Lotus Seeds Soup - 莲子羹

During the Eve of Chinese New Year, usually most of the household would prepare a sweet dessert to be served during the 1st Day of Chinese Luna New Year as an auspicious treat for the family or relatives. The common sweet dessert(Tong Shui) are Cheng Teng(清汤), Red Bean Cream(红豆沙), Lily Bulb and Lotus Seeds(百合莲子), Glutinous Rice Balls Soup(汤圆) and etc.

For a Teochew household like us, we usually have our favourite "Yam Paste(Orr Nee)", "Cheng Teng(清汤)" or "Lotus Soup(莲子羹)" which is shown in this post. Last year, I made Glutinous Red Date With Osmanthus Syrup for Chinese New Year dessert but this year I would like to share this Lotus Soup post with you.

This photo shows some of the ingredients and steps in preparing our all-time favourite dessert during Chinese New Year.

Ingredients: (serves 6 - 8)

300g Dried Lotus Seeds
150g Brown Sugar(in pieces form)
30g Brown Sugar
2 Tablespoons Caster Sugar
1 Bundle of Pandan Leaves
2.5 Litres of Water
1 1/2 Tablespoons Potato Starch(生粉) + 1 Tablespoon Water

Method:

1. Bring a small pot of water to boil, add dried lotus seeds and cook for 5 - 8 minutes or till soften.
2. Drain, rinse and remove the green sprout from each seeds and set aside.
3. Use a big soup pot, bring 2.5 litre of water to boil, when water comes to boil add in pandan leaves and cooked for about 5 minutes before adding it the pieces of brown sugar.
4. While waiting for the water to boil, season the cooked lotus seeds with 2 tablespoons of caster sugar and set aside.
5. When the pieces of brown sugar melt, removed the pandan leaves, add in seasoned lotus seeds and simmer on medium low heat another 15 - 20 minutes till the lotus seeds achieves your desire texture when bite.
6. Next slowly add in the remaining 30g of brown sugar to sweeten the dessert to your liking.
7. Stir in potato starch mixture over low heat to thicken the soup accordingly.
8. Remove from heat and serve warm.


Lotus Seeds(莲子)are actually nuts from the lotus plant that are commonly found in Asia. The typical lotus seed is small, round and slightly white in appearance that is usually sold in dried and pre-packaged. The most common use of the seed is in the form of a paste for making moon cakes and bun or sometime they are found as one of the ingredients in Asian dessert or soup.

It is believed that when using lotus seeds to cook soups, congee or dessert, it actually act as a cooling tonic that "clears heat" according to the Chinese Physician. being sweet and neutral, they have been known to tonify the spleen, reinforce the kidneys and nourish the blood too. But within the seed lies a "green sprout" that is quite bitter and it is usually removed when lotus seeds are use in sweet dessert.

No matter which Chinese New Year dessert you preferred or made at home I am sure everyone would love to have something Auspicious for their family. So if you have some special dessert which you prepared for Chinese New Year do share with us, if you don't have a blog you can Email me your recipe and I would be most delighted to do a [Guest Post] on your behalf

Baked Sweet Chili Chicken

Continue from last week Philips, MyKitchen (www.philips.com.sg/kitchen) recipe post on the "Red Cabbage Salad with Filet of Duck Breast", this week I would like to share with you this super quick and simple Sweet Chili Chicken which is perfect for BBQ function or served as finger food during party.

Sweet Chili Chicken Mid-Joint

Preparation Time: 60 Minutes                  Cooking Time: 25 Minutes

Ingredients: (Makes 10 Mid-Joint)

1/2 Tablespoon honey
2 Tablespoons Sweet Chili Sauce
1 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
10 Chicken Mid-Joint Wing

For working mothers who don't have the luxury of time to spend an hour marinating the chicken. The quicker way would be doing it the night before or spending around 5 - 8 minutes in the morning preparing it ahead and leave them in the fridge till evening time.

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix together the honey, sweet chili sauce and soy sauce.
2. Place chicken mid-joint wings into the bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour.
3. Preheat oven to 180 degree on grill function, arrange the mid-joint wings on baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes.
4. Turn the wings over, baste with marinade and continue to bake for another 10 minutes.
5. Adjust the oven to 200 degree fan-forced mode on upper and low heat, bake for the last 5 minutes to achieve the golden and char-grilled colour.


ORIGINAL RECIPE FROM PHILIPS (MyKitchen):

Sweet Chilli Chicken Drumsticks

Preparation Time: 60 Minutes                  Cooking Time: 20 Minutes

Ingredients: (Makes 12 Drumsticks)

1 Tablespoon honey
5 Tablespoons Sweet Chili Sauce
3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
12 Chicken Drumsticks

Method:
1. In a large bowl, mix together the honey, sweet chili sauce and soy sauce. Set aside a small dish of the marinade for basting.
2. Place chicken drumsticks into the bowl. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour.
3. Preheat barbecue for medium high heat.
4. Lightly oil the barbecue cooking grate. Arrange drumsticks on the grate and cook for 10 minutes per side, or until cooked through.
5. Baste frequently with the reserved sauce during the last 5 minutes.


With such a quick and easy recipe above I am sure you would like to explore more recipes from Philips MyKitchen at www.philips.com.sg/kitchen for coming Chinese New Year too. Stay tune for more recipe idea from MyKitchen on next week post which I would share a recipe for a delicious dessert.

Taiwan SunnyHills Pineapple Cakes

I am sure during Chinese New Year most households would have at least a tub of freshly made or store bought "Pineapple Tarts". And for those who loves Taiwan snacks, their famous Pineapple Cake(凤梨酥) or Sun Biscuit(太阳饼) is definitely something that you would not want to miss out.

Last week I have received a complimentary box of Pineapple Cakes from "Sunnyhills(微热山丘) which is air-flown from Taiwan. According to the local distributor Mr Damian these pineapple cakes are made from fresh ingredients that do not contain any preservatives or colourings. From the photos you could see that each brick-shaped pineapple cakes is individually packed and sealed to maintain it's freshness till the expiry date.

Sunnyhills Pineapple Cakes (微热山丘凤梨酥) used only the native Cayenne pineapples from the rich fertile soil of Ba Gua(八卦山) mountains in Nantou(南投) area to make their pineapple stuffing which is full of natural sweet and sour goodness.

These golden brick-shaped crusts are made using premium eggs mixed with gourmet baking flour from Japan and pure New Zealand butter. No wonder each mouthful that you bite brings out a wonderful buttery aroma and fine texture from the pastry. And with its authentic gift box set that comes in 3 different sizes including a little warm greeting card, I guess this might be something special that you would want to consider in your Chinese New Year gift purchasing list.

  In order to achieve customers satisfaction, the distributor for Sunnyhills Singapore would also give out free individual tasting packet (sample shown above) to customers who visit their booth during the festive event period. So if you are interested to find out more about this new product from Sunnyhills, remember to pop-by at Funan IT Mall starting from 17 - 31 January 2011 on the Chinese New Year Food and Lifestyle event.

Or you could also contact them at (65)8522 9605 for enquiries or place your order which they would delivery to your door-steps at your convenience at a minimum amount purchased. Lastly Iwould like to thanks Sandy and Damian for sending us these delicious Pineapple Cakes from Sunnyhills which comes just in time for Chinese New Year.

TO ORDER

Contact: (65) 8522 9605
Fax: (65) 6792 8211
Email: services@sunnyhills.com.sg
Website: www.sunnyhills.com.tw

~ FREE DELIVERY for oders S$90.00 and above.

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 :)