Bunny Pineapple Tarts

Chinese New Year is just about 3 weeks or less from now and most of my social network friends from facebook and twitter have already started their Chinese New Year Bakes with Pineapple Tarts, Kueh Bangkit, Peanut Cookies, Kueh Lapis and etc since early this week. For me every year I would definitely baked our family favourite pineapple tarts which I would giveaway to some relatives and close friends.

Since this coming Chinese New Year would be the year of "RABBIT", I decided to make some special "BUNNY" theme pineapple tarts to suit this year Chinese Horoscopes theme. If you have followed this blog for long, you would have remember about my last year "Tiger" theme tarts for the year of "TIGER" too (you could read more HERE).

This year I have made two different types of "Bunny" shape tarts which comes in either "Open" or "Closed" tart version. For the "closed tart", I have wrapped the pineapple fillings with a thin layer of dough skin and pressed it into a bunny mould to achieve the shape shown above.

For this pastry recipe, I have adapted another version from one of my favourite blogsite know as The Little Teochew which some of you might have read most of her posts before. 

Ingredients:

(adapted mainly from The Little Teochew)
400g Plain Flour
50g Corn flour
1/4 (heaped) Teaspoon Salt
280g Cold, Unsalted Butter (do not allow it to soften)
3 Egg Yolks, beaten
3 Tablespoons Cold Water (or iced water)
5 Tablespoons Icing Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Cognac
For glaze:
1 egg yolk + 1 Tablespoon water, beaten

Getting the tarts ready by gazing and topping it with pineapple fillings before sending them into the oven.

Method:

1. Refer to the original recipe from Little Teochew for the steps on making the pastry HERE.
2. When the dough is done divide it into smaller portions(example 3 portions) and place each portion in a plastic bag and slightly flatten it before chilling in the fridge for about 10 minutes or so.
3. While working with the pastry, you can use 1 portion at time and keeps the remaining in the fridge to prevent the pastry from oozing oil due to the warm temperature.
4. Roll the pastry to your desired thickness and cut out dough using bunny or normal traditioanl pineapple cutter.
5. Arrange cutouts neatly onto baking tray with some spacing apart.
6. Once the tray has filled up with tart shells, glaze them with beaten egg yolk mixture and placed the pre-rolled pineapple jam balls onto each tart shell.
7. Bake in preheated oven at 160 degrees for about 20 minutes. Rest baked tarts on tray for about 2 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.


From the enquiries of some readers, these are the two mould that I used for making the Bunny Pineapple Tarts. For the open tart bunny, you could get any bunny design cookie cutters from baking stores or even Daiso. But as for the closed tart version, you have to get this bunny design egg mould which I got it from one of the online Bento spree years back.

As for the pineapple paste, you could either prepared your own using fresh and good grade pineapples together with sugar, some spieces and cooked it over low heat till it turns into a thick golden colour paste. Or in order to save time you could always get those ready made paste from local supermarket too. Here are some suggestions shared by our fanpage readers on the choice of "Butter" and "Pineapple Fillings" for your reference.

Finally after spending a few hours in the kitchen doing all the rolling, cutting, egg washing and etc. Here are our Chinese New Year Bunny Pineapple Tarts for the year of Rabbit. And I hope this new creation of mine would give you some ideas on what to bake as gifts or treats for the coming New Year to impressive your guests. And also I am submitting this post to "Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favourite CNY Cookie! (January 2011)", hosted by Jess of j3ss kitch3n at this link HERE.


Lastly perhaps if you like this post, do help by leaving a comment(s) on which "Bunny" do you prefer? Closed or Open version? For us my boy prefers the open-tart bunny where he describe the pineapple fillings symbolised as a bag of GOLD on the bunny's tummy :)

Red Cabbage Salad with Filet of Duck Breast

Talking about "Philips" brand I am sure most of you would automatically relates it to their popular electrical appliances such as Television, Hi-Fi System, Household Products and etc. Recently, Philips launched a new on-line recipe resource known as "MyKitchen" (www.philips.com.sg/kitchen), and it has since been receiving popular reviews in the local media because it has a wide variety of recipes catering to all palates including the Asian delights. For example you could find recipes range from Korea, Japan India, Asian and etc that suits your family and guests.

Since Chinese New Year is around the corner, perhaps you would be keen to take a peep at their MyKitchen website for more recipe ideas to impress your guests with restaurant like cuisines. Here I would share with you FOUR different cuisine which I find it interesting and easy to prepare with. First we shall have :-

Red Cabbage Salad with Filet of Duck Breast

Preparation Time: 20 minutes + 30 minutes to marinade

Ingredients: (Serves 2)

400g Red Cabbage
2 - 3 Tablespoons Raspberry Vinegar or Red Wine Vinegar
3 Tablespoons Walnut Oil
1 Teaspoon Dried Thyme
Freshly Ground Black Pepper
1 Filet of Tame Duck Breast (300-400 g)

Method:

1. Heat 1.5 l water to 100°C in your Philips kettle. Remove the hard core from the cabbage and finely shred the red cabbage (in a food processor or with a grater).
2. Put the shredded cabbage in a colander and pour on the boiling water. Drain well.
3. Next beat the vinegar and walnut oil in a bowl with the thyme, salt and pepper to taste to make a dressing. Mix in the warm, red cabbage and leave to stand for 30 minutes.
4.Cut a diamond pattern into the skin side of the duck breast every 1 cm. Lay the duck breast skin side-down in a frying pan and fry on a high heat for 6-8 minutes until crisp and brown (no extra fat is needed, this melts from the skin).
5. Turn the duck breast over and fry the other side until nice and brown. The meat may be rare (rosé) on the inside. Let the duck rest briefly.
6. Meanwhile scoop the red cabbage salad onto 2 plates. Slice the duck into thin slices and arrange these on the red cabbage salad. Tasty with brown bread or roast potatoes.


