De'Cuisine

Glutinous Rice Balls (Tangyuan)

2007-11-16T07:26:00.000+08:00

Winter has arrive....yes, but for the coolest day in China (according to my grandma), it has to be 22 December (that's why we eats Tangyuan, the Glutinous Rice Balls).

I am not going to wait till then, and decided to have some fun doing this with my girl at home. My method of making:

Ingredients:
glutinous rice flour
water (cold and scaling hot)
food coloring
brown sugar

Method
1. Start to make a small little dough with hot scaling water (for bouncy purposes)
2. Mix it into rest of the flour and add cold water to make the dough
3. Separate into a few sections (for few colours) and roll them into balls
4. Boil water on pan and cook them.
5. Take them out, rinse with some cold water.
6. Boil the soup with brown sugar ( or coconut sugar)
7. Put the balls into the sweet soup
8. You can see the balls floating on the surface once cooked.

For variation, you can even add paste into the balls. Wait for my red bean glutinous rice balls ...

Discount Oven

2007-11-16T06:43:00.000+08:00

It is really fun purchasing online with coupon. 2 days back, I had a great saving when I purchased a hosting plan through the online coupons and this time I am going to see if I can get something which I have always wanted to buy, with coupons too.

See what I have found at couponchief.com. It is a Maytag white oven that even comes with a Free $300 Gift Card from Best Buy deal. There are even more kitchen appliance for Sears coupons too with great discount. Before I really spend a large sum on my kitchen, I better go check it out here how much I would be able to save through coupons.

Steam Yam cake

2007-11-15T20:31:00.000+08:00

Guess what’s the taste like ? Haha….of course it is YUMMY!! (with full supervision from a teacher)

Ingredients :
1 yam, cubed, 5 cloves garlics
(A) Mix Well 1 packet blended rice flour, 2 tbsp tapioca flour
Water Seasoning – salt, 5 spieces powder, sugar to taste
Garnishing – shallot crisp, dried prawns crips

Method
1. Heat oil and sauté shallots and dried prawns (separately) till crisp. Dish out and set aside.
2. Saute garlic with remaining oil, add in yam and stir-fry till fragrant.
3. Mix in water and bring to boil.
4. Add in mixture (A), cook batter becomes thick.
5. Pour out batter into a greased tray to steam (30minutes).
6. Once yam cake is cooled, add garnishing and serve with your favourite sauce (I use sweet black sauce from the market).

Payperpost

2007-11-14T07:27:00.000+08:00

Payperpost has been the talk for almost all blogger I know, for it’s abundance of opportunities, especially for blogs with own domain or higher PR. I know it is going to be a challenge, monetising this cuisine blog, as there will be less related topics that I could write on. Nevertheless, I feel happy now it has been approved. That means I could have a change to make some income, while blogging and share my joy in this food blog.

I actually found out payperpost for quite sometime, but did not take the initiative to find out more what it is all about. Lots of friends are telling me that they actually made quite a good income from their blogs, but it really doubts me a lot. Now that I am log into the site, I can see it for myself how true are the word.

Being stays at home mum, having some extra income is definitely a great idea. With the money I earn from De’Cuisine, I hope to set up my own baking corner with a new oven, perhaps the latest baking tools in town, or even best if I can earn on of those from here. Plan to make some income like I do, come join payperpost.

2 In 1 (ABC & Stir Fried Vege)

2007-11-10T22:22:00.000+08:00

This is a short cut dish. Why short cut, because by just cooking one ABC soup, I get 2 dish (see above picture). Get what I mean? Read further...

Ingredients for soup
chicken (or anchovies), carrots, potatoes, onions, tomatoes

Ingredient for Stir fried Vegetables

Soup:
1. First, throw all the ingredients for soup and bring to boil.
2. Simmer under low fire for an hour or so.
3. Once ready, take out all the ingredients.

Stir Fried Dish:
1. Fry garlic till frangant.
2. Add in mince meat and boil vege to stir fried.
3. Add in some boiled brocolli (I boiled brocolli in my ABC soup)
4. Add some soup and oyster sauce to taste.

Salted Egg Fried Chicken

2007-11-06T21:54:00.000+08:00

What do you think of this black chicken picture? Probably my picture doesn't look that good, but I tell you, this is the best chicken that you will keep asking for me.

A modified dish from the Salted Egg Fried Prawn or Salted Egg Fried Crab (Ham Tan Hai in Cantonese). It is also very easy to cook.

