DIY - Homemade Salted Duck Egg

Bought these duck eggs from Balik Pulau's fresh market some time ago. It was relatively cheap there, about RM0.60/each, as compared to here for about RM1.00/each.

I remembered browsing through the newspaper before, for some recipe involved. Searched through the internet (again) for a recipe to follow, as I could have misplaced those newspaper cuttings. Roughly found some quick one to follow, rather stumble la!

Apparently they are many method in making, be it dry or wet type. I choose the wet and soak type.

Quick steps, which I could still remember:

1) Wash and brush the eggs clean, keep them to dry
2) Boil about 1 litre of water. (there are many times and spices you could use to prepare the salted liquid). I choose to use English breakfast tea with red chili for its flavoring. Boil them with rock salt (I used 2 small packet of rock salt, it was slightly too salty. Perhaps 1 packet of 100gm salt is good enough).
3) After boiling for 5min, cool them down.
4) Prepare a glass container to place the egg.
5) Once the salted liquid has completely cool down, pour them into the glass container with eggs.
6) Keep them in cool dry place for about 3 weeks.

Here's my result. It was perfectly made. Except for the slightly over salty to my taste, and its look! ;)
Texture after cooked was alright. The egg skin was rather brownish, all thanks to the tea color. I would change other flavoring next time.

Brownish Eggs

After Boiled

Going with my fried rice

Ta-da, ready for my meal

Some Recipe I went through (in Chinese):-

http://www.christinesrecipes.com/2010/08/diy-homemade-salted-eggs.html

http://bonnie8nz.pixnet.net/blog/post/20566319-如何自己做醃鹹蛋

http://www.360doc.com/content/11/0306/12/2328760_98589468.shtml

Happy trying :)

Happy Ba-Chang (肉粽) a.k.a. Dragon Boat Festival 2012

I knew I would not be able to write this on the actual day of festival (oh well, I can always scheduled it). Anyway, since I have some personal time this evening, might as well complete the post before going for a short local trip this weekend.

Weeks before I get myself into this serious trial cook, I have been googl'ing around for tips with cooking and wrapping methods for this ever mystery dumpling. Well enough, I managed to trace some information based on the type of dumpling from my hometown, or rather I tasted since I was young. Since young, my homecooked dumpling was always done by my grandmom. Ever since my mom has retired several years ago, she finally has spare time to experiment with the cooking. Never too late to learn ya.. :) Back to the taste and texture we grown up with,  it is somewhat the type of dumpling similar to southern Taiwan's dumpling. At least was what I learned from YouTube :)

I did some youtub'ing for the wrapping methods too, unfortunately I still couldn't get it perfect.

A day before the experiment, I called up my mom for some last minute instructions, and she rather much enthusiastic enough to take several pictures during her preparation, and have them posted to FaceBook! Proud of you, such FB-savy mom!

Mom's step by step wrapping method, from FB

My Ingredients

Oh no! This was ugly looking and I happened to know I tied them wrongly :P

Some still edible, but the rice was rather tasteless :)

Ingredients:-

Glutinous rice about 500g

Pork Belly (Marinated with dark and light soy sauce, Oyster sauce, lots of pepper, rice wine)

Mushroom slice in dice

Garlic & onion in small dice

Chestnut (栗子) soak overnight

Dumpling leave soak overnight

Steps:-

1. Most of the ingredient needs to be soaked overnight, except for the mushroom (depending)
2. Marinate pork belly which cut into dices according to own liking
3. Fry garlic and onion till golden, set aside
4. Fry marinated pork belly in the wok, add part of the fried garlic and onion when pork are almost cook, add mushroom last
5. Set out the pork belly dish from the wok, use the same wok to stir on remaining garlic and onion. Add lard if prefers.
6. Sift soaked glutinous rice, add them to fry with the lard and garlic/onion
7. Add enough salt and pepper to taste (I love more pepper, especially Sarawak pepper)
8. Once ready, start to wrap and tie.. (I have yet to learn the propoer tying method)
9. Place the tied dumpling into pressure cooker, cook for 1+ hour

Though this may not be my perfect dumpling, its at least edible! Kinda proud of myself ya.. 

My next attempt will have some special combination, won't be traditional. I am trying to test out some healthy dumpling (養身棕), probably vegetarian or semi vegetarian.

Happy Dumpling Festival ~!

DIY - Wholemeal Tortilla Sandwich

I wouldn't classify this as an successful attempt, the tortilla was rather dry and possibly I am not very familiar in self kneading dough, been too relying on the bread maker machine.

