Friday, September 23, 2005

Vietnamese Pancake

I was first introduced to this dish by my hubby a couple of years ago - in which during that time, I was not into cooking or baking. The first thing that I noticed about this dish was the amount of beansprouts .. most of their dishes have loads of bean sprouts, mostly raw. One thing I find about vietnamese during my visit there is the amount of raw vege that they consume. You can hardly find any overweight ladies or elderly there. Majority of them are petite - which makes me feel like a 'king kong' when I was with them *LOL*

Ok back to the dish, this is a very simple dish. There are many ways that you can eat it, but I like to wrap it in lettuce, mint leaves and dip in the sauce. Yummy !!!


vietnamese_pancake1

A plate full of them :)

vietnamese_pancake2


What you see above was made with a premix. I have also made using a recipe shared by one of the forum member at Jodeli's forum, tt and find the homemade ones tastes better.

Ingredients
Batter
1/2 cup cooked rice
2 1/2 cups coconut milk or water or milk (I used half coconut milk, half milk)
175g rice flour
50g potato starch
1 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp salt
oil

Toppings/fillings
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
200g chicken fillet, sliced (I omitted this)
200-300g small shrimp, remove skin and head
300-400g bean sprouts
1 cup cooked mung beans (I omitted this)

lettuce, mint/basil for garnishing

Method
Batter
1. Put rice and coconut milk in a blender and blend until smooth
2. Mix the rest of the ingredients together and let it rest for about 1/2 hour before use

Pancake
1. Add a little oil to a non stick pan
2. Add some onions, shrimp and chicken, stir fry until 1/2 cooked
3. Add some batter and “twist” the pan so the batter coats the bottom of the pan evenly
4. When the pancake is half cooked, sprinkle bean sprouts and mung beans in the middle
5. Cover and cook over medium heat for about 3-5 mins, until the pancake is crispy
6. Fold the pancake in half and continue to cook for about 1-2 mins and transfer to the plate
7. Repeat same process for the rest of the batter and filling
8. Serve with herbs and dipping sauce

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Easy Peasy Udon Soup

This is my second udon soup dish. Unlike the other one, this version is soo simple good when you have very limited time to prepare dinner. As usual, I cheat using chicken and ikan bilis stock .. heh

easypeasy_udon

Ingredients
Udon noodles
1.5L water
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1 chicken bouillon cube (Maggi, no added msg)
1 ikan bilis bouillon cube (Maggi, no added msg)
some fishballs
some fishcake, sliced
pepper to taste
local lettuce and fried shallots for garnishing

Method
1. Blend onion and garlic into paste
2. Boil water and add onion/garlic paste and the stock cubes
3. Let the soup boil for 15-20mins and make sure that the cubes are dissolved
4. Add fishballs and sliced fishcakes and continue simmer for about 10min
5. Add pepper to taste
6. Blanch noodles and lay lettuce in the bowl
7. Place the noodles on the lettuce and scoop the soup over with fishballs and fishcakes
8. Sprinkle fried shallots and sliced chilli and serve hot

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Durian Ice-Cream

Still with some durian in the fridge, I decided to make this lighter version ice-cream which I have been itching to try since the last 1.5 mths. Finally made it and it is great. Creamy despite uses only egg white, sourcream and sugar. I got this recipe from allrecipes but sort of changed the measurement slighty.


durian_icecream


Ingredients
3/4 cup egg white
300ml light sourcream (you can use normal sourcream if you like it creamier)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence
durian pulp from 6-10 seeds

Method
1. Heat egg white in the microwave for about 30-35sec. Don't cook it just make sure that it is heated through
2. Whip egg white and sugar till soft peak formed
3. Stir in sourcream, vanilla essence and durian pulp till well combined
4. Freeze the mixture and stir every 30 mins or so till frozen

Half of the recipe I used the ice-cream maker and the other half I freeze it in the freezer. I found that the texture is better using the ice-cream maker. The picture taken is from the freezer batch.

