Kueh Talam

I was feeling a little hungry for some Malaysian goodies again, but wasn't quite sure what to make. Remembering that I had a bag of green bean flour just lying around, un-opened, I decided to put it to good use. Now... what Kueh could I possibly make that required green bean flour? I know... Kueh Talam :) and I have all of the ingredients at my disposal.

Kueh Talam

Ingredients (A)

- 70g (~3/4cups) rice flour

- 30g (~1/4cups) green bean flour

- 270ml water

Ingredients (B)

- 1 1/2 cups sugar

- 1 cup water

- 1 tbsp pandan paste

Ingredients (C)

- 225ml thick santan

- 1 1/2 tbsp green bean flour

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 75ml water

- 1/4 cup rice flour

Method:

1. Mix ingredients (A) and set aside to soak for 10 to 15 minutes.

2. Combine ingredients (B) in a small pot, until pandan paste is thoroughly distributed. Add in mixture (A) to the sugar and pandan. Cook over low heat and stir continuously until the batter thickens and becomes slightly translucent.

3. Pour the mixture into a greased 20cm cake tin. Smooth out the batter with a plastic spatula, and steam for 20-30mins.

4. For coconut layer, mix ingredients (C) together and soak for 10 minutes. When pandan batter is finished steaming, pour the coconut layer over the cooked green layer. Steam for another 10 minutes.

5. Cool the kuih well and slice into small diamond-shaped pieces.

The top layer of the kueh didn't need any sugar to be added, because the bottom layer was sweet enough for the entire dessert. My sister really loved the pandan layer, and told me that she could eat an entire bowl of it... maybe I'll make that for her b-day and she'll be more than pleased :P My mom commented that the pandan layer could have been a bit more gelatinous, as it was more gummy and mushy than what she was expecting. Perhaps next time, I will add more rice flour to the pandan mixture ... but overall, this kueh was very tasty.

CNY: Nian Gao

Woot! Finally, I gotten the courage to make Nian Gao. Actually it wasn't so much the courage as the pressure to find the "right" recipe. There are so many recipes available on the web that I had no clue which one to use. I finally settled on Florence's recipe and it turned out great. I didn't have such a nice mold to make the rice cake in, so I simply lined an 8-inch cake pan with banana leaves and steamed.

Here's the cake before steaming...

Here's the cake after steaming... (note the silly little holes that decided to appear. Probably due to condensation on the steamer lid dripping down)

Well, I'm still contemplating how to serve this... should I simply cut it into pieces and plate it? Or should I sandwich it between 2pcs of yam, dip it in egg and then fry it? I think the latter sounds best...

Onde Onde

After making all those savoury goodies for dinner and lunch I decided to get back to my real passion... sweets! Of course, everyone loves sweets so I guess it's not so much a passion as it is just a deep, deep love :P I also love making malay sweets which use rice flour and coconut, so since my dad had bought a sweet potato that has been sitting in our pantry for the last 3 weeks I decided to make ONDE ONDE!!! Hooray (I cheer for myself way too much, eh?). Anywho, I used the recipe posted by the baker who cooks. The only difference is that I made a smaller batch (because I didn't have enough sweet potato), and used brown sugar instead of Gula Melaka; the end result tastes very similar. Yes, I am too lazy to post the exact recipe I used but I will show pictures of my onde-onde making!

Here's the rice flour dough... what a nice orange-y color

Filling the dough with brown sugar and desiccated coconut

These onde-onde just need to be boiled and rolled in desiccated coconut; then they'll be ready for eating *drool*

Henglong finds...

I've been shopping at Henglong for as long as I can remember... it's like a more quaint (small-scale) version of my favourite supermarket T&T. Being that it has most of the things T&T has (and lots more) at very reasonable prices I love Henglong just as much. I remember the days when my mom and dad would take the five year old me to this market, and they always treated me to my favourite treat... an ice cold red bean (and sometime durian) popsicle. Henglong use to be the only place you could find this treat, and then T&T rolled around stealing some of their business :(

I still enjoy buying bakery goods from Henglong that are usually only found if you go to Vancouver's Chinatown... seeing as how gas and bus fare is super expensive the only way to get the authentic nonya/chinese goodies are from Henglong. Here are some of the treats I purchased the other day...

Colorful Bak Tong Goh... with salty coconut cream sauce

Sweet, green, mungbean-filled rice cakes... with salty coconut cream sauce

Carioca... I had never heard of this one before and was interested to try it. They described it as deep fried sticky-rice flour, so I was expecting something like Jin Dui.

It was very much like Jin Dui, but had no redbean... the melted sugar syrup on top was delicious and tasted like gooey cotton-candy.

