Rich Chocolate Ice Cream 丰富的巧克力雪糕

This is my first attempt at making ice cream.

Went thru a few sites to get an idea. Most recipes I found online needed an ice cream maker to make ice cream, but not many Malaysians have it in their homes. I'm one of those that don't have one. So, I tried to do it with just a whisk and a hand held mixer.

My brothers commented," This tastes like melted chocolate... too rich...."

My hub said," Very nice, but not more than 2 scoops at one go, very 'geng' "

Well, if u're not fan of rich chocolate ice cream, just cut down on the cocoa powder and sugar.
This is a "no maker" recipe. As long as u have a whisk as a minimum requirement.

I didn't make it according to recipes found online. This is my personal preference of proportions.



No maker Rich Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe

Ingredients:

8 egg yolks

500gm sugar

500ml milk

150 gm quality cocoa powder

2 tsp vanilla essence

500ml dairy whipping cream

Method

1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until slightly pale.

2. Bring milk and cocoa powder to a boil.

3. Pour 1/3 of hot cocoa mixture into whisked egg yolks and combine well.

4. Pour in the rest of cocoa mixture and combine well.


5. Return the cocoa custard mixture to the fire and cook with a low fire, stirring continuously until custard turns dark and glossy. Turn off fire. Stir in vanilla essense.

6. Leave cocoa custard to cool down.

7. Pour whipping cream into a large mixing bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Whipping cream would have doubled up by now.

8. Fold 1/4 whipped cream into cooled cocoa custard mixture and combine well.

9. Continue to fold in 1/4 whipped cream at a time.

10. Place ice cream mixture into freezer and freeze for 1/2 hour.

11. Take ice cream out from freezer every half an hour to give it a good whizz.

12. After a few whizzes, transfer ice cream to freezer containers. I use Tupperware's Freezermates.

13. Freeze until firm.

Serving suggestion:

Here's how it looks after being scooped...

Fried Fish with Salsa

My husband doesn't like sour stuff, so I made the salsa as a dip.
If u like tangy stuff, just prepare salsa just before serving and pour over fish.

Ingredients

1 medium sized trevally-Malays call this fish ikan nyok nyok (abt 8 inches long, or any fish u prefer)
1/2 tsp salt
dash of pepper

Salsa Recipe
1 small firm red tomato (diced small)
1 small red onion (not shallot, diced small)
2 small bird's eye chili (I used cili burung, the much smaller version)
juice from 1 lime
zest from 1 lime
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Method:
Marinate fish with salt and pepper for half an hour.
Fry fish on shallow oil til golden brown.
Mix together salsa ingredients.
Pour over fish or serve as a dip.

Chicken with Red Dates Soup 红枣鸡汤

I have a grandaunt who lived til she was 96. She was the eldest sister of my paternal grandmother. My father and I were babysat by her, so were my father's siblings and my siblings. So, she was very much involved in our lives.

She cooked our daily meals until.. she was.... 90. Well, she was a healthy woman until that great power disruption of 1997. Imagine her running after us with a cane when she was 85. She could cross a busy road while on the way to church for Mother's day or Easter celebrations. Taking awards for being the oldest person in church for many many years.. **she was born on the same year Kampar Chinese Methodist Church was established, 1903.

She was a disciplinarian, taking over the role from my grandma who was busy making ends meet for the whole family. Everybody will turn up for her big birthday, her own grandchildren (lesser) and us her niece, nephews, grand nieces and grand nephews making up the majority. Her passing away brought much sorrow to our family... most of all to my small ku cheh.. hehehe.

Memories of her remain.. We miss her cooking a lot. She could cook many dishes that none of us could ever recreate.

This soup is one of it. My favourite soup from grandaunt.

Chicken and Red Dates Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

• 400gm chicken (abt 1 quarter bird)
• 15pcs red dates
• 1.5L water
• 1/2 tsp salt.

Method.

1. Boil water.
2. Remove skin from chicken.
3. Hit red dates with the side of a cleaver and remove seeds.
4. Place chicken and red dates into boiling water and simmer for 3 hours.
5. When ready, season with salt. Pepper is not necessary.

**

I made this with a slow cooker, 4 hours on high. Heating up slow cooker, put in chicken and pitted red dates, then pour in boiling water.