References this recipe - http://gracekitchencorner.blogspot.com/2010/04/wholemeal-tortilla.html, with its simple ingredients.

150g bread flour, 50gn whole wheat flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp yeast, 1/8 tsp baking powder, 110g water and 10g olive oil.

1. Knead all ingredient except olive oil, it was rather tiring and I was then about to dump the ingredient into the bread maker. But I did not.
2. Add olive oil when flour gets consistent, and continue to knead till it smooth.
3. Proof for 60min at cool dry place
4. Divide the dough into 5 portion and roll them into round balls, rest for 10min
5. Preheat frying pan, and place the round disc dough into pan, make sure its not overcooked as it will harden the tortilla.

Here are those I made. Went quite well with rendang beef and lettuce. Simply love the simplicity of an afternoon meal.

Cut dough into smaller portion

After rolling into disc

Get ready with fresh lettuce and  tomato

Wrap with beef rendang and mayonnaise

Will surely improve on this next time round.

DIY - Pumpkin Kaya (Eggless)

Mid year review - I personally thought I had experimented more cooking recipe this year! Been developing new hobby lately, spent quite a while on browsing for recipe, especially those healthy living  dishes. I enjoyed reading most nutrition book, hunting for new ideas in preparing dietary dishes. It's kinda interesting.

I got this idea of Pumpkin Kaya from a neighborhood cafe lately. Interesting enough, I browsed for some other recipe published online. Read them through, compare the best described, imagine the taste, and finally tested them with half of a pumpkin.

Steps :-

1. Cut pumpkin into cubes, bring them to steam for about 20min
2. Leave them off to room temperature
3. Blend them with a blender or food processor
4. Bring the blended pumpkin to a bowl, keep them double boiled (in heated pan with water)
5. Stir in brown sugar to taste base on own liking; pumpkin itself is sweet
6. Add 4-5 leaves of pandan for fragrance
7. Add coconut milk to own liking; 100ml for 300g pumpkin as example
8. Keep stirring in the bowl for about 15-20min

Cubed pumpkin to steam

After blend, added sugar and pandan leaves

Chill

Store and serve

I personally like this so much, as it's eggless! Plus, it does not need to keep stirring in the pot for hours. This is such easy to make, and most importantly healthy too. Next in my experiment list will be sweet potato kaya! :)

Till then. Try this if you feel like it. Many of my hometown and neighborhood were excited with this recipe when I published the picture in my FB! Hope they would have tried making them, as well as to like it too.

DIY - Steamed Pumpkin Cake

Just love the slice of steamed pumpkin cake from B'liv cafe, each time I visited this place. This stimulate my urge to try out the recipe, and believe this should be easy to make. I folded some recipe online, both English and Chinese but I would not sure which exactly I referred to (coz I have been using multiple devices to browse whenever I am free).

Believe some very close-to recipe are those below :-
http://www.yummylittlecooks.com/2011/08/steam-pumpkin-cake.html (English)
http://www.xinshipu.com/金瓜糕-92310 (Chinese)

My version was something like below :-
(A) 375g rice flour (粘米粉), 1 tbsp corn flour (粟粉), pinch of salt, 1 tsp sugar, 750ml water
(B) Pumpkin cut cube, dried shrimp, shiitake mushroom, shallot, pepper

1. Mix and get ready ingredient A in a bowl
2. Stir fry ingredient B (Chinese styled) till fragrant
3. Mix ingredient A into B
4. Transfer the mixed ingredient into 9" pan
5. Bring to steam for 45-50minutes
6. Best serve with fried shallots & spring onion; alternately cake will taste good the following day when you bring it to heat/fry on the wok

Here's my first trial of pumpkin steam cake :) Happy trying.

Pumpkin steamed cake, before reheat/fry

My baked fish for dinner

I am just getting lazy in transferring photos out from my phone camera. Hence, might as well blog it straight from here :)

This was my last minute dinner plan last Friday, specially designed to match them with an ever ready mashed potato prepared by some one.

The marinating affair came simple with pinch of seasalt on the piece of fish, dashes of pepper, thyme, oregano and curry. Oh, I missed out the button mushroom and onion to taste.

Wrap them in a cling foil and put to bake 180C for 20minutes. Added some olive oil before the next 20minutes bake.

In preparing

End result

The inner view

DIY - Steam Hazelnut Prune Muffin

Alright, this should be the last blog of the day. Happy Labor day!!

I didn't step out from the house at all today, imagine that. It had been super hot and humid these days, that was the main reason for not getting out from home. I have been indulging myself in food preparation, baking as well as blogging (as you could notice now)!

