Lotus Root, Pumpkin & Pearl Bean Soup

Look at these beans, they look beautiful right? I love to add some of these Pearl Beans while cooking soup for the family. It will add a nutty flavor and creamy texture to the soup but then since it will get cook and turn soft pretty fast, you can only add them into the soup 20 minutes before the soup is done. Do not add too early or else you won't be able to find the whole bean itself.


It had being a long time ever since I used this little jewels in my soup. So today, since I had found some fresh and lovely Pearl Bean Pods in the market, I decided to use it together with some Pumpkin and Lotus Roots to make this wonderful nutty and hearty soup.

Ingredients:
300g Pork Ribs
1 Medium Section of Lotus Roots, about 200g
10 - 15 Pearl Bean Pods (珍珠豆)
1/4 (200g) Wedge of Australia Pumpkin, cut into thick chunk
1 Medium Carrot, peel and cut into thick slices
5 Red Dates(红枣 )
1/2 Tablespoon Wolfberries(枸杞子)
4 - 6 Cloves Of Garlic
2 Slices Of Ginger

Methods:
1. Wash and trim the pork ribs then scald in boiling water and rinse again.
2. Wash, peel and cut the lotus roots into thin slices.
3. Remove the beans from the pods and rinse well.
4. Heat up the a soup pot with some oil, then saute the ginger and garlic till fragrant then add in the pork ribs, lotus roots and carrot, stir and saute for another 2 - 3 minutes on very low heat.
5. Add about 1.5 litres of water and bring it to boil.
6. Simmer the soup for about 30 minuter then add in the pumpkin and pearl beans and continue to simmer for another 20 - 30 minutes
7. Season it with salt or stock cubes according to your preference.

Notes:
a) I use the Australia Pumpkin which is more Orange in colour and sweeter compare to the local pumpkin which is more towards the yellowish colour side.
b) You can replace pork ribs with lean meat or chicken according to your preference.

Cod Fish Rice

Reyon and I having this for our Mother's Day Dinner. This is one of Reyon's favourite "1 Dish Meal" despite that he is not really keen on fish. There is two different way that you can make this dish depend on which type you prefer?


As usual I cooked the rice using the soup base instead of water so that Reyon will get most of the nutrition from the soup. Then I coat the marinated fish fillet with cornflour then pan-fry in until golden brown and almost cooked through then I place it on top of the bubbling rice and let it continue to cook through so that the fish oil and fragrant will combine well with the rice.

Ingredients:
1 Or 2 pieces Of Cod Fish Fillet, without bone part
1/2 Tablespoon Of Cooking Wine
1 Teaspoon of Light Soy Sauce
1 Tablespoon Of Cornflour
3-4 Slices Of Ginger

Methods:
1. Wash and pat dry the fish fillet then marinate it with cooking wine, soy sauce and then coat it with cornflour.
2. Preheat a frying pan with some oil then saute the ginger slices until fragrant then add in the fish, skin side down.
3. Saute it for about 2 minutes till almost golden brown then turn over and repeat the same thing until both side are golden in colour.
4. Place the almost cook fish fillet on top of the bubbling rice which is half way through the cooking time.
5. Leave the fish fillet in the rice cooker until the rice is done.
6. Serve warm with some cucumber and tomato slices. (you can choose to drizzle it with extra BBQ sauce or tomato sauce on the fillet)

Note:
You can replace Cod Fish with Snapper or Salmon depend on your preference.

Our Pre-Mother's Day Dinner

Tomorrow is 11 May 2008 is once a year Mother's Day so my little Darling Reyon insists that we will have these for dinner today to celebrate Mother's Day. Early in the morning, he asked me to go market and buy some fresh prawns to make his favourite Deep-fry Breaded Prawns and some other ingredients to make the ABC Pork Ribs Soup.


ABC Pork Ribs Soup consists of carrot, potato, corn and pork ribs. Reyon loves this soup because of it's natural sweetness and fragrant taste. I purposely boiled extra amount of this soup and use it as a base to cook it with rice so that the white rice will taste even nicer.

