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

Sarah's 2nd Birthday lunch

After as small family lunch on Sarah's actual birthday, its time to party with friends and neighbours on the following Saturday, so its finger food galore!

In the line-up we have :

Marinated figs with mozzarella and prosciutto
This little kebab is described as the modern version of pineapple on a stick. Laced with basil infused olive oil for a dressing, it really does get the taste buds going!

Baked goats cheese with honey
Little medallions of goats cheese lightly baked and drizzled with honey, served on a bed of spinach leaves. I'm generally not a fan of large chunks of cheese but the combination of flavours here (this includes getting a mouthful of spinach) is just right!

Smoked Salmon with fennel slaw on toasted spelt bread

To tingle the taste bud further, there is smoked salmon given a sophisticated twist with fennel slaw, sprinkled with fried capers (who would have thought to fry capers! When fried, they become little salty crispy nuggets, yumm indeed!). All this served on toasted spelt bread. Oh yes, don't forget, topped with avocado too!

Chicken and mushroom pastry puffs

And there is something for the less adventurous, triangles of puff pastry filled with chicken and mushroom pie filling. Get them while they are hot!

Sausage, cheese, tomato ciabatta squares
This is one for the kids and the kids in adults, I mean who doesn't like sausages, right? Since this is a finger food party, the sausages are sliced and placed on top of ciabatta squares, spread with tomato sauce (proper sauce mind you, not maggi tomato ketchup) and topped with mozzarella. Pinned in place with a cocktail stick and then toasted till the cheese is melted and golden!

 Bread Salad and Apple Coleslaw
To accompany the food, there is of course the salad. I made two types of salads as I've noticed that there are two kinds of vege eaters, one that goes for the green leafy variety and the other that eats vegetables but not the floppy green kind! So the two selected to cater to everyone's perference are a bread salad with an Italian dressing (the green leafy one) and a simple apple coleslaw ( for those adverse to all things green and leafy)

Vanilla ice-cream with balsamic blueberries
To end the meal, a nice creamy vanilla ice-cream topped with balsamic blueberries and a piece of wafer. The balsamic blueberries were made by simply heating blueberries with sugar and balsamic vinegar till just the berries are just about bursting. And no, I did not make the ice-cream but I did grow the mint!

Pineapple rolls
And lastly, something to keep the hand occupied while we talk away, pineapple rolls. This is a typical cookie during festivities at home. Made with melt in the mouth pastry and homemade pineapple jam.

And that is the end of one of the biggest solo cooking feat I have attempted this year, now to put my feet up and let someone else feed me for a change! :)

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Chocolate Fudge Cake

It's Sarah's 2nd birthday and now that she is old enough to have favourites when it comes to eating, the menu will have to be filled with her favourite things.

First up, the all important birthday cake and its no contest that it will have to be a chocolate cake. That was the easy part, the hardest part was deciding what shape and theme it would be. Since she practically eats and breathes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, it did cross my mind to make a Mickey cake but in the end I decided to bite the bullet and go for the whole thing. So after a few weeks of looking a MMCh cakes, my head was spining and I practically saw Mickey and co everywhere I looked but I digress so back to baking and cooking. After having spent a fortune on ready rolled icing, I was raring to go, unfortunately the little lady did not go to bed till 11pm, which meant I could not start till then. So it was in the middle of the night till the early hours that I was crafting away in the kitchen and guess what, there is a certain peace to the stillness of the hour which made it very pleasant to work.

My biggest challenge to date

The sliced cake ..yummy!

Closeup on the front door detail

My shaky attempt at writing

 

The uncovered cake

The bits n pieces prior to assembly






Vegetarian curry puffs

After a curry puff experiment as short while ago to find a pastry that I like, I  was armed and ready for the next call for fingerfood. It came in the form a farewell for 2 fellow Malaysians. These were made using a sort of hybrid between the spiral curry puff and the normal curry puff skin. As for the filling, on the recommendation of Keep learning keepsmiling, I used a mix of the Scotty brand baby potatoes and the normal potatoes. The result was light crispy and flaky skinned puffs with fluffy potato filling...yumm!

The hybrid skin was flaky and melt in the mouth

The fluffy filling, fragranced with curry leaves ... yum!

Rhubarb and Orange crumble

In trying to keep up with the abundance of rhubarb from the garden, we have another rhubarb dish. This time it is the good ole crumble, admittedly I'm not a fan but the classic must be attempted and attempted I did! Eaten with a large helping of custard ...errr, store bought I'm afraid as the crumble was made late at night and I was not going to be stirring the pot making custard. Next in the rhubarb series I think will be a jam, that way, I can use up more of the rhubarb.

Pre-custard, photos with the custard made it look rather unappertising