Had this recipe from a local Chinese newspaper recently. I craved for pitted prune these days, there goes my idea of baking some kind of cake or bread. I then decided on a steamed muffin cake instead, to reduce or avoid heatiness.

Recipe from the newspaper

I made some adjustment to this recipe.

Ingredient A:- 3 eggs, 200g fine sugar (reduced to 60g), 1/2 tsp salt
Ingredient B:- 160g chopped pitted prune, 160ml water (replaced with diluted prune enzyme juice)
Ingredient C:- 180g melted butter
Ingredient D:- 250g self raising flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda
Ingredient E:- 150g grained/chopped peanut (replaced with hazelnut)

Steps:-

1. Mix Ingredient A in a bowl, add Ingredient B to mix
2. Add Ingredient C into the mixer, mix together Ingredient D, mix well with the mixer
3. Fold Ingredient E into the batter
4. Scoop batter into muffin cup
5. Steam for 25minutes
6. Serve

Here's what I experimented today. Smells well, taste alright, but I noticed it was significantly not sweet enough. I didn't quite like nuts, hence was not very keen with the hazelnuts smell. Hope it could turn up well to my friends. Sorry if it does not taste good, as you are my Guinea-pigs!! ^^

Hazelnut prune steamed muffin

The inner view

Happy trying!

DIY - Barley Oat Bread made with Noxxa Breadmaker

I love experimenting with all kinds of bread with my breadmaker. Some recipe was previously shared by friends, while they are all using Kenwood breadmaker. Both had the same breadmaking concept and I find it easy to get along with their instruction.

I missed out some picture on the previous experimental breads. The last before this was a Pandan Pumpkin Seed bread, I like the Pandan smell very much, as it was all fresh from my backyard.

This time round, I experimented with left over Barley (薏米渣), all from the boiling pot for Barley drink. I always find it a waste, to chuck such leftover just like that. Though it usually gets recycled as composite for my plants. It seems ready for bread, but I don't need them all.

My Barley Oat Bread

For breadmaker user, this is fairly simple.

Place your wet ingredient at the bottom of your bread tray, in order to keep them away from the yeast. While the dry ingredient on top, and finally place the dried yeast cover at the very top of the flour.

Here was how I distributed my ingredient.

Wet : Milk 180ml, butter 1 tbsp, sugar 1 tbsp, pinch of salt, barley rice 5-6 tbsp
Dry : High Protein/Bread flour 200g, Wholemeal Flour 130g, Instant Oat 3 tbsp, mix them well

Place the tray into the breadmaking machine, I used the standard normal bread. It turned out just nice.
This had been the most satisfied bread I have ever made, it was moist enough, probably due to the fact that Barley was soaked for long time, where it absorb water.

I have yet try to make  bread without help from breadmaker. Will soon find the courage to do so, probably once I get fed up with the experimental ingredient. :)

You are welcome to try this, left over Barley rice still has lots of minerals and fibers in them. Don't waste food.

Wonders of Cotton & My Tibet Cotton Plant

Not too sure how many could still remember the olden days cotton wool pillow (named Kekabu in Malay)? Guess those same era as mine might still have the opportunity to see and feel such cotton wool pillow. Still remember those days when my pillows get thinner, mom would need to refill with more cotton wools. It wasn't a good experience after all, when you couldn't control the amount of wool fly around the house. Hence, we usually have to do the refill work in the balcony.

It had been recent years, when I don't feel good with my sleep and experiencing occasional body ache. I have been hunting for various kind of pillow, be it pure feather, memory foam, some synthetic with ginko, etc... Spent quite a sum in getting a comfortable pillow. Till one fine day, I was fed up with all the trial and error, I made myself a traditional cotton wool pillow!

Few months there for testing, proven it works fine for me! GO nature, GO organic, GO environmental friendly.

In case you would like to make one for yourself, your toddler or family members. You can always grab the natural wool from in bags from small villages area, i.e. Sg Buloh or Kuala Selangor, for those staying around Klang Valley. Prince ranges RM15-25 per pack.

Packs of cotton wool

Shop in Sg Buloh

Unfortunately I wasn't able to capture the actual location of this shop. It stated R10, BT 17 Kampung Merbau Sempak, Sg Buloh. Check out Google maps, may be able to locate it. There are more shops along the way between Kuala Selangor - Sekinchan. Was just able to grab another pack for a friend recently.

On the other hand, cultivating and planting had been such interesting, especially with the species of Tibet cotton, given by its seeds from a friend.

