Assorted Seafood Bakso Noodle

Mee bakso simply means meatball noodles. There are many versions of mee bakso but this time round, I decided to use seafood balls instead for a change. However, I still used beef as the stock base for more added flavour.

Ingredients
Stock
1 kg beef, slightly fatty
1 pkt sup bunjut (this you can buy from the supermarket where all the spices are packed in a small bag. Very convenient)
3L water
salt & pepper to taste

1 pkt bee hoon, soaked in water till tender
fish balls, sotong/cuttlefish balls and crab balls
2 large onion
5 clove garlic
2 inch ginger
2T oil

Garnishes
lettuce, julienne
sliced lime
blanched beansprouts
chilli
chopped parsley and spring onions

Method
1. Boil the beef for about 20mins in a litre of water then throw away the water (this is to get rid of the impurities)
2. Fill the pot with 2L water and add beef and sup bunjut
3. Simmer for about 1-2 hrs till beef is tender, remove spices and put aside
4. Blend onion, garlic and ginger into a paste
5. Heat oil in a pot and fry blended paste till fragrant
6. Add stock into the pot and let it simmer
7. Add beef pieces, balls, salt and pepper to taste and let it boil for about 20mins
8. At the same time, drain bee hoon and pour hot boiling water to tenderised the noodle
9. To serve, pour soup over the noodle with some of the beef pieces and seafood balls
10.Garnish with lettuce, beansprouts, lime, chopped parsley and spring onions and serve

Chicken Nuggets

I am not exactly a nuggets fan but my kids do have them occassionally at the fast food joints. I have tried making my own but they always turn out a little on the soggy side until I tried this recipe which is originally taken off Berita Harian - our local malay paper. The recipe uses chicken wings but I opt for chicken chunks instead and add more spices to it. It's a fairly simple recipe and you can add whatever spice that you like.

Here, the potato starch actually keeps the nuggets dry and the rice flour gives it a crunchy texture.

Ingredients
1 kg chicken fillets, cut into bite size
7 dried chillies
5 clove garlic
5cm ginger
1/2 T coriander powder
1 T garam masala or any spices you fancy
1 C rice flour
1 C potato starch
1 egg
1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate
salt & pepper to taste
oil for frying

Method
1. Blend dried chillies, garlic, ginger into paste
2. Mix blended paste with both flours, salt, pepper, egg and soda bicarbonate
3. Add chicken pieces into the batter and marinate it for about 30mins
4. Heat oil and deep fry chicken pieces till golden brown
5. Drain oil and serve with your favourite sauce

Enjoy !!

Curry Tuna Fritters

This is an easy one, great to have for tea and dipping it with a good chili sauce. I got a can of Curry Tuna (Ayam brand) lying around and I was not in a mood to make a puff. So came up with this instead.

The main ingredient is the Curry Tuna in a can .. heh This is the packaging that you should look out for. You will notice that I mention potatoes in the methods. Just to inform that the curry tuna has potatoes in it.

Ingredients:
1 can Curry Tuna (Ayam brand)
1 - 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 eggs
1/4 - 1/2 cup water, you may not need to use all
a bunch of spring onions, chopped
salt & pepper to taste
oil for frying


Method:
1. Mix flour with salt and pepper
2. Add the eggs and 1/4 cup of water, mix till well blended
3. Pour the curry tuna into the batter and mix, mash the potaotes a little
4. If batter is too watery, add about 1 tbsp of flour at a time till the consistency that you like, if too sticky, add 1 tbsp of water at a time
5. Add the chopped spring onions and mix it well
6. Heat oil in a pan
7. Fry a spoonful at a time till golden brown
8. Serve hot with chili sauce

Horse Shoe Nutella Roll

This is one of a favourite during Hari Raya. You will see many homebakers selling this and lots of houses serving this during the muslim festive season. I think the main attraction is the nutella as young and old simply love the taste of this chocolate hazelnut spread ;-)

I got this recipe from Suria a malay channel in Singapore. Since this particular recipe uses lesser egg, I thought of giving it a try. Result is nice but I think there's way too much baking powder being used for the amount of flour in the recipe. I would recommend halfing it the next time.

I didn't follow the recipe to the T as I omitted the ovalette. I try to bake cakes without using emulsifier as I don't like the after taste of it - to me at least.

The original uses 1tsp ovalette. So if you are using it, you can put all the ingredients except the nutella and melted butter into the mixing bowl and mix it till it doubles in volume. Since I am not using emulsifier, a bit more steps are involved.