Japanese Strawberry Shortcake 日本草莓蛋糕

This is the 2nd thing made from Kenny's strawberries.

Found this recipe in yochana's site. Needed to use up my fresh strawberries. It'll be a pity to freeze them and they're going bad soon.

My short cake, was baked in a 8 inch round pan instead, and my cake was.. 1.5 inches tall. Kinda short.. I dunno where I went wrong, the sides of the cake was fluffy(it's unlike a sponge cake), but the centre's a bit dense as u can see in the cut up pic. But overall, it's still a very lovely cake.

I used dairy whipping cream for this, tried stabilising it with sugar, gelatine and even creamer, but yet, it's runny after a while when I was still in the midst of decorating the cake. Despite it looking ugly, still it made people oooooh when they "glanced" (not looking carefully) at it. kekekeke.

Hey, this is just my 2nd attempt at frosting a whole cake, ok..... kesian a bit here orite... Still learning to do it..

Japanese Strawberry Shortcake -whole

Ingredients:

Cake:

120 gm. cake flour

1/4 tsp. baking powder

50 gm. sugar

50 gm. melted butter

50 gm. cornoil

4 egg yolks

1/2 tsp. vanilla essence

4 egg whites

65 gm. castor sugar

Decoration:

300 gm. whipped cream

10 strawberries (diced)

10 strawberries - thinly sliced

1 Tbsp. instant strawberry jelly + 2 Tbsp. boiling water - for glazing fruit

Method:

(1) For cake: Sieve cake flour, baking powder and 50 gm. of sugar into a bowl and mix thoroughly.

(2) Mix egg yolk, butter and cornoil together and then pour into flour mixture and stir till smooth.

(3) Whisk egg white till slightly frothy, then pour in 65 gm. sugar gradually and whisk till medium peak.

(4) Fold egg white with egg yolk mixture and then pour into a 8" Square tray and bake in preheated oven at 175C for about 45 mins. or till cooked.

(5) Leave cake to cool on wire rack and then slice cake into 3 slices.

(6) Whip up the whipping cream and then spread whipped cream onto each layer and sprinkle diced strawberries on top. Repeat till the last layer of sponge cake. Spread the cake on top with whipped cream. Arrange sliced strawberries on top overlapping one another.

(7) Mix instant strawberry jelly with boiling water then brush it over the sliced strawberries.

(8) Chill before slicing and serve.

not chilled enough....runny frosting

Homemade Strawberry Jelly 自制草莓果冻

homemade strawberry jelly



I often order Jelly & Ice cream at KFC, besides getting some for my nieces as well. Well, kids love strawberry jelly. I'm a kid.. haha!!


There are quite a number of brands in the market, Jello, Nona, Lady's Choice.... But why don't you try making one from scratch. It's not difficult. One can be assured that no colouring or flavouring essences are added in, and it's not that much dearer than buying it in a packet.


Last week, hub's fren Kenny bought us 2kgs of strawberries, so this is the first thing that came out of it.


My nieces had a great time helping out to make their favourite dessert. I gave them table knives (can't cut themselves) and flat dinner plates to do their bit of masak-masak.






Homemade Strawberry Jelly Recipe
2 cups of Strawberries (cut into smaller chunks)
2 cups water
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp gelatine


Put strawberry chunks, sugar and water into a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Use a fork to lightly squash the fruits as it comes to a boil.
When it has boiled, let it simmer for a minute until fruits are very soft.
Take it off the fire and strain the juice.
Sprinkle gelatine into hot juice and stir to dissolve.
When gelatine has dissolved, put in lemon juice.
Let jelly mixture cool down a bit and pour into jelly moulds or cups.
(I cool it down so that my niece can do it)

into taller cups, to go with ice cream later, shorter cups, to eat it on it's own

French Bean and Preserved Radish Stir Fry 四季豆抄菜宝

(A)

15 pcs french bean (cut slanting)

½ carrot

½ cup sweet preserved radish

½ big red onion

1 red chili

2 tbsp oil

(B)

A good dash of pepper

1 tbsp light soy sauce

½ tsp sugar

½ tsp salt

Cut (A) into thin strips.