Tibet cotton - 1st seed

Tibet cotton flower bloomed with pink 

Full bloomed turned yellowish

Successfully turned cotton

Plucked cotton

The plant took only a few 2-3 months before it bloomed the first flower and turned into cotton. A Tibet cotton plan is at most 1.5ft tall. Easy to maintain, needs enough sun light, nice flower, most importantly it bear cotton! I may plant more of this at home, at least I have organic cotton wool to spare next time. Will it be possible?

DIY - Bib Lace Necklace

It happened just this week, when I had my shopping day alone and I passed by Tang's new outlet at One Utama. Saw this a set of elegant necklace on the display, and it immediate reminded me of a Taiwanese fashion drama I watched last year.

According to this local fashion site, Bib Necklace is a recent trendy fashion. Oh dear, I am seriously not a trendy fashionable person at all, but somewhat I am just attracted to nice and elegant stuffs. This challenged me to sew one of this on my own!

Here goes the outcome of my 'creative' handmade product. It seems my creative mindset once stimulated at that particular moment, where I drove myself to a beads and tread shop in Seapark, PJ. It was the immediate afternoon, where I finished the below lace necklace of mine. :)

Counting the years, it had been more than 5 years I do not made my own necklace. Specially those made of Swarovski crystals...

DIY - Limau Kasturi Jam (桔子醬)

I had excessive limau kasturi a.k.a. lime available at the backyard, not too sure what to do with them. It came by an idea to make them into jam. Jam which we usually use to make drink or fruit punch.

It had been a good cure for sore throat. Remembered some time ago a friend bought me a bottle of such lime when I had this miserable sore throat and cough. Stir a spoon full in luke warm water, it could ease sore throat occasionally.

How to make them, here are some simple steps :-

1. Rinse lime with hot water, to ease away greenish smell
2. Cut lime into half, de-seeds them
3. Place cut lime into food processor or blender; not to blend till full granted
4. Cook them in a pot, with sugar (I used organic sugar) for about 1.5 hour. Stir them occasionally

Recipes in Mandrin :-

• http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/miss-aunt520/article?mid=301&prev=306&next=292
• http://teainlibrary.pixnet.net/blog/post/26187802-%E6%9C%89%E6%A9%9F%E6%9E%9C%E9%86%AC%E4%BD%9C%E6%B3%95%E5%88%86%E4%BA%AB~%E9%87%91%E6%A1%94%E6%9E%9C%E9%86%AC%E9%A3%9F%E8%AD%9C

Encourage organic cultivation, eat healthy!

DIY - Three Cups Pork Belly

Ops, this is a dated post once again. A dish I shared on the last day of 2011. Everyone liked this very much, I like it too. Originated from the famous Taiwanese Three Cup Chicken dish, I modified it with pork belly instead. Oh dear, it taste even much better (hehe, self praised). Seriously, I initially thought of pork rib, as originally served by Fong Lye at Jalan Imbi (heard of it, but never try either). I put off that idea as it is not easy to share dishes like pork ribs at a buffet styled potluck dinner.

Here comes my Three Cups Pork Belly, the essential ingredient has been the rice wine and Thai Sweet Basil leaves.

Ingredient :-

chopped garlic 4-5 cloves, sliced ginger, pork belly sliced in dices, Thai Basil leaves

Marinate :-

Pork belly with little soy sauce to taste, add cooking rice wine

Sauce :-

Sesame oil, barley malt (麥芽糖), soy sauce, dark soy sauce, pepper, water to dilute, cooking rice wine

1. Mix sauce ingredient in a bowl, set a side
2. Stir chopped garlic in sesame oil, stir on ginger and few cloves of Basil leaves
3. Add marinated pork belly and continue stir till cooked
4. Add bowl of sauce, adjust sauce according to your like; add more cloves of Basil leaves
5. Simmer for 15minutes
6. Ready to serve

Interested to try?

DIY - Kuih Mor a.k.a. Momo

While I was thinking what else special to bake for this coming CNY, I suddenly thought of this. It was my annual year end vacations, where my mind was full of experimental dishes to try on. Here comes the mood for me to experiment new things, specially those specialties of what we have in the East. How celebrate CNY in the East is ever unique, full with fun and hospitality. Open houses are the norm around, we invites relatives and friends around to gather and have meals together.

Introducing this little white biscuit, which commonly known in the society of Borneo - Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei. The Kuih Mor a.k.a Kuih Momo. Taste to melt in the mouth, milky taste, powdery look. I didn't know it made of Ghee, always thought it is made of butter.

http://cornercafe.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/kuih-momo/

I followed exactly the recipe given with steps. Modified some of the steps given into following for my easy reference in future. It's pretty easy to follow, enjoyed the bake but somewhat my 1st trial did not really melt in mouth as it should.

