Tang Yuan

Tang Yuan. hahahaha. the easiest recipe ever. I was browsing Asian Food pictures and a couple of food blogs when suddenly I have the urge to make onde-onde or even just tang yuan. So i quickly went into the kitchen to see whether I have glutinous rice flour or anything else that i can turn into Asian dessert.

So, luckily enough I do have glutinous rice flour and I knew I have brown sugar (gula kabung). Onde-onde seems harder than tang yuan so of course I chose to make tang yuan.

Ingredients
glutinous rice flour
water
salt
brown sugar
white sugar
ginger slices

Method
Mix glutinous rice flour, water and some salt until the dough doesn't stick to your hands.
Meanwhile, boil two pots of water. One pot to make the sugary syrup. Another to cook the dough. (I'm not sure if you can just cook the dough in the syrup. You can try and let me know)
For the syrup, add brown sugar and white sugar to your likings. Add the ginger slices.
Pinch a bit of the dough to form a ball.
Slowly put the dough into the boiling water. When the balls are cooked, they will float. Transfer the balls into the syrup. Repeat the process until all the dough finished.
Serve.

Steamed Eggs

Came over this recipe last night when I was browsing the blog Little Corner of Mine. Obviously it looked nicer in that blog.

I just had the urgency to try this today. So i did.

Ingredients: I just estimate the amount to my likings

Eggs

Water

Crushed garlic

Crushed ginger

Oyster sauce

Soy sauce

Sesame oil

Crushed chilli (optional)

Salt

Corn flour dissolved in some water.

Methods:

Measure eggs by volume and pour them to heat-resistant bowl that you want to use to steam them in. Beat the eggs.

Add water to the equal amount as the eggs before.

Mix together.

Add some salt to taste and steam them for about 15mins.

Meanwhile, saute the garlic, ginger and chilli until fragrant.

Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil.

Add water.

Add the corn flour mixture.

After the eggs have been steamed. Pour the sauce onto the eggs. You can garnish with chopped spring onions and fried shallots and serve.

The texture of the eggs is so silky smooth, almost like the egg tofu.

Hehe and my sauce is a bit watery. Put too much water after the sauce thicken up like dough since I put too much corn flour.

Crab Rangoon

I've been wanting to eat wontons or some time now. So last week I had the chance to make some for myself.

Basically what you need is shredded crab meat, cream cheese and wonton wrappers.

Shredded crab meat (170g) - bought this from Woolworths

Wonton wrappers - can be bought from Woolworths or Coles

Basic mixture:

Mix equal amount of softened cream cheese and crab meat. When I made this, I just used all 250g cream cheese to make things easier. But next time I might use more of the crab meat or follow the original recipe (equal amount).

To spice things up:

I came across one recipe which adds soy sauce, grated ginger, finely chopped onion. This will make the wontons to taste more asian-like.

I did the basic mixture first then I fry some. Then I added all the asian stuffs and I like it better. So it's up to you.

The wrapping

First brush the wonton wrappers with egg white (actually water will work as the 'glue' as well i figured)

Put some of the mixture in the middle

Fold like this. Make sure no air is trapped (important to avoid the wontons from bursting when you fry/steam/boil them)

Brush the corner of the triangle

And fold like this

Hehe then heat some oil for deep frying. Well, I didn't take picture of the final product since they burst when I fried them. You can also steam them or put them into soup. But I like the deep-fried better. Who doesn't? :P

Pizza

Ingredients: makes 3 pizza bases

375 mL (1 1/2 cups) warm water

2 tsp (7g/1 sachet) dried yeast

Pinch of caster sugar

600g (4 cups) plain flour

1 tsp salt

60 mL (1/4 cup) olive oil, plus extra for brushing (i just used normal cooking/vegetable oil)

Method:

Combine water, yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Set aside for 5 minutes or until foamy.

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the yeast mixture and oil. Use a round bladed knife in cutting motion to mix until the mixture is combined.

Use your hands to bring the dough together in the bowl.

Brush a bowl lightly with oil. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place in the prepared bowl and turn to coat in oil.

Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm, draught-free place to rise for 30 minutes or until dough doubles in size (what i did was I turn on the heater and put the bowl in front of it because there's no way the dough will rise in 30 mins in cold weather)

Then, roll the dough into round shape and put on a baking tray.

Spread pasta/pizza sauce (can be bought from store or you can make it yourselves). Sprinkle your desired toppings be it just cheeses, tuna, prawns, vege, pineapple.

When I made this pizza i just put cheeses because that's what left in my fridge. And also i made just 1/3 of the recipe since it was just for me alone.

Bake for 10-20mins at 180 degree Celsius. To get that rustic brownish colour on top, i turn the oven to grill mode for few mins.

Got the recipe from here.

More pictures of food

Fish and chips

Home-made burger

Maggi Goreng

Maggi Goreng? Lame right? Whatev.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp blended onion

1-2 tsp chilli powder (2 tsp is very hot)

3 cloves of garlic - crushed

soy sauce

some vege (as you can see I'm obsessed with corn kernels, also added some shredded carrot)

2 eggs

3 tbsp oil

2 pcs instant noodles - boiled and drained.

Method:

Heat some oil, fry 1 egg. Then put aside.

Fry off the garlic until it caramelised a bit.

Add onions and keep stir-frying until the onion cooks.

Add chilli powder and stir occasionally.

Add some water maybe about 4-5 tbsp.

Add your veges and wait for them to cook.

Add soy sauce as much as you like. Put the mixture to one side in the pan.

Add 1 egg but don't mix the egg with the mixture yet. When the egg is reasonably cooked, then you mix them altogether.

Finally add the noodles and stir like a mad person but don't squash the noodles.

And serve. Garnish with spring onions and fried shallots if you have them.

Red velvet cupcakes

Okay, so i know my cupcakes is not that red velvety. Well that's because i've ran out of red food colouring. Nonetheless, i think the cupcake is quite good and moist and perfectly a good combo with cream cheese frosting. I got the recipe from here.

Ingredients

• 300g (2 cups) plain flour
• 30g (1/4 cup) cocoa powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 315g (1 1/2 cups) caster sugar
• 250ml (1 cup) buttermilk
• 200g unsalted butter, melted
• 2 eggs, lightly whisked
• 1 tbs white vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 tsp red food colouring (in the comments they say it's not enough. try use 5-6 tsp)

Topping: even though i filled my cupcakes, there's still some leftover. Try make half the recipe if you don't want to fill your cupcakes or 75% if u wanna do like i did.

• 2 x 250g pkts cream cheese, at room temperature
• 300g (2 cups) pure icing sugar
• 120g butter, extra, at room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla essence, extra

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Line eighteen 80ml (1/3 cup) capacity muffin pans with paper cases. Sift flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Stir through the sugar. Whisk the buttermilk, butter, eggs, vinegar and vanilla in a large jug until combined. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture. Add the buttermilk mixture. Stir until just combined. Stir in the food colouring.

2. Divide the mixture among the lined pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

3. Use an electric beater to beat the cream cheese, icing sugar, extra butter and extra vanilla until smooth. Spread over cupcakes.

I did some tricks with my cupcakes.

First, make an indentation to your cupcake to help you cut a small round. I used my measuring spoon.

Then carefully cut a small round using a sharp knife.

Fill your cupcake with filling of your wish.

So, the cut out part look like this right?

Cut the cut out part to look like this.

Then put the cupcake cover back like this.

Put the frosting and decorate as u desire.

And then, when you cut/eat the cupcake, tada! it will look like this.

Pfft, ignore the out-of-focus pictures. Really should practice more.