No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

This is another biscuit which I normally make for Chinese New Year, Hup Toh Sow,..... 'hup toh' is Cantonese for walnuts.  Traditionally, this biscuit is made with lard and without walnuts.  However, I've substituted lard with margarine and added in some slightly roasted walnuts, chopped,  for that extra flavour.  This is a crunchy, nutty biscuit, and it has always been a favourite amongst my family members!

Chinese Churros aka 'Yau Char Kwai' and Kopi-O!  This breakfast or snack has been in existence ever since I was little.  Freshly fried churros dip into 2 in 1 Kopi-O is a perfect combination for a refreshing and hearty breakfast.  It has to pair with kopi-O, which incidentally is coffee with sugar and Ipoh is famous for its coffee and white coffee.   In case you are wondering, 'kopi' is the Malay word for coffee, and just 'kopi' without the 'O' is coffee with condense milk.  So, there's a difference.

Taking advantage of the price war  between the various supermarkets for arrowroot/arrowhead, I bought some and whipped up this dish  ........  Braised Pork Belly with Arrowroot/Arrowhead.  One thing I noticed about this dish is that it does taste better overnight as the meat and arrowhead have been infused with the preserved bean curd aka 'nam yue'.... centre picture, and other sauces.   Above left picture of crushed arrowhead, plus 'nam yue' and right picture, pork belly marinated with the 'nam yue' paste and salt.  Crushed arrowhead being sauted with some smashed garlic in a wok on the left, and on the right, all the ingredients being cooked with enough water to cover up the whole dish....... simmer and the final result is  ................ this yummy dish ! Serve this hot with rice ............. Enjoy!

I was intrigued when I saw this recipe, Lotus Root Cake recipe by Amy Beh in the Star not too long ago.  Cake with lotus root ...... I'm not going to give this a miss!  This recipe comes in very handy, especially now that Chinese New Year is barely 3 weeks away.  Also, 'Lotus Root' which sounds like 'Lin Yau' in Cantonese is very propitious ..... literally meaning 'you have abundance'.  So, I take this opportunity to wish all my friends and readers 'Lin, Lin Yau Yue' ..... 'Yue' here  sounds like 'excess', hence 'May you all have bountiful abundance each and every year'! This cake is moist, light, not too sweet as I've reduced the sugar and it's absolutely yummy. 

This round, edible tuber, ' arrowroot ', 'ngah gu or ci gu' which literally means 'benevolent mushroom' and also known as ' arrowhead ', is eaten particularly during Chinese New Year.  It's got a very slight bitter taste, a starchy texture, almost like a potato but it's somewhat crunchier even when it's cooked.  You can make stews with it or even make into chips and in my opinion, they taste better than potato chips. We only get to see this once a year just before the CNY season and they are imported from China.  Some people will 'grow' them weeks earlier.  Place them in a glass bowl or a container with some water and pebbles and they'll flourish  ......... makes a beautiful ornamental plant, very auspicious for Chinese New Year! Arrowroot, sweet meat known as 'Kwai Far Yuk' and a pair of Tung Koon sausages.  They taste the same as the cylindrical type of Chinese sausages, 'Lap Cheong', except that the...

We stopped by Tanjong Malim recently on the way to Kuala Lumpur and had dinner in this Son Wun Nam Restaurant.  Tanjong Malim is a small town, situated on the boundary between Perak state and Selangor state in West Malaysia. We ordered  3 dishes as there were only 3 of us and what struck me was the dishes were served on rather 'authentic', unchipped porcelain plates instead of melamine plates which are widely used in some restaurants. The restaurant's signature dish  ......'cooked' Garoupa fish fillet instead of steamed.  Actually, couldn't make out the difference whether it's 'cooked' or 'steamed'.  Quite a generous serving of fish fillet, tasted fresh and good.  Cost RM16.00 'Kau Yoke' ....... Braised pork belly with yam, not too bad, except that the pork belly was a bit fatty.    Cost RM15.00 Stir fry 'Kai Lan' or Mustard greens with garlic and oyster sauce  ....  not too oily but crunchy.  Cost RM7....

I have never tried baking cakes with raw pumpkin and was glad when Amy Beh shared a recipe for Pumpkin Carrot Cake.  The moist cake tasted good, the sweet pumpkin blended well with the slightly sourish cranberries.  I have reduced the sugar somewhat and tweaked the method too.  I'll be baking this again for the Chinese New Year.  This cake was an instant hit with my family ....... Try it!

Cooked this dish with deep fried firm Tofu  .....  firm Tofu is dense, can be cubed and stir-fried, grilled or baked. It is supposed to be higher in protein, fat and calcium than the other forms of Tofu. These sweet beans from the Cameron Highlands are crunchy, goes well with the soft tofu. The sweet beans are like green peas, except that they are a bit thicker in texture. Healthy and nutritious, goes well with  rice  ........... Enjoy!