Pork Ribs and White Radish Soup

White radish, also known as daikon or white carrot is the main ingredient used in the Singaporean carrot cake is also quite good as an addition to soup. This is a simple soup using just three ingredients, yet very flavorful.

Ingredients (2 portions)

Half a large white radish, peeled and sliced into thick medallions

150g pork ribs (this one I used was the soft bones part of the ribs which can be quite fatty, you can use other parts if preferred)

3-4 red dates

1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine

Salt to taste

Steps

1. First blanch the pork ribs in boiling water for a few minutes. Drain, rinse and set aside while you boil up 3 bowls of water again.
2. Return the ribs to the boiling pot of water together with the sliced radish and red dates. Wait for it to come to boil again then turn down the heat to let it simmer for about 30 minutes.
3. Add the Shaoxing wine and salt to taste just before serving.
   
   

Sweet and Sour Fried Fish Fillet

 

Time pass by so fast and it's already the middle of May, and just two more days before my Dad and my sister comes to visit me in Sweden for the first time and to meet his grandson/her nephew too! My Dad promised to cook me many delicious food while he's here so hopefully some of those dishes will end up on this blog too. 

Motherhood has been very tiring but it doesn't stop the craving. I can't remember exactly when I cooked this (definitely not recently) but it's one of those dishes we will order when eating at a zi char store. This is my simple version of it and the fish I used was what they called 'pangsiu' on the package here. It's some kind of white , boneless, frozen fish fillet, which I'm sure would have tasted better with fresh fish if you can get them.

Ingredients

2-3 large white fish fillet, thawed

1 egg

1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine

salt and pepper

½ green bell pepper

½ red bell pepper

1 large onion

thumb size ginger

potato flour

oil for deep frying

4 tablespoons ketchup

3 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

Water or stock 

A few drops of sesame seed oil

Steps

1. Slice the fish into large pieces and marinate it with the wine, salt and pepper and 1 egg. Coat it generously with potato flour to be deep fried.
   
   
   
2. Fry the fish slices until golden brown, drain on kitchen paper and set aside.
   
   
   
3. Cut the bell peppers into bite size pieces and the onion into similar slices. Minced the ginger finely.
4. Using a hot pan with about 2 tablespoons of cooking oil, fry the minced ginger and onions until fragrant, then add the bell peppers and mix well until slightly soften. Add in the ketchup and chilli sauce enough water or stock to create a thick gravy and bring it to boil.
   
   
   
5. Toss in the fish slices and mix well. Mix in some sesame seed oil just before serving.
   
   
   

Pig's Trotters in Sweet Vinegar Confinement Food

In Sweden where it's not common to hire help after giving birth, I had to do my own confinement in my own way. What I discovered from many Chinese friends is that there are different ways how confinement is being done, and this dish is certainly more unique to South East Asian Chinese or the Hokkiens. I got a slow cooker or crock pot for my birthday from my in-laws (nice huh!) and used it to cook this for myself. It's a very simple recipe but the key thing is to use the correct vinegar - which is the sweet vinegar, identified by its name or one of the brand, Ba Zhen as shown in the picture. Contrary to belief, this dish can be eaten by anyone and is one of my Dad's favourite too.

Ingredients
1 pig trotter
1 large piece of ginger, about 200g
2-3 tablespoons of sesame seed oil
1 bottle of sweet vinegar
1-2 blocks of gula melaka
Hard boiled eggs (optional)



Steps

1. The night before cooking, prepare the vinegar solution by crushing the ginger with a cleaver and place in a pot to fry without oil until dry before adding the sesame seed oil and fry until fragrant. Add the whole bottle of vinegar and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. Let it cool overnight.
   
   
   
2. The next day, scald the pig trotters in a pot of boiling water, rinse and drain. Heat up the pot with some cooking oil and brown the scaled trotters slightly.
   
   
   
3. Place the trotters, gula melaka and the vinegar solution together in the crock pot and let it cook on low heat for four hours or until the meat is falling off the bone. Add in the peeled hard boiled eggs half an hour before serving. Serve with rice.
   
   
   
   
   
   

Stir Fried Bitter gourd and Egg

I just saw I only had one posting in February. So sorry about that, but now I am adjusting more to parenthood, the postings should be more regular again hopefully!

Some people say the older you get, the more you appreciate things you don't used to enjoy when you are younger. The same can be said for my growing appreciation for bitter gourd. To the point that I recently paid SGD7 for a medium size bitter gourd from the local Asian store. I probably wouldn't buy it again in the near future but the two dishes I made was this classic one stir fried with egg. I like the egg more omelet style so this is my version of it.

