Baked Cassava / Tapioca Cake

A cake with a difference!  I was thrilled to find frozen grated cassava at one of the Asian shops here.  I was craving for this kuih while we were staying in Ampang and me being pregnant.  I remember I kept going to Sungei Wang shopping mall to look for the Malay store that was selling them.  After moving away from Kuala Lumpur, I never came across a store or shop that's selling this.  :-(

I used frozen cassava for this recipe.  It would be definitely better to use fresh grated cassava.  But I consider myself to be lucky as I'm able to get the frozen ones. :-)



Ingredients:

900g frozen grated cassave/tapioca

200g sugar

400ml (one can) thick coconut milk
1 egg, plus 1 egg york
20g butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C.  Line a 18cm square baking pan.

2. In a pot, pour in the coconut milk and warm it with medium-low heat.  Add in the butter and sugar.  Stir until the butter has melted and sugar dissolved.  DO NOT boil it.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the egg and egg york.  Add in the coconut milk mixture and whisk until well combine.  Finally add in the grated cassava and mix well using a wooden spoon.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and bake for about an hour or until the top has turned golden brown.

5. Cooled completely before cutting into slices.  It is best to be eaten on the same day.

:-)

Malaysian Pan Mee 板麵 Pan Mien

Pan Mee, a type of flat noodles served in soup or dry (kon lou) is originated from Malaysia.  It is a Malaysian Chinese cuisine.

The dough is made of flour, water and salt, sometimes with egg added can be torn or pinch into small flat pieces, rolled with a rolling pin and cut with a knife or cut with a machine into flat stripe noodles. I am making the pinch pan mee for this recipe.

Pan mee is typically served with with fried anchovies, mushroom, minced pork and a green vegetable called sayur manis or sauropus androgynus.

Making the noodles and preparing the garnishes require quite a period of time.  I had to spend about two hours or more.  Especially when I would normally mince the pork myself instead of buying it from the store to reduce fat intake.  But in the end, the result of a hot, yummy bowl of pan mee just like one from a kopitiam worth it all!

Ingredients:  Serves 4

For the noodles:
2 cups AP flour
1 large egg
1/2 to 3/4 cup water
pinch of salt

For the minced pork:
(A)
100g minced pork
1 tsp Shao Hsing wine
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
pinch of salt
pinch of white pepper
(B)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallots, minced
oil for frying
water if necessary

Soup:
3L of pork broth
3 pieces of dry small fish (as shown on pic),
a big hand's full of ikan bilis (anchovies)
salt to taste
white pepper to taste
some soy sauce (optional)
3 big hand's full of sayur manis leaves
12 fish balls, halved
12 pork meat balls, halved

Garnish:
60g ikan bilis
8 pieces of cloud ear, soaked in water to soften
oil to fry the ikan bilis

Dried fish and anchovies for the soup.

Ingredients

Garnishes

Pinch pan mee

Method:

1.  Prepare the soup.  In a large pot, boil the dried fish and dried anchovies.  Let it cook while we prepare the rest of ingredients.

2.  Make the noodles.  Add in flour and salt in a mixing bowl, make a well in the middle and add in the egg.  Start mixing it using the hand.  Add in water slowly and mixing it constantly with the hand until it form a dough.  Knead the dough for a good few minutes then shape it into a ball and place it in the same mixing bowl cover with a wet kitchen cloth to rest for 20 minutes.

3.  Mix all the A ingredients for minced meat together.  Set aside.

4.  Fry the anchovies.  In a small pot, pour enough oil to deep fry the anchovies for about 1 to 2 minutes or when they turned brown and crispy.  Dish out and set aside.

5.  Add the cloud ear into the soup and let it cook for about 3 minutes.  Dish out and let it cool.  Cut them into thin stripes and set aside.

6.  Prepare the minced pork.  In a pan with high heat, add in oil.  Add the minced garlic and shallot and stir fry until aromatic and light brown.  Add in the minced pork mixture and stir fry for 1 1/2 minutes or until cooked.  Add water if it's too dry.  Dish out and set aside.