DIY - Cola-cola Cupcakes

Adopted this from ParisPastry's recipe blog, here's the original recipe. http://parispastry.blogspot.com/2009/12/coca-cola-cupcakes.html, somewhat omitted the icing topping part.

I am so not used to measurement in cup. In such, I used a manual converter to convert them to either ml or gram. Here goes the converted measurement for my easy reference in future.

Ingredients for the cake:

160g all purpose flour

150g sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

120ml buttermilk (or 2 tablespoon plain yoghurt with 80ml low-fat milk, or 110ml milk with 10ml lemon juice)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

120g unsalted butter

2 tablespoon cocoa powder

180ml Coca-cola

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Beat the egg, buttermilk and vanilla in a measuring cup. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter, cocoa and Coca-cola, heating gently. Pour into dry ingredients, stir well with a mixer at low speed, then add liquid ingredients, beat till everything is well
3. Pour into a 12-cup muffin pan lined with paper baking cups. And bake on the warm sheet for 20-25minutes. The top of the cupcake will be cracked. Leave to stand 15 minutes in the pan before unmolding.

Getting ready to bake.

Ta-da... ready!

Surprisingly, it tasted so well. Cola blends well with the Van Hauten cocoa powder. :)

DIY - Mix Grain Bread with Noxxa BreadMaker

Bake a bread, yes! It was my first attempt to try baking a bread out with a bread maker machine. I seriously lazy to squeeze dough out from the start. Thus, bread maker has been always my dream machine in the kitchen, but I had never think of making that investment as I am in doubt I will fully utilize it. Glad to know, I have had taken over an under utilized bread maker, I would think it has been almost 5-6 years old, at least. Nevertheless, I let it utilize again, prevent waste!

A friend told me, he has never seen a front loaded bread maker... here you go with the picture! Noxxa, an obsolete model (I believe) bread maker, by Amway.

Alright, all started with the ingredient preparations. Besides bread flour, I had choose to mix them with this Alpine Grain pre-mix flour with Sunflower seeds and other flakes and seeds.

The portion made by :-

• 800g Bread flour
• 200g Apline Grain mix
• 275ml water
• 2 1/2 tbs dried yeast
• 2 ts vegetable oil
• 2 tbs sugar
• 1 ts table salt
• little scoop of butter to the site

1. Mixed flour & dry ingredients in a bowl
2. Add water into the bread maker steel bowl
3. Add vegetable oil
4. Pour flour mix into the bread maker steel bowl, float on top the water
5. Place dried yeast into the top middle of flour mix, stay away from water or butter
6. Place scoop of butter at 4 sites of the steel bowl
7. Press to bake! (follow manufacturer instructions)

My bread up tall in the machine after 3 hours.

A friend asked why the top crust was cracked... as you can see, that is the disadvantage of a front loaded bake maker. If the bread happened to stay taller than it should, it will not be able to come out nicely from the machine. I practically have to push them down with a bread knife before I was able to bring them out from the oven.

Anyway, it was great to have a home made bread. I was satisfied with the result, but was not satisfied with the bread texture. It was just heavier than it should, and a bit too moist (at my taste). I was glad that friends most tasted it well and good. Most importantly - healthy!

DIY - Pumpkin Rice

I have a few blogs pending for publish, thanks to my procrastinated mood... I could not complete even a single one. Hence, allow me to do a quick publish on my dinner experiment tonight. Listen carefully, this was an experiment.

Having pumpkin in the fridge, made me wonder what to cook. Brilliant me, did quite a few short-cuts plus agak-agak (tried and error) way of cooking.

The ingredient was super simple. Pumpkin sliced in cubes, garlic slices, mushroom, dried shrimp and Chinese sausages.

How to cook? I did it on a simplest way, all in one wok! Firstly, stir fried garlic in the wok. Add in the dried shrimp + Chinese sausage cubes + mushroom cubes. Stir fried them together with, add in washed rice and once again stir till fragrant.

Add water to cover all ingredient, bring them to cook and simmer for about 20min. I couldn't remember how I measured those ingredients, but it was all.... agak-agak. (Haa... some of you would know what I meant).

Here it is... the final product.. All in one wok. This was the first time ever I cooked rice from the wok. I was thinking, wouldn't I able to do so, since Italian's risotto is cooked that way too :) Brilliant idea ya!

This was tasty, I would not even need any other seasoning nor pinch of salt. Pumpkin itself is sweet enough. It was very full filling. Happy trying, if you believe me.