Steamed Layer Stuffed Tofu

Recipe inspired by SweeSan

Stuffing
150gm minced pork
50gm shelled prawns, finely chopped
2 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked and finely chopped
½ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
Dash of pepper
1 heaped tsp cornstarch
½ tsp sesame oil
1 egg, beaten

Mix everything together except egg. Lastly drizzle in half and egg first, mix and adjust consistency with more egg if needed. The consistency should be spreadable but not dripping.

Assembly
1 piece silken tofu about 350gm, sliced horizontally.
See picture for instructions. You can cut as many layers as you like and spread the stuffing.
Steam tofu on high heat for 25 minutes.

Gravy
1 shallot, finely chopped
1/2 red chilli, finely chopped (omit this if using hot bean paste)
1 level Tsp bean paste or hot bean paste
½ tsp preserved black beans (dau see), chopped
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
½ tsp cornstarch +1/3 cup water
2 tbsp oil

1. Heat oil in wok, saute chopped shallot until fragrant. Put in red chilli, bean paste and black beans and saute until fragrant.
2. Put in oyster sauce, light soy sauce, sugar and cornstarch solution.
3. Bring to a boil and let it reduce to prefered consistency. Dish up and pour onto steamed layered tofu.

White Chocolate Mousse with Strawberry Compote

I almost screwed up this dessert. Lindt chocolates are not cheap. One bar cost me 2 lunches. 

I read the instructions a few times just to get the feel of the recipe..but I seemed to focus on the earlier part and didn’t seem to notice the last part. And so.. I melted the chocolate with all the whipping cream, leaving none to beat later. (I blame it on the recipe, they didn’t split the cream amount in the list of ingredients . Hahahaha!!!!) It’s not that I can’t open up another pack of cream, but then the ratio will not be correct and the mousse will not set if the content of chocolate is not enough, I don’t want to add gelatin, I want to do a real mousse.

When I realized my mistake, it was already too late. I’ve melted the chocolate and it’s time for the egg yolk. So, well, I put in the egg yolk and dump the whole thing into the freezer for 30 minutes. Then I whipped it on high until it looked like whipped cream again. Yeah, it’ll get fluffy, just like ganache, it is ganache!!! Hahaha. Luckily I still got it fluffy, just that the process order was all out of order now. Lastly I folded in the egg whites and phew!!! I still got my mousse.

This recipe uses raw eggs. And mine don’t look white because I used Omega Eggs that have very orange yolks. Well, Lindt white chocolate isn’t very white as well  It’s a very very soft mousse, because it didn’t use any gelatin. And Lindt white chocolates aren’t very hard unlike those shortening laden so called white chocolates. You might get a firmer mousse if you use baking white chocolate and not eating white chocolate.



White Chocolate Mousse with Strawberry Compote
(Serves-3-4)
50ml whipping cream
100gm quality white chocolate, broken to smaller pieces
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 egg yolks
2 egg whites
Pinch of cream of tartar (I added this because I’m worried about the egg whites watering down later)
100ml whipping cream

Strawberry compote
150gm strawberries
½ Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp brandy (optional)

The Real Method:
1. Put 50ml of whipping cream, vanilla and white chocolate into a heatproof bowl. Double boil until chocolate melts. Stirring it every once in a while when it is melting.
2. Let chocolate cool down for 2 minutes, then add in egg yolk and mix well. Let it cool down totally.
3. In a clean bowl, beat egg white and cream of tartar until stiff. Gently fold egg whites into chocolate mixture with a whisk.
4. In another bowl, whisk 100ml whipping cream until soft peaks. Fold into (3).
5. Spoon into 4 serving cups, cover and chill for a minimum of 3 hours or until time of serve.
6. While mousse is chilling, prepare strawberry compote. Combine strawberries, sugar and brandy in a small saucepan. On low heat cook strawberries until it starts to bleed. Remove compote from pan, put into a covered container and chill until time to serve.
7. Spoon strawberry compote on top of mousse before serving.

Recipe adapted from: The Golden Book Of Desserts. Page One Publisher.

A shortweekend and a long meeting

I was away last weekend, you all knew right??? Because I didn't post anything on Friday and Saturday.

Just went to KL to spend the weekend and do some shopping. I bet those of you who read Swee San's blog already knew I met up with her and Pei Lin.