7 .  In another large pot, add in enough water to cook the noodles.  Boil the water.  You will notice the noodle dough is softer after the 20 minutes rest.  Give it a little knead and the dough is ready to cook when the water is boiling.  To make pinch pan mee, simply just pinch about 1 1/2 inches of a flat dough (as flat as possible) and just dump it into the boiling water.  Repeating pinching the dough until it's all used up.

8.  While the noodles is cooking, its time to finish up cooking the soup.  Turn the heat to high and add in fish balls, pork meat balls.  When the fish balls expand, add in the sayur manis.  Season the soup with salt, white pepper and soy sauce.  Cover and turn the heat off.

9.  Dish out the desire portion of the pan mee into serving bowls.  Add some soup, fish balls and pork meat balls into each bowl.  Garnish with the minced pork, cloud ear stripes and ikan bilis.  Serve immidiately with your favourite chili sambal or sliced chili padi with soy sauce!

銅鑼燒 Dorayaki - Japanese Red Bean Pancake

The other day my niece tagged me something from Youtube on Facebook.  It was a game that we used to play many years ago.  A Doraemon game!  When I saw the Dorayaki on the screen, I said to myself "I must make this"!  This Japanese red bean pancake was my son's favourite at Dream Food Japanese Restaurant, Centre Point Shopping Mall.

This pancake is Doraemon's (a robot cat) favourite food.  Dora in Japanese means "gong" and perhaps that's how the name Dorayaki originated as the shape is smilar to a gong.

There's a legend saying that there was a samurai named Benkei hiding in a farmer's home and he forgot to bring along his dora "gong" when he left.  The farmer then used the gong to cook the pancake, thus came the name Dorayaki.

Here are the ingredients:

1 cup (160g) AP flour

3 large eggs

120g castor sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp honey

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp milk

300g red bean paste, or more

makes 8 yummilicious Dorayaki

Method:

1. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, milk and honey until well combine.

2. Sift in flour, baking powder and baking soda and mix well.  Cover and rest for about 20 minutes. 

3. Heat a medium non-stick pan on medium heat. You can wipe the pan with paper towel that is dipped in oil, but I made mine without brushing or wiping oil on the pan.

4. Using a ladle, drop the batter carefully to create a round pancake.  When the surface started to bubble, flip the pancake over and cook the other side.

5. Cover the cooked pancakes with towel to prevent them from drying.  Sandwich two pancakes with the red bean paste.

年宵節吃＂年宵＂（湯圓）Glutinous Rice Balls

Today is the fifteenth day (and the last day) of Chinese New Year celebrations.  This day is called 'Nian Xiao' or Chap Goh Meh in Malaysia.  It's also called Lantern Festival where in China and Japan, thousands of Lanterns are lighted and it's a colourful night!

Chinese New Year is extremely quiet in Germany.  Having no China Town here (the whole of Germany), there is just no CNY atmosphere at all.

But still, we celebrated CNY at our own home.  Having our family dinner during the 除夕 (CNY eve), cooking Chinese food, giving the kids 紅包 (red package), making Yee Sang and wearing something red, etc.   I wanted to make an "open house", meaning inviting friends over for food, food, food and food for this CNY, but I had a flu and was sick for a week.  So I had to skip that this year and hopefully I will have one next year.

During Nian Xiao, the traditional food to eat is 湯圓, which is also 年宵, glutinous rice balls.  Eating Tang Yuan on this day means 團團圓圓, that the family will always be able to get together during these type of special occasions.  My daughter had helped me a few times now with making tang yuan. And she's pretty good at it. :-)

The tang yuan recipe that I want to share today is red bean paste tang yuan in coconut milk syrup with sago and the aroma of pandan leave and ginger.

