Finally managed to bake this and I must say the recipe is really easy to do. Just need to measure out the ingredients and mix all together and then shape the cookies into a ball. Even dd had a ball of a time helping me shape the cookies :-)
Dh who is not a cookie person also did the taste test and said that it was good.
Click HERE for the recipe. It's actually from a Phoon Huat Demo Class.
My internet friend H shared this recipe with me. It has got quite a unique taste with the 5-spice powder on the fish as a seasoning. It's just nice and not too strong.
This is my dh's favourite dish. It's a simple dish to cook.
It is important to get fresh prawns and marinade it with a little chinese wine, sesame oil, pepper, sugar and salt for about half an hour before stir-frying them. With the beaten egg mixture, just need to add a tsp of chinese wine, a little salt and pepper to take away the eggy smell. You may either slice yellow or purple onion and add a little sugar to caramelise the onion slices during the frying. Stir-fry with hot oil and add in this order ...first the sliced onion, then the prawns and lastly the beaten eggs. When the dish is ready, garnish with chopped green onions and dried shrimp floss.
I baked this the second time and adapted the recipe from the original. This time the chiffon definitely turned out softer and lighter than the first cheese chiffon that I baked. My mum did the taste test and she gave it the thumbs up.
Ingredients:
(A) 4 nos. large eggs yolks
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp Bailey's
(B) 50 gm Margarine
40 gm Cream Cheese
70 gm Evaporated Milk
(C) 70 gm Top flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
(D) 4 nos. large egg whites
100 gm caster sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
Method:
Pre-heat oven at 170 degree C.
Separate egg yolks from whites.
Use a fork and beat up (A) till well mix.
Melt all ingredients in (B) in a double boiler. Mix till well blended.
In a mixer bowl beat up (D) till stiff peak forms (i.e. when bowl is inverted the beaten egg whites remain inside).
Add in (A) into the mixer bowl and mix well, then add in (B) and also stir well.
Add in (C) and fold in gently till well blended.
Pour batter into a 20 cm. chiffon cake pan lined at the bottom.
Bang the pan on a hard surface to release the bubbles.
Bake for 35-40 mins.
When the cake is ready, remove from the oven and give it a bang on a hard surface.
Then invert the pan and cool the cake.
When the cake is completely cool, remove cake from the pan using a very sharp paring knife.
I remember this is one of the earliest and simplest chicken stew recipe I cooked for the family when I first started cooking for the family. It's basically just putting all the ingredients into a pot and simmering everything for a good 2 hours to get this chicken stew out. Over time I've adapted the recipe in so many ways and it's the latest adaptation that I like best.
Ingredients:
1 kg chicken thighs
8 pieces fresh shitake mushrooms. whole
10 pieces red dates
2 handful kei chee
5 slices of ginger
2 whole garlic, inner skin intact
2 tbsp chinese wine
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp light soya sauce
Method:
Put all ingredients into a pot.
Add enough water to just cover the ingredients in the pot.
Let the ingredients in the pot boil for about 10 mins.
Turn down fire and cover pot and let it simmer for 2 hours.
Ocassionally check on the simmering ingredients and scoop sauce to cover ingredients.
Dish is ready when chicken meat is tender.
Bought some Toman fish fillet intending to make fish soup. However I changed my mind and used them to stir-fry with fresh shitake mushrooms. The Toman fish fillet has quite a fair bit of tiny bones at the surface of the fillet. Just need to cut out the top part of the fillet and I threw the cut out part into a pot of Ikan Bilis soup that I was preparing.
Ingredients:
250 gm Toman fish fillet, sliced
1 tsp chopped garlic
4 slices ginger
3 tbsp oil
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp oyster sauce
5 pieces of fresh shitake mushrooms, sliced
Marinade the fish slices with .....
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp Chinese wine
1 tbsp sesame oil
a dash of pepper
2 tbsp corn flour
Method:
Heat up 3 tbsp of oil in a frying pan and stir fry ginger slices and chopped garlic till fragrant.