Ingredient:
500g Pork Ribs
2 Medium Potato, cut into big chunks
1 Medium Carrot, cut into thick slices
1 Sweet Corn, cut into section
2 Garlic Cloves, lightly smashed
3 Shallots(small red onion), thinly sliced

Methods:
1. Wash and trim the pork ribs then blanch it in boiling water for about 5 minutes, removed and rinse with water then set aside.
2. Use a soup pot, add about 1/2 tablespoon of oil and saute the shallot and garlic for about 2 minutes then add in the carrot, potato and pork ribs and continue to saute till fragrant on low heat for about 5 minutes.
3. Add in about 1 litre of water and bring it to boil then add in the corns.
4. Let it simmer for about 25 - 30 minutes then season it with salt if prefer.(i add in 1/4 of the chicken stock cube)

Notes:

a) I replace the water for cooking rice with the above soup stock to make the rice more fragrant.

This is another one of Reyon's favourite deep-fry food other than chicken wing and nuggets. He loves either traditional Tempura Prawn or this type of Breaded Prawns. He can eat either 3 or 4 of this prawns for his usual meal.

Ingredients:
6 - 8 Medium Size Prawn, shell and devein
3 Tablespoons of Corn Flour
1 Beaten Egg
5 Tablespoons Dry Breadcrumbs(might need more)
Oil For Deep-frying

Methods:
1. Remove the shell from the prawns and keep the tail portion, try to snip two cuts at the base of the prawn so that the prawn will not curl up when deep-fry.
2. Next dry the prawns with kitchen paper towel well so that it will not have any water for safer frying.
3. Coat the prawn with cornflour then deep in beaten egg then coat with breadcrumbs and back to beaten egg then breadcrumbs again then set aside. (you can refer to a similar example here as in cornfour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs)
4. Make sure that the oil is hot before you drop in the coated prawns. Fry a few prawns at a time to avoid over crowded.
5. Fry the prawns till golden brown at medium heat for about 2 - 3 minutes.
6. Drained them well on kitchen paper towel and serve hot so that they will be crispy and nice.

Notes:
a) Select those with hard shell and firm meat type.
b) Remember to dry the prawn really well so that you can achieve a more crispy texture while deep-frying.

Lastly, I want to wish all my blog pals and reader especially those who are already mummy, I sincerely Wish You a HAPPY MOTHER's DAY............

Red Bean & Dumpling In Pumpkin Cream

Saw this interesting Korea Dessert from one of the food blogger known as 小小米桶的寫食廚房.(click here for the link to the original recipe in Chinese together with details photo illustration) She had a lot of wonderful pictures and interesting food recipes which is mainly written in Chinese found in her blog at the above mention link.


I found this recipe very interesting mainly because I love pumpkin puree and red bean as the main ingredients for this Dessert. Although the procedure might be a bit tedious due to the cooking of red bean, making of the dumpling and mashing of the pumpkin puree. But with all these efforts you will be able to have a bowl of hearty dessert to share with your love one. Below is the recipe in English version and I also drizzle some extra almond cream to the final products to enhance the flavour.

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup of Cook Red Bean, cooked through but not marshy
250g Australia Pumpkin, cut into cubes
1 Cup of Water
50ml of Almond Cream, optional

Methods:
1. Put the pumpkin cubes into a small saucepan together with 1 cup or more of water to cover the pumpkin then simmer it in low heat until the cubes are tender and soft.
2. Mash the soft pumpkin cubes through a sieves then return the pumpkin puree back into the same saucepan with the remaining water and stir till well combine.
3. Next add in the cooked red bean and mini dumpling and simmer for a while, if the base is too
thick, you can add in some extra water to dilute it.
4. Before serving, you can drizzle 1 - 2 tablespoons of almond cream on top to enhance the flavour.
5. As you have notice, I didn't add any sugar to sweeten this dessert because I find that the Pumpkin puree is already sweet enough to my liking. But then if you want it to taste better you can add extra sugar to sweeten it.

Mini Red Bean Dumpling
Ingredients:
25g Glutinous Rice Flour
Suitable amount of Sweeten Warm Red Bean Soup

Methods:
1. In a mixing bowl, mixed the glutinous rice flour with suitable about of warm red bean soup to make into a dough.
2. Knead it until smooth then roll into small dumpling in marble size or bigger depend on your preference.
3. Bring a pot of water to boil, drop in the pre-rolled dumplings and cooked until it float to the surface and continue to let it boil for another 2 minutes then drain and soaked it in cold water for a few minutes to enhance the texture.(make it more Q)
4. Dish and set aside for later use. (you can prepare this while cooking the pumpkin)

Notes:
a) You can cooked your own red bean or you can buy those ready cooked red bean soup or pre-packed cooked red bean.
b) I used Australia Pumpkin because I like it's orangy colour.
c) If you don't wish to prepare your own dumpling, you can use those pre-packed type from supermarket.