Heat wok. Add in preserved radish and fry them for a minute. Dish up.

Heat wok until very hot. Put in oil, sauté red onion for a while. Add in Red chili, stir, then add in the french bean, carrots and the preserved radish. Stir fry for a minute or 2, add in seasoning.

If u find it too dry, add in a splash of water, but not too much. This is intended to be a rather dry dish with no gravy at all.

*******
My kitchen felt smokey after I did this dish. Haha. Had to be this way, if not, the dish won't smell nice.

Bubur Cha Cha 磨磨查查

This is the unofficial favourite dessert of many Malaysians.

Funny name, Bubur Cha Cha
Bubur means porridge in Malay, Cha Cha is...hmmm... no idea..
Will I do the Cha Cha dance after eating this dessert.... hehe.. maybe I will.
The cantonese pronunciation for this dessert is even funnier.. Mo Mo Cha Cha (touch touch, grasp grasp)

There are many variants of it, some with bananas, some with cassava or tapioca, some w/o the black eyed peas, some with those wriggly worm like multicolour rice flour bits, and I even heard a version with kuih bakul.

Some people find this dessert very time consuming to prepare, they say it's because one has to dice most of the main ingredients. I find that to be not much of a problem if one doesn't use a ruler to measure every cut the knife goes down on. The time consuming part is cooking the black eyed peas, that's the real problem, 3 hours and that's after soaking for another 3 hours!!!

This is a version commonly made by the Chinese in central Perak, with black eyed peas, taro (mistakenly refered as yam in msia), two types of sweet potatoes, fresh coconut milk, and sago pearls. And we (majority of central perakians) dun favour a salty bubur chacha, unlike our northern friends.



There is a missing ingredient... I dunno what it's called.. but I know it's made with tapioca starch, dyed red and made into squiggly chewy gummy jelly. I have no idea how it's made. The last time I had this gummy jelly in my bubur chacha was.. say.. 20 years back, made by my neighbour.

I make quite a big batch of this, cos I love to keep it in the fridge and eat it for days... it's really yummy.

Bubur Cha Cha recipe

Ingredients:
3/4 rice bowl of black eyed peas (mei dau, soaked for minimum 3 hours)
4 leaves of pandan (shredded and tied into a knot)
1.5 L water (about 6 rice bowls)

2.5L water (about 10 rice bowls)
1.5 rice bowl taro (cut into 1cm cubes)
1.5 rice bowl yellow sweet potato(cut into 1cm cubes)
1.5 rice bowl orange sweet potato(cut into 1cm cubes)
1/3 rice bowl fish eye sago pearls
1 1/2 Tbsp fish egg sago pearls

350 gm rock sugar or normal white sugar
150 gm gula melaka (palm sugar)

fresh coconut milk from 2 coconuts (about 4ooml undiluted)
1/2 tsp salt (to prevent the coconut milk from going bad fast, but not enough to turn the whole thing salty)

** Conversion: 1 rice bowl is approximately 1 cup 250ml

Method:
1. Boil 1.5L water, simmer black eyed peas and pandan knot on low fire for 2-3 hours or until peas are soft.
2. When peas are almost soft, put in fish eye sago pearls (Do not presoak them). Let them simmer together.
3. Cut taro, sweet potatoes and put them in together with 2.5L of water after peas are soft. Bring to a boil and lower down fire to simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Take out pandan knot. Sprinkle in fish egg sago pearls. Put in rock sugar and palm sugar. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
5. Turn off the fire, and leave pot uncovered for 5 minutes.
6. Pour in coconut milk and salt. Stir to combine. Wait for 15 minutes before putting lid back onto the pot. This is to prevent the coconut milk to turn oily.

** If you put in coconut milk too soon after turning off fire, it will curdle. If you put in too late, the whole thing will turn bad faster(hmm.. in 1-2 days, eventhough it's in the fridge) due to the coconut milk being `uncooked'. With properly cooked uncurdled coconut milk in the bubur chacha, I kept them in the fridge up to 5 days, and it tasted alright.

** I do not recommend purple sweet potatoes in this dessert. It makes the whole thing purple!!! A little overpowering on the colour. This is my personal opinion.