Add in the fresh shitake mushrooms and 1/4 cup water and simmer for about 2 minutes.
Add in the marinaded fish slices and the oyster sauce and season to taste.
Simmer for another 2 minutes.
When fish slices turned white, dish up and garnish with chopped onions or coriander leaves.
Serve with white rice.
I bought the Superbiscuit Mix from Phoon Huat and used it to bake some assorted cut out cookies. The pre-mix has flour, sugar, baking powder and milk powder and flavouring in it. The instructions were very simple. You just need to add soften butter to the flour and mix into a dough. Half way doing it I realised it's difficult to bind the dough without some liquid and the taste of the dough was rather bland. So I added some Bailey , honey and milk. The dough managed to bind and it was easy working with the dough to cut out the cookies.
Finally cookies baked and dd did the taste test. She looked at the cookies and was so happy cos' the cookies were decorated with her favourite ingredient Hundreds and Thousands. After a bite on the cookie she spat it out and refused to eat it anymore. Wondering why, I took a bite myself and realised the cookie had only a very faint taste of sweetness in the dough and it's rather powdery.
To look on the positive side, I would say that it's a good cookie for you if you wanna loose some weight or if you're diabetic. The taste and texture takes some time getting used to.
This morning I ate them again. I think I'm getting used to the less sweet cookie taste. I saw ds J putting nutella on the cookies before popping them into his mouth.
This is good. I got the recipe from Kuali.com. Click HERE for the original recipe by Amy Beh. I used shoulder butt pork instead of pork belly with skin.
The dish has gravy and it's yummy. Do strain the gravy before serving it with the pork slices.
I remembered someone shared her fish baked in a Giamson Nonya Sauce in a forum. I can't find the particular brand here but found this instead. It's Nyonya Sauce by Chef King. I used this as the seasoning and steamed the Batang fish. I liked the taste which is spicy and tangy. I would definitely use this again. Compared to the Tom Yum paste which I had used previously for fish, this sesaoning is less intense.
Since I'm still in the chiffon cake craze mood I attempted another chiffon recipe from KC. The original recipe is HERE .
My dd loved eating the cake and asked me to pack two pieces into her lunch box.
It's a good recipe but I would like to increase the butter content and see if the chiffon turns out softer. The alternative maybe is to add a portion of corn oil which I find it's missing in this recipe. The other chiffon recipes always had a portion of corn oil. Stay tune for the update :-)
Dh bought me some packs of nuts and figs to snack on. He thinks these are better than eating cookies. Figs are good for weight control but definitely not when they are in these cookies. Click HERE for some information of the Iranian figs that I used to make these cookies.
I searched the internet and came up with this simple and easy to do drop fig cookie. The Fig Cookie recipe is obtained HERE .
Presenting my final product ....it's a soft cookie with chewy figs to taste.
Bought this particular brand of shrimp floss and stir-fried my beijing cabbage with it. It gives a spicy taste to the vege dish without me adding chillies to it.
Ingredients:Another batch of chocochips cookies done. This time the texture is the crunchy and chewy type. Here's sharing with you how I adapted the recipe.
Ingredients:
125 gm unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp Irish Cream Bailey
3 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 cup condensed milk
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 cup chocochips
2 cups self-raising flour (300 g)
2 tbsp evaporated milk
1/4 tsp salt
Method:
Cream butter and sugar and salt till well combined.
Add in the condensed milk, Bailey's and cocoa powder and mix well.
Fold in the flour and the chocochips and add in the 2 tbsp milk.
Scoop out teaspoons of the cookie dough and place on a lined baking sheet.
Decorate the top of the dough with M&M baking bits.
Bake in a pre-heated oven of 170 degree C for 10 mins.
Cool cookies completely before storing them in air-tight containers.
Recipe makes 70 pieces of cookies.
I shared this recipe before and cooked this last night for dinner. This time I added 2 sticks of chopped celery into the ingredients. During the stewing, the celery disintegrated into the gravy, just as I expected. If I wanted to bite into the celery I should have put them in only 15 minutes before the 2 hours were up.