Winnie The Pooh English Breakfast

How will you react if you are serve with this Set of Assorted Pooh Design Breakfast during Sunday Morning. I am sure no matter if you are an adult or kid, you will definitely be delighted to see this and it will bring smile on your face for the rest of the day. But out of this set, I am still not perfect in the Pooh Sunny Egg because I don't really know how to handle the mould well to make the egg in good shape....... :(


I made these for Reyon this morning and the 1st reaction he had when he sees this is "Wow!!!! So many Bear Bear!!!!" I used the Pooh Bread Cutter for the Toast, the Pooh Egg Ring Mould for the Sunny Egg, Pooh Cookie Cutter for the Ham and Pooh Vegetable Cutter for the Apple Slices...... too bad i can't mould the Tomato in either Pooh Slices or Shape... :)

P/s: You can find the related post on the Pooh Utensils(click on link)

Sweet Secret

Made some of the Custard Cream Puff upon request for afternoon gathering. So rather then the usual cream puff that is filled with egg custard, I decide to decorate it with some extra topping to make it more presentable and add on some extra crunch.

I dipped the filled puffs with some dark chocolate coating then decorate with some ground oreo, toasted peanuts bits and chocolate rice. Does these look wonderful compare to the usual cream puff. It's pretty easy, just coat the top with some dark or white chocolate then sprinkle whatever toppings that you prefer.


Em.......after tasting the western tea snacks. Let's get back to this famous Thai-style dessert which is a must HAVE when you visit any part of Thailand. Usually this Sticky Rice dessert is either sever with Mango slices or Durian. And our family prefer Durian compare to Mango. This dessert is done by my Mum, with the recipe provided by me :p and using the Authentic glutinous rice that is air-flown from Bangkok during brother's trip over there.

Ingredients: (serves 2 - 3)
100g Glutinous Rice
80ml Water
4 Tablespoons Of Sugar
200ml Coconut Milk/Cream (non-chilled packet)
1/4 Teaspoon of Salt
1 Tablespoon Cornflour Solution
A Few Seeds Of Durian or 2 Mangoes

Methods:
1. Soak the glutinous rice in some water that is enough to cover it for about 3 hours.
2. Wash till water is not cloudy and drain away the water.
3. Steam the rice on bamboo steamer for about 30 minutes or more until it is cook through, set aside.
4. In a small saucepan, add in water, coconut milk, salt and sugar.
5. Stir over low heat till sugar dissolves then thicken with cornflour solution. Remove it from heat.
6. Reserve about 1/4 cup of coconut syrup to drizzle on the rice before serving.
7. Pour the rest of the syrup onto the hot glutinous rice, cover and let it soak for about 5 - 8 minutes, remove the cover then stir and mix well.
8. To serve, put a portion of the coconut sticky rice on a plate, followed by a layer of Durian meat or mango slices, drizzle some of the coconut syrup over the top.

Mini Pooh Bento Set

Got these cute little 3 layer Mini Bento Box from Daiso and I knew I must do something with it. And the very first thing that come across my mind was to make these Mini Pooh Bento Sets. I made these for Reyon and my colleagues and everyone of them said that they are too cute to be eaten......



This is a very easy to prepare and I am sure anyone of you will do a great job on this with the help of these cute pooh utensils. I used the Pooh Vegetable Cutter to cut out Pooh Head print on the apple slices. Then I used the Pooh Cookie Cutter to cut out Pooh Head Print on Bread, Cheese and Seaweed in order to sandwich them together.

Penang Banjoo Hotdog

I had never tested the actual version of the Banjoo Hotdog. The photo you see is from what I made based on the details that my Penang Blog Pal, Ai Yen describe as. And according to her, the actual Banjoo Hotday had a very strong and fragrant butter and onion taste and it's only wrap with cabbage rather than the extra sausage that I added in :)


This breakfast doesn't required much ingredients and you can do the cutting the night before and just get ready the omelette skin and vegetables before assemble them.