With such a quick and easy to follow recipe you could easily whipped up restaurant standarad of food in less than an hour. So do pop-by MyKitchen at www.philips.com.sg/kitchen for more ideas to pamper your family today.

Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup - 参鸡汤

Ginseng Chicken Soup(参鸡汤) or Samgyetang in Korea translation is a traditional soup served in the summer to replace nutrients lost through excessive sweating and physical exertion during the hot summers in Korea. And the main ingredients of this soup is using whole young chicken, glutinous rice, Korean ginseng, red dates, garlic, ginseng and perhaps some herbs like wolfberries and dang gui.

  But here I am sharing with you another light and simple version using only whole chicken, ginseng, glutinous rice and red dates which is good enough to produce a pot of delicious and nutritious ginseng chicken soup.

Ingredients: (serves 2 - 4)

1 Medium Size Chicken, about 1 – 1.2kg
¼ Cup of Glutinous Rice
4 – 5 Soup Ginseng Roots
4 – 6 Red Dates
1.2 Litre of Boiling Water
1 Stalk of Spring Onion, sliced
Freshly Ground Black Pepper

Method:

1. Soak 1/4 cup of sweet rice for 1 hour.

2. Wash and rinse your chicken in cold running water, trim the extra fats, emptied and cleaned the cavity, removed the head, neck and feet.

3. Bring a big pot of water to boil, blanched the whole clean chicken in boiling water for about 3 – 5 minutes. (flipped at least once)

4. Removed and rinse over cold running water for 20 seconds and set aside.

5. Next stuff the chicken with the soaked glutinous rice, 2 – 3 ginseng root and half of the red dates then place the chicken in the empty soup pot. (I used a big claypot for this)

6. Slowly add in boiling water on the side of the chicken till it cover almost ¾ or more more of the chicken and let soup comes to bring over medium heat.

7. When the soup starts boiling, skim off any foam and fat that rises to the surface. Add in the rest of the Ginseng Root and red dates, low the heat and simmer for at least 1 hour. (I simmer mine for about 1½ hours on very low heat)

8. Serve it with salt, freshly ground pepper and chopped spring onion.

Note:-

~ Depending on the size of the chicken you might even need to simmer the soup for more than an hour in order for the chicken to cooked through.

~ If you do not have any Korean Ginseng, you could always used any soup ginseng root that can be easily purchased from any Chinese Medical Shop. I bought mine from ZTP at around S$6.00 for 5 stalks of dried ginseng.

This is what we have for dinner after 1.5 hours of simmering over very hot heat on the stove. The minute you opened the cover the room would be filled with the fragrant aroma of the ginseng and each mouthful of soup is infuse with the sweet flavour that is disperse from the ingredients used. Do give this a try during cold and rainy days and it will definitely makes a great dish.

Poached Prawns in Young Coconut Juice

Prawns are very versatile ingredients that could be used in different way of cooking methods such as deep-fried, steamed, grilled and etc. In Singapore the common way of eating live prawns would be steaming it with minced garlic or poached in cooking wine or herbs. But In Vietnam culinary this Poached Prawns in Coconut Juice (Tom Hap Nuoc Dua) is one of their common way of cooking live prawn which you could easily find in their ordering menu.

In Vietnam they usually used live river prawns for this dish and it is steamed in young coconut juice which is very simple and easy to be prepared.  And by soaking the prawns into the coconut juice it would also increases the sweet and delicious flavour of the dish. But for this recipe I trying using frozen prawns instead of fresh live prawns and it taste just as good as it is too.

Ingredients: (Serves 2 - 3)

1 Young Coconut
10 - 12 Medium Prawns

Dipping Sauces:
1 - 2 Small Red/Green Chilies, sliced
1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
1 Tablespoon Fresh Thai Lime Juice
1/2 Tablespoon of Drinking Water

Method:

1. Mix all the dipping sauce ingredients together and set aside for use.


These are some of the collage photos of the ingredients and preparation steps for this dish.

Method:
1. Slowly cut and remove the lid of the young coconut and pour the juice into a small saucepan. Set aside.
2. Next use a spoon carefully scrap down the flesh from the side of the shell and leave the flesh in it.
3. Bring the pot of coconut juice to boil on low heat while trimming get ready the prawns for cooking.
4. When the coconut juice comes to boil, add  in half of the prawns and let it simmer on medium heat for about 2 minutes or so till the prawns are cooked through.
5. Removed prawns on plate and repeat the 2nd batch of prawns.
6. After all the prawns are done, pour the coconut juice back into the shell and place the cooked prawns hanging around the top of the shell. (refer to the photo above)
7. Served immediately with dipping sauce.


With Chinese New Year around the corner and the increasing of seafood prices during pre-festive season perhaps you can consider getting a box of this new CP Frozen Raw Head-On Shell-On Shrimp. It is packed using only the fresh and superior quality of live shrimps that are flash-frozen to a temperature lower than -18 degree for safety consuming.
Retail Price: S$6.95 per box (about 20 - 25 Size L Prawns)


Even though I used frozen prawns for this recipe but surprisingly the end-result still turns out well too. The prawns are crunchy when bites and the sweetness and aroma of the young coconut juice definitely brings up the taste of this dish. Just to share in  Vietnam culture they only dipped the prawns in the coconut juice without drinking the soup but for me I think the juice itself is rather fragrant and with that extra sweetness from the cooked prawns. I think perhaps by adding some cooked rice vermicelli this could turn out to be a great one dish meal too.