Ingredients
6 egg yolk
3 egg whites
50 g cake/plain flour
15 g corn flour
½ tsp baking powder
100 g castor sugar
50 ml fresh milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
75 ml melted butter
1 tbsp chocolate paste/emulco
Nugotin atau Nutella

Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 200C
2. Prepare 1 baking tray 10” x 10” x 2”, line with grease paper
3. Melt Nugotin or Nutella using double boiling, bain-marie method till soft
4. Mix and sift flour, baking powder, cornflour.
5. Put eggs and sugar in the mixing bowl and mix it till it doubles in volume (the batter should be thick, shiny and light in colour) then add vanilla essence
6. Fold in flour alternately with milk with last being the flour into the batter and mix it gently
7. Pour melted butter and fold it gently
8. Scoop approximately 250g mixture and leave it plain
9. Add chocolate paste to the remainder and mix it well
10.Pour plain batter into a piping bag
11.Pour the chocolate batter into the pan
12.Pour the plain batter onto the chocolate batter
13.Bake in oven for 5 – 7 minutes only, do not overbake as cake may crack when rolled
14.When fully baked, take the cake out and cool it
15.Spread Nugotin/Nutella on the cake, and roll it from end to end
16.Cool it before cutting cake for serving

Ukoy (Prawn Fritters)

Ukoy is prawn fritters which is an asian dish. Where exactly it is from, I am not too sure but searching the internet, it seems that it is a Filipino dish (correct me if I am wrong). This recipe is taken from a recipe book but I modify it slightly to suit my taste. I added a some tapioca flour to make it a little chewy and I omitted the yam simply because I don't have any at home. But do try with that, I believe it would be delicious.

Ingredients
200g prawns
1-2 cup water
1 1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup corn flour
1 heapful tbsp tapioca flour
2 eggs
chinese parsley, chopped
bean sprouts
1 yam, shredded (I omitted this)
salt and black pepper to taste

Method
1. Boil prawns in water till it turns orangy. Remove the prawn heads and keep the stock
2. Sift rice flour, corn flour, tapioca flour with salt
3. Add 1-1.5 cup of stock and eggs to the flour and mix till well blended (batter should not be runny)
4. Add bean sprouts, chopped parsley, shredded yam (if using) and prawn, mix till they are well coated
5. Heat oil
6. Scope the batter with prawns on top and fry till golden brown
7. Serve with a good chilli sauce or ketchup

Blueberry Sourcream Pound Cake

The last time I made a pound cake was a couple of months back. It was the marble sourcream pound cake. I got a small tub of sour cream and fresh blueberries in the fridge. I was searching for a nice recipe that uses both and finally decided to bake this.

I used the basic sourcream pound cake recipe but I increase the butter a little bit. It came out perfect, moist and rich - just the way I like it.

Ingredients
250g butter, softened
3 cups cake flour (you can substitute with all purpose flour)
2 1/4 - 2 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup sourcream
1 cup fresh blueberries, add 1 tsp flour
6 large eggs

Method
1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt and put aside
2. Cream butter and sugar till light
3. Add sour cream and vanilla essence into the butter/sugar mixture and mix till well blended
4. Add flour and alternate with eggs with last being flour, mix on low speed till well mixed
5. Using the spoon or spatula, add blueberries into the cake batter
6. Bake in a greased and lined 10" baking pan in a preheated oven of 180C for 1hr 20mins or till skewer comes out clean

Vanilla Frosting and Cuppies

It has been along time since I last update this blog. I apologize as I have been pretty busy with my work and home :-) For those requesting for the vanilla frosting recipe, here it is. This is taken from marthastewart website and I have been using it for most of my cupcake frosting. Here, I use half butter and half shortening so that the frosting will not melt easily in our humid weather. However, you can replace the shortening with butter if you like.

I used the American cake for the cuppies :-)

Vanilla Frosting
Makes 1 cup

Ingredients
25 gm unsalted butter, room temperature
25 gm butter flavoured shortening
2 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Method
1. In a small bowl, beat together butter, sugar, milk, vanilla, and salt until light and fluffy. Use immediately, or cover with cling wrap, and refrigerate up to 3 days.

Before using, bring to room temperature.