Ingredients:
for tang yuan
200g glutinous rice flour, with 100g in each bowl
170ml water, with 85ml in each glass
100g red bean paste
Food colourings

for the syrup
1 can coconut cream 400ml
600ml water
1 pandan leave, tied
Two slices ginger
5 tbsp sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup sago, soaked in water

makes 32 balls

Method:
1.  If you don't want to use food colours, then you don't need to separate the flour and water.
2.  Add the colour you desire into the water and mix well. I used purple and yellow. Mix the yellow colour water with 100g of flour well until they are a smooth dough and do not stick on your hands.  Repeat the same with the purple colour water and the remaining 100g flour.
3.  Divide each colour dough into 24 equal pieces and roll them into a ball shape.  Using your fingers, flatten the ball and place some red bean paste in the middle.

4.  Fold the edge to seal the dough. Using both palms, roll the dough into a ball shape gently.  The red bean paste should be completely wrapped by the dough.  Do not put too much fillings though as the ball may burst while boiling.

5.  In a pot boil the 600ml water with pandan leave and ginger for about 5 minutes.  Pour in the drained sago.  When the sago is almost cooked through, add in sugar and salt.  Then add in the coconut cream.

6.  In another pot, add in enough water to boil the balls.  Drop the balls into the hot boiling water.  They are done when they float to the top.  Transfer them to the coconut syrup and serve the tang yuan with coconut syrup hot or warm.



Sambal Belacan Shrimps with Onion, Egg, Cucumber and Peanut

This is one of my husband's favourite shrimp dish.  For him shrimps or prawns are either steam or fry with chili.  Whenever we ordered prawn/shrimp, then for sure he would say "chili prawn."




For this recipe, the shrimps are cooked with sambal belacan paste, with some lime juice and sugar added.  Served with hard boiled egg, sliced cucumber and peanuts, just like nasi lemak.

Ingredients:

300g medium/large size shrimps, shelled and deveined

2 onions, sliced

3 tbsp sambal belacan paste (for recipe, click here)

1 tsp fresh lime juice

1/2 tbsp sugar

Salt to taste

2 tbsp cooking oil

2 hard boiled eggs, halved

Cucumber, sliced

toasted, unsalted peanuts

Serves 2

                                                               Sambal belacan paste

Method:

1. Heat cooking oil in a pan over medium heat.  Add in the onions and have a quick stir.  Add the sambal paste, lime juice and sugar and stir until fragrance.

2. Pour in the shrimps immediately and  cook for 1 to 2 minutes depending on the size of the shrimps.  Take care not to overcook the shrimps.  Season with salt.

3.  Serve immediately with plain rice, hard boiled eggs, cucumber and peanuts!  Or simply serve on a serving dish with plain rice and other Asian dish.

Simple Sambal Belacan Paste



Sambal, as we call it in Malaysia and Indonesia.  It is a must for some authentic Malay and Indonesian cooking.  There are many varieties of sambal in Indonesia and the one that is most popular in Malaysia, I would have to say is sambal belacan.  Belacan is a shrimp paste, made of dried shrimps, anchovies and salt.  Something that is definitely pungent for some people.  But with belacan, the result of one dish would both taste and smell heavenly!

This sambal belacan paste can be a base for many dishes.  Stir fry sambal belacan asparagus/kangkong/eggplant, sambal belacan prawns, sambal belacan grill fish(serve with lime, yumyum), oven baked sambal belacan chicken and more!  With some lime, it is also a wonderful condiment, for noodles, rice, etc...

Please have your door open, windows open while making this sambal belacan paste as the smell can fill the whole house.  I'm wondering if our 3 neighbours on the same floor in this apartment moved away has to do with this belacan!!! 

Ingredients:

120g red chili, cut, seeds removed (I prefer smooth paste)

100g belacan

20 bird's eye chili/Thai chili

4 cloves garlic

120g red onions, cut

juice from half a lemon

3 tbsp cooking oil

1 1/2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

makes about 2 cups of sambal belacan paste

Method:

1.  Traditionally this should be made using a stone mortar.  But I'm saving my time and energy and just blend them.  So chili, bird's eye chili, onions, garlic, belacan, lemon juice all dump into the blender and blend until smooth.