Ingredients:
Chicken
Steam salted egg yolk
Marinate: soy sauce, oyster sauce, pepper powder
Coating: flour (I used self raising flour mix with some corn flour)

Method:
1.Marinate chicken (best if marinated overnight)
2. Spoon some flour mixture into the chicken and mix well.
3. Deep fry chicken.
4. Remove chicken from oil.
5. Use very little oil to stir fry the mashed egg yolk will you see bubbles.
6. Add in chicken and stir well.

Sesame Balls

2007-10-29T16:53:00.000+08:00

Want to get a munch on something for tea? This is what you can do very easily at home.

Ingredients
Red bean paste (optional)
Raw sesame seeds
Glutinous rice flour
Sugar

Method
1. Add some sugar to the glutinous rice flour.
2. Add water and make into a dough.
3. Prepare some little balls with the dough.
4. Make a few balls with the red bean paste.
5. Wrap the red paste with the little dough.
6. Roll little balls onto a bowl of sesame seed to cover up the surface.
7. Deep fried the balls.

Delicious Pork Chop

2007-10-25T00:54:00.000+08:00

A very simple must-try recipe. I used pork (not sure if it taste the same as on chicken or beef)
strong

Ingredients:
Pork chop slice (just tell the pork seller in the market and they will tenderdize it for you)
Marinate: soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, black pepper (optional)

Method:
1. Marinate the meat over night.
2. Lightly pan fried on low fire

Tips: You only need to pan fried for a short while if you prefer a tender chop.

Orange Chiffon Cake

2007-10-23T17:35:00.000+08:00

This is my 2nd time trying to bake a chiffon cake. And yahoo…manage to do it successfully this time (using recipe from Alicia).

Ingredients
A- 6 egg whites, 1T cream of tartar, 4oz castor sugar (takde castor, so i blend normal sugar)
B- 6 yolks, 6T sunquick, 6T oil, 4oz self-raising flour

Method
1. Cream B well in one direction
2. Beat A until stiff (high speed). Slowly add in sugar once egg white formy. Must ensure container very clean.
3. Fold B into A slowly, making sure the mixture does not collapse.
4. Bake in preheated oven (+ chiffon tin) at 160C for 30mins till lightly brown. Change to 180C and bake till golden brown.

Special Melting Moments

2007-10-18T13:36:00.000+08:00

My little helper and I did a simple baking last week.

Ingredients:
200g margerine (I uses Planta)
80g icing sugar sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp sugar

120 self-raising flour, sifted
120g corn-flour, sifted

Method:
1. Cream butter, icing sugar, vanilla essence and salt till just combined.
2. Add both sifted flours and mix into a soft-dough.
3. Spoon mixture into piping bag with star nozzle.
4. Pipe them into a shape of a rossette.
5. Bake in pre-heated oven at 170C (20mins) till light golden brown.
6. Cool on rack, sprinkle some icing sugar on top.

Tips: You can also ignore step 3&4. Instead just spoon them onto the tray and top them with honey star for decor.

Sweet Potato dessert

2007-10-16T16:49:00.000+08:00

This is really easy to cook.

Ingredients: red sweet potato, purple sweet potato, sago, sugar and pandan leaves.

Method:
1. Bring water in pan to boil.
2. Add in knotted pandan leaves, sweet potato cubes.
3. When sweet potato soften, add sugar and pour in sago.
4. Make sure continue keep on stirring. Otherwise sago will be in clumps.
5. Once sago turns transparent, it is ready to eat.

I cooked this during the weekends, but ended up had to feed the drain. My funny story is posted in Demoments.

Lor Mai Kai (Glutinuous Chicken Rice)

2007-10-11T04:52:00.000+08:00

Ingredients
Rice -1kg pulut (glutinuous rice), 4T oil, 1T dark soy, 1T salt
Marinated Chicken -2 pcs chicken thights (deboned and slice thinly), 1T dark soy sauce, Ginger sauce (1 thumbsize), 1T cooking wine, 1t butterfly powder, 1/2t salt, 1 sugar
Others -2 lap cheong, 10 soaked black mushroom, 1t sugar, 1/2 salt (slice and marinate)

Method
1. Clean and soak pulut with water just enough to cover (10mins). Add to taste and steam for about 15mins.
2. Arrange marinated chicken and other ingredients onto bottom of bowl. Add in pulut.
3. Steam for 30mins.

*Instead of steaming the pulut, you can also stir fried to fragant. Then only add to bowl to steam.