Spicy Baked Beans

This is an Indian influenced dish which I was inspired by one of Saturday's Kitchen guest chef. Most of the time, I will have my baked beans just as it is or add scrambled eggs, chopped onions to it and have it with bread. This version came out pretty well and it tastes great with chapati. In fact, you can add some potatoes and curry leaves and use it as a thosai filling - just a thought *wink*

As usual, this recipe is 'agaration', you can add more or less of the items to suit your tastebuds 8-D

Ingredients
3 small tin Heinz baked beans or any brand that you like
2 shallots, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 heapful tsp garam masala powder
1/2 tsp tumeric powder
1 stalk coriander leaves, chopped
mixed vege
1 Tbsp oil

Method
1. Heat oil in frying pan and stir fry chopped shallots and garlic till fragrant
2. Add baked beans, stir till well mixed
3. Add garam masala and tumeric powder and mix them well
4. Once bubbly, add the mixed vege lastly followed by the chopped coriander, stir well and simmer for about 2min and serve it hot with chapati or thosai

Chocolate Chip Muffin

This recipe is adapted from Simply Delicious segment at AFC (Asia Food Channel) and I maanged to memorise the ingredients and wrote it down in my notebook. Well, the original recipe uses flour+baking powder, but I replaced it with self-raising flour simply because to lazy *LOL*. It is very easy to do muffin and tastes very rich due to the butter. It doesn't require any machine, just your hands and fork & spoon and of course not forgetting the weighing machine too .. hehe

Muffins batter is supposed to be lumpy and not smooth. Just ensure that the dry ingredients are moist then stop mixing. Further mixing will give a hard muffin and you don't want that.

Ingredients
125g chilled butter, cut into cubes
275g SR flour
115g brown sugar
115g choc chips or a block of dark chocolate and chop them into small pieces
1/2 tsp salt
100ml milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method
1. Sift flour and salt together
2. Add egg and vanilla essence into the milk and mix them well, put aside
3. Mix butter into flour mixture, using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour till it resembles crumbs
4. Make a hole in the dry ingredients and pour the milk mixture (2) slowly and using a fork, mix it gently till all the dry ingredients are moist. The batter should be lumpy and not smooth.
5. Scoop into muffin pan or cups and bake in a preheated oven at 175C for 20mins or so till cooked.

Rainbow Egg White Lapis

I got this recipe from the internet - indonesian website (sorry can't remember the site name) but modified it to suit my taste. To me this is more a layered sponge cake and taste wise, not too sweet. You can do variation like sprinkle shredded cheese or chips or dried fruit to make it interesting.

Ingredients
500g egg white
250g white sugar
250g plain flour }original is 300g plain flour
50g self-raising flour }
60ml evaporated milk (original is coconut milk)
100ml melted butter (original is oil)
1tsp vanilla essence (not in the original recipe)
a few drops of red and green colouring
4 pitted dates/prunes or slivered almonds for sprinkling on last layer

Method
1. Beat egg white till bubbly, add sugar little by little and beat till stiff
2. Sift in flour and gently stir into egg white mixture
3. Add milk and melted butter together and pour slowly into egg+flour mixture, mix slowly till well blended
4. Divide batter into 3 leaving one original and the other 2 with the respective colours
5. Pour one scoop batter into a lined and greased loaf baking tin and baked in a 175C preheated oven for 7-10min till brown
6. Change oven mode to grill and increase temperature to 200C
7. Pour 1 scoop of green and grill till the top turns slightly brown, then pour 1 scoop of red over the green. Repeat till you finished all the batter.
8. On the last layer, either sprinkle slivered almonds or prunes or date and grilled till brown then change the oven to baking mode and bake till cake is cooked.

Farah's 7th birthday cake

My eldest daughter, Farah celebrated her 7th birthday on 16th March and she wanted to celebrate it with her friends at her after school care centre. Although I can always order a cake for her, I decided to bake her a birthday cake for her instead. As usual, I bake part of them in little cups with a small centre piece for the candles.

The whole look of the cake


and the little cuppies

I was glad that her friends and herself enjoyed it.

Salmon Gravlax

I love salmon in any form except when it's overcooked. Finally got hold of fresh salmon to make this. This makes a great finger food too.

The basic of curing fish is to remember the sugar and salt amount. It is 1 part sugar and 1 part salt. Mix them together and add chopped fresh herbs. For this, I used dill.