On this trip, I didn't do any clothes shopping, but mostly for my blog. Bought a heck lot of flours; buckwheat, kamut, spelt, millet, cornflour(not starch, it's finely milled cornmeal), wholemeal bread flour (not regular wholemeal flour), balsamic vinegar and grapeseed oil. 

Don't worry, my blog isn't going to turn organic or into something else that you find "alien" with all these funny ingredients. I only planned to buy kamut flour on this trip. Just so happened that I saw the rest, and got curious on how they taste like. I'll gladly buy any flour that is not certified organic because organic products are pricey, but sadly I could only get them at organic counters. But for those of you who would like to know, after scouting a few places during the weekend, I found that the cheapest spot for white spelt flour and other flours will be BMS Organics(one branch in Ipoh), cheapest Bob Red Mills flours will be Jaya Grocer and Just Life (Mercato and Cold Storage is expensive), best selection of flours will be Jaya Grocer. If you want to know the location of the outlets, please google for them. I'll link them here if they $$$ me, hahahahah!!!!

And I also found something at Jaya Grocer that Pei-Lin had been looking for ever since she came back to Malaysia. I wanted to called her immediately, so that I can make her scream, but then I chose to SMS her and let her scream on her own. You'll see that later in my blog or even Swee San's blog, cos when I told Pei-Lin about it, Pei-Lin told Swee San about it and Swee San quickly went to grab some for herself. Grab first, think later!!! Hahahaa!!!

Now, about my meeting with these 2 ladies. I'm meeting Swee San for the 3rd time and Pei-Lin the second time. The 'date" was on Sept 11, 11am at the Curve as usual. Went Daiso to buy stuff for our blogs and me being the naughty one was trying to "sabo" Pei-Lin to buy this buy that. Hahaha.

She really did buy quite a bunch, but not due to my magic. I just bought a few items.

Then we went to have lunch at Tony Roma's. Yakking non stop while eating.

After that we went shopping again, for ingredients.
Went Cold Storage and Just Life, and Pei-Lin needed to go to Ikea to grab some stuff. Then my dear Mike called, telling me to have dinner on my own. Then my dear blogging buddies accompanied me for dinner. So so nice of them. Poor Pei-Lin arrived home at 11.10pm. The meeting was more than 10 hours. Crazy!!

So, what are these? The squarish stuff were from Swee San, and they are passion fruit marshmallows. Homemade ones taste so so super compared to store bought ones, and not as sweet too. It's very very soft but smell a bit eggy. Cos it's got egg whites, and store bought ones are just sugar and gelatin. Nothing beats home made stuff.  And Pei-Lin made some coconut cookies and chocolate granola for us. She gave me 4 packs of cookies, Mike, my 2 girls and me, so 4. You can only see 3 here, cos we already ate 1 pack while in the car. Really yummy and taste like Kjeldsens coconut currant cookies, if only there were currants.
I can't wait for them to post up the recipes!!!!!!

When we arrived home on Sunday night... it was tiring, but it was a really fun weekend.

By now, we are already planning for the next meeting, and the venue is already confirmed at Empire Shopping Gallery. Simply because of the selection of ingredients that we can get there and our next adventure will be to try out as many breads as possible from "The loaf". I've seen a palm sized bread there going to about RM22, about that. Wondering how nice will the super expensive palm size loaf taste like.
Leave that to our next meeting.

Jicama and Carrot Soup

Jicamas are very sweet when made into soups. I first did this many years back when my 3rd uncle, asked me to use this to make a soup base for Chinese New Year’s reunion dinner steamboat.
Then the Chinese fast food rice shop that I go to daily, serves this soup as well. It’s really sweet. But don’t cut the jicamas too large as they don’t turn really soft after cooking, unlike white radishes that do. They will be soft, but they retain their shape really well and they won't get mutilated by your soup ladle. So, please cut them into bite sizes.

Try this, it’s really a nice and “clear” sweet soup.

Jicama and Carrot Soup Recipe
400gm jicama/sengkuang/Chinese turnip (it was about 500gm before peeling)
150gm carrots (2 medium ones)

10 white peppercorns

200gm pork loin or lean pork
2 sprigs of spring onion, finely sliced
2L water (8 cups)
¾ tsp salt

1. Bring water to boil.
2. Meanwhile cube your pork loin, jicama and carrots.
3. Smash the peppercorns and put into the boiling water together with jicama, pork and carrots.
4. Bring back to a boil and turn to low heat and simmer for 2 hours.
5. Season with salt. Put in sliced green onions and turn off the heat.

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.