banana steam (cup)cake (20 pieces)

Hello to myself again.

Have been busy (or lazy) to update this space. School has been disrupting some of my nua-ing regime, but hey I am still alive to make some banana steam cakes this afternoon. :)

As I love steam cakes (some of them are really kawaii!), I picked up a recipe book from NTUC some time ago. Not to mention, I recently bought an Aerogaz cake stand mixer. less than $30 on Qoo10!

Recipe extracted from page 51, Magic Steamed Cake by Alex Goh:

Ingredients:
A
3 eggs
160g sugar

B
250g bananas
1/4 teaspoon salt

C
50g milk
240g flour
2 teaspoons double action baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

D
90g corn oil
180g sultanas [I added chocolate chips instead..]

Method
1. Whip A until thick. Mash B, add into A, whip until thick.
2. Add in C, mix until well-blended. Add in D mix until well-combined.
3. Add in E, mix until well-incorporated. Add in F mix until well-blended.

4. Pour it into greased and floured cup cake mould.
5. Steam for 20 minutes.

banana steam cakes

Masak-thoughts:
I actually forgot to add the oil..which caused the cake to be really dry. I tried to search high and low for ripe bananas (for a sweeter taste) but to no avail too :(
Nevertheless, still edible and I'm quite pleased with the appearance of these cutie cakes.
Time for tea!

Green Tea Hotteok from pre-mix [failed]

Severe lack of update here, because maintaining a blog is so time consuming. Oops. But! A blog can serve another purpose, i.e. a platform to rant.

And so my boyfriend and I decided to try making hotteok, one of those korean sweet pancakes (very awesome to eat in a cold weather..).

I cannot remember how much I bought from Lotte Mart in Korea, but it was cheap enough to catch my attention. I downloaded the instruction sheet (english version) from the internet, eager to relive the memories in Korea with my boyfriend...

We even watched the youtube clip to get a better sense of the procedure:

And yay. We failed terribly. For some reason, the dough was really watery and sticky. We could not roll the dough into a ball. A very messy affair (warning. the picture below may cause some discomfort).

Green Tea Hotteok

My boyfriend cringed a little while eating but I had to admit the pancake was very chewy and palatable. I would like to try making my own hotteok from scratch though, one day. Me no trust pre-mix (maybe not for long). And yes, happy 2015! :)

Pan-fried chicken wings (with Lee Kum Kee korean marinade) -- 10 pieces

Was away on a holiday to Myanmar and Korea during the last two months. Officially "bankrupt".

Korea is one of the more popular destinations among Singaporeans, it's easy to understand why. Although I'm not a fan of K-culture or K-food but out of curiosity I bought a packet of Korean Marinade from our local supermarket, NTUC to see if it's "up to standard".



Instructions were clear and simple.

Ingredients:
1 packet of Lee Kum Kee korean marinade
10 chicken wings (washed and skin removed)
2 tablespoons of water
4 tablespoons of cooking oil

Method:
1. Marinate the chicken wings by mixing the marinade and chicken wings together. Put them in the fridge for at least an hour.

2. Pan-fry chicken with low heat until golden yellow [mine skipped the colour and went a little charred...]
3. Mix the remaining marinade in bowl with 2 tablespoons of water and pour into the chicken wings. Continue to cook until done.

korean bbq chicken

Masak thoughts: 1 packet is not enough for 10 pieces of chicken wing! Way too bland, maybe I need to marinate overnight instead and add stuff like garlic? I don't know. :/ Decent but definitely not like a pro. BUT! I can't wait to try the box of pancake mix which I had bought from lotte mart (all the way from koreeeaaa) *confidence regained*

snowskin mooncake -- 12 pieces

After watching "Blessings" on Channel 8 (a drama with a story plot revolving around a traditional Chinese pastry shop), I am curious about the making of those traditional chinese goodies. It seems like the Malays are generally quite good at making their kueh-kueh; people love the western desserts and would part with a huge sum of money per month to attend pastry-making courses. But well, what about our huat kueh, ang ku kueh? Will it one day come to "extinction"? Just a thought. Hmph.

Since Mid-Autumn Festival is a week away, a friend's mom (whom I will affectionately refer her as Auntie Nice in this post) was kind enough to invite me and a friend to her kitchen on Sunday to make snowskin mooncakes! What I like about snowskin is...there is no need for oven (no, I have no oven at home).

Get ready your mooncake mould and let the adventure begin!

Ingredients:

300g sieved fried glutinous rice flour [lazy to fry? it's available in stores]

200g sieved icing sugar 

450g ice water

3 tablespoons of canola oil

half teaspoon of pandan essence
Some baked nuts [in this case we have lotus seeds and macadamia nuts]

900g red bean paste [Auntie Nice made the filling.You can either DIY or buy it off the shelf]

Method:

1. Add mixed nuts into the red bean paste. Divide the paste into 12 portions (balls).

2. Mix glutinous rice flour and icing sugar. Add in ice water, oil and pandan essence. Knead well to form a soft dough. Divide dough into 12 portions.