Ingredients
1/2 bitter gourd, cut lengthwise and sliced thinly
2 egg, beaten with a little salt and pepper
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
Chicken stock powder to taste

Steps

1. Pan fry the omelet first, I like it a bit brownish and use the spatula to cut it into bit size pieces. Remove from the pan and set aside.
2. Using the same pan, add about 1 tablespoon of cooking oil and stir fry the minced garlic and shallot until fragrant, then add in the sliced bitter gourd. Cook until the bitter gourd is bright green before adding in the omelet.
3. Add some water and chicken stock powder to taste. At this stage, you can adjust accordingly to how tender you want the bitter gourd slices to be. I like them soft with just a slight crunch. Have them with rice or some plain porridge, the way my Dad likes it.

Bee Hoon Ze Char - Rice Vermicilli with Meat and Seafood Gravy

This could have been a healthy dish except for the addition of the fried pork lard, but without it, it taste oh so different. So indulge in them once in a while, especially when you are overseas with no Zi Char store to go and just buy them from. I did this with bee hoon, but you can chose to use egg noodles or hor fun or any noodles you fancy.

Ingredients (2-3 portions)

Fried pork lard (cut up the pork lard into large cubes as they will shrink and render them to crispy bits over medium heat until golden brown. Keep the oil for frying later or in other dishes too)

6 fishballs, cut into halves (you should use fish cakes if you can get them)

7-8 prawns

100g lean pork, sliced thinly

1 sheet of dried bee hoon, soaked in cold water to soften and drained

2-3 bunches of caixin or bak choy, cut into 2 cm sections

2 garlic cloves, minced finely

1 egg

2-3 teaspoons dark soy sauce

1 teaspoon chicken stock powder

white pepper

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce

Steps

1. Marinate the prawns and pork with some white pepper and soy sauce while you prepare the bee hoon first.
2. Over a hot wok, heat up 2 tablespoons of the oil you rendered from the pork lard and add in half the minced garlic, stir frying it quickly so it doesn't burn and add in the soaked bee hoon. Add in the dark soy sauce and mix well until it is evenly colored, adding a little water if necessary. It should still remain relatively dry as you will be adding the gravy over it when you serve.
3. Once the bee hoon is cooked, place in a serving bowl and set aside. Using the same pan, add in 1 tablespoon of the oil rendered from the pork lard and add in the rest of the minced garlic.
4. When the garlic are slightly browned, add in the fish balls first and stir fry. Add in the prawns and pork next and fry until they are 80% done before adding the vegetables and mix well.
   
   
   
5. Add in enough water to cover the ingredients and stir in the oyster sauce, chicken stock powder and some dark soy sauce for color if desire. Taste and adjust seasoning where necessary. Let it come to a boil before cracking an egg in the middle of the gravy and stirring it slightly to get those eggy whirls.
   
   
   
6. Once done, scoop over the bee hoon in and serve hot with some sliced chili padi or pickled green chili if you have prepare beforehand. Top it up with some crispy pork lard cubes and it might just bring you a bit closer to home.
   
   
   

Tau Sar Piah 豆沙饼 Mung Bean Paste Biscuit

We welcomed our little one early this month and I must say, motherhood needs some getting used to! This is probably something I won't have time to do for the time being but I have had this craving for the Penang tau sar piah since when I went back to Singapore last July and I finally got some from Sylvia in a yummy package she sent to me with goodies from Malaysia when her hubby went back recently. I could have eaten them all in a day but restrained myself to spread them out over a week. They came to an end eventually and the only thing I could do is to finally try them out, as it was also one of my resolution for this year and good that I tried making them before the little one came along!  I didn't have any recipe of my own and followed the one from My Kitchen Snippets, so all credit to her. However, after making it I came to a few conclusions:

1) It's definitely worth it to pay for those good brands of this biscuit because it takes quite a lot of work.

2) It's not going to be as good as those famous brands but it suffices as a craving when you are overseas and not able to buy it readily.

3) Some people like it freshly baked, but I find it was better after sitting in a container for a day or two.

4) The bean paste filling needs a really good balance of seasoning, otherwise it will just taste strange. Having said that, I hope there is another way to make this filling next time so it doesn't taste as dry, be more savory and doesn't remind one of it being a green bean paste so much.

You can follow her blog which comes with detailed instructions and pictures, the following are my observations while making them. 