Here's the RECIPE .
Stefanie shared this RECIPE with us at Imperial Kitchen and I took time to bake it and never looked back. It was also my first time using condensed milk for the cookie dough and it definitely gave a different texture to the usually hard and crunchy chocochips cookies that I baked.
My children loved it and the cookie is the soft and chewy type. I also added a tablespoon of Irish Creme Bailey into the cookie dough and about 1/2 cup milk to the dough to bind the ingredients better. For the children's chocolate chip, I decorated them with M&M's baking bits. Using another batch of dough I added orange peel and decorated them with red diced cherries. I will definitely bake this recipe a few more times.
As CNY is approaching, there was a discussion at Imperial K itchen regarding what cookies to bake and Jo kindly shared her recipe with us. Click HERE for the original recipe. This peanut cookie is pretty easy to make, however I added too much oil to mine and this resulted in my cookies having problem shaping into rounded balls. This cookie is the melt in the mouth type of cookie.
This is a way of using kei chee in stir-fry veges. Kei Chee is good for the eyes and good quality Kei Chee can be eaten as a snack. When used in stir-frying veges, it gives a sweet taste contrasting with the salty vege.
Ingredients:
1 packet of round spinach, leaves picked, washed and retained.
1 tbsp garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp chinese wine
1 handful of kei chee, soaked in water for about half an hour.
Method:
Heat up 3 tbsp oil and fry garlic till fragrant.
Add in the spinach and stir-fry till spinach is 3/4 ready.
Add in the salt, sugar and chinese wine and stir till well mixed.
Add in the kei chee to the spinach and mix well.
Dish up and serve.
I made the chiffon again but this time I added 1 tbsp of Irish Creme Bailey and gosh the smell was heavenly when the chiffon was being baked. And I'm on cloud nine cos' if you look at the chiffon today ...notice any difference?
Doesn't it look almost perfect?
I've dicovered the secret of getting the top and side of the chiffon looking like this perfect. It has all to do with the new paring knife which I got from the NTUC bonus point knife exchange scheme. Just need to use a very sharp and thin knife to cut the bottom and sides of the chiffon before removing it out of the chiffon pan. All along I had been using my bread knife to cut and slice the chiffon, now I will use the paring knife instead.
I always like to buy a whole Batang fish from the NTUC supermarket and get the lady to fillet it for me. It's a whole lot cheaper getting the fillet this way. Most of the time I would keep the head and bones in the freezer after washing the blood away. After three weeks, I would throw them away. Finally managed to admit that this is such a wasteful act. I asked for a simple fish soup stock recipe at Imperial Kitchen and Chinesecook responded with a simple recipe. I adapted it and here's the result of the simple fish soup stock.
Ingredients:
500 gm fish bones and head, cleaned of blood and washed with salt, pepper and rice vinegar.
10 cloves of garlic, smashed with skin intact.
1 no. thumb sized ginger, sliced.
5 stalks of green onions, cut into 4 cm lengths.
1 tbsp Szechuan peppercorns
1.5 litres hot water
Method:
Heat up 2 tbsp oil and fry ginger, garlic, green onions and peppercorns till fragrant.
Add in the fish bones and head and fry till 3/4 done.
Add in the hot water and let the ingredients boil for about 10 mins.
Turn down the fire and simmer, covered for an hour and a half.
You can see meat coming off the bones and the soup turning a little milky.
Strain the soup with a sieve to remove the bones and ingredients.
Season to taste and the fish soup stock is ready.
(I used the stock and just threw in fish balls, tomatoes, beancurd and some coriander leaves for a meal. I also added blanched Chye Sim into the soup.)
Whenever I have left over rice, this will be children's favourite dish to cook. It's a very simple dish with just overnight rice,eggs, luncheon meat/sausages and kikoman soya sauce. My ds B had ever requested me to cook this for him to bring along for his NPCC hikes at Pulau Ubin. I ever brought this along during picnics when the boys were younger.