2.  In a small stainless pot, heat cooking oil over medium heat.  Pour the blended paste into the pot and cook for 15 minutes or so or when the colour turn dark red and oil started to float.  Add sugar and salt, give it a quick stir and turn off the heat.

Sambal belacan kangkong

                                                                                    oven baked sambal belacan chicken

 



Vegetarian Curry Puff with Puff Pastry

I'm sure anyone who had been living in Malaysia or Singapore for a while knows this popular snack!  This is probably the fastest and easiest way to make curry puff.  Instead of making the pastry from scratch, just use ready made puff pastry.  Simple and easy with curry potatoes fillings.

I would normally make two dozens of them, put six of them in a plastic bag, and freeze them.  Whenever I feel like having some, I just pop them in the oven, and I have hot yummy home-made curry puff in just 10 or 15 minutes.

Ingredients:

350g potatoes, peeled, cut into 1cm cube 

1 small onion, finely chopped

100ml water

1/2 tbsp curry powder

1/4 tsp chili powder

1 tsp salt\

1/2 tsp sugar

1 tbsp cooking oil

275g ready made puff pastry, thawed (25 x 42cm)

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 200 degree C.  Line a baking tray with grease paper.

2.  In a pan over medium heat, add in 1 tablespoon of oil.  Stir fry the onion for about 1 minute or until fragrant.  Add in the potatoes and stir fry for about 1 minute.

3.  Mix the curry powder, chili powder, sugar, salt with water.  Add the mixture in the pan and cook the potatoes in low heat for another 10 or 15 minutes.  It's done when the potatoes are cooked through.

4.  Set the potatoes aside to cool.  Meanwhile cut the puff pastry to 12 rectangles.  Put 1/2 tablespoon to 1 tablespoon of potatoes in the centre of the rectangle.  Fold the pastry into half.  Press the sides of the pastry with a fork (as seen on the photo below). 

4.  Bake the curry puff for 10 - 15 minutes.  You can egg wash the top of the pastry with half of an egg mix with 2 tablespoons of milk.

  

Stir Fry Asparagus and Shrimp with Thai Red Curry Paste

It's very handy to have Thai curry paste, Indonesian sambal or Chinese garlic chili paste kept at home.  I have all these kept in my fridge(more varieties actually).  Just use a teaspoon or a tablespoon of them for cooking stir fries, fried rice, or a quick curry dish.  They can be added for marinates too!



For this recipe, the asparagus is stir fried with just a little salt and pepper.  The shrimps are marinated with Thai red curry paste, Thai sweet chili sauce and some chopped garlic.


















Ingredients:
250g shrimps, shelled, de-veined
200g green asparagus
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Salt and pepper
Olive oil


Marinate:
2 tsp Thai red curry paste from jar
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp olive oil
Serves 2



Method:

1.  Wash and trim the asparagus, cut into 2 inches pieces.  Set aside.

2.  Marinate the shrimps with all the ingredients and set aside.

3.  In a wok or pan, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat.  Add in garlic and stir fry for 1 minute.  Add in asparagus and continue stirring for 2 - 3 minute depending on the thickness of the asparagus.  When the asparagus are cooked yet still crunchy, dish out and place on a serving dish.

4.  Using the same wok or pan, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over high heat.  Add in garlic, and gradually add in the shrimps.  Stirring for 1 - 2 minutes until the shrimps turn white and cooked through.  Dish out the shrimps and place on top of the asparagus.  Serve hot with plain hot rice.

Chinese Sweet and Sour Fish

Fish fillets cut into smaller pieces, coated with flour batter and deep fry until crispy.  This sweet and sour fish is an all-time favourites Chinese dish! 