Marbled Choc Cheese cake

2007-10-10T05:20:00.000+08:00

Although chocolate has never been my favourite, this recipe looks tempting due to the cream cheese it used. And true enough, it taste fantastic (especially when it just came out from the hot oven!)

Ingredients A: 180g butter, 20g cocoa powder, 180g castor sugar, 3 eggs, 120g self-raising flour.

Ingredients B: 250g cream cheese, 60g castor sugar, 1tsp vanilla, 1 egg, 1/2 cup water.

Method
1. Melt butter in saucepan. Slowly add in all ingredients A.
2. Pour into tin and bake at 170C for 15mins (half cooked).
3. Mix ingredients B together and beat well.
4. Pour over a A and swirl thru with a knife to create marbled effect.
5. Continue to bake till golden brown (~25mins).

Pretty muffins

2007-10-06T07:45:00.000+08:00

*The measurement was estimated when I did this muffin so my muffins texture was quite hard. It does look very pretty, isn't it?

Ingredients: Self raising flour, egg, vanilla essence, majerin, castor sugar, grated cheddar cheese, water, heartshapes toppings

Method
1. Beat marjerin, castor sugar and then add in egg.
2. Fold in water and flour.
3. Pour into cups and bake at preheated oven at 180 celsius for 25mins.

The Loaf Langkawi

2007-10-01T06:33:00.000+08:00

During our last visit to Langkawi, we make sure that we visit this bakery or bistro, a joint venture of our ex-Prime Minister with a Japanese baker. The Loaf is situated at Telaga Harbour, near to Marina Bay. There are a row of very nice restaurants along the deck of the harbour. Price is a bit on the high side.

Just some tea, cakes and pastries, guess how much our meal goes to? Almost 100 bucks! However I must admit their cheese sandwich is really good.

Mini Tarts

2007-09-29T05:04:00.000+08:00

With Mrs.Yong, I had a good opportunity to learn how to make tart pastry. Not only i find it so much easier than making cakes, with the ready pastry, kept ready for use, we can put all sorts of fillings into it (i am referring to the sweet pastry tarts).

Pastry Ingredients (for about 70 mini pieces)
6oz unsalted butter (president or SCS), 3oz sieved icing, 1 egg, 11oz rose flour, 1/2tsp vanilla essence

Pastry Making
1. Sieve icing sugar into soften butter. Mix and add in egg and vanilla essence.
2. Add flour and hand rub to mix.
3. Keep in fridge for at least one hour.
4. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180C for 30mins.

Cheese Cream Fillings (for about 40 mini tarts)
250g cream cheese Philadephia, 60g castor sugar, 2oz butter, 1 egg

Cheese Tart
Add all ingredients into mixing bowl and mix using a mixer till smooth. Scoop cream into baked mould and continue to bake for 180C.

Egg filling
250ml water (boil n cool), 125 castor sugar, 5 beaten eggs and 100g evaporated milk, 1/2t custard.

Egg Tart
Mix water and sugar. When cool add in beaten egg with milk, custard. Sieve mixure 3x.

Cotton Cheese Cake

2007-09-25T05:28:00.000+08:00

Ingredients A: 140g castor sugar, 6 egg whites, 1/2t cream of tartar

Ingredients B: 50g butter, 250g cream cheese, 6 egg yolks, 100ml fresh milk, 1T lemon juice
Ingredients C: 60g superfine flour, 20g corn flour

Method
1. Melt butter, cream cheese & milk over a double boiler.
2. Cool down, add in egg yolks & lemon juice.
3. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar until slightly stiff. Divide (1) and flours 3x (alternately), mix in, stir well till combine (must be fast so air will not lost).
4. Pour batter into a greased & floured 9″mould.
5. Steam-bake (use a tray of water outside your cake tray) at 160C for 1hr and 10mins.

*Haha….obviously having blessed with so much good food is one of the blessing for knowing so many good cook Buddhist Society in Sg.Long!

Crunchy Apple Pie

2007-09-22T05:33:00.000+08:00

By the layers of the pie, u can see it is, IT TASTE FANTASTIC !!!!

Ingredients
4 red Fuji or Granny Smith apples (cut into thin slice), 1t lemon juice, 2T raisins, cinamon powder, 80g butter, 1/3 cup cornstarch

Method
1. Melt butter in pan, add in apple (sprinkled with lemon juice) and cook till soft.
2. Add in 1T sugar, raisins and a dash of cinamon powder.
3. Once about to ready, add in cornstarch (to make apple sticky)
4. Wrap with puff pastry (u can handmade or buy readily from bakery suppliers/Pampas puff pastry from supermarket).
5. Bake in pre heated oven at 180C for about 40mins (depends on oven type).