Ingredients:
3 Corning ware bowls of overnight cooked white rice.
Half a can of premium luncheon meat, chopped.
Some left over sausages, chopped into small pieces.(I happen to have them.)
3 nos. eggs, beaten and add 1/4 tsp salt, dash of pepper and a tsp of Chinese wine.
Green onions, chopped for garnishing.
Method:
Heat up 3 tbsp oil.
Add in the chopped luncheon meat and sausages and fry for about half a minute.
Add in the beaten eggs over the luncheon meat/sausages and wait for about a minute till 3/4 cooked.
Stir till the omelet is scrambled up in chunks.
Add in the white rice and mix well with the luncheon meat/sausage scramble.
Add in 2 tbsp of Kikoman sauce and mix well the ingredients together.
Dish up and garnish with chopped green onions( or fried shallots).
Looks like by now, if you're reading this, you will know that I'm on a baking Chiffon cakes craze LOL. Anyway, still using the basic Pandan Chiffon recipe that I followed I decided to experiment with hot cocoa and the result is the chiffon you see here.
Since it's a kind of chocolate chiffon, the usual way would be to add a little chocolate emulco to give it a nice fragrance. However I cannot do so cos' my ds A dislikes the choco emulco smell and said that whenever I used it on the cakes and he smells it, he gets a headache. Just wondering if anyone has this experience too? So I just tried out to see if I added coffee emulco, he would give me the same complain. This guy drinks coffee so, I see no reason for him to tell me that he will get a headache eating the cake. When I offered him a piece, he turned it down :-( Looks like all four children in the house dislike emulco in their cakes. The only kind of paste they can accept is the pandan paste. What a strange phenomenon!
In the end only dh and I finished eating the cake. I would bake this again without the emulco.
Ingredients:
(A) 4 nos. large eggs yolks
1/4 tsp salt
(If you like a hint of fragrant coffee emulco you may add
1/2 tsp emulco here and mix well with the egg yolks.)
(On the other hand, you may want to add 1 tbsp of Irish Creme Bailey.)
(B) 85 mls sunflower/corn oil
125 mls hot cocoa chocolate (add 1 tbsp cocoa to 125 mls. warm
UHT milk plus 2 tsp sugar and stir till blended)
(C) 150 gm cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
(D) 4 nos. large egg whites
140 gm caster sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
Method:
Pre-heat oven at 170 degree C.
Separate egg yolks from whites.
Use a fork and beat up (A) till well mix.
In a mixer bowl beat up (D) till stiff peak forms (i.e. when bowl is inverted the beaten egg whites remain inside).
Add in (A) into the mixer bowl and mix well, then add in (B) and also stir well.
Add in (C) and fold in gently till well blended.
Pour batter into a 20 cm. chiffon cake pan lined at the bottom.
Bang the pan on a hard surface to release the bubbles.
Bake for 35-40 mins.
When the cake is ready, remove from the oven and give it a bang on a hard surface.
Then invert the pan and cool the cake.
When the cake is completely cool, remove cake from the pan.
I was chatting with S during the IK gathering and she shared with me a positive review of this dish. Since I had chicken in the freezer, I decided to cook this dish for dinner. The recipe was shared by Angie from Kitchencapers and I adapted the recipe to cook the dish.
Ingredients:
1 kg chicken parts
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1 thumb size ginger, sliced
5 stalks spring onions cut into 4 cm lengths
5 pieces dried chilli, soaked and deseeded.
about 1/2 cup hot water or less
Marinade chicken parts for an hour using the following:
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp onion oil
2 tbsp kikoman light soya sauce
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
3 tbsp chinese wine
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
Method:
Heat up 1 tbsp each of sesame oil and cooking oil and fry garlic, ginger, half portion of the spring onion and dried chillies till fragrant.
Add in the chicken parts without the marinade and fry for about 2 mins.
Pour the marinade into the ingredients and mix well.
Add in the water.
Cook all ingredients in the pot over medium heat till they come to a boil.