Mua Chee! On A Cold Day

The words themselves sound just like a cry of happiness. Since it's been snowing like crazy, again, I decided to settle down with a nice bowl of warm Mua Chee. Can you believe that it's still snowing? It's practically March... doesn't Mr. White Christmas know that his season is so over? I am so ready to have a beautiful summer. Hopefully since we've had such a crumby cold spell we'll get a perfectly sunny summer, not too hot and not too cold. Actually... I'd just be satisfied if it didn't snow during the summer :P hehehe

Anyways, here's my recipe for mua chee... it's quick, simple and wonderfully delicious.

Mua Chee

Ingredients:

- 1 cup glutinous rice flour

- 2 tsp sugar

- 2 tbsp thick coconut milk

- 1 tbsp oil

- 1/2 cup water

- 1 tbsp oil (to reduce stickiness)

Coating: Mix 1/2 cup of chopped unsalted peanuts + 1/4 cup granulated sugar + 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Method:

1. Mix flour, sugar, coconut milk, oil and water in a microwable bowl until well blended.

2. Microwave for 1 minute. Stir mixture and cook on high for another minute.

3. Stir well, and microwave again if batter is not fully cooked.

4. Add in the 1 tbsp oil and mix. Let the dough cool (if you do not, the sugar in the coating will dissolve and get all sticky)

5. Add the peanut, sesame seeds and sugar mixture to the dough. Using an oiled scissor, cut dough into small pieces. Continue to toss until dough is well coated.

Yum, yum... hope you find this as delicious as I did. Have a warm day!

Again... More Asian Pride

Decided to make Putu Piring today. Found the recipe on the Ja's Kitchen webpage. She is quite a talented cook, with great recipes to choose from. I followed her recipe for this Malay treat to a tee and it turned out beautifully. I was unsure of how my family would like it, seeing as this is one of my dad's favorite sweets I didn't want to mess up. So I decided to half the recipe and make only 4 Putu Pirings; sadly, I wish I had made more because my littlest sister (the one who doesn't particularly like Malay sweets actually liked this one!)
I read a review of this recipe somewhere that said it didn't turn out properly, but that person probably just didn't have the right ingredients or something. This recipe was easy to follow and the results were delicious.

Being more Asian

As I have said many times before... I feel that I am not living up to my Asian potential. I am very white washed, I know it's sad but true. I do however enjoy making many chinese/japanese recipes; so I hope that that makes up for at least 50% of my disgraceful nature.

Anywho... I completely went overboard the other day, I made the mochi which you can see to your left. And since my sister doesn't particularly enjoy "anko" I had to replace the filling with a sweet, sugary coconut mixture... turned out nice. I did make myself a special one though... filled with peanuts and coconut :P

I had a whole half a bag of glutinous rice flour left to play around with, so I decided to make some tangyuan in ginger syrup. I found an awesome recipe on chowtimes.com (a site I highly recommend you view if you enjoy oriental baking/cooking). I'll post pictures in my next blog.

I also decided on making some kushi-dango... my youngest sister, the one who usually refuses to eat anything that I bake (goodness knows why?) actually really enjoyed this recipe. She also enjoyed my recipe for Hanami-dango... go figure. For some reason the Hanami-dango turned out a little ovalish, rather than perfectly round... but whatever, they tasted awesome.

Bak Tong Go

Felt like being more asian today... so I decided to make some of that much-loved sweet white rice cake or "Bak Tong Go". I got the recipe off of cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com (which also has some really great recipes). My rice cake didn't puff up as much, but it tasted great. Perhaps next time I make this recipe I should be more patient and wait the required 6 hours for proofing... hehehe, that's right I was too anxious to follow the recipe and I guess I sorta paid for it. But oh well I still ate it all; again with the help of my family... boy do we love to eat.

Banana Rolls

Being that it's summer and I find myself doing practically nothing all day, but lazing about the house and playing with my dog I decided to do some baking. I've lately been feeling like such a banana, having made so many english dishes and never attempting any of the culturally different malay or singaporean dishes that I grew up with as a child... so I decided to make banana rolls.

I stumbled upon Jo's Deli webpage her site has some really easy-to-follow recipes for many oriental dishes, and there I found a recipe for my rolls.

Sadly they didn't turn out as pretty as Jo's but that's okay, they still tasted delicous. The red bean filling was easy enough to make as well. I got that recipe from About.com, which also has some great recipe finds.
After making the banana rolls, which took quite a bit of time, I sat down with my sisters for a hot cup of tea and the rest of my family gobbled up the yummy rolls.