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

  This time, I experimented with Chai Tea to act as a flavour for the dough skin of this 'Bing Pi',  冰皮 mooncake.  These non-baked snowskin mooncakes are soft, slightly chewy and can be referred to as mochi mooncake too.  Nowadays snowskin mooncakes are gaining popularity and like their baked counterparts, they can house different flavours of lotus paste as well. Chai Tea Snowskin mini Mooncake 2020  ~  柴茶冰皮月饼    Ingredients 65 gm Kao Fun (fried glutinous rice flour) 18 gm wheat starch 18 gm superfine flour 50 gm icing sugar 25 gm Crisco shortening 60 gm water 1 Tbsp Chai Tea 240 gm lotus paste for filling Method Mix wheat starch and superfine flour thoroughly, steam on medium heat for 3 minutes.  Let cool.  Sift into a mixing bowl. Sift in kao fun and mix well.   Steep Chai Tea bag in about 1/4 cup hot water. In a pot, boil water with shortening and icing sugar.  Once shortening and icing sugar have melted, pour this into...

  These mini  mooncakes are made with white lotus paste, supposedly there is less sugar in this lotus paste.   For pure lotus paste, I was told that the sugar is cooked longer, thus the paste is more brown but for white lotus paste, the sugar content is lesser and the sugar is not cooked so long, hence the colour is lighter.  As these are 50 gm mini ones, I only managed to add in a quarter of salted egg yolk.  Nonetheless  they do taste good especially paired with a cup of piping hot Chinese tea of your choice. White Lotus Paste with egg yolks mini mooncakes ~ 2020  ( 白莲蓉蛋黄小月饼 ) Ingredients for dough 150 gm superfine flour 90 ml golden syrup 38 ml vegetable oil 2 gm lye water Egg wash - 1 whole egg + 1 tsp water, mix and strain Ingredients for lotus filling 280 gm white lotus paste 4 salted egg yolks, steamed and cut into quarters Method for dough Mix syrup, oil and lye water thoroughly with a handwhisk. Sift in flour, mix well with spatula and le...

The Mid-Autumn Mooncake Festival is here again and it falls on 1st October, a Thursday this year.  But I have seen some mooncakes already on sale, maybe they want to catch up on sales during this Recovey Movement Control Order.  I have shared quite a few mooncake recipes on my blog and this time I'm sharing with you this Purple Sweet Potato Mooncakes.  Give it a try if you prefer something different from the norm. Purple Sweet Potato Mooncake 2020  ~   紫薯月饼  (adapted from 'here' ) Ingredients 700 gm purple sweet potatoes (only 500 gm required) 5 Tbsp honey 65 ml oil 440 gm lotus paste Koh fun (fried glutinous flour) Method Steam the sweet potatoes, remove the skin and weigh out 500 gm to mash till fine.  (You can use the food processor or with a fork), I used the food chopper. Add in honey, oil and blend till fine, knead lightly. Divide into 25 gm dough, roll into a ball, wrap in cling wrap and chill in the fridge for about 30 min...

I have seen winter melon double boiled soup and I was surfing the internet looking for recipes to experiment with.  Steaming food in a pumpkin to use it as a serving bowl looks interesting and since I have some glutinous rice, why not let it mingle with pumpkin and see how it would turn out.  It's quite a straight forward dish, just like serving rice in a steamed pumpkin rather than on a plate and I do like the presentation. Steamed Pumpkin Glutinous Rice   ~    蒸南瓜糯米饭    Ingredients 1 kg Japanese pumpkin 180 gm glutinous rice (washed, soaked overnight) 80 gm pork, diced 10 gm dried shrimps 3 Shitake mushrooms, hydrated, stemmed and diced 1 tsp oyster sauce 2 tsp light soy sauce 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce 1 tsp chopped garlic 1 tsp sesame oil Salt to taste Method Wash the pumpkin, place on a plate and steam on medium heat for about 15 mins. to soften.  Then carefully cut a lid opening about 8 cm diameter around t...

