelli) which is not enough for all of us, so I prepare some bee hoon too.

Ingredients :

Kuey Tiow/Bee hoon
Some minced garlics and shallots (sliced) - roughly about half the rice bowl
3 eggs (beaten)
Corn starch (3tbsp corn starch + 4tbsp water)
Dark soy sauce
Light soy sauce
Sugar
Fish sauce
A kettle of boiling water

Sauce :  Fresh baby spinach
              Fish slices
              Fishballs
              Pork slices


First, heat up wok, add in some oil. Add minced garlics and shallots and fry until slightly browned, add in some eggs at this point(this is to prevent the bee hoon from sticking to the wok), let the egg harden a little before adding in the bee hoon. Add some light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and a dash of fish sauce and mix well. Stir fry till the bee hoon is brown. Remove from the wok.

Do the same thing for the kuey tiow. I didn't indicate the amount of soy sauce and fish sauce to use because we might not be using the same brand of sauces thus you have to adjust according to your taste. However, try to use the kind of soy sauce which is salty instead of sweet one as this will affect the taste. Dish up and set aside.

In the same wok, add in some oil, add some garlics & shallots and fry til light brown. Add in the pork slices and stir-fry. Next add in the boiling water (just measure with the bowl that u are going to serve in, like if 5 bowl then roughly about 4 bowl of water will do). Anyway, just prepare more sauce if u prefers it wet. Throw in the fishballs and fish slices. Let it boil and lastly, add in the vegetables.

Lower the flames and stir in the corn starch, be careful not to break the fish slices. Then  increase the fire and let the sauce thicken. Turn off the gas and stir in the beaten eggs and slowly fold in. Add more eggs if you want.

Put some pre-fried kuey tiow and bee hoon in a bowl and serve with some sauce.

My family likes to add in some black vinegar with a splash of white pepper powder and some fried shallots.

Enjoy!



**Attached are some past pictures of the same dish that I have cooked but with different ingredients.

Mui-Fan (Same method of preparing the sauce and add in seafoods and instead of beehoon or kuey tiow, its served with piping hot rice)

Zhi-Char BeeHoon, topped with some homemade pickled chillies.

This is more complicated but definitely yummy. First steam the chickens rubbed with some salt to extract out the chicken essence then prepare the sauce in the chi-char style. Its really delicious.