Ingredients
2 pcs fresh salmon fillet
1 part salt } eg. if you are using 1/4 cup salt,
1 part sugar } use 1/4 cup sugar
bunch of fresh dill, chopped
2-3 tbps freshly ground black pepper
lemon zest
cling wrap/aluminium foil for wrapping fish

Method
1. Clean and pat dry the fish
2. Mix salt and sugar till well incorporated
3. Add chopped dill, black pepper and lemon zest into the salt/sugar mix
4. Mix all them till well combined
5. Place one fish, skin side down on a cling wrap/foil
6. Cover the top and the sides with the curing mixture
7. Take the second fish with skin side up and cover the first fish
8. Wrap the fish tightly and place it on a tray
9. Place a chopping board or anything heavy on top of the wrapped fish
10.Keep in the fridge for at least 24 hrs
11.To serve, clean the fish by removing all the salt/sugar mixture
12.Remove skin and slice thinly
13.Serve on it's own or with salad

Kiam Chye & Chicken Soup

Had this during the later stage of my confinement. I needed something that is light and slight salty, so made this easy soup. Surprising, my daughters love it too.

As usual, an 'agaration' recipe.

Ingredients
1-2 pcs skinned chicken breast, cut into cubes
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 slice of ginger, slivered
chicken stock
1-2 tomatoes, chopped with seeds removed
kiam chye, washed and sliced
Enough water to boil
Salt & pepper to taste
Oil

Method
1. Heat oil in pot and stir fry garlic and ginger slices till fragrant
2. Add water and add chicken stock
3. Add chicken and kiam chye
4. Leave it to simmer till the chicken is cooked then add the tomatoes and further simmer for about 10mins
5. Add salt & pepper to taste and serve it hot

Marble Sourcream Pound Cake

I have been wanting to bake a rich buttery cake before my delivery but it didn't materialise. Finally after delaying for soo long, I had no choice but to get my butt to the kitchen and baked this, simply because the tub of sourcream was expiring soon.

The original recipe was shared by an online friend quite sometime back and I made it into a marble version. It came out perfect.

Ingredients
8oz butter
2 1/2 C sugar (original is 3 cups, I still find 2 1/2 c still sweet. You may want to reduce to 2 - 2 1/4 c instead)
250g sour cream (original is 1 cup)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups all-purpose flour
6 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 heapful tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Method
1. Preheat oven to 170C
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter and sugar and beat till fluffy
3. Add the sourcream and mix until well incorporated
4. Sift baking soda and flour together and add to the creamed mixture alternating with eggs, beating each egg 1 at a time
5. Add vanilla and scoop out about 1/4 of the batter
6. Sift cocoa powder into the 1/4 batter and mix till well incorporated
7. Pour the original and chocolate batter alternately into a greased and floured tube pan
9. Use a knife to swirl the cake batter
10.Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes or till skewer comes out clean

Sroto

I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart for not updating my blog for a very long time. With my new addition to the family is growing big, I managed to find some time to resume my baking and cooking.

So over the weekend, made this simple and less spicy version of a soto called Sroto. Don't ask me where it came from or why it's called Sroto because I don't have the answer for you .. heh But I do believe it could be an Indonesian dish but I have not idea where.

The recipe is taken off the local malay paper Berita Harian dated 22nd Jan by a well know chef/cooking instructor Aini Salim

Ingredients A
500 g beef (cut into 4)
3 bay leave
2 cm galangal/blue ginger (bruised)
1 tsp salt
4000 ml water

Ground Ingredients
8 cloves garlic
8 candlenut
1 tsp white pepper
2 slices fresh tumeric
6 tbsp oil for frying

Garnish
300g beansprouts
100g vermicilli (soaked in hot water and drained)
2 potatoes (sliced and then fried)
3 hardboiled eggs (sliced) - I also added quail eggs
1 cup toasted peanuts
fried shallots, spring onion and chinese celery for garnishing
lontong or ketupat


Method
1. Boil A till the meat is tender
2. Take the meat out and slice them thinly and strain the stock, put aside
3. Fry the ground ingredients till fragrant and pour it into the stock together with the beef slices
4. Simmer the soup till it boils, turn off fire
5. To serve, prepare a bowl with ketupat/longtong, vermicilli, beansprouts, beef slices, fried potatoes. Pour soup and garnish with fried shallots, chopped spring onions, chinese parsley and toasted peanuts. Top it with enough sambal.


Sambal Ingredients
30 chilli paid (steam and then pound)
40 g toasted peanut (finely ground)
6 tbsp kicap manis
2 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt (optional)

Method
1. Mixed all the ingredients till well blended

Note: You can replace it with chicken, but you only need half chicken and reduce water to 3500ml.