Ingredients

Oil Dough

175 gram Flour
100 ml vegetable oil

Oil & Water Dough
345 gram Flour
180 ml vegetable oil
135 ml water
¾ teaspoon vinegar

Mung Bean Paste:

50 ml vegetable oil
2 shallots - thinly sliced
150 gram sugar 

1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
400 gram dried mung beans

Steps

1. Wash the mung beans a few times and let it soak for at least 4 hours or overnight. Drain and steam it for 30 minutes or until soft. (I took about 6-7 tablespoons out to try making tau saun separately this time round)
   
   
   
   
   
2. While steaming, prepare the oil dough and the oil & water dough, cover and let it rest in separate bowls for at least 30 minutes.
   
   
   
3. Let the mung beans cool a bit before blitzing it it briefly in a food processor together with the sugar.
   
   
   
   
4. Heat up the oil in a pan and fry the shallots until slightly brown before adding in the processed mung beans and add the rest of the seasonings, adjusting it where necessary.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Don't fry it too long but you should be able to form firm balls about 9-10g each. If it gets too dry to hold well together, add some water. I formed about 60 balls of fillings.
6. Divide the doughs each into 60 portions. I weigh each dough and divide each weight by 60 so I get a roughly equal amount of dough.
   
   
   
   
7. Flatten the oil & water dough, using it to envelope the oil dough, forming a ball.
8. Using a rolling pin, flatten the mixed dough ball once, then roll it up like a Swiss roll, and flatten it one more time . Roll it up again like a Swiss roll, pinch in the sides and roll it out into a rough round shape to place the prepared filling on (you might get some kind of thin 'skin' at this point of time when you roll out the dough but it's normal and not a mistake).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. Beat up one egg and use it to help seal the edges, resting the biscuit on a baking sheet on its sealed edge.
10. Egg wash the top of the biscuits and bake it at 190°C for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
    
    
11. Let it cool completely before storing it in an airtight container.
    
    

    
    

Dried Longan and Sweet Potato Soup

Had a craving for this dessert the other day and decided to use some of the longans I was saving for use during my confinement to 'chase' the craving away. It's a very simple dessert which can be served cold too. I usually buy this at the Zion Road Hawker center where a grumpy man sells it at a simple dessert store. You can choose to add gingko nuts too for additional crunch but this was perfect the way it is here in Sweden.

Ingredients (for 1 greedy eater)
A handful of dried longans
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into cubes
Some rock sugar for taste
1.5 bowl of water
2-3 blades pandan leaves (optional)

Steps

1. Bring to boil the water in a small pot and add all the ingredients. Boil it for about 15-20 minutes until the sweet potato has soften.
2. Remove the pandan leaves and serve hot. You can chill it in the fridge or add ice if you like it cold.
   
   
   

Chinese New Year - Kueh Bahulu

My first post in 2012, and on Friday 13th :) I look at the date as more of one more week to Chinese New Year, which I'm going to miss all the goodies back home :( However, at least I have time to bake again after an intense period of reading and writing.

This was taken from Rasa Malaysia's site, I have modified it by adding a few drop of pandan paste to make it pandan-flavoured.  I have seen blogs that add chocolate chip and such too, so I think its really up to your imagination what you want to tweak with it. It's a good basic recipe too, but I did not have the traditional baking mould, so I used one that I bought from Paris. It's quite a good silicon tray that produce what looks like little muffins.  There's another name for this baked goodie from France which you can buy at the bakeries along the train stations, but I can't remember it so hopefully someone will recognize and tell me.

There are other Chinese New Year goodies I've made previously, so if you are interested, here are the links:

Pineapple Tarts
Bak Kwa
First day Chinese New Year Noodles

Ingredients

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons butter

2 drops of pandan paste

Steps

1. Beat the eggs until frothy with an electric beater.
2. Add the sugar and beat well until slightly pale yellow.  Add in the vanilla essence.
3. Add the bicarbonate of soda to the flour and gradually add it to the egg mixture while the mixer is still on, making sure to incorporate it.
4. Add in the the butter last. If you want two flavors, divide the batter into half and add the pandan paste to half the batter while keeping the other one original.
   