Then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 mins. Stir occasionally while simmering.
After 30 mins open pot cover and continue to simmer for another 15 mins till gravy is reduced.
Add in the rest of the spring onions and mix well.
Dish out and serve hot.
I read Edith's and Angie's blogs about their kitchens and this has inspired me to make this as my next blog topic.
My present kitchen is the second kitchen that I've had a chance to freely design. My first kitchen had a black and grey color combination and since I wanted a more cheerful color for my second kitchen I opted to get turqoise kitchen cabinets. It's a soothing color for me cos' this kitchen has no open views from the kitchen windows. Also, with the experience of staying in flats I didn't want a kitchen that gets a person isolated from the rest of the house once you step into the kitchen.
So when we bought this house, I had a major wall opened half way and also created an opening next to the living room. Now when I stand in the kitchen I can see almost the entire house and knows practically who is walking in and out of the rooms. And the best thing about the opening next to the living room is that I can watch my favourite TV programs while cooking the family's dinner :-) When the children were younger, this opening also allowed me to keep watch over the children when I was cooking in the kitchen.
So here's presenting my kitchen .....
This view of the kitchen was taken from the play area where the computers are.
Pardon the mess as you can see this kitchen is totally lived in LOL.
My kitchen sits the family dining table and this black marble table was given to me by my dad when he shifted out of the area. This marble table also gives me fond memories of the foods my mum had cooked for the family when I was a young adult. It was around this table that sat my mum, dad, brother and I and now it sits my family of six. This is also the table that I used to roll the dough of the breads and buns that I baked.
Here are pics giving you a closer look of what I have in the kitchen.
That's my ds J washing up after one evening's meal.
Members of Imperial Kitchen had a gathering at L's place on 7th Jan 2007.
We had over 20 members coming together to eat our lovely bakes and tete-e-tete over green tea and orange juice. It was a warm and friendly get together where I had the chance to meet up with some of those that I already know and made new friends too. This chance to meet up also enabled me to put ID names to faces. Ah...the only regret was that I didn't have a chance to speak to everyone and also I missed getting my photo shoots ...urgh. Hopefully next time I'll remember.
I used the Pandan Chiffon recipe but substituted a couple of ingredients for the Orange Chiffon. The taste is nice and the cake is still fluffy. Only thing is the orange color is not strong enough to make the chiffon look orange.
Ingredients:
(A) 4 nos. large eggs yolks
1/2 tsp orange paste
1/4 tsp salt
zest from 1 orange
(B) 85 mls sunflower/corn oil
125 mls orange juice
(C) 150 gm cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
(D) 4 nos. large egg whites
140 gm caster sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
Method:
Pre-heat oven at 170 degree C.
Separate egg yolks from whites.
Use a fork and beat up (A) till well mix.
In a mixer bowl beat up (D) till stiff peak forms (i.e. when bowl is inverted the beaten egg whites remain inside).
Add in (A) into the mixer bowl and mix well, then add in (B) and also stir well.
Add in (C) and fold in gently till well blended.
Pour batter into a 20 cm. chiffon cake pan.
Bang the pan on a hard surface to release the bubbles.
Bake for 35-40 mins.
When the cake is ready, remove from the oven and give it a bang on a hard surface.
Then invert the pan and cool the cake.
When the cake is completely cool, remove cake from the pan using a thin knife to slice the sides and the bottom.
My dear friend B suggested to me to cook this dish cos' this dish can be kept frozen for a long time. Since it's a stew, the dish will become more tasty overtime. I searched through the internet as well as the websites that I frequent and finally came upon this blog called pablopabla. From the write up about Mui Choy pork in this blog and also the tips given by my friend B, I came up with this recipe. Here's sharing it with you....
Ingredients:
1 packet (300 gm) sweet Mei Chai, soaked for an hour, washed and water wringed out and then shredded.
1 packet (300 gm) salted Mei Chai, processed same as above.
500 gm pork belly, skin removed and cut into small pieces after washing with salt.