Tips: Instead of pan, use a rack to bake to allow air flow from bottom. Do prick pastry surface before baking.

Steam Mee Sua Kuih

2007-09-18T05:31:00.000+08:00

This is a very unique recipe as i have never came across such steam mee sua in any cookbooks or recipe. Contributed by Alicia.

Ingredients
240g mee sua (about 8 stalks, rinsed), 700ml water,250g pumpkin (thinly sliced), 6 black mushroom, 3 clove garlic, 5 clove shallots, and Optional (RM2 shredded pork and 75g dried prawns).

Garnishing - fried shallots, cut chillies and onions
Seasoning - 2T soy sauce, 1T water, 1/2t salt, 1/2t pepper and 1/2 sugar.

Method
1. Fry onion, garlic, then mushroom till fragant. Add pumpkin and fry.
2. Add water and seasoning.
3. Once water boiled, add mee sua and kei chi (for vegetarian, this can replace meat).
4. Fry till dry, pour onto steam plate and steam for 30mins.

Tips: Dish is ready once mee sua looks transparent, with a bouncy surface (test with your finger)

Cherry tomatoes

2007-09-10T20:43:00.000+08:00

Most kids do not enjoy eating sour fruits but Qiqi loves them. She can take kiwi fruit, orange (but I don’t like to give it too often), and little cherry tomatoes. Most of the time, I’ll try to find the little organic tomatoes, which is pretty expensive. Every Tuesday, when there is a nite market in my neighbourhood, will surely add this to my marketing list. Some other healthy snacks she has been taking are seaweeds and raisins. Must brainstorm what else are the available healthy snacks to feed my skinny gal.

Bread filled with Curry puff paste

2007-09-06T05:39:00.000+08:00

My niece brought back some very delicious homemade curry puff filling. Instead of making it into a puff, we eat it with the Gardenia bread instead since I do not know how to make the puff wrap. The salty taste from the Gardenia bread is really a good combination to the sweet and spicy paste. *yummy yummy*…do try this out

Mille Crepes

2007-08-31T05:42:00.000+08:00

This “Mille Crepe” from Nadeje Patisserie Cafe, Melaka which was so highly spoken in some of the blogs. It really taste very special, with layers of crepes and creams. Very highly recommended if you have not tried it.

Beware: This is very fattening!

Strawberry Affair

2007-08-28T05:47:00.000+08:00

A neat pack like this, inclusive of a little cup of honey to go with fruits only costed me RM6 and it think it is fairly cheap! Guess where I got from? The pasar malam, haha!!!!

**Just popped 3 of these honey coated little red babies into my mouth while I was writing on this….

Steam Salmon

2007-08-25T08:47:00.000+08:00

With just a fraction of price, you get this yummy meal for your little ones. Look at those juicy salmon fish oil and sauce from steaming……

Salmon steaming method:
1. Marinate fish with a little oyster sauce
2. Arrange them onto a steaming plate
3. Steam on top of the cooking porridge (I use my rice cooker)

* Word of caution: Just be sure to remove all the fish bones properly.

Home wrap Wantan

2007-08-21T08:50:00.000+08:00

Filling: Meat, soy sauce, pepper, cooking wine to taste (optional)

I use wantan skin bought from the market. Occasionally we have this dish for dinner. Qiqi loves them fried, and hubby and I prefer them in clear ikan bilis (anchiovies) vege soup.

Fried Mee Hoon

2007-08-18T08:56:00.000+08:00

This is one of my expertise, fried mee hoon.

Ingredients: Eggs, vege, dried prawns, mince meat, red chillies, shallots and garlic, lettuce.
Sauce: Soy sauce, dark soy, salt, pepper, water to dilute, some starch water.

Method
1. Pan fried some eggs for toppings.
2. Sautee dried prawns, shallots and garlics with oil till frangrant. Take some crisps out for toppings later.
3. Add sauce to boil.
4. Once boil, add in the mee hoon.
5. Stir till the color become balance.
6. When almost ready, add in lettuce leaves and stir for a while
7. Once cooked, pour out on a tray and add toppings to decorate it.