Ingredients:

350g white fish fillets, cut into 1 x 2" pieces

150g cucumber, cut into 1" chunks

150g green pepper, cut into 1" chunks

3 brown onions, cut into chunks

2 tomatoes, cut into chunks

4 sour pickles, sliced

2 tbsp cornstarch

2 tbsp water mix with 1/2 tbsp cornstarch

Oil for deep frying

Batter:

1 cup all purpose flour

2 tbsp oil

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup (180ml) water

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp white pepper

Sauce:

1/3 cup white vinegar or apple cyder

1/4 cup sugar or more

1/4 tsp salt or more

1/3 cup juice from sour pickle's jar

1/3 cup ketchup

1/2 cup water

Serves 4

  

 Method:

1.  In a large bowl coat the fish pieces with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch.

2.  Whisk all the ingredients for the batter together until smooth.  Pour the coated fish into the batter and make sure all fish pieces are coated with batter.  In a pot, heat the oil and deep fry the fish until brown and crispy.   Arrange the crispy fish pieces on a serving dish and set aside.

3.  In a saucepan, add 1 tablespoon of oil, then add in onions and green pepper and give it a quick stir.  Dish out and set aside.

4.  To make the sauce, add in all the sauce ingredients into the saucepan and cook in medium heat until the sugar dissolve and sauce is hot.  Add more sugar or salt to taste.  Add in tomatoes, cucumber, sour pickles onions and green pepper.  Stir in the cornstarch and water mixture.  The sauce should be now thicken.  Pour the sauce over the crispy fish and serve with hot plain rice.

Yang Zhou Fried Rice with Ham 楊洲炒飯

Yang Zhou Chao Fan is a popular Chinese fried rice dish in most of the Chinese restaurants around the world.  The ingredients used may vary, which includes: cooked rice, barbecued pork, shrimp, eggs, peas, carrots, spring onion and so on.  In my case, I used ham instead of barbecued pork.

I have to say this is one dish that I would never order in a overseas restaurant.  Simply because it's easy to cook and I think we Chinese make fried rice like making coffee at home.  Don't you agree?  ;-p

Ingredients:

400g cooked rice

 20g carrot, finely diced

100g ham, finely diced

 80g green peas

2 medium eggs, lightly beaten

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 sprig spring onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tsp sugar

2 tbsp cooking oil

salt and white pepper, to taste
Serves 2

Method:

1.  Heat cooking oil in a pan or wok on medium-high heat, add in garlic and stir until brown. Pour in the egg and scramble slightly, pour in the rice and carrot when the egg is 40% cooked.

2.  Stir the rice well for half a minute, add soy sauce, ham, green peas and cook until all is hot and coated evenly with soy sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Add in spring onion, turn off heat immediately. Mix well before dish out.

3.  Serve with other Asian dishes.



Three-Cup Chicken 三杯雞

This dish originates from the Jiangxi province of southern China, but has become especially popular in Taiwan.  The name 'three-cup' is referring to the three main ingredients for this dish.  It is said that for one whole chicken, it require 1 cup sesame oil, 1 cup soy sauce and 1 cup Chinese rice wine. 

It is traditionally cooked in a claypot and served in it.  I don't have a claypot, so I cooked it in a ceramic pot.  I know what I should buy the next time I visit the Asian shop.  ;-)  But then of course, you can also cook it in a wok or normal pot.   

I'm glad I tried out this dish.  Both my kids loved it so much.  And this was the first time Angelica actually 'ga fan', in Hakka, meaning ask for another plate of rice.

I'd used chicken wings in this recipe.  You can also use whole chicken or chicken thigh.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup sesame oil(dark one if available)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup Chinese cooking wine
1 kg chicken, cut into chunks
4 cloves garlic
8 slices ginger
1/8 cup sugar
2 tbsp sweet dark soy sauce
4 spring onion, cut into green and white sections
Thai basil leaves
Serves 4



Method:
1.  Heat sesame oil in claypot.  Stir fry garlic, ginger, white portion of spring onions briefly until aromatic.

2.  Add chicken pieces, mix well over medium high heat for about 1 minute or until the chicken pieces are no longer pink.  Add wine, soy sauce, sugar and dark soy sauce.  Bring to a boil.

