Let’s take a break from talking Chrismassy. Too much of it very sien also. Tomorrow is the actual day Chinese nation celebrating Winter Solstice (冬至). Being a Chinese Christian, I still observed and celebrate Winter Solstice to preserved the tradition. Of course minus the pai-pai (pray) thing.

During my childhood days. We will gather around the table watching my mom kneed glutinous flour into paste. Next come the little palm with a pinch of flour paste in between, and roll them into a ball. In Mandarin, we called it Tang Yuen (湯 圓). Yuen means round. My mom used to nagged at us, “Make them round! Not oval!” And she will goes on telling us history of Winter Solstice.

Nothing much happening here. I have to call my mom for the tenth time today just to ask her about the history and stuff so that I can share with you here. There’s just too many to ask. Finally, I’ve got the recipe for glutinous rice ball. And I don’t think anyone would be interested to know how to cook them.

Nah! This is all what you want to see right?

Knotted pandan leaves, Rock sugar syrup, a slice of ginger and lots of glutinous rice balls

Being a Foochow, another way of enjoying the rice balls is by dipping/coating the rice balls with crushed peanut and some beans powder. I’ll save the picture for other time.

Did you notice there are some ping pong size balls while the rest are tiny balls. It’s the Chinese custom. Before you start rolling the balls, make 6 white and 6 red ping pong size balls. Put them on the centre of your plate surrounded by the small balls. Every big ball represent each calendar month. And the small balls represent…. err…. errr…. gotta call my mom for the eleventh time! Gah…

p/s: Oh, and you must wonder why the title of this entry is “I am one year older today”. Old folks during my time will chant this, “Come and eat tang yuen! Eat already you will be one year older, one year wiser!” Hence, you will see adult age 40 plus start running away cos they want to stay 14. Yeah, forever young huh. *ngek

Just some old tales. I think they are funny. No doubt, I’m passing that to my children 🙂 I hope you will too 😉

Ingredients:

230gm butter
170gm confectioner sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
550gm Flour
2 tablespoon milk powder

Method:

Use an electric mixer to cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg until evenly mixed, then blend in the vanilla extract and salt.

With a wooden spoon, stir the flour into the creamed ingredients, about one third at a time, until evenly blended. The dough may seem soft, but it will firm up when refrigerated overnight.

Heat the oven to 190C. Lightly dust table top and rolling pin with flour. Roll the cookie dough to 1/4cm. Cut out the cookies with a cookie cutter. Use a spatula to transfer the shapes to the baking tray.  Bake for 10mins.

Ingredients for Frosting – Place 230gm confectioners’ sugar and 2 teaspoons of milk in bowl. Stir until mixed thoroughly. Add 2 teaspoons of corn syrup and mix well. For filling in areas, use thinned icing (add small amounts or light corn syrup until desired consistency is reached).  Pipe them on your cookies.  Sugar will harden when it’s cool.

Ingredients:

1pkt of Pillsbury chocolate cake mix
3 eggs
1 1/4 cup of water
125gm melted butter

Method:

Pre-heat oven at 190C. Put all ingredients in a mixer and mix for approximately 4 minutes. I like the Pillsbury cake mix cos you don’t have to cream sugar and butter and all those nonsense.

Pour mixture into 2, 8″ round baking tray. Each tray took approximately 30 minutes to bake.

For a little touch of chrismassy mood, I dust some icing sugar on a paper cut out of a little angel with trumpet.

Ingredients:

400g glutinous rice (rinsed and soaked for 4 hours or preferably overnight)
200g chicken (chopped into bite-sized)
Chinese mushrooms (soaked and cubed)
Garlic
Ginger
Sesame oil
1 cup water

Seasoning:

2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp thick soy sauce
1 tsp Shao Hsing Hua Tiau wine
Salt and pepper to taste
3/4 tsp sugar to taste

Method:

Drain soaked glutinous rice in a colander. Heat sesame oil and fry ginger and garlic until fragrant. Add chicken, mushrooms and seasoning ingredients.

Toss well to combine. Add glutinous rice to mix. Pour in water and stir until water is absorbed into the rice.

You may put in a few slices of lap cheong (chinese sausages) into each deep bowl. Spoon glutinous rice into the bowl until almost full to the brim.