Raisin & Dried Mango Rice

This dish is inspired by a recipe in last month's Women's Weekly magazine. The original recipe is supposed to be cooking the rice with the ingredients, but I change d it to a fried rice version since I have some leftover rice to get rid of.

I used 7D dried mango slices because that is the best for me at least. The original uses golden raisins but I just replaced it with what I have.

Ingredients
2-3 cups cooked rice
2 tbsp olive oil/butter/ghee
1 medium onion, sliced
1 large clove garlic, chopped
1 chicken stock bouillion
1/2 tsp ground clove
1/2 tps ground cinnamon
drice mango slices, chopped into small pieces
1/3 cup raisin
chopped coriander
salt & pepper
salmon slices or other meat slices
A bit of water

Method
1. Heat wok and add oil/butter/ghee
2. Fry onions till translucent and add chopped garlic, ground clove and ground cinnamon, fry till fragrant
3. Add salmon slices or other meat slices and stir till cooked
4. Pour a little bit of water to the onion, garlic & fish mixture
5. Sprinkle a bit of pepper and add chicken stock and stir till well combined
6. Add cooked rice, stir well
7. Once the rice is coated with the spices, add raisins and dried mango
8. Stir raisins and mango till well distributed and let the rice cook further
9. Throw in chopped coriander, stir and serve

Indian Rojak

I have been wanting to make this for the longest time and finally made it simply because I got attracted to the gravy recipe. This recipe is Asmah Laili's recipe but I adjusted some of the ingredients. I also omitted the colouring since I don't have red/orange colouring. The ingredients is entirely up to you, you can add or omit some of them if you don't like them.

Gravy

Ingredients
500gm sweet potato, wash clean and steam or boil till soft
1 tbsp oats, ground till fine
50ml ketchup
1.5 tbsp sesame seeds, roasted
1.5 l water
a bit of orange colouring (optional)
5 dried chilli
a slice of pineapple
2 green apple
1 red apple
2 tomatoes
2 clove garlic
1 cm ginger
2-4 tbsp brown sugar
salt to taste

Method
1. Grind dried chilli, pineapple, apples, tomatoes, garlic and ginger into paste and put aside
2. Grind steamed/boiled sweet potatoes with water and pour into a pot
3. Add all the ingredients except sesame seed into the the pot and stir till the gravy starts to boil
4. Once gravy starts to boil, add roasted sesame seeds. Make sure gravy is not too thick or too thin
5. Add sugar and salt to taste and adjust accordingly to your taste


Dough

Ingredients
500g all purpose flour
3g instant yeast
1/2 tsp salt
500-600ml water
1/2 tbsp tumeric powder

Method
1. Sift flour with yeast, tumeric powder and salt into a bowl
2. Pour water a little at a time till the batter becomes like a fritter's batter.
3. Cover bowl with cling wrap and leave it to proof for about 2.5hr - 3hr or till double in size
[This dough will be used for some of the rojak ingredients ]


Rojak ingredients without dough - deep fried and drain oil well
2 firm tofu, cut into 4
4 tempe, coat with a bit of tumeric and salt
4 fish cake
4 hard boiled egg
2 boiled potatoes


Rojak ingredients with dough
1/2 cup grated coconut
2 hard boiled eggs
2 boiled potatoes
2 tbsp sesame seed
2 firm tofu
some prawns
a bit of orange colouring (optional)


Method to fry dough ingredients
1. Heat oil in a wok/pot
2. Divide dough into 4 parts

1st part of dough
----------------------
- Fry it into balls

2nd part of dough
-----------------------
- Coat the hardboiled eggs and sprinkle some sesame and fry till crispy
- Coat the potatoes with the dough and sprinkle with sesame and fry till crispy

3rd part of dough
----------------------
- Coat tofu with dough and put one prawn and fry till crispy

4th part of dough
-----------------------
- Add grated coconut and sesame seeds, shape into strips and fry till crispy


Garnishes - cut/slice into bite size
salad leaves
onions
green chilli
cucumber

Sweet Bun Dough (2)

I have tried numerous sweet bun dough recipe I got from the internet and this is one of the better ones that I have tried in terms of taste and softness (overnight). Looks like the trick is the amount of butter used. I have tried a similar recipe which is about the same only that it uses half cream cheese and it is as good too.