3.  Lower the heat, cover, simmer for 6 minutes.  Then stir once and continue cooking for another 5 minute or until the liquid has reduced greatly.  Stir in the rest of spring onions and basil leaves and it's done.

4.  Serve hot with rice.

 

Asparagus and Beef Stir Fry

This spring vegetable pair perfectly with beef in this quick stir fry.  The asparagus are crunchy and the beef is tender, both coated with a flavourful oyster sauce.
 

Ingredients:
800g beef tenderloin, cut into strips
400g green asparagus, cut into 2 inch pieces
Half of a red pepper, sliced
2 gloves garlic, chopped
Cooing oil
(A) Marinate:
20g ginger, thinly sliced
1/2 tbsp corn starch
1/2 dark soy sauce
1/2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1 tbsp oil
(B) Sauce:
180ml water
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp corn starch

Serves 4




Method:
1.  Marinate the beef with (A) for at least 10 minutes.  Mix all the (B) together and ready to go.  Remember to stir well before pouring into the pan or wok.

2.  In a pan or wok over medium heat, heat a tablespoon of oil.  Cook the garlic until a little brown and stir in the asparagus.  Cook for 5 minutes or so depending on the thickness of the asparagus.  Dish out the asparagus when they are 80% cooked and set aside.

3.  In the same wok, over medium heat, heat two tablespoons of oil and cook the beef.  While the meat is half cook, return the asparagus to the wok and cook together with the meat for a minute or two.  pour in the sauce mixture and the sliced red pepper.  It is done when the beef is cooked and all coated with sauce.  Make sure the beef is not overcooked, otherwise it will become tough.



Hakka Golden Egg Rolls 客家金蛋卷

This was one of my mother's specialties, simple but hearty.  I try to keep this recipe as original as possible.  There are two reasons I named it Golden Egg Rolls, 1) they are golden yellow in colour and, 2) My mother's name has the word gold in it.  :-)

Finely chopped carrot and mushroom were added to the minced pork and wrapped with beaten eggs.  I didn't add carrot in this recipe as my son is a choosy eater.  However, I blended together the mushrooms and the pork.  So there was a hidden treasure in it and my son didn't know.  Next time I will add in blended carrot as well.

I normally would double the sauce as the kids just love it over their rice!

Ingredients:

(A) 180g minced pork

      2 mushrooms

      1/4 tsp salt

      1/4 tsp sesame oil

     1/4 tsp sugar

     some pepper, all (A) ingredients mix together

(B) 3 eggs

      1/4 tsp salt

      some pepper, using a fork, beat all (B) ingredients together

(C) for the sauce:

      200ml water

      1 tbsp oyster sauce

      1/4 tsp salt

      1/4 tsp soy sauce, mix all (C) ingredients together

(D) 1 tbsp water

      1 tsp corn starch, mix together and stir well before pouring into the pan

Some spring onion, chopped,  to garnish

Serves 2 - 3

Method:

1.  With all the ingredients mixed or combined and ready to go.  You can shape the minced meat into a little bigger than thumb size pieces in advance so that it's faster and easier to work later.

2.  Heat a tablespoon of cooking oil in the wok on medium heat.  Spread 2 tablespoons of egg mixture on the wok, a long shape is perfect, quickly place a piece of meat at one end.  Roll it towards the other end while the top side of the egg is still a bit uncooked so that the meat and egg will stick together.  You'll have to act fast.

3.  I like to keep them in the wok for a while to brown them.  One batch is done, set aside, start with the other until all the meat are used.

4.  Place all the egg rolls in a pan or pot.  On medium heat, pour in ingredient (C) and cook until boiling, then turn to low heat and simmer for about a minute.  Pour in ingredient (D) to thicken the sauce.  Serve hot garnished with spring onion.

NOTE:

You can add some chopped prawns, or bamboo shoot in the minced pork for more flavour.