If you are going to use an ice-cream maker, it would be better to chill the mixture first before use.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Green Bean & Durian Porridge (Sweet dessert)

Bought 2 boxes of durian recently to make some mooncake and a durian cake. Still have quite a bit of leftovers and decided to make this. It has been a long time since I had this. I also like to eat this dessert with cream crackers, just crush them and sprinkle them on the porridge - gives a little crunch to the dessert.


greenbean_durian


Ingredients
200g green beans, soaked for 4 hours (I used boiling water and soaked for 2 hrs)
500ml coconut milk (I used Ayam brand which is about 270ml and added water to make it 500ml)
80g gula melaka (dark palm sugar) or dark brown sugar (you can reduce if you don’t like too sweet)
40g white sugar (can reduce if you don’t like too sweet)
1 tsp salt
3 pandan leaves, knotted
100ml fresh milk (original use coconut cream)
4-5 seeds durian
some water if you like it dilute

Method
1. Boil soaked beans till soft, if too much water, pour them away, leave about the level of the boiled beans
2. Add coconut milk, both sugars, salt, pandan leaves and durian into the pot and let it simmer over medium heat till bubbly.
3. Once slightly boiled, add milk/coconut cream and simmer till slightly thickens (I don't like it too thick)
4. Serve hot with crushed cream crackers or bread for dipping

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Macaroni Chicken Soup

It has been a while since I had a bowl of macaroni soup. So I decided to make this simple dish last Friday for dinner. Coincidentally, Ramadan is just around the corner and I have been cracking my brains to list down dishes that I can prepare for iftar, so this will be in my list :)

The soup is my mom's simple chicken soup. So easy to make yet tasty. Great for children or for the sick.

macaroni_chix


Ingredients
half chicken cut into 4 pcs, skin removed
2.5 - 3L water
2 potatoes, cut into chunks
1 carrot, cut into chunks
4 clove garlic
1-1.5 cm ginger
8 shallots, thinly sliced
1 tbsp white peppercorns, freshly ground ( you can add black peppercorns if want it to be a little more spicy)
salt to taste
some chinese celery, chopped
lime, sliced (optional)
macaroni, boiled till al-dente

Method
1. Fried sliced shallots till brown and keep both the oil and fried shallots
2. Blend garlic and ginger into paste
3. Boil water and once it starts to bubble, add garlic/ginger paste and ground pepper
4. Add chicken pieces and let the soup boil for about 20 minutes
5. Add chinese parsley, carrots and potatoes and continue to simmer till they are cooked
6. Once the soup is done, take chicken pieces out and shred the chicken meat
7. Put cooked macaroni into a bowl or plate, pour soup over the macaroni
8. Sprinkle shredded meat, fried shallots with its oil and chinese parsley onto the macaroni
9. Squeeze some lime juice and serve hot

Snowskin Mooncake

I would like to apologize for not updating this blog for awhile. I had a pretty hectic schedule lately and could not find the time to update this blog. I have not been cooking nor baking lately but managed to make my very first snowskin mooncake. The recipe is not difficult and bought almost all of the items from the store.

I always like eating snowskin mooncake and decided to make my own after I found an easy recipe shared by one of the member at M4M. I modified it slightly by reducing the sugar and added condensed milk to give it a creamier taste.



snowskin_1


The cross-section of the mooncake.


snowskin_2



I halved the original recipe and able to get about 11 mini mooncakes.

Ingredients

75g glutinous fried rice flour (kou fein), can get it any baking supply stores
90g powdered sugar
33g shortening
75g cold drinking water
1/2 tsp condensed milk
Vanilla essence or other flavours that you fancy
Colorings of you choice
Lotus paste, can be bought from baking supply store
Salted egg yolks, steamed on an oil plate for about 5-10min


Method
1. Sieve flour and powdered sugar
2. Add shortening and mix them till you get crumb like texture
3. Add water, condensed milk, essence and colouring, mix well until it forms a smooth dough
4. Set dough aside for at least 20mins
5. Make the fillings into ball shapes each 30g (inclusive of yolk if you using one)
6. Divide dough into small portion each 20g
7. Flatten dough to wrap up the fillings
8. Seal up dough to enclose filling completely
9. Press into mould and knock the mould to loosen the mooncake

Note: Ensure that you roll the dough with fried glutinous rice and sprinkle some of it in the mould to ease releasing the mooncake.