Happy Chinese New Year!

I am totally not up to speed with my blog post these day! I am really exhausted for the past weeks, I don't even manage to get online everyday after work. Oh well, just to let you know I returned to work following 10 months maternity leave. And I changed to a new job, new environment and plenty of new stuff to learn. Besides, my wee boy demand more cuddling when coming back from nursery every night, he needs more reassurance and time to understand that mummy needs to go to work and come back to him after finish work. Also he probably need some time to get settle into nursery after staying home with me for about 10 month..This is not an easy start for me, and for baby Jun but I do hope it will get easier.

It is new year's time, Chinese New Year suppose to be happy isn't it? 过年笑哈哈! I am cooking prawn for the new year, we called prawn 'Har' in cantonese, Har Har means laugh happily! After you eat it, you will also laugh happily, hahaha....

Steamed Prawn with Minced Garlic
蒜茸蒸虾 (原食谱来自小小米桶零油烟厨房-书籍）

材料：
鲜虾 12只
蒜末 4 大匙
姜末 1/2 小匙
葱花 适量
米酒 1小匙

调味料：
酱油 1大匙
热开水 1大匙
麻油 1小匙
糖 1/2 小匙

做法：
1) 调味料预先混合为酱汁，备用。鲜虾洗净，剪掉长须，取出泥肠后，用刀在虾背由虾头直剖至虾尾处，再将腹部的筋剪断，备用。
2）将做法1）的鲜虾一只一只 摊开整齐的排於盘中，淋入米酒，再撒上蒜末，姜末，放入水滚的蒸锅中，以大火蒸5分钟至熟后，取出淋入预先调好的酱汁，再撒上葱花，即完成。

Happy New Year to All My Friends and Family, Wish You Have a Wonderful Year Ahead!

Roasted Chicken Wing with Preserved Red Bean Curd

When I first saw this dish in Helena's Kitchen, I told myself I must make this dish one day. I like to use preserved red bean curd in marinating, it make the dish smell good and I simply love the taste. Maybe because I am a hakka (well, maybe still but I forgot how to speak most of the hakka dialect), I was brought up eating hakka fried pork (客家炸肉). Hakka fried pork is made by marinating the pork in preserved red bean curd before frying it, it taste so nice with the aroma. Then now, I learn how to make roasted chicken wing with preserved red bean curd, and I love it too, it is finger licking good! I have slightly tweaked the recipe, for original recipe please hop over to Helena's Kitchen.

Roasted Chicken Wing with Preserved Red Bean Curd
Recipe adapted from (Helena's Kitchen)

Ingredients:
12 chicken wings

Marinate:
2 preserved red bean curd
2tbsp preserved red bean curd juice
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp honey
1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce

Steps:
1) Mash up the preserved red bean curd with the juice and mix all the ingredients for marinate in a bowl.
2) Clean and pat dry the chicken wings, put it into the mixing bowl with marinate, make sure each chicken wing is coated with the marinate. Put it into fridge and marinate for at least an hour. (I marinate for about 2 hour)
3) Preheat oven to 200 degC. Line the chicken wings on a baking tray and roast it for about 20 minutes, turn  the chicken wing to the other side and baste with the reserved sauce, roast for another 15-20 minutes or until it is cooked.
4) Remove from oven and serve warm.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

I seldom make muffins as I always can't bake a good muffins. After reading through the mini cookbooks that Mui sent me few weeks ago, I decided to give it a try again. The mini cookbooks contains many easy to follow cupcakes and muffins recipes, with easily available ingredients. I have marked up some of them and going to try them out very soon (hopefully), hehe... As I have some left over chocolate chips sitting in my pantry, I decided to bake chocolate chip muffins as my first attempt from the cookbooks. I have used a mixture of white and dark chocolate chips since I have not enough dark chocolate chips, the result turned out as good. It is yummy and with the chocolatey flavour. 