Quick Pizza

2007-08-09T06:17:00.000+08:00

I have been wanting to try making a pizza, but after so many baking projects recently, now got a bit lazy and resorted to use the easiest way to make pizza.

Pizza base: Pita Bread

Toppings: tomato paste, minced garlic mix with olive oil, chicken, sausages, mushrooms and most important of all, grated mozarella cheese

* In fact, any u can use any toppings to create different taste such as pineapple, seafood, red pepper chilli, anything…

Sustagen Agar-agar

2007-08-04T05:14:00.000+08:00

Do you have lots of baby milk powder sample but don't know what to do with them? This is how you can utilize them. I used some unconsumed Sustagen choc, so i cook some sustagen jelly and pandan jelly as well to distribute to some neighbours.

Want some?

Come stay nearer :)

Curry Noodles

2007-07-24T10:28:00.000+08:00

With such good food, how to loose weight ler??

Besides Nasi Lemak this is another of our favorite dish, Curry noodles. We have this sometimes for our breakfast (influenced by hubby) during the weekend.

Where I get my best curry noodle?

Sg.Long : Pasar malam on Tuesday night. You can see many people sitting and eating beside the big drain (next to a condo). Even "tapau* (take away) also need to wait for at least half an hour.

Kuantan:

There are two. The famous one is at Teluk Cempedak. You will see a row of shop before reaching the beach, and there is only one food stall there in the morning. Although operated by Chinese, the food is halal and you will find many Malay slurping their curry noodles.

Another one is a Ah Moy Chai curry. Has always been hubby's favourite, and now mine too. See the layers of braised bean curd in the picture? The owner made this herself. There are two kind of sauce to go with this curry noodle, sweet or sambal.

Best Nasi Lemak

2007-07-21T06:20:00.000+08:00

Nasi lemak (coconut milk rice) has been our favorite breakfast for every Sunday. Even our little girl loves it (with sambal, don't *play-play*). No doubt also a factor contributing to our horizontal growth.

Where I get my best Nasi Lemak:

Sg.Long = Saturday and Sunday morning market (stall on the right of the junction heading up the low cost apartment)

Kuantan = A Malay restaurant in Gambang called Zaman (about opposite the airport). A must stop whenever we go back to Kuantan.

Crunchy Cheese Cake

2007-07-17T06:16:00.000+08:00

Ingredients: 250g butter, 100g castor sugar, 4 fresh eggs, 250g self raising flour, and 1/2tsp vanilla essence.

Method
1. Cream butter and icing till light.
2. Whisk egg whites and castor sugar till stiff. Add egg yolks and beat well.
3. Mix in butter mixture. Fold in flour and cheese.
4. Pour into baking tin, grate cheese to cover the top.
5. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for about 30mins till golden brown.

*The salty taste of the crunchy top enhance the flavour of the whole cake!

Roti Canai from home

2007-07-13T06:06:00.000+08:00

The fattening Roti Canai has been one of my favourite supper dish, and sometimes breakfast. It taste heaven if it is still hot and crunchy. I am very particular about my roti canai and now, there is a great local brand by the name of Kawan that produce great homemade roti canai.

How to make it:
1. Heat up some margerin on pan and pan fried (without having to defrost ya).
2. Fry both side until golden brown.
3. Once ready, beat it with both hands horizontally (to create the crunchy layers)

(optional) You can also beat an egg onto a pan, then paste the ready roti ontop of the egg (without having to turn the egg while frying).

Melaka White Wan Tan Mee

2007-07-06T08:17:00.000+08:00

I love the Melaka Wan Tan Mee. It is without the dark sauce and hubby complaints it contains lots of pork oil, hehe......

There are many stalls in Melaka with this white Wan Tan Mee. We used to "tapau" (pack home) from the cart from Jalan Bunga Raya, but now this stall has a shop now (sorry, I forgot the name of the street) which only opens in the evening. Just imagine, one double noodle only costs RM3 !!! Isn't it so cheap living in small town?

Fish head Meehoon in Sg.Long

2007-07-03T08:24:00.000+08:00

Fish head meehoon ("Yi Tau Mai" in Cantonese) has got many variations. I was told that only places in Klang valley has got fish head meehoon cooked with milk (that's the reason the soup is white in color).

However not every stall selling this is good at making this dish. Most of the time, the taste of the dish also partly depends on the types of fish they use. There is one particular stall I like to visit for fish head meehoon in Sg.Long (situated beside Kings Confectionery).

Disclosure Policy

2007-07-01T22:32:00.000+08:00

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