This time, I made pinwheel pizza bread. The filling is a regular pizza filling with pizza sauce, sausages, cheese and herbs.

I have to thank Lynna and also the original contributor of this recipe (Roshayati Johari). I halved this recipe and made some slight mod to the liquid.

Ingredients
(A)
250g bread flour
50g sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
15g milk powder
2 tsp instant dry yeast
(B)
100-120ml water (add 100ml first than slowly add if dough is too dry)
27g egg (if using cream cheese, omit the egg)
(C) **
20g butter 20g shortening/cream cheese

Method:
1. Mix well all ingredients in (A)
2. Add (B) into (A) and knead till smooth
3. Add (C) and continue kneading till smooth and shiny and dough does not stick to your hand. 4. Leave to prove for 60 minutes or double in volume
5. Punch down the dough lightly to let the air out
6. Divide the dough according to the weight you wish, shape into balls and leave to rest for 10 minutes
7. Shape accordingly and leave to prove for 40 minutes - 1 hour
8. Brush with egg wash
9. Bake till golden brown
10.Once taken out of the oven, brush with egg wash again for extra shine

** I have tried combination of butter+shortening and butter+cream cheese. Both yield similar softness but cream cheese give more flavour.

For those using breadmachine, put all the ingredients according to the manufacturer's instruction and select the dough cycle. Leave the dough to further proof for about 45min after the end of the dough cycle.

Banana Bread

This is a very easy to do banana bread but very delicious. The original recipe was contributed by Iris from KC. I made some slight changes to it. This one does not need to use mixer, just hand power is enough. Great when have it with a hot cup of tea, English/Earl Gray would be nice.

Ingredients
1/2 cup oil (vegetable or corn oil)
slightly less than 3/4 cup sugar (can use brown sugar)
2 eggs
4 medium, ripe bananas, mashed (if using del-monte like bananas, 2 is enough)
35g toasted, chopped walnuts
40g sultanas (can omit this if you don't like it)
1/2 tsp banana essence (optional)
185g self-raising flour, sifted
1/4 tsp salt

Method
1.Preheat oven to 180 deg C
2. Grease and line a loaf tin
3.Beat oil, sugar, essence and eggs well
4.Fold in mashed bananas, nuts and sultanas
5.Fold in flour and mix well
6.Bake for 45-50 minutes or till done when skewer inserted into cake comes out clean

To make it look more presentable, you top up the bread with cream cheese frosting. You can make this a day before but remember to frost the cake after the cake is cooled.

You can make variation with this frosting by adding abit of lemon juice or orange juice or other essence that you like ;)

Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
1 (4 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sifted icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method
1. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until cream
2. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the icing sugar
3. Store in the refrigerator after use.

Vegetable Curry Pau

I have always been wanting to make paus but failed terribly 2x with 2 different recipes. It was really disappointing until I saw this recipe shared by a member from an online forum which I frequent (thanks Lena). This one came out perfect for me, of course this is not the kind of paus you get at those dim sum places. The dough tastes almost like the ones you get outside (those regular steam paus) and I really liked it a lot.

Although the recipe uses sponge dough, you can do a straight dough method too.

Ingredients
A: Sponge
400 gm HKG/pau flour (Recommended using Bluekey pau flour)
210-240ml water * (pour bit by bit - need not use the 240ml)
1 ½ tsp instant yeast.

B: Ingredients for the pau
100 gm HKG/pau flour (Recommended using Bluekey pau flour)
120g gm sugar
10 gm shortening
1 ¼ tsp double action baking powder

Method
1. Mix ingredients A together
2. Knead until smooth and elastic
3. Let it rise for 40 mins
4. Mix dough from method 1 with ingredients B. and knead until well blended
5. Cut into equal portions about 40g
6. Wrap in filling
7. Let it rise for 20 minutes
8. Steam over high heat for 15 minutes

* I used Bake King's hkg flour and this flour absorbs quite a bit of water. So I reduced the water to around 210-220ml instead of 240ml. For those using other flours, please add water 200ml first and followed by the rest.

Note: I used my breadmaker to knead the sponge then followed by using the mixer when adding B. But you can use the breadmaker to knead the dough and take it out once the breadmaker stops kneading. No need to wait till cycle ends.

I made the dough first and freeze it and shape it the next day. You can freeze the dough too right after mixing the sponge with B. To use, thaw it before shaping and follow step 5 onwards.