Chocolate Chip Muffins (Recipe adapted from Cupcakes and Muffins Mini Cookbooks)
Ingredients
300g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
120g brown sugar
100g chocolate chips
2 eggs, beaten
180 ml milk
110g butter, melted

Steps:
1) Preheat oven to 180 degC. Line muffin tin with paper liners.
2) Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Add brown sugar and chocolate chips and mix well. Set aside.
3) In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk and melted butter. Add flour mixture and mix quickly until well blended.
4) Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin, fill each cup to about three quarters full. Bake for about 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of cakes comes out clean.
5) Leave to cool on a wire rack before serving.

By replacing the choc chips with dried cranberries, I got the cranberies muffins! They are equally good.

Lovely Gift by a Lovely Friend

Happy New Year to all! Wish you have a wonderful year ahead!

Time flew by so quickly and I am just realised I haven't been updating my blog since Winter Solstice! Baby Jun went to nursery settling in time the week before Christmas and brought home some winter bug virus. He was sicked, then me, then the dad.. we all got infected. We spent our Christmas having diarrhea and vomiting. And now, the dad and him are having chicken pox! Sigh, what a great way to welcome the new year! I had chicken pox before so I am survive this time otherwise I will be exhausted. Baby Jun has been feeling uncomfortable since the chicken pox appear on his body, the ear, the eye lid, the tongue.. he does not able to sleep through the night and keep waking up due to the discomfort. The only way to make him happy is to bring him to bath with chamomile water.

See the above photo, that was a parcel I received last week, sent all the way from Malaysia by Mui's My Little Favourite DIY. There are cupcake/muffin cases, cutters and a mini cookbooks. Thank you very much Mui, you are very thoughtful! Some weeks before Christmas, Mui sent an email to me and told me she will be sending me a small Christmas gift and hopefully it will be arrived in time. Somehow the parcel got delayed due to the festive holidays season, but it was still in time for my birthday! The parcel arrive 2 days before my birthday. Thanks Mui, you are too good to me! Mui is a real kind and helpful person, we only know each other few months ago through blogging and she makes me feel like we already knew each other for long! As a thank you, I have baked some chocolate chip muffins for you, hope you like it! I will share the recipe on another post, please stay tune!

Chocolate Chip Muffins (recipe adapted from the mini cookbooks gifted by Mui)

Winter Solstice! 冬至。汤圆

Happy Winter Solstice! I am a bit late in posting this tang yuan (glutinous rice ball), reason being I was hesitating on what type of tang yuan should I made. Idea one, a traditional version-hmm...I have nothing to make the tang yuan become red. Idea two- the angry bird version, erm..not a bad idea since angry bird is also in round shape, but...tang yuan is so small and I have no tool to make the eyes, peak, etc..Idea three, a basketball or a football version? Isn't it cute when you see so many tiny basket ball or football in a bowl? But, how should I make it? Where should I start? I do not have a petite hand to make this small little cute thing, I will ruin the whole project...Then this idea four came across my mind, the marble effect tang yuan by using pumpkin. Yes, I made it!

I didn't measure the ingredients properly and therefore no recipe for this post. Please refer to the following blog if you are looking for a tang yuan recipe. These are some fabulous blogs.
~ my little favourite DIY
~Cass @ 揾到食
~Vivian Pang Kitchen
~Eat Your Heart Out
~ and many many more...

Pumpkin Kaya

This pumpkin kaya was made some time last month when I had some pumpkin left following Halloween. This pumpkin kaya caught my attention when I was googling for pumpkin recipe. I was surprised when I saw this recipes from All Recipes website. I am like, 'what? how come it appear in an English website'? When I asked my colleague or local friends, no one happens to know what kaya is and never tasted it before, no surprise as Kaya is a Malaysia traditional coconut jam. It is famous around Malaysia or south east Asia but not Europe. It brought my attention when I saw them featured on All Recipes website, and I wanted to try it!

