Hong Kong Chee Cheong Fun

I've never really eaten Hong Kong Chee Cheong Fun till I got here and went for Dim Sum with friends. Turns out, I rather fancy them and after a Dim Sum making session with the cooking club, I was bitten by the Dim Sum bug and decided to try making this dish. I have made koay teow previously and this looked rather similar, only problem was previously I had trouble keeping the thickness even as I seem to own a rather lopsided steamer! After some research, which basically means watching Utube videos (And getting side tracked by the videos leading into other things) I found one method where foil baking dishes were used by 'floating' them on boiling water in a wok. It worked out really well, result below. The filling for this cheong fun is a simple mix of spiring onions and dried prawns (no lap cheong at the shop).

 

Sup Ekor

Oh what joy when I saw ox tail for sale at Makro!! It was to be my very first purchase with my new membership at Makro, so excited I was that I didnt even realised that I dropped my new membership card at the car park! Back to the ox tail, I have been wanting to make this aromatic soup for a long long time, it comes to mind particularly during Winter. And now I know where I can get ox tail and have a tried & tested recipe, I will definitely be making this again.



 



Chai Kueh

One of my favourite kuih from Penang is the Chai Kueh, translated it basically means vegetable 'snack', I have yet to find an accurate translation for the word kuih/kueh to English. Anyway back to this kueh, as 'seng kuang' is a rarity here, I was experimenting with waterchestnuts, it turned out to be a good substitute, only caution would be that it remains cruchier and is sweeter after cooking so the amount has to be slightly reduced. My chai kueh turned out pretty good I must say... translucent chewy skin but not rubbery, if you get what I mean. Dunked in chilli sauce, they are lovely little morsels!

Steamed in authentic bamboo steamer

My version is a simple mix of carrots and waterchestnuts

Cooking club 2 - Penang Food

Our cooking club had its second session yesterday and it was Penang food...yay! We had a great lunch with Roti Jala and Chicken Curry, Fried Rice, Char Koay Teow, Murtabak. For dessert, we had Seri Muka, Rojak and Chendol.

Penang Char Koay Teow

The dried KT, pict is upside
down, sorry!

We can't have Penang food without Char Koay Teow right? So off to the shop to get some koay teow and luck would have it, no fresh koay teow was available so the dried version will have to do. Since I've not used the dried version before, it was a matter of closing both eyes and pointing randomly at the shelf! Lucky for me, the brand I bought was good enough. It did require some rinsing under the tap with cold water to remove the excess starch.

My contribution - fried koay teow

Murtabak

My other contribution was Murtabak and this was my challenge as I had yet to make roti dough that I was happy with. I decided to go for Kuali's recipe this time and kneaded the life out of the dough. I was on a mission to ensure that I get real stretchy dough this time round. I think I might have found the ideal recipe as I made a few roti kosong with some of the dough and it did produce flaky roti.

Contribution #2 - Murtabak