Carrot Cake 红萝卜蛋糕

I got mixed reviews from those that ate this carrot cake.... Some said it's really good..some said, it's sticky. Some said the icing was fine, special with an orange touch, some said the orange taste spoiled the cheese taste... It's like, 50-50...

This is also my first attempt at icing a cake with cream. I've never iced or frosted any cake using cream before, besides the so called royal icing of mine doing words on my bakes. So, it's pretty.... ugly..hahaha, especially the carrots, some are fatter, some slimmer...some dun even look like carrots. But the cream cheese icing is really a bit too sweet for me.. although I've reduced so so so much of the sugar..

And as for carrots... I used Australian carrots, which has a lighter hue compared to China carrots, but Australian carrots taste better. So, if you want more visible carrot strips.. use China carrots. It's your choice.

Carrot Cake recipe

Ingredients:

Wet ingredients

500gm carrots (grated)

3 large eggs

1 big can of pineapple (about 500+ gm, gross weight, drained, pressed dry with hands, and finely chopped)

250ml corn oil

Dry ingredients

250gm flour

400gm fine sugar

100gm walnuts (coarsely chopped)

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

Cream Cheese icing

250 gm cream cheese (I used Tatura)

100 gm butter

150gm icing sugar (Most sites use 4 cups icing sugar for this amount of cheese, but I reduced it, yet I still find it too sweet)

1/2 tsp orange oil

Method:

Cake

1. Sift together all dry ingredients except sugar and walnuts. Mix in walnuts and sugar.

2. Combine all wet ingredients.

3. Combine both wet and dry ingredients and mix well.

4. Pour into pan and bake at 170C for 60 minutes.

Icing

1. Soften cream cheese and butter.

2. Beat cream cheese and butter on low speed for 1 minute then high speed for 2-3 minutes.

3. Add in sifted icing sugar and beat for another 1 minute.

4. Add in orange oil, mix well.

Ugly carrots..hahahaha!!!

Steamed Angelica Chicken 蒸当归鸡

Angelica Sinensis, or commonly known in Chinese as Dong Guai is a chinese herb for... the ladies..
It has a nice but pungent smell, easily identified by its distinct smell.. I'd say fragrance..hehehe.




Tonight, I defrosted a chicken thigh, and didn't know what to do with it cos I don't like to repeat recipes often (say around 3 months once, or even longer).. then thinking of the dong guai I have in the fridge since my confinement, why not make dong guai steamed chicken.

I know I'm not the first person to do this type of steamed chicken, but I've never eaten one before. So, this dish is created solely by experiment. I think I've only cooked dong guai twice in my life, and that's making health tonics, never for real cooking.. yet.

It's very easy..

1 chicken thigh (cut small)
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp sugar

2-3 thin slices of Dong Guai (angelica sinensis)
1 1/2 Tbsp Gei Zi (wolfberries)
1/4 cup water

1 tsp cooking oil (for oiling plate)



Marinate the chicken with salt and sugar for 10 minutes
Oil a stainless steel plate, or which ever plate u may want to use
Transfer marinated chicken onto the oiled plate. Spread out evenly.
Break up Dong Guai and sprinkle onto the chicken. Sprinkle the Gei Zi too.
Pour water onto the chicken and steam on high heat for 10-15 minutes.





The outcome?? Delicious!! Gravy great with rice, or just slurp it up!



Good for women... and men too.. (men dun drink the gravy too much... lest u become.. ahem**)

Yummy Strawberries from Kenny!!

I'm a sucker for strawberries.... Anything made with this.. I'd love it.

Hub's fren, Kenny, works in Camerons and he visits my hub almost monthly. Cameron's strawberries ripen on the plant itself and they can't last long, but are very fragrant and sometimes sweet (depends on the weather what!!). So, Kenny gets them as fresh as he can for me.. (He's got connections up there.... ) This time, he got me 2 kgs of huge red strawberries!!

see how much he got me!!!! 2 kgs of fat big strawberries

My head is thinking of strawberry jelly, red velvet cake (found a recipe that uses strawberry juice as the colouring), strawberry poke cake, and strawberry mirror cake (again!!!!!!)