This pumpkin kaya is suitable for vegetarian as it replaced eggs with pumpkin. For more information about what kaya is, please refer here. Eventhough it is slightly healthier than the traditional kaya and smells good, I still prefer the traditional one. This one smells good, but the traditional one (Pandan Kaya) is really really good!

Pumpkin Kaya
Recipe adapted from Pumpkin Kaya

Ingredients:
500g pumpkin, cubed
160ml coconut milk
80g brown sugar
4 medium screwpine leaves (Pandan leaves), tied into knot

Steps:
1) Steam pumpkin for about 20 minutes or until it is tender when pierced with knife.
2) Put the steamed pumpkin, coconut milk and brown sugar into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour the mixture into a stainless steel mixing bowl.
3) Fill a pot with about 1/3 water, bring it to a boil then turn to low heat. Place the mixing bowl into the pot, stir the mixture roughly every 5 minutes interval.(see here for double boiling method)
4) Continue to cook the mixture until the desired thickness achieved. Remove the mixture from hob and leave it to cool. Store in a dry, clean container once it is completely cooled and keep it in the fridge.
5) Pumpkin kaya is done!

Kerabu Pelam (Mango Salad)

Ho Ho Ho~ winter is officially here and it will soon be christmas! Again, I am hoping for a white christmas this year. It snow between christmas day every year but not on the christmas day!

This pic was taken last Wednesday, the ground covered with layer of snow in the morning. Winter is officially here!

Saw this tasty dish from Mui's blog  the other day and decided to give it a try.This is a dish from Kedah, Malaysia. To be honest, I know nothing about food in the north east part of malaysia, be a Malaysian I am completely ashamed! Thanks to MFF (Malaysian Food Fest), I were more explored to the state food in Malaysia. This mango salad is really appetising and delicious, I can finished it in one go despite the burning lips and sweat. Since I couldn't get young mango, I replaced it with sweet ripe mango. I would love to try it with young mango one day. As in the photos, I didn't sliced or chopped the ingredients very fine, this give a slightly chewy and crunchy salad. The salad taste sweet, sour,  hot and spicy with the crunchy peanut and dried shrimp. Have a try if you like your salad in hot and spicy taste, it is really good!

After finished my first mango salad, I went to look for mango again in the supermarket the next day, was so happy when I got it. I thought I can remember the recipe and did not need to refer it, half way through preparing the salad, I found out I ran out of tomatoes, the sky is getting dark and I wouldn't want to go out with a pushchair in a dark cold night,  panicking! panicking! I was trying to think what can I use to replace tomatoes. First I thought of using pineapple, was asking myself would pineapple be a good combination to this salad? I doubted! As I walked out the kitchen and toward the fruit bowl in the living room, I saw those lovely kiwi fruits sitting in the packet unopened. Oh yes! I can try it with kiwi. I did, and I also add in extra peanut, it is equally good, I like it with kiwi too!

Kerabu Pelam (Mango Salad) (Adapted from My Little Favourite DIY)

Ingredients:

1 mango, shredded 

1 medium tomato, cut into small cubes (or 6 cherry tomato, halves)

2 shallots, sliced

2 bird's eye chilli, finely sliced

1 tbsp dried shrimps, soaked and drained

handful of peanut, dry fried, for garnish

Dressing sauce:

Juice from 1/2 lime

1 tbsp fish sauce

1/2 tbsp plum sauce

The ingredients and the sauce

Steps:
1) Dry fry peanut over low heat until fragrant or when you see the peanut oil appear on its skin.Skin when it is completely cool.
2) Add some oil to the pan, fry dried shrimp till brown and crispy, drained and set aside.
3) Add the dressing sauce into a small bowl and mix well.
4) Arrange all the prepared ingredients into a bowl, add in dressing sauce and toss well.
5) Serve.

This was my second attempt, with kiwi and more peanut.