Taro Rice

Taro is what people from this region fondly call yam. Yam is not taro and taro is not yam, actually.

Yam is from the Dioscoreaceae family and Taro is from the family Araceae.
It's just like a cat is from the felidae family and the cow is from Bovidae family. Although both cow and cat are mammals, you don't think they are the same, right?

So, how can the yam and the taro be the same? Yeah, they are edible roots, but hey, yams are creepers and taro grows firmly on land. Orang Utans and humans have 2 hands and 2 legs... but I'm no orang utan.

But do you know that okra and the beautiful national flower of Malaysia, Hibiscus is from the same family, Malvaceae???  And the rose flower is in the same family as apples?? Plant Taxonomy is a complicated thing.
Gave me headache during my 2nd year in Uni. I loved these subjects, but memorising them was a nightmare. I was literally calling out the names of trees whenever I see them, just like calling a friend by name.

"Hi there, Samanea Saman

Pterocarpus Indicus,I see you

Thunbergia laurifolia, beautiful purplish flowers"


Anyway, enuff said, let's eat some Taro Rice..

Taro Rice Recipe
Serves 3 or 4

400gm peeled taro cubes (it was 500gm before peeling)
3 shallots, finely sliced
2 Tbsp dried shrimps, soaked and drained
100gm minced meat (chicken or pork)
4 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked, diced
2 Tbsp light soy sauce
2 Tbsp dark soy sauce (If using those dark caramely soy sauce, please use only 1 Tbsp and use an additional Tbsp of light soy sauce)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1.5 cups thai fragrant rice or jasmine rice, washed and drained (1 cup is 250ml, please take note, not the one that comes with your rice cooker)
3 cups water (It seems a lot of water for this type of rice grain, but take note that taro will absorb a lot of water)
3 Tbsp cooking oil

1. Heat wok and put in oil.
2. On medium heat, sauté shallots until golden, drain and dish up.
3. On high heat, put in taro cubes and fry until surface of the taro is very slightly golden and seemed to have taken on a crust. Drain and dish up.
4. On high heat, put in soaked dried shrimp and fry until fragrant with remaining oil in wok. Put in minced meat and fry until it turned opaque. Try to break up the meat, don’t let it clump together in large clumps. Then put in the mushrooms. Cook for 10 seconds and if it is too dry, add in a few table spoons of water. Season with soy sauces, salt and sugar. Turn off the heat.
5. Return taro to wok and put in rice as well. Toss everything together a few times. And put them into your rice cooker.
6. Put in water and cook accordingly. Let rice sit in the pot for 15 minutes before fluffing the rice.

I do not own a rice cooker, and I always use the microwave to do one pot rice. So, what I did was, put the rice mixture into a microwave safe cooking vessel and pour in 3 cups of boiling water. Zap on high for 4 minutes. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Zap another 4 minutes. Let the rice sit for minimum 20 minutes before serving.

I was taught to zap the rice a few times instead of one long period of time by my kids’ nanny. This way, I only use 50% of the zapping time. Saves a lot of power.

2 cakes and some rumblings......

 I made this cake for my mother's 63rd birthday earlier this year in January. It took me so long to post this up cos I was waiting for the cut up pic from my brother.

This is a white chocolate macadamia cake. It's quite a horror doing this. I made the white chocolate ganache just the way I do my dark chocolate ones and it just wasn't right. Later I found out that, I actually should use less cream when it comes to white chocolate. I had a bad time trying to coat the cake with it. My dining table flooded with the ganache. I tried chilling in the fridge for few hours, but still it's very liquidy. Sigh, should've just made a cream rim and poured the liquidy ganache in the center. After pouring onto the cold cake and letting it set overnight, the texture felt like sweetened condensed milk.. sigh... lesson learnt, use 1 part cream 3 parts white chocolate, and not 1 to 1.

The cream I used this time is a compound cream, dairy cream stabilised with some non dairy compounds. The brand is Milac. Flavour wise, ok. But not as good as real dairy cream but better than non dairy. I mixed some of the ganache into the cream to give it some white chocolate flavour. I also slightly overbaked my macadamias, making them, brown. But with all these headaches, the cake is still nice to eat.

One thing that I'm really happy with this cake is, the sugar paste flowers. They stayed on very well, not bleeding at all onto the white chocolate ganache. Last time, during Lydia's 1st birthday party, the sugar hearts on her cake bled and stained her cake the next day.

And this is one cake that my cousin requested me to do for her mother in law's birthday, which was on Christmas. I was also waiting for the cut up pic to show u guys, but..... it didn't come by. This is a rainbow yogurt layer cake. Well, the feedback I got is that, the cake taste very yogurty, means sour. Well, as I said in the earlier cake post, I've mentioned that u need to be a yogurt lover to love this. Altho I adjusted the recipe with extra cream in the yogurt, plus more sugar, it's still too sour for her kids. Sigh, hard to please huh.

I haven't been doing any other cream cakes lately, except for one Japanese Strawberry Shortcake for an order. Well , the lady gave a free hand to do her a birthday cake, any cake, any price, as long as it's nice. So I chose the most popular cake. Sometimes people just love those emulsified cakes,cloud soft, melts in the mouth that needs no effort to chew. Cos the feedback was just an "OK", so I guess the cake is not as soft as bakery's. Because everybody who has ate this cake before raved about it, especially the filling. Headache..... I hate it when people gives me a free hand.