2 whole garlic, chopped.
2 tbsp cooking oil.
3 cups warm water
Marinade the pork pieces with ....(for about an hour)
2 tbsp chinese wine
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Method:
Fry chopped garlic in 2 tbsp of hot oil till fragrant.
Add in the marinaded pork slices and fry for about 3 minutes.
Add in the 2 kinds of Mei Chai vegetables and mix well.
Add in the 3 cups of water or till the ingredients are just below water and let the ingredients simmer for about 2 hours, covered.
Do open the cover and stir the ingredients once in a while.
Once the ingredients have softened, you may want to adjust the taste with either sugar or salt or both to your liking.
Here's what I did with my Batang fillet.....
Ingredients:
300 gm Batang fillet, cubed
(Marinade fish cubes with salt, sugar, sesame oil, chinese wine and corn flour for about half an hour.)
100 gm Salted mustard green ( kiam chye),
(shredded after soaking for about half an hour.)
1 tsp garlic, chopped finely
1 tsp ginger, chopped finely
1 tbsp fermented soya bean paste
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1/4 cup water
Method:
Heat up 3 tbsp oil and fry garlic, ginger and fermented soya paste till fragrant.
Add in the fish cubes and fry evenly and then add in the shredded mustard green.
Add in the water and simmer, covered for about 10 minutes till fish is cooked.
Season the dish with rice vinegar and sugar and mix well.
Dish up and serve warm.
I had seen a recipe using Szechuan peppercorn to cook pork at Kitchencapers by a lady named Gina. I adapted the recipe and cooked it the way I know how.
Dh gave the thumbs up and ate a lot more than he usually did.
Ingredients:
400 gm shoulder butt pork, cubed
2 tbsp ginger juice
2 tbsp Szechuan peppercorns
2 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
half cup water
Method:
Marinade the cubed pork with all the ingredients above except the water for about an hour or more.
Heat up 2 tbsp cooking oil and stir-fry over high heat the pork cubes for about two minutes.
Add the water and let the pork cubes simmer for about half an hour over medium heat, covered.
When the liquid has reduced to half, check the pork cubes for tenderness.
Dish up and serve hot with white rice.
Noticed that I use Beijing cabbage quite a lot of times cos this is quite a hardy vege and it can be kept in the fridge for more than a week. I usually go to the supermarket once or twice a week and by the time the weekend comes I'm almost always left with this vege to cook. So here's sharing how I cooked it ...
Ingredients:
Half a head of Beijing cabbage, shredded.
6-8 pieces of canned button mushrooms, halved.
Half a carrot, sliced.
3 cloves of garlic, chopped.
2 slices of ginger, julined.
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tsps oyster sauce
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp chinese wine
fried onions and onion oil
Method:
Heat up 3 tbsps of oil and fry garlic, ginger and carrots till fragrant.
Add in the cabbage and mushrooms and mix well.
Add in water and let cabbage simmer for about two minutes, covered.
Remove cover and add in the salt, sugar, pepper, oyster sauce and chinese wine.
Stir well and scoop cabbage up.
Garnish cabbage with fried onions and a tsp of onion oil.
Cos' I baked them in the night ,while watching the Countdown show and waiting for the countdown to 2007 :-)
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year !
I got the recipe from Edith's blog and here's sharing the recipe with you.
Recipe is good for 48 mini muffins.
Ingredients:
140 gm salted batter, softened
100 gm caster sugar
3 nos. eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
200 gm plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
Nutella chocolate for topping
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 170 degree C and line mini muffin tins.
Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
Add in the eggs and vanilla essence and stir till well mixed.
Fold in the flour and baking powder till well blended.
Fill each muffin cup 3/4 full.
Top each muffin batter with nutella chocolate and use a toothpick to swirl some batter over the chocolate.
Bake for 15 mins and remove from oven when sufficiently golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack and store in air-tight container when cooled completely.
NB: Sometimes for variation I would use the batter as it is and stuff a frozen blueberry into the muffin batter. This also tastes good.