Ingredients:
100g Cabbage, thinly shredded
2 Medium Onion, thinly shredded
30 - 40g Butter
Pepper for seasoning, optional
4 Hotdog Buns

Methods:
1. Saute the Onion with butter until it's slightly soft and fragrant then add in the shredded cabbage and continue to stir-fry for a few minutes until it almost cook and dry up.
2. You can season it some black pepper to enhance the favour if you wish.
3. Dish up and set aside.

Next you can prepare the Omelette skin to wrap the filling. You can use about 3 eggs with about 50ml of chicken stock or 50ml fresh milk depend you want a sweet or savoury skin. Divide the mixture into 4 portions and fry thin layer of omelette skin to wrap the fillings, you can drizzle tomato and mayo sauce on the filling before wrapping. Sandwich the egg roll with each hotdog bun and drizzle extra tomato and mayo sauce to serve.

Note:
a) You can add even chicken strips to strip-fry with the cabbage and served as the filling or you can wrap it with extra hotdog and top with cheese. Just substitute it with whatever ingredients that you prefer.

Winnie The Pooh Breakfast Set

In order for me to make these cute little Pooh Breakfast for Reyon. I must sincerely give my Thanks for one of my dear friend Julia. I must thanks her and her husband for taking the effort to help us source for the Pooh Series Bakeware and sent them to us all the way from Japan. Reyon and I really appreciate it and your effort really bring Big and Warm smiles to this little fan of Pooh. Thank you so much, my dear friend.



If you still remember, I had a similar cutter for Hello Kitty which I used to make Kitty Breakfast as well. So this round, when I got hold of the Pooh Cutter, I also try to make something similar and it's really cute. I made both the Big Pooh Bread as well as the mini one. And Reyon love them so much, he can finished all the 4 mini pooh bread just in a few minutes...... :) Guess kids are always attracted those those cute and interesting food.

To read more on Reyon and his Pooh Breakfast, click on "Winnie The Pooh Breakfast"....... and if you are interested to view my collection of Pooh Bakeware, click on "Winnie The Pooh Bakeware".

Spice & Hazelnut Pooh Cookies

Happen to see these cute little Spice & Hazelnut Pooh Cookies from Andrea's flickr here. The moment I saw this I knew it is a must that I will put on my baking list for Reyon. And this is indeed a very nice shortbread cookies that fill with spice aroma and and nutty taste because of the ground hazelnut as one of the ingredients used.

Sushi Tale

It's had being a few months since my last Salad post in December. Due to the hectic working schedule, I don't really have time to whip up any meals on the weekdays night as well as weekends. What I do most is to spend time with my little darling and doing all the household chores. But this weekend, upon Reyon's request we decided to turn out kitchen into little Sushi Bar.........(click here to see our Little Sushi Chef)


These are what we had made for our dinner and all these are Reyon's favourite sushi like Kanikama, Tamago and Kani Salad. I also made a few Gunkan Sushi(round sushi which is wrapped with seaweed and topped with ingredients) topped with Fish Floss for him.

Ingredients For Sushi Rice:
125g Short Grain Rice
Seasonings
10g Fine Salt
35g Fine Sugar
50ml Japanese Rice Vinegar

Methods:
1. Mix salt, sugar and vinegar in the pot and simmer over heat till mixture is dissolved. Set aside.(or you can do it in Microwave oven on 30 sec High)
2. Using both hands, wash rice gently for a few times till rice water becomes perfectly clear then drain.
3. Add some water and soak the rice for 30 minutes. Drain and add 250ml water and cook in the rice cookers.
4. When the rice is cooked, let it stand in rice cookers with covered lid for 15 minutes before removing the lid.

5. Transfer cooked rice into a wooden rice tub, pour prepared seasoning mixture evenly over sushi rice and stir well with wooden ladle. Use a fan to cool the rice for 5 minutes.

Tamago is the Japanese omelette commonly used in maki, nigiri and tamaki sushi. Unlike a regular omelette, the tamago is made with sugar, soy sauce, and mirin added. And this is always the MUST have items when Reyon visit any Sushi restaurants, he can have about 4 in a meal. This is my very first time trying to make this at home for him. Even though I didn't managed to achieve those professional Tamago look but at least it still taste good and presentable...... For those who are interested to try out, here is the recipe that I used and also a very good youtube video that is recommended by one of my friend Pamy on how to fry the omelette @ Tamago Making (I did not use the recipe given in the video).