   
   
5. Bake at 190°C for 15 minutes or until browned. Cool and store in airtight container.
   
   
   

汤圆 Glutinous Rice Balls

I was reminded that its 冬至 (Dong Zhi/ winter solstice) today when I check Facebook and saw all the glutinous rice dumplings pictures posted by friends. Accordingly, it's to mark the arrival of winter, which didn't mean much while I was living in Singapore but now in Sweden where winter is declared if the average temperature falls below zero degrees Celsius for at least five consecutive days, the Chinese way seems better! ;)

There are plenty of ready-made frozen rice dumplings in Singapore filled with all kinds of sweetness around this time of the year, but making the traditional white and pink/red ones reminds me of how we used to do it with Mom. It wasn't a favorite dessert among the family, but it was a very important dessert we must eat no matter we like it or not because it symbolizes that the family who eats this together will stay together through the years.

Ingredients (makes about 24 small fish ball size rice balls)

1 cup glutinous rice flour (must be glutinous rice, not rice flour)

2 teaspoons fine sugar

100 - 150 ml water (to be used accordingly)

Food coloring (optional)

Sweet soup to serve rice dumplings in

2-3 Pandan leaves

1/2 cup sugar (or according to taste)

2 cups water

Steps:

1. Mix the glutinous rice flour, sugar, salt together in a bowl and add water gradually until you get a dough which should be pliable but not be sticky. The texture is a bit different from normal dough made with plain flour, which I quite enjoy.
2. If you intend to color the dough, divide the dough accordingly to the number of colors you are going to use, but traditionally the dough is divided into half and only a little red coloring is used.
3. Roll it out to a long sausage shape and pinch off dough portions big enough to form rice balls the size of small fish balls. You can start preparing the sweet soup by boiling up everything together, adjusting the sweetness level with the amount of sugar you use according to your taste.
4. You can either boil the rice balls in the sweet soup itself until it floats up or separately in a pot of water before adding to the sweet soup while serving. The difference is that the clarity and starchiness will be affected if you boil it directly in the sweet soup. (I did it though because this is a small portion and I was lazy:)
   
   
5. Serve warm and enjoy eating this with your family!
   
   

Spicy and Sour Stir Fry Potatoes and Black Fungus

The nice thing about going for potluck is you get to try cuisines cooked by others and get inspired to try it because it taste so good! This is one of those dishes, I didn't get a chance to ask the exact process or amount, so made up one myself and it's just the right amount of sourness and spiciness to whet my appetite nowadays.

Ingredients

4 medium sized potatoes, peeled, cut into matchsticks sizes and soaked in cold water for about 15 minutes and drained

1/2 red onion, sliced thinly

1/2 red paprika, sliced thinly

1 handful of black fungus, soaked and hard bits cut away

3-4 dried chili

1 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorn

2 tablespoons Light soy sauce

1 tablespoons Chinese black vinegar

1 teaspoon Chicken stock powder

Steps:

1. Prepare all the ingredients first before heating up the wok with about 3 tablespoons of cooking oil over medium heat. Add in the peppercorns and dried chili and fry until it is fragrant, but be careful not to burn them.
2. Add in the onions and paprika next and fry until it is soften before adding the potatoes sticks. Mix well before adding the seasonings, adjust it accordingly to your taste.
3. Fry until the potatoes are cooked but still maintain a bite, serve with rice.
   
   
   

Chinese New Year Vegetarian Noodles

I know, I know, Chinese New Year is still at least two months away, but when you have a craving, what should you do?:) This dish is a family tradition as its eaten on the first day of Chinese New Year. My sister is very good at making this and it has been her 'duty' to make it for many years now but here's my made-in-sweden version. It's quite simple actually, and I took the recipe for Nonya chap chye this time round. The noodles were bought in Singapore as I haven't seen it in Sweden, and they have a white and red version, and the saltiness level differs a bit.

Ingredients (serves 2-3)

Longevity noodles (red) half a packet

1 sheet of dried seaweed

4-5 shallots, sliced thinly

100-150
ml cooking oil

Chap Chye (you can make half the portion of this recipe)

Peanuts or roasted cashew nuts (optional)

Steps

1. Fry the shallots in the cooking oil over low-medium heat until they are golden brown, remove and set aside together with the oil which would be infused with the fried shallots' fragrance.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Boil the noodles according to instructions and until al dente. Drain and mix with some shallot-infused oil so they don't stick together. Set aside.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Using a frying pan over low heat, fry the the shredded seaweed with about 1 tablespoon of shallot-infused oil until they are crispy. Let it cool and if you are not using immediately, keep it in an air tight box.
   
   
   
   
4. To eat, just assemble in this order: noodles at the bottom, chap chye with the gravy, roasted seaweed, fried shallots and top with nuts.