3. Flatten the dough, each dough to wrap a red bean paste ball.
4. Dust each ball with the rice flour and press into the mooncake mould.
5. Gently knock the mould to remove the mooncake.
6. Chill and serve!

we made some small ones of different flavours..kawaii ^.^

[moulds may come in different shapes and sizes, if you are unsure of the volume of your mould, weigh the amount of dough needed to fill up the mould fully. The ratio of skin and filling really depends on your choice. Also, you may add water from boiled pandan leaves for the authentic taste/colour. ]

Snowskin Mooncakes

Masak thoughts: We tried making small mooncakes, they were more challenging to make but manageable nevertheless. The ingredients and preparation are both cheap and easy (of course you can still have the choice to pamper yourself to those branded mooncakes...).
With the array of mooncake choices in the market, let us not forget our roots and the exciting tales behind these colourful (and sometimes even odd-shaped) mooncakes. :)

Can't wait to try out other traditional pastry tutorials! Thank you Auntie Nice and happy Mid Autumn my dear friends!

humble chinese fried rice -- Serves 2 pax

Took half day leave from work this afternoon, realised that I had missed the Chinese New Year off-in-lieu. Still a little bitter about losing the privilege to one day of leave, if only they could extend the validity to 1 year. :X

This evening my mother decided to fry the leftover rice from yesterday. Even though chinese fried rice is such a common dish in Singapore, I cannot seem to google the origin of this dish. Anyway it is another ultra easy comfort food to prepare so the mother just had to give me verbal instructions without having to "SOS" me. It is such a fuss-free dish that you can prepare the dish with any cooked ingredients (preferably dry) you have in the house and just stir fry it. :)

Ingredients (decide the amount and type of ingredients to your liking):

egg (I only used 1)

chopped scallions

diced honey-roasted pork 

leftover rice (already cooked, can be straight from the fridge)

a tablespoon of oil

diced garlic

dark soy sauce (half a teaspoon)

salt

Method:

1. Heat the pan with oil and crack the egg into the pan

2. Add the diced garlic and stir fry together with the egg (it would look like scrambled egg by now)

3. Add the pork and rice. Continue to fry it. Add a pinch of salt.

                                 

4. When it looks all yummy and good, add the dark soy sauce for the colour and flavour! Oh yes, you may add the scallions at the end too, not during the initial step which was what I did. You will end up with burnt scallions if you are as blur as me

5. Fry fry fry briefly~

basic chinese fried rice

Masak-thoughts: Leftover rice, or cooked rice which are left for a few days are dryer which will ensure that the individual grain of rice is "solid" and less clumpy when you fry. There are many variations of fried rice out there, so it can never be boring! It is also a good way to reduce food wastage, whereby your leftover food can be created into a delicious stomach-filling dish. While the home-cooked fried rice may not be as flavourful as those sold in tzechar stalls, it is fun to experiment with your own rendition of fried rice!

french toast with chicken floss filling

On a hiatus for a month.
My guinea pigs were sick, I was feeling unwell (emotionally, mainly) due to lack of rest from work. Many colleagues (friends) are leaving for various reasons, so occasional waves of low morale would hit me and I start to ask myself some tough questions which I do not have an answer to. =X

Anyhow, I was chatting with a colleague (who was leaving) and I shared with her about the little things I hope to do but find no time to do so, including this blog which is hibernating in a teeny corner of the cyberspace. So I decided to do something for breakfast this morning. I remembered I wanted to make taiwanese egg crepe sometime back but realised I did not have flour in the kitchen. So I settled with something less ambitious -- french toast. :)

Recipe extracted from submerryn:

Ingredients:
an egg
a teaspoon of oil
slices of bread
pork/chicken/fish floss (or anything creative)

Method:
1. Cut 2 pieces of bread into 8 equal parts. [as it's only for myself, I had 1 slice of bread, I conveniently folded it to half]
2. Spoon some chicken floss in the middle.
3. Place a piece of bread to cover the chicken floss and pinch the sides to seal it.
4. Break an egg in a bowl and beat it. Do not add salt as the entire combination is tasty enough. Optional: Add pepper and parsley flakes.
5. Dip the bread into the beaten egg making sure it is well coated.
6. Toast on non-stick pan. Turn over and toast the other side. [i added oil and pan-fried it]

[I used wholemeal bread, which explains the colour of the bread. :X]

french toast with chicken floss filling

masak-thoughts: My mom used to make this when I was young. All-time favourite (there was no such thing as "sinful" when one was a child)! It's ultra easy to make for a noob (just keep it to small fire) and there's no hateful splattering of oil. A happy breakfast is definitely a booster to the entire day!

black sesame pudding (from house kurogoma pudding mix) -- Serves 4 to 5 pax

Black sesame is my ultimate favourite. From black sesame spread to black sesame rice balls I love them all. Just that it's a little heaty for my body to take sometimes but it is said to have nourishing effect on the skin and hair.

It had been a busy week for me due to courses and weekend work assignments so I decided to cheat and bought a box of Black Sesame Pudding (Kuro Goma Purin) mix from Yamakawa Super, A Japanese mart in Tiong Bahru Plaza. 

The instructions look as easy as A-B-C. 

Recipe reflected on the box (the instructions on the box were in Japanese language so do remember to look out for English version provided near the door at the mart):

Ingredients:
The mix~!
400 ml fresh milk

Method:
1. In a pot, open a packet of the Kurogoma pudding powder. Add 400ml fresh milk. Turn on medium flame.

2. Mix well until powder melts. Once boiled, turn to small flame. Continue to boil for 1 minute.
3. Divide the mixture into small container cups. 
[please do it immediately, do not wait any longer as the upper layer of the liquid would have already started to solidify in the pot. I made that mistake and by the time I got down to divide the mixture into small cups, I had to break the upper layer into pieces. I tried reboiling it to reverse the process of solidifying but it didn't work, of course.]

That explains the pieces of dark patches, they are the broken solidified bits.

4. Cool it to room temperate for about 10min. After chilling in the fridge for more than 1 hour...

black sesame pudding

Masakthoughts: The texture is soft, close to a creamy texture. It's very sweet with an extremely milkish taste. They look hideous (nothing like the picture on the box) but the taste was decent for a quick fix like this in the kitchen :)