Ingredients:
2 Eggs
2 Tablespoons of Dashi Stock
1/2 Tablespoon Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Mirin
1/4 Teaspoon Soy Sauce

Methods:
1. Add the eggs and the rest of the ingredients in a big bowl then beat well to make sure that it is smooth and well combined.
2. Heat up a well-oiled tamgo pan and pour about 1/4 of the mixture to the pan and swirl it as if you making crepe.
3. Cook the mixture over medium heat till almost done, fold it up to the side with a chopstick to the back of the pan.
4. Add more oil to the pan and pour in another 1/4 of the mixture, making sure to get some of it under the roll.
5. As it cook, roll the sheet and fold it up again and set it on top of the previous omelette.
6. Repeat the steps until all omelette mixture is used up.
7. Square omelette with a wooden block and remove, leave to cool.
8. Cut omelette into 7 or 8 slices then mould the sushi rice and place each slice of omelette on top and wrap it with a roasted seaweed strip and serve.


Notes:
a) I replace the Dashi Stock with Chicken Stock.
b) The 1/4 of the egg mixture that you pour in will depend on the size of the pan as in it might be more or less.
c) If you don't have the special rectage pan for making tamago, you can use any normal round pan but then trim the side when it is done. Or you can get a affordable rectangle pan at any Daiso branch for $2.

Lemon Poppy Seeds Chiffon Cake

Got the inspiration to make this Lemon Poppy Seeds Chiffon Cake because a friend of mine return from Perth during Chinese New Year gave me a big bottle of the Australia Poppy Seeds. And the moment when I saw that, I knew it time for me to try out this cake again.... :P Because so far the poppy seeds that I have is from Malaysia so when I got the Australia sample, I actually look forward to bake something and try what are the different between these two. And indeed the poppy seeds from Australia actually has a stronger fragrant and taste compare to the one that I had.

Chinese New Year Goodies

Hello!!! Happy New Year to all my Dear readers and friends. It had being a month or so since my last post here. As I am really busy with work and taking care of Reyon, usually I have much spare time to try out new Bakes or doing a post entry. But since Chinese New Year is around the corner, I would like to squeeze some time off to bake some goodies for my family and relatives.

At first I guess since I didn't stock up the necessary ingredients in time I would have a hard time sourcing around for them which I might not be able to make those goodies that I plan for. But our God is good, He knows what you want and He always provide the best for us. Luckily I managed to find all the necessary ingredients just in time to make all these goodies. As you see, I had made 3 different types of pineapple tarts which represent 3 different good meaning for New Year. I personally prefer the pineapple puffs most because of it juicy filling and wonderful pastry and for decoration and New Year purpose I had also topped it with some edible Gold Foil to make it more delicacy.


Other than pineapple puffs, I also made these Yam Puffs from the yam paste(Orr Nee) that I have. And this is really very edicting and smooth and really melts in your mouth. I love the taste of the yam paste with the pastry. And those who loves to eat Orr Nee will definely loves this special treat.

This is my very first time making Almond Cookies after seeing and hearing all the good feedbacks about this Chinese New Year cookies. So since I had some ground almond left from making Macarons, I decided to give it a try. And I must confess that it really did not disappoint me. The texture, fragrant and taste are just nice like what I prefer.

Kitty Breakfast

Found this interesting Kitty mould which I bought I without thinking twice. Because I knew I can used it for many different purpose like making cookies, bread or pancake that shapes and look like kitty which Reyon will loves it.

So after gather all the necessary ingredients for the Breakfast Sandwich, I decided to make these cute little kitty sandwiches for Breakfast. I guess no one will resists such a cute piece of bread as breakfast.



I used the cutter to cut out the bread, ham and cheese into the same shapes then assemble them together and used meat floss and nori sheet to make the details of the sandwich. When Reyon saw these for his breakfast he was really overwhelming and he even ask me to make more. I also brought some to my office for my colleagues to try and they were as delighted as Reyon. Rebecca even insists that she wanted to bring it home to show her daughters as she find it too cute to be eaten.......

To see another version of the kitty sandwich, click on "Reyon's Kitty Breakfast"....... and if you are interested to view my collection of Kitty Utensils, click on "Hello Kitty Baking/Cooking Utensils".