I adapted the recipe for this Sakura Chiffon Cake from my previous Coffee Chiffon with Cocoa layering   but tweaked it a bit by adding Cointreau and orange zest and placing the Sakura flowers at the base of the chiffon pan.  This chiffon cake is soft and moist with a subtle taste of Cointreau and a nice fragrance of orange. Sakura Chiffon Cake  ~樱花戚风蛋糕 (adapted from 'here' ) Ingredients (A) 70 gm plain flour 5 large egg yolks 20 gm caster sugar 60 ml water 2 tsp Cointreau 70 ml vegetable oil 1.1/2 tsp orange zest 8 to 10 pickled Sakura flowers (B) 5 large egg whites 80 gm caster sugar  )  Mix well 10 gm cornflour      )    Method Rinse the pickled Sakura flowers to remove the salt and soak them for about 45 to 60 mins.  Gently pat dry the flowers with kitchen paper.  Line the flowers on the base of an ungreased 23 cm chiffon cake pan. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar, add in t...

I am not an ardent fan of 'Nam Yue', '  南乳 ' b ut after seeing some recipes using this ingredient, I half heartedly gave it a try and I was amazed that this dish tasted so good.  'Nam Yue' is fermented beancurd made with a concoction of red  yeast ' 紅麴 '', hence the red colour. It can be an acquired taste and like I said before, I wasn't keen initially.  Let the flavours of the sauce infuse into the trotters and the dish will taste much better the next day.  You can serve this with plain rice or  noodles which I think will be just as satisfying. Braised pig trotters with nam yue  ~ 南乳焖猪手  Ingredients 600 gm pig trotter, chopped into chunks 1 piece nam yue (fermented beancurd) 1 Tbsp Shaoxing wine 1 Tbsp oyster sauce 2 Tbsp light soy sauce 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce 10 gm piece sugar 2 Bay leaves 2 star anise 3 slices ginger 3 cloves garlic, chopped 1 onion, sliced white part of spring onion Method Wa...

Finally, yes finally I managed to see the 'Huat Kueh', 'huat' or smile beautifully at me.  I can't believe my eyes and was elated because this is my first attempt at this recipe and I'm so glad I succeeded and achieved what I wanted.  I had tried to make Huat Kueh a few times during the MCO (Movement Control Order) but none of them 'huat' so much as this one and some of the recipes I tried, left a weird after taste perhaps due to the amount of baking powder.  This kueh is soft and nice and remained soft the next day, kept in an airtight container.   But you can always steam them again for a short while if you prefer piping hot ones.  I'm very grateful to Marvellina of  'What to Cook Today' and I'm glad I found you.  Thank you! Steamed Cocoa Huat Kueh aka Fatt Koh  ~   蒸可可发糕  Ingredients 250 gm plain flour 1/2 tsp salt 2 tsp baking powder 65 gm brown sugar ) reduced from  65 gm caster sugar...

If you are a fan of Bittergourd  苦瓜 like me, you will relish this dish. This is a nutritious, easy to cook Chinese dish which you can easily prepare at home using 'sections of bittergourd stuffed with seasoned minced pork. The gourd will be soft after steaming but it is still firm in texture and there's the juicy broth for you to go with rice. Steamed Stuffed Bittergourd with Minced Pork  ~  酿苦瓜  Ingredients 160 gm minced pork 40 gm shitake mushrooms, hydrated, stemmed and diced 1 shallot, chopped 1 clove garlic, chopped 1 medium size bittergourd Seasoning for the minced pork 2 tsp oyster sauce 2 tsp Shaoxing wine 1 tsp sesame oil 1 tsp light soy sauce 1/4 tsp salt 3 tsp cornflour 1/4 tsp sugar and 1/4 tsp salt Dash of pepper Method Cut the bittergourd into 3/4 inch sections.  Scoop out the seeds, place the bittergourds in a bowl rub with some salt and set aside for about 20 mins.  (This is to extract some bitte...