Press slightly. Steam the filled bowls over a medium heat for 30–35 minutes or until rice is done. Turn out the rice and serve immediately.

p/s: Recipe courtesy from Kuali

p/s:  FYI, I’m not a vegetarian. *ngek

Ingredients:

Organic Slim Lily Bud
Hae Bee (dry prawn)
Garlic
Oyster sauce for seasoning

Method:

Brown garlic in some olive oil.  Add in hae bee, saute till fragrant. Add lily bud, water and seasoning.  Once the water boil,give it a quick stir and remove from pan to avoid prolong cook and discoloured vege.

Ingredients:

Pea Sprout
Garlic
Tau Cheong aka Salted/fermented soya bean

Method:

Sautee garlic in olive oil till a little brownish.  Add one large tablespoon of tau cheong also known as salted or fermented soya bean.

(I still get my supply from Sitiawan as you can’t get this version of tau cheong fermented with ginger and chili anywhere in Kayeel or Peejay.  They are so good you can even eat them with porridge too.  Altho they have chilis in there, they doesn’t taste spicy at all.)

Give them a quick stir and put in the pea sprout.  Another few stir fried and add in some water.  Bring them to a boil but don’t over cook your vege.

I saw this picture for a lemon breast chicken that looked really good especially for Thanksgiving which remind me of a few angmoh and those residing in angmoh country that celebrating them today. I thought I would share the recipes with others who are forced into the kitchen. Anyway, here it is:

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken (weight is dependent on how many servings are required)
1 large lemon, cut into halves
spring of rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
butter or olive oil, whichever you prefer
Five spice powder
Dark soy sauce
Heat oven to 350 degrees

Method:

Rub butter or oil, five spice power and dark soy sauce over the skin of the chicken until it is completely coated. Take a knife and gently separate the skin from the breast meat; slide lemon halves under the skin with the peel side up. This way the juice from the lemon will coat the breast.

Season skin of chicken to your preference; place spring of rosemary into the chicken.

Cover and place in oven for 30-45 minutes. Remove cover and continue to roast until juices run clear, basting every 15-20 minutes, depending on size of the bird.

If you’ve followed these steps correctly, your chicken should look like the one in the picture. Bon Appetit! and Happy Thanksgiving 😆

Whenever I am at the Chinese Medical Hall buying chinese herb, I just point out to what I want instead of telling them what I want. My mom has been recite the names one hundred and one time but I still can’t remember their names. Maybe only 50% of the common herbs that I buy.

Bear with me on some missing names in the ingredients.

Ingredients:

Wild Wolfberries (Kei ji)
Red Dates
Angelica Root (Dang Kui)
Astraglus Root (Dunno name in chinese)
Fragrant Solomonseal Rhizone (Dunno name in chinese)
Pilose Asiabell Roots (Dang Shen)
Spring Chicken
Dilute seasoning in hot water

Method:

Place all the ingredients above in aluminium foil and steam for at least 2 to 3 hours.

After 2 weeks without posting of what I’ve been cook, today I’m back again. Woohoo!!! Something very simple yet elegant. Not to mentioned, de.li.cio.us and healthy cos it is organic.

Ingredients:

Organic Siao Bai Chai (I’m so sorry I couldn’t recalled the english name.  The nearest name I’ve found in Google is Baby Bok Choy)
5 fresh Organic Shitaki Mushroom
Garlic
Olive Oil
Oyster sauce

Method:

Blanch Siao Bai Chai in half cup of water. Removed the vege and safe the water for gravy. Arrange blanched vege in a serving plate.

For the sake of presentation, Dear – if you want to impressed your love ones 😉

In a wok, heat olive oil and brown the garlic. Add in the earlier water and bring them to a boil before adding oyster sauce and mushroom.

Place the mushroom gravy at the centre of the vege.

Ingredients:

Minced pork & prawns (season with soy sauce, pepper, sesame oil and tapioca flour)
Wanton skin

Method:

Wrap seasoned pork in wanton skin.  Deep fried them in oil.  You may cook them in  anchovies soup too.  A quick and easy cooking!!!

Fried Version

Soup Version

If you are around Sitiawan town, a must to savour their pien nuek aka wanton aka water dumpling.  They have the best and cheapest pien nuek comparing to KL for example if you order wanton mee in KL, they serve only 3 miserable looking wanton.  Whereby in Sitiawan, their wantan mee (aka kampuang mien) came with a BIG bowl of 10 wantons!