I kept those ripe but not very ripe ones into the fridge and wait few days for them to ripen even more before I hull and chuck them into the freezer for future use.. and the very ripe ones... I plan to make them into Strawberry Jelly with my 2 nieces, Hannah and Jojo this weekend.

Just look at them.... Aren't they pretty??

A nice one on hubby's fingers

So, will be posting a strawberry jelly recipe soon.... next week, maybe??

Spicy Lala 香辣啦啦

This dish was created when I needed to rinse my chili sauce bottle.

An instant hit with my hubby, adding more fans to the list later on.

kekekeke..

Lalas taste best when cooked fresh, and for that I mean, when they are still alive. When u get them home, soak them in water (around 2L for 500gm lala) with 2 tsp of salt. This way, they'll come alive and peek out of their shells....When they peek out, they'll also spew out the silt in them.

The thing about cooking lala is that, they have to be parboiled beforehand.

Just boil some water, dump them in and wait until they open up. Some may open up faster and some later. Take out those that opened up earlier and wait for the rest to open up. Discard lalas that don't open. They may be dead before u cooked them, or they are just empty shells containing silt. This way, the sauce that u cook them in later on will not be watery and "fishy".

If you're not cooking them the day u bought them, parboil and keep in the fridge for a day or 2. Don't keep live lalas in the fridge, it'll kill them, and u'll end up having dead lalas.

Ingredients:

500 gm lalas (parboiled)

1/2 cup finely chopped big red onion

1 pip garlic, finely chopped

1 red chili, finely chopped (omit if u're no fan of chili)

1 Tbsp meat curry powder (I use Baba's)

3 Tbsp chilli sauce (Maggi type)

3/4 cup water

3/4 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

2 Tbsp oil

1 Tbsp chopped green onions

Heat wok, saute garlic in oil til fragrant, add in onions and chili. Fry until soft and very fragrant. Add in curry powder, saute for a minute or until fragrant, then put in chili sauce.

Give it another minute then pour in water, salt and sugar. Cook until sauce thickens, taste... .Put in parboiled lalas and give it a good stir.

Dish up and sprinkle on chopped green onions.

****

If u have curry leaves or lemon grass, feel free to add in during the curry powder stage.

This is always a sudden add-on dish bcos my MIL often gets it from her lala seller friend, and I don't have fresh herbs around my house. Even w/o curry leaves or lemon grass, it still taste good.

Do try this out!!

Steamed beancurd with fish paste 鱼滑豆腐

I came across this dish while having lunch in Sri Muda Shah Alam about 6 yrs ago. If I have time, I'd use fresh fish, but if I don't have the time, I'll just use packed fish paste from the supermarket (found it in tesco), works just as fine.


*** First prepare ur steaming wok. Boil 2 cups of water.

(A)1 pack smooth tofu (about a cup)

(B)1/2 pack fish paste (about 1/2 cup)
1/2 tsp salt
a dash of pepper
1 small egg

(C)2 Tbsp steam fish seasoning (u can use soy sauce, but reduce amount to 1.5 Tbsp)
1 Tbsp fried onion oil
some chopped green onions

Mix (B) ingredients together, and break up the fish paste into smaller bits, but don't incorporate everything into a paste itself. Then, add in smooth tofu. Break up the tofu into smaller pieces and mix together. Steam in rapid boiling water for 5 minutes. When done, pour 2 tbsp of ‘steam fish seasoning’ (soy sauce also can), 1 tbsp fried onion oil and garnish with some sprinkling of chopped green onions. All done within 10 minutes.


the mashed fish paste and beancurd.. make sure the beancurd is still chunky.

the type of tofu I used, and the fish paste bought from Tesco.

Scrambled Egg Whites with Prawns 虾仁抄蛋百

After making 2 strawberry mirror cakes in a week, I had 8 egg whites left in my fridge, what to do with it besides making meringue or other desserts?? Make some scrambled egg whites then..

Ingredients:
Half cup shelled prawns
8 egg whites
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp cooking oil
1 Tbsp chopped green onions

Method:
Heat wok and put in oil. Fry prawns with salt until they are fragrant and pink. Pour in the egg whites and stir with the spatula until all egg whites are cooked. Don't cook the egg whites for too long, else they will be tough and not smooth. Stir in chopped green onions and dish up.